comet 2xcd
[2006, troniks/cipher productions]

japan's aube, akifumi nakajima, is one of the better known experimental sound artists. his following can be credited to his impressive output just as well to his talent and artistic vision. to provide a little insight, i have sixty-two of his releases on my hard drive right now, and that's not even scratching the surface. he's put out albums on betley welcomes careful drivers, pure, alchemy, elsie & jack, drone, alien8, praxis dr. bearmann, manifold editions, and old europa cafe, to name a few. while at its core, akifumi's music is definitely more experimental-based (i think that all of his recordings are founded from using a single source material; glass, water, metal, whatever, that sound is then processed to hell), but he has worked with several harsher artists: k2, the haters, grunt, cock esp...and he himself has some harsher releases, purification to numbness and autodecision come to mind. additionally, his cassette label g.r.o.s.s. is of significant interest also, as he does a great job putting out both top-notch harsh noise acts as well as more experimentally-inclined noise projects like kapotte muziek, telepherique, daniel menche and small cruel party. g.r.o.s.s. tapes are also worth tracking down because of the quality behind their packaging. aube prides himself on both the aural and the visual aspects of his work and finds ways to integrate something from the source material he uses into the packaging of the release. i.e. a tape that used glass source material, packaged in glass. hard on the hands, hard on the ears, easy on the eyes.

comet is a double-disc album dealing with the themes of ice and space (two elements needed to make comets, makes sense). well, not just dealing with, but actually using ice and space. perhaps you ask, how does one use space exactly? through vinyl, tape and compact disc documentaries of space. as far as using ice goes, i'd imagine with a contact mic and whatever else pops up.

cleavage opens up the first disc and does an excellent job establishing the icy feel that akifumi intended. over an ambient soundscape we're treated to various repetitious synth noisies (providing a spacey feeling without being kitschy) and the track's main sound, the ice. here, it kind of sounds like a bunch of crushed ice being stirred around in a cup or a bowl, but, you know, processed, giving the track a crackly ambient feel.

the near thirteen minute long third track, mass, is one of my favorites on here. it starts out minimal and desolate, with an electronic sound that comes in slow waves. after a few minutes the track becomes a bit more layered, providing a backing foundation for the waves. as it progresses, this foundation becomes more of the feature as a sense of rhythm rises up from the depths. later, i can again hear the ice, this time being used as a percussive instrument. when mass is winding down the sound gets a bit more ominous, but brings everything to a very fulfilling end.

following the more minimal sounding enchased tube is the twenty-two minute disc closing behemoth tremor. this is the piece that really seals the deal on this album. after a very slow start akifumi, throws in some random musical sounds, only a second or so in length, spaced apart at first, then one right after the next, using both the stereo channels for different sounds. after about a minute, the beat comes in. it's a very simple one, but effective. then those seemingly random sounds come together giving the album it's rhythmic centerpiece. during the rest of tremor's playing time, colder sounds are layered over the rhythmic ones, giving it an interesting quality, without taking too much away from said rhythm. once tremor's over, it marks an unexpected, but excellent, conclusion to the first disc, which overall, combined more minimal works with ones that were a bit catchier and far from minimal.

disc two has aube using space to create his sounds, and as you might be able to imagine, it's a lot more subdued. there's far less of the previously heard rhythmic elements to give these tracks a more instant appeal. instead, this disc is more laborious, less immediately grafitying. seemingly, the second cd requires just as much patience on the part of the listener as akifumi himself must've used to put these tracks together. don't misunderstand me though, the space disc is quite enjoyable, it's just a lot slower paced. if you've immersed yourself in aube's back catalog, you'd be familiar with the feel here, it's certainly not out of character. the twenty-two monster track of this disc, exudation, breaks free from the minimalism and provides one of better highlights. repetitious and building, it's the catchiest piece of music on this second offering. all of the longer songs seem to be the strongest on comet as aube has sufficient time to build, layer, strip and deconstruct, whereas the shorter tracks adhere more to a singular theme. both work well in their individual ways, and the pairing of both is certainly welcomed.

aube originally completed these recordings back in 1997-1998, but for some reason or another, they never saw the light of day until a few months ago. why that is, i have no idea, maybe they were lost. kudos to troniks and cipher productions for having the wherewithal to release this album after eight years. for being that old, comet has aged gracefully as it's just as relevant today as it would've been in the late 90s. this is a nice addition to aube's oeuvre, as well as to any serious fan of experimental music's cd collection.

Enchased Tube (from disc one)
Oncoming (from disc two)

hell is empty c30
[2006, trash ritual]

lasse marhaug: yours, mine and everyone else's favorite baldheaded scandinavian experimental artist. he's been releasing music since the early 90s, under one name or another, all while nearly single-handledly representing the experimental/noise scene in norway, or, at the very least bringing a bit more awareness to it. dating back to '96, he's put out a plethora of releases and worked with several well respected artists, including: grunt, k2, msbr, john hegre, fe-mail, facialmess, anla courtis, carlos giffoni, kevin drumm and government alpha. additionally, much like campbell kneale's collaborating with neil campbell, in an 'of course they would have to collaborate' situation, lasse worked with fellow norweigian alexander rishaug for the rishaug marhaug feel free at home disc, put out in 2004 on alejandra and aeron's lucky kitchen. lasse's also a member of these projects; jazzkammer (aka jazkamer), nash kontroll (with mats gustafsson and dror feiler), nordic miracle (with tore honoré bøe), origami replika (who put out quite a few releases using a variation on that name, but those names always begin with origami), the sleazy listeners (with zev asher), territory band (a ken vandermark eight-piece improv collective which also includes paal nilssen-love, fred lonberg-holm and axel dörner), testicle hazard, DEL (not to be confused with the hip-hopper), two limited and zen nuns (with asthray navigations' phil todd). he also ran the jazzassin label (from 1996 to 2002) which is no longer active, but you can still pick up some of its releases.

for anyone who hasn't heard marhaug's music, he likes to keep things varied, and it's not that simple to pin him down to one distinct sound. i'd say that most of what i've heard from him tends to be more in the experimental electronic spectrum (i can't remember silence), but he can definitely get noisier (the shape of rock to come and the lesbian brunch 3" cd-r with carlos giffoni). he'll also incorporate some instrumentation such as guitars and drums from time to time (bring me the head of lasse marhaug). this cassette shows a more in your face noise approach from him.

side a, hell is empty, begins with some repetitous blown out tones, which are quickly joined by another repetitious noise, next some harsh grinding sound, all while the tape rolls along continuing with it's blown-out sound. soon, that grinding noise takes things over, choking any semblance of rhythm that the track had going for it. the tape plays out with this theme, adding other noise into the fray and throwing in some variation, but not to the point where it breaks up any gained momentum. this is a fairly harsh offering and i like it a lot.

not filled nor occupied sets things off with a more electronic feel with it's looped synthy sounds over prickly static background noise. again, lasse's showing a knack for the rhythm, and again, that rhythm is soon overpowered. at about two and a half minutes in, the track starts to change slightly until the inoffensive synth sounds and noise mesh into one. four minutes in now and there's all sorts of noise and sounds coming from every angle, it's definitely noisy, but it's less harsh than what was heard on side a. okay, eight minutes in and it's getting harsher as lasse kicks up the rumbling static noise, and it stays like that (harsh) for the remaining next six minutes.

this is a very nice tape from lasse. while fans expecting his more minimal lap-top sound should proceed with caution, those who don't mind a bit of noise will be satiated by this thirty minute release. hell is empty/not filled nor occupied is as harsh as anything i've heard from lasse solo, certainly on par with the shape of rock to come, in that department atleast. while overall it's not as harsh as someone like killer bug, it's still nice and noisy as hell, with enough other elements in there to keep it free of monotony. my suggestion, listen to it through headphones, there's a lot more that i picked up on when i did.

Not Filled Nor Occupied Excerpt (from 2:56 to 6:01)

s/t
[200?, private press]

that's quite some shroud of mystery you got going there, fellas. not only do i not know who amour en stereophonie are, how many of them there are, where they come from, how you physically get a hold of this record, or when it came out, to top it off i have no idea where i heard about it myself. google turns up next to nothing, save for a one-off fling they had with members of my cat is an alien. so they're italians then?

first track in and the mciaa connection doesn't seem too weak a basis to start whipping up some snap judgements. rougher textures than what i recall of the italian duo (the sum total of said recollections being featureless, sweet side-long nothings), but no great shakes. give them a chance to do their thing though and the face of it changes; guitars become less oblique, flows shift and break up, vocals appear in the mix. one minute they're seemingly earnest in their creeping dread, the next they've fawned all over ramshackle pop covers.

american accents surface amidst it all, belting out a fairly aenemic rendition of would i lie to you, baby (someone out there must know something about these guys). shocking thing is the ironic pop cover is actually one of the best parts of the record. there's even a shade of un's great siltbreeze lp in its brokedown backporch anti-majesty. they reprise a couple of times further down the track but it's all a bit lost amongst some otherwise fairly unremarkable droning sound work. shame really, since they could've cut the length by half an hour or so... shit, that sounds kinda bad. bear in mind it clocks in at 72 minutes; crammed.

fact is, there's a chunk of this record which resists the invisible jukebox. you could slap any one of a couple of dozen names onto some passages and no-one'd be the wiser. there's potential though; you could even ditch the most part of the record and come out the other end with a good twelve inch. i'd probably not recommend forking out hard-earned cash for it, but i imagine it's damn near unobtainable by now, regardless. the curious can download for themselves and prune the bloat to their heart's content.

track four

hope & despair
[1998, extreme]

nagoya, japan's kato hideki is a composer, bassist and artist. formerly, in the 90s, he was making harsh noise albums under the alias crack fierce. overall, his output is pretty impressive, but mostly, as of late, he's been collaborating with other artists. according to his website he's got plans to release a slew of records either in 2006 or 2007. among those include collaborations with otomo yoshihide and uemura masahiro (as green zone), marco cappelli, briggan krauss and dougie bowne (as tremolo of joy), nakamura toshimaru and akiyama tetsuii (as omni or omni trio), james fei (as electro-acoustic duo with james fei), eyvind kang and calvin weston (as dying ground), jim pugliese, christine bard, marco cappelli, michael attias and marc ribot (as phase iii), nuno rebelo and marco franco (as rebelo/franco/kato), and lastly with jenni muldaur, jay dee daugherty, jim mckay, john pisani and gary pouslon (as toy). holy hell. look to seeing more kato hideki releases than you'll know what to do with, just hope that they're not all released as japanese imports. honestly though, kato's whole planned workload seems a tad bit ambitious, so we'll see how that goes. outside of those works in progress, he might be better known for his work with fred frith and ikue mori as death ambient, who've put out releases on john zorn's well-known tzadik label.

this album is released under kato hideki's name, but he's collaborating wtih a whole bunch of folks: john zorn (piano), zeena parkins (harp), dougie bowne (drums), michiaki tanaka (percussion), gen ogimi (percussion) and kono masahiko (trombone). thankfully, we're spared of a major jam session, and instead the album features only a few people on each track, giving the album a varied, and fresh, feel to it.

the title track sets things off and begins ominously slow, then some old musical samples are thrown in as the music itself continues to creep along. another half minute later and the track picks up with kato hideki's upright bass and some percussion working in glorious harmony. i can swear that i hear the violin, too, as part of the background music, but i don't see any listing for the instrument...go figure. hope & despair is a perfect way to open up this album.

your angry face is next, and again features some memorable bass playing by kato hideki.

the parkins and zorn-led tolerance provides a good change of pace. starting off with a nice harp piece by zeena, john zorn's piano carries the the track the rest of the way. it would've been nice if this was a bit longer (it's less than two and a half minutes long) and if zeena would've played a bit longer. it's still a nice piece though.

after two tracks that clocked in under three minutes long, the six minute double dream comes lumbering in. there's definitely less emphasis on rhythm than there was in the previous tracks (atleast for parts of those tracks). following a few minutes of sparse stringed-instrumentation, zorn takes things over with some slow, pretty, playing which contrasts the more stern sound heard from him on tolerance.

the five minute song for a scavenger is the first to feature masahiko's trombone, and it's one of the album's better moments. while his trombone playing feels open and unrestrained, there's repetitious music just underneath it providing a nice rhythmic counterpart to kono's free feel.

watching the sleeping lover, predominately played by zeena parkins (pictured right), is definitely another album highlight. it comes across as two separate pieces combined into one, starting off slow and beautifully, it eventually adds some non-traditional sounding percussion after a few minutes. then, a little less than three minutes in, zeena switches gears, speeds up her playing and it sounds as angelic as you'd imagine expert harp playing to be.

the fittingly-titled savage raises the cacophony level a bit. another nice effort from zeena parkins. here, she's employing what sounds like one of those jobs where you just strum every chord with one movement of your hand, in short intervals in combination with the trombone playing. after zeena's through, kato takes over on acoustic guitar and bass, this time around though his role is more of a layer than a feature. the main focus to me seemed to be on the percussion in the background.

hope & despair ends with against the sky, bringing bass, trombone and drums together (and again, what sounds like violin playing! gah.) for a very nice conclusion to an excellent album. first part of the track features hideki's bass playing (another memorable effort), then kono takes the reigns as kato is relegated to laying down the foundation, but again, even in this role he makes his presence known.

this was a really nice job by everyone involved here. while kato and zeena's efforts were definitely my favorites, everyone else meshed together nicely. the percussion provided was also a key aspect of the album's sound and deserves plenty of credit as well. hope & despair could've easily been a bit more jazzy (it's hard for the upright bass not to sound jazzy), but everyone avoids doing so. i like jazz and everything, but this album worked fine as is. not quite avant-garde, not quite jazz. somewhere in between. interpret that as you may. all i know is that i wish i knew absolutely that that really was a violin and not something else that sounded like a violin and was just there to screw with my mind.

Your Angry Face