>>> Key
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:: As part two of a collaborative curatorial effort by Philippe Petit (BiP-HOp) and Christopher Murphy (Fällt) this new release by Stephan Mathieu (Fällt, Orthlorng, Bottrop-Boy) as Full Swing and Douglas Benford (BiP-HOp, Sprawl, Suburbs of Hell) as Si-cut.db sets standards high for collaborative work in the contemporary electronic milieu. Seven of the thirteen tracks here were written collaboratively as fine tuned reconstructions of each other’s original work. On tracks like “Flurry.Gardening” the approach is slow and stirring, a bit anxious. The base drone crosses between a church organ and a still aircraft prior to takeoff. The effort presents an inquisitive approach to how experimental composers can examine and/or mirror their own micro techniques. By using random deduction they have fused a formula that acts as a spin-off to their solo work. As two young composers, both currently at a pinnacle of creativity, this often might be more a “vs.” than a natural pairing. Don’t miss Fehler’s optical cover art graphics, to be read interactively from multiple angles. Though hungry ears may want to chew slowly on this, savor the minute eccentricities that lay deeply in the dubby statics and bright microbeats on “Cond.Verge.” [Reciprocess: +/vs.] Vol. 2 lays down some heady rhythms that initially defy categorization but have lots in common with the process of listening and influence. One might hear references to turntablism (“Adorable.Capitolism”), dub, film soundtracks (“Divpops.Stage”) and even plain old pop music. One thing is constant, casual atmosphere, almost a soundtrack to a sparse, empty room, wired for sound, with open electricity and a window cracked ever so slightly, circulating wind and filtering various inclement weather; An ambitious alliance that will hopefully spawn into future projects.
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:: On his eighth release, I finally catch up with Polish improv jazz drummer, Paul Wirkus, on his first release for Cologne-based imprint Quecksilber. Don’t let the drumming moniker fool you though; this is a pure fusion of contemporary electronica that at once reminded me of a distorted redux of Fischerspooner of all things. Wirkus has been around the block having performed in an 80s punk band (Karcer) to an intellectual post-rock project with the lauded Mapa. Aside from Wirkus’ abundant discography that I failed to notice the first time around, he has certainly gained my immediate attention with his insightful Intelleto D’Amore. The polymorphous harmonies are so different from anything else heard in minimal electronic records in recent memory; Wirkus will be the composer to watch! This can partly be attributed to his unique use of sampled traditional strings and piano as sent through tremelo effects and multiple MiniDisc recorders for live mixing. Tracks like “Facsimile,” with its roaming hollow ball effect and pleasant Benge vs. Steve Roden styled rhythms brings about a shift that I could only venture to call microambient. Tonally precise and metrically sound, this is my favorite record of the year – paving a yet, long and uncharted road ahead.
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:: Reported to be the “supertrio of broken pop ambient” Ekkehard Ehlers, Joseph Suchy and Franz Hautzinger vie for a title that I am sure no others are necessarily ponying-up for. That aside, the combination of laptop (Ehlers), guitar (Suchy) and trumpet (Hautzinger) do have a power and cadence of improvisatory free jazz minus the collective conscience of the unconsciousness of the genre. Here, three disparate sound makers remain almost distanced but layered rather strategically. Each musician uniquely fashions passages with their own instrument which is expertly edited and/or mixed to form a neat mix that is often dissonant, but never far from recurring eclectic harmonies. Ehlers’ crackle, hum and elegant computer tones lay the pipes for Suchy’s totally breathtaking post-guitar ambience only to be incorporated timelessly with the inclusion of Hautzinger’s manipulated trumpet. At times it sounds like a warm up session at a cacophonous symphony hall, and just when you are seated upright in the plush velveteen, a storm of static plays musical chairs with your mind. And a possible funeral procession drifts through, led by the weary brass element taking its melodramatic turn somewhere midway through these illustrious Sound Chambers. Though, not at all characterized by the phrase “noise” the wash of clicks, warble and frothy filters form a healthy sound barrier, almost like an architectural model of sorts.
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:: The windy city would be a bit less mysterious without Rob Mazurek (Black Goat Ensemble) who has worked with everyone from Stereolab to Tortoise. His quirky titled, hour-long debut recording for Mego is some sort of post-partum with Mary Shelley’s childhood myth of horror, love and first right of refusal. Set adrift in an abundance of delicate Pantonal colors, Mazurek composes as if he were re-writing the fairytale as a lullaby for the X-Y and Z generations. Abstract electronics bare weight on the wraithlike aural canvas he’s spread. The soon to be beating heart at the center is a phantasmagorical transformed creature conceived by a sinister doctor with a time machine of his genius, yet unrealized invention. The mastering duties went to Jim O’Rourke, and so it goes. The timing of what sounds like a chamber organ produces a dark soundtrack that eloquently hints at the film noir of its muse. With its apt breaks and silences, “Body Parts (Spectral White)” is set off in a style of opaque vignettes. The much more aggressive white noise-based “Electric Eels (In Half Light)” counters the first half of the recording with frenetic pulse, soon tamed and toyed with further. What happens in the final fifteen minutes is just sheer mystery. Sweet and Vicious Like Frankenstein is a far cry from the formerly cornet-laden hands of Mazurek who has been influenced by the dual end of the spectrum jazz greats Ornette Coleman and Lee Morgan, but proves that his instrumental style is based on the multi-linguistic intensity of improvisation.
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:: Not Overtly Orchestral, the third recording by Sydney’s Loop Orchestra, starts with a squeaky-wheel repetitive action fused with a distorted nails-on-a-chalkboard dividing line. There is plenty of back-catalogue homework for you to catch up on about this phantom act who have been through fires, reel-to-reel tape machines and Severed Heads. In about 45 minutes we are cajoled by lopsided electronic caws (“Radiophony”), summoned to a fiery hillside where animals rustle and the court jester is gagged (“Profiles”) all while facing the fate of water torture and/or the heavens opening up as nature calls. These samples are of course, looped, and layered, collaged and sculpted – like an intricate matrix. A constant toy laugh is paired up with a breathy gasp and multilayered sighs and cries as Not Overtly Orchestral comes to a swelling finale. It’s more than a bit disturbing. After 22 working years together, let’s hope The Loop Orchestra has a good long life ahead.
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:: A scrap heap of crazy noise, muted distortions of clicks and cuts, brought to life with guts and sincerity. Though this is not a K2 or Daniel Menche record, it is in like territory. Chefkirk pays homage to the importance of silence in this otherwise glitch-induced mire of interesting microphonics. Achim Wollscheid would be proud. Originally from the shores of North Carolina, Chefkirk has established a fully beat unconscious sensibility that is crowned by a basic love of static charges and peeling paint. His approach to subliminal electro-acoustics has water on the brain, and is only eclipsed by the haiku-like mechanics of the finished sound construction.
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:: Carlos Giffoni (Monotract), Vanessa Payes and Dino Felipe are Old Bombs. This chattering machine called Audios is a full-on, rapid sound collage that steers into the eyes of People Like Us, only to play on the caustic fission of Mego’s General Magic. But where other cut-n-paste audiographers play on our encyclopedic “name that tune” perceptions, Old Bombs embeds these slices of sound with instantaneous originality. The stunning editing credits here go to Payes and Felipe. When listened to loudly, Audios creates an artificial wall between the ear and the immediate environment, almost encapsulating you inside your headphones. The brusque tones use stuttering slang to extreme, not cussin’ but fortified funk, abbreviated glimpses into beat redux. At one moment the marriage of some entity that could only be a haphazard collision between say, Missy Elliott and Wolf Eyes gets filtered into the finale of a Japanese B-movie. Get me a towel!
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:: These dead letters spell something phonetically challenging to the mind’s ear. Dead Letters (multimedia artist Thomas Ekelund) takes found sound recorded in his native Sweden and drives his operation to a superhighway of fine distortions. This is not about noise, it’s more about the differential between noise and the improvisation of the streets. Though the dark side to this 25 year old’s work is based in his interest in the foundry of punk rock. The end result can be described more as the luminescence of influences. Sounding like an old pro, with much in common with Nocturnal Emissions and hints of H3O, this kid is off to a great future. The drone is dense, the beats, if you could call them that, are illogical and discordant. Ekelund’s manipulations confront a smattering of sideline, negligible sounds. He tweaks small objects making them sound like they are caught adrift in a 50MPH wind upon a craggy rock garden or snow tires on open pavement. Encrusted with a startling combination of ambient science.
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:: Komet (Frank Bretschneider) keeps his nominal beats muted, quiet, yet alive with pop. From the moment the laser hit the beautifully designed disc (credits to Fehler) the atmosphere is decidedly crisp and punctuated with variable, colorful tones. “Rausch”‘s structured patterns built from only sine waves and white noise, are almost like an aural drawing, keeping you following their path. Then, the layered “Band” crescendos to mere soft percussive silences after gradations driving the sound curve upward. The luminosity of Bretschneider’s beats are beholden only to his individual style for making each individual sound like a droplet of liquid energy. After having been recorded nearly four years ago, the performance ends in a well behaved round of applause that takes you from the completely digital soundboard to an earthy radio station space in Freiburg – distinguishing clearly that the music makes a complete atmosphere, outside of physical ourselves. In twenty-two minutes this could be the final course to a fattening feast of the finest microsound around.
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:: Dublin’s sound composer/designer Peter Maybury is Hard Sleeper (Sub Rosa, Static Caravan). The single-track performance is cast adrift in particle subtones, thawing the winter freeze. In what could be the soundtrack to an elusive underworld, Hard Sleeper takes to a new “Land” – one mirroring our earthly thumbprint, but teetering along its fine lines, curves and loops. The uninterrupted bass beat sets the coordinates for layers of thinly laced ambient rhythms, faint as can be. By extending some keynotes, Maybury is able to compose a carefree passage that glides and hums over what seems like an endless base of prolonged reverb. These grains of sound make a composite sketch of an emerging artist.
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:: Pollen is populated with an encrusted bed of warm guitar intonations. Like blips on a map of stars, the points of light here have hazy, bright edges. The Bay Area’s Christopher Willits follows his last Folding, and the Tea (12K) and a collaborative recording with Taylor Deupree (AudioSphere) with a sensually sensitive electronic pixellation. There are moments on “Stomata” that make the world seem just a little top-heavy, lopsided. There is an ill-at-ease presence in this carbonated atmosphere. It’s like a house of cards about to implode, but due to the structure it stays intact. Maybe Willits’ urban Richter scale plays a role in the ongoing vernacular here? Pollen has a gauzy filter that has a sense of containment as under glass, separate somehow. When the variegated parts overlap a dreamy lullaby of sorts, it emerges on the intangible “Evergreen.” This work may find its permanent residence in an installation context. Pollen is nothing to sneeze at.
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:: Talk about exclusives! By the time this review hits, the 100 copies may be gone – but there will be 200 happy ears in the universe. Mr. (Andrew) Lagowski miraculously shape-shifts a myriad of pilot data transmissions and various satellite verbiage to keep his catalogue (dating back to ’87) as vital as ever. This technique of sampling, layering, filtering and mixing garners the presence of cosmic communications with higher forms of life. Even the artwork (by Si_COMM) is downloadable, giving the audience the opportunity to link up to interact directly with the creator. The tones hover and levitate; the drone is lightweight and free roaming. In what might be referred to his follow-up to the classic 1995 Knowledge (Ash International), Lagowski has brought new life to the extra terrestrial soundtrack, with a new sense of timelessness. His use of vocal samplers unpredictably digitize the voice into mumbled tones that are more like a child’s broken Casio than another homage to Kraftwerk. The distance between Sentient and earthlings may never be known in scientific terms, but research has proven that SETI’s quest for capturing unknown intelligence is one of virtuous discourse and unbridled exploration. Sentient will surely become one of this decade’s first true ambient master works.
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Essential Links ::
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