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Vital Weekly 719

  Tobias

AARKTICA - IN SEA REMIXES (CD by Silber Records)
Back in Vital Weekly 703 I discussed 'In Sea' by Aarktica and was not blown away by it. It lacked variation mostly, in my opinion. Jon DeRosa, the behind behind Aarktica played guitar, lots of echo and reverb and a bit of singing. I'm not sure why this album needed a remix treatment, perhaps because 'the material on the original lent itself well to reworking', and surely its a nice passtime to create remixes. Perhaps it will boast the sales of the original too. Lots of names here of which I never heard, like Planar, Al Qaeda (well, I heard of the other one), Pan, Landing, Ramses II, as well as some I recognized such as Mason Jones, Slicnaton, Remora and Yellow6. Up until the eleventh piece its all fairly ok in terms of remixing. Everybody seems to be emphasizing the ambient structures set forward on the original, sometimes with a bigger role for a guitar, or for effects or for the vocals, but it all makes a pretty decent listening. Not great, not bad, not highly original. The James Duncan remix then takes everything into a whole new territory, with a house based remixed. Totally out of place, but perhaps therefore quite alright. Declining Water, an off-shoot of Hood, has a nice piece for strings, following that, Pan brings in drum machines again. Those three, all at the end, make the right sort of wrong moves: they take the original into a whole new area, which I believe to be the best thing for a remix album. Attract a new audience to your music. Throughout quite an alright compilation, quite pleasant to listen. (FdW) Address: http://www.silbermedia.com

CELER - IN ESCAPING LAKES (CD by Slow Flow Records)
FABIO ORSI - WINTERREISE (CD by Slow Flow Records)
A new Japanese label, Slow Flow, gets ready to be part of the already crowded field of ambient music, by choosing two non-Japanese musicians to open the release schedule. The first is by Celer. Only two weeks ago I Iearned that Danielle Baquet-Long died last year and that basically all works that are released these days under the name Celer are made by her and her husband Will Long. Apparently its quite an archive as there seems to be lots of things coming according to the myspace page. All of these works were completed before she died and now are being released. According to the press release "'In Escaping Lakes' is the sequel to 'Cursory Asperses', previously released on Slow Flow" - and a quick look at the website learns that there have been a couple of CDR releases before these two 'real' CDs (although the website is in need of an update). For their music Celer use piano, strings, gong, tingshas, voice, electronics, hydrophone, flute and while the cover mentions four different parts with some great titles ("Australis A Buoyant Object, That Rests And Moves In Such A Way When Recounting Futures, Don't Fail To Mention Me"), there is only one track on the CD, that lasts almost forty minutes (although there are clearly marks to make them into separate tracks). Its hard to believe that they used all these instruments - something I wondered about before. Its a beautiful release - once again. Very spacious music, with long sustaining sounds of (processed?) instruments. They glide majestically along eachother, and over the course of this work, it seems that is turning 'inside' towards itself. From nicely flowing at the start to a more moody ending. This is the first time I discover such as story like approach in their music (might of course be my problem). An excellent release.
The second release is by Fabio Orsi, from Italy, of whom we encountered music before on labels as Small Voices and Digitales Industries (as well as some more, which I believe weren't all reviewed in Vital Weekly), and here Orsi has 'Winterreise' (without a connection to Schubert I think). Playing guitar, effects and old keyboards on this six part work that lasts almost fifty minutes. Not mentioned on the cover is the use of field recordings, which I think there are several of them (people talking in a restaurant in the third piece for instance). The press text (by Will Banquet of Celer) mentions 'mythical symbolism' and 'impression' and surely there is something to say to link it to the older art movements, but perhaps the safest thing to say is that it sounds like ambient music. Great ambient that is actually. Orsi does a really fine job. The guitar never sounds like a guitar, but flows freely among the hot bed of sound effects, and so do the old keyboards. Music that transports the listener to a dream world of its/his own. The six pieces do not necessarily go into eachother, but each is a specific entity of its own; Part V for instance is a much darker than the rest. Orsi's ambient music is something that moves in traditional circles of what is called ambient music but adds darker undercurrents to add something to the material that is also his own. Not the biggest surprise, on both accounts but both are quite nice. (FdW)
Address: http://slowflowrec.web.fc2.com/index.html

[POST-FOETUS] - THE FABRIC (CD by Mü-Nest)
Behind the quite strange name [Post-Foetus], you find L.A.-based sound artist Will Wiesenfeld. The 20-year old composer already has a background in classical music, a background he cleverly uses on this present debut album titled "The fabric". The album is a sonically warm experience combining sounds acoustic instruments with gentle electronic explorations, neither getting too mainstream or too demanding. Some track puts special weight on the classical tradition with inclusions of cello in the case of opening track "Migration" drawing associations towards chamber music-traditions but with clicking beats added. Other tracks put more strength in the contemporary electronic expressions with IDM-rhythm textures and ambient-electronic soundscapes, sometimes with funky samples as on the piece "All of the world". Favorite moments comes with the beautiful clicks'n'cuts-tune "Kiki", a piece so gentle that it could be used as the lullaby for your new-born and the final non-rhythmic loop-based closing title "Haruka" - a truly fascinating work balancing between abstract sound-art and electronic pop. Highly recommended debut! (Niels Mark)
Address: http://www.mu-nest.com/

CAPE FEAR - WINDS OF THE DEAD AIR (LP by Sound On Probation)
Laurent Perrier has already quite a career behind his name. Under a plethora of disguises, such as Zonk't, Pylone, Heal, his own name, and in the past Eleve Model and a membership of Nox. That latter band was a combination of industrial music and rock, and somehow I must admit I never liked it that much. Following that band, Perrier started a new project Cape Fear and as such he released one record in 1998, which I am not sure I heard. Now twelve years he's back with that name, which turns out to be sampling, guitars and breakbeat rhythms. The guitars play riffs that owe much to the world of metal. Odd record, I must say. An unlikely marriage of breakbeat like rhythms, these metal riffs and some nice cosmic lines on the synthesizer and sequencer. Perrier mentions various links to old bands, like King Crimson, Neurosis, This Heat, which I all don't really see, but I see that it indeed shares the music of Chrome. Banging rhythms and nasty guitars. Perhaps not entirely my cup of tea, this music, but as I sometimes like Chrome too, this record is not bad. Its one of those things that I enjoy on a very loose basis, but not the kind of music to hear all day (well, is there an music you would want all day then?). Not my most favorite Perrier project, not a bad record either. (FdW)
Address: http://www.soundonprobation.com

ERIC LUNDE/KOMMISSAR HJULER (LP by Psych KG)
When Vital Weekly was called Vital, and printed on paper (1986-1995) the name Eric Lunde appeared with some regular intervals, simply because he was quite active releasing records and tapes. His performance like approach to noise music, his elaborate packaging which always raised more questions than it would give answers made a big impact. And then he seemed gone and now he has returned. I have no idea what he did in the years in between. His music doesn't seem to have changed very much (I am still thinking wether that's good or bad) and its still his trademark sound we find here: eroded sound. Lunde uses cassettes, memo recorders and cheap microhones to tape sounds and mix these. Played back into a space - re-record, played back, re-record until quite a crude sound appears. That's what he does here in his three tracks, including a 'live site recording of two air 'separtion' tanks'. Crude, very crude ambient music. Lunde takes the ideas of Alvin Lucier's 'I'm Sitting In A Room' to the extreme, with very low grade equipment and builds from the dirty sounds beautiful music. Time to dig out the old stuff and play that again. On the other side we find Kommissar Hjuler, without Mama Baer this time. I tried to translate the liner notes from German in Dutch, but I failed. It has something to do with scooter? We hear some sort of (toy?) car sound, lots of rumble and a voice. Much alike last week's tape of Hjuler, this seems to be another example of highly personal audio poetry. Twenty minutes of this. It certainly has a great charm indeed, but its significance somehow eludes me here. Truely outsider music, that's for sure. (FdW)
Address: http://www.psych-kg.de

NICK HENNIES - LINEAL (CDR by SRA Sounds)
The background of this release is pretty interesting: Nick Hennies grandfather used to recite poems and stories and at the age of 15 he recorded them, purely for private family use. The cassette was recently found by Hennies and transferred to the computer. He uses them on this release, and adds snare drum, no-input mixer, wine glass, ice cubes, guitar and piano. The first piece is all instrumental and may act like an overture. It sounds the ice cubes being computer-wise manipulated. The second, long, piece has the stories and poems, with a beautiful 'old' American voice and music. The music is sparse, but highly effective. The rumbling of the snare drum, the singing of the wine glass (which sounds like a train passing), the crackling of sounds, mild drones from the no-input mixer and such like create a perfect backdrop for these poems (of which I never heard, but then perhaps I am not much of a literary guy anyway). Normally such spoken word releases are not my cup of tea, but in the thirty minute piece, they are presented with some distance, leaving room for some great music. Excellent release, very intimate. (FdW) Address: http://www.srasounds.com

KASPER VAN HOEK - FRANK 1 (CDR by Heilskabaal Records)
KASPER VAN HOEK - FRANK 2 (CDR by Heilskabaal Records)
Things have been quiet from Kasper van Hoek for a while, both his own music and his Heilskabaal Records label. It turns out he is now doing his masters degree at the Frank Mohr Institute for interactive media and environments in Groningen, The Netherlands. On five separate CDR we will know what he's doing there. 'Frank 1' has four pieces, and three of them uses also source material from one Micheal Dotolo and two with Hideki Kanno. One piece is a pure solo piece. The first two pieces are based on live recordings, the other two on field recordings. I think these are the more interesting ones of the two. The opening piece (live) starts out nice, but then stays a bit too much in the field of improvisation, without too much tension. The second does have that tension, mainly a noisy character. The pieces based on field recordings have some extensive manipulation on the computer and can meet with the best he did in this field, which is his 'Den Haag/Groningen/Froombosch' (see Vital Weekly 615) release.
On 'Frank 2' we find two solo live recordings, both of them made with a self-built instrument: a suitcase with guitar strings, connected with screw terminals on one side and on the other side some potentiometers and switches, which control a sampler in Max/msp. The Groningen variation opens up and is shorter than the Maastricht version. Both of these pieces are of course improvised. In the first piece Van Hoek keeps things well under control and offers a strong interplay with the sounds at hand. In Maastricht (some twenty-five minutes) things went a bit out of hand and the piece glides off in a pool of rough sound treatments and a somewhat muddy sound. When Van Hoek has released all five 'Frank' releases, there will be a best off release. From these two, I'd say three and four of the first release, and the first one from the second (that almost sounds like poetry). For the time being available in an edition of 20 copies with silkscreened covers. (FdW)
Address: http://www.heilskabaal.net

The complete "Vital Weekly" is available at: Vital Weekly