Joshua Cordova @ Hugo’s House in Austin (USA) 10.09.2018
experimental
Frederic D. Oberland – Labyrinth [NAHAL003]
Multi-instrumentalist, musician, photographer and co-founder of groups such as Oiseaux-Tempête, Le Réveil des Tropiques, FOUDRE!, The Rustle Of The Stars and FareWell Poetry, Frédéric D. Oberland takes, as the starting point for his sophomore solo album, a vertiginous dive into George Bataille’s ‘Inner Experience’ and the cave of Dante’s ‘Inferno’. A condensed version of a sound and visual installation created in the basement of the contemporary art space Labanque in Béthune1, ‘Labyrinth’ invites us to bare witness to the loss of landmarks and to feel an immersive sense of trance. The point of departure, the opening note, is the A, the lowest of the piano, from which we slide, almost imperceptibly, snapped up by a wave of sounds, rich in their instrumentation, sometimes rough (electric guitars, console feedbacks, bursts of transformed drums and saxophone screams crackling in their dissonance) and at other moments delicate (hushed and scattered chords of piano, mellotron and distant synths in whispering voices). Accompanied by the drumming and spatial mixing by Jules Wysocki, the six connected stages/chapters of this immersive journey embrace expanse. In a continuous game of call and response between the intimate and the vast, ‘Labyrinth’ plays with the dynamics, the silence and the musical genres (ambient, free- jazz, electronics, acousmatic), kneading and pulling the form and structure of the tracks in ever changing attempts towards transfiguring the chaos. More radical in continuity and more outlandish than his first album ‘Peregrinus Ubique’ – ‘stranger / traveller everywhere’ – (VoxxoV, 2015), the ‘Labyrinth’ of Frédéric D. Oberland recalls in these almost orgiastic collages, the work of ”editing” provided for his nomadic Oiseaux-Tempête albums (Sub Rosa, 2012-2017), yet here in a more introverted territory, weaving a cocoon whose ascending and cyclical pulsations intoxicate us, as if under hypnosis.
Sympathy Nervous – Sympathy Nervous [MW067]
Minimal Wave presents a reissue of Sympathy Nervous’ pioneering debut album originally released in 1980 on Vanity Records out of Japan. Sympathy Nervous was Yosihumi Niinuma’s lifelong project which he started in his Tokyo living room in 1979. Through Sympathy Nervous, Niinuma was able to channel his energy into what he loved – building his own synthesizers and speakers from scratch. Niinuma was inspired by German Krautrock and through his music created intense proto-techno soundscapes. Now finally available for the first time ever, remastered from the original tapes used for the 1980 release, is the timeless masterpiece in its entirety.
Ron Morelli – Disappearer [HOS606]
Ron Morelli has put together a 13 track album for his returning release on the American based label, Hospital Productions. The album digs deep into the punk roots of the L.I.E.S. boss as he touches upon everything from raw industrial techno to mind-bending electronics and sinisterly cold ambience. This is one not for the faint-hearted, get a little taste below. “Composed over the last two years in various foul states, the album is a fusion of base level hardware programming, open room mic recordings and extensive computer processing, all finalized in the Paris studio of Krikor Kouchian.”
Best Available Technology – Enginetics & Plasmalterations [ISLE006]
Tucked away in a shed in Portland, Best Available Technology continues to cultivate an unmistakable sound grown around a seemingly untiring exploration of the machines that he works with. Across ‘Enginetics & Plasmalterations’ his densely layered sonic design agglutinates with a healthy appreciation for the unplanned or unexpected, forming a polymorphic collection of tracks for the 6th release from 12th Isle. While more traditional means of classification have become increasingly insufficient, it wouldn’t be unfair to suggest that the music on this record bears a mutated resemblance to stuttered Downtempo or the dubbier side of Techno and Bass, connected by way of tonal plasticity through drone-jams and intermittently skewed synth loops.
Vril – Anima Mundi [132DSR]
Second album by Vril on Delsin Records. A deep excursion for mind and body, combining his trademark dub techno grooves with experimental ambient trips.
Eli Keszler – Stadium [SP099]
Inimitable percussionist Eli Keszler takes time out from 0PN’s ensemble to unfurl the incredible, dextrous rhythms and electro-acoustic jazz keen of his masterpiece, ‘Stadium’. An isolationist avant-jazz masterpiece that is a total must-hear for late-night listeners, perhaps the most wondrous thing about ‘Stadium’ is the way it describes the paradoxical quality of keeping your head amid the chaos – a notion that will surely resonate with inner city dwellers as much as fans of the finest noise, jazz, avant-garde music of all stripes, and is firmly at the heart of ‘Stadium’ and its amorphous milieu of sound.
Andreolina – An Island In The Moon [ZORN55]
“An Island In The Moon” is the perfectly conceived minimal ambient project from Italian composers Pier Luigi Andreoni (Doubling Riders, ATROX) and Silvio Linardi. Andreolina being a mix of the names of the two musicians who were both deeply involved with the label Auf Dem Nil on which the album was originally released in 1990. The duo stick to a disciplined and simple palette using only two synthesizers and a Roland S50 sampler. They are joined by fellow electronic journeyman Riccardo Sinigaglia who contributes piano and samples on two tracks. Taking influences from Italian minimalism while adding some jazz hints Andreolina sprawls, weightless instrumentals that never stay soporific for too long on this singular rare album.
Ersatz Olfolks – Antimonium EP [SYNCRO-ANTIMOMIUM]
Raw – Fragments EP [DE-221]
Raw formed during the summer of 1990 in Athens, Greece when keyboardist Giannis Papaioannou and percussionist Makis Faros started composing music for imaginary waiting rooms. They combined the traditional cut-up technique of tape-loops, the industrial timbres of musique concrète with the harmonics of world music, all filtered through digital sampling and computer programming. Their first recordings generated an 8 track demo, which was freely distributed among friends and the local underground press. After 6 months of work and several sessions with guest musicians on acoustic and electric instruments, Raw self-released their first album ‘Land’ in December 1991 on Elfish Records. In 1992 they recruited the band’s sound engineer, Coti K., as a third member, both on stage and studio sessions. ‘City’ was their second album fully inspired by the mechanisms of their home town. Presenting a different electronic face of Raw, manipulating rhythms with analogue synthesizers and harsh sampling to evoke the atmosphere of Athens. ‘City’ was released on CD only by Elfish Records in 1994. ‘Fragments’ is a collection of 4 songs from ‘City’ presented on vinyl for the first time plus bonus track recorded during the “City’ sessions previously released on a compilation in 1992.
Ø & Panasonic – Sähkö – The Movie Soundtrack EP [SÄHKÖ029]
The sound recordings for Jimi Tenor’s “Sähkö: The Movie” got lost in mid 90s. It was only last spring Warp Records returned all the demo tapes Jimi sent them in 90s. Happily the Sähkö soundtrack parts were on those tapes too. This is a compilation of soundtracks (both solo, as Ø, and alongside Ilpo Vaisanen and Sami Salo as Pan Sonic) made for Mika Vainio’s memorial in Oslo in September 2018. All the tracks are from the actual movie scenes.
VA – Alternative Funk: Volume 2 [PLA024]
The 2nd collection of songs selected from the Alternative Funk series released Vox Man and VP 231 Records. Originally appearing in 1985 across 1 vinyl and 2 cassette albums these cult collections have long been in collectors (and bootleggers) sights and finally see the first official reissue. The series covers the weird, wonderful, esoteric, exotic and quirky sound and puts them in a reset context that immediately gives clarity of the original’s curation. This volume opens with some DIY electro stealers, first with Dee Nasty’s Orientic Groove, where the early French hip-hop pioneer lays down a battle commence of beats, slapped bass and YMO keys, before the second offering from Scoop! and their rap attack, juxtapositions the past series and leads to label heads Vox Populi! & Man and their continued look at the rudiments of cut up manipulation and scratch techniques. The avant rappears with 3M’s percussive marker and legendary Amus Tietchens’ is ever challenging, before Melsjest’s post-punk meets the Weirmar possibly steals the side as Vox Pop spoken outro joins those (micro)dots. The cult of Randall Kennedy returns with another garage-fuzz gem. His stories for wackos’n’weirdos end all too soon and are followed by Liquid Liquid’s Dennis Young, diving deep with Intuition, before Stanalis returns with another winner. Bene Gesserit is a killer and welcome addition, before Kosa return with more industrial clippings and volume 2 heads to the door with Capital Funk’s electro-punk bomb – possibly the series champion – while the slap bass-scratch of California’s Psyclones leads to a music hall end in the homage to mum’s favourite, Chukk. What these Volumes again highlight is how the DIY aesthetic of so many independent labels was supplemented and spread via collections of friends, contemporaries and often, literally pen pals, to mail in their offerings that are then picked for wider ears. While some of these artists have become known, just as many are who and whats, but they sit side-by-side as warranted and often killing the scene of what Axel and co sought to be…the Alternative Funk.
VA – Alternative Funk: Volume 1 [PLA023]
Platform 23 launches with the reissue of the seminal Alternative Funk compilation series, presenting a selection of music across 2 volumes. Known for the highly heralded “Folie Distinguee” album in 1985, what is often over looked is the fact there accompanied 2 further “Alternative Funk” cassette compilations that same year. Coming within the Audiologie series on Vox Man Records, these “Various Artist” selections were indicative of labels that sprung up in the early 80s around the DIY post-punk scene. As founders of Vox Populi!, Axel Kyrou and Francis Man, working with close associate Pierre Jolivet’s (aka Pacific 231) VP 231 label, released a number of cassettes, 7″ and LPs between 1982 and 1988, as much to self-release their own music as to push new or contemporary artists. Here then is a snapshot of the Alt Funk albums, selecting songs that avoid recent or upcoming reissues, to dive deep in the series from industrial to cold wave, proto-dub percussion to avant spoken word pieces. Featuring the likes of Son Of Sam, Philippe Laurent, Fist Of Facts – with a long lost first ever recording – and Human Backs, stepping out from semi-cult name dropping to sit alongside unknowns and never heard from again in Scoop!, Kosa, Zoohtee and the wonderful Randall Kennedy. What is apparent is an idiosyncratic nature to the selections. In the same way many independent labels of the time – such as Auxilio De Cientos’ Terra Incognita volumes or Final Image’s Nightlands – created a label snapshot by pulling together far and wide contributions but retaining an overall ‘sound’. The Volume 1 and 2 reissue achieve that, mixing experimental with electro, post punk with noise, to offer more than the sum of their parts – an Alternative Funk.
Space Drum Meditation – SDM001 [SDM001]
Morah – The Vessels Of The Blood [RTTD012]
“The Vessels Of The Blood”, pumping and pumping the love and the pain and everything in between. You must never be alone. My name is Morah.
Patricia – Free Lunch [NONA019]
For his new release on Nona Records Brooklyner Max Ravitz changes the formula again and delivers five spirited acid electro tracks .Continuing to tool and retool his modular synth rack, on ‘Free Lunch’ Ravitz produces energetic electro tracks that show a shift from the familiar hazy murkiness to a more present sound and almost song-like writing that introduces some more layered melodies, acid grooves and luscious pointillism.
It – Era Vulgaris EP [USR009]
Undersound Recordings presents a new release by It. Ivan Iusco, the artist behind the It moniker, has been running Minus Habens Records since 1987. Its Disturbance sublabel has been responsible for releasing forward thinking techno and experimental releases from a range of well known artist such as Marco Repetto, Aphex Twin, Speedy J and Atom Heart among others. Here we present three tracks that have previously been released on his Era Vulgaris CD album in 1996. The EP ranges from techno to more abstract broken beats on the flip side, displaying the versatility of It as a producer and encompassing the sound of the first years of Disturbance.
INIT – Wildcard [HVN049]
INIT’s music has the rare quality of transforming bleakness into a soothing experience. In the duo’s new EP, ‘Wildcard’, this mechanism is more intense than ever. And that might be because of the particular circumstances that surrounded its inception. Two years ago, Nadia D’Alo and Benedikt Frey decided to move from Darmstadt to Berlin. Adjusting to a rough area of a big city when coming from a quiet town necessarily brings a change of perspective. For Nadia and Benedikt, that meant experiencing the city life as outsiders while trying to figure out what they wanted from it. ‘Wildcard’ is the sonic result of this process, and proof that changes always bring growth.
King Ende Shneafliet – Dimension Mix 01 [AD004]
Having previously released some rare solo material from Ende Shneafliet member Hanjo Erkamp AKA Dr. C. Stein, Artificial Dance is now serving up something special from the cult Dutch minimal wave band’s lesser-known side project, King Ende Shneafliet. The result is the first ever vinyl release of tracks from the outfit’s cult Dimension Mix series.
Innsyter – Magnetic Healing [CYN002]
Rough and ready machine tracks from Brazilian producer Innsyter (LA Club Resource). CYN002 picks up where Coletivo Vandalismo left off, channeling that same wild, DIY bedroom studio spirit across nine individual recordings. Opening with sprawling synth motifs fighting against a steady rhythm track, ‘Desintegrado’ sounds like an industrial dub punk trying to channel early Cluster or Moebius and strangely succeeding. The rest of the LP treats us to vaguely Drexciyan, subaquatic electro (‘Bries’) and twisted lo-fi minimalism with bonus eerie monologue samples (‘Superficial Love’). The one recurring theme on Magnetic Healing is Innsyter’s clear love for mournful, post-punk inspired melodies. It comes across loud and clear on almost every track yet never sounds tired. Things eventually draw to a close with the hopelessly romantic new wave instrumental ‘Forest Shaman’ – a short ballad for all those weary-eyed party-goers who stuck around til the sun came up.
The Hipodrome Of Music 