Reviews: experimental

(experimental / avantgarde / electro-acoustic)

Gilles Gobeil / Rene Lussier – Le contrat

[this review also deals with Stephane Roy – Migrations] Empreintes Digitales simply keeps bombarding the world with their high-quality releases of old and new electro-acoustic composers…

V/A – Full/Void

The Antifrost label from Greece seems to be one of the most active upcoming labels in the field of ambient/concrete/noise music. Their releases include known and unknown artists from the field of experimental sound recording and composition. This double CD compilation presents a lot of known and unknown artists who work in the same field (although their methods vary immensely)…

Stephane Roy – Migrations

[this review also deals with Gilles Gobeil / Rene Lussier – Le contrat] Empreintes Digitales simply keeps bombarding the world with their high-quality releases of old and new electro-acoustic composers…

Faust vs Dalek – Derbe respect, Alder

On this CD two unlikely collaborators collaborate. Faust is a well known experimental rock-band from Germany, that operates somewhere in the Krautrock areas, while Dalek is an American Hip-Hop artist. The combination actually seems to work quite well. Droning guitars and (post)rock-structures are accompanied by hip-hop beats and raw vocals…

Nexus Sun – s/t

Nexus Sun is a new guitar drone project from France that uses loops to create a wall of drones. The sounds used for the loops are from various sources (bass and computer generated sounds), and have been heavily manipulated…

Etschaberry – Annuit Coeptis

Ex Nihilo is a new Belgium label for the more difficult forms of electronic music. The label is somewhat comparable with PuZZling records, also a young Belgium label. This first lp is by Etschaberry and is a chaotic broken beats record. After the noisy intro the almost ten minute long ‘Us vs. Us’ is quite a nice surprise…

Kris Tall / Beefcake – Cellular Electrique / The Mosaic

This is a split lp by two very different acts but who have more in common than you might think in first instance. Kris Tall plays jazzy guitar ambient / post-rock. Beefcake makes experimental electronic music (with the addition of traditional instruments). The sound of the two groups is different, but their ideas about making music are the same, as they both go for the experiment…

Lopez, Francisco – Untitled#150

I have been following the works of Lopez since his ?Azoic Zone? was released in 1993. Since that time Lopez has gained a considerable reputation for his recordings and his excellent live ?experiences? (if you have a chance to ?experience? one of his concerts, please go)…

Terroritmo – AºF

When a band has a name like Terroritmo you might expect heavy industrial / rhythmic noise. This is not the case. Terrortimo is an industrial project but one that focuses on the more subtle and experimental side of the genre. There are a few harsh eruptions on the record but overall this album is more a sound collage with quite, at times shamanistic, ambient sounds…

Evol – Punani shell

You prefer your music as extreme as possible? Totally fucked-up, loud, dense and seemingly random sounds? Then Evol is the thing for you. This act had a release on Mego already a few years ago. This new release contains one long track, ‘Punani Shell’. In the infosheet I received from the label the music is described as ‘hard-edge chinchilla, both beautiful and brutal’…

A.L.F. & Bad feng shui – Killing Breaks

After the release of an album by break-core project Kirdec the new Belgium label PuZZLing Records has released this split lp. Like the first record this one is again filled with hectic beats, breaks and noises with often a dark atmosphere. A.L.F. produces a mix of break-core, hip-hop and lots of samples. Due to the used cut-ups his music gets a sort of modern free-jazz feeling…

202 Project – Urban Shaman

The French label Toolbox Records has made a good start with the release of the Forgotten Fish Memory Orchestra lp Our Tin Tribe and this record by the 202 Project. Just like Forgotten Fish Memory Orchestra, 202 Project makes use of ‘world music’ elements. This record opens with samples of shaman singing on top of which an electronic drone is placed…

Sumugan Sivanesan & Dur?n V?zquez – Product

Product is a split CD, in the good old ?vinyl? tradition, between Sumugan Sivanesan (from Australia) and Dur?n V?zquez (from Portugal). The first 8 tracks are by Sivanesan, and the other 7 by Vazquez. There are also two data tracks and an empty track to separate the two artists…

Korber – M?ller – Steinbr?chel – Momentan def.

This collaboration between Tomas Korber, Gunter Muller and Steinbruchel is the result of a live recording session, which is presented here as the first track. Each artist then reworked this live material on the following three tracks. The music presented is perhaps best classifiable as ?microscopic?…

Kat Kosm – Knightboat

Folktronic is what this album by Kat Kosm is about. Kat Kosm are Jana Plewa and Sebastian Skalei, two Berlin based sing a song writers. The album consists of three new tracks, one demo, and three remixes of the first track. So there is not that much new material on this disc. Knightboat starts out with one of the most horrible guitars I have hard in quite a while…

BMB con. – #10 CD

BMB con is a project from the Netherlands by Justin Bennett (look for a forthcoming review of his solo work on this website), Willem ?t Hooft and Roelf Toxopeus. BMB con makes subtle noise-scapes with microphones and any sort of found object that they can get their hands on. On this CD, which is BMB con?s first studio album, are 8 tracks of subtle distorted sounds with various characters…

Autodigest – A compressed history of everything ever recorded vol.1

It is not clear to me who or what this project called ?Autodigest? is exactly, but from the moment I pressed the play button of my CD player I was totally awed by this CD. Apparently this project comes from the Portugese electronic arts and experimental music scene, and somehow compressed all their works on this CD (or is it really a history of EVERYTHING ever recorded? It makes you wonder?)…

Forgotten Fish Memory Orchestra – Our Tin Tribe

From time to time you come across a band that has been around for awhile, is even from your home country, and you have never even heard of before. Forgotten Fish Memory Orchestra is such a band for me. To describe their music as world music would be too easy…

Daniel Menche/Kiyoshi Mizutani – Garden

For this collaboration CD called ?garden? Daniel Menche and Kiyoshi Mizutani used an interesting concept. Menche took care of the low end of the frequencies, while Mizutani did the high end of the frequencies. Daniel Menche is well known for his low rumbling soundscapes, while Kiyoshi Mizutani usually operates in the mid-range of our hearing…

Giscard le Survivant – Operation Pan Barre

The French DIY-industrial project Giscard le Survivant keeps on producing cdr’s. Again he has created an hour full of weird electronic sounds and varied (French political) themes. The songs have titles like ‘Attaqu?e par un torosaure en revenant de la boulangerie’ or ‘La folie de grimper sur des machines de mine a benzol’. In total this cdr has 15 tracks…