New Home

As already noted at least a couple of times before, Adverse Effect continues via its new (and more appropriate) home at the new Fourth Dimension website. All of the previous posts, both from here and the now non-existent, FD/AE website, can be found there, as well as (so far) a couple of posts from the past month. Besides this, of course, news on Fourth Dimension's releases and a new (as yet unfinished) Shop dedicated to vinyl and CD releases from labels and artists traversing 'similar' spheres, can also be found there.

Please visit: www.fourth-dimension.net if interested.

Thanks.

Aside

As an aside to the last update, I want it to be known that this Adverse Effect blogspot will definitely cease during the next few months. Meanwhile, simply check in on its now being housed at the new Fourth Dimension Records website and, if so inclined, look out for other updates, news and pontifications on my personal blog, which you should see a link to on the page here.

Thanks,

Richo

Reviews: Number Six

As previously noted, Adverse Effect is now housed at the new Fourth Dimension Records website and, as such, the latest batch of reviews have just been posted there. In due course, and once AE has settled into its new home, I will cease its activities here.

Meantime, please visit the new site. Everything that has been posted here before is now there, and more posts will follow soon.

You can find it at: http://www.fourth-dimension.net/index.php/ae-blog

Otherwise, thank you for reading these posts and all the best for 2010.

Richo

All Quiet on the Eastern Front

Well, for a number of reasons I have not been so active here recently. The main one being that I'm finally in the throes of putting together a new Fourth Dimension website, which'll in turn house Adverse Effect once again, too. Once this is ready, I will announce it here and will probably only leave this space running for a short while longer.

More reviews will follow soon enough, plus another interview or two.

Watch this space.

Short Note

Just to set the record straight about a few things, allow me to clarify what Adverse Effect may or may not be these days. Basically, I would like to see it exist in published form once again but, since barely anybody bought the final, fourth, edition of the magazine itself in 2005, I have had to consign material for this either to the now barely functioning website and, well, here ever since. I hope that the website will be replaced by something better in the near future. And I would one day like to collect some selections from here in a published compendium, following on from the one that will hopefully appear next year that's devoted to the eighteen editions of Grim Humour. In the meantime, I will continue to post reviews here, plus more interviews. I am not sure who I will interview next, but Thomas Bey William Bailey and Steven Severin are both on my shortlist. I'd welcome contributions and/or suggestions from others, too, but please do not expect me to include any unsolicited material.

Likewise, I will only review proper vinyl, CD, DVD, etc. releases. The same goes for books and, indeed, anything else. As such, please do not ask me to consider MP3 releases and suchlike. Whilst I can fully appreciate some of the effort that goes into creating music, or anything else, I do not have the time spare for the more, dare I say, hobbyist approach. If you believe in what you're doing, get it out there properly. The same as I do and everybody else whose work I respect. I am not here to support half-measures. And whilst on the subject, I would welcome more review material too, please. See the previous reviews for an idea of where the interests lay...

Thank you.

Reviews: Number Five

Unfortunately, there are still some older titles tucked amongst the review piles, but I think this lot sees the back of those from 2007. Please note that some of the reviews here are by old Adverse Effect contributor Ian Canadine, too. Hopefully more people will climb on board in due course...


KASHIWA DAISUKE 5 Dec CD (Noble Records, 2009)
The first track on this album wafts in with some gentle keyboard melodies pleasantly redolent of Daisuke’s countryman Ryuichi Sakamoto, while some of the later pieces combine piano and glitch in a manner very reminiscent of Sakamoto’s excellent collaborations with Alva Noto on Raster Noton. That would all be fine, if a little unoriginal, but Daisuke obviously feels the need to shit all over the mellowness elsewhere, by throwing in everything but the kitchen sink on the majority of the remaining tracks. With elements of drum’n’bass, cheesy Metal guitar and pounding beats elbowing each other aside for room, Dec 5 mostly comes across as a bit of an incoherent bombardment, or perhaps an exercise in cut up pranksterism that can’t quite wipe the smirk off its face. (Ian Canadine)
www.noble-label.net
www.kashiwadaisuke.com


FAMILY UNDERGROUND untitled 7” (Quasi Pop, Ukraine, 2009)
New release from this Danish trio who’ve been furrowing their own path through a convergence of foggy drones and textures for a number of years now. Both pieces here maintain their interests perfectly well, offering up two instrumentals almost bordering on layered noise via the sound of electric shavers overheating whilst, on one, a hypnotic rhythm does its utmost to compete. Rather nice. Wouldn’t mind getting one of their albums now as this taster’s simply not quite enough. (Richard Johnson)
www.quasipop.org


FRANZ HAUTZINGER & BERTRAND GAUGUET & THOMAS LEHN Close Up CD (Monotype Records, Poland, 2009)
I recently had a discussion about improvised music with a close friend who ended up contending that you only need to listen to it on a release once because, afterwards, it’s got nothing new to offer. Whilst I can see his point, I likewise feel that recordings of improvised music, as with any other form of it, can become valid documents in their own right which, for all manner of different reasons (subjective and otherwise) can be returned to repeatedly. Especially if those moments captured succeed outside their realm as, simply, improvised music. This team-up of these improvisers caught in, respectively, early 2007 and two separate occasions in 2008, illustrates this all too clearly. Utilising Gauguet’s alto and soprano saxophones and Hautzinger’s trumpet (and electronic devices) alongside Lehn’s analogue synth, the three untitled pieces caught here fall into that magical category whereby certain music or collections of sounds appears to reveal something new with every listen. Through some carefully mannered gloop positively rife with contours enough to sustain interest alone, breathy rasps, squelches, tones, unearthly mumblings and a subtle sense of distress and unease unfurl without once sounding either unnatural or uncontrolled. The fact these three players have played together several times and have a huge understanding of each other prevails heavily throughout. Nobody gets in the way of the others and the focus never once strays. What’s even more noticeable than the apparent chemistry, however, is the way the music pulls itself along into possibly the most atmospheric domain I’ve so far heard on a release of this nature. And whilst the music itself is not so obviously confrontational, it does at least sound like it’s challenging the notions of what can or can’t be done in improvisation. An achievement in itself. Highly recommended. (Richard Johnson)
www.monotyperecords.com


MERZBOW Tombo CD (Fellacoustic, USA, 2008)
Three cuts of ear-bleeding howl the like of which Masami Akita made his name on before he began going both digital and into more rhythm kingdoms. Some of the sounds, as to be expected, are incredible, but I have to ‘fess this album’s not as dynamic as certain work I’ve caught in recent years. Track two, simply titled ‘Tombo 2’, nudges in some quieter moments but, as with the rest of the album, an all-out sonic lava-fuck tends to remain the main course. (Richard Johnson)
www.fellacoustic.com


MIKHAIL Morphica 3xCD (Sub Rosa, 2009)
Morphica apparently represents an exercise in “morphing” an earlier Mikhail album, Orphica, from 2007, which was based on the Greek Orpheus legend. The triple CD set features a cast of thousands, including DJ Spooky and members of the Hilliard Ensemble, reworking material from the earlier project. It comes elaborately packaged, including a sizeable foldout featuring extensively annotated heavyweight academic essays, referencing Deleuze and Lyotard, which attempt to site the artist somewhere on the intersection of the postmodern and the Baroque. While it would certainly be easy to snigger at the preciousness of the whole thing, that would indulge a kneejerk anti-intellectualism which I tend to think is cheap, so I’ll restrain any cynicism here. The discs within are respectively entitled Electronics, Voices and Strings, although I wouldn’t say the distinction in sound or content between the three was that clearly discernible. The music itself comprises a dense and heady fog of layered and phased electronics, harpsichord and kettle drum, tabla, drones, whistles, squelches, and chamber strings, with a Gertrude Stein sample thrown in for good measure. Mikhail’s highly-strung androgynous vocals float in and out at intermittent points, to complete the febrile atmosphere. I was reminded at times of Antony and the Johnsons, at others of ‘80s 4AD supergroup This Mortal Coil, and occasionally of the queasy stylings of Nurse With Wound. Having not heard the original Orphica CD I’ve got no idea how Morphica develops or resembles it, but it nonetheless works reasonably successfully as a standalone experience. (Ian Canadine)
www.mikhailmusic.com


FES PARKER Side Room CD (Pressupable Recordings, 2008)
Fes Parker, “one of the real Blackpool legends” according to Simon Morris’s sleevenotes, was a local hero of the Fylde coast punk scene, who died of cancer in February 2009. This 2008 release delivers a full-on set of fairly unreconstructed, and sometimes pretty lo-fi, rock’n’roll ranting, with maybe a touch of Hawkwind kosmische in the guitar attack. Not really my scene, but the guy was obviously a man with a mission and he stuck with it to the end. (Ian Canadine)


GERT-JAN PRINS & BAS VAN KOOLWIJK Synchronator DVD (Cavity, NL, 2009)
Collaborative audiovisual project that commenced in 2006 by these two artists that can be perceived as some kind of assault on what’s typically spewed from our TV screens. Prins’ own digitalised sonic gush, wavering as it does between spacious crinkled workouts and towering temples ablaze with molten white-noise, provides the perfect accompaniment to images derived from often distorted magnetic signals found within the interference. The resulting ten pieces here amount to broken and barely snatched images cast assunder by violent waveforms or what may well be a test card transmission beamed from a planet so distant that it’s become a mere shadow of its former self in the process. It all works rather nicely but, I’m sure, would be far more effective on a massive screen than those to be found in most people’s homes, despite this being the original intention. The fact it also clocks in at 36 minutes total goes in its favour as well. Too much of this and I think these boys would have to get Nurofen sponsoring them… (Richard Johnson)
www.synchronator.com


RAMLEH Switch Hitter 10” (Black Rose Recordings, 2009)
Since the late 1980s, Ramleh have been stabbing away at a tumultous rock approach that steers between a heavily anguished form of psychedelia and something more suitable to battering yr senses to fuck. Occasionally, they still dabble with their power electronics of yore, too, or even combine the two approaches. Whatever, as far as I’m concerned, it’s all pretty damn good and I can honestly say they’re one of the few groups who survived the early ‘90s UK noise-rock non-genre still prone to doing interesting things. ‘Switch Hitter’ opts for another all-out sensory bombardment of a punked-up and beefy Hawkwind In Search Of Space variety where some great rhythm pummel drives along the kind of guitars that could spill your innards. The distortion’s cranked to the red and Gary Mundy’s vocals sound like they’ve been stripped savagely from an early angry punk obscurity. It all, need I point out, works fucking great for me. The b-side’s ‘The Machines of Infinite Joy’, a title in itself which instantly conjures something from the late Ballard’s world, is an equally heavy instrumental belter. Neat. (Richard Johnson)
Write: srmeixner@yahoo.co.uk


SLOWCREAM and CD (Nonine, Germany, 2009)
Five pieces by Berlin’s Me Raabenstein which embark on a celebration, if you like, of the hand, in all respects from our physical dependency on it to its use as a symbol or metaphor, and everything in between. Beginning as a commission for a contemporary dance project, Slowcream’s third album stretches for around forty minutes and generally sways gently over a filmic hue imbued with a soft electronica approach itself augmented with strings and extra cellos and organs on three of the cuts improvised live by Greg Haines. Whilst the temperament remains refined throughout, some foothills at least take shape at certain points, adding an appropriate sense of subtle drama to the proceedings that sensitively reflect titles such as ‘Pressure’, ‘Vibration’ and ‘Moisture’. What with melodic keys likewise breaking through the symphonies at various junctures, it all feels like Me Raabenstein’s background in club music is ultimately shaking itself away into pastures more serious yet not so sober it may alienate previous listeners. I’ll resist the urge to round this off by saying we’ve either got to hand it to him or must give him a big hand. Instead, I implore you to listen to this incredible addition to a canon of work by a mere handful (sorry!) of contemporary artists whose vision rests outside the usual parameters. (Richard Johnson)
www.nonine.com


STEFANIE RESSIN/ASMUS TIETCHENS 3 Wishes split-7” (Meeuw Muzak, The Netherlands, 2009)
Another great entry in the ongoing series of 7” releases from Meeuw Muzak. Stefanie Ressin I know little about, I have to ‘fess, but here she proffers a nifty slice of dirty electro-pop vaguely reminiscent of Malaria!, which is fine by me. Tietchens, on the other hand, appears with a version of the same song which discards most of the rhythm and vocals in favour of sounds resembling machinery at war. Which also, needless to say, wins my vote. Fantastic stuff. (Richard Johnson)
www.meeuw.net


MIKA VAINIO Black Telephone of Matter CD (Touch, 2009)
Being one half of the fantastic Pan Sonic, it’s no surprise that Vainio’s solo endeavours tend to adopt a similar approach to teasing often abrasive or uncomfortable sound structures into areas where they are tempered and far less black and white. When Vainio cranks things up, everything feels measured and almost surgical, yet these red-level workouts only arise in the first place from a mass of undulating and sometimes broken frequencies or what sounds like machine-noise having a coughing fit. At times, such as on ‘Silences Traverses Des Mondes Et Des Anges’, the proceedings even become quite subdued, like listening to an underground lake, before what sounds like a plane looming overhead then takes over in the next piece, ‘Bury A Horse’s Head’. Attention to detail and, in turn, to mapping out ideas that never betray a stance that feels wholly personal (without being completely detached from the listener) is what sets everything apart. Once more, the (perhaps obvious) analogy of the surgeon in the operating theatre springs only too readily to mind. Everything’s considered and executed with precision and care. Helped along by very occasional choice samples themselves given to some appropriate treatments, Vainio appears to be operating on a far superior level to most of today’s digital wanderers. Black Telephone of Matter pays testament to this fact in leaps and bounds. (Richard Johnson)
www.touchmusic.org.uk


WICKED KING WICKER eponymous CD (Noiseville, USA, 2007)
Four lengthy tracks of slow-motion sludge and feedback by these US metal monsters. The very thing certain teenagers find themselves leaning on because they’re misunderstood whilst the rest of us splutter into our cognac, I suppose, although to be fair there are some pretty massive sounds afoot here that could make many a purported ‘noise’ artist weep with envy… (Richard Johnson)
www.noiseville.com


JOHN YOUNG Lieu-temps DVD Audio (empreintesDIGITALes, 2007)
John Young is an electroacoustic composer from New Zealand, though currently based in the UK. In Lieu-temps he uses field recordings, narrative framing, radio samples and oral history, interweaved with drones, electronics, detuned piano and other tools of the electroacoustic trade, to relate the story of how his father, a soldier with the New Zealand army, first met his Italian mother, during the Second World War liberation of her hometown, Forli, by Allied forces. Young mixes his ingredients effectively and movingly to draw out his major theme of how personal and world-historical events are inextricably entwined, and how chance can play such a huge role in dictating the outcomes of human lives. The repetitive use of chimes from the belltowers of Forli, together with contemporary commentary from war reporters on the scene, works particularly well in evoking the feel of time and place which is vital to the project. Lieu-temps has something of the experimental radio documentary about it, but is none the worse for that, and repays repeated listening in bringing out the intricate detail of its montaged elements. I’m not sure if there are any real benefits in this having been released on DVD Audio rather than CD, but evidently all releases on the empreintesDIGITALes label follow this policy. (Ian Canadine)
www.empreintesDIGITALes.com

Reviews: Number Four

I keep unearthing more review material. Some of this should have been handled last year, but it unfortunately took me half a year or so to organise many things following a move in late 2007. Anyway, bearing in mind my apologies directed to those concerned are now firmly yet inadvertently cemented, here they are. Hopefully, the next round will see one or two others helping me out, too...


MYRA DAVIES Cities and Girls CD (Moabit Music, Germany, 2008)
Spoken word by this Canadian mostly fleshed out by music from Gudrun Gut but also, on one piece each respectively, by Alexander Hacke (Einsturzende Neubauten) & Danielle de Picciotto and Beate Bartel. The stories, which are executed well and are infused with a salubrious modicum of black humour, range from being about resisting ‘stuff’, Berlin, hanging out with John Giorno, times of supposed innocence caught in a timewarped friend, family history and so on to one cleverly suffusing women’s independence with a need for a ‘drill’. The music backs everything up perfectly and arrives generally from haunting electronica indebted to its rudimentary roots in sound exploration, although Bartel’s employing a single-string Viatnamese instrument called the Dan Bau serves as pleasant a detour as the use of old Irish melodies in Gut’s accompaniment to ‘Goodbye Belfast’. Altogether, everything falls into place well enough for you to either listen to it in the manner in which it was intended, with all attention paid to the words at work, or to enjoy as a glorious whole where Davies’ passages can be treated as very much a part of the music. Fair enough, considering the music was composed around the words and how, well, the collaborations even witness Davies singing on the ‘60s pop-inflected ‘My Friend Sherry’. Whatever, a wonderful album irrespective of how you choose to approach it. (Richard Johnson)
www.moabitmusik.de


GoGooo Long, Lointain CD (Baskaru, France, 2007)
GoGooo is, essentially, the name given to Gabriel Hemandez’s excursions to often melancholic frontiers. Using field recordings and voices alongside a wide range of instruments including guitar, melodica and piano, then aided by his laptop, he creates a warm and gentle setting more structured than so many others operating in similar areas. Sometimes, such as on ‘Affleurement’, the voices and delicately-strummed guitar are employed to dominate proceedings, but even these assume a vaguely pastoral quality in perfect harmony with everything else on offer here. Gently airbrushed textures and tones are augmented by little, unobtrusive swells of electroacoustic flotsam and jetsam, whispers, bells and clacking noises, while the guitar never once betrays its polite stance whenever it appears. Overall, it recalls the feelings generated by Pan American’s work and, well, if you’re partial to these hazy plains, you could do far worse than visit this album. Also included are videos accompanying the first four songs, but for some reason or other they don’t appear to work on my laptop. (Richard Johnson)
www.baskaru.com


HEAL Supernatural 12” (Sound On Probation, France, 2009)
Laurent Perrier has been responsible for both producing his own music and releasing work by others for a considerable while now. Since the late ‘80s, he has recorded under his own name and collaborated with others in groups such as Zonk’t, Cape Fear and, indeed, this project, Heal. He also used to run Odd Size before ceasing operations and moving on to Sound on Probation, which has moved away from the former label’s concerns with post-industrial music to often dance inflected electronics. Heal themselves fit in perfectly well with this, too. On Supernatural, their third release, they merge a wide range of percussion and string instruments with electronics in a setting not far removed from the worlds Portishead and Massive Attack have operated in. Pinned into place by some great double bass playing, violins sweep over an alluring array of soundtrack-ish twilight swirls perfect for these autumn evenings. Only odd thing, really, is the fact the sleeve states there are eight songs spread over both sides when it appears there’s only actually one song each side. I wouldn’t have been averse to listening to those missing six. (Richard Johnson)
www.soundonprobation.com


HURRA CAINE LANDCRASH Unanswered Questions CD (Split Femur Recordings, 2008)
Manchester guitarist Daniel Hopkins’ debut, offering six cuts whereby he creates glazed textural ‘scapes by dropping pebbles, shells and so on onto the guitar strings before shaping everything up on his, yes, you got it, laptop. It’s okay but like so much of this type of music just doesn’t navigate anything particularly new or interesting. Shifting banks of sound produced by objects dropped onto guitar strings has been done to death already. I need something more personal from such work. Something that may hold my attention enough to command repeated listens. It’s not a tall order. (Richard Johnson)
www.splitfemurrecordings.com


LEHN/SCHMICKLER Navigation im Hypertext CD (A-Musik, Germany, 2008)
These two established electroacoustic artists, Thomas Lehn and Marcus Schmickler, first met in MIMEO in 1998 and began collaborating outside them together soon after. Over the years since their first album, Bart, released in 2000 and catching them at some synth improvisations, they’ve toured extensively and have recorded fifteen of the shows now used as the source material for both this album and the simultaneously released Kolner Kranz (also on A-Musik). Lehn uses an analogue synthesiser to Schmickler’s digital one and, together, they meld battery-assault-sized blocks of molten sonic disturbance to rather more refined bridges of static carresses all, of course, arriving from that same tempestuous lake so much contemporary electronic music is drawing from. Although some post-production work has taken place here, it’s still interesting to hear how much scope these two instruments have when placed side by side by two people whose chemistry and imagination evidently equal each other. The dynamics keep everything afloat but, besides this, the very fact there’s so much happening every time things either peak or are pared back to calmer levels really maintains the appeal. Sometimes almost industrial and at others akin to being snagged in some kind of parallel universe, Navigation im Hypertext is precisely where I enjoy being taken by abstract improv music. (Richard Johnson)
www.a-musik.com


YOSHIO MACHIDA Hypernatural 3 (Baskaru, France, 2008)
Japanese artist Machida’s third part of a triptych, which began with a release in 1999 and has witnessed a gap of six years since the last, continues his interest in collaging field recordings with real instruments and treatments. Spread over seven cuts dedicated to the theme of oblivion (in being a positive thing as much as a negative, he explains on the sleevenotes), we get to hear lapping waves, lagubrious miniscule pulses, undulating tones, carefully woven crackle, birdsong, what sounds like a TV recorded ‘neath some frequency noodling, Aki Onda on “cassette recorder”, glazed chunks of static white hiss, Buddhist nun sutras, shuffling machinery and what may be either somebody walking on gravel or eating a wafer. Waves as an obvious reference point aside, it’s hard to see where all of this fits in with Machida’s overall concept for these pieces exactly, but there’s no denying that a lot of work has clearly gone into their being realised. This, and the fact the entire album sits together as both a beguiling and thoroughly engaging listen, renders it one to return to repeatedly. And every listen seems to successfully reveal more and more of its charms. (Richard Johnson)


MöSLANG/WEHOWSKY Einschlagskrater 7” (Meeuw Muzak, The Netherlands, 2008)
Just when I was beginning to think things were going quiet on the Ralf Wehowsky front, a package containing several singles including this one from Jos of Meeuw Muzak arrived quite recently. Good news for me as I’ve been collecting whatever I can by the German musique concrete artist for a considerable while now. My old group Splintered even collaborated with him on an album back in 1996 that I’ll still tell anybody who cares is one of my proudest moments. Here, of course, he collaborates with Möslang, from Swiss duo Voice Crack, on two cuts that are more accessible than most of his work, but I’m not complaining. Heaving drones that sound like they’re welling up from somewhere deep under the Earth’s crust cough out some electronic splutter and chattering sounds that’d sound agreeable enough alone. A great little record, from a great label dedicated to eclectic limited run 7”s deemed collectable almost as soon as they’re released. (Richard Johnson)
www.meeuw.net


ZONK’T Beat Wins You and Me MLP (Sound On Probation, France, 2009)
Another release from Laurent Perrier, but this time presenting his solo material on what must be his sixth under the Zonk’t guise. As with previous material, Zonk’t is given to melding colossal chunks of industrial pounding to electronica and techno. The five cuts here see this approach scaling new heights, and it’d be fantastic to hear this in a suitable environment such as club or a blasted through a venue’s PA system. My own hi-fi, good as it is, has to accept the huge compromise known as neighbours, unfortunately… (Richard Johnson)