WHY NOT LTD: a division of  Herbal International
      40 copies cdr limited edition.
Alessandro Calbucci / Matteo Uggeri:: The Distance
Tim BLECHMANN:: Replugged
I heard of Matteo Uggeri (field recordings, objects, mixing) but Alessandro Colbucci (guitar, loops, mixing) seems to be a new name for me. They recommend headphone listening, but I’m afraid that’s something I hardly do. The have four pieces here of drone related music. A swirling mass of electronics, processed guitar sounds, the scratching of the surface with contact microphones and street and rain sounds make up a very decent ambient drone releases. Atmospheric, dark, doomy and perhaps as such not a real innovative musical thing, but also as such quite some nice music. Which is of course good enough.
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Tim Blechmann we heard before through some highly experimental and conceptual releases dealing with electronics and turntables. That is what he does here as well. Lots of hiss from the turntable are fed through the computer where it receives a minimal treatment. There is something happening for sure, but it takes Blechmann a lot of time. Too much time if you’d ask me. The release that lasts over an hour could have been easily be twenty minutes and been a nice 3? CDR release.
- Frans De Waard - VITAL WEEKLY = number 649 - week 43
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TORTURING NURSE 192171-200871
buy this! It starts as a fairly laid back racket of feedback and clanging - live I suspect - the guitar needs tuning and there is a serious mains loop hum (joke) by track 3 they are beginning to wind themselves up - hell they have what I think is called a groove going- its splendid stuff- the kind of noise that brings a smile - you just know they are touching 80mph and there is more power left - this is a fucking Harley Davidson of a disk- they ease the throttle on 4 only to open it back up into more feedback (excellent) on 5, 6 eases out into a field recording??? Brilliant - see for yourself - and weep. Chinas rising! http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HT7WgvzfojQ  (clear enough?)
- jliat - VITAL WEEKLY = number 646 - week 40
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BIRGIT UHLER & HEDDY BOUBAKER - UPSIDE DOWN
The first release is a duo recording with Birgit Uhler, who plays trumpet, radio and objects. The six pieces were recorded in Hamburg in 2007. They play their instruments like objects like so many do these days. There is however one thing which makes them a bit different and that is the volume they use. In this area its not uncommon to play things at a soft level, but here the instruments are loud (well, relatively speaking) and clear. They play some intense pieces, exploring their instruments in unusual manner and making some intense listening. A very fine work that has the right length of thirty-two minutes, which requires your full concentration.
(Frans De Waard) VITAL WEEKLY = number 635 - week 28
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WOLFGANG FUCHS - BRINX
JEAN-LUC GUIONNET & PASCAL BATTUS - TOC SINE
I never heard of Wolfgang Fuchs who on 'Brinx' offers us '10 pieces for 1 turntable'. Wrong connections are made and the turntable offers a lot of feedback, hiss and an occasional crackle of needle skipping - there even might be a record (as in a piece of vinyl) involved. However I must admit that these ten variations on a theme are quite nice indeed. A rather conceptual approach than a musical one, me thinks, but with enough variation to make things interesting.
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In terms of music the final release might be the most interesting one. 'Electrics and electronics', recorded in Montreal two years ago, this improvisation duet between Jean-Luc Guionnet and one Pascal Battus is also a pretty noise related affair in which a turntable is used and abused. The two keep the noise under control quite a bit, letting things hiss, scratch, beep and occasionally things go out of control, which is o.k. as it fits the scheme quite nicely. It misses the conceptual edge of Fuchs, but it makes it well up in terms of improvised noise.
(FdW) VITAL WEEKLY ===== number 589 ===== week 33
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JUTO AVITEN - WATER MUSIC #1
The most unknown one here is Juto Aviten. No information here whatsoever, just the cover saying 'made with water...', which is indeed clearly to be heard. Water drips a little bit here, and gets somewhere along the line a computer treatment by Aviten. Deep bass made via forms of extreme filtering, a very occasional high end tone, which seem to be arriving more in the second half of this forty-five minute piece, when the real water sounds are long gone. I don't believe it's Aviten's idea to play a piece of music, but rather playing a large block of sound that works as an environment, that can be played at a low volume and will fill your own environment quite nicely. Played loud and paid with lots of attention, this work isn't that strong.
(FdW) VITAL WEEKLY ===== number 546 ===== week 40
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ROEL MEELKOP - HARAMU/DREMPEL
If I'm not mistaken this is the first Roel Meelkop release that comes on a CDR, but that's not the only thing that is different than many of his previous works. 'Haramu/Drempel' is a live recording of a bigger, multi-media event that incorporated dance, customs, performances and lighting. Meelkop's part was to do the sound design of it all, which if understood correctly means to rework the sound of the participants in this event. So by no means it's the usual computerized treatments of field recordings and electronics, which is the trademark sound of mister Meelkop. In this seventy-three minute piece you hear voices (without hearing what they say), metallic sounds and objects falling to the floor. Somewhere along the lines there is also the usual Meelkopian unearthly rumblings, but it's incomparable to his other releases. More a document of an event, and at that it's perhaps to regret that this is not a DVD(-R) release showing the entire thing. But at 'just' a musical document this is quite nice too. Best to be played as an environmental recording by itself and let it fill your space.
(FdW) VITAL WEEKLY ===== number 499 ===== week 44
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JOHN KANNENBERG - AUTUMN ENSO
The enso is a stark black circle of ink, known from Japanese calligraphy and one of the important symbols of zen. John Kannenberg saw examples in an exhibition and was inspired to make enso using autumn leaves. These leaves were then put in a circle around instruments that are circles: a snare drum, hi-hat and crash cymbal. The snare drum was covered with rice paper. That's the basic set-up by which Kannenberg plays his music. Drum sounds as such are not in there, except maybe for the percussive opening sounds of 'Prelude'. Each of the six pieces are low humming beauties of drone music. It's hard to tell what it that he does exactly, by what means of processing, but he slabs out some truly beautiful pieces of overtones sounds, ringing and buzzing around, like a continuous semishigure. As pieces of music that are inside drone music, even when the entire process seems to be made with computer. Microsound with a capital M (I'm sure the lowercase posse will be offended by this). Some great stuff on there.
(FdW) VITAL WEEKLY ===== number 501 ===== week 46
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PHROQ - ESTHETISM OF RANDOMS
LAU MUN LENG - ANTISEPTIC
GUIGNOL DANGEREUX - LIVE BY THE SEA
The Herbal Records, owned by Goh Lee Kwang, is slowly expanding their catalogue, beyond the work of Goh himself. There is a regular series of Herbal Records and a series of limited CDRs in an edition of just forty copies. That seems like a rather low key affair, but apparently attractive enough for musicians to join in. Some of these artists have already made their name in the world of CDR and MP3 releases. People like Phroq for instance. In many of his work the use of field recordings play an important role. On his release he has four sounds running at the same time and some random filter to process his sounds. The original field recordings disappeared almost entirely from the scene and is replaced by the static crackle and hiss of the computer filters, sometimes being under attack by the deep drone bass of a refrigerator coming alive. Quite nice.
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Much more conceptual is the release by Lau Mun Leng. She is foremost a visual artist, but also plays music. She recorded 'Antispectic' in april last year and it's strange release. She plays keyboard on this release. The first track is just a very short rhythm loop and third track sounds like an electronic pulse sounding like water - or vice versa. In between the second is very long piece for static sine wave, the kind of stuff that Sachiko M is well-known for. Played softly it's not so bad, as the frequencies fly nicely through your space, but I can imagine that a louder volume this is most irritating.
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The odd one in this bunch is the release by Guignol Dangereux, whose release is also an odd ball in his back-catalogue. So far his releases showed an intelligent form of ambient industrial music in combination with technoid rhythms, this one, apparently recorded 'live by the sea' is a pretty straight forward techno trip of ongoing rhythms, doing the usual 4/4 stuff. Although for what it is its not bad, but it's a bit too regular underground techno stuff, one you can hear at your underground rave every Saturday night, but it would have been nicer to see what Guignol Dangereux could do with his real (?) music in a live context.
(FdW) VITAL WEEKLY ===== number 519 ===== week 13