LAMMAS (01 August 2010)

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

WALL JOHN

ALTERSTILL


Original Issue: 1995 UtterPsalm (UtterPsalm CD2)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1 Fragmenta 11:04
2 Alterstill (Nothing Is Sacred) 10:17
3 Belief Not 8:57
4 Stunde Null (I) 7:06
5 Stunde Null (II) 11:38

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from All Music Guide:

The first in British composer John Wall's beautifully designed series on the Utterpsalm label, this limited-edition CD comes in a card-booklet slipcase. Housed inside is an aggressive and disorientating series of sample-based works, like a contemporary classical suite, although some of the chosen sample material is fairly unorthodox, such as Carcass; the power of the metal group is used to great effect juxtaposed against samples of contemporary classical, musique concrète, and free improvisations from the outer regions of 20th century music.

Sample sources range from Scelsi, Luigi Nono, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and company through to European free improvisation, black metal, and '70s Krautrock. John Wall's compositions sit nicely alongside the works of Rioji Ikeda, or some of the contemporary musique concrète from the French Metamkine CD series. Erik M, John Oswald, and Oval are all points of reference, although John Wall's vision and process is unique.

Few artists work with the attention to detail -- from production through to packaging and presentation, the work is beautiful. Rumored to have spent literally years making albums, it is easy to believe when hearing the complexities of the fine electro-acoustic transformations.

Sylvie Harrison

FULL STRAWBERRY MOON (26 June 2010)

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

PAAVOHARJU

LAULU LAAKSON KUKISTA


Original Issue: 2008 Fonal (FR-55) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

Without any doubt "Laulu Laakson Kukista"/"Uskallan" were my 2008 Record/Song of the Year.

Band profile states: Bollywood music, church hymns, beautiful pop tunes and ambient esoteric noises

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1. Pimeänkarkelo
2. Kevätrumpu
3. Tuoksu tarttuu meihin
4. Italialaisella laivalla
5. Alania
6. Uskallan
7. Ursulan uni
8. Kirkonväki
9. Salainen huone
10. Tyttö tanssii
11. Sumuvirsi
12.

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from Cokemachineglow:

The everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to instrumentation is typically associated with lo-fi aesthetics. Paavoharju are out to change that. Even more than the fantastic Yhä Hämärää (2005), Laulu Laakson Kukista translates the homespun psych-folk that distinguishes the Fonal label into near-epic, shockingly lush strokes of impressionist pop. Here also is everything that lies in between classical orchestration and musique concrete; the music of Paavoharju constantly expands and contracts in ways which are humble, majestic, and just out-and-out phenomenal. The fact that the band happens to be part of a mysterious Finnish commune of devout Christians is probably dwelt on too much in reviews, but it’s pertinent in at least one way: how else do you explain something so labored over and yet so earnest and void of pretension, except to say that the band’s channeling something greater than themselves? Suffice it to say speculation about what exactly makes this band so vivid and unlike anything else out there at the moment is bound to produce hypotheses of questionable substance and more than a little delirium, but bear with me—this music is more than worth it.

Comparisons to other music are as inevitable as they are insufficient; there’s any number of maverick acts out there that I could compare Paavoharju to. But that comparison would only work to describe a sense of shared ground with other bands that use any and all means to achieve a specific sound. Rather, I’d hazard to say that Paavoharju are one of the first bands to fully incorporate what found-sound masters like Philip Jeck have developed into a pop framework. Which is to say that Laulu Laakson Kukista sounds like fragments of a thousand pop records, but rather than assembling them into a drifting ambient landscape like Jeck the band build these fragments back into pop songs. Now, they don’t try and pass it off as straightforward pop; they allow all the static, disembodied voices and samples, and lost/undiscovered choral etudes to organically coalesce into silken, marmoreal slices of transcendence, and then they allow them to break apart again. For example, the fact that “Kevätrumpu” carries melodies that wouldn’t be out of place on an Annie or Róisín Murphy single is astounding in itself; the fact that the static and backwards AM radio samples are always poised around its Röyksopp-esque production in an almost subliminal way is something like a miracle. The modus operandi of this album, besides attempting to unite virtually every contemporary strain of Scandinavian music from Peter Bjorn & John to Kemialliset Ystävät, could be to show how much even the slickest pop will someday become an artifact.

Still, the fact that it’s not—that this is the premeditated, controlled work of a specific group of people (even if the details and credits are somewhat hazy)—is what casts this beast beyond the realm of accidental masterpieces. Leena Uotila’s voice is central, or at least as central as it’s possible to be in a sonic universe where everything is ephemeral, and she sings in crystal-clear soprano, offering up the strange persistence of clarity amidst the blooming chaos of nature. Some of the more pop-oriented tracks feel like lost torch songs, blasting through the fury of static and crumbling instruments as if they needed to announce themselves with unabashed grandeur before they drown in the noise. This quality is equally evident on the tracks where whoever handles the male vocals sings, especially “Uskallan”: opening and closing with the cut-up sound of a baby gasping for air, the track builds into a disco-rhythm with synths alternately smooth and static-drenched threatening to consume the vocals halfway through.

The melodies are astounding on their own—even if you don’t speak Finnish—but far more important is how the band refuses to take them for granted. Outside of the disco-pop of “Uskallan” and “Kevätrumpu,” melody is treated in a similar way to Alejandra & Aeron’s documentary/folk field recording Bousha Blue Blazes (2003): melodies are employed as a means of evoking another time and place, and considering how much of Laulu Laakson Kukista picks through Romantic and Baroque relics, it succeeds brilliantly. Of course, in the spirit of an album which constantly refuses to be pinned down, this is only half the story: sometimes the band breaks through with something so immediate and bracing it’s hard to believe it sits perfectly alongside the album’s restless experimentation. “Italialaisella Laivalla” is instructive in this regard: it starts as a simple folk song with gentle guitar-picking and vocals but then begins to introduce menacing electronics and bows scraping against strings erratically. But this dark shroud is only hinted at; the song breaks off into an outro of slow, carnivalesque French accordion. It sounds like something that should be too suffocating in its wealth of ideas to be evocative, but somehow in combination it creates something listless and urgent at the same time, like The Catcher in the Rye.

If there’s any relationship between Paavoharju and other contemporary Christian music, it lies in the fact that both tend to completely ignore all sense of “fashionable” melody in favour of something achingly naïve and immediate. There are also the traditional choral arrangements of piano/organ/vocals on tracks like “Sumuvirsi” and “Kirkonväki”; these melodies reflect Bach and a long tradition of church music moreso than anything current. The latter track also happens to feature some demented, horribly distorted and slowed-down voices, though oddly they only add to the reverence of the track as a whole.

Which brings me to my one point of contention, or at least confusion. The band makes a point of stating their Christian beliefs in what little publicity they offer and even state in their website’s 10-point primer that they’re “against the use of drugs.” Far be it from me to challenge the band’s beliefs, and I can even understand to a certain extent the latter point—when Agaetis Bryjun (1999) dropped Sigur Rós made a point of disavowing any relationship between their music and narcotics and perhaps Paavoharju have a similar agenda—but it seems that as a perceptual experience Laulu Laakson Kukista is too open to decry any method that one might use to approach it, drugs included. And while much of its strength lies in its sense of sober precision, it’s a long cry from asceticism. Maybe I need to understand the Finnish lyrics to comprehend the band’s spiritual convictions, and yet when I listen to them I can’t help but feel something that transcends any specific religion: something that involves purity and innocence, and darkness and light and struggle. Perhaps it’s proof that an artist’s statement always betrays the intentions of the artist, as all these emotional triggers will combine in different ways for every listener. Maybe that’s the real spiritual value of the album: rather than impress their personal convictions, the band acts as a conduit for all these forces to combine and radiate like a prism.

Joel Elliott

LITHA (21 June 2009)

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

MARTIRANO SALVATORE

L's G.A. / BALLAD / OCTECT

Original Issue: 1968 Polydor (24-5001)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

Track 1 is entitled "L's GA For Gas-Masked Politico, Helium Bomb, And Two-Channel Tape" and is an ASTONISHING piece of music!!!

Do you need something more to convince you?

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1 L's GA For Gas-Masked Politico, Helium Bomb, And Two-Channel Tape (24:19)
2 Ballad (11:46)
3 Octet (7:01)

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from http://ems.music.uiuc.edu/~martiran/:


"Blow your mind (and 50c) on the mixed media concert in Finney Chapel," suggest signs presently posted on the Oberlin College campus.

Featured on the avant-garde program tonight at 8:30 will be a staged performance of "L's GA" ("Lincoln's Gettysburg Address") by Salvatore Martirano, a theater piece for gas-masked politicos, helium bomb, three movie projectors and two-channel tape recorder.

Describing his notorious composition to a group of Oberlin students yesterday, Martirano said, "It starts with eight minutes of low sound that actually vibrates the floor (you get a massage), and ends with an organ version of 'My heart at thy sweet voice' from 'Samson and Delilah.' It gives a very exalted feeling."

The 24-minute piece, the composer explained, also incorporated Lincoln's speech recited in several dialects, films of faces, flowers, tongues and other things, and electronic sound from 24 speakers.

"It's not too loud for people who are accustomed to rock," he said.

The original impetus for "L's GA," which also exists in recorded and filmed versions, came from a lecture Martirano heard opposing the use of political subjects in art works. So negative was the former Marine's reaction that he decided to write a work showing that "it could be done."

Completed in 1968, the piece has received 35 performances in a variety of geographical locations and physical environments.

The audience reaction is different every time," Martirano said. "At the Electric Circus in New York, people were shouting and cheering. But in Portland, Ore., they just sat there, stunned."

Martirano reports, however, that his music has never stimulated violent responses.

"I try to make connections with the audience," he said. "I start with something they know - texts by Lincoln, Shakespeare, Dante - and then translate word inflections into many different sounds. Generally, people like my music - because it's easy."

Martirano's career as a composer began more than 20 years ago when he was a student of Herbert Elwell at Oberlin. After completing his undergraduate degree, he attended the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Bernard Rogers. He then received a Fulbright fellowship to Italy where he worked with Luigi Dallapiccola.

Numerous fellowships, grants, awards and commissions followed. And today as composer-in-residence at the University of Illinois, Martirano is securely entrenched in the university complex, which he regards as "a very enlightened place to be."

To an impressive list of compositions for orchestra, chamber ensemble, chorus, voice, electronic tape and mixed media, Martirano will soon add a new work scored for large orchestra, controller and bunny.

Wilma Salisbury

RED MOON (musick & other arts)

MARCHETTI LIONEL & ROCHE BRUNO

DANS LA MONTAGNE (KI KEN TAÏ)


Original Issue: 2003 Chloë (chloë004)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

A must for all musickheadz loving both Marchetti and Kendo (the japonese "way of the sword"). Do not miss this one!

P.S. Do you agree with Foxy Digitalis review???

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1 Dans La Montagne (Ki Ken Taï)

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from Incursion:

Twelve minutes of mysterious sounds, screams, exclamations, musique concrète, during which you might think that you've tapped into a radio broadcast from some secret torture chamber, but which more likely has been constructed from recordings of Kendo sessions, aural glimpses into the art of Japanese swordsmanship, to which the subtitle "Ki Ken Taï" refers, something of the integration of spirit, sword and body.

Thus abstracted from their sources, the sounds have an alarming effect, I winced as I listened to each cry, to each scream and exclamation, shuddered as I heard the clash of bamboo sticks, or perhaps even swords, amazed and alarmed at the strange echoes in this theatre for the ears, which impresses a feeling of confrontation, of immediacy, an exquisite discomfort.

And indeed, it seems only natural that this piece was composed for radio, and even won a prize at the Muse en Circuit radiophonic competition. The recordings were made in 1996, and are released for the first time on Mike Bullock's always intriguing, always challenging label, Chloë Recordings, based somewhere in the heart Boston, Massachusetts.

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from Chloë:

This piece dates from 1996 and is a complement to Lionel's acclaimed 3" CDs on Metamkine from the same era. It's 12" long and it will make your hair stand on end. It's based on the sounds of Kendo, the Japanese art of swordplay (though in this case, the sounds come from students using bamboo rods instead of swords).

"In the mountain, the art of gesture and cry searches for the breathable height of an unblocked space: It's a pulp made in the combative heat of a bamboo reed. This space, delineated and open by sound, allows me to live in the game of its depths and surfaces, of its raucous materials, of silence and of shouting, of the colors of a body escaping in a breath ... Raining sky beneath a tireless sun.

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from Foxy Digitalis:

This is incredibly bad. My older cousin use to try and scare me by inviting me into his room and closing the door and blocking it from my exit. He would then turn off the lights and try to frighten me. I think what scared me more than anything else was just the fact that he was trying to frighten me.

This record is a collage of ?hellish? sounds. Moans, groans, clanking chains, werewolves, post-Halloween discounted candy and all other things creepy and crawly. It is a soundtrack to Hieronymus Bosch?s painting ?The Last Judgement? or a collage of audio outtakes from Van Helsing.

The artwork looks like it might even be a sample to a Bosch painting. There is a nice fidelity of sound, strange electronic intrusions and slashes across the aural canvas of inferno field recordings. But in the end the attempt to frighten comes too post-pubescence and I am all the wiser from the days of Mike Schmidt at third base and E.T.

SAMHAIN (31 October 2008)

The Musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

WHEN

SVARTEDAUEN (THE BLACK DEATH)


Original Issue: 1992 Tatra (TATCD 008)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1 The Black Death (38:27)

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from Jester Records:

In 1992 came When's heaviest piece, Svartedauen (The Black Death), inspired by Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen's drawings with the same name, describing the ravages of the plague in Norway during the Middle Age.

This single 38-minute piece is by many considered Pedersen's most evocative album.

Svartedauen contains elements from Norwegian folk music played on fiddle and mouth harp, terrifying symphonic parts à la Death in the Blue Lake with pounding drums, choir and strings, and a carpet of other grotesque sounds: hearses, moans of the dying, rats, flagellants? whips and a scythe being sharpened, to name a few.

Did you record sounds yourself, or did you get them from elsewhere?

LP: "I mixed many of my own sounds, and borrowed some from Norwegian Film. Bernt Kanstad, the technician, was working there, so I got access to many sounds that I sampled, looped and used manually. And I recorded many scraping sounds on a big, old cello that was standing in the studio, but many of those sounds were heavily manipulated afterwards, so you can?t always hear that they are cello sounds. I like working that way: not using entirely natural sounds, but doing something extra with them".

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from Volcanic Tongue:

When is the solo-project of Lars Pedersen, known for his work in Norwegian art-rockers Holy Toy in the 80s. His When project seems to be his own musical playground, as every album seems different from the other.

The later works have been prog-rock/pop vein, but Svartedauen, his third album from 1991, is a pure 38 minute musique concrète sound-collage. Svartedauen translates to The Black Death and the album is an abstract sound-journey of the plague entering and ravishing the Norwegian countryside in 1349, killing two-thirds of the Norwegian population within a year.

The album was inspired by a series of haunted and eerie drawings of Theodor Kittelsen from 1900 on the subject. Pedersen has made a soundtrack to it.

Fans of Norwegian black metal will recognize the Kittelsen art as the same that adorns the cover of several Burzum albums. A little known fact is that Burzum, and most other black metal musicians during their church-burning heydays, were big fans of this When album. Listening to it with that in mind it actually makes a lot of sense.

Svartedauen in many ways manages to evoke the feeling of doom and medieval dread that the rock-Satanists attempted with distorted guitars. It’s a scary and uncomfortable listen.

FULL STURGEON MOON (16 August 2008)

The Musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

BATTIATO FRANCO

FETUS

POLLUTION

SULLE CORDE DI ARIES

CLIC

Original Issue: 1972/1973/1973/1974 Bla Bla (BBXL 10001/BBXL 10002/BBXL 10003/BBXL 10006)

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Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

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Tracklistings

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from Gnosis2000:

Franco Battiato, as is well known, was an Italian pop singer who for a span in the 70s made a string of very experimental albums that fit very roughly in the vein of groups such as Opus Avantra or Pierrot Lunaire. Battiato on all of these titles (and beyond) set out to create completely new musical forms, and evolved from strange pop and rock realms to systemic and minimalist music before returning to pop music.

Fetus was his first and arguably not as impressive as his later titles. There are a lot of influences here, Italian popular music, folk, electronic experiments and tape collage all swirled into an unusual tapestry of music. I would say his folk/pop influences show through the strongest here, and with the albums short duration there's not a lot you can sink your teeth into.

Pollution, however, is a much more successful outing, with the disparate styles blending into a much more cohesive whole. Battiato's music can jump from neo classical to Italian progressive rock (somewhere between Sensations Fix and Le Orme) to space rock like Gong and on to bizarre tape collages with narration. It all adds up to a fascinating and innovative album with more humanity than you'd expect from this type of experimentation.

Sulle Corde Di Aries was Battiato's third release and showed his fascination for electronic, minimalist and systemic musics. As such, it is quite similar to "Pollution" except much more electronic based and with a more definitive style. There are also a lot of modern classical strains coming through here and a great spacey feel again reminding me of Sensations Fix or Gong at times. A simply fascinating album.

Clic is the Italian version and not the version that was on Island records. It too moves in a far more electronic direction, sounding like an avantgarde Klaus Schulze with lots of systemic patterns and neo classical vocals. This is often quoted as his best album, and certainly deserves a listen. The latter three titles, if not all four, all deserve the attention of those into experimental or avantgarde rock albums.

Mike McLatchey

DUTCH MOON (trip musick)

I'll be in Holland (with two witch friends of mine) for a short vacation from April the 25th to May the 3rd. I will reply to your beloved comments as soon as I return!

Kisses & Hugs,
Margot

ART ZOYD
LES ESPACES INQUIETS

Original Issue: 1983 Cryonic (INC 1153)

Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

1. Légendes: La Forêt qui Avance
2. Céréemonie
3. Errance
4. Cortège des officiels
5. Au-delà des vallées
6. Migrations
7. Légendes: Le Bruit du Fer

from Ground and Sky

Art Zoyd's fifth album from 1983 sees a slight turn away from the strictly acoustic nature of their work to date towards the increasing incorporation of electronics and tape effects in their music. A typical example, the nine-minute Cérémonie sounds like a wedding procession from Hell, with dark marches reminiscent of Present building in intensity to resemble a faster section from Univers Zero's Ceux du Dehors, and at times recalling the cacophony of Art Zoyd's first album.

In general, the music alternates between ominous, plodding parts with minimal instrumentation (usually a solo piano or organ) and faster, more frantic sections led by trumpet and strings. Comparisons to other neo-classical bands such as Univers Zero or Present are obvious, although there is a drier, more acoustic feel to this due to the absence of some of the jazzier aspects of the latter bands.

A strong album and likely my favorite by this band. Like Univers Zero, these guys reached a peak with the fusion of their acoustic string-led sound with a smidgen of keyboards and electronics. Also like Univers Zero, they would experience a decline based on the increased reliance on the latter. Definitely recommended.

Sean

ALCHEMICAL MOON (transformation musick)

Alchemical process courtesy of Mr. Jim O'Rourke

FAUST
RIEN

Original Issue: 1995 Table of the Elements (Cr 24)


Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

THE RETURN OF A LEGEND...
THE RESURRECTION OF MARGOT'S FAVORITE '70s BAND...
THE MIRACLE OF Mr. JIM O'ROURKE!!!

01 - 0
02 - Rien
03 - Long Distance Calls in the Desert
04 - Eroberung der stille, teil I
05 - Listen To The Fish
06 - Eroberung der stille, teil II
07 - Fin

from The Wire:

The packaging for Faust's first fully-fledged studio recordings since reforming five years ago is artfully cryptic: no credits save for those on a spine card and a business card carrying the tell-tale x-ray motif (both easily lost!), and the album title is burnished grey on the matt silver CD.

With Rien, Faust, the German avant-rock legend of the 70s whose savage Rienelectroacoustic forays helped sharpen Euro-rocks cutting edge and paved the way for post-punk experimentalists, 80s Industrialists and 90s Ambient artists around the globe, have rediscovered the mystique that was an essential part of their creative being; a Dadaist bent that manifested itself in both performance and packaging alike. (Remember that intriguing transparent package that was their debut album?)

Anyone listening to the raw documentary footage of Faust's 1993 London comeback gigs (both rather ho-hum performances, if the truth be told) released as The Faust Concerts 1 & The Faust Concerts 2 (Table of The Elements), would have been hard pushed to discover what all the fuss was about. Never mind that the antics with jackhammers and chainsaws were now run of the mill fare; what irked was Faust's apparent air of nostalgic importance, something which ran counter to the searching, iconoclastic forays of yore.

Rien, however, is rattlingly contemporary, thanks to the production hand of Jim O'Rourke, who has taken the rudiments of Faust's adventurous spirit and transplanted it into a wholly modern context. The influence of this most exacting sound sculptor has effectively created something akin to a dialogue between the contrasting experimental apparel of 70s Prog rock and 90s purveyors of the Ambient aesthetic There are Industrial mantras of almost crushing intensity, neo-psychedelic jams, concrete interludes, even a passage of bitter-sweet irony in the plundering of Gorecki's Third Symphony (the additional chorale of Industrial noise serving only to heighten the tragic air of Gorecki's original) This is Faust resharpened and revitalised; no longer part of rock's dinosaur parade, but a reshaped, refreshing, challenging voice in 90s experimentalism.

David Ilic

BLACK MOON (the dark side of musick)

NAKED CITY
ABSINTHE

Original Issue: 1993 Avant (AVAN004)


Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

1 Val De Travers
2 Une Correspondance
3 La Fée Verte
4 Fleurs Du Mal
5 Artemisia Absinthium
6 Notre Dame De L'Oubli (For Olivier Messiaen)
7 Verlaine Part One "Un Midi Moins Dix"
8 Verlaine Part Two "La Bleue"
9 ...Rend Fou

IF YOU HAVE ANY INTEREST IN THE MUSIC POSTED ON THIS BLOG, YOU MUST HAVE A LISTEN TO THIS ABSOLUTE ISOLATIONISM (or call it whatever you like) MASTERPIECE!

FIRMLY IN MY TOP-5-ALBUMS-OF-ALL-TIMES CHART, THIS IS A CHILLING JOURNEY INTO THE "HEART OF DARKNESS" OF (POST) MODERN MUSICK!!!

from Amazon:

This is the most abstract and weird of Naked City's albums. On previous works, Naked City amalgamated nearly every style of music under the sun. Here they engage what is virtually the only genre left untouched, producing a masterpiece of avantgarde ambient music.

One might conclusively associate Naked City with one-minute lunatic songs that wildly rebound across myriad genres. While that is what most people certainly KNOW them for (I think), I feel that this is the most important and definitive album they have done, capturing the pure, underlying essence of their music -- for the first time free of prodigality and embellishment.

...

I have to warn you about listening to this in the dark: it is a very disorienting, uncomfortable sensation, leaving you feeling trapped in an all consuming gargantuan maw of emptiness and fear. The album itself is not very long, but still long enough for unease to grow into panic -- for panic to augment into terror -- for terror to bloom into desperate agony.
You listen to this, and you understand...DAMNATION.

Exaggeration? NO! Well, a little. Whatever one's subjective reaction might be to the sheer DARKNESS of this album, one cannot deny that it is meticulously composed, beautifully recorded, and full of interestingly bizarre instrumentation (from the official description: "Joey Baron plays bags of dry leaves, fishing reels and buckshot, Bill Frisell solos on a microtonal guitar, Wayne Horvitz samples everything from crickets to Giacinto Scelsi, Fred Frith does what he does best, and Zorn doesn't even touch the saxophone").

The songs...err, "pieces" are all flawless and invariably compelling. "Val de Travers" is the first nightmare, darkly exquisite and frightening. "Une Correspondance" has a lot of clanging metallic clanging sounds and weird effects that makes me think of an evil blacksmith's shop in Dis, with an ending that sounds like a demon wizard enchanting a sword of black steel with dire spells. "La Fee Verte" sounds like the soundtrack to a trip down the River Styx through the Underworld. "Notre Dame De L'Oubli" edges the most closely towards beauty -- a tranquil piece of ghostly sustained guitar crying over a pulsing heartbeat. "Fleurs du Mal" is little more than distant rumbling sounds that modulates in agitation. "Verlaine" part One is structurally the most conventional Naked City pieces, hazily drifting between bizarre blocks from strange vocal mutterings from Zorn, to phased-out piano ostinati, to eerie gamelan textures of weird percussion and sounds. Part Two is microtonal guitar pointillism coming through a soupy film of sound. "Artemisia Absinthium" sounds like strange insects buzzing around the Dark God of the Machines while He slumbers. "...Rend Fou" is six minutes of carefully composed, layered static -- it might sound dumb to some people but it is one of the most intense, quietly frightening things I have ever heard.

"Radio" and "Naked City" might be the most fun. "Torture Garden" and "Leng Tch'e" might be the most brutal. But "Absinthe" is the Naked City album that sears an impression on your soul that is with you from the first listen.

"Absinthe" is a masterpiece that no hardcore music fan should be without.

Lord Chimp

RED MOON (musick & other arts)

RODEN STEVE / IN BE TWEEN NOISE
THE RADIO

Original Issue: 1999 Sonoris (SON-22)

Reissue: 2007 Sonoris ( SON-22) Buy it here!


Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

1. The Radio

From Ampersand Etcetera

This short but dense work from Steve Roden was created in 1996 but has thankfully been given eventual release by Sonoris. The original brief (for the 1996 soundculture festival) was a piece for radio using the radio as a source, which Roden has captivatingly done.

There are essentially four movements to the 18 minute piece. The opening is a complex layering of loops of static, some clicking percussion and some choral singing (1 and 5 seconds). Each of these is only a few seconds long and interact smoothly - the static sounds like waves on a shore, and a call (birds or the radio) the gulls flying over. The static and choir fade, leaving the percussion to become more prominent, and its intricacy foregrounded. This is actually made from his grandfather's radio 'bowing the tiny battery cables…clicking the on/off switch, turning the tuning knob…plucking the battery holder spring [and] striking the radio speaker screen against the microphone': in this section the springs start being played. Against this background is a solo voice, which turns out to be Roden singing restructured word fragments, based on a poem of 1991 called ... 'the radio'. His voice is sweet and clear, after the drifting choral particles.

In the third part, the two 8 second fragments of talking under static are cutup and play over the radio-percussion creating a strange dialogue of spoken protowords which eventually echo over the static sea; the final few minutes are quite melancholic as the static waves crash on the shore, echoed and phased, then silence, a click and its over.

Roden indicated to me that he ‘totally loves this piece’ and I can understand why.
This is a beautiful sound work/piece of music (in that broader meaning of music that people like Roden explore). Its density, intricacy and beauty remind me of artists who work only in miniatures: as explored in the Roden ‘special issue’, he works in bounded musical forms, yet creates pieces in there which are expansive and could stretch infinitely despite their limits.

‘The radio’ is a prime example of this - each section could be left to continue further and further, delving into its focused world, and the whole disk could be left to repeat, the narrow passage of its composition gradually expanding to encompass the world.

Perhaps I exaggerate, but this is a magical, beautiful piece that should not be missed.

IMBOLC (02 February 2008)

The Musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

MARCHETTI LIONEL
PORTRAIT D'UN GLACIER (ALPES, 2173m)

Original Issue: 2001 Ground Fault (GF017) Buy it here!


Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

01 - Portrait D'Un Glacier (Alpes, 2173m)

Also Lionel Marchetti is part of Margot's mythology! Pure GENIUS!

Incursion review:

Using recordings made in France on the Glacier de Tré la Tête, high on the Massif de Mont-blanc, Lionel Marchetti here allows us to accompany him on a quiet (if suspenseful) journey through this snowy, ominous terrain.

Rather than presenting a straight-on field recording of his expedition, he uses small sections from the recordings at a time, and plays them through beautiful, lingering tones and still ambience. Recurring elements (yells, splashes, tools balancing on hardened surfaces) are featured in this 28-minute sonic excursion, and each have a creepy, icy quality.

If Biosphere can capture the aesthetic beauty of a snowy mountain through his recordings, Marchetti has the uncanny ability to capture the flip side of it: the danger, the uncertainty, and the sheer magnitude of it all. Listening to this disc through headphones in a darkened room is a magnificent experience: low rumblings permeate the proceedings, periodically interrupted by dramatic surges in sound that will take your breath away.

Technically faultless, this is a work of stunning magnificence.

Vils M DiSanto