CONTROLLED BLEEDING/DIVE – NIGHT SHADOWS {CD by Fast
Forward)
Compilation CD’s with 15 bands are out, those with 2 or
3 are in? Well, maybe. The fact is that through a longer
track, a band is introduced more thoroughly. On the
other hand, do bands like Controlled Bleeding or Dive
need an introduction. C.B. are around for a decade or so
and their music had about any style you can think of:
obnoxious loud industrial, dance floor, ambient, guitar
noise. But not everything was that great. In some of the
areas they explored, you could find others doing better
stuff. The last year or so, it has been quiet around
C.B., apart from some re-issue album. The almost 30
minute piece on this CD finds them in ambient territory.
The piece evolves slowly around drones – similar to the
better stuff on the Fax label. The piece could be part
of the Fax catalogue -and sound quite fresh. Maybe a
good re-start? Let’s hope so. Dive could never interest
me. The pumping rhythms I heard before {e.g. Esplendor
Geometrico) and the voice always was too macho for me.
His piece on this CD is no different, except that Mr.
Dive borrows this time from Suicide. His track could be
half it’s length and then there is still plenty room for
a third band… Next time, please use the full CD
length! {FdW) Address: Apartado 50204 1706 Lisboa Codex
– Portugal
CHI – THE ORIGINAL RECORDINGS (CD on Container)
Container is a new sub-label started by Staalplaat so
that they could release the more accessible, atmospheric
and sometimes danceable music which until now has come
out on the Staalplaat label itself. This is the first
release on Container. Chi was founded by Hanyo V.
Oosterom and includes two of the main members of East
Meets West, a cross-over band occupying similar
territory to Jorge Reyes but incorporating Turkish
influences instead of tequila and the San Pedro cactus.
I really like the cover of this new CD – the serenity of
Japanese meditation gardens are contrasted by images of
downtown Japan with it’s profusion of cars, people and
neon signs; ie no information versus too much
information/ imagination versus reality. This CD
contains little I have not heard before and as it is
such a murky area, I find it quite hard to say whether
it is good or not. It certainly does not relay the
enormous contrast implied by the cover art. Wailing
guitars float about in thick, sluggish seas. The
atmosphere is reminiscent of Roger Eno, Michael Brook
(on Valium perhaps) or Jon Hassell on a mediocre day.
Completely inoffensive, as it was intended and probably
very relaxing if you like it this way. Personally, and
regular readers of this broadsheet will probably know
this, I like a bit of ruff before, during or after the
smooth. (MP)
Address: <staal@euronet.nl>
CHRIS MELOCHE -DISTANT RITUALS (CD on Silent Records)
Once again Chris Meloohe has produced a work of liquid
beauty. Interpreting the word ‘ritual’ as ‘repetition’
is appropriate to Meloche, whose new work is based on
subtly changing sounds ‘set free to grow in a very
organic manner with very little interference from
outside’, At low volume it is true threshold music –
physical space seems to breathe with it as it coils
about like a thin trickle of heavy smoke seeking escape.
I thought his earlier releases on Fax; ‘Recurring Dreams
Of The Urban Myth’ and ‘Wireless’ were great too,
particularly the former which must be a classic amongst
music of it’s kind. I rank ‘Recurring Dreams… , along
with B.Eno’s best. ‘Wireless’ did not make as strong an
impression as it, or this, which, like a soft shifting
mix of shortwave noise, suggests so much with it’s
fragile transparency. As with the other two CDs, this is
an excerpt from a long-duration radio piece broadcast
twice in 1995. Total dream-music. I cannot recommend it
highly enough and it is surely one of the best ever
releases on Silent or it’s subsidiaries. (MP) Address:
<silent@sirius.com>
WAVEFORM TRANSMISSION -V 1.0 -1.9 (CD on Silent)
Here’s another project which consists of (mostly) a live
radio broadcast (nice one Kim -see what else is out
therein the aether with similar roots please ). The
sound sources include microwave communications,
recordings of the dead (again!) and granular synthesis
courtesy of M.I.T. (whohe ? -Ed). Hats are doffed to an
interesting selection of musicians/composers which
include Geir Jenssen, Chris & Cosey and Dae Sylvian.
There are hints of a microwave conspiracy misusing Nicky
Tesla’s research generating plasma clouds and
interfering with the electrojet! Additional liner notes
reveal that an important acientific discovery, the
neurophone, which makes it possible to download
information directly into long-term memory, has been
ignored by the US government despite it making it
possible for a deaf man to hear. All very enigmatic, as
is the stark, parched yellow cover, I thought. The
music… ah, the music…is a slow crawl through
confined, dark, dank spaces… suggestions of distress
signals flow towards us from out of the gloom. “Why is
your water so dark?” springs to mind here as a suitable
question for this duo from (where else?) Amerrycow. This
is a sound track for a desolate, scarcely populated city
sometime in the future. Long skyscraping corridors
channel the wind which twists and churns finding little
to move, having long since whooshed away everything it
could carry to the place where winds end. Muffled mouths
dispense incomprehensible sounds. The continuous
dispersal of information which no longer has validity.
Truly the voices of the dead and the sounds of the place
they inhabit. Welcome to the real Interzone. (MP)
KI SYNC PULSE -KI SYNC PULSE (LP on KORM PLASTICS
Different kinds of music have different effects on
energy, Some excite it by adding to it and some soothe
it by relating to it like a familiar friend. And then
there is that music which does both at the same time
creating moments when many things can happen. This debut
by a Dutch composer is one such s record. It consists of
slow and patient filtration and resonation of a few
very, very fat sounds -tones which make the body itself
vibrate with a gut yearning.
The sounds arch and fill the corners of the room
relentlessly pushing the walls outwards, fissures crack
open and hiss in a seemingly endless rising ride into
the bliss of oblivion. Endorphins have no choice but to
activate, flooding the undulating terrain that is their
home. Meat responds to this sort of thing in the best
way. Whilst comparable to much of what I have heard on
Fax (and by god, it’s not half of what has been released
yet), I find it stronger, a striking, powerful and
individual statement about one person’s vision (?) of
sound. Should go a long way. May we have some more
please ? (MP)
Address: Korm Plastics -P.O.Box 11453 -1001 GL Amsterdam
-The Netherlands