Vital Weekly 27 Week 5 K. MIZUTANI - MILLSTONE (CD by Pure) Mizutani might be known to some people as the guitar player from Merzbow (for instance present on Merzbow's first tour in Europe in 1989). As far as I know there is an LP (from 1990) and now this CD, packed in the. as always, monochrome Pure covers (in other words, no info available). The first track is a 30 minute piece of scraping metal or stones, multi-tracked. Highly amplified, but apparently no studio effects have been used. Derived from maybe 4 different sound sources, this piece never gets boring. Since there is no loop or sampling, it changes all the time -but there is no evolution. The second track has the sound of snare being hit (with no regular intervals), some metal being banged and every once in a while some wild saxophone comes in. More improvised music then one would expect in the Pure series. Again no evolution. More metallic sounds on the third track, like a microphone scraping on the surface. The most violent one -even without the electronic effects. There is some overtone, natural feedback in there. A most peculiar CD, quite a surprise in the Pure series, and highly recommended. // Address: Pure -151 Paige St. -Lowell, MA 01852 - USA MsBR - COLLAPsELAND (CD by Heel Stone) Heel Stone's second release (the first being Merzbow) is again beautiful packed, an oversized 7" booklet with prints on transparent paper as well as a glossy paper. MsBR is one of the Jap noise bands which I never heard very well until this CD. The theme of this CD is the earthquake of Kobe, Japan 1995. I am not sure how this should be translated to the music, which is mainly harsh noise, using synth, guitar synth, effects, loop' .The whole thing is mostly loud, distorted and feedback like, yet there is enough happening in there to make it sound interesting. Track 3 for instance is soft by any means, yet tension is built up before... the final collapse? There are abrupt shifts in there, sounds rising up and going down again, in a vast array of noise. I could go as far, saying that this is the sound of amplified earthquakes, or that this causes earthquakes, but I'm not that poetical. I'd say, a fine work of sheer noise. // Address: P. Hermisson -Lindenaustr. 8 -79199 Kirchzarten -Germany THE HAFLER TRIO - THE DAY I MARRIED THE WORLD (7" by Fire) Limited to 479 copies... numbered and signed... The two tracks featured here continue the Hafler Trio track featured on the 'Unentitled' compilation CD. Stretched tones, quite light of tone (not by any means the dreaded A word), but high EQ-ed. Towards the end of one side, drumming (a steady, yet not housy) comes in. A somber and austere release, so buy it even when you think it's expensive (for you may never want to know what poverty is). // Address: Fire -P.O.Box 7257 - 127 Reykjavik -Iceland MAGAZINES Bad Alchemy Nr. 27. Why are these German only magazine so damn good? Good intellectual writing about experimental music, well Bad Alchemy is another example. Tons of reviews, a piece on 'Noise Culture -Secret Listening' (showing there are no real borders between techno, ambient, musique concrete) and a tape release featuring Tesendalo and Michael Renkel. // Address: R. Dittmann -Franz-Ludwigstr. 11 -97072 Wurzburg - Germany 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. Any feedback is welcome . Forward to your allies. Snail mail: Frans de Waard -P.O.Box 11453 -1001 GL Amsterdam -The Netherlands All written by Frans de Waard (FdW) and The Square Root Of Sub IMP)