CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE & Z’EV – RUBHITBANGKLANGHEAR/RUBHITBANGKLANGEAR (2CD by Sub Rosa) *
GINTAS K – GREIT (CD by Ilse) *
RAYMOND DIJKSTRA – DE SCHAAL (CD by EE Tapes) *
MARTIN BEDARD – TOPOGRAPHIES (CD by Empreintes Digitales) *
BRUNO FLEUTELOT – OZO VIV (CD by Eglantine Records) *
JULIEN DEMOULIN – SHINE EP (cassette by Eglantine Records)
YANNICK DAUBY – HARES & BELLS (CDR by Oiseaux) *
ARTHUR DE ERIOMEM – DROWNED BY VOICES, SOMEWHAT RATHER SLOWLY (CDR by Oiseaux) *
DADALA – BODYSTAIRS (CD by Dadala)
MAHLER HAZE – COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOW BEFORE (CDR by Fourth Dimension) *
PARANOID – MOTIVES 2 (CD by Paranoid Foundation)
INVENTUREN (CD by Deszpot)
FRANCK CONDON – PURITY HALL (CDR by Runningonair Music) *
MEVDA / ATARAXY – IN TORMENT (split CDR by Vomit Bucket Productions)
GOD PUSSY – DIE LIVE (CDR by Vomit Bucket Productions)
CRAY – DIGEST 54 (cassette by SicSic Tapes)
ALAN GESSO – OBLISCENCE (cassette by Field Studies)
ANDREW QUITTER – FORGOTTEN FARMS (cassette by Diazepam Records)
I AM ESPER / TAINTED CORROSIVE MIST (split cassette by Puzzle Records)
LUNGWASH – SWATTING HOLD (cassette by Worthless Recordings)
COLIN POTTER – THE FIGHTS OF THE SOUND CABLE (cassette by The Tapeworm)
JU4N – VAPORWARE (cassette by Holodeck)
ANNE GUTHRIE – SO IT’S INVERTED; OCCUPYING THE SAME POSITION AS ALWAYS (cassette by Notice Recordings)
COPPICE – PIED (cassette by Notice Recordings)
NIGEL SAMWAYS – FOREST OF ROBOTS (cassette by Ginjoha)
ARTUR RUMINSKI (cassette by Wounded Knife) *
CISZAK/RUMINSKI (cassette by Wounded Knife)
FOSSILS – NEW NOISE (cassette by MCJ)
PROFESSIONALS ISSUE TWO (fanzine)
CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE & Z’EV – RUBHITBANGKLANGHEAR/RUBHITBANGKLANGEAR (2CD by Sub Rosa)
Here’s two men who have been around since the 60s and both considerable ties to the underground, perhaps Z’EV more than Palestine. But neither have been elevated into the world of high art and are easy to approach. They met in Amsterdam in the 80s and have played a concert before, but only in 2010 they actually recorded material together at Charleworld, Charlemagne Palestine’s own place, where has a carillon set up. The picture on the back shows what this looks like. Palestine up in the air playing the bells and Z’EV on the floor with his percussion. In ‘#3′ the playing is somewhat chaotic and aided by natural reverb, but it’s my least favorite piece of the three collaborations. In the other two we find an interesting drone like layer, played by Z’EV on a large skin drum and which adds a great texture to the more controlled playing of Palestine. In “#2’ Z’EV only seems to rub the skins and makes it even more intense and creepy. I stopped the music because I wasn’t sure if I was just hearing the music or something outside happened. That’s the great mark of quality, I think. Those two long opening pieces would have been great enough by themselves. There is also a second CD with solo works. Palestine is brief here, just under eight minutes with a fine piece of carillon music, and ‘Solo Z#1’ sees Z’EV exploring more of those drone like sounds like on the second duo duo piece while his second piece lasts forty six minutes and we hear him like at least I remind me from the first time I heard his music (mid 80s). Banging metal percussion, aided with natural reverb, in what seems now proto-industrial music from an acoustic perspective. Excellent stuff here, this is the Z’EV I haven’t heard in quite some time. Great package of excellent contemporary music all around. (FdW)
Address: http://www.subrosa.net
GINTAS K – GREIT (CD by Ilse)
As recently as Vital Weekly 870 I was less charmed by Gintas K’s release ‘Slow’. Lithuanian Gintas K has been playing laptop music for years now and while he explores different routes – processed field recordings, sine waves, rhythmic music, noise, that last one seemed to be harking back too much to the Mille Plateaux label of the late 90s/early 00s. A bit outdated, but listening to ‘Greit’ I can’t help to think this is apparently a road he wants to take. In the ten pieces here he explores the boundaries of laptop music, meeting noise, and that’s perhaps the biggest difference with the previous release. Maybe to meet up with the wishes of Ilse, who releases their first real CD with this one and who are known to release more noise based music? Perhaps not, and things turned just a bit more noisy here. Much of this is at the peculiar edge where we find noise based electro-acoustic treatments, almost like early musique concrete, but perhaps all a bit more crude and simplified, certainly when it comes to such notions as compositions. Throughout however I though this was nicer than the ‘Slow’, even when perhaps the differences aren’t that big between the two. It works best here when Gintas K keeps his pieces around three to four minutes and effectively explores a few sound sources and then moves on the next. If pieces get a bit longer than it usually starts to be missing something; it simply doesn’t have enough elements to be fully captivating. But otherwise I thought this was a great release, following the somewhat disappointing ‘Slow’ release. (FdW)
Address: http://ilsemusic.info
RAYMOND DIJKSTRA – DE SCHAAL (CD by EE Tapes)
When famous Peter Saville delivered his artwork for a 7″ by Section 25 quite late, he said ‘late for what?’, which is of course the right thing to say, but for musicians and labels alike nothing is more frustrating than a designer or printer being late, what the reason might be. EE Tapes wanted to pack this release by Raymond Dijkstra with a booklet of artwork, but the machine to glue the booklets broke down and now it’s very delayed. Some copies were finished but how it looks like, I don’t know, since I got only the CD. Normally this is not how we do things at Vital Weekly – send the real thing only – but since we control this little institution ourselves we decide to do what we like and we like EE Tapes a lot, for a very long time, so we proceed to review the CD anyway. Raymond Dijkstra has built a vast catalogue of music, usually on vinyl, sometimes in editions as small as 5 copies and with a strong musical identity of it’s own. The scraping of a fork on windowpane, and a harmonium. Those are his main tools for a long and ‘De Schaal’ (‘the bowl’) is not different in that respect. Me personally think that is a pity. I like it when musicians surprise me and do something out of their ordinary self. Play another tune. Experiment with another set of ideas. It makes writing always a bit easier. That is one school of thought, but of course not many musicians do this. Partly because that’s simply not done, or perhaps they have a certain route and do not wish to divert from that. Or sometimes because they lack the ideas to step outside their box. Dijkstra is one of those musicians for whom it’s simply not done. I am not sure, but he could argue: this is what I use, and would you complain about a guitarist always picking up a guitar. I am sure that Dijkstra is an earnest man, devoted to what he is doing and doing what he is doing. Which is great and brought him some fans – along with those attracted to great covers, which Dijkstra is also known for. The two most curious sections of ‘De Schaal’ are the two near silent bits, between 8 and 12 minutes and between 20 and 23 minutes. Here he rumbles about in the background and not seems to be happening. No fork, no glass, nor harmonium and he proceeds with that after these silences are over. That is perhaps the biggest ‘new’ aspect of his work. Do I like this? Hell, yes, I do. I like the very consistent output of Dijkstra and no doubt he can keep up this work for a long time. I only wish I saw the book that came with this. (FdW)
Address: http://www.eetapes.be
MARTIN BEDARD – TOPOGRAPHIES (CD by Empreintes Digitales)
A student of composers Yves Daoust and Andre Fecteau, Martin Bedard has been programmed by over fifty national and international events, and won several competitions (which is apparently in the world of acousmatic music something of importance: winning prizes. I never know what that means exactly, but I guess that’s whole different story). This is first solo disc, and like always on Empreintes Digitales we can read on the cover what it is all about. Music inspired by trains, metal, the book Notes Of The Nightwatchman or the city of Quebec. I am not sure what that means when I am listening to these five highly abstract pieces of music. It’s like before: if you don’t know it’s about Quebec, would you have guessed by listening to the music, and if not, what does it matter? Perhaps I am being a harsh judge, or perhaps I love absolute music more than program music (you should look up the difference, in case of doubt). But it might very well be that this sort of academic acousmatic music is just not my kind of thing (to avoid that hot beverage), and perhaps that is because a lot of it sounds quite similar, and here Bedard is not much different. This is one of those places I visited before, one of those places that I liked, but would probably not return to easily. It’s not bad, not bad at all, but I find it very hard to be very enthusiast about this whole line of music. Where’s the big new idea here, who breaks out of the genre and cooks up a new dish with this? It happens, even in this music (think Lionel Marchetti), but not yet on this label, I think. A punk attitude is required, but will it be possible to break down these walls around it? Process the trumpets of Jeriocho! (FdW)
Address: http://www.empreintesdigitales.com
BRUNO FLEUTELOT – OZO VIV (CD by Eglantine Records)
JULIEN DEMOULIN – SHINE EP (cassette by Eglantine Records)
While I never heard of Bruno Fleutelot, who released his first solo release ‘Private’ in 1998, then went on to found Oboken with Philippe Saucourt (until 2003), he released ‘Ozo Vivi’ on a CDR and digital formats in 2005, which is now re-released in a re-mastered form and a bonus track. I am not sure if Fleutelot is that well-know that such a release is justified. There is no mentioning of any instruments on the cover, but no doubt the guitar is number one here, and the electronics a firm number two. Put together on a digital 8-track, I can imagine there is some layering going on here. The whole mood is set to the switch that says ‘atmosphere’ and the one next to it – going from ‘light’ to ‘dark’ – is set to ‘dark’. The label compares this to Fred Frith, which I think is rather unlikely in my opinion (but I easily admit I don’t know all of his work) and Labradford, which I can see, even when this is all more in the field of post-rock sans the rock element. Sometimes the guitar sounds seriously like a plink plonk guitar, with the loop station never far away, but occasionally the strings are tormented to such an extended that’s it hard recognizable as such. Maybe that’s were the Frith connection can be made, but Fleutelot plays it all with great care to keep the atmospherics alive. Dark and moody for sure, and perhaps not the real surprise in this musical field, which made me return to my question: why should this be re-issued?
On cassette we find the work of Julien Demoulin, who is also the man behind Silencio (see Vital Weekly 857 for instance) and someone who also plays guitar, looping devices and electronics. Whereas Fleutelot works with a certain level of abstraction, Demoulin aims for the deeper layers of atmospheric. Long form, sustaining sounds, in which the guitar is bend around to play organ like drones, on top of which we have some desolate tinkle on the strings, this is all rather text book drone music. Don’t let the word ‘EP’ in the title misguide you: here ‘extended play’ means extended play, as this cassette might easily be 40 to 50 minutes long. There has been help of Andria Degens (of Pantaleimon fame) on vocals in one piece and Damian Valles plays an extra guitar. It’s all pretty decent stuff, but never in for a real surprise. Good solid atmospheric soundscape music, well suited for some late night listening. (FdW)
Address: http://www.eglantinerecords.com
YANNICK DAUBY – HARES & BELLS (CDR by Oiseaux)
ARTHUR DE ERIOMEM – DROWNED BY VOICES, SOMEWHAT RATHER SLOWLY (CDR by Oiseaux)
Two neatly packed CDR releases in black stock card, image attached to it, and nicely printed inserts. The physical format still has my reference. Oiseaux seems to be a new series for Invisible Birds, with shorter works, EPs if you want. The first one is by Yannick Dauby – active these days – with ‘an homage to young hares and their fascination with bells’, which relationship I didn’t know, even when in a previous chapter of my life I owned a rabbit. Maybe it was just that one who didn’t like bells? The bell like sounds in this twenty minute piece sounds like wind chimes hanging outside on a porch, but then processed in a very subtle way. It occasionally peeps a tone higher or lower from the surface, and is perhaps of max/msp origin. I might be wrong. This is great ambient music, one you could play all day on repeat – on a winter’s day when you want some sunshine in your house (maybe it should be prescribed as a medicine for winter’s depression, I wondered). It’s nothing you haven’t heard before in the field of ambient/field recordings, but here it sounds really good. Maybe it’s the grey day that makes me more volatile for this kind of sad beauty?
Arthur de Eriomem is someone of whom I never heard and according to discogs he has two releases, including this one, and they have related titles. The first one is ‘Drowned By Voices (Japanese Traditional Music For Four Shakuhachi By Riley Kelly And Ralph Samuelson)’, while this one is ‘Drowned by Voices, Somewhat Rather Slowly’. Still according to discogs, the second is a re-work of the first ‘with analog delay and fender twin reverb. Computer used only for editing’. I don’t know the first version of this, but this thirty minute might give some indication. It sounds like voices, fed through indeed an analog delay – you can tell from the way the sound changes very subtle – with some extra space added – the reverb at play. The music it self is perhaps indeed made with those Japanese flutes – in case you were wondering what a Shakuhachi is – and sound like slightly up-pitched voice material. Humming down in the monastery on helium. Over the course of these thirty minutes the piece builds a bit, making things a bit more louder, more present, and unlike the the Dauby release, which stays throughout on one level, it’s easier to spot here the human control over the music. If Dauby’s release has the impression it’s on auto-pilot – which it’s surely isn’t – then this one surely hasn’t that impression at all. Quite mellow at the beginning, but without doubt in a much more alienated land at the end of this. Very nice. Play this first and then go the Dauby release for an afterthought. (FdW)
Address: http://invisiblebirds.org/
DADALA – BODYSTAIRS (CD by Dadala)
Dadala consists of four members and make their improvised music by the possibilities of the internet. Frank Dunlap and RDunlap are brothers and they are the only two who playing in real-time with each other. The other members live in other states of the United States and thus meet digitally. Loopy C provides mostly for the basic material and Johann Meier and Frank Dunlap respond there again with piano, guitar, violin, bass guitar, drum machines and kalimba. RDunlap melt all ingredients improvising together and voila … there’s the album Body Stairs. The quartet Dadala has been active since 2004 and has many releases to their credit, both physically and digitally available. The background of the musicians is diverse. Johann Meier started as a jazz musician and later increasingly focus on electronic music. RDunlap plays experimental and alternative music since 1985 and his brother Frank Dunlap, self taught the musicianship and also covers music like Grateful Dead and Neil Young. Loopy C has a rich experience in the music industry and has particularly focused on studio and digital techniques. The Body Stairs album consists of 10 songs, ranging from abstract to jazzy improvisations easy-listening music that is increasingly grim. The album has a nice building. It starts with a pop song with a clear structure around which is jammed, then comes the album quickly became more experimental and jazzy way. The atmosphere of the songs is adventurous and carefully composed. Body Stairs is a beautiful CD in which jazz, electro-acoustic music and soundscapes come together and enter a fascinating amalgamation, which accessible elements associated with abstract sounds. (JKH)
Address: http://dadalamusic.com
MAHLER HAZE – COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOW BEFORE (CDR by Fourth Dimension)
This seems to me a new name, and by the looks of it, a band from Belgium. I have no idea about the line up. It might be a single person group, or maybe a real band. The pieces here were recorded in 2010-2011, and released very late last year. The guitar seems to be at the core of the music in all of these four lengthy pieces. Guitars and effects, and with effects I should think looping devices. The word haze from the band name we should take quite literal, I think. These four long pieces seem to have been made in a haze of smoke, inhaled or otherwise, maybe through smoke machines in the recording studio, which almost come alive in your speakers at home. The guitar parts are looped around, there is synth bits to be spotted and the effects are rainbow colored, like any good psychedelic music would do. The mood is heavy here, dark obviously and very spacious. A giant black hole in which many colors disappear, but if you are on the (b)right side, you may just see all those colors shining in full brightness. The guitars loop and loop, howl and burst and there is probably nothing that you haven’t heard before in the last forty or so years of psychedelic music, of cosmic music, of ambient guitars, of isolationism, and all such like, but I thought Mahler Haze did a very decent job in creating their version of this kind of new and old psychedelica. (FdW)
Address: http://www.fourth-dimension.net
PARANOID – MOTIVES 2 (CD by Paranoid Foundation)
Paranoid Motives 2 is the fifteenth edition of Paranoid Foundation from England and is played by a group of musicians around Cris Lee. He worked three years on this album. Previously, he worked on projects such as Paranoid City, Paranoid 404, Entity and Paranoid Paranoid Motives. Rory Kettles is responsible for drums and percussion in this album and Ferhun Kahraman for sensitive piano tunes. Paranoid Motives 2 takes you into the dark world in which different musical landscapes support a monotonous narrative voice. In this sense it is a nice sequel to the albums like “Threads” and “Close Down.” The music is hypnotic by the slow narrative voice that keeps coming up and you want to take in his stream of thoughts. But suddenly the song ends and another tone and timbre begins that you puts on another leg. However, the voice remains the same, regardless of how the melancholic music is colored. One minute piano parties prevail, then seeking a bass and guitar parts with a lot of echo or raised punky guitar riffs backed with noisy synth. The music is usually played with a lot of echo and delay, giving the music a spatial character, but also at a distance, because the voice is clear and in the foreground. The strength of the CD is in the psychedelic effect that the voice and echo know to call. A paranoid atmosphere is definitely in the music, the unrest is palpable, but also the melancholy caused when you feel that humanity turns against you. (JKH)
Address: http://paranoidfoundation.com
INVENTUREN (CD by Deszpot)
What a wonderful collaboration between the writer Regina Dürig and Christian Müller, in which words and music or sound found a beautiful synergy. Regina Dürig is a writer and has written the piece Inventüren. In 24 poems she describes what is going on and search in her poems connections to organize the world on the basis of property, animals, garden, found objects, asylum seekers, fear, nothing etc,. The way she recites her poems fits well to the rhythm and mood of the poem and her voice makes the poem even more beautiful than it already is. Regina Dürig and Christian Müller (clarinet and electronics), together with Frank Heierli (cello) and Beni Weber (drums and electronics) spend three days in the studio and recorded 24 pieces on base of the interaction between text and sound. The results are impressive. The CD is in my opinion one of the most successful among different disciplines. The adventurous texts, which with surprising twists the world is organized and surprising connections are created, close organically together with the sound. Surprising combinations of different acoustic instruments and electronics are just as surprising as the texts. The rhythm of the speech is enhanced by the rhythm of the sound. The content of the text is enhanced by the sound, which in line with the associative words. The clever thing about this release is that there are no open doors kicked in. but the adventure is entered. There is a lot less organized by the experimental way and he organization of the world is less than suggested. In this way the organization gives room for improvisation and that is a nice perspective. (JKH)
Address: http://www.deszpot.ch
FRANCK CONDON – PURITY HALL (CDR by Runningonair Music)
This is a pseudonym for Wim Dehaen from Belgium who now lives in the Czech Republic. ‘His work focuses on musical application of mathematical techniques and visual representation of sound. In particular, frequency domain manipulations of sound are used extensively’. He is also a founding member of the art collective Collectif Tactique Triste and the tape label Vloekbandjes. He’s now busy with obtaining a degree in chemistry, which is also the topic of the five pieces on this CDR. Each pieces is about something from chemistry, like polymer chemistry & physics, advanced inorganic chemistry, advanced NMR spectroscopy, advanced organic chemistry and nanostructed biomarcromulecules. I have no idea what I just typed actually. Much of the music is made with convolution – ‘multiplication in the frequency domain’ – and is actually quite pleasant to hear. I am reminded me of the best work of say Stephan Mathieu’s work of a few years ago. He too worked with convolution. Long stretched, endlessly sustaining sounds with minimal development – sometimes in the color range, various shades are used, but that seems to be it. Maybe it’s a pity that, despite the fact that I liked this, I also had the feeling that I was listening to something which I already heard before – for instance in Mathieu’s work – but also the five pieces didn’t seem to be that much different from each other, which I thought was a bit more serious than sounding like someone else. For now, this was all quite nice, but the future should hold some serious new path, I imagine. (FdW)
Address: http://www.runningonair.com
MEVDA / ATARAXY – IN TORMENT (split CDR by Vomit Bucket Productions)
GOD PUSSY – DIE LIVE (CDR by Vomit Bucket Productions)
Here we get two recent outings for that pesky Vomit Bucket label, one of the more hyperactive purveyors of contemporary harsh noise. The ‘In Torment’ split allows each contender twenty minutes to sweat their stuff. Mevda’s composition, whose lengthy title isn’t worth replicating in full (who do you think you are, Fiona Apple??), largely sacrifices the wood-chipper approach to harsh noise for a full-depth slab of (relative) calm. Nuanced and ever-shifting, the bulk of it has more in common with the depths of ambient music than it does the white-knuckled, teeth-gritted malice of your regular HNW customer… which isn’t to say foggy-eyed Steve Roach enthusiasts are going to find much here to ‘zone out’ to. By contrast, Ataraxy’s “Prayer” (if you recall, Ataraxy is Vomit Bucket prez Gag’s main vessel of sound-regurgitation) advances a true harsh noise wall over his twenty minutes. Its unwavering mass is craggy and serrated, a sumptuously monotonous best that never so much as stuters. Like the good wall that it is, it corners the committed listener into an ugly trance, strangling each axon with it sheer enormity.
For those who love both cats and omniscient beings, God Pussy’s ‘Die Live’ compiles three live pieces from Rio De Janeiro’s pride and joy, Jhones Silva. Track one lures you into a false sense of comfort before opening its maw and letting loose a sharp-toothed spiral of steely abrasives. Unwelcoming and relentless, Silva’s noise is designed for maximal impetuousness, rapidly jumping from cliff to cliff of dissonant clamour. Track two is a blip at one-minute-twenty-three, but track three continues the festive onslaught of high-pitched squall and ossicle-splintering for a generous interval. For all those lovely folks out there who hate their ears, their neighbours’ ears, and just about everything else on this planet, God Pussy’s got you covered. (MT)
Address: http://vomitbucketproductions.blogspot.com
CRAY – DIGEST 54 (cassette by SicSic Tapes)
‘Digest 54’ is a stellar and somewhat interstellar tape from Ross Healy’s Cray project — one which consistently supplies variegated textures and timbres, as well as an eye for the dramatic. Healy’s pedigree as a leftfield electronic musician (including his time in EBM act This Digital Ocean, and a solo 2001 album for legendary weirdo-electro outpost BiP_HOp Records) comes through in the way these tracks grip you by the nether-regions and tug you in. Here he’s laid down a collection of sound experiments, each side a fertile bed of treats sketched out by synthesizers. The beeps and burbles include Warp-like chords (“Delva,” “Heek”), slack zone-out audioscapes (“Corrupt,” “Un8d”), and the sultry tones of R2D2 hopped up on goofballs (“Premble”). “Ugly Martian,” meanwhile, takes the album crown with its walloping eighties crime-wave bass loop. The moments that draw into the background are pushed into the periphery mainly by the fast grip of the tape’s more toe-curling contingent; but these less immediate tracks are still, generally, worthy kicks at the can: the curious combination of liquid synth-slosh and throbbing powerline-glow on “Dabuda,” the dreary neon orbs that populate “Basquiat,” and so forth. There’s a lot to process here, so much so that one is tempted to fault Healy for this record’s disjointed structure. He skitters from idea to idea, seemingly out of a compulsion to document each of his distinct approaches to sound. Perhaps we can pin this on Healy’s background in electronic music: listen to some of the stuff Rephlex was putting out a decade or so ago, and you’ll encounter the same sense of things being thrown at the wall to see what sticks. But the key, as always, is the fact that Healy doesn’t just smear turds on his canvas — these tracks are legitimate sound-niblets, each with something compelling to share. Only eighty copies of this tape exist on this planet, so you’re advised to act fast. (MT)
Address: http://www.sicsic.de
ALAN GESSO – OBLISCENCE (cassette by Field Studies)
Ain’t too much information on New York State’s Alan Gesso, though his Facebook page reveals a predilection towards the usual drone suspects (Terry Riley, Robert Rich, etc), giallo films, and – why not? – the film adaptation of ‘Marley & Me.’ Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston? Count me in! But enough about Gesso, what about this wonderfully designed tape? Here each side is split into several tracks, but it’s hard to keep a mental inventory of discrete compositions when you’re dealing in shapeless abstraction. Side A is the more eventful and variegated half; sure there are glimmering synths and other new-age-isms, but a few pieces experiment with sound samples: threateningly creaky doors, assertive electronic bleeps, ominous whispered speech, etcetera. At times the mood drifts away from the docility of drone’s somnolent contingent, even nuzzling towards the loud and intrusive end of the sound spectrum (especially “People in the Stereo”). But as the side runs on, the dreamlike qualities start to fog up the field of audition – though moods range from the whimsy of swooping synth arpeggios to the menace of an ominous bass lurch. Play this at night and your dreams will toggle vividly from world to world. Side B goes for the full-fledged 2AM zone out, providing Tangerine Dream pulsations (“Clive”), Saturday-night cityscape accompaniment (“The Sub-letter”), and regal drone (“Cloud Studies”). Taken together, its another standout venture for the Field Studies label. (MT)
Address: http://fieldstudiesimprint.blogspot.com
ANDREW QUITTER – FORGOTTEN FARMS (cassette by Diazepam Records)
Pretty big racket for one dude and a tape deck. On Forgotten Farms DumpsterScore honcho Andrew Quitter brings us his ode to “organic farmers worldwide,” and out of respect for their noble efforts to bring us unadulterated fruits and vegetables, he supplies thirty minutes of droning dark ambient dysphoria. I really dig the lengthy title-track, which ornaments a swell fog of guitar-and-organ ebb-n’-flow with twinkling cymbals and a gloriously grim kick-drum. It evokes this image of acres of subterranean mole people glumly slamming their sickles into the earth in unison, mining the materials that fuel our cushy, hyper-convenient 2012 lifestyles. “Death Seed (Contaminated Harvest)” mosies on into spacious industrial content, subjugating rainy field recordings and a gristly bass pulse to a malevolent death drone that approximates the mealy misanthropy of a white-knuckled doom-metal affair. All in all, a brutal but deliciously digestible tape’s worth of mucking around in the dark. (MT)
Address: http://dzpm.blogspot.it/
I AM ESPER / TAINTED CORROSIVE MIST (split cassette by Puzzle Records)
Only twenty copies of this hand-painted, allegedly glow-in-the-dark cassette exist – it’s a bit of a shame, though I suppose times are tight in the experimental music tape biz these days. New Jersey’s i AM esper (né Justin Palmieri) fills his side with the sort of expansive, doom-metal-tinged drone you’d expect from the seasoned guitarist. He’s named his lone track “Funeral Parasites,” so it should come as no surprise that Palmieri deals in the morose and morbid side of things – and he ably articulates that solemn impulse over these hefty proceedings. I’ll grant that the ache of deep-seated tone-drone and his customary waves of guitar fuzz aren’t all that hard to achieve with the proper gear, but the thickness of his sound, and the patient, glacial pace he’s locked into, make for attractive midnight zoning. A curt cut to silence at track’s end pollutes the atmosphere a smidgen, however. Another prolific one-man drone act, Tainted Corrosive Mist, supplies side B of the tape. Although reverb-heavy guitar is also the main culprit on his half of the adventure, here the sound veers slightly away from MASSIVE and embraces a considerably more understated approach. The focus is on the nuanced chimes of his blissfully distorted guitar, which are suspended over a throbbing base of low-frequency burble. Nice. (MT)
Address: http://puzzlerecords.blogspot..com
LUNGWASH – SWATTING HOLD (cassette by Worthless Recordings)
On Lungwash’s gratifying ‘Swatting Hold,’ one side is reserved for gleefully burnt-out boilier-room noise whereas the other lands somewhere between a hailstorm and a swarm of bees. Lungwash strays from mindless abrasives here, instead staging his noise-walls largely in the background — it’s then the nuances that leap out at you: miniature trills of digital whats-it, subtle clogs that froth up from the masticated burble, etc. It isn’t much to describe; this traffics in a subtle, less-vicious timbre that lures you into its murky atmosphere instead of power-drilling your ears to a waxy pulp. The tape comes decorated in a grainy black-and-white collage, one of the prime examples of a cassette label perfectly matching the artwork to the sound. I don’t (yet) know too much about this Lungwash fellow, but these twenty-two minutes make a convincing case. (MT)
Address: http://www.worthlessrecordings.blogspot.com
COLIN POTTER – THE FIGHTS OF THE SOUND CABLE (cassette by The Tapeworm)
Back in the day, Colin Potter was a musician who needed an income to support his young family, so he started the ICR studios, used by the likes of Nurse With Wound (of which he is a member these days) and Current 93. These bands found the studio because it was also offering a cassette duplication service. This was in the late 80s, and cassettes was still the fine alternative to LPs and CDs. Potter himself started with cassette only releases and his label, also named ICR, released music by Andrew Chalk, Dave Jones, Rick Crane, Paul Kelday and Stratis on cassette. Now he returns with a new tape, on The Tapeworm, with two pieces, which, if I understand correctly, should be regarded as ‘rehearsals’ for solo performances. A man armed with electronics, Potter proofs to be a master of letting one sound slip out and then feed it through seems an endless line of electronics, which locks this sound down and lets it bounce all around, the full 360 degrees. It keeps changing and changing. On ‘Melodious Thonk’, this is a rather rhythmic particle, which ends rather abruptly. Too abruptly if you ask me, maybe there was a mistake in recording or playing. ‘Articulate’, the piece that is on the other side, is more alike what you would expect Potter to do. Here a drone fragment is locked in a similar contraption of electronics and pushed around, to the darker corners of the musical spectrum, making fine, delicate yet dark ripples of sound, that easily connects with the work he normally releases on CD or CDR. Music that owes part to the world of cosmic music, but never really that smooth and partly to the world of serious electronics, but then much less academic and way more playful. Maybe this tape is an advertisement for Colin Potter concerts? If so, I’d like to hear that in a venue one day. Great stuff, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from Potter. (FdW)
Address: http://www.tapeworm.org.uk
JU4N – VAPORWARE (cassette by Holodeck)
Behind this name we find Juan Cosneros from Austin, Texas, and he records music since about close to ten years now and released a whole bunch of albums, albeit privately. ‘Vaporware’ is his first album for a real label, Holodeck Records. He offers eight pieces on this cassette, which in design already looks quite eighties, coming from a more synth like corner of the musical world. Maybe even a bit new agey, but his music is not new agey at all, but it’s certainly all electronic. This too reminds me of the 80s, when a guy could have two keyboards and a rhythm machine and easily put some ideas to tape. Ju4n is such a guy. His pieces are atmospheric from time to time, but ‘Angel Cop’ has a strong rhythm, from a pre-set, rather than programmed by himself, and has the start of what could be the opening tune of a not-so-good cop series. There is the idea of a soundtrack all around here, especially when he starts adding dialogue and action from movies. I quite enjoyed this, even when some of the compositions were a bit naive and Ju4n goes rather for pre-set sounds on his synths and doesn’t seem to be programming or creating his own. Nice, but not easily something I stick on again for such shortcomings. (FdW)
Address: http://holodeckrecords.com/store/
ANNE GUTHRIE – SO IT’S INVERTED; OCCUPYING THE SAME POSITION AS ALWAYS (cassette by Notice Recordings)
COPPICE – PIED (cassette by Notice Recordings)
From New York, Anne Guthrie is a horn player, of whom reviewed music before, like her ‘Perhaps A Favorable Organic Moment’ in Vital Weekly 786. She uses also field recordings, which she uses alongside her playing. On this new cassette she uses field recordings from Costa Rica, and she uses them extensively. On top she plays her horn, but it’s never easy to tell what, when and where here. Likewise it’s not easy to say to what extend she has processed these field recordings, if at all. I am pretty sure she did, to some extend. Maybe creating loops out of the material, maybe some radical equalization, and then cut along with her extra-ordinary playing of the horn, which she uses to produce some really wild sounds which may sound like anything but a horn. It gives both sides, one piece per side, a feeling that they belong to each other, two sides of the same coin. It’s all quite mysterious; you have no idea what’s going on, field recordings aren’t easily recognized as such, nor is the horn playing, but that mystery makes this all the more captivating I think. A sound world of it’s own. Excellent.
From Chicago hails a duo called Coppice, being Noe Cuellar and Joseph Kramer. They started out in 2009 and their ‘original inspiration [was]: a boombox modified to play back and record simultaneously’. Here the boombox is fed with recordings they made in Iceland using a pump organ. I am not sure how such a boombox would work, or to what extend the musician create sounds/music while doing what they are doing. It’s not easy to tell, even if one heard the music, released on this tape. Perhaps I should not worry about such things anyway, and just concentrate on the music, which is as mysteriously as the Guthrie release. Partly because we have no clue what the hell is going on, but partly because it sounds mysterious. A bit drone like at times, but also firmly rooted in the world of laptop processing and/or electro-acoustic music, perhaps all played with the notion of improvising musicians. One hears the pump organ mechanisms being played, keys being held down and maybe there is additional use of electronics (such as delay pedals) in a truly captivating manner. Another sound world of its own, and less abstract than the Guthrie one, this one is more like a radio play. Great releases, both of them! (FdW)
Address: http://noticerecordings.com
NIGEL SAMWAYS – FOREST OF ROBOTS (cassette by Ginjoha)
Back in Vital Weekly 835, I quite enjoyed the release by Nigel Samways, ‘Havenots Havenever’, which reminded me of smokey bars and jazzy tunes, a bit like the old forgotten band A Tent. His new release is a bit different. It’s less rooted in the world that is even vaguely jazz like, but then, it’s also not easy to say where this is rooted in anyway. Likewise Samways doesn’t provide us with many clues as to the instruments he is using for his music. There is, I think, some form of keyboards, electronics and maybe wind instruments and/or guitars at play here, but also field recordings – domestic rumbling and music of more ethnic origin. Both sides are filled with one piece, which in itself breaks down in smaller pieces. All of these smaller pieces have an atmospheric touch to them, but are rather short and to the point. Especially in ‘Forest Of Robots (Settlement Beta)’ I was reminded from time to time to the work of Zoviet*France, and their songlet approach – more ideas than finished songs (I am speaking here of their earlier part of their career of course), but already highly atmospheric in approach. Lots of loops are used, of domestic sounds, forming small rhythmic particles, while on top we have feedback/drone like sounds swirling around through probably more looper devices. Even when it deals with some amount of field recordings, Samways is someone who wants to play a piece of music, rather than a nice sound scape, so it seems to me. Perhaps a bit less musical here than on the previous work, but again Samways knows how to surprise us in his ever continuing search for something new. Very nice.
Address: http://ginjoha.blogspot.co.uk
ARTUR RUMINSKI (cassette by Wounded Knife)
CISZAK/RUMINSKI (cassette by Wounded Knife)
From Poland stems Artur Ruminski, who plays guitar, drums ‘and other’, as it says on the cover of his untitled solo release. Two pieces of twenty minutes here, recorded March 2013. One is ‘Allen K. Drone’ and the other ‘KBOw’. Ruminski plays his guitar with an Ebow, looping devices to create lengthy drone like soundscapes. Let’s assume he didn’t play the drums at the same time, but most likely through multi tracking, this is actually quite a nice release. In the ‘Allen K. Drone’ everything works slowly towards a mighty, hefty piece of drone music, with quite a part for the drum sounds. ‘KBOw’ is likewise a sort of long rock piece, but of the two a bit more traditional, i.e. less drone based and more working its way through distortion in the beginning before entering a nice piece of atmospheric and then slowly growing in intensity again – which seems to be a favorite way of working for some people. But all in all I thought this was a great release with some great music on it. Fine combination of drone and drums.
The other tape is a collaboration with the more known Polish guitarist Lukasz Cizak, recorded in November last year, but somehow it has the esthetic of 80s cassette release, with hand written notes and xeroxed insert. Each artist fills up one side of solo music. Ciszak does so with one long piece of twenty minutes of guitar, baritone guitar, bass guitar and sine wave generator. His piece is rock less atmospherics and more ‘conventional’ guitar atmospherics. A slow tinkering of notes and drones, slow in development and evolution. Nice, but hardly a surprise. The five pieces on the other side by Ruminski are named ‘1985’, ‘1987’, ‘1988’ and ‘1990’ and to be of note is the lack of drums in these pieces. Ruminski plays guitar, cello bow and guitar effect pedals and offers something along similar lines as Cizak and not along the lines of the other tape, which I think is a pity. His five pieces are fairly decent here, but without the addition of the drums, also less original. Bring in the drums! (FdW)
Address: http://woundedknife.com/
FOSSILS – NEW NOISE (cassette by MCJ)
From the ever so active Fossils, another cassette. This time thirty-three copies were made and the cover may seem to suggest that the band is no more: ‘Fossils were Daniel Farr and David Payne’. Maybe it suggests that Fossils were on this recording these two people, but then, Fossils are usually these two people. The more music I hear from them, the more I seem to enjoy it. More and more they move away from the more punky approach to improvised music and come up with something that is more balanced, more constructed perhaps or even more thought out, but they are never fully removed from the world of sheer energy and aggressiveness. This cassette is not much different from their recent output. Duets for guitars and electronics, and probably weird ways to record them, like dictaphones hidden inside the body of a guitar. Their new direction has added a whole new spectrum of musique concrete to it, which is not yet fully mastered by them, but which results so far are very nice. It seems they employ tape loops from time to time – hard to say where, no titles on the cover – which deepens their sound further. Quite a nice release, once again! If Fossils are no more, than that would be a great pity. (FdW)
Address: <middlejamesco@hotmail.com>
PROFESSIONALS ISSUE TWO (fanzine)
In the early days of Vital Weekly we used to review magazines and fanzines, but no longer in recent years. Probably because we are less in an environment to get them. Much to my surprise I got this one sheet magazine, which is published by recent Vital Weekly writer Michael Tau, of fine small print, with such entries as “Crank Sturgeon selects his top “ten” experimental music sex symbols”, “Dane Peterson of the AberrantAdherents blog selects six heavenly obscure US art-punk-wave singles”, “Noise In Slovenia”, “Guenter Schlienz six hopelessly obscure (but wonderful) records’ an interview with Collin Olan who released a 3″CD in 2002 and reviews. All of this, and more on a single sheet of paper, which remind me of the old Vital when it was not yet a digital weekly. It says here ‘circulation: 750 – always free’, but why not copy this and send out yourself, like it should be done in good punk fashion. I know I will! (FdW)
Address: <professionals.zine@gmail.com>