Received three excellent cassette tapes from Daniel of Soundholes, all limited editions, all presented with simple black and white packaging and basic typography. From 13 March 2023.
Underneath The Valley (SOUNDHOLES #105) is played by the duo of Glen Steenkiste and Jef Mertens, using electric guitars and cymbals. Jef Mertens is the Belgian film-maker who did a couple of movies likely to be of interest to fans of underground rock and noise, one of them on Sonic Youth and another on Borbetomagus. He is also founder of Taping Policies, a locus for video and audio documentaries since 2009. For another recording he made with fellow Belgian Steenkiste, you could try the No Map record from 2021, where Glen appears on ‘Our First Movement’. Today’s Valley item is located somewhere in the area of drifty sound-art scaping more than outright rock noise, but the players have enough distortion and kaleidoscopic grit in their bones to make this truly compelling listening. To put it another way, it’s not “tasteful” wall-hanging drapes nor immersive jangleroo with too many effects; the pair seem intent on undertaking a rather perilous trip through time and space, and we’ve no choice but to strap on our pitons and join them. The gradual eruptions into slow-motion explosive noise have been well-earned, through patient stroking and hammering actions on the brains of copper. Great slab of full-on monotony enriched with extra juice; not unlike the rain-soaked guitar angst of Michel Henritzi, except our Belgian friends appear to be much more stoic about their doom, while the French player usually needs three glasses of Burgundy to fortify himself.
Weston Olencki has Solo Horn (SOUNDHOLES #106), on which he produces Tone Studies 1-4. This Olencki’s a composer and sound artist from South Carolina apparently living in Berlin just now. I see his website is full of goodies, including images of modified trombones and other brass mutations; I think custom-made electronics and software are also part of the dealeroo, and he’s fond of creating entire environments in which the player of a twisted horn – i.e. himself – can find new forms of expression. The pieces on this particular tape stand a very good chance of making me a committed fan of Olencki – discursive, strange, personal music, leading me willingly down a gold-plated rabbit hole where we can surely make our home and hunker down for a few months. I’ve heard some post-malarkey blurters on brass or woodwind who are just too intent on demonstrating “extended technique”, or practice severe minimalism, or just indulge in a process; many such players like to remind us that their lungs, breath and saliva play a large part in the work. None of the above can be applied to the music on Solo Horn, which is much more engaging, honest, and exciting; Weston Olencki is probably saying a lot more about the world, and himself, through his innovative and well-crafted art. As such there are more moments per square inch where the average human being can make meaningful contact with these bizarre, unworldly parping eruptions. In fine, give me more from this “horn of plenty”. Weston Olencki also composer of music he be, for flute, organ music, and probably more, and one who has been labelled a conceptualist, but who makes his ideas very plain and understandable through their expressive realisations. He succeeded here.
Live at the Good Shepherd Chapel (SOUNDHOLES LIVE #017) is on a sub-label of Soundholes called Soundholes Live. Recorded in Seattle 21 July 2022, it’s the duo of What teaming up with Robert Millis, the guitarist and sound-artist of Climax Golden Twins and author of many travelogues about his fascinating trips to the Far East and elsewhere. Millis on guitar and electronics, Alan Jones on pedal steel and electronics, with Dave Abramson on drums; it’s a beautiful live performance. What may be relative newcomers and have made one other cassette in 2022 for Eiderdown Records in Seattle. What I enjoy here is the drawn-out, mysterious and unnatural sounds on offer, often barely recognisable as guitar or percussion, and enriched with outer-space transmissions from the numerous black boxes of secrecy. Since someone mentioned Sonic Youth (see above), a bit of me longs for that time from the 1980s when it seemed like there would be lots of fruitful exploration into the possibilities of abstract guitar noise refashioned into art. This tape is more than satisfactory on that account. There’s also a slightly subdued tone to the performance which I enjoy, as if none of the three players were entirely sure where they were going to end up, but still kept their brains focussed on the elusive silver star that was floating away from them. The Chapel location seems a very apt location for what I consider to be near-devotional, semi-religious modern music; with their sensitive, fragile music, the trio have created a long-form hymn for the alienated and disaffected souls of today.