>>> Key
::..:::…..:..::….:::::..:::..:::::::……:::…::.:::….::::..:..:::…::…….::::
:: This collection of “recycled music” has a host of notable noise specialists at hand to take on the usually quite impenetrable fiery sounds of Helicopter’s prolific John Wiese. Gerritt’s take on the material stops and starts with lots of effects. It’s brashy and sassy, flippant and something of a work in progress that drags, rips and spares nothing in its path. The echo is a lil’ annoying, otherwise he’s on to something. The venerable KK Null steps up to the plate with a circular buzz of in/out, back/front sound play. And then its like the generator is just running out of battery power until something crashes and a warning has been triggered. The track is bloddy hyper-exciting. It revels in its contorted harsh feedback by twisting and straining it bleeding right into Christian Renou’s piece that starts off like multiple metal implements scraping a chalkboard. I’m so used to being zoned out by Renou (especially with his work as Brume) and after the initial corruption of noise grit he mellows the mind with a bit of drone, chastised with signal blurts that are timed and off putting. Panicsville’s piece starts as typical rock the house sorta fare only to adopt the same nerve pinching aesthetics Wiese uses, adding some nervous human laughter and coughing, metallic winding and grinding and a whole lot of surface texture. The bird call field recordings captured alongside the blubbering drowning, sucking sounds and other anxiety producing things going bump in the night make Raionbashi’s short piece riveting and tactfully scary. The tiny rumblings of Freiband let lose to a kinetic hum midway through his contribution. It’s feels like the wires have been crossed and the voltage is in your veins. Velocity takes over. RLW’s take makes several abrasive hissy erasures intercut with tape splicing and a whole lot of dramatic samples. It’s performance sound until Zbigniew Karkowski takes over and blurs the entire listening space with two pinpoint minutes of grating, metallic and industrial bliss. Joe Colley takes up the caboose with his ten-minute crackling adventure. Parts creaky laundry spindle, parts exhausting shlep, Colley creates an asthmatic trek for sure. Climbing, crawling, inching away…
::..:::…..:..::….:::::..:::..:::::::……:::…::.:::….::::..:..:::…::…….::::
:: When I read about these Icelandic geothermal earth recordings by Jacob Kirkegaard I knew right away that there was something deep inside the steaming banks of these hinterlands. Hearing what he’s done with these field recordings you will face a brisk, bracing wind and deeper tones of what I consider the end of the Earth. Iceland is truly the personification of a star on our beloved and deteriorating planet. It’s lava flows and volcanicisms have blackened the seas and molten the landscape. Kirkegaard illuminates and characterizes the voice beneath the surface. From breathy gusts to spitting rumble, his microphone has been inserted into the surfaces of far off places possibly never penetrated before his tenuous visit. Pretty much the only dead zone in this recording is its use of breaking into tracks, it would work as a flow of sound rather than a document of places and excerpts. Danish-born Kirkegaard’s use of mapping equipment and electronic accelerators dramatize the already vital whispering, chilling winds and amplify the heartbeat of rich soil. It’s a dirty job, but someone had to do it. Transcendentally fragile organic music.
::..:::…..:..::….:::::..:::..:::::::……:::…::.:::….::::..:..:::…::…….::::
:: In collaboration with Sonar, Italian-based Frame release a spectacular audiovisual work, in the vein of other soundtracks they’ve developed. Originally presented at the Romaeuropa Festival in ’03 the piece hovers with shyness and alluring sounds that soar high. Piano, drone and airport voiceovers make “Nekih Problema” something of a fused vignette. Afo 4 definitely has this sorta overriding travel theme, jets fueling, motors, etc. as led into the obtusely ambient “Pon.” For a completely different, melodic flare “Music for a Merged Bubble” is elusive and warped, if not syrupy sweet in its take off, with a more risky landing. “Pinji Ass” is more traditional post Fairlight syth discourse, nothing new, but soothing all the same. If taking chances means switching gears a bit to emphasize a variety of sounds one can make, then Frame has accomplished this in spades – however also taking cred for that here are the three mixers including Nicola Prosatore, Marco Messina and Max Carola. Each lends a hint of either slightly more pop electronica leanings or a tip into alterna-experimentation. My DVD player disallowed me to view the conents of this import, however, if Nina di Majo’s visuals are as provocative as the diversity of the layout herein, this is quite a package.
::..:::…..:..::….:::::..:::..:::::::……:::…::.:::….::::..:..:::…::…….::::
:: As listed playing computer feedback Mattin tricked me into thinking my PC was freeked when this recording of nine untitled tracks (each 7:06 in length) began. Taku Unami is controlling the objects and computer as Shiryo, this duo plays silently. Not until approximately six minutes in do you start to hear the barely snoring-like rustle of something akin to a whicker broom gesturing right and left. No Computer obviously uses said medium to conduct a course in silence. Tomoya Izumi’s headless characters make for playful cover art and act a catalyst for my attention until suddenly there is a sinus-cavity impeding squeal, like a vacuum cleaner come unglued in a thumbtack factory. As unsettling as silence can be, there is something pretty durable about the micro-goings-on here, like a primer in patience and attention (ex)span(sion).
::..:::…..:..::….:::::..:::..:::::::……:::…::.:::….::::..:..:::…::…….::::
:: Like a swarm of bees in pursuit the levity of Hanged Up’s “Alarm” is chock-full of Genevieve Heistek’s raging bowing. Shaped like a towering skyscraper, shooting story after story, the track goes right off the page even to the end when the sound fades, leaving serious chills to reckon with. The forlorn movie-themed, “A Different Kind of Function” is the type of song that gives Clatter for Control its cahones. Heinstek’s strings along with Eric Craven’s “sticks” make for a lovingly compatible production team that wraps tightly round the depth of despair in the poignant melodies here. Elsewhere on the record you will face the feedback of riveting percussion and creaky, aged folklore in the cracks and crevices aplenty. Other tracks like “Go Let’s Go” sound a bit to straight ahead with a country flare potentially off-putting listeners of the finer cadence in the edge of the experiments heard elsewhere on the disc. Towards the conclusion of the rumbling big bass provided by the skilled fingering of Harris Newman on “Fuck This Place” shakes the rafters. Hanged Up has made one of those records that sort of floats in between the seams of genre but experiments a bit too randomly with the variables of what’s possible within their craft, rather than focusing on a long-player that unfolds one petal at a time.
::..:::…..:..::….:::::..:::..:::::::……:::…::.:::….::::..:..:::…::…….::::
:: “Ich gehe die strasse hinauf” is a queer little song that sort of fuses the Velvets and the Cramps in a spoken word, low-fi, late night 70’s road thing. Absurd, indeed! The Greek label that has made its reputation releasing very small run, truly unique recordings that are fully unclassifiable have done it once again. Tracks on Inweglos run between 30 seconds and 11 minutes and the tie that binds them is a feral intimacy keeping your ear to the speaker set. There are just so many very peculiar goings on, from laissez-faire vocals to space age vibrations that seem almost cartoonish this German quartet crafts one of the most listenable experiments in recent history. This re-release of one of those seminal 80s works that got somewhere lost in the mix is a welcome document to the chasm separating listening experiences of the past couple decades. For some this will be the inevitable altercation between say Moby and (Daniel) Menche combing the right elements of peace and ambience with hints of crispy noise for good measure.
::..:::…..:..::….:::::..:::..:::::::……:::…::.:::….::::..:..:::…::…….::::
:: Ahhhhhh, a stripped down somber guitar solo opens this 6 track new outing by Giuseppe Ielasi. Taking an ambient turn, the disc is a soothing reminder that big music sometimes comes in plan packages. The bigness here is actually the containment of dense atmospheric tone and residual drone. Sensitive and spacious at times, Ielasi keeps his craft on the especially lackadaisical, minimal side. Suffering in its pauses due to the intimacy of what is actually available to listen to, and at times the guitar strings sproing a bit giving Gesine a bit of an old world Western stance, but it almost seems unintentionally haphazard. All the while he remains true to his connection to the material, however. This is not something that seems overtly improvised nor composed, floating into the abyss and stream of consciousness for moments on end. I think it’s most successful when the focus is not on strumming away at something resembling a half-built folk song, as the background has an emotional tempo that bares itself.
::..:::…..:..::….:::::..:::..:::::::……:::…::.:::….::::..:..:::…::…….::::
:: Soft Left onto Westland is many things under one name. When “Trucker’s Hitch” Boris Hauf takes the wheel and rides dreamily through a crash course, like being capsulized in the sleeping compartment with its subtle blips and low-fi funkiness. The wordsmithing, spoken bits on “Waste Management Business” strains to punctuate the power of its silly syllables, it’s a bit of a rash live improv thing. Throughout there are strange samples that recall the colorfully jubilant flavors in 1950’s appliance commercials, with a nice edgy crack, hiss and crackle of feedback and other electronic manipulation. This is particularly pronounced as the dsc grooves from “Annie’s Little Tin Devils” into “Kimberly Jones’ Dancers and the 8 Movie Stars Who Worked in a Gas Station or Garage.” Hauf’s sense of humor, spotted throughout, makes this a pleasantly smooth-flowing listen, even when it sounds like he’s just rolling things around a tabletop, or splicing a Super 8 film running backwards through a projector, it just fends for attention.
::..:::…..:..::….:::::..:::..:::::::……:::…::.:::….::::..:..:::…::…….::::
:: I am almost immediately transformed into a world of syncopated ambience without frills, just long sensual bowing that warps my frontal lobe gently. The opening title cut on ‘Play along’ brings together Jean-Paul Dessy’s Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles string quartet alongside Scanner’s marvelous electronic synthesis between the digital and analogue spectrum. At nearly a half-hour the piece plays like a cool breeze on a Sunday afternoon, if it were on Pluto. There’s a cryptic distance here that is dramatic and a bit lost. In many ways it reminds me of the paintings of Constable and Turner with their wide canvases that have an off-centered focal point in the midst of collected chaos. While “Play along” plays on, there is a soothing sense to the horrors that could potentially lurk within, like David Cronenberg’s psychological thrillers that lure you in with a warm hominess only to instantaneously slash your throat by surprise. “Out of the trench and wading backwards” has a bass heavy heart that plays like a snippet from ‘Dark Shadows’. Most striking is the final of these three fine works, “Whaling Wolves”, which is a stirring rendition of animated sea mammal sounds concocted exclusively on electronics by Dessy that resonate at times like fearsome air raids. At times sounding like a faded memory of an arcade, its eleven minutes in the deepest black night on restrained seas that speak in blunt tones. Dessy and Scanner create an atmosphere that speaks of dense pain and peace.
::..:::…..:..::….:::::..:::..:::::::……:::…::.:::….::::..:..:::…::…….::::
:: Ryoji Ikeda has become one of the most consistent experimental electronic artists of the last dozen years. Formula is something of a compendium of his catalogue, a retrospective of sorts. Inside this DVD/Book are excerpts from concerts, video graphics and plenty of gorgeous documentation of his lauded installation work both solo and with collaborators such as Dumb Type. Ikeda’s use of sinewaves and mathematical algorithms is pin-point deadpan. Playing with tones that tease the abilities of human hearing capacities he paces sound like a tiger stalks its prey, waiting in the brush with depressed circular breathing. . The concert captured at The Garden Hall in Tokyo a month after 9/11 shows a steely, plotted grid of sound, also depicted in the accompanying visual material. A repetitious patterning of blue lines drifts against a solid black background like a scanner transmitting pixels at some umpteenth dpi. In “headphonics 0/1” there are distinct overtures heard on David Bowie’s “Fashion.”
Incorporating digital replications of integer-based 0101 graphics, Ikeda works with Hiromasa Tomari and Shiro Takatani to make for a perfect match of sight and sound. The jittery rhythm on “Testone+Trans-missions” with its velocitous warp of surround sound that numbs, is beyond hypnotic. While some of this work would only offend and/or make some casual observers wince due to volume and tone, it is active listening for those who can hear and see art in common daily items from fluorescent tubes above you to CRTs in front of you to radio/TV interference and a host of medical equipment. Ikeda takes these aesthetics of simple sounds and edits the aspects of commonality which makes life funky from a crispier side of the aural realm. On “Time 3’33” he crosses a heart monitor with the sounds that have forged the ultimate sound of the Raster-Noton label. There are distinct similarities. I call his soundtrack for “Matrix” at the Millennium Dome in London back in Y2K something acoustically severing, sine-drone, if you will. Ikeda’s sound is uniquely composed as an intimate listening experience, and here he proves that in tracks like “db” presented at the ICC in Tokyo. He plays on “the test” of the emergency broadcast network to a fault. But it’s the hiss and pitter-patter of minimalism that draws me back to his work time and again. It’s a push-pull effect that is challengingly complex. This set, limited to only 3000 copies has an accompanying book which is a striking 96-page document including many small glossy images from installations and collaborations. The graphics depict contained spaces, many long and narrow in which Ikeda’s sound work has been presented, some providing diagrams of the blueprint architecture of his overall sound plots shown in many of the world’s major cities (London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, etc).
::..:::…..:..::….:::::..:::..:::::::……:::…::.:::….::::..:..:::…::…….::::
Essential Links ::
Sub Rosa
::..:::…..:..::….:::::..:::..:::::::……:::…::.:::….::::..:..:::…::…….::::
Read more Microview’s ::
11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
::..:::…..:..::….:::::..:::..:::::::……:::…::.:::….::::..:..:::…::…….::::
