wind wyrm c30
[2006, excitebike tapes]

the mossy throats is detroit's daniel dlugosielski. he might be better known for his work as half of the experimental noise duo haunted castle, and he's also the proprietor of the fine excitebike tapes label.

my experiences with both of daniel's projects have been pretty minimal. for haunted castle its been a couple of splits (with exhale the dream smoke and robedoor) and a compilation appearance (not not fun's tapeworms eat bookworms). considering such a relatively small output, the music that they've made so far has been surprisingly varied. they can do noisier, they can do spooky atmospheric, they can do a combination of organic instrumentation and electronic noise. to wit, wind wyrm is the only thing put out under the mossy throats moniker, so the sound is obviously easier to pin down.

this tape manages to show off a facet of daniel dlugosielski's (i'm glad that i only have to write his last name instead of having to ever pronounce it) music that i hadn't heard up to this point. while this is firmly rooted in the noise family, the focus is more on tape manipulations as well as vocal ones, sometimes buried, that are paired with fuzzy static distortion to glorious effect. the a side doesn't change up the sound too much (side a is comprised of eight shorter length tracks), but side b is a bit more, um, screamy. the vocals are still manipulated to some degree, but there's more aggression to them. this is especially the case on the eleven minute third and final track .

wind wyrm was put out in a ridiculously small edition of 14 (that's noise for you), so while you may not ever get your hands on this (good luck), hopefully it'll encourage you to check out other releases by daniel and his label.

Wind Wyrm A3

spring, river, flower, moon, night
[1997, asphodel]

min xiao-fen is a chinese born pipa virtuoso. for those who have no idea what a pipa is (i sure didn't) it is "a four stringed lute with a pear-shaped body. its short, bent neck has 30 frets which extend onto the soundboard, offering a wide range (3.5 octavos)." in 1992 min relocated to nyc where she began to garner more acclaim, john zorn and derek bailey being among her admirers. in fact, if it weren't for 1998's collaboration with derek bailey, viper, i most likely wouldn't have known about her. in addition to min xiao-fen's solo vocal and pipa work and various improv performances, she collaborates with celloist okkyung lee and percussionist susie ibarra in the from east to west ensemble.

while i'm definitely enjoying the burgeoning experimental and noise scenes coming from china as of late, i've always enjoyed classical chinese music. i wouldn't consider spring, river, flower, moon, night to be experimental at all, min is a traditional pipa player who had to ease herself into the improvisational scene, but it is a phenomenal album. there's a very soothing and delicate grace that she plays with that just puts me at complete ease. the title given to this album is extremely appropriate because of the beautiful imagery that it evokes (there is something very earthy and serene to this music).

spring, river, flower, moon, night is markedly different from her work on viper, which is excellent in its own right and would have more appeal to avant-garde fans, but is a stunning album that shouldn't be overlooked.

Zhao Jun Crosses The Frontier Pass

rementact
[1989, rangehen]

french sound/performance artist, tape manipulator and composer manon anne gillis' (or sometimes simply anne gillis) heyday might've been the mid to late '80s, but her recordings stand as important contributions to experimental and noise music. anne's recording output has dwindled over the years (2005's contribution to the blank field compilation, on alien8 recordings, was her most recent), but she has indeed been active from 1989 up until 2005, mostly either collaborative or compilation appearances. her older releases were mainly put out on french labels, including the one she put this cd out on, her imprint, rangehen. that label was only used to release three of anne's own albums, rementact, bishérigori and monetachek. this one is the most recent of the trio.

rementact manages to capture quite a few sides of manon anne gillis. seemingly segmented into quarters by four distinct musical themes (atleast that's how the album revealed itself to me). the first part incorporates water-based sounds, next are vocal-based, followed by chimes and almost music-boxesque sounds, lastly there's more of an emphasis on percussion, namely metal on metal sounds.

holomonde starts things off with some minimal electronic noises together with, what i can best describe as, the sound of digitized running water. process that one for a minute. the second track, clinethosentatoire, is really the only one to utilize most of these afforementioned (and presumed) themes. there's loud percussive hits emanating from who knows what, there's also creaking noises as well as anne's creaking vocals and lastly some water sounds. the creakiness supplied gives this track a very old ship at sea quality.

mediede, the disc's seventh track, might be the most disturbing one on here. it combines slow music, like that of a music box, with some gurgling vocal noise and water. it's almost as disturbing, maybe just as much, as panicsville's feculent mouthpieces ii from the security of ignorance lp, which showcases andy ortmann throwing up (or doing a very convincing job of faking it) for around three minutes. i still can't listen to that in its entirety. two tracks later and this theme is revisited in the form of rymborous, this time though, it's more bearable. over what sounds like someone breathing in and out on a respirator, in addition to the music-box sounds, there's more vocal noise, this time used in more of an infantile fashion with anne sounding like a restless baby (though not nearly as annoying as the real thing, thankfully) attempting to be soothed by a musical mobile. it's almost nice.

phretaphrimi takes the chiming sounds that were heard on the previous track, lolimore, but where lolimore's were used in more of a playful setting, this track is a bit darker and more severe in tone. anne does away with the ambientish background music and opts strictly for the metal on metal sounds, sounding like she's taking a metal baton and banging the hell out of the inside of a grandfather clock.

the last few tracks on the disc show off a sense of rhythm that was previously absent. imasyo, while close in theme to phretaphrimi, is way catchier. there's definitely a precise beat that anne gillis is banging out, making this track a pleasant surprise. rementact's closer, myrmiedra is the only other catchy song, and really the only track i feel comfortable with even calling a song. here, there's some string sounds thrown in with the percussion, which is actually not metal on metal this time. myrmiedra might come across as being the oddity of the cd, but it's a great track and a great way to end things. i can't complain about that.

seventeen years old and rementact sounds like it could've came out yesterday on crippled intellect. that's not a knock on cip, but more a testament to how advanced anne gillis' music was. whenever you have an album from a different musical era (hi, the 80s, yuck) that could ease right in alongside current releases, it makes you wonder if modern music has hit a ceiling of sorts. there's only so much you can do, even experimentally, and still have it be considered listenable, unless listenability is the least of your concerns (and this applies to plenty of people). honestly, i'm not too worried about originality. a whole lot of experimental music sounds the same to me, and that's just fine as long as the releases continue to be interesting and worth my while. i'm sure we'll get bored after awhile, but for right now, let's just enjoy the music.

Kalipragomie