scrapyard forecast

Quiet Worlds Speak Volumes

2012-01-25T23:19:00.000-08:00

It's great to get some more material from the welsh label Quiet World, who've for five years now humbly released various works of "gentle psychedelia" – which I must say, despite its vagueness, is quite an apt descriptor. Easily, these are the label's most pleasant looking releases I've seen to date, sporting hand-signed business cards and pro-printed inserts.

Ian Holloway - These Clockwork Tides

(qw twenty)

Ian Holloway hasn't shied in using his own label, Quiet World, as the primary hub for his creative output. The first of Holloway's releases I'd heard was 2007's A Lonely Place, which was a rather fine post-90s isolationist drone work with lovely sections of acoustic guitar peppered throughout. While it's been rather difficult to keep up with everything he's released since then, much of what has graced my ears has proven to be nearly as exceptional.

Another reason that I've come to respect Holloway's work, is that with every release his focus seems to shift slightly to accommodate a new concept, or set of concepts, without sacrificing whatever it is that makes all of his work sound so distinctly his own. These Clockwork Tides achieves exactly that. It's a work meant to capture the essence of the land and sea of the Gower Peninsula in South Wales via acoustic instrumentation and processing, as opposed to relying solely on environmental documentation. Holloway paints his sonic vision of the peninsula through works of time-stretched tone-floatation, some cycling in simple patterns before dying out, while others accruing layer upon layer of noise until all is bleak. The former works better than the latter, which is especially evident in the near 30 minute closer, "Firelight", that drew me in at first but lost my attention by the halfway point.

Though I believe Holloway's endeavor of recreating experiences and perceptions of an area through the use of acoustic instrumentation to be a noble one, I think he would have potentially found it more rewarding to work exclusively with unprocessed field recordings, as opposed to dipping into his familiar bag of tricks. I believe it to be more challenging to represent an area through exclusive audio documentation of that area, than it is to use instruments and processing to encapsulate memories of one's experience from that area. The latter leaves one susceptible to saturating a work with unintended romanticism and overly cinematic qualities – largely due to one's perception of these unfolding thoughts of a place as a sort of movie of the mind, and thus, the desire to create a deserving score for it. Field recordings, on the other hand (when they are left unprocessed) don't allow for all the potential fluff that's unneeded anyway, and leave one with only pure sonic representation. With that said, in Holloway's rendering of the Gower Peninsula, he manages to paint what sounds like an honest picture, steering clear of many of the traps despite his chosen course of action. All things considered, quite well done.

Ian Holloway - Wash by ScrapyardForecast

Sujo - Eilat

(qw nineteen)

Sujo is Ryan Huber, whose releases on Inam Records continually found their way to Ian Holloway and his Wonderful Wooden Reasons zine for review. Holloway, clearly taken by what he'd heard, extended an invitation to Huber for a release on Quiet World. Those familiar with the label's catalog will undoubtedly be taken aback at the album's sheer volume alone. Once the initial shock wears off it's not hard to see what Holloway was impressed by.

It's fair to call this a post-rock album, though definitely on the more metal/shoegaze side of things, not far removed from the work of Nadja. What's refreshing about Eilat is that even at its heaviest, it's far more insidious than it is just an assault on the senses: crushing drums, hammering guitar, and atrophied noise all come together with purpose. Also, the clinical feel of the drones, and the overall focus away from melody, gravitates this more towards the fringes than your average doom record. A surprising release, and one that'll likely get me hunting down more work by Huber. Highly recommended.

Sujo - Eilat (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

DeLaurenti + Worn Vessel

2012-01-20T00:04:00.000-08:00

I've now officially started a residency program here in Vancouver. Over the next six weeks I'll be creating a sound piece that'll be culled from field recordings of ferry ports, terminals and from the ships themselves. The latter half of the residency will be especially studio intensive so I imagine that posting will slow down significantly. Once it's over things will inevitable pick-up again. Thanks, as always for your readership.

Cristopher DeLaurenti - Of Silences Intemporally Sung: Luigi Nono's Fragmente-Stille, An Diotima

(Reductive , 2011)

Christopher DeLaurenti returns with another work in his found soundscape series, where he excavates and presents the unintentionally captured sounds that lurk in the shadows of recordings. On "Of Silences Intemporally Sung..." DeLaurenti took a recording of Luigi Nono's only string quartet, Fragmente-Stille, An Diotima as performed by the LaSalle Quartet, and inverted it. What this means is that the bulk of the recording, namely, the sections where the quartet was actually performing, was removed and replaced by digital silence. DeLaurenti then took what was left, that is, the pauses and supposed 'silence' in between the music, and amplified it greatly. In other words, what we're hearing is Fragmente-Stille, An Diotima in its entirety, only without the music.

What's immediately interesting is how much music there is in this musicless piece. This is not to say that DeLaurenti somehow fell short in his intentions, but that he did in fact succeed, at least in unmasking a realm of sound that otherwise would never have consciously been heard: shuffling bodies, on-the-fly tunings, room tone and decaying notes. If one decides to look at the waveform of DeLaurenti's reworking, as I did, they will immediately notice what looks like a very balanced inversion, as many of the areas of sonic activity seem nearly equidistant from the previous and next sections of activity, as though Nono was as interested in the moments between the music as he was with the music itself. As much as this balance is a product of Nono's vision, DeLaurenti deserves credit for bringing it to the limelight, and for his precision in extracting only the in-between moments. I sense much time was spent on this rigorous splicing process.

It's worth adding that Nono added passages by the poet Hölderlin to the performers' staves with instructions to murmer (to think) the lines to themselves while performing, and although I don't detect these murmerings in DeLaurenti's re-envisioning, I feel as though, on some level – maybe metaphysical – they are lurking beneath, waiting to be discovered. A fine recording.

Christopher DeLaurenti - 'Of Silences Intemporally Sung..." Track 2 (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

Worn Vessel - The Refuse of Nature C30

(Worthless Recordings, 2011)

Worthless Recordings have managed to spit out something like 20 releases in their first year of operation, with one of these releases finding its way into my hands. Little can be easily found out about the label other than the fact that it's based out of Wisconsin and is dedicated to releasing distortion-heavy drone and old school industrial music. The Refuse of Nature falls somewhere in-between, succeeding in its consistent penchant for grime but failing in its originality in achieving that grime. I've not much patience for early Bianchi anymore and I can't help but hear his overbearing influence. I wouldn't go so far as to call it worthless – like whomever named the label might have you believe – as I've come to try my best in appreciating works that at least have a clear vision. It's just that, I don't share the same vision.

Worn Vessel - I Do What I Hate (exerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

Adrian Dziewanski - Archival Anthems C35 (Prairie Fire Tapes, PF040)

2012-01-18T10:45:00.000-08:00

I have a new tape release thanks to the nice guys over at Prairie Fire Tapes in WInnipeg. Please consider picking up a copy and supporting the label. These guys work hard.

Prairie Fire press release:

Adrian contacted us this fall and sent some tracks over that we couldn’t ignore. Beautifully crafted dronescapes that create stunning isolated and cold atmospheres.

I don’t know about where you live – but there are times here in Winnipeg (especially in January) where if there’s enough snow and the temp is cold enough, say -45 degrees Celsius, driving around late, late at night is like being on the moon. There is no movement, everything gives off a blue hue, and if you stay outside too long, you die. It’s the best combination of beauty, desolation, and danger. Archival Anthems is a perfect mid-winter soundtrack – the point where it’s undeniable that everything is in a dead state. It’s not a requiem as there are hints of warmth and hopefulness of what is just ahead... perhaps.

At the Crest of the Sinking Sands by Adrian Dziewanski

Prairie Fire

Purchase

Scrapyard Forecast's Year-End Review: 15 Favourites from 2011

2012-01-13T23:18:00.000-08:00

Coming in at a fashionably late mid-January comes my favourite albums of the year. I'm finding with every passing year that having to pick absolute faves using the classic reverse numbered ranking is becoming more and more moot, not to mention unnecessarily cumbersome. So, this will likely be the last time I assemble the year-end list in such a dictatorial manner. With that said, many of these could have easily been switched around and almost any of the honourable mentions could have pegged a numbered spot on a different day, so don't read into the numbers too much. I must say though, what a year, with much to reflect on. Landing my gig at Dusted was great for exposing more music, and credit is due to all the great blogs, review sites, labels and distros I discovered in 2011; I never would have discovered some of this brilliant music had it not been for their existence. Keep producing for the sake of art and the prolonged existence of physical media. For now, enjoy the list.

15. Borden, Ferraro, Godin, Halo & Lapotin - Frkwys Vol. 7 (Rvng Intl.)

Until the seventh volume of the frkwys series – a clever spinoff by Rvng Intl. of the now historic Folkways collection (I guess that's Smithsonian Folkways now) – my interest hadn't quite piqued. That was, until I saw this album's line-up, a cast of some serious heavy hitters in the synth-laden underground. It's nice to hear a five-way collab with this much restraint, especially with Ferraro involved because let's face it, so much of what he's produced is the sonic equivalent of a headache (though I have to say I enjoyed Far Side Virtual). A stunning ambient electronic record, with plenty of pitch shifted synthesis and classic OPN style new-age leanings.

14. Chris Watson - El Tren Fantasma (Touch)

A new album by Chris Watson is never to be overlooked, and El Tren Fantasma certainly made it's mark on critics, fans and also on me. I've long been infatuated with the sounds of trains and that infatuation grew even more fierce after discovering David Jackman's work, so hearing this album now has me reminiscing of the good 'ol days, whilst replenishing a musical desire within. Although the focus here is the Ghost Train, Watson cleverly interlaces his field recordings with the sounds of surrounding wildlife, ie birds and insects. In fact, some of these recordings don't seem to feature the train at all, which I found a bit surprising. When we do hear the mysterious train, Watson presents it perfectly, including recordings that have been augmented to form abstract beatscapes. I found myself more drawn to the 12" of remixed material that focuses almost entirely on the train, although all the material here is stunning, which isn't surprising considering Watson's track record. Chris Watson continues to push the boundaries of what a field recording album can represent, and he does it with class here.

13. Yann Novak - Presence (Hibernate)

Words printed on the cd packaging state that Presence is intended to be listened to at a relatively low volume, and much like with the case of Asher or Richard Chartier's work, turning the volume to, I'd say just shy of medium, tends to reveal enough of the nuances while also staying true to the artist's intentions; this of course varies from case to case. When listening to Novak's latest at medium-low, one is gradually taken through an austere sound world as cold as Thomas Koner's Permafrost. While Koner never really hinted at a bright side on that album, Novak provides some light here, especially in the final quarter, a dare-I-say breathtaking ebb and flow of soft white noise and translucent melody. Sublime.

12. Ben Owen & Alfredo Costa Monteiro - Frêle à Vide (Contour Editions)

It was a good year for both of these musicians, with releases and plenty of label activity to boot. Frêle à Vide saw Owen and Monteiro in top form, cross breading an auspicious junk-box musicality (shortwave, turntables and feedback all make an appearance) with an 80's power-electronics sensibility. Noisy, raw and certainly addictive. Read my full review from February here.

11. Valerio Tricoli & Thomas Ankersmit - Forma II (Pan)

Touch signed saxophonist Thomas Ankersmit and 3/4HadBeenEliminated member Valerio Tricoli teamed up on this rather brilliant electroacoustic album. The closing piece is especially nice, with gradually building layers of saxophone highlighting Ankersmit's skills. Read my full review of Forma II via Dusted here.

10. Jim Haynes - The Decline Effect (The Helen Scarsdale Agency)

Speaking of having a good year, Jim Haynes was rather productive as well, embarking on a west-coast tour with Brendan Murray, performing and exhibiting in his home state of California and releasing some compilation tracks plus his opus for HS, The Decline Effect. This is the best and I'd also say, the most varied album from Jim yet. Read my full review of this for the SF from October here.

9. Ampax Catalog - Dsr.Slit (Phaserprone)

It was only last post that I was boasting this cassette from the mysterious Ampax Catalog. Hands down, tape release of the year. FYI this is now sold out at the source, though some distros might still be carrying. Read my full review of this here (second one down).

8. Rolf Julius - Music for a Distance: Small Music No. 2 (Western Vinyl)

The late Rolf Julius left behind a legacy of music, and if one had to choose a single album to represent the man's ingenuity, style and determination, it could easily be this one. Julius spent over 6 years refining Music for a Distance, and frankly, it shows. A seminal work. Read my full review on the SF from September of last year here.

7. Mist - House (Spectrum Spools / Editions Mego)

The Boss described Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" as "the snare shot that sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind." I thought exactly the same thing upon first listen of "Twin Lanes", the opening track on Mist's House. I hadn't felt any piece of music (not even Emeralds material) since Tired Sounds... that was able to achieve that all-encompassing feeling I'm often yearning for. Elliot and Goldberg posses a collaborative dynamic that has the clearest of vision, maintaining a firm hold on a top-tier position in my books, as far as contemporary synth duos go. My favourite of the Spectrum Spools releases this year, and pretty much flawless.

6. Trouble Books and Mark McGuire - S/T (Bark and Hiss / Wagon)

I definitely had my doubts going in to this record, especially after incessant spins of Young Person's Guide... to the point of being on the brink of exhausting the McGuire sound altogether. Fortunately, The Trouble Books help take these tracks to only vaguely familiar places. I'm not sure how many times I played this album, too many to count. Read my full review of this over at Dusted.

5. Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica (Software / Mexican Summer)

I'm hard pressed to say anything about this album that hasn't already been said, but maybe I'll try. Seems a bit of a polarizer, with I'd say a slight majority going to those deeming it an absolute masterpiece (OK, maybe most of us think it's a masterpiece). I certainly am one to value anything that pushes preconceptions of music, not excluding the deconstruction and recontextualization of old TV commercials – Lapotin's modus operandi on Replica. In his mind, Lopatin felt the well from which he had pulled his musical inspiration had run dry, so he decided to make something different, challenged himself a little. The lackadaisical piano on the title track; the rhythmic hypnosis of "Up", and the rough-hewn-to-crafted trajectory of "Child Soldier" are all stand out moments. But really, it's just an outstanding record.

4. Lawrence English - The Peregrine (Experimedia)

Never have I heard songs that more aptly capture the feeling of looking out across a majestic valley from a mountain top at dawn. For all those who wished there existed a soundtrack to life, look no further; English manages to encapsulate it all in The Peregrine, his 2011 tribute to J.A. Baker's book of the same name. Read my full review of this wonderful album at Dusted.

3. Andrew Chalk - Violin By Night (FarawayPress)

After decades of making music and never straying far from his core sound, Andrew Chalk still manages to produce such high quality albums, not only in sound, but also in presentation and packaging. Violin By Night is Chalk's most exquisitely presented release to date, all done up in a full-blown, handmade deluxe LP, in the familiar Faraway Press presentation. The sounds within lean more than usual towards electronic and classical than what he's known for, but his sensibility is definitely steeped into this work. What strikes me about these pieces is how many of them seem to drift in and out of focus to astonishing results, as if they were transmitted through a wavering radio frequency with the distortion removed; the true sound of hypnagogia.

2. Jon Porras - Undercurrent (Root Strata)

Undercurrent is the latest album by Jon Porras, who is one half of the droned-out psych duo Barn Owl. In their own right Barn Owl are quickly becoming a household name and given all the high quality albums that they've produced – not to mention works by Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras as Elm – I had none other than high expectations for this. My expectations were met on first listen, and then blown apart by the second spin. Undercurrent is an exceptional effort that exceeds any Barn Owl affiliated release to date... Continue reading my review of this album from the SF here.

1. The Field - Looping State of Mind (Kompakt)

Sometimes the best records of the year are the ones that come out of nowhere and blow you away. I've been a fan of Alex Willner and his project The Field for sometime now, but Looping State of Mind just managed to push all the right buttons. I'm sure it was a combination of things that allowed me to enjoy this album as much as I did – the fact that The Field toured the record and played in Vancouver for one, my increased interest in minimal techno and progressive house being another – but the bottom line is that it's just an amazing feat. I'm not really a fan of dance music and I doubt I ever will be, but the album got me dancing and loving it (be it, in a neurotic, jerky sort of way).

There's something very particular about the way The Field's music unfolds, slowly building in nearly imperceptible ways and sustaining for minutes on little more than one or two loops before slightly altering once again. It's too minimal for dance music and too dance-y for minimal music, and it feels out of place on those pop ambient compilations. Bottom line is, it works, and very well at that.

honorable mention:

bj nilsen & stilluppsteypa - big shadow montana

barn owl - lost in the glare

mark mcguire - young persons guide

rick reed - the way things go

helm - cryptography

luigi turra - ki

hive mind - elemental disgrace

forma - forma

golden retriever - light cones

secret pyramid - the silent march

kyle bobby dunn - ways of meaning

pierre gerard - environment and gesture

alva noto and ryuichi sakamoto - summvs

red horse - red horse

jim o'rourke and christoph heemann - plastic palace people vol.1

cm von hausswolff - 800,000 seconds in harar

demdike stare - triptych

htrk - work, (work, work)

destroyer - kaputt

asher and garet - melting ground

mpld - lacunae

ernst karel - swiss mountain transport system

favourite reissues:

sean mccann - open resolve

william basinski - a red score in tile

talk talk - laughing stock

mark hollis - s/t

throbbing gristle - 20 jazz funk greats

lawrence english - kiri no oto

disco inferno - the 5 eps

Phaserprone :: Back from the Dead, Part 2

2011-12-24T14:45:00.000-08:00

As expected I present to you part 2 of this vastly incomplete label profile, the music in question, of which, I've greatly enjoyed deconstructing. Sitting here at my dimly lit desk looking out at the drabness that is typical to Vancouver this time of year, I brood over the near and distant future of the Scrapyard Forecast. Overdue reviews of stray tapes and cds from 2011 will see the light of day in January, along with the irresistible year-end feature (something I prefer to leave until early January even though most of us are sick of lists by then). I'm still working on the details of the year end thing, though I've recently narrowed things down to 20 or so albums. Keep an eye out. As far as the distant future goes, I have no plans on stopping, so all I can say is, time will tell...

Thought Broadcast - Up-Maker 7"

(PPR21)

First I've heard from Ravi Binning's eccentric post-punk Thought Broadcast outfit, this 7" marking the project's third official release after two cassettes on Darren Ho's Gel and Hierodule labels. I've recently been delving into some 80's minimal synth from Japan, namely Sympathy Nervous and releases on Vanity Records, and I'm definitely hearing some similarities, mostly in TB's use of calculated percussion and inertia-driven mechanics. The format renders this an all too brief window into Thought Broadcast's dystopian sound world, the A side opening with the hyper-rhythmic "Noted Guerillas" before settling into the cantankerous "Pocket Planetaria". The flip sees a cracked ragtime missive coupled with the closer "Satisfiers of Alpha Blue" that's stuck in a middle eastern-tinged feedback loop. Great all around, impeccable packaging.

Thought Broadcast - Satisfiers Of Alpha Blue by ScrapyardForecast

Ampax Catalog - Dsr.Slit C40

(PPR23)

The most recent of Phaserprone's releases comes by way of the virtually unknown Ampax Catalog. Dsr.Slit marks AC's debut release, though frankly, on a blind listen I would have pinned this as at least a sophomore record by any of a handful of contemporary stalwarts exercising their respective minimal-synth aesthetics, be it Christopher Forgues, Jeff Witscher or even Carlos Giffoni (his arbor ep from two years ago came to mind).

Using an array of retrograde electronic gear such as a mono synth, tape delay and rhythm box, Dsr.Slit manages to achieve a sound that a heavy percentage of underground acts are striving for, all the while sounding distinctly modern despite its backward leanings. The tracks here are succinct, unmuddied and poised in their terseness, yet never shy away from making a statement; alien synthlines become grounded in simplistic rhythms throughout, holding their structures through the bulk of these works. "Identification Card", with its amassing and all encompassing analog buzz and Godspeed-esque megaphone vocalizations is up there as my jam of the year (Listen to the sound sample), while the rest of the tape follows very nicely in suite.

A brilliant release, and definitely one of the best cassettes of the year. Wonderfully presented in a two coloured letter pressed j-card and cool black and white schematic-type cover art.

Ampax Catalog - Identification Card by ScrapyardForecast

Phaserprone :: Back from the Dead, Part 1

2011-12-16T22:35:00.000-08:00

Jonas Asher and Jochen Hartmann's Phaserprone label returns in a big way after almost three years of inactivity, churning out six immaculately put-together releases over the course of 2011. The Brooklyn based label has in the past been an inspiring resource for little known, off-kilter techno, noise and synthesizer music, and this new batch only sees more austerity injected into Asher and Hartmann's ideology. Pro-dubbed cassettes, letterpressed J-cards, and stunning two-toned (occasionally two-coloured) printed artwork. Really beautiful all around.

Dust - Ballet C26

(PPR17)

You may know Daniel La Porte's work under any one of his ever changing guises: Earth Crown, Copper Glove, Door. With this release he's managed to adopt-and-drop yet another. I'm not entirely sure of La Porte's motivation to switch project names so often (someone should ask James Ferraro!). I could see it being an obvious move if a change in moniker also meant a change in direction, but in La Porte's case, the Dust sound is very reminiscent of music he's made in the past – albeit many notches mellower than the Copper Glove material I've heard.

Ballet, his first for Phaserprone and first under the Dust nom, waxes and wanes between apathetic and overambitious. The opener "Pass" doesn't find its groove until half the tape's already passed over the play head, a distorted almost-rhythm eventually swallowing all the swirling bleeps and bloops in its mass. Things do take on more structure from this point, although it feels like an afterthought in these tracks, at least on the A side that at best can't decide if it wants to zone you out, annoy you, or make you awkwardly dance. The flip is stronger, but overall the work doesn't push forward the already over saturated "experimental underground" commonwealth.

Dust - Transfix Mutate (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

Roe Enney - Damnatio Memoriae C42

(PPR18)

An apparent ode to the New Romantics, Roe Enney's Damnation Memoriae is far more of a downer's surrealist trip than anything the blitz kids conjured up. Yet, deep down beneath the strange and sunken vocal reveries, bubbling noisescapes, and lonely flickering dance hooks, I can almost feel the connection. Somehow, the link lies with the fact that Enney's music seems to be coming at you from all angles, in one track feeling like a perfect piece of new wave that never was, in another embracing little more than sonic abstraction, while in another unfolding uncannily like an early Grouper or Inca Ore song.

The B side's "Rhythm" is a stand out, along with some of the more poppier cuts from the A side. The album feels like the Roe Enney 'entity' is still trying to find its style (I say entity because I'm not sure if that's her real name or simply a guise). It's a very experimental album, not just in style but in the attempt to find a voice. My advice: stick to the beats, develop the vocals further and the rest will fall into place. I sense some great work in the near future from this mysterious musician.

Roe Enney - Au Pair Of My Dreams by ScrapyardForecast

Hsdom - No Title C31

(PPR20)

If there are two things I find extremely off-putting in the so-called post-industrial field, it's the overuse of delay and nondescript vocals as mainstays. The first of the four tracks that make up Hsdom's latest tape only solidifies my disdain for this music's emotional reliance on these tricks; that and an all-too-obvious attempt at build-up via a lack of control on the volume pedal (listen to the sound sample). However, the second of the two A side tracks practically has me eating my words, as it's rather brilliant, exhibiting a quixotic but cohesive raucous that's equal parts arcane techno, synthesizer throwback, and cyclic noise – very Throbbing Gristle, and I think the vocals actually work on this one. There's a slow transition near the end of the piece with some cymbal washing and simple beat cross-over that's especially good.

The flip sees more of this German expat's good side, where he utilizes his bizarro self-written digital synthesis language to spew more of a free form beat structure rather than a soup of noise. "Maschine" has an almost 8-bit feel with its streamlined rhythm, bleeding into the closing track. Some definite moments of clarity to be found, though there's a lack of austerity that I find so rewarding in select 80s synthesizer music and particular artist re-envisioning the stuff nowadays.

Hsdom - Am Graben (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

visit phaserprone

Winds Measure Matters – Part 2

2011-12-08T09:00:00.000-08:00

And here we have another charming variation in Winds Measure's unprocessed field recording rubric. As the title suggests, Phonography Meeting 070823 saw these five featured phonographers get together to create a unified work. To keep things interesting–as wm releases often succeed in doing–the album was recorded in the context of a live performance, in 10 minute chunks, and consecutively form artist to artist. Upon digging a little deeper it appears there were actually a number of phonography meetings that took place between 2003-2007, as part of the Seasonal performance series in NY. Other meetings included such stalwarts as Richard Garet, Patrick McGinley and Chris De Laurenti.

Scott Smallwood, Sawako, Seth Cluett, Ben Owen and Civyiu Kkliu
Phonography Meeting 070823

I imagine that on this meeting these gentlemen were particularly on their game, as the disc that's made it into my hands is a very fluid and naturally progressing succession of acoustic snapshots. And although it's tempting to follow along and match up each recording chunk with its corresponding phonographer, that task becomes superfluous in the light of this being the work–and sounding like the work–of a collective, and not a bunch of individuals.

To dive in is to soon acquire an understanding of how the recording chunks fuse together. Although there tends to be a simple cross-fading that happens as a piece is "handed off" to the next artist, each performer is free to bring in their personal touch while keeping in mind, of course, the whole picture. The transition near the 4 minute mark is perhaps my favourite part of the entire piece, as an astonishingly compelling recording of water (astonishing because, well, water, like planes, tends to get into almost every field recording session) suddenly cuts to the rattling of wind chimes. The cut is so perfect I missed it the first time, and was soon wondering how and when the sounds shifted so much from the opening phrase. Later, in what I believe are Seth Cluett's and Ben Owen's sections, the sounds really start to gel as layers of contact mic'd micro-noise fluctuations and distorted wind recordings steadily carry the work forward; sounds like some footsteps in there too.

I've only outlined some of the finer sounds, but really there is a whole world to explore within these recordings, some sections melding better than others, and the fidelity varying with each new sound -- something I came to really appreciate about the work. As with all wm output, I recommend this for those seeking more boundary-pushing work in this field.

Scott Smallwood, Sawako, Seth Cluett, Ben Owen and Civyiu Kkliu - Phonography Meeting 070823 (edit) by ScrapyardForecast

Winds Measure Matters – Part 1

2011-12-05T22:40:00.000-08:00

I hope to meet Ben Owen in the flesh one of these days to personally thank him for the existence of Winds Measure, easily one of my favourite labels, and no doubt the one that's made the biggest impression on me this year. I also feel the need to mention that he's one of the only people (that I know of) putting field recordings out on tape.

In a way I understand the desire to steer clear of cassettes when releasing field recordings, mostly for reasons of fear in losing the structural subtly and texture that the style / method / practice can be known for. At the same time, however, I feel Owen uses the format to his advantage, picking and choosing work that seems well suited to the warmth and mechanics of analog tape. It doesn't hurt that the tapes are pro-dubbed either. Here's a little catch-up of two cassettes from early August.

Stefan Thut and Taku Unami

am wind, d±50

"What we call the sound of rain or wind we could better call the sound of plant leaves and branches." – Francisco Lopez.

It wasn't long ago that I came across this quote by Lopez, and I find I'm often bringing it to the fore of my mind when listening and critiquing. It is easy to forget that the sound of rain, wind or snow are directly dictated by the objects and surfaces they strike, and where one may be actively listening in that given space. In relation to Stefan Thut's "am wind" recording, it makes me think of all the possible outcomes of this piece, all the millions of variations that could have surfaced given countless factors, and it makes me realize that it's not about trying to record wind, that's impossible. It's about recording a location that is being activated by wind, and thus dictates that no two recordings of the same weather process can stand alike.

The first of Thut's two wind recordings is a particularly good representation of the sound of low to high velocity winds, while the second is far more settled, with intermittent bursts carrying the sounds of creaking fences in their wake. Wind recordings are hard to do, and Thut does a good job at it, a fine example of the unprocessed field work that Winds Measure goes above and beyond to endorse.

Side B sees Thut's other musical facet, the cello, come to life in an extended drone piece with Taku Unami (sinewaves). The recording has a very 'open room' feel, with a plenitude of movement and shuffling. In many ways it acts as a mirror piece to the wind recordings, especially in it's near-silent-to-quite-active articulation. I'm not convinced that actively listening to this piece for 37 minutes is the best way to go, as that should probably be reserved for the outshining A side.

Stefan Thut - am wind (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

Angharad Davies and Taku Unami

Two Hands

Taku Unami strikes again, and this time with London based violinist Angharad Davies. This near hour endeavor finds Davies in further arcane exploration of the violin, her instrument of choice, while both musicians are credited as playing "clap". The clap heard here refers not to some baroque instrument you've never heard of, but to the kind of common activity you might hear after a recital, though far less intrusive. Two Hands takes the predictable associations of clapping, the common wall-of-sound applause that always follows a performance or recital, and flips it on its head, utilizing clapping in a far more nuanced manner. Part one also finds the ever-so-slow clap interlaced with a delicately handled violin by Angharad. This one definitely grew on me.

While mimicking the clapping I heard through the speakers at home, and including the long silences in between, I found I had to consciously think about not clapping twice or more times in a row. It was like relearning to ride a bicycle. It's interesting that clapping in succession, that is, repeating the same movement and sound over and over, feels more normal than expending less energy and only doing that thing once. I suppose it's the fault of conditioning. Do try this at home.

Angharad Davies and Taku Unami - Two Hands (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

Pierre Gerard - ENVIRONMENT & gesture (3Leaves)

2011-11-13T17:05:00.000-08:00

Pierre Gerard and Andy Graydon's tape release from earlier this year saw a long distance sound exchange deploying themes of polarity and homeward migration. Gerard's take on the themes saw an ultra-minimalist approach – as he often deploys – that resulted in a nice piece of hushed concrete-drone music. As minimal as that piece was, it sounded tumultuous in comparison to ENVIRONMENT & gesture.

On their own, the three tracks that make up the album give little to no reward for the listener, elapsing as lackluster environmental backdrops: a water droplet here, a rock thud there. After the 20 minute opener the sound of a stream is introduced, which slightly livens things, though barely. But Gerard hasn't just presented an album of boring field recordings, his intentions are far more earnest.

From his perspective these recordings are the product of seamless improvisations, where the sounds of objects and instruments are integrated by the "performer" into an environmental soundscape by complimenting it as opposed to dominating over it. Rightly so, Gerard choose nearly silent locations to perform these passive improv sessions where even the slightest of movements likely had the potential to impede on his vision. In these recording situations discipline and restraint become important factors, and although the outcome isn't the most engaging, there is much revealed in the artist's intentions and in the sound work itself if one can spend time with it. Yes, this just might win you over. Recommended.

Pierre Gerard - With Objects (a) (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

Organized Music From Thessaloniki

2011-11-10T23:16:00.000-08:00

In a country in as much sociopolitical turmoil as Greece, it was quite refreshing to receive a package from Kostis Kilymis, who manages the Organized Music From Thessaloniki label. It's hard to ignore the international headlines branded about the state of the country. What will eventually transpire in Greece will surely be felt worldwide, and for now I doubt there's a single person living there who hasn't been directly affected.

It's been said that great art can come from times of peril. I can't say for certain if these works then are the products of artists whose world is falling apart around them, so to speak, but I do take this as a ray of hope sent from a a place that's been severely darkened in recent history. So here's to creative perseverance and a realistic solution to get this great country back on its feet. Thank you Kostis, I send my blessings.

Ferran Fages, Robin Hayward, Nikos Veliotos - Tables and Stairs

First up is the three-way collab Tables and Stairs by Ferran Fages, Robin Hayward, and Nikos Veliotos. There wasn't a single name I recognized amongst the lot of these releases so I threw on this disc without knowing what to expect, outside of the music being some product of the combination of sine waves, cello, and microtonal tuba.

The result is far removed from any "classic" improv session, or anything sounding remotely like chamber music. Instead, the single half-hour piece that makes up the album is a rather austere take on the kitchen-sink electroacoustics that Alfredo Costa Monteiro and Ben Owen masterfully put forth on the fantastic Frêle à Vide. I would be surprised if this was the first time these three performers got together, as it sounds as though they've been developing a harmonious relationship for a while; musically speaking that is. From moments of extreme sparsity the piece slowly builds into a long and graceful tonal working of rasping drones and arcing frequencies of slightly higher register. Everything comes together so seamlessly and the timing and transitions between the extended movements are sublime. Well done. Recorded live in an apartment, june 27, 2010.

Ferran Fages, Robin Hayward, Nikos Veliotis - Tables And Stairs (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

Michael Johnsen and Pascal Battus - Bitche Session

Next up is a two-way collab by the likes of Michael Johnsen and Pascal Battus, titled (rather awkwardly) as Bitche Session. Like the other releases, little is stated about the work or artists outside of what's being played. This is something I rather like as it adds an extra element of mystery to the sounds within. Compared to the previous disc Bitche Session is far more in the clunky, free-for-all realm of things, with plenty of squiggling sounds and clicks and pops making their way through magnetic pick-ups. Electronics and a saw are also sited as source material. The album has really fine moments of interesting sound combinations, and it's consistent in its scope throughout. However, I found it a lot harder to surf my way into this one despite some of the more unique sounds, as nothing really makes this stand apart from works similar to it, of which there are plenty. And in working with a rather basic template of scattershot-noise techniques, distinguishing yourself from the pack can make all the difference.

Michael Johnsen and Pascal Battus - Bitche Sessions, Side A (Excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga - Stroke by Stroke

Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga offers 21 vignettes of highly sculptured sound on Stroke by Stroke. The works here are all acoustic in nature if I gathered right from the liner notes, and sound quite meticulously rendered. Most of these pieces are quite percussive, and sound as if they were captured from simple sound structures, each one designed to produce one type of sound, and thus one piece of the overall puzzle. The repetitive nature of the works lend themselves to the shorter track format, and kudos to Lazaridou-Chatzigoga for being able to pick up on that.

The aforementioned percussion is usually quite rapid and often interlaced with harmonic frequencies and metallic squelching akin to the sound of bowed sheet metal. The jump cuts between tracks make for more than a handful of brilliant transitions, while in between, the segments ring out in a brilliantly shimmering stoicism. Stunning. Do check out this release, and the works of this fine label.

Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga - Sleep Talk by ScrapyardForecast

Working...

2011-10-29T10:50:00.001-07:00

Jim Haynes "The Decline Effect" 2LP (The Helen Scarsdale Agency)

2011-10-17T00:44:00.000-07:00

After some purportedly uninteresting reasons for being pulled from the Root Strata production line, Jim Haynes' The Decline Effect finally sees the light of day via this stunning double long-player on Helen Scarsdale. It would have been hard for Ledesma and the crew over at Root Strata to top this. As with all HS releases, and especially the label's recent forays into vinyl, the care and detail continues to be well worth the humble rate of turnover.

I had the pleasure of seeing Haynes perform earlier this year in Vancouver, and in witnessing his tactics live I was able to peel back some of the mystery that's steeped in his sound world. This experience has proven helpful in deciphering for many of these sounds, while others will forever remain a mystery to these ears.

"Ashes", the opening track (and continued study of a commissioned piece for two films by Scott Hewicker), begins with the crackling of quick flame bursts akin to the closely mic'd sounds of lit matches that began Haynes' aforementioned live performance. A decompressed drone soon creeps into the mix and gives way to a brief but noisy mechanical churn. If this section isn't a direct homage to the opening moments of Nurse With Wound's 'Homotopy for Marie' than I don't know what is. At this point things really start to gel as Haynes introduces a cycling fan-like rumination that carries a myriad of low to mid-range drones. It all builds up and fuels the sinister storm that is the piece's climax.

A similar development characterizes "Terminal", the B side, which is perhaps the best example of the necessity to allow works like these to develop over extended durations. Evidently, this notion is something Haynes has come to recognize about his work, and its all the better for it. The piece takes its name from the Terminal Geyser, one of many geysers and thermal vents recorded and later configured from Lassen Volcanic National Park. The track bubbles and hisses in a sea of fissures and underwater pops while skating along a subtly fluctuating stream. Things turn especially interesting near the side's finale as Haynes takes a magnifying glass to some of the more active vents, and chooses to funnel the calmed stream into waters far more cacophonous.

Record number two begins with the cut "Half-Life". Compared to the other tracks, far less is written about this one on the inner sleeve. What is stated is that it's something to the effect of an approximation of radioactive decay through electromagnetism. That doesn't tell us much, other than it seems in line with themes that have resonated with Haynes for a while. In reality, this sounds like classic Jim Haynes: mechanical post-techno rudiment, spectral interference, and depressurized ambience in the form of brooding windswept drones.

The Decline Effect closes with the immaculately realized "Cold", a track that ebbs and flows through open space via shortwave radio, tapped wire errata, and various field recordings. Everything is swathed in the signature Haynesian decay, that's felt right through to the final wave of static-laden noise and onward towards the album's decline...
...or something to its effect. So good.

Jim Haynes : Ashes : from "The Decline Effect" by Helen Scarsdale

Western Vinyl Presents: Rolf Julius Small Music Series, 'Music for the Ears' & 'Music for a Distance'

2011-09-29T14:32:00.000-07:00

The German born sound and visual artist Rolf Julius died in January of this year. In his parting the world was left with an astonishing documented history of his work, in particular, his work with sound. Julius's installations and sound pieces often focused on what the artist came to realize as "small music," an apt title for the subtle, often insect-like electronic music he mastered over his life span. Julius came to realize his sonic vision through the likes of John Cage, Morton Feldman, and La Monte Young, adopting the central concepts of their ideologies to propel his own work at the start. Eventually, Julius's craft led him to explore the relationship between visual art, nature and small music, by way of elegantly understated environmental sound installations and spacial-focused sound works. Two of the artist's most recent publications have been made available by Western Vinyl: Music for the Ears & Music for a Distance.

Music for the Ears is the first in a series of small music releases that will eventually culminate into a boxed set of seminal albums by the German artist. The cover image depicts Julius's installation in a bamboo forest in Kyoto, Japan, while the inlay and back image are taken from a performance in Belo Horizonte, Brazil (also in a forest).

It's unclear if these images directly correlate to the sounds on the disc but I've come to think of these works more as Music for a Forest, as one can easily imagine Julius's floating tones descending from tree branches and intermingling with the wind and sounds of the environment. These pieces, which are quite similar to one another in their hypnotic overlaying of quiet tones, are perhaps more interested in conveying an understanding of space and how the sounds interact within that space, rather than just sound for sound's sake. "Song from the Past" is composed (improvised?) in such a way that the "active" sounds appear in chunks throughout the work, interspersed with sections of near silence. In the context of an installation, the silent sections would allow the listener to reflect on the work's interaction with the environment and also the interaction with the individual's own ears (music for the ears!). These gaps would perhaps also allow for a noticeable differentiation in natural sounds and sounds brought specifically into the natural environment.

"Music on Two High Poles" on the other hand, is more in the steady stream realm, likely a performed piece and busier than the opener. It's equally as lovely, especially in way that the tones ring out over extended periods and then cluster together in bouts of bagpipe-like fluctuations. Superbly meditative.

Rolf Julius - Song From The Past (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

What has impressed me the most about these discs and Rolf Julius's music all together is his blending of the minimal with the maximal, of the cacophonous and the silent. His music can feel very active while at the same time resemble a stasis. Music for a Distance is one of the better examples of this dichotomy.

The album's main piece, a nearly 40 minute trip, is a work that Julius had been refining over a 6 year period, beginning in 2003 where it was performed live at the Donaueschinger Musiktage in Germany. Careful listens reveal an entire world of muted rustlings, insectoid harmonies, decrepit tonalities, and all sorts of swirling, pulsating, and vibrating ephemera, amounting to nothing short of a mesmerizing piece that is one of the milestones of Julius's long career in sound. The 13 minute "Music for a Corner" merits its title as an excursion into the dark recesses of the mind; a haunting motorifik piece of isolationist music.

Two essential documents of the true enigmatic genius that was Rolf Julius. visit Rolf Julius at Western Vinyl.

Rolf Julius - Music for a Distance (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

And yet another Dusted review: Golden Retriever

2011-09-16T13:53:00.000-07:00

Golden Retriever - Light Cones (Root Strata, 2011)

As of this post I will no longer be posting Dusted updates via the Scrapyard Forecast for the sake of protecting the integrity and distinctiveness of this publication. However, the Scrapyard Forecast Auxiliary page will continue posting Dusted updates. Thanks.

Dusted: Sam Goldberg

2011-09-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

Sam Goldberg - Having Had Forgot (Arbor, 2011)

Dusted Review: Barn Owl

2011-09-02T10:06:00.000-07:00

Barn Owl - Lost in the Glare (Thrill Jockey, 2011)

New from and/OAR: Luigi Turra 'KI' 3CD + Lethe 'Dry Ice on Steel Tables' (either/OAR)

2011-08-21T15:50:00.000-07:00

Two very stunning releases to get to today from Dale Lloyd's impressive and/OAR and either/OAR labels (OAR = Overheard and Rendered). The central branch of Lloyd's label is the and/OAR division, which focuses mainly on works that incorporate environmental sounds with an avant-garde awareness.

Luigi Turra fits nicely into the and/OAR model as there is much here that aligns with the environmental, and certainly also the avant-garde. I first became aware of Turra's work through his captivating – though blandly titled – Tactile.Surface CD, a collaboration with like-minded artist Christopher McFall. On Ki, we get to see what Turra can do on his own, and there is plenty of material to do that with, the album spanning three discs and clocking in at nearly 2½ hours.

The opening disc, Enso, which was originally released in 2007 on the Small Voices label (though was apparently mastered too loudly) immediately brings Organum's Vacant Lights to mind, with its indiscernible tactile movements, like footsteps and the scurrying of rats; a flute playing alongside. Unlike David Jackman and the crew he assembled that day for the Vacant Lights sessions, Turra brings in other instruments to accompany the objects he records with. The methodical plucks of a stringed instrument – possibly a guitar, maybe something more exotic – can be heard in the latter half of Enso 1, along with percussion, played more texturally than as a back beat, and what is probably a myriad of bowls and bells. Turra weaves field recordings into this expansive composition, and ultimately evokes a sort of languid – although precisely calculated – dance with his sounds, the third movement being particularly nice.

Disc two, Ancient Silence, picks up in similar vein to how Enso left off, though is more psychologically jarring in scope. The sound of chimes penetrating through a blackened ambience around the 10 minute mark are a stand out, eventually giving way to sounds of metal being bowed, along with more of the aforementioned tactility and flute playing. This section of the trilogy is a much darker affair than its predecessor, though still keeping in form with the bigger picture. On Shasekishu, the closer, Turra takes a magnifying glass to many of the background elements of the first discs and moves them to the fore. The piece creaks, fizzes, and clicks and pops as a gentle stream, a flicker of a fire here and a rattle of a vent or strike of a bell there; also some occult chanting and pipe recordings not dissimilar to the pressurized drones produced by Jim Haynes and Michael Gendreau. Ki is a massive work that is a lot to take in but very consistent and very good.

Luigi Turra - Enso 02 (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

Lethe is the nom de plume of Japanese sound specialist Kuwayama Kiyoharu, whose long running Catastrophe Point series and fruitful collaborative albums (alongside Kapotte Muziek and Jonathan Coleclough to name two) have piqued my interest over the last couple of years. The majority of Lethe albums – if not all of them – were recorded in emptied or abandoned architectural spaces, such as warehouses and airplane hangers, where by a variety of ephemera was usually agitated, bowed, scraped, rustled or in some way, shape or form manipulated to create a sound that resonated within the vast walls of Kiyoharu's chosen infrastructure. The results that Lethe achieves after carefully overdubbing his compositions are often a potent crossbreeding of Musique Concrète, Acousmatic, and Impressionistic musical sensibility.

Dry Ice on Steel Tables veers from the Lethe paradigm slightly, as what we have here is a live, unaltered piece culled from a 2003 performance, as opposed to the usual post-production assemblage of kiyoharu's acoustic recordings. Remarkably, the stammering ebb and flow of buzzing metallic scrapes and bellowing drones that characterized the performance were sounds sourced entirely from three very non-musical materials: tables, dry ice, and candles. As the album cover reveals, Lethe positioned himself in the center of four small steel tables that were all being heated by candles, and maneuvered from one table to the next placing pieces of dry ice on them with a gloved hand. The sonic properties of the metal tables shrieked to life using this process and Lethe was able to manipulate all the materials in such a way as to coax interesting variations in the durations of tones and pitches in the shrieking steel, all the while leaving plenty of silent gaps to accentuate the isolated movements. Yes, quite a bold, creative and brilliant performance.

Lethe - Dry Ice on Steel Tables (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

Jon Porras 'Undercurrent' LP (Root Strata), Elm 'Nemcatacoa' LP (Sweat Lodge Guru)

2011-08-20T00:29:00.000-07:00

Coming down off the summer high a little bit and getting ready to sit down with some of the stellar music that's come my way as of late. On another note I've been working on a new piece of my own, two actually, more in the drifting ambient vein and I'd say quite a bit more nuanced than Orbital Decay (Still have plenty of copies of that by the way, email me if you'd like one). As of now wonderful music fills my living room and another glorious sun sets behind the mountains as I look out over the harbour.

Undercurrent is the latest album by Jon Porras, who is one half of the droned-out psych duo Barn Owl. In their own right Barn Owl are quickly becoming a household name and given all the high quality albums that they've produced – not to mention works by Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras as Elm (see below) – I had none other than high expectations for this. My expectations were met on first listen, and then blown apart by the second spin. Undercurrent is an exceptional effort that exceeds any Barn Owl affiliated release to date.

Porras's distinctive finger-picking-to-drone-wash style is back for this album, but because of the way it's been produced, (credit due, at least in part to the Normal Conquest) the melodies feel all the more subdued, the notes and guitar tones all the more bathed in glorious reverb, as if snaking along the bottom of an ocean or deep within a cave. At times the plucked guitar is reminiscent of Andrew Chalk's piano work on Blue Eyes of the March, both lush and elegant. Elegance quickly transforms into a languid prettiness on Chalk albums but in Porras's hands it turns sinister, transforming into distortion and foreboding stretched-out melodies.

The appropriately titled Calm provides a brief parting of clouds, with its slightly less harrowing though still melancholic melody, before the undercurrent grabs hold again. To these ears this album is a boiled down version of all the best Barn Owl/Elm moments to date, then filtered in a way to make the movements even more mysterious and effervescent. Adorned with a chillingly accurate washed-out-at-sea cover photo and limited to 500 copies. My record of the year thus far. Simply excellent.

Jon Porras - Shore by ScrapyardForecast

Nice to see this reissued on record seeing as how I missed out on the original cd on Digitalis in 2009. To start off, the clear vinyl is a nice touch, and the cover is spot on, as with all the Elm, Barn Owl and Evan Caminiti releases, the art always seems to work as a perfect match to the music within. This release by Porras, had I heard it around the original release date would have meshed nicely with Bxogonoas and Woven into Light, both limited edition cdrs released in 2008.

Nemcatacoa, released a year later, doesn't feel at all estranged from those discs but likewise doesn't feel as evolved as Undercurrent (released this year). The individual tracks, composed of Porras's familiar sullen string plucks and heavy tones, are just that: individual(istic). As Barn Owl have progressed and as Porras's own music has progressed, the notion of holism when it comes to making an album has also progressed. This is not to say that this album feels rushed or even inconsistent for that matter, because all of these songs are good enough to stand on their own two feet – take for example the closer, Three Rings Drawn in Sand, with its bleary guitar wash and immaculately executed looped melody that eventually gives way to a crystalline ambience – it's just that they feel somewhat separated from each other, and the transitions between tracks aren't as polished. Truly, this is my only critique, and it's a minor one at that for an album that is completely worthy of this reissue and still feels refreshing after everything

that Porras has released since 2009. Recommended.

Elm - Three Rings Drawn in Sand (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

As a little bonus, I just discovered a free download of Elm playing live at WFMU/aQ for SXSW 2009. Available through the Free Music Archive website: Elm Live.

Rale 'Some Kissed Charms That Would Not Protect Them' LP (Isounderscore, 2011), Secret Pyramid 'The Silent March' CS C36 (Nice Up Int'l, 2011)

2011-08-07T15:15:00.000-07:00

I've been away from the blogosphere as of late thanks to summer weather resulting in extended weekend camping trips and beach excursions. However, a new batch of material has propelled me back in. Currently working on a handful of reviews that should keep me busy for the rest of the summer, three for Dusted including a new outing by Barn Owl on Thrill Jockey, some spellbinding stuff from Western Vinyl + and/OAR including a triple cd set by Luigi Turra. Also, new material from Ian Holloway over at Quiet World and work by Jon Porras that's raised the bar once again. Stay tuned.

Rale 'Some Kissed Charms That Would Not Protect Them' LP

(Isounderscore, 2011)

William Hutson, aka Rale has been steadily releasing music since 2007, mostly via tape. In the past he's released on fine labels such as ekhein, monorail trespassing, cavelife, and peasant magik, this album marking only his second foray into vinyl – the first being 2009's Whispering Gallery 12" on Arbor. Hutson's musical style is perhaps easily understood as a muted analog noise, often quite minimal, though usually containing enough tactile crackle and self directed ingenuity to distinguish him from the Eliane Radigue copycats.

Hutson's work has remained consistent over the years, and Some Kissed Charms... is clearly one of his most controlled offerings. However, at a mere 29 minutes, the potential for grandeur is somewhat stunted by the album's length. All the elements of a good album are here: the patient dips and dives into sonic isolationism, book-ended drone passages followed by uneasy silences, and subtly crackling field recordings laid atop Keith Berry style dreamscapes, but what we are left with is yet another well orchestrated tease, and not the half-decade opus I was expecting from Hutson and his Rale project.

If Hutson can expand on what he's created here, I wouldn't be surprised to see that opus come to fruition, and fit nicely alongside works by synth behemoths Bee Mask, Forma, and Mist on the Spectrum Spools label. Although truthfully, Rale's low profile has served well thus far, though I can't help but feel that his work needs more recognition. This is an essential 2011 purchase (as short as it is), housed in a deluxe blue jacket with striking silver stamped titles and art.

Rale - Side A excerpt from the "Some Kissed Charms That Would Not Protect Them" LP by Isounderscore

Secret Pyramid 'The Silent March' CS C36

(Nice Up International, 2011)

Awesome to see new work by fellow Vancouverite and friend Amir Abbey, who makes music under the guise Secret Pyramid. This is easily the best work I've heard from the man – and that includes all of the handful of Solars' releases, who are now, unfortunately, defunct. The Silent March consists of a number of short tracks, which suits the Secret Pyramid style well, as Abbey shows off a variety of guitar based styles like shoegaze, ambient, drone, and neofolk. Flying Saucer Attack , Barn Owl, and My Bloody Valentine are obvious comparisons, but I also hear a Stars of the Lid element in a lot of the more minimal movements along with Tim Hecker on the second track, and probably most of all, the German guitar drone two-piece Troum (though I'm not sure if he would site them as an influence).

Personally – and my bias is surely going to shine through here – the best tracks on the album are the more nuanced ambient movements, as opposed to the heavier shoegazy ones. There is, however, no disjointedness between stylings because the transitions between tracks are flawless, and the movements are mercurial enough in their own right. Jangling bells on the B side feel a bit cliche, or maybe I just feel they went out with early Six Organs and James Blackshaw albums, though that's a minor miss step in an album that's both a sprawling epic and a great achievement. Someone release this on vinyl! Great stuff.

Outside by Secret Pyramid

Julia Eckhardt

2011-07-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

Born in Berlin, Julia Eckhardt is an alt-violinist in the field of composed and improvised contemporary music. After she studied viola in Rotterdam and Brussels, she worked with several chamber music ensembles and was a member of the National Orchestra of Belgium. Since 1996 she has undertaken many artistic projects including forming Q-O2, the first ensemble for contemporary experimental and improvised music. Since 2001, Eckhardt has been a member of Incidental Music (with Manfred Werder and Normisa Pereiera da Silva), an international ensemble for conceptual music. She lives and works in Brussels.

Q-02 - /2009/ what do you make of what I say

(C0mpost and Height)

First, some context. /2009/ what do you make of what I say is by definition a compilation, though it is much more than that. Over the course of a year a chain of sound recordings were made by ten artists whose job it was to respond to the recording of an unknown predecessor. Each artist was allowed four weeks to create their own recording in response to the one they received, which would then be passed along to the next artist along the chain, and so on and so forth until everyone had contributed. Each track had to be 7 minutes in length and no additional information other than the track itself could be passed forward. The results were documented in this stunning cd + book release. The Q-02 -/2009/project was conceived and realized by Julia Eckhardt.

Eckhardt gets the ball rolling with an experimental composition for bowed viola – albeit a highly scripted one. The piece acts as a good starting point as its acousmatic approach to the instrument allows for plenty of variation in the composition. Almost immediately the tracks become more lush (though not overbearingly so) with the incorporation of field recordings and denser tones. The tones are slowed to a glacial pace on Mieke Lambrigts piece, Teufelskreis, an early stand-out. The middle section then becomes far less monochromatic, with Tim Parkinson's Melodica and Percussion, a more overt yet rather bland working of those two elements, and In between, by Annette Krebs, a thoughtful blending of radio snippets and bell tones. Manu Holterbach impresses with a day by day account of how his piece came to fruition – ie leaving a ghostly presence of the preceding piece by playing it back in a resonant basement, layering in sinewaves and field recordings, and also attempting to stay true to the form of the original work by keeping the structure of the sounds relatively the same.

/2009/ is an impressive document that attempts to dig beneath the question of how experimental music is perceived. When faced with having to physically respond to a work it's obvious that this happens very differently for everyone, the vast scope of sound captured here materializing from one seven minute piece. Not quite a current release but still very recommended.

Manu Holterbach - - (/2009/ Compilation) by ScrapyardForecast

New One for Dusted

2011-07-20T20:37:00.001-07:00

Valerio Tricoli and Thomas Ankersmit - Forma II (Pan, 2011)

Oren Ambarchi Live Recording

2011-07-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

Oren Ambarchi Live at the Western Front, Vancouver, BC.

July 10, 2011

+++++

New from Winds Measure

2011-07-16T18:04:00.000-07:00

Number of new things that just came in and have been circulating into my daily listening, including one new and one new-ish title from Ian Holloway's Quiet World label, Jim Haynes' double disc version of Sever (which has somehow miraculously come back into print) along with a collab from '06 called Wrack Light in Copper Ruin by Coelacanth & Keith Evans. Finally, here's a new cassette and dvdr from the ever remarkable Winds Measure label that I just couldn't let idle.

*photos from windsmeasure.net

Andrew Hayleck 'Weekend' c24

Intriguing new cassette by Andrew Hayleck. As the title suggests, this was recorded entirely over the period of one weekend in late 2009, from Friday evening thru to Sunday evening. When I say recorded over the period of a weekend I don't mean a few hours a day of noodling, I mean 48 hours solid of "ambient sound recordings" as Hayleck puts it. The sounds were then sped up to 128 times their original, and condensed into just under 24 minutes.

There is more weight to these recordings than just ambient music sounding as if stuck in the fast forward position, and Hayleck does address this, particularly in his struggle to pin-point the origins of certain sounds after they had been sped up (was I playing that or was that the sound of a car idling outside?). Unintended sounds are likely to enter the mix using a method like this, and it's this blurring of intention and happenstance (or happy accidents as I like to call it) that the "composer" must embrace in order to accept the inevitable outcome. That outcome being something they can't control for.

These sounds were all recorded in a studio, but if Hayleck framed these as Amazonian insect recordings, I'd be hard pressed to call his bluff. It's all very organic sounding, though likely electronic in origin, unfolding in micro swarm-like tactility, and in a broad sense, unchanging over its duration. Largely, this is not dissimilar to much of the "small music" by the late Rolf Julius, or select recordings by Francisco Lopez or Matt Shoemaker. Weekend also comes with a download code for a 5 1/2 minute time lapse video of a single shot facing one wall in Hayleck's studio. The accompanying sounds seem slightly less sped up then the ones on the cassette, though it's hard to tell for sure, could just be me.

Andrew Hayleck - Friday Evening to Saturday Evening (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

Still from Lacunae

mpld - 'Lacunae' dvdr

I love building up my obscure dvdr collection (going to have to have a screening soon). This one comes by way of Gill Arno under the nom de plume mpld. Like Hayleck, I've only encountered Arno's work through the v-p v-f is v-n cassette compilation, and that was just a tease as all the contributions were a minute or shorter in length, so it's nice have something longer from both artists.

Lacunae is broken up into two sections, part one being an introductory length of just under 5 minutes while part two clocks in at just over half an hour. It's difficult to even begin to describe Arno's processes in deriving at both the resulting sound and images of this work. The illustration on the insert depicts a symmetrical set-up involving contact mics, induction mics, mixer, midi controller, laptop and two projectors producing overlapping images. The work is a series of slides that flicker and fade into one another, and it's interesting that the flicker seems to be produced by physical obfuscation of the light – by fans because they are situated right in front of the projectors – and not by the degradation of film (though that could be a factor) or digital processes.

Watching and listening to this, it would appear that Arno was able to join sound and light at the hip, which reflects on the ingenuity of his set-up. If I understand it correctly, by adjusting the fan speed Arno could simultaneously intensify or calm the flicker rate and the sound. The result is a spell binding video capturing pulsating images of people and landscape coupled with a cacophonous soundtrack of sputtering electroacoustics, static fissures, and brief ambient passages. Fantastic.

Rick Reed 'The Way Things Go' 2LP (Elevator Bath, 2011)

2011-07-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

Needless to say, my focus lately has been somewhere other than writing reviews for this blog. Sometimes a hiatus is really necessary and I'm all for trying to maintain sanity at this point. I've been happy and busy just trying to go out and enjoy what finally feels like summer, and most importantly, making my own music. Luckily, writing for Dusted has at least managed to keep the creative juices flowing a bit. The final three posts for the women's series are still to come, along with a handful of already slated reviews that will appear either here or on Dusted. The more structured review writing for Dusted has allowed me to tone down some of the formalities here, so you may notice a bit more of a casual approach to reviews. Not to say that I've decided to forego all structure, just easing up a bit.

Here we have a nice luxury item thanks to Colin Andrew Sheffield and his humble, yet ever impressive, Elevator Bath label. Rick Reed is no stranger to the scrapyard – I reviewed his picture disc way back in august of '09 and also his marvelous 4cd retrospective in December of last year. The Way Things Go is the perfect document for fans who missed out on that retrospective (which was probably a lot of you considering it was limited to 50 copies). 2/3 of what is probably the best material scattered throughout those discs can also be found here. This is a must have, 180 gram vinyl housed in black inner sleeves and a very well designed gate-fold jacket.

Reed's recordings have continuously displayed a remarkable talent for composition. His ability to evoke mood through his brand of dark synthesis is unmatched by contemporaries, though I'm wondering if Reed's sensibilities have kept him from receiving the recognition he deserves, because it's certainly not his talent holding him back. There really is nothing bubbly or new-agey about his music, which I suspect is probably the appeal for a lot of people when getting into this stuff. Noise buffs into Daniel Menche, Kevin Drumm and Chop Shop could easily get into this, especially the second track, Capitalism: Child Labor – a soundtrack Reed produced for a film by Ken Jacobs – which easily bridges the line between kosmische and noise.

Despite his compelling forays into "noise", Reed shines brightest when he starts with the volume turned down and builds it up. Celestial Mudpie, In a Hazy Field of Gray and Green and The Way Things Go, are all good examples of Reed's seemingly effortless ability to weave beaming synth lines with granular percolations and motor-like flourishes. Occasionally, Reed will pull everything back in a track and go in a completely different direction, which happens to be the case for the closing moments of the album, a looping carnival-esque melody spiraling out and then collapsing in on itself. Great work all around and a nice archival document of some of the best synth driven music available.

New Dusted Review

2011-07-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

Trouble Books and Mark McGuire

Recap : Jim Haynes, Brendan Murray, The Pollen Sisters @ Blim, June 9, 2011

2011-06-18T23:48:00.000-07:00

I'd like to thank everyone involved in putting this show together including Yuriko, Noel, Mathieu and of course Lucy for her lovely poster design and help in calming (mostly my) nerves. Brendan and Jim both produced exemplary performances and by the sounds of it they had a very successful tour. Thanks for coming up guys.

See bottom for links to high fidelity dual-shotgun mic recordings of all three sets. First and Third photo courtesy of Steve Louie.

Sub-bass and cutting synth lines by Brendan Murray

Radio disturbances, ultra-sonic frequencies, decayed drones, and yes, even fire, by Jim Haynes

Improvised metallic clamor, turntablism, bowed singing bells, and pockets of silence by The Pollen Sisters

Brendan Murray, Jim Haynes, and The Pollen Sisters

Live at Blim, June 9, 2011

23five : Activating The Medium XIV : Radio Transmissions

2011-06-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

Production limited to involved artists

Radio Transmissions : Chapter 1 (re-up)

Radio Transmissions : Chapter 2 & 3

New Dusted Review

2011-06-16T10:52:00.000-07:00

Big Shadow Montana

Adrian Dziewanski 'Orbital Decay' (Vacant Tape Recordings, 2011)

2011-06-10T19:29:00.000-07:00

Orbital Decay is an hour-long composition for acoustic and electronic instrumentation. The piece was composed by digitally splicing together short instrumental fragments into more complex sonic clusters resembling the spiraling of imagined planetary systems. The resulting ebb-and-flow trajectory of the piece rises quickly then decays over an extended duration, intended to illustrate an illusion of stasis through the falling action of sonic hypnosis.

Hand screened metallic black on true-black stock
Hand cut and assembled, each one unique
Edition of 125
CD, Vacant Tapes
Release Date: June 9, 2011
(Sound sample at bottom)

Adrian Dziewanski - Orbital Decay (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

Paypal link temporarily disabled-
$15 CAN to North America, $17 to Rest of World
Email Adrian_era@shaw.ca to order.

Distributors:Aquarius RecordsZuluRedcat

REVIEWS

The author of the exceptionally well-written Scrapyard Forecast blog which focuses on all things droned-out, Adrian Dziewanski has also been slowly developing an exceptional sensibility of his own tonefloat minimalism from acoustically sourced drones. There were a couple of cassettes and cd-rs which had been floating around, mostly under the moniker Empress; but Orbital Decay is the first one that has made it to aQ. In perusing his blog, it can be something of a Nurse With Wound list of stellar minimalists and dronologists who have all informed Dziewanski on how to proceed with his own music: Pandit Pran Nath, Andrew Chalk, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Manu Holterbach, Barn Owl, Organum, etc. The warm cascading shimmer that pours from the speaker is a timeless drone, reminiscent of those sustained harmonic intervals that any number of the high-holy minimalists from the '60s might have produced, complete with the rasping buzz of strings that could have been sourced from a sitar, a hurdy gurdy, or even a well-tuned piece of sheet metal. Dziewanski laces this central drone with monochromatic, airy passages of levitated white noise bathed in reverb. These wisps ebb and flow in melodic currents that work into a beautifully rendered hypnosis. Does anybody remember Jim O'Rourke's 1993 album Remove The Need, of prepared guitar drones? Orbital Decay is somewhere between that record, those Keith Fullerton Whitman albums of bliss-out on Kranky, and the Nurse With Wound ambient opus Soliloquy For Lilith. Very well done and very limited. Just 125 copies of this professionally replicated cd (not a cd-r!). - Jim Haynes (Aquarius Records)

Not entirely dissimilar to Szczepanik's music, as it happens, Dziewanksi's work also resides in drone territory and one of its major strands is an organ-like hum, but there are both significant low pulses and, more prominently, a sparkling set of buzzes and trills atop, all forming a slow ebb and flow. It's fundamentally much more in the steady-state realm, though, essentially unchanging over its duration--the relationships between the sounds are altered, to be sure, but the basic character of the piece remains very much the same throughout, at least as far as I can hear. All well and good and it's a pleasant confluence of sounds but I wanted more--either a variation in structure that had more resonance or the integration of sonic elements with a somehow rougher character. OK, but needs more street. - Brian Olewnick (Just Outside)

Camilla Hannan

2011-06-05T22:33:00.000-07:00

For Australian sound artist Camilla Hannan, sound is a potent psychological tool that alters mood and perception. Through her radical reinterpretations of field recordings of abandoned spaces, factories, and other industrial sites, she collects remnants from those cold environments and transforms them into paradoxically romantic landscapes of textures and drones.

"Primary concerns in my work include perceptions of sound in everyday life, the construction of artificial sonic locales and techniques of sound spatialisation. My source material comes from location recordings, which are digitally processed into abstract textural soundscapes using a variety of sampling processes. (abbreviated bio, read more)

Camilla Hannan

More Songs About Factories

(Cajid Media, 2005)

Despite her lack of releases over the years, Camilla Hannan has remained an active member in the Australian sound-art scene, notching plenty of installations, performances and commissioned soundtracks to her belt. More Songs About Factories then, is a rare document in which we are given a window into Camilla's process realized through a medium that, for whatever reason, she has decided not to actively pursue. Personally, I'd like to see more of her work given a physical release, as this album is a fine effort, featuring 5 tracks of obfuscated field recordings.

Although these works have all clearly been processed, and despite what the above bio describes as transformation into a paradoxically romantic landscape, Hannan doesn't mask anything heavy handedly – aside from the fourth movement that I can only take a stab at was sourced from closely mic'd type writer machines (see sound sample). The sounds are interesting enough in their own right, and Hannan is aware of this, so her job becomes one of finely tweaking the movements to make them perfect. Take for example the eleven minute center piece, and strongest album track, the "factory song" in this instance careens through various states of mechanized thrumming, at times densely billowing and at other times sputtering gently. The sounds feel oddly familiar, like those of the my urban environment, the vent I often pass on the way to the liquor store, or the sound of squealing trains that bleed in from the harbour. Not the most "artsy" packaging you'll ever see. In fact, if I saw this among a row of cds at one of the local music shoppes, I fear I'd likely overlook it. Nonetheless, very good!

Camilla Hannan - Part 4 (Itchy) by ScrapyardForecast

A track by Hannan was also featured on the Eric La Casa and Philip Samartzis curated Magnetic Traces: A Survey of French and Australian Sound Art, a remarkable compilation featuring stereo versions from multichannel compositions from preeminent French and Australian sound composers.

Anne Guthrie

2011-05-29T19:58:00.000-07:00

Anne Guthrie is an acoustician, composer, and French horn player living in Brooklyn. She studied music performance and composition at University of Iowa, and architectural acoustics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her work in electronic music combines her knowledge of acoustics and composition to create layered works of processed field recordings. Her work centers around recordings of urban spaces with unique acoustic architecture, and her processing attempts to exploit these natural acoustic phenomena.

Anne Guthrie

Perhaps a Favourable Organic Moment (Copy For Your Records, 2011)

Picked up on a little buzz surrounding this young sound artist lately, particularly from a rather favourable review in the Wire's Outer Limits section. I don't remember that review giving any mention of Guthrie as a French Horn player, and although it says so right there in her bio, I wasn't expecting it to make an appearance (at least not such a recognizable appearance) here. However, about four minutes into the opening recording of one of Guthrie's urban spaces, the French Horn makes its presence known, transforming the subtle sonic space into something much more overt. The horn emits a lackadaisical tune for five minutes or so, as if played by a busker in the late afternoon on some sunny European boulevard. I'm still scratching my head about this first piece, and ultimately I think the album would have probably faired better without the horn passage.

The rest of the album shines brightly, the second track seeing a much subtler processed approach to the horn, along with layered-in bells and varying harmonics. The third track, entitled Times Center, NYC 2010, is a field recording that remarkably captures the depth of the recorded space. Hundreds of overlapping voices and an array of electronic bleeps and sputters present themselves in numerous depth ranges, so as combined, they sound as if occupying the entire field. Annie Laurie, parts i & ii, conclude the album, the former is a haunting piece for windswept drone and ghostly voice while the latter is an a cappella version of Annie Laurie (I presume), being sung in another of Guthrie's "unique" acoustical spaces.

Anne Guthrie - Bach Cello Suite No. 2, Prelude ii. (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

Olivia Block

2011-05-20T18:38:00.000-07:00

Olivia Block is a contemporary composer and sound artist who combines field recordings, scored segments for acoustic instruments, and electronically generated sound. Block works with recorded media, chamber ensembles, video, and site-specific sound installations.

She has performed throughout Europe, America, and Japan in tours and festivals including Sonic Light, Dissonanze, Archipel, Angelica, Sunoni per il Popolo, Outer Ear, and many others. Her works have premiered at La Biennale di Venezia 52nd International Festival of Contemporary Music, and she has completed residencies and premiered works at Mills College of Music and The Berklee College of Music. She has taught master classes at several additional universities.

Block has published recordings through Sedimental, either/OAR, and Cut, among other labels.

Olivia Block & Kyle Bruckmann

Teem (either/OAR, 2010)

I've come to recognize the name Olivia Block, but Bruckmann's is a name I'm not at all familiar with. It turns out that much like Block, Bruckmann's musical standing came to fruition through an academic stream. He studied Oboe and earned undergrad degrees in music and psychology at Rice University in Houston. In '96 he earned his Masters at Michigan U where he became very interested in contemporary improv, electroacoustics and avant-garde composition. He composed this album with Block between 2003-2008.

Teem is in fact teeming with life. The aptness of Block and Bruckmann's title rings true from the onset of the opening track, fading in quickly before steadily growing into a barrage of dissonant horns, droning reed organ and teeth-on-tinfoil static. I was rather surprised by the overtness of this track, along with its unmistakably chaotic free-jazz feel, though have grown to

appreciate its unique take on the style and have embraced its chaos. On the other hand, the remainder of the pieces are easier to fall into, lulling the listener through a steady flux of drones, improv segments, and mixed in field recordings tinged with an industrial starkness–an obvious exception being the beginning of the second movement, a nearly two minute Gamelan infused blast of free-tonal noise that's sure to improve posture (see sound sample).

There exists a remarkable ebb and flow to this album, from the teetering point between clatter and out-of-control noise to sublime moments of fluttering ambience. Far more 'active' than much of the music I like, albeit a refreshing and welcome change in the routine of daily listening. Lovely packaging design by Dale Lloyd and equally lovely drawings by Kate Atkin.

Olivia Block & Kyle Bruckmann - Teem II (Excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

2011-05-19T23:17:00.000-07:00

The Outsider 3 | Women in Music: An Eight Part Series. Part One- i8u

2011-05-14T22:50:00.000-07:00

The Outsider is an on-going feature that pertains to ever changing themes within the world of sound art. More specifically, it highlights micro-niches within this world, commonalities through place and style, organizations that facilitate sound practice, important sound documents, etc...Hence, the Outsider pertains to anything outside of a typical album review. Previous Outsiders have included Select Music From Australia and the Framework 250 Compilation ++.

As the title suggests, May and June will see the unfolding of an eight part series dedicated to women working in varied fields of experimental music as both curators and musicians. Over the three years of managing this blog I've rather embarrassingly, though unintentionally,overlooked much of the fine work produced by talented females across the globe. Let this feature make up for those years of neglect. The format for the series is such that each artist is given their own post featuring a photograph, a pre-existing bio, and a review of a select work.

France Jobin aka i8u

Abbreviated artist's bio:

France Jobin aka i8u (b. 1958) is a sound / installation / web artist et curator residing in Montreal, Canada. i8u’s audio art can be qualified as “sound-sculpture”. It reveals powerful, opaque and complex sound environments where analog and digital meet. Her installation/web art can be said to follow a parallel path, incorporating both musical and visual elements.

i8u has created solo recordings for ROOM40 (AUS), nvo (AT), DER (USA), bake/staalplaat (NL) as well as many collaborations notably with Goem, Martin Tétreault, David Kristian and more recently with Tomas Phillips. Their work is featured on the album “ligne” released on the Japanese label, ATAK. She produced compilations tracks for ATAK (JP), bremsstrahlung (USA), Mutek (CA), murmur records (JP), and/oar (USA), tsuku boshi (FR), Contour Editions (USA), Extract, Portraits of Soundartists (book + 2 cd) on the label nonvisualobjects (AT).

i8u

29 Palms (Dragon's Eye Recordings, 2010)

I was initially introduced to Jobin's work under the i8u guise from her contribution to the magnificent Physical, Absent, Tangible compilation released on Richard Garet's own Contour Editions label (read my review). Expanding greatly on that comp track, 29 Palms is a 41 minute piece for field recordings, processing and analog gear that remains true to the austerity of past i8u releases yet feels more of an organic effort. The effervescent drones that fill in the space between Jobin's clinical frequencies during the latter half of the composition are especially note worthy, reminiscent of John Duncan's Phantom Broadcast. Very nice.

Jobin's pacing remains quite brilliant throughout, especially evident in the very quiet midsection, where one has to remain focused to discern for changes, and although subtle, they are there. The choice to opt for more lower range frequencies as opposed to ear splitting highs – highs that I've heard Jobin achieve in the past – works to her advantage here. Some of those high frequencies make themselves known though are rarely at the center of attention, existing more as appendages to a wider body of sound. Simple yet elegant packaging, edition of 200.

i8u

Dragon's Eye

i8u - 29 Palms (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

New Dusted Review

2011-05-07T10:44:00.000-07:00

Illusion of Safety - Bridges Intact

Two Cassettes From Winds Measure Recordings: Various 'V-p V-f is V-n' + Pierre Gerard and Andy Graydon 'Untitled (Magnetisms)' (2010/11)

2011-04-30T23:50:00.000-07:00

The first cassette release from the ever impressive Winds Measure catalog comes as part two of a compilation series entitled V-p V-f is V-n. Label head Ben Owen commissioned over 30 sound artists to submit one or two very short pieces, approximately one minute in length. The first noticeable thing about listening to this is that the experience of it as a cassette has an immediate and direct influence on one's perception of the work as a whole. To listen to this casually is to accept its holism, as it very quickly becomes impossible to match the track playing with the track listing. Go to the bathroom and by the time you get back you're lost. This can be frustrating at first, though arguably V-p V-f is V-n is then, by nature, better understood as a kind of clever collaborative facilitation on Owen's part – think of it as a single, mutating composition by multiple artists – rather than a "standard" compilation. Hard to say what the difference is really, if there even is one. It's all in how one defines things.

If you do decide to sit down with this, some pieces will inevitably stand out. Side one sees a nice coupling of Lawrence English's Not for the Cane, a lush nature recording, with Ben Owen's Lisbon Station, a clattering of percussive ephemera. Sawako's 02 is also quite good. Side two sees Alessandro Bosetti's wonderfully warped take on sound poetry and Ben Scott's 2216(-.004), a recording of what sounds like an conventional radio track swathed in comforting static. Of 50 tracks and all the possible things that could have gone wrong, this follow-up in the V-p V-f is V-n series saw a remarkably cohesive outcome. Well done.

Another magnificently packed tape, this time a split between the Belgium based Pierre Gerard and German sound artist Andy Graydon. As the story goes, Winds Measure commissioned these gentlemen to produce a work specifically for cassette. The two answered the call with magnetism, a theme that is as fundamental to migratory birds as it is to the functionality of analog tape. Gerard and Graydon began planning their work while focusing on two phenomena associated with magnetism: homeward migration and polarity, eventually settling on a process in which each artist would send the other a recording from their respective home environments to process and compose with – Graydon sending a recording of bamboo in the forests outside his childhood home on Maui, Hawaii and Gerard sending a recording of a wooden table located outside a house in the French village Espère.

The A side, Orientation (Magnetite Crystals), composed by Gerard, fits nicely alongside the minimalist extremes of previous Winds Measure productions – Richard Garet's L'avenir and Jason Kahn and Takefumi Naoshima's In a Room come to mind. The piece is glacial, coalescing as a motionless stretch of time over its 20 minute duration. Gerard's micro-movements of sound are often listless, though occasionally they become spring loaded, vibrating through the speaker cones for a split second before they are gone, a new sound taking their place. Very consistent and a great work. Graydon's side is for the most part equally as enjoyable save for perhaps a few over zealous moments, though he makes up for it in the lovely ambient sections peppered throughout. A fine job that strikes me as easier to fall into than Gerard's piece, though ultimately not as rewarding. Again, a worthwhile release from Winds Measure, and if you haven't done so already invest some time in this under-appreciated label.

Excerpt: Orientation (Magnetite Crystals) by Pierre Gerard

Winds Measure

Kassel Jaeger 'Lignes d'erre & Randons' + Revenant 'Zeltini' (Unfathomless, 2010/11)

2011-04-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

Parisian sound artist Kassel Jaeger presents a rather compelling seven tracks on Lignes d'erre & Randons that surf between hewn field recordings and rarified electronics. Joe Colley, Fennesz, and Tarab come to mind on many occasions, but as these artists stick to their respective styles, Jaeger is somehow able to take from all of them to create his (or her) own ecology of sound (not to say that these guys are even on Jaeger's radar, stylistically I just see parallels).

Jaeger shrouds these tracks with an air of mystery as the liner only hints at sources and locations. Insects, rivers, and pipelines are mentioned, and if one pays close enough attention some of these can be revealed, such as on Dispersion Des Limbes, with its weather beaten backdrop of wind and rain that eventually gives way to a wash of schizophrenic activity, or the closer Pneuma, that distinctly sounds like wind resonating through a pipeline. Other tracks, like the fantastic Blank Pyramid, with its repetition of some unknown ghostly voice, remain a complete mystery to me, and are all the better for it. Lignes d'erre & Randons is a remarkable blending of styles and is yet another great production from Daniel Crokaert at Unfathomless.

Kassel Jaeger - Blank Pyramid (Lignes D'erre & Randons, Unfathomless) by ScrapyardForecast

Somewhat of a supergroup of phongraphers collaborating on this one, including John Grzinich, Felicity Mangan, Kaspars Kalninsh, Eamon Sprod, and Maksims Shentelevs. I've seen other names as part of "Revenant" in the past that have included artists like Hitoshi Kojo and Patrick McGinley. Revenant is an on-going project focusing on site specific acoustic actions. All recorded sounds originate from found materials located in-situ and through performer interactions with particular spaces.

Acting as the local for this recording was Zeltini, a former Soviet military base located in a forest in Latvia. As the sun's light was growing dim the Revenant group ventured into one of the base's abandoned bunkers to feel and hear their way through an hour long improvisation. On its own, Zeltini isn't a particularly captivating work. However, in understanding the concept, constraints, and context of the recording, it does stand as quite impressive, particularly in the groups deftness in extrapolating fine drones and consistent textures through only the use of found material, not to mention their sublime translation of depth in this large space. To my surprise, a radio and Jew's harp are clearly heard at different points, and I'm skeptical as to their legitimacy as found objects. That aside, Zeltini should spark some inspiration in artist's working in this field, or any field for that matter.

Revenant - Zeltini (excerpt) by ScrapyardForecast

Music for Painting 2

2011-04-17T14:24:00.000-07:00

MfP-2

1. Jefre Cantu Ledesma - Aberration of Starlight :: Garden of the Forking Paths (Spekk, 2007)

2. Andrew Chalk - Flux :: The Cable House (Faraway Press, 2009/10)

3. Colin Andrew Sheffield - Untitled #2 :: Slowly (Mystery Sea, 2010)

4. RV Paintings - Millions :: Samoa Highway (Helen Scarsdale Agency, 2010)

5. Barn Owl - Twilight :: Ancestral Star (Thrill Jockey, 2010)

6. Common Eider, King Eider - Earth Liver :: Worn (Root Strata, 2010)

7. Stephan Mathieu - A Static Place I :: A Static Place (12K, 2011)

8. Kassel Jaeger - Blank Pyramid :: Lignes D'erre & Randons (Unfathomless, 2010)

9. Rale - Somehow :: Whispering Gallery 12" (Arbor, 2009)

10. K-Group/Omit - Long Circuit :: Storage LP (Fusetron, 2001)

11. Illusion of Safety - Too Late To Exist :: Bridges Intact (Waystyx, 2010)

12. Asher - Untitled :: Various 10 (Room40, 2011)

Banks Bailey 'Upwelling' (Mystery Sea, 2010)

2011-04-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

Along side his collaboration with Mathieu Ruhlmann, entitled Anáádiih, Banks Bailey has steadily increased his release count of limited run cdrs since 2008. His latest for MS is strictly his own, in which he blends field recordings–an obvious passion–with the sounds of resonant bells, intermittent speech, and quivering drone. Because I've always lobbied for this sort of organic soundscaping to be dealt with in the long form so as given enough time to flourish, I was assured to find that Bailey decided to comprise Upwelling as a single 45 minute track.

Very generally speaking, the term upwelling refers to an oceanic process that involves the propelling of wind driven nutrient-rich water to the surface of oceans--where it takes the place of nutrient-depleted waters--a fitting title for a work that is rife with the sounds of water. Compositionally, neither the field recordings nor the drone ever become overbearing. Instead, Bailey opts for a gentle rise and fall between the two, creating an effect akin to that of tidal movement.

Though fairly consistent throughout, the piece works best at around the ten minute mark, where Bailey's microclimates take on a distinctive industrial tinge via metal clattering atop a bed of stifled ambience, and at around 25 minutes, when the sunken resonations of chimed bells creep into perception from deep below the surface.

Colin Andrew Sheffield 'Slowly' (Mystery Sea, 2010)

2011-04-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

The oceans keep droning as a new batch of material cometh my way from the unrelenting Mystery Sea label, whose late 2010 was marked by an impressive output of releases (one per month from September through to November if I'm not mistaken), including Banks Bailey's sub-bass nether-world (review forthcoming) and Colin Andrew Sheffield's poignant, yet effervescent minimalist excursions.

A couple of weeks ago I was stuck in a bit of a music enthusiast's rut. In attempting to glean a sense of purpose from a handful of small-run phonography and noise albums, I found myself instead shrugging my shoulders and spending countless minutes per day staring apathetically out windows. Not surprisingly, my distress was soon answered by Colin Andrew Sheffield's Slowly, which propelled me out of that hole by acting as the perfect aural cleanser to my undeniably bored ears. What did surprise me though was just how far it was able to propel me out of that hole and back into the realm of music appreciation, such that every one of my records looked as if they were gold plated and resembled small portals into an eternal paradise where existence is nothing less than pure and infinite pleasure for all of the body's senses. I guess you could call it good timing.

As the liner notes proclaim, the four untitled tracks that occupy Slowly were all derived from various commercially available recordings, although their ambiguity upon first listen means they could easily be mistaken for anything from synths and guitars to augmented field recordings. Upon second or third listen, however, the musical process (I would imagine similar to that used by Belong on their Colorless Record 12", only less obvious) that Sheffield most likely applied in the rendering of these tracks becomes clearer. The shape and form of the original music is there, though the material was obviously fed through an array of processing, likely by certain techniques that have become unique to Sheffield's musical assemblage.

The nearly 20 minute opening track is also the album's finest, registering an amorphous haze of sonic rippling that is ever dynamic. The entirety of the sound spectrum is forced to capitulate to the track's overpowering mass, affectively generating a tug-o-war amongst crystal-sharp tones and out-of-focus resonances. The Industrial overtones and sprawling hiss of the second track continue to encapsulate Sheffield's abilities to adeptly collide the bleary with the lucid, while the third track sees Sheffield slip into a tireless arrangement of heavy-toned minimalism, resembling a more tranquil reprise of the opening track. The closer, with its swaying sawtooth arpeggios, steps on the heels of noise though quickly pulls back before retreating into the meditative abyss that is the album's lifeline. A fine work.

Esoteric Soundscapes-Mutations

2011-04-06T17:01:00.000-07:00

A few months back I was asked to produce a composition for Activating the Medium XIV: Radio. This contribution along with others from sound artists working in similar territory will be broadcasted over various radio stations at various times. A list of broadcast times along with specifics about this year's fest including themes, performances and artist bios can be found here: 23five. The first broadcast is tonight from 11:59pm-1:00am on KALX out of Berkley. Tune in. Sorry, but unlike the rest of the esoteric soundscape series this is a fully realized work and is therefore not under creative commons licensing. Feel free to download it and listen all you want though.

*Mutations-a good stereo/speaker system with sufficient low-end is recommended. What's sufficient? enough that it doesn't sound like crap.

Adrian Dziewanski - Mutations by ScrapyardForecast

Mathieu Ruhlmann & Banks Bailey 'Anáádiih' (3LEAVES, 2011)

2011-03-19T02:57:00.000-07:00

Anáádiih is the first collaboration between these two dedicated phonographers, consisting of six layered tracks for a total of forty minutes of immersive sound. The sounds in question consist of what was an ongoing additive process in which recordings from Arizona – courtesy of Bailey – were woven into/with recordings from BC – courtesy of Rhulmann. I'm sure the two had an equal part in the process, but to me, the style sounds all Ruhlmann. Bailey's past albums, including the fairly recent – and fantastic – Upwelling on Mystery Sea, is consistent more so with the obfuscated field recording and dark ambient work of friend, collaborator, and contemporary, Ian Holloway – stemming from the Lustmord/Köner axis. Anáádiih, on the other hand, like Rhulmann's previous work, isn't hiding anything. These are straight field recordings, thoughtfully layered and arranged.

Anáádiih is teeming with life.

This album feels like a trek along an endless foothill of sound, along the way presenting animal calls, weather, and unnameable pockets of rustling activity. The strongest moments are when the tactile elements are layered with the sounds of animal life, and on several occasions – especially when the distant cries of wolves or birds of prey can be heard – are executed with utmost aplomb. I'll offer a piece of criticism that's becoming a bit of a blanket statement of mine for a lot of work in this genre, in that I would have liked to have seen more of an overall arc or sense of movement in the compositions. It becomes easy to focus only on individual sounds and how they work together in a track, but to forget the purpose of these sounds and the direction one has decided to take them.

Though still useful, maybe the above critique is perhaps irrelevant in this instance as I am still able to grasp, what I think is, the underlying idea at the album's conclusion. Personally, I hear Anáádiih as a cross section of an old growth tree, as if each tree ring captured the sound of a year of life in the wild, and these two artists were somehow able to tap into and unravel the history steeped within those rings. I believe Bailey and Ruhlmann set out to create an aural picture, a framing of the timelessness of sound as channeled through their own reconstructions of that sound. An anonymous Navajo poem in the liner notes helps to convey thoughts and ideas through an understanding of nature as a precious thing, and these sounds reflect that eternal idea. Edition of 100. Exquisitely packaged.

Excerpt

3LEAVES Soundcloud sample pack

Debut Words for Dusted Magazine

2011-03-12T11:57:00.000-08:00

Marsfield - Three Sunsets Over Marsfield (Faraway Press, 2010)

Richard Garet & Asher Thal-Nir 'Melting Ground' Dvdr (Contour Editions, 2011)

2011-03-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

Illuminations of Flicker-

"Richard Garet's melting ground," writes Jennifer Eberhardt, "flickers gently, pulsating and vibrating, co-opting for video flicker's affect/aspect of nostalgia."

The gentle pulsating affect of film flicker has the power to evoke a sense of nostalgia from not only those who've grown up with it, but also from observers of more recent generations, whose association's with the phenomenon stem from a lack of interaction with old forms of film screening technology. New generations -- rather knee-jerkingly -- perceive phenomena like flicker and discoloration as film defects. Melting Ground, however, utilizes these "defects" purposefully to evoke emotions, like nostalgia, usually associated with outdated technology, much like how philip Jeck or DJ Olive inject record crackle into their work, revealing, for a brief moment, windows into the past.

The visual portion of Melting Ground is a single, uninterrupted hand-held shot of the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska, as taken from inside a helicopter by Richard Garet. The footage was further processed by way of digital manipulation, in which, the natural condition, light, motion, rhythm, and duration were altered. Asher Thal-Nir provides a simple yet stunning soundtrack of the internal workings of a closely mic'd piano, while additionally he added looped fragments to create irregular structures within the piece.

The work unfolds slowly, gently panning across a sepia-saturated glacial landscape. Depth perception becomes a struggle to maintain on the part of the observer as the camera moves from high to low areas of contrast, on occasion the whole of a mountain side becomes drowned out by a pulsating white sky only to have, a few frames later, that same sky just as quickly retreat into the background. The disorientation and the overall blurred-focus style of the film allows one to really get lost in it's changing forms.

Eventually, Impossible figures reveal themselves in the snow and rock: human faces, roads of endless tire marks, close-ups of a fringed tablecloth, and Jesus on the cross, at times allowing me to forget the true nature of what it really is that I am looking at, not a place of complete and utter barrenness but one of life and movement, steeped in history.

It's difficult to "score" a film, and all too often the outcome is anything but good. But Asher managed to create a rather complimentary piece of music here that's as bleak and yet, warming, as Garet's visuals are. Compelling work and another winner for Contour Editions.

Visual Excerpts

Contour Editions

Esoteric Soundscapes-Rogue Speakers

2011-02-28T15:05:00.000-08:00

Outside of downtown Vancouver's Canada Place, a pair of malfunctioning speakers caught my attention. These site sounds proved interesting as the glass canopy that the speakers were housed-in created a reverberant acoustic space, and simultaneously, other "functioning" speakers filled that space with generic radio songs. The resulting track is a combination of two recordings from this location, although no overlaying or augmenting of sound has taken place. The majority of the track is a close-up recording beneath the canopy, but concludes with a recording from slightly farther away (about ten meters), allowing for peripheral sounds -- like that of construction -- to be heard.

Rogue Speaker by ScrapyardForecast

Alfredo Costa Monteiro + Ben Owen 'Frêle à Vide' (Contour Editions, 2011)

2011-02-26T19:30:00.000-08:00

Anticipation turned to delight, as another offering from Contour Editions has graced my ears. Two offerings to be exact, one a cdr and the other a dvdr collab between Richard Garet (visuals) and Asher Thal-Nir (audio). Both of these are exquisitely packaged in double-gated oversized paper. Review of the dvdr release forthcoming.

There is something to be said of the procuring of refined Power Electronics – and something else entirely of the artists who are still attempting to make it – in that anything post-PE is perhaps a feeble attempt to revive a dead genre. Keith Moline from the Wire speculated on the regression of noise into old school forms as a way to curb a lack of contemporary creative steam. Maybe he has a point, there's no use kicking a dead horse. However, I wouldn't begin to knock acts like Baltimore's Copper Glove, for example, who seem more as carriers of the Broken Flag and Schimpfluch legacies, as opposed to just cheap knock-offs. Some artists can just bring the creative flare, even if it's to a dead horse.

I'm not confident of the parallels between Power Electronics and this recording, more like I'm running with an initial thought. If anything, Frêle à Vide borders more on Power-Electroacoustics. Sure, Monteiro and Owen take cues from noise's past, particularly in their use of sustained frequencies and penchants for grime. However, history has proven a strong cut-and-paste mentality among noisicians, and this is somewhat subdued (except in obvious spots) in this work. I also get the sense that the duo have approached the music from the angle of improv - though it's hard to say for sure - allowing for an ebb and flow between players, which, as obscured as it is here, is a style that finds its roots in Jazz.

The two utilize a battery of electronic gear, Monteiro with walkmen and shortwave radio and Owen with a mixer, mic, tone arm, radio and something labeled an op arm. Over the span of four tracks the music tends to crescendo over long arcs, extended quieter sections often submitting to controlled tone bursts. Over the course of these arcs, it becomes clear that the music's austerity is its championing characteristic, as this sort of junkbox "jamming" all too often leads to meaningless prodding and poking, and therefore, a lack of directionality. Not the case here, as it's clear that these two are taking their music to particular places. A fine work.

February's Bargain Bin -- Feat. Keith Rowe, Oren Ambarchi, Tim Hecker and The Hafler Trio

2011-02-13T14:35:00.000-08:00

About a week ago I stumbled into Zulu for the first time in a long time. With a little extra cash flow from a few consignment deals I decided to hunt down some deals of my own. I didn't have a whole lot to spend so I mostly breezed through their vinyl department, which, no longer has an experimental section. The experimental cd section was, too, rather quickly going the way of the dinosaur. It had significantly shrunk down over the last six months to about a third of the size. I'm not surprised really, as outsider tunes aren't exactly a hot commodity in the West end, or anywhere in Vancouver really. For the few albums they were carrying (mostly ones that couldn't easily be lumped into the electronic or rock/pop sections), I was pleased to find almost everything at discounted prices––I'm talking nothing over ten bucks here. Here are the three albums I ended up walking away with:

Keith Rowe, Oren Ambarchi, Sachiko M, Otomo Yoshihide, & Robbie Avenaim

Thumb (GROB, 2002)

Half hour live effort from five players that collectively run the gamut of experimental musical stylings, from electroacoustic and drone to turntablism and free-improve. Despite the chaos that all these styles together might suggest, Thumb is surprisingly restrained. The focus here is on sonic minutiae and subtle electro-feedbacking. It's hard to say what everyone's role is just by listening to this as this could easily be mistaken for a single performer sitting behind a junkbox of battery powered gear. The liner notes credit each musician with one form of conventional instrument + electronics, so that's not much clearly. As the set progresses the high frequencies become more intense. Not for the weak eared and definitely not what I was expecting, although recommended.

Tim Hecker

Norberg (Room40, 2007)

Another live document and a nice little distraction to get back into Tim's music before sinking my teeth into Ravedeath (preorder the 2lp version at Kranky). Recorded in a mine shaft in Sweden, Norberg is an outstanding twenty minute recording. Hecker opens the set with a finely executed batch of glitch work before slipping into some static-swathed tonedrift à la the more ethereal portions of Harmony in Ultraviolet and the Atlas 10" released the following year. The whole thing crumbles away in a flurry of static at the end. Lovely as always from one of the electronic genre's best practitioners.

The Hafler Trio

Seven Hour Sleep (The Grey Area, 1994)

Here is the second of three issues of Seven Hour Sleep. This one is from almost twenty years ago and the original LAYLAH LP is from before I was even born. Korm Plastics also reissued this in '06 in a deluxe glassine paper wallet with a 28 page booklet. The Hafler Trio remains as one of the true musical enigmas of all time: bizarre controversies involving specifications of releases, ideology, ambiguous and often confusing album art, titles and liner notes, an obsession with trilogies, and not to mention the music. For Seven Hour Sleep, Andrew Mckenzie ventures more into surreal collage territory rather than the "pure essence" stoicism of later albums Intoutof, Cleave: 9 Great Openings, and the Colin Potter collaboration A Pressed On Sandwich. The album is rife with static hiss, looped vocal fragments, indiscernible field recordings and noxious drones, and in my opinion, has stood quite strongly against the test of time.