Wednesday, October 25, 2006
cor fuhler and gert jan-prins
the flirts
[2001, erstwhile]
cornelius fuhler is an experimental electronic musician from amsterdam. while he primarily plays the piano (and by plays i means he uses various stimulators to manipulate its sound), he
also knows his way around turntables and linguaphones (the phonographs, not the things used to learn a new language), as well as instruments of his own creation. other projects by fuhler include otomo yoshihide's new jazz orchestra (with a slew of artists, most notably, mats gustaffson and axel dörner) as well as his own corkestra, a solo effort, and the cortet with john butcher, thomas lehn and rhodri davies.
cor's companion on this disc is the dutch avant-electronic artist gert jan-prins. from what i've read about gert's music, he uses "self-developed electronic system uses radio and transmitter technology, and creates strong noises with great physical energy". alright then. outside from releasing albums under his own name he's in the vacuum boys (with heimir björgúlfsson (stilluppsteypa) and he's a member of the outstanding experimental ensemble mimeo, with phil durrant, christian fennesz, cor fuhler, thomas lehn, kaffe matthews (the
lappetites), jérôme noetinger (quintetavant), peter rehberg (pita, rosenberg [a duo with rosy parlane]), keith rowe [amm, 4g (with oren ambarchi, fennesz, toshimaru nakamura (intonarumori orchestra)]), marcus schmickler, markus wettstein and rafael toral (no noise reduction).
firstly, the flirts is a noise album. it's certainly not your slogun variety or anything, this is more in the realm of avant-noise. there isn't any jarring feedback or loud pedal-based noise on display, instead the main feature is the interplay between cor's synth and gert's fm modulations. cor does show off some nice turntable effects on the excellent latcho freqpollen, maybe on other tracks too, but that's the only discernable time i heard them. the cd does have noisier elements all over it, but it also has an interesting quiet/noisy dynamic going on. okay, so it's not literally quiet, it's just that there are moments on the flirts when the duo exercise some restraint, u-bluebell is the only track that almost fully employs this more subdued approach. not only does u-bluebell work to insert a bit of tranquility into the album, it's also good in its musical merit. going back to what i was saying about interplay, if you stripped away gert jan-prins' handiwork from here, you'd be left with some somber ambient electronic music, which might not be half so bad, but gjp's contributions bring on a welcomed sense of tension. that tension is caused by him throwing everything at you all at once, creating a claustrophic feel. gert's fm modulations are his primary weapon of choice, and they basically sound like someone flipping through the radio stations only to find that they can't get any reception, and then realizing that the static sound they're producing is better than anything they'd find on the radio anyway.
Geranium-455
[2001, erstwhile]
cornelius fuhler is an experimental electronic musician from amsterdam. while he primarily plays the piano (and by plays i means he uses various stimulators to manipulate its sound), he
also knows his way around turntables and linguaphones (the phonographs, not the things used to learn a new language), as well as instruments of his own creation. other projects by fuhler include otomo yoshihide's new jazz orchestra (with a slew of artists, most notably, mats gustaffson and axel dörner) as well as his own corkestra, a solo effort, and the cortet with john butcher, thomas lehn and rhodri davies.cor's companion on this disc is the dutch avant-electronic artist gert jan-prins. from what i've read about gert's music, he uses "self-developed electronic system uses radio and transmitter technology, and creates strong noises with great physical energy". alright then. outside from releasing albums under his own name he's in the vacuum boys (with heimir björgúlfsson (stilluppsteypa) and he's a member of the outstanding experimental ensemble mimeo, with phil durrant, christian fennesz, cor fuhler, thomas lehn, kaffe matthews (the
lappetites), jérôme noetinger (quintetavant), peter rehberg (pita, rosenberg [a duo with rosy parlane]), keith rowe [amm, 4g (with oren ambarchi, fennesz, toshimaru nakamura (intonarumori orchestra)]), marcus schmickler, markus wettstein and rafael toral (no noise reduction).firstly, the flirts is a noise album. it's certainly not your slogun variety or anything, this is more in the realm of avant-noise. there isn't any jarring feedback or loud pedal-based noise on display, instead the main feature is the interplay between cor's synth and gert's fm modulations. cor does show off some nice turntable effects on the excellent latcho freqpollen, maybe on other tracks too, but that's the only discernable time i heard them. the cd does have noisier elements all over it, but it also has an interesting quiet/noisy dynamic going on. okay, so it's not literally quiet, it's just that there are moments on the flirts when the duo exercise some restraint, u-bluebell is the only track that almost fully employs this more subdued approach. not only does u-bluebell work to insert a bit of tranquility into the album, it's also good in its musical merit. going back to what i was saying about interplay, if you stripped away gert jan-prins' handiwork from here, you'd be left with some somber ambient electronic music, which might not be half so bad, but gjp's contributions bring on a welcomed sense of tension. that tension is caused by him throwing everything at you all at once, creating a claustrophic feel. gert's fm modulations are his primary weapon of choice, and they basically sound like someone flipping through the radio stations only to find that they can't get any reception, and then realizing that the static sound they're producing is better than anything they'd find on the radio anyway.
Geranium-455
Sunday, October 22, 2006
towering breaker & bbblood
self-titled
[2006, transdimensional sushi]
towering breaker [pictured below, left] are a noise duo consisting of ben knight and jack allett, from brighton and east sussex, uk.
bbblood [pictured right], or baron bum blood (i still can't say that without atleast cracking a smile), is the working name of london's paul watson. he's also a member of cherry tombs, along with tiger piss.
this cd release consists of one solo track by the two projects and a collaboration between them on the third, it was put out by bbblood's own transdimensional sushi label. towering breaker begins the disc with bt never counted on tb, which starts off with a sound sample taken from a british tv program. after a little bit, the sample's manipulated as it becomes background fodder for towering breaker's creeping noise. it's slow-building, echoey and has a darker feel to it. there's also some moaning singing from one of the guys, which provides another interesting layer. bbblood's nearly nine minute the misty path of needles is next, and came as a bit of a surprise, but it was a welcomed surprise. coming into this, i was expecting the familiar harshness from paul, but what he comes through with is a lot more toned down, following tb's lead in it's sound. misty path is a slower effort, like theirs, though without the gloomy feel that tb had. there's repetitious noises and some sound samples buried underneath the n
oise and static. i said it wasn't harsh, but it does indeed have it's louder moments, starting at around three minutes into it. this was a real nice effort turned in by bbblood. noisy enough, but still showing some restraint, repetitious enough to keep you interested, and it has just enough changes to it to hold your interest. the twenty-one minute long collaboration, bum breaker, is last and it comes off as a perfect pairing. again, same slowed down mood as the solo pieces (giving the disc a very nice sense of continuity that's lost on most split releases), the trademark vocals from tb, good background noise and other repeating noises and a nice use of differentiating channel noises, which are always great to hear in headphones. this split was a little haunting, a little noisy and plenty good.
Towering Breaker and BBBlood Bum Breaker Excerpt (from 6:41 to 10:14)
[2006, transdimensional sushi]
towering breaker [pictured below, left] are a noise duo consisting of ben knight and jack allett, from brighton and east sussex, uk.
bbblood [pictured right], or baron bum blood (i still can't say that without atleast cracking a smile), is the working name of london's paul watson. he's also a member of cherry tombs, along with tiger piss.
this cd release consists of one solo track by the two projects and a collaboration between them on the third, it was put out by bbblood's own transdimensional sushi label. towering breaker begins the disc with bt never counted on tb, which starts off with a sound sample taken from a british tv program. after a little bit, the sample's manipulated as it becomes background fodder for towering breaker's creeping noise. it's slow-building, echoey and has a darker feel to it. there's also some moaning singing from one of the guys, which provides another interesting layer. bbblood's nearly nine minute the misty path of needles is next, and came as a bit of a surprise, but it was a welcomed surprise. coming into this, i was expecting the familiar harshness from paul, but what he comes through with is a lot more toned down, following tb's lead in it's sound. misty path is a slower effort, like theirs, though without the gloomy feel that tb had. there's repetitious noises and some sound samples buried underneath the n
oise and static. i said it wasn't harsh, but it does indeed have it's louder moments, starting at around three minutes into it. this was a real nice effort turned in by bbblood. noisy enough, but still showing some restraint, repetitious enough to keep you interested, and it has just enough changes to it to hold your interest. the twenty-one minute long collaboration, bum breaker, is last and it comes off as a perfect pairing. again, same slowed down mood as the solo pieces (giving the disc a very nice sense of continuity that's lost on most split releases), the trademark vocals from tb, good background noise and other repeating noises and a nice use of differentiating channel noises, which are always great to hear in headphones. this split was a little haunting, a little noisy and plenty good.
Towering Breaker and BBBlood Bum Breaker Excerpt (from 6:41 to 10:14)