Week 23

NASMAK PM – THE PM SERIES: 4 PROTEST MEETING – POSITIVELY NO!!! (CD by Nasmak)
HAARVÖL – HORIZONS OF SUSPENDED ZONES (CD by Cronica Electronica)
AQUILA (compilation CD by Audiophob)
SONOLOGYST – PLANETARIUM (2CD by Cold Spring Records)
VISIBLE SOUND – NIKOLA TESLA’S MATTERGY (CD by Soleilmoon)
THEME – MEDITATIONS ON SPACE, VOLUME ONE (CD by Fourth Dimension Records)
DOC WÖR MIRRAN – CLIMAXIMUM (LP by MT Entertainment)
DOC WÖR MIRRAN – HATRIOTS (CDR by Marginal Talent)
ISOLATED COMMUNITY – MOVEMENT IN THE HALF-LIGHT (CDR by Northumberland Audio Capture)
+FELLADOG+ – II (CDR by Love Earth Music)
+DOG+ / BASTARD NOISE – OUR MOTHERS UNSTOPPABLE REVENGE (CDR by Love Earth Music)
MAGICAL – THE GIFT OF LOVE (CDR by Love Earth Music)
JARR – EVANGELINE (CDR by Sound In Silence)
WITH OPEN ARMS – SOME PLACE LIKE HOME (CDR by Sound In Silence)
KIKEKU (CDR compilation by Hazi Esporak!)
ALEXEI BORISOV & VYACHESLAV ISMAGILOV – KHAN’S HALLUCINATIONS (cassette by Wave Guardian Records)
BRESTHAFT VS. MEZIRE – SPLIT (cassette by The Tourette Tapes)
IØN – SOUNDSCAPES VOL. 2 (cassette by Ion Musik)
BUENOVENTURA – GELB (audio postcard by Palazzo Records)

NASMAK PM – THE PM SERIES: 4 PROTEST MEETING – POSITIVELY NO!!! (CD by Nasmak)

The story should be known by now. A band that was very active in the early 1980s, the media darlings of the alternative music press, reunited at the end of 2023 (minus one original member, but with the occasional addition of a member who left before they changed their name from Nasmaak to Nasmak). Since then, they recorded four CDs and played several concerts, one of which I visited and enjoyed a lot (see a previous review, Vital Weekly 1463). On this new album, eight new pieces, including two reworkings of tracks from 2002, by Dish Hunt, which included Nasmak members Toon Bressers and Joop van Brakel and Peter Sijbenga (from It Dockumer Lokaeltsje). Lyrically, this album is a protest album, because the world is going to shit, and fascism is on the rise (my words, and if you disagree, please unsubscribe), and these songs are in vein of the 1960s protest songs. I am not the lyrical man, so I’ll take Nasmak’s stance for granted, but in their music, I think I can see some of the revolutionary spirit. More than on their previous CDs (and I am only talking about Nasmak PM’s put, not the entire history of Nasmak), this new album seems to be all about rhythm, and I am thinking of tribalistic rhythms to get people moving into action, a direct appeal to the masses. Maybe I see this all the wrong way, but the rhythm is whipping people to take charge and rise. As said, I am not the man to spell out lyrics and titles may not offer a clue. Next to these rhythms and synthesisers/sequencers, we find the guitar, and it sounds spikey and rocky. In ‘Motivation March (We Go For It)’, there’s even a harmonica, true sixties style, and is a great piece, almost a hit in my untrained ears. Nasmak plays dence music – as in dense and dance. Truus de Groot plays and sings on two pieces, which in ‘Super Tribe’ go out to African beats, whereas ‘Not Me Please’ is a more straightforward dance piece. Grim as the music is, and a reflection of the sorry state of our world, this is a great CD. I loved the previous three, but this is the best out of four. There is something to miss once I am no longer a reviewer! (FdW)
––– Address: https://nasmak.bandcamp.com/

HAARVÖL – HORIZONS OF SUSPENDED ZONES (CD by Cronica Electronica)

Among my favourite drone groups is Haarvöl, a trio of two musicians (José Pereira and João Faria) and Rui Manuel Vieira, who handles the visual side. I don’t know what that looks like, as I never saw them in concert (or looked on YouTube). Their latest album is inspired by a book by Hakim Bey from the late 1990s, “about the then-emerging possibility of the virtual. With the lucidity for which he is known, he recognised at the time that the virtual was nothing more than a new avenue for expanding capitalism. He introduced the concept of temporary autonomous zones as a kind of Foucauldian heterotopia — spaces that existed only for as long as they could evade capture.” Of course, things got way more radical than that; just look around you. The music here is the opposite of more of everything; it is less of everything. Six lengthy pieces, each about ten minutes of slow music, heavy on the ambience, drones and atmospherics. I hope I am not as attached to screens, buttons, and more of everything (except for reading books on my iPad), and I like slow and quiet music more than loud music, and Haarvöl tick all those boxes. It’s not to say each of these six pieces is just a few tones sustaining on end. Far from! Each piece is a multi-layered event of sustaining tones, but with shorter samples, voices, bell sounds and more melodic stuff, which makes this a delightful trip. I think I called their previous release ‘The Uncanny Organisation Of Timeless Time’ their best work to date, but I’d like to add ‘Horizons Of Suspended Zones’ as a contender. It is a highly varied disc of some abstract ambient, meeting more melodic touches. Excellent! (FdW)
––– Address: https://cronica.bandcamp.com/

AQUILA (compilation CD by Audiophob)

Audiophob, for some of you, a new name, not for me. It all started in 2003 when Carsten Stiller and Mirko Hentrich released their first split between their projects Alarmen and Spherical Disrupted. It triggered the birth of Audiophob as a label, and now, 22 years later, they are celebrating with not just another split release, but something that is growing beyond its borders. With a roster filled with releases from Autoclav1.1, Darkrad, Axiome, Mandelbrot, Mortaja, 2kilos & more and Phelios, it’s obvious they do things very well and continuously. Lots of performances and DJ gigs to support the label, as can be read in the monthly newsletter.
So, to celebrate 22 years since that first release that triggered it all, Carsten and Mirko created the project “Aquila”. It has one track of each of the two artists; “Tarazed” by Alarmen has an ambient approach with loads of melodic arpeggiators following IDM patterns and old-school German synth pioneer sounds. “Altair” by Spherical Disrupted has the same old-school German pioneer vibe, but plays in the background with an EBM / industrial vibe. Both tracks are very nice, but 15 minutes is insufficient to fill a CD. So they decided to ask friends to work with their material and surprise them. And this album as a whole is part of what happened.
First of all, the two partners in crime reworked each other’s tracks, resulting in a beatless ambient “Tarazed” and a bit more EBM approach of “Altair”. After that, it’s time for Autoclav1.1, The_Empath (twice), Wesenberg, Olivier ‘Docteur’ Moreau, Mortaja, Darkrad and Mandelbrot to work on things. And without going in depth on each track, the result is more than the sum of its parts. The danger, of course, is that all of the artists stick to the original too much, which would result in a compilation of two tracks, multiple versions. But the strength of this sampler is that each of the artists got (or took) enough freedom to make it their own. So it’s a splendid sampler with simply a few recurring themes. Personal favourites are the mixes by Docteur Moreau, Darkrad and both of The_Empath tracks.
But that’s not all. Because Carsten and Mirko met and became friends with way more people over the last 22 years. At the Bandcamp page, another collection is available, “Aquila (The Nova Aquilae Remixes)” The Price is free or ‘name your price’ with remixes of entirely different artists. First of all, Mirko and Carsten remixed their tracks, after which there are additional remixes by Oko And Machines, Pera Spera, X-D, Heimstatt Yipotash (twice), Anatoly Grinberg, R.G. Gardener, Carsten Vollmer, Andreas Davids (also twice), Triode, Hendekagon and b°tong.
We don’t do download-only releases here, but I had to. If you know the names of this second batch of artists, you already know you’re in for just about anything. From drum’n bass to straight EBM, some almost goth influences and mind-tingling additions from Carsten Vollmer and b°tong. (BW)
––– Address: https://www.audiophob.de/
––– Address: https://audiophob.bandcamp.com/

SONOLOGYST – PLANETARIUM (2CD by Cold Spring Records)

Raffaele Pezzella, also known as Sonologyst, runs various labels, such as the Unexplained Sounds Group and Eighth Tower Records, but for much of his musical work, he finds a home in Cold Spring Records. Sonologyst’s music is always very atmospheric and ambient, but also in a slightly disturbing way—the kind of dark and dystopia I enjoy. In his work, ‘space’ seems to have a prominent place, but seldom as openly as on ‘Planetarium’, the title being a very obvious clue. Much research into space and data from space is used here as sound sources, “Raw data from radio waves, electromagnetic fields, and plasma fluctuations, utilising data sonification files provided by NASA”. The raw sound material can be found on the second disc, as one long piece, maybe to be used by adventurous copyists or remixers? I don’t know if they are allowed to do this. Imagine the sounds captured by space crafts, detecting “radio waves, plasma waves, and electromagnetic fields”, and to this Sonologyst adds analogue synthesiser, sampling and processing. There’s a blurry line between sounds from space and sounds from Sonologyst, and I am sure that’s the whole idea here. When machines peep like an ancient space movie, or rumble from deep (deep space being the thing we have to think about), of drones from synthesisers or space, the whole sound has a rather dark, threatening feeling. This is worlds apart from the cosmic synth doodling of the 1970s. Oddly enough, I learned about the second disc being a disc of sources after I played it twice and mistakenly thought it was part of the music. It had some odd stops, but otherwise it’s in similar dark territory. You could wonder if that was a good or bad thing, me not noticing this. I thought the whole release is a solid disc, not his best work to date, but easily among the best he’s done. (FdW)
––– Address: https://coldspring.bandcamp.com

VISIBLE SOUND – NIKOLA TESLA’S MATTERGY (CD by Soleilmoon)

You may not have heard of the group Visible Sound before, but it’s a duo with Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Mauricio Reyes. Their name comes from a Mexican TV program, “designed to highlight Nikola Tesla’s sound experiments with turbines and wireless resonant electric circuits. This initiative was named “Visible Sound.” Ultimately, due to concerns regarding low viewership, the decision was made not to air the show. Since then, it has been classified as “Lost Media,” archived within the annals of the now-defunct Canal 4 in Mexico City. During the sound experiments, members of the Commission employed early synthesisers and circuit boards to capture and manipulate the vibrations produced by these devices.” Recordings made for this TV program made their way to Von Hauswolff and Reyes, who created two lengthy pieces of music. For Hauswolff, it’s not the first encounter with Nikolai Tesla’s coils, as he worked with them on a project with The Hafler Trio, Annie Sprinkle and Phauss, Von Hauswolff’s duo at the time. Recordings from that project are also used in this work. To stay with the Tesla theme, this music sparkles and buzzes electric in two long pieces, clocking at almost 67 minutes. A lot is going on, unlike some of Von Hauswolff’s other work, which is more on the minimalist side. Every nook and cranny on this album is filled with sound, mostly abstract sounds, but an occasional vice pops up, and at some point, birds and insects. Sometimes these sounds are long form, but there are some instances in which the music is cut short and almost rhythmic element pops up, but, as with the rest, the music keeps moving and one section flows seemingly with great ease into the next. I don’t know if their treatments are all computer-based, or maybe there is some kind of analogue treatment; I doubt that, but can’t say why. The best point of reference I can point to is early 90s music by The Hafler Trio, the same kind of electronic treatments and collage approach, even when Visible Sound take a more radical approach in treatments and very few moments of spacious quietness. Not music to sit by and relax, but something to play loud and drown yourself in. (FdW)
––– Address: https://www.soleilmoon.com/

THEME – MEDITATIONS ON SPACE, VOLUME ONE (CD by Fourth Dimension Records)

Stuart Carter and Richard Johnson, collectively known as Theme, release albums and take long breaks to create new ones. I don’t know why, but one reason might be that one is in the UK and the other in Poland. I know I keep saying this, but their first release, ‘On Parallel Shores Removed’, was excellent. However, it’s lost in my collection, so I am unsure what made me think this was such a great album. Their subsequent albums were good, yet different, and I saw them in concert, albeit many years ago, which didn’t do the music justice. Their new album is weird, with the first few tracks being tranquil. Tracks flow into the next, and we are served Theme’s brand of electronics and field recordings, cut-up voices (in the background, not always easy to detect), and some acoustic object abuse, usually including metal sheets. Theme’s music isn’t easy to categorise, if that is something one wants to do, and I do, because it’s a way of putting things in perspective. My best attempt would be to call this collage-based music, taking many different sound sources and sticking them together into an album. As each track flows into the next, I see this as a concept album, one long story. Each track is called Part One, ‘Part Two’, followed by a title, and whatever the story is (that bit eluded me), it comes from something very tranquil (the first part) to a relatively noisy part seven. This is the one with voices, suppressed feedback and where Theme goes into a chant/ritualistic modus. I don’t know if this is the intention, but that’s how I perceived this album. A most enjoyable album, even when it’s not easy to access, especially with these dynamic approaches, but every time I hear it, something new is revealed, changing my idea about it. Maybe this review would be much different if I were to rewrite it in a year or so. (FdW)
––– Address: https://fourthdimensionrecords.bigcartel.com/

DOC WÖR MIRRAN – CLIMAXIMUM (LP by MT Entertainment)
DOC WÖR MIRRAN – HATRIOTS (CDR by Marginal Talent)

Hurrah! On December 10, 1984 (the press text says 1884!), Doc Wör Mirran released their first cassette, containing music by Joseph B. Raimond and Bernard H. Worrick. ‘Climaximum’ is release #223, ‘Hatriots’ #222—a massive body of work, and one that is documented quite well. The celebratory release is an LP, which is quite a diversion from their recent stream of CDRs. Both releases have more or less the same lineup: Raimond playing guitar, bass, drum patterns, handpan, keyboards and, above all, mixing and composing, Michael Wurzer (keyboards), Michael Asch (a new name, perhaps? Guitar, bass, keyboards), Ralf Lexuis (Guitar, bass, keyboards), Stefan Schweiger (drums), and Adrian Gormley (saxophone). This is a steady lineup for the group, and the results are usually part of the group’s more melodic approach. One of the things I like about Doc Wör Mirran is that one never knows what to expect, but over the years, I learned some of these lineups guarantee a particular stylistic approach. I also realised that, in essence, Doc Wör Mirran is a sort of krautrock group, jamming and improvising away, with the saxophone in a usually jazzier mood. The ten pieces on vinyl and the 12 on CDRs are along the lines, with minor differences. The saxophone isn’t present in every track (and that’s great, because it can be a bit much), and sometimes the guitar drifts off in a lengthy guitar solo, while the rest hammers away. On the LP, ‘Young & Old’ is the oddball out, a spooky electronic music piece with some spoken word samples. On CDR, we find some pieces with a more techno-ish streak, such as ‘Lord Dampnut’; techno is just a different kind of krautrock, whereas ‘UNselfing’ reminded me of older Section 25. The CDR is more of a mixed bag, bouncing all over the rock, ambient and technoid places, whereas the LP is more stylistically together. The CDR is, perhaps, the better intro in their colourful musical world, whereas the LP is more coherent and easily accessible, so take your pick! (FdW)
––– Address: https://www.dwmirran.de/DWMreleases.htm

ISOLATED COMMUNITY – MOVEMENT IN THE HALF-LIGHT (CDR by Northumberland Audio Capture)

One of my favourite duos is Rachel and Richard Dunn, also known as Isolated Community. So far, I have reviewed eight of their excellent albums with minor differences. One album leans more to electronic music, some more song-oriented (their older work), and on this new one, they use field recordings they made in Northumberland (their home turf, as said in their label’s name) and the North Pennines of County Durham. These places were chosen to capture the “genius loci or the pervading spirit of a place. In these places, they recorded the sound of a bullroarer and wind Wand (I don’t know what that is), and back home, they added synthesisers and keyboards. When I write ‘back home’, I have this vaguely romantic notion of a shed in the countryside that doubles as a studio with Isolated Community opening a window to capture extra countryside sounds. This emphasis on field recordings is more substantial on this new release than on some of their older work. Each location is described on the cover, albeit in small print, with three extra postcard-sized pictures—many stones, caves, mines and even a radar station. There is a mysterious sound in these seven pieces, which, no doubt, isn’t just the field recordings but also the addition of synthesisers and effects. Previously, I mentioned the influence of Zoviet France in their music, which is here even stronger, but more mid-1990s Zoviets than the current ones. Isolated Community plays slow music, with some excellent minimal features that work wonderfully well, culminating in the majestic full synth blast of ‘Leave Behind’. The music here has less of a direct feeling (capturing the music with a microphone in the studio, rather than via a mixing console) than some of the earlier work, which is, perhaps, another difference. What is the same is the high quality of the music. (FdW)
––– Address: https://isolatedcommunity.bandcamp.com/

+FELLADOG+ – II (CDR by Love Earth Music)

In front of me is the second output by Steve Davis (+DOG+) and Jim Szudy (Nihil Omnia, Fellahean and Blue Collar Calling with Steve Meketa). About six months ago, I had the pleasure of reviewing their first self-titled collaboration. I ended that with ‘I hope there will be more of this duo in time’. And I only had to wait 6 months! Great to have artists listening to your advice. giggles But without kidding, Steve and Jim continue where they left off on that first release, and they’re doing a mighty fine job together.
Fifteen tracks are on this album, and the timestamp is between 3 and 6 minutes, resulting in almost 70 minutes of a great party album for sick minds. There are many noise styles these guys are exploring and experimenting with. It ranges from droning, throbbing loops of unknown origin towards harsh extrusions of sound, again some hypnotic experiments and even a bit of a death ambient feeling that would scare a thunderstorm away. But then there is that big question: If this album is, style-wise, so dynamic, isn’t that a problem for the overall flow? Well, with a big question comes an answer that explains everything: No! Because that’s the beauty of it!
“II” is an album of extremes, but not in loudness or harshness. It’s the extremes of emotional charge used to work on the composition. You can hear that each track is carefully taken care of in whatever way Steve and Jim chose to collaborate (this part is still a mystery to me, and I haven’t spoken to either of them about the method). But it’s like they’ve taken up a particular track and worked on that until they said it was finished without diversion or doing something else simultaneously. It is as if each of the tracks is dedicated; They’re small short stories with a particular subject, and they didn’t stop until it was done. And then they continued to the next. And the result is that the 15 stories are uniform in their composition, even though there are 15 stories, with 15 main characters and 15 storylines.
I hope this makes sense to some of you because I greatly like this one. (BW)
––– Address: http://www.loveearthmusic.com/

+DOG+ / BASTARD NOISE – OUR MOTHERS UNSTOPPABLE REVENGE (CDR by Love Earth Music)

This is the second collaboration of Bastard Noise and Steve Davis a.k.a. +DOG+. The first one was released in August ’23 and released on beautiful black and gold vinyl. The vinyl had two sides and 2twotracks; this one also has two tracks, but it would be impossible to release on vinyl, as the second track alone is 36 minutes long. Another difference is that this one has additional vocals by Jessica Marvin, who used to be a member of They Live.
Let’s start with the artwork. The previous one was black and gold, and Kevin Fetus did it. This one is entirely in a different style. Again, it is by Kevin, but the graphics have something satanic, like a mantis impregnating Mother Earth as if it were a face-hugger.
The album opens with the shortest track, the 19-minute epic “Human Cockroach Study and Analysis” (S.O.C.). And within minutes Eric found my soft spot because f*ck, I so love the gear of W.T. Nelson and this first track is filled with the typical TrogoTronic sound—those fully saturated sounds of tubes and distortion. Massive, super characteristic and aggressive and with the proper treatment magnificently tender and piercing … Screaming synths, deep droning layers, added noise and an angry voice … I’m reading the words that Eric posted on his FB when he announced this album: ‘This was a MAJOR FEAT to complete this massive body of work. It is “next level” in all of captivating horror. Extremely detailed mixing, editing and mastering make “OUR MOTHERS UNSTOPPABLE REVENGE” BASTARD NOISE a top release in the unit’s accomplishments.’ And NOW I understand. Eris is right, though.
The 36-minute track is titled “Through Celebration and Mirth” and starts with that same ambient/minimal approach, albeit with specific orchestral harmonics added. I’m not saying ‘commercial’ because that’s cursing. But the orchestral notes will make it easier to consume for people who aren’t used to extreme sounds only. But it’s not a bad thing to open yourself up to a larger audience, it WILL make your message heard by more people. And the message these guys have is an important one. There is one earth and it’s being raped because of an addiction to greed. Greed through the addiction of money and more, more, more … A message that more people SHOULD hear. ‘Once fertile lands of beauty, now toxic and dead’. Yes, it’s that bad with this earth, and you know it. Musically, this is completely satisfying my tastebuds, each one of them.
“This addiction is not divine! This addiction is not divine! This addiction is not divine!” … Maybe not, but this album is. (BW)
––– Address: http://www.loveearthmusic.com/

MAGICAL – THE GIFT OF LOVE (CDR by Love Earth Music)

This is the third release this week with the name Steve Davis attached. This time, it’s the project Magical, of which “The Gift of Love” is the second release. The first one, “The Gift of Today,” was reviewed in Vital Weekly 1466 sometime in December last year. Since then, I’ve learned this is another project of Steve, but I still need to understand the conceptual approach behind it. Why? Because it is weird as hell.
This one is 28 minutes and counting, 14 tracks between 54 seconds and a whopping 3 minutes and 17 seconds. All tracks have weird beat patterns at high speeds, generating a beat-based sound wave. And all the tracks have additional layers of field recordings, found footage, vocals/voices or noise(s). And because the tracks are so short, everything is constantly moving. “Happily Shrinking World”, for example, has less of a beat pattern forming a sound, but the technique used is the same. “In Heaven All Along” has the most grind feel because of the added bass and rock-based patterns. “Mange” is an example of a track where the structure of a beat pattern becomes soundwaves on its own is best audible. And the voice with it makes it simply creepy. The best example, however, of this method is the closing track “Perpetual”.
Magical is, as said in the first review, also not the easiest to listen to, but it has a very original approach to sonic art. It’s weird, and weird is good. (BW)
––– Address: http://www.loveearthmusic.com/

JARR – EVANGELINE (CDR by Sound In Silence)
WITH OPEN ARMS – SOME PLACE LIKE HOME (CDR by Sound In Silence)

Many of the musical projects I reviewed in the last 30 years (as I am ending Vital Weekly soon, you can expect more of this looking back stuff) have releases like clockwork, until one day they decide to end a project and move on. John Attwood’s project Yellow6 might be going on for as long as Vital Weekly, but also his side project JARR is at it for some time. He’s the JA in JARR while Ray Robinson is the other. ‘Evangeline’ is the sixth album, fourth for the Greek Sound In Silence label, and the fourth I hear (see also Vital Weekly 1396, 1336, and 1445). They are both guitarists, of the electric variation, and use a lot of reverb to suggest much space. I assume there’s also a loop device or two in the equation. Sometimes there’s a drum machine, but not in each of the ten songs. Like their guitar playing, the drums are mostly slow, as everything is spaced out here. The music is a massive, hazy shade in each piece, sounding from afar, but sometimes very close by. There is a suggestion of depth in this music, which they do very well. They took the title from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which I haven’t read, but is described by my good friend Wiki as ‘an epic poem’. It’s easy to see the music here as audio poetry, as JARR offers highly delicate tunes. While the guitar is usually recognisable, the music seems less rocky than I remember from their previous releases, and more atmospheric. And that’s more up my alley than rock, even when I liked that side of JARR.
The other new release is the debut album of With Open Arms. This is also a duo, with Dan Robertson, who I don’t know from his projects Trice and Arkayik and one half of drum and bass duo Head Space, and Ben Rath, to some known for Slow Heart Music (“acoustic lo-fi”) and Astral Harmonies (“electronic”). The two have known each other for a long time, and they live in different parts of the country, so their collaboration is by file exchange. With their love of electronic ambient music, they put together a library of sounds, loops, samples and audio recordings, which each of them began sticking together, going back and forth, until their album was complete. Quite oddly for ambient music, their pieces are relatively short. Of the twelve pieces, only one clocks in almost eight minutes, two are over four minutes, and the rest are below four. And yet, the music never sounds sketch-like or rushed. Each piece is a well-worked-out composition of various electronic sounds, a bit of rhythm (not in every piece) and some field recordings. From the latter, I only recognised some birds twittering. There is some neat variation in their sound, avoiding repeated ideas and sounds, and some of it sounds like classic ambient music, such as the synthesiser washes of ‘Hireath’. In other pieces, ‘Sankofa’, they have some processed sea sounds (sounding more like cassette hiss), which gave the piece a distinctly different feel. Their rhythms are never upfront, but gently supportive in the background. This is an excellent release. (FdW)
––– Address: https://soundinsilencerecords.bandcamp.com/

KIKEKU (CDR compilation by Hazi Esporak!)

The name of this label is Basque for ‘Grow Spores’, and this new compilation is a homegrown affair. It contains 14 pieces by 12 students from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Bilbao. None of these names means anything to me. Interestingly, there is press text describing each piece, which would also have made much sense when printed on the cover. As with compilations go, this is a very mixed bag of pieces, and, spoiler alert, no particular stand-out, jaw-dropping pieces. Throughout, the quality is very high. Many move around the axis of field recordings, computer treatments, ambient (strong opening piece by Leire Sáenz) and noise alike pieces, circuit bending (Leire Olalde), plunderphonics/found voices (Nai Rivero), and something that sounds like an early sampling piece, by Iraia Perez.
The weakest links are by Izar (& Hey there!), a way too long song with an xylophone, keyboard, and small voice, and, not surprisingly, a piece by Hey there! (& Iraia), now with an acoustic guitar and a vocal only by Maialen. Maddi’s handclaps add nicely to her vocals, making this an example that works.
All in all, a fascinating compilation, with much to discover! (FdW)
––– Address: https://haziesporak.bandcamp.com/

ALEXEI BORISOV & VYACHESLAV ISMAGILOV – KHAN’S HALLUCINATIONS (cassette by Wave Guardian Records)

Although Alexei Borisov has occasionally featured in these pages, I don’t think we have covered his entire output. He’s a Moscow guitar player who works in improvised music, with a strong love for all things louder and noisier. Vyacheslav Ismagilov is a new name for and he’s from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, now based out of Kazan, Russia, and a creator of electronic music. The guitar isn’t an instrument one easily recognises in the 13 pieces on this cassette. I understand the music incorporates “Uzbek folk rhythm and instruments as well as electronics and spoken word”, but it isn’t forthcoming on which instruments are used, nor something about the recording process, but judging by the music, I’d say this two people in a room, and not an exchnage of sound files over the internet. Maybe that’s in line with the cassette’s title, even when it’s not explained who Khan is. But the hallucinatory aspect of the music is certainly something. Lots of electronics are used in a slightly noisier version. Sometimes these are sampled and, along with screeching electronics, cut-up percussion to create no rhythm, maybe field recordings, and they aim at a ‘no silence, no rest, let’s keep this level up’ approach. The label mentions musique concrète, which is something I can hear in this music, but Borisov and Ismagilov have a rough approach to the idea of musique concrète; it’s direct and in your face, rather than the result of endless editing and stripping down the music, or continuously processing. If you will, think of this music as the punk version of musique concrète. Not too much editing (if any), this is no easy listening, but a rather bumpy ride, and a tour de force, lasting some 50 minutes, if I counted correctly. Not for the weak of heart, but not necessarily an all-out noise release. This is the kind of improvisation I enjoy! (FdW)
––– Address: https://waveguardianrecords.bandcamp.com/

BRESTHAFT VS. MEZIRE – SPLIT (cassette by The Tourette Tapes)

Here we have a new release from The Tourette Tapes, not to be mixed up with Tourette Records. The Tourette Tapes is a label from Germany and is, in fact, a subdivision of Apocalyptic Radio. How and what exactly I don’t know and couldn’t find out as the website(s) haven’t been updated for ages, but TTT has been releasing stuff since 2006 and their roster includes Flutwacht (a LOT of Flutwacht – is there a link?), Corpoparassita, Vincenzo Bossi, Praying For Oblivion and Fieberflug. And after a self-titled release from 2018, this is the second time Bresthaft can be found on TTT. It is, however, the first time for Mezire. The tape was released in 42 copies and is completely sold out. The digital version is available on the Bandcamp pages of both artists, so you can choose who you want to support.
The tape opens with Mezire from Berlin. It used to be a two-person project, but it’s been a solo project by Frank Krause for about seven years. On this release, it’s old-school power electronics with loads of added noise layers. Seven tracks with names like “Bullet”, “I’m your shadow”, “Silent Protest”, “This is War” and “Feed the Worms”, you know you’re not in for happy stories, but you are in for the happiest of times if you like it relentless. Frank pushes the boundaries of the recordings through the compression in the production phase. There are dynamics, but the power in the production is massive! There is so much anger in his vocals, the noise is ear-splitting and one of the things that impressed me a lot musically is the control Frank has on the feedback. For example, he uses it as an almost tonal instrument in “Monologue”. Put in some analogue noises and sounds (“This is War”) and you have my attention!
The reverse side is for Bresthaft; I can’t tell you where he comes from. Clicking through Discogs makes me think it’s Luxembourg, but the Bandcamp page says Germany. Does it matter? No. Bresthaft has one less track than Mezire, six in total. “Yo soy la Muerte”, “The Putrification of Fire”, and “You need a doctor very urgently” reveal that the same happiness can be expected. The atmosphere is indeed just as happy, but music-wise, there are a lot of differences. Bresthaft uses the combination of distortion and compression way less, but manages to get a lot of oppressive sounds through equalisation and saturation of his layers. His vocals are less distorted, which gives it more of a death ambient / death industrial feel. His sounds are more upfront in the mix and less mangled. I wouldn’t be surprised if he uses a nice modular setup. I couldn’t help thinking that these tracks would very much appeal to fans of BDN.
Yep, The Tourette Tapes made me happy with some intense music where two artists use a different approach, but they both get it done. Making me happy, that is. (BW)
––– Address: https://thetourettetapes.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://mezire.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://bresthaft.bandcamp.com/

IØN – SOUNDSCAPES VOL. 2 (cassette by Ion Musik)

In the previous releases I reviewed from Giannis Papaioannou, he spelt his music project as ION, but for reasons unknown, he now spells it as IØN. I reviewed the first volume of ‘Soundscapes’ in Vital Weekly 1273, and like that CD, this new one contains short pieces. Each piece is two minutes and 22 seconds. For his music, IØN uses “Korg MS-20 Mini, Korg Minilogue, Dreadbox Nymphes, Dreadbox Hades, Elektron Model: Cycles, Soft Synths, Zoom H4n, Yamaha MT-100, Shortwave Radio, Tapes & Field Recordings” and he mentions we should listen with our eyes closed, and I admit I hardly do that. Each piece is “real, but often disguised, transformed, transfigured. What you hear is a place, or maybe just the echo of a place”, it says somewhat cryptically on Bandcamp. It is ambient music, but much like the release by With Open Arms, reviewed elsewhere, this is an album with much variation, mainly from an electronic origin and minimal field recordings (or, at least, I can’t hear them), but with some additional sounds and voices. These tracks have a rather loop-like character, but that’s not much of a problem since tracks are this brief. Maybe one objection is that sometimes it is too much of a fade-in/fade-out type of composition. Some pieces are more of the drone variation, but there’s also something more rhythmic, almost Chain Reaction/Gas-like in ‘Later That Day’. Whatever turn IØN takes, this remains gentle music, and perhaps if I hadn’t had to review this, I would close my eyes, risking falling asleep, but that’s okay, this music allows you to nap. Luckily, cassette players come with an auto-reverse. But even wide awake, it’s a joy to hear. (FdW)
––– Address: https://ionmusik.bandcamp.com/

BUENOVENTURA – GELB (audio postcard by Palazzo Records)

An audio postcard is what you think it is: a postcard-sized with grooves to play on your turntable. I bet they aren’t cheap to make, and in the case of Buenoventura, it is to promote an online album, ‘Gelb’ (meaning yellow), and probably pressing a CD would have been cheaper. Behind Buenoventura, we find Viennese musician Bernhard Hammer, a guitarist, part of Elektro Guzzi, Monochord, and Maraskino. I saw Elektro Guzzi once, which I enjoyed a lot: a rock trio playing techno music; close your eyes and it’s techno music, that much I know about the genre. “The fictional character Buenoventura is an ex-sailor* born in the Bahamas, punk, raver and music lover who performs in a colourful one-person show. As Buenoventura, Bernhard Hammer can easily switch between genres and intuitively let his ideas run free.” He plays the guitar and uses electronic effects, a strange hybrid of melodic guitar patterns with some crazy interjections of stuttering guitar parts—maybe a bit Oval-like, but also something very different and perhaps unique. There is a minimalist streak to the music, but also a rhythm one, and as none of these pieces is very long, between two and four minutes, there is some fine energy in this music, with the odd more dramatic bit, such as in ‘Bonbon’. It could very well be that Buenoventura made the postcard as a teaser for the download (convinced of that), but perhaps also with the idea of a CD or LP later. I am sure that would attract a few more customers, and the music deserves to be heard by more people than potentially reached by an audio postcard and download code. (FdW)
––– Address: https://buenoventura2.bandcamp.com/