Anla Courtis

"killer disc of lo-fi tape music & electronic studies from reynols’ Anla Courtis; completely all over the map, from the electric-guitar based musique concrète of “asma de tía de alga” to the almost pietro-grossi-esque bleep-fest of “invisible clown sonata” (what a title!) to the epic closer “encías de viento.” highly recommended." (Mimaroglu)...now back to his real name Alan Courtis, this still comes out under the misspelled Anla Courtis moniker (a slight name change given to him by his former Reynols companion Miguel Tomasin), as it features music from the time he was still called Anla. Even whilst being in Reynols for most of the 90s and early years of the new century (and releasing a sludge of records accordingly) he also always made his own music. This was mostly made through the use of tapes, as he apparently didn't get a computer until 1999.

Not sounding like the best idea for some progressive experimental music he actually manages to instill these tape works with lots of innovative sound spells. "Rastrillo-Termotanque" is three minutes of CD torturing in the best possible Oval way, without ever really sounding like them, a real accomplishment.

Or "Studio for Wire Plugs" which is exactly made up out of only that. It doesn't all work though. "Jarabe De Llanura" is made up out of water sounds, apparently to show the ,other side' of the possibilities of water, meaning more noisy, and not new agey. It maybe works when you don't know that it's all water, but as soon as you read the nice liner notes it falls flat really. But that's only rarely, as most of it seems to hold my attention throughout. Even the more electro-acoustic pieces have a certain hands-on quality, which give these works a certain charming quality, and prevents it from falling into the trap of contemporary musique concrète. (RM)