\ / | ----- /\ | \ / |== |== | / | \ / Week 22 \ / | | / \ | \ /\ / | | |/ | \ / Number 82 \/ | | / \ |--- \/ \/ |__ |__ |\ |__ | SUPERFICIAL DEPTH - DIGITAL SUPERIMPOSING (CD by Side Effects) DANIEL MENCHE - SCREAMING CARESS (CD by Side Effects) Superficial Depth is a new name chosen by Uwe Schmidt, who we of course know as the busyst bee buzzing around with Lassigue Benthaus, Atom Heart, Lisa Carbon Trio and many more. His discography grew skyhigh in only a few years. Recentely he moved to Chile, but I doubt that he is cut off from doing exciting music. In a way this new side project is just too perfect: the music, one long track of just under 70 minutes, seems like suited very well for a release on a label such as Side Effects. If ever Side Effects needed a perfect example of what the label stands for, Superficial Depth is it. Waving tones of synths and samples (no melody heard however) of superb dark ambience, rumbling of percussive sounds in the background, anything that is not static but constantely shifting in tone and colour makes this a perfect listening when you turn of all your lights at night. Dark ambient indeed. To some Daniel Menche is the Mozart of industrial music, and it seems strange that he too has a release on Side Effects. His music consists of rubbing contact microphones over his body in addition to which he using sound effects and everything he finds on his way (bells, sand, stones etc.). Every track you hear on this CD is adequate and to the point. Unlike many other noisicians (and this is what makes Menche truely different) he does not extent his pieces too much, but he knows what is enough. Address: or NOISE-MAKER'S FIFES - INTERVISAGE (7" by Drone Records) DELPHIUM - SNOWHILL-X (7" by Drone Records) Noise-Maker's Fifes have a growing reputation, mainly due to their 4 CD's released in the timespan of less then two years. NMF produce a dense ambient sound which hints at Musique Concrete and improvisations. Here the Part 1 is like stone rubbing in the background to which slowly light metallic echoeing percussion is added. These are slowly building to a climax. More high pitched sounds open 'Part 2' and is quicker in building to a climax of tunderous trains driving by. This piece ends quietly in drony landscapes. Delphium have been reviewed in these pages before in the last few weeks, and here is another offer of 4 tracks. These were recorded in 1995, but only recentely mixed. 'Unforgiven' is a dark moody synth piece and the title piece a more abbrassive affair with howling sounds and percussive sounds throughout, ending in a massive wall of guitar sound. 'Stringsong 1' takes drones and samples for another brooding atmosphere and in 'Lie To Me' is a strange song of keyboards with again dark atmospheres in the background. Musicwise this stands far from the CD reviewed here two weeks ago. Delphium's sound seems more primitive on this and though not bad, maybe less favourite with me. But in all rawness this a nice record. As usual with releases on Drone, they covers are handmade and their first run is 250 copies. Address: The Sons of Silence - Silence FM (Bay 1CD) Ah yes, the long awaited SOS debut CD. What we get is a load of breaks (but thankfully not Chemicals-style Big Beats), simple but appealing melodies, dub bass, crispy high hats and a whole mess of vocal snippets. But hang on...isn't that exactly what the last one had? I mean its good, indeed accomplished, but by track five its all wearing thin...it just doesn't, well, engage me. Thankfully things pick up half way through - "Larry Addled" tends towards queasy listening, while "It's a Bloodbath" picks up the tempo into a spy-theme sort of thang. By track eight ("A Low Speed Chase") things have slowed to ambient pace, while the super-slinky sax employed on "Cocktails at Dawn" works to enliven the by now over-familiar looping formula. "Oddball/Highball" move inna G-funk kinda way, although the remaining tracks revert to type, despite pleasing scratching and interesting guitar textures. So it it any good? Yes, although it seems SOS must now move on to bigger and better things. Nothing dramatic has changed from previous releases - the phat dope beatz (ahem) continue largely unchanged, although on the plus side the narrative flow from piece to piece is now pleasingly disrupted by more advanced editing techniques. The truth is there's only so much you can do with a fistful of loops, and as they've now perfected their techniques in this area it's time for something new. (RTH) 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) http://www.compusmart.ab.ca/tbennett/staalplaat/st-home.htm. -- 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