Herbal International

1103 Goh Lee Kwang:::: 反之亦然 _, and Vice Versa

2011-12-11T18:59:00.001-08:00

1. jUctIOn 01:46

2. wEIghtOfwAx 37:28

3. AclOsErlOOkOnwhItE 04:39

4. tOuchpOInt 00:29

5. wEIghtOfdUst 15:07

6. EndlEss 04:48

Audio CD, 6 panels digipak

60 minutes+

Release date: 10 December 2011

12 Euros + shipping

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Review(s):

Vital Weekly

Yesterday I fell asleep while playing this new CD by Goh Lee Kwang, which in the world of John Cage is probably a compliment. It happened during the long piece 'Weightifwax', which is curious ambient piece for electronic insects and mild feedback like sounds. An excellent piece I think. Not because I fell asleep, but something I noted when fully awake. Its not easy to say what Goh Lee Kwang is doing here, in relation to what I heard previously by him - turntable and no-input mixer - but the general quiet mood worked excellent. As said its a long piece, well over thirty-seven minutes, after which 'Touchpoint' works as a nasty wake-up call. Although not as noisy as some of his previous work, this loud block of high pitched sounds, nervous, is not so much my cup of tea. The other main tour de force, although 'just' fifteen minutes, is 'Weightofdust', which is even more subdued and sounds like metal wires being played which an extended use of reverb, pushed to the far end quiet side of the sound spectrum. 'Endless' closes down the CD with a strange bouncing rhythm that slows down over the course of the piece, and is a bit like a cover version of Alvin Lucier's 'Clocker'. Plus there are two more pieces that are so short they go by hardly noticed. Without that 'Touchpoint' intermission, I think this is by far the best work I heard from Goh Lee Kwang. A great variety in approaches to sound material, resulting in some very fine and refined music. Maybe a bit more info on the cover wouldn't do no harm though.

- Frans De Waard -

1102-2 Pascal Battus:::: Simbol / L'Unique Trait D' Pinceau

2011-06-03T20:27:00.000-07:00

Simbol is a composition realised with recordings of cymbals, using specific techniques which enable me to sustain the sound and allow pure frequencies selected from the cymbals' upper partials to emerge.

The pieces on L’unique trait de pinceau are close in spirit to improvisation, recordings often made at home in the heat of discovery, with no particular project in mind. Instant writings, unrefined yet complete and more or less unadulterated.

Simbol and L'Unique Trait de Pinceau differ at both the formal and conceptual level - though chance plays an important role in both - but are in the same heuristic vein regarding the notion of sounding gesture and the question of the instrument. A whole host of tools, détournés, taken apart or extended, pushed to their limits, their identity as instruments no longer clear.

Operational chains often present themselves in the act of playing, which, by dint of their complex synergy and the innumerable parameters involved, provide a margin of indeterminacy sufficiently wide to cause the excessive and the delightful unforeseen.

Gesture before it becomes action is an opening onto the moment and its potential, furthermore, by not working with the same tools, stable and controlled, I'm forced to find and reinvent gestures I can use, which inevitably lead to accidents and events that take me by surprise.

Simbol has been played, recorded, assembled and mastered by Pascal Battus between November 2008 and June 2009.

L’Unique Trait d’ Pinceau has been recorded and mastered between December 2007 and September 2009.

Special thanks to Frederic Blondy, Edward Perraud , Dan Warburton, Les Instants Chavirés.

Disc 1 :Simbol
1 Limb
2 Mobil
3 Soil

A work based on specific sustained cymbals recordings

Disc 2: L'Unique Trait D' Pinceau
1 L'Unique Trait D'1
2 Percussion Verticale
3 L'Unique Trait D'2
4 Percussion Horizontale
5 Bouteille Magnétique

Outlaw sounds played out of composition nor improvisation view.

2 x Audio CD
140 minutes+
Release date: June 2011
18 Euros + shipping

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Related resources:
Also by Pascal Battus
Jean Luc-Guionnet / Pascal Battus: Toc Sine

Geographically connected
Eric Cordier / Seijiro Murayama: Nuit
Eric La Casa: W2
Jean-Luc Guionnet: Non Organic Bias
Eric Cordier: Osorezan

Review(s):
Vital Weekly
Work by Pascal Battus, as reviewed in Vital Weekly, is usually recorded in combination with others, for Battus is someone with a background in improvisation. His work is with people like Alfredo Costa Monteiro, Christine Shenaoui Abdelnour, Michael Johnsen or Jean-Luc Guionnet (to dig out some old Vital Weekly reviews). I am never sure what its that Battus, but on the first disc, ‘Simbol’, he realized recordings with ‘cymbals, using specific techniques which enable me to sustain the sound and allow pure frequencies selected from the cymbals’ upper partials to emerge’. The three pieces which result from this are excellent pieces of singing cymbals: rich in overtones, but without gliding into mediocre drones. Battus rubs against the skin of the listener, with occasional noise outbursts, high pierced tones, as well as singing bowls like chimes, and deep end bass sounds of the bigger cymbals. This is an excellent first disc.
The second disc is ‘close in spirit to improvisation, recordings often made at home in the heat of discovery, with no particular project in mind. Instant writings, unrefined yet complete and more or less unadulterated’. No instruments are mentioned for this disc and there are five pieces here. As said, no particular instruments. I think ‘Bouteille Magnetique’ is with a guitar. For the four other pieces its almost impossible to tell. I listen very carefully, and don’t know. Throughout this second disc, save for that guitar piece, a lot more noisy and direct than ‘Simbol’. I scribbled ‘tortured tuba’ for the first track. I really liked ‘Bouteille Magnetique’, but the other four pieces are a bit too improvised for my taste, and make this second disc more into a sort of bonus disc to the great ‘Simbol’ disc. Not bad, I’d say. One and a half great disc.
- Frans De Waard -

Improv-Sphere
Pour ce double CD publié par le label malaisien Herbal International, l'artiste Pascal Battus nous livre deux albums assez différents mais, selon les notes du musicien, guidés par le même geste heuristique. Ce geste consiste en une exploration électroacoustique du son, faite entre autres de détournements d'instruments, de sélections de fréquences, et de techniques étendues.

Ainsi, le premier album, Simbol, réunit trois pièces basées sur l'utilisation de la cymbale. Pascal Battus utilise des enregistrements de cymbales et sélectionne des fréquences pures et des harmoniques stables issues de ces enregistrements. Sur ces trois magnifiques pièces, les frontières sont complètement brouillées entre l'électronique et l'acoustique: on reconnait autant les cymbales que l'impossibilité d'obtenir naturellement un tel son, mais aussi entre l'improvisation et la composition: si l'évolution paraît spontanée, l'organisation des sons n'en semble pas moins nécessaire. Une technique surprenante qui nous amène dans un territoire très riche, entre noise et minimalisme, où la texture prend une ampleur et une profondeur démesurées et envoutantes. Car Pascal Battus sait disséquer le son avec une habileté singulière et surprenante, les fréquences choisies sont très justement sélectionnées et très intelligemment agencées. L'échantillonnage du son prend très vite une dimension spatiale et architecturale, les différentes textures sonores qui se succèdent, s'opposent et s'enchevêtrent, se soutiennent et se confrontent, se déploient toujours de manière optimale et atteignent dans ce déploiement une dimension sacrée et rituelle. Il y a comme une teinte de mysticisme et de spiritualité dans cet album, comme si ce geste heuristique était motivé par une sorte de panthéisme sonore ritualisé à travers une sacralisation du timbre.

Le deuxième CD, L’Unique Trait D'Pinceau, réunit cinq pièces beaucoup plus hétérogènes, mais aussi plus confuses et moins réussies. Les notes ne précisent pas quels instruments ou procédés sont utilisés, et il est souvent très difficile d'identifier les sources sonores: qu'elles soient mécaniques, numériques, acoustiques. Les frontières sont encore plus brouillées entre les différentes manières d'obtenir, de travailler et de créer un son quelconque. Par contre, les cinq pièces sont beaucoup plus clairement axées sur l'improvisation en tant que réaction spontanée, Battus prend des risques,explore et travaille de nombreux univers sonores de manière très singulière et personnelle, à travers des vents, des percussions, une guitare, des installations, et il semble réagir à un résultat incertain ou même inattendu parfois. Beaucoup moins profond que Simbol, ce deuxième disque réunit certainement trop de matières, ou bien travaille des idées floues pour l'auditeur. Ceci-dit, il y a des moments très riches, telle la première pièce qui explore un son proche d'un cuivre extraterrestre dans un jeu de dynamismes plutôt intense, ou la dernière qui travaille l'interaction entre le timbre de la guitare, le silence et le larsen, ces trois éléments étant apparemment indépendants l'un de l'autre durant cette piste. Mais ce qui se trouve entre ces deux pièces est plutôt inégal, parfois même ennuyeux, le ton n'est pas toujours assuré, et la recherche sonne comme un travail incertain, mal assumé. Pendant ces pièces, j'ai souvent été frustré, car il y a de nombreuses trouvailles riches et passionnantes, mais elles sont malheureusement trop peu développées et ne prennent pas assez de consistance, hormis sur la dernière piste.

Comme Frans de Waard (Vital Weekly 786), on peut prendre le deuxième disque comme un bonus, car il est certain que Simbol est LE véritable bijou de cette publication, un chef d’œuvre d'une profondeur et d'une richesse hors du commun, qui sait développer et déployer une texture sonore de manière abyssale grâce à des outils et des procédés assez réduits. Du coup, je trouve vraiment dommage que l'inventivité et le talent de Pascal Battus perdent en consistance durant L'Unique Trait D'Pinceau, aussi riche qu'évanescent. Difficile d'écrire sur ces pièces, un premier disque magnifique et merveilleux, proche de la perfection, et un deuxième groupe de pièces très originales certes, mais plutôt appauvries par des réflexes spontanées, par cette spontanéité à laquelle Battus accorde certainement trop d'importance. En tout cas, je recommande vraiment l'écoute de ce disque, au moins le premier, qui nous offre un paysage sonore absolument splendide, intense, spirituel, chaleureux, aventureux et inventif.
- Julian Heraud -

Monsieur Delire
Cet album double de l’artiste sonore Pascal Battus propose deux pièces
très différentes. “Simbol” est une fascinante œuvre faites
d’enregistrements de cymbales – trois mouvements de délices
harmoniques. “L’Unique trait d’ pinceau” propose cinq parties beaucoup
plus bruitistes, un bruit entre le grattement et la râclement, pas
agréable du tout, exploré sous ses diverses facettes et entremêlés de
pauses équivoques. J’ai beaucoup aimé le premier disque, très peu le
second.

This double CD set from sound artist Pascal Battus features two highly
different works. “Simbol” is a fascinating piece made with cymbal
recordings – three movements of partial delights. The five-part
“L’Unique trait d’ pinceau” is much more noisy, in a range between a
scratching sound and gritty sound, not enjoyable at all, and explored
in all its aspects, with equivocal pauses interspersed. I really liked
disc 1, but disliked disc 2.
- François Couture -

11XX Goh Lee Kwang:::: The Lost Testimony of Rashomon

2011-01-15T00:39:00.000-08:00

Choreographed by Yukio Waguri (JP) & Lee Swee Keong (MY)
Original composition & sound by Goh Lee Kwang (MY).

1. Rain
2. The Spirit of Rashomon (excerpt, vbr mp3)
3. Masago - Extorting A Confession
4. The Witches
5. The Hair Stealer
6. The Judge (excerpt, vbr mp3)
7. Rashomon Stuck by Lighting

Audio CD, 6 panels digipak
50 minutes+
Release date: Jan 2011
12 Euros + shipping

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Review(s):

Cyclic Defrost

Music for a multimedia stage production loosely based on Rashomon, a short story about moral ambiguity written in 1915 but based on a thousand-year-old tale from a Japanese collection of thousand-year-old tales. It is far more well-known and celebrated around the world as a classic film by Akira Kurosawa, though he borrowed only the name and a fragment for his story about the subjectivity of memory.

Kuala Lumpur-based Goh Lee Kwang is one of southeast Asia´s most fascinating and prolific multimedia artists. He produced this score for Nyoba Kan, a postmodern dance company that ”showcases ugliness and indecency, while integrating it with philosophies of yoga, Buddhism, qigong, modern dance and other forms in its ongoing meditation on inner wisdom and universal compassion and mercy”. The Lost Testimony of Rashomon proves to have a life beyond the stage, as his ambient soundtrack relates the tale with vibrant detail and great restraint – Goh is otherwise not normally shy about making quite a racket. ´Rain´ and ´The Spirit of Rashomon´ are light and beneficent, but then things turn ugly. ´Masago – Extorting a Confession´ is twelve minutes of deliciously drawn out and tortured tones, death by a thousand cuts in stereo. Goh proceeds to ingeniously harness the muscle of Anglo-European industrial music in order to conjure a coven of ´Witches´ glimpsed distantly across wastelands and through thick fog. ´The Judge´ is a pitch black, unrelenting, stentorian rebuke; finally, a thunderstorm washes it all away.

When listening to music written specifically to accompany images on stage, screen or video monitor, the original story is reduced to fleeting shadows and the music is forced to recall its own version of events. Goh´s recording succeeds admirably as a vivid parallel cinema of sound.

- Stephen Fruitman -

Monsieur Delire

Voici la musique d’un spectacle de butoh de Lee Swee-Keong. Kwang utilise ici une esthétique bruitiste pour rendre l’expressionisme du butoh, danse lente aux gestes et expressions d’un tragique suramplifié. Incidemment, approché comme une œuvre musical en soi, The Lost Testimony of Rashomon est plus expressif et varié que la plupart des autres disques de Goh Lee Kwang, parce que moins conçu en fonction d’une idée, d’un mécanisme ou d’un modèle spécifique. Bref, on a droit ici à un Kwang étonnamment lyrique, toute relativité conservée.

This is the music for a butoh performance by Lee Swee-Keong. Kwang uses noise esthetics to translate the expressionism of butoh – a slow dance with overamplified tragic gestures. Incidentally, taken as a stand-alone musical work, The Lost Testimony of Rashomon is more expressive and diverse than most of Goh Lee Kwang’s other records, because it is less designed around a specific idea, mechanism or template. In other words, this is a surprisingly lyrical side of Kwang, in all relativity.
- Francois Couture -

1101 Jason Kahn:::: Beautiful Ghost Wave

2011-01-08T05:13:00.000-08:00

The title "Beautiful Ghost Wave" occurred to me as I was composing the piece from different recordings I'd made in my studio during 2010. In order to keep track of all the working material I gave the different sound files names, and in this case "beautiful ghost wave" was one of them. This particular file struck me for the beauty of the peripheral sounds occurring, a kind of sonic aura hovering around the more central sounds in the recording. Thinking about this more I began to see this title as a model for the entire piece, where the partials of a sound, something analogous to "hearing between the sounds" (as in "reading between the lines") became the focus for my compositional choices.

Beyond all this "Beautiful Ghost Wave" is a bit of a departure for me in that it deals more with dramaturgy than other work of mine. I wanted to extend a sense of movement to the sounds and create a feeling of the piece expanding and contracting, both through dynamic modulation and an emphasis placed on spatiality in the stereo field. Although the piece retains a sense of forward movement and an allusion towards an impending resolution, I wanted the feeling for the listener to be of an open system, where the actual ending or further continuation of the piece beyond its actual cessation on the CD could be filled in, much as one fills in meaning when reading between the lines of a text.

I recorded the basic material using analog synthesizer, mixing board, contact microphones, short wave radio and electromagnetic coils. The recording was made with microphones placed in front of the loudspeakers and in the room directly behind where I was sitting, thus lending a sense of acoustics to the sounds I generated and recording my movement as I made these sounds. These recordings were then edited and used to compose with on the computer.

Jason Kahn
Zürich
December
2010

(excerpt, vbr mp3)

Audio CD, 6 panels digipak
30 minutes+
Release date: Jan 2011
12 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

Related resources:
Musically connected
Goh Lee Kwang: Good Vibrations

Review(s):
Vital Weekly
Now here's a change. Over the years we have learned to appreciate the music of Jason Kahn as something that is minimal, slowly moving music composed using percussion and analogue synthesizer. Drone like, introspective, derived from slowly unfolding improvisations - alone or in combination with others. This is not the case on 'Beautiful Ghost Wave'. Still at his disposal is the analog synthesizer but also a mixing board, contact microphones, short wave radio and electromagnetic coils. Kahn goes noise here. This thirty seven some minute work is divided into various movements (as one track), separated with acoustic rumbling - Kahn recorded this work through a microphone in front of his speakers and from the room directly behind - I assume the latter is when he uses only those. Feedback like, noise based sounds, static hiss and such like rule this work, which has a much more dramatic play than much of his previous work, if not all of his previous work. Kahn fans will be alarmed I guess. Its not the kind of blast of noise that say someone like Merzbow would do - maybe that would have been the work if it was directly taped from the mixing board - but it has a distinct different quality that makes it quite good and also different from the other trouble makers. I guess it has to do with the amount of variations Kahn employs in this work and the somewhat curious way of recording it, bringing in a certain amount of acoustic noise. An excellent work and a brave move for Kahn. Hopefully to be followed by more such work.
- Frans de Waard -

Just Outside
I've doubtless simply been missing one or more plies of Kahnian activity in the past couple of years, but recent examples of his work that I've heard show a decided step away from what I'd come to think of as his sound-world: insistent (one might say, obsessive) percussion-centered rhythms augmented by pitch-shifting devices. Along with the recent disc on balloon & needle, this one finds him more positioned in the broken electronics school, albeit with a fairly steady substratum that may indeed refer back to his earlier concerns.

Kahn, in his notes, mentions the piece having "a sense of forward movement" and indeed it does, pretty much hurtling through its length in a welter of acid-drenched electronics, scouring one's ears as it does so. It's very rapid. When it relaxes, it's with a sense of re-coiling, amassing energy for a further assault. But as with the drones above, there's always a level of detail that keeps me absorbed; I always have the sense that there's parts I'm not hearing, that remain to be discovered. That's a good thing.
- Brian Olewnick -

The Watchful Ear
Hmm, now this one has been a bit of a surprise… While certainly not uniformly the case, recent solo material by Jason Kahn has been mostly linear in form, often softly drone-like and layered. The title of this new release on the Herbal label, Beautiful Ghost Wave certainly pointed me in that direction as well, but on playing the CD I was surprised to find it a far harsher, seemingly wilder affair. In the liner notes that accompany the disc, Kahn mentions that this single thirty-seven minute track “deals more with dramaturgy than other work of mine”. Certainly while an element of the drone is still there, plenty more in the way of sudden events are present here than on Kahn’s other solo work.

The music here was constructed by Kahn on a computer using a number of soundfiles pulled together throughout 2010. While the final composition has been digitally collaged together, a range of analogue based electroacoustic elements were used to forge the source material- Kahn’s familiar analogue synth, contact mics, shortwave radio and electromagnetic coils. The sounds then are mostly not that beautiful, ghostly or wave-like and are often more ugly, direct and abrasive. Recently Kahn has been working from time to time with various members of the South Korean improv scene, and the edgy, harshly scoured textures of that small scene’s music definitely seems to inform the music here. It is indeed often quite dramatic, not only through the forceful nature of some of the more full-on, noisy sections that we are presented with but also through the sudden jump cuts that occur here and there as Kahn’s composition leaves viciously abrasive sounds hanging in mid air.

The sensation provided by the music is one of danger and nervousness. If the more gradually layered and softer finished sounds of Kahn’s more familiar work leans itself towards a more predictable, if very beautiful air, so the sounds on this CD feel erratic, on the edge of breaking down. Easy listening it certainly isn’t and in places the music touches on what might be referred to as the noise genre, with fiercely scoured fields rubbing themselves quite severely over small shrieking synth sounds and screeching feedback-esque slithers. It shifts gear frequently and abruptly, and doesn’t allow you to rest and relax while listening. Beautiful Ghost Wave is unsettlingly brash, almost bullying the listener rather than embracing them, not the kind of music to listen to on a quiet evening alone.

The move away from gradually building drones is a welcome one for me. The appropriation of the harder, often quite brutal sound palette also works well but only because it is arranged so nicely into the acutely divided, often violently juxtaposed brackets. In the past the group of Swiss improvisers that Jason Kahn was aligned with were often accused of making easy, flowing music that demanded less of the listener. I personally never saw all that much to agree with in that appraisal, but this new album blows away any doubts all the same. Bracing, bit not purely adrenalin fuelled stuff, this is a very nice and thoroughly welcome new feel to Jason Kahn’s music.
- Richard Pinnell -

Improv-Sphere
Le label malaisien de Goh Lee Kwang nous offre régulièrement des recherches électroacoustiques de qualité et originales, et le dernier Jason Kahn - Beautiful ghost wave - ne déroge pas à cette règle. Après de nombreux enregistrements teintés de minimalisme, voire de formalisme ou de conceptualisme, cette nouvelle œuvre du compositeur suisse a quelque chose de plus rude et âpre, de plus brutal et frontal. L'atmosphère toujours saturée de cette unique pièce d'une trentaine de minutes est proche des productions harsh noise par certains aspects: une matière sonore parfois très agressive et une énergie virulente. Sauf que Jason Kahn ne se contente pas de superposer un maximum de fréquences inaudibles dans le seul but de former un mur de bruit blanc censé être joué le plus fort possible, afin de faire réagir l'auditeur de manière purement physique et épidermique. Au contraire, le traitement minimaliste que Jason Kahn pratiquait antérieurement sur les matières sonores l'amène aujourd'hui à juxtaposer les sons de manière très sensible, en accordant une place capitale à leur interaction et à leur mouvement respectif. Beautiful ghost wave est tout d'abord fondée sur une seule fréquence/bourdon(-nement) qu'on peut percevoir presque sans interruption du début à la fin, puis viennent se greffer des vagues successives, hétéroclites et dissemblables qui ne s'entrechoquent qu'avec délicatesse. Car ce compositeur suisse sait apprécier les sons à leur juste valeur, il leur laisse toujours le temps de se déployer, de vivre et de s'intégrer à la structure globale du morceau; de même l'apparition de chaque évènement sonore est minutieusement déterminée afin que jamais le changement ne soit trop brusque, ou tout au moins qu'il ne noie pas ce qui se passait précédemment. Cependant, Kahn n'hésite pas non plus à utiliser de nombreux contrastes dans les timbres ainsi que des reliefs au niveau de l'intensité, plusieurs fois, tension et saturation se résolvent presque dans le silence, puis de nouveaux éléments se superposent progressivement dans un mouvement incessant et éternel (peut-être est-ce pourquoi nous ne sommes pas face à une énième production électroacoustique aussi violente que soporifique).
Une pièce vraiment intéressante, riche et créative, qui laisse place à la sensibilité quand bien même elle se meut sur un territoire d'une violence austère.
- Julien Héraud -

Monsieur Delire
Une pièce solo étonnante de la part de Jason Kahn. Il s’agit d’une construction studio à partir d’enregistrements faits à l’aide de synthé analogique, console de mixage, micros contact, radio ondes-courtes et bobines magnétiques. Aussi bruitiste qu’à son habitude, mais beaucoup plus bruyante que ses travaux d’improvisation et beaucoup moins formaliste que ses travaux de composition (comme Vanishing Point). On sent même une pointe de théâtralité dans le flot de la pièce, assez prenante. Dans le genre “orchestration de sons bruitistes”, c’est très réussi. Kahn, toujours si mesuré, fait preuve ici d’une spontanéité rare (ou du moins donne cette impression).

A surprising solo piece from Jason Kahn. This is a studio construct from recordings made using analog synth, mixing board, contact mikes, shortwave radio and magnetic coils. As noise-based as usual, but quite noisier than his free improvisation outings and a lot less formalist than his composition work (like Vanishing Point). He even dabs in drama with how the piece flows - quite gripping. In terms of “orchestration of noise sounds”, this works out really well. The always poised Kahn here displays a new level of spontaneity (or at least gives this impression).
- Francois Couture -

Music Emissions
Jason Kahn is an alchemist who seems to prefer using the radio wave as a starting ingredient for his melancholy buy meaty sounds. "Beautiful Ghost Wave" wanders in and among sounds both harsh, subtle, conceived and eavesdropped upon. For those who are either unfamiliar with ambient noise or tired of it, the emotional power of this single 37 minute song will be refreshing and inspiring.

There is the familiar variation of tone and volume, the silences used strategically, the pulse serving as a sort of rhythm section, a base for tangents and explorations common in ambient electronica or noise, but Kahn uses them in surprising ways; maybe it is the use or implied use of radio waves, a kind of found sound and field recording at once, that gives this piece an organic, slightly acoustic feel; there is a warmth and immediacy missing from similar tonal explorations. There is an artist who is being affected by the sounds being created here; this is what makes "Beautiful Ghost Wave" an emotional experience.

The recording, according to Kahn, "was made with microphones placed in front of the loudspeakers and in the room directly behind where I was sitting, thus lending a sense of acoustics to the sounds I generated and recording my movement as I made these sounds. These recordings were then edited and used to compose with on the computer." Usually such explanations are as close as electronic compositions come to a human element. Not so with Jason Kahn's latest. This has the warm, passionate feel of an artist intimate with and invested in its seemingly random tones.
- Mike Wood -

Felthat Reviews
New York-born Jason Kahn has been growing up in LA and now relocated to Zuerich, treads since 1990's the path of multi-dimensional artist revolving around sound design and sound installations derived from the colliding percussive elements which he grounded as being a percussionist himself originally with electronic sounds based on granular analogue modulations, radio frequency shifts with the edge of lo-fi DIY guerilla filtered through cautious and elaborate editing.
His work for Herbal International from Malaysia bears an imprint of losing time sequenced layering and broken loop of time continuum.
The feel and the edge to it owes a lot to Jason's past sound installations and energetic but not agressive electro-acoustic well controlled noisey improvisation.
Dense and refined through digital processing gives no chance to get bored with the composition which lasts a little bit over 40 minutes which is just exactly what I needed this morning.
- Hubert Napiórski -

1006 Zbigniew Karkowski / Kelly Churko :::: Infallibilism

2010-09-20T06:03:00.000-07:00

All Tracks recorded live
Track 1 Recorded August 12, 2008 at Super Deluxe, Nishi Azabu by Cal Lyall.
Track 2 Recorded May 3, 2008 at Soup, Ochiai by Taro Noguchi.
Track 3 Recorded September 28, 2008 at Soup, Ochiai by Taro Noguchi.
Track 4 Recorded February 8, 2009 at Roots, Keonji by in-house sound engineer .

Edited at Higashi-Nakano, Tokyo.
Mastered at C Squared, Los Angeles, California.

Thanks to www.kenaxis.com for software.

Artwork & design by Yoko.

Audio CD, 6 panels digipak
30 minutes+
Release date: Sept 2010
12 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

Review(s):
Monsieur Delire
Un disque court (30 minutes) offrant quatre pièces enregistrées à trois occasions. Un duo ultra-bruitiste - la manière de Karkowski est bien connu: un mur de bruit blanc. Mais Infallibilism est un disque coup de poing, très puissant, douloureux mais chirurgical dans ses interventions sur nos émotions et perceptions. Du solide.
A short album (30 minutes) featuring four pieces recorded on three separate occasions. An ultra-noisy duo - we all know Karkowski’s modus operandi: a wall of white noise. Infallibilism is goes straight to the guts. A very powerful record, painful but its interventions attack our feelings and perceptions with surgical precision. Strong stuff.
- Francois Couture -

Paris Transatlantic
No need to tell you who Karkowski is – anyone who's spent time listening to computerized harshness will be familiar with his no-nonsense, chip-on-a-shoulder attitude and a handful of good to almost great recordings – but I had to google to find out that Churko is a (younger) Canadian based in Japan who's worked with artists as diverse as Ilios, Tim Olive, Harris Eisenstadt and Paal Nilssen Love. Infallibilism, recorded live in Japan from May 2008 through February 2009, is exactly what you would expect: 32-plus minutes of white (grey, black and pink..) noise and crazed fragments of granular ball-gripping distortion – the lone exception being the subterranean tremors of "The Pleasure Of Interval" – with the customary threat for the ears if you try to raise the volume a bit more than necessary. Not an overly shocking record, but definitely up to standard in a genre that needs serious homework to be considered worthy of respect. Test passed.
- Massimo Ricci -

Vital Weekly
Four tracks - Track one.. "sustained pressure", very harsh (whiteish) noise overload. beautiful torrent .. two .. "subjective probability". Partly similar part disconnected hum three. "The pleasure of the interval". Begins with very low bass & volume hum and glitches building or morphing into drone gong and ending in glicthy high pitched noises. Four .., "de-vein". industrial air conditioners fairly static process of filtering to lower frequencies very unlike track 1's incoherence. All these we are told are live tracks, but makes little difference as with the exception of the first track the hand or mind, sub conscious (or not) is clearly at work, perhaps under the guise or old pretext of being "experimental" or psychological or psycho-acoustic or even 'industrial' surrealism.. there is sufficient 'surface' - as in made surface or space - authorship- to attach a label . 'Not that there is anything wrong with that' proviso added here, if you want 'music' of some sort then its to be found easily with the exception of track one. I suppose why you would want to find music is your own thing, and as such should be respected, but as someone said somewhere else - liberal toleration is a form of totalitarianism just like anything else, the failure of metaphysics was more than an act of enlightened integrity but gave the chance of religiosity to re-emerge unchallenged, as such I suppose those who prefer tracks two, three, and four should be dragged screaming from their houses and burnt alive?
- Jliat -

1005-2 Eric La Casa:::: W2 [1998-2008]

2010-03-19T07:31:00.000-07:00

"We think that we « make a journey » but soon enough it's the journey that makes – and unmakes - us." (Nicolas Bouvier, "l'usage du monde")

When I listen today to these pieces, I hear, of course, a geographic inventory of all the places I encountered. Above all, though, and as if by default, I hear the sonic journal of twelve years spent recording sound.

My relation to the sites wasn't based on a desire to « document » but it is worth noting, however, that a « sound story », more trivial perhaps, has instituted itself, expanding and commenting on my musical journey: that of a man listening.

Moreover, it has never seemed more obvious to me that listening is always situated in what I would qualify as the extreme present, that is, the instant when listening, landscape and time become one.

Bouvier was right : the more we journey, the more the journey transforms us. Fascinated by water and by wind, these agents of transformation, activators of change, became, during those twelve years, my principal, almost exclusive, subjects, wherever I happened to be. Progressively, a methodology, informed by cartography, gave my way of working a certain determinism without, however, breaking my intuitive relationship with the landscape. This also informed my conception of that which is sonic (le sonore), and its importance: being inside, at the very heart of movement. Listening, without drawing breath, led me beyond my preconceptions – and into the depths also, along with all my recording gear: I remember very well my fall into the cold water of a waterfall's plunge pool. That was in 1991...

Listening to water or to wind is to bring one's attention to bear on the perpetual motion of things, a living alchemy, the pulsing of the world.

Eric La Casa, Summer 2010

WATER
1. Les pierres du seuil part 4
2. Les pierres du seuil part 5
An exploration of the wide variety of water territories (from droplets in a cave to powerful ocean waves), in two movements, forming a single composition.
3. Les pierres du seuil part 2
At the emergence of a body of water and air, an effervescence
4. S'ombre part 1
The alchemy of water and stone, summer
5. Spirale 3
The geophony of a river : a meandering journey, marked out by windmills
6. Les oscillations part 2
Waves, oscillations .... an opening up of the landscape
7. L'Inspir du rivage part 2
Ressac... when the sea and the rocks come together

Total running time : 74 minutes

WIND
1. Dans le feuillage du lointain, la clameur d'un bruissement
At the boundary with background noise, an ineffable tumult
2. Les pierres du seuil part 6
Listening to the wind's journey through the landscape
3. Quelque chose de cela, le désert part 1-2
A distressed wind in a still life landscape
4. Les pierres du seuil part 8
A factory entrance, air expelled by machines
5. L'air au fond rouge
The density of air, a city's distant rumbling
6. Les aubes sont navrantes
A false northern landscape, cold and hostile... a drama

Total running time : 75 minutes

Credits
Water
1. (1999)
2. (1999) from "Les Pierres du seuil 4-7" CD . Edition… (USA). September 2000
3. (1998)
4. (1999) excerpts from "The stone of the threshold" CD. Groundfault Recordings (USA). November 1999
5. (2003) Unreleased. Commissioned by The River House [?] at Saint-Georges-de-Montaigu (France)
6. (2004) excerpt from "Les Oscillations part 1&2" CD. Fringes Recordings (Italia). May 2005
7. (1999) from Explorer series, 7". Production : Povertech (USA). September 1999

Wind
1. (1998) from "The sound of nature - the nature of sound" compilation. Kaon (France), July 2001
2. (2000) from "Les Pierres du seuil 4-7" CD . Edition… (USA). September 2000
3. (2000) from "Quelque chose de cela, le désert part 1-3". Collection Mémoires (France), May 1999
4. (2001) Unreleased. Originally composed for Halana magazine (USA)
5. (2001) from "Sul" compilation, a tribute to Chris Marker. Sirr.records (Portugal), June 2002
6. (2008) excerpt. Unreleased. Originally composed for Clédat & Petitpierre's performance

Locations [1994 - 2007]
France
Water
Ardèche (steps in the Pissevieille brook / rain on a car / summer rain)
Athee-sur-cher (river Cher in full spate)
Bedoues (river Tarn)
Berry (oozing in a watertank)
Bruxelles, Belgium (machine for rinsing out photographs)
Choisy-le-roy (artificial rain in an industrial zone)
Crotelles (Rain, under an umbrella / brook and brook pipe)
Darnetal (rain on container)
Dieppe (music school organ)
Dunkerque (swelling sea with lighthouse / dunes / sand in wind)
Dunkerque-Sollac (air-cooler / ore in motion)
Epeigné-sous-bois (outflows in trenches and reverberating pipes / water, air bubbles, at the edge of a field)
Grenoble (wall dripping in the 102 venue , during a soundcheck for Cellule Metamkine)
Haute-Savoie (Nant Bruyant brook / violent rain on a car)
Hennequeville ("tubular sea" / heavyflood-tide on a concrete platform)
Le Semnoz (rain falling on a small covered market)
Lozere (Gorges of the river Tarn)
Nouvellière (in a farm, rain after a storm,)
Paris (hail on window / rain and storm in inner courtyard / oozing in a tunnel / outflow in inner pipe / the Ircam anechoic chamber : hand sliding on skin and microphone in mouth ) Paris (in a cemetery, rain, under an umbrella)
Plaisians (foot in dried herbs)
Pordic (distant helicopter / wind in a cornfield )
Port Jehan (waves and peebles)
Vendée (the "Grande Maine" and "Petite Maine" rivers)

Wind
Céré-la-ronde (in a wood)
Choisy-Le-Roi (airplane flying overhead, water cleaning station : electrical waves, water-pump engines / ventilations)
Dieppe (music school : organ)
Dunkerque-Sollac (ore in motion / foundries / hot rolling mills / blast furnaces)
Epeigné-sous-bois (in an oak forest)
Hennequeville (North Sea)
Lussault-sur-loire (fir forest / grinder in the distance / a windy day in a forsaken house / a stormy )
Montlouis (a stormy night / train in the distance)
near Neuil (a forsaken farm)
Paris (Salpetriere chapel and Notre-Dame-des-champs church : organs played by Jean-Luc Guionnet / portable DAT recorder motor / Strasbourg-St-Denis metro station : electrical waves / seeds in motion)
Villeneuve-Saint-Georges (empty goods trains)

and three locations in Europe :
Water
Rovinj, Croatia (lightning / rain and storm in an inner courtyard / rain on an open window frame / along the sea shore)

Wind
Rovinj, Croatia (inner courtyard and wind under door / thirty-story tower, radio waves / strong wind in marina)
Anvers, Belgium (a pedestrian tunnel and elevator)
Dundee, Scotland (in the harbour)

2 x Audio CD
140 minutes+
Release date: November 2010
18 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

Related resources:
Also by Eric La Casa
Eric La Casa / Cédric Peyronnet: La Creuse

Geographically connected
Eric Cordier / Seijiro Murayama: Nuit
Jean-Luc Guionnet: Non Organic Bias
Eric Cordier: Osorezan

Review(s):
The Silent Ballet
April showers bring May flowers. That's what makes this time of year a perfect time to experience W2. For Americans who may be thinking, "W2 is the the name of my tax form, due April 15," there's no need to worry; this W2 is one disc of Water and one disc of Wind.
Eric La Casa has been making elemental field recordings for over a decade. Most of the tracks here have been previously released, which makes this project a sort of "greatest hits" compilation. Not that anyone is likely to say, "this 1999 track is obviously outdated; today's rain is so much better." Thankfully, the recording quality is consistent throughout. The sounds are crisp and three-dimensional, never isolated to a single speaker.
Those who are only familiar with field recordings due to relaxation tapes and sound effects are in for a surprise. The letdown of those recordings is that they manage to make nature sound bland and benign. Consider for example the various "sleep boxes", with settings for "gentle rain", "heavy rain", "wind" and "waves". Most of these are simple variations on white noise, with no discernible beginning, middle or end. The thunderstorm discs are especially maddening, reducing the EQ until the frightening becomes flat.
Now think back to some of the memorable storms of your own life: a windstorm that shook the rafters and toppled the oak in the front yard. A sudden hailstorm that dented the mailbox. A lightning storm that began with a rogue strike. A flash flood that cleared the beach. A hurricane that knocked out power, and its quiet, subtle eye. You may remember what some of these sounded like; you may wish you'd found some way to capture them.
This is exactly what La Casa manages to do, in tracks that range in length from three to twenty minutes. He records the sound of droplets in a cave, reverberating pipes, the sea by a lighthouse, flood tides on concrete, even "artificial rain in an industrialized zone"; a blast furnace, electrical waves, seeds in motion, wind beneath a door. The artist intentionally selects a variety of locations and sound sources, increasing his range of aural treasures. One suspects he's also performed a bit of studio manipulation in order to produce coherent tracks - either that, or he can run really fast between sound sources. Other noises pop up from time to time - a dog, a factory, a helicopter - but these are wisely kept in the mix, as they provide an extra serving of territorial grit, operating in the same manner as guest instruments at a concert.
Fans of instrumental music will likely be led to make structural comparisons. The architecture of these pieces often simulates that of post-rock, which itself imitates the classical: ebbs and flows, anticipatory builds and cathartic climaxes, quiet-loud-quiet-louder still. But it's fair to say that the wind and water came first. Years ago, before reviewers began to compare dramatic music to soundtracks, they compared symphonies to storms. So perhaps here we are hearing echoes of the first music: the Spirit of God, like a mighty wind, moving over the face of the deep. This primordial essence is W2's secret strength: on the surface, it's just water and wind, but at its essence, it's wild and unknowable.
- Richard Allen -

Just Outside
I am, unfortunately, only minimally familiar with La Casa's previous work, so I have little direct idea how this set fits in though given that the recordings selected here were apparently amassed over some period of time, I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't more or less representative. Whatever the case, they're marvelous and present, at least in part, the other extreme, where the field recordings are all that is the case, however much they've been processed, layered, etc. (which I'm assuming is often the case here, though I could be wrong).
Two discs, one of water sounds, one of wind. Why they sound so fantastic is, as I said above, rather like figuring out why an Eggleston snapshot is similarly so. The choices made, obviously--picking this set of sounds as opposed to that one, the sculpting involved, the ability to focus the observer on one or several foci (the amazing, metallic resonances in "Les pierres de seuil, part 5" on the water disc, for example). The sheer drama of the moment (or contrived moment), what La Cassa, in his notes, refers to as the "sound story". The wind disc immediately offers sounds that seem more wind-caused than purely aeolian. But so, so full and...windy. And, I must say, an awful lot of drama. The arc and tension of these pieces may betray the compositional actions taken but they're so finely limned, one doesn't care. Describing them seems fruitless--something about the wind tracks is very special, maybe their sheer presence and seemingly endless variation within the form. Difficult to say; they seem to sum up the gist of an entire slice of the world, maybe the way Eggleston's teenage employee pushing a shopping cart manages to sum up his.
Among the best of this area that I've heard.
- Brian Olewnick -

The Wire
Compositions using field recordings of wind and water are ten a penny these days. As portable digital recording equipment falls in price, it feels like every other new release attempts to document natural soundworlds and turn them into music. So given their current ubiquity it would take a particularly fine set of such recordings to grab the attention. W2, a collection of pieces gathered together over the decade between 1998 and 2008 by French field recordist Eric La Casa is just that.
Eric La Casa notes on the two CDs included here, one containing water sounds, the other wind, he does not seek to document nature as much as his personal journey through what he describes as a sound story. Certainly the narrative found in the 14 tracks here, the sense of drama flowing through them, sets La Casa's work apart. Just five minutes into the opening track on the Water disc, as a crash of thunder cuts across streams of running water recordings, the music becomes more than just documentation - it takes on an almost symphonic form. From the thunderous force of water thrashing against stone on "S'Ombre Part 1", to the seething effervescence of fierce rushes of air on "L'Air Au Fond Rouge", these 14 compositions are alive and present in the room. It is testament to La Casa's sound choices and his placement of them into simple but highly effective structures that these tracks feel so fresh and exciting. If the composer's journey has a tale to tell, it is full of twists and turns, one minute vibrant and colourful, the next quite bleak and hostile, as with some of the more sombre recordingd on the Wind disc.
Rather than merely presenting audio snapshots of nature, La Casa's work over the last decade reflects something of the human condition in the environment that surrounds us. A beautiful collection of pieces from a vast and significant body of work, W2 engages the listener far beyond documentary voyeurism. A personal journey for La Casa maybe, but it is impossible to listen and not be swept along its path.
- Richard Pinnell -

Crow With No Mouth

Eric La Casa has spent 12 years listening to the wild, 10 of them documented on his 2010 2-CD release W2. With acutely attuned ears and intuitively placed microphones, La Casa focused from 1998 to 2008 nearly exclusively on the sounds of water and wind. He describes his work as improvisations with the sonic locale, less interested than many of his contemporaries in capturing and evoking a location, more interested in what he calls, variously, the pulsing of the world, an ineffable tumult, and the alchemy of water and stone. You won't be far into W2's chronicle of La Casa's last decade of traveling, listening, and recording, before you are pole-axed by the drama, intensity and elegance of what he heard. Some of the pieces own tensions and frissons akin to any orchestral works I could cite; several are laminal and offer an envelopment rivaling that of machine-made drone works. How does La Casa create work so distinct from mere field recordists? I couldn't tell you, but I can offer a few reflections that arose as I listened to W2 with the best suspension of discriminating between instrumental music/location recordings I could muster.

Like Snyder's immersive and immediate effects when he writes about the elemental, La Casa has a sensibility and approach that regards all that he records [and shapes with some post-production] as alive, sentient, and thus co-equal with the poet/sound artist. In other words, he is pointing his mics with a specific, from my perspective, rarified, state of listening. Beyond technical protocol, La Casa writes, listening becomes tied up in the surfaces of the world. What a fantastic articulation of the sort of mind it requires to hear the constant music in the natural world. While Snyder obviously cultivated, in part, his attunement to the music of water, wind and stones with formal zen training, La Casa's words might as well be a page from a similar sutra - Listening is always situated in what I would qualify as the extreme present, he
said in one interview, the instant when listening, landscape and time become one.

wind - void - word

The two CDs bear the rubrics Wind and Water; you will hear both forces on both CDs, even, occasionally, humans and machines. The ineffable tumult La Casa references is pervasive across both discs; these are not recordings offering a tamed natural world, much less a soporific one. There are startling moments of hell-raising racket [there is, as well, the percussive play of the plinks and droplets of water's small, patterned sounds, and some assuaging, at least temporarily, breezes]. It is the wind disc, however, that most strongly evokes for me the idea of La Casa's orchestration of the rawest elements - while the water disc offers a range of sounds from pointillistic [droplets] to thunderously symphonic [great cataracts and torrents are loosed!], the wind music is terrifyingly forceful at times, impossible to gild with romantic or lyrical associations. La Casa shapes the high-pressured, gathering power of a wind storm like a hair-raising, ascending orchestral work. In one piece the wind is exciting and agitating some sort of metal structure, and the resultant protesting groans and howls of metal, well, bring that aforementioned pole-axing I promised.

Your water is light/to my mouth

The water music La Casa presents from various locales reveals how inadequate a descriptor
water music really is; most such signifiers strain to convey what a sound sounds like - words like location recording, electro-acoustic improvisation, modern classical, et. al. La Casa's water music, in other words, owns such a vast range of sources and sonics, how could they all be contained in water? You are presented with sections and movements of engorged rivers, rain pelts, cave-reverbed drips and plonks, oscillations and waves that sing and cease altogether. La Casa's contemporaries, at least those who approach this level of richness, sonic diversity and uncontrived drama, are Toshiya Tsunoda, Chris Watson and, with a gusto akin to both Snyder and La Casa, Jeph Jerman. In literature, there is Gary Snyder, the poet who, as he put it long ago, moves in and makes home in the whole.

I wanted to say something about Snyder's deep connectedness to the elemental by drawing attention to his most lived-in face; his incantatory poetry speaks for itself. I also wanted to say something about how disconnected most of us who listen to this music are from the practice of the wild, at least a practice that includes actual exposure to the elements heard in La Casa's music. Perhaps another time I can write about the strangeness of our listening to the heaving, pulsing cataracts of the natural world through stereo speakers, rather than being engraved, as both Snyder and La Casa are, with the sources of this music. Some of us clearly want to be moved by these forces, seeking them in the music and poetry of these watchful and elegant minds. Eric La Casa's W2 is essential, elemental music, give it your ears.
- Jesse Goin -

Monsieur Delire
Eric La Casa est l’un des grands artistes de l’enregistrement de terrain (field recording). W2 est une compilation double regroupant les essentiels de sa production de la dernière décennie, sous deux thèmes: l’eau (disque 1) et le vent (disque 2). Un généreux menu de prises de son délicates, riches, composées avec soin, où les mystifications sonores se glissent entre nos oreilles au lieu de survenir. Notons particulièrement la présence de plusieurs pièces de la série “Les pierres du seuil” (à l’origine sur The Stones of the Threshold et Les Pierres du seuil 4-7). Et trois inédites. À déguster quelques-unes à la fois en immersion totale, ou en fond sonore continu, question de se dépayser.

Eric La Casa is one of the greatest field recording artists out there. W2 is a 2-CD compilation of his essential works of the last decade, organized into two themes: water (disc 1) and wind (disc 2). A generous helping of delicate, rich sound art works composed with care, where sonic mystifications quietly slip inside your ear instead of marching in or deafening you with surprise. I’ll point out the inclusion of several pieces from the “Les pierres du seuil” series (originally published on The Stones of the Threshold and Les Pierres du seuil 4-7). And three previously unreleased tracks. Immerse yourself into a few at a time, or use as background music to alter your environment.
- Francois Couture -

Vital Weekly
This double disc is a collection in at least two ways. Firstly its a collection of pieces that have been released before on various compilations and secondly they are thematically grouped. On the first CD we find pieces that deal with water sounds and on the second pieces of wind sounds. All of that to be taken literally. For many years Eric LaCasa has recorded sounds of water and wind, and built pieces out of that. How he does that is not entirely clear, I must say, but no doubt I said that before. Is a piece of music here a straight recording of water running down the stream, or wind blowing through tree tops, or is it a combination of sounds, mixed together to make a piece of music? That's the question, and my best guess at answering that question is that its the latter. The water disc has pieces recorded from streams, but perhaps also rain and/or a combination of both. Its not easy, I must admit, to enjoy these discs. The water pieces at one point made me want to run for the toilet. A bit more variation, such as short and curiously EQ-ed 'Les Oscillations Part 1', was perhaps needed to be the perfect counterpart to the water pieces. In that respect the wind CD is much more interesting. Here too I am a bit clueless as to what I am actually hearing, but the wind seems to be moving objects around - objects of origins unknown obviously - and there are other noises moving around too, like street sounds, car passing and other motorized objects. This makes the whole disc more varied and when you don't look at the CD display, it almost makes a seventy minute soundscape piece, slowly moving from section to section. This 'Wind' disc is pretty damn fine listening experience, perhaps more mysterious than the 'Water' disc, or maybe more 'obscure' is the appropriate way to say that. Mixed feelings here about the whole thing, but throughout quite enjoyable.
- Frans De Waard -

Felthat Reviews
Really taken aback by the possibilities of rejuvenating and processing the field recordings I had a stroll with Eric's La Casa new cd from Herbal International which sets yet another groundbreaking frontier for further development of musique concrete genre in new context.
Eric is just but a few of the field recordist along with Marchetti, John Grinzich,and a few others who really transmutates the very thin tissue of raw sounds into soundscapic scenario of impossible possibilities and curves it down to the limit so the listener doesn't really distinguish the "road itself" from "the road taken". As in the quote from Nicholas Bouvier brought back by Eric himself - the journey we make unmakes us - in this sense unmakes the perceptive process to a point of great sensitivity.
It may sound a bit pretentious but these recordings do really investigate our listening process - so dim and blank overwhelmed by the magnitude of invading means of today's culture, that you may find a totally different angle of getting yourself to NOTICE what's been all around you...really important collection of music.
- Hubert Napiórski -

1004 Eric Cordier / Seijiro Murayama:::: Nuit

2010-01-02T19:48:00.000-08:00

"Nuit" was composed in 2007-2008 as requested by Seijiro Murayama. He invited me to compose for him a "piece mixte", where his percussion was back to back to a tape.

As he is Japanese, I was inspired to compose around a series of recordings done in Japan the year before. However, the piece evolved from a simple composition to a performance where I asked Seijiro, beyond playing only percussion, to add to it various live actions such as the use of voice, breath, bubbling sounds, movement in space and working with lights and shadow theater. During the show, I was also involved in the actions such as painting with fire and moving the microphone to create a close and distant effect on the sound.

The field recording for the composition was done between july-august 2006, mainly in Honshu, Aomori Prefecture with the help of Satoko Fujimoto and her family. In order of appearance: Rice field with buffalo frogs in Kanedate Kizukuri, bird in a forest on Hokkaido island, firework at Goshogawara City, cicadas at Iwaki Mountain, announcement to "be careful with fire" in Kanedate, ritual in the Bodaiji Temple in Osorezan, and a toy-windmill nearby, bell of the Kanedata Temple, drumming on iron protections against the snow along the road.

The tape uses some French recordings too, on part 4 : Olivier Maurel and Georges at Observatoire Astronomique de Haute Provence 2006 (F 04, Saint-Michel-l'Observatoire), Brotone Forest (F 76) Sep. 1993, and (p. 5) Chinese New Year festival in Paris Feb. 2008. And thanks to Thierry Madiot and Vincent Vantalon for some samples of their instruments.

"Nuit" has been premiered the 25th April 2008 at Le Compa,(Agriculture Museum Pont de Mainvillers - 28000 Chartres) during Festival, RME, Rencontres Musiques Electroacoustiques de Chartres, curated by Shoï Lorillard and Cecile Pennetier.
~ Eric Cordier

Audio CD, 6 panels digipak
50 minutes+
Release date: Dec 2010
12 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

Related resources:
Also by Eric Cordier
Eric Cordier: Osorezan

Geographically connected
Eric La Casa: W2 [1998-2008]
Jean-Luc Guionnet: Non Organic Bias
Eric La Casa / Cédric Peyronnet: La Creuse

Review(s):
The Watchful Ear
... Since getting home I have been listening to a quite extraordinary CD by Eric Cordier and Seijiro Murayama that somehow casts my mind and ears back to our walk. The disc, titled Nuit and released by the currently on-fire Herbal International label is a mix of field recordings of wildlife, distant traffic, aircraft, human spluttering, moaning and wheezing and an awful lot more. So, for a number of reasons I will probably always associate this CD with today’s excursion…

Forgetting the leisure pursuits linked to my midlife crisis for a minute then, this is still a really intriguing CD. Although there is a page of liner notes that explain the “composition” here to some degree, exactly what we hear here is still a bit of a mystery. Murayama apparently asked Corider to compose a work for him that involved his percussion playing placed “back to back” with tape. This initial request somehow mutated into the mass of field recordings, human vocal sounds and percussion (some on drums some on metal railings it seems) that we hear on these five seamlessly linked pieces. Cordier used field recordings he made in Japan in 2006 to build the work, adding in some pieces recorded in France as well. He took everything from firework displays, singing, (actually moaning very loudly) bullfrogs, passing aircraft, bits of human chatter, watery gurgling sounds, toy windmills and a whole load more and brought them all together into a bustling, thoroughly bright and present set of concrete recordings.

Into all of this though we hear Murayama every so often. There are various percussive sounds heard here and there, but whether they are all his is hard to tell. He certainly is recorded breathing, moaning, spluttering, whispering and sounding generally short of breath throughout, giggling to himself at one point, mimicking snoring and almost breaking into conversation elsewhere. Murayama’s contributions apparently came from a live performance by the duo which also including the percussionist moving about the space and working with “lights and shadow theatre”. Its hard to tell how much of these additional elements make any audible impact on the CD. Cordier also apparently recorded himself “painting with fire” during the performance.

All of this combined creates a really rather spectacular and very difficult to pin down collage of sounds that feels constantly fresh and somewhat wild. There is a real energy to the music, a sense of it being alive, more than just a load of soundfiles pushed around a computer screen. The way that the human sounds fold into the wildly varying field recordings is both inspiring and disconcerting. At one moment we might be listening to strange distant thuds, percussive scraping and the call of a Japanese safety officer warning about the dangers of fireworks and the next a closely miked gurgle captured at the back of Murayama’s throat. We start to lose track of what is what, if it was ever clear in the first place, and the hammering of a snow barrier in a Japanese field could be the scrape of Murayama’s snare drum or the snuffling of him breathing hard through his nose. It all comes thick and fast and floods the room as you listen, a sheer barrage of sensations and sounds that is really quite overwhelming.

There have been some great albums involving field recordings of late, the real cream of them finding new ways to revitalise the concrete genre, often by merging them with live or separately recorded instrumental sounds. Nuit (it doesn’t say so, but I suspect that maybe most of the sounds were recorded at night) really feels alive and vibrant. There is no sense of dreamy ambience, droning layers or predictable jump cuts here. The fourth track of the five suddenly takes everything and forces it somehow through a digital sequence that seems to squash all of the sound into a kind of eighties synthesiser work out, stopping the piece as we knew it and throwing it all through a digital granulation process for a minute. This section of the disc sounds completely alien and completely artificial, a kind of aural liquidiser that digitally squashes the sound in an somewhat cheesy manner that is not disguised in any way. Then as everything slows to a grinding halt we hear the hoot of an owl somewhere behind it all and the field recordings begin to flow again.

This is very hard music to describe in words. It really is quite different, original and thoroughly inventive. It seems to ignore the conventions of what we might expect from this kind of music and just go wild however it wants. I had felt a slight loss of faith in the use of field recordings as a compositional tool a month or two back, but this disc, along with Vanessa Rosetto’s Mineral Orange and Eric LaCasa’s great W2 (also on Herbal) have shown what can really be done. This CD may well be the best of all of those, quite remarkable indeed.
- Richard Pinnell -

Just Outside
A very unusual and enjoyable collaboration and a good example of a fresh approach to field recordings as integrated with improvisation. At Murayama's request, Cordier conducted a number of recordings at various sites in Japan (and some in France) ranging from actual field, replete with frogs and birds, to urban environments, households, temples, etc. To this soundtrack, Murayama added percussion and vocal sounds although one of the fascinating and ingratiating things about the disc is that, more often than not, the listener is hard-pressed to distinguish any particularly percussive sounds from the environmental ones. One can make guesses although concentrating on that aspect quickly becomes meaningless and distracting. You're better off simply allowing yourself to drift off into this dreamlike construction with its enormous variety of sounds, gentle and harsh, serious and comic, almost always multi-layered and extremely enticing. Richard posted a fine review a couple months back with more detail and Cordier, in the comments section, offered more and linked to a related video involving "painting with fire" (whence the cover image of this disc) which is quite enjoyable and interesting to play, at volume, along with the CD (!).
Cordier also explains the brief electronic portion that disrupts things, not in a bad way, toward the latter half of the disc, a disconcerting intrusion that somehow works, jolting us just as we're beginning to settle in and accept this sound-world. Further, "Nuit" ends with a massive "drum solo", a rather magnificent one, a barrage of clattering cymbals, struck skin and rubbed surfaces, more sleet storm than anything else.
A fine recording--check it out.
- Brian Olewnick -

Vital Weekly
The subtitle for this release could have been 'music for tape and percussion', in a good modern classical sense and of course its the player who asks the composer to prepare a tape, in this case Seijiro Murayama asking Eric Cordier for a tape to be used in a live performance. It's not just percussion sounds to be used, but also voice, breathing, moving around in space and Cordier moving around with a microphone and painting with fire. Cordier's tape is made of field recordings, mainly from Japan, but also France - both the home countries from the artists involved. It takes a while before realizing that it actually involves percussion in this piece (which consists of five parts). Now of course Murayama is the kind of player who easily extends beyond the ordinary playing of percussion, so it might very well be that his sounds are there from the beginning. By the time we come to the fifth part the role of the percussion becomes much clearer, and even seems to be part of the tape - or perhaps not? That's the kind of illusions that I like. What is what here? Where ends the field recording, what makes up the sound of percussion. That's the sort of questions raised by this fascinating disc. An excellent interplay of both ends meeting up. Sometimes the sounds stand firmly by themselves - the chirping of insects, the rolling of a snare drum - but they also grow towards eachother and then seems to melt together - the audio illusion in full force. Moving from introspective moments at the start towards heavily treated material towards the end - a journey no doubt. An excellent disc of electro-acoustic music, improvised music and field recordings presented as one finished unity. Excellent. Oops, I said that already.
- Frans De Waard -

Paris Transatlantic
Listing the sound sources, which include buffalo frogs, forest birds and a temple ceremony besides other glimpses of reality, gives you the wrong impression regarding Nuit. This is acousmatic music with added elements of improvisation. Murayama's disconcerting vocal expressions are complemented by his evenhanded percussiveness (except in the concluding movement, which sounds like a fragmentation of Nick Mason's interminable rolls in A Saucerful Of Secrets), while Cordier's processing attempts to dislocate our expectations, and at times succeeds. The album's significance resides in its refusal to adopt the "let-the-nightingale-do-the-work" strategy; acoustic designs are deprived of emblematic façades, and there's poetry – and irony – in the curled grunts of those frogs, not to mention the instant cessation of activity when a bird starts singing at one point. And the human constituent is never invasive. Considering that the performance plan includes games of light, shadow theatre and fire painting – visual elements that might better justify the few segments that don't excite in a strictly musical sense – this is a solid enough release, questionable finale notwithstanding.
- Massimo Ricci -

Monsieur Delire
Un disque fascinant qui met en rapport deux univers sonores très différents. Le percussionniste japonais Seikiro Murayama a demandé à l’artiste sonore Eric Cordier de transformer une piste de percussions en œuvre électroacoustique mixte pour percussions et bande. Cordier a obtempéré en développant une trame sonore qui démarre dans les champs de Honshu, où résonne le chant des grenouilles, pour se terminer dans un univers électronique déconstruit où la clameur des percussions est manipulée de sorte que ses soubresauts rappellent...un croassement. Entre ces deux pôles, des trésors d’invention, de mystification et de mise en contraste. Une œuvre frappante de 55 minutes en continu.

A fascinating record putting in relation two very different soundworlds. Japanese percussionist Seikiro Murayama asked sound artist Eric Cordier to transform a percussion track into a mixed piece of percussion with electroacoustic tape. Cordier developed a soundtrack that starts in the fields of Honshu, where the song of frogs resounds, and ends in a deconstructed electronic universe where the clamour of percussion is treated in such a way that its throbbing is reminiscent of… frog songs. In-between these ends is found a wealth of invention, mystification and contrasting. A striking continuous 55-minute work
- Francois Couture -

Improv-Sphere
En principe, je n'ai rien contre l'électronique, sauf les field recordings... L'aspect figuratif des enregistrements concrets enlève beaucoup de l'impact et du potentiel propre à chaque son, à mon sens, ça en dit trop sur la musique et ça entrave le travail le l'auditeur en quelque sorte, puisque le potentiel absent de ces textures sonores, c'est la possibilité d'association d'idées et d'affects remplacés par un référent déjà donné qui nous empêche de donner du sens à ce que l'on écoute.
Abstraction faite de ce ressentiment envers la musique concrète (ou les fields recordings comme on dit maintenant mais je vois pas la différence), il n'en reste pas moins que ce disque a quelque chose (mais peut-être que je ressens ça seulement à cause de mon admiration pour ce spécialiste de la caissse claire et ce virtuose de la vielle à roue...). Bon déjà, j'imagine que le but était de retranscrire musicalement la nuit, et en l'occurence, on peut dire que ce but est atteint. Tout y passe: l'ambiance nocturne naturelle à travers des crissements et des insectes, aussi bien que la nuit urbaine à travers cette ambiance sombre, lente et tendue rendue par le frottement de divers objets et percussions ainsi que des enregistrements d'annonces ferroviaires ou publicitaires.
Mais le meilleur ne réside pas ici je trouve, ce qu'il y a de surprenant dans ce disque est l'agencement des différentes strates sonores qui s'opposent ou s'interpénètrent selon les moments. Chaque son est traité comme un objet avec ses singularités, puis il est manipulé et associé à un autre objet sonore pour enfin créer une texture: et c'est bien l'agencement de ces différentes textures en strates (ce qu'on compare habituellement à l'architecture) qui fait la force et l'attrait de ce disque. Car, abstraction faite de leurs référents, ces nappes sonores, de par leur timbre, ne ressemble à rien de connu (musicalement); et c'est alors que, de ce magma sonore, peut émerger le génie de Cordier (Enkidu, Suture, Pheremone) et Murayama (K.K. Null, Suture, Lo). Tous les deux résident en France, et ils ont plusieurs fois collaboré ensemble (notamment sur le magnifique Suture), mais on ne peut pas dire qu'ils sont des stars ici: et pour cause, tous deux sont ancrés dans une culture expérimentale radicale et extrême (cf. les deux solos de Murayama pour caisse claire et cymbale, un seul paramètre: le timbre). Mais ils ont beau être radicaux et extrêmes, je ne dirais pas non plus qu'ils tombent dans le formalisme ou l'autosuffisance, quand ils enregistrent, c'est pour communiquer quelque chose, et ça s'adresse à des gens, ils ne font pas exprès d'être incompris pour se lamenter d'être incompris. La musique de Cordier et Murayama, qu'elle soit électronique ou acoustique, est bien une part d'eux-mêmes qu'ils souhaitent partager à un maximum de gens mais sans faire de compromis.
La démarche est radicale, l'écoute est dure et demande beaucoup d'attention, mais le jeu en vaut la chandelle. Il y a plein de trucs à ressentir et à penser à travers cette écoute, le son du duo est vraiment remarquable par sa singularité et son "authenticité", et l'agencement organique des strates sonores est digne d'un Berio, d'un Ligeti ou d'un Penderecki (même si ça n'a rien à voir...).
Recommandé!
- Julien Héraud -

1003 Roel Meelkop:::: Oude Koeien

2009-10-01T20:25:00.000-07:00

1. ERSTES STÜCK IM ALTEN STIL, 10", (Korg Platsics),1998
2. ECHT DOOD, track on CD (Herbal ), 2010 (excerpt, vbr mp3)
3. 2 (JOS SMOLDERS), 5" lathe cut, 2002
4. 1 (RIKTIGT DÖD), 7", 1999
5. 1 (VERAMENTE MORTO), 7",1998
6. ZWEITES STÜCK IM ALTEN STIL, 10", (Korg Platsics), 1998
7. 2 (BEEQUEENS), 7" (limited edition with Beequeens LP Ownliness on MOLOKO+), 2002
8. DRITTES STÜCK IM ALTEN STIL, 10", (Korg Platsics), 1998

Almost all tracks on this disc have been released on vinyl by Korm Plastics, except where noted in brackets. My gratitude goes out to Frans de Waard for his continuing support for my work and his unwavering commitment to the music that we all love so much.
Roel Meelkop, 2010.

Audio CD, 6 panels digipak
50 minutes+
Release date: February 2010
12 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

Line note:
Koken Met Sneeuw
No doubt it is sheer coincidence that the release of this CD coincides with the 25th year of Korm Plastics existence. When I started the label, I had no clear idea of what its aim should be. No doubt if you would have asked me back then, I would have said: to release good music. Maybe if you would ask me today I would give the same answer. What motivation should one need to run a record label? Change the world, save the environment, fight for your rights? I never comprehensively studied the various social and political backgrounds of everybody whose music I released and I never will either, but no doubt the vast majority of them does not have a strong political idea or social motivation behind whatever they do in music. Sit back and listen. Roel Meelkop's installation at the first sound art exhibition he organised in 1998, 'just about now', summed this up perfectly: two speakers, a couch, a vase with flowers and an ashtray. Sit back and listen. And maybe most of all: enjoy!
I think I first met Roel in 1986, when we were preparing a concert of his band THU20, my band Kapotte Muziek and the odd loner Odal. Bumping into each other after that, at concerts usually, grew steadily into a friendship. When Mailcop became Meelkop, following a hiatus of some years of non-recording (mainly out of lack of good equipment), Roel returned with a great CD for Trente Oiseaux, to be followed by more great works. I invited him to do a 10" in the Korg Plastics series of music solely made with Korg machines. It was the third and final episode in the series, and the most 'composed' one. Later on he asked me wether he could release a series of 7"s, in which each new 7" was a rework (recycle remix) of the previous one, but for whatever reason now forgotten, it became only a series of two. The final record on Korm Plastics displayed his interest in concepts: taking Jos Smolders' 'Music For CD Player' as the starting point, he recorded two pieces of 99 seconds each (analog to the 99 tracks on the CD) which was pressed on a 5" lathe cut (the size of a CD) with silver foil in the middle (again like a CD, but made as a picture disc). A small work of art. Four great records and because of the fragile character of the music, it deserves to be released on CD. Another fine mark of quality and a great 25th anniversary item.
Frans de Waard
17-XI-2009

Related resources:
Also by Roel Meelkop
Roel Meelkop: HARAMU/Drempel

Geographically connected
Beequeen: Time Waits For No One

Review(s):
Paris Transatlantic
When taken to task by snobbish French students of mine poking fun at British cuisine (I invariably have to point out that there's a difference between "cuisine" and "cooking"), I usually counter with "ever try typical local food in the Netherlands?", but, putting aside unpleasant relents of patatje oorlog in a stiff breeze on the seafront in Scheveningen, the grilled side of beef adorning the cover of Oude Koueien does look rather appetising. Maybe though, as Robert Fripp would say, it's just a big hoax hahaha, and Roel Meelkop, like many practitioners of leftfield electronica of my acquaintance, is a card-carrying vegan – but, whatever, there's still plenty to get your teeth into in this fine release. Or rather re-release, as all but one of its eight tracks (the exception being last year's "Echt Dood") originally appeared on vinyl, either on Frans de Waard's Korm Plastics imprint or in association with FdW's Beequeen project.
Listening to this fastidiously crafted and predominantly very quiet music today (for the first time, as, alas, I never caught these releases when they came out), I'm surprised it wasn't released on CD at the time. It's hard to imagine how these delicate puffs and pinpricks of sound could cohabit with vinyl surface noise. But they did. The three "Pieces in the Old Style" were originally released on a ten-incher in 1998 as part of the Korg Plastics series, in which, as the name suggests, all the music had to be made using Korg instruments (though apart from a few telltale squarewave patches and jangles, you'd probably never guess that unless someone told you). Back then, clicks'n'cuts were still the order of the day in minimal techno, and there are numerous subtle hints of backbeat scattered through these tracks, but they're veiled and furtive, as if eavesdropping through a bedroom wall on several neighbours playing their Megos and Mille Plateaux late at night. Indeed, with its fondness for relatively abrupt changes of texture and dynamic, not to mention a penchant for extreme registers ("1(Riktigt Dod") and stacked clusters ("1 (Veramente Morto"), Meelkop's music has more in common with Ligeti (György, not Lukas) than you might think. There's a compositional intricacy to pieces like "2(Jos Smolders)", originally a lathe-cut five-incher containing two tracks of exactly 99 seconds' duration (by way of homage to the 99 tracks on Smolders' Music for CD Player), that sets Meelkop apart from many of his EAI / alt.electronica peers. Ralf Wehowsky's work often comes to mind (is there a cow connection here between the title of this album and P16.D4's Kuhe in ½ Trauer?) - this is music to savour in small mouthfuls, and digest thoroughly. Bon appetit.
- Dan Warburton -

Blow Up
Album retrospettivo per il membro dei THU20 Roel Meelkop, che da metà anni ottanta in poi ha sviluppato una personale ricerca in ambito sperimentale/elettronico. Tre composizioni sono relative alla serie Korg Plastics curata da Frans de Waard e dedicata a musica composta esclusivamente con il Korg, caratterizzati da un flusso irregolare di suoni sintetici e onde quadre. Altri brani si distinguono per una forte componente concettuale, come Riktigt Död e Veramente Morto, estratti da una serie di sette pollici in cui ciascun singolo era frutto del riciclaggio e della trasformazione del precedente, oppure il cd 5” in cui riassembla le novantanove tracce presenti nel lavoro di Jos Smolders “Music for Cd Player”. Autore poco noto ma dalle idee interessanti. (7)
- Massimiliano Busti -

Further Noise
Roel Meelkop was one of the founding members of the Dutch electroacoustic group THU20 in the mid-1980s, and he continues to work with Frans de Waard in the latter's long-term projects Kapotte Muziek, Goem, and Zèbra. Meelkop's first solo release, 9 (Holes in the Head), was released on Bernhard Günter's Trente Oiseaux label in 1996, and since then his albums have appeared on an A-list of boutique electronic labels, including Intransitive, Line, Staalplaat, and Non Visual Objects. His most recent album is Oude Koeien, a beautifully remastered collection of eight rarities, all but one vinyl issues originally released on de Waard's label Korm Plastics in the late 1990s.

The set is framed by Three Pieces "im Alten Stil" (in the Old Style), three tracks originally released on a 10-inch and constructed with a sonic vocabulary reminiscent of the earliest tape experimental works from Cologne. Music composed from sine waves and impulse generators isn't rare these days, but Meelkop's sudden transitions and dry events knitted together with static sound fields, and a complete absence of a dance-floor beat in favor of a sparse set of events, show a different aesthetic altogether. The second and third pieces must have been infuriating on vinyl, populated with sharp pointed gestures that would send me looking for big gouges in the disc, but these are mere interludes amidst drawn-out electronic fields. The third pieces has a greater variety of successive textures, from the noisy vinyl runoff to Basic Channel rhythms.

Four of the remaining pieces were originally released on small vinyls, and here they are reissued as single tracks, not divided into A and B sides and not always obvious where such a division might have occurred. According to the Frans de Waard's liner notes, "(Riktigt Död)" is a "recycle remix" of "Veramente Morte", where the sharp and intense noise bursts in the original are softened, and everything overlaid with a vinyl patina of decay. A remix from Jos Smolders plunders an original 99 tracks onto a five-inch lathe cut, and a Beequeen remix thunders another subterranean single-minded bass before starting over, reworking electronics and field recordings into burst of mournful energy. The remaining piece, "Echt Dood", is a slowly evolving series of textures crackling with energy and intensity.

Meelkop's Oude Koeien may be "old cows" from his back catalog, but his compositional vision is well suited to their sonic austerity. Equally interesting is the commentary on the remix and reissue culture, playing with the analog/digital boundary as well. The cover art by Rutger Zuydervelt of Machinefabriek, uncharacteristically representational with lovingly photographed grilled steak and garnish, is another commentary on the abstract, even spartan, music inside. Herbal International deserve kudos for making this collection available.
- Caleb Deupree -

Monsieur Delire
Électronicien expériental par excellence, Roel Meelkop se fait discret ces temps-ci. Voici que l’étiquette Herbal International propose, sur CD, une compilation des pièces que Meelkop a publié sur vinyle chez Korm Plastics entre 1998 et 2002. On y trouve un peu de tout: du rythme et de la facétie dans “Drittes Stück im Alten Stil”, du remixage expérimental dans “(Beequeens)”, de l’art sonore conceptuel assez poussé dans “(Jos Smolders)”, et j’en passe. L’univers de Meelkop n’est pas facile d’accès, mais sa démarche artistique embrasse une certaine variété et ne se cantonne pas dans des parti-pris rigides. Notons la présence d’une solide inédite, “Echt Dood”.

Experimental electronician par excellence, Roel Meelkop is keeping to himself these days. And now Herbal International releases a CD culling the tracks Meelkop released on Korm Plastics vinyl between 1998 and 2002. There’s a little of everything: beats and playfulness in “Drittes Stück im Alten Stil”, experimental remixing in “(Beequeens)”, advanced conceptual sound art in “(Jos Smolders)”, and so forth. Meelkop’s universe is not easily accessible, but his artistic process
includes a certain degree of variety and it eschews rigid stances. Let’s note the inclusion of one previously unavailable track: “Echt Dood.”
- François Couture -

Just Outside
More Meerkop! Old cow, indeed. A compilation of sorts of largely previously issued pieces, culled from Korm Plastics (called "Korg" on the disc, for some reason) and other sources. Wide ranging, from "serious" to slightly goofy, it's never un-fun, never a chore to listen. I prefer the former, like the dark, throbbing and scratchy "Echt Dood", a recent (2009) piece, the equally mysterious "1 (Riktigt Dod)" from 1999 and the low, liquid hums of "1 (Veramente Morto")" Very nice stuff. It can get a little goofy--I admit that the first time I played it, the thumpy seventh track began skipping mid-thump and, after several minutes of not-full attention I said to myself, "Damn! This is pretty annoying!" Enjoyable work, overall.
- Brian Olewnick -

The Watchful Ear
The first thing that strikes you about this CD obviously occurs before you even put the disc in the player. That sleeve image of course. As a piece of eye catching, interesting design its fantastic, but I can’t help wonder that, given how many musicians, and therefore I imagine also listeners in this area of music are vegetarians, it probably puts a few people off of buying it. Particularly when the back cover features a picture of a cow, with each track title apparently relating to a highlighted cut of meat. Interesting anyway, how this all relates to the music is anyone’s guess.

The CD in question is a collection of pieces recorded between 1998 and 2009, but mostly at the early end of that window, by Dutch electronicist / sound arranger / call him what you will, Roel Meelkop. Now Meelkop is one of those names that appears all the time, but for some reason I have managed to unintentionally avoid listening to much of his music down the years, maybe the odd compilation track here and there, but nothing more. As it happens another new release (a two 3″ CD set on 1000Füssler) arrived here today as well. There will probably be ten more now over the next month! Perhaps then a compilation of his music from the past decade or so could be a good starting point.

The eight tracks then on Oude Koeien, which is the name of this CD released on the Herbal label are all bar one taken from vinyl releases, may of them limited editions, and mostly on the Korm label, with whom Meelkop is closely linked. The one exception is the second piece, Echt Dood which seems to have been specially recorded for this compilation. I will admit to having assumed Meelkop belonged in the vaguely post industrial area of European electronic composition that doesn’t interest me so much, so I came to this set with little expectation but open ears. It is then something of a mixed bag, but there are some nice tracks in here. The opening Erstes stück im alten stil is one of them, a ten minute long excursion through a series of electronically produced segments spaced apart by silences of a few seconds at a time. Plunging bassy synth scribble give way to a nice brittle crackle then deep, almost nausea inducing swells that are ended by strange, sudden crashes of synthetic sound of the kind you find by accident when messing about with your nephew’s toy synthesiser. Any one of these sounds on their own may not have been so interesting, but the way they are structured here with plenty of space and without any tendency to shift towards drones, as these things often do it all works curiously well.

The second piece, the recently recorded track grows into an odd, warped blurry sound that could be a contact miked bumble bee but probably isn’t. Here the sound is constant, but still the drone form is absent, rather the sound builds from a series of strange shuttling sounds a bit like you might hear if you dragged a large stone tablet a short distance across a concrete floor. These then build and slowly blend with little pops and clicks into a surging mass that when listened to on headphones becomes really oppressive and unsettling, as if the sounds are pressing in from either side of the head. Stirring music for sure and unlike much else I have heard before. There follows 2 (Jos Smolders) which dates from a 2002 lathe cut disc that I think is formed using a release by Jos Smolders as raw material. This little three minute miniature is made up (I think) from a multitude of little fragments of sound, some field recordings, what sounds like bits of
old music and maybe television, plus a lot of bleeps and digital scribbles. It all has a feel of early musique concrete to it, and while quite nice I found myself focussing more on the origin of each
sound rather than the overall structure of the work, which is less interesting than in the first two pieces. 1 Riktigt Düd comes next, and is different again, this time a layering of sounds, murky
crackles, maybe some processed field recordings, what sounds like burning sparklers fizzing away, all building into a dense mass of sounds that cuts away into further whining, crackling and hissing sections. This piece is constructed in a more familiar manner, two or three sounds layered, allowed to build to extremes then cut dead into the next set of sounds. It all works well though and is a pleasing listen with a sharpness to it that jolts you upright in your seat from
time to time if you’re not paying attention.

As does Zweiten stück im alten stil, the fifth piece here and originally from the ten inch vinyl release from 1998 that the opening track of this album also seems to be part of. For much of the track we just hear relatively quiet, wintry electronic whispers that alone are not that interesting, but every so often sudden, very loud shrieks of something harsh appear that initially caused me to rip the headphones off and reach for the volume dial. After a while the shrieks build into a deafening sheet of digital screaming which lasts a little while before dropping away again. Not as structurally interesting as its sister piece that began the album, but still quite different and certainly jarring. 2 (Bequeens) follows, originally a 7″ disc given away free with a Beequeens album, though I’m not sure what the connection is. For much of the time this piece is much less
interesting, with long sections of buzzing and rhythmic drumming not really doing that much for me, but there is one great, completely isolated and obscure moment when the pounding tribal beat cuts out and a brief grab of a vociferous baby is heard before the music goes off in a different rhythmic direction. Its as if all of the rest of the sounds exist just to make this little moment in the middle of the piece work, a little conceit that amused me somewhat.

The final track of the eight also seems to come from that same 1998 10″. (How much music can you get on one of those things?) It begins well, with some bright, in your face crunching sounds collapsing into more in your face aggressive switches of sound but the piece later degenerates into a vaguely technoish pulsing section that completely sent my interests packing. Overall though I enjoyed listening to this album closely. One of the joys of having people send music to you to review is that you get to spend time listening carefully to things that perhaps you would not have looked twice at otherwise. My favourite piece on this album is probably the most recently recorded track, which bodes well for the 1000Füssler release. That one just has
a plain grey cover though…
- Richard Pinnell -

Vital Weekly
The problem with being a 'reviewer' and having more than one hat 'in the business' arrives when things like this land on my desk. Should I really be the one to review it? I wrote the liner notes for this release, because Roel Meelkop is not only a dear friend of mine (reviewers are sometimes asked to write liner notes, we all know that), but also someone whom I occasionally create music with (in Kapotte Muziek, Goem, Zebra and THU20 for instance). That's two reasons for not wanting to review this. The third is that 'Oude Koeien' contains re-releases Meelkop did for my small Korm Plastics label in ancient days when it was releasing highly limited vinyl - all gone of course and rightly so to deserve a re-issue. Oh and a fourth reason is that one track is a remix that I didn't release but rework an original I did. So, thinking this all over, its hard - neh, impossible - to write something objective about this release. Should I elaborate on the genius that Meelkop usually is? Marvel about the great microsound composer he is? Do you really need MY opinion then to get this? Hardly, I'd say. But one, objective, advise: Meelkop's music should never be released on vinyl. Its too delicate. But that's something you know already, I assume. You can now shelf your precious vinyl and hear a wonderfully remastered re-release.
- Frans De Waard -

1002 Lasse-Marc Riek:::: Harbour

2009-04-09T19:42:00.001-07:00

From Spring 1999 to Spring 2007 I made location recordings of microsounds from Harbours in Germany and Finland. A lot of various gangways, tunnels, bridges, ships, boats, ferries, floating docks and coastal birds are making abstract sounds. They where modulated from wind, water and machines. This field reseach was listening to the self-composition in the area "harbour".
- Lasse-Marc Riek -

1. Björköby, Finnland
2. Wismar, Germany
3. Hamburg, Germany
4. Hamburg, Germany
5. Hamburg, Germany (excerpt, vbr mp3)
6. Hamburg, Germany
7. Hamburg, Germany
8. Österö, Finnland

Unprocessed Field Recordings 1999-2007, Germany and Finland.

Audio CD, 6 panels digipak
30 minutes+
Release date: July 2010
12 Euros + shipping

Line note:
Imagine an incredibly large hall. Its walls are brick built and covered with some sort on lichen. Many of its stone have already started to crumble. The huge space might have witnessed a cotton mill. Anyway, the former industrial site has disappeared. Instead of an majestic void an empty space like this would usually create storage racks have been put into the hall almost touching the cover. Besides, every inch of the solid steel shelves is occupied by folders. Thick like those files from the law series. Compact as they wait on their shelves all of them are closed in storeys high as an apartment block. Impossible to look inside of them, though every single sheet of paper must be covered with signs and letters, symbols and tables from either side. Billions and billions of pages and of characters. What will you hear when you walk the aisles between the storage racks? Between the steel racks, bricks, folders, pages and a cover that lies so high above that it is impossible to figure out what it is made of. Will you hear how the bricks go on crumbling when time passes by? Would the steel groan under its heavy burden and when the draughty air sucked the humidity from the documents? Could you listen to what is inside the folders themselves? Their history, their sad and funny stories, the undoubted truth in and by them? Now, what do you hear when you walk on a dock?
Stefan Militzer

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Related resources:
Musically connected
Eric Cordier: Osorezan

Geographically connected
Sabine Ercklentz / Andrea Neumann: LAlienation

Review(s):
Neural
This project brings together abstract sounds recorded on the street near bridges, tunnels, railways, and other "audio catches" that have connections with ships, boats, docks and a wide range of other objects moved by water. From the spring of 1999 to 2007 Lasse Marc Riek diligently developed the Harbour project, moving from Hamburg to other German cities before ending up in Finland. The field recordings are left completely raw and unprocessed and have been given a well-organized structure that artfully keeps each "scene" from becoming exasperated, even in the subsequent iterations, which are implicit in the case of the "natural" repeating some of the environmental sequences. A multitude of noises finally come together to define the ideas that are then articulated in a rather "uniform" way, though this does not mean that the final result lacks variety and shape. Everything evolves for the best and the artist's ability to tell stories of commonplace yet sublime urban play is a winner.

Suoni astratti, registrati per strada, in prossimità di ponti, tunnel, ferrovie; e poi altre "catture auditive", che hanno a che fare con navi, barche, pontili, oggetti mossi dall'acqua e situazioni delle più disparate che con questo elemento hanno a che fare. Lasse Marc Riek dalla primavera del 1999 a quella del 2007 ha diligentemente portato avanti il progetto Harbour, muovendosi da Amburgo, prima in altre città in Germania e poi in Finlandia. Le field recording in questione sono lasciate assolutamente grezze, non processate, incastrate in una struttura ben organizzata e dalla successione abbastanza netta, mantenendo ad arte ogni singola "scena" in maniera mai esasperata, pur nelle iterazioni conseguenti, che sono implicite nel caso del ripetersi "naturale" di certe sequenze ambientali. Una moltitudine di rumori d'insieme concorre infine nel definire le suggestioni che vengono poi articolate complessivamente in guisa alquanto "omogenea": non per questo il risultato ultimo sembra mancare per varietà e forme. Tutto evolve al meglio e la percezione dell'artista nel raccontare storie urbane d'ordinario ma sublime ascolto s'impone come vincente.
- Aurelio Cianciotta -

The Sound Projector
Harbour (HERBAL INTERNATIONAL 1002) is a nice one I’ve had in the box since July 2010. Lasse-Marc Riek is a German field-recordist and for this collection he hied himself down to the waterfront to pick up certain sonic impressions of steel hulks floating in the brine. He did it in Germany and Finland, concentrating largely on the creaking and clanking of metal, wooden planks and rope, rather than the bustling life of a harbour packed with burly matelots. Unlike our Portuguese pals above, Riek is proud of the fact that his field recordings are completely “unprocessed”, and he serves them up as fresh as an offshore breeze.
- Ed Pinsent -

Vital Weekly
Somewhere between 1999 and 2007 Lasse-Marc Riek recorded sounds in harbors: Finland's Bjorkoby and Ostero and in Germany in Wismar and Hamburg. Presented here as seven individual pieces of sound. Unprocessed field recordings. Thirty-two minutes in total. As much as I dislike sailing, I like the sound of harbors, the smell of the sea, the wind. With today's summer rain and wind I could close my eyes and imagine to be in a harbour - at least for thirty two minutes. Riek, also the owner of the Gruenrekorder label, recorded some excellent sounds in these various harbors. Rusty metal, moved by the irregularities of the sea, seagulls, and objects moved by water (like rubber objects, tires or some such) and curiously also a steam engine. Each piece is kept short and to the point, a precise edit out of a larger reality. Almost song like in structure. If pure, unprocessed field recordings are your cup of tea, then this release by Lasse-Marc Riek is an excellent example of what it is. If you are new to the genre, this is a great way to step inside.
- Frans de Waard -

Sonomu
Lasse-Marc Riek is a Finnish field recordist who pursues his interest in "bio-acoustics" alone and in concert with scientists, ecologists and musicians. He maintains an archive of wildly disparate location recordings ranging from sleddogs in empty, northern Finland to crowds of soccer fans at the 2006 World Cup in Germany: http://www.lasse-marc-riek.de/fieldreports/

Between the springs of 1999 and 2007, he compiled a series of location recordings at four different harbours, two each in Finland and Germany. They are presented entirely untreated, since the sound of gangways and docks, ships and coastal birds was for him an act of self-composition.

You can certainly obtain the same experience, dozens of time over in fact, by visiting his website. However, acquiring this release on Goh Lee Kwang´s excellent Malaysian label, aside from encouraging the spread of experimental music, gains you a many-sided work of art which includes stellar graphic design by Tobias Schmitt, and a somewhat hermetic text by Stefan Militzer which ends with the musical question, ”Now, what do you hear when you walk on a dock?”

The sound of its condition and history, the sound of man´s attempts to mediate between sea and shore, of the same sea lapping at the shores of Finland and Germany as heard from different latitudes.

It is also our most temporal zone - in a world of impermanence, nothing changes more than the places where water meets land.

It can hardly be called pretty, aside from the opening and closing tracks, especially the latter with its choir of seagulls. But it transports the listener so immediately and convincingly that you would swear you can smell the salt in the air.
- Stephen Fruitman -

Monsieur Delire
Mon premier contact avec cet artiste sonore. Harbour propose des enregistrements de terrain non retraités. Il y a là une palette sonore large, très métallique comme il se doit (un port et ses conteneurs, après tout). Mais surtout, cette série de courtes pièces (formant un court disque de 32 minutes) bouge beaucoup, elle sont très actives. Et un enregistrement de qualité, qui offre donc une écoute courte mais soutenue. Facile de faire rejouer immédiatement.

My first contact with this sound artist. Harbour features untreated field recordings. The sound palette is wide, though very metallic (lots of containers in a harbour, not to mention the ships). But most of all, this collection of short pieces (making up a short record, 32 minutes) has a lot happening. These tracks are very active. And a quality recording. A short listen that sustained my interest throughout. Pressing “Play” again is a no-brainer.
- François Couture -

Blow Up
Come già il titolo lascia chiaramente intendere, “Harbour” è frutto delle registrazioni effettuate dall’artista multimediale Lasse Marc Riek in alcuni porti della Germania e della Finlandia. L’elemento di maggior interesse del lavoro consiste nel fatto che tutte le field recordings contenute in questo lavoro non hanno subito alcun trattamento né tantomeno sono state assemblate in forma di composizione concretista. Sono semplicemente riportate nude e crude su supporto digitale, a testimonianza della loro sorprendente e spettrale musicalità, quasi fossero istantanee sonore destinate all’album dei ricordi. (6/7)
- Massimiliano Busti -

The Watchful Ear
Its one of Brian’s often returned to questions I know, and so I feel slightly conscious asking it again here, but why is it exactly that we each connect with field recordings differently, and some work for us while others don’t? Is the notion of personal familiarity important here? Do we need to know sounds personally to connect with them? I don’t think this is necessarily the case, though it might help. I grew up around railways, and their sounds have an important place in my childhood. So if someone released a CD of freight wagons being pushed around a goods yard, or the familiar rumble of old diesel locomotives late at night I would probably be very taken with it. Recordings made at harbours though, despite my recent enjoyment of such places, may not connect in the same way. Perhaps that could be one reason why I find Harbour, a new disc by Lasse Marc Riek of untreated field recordings made indeed at harbours to be missing some key ingredient.

I should state early on here that there is nothing particularly wrong or uninteresting about the eight pieces included on this CD, which is a new release on the Herbal International label, just that somehow, in some way they pass me by without really making any impact, without giving me a sense of place, or leading me to wonder where sounds come from. Actually, after returning home from work this evening somewhat tired and in a bad mood, I put on Harbour without really giving any thought to the music’s origins, without reading the sleevenotes, or even really comprehending that what I was about to hear was field recordings. It did strike me very quickly after pressing play that what I was hearing was unprocessed field recording, but the exact nature of what I was hearing was not immediately obvious. The opening tracks, full of scraping and groaning sounds recorded in vaguely large spaces did not say harbour to me, rather just ageing industrialised sounds of one kind or another. It wasn’t until track four (my favourite of the pieces here) where odd, closely miked creaks are almost drowned out by the sound of ship’s horns and whistles that any relationship to the sea was evident to me.

Riek certainly seems to have worked hard to find the recordings that make up this album. He recorded at ports in Finland, Germany and Austria, and in places, such as throughout the sixth piece, where constant groaning wails of differing pitches seem to form slow rhythms as gentle water lapping drifts past, he has managed to find inherently musical sounds to record, suggesting a lot of hours spent seeking out the recordings that appear here. Track six sounds a little like an Eddie Prevost bowed cymbal solo played with heavy wooden instruments while floating down the river…

Despite the degree of invention that has gone into the composition of this album, and the original nature of the recordings (are there any other albums of harbour sounds out there?) I have to say that I struggle to be pulled into the music. Maybe the sounds are just a little too abstract, a little too non-representative so that they don’t place me anywhere other than right here listening to a CD of unusual sounds. The final track of the album is full of seabirds calling and flies buzzing and I immediately think of the coast, I immediately feel a sense of place in the music that was missing from the first seven pieces. On this closing track though, the references are very obvious, as if Riek has swung the mood completely in the other direction, away from finding hidden beauty in the sounds of the harbours and instead just showcasing familiar elements.

So these pieces have been well recorded, carefully researched and neatly chosen, portraying both the familiar sounds of a harbour and the hidden secrets that play their own private music, but somehow, for some reason nothing here has really jumped out at me as remarkable, nothing has sounded gone anywhere I didn’t think it would go, and crucially nothing has evoked any images of familiar or invented places in my head. I just don’t know why this is. On Monday I was really taken by David Papapostolou’s field recordings of pretty much nothing extraordinary, but here, presented by clear recordings of carefully selected sounds partly driven by natural maritime phenomena I don’t feel inspired. Maybe my own tiredness has an impact on my ability to listen creatrively, and on another day I would find a lot more to grab me in Harbour, but I suspect not for some reason. I can’t answer Brian’s question satisfactorily, and maybe none of us can, but perhaps that is where some of my interest in field recordings comes from, this uncertainty over what appeals and what doesn’t. It also seems to affect each of us differently, which is why my thoughts on this CD should be taken as individual to me alone, and that each listener will likely respond very differently.

One thing about the release- while the six panel digipack is externally wrapped in a slightly disappointing series of pastel shaded rectangles overlaid by large type, the inside of the packaging features a great image made up (I think) of a close up photo of multicoloured and randomly sized storage boxes piled up on top of each other, perhaps an image found at a harbour, but certainly an attractive piece of design.
- Richard Pinnell -

Just Outside
Probably just coincidence, but I seem to be encountering more and more field recordings containing the quality of insistency lately. Those insectile sound of Thomas Tilly were one recent example and this disc, apparently from docksides around Germany and Scandinavia is another. To be sure, there are subtler sounds in play, but the ones that leap out, here, are the brutal groans occasioned, I think, by the rubbing of large craft against wood pilings, boat whistles and the like. Perhaps we've (or, "I've") drifted along some continuum that's expected field recordings to concentrate on the small and thereby quiet, a needless constriction when you get down to it. Also, these are "unprocessed" which shouldn't pose a problem; were I sitting out on the piers, I'd likely enjoy it as much as the next person. But somehow, playing it back over my stereo, there seems to be a lack, an overtness that negates the sense of mystery one would have in situ and which might be recovered via some kind of creative processing. Hard to say. Or perhaps Riek and I simply have differing tastes with regard to sonic material we find interesting, likely more my problem than his. In any case, I found it tough to really immerse myself here, didn't smell the sea air.
- Brian Olewnick -

1001 Sabine Ercklentz / Andrea Neumann:::: LAlienation

2009-03-01T16:02:00.000-08:00

1 BIALETTI 8'35"
2 LALIENATION 8'46" (excerpt, vbr mp3)
3 ORTLAUT 10'54"
4 PASSER PAR TOUT 7'26"
5 TWIN QUARTET 9'03"
6 LALIENATION [Mpeg4] 8'46"

Audio CD extra, 6 panels digipak with 16 pages booklet including essay by Marion Saxer on music on Ercklentz / Neumann. Translated by William Wheeler.
50 minutes+
Release date: April 2010
12 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

Line Note (English version come with the cd booklet):
Mediengemische. Sabine Ercklentz und Andrea Neumann spielen mit der Technik
Die Eroberung der Klangfarbe als eigenständiger Parameter ist das große Thema der Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts. Klangfarbe ist auch der zentrale musikalische Parameter der Musik von Sabine Ercklentz und Andrea Neumann. Das Duo überträgt damit Entwicklungen der schriftlich fixierten Kompositionen Neuer Musik in die eigene musikalische Praxis, die geprägt ist von einem äußerst bewussten Umgang mit den Farbcharakteren der Klänge. Sämtliche Stücke der vorliegenden CD faszinieren mit fein ausgehörten, ungewöhnlichen Klangtexturen. Diese bewegen sich in einem spannungsvollen Feld zwischen traditionellen Instrumentalklängen und elektronischen Klängen, die sich zum Teil bewusst digitalen Störgeräuschen anähneln oder mit Fauchen, Summen, Zischen oder Zirpen eher an Tierlaute erinnern. Den „Ohrwünschen folgen“, hat die ausgebildete Pianistin Andrea Neumann einmal diese Suche nach einer selbst geschaffenen Klangwelt genannt. Das Inside-Piano, ihr eigens entwickeltes „Spezial-Instrument“ ist aus dem Motiv heraus entstanden, diese eigenen „Ohrwünsche“ zu befriedigen.

Der von dem Klavierbauer Bernd Bittmann aus leichtem Metall angefertigte und von Tastatur und Gehäuse entkleidete Klavierrahmen wird mit zahlreichen Präparationen bespielt. Pickups, die an unterschiedlichen Stellen des Instrumentes positioniert sind, dienen, aufgrund ihrer unterschiedlichen Abnahmecharakteristiken, neben der Verstärkung des ansonsten sehr leisen Instruments ebenfalls der Erweiterung des klanglichen Spektrums. Das für die Verstärkung erforderliche Mischpult wird durch interne Rückkoppelungen selbst zum klingenden Teil des Instrumentariums. Zudem können akustisch erzeugte und elektronische Klänge miteinander kombiniert werden – etwa wenn eine oszillierende Seite des Pianos die Frequenz einer Rückkoppelung beeinflusst. Daraus ergibt sich die für Ercklentz/Neumann typische akustisch-elektronisch hybride Klangwelt. Auch die Zeitlichkeit der Klänge kann per Mischpult verändert werden. Scharfe Schnitte werden nun möglich, das plötzliche Einsetzen oder Abreißen von Klängen, das von einer Interpretin oder einem Interpreten in dieser extremen Präzision nicht realisieren werden kann.

Sabine Ercklentz erweitert ebenfalls die klanglichen Möglichkeiten ihres Instruments, der Trompete, mit Tonabnehmern und live-elektronischen Modulationsmöglichkeiten. Ercklentz kann die von ihr erzeugten Klänge zu mehreren elektronischen Stimmen splitten und durch Verzerrer und Filter zusätzlich verfremden. Zudem mischt sie live gespielte und gesampelte Klänge und erzeugt damit eine mehrstimmige und räumliche Klangsprache. Ihr Spiel auf dem Instrument selbst folgt darüber hinaus bereits einem spezifischen Klangideal: Ercklentz vermeidet die konventionelle Tonerzeugung fast gänzlich. Sie strebt stets einen starken Geräuschanteil bei den von ihr live gespielten Klängen an und hält die Intonation bewusst in der Schwebe. Zudem bevorzugt sie ein sehr leises Spiel, das intensiv verstärkt wird, um die Farbcharakteristik der Trompete nicht vollständig zur Entfaltung kommen zu lassen. Mit diesen Eigenheiten nähert Ercklentz das Live-Spiel den elektronisch modifizierten Klängen an.

Wie die beiden Musikerinnen die Elektronik verwenden, geht jedoch über die bloße Klangexploration hinaus. Bei dem „medial turn“ in der Musik von Sabine Ercklentz und Andrea Neumann handelt es sich um einen subtilen Einsatz der avantgardistischen Strategie der Abweichung, das heißt eine künstlerische Praxis oder ein künstlerisches Medium wird in einen fremden Kontext transferiert und erzeugt dadurch eine ästhetische Differenz. Ercklentz/Neumann erzielen mit ihrem spezifischen und singulären Setting sogar eine doppelte Differenz. Zum einen beziehen sie sich auf die ältere musikalische Praxis der Schriftlichkeit zurück: Die stets schriftlich fixierte Klangfarbenkomposition des 20. Jahrhunderts wird übersetzt bzw. verschoben in die nicht-schriftliche Praxis der medienintegrativen Improvisation. Zugleich besteht aber auch ein Bezug zur zeitgenössischen Computerkomposition, die nicht mehr der lebendigen Interpreten bedarf. Hierzu erzeugen Ercklentz/Neumann ebenfalls eine Differenz, wenn sie diese Klänge in die ältere Praxis des Live-Spiels „rücküberführen.“ Diese Differenzen oder Verschiebungen machen den ästhetischen Reiz der Arbeit von Ercklentz/Neumann aus. Dass die elektronische Klangwelt von zwei Musikerinnen live am Instrument erzeugt wird, macht das Spezifische und Singuläre der Aufführungssituation aus und wirkt sich darüber hinaus auch unmittelbar auf das Klangbild der Musik aus. Denn der Raum für musikalisch Spontanes, für situativ sich ergebende Abweichungen, der in den Stücken offen gelassen wird, teilt sich den Hörern mit. Dass diese so technisch anmutende Klangwelt von den Interpretinnen unmittelbar hervorgebracht wird, bleibt musikalisch auf einer subtilen Ebene wahrnehmbar und schlägt sich in feinen zeitliche Nuancierungen und schwer fassbaren klanglichen Manifestationen des physischen Prozesses des Instrumentalspiels nieder. Diese Qualitäten sind auch auf einer CD-Aufnahme wahrnehmbar, wenn der visuelle Eindruck der Aufführung entfällt.

Die Komplexität der Medienkonstellation der vorliegenden Aufnahmen wird deutlich, wenn man sich klarmacht, dass die Verwendung der Elektronik der zeitgenössischen Mediensituation entspricht, dagegen verweist die improvisatorische Praxis auf vor-schriftliche und schriftliche Medienphasen. Gerade solche medialen Mischsituationen, in der Prä-Schriftlichkeit, Schriftlichkeit und Post-Schriftlichkeit zu jeweils individuellen Konstellationen zusammentreten, sind typisch für die zeitgenössische musikalische Medienpraxis. Die Verwendung neuer Medien führt eben nicht zur Absage an ältere Praxen sondern beleuchtet diese in neuen medialen Konstellationen.

Auch das Live-Instrumentalspiel der beiden Protagonistinnen erfährt durch die verwendete Technik eine leichte Verschiebung: Typisch für die traditionelle musikalische Aktion ist die Möglichkeit, Klang und Motorik der Interpreten aufeinander zu beziehen. Das Publikum sieht auch, was es hört, wenn es eine Pianistin oder eine Trompeterin im Konzert erlebt. Diese Abbildlichkeit des Klanglichen in der Instrumentalmotorik wird durch die Verwendung von Elektronik bei Ercklentz/Neumann aufgebrochen. Zwar ist die Live-Aktion essenziell, aber nicht alle Klänge können Spielbewegungen der Protagonistinnen zugeordnet werden. Dadurch entsteht eine Irritation, eine gleichsam medial gefilterte, unmittelbare Präsenz der Akteurinnen. Auch in Bezug auf das Instrumentalspiel ist demnach bei Ercklentz/Neumann eine Zwischenform gegeben zwischen rein elektronischer Klangerzeugung und traditionellem Instrumentalspiel, in der technische und menschliche Akteure sich mischen. Typisch für diese neue Medienkonstellation ist zudem, dass darin wieder Rückgriffe auf ältere Praktiken enthalten sind.

Charakteristisch für die Arbeit von Ercklentz/Neumann ist zudem, dass den einzelnen Stücken jeweils individuelle Konzepte zugrunde liegen. Dies gilt auch für alle auf dieser CD versammelten Aufnahmen. Für die Konzepte und die daraus sich ergebenden musikalischen Arbeitsprozesse sind die verwendeten technischen Medien von großer Bedeutung.

Die Grundidee von Ortlaut z.B. ist direkt von der Technik inspiriert: Der formale Ablauf des Stückes ergibt sich aus dem Versuch, unterschiedliche Lautsprecherkonstellationen auszuloten. Das Spiel mit den räumlichen Möglichkeiten der vier in den Konzerten benutzten Lautsprecher ist auf einer Stereo-Aufnahme nicht leicht zu verfolgen. Dass Ortlaut dennoch als vollständiges Stück wahrgenommen wird, liegt an der wachen und immer eigenartigen und überraschenden Klangwelt des Stückes, deren spezifische Farbigkeit sich ebenso schwer beschreiben lässt, wie etwa der Geschmack von Kaffee. Wenn im letzten der drei Teile der Improvisation eine ruhige Klangfläche aus tierhaft summend-surrenden Klängen, mit atmenden Geräuschen und kurzen Schabern überlagert, einer konträren Textur aus scharfen Rauschklängen, die schnell und brutal mit scharfen Schnitten wechseln und mit metallischen Schlaggeräuschen kombiniert werden, gegenübergestellt wird, dann ist die Klangwirkung nicht einfach nur „interessant“, es werden vielmehr musikalische Charaktere geformt, die gerade in der Mischung von Technik und „Pseudo-Organik“ in neue Ausdrucksdimensionen vorstoßen, die Technisches und Organisches nicht mehr als unvereinbare Oppositionen behandeln, sondern zu einer neuen Einheit verschmelzen.

Apropos Kaffee: In Osserpse wird die Technik ganz anders verwendet. Hier wird die Aufnahme des Siedens und Aufkochens einer Espressomaschine zugespielt. Ercklentz/Neumann improvisieren zu den konkreten Klängen. Sie musikalisieren, intensivieren und kommentieren sie. Um dies in so brillanter Weise wie auf der vorliegenden Aufnahme realisieren zu können – Osserpse gehört unbedingt zu den überzeugendsten und fein ausgehörtesten zu einem Höhepunkt führenden Crescendi der abendländischen Musikgeschichte, die spätestens seit dem 19. Jahrhundert an Steigerungsprozessen schon einiges zu bieten hat – bedurfte es in Abstimmung mit den Zuspielklängen einer sekundengenauen Festlegung einzelner Spielaktionen. Im Konzert spielen die Musikerinnen bei diesem Stück mit Stoppuhr. Aus dem technischen Setting ergeben sich neue Praktiken der Produktion. Das Spektrum der Möglichkeiten, die das schriftlose Spiel bietet, ist immens. Es macht Sinn, hier von Improvisationskompositionen zu sprechen.

Dies gilt für alle der versammelten Aufnahmen, wobei der improvisatorische Spielraum, je nach Konzept des Stückes ein anderer ist. In Passer par tout spielt ebenfalls die Technik mit. Es werden vier unterschiedliche Rauschklänge per Zuspiel eingeblendet, die von den Interpretinnen als Flächen wahrgenommen werden. Jeder dieser Rauschflächen – oder Fenster sind bestimmte Spielaktionen zugeordnet, die live ausgeführt werden. In Passer par tout interagieren die Interpretinnen demnach nicht bloß miteinander sondern auch mit den eingespielten Klangflächen.

ALienation dagegen lebt aus dem klanglichen Kontrast energiereicher Liege-Geräuschklänge und rhythmisch artikulierter instrumentaler Artikulation, die sich aus der abstrakt unverortbaren Klanglandschaft des Beginns allmählich herausschält. Das „Groovestück“, das sich so ergibt, bleibt eigentümlich, kann doch auch in der free-jazzartigen Kulmination am Ende die „Vorgeschichte“ der Entwicklung nicht vergessen werden.

Bei dem letzten der hier vorgelegten Stücke handelt es sich um die Klangspur einer Performance-Aktion der beiden Künstlerinnen. Die Videobrücke Berlin Stockholm ist ein gefakter Audio und Video Live-Stream. Bei der Aufführung wird dem Publikum suggeriert, dass die in Stockholm live-spielende Andrea Neumann mit Sabine Ercklentz musiziert, die sich in Berlin befindet und per Live-stream zugeschaltet wird. Um ein Fake handelt es sich bei der Aktion, weil der Live-Stream lediglich vorgetäuscht wird und Andrea Neumann tatsächlich mit einer vorbereiteten DVD interagiert, in die alle digitalen Audio- und Bildstörungen nachträglich eingearbeitet wurden. Der musikalische Ablauf ist stark durchgestaltet und als Komposition wahrnehmbar. Weil in der Konzertsituation dem Publikum jedoch das technisch avancierte Setting des Live-Streams glaubhaft vorgegaukelt wurde, konnten die Konzertbesucher die kompositorischen Qualitäten des Stückes nicht wahrnehmen.

In Videobrücke Berlin Stockholm reflektiert das Improvisationsduo humorvoll die Verwendung von digitalen Störgeräuschen. Wie in einem Vexierbild lassen sich diese der Situation entsprechend als Störungen wahrnehmen oder aber – mit veränderter Wahrnehmungseinstellung – als Bestandteil einer durchgestalteten Komposition. Dieses Spiel mit der ästhetischen Differenz enthält einen für die Arbeit der Künstlerinnen typischen Aspekt, der bereits in den vorangegangenen Stücken begegnete. Auch in Videobrücke Berlin Stockholm setzen die beiden Musikerinnen die Strategie der Abweichung im Rückgriff auf eine ältere Mediensituation ein: der Live-Stream erweist sich als „traditionelle“, vorproduzierte DVD. Die Mediengeschichte schreitet nicht einem Postulat des Fortschritts gehorchend voran, ästhetische Erfahrung lässt sich vielmehr gerade aus dem Spiel mit verschiedenen Mediensituationen erzeugen. Neue technische Möglichkeiten verdienen es, hinterfragt zu werden. Dies kann durchaus auch mit Humor geschehen.
- Marion Saxer -

Related resources:
Geographically connected
Lasse-Marc Riek: Harbour

Review(s):
Vital Weekly
Quite a deceiving cover here which looks like the poster of a b-movie. Yet the music is nothing like that. Sabine Ercklentz plays trumpet and electronics and Andrea Neumann plays inside piano and mixing desk. Especially music by the latter we came across in the field of improvisation, and this disc is surely another fine work in that direction. But its also an expansion of their territory. Somewhere in the second piece, the title piece there is all of a sudden a rhythm
coming in, which must be like heresy in the world of improvisation. The whole work is pretty vibrant with the trumpet being the sole fighter on the side of all things acoustic. It seems to me that the electronics play the main role here. Things are punched in and out and adds a certain roughness to the recording. Its a wild affair this one, with that trumpet in the middle of that battle of electronics, which are played as a collage like patterns. Sometimes Neumann plays rhythms on her piano, and even there is a bit of spoken word on 'Twin Quartet'. An excellent, most daring release of improvised music. Also included is a film for the title track, which is hard to believe - but a b-movie in itself. A most confusing ending to a great CD.
- Frans De Waard -

Paris Transatlantic
In case you're wondering whether there's an apostrophe missing between the L and the A, the album cover, with the title in huge white letters on the hillside, makes it clear. Los Angeles meets alien meets nation, I suppose. The cover also shows our two protagonists, trumpeter Ercklentz and inside pianist Neumann, with garlands of – are those onions? - round their necks, decked out in what look like swimsuits and made up to look like Virgil Tracy from Thunderbirds. Not so much Lalienation as Supermarionation, if you like. An eight-minute short film included on the disc as an mpeg video file tells the story of the cover, showing our intrepid lassies emerging from the Pacific (maybe that's seaweed then, not onions) crossing the City of the Angels and setting up the photo shoot. It's fun, and certainly original, but the disc works perfectly well without it. Marion Saxer's nine-page accompanying essay in the booklet is a good read, too, but the music needs no explanation. In addition to their instruments of choice, neither of which sound much like a trumpet or a piano (but you're all hip to "extended techniques" now), Ercklentz and Neumann make extensive use of electronics, not only to incorporate local found sounds – the gurgle of an espresso percolator in "Bialetti" is immediately recognisable – but to transform and sequence them into what are at times remarkably accessible compositions, both harmonically and rhythmically. Yes, you can even tap your feet to "Twin Quartet" and almost hum along with parts of the title track. That said, you're not likely to hear this on your local Top 40 station in the near future, but Ercklentz and Neumann have thoroughly mastered the lingua franca of contemporary improvised music, with its puffs, fizzes, twangs and scrapes, and demonstrate convincingly that it can and should, given the right encouragement, speak to a wider public than it attracts at the moment. Hell, you might even find someone popping it into their car stereo in L.A. one day.
- Dan Warburton -

The Watchful Ear
So the CD in question tonight is Lalienation, the relatively recent duo release by Berlin musicians Sabine Ercklentz (trumpet and electronics) and Andrea Neumann (inside piano and electronics) on the Concrete offshoot of the Herbal International label. Before writing anything about the music mention must be made of the sleeve design for this one, which really stands out as something very different for an improv release. The two musicians stand, weirdly made up so as to look like wooden figures straight out of a Gerry Anderson animation, in front of the Hollywood sign, though the letters have been altered to read LALIENATION. What all of this means I really have very little idea, but it is certainly a striking and very original sleeve design, not what we might expect, which in places is also what we may think about the music on the CD.

I think I first heard these recordings in a demo state a couple of years ago. When I first put this CD into the player a week or so back I had forgotten about this, but the music on the CD is very distinct, primarily because of the use of rhythm, mainly on the album’s title track, which is the second piece here. Before this, the disc opens with a very nice study of short textures and juxtaposed electronic and acoustic sounds called Bialetti. the lengthy sleeve notes (another break from the norm here) reveal some of the sounds we hear to be a recording of a coffee machine (perhaps the track title refers tot he machine’s brand name) burbling away, something I did not notice two years ago, and would probably not have realised without the sleeve note pointer now, though once you know the sounds do become clear. This opening piece is maybe my favourite on the album, sounding very “present” and vibrant in some way. Lalienation then, the second piece begins in a similar area but then breaks up into a kind of disjointed, angular rhythm made up from very short bursts of sound, presumably processed and sequenced in some way, though as the music seems to be entirely improvised it could be that much of this is done manually.

I’m really torn about how I feel about this track. As the rhythmic elements continue and Ercklentz begins to play short spiky trumpet parts over them it all seems very simple and obvious, and yet, it isn’t obvious at all that these musicians should work this way, that they should produce music with this oddly jagged groove to it. Rhythms, at least not of this kind are something of a no-go area in this type of improvised music, and while the actual sounds here and how they are used do not feel at all comfortable to me perhaps that’s the point, we listeners maybe aren’t meant to feel safely in our comfort zones. For sure I have found myself fighting a natural urge to dislike the rhythmic element to the music, but at the end of the day the music challenges me here, and that can never be a bad thing.

Ortlaut, the third track again drifts through sections of instantly collaged abstraction that also includes some kind of indoor field recording in the mix before cracking up into tiny fragments that fly past, coming close to the clear pulse of the second track, but ending up a little too fast and oblique in nature to become anything you could tap your foot to. The sleeve notes suggest the music on this piece is directly influenced by technology, and that originally the work was presented on many different kinds of speaker, a factor that apparently cannot be replicated on a single CD. Indeed I am reminded of digital technology by this piece, the slow loading of websites or downloads, gradually speeding up until just a blur as they come to their end.

Passer par tout, the fourth piece here has a far more open, organic feel to it, but it appears to actually be a quite tightly preconceived conceptual work, with four pre-recorded sounds slowly faded into the music, with the musicians seemingly then taking these as background colour for the musicians to play into, possibly in a vaguely composed manner, possibly not, as the liner notes hint in this direction without really being clear. There is a feeling of a little more space and calm in this track, with distant whistles and murky background clouds providing much of the interest, with additionally added elements few and far between. The disc’s audio tracks then end with Twin Quartet, another conceptual piece that apparently “deals with expectations of an audience who watches an event streamed live, though the live stream is actually a preproduced video”. It seems that a live audience were duped into thinking they would be watching a live stream of an improvisation, when in fact they were watching a pre-recorded film. Exactly how this information can be applied to the act of listening to the audio sound on this CD I am not sure. With the exception of a slightly different recording colouration (this piece was made more than a year after the others) it just sounds like another track here, again slipping into peculiar rhythms, with the sparse trumpet almost duetting with field recordings of spoken word broadcasts also appearing here and there.

Picture 1Then there is also a film included on the disc, which turns out to be a kind of promo video for the album’s title track, a somewhat peculiar one at that. Shot in Los Angeles, the video begins with a woman getting into her car and choosing the LAlienation CD to play on the stereo. the film then cuts to a shot of the seashore, where, as the music begins, Ercklentz and Neumann, dressed as they appear on the CD sleeve walk out of the water and then set about wandering around LA, where, dressed in their alien garb they are looked at oddly by the locals. They try and flag down a car, with little luck, before chancing across the woman who began the film, who, while on th phone leaves her car with the keys in it. The strange Ercklentz and Neumann figures then take the car and drive to the Hollywood sign, where they climb up, dragging a camera tripod with them, and take the photo that appears on the front of the CD.

I would imagine the film simply depicts the sense of not belonging that the two musicians felt in the LA culture at some point, positioning them as alien to the glamour and glitz of the city, and yet still following the path of all tourists to the Hollywood sign, not really knowing why they would be doing so. The addition of the film here doesn’t necessarily add anything to the music, but its a nice, very original and highly ambitious touch. There is simply nothing else like this out there right now. For certain, the inclusion of a video won’t open up the music to any wider audience, so I suspect it has been added as a wry and certainly very humorous glance at the feeling of alienation that musicians in this area of music feel when considering the bigger musical picture. Certainly this is an interesting release that deserves more attention than I have seen it get so far. There is much to discuss here.
- Richard Pinnell -

Just Outside
Helluva cover. The first two letters are capitalized on the Herbal site which, combined with the clear visual reference of the hillside sign and the less clear nod to...well, something, maybe Grade D-movies, one might have expected some commentary on entertainment culture but, if so, it's pretty oblique. Fine by me, as these six trumpet/inside piano duets are more than strong enough to stand on their own. The liner notes by Marion Saxer foreground notions of texture and that's certainly one of the standout qualities here--much of the music simply sounds gorgeous, the timbres of the brass and excited piano wire melding beautifully. It's also, in part, far more approachable than one would suspect, pieces like "Bialetti" having a firm rhythmic base, Ercklentz' horn echoing Bowie's bluesy romanticism. There are beats in play elsewhere, never too intrusive, always tempered with digressions into arrhythmia (!) and a good bit of quasi-melodic content. But the rigor with which the music is assembled precludes any too-easy digestion. Rather, the pair strikes a juicy, slightly itchy balance between the accessible and abstract, amply rewarding both aspects. The disc includes an MPEG4 file which, in my ignorance of all things ipodistic, I was unable to open. Don't let that dissuade you, though--a fine recording.
- Brian Olewnick -

Monsieur Delire
Sabine Ercklentz (trompette, électroniques) et Andrea Neumann (cadre de piano, électroniques) travaillent ensemble depuis un bout de temps, dans divers projets, mais leur duo est un lieu de création particulier, où elles se permettent un peu de tout. LAlienation (on aurait envie d’y mettre une apostrophe, oui, sauf que la pochette faisant allusion aux grosses lettres blanches du “Hollywood”, on comprend qu’il s’agit d’un jeu de mots entre Los Angeles et alienation) – LAlienation, donc, couvre une palette large, entre l’impro libre microsonique, le field recording et le post-jazz. Voilà un disque stimulant (par les techniques utilisées, mais aussi les juxtapositions), aguichant (on y trouve de jolies mélodies) et varié (chacune des cinq pièces propose un cadre, des outils et une approche différents). Et c’est la pochette la plus saisissante à m’être passée entre les mains dernièrement!

Sabine Ercklentz (trumpet, electronics) and Andrea Neumann (piano frame, electronics) have been working together for a while now, in various projects, but their duo remains a special creative space where they can try a little of everything. LAlienation covers a lot of ground, from microsonic free improvisation to field recording and post-jazz. This is a stimulating record (the techniques used, their juxtaposition), sexy (there ARE some pretty melodies), and diverse (each of the five tracks has a different frame, tools and concept). And it’s the most striking cover artwork I have seen in a while!
- François Couture -

0902 Goh Lee Kwang:::: Hands

2009-02-25T20:22:00.000-08:00

01 Godot is Coming I
02 Hands III
03 Hands
04 Tape I
05 Tape II
06 Tape III (excerpt, vbr mp3)
07 Hands II
08 Godot is Coming II
09 Tap Type

All by Goh Lee Kwang. Composed, Performed, Recorded between 2005 - 2008, Malaysia.

Painting by Melissa Lin
The Real Divide
Louieee Speeding Into The Night
In The Mind Glows A Spark

Audio CD, 6 panels digipak
40 minutes+
Release date: August 2009
12 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

Review(s)
The Wire
On Hands, recorded between 2005 and 2007, Malaysian sound artist Goh Lee Kwang's instrument of choice is an old Roland Jupiter analogue synth, but toy keyboards, saxophones, bass and drums also thrown into the pot and merrily melted down by Max/MSP. Steering carefully between the unbridled hedonism of vintage synth outing - Pauline Oliveros's early work comes to mind - and there ecstatic noodling of latterday neo-psychedelia, the opening "Godot Is Coming I" revels in primitive awfulness of the instrument, mercilessly exploiting its wayward intonation, farty parps, loopy swoops like childlike glee. Electronic music hasn't been this much fun since Vernon Elliott's inspired doodling in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop for Oliver Postgate's Clangers. But it's not all fun and games: the ominous thudding percussion of "Hands III" is intercut with thunderous woofer-unfriendly rumbles and high register shrieks worthy of Kevin Drumm.

It's a display of openminded eclecticism typical of Kwang, whose musical tastes range from the austere static drizzle of Drone with Tim Blechmann to the gnarly no-input mixing board of 2007's Good Vibrations. Here the album title is significant - for all its hi and lo tech wizardry, this is good old hands - on composition, with a fine ear and shrewd sense of pacing and structure, and Kwang's most exciting and varied release since 2002's Nerve Center.
- Dan Warburton -

Music Emissions
Goh Lee Kwang has, over a series on limited releases, explored sound in a way that is minimal in construction, but large in impact. Often that impact can be madness, as repetition and quirky "rhythms" can be heard either as random compositional results or torture. My sense is that he is fine with any reaction. "Hands" features nine tracks that burp, stop and go, screech and sit still. Most seem to have been improvised using tapes and other assorted manipulated sound effects.

At least by title, the main inspirations here are hands (three tracks), Godot (2) and four preoccupied with tape. Are they meant to evoke waiting? Moments that can be erased or leave their marks on the body? Hard to tell. What vocals there are tend to be non-sensical but insistent, kinda child-like, kinda childish. Yet the slightly odd menace of the music does not imply innocence. Go figure.

"Hands" is fairly lengthy investment into a sonic world that seems filled with secrets we are not meant to know, but to speculate on. Goh Lee Kwang has always drawn a line between those who will want to investigate his music, and those who will not. This one is worth a chance.
- Mike Wood -

Vital Weekly
So far we have heard Goh Lee Kwang playing no input mixers in a variety of releases, on CD, CDR and MP3, but somehow I think this new release is something a bit different. It says composed, performed, recorded between 2005-2008 on the cover, and it seems, somehow, somewhere to me, that he uses instruments here. Synthesizers perhaps, sound effects may be. I might however be totally wrong about this. You never know for sure when its not told, right. He plays these however in his usual style. Goh Lee Kwang is a man who likes his things to be forceful, present but not necessarily superloud. More direct, in your face. His approach in these nine tracks is that of stutter, stop and play. It seems (again, it seems, I know), he approaches one set of sounds and plays with them. A bit like serious avant-garde electronic music but then fully improvised. MEV solo, if that is something you can imagine - well, I surely can. This is not music that you could play 'just for fun' for a while, but something that requires you full awareness. Otherwise I think one can easily be annoyed by it. But if you set yourself to it, then it unfolds a pleasant sort of rawness. The beauty of power, and the sadness of decay. A very fine work, perhaps the best I heard from him so far.
- Frans de Waard -

Norman Records
It's not often we get CDs from Malaysia, but this Goh Lee Kwang CD came right across the planet and landed in our stereo system and what a joy it is. At least to these ears. Hands begins with some really cool synths that sound like racing cars accelerating. Then we're into crackling and bubbling electronics with a primal beat that Brett says "sounds like someone that has had a lobotomy banging on a cell". You know I've never heard of this sound artist before but I really dig what I'm hearing. I'd recommend this for anyone into experimental synthesis type gear. You can really just lose your self in the abstract sounds and build your own little universe, and I always reckon with this type of stuff you're only limited by your imagination as this is such a colorful palate of alien sounds. The sounds of machines speaking to each other in some coded language on 'Tape 1' would give the likes of Hecker's computer music a run for its money. Out on his own Herbal International label. Impressive stuff.
- Ant -

Monsieur Delire
De tout ce que j’ai entendu de l’artiste sonore Goh Lee Kwang, Hands est de loin son disque le plus divertissant. Sans compromettre ses recherches aux confins des textures sonores, il se laisse aller ici à une certaine forme de facétie, de jeu. Je suis prêt à parier qu’il s’est particulièrement amusé avec ce disque, et ce plaisir se ressent à l’écoute. Pourtant, ce disque n’a rien de facile, mais les pièces sont courtes, bien ciselées et menées avec la résolution d’un enfant déterminé... jusqu’à ce qu’il s’intéresse à autre chose. Kwang manie la matière sonore en grands mouvements larges, un peu à la manière des acousmaticiens. En fait, les sonorités font même rétro, un peu comme le projet Space de Rafael Toral peut faire rétro.

Of everything I’ve heard from sound artist Goh Lee Kwang, Hands is by far his most entertaining record. This he achieved without compromising his research into the confines of sonic textures. But he’s being more playful here. I’d bet he had more fun than usual with this record – at least I believe I feel that coming from the music. That said, it’s not an easy CD to listen to, but the tracks are short, focused, and carried with the resolve of a determined child... well, determined until he finds something else to do. Kwang manipulates sound matter in large encompassing gestures, a little like academic acousmaticians. His sound palette even sounds a bit retro, like Rafael Toral’s Space project.
- François Couture -

The Watchful Ear
... Today I have been listening to a new release by Malaysia’s most prolific of electronic sound sculptors, Goh Lee Kwang. This new disc, named Hands is newly released on Lee’s Herbal label, and is part of another new offshoot series, Herbal Concrete.

Coming after the amount of nineteenth century chamber music I listened to yesterday (I worked my way through seven late Schubert quartets as the evening wore on) Hands presents a real shock to the system. To begin with, the sleeve design is rather lovely, a triptych of three colourful paintings by Melissa Lin. The bright, happy images lure the listener into a false sense of security though, as the music on the disc itself is raw, dirty, and quite primitive in one sense or another. A link to a larger view of the sleeve is here. The opening track Godot is coming I is obviously Beckett inspired. A computer altered (or even generated?) voice fades in steadily, stuttering over something unintelligible. This track feels a bit like a something from the early Sixties experimental concrete schools, the electronics used sound dated, and the piece varies between being conceptually interesting and a little annoying, but it doesn’t last too long. The second track on the album, confusingly called Hands III begins with the sound of a fist tapping regularly and continually on something wooden sounding, maybe just a table. It comes and goes from time to time throughout the track, and is joined by little streams of stuttering, skittery electronic sounds, maybe the product of an analogue synth, but I suspect more likely a digital replica of one. This track is quite nice, a brittle blend of the purely acoustic and human with the unnatural, harsh opposite. A good little study. There follows a track called Hands which follows a similar pattern, but the sound of the tapping hand is replaced by what might be a manipulated recording of something similar, a slowed down, murky, echoey rhythm that is then overlaid with electronic squeals and glitching. The mass of shapes formed between the two parts is nice again here, but I prefer the earlier piece with its more tactile link back to the human input into the music.

Three tracks named Tape follow next, numerically ordered I, II and III. The first of these pieces seems to return tot he concerns of the album’s opening track, taking a sound, that might once have been a voice and wrenching it steadily apart into an increasingly abstract stream of digital splatter. This three and a half minute track seems to be as much about the process used in its creation as the structure of the work in itself. It is admittedly quite original, a kind of aural equivalent of a sculptor taking a semi-abstract piece and twisting it violently, pumping it full of air and throwing it at the walls. Tape II goes in similar directions, a wild, clearly improvised work that reminds me of a Franz Kline canvas, lines thrown across a canvas carefully but with the impression being of complete chaos. Tape III is a further study of similar ideas again. As this piece winds down though the original sounds used give themselves away to be some kind of wind instrument, maybe a jazz related sax or clarinet? For just half a second here and there its as if the sculptor, having twisted and turned the form into all kinds of shapes happened back upon the original shape. Certainly here its clear there is no human voice at the heart of the music.

The seventh track here is the Hands II piece missing from earlier on the disc, and is a slow, longer (around thirteen minutes) work through more grungy, snail paced sounds that curl themselves slowly into view in a kind of low-fi electronics manner. GLK is never afraid to allow non-pretty sounds to take centre stage, and on this piece a heavy growling groan of a sound, similar to deep guitar feedback wrenches right across the piece, gathering momentum slowly until about halfway through the track when I had to reach for the volume dial. It holds its place until the last few minutes when little glimpses of badly obliterated music can be heard behind it, maybe jazz pieces that sound like they were dug up from tenth generation cassette tapes found in a bath of acid. For all of its ugliness and extreme use of harsh sounds I liked this piece quite a bit.

The second last piece on the album is named Godot is Coming II and returns to the sci-fi pinging and belching of the opening piece, though here any trace of a voice is completely removed. For those in the UK of a certain age The Clangers spring to mind, something that in my opinion is never a good thing when it comes to electronic music. Whilst it offset the heavy qualities of the track before it this piece didn’t do much for me, and at four minutes in length it tested my patience a little. The last two and a half minute track is named Tap Type and resembles how some kind of minimal electronica artist might have sounded if he had gone down with the Titanic rather than the brass band. There are repeated rhymic motifs with warped Sun Ra-esque organ sounds and toy keyboards thrown all over the top, but it all sounds blurred and hazy. Its hard to take this piece seriously as it has a kind of novelty feel to it, but while there is humour present right throughout this album the track is not a joke piece.

Certainly Hands is very original and an increasingly mature statement from GLK who is progessively moving away from standard laptop/electronics fare and finding an area of experimental sound that is his own. In places Hands seems to try and do a little too much in one outing, but in places, such as on most of the Tape and Hands pieces there is some interesting and expressive work going on here. Hard to know who to recommend this one to, its natural audience isn’t clear, simply because of its originality, and that can’t be a bad thing at all.
- Richard Pinnell -

Blow Up
Questi materiali composti tra il 2005 e il 2008 confermano che il musicista malese sta ben oltre gli standard electro-lower case-noise-riduzionista-ecc. ‘Hands’ è un impasto di avanguardia storica, tradizione (orientale) e fine brutismo elettroacustico, contraddistinto da una continua formulazione. In Tape I, Tape II e Tape III sembra di sentire riccioli elettronici sputati da una registratore alle corde, ma non è illecito supporre all’origine uno strumento a fiato. Si ode un sax ululante anche nella seconda parte di Hands II, lunga vibrazione-feed back con diffrazioni armoniche d’un ipotetico organo bastonato. Per Hands III e Hands entra in gioco una idea di percussività tribale in differenti declinazioni: la prima come pura graniglia digitale, mentre la seconda ad esito del maltrattamento d’una chitarra. L’amore per il grottesco senza sconti lo testimoniano esplicitamente Godot Is Coming I e II che si allungano e si riavvolgono come lingue di menelik (Subotnick?). E allora cosa di meglio di Tap Type, marcetta infantil-patafisica - timbro di toy piano distorto e ritmica brutista - per chiudere cotanta sfilata di adorabili deformità? (7)
- Dionisio Capuano -

The Sound Projector
Hands (CONCRETE DISC 0902) is the work of Malaysian sound artist and installation creator, Goh Lee Kwang, a release on the Herbal International label with a stunning foldout colour sleeve painted by Melissa Lin. On the disk we have nine very strong pieces of bizarre electronic music, swooping and flying every which way with their extreme dynamics in range, timbre and pitch. With their vaguely muffled and enclosed sound, each piece gives the impression of taking place inside a stainless steel box buried at the earth’s core. Very hard to square this ruthless, near-scientific music with the organic-zoology fantasies of the cover art, but a fine tension results from the clash of the two.
- Ed Pinsent -

Just Outside
I'm not very familiar with Kwang's work, having only heard a smattering of previous tracks here and there, but from Richard's write-ups in the past, I was expecting more of a down 'n' dirty, near-noise fest than the oddly bloopy electronics encountered herein. That choice of sounds, knowingly (I take it) working with certain synth-y tones that, by their nature (to me, at any rate), connote various sf and prog-rock scenarios is a daring tactic; Rafael Toral does something similar on a spate of new LPs I'll be writing about soon. Sometimes it works, the distracting characteristics of the tones being transcended (as on "Hands III" here), sometimes it doesn't. In fact, all three "Hands" pieces are intriguing, with more meat than the trio of "Tape" tracks, or the three that wrap around these mini-suites, which combine those bleeps and gloops with vaguely rockish rhythms. Half and half overall, for me; would love to hear more work in line with the "Hands" pieces.
- Brian Olewnick -

0901-2 Jean-Luc Guionnet:::: Non Organic Bias

2009-02-02T20:53:00.000-08:00

CD1
NON-ORGANIC BIAS - 21'31" (excerpt, vbr mp3)
Two facts determined the compositional process of non-organic bias :
1 – the title itself
2 – the sound sources used for the piece were restricted to various recordings I made of the organ

Other then the play of words that sum up many of my main points of interests with the organ (organ – organum – organism – organic – etc.), the title, bias, means prejudice, focussing on, interest in, systematic distortion, irregular shape, oblique course, predisposition, partiality, from the french biais, all of them signifiing for me a sort of base of living organism.

Inclinations going through material, warped matter, a form full of inner slopes, a material that bends… non-organic bias : to rediscover the bias of a sound machine (the organ) and then, keeping the same concerns, following up these bias' up until the membrane of the speaker, passing through the whole electroacoustic network.

To compose with the technical issues, to be on the hunt for forms and artefacts that the techniques produce, when, following its own tendancies (bias), it is brought to its own limit : border effects, resonances, natural saturations, … all artefacts that sign the acoustic, analogic, digital, process…

To compose with the tendancies of the non-organic, and with the tendancies toward the non-organic : these are the 2 possible meanings of non-organic bias.

"Non-organic bias" is dedicated to Franck Gourdien.

Paris 2003
Translation : Will Guthrie

ESPACE BAS - 49'59" (excerpt, vbr mp3)
As if the wind were bringing us glimmers : sound is a light which scrapes. Documentary of nothing, music detached from the poetics of the source, i.e. from the nostalgia both of the cause and the spaces called real for the good of the cause: with "espace bas" (low space), I was playing at building, freely, almost mentally, the sound which escapes from below.

Like seeking multiple fundamentals of background noise, ultimately managing to make do with noise without making noise — under the pretext of music: it seems that time outlines sounds like water outlines the forms of stones and everything in its path; but one could also say that, in so doing, time scrapes, makes noise in scraping, and involves other forms : forms of time. "Low space" is a false noise, a false music that, in bursts, pulls the bass continuum of passing sound to the edge of forms of time - as if being low amounted to being to come.
Most of the sounds were recorded on the organ of the conservatory of Dieppe.

"Espace bas" is dedicated to Caroline Pouzolles.
Dieppe - 1995 - coproduction : « la grande fabrique ».

Translation : Dan Warburton & Patrick McGinley

CD2
ESTUAIRE - 54'18"
Here is the thing as I tell it to myself... In the very middle of a sonic estuary, just under the surface of the sound : a head is turning around itself and feeling, in the thickness of the milieu, what happen "here" as well as "over there" (streams, river's flow, banks, ocean, tides, ...horizons).

In the very middle that is to say where are "meeting" all the geographic signs.

That idea came to me while playing organ, all the sounds are those of several organs I had a chance to play on during the past years (Parthenay, Paris, Metz, Saint-Loup-sur-Thouet, Annecy, ...)

"Estuaire" is dedicated to Giacomo Leopardi.

Coproduction MIA - Annecy (2005)

2 x Audio CD,
100 minutes+
Release date: March 2009
18 Euros + shipping

* Please note that the track order here are different from the cover, here is the correct playlist, we are sorry for the inconvenience.
- Cd with the title Estuaire & NOD is actually "Espace Bas".
- Cd with the title Espace Bas is actually "track 1: NOB" & "track2: Espace Bas".

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Related resources:
Also by Jean-Luc Guionnet
Jean-Luc Guionnet / Pascal Battus: Toc Sine

Geographically connected
Eric La Casa: W2
Eric Cordier / Seijiro Murayama: Nuit
Eric La Casa / Cédric Peyronnet: La Creuse
Eric Cordier: Osorezan

Review(s):
Touching Extremes
I’m not the kind of person who squanders precious time in decoding people’s visions when they’re expressed via written concepts that, even after an accurate translation, bury the exact aims and grounds of an artistic statement under the dozens of question marks engendered by a (willingly?) unclear explanation, or the transliteration of a daydream. This happens when I try and read Jean-Luc Guionnet’s notes to the three pieces comprised by Non-Organic Bias, which make your purple prose merchant resemble a hieratic minimalist in comparison.

Therefore this writer reverted to the more palatable food. That means the music which, in this occasion, was born from the sound(s) of organ(s), subjected to various types of alteration, granularization and dismemberment. It was not an easy mission to accomplish, despite the hypothetical unfussiness of the music’s gestation and overall structure. The main motive: a big discrepancy in the results generated by the two traditional methods of enjoying the content of a disc. In fact, the frequencies privileged by Guionnet are so damn near and below the ground that, from the speakers, the large part of this double album behaves like an all-engulfing gathering of humongous purrs and potent winds as heard from within a padded room, sporadically interrupted by jarring clusters in the higher registers, or rendered totally awesome through the use of sloping slow motion and other kinds of techniques. In those circumstances, the composer nears some of our favourite masters’s expressive nuances. Xenakis (mais oui!), Kayn, a smidgen of flanged-out Palestine and Niblock in a few brief instances. I’m shivering at the thought of the nonentities who might have the guts to sample parts of this record and reprocess them for their own worthless businesses.

But if you need to assess the actual compositional value of this outing, headphones turn out to be necessary. Also, they must be able to tolerate the centre-of-the-earth throbbing grumble that a piece such as “Espace Bas” constantly elicits, otherwise what you’re hearing is going to be inexorably blemished by the gnarly rattle of earphone membranes unable to perform a truthful conversion of the acoustic mass (in this place a recent cheap Philips worked much better than an old expensive Beyerdynamic). Only at that point one is in the condition of acknowledging Guionnet’s subtle craft, his finely tuned superimposition of roar, wheeze and flutter, the diligence in placing slight substrata and virtually inconspicuous details in the mix. And become acquainted with the presence of extremely acute pitches and foreboding virtual choirs (“Estuaire” is fantastic in that sense). We’re as distant from “ambient” as a metropolitan inferno is from an airport’s waiting hall, regardless of what can be peeped around the web. These are the organ’s bowels screaming, get the picture?

This stuff should be experienced intensely, differently and continually to merely break the external ice of its impenetrability. Success is not a given, which is one of the many reasons behind my attraction towards this thick slab of a release. Consequently, let me join the admiring queue and declare that a copy of this item is mandatory in a serious listener’s collection. The verbal contortions are entirely forgiven.
- Massimo Ricci -

Just Outside
A two-disc set with three fantastic pieces, released (I think) early 2009, more or less for organ (I've no idea how much processing or overdubbing may have occurred), apparently from 1995 - 2005. The works are massive, with enormous depth and richness, undulating with their own logic, somewhere between or beyond Sun Ra at his densest and Xenakis. They're like huge clouds of gas and dust, throbbing here, dispersing there, huge electrical charges arcing in the voids at unpredictable interludes. The title cut (all cut assignations subject to error, btw, as there's some mislabeling) broods and swirls in an utterly alien manner for some 50 minutes--remember Arthur C. Clarke's brilliant (if tritely titled) "Rendezvous with Rama" where the alien ship simply glides through the Solar System, ignoring any attempts at contact, offering not a clue as to its whys or wherefores, then proceeding back out into deep space? This is kinda like that. Obsessive and wonderful. "Estuaire" (the single cut on the second disc) gets into the deep territory some listeners may recall having been approached by Sun Ra on work like "Atlantis" or "The Magic City", except the Guionnet has pierced downward into the earth's crust a few hundred miles deeper, down to where sound's travel-speed is reduced by mantle density. That estuary becomes lava-filled eventually, splitting seams, cresting, seeping into rock before cooling down. A fantastic set, get it.
- Brian Olewnick -

Bagatellen
Malaysian sound artist Goh Lee Kwang began the new year in earnest, with several releases on his labels, Herbal and Why Not. Less enterprising than many labels in kind, and more a boutique project, Herbal International has managed to deal out one of the year’s most absorbing recordings, by French improviser and self-described electroacoustic musician, Jean-Luc Guionnet. Although Guionnet plays saxophone and crafts experimental instrumention of his own, I most readily identify him by his work on organ, and the sounds on Non-Organic Bias were created (and obliterated) from that instrument. Two discs’ worth through three long tacks comprise the contents and it’s the rare instance that sound with such linearity can keep my attention for this duration.

The tracks are plenty distinctive, as Guionnet seems to have aimed for capsuled experimentation along independent themes. The title track leaves little indication that the music was created from organ, but there are isolated moments where the instrument’s unmistakeable sounds whisper through — or the sounds are rendered lightweight fragments and resin from the restructuring of organ au natural after marathon sittings with a computer processor. Guionnet’s notes for this track (translated by Will Guthrie) indicate that raw organ recordings were played back through secondary materials, drawing similarity with Patrick Farmer’s recent re-signaling of a beehive through various objects. Here it results in tremendous bass frequencies and associated rattling, as if a directional microphone captured the rumblings of a blown subwoofer cone. Between surges, the faintest organ sounds can be heard, mysteriously so. At 50 minutes long, “Espace Bas” is the most engaging piece of the set, surprisingly. Something very Xenakis about the slow-moving sounds, played as if in a chasm and with attention to timbral effects in the after processing. The notes, as translated by Dan Warburton, say Guionnet was aiming at “building, freely, almost mentally, the sound which escapes from below.” An apt description, I think. Finally, “Estuaire”, the most organ-centric of the tracks, is built as a collage of sounds used from archived recordings of Guionnet’s seatings at various organs through France and elsewhere. The mix is interesting here, with natural “organic” sounds infiltrated by electroacoustic fashionings — shimmery, ringing tones that tend to be mined and harvested from signal distortion in the mixing phase. It’s another long piece and the most toothy of the bunch, obviously a product of the imaginativeness that must come with committing to such a project. A great record, throughout.
- Alan Jones -

Vital Weekly
The work of Jean-Luc Guionnet deals at times with organs, church organs, pipe organs. Only one piece here with organ sounds. All three are granted a text to explain what they are about, but they aren't too easy to understand. Likewise I don't know what Guionnet does to his organ sounds. Are they played in real time? Are they layered? Are they processed? I simply don't know. In 'Espace Bas' it seems this is not the case, and its played 'as is', with lots of air sounding through occasionally played tones and small clusters of tones. The shortest piece, the title piece, which doesn't seem to have organ sounds, but what it is that is played here I don't know, but this seems to be a much more electronic sound of a hardly identifiable nature. Feedback? Electronics? Enhanced room acoustics? Quite a heavy piece of music here, almost noise based, which seems unlike Guionnet. 'Estuaire' is the longest piece on this double set, which is also very unclear what the sound event is, but its a much more 'mellow' piece than previous piece (which are on the same disc). Slow humming - a motor, an engine, perhaps - with very minimal changes throughout. This is a beautiful piece, the best out of three. Its a piece of ambient music built from all sorts of frequencies that just by themselves wouldn't qualify as relaxing ambient music, but in the drone like capacities work absolutely nice. Very refined this one, whereas the other two are good, and the title piece is the least convincing one.
- Frans de Waard -

The Watchful Ear
... I mention this last set because I been listening to the first of the two discs in Guionnet’s new Non-Organic Bias set today. The fifty minute single track on this disc is titled Espace Bas (Low space?) and is a piece for church organ, though I suspect that what I am hearing here is the result of several overdubbed pieces or fragments of sound recorded on an organ (one such instrument in Dieppe is mentioned in the liner notes) rather than something improvised completely in real time. The music is great, a troubled, undulating sea of cloying heavy tones overlaid by searing higher lines and the occasional violent crash.

The large wind organ is an instrument so heavily tied to one place in society and everything that comes with it. My strong atheist beliefs are no secret in these pages, but they are formed primarily by a childhood spent often in churches as I attended a Church of England school until the age of eleven that had a vicar as its headmaster. So when I hear even the slightest glimpse of an organ these links are made in my head. Listening for a while longer to this music though and it is clear that Guionnet is reclaiming the instrument from its history and connections. The organ is a hugely powerful instrument, both through its physical ability to generate huge billowing storms of sound, but also because of its place in history. Guionnet is re-channeling these elements into modern experimental music on this piece. For much of the disc the music we hear is expansive and powerful. There is a vaguely nautical feel to the music, gentle swells blowing up into torrential crashes and roars. This is passionate, emotive music but it is divorced from that history. After a while you forget how the music is made and just get pulled along on the journey. A bit of a rollercoaster ride this one and very impressive. I’m intrigued to hear the two tracks that can be found on the other disc and looking forward to Friday’s performance more than ever now. Non-Organic Bias is released on the excellent Herbal label... I returned to Jean-Luc Guionnet’s Non-Organic Bias set today and listened to the second of the two discs. There are two tracks here, the first of which, that might be titled Estuaire (I’m a little confused as to what track is titled what since Lee mentioned there is a mistake on the sleeve) is twenty-one minutes long. Again the source material for this composition all come from recordings of church organs, (several in fact that Guionnet has had the chance to play in recent years) but unlike the first disc of the set, which I wrote about a couple of days ago the sounds are quite heavily processed here. Starting slowly with brooding drones the music grows through passages where it seems to break up into grainy distortion, with the occasional unprocessed roar and plenty of detail coming and going in the background. often all trace of an organ seems to be lost, only for it to return as a more familiar sound appears. the last nine minutes of the piece see the music break apart into smaller particles that flit in and out of silence. In the liner notes to the track Estuaire Guionnet talks of the music being like an estuary, a body of water that is fed by and itself feeds other streams of activity “here” and “there.” As I said I’m not sure if this track is indeed the one called Estuaire but that analogy certainly fits anyway.

The second track on the disc, (probably) called Non-Organic Bias is a very different kettle of fish. The music begins very quietly indeed, with just the slightest murmur of a vaguely organ-like tone slipping into audibility. Steadily over several minutes this sound gathers in volume and intensity, with little swells of twisted sound rising to the top for a moment before the music drifts away again. For the next fifty-odd minutes this virtually featureless, deathly slow progression continues, avoiding any muscularity or show of overt drama and yet also very deliberate and purposeful in its form. I am again left with oceanic references, this time a gentle tide comes to mind, almost unnoticed and yet strangely forceful and direct. This piece is really quite enchanting, a nice companion piece to the passionate power of the first disc and well worth making this a two-disc set for.
- Richard Pinnell -

Monsieur Delire
Jean-Luc Guionnet est un artiste fascinant à suivre: saxophoniste free, organiste, électroacousticien, son art est difficile à saisir ou réduire. Non-Organic Bias est un disque double regroupant trois œuvres pour orgue datant de 1995 à 2005. Tout, ici, est lent, posé, minimal. “Estuaire” pourrait passer pour une étude sur la privation sensorielle: elle grommelle pendant 54 minutes et c’est tout. Où l’est-ce? Les oreilles se repositionnent, l’esprit passe en mode contemplatif et, soudain, les microvariations apparaissent, les battements, l’organicité de cet être vivant qu’est l’orgue, dépouillé de sa chape culturelle, dépuillé des notes qui masquent sa respiration. “Espace bas” (50 minutes) commence de la même manière mais prend de l’expansion, pour atteindre une tonitruance qui laisse pantois. Cela dit, ce n’est pas l’album le plus facile ou le plus saisissant de Guionnet, et il faut être patient.

Jean-Luc Guionnet is a fascinating artist to follow: free saxophonist, organist, electroacoustician – his art is hard to pinpoint or even grasp. Non-Organic Bias is a double CD culling three works for organ from 1995 to 2005. Everything here is slow-paced, serious, and minimal. “Estuaire” could moonlight as a study on sensory deprivation: it growls subvocally for 54 minutes, and that’s it. Or is it? Once your ears reset and your mind switches into contemplative mode, suddenly the microvariations spring to view, along with the flappings and the organicness of this living being that is the organ, stripped from the heavy cultural mantle of notes that covers its breathing. “Espace bas” (50 minutes) starts the same way but expands to reach a deafening level of resonance. This is not Guionnet’s most listener-friendly or striking record, and you better be patient.
- François Couture -

The Silent Ballet
Jean-Luc Guionnet is a man who likes his puns. Perhaps he grew up reading Asterix books and discovered the delights of wordplay there, but that sort of idle speculation has no place in a Silent Ballet review. Nevertheless, the title of his album, Non-Organic Bias, stems from the way that 'organ' can refer to the human body (bits of it a least - let's remind ourselves of Woody Allen's quote 'My brain? But that's my second favourite organ!'). But 'organ' can also refer to the musical instrument which, being a mechanical construct, is non-organic. Even though it is called an organ. With us so far?

Guionnet's instrument here, you may have guessed, is the organ, and has set himself to explore the possibilities of the instrument in his work (he also plays alto sax). With its vast array of pedals, pipes and stops, the organ has a bewildering array of sounds that it can produce, not just the forceful yet expressive sounds of Bach's Toccata and Fugue or Saint-Saëns' Symphony No.3. Some of these sounds have already been explored by other musicians, for example the Spire series on Touch, but there is no indication that this particular well is running dry. Give an exploratory musician any instrument and he will try to come up with something different - it might not always be successful but there is no harm in trying.

Non-Organic Bias contains three lengthy tracks each exploring the sounds of the organ in a different way, illuminated by Guionnet in the sleeve-notes. The title track is the shortest piece here, and slowly, slowly builds up into a fizzing, crackly conclusion in the closing minutes as the 'border effects, resonances, natural saturations' presumably are allowed to escalate into some kind of electro-acoustic feedback. After drifting in and out of near-silence this breakthrough is some reward offering a little variation and development to what has gone before.

"Espace Bas" - or 'low space' ('the bass continuum of passing sound' apparently - perhaps something gets lost in translation) is pretty much a deep drone for its duration recorded on an organ at the Dieppe Conservatory. There are changes, but drawn over such a length that they barely register (much like failing to notice a glacier move, such is the time scale we are dealing with here). The gradually swelling tones at one point resemble a light aircraft flying overheard and eventually the piece coalesces into a sort of resolution before fading away into a long reverberating hum. The sound of the drone itself does not stand up to exploration over this kind of duration and it is a curiously unsatisfying listen.

The final piece is "Estuaire", the sonic estuary ('just under the surface of sound') put together from recordings of different organs that Guionnet has played over the past few years, and is the most dynamic work here, with a vibrant organ drone kicking in after he's puttered around for the opening two minutes. But after a strident section, this retreats into the similar background hum of the previous track. However, at around the midway point, things start building up again...

Now, I should point out that Non-Organic Bias operates on a different scale to most albums reviewed in these pages. The three works have a combined running time over two hours and when I refer to "Estuaire" getting exciting, that's the last half-hour. If you've been patient, you'll have already sat through some 90 minutes of not entirely enthralling drone and hum. Eventually, oh sweet mercy, a much more interesting organ drone kicks in to shake the listener out of their torpor, as if the Phantom of the Opera has sneaked in from off-stage and is malevolently pulling out all the stops. I don't think it's too far beyond the realms of possibility to suggest that should Sunn O)))) play one of their church gigs, Guionnet in this mood would be a perfect support, even collaborator, wringing the organ for all its worth in the most fitting environment.

The powerful final half of "Estuaire" cannot, however, disguise a pretty lacklustre opening, or the forgettable opening pair of tracks. Now, I know that with lengthy drone pieces, the listener only gets out what they are prepared to put in - but even sitting there, attempting to concentrate on the "Espace Bas", the mind wanders and drifts away, not in a good way so an apparently carefully crafted composition turns into just so much background noise, like the fridge, or workmen in the street. The eventual pay-off in the final piece is not earned by what precedes it.

In theory, Non-Organic Bias is a fascinating work, a lengthy exploration into the possibilities of the organ as an instrument for experimental composition. In practice however, it fails to capture the imagination, so that when the section that actually works arrives, most listeners' patience will have been exhausted. There's nothing here that really adds to the lexicon of drone and those interested in organ(ic) pieces are advised to stick to the aforementioned Spire series which combine composition and drone in a much more successful way.
-Jeremy Bye -

08XX Goh Lee Kwang:::: Draw Sound

2009-02-02T20:48:00.000-08:00

Drawing + 3"cd
34 pages & 8 mins+
Release date: November 2008
12 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

Review(s):
Just Outside
Gotta love a 3", 8 1/2 minute long disc with 98 tracks...or do you? Each cut is roughly equivalent, consisting of the sound of one or more coins being dropped onto what sounds like a smooth, wooden surface--their initial click and subsequent quavering rotations as they settle. It appears as though coins of differing weights and thicknesses are deployed as well as varying patterns of dropping. Humorously enough, track number 89 is performed by one Woody Sullender, though I'd be hard-pressed, admittedly, to differentiate his technique from Kwang's on the other 97. Still, there's something kind of fun about it--who hasn't had some degree of fascination with this very process, both visual and aural? You can even (I suppose) get into it to the degree that you begin to distinguish "good" tosses from ordinary ones. I found myself thinking that the last track indeed culminates with something of a bravura finish!
The disc is accompanied by a handsomely printed booklet containing 30 squiggly pencil drawings, presumably by Kwang. They're very loose and somewhat random within a general kind of form--not such a bad analog to the sound of the coins.
Fun recording.
- Brian Olewnick -

Neural
In a very atypical manner, this work magnifies a euro cent to the size of a CD 3”, before attaching it to a sophisticated booklet of nervous pencil sketches by the same author. There have been as many as 98 combinations of launches of the above mention coin, a fact reflected in the 98 micro-tracks on this album. 'Draw Sound' is an interesting project by Malaysian Goh Lee Kwang, who is now based in Germany and is accustomed to electroacoustics and improvisation, often prone to both natural and recorded sounds. This work is a reflection on the timing of the events, which have been repeated at different points but always end in the same outcome, an overlapping of instantaneous snapshots, a narration of how a simple gesture can be reproduced endlessly and become - finally - a scary clone of reality. It is only 8 minutes and 40 seconds duration, but it can seem a lifetime, 'acting out' purely conceptual 'art' - Baudrillard would say - 'culminating in banal tautology', here and now. "The relationship with the work belongs to the sphere of contamination, or of the infection: you connect, absorb, plunge, as in the flows and networks".
- Aurelio Cianciotta -

Vital Weekly
Despite the fact that there are 98 tracks on this 3″CD, it still lasts only 8.40 minutes. On the disc face there is a picture of the coin of 1 eurocent. If you listen to the music, you hear the sound of a coin falling on a table, or several coins, perhaps. I am not sure if there is some sort of electronic processing going here, but I don’t think. Tracks are very short, obviously, and if you look at the CD player, it looks like a cash register going up. A fascinating, conceptual release. Which is hard to say about the booklet that comes it with, with pencil drawings by Goh Lee Kwang of a highly abstract nature, or perhaps a highly naive nature. Its what some people prompt to say: my 2 year old is better at this. The soundwork is great though, and not without humor: ‘track 89 performed by Woody Sullender’.
- Frans De Waard -

The Watchful Ear
Goh Lee Kwang’s own Draw sound / coins release isn’t actually on Why Not but is connected to his other label, the more “professional?” Herbal International. I’m a little confused but also quite charmed by this little release, which consists of a small book (about 5″x6″) full of wild, child-like abstract scribbles. There are forty or so pages of these, and the title of the release perhaps suggests the images might be visual interpretations of Goh Lee’s music. Although I’m not sure what one is really meant to do with it its a cute little book, and even better there is a 3″ CD tucked in the back featuring a short piece named Coins. The music on the disc seems to have been made by recording the sound of coins being dropped onto a miked-up surface. So the coins, of different sizes and weights land at random, some with a thud, some with a tinkle, occasionally rolling around a bit before falling flat. Obviously this isn’t the most essential or important piece of music in the world today, but as a careful study of the audio properties of everyday objects its the perfect companion for the book.
- Richard Pinnell -

Temporary Fault
Conceptual art a go-go. A booklet full of abstract pencil drawings, a 3-inch CD modelled after an 1-Eurocent, a 9-minute piece divided in 98 short tracks, each consisting of a throwing of (most probably) that piece of change with its different kind of rolling. One of the “actions” was performed by Woody Sullender, the rest by Kwang. For collectors only, as this thing has absolutely no weight in terms of “musical” quality. Maybe it could be used to disturb someone while they’re desperately trying to relax, just to have some stupidly wicked fun. The scribbled sheets look only slightly more interesting. Sorry, if there were hidden meanings it’s too hot today to search and find them.
- Massimo Ricci -

0802 Eric La Casa / Cédric Peyronnet:::: La Creuse

2009-01-05T00:10:00.000-08:00

Our project is defined by its aim: to represent in sonic terms, and in duo, a particular environment – a triangular area in the north of the Creuse département in central France. In the first place, based on cartographic representations, we set about breaking down the chosen territory, an area between the Petite Creuse and Grande Creuse rivers, into specific sites. Secondly, we placed the map ‘under surveillance’, as it were, conducting sonic surveys in the selected sites. These surveys led us to a geophonic approach, each based on a development of specific auscultatory techniques, in which the wealth of sounds collected nourished our research into (sonic) territoriality.

The aim of the project was not to replace image with sound but to give that which surrounds us a (sonic) body; to give landscape a sonic corporeality. It might be that, being unrelated to notions of admiration that go hand in hand with seeing, a sonic evaluation can go some way towards confounding our a priori notions of landscape. Thirdly, the resulting data gave rise to an ensemble of exchanges/interactions, enabling formal variations. For one of these formalisations, musical composition, we chose the following protocol: each site was given a musical interpretation by a composer, his work being based on the site’s specific sound-bank. The composer then sent his piece to a second who, with recourse to his own bank of sounds, responded to the first interpretation. The second composer redefined the composition, adding his own sounds also. The final interpretation, therefore, is based as much on the layered listenings and recordings formed at the site itself as the musical conceptions of each individual.

Translated by Owen Martell

(excerpt, vbr mp3)

Audio CD, 6 panels digipak includes an extensive booklet of site photos and text.
50 minutes+
Release date: July 2008
12 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

Related resources:
Also by Eric La Casa
Eric La Casa: W2

Geographically connected
Eric Cordier / Seijiro Murayama: Nuit
Jean-Luc Guionnet: Non Organic Bias
Eric Cordier: Osorezan

Review(s)
Brain Dead Eternity
Being magnanimous, we could say that the majority of field recording-based albums is pleasant to listen once, maybe twice. True, some are much better than others; this depends on the individual predispositions and inner ear(s) of those who collect the sounds and assemble them in (optimistically speaking) cogent compositions. But there’s also a major risk of disappearance of the record amidst thousands of irrelevant collections of singing blackbirds, solitary steps on a lake’s shore and sparkling waters. Did I mention insects and wind? Face it: not everybody is a Francisco López. To craft a meaningful artifact influenced by the outside (and inside) world requires an awful lot of energy, a good dose of luck, creative talent to spare and something - unachievable by many – that cannot be expressed by mere concepts and definitely not “taught”.

La Creuse is an outstanding album that reaches the fundamental objectives of this genre. La Casa and Peyronnet (the latter typically known as Toy.Bizarre) have already established their competence in dealing with this type of project in the past, the respective careers filled with fine demonstrations of perceptiveness and open-mindedness. For the occasion, they chose to “represent in sonic terms (…) a triangular area in the north of the Creuse department in central France”, in order to “give landscape a sonic corporeality”. Each artist applied a method of reciprocal manipulation of the materials gathered by the companion, thus producing a uniquely special mix of sources that surely sounded unrefined and essentially different at the origin.

All the foreseeable factors of such a kind of release are present, yet not a single minute of commonplace can be individuated. Better still, the pieces are perceived as hybrid formations of raw matters and electronics; a few choice-defining discoveries and procedures related to the artists’ “surveys” in the region are indicated in the CD booklet (in French language). A flawless meshing of natural subsistence and human involvement, utterly splendid in any form, shape and state – liquid, solid, electric, gaseous, you name it.

Nonetheless, this is an impenetrable work: even after listening to it five or six times over a weekend, it’s ceaselessly revealing minuscule clues and previously unseen facets yet it really doesn’t want to be even tenuously remembered, except for its quintessence. It sounds like an infinitesimal segment of life with its pros and cons, just as when we hurriedly bring out a camera trying to catch that wonderful sunset: the consequent picture, as perfect as it may be, inevitably can’t enclose the full extension of the sky. Then again, who – besides yourself, having lived the direct experience – will ever be able to share the emotion? That’s right: nobody. Certainly not with words, or by showing that photo to unresponsive lookers.

This is precisely the point: La Creuse is as an inexplicable episode as being the testimony to a rare event which unfolds exactly when one happens to be there by coincidence. Neither “music” nor “environment”, it has to do with creation. No - make that “Creation”, with the capital C. It won’t give anything to commit to memory; an unusual sort of understanding, yes – that’ll be granted, only after forgetting about selfish needs.

Don’t be surprised if you feel genuinely inadequate after this. Those echoing auras heard throughout the record are the voices of your living, flowing away through the fingers of a fruitless illusion.
- Massimo Ricci

Spiritual Archives
Recordings coming from a department of the central France, La Creuse, by Eric La Casa and Cédric Peyronnet (aka Toy Bizarre), veterans of the experimental scene who deal with this genre of research from such a long time. It’s a collaborative work with peculiar attributes: each of the two artists made raw recordings in specific locations, sending the result to the other and vice versa, in order to re-edit and re-work each other the collected material. For the purpose, the area has been geographically divided into sites to explore according to this approach. Thus, the nine pieces have received two different levels of treatment, but the finished product shows a consistent continuity among the tracks. Climatic events (primarily) and other environmental situations are reported here, picked up in visual perspective (less manipulated by La Casa, a bit more by Peyronnet through electronic processes) and, as consequence, you can almost watch what you hear. Field recordings at their maximum state of purity, well representing a fascinating district of France.

a u f a b w e g e n
CP und ELC haben sich ein bestimmtes Gebiet in Zentralfrankreich ausgewählt, welches es klanglich zu bearbeiten galt. Eingegrenzt wird die Region vom Fluß Creuse, Kartenmaterial ist im Sleeve reproduziert. Den beiden Künstlern ging es zum einen darum, eien Möglichkeit der klanglichen Repräsentation von Topographien zu finden und zugleich auch diese künstlerisch und somit interpretierend zu bearbeiten. Konkret bedeutet dies, dass die geographischen Areal nicht sauber eingehalten wurden, da Basismaterial aus einem bestimmten Bereich mit bereits bearbeiteten Feldaufnahmen aus einem anderen Planquadrat überlagert oder ergänzt wurden. So entsteht auf La Creuse eine sonische Fanatsiewelt, die aber absolut fesselnd und knisternd vor Spannung ist.
- Zipo -

Blow Up
La Creuse è un dipartimento della Francia centrale che prende il nome dai due fiumi, il Petit e il Grande Creuse, che lo attraversano. In quest'area, scelti siti di loro interesse specifico, Eric La Casa e Cédric Peyronnet hanno registrato separatamente i suoni nudi che passati vicendevolmente per il mixing fino ad arrivare al risultato finale. È ancora la vecchissima tecnica dei field recordings né più né meno come veniva messa; eppure, nonostante l'abuso che ne viene troppo spesso fatto, se messa in atto con gusto e idee riesce ancora a dare ottime vibrazioni – è il caso, inutile dire, dei due 'raccoglitori' qui recensiti, entrambi da anni tra i nomi di riferimento del settore (Peyronnet è conosciuto anche col moniker di Toy Bizarre) e per l'occasione più 'solidi' del solito nella costruzione delle loro impossibili astrazioni (un certo maggior riguardo per l'utilizzo 'strumentale' delle registrazioni, une definizione timbrica più accentuata). Fiumi, aria, vento, uomini e cose che interagiscono in une musica che è letteralmente'da vedere' con gli occhi fissi a quel cielo che è dentro di noi; non solo 'cinema per le orecchie', come titolava une fortunata serie di CD di Metamkine, ma anche suoni per gli occhi, un viaggio materiale, fisico e terrigno che si offre ancora immutato e immutabile dandoci l'idea certa di aver viaggiato anche noi per quei boschi, quelle radure, quelle acque, quell'aria.
- Stefano I. Bianchi

VITAL WEEKLY
As far as I remember I've never been to the area where Cedric Peyronnet (also better known as Toy Bizarre) and Eric La Casa recorded their work, the Creuse department in central France - maybe I saw it today when watching the Tour de France. However there is a booklet with this CD with pictures of the area, and in each picture there is a pair of microphones to be spotted. This is as close as you can make field recordings visual I guess. A pity that the booklet, a diary it seems, is all in French, with some general English translation on the cover. The area was divided into several specific sites which were recorded by one, and then sent to the other to work on it, to interpret the place. And vice versa of course. Each piece is started by one, finished by the other. Its not easy to hear who did what, but I think that the pieces finished by Peyronnet have a minimal subtle electronic manipulations, and that La Casa's pieces are entirely made with field recordings. I might be wrong however and no electronic processing took place. We hear rain, wind, footsteps and sounds from water, objects and other sonic events which are hard to be placed somewhere in terms of what one could recognize. Even when this is divided into nine pieces, it's best enjoyed as a complete picture: listen from start until the end, sit back and transport yourself through time and space - time is the length of the CD and the place is La Creuse. This rural and forest area is pictured quite well before your very eyes. A very refined work.
- Frans De Waards

Monsieur Delire
Une étude “géophonique” de la région de la Creuse (centre de la France). Les deux artistes ont réalisé des prises de son sur le terrain, séparément, puis l’un “interprétait” un endroit, qu’il remettait à l’autre pour que celui-ci y ajoute son “point de vue”. Du fait, chacune des pièces est une collaboration où B a ajouté à A. Résultat: des pièces qui ouvrent de grands espaces à nos oreilles, tout en altérant la perception de ces espaces “vus” par quatre oreilles (six même, si je compte les miennes). Une méthodologie simple mais rigoureuse, qui laisse la musique du réel s’épanouir dans l’espace – plus virtuel qu’on le pense – entre nos deux oreilles.

A “geophonic” study of the Creuse region (central France). Both artists made field recordings separately, then one “interpreted” a location and then handed out i=his interpretation so that the other coposer could add his own perception to it. As a result, the pieces open wide spaces for our ears, allthewhile changing the perception of these spaces as “seen” through four ears (six if you count the listener’s). A simple yet rigorous method that lets the music of the real world develop in the space found between our ears (a space more virtual than one might think).
- François Couture

Sonomu
Innovative sound manipulators Cédric Peyronnet (who usually trades as Toy Bizarre) and Éric La Casa (who indeed does sport an accent over the first letter of his name, despite appearing without one on the cover) travel to La Creuse, one of the internationally least well-known departements in France, to conduct an unusual topographical survey and do a bit of sonic gardening.

Selecting a specific territory wedged between by two rivers, they set out to prove that the map is not the country by underlining the fact that any and all observation and recording is subjective. The course of action they choose is for the one to compose an impression out of what he had collected in one area, which is then sent to the other who dips into his personal bank of sounds – some of them, if I understand correctly, not necessarily recorded in La Creuse - and further flesh it out according to his own taste. And then vice-versa.

For all this interaction between strong personalities, the results are abstractly cohesive and engaging. Totally untreated natural sound hardly ever rears its head, except for the burble of the rivers bookending the album. Occasionally your ears might convince you that that particular irregular tattoo is rainfall on a corrugated metal roof, or that those sussurations must be crickets baking in the July sun, but how can you be really sure? And is it really important to know?

It is handsomely packaged, in common with all of the Malaysian label Herbal International´s releases, featuring a French language diary, plenty of photos of microphones standing alone among the hills and dales, maps and a short but informative description of the process in English.
- Stephen Fruitman

Feardrop
La Casa et Peyronnet, Peyronnet et La Casa, ici déshabillés de leurs pseudonymes (Syllyk et Toy Bizarre), peu importe finalement (ou déjà) qui a fait quoi, car c’est aux lieux qu’ils ont d’abord donné la parole. Poétique sonore d’un triangle de paysage, coincé entre Petite Creuse et Grande Creuse, ce disque est, selon les musiciens, tout autant le résultat des couches sonores offertes par le site, que celui des conceptions musicales de chaque artiste – chacun ayant composé la base ou le final, suivant les morceaux. Cela dit, écoutons donc ces lieux, tout le demande : la liste des sons qui les composent est longue, et l’eau et les insectes parmi eux accaparent l’attention. Ce n’est pas tout, le vent parfois, le bois, le grésillement électrique des lignes et de loin en loin des signes d’activités humaines, de transports. J’ai déjà dit souvent combien cette musique, et en particulier celle de Cédric Peyronnet est une peinture sonore du paysage, de même résonance en tissu informel : reconstitution de l’essence du lieu, de sa signature poétique, de son courant ponctué. Chaque lieu ainsi dépeint est commenté dans le livret, puis offert à l’illustration. Toute de drone, de pépiement, de coulée, de grésillement, de flot, la musique correspond à une transposition dynamique imaginaire mais pas imagée. L’esprit vit alors le lieu, une cascade, un bois, un rivage, une route, un pré… dans sa plus profonde sensualité sonore. Les pièces ont toutes un tour organique où le doux et le rêche s’accompagnent, comme l’air et le craquement, l’oiseau et la brindille cassée ; ainsi libérés, le flot peut monter et le vent tournoyer, la feuille chanter et l’eau calme bouillonner. Dans chaque morceau, bien que loin – faut-il le préciser encore – de tout reportage, chaque son est à sa place dans la composition d’équilibre que le flux musical imaginé reconstitue. On a déjà – et je sais que ce n’est pas totalement faux – la saisissante impression de connaître plus intimement la Creuse.
- Denis Boyer

0801 Beequeen:::: Time Waits For No One (remaster 2008)

2008-11-18T12:27:00.000-08:00

1 Whispering Confessions 3:08
2 Der Holzweg 4:56
3 Rupert Writes A Rainbow 10:11
4 The Shore Of Leaves 3:09
5 Fafagg 1:12
6 V-Time 4:55
7 Illusions 4:20
8 Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps 3:59
9 Six Notes On Blank Tape 20:55 (excerpt, vbr mp3)

Audio CD, 6 panels digipak
50 minutes+
Release date: June 2008
12 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

Related resources:
Geographically connected
Roel Meelkop: Oude Koeien

Review(s):
Touching Extreme
The duo of Frans De Waard and Freek Kinkelaar, Beequeen belong to the bulky file of musical entities that I’ve been familiar with for many, many years - but only nominally. Believe it or not, your over-enthusiastic reviewer had never listened to their records before, although meeting the name on every mail order list of the last decade and a half. This reissue of a 1994 Staalplaat release fits perfectly in the ice-breaking experience, as inaugurating my acquaintance with the project by listening to an earlier-period outing is perhaps a good thing. Credited with “instruments, electronics, treatments, voices”, De Waard and Kinkelaar seem to know what they’re doing since the very beginning. What they actually do is eliciting outlandish kinds of resonance, generally from the vibration of one or more strings or single notes (i.e. the opening of “Six notes on blank tape”), while adding lots of oscillating high frequencies (“Rupert writes a rainbow” fuses the best of two worlds in that sense) and trance/ritual waste materials. You might often be tempted to call this record drone-based, yet it’s not exclusively that: the vu-meters indicating the level of abstractness point to the red area quite frequently, and there’s nothing that can be acceptably defined as monothematic or minimal, unless we want to consider enthralling looped segments as such (“The shore of leaves” being dazzling stuff indeed, somehow reminding yours truly of Zoviet France; the same goes for the percussive “V-time”). In essence, this album still sounds modern enough for us not to neglect it, leaving the door of the room of past experience ajar to get a glance at our memories. Even those about previously unheard music.
- Massimo Ricci -

VITAL WEEKLY
"Time waits for no one". How true that is; took me quite some of it, to get to actual writing on this latest offering from Beuys aficionados "Beequeen". This re-release of the 1995 album, has been spinning in my player for quite some months now, and I try to make myself believe that 2 or 3 months more, do not affect the discourse. After all, this album has been out there for quite a bit already and as opposed to the title, this album doesn't sound outdated at all. Unfortunately I cannot do the test of comparing it with the original, but I have to say that the re-mastering (care of Jos Smolders) is crystal clear and carries a warm vibe. Okay, so the overall feel brings back thoughts of droney tribalism a la Zoviet France and/or soundscape experimentation a la Hafler Trio, but still today Stockhausen and Henry sound fresh to me. Modern day droneys like Uton or Datashock do not acknowledge their roots either. "Time Waits for no one" is a great album that spreads about a certain calmness and that grows on you after repeated listens. Sometimes the edges get a bit sharper but the overall atmosphere is moody, dark and eerie. Not depressive though, more the contemplative kind or the ideal setback to repent one's sins. Apart from that is it also interesting for the new listeners that got more acquainted with recent albums like "Sandancing" or "The Body Shop". Essential listening so to speak; a piece of history brought back to life by the gentle folks at Herbal International.
- Steffan de Turck -

Monsieur Delire
Paru à l’origine en 1994, réédité par Herbal International en 2008. Je n’avais pas entendu ce disque à sa sortie originale, et maintenant je comprends très bien qu’on ait ressenti le besoin de le rééditer. C’est, à la base, un excellent Beequeen, mais c’est surtout un disque qui, en 1992-1993 (période de sa composition), était singulièrement en avance sur son époque. Frans de Waard et Freek Kinkelaar ont concocté un album d’électronica expérimentale avant la lettre, dont on sent encore les origines industrielles. Time Waits for No One mérite le statut de classique du genre, au même titre que les premiers Pan Sonic ou Endless Summer de Fennesz.

First released in 1994, reissued by Herbal International in 2008. I hadn’t heard this upon its release, but now I know why someone felt it had to be reissued. To start with, it’s an excellent Beequeen album, but more important, this record was surprisingly ahead of its time back in 1992-1993 (when it was composed). Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar brewed up an experimental electronica album before the term was coined, and you can still hear the Industrial lineage of this music. Time Waits for No One deserves a “classic” status, just as the first few Pan Sonic albums or Fennesz’s Endless Summer.
- François Couture -

Textura.org
Time Waits For No One’s material isn’t new, having been recorded in Nijmegen in 1992-93 and originally released in 1994 on Staalplaat, but the genre of experimental drone-based exploration is one of those most capable of transcending time. Beequeen members Freek Kinkelaar (Brunnen) and Frans de Waard (Kapotte Muziek, Goem) use electronics, voices, and unidentified instruments to scatter two long tracks (ten and twenty minutes) amongst seven more modest settings. Whether long or short, the pieces are largely hazy meditations whose industrial churn is speckled with string plucks, percussive patterns, and electronic effects. Not surprisingly, the long tracks make the strongest impression: in the episodic “Six Notes on Blank Tape,” bowed scrapes of string instruments groan over a throbbing bass drone and the simulated roar of a train clatters along its tracks, and in the album’s most fully-realized piece, the a doomscape “Rupert Writes a Rainbow,” a ‘50s sci-fi synthesizer floats atop a droning unfurl of whooshes and gaseous emissions. The album’s material unfurls organically in subtle strokes, sometimes so quietly it verges on microsound, and the generally relaxed feel suggests the collaborators had ample studio time with which to pursue their playful explorations.

Norman Records
I've always been reasonably intrigued by Beequeen. I like the name.... yet despite a number of releases on Infraction, Korm Plastics, Mille Plateaux, Important etc I'm yet to hear any... til now that is. After a quick hunt around the internet I discover it's Frans De Waard and Freek Kinkelaar. Two Dutch Musicians from the Netherlands who make music. 'Time Waits For No One' has been remastered in all of it's dronetastic glory. This is weird experimental drone music which has a very spacey feel to it. At times it's minimal and at others there's loads of stuff going on with loads of weird frequencies and modulator things doing their business. For fans of serious experimental drone music!

Bad Alchemy 61
Das mit seinem Titel die Rolling Stones zitiert, hatte 1994 noch Marilyn Monroe auf dem Cover, jetzt bei dieser Wiederveröffentlichung eine völlig zerbombte WW II-Stadtmondlandschaft. I really think it matches the original Monroe-cover when it comes to beauty, gibt sich Freek Kinkelaar dazu hartgesotten. Er & Frans de Waard schienen aber bereits in Marilyn ein Vanitas-Motiv zu umkreisen, das deuten zumindest Titel wie ’The Shore of Leaves', ’Illusions' und ’Perhaps perhaps perhaps' an. Da könnten ihnen durchaus Mick Jaggers Zeilen Drink in your summer, gather your corn; The dreams of the night time will vanish by dawn durch den Kopf gegangen sein. Aber wo fände man keinen Anlass für Melancholie und dystopische Ahnungen? Die ’Furie des Verschwindens', mit der schon Hegel und H.M. Enzensberger per Du gewesen sind, imprägniert den Dreamscape der beiden Niederländer mit einer Tristesse, die jenseits von Gesten der Auflehnung um eine poetische Einstellung zum Unvermeidlichen bemüht scheint. Das rituelle Getrommel von ’Fafagg' sagt wohl: Nach uns die Steinzeit. Bei ’V-Time' ist das Getrommel industrial geworden, ein monoton rotierender Morlock-Beat auf vollen Touren, der bei ’Illusions' schon wieder archaisch ausdünnt zum Toktoktok, neben dem einer zu versuchen scheint, aus Feuerstein Funken zu schlagen. ’Perhaps...' lässt dann wie von einer Klangschale einen ’singenden' Oberton dahin schweifen, bevor das 21-min. ’Six Notes on a blank Tape' mit nachhallenden Dongs einsetzt und dunkles Gewummer - wie von einem Bombengeschwader? - die Luft erfüllt. Eine Geige kratzt diskant und kaputt. So klingen die ersten Notizen. Weitere, ähnlich düstere, und ein Ritornell des Getrommels, aufs Äußerste alarmiert, folgen. Der Zahn der Zeit hat dem bisher nichts anhaben können. Und Schönheit liegt im Auge des Betrachters.
- Rigobert Dittmann -

Heathen Harvest
Beequeen, and this album in particular, often draw comparisons to Zoviet France, a group who I consider to be among the greatest musicians in any genre of any era. “Time Waits For No One” is a re-release of a CD that came out on Staalplaat in 1994, and is cited among Beequeen fans as a high point in their rather prolific output.

Many may be most familiar with one half of the duo that is Beequeen: Frans de Waard, member of Kapotte Muziek (among others) and owner of Korm Plastics. Frans’ output in and outside of Beequeen is, on occasion, among the more exemplary of the softer side of post-industrial music, and generally of the “high-brow” and “conceptual” variety. “Conceptual” music, to me, often results in something in which the final result is more interesting in theory or as an idea than as a finished work, a criticism that I sometimes apply to Franzs’ work, especially the more recent material.

In earlier times, tape looping and manipulation was the key approach utilized, but has been replaced by a reliance on software and computers, which has, to my ears, led to a significant decline in the quality of his output. On this album, we hear sounds originating in the analog and acoustic domain; sound sources citied include “instruments, electronics, treatments, voices.” Oscillations and stepped modulation frequently utilized, along with rhythmic loops, guitar and other samples to create abstract soundscapes and ambient experimentation, frequently reminiscent of Zoviet France material that came out just before this material was recorded.

There are many points on this album that are very enjoyable, particularly on the opening track, “Whispering Confessions,” and tracks seven and eight, “Illusions” and “Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps,” respectively. “Whispering Confessions” and “Illusions” makes ample use of rhythmic percussive loops and off-kilter background noises that provide the dynamic elements buried in a wash of ambient and reverberated melodic tones. “Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps” has slowly drifting oscillations that almost sound as though they were derived from a Hammond organ or Farfisa, with textural noises creeping out of the drones.

Track two, “Der Holzweg,” has clean guitar strums or plucks drifting through reverberated space, with a rather bothersome step-sequenced modulation throughout. Track three, the roughly ten-minute long “Rupert Writes A Rainbow,” is filled with out of control oscillations that make it sound amateurish and unlistenable. The following three tracks don’t feature such bothersome elements but don’t offer much of interest conceptually or interesting to listen to, to carry the album until it picks up again. On multiple listens, I eventually ended up skipping tracks to find something that “worked.”

The first eight, mainly shorter, tracks take up the first two-thirds of the album, and the final, epic “Six Notes on Blank Tape” takes up the final twenty-one minutes. This final track helps to redeem the album, considerably, offering predominantly an excellent variety of sounds in very careful composition. The beginning starts off with drones seemingly derived from bowed heavy strings – as that of a cello – with dynamic screeches from a similar source floating through the droning soundscape. As this bed of sound fades away, a percussive guitar sound carries into erratic, frantic percussion, and finishing with high pitched drones floating above a deeper, cello-like drone.

This is an album with several very solid “songs” or tracks that are of the highest order and excellent examples of experimental ambient sound. Because half of the tracks don’t work at all for me (many of which I find completely annoying) I see my future listens of this album being dependent on heavy use of the “skip” button.

For this reissue, the material has been remastered, and the packaging has been completely redone with all new graphics. Shifting from an image of (presumably) Marilyn Monroe, pictured prominently on the cover to a hazy image of a destroyed urban landscape doesn’t make any sense at all, to me, but I find the packaging on this edition to be more appealing.
- Ben Brucato -

Just Outside
A re-release of a 1994 disc on Staalplaat (and, I think, out for at least a couple of years on Herbal). Beequeen is Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar; I gather they issued a number of recordings back around that time but they're new to me. Glancing over reviews, I see groups like Zoviet France referenced quite a bit, a group I heard some of at the time but didn't particularly intrigue me. There's an entire area, something I might think of as industrial drones with a decided rock substratum, that I tend to find momentarily attractive but which wears out its welcome rather rapidly. "Dark Eno", I sometimes call it. At its best ("v-time", "six notes on blank tape"), there's enough bubbling, agitating activity to sustain some interest, but even there, the rather sterile synth-like tones (which are more prominent elsewhere) inhibit any great enjoyment on my part. Clearly more a matter of my taste than any comment on the inherent nature or quality of the music, which seems ably performed. Just not my cuppa.
- Brian Olewnick -

«Time Waits For No One» - переиздание Малазийским лейблом Herbal International второго альбома «Пчелиной королевы», который изначально был выпущен в 1994 году лейблом Staalplaat. Руины на новой обложке закономерно вызывают не самые приятные и миролюбивые ассоциации, но, к счастью, сама музыка за авторством Франса де Ваарда и Фрика Кинкелаара с войной и разрухой никак не связана. На самом деле это крайне абстрактные музыкальные зарисовки в духе Kapotte Muziek, где статичная пелена выхолощенных размытых звуков может прерываться мимолетной шумовой вспышкой или циркулирующими внутри неясного гула звуками механического происхождения. Где-то миром простых звуковых манипуляций правит статика, где-то застывшие формы трансформируются в простой и мягкий эмбиент. Короткие сэмплы циркулируют по кругу, длинные гудения разрываются и снова соединяются – все треки этого альбома существуют автономно, друг с другом не пересекаясь и в целом «Time Waits For No One» похож на компиляцию «неизданного ранее». Звук диска имеет какую-то странную особенность, словно все треки писались через аналоговый микрофон, отчего звучание имеет некую приглушенность, размазанность и следы пленочного шума. А еще иногда не покидает ощущение некоей «механистичности» самой музыки, хотя есть и крайне приятные и эмоциональные моменты, «Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps», например. Хорошее переиздание популярного альбома в меру культовой группы многоликого композитора де Ваарда.
- Сергей Сергеевич -

The Wire March 1995
After a first listening-trial I concluded that this wasn't exactly my cup of tea... Some weeks later, however, I had to change my opinion. I had given this CD another chance, and while I was doing something else, this CD was nicely rumbling in the background. By mistake I'd put my CD-player in "random-repeat" mode, and by the time I discovered my horrible act, the music had penetrated my mind several times already ... I found myself being carried away on noisy waves, now and then penetrated by beautiful analog bleebs, blobs and distorted frequencies... My heart was beating on the rhythm of short looped sounds and percussion, and at the end of my hallucination I entered the world of Thee Mighty Drone and His o Royal Ambientcy. When I regained back consciousness, Marylin Monroe was sitting next to me and asked me if I liked cream and sugar in my coffee... OK, cut the crap; this is a rather good buy! The gauzy image of Marilyn Monroe on the cover of this record is a bit ambiguous, unless it is reflective of the sometimes austere pace and feel conveyed by the electronics therein. Actually, Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar, with their banks of electronics and other unspecified instruments, convey many alternatively bleak, if imagistic, soundscapes, either through the wheezing of asthmatic machines, drones of catatonia immersed in cryogenic guitar feedback or the steamy smelt of arcane industry. Atonal occasionally, even unearthly, yet strangely accessible, these works are part of an aesthetic wherein the forging of an unfamiliar sound canvas becomes the springboard from which the listener can extract pictures, panoramas, shapes. Any other points of harmonic reference become irrelevant; so ultimately, as the music crystallizes, one is left with Its residual suggestions. Engrossing music that subtly leaves the impression to come back and experience it further.
- Darren Bergstein -

Reverb March 1995
Wonderful positive yet dark ambience, if that's possible from former MFTEQ contributor Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar. Acoustic guitars and strings resonate as petit electronics pitter patter. Mysterious tones invoke splendid colours as subtle rhythms gradually move into the mix. Beequeen remind me of the mighty Deutsch Nepal. I can't get enough of this.
- MFR -

Audion Summer/Autumn 1994
Taking their name from a work by Joseph Beuys, the Dutch duo Beequeen have taken it to heart to create a sonic experience that Is like a living organism, a melange of oozing textures, rhythmical structures, cyclical pumping surges of sound, arranged as if In an ambient visionary landscape, a painting for the ears. The experience naturally recalls earlier works by Zoviet France and The Hafler Trio, with much use, of processed and degraded sounds. As strange and enigmatic as Its minimal four-fold digipak cover.
- Alan Freeman

Vital #36
Only seldom have I heard music that was so unobtrusive as this Beequeen-CD. The music remains calm, focusing on a mood, much more than musicality. It's not just ambient and quite different from the works of Brian Eno. The comparison that does come up is with Zoviet France, because of its repetitive character. The instrumentarium is for the most part electronic, occasionally added with (remote) voices, (remote) drums, or (remote) snares. At times there seems to be more aggression in the sound, e.g. when drums are used. But when this happens it sounds quite remote, like a distant thunder. I like the atmosphere, which remains relaxed without ever getting even close to 'new age'.
- IS -

0702 Goh Lee Kwang:::: Good Vibrations

2008-11-04T02:55:00.000-08:00

recorded by goh lee kwang at the STEIM, Amsterdam, May 2007.

editing & mastering by goh lee kwang 2007.
image by lau mun leng, design by herbal in house design team.
no pre-programing, no on-going effect, no post-overdub. no turntable.

(excerpt, vbr mp3)

Audio CD, 6 panels digipak
60 minutes+
Release date: November 2007
12 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

Review(s)
Heathen Harvest
This new CD from Malaysian maestro Goh Lee Kwang, Good Vibrations is a five-song buzz of one 15-minute, two 20 minute and two nine minute tracks that all slip into one another seamlessly.

It’s hard to figure out what exactly, if anything, Goh is trying to get across. My guess is that it was a labor of love, something he wanted to put out there that is so unique there’s nothing like it on the map. That is, unless you have a habit where you tune your radio to frequencies that are between stations and you get that static and noise, beeping, high-pitched sounds that, played loud enough, will pierce your ears.

According to his bio on his MySpace page, Goh focuses on “various possibilities of both natural sound and recorded sound, crossing the boundaries of digital and analog, electronic and acoustic, go[ing] beyond language, allowing audiences to experience the work directly and in their own personal way.” Besides dabbling in creating unusual and original sound works, Goh has also created sound installations, interactive sound & vision installations, single- and multi-channel videos, etc, not to mention soundtracks for various theater pieces, dance performances and scores for independent films as well.

You’ll probably have a hard time trying to find the multi-media pieces that Goh’s created if you live in the US because his multi-media works are most prominent in Asia as well as Europe.

Basically, Goh is a multi-talented, multi-media cat who has a vivid imagination, seeing as that’s where he spends a lot of time getting ideas and inspiration; if you’ve been lucky enough to see any of his live shows you’d understand more of what’s going on here. Most of the shows are done at Museums/Galleries around the world and each sensation is driven by or augmented by another - that is, the minimalist soundscapes, the video installations as well as the interactive shows he sets up with an audio/visual sensation to it. The venues at which Goh brings all these disparate ideas become realized are perfectly suited to the vibe(s) they evoke - in other words, his performances don’t belong in some football stadium or a smoky, raging club full of McFisters who just want to drink more beer and smash up everything. This is high-brow stuff and it may be too bad that one would have to go to a snobby Euro-Art-bar to check it out. Myself, I’d be hip to seeing one of his installations in Bangkok or Macau, exotic destinations that would bring to life Goh’s subconscious even more.

So, while you ponder Good Vibrations and are scratching your head, trying to figure it out, just close your eyes and think of hallucinogenic video loops and many colors flitting, bouncing off the walls and such.
- Blond Adonis

TOUCHING EXTREMES May 2008
The subtitle of the album is "solo improvisations with stereo DJ mixer". That says it all, more or less. The 70-minute duration is not a joke, either, for this is not your typical Toshi Nakamura or Sachiko M. No, Kwang privileges micro-drills, crackles, purrs, hums, buzzes, quirks and bleeps, handfuls of them copiously reproduced for the total length of the CD. Which brings me to a cold-blooded conclusion: this music is neither beautiful, nor ear-pleasing. It is what it is - anarchic experimental noise that can or cannot be appreciated. And that's how it should be: aesthetic implications must be left out of the door, and the fame of the recording facility (STEIM) indicates that the work was conceived in a serious frame of mind. What I usually prefer in similar occasions is putting headphones on and leaving the mass of impulses do their job almost subliminally, at not excessive volume while I'm doing something else. The pairing of "Good vibrations" and my blank stare at the TV screen at about 10 PM produced some nice moment of unconscious stimulation (and a little bit of tinnitus at the end). Having been realized with measurable honesty, this is an interesting disc, in spurts. Maybe cutting the program at half the time would have increased the incisiveness of the whole.
- Massimo Ricci

The Wires Feb 2008
For Good Vibrations, Malaysian electronic musician Goh Lee Kwang restrcted himself to use of a single DJ mixer with no input (ah, Toshimaru Nakamura, so much to answer for). He selected recordings made over the period of two years on the basic of how close they were to the unadorned sound produced by the mixer, allowing no overdubbing or signal processing. But this search for minimal purity only makes sense when space and silence is used as a counterpoint. 70 minutes of low-key electronic popping and spitting in itself has no meaning; it just came across as a technical catalogue of what his equipment does. Kwang has a vacabulary, but there's no language here.
- Keith Moline

VITAL WEEKLY number 601 week 46
For a moment, in the early parts of the first piece I thought Goh Lee Kwang had extended beyond his usual turntable and mixer feedback by adding skipping CDs, but it turned out the copy I have is a bit scratched. Too bad as that could have been a nice addition. When I studied the cover more closely, it seems that there is no turntable either, and Goh Lee Kwang just uses a stereo DJ mixer. According to his website, the material was recorded at six studio sessions (in Stuttgart, Rotterdam, Krems, Kuala Lumpur, London, Amsterdam) plus two concerts (Paris, Stuttgart), but the cover just says 'all tracks recorded in Steim, studio 1, Amsterdam. So what is right? Does it matter? Not really. Goh Lee Kwang uses lots and lots static cracks, feedback like sounds, in a collage like manner. It sounds like a turntable, I thought, but then every time I had to think 'oh, it isn't a turntable'. It was pretty decent stuff, but way too long to hold my interest. The five pieces last for about seventy minutes, and it wouldn't be a problem, but the variation isn't that much, so one could all too easily think it's the same track. Only the fifth piece is considerable louder than the rest, but if that is the 'variation' than I pass. Half of this would have been equally fine, me think, and it would still be a pretty decent release.
- Frans de Waard

Monsieur Delire July 2009
Goh Lee Kwang a enregistré ce disque au STEIM, le célèbre studio expérimental d’Amsterdam, où, j’imagine, il a probablement développé son instrument, le pupitre de mixage stéréo pour DJ. L’approche paraît semblable à celle de Toshimaru Nakamura et son pupitre de mixage sans entrée, soit l’amplification d’une absence de signal pour en faire un signal en boucle interne. Kwang travaille avec très peu de choses: sillements, chuintements, battements – on dirait de l’électronica glitch, en plus abstrait ou sculpté. Cette musique ne vient pas chercher. Elle étonne, elle questionne, mais elle n’émeut pas. Elle se prend comme une énigme à résoudre. Et la gravure est faite à volume si bas que la musique vous file littéralement entre les doigts.

Goh Lee Kwang recorded this album at STEIM, the famous experimental studio in Amsterdam, where he must have developed his instrument. His approach seem similar to Toshimaru Nakamura and his no-input mixing board, i.e. amplification of a lack of signal to turn it into an internal-loop signal. Kwang is working with very little material here: sines, white noise, flappings – it sounds like glitch electronica, though more abstracted or sculpted. His music doesn’t grab you. It surprises and questions, but it doesn’ move you. It begs to be approached as an enigma. And it’s been mastered so low that it literally eludes your attention.
- François Couture

0701 Eric Cordier:::: Osorezan~ Selected field recording 1993 - 2007

2008-10-28T23:21:00.001-07:00

Osorezan 19:53 (excerpt, vbr mp3)
- L'Air dans l'eau (05:48)
- L'Air dans l'air (04:33)
- L'Air et l'eau (09:31)

Transbordement 07:50

Dekishima 02:19

Le feu de Saint Clair 14:20
- Le Montage du feu (07:13)
- Les Tintenelles et le feu (07:03)

Par temps Sec 18:11

Linenote:
Osorezan, (la montagne de la peur)
- L’air dans l’eau
-L’air dans l’air
- L’air et l’eau
Recorded in Niseko, southwest of Hokaïdo and in Osorezan, northern of Honshu in August 2006. Gas emanation of volcano in Japan. The sound recordings were carried out in the depths and then re-organised. We listen to gas bubbling in water, gas mouths, gas that creates rhythms while escaping from under a dead leaf down in the clay, whistling…All panoramic movements, repetitions, effects of phasing have been carried out during the time of the recording, travelling at the mouth to gather the sound of sulphur gas as a sound pallette.

Transbordement
The outward and return journey of the ferry, crossing the Seine River between Heurteauville and Jumièges, downstream from Rouen (with the unloading of the cars). Recorded in Heurteauville on July 17, 1993.

Dekishima
Recorded on the 1st january 2005. It is the sound of the wires of a ’"bridge" at the sea side during a small storm (north Honshu, west coast, Aomori area). A "bridge" because it is a typical useless Japanese object built just for giving work to the construction industry. A surealistic place, a road to nowhere as if it were just to throw cars into the sea.

Le feu de Saint Clair
La Haye de Routot is one of the more interesting villages in Normandy, a meeting point of ethnology and tourism. It has preserved rare traditions; it has an extraordinary heritage, two yew trees of two thousand years old, both large and hollow with vaults carved within. And since a few decades, an eco-museum specialising in bread and wood-shoes was established there. I know this place well, 3km away from my native village. It is this place too where I had recorded part of my second CD (U.n.a.c.d.). The recording takes place on a festival day, it was an occasion of participation for my grandfather who set up once in a year the electrical supply brought by a mobile generator and my father who thereafter wired the sound system for the festival and especially for the mass in the small church. Every year on July 16, of my childhood, I assisted with the kindling then the combustion of the 14 meters high bonfire.

Le montage du feu
The brotherhood of charity, once in a year collaborates in the building for this bonfire, which will be set ablaze in the evening. They are a team of volunteers, who work on the building site (with good mood).

Les tintenelles et le feu
Standing in a central point of the cemetery, halfway between the church and the fire, precisely under one of these giant trees, the happenings according to my perspective. One hears successively the harmonium during the end of the mass resounding in the cemetery, then the drum of the garde champêtre (a kind of rural policeman), which opens the way to the procession among crowd. Then the tintenelles (bells) played by the master of the brotherhood of charity. The audience becomes quiet for a moment in respect for the religious authorities before returning to hubbub. The tintennelles disappear behind a low wall and then the fire begins. Field recordings caught in 1993.

Par temps sec
(In dry weather) The beginning of a summer afternoon in a small hamlet Le Mazel, Champy, Ardeches, south of France. Microphones set up behind a hedge, close to a small country path catching the activity at a precise moment. This recording did not undergo any editing or mixing.

Texts & Translations by Eric Cordier.

Audio CD, 6 panels digipak includes an extensive booklet of site photos and text in English.
60 minutes+
Release date: July 2007
12 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

Related resources:
Also by Eric Cordier
Eric Cordier / Seijiro Murayama: Nuit

Musically connected
Lasse-Marc Riek: Harbour

Geographically connected
Eric La Casa: W2
Eric La Casa / Cédric Peyronnet: La Creuse
Jean-Luc Guionnet: Non Organic Bias

Review(s)
Bixobal 3
subtitled "Selected Field Recordings 1993 - 2006", this release does better then your average disc of recordings made outdoors by presenting some rather unique locales. First up are the bubbling gas emanations of the volcanic sites at Niseko and Osorezan in Japan. Illustrated by photographs in the triple-fold cover and 12-page booklet, both in full color, a clear image is created of these special spots full of the sounds of simmering and jetting gases coming from the earth from underneath pools of water or directly through the mud. The sounds are of an unstable environment. After the opening trio of nature sounds, the disc moves on to concern itself with human related activities. Although a clear theme eludes me, the pieces all make fascinating listening featuring as they do the unloading of a French ferry, the wires of a "bridge" on the seacoast of Japan, which leads nowhere (another construction kickback), the building and subsequent burning of a 46-foot bonfire, and activity around a country path - the last two in rural areas of France. What strikes me is that there places are ones that most people would not know about, let alone visit. I'm sure we have all considered volcanos at various points, but their manifestations are numerous leading many sites to be different. And how many outside of Japan know of the huge sums of government money siphoned off by well connected constrators for essentially useless projects, let alone consider what there lonely sites are like? finally, while I could picture a festival in that island nation still burning large pyres, I didn't realize that such a practice was still active in France. The second piece in that section, "Les tintenelles at le feu", is a mixture of the dying harmonium from the church, a few drum beats, the wandering sounds of bells, various voices, and the sounds of burning wood. Captured with clarity, the pieces are little aural movie.
- Eric Lanzillotta

The Wires
First collection of field recordings by Eric Cordier, the man who introduced Keiji Haino (in 1992) and then Jim O'Rourke (in 1995) to the hurdy-gurdy, Osorezan, though, is hurdy-gurdy free. A rigorous, near-scientific series of sound documents, it was collected on Cordier's travel over the course of 13 years. The title piece records the sounds of gas bubbles escaping though water by a volcanic Japanese spring. The extreme acoustic close-ups of water and gas fluttering, spluttering admixture make for an illusionistic experience. Dense, organic sounds are interspersed with phasing and other microphone phenomena - which Cordier assert were all achieved in situ - and gradually the organic is swamped he positions himself more neutrally, "Par Temp Sec", the sound of a hedgerow on a summer afternoon in rural France, is so uneventful that eventually the drone of a plane overhead and an insect flying within range of the microphone become deeply musical events.
- Sam Davies

TOUCHING EXTREMES
"Osorezan" is a collection of field recordings gathered by French sound artist Eric Cordier between 1993 and 2007 in France and Japan. The CD comes splendidly packaged, each piece paired to a magnificent picture somehow related to the track and the location where it was captured on tape. A booklet containing notes about the compositions completes the offer, which - let me be perfectly clear - is one of the very best assemblages of natural and human ambiences that I've ever heard. The tracks exploit totally different settings with knowledgeable accuracy and care for the particular, demonstrating Cordier's uncanny ability in describing a landscape or a pre-determined situation as a whole image while maintaining minute details clearly visible. The primary sources were the bubbling gas in the sulphureous waters of a volcano, a ferryboat on the Seine river, a "phantom bridge" in a isolated marine area, a ceremony that happens on a yearly basis near the author's hometown, the typical sonic attributes of a summer afternoon in a small village. Every environmental frame reveals its own fascinating blend of calls and presences; during the rare moments in which noise appears, it becomes an obvious consequence of something that seems to have been predicted. The preparation of a ritual bonfire accompanied by the tolling bells of a rural town. The whistling of the metallic structures of an unfinished construction elicited by the ocean wind. The innumerable species of birds. The various gradations of hiss amidst the boiling water. The majestic roar of an airplane in a silent country setting. The sense of solitude and, at the same time, of immensity that being alone in a meadow causes. It's all here, recorded without tricks or façades, no hidden meanings or subterranean intentions. The essential sounds, just as they are. That means wonderful, especially in absence of people.
- Massimo Ricci

Vital Weekly
Eric Cordier we may know from his work with the hurdy gurdy or with improvisers, but to my surprise this new CD contains just field recordings. The field recordings by Cordier span from 1993 to 2006, and we either made in Japan or in France. Some of these pieces were 'edited an reorganized', where as other pieces are presented as is. However, I believe no sound transformation was used. This is quite detailed recording, and with the useful descriptions in the booklet it's all easy to follow. The gas filled water of Japan, or the unloading of cars; the bonfire and the lazy afternoon. It's all there. Perhaps one could argue that this is hardly music, but I was listening with true fascination to these sounds. Cut of reality, they become music, simply because Cordier pressed them on a CD and we listen to it, rather than going out and listen for ourselves - we could do that later on, if we want to, but it's raining (also a nice sound event), so I prefer to stay inside and listen again to the Cordier CD. Such richness captured in such elegant and smooth way: a true treat for the ears.
- Frans de Waard

The Sound Projector
...Lastly, we have /Osorezan/, a compilation of *Eric Cordier*'s field recordings made 1993-2006. Each of these seven episodes has clearly been carefully selected from what I assume must be a substantial archive of his travels; he probably has the tape recorder turned on wherever his feet may wander, even when he's simply buying an airline ticket. The booklet is also part of the document, adding colour photographs which once again express a view of the world as a place filled with unusual beauties concealed in the most unlikely places; and the sleeve notes, which are pithy observations by the artist revealing a sound knowledge of the geophysical state of the globe. It's even more interesting when these very material documents are overlaid with his own subjective perceptions and insights, including some very personal memories. Even the simplest sounds appear to be enriched with significance.
- Ed Pinsent

Monsieur Delire
Paru en 2007 mais frais reçu. Un superbe disque par un grand artiste sonore de terrain. Cordier se limite à saisir les sons sur place, tels qu’ils se présentent. Pour varier le point de vue, il se déplace. D’un intérêt tout particulier, la pièce titre, un triptyque autour d’un volcan japonais dont les émanations de souffre font bouillonner l’eau qui s’y trouve. Aussi, un feu de joie dans la campagne française et des scènes de vie urbaines. Un beau disque où la réalité, captée sur le vif, est transfigurée par les haut-parleurs.

Released in 2007, but it just reached me. A splendid record by a great field recordist. Cordier sticks to capturing sounds on the spot, as they occur. And he moves around to provide us with various vantage points. Of particular note is the title track, a triptych around a Japanese volcano - gas emanations making water boil. There is also a bonfire in the French countryside, and urban scenes. A beautiful CD where reality captured as it happens is transfigured by the loudspeakers.
- François Couture

BLOW UP
È un quesito antico quanto il mondo o perlomeno quanto Platone. L'arte, e nel nostro caso la musica, deve imitare la natura (e dunque la realtà) oppure raccontarla? A dirla tutta, noi non sapremmo cosa scegliere, ma forse uno come Eric Cordier potrebbe avere la risposta prontaŠ Attivo da anni in ambito elettroacustico, installativo ed improvvisativo (è peraltro un virtuoso suonatore di ghironda), gran parte della sua opera si svolge nel campo del documentarismo acustico.
In questo solco, cioè nel campo della poetica narrazione della realtà acustica, si colloca il disco solista per l'etichetta malese Herbal Records, registrazioni effettuate in situ in varie parti del pianeta tra il 1993 e il 2006. Gas vulcanici, refoli di vento, traversate in battello, sagre paesane, crepitare di fuochi, Cordier riprende tutto con un uso sapiente del microfono e della repertazione (il booklet del CD offre diario annotato e bel dossier fotografico del tour dell'autore), restituendo memoria tangibile alla realtà sonora tramite la pura archiviazione o una rispettosa opera di edizione e riorganizzazione del materiale, talvolta effettuata in presa diretta con opportuni movimenti panoramici o interventi di phasing. Perfetta in tal senso la ripresa eseguita nella località nipponica di Honshu, sbatacchiare dei cavi di sostegno di un surreale ponte verso il niente durante un acquazzone. (8 out of 8)
- Nicola Catalano

Bad Alchemy
Ausgewählte Fieldrecordings 1993 - 2006. Cordier, der zuletzt mit Breizhiselad in der bretonischen Vergangenheit schürfte, ist ganz nah bei den Elementen. 2006 in Japan bei den blubbernden und zischenden vulkanischen Schwefelquellen von Niseko & Osorezan. Nur Krähen und Grillen fühlen sich in der Nähe dieses brodelnden Gemisches aus Gas, Wasser und Feuer heimisch (‚Osorezan, (la montagne de la peur) ‘). 13 Jahre zuvor, die Seinefähre zwischen Jumièges und Heurteauville, Autos rollen von Bord (‚Transbordement‘). Dann wieder Japan, im Norden von Honshu. Stürmischer Wind lässt die Drähte einer Brücke klackern und pfeifen - einer Brücke ohne Anschluss und Verkehr, Denkmal für die leidende Bauindustrie (Dekishima‘). Zurück nach 1993 in die normannische Heimat. In La Haye de Routot, nur 3 km von Cordiers Geburtsort entfernt, bereiten die Barmherzigen Brüder und die Gemeinde am 16. Juli das alljährliche Saint-Clair-Feuer vor. Holz wird gehackt, die Helfer unterhalten sich, während Vögel aufgeregt zwitschern. Das Harmonium in der Kirche verstummt, Trommel und Tintenellesglocken führen die Prozession vorüber, der Holzstapel wird angezündet und die Flammen lodern 14 Meter hoch (‚La feu de Saint Clair‘). Dann Sprung ins südostfranzösische Département Ardeches, ländliches Idyll, Vögel, Insekten, Schritte, Stimmen, über den Köpfen grollen und propellern Flugzeuge hinweg. Jeder, der schon einmal in der benachbarten Provence war, ‚hört‘ die brütende Hitze (‚Par temps Sec‘).
- Rigobert Dittmann

Monk Mink Pink Punk
"Selected field recording 1993-2006" proclaims the cover, offering aural trips to a Japanese volcano and access to village life in the French countryside. The volcano recordings are all bubbles of escaping hot gases, probably very smelly, but a soothing listen at low volumes, and nerve-wracking at high volume. These pieces don't sound processed, but some of the high-pitched bubbles sound so strangely unreal in a chaotic place of hisses, squeaks and rumbles.
The pieces recorded in France, amongst crowds on the ferry and at a yearly church bonfire ceremony, are partly incomprehensible to me, not being about to understand the multiple conversations happening at once. It is a puzzle: to put these aural clues of motors, shouting, footsteps, birds, to a visual map of the recorded events. Cordier (see interviews in MMPP 5 and MMPP 12) also contributes recordings to the Afflux project with Eric La Casa and Jean-Luc Guionnet.
- Josh Ronsen -

XXXX Goh Lee Kwang:::: Punk Guitar

2008-10-28T23:12:00.000-07:00

Selection of guitar works between 1998 to 2002, computer processing editing 2001 to 2002.
RE-mastering 2004~2005

Credits:
All compositions by Goh Lee Kwang
Produced by Goh Lee Kwang
Recorded and processed at Electronic Experimental Studio 427, 17, 247 in between 1998 to 2002.
Bonus Track recorded at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany 2004.
Tracks 7 & 12 were recorded by Tham Kah Mun at Monkey Studio.

Cover art by Goh Lee Kwang

(excerpt, vbr mp3)

Audio CD, A4 paper folding
60min++
Release date: November 2005
12 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

"I have radically remastered this music with exacting and loving attention to every detail. Balances adjusted and thanks to the latest in digital technology the music is louder, clearer, more in your face and exploding with more energy than ever before. Even if you already own all of the cdr release, I strongly urge you to pick this up and experience it."
-- Goh Lee Kwang

PUNK GUITAR first release in 2002 as cdr with the edition of 50++copies, sold out in late 2003. Since then 30++copies were produced by required.

BONUS TRACK CREATED EXCLUSIVELY FOR THIS CD: A spectacular new track recorded in Stuttgart, Germany, 18mins of harsh and silence as how PUNK should be.

Buy this

Review(s)
Music Emissions.com / Idio Mag.com
Goh Lee Kwang is a solo guitar improviser whose work runs the arc of shades from noise to ambient uses of bare-minimum chords and a lot of silence. Punk Guitar is a collection of tracks released on cd-r in 2002 in an ultra-rare edition of 50 or so copies. This version is cleaned up considerably giving more force and warm to the colors created by Kwang and his axe.

An 18 minute track was recorded exclusively for this release, and it is a beast of silence and noise, drawing on all his mastery of pet themes and visions. Truly a mouth-gaping blast of genius.

Goh Lee Kwang has recorded a good portion of his music to accompany experimental dance in a live setting, mostly the Japanese style known as Butoh. That attention to movement, understanding of chance and acoustic enhancement, drives these meditations. “Punk Guitar” is an apt title, despite the more quiet moments; Punk was about freedom and inhibition, a celebration of mistakes and moments that are pointless a minute after noticing them. Kwang’s music may drift away, but while it was here, it was a shock to the system. (4 and a half stars out of 5)
- Mike Wood

Bixobal 2
Lo-fi solo guitar from Malaysia. Most of the tracks exhibit a punk guitar attitude of just going for it despite lack of technique. The playing is primitive and sometimes noisy, while at other times Kwang just loosely strum along. Some tracks like the 18 minute bonus track recorded in Germany (this is a reissue of CDR release) are exploration of feedback, drones and textures. The whole thing has a rough DIY feel to it. The tracks featuring a more normal approach to playing the string sounds like they could be recording made anyway in the last few decades, whereas the noise pieces sound rather contemporary. As music from Malaysia of this type seems to be new thing, the inspirations from both old and new Western music (no denying the influence given the title and instrumentation) are reaching young musician simultaneously. So the spirit of punk rock, the freedom of free improvisation and the exploration of new sounds from experimental music with their decades of recording can all be assimilated at once as examples. In Kwang's case this result in trying out many different techniques, not only within the album, but from release to release as he has already tried his hand at many different things in his short career. in this way, Kwang seems unsettled - like he has not completely found his own voice yet. There are flashes that show he is developing however.
- Eric Lanzillotta

VITAL WEEKLY number 499 week 44
It's of course no problem to call your CD 'Punk Guitar' but why pack it so poorly? Goh Lee Kwang (which we western people would probably identify as Lee Kwang Goh) just folded a badly designed xeroxed paper around it, probably to make a punk statement. This CD contains tracks of Goh playing the guitar, in the formative years 1998-2002. All of these tracks were processed by computer means in 2001-2002. Sometimes these processing's aren't very clear and the guitar still sounds like the guitar, but at other times the noise and distortion totally removes any idea to the guitar (especially in the last piece of the CD). It's not exactly punk playing that Goh does here, but rather a free playing of sounds on the six strings. I found it quite hard to like the material in here, and I must admit it didn't do much for me. Sometimes it was ok, but sometimes also too much of a drag of uninspired playing. Not my tea, indeed.
- Frans De Waard

XXXX Goh Lee Kwang / Tim Blechmann:::: Drone

2008-10-06T03:55:00.000-07:00

Goh Lee Kwang: mixer
Tim Blechmann: laptop

Recorded and edited by Goh Lee Kwang & Tim Blechmann on Dec14, 2004 @ Studio 1, Akademie Schloss Solitude.

No mixing and mastering were apply to the recording.

(excerpt, vbr mp3)

Audio CD, 4 panels digipak
50min++
Release date: March 2005
12 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

Mp3s:

DRONE outtake

UN_NO outtake

Brief History
Goh And Blechmann first played in July 2004, Stuttgart, Germany,

since then they have been playing for about 20 concerts and did some studio recording sessions.

Discography

2005

Goh Lee Kwang's Double Trio: Lille, Stuttgart 2004 cdr Herbal Records

Goh Lee Kwang & Tim Blechmann: Enter/ Esc cdr BREAK THE LINE! Records

2004

Goh Lee Kwang & Tim Blechmann: M18-Z11_qx2 cdr Moka Bar Records

Goh Lee Kwang & Tim Blechmann: Un_No cdr Moka Bar Records

Plattform für freie Musik: Session 4 cdr Moka Bar Records

Plattform für freie Musik: Session 2 cdr Moka Bar Records

Most about Goh Lee kwang
Most about Tim Blechmann

XXXX Goh Lee Kwang:::: Internal Pleasures

2008-10-06T03:38:00.000-07:00

All track were improvised, edited between may ~june 2004 @ studio 2, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany.
No pre-programming, on going effects or post-overdub.

(excerpt, vbr mp3)

Audio CD, 6 panels digipak
50min++
Release date: August 2004
12 Euros + shipping

click HERE to make your order

Review(s)
Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlatic, Jan 2005, France.
Malaysian-born Goh Lee Kwang's Innere Freuden ("Internal Pleasures") comes with an A5 handout containing the following text: "By using an analog DJ mixer with the line connection of 'output back to input', the electronic signal becomes audioable [sic] NO synth, NO pre-programming, NO on going effects and NO post-overdub." (That's almost as many "no"s as a Lou Reed interview..) Dunno whether Lee's contemplating teaming up with Toshimaru "No Input Mixing Desk" Nakamura, Sachiko "No Samples In The Sampler" M and Otomo "No Records On The Turntable" Yoshihide, but the seven tracks on offer here are every bit as austere and compelling as that trio's recent excellent Good Morning Good Night double on Erstwhile. I admit I still have a soft spot for the more eclectic train wreck electronica of GLK's Nerve Center, but no matter ? the vocabulary here is drastically pared down but he still uses to poetic effect. Innere Freuden is by no means an easy listen, but it's a very rewarding one.

Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly no.436 The Neitherlands.
Some parts of this world are just not very well known for experimental music, and Malaysia is no doubt one of them. From there comes a man, Goh Lee Kwang, who has already produced six albums and several tracks for compilations. He is also one of the founders of Experimental Musicians And Artists Cooperative Malaysia and has made music for theatre and visuals. His album presented here was recorded in Stuttgart in Germany and contains improvisations for a DJ mixer. "The line connection of 'output back to input', the electronic signal becomes audioable", I read on the press blurb, so I think it's another example of feedback treatments. It could have been a normal mixer too, as far as I'm concerned. That, maybe poor concept, aside, what I hear on this CD is also not sounding utterly fresh and new, but it's not bad either. Kwang stays firmly in his concept, but he somehow manages to produce an album that carries enough variation in it to be enjoyed throughout. Sometimes I think the stylus can be heard here and there, but maybe it's not. If Otomo Yoshihide is your man, maybe Goh Lee Kwang can be yours too.

Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes, May 2006 Italy
All that's needed by Goh Lee Kwang is a "prepared stereo DJ mixer"; the rest is up to your volume control, which is the key for deciding if "Innere Freuden" ("internal pleasures") will be a nice frequency massage for your ears while you read or - god forbid - watch TV, or if instead you prefer trying to communicate with animals and/or extraterrestrial creatures while risking to shatter all the glass in your house. Everything nearing hiss, feedback, white noise and subterranean gulps and bumps is contained in these tense soundscapes of "next-to-nothing" intimacy. Ectoplasmic forms succeed to electrostatic currents and popping/glitching penetrations, an invisible net of infectious microsounds which Kwang has assembled with a spartan yet functional compositional touch. The coldness of this sequence of events inside a dead-blank framework is alluring in its peculiar way, leaving many open possibilities for the self to become a part of the process.

Kpo, unknown source, found online
Het kartonnen doosje, met foto's van straatstenen in verschillende patronen, biedt op het eerste gezicht weinig informatie. 'Innere Freuden Solo-Improvisationen mit präparierten DJ-Mischpult' staat op de voorkant. Binnenin is te vinden dat 'alle Titel gespielt und aufgenommen' werden 'von Goh Lee Kwang'. Goh Lee Kwang is een muzikant uit Maleisië, die een tijdje in Berlijn gewoond heeft, en daar de gelegenheid kreeg een plaat te maken. Goh Lee Kwang is geen gewone muzikant. Hij bespeelt op 'Innere Freuden' een zogenaamde non output mixer. Het is elektronische muziek, maar dan wel van een beperkt soort. Door met een mixer zonder input te werken, werk je eigenlijk met de ruis van het apparaat. Gemanipuleerd door de vele instellingsmogelijkheden van een mixer en uitversterkt levert dit muziek op dat zowel intrigeert als irriteert. Het cd-doosje vermeldt nog: "No pre-programming, on going effects or post overdub". Daar moet je het als luisteraar mee doen. Live in een concertprogramma in Utrecht, waarbij Goh Lee Kwang samenspeelde met gitarist Lukas Simonis, bleek waartoe hij werkelijk in staat is. Blijven de ruisjes, geratel en de opgewekte ritmes op de plaat nogal statisch, in een combinatie met een andere muzikant worden die klanken pas werkelijk muziek.

Dionisio Capuano, Blow up, unknown date, Italy
per mixer stereo preparato del malese Goh Lee Kwang e il duo con Blechmann appartengono a quella tal sperimentazione sul suono-rumore analogico e (nel secondo cd anche) digitale (Blechmann è al laptop) che sta tra il già (molto) sentito e possibili nuove (?) elaborazioni (la fine della musica, il cambio di attività), l’estemporaneità dell’impro e pensate sulle de-strutturazioni elettrico-elettroniche. Il ‘solo’ di Kwang avvicenda locked groove di feed-back controllato con simulazioni glitch, rumori bianchi che aumentano di frequenza fino alla soglia della sparizione-fastidio; manipolazioni con equalizzatori, cursori e volumi; emulazioni di motori a scoppio; false registrazioni di aritmie respiratorie. Semplice-complesso parlare di ‘Drone’. La lunga sequenza è costruita di sezioni disomogenee ma senza soluzione di continuità. Un tappeto di suoni granulari irregolari; feed back serpeggianti, rombi temporaleschi; piovaschi di frequenze, le solite scariche analogiche. Per finire, venti minuti d’un’alta frequenza, sottile quasi immobile. Se il discorso dei voti equivale a saggi consigli, per i neofiti dell’ elettrone questo è un (6) preoccupante. Per quanto mi riguarda sono solo preoccupato. Avessi ‘bucato’ due capolavori in una volta sola?

XXXX Goh Lee Kwang:::: Nerve Center

2008-09-10T11:22:00.000-07:00

1. A Lie To Liar (excerpt, vbr mp3)
2. NERVE CENTER
3. Deep
4. Fragments (excerpt, vbr mp3)

Samplers from anywhere, organized, mixing & mastering by Goh Lee Kwang 2001~ 2002.

Audio CD, hard-case... Out of Print
60min++
Release date: October 2002
12 Euros + shipping

*Physical copy sold out*
Buy Digital

~
Whatever his influences or working methods, the resulting music is absolutely engrossing. Risky, dangerous even, but most definitely worth checking out
:: Dan Warburton, Paris Translation

~
The title track is more impressive and disruptive. It opens on a loud outburst of sickening noise, it touches a nerve all right. Somewhere between Koji Asano's most hole-drilling works and Merzbow's digital phase, it packs a lot of non-linear action in its 13 minutes. But the highlight of the set is "Deep." A simple, slow electric bass guitar motif (real or sampled?) provides a dark atmosphere. You can hear the string flapping as each note fades. Goh gradually introduces digital noise, making it travel in the stereo field and color the landscape. Drums come in at midpoint, the lo-fi pounding suddenly evoking the Argentinean improv group Reynols. The process is reversed in the last minutes, coming back to that one bass riff: simple, effective, done with art :: Francois Couture, All Music Guide

Live Actions : 50 copies cdr live series

2008-08-03T08:36:00.000-07:00

009 Bass Haters: Deux Boulets, Liege 21/1/10

Tony Dryer: Double bass, electronics
Jacob Felix Heule: Drum set, electronics

Basshaters is a duo using double bass, drum set, and electronics to integrate acoustic free improv and electronic noise. Striving to match the fluidity of their textural acoustic music, electronics expand the timbral and dynamic options to new extremes. The duo seeks directness and intensity in execution; subtleties emerge from the bold statement of simple ideas.

In addition to Basshaters, Dryer & Heule have released an album on Creative Sources with clarinetist Jacob Lindsay. They have a trio CD with saxophonist Jack Wright, and have performed live with diverse musicians such as Michel Doneda, C Spencer Yeh, Gino Robair, and Damon Smith. Dryer has toured with the Flying Luttenbachers and Usurp Synapse; Heule remains active with his brutal improv duo Ettrick.

URL

Review(s)
Vital Weekly
A musicality of improvisation, though not in anyway thematic, are Tony Dryer: double bass, electronics, Jacob Felix Heule: drum set, electronics. A live recording made in Liege - Improv - and not bad. they use both electronics and 'conventional' instruments here in one long improvised piece - a strangely compulsive piece at that. it does fall into a rhythm at one point but this is not in anyway unexpected. At my most critical these disk can both be "listened to". Which makes them in present climate strange oddities.. A good thing. Maybe 'just' listened to. surely not a bad thing?
- Jliat -

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008 trio WPB3: Poverb

trio WPB3
Mathias Pontevia : horizontal drums
Nusch Werchowska : piano, objects
Heddy Boubaker : alto & bass saxophones

Recorded live on november 21 2008 in Christianskirche Church, Hambourg, Germany by Olaf Hering
mastering Mathias Pontevia
cover photo Mathias Pontevia

URL

thanks to Nikolaus Gersczewski, Birgit Ulher, Heiner Metzger, C.I.L, Forum Neue Musik

Review(s):
The Watchful Ear
...The disc in question is a newish release on the Live Actions imprint, an offshoot of the Herbal International label. The disc is named Poverb and is by the trio of Mathias Pontevia, (horizontal drums) Nusch Werchowska, (piano and objects) and Heddy Boubaker (alto and bass saxophones), who perform under the (pretty bad) group name of Trio WPB3. As I guess may be the case with all of the Live Actions releases, this disc captures a live performance held in a Hamburg church back in 2008.

Now, on one hand, I could probably describe the music here in vaguely floral, descriptive terms with no problem. On the other though, its actually quite hard to sun up this music with any quick and easy pigeon-hole terminology, which is clearly a good thing. The music is all played acoustically, and for the most part in a quite traditional manner (the piano is ‘played’ via the keys, the sax blown through, the drums hit etc…) and in places there are hints at free jazz (certainly some of the musicians have experience in this area) but they remain only hints. If you asked me to pin this one down to some micro-genre I just couldn’t do it. It isn’t full of silence, but then it also isn’t overtly busy. It contains plenty of expressive playing, but then there are textures and ringing tones in there as well. It is then, a fifty-four minute long CD of improvised music that cannot be easily pinned down. That’s a good start in my opinion.

While three musicians play here, you could almost call this recording a quartet, with the venue and its resonant space playing the fourth part. Every sound we hear is extended by the rich natural amplification provided by the church. We hear each sound reflected back slightly, and the sudden attacks on the huge drums that characterise the second half of the disc in particular benefit from this. The music then has a dark, brooding feel to it, helped no end by the echo in the room. The musicians can be felt listening to one another very closely, resting together in the quiet recesses that pocket the music often, but also billowing out into little explosions of joint activity elsewhere. Pontevia’s drums impress me the most here. I am not 100% certain what a horizontal drum is, but I am guessing at a sizeable barrel turned sideways, maybe suspended or sat on a frame. Certainly when hit hard they make a formidable, deep crash, and in several places Pontevia does just this, sending shockwaves through the music and breaking up any shift towards the jazzier end of things that the music may have suggested.

Listening right now as I type, I find myself coming back to the interaction between the trio, the way they seem to listen really well and respond to one another in a manner that feels natural and yet somehow not predictable. The music flits between the delicate and the powerful, in one minute a fine combination of sax fluttering and piano skittering might be undercut by a thunderous strike at a drum, or gentle chiming piano notes might merge into ringing metal percussion of some kind. There is quite a range of dynamic here that is amplified furtehr by the resonant recording space.
So this isn’t a CD likely to garner rave reviews in the hippest of places, and it isn’t remarkable enough in any way to stand out from the crowd, but what it is is a nice document that captures a thoroughly creative and highly enjoyable live gig in a great sounding space. Listening to it tonight, as with the last couple of nights when I have given it a spin I have felt quite close to the performance, which is what a live CD probably should achieve. This isn’t a disc likely to top anyone’s shopping lists, but I don’t think its one that should be ignored. The musicianship, shown both through the skilled playing but also through the careful listening that feeds it is top notch, and the resulting music will please a good number of listeners if they got the chance to hear it. Good stuff.
- Richard Pinnell -

Just Outside
Despite AMM being a virtual wellspring for most of the music we hold dear, it's rare enough (and a good thing too, I guess) that a given recording really recalls that group. This one does, somewhat. I could almost imagine hearing the music contained here on a blindfold test and thinking it might be a Prevost/Gare/Tilbury recording from around the time of "The Nameless Uncarved Block". I'm not at all saying that Poverb is of the same quality, just that it imparts something of a similar feel, with a like appreciation for space, duration and large scale form. Like that era of AMM, where both Prevost and Gare weren't quite beyond an untoward jazzish burst, Heddy Boubaker (alto & bass saxophone) and Mathias Pontevia (horizontal drums [?]) also, once in a while, emit bleats and explosions that might better be withheld. As did Tilbury, pianist and object manipulator Nusch Werchowska often serves as mediator and conciliator, bringing the trio back into more considered realms. Overall, though, its a strong, cohesive performance, carving out the king of spatial block that few trios manage consistently.
- Brian Olewnick -

Vital Weekly
The 3 in Trio WPB3 stands for the fact that this is a trio, but then so does the word trio, so, a bit too much? The Trio WPB3 is Mathias Pontevia on horizontal drums, Nusch Werchowska on piano and objects and Heddy Boubaker on alto and bass saxophones. The world of improvisation as recorded on November 21 2008 in the Christianskirche Church, Hambourg [sic]. This concert, in two parts (one being the encore, perhaps?), is a lengthy affair of slowly changing sounds. The instruments aren't always easily to be recognized, although at other times they are. The horizontal drums perhaps the best, occasionally the piano, whereas the saxophone with its lengthy and sustained tones is perhaps the most 'difficult' one to recognize as such. Trio WPB3 move from the quiet moments to the very loud notions and makes some very intense listening music, which requires full concentration from the listener, before it unfolds its beauty. But when you decide to open up for this music, you won't be disappointed. Very intense music, beautifully recorded.
- Frans de Waard -

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007 Nick Hoffman: Stratagem
006 PM (Goh Lee Kwang / Olaf Hochherz): Live Actions - Berlin
005 Anla Courtis: Live Action
004 Mike Bullock: Great Marsh
003 Jeff Gburek & Raven Chacon: Jesus Was A Wino
002 Billy Bao: Auxilio
001 Tetuzi Akiyama & Jeff Gburek: Live At KULE, Berlin 30 May 2005

---------------------------------------------

Review(s):
Vital Weekly
PM (Goh Lee Kwang / Olaf Hochherz) - Live Actions - Berlin cdR
Behind PM are Goh Lee Kwang (mixer feedback) and Olaf Hochherz (piezo). I remember reviewing a rather obscure 3"CDR by them, but this one is actually quite nice. Four pieces, recorded in three different places in Berlin, with only few days in between (so you can tour a city!) of an endless stream of feedback like sounds and small crackles and big noise. It emerges on the borders of improvised music, electro-acoustic, microsound as well as noise. I know this sounds like a strange mixture, but it works well here. A great work, a strong leap forward. (FdW)

MIKE BULLOCK - GREAT MARSH
Mike Bullock is already a renowned player of the upright bass in the areas of his home city of Boston, where he frequently plays with people such Vic Rawlings and Howard Stelzer. The cover for his release seems to be a hasty job: the cover says it's a live recording, but there is no date. Also the label nor the website address isn't mentioned anywhere. 'Great Marsh' is a musical trip of about thirty minutes of bass playing and electronic treatment, but not necessarily a treatment of his bass playing. It starts out with some strumming and bowing but as the piece progresses electronic sounds drop in and even seem to be taking over the proceedings. Quite an interesting recording of some extended bass playing. (FdW)

NICK HOFFMAN - STRATAGEM
So far the music by Nick Hoffman has been pure electronic affairs, working with laptops and sine waves. Perhaps I mentioned however he is graduate in music, and on 'Stratagem' are three works for a small chamber orchestra, which includes, although I'm not sure if all at the same time, four piano's, percussion, trumpet, guitar, and electronics. I am sure I mentioned this before but true, modern classical music is one of those I find very hard to review. Of the three pieces here, I think 'Clearing' is great. It has modern classical feel to it, but its also acoustic with pipes being blown and there are small bits of electronics. I must say I liked that a lot, whereas the short opening piece and the title piece were also alright, but perhaps it didn't have the same impact on me.(FdW)

JEFF GBUREK/RAVEN CHACON - JESUS WAS A WINO
I never heard of Jeff Gburek or Raven Chacon. The first one is from Berlin and plays guitar along with his computer. He played with Ephia in Djalma Primordial Science (theater) and improvised with Keith Rowe, Micheal Vorfeld, Tetuzi Akiyama, Kyle Bruckmann, Pascal Battus, and Tom Carter (Charalambides). About Raven I still don't know anything. Their disc holds a solo piece by each and one duo piece. Gburek's solo piece is quite distantly there, playing the softer card in music of faint hums and deep end sound. But as soon as they play together things get more and more heavy. The duo piece is one of droning short-wave sounds and contact microphone movements over some objects. Quite an alright piece of noise music. Chacon's solo piece is of very high pitches and low end rumble, but it's causes a bit of headache. This we heard done better by others. (FdW)

BILLY BAO - AUXILIO
A short live release by Billy Bao, the group around vocalist Billy Bao (also Xabier Erkizia on guitar and computer, Mattin on guitar and computer and Alberto Lopez on drums). Their short release is quite powerful. It opens with a few blasts on guitar and drums, before exploding into a heavy weight noise rock release. The computers are nicely hissing somewhere deep down in the vaults of this otherwise top heavy release. And not a second too long.
(FdW)

ANLA CURTIS - LIVE ACTIONS
Of these three new releases on Herbal Records, the most well-known artist is Alan Curtis, formerly of Reynols, now known as Alan Curtis. These days he is active a solo musician, playing stages around the world. On 'Live Action' excerpts from three such performances, one in Japan, one in Belgium and in the USA. Armed with electric guitar, tapes, mini disc, toba violin (whatever that is), contact microphones and 'no-instruments' he crafts some interesting pieces of loud experimental music together. Not noise in the strictest sense of the word, but clearly present. The guitar plays the important part in these improvisations, fed through boxes of distortion and other foot pedals, whereas the tapes have a more modest role in the background. Densely layered, dirty, raw but with lots of tension underneath, this is a highly enjoyable release. (FdW)

Herbal cdR

2008-08-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

2010 Goh Lee Kwang:: Farewell Rock Stars (Europe tour limited edition)
2009 Goh Lee Kwang:: Till I'M Happy With 8xcdr ltd
2009 Goh Lee Kwang:: Wiring My Ear To The Ground 8xcdR ltd
2007 Goh Lee Kwang / kenji siratori:: Bacteria Syndrome
2006 Goh Lee Kwang:: Room Sound
2005 Goh Lee Kwang:: S.O.S.#2 (2xcdR, Solo Exhibition limited edition)
2004 Goh Lee Kwang:: Live @ Freies Radio für Stuttgart, 17 July 2004
2004 Goh Lee Kwang:: CRACK (Europe tour limited edition)
2003 Goh Lee Kwang:: Live @ n desir studio, 2003
2003 Goh Lee Kwang:: Qian's 3xcdR
2003 Goh Lee Kwang:: Live @ Five Art Center, 16 Feb 2003

6 euros each cdR+shipping, click HERE to make your order

Goh Lee Kwang:: Wiring My Ear To The Ground

2008-07-23T07:09:00.000-07:00

Goh Lee Kwang::
Wiring My Ear To The Ground
8xcdR ltd

herbal cdR is more on event based and on demand release, we made tour edition, exhibition edition etc, there are more release then listed here, pls check with me if you are interested.

Goh Lee Kwang / Kenji Siratori:: Bacteria Syndrome

2008-07-15T15:07:00.000-07:00

Goh Lee Kwang / kenji siratori::
Bacteria Syndrome

herbal cdR is more on event based and on demand release, we made tour edition, exhibition edition etc, there are more release then listed here, pls check with me if you are interested.

Goh Lee Kwang:: Room Sound

2008-06-22T05:46:00.000-07:00

Goh Lee Kwang::
Room Sound

herbal cdR is more on event based and on demand release, we made tour edition, exhibition edition etc, there are more release then listed here, pls check with me if you are interested.

Goh Lee Kwang:: Live @ Freies Radio für Stuttgart, 17 July 2004

2008-06-09T04:26:00.000-07:00

Goh Lee Kwang::
Live @ Freies Radio für Stuttgart, 17 July 2004

herbal cdR is more on event based and on demand release, we made tour edition, exhibition edition etc, there are more release then listed here, pls check with me if you are interested.

Goh Lee Kwang:: CRACK (Europe tour edition)

2008-05-23T03:37:00.000-07:00

Goh Lee Kwang::
CRACK (Europe tour edition)

herbal cdR is more on event based and on demand release, we made tour edition, exhibition edition etc, there are more release then listed here, pls check with me if you are interested.

Goh Lee Kwang:: Live @ n desir studio, 2003

2008-05-16T23:01:00.000-07:00

Goh Lee Kwang::
Live @ n desir studio, 2003

herbal cdR is more on event based and on demand release, we made tour edition, exhibition edition etc, there are more release then listed here, pls check with me if you are interested.

Goh Lee Kwang:: Qian's

2008-05-16T21:50:00.000-07:00

Goh Lee Kwang::
Qian's
3xcdR

herbal cdR is more on event based and on demand release, we made tour edition, exhibition edition etc, there are more release then listed here, pls check with me if you are interested.

Goh Lee Kwang:: Live @ Five Art Center, 16 Feb 2003

2008-05-16T21:36:00.000-07:00

Goh Lee Kwang::
Live @ Five Art Center, 16 Feb 2003

herbal cdR is more on event based and on demand release, we made tour edition, exhibition edition etc, there are more release then listed here, pls check with me if you are interested.

New Directions, the net label

2008-05-16T21:16:00.000-07:00

dEAR friends,
Welcome! We try to present challenging experimental music which hard to find it's place in general experimental ground... files available on FLAC format here, and visit archive.org (THX!) for other format.

donation always welcome.

glk/ Herbal
May 2008

ND-0001 Various Artists: My Friend G.O.D.O.G.O.D.
A conceptual compilation curated by G.O.D.O.G.O.D. himself, all music here are based on the original sound files by G.O.D.O.G.O.D. , the musician can do what they wanted to with the sound, adding texture, cut-out etc... then G.O.D.O.G.O.D. doing the final touch by adding the silence in between the tracks.

01 White Noise White Heat My Friend G.O.D.O.G.O.D.
02 Noise & Honey Untitled 4
03 Widow98 Beats
04 GLK Voilent (Template Mix)
05 White Noise White Heat Howls
06 Song of the Youth Painful Snow
07 CIB (Canadian In Berlin) Blacktro
08 CIB (Canadian In Berlin) Untitled
09 White Noise White Heat Black On Pink
10 Song of the Youth Rains
11 Noise & Honey Untitled 5
*due to disagreement of some contributors, this album is temporary not available.

ND-0002 Noise & HONEY: Honey Sucking Noise
The duo focus on the tension and the sweetness of electro-acoustic noise, debut album featuring seven studio tracks and a live recording in Berlin.

01 Not Such Thing Such As Politically Correct
02 Are You What You Are?
03 Learning Process
04 Form A Band
05 What?
06 What Happen To The Jazz Musician?
07 End
08 mit Luft (Live in Berlin)

ND-0003-1 Goh Lee Kwang: Warm& Meaty
http://www.gohleekwang.tk
http://www.myspace.com/gohleekwang

01 WARM
02 Meaty1
03 Meaty2
04 Meaty3
05 Meaty4
06 Meaty5
07 Meaty6
08 Meaty7

ND-0003-2 Goh Lee Kwang: Max Attacks vol.1
http://www.gohleekwang.tk
http://www.myspace.com/gohleekwang

01 MA#001
02 MA#002
03 MA#003
04 MA#004

ND-0004 Falter Bramnk: 2 Field Recording Compositions
Falter Bramnk is a french composer, an improvising musician and occasionally
a photographer. He worked for dance and at present for short movies. He has released various multi-instrumental cd projects, both on solo and compilations. He is also involved in sound portraits (artists, friends...) and fieldrecording compositions. Influenced by the cinematographic art, he plots his soundscapes like narrative sequences rather than single long takes.
http://falter.bramnk.free.fr
http://falterbramnk.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/falterbramnk

01 Bali 2000
02 Seattle 2006

ND-0005 W98: Super Disco
W98 celebrate the hot summer with his super disco beats!
release

01 Disco1
02 Disco2
03 Disco3
04 Disco4
05 Disco5

ND-0006 Goh Lee Kwang: Wiring My Ear To The Ground samples
Samples from Goh Lee Kwang's 8 cdR limited edition release Wiring My Ear To The Ground. Contact Goh for more detail about the 8 cdR release
http://www.gohleekwang.tk
http://www.myspace.com/gohleekwang

01 Ancient Wind (edit)
02 From The Corner Of The Room (edit)
03 Ground (edit)
04 Hidden Note (edit)
05 Lift (edit)
06 Lowest Ground 3 (edit)
07 Padi (edit)
08 ph2 (edit)

Outlet, the online shop

2008-05-16T20:58:00.000-07:00

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