Rеinhold Brunner - Klаnger 1996-2008

Label : Bad Alchemy - Nr 77 / Attenuation Circuit - ACRB 1001

Country : Germany

Year : 2013

Format : CDr

Certainly a collection of sounds. Concrete or midi, and field recording mixed high and low. A bit difficult.

This CD-recordable has a lot of air to breathe, its compositions (a decade's worth written and performed between) are experimental in nature and a bit of a skeleton at times. Some finished and some unfinished (feeling).

This is not Brunner's first go around on Bad Alchemy, having first released a 7 inch single with Thomas Hintner called "Spirograph" (or is that the duo's name?) with the 33rd issue in the ongoing series of zines. The Spirograph projekt continued so to speak with the netlabel release Spinnen.

Here

Lucien Suel - In Hymnis Et Canticis

Label : Rare Produx - No. 25

Country : France

Year : 1991

Format : C90

Furniture music, as per French neo-tradition. French-Canadian, maybe? The original issue of this first appeared on my radar when it was transiently archived on the tentatively run Noise-Arch on-line compen-dium. It was one of the exclusive and elusive members of the [IYD] tapes page, a section of the website that probably only I, in my most humble manner of being, had the outside knowledge of. It eluded the various caches and ambitious archives which sends out their little arachnids to parse whatever they can find. Unfortunately, I do not have much of the faintest memory of what "IYD" means or even stands for. Some more ephemera for the lot.

Anywho, the main dish as presented is here (I'll try to pare down on food comparisons, it really is a plague these days). The reason I exposited upon this meaningless little historie is to give a bit of perspective as to why I went and bought this thing. I do recall enjoying the little mp3 provided by the site, though obviously I had only listened to a portion of it. It seemed the avant-poetic folkisms were the primary instead of the utter secondary, but the concrete musics in sounds of washing hands and various amplified materials really take center stage. Call it like the Bernstein bears or whatever, I just have shit memory.

Here

Michael Vlatkovich & Charles Britt - Transvalue Book I

Label : Thankyou Records - MV-004

Year : 1985

Country : US

Format : LP

Eventful night. The wind was howling and the moon looked right evil, full and peering thru the cloud cover. I was going to wrap up scanning this elpee when I was interjected by the clamors of my domains detritae cluttering about our road. So, I went out and collected as best as I can. To tell the truth, it was a joy. I felt so exuberant; the whole situation felt like an event. The aforementioned lune and the hard blows of the elements only added to it. To peer inside my brain, I was inspired to create. I always keep ideas running in my imagination, compositing what I hold dear to my neurotics. It may come to a surprise, but I would love to make a game. I have so many things in mind, and that's what I meant as an "event", like a scripted one or some emergent thing of those vestiges. It's lovely, in my youth I do feel like it. 

In a brief "review", if one can call it so, I wrote "I'd like to think this is what would result if Zoogz [Rift] went full on gonzo jazz with some decadent poetry of the beat persuasion.". I stand by that short as it may be. Though to expand I'd also like to mention the many moving parts at play here. Tons of interesting ideas in this collaboration recurrent through the christened "transvalue" moniker. At points it takes a third stream approach, another a more rockjazz undercurrent, and a healthy helping of exp. bigband to really draw me in.

Here

Various Artists - Put Down Your Pencil

Label : Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center

Year : 1990

Country : US

Format : C60

Lotso familiar names on this tape. A sound art comp featuring the likes of the BCO, Larry Wendt, Croiners, Al Margolis, and Illusion of Safety. A lot to like here, from the industrial rumblings of Big Red Stain to the silly Plunderphonia of the Tape-Beatles and Ed Special. Wendt's track here in particular is very interesting, an arresting spoken piece describing the lucrative venture of toad farming in San Jose (if anyone has any of his old tapes from Frog Peak/Hollow, let me know). All in all, an interesting experimental collection.

Here