\ / | ----- /\ | \ / |== |== | / | \ / Week 27 \ / | | / \ | \ /\ / | | |/ | \ / Number 87 \/ | | / \ |--- \/ \/ |__ |__ |\ |__ | FARMERS MANUAL - FSCK (CD by Tray) This is the second release by Tray and again we welcome Farmers Manual. The first 12" was a weird drum & bass track backed by a likewise weird hard-chill track. Indexed with 99 points this is an extension of that 12". Weird tracks, owing in some ways to d&b as much as it does to industrial music. If I say a lot of this sounds fucked, believe me this is truly fucked. The more accessible (if that is an appropiate word in this context) are in the beginning of the CD, but it gradually grows noiser and weirder throughout. The noisy bits and pieces at the end are suitable for random play or looping mode. Again fun for home-DJs (as you would be thrown at out of the club if you play this on the dance floor) and bedroom composers. Industrial music for the digital generation! (FdW) Address: SCATTER (CD by Ash International) Part two of a triptich (after 'Chiky(u)u' with Japanese music), this time with 5 US composers. Two of each well-known (Jim O'Rourke and Daniel Menche), one known to incrowd only (John Hudak) and one Kevin Drumm and somebody by the name of Earth. Kevin Drumm opens up, but is not the best choose. The noisy piece of static drone is quite uninspired. Hudak's piece is much interesting. Reverberated environmental noise of wind... maybe branches broken in a tunnel... maybe fireworks recorded in the sewer... it is an open piece for inpiration. Earth is a guitar piece, howling like Loren Mazzacane Connors - quite nice, but maybe out of place? Or maybe, taken the fact that it is the middle piece, a right decision. Jim O'Rourke crackles and rumblesin the lower depths of hearing range. Sharing the good moments of Bernard Gunter (and that is a lot) with say maybe the digitized glitches of Oval. By far the best piece on the CD. Another wunderkind of our days, Daniel Menche, exercises once more the high picthed drony sounds of rubbing microphones in the basement. With the usual high impact. In general a diverse compilation which scores 4 out of 5. Not bad at all. (FdW) Address: NOTO - ƒ (CD by Noton) Noton is the side label by Rastermusic, and their CD's are easily to be recognized: transparant jewel cases with info attached on a sticker. The same info is also on the CD itself, so a strange reflection is made. Noto is one Carsten Nicolai and this endless work was presented at the Documenta X. I have no intentions to go to Kassel, so I haven't got a clue what the installation is all about. The 72 tracks on this are either lengthy (6 minutes) or damm short. In a way it can be compared to the Farmers Manual CD reviewed elsewhere. But Noto's work is more bleepy, yet minimal. In some ways there is a reference to ø or Panasonic, but more arty. Fragmentaric but quite o.k. Again more fun for home-DJs then clubby ones - but I don't care about that. (FdW) Address: <100522.3536@compuserve.com> PUTREFIER - CILIUM TO MKD STRUCTURE (CD by Batarr) Sometimes I feel like in other times. Putrefier for instance is a name that I recall from years ago, when cassette only releases was a keyword. As time passes you assume people disappear, or loose interest in doing music. But Putrefier continued and presents his first compact disc release of material recorded between 1988-1995. The music can be categorized as uneasy listening, yet Putrefier (and that is what I remember of his old work), stays on the quiet side of noise (if that doesn't sound like a contradiction...). Loops or sampled of broken sound play a continous mode, flashes of feedback are thrown in, washes of a synth here and there. Not bad, but some of these could have been cut and a little more excitement in structure could have made this into more then a mediocre CD. (FdW) Address: 5090 Baillargeon - St-Hubert - Quebec - Canada - J3Y 2A7 BAeSTARD - RADIANT, DISCHARGED, CROSSED-OFF (LP Zeitgeist) This is a group from France with their last (as far as I know) album from 1996. Not totally new but as I think there hasn't been written anything about them so far in VITAL WEEKLY it's maybe time to present them. BAeSTARD seem to come from the classical 'Rock'-context, they have at least the classical rock-line-up in their group except for one guy who plays Samplers/ Tapes/ Electronics. But often their instruments don't sound very much like typical 'rock'-instruments at all. Their pieces are always very minimal, full of suspense, range from silence to noise (sometimes very abruptly) and vice versa, can have lyrics (sometimes spoken, sometimes sung) or be pure instrumental. From this description one can see that BAeSTARD play a music of a great variety, which can please experimental, improvisational, rock & noise -Freaks at the same time. I saw them few weeks ago live in Bremen and was truly impressed, it seemed like the perfect symbiosis of 'rock' and 'experimental' music, a field that is often worked on but in most cases not very successful. It's not easy to compare BAeSTARD with any other group, but regarding their experimental vein and their complexity & the ever changing tracks I'd like to point out a link to the genius THIS HEAT. So maybe it was no wonder they played live a cover-version of a famous THIS HEAT - Song? Is this the future of Rock-music? (BAR) 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), BAraka[H], (BAR) 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. 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