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MARCOS FERNANDES & BILL HORIST – JERKS AND CREEPS (CD by Accretions)
OREN AMBARCHI – IN THE PENDULUM’S EMBRACE (CD by Touch)
NATHAN HUBBARD – BLIND ORCHID (CD by Accretions)
NOAH CRESHEVSKY – TO KNOW AND TO KNOW (CD by TZADIK)
WZT HEARTS – THREADS ROPE SPELL MAKING YOUR BONES (CD by Carpark) *
BJ NILSEN – THE SHORT NIGHT (CD by Touch) *
SIGNAL – ROBOTRON (CD by Raster-Noton) *
FRANK BRETSCHNEIDER – RHYTHM (CD by Raster-Noton)
FENNESZ – HOTEL PARAL.LEL (CD by Editions Mego) *
ANTIMATTER & ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI – DIVIDE BY ZERO (CD by Antifrost) *
ELFFRIEDE/SOUNDRAWING (CD/Book by Transacoustic Research)
KASHIWA DAISUKE – PROGRAM MUSIC 1 (CD by Noble Records) *
CADAVER IN DRAG – RAW CHILD (CD by Animal Disguise) *
AIRPORT SYMPHONY (2CD by Room40)
DONKEY – STONE (CD by ACCRETIONS)
MWVM – ROTATIONS (CD by Silber Records) *
LYCIA – COLD (CD by Silber Records)
NORBERT MÖSLANG – HEADER_CHANGE (CD by Cut)
JOE GILMORE – ON QUASI-CONVERGENCE AN QUIET SPACES (CD by Cut) *
THE PITCHSHIFTERS (7′ by Meeuw)
GERRITT/MANPACK VARIANT – FLASH VULT (7″ by Misanthopicagenda)
MIGUEL PRADO – MASCARA DE SANGRE (CDR by Ozono Kids Tapes)
MATT BORGHI & BEN FLEURY-STEINER – WHAT THE NIGHT LEAVES BEHIND (CDR by Gears Of Sand) *
THE MASTER MUSICIANS OF HOP-FROG – CENTURIES LATER (CDR by URCK Records)
HOP-FROG’S DRUM JESTER DEVOTIONAL – CHANTS DE SEWAGE (CDR by URCK Records)
CATASTROPHIC MERMAIDS ON PARADE (CDR by URCK Records) *
HOP-FROG KOLLECTIV – REFLECTIONS OF SAMSARA (DVDR by URCK Records)
OVERDOSE KUNST – INCESTED BY SOCIAL MACHINE (CDR by Postmoderncore)
OVERDOSE KUNST – NON-FORM MATERIAL MACHINE (CDR by Postmoderncore)
AUTOEROTICASPHYXIATION & THOUSAND YEAR FROG – CHOKING ON LINES OF SAND (CDr by Cuthands)
EVENINGS – MUTE DEVIATION (CDr by Cuthands)
DROUGHTER – BEAST GROWTH CDr by Cuthands)
CAHIER – HÖYRYVETURI (CDr by Cuthands)
EZRA JACOBS – KRKKL (3inch CDr by Cuthands)
KENJI SIRATORI / FEDERICO BARABINO- HALLUCINATION CELL (CDr?????)
NICHOLAS SZCZEPANIK – ASTILBE RUBRA (Cdr by Small Doses)
TELEPHERIQUE & S.CORE – RESULT OF A MAIL-ART 1992 (CDR by Kokeshidisk)
TELEPHERIQUE & S.CORE – PAST-ART (3″CDR by Taalem)
EMMANUEL MIEVILLE – MAGNETIC FIELDS AND SHROUDED FLUX (3″CDR by Taalem)
SPIRACLE – LUMEN (3″CDR by Taalem) *
KASPER VAN HOEK – THE PAST AND WHAT BECAME OF IT (3″CDR by Heilskabaal Records) *
MARCOS FERNANDES & BILL HORIST – JERKS AND CREEPS (CD by Accretions)
Recently Public Eyesore released a CD by Bill Horist with another guitarist Tanaka Yasuhiko, catching them live in august 2005 somewhere in Japan. Now another Japanese adventure of Bill Horist is made available through Accretions, with recordings dating from that same year. Now we find him with Marcos Fernandes, an improvisor who resides in San Diego, founding member of the Trummerflora collective and boss of the Accretions label. The live recordings were made on two locations in april 2005. Fernandes plays phonography (?) and electronics, and Bill Horist guitar and electronics. They are helped out by Haco (voice) in tracks ‘Kobe’ and ‘Kobe 2’, and Masafumi Ezaki (trumpet), Bunsho Nishikawa (electronics) and Tim Olive (electric bass) on ‘Osaka’. Horist we know as an interesting improvisor on the guitar, using lots of extended techniques, operating along the paths Fred Frith, Hans Reichel and others have paved before him. But he has his very own sound and style, by constantly interrupting and changing what he is playing. He plays and builds with small and short units. Its hard to tell what Fernandes is doing exactly. But he supplies a sort of background of foggy noises and sounds. The improvisations slowly progress and take some 25 or 30 minutes. Except for the short ‘Kobe 2’ that closes the cd. This is very dynamic and exciting coda. (DM)
Address: http://www.accretions.com/
OREN AMBARCHI – IN THE PENDULUM’S EMBRACE (CD by Touch)
This is already the fourth CD for Touch by Australian sound artist Oren Ambarchi, who is known for his high quality ambient soundscapes. On the three instrumental tracks on this album Ambarchi explores the possibilities of the guitar even further than on his previous albums. Apart from the guitar, he incorporates glass harmonica, strings, bells, piano and percussion. These ingredients (with extended post-production) give the music a strong meditative, tranquil feeling. Opener Fever A Warm Poison features slow, deep pulses to which guitar patterns have been added. The second track Inamorata almost seamlessly continues this theme. After a while strings by Veren Grigorov set in, creating a beautiful mournful song. The closing track, Trailing Moss In Mystic Glow features more prominent guitar plucking to a similar backing. Given the close resemblance of these pieces, it would perhaps have been better if all tracks were mixed in to one long ambient experience, but that is just nit picking really. In The Pendulum’s Embrace is a fine and worthy addition to the already extensive catalogue of Oren Ambarchi CDs. (FK)
Address: http//www.touch.org.uk
NATHAN HUBBARD – BLIND ORCHID (CD by Accretions)
The subtitle ‘Solo works for percussion and electronics’ makes clear what is going on this cd. Like Matt Weston, introduced earlier in Vital Weekly with his releases on 7272Music, Nathan Hubbard is a musician melting percussion and electronics together. An interesting little section within the world of experimental music, if you ask me. As the minicds of Matt Weston are very promising, so is this cd by Nathan Hubbard a real find. With ‘Blind Orchid’ he delivers a cd of very complete music that has much to offer and is very engaging. ‘Blind Orchid’ is the second solo effort by Hubbard, who produced, recorded and mixed the album by himself. ‘Born On Tuesday’ (2004) his first one, was released by Circumvention Music. Besides Hubbard is involved in numerous collaborations with people like guitarist Noah Phillips, percussionist Curtis Glatter, the trio ARC Trio and the quartet Cosmologic, etc. Also Hubbard is a member of the Trummerflora Collective. For each track on his solo cd Hubbard lists up the equipment used. Like eight overdubbed drumkits/percussion, dub mix + processing in the piece “Wisdom of not knowing II”, dedicated to Stomu Yamashta. Remember..? All pieces sound very vivid and self-consciousness. Hubbard creates rich worlds of multi-layered sound and textures, with great dynamics and action, and without burying his ideas under to much of al this. Yes, here something is really interesting is going on. Like some of the pieces of Weston they sometimes have an almost orchestral outlook. Great. A man with a vision is at work here, who successfully combines his talents as an improviser, composer and instrument builder, seeking for a new musical language. (DM)
Address: http://www.accretions.com/
NOAH CRESHEVSKY – TO KNOW AND TO KNOW (CD by TZADIK)
For the Composer Series of Zorn’s Tzadik label Noah Creshevsky compiled a new cd. Eight electro-acoustic works composed between 1997 and 2007. I guess it is not his first cd, but I don’t know any of them. So it is my first introduction to this ‘hyperrealist music’ from this american composer, a former student of Nadia Boulanger and Luciano Berio. He started composing in 1971, so with ‘To know and not to know’ we have a work of a very experienced composer at hands. Don’t ever think you have heard everything that is possible in the world of music. New technical abilities and skills make it possible to realize unheard dreams and musical ideas. What is Creshevsky doing? “His musical vocabulary consists largely of familiar bits of words, songs and instrumental music which are edited but rarely subjected to electronic processing.” In one way Creshevsky stays very close to the original material. When he uses voices, we hear voices. But he uses his material in a way that leads the voice for example a few steps further from what it in reality can do. We hear instruments playing things that can not be played in an ordinary way. Also he stays close in several pieces to known original musical forms, like in Psalm XXXX. To complicate things further, in this piece he uses the vocal samples of Beth Griffith, and the actual singing of baritone Zach Kurth-Nelson.
The result is a music that sounds very natural and accessible on the one hand, but also beyond everything on the other hand. Realistic and hyperrealistic. In effect the music is experienced first as very weird and funny, if not hilarious. But there is more to it, the music connects with real life. Some of the compositions for instance have an obvious religious content and depth.
In a piece like ‘Chamber Concerto’ The work of Conlon Nancarrow came to my mind. With his pianola-studies he created also created a music that cannot be played, but sounds as if…
This is a cd of incredible music, done with great skill, precision, and vision. Voila. (DM)
Address: http://www.tzadik.com/
WZT HEARTS – THREADS ROPE SPELL MAKING YOUR BONES (CD by Carpark)
The name should be pronounced as Wet Hearts, but written as Wzt Hearts. We don’t know why. It’s a four piece band with the odd line up of Mike Haleta on ‘circuit bend guitar pedals, laptop, guitar, tapes’, Jeff Donaldson on ‘commodore 64, bi-tone guitar, mixer’, Jason Urick on laptop and Shaun Flynn on drums and vocals. That is an odd combination. Whatever vocals it might, they are surely well transformed beyond belief. What to think of the music? It’s surely a combination that is unlikely if you see it written: microsound meets krautrock, anyone? But more microsound than krautrock. Laptop rock? Psychedelic microsound? The element of improv, of surprise is important for Wzt Hearts, but it surely could have used a bit more editing. At times it seemed to me they were searching a bit too much for a sound and things went on too much. But then on other moments they were more spot on, direct and even funny at times. I must admit that despite some flaws in the music, the odd combination of drums, guitar, ‘vocals’ on one hand and the electronica on the other which makes this curious meeting quite a nice one. (FdW)
Address: http://www.carparkrecords.com
BJ NILSEN – THE SHORT NIGHT (CD by Touch)
It’s possible to go straight to the music here: BJ Nilsen is quite known in these pages for his long standing work inside experimental music, so we can cut the introductionary notes short. From his previous ‘Fade To White’ (see Vital Weekly 452) to ‘The Short Night’ is, I think a small step. Nilsen is still concerned with the recording of outdoor sounds, and has a bunch of old synthesizers and a computer. And he likes his music to be dark. As dark as night, be it short or long. All of his basic material goes into the computer and inside Nilsen gives the material a twist and cooks up his music. The outcome is usually dark, atmospheric music, drone/organ based, but if there is an important shift from ‘Fade To White’ to ‘The Short Night’, is that it seems at times a bit more noise based – of course not Merzbow styled noise, but it’s louder, more present, forceful, or even a bit more distorted at times. Which makes quite a nice balance I must say with the ambient textures patterns that some of these pieces have. It keeps this album safely out of the hands of anything even vaguely new age. It’s perhaps a small step in Nilsen’s career, but it’s nevertheless an important one. ‘The Short Night’ is not always a refreshing new look on the word ‘ambient’, but like it’s noted before, That would be something, but it’s a mighty fine CD in the genre of dark ambient. (FdW)
Address: http://www.touchmusic.org.uk
SIGNAL – ROBOTRON (CD by Raster-Noton)
FRANK BRETSCHNEIDER – RHYTHM (CD by Raster-Noton)
There has been a serious gap in reviewing Raster Noton, but we should get back on track. I must admit that I have no idea what they have been up to in these recent years, but oddly enough Signal didn’t progress or at least it wasn’t shown in releases. ‘Robotron’ is their second release and their being of course the nucleus trio behind the label: Frank Bretschneider, Olaf Bender and Carsten Nicolai. Apart they have busy careers but they always find time to play together. It has been ages since I last played their first release from, oh, perhaps 1999, but I was quite amazed by this new one. Minimalist, robotronic beats built from those small particles of static hum, a scratch, a click, but sometimes even just an ordinary beat, which feeds through all three laptops at hand, and each of the players have their own methods of operation to process this. It results in groovy music, full of sound, moving about all the time. It reminded me a bit of the good ol’ Pan Sonic, although perhaps less analogue. One thing though has changed and that is that this music is now much more a common place, and that novelty of a decade ago is a bit gone. More people have followed this path, as good as this one for sure, but having said that, this is still a great work.
Reduce Signal with a third and you have Frank Bretschneider? Hell, no, that’s not the way these things work. Bretschneider’s music deals, as always since many moons, with rhythm, so perhaps it’s only natural to come up with a work that is called ‘Rhythm’. The rhythms that Bretschneider works with are all digital, which could lead to thinking that it’s a cold and clinical affair. However that is not the case. A simple rhythm pattern is set forward, with breaks mind you, which feeds through what seems endless filters, plug ins, faders and whatever the computer offers for possibilities. Things are hot and groovy, because Bretschneider has got the swing, I think. Perhaps his music is a bit cleaner in approach than that of Signal, but this is surely music that goes down on the dance floor quite well, as this is highly funky music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.raster-noton.net
FENNESZ – HOTEL PARAL.LEL (CD by Editions Mego)
A close friend of mine always mutters about Fennesz and ‘Endless Summer’. His claim is that ‘Endless Summer’ is a fine album no doubt and one of the classics in it’s kind, but that the true Fennesz master work, way ahead of its time, is his debut album ‘Hotel Paral.lel’. Every time he makes this claim, I know I should be playing that again, but always something comes up. No escape today as Editions Mego just re-issued a remastered version of this 1997 album. We pan back to the past, Vital Weekly 96 of 1997, when we first reviewed this album: “Another highly acclaimed cult label, this time from Austria, is Mego. They present that truly exciting mix of techno and industrial music (although they would say it is not one nor the other). Fennesz had a 12” before and now present a full length CD. Before this he played guitar in a largely ignored Austrian rock band and made movie soundtracks. This CD is a fine showcase of what Mego stands for. The opening track (sorry I have no titles here) is a damn noisy one, followed by a nice moody computer piece. The fourth track is built of loops of guitar playing, but sped up and sauced with rhythms which turns out in a digitalized distortion dance track. The track after that is more distorted rhythms with an industrial edge to it. And so forth. A varied album that will never hit the dance floor obviously,
but who cares about that?” Usually I am wrong, but right there. Little did we know that Fennesz would become the lover boy of the whole glitch movement, but it’s still a review that describes this album best. Quite crude at times without the refinement of the future Fennesz, but quite adventurous and sometimes even just very funny. Good to see this out again. (FdW)
Address: http://www.editionsmego.com
ANTIMATTER & ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI – DIVIDE BY ZERO (CD by Antifrost)
For whatever reasons no longer clear to anyone, the two previous collaborations from Antimatter, a.k.a. Xopher Davidson from San Francisco and Zbigniew Karkowski from Tokyo have not been reviewed in Vital Weekly. ‘Divide By Zero’ is the third part in this trilogy. Although we know Karkowski as a man of the laptop, the main apparatus at work on this release is analogue, “custom built synthesizer module Krohn Hite 1200A sweep generators and Wavetek 148 modulation generators”, whatever those may be. There are four small picture on the inside cover of this CD of what seems to be power plants. Before checking the information on this CD I thought this would be built from sounds of power plants, since soundwise it gave me that impression. Heavy, thick layered what could be airpipes driven by motors. Drones but heavy, topheavy even. But so it’s analogue synthesizers with a bit of computing. It’s dark ambient work with bass heavy undercurrents. I must say I quite liked it, even when it seemed nothing new under the horizon. But on an autumn afternoon, with rain this sombre work fits the tone of the day. Fine, solid, good work. (FdW)
Address: http://www.antifrost.gr
ELFFRIEDE/SOUNDRAWING (CD/Book by Transacoustic Research)
The musical pieces, all 34 on the CD, were inspired by the drawings made by Austrian Elffriede, a visual artist. Her drawings are in a simple style, almost cartoon/comic like, but with words, in German and Dutch (the 7″ sized booklet was printed by Knust/Extrapool in lovely Nijmegen), which have a poetic character. There is, I think, quite an uniform character among the drawings/text, which is important to keep in mind when we listen to the music. Elffriede asked 34 musicians to make a musical piece, inspired by her drawings. These pieces are by a wide variety of musicians, operating in many styles. From Phill Niblock, Murmer, Jgrzinich to Incite, Jörg Piringer to Wohnzimmer, Zemmler which means from pure soundscape and serious composition to click/beat to naive lo-fi songs on cheap keyboards and acoustic instruments. It’s a bit hard to like them all, I think, but I thought of it as a radio program: you switch it on and start listening to whatever comes, and things may not always have a relation. Elffriede’s book may serve as the program guide, which you can flip through when playing the CD, or simply put aside when you are done with it, and continue to enjoy the music, picking it up every now and then. (FdW)
Address: http://www.transacoustic-research.com
KASHIWA DAISUKE – PROGRAM MUSIC 1 (CD by Noble Records)
‘Programm Music 1’ is not Kashiwa Daisuke’s first CD but his second. His first CD on Germany’s Onpa label I didn’t hear. Programm music in the classical music sense of the word is about music for an occasion, rather than the absolute music, music for no specific reason. The two lengthy tracks here is the music to stories, of which I know nothing. ‘Electronics meet post-rock’ says the label, and surely it is. But wether the rock part was played by real instruments is to be doubted. It seems to me that Daisuke is a clever man with a midi-keyboard, or maybe even garage band, to play his wildly changing music. Vaguely eastern, vaguely classical, vaguely post-rock, vaguely dance/electronic, but in my ears highly kitschy cliche music coming out of a sampler. It drifts in various corners, and no doubt is Daisuke an accomplished player of the keyboard, but I found hardly joy in these super long pieces. Maybe it helped if I knew what the story is about? I seriously doubt that, but who knows? At the moment I didn’t like this at all, one giant bubble-gum, whose taste wears of after a few moments. (FdW)
Address: http://www.noble-label.net
CADAVER IN DRAG – RAW CHILD (CD by Animal Disguise)
While playing this CD by Cadaver In Drag, I stood up to get some more coffee and found myself humming ‘Our Lady’ by the Executive Slacks, to the slow moves of the first track ‘Walking Through The Gates Of Hell’. Slow as a slack, heavy as a rock. That is what the first track is about from this trio from Lexington, Kentucky. But it’s an illusion as ‘Fuck The Place’ is much faster than the previous opus magnum of twenty minutes (hey that’s one track on a side of LP, in which format this is also available, that rieks of Emerson Lake & Palmer) whereas the closing ‘Secession ’61’ is again slow. Cadaver In Drag play metal music with a healthy dose of noise. Or noise with a firm input of metal music. Quite pointless to play this anywhere near soft, this is loud music that should be heard loud, otherwise points are missed, and also some of the sounds that may lie below in the mix, but which add a necessary element to the music, the element of pyschedelic. A heavy beast this one, and perhaps more an outsider to the weekly digest, but one that I surely like. Great music to get over a hangover and ready for the day, but no doubt not intended as such. Nice one. (FdW)
Address: http://www.animaldisguise.com
AIRPORT SYMPHONY (2CD by Room40)
‘If God wanted us to fly, he would have given us wings’, but instead we invented airplanes, that highly uncomfortable method of transportation. No place to move, dirty food, bad for your ears and airports, with it’s never ending day where time is entirely lost. Where else are people drinking beer at seven in the morning, because for them it’s ten at night? I can look at that with amazement and disgust. Luckily I don’t fly that much. The people on the double CD ‘Airport Symphony’ are frequent flyers, they travel about to play the globe – well, perhaps it seems so. But some of these have seen more airports than most of us, and probably each of them has found their own way of dealing with the wait at airports. The Queensland Music Festival and the Brisbane Airport Corporation who commissioned this work gave the people source recordings from in and around the Brisbane Airport to work with. I am glad that I got a press text with the tracklisting in correct order, because what Room40 printed on the card that comes with this is barely readable. Even with glasses and a strong lamp. The music is an ambient trip with known and unknown sounds connected to airports and flying, which is nice, but it’s a bit interchangeable. There is certain gentleness throughout all of these pieces wether or not they are raw and uncut or heavily processed such as the piece by Stephan Mathieu. Not one shows a real different perspective on the subject, but perhaps that wasn’t part of the assignment. Throw away that unreadable card, sit back and enjoy this flight. However don’t put this on your ipod while flying, as you will not always hear something. The stewards are David Grubbs, Richard Chartier, Francisco Lopez, Camilla Hannan, Taylor Deupree, Christophe Charles, Dale Lloyd, Marc Behrens, Toshiya Tsunoda, Tim Hecker, Stephan Mathieu, Fennesz, Burkhard Beins, Jason Kahn, Ulrich Krieger, Keiichi Sugimoto, Christopher Wilits and Joel Stern. Smoking on this airplane is allowed. (FdW)
Address: http://www.room40.org
DONKEY – STONE (CD by ACCRETIONS)
Donkey is Hans Fjellestad (synthesizer) and Damon Holzborn (electronics). In the past this duo released already two CDs for Accretions: ‘Big Sur’ and ‘Show’. In the summer of 2006 they decided to join forces once more, although they prefer to work on solo projects. Fjellestad fell in love with analogue synthesizers as he demonstrated on his solo album ‘Snails R Sexy’. Holzborn builds new software instruments. Both are combined on this new cd. To prepare themselves they worked out some new ideas in the studio, and presented them later live. The live version we find on this cd. Four pieces that were recorded during a concert the Stone, NYC, in november 2006. Listening, I can only conclude that I don’t get their point. To me it all sounds like completely amorphic soundmanipulations, that leave me guessing what these gentlemen had in mind. (DM)
Address: http://www.accretions.com/
MWVM – ROTATIONS (CD by Silber Records)
LYCIA – COLD (CD by Silber Records)
Ouch, this is going to be hard one. Behind MWVM is one Micheal Walton from Durham, UK, and he started to play music in 1996 and adopted the name MWVM in 2005. He plays a guitar and effect pedals. His music can be classified as ambient music. When I played this CD I kept thinking: Eno, Fripp, Fear Falls Burning, Hypnos, Stars Of The Lid. Been there, done that, you know the drill. I could all to easily slag this down as copycat # 2983, but actually I really like the music. Nothing new under the ambient sun, but it’s nice, it’s entertaining, it’s atmospheric, it’s beautiful. Music doesn’t need to be per se new and innovative in the Vital HQ, but it’s nice if it is. If it isn’t, fine too, and we could simply enjoy the beauty of it and ‘Rotations’ is certainly a beautiful album.
We wrote before about Lycia, of whom Silber Records are now releasing five older CDs. Lycia was Mike van Portfleet (guitars, vocals, synth and drum programs), David Galas (bass, synth, drumprograms, audio-engineering) and Tara Vanflower on vocals. Of the planned re-issues, apparently ‘Cold’ is the masterpiece, one of the top ten Goth albums of all time, according to Alternative Press (maybe says something about being alternative) and goth and me was never a good marriage. Having said that and having played ‘Cold’, I must admit could actually enjoy the music. It’s absolutely nicely produced dark popmusic, brought with a lot of pathos, heavy drums, dark minor chords on the guitar and atmospheric synthesizers. Still, being an old guy, I prefer the old Cure and Cocteau Twins records – I can even admit having a Dead Can Dance record on my ipod – but I surely like this as well. However the thought of hearing ten different goth records in order to produce a top ten is of course a bridge too far. (FdW)
Address: http://www.silbermedia.com
NORBERT MÖSLANG – HEADER_CHANGE (CD by Cut)
JOE GILMORE – ON QUASI-CONVERGENCE AN QUIET SPACES (CD by Cut)
Usually releases on Cut deal with improvised music of some acoustic kind in combination with electronics and/or computers. These two new releases however deal solely with computers, and it works in a good way and in a bad way. To start with the latter. I have been a big fan of Voice Crack, of Möslang/Guhl and of the various solo releases by Möslang, but his ‘Header_change’ I don’t like one bit. It’s titled after the ‘practice of changing the values in the header code of a data file’ and Möslang does something like that to stills of video artist Silvie Defraoui. The audio files were pressed to vinyl and mixed live. To me it sounds like easy time stretched material which is put into a multi-track program and spiced with some delay and reverb. Unfortunately it sounds too much like the first experiments of someone who just downloaded some music software. I pass on this one.
Joe Gilmore, once a member of Powerbooks For Peace and founder of rand()% (automated internet radio), shows how these things should be done. The material is taken from solo computer improvisations from 2002-2004 (mostly as a by-product of group improvisation), but edited in 2007. Of course it’s hard to say what amount here is the raw improvisation and what portion is editing, but Gilmore does a fine job. Things buzz, beep, crack and cut in the truest fashion of microsound and beyond – meaning: louder (sometimes even Mego like) – in quite hypnotic pieces of computer music. Loud and vicious at times, but also ambient and minimal in ‘U+221E’, the closing piece of the CD. For those who love the lesser harsh noise on labels as Mego and Alku, this Joe Gilmore is something worth looking for, be it not entirely new, but a great work anyway. (FdW)
Address: http://cut.fm
THE PITCHSHIFTERS (7′ by Meeuw)
Format wise I don’t have a preference, I am not a snob. But Meeuw Muzak 7″s are always lovely. They did a couple of 10″s and even a 8″ in their early days, but since long switched to releasing just 7″s. Grainy lo-fi covers, and sometimes cheer unknown acts. The Pitchshifters anyone? The Pitchshifters is Hideto Aso from Tokyo. In 2003 he made a CDR named “Improvise*Dessert” which landed on the desk of Meeuw Muzak who liked it that much that he decided to release two pieces on vinyl. A drum computer ticking the beat away, and a bunch of lo-fi keyboards playing minor keys. This in both tracks, which are of course not the same, but there are strong similarities. It sounds like sad songs, not mourning. but then not exactely alive at the party as well. But nice stuff, fitting Meeuw quite well. (FdW)
Address: http://www.meeuw.net
GERRITT/MANPACK VARIANT – FLASH VULT (7″ by Misanthopicagenda)
A nice 7inch vinyl with colourful photography of explosions- from a label run by Gerritt Wittmer with a good pedigree of his collaborations with the likes of John Wiese, Sunn 0))), Bastard Noise,et al. though a white label so maybe we need to guess which side is who? I think Manpack is the glitchy A side- which obviously has some live recordings mixed with abstract studio blips and silences – whilst the reverse is more like the scoring of the plastic itself though again a little too processed perhaps – though clearly the medium here is important despite now several playings this for me remains opaque- an opacity of perhaps the explosions – are they for fun – fireworks – or in deadly earnest military – or for fun military or deadly earnest fireworks – even reduced to pathetic turntableism – its de-rigour with vinyl – I still feel outside of the works. (jliat)
Address: http://www.misanthropicagenda.com
MIGUEL PRADO – MASCARA DE SANGRE (CDR by Ozono Kids Tapes)
From the shores of Northern Spain, the area
called Galicia, comes Miguel Prado who is a guitar player, playing improvised music. Three pieces are presented here. The first ‘Ruinas De La No-Accion’ is the most noisy, feedback outing he has to offer, and it’s, as far as I’m concerned the weakest brother here. The way he improvises on his guitar in combination with feedback on the closing ‘Maniobra Contra Los Limites Irrebatibles’ is of much interest. Loud but intense, interesting moves, shapes and colors. In between there is short ‘Vacilacion Y Traba’, which is the most solo improvisation on the guitar, an investigation of strings. Perhaps the best piece for its concentration and its brief character. Nice one this, fine combination of pure improvisation and noise. (FdW)
Address: http://ozonokids.com
MATT BORGHI & BEN FLEURY-STEINER – WHAT THE NIGHT LEAVES BEHIND (CDR by Gears Of Sand)
Of course we came across the name Matt Borghi in the recent weekly’s and Ben Fleury-Steiner shouldn’t be unknown either, as he is our man behind the excellent Gears Of Sand label. Not much info can be found on the cover here as to how this collaborative work was conceived. Maybe the opening piece ‘Broken Connection’ says it? Through the internet and exchange of sound files? It’s a bit of rough edged ambient piece that one, but it’s quite nice because of that. It’s the start of journey to five deep ambient landscapes, with the use of analogue and digital synths an samples that add that rough edge to the pieces. It’s ambient that has it’s ties, if only very loosely, to industrial music, as it’s not always easy sit back and enjoy here. It’s a bit stranger than that, but of course not too alarmingly different. It’s a very nice, a bit more experimental ambient than some others, and standing in a longer tradition of ambient industrial of darker ambient. (FdW)
Address: http://www.gearsofsand.net
THE MASTER MUSICIANS OF HOP-FROG – CENTURIES LATER (CDR by URCK Records)
HOP-FROG’S DRUM JESTER DEVOTIONAL – CHANTS DE SEWAGE (CDR by URCK Records)
CATASTROPHIC MERMAIDS ON PARADE (CDR by URCK Records)
HOP-FROG KOLLECTIV – REFLECTIONS OF SAMSARA (DVDR by URCK Records)
URCK releases a bunch of limited edition CDRs and one DVDRs as part of a new series, all with handmade covers by Greg S. Gilday. Many of the musicians on this label are part of the Hop-Frog collective, who play together in various guises as well as solo. Rhythm of an ethnic origin plays an important role with many of the artists. As The Master Musicians Of Hop-Frog, ten members turn up, playing a wide variety of instruments, mainly percussive, but also bass, guitar and lots of samples, say about LSD. Many of the pieces are psychedelic excursions of minimal rhythms over which the members freely improvise whatever sound comes to their mind. Music that goes with well with certain drugs, no doubt, but to a clean head it’s perhaps a bit too minimal, with not enough variation per track. Some editing could have saved the job. Even with a quote from ’24 Hour Party People’ (perhaps they stuck it in to bride me?)
I was particular keen about Hop-Frogs Drum Jester Devotional, as from his latest release I even stuck a piece on my ipod, which I must admit is a rare thing. Somehow that will not happen with his new release. It’s packed again with samples and rhythms, which in the early minutes reminded me of The Orb, but as things progressed, the slow mechanical rhythms and spoken word samples worked on my nerves to say the least. Pass on or out.
The release by Catastrophic Mermaids On Parade is a debut. Behind that is one Hermit The Flog. Even when there is no list of equipment used, it seems to me that this is even more in the electronic realm than the other releases. Everything comes out of a box, black ones, with knobs and keys and guitars, tabla’s, bass guitars and such like are non-present. The Mermaids play minimal electronic music whose rhythms are built from arpeggio’s and synthesizer patterns and of course things are spacey here too, but it’s also the one that’s less ethnic and more technolike. It’s the one which I thought was the best actually, the one that was most focussed.
The final release is a DVD-R of Hop-Frog Kollectiv’s contribution to Soundwalk 2006, which lasted five hours, but is trimmed down to two hours for this release. Here things work well. The overkill of images and sounds, swirling about in the highly psychedelic manner make this less of a strict musical release, but something you put on on your TV and let it go while doing the house, eating, reading or perhaps even sleeping, although I must admit I didn’t try that. (FdW)
Address: http://www.urckrecords.com
OVERDOSE KUNST – INCESTED BY SOCIAL MACHINE (CDR by Postmoderncore)
OVERDOSE KUNST – NON-FORM MATERIAL MACHINE (CDR by Postmoderncore)
New Zealands Postmoderncore was until now mainly a MP3 label, but recently turned to releasing CDRs too. They mailed me two releases by a Japanese duo who go by the name Overdose Kunst. They are Takeshi F and Ryuta K. They call their music ‘Post sampling kinetic nonhierarchical nonlinear non-equilibrium fourth world muziq’… which is quite a mouthful, for what I think is quite tedious and boring doodling in music. We have some sounds, we sample them, let them go for a while, without any structure or composition, and that’s the extent of it. Not a single minute, or perhaps even second when playing both of these CDRs I had the idea that they had an idea of what they were doing, how and why. (FdW)
Address: http://www.postmoderncore.com
AUTOEROTICASPHYXIATION & THOUSAND YEAR FROG – CHOKING ON LINES OF SAND (CDr by Cuthands)
EVENINGS – MUTE DEVIATION (CDr by Cuthands)
DROUGHTER – BEAST GROWTH CDr by Cuthands)
CAHIER – HÖYRYVETURI (CDr by Cuthands)
EZRA JACOBS – KRKKL (3inch CDr by Cuthands)
Cut Hands releases often arrive in sleeves with B&W photos of murky dirt and bodies, tragic scenes of strange events with mid European calligraphy all of which seeps through on the pitted cd surfaces themselves. They resemble the child playing at antiques, dismembering toys and burning and mutilating- illustrations in sound of a jake and dinos chapman tableaux, chard remains of a fire of books of anatomy, they are like ones own half remembered events from early childhood or were they a dream or a film of a dream- or trawling through IE’s temporary internet .jpgs – unrelated – yet strangely related in a mindless being of punk art, high art, souvenirs and kitsch – rendered meat and reduced. One might wish to destroy such music but it already arrives dying, it falls away from ones grasp, frozen mutations lacking in any colour. One feels they should appear on shellac 78s in brown ripped sleeves with incomprehensible writings. Choking on lines of sound is complex electronics at times having a remote beauty. Mute Deviation is far harsher dry grinding noise which collapses in on itself and implodes. the most abstract of these 5 works. Beast growth is slabs of noise, human, machine, man-machine, which deteriorates into broken strings, raw noise and cacophony on Höyryveturi.. And finally on Krkkl a long 20 + minutes of dying industrial noise… A very enjoyable afternoon for the sadomasochist listener. (Jliat)
Address: httP://www.cuthands.net
KENJI SIRATORI / FEDERICO BARABINO- HALLUCINATION CELL (CDr?????)
NICHOLAS SZCZEPANIK – ASTILBE RUBRA (Cdr by Small Doses)
Maybe I’ve spent too long on google and its sucked out all of my consciousness – as I’m finding little to say here – Kenji Siratori is supposedly a cyber punk author – and Barabino an Argentinean guitar player – who on this CD plays gentle acoustic riffs – while – some time later Siratori’s deep rough impenetrable Japanese voice is also present. Quite odd, and I’m not sure quite what to make of it? I’d like to say more – but there it is my consciousness now resides in some server farm in the USA. Biographies of both are extensive, Barabino – “His several music interests take him to the percussion’s field. In 2001 studied candombe, samba, murga and others rioplatenses rhythms. In this field he has played in some murgas, several spectacles and plazas in Buenos Aires..” While Kenji Siratori “is a cyberpunk author known for experimental prose and nonlinear narrative. His first book, Blood Electric, was published in 2002. He is part of the bizarro movement in literature. He is also providing the lyrics to Norwegian musician Ihriel’s Star of Ash solo project.” “Astilbe rubra” – runs the blurb “is an hour-long, well-woven work that integrates electronics, traditional instruments used non-traditionally, and field recordings..” — is eclectic and… it kind of showcases a genre of (a past) experimentalism – proficiently- ££££££@@@@@-!! I should maybe start this again rather than use these massive cut and pastes – but maybe that’s it – the commonality between these two releases is just that they lack the
emptiness of google, wikipedia and my head, and how can that be a
criticism – but strangely it is. (Jliat)
Address www.kenjisiratori.com
Address www.federicobarabino.8m.com
Address www.small-doses.com
TELEPHERIQUE & S.CORE – RESULT OF A MAIL-ART 1992 (CDR by Kokeshidisk)
TELEPHERIQUE & S.CORE – PAST-ART (3″CDR by Taalem)
EMMANUEL MIEVILLE – MAGNETIC FIELDS AND SHROUDED FLUX (3″CDR by Taalem)
SPIRACLE – LUMEN (3″CDR by Taalem)
Through the internet a lot of people who played music in the 80s but disappeared in the 90s came back, only to find their work is still alive. No return yet for Japanese S.Core, who in the late eighties and early nineties was an active force in the world of cassette, making releases on his own Afflict, but also Extreme and Staalplaat and doing loads of collaborative works, such as the one with Telepherique (who never disappeared from the scene). Kokeshidisk now re-issues a 1992 cassette of the two on CDR, which is very much a sign of those days. Crude, lo-fi sampling (the SK1 me thinks), some synthesizer and lots of reverb, which add a fake space to the music. Thus it sounds like something of those days, but if you look beyond that, you will discover actually quite decent ambient industrial music, with some nice changes and patterns.
And when they were preparing this, Taalem, Kokeshidisk’s sister, asked Telepherique to remix the old release for a lovely 3″CDR. That piece, with all it’s dark undercurrents, shows that Telepherique updated his equipment over the years and it sounds like a nice, thickly layered cake. The second piece is what they call ‘a musical acoustic history about my project-name Telepherique’, and is indeed a trademark piece of the band. Slow mechanical rhythms, psychedelic sounds swirling in and out of the mix, sample-heavy music with a firm, dark touch.
Following last week’s release by Emmanuel Mieville, here is another one. The two pieces of his here dwell heavily but exclusively on field recordings. They start out in the field, but are sucked as it were into the studio and processed into quite violent slabs of soundscapes. Less refined than all of his previous works, but quite intense.
Spiracle is the big unknown here, being the project of Japanese Hitoshi Kojo, who now lives in Switzerland, were he has worked with Micheal Northam (as Kodama), Jgrzinich, Maurizio Bianchi, Yannick Dauby and Jonathan Coleclough, but he puts on his Spiracle hat when doing something solo. I am not sure what kind of sound sources he uses for his ‘Lumen’ piece, but I’m sure it’s something created out of metal. Spiracle brings back the old Organum sound of ‘In Extremis’, which is a landmark in this field, in a chilling drone piece. Quite a nice work, this one. (FdW)
Address: http://kokeshidisk.free.fr
Address: http://www.taalem.com
KASPER VAN HOEK – THE PAST AND WHAT BECAME OF IT (3″CDR by Heilskabaal Records)
Apparently this is already the 12th release by Kasper van Hoek, I may have missed some. The basic material dates back to March 2006, when it was performed as an eight track piece, four speakers in each corner and four in the middle of the space. For this release the eight separate sound sources from the original concert are mixed together but with the intention to keep something of the original idea alive. It starts out with glitch like organ sounds, which give quite a nice textured feel to the material, but over the course of the next twenty-three minutes things get more heavy with skipping vinyl, a bit of distortion but it lands safely in some more noisy glitchy territory again. Quite a travel, but surely a nice one. Maybe I am less keen on the more noisy bits these days, but throughout I thought this was a great work, one of the best out of twelve. (FdW)
Address: http://www.kaspervanhoek.net
correction:
Psychedelic Desert, see Vital Weekly 592, is not a trio, but a duo. PureH is not a regular member. Also the name is Go Tsushima and not Ge Fushima.