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REVIEWS part 1
all reviews by Carlos M. Pozo unless noted otherwise
310 "After All"
CD Leaf (UK) 2001
310 is Joseph Dierker and Tim Donovan from New York. Since TripHop might not mean much as a reference point anymore I'll just call this slow-motion atmospheric beat music. The first track, a thick hiphop flavored piece drifts off into ambient washes of slowed down sounds, echoing foghorns, and Reich-ian marimbas - closest in spirit, perhaps, to Howie B minus the jet set gloss. The second piece begins seamlessly and keeps the floating vibe going with another rich rhythm overlaid with gently strummed acoustic guitars. Andrew Sigler's vocal on the third cut drop this too close to throw-away pop territory - the tone of the voice and the faux b-boy freeform associations made me think of a downtempo Underworld. But the synths swirl mightily with that rotating speaker confusion I always find attractive. 310's breakbeats are always way upfront in the mix, and those drum sounds possess a sameness of tone that people doing similar slow motion loop-based work, such as Howie B, Spacer or Neotropic work hard at to circumvent. Too dependent on endless loop sequences - the grooves, though rich and funky, possess a surface attractiveness that doesn't hold up to repeated listens. My favorite piece on here is track 9, which works a complex rhythm with tablas, a menacing and simple Morricon-esque piano hook. The hammond-like organ runs, the delicately panned percussive touches and a deep funky drumbeat make this piece sound like an ambient remix of a Herbie Hancock outtake circa 1973. Sigler returns on the final piece in a raspy Tom Waits mode for a tune led by what sounds like a plucked mandolin over some generic synth swirls, but the piece is again dominated by the sluggish breakbeat. Sigler's intonations are sing-sung as a repetitive, hypnotic mantra that builds up through repetition into a quietly psychedelic experience. The hidden track at the end of the CD is a startling bit of banjo or mandolin, marimba and whispered vocal weirdness. A bit Beefheartian or at least Mallardian, this off-beat little groove deserves better than being left dangling at the end of this uneven but enjoyable disc.
Contact:
Leaf e-mail: leaf@posteverything.com
Website: http://www.310.org
E-mail: jade@310.org
ALEJANDRA & AERON "Haunted Folklore One: Ruinas Encantadas"
CD Lucky Kitchen (USA) 2001
15 tracks 38 minutes
The press release includes a note from Alejandra and Aeron advising us: "Please do not listen to these CDs in the background", as well as a few words like "Laptop Folklore" and "Audio will o' the wisps". I don't really follow all this, and unlike Ultra-Red, a name I keep bringing up whenever I try to write about A&A, the ideas behind these musical pieces, or the ideas the pieces are meant to evoke are not easily discerned from just listening to the sounds on the CD. The pieces on this CD were all made using sounds recorded by A&A La Rioja, Spain and for the most part the location recordings are hidden deep within the digital processing these sessions were subjected to. So this feels much less like a collection of found sounds than Bergman's "Shed Record" or A&A's kitchen sounds on the FatCat split 12". The music on here is extremely subtle and carefully layed out - there are gaps of silence along with tiny droplets of sound that open up into rich stuttering drones. Some of the tones such as those found on "El nino perdido en el bosque" share a similarity with the work of Ryoji Ikeda, but layered into a rich wash of warm sound that is as far from Ikeda's work as one can possibly get. The folklore theme is evoked by many of the track titles: "El Pajarito de Oro" (The Golden Bird), "El Leon Dormido" (The Sleeping Lion) and "The Girl Who Walked on Bread". Each piece inevitably heads for that floating, cosmic swirl zone, full of scratchy, insect-like sounds that A&A do so well. Packaged in a very handmade looking folder that is an appropriate expression of the human touch that permeates the sounds on this CD.
ALEJANDRA & AERON / QT?
Split 12" FatCat (UK) 2001
FatCat's first split 12" of 2001 is this oddly interesting match up - Alejandra (Salinas) and Aeron (Bergman) of the acclaimed Lucky Kitchen label, and newcomer QT?, the project of Takafumi Adachi. QT's short blasting track of noise opened FatCat's compilation of demos and his tracks here, though not as aggressive as that, are certainly very scrambled bits of digital sizzle. Adachi offers 9 short pieces which make good use of computer editing to produce a rapid jump-cut of various textures sliced and diced at breakneck speed. The resulting music, however, is not the roaring wall of noise Adachi's countrymen are known for - the sounds occur as a series of explosions emerging out of stark milliseconds of silence. The third cut, "tqt" (the rest bear titles such as 'qqq', 'qtq', 'tqt', 'ttt', and most tellingly '???') does it best for me, as the sonic bursts reoccur with enough regularity that they almost approach being rhythmic in spite of Adachi's attempts to subvert linearity. Next to this frantic side of music, Dave Howell has chosen Alejandra & Aeron's subtle found sound collage to round out this record. I find the music of Bergman and Salinas almost inexplicably fascinating, and the delicate composition they've constructed out of field recordings made at various kitchens over the years does not disappoint. Insect and electrical buzz, distant cars, delicate waves of static, music-box tinklings and tape hiss flow together into a brilliantly recorded mix. Quiet rumbles give way to high-pitched chatterings as the sounds of ticking clocks, clanging plates and rattling silverware become swirling masses of thick dense sound. The captured noises are not always pretty, but certainly always full of mysterious beauty. As unpredictable as found sound recordings can be, one can always count on one quality that all Bergman/Salinas recordings possess - a child-like sense of whimsy. I'm not the most whimsical fellow in the world, and my tolerance for the Spanish-sung voice that closes the side is low. But even a tired old nihilist like myself can appreciate the mastery at work here.
AMBARCHI, Oren "Stacte.3"
LP Plate Lunch and Jerker Productions 2000
This is the third and final release in the series of solo guitar work from Oren Ambarchi. The A-side, Stacte.3A starts with a repeating plucked sound, almost like a child's piano toy, over which more complicated smatterings of sound soon play. The sounds of distorted electronic murmurings and splutterings were all recorded off guitar to 4-track cassette in 1999. The piece seems to be set off and left to do what they do. I felt quickly sure of what was to happen and settled in for a long track of repetition over which various noises would play out. Ambarchi has surprises up his sleeve though that both shock in their subtlety and make for wonderful listening. He has a sense of juxtaposition which is brought out at just the right moment, though I am sure the first time through I wasn't aware of its need. The B-side, Stacte.3B, is of more interest to my ears, having the extra timbral variation in Ambarchi use of acoustic bass and cymbals. There are some great sounds on this track, huge bass and clicks fill out the audio. Again the 20 minutes are strewn with sounds and textures and the odd surprise. (caleb~k)
AS 11 "5000m New WR"
3" CD Antifrost (Greece) 2001
3 tracks 17 minutes
Conceptually, this little CD seeks to recreate the experience of a 5000-meter runner. The three-part composition begins with a section titled "Pre New World Record", and then follows it with "New World Record". This second piece is exactly 12 minutes 39 seconds long, exactly the same time as the 5000-meter world record set by Ethiopia's Haile Gebereselassie. The third and final piece, naturally enough, is titled "Past New World Record". The first two tracks are underpinned by a similar heartbeat-like rhythm that very slowly increases in volume as the two pieces progress. Other sounds slowly flow in and out of the mix - a breathy loop, distant fridge drones and a few subtle Ikeda-like frequencies. 12 minutes of this, with little variation is not an easy listen - sounds like a 12 minute obscene phone call from a faraway land. The final piece dissolves into a low intensity soup of digital sizzle.
Contact: antifrost@siteilios.gr
ATOMLY "Laptop Rock"
12" Atomiq Records (USA) 2001
The presence of the word "Laptop" in the title might be a little misleading, as this isn't exactly the sort of music you'd associate with leading laptop-jocks such as Pita, Fennesz or Cascone. This in fact is breakcore, a highly digital mix of superfast breakbeats, fat distorted basslines and dark atmospheric noise. Atomly's take on breakcore is balanced by an interest in well-crafted electronica. Though these tracks certainly have their moments of fierce spastic noise worthy of genre gods DJ Scud or Shizuo, Atomly adds just enough IDM-flavored delicacy to make him stand out of the breakcore pack. The tracks "Magnus Ver Magnussen" and "Pod" drop the distortion and offer complex rhythmic patterns that, though certainly heavy, play cleanly through a skeletal mix. These tracks are very funky and very melodic, without entirely abandoning the required swagger. And just to be sure we don't write him off as an IDM geek, he adds "Pork", a punishing blend of harsh breaks and all-out mechanical noise well worth banging your head to. "Classwar" drops the speed down to a hip-hop crawl, and produces the sort of deep atmospheric funk that could easily fit on one of Mille Plateaux's "Electric Ladyland" compilations. If you're curious about this breakcore thing, but aren't ready for the hardest stuff, this should ease you right on in. Enjoy. Watch out for that lock groove though.
BERGMAN, Aeron "The Shed Record"
CD Diskono (UK) 2000
The reason location recordings are so interesting is because of the way they work on the listener's imagination. These tracks use recordings of voices and other natural occurrences as the starting point upon which very low-key musical touches are added - faint washes of dsp-ed sound or loops made from portions of the found sounds. The results are very listenable and fascinating because the musical interventions are so subtle that the focus of each piece remains on the sometimes scratchy and rough sounds of everyday life. This is very gentle and "feminine" music, perhaps akin to a G rated (triple G rated?) version of Ultra Red's "Second Nature". One word you won't find me overusing is "whimsy", and that is a quality that pervades these tracks. Even when track 11 destroys a female voice singing "Getting to Know You" it does so in such a genteel way that it doesn't even come close to the demolition you'd expect from someone doing experimental music. Ending the record with a kiss is the perfect final touch.
BRIO SITE TASK FORCE
"The Ricky Lake is a K.U.N.T."
EP CDR Briokids (USA) 2001
Hidden behind the crude packaging and the even cruder title is a fine compilation of Texas breakcore tracks. Having seen all of these outfits DJ and play live I can vouch for their collective ability to move (and sometimes repel) a crowd with their frantic and harsh mix of hardcore breakbeats and ragga-inflected noise. On disc, the distortion and density of their live acts is reduced, but the energetic interplay of super-fast cut-up drumbeats and monstrous tasty basslines remains. Ickoo's fantastic "Going 40 mph Down The Freeway", like it's title suggests, imagines a slow motion, stoned trip down a concrete blacktop, pumping a sluggish, dubbed out beat through a fogged up windshield. "Gag on This", also from Ickoo, is a spastic mix of violent, ever-changing drum patterns and unintelligible, sampled screams. Virus b-23 throws in 4 fine tracks, slightly less unhinged than Ickoo's, but special mention must be made of his reworking of James Brown's "I Feel Good", which envelops the great man's howls in a bath of distorted drums. A fairly stunning demolition. Yow. One thing both Ickoo and Virus b-23 have mastered is that trademark of breakcore, the flying out-of-nowhere 300 m.p.h. slamming breakbeat - you'll be repeatedly hammered by variations on this theme throughout all these tracks. Texas Noise Factory is a proponent of a genre that I haven't quite figured out yet - "speedbass". It sounds to me like a close relative of gabber but don't take my word for it. The two Texas Noise Factory tracks on here are more on the breakcore tip and benefit from the assured production hand of headman Daniel Taylor, an MP3.com vet who knows how to make noisy tracks sound polished and varied. The sole track by improvising percussionist Mystikal William Steelsum is an odd bit of electronic drum mayhem, lower-key and much less dense than everything else on here, and at ten minutes almost twice as long as every other piece this comp. Layers of grainy effected percussion build up to something that resembles Pole remixing a stark and minimal drum'n'bass track.
CHIKMOUNTAIN "Porn On The Cob"
CD Tachist Records (USA) 2000
The moaning and yelling voices had me expecting the worst but this is a pretty fine LP of experimental noise rock. Like a digitally enhanced Butthole Surfers, grinding ambient Metal dirges alternate with swirling digital collages. Track 6 blends lo-fi pounding loops over stolen voices and acid-rock guitar licks just like Houston's own Pain Teens used to do back in the 80s. All rock music sounds retro to me nowadays - retro and perhaps redundant, but that doesn't mean this isn't at least likable, which it is, especially if you wish it was 1987 again.
Contact:
Tachist Records
1643 13th St NW, #1
Washington, DC 20009
USA
E-mail: tachist@yahoo.com
E-mail: Demonspawnn@yahoo.com
CLAYTON, Kit "Live on Shortwave Radio"
CD Phthalo (USA) 2001
This reviewer's easy way out is to compare experimental music using similar sound sources to each other, regardless of the musician's intent. Well, these shortwave radio manipulations bear a half-decent resemblance to Matthew Thomas' shortwave-sourced "_remodulation" CD (Dorobo) from 1998. The most obvious difference being that Matthew's work was a "composition", and these are "live works" performed on Berkeley's KALX radio station. Actually, the CD booklet doesn't really explain what "live on shortwave radio" means - but I'm assuming Clayton is mangling the sound produced by a shortwave radio with his trusty Powerbook. The grainy, trebly rattling noise of short-wave transmissions is looped, effected and manipulated into three long tracks of hissing basic channel-ish ambience. Pole's scratchy dub already had a short-wave feel about it, and these tracks often resemble a skeletal Pole backing track minus the bass pulse. The second and third piece on here, especially around the 8:30 minute mark hit more than a few unmistakable pole dub notes. The first track is a bit too short-wave specific - even though loops of tinny sound are created, the feeling that Kit is just twiddling with the SW dial is strongest on this track. The other two pieces transform the sound sources enough that you'd be hard pressed to guess what is going on - the deep echoes and scratchy glitches of microsound/laptop-dub dominate a mix that veers from near-silent ambience to near-noise moments of sonic confusion. Unlike "_remodulations", the music never truly breaks the boundaries of "electronic dance music", for lack of a better word, and remains recognizably the work of a "techno" musician. A decent listen nonetheless. The lack of a bass presence makes this less attractive than it could have been, but that's just my bass-spoiled ears speaking.
COAGULATED GESTICULATION "Eye You"
CD-R (Australia) 2001
This is the second CD-R EP I've heard from this enigmatic Australian who fashions long tracks of morphing ambient space jazz and breaks. This is a much smoother listen than 1999's Suffix Odium CD-R, which owed more than a little debt to the dense wide screen drum'n'bass of Panacea. This project, with the unfortunately grindcore-tinged name of Coagulated Gesticulation is a mellower, much more self-assured selection of tracks - a bit on the loungy, downtempo side, though not without a few moments of thick, paranoid confusion. Track 2's demented party groove is truly unstoppable - the side trips through noise and fractured textures never destroy the funk. Another piece moves like a Haruomi Hosono, Severed Heads, Coldcut mix-off - the sort of glossy blend of soundtrack jazz and abstract funk that should set the baggy pants of every Ninja Tune trainspotter on fire. Throughout this disc, what really stands out is the fine sounding mix - a million things always going on at the same time without blurring into a mass of digital noise - the mood is playful and dance-floor friendly. On the surface this might not be as dense as Suffix Odium, but the sonic elements are blended with a greater attention to detail. Next stop for this producer has to be the charts cause he's unstoppable.
Contact:
8/26 Ruskin St
Elwood 3184
Melbourne, Victoria
Australia 03-9531 7508
CRUMBLES RECOVERY "cg no. 7"
CD-R (1999)
This outfit is composed of Wayne Magruder and Sean Donovan, who also play in post-rockish outfit Calla, who've released a CD on the Sub Rosa label. This CD-R features beautifully understated CD packaging consisting of a gray card and translucent vellum insert with a minimal amount of printed text - very simple and elegant. The music is likewise very elegant - very seductive organic sounding drones, mixed with sampled machine-like sounds for a feel not unlike Marcus Schmickler's Wabi Sabi CD on a-Musik. Other tracks feature a heavier glitch flavor, but never enough to overpower the hazy muffled drones. Track 3 is perhaps my favorite here - deep bass heavy tones and scratchy train-track clangs building into a massively dense wall of sound floating behind a sustained high pitched tone. The final piece is a nearly inaudible mix of delicate metallic scrapes and silence reminiscent of Organum - though the "standing ovation" audience ending destroys the delicate atmosphere the music had so painstakingly crafted.
DAEDELUS "Her's is > [sic]"
CD Phthalo (USA) 2001
Daedelus is one Alfred Weisberg-Roberts and this new CD on LA's estimable Phthalo label has the feel of an inside joke, perhaps more so than anything I've heard on Vinyl Communications, the "kings" of cleverly executed faux idiot-savant electronics. The music on this CD is a rough mix of simple synth sequences, distorted pounding loops and a feel somewhere between gabber and smart-ass IDM. What has Kid606 wrought? Perhaps the single worst thing about this CD is the repeated use of stolen telephone conversations - especially the voice of a disturbed sounding woman babbling about her writing skills and her depression. I sat through it once, but the fast forward button was used judiciously after every subsequent listen. In fact, the girl phone snippets are some of the most annoying noises I've ever heard in my life - every time her droning voice pops up I feel like taking a serrated knife to my throat to put me out of my misery - so thanks kid Daedalus. Maybe I'm just too square to get it. The overall mood of the music is one of angry teenage angst, down to the grindcore-esque artwork and the feeling that each track is a little mini temper tantrum of kick drums and acid basslines caught on some kid's boombox. In the right situation, this music can be as refreshing and cathartic as some of the more repulsive punk rock of my teenage years. Angry Samoans or something. If Weisberg is still in his mid-teens then I understand completely. If he's over 20, then it's back to the serrated knife...
DJ SMALL COCK "Yinyue"
CD Dual Plover (Australia)
DJ Small Cock is well known noise artist Lucas Abela, who also goes under various monikers including Peeled Hearts Paste and A Kombi. DJ Small Cock recorded 9 hours of Beijing radio, on returning to Australia he re-recorded the entire collection in one sitting and onto one cassette using only the pause button: which must have been worse for wear at the end. The self-released Yinyue is noisy in a fully analogue way. The 16 unnamed tracks, dedicated to Lucas's love Vivi's 16 years, skip and slide through a barrage of noise that leaves the original sources far behind. Clear references are few: though they can be heard at times. The noises, wrenched from the tape, blurt and strain, perhaps in a wasted attempt to retain some reference to their original form. Voice and beats appear for seconds before being lost in static. And it does get pretty full on, like headache overload with visions of cultural confusion mixed with Lucas at the tape deck madly banging on the pause button. This is well worth a listen from one of Australia's hardest working and irreverent noise merchants. (http://laudible.net for real audio) (caleb~k)
Contact: abela@dualplover.com
DAISUKI TUBARE "The End Of The Dream"
CD Poon Village (USA) 2000
A beautifully packaged set lo-to-mid-fi acid-folk songs from this Japanese singer. The first couple of tracks follow a path perhaps comparable to lonely guy kiwis like Alistair Galbraith or Peter Jeffreys. But then comes the spaced-out medieval tune with growling Beefheart vocals and this moves further into weirdo outsider zones. Most of these songs are composed of hissy, strangely medieval sounding guitar and percussion backing tracks over which Tubare mumbles and moans his tales of what the fuck. All of Tubare's moves, no matter how off the wall owe a heavy debt to 60s anglo psych-pop. I'm willing to bet his record collection contains at least a few Syd Barrett, Incredible String Band, Nick Drake and Richard Thompson albums. Regardless of his sources, Tubare does come up with some sad and memorable melodies, the sort of sacred chant-like tunes I associate with Popol Vuh, but sounding as if recorded inside a metal bucket. The final track is a beautiful guitar and birdsong tune, with husky, nearly coherent singing that makes me think of Gilberto Gil's starker material.
Distributed by Forced Exposure
P.O. Box 9102
Waltham, MA 02254
USA
Website: http://www.forcedexposure.com/
DANCE CHROMATIC "Dance Chromatic"
CD Dance Chromatic (USA) 2000
This CD presents a splattered mix of noisy breakcore tracks and experimental techno. The disc begins with one and a half minutes of endlessly cascading cut-up beats - a messy collage of distortion and speed. What else would you expect from a track titled "victory : orgasm : nazi". The second track is a 9 minute sleepy stormer featuring a minimal dubbed out beat, delicate and pretty, like a Mike Ink deep house number but less bouncy. The track dissolves into a (non-harsh) haze of digital fizz. The CD continues like this, alternating experimental, almost ambient tracks based on loops floating over a relentless 4X4 beat with breakcore tracks full of sampled heavy metal riffs, drum loop massacres and distorted painful noise squeals with a lower funk quotient than kid606. In fact, kid606 and Lesser might be the closest thing I've heard that I could compare this to, though unlike the Vinyl Communications output of that duo, Dance Chromatic isn't as concerned with completely annihilating the listener. Uneven but fascinating and I wonder what this producer can come up with next.
Contact:
Dance Chromatic
273 Cambridge Rd.
Clifton Heights, PA 19018
USA
E-mail: DanceChromatic@aol.com
DUPLOX REMOTE / COM.A
Split 12" FatCat (UK) 2000
How's this for feeling old - Englishman Myles Haughton (Duplox Remote) was born in 1977, UK/Japan's Age Yoshida (COM.A) was born in 1976. To make matters worse, Yoshida already has a few successful records under his belt as ROM=PARI on SubRosa. Youthful they are, and both their EP sides are full of electrically charged, barely under control energy. Duplox Remote's sound palette is a dead ringer for some sort of Richard James/Mike Paradina mid 90s hybrid. The opening track has an electronic toy melody surging through a frantically pounding cut-up big beat. The sort of thing U-ziq perfected on "In Pine Effect". If you thought the over-caffeinated blur of "Girl/Boy" era Aphex was not spastic enough, that the musical ideas took too long to develop, then Duplox Remote is for you. Video game bleepage, fake turntable scratching, mangled loops and audaciously cut-up beats with brief gasps of silence erupting out of the speedy mix make this 12" side a winning showcase for Myles Haughton's considerable talents. And yet, I'm left unmoved. The final track's generic "ambient" tones serve to further punctuate the familiarity of this material. Contemporary digital cut-up techniques are perhaps the only thing Duplox Remote has to add to a basic mid-period IDM sound. If you miss that era, then this kid might be your new savior. COM.A's hyperactive drill'n'bass moves up the reference points a few years closer to being contemporary. The opening track throws up a blend of rich synth washes overlaid with hammering non-stop speed breaks and chirpy child-like melodies. The second track is less dense, and overall Yoshida's side is more on a downtempo tip (relatively speaking) than Haughton's but their bleep beats and cheap keyboard melodies offer up a very similar melange of early IDM and current laptop smartass weirdness. Hell, they're young, and display enough slice and dice savvy to warrant keeping an eye on in the future.
EKTROVERDE "Integral"
CD Snowdonia / Mizmaze (Italy) 2000
I don't know what space-rock means any more (it'll always mean Eloy-through-Hawkwind styled bearded idiocy to me) but this swims closer to the mid-90s Kranky label-fueled neo-space rock revival. A better reference point might be recent Cul de Sac, though with a few more rough edges, and without the production skills of that outfit's last long player. Like Cul de Sac the Ektroverde sound features guitars picking out beautiful melodies over a background hum of bass, keys and drums. Unlike the Sac, the keyboard sounds leave a little to be desired - that slightly Farfisa-esque roller ring organ tone destroys any celestial mindmeld these felllows might have achieved otherwise. And the less said about the track where they break out the sequencer (a truly frightening and out of place bit of glossy trance-dance) the better. Track 5 is more like it - a lopsided Beefheartian drum beat, synth squiggles and the always welcome whump of a jew's harp stumble through an 8 minute thug-rock mantra that sounds like Amon Duul (1 of course!) marching through Tuva. The final piece is another worthwhile moment, a 16 minute ambient mess of found sound, distant guitar twang, spooky echoes and synth gurgles. More primitivism, no sequencers, and a dirtier synth sound would hit just about right.
Contact:
Snowdonia
c/o Cinzia La Fauci
Via Cherubini 84
98124 Messina, Italy
E-mail: snowdonia@ctonline.it
J. Lehtisalo, Lisankatu 25 A 10
28100 Pori, Finland
EFZEG "Grain"
CD Durian (Austria) 2000
Scratchy low volume enigmatic music from this improvising quartet composed of sax, two guitars, electronics and turntables. The best quality of this recording is the respect, perhaps even reverence, with which the players treat each other. With a lineup of guitars, turntables and sax you might expect an Otomo Yoshihide-style apocalyptic jazz-noise hoedown. But instead you get tiny droplets of sound swimming in vast oceans of shimmering near-silence. Track one, which clocks in at 30 minutes, features short bursts of low-volume abstract noises - organic and crackly, interspersed with moments of blurred low volume rumblings. Sounds develop slowly and naturally, at a glacial pace but not without their own logical sense of order. Things pick up in density around the 13 minute mark, as the saxophone asserts its presence, and the noise builds into a long sustained breathy drone full of whipping sine-like frequencies. The second track is a mere 8 minutes and provides the densest moments on this disc, as the guitars pluck a looped riff (sounding almost like a string section) that sustains itself through most of the length of the track. A very stark "modern classical" feel pervades this piece. The 34 minute long final piece starts very slowly as the quiet rustling of the players accumulates in volume over a distant sine tone. The players build up to an insane climax of sax squawks, and bass-heavy rumbles, but they soon return to the spacy, detached feel that makes Efzeg such a powerful outfit. I bet they totally kill live.
Contact:
durian records
negerlegasse 1 / 7 - A 1020 vienna
phone / fax > 0043 / 1 / 2160686
e-mail: durian@durian.at
ENCOMIAST "Winter's End"
CD Lens Records (USA) 2001
Slow moving ambient music, a little friendlier than, say, the isolationist chill of Lull or Koner, but not nearly as friendly as Eno. Track one approaches moments of dark "death ambient" dread, as rich bass-heavy slowed down sounds swim in an endlessly churning sea of reverb - a bit like PGR ca "The Chemical Bride". The mid-90s PGR output of Mr. Kim Cascone is indeed the best reference point for some of the darker and more abstract moments on this disc. Track 3's distant female voice evokes some unwritten Morricone ambient score- very beautiful and sidestepping (barely) a certain new age pretty-ness that threatens to envelop the piece. Track 4, which contains an excerpt from a live performance, is the longest piece here and consists of floating space music with a distinct kraut flavor. Lots of endlessly reverbed tones and shimmering waves of dark cosmic sound. Track 5 seems to contain another female voice sample within a rich and blurred string-like drone. The final piece sees celestial tinklings make way for nightmare voices and endlessly ascending chirps as a repetitive keyboard phrase opens up a vision of Steve Reich and Goblin scoring a bloody Argento production. The robotic voices overstay their welcome but otherwise this track is a strong finish for an uneven but enjoyable disc. Especially for fans of reverb.
FENNESZ / ROSY PARLANE "Live" (recorded 1/2/00)
3" CD Synaesthesia (Australia) 2000
A duo between Mego star Fennesz and Rosy Parlane (one half of Parmentier and soloist who releases on the Sigma Editions label) starting off noisy and continuing in this vein for the duration of this little 3" CD. I don't mean noisy in the sense of volume but in the sheer layers of noise. The sounds loop around, through which is played a melody of all things. The first track is full to the top with noise, bass rumble, and the expected clicks and distortions we have come to expect from Fennesz, even a bit of a kick drum might be imagined to be somewhere deep in there. The work was recorded live during a barbeque at Melbourne record shop Synaesthesia, whom have released it. What sounds to drink beer and eat bad food. The second piece is much more along the lines of Fennesz's DSP effected guitar pieces, bordering on pop, kinda. It seems the split between the two very different tracks has caused most I have talked to much prefer one piece over the other. For my money, track one is the most interesting. Note that the little cover by Freya breaks the mould the over designed digital/minimal label with a painting of a grave stone behind which hangs the sun, I think. Beautiful little release from one of the most interesting characters (a merchant of the sequence) to come out of the stagnant Auckland scene pitted with the Mego giant. (caleb~k)
FORMANEX "'Tratise'- Cornelius Cardew / Live in Extrapool"
CD Fibrr Records (France) 2001
Formanex is a quartet of improvisers from France (I think from the city of Nantes): Christophe Havard, Anthony Taillard, Emmanuel Leduc, and Julien Ottavi. They work with electronics, percussion, guitar and bass, amplified objects, and saxophone, but more importantly they build up their works from very small elements of sound, isolated, amplified, and repeated. They are inspired by Britain's AMM (Ottavi and Havard appeared on Fibrr's first release with Keith Rowe from AMM). This album documents a performance in the Netherlands which was based on graphic scores from Cornelius Cardew's "Treatise". The best two cuts on the CD are the shortest and the longest ones. The shortest piece, at 5 minutes plus, has an immediacy that seems to capture direct reactions to visual features of the graphic score. One of the challenges with using a graphic score for improvisation is that the immediate reactions to the visual characteristics of the score may in a longer piece feel simply strung together. Some of longer pieces on this disc did not have the level of the urgency, tension, intensity, and focus I look for in improvised music. That being said, the longest piece runs for 24 minutes and has a really strong drive and coherence. This is achieved largely by sustaining steady, insistent pulses through long stretches, shifting the sounds in and around the pulse as it moves forward, and then interrupting those passages to allow a pulse to be reestablished on different sonic terms. The sounds themselves are often industrial and ominous. The total texture is complicated, with lots of soft, sometimes practically inaudible sounds, mixed around and behind the foreground sounds. Formanex also gets great results from amplifying faint sounds, such as the sound of air blown through a saxophone too weakly to resonate the reed in standard terms. Zeroing in on and turning up small sounds brings out the structure and complexity of those noises. This disc does a really nice job of examining sound. (David Maddox)
Contact: fibrr@canalv.com
GOODIEBAG #g4p
7" White Vinyl Goodiepal / V/VM (2000)
a1 - Goodiepal - T-Cut
b1 - Goodiepal - Tomb
b2 - Goodiepal - Limit
DEMONBAG #9nv
7" Black Vinyl Goodiepal / V/VM (2000)
a1 - goodiepal - scale
b1 - per hoier - nebulae
b2 - goodiepal - open
side A
side B
DEMONBAG #9se
7" Black Vinyl Goodiepal / V/VM (2000)
a1 - Alejandra and Underwood - the Tale of Pip - side b
b1 - Carl Bergstrom - Nielsen Cut
DEMONBAG #w8n
7" Black Vinyl Goodiepal / V/VM (2000)
a -
b - sexstendedel perc. sample, signal, primitiv matrix musik
DEMONBAG #9tj
7" Black Vinyl Goodiepal / V/VM (2000)
A1 - goodiepal - ark
B1 - pierre roskovitch - pleezd nictbeets
B2 - goodiepal - hoda
GOODIEBAG #1ky
7" White Vinyl Goodiepal / V/VM (2000)
A1 - Per Hoier - gerenes formationer
A2 - Tordis Berstrand - so
B1 - Alejandra & Underwood - The Tale of Pip - side a
Denmark's Kristian Vester, who goes by the name of Goodiepal is responsible for putting out the Goodiebag/Demonbag series of limited 7"s in conjunction with UK noise pranksters V/VM. The records come in little Ziploc bags along with some nicely printed colorful inserts that list the artists appearing on each 7". The records themselves, though, have no writing on the labels, nor etchings or anything else to let the listener know who is responsible for what, let alone what speed they should be played at. For the most part, the music sticks to some sort of digital/toy-like aesthetic - childlike melodies, and sparse glitchy sounds that puzzle and confound the listener at every turn. My favorite of this set is Goodiebag #g4p, credited solely to Goodiepal. The side with one track on it, which would make it the A-side, features some nice sounding beats that almost (but not quite) approach a cut-up drum'n'bass rhythm. Sounds resembling bells and video game bleeps fall in and out of a liquid "groove" that never solidifies. A Goodiepal trademark, cheesy child-like keyboard melodies swim about the dry mix. It's very sketchy and ethereal, but very nicely done. The B-side is dominated by the cheap keyboard tunes played at an insanely fast pace, even at 33 rpm. I imagine this is what the Mike and Rich collaboration would have sounded like if Paradinas and James had access to nothing but a Casio toy sampler. The two records that feature Alejandra and Underwood are also quite good. The A&U pieces "The Tale of Pip - side a" and "The Tale of Pip - side b" are split onto Demonbag #9se and Goodiebag #1ky. My favorite "Pip" is side B's mellow and abstract digital cut-ups. A beautiful stretched out high-end frequency graces the middle of this track, as a repetitive keyboard pattern loops endlessly. It all morphs unexpectedly into a Hawaiian/Morricone slice of exotica undercut by distant snippets of grittier noise. Also on 9se is Carl Bergstrom with some sped up harpsichord madnessplaying a stupidly catchy oompah melody. Per Hoier's track on 1ky is tinkly Goodiepal-ish naivete, while Tordis Berstrand contribute a piece full of contact mic scrapes and feedback squalls - perhaps the most lo-fi and visceral noise moment on these six records. The remaining Demonbags 9nv, w8n, and 9tj offer more faux naive idiot-savant electronica full of dainty loops, crackling synth washes, and randomly sequenced samples. Standouts among those tracks is Pierre Roskovitch's cut on 9tj which throws together drum loops playing an "exotic" rhythm while harpsichords and a keyboard set to "angelic choir" add delicate embellishments. I should also mention w8n's extended synth drone, which I swear I've heard before. Is it Tim Blake? Schulze? Jarre? Nope can't peg it.
E-mail: vvm@v-vm.demon.co.uk
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