SSPPPOONGG 1

Postcard from Dr. Steg

SSPPPOONGG 1
A4 Zine



Dr. Steg’s previous mode of expression’ ‘SPON’ died. When it was alive it came in many different guises, from the jawbones of dead animals to boxes with filled with detritus to zines covered in marks left by mechanical toys. Actual zines with drawings in them were there too of course as was the ongoing [presumably one way] spat with Judge Dread artist Brian Bolland. Steg’s original letter to Bolland appears on page two of the first issue of SPON’s successor SSPPPOONGG, a cut and paste sketch book that Steg put together with fellow traveler Andy Paciorek. The cover’s been updated to take advantage of the never ending conveyor belt of celebrity pedophile action which appears to be a permanent Steg fixation. Inside there’s Gary Glitter, Hitler, Iggy Pop, lots of kittens. Hunter S. Thompson, David Beckham, Steve Buscemi and a cast of hundreds all disfigured in some way so as to make them fit better in to the Steg/Paciorek world. 

SSPPPOONGG 2 [or some variant of the spelling I imagine] will no doubt feature the next batch of odious public figures found to have pasts they’d rather keep hidden or a used curry carton. The possibilities are endless.  



www.worldofsteg.co.uk

More from Leeds: Piss Superstition, Vibracathedral Orchestra and Sheepscar Light Industrial

The Piss Superstition - Getting Nothing To Appear On The Developed Film
Fencing Flatworm Recordings. CDR/DL + Booklet. 50 Copies.

The Piss Superstition - The Dialed Number, The Bone-Breaker, The Heavenly Sword
Sheepscar Light Industrial. SLI.025. 3”CDR/DL. 50 Copies.

Claus Poulsen - Pressure Point
Sheepscar Light Industrial. SLI.026. 3”CDR/DL. 50 Copies.

TST - Tsim Sha Tsui
Sheepscar Light Industrial. SLI.027. 3”CDR/DL. 50 Copies.

Vibracathedral Orchestra - REC-REH 13
No Label. CDR. 50 Copies.



Are we ‘Extracting’ here? I suppose we are. Again. And why not? As someone on the telly once said. Except for Vibracathedral Orchestra, who by some weird instance of synchronicity I was listening to whilst flicking through the new Wire only to see them featured in the current issues ‘Invisible Jukebox’. They're not extracting they’re improvising and droning. Keep up at the back there.

Piss Superstition won last years Zebedee award over at RFM with ‘Vocal Learning’ a mysterious lump of sludge that managed to sound like noise and drone and improv all rolled up into an amorphous jelly filled balloon that vibrated your ears. A vigorous piece of noise for sure and one that laid on you like a heavy blanket from which you struggled to escape.

‘Getting Nothing To Appear On The Developed Film’ fits the bill once again with three tracks and thirty minutes of synth keys stabbed at random in a one there, one there, and one there, oh that gives us a bit of rhythm, but rhythm in a broken leg disco fashion. There’s no way on earth anyone could dance to this unless they were on drugs of their own making. These are black, shape shifting drones of a deep and dark nature, the kind of drones you’d find in an Eraserhead outtake, radiator music for the 2014 Leeds generation. Third track ‘Risen Glass’ is the prime cut, steam leaks of an analogue nature, ruptures in cold pipework, conduit cracked and twisted but still managing to carry the load. Inserted into this release comes a tiny hand-typed booklet of Haiku poetry, which I’m thinking is the work of FFR’s bearded wonder. Only 50 copies and mines number 23. Swoon.

The Piss protagonists are Julian Bradley and Paul Steere and they have to be doing something right when you’re struggling to pigeon hole the damned thing. What they’re doing is mutating drone into new avenues - not something you get to say everyday. These are drones meant to fill a back to back terraced house living room not the Tate Modern [though I’ve no doubt that this is entirely possible]. An audience of three for a gig in the front room of a Victorian terraced house in LS6 would be the ideal setting.

The latest trio of Sheepscar Light Industrial releases sees Piss Superstition in similar territory with only the last track ‘Heavenly Sword’ inching into more familiar terrain with a guitar sustain shouldering up to a desk fan whose fins are broken and are rubbing against its protective wire cover. Heavenly feedback of a sustained chord nature crumbles into atomized granular squares. 

TST are Extractionists to the tip of their analogue prodding little fingers. The trio that is Thomas, Thomas and Sanders account for at least five labels and who knows how many projects and side projects that are at the very heart of the Extraction matter.  Their slowly shifting patterns of analogue drone murk are brain sinewaves as recorded whilst watching hypnotic DVD’s of city centre traffic patterns, preferably Leeds.

Claus Poulsen is a Danish improvisor of an electronic ambient nature who got fed up of being in bands and decided to go it alone. Judging from what I hear here he’s going in the right direction. First track 'Pressure Points' uses field recordings of an urban nature and the odd synth stab. I thought that my CD had that badly dubbed skipping sound on it but when I went to the SLI bandcamp page and listened again it was still there. Second track 'Inner Space Re-Imagined' has a comfortable lost in the middle of nowhere feel to it, Mahler’s 3rd as played on plastic didgeridoo’s as gentle wandering synth blobs fill the background, distant winds, the clunk of dead metal, bugs having their conversations recorded and played out over shitty iPod speakers.

Which brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Julian Bradley, Vibracathedral Orchestra and REC-REH 13. Twas whilst flicking through the new Wire and listening to the Vibra’s that I mused to myself, ‘why don’t you listen to them more often’? Whats not to like? They’re fucking great. The first track here’ll do it for you. The best bit of the best gig by the best band in the world before its oh so cruelly segued away before your very eyes into something new.  Its why Cope gets so excited about em and people pay top dollar for the rare stuff. Not just drone but improv rock drone teetering forever on the edge of greatness or total collapse, banged drums, chugging guitars, sawed violins, Mick Flower bashing his Japanese banjo, plucking the thing to death, Bradley’s frotted riffs, Campbell's bobbing head, crashed cymbals, maracas, depth charge analogue synths, snake charmer’s horns. delirious off the wall up there and down there drock [drone/rock geddit?] That they don’t always ‘click’ is part of the appeal. It comes with the territory but when they do there’s little to compare. Sixty minutes worth of recordings as laid down last year somewhere in Leeds.

Tracking VCO material down is a different matter - these have all gone. You could do worse than try Campbell's Big Cartel page just in case they make some more due to consumer demand.


SLI

FFR

ASC/VCO

Trans/Human Tim Olive/Jason Kahn

Trans/Human - The [Un]expected
The Cloud Art Experiment. AUD026. LP

Kahn/Olive - Two Sunrise
845 Audio. 845-3. CD





Ah yes Improv, or the big ‘I’ to give it its full name. Improv of the electronic variety here, well, for the most part. A most wondrous and edifying branch of the experimental sonic arts and one that gives me great pleasure. To prove my credentials and to look hip at the cocktail parties that Mr’s Fisher throws I leave beside my Binatone Hi-Fi [stereo, if you please] a copy of Bernard Parmegiani’s ‘De Sonoro de Natura’. Not the original I may hasten to add but the recent re-issue that came courtesy of GRM in a gatefold sleeve with a debossed cover that’s an absolute gem of a release in all manner of ways. I sometimes pick it up and gently stroke the sleeve with the palm of my hand, my fingers tracing the geometric shapes that surround dear old Bernie’s fuzzy fizog.

But yes, I do like a bit of electronic improv. The sound of springs being brushed by magnets, wire brushes pinging off the sides of bits of tin all contact mic’d up to sound like forests being felled or a sniper rifle being put together.

Trans/Human are the duo of Adam Denton and Luke Twyman. They’re part of an enthusiastic Sheffield collective going by the name of The Audacious Art Experiment that puts on gigs in a requisitioned Quonset hut and releases some interesting looking material in a variety of formats. How they’ve passed me by I know not but here they are now with an LP of improvisation that I’m thinking was inspired by a recent trip to America which may go some way to explaining why the first track ‘Whistle’ begins with a Country & Western track as snatched from a shifting FM band. A Country & Western track that sings about the railroad and thats what it sounds like with an out of tune electric guitar being played like a lap steel making sounds reminiscent of those long dusty railway tracks disappearing into the distance. Rapidly struck tubes of steel are the warning sign that the level crossing barrier is coming down and theres the sound of the train’s horn as replicated by something I know not what.

I’m liking the cheap rent Harry Partch like Trans/Human set up too. A clothes rail hung with various objects: a sax, an electric guitar hung upside down and no doubt used as a percussion instrument, one laid flat on a table and used Keith Rowe style and no doubt having ball bearings hurled at it, there’s a bell too and an old casserole pot for whacking with twigs. All the requisite bits and bobs as required for the onset of some improv. This equipment would be for nought though if the results were of a substandard nature. I’m happy to report that for the most part they’re not with only a tendency to stray into Einsturzende Neübauten territory spoiling what is on the whole a decent use of wax.

The two tracks on side one [‘Whistle’ and ‘The Incident at Frankfurt Airport’] are the more interesting with the side long ‘Peasant’ the only instance of Trans/Human getting carried away with themselves. By going for the massed clanging, juddering, almost rhythmic, build to a climax for effect dollar they slip into Neübauten Lite territory and even though this is Sheffield 2014 its not Berlin in the early 80’s. They’re far more interesting when trawling the shortwaves, giving out little mini drones and radio voices via the shorter ‘Frankfurt’ where those shortwave transmissions become throbbing noise with a treated radio broadcast appearing like the disembodied voice from the mothership in an American 50’s Sci-Fi movie. ‘Whistle’ actually gets quite noisy in a piece-of-wire-being-given-the-Aube treatment kind of way whilst the fevered drumming and clashed cymbals give you the feeling that your in the midst of a Sonic Youth whig out.

Tim Olive is far nearer to Bernard than Thurston though and this we like. His collaborations   via his 845 Audio label have graced these pages before and are fine examples of the electro-acoustic voyagers art. Here he teams up with Zurich based mutli-faceted artist Jason Kahn with four tracks all recorded in Japan [Kyoto and Osaka] during 2012, the last being a live outing. Olive’s preferred mode of expression is through a one-string magnetic pick up, Kahn contributes to the noisier end of the spectrum with analogue electronics.

Four tracks that finish up at just over the half hour mark that evolve and mutate through various forms be it the quiet rumblings and odd spurt of analogue beep or, as in the live outing, the close up sound of that stretched, coiled wire being drawn down from top to bottom with the edge of a 100 Yen coin [probably].

Kahn tempers his urge to go all out noise on Olive which makes for a well balanced release. On the opening track Kahn’s viscous knob twiddling matches Olive’s string manipulations until they both realise they’re going at it far too hard and let things slide off into a controlled feedback loop until Olive picks up two stones and begins to rub them together [perhaps]. Sporadic use of Japanese radio and the noisier end of things on the live track go towards making this another quality 845 release. They should do more together.





The Audacious Art Experiment     


845 Audio

Stuart Chalmers / Ian Watson

Stuart Chalmers - Imaginary Musicks Vol 1
No label. CDR/DL

Watson/Chalmers - Good is a Lobster
The Lows and the Highs. HI/LO 035. Cassette/DL


Choosing your holiday music is a serious job. The yearly chance to indulge your earlobes for a whole week without the intrusion of the everyday is one to be cherished and welcomed. The mere thought of me sitting on a veranda gazing out into the azure Ionion sea with those little plastic things dug deep within my earlugs is one to send me into raptures. So after careful consideration I decided that I’d take the entire works of that lovable Austrian Serialist Anton Webern seeing as how you could get the whole lot for £8 on iTunes [not a path I normally tread but the ease with which my iPod was filled with his work was a simplistic joy in itself]. As to whether Webern's stark squawk becomes long afternoons spent gazing out onto the azure blue of the Ionion sea was a question that answered itself once an electrical storm of Biblical proportions arrived one evening, perhaps this was where Xennakis got his inspirations from? But I digress. I also took with me some Hawaiian music courtesy of Alan Lomax [more fitting and an antidote to Webern should he prove to be too much] and Rod Mckuen’s Beatsville LP, a recording that contains the immortal line ‘you don’t really get to know someone until you’ve held their hair back whilst they’re vomiting’. At least I think thats what he said. Maybe it was the Metaxa kicking in?

There was a few other bits and bobs of course including some new environmental stuff that arrived from Gruenrekorder the day before we left but the artist that I enjoyed the most this year was Stuart Chalmers.

Last year I took the opportunity to fill my head with lots of William Basinski so this year it seemed logical to progress with Chalmers. Basinski is the artist I most identify with Chalmers but as ever, its only a rough guide. Basinksi’s Disintegration Loops and his Shortwave Music are amongst the most profound and deeply moving examples of experimental music I know of and its the elements in these two works that I find in Chalmers. Working with guitar pedals, electronics [a catchall term I know but it’ll have to do] synths, possibly shortwave radios and cassettes he creates some incredible states of mind. But its cassettes that are the beating heart of Chalmers work.
  
Imaginary ‘Musicks Vol 1’ is Chalmers own handmade reworking of a cassette that first appeared on Beartown Records. Going for a more ritualistic vibe was Chalmers intent and in a bid to add some gravitas to the proceedings he had the results mastered by Denis Blackham a man who’s worked on everything from Jean Michelle Jarre to Whitehouse to Nurse With Wound to …  Basinski.

Here you’ll find the taught three stringed Japanese shamisen rubbing shoulders with classical Indian compositions of the flutes and singing variety, negro blues, looping filmic soundtrack like slices and insect chatter. These 35 minutes pass in an absorbing and all encompassing manner as you could possible wish for.

We begin with the wheezing drone of a Shruti box and the high call of a lonesome flute fluttering its notes hither and thither, synth nodes are layered, bird sounds appear, the mood is of contemplation. But this isn’t new age twiddling as found on an American West Coast guru’s prayer mat, this is West Coast England in the year 2014. This makes for an altogether different experience. These pieces of ritualistic and ethnic expression are now being put through the hands of someone who has no doubt listened to lots of Nurse With Wound and Whitehouse and no doubt Mr Basinski himself. This has not been filtered through rose tinted granny glasses and the fumes of bifters rolled up on Grateful Dead double albums. This is a far more grainy, multifaceted and modern affair.

My favourite track is the third [they’re all untitled] and the nearest Chalmers comes to donning the Basinski crown; a disintegration loop all of his own in which the haunting sound of a female Indian singer comes at you like a Lorelei. The fourth track is a walk through a dark room hanging with muted tubular bells, a saxophone flaps its pads unaided. The fifth finds a pair of violins swapping eerie notes as a sunken ship groans under the weight of all thats above it. And so it gloriously goes on.

‘Good is a Lobster’ contains nine haiku’s from Chalmers and a tenth track thats the noisiest thing I’ve heard from him. The haikus are as you’d expect, short excursions, creaking oar straps, an anvil being struck in the distance, Chinese wooden blocks and the odd stark piano note and ominous chord, wind chimes, the swirl of a cassette tape being abused via the slight depression of a fast forward button is never far away thus producing a serene almost uneasy atmosphere. Until we arrive at ‘East is West, West is East’ where Chalmers gets to flex his noise-drone muscle with an epic piece that incorporates what could be several monastic chants, each one degraded to a nub whilst being given the full on roar treatment.

And lets not forget Ian Watson’s contribution here. His four tracks ping about in minimal glitch/drone territory with crackles and the sound of dust as caught in shellac run-off grooves. There’s some atonal squeals courtesy of some circuit board on circuit board action and the odd struck ringing bowl all adding to a feeling of remoteness and space. There’s a definite Sähkö-esque feeling of analogue sparseness and disruption going on here of which I most heartily approve.

From what I’ve heard of Watson’s work over the years [not much I admit and didn’t he begin life as The Death of the Enlightenment Project?] he appears to be maturing nicely. There isn’t much here that bears comparison to the last thing I heard of his [a sample laden outing on LF] from which I assume he’s still experimenting and searching. That's no bad thing. And much better than Webern, when the suns out that is.                             
   

 Stuart Chalmers

The Lows and the Highs

Beartown Records

Shards of Ordnance. Birmingham 26th & 27th September

A reminder of this soon to be upon us weekend of sonic shenanigans where I shall be wrapping up warm just in case it snows. Last years gig at the same venue [celebrating 30 years of Con-Dom's existence, this gig, I think, celebrates the end of 30 years existence] had to be performed outside in the beer garden due to a double booking. This, in November, where the temperature can easily drop below zero once the sun has disappeared, if it ever makes an appearance at all. For the full horror of what happened at this particularly surreal gig read the full report here .

Se you there.

www.peripheralrecords.co.uk

Let's do the Extraction

Daniel Thomas - That Which Sometimes Falls Between Us/As Light Fades
Kirkstall Dark Matter. 2 X CDR/DL. 39 copies [including 9 ‘flower press’ copies].

Daniel Thomas - Enemy Territory
Cherry Row Recordings. CDR/DL CRR005.

Daniel Thomas & Kevin Sanders - I Am A Moment Illuminating Eternity
Hairdryer Excommunication. CDR/DL 25 copies.

Midwich & The Skull Mask - Six Angles
Cherry Row Recordings. CDR/DL CRR004

Midwich - Inertia Crocodile
Cherry Row Recordings. CDR/DL CRR003

TST - The Spoken Truth
Hairdryer Excommunication. CDR/DL





It would appear that half of what lies in front of me is what Rob Hayler would term ‘Extraction Music’. Thats him in the Midwich guise, making contemplative sounds or writing about such matters via his Radio Free Midwich blog or releasing such things via his Fencing Flatworm label. He expresses himself most clearly with words and sounds and when he claims something as his own [see the term ‘no audience underground’] it sticks.

Which brings us, once again within a short space of time, to Extraction Music, or as I prefer, having already shortened it for my own amusement ‘Extraction’. I’ve written about it recently and thanks to the efforts of Daniel Thomas, David Thomas, Kevin Sanders, Hayler and others on the periphery of this newly minted sub genre there’s lots to listen to. It would seem that every time I visit a gig in Leeds my pockets are further stuffed with the rich pickings of this ‘vibrant underground music scene’ [cf The Guardian and any other media outlet who realises that after a quick Google search that there is such a thing].

On my last visit Daniel Thomas gave me what could be seen as Extractions defining moment so far. In much the same way that Striate Cortex’s Victorian Electronics four disc set gave Leeds its flag in the ground moment a few years back, this limited to nine copies two disc set of his work comes housed in a flower press made from defunct beehives. Not only does it look good and smell good but the contents work too.

It is effortlessly listenable material. I’ve been at it for weeks now and find it hard to tear myself away such is the ease with which it fills your space. But you do need space within which to experience it. Extraction demands your attention and you should give it by listening in a quiet room on a still day when the neighbours are all out and the phone is muted or off the hook. Thus armed you can immerse yourself in this new found world where things move more slowly and where tracks can runs into the thirty minute mark giving you plenty of time to hear things evolve and mutate.

Thomas’s ‘That Which Sometimes Falls Between Us/As Light Fades’ is the place to start [via download too as I’m guessing these small runs will already have gone]. Eleven tracks spread over two discs give rise to the gently hum of a droning prop driven aircraft as heard from the comfort of your seat [this being Monday Off], next track Cabin is a near fifteen minute float of discrete circling, cycling, swelling synth patterns. More ominous fare appears on the untitled tracks of the first disc where single notes reverberate into cranial gaps setting up vibrating resonances that play havoc with your sinuses, track three is more urgent, more vibrant but still with that undertow of throbbing pulse that permeates much of what Thomas creates.

What all of the above people are doing is collaborating, cross pollinating, swapping and sharing, finding themselves in a space that is rewarding for all parties. Hayler explains:

‘the leading exponents of the sub-genre I’ve defined as ‘extraction music‘ are very busy guys indeed ... Dave Thomas (solo as ap martlet, half of Hagman, one third of TST, label boss of Kirkstall Dark Matter), Daniel Thomas (solo under his own name, the other half of Hagman, a further third of TST, as a duo with Kevin and label boss of Sheepscar Light Industrial and Cherry Row Recordings) and Kevin Sanders (solo under his own name and as petals, as a duo with Dan, the final third of TST, label boss of hairdryer excommunication)’

That's what happens when you put but three very creative, talented and enthusiastic people together. When you add to this list like minded travelers and those that hover on the fringes of Extraction such as Seth Cooke, Stuart Chalmers, Ian Watson, Eddie Nutall [Aqua Dentata], Andie Brown [These Feathers Have Plumes] and Plurals, not to mention a small number of enthusiastic labels, you have what is amounting to a significant amount of highly rewarding and listenable music, the vast majority of which is of tremendous quality. My mind doth boggle.

When Thomas [Daniel] teams up with Sanders you have a nigh on single 40 minute track that's a slow build made from [no doubt] crusty old analogue boxes and field recordings. Here the mood is a sombre one made from flatulent crop sprayers, distant irrigation pumps and rubbed bowls. It eventually peters out to the sound of a muted helicopter, crows and shortwave static. As invigorating as as lung enhancing long walk on a cold, damp winters morning.

The TST release ‘The Spoken Truth’ has a much fuller, thicker sound which is what you'd expect when the attendance rises to three. Here we have a single eighteen minute machine throb drone with the controls set firmly towards planet Ambient Industrial. A piece that barely shifts from its original settings until its final dying seconds. A piece where the sounds of passing cars on wet roads and the gentle crash of waves upon pebble beach vie to be heard.  A powerful, resonant drone and one I found somewhat unsettling in an ominous, stuck in a dark underground car park at one in the morning kind of way. The way it exits leaving that last fizzing box as evidence of its existence is pure delight.

Which leaves the three Cherry Row releases. Cherry Row exists to allow Daniel Thomas an outlet for those releases that surpass the recording limits set by his three inch only CDR label Sheepscar Light Industrial. Which leaves plenty of room for Thomas to stretch his legs on Enemy Territory. A more lively release in that the pulses almost become beats especially on first track ‘1016’ which tips its hat to some of Tangerine Dream’s more pulsing ecstatic moments and is without doubt the most energetic, head bobbing track to be found amongst all of these releases. ‘Vampierkasteel’ is more in keeping with what has gone before, minimalist, inching, shuffling, throbbing, a microphone placed within an extraction duct, ‘Lincoln Towers’ is fifteen minutes worth of deep sonar sounding pulses whilst the title and last track is rawer with flapping overloaded woofers farting their analogue hearts out.

Rob Hayler’s Midwich project takes over where Enemy Territory leaves off with some equally engaging head throbbing, bobbing synth stabs as recycled through some kind of effect that makes it sound like its losing its signal and finding it again. The less than two minute track ‘Piped’ is an oscillating frequency leaving ‘The Sure’ to see us out with a less frantic take on Terry Riley’s Poppy Nogood in which Midwich goes for the cycling overtones jugular.

His collaboration with the Mexican guitarist cum experimenter Miguel Pérez is perhaps not so Extractionist with the title track seeing Pérez’s droning dissonance segueing into Hayler’s climbing overtones. The longer ‘Written in Sand’ is cut from the same cloth with each artist layering their sounds over each other making for a jarring listen.

I could have added more to this list from whats in front of me now; the new Piss Superstition on Fencing Flatworm, the three Sheepscar Light Industrial releases, the two releases I have featuring Stuart Chalmers. Where Extraction ends and drone and improv begins is a moot point but it hardly bears pondering over for long. With such a wealth of material available its best just to enjoy the moment and worry about semantics later.




  
Sheepscar Light Industrial

Cherry Row

Kirkstall Dark Matter

Radio Free Midwich

  

Daniel Biro - Shir Hadash

Daniel Biro - Shir Hadash
Sargasso. SCD28076




After weeks in the extraction immersion tank the words ‘a-cappella gospel-influenced voices with transcendent electronics’ didn’t exactly set the pulse racing but then I remembered playing Shir Hadash when it first arrived here [in pre extraction immersion tank days about six months ago now] and thinking that its mixture of resonating harmonies sung in Hebrew coupled to deft electronic nuance was actually much better than its strap line suggested.

So here we are six months down the line and a planned day out from the extraction immersion tank became a week in which I dipped my head into the Shir Hadash bath almost to the point of self annoyance. I became addicted to its close knit harmonies and took it everywhere I went. Mundane journeys became transformed, I was in a world of my own. I was, dear reader, transported.

Performed by three male vocalists of the Elastic Theater Ensemble Shir Hadash is immediately lifted from the mundane by the use of words like ‘shamanic’, ‘trance inducing’, altered state’, ‘spiritual ecstasy’ and in the case of Naggen Bitrua, an offering that wouldn’t look out of place if overdubbed on to the original Omen, ‘demonic’. Perhaps a little something to remind us of the dark side? Biro then treats their voices electronically, which he did live when this piece was performed in 2009 but with soft hands showing his skill as a composer whilst allowing the obvious natural beauty of the voices to reveal themselves. Its only on the last track ‘Chayos’ that Biro allows himself the luxury of cracking his fingers and letting his electronics dominate the proceedings entirely. 

But its the voices that win out. I admit to being a fan of close-knit harmony, be it via the sacred works of Arvo Pärt, the Mike Sammes Singers, the King’s Singers [I’m being serious here by the way] or Gregorian Chant. You can’t beat a bit of group singing [just don’t get me going on barber shop quartets]. So to hear these three male voices of the Elastic Theater Ensemble singing in harmony [in Hebrew remember] has been something of a much needed breath of fresh air for me. It could do the same for you.

The most uplifting moments are on Shir Hadash 2 when the reprise from Shir Hadash 1 is drawn out and extended to include Biro laying on some jazzy Rhodes electronic piano and lengths of low tempo electronic drum washes. The way those voices soar with nothing but a series of closed mouthed ‘hmmms’ is both uplifting and deeply moving. ‘Chayos’ sits at its end with the voices processed beyond recognition into a swirling mass of discord. In-between the harmonies disappear into seas of Biro-twisted discontent [think soundtrack to unsettling nightmare as used by BBC production team]. Its those two Shir Hadash compositions that get me every time though. First as pure a-cappella and then in its ten minute long Biro-tinged incarnation.

Sargasso are doing a fine job of stopping me from getting in to a rut with my musical tastes. I’ve reviewed their releases on these pages before and each time I’ve been impressed, not just by the quality of work on offer, but the way in which they challenge your musical preferences.  
 

   



www.sargasso.com


http://danielbiro.com/

 

Panelak - Heimat

Panelak - Heimat
Angurosakuson. AS007. CDR



We left Pascal Ansell with his eponymously titled release but a few months ago. After listening to it and digesting it the word that rang out loudly between our ears was ‘scattergun’. After listening to Heimat the word that now rings loudly between our ears is ‘scattergun’. The man is a tower of reliability.

And he’s enthusiastic. Of that there is now doubt. The Tigger of the Leeds noise scene [if indeed there is such a thing]. An intelligent presence constantly rubbing things together and sticking things in where they shouldn’t just to see what kind of noise emerges. Shouting, wounded sounds, tapes going backwards and forwards, bongoes gone mad, noises galore, some harsh, some not so, pan lids chucked down stone steps, strings plucked, strings scraped, anything that he can get his hands on is detuned, broken and put back together again in a constant bout of ‘pure digital experimentation’ to quote the press release.

True experimentation then, not something you come across much these days. Including the cover with each one coming in a different sleeve as hand made as they come, all torn bits of paper and added bits of things. All wonderful really and hard to dislike. Both inside and out.

Trying to describe it though is like trying to describe your entire music collection. I jotted down a few names that came to mind whilst listening to Heimat and ended up with the following list: Yol, Throbbing Gristle, early Merzbow, Derek Bailey and Raymond Scott. Last time around the list included, Toshiji Mikawa, Joe Jones, Faust and Derek Bailey [a constant I feel]. Whether all of this makes for one coherent whole I’m not so sure but after listening to Heimat numerous times I’m still of the opinion that sooner or later Mr Ansell will deliver something thats not just a collection of ideas. That he’s open to these ideas is encouraging [Yol-like shouting would suggest that exposure to local gigs is having a beneficial effect]. The man is a culture sponge soaking up everything within reach before forming a version in his own style.

I shall look forward to further adventures.





http://angurosakuson.wordpress.com