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Ampersand Etcetera – 2002_02
Ambient & microwave & electronica & experimental lowercase & postclassical
& minimal & techno & etcetera
This issue opens with three albums which feature/include some voice cut-ups: Z’ev,
Hollydrift and Kyriakides. I feel there is some interplay between them. Then into
a couple of albums of improv (Konk Pack and Tu m’), before some minimalism:
albums from Samartzis/M and Fantasmagramma and 3" releases from a new label
– aesova.
A few notes
I forgot to add the Consume web address last time, which is
http://www.consume.freeserve.co.uk
Burning Shed asked me to let UK readers know about a Roger Eno concert to accompany
a release from him. Not really sure who is from the UK, or Europe, or whether
other readers might get there, but the details are:
Celebrated Ambient musician Roger Eno will be releasing a new album through online
record label Burning Shed early in 2002.
To coincide, a performance featuring Roger Eno, Mark Beazley (Rothko), Tim Bowness
from No-Man (with pianist Peter Chilvers) and German electronica outfit Centrozoon
will be held at the Assembly House, Theatre Street, Norwich on the evening of
Thursday February 28th (doors open 7.30pm).
Tickets are £7.50 and are available via the shop section of the Burning
Shed site, www.burningshed.com (subject to a £1 booking fee) and the Norwich
Arts Centre box office (01603 660352).
[I’m not planning on turning this into an announcement email, but you have
to keep the labels sweet :-) and it is quite a coup for them]
And aesova (more below – including address) is now hosting the mp3 site .tiln
(looked at in a v3 special edition). Marc was no longer able to maintain this
extensive source of material, so it has moved en-masse to aesova (who have their
own growing site too).
Coming up: No Type makes a foray outside the virtual world, Gaab, Frog Pocket,
Maenad, O’Rourke, Berthling and TaaPet: at least.
jeremy@pretentious.net
&
http://ampersandetc.virtualave.net/ampersand.html
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Z’ev
Face The Wound
Soleilmoon Sol72cd
http://www.soleilmoon.com
With ‘Face The Wound’, performance percussion artist Z’ev has created
a dramatic ‘Sprache Opera’. Working with voices from 30 audio cassettes
collected ‘from thrift shops, garage sales and flea markets’ that provided
over 45 hours of source material ( self help, marketing, evangelists, lectures
on very varied, answering machines tapes and much more), he has cut and pasted
them to form a musical narrative.
Reviewers were given the benefit of a cd-rom with the full ‘lyrics’
– which has been helpful. The opera is divided into chorus sections, where
the voices are presented without accompaniment, and songs where Z’ev provides
powerful background. This is a combination of percussion and electronic tones
and textures which provide colour and momentum to the work.
‘Hello…I want to introduce you to my tapes…listen to them like
they’re a sick person…this is a very personal message…but it’s
all intertwined’ opens track 1, giving us an introduction to this complex
work. Which ends ‘Thank you so much for listening’.
While it may sound boring, a number of factors make it far from so. First, Z’ev
has a deft ear for rhythms of speech, cutting and editing so that the vocal parts
can be listened to as much for their music as there message. Elements recur providing
structure and hooks to the flow. Secondly, the rhythm and poetry of the language
carries you along as different voices speak their fragments, creating a surreal/cut-up
poetry to the segments which is fascinating. Then there is the accompaniment which
drives and guides many of the songs, and is listenable in its own right. And finally,
there are themes which Z’ev is playing out for us – instability of the
family, submission through religion, judgement – centred on a belief that
our inability to ‘face the wound’ of the witch genocide is at the ‘core
of a wide variety of social, cultural and especially environmental ills’.
Following these tracks through the work offers a complex listening.
This piece follows ‘HYPERcussion’ on Avant (I haven’t heard it,
but a review indicates it is more percussion, less talk), and the tracks here
are described as Heads and Tales #20-38, following the 19 on that album. Anyway,
this is a thrilling and chilling album, probably not everyone’s cup of tea,
but a labyrinth worth entering.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Hollydrift
In These Days Of Merriment
Cuba Club Media ccm003
http://www.angelfire.com/indie/hollydrift
Hollydrift’s (Mathias Anderson) first release got the treatment on 2001_03,
and here he offers us another dense collaged piece (‘recorded in true analog
tape format’ at the State Conservatory) that is ‘album’ length.
And with such density it is not going to be possible to follow every change and
edit. The mood is mysterious and subdued, with swirling backdrops of radio-static-whitenoise
and morse messages, these ‘merri’ days seeming to be (perhaps) the darker
days of cold wars and espionage: the cover is a misty telecommunications tower,
and the sounds of numbers stations appear throughout.
‘Loranc’ is a brief opening of cut and looped voices ‘on air again’
that leads into ‘Donner Pass’. Strange slow singing and other voices,
clicks shift into developing machine sounds and a morse message. A sample about
different channels before cycling edgy mechanical, simple piano and then swirling
tonal and drifts. Again a looped opening – here Gregorian chant – after
which ‘Battle in the sky’ moves into its number station mood. Throughout
various stations are heard with harsh tones, radio crackles, rumbling beats and
layers shaping up for the battle. A music box and morse and then a tonal message
ends the piece.
Simpler, and in some ways more ‘musical’, ‘Floating on the bellcross’
layers strong rhythm (from clicks, shimmers), drawled voice and long accordion
tones that stretch into drones, which are warbled in the final moments. ‘As
the world rolls back’ seems to be based, appropriately, on reversed sounds
after a dialling phone. Layers build creating a constrained madness which teeters
on the edge of recognisability, a beat comes in, and the main track alternates
with a simple bleep. A variety of voices opens ‘Wizard of the dell’
seguing into modems and descending tones and a distant songlike talking. A mumbling
voice emerges from the background, surrounded by metallic drones, subsumed by
a rising chorus before a shimmering fade.
Cut ups and tones loop into ‘One year later’, surging, more numbers
and a crackling; then into a long work through or rumbling white noise washes,
industrial developments and melodic tones. Once again Hollydrift has created a
dense and fascinating soundwork (hinted at here), each track selfcontained but
adding to the overall mood and direction, balancing cuts and changes with sustained
or maintained periods to provide the support for longer pieces. Someone said of
the earlier release ‘worth seeking out, I look forward to a more substantial
(ie longer) Hollydrift release’ and Mathias hasn’t disappointed me –
look for them both.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Yannis Kyriakides
A ConSPIracy Cantata
Unsounds 01u
http://www.unsounds.com
A first release from a new label (there are a few new labels this issue), and
something of a modern classical/electroacoustic album.
The main work is ‘A conSPIracy cantata’ in six movements, and as the
name suggests, conspiracy and spying, together with the ‘code’ of the
Delphic Oracle are its subject. ‘The Conet Project’, which collected
numbers station recordings has proven to be a great resource for composers –
Kyriakides acknowledges it, Hollydrift used it, and so have a number of other
artists to my knowledge. While I haven’t got a copy, the recitations are
recognisable and compulsive (and I am sure there are musical samples from some
of the stations through these and other compositions [the start of part 3, for
example]).
Kyriakides uses four basic voice forms in the piece: there are direct samples
from Conet; in many places, though, he has one of his two performers recite (or
in one case, sing) the ‘lyrics’ of number stations; a recitation of
100 basic words; and a quote from the Oracle. These are supported by electronic
textures, complex production and piano. The first track is a fairly straight integration
of various stations with electronic rhythms, white noise washes, ticks and tones
shifting to radio noise and interference. In the second part piano and electronica
pulses and loops underscore the reading list, and singing of fragments from one
station. This is jagged, swinging from dense complexity to simple lines, other
electronica added as well. The beeps of the conclusion continue into the third
part (and in fact all tracks bleed into each other). Again this is a intricate
combination of textures (tones, rumbles, numbers, shimmers, morse messages) with
piano and voice that swings between subtlety and crescendo and overlapped complexity.
The fourth part opens with a simple weaving of piano, spoken list and a slightly-processed
version of a MOSSAD station, then switches halfway to a pulsing recapitulation
of the second part that is even more edgy. From here we shift into two more relaxed
sections. Five alternates (and interweaves) textures based on morse stations (with
tones and colour) with an almost classic lieder for voice and piano, quite subtle.
And the final section layers piano, a crackling click of textures, a Spanish station
and sung vocal fragments. A musical loop enters and the two voices move to an
interplaying reading of the 100 words, a light texture, some moody insistent piano,
and a CIA station eases us out of this dense and innovative work.
Two shorter works fill the album (15 minutes each). On ‘hYDAtorizon’
a soundtrack of sliding sine tones, quite engrossing in its own right as it moves
between quieter and louder, active passages, is played through 4 speakers in a
piano. The pianist then duets with it by picking out notes that vibrating in harmony.
The cover describes it as ‘Zen-like’ and it is in its simple progressions
and harmonics, and hypnotic. ‘tetTIX’ combines recordings of various
insect chirrupping with drum machines (steady and some fractured, I think –
it is hard to separate the insects and electronics) with a voice that sings tones
in a sliding moan. Swinging through phases of high activity to the voice and a
ticking alone, and back, getting jazzy at times, a diverting combination of natural
and synthetic.
This album sits comfortably in the modern classical and electro-acoustic baskets,
where it provides a complex but rewarding experience.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Konk Pack
Warp Out
Grob Grob323
http://www.churchofgrob.com
Another improvisation group from Grob, here a trio of guitar/klarnet, percussion
and analogue synths, recorded in 2 days of June 2001. Typically, it doesn’t
feature music as such (melody and structured rhythms), but group pieces that ebb
and flow in terms of density and volume.
As with much improv, you (I? One?) need to be in the mood for it: the fractured
nature, uncertainty and shifting can be unsettling if you are already tense –
it seems to make it worse somehow. But if you are willing to go with the flow,
there is lots to listen to, and to appreciate. The instrumentation means that
the sounds are complex and varied. A flat guitar can add percussive scratchy effects
as well as more typical guitar sounds (though never a sequence of notes that could
be construed as a melody!) Analogue synths add woobles tones space-war-effects
and general colour, while the percussion is both a full drum set but also ‘junk’
which provides another complexity.
Nicely structured, the album has three long tacks with shorter simpler ones between.
The feeling is surprisingly physical or tactile – the tin pot drums, scraping
guitar and blurting klarnet are quite grounding, the percussion particularly providing
a solid base (though not beat) to the tracks. The longer ones move through various
moods and momentums, while the shorter ones seem to be more explorations within
a more circumspect field. (Yep, I’m not going to try and describe them! Suffice
to say they are all quite busy.)
Nothing really surprising here, but the instrumental combination makes this an
appealing improv.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Tu m’
.01
Cut cut006
http://www.cut.fm
In March 2001 Gabriele, Polidoro and Romanelli, the three members of Tu m’,
went into the studio and recorded the six improvisations that make up this album.
There is no indication of what instruments they played, but to me it sounds like
it was primarily electronic bits and bobs, with perhaps the assistance of some
contact mikes and guitars for string scratching. That is, there are no really
identifiable musical instruments.
The result is ambient-improv-glitch – or such a genre. The pieces are built
from clicks tones sinewaves humms pulsings bleeps crackles rumbles sweeps scraggles
and so on. That is, all manner of sounds that can be extracted from equipment
in the studio. On the whole, these are decentred and disembodied. Various combinations
and stages are drifted through for their lengths (generally 10 or more minutes),
responding to the mood and whim of the musicians, ebbing and flowing in a subtle
intensity.
The tracks do vary – the third has a more physical feel with scraping noises
running in the early part and a more subtle subdued second half, while the fifth
uses deep rumbles and sweeping tones to create a sense of dread. But overall,
there I feel that there is too much happening, with lots of activity and constant
change without allowing moods to really settle in or develop. The final track
is the most successful for me, with an active watery click, tones and loop which
interact and develop almost imperceptibly, providing a gentle release, the simplicity
actually more powerful.
I think what is happening is that it is difficult to listen intensely to music
which shifts so rapidly for long periods – hence the move to 15-20 minute
releases. In chunks this album works well, but is overwhelming taken whole. Alternatively,
as a kaleidoscopic background it creates a thoroughly modern ambience.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Philip Samartzis and Sachiko M
Artefact
Dorobo Limited Editions (unnumbered, but DLE7)
http://werple.net.au/~dorobo
Dorobo limited editions have seen a variety of electroacoustic (Samartzis, Northam)
and glitch (Verhagen, Thomas) pieces – raising the usual questions about
sublabels. Why was ‘Hydra’ here and not on Iridium? Should Thomas have
been on the LE rather than the ‘main’ label, but it didn’t exist
at the time. And even more interesting, why make these limited editions anyway!
Anyway, they are, which means they will eventually disappear (a couple already
have), so consider them closely.
On this release Samartzis further pursues the direction that we saw in his collaboration
with Kozo Inada (v2001_19), but even deeper into minimal glitch-clickiness. Here
he plays with sine-waves, noise generators and prepared cds, Sachiko M playing
the waves too. As with most glitch disks, to describe them seems impossible and
to diminish them. Each of the four tracks uniquely combines sinewaves, rhythmic
putts and clicks, silence, crackles, deep throbs, but in a consistent manner which
creates a structural unity. The pieces shift effortlessly between simplicity and
multilayered dense movements, locking together completely. Each has its own feel,
too: ‘Interference’ is more varied, shifting through almost organic
rattles, interference bursts, futz and blips and more in a movement towards a
deep throbbing finale; ‘Corruption’ focuses on chittering insects and
rhythmic chatter balanced with sine waves interfering across the speakers; ‘Rupture’
has some very very deep undertones and lots of little noises; while ‘Surface
noise’ weaves around some high piercing tones. But again, there is much more
happening, and also aspects which recur across the whole.
I have listened to this in a variety of environments, including on earphones,
and can’t emphasise too much how listening to this in an environment adds
to the experience. It is a very visceral album as the deep sounds vibrate, the
tones interfere as you move around, embed themselves in your head (and as with
many tonal pieces, the affects vary with systems and volume). Sounds suddenly
drop out, develop, appear or slide away in a fascinating and engrossing manner.
Complex, exciting and even (yes) moving, this is an enjoyable and intriguing set;
another winner from a dependable label.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Fantasmagramma
AB
Extrasensory cd.1
http://www.extrasensory.org
An Italian duo (brothers, I think) introduces an new ‘minimal electronic
microsound / glitch’ collective and label. The PR suggests that the duo focus
‘on a reduction logic applied in their sound/data patterns, determining a
time/space scan, based on the interrelation between the "error" and
"zero" concepts’ using carefully chosen sounds ‘composed into
a post-techno digital music’. The theory is reflected in the full titles
of the pieces: the music is very much in the mode lead by Ikeda and other Japanese
artists: clicks pops pips and futzes coming from electronic recesses to form short
rhythmic pulsing pieces.
‘A’ has two parts. The first comprises 10 shorter pieces 2.5 minutes
or less (and more are less) and is titled ‘a (insert/delete/scan) insert
= applied data / delete = reduction of data / scan = simultaneous reading’.
Surprisingly the first part is the most abrasive, fast pops and clicks but with
some slightly teethjarring noises too, but not unacceptably. Variations to the
arhythmic beats created by the ticks and pips follow: slower musical tones in
2, a sine wave in three, the choppy intensity of 5, or the slower momentum of
10. Seven features a resonant tone that steps up and down, while 6 depends mainly
on tones rather than clicks, and white noise pulses run through 9.
Following is ‘->(-a- -a- -a- -a- -a) -a- -a- -a- -a- -a = fantasmagramma
minus consonants (consonants = colours, vowels = time/space)’. These four
tracks are longer (about 14 minutes total) and are grounded in a much stronger
rhythmic sense. A deep resonant pulse beats out a forceful rhythmic march in 11,
the foregrounded clicks of the first part somewhat relegated. The tone moves into
12, but becomes variable and pulses, accompanied by a ‘tushtush’ and
little noises, all speeding upper during the track before a white noise and twitter
fade into 13. Here a slow pulse (almost a drum beat) is joined by a building ringing
and a whistle, and finally 14 which has a talking-rhythm blurt over the increasing
speed of ringing to an active conclusion.
‘b (60 sec. Modules)’ follows and is 20 ‘modules = systematic measure
applied to data’ which seem to come in overlapping sets of three (the first
three are 0,0:0,0-0,1:0,1 which suggests a progression, and the next three, starting
with the last of that set, are 0,1:0,1-0,2:02) interspersed with stand alone units,
and ending with 0,0x:0,0y:0,0z. Again, this arcana may mean something to some,
but what happens on disk? Taken as a single piece, there is a strong movement
from quiet early sections, with small sudden noises into a more active central
section with more twitters, bloops, blowy tones and overall activity which fades
back to a less agitated, almost silent finale. This does tie-in, to some degree,
with the track information, as in parts you can see where the overlap is happening:
for example 26 is mainly pops, 27 adds soft putts, and in 28 the pops are dropped.
All the method in the world wouldn’t matter if the result wasn’t listenable
(which isn’t actually how it works in the art world, but for the buying public,
not many people want to buy too many interesting ideas which sit on the shelf).
Anyway, for all their theory, Fantasmagramma have constructed a set of glitches
which make for interesting listening – short bursts of particular ideas which
move on to new ones regularly. Great earphone stuff too as the particles swirl
through the inter-ear-aether.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Alluvion
Alluvium 2
Aesova 00001101
Various Artists
Aenviron: one
Aesova 00001110
http://www.aesova.org
A new label – these first two releases are 3" disks in plastic sleeves
with handsome subtle colour print inserts as covers. The site suggests a quite
interesting schedule for 2002 of artists – John Hudak, Neil Campbell, Tore
H Boe, Aeron&Alejandra, for example - and there is a substantial selection
of MP3s available too.
‘Alluvium 1’ was released on Staalplaat’s Bake CD-r label, and
I haven’t heard it. Here Alluvion present a flowing 18 minute sound work,
opening with puttering clicks overlaid with fast little ones into which a breathing
noise drifts; pulsing chime like tones intrude, takeover, a whooshing wind behind;
distorted rumbles develop and a violin sound; all this fades to a rumble then
a soft crackle and into a ringing, buzz complex. This is almost musical, becoming
dense with clicking, string resonances and clockwork sounds. It drops down to
a buzzing and a muffled noise of moving furniture, popping and echoed, that fades
right out. And then a buzzing and crackle, similar to the opening, emerges taking
a slow crackling fade. Gentle and relaxed, an excellent example of the pleasures
of 3 inches. And the cover image of an out-of-focus painterly high-tension powerline
is quite beautiful.
The compilation disk is unusual, in that there is only a single indexed track,
and the individual compositions have been edited continuously. Three minutes of
watery crackles and pops, accompanied early on by some doors and whooshing leads
into an extended period of a ringing and tapping with a background susurrus, during
which times some voices intrude and a noise like knife sharpening. At around 9
minutes a noisy buzzing crackle takes over, intermingled with what sounds like
an outdoors (or indoors, at one stage a lift rings) recording – there is
something about the space. The site recording drops out, leaving the crackling
comes back, goes – almost as if there was a loose connection. A brief period
of walking around, talking and rhythmic knocking, doors and moving outside, before
another long period, a nosiy street with someone talking. The Chinese voice seems
to be spelling things, but either keeps repeating parts of words (s-t-a-f-f-a-f-f-a-f-f)
or has been looped. Then the final couple of minutes are a collage of watery sounds,
deep soft rumbles, varied clatters and squeals, that fade out and away. The variety
of material and styles leads to an interestingly divergent soundpiece.
It is easy to use the different approaches of the artists and the sounds to determine
where the main joins are. And from an email that Aesova sent me, the components
are (only the 5 artists are listed on the cover, not the titles or that Frans
gets 2 bits):
Frans de Waard : regen.2
Steve Roden : trainride from bad schandau to berlin
Howard Stelzer : redline to alewife
Alejandra Salinas : leaving my mom's house at logrono, la rioja, spain
Lutz Bauer : lunatic hong kong ride
Frans de Waard : fiets].
But its rather nice to see the piece as a single work. In which guise it works
very well – Aesova has the hallmarks of a ‘label to watch’. Or
listen to – the cover of this looks like an out-of-focussed ear.
&&&&&&&&&&&&
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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