TV POW – BURNED BRIDGES AND LOST LOVES (2CD by Bottrop-boy)
ROGER DOYLE – PASSADES – VOLUME 2 (CD by BVHaast/His Master’s Noise)
EUSKAL INTERPRETATZAILE BERRIAK 1 SAILA (CD compilation by Antifrost)
SCOTT ARFORD – RADIO STATION (CD by Antifrost) *
MIRROR – STILL VALLEY (CD by Die Stadt)
SECRET MOMMY – VERY REC (CD by Ache Records)
INITIAL PRAYER – THE LAST MEN IN EUROPE (CD by Corrosive Growth Industries) *
NEGRU VODA – UNPLUGGED (CD by Autarkeia) *
DIS_PATCHED (2CD by Rx:tx)
FLUGROOVE – LIKE BRETHREN (CDR by Cabin Music) *
ENDUSER – BOLLYWOOD BREAKS (CD by Ad Noiseam) *
DETRITUS – ORIGIN (CD by Ad Noiseam)
SYNAPSCAPE – ACT! (CD by Ant-Zen)
STUNT ROCK – THIS IS STUNT ROCK VOLUME 3 (CD by Cock Rock Disco) *
STATIC – RE: TALKING ABOUT MEMORIES (CD by City Centre Offices) *
EL CAMINO – AT JENNY RICHEE (CDEP by Drowning Man)
NOW (12″ by Underscan)
INCITE/STAPLERFAHRER – SPLIT (CDR by Authorized Version)
TOSHIAKI TAKAYASU – NAGARE (CDR by Authorized Version) *
HURRA CAINE LANDCRASH – MOVING (CDR by No Ground Processes) *
HL – BROKEN EP (3″CDR by First Person)
HODAG (CDR by Heule)
ETTRICK – INFINITE HORNED ABOMINATION (CDR by Heule) *
EPIDEMIA – LA MUERTE (CDR by Electrum)
In the last eight weeks Vital Weekly was not transmitted for various reasons, dealing with internet traffic. We continued however Vital Weekly on a weekly basis, published them on our own http://www.vitalweekly.net (if you want any of the old, missed issues to be mailed, just reply and let us know which ones you missed).
Now, celebrating Vital Weekly 500, meaning ten years of Vital Weekly and close to twenty years of Vital as a magazine, it’s time to move on. Vital Weekly was hosted by Staalplaat for the ten years, providing us webspace. It was often confused as a platform from Staalplaat, or even referred to as the ‘Staalplaat newsletter’. It was not, never has been. Vital Weekly is an independent platform, now hosted by ourselves. We thank Staalplaat for all their time and energy for Vital Weekly, but it’s time to move on. As of now http://www.vitalweekly.net will be the only source for Vital Weekly and it’s podcast. The e-mail address @staalplaat.com will be suspended somewhere soon, so as of now, address all mail to: vital@vitalweekly.net
TV POW – BURNED BRIDGES AND LOST LOVES (2CD by Bottrop-boy)
It’s been quite while since we reviewed TV Pow’s ‘Powerful Friends And Devoted Lovers’ – Vital Weekly 417 to be precise. That double CD was just the start as here is the ‘rest’, but by no means ‘the rest’. To refresh your memory: TV Pow asked all their musical colleagues to do a remix of their ‘Friendship Patrol’ release (see Vital Weekly 306), with it’s 69 tracks (with twenty-nine remixes on the first and thirty one here, it now equals the number of tracks). And like the first, this is another excursion into who’s who in laptop music, or even some beyond. Who would expect Tarentel to do a remix? TV Pow have friends in high places I guess. Among this new lot we find celebrities such as Francisco Lopez, Alva Noto, Wolf Eyes, Illusion Of Safety, Tim Hecker, Stephan Mathieu (the only one, I believe who was also present on the first time around), but also lesser-known (and perhaps upcoming?) people like Kotaru Fukui, Junkroc, Ben Vida, Rob Ray, Ben Bracken, Jeff Snyder, Molecu. Many stay firmly along the lines of whatever is called microsound, ambient glitch with occasional bursts into noise, and this is an extension of the sound TV Pow has: glitchy, improvised, and occasional noise, but then smeared out over two CDs. My best suggestion for a rainy day: take out the original ‘Friendship Patrol’, play it, and then start ‘Powerful Friends And Devoted Lovers’ and ‘Burned Bridges And Lost Loves’ – preferable all in a 5CD player on shuffle mode. You can try to guess who did what, or enjoy the endless crackle and deep hum for let’s say an hour of seven. (FdW)
Address: http://www.bottrop-boy.com
ROGER DOYLE – PASSADES – VOLUME 2 (CD by BVHaast/His Master’s Noise)
The BVHaast label that started in the 70s as the outlet for Willem Breuker’s jazzmusic. Breuker always had the public in mind and did not choose for obscure experimental jazz that satisfies the musicians only. Over the years the label became also the outlet for other dutch composers, filmmusic, etc. Curiously enough the label BVHaast became also the home for die-hards-only-music, like electronic music. To Vital readers the Acousmatrix Series may be known from the releases by Luc Ferrari, a.o. More recent is the His Master’s Noise series, another series of electronic and experimental music. And Doyle’s “Passades 2” is the most recent release in this series.
Doyle is an Irish composer from Dublin, who has many CDs and LPs out. Of his projects of the last few years we should mention “Babel”, released on 5 CDs. When we go back to the beginning and listen to Doyle’s first album from 1975, “Oizzo”, it is clear that Doyle from a very early stage in his career choose to make experimental and electronic music. Doyle continued to do so up to the present day. And this deserves respect I think, because you sentence yourself to a small public.
Doyle started his “Passades” project in 2002 and began “working with the creative possibilities of music software which captures sounds like a freeze-frame in video, making sound movement stop, or go forwards or backwards slowly. A “Passade” is an equestrian term meaning to move backwards and forwards over the same space”, Doyle writes. So the composition originated from his trial and error exercises of this technique.
The first results from this project were released as “Passades 1” by BVHaast in 2003.
And now we have part 2 available. Parts of this work have been made for different occasions. Parts 9 to 11 – called ‘Virdissa – for example, were commissioned by the music theatre company Operating Theatre, who have been long time associates of Doyle. All the parts were compressed into one work for this CD. Although the kind of electronic music that Doyle composes, makes comparisons with academic european music unavoidable, like the INA-GRM productions, on the other hand his music has also features of ambient soundscaping exercises we know from many non-academic artists. The music on “Passades 2” astonishes because it is very organic, lively and breathing.
Partly because Doyle because he made use of the voices of Olwen Fouere, Paul Dutton and Mary Doyle. The human voice fulfills a central role in this work. For the other (biggest) part because Doyle is a great composer and craftsman in this métier (DM).
Address: http://www.bvhaast.nl/
EUSKAL INTERPRETATZAILE BERRIAK 1 SAILA (CD compilation by Antifrost)
SCOTT ARFORD – RADIO STATION (CD by Antifrost)
Of course you know Mattin, the laptop noise musician who travels the world to play his improvised noise works, and who runs the W.M./or label. He is a basque, not spanish. I don’t know how how political he is about this, but I believe he is. On Antifrost, the Greek label whose headquarters are in Barcelona (and that is in Catalonia, to stay on the strict political side), there is now a compilation with five different composers from Basque origin. Mattin and Xabier Erkizia had releases before on Antifrost, Tzesne on Drone Records and the other two (Inigo Telletxea and Edorta Izarzugaza) are new to me. Mattin plays the shortest track, ‘Death To R’n’R”, a cut-up collage of rock sounds, with feedback noise. Erkizia also plays around with feedback variations, but moves into more glitch related sounds as the piece evolves. The other three are even more into microsound/glitch territories, but they all seem to be dealing with computer processing of feedback sounds. It seems as if the work of Mattin is now a whole school of noise musicians, at least in the Basque country. But each has it’s own variation, and this makes this into quite a nice compilation.
In the Bay area he’s quite well-known, Scott Arford, operator of the 7HZ label, video artist, musician and collaborator of Francisco Lopez, Randy Yau and Micheal Nine. His output however is quite small. ‘Radio Station’ is his latest work, and it deals with one of the easiest to obtain sound sources: radio sounds. Not the speech type, or plunderphonica, but everything in between the stations – the cracks, the static, the hiss. Arford is not a sensitive man: whatever he finds on the radio waves he uses, but with a high intensity. His work is not about careful, delicate sounds, but a rather forceful, mean and loud mixture of waves crumbling over each-other, falling apart, chopped up. Not really moments of silence and contemplation here, but on the other hand, Arford isn’t interested in doing ‘just’ a bunch of noise either. He knows how to make a strong, vivid collage of sound out of these radio station and how to make a forceful, interesting piece of music. Energetic and present. The use of radio sounds may not be entirely new, the results of Arford are certainly very very nice. (FdW)
Address: http://www.antifrost.gr
MIRROR – STILL VALLEY (CD by Die Stadt)
Probably it’s not the right thing to say, but I always prefer CDs over vinyl – but maybe I moved houses too often and find carrying the vinyl down the stairs a drag. While the Mirror project is on hold for a while, or so it seems, it’s good to see some of the LPs back in print on CD, even when ‘Still Valley’ was only released earlier this year, but in a very limited edition. On this CD things sound even better, scratch-less and one can lie on the floor for the full forty-seven minutes and fifty-four seconds, enjoying the music. Mirror is here on the most calm moment, even when they are a trio here (core members Christoph Heeman and Andrew Chalk helped out by Jim O’Rourke), in a trio of tracks (one more than the original vinyl) that are utterly relaxing. Soft organ tones paint the living room in a deep warm color, slowly swirling and changing shape. While some of the other Mirror works are a bit more darker and dronier, this is their most relaxing piece of work. Utter minimalist and probably nerve racking to the uninitiated, but I think this is a stunning beauty. But as a devotee of Mirror (he hastened to admit), things can’t go wrong anyway. (FdW)
Address: http://www.diestadtmusik.de
SECRET MOMMY – VERY REC (CD by Ache Records)
While concept albums sound very seventies like, ‘Very Rec’ by Secret Mommy is also a concept album, in it’s own way. Secret Mommy plays kind of breakcore glitch or anti-techno (no three bars are the same), but for each of the twelve tracks on this new CD his sound sources are ‘field’ recordings, but not y’r usual wind blowing over the sea, but those of ‘recreational activity’, being playing tennis, soccer, squash or playing the trombone for the first time. All of these sounds are then processed by Secret Mommy on his computer into crazy, rhythmic (or perhaps not rhythmic, because it’s hard to dance to these) pieces of music. Breakcore, but the sound of the trombone, the racket or kung fu movies stay always clear as the central point of the track. Taking the serious electro-acoustic music into the world of dance music (even when there is nothing to dance to), this is something very very nice. It stands nowhere close to the world of the academics, while by choosing his sound sources he moves away from the use of rhythm-machines and synthesizers, thus making a particular strong statement against both worlds, by re-dying old standards and adopting them to his own needs. That is a great achievement. (FdW)
Address: http://www.acherecords.com
INITIAL PRAYER – THE LAST MEN IN EUROPE (CD by Corrosive Growth Industries)
Although around since the early 80s inside a musical genre that I watched a lot (the UK guitar noise posse, that is), I never heard of Initial Prayer. Not a big surprise, since ‘The Last Men In Europe’ is their debut album, despite playing live all those years. It would, based on same of the tracks on the CD, too easy to slag them down as Skullflower would-be’s. As the album is more in rotation, there is more room for spacious keyboard pieces, and more krautrock inspired guitar parts, such as in the closing piece ‘The Longest Journey’. Despite going into various musical directions, such as krautrock, guitar noise and even some more gothic-like areas, the overall tone of the album is dark and doom. That’s a bit of a pity, since some sunlight wouldn’t do no harm. The quality throughout this CD is great: much care went into producing it and there is enough variation to make it very enjoyable for the time these songs last and that’s something that is rare these days. Dark and doom, but enjoyable. (FdW)
Address: http://www.corrosivegrowthindustries.com
NEGRU VODA – UNPLUGGED (CD by Autarkeia)
Probably it’s not the biggest secret in the world, but I never really loved the music coming out of the darker corners of Sweden. For a while I heard much of them in another professional capacity, but the dark and doom of many of the bands (say, centered around the Cold Meat Industry label) were just well spend on me. So it’s hard for me to review a rather random release out of the scene. Negru Voda is the new project of Peter Nystrom, who used to work as Megaptera, a ‘death industrial’ band. What exactly the difference is between the two projects is a bit unclear to me, as I do recall Megaptera to be harsh and dark, Negru Voda is no different. Despite the title, this is by no means ‘unplugged’. Taking his samples directly from the factory floor (iron mills but also machines, wether or not fully functioning), mixing them with other sounds (shortwave radio? analogue synths? – who knows) into a dense mixture harsh, industrial rhythms that for me sound a bit like a more ethnical variation of Esplendor Geometrico. Recorded live in Vilnius this is a bold statement of pure industrial music – very nordic. Very dark and alien. It didn’t win me over as a new converted follower of fashion, but it’s a well-made album, me thinks. (FdW)
Address: http://www.autarkeia.org/
DIS_PATCHED (2CD by Rx:tx)
Belgrade seems perhaps an unlikely place for an electronic music festival, but since five years they host the Dis-patch festival. Started out as a radioprogramm to promote all forms of alternative music, but as a festival they concentrate on electronic music. This double CD is a collection of recordings made during the first three editions (2001- 2004) of the festival and is a whose who in the world of laptops: Pita, Murcof, AGF, Tujiko Noriko, Rechenzentrum (who have two tracks, just like AGF) and Monolake, but also Tarwater and Radian, going into more rock oriented areas. It also contains lesser known people such Marc Marcovic (with a singer-songwriter piece), Davide Balula, Icarus, P.O.S. and Information. Surely pleasing the fans of the more-known artists, desperate to collect every second of their favorite artists, but if you are only mildly interested in this kind of music, it’s perhaps a good introduction (or if you are curating such a festival yourself the yellow pages). In case you are not such a die-hard fan, it’s a bit too much at once. (FdW)
Address: http://www.rx-tx.org
FLUGROOVE – LIKE BRETHREN (CDR by Cabin Music)
In the last week, I have been playing this disc a lot. Not that I like it that much per se, but simply because I found it hard to make up my mind what to think here. Flugroove from Amsterdam was originally a duo of Frans van Gastel and Willem Janssen, but now a fourpiece, including a female vocalist and violinist. Flugroove’s music is like a cross-over between various styles of popular underground music (in contrast to non popular underground music), post-rock and ‘intelligent’ dance music, or in Flugroove’s word ‘a cross-over between Boards Of Canada and Joy Division’, but also a vocalized version of Godspeed You Black Emperor (less the pathos) in a bed of electronica, could be the case. Usually melancholiac in approach with it’s minor piano chord, jumpy rhythms, but on top they use guitars, vocals, trumpet (always a classic for melancholy) and the violin (although not everything in one track, mind you). As such the cross-over succeeds well, a hotchpotch of various styles (post-rock, IDM but also trip hop like rhythms), blending into eight very nice tracks. Flugroove need to be picked up by a bigger label and pushed forward into the land of bigger acts, me thinks. (FdW)
Address: http://www.cabin-music.com
ENDUSER – BOLLYWOOD BREAKS (CD by Ad Noiseam)
American composer Lynn Standafer (a.k.a. Enduser) is for the harsh Breakcore-scene what English extreme metal-specialists Napalm Death was for the Grindcore-scene back in the mid-80’s. Having existed since 1994, Enduser has become a legend in the territories of hyper speed breakbeats, with a number of releases on important labels like Ant Zen Recordings and Mirex Records, as well as some airplay on the probably most important independent music radio-show in history – the strongly missed “John Peel Show” on BBC Radio 1. Last year’s Enduser-album “From Zero” impressed me a lot with the transference of the ethereal vocals of Enya into a hellish storm of gabba beats. This time Enduser has turned his violent sound machinery towards the Indian Bollywood-based Bhangra music. Originally released in October 2004 as a 12″ version “Bollywood breaks” was soon after sold out. So here we are with this CD-version that apart from the three original tracks from the 12″ also includes three remixes by the breakbeat-artists Larvae, Line47 and Mad E.P and a video for the “More distant than you think”-track.
Opening with the track titled “Not so distant drums” some female vocals probably sampled from a Bollywood Flick are nicely combined with Indian Tablas and the impressive over-the-top breakbeats. Following track opens beautifully with some tranquilizing ambience added another female vocal-sample this time taken from the amazing “Light from a dead star”-track from the Lush-album “Split” (1994). As the track progress the evil sounds of darkside drum’n’bass penetrate resulting in a great “beauty and the beast”-feeling. Third track is based on passages of Sitar ambience and another excellent Indian female chant. These two elements are the only emotional parts on this otherwise extremely aggressive track floating in orgies of ultra heavy bass-lines and violent Techstep breakbeats. The three additional remixes suits well into the style of the three original tracks though they never reach the same full-throttle intensity. What assembles the three additional remixes to the original “Bollywood breaks”-album is the tense breakbeat-texture that quite often operates in the darkside/techstep-jungle area with heavy basslines and dark atmospheres to make the album everything but friendly. Overall this is an excellent re-release by the original 12″-album “Bollywood breaks”, – an album that unquestionably deserved to be re-incarnated. Essential for lovers of Breakbeat-brutality! (NMP)
Address: http://www.adnoiseam.net
DETRITUS – ORIGIN (CD by Ad Noiseam)
Usually Industrial-related music is known for its more or less harsh musical expressions ready to attack the listener as soon as the play-button is pressed. Detritus (a.k.a. David Dando-Moore) belongs to the minority of Industrial composers who instead of focusing on the aural aggression more concentrates on melody and emotion. Working in the borderlands between beautiful ambient and distorted rhythmic Industrial, the weight first of all has been put in orchestral ambience. Detritus’ musical strength is unquestionably his ability to create an infectious blend of warm synthetic tones and flamboyant orchestral exhortations. As the album progresses the harsh side of Detritus slowly begins to saturate. On the final track “Sense” the rhythms changes from the previous gentle breakbeat-textures towards more hostile areas of heavily distorted Power Noise-rhythms. Meanwhile the ambient expression moves away from the soft orchestral soundscapes towards darker emotive expressions. A nice little musical twist towards the end. As a supplement the album contains two remixes by Mothboy and Mad E.P. (NMP)
Address: http://www.adnoiseam.net
SYNAPSCAPE – ACT! (CD by Ant-Zen)
It is quite some time ago since we last saw a full-length album from German harsh-industrialists in Synapscape. Since their previous album “Raw” released back in 2002, the Synapscape-team have been cooperating with another legend from the Ant-Zen label Imminent (formerly Imminent Starvation), though the expression on their joint venture-project “The Incredible Three” is quite different from the solo-works of Synapscape. “Act!” is yet another great achievement by the two members of Synapscape (T. Kniep & P. Münch). There is a nice varied stylistic expression on the album. Opening with three instrumental tracks of heavy-rhythm Industrial with some doses of drum’n’bass, the fourth track titled “Reaktonoize” is the first track to open the gates into the realms of sonic hell with heavy rumbling Power Electronics added some excellent demonic vocals. Following track “Sonique” could’ve been included on Download’s “The Eyes of Stanley Pain”-album thanks to the progressive and constantly fast changing rhythm texture and the rather weird sound interruptions throughout the track. Another gate into hellish sounds of Power Electronics opens with the track titled “Katunga” – a slow rhythmic beast of crushing electronics transforming every sign of melodic tone into a storm of infernal noise. Most outstanding moment on the album though comes towards the end of the album with the intense, strange titled work “So einfach ist Tennis” opening with some atmospheric even melodic Trance almost reminiscent of early Underworld soon after to develop into a fast and furious mixture of distorted beats and destructible drones of crushing electronics. What makes this album so interesting is Synapscape’s ability to constantly surprise the listener. Expect the unexpected and enjoy this magnificent trip to hell! (NMP)
Address: http://www.ant-zen.com
STUNT ROCK – THIS IS STUNT ROCK VOLUME 3 (CD by Cock Rock Disco)
The Volume 3 here probably relates to his previous CDR releases which he would give away when drunk at shows. Stunt Rock is William Flegal, once of a performance/band Meat, together with Dan Doormouse, but now an active force as Stunt Rock. And when released on Cock Rock Disco, Jason Forrest’s label, you know where to look for it: weirdness. Stunt Rock samples his stuff together from records: drums, guitars, bass and movie dialogues, most of the time of the more stupid kind. Sometimes Stunt Rock sounds like a straight forward rock band (which he is not of course, armed with his sampler), but at other times he’s taking the music to the breakcore areas. However overall this is much a plunderphonic thing, since spoken word is to be found in every track. Abusive language, small talk, radio nonsense – set against a strong tapestry of likewise stupid standard rock riffs and musical mayhem. Think Public Works (the successors to The Tape-beatles), but than with a lot more aggression and speed. Very uplifting music. The energy of punk, but then with a lot more fun. (FdW)
Address: http://www.cockrockdisco.com
STATIC – RE: TALKING ABOUT MEMORIES (CD by City Centre Offices)
Without being an expert on the music of Hanno Leichtmann, aka Static, I can say that whatever heard from him, it usually sounds good. Either his work as Static, but also his various other guises (Ich Switze Nie, DJ Attache, Beige Oscillator). His previous album for City Centre Offices, ‘Flavour Has No Name’, was missed out on here, but the one before that, ‘Eject Your MInd’ (see Vital Weekly 301) was received with mixed feelings and that was mainly due to the singing by Ronald Lippok (of Tarwater/To Rococo Rot fame). I am just no fan of his singing, can’t help it. Here he sings on the opening piece, as-well as on the cover Static does of The Assembly’s ‘Never Never’, which is a nice thing to do, but sadly the weakest track on the album. So again the instrumental tracks are the best on the record, also with thanks to Martin Siewert on guitar and Christof Kurzmann on drums. Luckily the instrumental tracks are poppy stuff with uplifting rhythms and melodies and even a great trumpet sample on ‘Shift, Smash, Surge, Swell’, which is the highlight of the record. The balance however here between instrumental and non-instrumental piece is about fifty-fifty, so the mixed feelings remain. Maybe a singer (male or female) that would do more along the lines of real popmusic, would be a good thing? (FdW)
Address: http://www.city-centre-offices.de
EL CAMINO – AT JENNY RICHEE (CDEP by Drowning Man)
A long long time ago, I saw on a rather dull evening of local popmusic, a great post rock band from the Dutch city of Haarlem: El Camino. Despite their love of vinyl (having released two LPs and a 7″), they now release their first CDEP, with five tracks spanning twenty-two minutes. Another new thing is the guest vocal on one track, but for me that wouldn’t have been very necessary. El Camino plays instrumental rock music in the best traditions of post rock – meaning real rock, with drums, bass and guitars. Their influences are Hood, Explosions In The Sky, Blonde Redhead or even a less jazzy version of Tortoise. Complicated music, but at the same time entertaining enough to sit back and experience. Maybe too much energy to be cinematic, but the title track could be a piece for a documentary on life in the big city. Great stuff, perhaps a bit too short. (FdW)
Address: http://www.elcaminosounds.com
NOW (12″ by Underscan)
Under the banner ‘Now’, Underscan, the Berlin label, produces 12″ compilations of techno and related music. First they introduce us to Bogger, (Oliver Kiesow from Berlin), whose ‘Honz’ track is a electro piece, with some wacky fat analog synth lines underneath. The vocals are sent through gated filters slicing up the release. A powerful piece. Ronny Engmann, aka Dalezy, was responsible for the first ever release on Underscan and his ‘Silkweed’ sounds like a runaway track from a computer game – no surprise for someone who worked a lot with Commodore 64. A short piece, but with a nice melody. The best known person here is Frank Bretschneider, who released an EP on Underscan in 2003. He is known for his love of dub like sounds, and goes further into the field with a particular catchy dub tune, using percussive elements (shakers! toms!) on a bed of echo. Everest from Switzerland have had a couple of releases on their own Everest label and cook up an IDM track, with harder beats but melancholic synths, but failing to surprise beyond the ordinary. Labelowners Menu:Exit also love their dub, but in a more modern sense, with digitized beats colliding. A nice ending to an otherwise most enjoyable piece of various directions in dance music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.underscan.de
INCITE/STAPLERFAHRER – SPLIT (CDR by Authorized Version)
TOSHIAKI TAKAYASU – NAGARE (CDR by Authorized Version)
Two new releases by Authorised Version, one of the many Uk labels for the more noise related musics, although in both these new names this doesn’t play a big role. The first one is a split of Incite from Germany and Staplerfahrer from The Netherlands. I don’t know why these two have been chosen to be one CD, maybe it has to do with the fact that their material was too short for their own release, or perhaps because of vague similarities in sound approach. Incite, a duo from Hamburg plays rhythmical music in similar territories as Pan Sonic or Goem, but usually quite slow (or slower than those mentioned). The use synchronized time stretched sounds to play their game. It’s a sound that they have been exploring for some time now and which they cover well. Here things are no different, but maybe some fresh look on it would be nice.
As Staplerfahrer Stefan de Turck, from The Netherlands, gained some recognition in the world of CDR/MP3 releases. On this release he works solely with processed sinewaves in six small, sketch like tracks. In a very minimal way he works through a bunch of laptop tricks, but unfortunately the material wasn’t too engaging to be interesting enough throughout.
The second new release on Authorized Version also doesn’t deal with noise. It’s by one Toshiaki Takayasu, apparently an established visual/sound artist from Japan, who was also a regular contributor to the ‘off-site’ concert scene in Japan. It’s hard to tell what it is that he does on ‘Nagare’, in terms of music production. My best guess (is usually wrong), but it seems to be computer treatments of electro-acoustic events, or perhaps field recordings. He treats these field recordings into delicate desolate sounding pieces of microsound. Small variations in the color of the sound, sometimes almost empty in approach, but never reaching the threshold of hearing. Takayasu is mostly interested in creating drone like textures in each of the tracks and he manages very well at that. Quite a nice release! (FdW)
Address: http://www.a-version.co.uk
HURRA CAINE LANDCRASH – MOVING (CDR by No Ground Processes)
HL – BROKEN EP (3″CDR by First Person)
Dan Hopkins, the man behind HL (which may or may not stand for Hurra caine Landcrash, according to the cover), is also the owner of the No Ground Processes label, which so far, if I do recall this, only released 3″CDR releases. Here as Hurra caine Landcrash he releases a full 5″CDR, and it ‘was recorded during 2002 and 2004, and deals with moving on in life and death and also moving in equipment used for the making of my music’. The latter is a bit cryptical, but maybe it’s the use of guitars here that has become a bigger feature in his music. He plays his guitar by strumming notes and tones, feeding them to the delay and reverb maggots and let’s the sound stay there for the time a track lasts. Occasionally there is the use of electronics, again in the same minimal approach. It’s throughout alright, but way too lengthy at times. Many of the pieces could have been cut in half and still be interesting. That’s a pity.
On a different label, First Person, HL has a 3″CDR under the banner of ‘The Broken EP’ and here he returns to ‘making vocal led work’, along with his guitar playing. There is indeed some sort vocal stuff going on, but not much, and by no means real singing. Otherwise this is still the guitar (main part) and electronic (more reduced) than the full length, but here the songs seem lesser worked out than on the full length. Maybe it serves as a good intro… (FdW)
Address: http://www.noground.co.uk
Address: <frstprsn@yahoo.co.uk
HODAG (CDR by Heule)
ETTRICK – INFINITE HORNED ABOMINATION (CDR by Heule)
The website of Heule doesn’t give us much extra information on the artists they just released on two CDRs, but I believe Jacob Heule is a drummer. As Hodag he teams up with Chadwick Rntnen on bass guitar. Their five tracks are however built up from the meanest noise, in which a drumkit or a bassguitar are hard to recognize. Pretty harsh stuff going on, also pretty free and wildplaying with these boys. They have ‘quieter’ moments available here, but usually they explode in your face, when the feedback and distortion comes back in. Free improvisation for sure, but in the strict realms of noise.
Jacob Heule is also part of Ettrick, another duo, here with Jap Korber. They both play drums and saxophones here, but switch instruments. Heule however is always on the left channel and Korber (no relationship to Tomas) on the right channel. Here too force is at work, but in a totally different way. The instruments are to be recognized as such but the two play this with great energy (and pain, no doubt). Energetic free improvisation, with hardly a moment of rest. Less the feedback of guitars, but with the addition of drums, this comes close to the Borbetomagus sound. Certainly a blast that leaves the listener behind, exhausted in his chair – that is if you can find the energy to play it in one go and at a loud volume. For me the Ettrick release was more engaging, since the noise type of Hodag is something I heard before and Ettrick made a more solid impression throughout. (FdW)
Address: http://heule.us/
EPIDEMIA – LA MUERTE (CDR by Electrum)
Here’s something I don’t understand: why would you want to release one song (7 minutes 45 seconds) on one CDR? A big hit in the works (why release it as a CDR in an edition of 133 copies)? Promotion? No more talent or ideas? It beats me. Epidemia are from Mexico and play ‘La Muerta’, an utter dark song of distortion, synths and metallic doom percussion. Not a big hit in my book, for any discotheque, not even the one for dark, latex packed people. Maybe it could work well on a compilation by Ant-Zen or Cold Meat Industry, but itself it’s nothing special. (FdW)
Address: <info@diskusfonografika.com>
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