Rale - Twelve hours of the Night [ekhein]

Rale is the moniker of William Hutson who runs Accidie Records and works largely with an analog synthesizer. His myspace bears the amusing and astute inscription “newage rhymed with sewage” in the hope of evading comparisons with New Age drone, aligning himself instead with the swathe of post-industrial noise/drone practitioners. The title of the double C20 pack makes me think of Jim O’Rourke’s Long Night which finally saw the light of day last year. Whether the tapes here were recorded over said twelve hours is unknown, but that O’Rourke disc isn’t such a bad touchstone for some of the music here either.

The first side is dominated soft tones, which if I didn’t know better I could have sworn had been sent bouncing around the walls in some enormous underground cavern as with the site specific recordings of Pauline Oliveros and Stuart Dempster, although ‘deep listening’ is probably awkwardly close to new age as a reference point for Hutson. Nevertheless, notes hang in the air, receding and returning, cohering and colliding. In the background what could be the gentle purr of an oscillating fan conflicts with this impression, conjuring images of a hot and sticky summer night, Hutson hunched over the his equipment. This gentle whir bleeds over onto the second side, but the warmth of the cavern is replaced with the cool enclosure of a large fishbowl, lending a glassine edge to the wavering tones.

The second cassette shifts the reverberation timbre once again, apparently inhabiting a long section of piping, along whose length standing waves come and go. The gentle background fan whir has morphed into a subtlely more percussive rhythmic chirrup as if the condenser mic has been replaced with a piezo. The least static of the pieces thus far, it’s tonal quality seems to vanish, snaking around a bend, and reappear without any explicit addition or subtraction of sounds throughout. Turning the tape over I have to admit I double-took, checking that I hadn’t in fact put a Scott Reber tape in instead. This side contains what seems to be a field recording of a busy restaurant as heard from the air-conditioning ducting. Air rushes past, resonating through the tubing, barely masking conversation and the momentary clatters of plates and cutlery. Perhaps after ten hours hard grind over the synth inside, Hutson decided he needed some food and shot down to the local diner for the last two hours. The microphones seems to navigate through the space as the track progresses, coming out of the ducting the low resonance dissipates replaced by overbearing echoes of crockery noise, occasional recalling a murky environmental take on Xenakis’ Bohor. As the microphone gradually circles down from the ceiling snatches of conversation drift uncomfortably close and the attacks of waiters clearing table become sharp, and here Hutson leaves us, in a crowded musicless place.

Really excellent work, I now can’t wait for the forthcoming LP on Arbor, track this one down if you can.

Emaciator - Appease [hanson]

There’s no information on the emaciated-children-adorned inlay to tell us when this was recorded but judging by the trajectory that Jon Borges’ Emaciator project has been on (as discussed in my previous Emaciator post) I would say the music on here is a fair bit older than other recent releases: this might be the harshest episode yet in my personal encounters with the project. The whole of the first side is pinned solidly to the ground with a ton of low frequency quake, seeming to set off a tumbling cascade of rubble in the right speaker, while electro-shock therapy is intermittently administered to a robot in the left channel. I’m not sure if it’s my aging dusty hifi kit making it sound like this, but with the exception of the smothering mattress of bass, there’s some pretty hard panning of the other sounds: shrieks to the left, crumblings to the right; which I’m really liking. Great to hear this excellent rough-edged side of Borges’ drone work, amid his increasingly ‘pleasant’ ouput. The other side is a considerably less engrossing mid-range grind, a continual pulsating whirl of helicopter blades chopping through sheets of sandpaper which persists in wall-like fashion throughout. Unrelentless but fairly uninteresting, which is a shame as for me it kind of lets the tape down a bit.

Available from Hanson

Bee Mask - No Mutant Enemy [pizza night]

This is the first material I’ve heard from Bee Mask, who seems to have broken out of local obscurity in recent months thanks to a fairly frantic release schedule including his vinyl debut on Weird Forest which I am yet to hear. He apparently uses homemade photosensitive circuits, controlled by moving small lights around over them. If you think that might end up sounding like a collaboration between Thomas Lehn and Marcus Schmickler then think again. There’s not a bleep in sight on this tape, instead we are treated to a single piece of spacious drift split over the two sides, conjoined by some distinctly non-electronic chime and clatter.

Side A opens out with hollow, low passed tones, contented emptiness, patient calm, waves seem to lap against rocks in the distance. This half sounds much like Brendan Walls Outposts LP, or Asher’s Distances piece for homophoni, until joined by a fragile phasing loops of bells and chimes, which blend over onto the second side. The remainder of the side rolls out in sustained tones again, slightly less passive than previously, though far from an onslaught. A really beautiful tape, thoroughly effective in spite of its apparent effortless simplicity.

Available from Bee Mask

Work/Death - From an Inescapable Circle [three songs of Lenin]

This one isn’t actually the latest offering from TSOL, but number eight. At 44 minutes in total it’s considerably longer than the other tapes on the label. It contains what Reber refers to as two harsh noise wall realisations of Alvin Lucier’s piece I am sitting in a room, plunging straight into the process several takes through. Build this together documents an electronics workshop led by Jessica Rylan and Victoria O’Hanlon in assembling their own Flower Electronics synth, while Isolated and Demoralised is simply noted as “sounds of AS220 sounding in AS220”. Assuming this to be something of an anomaly in Reber’s musical process, it’s surprising how much it bears the characteristics of his other work. On side one we hear the traits of Reber’s field recorded contributions in Ten Thousand Things. Mutters accrue echo upon echo unfurling against the walls and ceiling, pounding back into the microphone, filling it with subsonic flutter and fierce crackle. And on side two (the more successful piece in my estimation) the overloaded signal deterioration, shapeless bass pummel and resonant tonal drone which mark out his Work/Death project are all here. Here Reber even manages to eschew the noise wall sensibility, achieving compositional development by gradually filtering sound through acoustics. A very worthwhile recontextualisation of a classic process piece, yielding entirely different results and demonstrating it’s continued relevance to a new generation of noisemongers.

Work/Death - Accepting Irrepable Mechanisms [three songs of Lenin]

You’ve got to hand it Scott Reber, he does come up with some great and fitting titles. The inlay for this cassette, as with many others on TSOL, has an epitaph emblazoned on it in the stock Crass-esque stencil font reading: “Many blessings heaped upon the head of the child. Dog begets dog. Though the names are the same little else ever connects them. Garbage in. Garbage out.” There’s clearly a lot of not solely musical thought going in with his work, nice to see evidence of, but I’m not going to try to unpick it here.

One piece per side, the first, Sterling Departed begins in signature territory of tonal float buried beneath overdriven signals, clipping speakers and general audio undesirables. It’s pretty clear that this isn’t the work of a off-the-shelf distortion, there’s a rich grain of fine dust peppered with larger chunks of ballast. Side Two: All Lost Jewellery Finds Home is a highly suitable title once again for what is probably Reber’s smoothest (dare I say ‘most ambient’) side I’ve ever heard. The normal roles are reversed, the rolling chords allowed to wash into the foreground for the duration, masking subdued disruption beneath.

The curious should drop in here and pick up both this and the Ordinary Machinery tape I wrote up yesterday, together they make for an excellent introduction to this man’s work. I'm taking a day off tomorrow, the final Three Songs of Lenin post should be here by Monday evening (UK time).

Ordinary Machinery - Accumulate and Acclimatize [three songs of Lenin]

My suspicion about this being Reber’s field recording project is confirmed here, recorded one year later than Stand While Fields Pass “in and around one building… inch by inch scrutiny”. As if as proof that a lot can be accomplished in a year, this is world’s apart from the previous Ordinary Machinery offering, despite using much the same methodology. The attention to detail is magnificent, giving a sense of Reber stalking his material intently and patiently, the detail may be grit, grime, groan and hiss but it is captured lovingly. Given the nature of the sounds, one lazily imagines the source to be a factory, though with some clever microphone placement, this could all equally have been captured in and around a domestic building. The composition is a class act too: splutters and crackles amass and disperse into a drone punctuated by happenstance voices, drips and background clanking, while a child drives his remote-control car in loops on top of the whole proceedings.

The second side starts out in simple, throbbing stasis, enhanced by the gentle, swelling overtones of resonating metal and a subtle guttural rattle. Most of this material seems sourced from the same driving vibration, recorded from numerous positions: layers creep in, pace and intensity build, pitch rises. But the piece isn’t only about flow. The ebb takes up at least half the side picking up with a close-up shot of the same vent that could be heard rattling earlier, now a crazed metallic pitter-patter from which point Reber draws back: a long pull-out shot swings outwards across the local rooftops, hints of the earlier sounds echoing back into view. A beautifully constructed response to a place, whatever that place may be.

Work/Death - Excuse me but I think you dropped something [three songs of Lenin]

Listening through this, my third Work/Death tape of the last three weeks, I suddenly realised I have no idea what his ‘main instrument’ is. I guess it’s probably the inevitable synth, although I actually prefer the image of him sat behind a Bontempi Chord organ, reel to reel player and the mandatory tangle of stomp boxes. In fact, if I were to really follow my imagination then Reber would be the sort of person who trawls around the English countryside in search of empty churches on uninhabited hillsides, and when finding one would switch on the Organ, wire up several microphones in acoustically perverse positions ) in and around the building: a couple inside the bass pipes, one in the guttering outside, and one at the far wall of the church, so close that the refectling sound waves cause grinding distortion. Then wait for the wind to howl, and let blast a heavy, ecstatic dirge of taped down keys and drawbar manipulation, all the while monitoring and mixing the levels of the various microphones, and cutting and running before the Verger gets a phone call. The sound of several giant harmonicas strapped to a jet engine in flight, which gives him an idea for his next tape. But I guess he’s using a synth, eh?

Ordinary Machinery - Stand While Fields Pass [three songs of Lenin]

This one is TSOL No. Six. Judging from the project’s name and the contents of this tape, I’d hazard a guess that Ordinary Machinery is the moniker Reber uses to denote his field recording based output, though the clichés of that genre are pretty absent here, no birdsong or trickling water to be heard. The inlay states “recorded while others slept, at work, under highways, near electricity and refridgeration”. It’s a single piece spread across both sides which conveys the image of a kitchen hooked up to audio gear: microphones dangling over frying pans, pickups in the fridge, contact mics on the plumbing. It opens with a spluttering crackle (something cooking?) which sadly the murkiness of cassette fidelity fails to render in sharp focus, over which distant traffic soon rumbles. Much of the first side is then dominated by an incessantly rhythmic factory-line-machine sample, thankfully silenced beneath a loud drone of electro-magnetic interference, punctuated by the background patter of loose concrete slats echoing beneath flyovers.

The second half fares a little better, the same electrical field subsuding into non-decript rumble, and the distant chatter of a few friends gathered for drinks, filtered through some humming appliance. I’ve spent much of this week listening to Lee Patterson’s debut solo cd on Shadazz, and though Reber clearly isn’t interested in the clarity of field recorded detail that can be found in Patterson’s work, seen in that light Stand While Fields Pass comes across as little more than a collection of second rate microphone experiments.

Ten Thousand Things - Flat Bed Wreckers [three songs of lenin]

Two more sides from the duo of Scott Reber and Geoff Mullen, recorded back in 2007 on “new years eve eve day”. Day Off Clocked In is a solid block of guitar and electronics, entirely unsurprising but thoroughly satisfying nonetheless. Having spent the last couple of days with the devastatingly bleak musings on Turgid Animal, I have to admit that this side began to restore my optimism in life: it’s a rich broth of soaring, edgeless riff clouds, only just held down to the ground by the occasional clicks of flicked equipment switches. While this approach to the drone form is somewhat common these days, the track still stands out in this field, and doesn’t outstay it’s welcome.

After an initial rustle of delayed strings, side B’s guitar action is much more subdued. The focus of Sidewalk Point of View is an urban field recording, a train station submerged in reverberant electronics. The guitar (Geoff?) providing a smooth stream of background tone over which mechanical rumbles and rattles are lost in a vast acoustic space. Good stuff once again from this duo, I hope they get together a record a full-length disc at some point so more people can hear them.

Three Songs Of Lenin

The next six posts will be the promised write-ups of the six Three Songs of Lenin tapes that I have been waiting to get stuck into for about a week now. There have been ten releases on the label as yet, most coming from label owner Scott Reber, under his various guises: Work/Death, Ordinary Machinery and Ten Thousand Things (with Geoff Mullen). The artwork on these things is just phenomenal: three fold inlays with two colour screenprints, to which I will try to do scanning justice. Scott seems to be running two musical projects and a label without any internet presence and stock in just one shop, but then I live on the wrong side of the pond for this stuff, so what do I know. Here’s a taster of the artwork and a link to the label page at mimaroglu. Normal write-up service resumes tomorrow.

Fordell Research Unit / Erases - Split [turgid animal]

These Turgid Animal tapes really keep the 80s DIY aesthetic alive and well. Even the shoddyness of Hanson’s photocopied inlays is outdone here. The artwork looks like a tenth generation Xerox with the machine set to maximum contrast at each stage, and the original placed at a jaunty angle on the glass, all reproduced on super thin paper.

Fordell Research Unit are from Scotland, and that’s about all I can glean without taking my laptop down the stairs to leech the neighbours’ wireless. Their side is two minimal drones entitled The Dead Astronaut. The first part A Question of Re-Entry (isn’t there a label called that?) is a low, brooding and virtually changeless affair which bizarrely enough reminds me more of one of Toshiya Tsunoda’s field recordings than anything from the noise scene, it could quite easily be a study of the resonance of a metallic interior, activated by a stationary engine or low pitched sine wave: near static rumble. The far too brief second piece News From The Sun is suitably more glowing but has already ended, been rewound and ended again while I try to think of what to write about it.

The Erases side seems to pick up where the tape I wrote up yesterday left off, hang on I’ve just checked and the title supports this, yesterday’s side B being Haunted Waters, today’s is Haunted Swamp. The increase in thickness: from water to swamp, is palpable. A dense and relentless pulsating industrial drone - circulating like the whirling blades of a large extractor fan - underpins the first half, wavering in tone slightly. Beneath this crisp, buckled sheets of metal are strung out to rust, a team of construction workers crackling into action upon them with grinders and welders. The fan eventually recedes leaving a light high-pitched whine hanging in the air and allowing distortion laden arcs of feedback to take the foreground.

Of the three tapes I picked up from Turgid Animal, this one is definitely the pick.
Fordell Research Unit.

Erases – Brooding Organs/Haunted Waters [turgid animal]

It’s grim up North, and this tape, recorded in Leeds in 2007, does little to break the stereotype. Erases are Lee Stokoe (Culver, Skullflower), George Proctor (Mutant Ape and honcho at Turgid Animal) and Dean Glaister. Here they offer us two sides of bleak and blackened drone: as desolate as England’s coal mines, as unforgiving its moors. There is little progression or development, just dogged grind, crackles and screech all getting lost in the turbulence. The lack of clarity - all sounding like it was recorded from the other end of an empty hangar - is, I’m sure, intentional, though at times it seems to take the teeth out of their material, dampening the impact of the occasional blurts that puncture the enveloping storm clouds. Things close in a bit part-way through the second side, gritty shrieks and malfunctioning machinery lurching into the foreground dragging all manner of damage and feedback with them, and suddenly it really gels, the cosy voyeuristic distance of the first half is blown away and the ear scratching detail prevails. It’s a magnificently evocative journey through a windswept post-industrial wasteland of crumbling masonry and rusted girders, coming in close to Bob Bellerue’s Redglaer project.

Turgid Animal

Spiral Joy Band - The Dreams of David Crosby [sloow tapes]

Two room recordings of gigs at the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar in early 2007, both complete with audience mutterings and occasional clanking of furniture. Spiral Joy Band are apparently Mike Gangloff and Mickel Dimmick of Pelt fame though at times there are clearly more than four hands at work here and Amy and Nathan are also credited on the sleeve. The obvious touchstone for the side-long improvised string drone of Phantom Foundries I would be Tony Conrad, and while the playing takes a while to calm down from an agitatedly scratchy opening, it then settles down to satisfy the ears in a similar way. You can almost feel the players concentration focusing on the fluctuating harmonics; flitting about neatly between harmony and dissonance and perhaps most importantly all the intervallic possibilities between the two. Things get really gloopy as some harmonium or organ (?) tones are added, and then, all too soon the recording breaks off. The next track exhibits a more percussive approach reminiscent of Pelt’s Empty Bell Ringing in The Sky album, the organ (or whatever it is) forming the centre, while bells are scraped, clanked and dangled. The playing here is a little busy for my tastes and drifts off centre completely with a period of communal growl and howl at the end.

The second side really loses the plot as far as I’m concerned, filled with warbling whistles and annoying bongo beats, it all sounds like the thoughtless ramblings of a bunch of enthusiastic stoned audience members who have taken the stage after a Vibracathedral Orchestra gig hoping to emulate the band and free their ears. I’m sure some people will love the inept and unsubtle approach here, but as far as I’m concerned the less said about it the better. I never did like hippy drum circles.

sloow tapes

Raglani - Classically Sprained [arbor]

In spite of several recommendations from trusted opinions this is the first release by Joe Raglani that I’ve bought. Possibly it was the various mentions of voice, his singing on the releases that put me off. But one of the best things about cassette releases is you don’t need to invest in a limited edition vinyl-only release to test run an artist you’re intrigued about but not convinced by. (Have you never heard of downloads? I hear you cry).

I’m hard pushed to find illuminating comparisons for the music on this release, it is lazy, not even very fitting to compare Raglani with Emeralds but the one thing to be gained from doing this is to note that there is a density on this tape, an accretion layer upon layer of material generating as much sound as many a trio would do from a single pair of hands and without losing the cohesion. The first ten minutes of side A is pure synthesizer work-out, sounding much more like a lost early Cluster track than any contemporary players I can call to mind. Beginning with a gentle fizz, repeated fragments of melody shift in and out focus atop a tidal growl they float momentarily on the surface as the undercurrent grows, drags them under and they struggle up for air, becoming more frenetic and choppy as the side progresses, eventually washing us up on a sunny beach where an impromptu ensemble plays us out with slipping loops of melodica, sitar, bells and guitar.

Side B picks up with the same troop in more mournful mood, joined by Raglani’s echo-laden voice and catapulted synth tones descending overhead. My misgivings about his singing were misplaced. Here, forming the melodic centre of the piece for five-odd minutes it sits beautifully among the other sounds. Winding down into the most spacious part of the tape, we are left with drawn-out flickering fuzz and occasional plucked guitar all dissipating into a field recorded summer park scene of feet-crunched leaves, before quickly picking up into a maelstrom of synth gurglings and melodica. Although Joe Raglani tends to be associated with noise labels, that would seem to be less an apt description of his music that a sign that the noise clique is becoming increasingly dispersed across a much wider range of fringe music than has previously been the case, something to be applauded. I’d think.

Once again sold out at source, but available, for the time being, here or here.