The Sound Projector

Graham Lambkin (formerly of The Shadow Ring, natch) sends his latest report from the inner recesses of his curlicued mind, in the form of new CD Salmon Run (KYE 02). Interestingly this is the second-only release on his own label, the first one being a solo LP of extreme tapework called Poem (For Voice and Tape) from 2001. Here, on a CD uncluttered with peripheral information - just the titles, catalogue number and expressions of gratitude to friends and family - Lambkin seems to be serving up further experiments and exercises in the surreal, using to the full his uniquely twisted approach to the art of electro-acoustic. I’m slightly prepared by last year’s Draining The Vats tape, which contained at least one track that used treatments and loops of classical music CDs alongside home field recordings, and that eerie episode - called ‘Untitled’ as I recall - does seem to prefigure some of these perplexing Salmon Run constructs. ‘Glinkamix’, for example, posits mixed-up recordings of Russian composer Glinka running in real time with unidentifiable sonic diary statements captured direct from the Lambkin household. I’ve only had time for a five-minute sojourn through the cuts here, but I’m already convinced this record is gonna be a major headscratcher in my home for weeks to come, causing my furrowed brow to knit into a folded rug of bafflement. Recommended! I’ve no idea how you can get a copy of this, though I suppose your best bet is to start with the Swill Radio list. Graham was interviewed, along with Darren Harris of The Shadow Ring, in TSP 14 (which just sold out this week).

The American Public Guilt label has, like a gigantic vulture or condor, just dispatched a triplet of three-inch CDRs like baby mice into the hungry beaks of the awaiting goslings. Harm Stryker’s eponymous release (PGL001) is a sonic construct put together by a duo, Kelly Norse and Kenneth Yates, and housed in a tiny sleeve with a cover-mounted photograph of a contrail and a triangular tower in shilhouette, a relaxing view which you can contemplate as you follow the twists of turns of their highly dynamic electronic drone overlaid with colourful barbs. Darsombra have vomited out Deliriums and Death (PGL002), which could be my personal fave of the three - suspect this is ‘art-metal’ in the Nadja mould, built up from relentless overdubs of feedback and loops by the tireless Brian Daniloski working overtime with his amplifiers and four-track. Really nice screenprinted artwork on textured paper too, a mini-frieze by germ?, which skillfully blends decorative typography with darker imagery. Finally, for sheer power and anti-social banging blasts, you need only scoop up your copy of Korperschwache’s A Mountain of Skulls for the Clueless Cowboy (PGL003). Assuming you’ll permit a record with a dumb title like that past the gates of your abode, you’ll be amply repaid by full-bodied guitar and headache-inducing drum noise from this Texan duo of RKF and Doktor Omega, rough customers with beards who take their cues from experimental Black Metal and guitar-based noise bands, snatching the prize coarsely from the hands of more sensitive artists like Hototogisu. All these gems are limited to 100 copies, so today’s tip is to utilise thy cloven hooves for online purchase with appropriate speed.

Every so often we’re sent CDs in outré or startling packages which, however innovative, are nearly impossible to open. On a bad day, I can be driven to distraction by such arrivals, and after ten minutes of trying without success to get to the CD, will fling it back in the box with many an invective. Or crash it over my own head in an action of despair. Such a one is Vertonen’s new CDR, Not All Who Wander Are Lost (BANNED PRODUCTION NO NUMBER), but being packaged in balsa wood, it made negligible impression as it bounced off my insensate noggin. As a balm to my pain, this promises to be a very quiet 18 minutes of limpid tones and vague washes, and may have something to do with alchemical processes; mercury is mentioned in the press notes, but perhaps for reasons quite unrelated to my favourite Renaissance science. Vertonen is Mr Edwards from Chicago who has sent us a solo CD (Stations) on the C.I.P. label, giving further evidence of his many and varied untamed experiments in sound. The balsa wood package, which at first seemed as elaborate as a Chinese puzzle, is in fact opened simply by cutting open the paper band which surrounds it, said band being decorated with most apt ‘navigational’ artworks that fit the ‘lost’ theme of the title and suggest this Californian label are bidding for product placement in the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

1. Herbie Hancock, ‘Oh! Oh! Here he comes’ (1969)
   From Fat Albert Rotunda, WARNER BROS MASTERS 9362-47540-2 CD
2. Chuck Bettis, ‘Night on Fire’
   ‘P.I.E. / L.I.T.L’
   ‘Light in Extension’
   From Sonic Sigils, USA SCARCELIGHT RECORDINGS SLR22 3″ CD (2004)
3. The Art Ensemble of Chicago, ‘Ouffnoon’ (1972)
   From Bap-Tizum, USA ATLANTIC 7567-80757-2 CD (1998)
4. Hvratski, extracts from Irrevocably Overdriven Break Freakout Megamix, USA ENTSCHULDIGEN ent mich CD (2005)
5. The Tony Williams Lifetime, ‘The Urchins of Shermêse’ (1971)
   From Ego, USA VERVE 559 512-2 CD (1999)
6. Dustbreeders and Junko, extract from ‘Live at Le Jardin Moderne Rennes November 16 2002′
   From Mommy Close The Door, USA STARLIGHT FURNITURE COMPANY *22 CD (2004)
7. Roswell Rudd, ‘Satan’s Dance’ (fade)
   From Mixed, EU GRP RECORDS / BMG IMP 12702 CD (1998)
   Original issue Everywhere, USA IMPULSE AS-9126 (1966)
8. Frode Gjerstad and Lasse Marhaug, ‘A Dry Well’ (fade)
   From Red Edge, USA BREATHMINT BM 96, CARBON RECORDS CR092, LITTLE MAFIA LM035, SUNSHIP RECORDS SUN38, GAMEBOY RECORDS GB55 CD (2004)
9. Ornette Coleman, ‘Joy of a Toy’ (1960)
   From Twins, WARNER MUSIC MANUFACTURING EUROPE 81227 3684-2 CD
10. Henrik Rylander, ‘06′
    From Formation, SWEDEN FIREWORK EDITION RECORDS FER 1047 CD (2003)
11. Pharoah Sanders, ‘Summun, Bukmun, Umyun’ (1970)
    From Summun, Bukmun, Umyun, EU MCA RECORDS IMP 12652 CD

One hour show (as opposed to usual 90 minutes) due to live Resonance coverage from the Tate Modern

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

The Fun Years are a couple of guys Ben Recht and Isaac Sparks, who suffer from Life-Sized Psychoses and want to share them with the world, in shape of a CD by the same name, on the Brooklyn-based label BARGE RECORDINGS (BRG 002). Enduring a psychosis isn’t quite the same as being a paid-up member of the booby hatch, but the cover art tells its own story and does indeed suggest the visual scope available to that of a brain-damaged soul confined to the rubber room; peeling paint and rusty iron walls suggesting the grim and horrifying confines of a hospital ward. Inside, the CD (coloured in a lurid green) depicts a cartoon drawing of a “happy” family scene that David Lynch woulda loved, suggesting that it’s the pressures of the modern nuclear family that are usually the root cause of said psychoses. Be this as it be, the duo (who only ever appear in superimposed double-exposure photographs) produce their languid, psychotic-tinged droney music using only a bass guitar and a turntable. These five tracks of sonic diablery are certainly intriguing; their intention is to ‘artfully conjure notions of memory, space and the subconscious’. Scientists have been trying to do that in the laboratory for years; can The Fun Years succeed where they have failed?

While I’m still mentally trying to escape aforesaid cell in my asylum, I might enjoy the sounds of heizung raum 318 (1000FÜSSLER 008) to amuse me; it’s another example in that rare species of experimental music, sounds produced using a radiator! Scoff ye may, but I’ve at least two such recordings in my personal stash. Sound-artists worth their salt really dig the sounds of malfunctioning household equipment, and the four Europeans here - Nicolai Stephan, Asmus Tietchens, Stefan Funck and Gregory Büttner - have signed their names to that particular roster with dispatch. They each do one ‘steaming’ track, with exception of Mr Funck who takes the lion’s share of the thermostat and turns in four ‘hissing’ statements. At the end there’s a five-minute unedited version of a documentary recordings of the three radiators in the room blasting it out. This is gonna be a lead-pipe cinch…it seems the foursome met up in Room 318 on a regular basis, but for what dark purpose the sleeve notes remain silent. If, like me, the only scene you’ve ever enjoyed in Eraserhead has been the appearance of the Radiator Lady, then this is the album for you.

Got a couple of anonymous-looking white label CDRs from BlackGapDeathTrap Records, with a letter signed by its worthy proprietors Flo and Raphael; these young geniuses may represent a fairly new label as only six releases have been confirmed so far, with BGDT 007 on its way. Nonetheless both these white devils will repay some further attention with benefit of hearing aid turned up to max. Poochlatz’s Cold Turkey (BGDT 006) purports to have six ‘songs’, although in practice said disc seems to be a continual 27:32 track with no index points; wrapped in a striking cover of a stern monochrome photograph depicting an elaborate vaulted church roof, this one promises to be a real gem of evil, frowning, black-metal derived harsh ambient. A trio of insane Israeli loons using only guitar, bass and voice, the Poochsters have had a record (Victims of Self-Preservation) noted and praised by Jennifer Hor last ish, which may send curious listeners scuttling off to check it out … also in the DeathTrap envelope, their sizzling new compilation record which features a track from every one of their releases to date; strong stuff abounds from Gundis, Tugnut, Josh Lay, Altar of Flies, Kylie Minoise, and Kvllvllvllv. ‘Let us know if you are interested in any releases,’ comes the teasing line in their letter. I may just follow up on this offer, based on the radical blasts of old-school shriekery and nattering noise that appear to lurk within their barrels.

Ophibre sent a strange hand-made CDR from its home in Brighton MA in the US. Puzzle Pieces (oph3) comprises two tracks of what might be reprocessed field recordings and documentary snatches overlaid with heavy, mysterious droning electronic pattterns. A curious construct, it promises to unfold in a rewarding way. Inside the wallet are two pieces extracted from a jigsaw, inserted with care in a little specimen bag that might be used by archaeologists to rescue tiny fragments of pottery shards from a dig. Now I know how Batman felt whenever he had a message from The Riddler waiting for him in Commissioner Gordon’s office. If you think you can guess what malarkey this master-criminal is planning before Robin and myself can reach the scene of the crime, by all means visit Ophibre.com and puzzle it out.

Here’s a vinyl artefact from Sweden that’s probably already attracting bids in excess of 65 Euros on eBay Sweden; it’s called KKH1 Lock Grooves, and it’s a seven-inch single commissioned by our old friend Carl Michael von Hausswolff, that undoubted master of startling experimentation. Guying them with promises of a bag of sweeties or malted milk of their choice, he prompted six students at the Royal University College of Fine Art in Stockholm to create a lock groove track; the results of their painterly-styled tape manipulations appear on side one, while side two is reserved for a ‘mix’ of the original material executed by the maestro himself with his pale, but large, hands. In true fine art fashion, the record has been issued with seven variant sleeves; I suppose true collectors will need one example of each, so send your postal orders in to Royal Records now. Apparently the six students, once their sweet rewards were consumed, were so taken with what they’d done they promptly formed a performance group based on this one record, which they play on seven different turntables in a live situation. Impressive! At time of writing, I’m without a tonearm on my turntable, but I hope to remedy this situation by next week.

Special guest Tymon Dogg, live performance on air, with records and chat. Tymon played Spanish guitar, electric violin, and drone box, and of course sang. Many thanks to Tymon and our engineer Nina Kehagia.

Live songs were…

1. ‘Oil’, which appears on the Guantanamo EP
2. ‘Beyond This Frontier’, which first appeared on The Frugivores’ New Age Songs LP (1987)
3. ‘Something To Prove’, from Relentless LP (1989)
4. [Not yet identified]

The following records were played…

1. The Quikening, ‘Guantanamo’
2. The Quikening, ‘Cold Wind Blows’
   From Guantanamo, UK MAP MUSIC TDMM001 CDEP (2006)
3. Tymon Dogg, ‘Lose This Skin’
   UK GHOST DANCE RECORDS GH01 45 SINGLE (1981)
4. Tymon Dogg, ‘Legal Thief’
5. Tymon Dogg, ‘Once You Know’
6. Tymon Dogg, ‘Safeway People’
   From Battle Of Wills, UK Y RECORDS Y29 LP (1982)

This show is 60 minutes long (as opposed to our usual 90 minutes).

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

Couple of far-out percussion records to contend with today, sports fans. Moe! Staiano plays 10 tracks of solo percussive energetic nutsoid hedgehoggery on The Absolute Tradition of No Traditions (PSYCHFORM PFR06), released on Stan Reed’s label which has been home to some real corkers of dementia. Unlike some releases in that catalogue though, the Moe!ster does everything live and wears his ‘no overdub’ cred on his short-sleeve shirt like a hard-won medal. There’s no 3-D object in the world he won’t bang on; along with the ‘conventional’ drumkit, there’s a prepared one, and all manner of junk ranging from aluminum bars to a scuba tank brought into play. Can you imagine having breakfast with this guy? Buy this and you won’t need to, because the typical domestic photos reveal him apparently balancing upside-down on the dining-room chairs with ease, thus confirming his motto “Ya gotta shuffle the deck now and again!”. Got a feeling that when spun, this CD will cast a whole new light on my Chris Cutler records.

Other percussion record is a CDR by Cars (carried over from last week’s incoming box), called Cars, and it’s 003 on the RAYON label. Pascal Nichols sent this green spray-painted spangly plattamaroo from his Manchester home, along with a note scrawled in biro on brown paper. Nichols is also in Stuckometer and Whole Voyald, while his sparring partner Patrick Farmer wields sticks for Good Anna and LOTRH. Hot from a live sesh of February 2007, this lo-fi globule features a lovely cover screenprint depicting something which might be a radioactive sea-anemone floating in the dark night skies.

The Cracow Klezmer Band have Remembrance (TZADIK TZ 8116) on John Zorn’s label as part of the ‘radical Jewish culture’ series. Smartly presented in the familiar black and gold artworks, there be nine tracks of immaculate live Klezmer music by this acoustic quartet, who play violin, bass, clarinet and the ‘bayan’ - which appears to be a fine large accordian. These live recordings from Warsaw are warm and rich, full of stately dignity, and suggest that this lot were a phenomenon on the stage, but I guess we’ll never know as this is their last release and was a document of their final live show after ten years of music. I’m totally unfamiliar with this traditional style of music, but I dig the devotional resonances in titles like ‘The Migration of Souls’ and ‘The Colours of the Heavens’.

My favourite monotonous Swede CM von Hausswolff has got down and dirty with one Thomas Nordanstad to produce a son et lumiere work called Two Films (ERRANT BODIES RECORDS ebr_03 DVD). This one looks like a monster of conceptual bafflement which I can’t wait to get my eyeballs humming along to. Part documentary, part installation, it’s something to do with an anonymous camera investigating abandoned areas of a remote coal mining factory on a remote Japanese island. After they’re explored that particular wasteland of desolation, attracted by who knows what perverse impulse, the film-makers turn their eye on a similar zone of bleakness in the Western desert near Libya. Not only do we get ‘installation’ and ‘documentary’ versions of these essential works, but there’s a film of the two ginks discussing it afterwards. Guess I’ll give Film Four a miss tonight!

Alan Wilkinson makes a welcome return to my four walls with Obliquity (WEAVIL 23CD), a jazz set on which he’s joined by long-standing partners John Edwards and Steve Noble and forming a classic sax-bass-drum combo. Wilkinson first blasted the dust from my lugs on his Foom! Foom! CD in the early 1990s, and used to pal around with fellow Englishman and polymath composer Simon H. Fell, giving hope at one stage for a massive renaissance of British free jazz. This upsurge didn’t quite reach the promised skyrocket dimensions, but clearly Wilkinson is still honking like the big red comedy nose of a great Circus clown. Smashing triple-gatefold digipack with inner sleeve once again betrays the Bo’Weavil hallmark of quality.

Said label have also scooped the ‘golden doughnut’ prize this week for reissuing Noah Howard’s The Black Ark (WEAVIL 24CD), a famous session from 1969 which originally came out on the Freedom label and has, over time, passed into the culture as a defining statement of Afro-American free jazz. Howard (who played in London’s Spitz this January) was joined for the sesh by Arthur Doyle, Earl Cross, Leslie Waldron, Norris Jones, Mohammed Ali and a conga player named Juma. Surprisingly for one who collects so much free jazz, I’ve never heard this disc and I’m sure that with titles like ‘Mount Fuji’ it’s going to live up to its fiery reputation. Another triple gatefold job which reproduces original sleeve art and liner notes, although it makes no claim to the ‘exact replica’ status which many reissue LPs attempt (and often fall short, I might add). Interestingly, the press release calls it The Black Arc, possibly misled by the avant-garde typography of the original title which conceals the upright of the letter K. A ‘black arc’ suggests something quite different to Howard’s intention; he may have been thinking of Noah’s Ark, and intended some form of tough-minded survivalist ethos to help the Afro-American race forward into the next phase of its struggle. Or perhaps the Ark of the Covenant, in which case the music becomes almost a sacred text of jazz music, to be carefully packed in a box and carried across the desert for the eyes and ears of the next generation. Conversely a ‘black arc’ seems to indicate the arc of a diver, or the rise and fall of a line on a graph; both somehow carry connotations of decline. And that’s the last thing I expect to hear on a record which Oren Ambarchi calls ‘CLASSIC’ and ‘THE BOMB’, using full capitals to emphasise his delight.

With a tip of the Sound Projector trilby to David Thomas Pickett

1. Virginia Astley, ‘Love’s a Lonely Place to Be’, UK WHY FI RECORDS WFIT001 12″ (1982)
2. Richard Rodney Bennett, ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’
   From Far From the Madding Crowd, UK MGM SUPER 2315 033 LP (1967)
3. Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, ‘Wind on Wind’ (fade) (1975)
   From Air Structures, bootleg CD
4. Kevin Ayers, ‘There is Loving’
   From whatevershebringswesing, UK EMI HARVEST SHVL 800 LP (1972)
5. The Albion Country Band, ‘Gallant Poacher’
   From Battle of the Field, UK ISLAND RECORDS HELP 25 LP (1976)
6. Pink Floyd, ‘Fat Old Sun’
   From Atom Heart Mother, UK EMI HARVEST SHVL 781 LP (1970)
7. Virginia Astley, ‘Too Bright for Peacocks’
   Virginia Astley, ‘Summer of their Dreams’
   Virginia Astley, ‘When the fields were on fire’
   From From Gardens Where We Feel Secure, UK ROUGH TRADE ROUGH 58 / HAPPY VALLEY RECORDS Ha 001 LP (1983)
8. Kate Bush, ‘Delius’
   From Never For Ever, UK EMI RECORDS EMA 794 LP (1980)
9. Shirley Collins, ‘Down in Yon Forest’ (1967)
   From The Sweet Primeroses, UK TOPIC RECORDS TSCD 476 CD (1995)
10. Jimmy Page, ‘Bron-Yr-Aur’ (1975)
    From Physical Graffiti (remaster), GERMANY WARNERS / SWAN SONG 7567-92442-2 2 x CD
11. The Incredible String Band, ‘October Song’ (1966)
    From The Incredible String Band, GERMANY ELEKTRA / WARNERS 7559-61547-2 CD (1993)
12. Genesis, ‘Stagnation’
    From Trespass, UK CHARISMA CAS 1020 LP (1970)
13. Oliver, ‘Flowers on a Hill’ (1974)
    From Standing Stone, UK TENTH PLANET TP001 LP (1992)
14. Percy Grainger, ‘In a Nutshell, II: Gay But Wistful’
    From In a Nutshell, UK EMI CLASSICS 7243 5 56412 2 9 CD (1997)
15. Dancer, ‘America Wood’ (1972)
    From Tales of the Riverbank, UK KISSING SPELL KSCD 917 CD (2001)
16. Julian Cope, ‘Metranil Vavin’
    From World Shut Your Mouth, UK MERCURY MERL 27 LP (1984)
17. Ashley Hutchings, ‘Roasted Woman / Rigs of Marlow / Getting Upstairs’
    From Son of Morris On, UK EMI HARVEST HERITAGE SHSM 2012 LP (1976)
18. Alfred Deller, ‘The Cuckoo’ (1955)
    From The Three Ravens, UK FONTANA TFL 6026 LP [1959]
19. John Renbourn, ‘The Lady and the Unicorn’ (1970)
    From The Lady and the Unicorn, USA REPRISE RS 6407 LP (ND)
20. Led Zeppelin, ‘Bron-Y-Aur Stomp’ (1970)
    From Led Zeppelin III (remaster), GERMANY WARNERS / ATLANTIC 7567-82678-2 CD
21. Virginia Astley, ‘Tender’, UK ELEKTRA / WEA INTERNATIONAL EKR 21 T 12″ (1985)

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

KTL are the duo of Stephen O’Malley from Sunn O))) and Pita Rehberg, back with a second full-length release called simply 2 (EDITIONS MEGO 085). Haven’t even heard their first CD yet, but I’m very much looking forward to exploring their joint sound-worlds, which promise to be a fascinating and rich combination of electronic gutter-mulch and lava-black feedback manipulation, executed with all the acuity and sharp edges you would expect from Pita’s no-prisoners approach to manipulating digital sound-files and O’Malley’s determined yet clear-headed attempts to lose himself and drug the entire world in a thick ocean of heavy syrup subsonics. Additionally, the packaging of this one displays all the hallmarks of Stephen’s unique approach to graphic design, what with the found graphics, overlays, gold inks, and treated photographs, all resonating together in your mental-mush to produce suggestive connections of doom and foreboding. Parts of this music have already been deployed in a theatre piece Kindertotenlieder (which I think translates as children death songs) which is currently touring mainland Europe. Add to this the title of track three ‘Abbatoir’ and methinks we might be in for a grisly blood-soaked sonic trip with this one. Bring your own band-aids.

Unseen’s CD Corner Tha Market (CDHMIER02) arrived from a Brighton address in a corrugated card pack on which my address had been painstakingly hand-printed with something like a John Bull rubber-stamp set, of which the big chunky letters are about one-inch high. Inside there’s an insane-looking CD depicting the hookah-smoking caterpillar from Alice In Wonderland riding a flying saucer over an American business sector and emanating a green ray enriched with mighty dollar symbols. On CD we find one-and-twenty tracks of what promises to be highly idiosyncratic improvised music; Unseen themselves could be an eleven-piece collective of friendly nutcases, some of them with amusing aliases like ‘Suzy The Dog’ and ‘Req 1′. This could be a good one - I detect a certain whiff of art-school open-mindedness at work here, and this could be a refreshing change from “conventional” improvised music (if such a thing exists). Curious explorers may wish to communicate their messages of support to the Unseen ones via unseenrecordings [at] gmail.com.

From Denmark, two hand-made CDR releases on the micro label A Beard of Snails, owned and operated by Christian Kahn in Copenhagen; some years ago he used to run the label Bloated Sasquatch Beer Theatre Audio, which somehow managed to issue 109 records without once showing up on The Sound Projector radar. Stormhat’s Hypnagogia (ABOS111) is a CDR in an edition of 100 copies, while Die Stadt der Romantische Punk’s The Guitar EP (ABOS114) only exists in 50 copies. Both use imaginative packaging which puts me in mind of those on the (also Danish) Cat Box Corporation label: hand-cut card wallets, mounted with colour photographs, colour photocopy texts, and some hand-inking in places. Stormhat is Peter Bach Nicolaisen who teaches at the Krabbesholm School of Art, while Die Stadt is Jukka Reverberi and friends. The music thereon, based merely on the most superficial of skims, seems to be slow and stately deep instrumental droning, but underpinned with a solidity and stability that some listeners may find preferable to the fey and drippy music associated with many of our Finnish friends.

Mark Wastell is the English improviser who has a fair claim to being one of the innovators of the ‘quiet’ movement (such as it is) that’s been seeping across the world of improvised music for many years now. A string player by nature, at one stage he might have been drawn towards a virtual / digital mode of expressing this quietness, but on Amoungst English Men (ABSINTH RECORDS 012) he executes a 33-minute piece for percussion using piano, gong and tubular bell, that shows him engaging well with physical objects and bodes a dark broodiness in its obsessive exploration of the lower depths. Also got a newie from Burkhard Beins, the Berlin king of buttered toast, exploring new experimental worlds on his Disco Prova (ABSINTH RECORDS 013). Disco? Well, no dancefloor antics on these grooves natch - instead, seven choice cuts of bewildering percussion and electronic works, presented with lengthy and interesting notes as to their processes of production. If only I could read them, because the hand-sewn sleeve is covered in permatrace, which obscures much. Absinth love creating these artistic hand-made packages to their releases, which involve good art paper, screenprinting, sewing, and a clarity of purpose that Joseph Beuys woulda loved…300 copies of the Beins, 500 of the one by our own Markie. I can certainly groove to these quiet apes! Mebbe the label should do a promotional tie-in with the alcoholic drink of the same name, and see how far they get.

Not unrelated to the above: James Saunders sent me #[unassigned] (CONFRONT 15) from the University of Huddersfield, and by all accounts he’s a widely respected academic composer with his feet firmly planted on modernist soil and his head roaming freely in the stratosphere of Pierre Boulez’s cloth cap. These two CDs contain several approx. one-minute long segments of quiet and slow music, executed with cello on one disc and clarinet on other. If you own two CD players, you could play them simultaneously, and Saunders (who espouses ‘modular’ working methods so much that he includes links to Legoland and Ikea on his website) would love ya if you did. Followers of minimal process material will be unsurprised to learn this is out on Wastell’s Confront label.

Another bag of digital kumquats from French limner eRikm, whose Variations Opportunistes (RONDA rnd08) are carefully-arranged process-based compositions; these are shaping up to be intense / droney reworkings of classical music samples, in places not far from a kind of revved-up Philip Glass. Sampled composers are namechecked in the digipack cover, which pictures a lovely pine tree. Time was when erik woulda used a needle from one of those pines as a turntable stylus, but those days of harsh sound are behind him now.

Frans de Waard pulls the Vijf Profielen CD (ALLUVIAL RECORDINGS A26) out of his body like so much frogspawn. This is a single track of field recordings made in a building as part of an art commission, and probably reprocessed into low-key rumblings. Frans is now past the stage of ‘prolific’ and has so many releases and projects to his name that he’s fast becoming a feature of the landscape. However, that’s easier to achieve in Holland than some other parts of the world. Meanwhile Z’EV’s Forwaard (KORM PLASTICS KP3029) appears to be a set of electronic suites based on samples of extant works by the great Frans, housed in a slightly outsize cover depicting still-life foliage in deepest green on the front, and a puzzling what-is-it image on the back which might be old carpets rolled up and inserted in some secret caves in Palestine. Brief spins reveal a quieter side to this ear-ringed percussive fellow, in distinction to his usual ‘wilder’ self.

Still hopping about in the nether regions, a newish Dutch small label has sent a live document of Kaspar van Hoek, called Live at Extrapool (EP) (HEILSKABAAL RECORDS HK002). A slim black plastic tub unfolds to reveal a CDR of 100 copies, a release which shows van Hoek in playful mood with cassette loops, turntable and mixing desk. From what we can see of this young man on the obliquely laid-out sleeve, he seems an industrious and earnest sort. The photo of him on the CD reveals he also has a piercing gaze, looking wistful and somewhat bewildered by the stack of equipment on the trestle table before him… “what do you expect me to do with all that?!” Let’s hope the sounds within can match that intense facial look. Also in the package was a mini CD by The Eric Moussambani Memorial Orchestra, called Civil Noise Movements (HEILSKABAAL RECORDS HK003); it’s wrapped in an outsize poster printed on brown wrapping paper. I unfolded this artefact in hopes of uncovering a crazed Dada-ist tract packed with wild photo-imagery and errant typographic delights, and in fact I wasn’t far off the mark; the enlarged news photo of the Olympic swimmer certainly did give pause. And the description of this project in the press release is so confusing as to be almost surreal.

Another box of delights flown in from the Opalio Brothers who call themselves My Cat Is An Alien. This Italian duo use anything they can get their hands on, from guitars with FX setups to live electronics and percussion, to create long-form droney abstractions, often packaged and titled with fanciful outer-space exploration themes to rival those of their hero, Sun Ra. They record a lot in their home studio and play live a lot also, and may be trying to prove the equal of Wolf Eyes when it comes to releasing every note of music they play. Three items currently on offer - a solo CD by Roberto Opalio is called Chants from Isolated Ghosts (IMPORTANT RECORDS imprec115), suggesting that they’re making tentative forays into the supernatural world. Roberto, who is also the visual artist half of the act, stares from the back cover with the stern conviction of John Dee, Robert Fludd, and Ramon Lull rolled into one.

Further evidence of a burgeoning interest in renaissance magick is probably to be found on their Praxinoscope release also. Entitled Epocsonixarp (OPAX RECORDS OPX 023), it’s a CDR limited to 130 copies on their personal ‘art’ imprint. The music features Roberto and the cherubic Ramona Ponzini. Their last release under this name was an eerie picture disc with plenty of melodic drone-percussion material striped heavily into its pale green vinyl markings. The magickal elements in this instance result from the simple expedient of spelling the title backward, a device used by many researchers to conceal their work from the eyes of ignorami. Dr Dee did it, for example, when recording his angelic conversations.

Finally, we’ve got the ‘classic’ My Cat Is An Alien lineup with a limited vinyl pressing of On Air at Sound Projecting (OPAX OPX 012A). This is a partial document of when the bros appeared on my radio show in late 2004 and did some live improvisations. Considering they were slightly flummoxed by lack of guitars or other familiar instruments, I think they recovered the situation quite well. My favourite part of the evening (not here) was when I interviewed them on air and, given their evident preoccupation with alien life on other planets, asked them if they had personally had an extraterrestrial experience. ‘Why should I tell you?’ was the shrewd reply of the enigmatic Roberto. 158 copies of this LP exist, previously available as a CDR.

1. Zu, ‘Observing the Armies in the Battlefield’, USA IMPLIED SOUND IS005 7″ SINGLE (2007)
2. Michael Gira, ‘Promise of Water’
   From Songs for a Dog, UK LUMBERTON TRADING COMPANY LUMB004 LP (2006)
3. The New Humans, extract from Undercover, SWITZERLAND CIRCUIT 004 LP (2007)
4. Kuupuu, ‘Onnenkuolaa’
   From Unilintu, GERMANY DEKORDER 018 LP (2007)
5. The New Blockaders / Putrefier, ‘Slipeark’
   From Schleifmittelbögen, UK BIRTHBITER 09 LP (2006)
6. The SB, extract from Who Will Feed Them, ITALY QBICO 54 LP (2007)
7. The Nihilist Spasm Band, ‘Indecision of the Night’
   From No Nihilist Spasm Band in Mulhouse, FRANCE LES MONDES MENTAL LN47°45′0″ LE7°20′0″ LP (2006)
8. Hannah Rickards, ‘Thunder’
   From Thunder, UK MEDIA ART BATH NO NUMBER LP (2007)
9. Elektronavn, ‘Cosmic Depth / A Sense of Coherence’
   From DENMARK BSBTAVINYL 2 7″ SINGLE (2007)
10. Hannah Rickards, ‘Thunder (Score)’
    From Thunder, op cit.
11. Motor Ghost, ‘Golden Promise’
    From A Gold Chain Round Her Breast, UK DANCING WAYANG RECORDS DWR 001 LP (2006)
12. Bela Emerson, ‘Scythe’
    From Scythe EP, UK THE SLIGHTLY OFF KILTER LABEL sok009 (2005)
13. Yeborobo, ‘I was injured at Work - Help me Wreak my Revenge’
    From UK THE SLIGHTLY OFF KILTER LABEL sok010 EP (2006)
14. The Caretaker, extracts from Deleted Scenes/ Forgotten Dreams, BELGIUM WE/ME LE DISQUE RECORDS 009 2 x LP (2007)
15. Black To Comm, ‘Happy Brown Lego Star’
    From Wir Können leider nicht etwas mehr zun tun…, GERMANY DEKORDER 019 2 x LP (2007)
16. Motor Ghost, ‘Gash Division’
    From A Gold Chain Round Her Breast, op cit.

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