!! NO VITAL WEEKLY IN WEEK 27 !!
Its been a while, I guess, since I last saw record releases on Fourth Dimension - vinyl that is. Maybe twenty years ago, I was a devoted follower of the many obscure noise/guitar/ambient/rock releases on this label, especially on 7". So its great to see some new ones again. I don't think I ever heard from Bliscappen Van Maria, who are from Switzerland and 'Bliscepen' is their first proper album. Among the instruments we find 'Bantar and objects', 'MSP, Bucla 200e, Roland System 100, function generators', bass, electronics, string ensemble, melodica, mini moog, guitar and electronics, and two people playing drums and percussion. This is music that is not 'now', although its recorded 'now' (well, already two years ago), but sounds like 1972. Think Ash Ra Tempel, Taj Mahal Travellers, maybe Pink Floyd, or stomping, motorik krautrock, Neu! for instance. Do people who play this look like old hippies, I wondered. I didn't dare to look up a picture of them. 'Sporen Nor Vaden' is a bit too much of a free form/no rhythm jam for me, but the other four pieces are more together, more organized and have a great raw, improvised but spacious rock feeling to it. Its probably one of those bands who is great live, especially when they play on end, and this might be one of those records which gets hopefully lost in time, to be rediscovered in twenty-five years as a classic of yet another revival of this kind of music. While not entirely my cup of tea, I had a great time hearing it. Excellent space, the place to be.
Three new releases on Triple Bath, the Greek CDR label of fine quality, usually that is, finding itself on the fringes of improvised music and dark, drone matter. Two of these releases are from earlier this year, with RP Collier and Eloine being the oldest. Behind Eloine we recognize Public Eyesore/Eh? label boss Brian Dat and Robert Patterson Collier has released some CDRs on his own. He plays 'homemadelamellaphones, guitars and samplers' while Day plays home made instruments. 'Anchor Studies' was recorded between 2009-2010 in Portland and Lincoln, which I guess means the two musicians didn't meet up, face to face, which I thought was funny, since it sounds like a work that was actually played together. This release is the from the line of releases that represents improvised music on Triple Bath. Five lengthy pieces of improvised music with a strong love of the minimal. These pieces are multi-layered affairs of acoustic sounds from the guitar and the various (unnamed) objects, along with the sparse use of electronics, which occasionally support the instruments (echo for instance) and on some other occasions make up for a nice atmospheric backdrop. Quite alright, but perhaps five pieces that all seem to last around ten to to fifteen minutes (with the exception of the last) and a similar approach per track, is perhaps a bit too much. Maybe these pieces could have been a bit shorter or less perhaps just three of them would have been nice enough. Now, an element of repetition leaps in: I heard that tune before, is what you could easily think.
Tasos Stamou has had a bunch of releases before, but its hard to see a line in what he does, so I guess that's good. You never know what to expect, but unfortunately that is usually not bringing in a lot of fans: people want to know what they are getting. The title of his release may give away a bit of what's coming: seven synth drone studies and Stamou takes credit for analog modular synthesizer system. In these seven pieces/studies he does exactly that. Play drone like synth pieces, which are quite atmospheric, although not always 'quiet', if you get my drift. There is an interesting nasty undercurrent in these pieces which make this a bit more than your average synth/drone record. Quite something different again from Stamou and although not a surprise as such, this is quite a nice release indeed.
By sheer coincidence, no doubt, I received this on the very day called summer solstice, June 21. Bruno Moreigne is a hunter for sound and has had various releases, mainly for Kaon. This new release deals with, if Google translated it right, "exploring the chaotic noise of photons captured by a silicon wafer (solar) and numerically by converting the lights of the last summer solstice.
A new trio of releases on Taalem, a label specialized in 3" CDRs of drone music and all things otherwise atmospheric. Strom Noir from Bratislava (Slovakia) have been around since 2007 and his the brain child of Emil Mat'ko. There have been a bunch of releases on the usual labels for this kind of music (Hibernate, Rural Colours, U-Cover, Resting Bell) and here we have three new pieces recorded in spring 2010, using more and more guitars, electronics and field recordings, especially in 'World Of A Thousand Colours', with its many bird calls and which has a light tone to it. The title piece and '… Leaving' are somewhat more darker in approach. Although not the most innovative approach in this musical field, quite a fine release.
Patrick McGinley has been around as Murmer (or murmer as he prefers it) since 1996, using found sound and found objects, and his work 'concentrates on the framing of sounds from our environment which normally pass through our ears unnoticed and unremarked but which out of context become unrecognizable, alien and extraordinary'. His release has one piece and its a recreation of a drone piece from 2000 (which was released by Absurd back then, see Vital Weekly 372) but then with modern techniques, which make it possible to do a more refined piece rather than the rawer material he had back then. It uses rain sounds and bells. Its a fine piece, very Murmer like. Minimal, austere, changing very gradually over the course of the piece and making a small crescendo at the end. A rather solid piece in its approach. Nothing new for Murmer, not the best work in his catalogue, but just a fine, sturdy addition to what we already know and that's fine too.
The Butre$$ is one Bethany Schmitt, who gets credit for playing synthesizer on this release and apparently recorded six pieces. Its hard to see where a piece begins and ends here. A short tape with lots and lots noise based synth outbursts. Its in general not the sort of thing I would really go for, but there is a certain aspect that I like about. Partly because it sounds like a cut-up and not like the usual wall of distorted feedback, but more like bits of tape stuck together and some additional echo machine and partly because its short. With noise, I think the impact is better when things are shorter - rather a punch in the nose than endless slapping in the face, if you know what I mean. So The Butre$$ gets a thumbs up here.
Hot on the heels of the previous three in this series of twelve, here are two new additions to the Bryan Lewis Saunders 'stream of unconscious' series, where he sends out tapes of himself talking in his sleep to be put to music and a split release of two artists working on it. On the first tape we have Sudden Infant's Joke Lanz and Dylan Nyoukis. It might not be true, but it seems if Lanz re-recorded the voice of Lewis himself and uses that as a guidance for his piece, which is quite good, less noisy than one would perhaps expect (but his recent solo CD also hinted in that direction). A strong electro-acoustic radio play like piece, which goes almost without interruption or stylistic change over in the piece by Dylan Nyoukis. He lists a bunch of things he uses (piano, cello, field recordings) and a bunch of other voices, and his piece grows effectively into a strange affair of rambling voices and the sleeping Saunders tape. An interesting form of dementia seems to be leaping in here.
Vital Weekly is published by Frans de Waard and submitted for free to anybody with an e-mail address. If you don't wish to receive this, then let us know. Any feedback is welcome <vital@vitalweekly.net>. Forward to your allies.
All written by Frans de Waard (FdW), Dolf Mulder (DM) <dolf.mulder@hetnet.nl>, Niels Mark (NM), Jliat (Jliat), Freek Kinkelaar (FK), Jan-Kees Helms (JKH) and others on a less regular basis.
This is copyright free publication, except where indicated, in which case permission has to be obtained from the respective author before reprinting any, or all of the desired text. The author has to be credited, and Vital Weekly has to be acknowledged at all times if any texts are used from it.
Announcements can be shortened by the editor. Please do NOT send any attachments/jpeg's, we will trash them without viewing.
There is no point in directing us to MP3 sites, as we will not go there. Any MP3 release to be reviewed should be burned as an audio CDR and send to the address above.
Some people think it's perhaps 'cool', 'fun', 'art' or otherwise to send something to Vital Weekly that has no information. Don't bother doing this: anything that is too hard to decipher will be thrown away. Also we have set this new policy: Vital Weekly only concerns itself with new releases. We usually act quick, so sending us something new means probably the first review you will see. If we start reviewing older material we will not be able to maintain this. Please do not send any thing that is older than six months. Anything older will not be reviewed. In both cases: you can save your money and spend it otherwise.
Lastly we have decided to remove the announcement section of Vital Weekly that is archived on our website that is older than five weeks. Since they 95% deal with concerts that have been, it's gentle to remove the announcement and more important the e-mail addresses coming with that.