\ / | ----- /\ | \ / |== |== | / | \ / Week 8 \ / | | / \ | \ /\ / | | |/ | \ / Number 70 \/ | | / \ |--- \/ \/ |__ |__ |\ |__ | MUZIK - ULMER BILE Four sides of vinyl on a single CD. An amazing 70 minutes of sound for slightly more than a grin. Highly individualistic and extremely angular music from Mickey Paradinas, who like his equally loopy chum, Aphex Twin Dick Jim, has fallen under the voodoo spell of a big, throbby Drum & Bass mutation. Not necessarily dance music, but you could probably accumulate a haggle of hernias trying. First track starts, stops, starts like an Egyptian car; eventually it gets all pistons firing and splutters off in the direction of Track 2, which is introduced with and later augmented by a high wild sample from Ornette Coleman. Somehow it manages to work woven between the strangled synthesisers and alka seltzer beatfroth. Then there's the introspective M5Saabtone followed by the eminently twistable Fine Tuning. Track 5 starts with the introduction of surgically separated blips and tweaks which smatter about until glued together by the drums, the drums they don't stop. Hip007 has moments which sound like a DJ mixing up two versions of the same song at different speeds. Penultimate piece is Hornet which could be a wasp - great track this. One more, and then it's over. The end. (MP) VARIOUS ARTISTS - ANTIPHONY (2CD on Ash International) A whole bunch of remixes incorporating sounds sucked out of the lowest reaches of the radio spectrum by Joe Banks, aka Disinformation. Currently one of my favourite artists on Ash, Joe Banks has now three releases out on this label, two on vinyl and another as a full-length CD. I am quite smitten by the latter mostly because my body perceives it as dense information which, if tuned right, I might be able to decode. Especially good for those large-pupilled late nights and dream excursions. The packaging echoes that of the earlier Mesmer and Fault In The Nothing collections, and duplicates some of the information included with the original Disinformation releases. Once again, it reads like surrealists on ketamine. It seems right from the start that many of the remixers who contributed to this CD were taken by the weird glock-type melody included as part of the last track on the R + D CD, which itself was sourced form an unidentified HF broadcast. Ralf Wehowsky opens this set with a mostly sedate track which closes with disturbing banshee screams. Succint Bruce Gilbert contributes two brief tracks - the first an angry robohornet, trapped and circling in a narrow space. The second is a more granular excursion. Kapotte Muziek manipulate existing work(as they always do) in a surprisingly brief track which leapfrogs about but lurks mostly in the low. Big steel doors thunder, they don't rattle. People Like Us stagger two sides of the same thing in a rather pointless track and are followed by Chris & Cosey. Their contribution, 'Stargate' sounds like slowly unfurling slipstreams of a long-past event. They wind up then they wind down. Slow and soothing in the midst of all this. Prolific German Atom Heart is subtle too. John Duncan is not. And at last, my two favourites on Disc 1: LOSD provide a track which develops into a long stretched out conversation between two or three primordial subterraliens, which are often to be found hiding somewhere in the music these guys produce. Last track on Disc 1 is by Mark Van Hoen...and it may even be the weirdest of the lot. Strange juxtapositions in Radio Land. Haunting, demanding, totally... Disc two kicks off with a decent dark deep drone provided by SETI, gradually being taken over by a more high end drone and likewise high peeps. Somebody who wishes to remain anonymous provides us with an apply entitled 'Untitled' piece in which the Sakahashi piece and truly ambient music beneath. There is kitschy touch to this, but it stays on the good side. A short spoken word piece is followed by Mr. Disinformation himself, followed by the 'soundcheck of Disobey performance' (is there an analogue thing to Merzbow's track on 'A Fault In The Nothing', also recordedat a soundcheck?). A noisy beast this one, and the question remains: how was the concert itself? Karkowski and Lyon got their kicks out of sampling kicks, a nice stereo spectrum opens up, but as more kicks and keyboards drop in, they are lost in their piece. Far too long this piece. Marc Behrens is doing his collage thing (whereas he could have been doing his techno thing too). Slowly building, by carefully placing each new sound on top of the other. Mark Poysden stretches the Disinformation sounds in his sampler and the random filter play their piece. Taking all the good tracks from both CD's would still deliver two CD's of music, as the weak are in minority on this set. (MP + FdW) Address: BLOWHOLE - STUMBLING SOUTHWARD (LP by Ten Bobs Swerver) The anarchistic freejazznoise outfit hit again. The A-side is a must! Recorded by Blowhole as a quartett at some Californian radio station and comes off most of the time as an acoustic noise piece. Whereas Blowhole usually sound noisy and feedback like, this side (which is an act I hadn't heard them doing before) all the instruments sound what they are (although I still haven't found out what how a 'bowed microphone stand' sounds like). The b-side opens with feedback drones which sound deliberatly bad (it was recorded with a Radio Shack stereo handheld tape-recorder and two tie-clip mics, one of which was broken), and then somewhere nervous violin playing drops in. If there was ever a thing called lo-fi free jazz, then Blowhole's music would be the example clarifying the term. And as I do like this record, I keep asking myelf, why these boys so unbeloved in Europe? Shame! (FdW) Address: 3 East St., Newton Hill, Wakefield, WF1 2PY, England HALANA NUMBER 2 (MAGAZINE + CD) This magazine is devoted in some way to music that has is made in athoughtful, maybe even spiritual way. Quite indepth interviews with Tony Conrad, Patty Waters, William Parker, Pauline Oliveros, Keiji Haino and Alan Lamb, plus a small review section. The good thing is that this issue comes with a CD (which of course every magazine should have of course) which exemplifies of what is written. Tony Conrad loops two violins and a cello (similar to his Slapping Phytagoras CD). Alan Lamb plays around with the wind playing telegraph wires and is a truely ambient piece of controlled environmental sounds. William Parker's piece is solo bass played with a bow - rather dull kind of improvisation. Keiji Haino's hurdy gurdy sound starts out droningly good, but why does this man sing? I could dig it better without. Pauline Oliveros uses bird whistles in addition with a growing amount of computer sounds and accordion playing hide and seek. A nice piece that is just a bit too long. Needles to say that this is a rather interesting CD, and likewise magazine, providing an intelligent insight in some of the more interesting minimal and new music. (FdW) 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), Sister Clika (RTH) -- 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