\ / | ----- /\ | \ / |== |== | / | \ / Week 2 \ / | | / \ | \ /\ / | | |/ | \ / Number 65 \/ | | / \ |--- \/ \/ |__ |__ |\ |__ | IF, BWANA - BREATHING (CD by Pogus Productions) If, Bwana have been around since god knows how long, yet their released out-put is too sparse to say that their name rings many bells. Their much aclaimed work, well at least to me, is their CD in the already legendary Anckarstrom series, which was a fine ambient blend of sound. Much to my surprise we find on this new CD, a kind of part 2 to this release. But first things first. The opening (title-) piece is named after the fact that it uses 2 people playing dijeridu and oboe, to which cello and tapes are added. The dijd sounds pretty much like a continues, breathing drone and the oboe and cello seem to play the weird, improvised notes. Then the part two of that other CD. Piano sounds play a dominant role in here, together with a high pitched sounds and some sample (I couldn't figure out what is sampled there). Less ambient then I would expect, this one stays again in the improvised/composed areas. There is an overall crescendo to be found in this piece, which grows thicker and louder. Then the final piece of this CD is the shortest (still over 19 minutes) and opens with strong droning sounds and from far away voices start playing a role. Like the other two in this piece there is place for improvisation, which is laid over the general structure of the piece. In general, I must say that the pieces are a bit too long for my taste (that a CD can hold over 70 minutes of information, doesn't mean you have to fill them!), but in general this CD left a good feel with m. (FdW) Address: DOMINIQUE PETITGAND - 10 PETITES COMPOSITIONS FAMILIALES (miniCD by Metamkine) Here is the second full mini CD by that wacky frenchmen who seems to devote his life recording his relatives. "Family compositions" he calls his little symphonies. People tell us something (though with my lo-fi french I can't figure out what) and to this some strange sounds are added, something that sounds like a harmonium, a guitar, a bouzouki. Even though one can't figure out what this is all about, there is a poetic, dramatic feel to it. A sort of dreamy look in the country life (I hasten to add: or so it seems). Petitgand manages to produce some highly intruging and puzzling music. (FdW) Address: 50 Passage Des Ateliers - 38140 Rives - France MAEROR TRI - LANGUAGE OF FLAMES AND SOUND (CD by Old Europa Cafe) Bad news for the Maeror Tri fans: the band is no more. Two of the three members will continue under a new name. Here is what will be, may be, their final studio CD (to be followed by a live CD). A dreamy accordeon piece open the CD, intercepted by a heavy droning sound that grow louder and louder. In the second track there s dominant role for the guitar being plucked and feedbacked. 'Entrance Of Reality' is the first 'ambient' track, albeit with darkness underneath. From here on the CD takes us into underworld of sounds. Put your headphones on, close your eyes and you will have a journey, riding on long droning sounds. Some people may this describe this as 'ambient-industrial', but for my part you may skip the 'industrial' tag. Experimental ambient for sure, but noway this gets noisy. Just another great Maeror Tri CD. What grief! (FdW) Address: V. Le Marconi 38 - 33170 Pordenone - Italy ERIC CORDIER - HOULQUE (CD by La Grande Fabrique) O.k. I admmit: I hardly know anything about Eric Cordier. I believe he has something to do with UNACD - an old french group (who slipped out of my memory). This CD consists of two pieces, 'Stellaire Holostee' and Houlque'. The first one divided in 2 parts, the later in 8 parts. Sounds sources include a hurdy gurdy, dulcimer, harpiscord and church organ. In the first part of 'Stellaire' a multi-track droning piece is created. Sounds move along eachother. The second part is similar, yet quieter in texture. The second piece starts out in similar vein, but gradually the pieces have a more improvised character and loose a bit of their character. The CD is accompagnied by booklet of photos of speakers in various concrete environments, yet I am still figuring out how to relate that to the CD. (FdW) address: available through Metamkine ORPHX - FRAGMENTATION (CD by Malignant Records) Malignant Records is a small US label that specialises in dark, utter dark music. Sometimes leading to ambient soundscapes, and at other times industrial metal areas. Their release by Orphx is in this last territory. Over top distorted metallic rhythms that will certainly appeal to fans of music that in general comes from Cold Meat Industry. But it did nothing for me. Address: ANAL - ZERO BEATS PER MINUTE (CD by KAK Records) So assumptions are wrong... With such a bandname and title, I am expecting punk, but how wrong I was. Anal is like the unborn son of Arcane Device. This is feedback music throughout, played with much skill and matches well with Arcane Device in his more powerful days. There is nothing more I can add. Try and find this. I have no address nor any other information, so I hope you're lucky and bump into this in some mail-order catalogue. Then get this. ROLAND KAYN - TEKTRA (4CD SET by Barooni) Roland Kayn was born in 1933 in Germany. He composed his first orchestral piece while only 17, and three years later composed Kammerkonzert, which won first prize in the Festival of Twentieth Century Music in Japan in 1958. Sometime during 1956, Kayn created a system of composition which paralleled contemporary ideas in information theory. He applied statistical methodology to determine musical characteristics like pitch, duration and density of the tones and chords. Kayn felt that the music of the future would be compositions in which 'all the sounds are points in space, without melody or rhythm', citing Stockhausen's Spiel Fur Orchestra `as a perfect example. It wasn't long before he started modifying the tuning of the 'unison' strings in a piano to avail himself of the frequencies which occur between the standard half tones. Not only were new fundamental notes created, but the entire overtone series of the instruments became an enormous spectrum of sound. So it was that Kayn got closer and closer to his idea of cybernetic music. At this point, and as contradictory as it may seem, Kayn started to suggest ways of working in which composers themselves could be somehow excluded from the compositional process. Not surprisingly, this idea alienated him from his contemporaries who probably didn't want to relinquish their authorship and consequent funding. It wasn't long before he was excluded from the concert stage either, and it was after a short sojurn with the improvisational group Gruppo d'Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, that he made the choices that were to determine his methods of working from then on. At that time, musical events in a composition were still largely defined by the composer. Kayn was primarily interested in a form of music which regulated itself. He started designing complex systems of instrumentation in which he practically gave up his control over the resulting piece, abandoning the narrative elements and all the asprects usually associated with the ideas of 'authorship'. His scores started looking more and more like abstract, mathematically derived paintings, with increasingly more freedom being allowed the performers. His electronic pieces start with a defined network of equipment. All conceivable events within that network are collated and then used to develop a system of signals and commands which are then incorporated into the triggers and controllers of the machines. All of this preparation took much longer to complete that the compositions themselves, which were recorded to tape once and once only ! Tektra, a 4CD set is the 16th release on Amsterdam based label Barooni, and it is a re-release of the latest availible work (originally on vinyl in 1982) by Kayn. This set was mastered from the original tapes used in the manufacture of the records. Consequently, these quite lengthy pieces were faded in and out so they would fall within the time restrictions inherent to that medium. As a result of this, the various compositions which comprise Tektra are themselves sub-divided. The music slowly swells from silence. Each of the compositions has it's own unique character and all of them are amazingly unique examples of what can be done with a drone. You'll hear sounds not heard before-in Khyra the sound of all the ringing bells on earth alternate with five billion voices close to the right note (you're floating in space, of course, and listening to the sound of the whole planet). The industrial backfed repetition of Tarego, which eventually shatters into it's individual components. In Amarun, we are suspended on a synapseweb of overtones inside a Tibetan monks skull. It's magnificent, more now than then and certainly zen. Barooni were the first to release the works of Tommy Koner way back when and have played the greatest part in reviving interest in the almost forgotten minimal music discoveries of Charlemagne Palestine. Special congratulations to them for this beautiful package and for their care and continuing love of this medium. Most certainly one to watch...(MP) LOSD - KORGANICS (10" by Korm Plastics) A ten inch with two sides...as usual. First side is called 'Monophonic'... it's a sprinkling of bright analog starswhich flicker and sparkle riding the crests of random waves. Filters open and close sensating the thingymajigs that secrete endorphins in the old brain-pan. Rise and fall, rise and fall. Percussion slowly dribbles in and we board that train called drum machine. Nice high pitch at the end of this branch line. I did hunger for it to take an extra step or two in the direction of UP. Fancy it could be pitched up meself... The other side is titled 'Buitenaards Ondergronds'... music for a dramatic title sequence shot at ground level of someone running past flickering oblongs of light. Windows in some endless personnel carrier writhing it's way past on what were once called train rails. 'On The Run' again ? Envelopes shapeshift. Soft silence... enter the breath, then the spine... then panic and then... off again. In all, not a bad journey. Some slight mud. Add some high. (MP) TOUCH SAMPLER - VARIOUS ARTISTS (CD on TOUCH) Starts with an astounding track by the Polyphony Group of Lapharda (Albania) taken from an as yet unreleased CD titled 'Where The Avalaunche Stops' (hurry up !). The there is a track by Richard H.Kirk from the recent Touch release Alphaphone Vol.1 Step.Write.Run. This is followed by unconvincing self-indulgent twaddle by Andy MacKenzie. Layers of loops are gradually dropped out by Philip Jeck in 'Nelson Surfs' - good track this ! Then there's just under four minutes of The Runaway Train (in my opinion, one of the best etc, etc on Ash International/Touch). Something with historic value, perhaps, by New Ordure...all bleeding 7'00 of it (hurry up!). Then, a wonderful recording of two men imitating frogs of the Balinese gonggong, an oral device. Mark Van Hoen rasps up against oddness on his way through a dropchord Channel Of Light and then there's an item from Ryoji Ikeda's recent Headphonics CD (the first 15 or 20 minutes of which are more than effective at inducing strange hysteria). Stereo madness from Scala off their vinyl -now-CD (which I'm going to listen to again...under headphones, dammit!). The something off the wonderful R & D CD by Disinformation, aka Joe Banks, champion surfer in the extreme sea of radio waves (of waves of waves of waves etc) crashing down on the sandy beaches of FAR. An excellent insertion regarding lengthy therapy is follwed by Anthony Phillips in a plucky mood, who slowly twirls his way through a 'Danza Cuccaracha'. Chris Watson, now a 'legendary' (!) sound recordist, has documented two very weird places. The first is surely one of the best vocals by a beast ever. And some of the second something is going to live in my sampler for a while. What sounds like Nusrat's back-up is really more Albanians ululating. >From penultimate to 'Omnipotent' - the title of the last track on this CD, which is by Mark Van Locust and Daren Seefeel circa Aurobindo (one of the best etc, etc on Ash International/ Touch) An unusually buoyant track and far too cheerful to have been included on the original full length release. Makes for a happy ending here tho'! (MP) SQUARE ROOT OF SUB's TOP TEN LIST FOR 1996: (in no particular ordure) Plug - Drum 'n Bass For Papa Aube - Metal De Metal Coil - Black Light District David Shea - Tower Of Mirrors O - Olento Various - Storm Of Drones Spring Heel Jack - Djed Remix 12" Erm Possibly Maybe - Dillinja Remix Of Bjork Bernard Gunter/John Hudak - The Ant Moves (From 'A Fault In The Nothing') ... That's It ! Plus... The Reissues: Andre Popp - Delirium In Hi-Fi Film Soundtrack - Vampyros Lesbos Tape Beatles - Music With Sound Roland Kayn - Tektra Frans de Waard hits for '96 (again in no...) K. Mizutani - Millstone CD Aube/Small Cruel Party - Across The Water LP Mandible Chatter - Grace CD Starfish Pool - Interference '96 CD Unit Moebius - Status CD Occupied Territories 2CD Aube - Metal De Metal CD Atomic Weight CD Deepnet 2CD Nonplace Urban Field - Raum Fur Notizen miniCD O - Olento CD Merzbow - Spiral Honey CD Porter Ricks - Biokinetics CD Ryoij Ikeda - +/- CD UNKLE - Tortoise remix 12" Re-issues: Charlemange Palestine - Four Manifestations CD Public Works - Music With Sound Roland Kayn - Tektra 4CD 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. 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