MONTE CAZAZZA – POWER VERSUS WISDOM (CD by Side Effects)
Monte Cazazza’s name rings one or two bells somehwere to some people.
Originally he was part of the very first industrial scene around Throbbing
Gristle – some even credit the TG credo ‘Industrial Music For Industrial
People’ to him. It may be nostalgia on my side, but his first two 7″s for
Industrial Records were great, but he went wrong with his 7″ for Sordide
Sentimental – crappy casio rhythms and his voice is just awful. But that
was more then a decade ago. Luckily the casio has been replaced by more
updated technology, yet his voice remains the same. This CD with nine
tracks recorded at KPFA Radio in California has been recorded five years,
but I am not too impressed by his dark songs and ditto vocals. All lyrics
are about sex and death (and the combination of both) – both subjects of no
particular interest to me. The two included live tracks from 1980 are raw
and yes, you may blame nostalgia here, but I liked these far better. It’s
like listening to TG live LP number 53 – not a great recording but a great
atmosphere. (FdW)
Address: <soleilmoon@aol.com>
THE OFFICIAL PROJECT – ATAVISTIC ELECTRONICS & OTHER “OFFICIAL”
TOUR/TURE(S) (MC on Widemouth Tapes).
The Official Project started in 1990 and exsists out of 31 participants,
some just for one session, some for all of them with as many as 17
collaborating at the same time. This tape is the quasi-document from their
live touring in 1992. The tape starts out with something that sounds like a
sort of close-harmony singing, followed directly by a radio commercial for
their live tour, which mainly exist out of old-fashioned jazz-like
improvisations in a style which reminds me a bit of the album “Another Band
>From L.A.” by The Mothers, mainly because of the Flo and Eddie vocals. But
not as good and less specific. I can hear that their main problem is how to
get all participants instructed and organized, since they work with so many
different people. So they just decide to be not too specific about it all;
“you repeat a word, say: “horseass”, then he blows his horn and I hit my
drumkit and you scream something whatever comes too your mind” and so on
and so on. Some of the tape cuts are really bad and there is lots of
tape-hiss everywhere. No; this tape is not for me, I don’t like it because
it’s too much improvisation in a too traditional way with too many
traditional instruments. (RM)
Contact: P.O.Box 3282 – Baltimore – Maryland, 21203 – U.S.A.
TESTAMENT (CD by RRRecords)
RRRecords exsists for don’t know howmany years (10 something) but still
this is “only ” their 21th CD release. This one falls in the catagory of
“Music Concrete” and “ambient”. Lots of cutting-up and playing around with
concrete sounds. I’ll go about describing each track, as I am not
interested in giving a random description.
First track is from the Belgium “Artificial Memory Trace” and is a
beautiful track with lots of sounds overlayered; birds, thunder,
(wind)pipes, a bouncing ball becomes a rhythm, one chord on a acoustic
guitar gets blown away by a really big noise, breaking glass and some
really briljant ambient sounds.
Second track is by John Wiggins and he uses more popular wellknown musical
samples to create his composition. Little pieces of charts music being cut
up with speech of all times (I had a dream) and bits and pieces from radio.
All of them being altered and manipulated by speeding up/down,
backwards…”I get /so emotional/baby/giving you the best/1,2,3/the
midnight hour”
Tracks 3 and 4 are both done by Eric Chasalow. He plays around with what I
think is some modern opera-like piece done in the english language in his
first track (just under two minutes) and with lots of backwards sounds in
his second.
Track 5 is by Jerome Noetinger from Metamkine and is called;”Le Ballon
Rouge”. It is done by rubbing balloons by hand and running the air out of a
balloon like we used to do when we where kids so you get a high pitched
sound. These sounds go through effects. This track fits the magnificent
series of the Metamkine label (that is run by Jerome).
6th track is from RLW (Ralf Wehowsky) and has a great title:”325 Painful
Moments In The Life Of A Self-Pitying Christian Spokesman”. The sound that
he uses sounds like it originated from a human voice and has been altered
in lots of different ways. High pitched sounds, CD being fast-forwarded,
mixing in blanks. It’s more noisy and very good, with an incredible stereo.
Quite mad, as I like it.
Track 7 is an incredible beautiful ambient track from Thomas Dimuzio.
Track 8 is from Tim Walters and is also in an ambient style, but now more
sounds are coming in and are going out. Lots of effects and it’s the
longest track on the CD; over 15 minutes.
Track 9: Nick Peck – Music From Airports. Eno did “Music for Airports” and
this is, as the title suggests, done with sounds taken from airports. Lots
of voices, people waiting in line, planes taking off, intercom
announcements, played through effects. Very recognizable sounds ofcourse
but there is also this sound that is clearly manipulated.
Track 10 is from Michael Prime and is an extract from one of his tracks
from his latest release “Cellular Radar” on Mycophile. Quite noisy track,
but natural. As noisy as real life gets sometimes. City traffic, trains,
insects, all in an excellent stereo. Sometimes it sounds like the left and
right channel got a small timelaps between them which makes the sound go
crazy between your speakers. Just get Cellular Radar (aswell).
Last track (yes we’re almost there) is from Koji Marutani and starts off
with a gothic voice in french and then an english voice explains something
about “2 manners of creating a flame-like effect”. A beautiful ambient
sound like it’s from Alvin Lucier’s “Music from a long thin wire” and a cow
in his stable.
This is an excellent CD, it’s divers and beautiful, not too much info on
the cover though (make up your own mind whether this is good or bad). RRR
don’t do too many CD’s and I must say I don’t like them all but this one is
one of the best sofar. (RM)
Contact: RRRecords 151 Paige St., Lowell, MA 01852 U.S.A.
MUSLIMGAUZE – AZZAZIN – (10″ by Staalplaat)
The usual tiresome Musselmangauze bongos and bells interrupt voices sampled
from news broadcasts and maybe location recordings of Mrs Hussein frying
bacon on this short, shirty 10″ set of remixes (supposedly) of the
astounding Azzazin CD released earlier this year. There’s an occasional fat
synth bubble quote from the original CD, but on the whole it comes across
as an untidy collection of introductions or preludes made, but not used
elsewhere. Loadsa familiar Musselman sounds which we’ve all come to love or
hate drift around rather aimlessly. This is limited to 250 copies, so will
probably be consumed by fanatical collectors. My advice to all you
uncircumcised goyim dogs is don’t buy this record…rather expend your
energy demanding the re-release of the original CD – it’s worth parting the
Red Sea for. My own contribution to the struggle is this…I will not
review another Muslimgauze CD until Palestine is free, so hurry up
Yasir…(MP)
Address: <staal@euronet.nl>
SIAN – SIAN (LP on Korm Plastics)
The first of three new releases on Korm, two of which will be dealt with
this week. Sian is Mr Aube plus a chum of his in an introspective mood.
Side A starts warm and gets cooler. Synthesiser squiggles arpeggiate and
resonances slide, punctuated by soft thumps. Rivulets of sound stream past
ending in a dark underground lake somewhere. Tiny beasties call from
crevices they never leave. The moist rock walls, furred with primordial
moulds and fungi, glow slightly…evidence of some kind of organic
activity.
Side B starts cool and enters the realms of chill soon after the start. In
fact it sounds a lot like a continuation of the same session on Side 1. The
sound of stalactites and mites straining to fuse. We are slowly lowered
into the lake and witness the wails and moans of sightless coelecanths and
giant hydra. Deeper,where life lurks unformed, a kind of genetic sludge
floats, influenced by the circulatory patterns of the water. The water here
is so cold it’s thickened to a paste…still the yelps and barks of the
loftier occupants can be perceived through the bassmurk. Excellent trip.
(MP)
Address: <staal@euronet.nl>
CHRIS MELOCHE – DOKUMENT 90 (LP on Korm Plastics)
I am a fan of Mr Meloche, so it was with great pleasure that I bunged this
on the turntable with freshly Q-tipped ears. It’s 4 Parts of a radio music
performance dating from 1990 which revolved around real-time interception
of international shortwave broadcasts, some of which converted into MIDI
data which then triggers synthesisers and tone generators. It is certainly
a document of the time as many of the radio transmissions concern
themselves with events current at the time.
One of the nicest things about this LP is that it will always retain an
element of mystery and I have a feeling that it is a composiytion that will
reveal more each time it is heard. Disembodied voices articulate the good,
the bad and the ugly… sometimes these are treated with distortion or
delay which makes them less specifically spoken passages and more musical
components of the entire piece. The instrumental sounds smear in and out of
the radio quotes and good use is made of the wonderful noises that can be
found in between stations. There is a magnificent crescendo on Side 1 which
fair swept me off finely balanced synapses into a multi-faceted realm of
information overload. I really like records like this… I have a feeling
that if I could understand the language of the galactic trolls that linger
in the spaces twixt radio worlds I might hear some secrets that would
surprise and shock me… hmm, time to see the medicine man again, methinks.
(MP)
Address: <staal@euronet.nl>