NO VITAL WEEKLY IN WEEK 28!
MERZBOW – YAHO-NIWA (CD by Nuun) *
Z’EV & CHRIS WATSON – EAST AFRICAN NOCTURNE (CD by Atavistic) *
FAUS’T – FROM THE FROZEN SOUTH (CD by Atavistic) *
MARTIN NEUKOM – STUDIEN 5-7 (CD by Domizil) *
NEBULAE – THE PATH OF WHITE CLOUDS (CD by Hypnos) *
STEVE BRAND – AVATARA (CD by Hypnos) *
A PRODUCE & LOREN NERELL – INTANGIBLE (CD by Hypnos) *
SAUL STOKES – SLEEK NUCLEUS (CD, private) *
DENIS KOLOKOL – PROUD TO BE LOUD (CD by Mathka)
MUU FOR EARS 8 (CD compilation)
CINDYTALK – TRANSGENDER WARRIOR (7″ by Tourette Records)
LID EMBA – TERMINAL MUSE: BLUE (CDR by Stickfigure) *
THE TRUTH ABOUT FRANK – CANNIBAL WORK ETHIC (CDR by LYF) *
STRINGSTRANG – ONE (CDR by Suggestion Records) *
EMERGE – CANVAS (3″CDR by Attenuation Circuit) *
GERHARD ZANDER – BUDDHA MACHINES (3″CDR by Attenuation Circuit) *
EMERGE – ANGLE (3″CDR by Attenuation Circuit) *
CONTROLLED DISSONANCE – TERRAINS VAGUES (3″CDR by Bicephalic Records) *
KHRISTIAN WEEKS – IN AN INTERESTING CONDITION (3″CDR by Bicephalic Records) *
NIPPLE STOOLS – DECISION POINTS (3″CDR by Bicephalic Records) *
LEECHHEAD/ULTRA BONBON (cassette by FTP Recordings)
EXTRAORDINARY PIGEONS/REGOSPHERE (cassette by Pigeon Coup International)
TROGPITE – NOISE NANCY (cassette by Lighten Up Sounds)
LIGHTED QUEENDOM (cassette by Lighten Up Sounds)
MERZBOW – YAHO-NIWA (CD by Nuun)
The most striking feature of this new Merzbow CD is the cover, designed by Rutger Zuydervelt, who choose a ‘modern’ design, which is something that we haven’t seen for Merzbow – but I am the first to admit I don’t see as many Merzbow CDs as I used to. Two hens on the cover, which makes it fairly save to assume that Merzbow is still on his ‘pro-animal’ course. That hasn’t changed and same goes for the music. Not a lot of info on the cover otherwise, as to why when where and how. That perhaps is a pity, since it makes this the obvious target for people to say ‘oh yet another typical Merzbow’ CD. Its no secret I have been a Merzbow promoter and lover for years, but I found myself at one point with sealed CDs that haven’t been opened for some time – that’s the moment when I lost interest. Also, the sheer volume of work made me hardly go back to the ones I liked, let alone the ones I heard once. That said, I like what Masami Akita does a lot. His sheer consistent production of some of the finest noise around is something one can only admire. There will be die-hards out there who still collect it all, and I can’t blame them, even admire them, and with them ‘Yaho-Niwa’ will go down equally well. Just as well as it went down here. I thought this was all quite electronic, with loops of electro-acoustic noise fed to the VCS with the tape running all the time, and seemingly without too much editing. Exactly like we would expect from a ‘typical’ Merzbow CD. More of the same perhaps, but then I also missed out on his Merzbient 10 CD set – that would have perhaps made a difference. (FdW)
Address: http://www.nuun-records.com
Z’EV & CHRIS WATSON – EAST AFRICAN NOCTURNE (CD by Atavistic)
FAUS’T – FROM THE FROZEN SOUTH (CD by Atavistic)
While one is a collaborator, the other one isn’t. In a personal note that came with the first CD, Z’EV writes me that in a conversation Mister Watson had with Mister Mallinder (having not seen eachother in thirty years since the Cabaret days), it came to light that Z’EV is the first one to work with sound files handed out by Chris Watson. First on a three way disc with KK Null and now together. At the source of this lies field recordings by Watson made at Serengati National Park in Tanzania, capturing the atmosphere, birds, elephants, frogs etc and a recording made by Z’EV playing percussion in a crypt of Christ Church in Spitalfields. The cover details all the various steps taken from there to create this work, per date and per technique. We learn that time stretching was used and that quite an amount files were exchanged. This leads to this one piece of forty some minutes which has a strange character. It entirely fits the somewhat lesser known side of Z’EV is creating electronic music rather than pure percussive music. It has a great haunting (haunted?) spooky character of loop based animal roar, birds chirping but also these ghostly sounds of sparse percussive sounds. Slowly moving backward and forward, this is a fantastic piece of soundscaping of nocturnal animal life. Obviously if you would go out the woods tonight, then you may think this is scary place. I would think so. A simple, straight forward idea, yet complex in realization. Did I say a fantastic piece already?
The other new Z’EV release is also a collaboration, this time with Faust, represented here by Hans Joachim Irmler on ‘keyboards/outboards’ and Andreas Schmid on recording and sound support. Z’EV himself can be found on percussion as well as the production of the final result. Packed unfortunately in a dreadful cover. The recordings were already made in 2007 and mixed later on in 2007 and in 2008, and now released as Faus’t. If the previous collaboration is a pure piece of soundscaping, this is much more a musical enterprise. Z’EV rolls his percussion in various layers about, while Irmler provides with the necessary sustaining organs, feeding them through various distortion pedals. Music with a bite, that much is sure. Quite loud and forceful, but not always convincing. Psychedelic and krautrock like for sure, but at various times without too much direction, when things leap too much in an all too freeform jam session. Things could have been a bit more tighter, a bit more condensed, weed out those bits that me thinks are a bit too much over the top and the album would have been excellent, in stead of ‘pretty good’ which it is now. (FdW)
Address: http://www.atavistic.com
MARTIN NEUKOM – STUDIEN 5-7 (CD by Domizil)
Warning! Serious music ahead! Warning! Martin Neukom (1956) studied musicology, mathematics and psychology and now is a teacher in music theory and a composer, who uses sound synthesis and composition with computers. For the pieces on ‘Studien 5-7’ he uses Csound and an Atari ST. That may seem odd, but these pieces were composed between 1992 and 1996. If I understand well, Neukom captures sounds into some system and let them run through various parameters that alter the sounds within a given spectrum. Sometimes it goes a bit out of hand and the system is reset and moves into something new. It’s quite interesting music, I must say, very clinically clean and very serious (warning!) harking back to the sixties electronic music, like Marcus Schmickler also sometimes does, or other releases on Domizil. But not clinically and cold, but clinically and captivating. The missing link between the sixties overground composers and the 21st century microsound. Think Kim Cascone and Asmus Tietchens with ‘totaller E musik’. Maybe a bit long in the end, although the best bit was at the end, with ‘Studie 7.3’ as the best piece. Great music! (FdW)
Address: http://www.domizil.ch
NEBULAE – THE PATH OF WHITE CLOUDS (CD by Hypnos)
STEVE BRAND – AVATARA (CD by Hypnos)
A PRODUCE & LOREN NERELL – INTANGIBLE (CD by Hypnos)
A trio of new releases on the Hypnos label, for me still one of the more important homes of ambient music. Warning, spoiler. I never expect anything ‘new’ from Hypnos; they are leading masters of the ambient music scene, and carved out their own niche in that respect. They don’t open new roads in music.
Nebulae (where the ‘a’ and ‘e’ should be connected together) is a project of Italy’s O–phoi and this new album is dedicated to Klaus Wiese, erstwhile collaborator with Popol Vuh and ambient master of singing bowls. O–phoi gets help on these tracks by a bunch of people, making this into a floating membership thing. Wiese himself provides with some synth and zither, but also Mathias Grassow is present and a whole bunch of people I never heard of, such as Lorenzo Pierobon, Geert Verbeke, Luna and Mauro Malgrande, who get credits for harmonic chants, vocals, shakuhachi, processing and vocals. The album was recorded in 2003 and previously released by Stella Maris as a limited CDR, yet not reviewed before. Of the three new releases on Hypnos, this is the one that is the most quiet and cerebral one. It has humming voices, long sustaining sounds and a vaguely ritual notion to it, all melted together to enlighten the listener, to elevate the listener at least a couple of feet above the ground. Quite an achievement when that happens. A tad bit new agey perhaps and that’s the only downside, but perhaps this mass of weightless space is also too dark for the regular new age market anyway? I surely quite like it: it was on repeat for a few hours, slept a bit during that time and floated back to earth later on.
Following the abundance of the name Augur, Steve Brand now works under his own name. I must admit I didn’t hear a lot of his solo music, which was released solo as well as in collaboration with Ishq and Disturbed Earth, and hearing Augur is a long time ago, but there have been some changes in his music too. Augur was more on the experimental edge of ambient music, whereas his current direction is more along the lines of what Hypnos is in general about: long sustaining patterns of sounds, based on synthesizers or perhaps any type of sound processing which goes on for quite some time (maybe field recordings?) and on top there is the rattle of percussive sounds. ‘Avatara’ means ‘descent’ in Sanskrit, ‘in the sense of a deity’s descent from heaven to earth’ and this the main idea behind the album, the descent of avatars in various cultures. Now that sounds all a bit too new agey for my liking, but its easy, I guess, to see the music by itself. On a somewhat grey and cloudy day, like today happens to be, this ambient music in which the element of percussion is kept to a minimum, compared to his previous ‘Children Of Alcyone’ (see Vital Weekly 712), in favor of more drone like music, makes perfect sense. Majestically it unfolds itself. Great one.
Some more musicians who have been around for some time, are Loren Nerell, who had some fine albums of Soleilmoon and Side Effects and A Produce on Hypnos and Trance Port. If Nebulae and Steve Brand are downright ambient with a small tendency towards new age, this collaboration is the one that drifts slightly towards the realms of ambient house. Not as ‘pumping’ or ‘driving’ as some others, but the plinky plonky rhythm elements are surely present, along with small melodies, as opposed to endlessly sustaining material. It reminded of the earlier solowork by these two, but also a fine reminder of the Silent Records catalogue, especially the work of The Heavenly Music Corporation, or the pseudo/quasi ethnic percussion of O Yuki Conjugate in ‘String Theory’. This is where ambient house was at its most ambient and least house related. Great atmospherics going on here, the perfect chill out music, in case anyone knows what that was all about. Great late night music, or very early morning. (FdW)
Address: http://www.hypnos.com
SAUL STOKES – SLEEK NUCLEUS (CD, private)
For somebody who has been around for some time, I was a bit surprised to see that he did not as much releases as I thought he would have. It’s been indeed some time since Vital Weekly 678 since we last reviewed his work. His website says that these new pieces, eight in total, ‘simply redefine electronic music. Each song is a crafted fusion of contemporary rhythm and melody sculpted from Stokes’ hand-made electronic instruments’ – and that last part is actually true. It is indeed a fusion of rhythm and melodies but it doesn’t redefine electronic music. Far from it, I’d say. But that is no a problem. You don’t have to change the world of music all the time. What Stokes does here on ‘Sleek Nucleus’ is playing electronic music that fits the forty year tradition of seventies cosmic music to the mid nineties ambient house – that’s where electronic music was shaken and stirred and an unlikely fusion happened between techno’s 4/4 ticking beats and the arpeggio waves of analogue synthesizers of the seventies. ‘Sleek Nucleus’ fits entirely in that tradition, and that’s great. I think ambient house is on a return course to earth after being in orbit for many years, and Stokes is simply someone who knows how put on an ambient house track. Not always quick and uplifting, but also sparse and more seventies like such as in ‘Spun Into Static’. Quite a varied album, this one, and nothing new as such, but very well made and likewise entertaining. (FdW)
Address: http://www.saulstokes.com
DENIS KOLOKOL – PROUD TO BE LOUD (CD by Mathka)
Denis Kolokol is an Ukrainian sound artist, composer and performer living in Krakow, Poland. He ran also a few underground magazines and was writing about music. He interprets music not only emotionally, but also analyze it. He wrote a lot about music and one day he started to make music and his first performance was at the Replica Festival in Almaty – Kazakhstan. After that in 2006 he continued to play with Alexander Chikmakov, who plays guitar. Proud to be Loud is mastered by Jos Smolders. The first two compositions at his debut album are collaborations with this guitarist. A interesting mix between classic or modern classic guitar and electronics. The aim of their collaboration is to explore the possibilities, borders and contradictions between traditional and modern music and to create a coherent, multilayered and carefully composed pieces of music. And that is what it is. Denis Kolokol knows how to use his computer in an intellectual musical way, but it never starts to be without any emotion. The fourth track is created with the voice of Carmina Escobar and was composed and performed in a residency at the California Institute of Arts in 2009. The piece is also exploring the same elements as the music with Alexander Chikmakov. All kind of possibilities of the female voice have been used, like singing, talking, humming, whispering and shouting. His solopiece is shorter in time, raw and a combination of drums, electronics, voice. It is more a collage of sounds which fits well together, but the extra element of a traditional music-instrument or vocalist is missing, what makes the piece less interesting than the other three. Although the album Proud to be Loud is a great debut of the this musician who knows to combine intellectual concepts and well composed music. (JKH)
Address: http://www.mathka.pl
MUU FOR EARS 8 (CD compilation)
Turku is the European Capital Of Culture this year, so there is money to burn. We already had seven previous editions of Muu, and this number eight is pressed as a real CD. It has that complaints choir again (why I wondered? it was already released as a CD single) and otherwise music by Taavi Tulev, Per Platou (good to see his name again, even when my memories of him are strictly personal), Gabi Schaffner, David Muth, and a Japanese version of the choir. Many have more than one track. This edition comes with the extensive catalogue of the Performanssi 2011 program – lots of art and a little bit of music. I flipped through it and decided I wasn’t particularly interested. The music on the CD was alright but it didn’t make me rush out and buy a plane ticket to Turku. In some places there is still money in art, and why do we care? (FdW)
Address: http://www.muu.fi/sound
CINDYTALK – TRANSGENDER WARRIOR (7″ by Tourette Records)
Although released by Tourette Records in America, this is the first part of a series that deals with a series of live concert held in Greece, curated by “six d.o.g.s (www.sixdogs.gr) and Angelos Petroutsas (Prince of Poverty), that consists of seven live concerts in the Gig Space of six d.o.g.s venue in Athens Greece, starting from February 2011 and ending in December 2011 of seven music artists”. Each band is assigned a color, and I have no idea how these colors work together, but there is Yellow (COH), Red (Othon & Tomasini), Green (Troum), Violet (Mark Spybey & Jochen Arbeit), Blue (Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo & Little Annie) and an as yet unknown artist for Orange. Apparently it has to do with a journey from the moon to the sun. This 7″ by Cindytalk is obviously pressed on what could be silver vinyl, although other would call it perhaps grey. Two older pieces, from 2003 and 2006, perhaps from the era when Cindytalk was a more improvising unit, slowly starting to drift towards the more laptop thing the latest studio CDs were (although when I saw them in Poland last year, it was a more rock line up anyway). ‘Transgender Warrior’ on the a-side is a very nice spacious and minimal electronic piece that hoovers closely over the plains. ‘Shibuku’ is a shorter piece that has some mild variations of the subject ‘noise’ to it. A bit more gritty and less gentle, this is just a bit too short to leave an equally fine impression as the other side did. (FdW)
Address: http://www.touretterecords.com
LID EMBA – TERMINAL MUSE: BLUE (CDR by Stickfigure)
First of all, a correction: in Vital Weekly 718 I called this band Lib Emba, instead of Lid Emba. The project is from one Sean Moore, who also collaborated with Ryan Huber of Olekranon. This is the second album of a trilogy ‘dedicated to the cost of persistence in art’ – the necessity to create under whatever circumstances (and why art never dies, despite any cuts in grants – talking to the dutch readers here). Musicwise it continues from the previous release, but perhaps a bit more based on the use of drum machines, rather than real drums, feeding through a bunch of synthesizers and/or sound effects, still firmly rooted in the tradition of Techno Animal: drum heavy, trip heavy. James Plotkin also adds a mix of his own, in ‘Macedonian’ going out into drum/bass/drill land with a slightly over the top mix. Things work best for me when they are more straight forward here: they are still quite furious but gain more strength I guess. Again not the sort of thing to play on a daily basis, but quite good anyway for an all our ear cleansing experience. (FdW)
Address: http://www.stickfigurerecords.com
THE TRUTH ABOUT FRANK – CANNIBAL WORK ETHIC (CDR by LYF)
The first batch of releases by The Truth About Frank (see Vital Weekly 670, 674 and 727) get better and better all the time, this time also the package looks much better than before. A band that is based in the world of loops and primarily at that in two things: rhythm and voices, more than anything else. Slowed down rhythms from drum machines, glitchy click n cut rhythms, sampled drums: that’s one side of the game. The other is to take voice material from various sources, mainly films I would think, and loop them around. I didn’t recognize any of the film material, but no doubt horror and science fiction. To add synthesized bits are added. The earlier influences of Pan Sonic seem to be removed, not being as dry anymore as before. Instead this duo go for a more full body of sound, with the use of the full dynamic range of the material, with sound effects in place on all the material. Still not entirely fulfilling its potential I think, as sometimes it leaps too much in easy repetition of sound material, such as ‘Swimming Over Mountains’. The Truth About Frank is not about any kind of style, as the hop various genres and melt them together, which is a fine thing. Still improving and still room for further development. (FdW)
Address: http://www.myspace.com/truthaboutfrank
STRINGSTRANG – ONE (CDR by Suggestion Records)
Jan Kees Helms, these days known as writer for these pages has a long history in experimental music, through Little Seed and his Lor Teeps label, then a few years of hibernation and these days back under his own name and apparently now also as StringStrang. This new project deals with ‘repetition, atmosphere, harmony and contradiction. Everything was recorded on the spot without any overdubs. He uses guitar drones and field recordings. To me, but I haven’t heard all of his work, this seems a shift away from his earlier stuff, and moving more firmly into the field of drones/ambient/soundscapes; the crowded field as its not easy not to think of bands like Fears Falls Burning/Microphonics and Machinefabriek, both of them quite active with releases of this kind of music. Helms hasn’t necessarily found his own voice with this, but these five lengthy pieces are fine works of dark ambiance resonating through the six strings. Not easy to say to which extend the field recordings are used here; I found it hard to say if there were any at all. One negative aspect is that there is some mild distortion here and there, perhaps due to the ‘recording in one take’ aspect of this. Once that is smoothed out, in the second track, things improve greatly. Good start for a new direction. (FdW)
Address: http://www.verato-project.de
EMERGE – CANVAS (3″CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
GERHARD ZANDER – BUDDHA MACHINES (3″CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
EMERGE – ANGLE (3″CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
A few weeks ago we had three limited CDs by Attenuation Circuit with handpainted CD bags, now we have a trio of 3″CDR from the label. The first is by Emerge and has a live recording from earlier this year. It was part of an exhibition in which Emerge also took part, and for which they created a studio version of ‘Canvas’. On the last night of the exhibition they used the sound sources from ‘Canvas’ to create a live version. All of the sounds ‘are created from sampled noises made by paintbrushes and other painting tools’, which is very nice, since I would have never guessed this. It sounds rather like metallic objects being tossed around and played with, almost percussive. Sometimes a bit stuck in a loop, sometimes seemingly more improvised. Nice sort of organic ambient like ritual music but also a bit too long I guess and perhaps that works best only in a live context.
The Buddha Machines, as developed by FM3, are subject of the seven pieces by Gerhard Zander. Now I might be the only one to think so, but the Buddha Machine is a mere toy, a gimmick, and not something to create or compose music with, however nice those loops inside the machines are. Also not when you add some effects to it. Therefore the whole thing is a bit too marginal: these remain loops. The seven pieces of Zander, using four different Buddha Machines, are quite nice, with their sparse piano sounds, ambient drones, and radio snippets, and, yes, try this at home, but leave it at home too. Create your own environment with these sounds, but its not necessary to release them on a CDR.
As I reviewing them in order of release, the third one is again by Emerge, which I believe to be the ‘band behind the label’. Here the sound sources are ‘respiration’, which again I couldn’t have told you if I didn’t knew this. It is transformed, curiously enough into something that sometimes resembles metal (again), but, this being a studio piece, has some more tricks to play with the listener. This is the kind of microsound thing that is linked to world of the musique concrete, say the area inhibited by people like Marc Behrens and Roel Meelkop. Heavily processed sounds, based on a single sound source, and put together like a collage of sound. Maybe not (yet) as good as those two, since Emerge could ‘play out’ more what he does, instead of shifting through the various elements of sound processing. Overall, ‘Angel’ beat ‘Canvas’ on all points but both of them make Emerge a name to watch out for. (FdW)
Address: http://www.myspace.com/attenuationcircuit
CONTROLLED DISSONANCE – TERRAINS VAGUES (3″CDR by Bicephalic Records)
KHRISTIAN WEEKS – IN AN INTERESTING CONDITION (3″CDR by Bicephalic Records)
NIPPLE STOOLS – DECISION POINTS (3″CDR by Bicephalic Records)
Three neatly packed 3″CDRs of mostly unknown musicians. The first one (I played) was by Controlled Dissonance, of whom nothing is known, and who plays, according to the label, ‘dark ambient/harsh drone/soft noise’. ‘Terrains Vagues’ is one, seventeen minute, piece which exemplifies that. Dark ambience for sure, through a very low end rumble which seems static but below the surface is on the move all the time. Hard to tell what was used to create this, but it surely could be any kind of sound processing on basically any kind of sound. After about two-third things make a change and radio voices leak through – thus perhaps giving away the sound source (shortwave radio) and it makes a fierce noise ending. Nice one.
Khristian Weeks is from Durham, North Carolina, and is a sound artist/designer who uses found and hacked electronics, objects, field recordings, microphones, electro-acoustic and electro-mechanical devices. He plays all of this in an improvised manner. I assume he uses various layers of his playing on objects and electronics (hand cranked) in quite a chaotic way, without caring too much about such notions as composition. That I thought was nice, but perhaps not for the entire length of the second piece, ‘Rumpus’, in its entire sixteen or so minutes. The first one, only four minutes, proved more than enough how things work for him. In the second piece I think some editing would have been nice, as well as some touching up in the area of hiss. Music with potential, I’d say.
Labelboss August Traeger works with Carl Kruger as Nipple Stool. They have no less than fourteen tracks within twenty-one minutes and within that music things are even more fragmented. I assume they operate as a laptop duo with their own constellations of software to fragment small bits of audio information a bit further. Reminding me of the glitchy clicks ‘n cuts of say five to ten years ago (think Ritornell, early Mego), this is quite nice improvised electronic music. Since nothing lasts very long here, and with a nice touch of modern composition, this is a sparkling release. Not because its necessarily new but for its sheer compact character. Best out of three, although I doubt if a much longer release would be equally interesting. Time will tell. (FdW)
Address: http://www.bicephalic.net
LEECHHEAD/ULTRA BONBON (cassette by FTP Recordings)
EXTRAORDINARY PIGEONS/REGOSPHERE (cassette by Pigeon Coup International)
A split tape with hardly any information, not on the cover and not on the website. It could be that the title is ‘Ultra BonBon’ or a split tape. The website says its a split tape. This is a twenty minute tape with five pieces of ‘experimental’ electronics. Not really from a well-taught out, thoroughly composed nature, but more from an era of lo-fi electronics, with hints towards noise, but never over the top loud. They add a bit of rhythm in ‘Lifeless’, to add some sort of spicey dubby like sound. Leechhead seemed the more noisy one, over Ultra BonBon’s more psychedelic layered soundscapes. I guess its all ‘nice’, but not great. It seemed to me all a bit without direct focus. Creating music as a means to pass time, which of course is fair enough (always better than starting a riot), and in an edition of 18 copies surely a fine hobby. But I guess it could be somewhat more than just this.
Two bands/projects who also have a split tape, also perform live, so perhaps its a bit more than just a hobby. Extraordinary Pigs have a terrible name, but this trio from Seattle, have a lengthy track here on this tape that is excellent. Low humming , meditative and hard to tell what it is they are doing. Instruments? Acoustic ones according to the cover, but that’s hard to believe. Great sustaining sounds along the lines of William Basinski. An excellent piece indeed. The other side if for Andrew Quitter, also known as Regosphere. His side was produced with analogue synthesizers and shortwave radio, and is quite noisy. I am in a good following the Extraordinary Pigeons side and normally I wouldn’t care for such a thing very much, but for now its ok. The sort of noise thing that goes on and on, not really loud, but perhaps a bit too much without much idea. (FdW)
Address: http://ftprecords.blogspot.com/
TROGPITE – NOISE NANCY (cassette by Lighten Up Sounds)
LIGHTED QUEENDOM (cassette by Lighten Up Sounds)
Behind Trogpite is Nick Painter, who is from Burlington, Vermont and although I never heard from him, he’s been active solo as well with other people in such bands as Lord Bird Golden Cobra, Fuck Telecorps, Casual Approach, Cock Scene Investigator and Veras Unlimited. Some of these are with Joseph Roemer of Macronympha, so I expected some heavy type noise release. And while this is not really soft per se, its not necessarily very loud either. Trogpite uses tape loops, samplers and electronics, in a very crude way. I think the sampler is one of those cheap casio samplers with a 2K bit rate, the loops were cut with a pair scissors on an old reel-to-reel machine and the electronics… maybe a delay pedal or so. The loops are made from using his own voice, and both sides seem to be made in one, uninterrupted go. A strange minimalism emerges and reminded me of the 80s cassette scene. Music with head nor tail, no compositional process of any kind, but a stream of sounds. I remember that after years of hearing that kind of music, I was a bit fed up, and now, with this Trogpite it comes back, and I actually like. Maybe its nostalgia? Must be!
From Minneapolis is a band called Lighted – maybe
the band behind the label? Who knows. Drums, synthesizers and guitars. ‘Queendom’ is the follow-up to ‘Kingdom’ and has four tracks. Tagwords, if this was the internet, would be psychedelic, krautrock, space rock, Hawkind’s grandchildren. Captured in the basement of one of the band members so it certainly lacks a bit of depth I’d say, but the spacious jams (four tracks in twenty five minutes – perhaps not as spacious as it could have been?) are played with much fun and care by the members. Although this is not the kind of music I would want to hear all day – I mean, how long can one float outer space? – but occasionally: yes, please, bring it on. Its that the rest of the day is filled with other things to do, as I wouldn’t mind grabbing some more of this music right now and sit back – oh, perhaps I’m just lazy today? Lighted should definitely find a way to improve their methods of recording and then that side will bloom too. (FdW)
Address: http://www.lightenupsounds.blogspot.com