VITAL WEEKLY
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number 625
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week 18
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Vital Weekly, the webcast: we offer a free-to-download weekly webcast as the
audio-supplement to Vital Weekly. Presented as a radio programme with
excerpts from some of the CDs reviewed here (no vinyl or MP3s). It is
available on the site for a limited period of 5 weeks. Download the file to
your MP3 player and enjoy!
Complete track listing here: http://www.vitalweekly.net/podcast.html
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Submitting material means you agree with these terms.
* noted are in this week's pod-cast
CHOP SHOP - OXIDE (CD by 23Five Incorporated) *
GUY GELEM - WORKS (CD by Split Femur Recordings) *
THE HALFTERS - 60 JAHRE D-MARK (CD by Whatness) *
VINCENT BERGERON - PHILOSOPHIE FANTASMAGORIQUE (CD by Critiques Disques)
COLORLIST - LISTS (CD by Off/Still)
MAJA S.K. RATKJE - RIVER MOUTH ECHOES (CD by Tzadik) *
SVARTBAG (CD by Rump Recordings) *
BRIAN LAVELLE - SUPERNATURALIST (CD by EE Tapes) *
TAPE - MILIEU (2LP by Minority Records)
RAYMOND DIJKSTRA - DE GEDACHTE (LP by Le Souffleur)
RAYMOND DIJKSTRA - DE GELOFTE (LP by Le Souffleur)
RP COLLIER - DECONSTRUCTION OF TWILIGHT (CDR, self-released) *
THEE VIRGINAL BRIDES RE/COLLECTION (CDr by walnut + locust)
QUIET AMERICAN - TURNS IN THE SOUTH (2CDR, private release) *
ELEKTRICITEIT = ONZE HOBBY - IK HOOR DE MUZIEK NIET (CDR by Heilskabaal
Records) *
LUPUS GOLEM - PERSUADED BY THE MAN WHO ATE THE PHOENIX (CDR by Twilight
Luggage) *
KALLSUP - ABOVE THE MOUNTAINS (MP3 by Twilight Luggage) *
TORSTEIN WJIIK - FOGGY FOREST (MP3 by Twilight Luggage)
UBEBOET - PRAETER (3"CDR by Con-V) *
M. SWIEZYNSKI - FILMS 2007 (DVD-R, private release)
ROBERTAS KUNDROTAS & GINTAS K - SEPTYNI TILTAI PASAULIO CENTRE (MP3 by
Zeromoon) *
CHOP SHOP - OXIDE (CD by 23Five Incorporated)
This filled me with much pleasure, as I never expected this. Towards the end
of the 80s and in the early 90s, when we were still firm industrial music
lovers, Chop Shop was one of our heroes. Not because he was so incredible
loud, but his loudspeaker installations looked raw and sounded good. No,
actually they sounded 'rusty', as well as a rusty look. Through his speaker
installations Chop Shop, the one man band of Scott Konzelmann fed a blend of
decayed sounds, taken from all sorts of machinery, sonic residue taped on
cheap cassette tape or reel to reel tape machines. Much more serious in his
approach than the average noise maker, Konzelmann was already more a visual
artist than a musician. I have no idea why he 'left' the scene, or why we
didn't hear his name that much in the last ten years, but it's good to hear
'Oxide'. Salvaged from old, damaged tapes, which caused 'flaking, static,
dropouts and print through'. If you never saw or heard a cassette or a reel
tape - and in these
digital days that is probably a lot of people - it's hard to understand what
static or dropouts are. Listening to 'Oxide' is a like being transported
back in time, to the era of cassettes, hiss, when the music dropped a bit
due to an imperfection of the cassette tape. Konzelmann takes all of these
sounds, of pure hiss, of loud machine noise, of decay, of erosion and
creates his 'Oxide' piece with it. He deliberately leaves in the 'unwanted'
breaks, the mistakes and the faults, but his piece is, at least for me who
heard pretty much everything of his 'old' music, a true delight. Great to
see this on CD and becoming more easy to access, but surely its time to out
some of the older releases and have a nostalgic evening of humming noise.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.23five.org
GUY GELEM - WORKS (CD by Split Femur Recordings)
This is the first release for Guy Gelem, who is a player of the guitar and
the cello, which he plays along with the ticking of beats and perhaps a bit
of synthesizers. I must admit I have rather mixed feelings about this
record. On one hand there is the all too familiar beats from the world of
IDM, think Expanding Records and Highpoint Lowlife, and that is the downside
of this album: that is all very predictable. But there is also the side of
the instruments, the guitar and the cello. They have something interesting
to tell. Dramatic, melodic stuff, atmospheric and joyful. When the beats are
absent, such as in 'Birth' this leads to quite nice music, but with the
beats things are a tad too known ground for me. It's pleasant music, well
recorded, well played but not much news under the sun. But it's the sun that
shines so nice today and sitting back, relaxing, this is entirely great
music to have on. (FdW)
Address: http://www.splitfemurrecordings.com
THE HALFTERS - 60 JAHRE D-MARK (CD by Whatness)
Ruediger-Christian (vocals, guitar), Moabit Klos (vocals, small drum,
cymbal) and Don Aqua (vocals, big drum) is the somewhat unusual line up of
The Halfters. I couldn't find much information on them, and what I found
sounded more like visual artists doing music - not an uncommon thing for
releases on Whatness. I must say that 'outsider' seems right in place here.
The Halfters can't really play. Their acoustic guitar, drums and multitude
of vocals are used to play short, naive songs which sounds partly neue
Deutsche Welle like partly no wave inspired, but then all acoustic. Eighteen
songs in the time span of thirty-four minutes. It was all quite nice, but I
must admit that after twenty minutes I also got their art-prank music point.
Not bad, but perhaps a bit too willfully ignorance around this one. Too
thought out to be truly outside, just a bit too clever. (FdW)
Address: http://www.whatness.de
VINCENT BERGERON - PHILOSOPHIE FANTASMAGORIQUE (CD by Critiques Disques)
Listening to the first track 'Philosophie Fantasmagogique', which has
Bergeron singing solo without any instrumentation, I seriously asked myself:
would I halt if I met Bergeron singing on the street. Asking is answering
this question: No. I probably wouldn't. Bergeron has a very characteristic
voice, but this autodidact from Canada is not a great singer. His singing is
often more close to speaking then anything else. But everything changes from
the second piece 'Je m'imagninais...' In this and all the other songs that
follow, Bergeron supplies his vocals with a very bizarre and unheard
'background' of electro-acoustic sounds and music. Background into brackets,
because he opens new dimensions with his curiously assembled music.
Brilliantly done. He uses many different soundsamples for this music. Often
you recognize concrete instruments, other elements are from electronic
origin or recordings treated beyond recognition. I,m totally impressed by
the carpet he weaves in with
plunderphonic approach. Very original collage work, producing in an highly
imaginative music that is totally fascinating. I would qualify his
compositions as songs in the end. And for some reason I associate them with
the world of opera and musical. The eccentric Bergeron creates energetic and
dramatic music and textures, little psycho-dramas. He sings in french most
of time, sometimes a mixture of french and english. I couldn't make much of
it, but the texts are an important element for Bergeron: "Philosophie
Fantasmagorique was composed with an imaginary movie in mind. It includes a
47 pages movie script about an artist realizing is state of being in a
confusing world. All the lyrics were inspired by the movie script story, but
don't always directly relate to it. The sentences wrote themselves in an
hybrid form of English and French. I got used to this new musicality. This
language approach is not a political statement - but it is if you want it
that way. This project is only
something that I hope suggests new ways to explore and a relief for someone
who don't feel understood in this world (that's why I love songs so much)."
Although exploding with ideas and fantasy, in another way his compositions
work a bit one-dimensional in the end and it becomes a bit of just pushing
buttons. But it is impossible not to be impressed by this often hilarious
music, that is compelling and very listenable. Bergeron is a true original
talent, of a kind that is seldomly met. Watch this guy! (DM)
Address: http://www.critiquesdisques.com
COLORLIST - LISTS (CD by Off/Still)
This one whirls very pleasantly into your room. A true surprise. We are
talking here of a quartet from Chicago who surface with a very nice CD. The
nucleus of this group is made up by Charles Rumback (drums, marimba,
guitars) and Charles Gorzcynski (saxophones, harmonium, synth) accompanied
by Brian Bullard and Matthew Gagnon, and several other guests playing
cellos, guitars, bass clarinet, etc. For me, with a background in a
Canterbury music, this music clearly relates to the world of Hugh Hopper,
Robert Wyatt, Terry Riley, etc. In a postrock way they explore in their
sonic excursions a music that shows many faces: ambient , jazz, rock. The
music is carefully put together. Most tracks move on in a slow pace, paying
attention to atmosphere and mood. This is very intuitive and meditative
music. Modest but very self-consciouss and effective. The pieces have
well-balanced arrangements and they are beautifully colored. Nicely
textured. Electronics and the other instruments are interwoven
organically. This album grows after each listening. Very well done. (DM)
Address: http://www.still.org/
MAJA S.K. RATKJE - RIVER MOUTH ECHOES (CD by Tzadik)
Surprises are always more than welcome. Maja Ratkje on Tzadik? Yes, that is
a surprise. But Ratkje offering a score to 'real' musicians, who play
violins, accordion, alto saxophone and double bass? That is a real surprise.
But you start with 'Ox', which is a pretty noise related piece. More
surprises and confusion. In that piece Ratkje processes the alto-saxophone
playing, along with what seems to be sine waves. The ensembles comes in
action 'River Mouth Echoes', the title piece and 'Waves 11B' which is an
orchestral piece. I must admit that I am no lover of semi-serious (well,
real serious of course) modern classical music, as it works on my nerves too
much. It's surely interesting to hear, because it is written by someone whom
we know from a totally different line of work, but in it self these two
pieces didn't do much for me. It would have been interesting to see a total
translation of Ratkje's noise work for these instruments. The remaining four
pieces, 'Ox' included display this
better. Here the combination of 'real' instruments with the electronic
processing of Ratkje delivers some intense music - even when things are
'soft' such as in 'Sinus Seduction (Moods Two)', the oldest of the pieces in
this collection and with 'Ox' and the dreamy, poetic 'Wintergarden' the best
from this collection. (FdW)
Address: http://www.tzadik.com
SVARTBAG (CD by Rump Recordings)
Although Svartbag was mentioned once in Vital Weekly, in 2003, it was in a
concert announcement, but this trio exists longer, since 1996. Yet this is
the first release on CD. Svartbag hail from Denmark and play guitars and
drums. Loud guitars and drums that is. Minimal too. The five pieces all
dwell around the idea of 'minimal' and 'drone' - welcome to spacerock land.
The guitars are fed through looping devices, which allows the band to built
and built their tracks until the reach a jubilee climax, in which it stays
and plays around. It's Velvet Underground (less vocals) meets LaMonte Young
meets krautrock meet E.A.R. - forty years of drone rock minimalism comes by
on this disc, and as such nothing new but hey, what the hell? This is great,
ecstatic music, reminding me of the good ol Vocokesh and F/i. Pounding
drums, heavy guitars that keep ringing in your ears, all placed around with
great care and style, making a fine album. Perhaps an odd ball for Vital
Weekly, but that might be
what attracts me to this heavy lot. Great late night hazy listening music.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.rump.nu
BRIAN LAVELLE - SUPERNATURALIST (CD by EE Tapes)
There was a time when Brian Lavelle was more active than he is these days.
In fact I can't remember putting on a CD by him in quite some time. Perhaps
it's wrong, but I always lumped Lavelle in with "one of the laptop guys",
but listening to 'Supernatural' I think this might not be the right
approach. Lavelle uses electronics, field recordings, synthesizer, piano and
bass guitar for four lengthy cuts of ambient music. Surely there is some
sort of sound processing going which one could classify as 'laptop'
inspired, but that is only really a small part of Lavelle's music. Take one
of the longest pieces here, 'Citadel', which has a firm cemented foundation
of drone synthesizers and (perhaps processed) piano arpeggio on top. Field
recordings - wind perhaps - take care of the rest. Much more ambient than
glitchy microsound. On 'The Bright Day Is Done' bird twitter take care of
that. Lavelle cleverly avoids the path in the forest that says 'new age' and
follows the path that says 'dark
ambient' - it also a path that can be easily found in the forest of all mood
music, but it's dimly light course is one that we follow much more readily
that than the lighter and brighter (and duller) new age one. Slow music, out
of time, beyond space, simply floating weightless around. Great, maybe not
so surprising, ambient music. Perfect rainy day music; start at twilight
preferably. (FdW)
Address: http://www.eetapes.be
TAPE - MILIEU (2LP by Minority Records)
Let me state that I am not a purist when it comes to the format. I like
vinyl, I like CDs, and, for popmusic only, MP3s, so as far as that I am
happy with 'Milieu' by Tape on CD, as reviewed back in Vital Weekly 399:
"The first CD by Tape was reviewed in Vital Weekly 350 and that CD was
received well (even when I didn't write that review). Tape is a trio of the
brother Berthling (Johan and Andreas) and Tomas Hallonsten. They play a wide
variety of instruments from banjo to computer to harmonium to piano to field
recordings. Slow and peaceful melodies played on acoustic guitar and steel
guitar, while the recordings of domestic sounds hoover somewhere in the
back. They list a number of influences, but of all those, I see Gastr Del
Sol fit best, alongside with Jim O'Rourke's solo work. Eight sketch like
pieces of music, intimate yet powerful. Such diverse elements and yet such a
coherent CD. Maybe what Tape does is not new (see Gastr Del Sol, even when
Tape is full on acoustic), but it'
s
of great beauty. It combines experiment and song structures, it combines
structured composition and improvisation. Less is more is the adagio of this
CD. And of course on Hapna, one of the very few labels that is still worth
collecting." It's still a review to stand by. In the meantime Tape produced
more music, had a remix CD, and toured quite extensively, always displaying
their qualities in a soft, pop tone with enough experimental edges. On this
2LP you'll find the original 'Milieu' album plus four tracks that were
produced around the same time, but were not released on tape. The addition
of some vinyl crackles make this altogether even more charming I think -
this album is pressed on yellow vinyl, which looks great, but may not sound
as the best around. It's a most welcome re-issue, which looks great as a
record of course, but it's the timeless music that really makes the
difference. (FdW)
Address: http://www.minorityrecords.com
RAYMOND DIJKSTRA - DE GEDACHTE (LP by Le Souffleur)
RAYMOND DIJKSTRA - DE GELOFTE (LP by Le Souffleur)
Of course I don't like using swear words, but I do use them, usually English
ones. 'Fucking Hell' is what escaped my mouth when I opened the latest box
by Le Souffleur, the label that almost entirely releases the music of its
owner Raymond Dijkstra. Two identical carton boxes (which were, oddly
enough, called 'cassettes' in the days of classical music) of which the top
lid has red velvet with gold print. Inside a thin piece of paper with the
same information and design. One record is called 'De Gedachte' ('the
thought') and one is 'De Gelofte' ('the vow'). That's about as far as
details go these two records. Like with his previous works, there is a
strong similarity between these two new records, and with the previous
releases, but there is an important difference too. Dijkstra moves glass
over glass, while a sort of harmonium plays sparse notes. That is the same
as before, but the harmonium playing seems to be lesser than on the previous
records. It places an accent and nothing much
else. The glass-on-glass is also more sparse and there is a total lack of
sound effects - before it was an old 'space echo' machine, here it's
entirely gone. I must say that these perhaps minor changes sound like
'nothing' to you, but for me it marks some essential differences. This is
almost total acoustic music, of carefully scraping, scratching and touching
of surfaces. Like before there are great similarities between the two
records now available, but I don't think, in an Organum twist or turn,
Dijkstra is playing the same piece twice, like a strict repeat. More over, I
think he actually does play the same piece twice, but that he executes the
two pieces in slightly different ways - just as a classical piece of music
is never the same thing twice. Panta Rhei is what moves Dijkstra -
everything flows. His music is like a river. It seems the same, but it never
really is. Another two, great pieces of vinyl, and a very consistent oeuvre
is built here. (FdW)
Address: http://www.le-souffleur.nl
RP COLLIER - DECONSTRUCTION OF TWILIGHT (CDR, self-released)
A pretty big gap between the previous 'Map Of The Sky' (see Vital Weekly
495) and this new one 'Deconstruction Of Twilight'. On the first one he
played guitars, thumb piano's and toy synthesizers, here it's entirely
reduced to 'ambient guitar' playing. Collier plays notes, quiet and
peaceful, mostly one by one. Much of what I said before, counts here as
well. Not very unique, and creating music for the sake of creating music
that he probably likes to hear. I stuck this one, and even played it on
repeat. It was nice, not great, but it provided a good background for
whatever I was doing around the house. No great listening concentration was
required. and this is indeed quite alright ambient music: aural wallpaper.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.cdbaby.com/rpcollier2
THEE VIRGINAL BRIDES RE/COLLECTION (CDr by walnut + locust)
Back in the 70s the Glide of the Mini Moog gave a characteristic sound which
now dates it to a distinct period of time. Rec/collection does much the
same, though the period is difficult to pin down it's certainly set towards
the end of the last century. at times industrial, yet at others more
structure rhythmically and compositionally. The usual drone/noise with
spoken texts of some kind of religious incident and O.T. readings. T.V.B.
"started in May 2006. A new experiment in droning electronics - the
brainchild of AlBéRiCk, Andy and Oren." but nothing new - only nostalgia. So
lets propose a watershed, a revolution, something new to make noise about -
for industrial is dead! I visited my home town of Birmingham last weekend
which at one time like many cities in northern Europe had its share of old
disused factories- but they are gone - replaced with apartment developments,
wine bars and bistros, secure gated car parking and video entry phones,
along what was once the old disused
canals young professionals sit in cafés drinking Belgian beer or latte, or
jog along the towpath- the old post sorting office is a shopping arcade -
Hugo Boss and Harvey Nics.. so perhaps industrial music like its landscapes
is a thing of a nostalgic past? (jliat)
Address www.myspace.com/theevirginalbrides
QUIET AMERICAN - TURNS IN THE SOUTH (2CDR, private release)
Under the guise of Quiet American, Aaron Ximm releases music that is largely
built from field recordings, with just a little bit of sound processing or
the addition of other sounds. His field recordings are made during trips he
makes into Asia, an area of the world I haven't seen or heard myself. Ximm's
music are like 'soundwalks', in which he walks through a city and tapes
whatever he hears. Some pieces are looped such as the call and response in
'Prelude: Tamil Nadu'. It's a very hypnotic piece of music, trance like, but
subtly changing all the time. The call and response go on for some time,
cars pass, people talk, more cars pass along and then we arrive in the
middle of the city with some pop music, which takes us into the next piece
'Madurai Mani Fold', which is the only 'electronic' piece on this four
track, double CDR (which spans 150 minutes!). The short sounds are on repeat
mode and drift in and out of the mix, changing microscopically, and sounds
like an electronic Steve
Reich piece. 'Four Organs' but then on acid. That would have been enough for
me, but there is two discs in the box, and the second takes the sound walk
again, with some voices that call for prayer (it seems), along with some
very low end drone like sounds. Ximm follows here the same process as on the
first piece on the other disc, so it's a bit hard to relate to that again.
When I was playing this, sunday, it was the first day when temperature in
The Netherlands was over 20 degrees and it felt like a small holiday.
Closing the eyes and hearing these sounds, while mildly sweating doing
nothing, give me the impression of being in Asia. I swear I could almost
smell spices and nice food. As such Ximm succeeds well in telling us a
'story' or rather making the impression through 'audio' of what we could
see. I think one disc is great, and two is a bit too much however. (FdW)
Address: http://www.quietamerican.org
ELEKTRICITEIT = ONZE HOBBY - IK HOOR DE MUZIEK NIET (CDR by Heilskabaal
Records)
This is the follow-up to 'Diodeneiland', a 3" CDR released by Audio Office
Records (see Vital Weekly 617) of the collective called Elektriciteit = Onze
Hobby, who played together in concert on february 8, 2008. Like before they
handed the audio files to Kasper van Hoek for mixing and editing of the
material. More than the previous, or so we are lead to believe, this is an
album of them playing together on their modified electronic toy instruments
with less extensive than before. And that is something that can
unfortunately be heard here. The pieces here are more of an improvised
nature, haphazard like played, all over the place. The third (untitled)
piece reminded me, mainly through the singing, of music by The Hitmachine:
the rhythmmachine ticking the beat, fucked up electronica and speak singing
in a silly, childish way. Listening to the lyrics, this might be the title
track of the release. I think I prefer the more extensive editing and making
this into a more coherent musical
enterprise than this rather free form play. The cover, a booklet with
drawings by all five members is however much nicer than the previous. Time
to find the balance between the two. (FdW)
Address: http://www.heilskabaal.net
LUPUS GOLEM - PERSUADED BY THE MAN WHO ATE THE PHOENIX (CDR by Twilight
Luggage)
KALLSUP - ABOVE THE MOUNTAINS (MP3 by Twilight Luggage)
TORSTEIN WJIIK - FOGGY FOREST (MP3 by Twilight Luggage)
On a new label two releases which involve Scandinavian musicians. The first
is a trio of Hans Kristian Senneseth, Bjorn Kare Berntsen and Andreas
Brandal, who go by the name of Lupus Golem. They play drums, guitar,
recorder, bass and A largely unadorned field recording made while motoring
on a slow-moving houseboat through the famous backwaters of Kerala. One late
afternoon we passed a succession of speakers broadcasting prayers from a
temple at a bend in the canal... Children run along the bank to engage us;
the crew passes the time.
keyboards and the three tracks they recorded show them as a heavy noise
rock band. Feedback flies about while the drums are pounding away like the
step of some heavy Norwegian troll stamping on the ground. Psychedelically
inspired by heavy weight krautrockers, they find as much inspiration in
Sonic Youth or Glenn Branca. After the forty minutes are over one feels only
emptiness, while, oddly enough also full of adrenaline.
As a MP3 comes the release by Kallsup, which is Oscar Jacobson, who is also
a member of Paragraphia and Royal Train, both of which I never heard.
Kallsup means 'mouthful of water' in Sweden and Jacobson works with
feedback. Although Kallsup likes to put up a fair amount of noise, feeding
feedback to the lions of distortion, things work best when he manages to
keep the volume a bit more down for example in the closing 'Last Broadcast'.
Kallsup doesn't always work out his ideas, but rather goes for the full
effect of his noise: the right in your brain stabbing. But I think the
effect of the music can be much better if Kallsup would decide to actually
start composing with the sound, rather than just playing it.
Also as a MP3 is the latest work by Torstein Wjiik, also known as Kjetil
Hanssen. So far much of his work dealt with true, loud noise, but in 'Foggy
Forest' he takes matters into a new territory, and I must say I enjoyed this
much more than much more than any of his previous material. Using voice and
electronics, Wjiik cooks up a forty some minute work of slowly evolving dark
rumble. Feeding his voice, merely producing wind sounds it seems to me,
through what seems some simple audio processors and the end result is a deep
dark ambient piece with some of the more rougher edges than is common in
this area, mainly through some sparse outbursts in the noise end of it.
Perhaps a bit too long, as I can imagine this trimmed down to a nice 3"CDR.
Way to go, Torstein! (FdW)
Address: http://www.twilightluggage.com
UBEBOET - PRAETER (3"CDR by Con-V)
Apart from running the Con-V label Miguel A. Tolosa is also active as a
musician under the guise of Ubeboet. His releases so far has been on CDR and
MP3 formats and he has worked with people like Pablo Reche and Asher. That
might already give you some clue in which direction this goes. The two
pieces here deal with field recordings made in various places in Spain and
opens with a voice singing in what appears to be a church. The following
drones might be taken from a church organ. Both pieces have this angelic
feeling to it. Ubeboet's music was previously a bit more roughly shaped than
the regular drone posse, but here he finds himself along the lines of say
Paul Bradley or Jonathan Coleclough and I must say that, while I don't think
it's all very 'new', this direction suits him better. Dark ambient drone
music, made through digital sound manipulation - but Ubeboet does a very
fine job. Can't understand why he should only want to make twenty-five
copies of this release, as it seems
to
me that more people should be hearing this. (FdW)
Address: http://www.con-v.org
M. SWIEZYNSKI - FILMS 2007 (DVD-R, private release)
It is of course highly flattering that people think that when we write about
music all week, we also might have an opinion on video art or literature.
Can't speak for the others on board, but I am no such homo universalis. I
like to think I know a bit about music, but that's about it. So what can I
do with the DVD-R of M. Swiezyniski, which contains eight films? I can view
them, think about them, even tell you wether I liked them or not, but I
can't say much of how it was made or in what sort of tradition it stands in
the world of film, abstract or not. His films are slow, minimal pictures.
Sometimes it looks like a picture such as 'This Invisible Art Of Memory -
Magic Hour Number 1', with a dark drone like piece of music as it's
soundtrack. I think, it seems, that Swiezynski holds his camera onto a
surface, say a river stream, and films the automated movements of water
passing and then through computer technology changes the color or the speed
to make things partly more abstract and
partly still recognizable what it is. Dreamlike sequences, but which are
very dark. Black, grey, and white are the colors for most of the films. The
best one I thought was 'Mysterious And Invisible', with shot of a forest at
dawn with occasional lights and the in the second part water that moves like
sun light. Music for this film is by Asher. So I quite enjoyed the images on
this disc, but I couldn't possibly say if they are original or new, or from
which tradition they stem from. All I can say is that I enjoyed them. (FdW)
Address: http://theartofmemory.blogspot.com
ROBERTAS KUNDROTAS & GINTAS K - SEPTYNI TILTAI PASAULIO CENTRE (MP3 by
Zeromoon)
The title translates as 'Seven Bridges In The Centre Of The World' and
brings together Lithuania's most active force of laptop glitch, Gintas K,
together with Robertos Kundrotas, who can be held responsible for bringing
new music (as in Vital's world) to the same country, since a long time, when
he started to publish 'Tango' (in 1990). In October 2007 the two of them
performed at an audiovisual poetry festival 'Tarp: Vasaros 5' in Vilnius.
It's a bit hard to say what the texts are about. They are not easy to
understand, even if I would speak Lithuanian. The voice is pushed to the
back and Gintas waves over it a network of sounds - starting rhythmically
but slowly more and more heavy sounds drop in, like washes from the sea
until the voice has entirely disappeared. Towards the end it returns and
things seem to come to a natural conclusion. Quite a heavy piece, which is
unmistakably a live recording which could have perhaps trimmed down a bit
more, but nevertheless is a well rounded
piece. (FdW)
Address: http://www.zeromoon.com
1. From: Benjamin Gwilliam <info@thosesoundsbetween.co.uk>
eine kleine musik
Ben Gwilliam
Artists Unlimited Galerie
2-25 May 2008
opening Fr 2. May, 19.00
'eine kleine musik' is soundartist Ben Gwilliam's first German solo show,
a culmination of a three month residency at Artists Unlimited e.V,
Bielefeld.
Saturday 3rd may:
CD Launch of 'fourmill plus aquarterinch'- Lemke Gwilliam on NurNichtNur.
Performances from;
Helmut Lemke + Ben Gwilliam,
Hans-Wilhelm Specht +Henning Schweichel
19.00 Filmhaus, August-Bebel Strasse 94, Bielefeld
Artist Unlimited e.V
Viktoriastrasse 24,
33602 Bielefeld
artistsunlimited.de
nurnichtnur.com
2. From: Schreck Ensemble <schreck@xs4all.nl>
S C H R E C K : ' L a L o n t a n a n z a '
On May the 28th the Schreck Ensemble presents an exceptional programme:
La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura by the eminent Italian composer
Luigi Nono, seldom performed in The Netherlands, and a new concert version
of the special and magical 'Nuctemeron', a theatrical piece by Hans van Eck
based on an antique alchemistic text.
The common theme of the two works is 'travel':
Hans van Eck's Nuctemeron offers a trip to the unknown parts of the mind
while Luigi Nono portrays to the listener a lonely violinist dwelling in the
unfamiliar landscape of sounds coming from 8 speakers positioned around the
hall in his 'La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura'.
A unique performance not to be missed.
Performers:
Caroline Erkelens - voice and gong
Tiziana Pintus - violin
Ainhoa Miranda Gimenez - bass clarinet, alto clarinet b-flat clarinet
Arie van Schutterhoef - stratifier
Hans van Eck - composition and mixing
Jan-Kees van Kampen - computers
Place and time:
Het Bethaniënklooster
Barndesteeg 6B
1012 BV Amsterdam
T +31 (0)20 - 625 00 78
28th of may 2008, 20.15
Tickets are available at the hall's ticket office and at schreck@xs4all.nl
EUR 12,- / students EUR 6,-
Information and music examples:
www.schreck.nl/eng/agenda.html
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