Now Playing: Netlabels
I joined Google+ recently, (here’s my profile: C. Reider on G+).
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I struggled for a while trying to think of what to use the new social network for, then I decided to just start an opt-in circle with a link to whatever random netlabel thing I was listening to at the time. I began by making tiny little comments on the music. Commentlets? Commentitos?
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In time this became short first-listen impressions, then running commentaries and finally I started approaching full-scale reviews. I’m probably scaling back again now, maybe just a link, otherwise I’ll think I have to review everything, and listening will be a chore, like back when I actually DID have to write reviews.
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Still, I feel this kind of thing should probably be broadcast to a wider audience than the 20 people who are in the circle that can see my “Now Playing Netlabels” reviews, so I’m cutting & pasting them here with added hyperlinks.
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Taken as a whole, this is a skatter-brained bunch of not-reviews with the occasional review thrown in for good measure. Some are totally uninformative, but there’s always the link. (well, not ALWAYS).
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Now go listen to some of this stuff.
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7/16
NP: Chiodata – Copla (it’s pretty much bad-ass, so far). Also the netlabel name Cocodriller is kinda funny in a bad bi-lingual pun way.
http://www.cocodriller.com/?page_id=1442
7/16
NP: Restive – Generative 2 (Gorgeous spacious industrial-drone stuff by Modisti labelmate Restive)
http://modisti.com/11/2011/06/21/restive-%E2%80%93-generative-ambient-2-2/
7/17
NP: Various Artists – Dead Voices: White Noise out on one of my favorite netlabels of all time Just Not Normal!
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It’s got Miquel Parera Jaques on it, and I’m totally enamored of his music for the last year or so. Damned cool compilation. I’m pretty certain it’s going to make an appearance on my best of 2011.
http://justnotnormal.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/imc03-dead-voices-white-noise/
7/19
NP: Jeff Sampson’s SoundCloud page.
This ambient music dude lives in Colorado Springs and he is someone who takes time to promote music that he himself doesn’t make, which makes him immediately cool in my book. I’m tired of guys who do nothing but self-promote. I rather like his stuff, too.
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Viva Colorado weirdos!
http://soundcloud.com/jeffsampson
7/19
NP Noise Research – A Proof of Fermat. I have no snarky, nor informative commentary, as I’ve only just begun to listen to it for the first time. … Ah, well it sounds a bit formless and improv-like. I’m not sure if it’ll congeal into something or just go on like this, it’s nice & whooshy though.
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ETA: It actually reminds me a little of a less musical Supersilent.
http://itsujitsu.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/a-proof-of-fermat/
7/19
NP Grégory David – Artificiel
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Giving it a first spin now. Sorta elecronic experimental music with an obscure techno flavor, like Alva Noto or Ryoji Ikeda? Probably bad comparisons. I missed the first half, but the later bits are nice.
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Warning: the link I’m listing here has an auto-play widget.
The Artificiel album is there if you scroll down.
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The Nowaki netlabel has a really nifty little streaming player with a way cool waveform animation. Extra points!
http://www.nowaki-music.org/
7/19
NP: Elma – Kotohogi
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Zow! Exceptionally harsh noise. I figured that’s what it’d be once I saw the Japanese bondage cover art. You know, I love seeing this kind of sound art in live performance, (seriously, I absolutely adore it) but it loses something in recording. Still, I think everyone should own at least one really amazingly harsh noise thing, in case you get in a mood where head-clearing might come in handy. If you’re not up to buying something from Merzbow, well, this here’s free.
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ETA: The more time I invest in this, the better I like it.
http://www.clubotaku.org/mimi/uk/album172.php
7/24
Now Playing: Cezary Gapik, celebrated Polish experimental composer. He has a new release called ‘1998’, apparently a re-release of works from that time period. The first track sounds like someone slowly, rhythmically pounding the inside of a water tower.
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It’s a bandcamp release, name your own price (incl. zero), you don’t have to give your email.
http://cezarygapikakacezar.bandcamp.com/album/1998
7/24
Now Playing: AODL – Wanted Valley
We saw this SLC Utah based noise artist at Denver Noise Fest, he was a stand out. This is nice, textural, harsh noise with a relaxed pace and varied electronic noises.
http://euc.cx/rive/061/
7/24
NP: Humeka – m_area
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Looks like they’re getting all Scanner up in this bitch: “All the samples in this release were captured through some kind of communication device (i.e. mobile phone, answering machine). From the streets of Paris to the private messages, this is a very sophisticated and tasteful way of putting technology to good use. Go listen! ” — I’m streaming on Sonic Squirrel.
http://sonicsquirrel.net/detail/release/m_area/13206
7/24
Now Playing: Coppice – Vinculum (Courses)
The reputable longtime netlabel Stasisfield comes out of its… er… stasis with this 20 minute electronic composition.
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Its high electronic tones remind me of a kind of miniature, fairy-version of a hurdy gurdy or harmonium.
http://stasisfield.com/releases/year09/sf-9001.html
7/25
Now Playing: PBK / Das / Jeph Jerman / John Hudak – Chain Mail Collab 1988
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(these won’t all be new things, you know)
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A 1988 rarity reissued on PBK’s blog in late 2010. A dense, churning, rumbling bunch of industrial racket. I’m particularly a fan of PBK & Jeph Jerman (I’ve had the privilege of seeing Jeph perform several times), so yeah I like it. Not the best work by any of these artists, but certainly good for fans of lo-fi industrial noise. Which I guess I am.
http://soundgenetic.blogspot.com/2010/11/das-jeph-jerman-john-hudak-pbk-chain.html
7/26
Now Playing: Noine – Cheap Non-Routine
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Strange, reedy, warbling techno-pop. Straddles some sort of line between generic promotional/instructional video soundtrack music, and outright unusualness.
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At least based on the tracks I’m streaming now, this is pretty fun stuff…
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On Sunday Recordings… apparently a Japanese netlabel. Hadn’t heard of them before.
http://on-sunday-recordings.com/release/cheap_nonroutine/
7/26
Now Playing: Noine – NOI-mprovisation.
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Same group / netlabel as the last one. Had to listen to a little bit more from these guys ’cause they kinda weirded me out. This is calmer, I’d be hard pressed to call it an ambient improv, but the pulse is pretty subdued. Kind of nice, especially in contrast to the last thing.
http://on-sunday-recordings.com/release/noi-mprovisation/
7/28
Now Playing: Le Berger – Shhhh… even more peaceful (A remix, of sorts)
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Well then, it appears that this is a stretched out version of Miles Davis’ famous “quiet” work “In a Silent Way” It’s about thirty minutes of whoosh, which does, nevertheless, sound familiar and cozy to anyone who cherishes Miles.
(Link no longer exists – Taken down by copyright worries?)
8/1
Now playing: Radere – Maple Drip
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Suggested by Kevin Stephens of Saffron Slumber, this 2010 release is a fine bit of latter-day guitar looping á la Fripp’s soundscapes. I wonder why so many ambient guys are using this method, and not very many (OK, none?) are doing the old-school Frippertronics method with two reel-to-reels strung together? OK, so two reel-to-reels is a pain in the arse, but LISTEN to the early Frippertronics, it sounds awesome… I like antique looping better than modern looping, so sue me.
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OK, so now that I’ve spent this whole post complaining, I should probably point out that this is rather lovely music. Starts off sparse and builds into a huge wall of shifting tone with little blippy flowers stickin’ out of it. Just like it should.
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After posting this, I remembered that I met this guy at Communikey 2011. Nice fellow.
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http://www.archive.org/details/ruralcolours015
8/24
Now Playing:
Alura Une – “Dybbuk” (as reported on by the ever-reliable Disquiet)
Purportedly this is drone metal, and who am I to dispute that? It is droney, and it does have heavily distorted guitar.
What I like about this is how the music is essentially minimal, but at all times it feels exceedingly shakey and uncertain, as though it might either build in intensity or fall apart completely at any given moment.
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This is just one nine minute long track. Free to stream or download, goes w/o saying.
http://waveguideaudio.bandcamp.com/album/dybbuk
8/24
Now Playing:
Various tracks by Ground Zero Mosque on SoundCloud
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He lists all of his stuff as “noise”. Someone recently commented about the narrow connotations of the word “noise”, how it evokes total, screaming, high-decibel assault only. I think that is a true thing to say about what the word “noise” evokes, but it is not true about the actual music you will find that describes itself as “noise”. The more you are exposed to noise music, the more you realize what a big tent the genre can be. I could see an ambient musician successfully courting a noise audience, while the converse is obviously not true. This says something, but I think I’ll avoid saying it aloud.
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So this is “noise” music. It is comfortable with itself as noise, and I am comfortable with it as noise.
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http://soundcloud.com/ground-zero-mosque
9/3
NP: The SoundCloud page of douglasmseidel
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Experimental music comes in lotsa different flavors, not just the noisy, droney stuff that I tend to prefer.
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This guy’s SoundCloud has a few different variations… for his “songs”, he builds upbeat, jazzy, vaguely avant-proggy groove-beds over which a very young boy improvises some hilarious melodic flights of fancy. At times this reaches a manic blend that makes me think of a weird collaboration between Bob Drake and Aphex Twin.
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More introspective and atmospheric are his several banjo reveries with modular synth oscillations going on in the background.
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Definitely different, and worthy of a listen.
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ETA: My friend Dave Seidel, aka Mysterybear is this guy’s brother… he informs me that Doug was in the incredible RIO-ish slash No Wave-ish band No Safety. I completely loved that band’s album “This Lost Leg” back in the nineties.
http://soundcloud.com/douglasmseidel
9/5
NP: John Kannenberg – Three Hours of Infinity
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Three separate hour-long recordings of John Kannenberg meditatively scooting a charcoal pencil attached to a fishing line across a piece of paper to make shapes like a circle, or the symbol for infinity. He did 100 hours worth of these many-hour-long drawings, recording each one. This release documents three drawings, three hours.
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As far as sonic varity goes, you’re not going to find much in these three hours, there is background hum, there is the skritching and skittering of the charcoal pencil, sometimes there is a low frequency ebb of a passing car. Sonic variety is not really the point. This release shares a meditative art experience at its most intimate, where the pencil meets the paper. The detail is such that you can visualize the shape that is being drawn with each piece.
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It’s not so much hypnotizing, as coaxing your focus to remain in the present, staying perpetually at the front edge of the line.
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http://stasisfield.com/releases/year09/sf-9003.html
9/7
NP: NP
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Yes, you read that right, I’m Now Playing a band called ‘NP’. I imagine that’s about as confounding a name as it is un-googleable.
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The album is called “Couleur ACSII” and it’s out on the Petcord netlabel.
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The sound is post-IDM, clinical, mechanical sound assemblies, with more than a hint of rhythm, but such rapid changes of scenery that there is never a groove to get into. MRI-bop on speed? Laser-cutter tango-spasms? Manic composing, for sure. This is my first listen so I am hoping that structure becomes more apparent with further listening. I will be listening again, because it’s an intriguing set of whooshes, buzzes and bloops.
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http://www.petcord.com/releases/pc2011-10-np-couleur-ascii/
9/7
NP: Jeff Sampson – “Some Are”
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A “space music” piece that’s quite nice. I was certain this was some sort of derivation of the David Bowie track of the same name, but it turns out it is not.
http://soundcloud.com/jeffsampson/some-are
9/7
Now Playing: Bob Ostertag – Motormouth
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Plucky analog percolations from this guy and his Buchla 200E.
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I like it.
http://bobostertag.com/music-recordings-motormouth.htm
9/7
NP: Mystified – Stress Test
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Lovely hybrid of American krautrockish drone slash industrial. I like the mixture of minimal musical themes plus drone plus phonography with samples.
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You’ll also find a bit of repetitive and slightly unsettling porn-funk. I think I remember reading that Plaid or someone like that did music for pornos for a while. I wonder what it pays? Now that I think about it, it was probably Matmos, don’t you think?
http://www.archive.org/details/gt336Mystified-StressTest