VARIATIONS (Compilation CD by Paradigm Discs)
Interesting in crowd compilation from London, compiled
by the people around Morphogenesis. Featured are John
Wall (with his sampled approaches to classical music),
Andrew Jacques (with a great, very noisy, musique
concrete piece), John Grieve (original member of Nurse
with Wound with his first solo outing under his own
name, with a dense saxophone piece. I must admit I know
very few people who play interesting music with this
instrument), Crow (voice text samples), Alquima
(originally from Mexico, she uses dark ambient
textures) , Kymatik (with Morphogenesis members,
sounding a like Morphogenesis) and Adam Bohman, with a
strange piece of environmental sounds and spoken word,
operating as a kind of audio diary. In all a varying
CD, with many good pieces of today’s improvised and
electronic music. The press blurb should have been in
the booklet, so that everybody gets the right
introduction // Address: Fax: + 44171-272-5816
DANIEL MENCHE -VULGAR SCRATCH (7″ by Gender Less
Kibbutz)
The wonder child of industrial music hits again with a
relatively short 7″ (on 45 RPM, for best listening
playback). Side A opens with a fast pulsating sound
that fade into scratched sounds, both high and low end.
Side B is more an organic piece of scratches
throughout. This is definitely one of the more stranger
(and conceptual) Menche pieces I heard lately. The 7″
itself comes on clear vinyl, with thin paper and info
printed on transparent cover. Bound to be another fine
collectors item for sure. Address: <jsharpB702@aol.com>
STATICS (Compilation CD by CCI)
The second release on this fine Japanese label, in,
again, a beautiful somber digipack. It’s hard to tell
if there is any theme connected. ..it might be the
title, as many of the featured artists built their
tracks around static sounds. Overall the music is on
the experimental, maybe even noisy side. My favorites
include Darrin Verhagen (from Shinjuku Thief, Dorobo
label), Jim O’Rourke, Alan Lamb. On the disappointing
side I found Paul Schutze (who freak’s around with
marginal sound sources) and David Toop (idem). The
rest was pretty good (including Ryoji Ikeda, Akira
Yamamichi, Kazuhiko Kinami, Christophe Charles and
Andrew Lagowski & Toru Yamanaka) Address: CCI -407-5-
46-16 Jingumae -Shibuya-Ku -Tokyo 150- Japan
Artgallery is a fine French label, having released some
interested music (a/o. two CD’s by Schnitzler). We
received interesting new ones from this label, which we
will review here.
CONRAD SCHNITZLER -CHARRED MACHINERY (CD) CONRAD
SCHNITZLER -ELECTRONEGATIVITY (CD)
Subtitled ‘The Cassette Concert Series No. and 3’ .In
the past I wrote about my love-hate relationship with
this man and the mixed feelings stay alive when I
played these new CD’s. Charred Machinery opens with a
great piece of moving electronic music, shifting back
and forth. This is a great kinetic piece. The second
piece is more improvised sounding with plucking bass
and can’t hold the attention. The third piece is like a
combination of these two pieces, and partly interested.
The other CD opens with two similar long pieces, to be
followed by 6 shorter pieces. The shorter pieces are
more interested because in their limited time frame,
there seems not much room for long freaky improvs. Hark
your own favorites from these two is my suggestion.
ANDREW POPPY -RUDE BLOOM (CD)
Andrew is founding member of The Lost Jockey (who
remembers them? And who will put their two brilliant
records on CD?) and after that a composer of
interesting new wave of Steve Reich alike minimal
music. This new CD came as a surprise. I must admit I
don’t know where Poppy was the last few years (music-
wise that is), but there are two main pieces on this
CD. The first 8 tracks are ‘Eight Movements for Piano
Trio’ (violin, cello and piano) and are well-