rejection of predetermined techniques : luke vollar on vluba, tom richards, sean derrick cooper marquardt & hole house

June 1, 2017 at 5:57 am | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a comment
Tags: aetheric records, feedback, fractal meat cuts, hole house, luke vollar, sean derrick cooper marquardt, tom richards, vluba

Vluba- Altar (Aetheric Records)

Tom Richards – Selected Live Recordings 2013 – 2016 (Fractal Meat Cuts)

Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt – Air Almanya (Aetheric Records)

Hole House – A Stranger in Town (Aetheric Records)

Vluba- Altar (Aetheric Records) CDr and digital album

Strange occurrences from this Argentinean duo as they operate dark and gelatinous horizontal happenings within the shadows.

The mysterio vibe is kept aloft with pseudonyms (I guess); Murisia and Aphra provide a list of instruments on their website that may or may not exist.

Of the various descriptions on their Tumblr site my favourite is “negative improv” an approach I can get down with; it erodes the individual and throws a psychedelic blanket of sound out. No longer doing a call and response jam with your buddy but morphing into one mighty being for an incense drenched trance ritual.
The happening across three spacious tracks include ominous intonations, reverb-ed clank and an amorphous smog of ghostly electronics. A slow procession of unseen horror like John Carpenter’s “The Fog. “

If I had to describe this CDr in one word it would be ‘goat!’

tom richards

Tom Richards – Selected Live Recordings 2013 – 2016 (Fractal Meat Cuts) sold out tape and digital album

In this review I will ask a lot of questions but provide no answers:

1. Sinuous blood lava reverberating inside a conch shell. As pleasing to the fists as pizza dough.

2. Woah! there boy. Scattershot mulch of demented bells , voices from the beyond and spongy synth-drek flecked against the wall. Like Wile E Coyote is the size of a wasp and trapped under your drained snakebite and black pot. Drunk from viscous fluid.

3. More voices sped up, reversed. Ladies gasps chopped up like lemon grass. Stubby fingers prod greasy portals. Health and safety? Nah mate

4. New trainers? Yeah mate sorted. Actually danceable electro grunk with neon goo dribbled over hiccuping beatz. Ever regretted getting up to dance to brainy electronic music on an empty dancefloor?

5. Buried field recordings under metallic chirps and insistent lemon sherbet rhythmicals. Ever wondered how an Altern 8 /Morton Feldman collaboration would pan out?

6. Tin can feedback is at war with the obnoxious robodude trying to get his groove on. Is this a battle that can be won?

7. Liking the diced syllables. Like Hip Hop chop-project Prefuse 73 done with Fisher Price keyboards, elastic band and glue.

Tom Richards music offers a glorious array of unlikely collaborations to play out in your mind. It pleases me that he closes the tape with a daytime fever dream of the Delia Derbyshire/The Prodigy hook up that you never dared to believe could ever happen.

sean derrick

Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt – Air Almanya (Aetheric Records) 3” CDr, badge and digital album

More horror drone from Aetheric.

This is apparently accidental guitar music. A rejection of predetermined techniques and an embrace of spontaneous no-mind noise-making. SDCM doesn’t rehearse for gigs or recordings either so this Berlin-based American presents a collection perplexing sound oddities.

I’m guessing that the approach includes choosing your environment to record in and allowing whatever sounds occur to coexist with the artists creation though Lord alone knows what he’s doing amidst all the small sound events.

This is quiet beguiling music that seems to flow eternally – the 3″ format provides a snippet of gracefully unfolding sound in motion.

hole house

Hole House – A Stranger in Town (Aetheric Records) 3” CDr and digital album

Next up from what is looking to be the No Audience Underground’s least cheerful micro-label is this chilly little number.

A stark abandoned property graces the cover, perhaps the abandoned VHS rental shop in West Yorkshire, where the recording took place. To hammer the message home like a hot nail the Bandcamp includes a lengthy quote from arch-pessimist Thomas Ligotti. So far, so gloomy.

The short tracks all have an icy insistence, a lethargic draw to a murky centre that comes nauseatingly in and out of focus. Take for instance ‘The Way Out’ as rusty metal echoes within a damp stuttering oscillation, it sounds as dark and grim as the cover. ‘A Place You Left Behind’, uses smears of vaporous tone as a hymn to decay.

The titles point to time spent in a sad dilapidated house, wondering what went wrong. The presence of those gone and forgotten hangs over these recordings like a blackened spectre.

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