Week 42
STATISCHE MUSEN – BUBENDEY – MEMORIAL MUSIC AUF EINE BRACHE (CD by Auf Abwegen)
DAVID MARANHA / RODRIGO AMADO – WRECKS (CD by Nariz Entupido)
CARL LINDH – LISTENING WITH THE TIPS OF MY FINGERS (CD by Zappak)
MAJA OSOJNIK – DOORWAYS (CD by col legno)
ÉRICK D’ORION & MARTIN TÉTREAULT – CISTERCIENNES (CD by No Type)
KOTRA – GRIT LIGHT (CD by Prostir)
ULRICH TROYER – TRANSIT TRIBE (CD by 4Bit productions)
PARTIKEL 30.DEZEMBER 2023 (CD compilation by Licht-ung)
TUNGU & MIA ZABELKA & STEFAN STRASSER – THE CONFIDENCE OF ONE SWIMMING AGAINST THE CURRENT (CD by FMR)
BERTRAND GAUGUET & DIDIER LASSERRE – MEHR (CD by Akousis Records)
SPINIFEX – UNDRILING THE HOLE (CD by Try tone)
ETERNITIES – LANDSCAPE MUSIC 5 (CD by MMLI)
HAPPY MANY – LA LONGUE ROUTE DES ARMÉES BATTUES (CDR compilation by MMLI)
MATT WESTON – COMMUNISM HAS APPEARED ON THE SCENE (2LP by 7272music)
ELLENDE – THE PLANTATION (10″ by Smeerlappen)
RUBBISH MUSIC – FATBERGS (CDR by Persistence Of Sound)
PHILIPPE PETIT – A REASSURING ELSEWHERE, CHAPTER 3 (CDR by Oscillations)
DIS FAC (cassette by Final Image)
ARS SONITUS – POLITICAL MANIFESTO OF TRANSFUTURISM (cassette by Impulsy Stetoskopu)
STATISCHE MUSEN – BUBENDEY – MEMORIAL MUSIC AUF EINE BRACHE (CD by Auf Abwegen)
In Vital Weekly 1406, I introduced you to Statische Musen, a new project by Asmus Tietchens – his name becomes the anagram here, much like his previous ‘pop’ project, Hematic Sunsets. There is no pop here, but it’s clear why Tietchens would choose a different name for this as the music is quite different from his ‘other’, ‘regular’ music. In that world, Tietchens treats acoustic objects with electronic means and removes whatever sound source from the result, and the outcome is delicate music, vulnerable and quiet. As Statische Musen, Tietchen decided to dabble in ambient music. Not because there isn’t any new ambient around, but simply because he can. Six long form tone pieces of slowly moving, sustaining pieces. I guess, but maybe I’m wrong; this is all synthesiser music. The music is about something, which is also something his other work is usually not, and it’s a wasteland that once housed an industrial land. This made me think the music isn’t that strict ambient, as there is also an undercurrent of creepiness, maybe the singing ghosts of a decaying factory. The music isn’t industrial, far from it, but also not always quiet and relaxing. But as all good ambient music should do, the music is there to please or ignore a presence in your space, and as such, Tietchens succeeds very well with this. This time, I chose not to ignore it that much but to go all immersive here and closely listen to the music. I love ambient, I love Tietchens, so what could go wrong? Exactly nothing. For the first time, I wondered if this would be a temporary thing or not, and I am glad to see it continued along similar lines for now. The next question is: if this is indeed an ongoing concern, what developments can we expect from Tietchens, assuming he doesn’t want to repeat the same music? (FdW)
––– Address: https://aufabwegen.bandcamp.com/
DAVID MARANHA / RODRIGO AMADO – WRECKS (CD by Nariz Entupido)
David Maranha has been mentioned multiple times in previous editions of Vital Weekly. He’s an architect and has been one of the founding members of Osso Exótico, and together with his brother André, they remain the core of the band. David plays the electric organ and the violin, but not exclusively. He has collaborated with Z’EV, Emmanuel Holterbach, Helena Espvall, Phill Niblock, Chris Corsano, Jochen Arbeit, Minit, David Daniell, Arnold Dreyblatt, Richard Youngs, Jacob Kirkegaard, Carla Bozulich, Chris Cutler, Werner Durand, Robert Rutman, Ben Frost and Helge Sten, to name a few. Rodrigo Amado is a saxophone player and one of the founders of Lisbon-based Clean Feed Records, in my humble opinion, one of the most exciting labels in the world for improvised and experimental music. He has a working quartet with Chris Corsano, Joe McPhee and Kent Kessler. Raw Tone released a duo with Dirk Serries, recorded at JazzBlazzt in the south of the Netherlands. Last but not least, Vital Weekly 1323 contains a review of the Field by his Motion trio with Miguel Mira (cello) and Gabriel Ferrandini (drums) featuring Alexander von Schlippenbach on grand piano. On to the music. ‘Wrecks’ is a 45-minute trip through a dystopian landscape, not unlike many Ukraine areas. Maranha lays the groundwork with a moving drone in the lower spectrum of frequencies, topped with bursts of higher frequencies, almost amplified violinlike. Amado intersperses melodic lines, repeated intervals (especially at the end), and repeated runs in the middle section. It could be an alternative soundtrack to Stalker, the SF masterpiece by Andrej Tarkovsky. It’s a beautiful psychedelic trip and mostly consonant. The dissonance comes from the distortion used on the electric organ. Both are experienced musicians and can hold the attention of the listener. No, strike that: they can make music with a logical flow. No holds barred. This comes highly recommended and is one of this year’s highlights. (MDS)
––– Address: https://rodrigoamado.bandcamp.com/album/wrecks
CARL LINDH – LISTENING WITH THE TIPS OF MY FINGERS (CD by Zappak)
It seems I missed out on a few releases by the Japanese Zappak label. This new CD by Carl Lindh is their 18th release. I reviewed a CDR by Lindh before in Vital Weekly 907, and I have no idea how one sounded. I read my old review while playing this neww release and wrote him working “with hearing-aid devices, paper, controlled feedback, record player (spinning ‘Sounds From Insects’ from the 1960), effect pedals and PA”. As per information for this new one, Zappak writes, “he also uses primitive sound devices. However, their sound variations are rich in that there are delicate noises emanating from the equipment, repetitive rattling sounds, feedback-like sounds, sometimes metallic and sometimes harsh noises. And by delicately controlling multiple sounds simultaneously and sometimes just one sound, he creates multi-layered sound spaces and evolving flows.” In this case, I see the title as a technique of using his fingers to control and manipulate devices and objects. Straight from the opening piece, ‘Sound Becomes Word Becomes Sound,’ he starts with feedback and noise, but it’s different from your average storm box manipulator. There is a tactile approach in his music, which is controlled and uncontrolled simultaneously. In ‘A Certain Lack Of Consistency’, ten minutes longer than the other one, 30 in total, he continues this approach, and at fifty minutes, this is, sonically, quite a burden on the ears. Maybe because Lindh avoids easy noise, it is all a bit much. Even when, at one point, he uses his voice, it sounds like good old fashioned power electronics; it’s quite funny, but still a lot to carry through in one go. In terms of noise and something different, this is a great release, a kind of highly brutal musique concrète. (FdW)
––– Address: https://zappak.bandcamp.com/
MAJA OSOJNIK – DOORWAYS (CD by col legno)
Contemporary composition is not something that often finds its way onto the pages of Vital Weekly. But we welcome all forward thinking sounds, so here we are now listening to the engimatic and highly thought-provoking work by Maja Osojnik.
From the label: “Doorways was born from a longing to escape the city and everyday life – and the problematically fast pace thereof, a pace of production that accelerates the erosion of attention. In seeking to arrive in a quiet place, to linger there with an observational unprejudiced eros, to become completely aware of being alive.”
Of course we immediately think of deep listening practice, not in the least part, thus, of Annea Lockwood and Pauline Oliveros, with a sprinkling of the inspiration of – for example – Christina Kubish. And indeed: Osojnik does explore listening and hearing, involuntary hearing or conscious listening through her multifaceted works – therewith questioning perception, memory, cognition, recognition and attention (spans).
Osojnik’s aural landscape is ever-changing, wildly moving, never-stilled. Though the sound image is rather stable and subtle, both works present on this disc, deftly defy notions of montage, edit or collage as the sonic tapestry woven here is dense, hyper statured and filled to the brim with organic variations and extrapolations. Interestingly Osojnik leaves myriads of interpretations wide open, in the middles of these densités.
Her signature can be found in the smallest of gestures, like the ground in a dense forest, where a single shard of light focuses ones attention on a single detail in the forest life landscape, while the rest seems to be shrouded in shadowy multi-varied hues of greens. This detailed deviation, this transient transmision of otherness, of originality in idiosyncratic identity stresses the extended invitation to the listener to alternate quite on purpuse between the act of listening and the position of hearing.
Osojnik’s works are essentialist to the present and actual condition. The as is. On the ground. At our feet or ear’s level. A thinking on your feet, or: an active listening the liner notes call “auditory gymnastics”. A gamification too of cinematic broad screen Technicolour aural exploration into deeper and deep listening; of focusing on sensations quite so often taken for granted and (thus) un-noticed.
Here we have sound maps for a new generation, not like the river scapes by Lockwood true to nature, but providing a bent, stretched, alienated ‘image’ – skewed, manipulated and altered to heighten our senses, alert our ears and trigger our hearing to attune to a reversal of tradional musique concrète. A re-imagination of what that can be: an electronic piece where, like the peeling of an onion, layer upon later, an instrumental acoustic work is revealed.
The second work dives deep into change and transformation as focal points, somehow also invoking the myth of Daphne, paradox and polarities. I’d say Kafka’s Verwandlung is also a key ingredient here. A threatening and uncanny work this is, not in the least bit because of a haunting atmosphere, pregnant with decay ande death and the strange pull of interest emanating therefrom. Like an oblique strategy in sound to both Borges and the Antimundo paintings by Santillan. Never repellent, on the contrary: Osojnik’s works invite to come closer and to re-introduce ourselves to the call of life and nature. (SSK)
— Address: https://www.col-legno.com/en/shop/20466-maja-osojnik-doorways
ÉRICK D’ORION & MARTIN TÉTREAULT – CISTERCIENNES (CD by No Type)
Here we have the fifth collaborative album by Érick d’Orion (electronics, synthesisers, mix) and Martin Tétreault (turntables, vinyl and synthesiser), but only the second time I heard it. I reviewed their previous album ‘Vigiles’ in Vital Weekly 1396. Curious to see that No Type says that one of these albums is a live album, whereas, given the nature of their music, one would expect this to be all live recordings. The recordings were made in a former Cistercian abbey in Saint-Benoît-Labre, Quebec, hence the title. I am sure I don’t need to look at what the Cistercian order was all about in relation to the music. Only in the titles, as they refer to the monastic times of a day, ‘Matines’, ‘L’ascension de Labre’ and ‘Vespera’; the second part is the main part of the day and also of this album. Perhaps in the spirit of those day times, the music reflects some of that. The central piece is the busiest, whereas the opening is rather gentle, and the end fades out from the noisy opening minutes until the very end. Noise is their game, anyway. In ‘Matines’, there is a Pan Sonic pulse in the piece, which I love. It’s something they should do more, also because it ends with a gentle melodic note. There aren’t many pulses in the other two pieces, which rely more on distortion, noise, glitches and such. What I liked before is what I liked here: the turntable doesn’t always sound like a turntable. Tétreault knows how to extract interesting sounds from his machines, creating a more musique concrète feeling to the noise. What I also enjoyed is the variation. It’s not a complete noise festival, but the two musicians pull back, explore other, smaller sounds and, as with the previous, have a delicate balance as such. Last time I went for a walk outside; also today! (FdW)
––– Address: https://notype.bandcamp.com/
KOTRA – GRIT LIGHT (CD by Prostir)
A name we’ve seen more often in the Vital Weekly is that of Dmytro Fedorenko. He is a Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist and one of the most prolific pioneers of Ukrainian experimental electronic music. Kotra is just one of his projects next to Variát and is part of Cluster Lizard, Their Divine Nerve, Critikal and Z.E.T. But I first heard of him as the ‘guy behind’ the excellent Kvitnu label, which had over 70 releases until it stopped in 2020. I also just found out (long live the interweb) that his first output was released on Nexsound, run by Andrey Kiritchenko, with whom I was in contact before Y2K. So yeah, it’s a small world if you look at it through the eyes of art.
‘Grit Light’ is a 62-minute journey through the mind of Dmytro, and he shows us a few dark places, but weirdly enough, I can only describe it as an incredible and cheerful journey. Eight tracks are filled with beats and patterns the way one would expect to hear from acts like Vromb or Orphx. The clarity of sounds like Vromb uses isn’t there, but a lot of the complexity is. Soundwise, you can hear the crunch you hear often in Orphx tracks. Still, the combination of it all reminded me the most of that first Orphx album ‘Vita Mediativa’ which was their first on Hands Productions after that beautiful transparent 10″ from ’98.
There is only one track on “Grit Light” shorter then 6 minutes, resulting in a pleasant listening album with a certain consistency. I mean, it’s not going all over the place. You get a track, you get the time to get into it, and the next track is a perfect follow-up. It just fits. Nice harsh analogue sounds are all over, just about no pumping 4/4, which you all know I love (bleargh, not!), but the pace is there, no rest for the wicked! So to listen to this in the background is excellent, it gives you a drive. Playing it while you’re doin chores or working or writing, it all goes without effort, but this album contains some danceable stuff also! Sure, not for your general dance or disco party, but DJs who spin at parties where rhythmic noise is not a bad word; feel free to listen to lend your ears to this one.
So yeah, fantastic stuff! And a ticket to the 2024 top list for me. My favourite track is the eclectic ‘Over The Threshold’, and I will close this review by mentioning that this is a co-release of Prostir and I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free. The link to both Bandcamps is included. Feel free to browse the ‘I Shall Sing …’ To support a good cause. (BW)
––– Address: https://prostir.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://ishallsinguntilmylandisfree.bandcamp.com/
ULRICH TROYER – TRANSIT TRIBE (CD by 4Bit productions)
On more than a few occasions, I write about music I claim to not know much about, be it free jazz, free improvisation or modern classical music, and I set myself to work. It’s music I can sometimes appreciate to some extent, but not in bucketloads. There is also music I love and don’t know much about, and I can get a lot. When there is time, for instance, when there isn’t a lot of stuff for Vital Weekly (it happens), I don’t mind spending an afternoon playing dub music: the classic stuff, the digital versions from the mid-1990s, old On-U-sound records. I don’t have these, but I collected things from online sources over the years. All conviently collected in a folder on a hard drive that says ‘dub music’. I randomly play stuff, never knowing what I heard or marking names. I just love the stuff. I also keep Ulrich Troyer’s ‘Dolomite Dub’ in that folder, which I reviewed in Vital Weekly 1166. That was an album which saw him working with musicians and that had quite the duby feeling. On his new one, ‘Transit Tribe’, he further expands on the dub notion. It’s not necessarily very conventional, but the studio is becoming another instrument, which is what dub is all about. Have a few rhythms going, and work around with echo, reverb, and whatever electronic means are available. Here, Troyer has more players than before, playing drums, percussion, djembe, voice, zither, vibraphone, cello, guitar, electric saz, contra-alto clarinet, Fender Rhodes, Farfisa and Troyer himself on analogue synths, drum machines, electric bass, sampler, prepared zither, field recordings and dub effects. I assume very few of these musicians were actively together in the studio. Still, Troyer put it all together like a mad professor, synching up rhythms, creating textures, sometimes sounding highly traditional, but sometimes not at all. It is quite dreamlike at times, always very organic, with lots of instruments played live, which, especially with the percussion side, works really well. After playing this twice in a row, it was time to put it away and think about the review, and sadly, also return to other Vital Weekly matters, as I would love to spend the rest of my Sunday afternoon immersed in dub music. (FdW)
––– Address: https://ulrichtroyer.bandcamp.com/
PARTIKEL 30.DEZEMBER 2023 (CD compilation by Licht-ung)
Compilations such as this one make me consider two things: it’s either a shame you weren’t there to witness it first-hand or, slightly less morose: thankfully we still have the documented version of it (because you can’t be everywhere I guess). The German label Lich-tung has a solid reputation for organising events and subsequently documenting them. This CD contains four long pieces recorded at their ‘Partikel’ event on 30 December 2023 in Leverkusen. First of, I’m not sure if the order on the CD represents the order in which the concerts were presented. Susana López opens here, and I had not heard of her before. She plays synthesiser based music – or at least that is what y ears tell me – in a minimal and droney way, adding some field recordings and it’s a very nice piece; very spacious music and a lovely opener. I know the other three acts, to some extent. Kapotte Muziek have been around for 40 years or so and apparently their concert last year was something of a come back, not having played live concerts in some years. They improvise on found materials and judging by their sound, they also seem to have found electronic (equipment) in their search for sonic reusables. The tracks gives us a delicate balance between quiet and loud, verging on feedback at times and some intense playing. The visual aspect lacks however (the images look great and there’s a clip on YouTube which shows a bit of the piece on this CD) which perhaps leaves out something that makes this performance more enjoyable.
Aidan Baker is the best-known entity of them all (chez moi) and he never disappoints with his guitar and effects slinging. His piece sounds more angular, with odds swings and roundabouts and the room recordings adds to the introspective quality of the music. It somehow remains distant, but this is one of the few cases where I actually love that about it. Also with regard to the [Multer] piece I would advise to have a look on YouTube as an even longer clip of them is there, showing a duet between a guitar player and someone with an amplified tin can, in which objects are placed and then swirled around slowly. After a while the drones enter into play and it becomes something that I actually recognise as [Multer]. Also in this case; perhaps more a performance piece, but I guess releasing DVDs is no longer a ‘thing’ to do. This is one of those events I would have loved to have attended. But yeah, you can’t see ‘m all. (LW)
––– Address: https://licht-ung.bandcamp.com/
TUNGU & MIA ZABELKA & STEFAN STRASSER – THE CONFIDENCE OF ONE SWIMMING AGAINST THE CURRENT (CD by FMR)
Sergiy Senchuk, also known as Tungu, is the man behind this group, which has his origines in the pandemic. He plays acoustic bass, voice, samples and field recordings, and the other two members are Mia Zabelka on violin, voice and electronics and Stefan Strasser on synth, piano, guitar and electronics. What started as individuals meeting online because real life wasn’t possible went to the next level when Tungu’s home country of Ukraine was invaded by their neighbour, and creating music was, for Tungu, a testament to persistence and strength. Deeply rooted in improvised music, this album is also something else: a sonic tour de force. Maybe it’s because all three players use electronics, which makes this quite a noisy album. My interest in this album lies mostly in the combination of improvisation, composition, and chaos versus organisation, which I find pretty interesting. The cover leaves no clues about how these three musicians recorded the 17 pieces on this CD. There is a lot of nervous interaction, of sounding tumbling and bubbling around, but also with sufficient reflective playing, with each player noticing what the other is doing. Not every track is a winner and maybe 17 is a bit much, but in its favour is that none of these tracks is very long. 15 of 17 are between three and four minutes, one just a bit shorter and one a bit longer – I could believe there is an idea behind this approach, maybe the search for a pop song? I like the music when the improvisations are used towards chaos and electronic manipulation, not for the love of playing the loudest noise but to vent aggression and show strength against the war. (FdW)
––– Address: https://www.fmr-records.com/
BERTRAND GAUGUET & DIDIER LASSERRE – MEHR (CD by Akousis Records)
Strap on for some improvised music. That’s what I thought when I opened the package. I know Bertrand Gauguet as a saxophone and seeing Didier Lasserre’s name for the first time as the drummer, this isn’t a strange thought. His background is in jazz and improvisations, much like Gauguet’s who’s who in this field. The music is improvised but not as traditional as I assumed. Sometimes ago, I mentioned the presence of saxophone players in improvised music, which isn’t something happening here. It very much is the way Gauguet plays his horn and what the two sets as a direction for the four pieces; “rooted in listening to silence. The breaths and multiphonics of the saxophone are met by resonant impacts, friction and uncertain rhythms, all materials that produce intuitive forms linked to inhabited spaces”. This means Gauguet plays mostly long-form tones that resemble sinewaves more often than not. Lasserre adds similar minimal percussion, alternating between ultra short attacks on toms, cymbals and snares, and sometimes with a bit more sustain. Gauguet’s saxophone occasionally sounds less sinewave-like, more saxophone, and there is some excellent interaction there, not just between the two players but also in how they choose what sounds to play on their respective instruments, from a more traditional approach to something more extreme. By no means an easy release, but a lovely one for sure. (FdW)
––– Address: https://akousis.bandcamp.com/
SPINIFEX – UNDRILING THE HOLE (CD by Try tone)
Another highlight is the new Spinifex. Gone are the two guest singers, and we’re back to an instrumental release. So what’s new? A lot! All compositions are by alto saxophone player Tobias Klein. We get sophisticated rhythms, independently moving layers of music, more polyrhythm than ever.
It’s the collective that makes this work. Damn, I sound like a fanboy (I am), but I don’t care. This is infectious music. The music got a test run during a Central European tour in December 2023. Two months later, they recorded all seven pieces in three days. And it really shows. The band is tight as f*ck. The music is complex, high-octane fuelled, highly inventive, no holds barred, but without compromising on melody or groove. And yes, there are tender moments. By the way: reading the sheet music a prima vista (meaning for the first time/ sight-reading) would be a real challenge. Play this on high volume. You can headbang to this! Is it music for Vital Weekly? Probably not. (MDS)
––– Address: https://spinifex.bandcamp.com/
ETERNITIES – LANDSCAPE MUSIC 5 (CD by MMLI)
HAPPY MANY – LA LONGUE ROUTE DES ARMÉES BATTUES (CDR compilation by MMLI)
I hadn’t heard of this duo or label before. The label has various limited edition releases and labels itself as a ‘micro label’, so releasing a CD is quite a step. The duo Eternities consist of Katie Porter on bass clarinet, of whom I hadn’t heard before) and Bob Bellerue, of whom I reviewed work before (Vital Weekly 1148 and 1295, for instance). Porter plays bass clarinet and Bellerue feedback electronics. Their 55-minute ‘Landscape Music 5’ was recorded on 12 December 2023 in New York, so I assume this is a live recording (maybe without an audience, in a studio). Like other music from Bellerue, the drone element is a vital feature here. How this music was made is a bit of a mystery. It seems Bellerue takes the lead with his feedback electronics, laying a massive sound carpet, possibly with the bass clarinet as it’s starting point. The instruments shimmer through the haze erected by Bellerue, and only towards the end it becomes more audible and sounds more like a bass clarinet. While it all sounds very much improvised, there is also some organisation and slowly, the piece unfolds, adding and subtracting sounds, and it’s very much an exercise in minimalism, with slow morphing events, without losing any of its massiveness. Nowhere there is air, nowhere they lose the plot; it is a fully immersive work: quite radical music and an extreme form of improvisation.
From the same label, a compilation, which is, apparently, a mipress; the first six tracks contain no sound, and on Discogs, it says: “Almost every cd is spotted with varnish or whatsoever. Bleah”, as the official description. Comparing the nine pieces on Discogs, this CDR has more blank tracks and only tracks 7 to 14 contain music. I assume this is some kind of label compilation. We find Roro Perrot playing some of his outsider guitar songs, high-pitched sounds from Leandro Barzabal in one piece and computer-based organ in the other, voice/sound poetry by Delphine Dora, computer music by Blason, ambient by ÆFV (both pieces cut into one on the CDR), great modular piece by Marina Levallois and finally some introvert acoustic guitar playing by L.O.R.F.O.U., very lovely, but too short. These musicians have individual releases on MMLI, so pick your favourite and investigate further. As a label sampler, this succeeds well. (FdW)
––– Address: https://mmli.bandcamp.com/
MATT WESTON – COMMUNISM HAS APPEARED ON THE SCENE (2LP by 7272music)
More politics here (see also Ars Sonoris), and Weston is a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause. None of this shows in the music, which is instrumental. I limit myself to the music. If you read these pages for quite a while, you may have encountered Matt Weston’s name before. Weston may use the word ‘jazz’ in his information, but rest assured, I think it’s far from. Weston is a drummer, setting up shop whenever there is space to set up drum kits and it’s all about site-specific sonorities, how sound bounces around in a space. These spaces might be ‘real’ or “artificially constructed environments”. Recordings are made, and once back home, these recordings become part of the composition. All of this results in something that has very little to do with percussion music as such. Sure, there is a lot of percussion at times (in ‘Here They Come Spinning Out Of The Turn’, for instance), but there is also so much more than percussion. I still am clueless about what kind of processing devices he uses, if any at all, other than multi-track recordings. As before, it reminds me of musique concrète, and Weston does a great job. I can easily say I am a fan. He moves his music way beyond the boundaries of jazz or improvisation. Even if the mentioned ‘Here They Come Spinning Out Of The Turn’ contains a lot of drum rolling, it ends with a fierce blast of machine-like drones. In other pieces, he uses the environment as an additional sound layer; for instance, in ‘From The River To The Sea’, it has that cavernous shopping mall quality, with some strange blowing of plastic pipes and the rumble of objects. In ‘Burials To Understanding’, with lots of heavily compressed tones, rapid editing, and synth tones (maybe!), reminded me of P16.D4, a group who similarly deconstructed their improvisations into compositions. Weston no doubt uses extensive techniques to extract sounds from his drum parts and goes further than many others in his field; so much is the variation in the material here. Each side is about 15-16 minutes long, and great material is carved into these grooves. Another excellent tour de force. (FdW)
––– Address: https://mattweston.bandcamp.com/
ELLENDE – THE PLANTATION (10″ by Smeerlappen)
Those who have been reding Vital Weekly for some time know I rarely mention the cover of a release. According to a close friend, I lack visual imagination, which might be accurate, but also a more ideological stance. I care about the music more than I care about the package. However, this week, there are two releases with packages worth mentioning. Ars Sonitus is one, and Ellende is the other. Though no contest, they are the winner this week. ‘The Plantation’ completes the trilogy that includes ‘Odyssey, A Sentimental Journey’ and ‘Unintentional Consequences’—the latter I reviewed in Vital Weekly 1299, and the first in 1206. Let me quote some bits from 1206, “The records are packed inside the front cover of a hardcover book (actually an oversized dust-cover, and some thirty-six pages of text and images, all in beautiful black and white”, whereas the other one “comes in a beautiful package, 10″ gatefold sleeve, booklet with a text in South-African (which is related to the Dutch language, but not always to understand for me), and English”. ‘The Plantation’ is also a 10″, and it comes as stand-alone record, or as a box set, with a 68-page booklet and a 7″. This is the box I got, and it blew my mind. Everything is well designed, in beautiful black/white and grey, and it’s about the group’s past in South Africa and the country in general; at least, that’s what I think about this one. ‘The Plantation’ not being a comment on the country’s past, but the name of their studio. It’s all very personal stuff, dealing with the early death, in 1995, of founding member Wim Bontjes.
Ellende isn’t exclusively based in South Africa but has band members in Japan and London. Even after reviewing many of the group’s releases, I still have to figure out how they work. For instance, if there is one central point in which everything comes together, someone is responsible for doing the mix. Ellende’s music is, despite the name’s meaning of ‘misery’, not some sick noise but more like ambient music with fine orchestral touches. In the opening piece, ‘Arrival’, there is a French voice, reminding me of the Insane Music group Cortex, but wven without that has a strange nostalgic feeling. None of the instruments used easily is returned to a specific one, as colouring and electronic treatments do their job well; they are not recognised, so the orchestral part is more an idea than something very concrete. The whole project, and I have set aside an entire Sunday to play these records repeatdely, breaths nostalgia, the sound of the past. Shimmers of days gone, of faded orchestral music, of private drama, along with the well-presented words and images; a true gesamtkunstwerk I haven’t seen in some time. The highlight of this week! (FdW)
––– Address: https://ellende1.bandcamp.com/
RUBBISH MUSIC – FATBERGS (CDR by Persistence Of Sound)
For a moment, I considered ignoring the lengthy press text or the cover and writing something altogether more poetic or fictional about this release. I heard the CDR a couple of times in the last few days but couldn’t bring myself to read the text or look at the cover. Fatigue or laziness, you pick. It’s also, perhaps, because I liked what I heard without knowing what it was about. I kept seeing the titles in my player, which also made me curious. Difficult! Rubbish Music is a duo of Kate Carr and Iain Chambers, “upcycling waste into immersive electroacoustic music”, “the discarded detritus beneath the streets of our cities”. Mentioned as “wet wipes, nappies, food waste, fats and oils”, which made me think knowing might not be everything. Judging by the five pieces on this CD, I assume they use electronics to process these sounds. While I greatly enjoy the music as an organic, living entity, moving and changing, I also realise that none of the original wet wipes et al. are heard, but electronic transformations thereof. It’s a great concept, and it looks good on YouTube, but the electronics carry it. Anything will sound good with electronics is my point. What’s re relevance of the rubbish objects? Maybe I am, in that respect, too much of a purist. The best example I can give is the use group Somp, who plays (among other things) on trash cans in a highly rhythmic way, and people love that. My reasoning: drumming on anything sounds good, but it reveals nothing about the sound qualities of the trash cans or, in the case of Rubbish Music, the debris found on the street, feeding through electronics. Very few people explore pure rubbish as sound sources, but a particular trio from The Netherlands springs to mind, or some work by Jeph Jerman. Having said that, one may think I don’t like this CD but read again; I do like the CD a lot, but more as an electronic work than an acoustic exploration. I’d be curious to hear a version of the latter by this duo, the batteries-excluded version. (FdW)
––– Address: https://rubbishmusic1.bandcamp.com/
PHILIPPE PETIT – A REASSURING ELSEWHERE, CHAPTER 3 (CDR by Oscillations)
In Vital Weekly 1356 my colleague FdW wrote a review on the first chapter in this series. That first chapter contained four parts and two interludes. The second chapter missed our office but contained parts five through seven. This final chapter it’s parts 8 through 16, again with two short interludes.
This album is the final part of his retro-futurist trilogy, which ends his journey into early electronics and avant-garde classical music. Next to the modular system(s) we know he loves and uses a lot of the compositions is the (ab)use of a piano inside. This is how, in the past, a lot of electro-acoustic compositions started – and ended – so for me, the question I hoped to see answered was if this was something new. Is adding extensive modular synthesis to the recording of a piano being played ‘alternatively’ the start of something new? And after several listens, I sadly can’t give you an answer. Is it a bad album? No, it’s fun listening, and a few tracks are worth your time. Track 4 (“part 10”) is an example of how I like my electro-acoustic music. Hectic, complex yet a specific soothing character all over.
I don’t think I have enough experience listening to electro-acoustic music to appreciate this whole album fully. Listening to the modular parts, I get distracted by the piano abuse. But listening to the piano, I miss the clarity of sound to fully dive into what I’m hearing. So, instead of listening to the parts, I’ve tried listening to the sum of the parts. And yes, even though it’s labelled as a journey – so for me, an experiment to see what this research will bring – I miss a story being told. This album is a collection of well-executed experiments. (BW)
––– Address: https://oscillations-music.bandcamp.com/
DIS FAC (cassette by Final Image)
In the mid-1990s, O Yuki Conjugate was on a roll, not only as a band, producing some of their best work (‘Equator’), but also the various members shooting off in other collaborative projects, with band members working together in smaller groups, or with outside people, all within the zeitgeist of ambient house, more on the ambient side than the house. Alp and Sons Of Silence were such projects, and A Small Good Thing was another. Here, OYC founder Andrew Hulme worked with Mark Sedgewick (of Gush, also going back to the 1980s and the Final Image label) and Tom Fazzini. Their ‘thing’ was combining ambient music with slide guitars, percussion and samples, giving the music a more American feeling, music from the dessert, vast open space music. Dis Fac is a continuation of A Small Good Thing without Sedgewick. Fazzini had some solo releases (see Vital Weekly 912 for the most recent one), and Hulme continued with OYC, now in their fourth phase. Dis Fac is what I would consider as ‘ambient but different’. It only superficially shares the ambience of O Yuki Conjugate, and that’s some of the darkness. Dis Fac’s music is all the more abstract, relying heavily on sampling acoustic objects and feeding these through even more sound effects. We no longer recognise any of these sounds, covered as they are by a cloak of mystery. In ‘Cold Storage’, they might be using samples from the orchestral pack but slowly morphing into abstraction again. Think what would happen if musique concrète meets ambient. There is some of that collage feeling, but everything happens with slow action; this collage has long fades. The six pieces flow neatly from one to the next, creating a perfect 40-minute soundscape. It is a bit industrial at times (very mild), with some genuinely dark ambient and lovely orchestral offerings. Andrew Hulme has a background in filmmaking, and the music shows a soundtrack-like quality. Excellent stuff – too good for a cassette! (FdW)
––– Address: https://finalimage.bandcamp.com/album/dis-fac
ARS SONITUS – POLITICAL MANIFESTO OF TRANSFUTURISM (cassette by Impulsy Stetoskopu)
Packed in a 10″ full-colour booklet, with the tape screwed onto small metal plates, this is almost the best-looking product of this week, but that honour goes to Ellende, also in 10″ format (see elsewhere). The text in the booklet is about Transfuturism, and reading it made me none the wiser. There is a dedication to Guillaume Toussaint, but I have to figure out who that is; the world of the Internet provided a lot of leads, but which to follow? (that seems to be the eternal question about knowledge and the Internet). Transfuturism has something to do with striving for equality, and maybe we should see the artwork as some kind of Malevich-like geometric art – it’s been a while since I looked into that. As I know from previous releases, Ars Sonitus play noise music in the best industrial tradition and take that literally, as many of the sounds used to sound like machines at work. One certainly can see a direct link, at least sonically, to the music of Vivenza, which I always loved (and never cared about the whole futurism shtick he was on about). With Vivenza, it wasn’t recordings from machines, so I was told, but playing the VCS synth, but in the case of Ars Sonitus, it very well might be. It comes along with a fair of distortion and extraneous noise. Still, also Heidegger’s voice (which we are told we shouldn’t worry if we don’t understand him because “it’s only a matter of time before the attentive and sensitive listener to the phenomenon of the beauty of noise discovers their meaning”) and what I think is a bit of the last hour Jonestown – which may sound like a surprise. Still, Jim Jones preached equality to people of all colours in the 1950s and was a kind of Marxist with a Christian flair. Each spoken words sections last some time, and each flows neatly into the next section of noise, machine-like feedback and distortion, the crushing of metallic plates resembling the crushing wheels of industry (to paraphrase an old song by Heaven 17). A classic noise approach, the alternating between actual noise and power electronics, between spoken word and the noise itself. (FdW)
––– Address: https://www.discogs.com/label/121961-Impulsy-Stetoskopu?page=1