POL – BABY, I WILL MAKE YOU SWEAT (CD by Odd Size)
Now this comes as a total surprise!! If you are familiar with Pol’s first
CD, full of ethnic-techno-ambient-krautrock, you will be shocked to find out
that this different… way different. One long track, clocking at just under
38 minutes, supposed to be a soundtrack to a film by Birgit Hein. This film
is about those places where women are being pleased by handsome young men.
The music is one long minimal droning piece with slow shifts, like processed
synths or sounds. A bit in the best traditio of PGR, Organum or Christoph
Heeman, but then processed ever more, a little bit on the noisy side.
Not really the soundtrack I would except from a film that is supposed
to play at sunny islands… A very pleasent surprise.
Address: Odd Size – 24 Rue de Laghouat – 75018 Paris – France
NOISE MAKER’S FIFES – SOUNDSCAPES OF THE INNER-EYE (CD by NMT)
The first CD by this Belgium duo who have been making music for some years,
and having released a couple of tapes. They use a wide variety of sound
sources, electronic and acoustic (bells, violins). The 5 compisitions are
partly recorded in a 4 track studio or live onto tape using ‘natural reverb
of a silo’. To place this CD into some tradition, I’d say locate this amongst
PGR, Christoph Heeman, Morphogenesis (yet more acoustic), Organum or Jim
O’Rourke. Highlight for me is the fourth track, with various string instruments
being played, either very dry or set against the same kind of material but
then drowned in a heavy bath of reverb. Check it out!
Address: <staal@euronet,nl>
RAFAEL TORAL – WAVE FIELD (CD by Moneyland)
Toral’s second CD gets the instruction to play either loud of soft. The three
tracks use guitars being played using tons of effects over them. Thus Toral
creates fields of sounds, in which it is hard to recognize the traditional
guitar sounds. This CD being dedicated to Alvin Lucier, it is easy to hint
to his work of resonating sounds (as in ‘Music On A Long Thin Wire’), but
there is more happening a long this than in the more conceptual works of Lucier.
File under: dark ambient…
Address: Moneyland – P.O.Box 30036 – 1321 Lisboa Codex – Portugal
SPRUT – SPRUT (mini CD by Goodbye Boozy)
This is truely a mini CD. Not in size (a normal 5″) but in time. 5 tracks
played in just over 8 minutes. There is something abou plagiarism on the texts
along with this, but I am not sure how to interpret this. The 5 pieces have
many saxophone sounds, many changes and sampled rock sounds (maybe alike ‘Ibid’s
I Love Music’, if you know that one). Not really much more to add, than the
puzzled face I have now…
Address: Sprut – Di Gregorio Giustino C.da Fiumicina 175 – 64020 S. Nicolo A
Tordino – Italy
PARA NOISE TERMINAL (Cassette by Raum 312)
Interesting band from Hamburg. I saw them playing live once: long ongoing
sounds of concrete objects (as far as I remember metal and wood). Similiar material
has been documented on this tape: two concerts from 1994. Again they use wood,
metal and concrete to create dark atmospheric, yet experimental music. It is like
on the cross road of ambient and musique concrete. Nice printed cover rounds of
this release. Needles to say? (probably not): buy cassettes!
Address: Raum 312 – P.O.Box 150 209 – 28092 Bremen – Germany
PWOG – RECORD OF BREAKES (CD by KK Records)
The story is known, I guess. PWOG (or Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia) made a great
debut CD which was so well received that it felt them hard to do a new one.
Many CDEP’s where released in between, but now finally a new one. PWOG always
avoids the traditional house music areas, as proven again on this CD. Many rhythms
on this CD just seem sampled record skips, breaks or crackles. The result is
6 long trancy tracks, which some (like ‘Revelation’) reminded me of many Sahko
material or the Basic Channel label, or total ambient muzak like in the final
piece of the CD. An essential CD, again! Not to be missed by anyone with genuine
interest in the progession of house music.
Address: <kknz@kkrecords.be>