VITAL WEEKLY
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number 627
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week 20
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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
There will be no Vital Weekly in week 22, so make sure that announcements
are here on time.
ALAN LICHT & AKI ONDA - EVERYDAYS (CD by Family Vineyard) *
AIDAN BAKER/LEAH BUCKAREFF/NADJA - TRINITY (CD by Die Stadt)
{{{SUNSET}}} - BRIGHT BLUE DREAM (CD by Autobus Records) *
DIE SCHRAUBER - LIVE IN MEXICO CITY (CD by Acheulian Handaxe) *
GOLDEN SERENADES / SEWER ELECTION & TRERIKSRÖSET (CD by Roggbif Records)
MACHINEFABRIEK & JAN KLEEFSTRA - PIIPTSJILLING (CD by Onomatopee) *
SIMON WICKHAM-SMITH - LOVE & LAMENTATION (CD by Pogus Productions) *
ARTURAS BUMSTEINAS - BLUR (CD by Galerie Antjewachs) *
CIRCLE X - PREHISTORY (CD by Blue Chopsticks) *
HE CAN JOG - MIDDLEMARCH (CD by Audiobulb) *
SKIF++ - SK++[01, 02, 03, 04, 00] (CD by Fridgesound) *
ALEPH-1 - X1 (CD by Ideal Recordings)
V. SJÖBERG NEW JAZZ ENSEMBLE - DO NOTHING 'TIL YOU HEAR FROM ME (CD by Ideal
Recordings) *
MATTIAS PETERSSON - FLOODLIGHT (CD by Ideal Recordings)
O.S.T. - WAETKA (CD by Ideal Recordings)
PALE MAN MADE - OH, MY TREASURED THINGS (CD by Pinch)
FEU FOLLET - PARADIS PAYSAN (CDR by Gruenrekorder) *
VINEX - NEDERWIJK (CDR, private)
HOMETOWN FEILDING - SIMULATIONS (CDR by Free Software Series) *
MIGUEL PRADO - DIOS ABORRECE UNA SINGULARIDAD DESNUDA (CDR by Free Software
Series)
(VXPXC) - SELF-STORAGE (CDR by Gold Sounds)
TEXTURED BIRD TRANSMISSION - PANDA READS ON STAGGERED CRYSTAL SEAS (CDR by
Gold Sounds) *
CRITICAL MESS #1 (CDR by Gold Sounds)
BIRTH CERTIFICATE (CDR by I, Absentee)
KATE CARR - FIRST DAY BACK (CDR by Retinascan) *
EVERY KID ON SPEED - TRAKTOR (2x3"CDR by Retinascan)
BEEQUEEN - LONG STONES AND CIRCLES (3" CDR by Moll)
ALAN LICHT & AKI ONDA - EVERYDAYS (CD by Family Vineyard)
At first sight I thought this was an odd pairing. Alan Licht's guitar work
is not always the most subtle around, but then Onda's cassettes and
electronics isn't the loudest around. But then on the other hand both love
tape techniques to alter sound and both love to improvise, so that's perhaps
already common ground enough to work together. Onda's cassettes with field
recordings acting as a diary offers a wealth of material to use and Licht's
looped guitar plays both the minimalist patterns and the most thunderous
storms, such as in 'Ship Shape'. This album was recorded in the studio,
which is something that can be heard: in the process of mixing the album
(which they, curious enough, didn't do themselves) a fine balance is made
between all the sounds. The horns in 'Tiptoe' and the guitar pattern and
bird twitter make a fine dense textured piece until the guitar remains solo.
It's the best out of five, along with the opening 'Tick Tock', as one of the
best, with stuttering sounds over
a bed of drones. The other pieces are nice as well, with two 'loud' pieces
and three more subdued pieces, the latter of course pieces that did more to
me than the louder ones. A good solid work this work, rich of ideas, perfect
in execution. (FdW)
Address: http://www.familyvineyard.com
AIDAN BAKER/LEAH BUCKAREFF/NADJA - TRINITY (CD by Die Stadt)
Die Stadt always takes great care of their artists. Once you belong to the
label, the label will carry all your releases, and when in Bremen, Stadt of
Die Stadt, the artists will play and there is a CD for the occasion. This
trinity of a matter of one plus one is three. Nadja is the duo of Leah
Buckareff and Aidan Baker, so they can do three things on the same night. On
April 20th (a day with historic significance... Bebe Barron died that day
this year for instance) they visited Bremen and on 'Trinity' there are two
solo pieces and one duo piece. It's interesting to see how things add up, or
perhaps don't. Nadja is in full form here, with a loud rocking piece: the
drum machine hammers time away, while guitar and bass play distorted,
meanwhile looping their sound. A strong 'hole' in the sound adds an odd
angle to the piece. A far cry away from Baker's solo piece, made of
carefully strummed guitars which are looped around. Drones are faded in over
the course of ten minutes and things
remain subtle. In the middle, literally, is Buckareff solo for bass. Also
starting out quiet things are unmistakably but the distortion pedal is
already lurking underneath and adds a more noisy tone to the music. If these
names don't mean anything to you, but see their music all around, then this
is absolutely a fine place to start. Trademark pieces everywhere. (FdW)
Address: http://www.diestadtmusik.de
{{{SUNSET}}} - BRIGHT BLUE DREAM (CD by Autobus Records)
Some singer/song writer stuff this week, and perhaps its time to make clear,
once again, that Vital Weekly may have a wide taste in music, there are
limits. If things are too 'normal' then it will be hard to make proper
judgments, since we are not experts in the field of normal music.
{{{Sunset}}} is the project of Bill Baird, who was once a member of Sound
Team and this is first real CD, following three CDR releases. He writes his
tunes on a piano or keyboards and sings along. A band backs him up on bass,
drums and guitars, but they are there to accompany him. Much what I write
elsewhere (which I wrote before these lines) applies here, but I must say
that Baird's music is something I like better. His voice is better, his
lyrics are in english (obviously) and the music is recorded much better -
not a home demo quality, but good quality music that is vaguely (post-)
rock, pop and a bit of experimentalism. Nice enough to be entertaining for
how long it lasts, but beyond that not
something I'd play very often. (FdW)
Address: http://www.autobusrecs.com
DIE SCHRAUBER - LIVE IN MEXICO CITY (CD by Acheulian Handaxe)
On all accounts something I never heard of before. Die Schrauber is a trio
of Hans Tammen (from New York), Joker Nies (from Cologne) and Mario de Vega
(Mexico). They all play electronics, be it in combination with the guitar
(like Tammen), circuit bending (Nies) or through self built audio software
(de Vega). Tammen released a recording they made in Mexico on his own, new
label Acheulian Handaxe. Each of the players has a solo piece, and there is
a lengthy trio piece at the beginning. Thirty minutes of improvised
electronic music. Music which is not always easy to follow, and which may
have been edited in stead of the full set, as it would have made a stronger
piece. The solo pieces are nice, especially the more quiet Joker Nies, with
more empty spaces in between the sounds and Tammen's guitar piece, which
also deals with some quieter sounds. A lengthy release of difficult music.
Maybe the blaring sun melted my mind while hearing and trying to concentrate
on this. (FdW)
Address: http://www.tammen.org/cds.html
GOLDEN SERENADES / SEWER ELECTION & TRERIKSRÖSET (CD by Roggbif Records)
This is classical noise- can I use the term? - then I will define it - is
essentially a (binary) dualism (of two sounds - though infinite via rhizomic
mitosisc bifurcation) which is fundamental to any ontology, at its most
univocal a deleuzian difference, of two, yoni, ass, hole, holy of holy's,
the creative vacuum of expansion(big bang), procreation, oedipal desire of
capitalism - and its alternative - the lingam, phallocentric, narcissistic
masturbatory, ouroboros, cyclicality, unity, infinity of the möbius
(feedback!), which unlike the multifaceted tonality of *music* is in
classical noise TWO - the deep bass of processed expansive white noise -
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvWHnK2FiCk) and the (prick! of) high
pitched feedback loop. This is why noise unlike music is non-colonial non
territorializing and non metaphorical - it is the actuality of immanence. It
does not explain the cosmos of being but it is its actuality and is present
here in this CD of two remarkable
pieces of noise. It therefore lies beyond the horizon of criticism -
actually enfolds criticism, I was depressed on Tuesday, today is Wednesday
and I've listened to this masterwork, the world is changed, there is a new
reality- this reality. A brilliant, brilliant work - a thousand suns. Now I
suppose to help anyone not yet convinced I should mention that there are two
live tracks - long structures of feedback and noise *and nothing else* (and
so everything else) - no compromise from John Hegre (Jazzkammer/Jazkamer)
Jørgen Træen (are Golden Serenades), Dan Johansson (is Sewer Election) and
Tommy Carlsson (is Treriksröset) "kalo'smi." (jliat)
Address: http://www.roggbif.com
MACHINEFABRIEK & JAN KLEEFSTRA - PIIPTSJILLING (CD by Onomatopee)
One part of the Netherlands is Friesland and there they don't have their own
dialect, but their own language. A language that I can't understand. Jan
Kleefstra writes his poetry in this language, and here he teams up with the
omnipresent Rutger Zuydervelt, also known as Machinefabriek. Translation in
dutch and english are provided, so we know that the poetry of Kleefstra is
not a very bright one - loneliness, emptiness, autumn and death are some of
his topics. Zuydervelt seemingly plays only guitar. A few sparse notes,
repeated over and over and waving around in a bath of reverb and echo, this
is quite desolate music. Kleefstra's sombre recitation, which are short and
Zuydervelt's tinkling guitar and whatever else is running (violin?) that
continues until it has changed a bit (or more) and then Kleefstra recites
another poem. Again there is a slight connection to be made to the music of
Oren Ambarchi, but Zuydervelt plays more notes, I guess. Not exactly the
sort of music for sun
burning spring day, but more for grey clouds and autumn rain. One set apart
for short days to come. Very delicate shades of grey. (FdW)
Address: http://www.onomatopee.net
SIMON WICKHAM-SMITH - LOVE & LAMENTATION (CD by Pogus Productions)
It must have been quite some years since I last heard music by Simon
Wickham-Smith, but there was a time when I played it a lot, especially the
various albums he recorded with Richard Youngs. But I guess that's how
things go. Interest shifts I assume. To be honest, again, I have no idea
when I left off, or why. But its good, as well as strange perhaps to see him
back on Pogus Productions. On the cover I read that 'not satisfied with
making music, he has also been a Buddhist monk in the Tibetan tradition, and
is also a translator and scholar of Mongolian and Tibetan literature. Maybe
that's why there hasn't been much of his music in recent years. Its not easy
to describe the music of Wickham-Smith, both from how it was made and how it
sounds. Perhaps he uses a computer to alter his sounds, but I tend to
believe that's only in the final stage of the process. I envisage his music
as generated with lo-fi means: worn out cassettes, cheap samplers,
reel-to-reel tape loops. There are three
pieces on this album, all of which seem to be dealing with voices, altered
and otherwise. Wickham-Smith takes these, makes loops out of them and crafts
a minimalist changing pattern with them. Through the various techniques,
which I hope to be lo-fi as outlined before, the sounds are a bit hissy,
static, crumbled, warped, folded and of a lower resolution. Chanting like in
'Sandokai' or the three parts of the title piece, or more poetry spoken word
in 'The Kin-Kindness Of Beforehand', this is all excellent stuff, bringing
back the good memories of his older work (which, if Vital Weekly wouldn't
consume so much of my ear-time, I would grab out and play again).
Wickham-Smith's music is like an anthropologic quest for voices connected of
rituals, all over the world, from Tibet to Egypt, but he manages to give
things a twist of his own, while maintaining a zen-like character to them.
Great one. (FdW)
Address: http://www.pogus.com
ARTURAS BUMSTEINAS - BLUR (CD by Galerie Antjewachs)
Recently Dutch TV showed 'Silence Of The Lambs', 'Hannibal' and 'Red Dragon'
in three nights and especially the first one is an absolute master piece
which I love and can watch over and over again. The first time I show it, I
taped on my video but due to a wrong setting, I missed out the very last bit
('miss sterling, there is a phone call for you' was the last thing) and I
had to phone a friend and ask him what happened next. Why this petite
histoire? I also missed out the end sequence music. Something that I
wouldn't care about, but Arturas Bumsteinas took the end sequences of all
five Hannibal Lecter movies to create this CD. Damn it, I wish I paid more
attention so I would know more what exactly Bumsteinas did on his CD. A
short CD, lasting under thirty minutes, he plays some creepy music. As
creepy as some of the film sequences I imagine. Long sustaining violin like
tones that above all shout 'suspense, suspense'. Carefully he has processed
these sounds into perfect horror movie
music. It's paid by gallery, but it almost sound a like letter to solicit as
soundtrack musician in Hollywood. Graeme Revell did make it there, so why
not Bumsteinas? With this at his hand he could hardly miss the opportunity.
More likely this is one of his conceptual approaches to music, and where
others fail at the job, Bumsteinas succeeds in playing some nice ambient
related glitch music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.antjewachs.de
CIRCLE X - PREHISTORY (CD by Blue Chopsticks)
One of the last few labels of which I wanted to buy everything they released
is Dexter's Cigar, a label run by Jim O'Rourke and David Grubbs. They were
together as Gastr Del Sol and a great taste in music, re-releasing old and
forgetting music of all kind, including Derek Bailey, Voice Crack and Circle
X. I remember the latter from the 80s, just as a name, but never hearing
their music. But ten years ago, Dexter's Cigar re-released their self titled
EP and I got acquainted with their unconventional rock music. I didn't
realize (or perhaps didn't think of it) that there would be more music, but
'Prehistory' is their first album (they released also some 7"s and in 1994
an album before splitting up in 1995 when guitarist Bruce Witsiepe died).
Usually when a label says 'sounds like nothing else' then you bet that's
untrue, except when the labelboss is David Grubbs - now on his own with Blue
Chopsticks - you can only know he's right. The six pieces carved on this CD
come from punk rock
(volume!, aggression!!), but at the same time also from no wave and
improvisation. Maybe the Swans come close, maybe Sonic Youth, all of whom
started a little bit later than this album, which was recorded in 1981.
Sometimes Tony Pinotti's voice is like a cry, a howl, a scratch, feeding
through echo, lyrics rendered beyond recognition, while the rhythm section
hammers away and the guitar has a free role. Strange elements leak through
in the mix - did I mention that psychedelic music is certainly an influence
too? I did, now. Above all this is angry music from an angry generation in a
totally different time frame - well, perhaps that's why it fits so fine in
these scary times too. Essential re-issue! (FdW)
Address: http://www.bluechopsticks.org
HE CAN JOG - MIDDLEMARCH (CD by Audiobulb)
A bit euh... silly. He Can Jog is an anagram of John Cage. It's the name
chosen by Erik Schoster from Madison, Wisconsin. He studied composition and
improvisation and plays with Cedar AV. His music is entirely made on the
computer, and if you know what this label released before then you may
already have an idea what he Can Jog is about. Bouncy beats, here even more
than elsewhere, samples of guitars, voices, a bit of ambient. If I honest I
say that I was reading this mornings newspaper when I put this on and I
thought it was quite alright background music, but when I started writing,
replaying, and listening more carefully, I thought it was a bit less than
what I first anticipated. It sounds all a bit worn out. The Oval approaches,
the Fennesz bendings, the IDM broken beats, the funny weirdness. Maybe I am
getting too old for this line of musical business, but however nice this is,
it just didn't do too much for me. (FdW)
Address: http://www.audiobulb.com
SKIF++ - SK++[01, 02, 03, 04, 00] (CD by Fridgesound)
Some weeks ago I reviewed the very first solo CD by Robert van Heumen, and
wrote that he's, among the many other things he does, a member of Skif++.
There is now a CD available by this group, which is Van Heumen on a laptop
playing LiSa, Jeff Carey (whom you may know as 87 Central, who plays with
Super Collidor on his laptop)) and Bas van Koolwijk who plays with Jitter
and is responsible for the groups' visual side. The recordings were already
made in 2006, but it took some cross-atlantic mixing as Van Heumen lives in
Amsterdam and Carey in Washington. This is a typical work of the improvising
computer laptoposse. Things beep, scratch, hiss and meow about in a brittle,
fast manner, but Skif++ is all to aware of the trap of unlistenable noise
music generated with too many ones and zeroes. Hence the extensive editing
process applied to this music makes this so much stronger than your average
laptop doodling. Skif++ knows how to pull back gear and play a piece that is
softer, with even
a
hint of melody such as in '02'. On other occassions things seem to explode
and large, extensive clouds fly over, like over the flat Dutch ground. But
here too things never become boring or long. Skif++ knows when to pull back,
make a move, a new gesture and offer new insights. Also on the CD is a film
by Bas van Koolwijk, which gives us the exact representation, I think, of
what Skif++'s music looks like: academic and in a odd, fresh way, also old
fashioned, but then entirely updated to these times. Get my drift? (FdW)
Address: http://hardhatarea.com/fridgesound/
ALEPH-1 - X1 (CD by Ideal Recordings)
V. SJÖBERG NEW JAZZ ENSEMBLE - DO NOTHING 'TIL YOU HEAR FROM ME (CD by Ideal
Recordings)
MATTIAS PETERSSON - FLOODLIGHT (CD by Ideal Recordings)
O.S.T. - WAETKA (CD by Ideal Recordings)
One of the busiest men around is of course Carsten Nicolai, who travels the
seven seas to do his music, his art installations and his label. Normally as
Carsten Nicolai or as Alva Noto, he shows up here as Aleph-1, in which he
plays with "electronic music acoustic sound aesthetics that was especially
developed for the IDEAL Recordings label", inspired by the theories of
mathematician Georg Cantor. Here Nicolai samples acoustic material, and
plays around them in an electronically treated way. Music that has no
dramatic change, or structure, they simply fade in and out. Once it is
there, the material bounces around in a highly minimalist manner. Slow pulse
music that certainly has a groove, but it's too slow to move your feet to.
Feet tapping music or head nod music. The difference with the material
recorded as Alva Noto is minor but essential. As Alva Noto things are
entirely electronic, and here the source is acoustic, even when it's hard if
impossible to figure out what the hell
those acoustic sources are. Nice mellow pulse music that is not super great,
but quite pleasant to hear.
Let's have a quick listen to V. Sjöberg New Jazz Ensemble, as I bet it's
something for our more Jazz inspired man Dolf Mulder, is what I thought. But
I realized I heard music by Sjöberg before: 'On A Winter's Day' was reviewed
in Vital Weekly 525. Here he teams up with indeed an ensemble, including
musicians on guitar, drums, vibraphone, kalimba, laptops and more. He calls
it new jazz because 'It is just a humble comment on the sad fact that a lot
of the time the word jazz is very limiting, both in the mind of the consumer
and from the point of view of the musician/producer', but to my ears it has
very little to do with jazz. Even the fact that this is a larger group at
work is something that can be heard on the album. Whatever was recorded with
the ensemble, this all sounds like Sjöberg took matters a bit further. Very
lush ambient sound (Ideal sells it as 'ambient acoustic jazz', which in fact
sounds like a good description). The band plays long sustaining sounds, with
'free'
elements mixed in quite softly, but throughout computer processing in good
microsound fashion plays an important role. Very relaxing music that owes
much more to good ol' laptop music, just like his previous release and one
should take the word 'jazz' with a pinch of salt.
Along similar lines of these two albums on Ideal Recordings we can also
place the album of one Mattias Petersson, but his music goes into a
different direction than Sjöberg or Nicolai, although working principles may
be the same. Taking acoustic sounds, treating them in an electronic way and
creating music with that. Like Nicolai we can't know (perhaps not allowed to
know) what the sound sources are as the level of processing is quite high,
until we hear a piano note, well into the album. Petersson likes things
noisy and gritty which sets him apart from the two previous albums, but
there is something about the digital sounding album that I don't like very
well. It sounds all a bit too much computer processing with rough edged
sounds, and not softly shaped ones, which adds too many graininess to the
sounds certainly in the first two and the last track. It's all too regular
playing of noise meeting acoustic sounds, looped around in an easy fashion.
Not bad, not great. 5 our of 10
rating.
Its been years and years since I last heard O.S.T., also known as Chris
Douglas, who was last reviewed in Vital Weekly 304. That album was quite
nice compared to the other one, back in Vital Weekly 221. I have no idea
what he did in the years in between, but his music certainly progressed. He
holds the middle position in these four Ideal releases. Much alike the
others he processes all sorts of sound material (acoustic, perhaps), loops
it around, adding sound effects (through plug ins or outboard) and the
outcome is softer than Petersson and louder than Sjöberg, with a nod towards
ambient industrial music: the moody, dark atmospheric textures fly about
here and make a great soundtrack (nodding to the band name) for road movies
along the industrial wasteland of a post nuclear attack. Nice dark
atmospheres, isolationist music. (FdW)
Address: http://www.idealrecordings.com
PALE MAN MADE - OH, MY TREASURED THINGS (CD by Pinch)
'When was the last time you were excited by a new album by a band who are
'truly' independent?', the press blurb asks me. Well, read Vital Weekly and
you know the answer is: every day. But then these are really, truly (without
'') independent, which in the case of Pale Man Made is something I doubt.
They hail from beautiful Newcastle and are a rock band. Oops, alternative
rock band. 'Blending together influences from The Fall and their favorite
c86 bands (if you don't know what those are, never mind, you're too young
and too hooked to Vital Weekly), the band has developed their own unique
gritty sound'. Hardly. Quite ordinary rock music with some New Wave/Post
punk influences, me thinks. Let's quickly return to our usual program. (FdW)
Address: <pinchrecordings@hotmail.co.uk>
FEU FOLLET - PARADIS PAYSAN (CDR by Gruenrekorder)
Tobias Fischer's Feu Follet project has so far a nice bunch of releases - or
rather a bunch of nice releases on his own Einzeleinheit label, but also for
others. Here, on Gruenrekorder, presented with a great, professional cover,
he presents us one piece in five distinctive parts. Fischer belongs to the
young and exciting new drone musicians from Germany, next to say Ex
Ovo/Mirko Uhlig. The way they handle their material is great. There is lots
of space, sometimes in a literal way such as the opening bird sounds here,
through carefully constructed drones, probably constructed on the computer,
but there is always that bit of extra, like a looped cricket sound, a
sorrowing organ, or even Asmus Tietchens' like sound processing. That gives
the music an extra bite which is sometimes missed in some of the other drone
musicians. A fine solid work, with fine dynamics, changes in all the right
places and throughout a very fine release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.gruenrekorder.de
VINEX - NEDERWIJK (CDR, private)
The Dutch language is not really suitable for singing and Vinex, a solo
project by Michiel van de Weerthof, who plays all the instruments, which he
builds himself along with the addition of drums, xylofoon, bass and
recorder. Vinex is the sub-urban living areas in the Netherlands.
'Nederwijk' is his second release and has eight pieces of singer song writer
material. The pieces are pretty long, lyrics are in dutch. It's not your
average Vital Weekly material, or actually mine average listening. I like
pop music, but when vocals become important, it takes a good voice to sing
them, and unfortunately Weerthof doesn't have a great voice. His music
(instruments and vocals) aren't too well recorded, a bit muffled, so it's
hard to decipher the lyrics (I recognized a campfire somewhere in 'Gat In De
Weg') and the production could have used more clarity, even when some of
pieces could be great instrumental songs, such as the minimalism of
'Puddingbroodje'. Not exactly my tea, right. Probably
it's not bad, but its too much 'kleinkunst' as it is called in The
Netherlands and that's something I have little to no interest in. (FdW)
Address: http://www.michielvandeweerthof.nl
HOMETOWN FEILDING - SIMULATIONS (CDR by Free Software Series)
MIGUEL PRADO - DIOS ABORRECE UNA SINGULARIDAD DESNUDA (CDR by Free Software
Series)
The noise in the Free Software Series, curated by Mattin, are passed on to
Jliat, but the series is not about noise only. It's basically music made
with software which can be found online. Hometown Feilding is Mark Sadgrove
from New Zealand and he uses 'csound running on Ubuntu Linux' and the
listener is urged to make copies of the music. Sadgrove lives these days in
Tokyo where he runs the super-small label A Binary Datum, and he is one of
those younger composers from New Zealand who has turned the country's lo-fi
into the computer. I have no idea what his sound input is here, but maybe
it's all highly processed internal feedback, but Sadgrove is not the man to
use some noise blast but creates quite a clever, softer version of it. In
each of the pieces he has a few sounds running but he knows how to play
around with them and creates an ever changing pattern with them. Loud enough
to avoid the traps of microsound, soft enough to keep things interesting,
from low rumbling bass sounds
to crackling high end sounds. A consistent, intelligent disc.
On Miguel Prado's (a new name for me) disc 'Dios Aborrece Una Singularidad
Desnuda' the slide guitar 'recorded with Ardour by Roberto Mallo, edited
with Audacity under Debian' is used. The liner notes are in Spanish, so a
bit hard to read for me. Although Prado doesn't put up a bunch of noise
either, I am less excited about this release. The slide guitar is played -
well, perhaps, but its hard to decipher in the crumbed and muffled
processings that are used here. A bit chaotic these 'edits' with much
attention to all the sounds that were dropped in but didn't seem to have a
place of its own, i.e. the unwanted side sounds of recording the slide.
Including a piece of what seems silence, this is all a bit too much of a
random approach for me. Too much loose improvisation over an undefined set
of sounds. (FdW)
Address: http://www.freesoftwareseries.org
(VXPXC) - SELF-STORAGE (CDR by Gold Sounds)
TEXTURED BIRD TRANSMISSION - PANDA READS ON STAGGERED CRYSTAL SEAS (CDR by
Gold Sounds)
CRITICAL MESS #1 (CDR by Gold Sounds)
Sindre Bjerga's Gold Sounds label exists for quite some time now, and his
releases are packed in true underground fashion - xeroxed, hand painted. The
first one is by (VxPxC), a trio of Justin McInteer, Grant Capes and Tim
Goodwillie, of whom we reviewed 'Chinatown Noise-cut' in Vital Weekly 577.
Whereas that previous involved some percussion like work, that seems to have
a minor role on this release (only in two of the five pieces), but the
emphasis lies on the lo-fi drone character of the music. Still there are
voices to be spotted around, bass note drones and some wavy organ recording.
The quality is still that of a shed recording, but no doubt that is a
deliberate act of being 'weird' (and masquerades the inadequacies of the
music). Very 'New Zealand' if you catch my drift, but it sounded alright.
Three boys with fat joints making music in a shed. Cosy.
Also from the underworld of drones and CDR labels is Textured Bird
Transmission, of whom we know, goddamit, nothing. Here too lo-fi runs high
in approach. Textured Bird Transmission play cosmic, psychedelic drone music
on a bunch of old analogue synths, tape-delay and some low level distortion
pedals. Four tracks, spanning thirty some minutes, but they seem to me
outtakes from longer parts, jams that lasted hours and hours. Just one
candle was lit, some incense burned (yuk), illegal substances at hand and
jam along in good spirit. The recording machine was on a low volume until
the fourth track (which sounds super loud after the first three) but what an
evening they had. Nice one, again.
I have no idea why Gold Sounds wanted to release 'Critical Mess #1'. Not
because it's bad, but it's all with Stavanger folks that show the liveliness
of the cities underground, but it's all people that have had their releases
on many other labels too. Only Nils Rostad, who opens the proceedings is a
new name for me, but otherwise its Bjerga/Iversen, Hoh, Pal Asle Pettersen,
Sindre Bjerga, Bjerga/Anders Gjerde and Iversen. Quite a little work of
incest if you ask me. Everybody involved in this lot does whatever he/they
are best at doing. There is the Bjerga/Iversen electronic improvisation,
Hoh's love of rhythm, Pettersen's musique concrete, Bjerga's noise, Iversen
with microsound and Bjerga/Gjerde's super fine drone piece. All quite
alright these pieces, but there is a taste of left-overs here. (FdW)
Address: <sindrebjerga@hotmail.com>
BIRTH CERTIFICATE (CDR by I, Absentee)
Only recently we reviewed the first three releases on the new US label I,
Absentee and here is a new one, this time putting their first real release
and more officially announcing the label through 'Birth Certificate'. I
explained last week that I don't like to review compilations but this one is
actually one I liked. The label has gathered a fine bunch of musicians here
who all play electronic music, but there are loads of small differences to
be spotted. To the uninitiated this might be all rhythm based music, but
there is straight forward techno like music, electro-pop (Slap [Unmodified],
Goudron, Mothercrotch), ambient inspired, cosmic music by D.D. NewMole and
even straight experimental and noise music, although the latter aren't
really great. All in all a very fine collection, of which I liked the
electro-pop pieces a lot, whereas the others are pretty o.k. Great music to
have playing while relaxing and reading and less for dancing. Included are:
21 Jumpsuit, Neon Tetra, Slap,
The Red Falcons, D.D. NewMole, Goudron, Mothercroth, Black Moth Super
Rainbow, Milieu, Ambidextrous, Power Pill Fist, Boozhownd Doggonit, Lunar
Testing Lab, Tobacco, Baloo, Mall Security and Audience Of One. (FdW)
Address: http://www.i-absentee.com
KATE CARR - FIRST DAY BACK (CDR by Retinascan)
EVERY KID ON SPEED - TRAKTOR (2x3"CDR by Retinascan)
Kate Carr's name sound like famous rock singer, but she hails from New South
Wales in Australia and 'First Day Back' is her first release. According to
the label her music is to be compared to Oval and Microstoria, and yes that
seems to be true. There is no information as to the input of her sources,
but they seem acoustic, perhaps from classical music. These are sampled,
looped, stretched, shrunk, warped and mixed. I can see why one would think
this sounds like either Oval or Microstoria, but I must admit that her
approach didn't fulfill me with much excitement. It seems rather hastily put
together, sounds mixed together that simply don't find and at other times it
sounds like she's trying her sampler for the first time, such as in
'Afterwards', with it's moving back and forth of sounds. In principle some
of the ideas are nice enough and towards the end there were a couple of nice
tracks, but it needs definitely more work.
Behind Every Kid On Speed there is Toni Dimitrov, who briefly was on Vital's
board to review things, but not since some time. In fact things have been
all around quite for his various projects, such as Every Kid On Speed or
Sound-00. Here he offers two pieces by the name of Traktor and four of his
friends do the remix honor. 'There is more happening in 20 minutes of music
here than in 70 elsewhere', the labels says, and surely that is true. But
has Dimitrov made up his mind as to what he wants? It seems not. His music
moves into various places, with beeps, record scratching, minimal rhythms,
and some noise stuff. Some of these sounds are surely engaging enough to
make a piece out of, but glued together it doesn't work very well. Too much
random sounds thrown about. But the remixes show the possibilities. Pablo
Reche, usually a man of noise, makes a very soft remix, pushing all the
sounds away and making a minimalist rhythm. Dr Nojoke goes into dance land
and shows that is possible
too, whereas Andrew Duke has short, uninspired piece of scratching. TB
closes and blends all of this together, in quite a nice piece. The remixes
save the release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.retinascan.de
BEEQUEEN - LONG STONES AND CIRCLES (3" CDR by Moll)
It seems that Frans de Waard kind of follows the footsteps of
Machinefabriek, when it comes to releasing a 3" CDR almost every week. Well,
that's a bit silly to say I guess, but it's true that lately he's been
releasing quite a few excellent releases on his own imprint "My Own Little
Label" and there's a link, since Rutger Zuydervelt designs all the artwork
for the covers. The latest release is a Beequeen and not a new one, in fact
a re-release of 1995's "Long Stones and Circles" and what a welcome one that
is! It was one of their first compositions in which they started to work
with vocals (at present a renown workethic for Beequeen, e.g. "Sandancing"),
by adapting an original text of Landscape artist Richard Long. The piece
starts off with a hard dry metronome, setting the pace for the piece. Slowly
more elements are added: bells, wind and more fieldrecordings. All in a
peacefull and delicate manner, while a distant voice starts to recite the
poem-like texts. You might call it a
sonification of land-art, in the way that it builds an environment in your
mind while listening to this piece. You can almost smell the mountain dew.
(SDT)
Address: http://www.kormplastics.nl/moll.html
1. From: "incite@gmx.de" <incite@gmx.de>
31.05.
incite/ live AV
@
Videofestival Bochum
Bochum, Germany
http://www.videofestival.org
http:/www.myspace.com/incitefm
--
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All written by Frans de Waard (FdW), Dolf Mulder (DM)
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