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JEAN-FRANCOIS LAPORTE – SOUNDMATTERS (CD by 23Five Incorporated) *
MATT SHOEMAKER – SPOTS IN THE SUN (CD by The Helen Scarsdale Agency) *
FLUE – BEYOND THE EDGE OF NOWHERE (CD by Diophantine Discs) *
ATOMINE ELEKTRINE – NEBULOUS (CD by Essence Music) *
SETH NEHIL – AMNEMONIC SITE (CD by Alluvial Recordings) *
DISKREPANT – INTO SLEEP (CD by Fin De Siecle) *
HOH – BESTEMOR (CD by Zang) *
SISSY SPACEK – REMOTE WHALE CONTROL (CD by Misanthropic Agenda)
KK NULL – FERTILE (CD by Touch)
SOFTWAR – SOFTWAR (CD by Digitalis Industries) *
FABIO ORSI – GIANLUCA BECUZZI – THE STONES KNOW EVERYTHING (2CD by Digitalis Industries)
CONNECT_ICUT – LA (AN APOLOGY) (LP by CSAF Records)
MLEHST – A CAUTIONARY TALE (LP by Belief Recordings)
MLEHST – ISM ISTS (3″CDR by Belief Recordings)
KASPER VAN HOEK – LIVE AT EXTRAPOOL (CDR by Heils Kabaal Records) *
AXEL DÖRNER & LUCIO CAPECE (CDR by L’Innomable) *
MILIEU – REMODELLED (CDR by Boltfish Recordings) *
XEDH – AGUJERO NEGRO (CDR by Hamaika)
POOCHLATZ – THANKS FOR GIVING IN (CDR by Something on the Road)
POOCHLATZ – VICTIMS OF SELF PRESERVATION (CD by Heart & Crossbone)
IRONING / GAYBOMB – YOUR OXEN HAVE DROWNED/SCRATCH (12inch vinyl by Hymn)
DEAD VAGINA/GAYBOMB SPLIT (CDR by Hymn)
MONOID – OPEN CLOSURE (CDR by Tosom)
MONOID – CHAOS CONSTRAIN (CDR by Tosom) *
AIDAN BAKER – THOUGHTSPAN (CDR by Tosom)
CARL KRUGER – INFORMATION ANIMALS (3″CDR by Dim Records)
MACHINEFABRIEK – HAPSTAART (3″CDR by Machinefabriek)
DAVID STACKENÄS & RUTGER ZUYDERVELT – CITRON (3″CDR by Machinefabriek)
DEREK CRAIG ZOLADZ – SOFTWARE FOR HUMANITY (2×3″CDR, private release)
MICHAEL GENDREAU – Live at Sonic Circuits DC 2006 (MP3 by Zeromoon)
STAPLERFAHRER – LIVE @ HOEZO EXPO EINDHOVEN 17/12/2005 (MP3 by Menthe De Chat) *
JEAN-FRANCOIS LAPORTE – SOUNDMATTERS (CD by 23Five Incorporated)
That someone is acquainted with the music of Jean-Francois Laporte is hardly possible. He released one 3″CD in Metamkine’s Cinema Pour L’Oreille series in 1997, called ‘Mantra’. Still he’s not a busy worker or perhaps a very conscientious one, since ‘Mantra’ is in its fully glory also heard here, along with four new pieces from the decade in between. In four of those pieces he uses field recordings, like wind such in ‘Electro-Prana’, but Laporte likes machine sounds, which are at the core of the other three pieces, including the air compressor that is heart of ‘Mantra’. In this piece, which it’s twenty-five minutes, the massive fundament of this CD, the motor like sounds are processed (perhaps) and create an intense, drone like hum (excuse le mot), that might be very well ‘just’ a motor, but it’s sounds like a choir towards the end of the piece. In ‘Dans Le Ventre Du Dragon’, something similar happens, but then using the large natural reverb of an empty space of a cargo hull. The fifth piece on the CD is ‘Plenitude Du Vide’, which is a piece for a saxophone quartet, ‘sax trunk, siren organ and the Tu-Yo instruments’. I am not sure what those are, but the idea of this piece is to go from very soft to very loud (well, within reason that is). In an odd way I thought that this piece was also a bit machine like in it’s approach, but through an imitation of that with acoustic instruments. Perhaps it’s a bit of an odd ball on this CD, but placed at the end it also makes sense. Throughout this is a beautiful CD of lovingly machine hum made into music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.23five.org
MATT SHOEMAKER – SPOTS IN THE SUN (CD by The Helen Scarsdale Agency)
Trente Oiseaux releases never make it into these pages, so the two CDs they released by Matt Shoemaker went by unnoticed. Both cover and information don’t give any information as to how, what and where. Let’s assume Shoemaker is a guy with a microphone, a recording device and a computer. Taken the outside to the inside, the field recordings to the computer and processing them, so far that we no longer recognize any of the original sound. That sounds like Bernard Günter, Roel Meelkop, Richard Chartier or Marc Behrens? Just a little bit, as there is an important difference. Music by Shoemaker is always audible and it seems to more than the others to work with drones. Stretched out fields of sound with minor developments is what the bigger part of this CD is about. Then, like the air escaping of a balloon, a piece ends abruptly, with much activity. These differences may seem small but in the world of microsound they surely make a difference. Shoemaker’s music is always present, and perhaps a little more raw than mentioned counterparts, but that’s what I like this release. It moves more wildly through various textures from semi-soft to semi-loud in a more continuos manner and thus Shoemaker can be lumped in with some of the drone crowd than say with his microsound counterparts. In the field of drone music his collage techniques may seem odd, but it’s surely an original voice. A high quality work, with minor and vital differences. (FdW)
Address: http://www.helenscarsdale.com
FLUE – BEYOND THE EDGE OF NOWHERE (CD by Diophantine Discs)
On the Dutch Torso label there were once two LPs by a band called Flue, but they have nothing to do with this Flue from San Francisco. Although we come across with somebody whom we also from the 80s: Mason Jones. Once CEO of Charnel House, his solo guitar noise Trance, later of Subarachnoid Space and now having Flue, as a new band, together with with Jason Stein and Chris Miller. Although I quite liked Subarachnoid Space, I never went out to find them. It was nice ‘space rock’, just as I liked Vocokesh or F/i. As Flue, Jones continues his love for spacey music, but he plays guitar and synthesizer, Stein plays bass and Miller guitar. Hey, no drums? Indeed the drums are absent here and that surely add an even more spacey feel to the music. It starts out in a rather free mood of all sorts of tones floating around freely, especially after a massage through chorus, flanger, phaser and what kind of colored sound effects have you. I thought it was quite nice, the first few tracks. But somewhere after about half the CD things started to irritate me. It was the same throughout: the same free-ness, the same effects, the same ‘going nowhere interaction’ and I liked it less and less. It happened about every time I played the CD. Maybe I liked the presence of drums to keep the space rocking instead of weightless flowing. As a mini CD it would have been great, I guess. (FdW)
Address: http://discs.diophantine.net/
ATOMINE ELEKTRINE – NEBULOUS (CD by Essence Music)
Peter Anderson’s claim to fame might be his Raison D’Etre project, with whom he made several CDs for Cold Meat Industry. Already in 1995, on the same label, he released a work as Atomine Elektrine, with some more light hearted and more ambient. After he released two more CDs on Yantra Atmospheres and in 2004 the first CD for Essence Music, now followed by a second one. Just like a nebulous cloud, this music is highly cosmic. Easily one could mistake the opening pieces to be the lost works of Klaus Schulze, but when in ‘Veiled Clouds’ a rhythm leaps in, it becomes one of the unreleased works of Chain Reaction. Dwelling heavily on reverb and delay, as well as a bunch of thickly layered analogue synthesizers, it’s more 90s than 70s. It turns out this is the course of the album: a cross-over between the cosmic sounds from the mid seventies mixed with minimal rhythm bits that were hip a decade ago on labels as Basic Channel and Chain Reaction, but Atomine Elektrine lacks the techno side of those labels. Surely highly pleasant music that offers a mix that was done before by others too, but Anderson creates a fine work himself. Not a masterpiece of musical innovation, but strong and entertaining enough. Like the sky just fall on the ground and emits its waves. And that sort of metaphors. (FdW)
Address: http://www.essence-music.com
SETH NEHIL – AMNEMONIC SITE (CD by Alluvial Recordings)
Perhaps Seth Nehil is better known from his collaborative work than for his solo work. He worked with jgrzinich and Olivia Block, but his last solo work was from 2002. In the years between he worked mainly on different projects that couldn’t be released on CD, such as multimedia installations. The new work ‘Amnemonic Site’ is covered with obscurity. Besides his name, the title, labelname and catalogue number, the cover holds no information. ‘Play Loud’ it says on the label, which always raises the question here: why? I usually like to make up my own mind if I want to play music loud or not. The whole time I was playing this CD, I couldn’t stop thinking ‘what are these sounds’? It’s of course a question that I constantly ask myself when playing new music, certainly when covers are as obscure as this one, but in Nehil’s case, it can be anything really. Are these field recordings? Perhaps. Or closely miked objects? Also likely. And what about the nature of sound processing? It seems likely there is some. How and to what extent? And do I also detect some real instruments, like wind instruments, or perhaps organs? It’s all likely. Each of the pieces is a large mix up, I imagined, of all of these. There is field recordings, closely miked objects falling to the wooden floor, but also long sustained sounds of wind instruments. It all makes up a particularly strong CD, that is very much alike the latest Olivia Block release, in which a similar treatment of ‘real’ instruments and field recordings is used, and Nehil easily reaches to a similar height in his ‘Amnemonic Site’. Full of tension, he offers a strong interplay between all of his soundsources and it’s easily the best release I heard from him to date. (FdW)
Address: http://www.alluvialrecordings.com
DISKREPANT – INTO SLEEP (CD by Fin De Siecle)
Music by Diskrepant, also known as Per Ahlund, is pretty rare. So far we encountered two released by him, one being a split with Des Esseintes (see Vital Weekly 396) and a much less noise related ’33-12′ (see Vital Weekly 456). This new one, perhaps two years in the production process, sees a continuation of ’33-12′. In many ways Ahlund is like a classical electronic composer. Taking digital and analogue sound synthesis, along with concrete sounds, acoustic sounds and many sound effects to create long pieces of highly composed electronic music. Yet there are also elements that do not lump him into the serious posse. One of that might be his extensive use of loops. All sorts of sounds are looped around, filtered, processed and what have you. Certainly in the opening track ‘Apparatus Like Womb’ this brings him closer to Pan Sonic than to Pierre Henry – if you get my drift. But Ahlund keeps his own track and cleverly avoids to copy. The other two tracks are much more drone based, more like the previous release. Here he moves into the well-known areas of the UK drone meisters and things become less original – and originality in the drone field is not an easy task. But again, Ahlund adds some of his own ideas, such as processed voices which make these tracks not bad. Again he avoids the ‘magick’ connotations, which is always a good thing. Throughout ‘Into Sleep’ is a fine album, which does a lot, but never makes his title become reality.
Address: http://www.findesieclemedia.com
HOH – BESTEMOR (CD by Zang)
Norwegian composer Helge Olav Øksendal has been active as HOH in quite some years by now. “Bestemor”, being the third release, represents the Stavanger-based HOH first step into the experimental pop-scene. The album nicely balances between electronic experimentalism and catchy tunes. There are quite a few pleasant moments throughout the 45 minutes running time, from the harsh instrumental track “Erlöser” to the beautiful folk-like opener “To the lighthouse” with female singing and spiritual atmospheres. “Bestemor” is the Norwegian word for “Grand mother”. The album was made as an ode to the grand mother of the composer. I am sure that she’d be proud for this musical result from her grand son. (NM)
Address: http://www.zang.no
SISSY SPACEK – REMOTE WHALE CONTROL (CD by Misanthropic Agenda)
By now John Wiese is a kind of well-known, I think, due to his involvement with Sunn O))) and Bastard Noise, and so the vaults are open for re-issue. Sissy Spacek is the oldest band that Wiese was involved in, before moving to Los Angeles. Back in the days, Sissy Spacek was Corydon Ronnau on guitar, Danny McClain on drums and Wiese on guitar and electronics (these days the band is still Wiese, Ronnau and Jesse Jackson). Today the band uses the old recordings which are heavily put in collage mode and set against newly recorded material. With ‘Remote Whale Control’ we get to hear what it sounded like in 2001 when it was originally recorded and released. Heavy duty free music. Drums are in an absolutely free spirit, while the sound is picked up by Wiese’s electronics. Both guitars are in similar free noise mood. This is not what these boys were taught in music school, and that’s great. These days I have my reservations against noise, because much of it is made without imagination and all too easily, but in this case sweat comes bursting out of your speakers. No easy way is chosen, tension is all the way present, balancing the live noise act versus the studio manipulation. One could wish there is more like this. (FdW)
Address: http://www.misanthropicagenda.com
KK NULL – FERTILE (CD by Touch)
An active force since the 80s, Kazuyuki Kishino, better known as KK Null. Once the guitarist of Zeni Geva, Absolute Null Punkt, YBO2 and later of Monster DVD, but in the last decade (or more even) best known for his solo work, as well as his many works in the field of improvisation and collaboration, with the likes of Daniel Menche, Jim O’Rourke, James Plotkin, John Zorn and many, many others. These days the guitar is usually left at home and KK Null uses just electronics. Splicing up sounds in the smallest particles and moving them around in a highly fragmented, but curiously rhythmic fashion, he found a niche of his own. ‘Fertile’ is his first solo release for Touch, following a disc he shared with Chris Watson and z’ev. On this album he applies his usual branch of scattered rhythms along side with field recordings he made in Australia. Insect choirs, fires, birds and such like are used, but they are not easy to find. In the world of KK Null it’s electronic sounds that rule the game. Harsh electronic sounds, I should add, as his music is not for the faint hearted. The rhythmic slices remind very occasionally to the work of Pan Sonic, but it’s much more minimal and do not resemble any sort of dance beat. On top he knits together a pattern that could be cosmic as well as noise. At times he takes the listener by the hand and let things flow about, but all of sudden he let’s go of the listener and with a loud bang the listener wakes up in a nightmarish reality. Although indexed as eight pieces, with all the sudden shifts in sound, it could have been one track or ninety-nine. I am not sure however if this disc stands out from his vast amount of work (I should check some out again), but it’s a particular sturdy one. Quite nice altogether. (FdW)
Address: http://www.touchmusic.org.uk
SOFTWAR – SOFTWAR (CD by Digitalis Industries)
FABIO ORSI – GIANLUCA BECUZZI – THE STONES KNOW EVERYTHING (2CD by Digitalis Industries)
The new folk scene made a big impression on a lot of people but to be honest it all went a bit past me. So when a band like Softwar comes up, I have a big questionmark above my head. It features Lorren Chase of Kyrgyz (whereas I only know his older solo work), Christine Boepple (of Jewelled Antler and Kyrgyz) as well as Kerry McLaughlin and Geoff Koops. ‘They played on a million records’ it says with the info, but I find it hard to name even just a few. Instruments are not listed on the cover, but there is a female voice, organs, percussive sounds and other more obscured sounds (contact microphones to pick up the scraping of a carpet?). It’s sweet music. Careful, delicate, partly improvised and highly intimate. You can almost see them sitting on their worn out carpet together, with one microphone for all of them, creating the music. Sometimes perhaps a bit unfocussed but such is the nature of this music, which perhaps works even better if one is using illegal substances.
Two Italian artists whom we first met from their releases on Small Voices, now team up for a double CD. Fabio Orsi released a great LP called ‘Osci’ (see Vital Weekly 512) which was produced by Kinetix, which happens to be the name used by Gianluca Becuzzi. Slow music based on field recordings of a highly obscure nature, with some folk (read: guitar) like elements. Back then it was a unclear as to did and which part Becuzzi had in the final result. Now it’s perhaps a bit clearer: both use ‘old keyboards, guitars and laptop’. It’s also less obscure than the Orsi LP, and further away from much of Kinetix material. Both music and cover reminded me strongly of Stars Of The Lid. The same typography on the cover, but also similar slow music, and forty-five minutes per CD. Sounds only develop at a slow rate, endless sustain coming from the sound effects, moving slow hum about. Music of a highly ambient nature, even when some elements seem odd, such as the machine like sounds of ‘Blue Drones For A Ballad (Part Two)’. Now that Stars Of The Lid may seem to have vanished (in whatever guise actually, or perhaps contemplating a comeback?), this is a rather good substitute of a more than excellent nature. (FdW)
Address: http://www.digitalisindustries.com
CONNECT_ICUT – LA (AN APOLOGY) (LP by CSAF Records)
It’s been almost two years since we first and last heard of Connect_icut, through his CD ‘Moss’ on Dehausset Records (see Vital Weekly 467) and now he returns with a super limited LP (apparently less than 100 copies were made) in some fancy handmade cover. In the two years Connect_icut, a.k.a. Sam Macklin, toured a little bit the west coast but never made it to LA, there for an apology. Macklin likes his computer (perhaps like all of us) and he likes popmusic, taking pop sensibilities into the computer and vice versa. Guitars, organs and perhaps processed percussive sounds are the main ingredients in the seven tracks, and sometimes the elements of ‘pop’ can be recognized, especially on the first side with the shorter tracks. However it seems like those guitars and organ like sound have melted inside the computer, lifted perhaps from another dimension, and pasted together. Because they don’t always make sense, it perhaps does make sense. When Connect_icut moves away from anything recognizable, he creates a densely layered sonic mass of sound, such as on the long ‘Clear Sight Blinds’, which is perhaps an appropriate title for something blurry as this. Blurry, but it does work on the senses. Connect_icut cites Oval, Coil (area ‘Worship The Glitch’) and Fennesz as influences and perhaps it’s not strange to see that. It has that same sensibility of Oval’s ambient work, Fennesz’ laptop guitar work and the alienation of Coil. Well, perhaps that and much more. It would be too easy to say that Connect_icut is a mere copy of those he admires as he surely knows how to add his own flavor to the mix. Choosing his own sounds, carpeting them about, and staying away from anything remotely click or cut, he is not the most original voice on this scene, but carved out a fine niche for himself. (FdW)
Address: http://www.connect-icut.com
MLEHST – A CAUTIONARY TALE (LP by Belief Recordings)
MLEHST – ISM ISTS (3″CDR by Belief Recordings)
Only just over a month ago we reviewed two LP’s of Mlehst, actually three of the four sides were by him, and now he returns with yet another LP and a highly obscure 3″CDR. So he was away for some time, but perhaps we could wonder if this new overkill is any good. Style-wise nothing changed in the last month (!). The mild excursions into the land of feedback, treated in some analogue manner which is not revealed, is still what makes up these new releases. The LP was originally tracks for 7″s, but now compiled into one LP. Tracks here are rather short, although it’s unclear how many 7″s he intended to fill. There is a fair amount of ‘erosion’ in his music, like he’s been using worn out tapes to record his music or perhaps re-used some old tapes. At times I was reminded of the good ol’ Eric Lunde sound. Still as crude and raw as before.
The 3″ CDR’s obscurity lies mainly in the fact that there is no cover, just a disc in a blue box. I am not sure what kind of statement this is supposed to be, perhaps none. Again, no break with the previous album nor with the previous releases since he returned, save perhaps that these three tracks sound a bit more crudely shaped ambient. It’s all ok, but perhaps a bit much right now, following hot on the heels of previous ones, without too many differences. (FdW)
Address: http://www.freewebs.com/mlehst
KASPER VAN HOEK – LIVE AT EXTRAPOOL (CDR by Heils Kabaal Records)
Although this is recorded at my beloved Extrapool, on December 8 and 9 of last year, I didn’t see this happening – I wasn’t there. Kasper van Hoek is a man who goes through the thrift store to find old technology. Record players and tape decks have his main interest. Feeding with crude sound material he picked up along the way on likewise cheap microphones, making internal connections, cutting them up and looping them around – quite a physical approach to music. In this concert, the last in this approach (newer technology makes his way to his house now), he used two cassette decks ‘connected in a loop and where muted on the mixer, a turntable (with no power connected) was plugged into the mixer and, when touch, acted as a receiver for the tape sounds’. If you expect a barrage of noise than you wrong. Two rather short tracks (almost nine and eleven minutes) of highly controlled noise. Especially in the second one, with it’s loops from the turntable and high pitched sounds on top, this works rather nice. Van Hoek keeps his material under control and delivers quite intense pieces of controlled noise, which is something that is always spend on me. Short and to the point. (FdW)
Address: http://www.heilskabaal.net
AXEL DÖRNER & LUCIO CAPECE (CDR by L’Innomable)
By now I hope that the name Axel Dörner is recognized as one of the key players of improvisation music, ‘new style’. Dörner plays trumpet in such a way that it hardly sounds like a trumpet. I am not sure if he is the inventor of this kind of playing but he has been at it for quite some while. Lucio Capece is a more recent addition (at least, again, from my perspective) to the scene and he plays soprano saxophone and bass clarinet. Together they sat down in July 2004 at Axel’s house to record the two lengthy pieces on this release. I must say I am intrigued by the word ‘mixed’ on the cover. Usually works like this are straight documentations of a concert or an in-studio recording session. But perhaps this time they made a multi-track recording and mixed it? And if so, are there any overdubs? Sometimes it sounds like that, but perhaps it’s my fantasy going wild (again?). In the fifty or so minutes that this release lasts, they move through a whole range of textures, mostly soft and not too outspoken, but rather depicting a lot of different ways to show one color, like a color field painting. In that sense it’s perhaps good to that this is just two tracks, and not a whole bunch of shorter pieces, so that the idea of one color-many shades is furthermore emphasized. A great release of improvised music, but I must say also one that holds no real surprise to the trained listener. (FdW)
Address: http://www.linnomable.com
MILIEU – REMODELLED (CDR by Boltfish Recordings)
Boltfish Recordings dabble around with loads of artists, and mostly they are unknown to me. But Milieu is an exception. ‘Beyond The Sea Lies The Stars’, his debut real CD on Infraction Records was reviewed in Vital Weekly 533, following two releases on U-Cover. That was one was a highly ambient record, but for ‘Remodelled’ things are spiced up with some beats. With the title taken in account I thought this was a remix record of sorts, and perhaps it is, but if so than it’s only Milieu, also known as Brain Grainger, who does the remixing. Maybe the remodeling part lies in the fact that the rhythms are added. As such, in his new guise, he fits very well in the Boltfish catalogue. His rhythms are ‘intelligent’ sounding and his tracks are much shorter than on his previous excursion. Fifteen pieces no less, which I deem a bit much for the amount of variation it has to offer. That’s at least five too much (and that’s why the old length of LP is so great), but the ambient doodling set against the mild rhythms, sauced up with some extra reverb to gain some extra, artificial, depth, works well. Quite pleasant, entertaining music, but nothing new under the Boltfish sun (not to mention some of the other labels which work is similar fields). (FdW)
Address: http://www.boltfish.co.uk
XEDH – AGUJERO NEGRO (CDR by Hamaika)
In Vital weekly 463 we noticed a departure from the land of noise by Spanish Xedh, through three nice works in MP3 format, but unfortunately Xedh returns to the aforementioned land here, which is a big pity. He gets help from Jon Azpiri, Arcadi Ballester, Raul Dominguez, Jana Garbayo, Daniel Llaria, Itziar Markiegi, Natalia Vegas & Ohiana Vicente, who all contribute vocals. Well, that is to say, they all sport for award winner in the competition of ‘William Bennett imitator 2007’. Xedh himself is already winner in the competition to imitate the full recent Whitehouse sound. Lots of feedback, lots of heavy fast rhythm and an occasional drop of silence, or very low hum. I really don’t see the point in this exercise. Shamefully dull, bad noise. Let’s hope this is the last from the land of noise for Xedh and a return to the world of his previous MP3 releases would be most welcome.
Address: http://www.gatza.org
POOCHLATZ – THANKS FOR GIVING IN (CDR by Something on the Road)
POOCHLATZ – VICTIMS OF SELF PRESERVATION (CD by Heart & Crossbone)
IRONING / GAYBOMB – YOUR OXEN HAVE DROWNED/SCRATCH (12inch vinyl by Hymn)
DEAD VAGINA/GAYBOMB SPLIT (CDR by Hymn)
“Thanks for Giving in” recorded when opening to the Grave Temple Trio- noise improv and distorted vocals and “Victims Of Self Preservation” – this time adding Hebrew vocals to “noise” from Poochlatz (i wont say what its translation is)….*is* influenced by a swathe of artists… **is** (apart from a biography) a difficult review for a number of reasons which I may well conceal. Firstly how can an Israeli group slaughter a ‘holy cow’, surely a more ‘iconoclastic’ event would be a cover of a Pinky and Perky number…or a cover of Jake and Dinos Chapman’s Dead and Zygotic Acceleration, Biogenetic, De-Sublimated Libidinal Model (Enlarged x 1000)….. I’m trying to be ironic as its long been the case that harsh (or not so harsh) noise’s political content is only ever ironic, and the overspritualised content of noise like that of the NGO might be serious but is miss-directed – and I thought there were dangers where ideology still runs down streets or flies into buildings, where folks were unaffected by the genealogy of morals and KFC, but I was wrong. So what are we? to make of ‘Victims of self preservation’s’ long Hebrew wailings? influenced by pre-packed sushi from Japan – or a smorgasbord from Norway!… influence is naive – and smells of colonialism -The cradle of authenticity has shed its skin and created its blog, pictured on youtube – however the problem lies in the very sincerity of such acts and attractors- its simply not bad enough – weak enough.. hell it (almost) has a manifesto! – It’s left to the Americans to provide an answer- to show how post-nihilistic culture sounds – cleverly and ridiculously recorded on Micro cassette and Mini DVD, Ironing and Gaybomb’s Vinyl, and Dead Vaginas concert piece are perfect, resolve all the issues of a culture which lacks any depth in the detritus of their work… Dead Vagina’s live at Lenny’s is cocktail bar music with a no input mixer! – it defies a genre- gaybomb loops drumming and screams on CDr and
Vinyl – while Ironing’s single LP track (Your Oxen Have Drowned – analogue feedback hipity hopity )-is just a mess…The Americans present something which is like sifting through a landfill site of waste, half eaten pizzas and plastic dolls, plastic wrappers and pig offal, we listen like modern archaeologists to the actuality of now, dead waste and rotting food, broken electrical appliances and vomit… blandly, ever so blandly rolling over pop magazines, torn children’s clothes and garden waste, egg shells and hedge clippings – empty beer cans, cigarette ash coffee grounds and junk mail. superb! (jliat)
Address www.myspace.com/poochlatz
Address www.myspace.com/hymnslabel
MONOID – OPEN CLOSURE (CDR by Tosom)
MONOID – CHAOS CONSTRAIN (CDR by Tosom)
AIDAN BAKER – THOUGHTSPAN (CDR by Tosom)
Music by Monoid, also known as Martin Steinebach, who also works under a whole bunch of other aliases has been reviewed before. One of the things I didn’t know is that Monoid already released his first work in 1996. ‘Open Closure’ is now re-released in a nicely packed box with full color inserts. At the same time Tosom also releases ‘Chaos Constrain’, the second tape release from late 1996. ‘Open Closure’ starts out in a rough early Esplendor Geometrico manner. Very rhythmic, very crude and noisy. Great stuff that lasts at least seven or eight tracks. Then the release loses it’s edge a bit. The pieces are still electronic, still have some sort of rhythm, but it’s all supposed to be a bit more experimental, but unfortunately Monoid doesn’t hold the attention throughout these pieces. They are a bit unfocussed and it breaks down the aggression that was built up in the first half of the release.
To play ‘Chaos Constrain’ right after that is perhaps a bit much – both releases last well over seventy minutes, so I had my fair share of Monoid for at least a week or so. The hard rhythmic sound from the first half of ‘Open Closure’ appears here too, and more throughout the release. According to the information the sound is more digital here, which might be very well true. It sounds definitely more on the same dynamic level. Yet this is not a tape to play throughout in one go. The material is rather too single minded and with the bonus material being extended remixes of some of the original music, so you can imagine it’s perhaps a bit too much. Monoid’s music here works best in tracks such as ‘Home’: up tempo, powerful, loud and dirty.
Of an entirely different nature of course is the music by Aidan Baker, well-known by now through his many releases on as many CDR labels, although things have been quiet a bit of lately. Here he plays everything again, except of some violin and some trumpet parts. Baker plays guitars, drums, bass and vocals. Through the use of a four track machine, Baker has the possibility of playing everything by himself. More than before it seems, he now crosses the line of ambient guitar to psychedelic krautrock and a whole new territory lies open. It seems to me that there is some emphasis on the drums, more than before, and it beats a nice free floating beat, over which it’s nice to let your guitar tapestries float free. The bass holds things together. Perhaps it’s all a bit too retro krautrock for me, but at the same time it’s also pleasant head trip music. And that is sometimes more than enough. (FdW)
Address: http://www.tosom.de
CARL KRUGER – INFORMATION ANIMALS (3″CDR by Dim Records)
If I didn’t know any better I could have thought that Carl Kruger equals Chefkirk, judging by the music. Just like Chefkirk, Kruger likes his noise, and his noise to be rhythmic and his noise to be digital. That’s all fine, but, and even with Chefkirk being quiet for at least some weeks, it’s all a bit too much in common territory of Chefkirk. Kruger may apply a bit more rhythm occasionally and a bit less noise, well, sometimes, this particular field of music is a well explored one, even with these marginal differences. By others and far better. (FdW)
Address: http://www.dimrecords.tk
MACHINEFABRIEK – HAPSTAART (3″CDR by Machinefabriek)
DAVID STACKENÄS & RUTGER ZUYDERVELT – CITRON (3″CDR by Machinefabriek)
Just as I thought that Machinefabriek were these days about releasing 3″ with one or two long ambient tracks, he releases ‘Hapstaart’, twenty minutes and eleven tracks hovering on the edge of silence. ‘Mixing desk, wires, effect pedals, laptop’ it says on the cover, but to me it seems that especially the latter has been used to transform the sound. One has to crank up the volume quite a bit to hear the full thing. Lots of deep bass sounds, high end beeps and the occasional scattering of a contact microphone. Whatever happens outside the computer is something we don’t know. To that extent goes the principles of processing here. It’s indexed at eleven tracks and they indeed sound different from each other, it’s more or less one work – idea wise – divided in eleven parts. Quite a nice move again.
Earlier this month David Stackenäs (see also the review of ‘Bow’ in Vital Weekly 540 and much earlier in Vital Weekly 251)) toured a little bit and in Utrecht, The Netherlands he teamed up with Machinefabriek’s Rutger Zuydervelt to play together. ‘Bow’ was interesting drone affair of five acoustic guitars played with fans. In their duo piece they sort of try to connect the music of ‘Bow’ with some more freely strumming. In the first part of the piece drones, probably generated by fans playing guitar and this time also electric, prevail, and in the second part sustained sounds form the backbone of some open end strumming. In the third part the drones arrive on the scene again, but here more through the use of feedback going through all the colored boxes on the floor. It’s an o.k. work, not great and perhaps a bit too much from two people who didn’t improvise that much until now (o.k. this is just an assumption). But surely some parts are quite nice. (FdW)
Address: http://www.machinefabriek.nu
DEREK CRAIG ZOLADZ – SOFTWARE FOR HUMANITY (2×3″CDR, private release)
Packed in an old floppy box, comes two short CDR releases by one Derek Craig Zoladz. He hails from America and studied guitar and saxophone. In 2002 he started to study composition and electronic sound synthesis with Rocco Di Pietro in Columbus, Ohio. The two pieces, each on a single disc in this package, come from this recent studying. Both of them have a long text explaining the hows and whys of these pieces, which I won’t repeat here. Let’s safely say there is a concept behind each of the two pieces. In ‘Logic Structures 1’ text is used play midi files of an orchestral nature. The text input was a rather minimal one (according to the information), which shows in the piece of music itself. It has a nice minimal texture, although it may sound perhaps also a bit too much like a bunch of midi instruments, rather than real instruments. In the end the thirteen minutes are perhaps also a bit too minimal to hold one’s attention. ‘Love Does Not Exist’ is more a performance based piece of people watching each other, which bears relation to the title of the piece, but the music is a rather common place of feedback of the no-input mixer. Apparently the music was played softly when the piece is performed. I must say that this was a rather short but also rather dull piece of feedback music. (FdW)
Address: <derekcraigzoladz@hotmail.com>
MICHAEL GENDREAU – Live at Sonic Circuits DC 2006 (MP3 by Zeromoon)
An important part of Michael Gendreau’s oeuvre is focused on the material aspects of records and turntables from the pre-vinyl era, i.e. the surface noises of worn shellac discs and acetates and the sounds produced by the mechanic parts of the record players. Gendreau heavily amplifies these usually barely perceptible hisses, rumbles, and squeals, and thus reveals their fascinating micro-textural richness. The work Gendreau performed live at the Sonic Circuits Festival in Washington DC in October 2006 is a 28 minute long, gradually built-up drone-piece, that goes from near silence to powerful upfront passages and back again, with blocks of clear, detailed sounds gently fading into each other and occasional sudden changes in volume marking moments of contrast in the overall compositional structure. The heavy amplification produces a virtual shift in dimension, as the sounds draw the listener near and gain a sensuous presence that is as intimate as it is irritating. While layering sounds of very different textural quality, crackling, rotating and pulsating at varying volume and intensity, Gendreau manages to keep each sound distinct in the overall mix. This further adds to an effect of intimacy and irritation, with the various sound sources, or rather the listener’s imagination of them, collapsing into a complex construction of a highly absorbing quality.
Knowing about the origins of the sounds lends them a certain preciousness that perfectly mirrors the aura of the antiquated devices. It functions as a nostalgically charged backdrop to the stream of disembodied sounds, which locates them in an instable state between vague representation and rigid abstraction. The aesthetic dispositions sketched out here are complemented on the conceptual level by an implicit reflection on the medial conditions of sound, brought about by the material itself, insofar as Gendreau brings to attention the material presence of the medium by utilizing as his sources what are basically the by-products of reproducing sound – the surface noise of records and the mechanical sounds of the turntable itself. This release, as well as Gendreau’s related works, such as “55 Pas De La Ligne Au No. 3” (23Five), is an example of a most sensitive handling of concrete sound material, equally exploring its aesthetic dimension and its material context. (MSS)
Address: http://www.zeromoon.com
STAPLERFAHRER – LIVE @ HOEZO EXPO EINDHOVEN 17/12/2005 (MP3 by Menthe De Chat)
Steffan de Turck’s project Staplerfahrer finds his way around the globe. A recordings from Eindhoven, The Netherlands finds his way to MP3 in Brazil. Global village or what? Over the years Staplerfahrer has become more and more interesting as far as I’m concerned. Started out as a rather single minded noise project, the laptop of De Turck has a few more tricks to show. These days he plays around with found broken sounds, recorded on location (but hardly in the area of field recording, more apparatus being damaged), and then processed inside the computer until we no longer recognize the original (if such could be recognized at all). These sixteen minutes are more like a raw version of microsound, with some crudities thrown in, but towards the end, with the presence of number stations, things go well beyond the threshold of hearing and makes quite an intense piece. If this is live, then the next studio CDR holds a promise. (FdW)
Address: http://www.kkfs.trix.net/menthedechat/catalogue/chat018.htm