Number 183


NOISE CAMP (CDR by Time Stereo)
STEVE RODEN – VIEW (CD by Jennjoy Gallery)
EMIDIO BUCHINHO – TOLTECH (CD by Ananana)
SHUTTLE 358 – OPTIMAL LP (CD by 12K)
PAISLEY BABYLON – THE ALPHA WAVE VARIATIONS
CREVICE – THINK OF PLEASET THINGS
(both CDs by Uncle Buzz)
KLANGWART – ZWEI (LP by Staubgold)
SACK & BLUMM – SYLVESTER ORCHESTER 2000 (7″ by Staubgold)
GROENLAND ORCHESTER – ZOLLAMT AACHEN (12″ by Staubgold)
FANTASTIC PLASTIC MACHINE – INTERNATIONAL STANDARD LUXURY REMIXES (CD Single on Emperor Norton Records)
ANNEA LOCKWOOD – BREAKING THE SURFACE (CD on Lovely Music)
BASS COMMUNION – BASS COMMUNION (CD + Limited CD on Hidden Art Recordings)

NOISE CAMP (CDR by Time Stereo)
From my own little experience I know children can be noisy. There is
a likewise naivety running from your speakers if you play the Noise Camp CD. Children’s chats along with Merzbowish noise is the best description I can give. There is a small book coming along filledwith likewise children’s drawings. The whole package pokes fun at all those serious noise makers with either too serious or too sickening approaches. And that might be the most radical thing about this release! (FdW)
Address: <record.collector@cwix.com>

STEVE RODEN – VIEW (CD by Jennjoy Gallery)
Steve Roden’s work is both musical aswell as visual – the ideal combination for setting up soundinstallations. Viewing (or maybe it’s better to use the word ‘recording’) the outside of a gallery through a window is the source for the four lengthy pieces to be found here. These pieces people could hear on headphones while watching the landscape outside through the same window. The window acts as a frame, the frame of sonic painting. Designed to be played a low volume it says on the cover, and for once I agree. Sitting before an open window myself, the sounds from my view (grass, street, cars every once in a while) mix nicely with the drony and abstract character of Roden’s soundworks. Floating nicely by, on a quiet and sunny day, time seems to be lost. Cool wind blows by, zipping a cold drink, enjoying the view and it’s sound companion. (FdW)
Address: <sroden@deltanet.com>

EMIDIO BUCHINHO – TOLTECH (CD by Ananana)
The for me unknown guitarist Buchinho delivers a CD with ten pieces for solo improvised, electric guitar. All recorded in a go (save for some editing). There are very few drones and much more tinkling and scratching over strings. Probably well done and appealling for the true improv lovers, but myself I am not overtly excited. A bit too dry, too clean and too neat. (FdW)
Address: <info@ananana.pt>

SHUTTLE 358 – OPTIMAL LP (CD by 12K)
With this release 12K only seems back at their start: Shuttle 358 offers ambient upon first hearing (and for me 12K started out doing more ambient like releases but released also an excellent compilation AIFF with… eur modern electronica). Like it is suggested on the cover (“proper audio monitoring is recommended for listening”) either headphone listening or really loud, is necessary to grasp the full idea of the music.
Shuttle 358, being one Dan Abrams, creates immense depths in his music, but he is carefull enough to avoid places of new age. The depths I’m speaking about are not just created by a bunch of effects, but also by the dynamic range: low is low and high (not very present I’d say) is high. Each track is sufficient long enough to form a good picture, short enough to be interesting and among them there’s a strong variety. Besides the stacks of synths, Shuttle 358 uses these strange sounds in sampled fashion that get the odd ball per track rolling. Sometimes insect like, sometimes of a more obscure nature but definetly something odd.
Good crossover between say anything on Hypnos and Rastermusic. And as usual with 12K, limited to 500 copies! (FdW)
Address: <taylor@12k.com>

PAISLEY BABYLON – THE ALPHA WAVE VARIATIONS
CREVICE – THINK OF PLEASET THINGS
(both CDs by Uncle Buzz)
Two CD’s that more or less go together. Both are send by Uncle Buzz Records and both contain that spacey music. Not just spacey as in ambient, but also spacey as in psychedelic. Drones played on synthesizers, drones played by guitars with e-bows and sauced with snippets of taped conversations. Paisley Babylon is the more rough edged/less shaped one. Crevice use tons more instruments (including Theremins, sax, violin). Both use the occasional beating of rhythm boxes. And both had their lurk of Pink Floyd, so nothing new under the sun. Of the two I thought the Crevice one is the one for me: more open, transparant and better worked (even despite the fact that their album is a combination of live and studio recordings). (FdW)
Address: <bryan@unclebuzz.com>

KLANGWART – ZWEI (LP by Staubgold)
SACK & BLUMM – SYLVESTER ORCHESTER 2000 (7″ by Staubgold)
GROENLAND ORCHESTER – ZOLLAMT AACHEN (12″ by Staubgold)
Staubgold are the least known people from Cologne, but run an excellent label and mailorder. Along with A-Musik and Kompakt, they deserve your attention. The main thing, both for the label and mailorder, is electronic music, but in a wide sense. How wide? We find out:
Klangwart is a surprising vivid band. After their musique concrete/improv inspired 3″ CD, the cosmic first LP, they move yet again in another direction (with so many changes we can wonder wether these are changes or directions). Their second LP has agai two long pieces. ‘Eins’ is an all drone/e bow affair. Slowly moving pitches that grow darker and darker, lower and deeper as the lockgroove at the end closes in. The other side, of course titled ‘Zwei’, is of much lighter tone. Here light tones are woven against a minimalist backdrop of what could be a sampled church organ. Minimalism rules is the thougt of this record.
Frank Schultge Blumm andHarald Sack Ziegler collaborate again on a 7″ (the first was reviewed some weeks ago). They too display an interest in minimalist music but with totally different means: playing guitar, a bass and odd percussion, sampling that, and producing a rather vivid piece of music. Especially the a-side is well conceived with it’s post rock opening and samples that are vaguely alike church bells. With this title a perfect countdown for the year 2000.
Finally we enter the areas of popmusic with Groenland Orchester. This duo, consisting of the known Reznick and the unknown Jyrgen Hall, play a lot of err sampling, synths and other electronica. Very zzerman, childlike tunes, backed with beats (sort of, kind of technoish) that could be modern, but at the same sound retro too. Up tempo nice music (emphesize NICE!) that sits along nice with Felix Kubin. The most accessible of the three. (FdW)
Address: <markus@staubgold.com>

PHILIP SAMARTZIS – RESIDUE
PHILIP SAMARTZIS – WINDMILLS BORDERED BY NOTHINGNESS
(Both CD’s by Dorobo Limited Editions)
A look at the booklets of these CD’s and you know that Samartzis has been around: the three pieces on the first CD were recorded in Aarhus (Denmark), Bourges (France) and Hérimoncourt (France), all in renowned electroacoustic studio’s. The same goes for the second CD, which was recorded in the CEM studio in Amsterdam (The Netherlands). The pieces on the first CD vary in length from 22:00 min. to 26:43 min., although the the last two pieces are actually two parts of a larger piece. The first track, called ‘Dark Woods’, is a pretty gentle and quiet piece with an occasional song fading in (it sound like a danish folksong) and sometimes getting tense with rythms, either electronic or acoustic. Environmental recordings with birds and the sea are alternated with electronic crackles, hums and hisses. In spite of the quietness of the piece it is very exciting as well and it doesn’t lose its power. Good stuff. The second track is calles ‘Heart of France’ and covers the last two pieces: ‘Bourges’ and ‘Hérimoncourt’. This one starts off a little more agressive with crackles and something like a hihat, followed by the crescendo of a sine wave. A short while later the latter two are combined and then a play with the several ingredients starts, to be followed by a more or less dreamy sequence. Later percussion, organ and field recordings are used as well. Some sort of collage enters the play sometime later. If this sounds weird then don’t worry: it is quite weird and that is exactly what makes this piece very good as well. It is more agitated and (dare I say) funnier than the first one and that’s perfectly okay. The last piece is the most tense: people whispering and doing things with plastic objects and a billiard and probably more stuff. This one sounds pretty sneaky at first, but becomes gradually lighter near the middle. Of course after that it gets sneaky again. A wonderful piece on a wonderful and very well balanced CD.
The second CD features one piece of almost 40 min. and this length has its consequences: it sounds sparser and more time is given to the individual sounds used. The sound material is much like the one on the first CD, but more open and clear, due to the slower composition. Also the volume is somewhat lower in general. Somehow this piece doesn’t get to me as much as the ones on ‘Residue’. I’m not sure if it is the character of the sounds or the composition, because a lot of attention has been paid to both (maybe it’s the guitar sounds). Nevertheless it is a strong work (the end is excellent) and one of the better records I have heard recently. (MR)
Adress: Dorobo Records, P.O. Box 22, Glen Waverly, Victoria 3150, Australia
dorobo@werple.net.au
http://werple.net.au/~dorobo/dorobo.html

FANTASTIC PLASTIC MACHINE – INTERNATIONAL STANDARD LUXURY REMIXES (CD Single on Emperor Norton Records)
(No, not the same CD as the one I wrote about last week…)
Last week’s VITAL Weekly contained a review of the EUROPEAN Remixes of tracks from Fantastic Plastic Machines recent CD/2 x 12″ release titled ‘Luxury’. I’m not going to launch into yet another uncontrolled series of spasms praising this man or his music, and this particular write-up will not take you long to read.
Whilst searching for the EMI release of Luigi Nono’s ‘Prometheus’ at the end of last week, I was struck by what I thought was an inspired thought and I asked one of my dealers whether he had a copy of the US Remixes of the FPM material. To my surprise he whipped it out and I paid a ludicrous amount of hard cash for four tracks which sadly all struggle ineffectively with each other in their various and unforgettable attempts to rise to the top of the heap…of shite.
I recently heard some hype about Los Amigo Invisibles, a band who may hail from Venezuela, who contributed the second track, a remix of ‘Bossa For Jackie’ to this mercifully short compilation. Now I am a little unsure as to whether I should pursue my search for their own material. Anybody care to change my mind ?
If ‘bleak’ is right up your street, then buy this trite, turgid and all-too safe collection of miserable material. Dedicated punters with any cojones should ensure they get the European release – it is absolutely brilliant. (Contact me for more details if you like, Fantastic Fetishists).
Now will somebody send me the Japanese version on ********* records, tokyo (a label run by the genius behind Pizzicato Five, Yasuharu Konishi, who formed it in 1997).
Please…
PS: If you dig Pizzicato Five, goto http://gaztelan.bi.ehu.es/~josec/P5.shtml
Thanks to E/camano for her kind offer, too. (MP)
(www.emperornorton.com)

ANNEA LOCKWOOD – BREAKING THE SURFACE (CD on Lovely Music)
I’ve always appreciated Annea Lockwood’s approach to sound. Her ‘Sound Map Of The Hudson River’ (also on Lovely Music) remains in a class of it’s own, and set the precedent for a bunch of similar recordings which strain to achieve the clarity she managed to accomplish.
This recent release is also a journey through sound, albeit of a different nature. The first piece ‘Duende’ is a collaboration with Thomas Buckner, with whom she has worked in the past. Thomas Buckner is a vocal improviser who provided a ‘remarkable and expressive array of sounds’ which he has ‘evolved over years of work, a form of personal vocabulary’, and which Annea then rearranged together with minimal instrumentation to produce a daunting, atmospheric and, at times, quite threatening piece. As she herself notes, it sounds remarkably like the vocalisations produced during shamanic trance ceremonies. Buckner claims never to have heard these before (or since), which is amazing considering the abundant similarities that his wheezes and bellows, gurgles and grunts have to them. Annea made selections from recordings by Buckner, and purposefully put them in an order that would evoke the cycles of a shamanic journey, simultaneously mirroring Buckner’s own explorations of the changes of state through such transformations as he moves through three stages: preparation, a first flight and a final flight in which he moves beyond the self he knows. A very powerful trip-track, indeed.
This is followed by ‘Delta Run’, which is a selection of the thoughts and experiences of Walter Wincha, a sculptor, who died prematurely at the age of thirty. She interviewed him almost moments before he passed on about how he felt about death, who was unavoidably trespassing on his life. Ambient sounds are woven in between the spoken sections and his candour and in many ways his acceptance evoked memories of Derek Jarman’s ‘Blue’. ‘Delta Run’ is an uplifting, yet still very depressing document – one that I would certainly not listen to that often – but a suitable accompaniment to ‘Duende’, for sure. (MP)
(www.lovely.com)

BASS COMMUNION – BASS COMMUNION (CD + Limited CD on Hidden Art Recordings)
This is the second (again) self-titled release by one Steve Wilson, who is an active member of a reasonable successful band who ‘(allegedly) play progressive/psychedelic rock’. If any of these three categorisations (and don’t we just love ’em) makes you shudder, then let me hasten to add that, to my ears, this new Bass Communion CD is only connected to the word ‘psychedelic’ in the list.
Last year saw the first release by Bass Communion (can I have a copy, please), which sold moderately well, and this latest adventure is probably a continuation of the ideas contained therein.
I have had sporadic contact with Steve Wilson regarding this project for the past few months and he sent me a succinct evaluation of how he thought about his work, and of ambient recordings in general. Needless to say, regulars will detect my concurrence with his final statement:
‘If I had to summarise the Bass Communion approach I would say it is an
attempt to create some kind of articulate, beautiful and organic ambient
music which learns from the past but looks to the future. I have found
that the last two decades have produced very little in the way of
convincing (to me) ambient music, despite the plethora of releases.
These seem to fall either into the Orb style of cosmic synthesiser
noodling or the one-sine-tone-for-thirty-minutes endurance test. For me
the great ambient recordings are still things like Music for Airports,
Phaedra and Day of Radiance.’
I was quite captivated by the music on this new release which is a subtle combination of electronics and acoustic instruments which I have, for the past few years, opted to incorporate into my own musical vocabulary too. The contrasts are so pleasing to the mind and body if they are properly displayed.
The first thousand copies of this stunningly packaged music (cover by Carl Glover, who deserves a mention here !) contains an additional CD that clocks in at just over twenty minutes and has two tracks on it. The first is a piece by Robert Fripp that has been processed by Steve Wilson titled ‘In The World Of Park’ – high sliding harmonics unravel like silken threads carried by the updraft – and the second is remix of sounds selected from compositions on the main CD by a certain Mark Poysden, titled ‘Snakebird’, the final part of a ‘suite’ of remixes (each one done for one of four different composers), which hisses and caws, buffeting the air with its scaly wings as it passes (too) close by.
The 6 tracks on the main CD range from 0.57 seconds to 17.00 minutes in length and cleverly traverse the expansive Terrain of Chill, confidently sauntering several times from cool shadows to higher, harder ground, and back again. It’s full of space, now concave, then convex. Sounds assert themselves, then linger like distant clouds, slowly and reluctantly evaporating into no-space. Wavering, uncertain shapes trickle out of the misty heat haze, floating close by like seductive mirages, full of information, none of it tangible. Smeared horizons. Lost highways. A solitary bird circles an hallucination. Sand casts its memories up towards the sky in twisting plumes of fine dust. It’s here that silence reveals it’s secrets, certain that there is nothing to witness its action. A fine tapestry of rattlesnake tracks and filigree patterns carved by the breath of space itself. Plateau music.
If you’re interested in finding out more about Mr Wilson and his projects, visit his website at www.nomansland.demon.co.uk.
By the way, there will also be an album called Bass Communion v Muslimgauze released by Soleilmoon in September (limited to 500 copies) – apparently this will be a proper collaboration with (the late) Bryn Jones, not the usual ‘I’ll mix you, you mix me type thing’.
(http://www.voiceprint.co.uk)