I wish to thank my friend Peter Delchev for introducing me to a brilliant math-rock band out of Bulgaria called Mental Architects. I had no idea these guys were pretty much in front of my face during my recent Balkan visit. I’m definitely looking forward to hearing more, and for those who book festivals, I’d recommend these guys for any slot available.
Improvisational
[Music] Holger Czukay – Blessed Easter
Legendary Can bassist and recording engineer Holger Czukay passed away today. He was 79 years old.
Pitchfork Magazine reports about his passing here.
Many thanks to my friend, Michael Schneider, for posting this video, which we share in Holger’s honor.
Rest in peace.
[Music] Oriol Roca Trio – Mar
Oriol Roca is a percussionist based out of Barcelona, Spain who has collaborated with improvisers like Jan Bang and Paolo Angeli. It seems the local Barcelona jazz and improv scene is becoming one of the best in the world.
[Music] Frail Digit Lamb’s Tongue – Just Rulings in the Court of Astaroth?
I normally don’t cover much noise because the scene is filled with garbage. Most of it consists of nihilists more interested in shocking their readers with crap record covers than constructing sonic art. Most sound like a teenage kid flipping on the switch to their mother’s vacuum, recording it, and tacking on a diatribe and an asking price for $5. Pass.
This album was a pleasant exception. We have 67 tracks of short, sharp, no-nonsense noise, courtesy of Geronimo Arafat’s noise project, Frail Digit Lamb’s Tongue.
[Music] George Hadow / Dirk Serries – Outermission
George Hadow in an English percussionist currently residing in Amsterdam. It was a bit of a shock to see that he would be pairing with Dirk Serries, who won his fame as Vidna Obmana, his dark ambient project out of Belgium, but they blend together rather nicely.
[Music] Simon James – Akiha Den Den
I think this is a case where the description of Simon James’ latest release speaks for itself:
This vinyl and CD package collects electronic music created for an abandoned space: Akiha Den Den, the crumbling amusement park at the centre of a surreal radio drama, and the setting for a story woven from the very fabric of radio.
Radiophonic and other dimensional library inspired cues soundtrack dilapidated ghost train rides, rusty dodgems and the domed Panatrope. The dark musings inside the mind of a talking thought-mining cockroach, a mysterious character known only as Monday Man and the main protagonist, M.R Cuttings (played by Star Wars’ Ian McDiarmid), a radio ham picking up the desperate transmissions from this strange ethereal place they call Akiha Den Den.
Simon James has conjured up an eerie world of pure escapist sound for this fever dream of radio waves and half heard transmissions. The full radio drama can be heard at http://www.akihadenden.com
Radio interference, snatches of intercepted broadcasts, codes, tones, signals and other haunting sounds from the wireless feature heavily alongside the soundtrack conjured up on an array of vintage, unfathomable synthesisers including the Buchla 200e Electric Music Box and the EMS VCS3. Occasionally the voices of Akiha Den Den’s inhabitants and M.R Cuttings burn through the white noise offering a glimpse of their tangled patchbay story.
Released on a specially requested opaque clear vinyl LP, the physical package also includes a redacted Akiha Den Den booklet (all artwork designed by Nick Taylor) and a beautiful bonus CD filled with over 70 minutes of Buchla Modular, EMS, drones, dramatics, cassette 4 track abuse and noise from the Akiha Den Den radio series.
The 70 minute CD “The Panatrope” is NOT available for download and is only available as part of the vinyl LP package.
Simon James has previously released space age synthesiser records as The Simonsound (with Matt Ford) and as celebrated night time doom project Black Channels (with Becky Randall) on Death Waltz Originals and Castles in Space.
This package is a must for fans of radio, inventive electronica, radiophonics, vintage synths and imagined worlds. It’s the future and the passed.
Legendary electronic pioneer Scanner has reviewed the radio drama:
“…. employs some truly inventive and exploratory use of sound in its structure…. frequently submerging and corroding voices beyond all recognition, as if burning the meaning of the words in a sonic inferno. “Akiha Den Den offers an immersive world for the listeners to lose themselves in a most alluring fashion. Free of the screen, let your ears roam around this imaginary world and let the sound take you into a lost world of fact and fiction, balancing on the borderlands of illusion and reality”.-Electronic Sound Magazine.
[Music] Tony Buck – Unearth
Though we’re not yet allowed to embed the release, it looks like there will be a new release coming in September by The Necks drummer Tony Buck. Our friends at Room 40 Records in Australia will be doing the honors, and you can go directly to their Bandcamp site to pre-order it.
[Music] Scanner – Nomadic Concrete
I normally find tribute albums done hours after the death of someone to be ghastly and in poor taste, but Scanner does an honorable job paying homage to Pierre Henry.
[Music] Spooky Tooth & Pierre Henry – Offering
I am well aware that some of my friends and colleagues hate this song, considering it near the bottom of Pierre Henry’s musical canon. So be it.
The reason I’m featuring this tune, however, is for two reasons. First, it was my introduction to Henry’s work. I wasn’t much of a hard-rock guy, and Spooky Tooth didn’t hold a lot of interest for me, but seeing the record cover had me wondering what sort of racket these guys were making. Second, the concept of a rock/experimental mass, based on the Apostolic Christian model, left me intrigued.
I know that Henry’s fellow composer, Pierre Schaeffer, was a devout Roman Catholic, but I read nothing of Henry’s beliefs over the years. Still, it was a nice gesture, an interesting project, and a doorway to Pierre’s far more adventurous works.
[Music] Martin Hannett’s lost Homage to Delia Derbyshire finally released on vinyl
Another debt of thanks is owed to the good Al Clark, who posted this treasure on another account. Martin Hannett is known as the producer who brought the best out of so many bands from Factory Records. He put together this paean to English musique concrete composer Delia Derbyshire, who did wonders for the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop from the 1960s to about 2000.
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 