\ / | ----- /\ | \ / |== |== | / | \ / Week 50 \ / | | / \ | \ /\ / | | |/ | \ / Number 61 \/ | | / \ |--- \/ \/ |__ |__ |\ |__ | MONTE CAZAZZA - POWER VERSUS WISDOM (CD by Side Effects) Monte Cazazza's name rings one or two bells somehwere to some people. Originally he was part of the very first industrial scene around Throbbing Gristle - some even credit the TG credo 'Industrial Music For Industrial People' to him. It may be nostalgia on my side, but his first two 7"s for Industrial Records were great, but he went wrong with his 7" for Sordide Sentimental - crappy casio rhythms and his voice is just awful. But that was more then a decade ago. Luckily the casio has been replaced by more updated technology, yet his voice remains the same. This CD with nine tracks recorded at KPFA Radio in California has been recorded five years, but I am not too impressed by his dark songs and ditto vocals. All lyrics are about sex and death (and the combination of both) - both subjects of no particular interest to me. The two included live tracks from 1980 are raw and yes, you may blame nostalgia here, but I liked these far better. It's like listening to TG live LP number 53 - not a great recording but a great atmosphere. (FdW) Address: THE OFFICIAL PROJECT - ATAVISTIC ELECTRONICS & OTHER "OFFICIAL" TOUR/TURE(S) (MC on Widemouth Tapes). The Official Project started in 1990 and exsists out of 31 participants, some just for one session, some for all of them with as many as 17 collaborating at the same time. This tape is the quasi-document from their live touring in 1992. The tape starts out with something that sounds like a sort of close-harmony singing, followed directly by a radio commercial for their live tour, which mainly exist out of old-fashioned jazz-like improvisations in a style which reminds me a bit of the album "Another Band >From L.A." by The Mothers, mainly because of the Flo and Eddie vocals. But not as good and less specific. I can hear that their main problem is how to get all participants instructed and organized, since they work with so many different people. So they just decide to be not too specific about it all; "you repeat a word, say: "horseass", then he blows his horn and I hit my drumkit and you scream something whatever comes too your mind" and so on and so on. Some of the tape cuts are really bad and there is lots of tape-hiss everywhere. No; this tape is not for me, I don't like it because it's too much improvisation in a too traditional way with too many traditional instruments. (RM) Contact: P.O.Box 3282 - Baltimore - Maryland, 21203 - U.S.A. TESTAMENT (CD by RRRecords) RRRecords exsists for don't know howmany years (10 something) but still this is "only " their 21th CD release. This one falls in the catagory of "Music Concrete" and "ambient". Lots of cutting-up and playing around with concrete sounds. I'll go about describing each track, as I am not interested in giving a random description. First track is from the Belgium "Artificial Memory Trace" and is a beautiful track with lots of sounds overlayered; birds, thunder, (wind)pipes, a bouncing ball becomes a rhythm, one chord on a acoustic guitar gets blown away by a really big noise, breaking glass and some really briljant ambient sounds. Second track is by John Wiggins and he uses more popular wellknown musical samples to create his composition. Little pieces of charts music being cut up with speech of all times (I had a dream) and bits and pieces from radio. All of them being altered and manipulated by speeding up/down, backwards..."I get /so emotional/baby/giving you the best/1,2,3/the midnight hour" Tracks 3 and 4 are both done by Eric Chasalow. He plays around with what I think is some modern opera-like piece done in the english language in his first track (just under two minutes) and with lots of backwards sounds in his second. Track 5 is by Jerome Noetinger from Metamkine and is called;"Le Ballon Rouge". It is done by rubbing balloons by hand and running the air out of a balloon like we used to do when we where kids so you get a high pitched sound. These sounds go through effects. This track fits the magnificent series of the Metamkine label (that is run by Jerome). 6th track is from RLW (Ralf Wehowsky) and has a great title:"325 Painful Moments In The Life Of A Self-Pitying Christian Spokesman". The sound that he uses sounds like it originated from a human voice and has been altered in lots of different ways. High pitched sounds, CD being fast-forwarded, mixing in blanks. It's more noisy and very good, with an incredible stereo. Quite mad, as I like it. Track 7 is an incredible beautiful ambient track from Thomas Dimuzio. Track 8 is from Tim Walters and is also in an ambient style, but now more sounds are coming in and are going out. Lots of effects and it's the longest track on the CD; over 15 minutes. Track 9: Nick Peck - Music From Airports. Eno did "Music for Airports" and this is, as the title suggests, done with sounds taken from airports. Lots of voices, people waiting in line, planes taking off, intercom announcements, played through effects. Very recognizable sounds ofcourse but there is also this sound that is clearly manipulated. Track 10 is from Michael Prime and is an extract from one of his tracks from his latest release "Cellular Radar" on Mycophile. Quite noisy track, but natural. As noisy as real life gets sometimes. City traffic, trains, insects, all in an excellent stereo. Sometimes it sounds like the left and right channel got a small timelaps between them which makes the sound go crazy between your speakers. Just get Cellular Radar (aswell). Last track (yes we're almost there) is from Koji Marutani and starts off with a gothic voice in french and then an english voice explains something about "2 manners of creating a flame-like effect". A beautiful ambient sound like it's from Alvin Lucier's "Music from a long thin wire" and a cow in his stable. This is an excellent CD, it's divers and beautiful, not too much info on the cover though (make up your own mind whether this is good or bad). RRR don't do too many CD's and I must say I don't like them all but this one is one of the best sofar. (RM) Contact: RRRecords 151 Paige St., Lowell, MA 01852 U.S.A. MUSLIMGAUZE - AZZAZIN - (10" by Staalplaat) The usual tiresome Musselmangauze bongos and bells interrupt voices sampled from news broadcasts and maybe location recordings of Mrs Hussein frying bacon on this short, shirty 10" set of remixes (supposedly) of the astounding Azzazin CD released earlier this year. There's an occasional fat synth bubble quote from the original CD, but on the whole it comes across as an untidy collection of introductions or preludes made, but not used elsewhere. Loadsa familiar Musselman sounds which we've all come to love or hate drift around rather aimlessly. This is limited to 250 copies, so will probably be consumed by fanatical collectors. My advice to all you uncircumcised goyim dogs is don't buy this record...rather expend your energy demanding the re-release of the original CD - it's worth parting the Red Sea for. My own contribution to the struggle is this...I will not review another Muslimgauze CD until Palestine is free, so hurry up Yasir...(MP) Address: SIAN - SIAN (LP on Korm Plastics) The first of three new releases on Korm, two of which will be dealt with this week. Sian is Mr Aube plus a chum of his in an introspective mood. Side A starts warm and gets cooler. Synthesiser squiggles arpeggiate and resonances slide, punctuated by soft thumps. Rivulets of sound stream past ending in a dark underground lake somewhere. Tiny beasties call from crevices they never leave. The moist rock walls, furred with primordial moulds and fungi, glow slightly...evidence of some kind of organic activity. Side B starts cool and enters the realms of chill soon after the start. In fact it sounds a lot like a continuation of the same session on Side 1. The sound of stalactites and mites straining to fuse. We are slowly lowered into the lake and witness the wails and moans of sightless coelecanths and giant hydra. Deeper,where life lurks unformed, a kind of genetic sludge floats, influenced by the circulatory patterns of the water. The water here is so cold it's thickened to a paste...still the yelps and barks of the loftier occupants can be perceived through the bassmurk. Excellent trip. (MP) Address: CHRIS MELOCHE - DOKUMENT 90 (LP on Korm Plastics) I am a fan of Mr Meloche, so it was with great pleasure that I bunged this on the turntable with freshly Q-tipped ears. It's 4 Parts of a radio music performance dating from 1990 which revolved around real-time interception of international shortwave broadcasts, some of which converted into MIDI data which then triggers synthesisers and tone generators. It is certainly a document of the time as many of the radio transmissions concern themselves with events current at the time. One of the nicest things about this LP is that it will always retain an element of mystery and I have a feeling that it is a composiytion that will reveal more each time it is heard. Disembodied voices articulate the good, the bad and the ugly... sometimes these are treated with distortion or delay which makes them less specifically spoken passages and more musical components of the entire piece. The instrumental sounds smear in and out of the radio quotes and good use is made of the wonderful noises that can be found in between stations. There is a magnificent crescendo on Side 1 which fair swept me off finely balanced synapses into a multi-faceted realm of information overload. I really like records like this... I have a feeling that if I could understand the language of the galactic trolls that linger in the spaces twixt radio worlds I might hear some secrets that would surprise and shock me... hmm, time to see the medicine man again, methinks. (MP) Address: 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), The Square Root Of Sub (MP), Ching-Chong Jing-Jong (CP), Radboud Mens (RM) -- 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: Vital Weekly/Frans de Waard -P.O.Box 11453 - 1001 GL Amsterdam - The Netherlands All written by Frans de Waard (FdW), The Square Root Of Sub (MP, ), Heimir Bjorgulfsson (HB), Dolf Mulder (DM), Meelkop Roel (MR), Brian Lavelle (BL, ), Gerald Schwartz (GS), Niels Mark Pedersen (NMP), Henry Schneider (SH), Jeff Surak (JS), TJ Norris (TJN), Gregg Kowlaksky (GK) and others on a less regular basis. This is copyright free publication, except where indicated, in which case permission has to be obtained from the respective author before reprinting any, or all of the desired text. The author has to be credited, and Vital Weekly has to be acknowledged at all times if any texts are used from it. Announcements can be shortened by the editor. Please do NOT send any attachments/jpeg's, we will trash them without viewing. Backissues may be found at: www.staalplaat.com and http://www.aesova.org/vital