Category: Recent arrivals

New promo CDs in The Sound Projector box

December 21, 2013

Clouds and Jetstreams

Banabila & Machinefabriek
Banabila & Machinefabriek
NETHERLANDS SELF RELEASED NO NUMBER CD (2012)

Rutger Zuydervelt and Michel Banabila present nine pieces of leftfield contemporary electronica expressed in a highly modern and technical way to create a crystal clear digital sound world. Who is exactly responsible for what is not revealed, but perhaps this is not important. Opener “Ascend” does what you might suspect from its title, and in little more than two minutes. The following track “Slow Wave I” accretes amp hum, analogue pops and occasional long reverbs, before a celestial melody is gradually exposed, obscured by more hums, bleeps and scrapes and finally exposed once more before a rhythm is constructed, perhaps from the sounds of pebbles or masonry falling and water dripping.

“Fälschungen” is a bizarre twenty-three second overture of android owls which fades straight into the fourth track “Dead Air” which is hardly reminiscent of the same, being as it is filled with phased filter sweeps, digital chirping, multi-pitched drones, samples derived from static and so forth. It puts me in much the same mood as the David Sylvian’s earlyish solo material does (Alchemy: An Index Of Possibilities is a good place to start); which is to say, mainly welcome mental calm inducing a physical relaxation with a not unpleasant hint of gloom.

The fifth track, “Frost”, actually initiated a massive muscular pain at the base of my skull during one listen, although I feel it would be unfair to attribute this solely to the music, and I’m sure such extreme effects were never the intention of either Mr Zuydervelt or Banabila. Based around a glacial semi-tone shift in pitch, “Frost” invokes a good approximation of the feelings you get walking outside at 7am on a crisp winter’s morning. Listening to “Slow Wave II” makes me think momentarily that I’m listening to an album of eai – the album as a whole really does have that feel in places – before the electronics and samples kick in. Natural sounds combine with submerged traffic noises and high end synthesis in an unmistakably organised way. It reeks of impending calamity. Similarly, “Bad Wiring” is also an apt title – six minutes of tetchy and paranoid electronics, a psychotic Leslie rotating speaker casting about blindly for victims in a crimson flood of unchecked voltage and displaced air. The final piece, “Descend” posits a surprisingly melodic resolution.

Decorating the packaging and disc are simple images, (photographs taken by Michel Banabila), of clouds and jetstreams, signifying, if not air travel to exotic destinations specifically, then escapism of some kind or other. It is possible that the unsuspecting could mistake the package for a Ministry Of Sound-type item given the typeface used is of a similar manifestation, but perhaps this is the intention and is some kind of homage to the uniform look, (at least to me), of the genre. I could try to extend this theory by stating that the music contained within is a kind of extreme futuristic interpretation of house music, but I suspect this may be a step too far.

This disc I have on my desk in front of me is, according to Discogs, one of a pressing of only 25, which is perplexing that it ended up in my hands, so although a second pressing is on the cards (and may already have happened), presumably Banabila & Machinefabriek intended these self-released discs to be PR for the download version of the album. So this is the first time I’ve come across an album intended primarily to be disseminated by download – if you don’t count the precedent set by In Rainbows by Radiohead, and I always try not to – rather than physically, but I’m sure it won’t be the last. I am someone who is far happier searching through piles of dusty cds in a second hand record shop than scrolling through the pages and pages of endless distro and/or label websites but that doesn’t mean I don’t do it. A lot. And I suspect, like myself, dear reader, you love every minute of it.

December 21, 2013

Three Rotary Roggmins

Split cassette (DSCRMNTO1052012) by Jason E. Anderson and Matt Carlson is in fact Bonus Tape #5 and part of a series which the label Discriminate Music calls “bonus cassettes”…in the years 2012 and 2013, some four-and-twenty musicians were invited to contribute five minutes of music or sound art, resulting in nifty lunchables such as this which were intended to be given free to discerning customers who dig into their Bitcoin purses to buy things from the label. Of 100 copies, only 70 made it out into the public arena, mainly for the purposes of publicity and to “promote the great music that’s happening in the current underground”. Hereon, ‘The Phantom Words of Explicit Memory’, a piece of randomised electronic material by Anderson which bubbles through the mind like a semi-lethal form of soda-pop, before arriving at one of those robotic voice samples that conveys a 1960s view of what we thought the future would be like. Matt Carlson’s ‘I Can’t Find My Body’ is not dissimilar in form, utilising some sort of pattern-generating device to create an impossible sequence of semi-musical notes in a complex array, conjuring up a vaguely pop-art vision of a non-existent World’s Fair Pavilion from the mid-1950s. Anderson is a Seattle musician who runs Gift Tapes, while Carlson is based in nearby Portland, Oregon, and they previously appeared together on a split LP called Dissociative Synthesis. (28/01/2013)

On Black Nature (HUM #1), we have the very able Oscar Martin who also goes under the soubriquet Noish. This is also a cassette of fiercely experimental electronic music, but compared with above it sits much more in the area of “performed” music, by which I mean he appears to be playing it in real time. Then again, to what degree it is in fact possible to play live music using SuperCollider and Pure Data is something I have no direct knowledge of, but the untamed musical fugues which reach our ears indicate a very spontaneous and warm hands-on methodology from our friend Oscar M., as he generously fills the air around his metallic body with bizarre sweeping tones, odd billowing clouds of silver digital pus, and brittle non-descript cracklings sawn from the hide of a large hog. Noish know no bounds of restraint; his powers of invention are such that he delivers continuous layers and streams of energetic electrical passion, leading many across Europe to dub him the “Maserati MC12” of the digital music genre. I’m also quite impressed by the clarity of these sounds, never once lapsing into foggy drones or meaningless distortion, and remaining hard-edged and punchy throughout – even when the compositions themselves are deliriously insane in their pursuit of the illogical. The graphic art on the cover suggests something of the teeming musical information which must occupy his fervoured brain by night and by day, even in the pictured Arcadian setting when he tries to get some rest and finds his sleeping hours beset with odd aural manifestations. We really must hear some more of this rum fellow, but I think we only know his work through a team-up with Xedh, the cassette rlhaaa to from 2012. (25/01/2013)

Horacio Pollard is an overlooked genius of experimental noise, and I’ve had a soft spot for everything I’ve heard by this English-Argentine fellow who sometimes lives in Berlin ever since a copy of Acorn Bath first assaulted our sensibilities in 2010, with its adorable squirrel cover art. I don’t really have enough artefacts produced by his raving hands, even though we have received some small-run items from his own Neigh Percent label. So it’s a pleasure to be sent The Words Came Through The Bung (ALTERED TAPES ALT001), a highly limited release on Altered Tapes which we received in January 2013, and it’s a truly remorseless meat-grinder of nasty guitar rock noise. Effortlessly doing the one-man band thing, Pollard turns in five juicy cuts of quivering freshly-carved flesh, each of them situated in some cross-dimensional warp area that blends angry punkified-stoner-rock with distorted noise and feedback and brutal avant-techno beats. In the midst of these primitive riff-heavy churners (his bass guitar work is especially manic), Pollard grunts out his simplistic one-syllable lyrics, as though he were speaking bullets and using the language of the rubber truncheon ¹. Uncanny; we haven’t heard the like since we dug Pollard’s crazed guitar contributions to the scorching tape by Clifford Torus (see October 2013). Unlike some inane noisy types, Pollard doesn’t neglect the structure – and he keeps his poisonous eruptions very listenable through use of simple repetitions, arriving at a very economical species of guitar riffage that makes this tape every bit as entertaining as a Led Zeppelin LP. He makes it seem so easy, but I imagine it takes some pretty formidable musical chops to keep all of these instruments ticking over like the well honed death-dealing machines he clearly wants them to be. That’s to say nothing of his studio craft; he is capable of achieving a delicious “big” sound, and makes you wish this little powerhouse beaut were available on a slab of vinyl. File this alongside your Caspar Brötzmann Massacre LPs…

This phrase is pretty much lifted from a George Orwell novel I happen to be reading just now. ↩

December 19, 2013

Fraudulent Jazz & Loony Tunes

The JazzFakers
Here Is Now
ALREALON MUSIQUE ALRN043 CD (2013)

The first time I heard about ‘fake jazz’ it was John Lurie’s description of his Lounge Lizards outfit. Word had it that jazz purists were irked, though I was bemused by the idea of sensibilities offended by the cool cohabitation of its smooth (by No Wave standards) jazzy contours and Arto Lindsay’s barbed guitar strangling. That was my first love in ‘jazz’: one that has developed over the years. Much has changed in the world of NY jazz too, if the (latest incarnation of) JazzFakers provide trustworthy testimony. Low on goose honks, but high on something I’d rather not try; the above stylistic demarcations have haemorrhaged heavily, and rockier tendencies – those found in ensembles such as Dr Nerve or This Heat – impregnate Here Is Now, along with all manner of unnameable scrap suggested by the sleeve. Here and now, it all swirls together like a melted radio.

Propelled by sax and keyboard man, David Tamura – something of a mover and shaker in the NY underground scene it seems – The JazzFakers max the volume on their effects boxes and shred with abandon. ‘Fake jazz’ gestures are absent, but there are lots of distorted guitar runs, bassy plinks and plonks and wave upon wave of treated, nauseating noise. It’s a New York native and no mistake. Such self-intoxication and avowed alienation of structure will likely distance lovers of straight melody and (even) avant-skronk, which is, I suppose, as ‘punk’ as one can hope for in this post-everything point in time. Simply put, everything explodes in all directions and cares not for your acceptance, nor mine. Ten out of ten for attitude; but points off for the carsickness.

I prefer the moments when the iridescent morass coagulates into something ‘musical’ – as on the energised bass and sax run on ‘Nowhere Is’ (the oblique Sun Ra reference suggesting a sly wink, possibly conceit) and ‘Weise Horn’, in which the sea of distortion encroaches like a tar flood that washes the band away. By ‘Horse Wine’ the addition of a stable, skinned rhythm to the mix establishes a sound one could click fingers to, provided amphetamines were within easy reach.

In case you hadn’t noticed, track titles are all anagrams of the album title – a trait that further contributes to the album’s sense of hermetic self-containment, in which every idea is indulged to fruition. The trend culminates in the aptly titled ‘Hero We Sin’- the biggest beast at nearly 13 minutes – perhaps an implied tribute/apology to the hardy few to brave the waves of ugly sound between every milestone of rubbery jazz, by drenching ears in a distillation of everything this album is.

The Black Neck Band Of The Common Loon
The Fleshing Beam
UK FOOLPROOF PROJECTS prj030 CD (2013)

Dandruffy ‘freak-folk’ flecks fall from the shoulders of this multi-man behemoth – The Black Neck Band of the Common Loon – which lumbers in a manner more akin to psychedelic troubadours Sunburned Hand of the Man or Volcano the Bear, with a hint of Tom Waits’ old boneyard rhythm section. This open-door cast ensemble hails from Brighton – to my barbarian ears seemingly well graced by strange and interesting artists these days – and is driven by Foolproof label don Andy Pyne and mysteriously monickered multi-instru-mentalist Blue Pin, accompanied by a Jason Williams on (correct me if I’m wrong) tenor sax and a rather angry electric guitar. Going by Blue Pin’s (darkly) illuminated cover one might anticipate something along the lines of a Constellation release: atmospheric and emotive long-form rock orchestrations. Such a notion wouldn’t necessarily be inaccurate, though the sound of this earthy anomaly is far from as streamlined as much of what I’ve heard from the respected Canadian label.

Clattering clumsily into being on most of the eight tracks, the group lurches in a manner menacing by virtue of its disregard for passers by. For the most part, it’s warbling woodwinds, screeching strings, saw-toothed guitar and steam train percussion – thundering slowly towards God-knows-where, like a nightmare carriage glimpsed in a protagonist’s blind spot in a Thomas Ligotti story. Of particular note is ‘Open Mouth Mounting’, which sports rhythm and rambling vocals suggestive of an esteem for the more driven, psycho-ethnic improvisations of Sun City Girls – particularly those on Kaliflower or early Carnival Folklore entries. From charcoal to abysmal, every track is a different shade of black, and the violence – though often implied – is jarring and intrusive. This manner is most successful when individual elements do not encroach, though there are times when the relentless shredding becomes a little overwhelming. Still, there’s a time and place for such scorched-earth antics.

December 18, 2013

Souvenirs From Shows You Shouldn’t Have Missed

John Butcher / Tony Buck / Magda Mayas / Burkhard Stangl
Plume
UNSOUNDS 35u CD (2013)

Four high-profile improvisers capitalise on their connected histories, which found them webbed-in to one another via a confoundingly complex array of formations large and small; and stepping into the present arrangements via – one assumes – a mutual and long-term esteem and/or chemistry. From the start, the sense of atmospheric cohesion is as sincere as the signature sounds of the participants: Tony Buck’s unmistakeable cymbolic shimmering as adhesive as sea foam; Butcher’s full sonic scrapbook given voice and breathing space: every tongue-twitching trill and sharpened honk served with nonchalant mastery; Burkhard Stangl’s guitar is rubbed down to raw, regular plinks, like a skeletal bridge that precariously spans a yawning chasm. From Magda Mayas’ fists erupt dense, resonant note clusters, as though Cecil Taylor’s hands were ripped into a black hole, feather-punching through the innards of her chosen instrument like a gory Manga murder. One and all: abiding ever in awareness, issuing forth a supernatural gestalt of their collective potential.

These two performances were recorded in London venues four years apart (2007 and 2011), thirty and forty minutes respectively, Buck and Butcher comprising the core; the three-human headcount providing a further element of consistency; the other being the lustrous sound summoned up on both occasions: one that blends visceral gestures with a perpetually softening ambience. It must have been warm in those venues – by the end at least. The aforesaid signatures socialise succinctly across a spectrum of collective possibility; the music traverses gaping gulfs of narrative space, foregrounding not a single ego, but responding intuitively to evolutionary permutations introduced at regular, if imperceptible junctions. Sound quality is first-rate, too. The minutes fly by.

It’s a sobering consideration that modern consumer listening dictates that recordings such as this – which would still be blowing minds today if recorded half a century ago – now likely constitute but a financial afterthought at a nice show at the Barbican. Still, it sounds so good you might feel you were there.

Webster / Holub / Anorak
Languages Live At Vortex
GAFFER RECORDS GR037 CD (2013)

Also of the ‘wish I’d been there but this will do’ species (though a markedly different specimen), is this compact live set from a trio of Colin Webster (sax), Mark Holub (drums), and Sheik Anorak (guitar), captured midway through a 3-date tour of southern England. It immortalises their incendiary antics in four sections, presenting a performance that pits the three in Houdini-mode, prying themselves apart while a universal magnet has them tied in knots.

The first leg witnesses Webster barking gutturally and pulling ugly faces in playful riposte to Sheik’s primitivist six-string lunges. Holub holds back somewhat, perhaps sensing rhythmic sufficiency in the guitar work. Mysteriously, the exchange halts six minutes in and resumes as a fluttering twitter-fest, one newly liberal in the application of cymbals albeit. Such cutaways wouldn’t happen if this were not a ‘document’ perhaps (nor would the lengthy between-track banter!). Still, the reptilian monstroid matures, becomes sandpaper-skinned, horned and mobile in next-to-no time and resumes its rampage – the three elements increasingly charged and stunningly synchronised. It would have been quite a treat to be one of the two hands present to applaud this fiery spectacle.

From then on the sound simmers slowly from languid beginnings into tectonic trembling – exhibiting an impressive mastery of a palpable tension, suggesting a familiarity between musicians that does not impede a joyful pursuit of new discoveries. Bass in absentia, Sheik’s crunchy, centipede guitar compensates by providing structure for flaming acrobatics of his playmates. Wisely though, the trio skirts the temptation to simply explode into a chaotic free-for-all, and in doing so distinguishes themselves as a controlled but compelling unit. By the final piece, they have spent their voluble energy and operate on a more sparing and astringent manner: the space between them (and their notes) seemingly greater; they make their main mission before packing up to deconstruct the detailed music they’ve so assiduously assembled. But not without a final roar of blistering bravado. “Up to standard” as an old friend of mine would have said.

December 16, 2013

People Passed Away

Gintas K
Slow
FRANCE BASKARU KARU:22 CD (2013)

Gintas Kraptavicius is from Lithuania and active since 1994. At the beginnings, he was a founding member of the local industrial band Modus, then ran radio shows devoted to experimental music and organized some theatrical Fluxus-like performances. Soon after, he got more and more into digital minimalism, recording the soundtracks for various films and installations. Primarily interested in sinewaves, glitches and noise manipulations, he recorded some interesting material, mostly unpublished or released on small-run CDRs. This situation changed in 2006, when Gintas got in touch with the famous Portuguese label Crónica Electrónica. They released his album Lengvai / 60 x 1 Minute Audio Colours Of 2kHz Sound on a double CD – the self-explanatory title suggested the experimental contents, building a bridge from rude techno minimalism of Raster-Noton tradition to the more conceptual side of his work, presenting the variety of sound transformations in a limited time frame. Another work, Lovely Banalities released in 2009 by the same label, presents skillful microsound manipulations derived mostly from recordings of everyday life. With this really good start, it’s not a big surprise to see his brand new album Slow in the Baskaru roster – this French label has always been interested in electronic experiments and provided an impressive catalogue of international artists whose names should be known to all experimental music lovers. What is absolutely an evident change, is the overall mood of the album – not really slow, but somehow warm and easy. Well, maybe “easy” is not the right word, don’t expect any sweet melodies or relaxed rhythms here. The nature of these compositions is still very abstract and sparse, and the music relies more on the glitchy side of electronic sound. The track titles are more or less typical for this style, formed by letter characters and signs of no particular meaning. Some tracks have a kind of lulling background ambience, recalling many pioneering releases of the 12k label. Others demand more attention to see the intricate relations between loose and staccato sounds while walking through quiet acoustic rooms. Mastered by omnipresent mastermind Lawrence English, the CD is housed in beautiful digipak and awaits careful listeners.

Various
Re(c)quiem
ITALY SANTOS PRODUCTIONS SNTSR01 CDR (2012)

The ultra-productive Italian label run by Davi Santos F provides a catalogue of nearly one hundred releases which appeared just in one year – of course, almost all of them are very small-run CDRs, tapes, and even floppy-discs! No downloads, that’s a good feature (maybe). Well-known names of Gianluca Becuzzi, Mauthausen Orchestra, Simon Balestrazzi, MB (Maurizio Bianchi), Dead Body Collection & Museo Della Tortura appear on the label, but also lots of total unknowns for me. This compilation has no goal to introduce new names or remind us of the old ones, but face the fair concept of requiems for famous people passed away: Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, Ezra Pound, Rozz Williams, Lucio Fulci and Yukio Mishima, to name a few. Composed exclusively by Italian artists, all of them drive us to the industrial/ambient realm of looped sounds, drones, sombre chanting, mysterious sounds and heavy atmosphere. Some rhythmic tracks thrown in as well, in post-industrial fashion of course, with sampled voices and sinister, minimal melodies. Quite diverse stuff indeed, absolutely not boring in any sense, it will appeal to many lovers of dark and brooding sounds. For those of you who perceive the world around us through music, it can also wake up your curiosity to find out about all those people mentioned. And, of course, to discover names like Filippo Zamboni (of Culto Dell’Annientamento), Noisedelik, Adern X, Augustus Gloop, Mario Marinoni, Brigata Stirner, Automageddon and others. However, many of them are quite obscure and have not so much music published (if not taking into account a couple of self-produced CDRs). On the more well-known side, there are TSIDMZ & Rose Rovine E Amanti, Maurizio Bianchi/Stefano Gentile/Gianluca Favaron, Khem (Teatro Satanico new side-project), Uncodified, Testing Vault and Deison, who also made the impressive cover artwork, manipulating photos by Fabio Orsi. An interesting exploration!

December 16, 2013

Monster Rock and Mushrooms

Seid
Among the Monster Flowers Again
GERMANY SULATRON-RECORDS ST1202 LP (2012)

Among the Monster Flowers Again marks the debut of Norwegian band Seid. Described ominously as ‘psychedelic space-rock’, the vinyl album mixes electronic sounds and sixties organ vibes to produce something highly listenable and surprisingly accessible, especially for people slightly spooked by the phrase ‘psychedelic space-rock’.

The psychedelic overtones are especially strong on ‘The Monster Flowers’, which opens the album with a real sixties hippy vibe; segueing nicely into ‘Fire Song’ which retains the hallucinogenic theme while incorporating more thrashing guitar rock sounds.

This is a theme that continues throughout the album, with each track perched somewhere between the mosh pit and Haight-Ashbury. It’s a delicate balancing act, but, for the most part, Seid manages to keep all the plates spinning without the whole thing falling down.

The space vibe really kicks in midway through the album on ’5/4′, which is the harshest and most distorted on the album, sitting somewhat at odds with the melodic sounds that reverberate through the rest of the tracks. Fortunately, this is followed by one of the album’s standout tracks, ‘Lois Loona’, which is a bit more restrained, but nonetheless a powerful piece.

‘The Tale of the King on the Hill’ is a bit of a downer, but things pick up again for tracks eight and nine, banging out more of what this band seems to do best; gentle, melodic sounds that draw you in then build to an ear-rattling crescendo. The final track, ‘Among The Monster Flowers…Again’, unsurprisingly brings us back where we started; picking up on the vibe from track one and gently setting us back down on earth after one exciting trip.

The band describes the album as ranging from “totally tripped-out mushroom dwarves who walk through bizarre landscapes to heavy psychedelic rock”. Whether that makes you start to salivate in anticipation, or run screaming for the hills, you’re likely to find something to enjoy on this album. In short, put those flares on, get that lava lamp fired up and turn the Monster Flowers up to eleven. Just watch out for those tripped-out mushroom dwarves.

December 15, 2013

Brooklyn Connection

DJ Olive Featuring Honeychild Coleman
THWIS
USA THE AGRICULTURE AG055 CD (2013)

Looking past the tiresome and arbitrary nature of journalistic neologisms such as ‘post-rock’ and ‘folktronica’, usually utilised to fence in disparate but geographically proximate artists, I have to say that I never felt there was much substance to the music that fell under the ‘illbient’ banner back in the ‘90s. Wordsound releases often hit the spot (were they illbient?) but little else. I gave DJ Olive’s We™ a try and quickly traded it in, the same with some of DJ Spooky’s stuff. Whatever parties they were playing at, I certainly wasn’t invited, nor was I covetous. So with a hint of apprehension I have given this one a shot, many years on.

To my surprise, it’s a warm and friendly post-party playlist of minimal dub/dancehall rhythms infused with tickly twinkles and drizzlings of delay. Snare – as is pointed out – is largely absent, and the drum palette is sparse by design. This effectively foregrounds whatever rhythm or texture Olive has established as the dominating feature at any given time. For the most part, the music sits innocuously on the border between background and mood music: neither to be ignored nor distracting, and always effusive when engaged, if a little forumlaic. This attribute is mitigated somewhat by the silken tonsils of vocalist Honeychild Coleman, whose invitation to ‘come home’ (with her) and such on several tracks will inevitably prove divisive. Personally, I’ve never been one for ballsy R&B voices, so I’ll skip, thanks. If you’re fine with that, you can fill your boots for roughly a third of the album.

By Olive’s admission, this work is the culmination of ‘countless hours’ refinement – both live and in studio. The process presumably being one of paring down operations; to the point at which – I imagine – it was probably a relief just to get it out there. Still, the care shows, every track exudes a feel-good exuberance – and for me it’s a surprisingly appealing formula. At the same time, I find the evidently painstaking approach amusing, considering how King Tubby’s early dub inventions supposedly arose from happy accidents.

Locust
You’ll Be Safe Forever
AUSTRIA EDITIONS MEGO 162 CD (2013)

Latest on the list of superannuated rock star cash-ins is the return of Londoner, Mark Van Hoen’s Locust project after a 12-year absence, his better-known work under the alias being a number of records on labels R&S and Apollo in the ‘90s. Word has it that Locust’s latest dispatch arose serendipitously during a jam session with one Louis Sherman in the latter’s Brooklyn studio, prior to a set on WFMU radio. The duo went on to record and perform live, the fruits filling much of this album. I’m guessing that they’re the ones that sound an awful lot like Boards of Canada, who seem to be the main muse here, right down to their hazy swirls, starry stabs, and predilection for interludes between every fully realised idea. Which is not in itself a bad thing – lest we forget the many layers of that much-cited duo’s popular music, which reward repeated listens as easily as the upper blanketing confirms impatient accusations of homogeneity. Observe, for example, the mechanical, shuffling snares that subtly counterpoint woozy, atmospheric stabs and clicks in ‘Fall For Me’ and ‘Oh Yeah’ – two of the album’s stronger offerings. Other tracks express less subtlety, favouring a more overwhelming collision of big drums and vocal samples, ‘Just Want You’ being one such example. Climate changes towards the less expansive in the final third of the album (mood remaining reflective albeit): stretched and muted guitars make more ‘90s allusions, certainly to Seefeel; the more moon-booted jazz moments to Herbaliser and even Amon Tobin. Make no mistake, surprises are not on offer here, nor is the nostalgia for the unnameable. However, these ‘post-trip-hop’ (to coin an inevitable future trope) ditties should fail only to displease.

December 14, 2013

Low Flying Branches

Long overdue notice for Hollow Gravity (PUER GRAVY PG-002), a “solid gold” LP of excellent electronic music from the lovely Philip Sanderson which we have held here in our vinyl entrapment jaws since July 2012. As you all know Sanderson was the founder of the Snatch Tapes cassette label around 1979-1980, and as such left his mark on the cassette tape “scene” which is now coming to be internationally understood as a time of great import for underground music generally. Snatch Tapes was among the first, if not the first, to publish the work of avant-droner supremo David Jackman, and also provided a vehicle for the early recordings of Storm Bugs (Sanderson and Steven Ball). We’re lucky that the Vinyl On Demand label has reissued much of their output, since an original of their first EP Table Matters is now hard to find and extremely pricey. In an ideal world, I would countenance paying a collector’s price for that record, which I regard as their Santa Dog – a vital document of abrasive and unsettling invention in DIY electronics, voice loops and noise.

Hollow Gravity is I think the third solo release Sanderson has put out under his own name, if we count the 2005 CD album Seal Pool Sounds and the 2009 download item, Carriage Return – the latter a murder-mystery spookout of a tape replete with voice fragments among the disturbing noise elements, and packaged such that the owner could “rebuild” it as a cassette tape if required. Seal Pool Sounds was a little overlong and uncertain for my tastes, but Hollow Gravity is bang on course, as solid as a Minuteman missile aimed directly at the enemy’s urban industrial targets and leadership bases. Right from the moment you hold the package in your robotic zinc claws, you know you’re plugging into a special occasion, the restrained design of the black and gold silkscreened cover depicting a Da Vinci corkscrew helicopter on the front and a more 20th-century inspired collage on the back, where printed circuits collide with letters from old fonts inside a grid that’s like a fortress blueprint. These images evoke strong ideas of “invention”, a resource Sanderson has never been short of in his career. Even the labels are unusual; laser-etched, tactile, 3-D, they create a mildly mesmerising strobe effect as your turntable spins. Apparently they’re based on designs for manhole covers. Already a requisite number of “industrial” boxes are being checked, but somehow an exceptionally British and quirky take on the industrial genre.

Musically, each of the 12 tracks offers its own small world in a glass jar, glimpses of a miniature universe generated in a laboratory. I can’t help feeling this echoes the cryptic title, with its hints of a “hollow earth” theory or some other wayward take on physical science. This is particularly true of the compelling and slightly neurotic long tracks which close out each side; both ‘Bodysnatcher’ and ‘Spaghetti Tension’ have an eerie hypnotic power that Asmus Tietchens himself would be proud of; here be density and a thought-through complexity that you won’t find very often in contemporary electronic music. Indeed very little on the LP seems throwaway or frivolous, rather the result of lengthy contemplation and the application of compositional craft. In places, Sanderson makes judicious use of an echo or overlay effect of some sort, that allows him to repeat certain synth phrases into impossible glissandoes and never-ending halls of sonic mirrors. This is not unlike some of the experiments he’s been conducting with film and video recently, which repeat image segments or generate intense kaleidoscopic patterns into infinity, until the seeing-eye brain is overwhelmed with visual information.

Elsewhere, at least two “poppy” tunes occur on side two, whose sound and melodies will appeal mightily to the Radiophonic Workshop fanbase, while Sanderson’s skill here shows many junior pretenders that attempting to imitate Delia Derbyshire is not as easy as they suppose. ‘Crystal Set’ is explicitly intended as “a nod or homage to our electronic forefathers”, and so I suppose is ‘Chance Operation’, a track which samples the speaking voice of John Cage into a fragmentary network of stand-alone and forlorn electronic sounds. Another track on A side uses voice samples from an old exercise record, and is an index to the playful and humourous side of Sanderson, also shown in his punning and witty track titles and subtitles (my personal favourite is “chronic irritable vowel syndrome”). The overall effect of the LP for me though is abidingly strange; Sanderson has delivered himself of some very odd, eccentric and disquieting electronic music on this album, and its moments of warmth and whimsy are counter-balanced by long stretches of near-chilling desolation in sound. 100 copies only of this essential item, released on this vinyl-only label run by members of Vas Deferens Organization.

December 14, 2013

Caustic Improv

ATOLÓN
Concret
RUSSIA INTONEMA INT004 CD (2012)

Recorded by Simon Reynell who is perhaps more widely known as the man behind the UK’s Another Timbre label. A sound recordist by trade, I believe he is also responsible for engineering most if not all the live recordings released on his excellent Sheffield-based imprint. Concret is a very fluid 34 minute improvisation by Ruth Barberán, Ferran Fages and Alfredo Costa Monteiro. I’m interested to see Ferran Fages’ name here as I have very much enjoyed his solo guitar improvisations and his collaborations with the zither player Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga under the name Ap’strophe.

The linear sleeve design by Alfredo Costa Monteiro is carried on to the front of the disc itself (and on a loose card insert), and in a way reminds me of the work of Savage Pencil’s work for vinyl, particularly the scraffito style design he did on the surface of the b-side of Lee Ranaldo’s solo lp From Here To Infinity… In fact the gatefold sleeve itself is nicely designed; a die cut, stylised man on the interior fold and the subdued palette of the two-colour printing process; the whole package finished in its own tailor-made resealable transparent polythene sleeve.

The music on Concret is very low-key. Barberan, Fages and Monteiro are in no hurry, but you get the sense that no amount of time or indeed hard disk space (I was going to say “tape”) is wasted either.

But this is no back-slapping, self-congratulatory exercise in ego-hugging. Nor is it hesitant or sloppily experimental – every technique used is a well-honed skill presented with the appropriate level of mastery. Furthermore, I can honestly say this is one of the most stripped down and astringent expressions of emotion I’ve ever heard in the electro-acoustic improv canon. This trio spit out their bile in one bitter amorphous lump; their quivering, caustic version of improvisation threatening to eat a hole in the floor.

Like many of the current investigative sound-makers whose names I could invoke to offer some sort of context (Lee Patterson, Jason Kahn, Choi Joonyong, Burkhard Beins) as a group, ATOLÓN determine to ruthlessly prise every last unlikely sound and utterance from their respective choice of instrumentation. Dynamically, the single 34 minute piece covers a lot of ground; each instrument is allowed to take precedent in turn, and the feeling of a tight live unit performing at the edges of their abilities is almost tangible. Around the halfway point, they have reduced their playing almost to the minimal/automatic nature of a Max Eastley wind sculpture, momentarily; and then an unsuspected crescendo of juddering, distressed, slowly fracturing incandescence for the listener to come to terms with. And like all the best examples of eai, it demands your full attention. Not for the faint-hearted or listeners new to this kind of music, perhaps, but if given the level of concentration it deserves, guaranteed to deliver the goods.
Mixed and mastered by Ferran Fages, and mastered by Ilia Belorukov (of grindcore experimentalists Wozzeck, interestingly) and Mikhail Ershov released in unknown quantity but judging from the type and quality of the package, there can’t be huge numbers of this item around so I’d hurry to obtain a copy if I were you.

December 9, 2013

Shipping Lanes

Gareth Davis & Machinefabriek
Ghost Lanes
GERMANY DEKORDER 056 LP (2011)

Custard pie me, why don’t you? Pelt me with rotten veg if you will, but I’m just not a fan of the clarinet. And yes, I do know that Perry Robinson and Peter Brötzmann both favour the “Licorice Stick”. But for me, its over-fruity tonalities are way too anchored in sixties Brit trad jazz revivalism (see Messrs Bilk and Ball…). But…when Monsieur Clarinette’s family tree is revealed to harbour a couple of weirdly-shaped black sheep in its fold in the form of bass and contrabass versions, then colour me an interested party. After all, Rene Garber (Mekanik… era Magma) and Sir Eric Dolphy can’t be wrong surely? And neither can Amsterdam-based Gareth Davis who has introduced this rumblesome oddity (shunned by normal god-fearing woodwinds), into diverse projects helmed by the likes of Robin “Scanner” Rimbaud, Ryan Teague and ECM stalwart Terje Rypdal.

His liaison with Dutch dronist and hyperactive electro-chemist Rutger Zuydervelt (a.k.a. Machinefabriek) a number of years back, resulted in almost instantaneous telepathy. So great in fact, that their very first improv session; the 23.15 min Ghost Lanes was released as a limited, blink and you’ll miss it, 3″ cdr soon after. Since then, the Drape and Grower cds (on Home Normal and Sonic Pieces respectively) have insinuated themselves into the collective ear with positive copperplate by review scribes hither and indeed thither.

So it makes for good horse sense to give that initial session a slight return by occupying one half of the Ghost Lanes vinyl LP, which comes care of the Dekorder imprint, that fine purveyor of avant esoterica. A perfect mothership in fact for Rutger’s over-furtive scrabbling, electricity substation ambience and Gareth’s plaintive sonorities, which soon take on the guise of a beached cetacean, in its death throes, vainly calling out to its pod. Having been recorded eighteen months later, it might be suggested that its companion piece, the charmingly titled “Mackerel Sky” might make the album lack a certain cohesion – but that’s simply not the case, each side complements the other without question. Though, it must be said, Rutger’s guitar/amp loopage is a tad twitchier and occupies a more fragmented, yet cavernous soundstage. His co-conspirator, fully cognizant of this mood shift, also ups the ante a notch and, on a couple of occasions, his horn squealing/reed gnawing delivery really does throw a number of toys out of the hypothetical pram.

Mention must also go to the striking, yet anonymously sourced sleeve art. We see an example of what happens when urban planning goes “rogue”, in which the road system seems to lead to nowhere in particular…but does so suggesting that the journey is more important that the final destination. An idea that just might allude to this meeting of the minds?

Gareth Davis
Machinefabriek
Dekorder