At the moment, most reviews are being written for the physical magazine, but more will be added here soon enough…
TODD ANDERSON-KUNERT A Good Time To Go cassette (Nonlinear, Australia, 2018)
Four pieces by a self-proclaimed interdisciplinary artist already known for some installation work and a feature length documentary, A Conversational Exploration of Sonic Practice, that has been included at Austria’s ARS Electronica festival. A Good Time To Go is Todd’s collection of material apparently designed to be performed live solo and ultimately given to what seems to be a simple premise of electronic swells sometimes vaguely sounding like something between a heavily processed voice or a scrunched-up ball of tones. There’s a lot of space here, too, essentially both allowing everything to breathe whilst simultaneously compounding an understated approach in keeping with the concept of quietly leaving a room or situation unnoticed. Highly effective, this album should reward any attentive listener. (RJ)
DAUGHTERS You Won’t Get What You Want CD (Ipecac, USA, 2018)
This is one of those groups whose name I’d seen mentioned now and again during the past few years, but never actually got round to hearing. No idea why as You Won’t Get What You Want, a perfect title for an age where most people expect everything they want (and more besides), delivers like the best thing you’re going to hear for a considerable while. Beginning in 2002, this Rhode Island group previously put out three albums and a handful of singles that saw them spreading from being directly tapped into the writhing seams of electronic crackle and dissonance forged by the noisier end of post-hardcore and math-rock to assuming the weird ’n’ wonderful guises once witnessed with The Young Gods. To leave their sound at such points, however, would not do it any justice. Daughters have evidently developed a highly intuitive and approach to an essentially intense rock-based sound that draws as much from the dramatic end of industrial music to erratic jazz and sweeping cinematic atmospherics, sometimes all blended into one song. The playing is taut yet possessed of that approach whereby it teeters on the edge of a vast fissure at the same time, meaning the firmly harnessed power of the sound here forever threatens to run away as it cascades full-on into a state at once illusory, defiant and celebratory. Although the music has several pronounced similarities anyway, it succeeds in elevating the listener to the very same juncture Swans can on their very best work. It’s a mighty and completely immersive sound, brutal on the one hand and stunningly beautiful on the other, and mostly due to Nicholas Andrew Sadler’s often insane or tormented guitar-scapes. I’m not going to cherry-pick my way through the ten songs as they all appear to have been beamed in from the exact same vortex of energy which binds the entire album together, really. What’s great is the fact Daughters appear locked into a mission to explore the possibilities abundant in a sound that doubtlessly owes as much to the group’s cues as it does to then pulling them apart and throwing them into the future where such scabrous rage is both rare and justified. I’m of an age where it’s only too easy to sit back in a cosy armchair of wrinkled cynicism, stupidly thinking I’ve heard everything before, so when a group such as this comes along (and, let’s face it, they haven’t exactly just come along…) and thrusts a huge shiny pin into that misguided bubble before cramming my face sternly into a decidedly fresh take on matters I’m forced to take notice. Daughters might not physically force any listener, or anybody else, into doing anything, though. They do not need to. They’ve devised a sound that does exactly that and it is fucking wonderful. Time to invest in the back catalogue. (RJ)
DISTANT ANIMALS Lines LP (Hallow Ground, Switzerland, 2018)
Seems to be the first ‘proper’ long player from Switzerland’s Daniel Alexander Hignell, whose two side-long pieces of drone-based foraging here at least are embellished with enough clangs, gong-like sounds and organ swells to lift them beyond the usual ‘drone-by-numbers’ fare often doing the rounds. Because of this, there’s a moodier presence to the proceedings, at once vaguely reminiscent to the soundtrack of a dusty old horror film and perhaps knowingly mindful of previous minimalist masters such as La Monte Young and Terry Riley. Clearly, Hignell has a handle on things so often missing amongst many prone to exploring such realms of minimalist music. Alluringly full of movement yet imbued with a keen ear for dynamics in abstraction, Lines arrives with a charm entirely its own. (RJ)
FALL INTO DRY LUNGS Buried in the Woods CD (Dry Lungs, Austria, 2018)
Five molten splurges through screeching electronics-laden drums so buried by the former it’s difficult to discern exactly what’s happening to them beyond the fact the hi-hat sounds like it’s getting a proper pounding. Not sure they even exist on all the tracks but who cares? Recalls Merzbow’s own work where drums at least try to poke above the melee. It’s like jazz gone wrong. Intense. (RJ)
FOCH DELPLANQUE Secret CD (Parentheses Records, Belgium, 2017)
Electronics, real time sampling and the use of objects such as stones as percussion join what’s mostly a restrained approach to Philippe Foch’s playing of the tablas in this collaboration between him and sound artist Mathias Delplanque. There’s a nice fluidity running through the gentle setting of clangs, whirrs, metallic scrapes, chimes and hypnotic rhythms that’s far more welcoming than anticipated, instantly compounding a shared objective to these improvisations. The line between abstraction and a more direct, accessible stand firmly planted, Secret lolls into a warm enough space that can be claimed as its own for the duration, at least. (RJ)
ANJA GARBAREK The Road Is Just A Surface CD (Drabant Music, Norway, 2018)
The very latest album by this Oslo-based artist collects carefully crafted songs of a measured and sophisticated pop nature snagged somewhere between a dreamlike take on trip-hop and Kate Bush’s grasp of melody and artfulness. It’s a winning formula that’s perfectly nuanced with deft twists and turns as it carefully nudges its way through a corridor of well polished electronic textures, perfect hooks, occasional detours into the oblique and semi-confessional narrative. There’s a slightly more scuffed appeal evident at certain points, such as on sixth cut, ‘Bob’s Song’, which also works in Garbarek’s favour, but ultimately there’s a poetic mystery at work here bursting at the seams with depth as her handle on her craft shifts from one shining plateaux to the next. I’m only surprised, given that this is Garbarek’s sixth album since 1992, she’s not more widely recognised. (RJ)
GROUP ZERO Structures and Light LP (Touch Sensitive Records, 2017)
Solo album by Cathal Cully, who is otherwise to be found at home in Girls Names, a group based in Northern Ireland who draw from indie, post-hardcore and lo-fi. Structures and Light, however, is nothing like any of that and instead takes us through some measured electronic tracks merging beats and chilled synths in a manner perfect for the sonic landscape of the early ’80s. What sets this apart is the production and stern nodding towards the darker end of the techno spectrum, such as Demdike Stare, although some of the interwoven melodies are lightly smeared with a touch of early Autechre. It all works well, though, and serves both to remind us of some classic sounds and their place in more contemporary terms. I look forward to where Group Zero goes next. (RJ)
info@touchsensitiverecords.com
FRODE HALTLI Avant Folk CD (Hubro, Norway, 2018)
With such a title collecting the five pieces here, I was expecting music of a rather more mentally taxing nature than what’s on offer to be honest, but that’s not to suggest they’re not without merit. Three of the arrangements are based on a selection of traditional Norwegian songs and even a hymn from Haltli’s native country, whilst the remaining two maintain much the same mood whereby lilting rhythms and reflective overtones form the staples alongside his rustic and often sombre accordion playing. Together, everything is deeply suggestive of the setting from whence it doubtlessly came; firesides in log cabins set deep in icy hillside forests. Things get a little moodier at the start of fourth cut, ‘Gratar’n’, but the melodies soon assume shapes once again perfect for a Nordic family drama where everything just about works out okay in the end. Very much like the thought of sitting by a fireside one wintry evening, everything here’s rather snug and comforting. The occasional ‘avant’ shadow might be cast, but the musicians generally flex their abilities over such tendencies. It’s all fine, but somewhat misleading. (RJ)
INTO THE SKY ‘Before the Storm’ 7″ (Kosmic Noise Records, Germany, 2017)
Already describing themselves as ‘ambient rock’ on the press sheet, the textured instrumental approach of ‘Before the Storm’ didn’t come as a huge surprise. However, it’s an affair that courts favour for its fairly sprightly nature and allusions to a number of artists once housed by Kranky or the likes of Hood and Flying Saucer Attack. Like so many others similarly attired, the smell of several dusty old krautrock records is never too far away, but there’s a contemporary indie sensibility at work that at least arrives from the side where the worst of what that suggests is largely avoided. I’m sure an album might afford them the opportunity to unfurl far more ideas, though. (RJ)
RAFAL KOLACKI A’zan, Hearing Ethiopia CD (Zoharum, Poland, 2017)
Rafal Kolacki can usually be found in groups such as Hati, Innercity Ensemble or Mammoth Ulthana, each of them dedicated to the foggy corridors found between post-industrial, psychedelic and ritual music. Let off the leash, however, he arms himself with a recorder and documents environmental sounds. Those included here are from his travels in Ethiopia and, as you might expect, amount to street sounds, animal noises, chattering people and the like, not that dissimilar from countless other places apart from, obviously, the different language(s). Maybe I’ve heard too many such albums now, but most are akin to being unwittingly shown somebody’s holiday photos. I fully understand the rationale behind such releases, but I’ve heard so many now that I fail to find them engaging. Sorry. (RJ)
LARGE UNIT Fluku CD (PNL, Norway, 2018)
This Paal Nilssen-Love group with thirteen members in has saxophones, tuba, trombone, trumpet, electronics and suchlike blasting in all directions whilst drummers Andreas Wildhagen and Nilssen-Love himself do their utmost to keep everything tacked down. Fiery, tumultuous, dynamic and tight as fuck, the players here each cook themselves to the point of being an explosive whole completely unafraid to take on the occasionally more directly rhythmic interlude before careering over edges of their own making and back again. Any unit, large or small, given to improvising their way through such widescreen cosmic churn are, it goes without saying, going to require the kinda chemistry which takes on almost magical proportions in order to hold everything together. Large Unit are thankfully charged by a reservoir of it big enough to energise a small galaxy. This must have been phenomenal in its original setting of being performed live in Oslo. Guaranteed spring-stepping music. (RJ)
MAHLER HAZE A Range of Solutions CDr (Personal Archives, USA, 2018)
The very latest album by Mahler Haze, a solo project operating from Belgium mostly given to excursions through the outer reaches of contemporary psychedelia sometimes informed by moods more often found amongst certain post-industrial artists. It’s a mix that mostly works well, especially in the instrumental setting this work generally emanates from. Over the seven pieces here, you might be forgiven for sometimes thinking Jesu or Cluster have been gently ushered to the VIP room as thick blankets of iridescent fug fold in on themselves in a steady jostle for one of the outer rings of Saturn. Skullflower don’t seem so far away either, but it’s no bad thing. Such reference points, entirely my own anyway, only paint a tiny corner of a space which commands deeper listening despite the fact that beyond such micro-releases (this one arrives in an edition of 50) Mahler Haze’s work is barely promoted or pushed. Way ahead of some of the nonsense received around here. (RJ)
KALI MALONE Cast of Mind LP (Hallow Ground, Switzerland, 2018)
Seems as though Kali has arrived from the abstract electronics/noise school and has her hand in various other projects, such as one of a more dreampop persuasion. Under her own name, however, she plunges into those well-charted waters where shimmers, hums, glacial shifting and long, drawn-out tones converge in a bid to reduce the listener to the level of driftwood. I’d like to say Cast of Mind adds something new to the canon, or at least has something more personal hanging over it, but it all just drifts along like countless other such releases before it ends up in a premature ejaculation in a semi-conscious fug. (RJ)
JEFF MORRIS featuring Karl Berger and Joe Hertenstein Interfaces – Jazz Meets Electronics CD (Ravello, USA, 2018)
Jeff Morris is an award-winning artist who, over the years, has been involved in installations, radio performances and all manner of other concerts. His music is apparently created to fit the architecture or cityscapes it finds itself in, which makes for an interesting enough spin on what otherwise here predominantly sounds like free jazz filtered through a hotel lounge where the players have drunk the entire rider before the proceedings have even commenced. Morris himself tumbles all over the place with a sampler that scatters intergalactic babbling and churn through a mesh of Berger’s random keys and Hertenstein’s multiple-personality disordered drums and percussion. It is all effective enough, but sometimes appears stilted or a little lost as it playfully flounders from one mood to the next without any main point of focus. Perhaps the surrounding cityscape was somewhat haphazard, too? (RJ)
NAKAMA Worst Generation CD (Nakama, Norway, 2017)
More improvised gurgling and spluttering from this group of Norwegian players hellbent on extracting the tiniest of sounds from the assembled double bass, violin, piano, drums and the like whilst Agnes Hvizdalek’s uses her sometimes grating voice to emulate decidedly alien sounds once in a while. The playing is tense yet understated as each dramatic exchange unfurls, the setting uneasy as it nudges modulations in and out of focus, and the combination of the academic, primal and absurd both enriching and inventive. A commanding listen by musicians whose unbridled mastery of their chosen context makes for a listening experience as unpredictable as it is challenging. (RJ)
PEST MODERN Rock ‘n’ Roll Station LP (Meidosem, France, 2018)
Nine collab tracks between a father and son who use Jac Berrocal’s classic ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Station’ as a hinge to all from surf guitar and proto-industrial electronics to old school techno and growling vocals on. What with the cartoon-ish elements strewn throughout, it’s like The Young Gods just entered some club in toytown after taking ‘shrooms before hitting the studio, although the ensuing chaos occasionally careers into something more akin to a dadaist nightmare Berrocal himself has been especially good at producing. Certainly an oddity given Nurse With Wound’s impossible-to-beat take on the original, but there’s a certain charm attached to just how impenetrably baffling this otherwise is. (RJ)
THE PITCH & SPLITTER ORCHESTER Frozen Orchestra (Splitter) (Mikroton Records, Russia, 2018)
If you’re not particularly au fait with the world of Splitter, they’re a huge, amorphous conglomeration of (largely) European composer/performers of an electroacoustic inclination, who, on past releases, have collaborated with guest composers such as Felix Kubin and A.A.C.M.’s George Lewis. Compared to their debut, Creative Construction (also on Mikroton), the rank and file have dwindled from twenty-five (!) to a slightly more manageable nineteen. And in the driving seat this time, guest composer-wise, is The Pitch; a quartet comprising of double bass, organ, vibes and clarinet players, who, by and large,, have had previous history as members of the Splitter Orchester. Small world. So, as they already know each other, things should really get on like a house on fire. And they do, but it’s more of a slow burn event really, with an organic sense of dynamics that ebb and flow without a strict adherence to the stopwatch and clipboard.
And from the get go, Frozen… reveals itself to be a dronework of (obviously) large-to-massive proportions, that leans heavily towards the deep, dark bass registers. A malevolent and slowly swelling backdrop emerges propelled by the full-throated wheeze of Boris Baltschun’s electric pump organ, which eventually yields to an expansive mid-section that makes a bid for freedom with what seems to be a morning chorus of stray birdsong that’s blotted out by the general hubbub of a roadwork crew (?). But really, most of the individual voices are immediately absorbed into the gaping maw of the eternal note, all escape routes barricaded. Perversely, over time, the most prominent figure; head bobbing above the soupy waves, is Simon James Phillips, his poignant piano lines, romantic in essence, working as a strange counterpoint to his dronist colleagues.
As you can guess by now, the feel and substance here is far too quintessentially continental to be corralled in with those big city note-stretchers like La Monte Young, Tony Conrad and Charlemagne Palestine, but to these ears perhaps, we may have located a modern successor to Urban Sax, that weird, masked gallic flash mob of the seventies and eighties. (SP)
JAMES PLOTKIN The Joy of Disease: Demos and Remixes LP/CD (B.F.E., Spain, 2018)
On the LP there are seven pieces originally sketched in 1995 for the Joy of Disease LP on John Zorn’s Avant label. These themselves, recorded at Mick Harris’ studio in Birmingham, assume a variety of guises, from protean gush-driven works anchored to the kind of electronic rhythms perfect for stapling anybody to a late night sofa and on to moody post-dancefloor grooves Soma once held the master keys to. For sure, the fact these are a little rudimentary and from over two decades ago shows, but there’s an irresistible charm to the proceedings that definitely works in their favour. Whilst side 2’s ‘Yes Well No’ hints at a less earth-bound approach that I’m sure could have been explored much further, it simply exemplifies Plotkin’s yearning to push and poke at a variety of different sounds in an evident quest to simply see what might happen. The fact that Mick Harris was there doubtlessly fed this gathering of loops, beats and electronic sprawl, but at least the minds were synchronised. The accompanying CD includes several Plotkin and Harris/Scorn remixes perfectly expanding on the scope whilst in the latter’s case retaining that all too important individual stamp. Nice. (RJ)
RAMLEH ‘Procreation’/’Religion’ 12″ (Il Silenzio Del Rumore, Italy, 2018)
By and large, remixes, or even the idea of them, tend to divide peoples opinion. Perfectly understandable given just how many seem absolutely devoid of any purpose whatsoever beyond being something of an ‘add-on’ to a release that doesn’t have enough confidence behind it to exist in its own right. Outside this, they can work and, indeed, can make for an interesting take on the music, sometimes casting a spin on it unimaginable to the point of sacrilege. Let’s not sidestep the fact they can simply be ‘fun’, too, and accordingly perhaps should not be so heavily weighed down by their detractors. For Ramleh it is something of an unusual step, which may well be precisely why they agreed to this on the first place, especially when considering the fact both Parrish Smith and Black Seed, here given one song over a side each to conjure new spirits from the tracks, approach the sonic waters from different shores. Parrish takes huge rhythmic blocks and serpentine electronics that via the Grand Canyon bassline add up to a dancefloor stomper very much removed from any expectations one might have regarding new Ramleh material, despite Anthony’s pronounced passion for some proper head-crunching techno. Black Seed’s version of ‘Religion’ (nothing to do with the classic PIL song of the same name from their first album) emphasises the psychedelic whorls generally embedded in the group’s work yet throws up an entirely different narrative in the process, melding moonlit middle-of-the-night fire dance nods to an array of digital drizzles apparently otherwise primed for a journey of their own accord.
Both pieces, in their original form, are to appear on the next Ramleh album, now due in 2019, so these two remixes are as close as we’re going to get to a preview for now; another perversity I’m sure both Gary Mundy and Anthony Di Franco are tickled by as much as the black disco bag and accompanying info sheet that house everything. The idea that Ramleh appear to be at least three or four groups in one unit has never been clearer. A fucking good thing as far as I’m concerned. (RJ)
THE SAND RAYS Remembered Vol. 1. CD (Zhelezobeton, Russia, 2018)
So far, The Sand Rays have been survived by three e.p. releases, two of which are digital and one that is a limited run CDr. The name is also another alias for Jim DeJong, whose work under the name The Infant Cycle is all that I am familiar with. The tracks here appear to have a little more depth to them, though, and are generally more expansive in that the hushed tonal pieces have more movement and also sometimes make way for more rhythmic pieces that draw from glitch but are more full-bodied. Everything suggests DeJong pretty much knows what he’s doing and aims for a somewhat higher plateau than his peers. It’s a strong collection that deserved to be put together on a disc, anyway. Sounds like a recommendation from me, for what it’s worth. (RJ)
SHE SPREAD SORROW Midori CD (Cold Spring, 2018)
Another six songs from Alice Kandalini’s terribly named She Spread Sorrow. This itself, of course, suggests the moody array of digital contours, post-industrial rhythms and cascading drones within, but once in a while, such as on third cut ‘The House’, the music transcends this, at least for the first half of its 8 or so minutes’ duration. . Only Alice’s semi-whispered vocals help retain the usual atmosphere whilst minimal tones ripple and assume new shapes before chattering loops and rumbling sounds conjoin the proceedings. Like the previous work I’ve thus far heard, there’s a deftness here clearly hinting at better things. Meantime, this is a cut above most similar such fare and illustrates only too well that She Spread Sorrow is worth keeping an eye on. (RJ)
SUDDEN INFANT Buddhist Nihilism CD (Harbinger Sound, 2018)
“Fuck rationality!” blares a punk mode Joke Lanz on the first cut of this new album by his long-running Sudden Infant. It is possibly the best summation of his approach to his music in the first instance. Over the years, he’s been all over the place musically, taking in junk-noise, electroacoustic works, drone-based deliberations and far more, all filtered through a Dadaist perspective where what appears to be random is possibly carefully constructed and all else might well arrive from the very opposite. What hammers everything into place, however, is a naturalness and honesty. You get the sense that Joke does what he likes because he genuinely feels like doing exactly that at the given time. Which is why, possibly, this album is surprisingly more ‘song’-orientated and borrows from rock, mutant funk, early Swans, Sleaford Mods and free jazz. There are nods to other areas of music in the mix too, but the axis is a heady, and firmly enticing, brew of low-slung bass, deep thud, flecks of heady weirdness and Joke’s spittle ‘n’ blood-flecked vocals. What ultimately comes over is the fact Joke has assembled a great band here who are evidently open to his whims due to their own backgrounds in the worlds of improv, jazz and the avant-garde. It’s a fucking tight unit operating in the realms between pure magic and chemistry. I’m sure it’d be fucking blinding live, too. Buddhist Nihilism might well seem like some kind of oxymoron, but it makes perfect sense. Especially when coming from Sudden Infant. (RJ)
SUGAI KEN UkabazUmorezU CD (Rvng Intl., USA, 2017)
Crystalline murmurs, pirouetting tones, distant digital clanging and occasional nods to what could be a soundtrack to some cartoon or slapstick comedy form the framework to Japanese sound artist Sugai Ken’s fifth album in seven years. Each and every nuance is tacked into place by a keen sense of atmosphere and burst of playfulness that, whether completely intentional or not, sets this music apart from so much of the more desiccated, austere nonsense that constitutes much of the medium. I’m not sure it’s quite enough to elevate it completely, but it’s an admirable enough rung to stride from. (RJ)
SPLASHGIRL Sixth Sense CD (Hubro, Norway, 2018)
Something like the seventh or eighth album from a Norwegian jazz trio whose arrangements tend to loll towards the more dramatic end of the spectrum, by and large. Following a relaxed and gentle start, the electronics, piano, (double) bass and drums assume tauter posture at once alarmingly hypnotic and veering into almost schizoid territory both more uncomfortable and borderline abstract. It’s at such junctures Splashgirl illustrate a keen sense of exploration, but it is always held back by a sense of caution perhaps tacked into place by a professionalism that favours the ordinary over the extraordinary. There’s a steep classical influence sometimes recalling the approach of many a prog rock group, tho’ tiny folkish refrains make their presence felt along the way and perfectly offset a decidedly contemporary, and rather polished, approach to the medium. It all adds up to an interesting album, but one whose restraint perhaps ultimately goes against it, unfortunately. Maybe I’m missing something? (RJ)
TRONDHEIM VOICES + ASLE KARSTAD Rooms & Rituals CD (Grappa, Norway, 2018)
Twelve pieces, collected from several performances, by this Norwegian group of improvisational singers, here recorded and produced by Asle Karstad, whose background resides in contemporary classical music. Accompanied likewise by some occasional electronics where the voices are filtered through a specially devised system called maccatrols, essentially an electronic box each singer wears that can be used to manipulate their voice, the arrangements here amount to a bewitching setting of movement and control wholly atmospheric in its execution. For the most part this positively entrancing set of voices assumes a softer hue, but it is angled enough to proffer a dramatic edge that sometimes strays deep into the unknown. ‘Room #6’, for example, is a triumphant blend of haunting rhythmic swells and deranged vocalisations, whilst the following song, simply called ‘Hymn’, is based on a traditional hymn and clearly illustrates the emotional prowess of the performers. Ranges are further explored throughout the remaining pieces, sometimes teased into shapes many might deem unearthly, but it’s impossible to not at least appreciate the depth, beauty and indeed deep-set sense of mystery at work. A triumphant release, then, that can only pay the best of tributes to precisely how beguiling these must be to see live. (RJ)
URUK Mysterium Coniunctionis CD (Ici D’Ailleurs, France, 2018)
The second album by this collaboration between Tim Lewis, a.k.a. Thighpaulsandra, and the prolific Massimo Pupillo, who is known for having previously worked with a wide range of artists, including Gordon Sharp, Paal Nilssen-Love, Caspar Brotzmann and Oren Ambarchi. Given the pedigree here, it’s only surprising that the two lengthy pieces on offer amount to rather formulaic strolls through what seem like dark ambient presets presumably prodded at whilst doing something far more interesting, like doing the dusting or whatever. I certainly expect better from Tim, whose work is usually capable of hurling one against all manner of different ideas themselves often contorted into new patterns. I’m not so familiar with Pupillo’s work, but given his being a bassist prone to improvisation I’d have hoped at least some of that intuitiveness would have seeped into into this. Disappointing. (RJ)
ZONK’T Banburismus LP (Sound On Probation, France, 2018)
Looks like this is the first album for about nine years from Laurent Perrier’s long-running Zonk’t, a platform given to merging downtempo beats with a swirling array of abstract yet finely honed electronic sounds which owe much to Perrier’s deeper background in such music. Here, however, everything is more clinical and precise. The unfurling digital flotsam seems like it’s seeping from malfunctioning equipment in a room at the end of a corridor in a hi-tech hospital. Although the more obvious beats help to make sense of the stuttering and stammering afoot, the music on the four cuts that constitute Zonk’t’s sixth album gains strength when they are less pronounced. Without doubt, this all arrives from that darkened room where, at 5am or thereabouts, many have found themselves after sweating it out on a dancefloor, but Banburismus alludes just as much to soundtrack music as it does the chill-zone’s cousins in spatial dub and minimal techno. ‘Conditional Probability’, the final cut, is a respectful nod towards those spaces Basic Channel occupied so well. It might not necessarily surprise, but it pulses along with enough feeling and weight to render it an engaging listen in itself worth returning to. (RJ)
ZUPERNAUT The Psyker at the Gates of None CD (self-released, 2018)
Six tracks by a Portugese keyboard player and programmer who seems to have a thing for the sounds Klaus Schulze and Edgar Froese once explored whilst on some kinda industrial mission as imagined by a blunted Bernard Szajner. This is hi-drama synth-scaping perfect for a light sci-fi show aimed at the whole family. Outside this, I’m not sure what the point of it is really, although track three, ‘Egoist’, accompanied by punk-ish vocals and Goblin-esque organ, is world class comedy. (RJ)
EMAIL: zupernau7@gmail.com
RUTGER ZUYDERVELT with ILIA BELORUKOV and RENE AQUARIUS The Red Soul CD (Sofa, Norway, 2018)
The prolific Zuydervelt, known chiefly for his work as Machinefabriek, here collaborates with Belorukov from Saint-Petersburg and fellow Dutch sound traveller Aquarius on a soundtrack to Jessica Gorter’s The Red Soul, a documentary film released in late 2017 concerning the influence of Russia’s ravaged past on the nation’s present. Ghostly choir and folk song snatches from Russia, plus other such embellishments, slowly drift in and out of a slightly troubled sonic gauze of windswept tones, subtle knocking sounds, quietly chattering electronics, indiscernible murmuring and wheezing noises kept to a low tide. Each detail’s presence is kept understated before it ebbs quietly back into the distance, somewhat recalling William Basinski’s work in feel if not in execution. Having not yet seen the film itself each piece here conjures images of starkness, pensiveness and melancholy. It’s the sound of misery, failure and regret tacked to several wispy strands of hope. In this sense it the album works beautifully. I need to see the film. (RJ)
V/A Pavilion/Paviljonas CD (MIC Lithuania, Lithuania, 2018)
This collects a piece each by eight Lithuanian audio-visual and sound artists dedicated to recording various locations in order to, as so typical of any gathering of field recordings, engage the listener in, gosh, the ‘here’ and ‘now’ of the given environment perhaps otherwise ignored. None of them are treated in any way and, as such, we get the usual selection of natural sounds, traffic, chatter, a dog barking and so on. As much as there have been exceptions over the years, I’m honestly finding such artists as increasingly lacking in anything even vaguely indicating integrity these days. Field recording artists are up there with drone artists. What’s worse is that you can expect any one of them to appear at an arts grant subsidised ‘event’ that may attract up to 30 people anytime near you soon. The fact these people are from Lithuania might set them apart to a certain degree but it doesn’t excuse them. No point in noting the names as nobody will especially care anyway. (RJ)
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