Three CDs of music by the excellent Biliana Voutchkova on Blurred Music (ELSEWHERE MUSIC elsewhere 001-3), documenting three live performances from Dec 2016, where this violinist was joined by Michael Thieke and his clarinet for these dates in America. The word “blur” is being used to set the scene for “indeterminacy”, and refer to the method used by both musicians, for instance alternating between improvisation and composition in the structure of each piece. Ultimately, they’d like to “blur” time itself. There’s nothing unfocussed about their playing, if that’s what you were thinking; Voutchkova in particular lands each note with the grace of a bird somehow alighting on a cloud. Not minimal music; it’s packed with empathy, emotion, meaning, and genius. Released in 2018.

Austrian genius Katharina Klement here with Textur (KALD CD 03) – 14 experiments composed for the piano and loudspeaker, using a six channel tape recorder. Some technicians and mixers are credited, e.g. Flo Prix, Oliver Gross, David Petermann, but I think this is all played by Klement. I love the precision of this – it feels like she’s typing it all out by longhand, setting each note in metal in preparation for a letterpress edition. She packs so much complexity and density into short, economical spaces that it’s like hearing Xenakis compressed in a matchbox with a Stockhausen packed lunch at the interval. One of several back catalogue items she sent to us years ago; see this page. This one was released in 1998.

Doc Wör Mirran sent us Confusion Rocks! (MISS MANAGEMENT HAVE TEN) – recorded in 2015 in a German studio. Joseph B. Raimond plays all the guitars and synths, and did the cover paintings, supported by Stefan Schweiger on drums. Raimond has been ruder, and more abrasive, but this is enjoyable and well-made rock music, not especially avant or challenging. Think of it as a form of latterday Krautrock with added Euro-synth melodies and textures. I’d like to have heard a shade more “confusion” in the grooves, but the mood throughout is pretty mellow, despite growling mad head painting on the cover and titles like ‘Every Fibre of my Body Hurts’. Not enough Jean Dubuffet, more like Marc Chagall. The ‘Self Portrait, Broken’ does at least deliver a mildly uncertain episode of self-contemplation. Released in 2016, their 142nd release (take that, Zappa).

Also from Doc Wör Mirran the much more interesting Tape Hissed (Historical Obscurity Volume 2) (MISS MANAGEMENT HAVE NINE) which apparently was drawn from the archive of DWM recordings as far back as 1983 up to 1994. A long list of collaborators and camp followers on these rare cuts, even including Jello Biafra. Packaged as a “three-sided” release, of which the first two sides on tape might be included as a snippet inside the jewel case! At least two tracks here – unsure of the titles which don’t quite add up – are brilliantly concocted layers of balmy noise, accumulating in a very open-ended fashion and allowing any errant synth squiggle or passing gnat to flap their wings in the general melee. Some tracks may appear more conventional art-rock mode, but even these uglified workouts are informed by a lunatic sense of mayhem and controlled chaos. They also had the good taste to dedicate the release to David Bowie. Maybe the time has come for a proper reevaluation of Doc Wör Mirran, arguably a much “better” band than Sunburned Hand Of The Man. From 2016, I think.

This eponymous follow-up to 2021’s “Down in the Meadow” (Morphine Records), finds this trans-European trio’s further explorations into a space where age-steeped Balkan vocalese fuses with electronic ambience, sinuous bass pulse and a lattice-work of Can-like hypno-percussives. After that debut received the critical hosanna, the unveiling of the second album reveals a somewhat more radical shift, with eight pieces that are more fluid and situated a good country mile from certain ‘box standard’ frameworks. Beginning with an endorsement of a Bohemian lifestyle, the rhythmically imposing “Barabinska” is one of over half of the set that leans heavily on native-tongued trad. verse (sourced from the western Balkans, to be precise). “Selo Moje” is however, penned by Gordan vocalist extraordinaire Svetlana Spajić (collabs w/ Zeitkratzer, William Basinski a.o.) and then radically reshaped by bassist Guido Mobius (also found on the Dekorder and Karaoke Kalk labels) and drummer Andi Stecher (Matana Roberts, Carla Bozulich).

The single, “The Bell is Buzzing”, is a well-travelled Balkan love song which begins in some versions, as an everyday tale of a young shepherd’s betrayal at the hands of his sweetheart, who then rejects him for another. In this take though, things surprisingly end in a happy-ever-after fashion, which surely goes against accepted folk norms. So, I guess from a capsule version of ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ to the closing “O Nikola”; a detailed tribute to the Serbian scientific genius Nikolai Tesla’ written by Bosnian singer Milan Bilbija. I always thought that poet Herb Bermann’s lyric for Captain Beefheart’s “Electricity” could serve as a makeshift anthem to this man born out of time, especially with the “…thunderbolts caught easily…” line. But now, we’ve got the real thing and this compelling slice of near-sprechgesang is undoubtedly the cherry on the icing and one that prods the listener into a further bout of bookworming.

Casting the runes in a digital age, Gordan can be seen as successfully grabbing the baton from mystical prog/folk worthies such as first album Comus, first album Mr. Fox, The Third Ear Band and Germany’s I.S.B. Counterparts: Flute & Voice.

They’ve been working on this format since 2022, deliberately forsaking conventions like melody or repeated patterns, so it’s a shame that after all that effort this half-baked concoction is the best they can come up with. I’ve never been much impressed by Elieh’s lazy jamming since we heard the record by Sawt Out; some interesting sounds may emerge from today’s tape, but they’re more the product of studio effects than actual playing skills. Aya Metwalli has a good tone, is note-perfect, but she also sounds bored, her classical skills under-used, appearing awkward in this setting. (01/11/2024)

While this Zoharum label likes to promote Polish talent, it’s not so insular as to exclude other European talents from its roster…such a one is b°tong, a new name to me, but the solo genius behind it Chris Sigdell of Switzerland has been active under this name since 2005 and notched up 30 albums in that time. Sigdell also used to be in NID and Leaden Fumes, the latter a famed Swiss doom-sludge band who grew out of the earlier band Phased, one of the original stone-core groups of that Alpine region. Actually Sigdell is a 1980s veteran with an impressive pedigree. On today’s item Mass (ZOHAR 326-2) – sometimes printed in curly brackets – he presents a double-disc helping of incredibly atmospheric, ultra-layered drone, somehow managing to evoke infinite stretches of time and space with his delicate, but well-constructed, music. Where mediocre droners dream of glimpsing “the beyond”, they can produce suffocating and flat results with their unimaginative settings, but b°tong is the real deal. There may be guitars, vocals, synths, samples and field recordings buried in these scaperings, but one isn’t concerned to disentangle the harmonious blends, rather to wander lost inside them for the next few decades. I’d like to say that the title Mass implies a holy rite from a lost Eastern European strain of extreme Catholicism, but the underpinning meanings to this work are far from clear-cut; there are some simple contrasting images, such as the Goddess of Light telling us “Behold the Sky is Black”, and a fleeting reference to heavenly signs, but our man remains gnostic and unknowable in his intentions. “Together they form a coherent whole”, so the label informs us about these two sessions recorded one year apart, and also indicate that a story is being told across the two discs. If they are right, it’s a very slow-moving epic, but a compelling one.

Ulesa sailed across the Baltic sea in 2021 with their debut, a not-unlikeable set of loops and voices swaddled in the usual ambient blacktiude that this label relishes so much. We noted their mysterious non-identity and no-title strategy back then, which continues with their second offering, except we now learn Ulesa are a mystery trio and the vocalist (on today’s record at any rate) is Ania Grąbczewska from Szklane Oczy, the under-performing coldwave rock group from Poland. The music on II (ZOHAR 331-2) is shrouded in fogs and soft edges, with even the percussive beats muffled by these heavy grey clouds, but that makes a change to being slammed in the ribcage by the beats of Larmo and others of that ilk. It’s nice when a trumpet or voice suddenly emerges from the murk to greet you in the morning air.

Brume here with Synchronicity & Wandering Current (ZOHAR 338-2). Myself, I never really went overboard for this French solo act by Christian Renou, although he’s well regarded and has smothered all of Europe with cassette releases since 1985 or earlier. Operating somewhere to the left of industrial hideosity and an update on classic musique concrète, Brume has managed to hammer out his own railway through the untamed territories of abstract sound. In my ignorance I thought he’d retired or otherwise given up long ago, and was half-expecting a long and stern droning episode on this single-track 57:54 minute item. Instead it turns out to be a very inventive and imaginative sound collage thing. The source materials are fascinating and odd and very surprising, and evidently assembled with tremendous care. The suite divides into three named ‘chapters’, and one can credit the idea that a layered narrative is being assembled, albeit one more informed by Burroughs and Beckett than by John Grisham. That comparison may suggest a tendency towards absurdity or mind-scrambling nonsense, but we’re very far away from Bladder Flask’s ultra-random cutup technique here. Amazingly, Hastings Of Malawi (who’s been enjoying a purple patch of creativity lately) is a contributor, adding voice and electronic sounds; there’s also Pat’ Blanch and Patrick Mazaltarim on saxophone, whose toots occasionally lift us out of crazy-sampling tape-edit genius into a free improv region. As for the cover art! Well, those nudes come from the scrap-books of Françoise Duvivier, who also makes dolls and masks, and has done quite a few covers for Brume over the years. Excellent release.

…being a French male/female studio-based twosome, now well established in certain underground outposts of their native country. The noise-rock tendencies of band members Nicolas Laureau (gtr/keys/perc) and vocalist Sasha Andrès, with Prohibition and Héliogebale respectively, now seemingly inching towards more ethereal territory. More recent projects such as Don Nino, NLF3 and A Shape leaving a breadcrumbed trail of clues sound wise.

Inevitably with any ethereal rubberstamping, comes crib sheet talk of ‘the cult with no aim’, otherwise known as ‘Shoegazing’. However, with considerably more fibre in their diet, they manage to dodge the clammy grasp of Slowdive, Lush and their followers. Opening with a native-tongued tip of the cap to Belgian poet Henri Michaux, “Ex-Agir” matches solitary acoustic guitar with attractive piano confectionary that is shadowed by an unsettling distant whirring, somehow sounding like its origins came from the schematics of an early edition of ‘Practical Electronics’. A change in tempo occurs with the languid strains of “Birds Nest” in which the heavily gauged six-string figures recall Angelo Badalamenti’s tenure at Twin Peaks (population: 51201). The intriguingly titled “Vertical Janus” steps up the unease quotient a shade with an x-rated, table-turning exercise in spectral keyboards and the rusted clangs of guest guitarist and Sister Iodine member Erik Minkkinen.

With Laureau’s involvement with both Françoiz Breut and Brisa Roché, adding to the mix, plus Sasha’s shoehorning in of a pro acting career (!), it might be time for the duo to cool these scattershot bursts of creativity and take stock. Because, on the strength of this, ‘Project Specio’ should really read more like a novel and less like a few lines from a short story.

Solo percussion record by Etienne Nillesen. He made en (SOFA 603) using a single snare drum, but he’s not interested in the traditional approach of percussive striking. Instead, he generates pitches and harmonics, perhaps by rubbing his stick against the membrane (a very granular skin). If I’m right about the rubbing, it’s not unlike the effect produced by a glass harmonica, rubbing the finger on the rim of a wineglass. Very simple and spectral tones emerge in this single 32:13 minutes piece. Small wonder that the label press sees fit to praise the skilled engineers in Cologne who managed to capture this fleeting, evanescent sound. Etienne Nillesen deserves credit for exploring this area, which may represent a fundamental challenge to the accepted conventions of how the drums ought to be played, and for his skill in developing a technique to do it. (23/09/2024)

Italian jazz. Gabriele Mitelli and Rob Mazurek recently appeared together with their Medea record (a tribute to everyone’s favourite Greek myth healing sorceress), and Mazurek has been persuaded back into the studio to join in on In The Room (ORIGINAL CULTURES OCLP006) credited to The Elephant – a jazz-esque trio of Mitelli (trumpets), Pasquale Mirra (vibes and percussion), and Cristiano Calcagnile (drums). The trio concoct lively swingers as well as quieter mood pieces, and include vocal spots (songs, recits, poems) from Cristina Dona, Damon Locks, and Rob Mazurek. Mostly too tasteful for me, but I liked parts of ‘Third Ghost, Old Dreams’, even if the attempts at free-form energy music are a bit contrived and schematic. (02/02/2024)

Made out of “synth pulses” and “tape manipulation” – and in this context “pulses” are more like the pulsations of some monstrous enlarged part of the anatomy (not human anatomy) laid bare and raw so that we can better appreciate its visceral writhing. I seem to be taking cues from the cover art (as usual), but you’ve rarely heard such untamed and hairy synth playing. Most civilians attempt to disguise the voice of their new expensive toy. Shin Chida prefers to cultivate wild roars and growls from its belly, as he feeds it raw meat from the man-traps he has set up around the log cabin. Chida might not have been the most prolific of Japanese noise-demons (which bucks the trend, some might say, when digesting gargantuan back catalogues from Merzbow, Incapacitants, and Masonna) but I find he used to deal on the trading floor as Burried Machine and made a handful of bludgeoners since 2008, some of them on Rockatansky Records, and even did a split with Knurl (that respected Canadian 1990s noiseman). He seems to have eschewed violence and extreme sensory assault in favour of something more ambiguous and intriguing, which is certainly what I hear here on tracks ‘High Into Bottom’ and ‘Socked in Boots’, yet there’s no compromise in the mesmerising power and intense draw of his stark, mechanical tones. If he supported the idea of deploying robots for home use, no doubt his androids would be coated in soft vinyls and bright colours as they executed their routine tasks. This tape marks a return to show business for Chida after a hiatus of some ten years.

On the B side, Tom Karlsson is the “featured” guest for the title track. This Swedish experimenter appears to be a rather troubled fellow and used to sing in the Swedish punk band Hoist A Few. He adds uglified, wretched lyrics and vocals to the session, as if enduring torture inside a chamber of ice, while Shin Chida drums implacably on his reverbed bass synth. Whole tape is a magnificent instance of catharsis by noise; recommended. The last of four cassettes received from the Soundholes label, from 23 September 2024.

The genesis of “Nine Tales…” began in 2018 with French industrial veteran Laurent Pernice’s “Le Corps Utopique” c.d.; the official soundtrack for Emma Gustafsson and Laurent Hatat’s choreographed play. That recording showcased the rediscovery and reappraisal of painfully obscure wind instruments from Sardinia to Laos and several points in between; Dominique Beven’s playing of these receiving the warm embrace of Laurent’s echoed, looped and reverbed f.x. An invitation to play at Marseilles’ “Jest Festival” in September 2022 meant that the launeddas, cromornes, khenes and grallas (!) were dusted off for a second time, the addition of a ‘genetically modified’ sax (?), vocals and Tibetan hunting horns (or rhadongs), coming courtesy of Palo Alto‘s Jacques Barbéri.

Numerous man hours of improv toil with the inevitable weeks of editing and mixing were added to the concert recording. The resultant material with the imposing “Ghost Mountains” and “Lost Angels” (aided by Laurent’s bullroarer cameo) being prime examples, show groupthink as giving these bygone instruments (some free-reeded, some not) precious breathing space, thereby avoiding overwhelming them in a fug of excessive electronic chatter. Those ‘x-meets-y’ comparisons such as David Munrow’s Early Music Consort being chaperoned by Delia Derbyshire or a Gryphon/T.O.N.T.O. Alliance, naturally splutter and stall at the very first bend.

The accompanying hype-sheet helpfully nudges the listener towards a jack up the volume option to “…fully grasp its infinite ramifications…” That form of bare-chest pummeling is usually the province of the metalloid hordes but, whatever way you play it, you’ll certainly reap the rewards here.

The Last Man Before Dawn (trAce label trAce 060) is credited to himself and “Guests”, referring to the various outside vocalists who were invited to bring their skills to the party, and indeed even compose their own lyrics for each of the dark electro-pop anthems already laid down in the studio by Saïet with his keyboards, drum machines, strings, mellotron, and guitars. The singer-songwriter list includes Melanie Menu, Mika Pusse, Theo Hakola, Ben Ritter, and others, plus notable French instrumentalists Quentin Rollet, Paul Percheron and veteran progster Thierry Müller enthread their improvisatory laces into this fine boot in the shoe salon.

With its collage artworks (also by Saïet) of nudes, doting couples, animals and large lips, it might be possible to read The Last Man Before Dawn as a post-modern album of torch songs and romantic ditties, except our knowing French genius realises there’s very little currency left in these devalued old-school forms of expression, and instead we get an album of alienation and disillusionment, heavily shrouded in irony. Even so, there’s an undercurrent of low-rent surrealism, Film Noir snapshots, and dreamlike atmospheres to enjoy, even if one sometimes wishes for a shade more engagement or passion from the guest singers, most of whom have already succumbed to despair even before the microphone is switched on.

Many of the same talents appeared on 2021’s After The Wave, a much more histrionic and unhinged set than today’s offering, which feels somehow tame in comparison. (10/06/2024)

I always like the way this very free-thinking musician Berrocal manages to slip past conventional categories, even if his muted and treated trumpet might resemble Miles from around the Big Fun period on segments of these recordings. On the first “set” the French team were joined by Jakob Draminsky Højmark (keyboards) and Jørgen Teller (vocals), calling themselves Tzarina Re-Tuned, and what emerges is a sluggish creeping sponge of rootless, chordless miasma, where in amongst the treacherous echo effects and glommarific drones, Berrocal slithers like a greased-up centipede. Precious seconds of vocal absurdist poetry are placed at start and reappear at the close of this 15-min delirium, very reminiscent of the radio poems from Orphée by Jean Cocteau (with the frequent use of the phrase Je répète). After this, all those concerned retired to hotel rooms (Hotel Hotel) after imbibing local wines, we hope, and dreamed the dreams of the truly liberated surrealist, refreshing selves for return next night when they became the Sparkling Sextet – the word’s only sextet with seven players, thereby posing an existential conundrum. Same foursome as above now joined by vocalists Tanja Schlander, Randi Pontoppidan, and synth player Per Buhl Acs.

This one is much more of an indigestion-nightmare of cheese-eating Rarebit fiends, inhabited by multiple speaking and singing voices – including the gruff barks (presumably) of Berrocal himself, and there is much humour and playful antic lurking among the dark recesses. Pontoppidan is especially valuable in this milieu; been enjoying her releases for a few years now and we do cherish her emotionally-articulate and highly intuitive approach to the “voice-improv” thing. Some of the clipped utterances when spoken in English by a male practitioner I mistook at first for Berrocal, but evidently not since trumpet is still playing at same time during these non-overdubbed melanges – these one-word slogans and free-form expositions put one in mind of Jean-Luc Godard during that brief pre-Vietnam period when his dialogue, especially in the mouth of Belmondo, so accurately satirised and deflated all the shiny artefacts of the American dream with a directness that few cineastes have matched. I especially like the description from the label press notes, characterising this concert “avec ses voix hallucinées”. Quelle poetic.

In musical terms, this Sextet session is equally drifty and strange – Epplay’s synth is going into understated overdrive with presumably some help from the Danish contingent Per Buhal Acs – and everyone’s vocal mic is equipped with an ultra-eerie echo setting that produces an instant “De Chirico” dreaming effect. Even the photographs of the set (by H. Jelstrup), in the dim-lit cellar with bare brick walls, contribute to these oneiric impressions – weird shadows, double exposures, dramatic lighting. A gem…aid to sleep and weird nightmares… from 30th April 2024.