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VITAL WEEKLY
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number 632
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week 25
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Vital Weekly, the webcast: 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
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Submitting material means you read this and approve of this.
* noted are in this week's podcast
FRANZ FJODOR - EXHIBITION (CD by Vatican
Analog) *
JOS SMOLDERS - GAUSSIAN TRANSIENT (MEGAPHONE) (CD by Nonvisual
Objects) *
WILL MONTGOMERY [HERIBERT FRIEDL] - NON-COLLABORATION (CD by Nonvisual
Objects) *
SUTCLIFFE JÜGEND - PIGDADDY (CD by Cold Spring)
BLACK MAYONNAISE - UNSEEN COLLABORATOR (CD by Resipiscent)
MERZBOW / SUTCLIFFE JÜGEND / SATORI - [UNTITLED SPLIT] (CD
by Cold Spring)
TAREK ATOUI - MORT AUX VACHES (CD by Staalplaat) *
MUSLIMGAUZE - JAAGHEED ZARB (CD by Staalplaat) *
MUSLIMGAUZE - JAH MEARAB (CD by Staalplaat)
M. GRIFFIN - FABRICATIONS (CD by Hypnos) *
MATT BORGHI - HURONIC MINOR (CDR by Hypnos)
DARKENED SOUL - BATHYS (CDR by Hypnos) *
THOMAS CHRISTOPH HEYDE - HIGH CULTURE MOTHERFUCKER (CD by Digital
Phantomnoise) *
DOXA SINISTRA - CONVEYER BELT (LP by Enfant Terrible) *
JIM HAYNES - ERALDUS/ERVALDUS (LP by Elevator Bath)
RICK REED - DREAMZ/BLUE POLZ (LP by Elevator Bath)
VODOU (LP compilation by Galleri 54)
GIUSEPPE IELASI - STUNT (12" by Schoolmap Records) *
SAM PLUTA & JEFF SNYDER - EXCLUSICEOR (CDR by Quiet Design)
*
VASILIS THEODOROU & DIMITRIS ANDREOU - AT THE TOYROOM (CDR
by Absurd) *
GROHVRASCHT - ZIMRENOOORD (MP3 by Twilight Luggage) *
LUPUS GOLEM - MINOTAURE (MP3 by Twilight Luggage)
Obituary: Micheal Waisvisz (1949-2008)
FRANZ FJODOR - EXHIBITION (CD by Vatican
Analog)
Although I reviewed music by Wouter Jaspers, also know as Franz
Fjödor before, I never had a good impression what his music
is all about. It seems that he likes to confuse the listener,
so that we never know what he is about (call in Herr Freud please).
Following a string of net releases and CDRs (for labels such as
TIBproductions (NO), Kourlyk Records (BE), Black Syndicate (NL),
Goldsoundz (NO), Dirty Demos (UK), Zeromoon (US) and Emerson,
Lake and Headache (RU)), there is now on his own (shared) label
Vatican Analog a first proper CD release. On his myspace we read
that he likes The Dark (his capitals, not mine) using hand-made
instruments to create drones, depressed noise and dark folk. Now
dark folk is something that I never want to approach - I do like
dark things, and maybe even folk, but I'm allergic to the combination
thereof. So I started playing this CD, prepared for the worst.
What a relief: it's a very fine CD. Jaspers is young (22) and
despite that age, he's music sounds quite mature, well perhaps
for that piece in which he sings. To like The Dark is something
that belongs to the youth, no longer to me, an old man. It's not
a bad song, actually, but it's a bit out of place. In the other,
instrumental pieces (save for some spoken bits, recorded in Chernobyl),
he displays a love of all things dark indeed and drone based.
Taking field recordings, from his many travels (he played 140
concerts in one year!), playing acoustic objects (like he does
with Preliminary Saturation, his duo with Staplefahrer), he plays
some very nice moody tunes. 'Voryspol' is the only real sung song,
which works well in it is minimalist approach, but the singing
is not my thing. It's at the end however. Best piece I thought
was 'Geigercounting', using the aforementioned Chernobyl recordings.
A scary piece of music. Throughout a work that is well made, and
a most promising start. Remix album is already in the works. (FdW)
Address: http://www.wouterjaspers.nl
JOS SMOLDERS - GAUSSIAN TRANSIENT (MEGAPHONE)
(CD by Nonvisual Objects)
WILL MONTGOMERY [HERIBERT FRIEDL] - NON-COLLABORATION (CD by Nonvisual
Objects)
It's hard to say something about someone's music, if you know
him or her pretty well. I could do a difficult semantic trick,
covering the fact that I know Jos Smolders but not that well,
or some such, but I could also say that I am happy that at one
point in time, I found 99 people willing to pay for a very private
LP pressing of the first Jos Smolders 'Freebasing A For Is Me',
which became the very first LP I ever released on my own label.
It's good to see that LP mentioned in the small liner notes of
a new CD by Smolders. Following his second LP, released by Quiet
Artworks, shortly after my LP, Smolders went into a more conceptual
direction, with a CD to be shuffled or re-altered in sequence
order, a CD with some software on it, and a bunch of remixes thereof
or a CD with music for a website. To mention only three of such
projects. Always an idea behind it, and some of these, like 'Music
For Kalx', are also musically quite alright, it never had the
same feeling as his first two albums. For 'Gaussian Transient
(Megaphone)', Smolders returns to the free form composing of his
first album. What matters here is that the composition is great,
not the idea. So a bunch of street sounds can be followed by the
sound of a lighter, simple because it sounds right. As the former
publisher of his first LP, I can of course only warmly greet this
development. More and more I believe that at the end of the day
I rather hear a great piece of music instead of a great idea about
music. Smolders uses here a lot of field recordings from all over
Europe, and includes some home produced crackle and bop. This
is the Smolders we love and cherish: blocks of sound are switched
by blocks of seemingly silence, subtle changes, abrupt changes,
concentrating on small sounds, with a few big ones. All put cleverly
into smaller pieces of music, each with its own clear structure.
Away from the pure idea and back into the pure composition. Great
CD!
Guitarist Will Montgomery has been around for quite some time.
Somewhere in spring 2006 he started to work with Nonvisual Objects
boss Heribert Friedl, a musician who improvises on the hackbrett,
but over the course of time it turned out that the marriage between
the acoustic Friedl and the electric Montgomery. That was not
the end of the collaboration, but it turned into a non-collaboration:
Montgomery using the sounds of Friedl and that's why his name
appears between []. It seems, purely by judging what I hear here,
that the Hackbrett is taken into the digital territory for some
solid transformation. Montgomery does a fine job of time stretching,
pitch shifting and other sonic trickery, but it's less of surprise
than the Smolders disc. Montgomery's processings sound a bit like
textbook microsound processings of acoustic sounds, the kind of
the ones you may have heard before. As said quite alright for
what it is, but less of a surprise. The moving of pitches, times
and frequencies are all a bit too regular for my taste, even when
Montgomery does a fine job. (FdW)
Address: http://www.nonvisualobjects.com
SUTCLIFFE JÜGEND - PIGDADDY (CD by
Cold Spring)
BLACK MAYONNAISE - UNSEEN COLLABORATOR (CD by Resipiscent)
On the press release for Sutcliffe Jügend's latest album
on British label Cold Spring the fact is unmistakable. "Pigdaddy"
contains some of the most fucked up, histrionic and downright
bizarre vocals ever recorded. The man behind the truly sick vocals
is brain-man of the pioneering Power Electronics-project Whitehouse.
Sutcliffe Jügend is the side-project of Kevin Tomkins (Whitehouse).
The cd-debut as Sutcliffe Jügend came on the private label
for Whitehouse, Susan Lawly in 1994, but already back in 1982
Sutcliffe Jügend released a 10 cassette box-set on Come Organisation.
Once again the power electronics artist makes sure that the listener
won't feel comfortable throughout the six stories of depravity
- 45 minutes of hell! Conceptually the album focuses on moral
decay and sexual transgression. Expressionally Sutcliffe Jügend
creates the perfect sonic atmospheres to the theme with filthy
vocals of distorted screams and harsh electronics with associations
back to both the pioneering electronics of Whitehouse and the
early Industrial by Throbbing Gristle. Excellent stuff though
don't play this for your granny! Talking about extreme vocals,
Mike Duncan delivers some insanely inhuman growls on his latest
release as Black Mayonnaise. Unquestionably this is human outburst
that is able to compete with the vocals from aforementioned Sutcliffe
Jügend. Black Mayonnaise delivers human growls so deep that
the sense of humanity seems like non-existing here. The US-artist
Mike Duncan wanders in the boundary-pushing combinations of extreme
metal and harsh electronics. There is much weight put on the grindingly
heavy distorted bass and mistreated drummachines. The latter aspect
was also demonstrated on his contribution to the interesting compilation
of extreme drummachine-programming on "Drummachinegun"
(Relapse, 2006). The album titled "Unseen collaborator"
is the sixth release as Black Mayonnnaise and it is truly abrasive
stuff. Thus two great albums for listeners of extreme music, anyone
else should take some precautions before diving into these two
masterworks of sonic madness. (NM)
Address: http://www.coldspring.co.uk
Address: http://www.resipiscent.com/
MERZBOW / SUTCLIFFE JÜGEND / SATORI
- [UNTITLED SPLIT] (CD by Cold Spring)
Three exercises in ear-crushing symphony on this one! Japanese
noise-legend Masami Akita alias Merzbow opens the show with the
astonishing work "Feedyellow mix"; a repetitive piece
of aural machismo clocking 14 minutes runtime. With an excellent
hypnotic atmosphere of blasting noise this is Merzbow at his very
best. Second on stage is Sutcliffe Jügend with the utterly
bizarre track "Pigmother" containing probably some of
the sickest vocals ever recorded. Together with noises from something
sounding like a distorted chamber orchestra the listener will
feel anything but comfortable throughout the five minutes in company
Sutcliffe Jugend. Last sound destructors are owner of Cold Spring,
Justin Mitchell, in joint venture with Neil Chaney of Pessary.
Operating under the name "Satori", the two sound pilots
crush the hell out of the listener with a multi-layered noise-inferno.
The work is a so-called "Hypnopompic" mix of the Paralysis-track
originally from the "Kanashibari"-album released on
the Dogma Chase-label in april month. Crushing drones of high
frequency noise creates the ground layer meanwhile ritual rhythm
textures of acoustic drumming add a great structure to harsh sound
symphony. The result is hypnotizing and brutally intense. If you're
looking for the art of contemporary noise music this split-album
is a very good opportunity to destroy silence. Highly recommended.
(NM)
Address: http://www.coldspring.co.uk/
TAREK ATOUI - MORT AUX VACHES (CD by Staalplaat)
MUSLIMGAUZE - JAAGHEED ZARB (CD by Staalplaat)
MUSLIMGAUZE - JAH MEARAB (CD by Staalplaat)
Following Mahmood Refat's Mort Aux Vaches CD, here is another
real Middle Eastern composer, Tarek Atoui. He was born in Lebanon
in 1980, moved to France in 1988 and studied at the Conservatory
of Paris. Although his work is based in the field of the electro-acoustics,
it's all computer based, using Max/Msp. Much of his work is made
for theatre. There has not been many recordings available, but
surely this may change after releasing on the ever high profile
label Staalplaat. Much of this info I culled from the internet
as Staalplaat never gives much information, so I was a bit surprised
by what I heard. Many beats rolling over each other, hardly in
a way that would induce any form of dance music and from the rhythms
more abstractions are made in the computer. High pitched, quickly
moving. Some of these beats could pass on a extreme breakcore
music, hardcore gabber beats, but in a non sequential way, as
to avoid any resemblance to dance music. In the pieces were the
beats are down, either in tempo or in presence, Atoui plays music
that I think is much more interesting. For instance in the final
track he plays an interesting piece of music based on what could
be middle eastern field recordings and remote electronics. I think
it's the most interesting piece of the CD. In other pieces, such
as the third, the nerve and hectic is nice too. One could argue
that Atoui plays some nice form of plunderphonics in a true original
form, but it could not always interest me throughout. Not bad,
but not great either.
Recently somebody asked me for some information on the late Bryn
Jones for a book that will be issued next year, and it occurred
to me that he's been dead for nearly a decade. The flood of releases
following immediately after he died has dried out, but still his
main labels, Soleilmoon and Staalplaat, can cook up some new release
by him. That is nice. As I told the writer of the book, I didn't
know Bryn personally and only talked with him on the phone a couple
of times. How rich he was with sounds, how sparse he was with
words. I must admit I am not his biggest fan, but throughout every
now and then, I'd like to hear his music, although I find myself
not going back to many of his older releases, with the odd exception
for 'Emak Bakia' or 'Azazzin'. True Muslimgauze fans have invented
styles for particular areas of his music, like 'west bank style'
and 'indian style'. I never could really grasp what that was all
about. Of these two, 'Jaagheed Zarb' has no year indication, and
'Jah Mearab' is marked '1998'. The problem with Muslimgauze's
music, and I noted this before, is that not everything he recorded
was worth to release. He left his machines on all the time, recording
every thought, notion or idea. A 'normal' record label would provide
a selection of all those pieces that are great and then release
one CD a year. Thank god, Staalplaat is not a normal label, and
through these two releases, 'Muslimgauze Archive Series One and
Two', we get to hear how he created these releases, and all the
ideas are presented. I think that is nice, even only for the true
die-hard fans. Maybe its due to my previous involvement on some
kind of level with Muslimgauze that I can dig this too. These
CDs are not mass-products, but for the true devoted fans, that
want to hear it all. Pieces including small mistakes, wrong endings
and such like. In that sense Muslimgauze's passing is not unlike
say that of Jimmy Hendrix, Jeff Buckley or 2Pac, who had all their
posthumous releases (and no doubt others which elude me right
now). My feelings about this is a bit double. On one side I like
this because it shows the method of operation of Jones quite well,
but I can see why this would appeal to the real fans only and
not many new ones will be attracted. (FdW)
Address: http://www.staalplaat.com
M. GRIFFIN - FABRICATIONS (CD by Hypnos)
MATT BORGHI - HURONIC MINOR (CDR by Hypnos)
DARKENED SOUL - BATHYS (CDR by Hypnos)
When I opened this package, my first thought was that Hypnos was
trying to pass on an old CD for review, perhaps not noting that
we don't review stuff older than six months. The design of M.
Griffin's 'Fabrications' is exactly the same as any Hypnos release
from say ten years ago. Good; it's visibility. Bad; things haven't
changed? Either way. At one point Hypnos decided not to send any
promo's, so there is a serious gap here in what they did in those
years. One thing is for sure, Hypnos' music can still be found
in the areas of all things dark and ambient. Labelboss M. Griffin
is also a musician and in the past he made some nice blueprints
of ambient music. Looking at the cover, I suspected not much development,
but that is not true. Gone are the days of the synthesizer and
welcomed are the field recordings. From sounds from the ocean
to footsteps in a tunnel and then towards a large electrical transformer,
plus more, he collected them all, and transforms them using a
bunch of software - all dully described on the cover of his release.
Not that the music sounds radically different than his old work,
but this new approach is kinda refreshing, I think. Somewhere
in the back you can hear these field recordings coming a long,
but they are well hidden in the grass that the music is. A field
of sound, based of the sound of a field. Like much of this music
there is only a few developments per track, but throughout has
each piece a character of its own. Its good to see Griffin moving
away from the world of synthesizer ambient and creating a similar
kind of music with entirely new elements. As such this is a great
disc.
Matt Borghi represents, I think the more traditional Hypnos sound.
Stretched out, eerie fields of ambient music. Slow developments
per track, washes of synths, subtle tones and such like. This
is the alley where ambient has no innovation. Music like this
has been sounding like for many years now. If you want music to
be something new, to see any developments than you are most likely
not a followers of whatever happens in this alley. It's very much
like the music: a standstill. Other than that, I think Borghi
is one of the better players in this field. 'Huronic Minor' contains
some beautiful, relaxing, late evening music.
At the other end of the spectrum we find Darkened Soul, which
is one Mike Soucy, who has had a couple of self-released CDRs
as well as a release on Umbra, the label of Oophoi. 'Bathys' means
deep in Greek and throughout the six pieces there is thematic
approach of deep sea - a bathyscaph is just a difficult word for
submarine. The music is dark, like a deep sea movie sound track
of rusty vessels bouncing to eachother, metallic sounds clonck
about, set against a dark set of drones played on (soft-)synths.
Music that would fit easily on Mystery Sea. More experimental
than Borghi and more noisy, if at all that is a word that is appropriate
here, than Griffin. Three different angels of ambient music. Maybe
to the outsider the margins are small, to the initiated essential.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.hypnos.com
THOMAS CHRISTOPH HEYDE - HIGH CULTURE MOTHERFUCKER
(CD by Digital Phantomnoise)
This is my first encounter with Thomas Christoph Heyde, who recorded
these pieces in the last eight years. He works as a curator, with
'Forum Zeitgenossicher Musik Leipzig', writer and musician. His
music is best classified, if you would require such a thing, as
modern classical - real instruments in combination with live electronics.
I always thought of this music as something for the acquired taste
- and it's a taste I haven't fully acquired. 'Fieldz' for instance,
the opening piece of the album, is something I don't understand.
Teutonic bombast on percussion, piano arpeggio's and guitar solos
(prog rock styled) from the turntable. Not a good start. It sounds
like music that is best enjoyed in a live situation, but doesn't
seem to get across on CD. '3x Short -3x Long' about the S.O.S.
morse signal is a piece that works well however. Here tension
is present. But it's a short piece, maybe the concise length helped.
Many of the other piece last longer and seem to sink away in a
show off of technique, rather than telling a nice musical story.
It's by no means a bad CD, don't get me wrong. It's just that
I still haven't mastered the acquired taste for it. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mak-world.ch/pnr
DOXA SINISTRA - CONVEYER BELT (LP by Enfant
Terrible)
The Netherlands have an excellent reputation when it comes to
what some call 'minimal synth' music. Bands like Ensemble Pittoresque,
Storung and Van Kaye & Ignit helped that reputation, and to
this the various bands on Trumpett Tapes should be added. The
Actor, Ende Shneafliet and Doxa Sinistra were the main acts, but
the various members of these bands also worked together in lots
of different formations together. They are still around, and much
of their work can be bought on CDR. I have an excellent, beautiful
25 CDR set with much of the labels' 80s output. 'Conveyer Belt'
by Doxa Sinistra was not released by Trumpett Tapes but by ADN
from Italy - they were the only band to expand their releases
to other labels - there is one on Ladd-Frith too. Hanjo Erkamp
and Brian Dommisse are the two men behind Doxa Sinistra and thanks
to Enfant Terrible, who keep digging the mud to find these treasures,
it's now available on LP. That is great news, if only for me.
Doxa Sinistra's music hasn't aged at all. The sharp rhythms, industrial
even at times, sequences and synthesizers, cut up radio snippets:
its still the music that I enjoy very much. This is probably where
my judgment gets clouded by memory. I am aware of that. I was
playing this and thinking: suppose I heard this for the first
time today, knowing it was old (from 1984!), how would I then
perceive it? Of course a ridicule question, which I can't answer.
There is so much more parameters to be set then (how old am I,
do I like this kind of music, what do I know about music? etc).
Now it's a perfect meeting of something which I know from the
past, which I liked back then, which I still think is great today.
Good, experimental popmusic. Just excellent. More on vinyl please
from this great band. (FdW)
Address: http://www.enfant-terrible.nl
JIM HAYNES - ERALDUS/ERVALDUS (LP by Elevator
Bath)
RICK REED - DREAMZ/BLUE POLZ (LP by Elevator Bath)
Two really beautiful picture disc LPs by Elevator Bath, and for
Jim Haynes the follow up to his excellent CD 'Telegraphy By The
Sea' (see Vital Weekly 548). Haynes is foremost known as a writer,
but he has also played with Loren Chasse as Coelacanth, with Keith
Evans, Steve Stapleton and Matt Waldron, and especially with the
work of Waldron (sometimes better known as irr. app (ext.)) there
are strong ties. Two new pieces here on this LP, in a similar
vein as the CD: field recordings are treated around, looped, changed,
altered, modified. On one side (it's a bit hard to decipher which
side is what here) this is a bit more harsher than usually, while
on the other side it seems we are hearing ventilation systems,
layered, to create a vast, rich pattern in sound. Drone like this
side, while the other is more 'chopped' up, more a collage style,
but not in a same free form, as everything flows nicely into eachother.
Music that ties him into the work of Matt Waldron or say Nurse
With Wound in a drone mood and certainly highly influenced by
The Hafler Trio. However with this record, the somewhat louder
approach course taken here, makes that Haynes finds more a voice
of his own. A small step perhaps, but an essential one.
From the improvisation world of Texas comes Rick
Reed, who has been around for quite some time, playing with Keith
Rowe (it's this Rick from that AMM title), the Abrasion Ensemble
and Sirsit, of whom I never heard. He has had various solo releases
on Elevator Bath before. These two pieces here were part of something
bigger: one as a 'live visual display by filmmaker Ken Jacobs',
and the other one could be an alternative soundtrack to a piece
by one Fred Worden. Reed uses a EMS Synthi A, two sine wave generators
and a shortwave radio. The first side, if I detected that alright,
is a very minimal piece of soft flowing, high pitched tones. Like
far away insects chirping whilst the dawn sets in. Over the course
of the side dawn gets dark and insects quiet out. The other side
start out in the middle of the dark night but it stays night:
dark humming organ like drones, which are filtered out over the
course of the piece, until some chorus like sounds drop. Of these
four sides, this is the most single minded, and for me the least
interesting, even when it's not bad either. Two fine to great
records, lovely picture disc and highly limited. Yummy. (FdW)
Address: http://www.elevatorbath.com
VODOU (LP compilation by Galleri 54)
Its a bit difficult to say how the exhibition looked like by judging
from its catalogue, but the record sounds nice. If I understand
well, the pieces on the record make the exhibition. The theme
was 'a story about the spiritual, rooted in the tradition of folk
tales. Fairytales and fables once bridged the borders between
the Nordic countries'. Yet this is not entirely an album with
just spoken word, as it also includes songs and even instrumentals.
Its an interesting collection of a lot of people I never heard
of before, like Leif Holmstrand, Iwo Martin, Bjargey Olafsdottir,
Vinyl-terror & -horror, Ragnar Kjartanson, Ingvild Langgard
and Thora Dolven Balke, Bo I Cavefors, Chisel and Leander Djonne.
So only Kira Kira and Par Thorn I heard before. As a music lover
I prefer the instrumental pieces most, like Chisel's guitar playing,
Par Thorn's almost Hauswolff like piece and the bats recording
of Iwo Myrin. They are a minority here, but provide a fine counterpart
in the various spoken word pieces, which aren't always a spooky
as the theme suggests. Nice record, although it's not something
you'd play everyday, I guess. (FdW)
Address: http://www.galleri54.com
GIUSEPPE IELASI - STUNT (12" by Schoolmap
Records)
Suppose that you want present me a little quiz, which I never
like, but suppose you do. And you play me the six pieces that
are pressed on this 12", could I then guess who is the musician?
I am convinced I couldn't even remotely guess that Giuseppe Ielasi
is behind this record. He is indeed pulling a 'stunt' here. Leaving
his guitar and electronics behind, but this armed with a bunch
of vinyl he treats them as his raw material for this record. You
could say a plunderphonics record. The fifth (untitled, and that's
something that stayed with him) piece sounds like a bunch of sounds
taking from Muslimgauze record, but throughout playing these six
tracks, I don't have the feeling that this is the result of precise
editing, but more improvised playing being edited. In the second
piece for this sounds like good ol' hip hop scratching, but Ielasi
surely adds a bit of trickery. Trickery that we didn't know he
had in him, actually. I must admit that I surely expect him to
do a record like this (and apparently there's two more coming),
and it's something that I have to get used to, but the more I
play this, the more I like it. What a surprise record. (FdW)
Address: http://www.schoolmap-record.com
SAM PLUTA & JEFF SNYDER - EXCLUSICEOR
(CDR by Quiet Design)
From the very old synthesizers, brands like Serge
and Buchla, there aren't many around. I saw both at the EMS studios
in Stockholm, and they are true beasts to use. So many knobs and
cables. but they create a great sound, once you learned some basic
tricks. I have no idea where Sam Pluta and Jeff Snyder recorded
their buchla and serge sounds, but they did and made 'ExclusiveOr'.
I don't know wether this was played in real time, or the result
of first taping sounds and then making music with the various
sound files. Somehow I think it's the latter, but of course I
could be all wrong. The music they created with it, nine tracks
in total, display a good sense of noise, but as before I like
to refer to this as 'noise plus': there is more happening than
some random sounds running amok. They take back speed and brutality
in favor of sounds at a more lower volume, create loops, place
sounds left/right and per piece actually try to compose, a task
in which they succeed well. Maybe some of the pieces are a bit
long, but it also arrives at a cut 'n paste prototype techno piece
as '1011-0011'. Great release, once again on Quiet Design (following
Josh Russell's macrosound). (FdW)
Address: http://www.quietdesign.us
VASILIS THEODOROU & DIMITRIS ANDREOU
- AT THE TOYROOM (CDR by Absurd)
A bit of a vague release, this one. I think the header here is
the credits: music by Vasilis Theodorou and Dimitris Andreou and
the title 'At The Toyroom'. Unless At The Toyroom is the band
name. Two pieces in which the voice (by Foteini/Vasilis, says
the cover) is important. Two pieces which act as small stories,
even when these stories aren't that easy to follow. In the first
piece it is supported by some loosely played percussion while
in the second (and final) piece this all a bit more electronic
in approach. The music is quite loosely played and throughout
has quite a retro feeling to it. A bit like an unmixed Nurse With
Wound record. It's quite alright, but it stays a bit in the air:
what, where and why. All of these questions which aren't fully
answered in the music. Maybe that's part of the small magic, but
it left me a bit unsatisfied. (FdW)
Address: http://www.void.gr/absurd
GROHVRASCHT - ZIMRENOOORD (MP3 by Twilight
Luggage)
LUPUS GOLEM - MINOTAURE (MP3 by Twilight Luggage)
It was quiet for some time with the music by Danny Kreutzfeldt
from Denmark, but here he returns with a long distance project
with one Filipe Cruz from Portugal under the guise of Grohvrascht.
Announced by Twilight Luggage as 'harsh, glitchy noise', which
is not entirely true. They play some upfront piece (actually seven
pieces) of music, but it's not the over the top noise as one could
expect from such a description. There are traces to the world
of noise, but they have a bit more to offer than just that. Grohvrascht
try to compose with the material at hand and do such in quite
a nice way. With variation, with thought and with a certain balance
between the 'mild loud' and the 'super loud', like highly amplified
ambient drones running amok. Nice.
Recently I reviewed a CDR release by Lupus Golem, also on Twilight
Luggage (see Vital Weekly 625) and here this trio from Norway
returns with two more heavy weight slabs of noise rock. Fierce,
loud, feedback flies about, the drums sound top heavy. Pscychedelic.
I guess this is nice, although not entirely my cup of tea, but
I think this is music that should be above all be felt in concert.
No doubt I would be banging my head to it. I already did here.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.twilightluggage.com
Obituary: Micheal Waisvisz (1949-2008)
Earlier this year my friend Anton offered me his crackle box for some time. I was eluded. The first time I heard about the crackle box was when I read about the Dutch band Nasmak in 1981. The crackle box is a small, cigar like box with some electronic wiring and a small metallic plate which you can play with your fingers, and the sound may change with humidity, intensity or temperature. Quite a versatile instrument. I am still working on a small piece of music with it, which somehow never gets finished.
Last week the inventor of the crackle box, Micheal Waisvisz died at the age of 58. I don't think I ever reviewed or mentioned his name in Vital Weekly, save maybe for the announcement section. Yet his influence on music life, not just the Dutch is immense and not just for the invention of the crackle box. He's also the founder of Steim, currently under attack by the government saving money (help is required!), a studio and workplace in Amsterdam, who helped lots of musicians developing hard- and software. Live Sampling (LiSa) was developed by Waisvisz. He also played theatre pieces using his inventions with sensors, improvised music with other people and rarely made a release. Surely a great and innovative mind is lost here.
- Frans de Waard