Glissando Bin Laden - Drone Level Orange

GBL - Drone Level Orange (Carrier, 2009)

Jim Altieri: violin
Caroline Mallonée: violin
Meighan Stoops: bass clarinet
Alex Ness: laptop, vocals
Sam Pluta: laptop

01-Rumble 7
02-PP's Dream Starring Harry Partch
03-Bees in Space
04-The Road
05-Hebe Holding

HERE

Burkhard Beins, Michael Thieke, Luca Venitucci - Roman Tics

Burkhard Beins, Michael Thieke, Luca Venitucci - Roman Tics (Cathnor, 2008)

Burkhard Beins: percussion, zither, objects
Michael Thieke: clarinet, zither
Luca Venitucci: accordion, preparations

01-Roman Tics
HERE

Dafeldecker, Kurzmann, Drumm, eRikm, Dieb13, Noetinger

DAFELDECKER, KURZMANN, DRUMM, ERIKM, DIEB13, NOETINGER (Charhizma, 2003)

Werner Dafeldecker: bass, electronics
Christof Kurzmann: computer, clarinet
Kevin Drumm: guitar, synthesizer
eRikm: electronics
Dieb13: turntables
Jérôme Noetinger: electroacoustics devices

The first release on clarinetist and laptopper Christof Kurzmann's Charhizma imprint in 1999 teamed him up with Polwechsel's Werner Dafeldecker on double bass and electronics and guests Kevin Drumm, Christian Fennesz, and Jim O'Rourke. On this follow-up album, with the same garish fluorescent (green this time) cover art by Fineder and Winkler, Dafeldecker and Kurzmann are joined by Drumm, eRikm, Dieb13, and Jérôme Noetinger on various electronic devices. Sourced from concert recordings from Berlin, Graz, and Vienna in 2000 and 2001, the five tracks are mixed together to form a continuous 48 minute arc of music that disappears down a hole only to return eight minutes later with the obligatory ghost track (yawn) to round off the total CD duration to exactly one hour. The dark, woody tones of Dafeldecker's bass and flutters of Kurzmann's fragile clarinet fit well with Noetinger's lo-fi electronics and Dieb13's gritty turntablism, and Kurzmann's affection for techno is evident from time to time in his fondness for gently clicking loops. The album is sedate but not without touches of humor, notably from Marseille DJ eRikm's prepared piano and shotgun samples.(from AMG)

HERE

Jean-Luc Guionnet - Non-Organic Bias

JEAN-LUC GUIONNET - Non-Organic Bias (Herbal International, 2009)

Jean-Luc Guionnet: organ

01-Non-Organic Bias
02-Espace Bas
03-Estuaire

Jean-Luc Guionnet is a fascinating artist to follow: free saxophonist, organist, electroacoustician – his art is hard to pinpoint or even grasp. Non-Organic Bias is a double CD culling three works for organ from 1995 to 2005. Everything here is slow-paced, serious, and minimal. “Estuaire” could moonlight as a study on sensory deprivation: it growls subvocally for 54 minutes, and that’s it. Or is it? Once your ears reset and your mind switches into contemplative mode, suddenly the microvariations spring to view, along with the flappings and the organicness of this living being that is the organ, stripped from the heavy cultural mantle of notes that covers its breathing. “Espace bas” (50 minutes) starts the same way but expands to reach a deafening level of resonance. This is not Guionnet’s most listener-friendly or striking record, and you better be patient.
- François Couture -


CD1 / CD2

Wade Matthews - Absent Friends

WADE MATTHEWS - Absent Friends (Sillon, 2005)

Wade Matthews: electronics

After the Doneda and Rombolá outings on Sillón reviewed in these pages last month, you might be forgiven for expecting more of Wade Matthews' work on bass clarinet and flute (especially if you're familiar with his two Creative Sources releases Aspirations & Inspirations and Dining Room Music), but no: Absent Friends is subtitled "Seven Electronic Improvisations" and finds the French-born American improviser using Reaktor software to turn a G4 Powerbook into a virtual analog synthesizer. For the benefit of trainspotters his setup consists of "four audible multiple wave oscillators, a white noise generator with dedicated two-pole resonating filter, three low-frequency oscillators (which can control amplitude, frequency and/or filter depth, cut-off, etc.) a main filter that can be controlled by the LFOs, a bunch of secondary filters and a four-oscillator chorus unit." So now you know. It's not surprising that Matthews goes into detail here, as he studied electronic music with Mario Davidovsky at the mythic Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, where his doctoral dissertation consisted of three pieces for improvisers guided by electronic sounds. "I'm not a woodwind improviser who's just moved into electronics because they’re 'in' right now. My electronic experience goes back almost a quarter of a century," he points out.

These seven tracks come from a set of 19 real time improvisations Matthews recorded while on holiday in France last summer. "I built a 'patch', just as I would with an analog synthesizer, then began to play it, listening to its character and altering its parameters as I went along. I can honestly say it was the easiest recording experience I’ve ever had," he admits. Though the pieces may have emerged in a spate of activity, it's clear he's spent long hours fine-tuning his equipment and perfecting his individual sounds. And despite all the technical info above, this is by no means arid, cerebral music: it's at times vibrant, thrilling, haunting, moving, even disturbing – but consistently impressive. More of Matthews' electronic work is scheduled for release shortly on Creative Sources, in the form of a duo project Mørske-Lys with Ingar Zach. If it's as good as this I can't wait to hear it.–DW

HERE

Polwechsel & John Tilbury - Field

POLWECHSEL & JOHN TILBURY - Field (HatHut, 2009)

Burkhard Beins: drums, percussion
Martin Brandlmayr: drums, percussion
John Butcher: tenor & soprano saxophones
Werner Dafeldecker: double bass
Michael Moser: cello
John Tilbury: piano

01-Place / Replace / Represent
02-Field

HERE

Martin Küchen & Erik Carlsson - Beirut

MARTIN KÜCHEN & ERIK CARLSSON - Beirut (Kning Disk, 2007)

Martin Küchen: alto & baritone saxophones, radio, electric toothbrushes
Erik Carlsson: percussion

HERE

Don Vito

 Here are the 3 first Don Vito records:


DON VITO - I (2005)
01-Frisbee Loser
02-Daddy Longleg
03-SUB
04-Kobolt
05-Pepita

DON VITO - II (2006)
01-Shnejbl Animal
02-Antenna
03-Fool Furol
04-Achtung
05-Yuppie Fnu


DON VITO - III (2007)
01-13
02-Electric Mayhem
03-Spagorski
04-Tak!
05-Grausiger Fund
06-Hallo Mosquito
07-ST-029
08-Panzerkreuzer Dori
09-Noisette
10-Technosabine

ONE - TWO - THREE
Don Vito's III was originally uploaded by DieFaelscher from Cult of Ruins.

Don Vito - IV

DON VITO - IV (Tremor Panda/Bar La Muerte/Discorporate, 2009)

A1		Fiepke
A2		Vidar Zuhause
A3		Jean Luc Cora
A4		Jege Jege!
A5		Banana
A6		Webb 2.0
A7		Duforeldu
A8		Dsdnpolkadianah
A9		Mihaha
A10		Hexenbrutal

Fourth volume by a young powerful german punk-noise band. Blastbeat, feedback, and cry! Leipzig version of Melt Banana.

HERE

Phill Niblock - Touch Works, For Hurdy-Gurdy and Voice

PHILL NIBLOCK  - Touch Works, For Hurdy-Gurdy and Voice (Touch, 2000)

Phill Niblock: computer
samples from
Jim O'Rourke: hurdy-gurdy
Thomas Buckner: baritone voice

1. Hurdy Hurry
2. A Y U, AKA "As Yet Untitled"
3. A Y U, Live

Sound artist/composer Phil Niblock does not record often. His music is best heard in live settings with adequate amplification. Only listeners with high-quality stereo systems and comprehensive neighbors will be able to fully experience Niblock's slow-evolving microtonal pieces. Nevertheless, unless you live in New York City, a CD is your best chance to hear the man's work at all. Touch Works: For Hurdy Gurdy and Voice presents two pieces (one in two versions) created in October 1999. "Hurdy Hurry" (15 minutes) uses samples of a hurdy gurdy played by Jim O'Rourke. The whiny tones are duplicated and pitch shifted. The composer brings them closer, takes them apart, all very slowly. From the apparently static piece arise subtle modifications as one is invited to leave the macroscopic world to study microscopic details. Of course, that's the case for all drone-based minimalist microtonal music, but Niblock's long-standing mastery has rarely been equaled. "AYU" (aka "As Yet Untitled") features samples of baritone Thomas Buckner (who commissioned the piece). His soft throat singing is sampled over 24 tracks. Only pitch shifts (up to two octaves) were used as treatments. The resulting piece has some qualities of Tibetan meditative chants. The listener often gets the illusion that the voice(s) turns into a cello or even a hurdy gurdy (blame that on the previous piece). For "AYU, Live," Buckner went back into the studio and sang over the previous version while four channels of pitch shift were added. He repeated the exercise twice, thus adding 15 more tracks. The second version is better, richer, and somehow more entertaining than the first.  (from AMG)

HERE

Marc Baron - Une Fois, Chaque Fois

 MARC BARON - Une Fois, Chaque Fois (Theme Park, 2009)

Marc Baron: alto saxophone, recording



Une fois, chaque fois is a truly strange and abstract recording by a French saxophonist from Propagation quartet (Potlatch) and Oz trio. Here we can heard some field recordings from a restaurant, some baroque records, some harsh noise, or very minimal improvisations. Baron walks on the borders: between reductionism, EAI, noise, sound art and conceptual music. Radical way for radical listeners? Maybe. Anyway, it's amazing and very scheming.


HERE

Drunkdriver / Mattin - List Of Profound Insecurities

Incredibly brutal noise rock band meets incredibly weird screamer.

"Drunkdriver/mattin is most definitely real. so is the list: physical deterioration, intellectual / emotional stagnation, continuation of a defective gene pool, death of parents, addiction, forgetting everything, remembering it all in a flash, finding love only to lose it, inevitable failure…

which is a fine way to apply an intellectual / emotional sheen to a record that is utterly relentless in its quest to brutalise.

a one chord repeato-monster at times spunking out the harshest noise i’ve heard (see the speaker raping, fractured whiteout, halfway through side b) over monged bellows and vocal retchings like rusted shut’s don walsh chewing hypodermics.

there’s a nice (nice?!) to and fro between mattins damaged industrialisms and drunkdrivers monolithic sludge; some new wave jump-cut take on nate youngs factory noise. it stops and starts breaks down incoherent before dragging it’s ravaged carcass back to life. there is some kindof buggered groove in here of the deformed dislocating butthole surfers / brainbombs variety. one that lurches and leers confused with the wrath of a narcotic addled yahweh.

it’s a twenty minute overloaded overwhelming shriek of existential horror you really should fucking hear."

from http://cowsarejustfood.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/billy-bao-may-08-parts-unknown-drunkdriver-mattin-list-of-profound-insecurities-badmaster/

Listen NOW


Here

Radian - Chimeric

RADIAN - Chimeric (Thrill Jockey, 2009)

Sylviann Németh: synthesizer, guitar
John Norman: bass
Martin Brandlmayr: drums, vibraphone, electronics

01- Git Cut Noise
02- Feedbackmikro / City Lights
03- Git Cut Derivat
04- Chimera
05- Kinetakt
06- Subcolors

 No doubt I mentioned this before, but the few times I saw Radian live I was thrilled by their live sound, more perhaps than their CDs. They took a four year break between 'Juxtapositions' (including one year of not playing live) to reflect on their music and see where to go next. The result of that thinking is on 'Chimeric' and their music certainly has taken off into a new territory. Although its hard to label their previous sound as anything, the soft, somewhat jazzy sound has been replaced by a more rock like texture. It opens with a wild beast named 'Git Cut Noise', with heavy rock drums and distorted guitars. That sets the tone for this album, which doesn't mean however that it goes all the way, all the time. A piece like 'Subcolors' shows a  combination of the old Radian sound, with the free play of the new Radian. Its the last piece of the CD and in between we have moved from everywhere to anywhere. Soft pieces, wild pieces, with lots of emphasis on the real instruments, drums/percussion, guitars and bass. Electronics seem to be reduced in this new album, only sparsely placed here and there. Radian has successfully re-invented their sound, taking a new road into the jungle. Freedom in playing are the new keywords, while preserving the best of their old sound. Heavy all the time, but sometimes lightweighted heavy, like the precious sound of a falling leave. Demanding and rewarding. Great album. Would be interesting to see how that works out in a concert. (FdW)

HERE

Mattin - Proletarian of Noise

MATTIN - Proletarian of Noise (Hibari, 2006)

Mattin: computer

01-Computer Music/Post-Fordism
02-Attitude Fetishist
03-You Are Stuck as a Free Human Being
04-Desecration of Silence
05-Thesis on Noise

you, the consumer, are not freer than me, the producer

your judgement depends on your means and your needs

both of these are determined by our social position

which itself depends on the whole social organisation

you, in aquiring this work

in trying to understand it

and make sense of it

are being part of a market

which is not just producing us as commodities

but also as symbolic and cultural value

in accepting to continue to listen to this work

you are validating the whole structure that this work is part of, i.e. capital.

(from liner notes)

HERE

Martin Küchen - Homo Sacer

MARTIN KÜCHEN - Homo Sacer (Sillón, 2007)

Martin Küchen: alto & baritone saxophones, pocket radio

01-Imperial Music XVI
02-The Infliction Of Death
03- Homo Sacer (...And Suddenly The Bridge Over That Troubled Water All In Flame)
04- Xuan Mgoc, 23D Of September 1966, In The Evening (Music For Solo Dance)
05- Killing The Houses, Killing The Trees (Imperial Music XX)

 HERE

Jean-Luc Guionnet & Pascal Battus - Toc Sine

JEAN-LUC GUIONNET & PASCAL BATTUS - Toc Sine (Why Not, 2007)

Jean-Luc Guionnet: electrics & electronics
Pascal Battus: electrics & electronics

01-TOC SINE (44:54)

HERE

Anthea Caddy & Thembi Soddell - Iland

Anthea Caddy & Thembi Soddell - Iland (Cajid Media, 2006)

Anthea Caddy: cello
Thembi Soddell: electronics

Anthea Caddy is a cello player who has worked with Darrin Verhagen and François Tetaz; she exploits unconventional surroundings to bring out the most hidden colours of her instrument, which she's able to transform into creatures that growl, howl and moan while looking for a far corner of their short lifespan to affirm their unpredictably menacing attitude. Thembi Soddell, here featured on sampler, uses both field recordings and abstract sounds to develop splendid textural backgrounds and surprising outbursts of unusual timbres, only to suddenly disappear leaving room to a disquieting faraway urban hush. The thirty minutes of "Iland" are highly impressive, in that the fusion of these different kinds of electroacoustic presage cracks our fake tranquillity, dragging us into an uncertain kind of awareness that doesn't admit the presence of danger but at the same time almost expects it with unpronounceable pleasure. By alternating movement and stasis, Caddy and Soddell manage to express an otherwise undefinable sense of inner connection with something that resembles the various phases of a nightmare, but one that - one way or another - has an happy ending. (from Touching Extremes - Massimo Ricci - February 2007)

HERE

Thomas Ankersmit / Jim O'Rourke - Weerzin/Oscillators and Guitars

THOMAS ANKERSMIT / JIM O'ROURKE (Split) - Weerzin/Oscillators and Guitars (Tochnit Aleph, 2005)

Thomas Ankersmit: computer, serge & EMS synthesizer (track1)
Jim O'Rourke: oscillators & guitars (track2)

01-Weerzin
02-Oscillators and Guitars

HERE

Jean-Luc Guionnet & Seijiro Murayama - Le Bruit du Toit

JEAN-LUC GUIONNET & SEIJIRO MURAYAMA - Le Bruit Du Toit (Xingwu, 2007)

Jean-Luc Guionnet: alto saxophone
Seijiro Murayama: percussion

01-Part I (18:53)
02-Part II (25:42)

Recorded in Hon Gaku Temple, Mishima, Japan, February 15, 2007

HERE

Weasel Walter, Mary Halvorson, Peter Evans - Live on WFMU

WEASEL WALTER / MARY HALVORSON / PETER EVANS - Live on WFMU (2009)

Peter Evans: trumpet
Mary Halvorson: guitar
Weasel Walter: drums

1. Mystery
2. Meat

HERE