The Sound Projector

Three fine items from the NO-FI label in the North of England, which is emerging as an underground imprint with a strong identity and good international range of music on its small but select roster. The LP Brokebox Juke (NEU014) is a joint effort by Anla Courtis and Aaron Moore (from Volcano The Bear). Anla’s been noteworthy for electro-acoustic projects of late, but this LP reminds me what a good performer he is in acoustic mode, when he gets a stringed instrument or indeed any shaped piece of wood and wire between his flexible yet wiry South American paws. Moore’s oddball melodic contributions are not to be sniffed at either, and although there’s a huge range of stringed, percussion and keyboard instruments on offer, what emerges is a crisp and clear sound as fresh and airy as if Rudy Van Gelder had recorded it just yesterday. (Some Norwegian players could have picked up the same combinations of instruments and emerge with a droning acoustic quagmire). To my surprise, the press release tells me Moore and Courtis never met up on the physical plane for this project, which emerged by virtue of soundfile swapping and clever editing; although they did tour the UK as a duo in February.

The One Ensemble Orchestra’s Other Thunders CD (NEU013) is a candidate for headscratcher of the week – not that this all-acoustic instrumental music is especially weird, but I can’t credit how good it is; there are such strong performances on here that remind one of a cross between the (early) Michael Nyman Band and the 1970s folk-rock ensembles of Ashley Hutchings. Daniel Padden appears to be the visionary leader and musical director of this exciting project. Again, like the LP above, there’s a splendid clarity in the recording and the playing that gets my pagan juices flowing faster than any murky acoustic drone-out stoned strummers from Lexington or Atlanta. What sumptuous mixed chords! I hope to find more time to spend with these warm clarinets, taut viola strings and rugged choir sections; this release may be further evidence of strange new modern folk forms emerging in the UK, and flowing in underground streams beneath our very feet. Recommended!

No-Fi have also issued a posthumous Derek Bailey document of no small value; Good Cop Bad Cop (NEU011) finds the founding father of improvised guitar playing with Tony Bevan and Paul Hession, plus the outre antics of Japanese genius Otomo Yoshihide. If you like Bailey with an electric guitar (as I do), then you’re in for some pleasurable moments of atonal growling stabs on the livelier cuts, like ‘Morse’. On the whole though the performances feel slightly subdued; Otomo only really comes to life on ‘The Bill’, a piece where he plays I know not what against the drumming of Hession, but he does it with much fire and energy. Recorded in Liverpool in 2003 at a Frakture event.

Subtle and imperceptible droning electronic and field recordings abound from AFE Records in Italy. The new batch of releases, all packed in postcard wallets, includes an hour-long mystery piece of odd twitterings from John Hudak on Miss Dove Mr Dove (afe102lcd) and a loving pastoral-themed suite from Scotland’s Brian Lavelle, whose Ustrina (afe106lcd) suggests that the rustic paths of a forest are a gateway to spiritual illumination. Also out, CDs by Daniele Brusachetto with Benny Braaten, Horchata, Fhievel and Alistair Crosbie, whose music for shipwrecks has an evocative photo which may be the barnacle-encrusted railings of The Titanic.

It seems to me I was just recently wondering out loud what became of the Bowindo Recordings label in Italy. Now four new releases have arrived, along with a letter from label boss Domenico Sciajno, in which he confirms that the last release was in 2006, fully three years ago. He also urges me “please don’t make a collective review…you don’t need to listen to them all in a short space of time”. I shall therefore make only the briefest of mention of Doves Days in Palermo (BW09), in which the good Mr Sciajno plays duets with Kim Cascone, Robin Hayward, Andreas Wagner, Thomas Lehn and other prominent European improvisers known for the “reduced improv” mode, and it appears to be a nifty combination of acoustic playing with strange electronic music. All four releases are packed in artworks that find abstract-impressionism in photographed details of nature. This label has intrigued me in the past with its taciturn, low-key releases, of which neither the music nor the packaging explained anything.

Two choice parcels of American underground noise hath descended upon this grey isle, confirming the view that even though summertime has officially begun we are still beset with many ugly demons and unknown monsters. From Chicago, the duo known as Locrian have laid out their wares which so happen to manifest in many formats. First spun was the LP Greyfield Shrines (DIOPHANTINE DISCS #13), a single long doom-werk spread over two sides of a grey marbled vinyl dish. On it, the guitar and synth of Foisy and Hannum work evil magic in slow, deliberative ways, suggesting the inexorable onset of menacing forces. This impression is endorsed by the appearance of their logo, a hideous chimera of animal skulls and tidal waters collaged into a symmetrical cloud, invading otherwise peaceful locales depicted on the record labels. In fine, this is an extended crescendo of growly, whiney noise that can bring strong men to their knees. Good as it is, I find myself more drawn to the 7-incher pressed in white vinyl, Plague Journal c/w Apocryphal City, Portents Fallen (BLOODLUST! B!089), of which both sides of deliver their statement concisely yet with lasting impact. On the B-side, its tape-loops mutate into a lock groove. The CD, Drenched Lands (AT WAR WITH FALSE NOISE ATWAR053 / SMALL-DOSES DOSEFORTYTHREE), is their new release which contains further guitar and organ mutations, some of them verging on the melodic, packed into an hour-long suite. Their sluggish sound may not be anything massively innovative, but I’ve a soft spot for an organ that actually sounds like an organ (many fear its gothic connotations), and the determinedly relentless way with which these young demons unleash their eerie noise. I’d like you to note the front cover’s combination of Black Metal-type imagery (pentagonic outline and gothic type on a black field) with the photography of bleak urban landscapes, shuttered with an aesthetic sense we haven’t seen since John Thompson’s work for Pere Ubu. 1000 copies were released, and you even get a cloth patch with their logo you can attach to your leather jacket (or ceremonial blood-letting robes). Also received: a cassette from last year, Exhuming The Carnival / Burying the Carnival, not yet auditioned.

From the Phaserprone label in Baltimore, we’ve the tasty new release from Borg, who use drum machines and low-end synths to concoct evil, minimalistic non-dance music. IA (PPR15) is embossed with a shocking front cover image depicting a prisoner about to lose his tongue at the hands of what I presume are torturers from the middle ages; as fate would have it, Borg also lack a tongue with which to sing, preferring to express their pessimistic visions through explosive instrumental synth tones and hammering beats on untitled tracks. I’ve noted before how many of these Phaserprone releases embrace a very full-bodied analogue synth sound, which can be a welcome alternative to the clean precision of many a European wispy-drifter with his overly-manicured laptop. The split CD by Grasslung and Pulse Emitter (PPR 14) arrives in a oval-shaped window-mount cover, revealing an old engraving of a dismal scene – a winged monster with one eye brooding at the bottom of a craggy, stony valley. Slow and formless electronic sounds pour out of the speakers like writhing snakes, conveying cold sensations of doubt and disbelief. The cassette by Monsturo, called POB-66 (PPR 016), didn’t do much for me when spun during an afternoon of sickly sunlight, but now in the gathering darkness of evening its vacant rumbling tones of desolation feel just right, as I prepare to explore another mental wasteland. The card slipcase to this release seems to depict a part of the cosmos as yet unprobed by the astronomer’s telescope. Sadly, the edition of 100 copies is already sold out.

The New Orchestra Workshop Society of Canada has launched its own imprint, Now Orchestra Recordings, and the first five releases arrived in a handy display folder for my perusal. The Society has been going for 32 years, and it’s encouraging to see they continue to receive moneys from various Canadian art-funding bodies (unlike the situation that prevails in the UK, I’m sorry to report). Good to hear some improvised voice music from ion Zoo, where the voice of Carol Sawyer is set against low-key bass-piano-sax improvisations on Set Free At The Cellar (CLNOW001). Viviane Houle also lets her voice run free on La Belle et la Bête (CLNOW002), a record she made with Stefan Smulovitz who plays the “Kenaxis” program on his laptop in real time. Houle warbles and scats like some demented cross between Yma Sumac and Slim Gaillard, but also does the Phil Minton thing of squeezing non-musical grunts and sighs from a closed larynx. The Bruce Freedman African Groove Band perform lively lilting stomps on Live At The Cellar (CLNOW003), using two bassists and two drummers to establish irresistible rhythms, while the accordion of Tyson Naylor connects these pieces to township music. Jeff Younger’s Sandbox are a five-piece playing brass instruments with bass and drums, while the leader operates his electric guitar and electronics in free atonal ways on The Nudger (CLNOW004), a title which may appear unfortunate to UK ears, but as the Sandbox part of their name suggests, this combo are engaged in innocent experimental play. Lastly we have The Now Orchestra, showcasing a selection of their live recordings from the last 2-3 years on Animal Tales (CLNOW005); the Orchestra, active for over 20 years, is a large-scale unit on the order of the Globe Unity Orchestra in Europe, and they play semi-composed pieces which have mostly emerged from the pen of Coat Cooke, the executive producer of all the above recordings.

If this has whetted your appetite for contemporary jazz and the sound of brass instruments, may we suggest tuning any available ear in the direction of Austrian quartet Braaz, whose So! CD (ZACH RECORDS ZACH006) features 19 lively concoctions where the sax of Werner Zangerie is pitched against the scratchy guitar of Gigi Gratt, while the rhythm section veer from rock to jazz and back again. In places they can resemble a slightly more user-friendly Henry Cow, but I think their true roots lie with something like the Willem Breuker Kollektief. Braaz’s aspiration is to “flirt with many different styles of music”, hence they feel as comfortable with reading scores as they are with producing freely-improvised noise-based meanderings, often using Werner’s growly bass tones as a foundation.

Meanwhile further contemporary jazz emanates from America in the shape of Erik Friedlander and his Broken Arm Trio (SKIPSTONE RECORDS 003). This talented cello player has here made a very approachable and warm record with the help of Trevor Dunn and Mike Sarin; the trio clearly feel comfortable together, they leave lots of space for each other, and the vibe I’m getting so far reminds me of some favourite records by early Ornette Coleman groups, or the record Eric Dolphy made with Mal Waldron. The title is taken from an anecdote about bassist Oscar Pettiford, one of the few jazzmen to have used the cello, which according to Friedlander is “an untapped resource” in jazz.

Mathieu Ruhlmann is a low-key performer who veils himself behind quasi-philosophical titles for his projects, which more often than not are illustrated with mysteriously textured artworks which look like details from paintings in a contemporary small gallery. Fourteen Worms for Victor Hugo (GEARS OF SAND RECORDINGS GOS 46) contains a suite called “The Shortest Path from Pebble to God” in seven movements, a rumination on the dilemma of the Christian scientist which unfolds gradually in the form of gently-rumbling and very small sounds. He derives some of his elements here from field recordings of insects and stones; he often has the same ear for out-of-focus, unnoticed detail we find in the work of Loren Chasse. Worth spending some time with this piece, which while largely unobtrusive, is charged with meaning.

The new release by Hecker is Acid In The Style of David Tudor (EDITIONS MEGO eMEGO 094), a full-length record of astonishing electronic music of which six out of the ten tracks have the exact same title, and which arrives with a 16-page essay written in full support of the project by by Robin Mackay. Said essay is packed with jargon such as “hypersemantics”, “foreclosures”, “paradigmatic examples” and “material causations”, which may be what we should expect from the editor of Collapse, a high-powered academic periodical about philosophy. The record is a concept piece which is trying to make connections between electronic dance music from “hedonistic rave culture”, and 20th century composition as manifested by the great David Tudor (who is famous for interpreting many Cage pieces, but also developed his own uncanny electronic devices which nobody save himself could understand how to operate). Florian Hecker makes use of a Buchla synth and an old analogue computer to achieve the histrionic results, which assault your ears with gloriously untuned and impolite electronic raspberries. You can chalk up this bruiser as another noise-laced Mego success!

We noted the very fine Waystyx label in Moscow last year, with a copy of a record by Illusion Of Safety, sent to us by Dan Burke himself and containing some powerfully mind-sapping throb-metallo-werks on a disk packaged inside very elegant fold-out slivers of embossed and printed cardboard. I recall thinking that if cigarettes were distributed in similar packages, we’d all be addicted to nicotine within six weeks. Well, Waystyx have just sent us five more recent-ish releases, indicating that when it comes to design, they push out the Volga Boatman on just about every package that passes through their hands – just scan the image above for the merest indication of the visual and tactile pleasures that can be glommed from these eye-catching unusual fold-outs and slippery plasticated eels. Musically, many significant contemporary avant-gardists are represented on the roster, and it’s clear this is a high-quality art label. Many thanks to Tamara for sending these.

Das Syntetische Mischgewebe is here with La Vida Pour Appui (WAYSTYX 42), 25 quite short tracks sequenced into a quiet and baffling patchwork in the manner that seems to characterise the working methods of this wayward refusenik European composer. He’s determined to keep everything veiled and mysterious, never once even admitting what we might be listening to, nor where we’re supposed to position ourselves while doing so. This quietly grunting hog of a disc arrives in a sturdy acetate gatefold printed with violet and brown gestural smears, halftone dots and calligraphic wipes, while disk itself is sandwiched between two brown rubber rings that might once have been spare parts from a car. Half an hour of listening later, and I’m also ready for admission to that same psychic junkyard!

Artificial Memory Trace has Singtra (WAYSTYX 45), whose cardboard wallet (decorated with trams and tramlines) has been neatly sliced across the diagonal to reveal the bright yellow traffic light within. Buy a ticket for this particular trolley-ride and you’ll be in for 24 minutes of minimal pulsing and glistening music, rendered with precision and intense concentration by its mysterious creator. Slavek Kwi recorded trains in Prague in 1994 then reprocessed them ten years later to create this extremely marginal music, which can either induce existential despair, or a form of ascetic rapture in the brain. End of the line, folks.

PBK reveals dark inner leanings of his shrouded mind with Under My Breath (WAYSTYX 35), a full-length CD of extremely varied noises – rattlings, phased drones, heavy throbs and gas jets, layers, distorted voices, digital delay, angelic choirs and mangled synthesisers. Not a single track passes by without conveying certain grisly and creepy sensations of imminent death or disaster, while the lyrical track titles allude to bones, skin, meat, children, fire, air and all the matter in the cosmos refracted through this grim prophet’s all-seeing eye. His mystic messages are so secret they are printed backwards on the inside of the front cover, but can be read by positioning the silver CD so it acts as a mirror. Cover is also die-cut with small rectangular holes, allowing us to peer into PBK’s fevered brain as if through the bars of a prison or a sewer grating. “I lived beyond extinction so far,” he claims, and who dare gainsay that outlandish boast!

Windvogel (WAYSTYX 44) is an impressive 15-track gasp of electronic puffery music from the great Conrad Schnitzler, renowned German experimenter who fell under the influence of Joseph Beuys and was associated at the very roots of “kosmische” musik in the 1970s, as founder member of Tangerine Dream and Kluster. This excellent suite of music sees Con making a welcome return to the focussed, mesmerising genius of his early limited-press art gallery LP releases such as Rot or Blau, using computer rhythms and snaky-burring synths with the precision of a neuro-surgeon. Amazing fold out sleeve, all blue one side, unfolds into a shape like the hull of a super jet fighter plane, printed with intriguing blueprints on its underbelly. On the disc, a muscular young man is flying a kite and perhaps thus harnessing wind-power as an alternative energy source.

John Watermann’s Ram Slot (WAYSTYX 66) is an exceptionally vivid collection of full-blooded noise, bellowing melodies, tape loops, distorted voices and found tapes – in fine a pot-pourri of electro-acoustic experimental techniques, all filtered through a powerful and visionary imagination. A tiny slip of yellow paper holds the box-cover together, printed with a tiny message suggesting a fantastic science-fiction future where a RAM slot was inserted by scientists into the necks of human beings, making it possible to “record and store dreams as they actually occurred during sleep”. Watermann’s take on this theme has much strength and diversity; the very beautiful “Did you see it”? features a sumptuously beautiful melody of celestial music, constantly interrupted with violent and abrupt noise jolts to simulate the effects of a restless dreamer’s mind. Other tracks dip one toe in the ocean of nightmares, including ‘Liberty Wounds’, which relentlessly replays a list of horrible flesh injuries, long past the point where we’re comfortable with it. Powerful surreal stuff; the record was originally issued on Nightshift Records in 1990, presumably in very limited quantities. I’ve been keen to hear anything by this German film-maker and sound artist ever since the release of Epitaph For John, a compilation of tribute music on the Korm Plastics label; the current generation of avant-bruitists are in awe of Watermann, and it’s not hard to see why.

Kai Mikalsen of Norway has spent three years assembling acousticks (EndofhuM-04), working under his Kobi alias, and he has invited many fellow musicians to collaborate and help shape the results. These include Michael Duch, Rie Qiao Li, Anla Courtis and the mysterious Tore Honoré Bøe – the latter a member of the Origami Arktika collective, which also numbers Mikalsen among its ranks. The CD, packed in a sombre DVD box with a black grid pattern, is filled with the sort of long-form drones the Norwegians do best; slow, dense, eerie, rain-sodden and strewn with opaque ambiguities at every corner. All the music is rendered through layering mixtures of electronics, tape loops, everyday objects and field recordings. “You’ll probably experience music never heard before,” states the press release with equanimity.

AUN, also known as Martin Dumais of Montreal, has impressed us before with a brace of CDs for the ORAL label called Whitehorse and Blackhorse, equine-themed releases of dark ambient murmurings that were released back to back to create the musical impression of a centaur, and expose something of the desperate yin and yang situation that Canadians often find themselves positioned within. On his new release Motorsleep (ALIEN 8 RECORDINGS ALIEN80), at first hearing the emphasis seems to be on the “sleep” rather than the “motor”, which isn’t to say these “ambient doom” recordings are somnolent drifters – rather, they will invade your oneiric consciousness with all the skill of Caligari’s somnambulist, and ensure that your dreams are as troubled as those of René Magritte’s Reckless Sleeper. Dumais’s guitar work is buried and burnished by a large quantity of processors and effects to create his unsettling suggestive music.

French electronicist and laptopper Sébastien Roux has thrown in his lot with the visual artist Vincent Epplay to create an intriguing concoction called Concatenative Mu (BROCOLI 005). Many claims are made for the influence of so-called “plunderphonics” on this bricolage-styled record, and the name of John Oswald is supposed to crop up more than once in the mind of listeners, but so far I’m finding this a lot more entertaining than many of the recordings associated with that micro-genre. The rapid-fire edits are tempered with long, mysterious electronic drones that meander as strangely as purple worms in the back garden of the mind, and everything is layered in a multi-dimensional cross-talking melée that gives the ears plenty of work to do. The cumulative effect leaves you feeling sort of lost, distanced and confused (in a good way). Even the track titles get in on the act, nonsensical cut-up phrases littered with full capitals and unexpected asterisk-symbols everywhere; my favourite of these is track 07, “KOOL BOTTOMS”.

Autopsia sent his new release Radical Machines Night Landscapes from Prague (ILLUMINATING TECHNOLOGIES IT 0010), a joint venture recorded with Achtar. I’ve had a lot of time for Autopsia since hearing The Berlin Requiem from 2006; this new one may lack the ultra-tight structure of the Berlin suite, but instead its very disquieting and discordant tones, executed with the composer’s customary precision and deliberation, work their way under your carapace in unseen and unknown ways. The front cover is decorated with stark red and black typography worthy of the Dadaists; inside, Autopsia has somehow managed to insert himself directly into a photograph from the past, such that his name appears on posters in a room inhabited by serious-looking men in grey suits; they could be radical artist-activists of the 1930s, or atomic scientists at a secret conference. Overlaid across the image is a teeth-clenching text that draws parallels between machines and death, trying to make us understand the secret role of machines in shaping society’s perceptions of reality. A solid hour’s worth of precisely-calibrated doom.

Melancholy of a different sort pervades the beautiful cello work of Hildur Gudnadóttir. On Without Sinking (TOUCH TONE TO:70), this Icelandic genius plays a cello manufactured by David Wiebe, who presumably built it from stainless steel and watered it with the bitter tears of all the disaffected races and tribes of Europe. Hildur’s playing is suffused with compassion and emotion, yet it’s also rather relentless – as though she can’t stop playing until the entire miserable narrative is recounted, in every painful detail. Fear not, because your sense of humanity can only be enlarged by the experience. She also plays zither and adds voice, and is aided in places by Skuli Sverrisson, Jóhann Jóhannsson, and Guoni Franzson; the track titles aren’t giving much away either, referring in oblique ways to geographical features or meteorological aspects.

Three new releases were sent by composer and Room 40 label owner Lawrence English. Tenniscoats are the duo of Saya and Ueno, who offer us their very measured and considered minimal performances on Temporacha (ROOM40 RM 436), performing every stroke with the unassuming grace of a Japanese vase-painter. Fabrique (ROOM40 EDRM420 CD) is a compilation of 18 artists, drawn from an Australian music festival of that name, which ran for eight years from 2001. The selection encompasses an international range of performers, including Keith Fullerton Whitman, Scanner, DJ Olive, Greg Davis, Leighton Craig, Pimmon, Tujiko Noriko and many others. The curators of Fabrique were clearly not out to shock or amaze the listener with wild extremes; indeed, you will probably find most of this gentle, drifty music quite relaxing and soothing. Lawrence English issues the admonitory It’s Up To Us To Live (SIRR-ECORDS SIRR 0032), seven tracks of quite fascinating and thickened sound; the occasionally-melodic electronic music is supplemented with hazy guitar plucks and strums, the latter sometimes delivered by the pink digits of axe-wielding Benjamin Thompson. This moving music is far less wispy than we usually associate with the minimal Lawrence, with track titles that hint at missed opportunities and pleas for compassion in a friendless world. If we fail to hear his call for a renewed humanity, perhaps we’ll end up like the dead birds that are painted on the covers with such unforgiving detail by artist Marian Drew; beautiful in appearance, but lifeless. The image of the dead parrot (no Monty Python jokes please), arrayed without explanation on a white napkin with a single apple, is particularly affecting.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

1. Braaz, ‘Walzenheim’
   From So!, AUSTRIA ZACH RECORDS ZACH 006 CD (2009)
2. Borg, (Track 2)
   From IA, USA PHASERPRONE PPR15 CD (2009)
3. The One Ensemble Orchestra, ‘The Beacon’
   From Other Thunders, UK NO-FI NEU013 CD (2009)
4. Metalycée, ‘Satisfy My Soul’
   From It is Not, AUSTRIA MOSZ 020 CD (2009)
5. Hecker, ‘Acid In The Style Of David Tudor’
   From Acid In The Style Of David Tudor, AUSTRIA EDITIONS MEGO 094P CD (2009)
6. Viviane Houle and Stefan Smulovitz, ‘PTON’
   From La Belle at La Bête, USA NOW ORCHESTRA RECORDS CLNOW002 CD (2008)
7. Conrad Schnitzler, ‘Untitled’ (Track 7)
   From Windvogel, RUSSIA WAYSTYX 44 CD (2008)
8. Otomo Yoshihide and Paul Hession, ‘The Bill’
   From Good Cop Bad Cop, UK NO-FI NEU011 CD (2009)
9. Autopsia, ‘Radical Machine VIII’
   From Radical Machines Night Landscapes, PRAGUE ILLUMINATING TECHNOLOGIES IT 0010 CD (2008)
10. Broken Arm Trio, ‘Knife Points’
    From Broken Arm Trio, USA SKIPSTONE RECORDS 003 CD (2009)
11. AUN, ‘Tongueless Vigils’
    From Motorsleep, CANADA ALIEN8RECORDINGS ALIENCD80 CD (2009)
12. Hildur Gudnadóttir, ‘Into Warmer Air’
    From Without Sinking, UK TOUCH TONE TO:70 CD (2009)
13. Sébastien Roux and Vincent Epplay, ‘O SOLEIL / in SUN SPACE/’
    From Concatenative Mu, FRANCE BROCOLI 005 CD (2009)
14. PBK, ‘Poems for Painters’
    From Under My Breath, RUSSIA WAYSTYX 35 CD (2009)
15. Mathieu Ruhlmann, ‘The Shortest Path from Pebble to God 6′
    From Fourteen Worms for Victor Hugo, USA GEARS OF SAND RECORDINGS gos 46 CD (2008)
16. The Now Orchestra, ‘The Great Blue Orb and the Well Hung Chads’
    From Animal Tales, USA NOW ORCHESTRA RECORDS CLNOW005 CD (2009)
17. Locrian, ‘Obsolete Elegy in Cast Concrete’
    From Drenched Lands, USA AT WAR WITH FALSE NOISE ATWAR053 / SMALL-DOSES DOSEFORTYTHREE CD (2009)

One fine piece of grotesquerie is 22 Short Noise Videos, a DVD collection by Aaartfÿstte. It combines short experimental films with oddball electronic noise, often-times veering from coarse and excessive black humour to sick and dark weirdness, by way of abstract expressionist blurs – all in the space of seconds. As film-makers, they make painterly use of video / digital manipulation to transform found footage and old adverts into something fairly vile, treating the photography with nauseous dayglo colours that separate out in weird ways, and they fill the screen with overlays of electronic visual noise just to keep your eyeballs peeled. Even fairly innocent footage (cat eating bird, fried egg whisked in bowl) conveys a lasting sense of unease; it just looks plain wrong, and the Residents-like wonky synth music that accompanies the visuals adds a nifty sinister edge to each dazzling episode. There’s a staged mini-narrative involving two hooded acolytes facing a green-hued Death figure with bulging eyes who lifts an amulet in a grotesque parody of Lucifer Rising; there’s a man singing a nonsense song about crackers through a hideous enlarged head; and there are two painted-face cavemen dressed in black bin liners performing an idiot dance completely deadpan. There’s even some attempts at crude flat-figure animation that makes South Park look sophisticated. On balance, it feels like there’s more of the process-based abstract material than there is of the nightmarish nasty-funny image stuff, but the cumulative effect is like mainstream TV going badly wrong, and thence delivers the requisite amount of acid-fried oddness. You won’t know whether to laugh or wince. The video, released by Resipiscent last December, is the work of two Austin artists, Stin-GB and RunPMS, both associated with the Brown Whörnet collective; it’s very limited, and comes packed in a silkscreened foldout cover. Plus there’s some bonus music from their first cassette made in 1997, delivered by means of “Oscillo-Scopitones”. Recommended to fans of Vileness Fats, Butthole Surfers (around the time they discovered what they could do with Photoshop), Devo and Twin Peaks.

Got a couple of fine cassette tapes sent to us from Ben Scott of Richmond VA. As ting ting jahe, he has been represented by the winds measure recordings label in New York, an imprint for whose ultra-quite releases we have a lot of time. These tapes are self released, but bear the same distinctive letterpress packaging of winds measure, and both offer enchanting listening; his music has a baffling opacity that keeps drawing you back to it. libby tunnel (ttj cs 01) contains sounds so unobtrusive that they sometimes seem mere stains on the oxide of the tape itself; but listen intently, and a gentle throbbing sound appears to be wafting toward you on a cosmic breeze. The elaborate cover images suggest some sort of fugitive action from a military prison or other occupied zone. ending minutes, sinking (ttj cs 02) contains two 13-minute compositions, again both extremely minimal droning and pulse pieces, which are like ghostly disembodied memories of music reclaimed from a dream. The cover art for this one seems to depict a man assembling a mannequin inside his tasteful 1950s-styled den. Both these tingers are highly recommended; the cassette format does nothing to distract from his pristine music, and indeed a little bit of tape hiss and capstan rumble lends it a slightly more “organic” feel than the antiseptic perfection of a CD.

The Canadian label empreintes DIGITALes offers a couple of new releases from award-winning electro-acoustic composers, both pressed up as DVDs to offer the listener the choice of stereo or 5.1 surround-sound listening. French Canadian composer Ned Bouhalassa arranges cut-ups from his huge collection of field recordings on Gratte-cité (IMED 0895), and thereby fancies that he is “playing” entire cities the same way a DJ plays old vinyls dug from his crates. This conceit is reflected in the cover art, where an old-fashioned tonearm is poised menacingly above an imaginary collaged urban-scape and rendered with harsh colours and process dots, like the cover to some non-existent dystopian sci-fi novel. David Berezan was born and educated in Canada, but studied with Jonty Harrison in Birmingham and is now an established electro-acoustic Director at Manchester University. La face cachée (IMED 0896) refers to aspects of his semi-mystical working method, whereby he hopes to reveal “hidden spaces” through his tape-assemblage, thus arriving at the profound revelations of self-discovery.

Kashiwa Daisuke’s 5 Dec (NOBLE RECORDS CXCA-1246) is the third release from this Japanese studio performer, who flings together guitar noise, disco drumbeats, insane synth melodies and sampled voices to very little effect, giving his compositions quasi-poetic names like ‘Red Moon’, ‘Aqua Regia’ and ‘About Moonlight’. Claims are made for his dynamic and original qualities, but I struggle to find anything original on these airless and joyless tracks; it’s impressive how he manages to be so vulgar and banal, often both at the same time.

On At Nether Edge (DISCUS 34CD), you can hear the assorted atonal free-improv whoops and bleats of UK players Chris Cundy, Alex Ward and Mick Beck, calling themselves Weavels for this outing. Alex Ward usually plays clarinet I think, but here he opts for amplified guitar work with a very slight avant-rock inflection, and leaves the woodwinds to Cundy, while Beck plays a very craggy-sounding bassoon. Each performer is allotted a solo cut to showcase their skills, but the CD really only works for me on the trio pieces – especially the farmyard-themed ‘Geese’ and ‘Sheep’ cuts. On the latter, they sound like a particularly worried flock of woolly bullies. If you enjoy the no-nonsense blowing of Mick Beck, you could do worse than invest in Life Echoes (DISCUS 36CD), a solo record whereon he picks up said bassoon and his more familiar tenor sax for a collection of short and lively cuts. The intention is to “explore the ever-fascinating boundary between conventional harmonies and looser playing”; I’m not quite sure what this means, but I sense there are more concessions being made to allow inroads for the non-initiate. He does plenty of noisy sucking effects and squeaking honks which will please those of an avant bent, but the occasional breaks into melodic forms (some of them rather greyly melancholic in tone) may help decrease the alienation factor for those listeners who shrink from jazz or free music. Most cuts come in at three minutes or less; almost an attempt at a pop record (in the same way that Trane’s Giant Steps is a pop record). If only it weren’t for the hideous sleeve; that combination of orange and ochre is nauseating.

Los Angeles-based composer Bruce Friedman has released O.P.T.I.O.N.S. (pfMENTUM CD054), featuring the massed talents of players such as Ellen Burr, Eric Share, Rich West and Lynn Johnston and others in what is termed an “electro-acoustic chamber ensemble”. Friedman himself plays trumpet, there’s the synth work of Emily Beezhold, plus the electric guitar of Jeremy Drake. Friedman works with processes to help guide musical improvisation, perhaps sharing some affinities with the methods of Butch Morris and his elaborate “conduction” strategies, or the ROVA Saxophone Quartet, who shape their improvisations by flashing colour-coded cards to each other as they perform. Friedman’s scores combine conventional music notation with original graphic elements, and the players use their skill and imagination to interpret these symbols as they may. The recordings are crisp and the highly able players are showcased well, yet I keep wishing the pieces would sometimes move into different modes, new rhythms, or tonal ranges; despite all the possibilities for freedom and invention, it feels like we keep bumping against a glass ceiling.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

1. Pierre André Arcand, ‘idiovox’
   From Erratum #4, FRANCE ERRATUM EM004 3 x CD (2004)
2. Gordon Mumma (with Stephen Smoliar), ‘Conspiracy 8′
   From Electronic Music of Theater and Public Activity, USA NEW WORLD RECORDS 80632-2 CD (2005)
3. Phill Niblock, ‘friedl erratum mix’
   From Erratum #4, op cit.
4. Anna Lockwood and Harvey Matusow, ‘End’ (1970)
   From Text-Sound Compositions – A Stockholm Festival, SWEDEN FYLKINGEN RECORDS FYCD 1024: 1-5 5 x CD BOX (2005)
5. Charlemagne Palestine and Terry Jennings, ‘Short & Sweet’ (1974)
   From Sharing A Sonority, ITALY ALGA MARGHEN plana-P 28NMN.068 CD (2008)
6. Alexandre Yterce, ‘éveil-intention’
   From Erratum #4, op cit.
7. RLW, ‘Kleine blaue Hybriden’
   From Acht, GERMANY SELEKTION SCD 008 CD (1992)

Micro-label Hymns operates from Gainesville in Florida, apparently specialising in process-based ambient noise music of many kinds. Give Me Static (hymn 25) is the urgent plea of Mystified, who provides ten reasonably interesting cuts of droning loop sounds, mostly quite gentle and unobtrusive, although he does manage to get briefly agitated with ‘Disappear 3′. Ironing (i.e. Andrew Chadwick) offers a rather unusual project with Nassau (hymn 27), which he recorded while on board a cruise ship and in the Bahamas; his mixture of microcassette recordings and radio bursts produce a clotted sound we cannot help but describe as “seasick”. Jolly crowds and flashes of lively Bahamian pop music are rendered into something vaguely nightmarish and inhuman, through the highly distortive processes, which include tape speed variations, static, layering and playback through a tin can with a one-inch speaker. Bearses (a defunct collaboration between Chadwick and Troy Turriate) have a release The Prettiest Girl I ever Saw (hymn 12), a three-incher whereon the various tapework, turntable and radio bricolage was recorded live. Like the other two releases above, this one sounds cramped, suffering somewhat from a certain limitation in its overall sound range, but it has moments where the overfed noisy combinations work well and produce the intended sensations of alienation and exile. Some care has been taken over the card wallets and packages of these releases, which remain uncluttered and free from unnecessary typography.

Uncle Woody Sullender performed live at the Künstlerhäuser Worpswede in Germany last year, and the new CD Live At Barkenhoof (DEAD CEO DCEO008 CD) documents some of the results. We’ve got a lot of time for this Chicago-based improviser who plays the banjo in ways that combine traditional bluegrass styles with free improvisation techniques, and who muddies up his sound in interesting ways with live electronic distortion. His previous CDs have been packed with furious playing, as though his picking fingers were glowing with atomic radiation due to having consumed an entire gramme of plutonium, but these live recordings are much more measured and confident. Judging by photo, the boot-wearing player was bathed in a warm orange light and aided by a glass of wine at his elbow plus a Mac Powerbook to produce some of the gentle ambient drones to accompany his banjo. What we hear is masses of inventive and sustained playing that will appeal mightily to any listeners who recently discovered the amazing Robbie Basho CD on Bo’Weavil Recordings. ‘Violence of Völk’ is particularly impressive; the musical phrases just seem to pour out of him, like an intelligent conversationalist armed with many an arresting anecdote from his unusual life. Sullender is carving out a unique niche, delivering an intelligent and skilled update on American folk forms.

Speaking of Bo’Weavil Recordings, here’s two of their new CDs giving ample evidence of their all-embracing approach to folk, ethnic and world music forms in ways that excite and stimulate. The Glorious Gongs of Hainuwele (WEAVIL 37 CD), credited I think to Harappian Night Recordings, is in fact all the work of one player named Syed Kamran Ali, performed live using African and Egyptian instruments such as the oud, mizmar and finger harp – although there’s also some crossover into Javanese gamelan. It sounds amazing (often the air of the recording itself is charged with atmosphere and background noises), and with the combination of exotic track titles such as ‘The Ire of Londa Mangali’, the images of Balinese shadow puppets, and the liner note which suggests that the whole work was recorded in a forest ‘with a crescent moon as a diadem’, you will soon succumb to the abiding impression that this is the work of a strange musical sorcerer from the East. Quite unearthly.

No less unsettling is the uncanny singing voice of American wayward folkster Dredd Foole (i.e. Dan Ireton), who performs That Lonesome Road Between Hurt and Soul (WEAVIL 36 CD) with help from the guitar, violin and percussion of Ed Yazijian. It takes considerable courage to open a recording with a 21-minute track such as ‘You Feel’, which also demands quite a lot of its listeners, but you will easily make it to the end of this opening stretch if you surrender to the ebb and flow of the song’s simple, yet very twisted, dynamics. When you do, there are six more beautiful songs awaiting you. Foole and Yazijian, like Sullender, achieve their hypnotic effects through musical talent and skilled playing of acoustic instruments in real time; they’re the players that just keep on giving. Foole’s keening voice is an acquired taste, but far preferable to the much-lauded Jandek, and it conceals unusual depths at every turn. Again like Sullender, Foole is an all-American storyteller, whose weird barely-comprehensible yarns are not packed with the kinds of surreal imagery used by Six Organs of Admittance, yet remain equally mysterious and poetic. A fine record of beautiful acoustic music and song.

Meanwhile on the eastern seaboard of the US, extreme-avantist Scott Foust continues his brave struggles against the massed forces of mediocrity. The main event this season is the long-delayed LP by Ian Middleton; fortunately, Aural Spaces (SWILL RADIO 029) has been worth the wait and is a pure gem of concentrated electronic music, packing a slow-burn punch into just ten short tracks, another beneficiary of label boss Foust’s severe ‘anti-sprawl’ editing policy. Middleton is the Scots outsider artist whose meticulous ink drawings have appeared in many places, including early issues of The Sound Projector; when not drawing, he pulls melancholic drones and minimal howls from analogue synthesisers, sometimes releasing them under his Remora alias. Aural Spaces features works made in 2004 and 2007; for this listener, it’s the later works, such as the stern opening cut ‘Negative Space’, which truly deliver on the steely promise implied by the pale blue stars that are struggling to shine in Karla Borecky’s grid-structure sleeve design. Middleton has expressed a slight concern that “people (some) will probably still think it sounds “desolate” and too simple to be good”. On the contrary, understanding simplicity is the key to unlocking the power of these drones, which continue unblinkingly in their taciturn explorations long past the point where lesser men would have given up and decided to vary the monotony by adding a drum machine or another unnecessary overdub. Another big part of the appeal for me is Middleton’s very “clean” sound, which (I’m guessing) may stem from an absence of filters and effects.

Also from Foust, the first release on his new CDR label is also the first volume of Idea Fire Company’s Live Archives collection. WMVA (LESSONS ABOUT HISTORY LAH 001) contains four long slow tracks recorded by the core IFCO duo Foust and Borecky with Graham Lambkin for a local radio station in Amherst in 1999. Three mesmerising synths combine in pulsing and droning cross-talk to deliver slow diatribes, on such topics as ‘Underwater Missions’ and ‘Hydropeoplynes’. Even in such abstracted work as this, the rapport between these three is unmistakable. Plus there’s a new compilation cassette Lasting (PINEAPPLE TAPES 010), not yet heard at time of writing, but boasting an impressive line up of names from the roster of Foust’s friends and collaborators. Asmus Tietchens, Ian Middleton, Frans de Waard, and Andrew Chalk are all here; collaborator Matt Krefting appears on cuts by Dead Girl’s Party and Idea Fire Company, and solo; Tim Goss, from The Shadow Ring, is also here on ‘Thunder-Rum’. Personally I’ll be looking forward to the piece by Emeralds, whose recent release on No Fun Productions is essential listening (they contributed the title track here), and The Collection Of The Late Howell Bend, featuring the music of my favourite eccentric genius from Florida, Irene Moon. With not a few maritime titles scattered throughout, the tape appears to end on a pessimistic note of finality, with IFCO’s ‘The Sinking Ship’.