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Ampersand Etcetera - 2001_08 (_07 to follow soon)
ambient & microwave & electronica & experimental & lowercase & postclassical & minimal & techno & etcetera
Welcome to the what was going to be the last issue of &etc. This has been a wonderful experience for me, but draining and demanding - almost a victim of my success, I was finding that giving releases the listening I thought they deserved and then a description that was full, was taking too much time as the number of labels and individuals supporting me increased. Someone described my reviews as ‘exhaustive’ - and they can be exhausting. I have tried to be briefer at times, but don’t want to try and pass off a para or two of reworked press release and broad comments/comparisons as a review.
More importantly, I felt that I was repeating myself - that my reviews weren’t sounding as fresh as they should have, my range of descriptions had become limited, and my ear (perhaps) becoming jaded.
But then comments from three people I respect - two musicians/label magnates and a fellow enthusiast - suggested that what I was doing was useful and interesting, which mirrored comments I have received over time from artists and small labels. Looking back, I realised what I want(ed) to do was make people aware of music I enjoy and appreciate, and to give as full a description as possible. So I have decided to continue, but slow down a little, and have asked the distributors to keep me in the back of their minds (and I hope will be willing to support me when I am ready to rebuild after this semisabbatical).
There will still be editions - less frequent, shorter, but hopefully interesting and informative. I will therefore happily listen to any stuff people may want to send, and will continue pursuing smaller labels and supporting individuals who have or want Ampersand’s support. My aim as ever will be to keep pointing to some of the less familiar musical byroads (which this issue highlights to varying degrees: EA from Poland, Foton making a name out of Belgium and Lens Records building momentum). With a reduced pace I am looking forward to letting music wash over me for a while. And to getting to know it - when I browse my old vinyl I can sing or hum snatches of most - hardly the case with my cds.
And finally, I would like to dedicate this issue to Jasper - his initial vision at Ambience gave me the confidence and contacts to have kept going for this long. And a thank you to distributors, artists and labels who have supported me.
Thanks
jeremy@pretentious.net
&
http://ampersandetc.virtualave.net/ampersand.html
(in the pipeline - some ready to run: dorobo document03, dotmatrix printer, sound drifting, win a new head, pastacas, vert, biphop2, disaster area vinyl, tennis, aube, a burning head special and more!!!!!! what sabbatical? this is part of my problem - I would like to get all these reviewed and to you at once. As they say, timing is all.)
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Urawa Villa Vertigo
Ultraphonist Discover the antistress with …
Object Release the object
Foton 001, 002 & 003
http://www.fotonrecords.com
If success was decided by presentation aesthetics, Belgian (relatively) newcomer Foton would be at the forefront. They have created and maintained a philosophy of appearance which is quite stunning. Each release comes in a single jewelcase, inside a lightbrown card sleeve. Details are printed on here - the front has the Foton logotype and the release name, the back a black quadrant (continued from the logo on the front) with tracks, serial number (yes, a printed limited edition number) plus production details. In the case is a picture (photograph or painting - at an appropriate shape, not cropped or enlarged to fit the ‘cover size’), a 35mmslide and a card identifying the three artworks - the cd is just part of the package. The cd has a screenprint of concentriceccentric circles, the centre one coloured to match the same design as part of the logo and on the spine. The web site has additional tracks and remixes, plus details about the artists - there is little or nothing on the cover. After finding the web stuff, listening to it, and mentioning it in V3.se6, I was excited at the opportunity of listening to the full story so far.
The first release was the reddisked ‘Villa Vertigo’ by Urawa (with a black and white photo by Caroline Eggermont called ‘Gors gesternte’ and which looks like twisted bark or rock layers, and a blue slide by Bart Bosmans of a skull (probably an x-ray) with ‘Sorry’ and other text). The rooms of house are constructed of slowly shifting and building pulses tones and crackles. We enter via ‘The corridor’ which opens almost imperceptibly as the drone builds, together with a pulsing organ and crackling which becomes more active as we near the end, before turning into ‘The study’. Here we first hear a voicelike wind, a wellspaced gong, a scratchy track which is processed speech. Water drips growing and echoing, a bell; more aspects of the room are added, some electronic tones, scraping sounds like a knife being sharpened, a clock ticking in each ear alternatively: then all the sounds which have gradually accreted disappear, to leave the clock and scraping, to fade.
There are two halves to ‘The greenhouse’: the first is another slow combining of elements - the scratching, a pulse, sine waves, tinkling, a deep throb, cetacean synths - brought together sparely towards a subtle density along with a chord drone. Then we shift into another part, which is dark, with menacing tones and breathing, clattering metals. Surprised by the lack of light in the greenhouse, the scene shifts to ‘The basement’, where it is expected darkness, a gentle rumbling and rapid tick growing in the gloom - after some time your ears have acclimatized and a scratching noise becomes foregrounded with a fast click, and from somewhere a drone supports it all - but then it all fades back into the black.
And so to ‘The lounge’ where a chopped white noise buzz creates the atmosphere, over in the corner is a drone, and somewhere behind the whitewalls there is a faint scent of real music. After some growing minutes it breaks down, and the final part is a pulsing beat pair (one per channel) and a rumble crackle into a long fade. ‘The stairs’ present a fat blood-pulse gently shifting and squirming as a creaking door slowly modulates into a crackling. The penultimate room, ‘The nest’, is also the largest: it starts with a pulsing rumbling and melodic ebb and flow, before some strange harsh feedback sqwark (the residents of the nest, perhaps) cry over it. As they build a wind blows through halfway into the room, and voices (some processed) are heard, then a high pitchedwhistle that transforms into a jangling, synth notes, more voices: the noises fade away leaving the synth seeking a melody, till we exit the room.
And in the final minute and a half ‘A lodger’ shows themselves, a distorted ghost voice, metallic liquid and slow, breaking into two parts, first talking and then shifting into a discomfiting intoning. A disurbing finale to an unsettling tour through the Villa - dark and minimal, its strange twists and turns do create a sense of vertigo, but also a fascination with the sounds of its spaces. Dramatic minimalism.
The Villa is quite a well populated place compared to the Ultraphonist residence - blue label, blue slide of a town with a (mushroom) cloud over and a poem ‘I have power’ and a B&W photo by Eggermont of lines of prunedplants looking quite abstract. While listening I was reminded of the American military’s experiments with infrasound - there is a lot of speaker shaking bass and below - of the title song of Glass’ ‘Songs for Liquid Days’ where a strange sound is the hum of the refrigerator, as there is alot of quiet, buzzing softness. It requires a decent system to pull out the restrained throbbing - very minimal. Which brings to mind another allusion - Douglas Hofstadter’s Godel Escher and Bach, where a character tries to create a record that can’t be played on another’s turntable, because it causes harmonic vibrations which shake the player to pieces (so beware!) Our ‘First lesson’ is a slowly developing rumble and scraping buzz, gradually becoming almost audible, vibrating and busy the fading away - we have learnt Ultraphonist’s lingo. So straight into ‘Harmonium’ and ‘Endurance’, two deep low throbbers: the first a rolling wave with subterranean grumbling, dense and delightful; the second adding a thundersome rubbing and bass pulse.
Things swing in a different direction with ‘Pendulum’ (groan - sorry), which is lighter, with clicks and pops and a buzzing (maintaining a low drone though), adding a scraping and dipdop later to become quite rhythmic. After the earlier lesson, we now see the ‘Method’, a longish track which shifts through a number of mo(o)des: from deep tones, rapid pulses and high clicks building to different tones, increasing volume and intensity with scratches, an almost didgeridoo pulsing, interference, tones and infrequent knocks, a gear change into more activity and a longing hightone fade. A short lesson in ‘How to practice scales’ is deep rumbles, fast clicks, throbs and pulses from which notes seem to emerge. With ‘Discipline’ we get somewhat more active - the first of two longer tracks it starts with a throbbing pulse with scratching over and distant noises (voices?): a beat develops and we shift into a loud active buzz and wowwow which continues on into the final section with the buzzing and occasional thud. In ‘Antistress station’ a burring noise is modulated, with a layer of deep harmonic echoes stepping through a melody behind, all sounding like a strange engine. And finally ‘Examination’ with irregular, bumby loops sliding into a suggestion of a rhythm that is almost boppy. This intense and fascinating album works well on earphones, where some of the subtleties of the sound become more obvious, though it also loses some of the viscerality.
The latest release is Objects (greenthemed - Ela Stasiuk painting is smeared greens and the slide by Submedia is a Miro-like mesh of lines and green squares, plus some writing). In ‘Singular 1’ they gradually add layers: from an almost inaudible high beep, then wood block taps, blips, distant squeaks, soft chits - building into a lightly rhythmic structure, the elements interacting to create an almost poppy beat, onto which some blobbing synths are added (after a strange pause) which eventually become a solo with gentle humms around. ‘Singular 2’ again starts with a slow high loop and takes a slower more restrained trip through the same territory (its 13 minutes compared to 1’s 6) with the sounds that are looped being a little more edgy and smudged. In both the speaker separation is used nicely, and in 2 the restraint adds a touch of attractive uncertainty. There is more upfront activity in ‘Counter’ which starts around a white noise blur, which rises and falls with varying length snatches, accompanied by a high tone at times, and changing ‘pitch’ in some of its incarnations, then a few of distant echoing gunshot, now rumbling and tiny pits and dops that grow and fill the soundspace, rumbles develop, new noises pass through - a shifting unstable space, highlighting some dramatic sound manipulations and creations.
‘A/b’ gets back to more rhythm with a playful meditation around a rapid pulse, modulated and shifted, phone tones straying in at one point. A voice loop enters into ‘Symbolic 1’ running with sampled resonant bass loop and drums. High blips join in, and the whole thing becomes louder and shifted forward, lightly distorting, and seeming to shorten. Then its volume is played with, seeming randomly rising and falling (reminding me of some of Muslimgauzes trick) (is she saying politics, caution, horseshit??), to a thudding end. Like the relationship with ‘Singular 1 and 2’, ‘Symbolic 2’ is much longer (6 to 15) and also slower in tempo and attack. It is also another shifting work - pulsing sections, clicking, a humm, some pulses, developing to a dense layering of crackles, shifting washes and low beating hearts: much to listen to, although its relationship to the first part is not obvious. A complex and abstract work - the site draws a line through Ikeda, which I can’t hear very strongly, though there are some similar gestures. However, it doesn’t need that comparison, as Object stand strongly on their own, creating a work which draws you in, beyond the structure of the sound particles, and to the heart of their artistry.
With these three releases Foton have marked out a prime place within the minimalist, experimental field. The content more than matches the strength of the packaging aesthetics and provides satisfaction and variation. Highly recommended
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Michele Bokanowski
Trois Chambres d’Inquietude (Three Rooms of Unrest)
Elevator Bath eeaoa07
http://www.elevatorbath.com
Back in the first 2001 edition I looked at three vinyl releases from Elevator Bath, and with this cd-ep they are demonstrating their variety - from powerpop through coloured site recordings to musique concrete. This minialbum was recoded in 1976 and features 3 tracks, emcased in a textured cardsleeve (like the vinyl) featuring an evocative colour photo by Patrick Bokanowski.
The first room opens tentatively with looping resonant bongs over a drifting wind scrape, gradually building in more percussive taps and density, and then a sharp electropulse backed by a pair of soft sirens. There then comes a section which tries my patience - a strong beat, pulsing drone and chime like tones, but all surrounding a loop of a baby laughing - the worst bit of the Teletubbies is the giggling sun, it is just a sound that doesn’t work for me. However it is a mercifully short segment, soon processed out to a cycling pulse, a mood which is common across the disk: looped and cycled pops whcih are shifted in and out of phase, modulated and played with - sonic equivalence of unrest (and of the more poetic possibilities of ‘unquietness’ in English).
The second room is longer (13 over 9) and works the same style but with more restraint, a slowly cycling buzz drone loop with banging echoed over, steathily changing while seemingly static: a whipporwill enters at 5 minutes, developing into a range of smooth squeeks and blips, subdued sonar (we could be in some control room); a heavy drone builds up behind and takes the forground briefly, and when things settle back there is a new balance between a stony scraping and thud, which eventually go, leaving a sustain to fade out.
The short third room is built from a voiced fragment cycled with other loops - piano notes, pulsed sustains, a machine - in a simple but effective structure. And together the three tracks build to a evocative un)set(tling of pieces.
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EA
3L75 Spark Publications SPARK005
[~-]Live Open Circuit/Staalplaat
http://www.terre.pl/ea
http://www.cptsparky.terre.pl???
opencircuit@staalplaat.com
This is one of the reasons I don’t want to give up &etc - from out of the blue Kamil of EA emails me about their group, and a week or so later a package arrives from Poland. Two commercial disk, one from a Polish label, the other on Staalplaat’s excellent initiative for distribution of self produced material. And I get a chance to listen to some music I am unlikely to otherwise stumble across, and to make a few more poeple aware of it through a review. Which is why I do this.
From the covers it is hard to get alot of information: what I am calling 3L75 is not only written in Polish (though the words suggest electronica ‘samplers, efekty, preposowane pianino’) but also very nicely, but almost illegibly, as handwritten in ink over a first draft. As the music will tell the greater story, thats fine, and the cover looks great: greyblue abstract close weathered textures. In addition to Kamil Antosiewicz, Patryk Zakrocki and Marcin Kusmierczyk are on the Spark album. Kamil and Patryk are probably the mainstays, as they mix and mastered the album and also appear on the live album with Vion. This has a lovely minimal cover - details printed on a clear plastic sheet, to appear as if it has been printed on the jewel case.
The album could even be called ‘3L75 secund zavelestuavatych’ (that’s how I read it), which is written on the back, under which are seven items which could be the track titles (written across, not down: there are about 10 words, seemingly chunked into 7). I don’t know why I am going on about this, but it is all part of the excitement of getting something from an unfamiliar country: I could also mention that there is semilegible graffiti-like writing on the inner front cover (a quick look around EA’s site [which has a nice background music] or Spark’s [with great rollover effects] didn’t clarify much, except that the album is untitled. I scanned some reviews but didn’t want to be influenced). What’s the music like? In a few words, haunting dark flowing pulsing ambience - very nice indeed.
The first six tracks ply various pathways through drone and tone based darkness. A cracking bass and sample voice open the album before a play of deep tones, high washes and echoed guitar; a banging loop halfway through, extended rising and falling tones, dark industry at work. In 2 we get a more melodic but edgy and tense interchange with ringing tones, more drones - some with a timbre which suggests violin or viola (there are more like it later on) and an almost zitherish feel to some aspects. We could be back in Villa Vertigo with 3, which seems to be in a room full of growing clatter and drips - echoed and reverberating - and some intrusive distorted scratching squeels, which build to a very noisey climax about halfway through and then settles into a quiet period with tones, chitters, as well as bells, still echoing but more restrained.
A shift of mood again into 4, where soft tones seem to be seeking out a melody, and the restraint and subtlety is quite beautiful. In the last moments a voice loop starts which continues into 5, where voice samples are heard at various levels of obviousness behind a shifting pulsing industrial landscape of drones, chitters, pulses, dits and scraping - a darkness continued in 6 where the pulsing and beat is more foregrounded, with ringing tones and other pleasures over the surface.
There is a minute of silence before track 7, pointing towards a change in mood and structure. To this point we have had a very strong, atmospheric ambient album, but the final track (’bye’ on my reckoning) is quite different (and suggestive of [~-]). Deep tones pulse, rising and falling, an industrial wave crashes, then a keyboard playing a Reichian note sequence enters a melodic line. An evocative drone (cello or didge), the piece changes, pulsing and whistling, much more activity.
A single thirty minute piece recorded in March 2000 makes up [~-], although it could be an edit. There are a number of segments which make up its flowing continuity: the opening is an interweaving between various spacey, sustained, ringing and washing tones, gradually rising and developing, each competing for and winning at different times, the foreground. Then lead by a possible guitar drifting into a more industrial rhythmic soundscape, crackling distortions, a fragmented synth melody (ELP at the Exhibition?) with popping clicks and a high whistle over. The rhythm and pings continue - then a cloud bursts, machines whirr and ping and then short plucked strings - the tight strung short sections near the tension pegs - accompanied by ratchetting ducks: another soundstorm breaks. Clicks, rattling and guitar build,underscored by a tone and distant trilling. A brooding string synth pressages the move into the final sections, shooshing brushes and ringing percussive sounds, echoed, easing out to a complex soft end of tones, possibleprocessed guitar, washes and blips. Of course there is more than this in here, the interplay of background and foreground, the entry and exit of elements, and the whole together makes great listening.
Both releases are distinct and entrancing in their different ways, and continuities can be seen across them: EA are definitely worth seeking out.
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Dark Star
Travelogue II
Soleilmoon sol86cd
http://www.soleilmoon.com
http://www.surfling.de/darkstar for more details and MP3
Another in Soleilmoon’s reissue line: the first verion was released in 1995, and is primarily a collaboration between the mysterious Wolfgang Reffert and the Legendary Pink Dots, Technogod and Gotz Adler, recorded between 92 and 94. Additional tracks were recorded in the next 4 years by WR for a follow-up that never occurred. This release combines four of those new tracks with 7 from the first album (2 were removed) - the later tracks are added at the end, making ‘comparisons’ possible.
To be honest, the original album doesn’t really gel for me: I am not sure what it is because it isn’t bad, but perhaps is too variable for me. I like an album either with focus or focussed diversity. It starts with a very Ka-Spel number, the distinctive vocals emerging after a swirling opening and supported by a pulsing bass and shimmering effects, before a middle easternish break and a final collage. ‘Opal’ just by WR and Adler is a forceful instrumental with a harsh guitar, synclavier and a beaty clappy percussive line, but surprisingly broody. With ‘Frantic upstream’ I assume Technogod joins in a growling lyric over drum and guitar, accentuated by a tasty little phaser fight to open with and some backwards sounds.
A short Ka-Spel number is repetitive in both the lyrics ‘big black hole’ and a simple cycling blurty beat, but quite catchy and followed by ‘Don’t look till its gone’ which has some an attractive simple ticking rhythm, but is a little floksy within the remit of this album, with a light vocal and some psychdelic lyrics (’just think of lilac fields, of dafffodils, of ferris wheels …’), but saved by an edgy guitar. ‘Go beyond, but…’ is twice as long as it needs to be - the first part is a well balanced rhythmic piece, but suddenly descends into an interesting atonal noodling that seems out of place here. The final track from the original, ‘Come to’, has a great chittering sampled rhythm bed, some iffy lyrics (’drip-drop-dripping, and the blood keeps dripping’) about a lover in a coma (’and if/when you come to, come to me’) which is actually stronger than you expect and a highlight.
And then the extra tracks - which I really like. They basically make up a 30 minute suite. ‘Masterpiece’ is a compelling swirling driving synth piece with voicedronnes, leading into the short experiment of ‘Solaris I’ constructed from samples of creaking doors, clattering billard balls echoed walking, squeaks and a deep throb. The pulse continues in ‘Belvedere’, where an Autobahnesque bass with 4/4 percussion steers us through a varying synthesised landscape. And so to ‘Solaris II’ which merges I (including the throb) with Belvedere to create a 14 minute soundscape that incorporates some concrete elements with the more beat driven perspective, and while it also could be considered noodling, has more structure and coherence (and also some mellotron).
So a true curate’s egg with parts that will please or interest different people - Dots fans will enjoy the Ka-Spel (and some Silverman) tracks which sound like what I have heard of them, I like the new stuff, and others will probably enjoy the psychpopdramatic moments. If none of these sound like you, but you are interested, definitely a trybeforeyoubuy album. But I did enjoy it.

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Encomiast
Winter’s End
Lens Records LENS0003
http://www.lensrecords.com
Some issues back we looked at an earlier Lens release - Reptillica’s Nurse (2001_3) - a poppy/garage release. This new one suggests that the label could build a varied and strong roster. Encomiast (Ross Hagen, Nick Paul and Samantha Balsam) create dark, moody and melodic ambient soundscapes which are very impressive.
With ‘Io’ they lead off forcefully: it builds slowly and surely, balancing some light industrial machine vent rumbling with a lovely tonal sound which is suspiciously like a cello. Slow and lingering, it creates a melancholy lustre, gently lifted by some distant birds near the end. A more tonal metal ambience runs through ‘Embrace:betrayal’ as high singingringing tones (the voice is used strongly in some later tracks) drift to create a melodic mood. A lightness resides in ‘Without fear of wind or vertigo’ with bubbling synths and winds carrying a soprano voiceing a slow air while deep throats chant, chittering birds drfiting past.
The centrepiece of the album, in position, length and immediate impressions is ‘Wait’. I was listening to it this morning as I drove to work through a light fog, and it seemed most appropriate. Through its 17+ minutes there is a swirling play of tonal layers, wooshing machines, pulsing harmonies which seems to expand and contract in fabulous clouds of sound, vibrating and driving onwards. It apparently contains a manipulated excerpt of a live performance (featuring 8 people): but whatever, it is a marvellous sensuous mobile of sound. As it fades you wonder how much longer it could have gone on for.
Layered voices create a sense of yearning in ‘If I dream I have you’ - extracted as tones they form a backdrop (and dropping out at times) for another lovely cello melody, edged with a machine rumble far away. The voice reaches its peak with ‘Fear of wind or vertigo (beneath)’ which is primarily samples layered, stretched, echoed and combined to form a huge chanting choir - although there is a shimmer of accompanying synth colouration, and some tonal complements.
The title track returns us to the darker ambient edge, industrial breathy groaning, harsher tones, pulsing and lighter touches in a complex construction which suggests some of the moods of winter’s end. And ending with a live track - ‘Nymph’ - showing that Encomiast have what it takes to deliver in concert: a high ringing cycle tone is gradually manipulated over a squeaky modulated vocal track (someone talking, me thinks) and deeper tones. The tones suddenly speed up and rise, disappear and then return as a shifting sussuration, then becoming a loop (sounds like a bit of ‘Tubular Bells’) and onwards to more shifting, new components added and played around with, and all intriguing (is that an oboe?)
Anyway, an excellent and varied album, with subtle and complex ambience leaning towards the darker end, but with some well judged balance.
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And of course, all past issues, with hundreds of reviews, on site.
Copyright for these reviews remains with me, Jeremy Keens. Artists and labels are free to use and quote them as long as they acknowledge Ampersand and don’t mess with my words! And if anyone else happens to mention one of these reviews, do pass on the web address or my email address so new readers can find me. Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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