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Vital Weekly 517

  Tobias

UNCLE E. - DEEP IN THE BUSHES (CDR by Antboy)
Now, this is a bit of surprise. Uncle E. is one Timothy Pledger from Melbourne, and besides playing music, he makes films. He's the leader of Bohjazz, an experimental band, but also plays in the rockband Bikeboy and he has two audio visual experimental bands, Sandwich Jesus and Viaduct. He is 'deeply involved in the tonal and emotional aspects of rhythmic harmony as they move against each other in blocks and waves of sound', it says on the cover. 'Deep In The Bushes' is resampled reworking of Bohjazz album 'Deep In The Woods', and is his third album as Uncle E. The reason why I call this a surprise is that it is indeed all about emotions and harmony, the latter aspect not a frequent thing on releases by Antboy. Usually this label deals with the more noise related aspect of improvisation and electro-acoustic music. In each of the five pieces, Pledger uses samples of mostly wind instruments that only differ marginally from each other but that he staples as blocks next to each other and creates shifting layers out of that. Highly electronic and organic sounding, this moves away from the cut 'n collage sound of many other Antboy releases. Minimal along the lines of Phil Niblock, but more harmonic and also with a more low fidelity character. Shimmering, twilight music. The only point of critics might be that some of the tracks are perhaps a bit too similar, like 'The Dep Boy Descends' and 'Deeper', but throughout I thought this was a very nice moody and atmospheric release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.antboy.com

RUNAR MAGNUSSON - THE ART OF DYING IN A LIVE SITUATION (CDR by White Label)
VINDVA MEI - FUNGI TO THE MOON (CDR by White Label)
This gives me the opportunity to set some fact straight. When I reviewed the previous Vindva Mei CDR, 'Germans Are People Too', I complained about the fact that it had only one track, but I forgot to mention the subtitle 'Alive & Kickin', and the fact that it was a live recording. Same thing here with the release by Runar Magnusson, one half of Vindva Mei. It's not so my thing to do one track of whatever long length on a CD, but ok, let's say that this is a live CD - although we can't find any clue as to where and when it was recorded, but according to the press info it was recorded at the Sound Art festival in Copenhagen in 2004. Magnusson continues with what he left us with the previous 'The Greatest Of The Great': pretty dense and dark soundscapes, that shows an interest in The Hafler Trio as-well as some mid-nineties Stillupsteypa. Slowly unfolding soundpieces that are at times creepy, but never without a small trace of light, a trace of humor (any good horror movie has these funny bits). Sometimes things get of the track, but throughout it's a nice CD.
Also from Vindva Mei there is a new release, or rather a re-issue. Originally released in an edition of 15 copies for some festival, then re-issued in an edition of 51 copies and now copied on demand. The recordings are somewhat older, from 2001 to 2003. Despite the fact that this material is a bit older, they take us on a similar ride as with the previous album, albeit now chopped up in separate tracks. Things work best for me when Vindva Mei are a little bit more abstract, making longer curves in sound, incorporate field recordings and built up the tension, such as in 'You're A Moist Doggy Now'. When thing are more rhythmical, this tension is not really present and alive, but remains cold and alienated. It never becomes dance music anyway. Although Vindva Mei operate in a multitude of sound approaches, they know how to create a pretty consistent album. There are some weaker spots on there, but throughout it's quite nice. (FdW)
Address: http://this.is/whitelabel

EARZUMBA/PAULO BETO/ELOI SILVERSTRO - PSICOTRUCHAS AROUND THE WORLD (CDR by Edition Fästing Plockare)
The ever so active Christian Dergarabedian, aka C.D., aka Earzumba dug up an old recording of him and two boys from Brazil, of whom I never heard: Paulo Beto, of the electronic bossa-nova project Anvil FX and Eloi Silvestro, who builds his own instruments from the trash. Together they operate analogue synths, laptop, tapes, radio and percussion. The recording is from 2002, but sounds still like a very fresh thing. It moves away from the usual Earzumba material but is certainly also not the plink plonk improvisation on a bunch of electronic gear. In stead the boys move in a sort of psychedelic, cosmic trip of crashing analogue synth sounds, set against a constant driving rhythm of sequencers, rather than drums. A bit like the good seventies, but than a lot more experimental, with digital organ sounds flying about. Crazy stuff that in the end is a bit too short, but perhaps the wish for more is enough. One shouldn't always want too much! (FdW)
Address: http://www.edition-fasting-plockare.ch

THE CIRCULAR RUINS - DEGREES OF SEPARATION (CDR by Databloem)
MATHIAS GRASSOW & GUESTS - OPUS POSTHUMAN (CDR by Databloem)
DANNY KREUTZFELDT - CLOSELANDS (CDR by Databloem)
The medium of CDRs can have a mixed appearance: from hand-written, badly xeroxed covers to say the top-level, the CDR releases by the Dutch Databloem label, in their Data Obscura series. The only reason why you know they are CDRs, is the green side (once Databloem knows there are also silver bottom CDRs, can't tell the difference). Databloem is a label which is specialized in ambient music, with the big A. These three new releases contains the work of an old friend, a second introduction and a newcomer. That's be Anthony Paul Kerby, aka The Circular Ruins from Canada. It's not easy to review his release, other than in terms of general ambient speak. Stretched out pieces, warm analogue baths of synthesized waves of sound, floating endlessly. It's very nice stuff for sure, and I played this all morning (like all three Databloem releases in a row, really) and it creates a feeling of levitation, but The Circular Ruins are edgy enough to not fall into any new age trap.
The old friend of this bunch is Mathias Grassow, of whom we reviewed previously some work on labels such as Staalplaat and Lunar. He is sort of a well-known person in this world of ambient music. For this CDR he comes up with a bunch of friends, such as Jim Cole (harmonic singing), Kai Schröder (self-built Veena, an Indian string instrument, an electric bass and field recordings) and Klaus Wiese (tambura, another Indian string instrument, drones and bowls). The two Indian instruments play an important role in the four 'Improvisations On Raga Shudda Todi', where they play a majestical strum every once in a while, set against a dark wall of electronics and processed harmonic singing. In the other four pieces things are more the regular sound of Grassow, which is deep space ambient music, moving slowly around like planets around the sun. Majestically moving, peaceful, but Grassow is dark enough to stay away from the dreaded new age shit. Great stuff once again.
Danish Danny Kreutzfeldt's previous release 'Counterpheripheral' was reviewed in Vital Weekly 479, which had dubby bass lines and clicks in combination with ambient synths. This new release was recorded between 2004 and 2006 and sees a departure of that music in favor of a much more experimental sound. Deeply atmospheric, but much more wayout there than the usual dark ambient music. There is hints towards some form of rhythm, but it's all covered up, twisted around and transformed into alien life support machines. They stand there in the dark, quietly but distinctly pumping their way, forming heavy weight particles falling towards the swamp, where they slowly sink away. Kreutzfeldt crosses the lines of drone music, ambient and industrial, which for me is always a fine combination of styles. Without putting the other two down, I think this is best of these three new ones. (FdW)
Address: http://www.databloem.com

FORMATT - RE-TAKE_REPEAT (CDR by Audiobot)
LOOPOOL - PARTHENOGEN (CDR by Audiobot)
DOUG THERIAULT & KATHLEEN KEOGH (CDR by Audiobot)
OFFENSIVE ORANGE - ROUGH RIDERS (CDR by Audiobot)
Another fine label to release CDRs is Belgium's Audiobot label. Their packaging always looks nice, just as the Databloem releases, except that Audiobot operates in an entirely different field of music. Their releases are usually more noise related, but they use a very broad perspective for that. Things had been quiet for Formatt for a while, but 'Re-take Repeat' is a new release. Formatt is Peter Smeekens and he has released a whole bunch of CDRs of his laptop made music. Some of his previous releases dealt with a rhythm related version of that, but in this work the rhythm aspect, in some other life time it was called 'clicks & cuts', is less present and replaced by the more common microsound/ambient glitch. Not much I know about these five tracks, even when the title may relate to some sort of remix project of some kind, maybe his own music. The titles of the pieces doesn't help any further. They are good, solid pieces of ambient glitch, made with skill and care, but also remain a bit too much on the known side of things: the music as such doesn't hold many new directions. That by itself isn't a big problem, but the music doesn't seem to grab the listener that much, but stays a bit distant, cold and remote. Having said that, I must also say that's all made with great care.
However Loopool is, I don't know. It's a nice palindrome though. They play two lengthy pieces of music that is hard to pin down. They use electronics, guitars, sound effects, synthesizers, all mentioned here with a big perhaps, because it's not known. The music is loosely improvised, but the name of the band hints towards some sense of looping sounds. Loopool loops their sounds through delay pedals. The whole thing breaths a lo-fi affair. None of the sounds jumps out of it, and it's more an endless stream of sound without any hierarchy or structure, but that is strangely enough also quite captivating. Very alien but very nice.
Also Doug Theriault and Kathleen Keough are new to me. The first plays 'sensor guitar' (whatever that may be) and the latter dictaphone/voice. Their release has one piece of just under thirty-seven minutes, which was recorded in July last year, 'live in studio'. Probably recorded in one go, this is the typical product of improvisation, but it seems to me in the learning stages of improvisation. At times these strike a note, an idea or a thought which sounds pretty good for a while, but in other moments they are trying out to get anywhere, but they fail. That makes this release sort of alright, but not great. Just a nice but perhaps a bit average improvisation disc.
Although 'Rough Riders' is my first encounter with Offensive Orange, I reviewed two releases by one of their members: David Payne, who is credited here with electronics and voice, but has two excellent solo feedback release on his list. Together with Matthew Boughner, who also plays electronics and voice, he is Offensive Orange. Another 'live to tape' recording. One can see the influence of Payne on this project, which is a loud and harsh electronic sound, but overall the material is not as convincing as Payne solo material. Overall it's a pretty standard noise affair of feedback electronics and probably some voices to trigger it (thank god it's stays away from any Whitehouse imitation). Quite alright, me thinks, but not the greatest new thing out of the world of noise. (FdW)
Address: http://www.freaksendfuture.com

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