Lilypad - Cognition Failure (Wagon, 2007)

A1 Gold Drapes, Green Metallic Wallpaper (13 Sine Waves) 3:32
A2 Elegant Rug (The Murdering Room) 11:17
B Amazing Bronze Lamp & Stained Oak Trim 14:21

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Birchville Cat Motel - White Ground Elder (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2002)

*** sorry no cover art ***

1-01 White Ground Elder 31:36
1-02 Mounted Archers Fortress 25:11
2-01 Lamplight Devotions 32:13
2-02 The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes 21:24

Tour double DCr

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Birchville Cat Motel & Anla Courtis - Three Sparkling Echoes (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2007)

1 First Sparkling Echo 12:23
2 Second Sparkling Echo 12:13
3 Third Sparkling Echo 14:13


We're sort of surprised this match up hadn't already happened before. Pretty much a no brainer. Campbell Kneale, aka Birchville Cat Motel, and Anla Courtis, from the now defunct Reynols. While it most definitely seems like a match made in noise rock heaven, there was definitely the potential for a very chaotic mess, but the two most definitely brought out the best in each other, and the result might just be one of our favorite releases from either of these guys.
Three looooong tracks, each a gorgeous and languorous slow build, minimal, but dense and heavily layered, simple propulsive rhythms, and all sorts of warm rich sonic textures. The opener, is maybe one of the most beautiful 'noise rock' tracks EVER. Swirling, beautiful cello-like melodies, low and lumbering, moan and croon, a deep, resonant, cavernous, creeping minor key dirge, lurking mysteriously beneath a swirling cloud of metallic cicadas and oscillating whirs and flutters. One of those tracks that should go on forever. Building gradually in intensity, but never exploding into full on heaviness, instead just drifting dreamlike, until the various sounds peel back leaving just a gorgeous soundscape of simulated nature sounds and abstract ambience. The first time we threw this on we ended up listening to this track 3 or 4 times in a row. But as soon as we could tear ourselves away, we realized that the other two tracks were darn near just as beautiful.
The second track is a spacious and spare expanse of tinkling music box chimes, strange percussive thumps, guttural vocalizations, and a warm melodic whir, heavily panned, swooping dramatically from speaker to speaker. Those swoops eventually transforming into thick slabs of guitar whir, a gorgeously glacial epic, rife with muted melodies, and dense with sonic subtleties...
The closer pretty much seals the deal. Simple tribal drums, clattery junkyard percussion, over warbly warped FX drenched guitars and a loping dirge-like rhythm building in intensity until the guitars become a huge tangly squall above that static mesmerizing rhythm. It's almost like a noise rock Tom Waits.... like the Black Rider performed by Sunroof! Or a super blissed out take on old Swans. Guitars so thick and warm you just want to curl up and climb under, letting that clattery motorik rhythm just carry you away...
Aquarius Records

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New Ruralfaune releases

MARK BRADLEY "Godspeed" cdr limited 60

Faltermeyered and puzzled beats melted in some peculiar rhythmics. Strangely calming, strangely hypnotic.
Singular works from MB. Quite different from his previous works and a new direction with suffocated minimal beats. Rhythmic


INNERCITY "Visions from dream state" cdr limited 70

An animated semiotic drive on the subways of post industrialized languages. A new age order.
Modular release with the Upstairs (OPN) cdr and theTaped Sounds split tape. 3 different covers available for each copy.


MAGINA "Nazca Lines" 3"cdr limited 40 - non-portuguese edition

Unique digital capsule of melodic memorabilia on keyboards. Obsolete and old-fashioned technology to create a retro-futuristic voyage. Worldwide edition of this newcoming portuguese artist.



EASY RIDER "Eternia beach" cs30 or cdr limited 70

Born in the milked sands of Eternity. Dreamy-influenced synth figures of a lost new new age.
Choose your format



MARC-HENRI ARFEUX "Blossom" cdr limited 100

MHA is a french novelist, poet & philosophy teacher. A musical project exploring the mystery of the world in connection to perception, emotion and its metaphysic enigma.
A journey through french avant-garde and synthetic minimalism. File under GRM (Groupe de recherche musicale, founded by Pierre Henry)


ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER "Young Beidnahga" cdr limited 50

Special reissue for march european tour 2010 - Originally released as rur062 (Ruralfaune 2009)
ONLY 10 copies left !


QUEEN ELEPHANTINE "8 XI 08 Live in Brooklyn" cs48 or cdr limited 70

Heavy riffs and dark psychedelic atmospheres from Brooklyn.
An absolute heavy tantric doom, like molten lava flowing down a mountain. Slow yet unstoppable, consuming everything in its path...

THE DRIFTWOOD MANOR "The Same Figure, leaving" cdr limited 50

Beautiful irish folk between melancholia and springlike feelings. A pastoral atmosphere with poetic lyrics by David Colohan of Agitated Radio Pilot


SPARKLING WIDE PRESSURE "In a new Mouth" cdr limited 60

Following stellar releases on Digitalis, Students of Decay, Stunned...
Beautiful drifting melodies and haunted guitar figures. A patchwork quilt of drone influenced sound snippets, subtle synth undulations and strange ethereal vocal lines...



DYLAN ETTINGER "Cutters" LP co-released w/Digitalis Industries LP limited 150

The come back of the king of pop
Already sold out at source, please check the availability at every good retailer and reserve your copy . Lps will be available mid-april.

Slow Listener / Century Plants / Terrortank - My Mind Is Blind (Spread The Disease, 2008)

1 Slow Listener - Untitled 19:57
2 Terrortank - Untitled 12:51
3 Century Plants - Untitled 15:39
4 Terrortank - Untitled 13:19

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Slow Listener - Untitled (JK Tapes, 2007)

1 Untitled
2 Untitled

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Karen Cooper Complex - Shinjuku Birdwalk (self release, 1981)

Reçu un mail de Bill qui faisait partie du groupe Karen Cooper Complex dont WMFU vient de ressortir les titres / Received a mail from Bill who was part of Karen Cooper Complex, WMFU just reissued their tracks as free downloable...

We refer to it as "Analog Music from a Lost World" -- previously unreleased post-punk experimental rock from 1981, unlike anything else recorded before or after.

The Karen Cooper Complex line goes all the way back to Big Naptar, a six-piece band featuring two sax players, formed in 1970 here in Richmond, that Frank Daniel, Steve Bernard and I all played in. In those days, we were attempting to force a marriage between elemental rock and free jazz. At the same time, Wm. Burke (aka Key Ring Torch) and Bo Jacob (aka Bo Janne Valvoline) were playing with local oddball legends, the Titfield Thunderbolt. Jacob eventually left to go on the road as a sound man for Parliament/Funkadelic and Burke later went solo, calling his act, Wm. Burke's Hideous Truth.

In the late 70's Steve Bernard and a rotating cast of musicians and non-musicians who called themselves I Saw a Bulldozer, recorded a series of private party tapes, organized around three or four female vocalists who wrote Surrealist-style "Exquisite Corpse" lyrics and chanted them in unison in front of a band, coming across something like a female, beatnik version of the Last Poets, who were more interested in art than politics.

Frank Daniel then plucked Karen Cooper out of the Bulldozer lineup and made her an integral, impulsive instrument in a band that played loosely structured, improvisational rock that was more "Bitches Brew" than Grateful Dead, if that makes sense. From my perspective, all these years later, Karen sounds like an unbridled outsider artist who's simultaneously sending and receiving while the band churns around her. This isn't jazz, and it wasn't intended to be, but we were obviously listening, responding and playing off of each other in the same way more technically proficient improvisers do.

Four of us were also DJs on a local independent radio station and when I listen to this music now, it sounds to me like we'd clearly digested enough influences that I won't try to list any of them in particular — at the risk of omitting as much as I could include.

After the first sessions, Burt Blackburn stepped in for Steve Bernard, who was already living 200 miles away in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, and Bo Jacob, who'd gone back out with Randy Newman, was replaced by the first drum machine in town.

Just as things really began to gel, Karen, who was married to Les Smith, informed us that she was expecting — and the band never played live — in fact, from that point, it never played again at all.

Frank Daniel died of complications of Type I diabetes in 2004 and I've collected and digitized this volume as a salute to his memory and in hopes that someone out there will listen to this music and say "Good work, Frank. Thanks."

-Bill Altice Feb 2010

"This is amazing stuff and we would be honored to feature it in wfmu's curated portal on the free music archive. I'm very sorry for our slow response, we have a lot of stuff to wade through to find gems like these."
WMFU

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Nathan McNinch - A Lonesome Arctic Waltz (petite sono], 2004)

1 A Lonesome Arctic Waltz 18:59

a waltz for polar bears....
petite sono]

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Re-up

Sylvain Chauveau - Nocturne Impalpable (les Disques du Soleil et de l'Acier, 2001) : here

Corey Fuller - Seas Between (Dragon's Eye Recordings, 2009)

1 Winds May Scatter 2:41
2 Late Summer 14:17
3 November Skies Tokyo 5:43
4 Of A Winter Dawn 6:51
5 Snow Static 5:46
6 Seas Between 8:51

Opening in mist, with disassembled activity both hidden and continuous, Seas Between is a work containing the solemnity of temporality, trembling tenderness, and the brightest side of sightless imagination. Corey Fuller was born in the United States, but while still very young, he relocated with his family to Japan, where he spent the next 20 years, before returning to the United States to live in Washington state. December of 2009 marks the release of his first solo album, and his return to Japan with his own family, to live and work. The album represents both a literary and imaginative vision of home and the distances between, a document of the placement and creation of a convolved third-culture reality.

Seas Between was created using an expansive assortment of acoustic instruments, including piano, prepared piano, Rhodes electric piano, pipe organ, pump organ, vibraphone, pianica, accordion, acoustic/electric guitars, Gamelan bells, Thai finger cymbals, assorted percussion, and found objects. Field recordings were given delicate attention, including room tones, contact microphones, hydrophone recordings of both shores of the Pacific Ocean, field recordings from Japan and Washington, reel to reel tapes, cassette tapes, and analog tape delays. Custom software was also employed to create a convolved, indeterminate blend of instruments, with field recordings from both sides of the Pacific Ocean, above and below.

In addition to palette, a group of collaborative musicians contributed work, such as John Friesen on Cello, Tyler Wilcox on saxophones and bass clarinet, and Tomoyoshi Date on piano and electronics. Their contributions further complete a graceful warmth, to an already startlingly pronounced recording of poetic allusion, uncertain acceptance, and hazed mystery.

Throughout the 45-minute work, clarity is demonstrated through swelling, warm tones, acute instrumentation, combined with the chill of the ocean breeze, and the indistinguishable traits of swirling, impermanent images. Beside crisp crescendos of the early morning dawn, foamy field recordings are hidden in the fine clouds; a formed, thin film, hidden in winter's winds. In Seas Between, here falls the shadow, between essence and descent, longing and fulfillment, wholeness and brokenness. The sense of separation and constant longing is ever-present, in our surroundings that are unwavering, but often unpredictable as the sea.

-text by Will Long (Celer)

Seas Between's title references the fact that after being born in the United States, Corey Fuller and his family relocated to Japan for twenty years before returning to the US to live in Washington State. The collection is therefore significant not only for being his first solo album but for also marking Fuller's recent return to Japan with his own family to live and work. It's hardly accidental that Fuller references the natural world explicitly in the titles of the pieces, as Seas Between is anything but a series of hermetic electronic works assembled in the sterile confines of a studio. Using a multitude of instruments and field recordings, Fuller transmutes the beauty and mystery of the natural realm—seasons, locales, elements—into forty-four minutes of ravishing ambient sounds. Sometimes that occurs literally—amidst the gleam of ambient organ tones in “Of a Winter Dawn,” for example, one hears the crunch one associates with trodding through a landscape freshly covered with snow, or the crackle of a campfire at a wintry setting during “Snow Static”—but more often than not the effect is created by way of allusion, with the material indirectly hinting at a place lodged in Fuller's memory.

Included among the acoustic instruments he used in producing the material are acoustic and electric piano, pipe organ, pump organ, vibraphone, accordion, guitars, Gamelan bells, Thai finger cymbals, assorted percussion, and found objects. Custom software was employed to blend the sounds, including field recordings (room tones, contact microphones, hydrophone recordings of the Pacific Ocean, field recordings from Japan and Washington, etc.). The recording is dramatically elevated by the presence of three guest musicians, cellist John Friesen, woodwinds player Tyler Wilcox, and pianist Tomoyoshi Date, all of whom make substantial contributions to the pieces on which they appear.

Slowly coming into view with a web of gleaming organ tones, sparse piano musings, and field noises, “Winds May Scatter” inaugurates a recording that deserves to be heard in listening numbers far greater than the 250 copies that have been made available. During “Late Summer,” minimal bass tones anchor a whistling stream of electric piano accents and electronics for fourteen contemplative minutes. Wilcox's bass clarinet floats along the music's surface too, prodding its ever-so-gentle movement forward. The album's most beautiful piece is the title composition, which turns into a nine-minute outpouring of melancholy when Friesen's cello playing is added to Fuller's expansive sound design. It's a tremulous ambient setting of poetic force and ethereal beauty that conveys a sense of longing for home, a longing that in Fuller's case is especially pronounced when such ties have rooted themselves so powerfully in not locale but two.
Textura

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Bernhard Günter - Univers Temporel Espoir (Trente Oiseaux, 1999)

1 Un Lieu Pareil À Point Effacé, 1ere Partie 15:00
2 Un Lieu Pareil À Point Effacé, 2eme Partie 15:17
3 The Ant Moves / The Black And Yellow Carcass / A Little Closer 28:14
4 Vertige Hasard 12:01

by request

This album collects two pieces which had previously appeared on anthologies, as well as two new pieces. "Lieu Pareil, Pt. 1" was originally published on a CD distributed with the magazine Halana, and "The Ant Moves..." was released in an earlier version on the Ash International anthology. The last piece is the newest, and is one of Günter's few pieces with anything recognizable as a beat, although at the intended low volume the sound is more like a heartbeat than anything one might hear in a dance hall. There are in fact several layers of beats at different speeds, superimposed, fading in and out at different times. With a sudden loud woodblock event signaling the last section of the piece, the sounds alternate between the woodblocks and quiet static, reminiscent of the Japanese temple blocks in Stockhausen's "Telemusik." The other pieces deal with more naturalistic sounds -- wind, water, and thunder. One of the fascinations in Günter's music is his ability to recall natural phenomena without necessarily using natural sounds (although almost every sound he uses is sampled). "Lieu Pareil 2" and "The Ant Moves..." both share sectional division sounds with the last piece, but the overall sound world is quiet, non-developmental, persistent and rewarding for listeners who clear their mind and focus on the small sounds that Günter exposes.
All Music Guide

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Aube - Emotional Oscillation (Old Europa Cafe, 1994)

A Empulsive Oscillating 22:10
B1 Emotionalism 8:27
B2 Uplift 14:08

All Composed Mixed & Recorded By Akifumi Nakajima at Studio MECCA Kyoto Summer 1994 Using Only 1 Voltage Controlled Oscillator As Material.

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Aidan Baker - An Intricate Course Of Deception (.Angle.Rec., 2004)

1 Interweaver 25:02
2 Thread / Bare 18:48
3 Gossamer 8:35
4 Weft 8:21

A guitarist impregnated with the sonic twists and turns of the drone universe, a member of ARC and also a poet, among others, AIDAN BAKER nurtures a very particular and personal style when experimenting with his instrument. From one album to another, and he has released many on different labels around the world, AIDAN BAKER has relentlessly been polishing exploratory sonic fabrics of a majestic beauty, always halfway between ether and psychedelia, with the obscure and indefinable touch that makes his music ideal for introspection and contemplation.

Aidan Baker’ natural ease and tendency to deconstruct and reinvent the guitar’s syllabus shows very well on AN INTRICATE COURSE OF DECEPTION…Long shadowy and droney passages go side by side with tripped-out smooth lo fi experiments which evoke, reinterpret, and take to a different level the sounds heard in the ethereal, experimental and ambient field of recent years.

Expansive, atmospheric and recursive landscapes are enhanced with evolving bursts of well-dosed noisy interruptions, perfectly in line with the overall experience of the whole soundtrack. A factory in the desert…
.Angle.Rec.

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Jean-Luc Guionnet - Axene (Ground Fault Recordings, 2000)

1 Ivraie/Baragnes 27:14
2 Axène 15:54
3 Ressac/Ressac 28:13

Jean-Luc Guionnet, born in Lyon now living in Paris, has formally studied Electa-acoustic music at the Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatory as well as the Pantin Conservatory in France. While working on his Bachelors Degree at the Sorbonne School of Art in Paris, Jean-Luc started recording with good friend Andrè Almuro. Soon after while working on his Masters degree he started working with fellow French Electra-acoustic musicians, Éric Cordier and Éric La Casa. In addition to music he has worked in the experimental film field.

Jean-Luc Guionnet is not a highly prolific recording artist; only about 16 recordings to over a 10 year span, but the quality of his recordings are top notch. Two of the recordings on Axène were recorded 10 years ago and were never released. After first hearing them I was amazed that the have never been heard by the public. They are absolutely brilliant recordings that the public has unfortunately missed out on for all these years. I am very proud to bring these recordings to the surface for all to hear.

Axène is catagorized as Series I, but don't let that fool you. While a good part of this CD is rather quiet, it does build to a fever pitch while never losing its smoothness. Erik Hoffman

"It is a little strange to find a CD by French electroacoustic artist Jean-Luc Guionnet on the noise label Ground Fault, but then again musique concrète can be seen from an avant-garde noise perspectives. The three extended (16 to 28 minutes) works included on Axène were created between 1989 and 1996 and had not been released before. In "Ivraie/Baragnes, " recorded for an André Almuro film by the same title, and "Ressac/Ressac", the composer favors textures over plasticity. Both pieces have drones, water and wood sounds, at their basis. Non-linear, these sound events are meshed together to form the soundtrack of a trek of some kind. Concrete and synthesized sounds intervene, arousing new imageries. "Ressac/Ressac" is embedded in a strong ocean theme (ressac = undertow), waves of sounds slowly approaching to gracefully come crashing at the listener's feet. Slotted between these two works, "Axène" becomes all the more academic and cold. This piece follows more traditional esthetics of sound sculpting, INA-GRM-style. It lacks movement and ambition to really captivate. But the two longer pieces are definitely worth hearing, especially for those favoring atmospheric electroacoustics" François Couture

Ground Fault Recordings

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Christoph Heemann - The Rings Of Saturn (Dom Bartwuchs, 2008)

1 Untitled 4:08
2 Untitled 5:07
3 Untitled 8:06
4 Untitled 1:03
5 Untitled 6:55
6 Untitled 12:06
7 Untitled 5:22

It’s been a long time without new solo albums by Christoph Heemann and I, for one, was missing them a lot. If there’s an artist whose individual music is perfectly symbolized by the worn out adjective “cinematic”, that’s the introvert gentleman from Aachen. Many illustrious projects have seen him as a fundamental contributor – HNAS, Seclusion, Mirror, In Camera to name a few, a collaborative effort with Charlemagne Palestine upcoming; still, there’s something in the personal releases that, by some means, distances this farsighted visionary from practically everybody. Maybe - just maybe - a comparable creative entity might correspond to Jim O’Rourke – not surprisingly an erstwhile Heemann collaborator – but the concoctions of altered reality and concreteness generated by this man are unambiguously unique, The Rings Of Saturn – a self-released limited edition - being no exception.

After an introductive collective conversation (Italians, of all humanity), the record starts to unveil its seducing grace, an untainted attractiveness that only recurring listens can really bring forth. Merging urban environments, chatting characters, kids at play, passing cars, birds in gardens and shoes on pavements – plus a myriad of other indecipherable, yet welcome to the ears sources – with absurdist takes on actuality, the composer explores the remote corners of the listener’s psyche, filling the surrounding air with materializations that get disfigured and processed that necessary bit to maintain their origin visible through delirious dreams. Case in point, the hilariously disquieting detuned-and-delayed marching band heard in the third movement before eloquently austere sounds of bells – first a railroad, then a church - take center stage, letting us in silent pondering. We’re used to listen to these manifestations, yet Heemann manages to make them appear as the most pleasant occurrence in the world.

A minute or so of cut-up including various scraps of muzak – typical of earlier masterpieces such as Invisible Barrier – introduces the fifth chapter, made of haunting aural snapshots characterized by the whistling voices of hundred of feathered creatures whose presence, aptly treated and mixed with the sound of automobiles, represents an ethereal apparition from which an ill-omened foreshadowing emerge under the guise of slowed-down, droning frequencies (possibly an elongated piano reverberation, but it could be anything). A fabulous moment of intense emotion, among the absolute best of the disc.

Much appreciated here are the glimpses of pregnant silence characteristic of rural areas at dawn, blackbirds and roosters mixing their existences while, somehow, a radio appears in the distant background to fade away almost instantly. A refreshing element of familiar awareness soon overwhelmed by a looming moan out of nowhere, as to remind that the end is never too far even when things get calmer. It’s doubtful that people untrained to this kind of introspection will be able to penetrate the essence of moments like this; luckily for them, a motorcycle and a dog promptly arrive to cement our feet in an unwelcome reality once and for all, despite the tolling from another bell tower ending the vision.

The sonic narrative is concluded by a track based on looped-and-destroyed orchestral fragments and mariachi-styled trumpets, an untitled piece of poignancy that, again, leaves the whole in a state of uncertainty and suspension, a “to be continued” of sorts which seals a stunning present for 2008’s Christmas. A superb release, destined to 100 lucky owners who – hopefully – don’t deserve to be called “latecomers”.
Brain Dead Eternity blog

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just reissued by Robot Records so buy it!

Loud & Sad - Tour Cdr (self release, 2009)

Nous avons déjà parler du netlabel PandaFuzz, mais Nathan qui est derrière ce projet, joue également sous le nom de Lou & Sad / We already spoke about PandaFuzz netlabel, but Nathan who is behind this project, also plays music under the moniker Loud & Sad....

while it might seem odd to share a tour only album we released already a year ago....it is a preview of what is to come from our next album false intimacy where we continue working on piano pieces and has not been too readily available until recently!
Nathan

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Natural Snow Buildings - The Centauri Agent (Vulpiano Records, 2010)

VULP-0013 is Natural Snow Buildings’ first release of 2010, the free-for-download double LP The Centauri Agent! On part one, the 41 minute “Our man from Centauri” sets the stage, a cosmic, sprawling opener with themes that continue on into “The accidental remote viewer”, before fizzling out into static. Part two is comprised of nine beautiful and intense tracks (particular stand-outs including “The Psychic Circle/Uchronia”, “The storm of resurrection”, and “Solar flares”). Lovely and intricately woven as ever, while frequently heading off into new and challenging sonic territory, Mehdi and Solange have created yet another very special work of musical art with The Centauri Agent!

Download here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ntdmwuu2o5e

—-Tracklisting—-

Part One:
1-Our man from Centauri
2-The accidental remote viewer

Part Two:
1-The Psychic Circle/Uchronia
2-Black holes
3-The storm of resurrection
4-Moscow signal
5-Phantom twin
6-Stuttering probe
7-Solar flares
8-Emergency network farewell broadcast
9-Memories found in a bill from a small animal vet

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Tarkatak - Skok (Bazyliszek Records, 1999)

1 Mielizna 25:22
2 Skok 5:11
3 Poziom Morza 24:38
4 Tartak 4:48

The German drone outfit Tarkatak has been a little too low profile for their own good, with a handful of super limited edition releases that have sadly been pressed as cd-rs. Fortunately Jef Cantu of Tarentel plans on releasing a Tarkatak album on his newly christened dronological label Blessed / Cursed, which could very likely get Tarkatak the attention which they deserve. But until that day comes, we'll try and keep as many of the tiny editions of Tarkatak records as we can. "Skok" is a fairly recent release, though the recordings date back to winter of 96 / 97. Tarkatak keeps things very quiet with some beautiful deep drones punctuated by subaquatic washes. The tonal palette is remarkably similar to Zoviet France's "Digilogue." Excellent work!!!
Aquarius Records

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Aidan Baker - Eye Of Day (Foreign Lands, 2003)

1 Glauz Dnya 22:49
2 Stehotvorenye Dlya Solntsa 10:15
3 Pesnya Dlya Leah 17:25

Released as a CDR by the Omaha-based Foreign Lands label, Eye of Day shows once more how quickly guitarist Aidan Baker has matured into a first-rate experimental ambient improviser. This one is completely instrumental; Letters and I Fall into You, his previous solo efforts, also featured his poetry. Equipped with an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, a bass, and an array of loops and effects, Baker summons to life droning beasts that will give you sweet nightmares. The album is comprised of three extended pieces. The 23-minute "Glauz Dnya" begins with a lot of tape hiss and the listener is left to decide whether it is intentional or not. Let's hope it is, but that amateurish impression dissipates quickly as we get sucked into the maelstrom of spinning guitar feedback. Time flies as the piece hypnotically changes its shape while remaining surprisingly the same. "Stehotvorenye Dlya Solntsa" (ten minutes) is downright ambient, lulling you to sleep while it hovers delicately in mid-air. But the highlight is "Pesnya Dlya Leah" (17 minutes), where Baker builds a beautiful soundscape of e-bowed notes, pedal-volume chords, noisy drones, and chiming sounds. Eye of Day may not be as impressive (or personal) as I Fall into You, but it still strikes the imagination and takes the listener on a satisfying aural journey somewhat reminiscent of vintage Maeror Tri.
All Music Guide

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Yann Novak & Eno On - Long Distance (Dragon's Eye Recordings, 2006)

1 Long Distance 19:44

Long Distance marks the first release by long time collaborators Yann Novak and Eno On (Kne'ke L-R). Recorded 1/16/06 at Kne'ke's own Audio Mosaic Studio in Madison, WI. Novak plays bass and field recordings processed via laptop, while Kne'ke relies on her Akai. This improvised piece stands as a jumping off point for an ongoing long distance collaboration.
Dragon's Eye Recordings

The label is run out of Seattle by Yann Novak and has previously showcased two tiny, perfect pieces of collaborative experimental ambient on three-inch CDRs (a third volume has yet to be released since the right packaging has still to be decided upon) under the collective rubrik "Long Distance". The first is reputed to be a collaboration between Novak and Eno On (whom I presume is from the land of Erewhon). This is an eminently minimal, spacey investigation of, well, space, with pulsars of analogue-sounding synth resonating into deep emptiness, like signals being sent out there at random and sometimes, improbably, being answered.
Sonomu

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Dth - I Hope I Can Feel Something Like That One Day (self release, 2010)

Reçu un mail de Devin qui vient d'auto produire son premier album sous le pseudonyme de Dth / Received a mail from Devin, who just self release his first album as Dth...

This album is held together mainly by the little noises of everything: found sounds, field recordings, samples of everyday speech and old VHS's. On top of this are some guitar lines and progressions, and some additional percussion and ambient vocals. The overall mood it strives for is empathetic and nostalgic, though frantic at some times.
Dth

Dth is a kid doing college down in New Orleans who asked a whole bunch of people how they were feeling and then cut it up into samples of their recorded voices, dividing it up into a 16-point scale (weird, right?) based on how they were feeling.

The results amount to a glitchy mashup of sampled talking, with some smooth guitar and synth instrumentals and a whole army of digital clicks and corresponding clacks. And some jazz drum, at one point. Many of these tracks sound a lot like the premeditated "aleatoric" music of The Books, but with a perfomative fourth wall cracked away at between the recorder and the field-recorded. Here's how he explains the project:

I set up two mics in an alcove outside my school's dorms (then had to move to inside the commons building because of rain) and stopped numerous people, hit record, and asked them, "How are you feeling today, on a scale 1-10?" After receiving a good amount of responses, some short and some long and elaborate, I quickly cropped out some abrasive noises and pops in the recordings around the responses they gave me (resulting in some gaps between answers). Then I had a series of conversational clips, each containing at least 1 number.

I devised a way to scale these numbers to notes - a simple version of a major scale, but intervals of every other note (for instance 7 = C, 8 = E, not D.) This way, I could also account for the times I got responses of a half number, like 8.5. I played the corresponding notes whenever a number was spoken in my clips, and sustained it somewhat until the next number was spoken. When the same number was spoken consecutively (as in two people in a row said 7), I would play the octave of that note.

People's moods making music together.
Imposemagazine.com

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Kaffe Matthews - Still A Slapper (Stichting Mixer, 2001)

A Still
B A
C Slapper
D B

These two 7"-es contain 4 tracks and are to be heard as a set. Matthews starts with an atmospheric track consisting of not much more than simple tones... but then again also not... There's a wide spectrum underneath, arranged in such a way that she actually doesn't need much more than tones to tell her story. The following 2 tracks ("a" and "slapper") show Matthews' talent for making the unsynchronised followable. Both these tracks live on an unstable heartbeat so to say, but nevertheless with a steady pace.
Although a short track, "a" has a complete build-up. Repetition of elements over a calm stream of lower tones give this track a subtle drive and atmosphere. "Slapper" crackles further in an energetic way, preferably at a louder volume. Again this hard to follow beat, but steady enough to give you some sense of a tempo and the accompanying tapping foot.
The last track returns to the world of overtones but in a more unsettling way, a good track to complete the circle and leave you behind slightly puzzled...
Stichting Mixer

Highly compelling is Kaffe Matthew's solo "Still a slapper", four pieces on 7" vinyl which transcend the jokey title to offer the best minimal electronica I've heard in ages. The opening and closing tracks just lie there and glow, like a jewel on velvet. A hovering, almost liquid sound, it gleams as if static, but in fact is steadily developing. The second track pulses gently, conjuring up a lighthouse at sea, and a distant boat chugging past. A rich bottom end adds warmth and depth to the picture. "Slapper" features a crackling rhtythm maybe derived from vinyl syrface noise. This is very confident handling of sparse materials, generating an austere but highly atractive music.
The Wire

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Slow Listener - Bruise Journal (First Person, 2007)

1 Bruise Journal

Bruise Journal by Slow Listener a.k.a. Robin Dickinson, one supplier of the Curor label. You may remember a while back, I fell head over heels for the Slow Listener JK tape, I think I called it “lovely zombie murk” or something to that effect. This one has bit different, rougher, less expansive sound to it, part of which I attribute to its digital format. There also appears to be less looping going on, but maybe I just can’t pick them all out. I might apply the term “roughnecking drone” here (which I totally stole from some place I can’t remember). Distorted drones are manipulated almost in a way like kneading dough (that pops into my mind for some reason) and gather intensity. Around a third of the way through everything coalesces into a sweet climactic thicket of overtones and with a blink of an eye it’s all gone, replaced by a single high pitched tone. Come on Robin, give me a minute to bask in the splendor before you move on to a new idea. Thanks :) The next part of the track moves pretty slowly (I guess that’s the operative word today) but has a much fuller aesthetic than the first part.
Auxiliary Out blog

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Slow Listener - Sundowner (Epicene Sound Replica, 2007)

1 I'm Unanimous In That 11:51
2 When Was Yesterday 6:55
3 In Case Of A Fire Or Amnesia 12:42
4 Shouldn't Take Very Long... Actually I Have No Concept Of Time" 11:34
5 Untitled 12:50

With releases on Peasant Magik, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, Ruralfaune and Students of Decay all within a few months, Slow Listener from Brighton, UK, are one of the most prominent new names in the free-noise field. And this cdr on the Epicene imprint proves once more why so many good labels are into this dynamic blend of guitar feedback and electronic drones.

The stunning opener I'm unanimous in that starts on an Earthen note, with some of the very first chords taking their hat off to Harvey from the Phase 3 album. When, after just under 12 minutes, the opener comes to an abrupt halt as if someone had pulled the plug, it has become clear that the reference to the pioneers of metallic drone is somewhat programmatic. If compared to the Ruralfaune cdr, for example, Sundowner is heavier, less electronic. Even if the following track, When Was Yesterday, is dominated by forlorn synth jingling. That track, however, is only an interlude before In Case Of a Fire or Amnesia with its shredding feedback and braying distortion takes over. Yes, Slow Listener are slow. Yes, to describe their sound " as Campbell Kneale has " as "slumberpunk" is not totally inadequate. And yet what really intrigues me is how utterly dynamic, how polymorph and animate the better Slow Listener tracks are, proving that simplicity doesn?t have to be boring.

I have to admit, though, that I find it difficult to listen to the 56 minutes of Sundowner in one session. I guess that's because I don't like the hidden track that is based on shrill electronic noise and getting on my nerves. But it might also be because most of the tracks are so intense on a micro-level and at the same time so good at creating tension over a distance of more than ten minutes that you are practically floored after some 30 minutes. I do wonder, therefore, if two separate 3's or a cassette with its obligatory intermission wouldn't reflect Slow Listener's momentum more effectively. It should be mentioned that this cdr is limited to 30 copies. A ridiculous number, really. Let's hope there'll be reissues of some of the rarer Slow Listener releases, soon.
Foxy Digitalis

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Pulse Emitter - Outpost (Snip-Snip Records, 2006)

1 Outpost 38:13

Recorded live November 19th, 2005, Psychoacoustic Soundclash with Nozmo King, KFJC 89.7 FM, Los Altos Hills, California.

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Ionosphere - Sliced Matter (Avatar Records, 2003 (2006 reissue))

1 Cutting-Edge Radio Research 5:25
2 Sliced Matter 5:01
3 20 Arcsec 5:51
4 Meta II 5:30
5 Plasma Turbulence 4:47
6 Meta I 4:11
7 Frequency Radiation 3:56
8 Across A Limb Of A Probe 5:41

Dark soundscapes...

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Leonardo Martins – Quick McLuhanian Guide for Transmigration (Panda Fuzz, 2010)

1. Aion 5:28
2. Daniela Farwell 3:36
3. Day and Night 4:03
4. Transmigration 5:33
5. Changes 0:40
6. Tathagata Trouble Dance 3:14
7. Idiosyncratic Metempsicose 5:21
8. I Didn’t Know What Time It Was 4:35

“It’s a vast matter – if someone reads the title “Quick McLuhanian Guide for Transmigration”, he or she could think that it’s about the soul “jumping” from a body to other. I believe McLuhan had in mind that the message would become a fusion of perceptions caused by and brought by (mass) communication media. Is the media the message as well? Back to Pythagoras, he assured that he could remember all his transmigrations, but if he stopped to think of them he wouldn’t have time enough to life his (present) life. We know how we´re born, how our conception happens, but don´t know about what we were before it or after we have finally been…

A message nowadays is easily materialized as the physic body of a book to be spread (for example). So Pythagoras was not that wrong if he had his soul embodied to a book.

McLuhan also told that the evolution of technologies are bringing us back to a new tribal life, and the increasing segmentation of arts, culture and information. In times when we need quick information sharing, society development needs art to solve this paradox…”
Leonardo Martins

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Z'EV / John Duncan / Aidan Baker / Fear Falls Burning - Untitled (Die Stadt, 2005)

A Z'EV - Elementonal 5:01
B John Duncan - Offffffff 5:01
C Aidan Baker - Drone Four (Excerpt) 10:06
D Fear Falls Burning - The Beautiful Decline (Excerpt) 9:47
CD1-1 Z'EV - Untitled 20:34
CD1-2 John Duncan - Bkg 12:03
CD2-1 Fear Falls Burning - Drone Four 36:46
CD2-2 Aidan Baker - The Beautiful Decline (Declining Mix) 14:15
CD2-3 Aidan Baker - The Beautiful Decline (Declined Mix) 9:58

On October 2nd 2005, the four above mentioned names performed at Bremen's Lagerhaus in a concert curated by Die Stadt's Jochen Schwarz who, in customary fashion, released a commemorative double 7-inch of the proceedings, one track for each artist. No surprises as to what we get: Z'ev's "Elementonal" is a crashing pandemonium of metal and irregular rhythm, John Duncan's "Offffffff" sounds like treated white noise (but it could be heavily processed breath or something), Aidan Baker's "Drone Four (Excerpt)" explores different approaches to guitar looping in what is the deepest music on offer, while the flat repetition of Fear Falls Burning (aka Vidna Obmana)'s "The Beautiful Decline (Excerpt)" is the shallowest. What counts more is the double CD that comes with the limited mail order edition, which finds the four manipulating and reworking each other's sounds in settings that allow the mind better to adapt to the sonic circumstances. Z'ev transforms a short field recording by Duncan into a violent grey uncertainty of haunting voices and concrete rumbles saturating the listening space with oppressive power. Duncan's response in "BKG" is to attack tweeters with nails and teeth and send the listener into a maze of intoxicating distorted sibilance. Disc 2 finds Fear Falls Burning and Aidan Baker at work on each other's trance-fusion: Baker's "Drone Four" is re-looped and progressively degraded with effects and slow beats into something curiously reminiscent of sections of Genesis' "White Mountain", while Baker's remix of "The Beautiful Decline" adds some much-needed inner movement, transforming it into a Frippertronic forest fire with hopelessly screaming guitars heard from every treetop.
Paris Transatlantic

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The Gerogerigegege - Endless Humiliation (Japan Overseas, 1994)

1 Endless Humiliation 59:59

One of the most eerie and haunting pieces of music juntaro ever bothered recording. this is probably one of the gerogerigegege's most unique albums available to music consumers and its even easier to get into than a merzbow cd. as the given description from the liner notes has already mentioned, the entire cd is pretty much just a field recording of a drunk homeless japanese man rambling over the sounds of an incredibly distant piano. probably the quietest work done by the group, its often thought to have been either a long winded work of social commentary or a piece of music that juntaro created for or about his mother, who was supposedly a rather famous japanese classical pianist. the cd has wonderful cover art consisting of 2 paragraphs written in japanese next to a black and white photograph taken by juntaro of 2 little kids wearing rabbit masks in some village. the back has a picture of a horse. the cd is very relaxing and equally unnerving at the same time. fairly decent production, but nothing to write home about. closest thing to 'uneasy' listening you can get.

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The Gerogerigegege - None Friendly (Mink Records, 1999)

1 Untitled 58:36

Album number 132 (or something close to that) from Japanese noise musician / sound artist Juntaro Yamanouchi. Gerogerigegege (loosely translated as simultaneous vomit-diarhhea, then the supposed sound of such a catastrophic gastrointestinal event) has gone through all sorts of sonic incarnations, noisy splatter punk, bombastic japanoise, experimental musique concrete, with some of those incarnations featuring the added bonus of mic-ed masturbating, courtesy of a geriatric 'public' masturbator befriended by Juntaro. On 'None Friendly' (actually recorded in 1987), he tackles THE DRONE and it's quite a listen. Deep and sonorous, lush and mesmerising. I was convinced it was a synthesizer until I noticed on the sleeve, that it specifically points out that there was 'No synthesizer used.' So what the sound source actually is remains a mystery although a source close to the man thinks it just may be a guitar tuner (?). But maybe it -is- processed masturbating. I mean, I hope it is. But either way, this is a fantastic record. One extended buzzing and humming, slowly developing hypnotic drone. Really great.
Aquarius Records

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Re-up

Annelies Monseré - Somewhere Someone (Morc Records, 2008): here
Hrsta - L'Eclat du Ciel Etait Insoutenable (Fancy, 2006): here
Jessica Bailiff & Annelies Monseré - Untitled (Morc Records, 2008): here
Marsen Jules - Les Fleurs (City Centre Offices, 2006): here

Ellende - Heroin (Afe Records, 2004)

1 Heroin 20:26

During the recent years Ellende has fastly got a very strong reputation in the Dark Ambient / Experimental scene thanks to a bunch of CD-R and MP3 limited edition releases on many labels all over the world such as Tosom, Fukk God Lets Create, Zeromoon, Taâlem, Mystery Sea, Stridulum Recordings, Somnambulant Corpse and more.

Afe is proud to add another small piece to what seems to be an endless black'n'white jigsaw with "Heroin", a twenty minutes long MiniCD-R 3" released in our extremely limited LTD 50 serie.

"Heroin" starts as a sparse and pleasantly vibrating drone-based piece and slowly get crowded with pulsating and swirling elements.

As the swirlings continue and percussive sounds are introduced, the music evolves into some kind of hazy and hypnotic dream populated by creatures speaking with backward/high-pitched voices.

Approaching the end of the track, all these elements slowly fade away leaving room for otherworldly noises/effects and a sort of vocoderized voice.
Afe Records

A nice addition to this mysterious Dutch/Japanese project's extended discography, "Heroin" is a 20-minute piece as grim as the title and the graphics suggest - the concept obviously being taking one's life via drug overdose.
Ghost voices crawl in and out of the sullen drones, and Ellende surely know(s) how to mix all the different sounds in a cohesive composition.
Even the final litany, apparently filtered through a vocoder, sounds credible and effective. Limited to a mere 50 copies, so hurry while you can, as it's very good.
Eugenio Maggi in Chain D.L.K.

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