XX COMMITTEE – STEEL NEGRO MUSIC (CD by Trash Ritual) *
MACHINEFABRIEK – SOL SKETCHES 1-21 (CD by Machinefabriek) *
SURREALESTATE – LACUNAE (CD by Acoustic Levitation)
SEINO – FROZEN DUST (CD by Voice Of Silence)
NEXT ORDER – LIVE-INTENSIFIED (2CD by Order Tone Music)
VALFARDSORKESTERN – VFO (CD by Fylkingen) *
MINDFIELD (CD compilation by Psychonavigation)
CRAIG HILTON & TOMAS PHILLIPS – LE GOUT DE NEANT (CD by Absinth Records) *
KLIVE – SWEATY PSALMS (CD by Mille Plateaux) *
YU MIYASHITA – NOBLE NUCHE (CD by Mille Plateaux) *
DRONESKVADRONEN ALL STARS VOL.1 (CD by Droneskvadronen) *
THE WILD SWANS – COLDEST WINTER FOR A HUNDRED YEARS (CD by Occultation) *
DIMITRA LAZARIDOU-CHATZIGOGA – STROKE BY STROKE (CD by Organized Music From Thessaloniki) *
SISTER OVERDRIVE – HONEY (cassette by Organized Music From Thessaloniki)
AZALIA SNAIL – CELESTIAL RESPECT (CD by Silber Records) *
REMORA – SCARS BRING HOPE (CD by Silber Records) *
ELECTRIC BIRD NOISE – THE SILBER SESSIONS (CDR by Silber Records) *
BLUE SAUSAGE INFANT – NEGATIVE POSITIVE (LP by Zeromoon)
MANUEL MOTA (LP by Headlights)
MANUEL MOTA – DIAS DAS CINZAS (LP by Headlights)
DAVID MARANHA & GABRIEL FERRANDINI – A FONTE DE ARETUSA (LP by Mazagran)
MATHIAS JOSEFSON – NIGHT IS THE BEST TIME HERE/IT SOMEHOW REMINDS ME OF EARTH (10″ by Isoramara Records)
MOLJEBKA PVLSE – KAIKV (CDR by Magnanimous)
FERRAN FAGES – PEL NORD (7″ by Bocian Records)
JOE FRAWLEY – CARNIVAL (CDR by Joe Frawley Music) *
MARIO DE VEGA – LIVE/03.12.09 NEXT FESTIVAL/BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA (CDR by Acheulian Handaxe) *
MARIANNE SCHUPPE & HANS TAMMEN & GEORG WOLF & MICHAEL VORFELD – KARPF (CDR by Acheulian Handaxe) *
RESET – CHAMALEO VULGARIS (CDR by Acheulian Handaxe) *
*T.L.E.R. – THEY WILL STAND FOREVER (C40 by Skumrex)
PLAYING WITH NUNS/STIRNER – SPLIT (C90 by Skumrex)
NRYY REDSK/STIRNER – SPLIT (CDR by Skumrex)
ANDREW COLTRANE – URGE TO KILL (CDR by Cerebro Morto)
CONTAGIOUS ORGASM + KADAVER – A TRAGEDY WITHOUT A BORDER LINE (CD by Wrotycz Records)
ZANDER/FIEBIG – RAUMPUNKTE (CDR by Attenuation Circuit) *
DAS AUDIOVISUELLE KOLLEKTIV – BETRACHTUNG (CDR by Attenuation Circuit) *
GERALD FIEBIG/BRUNO KLIEGL/EMERGE – HORBAR IN FARBE (CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
POLLEN TRIO – PEAKS (CD by Molly) *
XX COMMITTEE – STEEL NEGRO MUSIC (CD by Trash Ritual)
Back in Vital Weekly 636 I reviewed the CD re-issue of the classic LP ‘Netwerk’ by XX Committee, ending on a hopeful note that their cassette should also be released on CD. My prayers have been heard, as here it is. To remind you: XX Committee was a duo of Scott Foust, which is him on guitar, bass and rhythm and Chris Scarpino on synth and guitar. Scarpino went into obscurity and Foust is best known as the man behind Idea Fire Company, Tart, The Tobacconists (‘Smoking Is Green’, as he’s a profound smoker) and lots of other incarnations. The LP was released after the cassette, so now we can restore historical order. What The Twenty Committee does is get a drum sound running, and play minimalist sounds on top. On the LP it reaches a more refined sound, while on this tape things are far more roughly shaped, but the basic, classic XX Committee is already there. Classic industrial music that easily fits the early works of Esplendor Geometrico and Vivenza, much more than the UK power electronics of feedback and howl. Included here are an unreleased track as well as the only track that was released on a compilation (‘Sex & Bestiality’), to complete the picture. An excellent, early classic, perhaps not as classic as ‘Netwerk’, but still a great one. Another more than welcome re-issue. (FdW)
Address: http://www.trashritual.com
MACHINEFABRIEK – SOL SKETCHES 1-21 (CD by Machinefabriek)
In a somewhat hazy state I got up this morning, looked at my desk, contemplating wether I would first play some ordinary pop music and then start reviewing, or wether I should start listening to all the Vital stuff, and if so what would it be? Being a good protestant boy from The Netherlands, never loose a days work, I opted for the new, self released Machinefabriek, which comes with with an eraser! As the loud boom of night slowly evaporates from my head, Machinefabriek takes over. Thank god, I might add. Rutger Zuydervelt has been asked to compose music for a documentary on Sol Lewitt by Chris Teerink, and that choice for composing a soundtrack on a minimalist artist seems a good one. The CD doesn’t contain the soundtrack but twenty-one sketches that were used in the soundtrack. The most striking thing here is the that the instrument of choice is the piano, and not the guitar, or perhaps there is guitar, but then it is very reduced. The electronic side of this album is also very sparse. The minimalism of LeWitt is excellently represented by Machinefabriek here. Minimalist piano sketches with great sparseness, lots of quiet moments, sometimes swelling and rising (the electronics treating the piano sounds perhaps) and perfectly a totally rainy sunday afternoon. Dramatic music in a great way. (FdW)
Address: http://www.machinefabriek.nu
SURREALESTATE – LACUNAE (CD by Acoustic Levitation)
Surrealestate is a collective that is active since 1996 in Los Angeles, after being first formed in 1977(!). The members of the present line up have interest in about all sorts of music that are around on this planet, and from these traditions they take their inspiration for their own musical endeavors. Featured on this album are Bruce Friedman (trumpet), Jonathon Grasse (guitar), Ken Luey (woodwinds), David Martinelli (drums), Jeff Schwartz (bass) and Charles Sharp (woodwinds, percussion). The ensemble performs also composed music from composers like Stockhausen, Coleman and Taylor. But for this release they present themselves in eight examples of collective improvisation, recorded live on two sessions in 2009. These improvisations demonstrate their very own language of improvisation associated with different contexts. In ‘When Cassavetes hit Reagan’, they sound at their most jazziest. Moreover the music recalls elements of oriental music, if only by the use of non-western instruments. Also they tap from modern composed music, but never in an obvious way. Influences are integrated into something that is very much of their own. Music that is beyond the music we know, and that springs from a very powerful source. This one is absolutely worth listening to. (DM)
Address: http://www.myspace.com/surrealestateLA
SEINO – FROZEN DUST (CD by Voice Of Silence)
NEXT ORDER – LIVE-INTENSIFIED (2CD by Order Tone Music)
Takumi Seino is a name you find every now and then in the columns of Vital Weekly. This time he released a duo cd with Motohiko Ichino (guitar). Like Seino, Motochiko Ichino is graduated from Berklee College of Music where he studied with Mick Goodrick and others. In 2001 he settled in Tokyo where he works as a teacher, performer and composer. He has two solo CDs out and works as a sideman for many bands.The cd ‘Frozen Dust’ contains two improvisations. The title piece takes 37 minutes and ‘Water’s Edge’ about 9 minutes. Both pieces were recorded live in december 2009. ‘Frozen Dust’ is a fine relaxing and pastoral piece. Fine interplay by two very communicative and capable players. Partly they make use of jazzy timbres, in other parts they abstract from these approaches for a form of free improvising that is not connected to identifiable idioms.
Also on Next Order we wrote earlier in Vital Weekly. This has Takumi Seino in another context. Next Order is a quartet of two guitarists: Yuji Moto and Seino, with Atsutomo Ishigaki on drums and Hiroshi ‘Gori’ Matsuda on drums. Again here everything is recorded live. The cd opens with a speedy and loud hardcore-like piece ‘NDE?’. The next piece however ‘Bearclaw’ is a very relaxed jazzy piece, built around a beautiful motive. Other pieces are a combination of both. This is what Next Order is about since they started in 2002. They combine the raw energy of rock, the virtuosity of jazz, plus free improvisation and funk. But each piece departs from of these genres, with influences of the other genres popping up. In a track like ‘L.C.M.’ however they jump abruptly from one to another genre like we know it from bands like Naked City. With their clever use of musical conventions they built convincing musical pieces. Also the way they combine changing dynamics and contrasts is very well done. Again two convincing and enjoyable works by Seino and his mates. (DM)
Address: http://order-tone.com/
Address: http://www.takumiseino.com
VALFARDSORKESTERN – VFO (CD by Fylkingen)
The name translates as the Welfare Orchestra, which might be to criticize or applaud the state of Sweden, and is a duo of Lise-Lotte Norelius and Soren Runolf, who have a whole range of electronic toys at their display, from analog synthesizers to laptop and voice. If I understand right this CD includes recordings from 2005 to 2010. Clocking at seventy-two minutes, which is kind of long for this kind of top heavy improvised electronic music – an endurance test almost. Their improvisations work in a two-way direction. On one side, the longer pieces at that too, is that of noise like pieces, abstract, loud and at times a big too long. On the other hand, and in some minority here, are pieces that deal with rhythm, which thumbs along with more reduced sets of noise. These pieces are the best of the CD, loosely improvised with some noise rolling along. Only ‘Dagens Nyheter’ in which the voice plays a bigger role than in the other pieces, is the true odd ball here, not as loud throughout, and more a radical form of soundpoetry. Overall quite an alright release, save for the fact that some pieces are too long and that it could have been a better release if things were a bit shorter. (FdW)
Address: http://www.fylkingen.se
MINDFIELD (CD compilation by Psychonavigation)
Writing about compilations is hard, certainly about a thing like this. We have fifteen pieces by some well-known big shots from the world of electronic music, such as Spacetime Continuum, Robert Leiner, Future Sound Of London, Scanner, Norken, The Black Dog, plus a bunch of tracks from bands and people who have been on this label such as Enrico Coniglio, Buckminster Fuzeboard, Cuttooth, Sense, Roger Doyle, so it seems, but perhaps I am cynical, that the well-known bands are used here to attract consumers to the music of the stalemates and generate a bit of sales. I might be wrong. I have been out most nights of last week, to the big local outdoor event, and heard virtually every variation in dance music there is to small and larger crowds, so it would have been better to put this CD away for a while, since waking up to this is not easy, but it worked best as pre-party music, since this too is varied bunch of music in various directions of the dance spectrum, and not always necessarily with a lot of beats, i.e. ambient. It brings back the days of ambient house – again – and that’s nice. But to be honest: I don’t like reviewing compilations. (FdW)
Address: http://www.psychonavigation.com
CRAIG HILTON & TOMAS PHILLIPS – LE GOUT DE NEANT (CD by Absinth Records)
On the improvised music label Absinth a rather unusual collaboration of two guys on a laptop, Craig Hilton and Tomas Phillips. I must add that Hilton also plays the guzheng and the whole first track is him playing that instrument solo. That ten minute recording is used in the subsequent three pieces. The guzheng is played to make beautiful sustaining sounds, and then these sustaining sounds are slowly expanded in the next three pieces. Phillips and Hilton know how to create a wonderful, rich sound from the basic source, and at times, I believe they add new layers of guzheng playing to the music. Curiously enough what you expect is what you don’t get, at least my assumptions were wrong. I expected some glitch like drone/ambient music highly inside the world of digital music. That’s not the case. These two men create music that is highly organic, with carefully layered constructions of real time events, a bit of loops hopping around, sustaining sounds from the addition of sound effects and three excellent atmospheric pieces of music arise majestically from a no-man’s land. It all hardly sounds improvised, but more thoroughly composed, which perhaps makes it an odd ball for this label, but also a true beauty. (FdW)
Address: http://www.absinthrecords.com
KLIVE – SWEATY PSALMS (CD by Mille Plateaux)
YU MIYASHITA – NOBLE NUCHE (CD by Mille Plateaux)
Not a lot of information was delivered for the album by Klive, but on the cover we see that its one Ulfur Hansson and that his music was recorded in a cellar in Reykajvik. This is one of the things that leave me slightly puzzled. Just what does Klive want, I wondered when hearing this. It opens up in a nice spacious ambient way, but slowly makes way for a sample heavy sort of rock song, another piece with female voice, and then more pieces with samples from the world of drums/rock/techno, in what doesn’t result in very danceable music, but in a kind of music that is certainly most pleasant to hear and well entertaining. The experimental variation of dance music that will not break big ever, but one that works pretty well. Not always the most original ideas and sometimes with a big of shaky execution, but surely nice, and a bit long.
The other release by Mille Plateaux brings back their old sub-division to mind: Ritornell. Should that still have existed then Yu Miyashita’s release would have fitted perfectly here. This is music made from glitches, but unlike some of the previous Ritornell peers, these glitches are moulded into noise. However not the sort of noise we leave to Jliat these days, but noise of a more varied type. Like the fast forward speeding up of tapes, along with heavy layers of drone like sounds, like totally distorted samples of organs. Say the classic Kid 606 sound, but without any drum sounds in close range. Wall of noise, psychedelic and captivating. I think Yu Miyashita is from Japan, and his (?) music sounds like entering a pachinko hall – those Japanese entertainment/gambling centers, with lots of rambling machines with their silver balls and loud music on top. There are at times quieter moments, like the dark opening op ‘Scrypt’. Yu Miyashita builds on the earlier experiences of the label, does that in a more heavy manner than the previous lot and that makes it quite a great CD. But I wonder what he would do next. More of the same seems not the right thing, I’d say, as this is a statement by itself. (FdW)
Address: http://www.milleplateaux.com
DRONESKVADRONEN ALL STARS VOL.1 (CD by Droneskvadronen)
In Vital Weekly 742 we reviewed a bunch of releases on the label Droneskvadronen, which carried no information. Now they indulge in releasing a real CD, lovingly mastered by Jos Smolders, but again no information, no website or anything. Maybe somebody out there doesn’t care about selling a CD? From what I gather is that one Drony Skvadrony is the man who mixed this together from sounds, which were send in by people like Arturas Bumsteinas, Einzelganger, Greta Aagre, Jan-M Iversen, Kaoss 99, Kredi Dubi, Lefterna, Monolab, Miguel A Garcia, Origami Boe, Presence, Roar Borge, Ronny Waernes, Sindre Bjerga, Sonisk Blodbad, Sound_00, T.E. Davey, Terje Paulsen, Tzesne and Yasushi Miura. All of this mixed into a seventy plus minute soundsscape, and the title here is the program: drone like music based on sustaining sounds and field recordings. A fine piece, mixed in a well-done manner by Skvadrony, but perhaps the whole thing being so faceless, makes it also less to easy to enjoy. Who did what, where, how? Maybe an online score? Maybe that whole anonymous thing is a bit too annoying for me. Nice CD though. Quite pleasant in all its darkness and moving textures. Never a dull minute. (FdW)
Address: none
THE WILD SWANS – COLDEST WINTER FOR A HUNDRED YEARS (CD by Occultation)
One of those days where you wonder why the hell you got out of bed, since things break down, won’t work and that one thing that you keep playing over and over, not knowing what to write. You could either go to bed early and forget that day, or cook a meal, pick up a comic and play something entirely different. In my case I choose that today, and it was that great CD by The Wild Swans, which helped me out yesterday getting up/waking up. The Wild Swans are a different cup of tea for Vital Weekly fans, or perhaps not your cup of tea at all. This early 80s band revived and did two great singles for this label before, two tracks which appear again here, including the great ‘English Electric Lightning’ and the band now has Les Pattinson of Echo & The Bunneymen in their middle along with Ricky Maymi (Brian Jonestown Massacre), and Mike Mooney (formerly of Spiritualized), along with founding member Paul Simpson. Twelve great rock songs, full of melancholy and despair, beautifully sung by Simpson, with great harmonies, slides and space. Don’t look again at that broken harddrive, that awful website where nothing works right, but look at the clouds passing outside, eating dinner and trying to read that comic (Tin-tin In Tibet, speaking of hope and despair), with The Wild Swans just a bit too loud in the background. You couldn’t feel better, but you have to put your avant-garde elitism behind you. Life is good. (FdW)
Address: http://www.occultation.co.uk
DIMITRA LAZARIDOU-CHATZIGOGA – STROKE BY STROKE (CD by Organized Music From Thessaloniki)
SISTER OVERDRIVE – HONEY (cassette by Organized Music From Thessaloniki)
One half of the duo ap’strophe is Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga (the other being Ferran Fages) and on this she performs solely using zither and objects. She is from Greece and the recordings were made in Athens with the windows open. Any sound event from the street is not left out, and if you know that Athens has been a noisy place from 2010 onwards, you may not be surprised. She also records bits with TV and radio on. I am not sure what to make of this however. There are twenty-one tracks here, with a total length of fifty-one minutes. That makes that we have a lot of short pieces here, almost sketch like. Lots of scraping of the surface of the instruments with a plethora of objects, using sustaining feedback at times, cars passing and other moments of hiss. But the snapshot doesn’t work very well, at least not for me. Some of these pieces were quite alright, but throughout its too much a hit and miss affair. Nice sketches, but I prefer a more worked out idea.
Giannis Kotsonis is the man behind Sister Overdrive, of whom I reviewed a CD in Vital Weekly 717. ‘Honey’ can be seen as one track, build from various shorter pieces. Like with his CD release this is again a mixture of industrial soundscapes, musique concrete bits, drone and microsound. Apparently all generated in the world of electronics, according to the information. Silent parts are cut along more noisy parts, but things never get over the top or truly loud. As with cassettes, it’s hard to say when something stops and a new piece begins, but no doubt that’s also part of the deal. The music is quite alright: events are never long and as a whole it makes pretty much sense. Its altogether perhaps not the most original release, but quite nice altogether. (FdW)
Address: http://thesorg.noise-below.org
AZALIA SNAIL – CELESTIAL RESPECT (CD by Silber Records)
REMORA – SCARS BRING HOPE (CD by Silber Records)
ELECTRIC BIRD NOISE – THE SILBER SESSIONS (CDR by Silber Records)
Two recurring acts here on Silber Records and a new one. The name Azalia Snail sounded familiar, but I don’t know where I saw or heard it before. Apparently she started out in the late 80s with a four track recorder, collaborated with Alan Sparhawk, Beck, Grasshopper, Pall Jenkins and Daniel Oxenberg. According to Silber this we should say as ‘her special version of lo-fi space pop’, and me thinks she listened to the latter day Kate Bush. Now, I actually do like Kate Bush a lot, in all stages of her career, which made it easier for me to also like Azalia Snail, even when her music seems less complex and more simple, direct, to the point. Harmonium plays a role, and string(-synthesized) and bass, guitar and such like in a more supportive role. Sparse music, vocal heavy, with no doubt songs about love and death (not always easily to be understood). Not really the cup of Vital tea, but surely nice enough for a slow tuesday afternoon.
First recurring act there is Brian John Mitchell’s Remora, whose ‘Derivative’ was reviewed in Vital Weekly 697. I wasn’t blown away by that release. Guitar playing, singing, loop effects. Singer songwriter stuff, but then with more power. Songs are about such things as the end of the world, alien invasion, resurrected soldiers, the Cthulhu mythos and love songs. Perhaps all not stuff I would greatly care about, but then I am known to never paying much attention to the lyrics anyway. What leaves then is the music: endless strumming, lots of effects, drum machines banging and dark vocals. Post apocalyptic pop, as the label says, but as I have great expectations not to survive any sort of apocalypse, I could hardly care what we hear after that. Not really my cup of tea then.
Brain Lea McKenzie plays ‘ambient’ guitar. Despite his decade long career, we only reviewed one previous release ‘Le Vestibule/Vestibule Transitoire’ (see Vital Weekly 650). This new release is more of the same kind of music, but with the addition of guestplayers, on vocals among others. Now the ambient guitars of Electric Bird Noise should not be understood as ‘drones’ along the lines of, say, Fears Fall Burning, but gentle melodic, reminding me at times of Durutti Column such as in ‘Christmas With Reilly’ (that can’t be a coincidence), but at other times is more psyched and spaced out, with loud drum machines and likewise distorted guitars. A totally different ambient guitar music than what one would expect to think of this. Quite good actually; a sort of post rock for a solo instrument with the addition of a bit of extras. Very nice indeed. Hopefully pre-apocalypse music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.silbermedia.com
BLUE SAUSAGE INFANT – NEGATIVE POSITIVE (LP by Zeromoon)
Perhaps inspired by Spectrum Spools and their releases into the area of cosmic/krautrock/synth music, Zeromoon decided to release the next album by Blue Sausage Infant on vinyl, and why not? Perhaps its the only true format for this kind of music, harking back to the seventies days when all of this was released on LPs only. Its also, I guess, because the music has drifted more towards the cosmic boys than on is two previous releases. If those where mixed affairs of drones, plunderphonics and krautrock, this new one is definitely more straight forward cosmic music, especially in ‘Motion Parallax’ with its nice bubbling arpeggio synth and mysterious voice. The title piece is a more straight forward stomping space rock piece, with guest drummer Michael Shanahan, guitarist Jeff Barsky, and percussionist Jason Mullinax. Think Neu!, Cluster, Hawkind or, if that’s more familiar, an instrumental piece by The Legendary Pink Dots, while the closing piece ‘Subferal’ is a subtle menacing piece. Three excellent pieces of cosmic/krautrock like music, excellently produced and with great style and care. What more can you possibly want? (FdW)
Address: http://www.zeromoon.com
MANUEL MOTA (LP by Headlights)
MANUEL MOTA – DIAS DAS CINZAS (LP by Headlights)
A quick scan of recent Vital Weekly’s learns that solo music by Manuel Mota is not reviewed a lot, certainly not in recent years. I remember the first time hearing his music, which blew me away. Very silent acoustic guitar music. I later learned that he was perhaps already part of a gang of musicians playing this kind of soft music, such as Taku Sugimoto (of whom I also didn’t hear much in recent years), but I never lost appreciation for the music of Mota. Here, all of a sudden two LPs with his music. The one with no title is limited to 150 copies and the other to 200 copies. The untitled one is the most recent, recorded in two days in February and March 2011 on acoustic guitar. Lots of air in between these notes, but perhaps not throughout as sparse as some of his older music. Its however quite intense music; intense in all its sparseness. Excellent mood music.
The other album is also from tis year and according to the website for electric guitar, but that’s something I could have guessed too. Otherwise this too doesn’t have a lot of additional information. Essentially Mota plays similar music than to the other LP, but due to the sustain of the guitar, the space between notes gets a bit shorter, and it may seem there is more happening here; actually maybe it does. One could think that this is some kind of extreme blues music, but it stays far away from the blues idiom, doesn’t cut right into your soul, but has a similar desolate character, especially if Mota starts having his feedback ring ding a little bit. I am not sure which record is the most intense – perhaps I can’t make a choice there – or the most radical – ditto – but strictly personal speaking, I’d say I like the electric one best. Hard to say why, but its probably in the minor details. (FdW)
Address: http://headlightsrecordings.blogspot.com/
DAVID MARANHA & GABRIEL FERRANDINI – A FONTE DE ARETUSA (LP by Mazagran)
A duet for hammond organ (played by David Maranha) and drums/percussion (played by Gabriel Ferrandini). Now you should know I am a big fan of Maranha’s music, especially with Osso Exotico but in recent years also his solo work. Therefore I am sorry to say that this album with the for me unknown drummer Ferrandini is not what I expect of him. An album of improvisations for these two instruments. Probably meant as topheavy, but somehow it doesn’t work very well. Maranha plays minimal clusters of tones while Ferrandini adds improvised layers of drumming and percussion on top. Maybe its because its not what I expected that makes me doesn’t like this very much, or maybe it is indeed the actual content? Not an easy question, I should think. What doesn’t help is the recording quality, which seems to lack a certain depth. With multiple microphone pick up, and a more thorough mixing this could have been helped, but I am not sure if the quality of the music would have been better. Maybe this worked well in a concert situation, actually I know it would, but not here and now, on LP. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mazagran.org
MATHIAS JOSEFSON – NIGHT IS THE BEST TIME HERE/IT SOMEHOW REMINDS ME OF EARTH (10″ by Isoramara Records)
MOLJEBKA PVLSE – KAIKV (CDR by Magnanimous)
The man behind Moljebka Pvlse finally (?) graduated from the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts last year and to that end he created an installation which can be seen here (http://vimeo.com/20220783) and to which the description goes: “Night is the best time here | it somehow reminds me of Earth is based on a scene in Andrei Tarkovsky’s classic 1972 science fiction movie Solaris. The characters in the movie try to develop a sound environment that resembles life on earth, which they miss. Mathias Josefson, in his turn, recreates and expands this. With shredded white paper, fans and a control system, he, like the characters in the movie, creates artificial and rustling foliage.” The music is also released on a 10″ record which says ‘listen to at low volume’, but I was still using the volume setting from a previous record I was playing – oh well. The a-side is indeed a nocturnal piece of music, with static crackling like long wave signals or Aurora Borealis signals. The other side is more about the rumbling of objects, but quite present (forgot to turn the volume down I guess), like empty plastic barrels washing ashore and reminds me of Small Cruel Party – less any electronics. This piece had for me less power than the other, but about side A I was wondering if they still make those endless cassettes like they did in the 80s? Wouldn’t it be nice to have that piece on one those and have it running all night – to remember live on earth?
The CDR is under his band guise, and while it has no information on the cover, it contains apparently two improvisations by Karin Jacobson and Mathias Josefson recorded live on the 29th and 30th of September 2006 in Helsinki and Turku. If Josefson’s music under his own name is more conceptual, then Moljebka Pvlse is something more musical, operating from the world of dark drones, ambient, atmospherics and sometimes dashes of noise. Acoustic and metal objects seem to play a role on these recordings, carefully being strummed and scratched, while in the background drones slowly emerge and arise. Both pieces perhaps lack some focus, due to the nature of the concert (being no doubt improvised). More a document of good ol’ days than the best Moljebka Pvlse I should think. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mathiasjosefson.com
Address: http://www.magnanimous.org
FERRAN FAGES – PEL NORD (7″ by Bocian Records)
A solo release by Ferran Fages, member of Ap’strophe (the other member being Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, whose solo release is reviewed elsewhere), who works here with AM radios solely. The vinyl sounds pretty scratchy, but I couldn’t figure out if this was intentional, as part of the music, or something else. Maybe it has to do with volume of the music, which on ‘Side P’ is very, very loud. A howling sound of piercing noise. ‘Side N’ starts out ‘softer’ but also arrives in this mid-range static howl of noise. I am not sure how many radios, or layers of radios have been used here, or indeed any sort of processing, but its all a bit too easy and perhaps too loud for me. I know Fages as an excellent improviser, but this 7″ is perhaps not my cup of tea, no matter how much I like the use of radio sounds. (FdW)
Address: http://www.monotyperecords.com
JOE FRAWLEY – CARNIVAL (CDR by Joe Frawley Music)
Music by Joe Frawley is always more than welcome. Its intimate, radioplay like and deals with a great care of treatment of sound and words. This new one is no break with his past releases, but a continuation of what he has done before. Sparse piano tones, guitar playing, bits of keyboards, chopped up voice material lifted from third party sources and the voice of Melanie Skriabine reciting texts in English and French. All in a dreamlike state. Now, I think there are two ways to approach this: we judge this by what it is or we look at this as part of his catalogue of releases so far. If I’d go by the first then I have to say that this is a great release. Frawley’s approach to his sounds and the ways he puts it together is great, reminding me easily of the best by Dominique Petitgand. Excellent release. But somehow I am more inclined to go the second route: by now we have heard various of his releases, which were all great, but maybe its time for a necessary step in his career. I suggested before a longer radio play kind of piece, around one theme or story; maybe that would be a next step, or perhaps go for more pop like pieces. With a talent like Frawley anything should be possible. (FdW)
Address: http://www.joefrawleymusic.info
MARIO DE VEGA – LIVE/03.12.09 NEXT FESTIVAL/BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA (CDR by Acheulian Handaxe)
MARIANNE SCHUPPE & HANS TAMMEN & GEORG WOLF & MICHAEL VORFELD – KARPF (CDR by Acheulian Handaxe)
RESET – CHAMALEO VULGARIS (CDR by Acheulian Handaxe)
Three discs of improvised music. First a relatively short solo one by Mario de Vega, who is a member of Die Schrauber, who had a disc before on Acheulian Handaxe. De Vega plays here modified turntables, objects and electronics. Six heavy slabs of improvised noise, lasting twenty six minutes (and not thirty-two as listed on the cover). A deep end rumble produced on the rotating surface, feeding through some effects and the rattle of objects on top. Intense stuff that falls somewhere in between improvised music (obviously) and noise, even when it never really goes over the top, which I guess is a good thing. Perhaps the concise nature of this excursion helps too.
Labelboss Hans Tammen plays endangered guitar, along with Georg Wolf (bass), Michael Vorfeld (percussion, string instruments) and Marianne Schuppe (voice). This too is improvised and was already recorded a decade ago, one long piece from 2000 and five shorter ones from 2001. Welcome to the world of decent improvisation, of great care, much style and perhaps also a bit too much convention. Instruments are a scraped, hit, bend, played conventionally, loud, soft and all is fine. Maybe the only thing I didn’t like very much was Schuppe’s voice, which sings/speaks in a theatrical way, which is I happen not to like very much. But her role is limited I think on most of these pieces. A bit too normal for me.
On the last new release I find two players of whom I never heard, Frederick Galiay (bass) and Jean-Sebastien Mariage (guitar), who work as Reset. Their duo disc of improvisation is less conventional than the quartet release, with great emphasis on using their instruments as generators of sound, rather than for their specific bas and guitar qualities. The deep end bass provides with a low end rumble at times, while the guitar scratches and scrapes the more mid/high end range. This results in some fine improvised music, which is very nice. However with eleven tracks spanning forty-six minutes of this careful improvisation which occasionally bursts out is a bit too much. I thought it was quite hard to maintain concentration throughout this entire disc. But in a smaller dose this was the best out of these three. (FdW)
Address: http://www.handaxe.org
*T.L.E.R. – THEY WILL STAND FOREVER (C40 by Skumrex)
PLAYING WITH NUNS/STIRNER – SPLIT (C90 by Skumrex)
NRYY REDSK/STIRNER – SPLIT (CDR by Skumrex)
Though some may consider Noise and Harsh Noise and Wall simple in technical terms, (as I do) and others still maintain a “work ethic” cult of Artist as Genius, a Michelangelo carving into sonority where no one has carved before AKA James T Kirk, this just reduces Noise of any sort back into music at a fairly low denomination, or regards the accident as something which a tortured soul agonizes over in the profundity of its depths, hurt souls of the white middle class bourgeoisie through to the (preferable but no the less still privileged privileging) Fear and Trembling of Kierkegaard – oh et al. Fact is a Duchamp is technically easy, and from this can be drawn various threads from the anti formalisms of conceptual art, art as fact, to the anarchistic fluxus movements, ergo Duchamp’s significance. The Skumrex label is a de-co-modification of sound and matter, the printing- dark grey black almost illegible, the used cassette spray painted with globs and the actual “recording”- the detritus of over manipulation of I think – attempting to read- cassettes vis non – production – anti-production – apart from its wider politico considerations annuls the economics of the Recording Studio- and its pre-occupation with Quality and the number of tracks, DAWs and all the other redundant electronic, 64 tracks is just an indication of financial not musical ability anyway.
The PWN Stirner (superb name!) split being a good example, there appears some instrumentation with the noise and murk, but its there only as the last remnants of the process of destruction, just there like the printed text and brutalized cassette tape, *T.L.E.R.’s tape has recognized “pieces” in that gaps in a fairly consistent work- though there are changes walls- of harsh noise are “obvious”, the CD shows Stirner likewise producing HNW, only on the CD are any instruments recognizable in the improvisations of NRYY REDSK… the crispness of the digital recording and disk lacking the squalidness which matches the material found on the cassettes.. – less reliant on any (tainted) technology or science…(jliat)
Address: http://skumrex.blogspot.com/
ANDREW COLTRANE – URGE TO KILL (CDR by Cerebro Morto)
CONTAGIOUS ORGASM + KADAVER – A TRAGEDY WITHOUT A BORDER LINE (CD by Wrotycz Records)
I will offer a thesis, so pay attention. The Forbidden Planet was notable for its sound track, the plot was written by Shakespeare and the sets made from cardboard, rather like the acting, but Louis and Bebe Barron’s soundtrack was cutting edge, so much so that the “Marxist” dialectics of the US musicians Union effectively sent the couple to the gulag… Delia Derbyshire for perhaps other reasons was not credited for her work.. as late as 82 Vangelis provided a memorable soundtrack for Blade Runner… but in Kubrick’s 2001 in lots of ways portentous, he used old music, as for since, The Matrix, The Alien Series et al… the sound track has become redundant to the CGI. Why? A state of illiteracy, not being able to fathom the abstract, food is pictured in Mc Burger King, it used to be described, in the finest restaurants in French, now we get plastic replicas on display…. Thus the narrative force of music has faltered and died, how can a symbolic actuality match the reality of CGI. This is a problem for any programmatic music, as above. No matter how spooky, atmospheric, audiences want to see the monster, even now in 3D. So there is a problematic for the “musick without frontiers… Bubbling drones, sampled voices, crashes and hums….” which might be more than just technical ability, for anyone these days can make a Solaris on their mobile phone, which might be a good thing? (thesis number two) but another thesis is that music, art, and other stuff … its value might be extrinsic and not intrinsic… a bad day for industrial – PE or whatever genre this is, music, but more much more, a bad day for poetic menus and the whole of what was once culture. IOW Kant got it wrong. (jliat)
Address: http://cerebro-morto.x10hosting.com
Address: http://www.wrotycz.com/
ZANDER/FIEBIG – RAUMPUNKTE (CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
DAS AUDIOVISUELLE KOLLEKTIV – BETRACHTUNG (CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
GERALD FIEBIG/BRUNO KLIEGL/EMERGE – HORBAR IN FARBE (CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
Again three releases by Germany’s Attenuation Circuit, this time all dealing with live recordings. The first is by Zander/Fiebig. Recently we reviewed Gerhard Zander’s 3″CDR with Buddha Machines (see Vital Weekly 788). Buddha Machines are also subject of this live recording he made with labelboss Gerald Fiebig. He once did a 3″ for Field Muzick (see Vital Weekly 633). The live recording here was made at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Augsburg, which is apparently quite a resonant hall, in which the sound gets very spacious. Several of these loop machines were set around the space and along they plays electronics, samples, prepared electric guitar and kalimba. The complete concert is on this CDR along with eleven ‘small scale tests’ at home. In these eleven, shorter pieces, things sound, relatively, at close range, and more or less a bit more loop based than on the actual recording. Then things sound truly spacious and far away, almost like an ambient recording of wind chimes recorded on the porch at night. I think just that would have been nice enough, but the process of the first eleven is also interesting to hear. Nice ambience, fine improvisations.
Behind Das Audiovisuelle Kollektiv we find the same Gerhard Zander, as well as Emerge (who also had releases on this label) and somebody named Eazy. Their concerts are audio visual affairs, although only the audio part, being a concert from last month in Augsburg, are released here. There is a division of labour: samples from breathing (Emerge) and prepared electric guitar (Zander) and visual (Eazy). These sound elements return in both pieces but are worked out differently. In both pieces there is room for silence. Of the two pieces I liked the first one best, where both instruments seem like melted together, rather then the more divided division of labour in the second. Both pieces are quite open ended and at times, despite the sparseness, a bit chaotic. Not bad but not the best I ever heard.
Fiebig returns on the third disc, which is a three way compilation with Emerge and Bruno Kliegl. The title translates as ‘audible in color’. Fiebig uses a synthesizer, Kliegl the glass harmonica and Emerge, ever the sample man, samples painting tools. Paintings by Linda Bennani, Claudia Guldenschuh and Tine Klink are used as ‘scores’ and were shown when the music was performed. Each player plays one painting. Fiebig has three pieces, the others one. Fiebig’s synthesizer piece weren’t that interesting, quite a noisy and messy rumble of sounds. Kliegl glass harmonium piece was very nice, almost with a mediaeval sound, mediaeval and meditative. Emerge is also very much on top of things here, with what I think is the best piece I heard from him. Very silent, with only sparse sound elements being played, which sound like footprints in snow: lots of white and the irregular shaping of the print at times. An excellent piece. (FdW)
Address: http://www.myspace.com/attenuationcircuit
POLLEN TRIO – PEAKS (CD by Molly)
A teaser perhaps for the forthcoming album, this almost thirteen minute piece by Pollen Trio: Austin Buckett (piano, rhodes), Miroslav Buskovsky (percussion, angklung) and Evan Dorrian (drums, percussion). They are an avant-garde jazz trio, and, you know me, I don’t like jazz very much. But I reviewed their ‘230509’ CDR back in Vital Weekly 692, and I quite enjoyed that. Buskovsky replaced bass player Chris Pound, so the sound has changed a little again, being more percussive, with Buckett’s piano playing freely some melodies. In the second half there is some nasty bass like sound and makes this piece more heavy than the more light hearted first half. This piece is again free-jazz like, but at the same, curious time, also well organized, through minimalist developments of the piece itself. A pity that this is so short: one should definitely want more after this. Bring on the next album! (FdW)
Address: http://pollentrio.wordpress.com