VITAL WEEKLY 16 Number 42 VARIATIONS (Compilation CD by Paradigm Discs) Interesting in crowd compilation from London, compiled by the people around Morphogenesis. Featured are John Wall (with his sampled approaches to classical music), Andrew Jacques (with a great, very noisy, musique concrete piece), John Grieve (original member of Nurse with Wound with his first solo outing under his own name, with a dense saxophone piece. I must admit I know very few people who play interesting music with this instrument), Crow (voice text samples), Alquima (originally from Mexico, she uses dark ambient textures) , Kymatik (with Morphogenesis members, sounding a like Morphogenesis) and Adam Bohman, with a strange piece of environmental sounds and spoken word, operating as a kind of audio diary. In all a varying CD, with many good pieces of today's improvised and electronic music. The press blurb should have been in the booklet, so that everybody gets the right introduction // Address: Fax: + 44171-272-5816 DANIEL MENCHE -VULGAR SCRATCH (7" by Gender Less Kibbutz) The wonder child of industrial music hits again with a relatively short 7" (on 45 RPM, for best listening playback). Side A opens with a fast pulsating sound that fade into scratched sounds, both high and low end. Side B is more an organic piece of scratches throughout. This is definitely one of the more stranger (and conceptual) Menche pieces I heard lately. The 7" itself comes on clear vinyl, with thin paper and info printed on transparent cover. Bound to be another fine collectors item for sure. Address: STATICS (Compilation CD by CCI) The second release on this fine Japanese label, in, again, a beautiful somber digipack. It's hard to tell if there is any theme connected. ..it might be the title, as many of the featured artists built their tracks around static sounds. Overall the music is on the experimental, maybe even noisy side. My favorites include Darrin Verhagen (from Shinjuku Thief, Dorobo label), Jim O'Rourke, Alan Lamb. On the disappointing side I found Paul Schutze (who freak's around with marginal sound sources) and David Toop (idem). The rest was pretty good (including Ryoji Ikeda, Akira Yamamichi, Kazuhiko Kinami, Christophe Charles and Andrew Lagowski & Toru Yamanaka) Address: CCI -407-5- 46-16 Jingumae -Shibuya-Ku -Tokyo 150- Japan Artgallery is a fine French label, having released some interested music (a/o. two CD's by Schnitzler). We received interesting new ones from this label, which we will review here. CONRAD SCHNITZLER -CHARRED MACHINERY (CD) CONRAD SCHNITZLER -ELECTRONEGATIVITY (CD) Subtitled 'The Cassette Concert Series No. and 3' .In the past I wrote about my love-hate relationship with this man and the mixed feelings stay alive when I played these new CD's. Charred Machinery opens with a great piece of moving electronic music, shifting back and forth. This is a great kinetic piece. The second piece is more improvised sounding with plucking bass and can't hold the attention. The third piece is like a combination of these two pieces, and partly interested. The other CD opens with two similar long pieces, to be followed by 6 shorter pieces. The shorter pieces are more interested because in their limited time frame, there seems not much room for long freaky improvs. Hark your own favorites from these two is my suggestion. ANDREW POPPY -RUDE BLOOM (CD) Andrew is founding member of The Lost Jockey (who remembers them? And who will put their two brilliant records on CD?) and after that a composer of interesting new wave of Steve Reich alike minimal music. This new CD came as a surprise. I must admit I don't know where Poppy was the last few years (music- wise that is), but there are two main pieces on this CD. The first 8 tracks are 'Eight Movements for Piano Trio' (violin, cello and piano) and are well- constructed pieces of serial music, not minimal Reichanian music at all. Austere might be the right word. The 3 tracks that make up 'Melody Versus The Brittle Funk' are joyous tracks with trumpet, tenor saxophone, piano, bass guitar. They are more jazzy styled, but it didn't do me anything. .. PROPELLER ISLAND -THE GARDEN (CD) Propeller Island is Lars Strochen, to some maybe known from his collaborations with Jorg Thomasius and Conrad Schniztler (in the Tonart series) .This sort of musically places him a little bit, as this CD reminded me of both Jorg and Conrad. After the opening piece of altered spoken word, synthesizer textures create moving pieces. Drones come and go, and make this CD into an enjoyable dark ambient journey. TRIPTYCK (CD) A trio consisting of Dominique Spriet, Jacques Deregnaucourt and Frederic Gregson. I can be short on this: improvised music with saxophones, some percussion and electronics. Not for me. .. IANCU DUMITRESCU/ANA-MARIA AVRAM (CD) The best until last. Dumitrescu belongs to one of my favorite composers. After 6 CD's on Edition Moderne, this new one with extensive liner notes is a more then welcome thing. Dumitrescu's first piece is for flute, Bass Saxophone, prepared piano, percussion and Tam Tam feedback and tapes. The sound is orchestral like drones, with sudden outbursts. The other two pieces are similar and have an intense feeling. Avram has also three pieces, for bass flute, flute and bass flute and percussion. She plays with the same tension curves as Dumitrescu but with more minimal means. An essential work. Address: Artgallery -c/o EPSL -91 Rue Eugene Labiche - 78290 Croissy Sur Seine -France Vital Weekly is published by Frans de Waard and submitted for free to anybody with an e-mail address. If you don't wish to receive this, then let us know. 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