Ever prolific netlabel Kikapu decides to take a holiday from its consistent
release schedule for a few months and, to keep us occupied gives us the
ambitious Wein, Weib und Gesang MP3 compilation. Roughly translated
from German to English as “Wine, Women and Song,” Kikapu claims to give us
all we need to be happy. At a marathon 4 hours 45 minutes long, they
left out extended battery life for our MP3 players to experience all the
extended-length high-bitrate beauty in its entirety. I’m sure the fact that
this is a free netlabel release will no doubt allow us to forgive them.
The list of artists featured reads like a guest list to a mixer party for
the who’s-who of Kikapu, with some new, but familiar names added for
interest. Mar.ch begins the festivities with “They Are Looking For A Country
Of Their Own,” a delicate minimalist drone filled with warm layers of chords
that reveal a taste of the various experimental ambient flavors explored on
the 33 remaining tracks.
Jason Sloan and Matt Borghi, whose excellent improvisational collaboration
Guilford lurks in
Kikapu’s early-2004 releases, each contribute absorbing drones. Jason
Sloan’s “From February (Live In Seattle 02.27.04),” with its initial washes
of gong-like noise that melt into echoing space, is the sound that might
have been achieved if Vidna Obmana had put his fingerprints on Steven
Stapleton’s mixing desk when he remixed Coil’s “How To Destroy Angels.” Matt
Borghi’s “This Moment Feels Frozen, But Really We’re In Another Time And
Place” offers a chance to
experience a fathoms-deep stasis environment rich with repose and serenity.
Autistici, still perfecting the definition of his own genre demonstrated on
the A Moment Of Incidentals EP, gives us the glitchy, dark
ambient-tinged “Locations Marked On A Map Of Silence.” The title says it
all – brilliant noodling with digital clips of found sounds, beeps, clicks,
static and sped up voices all mapped out to resemble a game of Battleship
between sound and
silence gone inconceivable.
As for some of the new names, Caddis’ “…And We Were Led To Pools Of Light”
is an epic narrative beginning with bright analog synths coloring the path
leading to the light, only to be muted by the arrival at the pools with
ethereal tones which are also eventually muted by the concluding look back
at the path’s bright beginning. Spark takes time away from his recently
busy release schedule and makes a welcome appearance with “Celebrate.”
Filled with textures ranging from fine to gritty, the friction that created
them must have been a traumatic brush with intense emotion that left an
impression lasting enough to be painted from memory.
Kosik brings the gathering to a close with “Lastly Empty,” a gentle track
with a simple repetitive pulse sprinkled with muted acoustic guitar that is
fitting for the close of an all night long listening session. With Wein,
Weib und Gesang, Kikapu has shown that an epic release doesn’t have to
set you back a day’s pay, and that even a netlabel can have a moment of
clarity,
even if it does take almost 5 hours to experience.
Wein, Weib und Gesang is out now on Kikapu.
