Hidden Bird’s Nest (3LEAVES 3L011), eh? Know what you mean…if this was an English folk song record it would be a collection of lusty songs about courtship. Instead this is actually a field recording record made by Hiroki Sasajima and Takahisa Hirao, pointing their microphones into the rich repository of wildlife that abounds in...
Chris Watson‘s El Tren Fantasma (TOUCH TO:42) is a new work where he’s using his field recording and editing skills to create an elaborate electro-acoustic collage, a suite of ten pieces which almost tells a story. It has something to do the with Ferrocarriles Nacionales of Mexico (whose logo even appears on the disk...
Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s Day If I was hearing Broken Heart Collector (DISCORPORATE RECORDS DISREC18) in February or March instead of in the bleak midwinter, I’m fairly sure it would instil certain bittersweet emotions of love and longing. As song lyrics, track titles and images make clear, Broken Heart Collector see love as an...
If you want to sharpen your wits with some good old-fashioned astringent modernism, the double CD On Tour (MUTABLE MUSIC 17544-2) by Ostravská Banda ought to be poured into your daily tub like a pouch of bath salts. This ensemble went on a tour of Europe in 2010 and took with them a strong...
Creditable set of instrumental guitar-and-synth rock tunes from UK combo Feorm on what appears to be their debut release (FEN TIGER FENT01CD). Each four or five-minute piece feels like an episode of compressed jamming rather than a composed tune, and while no memorable melodies are emerging from their efforts as yet, they have a...
Twenty of Another Kind A lengthy triple-CD box set of microtonal minimalism is Twenty Ten (12K1066) by the New York composer Kenneth Kirschner, offering over three hours of music across four very long compositions. The music gradually becomes fainter, quieter and more washed-out as you progress across the set; while we may start out...
The Undersea World of Phlebas the Phoenician I’ve recently found the “September” bag of CDs, although there’s still a sizeable bunch of releases from the summer of 2011 not yet fully unwrapped. First today is a fine art piece of business from two Italian composers, Fabio Selvafiorita and Valerio Tricoli. For Death By Water...
Get Knotted A fine baffling patchwork piece is The Knotted Constellation (Fourteen Rotted Coordinates) (MONOTYPE RECORDS MONO039). Over 32 minutes it’s hard to comprehend exactly what Kim Cascone is doing, but he starts with field recordings of church bells which he proceeds to mangle, overlay and roll up into balls of aural dough as...
Always Prepared for Action Few have worked as hard as German composer and musician Reinhold Friedl to re-energise and update 20th century avant-garde music, most notably with his exciting Zeitrkratzer ensemble pieces. Here he is doing it solo on Inside Piano (ZEITKRATZER RECORDINGS ZKR 0013), an abundant double-disc set of his own piano compositions...
One hour of dank and clammy Swedish drone from Keränen, who spends the entire disc describing the lurid lighting effects of the Moon Over Torrelorca (LJUD & BILD PRODUCTION LBP002). The grey cover image entirely reflects the nature of the music, a charcoal drawing which in its semi-abstract way conjures up a black moon...
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