slow as eels: rfm on various herhalen artists, mudguts, günter schlienz, hawlimann & stricktschek, nautapes #32
December 14, 2017 at 5:09 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: amantra, cauterized, concrete/field, cruel nature records, culver, dawn bothwell, descent, draaier, elricj, faye maccalman, gunter schlienz, gwilly edmondez, hawlimann & stricktschek, herhalen, kek-w, kleevex, libbe matz gang, matt warren, mudguts, nude for satan, posset, ram gabay, rust ruus, scott mckeating, scutopus, spam tapes, various artists, wizards tell lies, wound, yoni silver
Various Artists – Under The Concrete / The Field (Herhalen)
Mudguts – Granada Valley Flower Girl (Cruel Nature Records)
Günter Schlienz – Selbstportrait (Spam Tapes)
Hawlimann & Stricktschek – TEENSDREAMS (Spam Tapes)
Various Artists – NAUT #32 – Live at Northern Charter (NAU-Tapes)
Various Artists – Under The Concrete / The Field (Herhalen) Cassette and free digital album
A curious compilation that sits halfway between an all-star remix album and an old-fashioned call and response holla.
The backstory goes like this. Mark (Concrete/Field) sends a bunch of unfinished, unused but much loved sounds out into the universe and waits for like-minded beards to respond with a reaction. So what we get is a blur of interpretations and a shimmy of styles from a heady mix of collaborators.
The mood is cautiously optimistic with each collaborator (many new names to me) mining a seam of whistling iron; each piece separate in rusted glory but tied together with strong metallic links.
Cauterized bounce silver balloons with bright electric sparks. It takes Descent to riff on the itchy scratch favoured by high priests Zoviet:France. Air bubbles are released into the blood by Elricj with a turkey wishbone used as a funky clave.
What’s this? A shimmering John Carpenter-style synth all trussed up in black leather? Ladies and gentlemen – introducing Amantra.
We go back in time with Wound’s piece sounding like it was composed on a Casio calculator watch (circa 1987) – a river of bleep. Then race to the here-and-now for Matt Warren’s Styrofoam rummage and one finger keyboard bee-drone.
RFM fave Kek-W on the brilliantly titled ‘A Fax from Phillip Glass’ creates exactly that. Four organs battle the inhuman squeal of redundant technology. Libbe Matz Gang bring the gritty howl they are well known for in these parts. But watch out! Scutopus’ almost 6 min drone is crispy pancake – not filled with boiling cheese and ham but gently sculpted and rough to touch. Wizards Tell Lies, another scorched earth outfit, juggle tangled loops and fine, filigree crackle.
The gloriously named artist Nude for Satan seem to be riffling through the Necronomicon while listening to copper pipes being clanged (on leaky headphones).
Classy Draaier ends the recording on a tasteful note. A foamy sea drawing itself through smooth pebbles as the heavens dance overhead.
A perfect balm for this most abrasive of seasons.
Mudguts – Granada Valley Flower Girl (Cruel Nature Records) Cassette and digital album
Ghostly power-duo Mudguts (Lee Culver on sounds and Scott McKeating on composition) haunt and howl their way through another impressive tape drenched in sticky black ectoplasm.
The opening two pieces ‘Original Mistake Growing Arms and Legs’ and ‘Constantly Slaughtering Something’ seem to exist beneath a level of human perception. Sure, churning voices are suggested and even become corporeal for moments but mostly these are echoes, lost murmurings and hints striving to pierce the veil of human static.
The altogether more boisterous ‘Bat’ is a multi-limbed car wash applying numerous squeegee squeals to your scalp. The twelve minute ‘Every Single Edge’ truly made me jump with its needle-sharp intro cry. Imagine a single string soprano violin bowed with fury cutting through an orchestra of damp tissue paper and comb artists. Picture the clarity of intention over the glum voices of damage!
The balance is restored with the beautiful hum of ‘Carver’ a soul-scratching guitar noodle heard through heavy atmospheric interference. And the prettiest of the lot ‘Moth’ a one minute mumble, makes me think this really could be the only surviving recording of a wet marimba covered in fragrant peat.
Mudguts once again daub the strange and the beautiful with primitive woad.
Günter Schlienz – Selbstportrait (Spam Tapes) Cassette
Totally beautiful synth wig-ins.
Marvellously introspective and slow as eels this tape massages my tired temples and places a warm oiled hand on my knotted shoulders.
Schlienz’ Self Portrait floats in the air faintly glowing all across side one. The spare notes breathe into each other – a cinnamon-scented wind.
But this is in no way a dumb drift piece. No Sir! This is as deliberately approached as your end of year accounts. The movements are smooth and calm. A gentle shudder, a close cluster of harmonic moans as discrete as Eno’s Discreet Music.
Side two, ‘Campfire Suite’ takes the whole soft sheebeen outside and clusters around a real life crackling fire (just audible in the mix). This time things are less obviously soothing and more mysterious – picture an electric loon-bird or stoned sperm whale.
Perfect and peaceful – more most welcome Spam!
Hawlimann & Stricktschek – TEENSDREAMS (Spam Tapes) Cassette
Phew! This hectic duo couldn’t be further removed from Gunter’s plantagenet hoofs.
Side one opens with the mud-popping farts of a bass pipe getting lustily fingered. The wet slurp is part aboriginal dreamtime part steam-driven traction engine busting hot rivets. Percussion comes in the form of crinked coffee cans, a fistful of dry reeds and shuffling grit under the soles of a clog. It is truly magical to hear a crisp packet scrunched, up and close to the mic, as loud as Slayer in any given Enormo-dome.
Side two is an almost prehistoric take on Don Cherry’s masterpiece ‘Mu’. These boyos drag around sacks of cloth, sigh politely and snore, setting the scene before breaking out an ivory horn and badass drum.
We are treated to a walking mix; various beaters and rattles picked up, explored and discarded. It’s a pleasure, a delight, to hear the invention and thought weaving as voice melts into melodica or balloon squeak tackles a wooden bamboo flute.
Clear the picnic blanket – these scotch eggs are ripe and ready to pluck.
Various Artists – NAUT #32 – Live at Northern Charter (NAU-Tapes) Cassette
Gosh knows how many more NAU-Tapes Dave Howcroft has released in the last month but here’s the latest that found its way into my bulging stocking.
Admission corner – I’m breaking form here at RFM by reviewing a tape that I feature on but I don’t see why the other acts here should suffer because of my writing mumps.
And what a set of acts! Posset-Ruus Duo, Dawn Bothwell, Kleevex and Yoni Silver & Ram Gabay all braved five flights of stairs to take up residence in the sun-drenched plaza that is Newcastle’s Northern Charter Space. Normally reserved for visual artists this wonderful space looks out over the main drag of Newcastle City Centre – a veritable eagle’s nest!
First up new duo – Posset-Ruus (soon to be re-branded The Russets but that’s a different story) take two acoustic guitars, two mouths, two Dictaphones and four speakers in a self-perpetuating loop squeezing scrambled string-action and slack tooth honks via their Dictas in what I believe they call a hot mess. Described by some as ‘not really music’ imagined by others as Harry Pussy swapping their instruments at half time – WOOF!
Dawn Bothwell’s electronic poetry takes advantage of the view and describes the pre-Christmas rush; all mead quaff and sausage munch. A looping module takes snatches of voice and spins a ring of bright fire making it sizzle. Just when you thought you’d heard it all pitches are switched and a booming bottom-end heralds precise and hammering tech-noir squelch.
Keleevx pair up two of the hardest working folk in the Undergronk, Faye MacCalman and Gwilly Edmondez rasping on sax/clarinet and mouth/dicta respectively. Like a couple of daytime drinkers they read each other’s minds ready to place a new conversational nugget or curious honk on the table with practiced certainty. Seeing traditional instruments cozying up to what is basically outdated office equipment fills me with a wonderful sense of hope and I can wax lyrical if you want. But it’s all just breath at the end of the day innit? The secret is its vital oxygen, life-giving air whistling from Kleevex into my hungry ears. Dandy.
The brave headliners are polished metropolitan gentlemen Yoni Silver (Bass Clarinet & Violin) and Ram Gabay (half a Drum-set). I’m not going to beat around the bush here – this is world class improv. Yoni and Ram are inventive masters pushing each of their respective instruments though ten rounds delivering stylistic K.O’s with grace and regularity. Yoni’s deep, deep honk is filtered through an enviable technique, rude tongue-slaps on the gummy reed, a foot in the brass bell and plastic filters clattering with the power of sculpted air.
Ram’s drums (a couple of snares, a rogue bass drum and a collection of cymbals and gee-gaws) are cosseted and stroked like old house cats. Skins are thrummed and thowked. The mixture of texture and timing fill the air with gritty vibrations that are expertly controlled with the occasional sharp ‘crack’ brining us out of our misty reverie and back into the present. Special mention must be made of the bass drum – a slack and sliding mobile unit skittering at the sight of Ram’s well-heeled boot.
And the interplay between the two is gob-dropping, jaw-smacking. Nuance unwraps further nuance, in a cluttered Venn diagram alive with microscopic bristle. This damn tape reminds me why I love improv so much – it just keeps on flowing and reforming until (one brief violin scrape later) it snips to a perfectly neat and tidy close.
As with all other NAU-tapes these are available only from the mighty Mr Dave Howcroft at howcroft.d58@gmail.com for FREE! *but bung him a few quid eh…it’s Christmas.
-ooOOoo-
acting out ‘rain’: joe and dulcie murray on duplo chat, kek-w
September 27, 2016 at 8:10 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: 19f3, cardboard club, dulcie murray, duplo chat, joe murray, kek-w, moon mist music
Duplo Chat – 5th July 2016 (tape, possibly on Cardboard Club?)
Duplo Chat – Duplo Chat (tape and A5 artzine, Moon Mist Music, edition of 30)
KEK-W – “Three-Inch Improv” (3” CD-r, 19F3, edition of 9)
Duplo Chat – 5th July 2016
It’s the Summer Holidays [Editor’s note: well, it was when Joe submitted this article – such is the painstaking editorial process here at RFM] and the perfect way to avoid the blistering sun, thrashing hail or apocalyptic floods is to stay in and review tapes with the kids. This time Dulcie, our youngest, takes the helm and listens to two new mysterious Duplo Chat releases.
Over to you Dulcie…
It sounds like something trying to escape from inside a box, in the middle of the wind. It’s a croaky old machine, rusted up and about to malfunction. A tired robot tap-dancer is on their coffee break. The wooden spoon hits against the side of a porridge pot.
We turn the tape over and…
It’s a person acting out ‘rain’, a broken wooden flute. Static on a TV with no signal. A deep voice booms from within a mask. It’s shovelling up snow and then scratching the spade against the concrete beneath or drawing with chalk a small pattern or jagged shape (bump not cobbled); a donkey pulls a cart full of apples.
What do you think of the packaging?
Errr… it’s like something that you’ve found in the bottom of a shopping trolley. It looks icky.
What do I say? Startled guitar and dry tape noise in a dimebag. File under ‘skink-musik’.
Duplo Chat – Duplo Chat
We use the same approach on this slightly longer tape that bears all the hallmarks of our Robert Ridley-Shackleton (but… fingers on lips, shhhhh).
Our survey says…
This time I hear a frog with a person in its throat… making cookies; a sad elephant crying about losing its family in the Metro Centre. Now it’s slowed down applause (from the 90’s), a phone turning on… an android heart-attack. This sounds like rewinding an old movie… a DVD glitching out. A clown squeezing their big, red nose or Darth Vader whinging.
What do you think of the zine Dulcie?
Oh great… orange is my favourite colour. It looks like teabags have been pushed onto a glass table and you’re looking at them from underneath.
What do I say? She’s damn right and on the money!
Go Duplo!
KEK-W – “Three-Inch Improv”
A delicious DIY release from the heart of rural England and the mind of the mighty Kek-W.
Across the 10 short tracks Kek engages dark electronics, FX-heavy syrup and static-spitting instruments. It’s a trip, man, but who cares what I think? Bring on the child labour and zero-hours contracts. Dulcie whispers to me…
Sounds like a falling star, sleeping sparkles just keep coming and form rainbow rain. // A pet band! The cat’s on the fiddle and the dog’s on the drums. // Electro Adams Family but scary …something weird is going on. I hear chanting. // Bassy beatz are suspenseful with tiny wailing, or sucking spit through your teeth. // A happy bee goes to work on the train. // Chugging pins. // Space disaster movie with slow trombones. // Wrenching open a bag of manure. // A dying bag of rocks.
This tasty disc comes in an old-fashioned wage-packet including yellow n’ black micro-art piece, an homage to Stryper?
—ooOoo—
many at their windows: marlo eggplant on ‘an electrical storm’
February 19, 2016 at 4:48 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: aetheric records, april larson, benjamin shaw, black_ops, brian hodgson, broken shoulder, burl, david vorhaus, delia derbyshire, echoes leytonstone, hollows, kek-w, marlo eggplant, slowthaw, so there, stapperton, the heartwood institute, the revenant sea, troy schafer, white feather, white noise
various artists – an electrical storm (CD-r and badge or download, aetheric records)
The 1968 album An Electric Storm by White Noise is a sound classic, inspiring avant garde/experimental pop bands such as Silver Apples and Stereolab who aimed to approximate the primitive, vestigial sound experiments curated by American electronic engineer David Vorhaus.
Having attended a lecture given by Delia Derbyshire, Vorhaus joined forces with her and fellow Radiophonic Workshop composer Brian Hodgson and the result of locking themselves away together is this classic psychedelic pop album. An Electric Storm is playful and cinematic, filled with altered samples and tape spliced salads of circus melodies, special effects, French dialogue, sexual exploits, and screams of hell. The aetheric records 2015 compilation, an electrical storm is a ‘tribute to the experimental spirit’ of White Noise’s masterpiece.
All artists were given a field recording of an electrical storm made by aetheric records’ Alistair Thaw (a.k.a slowthaw.) They could use the track as they wished to create their own compositions. One could reason that conceptually inspired by the White Noise album, this compilation is a celebration of the technique: repurposing sound or ‘tape splicing’. And it isn’t just a bunch of musicians using the sample in similar ways or even using similar procedures. Each track has its own flavour and approach to the initial recording, resulting in a true tribute to ‘how-and-why’ the White Noise album was born.
With a collection of international musicians rolling the dice with the storm, the result is an enjoyable and dramatic film journey accompanied by an unconscious familiarity with the source material. The tracks are well ordered, leaving the listener enjoying the rain.
The compilation opens with So There’s xylophones and nuanced, quiet beckonings. White Feather’s Nocturnal Storm leads us into the glowing, pretty space where the listener opens their eyes refreshed. Kek-W‘s STRm walks us on to the train tracks into a dance party, climbing past metal riveters and pulsations. Troy Schafer’s fixed emission makes me seriously homesick for shows back in the States in sweaty spaces filled with unexpected distorted shouts and dark human stimuli. The Revenant Sea’s charge separation cluster is the static that makes the baby hair on arms stand at attention, possibly receiving transmissions from the galaxy. The Heartwood Institute’s aetheric recursion did not remind me of the massage school with the same namesake in Northern California. Rather it reminded me of the The Repo Man soundtrack [Editor’s note: high praise indeed!], the listener being pursued by chain smoking UFO hunters. le pleasure beach by Benjamin Shaw washes one with watery ascending piano ripples.
April Larson’s decaying dream (electric storm mix) delivers yet another cinematic track, this time with escalating David Lynch eerie suspense. as clouds accumulate by stapperton bounces a rubber ball intermittently walking through rain storms and swarms of whispering cicadas, inducing ketamine flashbacks. black_ops pushes one through a monochromatic static void, repetitive waves of great gravity surround. Echoes …. Leytonstone concretizes one’s senses again putting them into order with shushing reassurance to move through the gap. BURL attaches you to the outer space debris floating through ancient unknown civilizations, all being swallowed slowly into a black hole. One enters another dimension on a single sound. two cars passing by Hollows is a misty-eyed moment of mortality, organs and piano keyboards reminding us that we all grow old. Broken Shoulder’s holiday’s ruined is honing in on almost nautical transmissions and resonance, the ship is brought into port after a long voyage. Coming back to the source, and nature, with the clean, sharp field recording made by slowthaw.
The compilation comes with a badge with the same disturbing, beautiful album art. I recommend listening to an electrical storm late at night with a jug of red wine, lying on a Persian rug and duvet for emotional comfort.
—ooOoo—
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