The Sound Projector

 

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1. Sun City Girls, ‘Blue Mambo’
2. Sun City Girls, ‘Tarmac 23′
3. Sun City Girls, ‘Space Prophet Dogon’
   From Torch of the Mystics, USA TUPELO RECORDING COMPANY TUP 44-2 CD (1993)
4. Sun City Girls, ‘Let’s Pretend’
5. Sun City Girls, ‘Floppy Pus’
6. Sun City Girls, ‘Bloddy Zipper’
7. Sun City Girls, ‘Dan and Ross’
   From Dante’s Disneyland Inferno, USA ABDUCTION ABDT007 2 x CD (1996)
8. Climax Golden Twins, [Tracks 1-6]
   From Imperial Household Orchestra, USA SCRATCH #23 CD (1996)
9. Jesse Paul Miller, [A side]
   From Secret Records, USA FIRE BREATHING TURTLE FBT003 7″ (1997)
10. Climax Golden Twins, [A side]
    From Climax Golden Twins, USA ROADCONE ROCO 016 7″ (1996)
11. Jesse Paul Miller, [B side]
    From Secret Records, op cit.
12. Rob Millis, ‘Small Ensemble Myanmar’
    From Leaf Music Drunks Distant Drums, USA ANOMALOUS RECORDS NOM26 CD (2004)
13. Jonathan Coleclough, ‘Gate’
    From An Uncommon Nature compilation, USA ANOMALOUS RECORDS NOM6 LP (2001)
14. RLW, ‘Views #1′
    From Views, USA ANOMALOUS RECORDS NOM27 CD (2004)
15. Eric Lanzillotta, water tower (extract)
    From USA ANOMALOUS RECORDS sound 1 10″ (2000)
16. Jesse Paul Miller, [Track 2]
    From Reaching for a Quiet Place, PRIVATE PRESS CDR (2003)
17. Evidence, ‘Out of Town’
    From Out of Town, USA DEEP LISTENING DL 23-2003 CD (2003)
18. Climax Golden Twins, [Tracks 2-6]
    From Dream Cut Short in the Mysterious Clouds, USA MEME meme018 CD (2000)
19. Sun City Girls, ‘Bad Housekeeping’
20. Sun City Girls, ‘Miss Majestic’
    From Box of Chameleons, USA ABDUCTION ABDT009 3 x CD (1997)

The Sound Projector radio show,
originally broadcast on Resonance 104.4 FM

Thanks for the review of our latest climax golden twins LP, in the latest issue…just have to set one thing straight because I’m that way…Scott Colburn did not actually play on this record, though he has contributed inimitably to many of our past releases. The drums on the track “Correct Interpretation” were played by the ambient caveman himself, Mr. Erin Sullivan. Erin is the primary songwriter and guitar player with the mighty A Frames. Some of the drums (the good ones) on the track called “Duel”–recorded at least 400 years ago–were by John Vallier. All else was courtesy of the two primary Twins. I suppose we should put more information on our releases to avoid this sort of thing, but them’s the breaks with us. Thanks. Sound Projector is the best and getting better each issue.
–climax golden twins

Otomo Yoshihide is a man who can do absolutely no wrong for me. Here’s a startling newie called Multiple Otomo (ASPHODEL ASP 3007), resultant from a project of the same name, comprising one audio CD and one DVD mounted in a luxury foldout pack (which can also be used as a sandwich box during your lunch hour). Note how the title of this one likens Otomo to Multi-Man, my favourite one of the 1966 Hanna-Barbera cartoon crime-fighting troupe The Impossibles (who were also a beat combo). And rightly so. Judging by track titles, this is an exhaustive aural and visual document of the nine types of merry heck which this Jaunty Japanese Juggernaut wreaks when faced with the tempting prospect of an open turntable and a disposable slice of vinyl. Other objects brought into play include guitars, violin bows, needles, coins, temporary styluses (styli), and feedback. Some dissenting listeners doubt that feedback is an ‘object’, but will they ever eat their words when they find out what my main man Otomo can do with it! Slurp! I’m slavering at the prospect of letting these beasts near my requisite playback devices, consequence of which dangerous action might be a simultaneous explosion of both discs and a hail of plastic shards painfully embedded in my “mush”.

Also from Dense distrib in Berlin (who sent the above), the brand-new Nadja release touched (ALIEN8 ALIENCD67). Great! I still continue to rave about their debut CD Truth Becomes Death to anyone who’ll listen, often receiving an affirmative response of ‘It’s already in my iPod!’ from total strangers I greet on the bus. Nadja is a two-person act of which the principal bod Aidan Baker is a poet and visual artist who also plays a lot of guitar and a lot of keyboard. Like the evil twin of Bill Nelson, he overdubs and distorts his sound into a glorious sluggish swamp of poignant tragedy, with tons of low-frequency bottom end. This band have made stoner rock into an art form! Nadja’s heartfelt tribute to the Golem legend reduces grown men to blubbering infants, so I’m expecting similar episodes of intense catharsis in the TSP household when this is spun.

Ghost Storeys (COCOSOLIDCITI CSC014) by David Kristian may prove worthwhile. It’s electronic music produced through co-operation with a Manga animator, Ryosuke Aoike. The release has been rewarded with audiophile treatment (ie it’s in 5.1 Surround format), suggesting Kristian is an accomplished creator of lush studio constructs on a par with, erm…Alan Parsons. Gotta admit that Manga / Anime is one of my cultural blind spots, though.

K K Null releases Fertile (TO:74) on Mike Harding’s Touch label this month, a most apt title for this time of year as we enter the time of renewal. His participation in Number One (an earlier, fascinating Touch project with Chris Watson and Z’EV) delivered extremely rewarding results, despite or perhaps because of the widely divergent interests of those three creative dynamos. Although he enjoys notoriety as a veteran of merciless guitar-grinding noise, Null is also an extremely able sound-art creator when he gets behind the desk and the knobs, particularly imaginative when reworking electronica and beat music in his own warped image. Let’s keep it fertile, Myrtle!

A similarly wide-ranging array of talent has been packed into the corporeal frame of Erdem Helvacioglu from Istanbul, a composer, sound designer, arranger and producer whose Altered Realities (NA131) has recently emerged like fragrant sap from a broken bough on the New Albion Records label. His six-page CV contains an impressive history of appearances and releases, and makes me wonder how he so long managed to elude discovery from the TSP radar. You can sample a sumptuous track from this beaut at the NAR website. I’m guessing that it’s seven tracks of processed solo guitar works in a studio, but filled with a luminescence not encountered since Portuguese guitarist Rafael Toral.

Everyone’s favourite Norwegian Lasse Marhaug is back with another Jazzkammer project, which is him plus fellow countryman John Hegre. For this release, they’re called Jazkamer and the record (whose silly name I am not inclined to repeat here) arrived from the Czech Republic, on Petr Frint’s PURPLESOIL label. Often waved aside (or even welcomed) by lazy journalists as ‘Norwegian Noise’, as if that term explained anything, the work of Marhaug is usually in fact far more richly complex and diverse. Absurdist playful titles like ‘Tentacles of Broken Teeth’ and ‘Blues for Sterling Hayden’ can only strengthen the confidence of any potential purchaser here.

Five mega-groovester CDs of US free folk, neo-gnostic droning paganism and swirling abstractamoid psych-music from the Digitalis Industries label in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That’s my wild guess, at any rate. Of these, softwar (DIG039) features the great Loren Chasse and other luminaries from the so-called ‘Jewelled Antler’ scene of quiet, low-key improv and acoustic thunkery. In the foldout cover, several young people form a makeshift circle and prevent a tent from flying away. It’s an image which somehow implies more than it shows. Other impenetrable CDR-ish items in the envelope were The Holy See by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Jim Reed; CHAOB (FOXGLOVE 148) featuring various youngsters recorded in Portland Oregon; and Time on Wings of Spit by Grey Park. These are wrapped in wallpaper offcuts or colour photocopies, adding somehow to their strange aura. Also there’s a mystical-looking record which reveals that The Stones Know Everything, a metaphysical insight accredited to Fabio Orsi and Gianluca Becuzzi. Many levels of intrigue to investigate here.

The E11eventh issue of The Sound Projector, long sold out in paper form, is now available as a digital edition and free to download from this site. The magazine has been rendered as 10 separate PDF files, for ease of download.

Issue 11 is the only ‘born-digital’ issue of the magazine which is currently out of print. We’re working on a way to bring you exact facsimiles of the earlier issues rendered in PDF form. True, issues 1-3 are still available on this site remade as html pages, but I find I’m increasingly unsatisfied with this format.

Further digital editions are planned.

1. Faust, ‘Track 1′
   From Faust V, UK VIRGIN RECORDS unreleased (1975)
2. Frame, ‘Crusical Scene’
   From Frame Of Mind, GERMANY BACILLUS / BELLAPHON BLPS 19107 (1972)
3. Harmonia, ‘Sonnenschein’
   From Musik Von Harmonia, JAPAN POLYDOR POCP-2387 CD (1995)
   Original issue GERMANY BRAIN METRONOME 1044 LP (1974)
4. Amon Düül, ‘Broken’
   From Disaster, JAPAN CAPTAIN TRIP CTCD-022 CD (1995)
   Original issue GERMANY BASF 29 29079-8 2 x LP (1971)
5. Tomorrow’s Gift, ‘Allerheiligen’
   From Goodbye Future, GERMANY AAMOK 28515 LP (1973)
6. Eulenspygel, ‘Menschenmaker’
   From Ausschuss, GERMANY SPIEGELEI 28780-7U LP (1972)
7. Rumplestiltskin, ‘I Am the Last Man’
   From Black Magician, GERMANY BELLAPHON BLPS 19082 LP [1972]
8. Gila, ‘Trampelpfad’ (1972)
   From Night Works Live, USA GARDEN OF DELIGHTS 035 CD (1999)
9. Missus Beastly, ‘XOX’
   From Missus Beastly, CPM LP-S 002 LP (1970)
10. Sameti, ‘To My Confidential Lady’
    From Sameti, FRANCE SPALAX 14887 CD (1994)
    Original issue GERMANY BRAIN METRONOME 1020 LP (1972)
11. Dom, ‘Edge of Time’
    From Edge of Time, UK WITCH & WARLOCK W&W 005 CD (1995)
    Original issue GERMANY MELOCORD ST-LP-D 001 (1972)
12. Sand, ‘On The Corner’ (1974)
    From Electronic Seraphim, UK DURTRO UDOR 2/3 CD (1996)
13. Eulenspygel, ‘Staub auf Deinem Haar’
    From Eulenspygel 2, USA GARDEN OF DELIGHTS CD 037 (1999)
    Original issue GERMANY SPIEGELEI/INTERCORD 28760-7 U LP (1971)
14. Oktober, ‘Nero’
    From Uhrsprung, GERMANY TRIKONT US 0024 LP (1976)
15. Annexus Quam, ‘Seite 1-A’
    From Osmose, FRANCE SPALAX 14881 CD (1995)
    Original issue GERMANY OHR OMM 56007 LP (1970)
16. Harmonia, ‘Dino’
    From Musik Von Harmonia, op cit.

One goodly vinyl slab this week - it’s a potentially blistering artefact of UK noise, credited to The New Blockaders and Putrefier, and bearing name of Schleifmittelbögen (BIRTHBITER 09 LP). Has been loosed into the world’s maw courtesy of the Birthbiter label, which I presume to be owned and operated by Mark Durgan (who is also Putrefier). The Rupenus TNB project continues over time to generate new sonic chunks such as this, even when in recent years it’s usually a recycling / remaking episode, which I think is what this will prove to be. References to earlier LPs can be found in the press release. I’m advised to listen out for acoustic and field recordings in the mix and that, once spun, my preconceptions about Rupenus and Durgan will be pleasantly challenged and surprised. Durgan’s work has graced my ears in the shape of one intense live LP, and a definitive four-CD retrospective collection which, to be honest, was somewhat wearisome overall (even if packed with many nuggets of invention). The title of the record continues a tradition of fictional German compound words, which have graced many a TNB project; this one translates roughly as ’sleep-central-elbow’, which is something I can personally identify with as a major insomniac. Also rather taken with the humourous image on the record label, which is a ‘found’ photograph of a street sign reading ‘RESTAURANT NADA’. Given that Rupenus has often sought expression in the furthest reaches of nihilism, I feel confident that he’s a regular diner at this emporium of nothingness. Limited pressing of 500 copies, of which 100 (including mine) have a supplemental CDR inserted. With track titles like ‘Tiras abrasivas’, I’m expecting something that’ll sandpaper my bedroom walls and bring me a nice cup of coffee in the morning, but what do you make of something called ‘Fleksible Slibeark’? You must be the judge!

Ben Owen writes from New York, where he operates the Winds Measure Recordings label. ‘Longtime reader here…’ he pens, ‘finally sending something for review (revile)’. Credited to ting ting jahe, it’s called simply 18 (16) and is housed in a minimal, elegant letterpress cover in the postcard format. Described here in somewhat mystical terms, using phrases and words like ‘icy communion’, ‘ghosts’ and ‘electromagnetic conversations’, this may turn out to be intriguing low-key sound art episodes, based perhaps on ethereal impressions of weather and atmosphere, making whatever sonic marks they may on digital recording media. The presence of Deep Listening star Scott Smallwood (on mastering duties here) lends further credence to this possibility. This is wm 03 on the label; wm 04 features a personal fave Jeph Jerman with Greg Davis and Albert Casais.

1. Tibetan Red, ‘Fire Pilgrimage’ (fade)
   From Fouta Djalon, SPAIN GLIPTOTEKA MAGDALAE GMGTSMMSAND014 CD (2006)
2. Pierre Bastien, ‘Talou VII’
   From Les Premières Machines 1968-1988, FRANCE GAZUL RECORDS GA 8687.AR CD (2007)
3. Push The Triangle, ‘The Blame’
   From Repush Machina, FRANCE D’AUTRES CORDES RECORDS D’AC091 CD (2007)
4. Joe Frawley, ‘Death by Water’
   From Tangerine, USA NO NUMBER CDR (2007)
5. Ros Bobos, ‘We Are Kittens’
   From Unchartered Universal Euphoria, USA NO NUMBER CD (2006)
6. Secret Mommy, ‘Diciduism’
   From Plays, CANADA ACHE RECORDS ache030 CD [2007]
7. Hush Arbors, ‘May all your pastures now spring with herbs’
   From Under Bent Limb Trees, USA FOXY DIGITALIS digi 037 2 x CD (2006)
8. Mockingwyrd, ‘Primordial Soup’ (fade)
   From Cracks in the Void, FINLAND SOME PLACE ELSE SPECDR07041 3″ CDR (2007)
9. Pierre Bastien, ‘Gypsy Rhythm’
   From Les Premières Machines, op cit.
10. Sincareza, ‘Dimanchemartin’
    From Edit sur passage avant fin ou montée d’instrument, FRANCE DISTILE RECORDS DIST004 CD (2007)
11. Destructo Swarmbots, ‘Phases’
    From Clear Light, USA PUBLIC GUILT PG011 CD (2007)
12. Phil Hargreaves and Glenn Weyant, ‘Summer Again’
    From Friday Morning Everywhere, UK WHI MUSIC whi006 CD (2007)
13. Lawrence English, ‘Desert Road’
    From For Varying Degrees of Winter, FRANCE BASKARU KARU:7 CD (2007)
14. Xome Vs Tralphaz, ‘Interspecies Arrival at the Colony Dining Hall’
    From Battle of Primordial Energy Manifesting in Matter, USA RESIPISCENT RSPT018 CDR (2007)
15. K K Null, ‘Inorganic Orgasm (#6 Variation)’
    From Music from an Exhibition, USA RIDER UNIVERSITY GALLERY CD RUG 101 [2007]

Simultaneous playback with:

16. Daniel Menche, extract from Animality, GERMANY emd.pl/records/006 CD (2007)

Sensational ‘newie’ just clanked in from Pierre Bastien, called Les Premières Machines 1968-1988 (GAZUL 8687.AR CD). This is from the same excellent French label who brought us those fabboo compilations of Ptôse and Pascal Comelade, and it’s the same approach - a hand-picked representative selection of music from the man’s history, in this case 15 tracks, plus a wealth of fascinating detail including a very good discography, all crammed into a no-nonsense foldout sleeve layout. Admittedly it’s all written in French, but how need that trouble us my dears? Bastien is kinda notorious for his ‘gimmick’, which sometimes involves hand-made machinery built from Meccano sets or converted bicycles to play musical instruments in clunky ways, but he’s also a puffy guy - he blows a mean alto clarinet and equally makes a shenai sit up and beg! I tell you, what with all the above and more Jac Berrocal albums coming our way (in my dreams, that is) it’s high time we re-appraised the French contribution to underground music of the 1960s and 1970s. This release is part of the Zut-O-Pistes collection, compiled by Dominque Grimaud. For his efforts, M. Grimaud gets a massive tip of the Sound Projector beret!

Gaspo! Here’s a copy of the recent Faust book, Faust: Stretch Out Time 1970-1975, by Andy Wilson, written and self-published by the same man who diligently compiles the splendid (unofficial) Faust website in this country. A mere three-minute browse this lunchtime has already persuaded me I’m holding a very detailed and intelligent study in my hands, with lots of facts about how the records got made in particular, but I’m getting a good buzz from the half-tone illustrations too - nice to see them embedded in the pages (ie instead of glossy plates inserted) and of such high quality, not to mention the lip-smacking rare pix of press handouts, newspaper adverts, posters, unreleased covers, and what have you. I can’t absorb enough information (or mythology) about this band, one of my firm favourites for many years, even if I’m still floundering like a wet fish as I try to grasp their music. Also in favour of this book - it’s got a proper discography, notes and citations, bibliography and…an index! How many worthless cut-and-paste rock biographies concern themselves with such important details? One in the eye for certain other music book publishers I could name…

Destructo Swarmbots is a pretty descriptive name for a lively performance ambient-noise project, one that’s just spreading out of the USA like a disease since 2003. The ‘bots can be a collective combo in certain situations, but their Clear Light CD (PUBLIC GUILT PG011) is all the work of main mayhem-merchant Mike Mare, who lives in the Queens district of NY. Abstract art fold-out cover here which may depict anything from fireworks in night sky, outer-space nebulae, or light reflecting from the surface of a pond as seen by a hallucinating frog. If I play it and it doesn’t convey all of these sensations simultaneously in an aural way, I’ll be one disappointed chick. James Plotkin, a fairly big name from this ‘area’, was drafted in to do th’ mastering. Eager fans may want to note this isn’t officially out until May 07.

Artur Nowak is a fine Polish specimen of a man, currently striding the streets of Wiesbaden in Germany like a colossus. His label emd.pl/records released a coupla scorchers last year which are detailed in issue 15. One of ‘em (Rurokura and the Final Warn) still brings me out in a cold sweat just thinking about it, as I mentally relive its apocalyptic nightmare which was barked into my ears in stuttering bursts. Now here’s a monstrous sliver from Daniel Menche, the highly prolific American wild-ogre of noise, called Animality (emd.pl/records/006) and featuring the head of a grizzly bear on the cover printed in white and gold. Said bear is roaring with mouth open at full stretch, and his bonce is outlined in jagged shards, suggesting the considerable effects this recording will have on all those in the animal kingdom. So now we know - the noise of Menche can even make a bear scream for mercy! Like the Rurokura disc, this one is packaged in a highly imaginative piece of thin, rigid black plastic that unfolds into a miniature 3-D sculpture of sorts. Crisp, sharp and clear, looks like you can really sink your incisors into this one!

1. Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kurzwellen (1968) (fade)
   From GERMANY STOCKHAUSEN VERLAG 13 CD (1992)
2. David Behrman, ‘Players with Circuits’ (1966)
   From Wave Train, ITALY ALGA MARGHEN plana-B 5NMN.020 CD (1998)
3. François Bayle, ‘Tremblement de terre très doux pts 1-4′ (1978)
   From Erosphère, FRANCE INA.GRM C3002 CD (1990)
4. Richard Maxfield, ‘Bacchanale’ (1963)
   From The Oak of the Golden Dreams, USA NEW WORLD RECORDS 80555-2 CD (1999)
5. Edgardo Canton, ‘Promenade d’été d’ulis nasa’ (fade)
   From Promenade d’été d’ulis nasa, ITALY NEPLESS CO981 2004 CD (1998)
6. Operating Theatre, ‘Rapid Eye Movements’ (1978-80) (fade)
   From Rapid Eye Movements, UK UNITED DAIRIES UD011 CD (1992)
7. André Almuró, ‘Le Troisième Oeil’ (fade)
   From Dépli, ITALY ELICA MPO-3330 CD (1999)
8. Iannis Xenakis, ‘Hibiki-Hana-Ma’ (1970)
   From Electronic Music, USA ELECTRONIC MUSIC FOUNDATION EMF CD 003 (1997)

Tangerine is a new miniature from Joe Frawley. 16 and one-half minutes of piano music and sound collage from this Connecticut-based fellow. His previous one Wilhelmina (received earlier this year, not yet reviewed) was most evocative in an oneiric way, so I’m sure this one will press similar nerve-centres. Unlike a lot of modernist composers who have gone out of their way to deny (or even destroy) narrative elements, Frawley embraces story-telling with a passion. Track titles like ‘Death by water’ and ‘The House was Full of Books’, plus a Herman Melville quote on the back cover, confirm his literary resonances. He’s also a fan of old sepia-tinted photographs, and although there’s nothing deeply macabre about his work, it could be situated on the fringes of turf occupied by Joel Peter Witkin or The Brothers Quay.

Tibetan Red made a debut release in 1986, originally on a Canadian cassette label and released briefly on a CD. Heard it in 2004 and reviewed in TSP 13. It was a pretty relentless but subtle exercise in using loops to build up a suffocating blanket of terror and dread. Now here’s their third release, Fouta Djalon (GMGTSMMSAND014), released by Gliptoteka Magdalae at Gracia-Territori Sonor in Barcelona. Salvador Francesch writes: “There was a second release Tao Point, which was a collaboration with Victor Nubla. You reviewed his work too with maximum accurateness. I don’t recall if you ever received it because it was Nubla’s doing but if you don’t have the CD I will send you a copy. Now this CD Fouta Djalon links up with my first CD.” I’m certainly relishing the chance to re-enter this unique sound world of twilight capers. The cover art appears to be seven small white seashells on top of a purple and black composition much like a slightly more geometric Mark Rothko, and titles like ‘Fire Pilgrimage’ and ‘Stone Koan’ promise further esoteric delights for the aurally initiated.

More tempting morsels from Japan, this time from a label called Evenstilte which was founded in 2002 by Stéphane Perrin in Tokyo. Only 7 releases to date; his new project is the ‘Even Statics’ series which seems to involve various underground stars remixing each other (not really in my line), but I see his first release was by Guilty Connector, one of my favourite incoherent Japanese noise cassette-beasts. In my hands I hold two discs…Eagle Keys (ES105) by our old friend Tim Olive (the Canadian improviser who lives in Osaka), here playing with Francisco Meirino, on a record wrapped in a smashing sleeve drawn by Marc Bell. The other one is No Noise (ES104), a various artists comp from 2006 with Reynols, Dustbreeders and Junko, Guilty Connector, Birchville Cat Motel and others. This might turn out OK, but it feels a shade ‘retro’ and the grisly sleeve art by Rudolf Eb.er doesn’t bode well.

Temporary Residence Ltd (from Brooklyn) have been sending through quite a number of releases whose overall vibe suggests the label is ‘dark and moody’ without quite tipping over into the realm of the Goth. New CD by Grails is called Burning Off Impurities and the front cover is made up from a clever assemblage of fractured religious icons, making a composite of the faces of holy men. On the back cover, a bearded character who could be anyone from Karl Marx to Moses is up to his neck in a purple ocean of gloom, with what looks like a large whale’s tail looming behind him. Grails have had releases on Neurot, Southern and Important; based on this, and their grim countenances in the press photo, I’m anticipating some fairly efficient studio-based psych-doom guitar noise.