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Sunday, December 06, 2009

issue 30 - December 2009 (part 2)

N(5) - Bergen Skizzen + Notizen

(Consouling Sounds Soul0004)

LP (Promo CD)

Hellmut Neidhardt's oblique N project (where each release is indicated by a new, consecutive number being added into the brackets) is here remixed by himself and three other established names in the ambient underground. Having no knowledge of the original soundsources or of any of his other work I cannot comment on the effectiveness of any of these remixes only on them as individual compositions in their own right.

The 4 tracks make a fairly coherent set in terms of sonic characteristics but the quality of the music is less so. Mirko Uhlig opens with a short piece of coldly analytical electronic drones that is over almost before it has had time to establish itself. The second track sees Segment step up to the plate mixing the frigid tones of the first half of the track with intermittent outbreaks of digital pulses and choppy, rhythmic insistencies during the second half. The first half of this track I liked very much the second half not so much. To my mind the rhythms seemed brutal and lacking in finesse.

Fear Falls Burning create a powerful, volcanic lava flow of sound that burns increasingly hotter throughout it's 12 minute runtime before finally extinguishing itself.

The final mix is by N himself and is by far my favourite here. His tightly controlled, deeply resonating, ebb and flow drone is beautifully paced to float the listener along it's journey.

As I said there is a cohesion here although this may be to the albums detriment. No-one really stands out or does anything truly radical, or particularly interesting, with the sounds on offer instead opting for unanimity, uniformity and anonymity. I've played this album many times though and it's always been a pleasant experience as background noise. If you'd walked in at any point though and asked me who was playing I probably wouldn't have been able to answer.

(www.consouling.be)

N(8) - Trischen

(Genesungswerk GW25)

LP (Promo CD)

My second exposure this month (with another still to come) to Hellmut Neidhardt's N project, this time unadulterated by other musicians and this one's a lot more coherent and a lot more satisfying.

Here Neidhardt's music is a gritty and distorted form of drone along the same lines as Jefre Cantu-Ledesma or Taiga Remains. Though the music is both forceful and dynamic it's pleasantly devoid of muscular posturing instead concerning itself with creating waves of gritty, static-laden drones upon which the listener can surf.

It's not an everyday listen. I've played this a good few times now and have not always connected with it but that's always going to be the case, especially with music as overt as this. It's also a little samey over it's 5 tracks and I personally would have liked to hear more variation in Neidhardt's textures. It is though both very well made and beautifully mixed and as such would be a very worthwhile investment for anyone with a penchant for this more aggressively insistent form of drone music.

(www.genesungswerk.de)

(www.exovo.org)

N(10) / Mirko Uhlig - Sanddorn

(Genesungswerk GW26 / Ex Ovo EX071)

7" (Promo CD)

Split 2 track 7" from Hellmut Neidhardt and Mirko Uhlig.

It's a much more restrained and gentle Neidhardt who appears here than that which featured on his Trischen album. This Neidhardt has overlaid warm synthetic tonal surges to great effect to produce a short but deliciously more-ish ambient piece.

Uhlig on the other hand has chosen a delicate, repeated piano motif under which soft drones slowly unfold. There is a pause at the halfway point that heralds a shift in the melody but the structure and the mood remain as before.

It's a beautiful little release that is more ambient than drone and which showcases the best of both men. Recommended.

(www.genesungswerk.de)

(www.exovo.org)

Olekranon - Identi

(Inam Records 34)

CDR

Seemingly unable to restrain either his enthusiasm or his muse (or both) Ryan Huber has unleashed another album of fuzzy excess upon us all. It's been a busy year for Ryan, this is the fourth of his that I've received this year and I suspect there were more.

Ryan deals in a kind of blissed-out, fuzzy cacophony of sound built over jagged rhythms which occasionally veer into modern industrial-rock territories. He makes regular use of an almost songlike structure with most of his compositions clocking in around the 4 to 5 minute mark. I'd like to hear him utilise a larger template and see how he'd handle the twists and turns necessary for more longform work.

I'm not as blown away by this one as I have been by some of his other work and the latter half of the album wasn't really to my tastes at all but on the whole it's another interesting glimpse into an intriguing body of work.

(inamrecs (AT) yahoo.com)

Phantom Heron Seas - Spectral Dishwater

(Muzzedia Verhead MV013)

CDR

I've featured quite a few releases on the very fine Dead Sea Liner label over the years but this is my first exposure (I think) to the music produced by label head Allan Upton. His tonal ambient work, as exhibited here, is strikingly entrancing, full of swells of colour and stuttering atmospherics. It has a nicely creepy undercurrent that is slightly undercut by the short track lengths leaving one slightly adrift until the next track takes hold and pulls you along in it's wake.

It is a little disjointed in parts and maybe certain aspects should have been given longer to evolve and have been explored more deeply but 'Spectral Dishwater' (which really is a woeful title) is full of charm and warmth and is an enjoyable listen.

Mathieu Ruhlmann - Tsukubai

(Unfathomless U01)

Mathieu Ruhlmann - Funayurei

(Unfathomless U01²)

CDR

New imprint from the Mystery Sea label Unfathomless is, I quote, a 'series focusing on sonographies reflecting the spirit of a specific place crowded with memories, it's aura and resonances.'

Opening the series is Canadian soundscaper Ruhlmann who we last heard via his Gears of Sand release 'Fourteen Worms For Victor Hugo'. For Tsukubai Ruhlmann has made a set of recordings at the Nitobe memorial garden in Vancouver using a hydrophone (a microphone used for recording underwater). The final recordings are, I suspect, relatively unprocessed as the over-riding characteristics are of water (obviously) and the pressureit exudes upon the equipment. It this second characteristic that really defines what we hear as the whole Tsukubai experience has an intensity that grips and presses upon the listener. This isn't the comforting natural world of most field recordings as the sounds here are relentlessly chaotic. It's quite an achievement and as a noise piece it's way out in front, both in conception and realisation, of your usual distortion-mongers but for me it's a little too sonically unforgiving and a tad one-dimensional.

Funayurei is a limited edition (50 copies) accompaniment to Tsukubai. It uses recordings sourced in the same way as it's bigger brother but on this occasion they are accompanied by a set of hazy, lazy soft-focus drones that perfectly balance the sonically aggressive field recordings. This for me is by far the more successful of the two albums. I have a preference for 'music' over 'sound', no matter how well sculpted the latter is, and the added musicality of Funayurei is, for me, the more enticing prospect.

(www.unfathomless.net)

Seasons (pre-din) - Your Eyes The Stars And Your Hands The Sea

(Mystery Sea MS55)

CDR

A new name to me but one who, judging by the press release, is very highly regarded by the erstwhile Daniel Crokeart, the fella behind the Mystery Sea label.

'Your Eyes...' moves gently between a variety of sonorities from whispered hiss, through forests of metallic shards to arboreal field recordings. All are beautifully realised and constitute a journey through landscapes of very different sonic possibilities all of which are explored with aplomb although the dips in the recording do pull you out of the moment.

The un-named UK gent behind the Seasons (pre-din) pseudonym has forged a quiet and intense audio sculpture. Presented as a single continuous piece but with more of the feel of several separate tracks (or movements) it isn't a cohesive as one might have hoped but it is a diverting listen nonetheless.

Matt Shoemaker - Wayward Set

(Human Faculties hf_002)

CDR

This 35 minute live recording from US musician Shoemaker is probably at fundamental odds with it's own title. The set recorded here, as played in Seattle on July 18th 2009, is as tightly controlled as any studio piece. Shoemaker builds and demolishes his compositions with consummate skill and pinpoint accuracy.

As with his earlier Mystery Sea release, Shoemaker is operating in abrasive, metallic territories. His sounds have a mechanical quality his compositional style even more so. Precise, functional and interdependent the sounds he conjures are interwoven to such a degree that it's almost impossible to either decide where one begins and another ends and also how the piece could survive if even the smallest of them were to be removed.

It's a tumultuous experience and one that is definitely not for everyone. If gentle atmospherics or introspective hum and drone are your bag then really look elsewhere but if you have a predilection for a little controlled aggression then this is well worth seeking out.

(www.humanfaculties.com)

Sujo - Morte e Descida

(Inam Reords 35)

3"CDR

This last year has seen a steady stream of these little cd's from the enigmatic Sujo. I don't know anything about them / him / her / it but they / he / she / it do make a fine noise. It's drone based but at the noisy end of the scale (this one especially) full of grinding, distorted, elongated rumbles bolstered with occasional smatterings of actual instrumentation (drums made an appearance here). This one isn't the best thing I've heard by them / him / her / it but it's a fun little listen especially if you liked their earlier 'Pia' and 'Arak' eps.

(inamrecs (AT) yahoo.com)

Theme - Valentine (Lost) Forever

(Hearts & Crossbone HCB 023)

Theme is a trio of Stuart Carter, Jeanne Boyer and Richard Johnson (who is the fella behind the Lumberton Trading Company label and the Adverse Effect zine) and this is their second release although I must admit that the first passed me by.

I'm writing this review on the 15th of November, 2 days after the fifth anniversary of the death of Coil founder John Balance and it must be said that this album will be a wet dream for those of you who are hankering after the industrial music of yore, in particular the swirlier psychedelic extremities of aforementioned Coil and also the bleakly dystopian vocalising and lyricism of Current 93.

It's difficult to listen to Theme and not play 'spot the band' as they really do wear their influences on their sleeve but equally they never sound particularly derivative either. The constructions are very much their own and are really quite wonderful showing a depth of musicianship and skill that is to be admired but the comparisons are nonetheless inescapable.

(www.humptydumptyrecords.be)

Twinkle³ - Let's Make A Solar System

(ini.itu #0901)

A trio consisting of Richard Scott, David Ross & Clive Bell, Twinkle³ has a pedigree to raise an eyebrow to and it shows on this their first collaboration. The music on 'Let's Make a Solar System' is every bit as fun as the title and that name imply. The three have mixed synths, hawaiian tremoloa, shakuhachi & much more to produce music that is brimming with life and light. In places it's almost dance music, some beat addict could add a drumline to these recordings and it could easily be a new album from Wibutee or Xploding Plastix. Without the drums however this still swoops and soars like a folk music for the most exotic of lands.

(www.iniitu.net)

Vibrating Garbage / Corsican's Whore - Effusive Moon Kaleidoscope / Cash Only

(AghartA tapes 2)

Cassette

One of several cassettes released to launch the new label rising from the ashes of Lithuania's finest label of the weird Perineum.

American(s) Vibrating Garbage fill side one with a long bubbling set of cracked electronica. Disjointed sounds trip over each other in their exuberance to escape from the confines of the speakers. It's unrepentantly silly with a nice old-school Nurse With Wound feel to it.

Fellow American, the delightfully named, Corsican’s Whore take a very different tack on his side. His path is one of dense, narcotic hallucinations filled with radio waves and obtuse trumpet peels. It’s not spectacular but it does what it does well enough.

An interesting start to a cool new label.

(www.arma.lt/agharta)

Y.E.R.M.O. - From Gold Falls A Bad Rain

(Humpty Dumpty Records HMPTY009)

I've heard an album by this duo of Yannick Franck and Xavier Dubois before. It was a good, but not genre-defining, slice of dark ambient soundscaping. This new one, stylistically is much the same but is, on the whole, a distinctly more satisfying experience. A single track somnambulist and isolationist drone piece 'From Gold...' slowly builds from a tense and foreboding slow throb with the addition of a series of disconcerting tonal colours that serve not only to increase the tension but to add a palpable air of unease.

Perfect late night drone-work. Recommended.

9:20 PM

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Monday, October 19, 2009

issue 29 - October 2009 (part 2)

Please note I had to split the new issue into two seperate postings this month as it was too big for the myspace blog. reviews A-O are in the previous post. enjoy - ian
........................................................................................................................................................................

Hiroki Sasajima - renz

(Q-Tone qt04)

A few months back I was the fortunate recipient of two rather fabulous albums (by Homework and by Terje Paulsen) from new label Q-Tone. Now they've followed these with a further pair of releases by Sascha Muhr and this one from Sasajima.

Characterised by soft tones and organic field recordings Sasajima has assembled a set of gently immersive soundworlds unified by a deep sense of textural isolationism. Whilst there is a definite unity between the tracks Sasajima has imbued each with enough individuality to retain both a sense of cohesion and one of progression.

There is a slight insubstantiality to Renz which did bug me a little. It has a tendency to fade a little too far into the background and as such you do tend to lose chunks of the music when your attention gets diverted elsewhere but on the whole it's a solidly constructed foray into experimental ambience.

Sil Muir - Sil Muir

(Diophantine Discs n=22)

I've been the lucky recipient of several Diophantine releases over the last few months and on the whole they have been a sublime assortment of music and Sil Muir is definitely no exception. The four constituent pieces are a beautifully constructed fever-dream of sound that somehow manage to become the entirety of your consciousness for their duration. My one complaint (and it's a teeny weeny complaint) is that there are four separate tracks which meant that as each track reached it's conclusion the 'real-world' dragged me unwillingly back for the few seconds it took to once more immerse myself in Sil Muir soundpool. A single longform piece would have saved me from the horrors (ok, a slight exaggeration) of mundane reality. Seriously though, this is a sublime set of ambient drone pieces from a label who is fast becoming one of the best places to source music of this form.

(discs.diophantine.net)

Social Junk - Born Into It

(Digitalis Industries ACE018)

Coming from a label that, to my mind at least, is more connected to the looser and distinctly introspective ends of the freaky music spectrum the atonal relentlessness of 'Born Into It' comes as quite a surprise.

US duo Heather Young and Noah Anthony have plundered the Throbbing Gristle toy-box of rhythmic discordance and shamanistic, unfettered vocalising to create something I've not heard done this well for quite some time.

This truer form of industrial music- shorn of the European synth pomposity or American pseudo-metal tedium of recent years is a welcome return. Social Junk, as the name implies, makes a wonderfully earthy and human cacophony that, much like modern culture, borrows liberally from the detritus of it's surroundings. 'Born Into It' alternatively sounds like the most soul-crushingly unpleasant of industrial labours whilst also bringing to mind a joyous spontaneous carnival - oh, and the opening of track 3 sounds like the start of an episode of the original Star Trek.

I liked this album a hell of a lot. It reminded me of how good industrial music used to be and how good it sometimes still is.

Philip Sulidae - Unknow

Philip Sulidae - The Blacken Solver

(dontcaresulidae)

3"CDR

Two mini sets of cosmic isolationist tone and drone from this Australian musician whose music links lonely tones with a subtly derelict post-industrial melancholy.

Unknow's 3 tracks are an absolute joy. They conjure images of loss and abandonment that leave one feeling distinctly uneasy.

The Blacken Solver contrary to what it's title would lead you to believe is the more open and psychedelic of the two. Here he has sacrificed much of the cloying atmospherics and replaced them with a more expansive and expressive palette that makes wider use of the sounds available to him.

(www.philipsulidae.com)

Taiga Remains - Wax Canopy

(Digitalis Industries ACE015)

Alex Cobb of Taiga Remains is also the person behind the Students of Decay label which, if your at all familiar with it, should give you a fair insight into just where he's coming from with the music on Wax Canopy. Cobb's music is a shimmering glaze of guitar-sourced drone, a fuzzed-up, coruscating kaleidoscope of colour and light with the ability to initiate a gentle shift of perceptions. It's deceptively simple and surprisingly joyous. This isn't an album born out of night time somnambulism but of searing heat and white light. It's fun to listen to (which isn't something you get to say about too many drone albums) and even more so if you crank the volume up a little and really embrace the blissed-out, burn-up of it all.

Tamaru - Figure

(trumn T01)

This set of bass guitar improvisations has at it's base (please excuse the pun) a strict doctrine as outlined in the accompanying notes. Tomaru's setup, through it's simplicity, allows him to fully control the overtones coaxed from his delay drenched bass sounds.

There is an inherent problem in single instrument composition in that it often suffersd from a dearth of available sounds unless one is willing to overdub, something which Tamaru's strict minimalistic improvisational style precludes.

Figure is a little one-dimensional in places but equally the control and finesse displayed is quite something to behold. His tones are pristine and the music moves with a stately grace.

My minor reservation aside this is an interesting and worthwhile foray into improvisational minimalism.

(www.trumn.com)

Darren Tate - When An Insect Visits Your Window

(Fungal 035)

CDR

As many of you no doubt already know I have a close working relationship with the erstwhile Mr. Tate. At the time of writing we've made three albums together (with another on the way) and I've released one of his albums through Quiet World. I even designed the sleeve for this album. So, with all possible bias put aside here goes.

For me Darren is at his best when he's utterly absorbed in his two favourite toys, his guitar and his keyboard - especially his keyboard. When he really gets into the depths of his synth he pulls out some truly mesmerising sounds as is fortunately the case here. Darren has produced an album worthy of any of the early 70's kosmiche pioneers. His guitar makes an occasional appearance but it is the pulses and swoops of his electronics that carry the ambience towards the stars. His choice of sounds walk a narrow line between being horribly dated and supra-contemporary, luckily in hands as capable as his it is the latter that comes to the fore.

It's been too long since he last put out any, widely available, new music (there have been a few unique albums produced for Art Into Life in Japan) and it's a joy to hear his beautifully psychedelic sounds once again.

(www.icrdistribution.com)

Viosac - You Are Planning To Enjoy The Apocalypse

(VATS2)

These Canadians, who are more commonly known by the unwieldy name of 'Violence and the Sacred', have produced an album of two distinct halves. The first is dominated by disjointed Korg synthesizer compositions which I found to be hugely tedious, to the point that I'd pretty much decided not to review the album. Overly insistent cavalcades of bleeps and boops have never been of particular interest to me. Luckily I persevered though as on track 5 the album suddenly unfolds to reveal hidden depths. The Korg is restrained (but ever-present) and it is joined by a wider variety of sounds and instrumentation that allow the music to breathe and to grow.

I'm still not hugely taken with the album but I do think that fans of the less intense ends of experimental and industrial music will find something of interest here.

(www.viosac.net)

..........oooooOOO00X00OOOooooo..........

OUT NOW on www.quietworld.co.uk

Ian Holloway & Banks Bailey - A Brief Sojourn
Ian Holloway - She Loves To See The Sky.

12:23 AM

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(www.myspace.com/thebordellos)

Monday, October 19, 2009

issue 29 - October 2009 (part 1)

Editorial

Hi folks

Both illness and technical difficulties has kept WWR from your screens for the last 3 months and for a time it was looking touch and go as to whether WWR would continue but we're back.

In early August, and for the fourth time in three years, my seedee player took a nosedive into the dustbin. Fanzine writing, and music loving in general, is hard on the equipment.

For the last year I've been expecting either my amp or my speakers to make that last final squeal before shuffling off into the great audio junkyard in the sky but they're still soldiering on no matter how extreme the noises they're asked to deal with. If either of them had gone tits up it wouldn't have been a problem as I have spares of both. Seedee players on the other hand cannot stand the pace and I had neither a spare nor the cash to replace it.

Then, two days after I finally managed to replace my player and had started reviewing again I was laid out by a mystery virus that sapped every ounce of energy from me. Standing up without suffering bouts of vertigo became a real issue and so listening to all this wonderfully swirly music I get sent was not high on my list of things to do. It took about 3 weeks to finally get myself back on my feet but I'm now fully recovered and raring to go.

So, apologies for the delay. I hope you weren't too inconvenienced by my tardiness. This issue of WWR is chock full of choice cuts from some familiar names and some not so familiar ones. Some of the reviews may be a little brief but that was simply to salvage some time and get this issue out to you all. Please remember that if it's in here it's because I think it's worth being in here. I don't review music I don't like but I do speak my mind about what I feature. Honesty is the only policy.

Peace, love and shiny new seedee players

Ian Holloway

Music

The Bordellos - Debt Sounds

(Welshcake Records WC1)

CDR

Long time friends of WWR, The Bordellos, return with the first release on their very own Welshcake Records label. 17 tracks recorded over 10 consecutive Fridays with minimal rehearsal and zero overdubs. It's monumentally stoned sounding and as lo-fi as it's possible to get. They wear their psychedelic hearts proudly on their (probably paisley) shirt-sleeves and they sing heartfelt songs about love, Rolf Harris, love and lot's of other things, including love.

TB are very much a band out of time. Their sound is that of the indie-est of music from the late 70's and 80's. Their beautifully shambolic musicianship is brutally at odds with both modern tastes and modern recording technology. They will never grace the cover of either NME or Sound on Sound and you've gotta love them for it. I couldn't listen to this all the time - I think I'd go insane - but I feel the same about most music.

Debt Sounds is The Fall, is Daniel Johnson, is Jad Fair, is Half Man Half Biscuit, is The Bordellos.

Concern - Truth & Distance

(Digitalis Industries ACE016)

Whilst probably being more of an ep (remember them) than an album this is 30 minutes of loveliness from Gordon Ashworth via the ever wonderful Digitalis label that should be very high on any right-thinking music lovers wants list.

The album opens with it's longest and most euphoric composition. This 17 minute title track, from a slow crackled beginning, rises to stand naked in the sun engaging in a joyous droning cry to the heavens before laying itself down to rest as it began. Track 2 (Young Birth) is no less blissful than it's predecessor but is more restrained in it's rapture. The acoustic drone (the whole album is acoustic) delicately threading it's way to it's end, requiring you to do absolutely nothing except enjoy the ride. Final track, Heartsink, takes you from the comfort zone of the previous two tracks into a slowly emerging cascading piano melody that brings the album to a close.

A short but perfectly formed declaration of Ashworth's musical truths.

Ctacik - In Order To Prevent Sense

(Verato Project)

CDR

I must admit that the sleeve design for this one, a photo of a woman's torso (ribs to knees) being held by four male hands each of which has large nails sticking out of them, had me a little fooled. I took one look and relegated it to the bottom of the pile of Verato cds thinking it was going to be a load of pseudo-goth noise tosh and as such it's the last of their releases to make it onto my player. I did it a disservice. It's actually far more interesting than that.

'In Order...' is a very nicely melded amalgam of tone and drone ambience decorated with some nicely sparse and melancholic instrumentation and field recordings. It's, for the most part, a disquietingly sad set of compositions that periodically erupt with fiery eloquence. It's a very theatrical album. Admittedly some of the sounds he (or she or they) use are a little, not so much hackneyed but, dated and this does distract on occasion but it's been mixed beautifully and filled with ideas meaning it's easy to slip back into the music after these minor interruptions.

Recommended heavily to those with a taste for the macabre.

Culver - Blue Angel

(Muzzedia Verhead 010)

3"CDR

Teeny weeny mini-cdr from Gateshead resident Lee Stokoe of deep dark ambient drone. Its isolationist tendencies are firmly rooted in it's cavernous rumble. Consisting of a mostly constant, gritty drone over and under which slow tones ebb and flow like a soupy ocean.

Sonically it's a little on the murky side which makes it hard to separate some of the individual sounds and could probably have benefited from a little more clarity in the mix but it does what it does very nicely for the 16 minute runtime and offers an immersive journey to those with a penchant for the dark.

(verhead [AT] muza.freeserve.co.uk)

Darwinsbitch - Ore

(Digitalis Industries ACE016)

Behind the immaculately named Darwinsbitch is one Marielle Jakobsons who, on this, her debut solo seedee, has assembled a many layered monolith of sound.

Taking elements of drone, folk music and melancholic sacramental music, jakobson (who is also part of the duos Date Palms and Myrmyr) has focused them into a most intriguing whole. There is a deceptive ease to the music. It's far too easy to slip comfortably inside the ambience and miss the sheer quality of the music. Her instrumentation is dense yet unobtrusive and drenched in the white heat of her drones.

Ore is a beautiful piece of folk music that is equal part utterly familiar, utterly alien and utterly compelling.

(www.contramusikproduktion.de)

Rita Galetti - Falter

(Contra Musik Produktion CMP23)

I know very little about Rita Galetti. Actually, let me rephrase that. I know almost nothing about Rita Galetti but a quick interweb search tells me that she's a sound artist working out of Canada. Throughout the album she utilises a battery of equipment and techniques to create a continuously rolling set of compositions. There is a nicely melodic core to her work that is often missing in music with an experimental bent and the relaxed vibe that pervades much of the album is to be enjoyed. It is a little too restless at times, much of the album consists of short tracks, and some ideas could maybe have been worked out more fully and allowed to blossom in a more gradual and thorough manner. That said though the album at no point feels unfinished or rushed and is another in a list of fine releases coming via CMP.

Hinsidan - Bleach Dye Yr Heart

(Gears of Sand GOS32)

You'd think I'd have learned by now not to judge a CD by it's cover as it's often misleading but in this case the track titles didn't help - track one is called 'Slaughter of the Innocence, Slaughter of the Innocent' & track two is 'Vivisection of the Soul'. These two, and other, really quite appallingly naff titles helped my second exposure to Hinsidan find itself falling through the pile of albums awaiting review for which I must apologise cause it's actually pretty good.

The trio that make up the group employ a battery of mostly electronic instruments to produce a head stew of tone and drone ambience with occasional flurries of mellow Boards of Canada style electronica and even some singing - definitely not the albums high point.

On the whole though Hinsidan is a very listenable set of tunes. It's not the best thing I've heard recently (and it's certainly not the worst) as it never really managed to utterly absorb me into itself but it's found itself on my player several times in recent weeks and makes a very fine aural backdrop which after all is exactly the point of ambient music.

(www.gearsofsand.net)

Hreda - Minnows

(Ingue Records)

2 track 7" singkle from Oxford based trio of vaguely mathy post-rock instrumsntals. Previous reviews comparing them to the wonderful Explosions In The Sky are, I think, a little overly generous and also do a disservice to Hreda. Their sound is missing the majesty and grandeur of EITS but instead displays a technical expertise and a groove all their own. There is a much more metallic and, dare I say, prog heart to Hreda. The music is occasionally a little too busy for my tastes but with the changes coming thick and fast you only have to wait a couple of seconds before the tune is off in another direction.

Naturally, being a 7" single (or in my case a promo cdr) there is only 11 and a half minutes of music on here but it is 11 and a half minutes well spent that leaves you wanting more but until the album appears I recommend picking a copy of this up and listening to it on repeat.

Another quality release from Ingue Records.

(www.inguerecords.com)

The Infant Cycle - The Sand Rays

(Diophantine Discs n=20)

A different sort of album from the predominantly drone loving crew at Diophantine as Jim DeJong's The Infant Cycle project is (at least in this instance) more interested in the endless vagaries of rhythm than in the infinite variations of tone yet he never loses site of the horizon-gazing timelessness of the best drone albums, which is no mean feat. His rhythmic oscillations are collected from a huge array of sources (as listed on the cd) such as vinyl run-out grooves, field recordings, skittering electronics and a host of others, over which DeJong has liberally scattered breathless, organic sounding instrumentation.

Much of the album sounds decayed and vaguely dilapidated. It's run-down griminess allowing it to achieve a sense of character that's often overlooked. It's lived-in homeliness is hugely addictive as is the verve and the dexterity with which the whole thing has been assembled into a massively compulsive whole.

Recommended.

(discs.diophantine.net)

The Infrared Experience - White

(Contra Musik Produktion 22)

No info accompanies the two new releases from CMP and in the case of this on at least there are no clues to be gleaned from the sleeve either. What info is given however is to inform that the entirety of this album was created using electric guitar and assorted pedals.

The enigmatically named 'White' is a startlingly mobile set of gently psychedelic squalls. Layers of guitar meticulously overlaid to mostly good effect. Ironically it's when the guitars are at their most recognisable that this alum loses momentum. The switch between the more immersive longform drone pieces and the more 'traditionally' played guitar pieces is, especially early on in the album, quite jarring but becomes less so as the album continues, whether as a result of improved composition or as a result of acclimation by the listener I cannot say. What I can say though is that 'White' is absolutely worth investigating for fans of guitar-centric abstractions.

(www.contramusikproduktion.de)

Soon Kim & Tetsuya Hori - Non-Transposed Sense

(Konnex Records KCD 5228)

A simply astonishing set from two Berlin based Japanese musicians that mixes Kim's beautifully understated saxophone with Hori's laptop, melodion, toy-piano, cigar box and beer bottle - the cigar box isn't that apparent but the bottle is used to nice effect.

Kim, who has previously studied under Ornette Coleman, is, as one would suspect given the nature of his instrument, often to be found providing the more flighty aspects of the compositions but his playing is beautifully understated refusing to overpower (or overplay) the sumptuous textural bedrock provided by Hori's variety of instruments. Indeed on the final track it is Hori who very much takes the lead to which Kim provides flashes of light and colour before it all ends rather oddly.

There are parts of the album that don't work so well - the spoken text of track 2 being a particular weak point - but that said this is one of the finest examples of electro-acoustic music I've ever heard. Both musicians seem utterly in tune with each other and the music is, as I started this review by saying, simply astonishing.

(www.konnex-records.de)

The Knockouts - Honolulu Sunscream

(High Town / Topplers)

CDR

Infectiously groovy set of garage instrumentals for this Luton quartet featuring ex-members of 80's indie popsters Thrilled Skinny. There's a refreshingly self-aware coherence to what's on offer here as the band flow effortlessly between pseudo-psychedelic pop jams to low-down and lo-fi garage / surf skronk without ever losing site of the fact that guitars are meant to be fun.

It's been years since I listened to much music that even approximates this sort of stuff and so I probably not the most reliable of reviewers but I liked it a hell of a lot. It reminded me very much of London white-trash surf-punkers Ten Benson from before they discovered AC/DC and got shit. This is effortlessly joyful and it made me want to dance drunkenly around the room and nothing ever makes me want to dance, drunkenly or otherwise.

(www.hightown.org.uk)

Ennio Mazzon - In An Undertone At A Loose End

(Ripples Recordings RPL001)

3"CDR

Debut release from Ripples Recordings is a mini set of hissing noise and drones from Italian musician Mazzon. There are some nice flourishes throughout the ep and Mazzon has conjured some nicely hard edged drones upon which he builds his music. However with an average runtime of 2 minutes the 9 tracks that have been squashed onto this 3 inch CDR do have a tendency to sound a little like sketches rather than fully formed pieces. I think what's there is interesting and I'd be interested to hear more but like a battery hen the music needs more room to breathe and stretch in order achieve it's full potential.

(ripplesrecordings.webs.com)

Mixturizer - mxtrzr

(R.O.N.F. Records RNF-040)

CDR

My only previous exposure to the music of Manuel Marrero Cubas' Mixturizer project was as part of a split release also on his R.O.N.F. label on which I described him as issuing forth a 'cretaceous fuzzy roar'. Well upon hearing a full length I stand by my words. Obviously there's more to it than just that but as a baseline description it holds quite a lot of water.

Noise is Manuel's passion. Harsh digital noise at that. This is anything but music for the faint of ears. The screaming, screeching, careening shards of grit that avalanche from each track are great fun. His noises are some of the sharpest edged that I've heard in a long time, in places piercing even. This is a wonderful change from the standard po-faced, guttural belch of much noise music as it seems to have the biggest, cheesiest shit-eating grin on it's face as it throws itself at you and slam dances on your eardrums.

Regular readers will now by now that with each passing month I'm becoming less and less interested in full-on noise assaults and most of the pieces that hit my player do so only the once. Now and again though I get one that reinstates my belief in noise as a vibrant genre. This is one of those times.

Sascha Muhr - wandering:trapped

(Q-Tone qt03)

This 9 track set of guitar improvisations is an interesting prospect that, for me, suffers from a lack of dimensions. I've never been a massive fan of single instrument music, I need more layers and levels to my sounds than these types of recordings generally provide. Here the emphasis is on slow and expressive playing without un-necessary showboating or descents into cliché. Muhr's recording certainly is one of the better I've heard and the latter half of the album is very good indeed. The earlier, more fiery tracks are for me the less interesting as it feels too worked and a little contrived.. Like I said though, it's worth persevering as it does get very much better.

(www.myspace.com/omnivoreband)

Omnivore - Spandaurandurandauballet

CDR

Under their previous awful name (I'll let you search the WWR archives for it - it began with a 'D') Omnivore produced one of the best albums it was my pleasure to hear in the entirety of 2008. With 2009 nearing it's end they have once more provided me (and you if you've any sense) with a fantastic slice of fiery jazz excess. Omnivore's jazz is obviously very much influenced by Zorn's Naked City project and their combination of restless free-jazz skronk, math-rock musicality and a stoner heart with a brutally uncompromising grindcore-esque mentality is an absolute joy to these jaded ears. This is very much a continuation of where the previous album left off as saxophone, drums and guitars (alongside some circuit bending) collide in a glorious mass pile up of sound.

Massively recommended.

Yui Onodera - Entropy

(Trumn T02)

A welcome reissue of the debut release from Tokyo based drone musician Onodera suffers from a terrible misnomer. This is anything but the sound of entropy. While the range of sounds on offer may be sparse, the ideas cementing them together, the clarity of the conception and the quality of the execution imbues his music with both life and movement, languid life and gentle movement admittedly, but life and movement nonetheless.

Onodera's compositional techniques marries amorphous tone with occasional flurries of grittier textures. His music draws from a broader palette than simple drone as loops, swirls, pulses and eddies all contribute to the heady psychedelic swell. It's difficult to really pin down Onodera's compositions as they have a deceptively nebulous quality that avoids detailed listening which is a quality I like very much as it gives the music a longevity that is easily lost in music that one can pin down and analyse. It's intrinsic nature is to drift across your attention allowing itself to be glanced at but not watched.

Beautiful music.

(www.trumn.com)

Continued in part two

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Monday, August 03, 2009

issue 28 - July 2009 (part 2)

(Droehnhaus / Psych.KG Drh#4.5 / Psych KG 035)

Split LP from the German label Droehnhaus with individualised covers each painted by a child with a learning difficulty of one form or another. Mine says ‘I Love You’ in big cheery silver letters with a stickered arrow that says ‘Important’ pointing at the words. It’s probably the best sleeve design in my collection. The sleeves themselves, I can’t help noticing, are the same ones that the labels previous LP release (Mystified’s - Pulse Ringer Pieces) came in with the text on the spine blanked out.

Almost inevitably, and by that I mean no disrespect to Relapxych-o, my initial attention turns to Rapoon. Robin Storey has been producing tantalising and enthralling music both as part of various incarnations of Zoviet France and as Rapoon for a considerable number of years. Whilst I’m not really a collector or connoisseur of his music I do have a real admiration for much of what I’ve heard. This short little track, ‘Lost Terrain‘, is a tangled trip that morphs from a sad and broken piano melody into a jagged and hallucinogenic panic before ending with some of his trademark loops. It’s a good track but it’s far too short to really take hold.

Relapxych-o, who I must admit to having never heard of until this moment, is the alter-ego of Anders Peterson. His music is a deep languorous series of tone and drone. The 17 and a half minutes of his ‘Amplified Transparency Reflection’ is a richly textured and thoroughly absorbing journey.

Under another pseudonym (A.P / spatialXpansion) Petersen is also responsible for the remix of the Rapoon track on the reverse of the LP. His remix is a little too reverential of it’s source material and predominantly allows the broken piano progression to run through his composition though he does take the opportunity to add some droning turmoil to the middle of the piece.

In all the album is a thoroughly enjoyable listen but it is a little innocuous. Rapoon completists will want it for his track but for me it’s Relapxych-o who steal the honours.

(www.droehnhaus.de)

RMSonce - Reflections

(Medusa Music TSUCD27)

A few years ago there were two CDs released documenting the collaboration between Autechre and The Hafler Trio. I had high hopes for these CDs as both acts were regular visitors to my seedee player. To cut a long story short they were awful. All the sparkle of Autechre's music was subsumed into morass of the worst of The Hafler Trio’s music. I was expecting fireflies of sound dancing over a morphing scenery of fire and ice. I didn’t get it then but I think I have it now in the shape of ‘Reflections’.

RMSonce is the working name of Barcelona born mathematician, musician and artist Francesc Marti and ‘Reflections’ is his third release. The album sees him playing amidst shoals of sound. His relentlessly unorthodox rhythms twisting through aggressive, yet controlled, droning noise. It is a little too electronic for me to be utterly ecstatic as it’s missing some acoustic warmth but it’s still a dynamic listen.

For me though the absolute high point of the album comes on the final track as Marti tosses various jazzy samples into his glitchy mix to create a wonderful stumbling slice of lunacy.

(www.medusamusic.net)

Vanessa Rossetto - Dogs In English Porcelain

(Music Appreciation mus004)

CDR

American electro-acoustic composer Rossetto has, on this album, created a thoroughly intriguing composition. Using electronics, field recordings, violin, viola, cello and acoustic turntable she has established a complex and turbulent soundworld.

For me it’s her use of field recordings (mostly, I suspect, sourced around her house) that provide the most interesting aspects of the piece and indeed they are often to be found underpinning and underlying the more ‘musical’ sections. These other sections have a welcome tendency towards primitivism that adds nicely to the ‘homemade’ ambience of the track. An effect strengthened by the choice of cover art.

It isn’t the most engaging of music. It seems deliberately cold and obtuse at times but then again so do I so I’m not going to lay too much negativity on there.

What it is though is a constantly morphing sonic diorama of Lynchian everyday life and is well worth a listen.

(www.pervertedlogic.com)

Seconds in Formaldehyde - Inaudible

(Suggestion Records, Verato Project sug050)

CDR

I’ve been hearing this name a lot recently so it’s nice to finally be able to put some sounds to the words. Surprisingly for a Verato Project release this opens with a gentle and soothing set of tones to which added an insistent drone and pre-programmed drums. The overall effect is rather disjointed but I like it. The second track follows the pattern set by the first - synth tones over pre-programmed drums but the third and longest track takes a different route. This time the gentle tone and drone is a accompanied by sparse, almost country and western sounding guitar strums. As the track builds the inherent sense of trepidation grows as the piece becomes more discordant and disharmonious before it all falls away.

Probably my favourite of all the Verato releases but also just a damn fine album in it’s own right.

Matt Shoemaker - The Sunken Plethora Consumes All

(Mystery Sea MS53)

CDR

The gentle nature sound opening to this release from American composer Shoemaker belies the turmoil of sound that soon unfolds from the speakers. A brutal watery cascade that eventually settles into the hesitant clank and drone of the second track, The Apneist. Here his field recordings have taken on a very different feel to those of the opener as they clatter, hiss and drone away below sheets of metallic sound. The purring trepidation that opens track 3, ‘Hallucination Pool’, soon evolves with a slow fanfare of vivid and cinematic tones before receding so as to allow the slow build gong and drone of the albums closing title track.

Shoemaker’s is a name I’ve been aware of for a little while now but this is my first opportunity to hear his music and it doesn’t disappoint. He makes music that is both introspective and demonstrative in equal measures which I foresee could become quite an addictive prospect.

Tidal / Peter Duimelinks - Ablution

(Alluvial Recordings)

Having once more (second time this year) managed to infect my computer with a virus I'm writing this review into a battered red notebook and so have no information to give you on just who or what Tidal or Peter Duimelinks are and is. They may well be one and the same person for all I know.

The single 20 minute track that makes up Ablution is founded on a post-industrial tectonic rumble upon which is layered a host of rubbed and raw sounds, some identifiable, some not. It's gritty textures are well chosen and interwoven with a delicate touch. Ablution doesn't really do anything that is unexpected or new but I suspect that's not the point. It's a nice little album, or maybe that should be EP, that offers a thoroughly enjoyable way to while away 20 minutes.

(www.alluvialrecordings.com)

Veliu Namai - Pasiklyde

(Perineum #26)

CDR

Now this one really came as a surprise. I think I was expecting bass heavy dark ambient rumble from this Lithuanian musician and instead I got the gentle meanderings of slow Angelo Badalamenti-esque synth compositions.

One man band Veliu Namai (the name means 'The house of souls') is an interesting prospect. He obviously has a real knack for putting a composition together and the early part of the album is very fine indeed but as it progressed I found my interest waning. It's certainly not because his compositions deteriorate it's simply because he doesn't alter the mood. The same air of distracted melancholy is maintained for the entirety of the album and I found myself getting very bored indeed - I just can't take this much navel gazing in one sitting. Split over two albums or simply adding some other ambiences to the mix would have raised this album from being merely listenable to being highly recommended.

(www.arma.lt)

Yair Yona - Remember

(Anova Music Publishing AN014)

I get one of these type of seedees through the post every couple of years which suits me pretty well as it's not the sort of music I listen to very often. Israeli musician, Yair specialises in very laid back Fahey-esque acoustic guitar rootsy Americana. I really can't listen to this music very often as it doesn't really have a longevity for me but, like I said, it only comes around every so often and so when it does I tend to enjoy it.

Yona is a more than adequate musician and his compositions are lively, intricate and honest with a bonhomie that is hard to resist. The occasional addition of other instruments keeps the album fresh although the full string ending to the final track feels a little out of place after the rest of the album.

If I have any complaints with this album it's that Yona's playing is just too slick, too precise. I like a bit of chaos in my music or snatches of rank amateurism that reveal the human behind the music. That's not really the case here. Everything has a place and is nestled securely within it. You'll admit though that as complaints go that's a very personal one and so I really do recommend that you listen and decide for yourself.

(www.yairyona.net)

Y.E.R.M.O. - Collision Zone

(Idiosyncratic Records idcd001)

I don't know what the initialism stands for but I do know that the individual constituents that make up Y.E.R.M.O. are sound artist Yannick Franck and guitarist Xavier Dubois, both currently operating out of Belgium.

The 5 tracks of muscular dark ambient drone and clatter that make up 'Collision Zone' were originally intended to accompany the work of visual artists Nadine Hilbert and Gast Bouschet at the current (2009) Venice Biennale.

Shorn from their accompanying visuals and context it is often difficult for the music to retain it's coherence and it's validity but 'Collision Zone' is still an interesting listen. The pace is measured and the swirls of sound, along with the occasional industrialised rhythms, contort the music into some interesting shapes.

I'm not the worlds biggest fan of dark ambient as I tend to find it a little one dimensional. The 'dark' aspect seems to preclude practitioners from adding any swathes of colour to their palette. This is, to an extent, the case here also but fortunately the pairing have had the ability and the foresight to vary the shades of 'dark' that they've used and have created a valid addition to the genre.

(www.idiosyncratics.net)

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Monday, August 03, 2009

issue 28 - July 2009 (part 1)

Amputation Desire / Ghogal - Wish / Not Wish

(Suggestion Records, Verato Project sug059)

CDR

Two track album with each band working with the others sounds. I’m not utterly sure which track belongs to which act so I’m going to assume it mirrors the order given in the title listing.

The first track is a deep, dark pit of slow burn rumble. At times it sounds like how you’d imagine a distant artillery battle would. It’s well made and I‘ve played this track a few times. The second track is a fuzz-drenched distorted wall-of-noise. It’s pretty much your standard noise track with nothing to truly recommend it.

Bisturi / Vril / Mixturizer - BVM Split

(R.O.N.F. Records RNF-032)

CDR

If the darker and more atmospheric end of noise music is your bag then you'll already be well aware of R.O.N.F. Records. Last month I featured their excellent 'Altered Neurologycal Function Vol.1' comp and this month sees a cool split seedee from three bands who are all new to WWR.

First up are Bisturi who open the album in a surprisingly psychedelic way with various half-melodies and broken rhythms scattered and roaming around the mix. A droning noise slowly builds in the mix along with some amorphous voice samples before the whole thing comes to a close with a birth.

Second and third are Vril with a pair of erratic and acidic constructions of razor-edged noise. It's great restless fun that'll nicely soundtrack your next armageddon.

Finally we have Mixturizer who, despite sounding like they're going to be a hip hop act, wrap things up with a cretaceous fuzzy roar.

(www.myspace.com/downloaded1)

Bobbys Beard - Bobbys Beard

(Ingue Records)

CDR

With the exception of the fact that they’re from Somerset (or at least that’s where they recorded the album) the truly appallingly named Bobbys Beard (the punctuation error is theirs) are an enigma to me. It’s on Ingue Records though which means it’s well worth a listen so here goes.

The music is a chilled and whimsical slice of psychedelia. I can spot a variety of influences hiding amongst BB’s songs. The whole thing has a pronounced Beach Boys-esque feel to it, the vocal style has been liberated from the Stone Roses or the Inspiral Carpets and there’s a real Angelo Badalamenti vibe to some of the tracks.

The production is pretty lo-fi which works to their advantage and the songs are pretty good. It’s pop music though and good pop always lives or dies on the quality of it’s hooks and they’re, for the most part, missing here. I love that they’re more than willing to throw a shot of anarchy into the proceedings and it’s a good listen but it desperately needs those hooks that will raise it up to the next level.

(www.inguerecords.com)

Mark Bradley - For The Monks

(Existential Cloth Recordings)

CDR

Mark Bradley - Bible Black

(Idrone Park cd17)

MP3

Two short new releases this month from US musician Mark Bradley. The first, 'For The Monks', is a set of slow drones and sci-fi twittering. It opens with the blissful and gently euphoric 'Fade In' before slipping into a more melancholic ambience on 'Oslo'. The simple melody line giving it a gloriously wistful quality. At only 1 minute 21 seconds long track 3, 'Transcend', seems little more than a segue (albeit a nice one) towards the final track, 'The Monks', which is for me the best track here, a lava-lamp of tones, swelling and fading to create a beautifully mesmeric microcosm of sound.

As good as 'For The Monks' is and as much as I like it, I like 'Bible Black' even more. Right from the off this is a more dynamic and wholly hallucinogenic set. On the opening track, 'And Even Still', his organ-like drones overlaid to such a density that they almost preclude any and all other sounds from reaching our ears. This is followed by the deep resonances of 'In Cascades'. It's alpine horn sonorities creating ripples in the air surrounding the speakers. Third and final track, 'What Once Was', is the more restrained of the three. As with 'The Monks' on the previous ep it's more concerned with gentle falls of sound. It's sleepy autumnal feel a relief after the intensity of the previous two. It's the relief of arrival rather than the turmoil of travel.

Two fine drone EP's. Both recommended.

B°tong - Hysteria

(Suggestion Records, Verato Project sug065)

CDR

Apparently the source sounds of this seedee come from recordings of water and earthquakes, the second of which definitely points your mind in a certain direction as to what the music is going to sound like. You’re mind would be pointing in the right direction too but there is more to both B°tong and to ‘Hysteria’ than that. Added to the mix are a host of warped voice samples and his usual vast array of sounds created on, what he calls, ‘ancient technology’. It’s a darkly psychotropic experience and one I urge you to try for yourself.

Juan Jose Calarco - Darsena Interna

(Mystery Sea MS52)

CDR

My previous exposure to the work of Argentine musician Calarco (his mini CD on Locus of Assemblage) had been very favourable so I was quite excited about this new release on the always recommended Mystery Sea label. Calarco’s soundworld has, at it's base, a distinctly urbanised setting. His music is embedded into a oppressive, hissing layer of industrialised (but not industrial) rumble.

I'm hearing more and more of this sort of composition lately and the urban is increasingly replacing the industrial as the norm. The relentless battery of the industrial is no longer as valid a soundworld to many and so it no longer resonates as much as it maybe did previously. As such I think it's position is being usurped by sonic reproductions of the low-key background miasma of the modern urban environment. Calarco's composition is, I think, very reflective of this assumption. His music has a stark brutality that is tempered by the flecks of humanity that can be glimpsed through the haze of sound.

I must admit that being a dedicated country dweller I find these sounds to be utterly inimical to a positive state of mind. As a composition though they are fascinating and beautifully orchestrated.

Dissecting Table - No Longer Human

(Suggestion Records, Verato Project sug022)

CDR

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed a large number of Verato Project CDs featured in WWR over the last 3 months. I have no information on this project other than it's an off-shoot of Suggestion Records and is mostly concerned with the noisier end of this beautiful thing called noise. The huge box of seedees they gifted to me came with no info at all on any of the featured musicians so I'm pretty much at a loss as to who most of these cats are. So, I'm writing blind here, diving into each album with no preconceptions which has to be good.

First impression of Dissecting Table is favourable. Opening track, 'No Longer Human' is a slow moving guttural rumble which sounds a little like a lawnmower. I like it but it does make me feel guilty about not being out working on the garden on this mild summer evening. Track 2 is an eardrum clearing total noise assault of piercing screes of noise and relentless panned shouting. Track 3 (Devadatta) continues the assault by combining swooping mid and high range frequencies with lower range pulsations that alternates between slowly deteriorating into a violent cataclysm of gritty noise and reassembling itself into psychedelic swoops.

Final track, 'Thrasymachos', is a relief after the all out attack of the previous two tracks and is probably my high point of the album. It's staccato 'melodic' rhythms are littered with shards of noise and disembodied bleeping and the whole thing seems the most deliberate and thought through of all the tracks.

As seems to be the case with most of these Verato releases this one is a thoroughly entertaining listen but is lacking that little bit of individuality that would bring me back for more.

Pierre Gerard - Plateaux (for Gilles Deleuze)

(Koyuki yuki 007)

CDR

Over the last however many years I've been writing Wonderful Wooden Reasons the number of truly minimalist recordings I've been sent is extremely low yet this month I have two, Wechseljahre Einer Hyäne by Radu Malfatti and this newest release by Belgium composer Pierre Gerard.

This is the sparsest of music. It's barely audible pops, squeaks, hisses and rattles are easily destroyed by the clatter of everyday life but in a quiet and relaxed environment they sing beautifully.

I find music of this sort to be utterly entrancing but equally I find it incredibly difficult to review but hopefully I've said enough to intrigue you into buying.

(www.koyuki-sound.org)

Hapsburg Braganza - Hatchling

(Idiosyncratic Records idcd003)

New Belgian label Idiosyncratic have launched themselves onto the world with a trio of recordings. This one, by UK composer Phil Begg is a slow build collage of aquatic field recordings that slowly yield to an insistent harmonium drone which in turn is absorbed into the whole.

Begg's music is layered to the sky with sounds and textures but I must admit to finding chunks of this album difficult to listen to. The sounds he uses are often harsh and arid which, while making an interesting contrast to the water derived sounds and the sumptuous and huge harmonium drones, that are for me the definite highlights, they aren't particularly very engaging.

That said though, these aspects are in the minority here and for the most part 'Hatchling' is a diverting listen that has been assembled with a keen ear for composition and a willingness to allow the music plenty of opportunities to evolve.

(www.idiosyncratics.net)

Hinsidan - Shapeshifter Blues

(Suggestion Records, Verato Project sug051)

CDR

Danish duo of Atish Pare and Superjus have orchestrated a set of beautiful bombastic cosmic drones. It occasionally veers into noise territory but fortunately never stays there for too long as they have far more to say with their music than mere muscle can provide. The recording is crystal clear and the music resonates with colour, tone and content.

A stunning release that all lovers of quality drone music should track down immediately.

Brian Lavelle - Fallen Are The Domes Of Green Amber

(Diophantine Discs n=10)

Brian Lavelle’s music is a perennial and much loved feature of Wonderful Wooden Reasons. His sublime drones and madly cosmic excursions have been a fixture in the zine since I started writing it. He himself has been recording electronic music for some 20 odd years now and the music that makes up ‘Fallen...’ is culled from recordings made waaaaay back in July 1991 and so, is for me at least, a fascinating insight into his formative music.

As you can imagine the clarity of the sounds aren’t quite up to Brian’s usual standard and are a little murky sounding (particularly on track 2) but his innate grasp of composition and pace are as obvious as ever.

The album is split into 2 unequal parts. The first, and shorter, of the two demonstrates very nicely the more gentle and introspective side of Lavelle’s music. It’s divinely constructed, gently unfolding and sumptuously immersing.

The second and considerably longer track is the more extrovert. Over it’s hour long runtime Lavelle explores a variety of more insistent atmospheres. It’s hard to keep a track interesting for that length of time but on the whole he manages it through gentle evolution of his sounds. The only thing marring it is the aforementioned muddiness and with that exception it is another fine addition to an already impressive discography.

(www.discs.diophantine.net)

Phil Maggi - Blue Fields In Paramount

(Idiosyncratic Records idcd002)

My second exposure to the work of Phil Maggi after last years ‘Lucilla Caesar’ release on Hyperblasted is this excellent piece of sound collage based around recordings made in Zagreb.

Maggi has mixed a variety of recordings some mundane, some not so, with a variety of unspecified sound sources and samples.

The strength of this recording lies in it’s restless diversity. Maggi keeps the proceedings flowing at an even pace giving everything just enough time in the spotlight to show their stuff before it moves on to something else. Some parts I found myself wishing for more exposure to - the beggars singing at the 11 minute mark - but equally there are sections that I thought were a trifle overplayed - the long period of back-tracked sound around the 20 minute mark.

‘Blue Fields In Paramount’ is though a rarely less than enthralling listen that is deserving of your time and attention.

(www.idiosyncratics.net)

Radu Malfatti - Wechseljahre Einer Hyäne

(etlefeucomme_netlabel/004)

CDR

Now this is rather wonderful. Composed by Malfatti and realised by Intersax this is 4 saxophonists (1 soprano, 1 alto & 2 baritones) playing gentle, single note phrases - possibly the length of a breath - amidst extended periods of silence. It's immaculate minimalism mirrors the beauty of a Morton Feldman composition and is utterly bewitching in every way.

(www.etlefeucomme.be)

Meerkat - Kapnos

(AFE Records AFE121CD)

(Nighthawks)

(ctrl+alt+canc CTRL666)

(Grey Sparkle GS CD 02)

I’m slightly confused as to the ‘what’ of this CD. The ‘who’ is plainly marked - I’m not going to list them here as there're 10 of the blighters - and consist of several who have passed through Wonderful Wooden Reasons before alongside several who haven’t. Where my confusion lies is that the insert gives details on each individual track and all are duo pieces with the exception of one trio. So, it’s not a ‘group’ as such so I’m going to think of them as a ‘collective’.

The more I listen the more apt this word becomes as there is a real feeling of communality here. No one track or pairing stands out above the rest. There is no unnecessary showboating or ‘Look at me!’ declarations. Which equally, dependant on mood, could be construed as lack of ambition and a surrender to uniformity but today I don’t feel that. Each piece flows so seamlessly into the next that it is almost impossible to track the changes.

For the most part ‘Kapnos’ consists of slow burn ambient drone pieces given extra depth through the addition of field recordings (lots of recordings of fire). There are a couple of tracks made entirely from played sounds which serve to add further scope to the album. The end result is a very earthy form of darkly psychedelic ambience that whilst being maybe a little homogeneous is certainly a rewarding listen.

(www.nighthawkstapes.org)

(www.ctrlaltcanc.org)

(www.greysparkle.com)

Moth Electret - Tocasen

(Diophantine Discs n=19)

You know I really should be writing these reviews at a PC so I can look up some background info on some of these cats but that isn’t an option at the moment so opinions only I’m afraid.

The wonderfully named Moth Electret (I have no clue what it means I just like the way it sounds) is an individual / group (delete as applicable) with a fondness for crackling electrified musical constructions. The 7 tracks that make up ‘Tocasen’ are a jittery and glitchy conglomeration of tones, drones, hisses, clicks, buzzes and blasts. There are masses of rhythms in his / her / their (delete as applicable) music but no rhythm. The music is gloriously intense and complicated but has been assembled with a lightness of touch that’s an absolute joy to behold with melodies constantly threatening to break through the stuttering but fortunately never quite managing it and remaining just out of reach.

This is one of the best things I’ve heard from the Diophantine label and that’s really saying something so if the harder edge of electric experimentation is your bag then please realise that I’m heartily recommending them / him / her / it (delete as applicable).

(www.discs.diophantine.net)

Mystified - Tape Sludge

(Suggestion Records, Verato Project sug062)

CDR

According to the Verato website ‘Tape Sludge’ was “Created almost solely from sounds recorded to tape 18 years ago, then run through many generative processes”. I’m not certain whether these are sounds recorded by Thomas (Parks) or by other people and they are just ones he had lying around the house. Either way there’s some really rather fabulous music on here. Consisting of loops, noise, drones, tones and a myriad other tactics ‘Tape Sludge’ is a swirly kaleidoscope of silvery sound and is every bit as good as that sounds.

Mystified - Science Fiction

(R.O.N.F. Records RNF-025)

CDR

One of the things I like most about Mystified’s music is you simply don’t know which version you’re going to get next. I’ve heard quite a few of his albums now and it must be said not necessarily in the desired order so I have a slightly warped view of where he’s heading. Where he came from I’m well aware of - heavy, noisy, dark drone - and a fair amount of that remains in his music. It’s the building block upon which he now works. His current music reflects an amalgam of the old ways with a new found appreciation for beats. Not rhythm...beats.

This album has been floating around for a little while now and marks the turning point between the old and the new. The music here sees him exploring both his love of dark whilst also he has speckled some of the recording with the aforementioned beats. It’s a bit of a mixed bag. Some tracks (the insectile title track is fabulous) work better than others but this little corner of the musical universe we call home is meant to be experimental and not all experiments are instantly successful. They need to be refined and worked on and that’s just what he’s doing and more power to him.

OKOK Society - Third Side Experiment

(Perineum #025)

CDR

Welsh experimentalists OKOK Society have been championed to me by Arma from Perineum for several years now. My only previous exposure to their sounds had been via a couple of mp3's taken from their website. They were interesting but not enough to make a full and lasting impression. Well, Arma has put his money where his heart is and released a full length set by the band and it's rather good.

A quick look at the OKOK website will reveal a group very much in love with obfuscation and also I suspect magick (note that all-important 'k'). If you're interested in that aspect of the world then I recommend you check it out but personally I find it to be all a load of 'blah', so I'll leave it to your investigation and focus on the album.

Obfuscation is the name of the game here also. Their music is predominantly based on a post-industrial hiss and rumble over which snatches of vocal and radio samples are floated. It's a simple premise but it's one that has been done exceedingly well. The illusory qualities of their constructions lead one through a maze of shadows and phantasms. Music of this type does have a tendency towards being quite cold and isolationist but I haven't found that here. It's certainly detached but there is a friendliness (even an occasional silliness) to the compositions that has found me returning to this album often over the last month, it's amorphous nature allowing it to do it's thing in the background as I read or work.

Very recommended.

(www.arma.lt)

(www.okok.org.uk)

Olekranon - Recycle Human Lung

(Inam Records 33)

CDR

The last year has seen a steady stream of music from Ryan Huber under his Olekranon guise. This is apparently the last for 2009 and it concludes his trio of releases nicely.

They’ve all been fairly eclectic in nature and this one continues that trait. RHL mixes dark and intense dance(ish) music with shimmering drones and chiming guitar pieces. As you’d imagine it’s the last two that are of most interest to me especially as they’re all played with a healthy dose of fuzzy goodness.

It’s difficult to pin an accurate recommendation to Olekranon. You can’t really say ‘For fans of...’, it’s just too eclectic. What is easy to say however is that if you like harder edged music that’s willing to roam between the darker sides of several different genres then this is definitely for you.

(inamrecs (at) yahoo.com)

The Oratory of Divine Love - Meditatio

(Diophantine Discs n=16)

I’m currently laid up shivering next to the fire with a miserable head cold. I have my tatty red notebook and a stack of new music to keep me entertained though. Top of the stack is this album from the curiously named The Oratory of Divine Love about whom I know absolutely nothing.

The music is a single long noise drone piece. It’s both minimalist and static but static in the way a rock on a riverbed is static amidst the turmoil of the running water. It isn’t the most engaging of music as the morass of sound precludes very much tonal variety. It is there but rarely is it the focal point of the music. The Oratory are more interested it seems in establishing an ambience and then maintaining it with only small adjustments to the sound and that’s fine. I like that aesthetic. It holds many interesting sonic attributes but I have to admit that right here and right now I’m finding it a little one-dimensional. I do get the feeling though that this would work well treated in a purely ambient manner, i.e. allowed to play discreetly in the background whilst pre-occupied with something else. I’m feeling too rough to do anything else at the moment though so that’s an experiment I’ll leave to you.

(www.discs.diophantine.net)

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Saturday, June 27, 2009

issue 27 - June 2009

Editorial
A new issue ever two months seems to be the way things are going here at WWR. This time of year is always busy for me and the zine is always what gets sidelined. But terms over now all the little darlings are gone for the summer so hopefully over the next two months I should be able to get two new issues online and reduce this alarming stack of cds I have next to me. If you've sent something and it's not seen print yet than please accept my apologies and be sure that I listen to everything I'm sent (eventually) and if I like it it'll be here if I don;t like it then I'll pass it on to somebody who I think will like it. Anyway, enjoy the new issue, it's chock full of cool music and I'll see you all in a month. peace - ian
............................................................................

B°tong - Microsleep

(Verato Project)

CDR

Swiss composer Chris Sigdell had previously impressed me with his Polar:is album on Petty Bourgeois Broadcasts a year or so back. He operates deep within dark ambient territories producing music to soundtrack your most uncomfortable sleepless nights.

I'm not entirely sure where Sigdell sources most of his sounds. Most I suspect are electronically generated although I think I can spot some other types of sounds (bells, guitar) in the mix. His compositions are constructed over a solid bedrock of some fine drones that give each of the pieces their character before he decorates them with shards of hard sound. If some of his strategies are a little age-worn, slowed down vocal samples and stuttering electronics, that's only because they are such good strategies and are here used to their best effect.

Dark ambient done very well and recommended to all fans of the genre.

Caethua - Village of the Damned

(BlueSanct INRI083)

I must admit that the opening track, a slightly whimsical slice of indie americana, was, for me, an inauspicious start to this album from New York state musician Clare Hubbard. Musically it's certainly not a bad track but the vocals are, shall we say, an acquired taste. The rest of the album though is sumptuously psychedelic. It retains it's lo-fi acousticity (I've invented that word especially for this review) but is delightfully expansive in scope. It's musically self-indulgent without ever feeling so. I remain unconvinced by her vocals but whether she's strumming, droning, percussioning (there's another new word) or teasing gentle melodies out of whichever instrument is featured at any given moment Hubbard does make some divine music.

This certainly isn't going to be to everyone's taste but I really do recommend you give it a try.

(www.bluesanct.com)

Alistair Crosbie - musicforshipwrecks

(AFE 117lcd)

CDR

Giving your album a strikingly similar cover image to one of the finest compositions of the 20th century, the Les Disques Du Crepuscule release of Gavin Bryars' Sinking of the Titanic, is always going to grab my attention but it does place the album in a perilous place regarding the expectations it has raised in my mind. Musically, there are similarities also, as Crosbie's muse is a melodically ambient one and he is imbuing the music with a distinctly aquatic feel (as you can probably guess from the title).

On first listen I wasn't too taken with 'musicforshipwrecks' as it seemed a little insubstantial but subsequently I've discovered previously un-noticed depths and have grown to like it very much indeed. The production lets it down as it sounds a little timorous and thin in places and the sounds often strain during the swells. This may be deliberate but, whether it is or not, it is distracting. The 19 (and change) minutes of the second track is the real gem here as it rolls and soars throughout but the other three are all eminently listenable. Recommended.

Deep & June Paik - I Mog Deep (deepinjune - the abraxus tapes)

(Verato Project)

3" CDR

Tiny little cd documenting a live collaboration between these two German (I think) ensembles both of with are new to me. It's a set of Sunno)) style deep and dark drones but without the American's intensity (and stupid robes, fortunately). I like this very much. For the majority of it's 16 minute runtime it's so slow as to be practically comatose and when it does wake up it does so with a blearily weary inevitability that perfectly suits what has gone before.

Well worth tracking down.

Ecoute La Merde & Some Asian Female Bodybuilders - Kanda Tomoko

(Verato Project)

CDR

There's very little info accompanying this cd apart from the names and contact addresses of those involved so i don't know if this is a split album or if it's a collaboration.

Knowing SAFB's predilection for sinewaves however I'm going to assume that tracks 2 to 10 are him and that the long opening track is ELM.

I've been falling out of love with ELM's sort of muscular noise music - all shrieking swoops and grinding tectonic rumbles - but occasionally a day comes along that just needs to be soundtracked with music that sounds like God's diarrhoea. Today the sun is shining on a beautiful spring day. There are children playing in the street and outside my window there a birds singing in the tree. At least I'm assuming they are because all I can hear is EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHZKZKZKZKZKZKCKCKCKCKCKCKCK RRRRRRRRRRPRRRRRR RRRRRRPRRRRRRRRRRRRRPRRRRRRRRRR.

SAFB are the more sedate affair here his slow, overlapping wave forms are a nice counterpoint to ELM's mania. I really like the ideas and the execution behind SAFB's music but my one complaint is that I do find his total reliance on electronic soundsources a little cold but you have to admire the way he embraces his muse and the skill with which he constructs his music.

Two contrasting styles making one good album.

(www.formsofthingsunknown.com)

Empress - Movements of the Hand

(halvedtapes #1)

First recording from Canadian dronescaper Adrian Dziewanski under his Empress guise but not the first of his albums that I've reviewed in WWR. With my usual carelessness I reviewed his second album first but that's ok cause now we get to see where he's coming from as opposed to where he's going.

Musically, 'Movements of the Hand' is far closer aligned with the 'fission / maroon’ bonus cd that came with limited copies of the ‘Malleable Shore’ album. It's rounded tonalities immersing vague field recordings in a gentle, opiate calm. I've been playing this on repeat for the last week or so. It's quite short and a single listen isn't enough to fully immerse yourself in but played on repeat it's easy to lose a couple of hours in it's labyrinthine depths.

(halvedtapes.blogspot.com)

Faust - Schiphorst 2008

(Salamanda)

2CD

Produced as a benefit CD for the Schiphorst Avant-garde festival this nicely packaged double CD is a recording of Faust's set from the 2008 festival with the addition of both the sound of Steve Stapleton painting along to Jean-Herve's chainsaw (film of which can be found on youtube) and also a rousing version of Rock 'n' Roll Station by Nurse With Wound with Jean-Herve hollering along.

This is Faust at their most experimental and dadaist as you'd imagine as it's an avant-garde festival. The recording is fairly primitive but doesn't detract from the performance or the listening pleasure. The set is a fairly free rolling affair with only occasional forays into established Faust compositions. I like this very much. It's beautifully haphazard and genuinely honest. It feels as though the band have rehearsed just enough to get the structure of the song but not so much that they are locked into any preconceived notions.

It's not as essential a listen as the new album 'C'est Com...Com...Compliqué' but if your a fan then this should be high on your wants list.

(www.faust-pages.com)

Forms of Things Unknown - Black Trenchcoats & Swastikas 'n Shit

(Panaxis Records)

The last FOTU album I heard wasn't really my bag. There were a couple of tracks that I liked but on the whole it skirted too close to genres I take little interest in and as such moved me not. This one however is an absolute corker.

A compilation of tracks created between 2003 and 2006 this is a varied beast containing sparse electronica, dada-esque songcraft and european folk tunes amongst others. Almost entirely the work of the, lets say, uniquely named, Ferrara Brain Pan (he has assistance on two tracks (Ure Trall on one track and the assorted members of Nurse With Wound on his remix of Two Shaves And A Shine). Even with the disjointed nature of it's creation this has a far more cohesive feel than the 'Cross Purposes' album. FBP's trademark wind instruments are in full flight but wrapped around them and threaded through them are a plethora of drones, effects, field recordings and inexplicable noises. He does occasionally dip into the ye olde worlde type stuff that I really disliked on the other album but this is kept to a minimum and easily ignored. The rest though is really very good indeed and I've found myself returning to this album often over the last couple of weeks. Although why he would saddle an album this good with such a dreadful title and horrible sleeve art is beyond me.

jgrzinich - Phase Inversion

(Mystery Sea MS51)

CDR

Jgrzinich is a name that's been hovering around the edges of my attention for quite some time now but it took the ever wonderful Mystery Sea label to finally wave him in front of me. Phase Inversion is a set of three contrasting compositions. The first, 'Dispersion Trajectory', is a long undulating drone marked by the addition of skitteringly amorphous insectile sounds. The second, 'Membrane Formation', is a melding of washing tone and drone with clattering and sawing instrumentation and the third, 'Spectral Remnants', is a short, gentle set of gong-like tonal ripples.

I found the first to be a little too cold and remote for my tastes the slow addition of the scuttling extra sounds helps open the track up but I prefer a little more warmth in my music. The second is easily my favourite track here. It seems fairly minimal in it's strategies but there's a humanity to it's composition that envelops the listener. The final track offers a small coda to the album that's perfectly formed and full of interest but is a little too brief to fully immerse oneself in.

If I have seemed a little negative towards this album then I apologise. It's fair to say that Phase Inversion isn't my favourite album this month as, for the most part, it all feels a little too clinical for my tastes and I struggling to hear the composers personality but, it is extremely well made and most definitely a worthwhile listen as are all Mystery Sea releases.

Brian Lavelle - Ustrina

(AFE 106lcd)

CDR

At almost 70 minutes in length Ustrina from Scots dronist Lavelle is a significant investment of time and focus on both the part of the composer and the listener. Lavelle operates predominantly in the realms of warm and slightly fuzzy drone music. Narcotic tones and washes that gently shroud the audience with a vaguely clammy sense of unease. You've got to admit that's an enticing prospect especially as Lavelle is very, and I do mean very, accomplished at this sort of thing. Like a darker version of Chalk & Heeman's Mirror project, Ustrina is one of the best things I've heard from this side of Lavelle (the other side specialises in superbly forceful psychedelic cosmic-drone) and should be sort out without delay.

Andrea Marutti / Tommaso Cosco - Turra

(AFE 120mcd)

3" CDR

The 4th AFE release I've heard this month is this teeny seedee from label owner Marutti and collaborator Cosco. It's the shortest and also probably the least satisfying. It's certainly not a bad track. As a piece of dark drone it does all the right things, makes all the right moves and heads off in the right direction, unfortunately though it doesn't really go anywhere. The music seems (the press sheet gives little away) to be a processed (by both) set of impromptu recordings (by Cosco). As far as I can make out these original recordings are barely present as the music is an amorphous grey wash. Like I said though it's competently done and if you like your music slow, dark and impenetrable then you may well enjoy this but it didn't grab me and there are far more recommended releases on AFE for you to invest in.

Mystified - SubDialogue

(Verato Project)

CDR

As a massively prolific musician there's always seems to be a new album lurking in the shadows from Thomas Parks' Mystified project and, as you'd imagine from so large an output, they are of differing quality. Let me be straight here, he's never less than listenable but occasionally it does feel as though he's not trying too hard. This one, I'm afraid, is a case in point. There's nothing here that I haven't heard him do before and do better. One of the things that made his 'Pulse Ringer Pieces' album on Droehnhaus so good was that he took the core elements of his sound (harsh noise, digital drone and industrial beats) and he forcefully evolved them into something new, something different. Here we simply have a return to those core elements which are, as I stated earlier, eminently listenable but ultimately a little unsatisfying. One for Mystified completists only I'm afraid.

Orphax - Sand In Boxes

(Verato Project)

CDR

Orphax is S v. Erve and he or she is responsible for everything contained within which apparently consists of field recordings, piano and melodica. It's a fairly sedate affair. Gritty crackles propel the initial track along whilst slow tones swell and break like ghostly breezes. Track two sees Erve allowing his / her sounds to soar a little sounding like layer upon layer of recordings of passing highflying aircraft. It's a little one dimensional though and a dip in quality after the auspicious opener. Track three though sees the album back on track with an excellent, but short, track of warm drones and the return of that nice gritty crackle from the first piece. It's a bit of a sudden drop into the fourth and final track on the album but it quickly builds in a crescendo of looping tones punctuated by stabs of granite sound. It maybe builds a little too far as the tones start to lose definition and had me reaching for the volume knob to help them regain a comfortable level. This is though the psychedelic centrepiece of the album. Sounds swirl, throb, circle and tumble throughout and it's wonderfully absorbing. A fine end to an always interesting and ultimately thoroughly enjoyable album.

Orfeo 5 - A Year on the Ice

(Wordhoard whcd003)

Orfeo 5 are an electro-acoustic duo consisting of saxophonist Keith Jafrate and Shaun Blezard on electronics. I've really struggled to find the words to write this review. I've deleted, I think, three rough drafts before starting this one. I'm doing this one 'blind' so to speak, the album's not even playing as I type (the new Sonic Youth one is). I'm going to stream of consciousness this review and hope it's readable and says what I want to say.

Inspired by, amongst others, the Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, the two members of Orfeo 5 have created an album that has haunted my seedee player this last month. You can hear their influences (especially that of Parker) but not in any way that's distracting or demeaning to either party. Jafrate's saxophone alternates between atonality and lyricism with sublime ease and Blezard's noises can be both unobtrusive and leading depending on the particular compositions, and I'm pretty sure they are compositions as nothing here feels particularly improvised. Both players interlink almost seamlessly with things only hiccupping once when they try their hands at a more restrictive, almost dance music like, format. let's just say it's not a great success and leave it at that as it really is my only complaint with what is a mighty fine melding of breath, circuitry and oodles of ideas. Recommended.

(www.wordhoard.co.uk)

Adrian Shenton - Houseworks

(Phonospheric one)

CDR

Cardiff, Wales based composer Adrian Shenton is a familiar entity here in WWR Heights as his previous release 'The Measuring of Moments' was released on my Quiet World label. That release was a set of warm almost Eno-esque ambient swathes, this one is different, very different.

Houseworks, as the name implies, is constructed almost (maybe even entirely) from sounds sourced around Adrian's home. The sounds are harsher and less forgiving which has directed the compositions into areas I've not previously heard him explore. Through the course of it's 7 tracks Houseworks touches on industrial rhythms, post-industrial drone, harsh noise, mesmeric loops, psychedelic swoosh and freeform abstraction, often at the same time. Occasionally there is a little too much reverb clouding the mix (Beating the Bounds) but on the whole Adrian is a skilled composer and producer and has created an album that is unreservedly recommended.

(www.phonospheric.co.uk)

Subinterior - Mesmerize

(AFE 108lcd)

CDR

Italian musician Andrea Freschi presents a set of manipulated field recordings that hum and drone their way through an innocuous 46 minutes. Mesmerize doesn't exactly live up to it's title and indeed played at, what I would think of as, a conscious volume it's easy to ignore. It does all the things and has all the elements that a dark(ish) drone album is meant to do and have and is diverting enough in it's way but it never truly hooks itself into your psyche. However, played quietly whilst otherwise occupied it integrates itself into that activity with surprising fluidity revealing it's presence only when the album ends and you notice that something is missing. More importantly, that something good is missing.

Nicholas Szczepanik - The Chiasmus

(Basses Frequences & Sentient Recognition Archive BF16 / SRA021)

Joint release from Nicholas' own SRA label and French label Basses Frequences, who released his 'mi otra mitad' ep earlier this year. Over the past little while we've been increasingly impressed by the noises he makes. His recordings alternate between abstracted soundscapades and immersive droneworks and it is this second style that he's chosen to explore further on his first fully-fledged cd release.

The 'mi otra mitad' release I mentioned earlier was a pseudo-meditational construction dedicated to relaxation and the great aural drift. The Chiasmus on the other hand is, for the most part, a soaring blast of psychedelic drones that loom and hover. Each track is a blaze of colour and light that are easy to become wonderfully lost in. The exception to all this fire is the ice of the final track which, while sonically similar, is an altogether more restrained affair that eases the listener back into the mundane comforts of their own minds. It must be said though, the last 5 seconds are pointlessly horrible and kinda spoil things.

A blissful and almost unreservedly recommended listen for all lovers of the cosmic (or kosmiche) drone.

(www.bassesfrequences.org)

(www.naszczepanik.com/sra)

V/A - Altered Neurologycal Function Vol.1

(R.o.N.F. Records RNF-030)

CDR

Spanish dark-noise label R.o.N.F. have travelled the world in order to populate this slick compilation album and it's quite a line up. There are a number of familiar names here alongside some interesting newcomers.

From the USA, Darph / Nader (which I just noticed I had mistakenly written as Darth Nader) open proceedings nicely with a deep and dark soft focus grind. Fellow Americans Ctephin follow this with an almost symphonic composition of soaring tones and hissing menace. A very nice five minute visit to Spain in the company of Tzesne and their rolling loops and insistent drones and then it's back to the USA with Mystified for a driving drone piece that melded very nicely with the drilling coming from my next door neighbour. Next up is the also drill friendly C_utter (from Spain) whose swooping voices are a little too old hat for my taste (the drone is nice though). Back to the USA for Death Trance who have melded some misleadingly gentle upper register tones with a speaker killing tectonic rumble. A visit to The Netherlands with Kristus Kut brings proceedings back to a low and slow almost industrial grind. Norway's Swamps Up Nostrils continue the low-key approach with a short but sweet somnambulant dark ambientcontinue the low-key approach with a short but sweet somnambulant dark ambient construction as do Americans Flat Affect. The sole UK representative Project Horsed create a very nice loop based psychedelia before Norss (Netherlands) returns to earth with his subterranean dark-drone. The ickily named Americans, Flower of Flesh & Blood take a more noisily digital approach full of eardrum rupturing high frequency waves and grimy swooshes before Spaniards, No, end the journey with a noisily apt track of (what I think is) guitar noise and singing.
Most compilations are pretty hit or miss affairs and there are a couple of tracks here that didn't really move me but when all's said and done there are way more hits here than there are misses and if you are interested in exploring some new names in the dark-ambient / dark-noise genres then you'd do a lot worse than checking this out.
(www.ronfrecords.com)

V/A - Bluesanct Mixtape 2008
(Bluesanct)
CDR
I'm not 100% sure why I'm writing this review as you can't actually buy this album. It arrived accompanying the Caethua album 'Village of the Dammed' from a label (Bluesanct, obviously) I'd not come across before. It's intended as a label taster for reviewers and lucky bastards like myself. I've not heard of a single one of the 13 bands that make up the runtime but my god it's an absolute corker of an album.
Now compilations are always a mixed bag. The chances of you liking every track on an album of this sort is always going to be slim but I'm hooked by the lot, some very much so but I'm not going to single anyone out as their all worthy of a mention. I should probably give you some pointers as to where it all is musically. I think maybe the more gently psychedelic of the American indie bands especially people like Low, Songs Ohia, etc, there's a bit of acoustic folkiness and some vague allusions towards low-key country americana.
So, why am I writing this review? I think I'm writing it for the reason I started Wonderful Wooden reasons in the first place which was to be a pointer towards music that was interesting, exciting, fun, worthwhile and underappreciated. Well here's 13 cases in point on one disc and they're all worth the effort of tracking them down. Bravo Bluesanct.
(www.bluesanct.com)

V/A - Lost In Translation
(Verato Project)
CDR
4 way split compilation featuring Kenji Siratori, Goghal, Torturing Nurse and Fever Spoor. 3 of these I'd heard before but Ghogal are a new prospect but knowing what the other three do means (noise and lots of it) I can make a fairly good guess as to what they'll sound like and I'm right.
Lost In Translation is a pretty homogenous affair. No one act stands out from the others but all deliver an engaging variety of shrieking maelstroms of electronic noise. I liked it. Not sure why. I got magnificently pissed on cheap red wine last night and woke up today without a hangover or a care in the world so I suspect that may be a factor but, fuck it, I'm declaring today Shrieking Noise Day and this album can be it's theme tune.
(www.verato-project.de)

Xedh - Serpents
(Verato Project)
3" CDR
Regular readers of WWR will already be familiar with the work of this here fella in one or other of his pseudonyms, Miguel A Garcia or Xedh. Under each name he seems to produce a different form of music. His given name is abstracted experimental drone whilst Xedh is for industrialised noise. And that is, exactly, what we have here. 3 tracks of relentless pounding metallic noise that is as true to the term 'industrial music' as it possible to get. It's a screaming, cacophonic maelstrom of sound that lasts a mere 18 minutes but at the end your ears feel like they've done an 8 hour shift in a steel pressing plant.
If you like your music loud and rhythmic then look no further.
(www.verato-project.de)

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Sunday, April 19, 2009

Issue 26 - April 2009

Welcome to the Quiet World label in-house fanzine. Here we let people know about some of the music we've been gifted or have bought. We don't review our own releases but you'll please allow us the conceit of recommending you check out our site listed below.
As a fanzine we are interested in all forms of experimental and drone music, whether it be noise, ambient, psychedelia, death metal, industrial, jazz, post rock. We listen to everything we're sent. We only have one rule. If we don't like it we won't review it. If there are things about it we liked we'll include it, we won't gloss over those things that we don't, but, just because we don't like it doesn't mean it's crap so we don't rubbish anything.
We accept all formats for review but please send the finished article, including the sleeve, inserts, etc, so we can give a full review. We are also always on the lookout for things to read and watch. However, we rarely have time to download mp3s and we don't open attachments. We like things we can hold and appreciate.
Send to:- Wonderful Wooden Reasons, c/o Ian Holloway, 49 Cypress Avenue, West Cross, Swansea, SA3 5JX, Wales, UK
Visit:- www.quietworld.co.uk or www.wonderfulwoodenreasons.co.uk
All good things
Ian Holloway.

Editorial
Hi folks. What a long strange trip it's been this month. This is the second time I've written this months issue having lost the first when a virus destroyed my PC and all it's contents. The only reviews I managed to salvage were the 5 i'd written in an old notebook the others all got a rewrite.
This has knocked me way back and I have a huge stack of music to review so expect some shorter updates in the coming weeks.
Take it easy
ian

Ajilvsga - Medicine Bull
(Dreamsheep DS006)
CD
Ajilvsga is a duo consisting of Nathan Young & Brad Rose who is the man behind Digitalis Recordings. I’m fortunate enough to be the recipient of promos from Digitalis so when I saw Brad’s name on the inlay with this seedee I made an assumption that this was going to follow the Digitalis tradition of being guitar led experimental roots Americana or warped acoustic psychedelia. The robes and hoods in the photos should have tipped me off that this wasn’t going to be the case.
Medicine Ball is bleak, intense, heavy, sludge noise drone. I’ve no clue what they are using to make these sounds, there is definitely guitar but after that it’s anyone’s guess. These guys certainly know what they’re doing though. The focus never wavers and the unrelenting ferocity of in the darkness they emit is staggering.
My capacity for music if this nature is, I must admit, limited. I’m an old hippy at heart and as such like a little whimsy or light in my music, some yang to piss on yings fire, so how often I’ll return here is open debate but, with that said, it’s definitely worth a visit or two.
(www.freewebs.com/valeriocosi/dreamsheep/home.htm)

Tetuzi Akiyama, Kevin Corcoran & Christian Kiefer - Low Cloud Means Death
(Digitalis Recordings ACE 011)
CD
Absolutely stunning set of improvised cuts by this new trio. (Acoustic) guitarist Akiyama, Kiefer on accordion, piano and other unspecified sound making implements & Corcoran on percussion together produce music of utterly absorbing beauty.
Low Clouds Means Death consists of a series of Feldman-esque pieces but where that erstwhile composers music feels utterly precise, each note meticulously placed with the utmost and deliberate care, here the precision feels beautifully natural. The trio’s control of their music and their musicianship leading them to create something that is timeless in every sense of the word.
Indeed, so unified do they sound that it’s easy to forget you are listening to an ensemble piece. The subtlety with which they advance each piece almost belies belief and the quality of the music is almost beyond compare.
(www.digitalisindustries.com)

Baseline - Estado Liquido
(RMO Productions RMOBS02)
CD
Cosmic drone meets industrial rhythm on this project from Spanish musician Pilar Baizan. Her muse leads her to stack layer upon layer of electronic loops, drones, glitches and other assorted abstractions and obstructions to create a towering monolith of post-industrial kosmiche psychedelic. I like this album a lot. Think Cluster jamming in a steel mill. Beautiful, powerful, metallic drones soaring over angular arrhythmic hits that slowly disperse into grinding noise and pulsating loops. And that’s just the first track.
Track 2 opens with a cavernous rumble before morphing into a jittering, slowly evolving grind. It’s a nice tune but a little inconsequential when compared to the two tunes that bookend it.
The heartbeat at the core of track three allows the sedate mechanical drone to quietly build in momentum and insistency, eventually breaking through to the surface with a clattering of sound. This one is by far the more muscular of the three tracks and it flexes it’s way through much of it’s twenty two minute runtime before the heartbeat once more emerges and the track slowly fades away.
A very recommended release that, if you’re at all a fan of the music featured in this zine should be hunted down immediately.
(www.rmokultur.com)

Black Motor - Vaarat Vastukset
(Dreamsheep DS008)
CD
I’m going to let you all in on a secret about this music reviewing lark. You ready for it? As a reviewer you get to listen to a frankly ridiculous amount of music but it’s rarely the music you want to listen to. I can’t really remember the last time I pulled an album off the shelf because I hadn’t listened to it in a while. As I write this there are two piles of about 40 cds next to me waiting to be played and written about. Not that I’m complaining you understand. Of that 40 odd most will be worthy of several listens as the bands, artists and labels who send to me are a pretty consistent bunch. The point I’m trying to make is that my listening habits are dictated by what I’m sent rather than what I like to a great extent. Now here’s where this becomes apposite to the album in hand. Up to about 4 years ago I listened to a lot of jazz. I fell deeply and profoundly in love with the music for one pure and simple reason. I do not understand it at all! Mystifies me completely. Every twist and turn of a good jazz album, whether by Coltrane, Dolphy, Evan Parker, Cecil Taylor, whomever, takes me by surprise and I love surprises.
I don’t get sent much jazz to review at WWR - I think 2 albums in 4 years - but playing on my stereo at the moment is the long awaited third and I am loving it.
Finnish trio Black Motor mix an atonal skronk with wonderfully chilled lyrical passages to great effect. Even on first listen there was a comfortable familiarity to the music - which I certainly do not mean in a negative sense - as it felt warm and open. Inviting and yet exotic. Like visiting a new country in the company of your best friend. You don’t know what you’ll find there but you know the company will be good.
Opener Yksi Sinulta Puuttuu is for me the weakest track on the album. It’s easily the most atonal and avant-garde piece here and gets the album off to a deceptive start. I think positioned later in the running order would have benefited this track as it really is the odd one out here. It’s blatant disregard of the niceties of established notions of musicality is laudable but at odds with the melodic nature of the other tracks. As fond as I am of a good ruckus it is the remaining 5 tracks that really make Vaarat Vastukset something to behold. The melodies pour from the arrangements and lift the album from any assumptions made during the opening 10 minutes or so. The balance between melody and madness is perfect and has left me gob-smacked meaning that this album has taken up residence on my player. Hugely recommended.
(www.freewebs.com/valeriocosi/dreamsheep/home.htm)

brb>voicecoil - Occupation by Killers
(Muzzedia Verhead MV008)
3” CDR
Mini cd from UK musician Kevin Wilkinson of lo-fi almost noise constructions. Made from close up recordings of plastic on wood and tin on concrete alongside some judiciously placed field recordings this 22 minute composition of rhythm and drone skirts the edges of noise music without falling entirely into that genres increasingly mundane clutches. I like the way Wilkinson doesn't quite hide the primitive nature of his sound sources - there's a griminess to the recordings that grounds the music very nicely allowing it to retain it's humanity which is a factor all too easily removed from much experimental music.
(www.myspace.com/voicecoil)

Andrew Chalk & Daisuke Suzuki - The Shadows Go Their Own Way
(Siren Records 015)
CD
Fabulous new collaboration between UK drone artist Andrew Chalk and Japanese field recordist Daisuke Suzuki following on from their previous two releases (The Days After & Senshu). These collaborations are a different animal from Andrew’s solo releases (I can’t comment on Daisuke’s as I’ve never heard any) as the gentle, translucent drone is replaced by disjointed half-melodies and sing song sonorities. The pair, ably assisted by their respective partners, Vikki Jackman & Naoko Suzuki, meld a plethora of instruments and strategies to create a hallucinogenic swirl of sound. It’s difficult to focus fully on the music for long as it’s nebulous nature means it easily folds around your perceptions lulling you into a fully immersed stupor from which you can only emerge when the musicians allow (or when some outside inconsiderate interrupts the music).
Always wonderful and always recommended.
(www.farawaypress.net)

Dissecting Table - Why
(Verato Project)
3” CDR
Teeny weeny cd of utter raucousness. All tracks date back to between 1995 and 1998 and Ichiro Tsuji’s bronchitis vocals are very much of their time. This harks from when the UK crust scene of Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror, et al started to morph into the industrial noise scene of more recent years. The speed, aggression and grind are there but it’s tightly controlled and played with mechanical precision.
It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to anything that sounds even remotely like this and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
(www.verato-project.de)

Empress - Malleable Shore
(Halved Tapes)
CDR
Slow and almost suffocatingly dark set from canadian musician Adrian Dziewanski of guitar, ebow, vibrators and scrap metal constructions. When I read that list I must admit I was expecting droning guitars over Neubauten style rhythms but instead Dziewanski follows a different muse. Instead his music resonates with the metallic resonances of Organum and it’s slow burn development is reminiscent of Andrew Chalk’s Ferial Confine. It’s isolationist post-industrial minimalist drone at it’s finest. If you’re a fan of either of the above named then you’d do a lot worse than checking this out.
A very limited number of copies of the album (10) come with a bonus album called ‘fission / maroon’ it’s a different animal to ‘Malleable Shore’ with the sharp tonalities replaced by a softer, lethargic, swoon of sound. Again, it’s terrific stuff but maybe a little too static - I’d have liked to see / hear / feel a more conscious sense of movement - and definitely too short, which is something you don’t often get to say about a 26 minute long track.
Released in a micro edition this may be a difficult one to track down but will definitely reward the effort spent.
(halvedtapes.blogspot.com)

Faust - C'est Com...Com...Compliqué
(Bureau B bb21)
CD
Brand spanking new album from the Zappi / Peron version of Faust and it's an absolute corker. Here accompanied by guitarist Amaury Cambuzat (from excellent French post-hardcore band Ulan Bator) this is a set of 9, almost restrained sounding, cuts. Please though, realise that when I say restrained sounding I am talking about a band with a penchant for chainsaws, threshing machines and angle grinders so it's all relative. For the most part here though the trio seem content to explore the looser, jamming, sides of their musical personalities and that's fine by me. This is a side that doesn't often come out to play these days and it's always been a big part of the charm of the band in my eyes.
Peron's voice oozes an easy charm that is perfectly at home singing over acoustic instruments and 'traditional' drums (Petits Sons Appétissants) as it is yelling over freak-out instrumentation and scrapyard percussion. His musicianship bold and assured.
Zappi is, as ever, at the heart of each piece augmenting with percussive flurries and providing a solid backbone upon which the others can explore. His drums have never been anything as mundane as a rhythm instrument but if that is the role that is called for (En Veux-Tu des Effets, en Voilà) then he delivers with aplomb. Cambuzat (as he did on the 2005 UK tour) proves himself to be the perfect foil for the two original members. His guitar playing is lyrical, melodic, razor-sharp and coruscating. Like the others his playing perfectly compliments the compositions never dominating or intrusive. It's a shame he no longer seems to be part of the band.
This is the sound of a band at the top of their game and you'll be hard pressed to hear a better album this year.
(www.bureau-b.com)

Forms of Things Unknown - Cross Purposes
(Panaxis Records
CDR
Forms of Things Unknown is the work of San Franciscan composer, the eccentrically named, Ferrara Brain Pan and Cross Purposes is an apt title for what emerges to be a diverse but slightly frustrating journey.
Stylistically this ep wanders a meandering path and instrumentally there is much to recommend. F.B.P.’s (primarily) breath powered instrumentation is engrossing particularly on the vocal-free sections of the album. As is often the case for me it is the vocals that push me away. Here they are contained to two consecutive tracks that dominate the middle of the CD. The first attempts a sort of medieval troubadour kinda thing that while being well enough done moved me not. The second vocal track is more…well…I’m not sure what it’s trying to be really. Again, I like the music but the vocals and the lyrics are just piffle.
I really do think FOTU have got something interesting going on here but I don’t think I’m the one to elucidate on just what that is. It all hovers a little too close to the Current 93 & Coil end of the spectrum which isn’t really my cup of tea but it is extremely well made and if you are a fan of the aforementioned bands then you should do yourself a favour and check this out.
(www.formsofthingsunknown.com)

Miguel A. Garcia - Armiarmak
(RMO Productions RMOAG)
CD
Some of you may already be familiar with M.A.G. under his Xedh alias which was certainly the more familiar to me. Here recording under his given name, Garcia has crafted an album almost entirely culled from sounds sourced solely from two microphones and a mixer. The nature of those two tools, to me at least, suggests a world of possible sounds but what is reproduced here sounds like an almost exclusively digital palette.
The sounds are harsh and cold but Garcia’s skill in collaging these sounds brings each piece to life. His compositional skills are beyond reproach but for me though, his source sounds are just too uninviting acting as a barrier, stopping me from engaging with the album. For 3 or so tracks I’m absorbed but slowly the sounds scrape away at my ears until I can stand no more. It’s a shame because Garcia is obviously an accomplished craftsman and in bite sized chunks this album is littered with quality moments but as a whole it was just too impenetrable.
(www.rmokultur.com)

Gravanzia - Doom To The Doom Men
(no label)
CD
Wonderfully silly set of Gong-isms from this outfit of London based stoners. The standard psyche-rock band set-up of geetars, bass, drums, synths and vocals along with some riff-tastic cosmic song-craft make this CD shaped bundle of ridiculousness a damn fine way to spend three quarters of an hour. I suspect their collective record collections stop somewhere around the 1975 mark because musically there is very little reference to any music made after this point. I'm so pleased that there are still bands out there doing this still sort of over-blown psychedelia and doing it really well too. Their histrionic krautrock (Amon Duul II is a reference point that springs to mind) is something I thought I'd never hear again outside of an obscurities download site or a set of re-issues from a long forgotten German label. If any of the above mentioned acts or adjectives are your particular bag (of weed) then this is definitely worth tracking down.
(www.gravanzia.com)

Hearts Of Palm - Trance Nipple Manifestation
(Palmetto Space Label)
CD
Hot new cut from US freeform trio of Dave Chamberlain, Mike Hancock & Jay Wilson. I was lucky enough to hear the music these guys make back last year (2008) when I got an earlier HOP release along with one by their French Crips alter-ego (which, if memory serves is a duo and much more industrial sounding). That earlier release was an intense Faustian exploration of guitar based improvisation and was enthusiastically praised. This new album continues where it’s predecessor left off and is about to be enthusiastically praised.
In the accompanying letter Jay mentions that TNM (not sure about that title) is a more cohesive and accurate representation of the HOP experience than album 1. I can’t comment on the latter but in regard to cohesion I can only agree. There is a flow to the tracks that makes perfect sense. Each is sonically different enough to warrant both their existence and their place on the album yet there is a unity of sound that means the album never feels forced or contrived.
Sonically, HOP operate at the industrial end of the free music spectrum. Their guitar, percussion and circuit bending tactics is an intense experience. Their sound evokes a battle-like chaos. There’s ebb and flow, confusion and distraction, cohesion & destruction all focused into the vice tight confines of short concise tracks. No rambling improv dialogues here. This is improv with a blissfully punk attitude that says ‘This is our music! Love it or leg it!’ Personally, I absolutely love it.
(www.myspace.com/palmofhearts)

Hexlove - Pija Z Bogiem
(Dreamsheep DS006)
2CD
As I was writing this review I noticed that it had the same catalogue number as the Ajilvsga album also released on Dreamsheep. Any notions of similarity between these two entities other than this apparent typo should be immediately escorted around the back of the building and quietly removed from the gene pool with a cattle bolt-gun - Thunk! - and then we can all forget about it.
Hexlove is Zac Nelson and it is the sound of his brain imploding. The sheer range of sounds, techniques, tools and just plain old fashioned ideas that are thrown around over these two discs is bewildering. From second to second it twists and turns between various rocks, hard-places, immovable objects and irresistible forces. It’s ugly, absurd, annoying and a little bit irresistible.
I can’t describe it as it would take too long. I’m not even going to try. In the wrong mood and at the wrong time it could possibly be the worst album I’ve ever heard. Conversely, in the right mood and at the right time…
(www.freewebs.com/valeriocosi/dreamsheep/home.htm)

Of - Rocks Will Open
(Digitalis Recordings ACE017)
CD
Of is the solo guise of Jewelled Antler’s Loren Chasse and Rocks Will Open sees him exploring hazy, lazy textures on a host of instruments too numerous to mention.
Occasionally bright, occasionally almost suffocatingly bleak, Chasse’s compositions are a sleepy affair but probably not conducive to what used to be referred to as ‘a good eight hours.’
Chasse doesn’t do anything as obviously crass as making his music ‘creepy’ instead the moods he conjures are distinctly ‘disquieting’. Sometimes his music, on the surface level at least, feels blithely innocuous but closer and more perceptive listens reveal not so much hidden depths as non-obvious nuances. The subtle overlay of contrasting textures that mask their presence by creating a third guise. The deception only revealed when one or other betrays it’s presence (deliberately or not) by a sudden shift in sound or timbre.
Rocks Will Open is a wonderfully complete and satisfying album that more than rewards repeated listens.
(www.digitalisindustries.com)

Olekranon - Gaitan
(Inan Records 29)
CDR
It’s been a while since new music by Olekranon graced my seedee player and as such Gaitan marks a very welcome return. As before Ryan (Huber) makes music that straddles various genres including noise, rock, industrial, and oh so many more. Ryan isn’t breaking new ground here. Musically there is much familiarity but he has taken and adapted well. A keen ear and a willingness to experiment has enabled him to create something that is his own within that familiarity. Certain parts work better - the symphonic goth noise of the title track didn’t really do much for me I must admit - but he flings ideas around with abandon which means that ideas never linger too long and outstay their welcome. His is a distinctly dark psychedelic muse. It’s a fungal psychotropic harvested from the darkest, dankest corners and it‘s quite addictive.
(inamrecs AT yahoo.com)

Orchestramaxfieldparrish presents AERA - To The Last Man / Index of Dreaming
(Faith Strange Recordings fs8&9)
2CD
The last time I had the distinct pleasure of hearing a Faith Strange release it was the sublime ‘Silent Breath of Emptiness’ by the rather unwieldly named Orchestramaxfieldparrish. Now a year later the name has grown with the addition of ‘presents AERA’. It’s a mouthful and a half isn’t it. In order to work around this I’m going to refer to Orchestramaxfieldparrish presents AERA by his given name of Mike Fazio - it’s much easier to type.
The two halves of this album are individually named possibly as an indication of content or possibly as a thematic device for Mike’s overarching driving concept. Either way they encompass a sumptuous and engrossing set of ambient music. Utilising, slow snowfalls of drones, showers of micro-tones and (if you’re lucky enough to grab the limited edition with the extra third disc) some well chosen field recordings Mike has created a set that fills a room with a cushion of sound
It’s difficult to give you a straight and easy description of the music. It is, by turn, the purest of ambient - like Eno at his best - before morphing into the most uncomfortable of atmospheres - dripping with discomfort and trepidation. His music is as slow and stark as the winter months and as lush and vibrant as the summer ones. Always recommended.
(www.faithstrange.com)

Terje Paulsen - Landform
(self release)
3” CDR
Now unfortunately sold out is this micro-release micro-cdr album by Norwegian composer Paulsen but luckily for y’all the very kind Mr. Paulsen has made it available as an mp3 release via rainmusic.free.fr/. This really is something you should all be very happy about as it really is a damn fine slice of drone music. Paulsen has a good ear for a mix and Landform is soft and sensual without being cloying or over-produced. He has avoided the dark ambient pitfall and instead concerned himself with making amorphous music that is worth listening to repeatedly.
(www.myspace.com/terjepaulsen)

Mathieu Ruhlmann - Fourteen Worms For Victor Hugo
(Gears Of Sand gos46)
CD
Inspired by his readings on the visions of French author Victor Hugo Mathieu Ruhlmann has produced a set of 7 (The Shortest Path From Pebble To God - parts I - VII) compositions using an unlikely assortment of natural (various insects, stones & plants) and artificial sound sources (kettle, tin can, toys, prayer bowl & piano). His constructions are concise and fluid and wonderfully earthy. They grumble, mumble, rustle, rattle and humm and as individual textures reappear across several tracks it retains a sense of cohesion throughout.
It's a little too darkly intense for everyday listening (for me at least) but if that's how you like your music (and who doesn't like a bit of darkness now and again) then this'll sit nicely with you.
(www.gearsofsand.net/home.html)

Seht - Dead Bees ((the (quiet) earth)) suite)
(Pseudo Arcana PACD097)
CD
I’m writing this with no access to a computer or the internet (bloody viruses) and so right of the bat I’m going to admit complete ignorance as to the who or what of Seht. The only name given on the disc is Stephen Clover so I’m going to assume it is he who is Seht.
I really can tell you nothing of that rather unwieldy title but the album consists of two long and pretty distinct tracks. Opener, ‘One Moment’ is a 36 minute drone piece that is beautifully realised but is, perhaps, a little too similar to Nurse With Wound’s Salt Marie Celeste for complete comfort.
Track two, ‘A Dance; four movements’, revolves around a strangely pulsating tone before morphing into a hissing noise drone and then finally slowing, fading away amidst billows of soft tones. This track is the cold to tracks one’s warm. They contrast each other utterly and I think would maybe have benefited from a transitional track in between to make the change less jarring and the album more cohesive.
An enjoyable listen - track one is particularly to my taste - but a little too disjointed to recommend unreservedly so consider it recommended reservedly.
(www.pseudoarcana.com)

Stormhat - Addicted to Disaster
(Diophantine Discs n=15)
CD
Stormhat is Danish artist Peter Bach Nicolaisen who has been a busy fella with releases on a variety of labels. His music is, at first sight, a chaotic soundclash of processed field-recordings and occasional instrumentation. Ambient music this is not but neither is it mindless noise, a fact that becomes readily apparent as the initial maelstrom abates and the quality of Nicolaisen's compositional skill is revealed. He uses a variety of mostly nebulous instrumentation, the notable exception being the prayer bowl, used most notably, on track three, but it is the field recordings that are the foundation of the music and it is these that Nicolaisen utilises to the greatest effect.
This isn’t everyday music. This isn’t even every other day music. This is occasional music as you won’t always be in the head space to appreciate the tumult of sound. The occasions when you are in the right space though and this album hits the player it’ll reward you every time.
(www.discs.diophantine.net)
(www.stormhat.dk)

Sujo - ep
(Inam Records 30)
3” CDR
I know nothing about who Sujo are but their magnificent post-psychedelic noise swirls are always welcome on my seedee player. Over the last while they’ve released a steady stream of music that has delighted these jaded old ears and this one is probably the best of the lot. Three tracks, ‘Clotted Wing’, ‘The Dawn Of Disease’ & ‘Dirt Cover’, of shoegazer-ish post-rock drenched with distortion - how could you possibly resist.
(inamrecs AT yahoo.com)

Nicholas Szczepanik - mi otra mitad
(basses frequencies)
3” CDR
This US musician is a familiar name here at WWR (and to you also if you’ve any sense). His musique concret sound works and in particular his drone pieces were one of our best finds of last year. He’s also the fella behind the great little SRA label but this new mini-cdr has been released on French label Basses Frequences who are new to mew.
That this little cd was created as an aid to relaxation should give you an insight into the type of piece Nicholas has created but don’t be thinking about naff ‘new age’ style relaxation music. Nicholas is far too accomplished a musician to produce such turgid nonsense. His version of meditative music has a distinct element of unease laced through the tones. His billowing clouds of sound hover tantalisingly at the periphery of comfortable listening. The higher frequencies he uses can be felt pressing on the ears. It’s rather nice in a wrong sort of way.
Not sure if it’s particularly good for meditation but it’s certainly good for listening.
(www.bassesfrequences.org)

Tetragrammaton - Elegy for Native Tongues
(Subvalent Records SBV001)
2CD
Tokyo free music trio Tetragrammaton create a brutally uncompromising cascade of sound. Drummer Nobunaga’s often unrelenting drum patterns driving the music as Cal Lyall’s guitar and TOMO’s hurdy gurdy & sax wail, soar, honk, clang, buzz, humm, squeak and squeal.
This nicely packaged double CD features the trio in the studio (disc 1) and live (disc 2) and in both cases it’s pretty extreme stuff. The studio disc is, I think, probably the more satisfying as they take several opportunities to turn down the fire and allow the music to simmer for a moment or two before once again returning to full blaze.
I like the obdurate nature of the music but I must admit to finding these recordings a little one dimensional (and tiring) although a lot of that is down to the sound. By half way through the first disc I was physically craving some bass. Everything is pitched in the mid and upper range. I fully accept that the bass isn’t the most dynamic of instruments and this is fiery music but for me that extra element would have raised this from being a good album to being a great album.
(www.subvalent.com)

Three Strings - 3s - Second
(etlefeucomme_net label / 003)
MP3
Released as a download on Belgium net label Et Le Feu Comme, ‘3s - Second’ is a set of improvised explorations from Norwegian Musician Terje Paulsen using primarily an acoustic guitar and an un-named ‘old folk instrument’ both of which have been reduced to only three strings. Different techniques, equipment and strategies have been used to augment and manipulate the sounds of these instruments. I really liked the other Paulsen release I’ve heard (Landform - see elsewhere this issue) but this is even better. He operates in a tightly controlled soundworld with not a single note misplaced or superfluous. In less talented hands I would find this to be a fairly tedious proposition as I like my music to retain the hap-hazard feel of a human hand guiding it. Paulsen though has created a simply stunning set of diverse improvisations - sometimes amorphous, oft-times ambiguous and always ambitious - that I will be returning to again and again.
(www.etlefeucomme.be)

Mirko Uhlig - Supper
(AFE II2LCD)
CDR
In case it hadn't been noticed before I really do love a good drone. One note stretched to infinity is pretty much my aural nirvana (although I am also very partial to a good acid-fried freak-out) and so the drone stuff I get sent does tend to be listened to with fairly eager ears, the other stuff too but, if I'm being totally truthful, my day definitely perks up if a parcel lands on my mat by someone I know is also partial to making minimal use of the notes available to him or her. This is particularly true when it's by someone I know is going to produce something wonderful. Mirko Uhlig's subtle, shadowy, rolling drones first crossed my path via his 'Nightmiller' release on Belgium label Mystery Sea. Supper continues where it's predecessor left off. It's a stunning album of tightly controlled tonalities slowly winding a meandering path to it's chosen destination. Nothing you can do will hurry this album along. If you give it too much focus it seems to slow down almost to a complete halt. It's best to just relax into it and allow it to carry you along. Uhlig introduces new sounds, colours and textures with such calm dexterity that often it is impossible to notice their arrival until you are utterly caught up in them.
As before, this is a stunning album that you should seek out post haste.
(www.aferecords.com)

V / A - What Pleasing The Lord Looks Like Marriage: Extreme Noise…And Terror From Japan & Israel
(Heart & Crossbone HCB-020)
CD
Wrapped by that very odd title is a compilation featuring 4 Israeli and 4 Japanese purveyors of extreme music. Like all comps it’s a series of highs and lows. The general gist of this one seems to be slow and sludgy with some real dodgy generic bronchitis vocals - Ryokuchi, Cadaver Eyes, Zenocide - or total noise (with or without added shouting) - LietterSchpichDiet, Poochlatz, Remesh, Neverless - or both - MONEYI$GOD.
Some tracks I liked more than others. Some bits of tracks I liked more than others but with this sort of stuff the chances are that my choices would be entirely different from yours. I’d be surprised if this ever hits my seedee player again but it was fun to listen through and if noise or doom is your bag then I’d be surprised if you didn’t find something to your liking here.
(www.HCBrecords.com)

11:50 PM

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Issue 25 - February 2009

Pascal Battus & Alfredo Costa Monteiro - Ductile
(A Question of Re-entry #8)
(Organised music from Thessaloniki #3)
CDR
Your guess is as good as mine (probably better) as to the pedigree of these two cats. What I do know for sure though is that together they produce an abrasive cacophony that would rival that produced by any other noise merchant and they do so using only paper and microphones with the total absence of any processing effects. I know this because it says so on the sleeve but once you know this you can kinda tell. On first listen you find yourself playing a game of 'How did they make that sound?' but soon your subconscious mind becomes drawn into the game and you are absorbed into the maelstrom.
If I'm being perfectly honest, and I always strive to be so, then I must admit that Ductile isn't an album that'll feature regularly on my player but over the last month it has made more than a couple of appearances. The sounds they generate are a little cold and abrasive but I suppose that is the characteristics of the sound source. At first I was listening with curious ears as to how they were gong to pull this idea off. Subsequent listens were made with ears that simply enjoyed the verve with which this pair have realised their idea.
(www.thesorg.blogspot.com)

Box - Digested Material
(Electronic 001)
CDR
Box - evilBOXlive
(Electronic 008)
CDR
A box of many corners producing music of jarring angularity and complexity utilising guitars and a battery of amorphous and enigmatic instrumentation. I've chosen to review both of these albums together as there is a compositional unity on display being as Box is the nom de plume of one person - Neil McIntee. His soundworld is populated by crashing noise and electronic spatters, digital cascades and harmonic drones, electronic glitches and pulsating tones. A post-industrial diaspora of sound derived mostly, I suspect, from digital sources and a guitar.
I think the most appealing thing for me about Mcintee's compositions is his refusal to rush. All the pieces here (even the shorter tracks that make up Digested Material) move at a stately and unhurried pace. His ability to manage his sounds is, from the first moment, never in doubt so it is very nice to be left in the position of being able to sit back and allow his compositions to take you wherever they wish to.
Strangely, given my propensity for long tracks it is the former of these two albums that I claim as my favourite simply on the grounds that the individual pieces seem more 'mature' - in the fine wine sense - as though they've been allowed to sit and improve over time. As the second's title indicates that it was recorded live (I know I should check the press release at this point but I simply cannot be bothered) this is only to be expected. There's nothing to deter you from this album either though as it does include some very fine moments it‘s just a little too fidgety for my tastes.
(www.myspace.com/box777)

Celer - Tropical
(Mystery Sea MS50)
CDR
Celer are Will & Danielle and this album consists of piano, strings, radio, electronics, arrangements (?), tape, words, bells and field recordings. I know this because it says so on the inside of the sleeve. That’s my question mark back there by the way, it’s not on the sleeve just in my head. It seemed a strange thing to write on the instrument list, but I digress.
Tropical is a bit of a misnomer as titles go as there is a far more arid or tundra feel to Celer's music than there is tropical. It consists of a series of stately, slow moving, round mid-range drones. There is very little superfluous decoration in the music. All the attention is focussed entirely upon the drones and their careful evolution.
This is easily one off the nicest drone albums I've heard in a while and it's found it's way onto my seedee player many times over the last few weeks. It isn't the most memorable of discs though with the tracks being fairly amorphous and vague. Another way of putting this though is that the tracks are quite amorphous and vague which is the very quality that has kept the album visiting my seedee player over the last few weeks as it's almost impossible to get bored of them. Both version work for me depending on my mood.
Definitely worth a listen but as it's on Mystery Sea you already knew that.
(www.mysterysea.net)

Valerio Cosi - Collected Works
(Porter Records PRCD - 4008)
CD
The last Valerio Cosi album I heard was a late contender for my favourite album of 2008. This Valerio Cosi album is an early contender for my favourite album of 2009.
Saxophonist Cosi is on great form here on a set of free-wheeling instrumentals. This is music created from an undiluted love of sound. Never descending in cacophony but always flying the torch for chaos. Cosi's recordings are stunningly anarchic mixing jazz, world, ethnic, electronica, noise and much more over a searing psychedelic flame. The eclecticism on display is breath-taking as is the musicianship and whilst Cosi's saxophone is often, understandably, the lead instrument on these recordings it is never at the cost of the dynamics of the composition, often fading (almost) away to let the music live and breathe.
An immaculate album, heartily and unreservedly recommended.
(www.porterrecords.com)

From The White Chimneys - Nautilus With Wings
(Mystery Sea MS49)
CDR
The gentle opening to this new release from the Mystery Sea label belies the dark heart which subsequently reveals itself. One of the noisier releases I've heard from the label and the one with the most obvious and direct reference to the watery theme of the label, From The White Chimneys (Ben Fleury-Steiner & Danny Kreutzfeldt) have created a nicely sub-aquatic set of powerful and dark drones. Isolationist to the point that it leaves you with a sense of being cast adrift in a Victorian diving bell, the sounds you are hearing emanating from the oceanic press that surrounds you and cuts you off from all external stimulation. Every wash, hiss, creak, rumble and rasp takes on an ominous undertone that add to the overall sense of trepidation that simultaneously feels both meticulously planned and utterly natural.
(www.mysterysea.net)

Iri Li - Broken Summer
(ContraMusikProduktion CMP20)
CD
Iri Li is the recording name of one Irina Lindner who is also one of the people behind the intriguingly named ContraMusikProduktion (and no, I haven't forgotten the spaces). Contra...Music? What a bold assertion to make. I thoroughly approve but it's a hell of a title to live up to don't you think? My dictionary defines 'contra' as meaning 'opposite' or 'against' (it also defines it as a 'Nicaraguan counter revolutionary movement' but I think we can discount that one). So, 'opposite music productions' or 'against music productions'. Being a record label I would imagine the first of those two options is the more likely and after listening to this album I think it's also the most apropos. This is music with a decidedly 'opposite' mindset.
Broken Summer sees Iri Li taking a wide variety of 'traditional' instruments (voice, synth, violin, gong, theremin, piano and more), mixing these with some unidentified home-made instruments and then adding a variety of nicely sourced field-recordings to create a set of creepy and mind-bending compositions. It's obtuse, wilful, contrary, sad, whimsical, intense, wistful, bombastic and melancholic but what I like most about this album is it's all these things without ever forgetting that while it is great fun being 'contra-music' it is still the 'music ' aspect of that definition that drew us into this awkward little corner of the world in the first place and that keeps us searching (whether as musicians or listeners) for that elusive fix. 'Contra' is fine but without the 'music' part it can quickly degenerate into pointless navel-gazing or worthless flailing but that is never the case here. Iri Li has produced 12 separate pieces that combine to create one seamless whole.
Recommended.
(www.ContraMusikProduktion.de)

The Jelas - Blood Smash
(Ingue Records)
CDR
Dada-ish turmoil in a vaguely Gong meets The Fall style that has been recorded with no gaps between the tracks and with the notion that the album can be reassembled into any shape and still work as a single song. Does it work? Yeah kind of but the problem is that it's not the best of songs to start with. It's alright, but the playing is rudimentary, the singing is slightly tuneless and it generally feels quite self-indulgent. None of these things bother me greatly. Indeed they are often things I see as positives in a recording but I must admit I struggled to find the will to re-listen to these recordings to try out the various connotations. Maybe you'll have better luck - I hope so.
(www.inguerecords.com)

Kabyzdoh Obtruhamchi - Kabyzdoh Obtruhamchi
(Stunned #18)
Cass
Interesting cassette album mixing noise and 'traditional' instrumentation from Russian composer Sergey Kozlov. There's an earthy Krautrock atonality to these compositions that really grabbed my attention and more importantly kept it for the duration.
You're probably not going to explore either outer or inner space to these recordings as they've not quite reached psychedelic nirvana but they certainly go to some nifty places and left me wanting to hear more.
(www.stunnedrecords.blogspot.com)

Kostis Kilymis - .accumulated
(Organised music from Thessaloniki #2)
CDR
This very nicely packaged CD arrived with no extra info about the composer other than what was written on the back of the sleeve which credits Kilymis with 'sounds, recordings & processing'. The sounds that Kilymis has recorded have been culled from very ambiguous sources (mostly field recordings I suspect) and processed to maximise their most uncomfortable, piercing, grating and dis-harmonious qualities. He / she / them / it has used these sounds alongside the unprocessed sounds to create a recording with an incredibly sparse beauty that avoids pretty much all the clichés of noise music.
.accumulated certainly won't be to everyone's taste. There is very little concession here towards the comfort of the listener. Microphone pops and knocks are incorporated into the recordings sharing the stage with more deliberate sounds. Many of the tones used are painfully high both in pitch and in the mix. I found myself cringing along to this album on more than one occasion. Of course each cringe was accompanied by a rueful smile because there is an undeniable charm here.
This is easily the least compromising albums I've heard in a very long time and I like it all the more for that fact. Boldness of vision of this calibre should always be supported. Recommended.
(www.thesorg.blogspot.com)

Korperschwache - Eight Velvet Paintings for Helen Keller
(Inam Records 24)
CDR
Late 2008, early 2009 has already seen a crop of releases from Inam records that are to be admired and sought out. Releases by Sujo and Vopat had already made the label into one to watch a fact that was further confirmed the moment Korperschwache hit my seedee player. The music here is less exuberantly post rock than Vopat and less consumed by the search for the cosmic (or Kosmiche) drone than Sujo. Instead Korperschwache occupy the very fertile middle ground between the two mixing long drawn out guitar drones with a welcome tendency to bombastic melody hidden amongst the distortion.
I like this approach. I like this approach a lot. The lazy melodies slowly unfurl and reveal themselves to be part of a greater whole. The production is a little on the muddy side which does dampen the mood a little but only a little. Very much an album to listen to in a single sitting as there is a vague audio narrative to the music that is disturbed by stopping (or so I discovered) but rewards total immersion in it's sound and rewards you well, over and over again.
(inamrecs (AT) yahoo.com)

Zack Kouns - Vast, Dark Expanses Inside Our Bodies
(moonmoonmoonmooon records)
CDR
I must admit I was put off somewhat by the title and cover art (photos of intestines) of this album. I put it on expecting the usual tedious tirade of 'I hate my life so I'm gonna wear black clothes' total noise but I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised. Kouns is definitely a lover of the darker side of life and the ambiences he conjures are very much in line with the title he's given this album but there's a deft hand at work processing (but not overly so) a battery of sounds (lots of guitar) into a nicely chaotic composition. The vocals, I think, let the recording down by being a little unoriginal and I'd like to think that the vast, dark expanse inside my body sounds more like the Piero Umiliani soundtrack to a 1960's Italian porn film rather than droning, atonal industrial guitar abuse. It probably doesn't but I can hope.
Well worth a listen for those amongst you with a taste for the esoteric, the dark and the cacophonous.
(www.zackkouns.com)

Brian Lavelle - Supernaturalist
(EE Tapes EE12)
CD
This is fab. It's mellow, immersive and really rather wonderful.
I don't have a great deal to say cause every time I try to listen to it, it slips away.
Elusive music.
Buy this.
(www.eetapes.be)

Mystified - Pulse Ringer Pieces
(Droehnhaus #3)
LP
Mystified is by far the most prolific musician whose work I regularly receive for review in Wonder Wooden Reasons (even more so than Ghoul Detail). Prolific to the point that at any one given time I probably have three or more of his albums sitting in the pile next to my desk waiting to be listened to. So, firstly, my apologies to those labels who have sent releases by him that have yet to feature - I'll get to them soon - and secondly, so is this one - the first of his I've heard on LP - any good? Well, yes actually it's very good. Mystified releases always feel part of a larger project (not unsurprisingly given what I mentioned above) and this one is no exception. Here, as with the best of his releases, he isn't content to operate within any genre confines although he does have an affinity with the darker sides of music. The darkest of ambiences sit alongside muscular drones and the occasional almost danceable beats that in turn are bathed in hiss, noise and primary coloured flashes of sound. This is definitely one of the best Mystified releases I've heard and considering that they are always, at the very least, worth a listen then please realise that I am praising this highly. Also the fact that it's on vinyl is always to be applauded.
(www.droehnhaus.de)

Rites of Dissonance - Ruins, not Monuments
(Tile Recordings)
CDR
Opening with a slowly swelling static hum Ruins, not Monuments transforms into a metronomic, glowering beast. Like Scorn but with the groove replaced with an unflinchingly relentless beat and some well placed shards of noise Rites of Dissonance have certainly created a beast worthy of the project name. It's industrial heart is surrounded by a mechanical, metallic body that they contort and manipulate into a variety of shapes, all individual and all worthwhile. They're unafraid of altering tempo or ambience and the album is stronger for it.
It's not the type of music that generally floats my boat but I'm always happy when something takes me pleasantly by surprise and this surely did.
(www.tilerecordings.org)

A.M. Shiner - Banarchy
(Stunned #19)
Cass
Static minimalist hissing noise with very little movement and sparse development either within or between tracks. Side two is live and follows much the same path as side one.
Not really my cup of tea this one but I spent an enjoyable couple of listens (in my kitchen because that's where the only cassette player in my house lives) and as an accompaniment to cooking it's a diverting enough experience.
(www.stunnedrecords.blogspot.com)

Sujo - Pia
(Inam Records 22)
3" CDR
Sujo - Arak
(Inam Records 25)
3" CDR
Two 21 minute pieces on two mini-cds both operating at the more muscular end of the drone spectrum. Sujo produce a nicely abrasive, higher consciousness drone with the ability to grab a hold of your frontal node and tie the complete range of boy scout knots in it. They operate at the more muscular end of the drone spectrum - not so much soaring through space as blasting full-throttle into the ether, faces contorted by the g's and your mind epilleptic-ing from the strobing of the stars as you fly past.
I like these two ep's a lot but as they have arrived together, and are fairly similar, I think it's fair to consider them as one album and recommend you buy both cause to have one without the other would be silly and then you'd only be able to make half the journey.
(inamrecs (AT) yahoo.com)

Theo - Encouragement
(Ingue Records)
CDR
Fabulous little post-rock ep of guitar & drums (along with a battery of effects) all played live and simultaneous by one lonely (but very clever) chap from Worcester in the UK called Sam Knight. Musically it's very reminiscent of the woefully under-rated Ganger with it's math sensibilities and looped melodies. It's melodic and hypnotic and utterly deceitful in it's apparent structural simplicity but that is purely down to Knight's skill in his craft.
Regardless of the fact that it's a one man band what you get here is simply astonishingly good. The only part I have issues with is the ugly synth sound on tracks 3 and 4 but I can accept that when the rest of the music is this good.
I am truly gob-smacked by how good this ep is. Buy it now before it's gone forever.
(www.inguerecords.com)

Giancarlo Toniutti - Qwalsamtimutkw?Italuc'ik (And Now He Almost Did Make
Himself Into Hemlock Needles, It Is Said)
(Alluvial Recordings A27)
CD
Definitely the album I was most looking forward to hearing in this months pile of seedees, Toniutti's beautifully packaged album on Alluvial Recordings is a tour-de-force of experimental simplicity. Composed on a 'Rattle-Harp' (a self-built bowed, long thin wire construction), Toniutti's recording was originally conceived as an accompaniment to an exhibition by Luisa Tomasetig. As such it does, I feel, suffer slightly by the absence of it's visual counterpart as for vast swathes of the 59:59 runtime the static-minimalism that characterises Toniutti's work is very static and very minimal. During these parts I found my attention wandering away from the music and also the workaday sounds of life continuing around me rendered chunks of the composition inaudible.
When the stars align however and the world is quiet and the attention is focussed this album fully reveals itself. This isn't an album about change this is an album about stillness. Change is there but in a less-time conscious way than the norm. It usually takes the form of vague speckles of sound that briefly alter the landscape before it returns once more to it's former state.
It must be said though that I did find the minimalism on display here to be a somewhat punishing listen. I don't think this album will be making regular visits to my player but in the course of writing this review it's been played more than half a dozen times and each time I've appreciated it's subtleties more so who can say for sure.
(www.alluvialrecordings.com)
(www.quasi-rn.org)

Tricorn & Queue - Continual Passage
(Stunned #17)
Cass
The curiously named Tricorn & Queue is by far the most accessible of the 3 releases on Stunned Records that are featured in this months Wonderful Wooden Reasons. They confidently straddle the blurry line between psychedelic experimentation and free-form abstraction and produce some sumptuous music. Their forte is very much in the cascading almost-melodies upon which they build their compositions before hiding them behind smoke and mirrors that gives the music a blissfully oneiric quality.
(www.stunnedrecords.blogspot.com)

Vopat - Lathe ep
(Inam Records 26)
3" CDR
Vopat - Call To Them
(Public Guilt PGL006)
3" CDR
Terrific pair of instrumental post rock ep's on little teeny cdrs. They both have much to recommend. Lathe is the more melodic of the two with an almost pop sensibility peeking through in places (the opening of track 2) but in general this music places itself squarely to the left of centre and isn't afraid to change direction on a whim.
Call To Them is the more muscular release opening with some pretty fiery Mogwai-esque guitar abuse that falls into a more mellow excursion before it gets all dark and heavy and full of shrieking guitars on track 3 (one day I'll learn to look at track titles).
I must admit that at no point have I listened to either ep in isolation and so they do kinda blur into one album in my mind and I have to say it's a damn good album. So, my recommendation would be...please, for god's sake, don't buy either one of these ep's! Instead, invest your money wisely and buy both of these eps.
(inamrecs (AT) yahoo.com)
(www.publicguilt.com)

........................................................................................................................

Out now on www.quietworld.co.uk

Ian Holloway & Darren Tate - Wet Rat Year
(sample track available (called '5') via the player at www.myspace.com/psychicspaceinvasion)
Banks Bailey - Vibrations From The Holocene

Still available

Ian Holloway - Where have we been in the world today?
Adrian Shenton - The Measuring of Moments

Please visit the website for details on how to order.

7:58 PM

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(ronsen.org/brekekekexkoaxkoax)

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Best of 2008

Best of 2008

Please note that albums featured in the current issue (24 - December) of Wonderful Wooden Reasons have been excluded from this list simply due to time constraints.

Music

It's been a good year musically for me here at Wonderful Wooden Heights with an almost constant stream of quality music gracing my seedee player over the last 12 months. The 10 albums listed here are merely the visible tip of the iceberg. There are any number of other albums that could have and should have been included here; the Jean Herve Peron & Andrew Liles collaboration, Darren Tate's 'Moon Lit', Andrew Chalk's 'Time Of Hayfield', any number of releases on the Mystery Sea label, Banks Bailey's micro-edition release 'Along an Old Logging Road', Ghoul Detail's 'Glory Hole' and a plethora of others. All these are before I list (don't fret I'm not going to) all the older albums I've discovered through the year via the glory of music blogs.

I hope you had as much fun as I did this year and please feel free to let me know your opinions on my choices and also anything that you think I should be checking out.
Here's to 2009 - Peace, Ian

Brekekekexkoaxkoax - We Used To Be Such Good Friends

(Hushroom Recordings hushroom4)

CDR

If Wonderful Wooden Reasons has been especially difficult to write this month (and it has) then this album is the reason. For the 3 weeks since it arrived on my doormat it's dominated my stereo. It's playing as I type. Nothing unusual in that, the album I'm reviewing usually is. But, and here's my point, this is the third time it's been on today and it's only noon. Yesterday it was playing in the car, on my mp3 player and I played it a couple of times in the house too. It's superb.

Brekekekexkoaxkoax (what is that name about?) is the alter-ego of one Josh Ronsen, from Austin. Texas, and a rotating array of collaborators (here it's Bill Thompson, Jacob Green, Vanessa Arn, Glen Nuckolls and Genevieve Walsh). The role each musician takes is unspecified and to be perfectly honest I care nothing for such things. What is important is the beautiful noise they make as a collective (in whatever combination that may be). Primarily guitar led melodic improvisations (I think) that roll gently around the room. Acoustic instrumentation flows around electronic as the music shifts and drifts like the tide. The music never rests but most importantly never rushes. Every idea that rolls along is allowed to develop fully before it relinquishes it's hold on the ambience and something new takes it's place.

It's an amazing album.

Hearts of Palm - Hearts of Palm

(Palmetto Records No 1)

CDR

Absolutely corking album of occasionally turbulent, occasionally tranquil improv from this US combo. Opening your album with a tumultuous cacophony of guitar, percussion, vocals and other miscellaneous debris is a brave statement of intent that leaves the listener in little doubt as to the ride they are embarking on. HoP seem to derive (and certainly convey) a great deal of pleasure out of create towering Faustian motorik constructs that collide and fuse with some bewildering forays into free-psychedelia. In turns HoP is difficult, obtuse, translucent and bedevilling but throughout it is never less than enthralling.

(www.myspace.com/palmofhearts)

Joe Frawley - The Hypnotist

(JFM-CD03)

CDR

Frawley's 'The Hypnotist' is the third in an ongoing series of piano and samples collages that are, in his words, 'exploring interior worlds of dream and memory'. Having not heard the previous two I cannot really comment on the cohesiveness of the over-arching concept he outlines in the press notes but what I can comment on is the breathtaking quality of the music. Frawley's piano underlies everything here with a series of gently unfurling loops of melody. Intertwined with this is a simply bewildering array of immaculately placed sound effects and voice samples. It is these disembodied voices that take the lead throughout, pulling and guiding us through the twisted and tortuous dream logic inherent in the compositions. An eerie and utterly compulsive listen that is wholeheartedly recommended.

(www.joefrawleymusic.info)

Homework - Monopoly

(Q-Tone hw03)

2xCDR

Every now and again a cd turns up on my doormat that straddles the whole gamut of styles of music that float my boat. Homework's Monopoly accomplishes this and does so with ease and aplomb. I've no idea how many members there are or even the full range of instruments on display (piano, drums and bass seem to play the largest part) but one person or many it matters nothing as it's the music that counts and the music is wonderful, absolutely wonderful.

CD 1 is probably the most impressive piece of work being one long 60 minute meandering journey through the heart of Homework's music. Never once feeling lost or as though the participants are flailing for ideas or direction, it rolls through it's myriad changes playing games with ambience, melody and expectations.

CD 2 with it's three distinct tracks is the more open and inviting listen. Each brings something (often several somethings) different to the table but presented together the create a divine melange of aural delights. Track 1's opening of rolling and overlapping almost Feldman-esque piano lines that slowly transform into the warm embrace of the unhurried melodies of it's second half. The flickering, barely there noises of track 2 and it's emerging bowed bass and piano stabs that are almost washed away in the rainstorms of sound that occasionally burst through. Whereas track 3 arrives in a tangle of rhythm and a sub funk piano skronk with keyboard drone..

The one characteristic of the music that it is possible to pin down is it's willingness to change. It segues effortlessly between drone, jazz, lounge drum 'n' bass (and more) and between wilful experimentation and sumptuous tunesmithery. It really is a most fantastic album and one that'll be dominating my CD player for a long time to come.

Cursillistas - Wasp Stings The Last Bitter Flavor

(Digitalis Arts et Crafts Editions ACE 006)

Matt Lajoie's Cursillistas project has been winding it's own merry psyche-folk way for a couple of albums now, all of which had successfully passed me by until this release on the always magnificent Digitalis Records dropped through my door. It's my understanding that Cursillistas has been slowly evolving over time from a song oriented outfit into it's current free-rolling, trancey and, in all honesty, astonishing current incarnation. Mixing mantra-like chanting, loops of melody, tribal rhythms with an almost kosmiche exploratory vibe Cursillistas has produced an album of startling complexity and subtle nuances that twists your head into a huge bunch of different shapes. Very, very recommended.

Lietterschpich - I Cum Blood in the Think Tank!!!!!!!!

(Heart & Crossbone HCB - 013)

This is the second seedee I've reviewed on the heartily recommended Heart & Crossbone label (see Grave in the Sky) and it's a another absolute corker. Lietterschpich are a rampaging, doom laden noise monster of a collective dedicated to seriously fucking with your ears, mood and mind. This 6 person outfit have taken the sludge metal format and drenched it in a shrieking, grinding, farting cacophonic apocalypse of noise held together by a real, honest to goodness, thumping drum kit. There are actual songs buried inside this morass and that's the ace up Lietterschpich's sleeve. Too many bedroom noisemongers are content to crank everything up to 11 and wail away (which is fine up to a point) but here we see the true glory of noise as it's shaped, focused, aimed and fired with a distinct intent. A truly fabulous listen and easily the best noise album I've heard in a very long time.

Scott Tuma - Not for Nobody

(Digitalis Arts et Crafts Editions ACE010)

I've been doing Wonderful Wooden Reasons for a few years now and over time it became clear that certain labels are an almost sure sign of a quality release. Faraway Press is one, Die Stadt another but for sheer scope of vision and excellence of music nothing comes close to Digitalis Industries. So far this year, four of the best albums I've heard have been released on this label. Finding a Digitalis envelope on my doormat in the morning puts a spring in my step for the rest of the day.

Apparently Scott Tuma is a bit of a legend in his own quiet way having previously released a couple of solo albums as well as being part of Souled American and Boxhead Ensemble. Personally, I'd never heard of any of them so this album came as a spectacular surprise. Being stylistically very similar, Scott Tuma's music is the beautifully stoned to the Dirty Three's beautifully drunk. It's entrancingly haphazard, each note feels meticulously strewn. The music sits down next to you and keeps you company for the best part of an hour (or more if you press repeat). It tells you stories and makes your mind soar and your heart sing.

I love this album.

Vikki Jackman - Whispering Pages

(Faraway Press 14)

A beautiful new album from Vikki Jackman on that sees her returning to the delicately placed piano compositions of her previous release, 'On Beauty Reminiscing'. This time out the onus seems to be on a more atmospheric form of ambience than the sparse, wistful melodies of the other. Her palette is considerably wider here using (amongst others) drones, effects, field recordings, strings and at one point a rhythmic bassline to augment her piano.

'Whispering Pages' was always going to have to go some to exceed my expectations as 'On Beauty' was one of my picks for best album of 2007 but exceed them it does by dint of being so very different from it's predecessor. Yes it's retained the characteristic Feldman-esque broken piano melodies but she has wrapped them in an ambience of such sumptuous, easy and natural beauty that one cannot help but be enveloped in the music to the point that all other considerations become secondary.

Expect to see this album on my (and many other) end of year lists. Breathtaking.

Ghosts On Water - Senshu

(Faraway Press)

Ghosts on Water is Andrew Chalk and Daisuke Suzuki and together the produce some of the finest quiet music around. On his solo recordings Andrew treats sound as a sort of misting or blurring of the senses. He blends the individual sounds into a multi-coloured expressionist colour-field. Daisuke's presence adds an extra dimension to the sound. There are sketches of melody in the slowly tumbling strings that, in places, give the work a vaguely eastern exoticism. Indeed it is the presence of what could, admittedly with a little stretching of the definition, be classed as melody that makes this album so impressive. It has an inherent lyricism that flows along and even across the broad, washing tones upon which everything is built.

As ever, heartily recommended.

Steven R. Smith - Owl

(Digitalis Recordings ACE007)

Steven R. Smith is a guitarist with, amongst others, the Jewelled Antler collective and here his distinct playing is augmented for the first time by his vocals. Smith is obviously well versed in the alternative underground of the last 20 or so years as his songs and sounds bring to mind people such as Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jnr, Songs Ohia, Palace Brothers and others but without ever sounding derivative or forced. His vocals are sparse and delicately placed and his layers of guitars create a slinky, tumbling river of melodies. At times the musicianship seems barely competent to carry the song at other times it is barely contained within the song, pushing, tearing and stretching the limits of it's confines desperate to explode in several new directions.

This is how I imagined the new Thurston Moore album (Trees Outside The Academy) was

going to sound but didn't...this is much better.

Film

Strangely three of the films I've enjoyed most this year are featured in this issue of WWR (Rec, Alien Raiders and Dead Set) so it seemed a little pointless to include them here but they definitely feature. Those I have listed are all heartily recommended from a happy movie about unsmiling suicides, to a documentary about three country singers who made the mistake of speaking freely in the land of 'free speech' but were brave enough to stand by their words, via a Stephen King short story, a comic book movie (probably not the one you'd expect) and one based on a game (that I'd never heard of). They're a strange assortment but each of them got to me in their own way. There were other movies that should probably be on there (No Country For Old Men springs to mind) but I decided to stop at five and these were the five I enjoyed the most.

Wristcutters: A Love Story

I know it sounds like it's going to be emo hell but Wristcutters is a subtle and witty life-affirming tale of both the afterlife and the currentlife. Understated performances, sympathetic characters and a simple but intriguing storyline. I loved this film.

The Mist

A Stephen King movie with a good ending! I know, I was shocked too. Premise - a strange mist rolls into a small coastal town and traps a group of people in a shop. They bicker and argue and one rants endlessly about God's retribution (Stephen King cliché 1) then shit happens and on the whole it's not half bad after a bit of a slow start.

Shut Up And Sing

When I started WWR I'd have never thought that the Dixie Chicks would make an appearance but this documentary charting the 3 years of hassle they got from right wing fucknuts across America after their singer mentioned their dislike for George W. This is a fantastic film which ends on the most amazing high-note.

Mutant Chronicles

I liked this a lot. Made like Sin City with a sort of futuristic steampunk feel to it. Sure there are plot holes you could drive a steam(punk)train through but what the hell. Beautiful looking with a quality cast that obviously took it seriously without ever taking it too seriously. Always nice to see a sci-fi movie with an actual sci-fi setting and premise.

Iron Man

My inner geek was doing somersaults over this movie. It's as light and fluffy as the Fantastic Four movies but looks fabulous and Downey is perfectly cast as Stark. Don't let the negative comparisons to Batman: The Dark Knight put you off. it's a different film with different aims and is well worth a watch.

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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Issue 24 - December 2008

(Heart & Crossbone HCB-009)

Israeli label Heart & Crossbone have been responsible for some of the most extreme and punishing music to grace my seedee player and this album by Barbara continues that noble tradition. Mixing some fabulous grindcore riffing with a defiantly math rock angularity before adding some old school Septic Death style vocals pushes many of the right buttons for me. In places this reminds me very much of John Zorn's Naked City project (in particular the Torture Garden album) but what that project had that Barbara lacks is a crystal clear production. Much of Peger's power is lost in the fuzzy murk of their mix which for a less adventurous band would have been a blessing but here it serves only to steal away a good proportion of the impact and that's a real shame. Like I said earlier though this is cracking stuff that with a little more time spent on the mix would have been utterly earth-shattering.

(www.myspace.com/feelscaperecordings)

Mark Bradley - Drifting

(Feelscape Recordings FRC01)

CDR

This debut Feelscape Recordings release is by American sound mangler Mark Bradley and it is indeed and auspicious start for the label as he here provides some deep and languid explorations. The albums centrepiece, the 28 (and change) minute long third track (Drifting), is both the most sonically interesting and the track that's least likely to get repeated plays due to it's mix of the rounded tonalities, that characterise much of the rest of the album, with some really quite piercing high end tones. I like this tactic but it's one I can only take in short doses and after the best part of 30 minutes I'd had enough. Don't let this really minor quibble put you off giving this a try though because this album is well worth a listen.

Brekekekexkoaxkoax - I Manage To Get Out By A Secret Door

(eh? 35)

CDR

I was absolutely besotted with the first Brekekekexkoaxkoax album I heard (We Used To Be Such Good Friends) and indeed if the truth be told I still am. It is probably the best album I heard in 2008. I mention this to give you some measure of how much this one, it's predecessor, has to live up to. So, does it? Well, yes actually. It seems that on 'We Used...' those involved were continuing on from where they left off on this earlier set of explorations. The ensembles assembled around guitarist Josh Ronsen are more fluid in their composition this time out (two solo pieces, a duo, a trio and a quartet) and the instrumentation seems less elusive with Ronsen's guitar being the most readily apparent.

The real glory of the Brek-etc ensembles lies in their willingness to embrace musicality. Far too often we hear improvisational groups diving headlong into jarring atonalities without ever taking the time to consider what it would be like to improvise around a melody and do so in a thorough and engrossing way utterly devoid of musical clichés. It's a joy to hear musicians who seem to consider both directions as being equally valid of investigation.

Once again, I am stunned. A beautiful album, heartily recommended.

(ronsen.org/brekekekexkoaxkoax)

Valerio Cosi - Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock

(Digitalis DIGI049)

If ever there was an album title that was going to confuse the casual passer-by then this one has got to be a candidate. Italian Saxophonist Cosi has created an absolutely staggering set of eastern tinged explorations of his instrument garnished with some immaculately conceived bursts of rhythm and noise (by which I do not mean the black clad and screaming scat-muncher variety but more the wild-eyed and giggling acid casualty variety). The closest parallel I could give you to Cosi's compositions would be early Krautrock, indeed track 3, 'Proud to be a Kraut - A Burning OM - Reprise', is probably the best song Neu never recorded, but still this music is purely and simply his own. Even at it's most repetitive and atonal there is a musicality bubbling just under the surface that makes 'Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock' a deliciously addictive and joyous experience. Over the last month it has taken root in my seedee player refusing to allow anything else a turn but that's fine by me as this is easily one of the best albums I've heard in 2008.

The Declining Winter - Goodbye Minnesota

(Rusted Rail RRI4)

Mellow post-rock with added singing from this UK one man band (Richard Vincent Adams) that's very nicely packaged and with some really quite beautiful melodies floating around. I'm less taken with the vocals though which are generally flat and lifeless and ranged from being mildly irritating to downright annoying depending on my mood. The music though is where the appeal lies and Adams writes a nice tune although the lack of dynamism on display means Goodbye Minnesota is a slightly one dimensional listen but one that was enjoyed with reservations.

(www.rustedrail.com)

Ensemble Economique - At The Foot Of Nameless Roads

(Digitalis DIGI053)

you know how sometimes you listen to an album which you're thoroughly enjoying but the little voice at the back of your head is nagging at you that it sounds like something else. Well, it took over a month of steady listening to 'At The Foot Of Nameless Roads' for me to finally work out what it is that this album reminds me of and it's NWW's 'Salt Marie Celeste' in particular the segment where the rigging starts creaking.

Ensemble Economique's Brian Pyle (also of Starving Weirdos & RV Paintings) has on his debut solo album created a set of organic & ethnographically vibrant drone pieces. You get the impression that Pyle has scoured the globe amassing flutes and pipes in all manner of exotic guises that he's woven together to create an album of sumptuous textures. Further into the album modern technology arrives on the scene with the addition (or the wider participation) of electronic sounds including beats. This does nothing to mar the beauty of the album it simply adds a extra, harsher dimension.

I think my preference would have to be for the earlier parts of this album, just due to my fondness for acoustic drones, but that's just me trying to find something less effusive to write as, when all is said and done, this is an immaculate album that should be hunted down at all cost.

Hollowing + Maor Appelbaum - Collaborating Torture

(Heart & Crossbone HCB-017 + Topheth Prophet TP-016)

A darker than the darkest dark bit of a really dark night dark-ambient collaboration from Israeli musician Appelbaum and his US compatriot Matt (Hollowing) Gibney. Collaborating Torture is a monolithic glacier of sound slowly grinding everything in it's path to dust. There isn't the remotest iota of relief or release present in this music. It doesn't rest, veer or retreat in it's inexorable advance. Those with the darkest (of dark) appetites will love this.

(www.myspace.com/hourglassprojects)

(www.TOPHETH.org)

Hourglass Drops vs. Norss - Stella

CDR

Nice, limited edition dark ambient release by these two artists. Hourglass Drops providing the first 5 tracks and Norss the sixth although time-wise that's about an equal split. Both outfits take a refreshingly varied approach to the noise they make. All 5 of HD's tracks make use of an individual palette of sounds many eschewing the usual overly processed sounds and generally keeping the tones clean, clear and direct. Some of the tracks are missing a little colour (track 3) and end up sounding a little dull but others are a psychedelic swirl of the stuff (track 4).

Norss takes the slowly evolving longform route and do it pretty well indeed. They are also operating at the more domineering end of the spectrum, this isn't the most ambient of ambient music. The piece does suffer a little from slightly muddy mix but that clears up a little over the course of the track with the sounds gradually becoming clearer as the composition moves along it's way.

If you're a fan of the genre then this is definitely worth checking out.

(www.myspace.com/norss)

Brian Lavelle - The Petrified Forest

(Taalem alm 51)

3"CDR

There are two Brian Lavelles. There's the Brian Lavelle that creates mature and mannered ambient compositions that slowly reveal themselves like a flower unfolding to greet the sun. Then there's the Brian Lavelle that creates head mangling, massively psychedelic, cosmic drones. I like the first Lavelle but his music has a tendency to become just a little too nice for my palette. I love the second Lavelle! When he fires that tone at you there's no escape. You're along for the ride and the ride is always good.

Well, I'm happy to report that this 2 track, 20 minute set is definitely from the latter and it's cracking stuff. The amorphous bloops and swoops mean it's just sci-fi sounding enough to make my inner geek giggle with delight and it's soaring fluid composition is 'out there' enough to make my outer space-cadet groan with psychedelic ecstasy.

A fine recording from an artist working at the top of his game.

(www.taalem.com)

Christopher McFall - This Heat Holds Snow

(Mystery Sea MS48)

CDR

American soundscaper McFall here presents a bleak and foreboding soundworld full of trepidation and disquiet. I'm uncertain as to the methodology behind what I'm hearing but what I am certain of is that much of the sound on display here is derived from processed field recordings made in and around his home base of Kansas City. Is the music he creates from these a representation of the place or of his feelings with regard to it? If so then it must be a hell hole of biblical proportions as there is not even the slightest hint of light or relief in the music he's composed. The five constituent tracks of isolationist noise-drone, rumble and grind establishing a sandpaper-sharp foundation that are accompanied by an almost insectile, skittering of sounds that one can almost feel or by organic belches of hazy noise that surge queasily from the speakers.

This is probably the darkest sounding album I've heard from the Mystery Sea stable and as ever it's an absolute corker.

Taiko Oroshi - Bleeder Locked Attack

(R.o.N.F. Records RNF-026)

CDr

Speaker, and eardrum, shattering shards of broken digital noise are the forte of Danish musician Claus Haxholm. Bleeder Locked Attack is a littered with fast moving and uncomfortable shards of sound that Haxholm tosses around with a wonderfully blase disregard for his listener. The tracks are, for the most part, nice and short so long before a sound or an idea becomes entrenched or passe it is has been discarded and we are all happily ensconced in the next track. My one real complaint is in the similarity of much of the textures he uses. There is a grittiness to many of the sounds that is interchangeable as though he has used the same effect (be it pedal or processor) on each track. That however is a quibble as this is a fun noise release that while not really offering anything new to a very full genre is still a fun listen.

(www.myspace.com/sentientrecognitionarchive)

Fabio Orsi - The Wild Light Of The Moon

(Sentient Recognition Archive SRA 005)

CDR

This is my first sampling of the music conjured up by Berlin based musician Fabio Orsi but his is a name I've been hearing mentioned alongside glowing adjectives for a while now. So, with all preconceptions and expectati9ons put aside (at least as much as possible) I was keen to give a listen to his long-form drone album for US label SRA and he does not disappoint in the slightest. 'The Wild Light of the Moon' is a single track of nicely immersive Kosmiche drone complete with cool sparkly bits glittering around it's edges. 'TWLotM' is a genial and glowing sunrise that with the gentle addition of field recordings (birds) into the mix flows around you warming you in it's glow. Think Phaedra or Rubycon era Tangerine Dream but with a more contemporary sound bank and you won't be far off the mark. A very good album.

Quetev Meriri - Quetev Meriri

(Gush Punk A)

There was an advert that ran on UK T.V. throughout the 70's and 80's for a sickly sweet chocolate bar based on (and called) Turkish Delight (it tastes nothing like it in case you're wondering). It carried the slogan 'Full of eastern promise.' which is the phrase that jumped into my head when I first played this album by Israeli trio Quetev Meriri. Their experimentalism is very much based in the folk music and instrumentation of their region and is, I think, the stronger for it.

This trio create a wonderfully atonal, clanging, driven (and driving) tumult of sound based around what for the most part sound like stringed instruments being used and abused in all manner of interesting and fun ways. Sitting on top of this aural soup are the chanted texts of various poets. For the most part these dirge like vocals are the low point of the album. Their pointlessness preventing me for fully submerging in the music. Regular readers will recognise though that I am rarely complimentary about vocals (particularly, as we have here, improvised vocalising) so my opinion is to be taken with a hefty pinch of salt.

The music though is an interesting excursion through these musicians collective sensibilities and fans of outfits such as Volcano The Bear will find much to love here.

(almamusic AT gmail.com)

Kenji Siratori - Bloody Brain

(R.o.N.F. Records RNF-023)

CDr

A stuttering noise fest from Siratori of sandpaper sonorities used to create two fairly sizeable noise-scapes. Track one is for me the least successful of the two, lacking in depth somewhat. Track 2 though is a complete riot. Sound attacking from every angle in a restless and cacophonous blast of sound. Good fun.

(www.myspace.com/sentientrecognitionarchive)

Synchdub - Twilight Last Glance

CDR

I must admit the name of this project had me guessing as to the contents. The sleeve art doesn't give away much either. Usually you can get a feel for what's coming but this time... Synchdub is dub in the same way Mick Harris's Scorn project is dub; predominantly low and slow beats and drones that arrive in a haze of aromatic combustibles.

What's on offer is a cool collection of down-tempo atmospherics with a nicely sleazy vibe running through it. It's like bad sex done well. Even when it's trying to raise the tone (and spirits) it manages to keep things feeling vaguely low-rent and sordid. TLG is a long way from the sounds that dominate most of my, increasingly rare, free time but over the last couple of weeks it has made numerous visits and I suspect will continue to do so.

(www.myspace.com/synchdub)

throuRoof - Whale Bones

(Sentient Recognition Archive SRA 006)

CDR

Slow build dark drone album from this Italian sound-maker that mixes ominous tones with occasional forays into echo laden almost ritualistic drumming. I generally find this sort of portentous music to be either quite tedious or un-intentionally funny but Throuroof manages to completely avoid the second of those pitfalls while skirting around the edges of the former. There are parts of this album that are allowed to continue way too long to maintain my interest but fortunately when they do change it's always in a worthwhile direction that pulls me back into the embrace of the music for a while at least before that too stays past it's welcome. Of the two tracks it is the second that is for me the most successful, it's mid-pitched tones overlapping and tripping through their journey. It's a far more ambient excursion than the first and one that is genuinely engaging and immersive.

An album that is very much recommended for it's second track but with reservations about the first.

Mirko Uhlig - The Nightmiller

(Mystery Sea MS47)

CDR

I'm ill so I think it might just be the medication talking but Nightmiller sounds to me like a great job title.

'Who are you?'

'I am the Nightmiller! Beware my finely-ground floury wrath!!!'

Mirko Uhlig's Nightmiller however is a lot mellower than the one in my head. His is more the painterly sort, delicately mixing his palette of only the warmest of hues to create a sumptuously warm landscape into which to travel.

To continue with my painting metaphor, Uhlig works with long, steady, confidant brushstrokes. His colours clear and precise. At no point does this work feel spontaneous but instead there is an aura of meticulous planning in this display of masterly technique. If this description makes 'The Nightmiller' sound dry and unwelcoming then I apologise because it is neither of these things. While it is true that the immediacy of more unstructured or improvised music is absent the sheer quality of what has been crafted in it's place more than makes up for it and makes Nightmiller one of the finest drone albums it's been my pleasure to hear this year.

Uton - We're Only In It For The Spirit

(Digitalis DIGI052)

Uton first came to my attention via the exuberant praise of Darren Tate who for the past couple of years has been mining the Finish underground for aural gold. Jani Hirvonen's Uton (here joined by J.P. Koho) has been, for me at least, the stand-out find of that search.

On 'We're Only In It...' the pairing conjure up a set of enchantingly dark psychedelia that mixes drones and acoustic instrumentation with nebulous noise. The music is rarely content to remain static for long, it's forward momentum propelling it through a myriad of permutations almost all of which are as unexpected as they are obvious. It's an entrancing listen that has been a nightmare to review as I keep drifting off into it and forgetting to write anything until the sudden stop at the end jars me back into awareness.

Zanston.es - Donostiako Zuloak

(R.o.N.F. Records RNF-020)

CDr

Recorded in Spain for use in a live performance this recording by Zanstones is an interesting mix of processed field recordings. The out of place familiarity of much of the sounds gives the piece a deliciously uncomfortable surrealism which is spoiled somewhat by the overuse of the rumbling, rolling noise drone that underpins vast swathes of the cd. I can't help but feel that the recording would have benefited massively from allowing the field recordings to dictate the piece rather than the less interesting and muddily recorded rumble. Listenable but flawed.

Movies

Alien Raiders

Almost the exact same premise as The Mist (minus all that ridiculous Jesus malarkey) and almost as good too. A great little low budget alien invasion movie. Very recommended.

Dead Set

Written by fabulously funny Guardian newspaper columnist (my Mondays wouldn't be the same without him) and writer Charlie Brooker (he was one of the people behind the Brass Eye Paedo-geddon episode) this was a short (5 episode) UK TV series (also shown as a single stand alone 'movie' episode) based on the premise that the only people left alive after a zombie outbreak are the dim-wits in the Big Brother house. It's a great piece of TV that hopefully will herald a resurgence of quality boundary pushing, genre-defining TV that has been solely lacking from the UK of late.

Also it's a joy that after so many bad ones we finally get two quality zombie 'films' in a row (this one and Rec). Hallelujah.

My Name is Bruce

...Campbell and I'm going to trade on it to make a film that looks ok on paper but is pretty bad in actuality. I'll get the cheapest actors I can find, bang a script together over lunch and stick in some pointlessly smug references to my other (better) films and I'll make some easy money.

REC

The slowest of slow starts transforms into one of the most wonderfully visceral scary movies I've seen in a good long while. Made for the Spanish equivalent of the price of three packs of Tic-Tacs and a Pot Noodle, it's a blood-thirstily, blood-curdling zombie(ish) splatter-fest. The only thing I struggled with is the whole single camera thing which is getting a bit old now (and was never that great an idea to start with) but don't let that put you off because this thing is fabulous.

12:36 AM

(Add Comment) |

2 Kudos

(www.myspace.com/bigblock454uk)

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Issue 23 - October ’08

Accomplice Affair - Jezioro Wspomnien

(My Hands Music MHM001)

CDR

Composed primarily using keyboards, guitar, voice and processing this dark ambient project by Polish musician Przemyslaw Rychlik is a decidedly more mellow and psychedelic beast than is the usual case with that genre. His atmospheres are interesting enough but the vocals he scatters throughout the album, especially the whispering, whilst initially an interesting addition to the album soon become quite tiresome. The music also occasionally looses it's way as track three gets to be a bit late 70's Pink Floyd sounding towards the end and track two begins as scarily new age. It's certainly not all negatives though as Rychlik really does know his way around both his instruments and his genre as shown on the excellent soundscape that constitutes the sixth (and title) track. It's certainly an interesting take on a genre that admittedly I don't visit very often but not, I think, an essential addition.

(www.accompliceaffair.za.pl)

Big Block 454 - Bratislava

CDR

I liked the last BB454 album i heard but the daftness got on my nerves more than a little and spoilt the album for me. This time out however the daftness is fully integrated into the album. it's woven throughout in both the music and the lyrics and boy does it work. Sure there are moments throughout that I'm not connecting with (Melamine for instance) but on the whole, and it's the whole that counts, this is corking stuff that takes elements of Devo, The Residents and a whole host of other outsider pranksters and adds a healthy dose of English eccentricity to create something new and wonderful. This isn't going to be for everyone but it's definitely for me.

Burmese / Cadaver Eyes - Split

(HCB Records HCB-016 New Scream Industry IND-002)

Dear Santa

For Christmas this year our singer would like a new throat as the one he's got is now ruined. Those bass amps you brought us last year now sound like farts in a hail storm. Thank you very much they're perfect. Also Mark says thanks for the drumkit. He's beaten it half to death and the cymbals now sound like saucepans.

We've made an album with our friends Cadaver Eyes. They're really good and like us they've mutilated all their instruments to within an inch of their lives. We will leave a copy of the album for you with your milk and mince pies. We think you'll like it a lot because it's proper noisy.

Lots of love

Burmese

(www.newscreamindustry.blogspot.com)

Ghoul Detail vs. Norss - The Endless Days of Loss

(Norss Plåten No004)

CDR

It's an uncharacteristically mellow Ghoul Detail that greats our ears on this new (and very limited) split album. In place of his usual apocalyptic roar there is an understated post-industrial dark ambient rumble that links his three contributions. I like this side of his music (I like the other sides too) and I think it's a shame that it doesn't come out to play as often as it probably should.

Norss are very much in the same mould with his / her / their / it's (delete as applicable) contribution being generally more of the same but with the addition of a more aggressively noisy stance. It's a good track that is marred slightly by a poor mix but has a real nice flow to it. A little more time and attention spent on the production would have made this something really worth to listening to.

There're only 22 copies of this in existence so I think you'll be lucky to grab a copy but as with all Ghoul Detail releases it's well worth the effort.

(www.myspace.com/norss)

(www.myspace.com/ghouldetail)

Homework - Monopoly

(Q-Tone hw03)

2xCDR

Brian Lavelle - Alessandri's Dream

CDR

Produced in a private edition of just 15 copies you've got about as much chance of getting your hands on a copy of this fabulous little EP as I have of becoming pope. Lavelle has long been a prime mover in this little corner of the musical universe we call home and over the years has amassed a substantial discography. Alessandri's Dream is his trribute to Italian surrealist Lorenzo Alessandri and consists of a 17 minute isolationist drone that billows from the speakers in a fog of translucent colours. For most of it's existence it is content to hover and waft around the room but in it's dying moments it announces it's imminent demise with a short and understated fanfare of tones.

Beautiful and recommended.

(www.brianlavelle.org)

Stephane Leonard - Lykkelig Dyr

(Heilskabaal + Naivsuper)

3 years in the preparation, this new album from Berlin based musician / artist Stephane Leonard makes some interesting alchemy.

On reading the press release you'd be forgiven for expecting a cornucopia of exotic aural snapshots from the varied locations and happenings that Leonard recorded for use on this project. Not so as Lykkelig Dyr reveals itself to be a much more conventional concoction. Don't get me wrong this is still a psychedelic soundclash albeit one operating within distinctly musical boundaries, the most obvious being Glitch.

Like much of the best music to emerge from that scene Leonard's rhythmical manage to just stay on the obtuse side of being both melodic and rhythmic. These clusters of tones and bleeps spattering themselves across a hard backdrop of processed sounds. It's the composition that brings the whole to life though. Slightly cold and unemotional Leonard's sound palette may be but in his hands they are mixed into a sinuously relentless concoction capable of transmuting these base elements into pure (digital) gold.

(www.heilskabaal.net)

(www.naivsuper.de)

Mystified / Swamps Up Nostrils - Monstro

(Krakilsk kra046)

CDR

It's been a few months since Mystified last graced these pages with his presence. This was a conscious decision on my part as his releases (along with several others) were becoming a regular feature on WWR. I'm glad I did it because coming back a couple of months later with fresh ears has helped me once again appreciate how good he's getting at all this quiet noise palaver. The abundance of voice samples on his contributions may preclude Monstro from being a regular feature on my seedee player as I find they struggle to retain my attention for long which is purely a personal taste thing - I just prefer instrumentals. So tuning them out and focusing in on the music reveals on Mystified's first track a lush, glacially slow rumble upon which he's constructed the voice sample narrative that drives the piece. His other contribution continues this idea but with a slightly more dynamic and mobile instrumental base.

Swamps Up Nostrils whilst having the worst name I've stumbled across lately create some fine lo-fi ambient noise. Very much in keeping with the mood established by Mystified on the opening half of the record SUN have constructed two fine examples of earthy, tectonic crackle. Both tracks are well worth a listen but they are probably too minimalist for their own good and end up feeling a little one dimensional.

Interesting contributions from both artists but not, I think, the best work of either artist.

(www.krakilsk.org)

Terje Paulsen - Septober

(Q-Tone qt01)

CDR

This inaugural release on Q-Tone features the caustic soundscapes conjured by one Terje Paulsen. His mix of acoustic instrumentation and dense atmospherics makes for nail-biting listening as he weaves a tapestry of trepidation and discomfort in which to enfold the listener. The instrumentation is amorphous and the sounds are warm, although warm in a deep, dank, dark cellar kind of way which can never be a bad thing.

I'm struggling to write about this album because it's power isn't in it's boldness or it's grandeur but in the ease in which Paulsen generates a mood and then holds you immersed in it for the duration. Heartily recommended.

(www.myspace.com/stellarauditorium)

Dave Phillips - The Hermeneutics of Fear of God

(Absurd Records)

There was a time, back around '87 - '89, where the longest song I was listening to probably clocked in at around 1 minute in length and sounded like someone being loudly sick. The majority of my ear-space was taken up by bands such as Extreme Noise Terror, Napalm Death, Heresy, Chaos UK, and Amebix amongst others. On this solo cut Dave Phillips of Fear of God has sent me spiralling back to those cider and weed fuelled days with this relentless, grinding cacophony of great old school grindcore. There are elements of all the above mentioned bands here (especially Amebix) but what this made me think of more was that this is what Godflesh would have sounded like if Justin Broadrick had retained his love of speed when he left Napalm Death. Fast, short, crusty, noisy, industrial, grind...something for everyone!

(www.absurd.com.br)

Procer Veneficus - Saltwater & Glassmoon

(New Age Dawn / Stellar Auditorium Productions AUD001)

CDR

Procer Veneficus is the improbable alter ego of one Derek Schultz. His music mixes sparse icy vista soundscapes with dark isolationist ambiences. Throughout the album he travels some interesting roads but never really seems to arrive at an equally interesting destination. The music is thick with portentous atmospheres and dense, nebulous instrumentation but the mix is often muddy and drowns the more interesting aspects in gloop - track 3 being the worst culprit. As noted earlier though Schultz does have a nifty way with conjuring the darkest and starkest of ambiences which at the right time and in the right mood really lock themselves onto your psyche especially on the second and fifth tracks which are absolute corkers.

(www.newagedawn.co.uk)

Underjordiska - Dystert Vilse

(New Age Dawn / Stellar Auditorium Productions)

CDR

Dahl from Underjordiska is angry! There's a vein throbbing in his forehead, his eyes are wide and staring and he's gone a bit purple. He's angry! Angry! Angry! Angry! And demonic! Grrr! Snarl! Grrr! You can tell all these things because he's shouting. He's shouting a lot and he's doing it with loads of distortion and quite quietly in the mix so it sounds more evil. And really dated. I thought people stopped doing this sort of comedy devilry years ago. It's a tired old horse that's been worked to death, flogged, revived as an evil zombie horse, then worked and flogged some more before being left to rot in a field (an evil field). It's a tired and hackneyed musical cliche but I thought it had been given up on mostly because it sounds crap!

Right about now you're probably asking yourself 'I thought he didn't write about albums he didn't like. What happened to the 'no slagging stuff off' rule?' Well, it's not been forgotten, or ignored, because behind the vocals is some really nice music. A Branca like swarm of buzzing guitars that create a dynamic and restless gothic drone that would have lovers of bands such as Skullflower dropping to their knees in worship at the altar of Underjordiska. If they can get past the vocals they probably still will be but personally I couldn't.

Underjordiska & Spectral Lore - Split

(New Age Dawn / Stellar Auditorium Productions)

CDR

It's a very different sounding Underjordiska that opens up this split album to the one that appears on his own New Age Dawn release. Throughout that other album I was wishing he'd shut up and go the instrumental route but this really isn't what I expected would happen if he did. His 32 minute contribution here is probably the polar opposite of that other release. Gone is the furious guitar abuse an in it's place is a sedate and stately melodic drone piece. The muddiness of the mix means that full immersion in the soundworld is difficult but his deft ear for noise, melody and composition means that this is an engaging listen.

Spectral Lore offer more of the same but accompany it with a nastier, grittier edge. Theirs is a slow-wash drone music drenched in an acidic cocktail that has, in places, corroded their drones into a rasping, ragged, beautiful grind. In other places their drones are billowing and malleable although, as with the previous track the muddy mix does spoil things a little. There is a minor glitch around two thirds of the way through the track with the introduction of some new instrumentation which serves only to burst the carefully modulated ambience but things are soon back on track (please excuse the pun) and things are wrapped up nicely.

Underjordiska's solo album I recommended with reservations. This split album I'm just going to recommend.

(www.myspace.com/stellarauditorium)

Wounded Knee - Green Tea Ceremony

(Shazzblat 003)

CDR

Voice and delay pedal improvisation from Scotsman Drew Wright. Not a lot I can say really except he's gone for the vaguely Tuvan / Mongolian adenoidal throat singing style. It reminds me of someone else so much that each time I play it I spend the first 5 minutes of the album trying to remember who it is which is driving me insane. For my taste a single 32 minute voice track is way too long to hold the interest as it never changes or evolves in any truly significant way. The voice is an interesting and generally under-explored tool but Wright's voice does, I think, need the support of other instruments to add extra levels to what, in their absence, is a slightly one-dimensional listen.

(www.shazzblat.com)

Movies.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres

Worth watching for the opening song alone but this movie spin off from the TV adventures of a milkshake, a packet of fries and a meatball is a chuckle. Weed helps.

Dead Space: Downfall

Anime spin-off from the game of the same name. I really don't think I need to say anymore.

Hell Ride

Tarrantino produced Hells Angels movie that with the exception of Vinnie Jones is well worth a watch. It's done on the cheap and is another attempt at the Grindhouse audience. It's better than his Death Proof - which is a very watchable film - and manages to be entertaining throughout it's rollercoaster runtime.

The Incredible Hulk

So much better than the Ang Lee abortion from the other year. This is the Hulk redone in line with the template Marvel have been refining over the last couple of years with Fantastic Four and Iron Man. It's fluffy and inoffensive and an entertaining enough way to pass an afternoon.

Iron Man

My inner geek was doing somersaults over this movie. It's as light and fluffy as the fantastic four movies but looks fabulous and Downey is perfectly cast as Stark. Don't let the negative comparisons to Batman: The Dark Knight put you off. it's a different film with different aims and is well worth a watch.

Pineapple Express

I'm eagerly awaiting Zack & Miri Make a Porno so I thought I'd check out a Seth Rogen film in the meantime as I'd not seen any. He's personable enough as are the other cast members but this is essentially Cheech and Chong for the texting generation with a paper thin plot and a few laughs.

Taken

The beginning and the end are taken (badum-tshh) from the cheesiest of teen movies and the rest of the film is just a little bit pointless. It's like a geriatric Bourne crossed with that Harrison Ford film where he loses his wife. Not The Fugitive the one set in Paris which I can't be bothered to look up. You know the one. It was pretty rubbish but waaaay better than this crap.

10:44 PM

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Monday, September 22, 2008

Issue 22 - September ’08

Dead Wood - Harmonic Sector 1-10

(Dead Sea Liner 18)

CDR

The understated and slightly clumsy fractal-esque cover art tells a subtle truth about this album from Dead Wood (Adam Baker) as it gives a first glimpse into the retro-primitive electronic soundworlds produced by this artist. Composed from a cavalcade of tones and drones Baker avoids the pitfall of cold electric paralysis that often accompanies releases of this sort by keeping his sounds in constant motion. They tumble over each other, albeit at a very leisurely pace, and tracks are developed with a keen ear for structure. What is missing for me however, and this I find is often the case with music that pursues this entirely electronic avenue, is any sort of emotional attachment to the sounds. I can appreciate the skill involved in their generation and in their construction and it makes for excellent background ambient music but in true listening terms it is lacking that indefinable something that grabs your attention and holds you rapt for the duration.

(www.deadsealiner.co.uk)

Mathias Delplanque - L'inondation

(Mystery Sea MS45)

CDR

If my reading of the press statement is correct then at least the bare bones (if not the entirety) of this remarkable album consists of a recording (or recordings) made from sounds filtering up from the lower floors of Delplanque's apartment building. L'inondation consists of all those sounds that are so exotic and disturbing in a 'silent' house - drips, hisses, clangs & taps. Sounds that are both amorphous and mundane. For Delplanque they are the building blocks from which he creates his soundworld. As you'd expect from that premise there isn't huge scope of material to be had but those sounds that are available are used to their utmost and to spellbinding effect.

(www.myspace.com/palmofhearts)

Elapse-O - Elapse-O

(Records On Ribs)

CDR & Download

Oxford two-piece who produce a shimmery and bludgeoning shoegaze haze very much in the tradition of Suicide and Spaceman 3 and that my friends is never, ever a bad thing. Elapse-O's sonic turbulence isn't going to be to everyone's taste but then some people wouldn't know good music if it was slapping them in the face with a month old haddock. The album is short and sweet clocking in at twenty and half minutes and the lovely folks at Records On Ribs have made it available as a free download via their website. Personally though I reckon you should show some love and send them some cash for an actually, exists in the real world, copy. You won't regret it.

(recordsonribs.com)

El Heath - A (Rather) Dead Sea Liner EP

(Dead Sea Liner 17)

CDR

One of the gems of this months issue of WWR is this short ep of quiet noise and melody from El Heath - about whom I know absolutely nothing. The recording is coarse and the instruments are played often (but not always) with seemingly little effort or attention yet it all works wonderfully well. Almost everything about this recording reminded me of the work of UK drone maestro (and WWR friend and fave) Darren Tate in particular the work he has been producing of late such as Strange Artifact. It has that casual, sitting room psychedelia feel that makes his work - and this - so very appealing. It really took me by surprise how much I like this one - bravo to El Heath and bravo to Dead Sea Liner. I look forward to the album.

(www.deadsealiner.co.uk)

Faust - Kleine Welt (Live)

(Ektro Records ektro-046)

Opening with an uninspired and rather lumpen bassline (from the normally thoroughly reliable Michael Stoll) this new live album from the Hans Joachim Irmler version of Faust gets off to a inauspicious start. The band seem ill at ease, the music restless and strained. It isn't truly until the albums 17 minute centrepiece of Crawling Wax that things really start to gel, although every step forward from that opening is a step forward.

This Faust is a more straight-ahead beast than the Zappi / Peron faction. It's every bit as obscure but it's obscurity lies very much in a musicianly dynamic as opposed to the dada-esque industrial willfullness of the other. My preference is for the latter but that does not in any way preclude the former. When they are searching for the heart of the music (like on the afore-mentioned Crawling Wax) they are painstakingly and absorbingly methodical in their excavations and when they are simply rocking out (Thru & Jet Set Lady) they are great fun. But what's missing for me though is the beautiful laughing goddess of chaos who dances through the best of the Faust albums; everything here seems rather serious. I can't hear any smiles and it's the smiles that make a Faust album better than anyone else's.

It's good but it's not fabulous.

(www.ektrorecords.com)

Fordell Research Unit - Real Men Drink Horse Milk

(Dead Sea Liner 14)

CDR

Every few months a package lands on my threadbare blue doormat from the Dead Sea Liner label. This is always a good thing but some months it is a very good thing. This is one of those months. Quite apart from the casual psychedelia of El Heath, the enigmatically named Fordell Research Unit produce a racket that is guaranteed to shake your head bones until they rupture. FRU are a breath of fresh air in a stagnating noise scene. Their compositions are razor sharp and avoid the banal homogeneity of sound and (lack of) vision favoured by many of their contemporaries. 'Real Men Drink Horse Milk' (if this is true then I'll happily remain a fraud) is a short but ferociously effective excursion into their music that'll leave you breathless and demanding more.

I really have no idea what they are researching though.

(www.deadsealiner.co.uk)

French Crips - French Crips

(Palmetto Records No 2)

CDR

Also recording (with others) under the name Hearts of Palm whose album of the same title was raved over in these pages recently French Crips is the Cincinnati based duo of Jay Wilson and Mike Hancock. In contrast to the abstracted psychedelia of that ensemble this, their duo project, is a much noisier and more (and I use this term loosely and with large reservations) structured set. Far more electronic, rhythmic and downright noisy, French Crips' improvisations are a more aggressive and industrialised beast than that of their counterpart. For me it is HoP which is the more successful project but that is not meant to detract from FC in the slightest as what we have here is a tumultuous noisescape that drags you along in it's wake; bruised, battered and bewildered but also breathless with anticipation as to where they are going to (or through) next.

Inverz - Variations on Hold

(More Mars mm05)

CDR

Another quality release from this new Greek label. The one man band that makes up Inverz has compiled this release from recordings made over a two year period. This doesn't show which either shows a remarkable lack of progression on his part or a consistency of vision that is to be admired. I'm opting for the latter. The music here mixes the more plaintive end of post-rock with a nicely leftfield noise sensibility. For the most part Inverz creates blissful, otherworldly sunrise compositions perfect for listening to on bright days which makes a nice change from all the dark and doom-laden stuff I get sent. My favourite moments are those where he drapes his music in a shoegazery type fuzz. It's a nice idea that lifts the music which I think would probably be a little bland and over synthesised without it. There are a couple of tricks that are used slightly too often for comfort - the stumbling loop effect being the worst culprit - but on the whole this is a fine and enjoyable release.

(www.moremars.org)

Vikki Jackman - Whispering Pages

(Faraway Press 14)

Expect to see this album on my (and many other) end of year lists. Breathtaking.

nahvalur - aboideau

(Mystery Sea MS46)

CDR

Nahvalur (where do people get these names from?) are operating in the field of drone music previously populated by Andrew Chalk & Christoph Heeman's Mirror project. Delicate, multi-hued, gently unfurling tones that are a little grittier (sprinkled with pops and crackles) and a little darker than those produced by those illustrious counterparts but that's not to detract from what's on offer cause what's on offer is very good. However (on track 3) when he adds the field recordings to the mix 'aboideau' lifts and becomes a mighty fine release indeed. One that has been haunting my stereo for many weeks and which I suspect will continue to do so.

(www.myspace.com/stellarauditorium)

Samarkande - 3 Synapses

(Les Disques Samarkande Records SAM 004)

On this new cd Canadian astral-travellers Samarkande (aka Eric Fillion & Sylvain Lamirande have left the solar system that they explored so thoroughly on their previous releases and have headed for parts unknown. Last week I was listening to the incidental music written and recorded by The Grateful Dead for the Twilight Zone revival and I have to say that if it ever comes back again then in 3 Synapses they have the perfect soundtrack. This is cosmic in the most kosmiche way imaginable. Inherently restless, constantly questing and utterly, bewilderingly out-there, 3 Synapses is a stunning piece of psychedelic glory. Samarkande have taken the ideas, sounds and ambience that made their earlier releases so damn good and have molded them to create something that is simultaneously the sum of it's parts and so very much more. Fabulous and heartily recommended.

(www.samarkande.ca)

Sempervirens - Dirge of the Dying Year

(New Age Dawn / Stellar Auditorium Productions AUD001)

CDR

If, like me, the sight of the words 'new' and 'age' in cflose proximity to each other sends cold shivers down your spine then please rest assured that there are no crystals or tye-dyed wolf t-shirts to be found here, which is a relief. There is one worrisome moment towards the end of track one where things get a little synthy but that goes away quite quickly and doesn't come back, which is also a relief.

For the most part Sempervirens (Estonian artist Margus Mets) conjures quiet abstracted dreamworlds from found sound (both field recorded and sampled) and (I'm assuming) keyboards. Occasionally the mix errs a little too much in favour of one type of sound or another and the flow of the album is interrupted but predominantly Mets allows his composition to trickle along with each aspect washing past the others in a most pleasantly organic way. There's nothing new here that fans of deep and dark soundscaping will get overly excited about but equally what is here is a satisfyingly worthwhile addition to the genre.

Nicholas Szczepanik - Ecru Epithet

(Power Silence ps-six)

CDR

A deliriously oblique album from DC resident Szczepanik. The other releases I've heard by him have tended towards drone based compositions whereas here he has happily discarded all notions of conventional musicality in preference to clashing atonalities, immaculately positioned field recordings, slowly emerging harmonies, machine buzz and delicate clusters of half-formed instrumentation. I like this side of Nicks music a lot (I like the other side too) it shows an artist utterly committed to experimentation but who also has the compositional skills to back it up as the music on this fab seedee avoids degenerating into pointless avant-noodling by rigorously following it's own internal trajectory.

(www.somnimage.com)

Darren Tate - A Strange Artifact

(Fungal 032)

CDR

Now it has to be said that Darren makes some of the most remarkable drone music of anyone working in the field but of late he has put his longform tendencies to one side and re-embraced the abstractions that characterised some of his earlier work. This very limited re-issue of an obscure cut from 2004 is a case in point. The sound is dominated by environmental samples and Tate's brutally primitive squeezebox and sleepily haphazard guitar. Over the course of the album Tate traverses a variety of terrains - all of them slightly purple and a bit squidgy (like a warm Stretch Armstrong) but which fit really well inside your head. Always recommended.

(www.icrdistribution.com)

Unimother 27 - Grin

(Pineal Gland PG003)

Piero Ranalli's Unimother 27 (I wonder what happened to the other 26?) is a one man band psyche-prog project with the emphasis this time far more on the prog than it was with his self titled release that I reviewed here the other year. In the early part of 'Grin' there is less of an edge to this release as he seems to be holding his compositions under tighter reign which is a shame as it was the Krautrock style freeforming that I really liked the last time out. As the record progresses however it just gets better and better. The compositions loosen and take on a life of their own rather than mimicking the prog of the past (which surely is a contradiction in terms).

For me this is an album of two distinct halves and I suspect that will be the case for other listeners also. I'm really not a fan of straight prog - in all honesty it irritates the hell out of me - and the first two tracks here are very prog but when the musicianship that comes with it is married with a genuinely exploratory spirit (as is the case of the latter half of this album) then I'm all in favour.

(www.pinealgland.it)

7:36 AM

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Monday, August 11, 2008

Issue Twenty One - August ’08
Current mood:

accomplished

Wonderful Wooden Reasons is a fanzine dedicated to experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. The very fact that it's name has been shamelessly stolen from the magnificent Faust should give you some idea of where it's allegiances lie.
Wonderful Wooden Reasons is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label home to artists such as Psychic Space Invasion, Darren Tate, Itto and The Buff Monkey Ensemble.
The zine was started to let people know about some of the cool music I had been gifted or had bought. I don't review releases on Quiet World but you'll please allow me the conceit of recommending you check out our download page at the site listed below.
As a fanzine writer I'm interested in all forms of experimental and drone music. Also noise, ambient, psychedelia, extreme metal, industrial, jazz, post rock, I listen to everything I'm sent. I only have one rule. If I don't like it I won't review it. If there are things about it I liked I'll include it, I won't gloss over those things that I don't, but, just cause I don't like it doesn't mean it's crap so I don't rubbish anything.
All formats are welcome for review but please send the finished article, including the sleeve, inserts, etc, so I can give a full review. I'm also always on the lookout for things to read and watch. However, I rarely have time to download mp3s and I don't open attachments. I like things I can hold and appreciate.
Send to:- WONDERFUL WOODEN REASONS, c/o IAN HOLLOWAY, 49 CYPRESS AVENUE, WEST CROSS, SWANSEA, SA3 5JX, WALES, UK.
Visit:- www.quietworld.co.uk
email:- quietworld hotmail co .. uk

.........................................................................................................................

Editorial.
Hello and welcome to the 21st issue of Wonderful Wooden Reasons. We've got an absolute corker of an issue for you this month with a stack of reviews of some real cool tunes. Apologies for the lateness of this issue but this has been unavoidable and indeed over the coming months tardiness will probably continue to be the case. We're not going anywhere but postings will be slightly more erratic than before but will hopefully stay at one every month or so. We've a huge and I mean HUGE stack of new releases for you next month so I really ought to get on with it. Feel free to leave a comment and I hope you enjoy. Peace, Ian

.. Ilyas Ahmed - Between Two Skies-Towards the Night

(Digitalis Arts et Crafts Editions ACE003)

2CD

There's a whole swathe of gently psychedelic acoustic music swirling around the US at the moment. As is always the case much of it is produced in microscopic quantities and rarely heard outside the stereos of a few select (and lucky) individuals. The two albums included here were originally released as a (very) limited run of 50 copies each but have been lovingly re-mastered and re-issued by Digitalis Industries and may (insert non-specific deity of your choice here) bless them for it.

Ahmed melds voice, acoustic guitar and piano (there are other instruments too but lists are boring) to sumptuous effect. Musically, American folk music must be identified as the prime inspiration of many of these compositions but they are rarely confined by the inherent boundaries of the genre. I must claim some ambivalence (at best) towards the amorphous vocals as to my mind they generally feel somewhat lazy and ill conceived never achieving the state of easy grace of the music. Vocals are rarely my bag however and I will give Ahmed kudos for trying something different with his and the quality of the rest of the sounds he produces more than compensate for any misgivings I might have.

(www.digitalisindustries.com)

Cadmium Dunkel - The Enerhaugen Concerts

(Krakilsk kra045)

CDR

With the exception of a big list of the instruments used in the making of this album I have absolutely no information to give you as to who or what Cadmium Dunkel is / are. They (he / she) do however make a rather nice noise. Swooping drones and rumbling noise paired with fragile instrumentation, tumbling melodies paired with percussive stabs and sparse immersive atmospheres paired with all the above. There is a deliberate sense of motion here in it's layers of sleepy tonalities that means this is easily one of the more interesting (and recommended) post-industrial noise releases I've heard in a while.

(www.krakilsk.org)

Clutter Vs Susan Matthews - Slow Corrosion EP

(Earth Monkey Productions 002)

3"CDR

Susan is a perennial favourite here at WWR (this is her third appearance in these pages this year) but Clutter on the other hand are a completely new property to these tired old ears. The music on offer on this mini-cd is much more grounded than Matthews solo work. The usually all pervasive ephemeral exoticism of her music has been replaced by industrial rhythms, disjointed half-melodies and static-charged noise cascades. I like this, I don't think I'll play it very often, it's just a little too mechanical for my tastes, but I'll definitely be playing it. I found myself missing Susan's vocals which in itself is unusual for me as I generally am not a vocals fan but to my mind they are the heart of Susan's music and I think it would have been interesting if Clutter had made wider use of them in his adroit re-workings. In all it's a very interesting diversion and a bold and welcome sideways step into the unknown (presumably for both participants) which should always be applauded.

(www.earthmp.com)

Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words - A Line: Align

(Mystery Sea MS42)

CDR

Swedish musician Thomas Ekelund is the man behind the enigmatic nom-de-plume and here produces a set of fragile and absorbing recordings. Indeed, so fragile that often other unavoidable ambient noises (passing cars, local wildlife looking for a shag, an unexpected sneezing fit) can completely overwhelm and destroy the ambience that he is working to create. As the album progresses Ekelund takes a more muscular approach allowing his drones to build until they begin to dominate the aural landscape rather than being subservient to it before once again retreating into it's more introspective ambient form. I have to admit to a slight frustration with very quiet and sparse music simply because my lifestyle precludes the option of wearing headphones and so much of the time the music I am listening to has to compete with the myriad distractions of everyday life. For music as delicate as this it is a daunting task and one that it often doesn't achieve. Having said that however one should note that on the times where the distractions are few and the music is able to breath and expand to fill the space then it succeeds admirably.

(www.mysterysea.net)

Jo Gabriel - The Amber Sessions

Jo Gabriel - The Last Drive In

Jo Gabriel - Fools and Orphans

(Ephemera / Dancing Goat Music)

CDR

I'm happily breaking one of my own rules here by doing a single review of several releases by the one artist. Jo Gabriel is a New York pianist (and singer) who creates (on the whole) really nice, slightly off-kilter, gentle instrumentals. The main focus of the music, as you'd imagine, is the piano and it's beautifully played with each track containing a distinct and rolling melody that is backed up nicely by the supporting role of the other instruments. Many of these backing sounds are synthesised which is a shame as their inherent 'midi-ness' detracts slightly from the overall feel of the music but then again full string accompaniment is expensive so that can be easily excused.

The two early albums are for me the most satisfying as the later album (Fools and Orphans) sees Jo embracing vocals to a greater degree. Regular readers to WWR will have spotted that very little of the music featured here has vocals. Why? I'm just not that keen on them. Jo does her vocal thing well (think Kate Bush and you'll be on the right track). She has an impressive voice and a good ear for a song but ultimately it's not my particular cup of tea. Musically the album is as accomplished as the other two and as such I really felt that all three deserved a mention.

If you're bored of waiting for the new Kate Bush album then Fools is the one to go for but personally it's her instrumentals that truly carried me away and for that I heartily recommend the earlier two.

(www.jogabriel.com)

Ghoul Detail - Glory Hole

(Smell The Stench)

CDR

A set of guitar and effect pedal twisted and jagged post-industrial recordings from the Ghoul. Very much derived from the Skullflower school of sheet metal aural sculpture and a real step into the unknown for GD that deserves to be applauded both for the way he's balanced this new direction with his previous oeuvre and also because it's really, really good. Since my first listen I've known that GD is one of the most interesting and exciting artists in a noise scene that is becoming increasingly mundane and tiresome to me and here he proves that assertion once more. This is one glory hole that I suspect is a lot more fun to stick your ears into than your cock.

(www.smellthestench.net)

Good Noise Bad Noise - Joist Hounds

(Earth Monkey Productions 001)

3"CDR

Two laptoppers, a violinist and a visualist (I think I made that last word up but I kinda like it so it's staying) who operate under the Good Noise Bad Noise name which invites lazy reviewers (cough) into the temptation of making two lists of which bits of the ep should be filed under which half of the name. Well if I was to do such a thing (I'm not going to - I'll admit I was tempted - but I'm not going to) I'm happy to say that the second column would be the much shorter. They do occasionally fall into the screeching cacophony trap but they rarely stay there for very long and they often arrive and leave from a plausible and worthwhile position. The music is dynamic and has an easy momentum and flow that removes this from the noise for noise sake ghetto into one that is far, far more interesting and worth further investigation especially if the work of the aforementioned visualist (I'm going to trademark that word) is featured more strongly.

(www.earthmp.com)

Hearts of Palm - Hearts of Palm

(Palmetto Records No 1)

CDR

Absolutely corking album of occasionally turbulent, occasionally tranquil improv from this US combo. Opening your album with a tumultuous cacophony of guitar, percussion, vocals and other miscellaneous debris is a brave statement of intent that leaves the listener in little doubt as to the ride they are embarking on. HoP seem to derive (and certainly convey) a great deal of pleasure out of create towering Faustian motorik constructs that collide and fuse with some bewildering forays into free-psychedelia. In turns HoP is difficult, obtuse, translucent and bedevilling but throughout it is never less than enthralling.

(www.myspace.com/palmofhearts)

Kassel Jaeger - ee[nd]

(Mystery Sea MS44)

CDR

Yet another fabulous release on Mystery Sea, if you aren't regularly checking out their releases then you really are missing out on some great music. Kassel (a pseudonym) produces a rumbling, tumbling almost drone like music that hovers in the hinterland between noise and ambient. Never truly quiet yet never actually noisy either the evocatively titled ee[nd] is an earthy and decidedly grimy listening experience that is thoroughly recommended for those with a taste for the coarser (but not noisier) side of the sound spectrum.

(www.mysterysea.net)

Jeremy Kelly - Jeremy Kelly

(Digitalis Industries DIGI046)

CD

There's a real intimacy to these recordings that make you feel as though you're sitting in a smoky room full of nicely baked musicians listening to them having the jam session of their lives. The fact then that this is essentially a one man band (two other musicians make occasional contributions) makes this stunning recording even more impressive. As with much of the Digitalis catalogue that I am fortunate enough to hear this has an underlying stream of folk / country tinged acoustic guitar melodies upon which Kelly floats a bewildering array of forms and sounds. He borrows liberally from both the middle-east and the mid-west adding touches of bent circuit noise and occasional electric (guitar) swarms to produce a wonderfully cohesive and deeply immersive album.

(www.digitalisindustries.com)

Josh Lay - Poison Drinker

(Sentient Recognition Archive SRA003)

CDR

You're guess is as good as mine (perhaps better) as to who Josh Lay is. I'm guessing he's an ex-Serbian Olympic boxing coach with a wooden leg, a dog called Ovaltine and a complete run of 1950's Wonder Woman comics that he reads to the pigeons in the park every other Thursday. I don't know how close to the mark I am there (pretty close I think) but what I do know is that he does make a damn fine noise. On Poison Drinker he treats us to 2 tracks (one clocking in at a shade over 16 minutes, the other a shade under 10 minutes) of noise drone wonderfulness. The longer of the two is bristling with mechanical menace whilst the shorter drips with digital trepidation. Both are excellent and I really wish the album was longer.

(www.naszczepanik.com/sra/Home.html)

Mystified Vs. N.Strahl.N

(Roil Noise RNOCDR094)

CDR

Over the last couple of years I've reviewed a skip full of releases on the US noise label Roil Noise. They seem to have a distinct fondness for the powerhouse end of the noise field, lots of testosterone and scowling. Now, I'm all for a bit of chest beating machismo but really only in small doses as it does tend to become quite monotonous quite quickly. Luckily there is another side to the label that seems to be coming to the fore where they are releasing artists with a looser and (or) more relaxed attitude to the soundworlds they inhabit.

Mario Löhr (N.Strahl.N) and Thomas Park (Mystified) are two great examples of this. Both artists deliver a series of dense, abstracted, post-industrial noisescapes. Neither artist is afraid to let their sound sources do the work for them giving the music a nice airy feel as opposed to the bleak dystopianism of much music from this field. Löhr, on this release at least, is the more obtuse of the two sending his sounds skipping through a junkyard of metallic constructions to coalesce into a beautifully quiet noise. Parks takes a more meandering path that explores drones, shimmering noise and a rhythmic industrialism (often all in the same track) that I hadn't heard him do before. Both are essentially travelling the same path but each is doing it in very much their own way.

It's not often that these split seedees work as well as this but this one is a doozy that is undoubtedly worth tracking down.

(www.roilnoise.com)

Olekranon - Cohesion

(Inam Records 21)

CDR

Olekranon is Ryan (no surname given) and Cohesion is an amalgam of three previous and very limited cdrs . This rather splendid album arrived and took up residence on my stereo with no fanfare. A mix of electronic soundscapes and full 'band' left-field, industrialised, post-rock compositions that slowly wormed their way into my head and stayed. For the most part the music on Cohesion seems to be formed from guitar, synthesizer and drum-machine. The guitar is Ryan's most successful instrument producing some blissfully cosmic melody lines. The slight over-reliance on electronics does get to be a little old as the album prgresses as it does rob the album of some warmth but as Olekranon is at this point a one-man-band that is understandable. I really would like to hear these tracks played live with a group of like-minded musicians but if that's an unlikely pipe-dream then this album certainly does the job in the meantime.

(inamrecs AT yahoo.com)

Yui Onodera - Substrate

(Mystery Sea MS43)

CDR

This is just wonderful. Japanese musician Yui Onodera operates in the realm of sumptuous drone populated by artists such as Mirror, Jonathan Coleclough and Colin Potter. His drones are outwardly simple yet his compositions are immeasurably deep. They pour gently from the speakers flowing over every surface in the room. Whilst sourced from environmental sources along with electronics, voice, guitar and piano there is often little clue as to the origin of the sounds you are listening to (track 8 being the notable exception) instead one finds oneself fully immersed in the flow of the music as it overwhelms all consciousness and transports one fully into Onodera's opulent and verdant soundworld.

(www.mysterysea.net)

Jean-Herve Peron & Andrew Liles - Fini!

(Dirter DPROMCD62)

CD

It doesn't take a genius to infer from the name of this zine that it's writer is something of a Faust fan (it's a line from the track Meadow Meal on the first Faust album). I'm besotted by the music these fellas make (in whatever incarnation) and Fini! is no exception.

Very much in the Faustian spirit this is a tangled morass of sounds and ideas that works really rather well. We even get to hear (on track 9) the side of Peron that is rarely seen these days, that of the acoustic troubadour as he slowly weaves his guitar and voice (and whistle) around a happy little ballad. Occasionally the album drifts into fully abstracted experimental territories but this is really to be expected of both participants and their wonderfully obtuse sensibilities but at all points you feel that they are working to a cohesive vision that they never once loose sight of. If only everything in life was this good.

(www.dirter.co.uk)

Tracy Lee Summers - My Favourite Color

(More Mars mm04)

CDR

It has to be said that the opening drum line is an inauspicious start to what quickly opens up to reveal an intriguing album. Mixing industrial style rhythms with a decidedly krautrock sensibility and an abundance of noisy drones Summers has created something decidedly different here and I like it very much indeed. The music is free of any genre constraints (the ones listed above are just fleeting impressions) and it dances it's way through a bewildering array of sudden turns and jarring juxtapositions whilst retaining a deep sense of musicality and avoiding any self-indulgent navel-gazing. It doesn't all work, track 9 (Mythe) is a slightly pedestrian rock(ish) workout that could probably have been left off the album but this is a small flaw on a large tapestry. I adore music that confuses me and is impossible to second guess and that is exactly what we have here.

(www.moremars.org)

Nicholas Szczepanik - The Glass Ceiling

(200mg 012)

3"CDR

A deeply introspective drone offering from this Washington DC musician that while suffering somewhat from a slightly muddy sounding mix shows just what a dab hand he is at conjuring up late night, dead city ambiences. His unsettling drones billow and echo as they twist and turn around, over and through each other. Rarely settling for longer than a couple of seconds this is an enervating but strangely invigorating listen that should be sought out and cherished by lovers of the darker side of life.

(www.200mgrecords.com)

Nicholas Szczepanik - To The Moon & Back Again

(Ruralfaune 2008)

3" CDR

Another single track mini-cdr from the prolific Mr. Szczepanik and this one's even better than the last (The Glass Ceiling) and that one wasn't half bad. This time the music is built not so much on drone as on pulse and fluctuation. This is a tactic I like very much. I find the slow washes of sound they generate hugely hypnotic especially when they are used as skillfully as they are here. Easily my favourite release by Nicholas and as such massively recommended

(www.myspace.com/ruralfaunelovesyou)

Um Fall Am - Things Went By

(Split Femur Recordings SFR009)

CD

Guitar seems to be the instrument of choice for releases on Split Femur. The three albums I've heard have all taken this most over-used of instruments and presented it in interesting and arresting ways. Um Fall Am is the musical identity of a London based chap called David Cooper who lays his warm and gentle folk-styled instrumentals over a river of field recordings. Occasionally things hover dangerously close to twee new-ageishness (track three's pairing of a slightly insipid guitar melody and birdsong) but on the whole the quality of Cooper's musicianship and his ear for an interesting sound hold him in good stead making Things Went By a cosy and comfortable duvet of an album.

Well worth a listen.

(www.splitfemurrecordings.com)

Xedh - Katabole

(Krakilsk kra037)

CDR

On first view of the abstract image on the black sleeve that houses the black disc my first thought was 'Hooray! Another humourless 40 minutes of dull and insipid noise.' (attentive readers will have started to notice just how bored I'm getting with full on circle jerk total noise music) but Xedh (happily) is not about the noise. Not about the noise at all...oh, ok he is a bit but he's also about a hell of a lot more as well.

Katabole is a great big simmering stew-pot of sounds and ideas - some hot some cold, some loud some quiet, some identifiable some mysterious, some spicy some bland, some that are comfortable some that are distinctly not. A stew-pot that Miguel Garcia (for it is he who is Xedh) is dipping his spoon into and stirring. Like the finest of cooks he ensures the temperature and timing is immaculate and nothing is allowed to stick or burn and all the ingredients are added so that they are at their best at the optimum time and in the perfect proportions to produce a sumptuous feast of an album.

I'm hungry.

(www.krakilsk.org)

Movies

Batman: The Dark Knight

Waaaaay too long. The ending doesn't really make sense. Ledger is very good. The rest less so. But it's pretty to look at, goes like a train and you never feel patronised which makes a nice change.

Batman: Gotham Knights

Set of anime Batman's to bridge the gap between the last film and the new one. Some nice animation and some really piss-poor characterisations wrapped up in a serious of tales that veer from mediocre to middling.

Futurama: Beast with a Billion Backs

Much the same as the previous film. Watchable but nothing to really recommend.

Hancock

Some laughs...not many.

Some nice effects...not enough.

Some good set-pieces...too few and way too far apart.

Unfortunately these are all in the first half. The second half is complete nonsense.

I watched it whilst laid up with a stinking cold.

It did it's job...just.

In Bruges

The scenery is easily the best thing here but there are some fun moments and it manages to remain watchable throughout

Indiana Jones

Like watching your dad dancing at a wedding. He's still got some moves but you just wish he'd sit down and behave himself.

Currently listening:
Fat Jazzy Grooves, Vols. 13-14
By Various Artists
Release date: 1996-02-06

11:30 PM

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(ronsen.org/brekekekexkoaxkoax)

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Issue Twenty - June ’08
Current mood:

busy

BCS Entertainment - Trial and Error

I have no idea what the hell is going on here. This is easily the oddest thing I've heard in quite some considerable time. Described to me as a bit of 'a wrong un' and I have to agree. I have to agree especially as I consider that phrase a great recommendation. The music is all over the shop, though even turning and changing on a whim as it does it never feels like it's doing so randomly. You can feel a guiding hand here just it's not always readily apparent where the hand is guiding it to. It's a huge joyous mix of post-punk-electro-pop-indie-krautrock inspired lunacy and it's available from the label in return for a SAE which is a price within anyone's budget. Do me a favour though and if you do order a copy (and you really should, it's completely bonkers) then send them a couple of quid as well because any label with the balls to stump up the cash to release this deserves your support.

(www.flitwick-records.co.uk)

Brekekekexkoaxkoax - We Used To Be Such Good Friends

(Hushroom Recordings hushroom4)

CDR

It's an amazing album.

Ferial Confine - First, Second and Third Drop

(Siren Records 014)

Ferial Confine is the name under which Andrew Chalk released his records back in the day. This release is a return to those early recordings (some in a slightly modified state) because hardly anyone has ever got to hear them and they really are rather terrific. They are also very much a product of their time and the 'scene' from which this ascetic emerged. Considerably more metallic and abrasive sounding (think Organum) than the work Andrew would later produce. These recordings do still very much have the sound and feel of his later music along with the painstaking attention to detail apparent in their execution. A factor that is essential to this release avoiding any sort of nostalgia allegations.

Released on Japan's Siren records in the Faraway Press packaging (that we've all come to love so much) this is a timely and compulsive listen that is, as ever, hugely recommended.

(www.splitfemurrecordings.com)

Guy Gelem - Works

(Split Femur Recordings SFR008)

Playing guitar, cello & laptop Guy Gelem is a one man post-rock band. 'Works' is a gently melodic album that brings to mind the melodic side of Explosions In The Sky, the less jazzy moments of Tortoise and also the work of (Amelie soundtrack composer) Yann Tiersen. It's beautifully played throughout and the mix is crisp and polished. Some of the beats are a little too artificial (or mechanical) for my tastes and I dearly would love to hear these tunes played live by a full band (including a live drummer) but this is a hugely impressive debut release and if post-rock is your bag then you really should give this a shot.

Hurra Caine Landcrash - Unanswered Questions

(Split Femur Recordings SFR007)

I've been a fan of Dan Hopkins' music for a few years now. As part of Know Point, as Hurra Caine Landcrash and as HL, Dan works at the ambient end of the slow music spectrum. His music often puts me in mind of Boards of Canada just without those pesky beats getting in the way.

Guitar has always had a strong role in Dan's projects but on 'Unanswered Questions' it takes centre-stage. Early indications are not good as album opener 'Soul' suffers from a horrible mix that buries the music in a sea of gloop. Fortunately it's also the shortest track on what subsequently opens up into a sumptuous and absorbing recording characterised by the slow moving flow of the guitar's misshapen melodies and the fluttering micro-sounds that garnish each track. In parts this recording brings to mind Fennesz in others it is the work of melodic abstractionists like the above mentioned BoC. Throughout though (with the notable exception of track 1) this is a fine addition to the Hurra Caine Landcrash discography.

(www.splitfemurrecordings.com)

Mystified - A Tribute to Forbidden Planet

(Roil Noise RNOCDR089)

CDR

Mystified has been an almost constant presence in this zine over the last year. His work is always worth a listen but here he has truly come into his own. This 23 track homage to the sci fi classic opens up his music nicely and lifts it above and beyond the slightly clinical feel that occasionally crops up on his albums. Using an all electronic template Mystified has kept very much in the spirit of the original Louis & Bebe Barron score and has produced an album that I have been returning to frequently.

Recommended muchly.

(www.roilnoise.com)

Sujo - Dora

(Inam Records 23)

I have no information to give you on just who Sujo are (even the envelope it arrived in was enigmatic) but I do know that he / she / it creates a ferocious and intense experience. Not since the last Ghoul Detail album have I heard drones as colossal as these. Dense and foreboding, the music is a monolithic construction of indeterminate origin, it's the aural equivalent of the big black slabs in Kubrick's 2001. Having said that though there is a distinct lightness to the production that allows indistinct and malformed melodies to hover above the core of each track helping to create a depth and vibrancy to the album that is often missing in this genre. Hugely impressive and highly recommended.

(www.stickfiguredistro.com)

Nicholas Szczepanik - Iomcin

(Faraday's Discs FDS001)

CDR

Nicholas Szczepanik is a composer based in Washington DC who has produced a mini-album of gentle noise collage. Using a variety of sound sources, both traditional and non, he has produced a slowly evolving set of drone pieces. With the exclusion of opener, Aphasia (the album's highlight with it's pulsating, shimmering drone), the remaining three tracks are a little on the short side to be fully satisfying (I like my music long) but that's not to detract from the quality of the composition as each track has an individuality and a quality that is to be recommended.

An interesting new artist and an intriguing taste of things to come from this new label.

(www.industrialculture.org/fdiscs)

Darren Tate - Reflections on a Ceiling

(Fungal 31)

CDR

For the last 18 months Darren has been in the midst of probably the most productive period since he began sending these strange artefacts into the world. Reflections on a Ceiling is the latest of these and seems to show Darren returning to the abstracted soundscapes of his earlier work (as heard on the recent re-issue of Promotion on Twenty Hertz). He seems to be re-evaluating that aspect of his music and finding new ways of exploring it. RoaC is less drone driven than recent work. It's there but it's only one part of the whole as greater prominence is given to his unique take on field recordings and his guitar. There is a maturity to these recordings that show an artist that is in a constant dialogue with his instruments and his music. He has developed a sound that is very much unique to him and is all the better for it. Another fabulous release from this excellent artist.

(www.icrdistribution.com)

12:33 PM

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