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Vital Weekly 688

  Tobias

TAKAHIRO KAWAGUCHI & SHINJIRO YAMAGUCHI - HELLO (CD by Ftarri)
NAOAKI MIYAMOTO - ME NO TAWAMURE (CD by Ftarri)
Two CD releases by a Japanese label which seems new to me. 'Hello' is a duet by Takahiro Kawaguchi, who plays tuning fork, and Shinjiro Yamaguchi on guitar. I am not sure how the tuning fork is played here, but it seems to me that it is used to create overtones over which the guitar plays a repeating single tone. I think the used guitar is acoustic, but I am not entirely sure. The guitar makes small, minor changes every now and then it waves together nicely with the overtones produced by Kawaguchi. A single, thirty-seven minute piece of a great silent quality. Liner notes by Toshiya Tsunoda.
I think I heard music by Naoaki Miyamoto before, on a 7" for Public Eyesore (see Vital Weekly 290) and perhaps some compilation. He plays guitar on this release. It is loud and noise based, using feedback as it is primary source, which he knows to control however. Its not music that just howls about, but Miyamoto lets the sound develop in quite a natural way. Certainly not the most easy music one can imagine here, as even at a low volume, this is quite an endurance test. Best played at a somewhat lower volume I thought.
Both of these releases work from a single idea and both follow very consistently the path has been chosen. Both have a nice package and both are limited to just 400 copies. Nice stuff on both accounts too. (FdW) Address: http://www.ftarri.com

G (CD compilation by Zelphabet)
H (CD compilation by Zelphabet)
Somehow, somewhere, 'G' was lost in the mail first time around, but now I got it. The great alphabet continues with Giancarlo Toniutti in a fairly long drone piece, which no doubt is created with some acoustic objects and analogue treatments, which results in a great minimal drone piece. Government Alpha is the noise corner of 'G', with a pure and unrelentness piece of feedback and distortion, followed by the near silence of G*Park. Here we find ourselves outside and listening to our environment. Cracks of branches, the careful opening of a squeaky door. An antidote for the noise of the previous piece. One of the nice things about this series, is that G.X. Jupitter-Larsen finds people of whom we haven't heard in a while, like Gregory Whitehead. He has a classic piece 'The Catastrophe Class', of mumbling voices, repeated phrases and background environment noise of an undefined nature. In every word: a classic Whitehead piece. So far on this series all tracks last around fifteen to twenty minutes, maybe with one of two exceptions, but 'G', closes with 'Explosion 2008' by G.X. Jupitter-Larsen, a single sound of explosion, lasting 3 or so seconds.
'H' opens with Halalachemists, of whom I never heard (this series also knows where to find interesting new names), who play a 'live TNB tribute' in Newcastle, recorded in 2006. Or perhaps its the New Blockaders in disguise? The piece is quite noise based, from a more low end perspective, with sounds banging around, and distortion pedals pushed through the stage. Hanatarash offer a very interesting piece of noise music, high end white static, being processed a bit, but quite minimal still. Its quite reduced, so not viciously loud, but nevertheless a great noise piece. The Haters are also present here with 'Explosion 2009' and its along the same line as 'Explosion 2008' - a conceptual joke. Howard Stelzer closes 'H', with what seems to be his current tools of trade: the densely layered manipulations of analogue cassette sounds. Field recordings are stapled onto eachother, and form a dense pattern. Half way through it seems to collapse a bit, but Stelzer gets his act back and makes a great finale. Intelligent noise all around. Two fine additions to this encyclopedia of noise. (FdW)
Address: http://www.zelphabet.com

DECENTRED (CD by Another Timbre)
MATHIAS FORGE & PHIL JULIAN & DAVID PAPAPOSTOLOU - MESHES (CDR by Another Timbre)
LEO DUMONT & MATT MILTON - SCRUB (CDR by Another Timbre)
The first of these three new releases is by Decentred, a quartet of Tom Chant (saxophones and bass clarinet), Angharad Davies (violin & objects), Benedict Drew (electronics & objects) and John Edwards (double bass). They first played together in 2006, to perform 'Treatise' by Cornelis Cardew, which they liked so much that they continued as a group to perform works like that: scored but open for interpretation. Ideal stuff for improvisers. Here they perform three pieces by Micheal Pisaro (member of the Wandelweiser composers group), one piece by John Cage and two improvisations. I played the entire disc without looking once on my CD player, which made it a bit unclear when one piece finished and another one started. Perhaps that is one of the problems of this kind of music, being released on CD. In a concert hall one could tell the difference between the pieces, separated by an applause. But I was thinking that with so much openness, perhaps it doesn't matter, and we could enjoy the disc as one piece as well? This is a typical work of four improvisers at work. They know what their instruments are capable of and how to produce sounds that sound like a double bass or saxophone, but also how to extent that sound into something else, by playing it with the use of objects. Careful and intense they play, lots of silence. Maybe the length of the disc, being just under sixty-nine minutes was a bit much for me, simply because so much concentration is asked by the players. To be served in a smaller doses.
The CDR releases by Another Timbre are the first two out of a series of four, and were recorded over a period of three weeks. They deal with the 'younger' generation of improvisers living or passing through London. Some of these names are familiar (Phil Julian, Mathias Forge, David Papapostolou) and the others are new. The three 'known' names recorded two pieces together on March 27 and March 29. Forge plays trombone, Julian electronics and Papapostolou plays cello. This is hardcore improvisation land. The three love their things to be quiet, with considerable long silent parts, in which, perhaps, things are not entirely quiet, but things sink below the threshold of hearing. This is demanding music throughout. This trio love to scrap their instruments to bring out sound qualities that may not be the usual for the instruments they play, perhaps with the exception of Julian of course (how does 'electronics' suppose to sound anyway?), and throughout this is a disc of high concentration, for the players and for the listeners.
'Scrub' is a work by Leo Dumont on percussion and Matt Milton on violin. Recorded on the same night as the second piece by the previous lot, they have just one piece to offer. Here to silence plays an important role, but throughout it seemed to me that these two boys are more into dynamics, so sometimes things are a bit more louder and noisier, although it always stays within reason. They too use their instruments as objects. Sometimes we recognize the violin, the scraping of strings with a bow, but the percussion part is totally alien. Maybe things here are a bit more condense and to the point, whereas the trio let things float more freely. On both discs this works well, although I think I preferred the duo over the trio. (FdW)
Address: http://www.anothertimbre.com

[-HYPH-] - ULTRAPEER (LP by Walter Ulbricht Schallfolien)
Besides his solo-work as [-Hyph-], he is also involved in the world of improvised music armed with his laptop to process in real time the sounds produced by others to process in real time the sounds produced by others. Here however we deal with a record as [-Hyph-]. Its a bit unclear what he does here, other than producing music that has the computer at the central point of the proceedings. Its either generating sound, processing it and editing, but perhaps its all three in this record. Wiese, along with people like Evapori and Gregory Buttner, can be seen as the new German school, inspired by the work of Asmus Tietchens. Especially his recent years, in which Tietchens discovered microsound and started to create his own works in that direction (his CDs for Ritornell and Line) is an inspiration for people like Wiese. Careful constructions in sound. Things peep, hiss and crack, but throughout we detect also some recognizable sounds, from acoustic instruments which especially in 'Unpiece', which fills the entire a-side of the record, gives a nice orchestral feeling to it. Quite 'classical' in approach: partly because of the instruments we hear every now and then, and highly with regard to the musique concrete techniques used and 'microsound' in the way things are executed. A very fine record, even without the liner notes of Dittrich von Euler-Donnersperg. (FdW) Address: http://www.virb.com/donnersperg

RICHARD YOUNGS - LIKE A NEURON (LP by Dekorder)
VOKS - ASTRA & KNYST (LP by Dekorder)
Some years ago I was pretty keen on getting all the releases I could find by Richard Youngs. His diverse approach to music was something I liked very much. It could be experimental, musique concrete like, electronic, drone like, but also improvised and even singer songwriter. I don't recall why I lost my interest a bit, maybe when I thought it was a bit too much singer song writer alike with albums for labels that would never send anything down here anyway, such as Jagjaguwar. Maybe Youngs himself lost interest in being diverse. His new album for Dekorder he describes as his all electronic 'Ecstatic House Record'. Youngs uses the same synthesizers as in house and techno, but his music lacks the 4/4 beats that make those feet move along the dance floor. By removing the beats its not longer house music. Its, I guess, that easy. I didn't read the blurb the first time around, and I thought Youngs was trying to make a 'fucked up cosmic' music record here. A nightmare in a space lab, with pretty chaotic bouncing sounds, and slick analogue, polyphonic sounds. That could have been easily the case too. I must admit however I can see something in the labels description reminding of 'the sound of hallways/corridors in between large house parties where you can hear the music from several floors colliding'. I don't think this record will find its way to any house party (but you never know), but I quite enjoyed it. Good to hear Youngs doing something weird again - unless I missed out some other efforts in this area.
Moir Pihl from Denmark works as Voks, who has released only two 3"CDs on Dekorder, a label to which he is exclusively signed, since the label started six years ago. That's forty minutes of music, to which now a full length LP is added, another thirty minutes of music. Voks is definitely our man of limitations. Perhaps one of those self-imposed limitations is that he doesn't change much in the musical territory he wanders. Voks plays music armed with a sampler, to which he loads guitars, organs, chinese opera, sounds from toys, and then writes super short pieces of music, all on the sampler, although I can easily imagine Pihl adds a bit of guitar playing himself here and there. Music with a great sense of naivety, almost like a child would play this (or rather how we imagine a child playing this, but it would probably never do). Maybe not a real surprise this third release by Voks, but at his rate I don't expect a major change in the next five years anyway. (FdW) Address: http://www.dekorder.com

C. SPENCER YEH & JON LORENZ & RYAN JEWELL (7" by Krayon Recordings)
Another 7" by Krayon Recordings, this time by one band, be it an ad hoc formation of C. Spencer Yeh on violin, Jon Lorenz on saxophones and Ryan Jewell on drums. The two sides were recorded at Cac in Cincinnati, Ohio, excately one year ago. Two pieces of highly free and improvised music. I played this right after hearing the three releases on Another Timbre, reviewed elsewhere, and its the perfect come down music after such much carefully constructed silent improvisations. Of course this is much shorter and to the point, but this is also improvised music that is much louder and noiser than the UK counterparts. Yesterday I saw Antoine Chessex delivering a solo improvised saxophone concert and while watching this, I was thinking about this record. The immediate character of noise based improvisations works best in a live situation (even in an outdoor event, such as in the case of Chessex). But if not in a concert, the heavy grooves pressed in a 7" is a good alternative. A good noise concert is short and to the point - say between ten and thirty minutes. I have no idea how Yeh and his friends played, but these fifteen or so minutes of improvised mayhem just has the perfect length for me. Spot on, to the point. Excellent free noise jazz. (FdW)
Address: http://www.krayonrecordings.net

RADU MALFATTI - WECHSELJAHRE EINER HYANE (CDR by Et Le Feu Comme)
PIERRE GERARD - PLATEAUX (FOR GILLES DELEUZE) (CDR by Koyuki)
Intersax is a saxophone quartet, lead by Ulrich Krieger (soprano) together with Martin Loser (alt), Tobias Rüger (bariton) and Reimar Volker (bariton). On September 19th 2003 they played a composed piece by Radu Malfatti, called 'Wechseljahre Einer Hyane', with 'To Ulrich Krieger' as its subtitle. In just under thirty minutes they play clustered tones together which are cut with passages of silence of about the same length. Only in the middle part (say from minute ten to minute twenty), the silence is much shorter and *almost* things run into each other. After that the silence takes a much bigger part and the piece becomes very silent indeed. A great piece, but one that requires a quiet environment (which today here is a rarity) or to be listened with headphones.
Et Le Feu Comme labelboss Pierre Gerard has his own release on an Italian label called Koyuki, and things here deal with Gilles Deleuze - the philosopher who was so important for some musicians, but whose writing always eluded me a bit. Gerard writes me: 'the music is the form of creation which enables me best to carry out an object without matter (immateriel in French), some is its dimension, its duration, its form or its color', which, I must admit, doesn't make things much clearer, I guess. The word 'careful' applies here too. Gerard plays electronic music, in the best microsound tradition, but with more silence than say the [-Hyph-] record reviewed elsewhere. It seems to me that he uses feedback in a highly processed and toned down form, to which he has added bits of acoustic sounds, also highly processed. Gerard plays along the lines of Richard Chartier and Roel Meelkop (although lesser of surprise moves here), but certainly has a fine voice of his own. (FdW)
Address: http://www.etlefeucomme.be
Address: http://www.koyuki-sound.org

IN THE RHETORIC OF RUPTURE AND RE-APPROPRIATION (CDR compilation by Ripples Recordings)
Last week I was introduced to the music of Ennio Mazzon, and a day later this compilation was sent to me by the same Mazzon. I assume its to introduce this as a new label by him, as it bears catalogue number RPL 000. I recognize some names from the healthy CDR scene, such as Terje Paulsen, Musil and Tiziano Milani, but also new names as Peter Stenberg, Hiroki Sasajima, James McDougall, Glenn Ryszko and Ryonkt. Much like Mazzon's own release from last week, most this music deals with microsound, computer processing and processed field recordings. Each artist however fills in the blank space in his or her own way. Mazzon's piece is quite dark and drone like, Sasajima works around with the crackles of branches, and Milani combines both of these ends and adds an undefined instrument. The pieces of Paulsen and Musil, placed at the end of the release, are more in a musical territory than in a soundscape one. The best piece is the last, by Ryonkt, with beautiful sustained tones in the best Alvin Lucier/Phill Niblock tradition. In all a fine compilation, with some great pieces and one excellent piece. No bad score there. (FdW)
Address: http://www.myspace.com/ripplesrecordings

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