Xing-Wu

Featuring live bands, avant electronica, field recordists, improvisers and minimalist composers, there are numerous reasons to be excited about this 2-disc compilation of some of the most innovative and original sound artists from across the world. Perhaps the most important reason is that this is the first release from the new Malaysian based Xing-Wu records, a label established to document local experimental works, five of which appear here alongside the worlds foremost experimental performers. Another reason is that all of the tracks are exclusive to this release, including the likes of persistently weird Argentinean rockers rockers Reynols, no input mixing board sine manipulator Toshimaru Nakamura, renowned improviser and What Is Music cofounder Oren Ambarchi, recent visitor and collaborator with Tony Buck, German trumpeter and sound manipulator Axel Dorner and Japanese dobro player Tetuzi Akiyama, who coaxes difficult skull piercing pitches from his innocent looking instrument. Highlights include American Jeph Jerman's field recordings of birds gathering near his house, local improvisers Anthony Pateras and David Brown's (Bucketrider) sparse and tentative untitled cut which echoes some of their work with Sean Baxter on the recently released Ataxic disc, and the incredibly difficult pitches of Malaysian ensemble Zai De's Ni-Be. The reality is that the multitudes of sounds and approaches presented here ensure Xing-Wu a bright future in providing an important regional role in documenting the local scene and assisting it to remain connected to the all of the directions and developments from the other side of world.

• Xing-Wu (2004) - 320 Kbps

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Walter Marchetti ‎- Utopia Andata E Ritorno

Music: the foundation of that presence in which we find ourselves shows itself as pure negative. Everything is founded on a demonstration of its own negativity: as awareness of its being negative, and does not look for an escape into a future presence, that is an objective future. But, accepting its negativity, makes of this self-negation the real act, the true reality -- the true foundation, the real and actual continuity: this is music's sense. Utopia Andata e Ritorno is the title of the new composition by Walter Marchetti, recorded in Milano in 2005. It has two parts, each one CD long. The first part, 'L'Andata,' puts together two former recordings of Marchetti. The recording of a real storm and a recital for solo piano. This is not the first time that Marchetti mixes a piano solo recital with the recording of a natural live event, thus creating a 'piano concert'. The second CD, 'Il Ritorno', reverses the direction of the first record and literally destroys itself. In the first part of this work, Marchetti puts music successfully in the place it has to have today: on the road to renewal in contact with reality, a reality that is a synonym for vacuity, that is the interdependence of phenomena, music, reality, technology. There is nothing mimetic or anecdotal in this work. The storm is a real storm and the solo piano recital is a modern work of pure music, without the excesses that the society expects of a piano recital from composer and virtuoso player. Pure music, in the best sense of the word. 'L'Andata' is one of the great works of music of our time, or, as José Luis Castillejo remarked, 'it may be the best modern piano concert since Brahms.' In the second part, 'Il Ritorno,' sound waves are deformed when one tries a reverse hearing and the turn around trip becomes an aural nightmare. Of course, avant-gardism has made us accustomed to noises and silences and to the arbitrary idea that anything is music. 'Il Ritorno' announces the end of musical avant-gardism and its technocratic aspirations. It points to the end of music avant-gardism because it exposes the technological manipulation not only of technology beyond its powers, but also the manipulation of both music and sound. 'Il Ritorno' is such a problematic work also because its subject is failure and impossibility. Three-folded digipack 2CD edition. It includes a 32-page booklet with essays by Water Marchetti, Gabriele Bonomo and José Luis Castillejo. First edition limited to 500 copies.

• Walter Marchetti ‎- Utopia Andata E Ritorno (2006) - 320 Kbps

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David Dunn - Music, Language and Environment

Dunn's work is a call for the re-enchantment of art and a beacon for a whole generation of composers and ecologists.

This adventuresome CD is a retrospective of David Dunn's music from 1973 to 1985. For Dunn, sound is an instrument for research in deep ecology, with radical implications for our relationship to everything around us., In its thoughtful yet playful encounter with nature, Dunn's work is a call for the re-enchantment of art and a beacon for a whole generation of composers and ecologists.

Brushing through back issues of THE WIRE as I listened to this (seeking out comparative reviews to give you, my reader, a more complete, less biassed view of music of today and yesterday) I happened upon their review and, rather than reading it to see what they had put (very bad thing to do) I did happen to see that they referred to the ambience of the album, and the rough quality such a 'live' recording has. While I didn't read on to see if they found this a favourable quality, I can tell you that this reviewer was mightily impressed. There I was, in pain with a bad back, on one of the few hot days we have had in the UK, unable to write the stream of thoughts I was having into my PSION as the heat always screws it up. But being outside, listening with headphones on leant the album an even better dimension. The opening piece, a stark STOCKHAUSEN-esque minimal thing, just trumpets and environment, is simplistic but very tasty. Fanfares and fragments, occasionally reminding me of THROBBING GRISTLE around the time of "Heathen Earth". And due to the ambient sounds - which are often more intrusive than the actual instruments - the long gaps between notes are less pauses than solos from the 'other musician'. The second track moves in a very different direction, placing you in the heart of some great electronic machine. What sounds like birdsong mixes with the sound of a journey through raw computing devices and robotic factory ambience. But these aren't the clean, sterile electronics of pcbs and microchips - this is the dusty hot and sparky world of big glass valves, the primordial soup of modern technology. The third piece takes you further down avenues of primitive technology - you are now travelling through the wires of pre-PC telephone systems, where ghost voices travel down hot wires, imparting abstract vox populi conversation to massage the voyeuristic nature a little like SCANNER might, if he were to push the limits a little more.
The second disc opens with the same 'Open University' star cluster of notes as track one on the sister disc, only this time the sound if a lot more complete, notes coming in and out to complete an overall body of sustain. It's like VARESE frozen in time, with the single event cloud stretching out into an almighty drone. And at over half an hour in duration, it has a long way to stretch! Track two returns to the outside world, zapping the wildlife which chatter and chirrup with 70's arcade game laser guns. I guess it attempts through harsh electronics to immitate the birds which join in with their song. I cannot help but feel that the natural and artificial sounds were brought together in some other environment, although there are definitely moments when the two protagonists kinda harmonise. If this had been recorded on location, the piercing sounds, instead of startling the birdlife, actually polarise them, causing them to try, as it were, overshouting the alien (in the truest sense) invader. The third and final track here again visits the kind of sustains explored on the first track of this disc. This time the non-harmonized instruments which bond together like the individual strands on a length of rope, all similar in dimension, but adding to the overall ductile strength of the whole.

Overall a minimal, and as WIRE pointed out, hardly a top quality recording. But then it may have lost something in the more sterile, pure environment of a recording studio - it has a fascinating, intriguing sound - less a work of music than the mind which decided to create it. When the plane goes overhead in the first track, it creates a subsonic hum which in itself is music. Don't expect to dance to this, but there's some interesting things at work, which are often harsh and discordant. A prerunner of Harsh Noise maybe, or a far less honed Avant Garde Classical work.

• David Dunn - Music, Language and Environment (1996) - 320 Kbps

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Melatonin: Meditations on Sound in Sleep

"During sleep, a process controlled in part by the body's use of the chemical Melatonin, our brain functions in a markedly different fashion to our waking life. As an example, reading is noted by many sleep researchers to be a quite unusual process, whereby words simply fall off the page, their graphical meaning abstracted as various sections of the brain recline into states of rest. Something similar is true for sounds we hear generated within dreams. The way in which incidental atmospheres complement, interrupt or interfere with our sleep suggests a new set of understandings. It is these concepts that are explored here in a deeply personal and reflective manner."

Lawrence English, October 2003.

The Room 40 crew has amassed an impressive list of names for this two-disc set billed as "meditations on sound in sleep," and the prospect of new tracks from Oren Ambarchi, DJ Olive, DJ/Rupture, Scanner, David Toop, and Janek Schaefer ought to be enough to sell the disc on its own. Really everyone here brings it, with solid tracks from lesser-known artists that are equally impressive and often more inventive than those from their well-known counterparts. The theme is broad enough as to allow a wide range of interpretations without dictating any particular mode of composition. The two basic approaches to the idea seem to be physiological—that of capturing or recreating sound as heard through the muffled filter of sleep, and psychological—that of playing with the noises and music of dream states and the subconscious. There are the expected slow, sleepy drones and dreamy chimes (Al Yamamoto, Steinbrüchel, Zane Trow, Barret, Musgrove & Sinclair), but the project also offers some more out-there takes as well, such as Skist's shrill whine accompanied by non-sequitur female vocals, Timeblind's ridiculously time-stretched speech, and David Toop's spooky dream narration. John Chantler starts disc two off with a delightfully fun recording of his microwave that transforms into a cheeky beep-beat before giving way to drums and guitar: not something I would have expected on a disc devoted to experimental musicians composing tracks about sleeping sounds. Philip Samartzis turns in a location recording, while Martin Ng & Tetuzi Akiyama give us the obligatory microtonal sine wave ear workout. If i never hear a piercing sine wave composition again, it'll be okay with me. Scanner gives up a synth-heavy piece with some instructional voice-over through delay that recalls his Spore-era work, while Frost plays with fuzzy dream guitar and simple piano figures that are understated and beautiful. DJ/Rupture takes the path least travelled by producing a mix of beats and samples that implies that what he hears while sleeping are the muffled, fractured pieces of his record collection banging together into a mix. In the realm of experimental music, these kinds of collections too often offer artists a chance to pad an already overstuffed discography with throw-away pieces and under-realized mixes. Not so, here. Room 40 manages to wrangle up some top talent at the top of their game for an engaging and repeatable listen.

• Melatonin: Meditations on Sound in Sleep (2004) - 320 Kbps

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Michael Prime ‎- Borneo

Micheal Prime, booklet, notes:

In february 2005 I visited the state of Sabah, north Borneo, with the object of recording bioelectrical signals from some of the unique flora and fauna there.
The rich lowland diptercarp forests are rapidly giving way to Oil Palm Plantations, but there are still some pristine forest areas where ancient primary forest trees can be seen, their massive trunks rising straight up for over a hundred feet.
Out of the steamy lowlands, the massive bulk of Mt.Kinabalu rises to a height of 14,000 ft, providing a refuge for many endemic species that prefer a cooler climate.
Here, northern hemisphere trees like evergreen Oaks and Chestnuts mingle with southern hemisphere conifers like Podocarpus Agathis and Dacrycarpus.

These montane forests provide shelter for a variety of tree ferns, rattan palms and climbing Lycopodiums, Higher still is a cloud-forest of twisted Leptospermum and Dacrydium trees, whose nearest relatives are found in Australia and New Zealand.
The highest slopes of the mountain are mostly bare rock, scoured clean by the glaciers found here until just 3000 years ago.

The Rafflesia are a strange genus of parasitic plants, famous for producing the largest flowers in the world. They are root parasites, completely invisible above ground until one of their enormous flower buds breaks the surface.
Their life cycle is poorly understood and ther seem to require a certain amount of disturbance. Since a nature reserve was declared to protect their most well known locaton at Poring, they have ceased to flower within its boundaries!
We were able to find one flowering on a farm nearby, and the owner was kind enough to let me attach electrodes to one of the flowers.
The flowers smell of rotting meat, and attract numerous files.

Tongkat Ali (Eurycoma longifolia) is an indigenous tree of Borneo, whose powdered bark enjoys a reputation as the local equivalent of Viagra!
It is also mixed with ginseng and coffee to make a very refreshing hot drink.
I was pleased to find a tree that had been included in the planting scheme of a gold course popular with local businessmen.

The genus Nepenthes is notorious for containing the world's largest carnivorous plants. Some of them have pitchers large enough to drown a squirrel, and they can climb high into trees in search of prey.
Finding a specimen to record involved climbing My. Kinabalu, and I soon found that my portable recording equipment began to seem much heavier than it did at sea level!

Finally, I was able to record specimen of Nepenthes x kinabaluensis growing in ultramafic scrub not far from the summit trail, as other exhausted climbers trudged past to use the facility at a small rest stop.

All Living organism produce a faint electrical field, which constantly fluctuates according to the state of the organism.
In Plants, these fluctuating voltage potentials can be seen to reflect a number of natural cycles, as well as transient events like water stress, attacks by predators etc.
The bioelectrical field varies not only with periods of light and dark, but also with cycles of the moon, magnetic storms and sunspots.
By connecting plants to a bioactivity translator, we can listen in to their life processes, and even hear them reacting to transient events.
Plants are able to react instantly to charges in their environment.
Do we consider this to be a form of consciousness?

The bioelectrical sounds I recorded in the field are used mostly in manipulated and intermodulated form in the compositions here, but always retaining their natural rhythms.
In the field, choices have to be made about the parameters the translator is set to, which will affect frequency range and other aspects of the sound.
Nevertheless, the rhythms which emerge are very much a reflection of the life processes of the plant.
A dead plant, or a fruit or vegetable which has been picked, produce only a static tone.

Two Ultrasonic transducers with heterodyne frequency conversion were used to record the ultrasonic sounds of bats and insects.
These recordings have not been manipulated, edited or latered, the listener can follow the movements of the bats in real time as thery locate insects and zoom in, speeding up their echolocation sounds to obtain better resolution in the ''sound picture'' they are receivin of their prey.

Unless mentioned otherwise, all acoustic recording were made on the move, using a pair of binaural microphone, as well as making bioelectrical recordings of plants, and ultrasonic recordings of bats and insects, I also set up small installations, ''stalking'' with the binaural microphones.

''Banana Rattan'' contains a live recording of an installation that featured the amplified bioelectrical signals of a Rattan Palm, and an as yet undescribed species of Banana, recorded beside a mountain stream.

The installation featured on ''Hungry Ghosts'' used voices from a local shortwave station, undergoing live processing on a laptop. I trecked into the coastal forest just before midnight to record this, and on the way there, suddenly found my feet sinking rapidly into a clammy ooze. The rising tide had turned what had been a dry creekbed into quicksand.
I Managed to sit back onto dry land, and then rashly dipped my foot into the quicksand to retrieve the sandal. Though only a couple of seconds had passed, there was no trace of it, as if it had been pulled down by unseen hands. I took off the other sandal, and proceeded on bare feet.

• Michael Prime ‎- Borneo (2007) - 320 Kbps

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Howls, Raps & Roars: Recordings From The San Francisco Poetry Renaissance

HOWLS, RAPS & ROARS is a 4-CD box set compiled and annotated by Ann Charters containing Beat Generation's spoken word recordings made between 1958-69. In addition to masterworks like Ginsberg's "Howl" (heard in its entirety) and Kenneth Rexroth's "Thou Shalt Not Kill," this set presents previously unreleased recordings by Gregory Corso and Peter Orlovsky, as well as excerpts from the "Mad Mammoth Monster Poetry Readings" of 1959 and 1963.

The subtitle -- "recordings from the San Francisco poetry renaissance" -- perfectly places in context the vitality of the contents of this multi-disc box set. While the Bay Area based Fantasy label is primarily known for its uncompromising and otherwise groundbreaking jazz releases, they were also home to some of the Beat Generations most prolific and genre defining figures. This collection gathers over four hours of recordings documented during the height of the Cold War in the late '50s and early '60s, historically reflecting the world as interpreted by such freewheelin' thinkers as Lew Welch, Michael McClure, David Meltzer, Kenneth Rexroth, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg. Under the influence and careful annotation of Ann Charters -- who is perhaps best known in the literary community for her valiant efforts as editor of the Portable Beat Reader -- Howls, Raps & Roars (1993) revisits some of America's most brilliant spoken-word recordings and aurally stimulating recitations borne of the tremendously prolific mid-century poetry scene. In addition to the definitively earnest efforts of the afore mentioned authors, also prominently featured on this collection is the work of comedian and social commentator Lenny Bruce -- who commences the set with over an hour's worth of his most profound recordings for Fantasy. His works -- most especially the irony-laden "Shorty Petterstein Interview" and equally strident "How To Relax Your Coloured Friends At Parties" are as over the top and deliciously ironic in the 21st century as they most assuredly were in the heart of the previous one. Also included are more established cornerstones of the Bay Area beats such as Ginsberg's "Howl" and the first part of "Kaddish" as well as Rexroth's biblically inspired "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and Ferlinghetti's epic "Moscow In The Wilderness, Segovia In The Snow" -- all of which have been previously issued, albeit difficult to locate. However the unqualified centrepiece of Howls, Raps & Roars is the plethora of unissued recitations -- including an entire disc of unissued masterworks corralled under the moniker "From The Mad Mammoth Monster Poetry Readings." On this volume are nearly an hour and ten minutes of rare recordings from the likes of well-known artists such as Ginsberg ("Patna-Benares Express") and McClure ("From Dark Brown") to the potentially less recognizable Lew Welch ("From Hermit Poems") and Phillip Whalen ("From The Art of Literature"). The importance of the works included in this aural compendium can not be overstated and remain as shimmering artefacts of reality from within a decidedly and increasingly image conscious post World War II America. Accompanying the discs is a 36-page liner notes booklet that includes copious eye candy and verbiage to accurately place the recordings in perspective for the modern consumer. This is an essential, if not somewhat compulsory release!

Rolling Stone (3/24/94, p.94) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...four brilliant CDs...presents [the Beats] in their edgy glory; amid the cigarette smoke and wine-glass clinking of San Francisco bars, they overspill ecstatic into cheap microphones and the ripe subconscious of a new generation...."

• Howls, Raps & Roars: Recordings From The San Francisco Poetry Renaissance (1993) - 256 Kbps

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Yasujiro Ozu: Hitokomakura

This is the second of a series of label projects pertaining to film directors. The first one was for Andrei Tarkovsky, the third one is currently in progress and pertains to Michelangelo Antonioni's "Tetralogy"(L'Avventura/La Notte/L'Eclisse/Deserto Rosso).

This second release turns its focus upon Yasujiro Ozu's use of "pillow shots" (i.e. short poetic pauses that appear between the acting segments of his films). The term "pillow shot" was not coined by Ozu himself, but several years after his passing in the early 1960s by a Japanese journalist who was trying to draw a comparison of the intermediate scenes to "pillow words" found in traditional Japanese poetry. This is a double CD release with both CDs featuring audio plus a cross-platform compatible PDF booklet containing pillow shots (courtesy of Criterion Collection) and liner notes.

Each artist featured on this release was asked to choose one or more "pillow shots" to use as inspiration for their pieces. A large assortment of pillow shots was provided for the artists to choose from. The artists also watched the films from which the pillow shots came from in order to get a sense of how their chosen pillow shots were employed by Ozu.

The sound work featured represents a wide range of artistic approaches, but as always with these projects, the artists were chosen specifically, based on their previous work and on how it might contribute to the collective whole of each project.

• Yasujiro Ozu: Hitokomakura (2007) - 320 Kbps

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Simon Whetham & Friends - Meditations on Light

Initially conceived as an installation work to accompany Kathryn Thomas’ Darkspace project, sound artist Simon Whetham’s latest offering Meditations on Light marks a step away from his previous work, towards more musical treatments of found sounds. Spread over two CDs, first up is Lightyears, a stereo mix of the original installation piece before moving on to Reconstructions which provides several reworkings of the source material.

Lightyears consists of two tracks, each taking on very differing forms. ‘Lightspace’ inhabits a peaceful space as gently shifting tones come and go, soft static hisses and glitches appear briefly before disappearing into the distance, and somewhere a fragment of piano melody lingers. Through almost imperceptible changes, Whetham creates a sprawling, drawn out soundscape that gently shifts from the almost inaudible to overwhelming tones. ‘Darkerspace’ immediately takes on a much more menacing tone as harsh glitches and aggressive static obscure the previous calm. Even a brief respite from the otherwise overpowering harsh noise is underpinned by a jittery electronic tone, never allowing the soundscape to settle. Highly fragmented in nature, ‘Darkerspace’ is a bold piece in what could otherwise be considered a purely ambient release.

Having invited a selection of artists to compose their own works using the same source material as Lightyears, sees Whetham and friends straying beyond the confines of the installation brief. From purely sound based works such as opening track ‘Early Sight’ to the warped orchestration of ‘De Biscanti’, these reworkings each put a new and very distinct perspective on the limited source material. The disjointed beauty of ‘Light Brutal’, its pure tones interrupted by occasional bleeps, clicks and fragments of violin, and the reflective sparseness of ‘Souvenir’, suddenly switching to propulsive beats before a calming finish show the true versatility of the artists involved.

Overall this is a fascinating and beautifully considered work showing what can be done with a limited sound palette when placed in the right hands.

• Simon Whetham & Friends - Meditations on Light (2011) - 320 Kbps

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Max Eastley - Installation Recordings 1973 - 2008

First ever collection of solo material from legendary sound art / experimental music composer Max Eastley! A posthumous release (RIP Mr. Eastley), fresh for 2010.

This 2CD is essentially a retrospective of Eastley’s installation work. As such, it updates and adds many new examples to the 1975 release “new and rediscovered musical instruments”, which was released as a split LP with David Toop on Brian Eno's Obscure Records. This is Eastley's first solo CD.

Of the 35 tracks, only the last 2 have any guests or ‘playing’ (the most virtuosic moment being George Lewis playing a grass blade). All the other pieces are either powered by the natural forces of wind and water, or else are motor driven gallery installations.

Tthe etherial sounds of the aoelian harps, the haunting aeolian flutes, and the violent tension of his aerophone installations are hallmark eastley sounds. These sounds, and many others, sit amidst a wide range of acoustic settings, from windy hill tops to quiet brooks, residential street scenes to coastal shores. The indoor recordings are no less varied, ranging across a rich variety of acoustics and gallery spaces from tiny micro sounds to large scale amplification. Wood, metal and stone are brought to life with electricity.

Although there are many photos in the 20 page booklet, much is left to the imagination to work out how the sounds are made. With this limited access to the visual, the focus is pulled towards the musicality of the sounds themselves. This musicality is reinforced by the slow crossfades of most of the pieces from indoors to outdoors to form a series of suites.

The recordings mostly date from the mid 70s, but there are pieces from later decades. Nearly everything was recorded either to revox or uher and occasionally cassette, using what microphones were available at the time. Recent recordings are digital. The varying quality of the recording set-ups across this 2CD adds yet another dimension to the shifting sound fabric of this anthology.

 

• Max Eastley - Installation Recordings 1973 - 2008 (2010) - 320 Kbps

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Deathprod Box

After over a year of countless emails from collectors begging for copies, the ever-wonderful Rune Grammofon has finally relented and re-issued one of the most amazing box-sets we've ever stocked.

Hard to over-emphasise just how completely essential this incredible box set is - a 4cd compilation comprising "Morals and Dogma", "Treetop Drive" (long deleted album from 1994), "Imaginary Songs From Tristan Da Cunha" (long deleted album from 1996) and "Reference Frequencies" (previously unreleased, rare and deleted tracks) that comes in a divine solid black box with an informative 32 page booklet with detailed information on each release.

Each album is packaged in its own beautifully designed digipack. Helge Sten has been recording under the Deathprod moniker for over a decade and, alongside Geir Jenssen's Biosphere project, has been responsible for some of the most dense and absorbing soundscaping created in recent times.

Listening to his music (or indeed sitting through these 4 remarkable cd's) is like entering an alternate universe - chillingly isolated and on fire at one and the same time - free of any obvious associations but compellingly evocative - re-defining the notion of cinematic music into something almost tangible in three dimensions

Take, for instance, the heart-stopping 15 minute epic "Treetop Drive 1", recorded a staggering 11 years ago and sounding unlike anything else I've ever heard - epic cinematic strings and electronic manipulations that ebb and flow like the ocean, like the slowness of breath as you slip into unconsciousness. I'd have paid the price of admission for this track alone. "Cloudchamber", meanwhile, sounds like the end of the world - a dense mass of quiet destruction and beautifully hushed decay that words can hardly do justice to.

An incredible object of desire that's had me completely absorbed for several days now - this collection is a must for anyone interested in the kind of music made for the early hours, just before the world comes to life. A huge recommendation.

***

Housed in a matte black box devoid any significant markings and packaged in digipacks of nearly the same quality, the Deathprod boxset looms like a mini-monolith from the movie "2001". One could even view it as a sort of visual representation of Sten's famous "audio virus," a black box (hole) that swallows pure sound and releases it somewhere, anywhere in a completely altered form.

Out of the 4CDs in the set, I'd have to say that my favorites are easily "Treetop Drive" and "Morals And Dogma," but there are so many great moments located within the set that it's hard to pick them all out.

As mentioned above, this is deep, dark listening, and even though this is what many would consider minimal music, there's by no means a shortage of things going on within.

This will be on my year-end list.

***

This 4CD box set is cloaked in blackness, so the design team of Kim Hiorthøy and Deathprod himself didn't exactly have to perform much in the way of graphic tinkering. The Norwegian producer and sonic manipulator's music could be viewed as similarly simplistic, at least on the superficial surface. But upon repeated hearings, the ears start to dwell on the rich layers of his source material manipulations.

Listeners think of Helge Sten (for that is the name Deathprod was born with) as an electronic musician, and he certainly seems more inclined this way when performing with the Supersilent quartet. Sten's own work tends to grow from markedly acoustic matter, transformed via a detailed process of microscopic analysis.

Deathprod records at his Audio Virus Lab, in Oslo. His equipment is often home-made, and his cheap samplers are cobbled together with vintage tape echo machines and ring modulators, allowing him a hands-on relationship with his sonic material.

Three of these four albums have already been made available between 1991 and 2000, although they're very scarce on the racks nowadays. The fourth (Morals And Dogma) contains material spanning the years 1996-2000, and will receive a separate release in January 2005.

The four Reference Frequencies pieces were recorded live onto cassette, sounding like a more rugged extension of Fripp & Eno's No Pussyfooting work. Repeated honks suggest a dank port, with breathy echoes bouncing down a fluted tunnel of sound. "Treetop Drive" makes an orchestrated swelling, with Sten joined by violinist Hans Magnus Ryan. Deathprod homes in on the scraping minutiae, matching it with his swollen mass. Development is very gradual...

Ole Henrik Moe is Deathprod's other violin foil, and on Imaginary Songs From Tristan Da Cunha, he's captured on wax cylinder, then re-converted to digital, like an ancient found recording, boxed-in and warbling. Morals And Dogma strips back to sheer minimalism once more, layering drones that grow out of violin and harmonium, invoking the acknowledged influence of Popol Vuh, Werner Herzog's chief soundtrackers. The gathering thunder is very subtle, rumbling with low choral mimicry.

For those who have only heard Deathprod within the cataclysmic setting of Supersilent, this box offers the chance to sink into a slower stratum, savouring spaced-out events and marvelling at almost imperceptible shifts.

More reviews can be found here.


This collection can be purchased online through the record label Rune Grammofon or through the following distributors:

Norway: Musikkoperatørene
Italy: Wide
Germany: Cargo
France: Differ-ant
Poland: Multikulti
UK and rest of Europe: Cargo
USA and Canada: Forced Exposure
Taiwan: Node
Australia: Fuse
Japan: Bomba Records

• Deathprod ‎- Deathprod Box Set (2004) - 320 Kbps

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Invisible Pyramid: Elegy Box

Pity the poor reviewer (yours truly) faced with the task of reviewing a 6 CD compilation set -- in this case, that's about 8 hours of music. The ordinary strategy of listening through several times, getting a feel, working it all out...so much for that. No, this is an overwhelming object before me, the monolith of drone.

While there are disadvantages to this release, not to mention impracticalities, you've gotta hand it to the Last Visible Dog label to even contemplate the thing, let alone pull it off. In terms of advantages, bands are given a substantial amount of time in which to frolic and drone, either by offering several tracks or by pulling out the stops and contributing a huge slab of sound that's sometimes more than twenty minutes long. For most of these bands, having the space to stretch is almost necessary to activate their inner selves. Let's face it, three-minute drones don't quite work, do they?

The list of contributors is, of course, endless, including such recognizables as Birchville Cat Motel, Avarus, Bardo Pond, Up-Tight, Ashtray Navigations, Loren Chasse, Steven R. Smith, Keijo, Fursaxa, Miminokoto, and, yes, naturally even more. If you're familiar with the lesser-known folks, such as Seht, Area C, Renato Rinaldi, and Sunken, you're probably already planning to get this set.

Not content to merely collect the sounds therein, this compilation is also a bit of a concept album. Like the label's previous Invisible Pyramid collection, this one is to some extent dedicated to the writings of naturalist Loren Eiseley, with each artist's contribution specifically dedicated to an extinct species, each of which are described in the booklet (which also contains a rather long-winded essay).

There's really no point in picking specific tracks to describe here, since there are so damn many. The sound generally range from subterranean to hauntingly untethered, with even the "rock bands" not rocking so much as reverberating through Velvet caverns. The more experimental achieve valleys more than peaks, in the head-space where murk is a welcome feeling and it's best to wait until evening to unwrap the thing.

So sit yourself down with a cup of something dark and let it unroll. By the time it's over, the sun will be coming up and you really won't be ready for it, but there's a price to pay for everything, I suppose.

• Invisible Pyramid: Elegy Box (2005) - 130-316 Kbps

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David Michael - El Yunque

We all have our own preconceived notions of what a rainforest should sound like, even if we’ve never actually visited one. Film, television, audio publications and images all contribute to the formation of these sonic identities in our mind. Preconception is at the heart of ‘El Yunque’, a wonderful new release from field recordist David Michael. For over two hours we are treated to an uninterrupted recording of Puerto Rico’s El Yunque National Forest after dark. The content is fairly simple – insects and frogs dominate the soundscape throughout – but this in no way lessens the quality or appeal of the piece. In fact, I think the steady temperament of the recording, together with the subtle variations in sound as we move through the night into daybreak, create a rich and soothing atmosphere that is a real pleasure to experience.

In the accompanying notes to ‘El Yunque’, Michael speaks about his personal preconceptions when approaching this recording project. He also mentions his initial disappointment with the final recording, referring to it as a “total travesty”. The recording he came away with was unexpected because it didn’t represent the sounds of “his” rainforest. As listeners we also draw on other sources and our own formulised ideas of how something should sound. For me, the 2012 Gruenrekorder release ‘Sempervirent’ by Rodolphe Alexis is an example of approaching field recordings with a predetermined idea of what to expect. Having heard other publications that focused on Costa Rican rainforests, I expected to hear the same kind of atmosphere. In fact, I was surprised. ‘Sempervirent’, as with El Yunque’, presented another, perhaps more realistic, take on what a rainforest actually sounds like, thereby encouraging us to re-evaluative the way we, as listeners, approach a supposedly familiar subject.

The length of ‘El Yunque’ is not really conducive to prolonged, concentrated listening, but that is not an issue because the publication works so well as a background piece. There is enough detail to keep your ear interested, but not too much so that you become distracted from whatever you happen to be doing at the time (cataloguing African bird recordings in my case). Michael has mastered this kind of sustained listening experience – as with his beautiful track ‘Midnight with a Visitor and Coyote’ (Frick Pond, Fieldcraft Records 2011), he successfully manages to avoid any monotony through careful yet seemingly minimal editing.

The foreground is the dominant element of ‘El Yunque’ but pay attention to the background and other middle-distance elements that occasionally drift into view. Barking dogs, crowing roosters and forest birds that come and go through the night are accompanied by the distant sounds of passing cars and faint cheering from a nearby boxing match. Even the gentle snores of our field recordist don’t escape the microphone!‘

El Yunque’ is another great success for both David Michael and the brilliant netlabel Impulsive Habitat’, who consistently produce free releases of the very highest calibre. It’s encouraging and inspiring to see some of the finest names in this field dedicate their efforts to producing phonographic works that are freely available to anyone who wants to listen. This latest addition is just another good reason to lose yourself in the Impulsive Habitat catalogue.

When I made this recording I was deeply disappointed at the results. At a campsite on the edge of the El Yunque national forest in Puerto Rico, I had held vigil all night with my recorder, attempting to capture the long sweep of the nighttime choruses of coqui. Along with the sounds of frogs and insects, the neighborhood surrounding my campsite drifted up the mountainside and into my microphones. Cars navigated the winding roads, people cheered a boxing match, and dogs barked at the night. At daybreak, a chorus of roosters. Occasionally I fell asleep, only to wake myself up with a snore. For the nature recording I had expected to make, it was a total travesty. These were not the sounds of the rainforest. For the nature recording that I hope to make today, I am not sure I could have planned it any better. These are the sounds of the rainforest. This recording then is about preconceptions.
-David Michael

• David Michael - El Yunque (2012) - 269 Kbps

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Arrigo Lora-Totino

Arrigo Lora-Totino (Torino, Italia, 1928) is a poet, a performer, a writer, an artist and a publisher. Both a major pioneer in European concrete and sound poetry and a key figure in Italian experimental poetry. Author of numerous essays on visual and sound poetry, Totino was a man of extreme inventiveness. He has developed the Idrornegafono, a rotating horn allowing a projection of the speaker's voice in a 360 degree circle; or the hydromegaphone used in a series of Liquid poems in which the voice is sounded through water.

• 1983 - Edizioni Di Polipoesia Numero 1 [with Henri Chopin] - 192 Kbps
• 2001 - Fonemi - 192 Kbps
• 2004 - ALT, La voix dynamisée - 256 Kbps

See also compilations with Arrigo's participation:

• 1989 - Futura: Poesia Sonora - 80-192 Kbps
• 2001 - Poesia Sonora - 192 Kbps
• 2006 - Text-Sound Compositions: A Stockholm Festival - 192 Kbps

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Belong

Born in the dense heat of New Orleans, Louisiana, Belong is a collaborative effort between Turk Dietrich and Michael Jones, whose debut album, October Language, goes beyond traditional song structure to a place where melodic figures blur, and textures are gorgeously sculpted into an ocean of sound. Belong began on the WestBank of New Orleans in 2002, but it was not until 2004 that October Language was made. The album was assembled, composed, and produced in Dietrich's bedroom studio; however, the inspiration for the songs goes well beyond the walls. The album encapsulates their hometown of New Orleans, at once bathed in sunlight and colors, yet dripping in decay and a rich sadness. It is a record that attempts to display the beauty in things that are worn, decayed or destroyed.

Following in the tradition of bands like My Bloody Valentine and Gas, guitars, synths and other musical sources are wrenched from their typical tones, revealing themselves in bright shards of distortion. Melodies are similarly enveloped in a sort of aural atrophy, forever repeating their blurring calls. At the end, all that remains is a noise so potent it leaves the sonic equivalent of the sun's imprint on a retina.

Turk Dietrich has previously collaborated with Telefon Tel Aviv's Joshua Eustis under the name Benelli, whose remix of Nine Inch Nails' "The Frail (version)" is found on the acclaimed NIN EP Things Falling Apart. Eustis played a small part in the production of October Language, in addition to playing slide guitar on the album's title track.

• 2006 - October Language - 320 Kbps
• 2006 - Tour EP - 320 Kbps
• 2008 - Same Places (Slow Version) - 320 Kbps
• 2008 - Colorloss Record - 320 Kbps
• 2011 - Common Era - 320 Kbps

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Ryoichi Kurokawa

Japanese artist, born in 1978, lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Kurokawa’s works take on multiple forms such as installation works, recordings, and concert pieces. He composes the time sculpture with the field recordings and the digital generated structures, and reconstructs architecturally the audiovisual phenomenon. In recent years, his works are shown at international festivals and museums including Tate Modern [UK], Venice Biennale [IT], Transmediale [DE], and Sonar [ES]. In 2010, he was awarded the Golden Nica at Prix Ars Electronica in the Digital Musics & Sound Art category.

• 2003 - Copynature - 320 Kbps
• 2004 - Live at Sonar 2004 [with Ryuichi Sakamoto] - 224 Kbps
• 2004 - Mix Form - 320 Kbps
• 2004 - Read - 320 Kbps
• 2016 - Sirens [with Novi_sad] - 320 Kbps

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Lisa o Piu

When This Was the Future (2009)

This is the debut full-length release by Sweden's Lisa Isaksson and her band Lisa o Piu. Raised in a small town on the outskirts of Stockholm, she spent most of her time drawing sketches in horse stables. Later, these horse drawings would become song lyrics accompanied by her mother's old guitar, recorded on a 4-track. Through the years, she eventually formed the band Piu together with her school buddies, and their first single was released in Scotland in 2007. The single got a lot of good reviews and Lisa and Piu gave a couple of concerts on the British Isles as well as home in Stockholm. They also had the opportunity to perform with the British folk musician Roger Wootton who led the legendary acid-folk band Comus during the early 1970s. The performances went so well that they were released as a live album. As summer came and turned Sweden into a green and pleasant place again, the core members of Piu went to a small cottage in the beautiful archipelago north of Stockholm and recorded what was to become When This Was The Future. The album is filled with delicious and bewitching woodland folk hymnals, eloquent yet eerie, and led by Lisa's gossamer vocals, as delicate as a wavering candle flame. The album is produced by Mattias Gustavsson (Life On Earth!/Dungen), and it somehow divinely conjures the essence of Linda Perhacs, Bridget St. John, Joni Mitchell, Sandy Denny, Vashti Bunyan, and Joanna Newsom into one singular siren, but with a thoroughly unique, thoroughly haunting delivery.

Lisa Isaksson (vocals, guitar, flute, piano, percussion), Anders Engqvist (accordion, percussion, clarinet), David Svedmyr (electric guitar, 12-string guitar, bass pedals, mellotron, percussion), Joel Munther (bass, acoustic guitar, vocals), Jennie Ståbis (vocals, melodica, percussion), Maria Lagerlöf (vocals, flute, percussion)

Lisa O Piu may be lagging a few years behind the prime of the psych-folk revival but their debut album When This Was The Future is another gem that’s worthy of comparisons to venerable oldies like Vashti Bunyan and Linda Perhacs, as well as their musical descendants Fern Knight and Joanna Newsom. But this is not New Weird America; Lisa O Piu are a Swedish quintet fronted by the captivating Lisa Isaksson. The Latin word “Più” roughly translates to “more”, while the O (short for “och”, the Swedish word for “and”) is a hangover from Lisa’s solo project Lisa O Lillportan, “lillportan” being a colloquial word for her four-track recorder. Her first recording, Cantering, was one of those excruciatingly limited CD-Rs that went out of print so fast that most people didn’t even have time to blink. There were 30 copies made. We’re not even kidding. But even if we never get to hear it, Cantering certainly set the agenda, not least with laying bare Lisa’s lifetime passion for horses.

Following the release of their debut single, ‘Waves, Whisperers, Hunters & Sailors’ (popular in Scotland, apparently), Lisa and her friends ventured to an archipelago north of Stockholm to start work on When This Was The Future with the midnight sun snapping at their consciousness. The flawless production comes from Dungen’s Mattias Gustavsson, who succeeds in bringing out the best and most chilling elements of Lisa’s delicate voice. The album is already out in Sweden; Subliminal Sounds will do the honours in the UK on October 26th.

Alan Pedder, "Wears The Trousers Magazine"

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Behind The Bend (2010)

Brand new album from this bewitching Swedish folk siren and her band. This is the follow up to last years critically acclaimed debut album “When this was the future”*. : Few of psych-folk's recent exponents have come close to matching the debut from Lisa Isaakson... Narnian harmonies and an air of wintry wonderment defy you not to give yourself wholly to what you're hearing" THE TIMES 5/5 . "Between Vashti Bunyan's innocence and Sandy Denny's knowingness, Linda Perhacs' hippy spells and Espers' retro folk sorcery... on this evidence, northern European pagan psych-folk is alive and well" MOJO
To get inspiration for the creation of the new album “Behind the Bend” Lisa spent time in a small cottage located deep in the vast woods of Vastmanland, Sweden, where she enjoyed the last breath of the summer. Every evening she and David walked further in to the woods to an old rowing boat that lay on the edge of a forest lake. In the light of the magically ever glowing Swedish summer midnight sun they paddled across the lake and then further along a forest creek with lush green trees that hangs down over the fresh running water and water lilies. This is the kind of set and setting where you travel into another world….and they did. The initial recordings were made under a vaulted blue ceiling with gold stars in the old 15th century timber church of Hjulsjo, Sweden. The new album is filled with delicious and bewitching watery woodland folk hymnals, eloquent yet eerie. The harp has been given more space, the violin plays a greater role, the twelve-stringed guitar plays graceful melodies and all is led by Lisa's gossamer vocals, as delicate as a wavering candle flame. Come along for the ride.

more reviews

• 2009 - When This Was The Future - 320 Kbps
• 2010 - Behind The Bend - 320 Kbps

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Pauline Oliveros

Composer Pauline Oliveros is a maverick in the field of electronic music. Oliveros’ first instrument was the accordion; as a teenager in Texas she played in a 100-piece accordion group that appeared at the rodeo. In 1949 she entered the University of Houston, but in 1952 transferred to San Francisco State College. Oliveros studied music privately with Robert Erickson and began to associate with a loose confederation of like-minded composers; Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Morton Subotnick among them. Oliveros was among the first composers to participate when Subotnick and Ramon Sender founded the San Francisco Tape Center in 1961, and served as the Center’s director in the first year following its move to Mills College (1966-1967). Some of the pieces Oliveros created in the 1960s, such as Bye Bye Butterfly (1965) and I of IV (1966; created at the University of Toronto) are acknowledged as classics of electronic music. From the beginning Oliveros was not greatly interested in electronic tape and its manipulation, preferring to explore real-time electronics, interactivity, and the use of delays.

In the early ’70s Oliveros began to amplify the theatrical aspect of her works, in addition to incorporating elements of her growing interests in spirituality and meditation. This touched off a series of pieces that emphasized intuition and consciousness among large masses of people.

American Composer, performer and author, born 1932. In the early '60s, Oliveros — with Morton Subotnick and Ramon Sender — formed the San Francisco Tape Music Center, and, there, she began her pioneering work with electronics and tape. In performances, Pauline Oliveros uses an accordion which has been re-tuned in two different systems of her just intonation in addition to electronics to alter the sound of the accordion. Throughout the years, she has developed the Extended Instrument System (EIS), a sophisticated setup of digital signal processors designed for use in live performances. Examples of her use of the system can be heard on recordings by the Deep Listening Band.

The Deep Listening Band was founded in 1988 by Pauline Oliveros, (accordionist, electronics and composer), Stuart Dempster, (trombonist, didjeridu player and composer) and Panaiotis (vocalist, electronics and composer). David Gamper (keyboards and electronics) replaced Panaiotis in 1990.

The band is named after Oliveros' term, concept, program and registered servicemark of the Deep Listening Institute, Ltd., Deep Listening, and specializes in performing and recording in resonant or reverberant spaces such as cathedrals and huge underground cisterns including the two million gallon Fort Worden Cistern which has a 45 second reverberation time.

They have collaborated with Ellen Fullman and her Long String Instrument with Suspended Music released by Periplum Records, Joe McPhee Quartet with Unquenchable Fire released by Deep Listening. They have also performed, recorded, and released a trope on John Cage's 4'33". Non Stop Flight released by Music&Arts in a 70 minute excerpt from the 4 hours and 33' trope.

• 1978 - Pathways to Grandmothers - 128 Kbps
• 1982 - Accordion & Voice - 320 Kbps
• 1984 - The Wanderer - 320 Kbps
• 1985 - The Well And The Gentle - 320 Kbps
• 1988 - The Roots of The Moment - 320 Kbps
• 1989 - Deep Listening [with Stuart Dempster & Panaiotis (Peter Ward)] - 320 Kbps
• 1990 - Crone Music - 320 Kbps
• 1990 - Troglodyte's Delight [Deep Listening Band] - 320 Kbps
• 1991 - The Ready Made Boomerang [Deep Listening Band] - 320 Kbps
• 1994 - In Memoriam, Mr. Whitney / St. George and the Dragon - 320 Kbps
• 1995 - Sanctuary [Deep Listening Band] - 320 Kbps
• 1995 - Tosca Salad [Deep Listening Band] - 320 Kbps
• 1997 - Suspended Music [Deep Listening Band & The Long String Instrument] - 320 Kbps
• 1997 - Alien Bog (1967) / Beautiful Soop (1966) - 320 Kbps
• 1997 - Electronic Works - 320 Kbps
• 1998 - Ghostdance - 320 Kbps
• 1998 - Non-Stop Flight [Deep Listening Band] - 320 Kbps
• 1999 - Primordial/Lift - 320 Kbps
• 1999 - Springs [with Andrew Deutsch] - 320 Kbps
• 1999 - Summer Bugs [with Andrew Deutsch] - 320 Kbps
• 1999 - At The Ijsbreker, Jan 24, 1999 [with David Gamper] - 320 Kbps
• 2000 - Pauline Oliveros in the Arms of Reynols - 192 Kbps
• 2000 - Live At The Meridian [The Circle Trio] - 320 Kbps
• 2001 - No Mo - 320 Kbps
• 2003 - A Little Noise In The System - 320 Kbps
• 2003 - The Space Between With Joëlle Léandre [The Space Between] - 192 Kbps
• 2003 - The Space Between with Matthew Sperry [The Space Between] - 192 Kbps
• 2004 - Tara's Room: Two Meditations on Transition and Change - 320 Kbps
• 2007 - Koto Accordion [with Miya Masaoka] - 320 Kbps
• 2007 - Timeless Pulse Quintet - 320 Kbps
• 2008 - The Beauty of the Steel Skeleton / Drifting Depths [with Eleh] - 320 Kbps
• 2008 - Four electronic pieces 1959-1966 - 320 Kbps
• 2010 - Attention Patterns [with Eliane Radigue, Yoshi Wada & Sun Circle] - 320 Kbps
• 2011 - Accordion To Bass [with Mike Bullock] - 128 Kbps
• 2011 - Quartet For The End Of Space [with Francisco López, Doug Van Nort & Jonas Braasch] - 192 Kbps
• 2011 - To Valerie Solanas And Marilyn Monroe In Recognition Of Their Desperation - 192 Kbps
• 2012 - Reverberations: Tape & Electronic Music 1961-1970 - 320 Kbps
• 2012 - The Dunrobin Session [with Jesse Stewart] - 320 Kbps
• 2012 - Solo Concert 2001 - 192 Kbps
• 2014 - phase-transitions [Triple Point] - 192 Kbps

See also compilations with Pauline's participation:

• 1967 - Extended Voices - 320 Kbps
• 1977 - Women in Electronic Music - 320 Kbps
• 1979 - New Music, New York 1979 - 256 Kbps
• 1992 - Utopia Americana - 192 Kbps
• 1997 - Driftworks - 230-320 Kbps
• 1999 - RiverRun - Ars Acustica: Voicings / Soundscapes (WDR Studio Akustische Kunst 1970 - 1997) - 320 Kbps
• 2000 - Immersion - 217-282 Kbps
• 2000 - OHM: The Early Gurus Of Electronic Music 1948 - 1980 - 320 Kbps
• 2002 - An Anthology of Noise & Electronic Music: First A-Chronology 1921-2001 - 320 Kbps
• 2002 - 45'18'' (9 versions of 4'33") - 320 Kbps
• 2002 - The Wire: 20 Years 1982-2002: Audio Issue - 320 Kbps
• 2002 - soundCd no. 1 - 320 Kbps
• 2003 - Music From The ONCE Festival 1961-1966 - 320 Kbps
• 2007 - Liquid Architecture 8 - 200-282 Kbps
• 2009 - 14 Tracks Of Early Electronic Music - 320 Kbps
• 2009 - 14 Tracks Of Rendered Silence - 320 Kbps
• 2010 - Music For Merce 1952-2009 - 320 Kbps
• 2010 - The Harmonic Series: A Compilation Of Musical Works In Just Intonation - 320 Kbps
• 2011 - Angelica. Live in Bologna: 08.05.2011 Teatro San Leonardo - 320 Kbps

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