Reviews: experimental

(experimental / avantgarde / electro-acoustic)

Strangulated Beatoffs – Jackin Off With Jacko

Nothing wrong with a weird slice of vinyl now and then. You can safely leave that to Apop Records, “Columbia’s importer of obscuro music, aberrant publications, tracts, self-deluded manifestos, and all else on the fringe of pop/unpop culture”…

Aalfang mit Pferdekopf – Ich habe nur noch 12 Seepferdchen in meinem Tempel

When I heard the first tones of this release and saw the track titles, I was quite sceptical: could a band/ project naming itself ‘Aalfang mit pferdekopf’ be interesting? Wasn’t this just a ‘fun-project’? (It means something as ‘fishing on eels with a horsehead.’) Listening to the first track (the titletrack) didn’t make anything better…

Islaja – Palaa Aurinkoon

Fonal Records has surprised me before with beautiful releases, both musically and when it comes to artwork and packaging. A lot of attention is payed to the cardboard cd sleeves with graphic designs that fit very well to the music. So also this cd is worth having for the nice packaging alone. But also the music is not to be missed. Islaja plays dreamy and tranquil music…

Zeljko McMullen – Disorder

‘Disorder’ is a mixture of manipulated piano, string instruments and percussion. The beauty of atmospheric soundscapes that consist of conventional instruments exclusively, is that the music sounds more natural and a little more raw than when there are synthetic soundeffects and other electronic noises involved…

Pernice, Laurent – Humus – Musiques immobiles 5-15

Mister L. Pernice has a long history as an innovative musician, according to his bio. Since the eighties he has been involved in music making from industrial rock to electronic jazz. The release we have here is a practise in ‘immobile music’. A lot of tracks on ‘Humus(…)’ consist of single-layers of rough sound-manipulations…

Punck – Nowhere campfire tapes

‘Nowhere campfire tapes’ is a title that immediately struck me with its promise of obscureness. I never heard from the project Punck before, but that might well be because this is their full- length debut. They’ve only released some cdr’s before…

Grundik + Slava – Frogs

After birds, the Russian/Israeli project Grundik + Slava now deals with frogs. Don’t have nightmares about Paul McCartney’s ‘We all stand together’ now, the watery creatures don’t play such a dominant role. With the help of renowned guest musicians Victoria Hanna, Igor Krutogolov and Vadim Gusus (Chaos as Shelter), an interesting electro-acoustic ambient creation has come to life…

Birchville Cat Motel – With Maples Ablaze

Birchville Cat Motel is a collective consisting of 27 members. The music on ‘With Maples Ablaze’ is very ambient and environmental, with all kinds of field-recordings. I must say that I’m not really into environmental ambient. Most of this ambient soundscapes are really devoid of melody, and actually even quite boring because of the repetitive, ‘empty’ sounds…

Accelera Deck – Pop polling

‘Pop polling’ is my first musical meeting with Accelera Deck, although this is already Chris Jeely’s eighth release. According to the press information, this record is different from his former releases, because on ‘pop polling’ there is more melody involved, which is probably absent in his former works…

Ulver – Blood Inside

Although not officially released so far, I stumbled upon this new album of one of my all-time favourite bands on the web. After some experimental glitchy output and two soundtracks, Ulver comes up with a very surprising album of tremendous quality. I had no idea what to expect from this album, although I did expect more of an electronic approach than it turns out to be…

LEAK – Redemption

The ‘dark-ambient’ genre anno 2005 is blooming wildly. In the past, there were just a few acts that (now labelled as cult), deliberately made ambient that was ‘dark’. Lustmord was one of them, and he held a quite unique position in the ambient landscape. Today, there are tons of labels releasing tons of projects making dark-ambient…

Agents XI – Altarima

Apparently the second part of a trilogy, htough I did not know Agents XI or their label yet. The music is an original mixture of minimal classical and ambient electronic structures, combined with rapped French vocals. “Altarima” is a variation on the Spanish village Altamira, known for its prehistoric caves…

V/A – Transient Travels

Airports and planes make me feel clasutrophobic. And I don’t have a drivers license. Therefore trains are my favourite means of transportation for longer distances, and usually I listen to music while on my way. Railroads are also featured on the cover of this album…

De Mange Machine – Conscious

A rather experimental album on Brume, making me think of classic industrial avantgarde acts like Nurse with Wound or Zoviet France. De Mange Machine, a project of Frenchman Patrice Duisit, treats the listener to estranging sound collages. The artist, who made two albums before, uses sounds coming from electronic generators, manipulated voices as well as various unrecognizable sources…

Suspicion Breeds Confidence – Schmalz

Two new tracks by Suspicion Breeds Confidence, a project by the versatile German musician Tobias Schmitt, pressed on a nice piece of vinyl. After some experimenting I found out that the single has to be played at 33 1/3 rpm. ‘Mitarbeiter der Wahrheit’ is a lovely sound collage, a nice atmospheric mixture which is abstract yet accessible…

Astral Surf Gypsies – Breath of the rat lady

Astral Surf Gypsies, with a name like that you can expect anything, except for straightforward pop music. They are a duo from Ohio, consisting of Daniel Anthony Ezekiel Niehaus and Justin Patrick Moore…

Naarmann und Neiteler – Schwester Thelesitis

Einzeleinheit is an experimental electronic project from Germany, with this album as the first release on their own label. The duo Naarmann & Neiteler certainly don’t make easy-listening tunes. The 6 tracks on this cd-r are situated somewhere between industrial noise, experimental ambient, minimal electro and electro-acoustic avantgarde…

Sprung aus den Wolken – Early Recordings

Together with bands like Die Tödliche Doris and Einstuerzende Neubauten, Sprung aus den Wolken belonged to the early industrial /avant-garde scene in Germany of the early 80’s. This scene has been very influential for European avant-garde (pop) and industrial / electronic music. As the title suggests, this is a collection of early recordings, mainly from 1981…

V/A – Sin #6

When one starts listening to this cd, the first thing one will hear is a slightly pulsating high beeping noise, soon a lower more constant tone is added.. fades away, comes back again.. Welcome to the world of Some Asian Female Body Builders. A world in wich this project from Spain tries to describe an Asian Female Body Builder (Satomi Terauchi in this case) with noise tracks…

O.U.T. – Ohne Untertitel

This single contains very early tracks from the musicians around Sprung Aus Den Wolken. All three tracks were recorded before that influential NDW/industrial/punk band was officially formed. Expect some very minimal and early experimental/industrials sounds…