ELLENDE

Hand-numbered edition of 300 copies art edition set that features a 10” on clear vinyl, a CD and an accompanying art book/manifesto from this obscure Japanese/South African avant garde performance troupe. Reputedly starting off in 1976 through tape experiments at home, much of Ellende’s work is based on the writings of founder member Wim Bontjes, who passed away in 1995 and if the contents of the booklet are anything to go by they share a healthy obsession with sex, ritual and radical performance art. The music on the 10” is exactly as the title implies, a series of massively heavy drone works with obsessively repeating electronics and e-bow guitar shot through with all sorts of subliminal detail, ghost voices, snatches of conversation... aspects of Organum, Asmus Tietchens, Fripp & Eno and The Cosmic Couriers combine in a series of austere visions of sheet metal minimalism with a dark cultic/performance troupe edge. The CD furthers the whole Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser vibe with a monolithic slice of eternally-peaking kosmische that sounds like an orchestra of ascending E-Bows. One of the most mysteriously beguiling releases to wash up at VT in some time. Recommended. (VolcanicTongue)