Maruto
Using his no-input mixing board Toshimaru Nakamura, perhaps the ultimate Onkyo artist, spent two years creating this work, which is also the second release in the Erstsolo series. Nakamura constructs this 46 minute piece from recordings of his mixer, which generates a combination of hum, glitch, buzz and subliminally disruptive sound. He develops the results into gentle and non-violent textural and impressionistic music that unfolds in a meditative and absorbing manner. That Nakamura c…
Ictus Ensemble
A sensational LP... That's it! A A creative collaboration between italian composer Riccardo Nova and belgian Ictus Ensemble: Riccardo Nova concentrated on the art of the ‘drone’, on the dividing line between certain works of contemporary music (such as those of the composer Giacinto Scelsi) and trance rock, a hypnotic music consisting of long, sustained compact chords with an expressive incantatory power. At that time, Nova systematically combined parts for acoustic instruments with a ‘mirror-im…
The Way Things Go
** 515 copies ** Here, finally, is the gorgeous presentation that astronomy domine Rick Reed's music so richly deserves: Two black vinyl LPs, pressed on 180-gram virgin vinyl, with full-color labels, inside black poly-lined sleeves, housed in a matte-finish full-color gatefold jacket adorned with Reed's vibrant and fantastically evocative paintings. Included with each copy of this set is a full-color download card featuring access to high-quality MP3s of the complete contents of the vinyl record…
Ponytail, Ponytales
Tommaso Clerico and Luca Sigurta' mixed noise, ambient, fake hip hop and weird techno: the new frontier of melanchofreak or if you prefer a ride on deformed flying horses. Second album full of guest stars, from the legend of American noise To Live and Shave in L.A. to the giants of no(w)wave Zeek Sheck and MC Trachiotomy, plus some incredible Italian artists such as Bologna Violenta, Madame P, IOIOI and Trashsound.
Get Lost
And yet another killer album from the ever-productive Mark McGuire (Emeralds). It just keeps getting better, as he delivers another fine set of tunes in his perfected style. A few more electronic elements than usual and even some voices, but still the unique blend of feel-good riffs, electric and acoustic loops and melodies that just stick in the head. This album is chockablock with short hits and one long jam of blissed-out McGuire ambience. Awesome. Electric and acoustic guitar, vocals,…
The Decline Effect
Parapsychology introduced the notion of the decline effect as a statistical phenomenon of diminishing results whilst investigating extra-sensory perception and psychokinesis. Where initial findings might substantiate proof of such abilities, further studies would almost always demonstrate the contrary. As such, this ontological disappearing act stands in allegorical parallel to the entropic art of Jim Haynes and frames his 2011 opus of the corroded drone and a compacted disintegration of …
The state we are in
The first thing this CD reminded me of was Tape...then I checked out the press release and it turns out that Tape's Johan Berthling (also very recently sighted on that Fire! with Jim O'Rourke record) is in fact one-third of this band, the other two being Andreas Soderstrom (Ass) and Per Eklund on drums. It is, as you would expect, gently paced instrumental stuff, slightly pastoral-sounding, with intertwining guitars and a some subtle Hammond organ and trumpet bits. This is a mightily rel…
Maria Minerva's Cabaret Cixous
Over the course of a 12", cassette, and a stream of ace youtube vids, Maria Minerva has emerged as one of the most interesting artistes to come into leftfield-pop focus over the last 12 months. 'Cabaret Cixous' is her debut album, a coruscating water-bed of mottled '90s dance-pop memes writhing under blankets of slyly sexy new age synths while her dreamy vocals whisper and croon seductively suggestive lyrics. It's not quite aural soft porn, but there's an inescapably lascivious element to …
Transamorem - Transmortem
Transamorem - Transmortem was premiered on March 9, 1974 at The Kitchen in NYC, where the music programmer at the time was Rhys Chatham - this was right before his guitar phase. During this period, 'Transamorem - Transmortem' was presented along with other compositions by Eliane Radigue in a linear mode of listening, although the piece had originally been conceived, during its composition, as a sound installation. Of course, both modes of listening are possible, and each works marvelously in its…
Emeralds
Emeralds is the new album by guitarist/songwriter, producer and sound architect Robin Guthrie. Another uncompromising step along the path that is his vision, enveloping the listener with the aesthetic enchantment which has become his trademark. From the opening notes of ‘Digging for Gold’ to the last echoes of ‘The Little Light Fades’, Emeralds takes us on a voyage which moves our emotions, stimulates our senses and leaves us feeling that the world must be a better place seen throug…
Uffuff
12” with 1 new Quehenberger orginal (Uffuff) and a trio of near remixes from his lastest album Hazard (released as LATON 047 in 2009). Patrick Pulsinger tackles New Beat, in his unique future funk sound. A welcome return of Elin (who hasn’t been on a Mego record since 1995, check MEGO 003). He slurps out a version of Hey Gert, making it into an slamming slowed down twister of a track.This leaves the pumping exccess of Altroys (Minimal Soul) Keep Talking remix.
Heartland's Suite
More cosmic psychedelia on Aguirre now, this time from Stellar Om Source, which is the project of Dutch visionary Christelle Gualdi, who also designed the album's crazy neo-psych nightmare of a sleeve. Tripped out stuff. As for the record itself, we're in synth central here, drinking a synth and coke and sucking on a syntharette. The first side is largely based around motorik drone workouts with simple melodies and immersive textures. There's no percussion and the whole experience is quit…
Lunar
Secret Colors offers up his latest, a bubbling album called ‘Lunar’. Homespun ambient soundscapes taking you on a space trek without any sort of cliche spacey noise. Glitchy without being abrasive, hollowed out yet wholly satisfying. You’ll find a new jungle planet with this as the soundtrack. Its about to get humid. (Leftist Nautical Antiques)
Civiltà Paleospaziale
Italian minimal synth & drum machine duo, another side project by Ottaven/Canedicoda, abstract dread sounds with elements of clinical drone and throbbing frequencies to a more introspective ambient chaos
Lacunae
Sound and video artist MPLD works in a world of sentiment and detachment, creating a Lost & Found aesthetic uniquely his own. Lost are the old Kodachrome slides which make up the foundation of his work. Found are the feelings of misplaced memories the slides conjure, as well as the sounds — processed and amplified — of the projectors that bring those images back to life. What’s seen on lacunae is a straight shot of the screen during a rehearsal for a concert, although that might not be clear to …
Fragen
Kluster - Cluster - and now Qluster - an extraordinary shedding of skin of one of the most important german electronic groups. Hans-joachim roedelius was there from the beginning (kluster from 1969 on with conrad schnitzler and dieter moebius; cluster from 1971 on with dieter moebius; qluster with onnen bock since 2010). Little need be said about roedelius, whose collaborations with conrad schnitzler, cluster and harmonia earned him a worldwide reputation as a pioneer of electronic music. Onnen …
Shadow of events
2011 release ** "Shadow Of Events is the third album by Oslo, Norway sound artist, producer and musician Alexander Rishaug, following his Asphodel CD Possible Landscape (2004) and 2001's Panorama on the Smalltown Supersound label. The album was recorded over a five year period and mixed in Berlin last year. Not unlike his previous albums but apparently more refined Shadow Of Events combines a warm and organic haunting quality blended with both abstract and concrete tones and subtle digital noise…
Backworld
Terrific, 9/10 on Foxy Digitalis...Belgian artist Hans Dens puts out his sophomore effort, Backworld, after releasing his highly praised work, Future Life, last year on Aguirre. Dens uses synthscapery to construct his dystopia. Usually, artists who go to work and rely heavily on the synth create pleasure-induced bliss, but Innercity is all about the beautiful tension that the synth lends itself to between tranquility and melancholia. Good times can be had in the urban tragedy, but overall life…
Okkupation
Thomas Rehnert lives and works in Berlin. He was deeply influenced by the European free jazz of the 1970s, and in West Berlin in the 1980s he played percussion in various punk bands. In the world of punk and experimental music of these years, he began to occupy himself with electro-acoustic music, machine music and automata. He builds sound machines from analogue modular synthesizer systems that are voltage- controlled and steer themselves.His formative principle of organization is variation by …