JALOPAZ – EFFILOGUE (CD by Wagenhalt)
PEOPLE LIKE US MEET THE JET BLACK HAIR PEOPLE – IN CONCERT (CD by Audioview)
MICHEAL PRIME – MICOPLAZMA (CD by Digital Narcis)
MARC BEHRENS – CONTRACTION (CD by Digital Narcis)
ERIC LACASA – L’EMPREINTE DE L’IVRESSE (CD by Digital Narcis)
MAR/INO, THE COMPLICATION SERIES (Compilation CD by Mar/ino Recordings)
JALOPAZ – EFFILOGUE (CD by Wagenhalt)
Wagenhalt have a small reputation for releasing vinyl in small quantaties, in xeroxed and silkscreened covers. So far the menu served noise, and I anticipated more noise from Jalopaz – he who runs Wagenhalt. However this is only partly the case. There are two lengthy live cuts – both from shows in Germany last year. These are indeed what you could classify as the full noise thing: feedback generated electronics of distorted sounds. No instruments involved? The more interesting pieces are the, shorter, first two. Here sounds are sampled and looped with added noise from a cello (which recognizable) and the ticking of an alarm. More composed, structured or thought out – you don’t have to call it… – and thus of more interest to the listener who didn’t see the concerts. But in all a nice CD. (FdW)
Address: 2223 Robinson St. #A – Redondo Beach, CA 90276 – USA
PEOPLE LIKE US MEET THE JET BLACK HAIR PEOPLE – IN CONCERT (CD by Audioview)
Of course you know People Like Us. The new lover of UK press, so everybody could have read about her hilarious work in plunderphonica. In case you are not familiar with that, heres the recipy: you sample a short bit of popular music (pop, classic whatever), loop it, and search for spoken word. Again of any nature. Vicki Bennett is a true master in doing this: the weirdest music and the most stupid words are thrown into a blender. Since much of the spoken word stuff is in English, this stuff appeals to the Americans a lot. People Like Us went on tour in that big country and bumped into The Jet Black Hair People, aka Peter Conheim. He put out the Savage Vigilance CD out years ago and is now a member of Wet Gate and Negativland.
This CD captures well their skills and is a throughout well entertaining CD of plunderphonica. Cut into eleven short tracks, this is never boring, never tedious andalways fun. (FdW)
Address: <lowlands.koen@innet.be>
MICHEAL PRIME – MICOPLAZMA (CD by Digital Narcis)
MARC BEHRENS – CONTRACTION (CD by Digital Narcis)
ERIC LACASA – L’EMPREINTE DE L’IVRESSE (CD by Digital Narcis)
A handsome trio from Europe finding their way in Japan. Three new CD’s by three composers with ‘industrial’ backgrounds, but they all moved into the are of ‘serious composing’.
Micheal Prime is still a member of Morphogenesis, a group of improvisation on electro-acoustic instruments. Prime is from all members the most active one when it comes to solo stuff. I believe this is his fourth solo CD. The opening piece, ‘Oort Clouds’ is a strong piece: like a helicopter over your house and wind blowing around. A hoovering piece. This piece is programmatic for the all the works on this. Pieces that are ‘present’ – they are there, rather then hidden away in softness. This is quite strong material – again, since I can’t remember hearing something from Prime that I didn’t like. Bravo!
Marc Behrens has also a background in industrial music but manages to hide it away very well (how hard I think, I can’t remember his pseudonym’s). He too produced various CD’s by now, but I always have a problem with them. His CD on Rastermusic is a poor attempt to connect to the Pan Sonic/Ikeda posse, but fails sadly. The latest on Trente Oiseaux is a live recording of various installations, but could not attract my attention (both CDs were not reviewed before). This one is much better. Behrens samples the hell out of… well out of… you can’t tell. I don’t think it’s really important to know. If CD cover art is related to music, then I gather it’s nature (wood, leaves) and insect sounds. There are three groups of compositions – or better: three compostions. ‘Scenes For Contraction’ has five parts. Quite austere and minimal composing of various loose sounds. ‘Scrutto’ has three parts and in the first two the sampled and stretched shakuhachi is the back drone of the piece. Over that, again sampled, insects, frogs and in the last part also cars. There is an overal continous stream of sounds and could go by as a radical form of ambient music. Quite nice this. The sound of an owl is the basis of the last piece ‘Secular Air’ which breaks down gradually; starting out with a continuos, indeed nocturnal, sound, the dawn breaks and the night animals go to sleep. This new Behrens is the best work I heard from himto date.
Eric LaCasa is a former member of Syllyk – but hey who remembers them? In the past few years his work moved towards soundscaping. Un homme avec un microphone: going round with a microphone. Many recordings of the sea, rivers, shores along with gongs, bells and metal. He creates the most atmospheric music – very much like ‘real’ ambient music. Thomas Koner in a landscape. There isn’t much to say about this CD. All four pieces are outstandingely good. Very atmopsheric, very laidback, very natural.
Address: <dnarcis@jxa.jumbo.or.jp>
MAR/INO, THE COMPLICATION SERIES (Compilation CD by Mar/ino Recordings)
This new label features artists that have released CD’s on Elsie and Jack Records. And basically this CD is a promotion of that label’s releases. But the ‘booklet’ states that Mar/ino was also created because ‘there is an abundance of music which requires a more immediate response than can be offered with the Elsie and Jack label’. I’m not entirely sure what this means exactly, but hey, this one’s for free, so who am I to complain, right? The cover looks nice enough and also the ‘booklet’ has been carefully designed. There’s a lot of names on this disc, not in the least because the first track (22 min.) is a collaboration piece by Crawl Unit, Shifts, Rapoon, Totemplow, Füxa, Brume, Monera, Miehst, Pregnant Pause and Flutter. It seems that each of the artists sent in some material, which was then edited together (although it doesn’t say by whom). Strangely enough, it’s virtually impossible to determine who’s who in this track. There is a lot of different material used and all in all the flow keeps going during the whole piece. A pretty noisy affair, but a good start, I would say. The other tracks are done by the individual artists, starting with Shifts, who of course let the strings sing. The title Raw Uncut suggests that the piece was recorded in one go and not edited or mixed. And indeed the track is light and dreamy, guitar strings probably being struck by some device, that hits different strings during the course of the piece. The second track is by Tabata, a name unknown to me, and also featuring strings. There is a slight ‘improv’ feel to the piece, with lots of effects used. There are
some melody lines coming together at some times, and sometimes they are drifting apart again. Not really my piece of cake, though. Subarachnoid Space and Walking Timebombs sound pretty much the same as Tabata, but with drums added. Again guitars and lots of effects that create a spacy atmosphere, which sometimes reminds me of Chrome or even Hawkwind, but without their sense of composition. Now I realise that this is a guitar label. September Plateau starts off with a microwavy pulse, but very soon guitar playing is added, with )yep!) delay added. What can I say? The odd ones out seem to last on the CD: Aube, FM Synthesis, Brume and Monera. Aube takes up two minutes with a piece consisting of samples of unknown origin, but a wouldn’t be surprised if they were taken from the guitar. A typical Aube piece, starting of slowly to build up a crescendo. FM Synthesis plays a gentle drone, made from samples which seem to have originated in classical music before they were reappropriated. Short, but very nice indeed. Brume uses strings as well here, but of course in the fashion that we know so well: cut up, looped and combined with a host of other samples. But the tension starts right from the beginning and is maintained trhougout the almost seven minutes of the track. Then a strange thing happens: tracks 9 to 11 are the same as track 7 by FM Synthesis. I’m not really sure why this was done, but I didn’t mind hearing this piece again. The last track by Monera is pretty much like the FM Synthesis piece: stretched sounds form a drony ambience, but with a darker atmosphere though. All in all a nice collection of guitar based music of different kinds and probably a good overview of Elsie and Jack’s. (MR)
Adress: http//:www.elsieandjack.com/marino