Vital Weekly 34 Week 15 Number 34 LE FORCIBI DI MANITU: TRIVELOGUE (CD by Staalplaat) Here's an odd one - a three track CD, copiously detailed texts and a small board game designed around one of the tracks. Starting at the top - track 1 is by far the most atmospheric on this release. It's titled "Magellano", is divided into three movements and has an entertaining stream-of-consciousness text to accompany it in the booklet. It has something to do with that bloke and his boats. Strangest ingredient is the weird distorted flute which occasionally repeats a mildly hypnotic motif. Second up is Master Audio Minimax -a set of pieces produced by three players; for indeed, HAM is a match played with sound. Two of the group arm themselves with a battery of sounds in any easily accessible form, one taking the right channel and the other the left. The remaining participant is subjected to an improvised audio event and (as if this were not enough) has to guess the 'Secret Theme' which guided the selection of sounds used. Once a match is completed, everybody moves around one place changing roles. All the rules of this game are included in the CD book and are so detailed they could hardly be misunderstood. The final track is titled 'Marconiplein' and inspired a certain Manitu Rossi (any relation to Francis) to design an accompanying game. First fun is to be had with a pair of scissors...yes ! build your own dice -it's included. Next read the instructions and get to it. Oh I almost forgot... the music... well, it starts out as a small acoustic chamber piece I guess, and gradually moves through some unusual sonic events into the words... professional advice by someone with a Ph.D., followed by an incredibly trite vocal delivery of some rather uninspired lyrics which bring this extremely strange item to a close. (MP) Address: PHILIPPE MION -CONFIDENCE (mCD by Metamkine) Distort space and time. Now that your ear is a pond and it is early morning, we can go further. Listen to the surface tension and the tiny silences that briefly punctuate it after it has been disturbed and it hastily reassembles itself into a tight meniscus once more. Imagine dewdrops as packages of sound. They slowly roll off the overarching foliage and splash into the pond which is your ear. As they break through the surface, sound bursts out of their skinshellshapes and spreads like ink through the water. The day warms and the dewdrops roll and fall more rapidly eager to free the delicate contents which they have been nurturing in the cool dark before they are vaporized by the increasing heat. Occasionally several drops coalesce and plummet down, falling into the pond with greater force creating minute vortices which swirl and spin and suck sounds from beyond this immediate environment. Evidence of activity in a waking world. Care to join...? (MP) Address: Metamkine -13 Rue De La Drague -38600 Fontaine - France A FAULT IN THE NOTHING -COMPILATION ( 2CD by Ash/Touch ) Another worthwhile excursion into the world of Wozencroftian wrapping which gently hugs two CDs in this new and rather extreme Ash/Touch release. In many ways it comes across as a companion to the Mesmer Variations which were released on this label late last year. The CDs are distinguished from each other by two small dots...one Black and the other White. Black Hole starts with a (( the best) track (for me) by BERNARD GUNTER/john hudak. Just a little over 28'00 long it set me up for an evening of threshold listening... or so I thought, because the next piece is a soundcheck recording by Mr. Merzbow (quite fashionable in UK these days I'm told, and sure to help sell a bunch of these -as will the inclusion of Panasonic and Oval). I am convinced that Ios Smolders smiles while he works; the titles of his pieces are usually an indication of how broad his grin really is. Try this: 'Prelude a l'Apres-Midi d'un Phone'. Mark Behrens gently tenders seduction but not for long enough. Anthony Manning owns an analogue synthesizer. John Duncan continues to abrade like rough grade sandpaper...just when I thought he too was exploring (and perhaps starting to understand) seduction himself. White Hole, the other CD, has some exqusite tracks. It starts with a contribution from Panasonic -low thudfrob which is beautifully contrasted by Chris Watson's recording of ululating grey seals on The Isle Of May. Joe Banks as Disinformation (see: Ash LP Ghost Shells, and new CD out now) provides what sounds like the end of a record slowly being ground up by a blunt spike. 'Nix Zwei' by Rehberg & Bauer is a soft spray of surf noise and something stretched -a gorgeous warm embrace. Mr von Hausswolf visits the Royal Chamber and flushes some grit. There is a live track by Ralf Wehovsky in which he carefully introduces sounds to each other in slower time. Oval do the usual when will these boys invent yet another new technique...) before we are buffeted between the speakers by Daniel Menche whose staggered sonics and subsequent gentle freefall into mechanical space is the last cool breath on this CD. Ryoji Ikeda provides what can probably be compared to the audio equivalent of an earbud...pure cleansing frequencies which cleverly define the space they're played in. Achim Wollscheid...well Achim should have been somewhere else when this was compiled...the packaging includes an explanation of his piece which does nothing to improve the quality of the sound recording...no point in being clever if it sounds like shite. Personally, I would have preferred a different sequencing of all these track and even 2 separate releases confining the brutality to one and the caress to the another. Never mind, it still retains the eclectic Ash/Touch aura of strangeness and is well worth getting a copy of. (HP) Address: IN BETWEEN NOISE -HUMMING ENDLESSLY IN THE HUSH (CD by New Plastic Music) To follow last years debut CD, yet another delight from somebody hasn't been picked up -shame on you. You get this second opportunity. Steve Roden, the gentle bloke behind all of this, plays a wide variety of instruments, almost all of them acoustic (except for micromoog in the third track) and recorded allover the planet -from Slovenia to Lake Bled to Rakushiha. Instruments include a 'Retch', 'Scot tie Bagpipes', 'Stringcan', 'Kooky Kombo' and many more -all explained on the cover. The music has drones derived from sometimes ancient sound sources, a mystical eastern feel in strings or percussive instruments. Gently played. Yet another excellent CD -so for once: go out and get it! Address: New Plastic Music -P.O. Box 36B16 -Los Angeles, CA 90036-1154 -USA BLOWHOLE -BILLOWING SHEEN (CD by Apraxia) PROJECT W (CD by Apraxia) Two CD's dealing with, roughly said, the same musical interest: free improvised music. Blowhole surfaced on Vital before, and I must admit, more and more I'm attracted to what they do. Not necessarily because I think they make good tracks, but they sound intense. This is physical music that both hurts the listener and the player. Unlike many industrialists who sit back when their feedback gets going, these boys (and girls) must go. It surely hurts their fingers, lips or whatever body part they use to play their instruments. Project W appears to be more a close trio (as opposed to the open membership of Blowhole), whose aims come 'out of shared belief that interactive improvisation, with an emphasis on close, detailed listening, can create a group sound that has a life of its own... '. I must admit I am not too familiar with the terms used to describe this kind of music, but from these two CD's, this one is the more 'free jazz' one, instruments being fixed to alto saxophone, cello and drums. This one is as intense as the Blowhole - yet less electric, and more acoustic. Address: JOHN HUDAK -NATURA (7" by Apraxia) Hudak has been involved in making music for more then 10 years, mainly producing cassettes only. Much of his work could be defined as 'minimal' : it seems as if he is using tape-loops to construct his work, yet in many cases this is not it. Many of his pieces are real time field recordings which are carefully edited. This 7" has on one side the sound of fruit flies and the other side ice pellets falling on snow, which are used to trigger a synthesizer. On both sides the sound moves slowly, no sudden outbursts, but a gentle, minimalist approach. Somebody should offer John Hudak a CD release... (FdW) Address: BLOODYMINDED -TROPHY (CD by Bloodlust!) Just as much as Whitehouse is still an active force, so are many of their successors. A synth or two are set to a drone, rumbling low end and a voice starts to shout about murder, sex, s&m and these subjects alike. Nothing new under the sun. (FdW) Address: Bloodlust! -JAF Box 7962 -New York City 10116 -USA 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 Arnsterdam - The Netherlands All written by Frans de Waard (FdW) and The Square Root Of Sub (HP) »ST@@LPL@@T@ST@@LPL@@T@ST@@LPL@@T@ST@@LPL@@T@ST@@LPL@@T@ST@ @LPL@@T@ST@@LPL@@T« Visit us in Amsterdam or in Xyberspace Staalplaat's shop: Staalkade 6- Amsterdam »ST@@LPL@@T@ST@@LPL@@T@ST@@LPL@@T@ST@@LPL@@T@ST@@LPL@@T@ST@ @LPL@@T@ST@@LPL@@T«