Mort aux vaches
"For this live-to-air outing, Raphael Lyon’s primary instrument is a customised organ, with which he sketches out simple cyclical themes that suggest either a more rudimentary take on Terry Riley’s Persian Surgery Dervishes or a more involved reworking of Rick Wright’s Eastern-tinged organ mantras on Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma. He adds field recordings and occasional processed vocal incantations. Though modest in ambition, this is impressively concentrated work; its sense of warmth and honesty under…
Nine suggestions
NINE SUGGESTIONS gathers collaborations over the past couple of years between sound installation artist John Duncan and the two members of Pan Sonic, Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen. Duncan's previous collaborators have included Elliott Sharp, Bernhard Günter and Carl Michael von Hausswolff, and the album is on his own label. As Pan Sonic's reputation would lead you to expect, there's enormous confidence here in the handling of material, whether we're talking about distorted screeching like the st…
Dark Market Broadcast
Recorded in Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles. Walpurgisnachet recorded with Joe Potts. Purge recorded live at Anticlub, Los Angeles. Live recording engineered by Joseph Hammer. Mastered by John Duncan at Unormori, Tokyo. The result is a terrific industrial album, rusty, acid and distorted soundscape with a massive use of FM waves and voices recorded along with low frequency sounds.
Da sich die Machtgier
Compiling the results of what was originally intended to be a compositional collaboration between John Duncan and renowned sound artist Asmus Tietchens, Da Sich Die Machtgier… transcends its tumultuous creation to stand as a distinctive addition to the catalogue of both artists "Asmus Tietchens proposed that he and I work together years ago — many years ago. For a variety of reasons it didn't happen , and at this point I don't remember any of them. Finally we agreed to start: I asked him to send…
Phantom Broadcast
Following the records made in collaboration with Francisco López and the instrumental ensemble Zeitkratzer, John Duncan returns to solo work and to exploring further the sound source he's always preferred, shortwave. We know nothing about the actual radio transmission that Duncan picked up on 18 April 2002 in the course of a single recording that gave life to this work. Only shadows remain, taking on the aspect of bells, resonating into infinity, together with reverberations and apparent choruse…
Emeralds
CD version of of the self released-self-titled LP by Cleveland's Emeralds recorded Aug-Sept 2008. Proper follow up to their debut LP 'Solar Bridge', Emeralds takes the thick drone sound of that LP into an even more abstract and strange place. Visual music that lifts the listener up and transports them through tubes of sound occasionally to be swept into the opposite direction by an unexpected entrance into another world entirely. An intense journey that drops you off in a place just beyond death…
Coffret 1 Afrique
Beautiful 4xCD set with mid 70s radio pieces and radiophonic creations commissioned by France-Culture and realized with the assistance of Radio France Internationale. A very nice mix of fild recordings and diary travel CD1Le Transcamerounais (En suivant le train qui traverse le Cameroun / 1977) - Le Brûleur de pluie de Konsamba (Conte) CD2L'Opéra du Cameroun (Ville, savane, forêt / 1976) CD3Les petites filles au clair de lune (Conte) - L'arbre Acajou (L'arbre qu'on abat / 1975) CD4Le Sult…
Selected passages / Set.grey
Selected passages : During the winter of 2008, I stayed on the campus of a small college in Vermont where I had previously recorded the material for a piece titled 'intervals'. When I first arrived I made recordings of a small radio which was in my room, I would listen to that radio throughout my stay and captured many different sounds from it. I also spent quite a bit of time both indoors and out recording the environments, and made recordings playing some of the pianos which are in vari…
Unter den linden / Und transit
The 'Grundton' of this 30-minute composition is the recording of the concert given at SND Studios Sheffield (UK) in March 2009, entitled 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' by Mark Fell and powered with d&b speakers by Tony Myatt (MRC, University of York). The sounds of planes have been recorded in Mallorca (Spain) in 1987, and in Pilat (France) in 2009. This music comes after HCDC, composed in November 2008 after the death of Daniel Charles Ð his last days were darkened by brea…
347
'Tim uses several boxes of speakers and Seijiro uses a snare drum as a resonance box, with microphones. They put boxes for their music in another box = the space. They create different levels of universe within the space. From micro to macro. Always with one clear intention: to improvise listening and to organize sonic space together in a very delicate way.Thanks to La Comète 347, Paris. 'Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to i…
Primitive North
A mighty split release from two of today's most progressive underground metal bands, bringing together the formidable post-doom of Brooklyn's A Storm Of Light and the luminous sludge of Canadian duo Nadja. The real question here is whether or not the music can come anywhere close to the awesome sleeve art, and while that may not even be possible, the twenty-two minute epic from Nadja has a decent go at it. While A Storm Of Light throw everything at their plodding, Wagnerian outings 'Bro…
Cymbals In The Night
Heavy solo release from deep as Marianas Trench Swedish drummer Sven-Ake Johansson. Johansson is primarily known in the US as the drummer on the two hugely influential Brotzmann recordings: For Adolphe Sax and Machine Gun. However, the Berlin-based percussionist/composer/filmmaker/performance artist/painter -- all of which he is remarkably adept at -- also has numerous FMP releases and a well documented relationship with Alexander Schlippenbach. Notable contributions to the canon of exper…
And In The Endless Pause There Came The Sound Of Bees
It probably wouldn't surprise most, but the Type label was originally formed with soundtracks in mind. The moody music that usually accompanied their favorite independent films was a starting point for the label, so it seems perfect that nearly seven years on, they are going back to their roots, if you like, with this album from acclaimed Icelandic musician/composer/producer Jóhann Jóhannsson. Jóhannsson emerged on the influential Touch label with the genre-defining Englabörn (TO 052LP) album in…
Returnal
LP edition: 'Returnal' is the fourth album from Daniel Lopatin's Oneohtrix Point Never project, after 'Betrayed In The Octagon' (Deception Island, 2007), ÔZones Without People' (Arbor, 2009) and 'Russian Mind' (No Fun, 2009). All 3 albums being superbly compiled on the 'Rifts' double CD set (No Fun, 2009). It sees Lopatin fine tune his craft for creation of deep atmospheres and texture even further. Starting off with the mind blowing triptych of 'Nil Admiari'-'Describing Bodies'-'Stress Waves', …
skls
S K L S are Joachim Nordwall & Henrik Rylander, the key members of Swedish noise-rock band The Skull Defekts. That’s their debut release under the name S K L S, which seems to be a kind of side-project for darker, electronic minimalistic sounds. As opposed to the full guitars & drums line-up of The Skull Defekts follows the traditions of motoric Kraut-style (Can or Neu! — like), S K L S is defenitely oriented mostly on spacey-psychedelic-electronic-meditation of Cluster or Popol Vuh. It’s…
Sunburst Lux
Both compositions on that record related to (more or less) to the “tape music”. The piece of Argentinian experimental master Anla Courtis is solely based on manipulated sounds of geyzers, recorded in South America. Ukrainian Edward Sol works with weird cassette loops, lo-fi oscillations and some primitive tones from his vintage USSR-made analogue synth Polyvox. Generally speaking, the sound of this record belongs to the monolith dark drone music.
Drive Home With A Hammer
This is the first full-length CD release by Norwegian noise artist Andreas Brandal. He has been making music with various bands and projects since the late 80's and released a several 7" and LPs on famous Norwegian label Smalltown Supersound as solo artist, as well as a participant of improv-noise duo Larmoyant. "Drive Home With A Hammer" is not "just another noise record". Once you hear it, you will be unexpectedly surprised by unique sense of Andreas in manipulating with interesting close-to-r…
VII
The seventh album from Montreal's harbinger of blackmetaldoompsychedelia appears on Important. Of the two sides of Aun's bi-polar output this falls into the cataclysmic doom zone, full of downtuned scorched-earth riffage and ominous ambience. The inclusion of drummer Away from Voivod lends a thunderous motorik propulsion to 'Falcon' and punctures 'Broken Bill' with neck snapping weight. For fans of Earth, Sunn 0))), Pelican, Gnod - Recommended.
After Before
Fantastic document of higher-minded drone ritual from a trio that features Taketo Shimada. Shimada is a shadowy figure in fringe minimalism. He worked as Henry Flynt’s assistant, put together the Yoshi Wada week at the Emily Harvey Foundation, was involved with Herbert Huncke, Alison Knowles and a bunch of other Fluxus artists. Messages is an extended investigation into the eternal music concepts of Wada, LaMonte Young, Charlemagne Palestine, Pandit Pran Nath et al, with Shimada on bass a…
Emanations of a New World
Vivian Wang and Leslie Low, both of The Observatory, recount childhood memories of mythological fantasy theme park called Haw Par Villa. First called Tiger Balm Garden, the odd but colorful attraction contained a strange mix of characters and familiar tales from Chinese mythology and folklore, mixed in with earthy depictions of modern life and the Chinese concept of hell. The mutual love and dread of the park is told over eight recordings. Voice, guitar, percussion and other traditional i…