Pierre Mariétan – Rose des Vents, 2xLP, Mana records, London, UK, May 2017
http://manarecords.com/
https://soundcloud.com/manarec/mana1
This reissue of Pierre Mariétan’s 1987 Rose des Vents 2xLP is rather moving to me as the publisher, Andrea Zarza Canova, actually discovered the album via mp3s posted on my first blog, Continuo’s Weblog, back in 2011, and I later helped her make the connection with Mariétan in Paris, occasionally serving as an interpret. While Mariétan still disaproves of my posting his music without his consent, I think the infringement was justified by necessity, as it was with other little known artists and releases I posted.
Mana is a newly launched subsidiary label of Honest Jon’s Records, itself a subsidiary of Parlophone. Since 2002, Honest Jon’s – a partnership of the London record shop of the same name and Blur singer Damon Albarn – have released mainly world music and techno, so it’s a welcome surprise to see them venture into more experimental territories with Mana, with already plans for further radical music releases (a Benedict Drew LP is announced). I don’t know if the name of the label is inspired by the anthropology concept of supernatural powers in the Pacific area or by André Jolivet’s 1935 avantgarde piano sonata of the same name, but label managers Andrea and Matthew have certainly put their label under favorable omens with such an inaugural release.
The reissue fold-out cover is a replica of the original release in a gorgeous yellow hue, more appealing than the previously white background. It comes with a risograph-printed booklet with new bilingual introductory notes by Andrea Zarza and Pierre Mariétan, as well as archive documents of live performance announcements and radio programs. A digital remaster by the initial Rose des Vents sound engineer Gilles Laujol was used as source material, and the original radiophonic sound quality is well served by a superb, noiseless vinyl pressing. Also, the shortly due availability of lossless, untinterrupted digital files will provide the opportunity for a real, immersive listening experience for the first time, without the burden of 4 LP sides. If you need an introduction to the music, the best thing to do is to visit Mana’s Soundcloud page which features 15mns of sound excerpts and a thoroughly written, detailed press release.
Laurent Fairon Stigmergy Benefits - 19th March 2017
Laurent Fairon – Stigmergy Benefits
NTS Radio guest mix, 120mns, March 19, 2017
Track list:
Primorje – Body Text, 12″, Second Sleep (2016)
Jonathan Borofsky & Ed Tomney – Radical Songbirds of Islam, cassette, ROIR (1987) see Discogs | Borofsky.com
J.L. Maire - Ponds, from Tectorum Tapes – Vol. 2 compilation (2016)
Justin Meyers – On Performance, SoundCloud (2016)
Moody Alien – MagaM at the Bej Hamam (2014) YouTube
Stephen Gorbos – Such sphinxes as these obey no one but their master, website (2013)
Sarkis Z – De L'Enquête Sur L'Arsenal-Atelier De La Rue V., LP, Kiosque d’Orphée (1975) Discogs
Jean-Marie Grenier – Les cloches du temple d'or de Bénarès, LP, BAM (1972) Discogs
Annette le Fort – Slika od zvuka, Radio HRT, Croatia (2016)
YPY – Gazing Beat, from Zurhyrethm, 2x12'’, EM Records (2016) SoundCloud
Muriel Cooper – lecture on Art and Technology in the Information Age, cassette, Walker Art Center Auditorium (1987) W.A.C. | Monoskop
Henri Michaux – La Ralentie, 10′’ LP, BAM (1957) YouTube | poem
Marcel Dettmann & Ben Klock – Phantom Studies, from Phantom Studies LP, Ostgut Ton (2017) Bandcamp
Sophie T – On the Train, from WinterSelection2017 compilation, Railcables (2017) Bandcamp | poem
Low Jack – Q.B. Untitled I, from Garifuna Variations, LP, Long Island Electrical Systems (2014) | Discogs | Beatport
The First Baboon Civilization – Jupitergoon, from s/t cassette, Mootown Records (2016) Bandcamp
Richard Vimal – Les litanies des animaux cybernétiques, from Migrations, LP, Polydor (1978) Discogs | YouTube
Ana Berkenhoff & Michael Holland – Miss Flower, from Watch Close, CDr, Ono/JC Decaux (2015) Discogs | Bandcamp
Julien Palomo – Boubi’s Library Vol 107, internet release, Mahorka (2017) Bandcamp
Impossible Theater – Social Amnesia, 2xLP, Fountain Of Youth Records (1986) Discogs
Francesco Cavaliere – Gancio Cielo, LP, Hundebiss Records (2016) Discogs
Oded Bourla – Shalom Shalom, from Hillel And Aviva sing Songs from the Bible, 10′’, Folkways (1954) Discogs
Timeghost – Dissection Theater, from Cellular, cassette, Chondritic Sound (2014) Bandcamp
Nikolas List & Mung – #2 untitled, from Silent Series I, internet release, Attenuation Circuit (2017) Bandcamp
Tag Cloud – How to Survive, from District of Noise Vol.7 compilation, Sonic Circuits (2014) Bandcamp
COPPICE – Induction and Bifurcation, from Preamble to Newly Cemented Dedication to Freedom, mini-CDr, Aposiopèse (2017) Bandcamp
Colette Magny & André Almuro – Bura Bura, from s/t LP, Le Chant Du Monde (1967) Discogs | YouTube
Stefan Jós – An Introduction To Entomology, from Primitives, CD, flau (2015) Bandcamp
Anne Tardos – 8137A - Gatherings, cassette, New Wilderness Audiographics (1982) Bandcamp
Jörg Piringer – Ich Meines Mir Mich, hörspiel, Ö1 at ORF.at (2016) info
Tale Of Us – Lies, from Realm of Consciousness, CD, Afterlife (2016) Discogs | YouTube
Michaela Melián – Electric Ladyland, hörspiel, Bayerischer Rundfunk (2016)
Wёska Project – Paris Psychic TV (feat SKVO), from AM, internet release, HAZE Netlabel (2016) Bandcamp
The Weavers – Goodnight Irene (1957) YouTube
Emil Schult – I Am Digitized, from Test Drift, internet release (2017) Bandcamp
Frans de Waard – live Forthwith Festival, Winnipeg, Canada, February 10, 2017
Available as a free download from Korm Digital, this is a recording of Frans de Waard’s live performance during the Forthwith festival last February 10, 2017 in Winnipeg, Canada – less than a week ago. Actually comprised of a unique 34mn track, the music is build on excerpts from various de Waard projects under different aliases (QST, Modelbau and Quest), all gently seguing into one another. The whole forms a coherent continuum, a magnificient, slowly evolving odissey whose pace is strikingly noble and elevated. The musician expertly alternates between abstract sequences and catchy electronic loops, with hints of Kraftwerk, Kosmische music and a fascination for analog synthesizers. A superb performance that supports repeated listenings.
(Source: kormdigitaal.bandcamp.com)
Boubi’s Library – Vol. 107, internet release, Mahorka, January 17, 2017
In the 48mn epic “Woke Up To No Day And My Hands Were Finally Filled With Light”, French improviser, electronic music composer and Improvising Beings label boss Julien Palomo uses an array of analog synthesizers (ARP Solina String Ensemble, EMS Synthi E, microKorg & Mellotron) to build a heavily textured mass of gorgeous, silky electronic sounds, rich in harmonics and extraneous beats. During the first ½ hour, a handful of relentlessly enveloping, pulsating textures run in parallel, yet with enough variation and sudden surges to keep the listener on the edge of his seat. The pulsation is relentless, yet the keyboard playing is at times melodic, lyrical even – some synth parts actually sound like eerie human voices (the Mellotron, perhaps), others like bells (around 12:30). The pulsation stops around 34:00, and the rest of the track features solo parts from individual synthesizers, an opportunity to witness their respective textures as if under a microscope. This is Julien’s first album-length project after his Scutigere CD on Entr'acte in 2016, though Julien is in fact constantly experimenting with synths – check out the I.B. Soundcloud page: https://soundcloud.com/improvising-beings
http://mahorka.org/release/182
(Source: mahorka.bandcamp.com)
EXEDO feat. MARTAVICTOR – Totalschadens-Protokoll, internet release, Attenuation Circuit, Germany, 17 January 2017
The Totalschadens-Protokoll 20min sound work is based on a diary (July 5–19, 2016) of the demolition of a pretty, old mansion in Augsburg, located in an exquisite parc with rare trees and antique greenhouses. The text was written and is read by Augsburg resident Marta Victor aka Martina Vodermayer, who also released a video of the destruction with her own pictures of the event. Recorded live at K15 in Augsburg on 14 January 2017, the music consists of bold musique concrete sounds by Emerge, progressively getting noisier as the demolition progresses. The entire concept is interesting and moving, a great addition to the formidable Attenuation Circuit catalogue –a Pandora’s box of experimental music.
GärtnerhAUS video
https://vimeo.com/192029135
(Source: emerge.bandcamp.com)
Continuumix #25 (69′06″)
A mix by Continuo – November 2016. Stencil artwork: L.F.
Listen to previous Continuumixes at Archive.org.
/ / / T R A C K L I S T / / /
(00:00) Patrizia Oliva – Numen, life of Elitra Lipozi, cassette, Staaltape, 2016
(04:00) Patrizia Mattioli – Increase, netrelease, Electronic Girls, Italy. 2016
(08:37) Michael Garfield – IV (Your Heart Comes Back Online) [loop], from Balance, netrelease, USA, 2015
(09:19) Mario Ruffini – Musica Scolpita, CD, Stradivarius, Italy, 2010 [YouTube]
(09:38) Hannah M.G. Shapero – My name is Marietta Cashman (1969), netrelease, USA, 2009
(13:17) Michael Vetter – Overtones, 2xLP, Wergo, Germany, 1983
(13:36) Chris Brown – Iconicities, CD, USA, New World Records, 2011
(14:06) Norma Panduro (rec. by Ralph Koper) – Shushupe, CD, and/OAR, USA, 2016
(19:49) Sarah Washington & Knut Aufermann [voice of Carolina Melo] – City of Drizzle, Mobile Radio, Austria, 2012 [Soundcloud]
(28:33) Norma Panduro (rec. by Ralph Koper) – ibid.
(33:25) Paul Méfano – Gradiva [Pierre-Yves Artaud, flute], from LP, Le Chant Du Monde, France, 1981 [Discogs]
(33:45) ACRYLWAFFEN – Abraxas, CD-R, Attenuation Circuit, Germany, 2016
(34:53) Yin-Ju Chen – Extrastellar Evaluations II, multimedia installation, Taiwan, 2016 [Vimeo]
(40:22) Alain Bancquart – Amour Grand Terrible Champ Critique, CD, Tschann Libraire Musique, France, 2003 [Discogs]
(43:40) Marc Lauras – Ballade Tout au Bout du Monde, CD, GMVL, France, 1995
(45:02) Iris Garrelfs – Landscape Islands sculpture recordings, UK, 2016 [Soundcloud]
(46:13) Nadah El Shazly – Live at Room Art Space [poem by Sayed Darwish], Cairo, Egypt, 2015 [Soundcloud]
(52:25) Carl Orff & Gunild Keetman – Musica Poetica I: Tournois & Troubadours, LP, Harmonia Mundi, France, late 1970s
(53:00) Barbara T. Smith – Mass Meal (1969), from Performance Audio 1969–1988, 2xLP, Small Word, USA, 2013
(59:43) Komitas (by Sipan-Komitas choir) – Medzatzousstzé, from La Messe [or Armenian Holy Mass], LP, private release, France, 1975
(61:20) Scattered Purgatory – Ramming the town Roaming the mountain, from Lost Ethnography, cassette, Guruguru Brain, Japan, 2014
(Source: SoundCloud / continuo)
Baby Vulture – Fable (Perm Podcast 04), November 2016
Brilliant Surrealist and organic mix by Berlin-based DJ Baby Vulture aka Daniela Huerta, blending film soundtracks and dialogues, spiritual jazz, found sounds, sound effects, spoken word, etc. Focus is on acoustic sounds like melancholic piano, late night jazz trumpet or some ethnic reed instrument, in addition to the ubiquitous human voice. Some of these Surrealist, colorful juxtapositions and transitions –or lack thereof– are pretty original, I find – in a kind of Frida Kahlo way.
http://geist-agency.com/roster/Baby-Vulture
(Source: SoundCloud / perm-records)
Patrizia Oliva - Numen, life of Elitra Lipozi, C40 cassette, Staaltape, April 2016 [2nd edition, September 2016]
Originally from Lombardy, Italian composer Patrizia Oliva started releasing music in the late 1990s and has since recorded many works, either solo or with other musicians, at the border of experimental and improvised musics.
The Numen, life of Elitra Lipozi solo cassette is a very personal, even intimate, project, consisting of two 20mns tracks of an immersive, hypnagogic voyage in small scale music. Yet Numen is actually a collection of shorter, 2–3mns sequences, and rather varied at that, so the listener doesn’t feel trapped in someone else’s endless dream.
Consisting of experiments with loops, sound effects, wordless vocals, found sounds and small instruments, the music is particularly unreal and out-of-this-world. The great success of the project is that it actually sounds like a dream-in-sound, rather than the sound of a dream. On a technical side, Patrizia Oliva takes great care to make her electronics sound analog and her computer loops sound like tape loops, so that the voyage is also a voyage in time, which is part of the charm of the cassette.
https://soundcloud.com/patrizia-oliva
(Source: staaltape.bandcamp.com)
Sergei Eisenstein – The Spherical Book
Some of you may already be familiar with “books”, a technology enabling a subject to read page after page of a printed text in a practical way. But now might be the time to get acquainted with Spherical Books, where the reader proactively organizes chapters or articles in a way that makes sense to him/her, prioritizing topics and circulating inside the book according to one’s prefered path.
A prefiguration of the ebook envisionned by Soviet film director and essayist Sergei Eisenstein in 1929, the Spherical Book was devised as a way to hypothetically present a collection of his theoretical articles in a modular fashion devised by the reader, called “mutual reversibility”. This concept arose from Eisenstein’s unrealized film The Glass House (1926) about a transparent building where walls won’t block camera moves, where social hierarchies and notions of directions would be abolished.
Such a book was just published by Aalto University School of Arts Design and Architecture, in Helsinki, Finland, and is available for free from a dedicated website – from which all pictures in this post come from. The spherical book is called Culture as Organization in Early Soviet Thought: Bogdanov, Eisenstein, and the Proletkult, a collection of essays edited by Pia Tikka.
http://crucible.org.aalto.fi/spherical/
Via Monoskop:
https://monoskop.org/log/?p=17785
Quarantaine – Lichtempfindlich!, cassette, Baba Vanga, August 2016
Formed in Czechoslovakia around 1982, Quarantaine was the duo of Jaroslav Palát and Slávek Kwi, the latter still active today under the Artificial Memory Trace alias. Several of Quarantaine’s cassette releases have been digitized and published by the CS Industrial 1982-2010 label on their Bandcamp – see links below–, including the 1984 cassette Lichtempfindlich!, which is now also remastered, augmented and reissued by Baba Vanga on cassette.
Quarantaine is a rare example of Industrial Rock in Communist Czechoslovakia in the 1980s, yet I’ve heard very industrial-sounding tracks by DG307 or Micholas Chadima’s Ex Tempore Band and MCH Band, especially the 1982 Krokodlak cassette. The Lichtempfindlich! album collects monotonous, instrumental tracks based on crude rhythm box programming, primitive sound effects, and occasional, heavily distorted vocals and shouts in the background. As befits an Industrial music project, alarm sirens and falling bomb shell sounds abound and the music exudes isolation and depression. Quarantaine is an interesting addition to our knowledge of Industrial Rock as an international movement from the 1980s. Note photo cover inspired by Czech photographer Miroslav Tichý’s own blurry photographs.
https://csindustrial1982-2010.bandcamp.com/album/lichtempfindlich
https://csindustrial1982-2010.bandcamp.com/album/quarantaine
https://csindustrial1982-2010.bandcamp.com/album/the-strategy-of-the-cross-cut-up-piano-e-p
http://csindustrial19822010.blogspot.com/
(Source: babavanga.bandcamp.com)
Victor Kopytko (composer, b. 1956) – ЗАВЕТ [Testament], for 2 performers and pre-recorded tape, 2012.
Text by Venedikt Erofeev, from “Moscow - Petushki” [Moscow Stations], chapter “On the way to Moscow Kursk station”, 1969.
Mikhail Konstantinov, voice, drums
Veronica Praded, voice, drums
Live recording, Small Philharmonic Hall, Minsk, Republic of Belarus, January 2013
Sister / Body - Spells, Cassette, Baba Vanga, Prague, Czech Republic, September 2016
This is the 2nd release by Sister / Body, the Czech duo of Miss Camilla and Head in Body, or h/b, the latter a member of Prague electro-industrial duo Lightning Glove. Spells is a collection of hazy, slowed down electronic songs topped by abstract lyrics softly murmured by both members – Miss Camilla uttering nonchalantly with a sexy voice ala Debbie Jaffe, while h/b sounds like a slow mo Alan Vega filtered through Dirty Beaches’ 2013 “I Dream in Neon”. Most successful tracks here combine a dub-by bass line, minimal electronic embellishments and undertone, declamatory lyrics. Smooth sound processing throughout insures an immersive listening experience and a high replay value, despite the deppressive atmosphere of all tracks.
More info:
http://easterndaze.net/post/79970500093/sister-body-lucifer-efekt-tesla-tapes-2014
http://www.radioblackforest.com/lightning-glove-black-forest-mix-01/
https://soundcloud.com/lightning-glove
(Source: babavanga.bandcamp.com)
José Pérez de Arce – Son Ido, free internet release, Pueblo Nuevo, Chile, 2007–2016
José Pérez de Arce’s Son Ido album was originally digitally released in 2007 by Chilean experimental music netlabel Pueblo Nuevo, but was recently promoted again in view of the imminent total disparition of some inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego in Southern Chile – namely, the Yaghan and Selk'nam people – and their unique dialects, now said to be spoken by a unique individual only, respectively, if not totally extinct. The situation was already desperate when Folkways Records issued their own double LP of Selk'nam people speech and ethnic music recordings in 1972, titled Selk'nam (Ona) Chants of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. With Son Ido, ethnomusicologist Pérez de Arce (born 1950) has created a poignant and fascinating homage to these vanished people in a coherent suite for spoken word, chanting, interviews, sound collages and electronic loops, all based on traditional Chilean instruments – the trutruca (trumpet), jew’s harp, pan pipes, ocarina, drums, etc. Drawing from archive documents like interviews, traditional ceremonies and ethnic music, Pérez de Arce manages to create a colourful, life-affirming sound world which is both immersive and gripping. The most ambitious track is the 30min epic that closes the album, a vast collage of aboriginal dialects, folk music and musique concrete loops – using insects, birds, sea surf, phonemes, etc. For those who, like me, missed the original 2007 release, the audition of this untitled Track #3 is highly recommended. Far from being a melancholic elegy to some extinct people of Tierra del Fuego, Son Ido is a tour de force, musique concrete composition whose musical achievement can be heard as a paean to human resilience.
Thomas Bayrle and Bernhard Schreiner Record Launch
celebrating the release of WARP WEFT by Bayrle and Schreiner
and Some Personal Appearances by Schreiner
Featuring a performance of WARP WEFT with live drum accompaniment by Dennis Duck and Ted Byrnes
Thursday, October 20 at 7 PM
356 S. Mission Road / Ooga Booga
Excerpts from a fine article by Bence Meijer (Archaic Inventions) on the legacy of experimental music blogs ca.2006–2016, published in KNiK Magazine, Amsterdam, February 2016.
“2016 marks the tenth anniversary of music blogs on the internet. The birth of music blogs meant a redefinition of traditional music history and the uncovering of previously unknown music to a broader audience. […]
The most important and now legendary blogs of avant-garde, experimental, psychedelic, minimal synth, home-taping, weird, punk, industrial, improvisation, rock in opposition and library music (just to name a few genres) that arose about ten years ago were a.o. Mutant Sounds, No Longer Forgotten Music, Direct Waves, FM Shades, The Thing on The Doorstep and Continuo. So many obscure releases were uncovered and compressed on these blogs that people could endlessly dig into the history of strange alternative, underground and deviant music. These blogs are still recommended because they provide a great amount of information. Most importantly they told such a relevant story of music history that it altered conventional music history enormously.”
