Animal Machine, Avrorin, Booby Mason, Brent Gutzeit, Buoyhood, Dmitriy Zubov, Frans De Waard, Merzbow, Mystery Hearsay, Troj

MERZBOW (Green Records, GR146) April 1992 (2011) Cassette

Here's a very nice tape from Michigan label, Green Records: Masami Akita, aka Merzbow's "April 1992". This has all the characteristics of Akita's work from that time period, the skittering, slashing, pounding, ear-splitting violent sounds, overloaded energy dynamics with random plosives. A crushing live session, remixed in 2010 by Akita, who also created the effective cover graphic. This is a great example of how Masami Akita has applied the ideas of Kurt Schwitters' concept of the "Merzbau", a structure that grows and changes constantly, to his own musical expressions. There is no beginning, no end, no recurring theme, just one boundless wave of noise after another, washing senseless over the senses, unfinished yet somehow complete. A must-have for noise freaks! Get it HERE.

MYSTERY HEARSAY (Mystery Hearsay, no cat. #) Flesh Tomb (2011) Cassette

Flesh Tomb was released in 2011 as a CD on Dmitry Vasilyev's label in Russia. Mike Honeycutt, the mastermind behind Mystery Hearsay, sent me this cassette version, I don't know if it's available for sale/trade or what, but one can still obtain the digital version through Monochrome Vision. Mike has been making experimental sounds since the early 80's and if this album isn't proof of his mastery of soundscaping I don't know what could possibly be! It starts out spacey and ambient, and from there traverses all manner of atmospherics, weird rhythms, cinematics, deep reverberations, electroacoustic textures, deafening crescendos, you can easily get lost in this filmscape for the ears. This is a superb and brilliant work of art, the stories told are fascinating and each composition offers it's enigmatic riddles as their own answers to penetrate the mystery in every possible combination of sounds. A real treat for lovers of dark ambient music and film soundtracks.

AVRORIN (Pekopa Records, no cat. #) Untitled Split (2010) Cassette

G. Avrorin is a noise musician from St. Petersburg, Russia, active since 1997. Other than a MySpace site, there is little else to be found on the web about Mr. Avrorin, although Discogs lists several split releases with some interesting younger artists such as Torturing Nurse, Vomir and Booby Mason (see review below). This tape begins with sheet metal noise performed during a live show with a very excited audience in attendance. Feedback-based, screeching, shredded, droning scrap-heap noise breaking for a moment into media clips, continues into choppy sounds with moments of silence, then blasting back with more synthetic thunder. Use of contact microphone and over-amplification turns every small sound into something monstrous and animalistic. Everything stops suddenly to applause and a heated conversation, in Russian, between artist and audience. Avrorin doesn't break any new ground here, but it certainly is one hell of an exhilarating listening experience! To obtain this and other recordings by Avrorin, email: kuhelgarten (at) gmail.com.

AVRORIN & ZUBOV / BOOBY MASON (Pekopa Records, no cat. #) Untitled Split (2010) Cassette

On side one of this split cassette, the aforementioned Avrorin collaborates with Dmitriy Zubov, better known for his dark ambient sound-project, Hypnoz. The sound here is feedback-based harsh noise with vocals, think Whitehouse, or Prurient. Sounds like some possible contact microphone use as well. Whirling noise vortexes, looped voices, high-pitched squeals, a fairly brutal, in-your-face mix. Since the point of view is largely missed on me due to my lack of knowledge of the Russian language, the sounds considered on their own would merit a heads-up for harsh noise fans, but there's certainly nothing unique here. Crashing, unrelenting noise crunch goes on for about 20 minutes or so. I like it.

Booby Mason is 24 year old Anton Gudkov, from Omsk, Russia, who began his noise project in 2009. He makes trashy collages in the vein of Hanatarash, utilizing both analog and digital noise and mixing it with recordings that have been made using a dictophone. Booby Mason has about 30 or so, recordings under different names and in different genres, from harsh-noise and lo-fi electronics to dark ambient and primitive techno styles. His side of this split tape has a more varied approach, adding what sounds like incorporation of sheet metals, the vocals are more shrill and less hidden behind walls of static than the Avrorin stuff. The ear starts to long for anything but this barrage when it shifts gears abruptly, into a standard rock trio with vocals! Of course, the vocals are still maniacal, laughing, hissing... The second track is a sound collage that contains all manner of pre-recorded ephemera: a Russian television announcer, children's songs, pop music, even a Madonna commercial(!) which then evolves into drone put through a phaser, abstracted underwater sounds, ending in an English language news report about illicit drugs. Another weird lo-fi band track with devolved vocals closes the side out, sounding nothing if not like a bootleg Suicide recording. Very strange and convoluted stuff from the Russian scene! To obtain this and other recordings by Avrorin, email: kuhelgarten (at) gmail.com.

BRENT GUTZEIT (Neon Blossom Records, NBR23) Rocks And Blows (2010) Cassette

This cassette, released on Neon Blossom in 2010, limited edition of 50 copies, is now sold out but deserves more exposure. (i.e. hopefully there is a re-release on the horizon) My friend and collaborator, Brent Gutzeit, a stalwart of the Chicago improvised music scene, is one of the founding members of TV Pow, has collabed and performed live with numerous experimental musicians and has many solo releases to his credit. This tape, "Rocks And Blows", an extremely diverse collection of improvised compositions, cannot be encapsulated as belonging to one certain style, or genre. There are elements of drone, space rock, world music here and all are knit into a quilt of invention that captures the mystifying essence of his sound world. The first side is more diverse, almost eclectic, beginning with stringed instrument sounds, otherworldly exotica, gaining cohesion as it develops into a spacey, pitched drone that hovers and continues to add to the structure in very subtle and beautiful ways. Side two creates a drone out of fractured organ textures reverberating and echoing around, still has that hovering feel, with ingeniously crafted twists entering at different moments, sounding something like Terry Riley, or La Monte Young. An abstract painting that transcends it's minimalist structure in a mosaic of complex hues.

BUOYHOOD (NNN Coalition, NNN#24) The Seance Of Nonchalance (2011) Cassette

Buoyhood is the experimental sound project of Zach Katonik, a young artist from the Pittsburgh area. Little is known about Zach, his work is not listed at Discogs, this is likely one of his first releases and a good one at that. Beginning with a lo-fi, sparse rhythm and spacey synthetics, the beat persists as the mix becomes aquatic. Some very snaky synths and patterns move in and out, only to reappear in severely altered form. The structure is constantly evolving, after a while seeming like a megamix of rhythmic evolutions. The drum patterns are skewed, but also organic sounding, possessing a similarity to some of Eno's, or Jon Hassell's work. This is some sort of post-modern exotica, with side one ending in a cartoon orchestra hit. Side two starts out with more orchestral samples building up into a classical motif, rhythms hover and struggle to emerge through the mix until, finally, an urgent machine beat comes to the fore against the nearly melancholic textures. A variety of exotic sounds and voice snippets combine, so lo-fi and compressed that they merge together creating a sonic fabric that somehow becomes progressively spacier and more atmospheric as it (d)evolves. This tape reminds me of classic 80's-era cassette network stuff like Nomuzic or If, Bwana. The definition of homemade experimental music.Get it HERE.

FRANS DE WAARD (Banned Productions, BP151) Arrel/Juur (2010) Cassette

Here's a quite unique cassette release by Frans De Waard, whose long career in noise and experimental music includes such crucial projects as Kapotte Muziek (begun in 1984!), Beequeen, (more recently) Freiband, and many others. This tape is part of AMK's "Banned Cassette Series" on the Banned Productions label. Using synthesized sounds, radio waves and, perhaps, field recordings, this is probably the quietest tape I have ever encountered. Normally I would say such a work requires the pristine digital format for it's best representation, but in the case of "Arrel/Juur", De Waard has cunningly used the cassette format as one more sound source, incorporating tape hiss into the compositions. The mix on both sides are extremely low volume, raising the level reveals the inaudible sound sources but also raises the tape hiss, which I found very interesting. Small squiggles of sound, especially evident on side two, enter a little at a time, as well as many indefinable frequencies. A fine work of art release that requires active listening and ends the way it started: quietly. Get it HERE.

TROJ / ANIMAL MACHINE (Kifrecording, Kifrec-91) Structural Failure (2011) Cassette

This is a one-sided split tape between Troj and Animal Machine, limited edition of ten, so you'll likely never obtain a copy of it, but it's a fantastic release with two distinctly different approaches to a single idea. The first track is by Troj, also known as Man Troj, a newcomer on the international scene hailing from Singapore. I love everything I've heard by this artist, his work traverses between industrial, noise, dark ambient and breakcore. This track, titled "Santet", begins with pitch-shifted vocals and ambient drone slowly rising and falling while digital fluctuations and rapid-fire repetitions loop over and over in momentary exclamations against a spacey backdrop. This creates a beautiful effect where the soundscape never lapses into meaningless atmospherics, since there are plenty of variants entering the mix at all times. These sonics are best for late night listening. Metaphorically, in relation to the album title, this "structural failure" results in a craft floating through space in a vacuum, time running out for the crew, who are left dreaming as death approaches. Abstract vocal samples appear from afar mixing with gamelan orchestra type sounds, manipulated to become alien and, as the spacey sonics fade out, we find ourselves in the midst of some ancient/future ritual... very beautiful, very satisfying.

The second track here is by Animal Machine, an extremely prolific Polish noise artist. This is the title track and also the exact opposite, in sound, of Troj's composition. As the metaphor for "Structural Failure" reveals another possibility, this time of a spacecraft slamming into some planetary atmosphere, the sound of the satellite burning on re-entry. Heavy, heavy noise! Slamming, slashing, descent into maelstrom that ends abruptly after 13 minutes. Equally as beautiful, in it's own way, as the Troj track but infinitely more destructive.

Ini.Itu Label, Vinyl Releases: Anaphoria, Blindhæð , Cornelia Hesse-Honegger, Dave Phillips, D'Incise, Freiband

The Ini.Itu label, founded in 2008, has released eight LP's. With a focus on field recordings, extended techniques for acoustic instruments, drones, rhythmic collages and crossing of Eastern and Asian musical structures, this promises to be a label to watch. The quality of their music releases are superb, vinyl pressing is very quiet and rich in detail, the excellent cover graphics also set their albums apart. Following are reviews of five of their albums. For more information on Ini.Itu or to purchase any of these items please check HERE.

ANAPHORIA (Ini.Itu, #0902) Footpaths And Trade Routes (2009) LP

"Footpaths And Trade Routes" is an LP by Kraig Grady, aka Anaphoria. This composer, born in California in 1952, studied with Nicolas Slonimsky, Dean Drummond, Dorrance Stalvey and Byong-Kon Kim before meeting up with Erv Wilson in 1975. Wilson is an esteemed Mexican-American music theorist who has written extensively about microtonal music and just intonation. I have not studied all the specifics of these tuning forms, but I have heard a bit of this type of music (Harry Partch and Wendy Carlos, for instance) and, for the uninitiated, it consistently sounds exotic to these ears and able to achieve moods very different from western music and the common musical scale we all grew up listening to. At some point, apparently, Grady also became inspired by indigenous music forms, perhaps specifically the music of Aboriginal Australia (?), and this album seems to reflect those studies. The first track, "Zephyros" is a minimal composition beginning with chiming bell sounds that are created by a vibraphone using a once forbidden tuning. On this track we hear the basic blueprint for the rest of the album, as the overtones created by Anaphoria's acoustic music instruments dynamically rise within the tracks, sometimes very ambient, in the background, other times floating up directly in the mix only to disappear momentarily. Although the music is minimalist, the patterns aren't repetitive and he's not using obvious loops in the structure either, the movement in the composition is slow paced and without dramatic effect. "Zephyros" sounds like a prelude and, indeed, proves itself to be so as it weds to the beginning of the followup track, "Hierophone A341", which is immediately more dense, more complex. This track too contains some of the same sort of instrumental tones with rhythmic bell-like percussives being most prevalent. Here the rising overtones are more apparent, becoming buzzing atmospheres that rise up in the mix behind the closely miked instruments. Nice, quiet LP grooves are essential when listening to such music and this LP is mastered perfectly, pressed on superb quality vinyl. "Ostaelo", the long single track that takes up side two, is the inventive re-imagining of the previous tracks, using all the same instrumental configurations in an effort to find a music balanced somewhere between Balinese gamelan orchestras and the minimalist droning of LaMonte Young. A beautiful, meditative album, particularly good for morning listening.
 

 FREIBAND (Ini.Itu, #1101) Stainless Steel (2011) LP

Freiband is a sound project of the prolific Frans De Waard. De Waard is very well known in the noise community for his vast review document, Vital Magazine, which he started producing in 1986, later evolving into the internet journal, Vital Weekly. He has also created excellent noise/experimental sounds as Kapotte Muziek and Beequeen (amongst others). Freiband, however, is quite unique from De Waard's other projects, here the glitching of computer hard drives create loops of different recordings, mainly it seems, pop music of one sort or another. This album was created by De Waard between 2009 and 2011, and then the tracks were mastered by James Plotkin. Some of these structures are very minimal, musical and acoustic to the ear, others have a more fractured and complex electronic feel. The post production on the sources seem to give them their environment, as the reverbs set up a habitat for the unusual sound loopings. The result, on side A's "Stainless (Software)", is a montage of strange and wonderful miniatures, at times with jarring cuts and unusual rising of volumes. It all adds to the invigorating quality of the sound material here, as you never can expect what will come next. Especially when you get to the end of the side and you are so tranced out it takes five minutes to figure out that it's a lock groove! Side B, "Steel (Hardware)" can supposedly be played in 33 or 45 rpms, and is considerably different from it's companion. Extremely minimal but not without interest as the sounds intertwine into an infinite loop that, seemingly, has no beginning and no end (in actuality has no end since the needle finally settles into another lock groove). I've had conversations with turntablist, AMK, about our mutual fascination with skipping records/cd's and this album is a perfect way to explain it's appeal. Because the post-modernist disconnect with the actual creation of these glitching textures, the surprise content, or potential of pure chance is unlocked by such experiments, then to take those experiments of chance and make them into something more compelling than their technical origin, that is the accomplishment of a true artist! This is fresh, unique work by one of the icons of the noise underground.

 D'INCISE (Ini.Itu, #1001) Rivages Sur L'Antipode (2010) LP

Laurent Peter is an experimental musician from Switzerland, operating under several pseudonyms: Diatribes, Heu{s-k}ach, and the better known, D'Incise. As D'Incise, Peter has been releasing sound material since 2005 on many different European labels. "Rivages Sur L'Antipode" is something like the 14th or 15th album that's been put out and, judging by the quality of it, I can certainly see the justification. Again, we are treated to a superb electroacoustic work, but this one based entirely in rhythms. His approach is a, sort of, left-field/free hip hop setting but with deeper textural qualities. The sounds are ever changing and what might, in another context, be drum rhythm sounds, are here created by any possibility of sonic reference. Because many of the samples are edited into "hits", i.e., short bits of sound that can be used rhythmically, you feel the reference but do not get enough of the sound to exactly identify it. So this myriad of possibilities is always flashing by and morphing, from noisy static to cracklings into gamelan orchestral things, or analog synthesizers, ethereal pads and so many more. Also it seems like many different samples are used in every "hit" of sound, layers of them, as I hear it. Cleverly programmed and utilizing some interesting glitch techniques too, these rhythms are deeply imbedded with underlying references. Mastered by James Plotkin, this is a superb sounding album, filling the sonic spectrum from bottom to top and it's also one experimental album you could play at a party or could be used in some DJ mixes.

 DAVE PHILLIPS & CORNELIA HESSE-HONEGGER (Ini.Itu, #1002) Mutations (2010) LP

An astonishing work of art recorded by Schimpfluch Gruppe member, Dave Phillips,with paintings and inspiration provided by Swiss scientific illustrator, Cornelia Hesse-Honegger. This album is packed with amazing sounds from start to finish! Recorded by Phillips in Thailand, Vietnam and his home of Switzerland between 1994 and 2007, the field-recordings already provide a tremendous personal diary, but then through "mutations" the stories in the sounds are transformed by Phillips into metaphor for some kind of microbial sound world, in this case the most likely correlation(via the eye-popping artwork of Ms. Hesse-Honnegger) are insect habitats. The noises here, clickings, pops, whistles, animal/bird sounds, howling, jabbering, sawing, wind, etc- while listening to this surrealist melange I can't help but wonder if every sound on the album could just as well have been made by Phillips' own voice? But their origin doesn't matter in the end, as he has transformed these sounds with great mastery into one of the most compelling albums I have ever heard! There are jarring moments here, but it's not a typical noise album, those moments provide drama, even a fearful element that creeps in. It's absolutely visual, but what you visualize is so bizarre as to destroy any preconceptions. As with most of Ini.Itu's output, this album is also mastered by James Plotkin and the sound is fantastic. This definitely makes my Top Ten list for 2011.

BLINDHAED (Ini.Itu, #0801) Whether That Will Make People Want To Become Archaeologists, We'll Have To See (2008) LP

What to make of an album with such a title? But this one-sided LP turns out to be a brilliant excursion into the world of electroacoustic sound. This has some of the air of the classic musique concrete sessions of Paris in the late 40's/early 50's, but where fascination with process at that critical moment seemed to overpower the composer's imagination sometimes to the point of silliness, here the aesthetic is never divided. The purity is impressive, the composition always unfolding in lushness, layer after layer, the composer's intent: a cinema for the ears. With the apparent ability to capture alien sounds, most of which seem like they are actually created using everyday objects, or tiny musical instruments, with such intimate presence and in many different environments, Blindhæð then refashion these sources into a remarkable sonic painting! Totally absorbing and listenable to over and over again on this pristine vinyl. I can't say enough about this fascinating album, but for my noisehead friends, there is no violence here, just the languid rise and fall of sonic textures like water lapping shores.