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VITAL WEEKLY
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number 519
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week 13
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Vital Weekly, the webcast: as an experiment
for the time being, we offering a weekly webcast, freely to download.
This can be regarded as the audio-supplement to Vital Weekly.
Presented as a radioprogramm with excerpts of just some of the
CDs (no vinyl or MP3) reviewed. It will remain on the site for
a limited period (most likely 2-4 weeks). Download the file
to your MP3 player and enjoy!
complete tracklist here: http://www.vitalweekly.net/podcast.html
you can subscribe to the weekly broadcast using the following
rss feed:
http://www.harmlog.nl/vitalfeed.asp
New broadcasts will be sent directly when uploaded. For more information
on
podcasts go here: http://ipodder.sourceforge.net/
* noted are in this week's podcast
CHAS SMITH - DESCENT (CD by Cold Blue)
DANIEL LENTZ - THE LEOPARD ALTAR (CD by Cold Blue)
FRIEDL/VORFELD - PECH (CD by Room 40) *
ERIKM - SIXPERIODES (CD by Sirr-ecords) *
MATTHEW FLORIANZ - GRIJSGEBIED (CD by H/S Recordings)
MATTHEW FLORIANZ - NIEMANDSLAND (CD by H/S Recordings)
JIM SANDE - PARTICLE (CD by Labile Music) *
SAUL STOKES - VAST (CD by The Foundry) *
EGOCENTRIC - THE SKY WITHIN THE GROUND (CD by The Foundry)
JOHN HEGRE & MAJA RATKJE - BALLADS (CD by Dekorder) *
RONNIE SUNDIN - THE AMATEUR HERMETIC (CD by Komplott)
INCIDENTAL AMPLIFICATIONS (CD compilation by Room40)
RF - VIEWS OF DISTANT TOWNS (CD by Plop) *
SPIELEREI - PUBLIX (CD by Databloem) *
ANTIGEN SHIFT - THE WAY OF THE NORTH (CD by Ad Noiseam)
UW HYPOTHEEKADVIES - NATURE OR NURTURE (CDR by Uw Hypotheekadvies)
BJERGA/IVERSEN - DRAGGING WORDS OUT OF A STONE (CDR by Tib Prod)
IVERSEN - SINGLES (CDR by Tib Prod)
IVERSEN/SOUND_00 (7" by Dirty Demos)
EMMANUEL MIEVILLE - DENKI COLORS (CDR by Tib Prod) *
DEADWOOD - TRIAL AND TERROR (3"CDR by Tib Prod)
PHROQ - ESTHETISM OF RANDOMS (CDR by Herbal/Why Not)
MIKE BULLOCK - GREAT MARSH (CDR by Herbal/Why Not)
LAU MUN LENG - ANTISEPTIC (CDR by Herbal)
JEFF GBUREK/RAVEN CHACON - JESUS WAS A WINO (CDR by Herbal) *
BILLY BAO - AUXILIO (CDR by Herbal)
GUIGNOL DANGEREUX - LIVE BY THE SEA (CDR by Herbal/Why Not)
DAN WARBURTON & TU M' - MISSING IN AFRICA (CDR by Con-V)
MECHA/ORGA - HOLDER (CDR by Absurd/A Question Of Re-entry) *
@C - 42/44 (MP3 by Silence Is Not Empty) *
PAWEL GRABOWSKI - NOTES FROM THE HOUSE OF DEAD (MP3 by Silence
Is Not Empty)
SHRINE - HARMONY, BLISS, RUST (MP3 by Mirakelmusik)
ALEXANDER VATAGIN - VALEOT (MP3 by Mirakelmusik) *
THE WINTER QUARTERS - VID (MP3 by Mirakelmusik)
MAURIZIO BIANCHI - MOKUSHI XVI, XVI (MP3 by Mirakelmusik)
CHAS SMITH - DESCENT (CD by Cold Blue)
DANIEL LENTZ - THE LEOPARD ALTAR (CD by Cold Blue)
These two new releases on the Cold Blue label arrive on what might
be the very first day of spring, at least here in The Netherlands.
It's the perfect day for it: cold and blue, with lots of sunny.
Looking from the inside out, it seems perhaps a bit like San Francisco,
where Cold Blue and many of their composers hail from. The first
release is a new work by Chas Smith, a composer to invent his
own instruments and plays his works on them. I discovered him
years ago trough a sale on some of his early records, which I
thought were beautiful examples of minimal music, played on guitars,
using reverb and such like, working their way on the overtones.
Later on I thought some of his works were a bit less interesting,
but this new work 'Descent' is certainly quite nice again. Still
far away from his old work, these three pieces use such instruments
as a stainless steel sheet, Copper Box, steel guitar, jet planes
and flutes. All knitted together by Chas Smith, merging all of
these sounds together in a highly ambient work, which I must say
sounds surprisingly darker than most of the releases on Cold Blue.
Sunshine is not very present here, except in the lighter final
piece 'False Clarity' (but who knows: that might be a prophetic
title), but these a grim times anyway. Quite a powerful release.
The other new release is a re-issue of a LP that was released
by Cold Blue in the 1984 (the first incarnation of the label)
and is by Daniel Lentz, who still releases music on the label.
The opening piece sounds very classical in 2006: it's a vocal
(with the addition of keyboards) piece along the lines of Micheal
Nyman or Steve Reich, slowly drifting and shifting apart from
each-other. The next piece is for no less than twenty-five wine-glasses,
which is slowly drifting piece of resonating sounds, and it will
later turn out the highlight of the album. The highly romantic
title cut is, despite it's conceptual side not well spend on me.
So is the more lively 'Wolf Is Dead', which is better, but not
great either. Both lack the surprise of the first piece. The sad
final piece 'Requiem' is also perhaps a bit too much of a romantic
cliche, sounding a bit like Enya, but it's short and to the point
(and doesn't have the same structure as real requiem). So apart
from the first two pieces, I must say I have rather a mixed feeling
about it. A five out of ten rating, I'd say.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.coldbluemusic.com
FRIEDL/VORFELD - PECH (CD by Room 40)
The name Reinhold Friedl might not be well-known as such, but
if you know that he is the founder of the Zeitkratzer Ensemble,
performing works by Lou Reed, Francisco Lopez and Merzbow, to
name but a few and also the many records he released himself,
than a few bells may ring. He plays piano on this new release,
which he recorded together with Micheal Vorfeld, a percussion
player as-well as a builder of string instruments, whose work
is more along the lines of electro-acoustic music, than anything
improvisation. A piano has strings too on the inside, so together
they decided to explore the world inside the piano and the vibrations
of the percussion. In the opening piece, 'Pech', they sound very
much like Organum circa 'In Extremis'. Beautiful drones, almost
piercingly loud, and working with a rich and changing variety
of overtones. This is what they also do in the final track, in
an even more 'just not' rightly piercing way. In between these
tracks we find the more rhythmical 'Keks' piece, which has the
sound of sparkles being set of (or so it seems) and playing the
cymbals. Overtones are played here too, but I found in a somewhat
less interesting way. The first and third track would have made
up a great record, me thinks, and whereas the second piece is
not bad at all, it seems a bit out of place. But throughout a
strong release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.room40.org
ERIKM - SIXPERIODES (CD by Sirr-ecords)
The music of Erikm (or eRikm as he spells it) is something I came
across, but always in the form of collaborations with other people,
and Erikm played with almost everybody in the field of improvised
music. I must admit I never heard any of his solo work, which
he apparently does make: this CD contains six pieces which he
made between 2001 and 2004 and they were made for dance, theater
and cinema. Erikm uses samplers, mini-discs and vinyl to play
his improvised music, and I must say I quite enjoyed it. It's
hard to tell what is on those records and tapes, but throughout
everything jumps and skips around like crazy, creating things
to be very vibrant and lively. Most of the times rhythmical in
a sort of non-linear way (even when it's a dance record!), combined
with elements of noise and musique concrete, this also jumps stylistically
all over the place, moving from strict improvised parts, such
as the opening 'Les Paesines' to the more straight forward, almost
industrialized rhythms 'Paris Qui Dort'. But that keeps the adrenaline
of this disc going round and round. I enjoyed many of his collaborative
works already, but as a first introduction to his solo work, I
am even more impressed. Very good material. The only point of
critique is that a too large portion of the liner notes are in
french, which is sad, since I would have loved to read more. (FdW)
Address: http://www.sirr-ecords.com
MATTHEW FLORIANZ - GRIJSGEBIED (CD by H/S
Recordings)
MATTHEW FLORIANZ - NIEMANDSLAND (CD by H/S Recordings)
Although Matthew Florianz' work was reviewed before, it was part
of a group work, and a long time ago; and not by me. So these
two albums are introductions to his work. I assume he is Dutch
of Belgium, looking at his titles, even when his name doesn't
sound too Dutch. He plays ambient with the big A, and his music
was used by various 'airline in-flight entertainment programmes...
also been successfully licensed or corporate clients, including
US Healtcare firm Remodulin' - yuck me thinks. Must be dreadful
music, but 'GrijsGebied' ('grey area') a re-issue of a 2001 album
is actually much better than aural wallpaper. A dark wall of synthesizer,
feeding and looping through a bunch of sound effects, with an
occasional tinkle on the piano. Nicely dark this album, thus defying
the whole new age thing that we would find in elevators.
Florianz' latest album is 'Niemandsland' (nowhere land), and maybe
things changed? They did, but not for the worse. Apparently Florianz
is now incorporating field recordings in his music, which are
hard to recognize as such (although the cover indicates them as
streets), but the music is throughout a fine example of dark ambient
music, with here and there quite a chilling moment, like the processed
sound of a rusty wheel. But it's all embedded in this vast amount
of truly dark music. Tracks flow into each-other and tell a story,
the story of going to the nowhere land and back. Between each
track there is the sound of traffic, transporting the listener
to a new place. A nice album, again. For those who love their
ambient a bit more daring and exciting, this is one to check out.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.hsrecordings.co.uk
JIM SANDE - PARTICLE (CD by Labile Music)
The for me unknown Jim Sande hails from America and writes music,
besides being interested in Buddhism and psychology. On 'Particle'
he offers us five suites, 'Particle', 'Condition', 'Deva Putra
Mara' (a Buddhist term for suffering caused through desire), 'Suite
Bomba' and 'Equus' (the latin word for calm). The music is primarily
composed for and on the piano, but there are also 'real' sounds
as vibes, double bass, strings, clarinet, oboe along with 'canned'
sounds such as voices, guitars and percussion. I found it really
hard to make up my mind on this. Sometimes the music is nice,
to the point, sketch-like, witty and remembering me of some of
Andrew Poppy's work. Sometimes it is downright kitschy and cliche-like,
such as the quite horrible 'Crooked Man' or 'Life In Reverse'.
They has vocals, 'ooh-aah', and sound like every cliche from the
book. Some of the tracks are a bit too sketch-like and could have
lasted a bit longer, but throughout it was an OK work. Maybe a
bit too smooth, too slick produced, but it's all OK. Not great,
not brilliant, not showing an entirely new path in music, but
quite entertaining. (FdW)
Address: http://www.jimsande.org
SAUL STOKES - VAST (CD by The Foundry)
EGOCENTRIC - THE SKY WITHIN THE GROUND (CD by The Foundry)
It's been a while since we last heard music from Saul Stokes,
apart from his live album on Databloem (see Vital Weekly 479).
Previously his albums were on Hypnos, but date back years and
years ago. But here he kept on playing live, on his self-built
instruments and now there is also a new CD. The Foundry name-checks
'Air, Isan, Arovane, Black Dog, Ulrich Schnauss, Beaumont Hannant
and Tonto's Expanding Head Band' - quite an impressive list, but
don't mistake this for the next click 'n cut ambient record. Saul
Stokes plays ambient music with a firm dose of rhythm, but these
rhythms aren't exactly the kind that you find on many of the people
name checked here. It's more rhythms that were used more than
a decade ago when ambient house was its peak: pseudo ethnic/tribal
rhythms, set against this massive wall of ambient synthesizers.
Occasionally there is a trace of techno rhythm or bass synth,
but they are all kept to a minimum. The music is quite alright
for what it is, and maybe there are even new fans to be found,
who missed out on the original ambient dance explosion of the
early nineties, but to me it sounds a bit outdated and not really
fresh. Production is more than excellent, but it seems to be lacking
the new path.
Something similar can be said of Egocentric, aka one Brian Naas,
of whom I never heard before. On his, I assume not very recent
CDEP we find five tracks of guitar playing and some trip hop like
rhythm parts. The first three pieces are along these lines, even
when 'Biting Clock Return' is a bit more along techno lines. 'Exit
Door' is an all guitar based thing that falls a bit out of place
here, and the final 'Labor Pained' dwells heavily on drums that
sounds like falling objects and processed guitars. By themselves
these tracks are not bad, and would certainly do well on a compilation
of whatever kind, but now, when put together I must admit they
didn't do much for me. It's ok pass-time music for sure, but not
so engaging, except maybe for the final piece, which had lots
of tension. (FdW)
Address: http://wwwfoundrysite.com
JOHN HEGRE & MAJA RATKJE - BALLADS (CD
by Dekorder)
Yeah, right, a album of ballads by these two renowned noise artists?
Hegre, member of Jazzkammer and The Golden Serenades among others
and Ratkje of Fe-Mail as-well as a bunch of improvised music projects,
doing an album of ballads? Yes, it's true and it's great. They
carefully play acoustic objects and hardly use any electronics.
Sometimes the elements are looped, forming a block of repetitive
sound, sometimes there is a far away sound of sound processing.
But that is far away, almost hidden in the mix. Soft electro-acoustic
music, crafted into songs, rather than lengthy improvisations.
It's already beautiful material, but the best is saved to the
end: 'Hammock Moods' has a looped guitar, loose sounds but every
once in a while there is a soft melody in the background, which
even might be called romantic. An almost epic piece, which alone
would be the reason to get this album. This is noise with the
big N, and this is the future of noise music. Excellent! (FdW)
Address: http://www.dekorder.com
RONNIE SUNDIN - THE AMATEUR HERMETIC (CD
by Komplott)
It's been about a year without a new Ronnie Sundin CD, whereas
in the past he produced many new works. I have no idea why this
is, although the information gives some indication: 'a nomadic
lifestyle of moving to a new flat every second year, about deeding
children and getting lost in occult references and religious doubts,
about growing a beard'. Perhaps Sundin has different interests
and occupations these days? I also read something about using
the recording of ones own voice, so perhaps this album contains
just the sound of Sundin's voice, or perhaps voices of others.
Like so many of his works, 'The Amateur Hermetic' is just one
track, just over forty minutes, and like the previous 'Hagring'
(see Vital Weekly 461), this isn't exactly a work of silence and
careful crackling, none of the glitch material. But Sundin goes
a step further. 'Hagring' had silence in between the various parts
of the work, but here he plays an extended piece of drone related
material, that is however always forcefully present, but it never
gets to the point of complete 'noise'. Sundin builds a clever
work, all based on highly processed voice material, which can
hardly be recognized as such. Sometimes operating as a dark cloud,
sometimes the various elements sparkle of into the wild, but a
moment of silence, in the micro-sound sense of the word, is not
to be found in here. Although this work might be easier to be
accessed as 'Hagring', it's also quite difficult to say what he
wants. The listener is shut outside and has to make up his own
story to the material. It's hermetically closed. That is however
not a problem at all. It leaves much room for suggestion by the
listener to find in here whatever he or she thinks is right. Quite
strange, but captivating. Sundin once again pulled a new trick
out of his hat. (FdW)
Address: http://www.komplott.com
INCIDENTAL AMPLIFICATIONS (CD compilation
by Room40)
Day and night we are surrounded by sound, and most of the time
we don't want, or at least: we wouldn't choose this to be. Worst
of all sounds is music that we hear in the supermarket: muzak.
Muzak tries to hide the unwanted sounds, or what the owner of
the supermarket thinks to be unwanted sounds. Room40 owners Lawrence
English and Lloyd Barrett invited a whole bunch of sound artists
to provide them with a piece of music that was used in a spatial
sound installation in a variety of urban shopping areas in Brisbane,
Australia in July and August 2005. Like with film soundtracks,
it's hard to see the music separate from the installation, and
in case you didn't see that, just like me, it's hard to relate
to these music pieces. I guess we could also treat the music pieces
for what they are: music pieces, somewhat loosely dealing with
field recordings and muzak. In that respect it's quite a 'normal'
compilation with sometimes highly unnoticeable pieces of music
and sometimes great pieces, such as Daniel Blinkhorn's piece of
sampled electro-acoustica and Terre Thaemlitz' playing around
with notions of popmusic, fighting the muzak with it's own means.
And sometimes pieces are just too dam soft to be noticed, such
as Brandon Labelle's piece. Also included are Chris Watson, Domenico
Scianjo, Le Grand Jeu, Camilla Hannan, Joe Mushgrove, Aaron Ximm,
DZO, M. Rösner, Mathieu Ruhlmann, Blake Stickland and Thembi
Soddell. Quite a nice bunch of field recording artists, who deliver
a varying degree of sound processing. (FdW)
Address: http://www.room40.org
RF - VIEWS OF DISTANT TOWNS (CD by Plop)
Japanese Plop label never ceases to surprise me with new artists
who do absolutely great music. RF stands for Ryan Francesconi
from California, who is responsible here for voice, guitars, strings,
horns and field recordings, as-well as all sorts of tricks with
software. Apparently he also runs the Odd Shaped Case label and
a software company. Probably some people never sleep. For this
CD he found inspiration in the book 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle'
by Haruki Murakami, about a man who feels lonely, longing for
'something'. A sense of desolation and loneliness, which is well
captured in the music by RF, who includes field recordings made
in Japan. Throughout the music is soft and not very outspoken,
but it stands firmly in the tradition of popmusic. There are vocals,
usually more mumbling and whispering than singing, horns coming
out, and rhythm-machines providing some sort of rhythm. Guitars
are sometimes highly processed, sometimes crisp clear. Singer-songwriter
material of the new millennium, the acoustic guitar being replaced
by the laptop. Great popmusic standing in a long tradition of
song writing, but surely with an entirely twist of its own. However,
a few remarks are to be made: the CD itself is a bit too long,
with twelve tracks that all easily take up five minutes. Sometimes,
especially with the instrumental tracks, the material is too sparse
to keep up the attention for the duration of the piece. Maybe
some of these could have been shorter and maybe a bit more selective,
and at forty or so minutes, this would have been a brilliant album,
whereas now it's just very good. That's not bad either. (FdW)
Address: http://www.inpartmaint.com/plop
SPIELEREI - PUBLIX (CD by Databloem)
Just two weeks ago we reviewed a whole bunch of new CDR releases
on Databloem, which is now followed by a new CD by Spielerei.
I must admit I am bit clueless as to why Databloem releases Grassow
on CDR and Spielerei on CD, but perhaps it has to do with the
fact that Spielerei is Dennis Knopper, he who controls the label.
Whatever, me thinks. I remember meeting Knopper ages ago, being
a serious young man interested in things synthesizer. Over the
years he developed his interests from old masters such as Klaus
Schulze and Tangerine Dream, via Pete Namlook and (old) Biosphere
to the more recent ambient techno of Pub, Waki and Vir Unis. All
of these influences, spanning thirty years of melodic and rhythmic
synthesizer music, are used by him in his work 'Publix'. And it's
surely a fine work indeed, leaning more towards Schulze to Biosphere
than to the latter ambient techno. Synthesizers with the arpeggio
buttons working over time is what we get here. Highly atmospheric
music in the best cosmic tradition, which means nothing new under
the sun, but nevertheless this is well executed. (FdW)
Address: http://www.databloem.com
ANTIGEN SHIFT - THE WAY OF THE NORTH (CD
by Ad Noiseam)
Ottawa-based electronic composer Nick Theriault a.k.a. Antigen
Shift impressed me both with his debut debut-album "Implicit
structures" (2001) and the mini-CD titled "A distant
exit" released in 2004. Now almost four years after his debut-release
comes this second full-length album. Build as a homage to the
icy northern lands, "The way of the north" turns away
from the Power-Noise driven Industrial and focus more on melodic
expression rather than harshness. Not that the rhythmic distortion
has disappeared on "The way of the north". But the strength
of "The way of the North" is unquestionably Antigen
Shift's ability to create eerie ambience with the help of continuous
waves of atmospheric sounds-capes. The slowly drifting sheets
of ambience create the perfect background to the mainly mid-tempo
rhythm textures of distorted heavy pounding beats. On the track
"L'horizon", the rhythm tempo keeps changing from ritual
beats into breakbeat textures always with slow waving soundscapes
as the dark companion. Another track, "Toppling drunk into
the river while trying to embrace the moon", goes all the
way into rhythmic chaos with excellent breakbeat-structures moving
from subtle to full throttle while slower heavy rhythms moves
along the sinister ambient-spheres. Especially that certain track
reminds me of another excellent Ambient/PowerNoise-act Gridlock
(R.I.P.). Also the track "Tundra" represents an astonishing
moment on the album with some beautiful nocturnal piano-moments
being swallowed by hordes of violent breakbeats. With it's great
variety of uniquely arranged soft and hard soundscapes "The
way of the north" provide a range of aural moods. Especially
listeners of aforementioned Gridlock as well as Welsh IDM-project
Somatic Responses will certainly find a number of treasures on
this fully satisfying album. Highly recommended! (NMP)
Address: http://www.adnoiseam.net
UW HYPOTHEEKADVIES - NATURE OR NURTURE (CDR
by Uw Hypotheekadvies)
Behind this confusing name hides a trio from Nijmegen, Netherlands.
With just bass, drums and guitar they produce some interesting
noisy free rock. Its a surprisingly good demo with recordings
made in september-october 2004, offering a very dynamic answer
of an old philosophical question. The cdr opens with a very loud
piece. Fast and furious. Followed by a track where they make effective
use of some undefinable cut-up treatment, playing tapes backwards,
and things like that. Beefheartesque moments prevail in track
'(D.Turpin/B.Rogers)'. 'De Kandidaten' is an exercise in postrock
noisy soundscaping. 'Helmut Wagner' opens with a long and slowly
developing intro of soundscaping culminating gradually in a very
hectic noisy hell with some real hot boiling moments. If you want
a ballad go to track 'Rennen Ruud'. It shows Uw Hypotheekadvies
from their most friendly and pleasing side. When listening to
it for the first time I was constantly waiting for the moment
it would derange in some cacophony, but it didn't. We catch them
here in a serious romantic mood. The short piece '8 Doublures
(part one)' impresses because so much happens in 1:44 minute.
The track is composed with the help of some nice tape treatments
afterwards. And so they chose for a different angle in each piece.
To conclude, Dries (drums), Rob (bass) and Martin (guitar) make
instrumental noise rock of a considerable level. They make good
use of their technical skills and make a coherent and thoroughly
constructed rock with a total involvement of all three players.
Whether their qualities are innate (nature) or acquired through
intense learning (nurture) makes no difference to me. What counts
is that this is an adventurous and varied cd! I really had fun
with this one! (DM)
Address: http://www.uwhypotheekadvies.com/
BJERGA/IVERSEN - DRAGGING WORDS OUT OF A
STONE (CDR by Tib Prod)
IVERSEN - SINGLES (CDR by Tib Prod)
IVERSEN/SOUND_00 (7" by Dirty Demos)
EMMANUEL MIEVILLE - DENKI COLORS (CDR by Tib Prod)
DEADWOOD - TRIAL AND TERROR (3"CDR by Tib Prod)
Late last month and early this month the Norwegian duo of Bjerga
and Iversen were on tour in the low countries, but sadly I missed
them (even when I am probably one of the few people to hear their
music around here) due to other commitments. Special for this
tour they released a tour benefit CDR, which is a collection of
various shorter bits and pieces they had lying around. Normally
Bjerga/Iversen play much longer tracks, so it's interesting to
see what they do when things are much shorter, see if it works
too. It does. Taking a quicker curve to built tracks in their
usual psychedelic noise fashion works well. The guitars are played
with ebows or violin bows, fed through half-broken sound effects,
producing a sound that is alike fire, and sometimes some distortion,
but throughout they maintain their trademark sound. Very nice,
once again.
From the same Iversen, Jan-M, there is a
collection of tracks that he released as MP3s in the past, as-well
as a few previously unreleased tracks. It's almost eighty minutes
long, but Iversen suggests to put this on your computer and put
the tracks you like in a play-list and forget about the rest.
Of course, naive as I am, I played this from beginning to end.
Iversen is a man to produce much music, perhaps too much, and
of a varying quality. Sometimes noise related, but only on a few
spots. Iversen's usual interest lies in more ambient territories,
albeit of a darker and more experimental kind. Sometimes tracks
are without much structure or idea and drag on too much, but sometimes
he's witty and to the point. The liner notes are surely fun to
read.
On a different label, Iversen releases I believe his first piece
of vinyl, a collaboration with Sound_00, aka Toni Dimitrov, aka
Every Kid On Speed/Acid. They exchanged sound files back and forth
and the first four results are on this 7" (other pieces to
come on a compilation by Dirty Demos and on their website). Sound_00
provided some loud, gritty, laptop based music in the past, but
perhaps it's the Iversen influence that keeps the noise reduced
here. The four pieces are excellent displays of microsound of
a rather darker than dark nature, with occasional rhythmic elements
and likewise bits of repeating noise. Quite strong material.
And the onto the non-Iversen releases, as Tib Prod is a busy label,
producing many items. They do mainly CDRs and MP3 releases, but
in the past they released a real 3" CD by Tore Honore Boe
and Emmanuel Mieville (see Vital Weekly 468). The same Emmanuel
Mieville now releases a new CDR release on Tib Prod, but for whatever
reasons unclear to me his previous piece of the 3"CD is also
included here. Lack of new pieces? Mieville studied with Phillippe
Mion and Jacques Lejeune, and is in general the more serious composer.
Like before (hard to avoid if tracks double), his material moves
alongside the more serious electro-acoustic, acousmatiq composers,
usually lurking about in the INA/GRM studios and releasing their
works on Empreintes Digitalis. Before I wrote that I would needed
to hear more to form a better judgement, but now that I heard
some more I must say that it's something rather too normal, too
sterile for me. It's by no means bad, but like with so many other
examples of this music, it is also too distant, too cold.
Behind Deadwood is Adam Baker, not to be confused with Aidan Baker.
This Baker is from the UK and he runs the Dirty Demos label. His
3" CDR release has five tracks of computerized music. Long
live the age of plug-ins. Baker puts in whatever sound, and then
keeps on treating them until he has something that he likes. He
puts all of these sounds together into something that is quite
a nice form of collated music, but throughout misses out to have
something of it's own. Or perhaps, better, at least a bit of something
that he calls his own. Now it sounds too much like so many other
things in this already overcrowded musical arena. (FdW)
Address: http://www.tibprod.com
Address: http://www.dirtydemos.co.uk
PHROQ - ESTHETISM OF RANDOMS (CDR by Herbal/Why
Not)
MIKE BULLOCK - GREAT MARSH (CDR by Herbal/Why Not)
LAU MUN LENG - ANTISEPTIC (CDR by Herbal)
JEFF GBUREK/RAVEN CHACON - JESUS WAS A WINO (CDR by Herbal)
BILLY BAO - AUXILIO (CDR by Herbal)
GUIGNOL DANGEREUX - LIVE BY THE SEA (CDR by Herbal/Why Not)
The Herbal Records, owned by Goh Lee Kwang, is slowly expanding
their catalogue, beyond the work of Goh himself. There is a regular
series of Herbal Records and a series of limited CDRs in an edition
of just forty copies. That seems like a rather low key affair,
but apparently attractive enough for musicians to join in. Some
of these artists have already made their name in the world of
CDR and MP3 releases. People like Phroq for instance. In many
of his work the use of field recordings play an important role.
On his release he has four sounds running at the same time and
some random filter to process his sounds. The original field recordings
disappeared almost entirely from the scene and is replaced by
the static crackle and hiss of the computer filters, sometimes
being under attack by the deep drone bass of a refrigerator coming
alive. Quite nice.
Mike Bullock is already a renowned player of the upright bass
in the areas of his home city of Boston, where he frequently plays
with people such Vic Rawlings and Howard Stelzer. The cover for
his release seems to be a hasty job: the cover says it's a live
recording, but there is no date. Also the label nor the website
address isn't mentioned anywhere. 'Great Marsh' is a musical trip
of about thirty minutes of bass playing and electronic treatment,
but not necessarily a treatment of his bass playing. It starts
out with some strumming and bowing but as the piece progresses
electronic sounds drop in and even seem to be taking over the
proceedings. Quite an interesting recording of some extended bass
playing.
Much more conceptual is the release by Lau Mun Leng. She is foremost
a visual artist, but also plays music. She recorded 'Antispectic'
in april last year and it's strange release. She plays keyboard
on this release. The first track is just a very short rhythm loop
and third track sounds like an electronic pulse sounding like
water - or vice versa. In between the second is very long piece
for static sine wave, the kind of stuff that Sachiko M is well-known
for. Played softly it's not so bad, as the frequencies fly nicely
through your space, but I can imagine that a louder volume this
is most irritating.
I never heard of Jeff Gburek or Raven Chacon. The first one is
from Berlin and plays guitar along with his computer. He played
with Ephia in Djalma Primordial Science (theater) and improvised
with Keith Rowe, Micheal Vorfeld, Tetuzi Akiyama, Kyle Bruckmann,
Pascal Battus, and Tom Carter (Charalambides). About Raven I still
don't know anything. Their disc holds a solo piece by each and
one duo piece. Gburek's solo piece is quite distantly there, playing
the softer card in music of faint hums and deep end sound. But
as soon as they play together things get more and more heavy.
The duo piece is one of droning short-wave sounds and contact
microphone movements over some objects. Quite an alright piece
of noise music. Chacon's solo piece is of very high pitches and
low end rumble, but it's causes a bit of headache. This we heard
done better by others.
A short live release by Billy Bao, the group around vocalist Billy
Bao (also Xabier Erkizia on guitar and computer, Mattin on guitar
and computer and Alberto Lopez on drums). Their short release
is quite powerful. It opens with a few blasts on guitar and drums,
before exploding into a heavy weight noise rock release. The computers
are nicely hissing somewhere deep down in the vaults of this otherwise
top heavy release. And not a second too long.
The odd one in this bunch is the release by Guignol Dangereux,
whose release is also an odd ball in his back-catalogue. So far
his releases showed an intelligent form of ambient industrial
music in combination with technoid rhythms, this one, apparently
recorded 'live by the sea' is a pretty straight forward techno
trip of ongoing rhythms, doing the usual 4/4 stuff. Although for
what it is its not bad, but it's a bit too regular underground
techno stuff, one you can hear at your underground rave every
Saturday night, but it would have been nicer to see what Guignol
Dangereux could do with his real (?) music in a live context.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.geocities.com/herbalrecords
DAN WARBURTON & TU M' - MISSING IN AFRICA
(CDR by Con-V)
A while ago I made the mistake of calling Dan Warburton an American
in Paris, but he's actually from the UK. Besides doing an excellent
website of reviews (Transatlantic), he is also a musician himself,
mainly on the violin. Here he works together with Italy's Tu M',
a most active duo who have various releases available on various
labels, such as Fallt and ERS. The press statement is not very
clear about this, but somehow I don't think they played together
in making this release. It has 'all tracks sourced in recordings
by Maikol Seminatore, May 17th 2003. Live processing recorded
entirely from samples of violin'. So rather than having two Italians
on their laptops and one guy with a violin, I assume Tu M' fools
around with recordings of Dan's violin playing, mainly looping
them around (does the text really suggests it's just the programm
fruity loops?). Cut them short, making them a little bit longer
and than shorter again. I must admit I wasn't overtly impressed
by this. I would have hoped for some more live action or better
inter-action between the musicians. The best piece was he final
'Missing In The Dark Forest', in which sadly the violin disappears
but at least there is some interesting music to be discovered.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.con-v.org
MECHA/ORGA - HOLDER (CDR by Absurd/A Question
Of Re-entry)
Hopefully everyone goes to the dentist every once in a while,
but let's hope not the same happens as what happened to Yiorgis
Sakellario: he fainted and was taken into in the hospital and
one of the exams they did was 'the holder', in which they make
a recording of the heart for some time. Registered on to a regular
audio cassette in a very slow speed, Mecha/Orga, for it is him,
took the recording home, together with his healthy self and played
the tape. The first piece on this CDR has the original tape: a
raw, almost industrial piece of music, a bit like the good ol'
Maurizio Bianchi sound, which is nice to hear (and probably nice
to use in your music), even when some of the heartbeat sounds
don't sound like a heartbeat at ll. It's however the second piece
that is of most interest. Here Mecha/Orga samples the sound and
makes a new piece of music out of it. Here Mecha/Orga successfully
transforms the recordings into a piece of music that reflects
the heartbeat rhythm much better, along with sounds that are heavily
filtered. More like a journey through the body than the original
recording. A pity that this is so much shorter than the original
source recording. Length-wise it would have ben nicer if it was
vice versa. (FdW)
Address: http://www.anet.gr/absurd
@C - 42/44 (MP3 by Silence Is Not Empty)
PAWEL GRABOWSKI - NOTES FROM THE HOUSE OF DEAD (MP3 by Silence
Is Not Empty)
Silence Is Not Empty is the name of Pawel Grabowski's own MP3
label, where he not just releases his own music, but also that
of others, such as the Portuguese laptop improvisers @C, who had
some releases on Cronica Electronica and Grain Of Sound. Here
they offer two pieces, that 'as with most of our hard drive compositions,
these pieces incorporate sound produced over a somewhat long period
of time, '42' from 2002 to 2005 and '44' from 2004 to 2005. '42'
is a rhythmical affair, with sounds falling over-each other, rather
than producing a steady beat. The rhythms seems to be made from
sampled electro-acoustic sounds. Somewhere the sound of steam
leaps in. That seems also to be the foundation of the second track,
except that it plays the main role in this piece. Slowly evolving
and objects roll of the conveyer belt. A darker but also intenser
piece of music.
Labelowner Pawel Grabowski offers a new release, of three tracks,
which is his first attempt to write shorter tracks, whilst keeping
the same tension. Like the title suggests, these are more 'notes'
than complete pieces, which of course you could say that Grabowski
didn't succeed in writing short pieces. However, there is good
portion of tension to be noted in these pieces. Working his way
around with just a few sounds per tracks, but looping them around,
forming delicate pieces. Maybe it's a pity that he uses a portion
of reverb that is a bit too much, certainly in 'The Dead', but
throughout it's quite alright. Certainly a new route to explore
in future works. (FdW)
Address: http://www.silence-is-not-empty.com
SHRINE - HARMONY, BLISS, RUST (MP3 by Mirakelmusik)
ALEXANDER VATAGIN - VALEOT (MP3 by Mirakelmusik)
THE WINTER QUARTERS - VID (MP3 by Mirakelmusik)
MAURIZIO BIANCHI - MOKUSHI XVI, XVI (MP3 by Mirakelmusik)
The Swedish Mirakelmusik label say that they are a young net label,
yet they already have twenty releases to their name. These four
are part of the latest bunch. It contains three unknown new names
for me and one big surprise. Mirakelmusik wants to release 'more
or less experimental music, like ambient, electronica, industrial,
noise, but no idm, techno or alike'. The first one is by Shrine,
aka Hristo Gospodinov from Bulgaria. He started his career playing
various, unnamed acoustic instruments, before turning his way
to sampling. The three pieces on 'Harmony, Bliss, Rust' were made
to play 'unusual' ambient, which in a way is true, but perhaps
it's unusual to those who never heard ambient played in a more
experimental fashion. Shrine plays nicely around with elements
of distortion, but they are embedded in a strong wash of nice
sound treatments, which makes a nice balance between the 'clean'
and 'dirty' elements. Dark, atmospheric and experimental ambient,
just the way we like these things. Not necessarily innovative,
but very nice for sure.
Also new for me is Alexander Vatagin, who plays bass since three
years. First in his band Tupolex and later joined Und Morgen,
Der Asphalt. Both bands have released works on 12rec, which I
didn't hear. His solo work more or less started by accident, when
he picked up a cello and started to play some more abstract songs,
compared to his bands, which are more poppy/folky. Vatagin plays
around with drone like material on this work, bowing his cello
to work around with nice overtone textures. As a counterpoint
some of his friends from the bands provide some extra instruments,
such as piano, drums and vocals, even when not on all tracks.
Although especially the piano is not recorded very well, they
add just that little bit of extra to step out of the usual areas
of a drone record. Sometimes it comes close to a singer-songwriter
album, but then of a rather unusual kind. A very fine album altogether.
Behind the Winter Quarters we find one Robin Rådenman, who
works under various guises of whom we'll hear more in the future.
Three tracks on this shorter MP3 release, which sound to be made
exclusively in the digital territory, but Winter Quarters are
playing the atmospheric card. Even when winter time is over about
two days, the music here at hand is still chilly and cold. A desolate
winter landscape is depicted here, especially in 'Hackren', which
might be a bit too noisy for the true lovers of the more daring
ambient. The guitars in 'Like Snow On White Sand' have a nice
Fennesz like feel to it. Nice one, perhaps a bit too short.
The big surprise is of course the presence of Maurizio Bianchi
in this lot of MP3 releases. I am not really sure why he releases
his works as MP3, but I'm sure there is some reason for it. 'Mokushi'
is the Japanese word for Apocalypse, still, as always, an important
theme in the work of Bianchi. In the book of Apocalypse, chapter
16, verse 16, the Armageddon is mentioned and Bianchi hopes that
'the wickeds, the arrogants, the oppressors, the unthankfuls,
the disloyals, the selfish persons, the God's opposers will be
totally destroyed by the angelic armies' and the innocent will
be alive. So, not an entire destruction of life on earth. However
the music of Bianchi is not a cheery post-apocalyptic one, but
a soundtrack for the proceedings of armageddon themselves. Loud
and dirty. Moving away from the new age soundtracks he made after
his return, this new material harks back to his early, even going
back to his Sacher-Pelz material, of old reel-to-reel tapes being
sped up into an almost false concerto of decay. Nice one indeed.
The earlier new age sound didn't do much for me, but this is very
much alright again. (FdW)
Address: http://mirakelmusik.se
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