MURMER – WE SHARE A SHADOW (CD by Helen Scarsdale) *
HENNIG LUNDKVIST – THE END OF A SYSTEM OF THINGS (CD by Komplott) *
SAM SHALABI – EID (CD by Alien8 Recordings) *
PHILIP DAVENPORT – CONSTELLATION OF LUMINOUS IDEAS (CD, private) *
PAUL BRADLEY – MAS MEMORIAS EXTRANJERAS (CD by Alluvial Recordings) *
LAPSED + NONNON – THE DEATH OF CONVENIENCE (CD by Ad Noiseam)
BONG-RA – FULL METAL RACKET (CD by Ad Noiseam)
GLOWSTYX – CLASS OF 1992 (CD by Cock Rock Disco)
DETRITUS – FRACTURED (CD by Ad Noiseam)
ROBEDOOR – RANCOR KEEPER (CD by Release The Bats Records) *
WARMER MILKS – LET YOUR FRIENDS IN (CD by Release The Bats Records)
SIXTEENS – INTO THE GOLD WAVE OF FUTURE NON RIP-OFF (CD by Hungry Eye Records) *
TIMO VAN LUIJK & KRIS VANDERSTRAETEN – COSTA DEL LUNA (LP by La Scie Doree)
ONDE – ONE (LP by Ondemusic)
RAYMOND DIJKSTRA – DAS SCHONE (LP by Le Souffleur)
RAYMOND DIJKSTRA – SCHIJNHEILIGE VISSEN (LP by Le Souffleur)
TAMING POWER – TWELVE PIECES (10″ by Early Morning Records)
ROBIN SAVILLE/DOLLBOY (7″ by Static Caravan)
INCH TIME – THOUGHT OBJECTS (3″CDR by Static Caravan) *
COLIN POTTER – THE SIGHTS OF THE DROWNED FABLE (CDR by ICR) *
BIEN VICTOR – SORE DAKE JA: MIZUNOKUCHI SESSIONS JAN-FEB 2006 (CDR by Belsonic Strategic) *
SECONDS IN FORMALDEHYDE – SUDDENLY SILENCE BURST MY EAR (CDR by Tosom) *
DIE KALTE ZEIT – TOSOM MIXED BY XOTOX (CDR by Tosom)
BRAM STADHOUDERS – TONELIST (CDR, private release) *
DECONSTRUCTIVE MUSIC (3xCDR compilation by More Mars)
FERVENT – CONJESTION (CDR by More Mars) *
I DIED THEE VIRGINAL BRIDES SPLIT (Cassette by Black And Purple)
THEE VIRGINAL BRIDES / KÖRDHA / FEVER SPOOR MOMENTS OF TRUTH (CDR by
animamalnata)
VINCENT KOREMAN FEVER SPOOR HEMELTERGEND (CDR by animamalnata)
CHEFKIRK – THE WORD ‘VEGANISM’… (3″CDR by Jeshimoth)
MURMER – WE SHARE A SHADOW (CD by Helen Scarsdale)
Releases on the Helen Scarsdale label are usually nicely packed and this new one is not different. As far as I recall this is the second CD for Murmer, also known as Patrick McGinley from America. However, he’s a traveller, living in various parts of this world for some time, and then moves. In each of these locations he is present with his recorder and tapes the environment. This has brought him to England, Portugal, France, Estonia and Germany. In the development of his work he has moved from using a simple four track machine and external sound effects to the computer. McGinley is however not ‘just’ a field recordist. It’s part of what he does. He also uses environments to play sounds using objects, like metal rods and balls. This variety of recordings is the foundation of his work: recordings of the environment and sounds played in it. In the third stage he treats his work on the computer and creates stylish pieces of drone music. This is what ties him to the Helen Scarsdale family, the dark drone relatives. Two long tracks of heavy rain fall that grow over the course of time into heavily computerized pieces of music, which work well on the atmospheric level. Perhaps as such he is not the one of the original players on the crowded scene, but his work can meet the best of his English counterparts, in particular Jonathan Coleclough and Colin Potter. (FdW)
Address: http://www.helenscarsdale.com
HENNIG LUNDKVIST – THE END OF A SYSTEM OF THINGS (CD by Komplott)
It’s been a while since a radioplay shook the world, ‘The War Of The Worlds’ dates if I’m not mistaken from 1938. I am not sure who Hennig Lundkvist is (this is his first release for Komplott) and to what extent he was influenced by Orson Wells. The album is “based on a number of conceptually and visually thematic performances in galleries throughout Sweden and Europe” and deals with the sampling of all sorts of sound material, based “around a post-apocalyptic theme” it says on the website. Since there is hardly a real story and just a thirty-two minute stream of sound, which kicks off with some orchestral music that suggests fear, a classic film soundtrack for a horror music. But in the end the voices kick in and the ‘story’ (as far as there is one) is about war, nuclear treat and such like, and the voices, taped from TV, radio, film and such like are stuck together but never the impression arises that this is a real story. The whole thing is rather alienating than a hörspiel to heard and experienced. Now it sounds merely like a long collage of spoken word and music about the end of the world lacks real strength and the message gets lost. (FdW)
Address: http://www.komplott.com/
SAM SHALABI – EID (CD by Alien8 Recordings)
The man behind the band Shalabi Effect also produced various solo released but it’s been a while. Following ‘Osama’ and ‘On Hashish’, there is now ‘Eid’, his third solo CD. In 2006 Sam Shalabi found himself living in Cairo, Egypt and worked on two separate interests: working with singers he liked and creating ‘modern Arabic pop’. It’s hard to say if he succeeded in that. Simply because there are not points of reference for me in this area of modern Arab pop. The opening tune’ Hawaga’ brings us straight to arab sounding textures with his playing on the Oud. Did Shalabi go out there and will he stay there? No, he doesn’t. ‘Jessica Simpson’, the second track has a psychedelic almost Beatle like opening riff, but great vocals by Radwon Moumneh.
From then you realize this album bounces easily
all over the place and things turn out to be great. Seldom I heard such crazy mixture of music as here. From endless guitar solo’s, arab percussion and vocals, post rock textures, improvisation, jazz, field recordings and much more thrown into a blender to create an exotic cocktail that tastes great. Some of the tracks are a bit too long and go down in a bath of being too freaky, but throughout I thought this crazy amalgam of music is a great trip – around the world, and all of that in sixty-six minutes. That is great. (FdW)
Address: http://www.alien8recordings.com
PHILIP DAVENPORT – CONSTELLATION OF LUMINOUS IDEAS (CD, private)
When I read this was about ‘poetry’ and ‘sound treatments’, I thought it would be about poetry reading and some sound, which is, generally speaking, not my tea. Philip Davenport is an experimental poet of the new wave of experimental poets and he has handwritten notebooks, which are read by a variety of readers. In many cases he uses the first take, thus leaving mistakes. At one point one of the readers is interrupted by nurses talking next to his hospital bed. Great idea. In some cases the words are ‘erased’ and breathing, sighing and traces of voices remain. Davenport uses a variety of people to transform his sounds, by people such as Ben Gwilliam, Lee Patterson, Laurence Lane, Dave Clarkson, Christine Johnson and Gareth Bibby. I must admit the whole things sounds much better than is suggested on the cover or press text. Dreamy sequences of sound, voices mumble rather than recite a text. When you can understand them, they appear to be a loop. A very fine mixture of sound and poetry, or perhaps poetry and sound. Or perhaps there is no hierarchy at all in this. The curiosity of sound and poetry recorded in various places make this a wealth to hear. I should never judge a book by it’s cover. (FdW)
Address: http://www.lotta-continua.co.uk
PAUL BRADLEY – MAS MEMORIAS EXTRANJERAS (CD by Alluvial Recordings)
Winner of the Vital prize for economics is Paul Bradley. In exactly the same cover as ‘Memorias Extranjeras’ (see Vital Weekly 523) there is now ‘Mas Memorias Extranjeras’, a sort of follow up work. Back then, I wrote this (quote the entire review): “On the back-cover of the new Paul Bradley CD, we see a tourist picture: people standing in a sunny street and when we read that this was recorded in Valencia and Gandia, both in Spain, we may know that this picture is made while recording the field recordings used. At the basis of all Paul Bradley music is the field recording. After that Bradley manipulates the material until is a stretched out piece of drone music and the original source recordings have disappeared. That’s why in the early days we thought it was a bunch of synthesizers. However for ‘Memories Extranjeras’ he has these recordings made in Spain, and he by and large does the thing he always does best but there is a slight difference. The original field recordings are here and there to be heard: at one point the rhythms of a marching band arrive out of a mass of sound and sounded like an odd counterpoint in this music. On other spots we hear the crowd cheering or talking in a reverbing hallway. This ‘revealing’ of sources is a quite nice new feature in this music. It doesn’t add a whole new perspective, nor does it break the good flow in this work, but at the same time, you feel that Bradley is slowly shifting interest towards new paths. I wouldn’t be surprised if he switches over one day and reduces the electronic processing in favor of the pure field recording. But that’s all for later. For now, Bradley added another fine work of drone music to his already nice discography.”
I must admit that I think this new work doesn’t add much to what I already wrote above. It is about two minutes longer than the previous work, but several of the elements (crowd sheering) return in this new work. I suspected, perhaps wrongly that this is merely a re-arranging of sounds and less a new work. More for the true completists and die hard fans and it wouldn’t bring not necessarily many new fans to Bradley. I think I prefer new works. (FdW)
Address: http://www.alluvialrecordings.com
LAPSED + NONNON – THE DEATH OF CONVENIENCE (CD by Ad Noiseam)
I was quite amazed by the previous album from Lapsed released on Ad Noiseam back in 2005. The album, simply titled “Lapsed”, had a very interesting approach drifting in unusual borderlines – between hip hop-based textures and dreamlike ambient atmospheres. The more you listened to it, the more attracted you got. The same can be said about this third album from the American composer. Despite the fact that hip hop plays an important role on this new album, the stylish expression is different. On this latest album carrying the title” The death of convenience” , Jason Stevens ( a.k.a. Lapsed) has joined forces with turntablist Dave Madden known as NonNon. The moody ambience has faded away meanwhile the hip hop-expressions are much more in focus with the appearance of rapping MC’s adding some new perspectives to the Lapsed-spheres. The tracks are built on the characteristic rhythm-structures of Lapsed in combination with a rich number of samples and turntablism. Compared to the more nocturnal ambient-based “Lapsed”-album, “The Death of Convenience” is a straight forward “in your face”-sort of dark electronica meets hip hop. Intense album! (NM)
Address: http://www.adnoiseam.net
BONG-RA – FULL METAL RACKET (CD by Ad Noiseam)
GLOWSTYX – CLASS OF 1992 (CD by Cock Rock Disco)
Belgian breakcore artist Jason Köhnen known as Bong Ra has made it very clear before: He is not afraid of crossing the borderlines between furious breakbeats, noise and extreme metal into an infernal noisy mix. “Full metal racket” is a collection of tracks from his earlier 12″ Ep’s “Grind Krusher” and “Sick sick sick”. Conceptually the tracks on this intense new shot from Bong Ra take their starting point in early extreme metal. Unquestionably the title “Grind Krusher” is a tribute to the British label Earache’s quite amazing and legendary compilation “Grindcrusher” released back in 1990. Opening track on “Full metal racket” takes a solid starting point in the contributing track from Earache’s Grindcrusher-compilation, “Dead shall rise” from US-grindcore-project Terrorizer and it definitely does add an interesting updated electronically based angle to the hyper-fast track from Morbid Angel-vocalist David Vincent. Following track is a breakcore-medley of early Slayer-materials spanning from the “Hell awaits”-album up to “Seasons in the abyss”. The combination of pioneering extreme metal and Bong Ra’s ability to create insane breakbeat-structures works really great and I do advice listeners of extreme music, electronic or metal, to check out this refreshing album. Grindcore of the new millennium! Another new album, this time produced by Bong-Ra’s Jason Köhnen is released on another German label. The “Cock Rock Disco”-label is known for its focus on breakbeat-based electronics. Under the name “Glowstyx”, British composer Ebenezer Gurnsville brings the listener into other territories of hyperfast rhythm structures. With a nostalgic glance back to the early 90’s, Glowstyx reanimates the mixtures of energetic beat texture and ear-catching hooklines of melodic house/trance and trippy minimalism as it sounded back then. Listening to the album is like having a sonic trip back to the heydays of rave clubbing. (NM)
Address: http://www.adnoiseam.net
DETRITUS – FRACTURED (CD by Ad Noiseam)
If you enjoyed the first two albums by David Dando-Moore known as Detritus you will certainly appreciate this third album from the American composer. The ideas from the debut album “Thresholds” (2003, Ad Noiseam) and from the following mini-CD “Origin (2005, Ad Noiseam) seems to move to higher levels on this album titled “Fractured”. Where especially previous effort “Origin” was more downbeat, the rhythmic contrasts on “Fractured” is bigger spanning from the gently downbeat track “Lethe” to the upfront and aggressive “Collide” with some quite significant rhythms reminiscent of 808 State’s classic “Ex:el”-album (1990). Things move to the extremes with the sinister track “Diolch” consisting of breakcore-beats and evil darkside/techstep-basslines. The real force of Detritus is Dando-Moore’s ability to create cinematic atmospheres based on acoustic sounds (piano and guitar being the most significant on this album). Exactly these moments of cinematic beauty is the ones that stand clear after the album has finished. Especially the aforementioned track “Lethe” as well as the closing track “Dancing on moon beams” is utterly beautiful works. Two mixes from label-fellows DJ Hidden and Keef Baker nicely end this album, which unquestionably is Detritus’ best album to date. Highly recommended! (NM)
Address: http://www.adnoiseam.net
ROBEDOOR – RANCOR KEEPER (CD by Release The Bats Records)
WARMER MILKS – LET YOUR FRIENDS IN (CD by Release The Bats Records)
SIXTEENS – INTO THE GOLD WAVE OF FUTURE NON RIP-OFF (CD by Hungry Eye Records)
Despite their thirty some releases, the name Robedoor is not a household name here. So far we reviewed only two of their releases, of which one was partly in collaboration with Pocahaunted. Robedoor has two members: Alex on keyboard, cello and drum and Britt on guitar, voice and cymbal. On the cover we see them, crawling on the floor, with a minimum of means but with a heavy impact. The release with Pocahaunted sounded drone like with rock influences, here its drone with a strong influence of noise. Noise is the big thing in the US underground, and I take the risk of sounding like the old man that I am, it’s a scene where I found it hard to hear something new. I don’t share the enthusiasm that some of the kids have for this. The history of music works in waves and everything returns: the music of Robedoor here could have been on (almost any) Broken Flag cassette in the 80s. Don’t get me wrong however: its nothing more than a statement, rather than a qualification. If you’d ask me to judge this in terms of avant-garde, musical innovation, than I’d have to decline that. What Robedoor does is not very new. That’s hardly a problem, I think, since it’s simply not necessary to measure everything on the ruler (rules?) of innovation. The four pieces here are cascading walls of drone noise, minimal yet effective. An industrial wall of sound, with sounds feeding through a stream of distortion and echo pedals, howls and in the epic piece ‘Wendigo Psychosis’ the addition of drums, that recalls good ol Skullflower. It’s the kind of noise that I do like, very much even. Just as much as I do like Ramleh or Skullflower.
Warmer Milks is a new name for me, with the nucleus of Micheal Turner and an ever changing line up. Here he receives help of Paul Oldham, Greg Backus and Shawn David McMillen, who plays a variety of stuff: coffee bass, new kitten, blue phase and mouth breath, tomorrow person crying and schizophrenia. I am quoting the cover here, not losing direction of senses. Since this is my first meeting with the band, it’s hard to compare it with earlier recording. Things start out promising with analogue tape collages, but the band soon starts hammering way in a punk rock fashion meeting metal music of whatever nomination – its field that I am not into, so no black/grunge/slow/speed before it. A strange combination of sorts, but in the end, not much my cup of tea. Too much free rock jamming for my taste, and not enough tape manipulations. It seems that there is more in there than what is presented now. The way it sounds now, is that it is recorded and mixed in about the same time it took them to play it.
Release The Bats also sent a release by Sixteens, called ‘Into The Gold Wave Of Future Non Rip-off!’, released by Hungry Eye Records. No website on the cover, which is hard to read anyway. Here too a cycle from past passes again, but not the noise on. Sixteens play retro electro music, with a fiery drum machine, sequencer, snippets from films and male and female vocals. Electro-punk, although I don’t recall we had such term twenty-years ago. Think Suicide, but less aggressive, think Cabaret Voltaire (because of the taped films) or early Human League. Things work best, I think, when they keep tracks to the point, but that is a bit of problem with Sixteens. Some of these tracks are unnecessary long. They made their point half way through and they go on for about the same length. That is a bit too much. Music like this works best when kept to the pop-point, say three minutes or even less. The repeat mode works against the tracks. Its a pretty fine CD by the Sixteens, but here too I have the impression there was much more possible, be it in a different area than Warmer Milk. In the 80s this would have been a great cassette. (FdW)
Address: http://www.releasethebats.com
TIMO VAN LUIJK & KRIS VANDERSTRAETEN – COSTA DEL LUNA (LP by La Scie Doree)
ONDE – ONE (LP by Ondemusic)
Over the many years Timo van Luijk showed his interest in vinyl and nothing else. There is perhaps an odd CDR release by him, but in general he likes vinyl. Wether releasing music as Af Ursin, Asra (with Raymond Dijkstra – see also elsewhere), In Camera (with Christoph Heeman), it’s on vinyl. Here he releases two new records, the first being a work with the for me unknown Kris Vanderstraeten. He plays percussion on this record, whereas Van Luijk gets credit for zither, flute, keys and tape. It’s a record of improvisation, but certainly a bit of an odd one. They play carefully, but without silence. Things are being hit, strummed, blown in an endless stream, rather than in small blocks, as is perhaps more usual in the field of improvisation. But in the endless stream nothing jumps above it, it stays on the same dynamic level. That I found a bit dull. Certainly this record has some nice moments, but perhaps also a bit too psychedelic for me. Without the right substances it seems to hard to enter the world of Van Luijk/Vanderstraeten. The cover certainly hints at this psychedelic element. Like said, it’s surely a nice record, but the mixing could have been more adventurous.
Van Luijk is also present in Onde, a new trio of himself, Marc Wroblewski and former Noise Makers Fifes member Greg Jacobs. The first record is called ‘One’, how appropriate, and is dedicated to Geert Feytons, the main man of Noise Makers Fifes who took his own life last year. On the back of the cover we see an image of them: one guy on an upright bass, one of the drums and one playing a saxophone. A jazz band? Four pieces on this record and it’s certainly not really jazz. On side one we find the pieces ‘Four’ and ‘One’ and ‘Three and ‘Two’ on the other. There is a strong difference between both sides. Side One is a wild, psychedelic noise affair, in which it seems that all three players have an endless variety of sound effects at their disposal, whereas on side two there is also improvised music, but without the wealth of sound effects but with the inclusion of electronic tape manipulations. Instruments can be recognized as such and there is much more detail to be heard. I thought this was a great record, both sides of the big black coin. The noise brings them to the common day rock noise improv drone of say Sunn 0))), whereas the other side is more traditional electro-acoustic improvisation. Here the adventure that could have been the Luijk/Vanderstraeten LP is present and makes a most promising debut. (FdW)
Address: <tivalu@telenet.be>
Address: http://www.ondemusic.be
RAYMOND DIJKSTRA – DAS SCHONE (LP by Le Souffleur)
RAYMOND DIJKSTRA – SCHIJNHEILIGE VISSEN (LP by Le Souffleur)
Just like his buddy Timo van Luijk, Raymond Dijkstra loves thirty centimeter pieces of vinyl. And thirty centimeters of plastic, as these two latest releases by him were pressed by Peter King in New Zealand as so-called lathe cut records. Basically the same plastic as they use to produce CDs but cut with grooves, a record. The great thing is one can do really small editions, which is another thing Dijkstra likes. Both of these records come in an edition of 50 copies only. He continues where left us (‘Die Wille’, ‘Die Sonne’) and now there ‘Das Schöne’ (‘the beautiful’) and ‘Schijnheilige Vissen’ (sanctimonious fish’). No other information. Dijkstra is the true outsider in music. He doesn’t care about style, scenes, groups or such like but does he what he does. For the superficial listener (for whom this is certainly not produced) what Dijkstra does may sound the same. Like say a guitarist he uses his instrument: on ‘Das Schöne’ a table played with glass and an echo unit. A reduction that is in various way. Before he used an organ too, more electronics. That’s one difference. But here he also plays with silence. He plays for maybe twenty second shrieking sounds, fed through echo and then there is silence, in which nothing happens. Sometimes these silences are longer than the actual music. It leaves the listener in nothing less but a state of confusion. To the annoyed, who think: is this it? Is the record over? But to the more careful listeners, he builds great tension – the strongest line between silence and sound.
The other new LP is more along the lines of the previous ones, the glass sounds, organ/harmonium and echo unit at work. There are strong similarities between all of these works, but it’s the smaller details that these works do differ from each other. ‘Schijnheilige Vissen’ seems to be using the element of silence and also a bit more distortion, but that might very well be the King pressing at work. Dijkstra builds a consistent piece work – an oeuvre as you will. A highly personal world of sound. (FdW)
Address: http://www.le-souffleur.nl
TAMING POWER – TWELVE PIECES (10″ by Early Morning Records)
Until now releases by Taming Power, and there has been quite a few, were highly limited editions of around 150 copies, but this new one is released in an edition of 525 copies: the pressing plant don’t do any less anymore. A pity since Taming Power has to ‘sell out’ before making anything new, so this might be one of the last before some time. Taming Power, the musical project of Askild Haugland from Oslo, Norway, is a man who loves drones, but as you can tell by the title these don’t have to be long. Twelve pieces on a 10″. The seven pieces on side one are short, sketch like pieces, played on the guitar, zither and keyboards. Haugland feeds the sound through a little bit of reverb, fortunate not enough to drown the sound, but to make the whole thing a bit ’rounder’. The pieces are simple melodies, effective and work best when played on the guitar. The keyboard pieces are bit less in quality I thought. The five pieces here are more complex, layered sounds, more sound effects, and effectively more drone related in the way people associate this with drones. Layered sounds, with the usual analogue means of Taming Power (who works with tape recorders rather than computers), these pieces are more along the lines of his recent works. Complex, drone based, this is some damn fine music going on. It would be a pity not see any new thing from him in a while, but maybe he should consider doing CDs? So I recommend any serious lover of drone music to get a copy (or two) and keep Early Morning Records alive. (FdW)
Address: <earlymrecords@yahoo.com>
ROBIN SAVILLE/DOLLBOY (7″ by Static Caravan)
INCH TIME – THOUGHT OBJECTS (3″CDR by Static Caravan)
It’s hard to believe in these scattered days of so many labels, releases, formats and what have you, but when I was young one loved labels and sought out whatever they released. For me Factory Records was one of them, and Les Disques Du Crepuscule another. The latter’ sheer intelligent combination of popmusic and modern classical, in combination with stylish covers made all (almost all) of the releases on that label. Why this nostalgic ramble? I was thinking about those old days when playing the latest two releases by Static Caravan. They seem to becoming the Crepuscule of the new millennium. More and more their releases consist of the same pop meets modern classic quality, while their covers get more and more stylish. Robin Saville has a nice sweet tune for player piano and rhythm machine that has a strong christmas sound to it. Dollboy is even more classical in approach with his ‘Prelude no. 1’, adapted from Johan Sebastian Bach, but is more pop than Saville, with lovely bouncing rhythm and lush keyboard textures, but is more timeless, i.e. less for the season only. Just a lovely little item, this one.
Also lovely and little is the 3″CDR by Inch Time, which is the project by Stefan Panczak. He too seems to have a love for the 88 keys of the piano, but unlike the 7″, his music is much ambient related. The first part opens with piano sounds which slowly get transformed into lush textured ambient music. A single key stroke is transformed in a light hearted rhythm with a dark undercurrent. Things get even more sparse in the second piece, with very loose end piano tones and equally sparse gamelan percussive sounds at the beginning and chirping birds at the end. Comes in a small enveloppe with a nice printed insert. Classy indeed. Maybe it’s too late to start collecting this label now, but you better start now because later is not good enough. (FdW)
Address: http://www.staticcaravan.org
COLIN POTTER – THE SIGHTS OF THE DROWNED FABLE (CDR by ICR)
A man of very british humor, our Colin Potter. He advertises his release ‘The Sights Of The Drowned Fable’ as: “The next in the ‘haven’t got enough time to make a studio album’ series”. And if you don’t have time to record a proper studio album, you go back in the archives and pick that live recording which you think is great, special or different. The work here was recorded at the Resonator Festival in Preston in July of this year. It starts out in a loud and rhythm way, that we don’t connect to Potter (or at least not with his work of late), but its a welcome shot, an alarm going off. We start. From then on the work rolls out in what is a typical Potter sound: partly drone based electro acoustic music. Vibrant music, feeding through lots and lots of sound effects. Music that bounces up and down, through reverb and delay and no doubt loads of other effects. Potter sets a sound forward and then starts playing around with it, until a hybrid of sound occurs, hard to decipher or trace back to it’s origin. He never looses sight of the atmospheric aspect – that’s where he reputation as a drone master comes in. The psychedelic element, working on elevating the mind, playing a moody card: it’s all done well in the more than capable hands of Potter. I don’t know if this recording is great, special or different for Colin Potter, or wether it’s just one great live recording of the shelf, simply because we haven’t heard them all, but I think it’s surely a very nice one and that’s good enough for me to see a release on CDR. (FdW)
Address: http://www.icrdistribution.com
BIEN VICTOR – SORE DAKE JA: MIZUNOKUCHI SESSIONS JAN-FEB 2006 (CDR by Belsonic Strategic)
Thomas Transparent, the man behind The Domestic Front, returns here with something a little bit more different. A group of himself on computer and bass, Jason Funk on drums, computer and flute and Brandon Hocura on guitar and electronics. They hail from Portland, Tokyo and Montreal, but they met up in Tokyo in the first months of 2006 and recorded six hours straight to mini disc. Like I said, mister Transparent moves away from his recent interest in collage, industrial and musique concrete and with this trio he goes into the area of cosmic music – the free form float music. Think anything krautrock and you are already almost there. Slow pieces, slow drumming, endless fuzz and sustain on the guitars, electronics flicker around in a slow and peaceful manner. I never know wether this should be heard taking a lot of substances of any kind and one can enjoy it better; who knows. But I did something else: I played this first thing when I got out of bed on a very cold morning, clean as a whistle, and also enjoyed the content of this disc. The floating, spacious character of the music, sort of extended the process of not being entirely awake, but not fully asleep. A most pleasant feeling. If you love Aidan Baker, then this trio should be up you alley too. (FdW)
Address: http://www.belsona-strategic.com
SECONDS IN FORMALDEHYDE – SUDDENLY SILENCE BURST MY EAR (CDR by Tosom)
DIE KALTE ZEIT – TOSOM MIXED BY XOTOX (CDR by Tosom)
This is our second encounter with the music of Martin Fuhs, also known as Seconds In Formaldehyde, whose ‘Inaudible’ was reviewed in Vital weekly 567. He plays guitar and ‘all songs recorded live without any studio overdubs or post production effects’, it says on the cover. Gone is the use of a drum machine. While playing live, Fuhs feeds his guitar through a whole bunch of boxes, such as echo’s, sample device, reverb, chorus and what else have you. Ambient music with the very big A. Like with ‘Inaudible’ it’s easy to see a connection with Fear Falls Burning, or even with its predecessor Vidna Obmana. Five lengthy, atmospheric pieces of music, still, quiet, drone, ambient – all the necessary keywords are in place. On a dark, cold and above all grey day like this, this is the perfect soundtrack to fit the season. Cold outside, warm inside where Seconds In Formaldehyde softly tinkles away on his guitar and his endless string of sound effects. ‘Untitled 4’ is odd ball here where things do get a bit out of the ambient hand. Nothing special, nothing new and nothing wrong with that.
On the same label, a small CDR release that came as part of Bad Alchemy 56. Bad Alchemy is one of the better German magazines which cover almost similar territory as Vital Weekly, but with more improvised music at their disposal, and since some years they have free gifts with every new issue. For number 56 this is was Andreas Davids who works as Xotox who took the Tosom catalogue and made a long, seventy mix of the various releases. Tosom as a label releases both ambient music such as by Seconds In Formaldehyde but also the noise of Richard Ramirez and anything sub-genre in between. It makes this one piece also quite a varied shopping bag of music, and not always easy to follow where we are (some times on the cover would have been nice), but certainly is a nice overview of the label and is almost like a nice alternative radio station. (FdW)
Address: http://www.tosom.de
BRAM STADHOUDERS – TONELIST (CDR, private release)
In Vital Weekly 599 we reviewed a CDR release by one Franz Fjödor and Bram Stadhouders. Here Stadhouders returns with his Tonelist Trio, being himself on guitar, guitarsynthesizer and laptop, Jasper Lekkerkerk on keyboard and effects and Onno Govaert on drums. The spacey electric piano that dominates the nine pieces of this otherwise long CD brought back to memory a very nice record: ‘Six Empty Places’ by A. Tent, released some twenty-five years ago by Cherry Red (and of course not on CD) which had a similar jazzy feel on the piano and drums and a light experimental touch in the electronic department. Highly atmospheric music, that A. Tent release, which had some nice tension. Unfortunately that is not the case with ‘Tonelist’. The guitar, keyboards and drums are on an seemingly endless repeat mission. Only the eighth and ninth track sound different, but they were recorded on a different date, most curious enough. But the first seven tracks sound throughout very similar and works on my nerves. One or two are o.k. of this doodling stuff, but seven is a bit too much. Almost new age in approach. The final two tracks are less in that area, have more tension and more subtle variety, so it might be possible. That gives them the benefit of doubt, even when I am not entirely convinced. (FdW)
Address: http://www.bramstadhouders.nl
DECONSTRUCTIVE MUSIC (3xCDR compilation by More Mars)
FERVENT – CONJESTION (CDR by More Mars)
To review compilations is never a task I enjoy. Not because of the music, but simply it’s not an easy task. Mention each track? The overall feeling? Concept? Selected highlights? Certainly when it comes to 29 track, three CDR set like ‘Deconstructive Music’ on the new Greek More Mars label. If there is a common theme or approach to be detected among this lot, I think, it’s the factor where improvisation meets noise meets silence. A lot of the contributors are ‘famous’ in that scene, mainly due to a slew of releases – we have here Bill Horist, Mattin, Omnid, Xavier Erkizia, as11, Carlos Giffoni, Ilios, Anthony Guerra and Stasis Duo – to mention a few names that pop up in Vital Weekly and of people who are most active in releasing CDRs. But this compilation can also serve as an introduction to new names, to mention say TMP, Threnody Ensemble, Sinistri vs Dimcoast and David Daniell. So far the facts – the music is as varied as possible. There is a lot of interesting noise things to be found among the lot, but throughout most people take a much finer line between noise and silence, and anything in between. The more experienced players in the field have the more interesting pieces, I thought (Guerra, Hood & Rodgers, Manuel Mota) and the cup for the strangest contribution goes to Sean Meehan, whose piece is almost silent, save for a digital glitch or two in about five minutes. The package comes with separate cards, for each track one, which the label required to be part of it. Most surprising name to find here is Zeitkratzer.
On the same label, second release there is Fervent, perhaps the man behind the label? He likes noise, so it seems. There are seven tracks on this disc, but three are very short, interludes almost and have no title. ‘Ferver’ and ‘Scarecrows Against Reasoning’ are quite noise based, rhythmic, loud but not the best around. Of much more interest is ‘Music Box Reconstructed’ which is a collage/musiqe concrete piece of music box sounds and ‘Organ Piece For Anna/[comm]’, which are two pieces in one, or so it seems. It’s also the longest piece on the release and has noise bits but throughout there is also lots of quiet, crackling glitch stuff which makes this into quite a fine, thoughtful piece of music. These two interesting pieces, along with three vague field recordings would have already made a nice release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.moremars.tk
I DIED THEE VIRGINAL BRIDES SPLIT (Cassette by Black And Purple)
THEE VIRGINAL BRIDES / KÖRDHA / FEVER SPOOR MOMENTS OF TRUTH (CDR by
animamalnata)
VINCENT KOREMAN FEVER SPOOR HEMELTERGEND (CDR by animamalnata)
Beginning by taking into consideration what ‘should’ be said the cassette is pulsy electronic noodlings on one side with more spacey 50s sci-fi on the other, rhythmical – chiming bottles industrial in the sense of an eastern block factory through simple effects, Moments of Truth – a 46 minute CDR (Sony!) has more “field” recorded sounds – a Mall, water, various mains loop/hums and micro sounds which evolve or decay, track 5 has some Christian evangelical spoken text about child rearing. Hemeltergend is glitchy at times almost inaudible (no good in the car then!), glitch beats and what appears to be a monster/goblin moaning/roaring, and yet more low-fi electronica – as I’ve now been careful to listen several times and then do so research.”Industrial slash drone slash noise” – id say low noise rather than harsh- and this has generated nothing – contentiously I’d say -and lets be contentious- music only generates when its ‘noise’ – when its
unlistenable- the work here is too significant to be creative- as creativity now takes place elsewhere as an escape or failure – here we can listen – there are things to listen to. Though connections are made is it only in their disruption that things occur. AKA Pornography as opposed to phonography used to record industrialization (of not just sound). Though within the network we can establish too many sterile facts – proof that the internet cannot be conscious-what it needs is more than dissemination (a fuck up) -I Died = Chris Gierig Noise artist from Eugene, Oregon. Thee Virginal Brides = Gibet + MortalManifest + Vomit Arsonist, Genre: Electronic Style: Industrial, Noise, Experimental, Ambient Notes: Side A : Recorded live on KWVA Radio, Eugene OR on Chris’ 40th birthday. Side B : Recorded between July 2006 and August 2007. Black And Purple DIY cassette label run by I Died The Virginal Brides started in May 2006. A new experiment in droning electronics – the brainchild of AlBéRiCk, Andy and Oren. Kördha = Botchan Karisen = Botchanimal =Fever Spoor = Marcel Herms. Here is the problem Style: Industrial, Noise, Experimental, Ambient prevents any binary opposition – or does it?- eat me! What it needs is “Will to Power” and the magnificent collapse of such a will into the germ, it fails in this and so is completed. played out. (jliat)
Address: <bulikah@hotmail.com>
Address: http://www.vincentkoreman.com/
Address: http://www.animamalnata.nl/
CHEFKIRK – THE WORD ‘VEGANISM’… (3″CDR by Jeshimoth)
Somebody recommended me writing a very positive review of Chefkirk and that it would stop his flood of releases. Perhaps, but I’m an honest man and don’t like to lie. This is release number 254 if I’m not entirely mistaken and it has a long title, explaining what the word ‘veganism’ means. Following master Merzbow in his campaign for animals and his love of noise, Chefkirk does the same. Not as radical though, perhaps. Who am I to tell? One track, twenty minutes of no input mixer + ‘sp-202’ brings us loud noise, that mainly can be found in the high end areas of sound, lacking any deep bass response. It makes it rather dull. So the flood has not been stopped here, I guess. This is a set back as some of his recent releases showed progression, whereas this is twenty minutes of pointless, directionless noise. (FdW)
Address: http://www.jeshimoth.com