Week 27

VITAL WEEKLY ENDS WITH NUMBER 1500 – SEPTEMBER 2025

LEGENDARY PINK DOTS – APPARITION (CD by Klanggalerie)
BRUNO DUPLANT & JUDITH WEGMANN – UNIVERS PARALLÈLES – DES NUITS ET DES JOURS (CD by Contemporary Series/Moving Furniture Records)
MOULDYCLIFF & POTTER & MOULDYCLIFF – CANOPIES & CATHEDRALS (CD by ICR)
FANI KONSTANTINIDOU – UNDERTONES (CD by Moving Furniture Records)
MAZUT – DIRT COLLECTOR (CD by Rope Worm)
PIOTR KOMOSIŃSKI & JERZY MAZZOLL – PORY (CD by Vintage Records)
MANŒUVRES SENTIMENTALES – DELIGHTFULLY SENTIMENTALES (CD by Circum Disc)
COLIN ANDREW SHEFFIELD – SERENADE (LP by Elevator Bath)
HUW MORGAN – MELOS (CDR by Sawyer Editions)
ZEYNEP TORAMAN – A LIFETIME OF ANNOTATIONS (CDR by Sawyer Editions)
LILA MERETZKY – SIMULTANEOUS CONTRAST (CDR by Sawyer Editions)
JPA FALZONE & MORGAN EVANS-WEILER – ASCENDING MUSIC (CDR by Sawyer Editions)
MARTI EPSTEIN – FOR JACK (CDR by Sawyer Editions
AGEDA IBARRA – LOARIN + PERIKARPO (CDR by Hazi Esporak!)
STEVE FORS – IT’S NOTHING, BUT STILL: JAPAN/US TOUR, 2023-24 (DVDR by Ballast)
SICK DAYS – WEEKEND WARRIOR (cassette by Vacancy Recs.)
SICK DAYS – DRESS ENTIRE (cassette by Vacancy Recs.)
STEFAN CHRISTOFF & JARRETT MARTINEAU – A TURBULENT SKY (cassette by Pyramid Blood)
LUKE LOSETH AND STEFAN CHRISTOFF – EARLY SPRING (cassette by Pyramid Blood)
ARCANE DEVICE – SIX (cassette by Korm Plastics D)

LEGENDARY PINK DOTS – APPARITION (CD by Klanggalerie)

Even for those with only fleeting interest in the massive output of the Pink Dots, Apparition is a gem. It is also, in a way, ‘the odd one out’ in the Dots’ early catalogue. Recorded in 1982, Apparition can be considered the result of a band re-inventing itself. The cause of this was a fundamental change in the line-up: founder member and keyboard player Phil Knight was not present (he would re-join the band after the recordings), and violinist Patrick Wright made his debut. Not that he was much present either – he attended some of the sessions that were organised, and vocalist Edward Ka-Spel subsequently edited his work into the music. The other Dots involved in the recording of Apparition were bass player Roland Callaway, guitarist Barry Gray, drummer Keith Thompson and, manning the effects, Sally Graves. The result of their work was Apparition, released in December 1982 on the Dutch label Ding Dong Records and Tapes in an edition of 1000 copies – a considerable edition for a cassette release by an independent label. Remember, these cassettes were hand-dubbed, four at a time, at the Ding Dong offices! Proving their faith in the Dots, Ding Dong provided heavy carton offset colour covers, adding a banderole and insert to top it all off. They looked, simply put, pretty good in the shop window. Musically, Apparition’s poppy weirdness wins out over the more experimental soundscapes. Songs like Alive! and Believe! (featuring the famous Yodelling Gnome), the pump of God Speed, Pay To Be Alone – an odd ballad, full of reversed keyboards and Edward’s wistful voice, personal favourite I’m In The Drill with Patrick’s violin and Roland’s brilliant poppy bass, the almost ‘rock’ sound of Powdercrowd (thanks to Keith’s drumming), which is topped in poppiness by The Plague, which could have been a hit it if wasn’t for lines like ’Rivers running with… PUSS / We’re all going to die (cue manic laughter)! Brilliant. Spontaneous Human Combustion marked the first Dots song to feature Patrick’s violin work – the trademark of the band’s sound in the 1980s. But we’re not even at the end yet… There is the all-too-brief, beautiful soundscape Premonition 3, which closes an album that, for many, was the introduction to the Legendary Pink Dots’ music. The current CD rerelease, lovingly curated by Austrian label KlangGalerie, who, unfortunately, use a group picture of a much later (1986!) incarnation of the band on its cover. Apparition gets a long-overdue remaster by Edward Ka-Spel, who also adds two bonus tracks. A Day At The Dreamies (Version Sensationnel) is one of the best songs in the Dots’ 1980s canon, proving their unique ability to weave songs with soundscapes to amazing results. The second bonus track is Dawn At The Dreamies, a brief improvisation featuring guitarist Barry Grey, the rocking backbone of the Dots, here in a contemplative mood. With Barry’s untimely death in February 2021, this track, a chance discovery hidden at the end of a session tape, adds a melancholy and personal touch to an album that dives and discovers. If you ever had a fleeting interest in the music of the Legendary Pink Dots, Apparition comes with the highest of recommendations. If you are a fan, you know you need this. You will not be disappointed. (FK)
––– Address: https://klanggalerie.com/

BRUNO DUPLANT & JUDITH WEGMANN – UNIVERS PARALLÈLES – DES NUITS ET DES JOURS (CD by Contemporary Series/Moving Furniture Records)

Some time ago, it seemed I reviewed a new CD by Bruno Duplant every week, but as these things go, it went quiet. Very few people can hold up crazy release schedules. I wrote many times before that I have no idea how Duplant works, with instruments and electronics, but Luc Ferrari’s work is a primary inspiration. On this new CD, he works with Swiss pianist Judith Wegmann. I didn’t know her. She studied jazz and classical music and plays jazz, contemporary and improvised music. She performs works by Stockhausen, Feldman and Cage. About the work she recorded with Duplant, we aren’t told a lot, so, with some reservation, I’d say the start is a piano improvisation by Wegmann and Duplant takes things down a slightly different path. He leaves the original piano part intact and adds music of his own. Perhaps one aspect of Duplant’s additions involves processing the piano sounds, along with other additional sounds. At various points, there’s a particularly high-pitched sound, which probably sounds even meaner to younger people (having better hearing than this older man). There’s also something that reminded me of processed percussion, field recordings from around the house (electrical currents, household equipment and such like), but also drones. In general, Duplant adds a wealth of obscure sounds to the tranquil piano playing of Wegmann. She plays quietly, sometimes even almost disappears in the mix, but always returns. Her playing is open, with gestures here and there, very much in the field of contemporary music. Yet the music doesn’t feel like new classical music (despite being part of Moving Furniture’s Contemporary Series), and that’s due to Duplant’s additions, which are all over the place, sometimes seemingly incoherent. Still, it’s that relatively free approach, bringing it more into Duplant-land, that makes me enjoy this release a lot. (FdW)
––– Address: https://movingfurniturerecords.bandcamp.com/

MOULDYCLIFF & POTTER & MOULDYCLIFF – CANOPIES & CATHEDRALS (CD by ICR)

Let’s safely say one knows what a cathedral is, a big church (I know there’s more to it), but the word canopy may not be as familiar: “A roof-like covering of trees enclosing a large or wide natural space.” Both are big spaces and thus great for recording sound, or, using these words, suggest vast spaces, which can be electronically re-created. The music on this CD, six parts of the title piece, was recorded by Phil and Jackson Mouldycliff, using “bells, organ, choirs, wind through vegetation, birds, insects, real and imagined. These elements are further layered with synthesised and sampled sounds, creating a seamless soundscape that embodies the connection between nature, architecture, and memory. Colin Potter is responsible for what is loosely described as “studio treatments”, which include mixing, mastering, and arranging. The music was used in an installation piece, but also stands firmly by itself, as heard on this CD. Like many other releases on Potter’s ICR label, this too falls in the category of ambient music (think also of solo works by Potter, Jonathan Coleclough or Monos. The line between what the Mouldycliff brothers recorded and Potter’s treatments blurs, and it becomes unclear what is what. That is no problem, as I am sure this is what these three men intended to do with the music. Massive long-form drones, sometimes sounding like a synth, sometimes like bowed strings, with some gentle field recordings; mostly birds in that department. In the third part, there’s also some choir sounds, which I admit I found a bit tacky – too much of a cliché and a bit over-the-top. But when a church organ is added, things roll back to what I enjoy a lot; calm, spacious music with some wonderous bending and, at times, neatly sparse, followed by all-immersion. There’s a religious subtext in some of these sounds, inescapable with such a title, but I can imagine some people would find that too much. (FdW)
––– Address: https://icrdistribution.bandcamp.com/

FANI KONSTANTINIDOU – UNDERTONES (CD by Moving Furniture Records)

The previous occasion Vital Weekly reviewed work by Fani Konstantinidou was in Vital Weekly 1214, and not by me. Her catalogue isn’t too big, and maybe oddly, this is the first time I’ve heard her work. I am told “she composes music utilising urban and rural sonic environments, combined with conventional and self-designed digital musical instruments. Her musical ideas are expressed in various formats, such as site-specific and multichannel compositions, improvisation, and through collaborative projects with artists of multiple disciplines. Within this context, she performs live electronics and composes music for solo instruments and small ensembles.” On ‘Undertones’, she has four parts of the title piece, for percussion idiophones, electronics, and variable field recordings, and initially this was a four-channel piece. It’s not a work she performs on her own, but with various musicians, helped by a graphic score. Directions arrive through the score but also through the changing use of field recordings. I played this CD a couple of times, trying to get my head around it, which wasn’t easy, as at times I found it too much contemporary music, and at other times, not at all. In the end, by which time I started to think about a review, I was thinking along the lines of an electro-acoustic work with percussion, as in the classic ‘instrument plus tape’ approach. The various percussion bits sounded at times like a very sparse Z’EV, meditative almost, but with those fine electronic sounds and field recordings that are hard to figure out what they, the music has an excellent ritualistic aspect, a meeting of instruments outside in the field, and the field recordings being picked up from this space. It sounds very dense at times, very open on other occasions, and throughout there’s great mysterious vibe in the music. (FdW)
––– Address: https://movingfurniturerecords.bandcamp.com/

MAZUT – DIRT COLLECTOR (CD by Rope Worm)

A new label for me, as well as a new band. Rope Worm is the label’s name, they are from Poland, and they’ve been releasing CDs and a CDR since 2023. All quite fresh. The first two releases were rereleases, but after that, they started putting out original and new material. Catalogue number #6 is for Mazut, a Polish group that has been featured in Vital Weekly several times before (1015, 1117, and 1186). Although the promo sheet mentions a short hiatus, I believe this is the reason it took 404 vital issues to return. Their previous releases are before my time at Vital, and Frans has reviewed all the previous ones. And all of those were on different labels than Rope Worm, and from what I understood, all were more rhythmic than this one.
Mazut is a duo consisting of Michał Turowski and Paweł Starzec, who have been together since 2015. 80s electronics heavily influence them, and this album diverges from their previous work by being more relaxed, downbeat, and sound-oriented, rather than rhythm-focused. Though there are a few very danceable tracks on this one. Listen, for example, to “You try to make people upset, but nobody gives a fuck”, “Jetzt geht mir ein Licht auf” or “Force and Form”.
Most of the other tracks are pretty minimal and retro. There is a lot of sampling and retriggering, which was something new in the 80’s synth sound, and Mazut uses it a lot on “Dirt Collector”. Too much? I can’t tell you. It was part of the sound back then, and with it, one can create a great retro feel, but … Here comes the but: I was a metalhead in the ’80s, and that sampling thing just wasn’t for me. Sure, I’ve grown to appreciate it, and with everything I’m writing right now, it says something about me, not about Mazut. I just can’t tell if it’s ‘too’ much. It’s something you have to find out yourself by trying.
So if you like 80’s electronics and vintage sound design, give it a chance. It might very well surprise you. (BW)
––– Address: https://ropeworm.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://positiveregression.bandcamp.com/

PIOTR KOMOSIŃSKI & JERZY MAZZOLL – PORY (CD by Vintage Records)

Pory means seasons in Polish, and the 13 tracks on this release are named after each month of the year, starting with November and ending with November again. Apart from Komosiński and Mazzoll, there are a few guest musicians on several pieces. Most prominent is Franciszek Komosiński, who might be related to Piotr or not. I did a quick search but couldn’t find no info about any relationship. Franciszek plays the piano on five pieces. The other guests are Ulka Murawko (vibraphone) and Waldemar Knade (viola). They both contribute to two separate pieces. The music on this release flows nicely and are a bit like shorter vignettes with a groove laid down in the double bass by Piotr Komosiński with melody and improvisations contributed by Jerzy Mazzoll on several woodwind instruments: wooden clarinet in A, metal clarinet (in B flat I think) and bass clarinet (in Bb). In some pieces, Piotr adds extra layers using a kalimba, piano and electronics. I’m guessing it’s a studio effort with a bit of layering tracks. Jerzy adds some circular breathing into the mix to create longer melodic lines with stops to breath. It all makes for a very pleasurable, easy listening experience. Easy is relative here. To my ears, it’s non-intrusive music with lots to enjoy. It’s not muzak but also no fire music. Something in between. Well, except for track 12: October. Overall, it’s melancholy music with more than a few hints of the blues. You could even say that this is the soundtrack for a year. There’s no percussion, so the double bass is both the dictator of the chord progressions and the rhythmic part of the piece. And I love the combination of (bass) clarinet and double bass.- And the extra added timbres of the guest musicians. Seek this one out if you’d like a great example of relaxing, definitely not boring music. (MDS)
––– Address: https://piotrkomosinski.bandcamp.com/album/pory

MANŒUVRES SENTIMENTALES – DELIGHTFULLY SENTIMENTALES (CD by Circum Disc)

Manœuvres sentimentales is a trio hailing from Lille. Frenchmen Peter Orins plays drums, and Laurent Rigaut plays reeds (alto and tenor saxophone and bass clarinet), Italian-born and also Lille-based, Andrea Bazzicalupo plays guitar and accompanying effects. What they whip up on this release is a delightful sound world. Delightful in its ever-changing timbres, genre-bending, and atmospheres that change in the blink of an eye (or rather ear, if an ear could blink). They listen intently to each other and improvise collectively. The sounds Bazzicalupo produces with his guitar are magnificent. They blend or juxtapose, or comment on what the other two are doing. Too bad I missed them when they played in Amsterdam. This is adventurous and atmospheric music, made à la minute. Peter Orins is the owner of record label Circum-Disc, and that label brings out music that fits adventurous listeners to a T. All three are part of an active improv scene in Lille. The longest piece features a hypnotic ringing sound on soundbowls, accompanied by a steady bass drum beat, which serves as the foundation for the other two to groove on or sustain a long note or pizzicato on the guitar strings, all while being enhanced by a reverb effect. The titles are taken from poems written by Emily Dickinson. She was one of the forerunners of modernism in American poetry, together with Walt Whitman. It’s delightfully delicious what these musicians cook up in these seven courses. I’m ready for the next meal. (MDS)
––– Address: https://circum-disc.bandcamp.com/

COLIN ANDREW SHEFFIELD – SERENADE (LP by Elevator Bath)

Over the past 25 years, I reviewed a fair bit of music by Colin Andrew Sheffield, much of which he released on his Elevator Bath label. His primary instrument is vinyl, but unlike many turntablists, one could not guess this from hearing his music. I assume (and I acknowledge that I am not entirely sure about this) that he draws from old records (“funk, soul, jazz, and library records”) and then uses the computer for further exploration. Perhaps this involves numerous computer treatments, but it may also involve some pitching and stretching, or looping, although we don’t hear about it in such terms. The information mentions “Sheffield’s use of vintage sampling hardware”, which made me all the more curious as to what that is. One reason these pieces don’t sound like loops is that he has 12 relatively concise pieces of music; three are five minutes long, but the rest are shorter, ranging from around two minutes. Sheffield brings quite a bit of variation to his music, and everything happens relatively quickly in succession. Still, one could wonder what lies beneath each piece —the buried content that once catches the senses but doesn’t emerge, because it’s over so quickly. Sheffield plays mood music, as always, the kind of stuff that fits neatly under horror movies or dystopian nightmares. Maybe that’s the parallel to be drawn here, with a soundtrack album, in which pieces are also short and to the point: as much needed in the movie and not a single second more. Very little of the original music shines through these pieces, and they all sound like much-played shellac, with the sonic information on the verge of disappearing. I admit I like it when Sheffield plays longer, more complex pieces, multilayered ones, as much as these are, but I prefer them to be longer, taking the listener on an immersive ride into a sonic painting. That said, this too is an excellent record, different, and shows a different side of Colin Andrew Sheffield. (FdW)
––– Address: https://colinandrewsheffield.bandcamp.com/

HUW MORGAN – MELOS (CDR by Sawyer Editions)
ZEYNEP TORAMAN – A LIFETIME OF ANNOTATIONS (CDR by Sawyer Editions)
LILA MERETZKY – SIMULTANEOUS CONTRAST (CDR by Sawyer Editions)
JPA FALZONE & MORGAN EVANS-WEILER – ASCENDING MUSIC (CDR by Sawyer Editions)
MARTI EPSTEIN – FOR JACK (CDR by Sawyer Editions

As I did on the two previous occasions when I wrote about releases from the US label Sawyer Editions, I had not heard of these names before, and there’s no preferred starting point so that I will go through them in order of catalogue number. Sawyer Editions operates on the fringes of modern classical music, in all their different guises, as we will hear.
SE036 is by Huw Morgan, who plays the church organ—various church organs, across the UK. I love the sound of the church organ, preferably in a church, as it resonates through that space in a way that never can be achieved at home. ‘Melos’ means ‘melody’ or ‘arc’, and is a series of “site-specific installation pieces, each unique to the instrument and building” and “Each iteration begins at one chord and ends at a second: the organ has no capacity for long, slow glissando so this is achieved through electronics”. This all sounds more like sound art, and something less common on this label. Each piece is a cluster of drones, or maybe even a single drone, and only a fragment of a larger piece. Two pieces labelled ‘Fragment’ are five hours long, and as much as I would love to hear this kind of music for five hours, that’s not possible. I wouldn’t expect to complete a review in a week at that length. Each piece is a minimal cluster of changing sounds, but each has a quite distinct sound colour, so we’re not playing the same piece five times. Picked up by microphones, the space itself becomes part of the compositions/pieces, and it sounds excellent. It has all those things I like: drones, minimalism and subtle movements. This is the best release from this label so far, hands down, but perhaps it’s also one of the more out-there releases, so maybe that doesn’t count.
SE037 is by Zeynep Toraman. Did I mention before, there isn’t a lot of information on Sawyer Editions Bandcamp about the composers? There’s a world to win there. Toraman is from Istanbul, living and working in Berlin. “Her practice-based research explores how texts (in the broadest sense of this word) can interact with one another within the larger framework of musical compositions, by way of thinking of her library as an archive, and enfolding autobiography, poetry, fiction and history within her works.” On ‘A Lifetime Of Annotations” contains two lengthy pieces for strings. The first is for two violins and a cello, and the second for violin and viola. “Both works contemplate the materiality of the nineteenth-century orchestral repertoire, reimagined through the lens of a (Mahlerian) slow movement: a long melody, a lament, a sigh, a moment in the process of disappearing.” That’s the kind of modern music discussion that leaves me at a loss. But sure, that’s what I hear: sorrowful, slow music, like a sigh indeed. Growing up in a household of classical music, I am sure I heard music by Mahler, but I don’t remember it sounding like any of this. The development in both pieces is very minimal, but unmistakable. Like tectonic plates, this all moves and shifts about, in a tranquil way, but also, at times, in a mildly brutalist, high-pitched version. It’s slow music for slow days.
On SE038 we find five quite different pieces from Lila Meretzky, “a composer, educator, and visual artist born and raised in New York City. She works primarily in chamber, vocal, electronic, and electroacoustic mediums, as well as in music for dance, film, and installation. Her work is often concerned with (the warping of) memory and language, and subjective experiences of time.” As with many of these biographies, what follows is a list of ensembles the composer worked with and places where performances took place. Two of the five pieces are for solo percussion, two are Ensemble pieces (performed by the small Unheard-of//Ensemble and the Performance Fellows of the 2022 Next Festival of Emerging Artists. The opening piece is for a collection of players, on violin, viola, cello, double bass and percussion. This is quite a diverse album, and I’m unsure what to make of it. Throughout the three pieces, the multiple-instrument pieces are most akin to my idea of modern music, especially the last two, whereas the first has a nice minimalist ring to it; the other two not so much. The two pieces of percussion solo have a fine reflective set of sounds, and the other one is a wild one, with the addition of electronics, so it seems. While not all of it is to my taste, I find some of it pretty good and interesting.
A collaboration is featured in SE039, between Morgan Evans-Weiler (violin) and J.P.A. Falzone (reed organ, electronics, slide whistle). Falzone composed three of the five pieces, and the bookend pieces were composed by Falzone and Evans-Weller. These pieces gave the album its title. With this album, we’re back in the world of minimalism, much like the first two here, but louder and meaner, it seems. The electronics double the violin sounds, while the organ gently howls. To what extend these pieces are composed is hard to say, as it could very well be improvised music. They recorded these two pieces in a larger space, using open microphones, which adds to the force of the pieces. Don’t think of these pieces as noise music, but rather somewhat louder minimalist music. The three in between are quieter and show a more reflective side of their music. There is an Americana side to the music, a bit folk-like, and with the organ, also something religious. Sometimes it’s less easy to define, as it’s also quite minimalist at the same time. There is a beautiful, yet sad, darkness in these pieces, whether they are loud or quiet, and that ties the album together in a significant way.
And finally, SE040 by Marti Epstein (born November 25, 1959) “began studying composition in 1977 with Professor Robert Beadell at the University of Nebraska. She has degrees from the University of Colorado and Boston University, and her principal teachers were Cecil Effinger, Charles Eakin, Joyce Mekeel, Bunita Marcus, and Bernard Rands.” Pianist Jack Yarbrough asked her to compose a piece, following various performances he had done of her music, much to Epstein’s delight. Here we’re back in the world of modern music, not in the sense of Erik Satie or Claude Debussy, or the piano pieces released by the Cold Blue Music label, but in a more abstract nature. Lots of quiet bangs, some loud, and quite some silence. This is quite the dynamic work and easy to access. This is one of those things that is not necessarily something for me, but much like the works by Meretzky, I play with interest, as an experience of something new. (FdW)
––– Address: https://sawyereditions.bandcamp.com/

AGEDA IBARRA – LOARIN + PERIKARPO (CDR by Hazi Esporak!)

A few weeks ago, I reviewed ‘Kikeku’, a compilation of music by students from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Bilbao, and among them was Ageda Ibarra. She now returns with a CDR, containing two EPs, and I am unsure why it’s referred to as two EPs rather than one album. She “incorporates field recordings of everyday life – transportation, construction sites, sounds of the environment – together with edited or digitally generated sounds.” There are nine relatively short songs on this release, featuring a lot of outdoor sounds, including people talking on the street, construction sites, busking, cars passing by, and more. The electronic treatments aren’t always clear to hear, and sometimes a lot of it seems unprocessed. Sometimes the processing is such, everything source disappears. There is a great deal of variation in these pieces, which is excellent, of course, but maybe also makes this a slightly uneven album, with some straightforward field recording pieces and some more electronic pieces. You could also say this is an album with a lot of variations. However, because the pieces are relatively short, it’s unclear what Ibarra wants to express with her compositions. Throughout this release, she demonstrates various interests in working with sound and techniques, before deciding on a particular route to take. (FdW)
––– Address: https://haziesporak.bandcamp.com/

STEVE FORS – IT’S NOTHING, BUT STILL: JAPAN/US TOUR, 2023-24 (DVDR by Ballast)

If understood, the music is a reissue of an LP by Steve Fors, released in 2022 by the Swiss Hallow Ground label. I don’t know anything about Fors, except Discogs mentioning he’s a member of The Golden Sores, and he has an alias, Aeronaut. This DVDR re-issue of an LP is because there’s something to see. While on tour in Japan and the United States, he screened these films. “The video content interweaves archival home video, nature imagery and themes, medical processes, what may (or may not) be found footage from abandoned locations (think Priyapat), abstract geometric patterns, and Stan Brakhage-esque painted film cels”, which is good to see mentioned, as I know very little about the world of experimental cinema, and can merely say something along the lines, ‘it looks great’. Maybe not having a big screen is something amiss here, but then so is a massive installation. With his music being a delicate mix of massive drones, field recordings, “and other electronic and electroacoustic elements”, there is a rusty lo-fi aspect to the music, full-on immersive ambient music, which fits these similar rusty images very well. Shots of nature, transitioning from black and white to colour, old 8mm footage from happy family life, aerial shots, tunnels – it’s perhaps everything you would expect from such music as a soundtrack. Slow-moving visual material for slow-moving music. As much as I enjoy the music, which I have more affinity with than anything visual, I can’t help but think it’s perhaps a cliché. However, and let me repeat this, this is not my territory, and maybe Fors does something truly groundbreaking. His music is far from groundbreaking. His guitar-based drones sound inspired by a long tradition of post-rock ambient guitar wranglers, laced with a fine bit of field recordings, hardly distinguishable from whatever they were initially. That said, he does an absolute fantastic job and creates six (one is a bonus track not on the LP) to-the-point pieces of music, which should appeal to any drone guitar head out there. (FdW)
––– Address: http://ballastnvp.blogspot.com/

SICK DAYS – WEEKEND WARRIOR (cassette by Vacancy Recs.)
SICK DAYS – DRESS ENTIRE (cassette by Vacancy Recs.)

Jeffrey Sinibaldi’s SICK DAYS project is music with field recordings, usually with a noisier edge. That’s also on these two cassettes, but it includes an oddball. In a typical SICK DAYS piece, one hears the rumbling of objects outside in a field, accompanied by the sounds of birds, insects, and similar noises, with the microphone set to overload. However, not in a dramatic way, just overloaded enough to make it nicely distorted. I am unsure if these pieces are single events or a mix of various recordings. In typical SICK DAYS fashion, there is a piece per side of the cassette (all recycled old ones, as is the label’s preference), and, oddly enough, one side of ‘Dress Entire’ is only available on cassette and as part of the download. Pieces are 20 to 30 minutes long, and the pieces are minimal, yet never too static. Perhaps if a two-minute pop song is your favourite length, these pieces may seem too minimal, but I prefer this approach. The storm passing through, tossing an object about every so often, the microphone down a creek – it’s all there. As I play these two new cassettes, I think that SICK DAYS is a very conceptual approach, and many of the sounds seem the same throughout the various releases; the same, but different.
That notion went away on the second side of ‘Weekend Warrior’. Here, SICK DAYS works with electronic sounds, starting with distortion but soon adding a techno beat or a one-bar loop of rhythm, which is closer to its essence. And that’s for 20 minutes, distortion and the rhythm loop. True, this is also minimalist, and I do like minimal techno beats (more so in the past than currently), but it all eludes me a bit. Unless the weekend warrior goes on a nature trail, side A (SICK DAYS in a quieter mood anyway), and at night the warrior goes out clubbing (the other side)? And that’s the idea behind this cassette? I admit this change of scenery does not convince me, but my dancing days are also over, so there’s a connection. (FdW)
––– Address: https://vacancyniagara.bandcamp.com/

STEFAN CHRISTOFF & JARRETT MARTINEAU – A TURBULENT SKY (cassette by Pyramid Blood)
LUKE LOSETH AND STEFAN CHRISTOFF – EARLY SPRING (cassette by Pyramid Blood)

Here, we have two cassettes containing collaborations by Stefan Christoff, whom I previously reviewed, with musicians who appear to be new names. First, there’s Jarrett Martineau, of whom nothing is told. The idea for the music started outside music, emerging “from a collaborative process that began years ago through conversations about the Idle No More movement for Indigenous land rights. Jarrett and Stefan met at Camas Books & Infoshop (Unceded Lekwungen Territory) at a discussion about the connections to be made between the Quebec student strike uprising against neoliberalism in 2012 and other social movements locally and globally.” Later on, they started to record the music, which contains “lo-fi piano recordings, synth and digital processing, and field recordings”, without being specific as to who does what here. More political stances includes that “this album was created on unceded Indigenous territories and largely took place as Jarrett and Stefan corresponded about respectively finding ways to express solidarity with the Palestinian people in their creative practices and art, and joining the protest movement to lift up Palestine in their respective city places (Vancouver and Montreal). This album happens in this context and is a testament to careful and thoughtful engagement and friendship over many years.” Quite a heavy-weight context, and one to applaud, yet within the music, one doesn’t hear any of this. I’m not sure how much of this was improvised and how much was edited afterwards, but the results are excellent. There is a noisier edge to the music than I am used to from Christoff—some pretty rough edges, mild distortion, meaner drones; that kind of thing. But with the lo-fi piano in the opening piece, ‘Lightening’, set against a wall of noise, there’s also a contrast. The oddball piece is the closing ‘Cloud Formation’, in which the two start with a mid-tempo arpeggio and a variety of synthesiser sounds, slowly fading away over time. It is as if the dark clouds, represented in the five previous pieces, have vanished and been replaced by some bright weather, but with the fading possible suggesting that this is temporary and dark clouds may return. An excellent work!
While baking in the sun today, I wouldn’t mind some early spring. Hot weather doesn’t agree with me. This cassette is more along the lines of what one expects from Stefan Christoff; at least, my expectance. He plays acoustic guitar, and Luke Loseth plays synthesisers and electronics. From the sparse information I gathered, Loseth, like Christoff, is part of the vibrant Montreal scene and also plays the hammered dulcimer. While both are located in Montreal, I understand that Christoff recorded the acoustic guitar at home, with the intention “to share with another musician who could work them into a series of newly imagined works”. This is one of those releases where one has to turn up the volume a bit (although ventilation on is also no help), not because of the guitar, but rather the synthesiser part, which is mostly very supportive and does not always ring through. I found this to be an interesting choice, as Loseth made. I couldn’t say if Loseth lets the guitar pass through the synthesisers, an external input to trigger synth sounds. Whatever he does, it works very well. Christoff’s guitar is pensive, a bit dark, and somewhat folk-like, reminding me of Town & Country from many years ago, or the early works I heard by Ben Vida. Loseth’s carefully placed drones and chords evoke at times a soaring organ or the electronic imitations of field recordings. The guitar playing employs chords, but there’s certainly a free aspect to the music as well, and Loseth applies a similar freedom, albeit restrained as it is. Sometimes, there’s even a melodic texture from the synthesiser, and this is where we hear the freedom in his playing: it occasionally goes out of control. Sweltering away, even with the air conditioner on full blast, these somewhat sombre tones work very well; spring will come again! (FdW)
––– Address: https://pyramidblood.bandcamp.com/

ARCANE DEVICE – SIX (cassette by Korm Plastics D)

Ah feedback! I always have an uneasy relation with feedback. It probably started with that thing The Beatles did in, what was it, ‘Paperback Writer’ (?), and I never liked The Beatles. Also, I am mostly the ‘odd one’ whenever I mention that I feel that Lou Reed’s ‘Metal Machine Music’ is highly overrated. Then, back in the day when I discovered Whitehouse – many years after the fact mind you – it took me some time to wrap my head around them.
And now today, I get to plunge into the work of David Lee Myers, also known as Arcane Device, with two old recordings, both from 1989: one at the Clocktower, NYC and one at the Knitting Factory, also in NYC. These recordings were released a year or so later by Korm Plastics on cassette, were re-mastered since, and are now available again on cassette. If you like a clean sound, the download sounds impeccable (thank you, Radboud Mens, who does all these Korm remasters). I was unfamiliar with Old Arcane Device, as I had only checked his name in the issues of Vital Weekly. Now, this is a different kind of feedback from Reed and Whitehouse. As I understand it Myers creates networks of interlocked machines, so the sound loops around and creates feedback upon feedback. Also, the result isn’t the typical kind of static wall of noise, but something more vibrant, rhythmic and to some extent even melodic. These recordings were made in the concert room, rather than solely emanating from the PA, and that adds a deliberate spatial quality to the music, a natural reverb (or so it seems). Both pieces are powerful and manage to pull the listener through the whole experience. I’m not sure if Myers did this with improvisation or planning, but it works bloody well. It’s loud, oh yes, it is, but at times there’s also something oddly tranquil about it. It’s high-pitched and it’s low-pitched. It’s beyond noise; it’s music! (LW)
––– Address: https://kormplasticsd.bandcamp.com/