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June 09

SETH NEHIL - FLOCK & TUMBLE
CD

OUT JUNE 11th !

7 tracks - 52:10 min.
1. tew - 9:12
2. whuilp - 11:19
3. plait - 7:34
4. tew 2 - 5:50
5. grave - 6:57
6. the sun - 6:10
7. blackhole - 5:49 [mp3]

Seth Nehil is an American artist involved in various projects ranging from compositions for dance, installations, multimedia performances, publications and visual art. Over the years, he has collaborated with other significant sound researchers (John Grzinich, Olivia Block, Michael Northam, Matt Marble and Brendan Murray) and has released many CDs on international labels such as Kaon, Alluvial and ...Edition.
It's not so easy to describe the music of Seth Nehil: like a compound of several substances, obtained by capturing natural and urban sounds, manipulated instruments, as well as by electronic treatments and textured objects.
Flock & Tumble is another fine example of his new direction : shorter tracks with an almost song-like structure and a large sound palette that includes the human voice as material. Flock & Tumble explores haphazard clusters, abrupt shifts, percussive rattles and gentle clouds.

November 08

MICHAEL GENDREAU · FRANCISCO LOPEZ - TDDM
double CD

CD1:
1 – T921 (33:31) Michael Gendreau
2 – D156 (21:11) Francisco Lopez [mp3 extract]
CD2:
1 – D138 (29:19) Francisco Lopez
2 – M928 (21:02) Michael Gendreau [mp3 extract]

This 2CD set gathers two compositions each by Michael Gendreau and Francisco Lopez. TDDM is based on sound materials recorded in factories in Asia.
The 2 Michael Gendreau tracks focus on factories sound environment meanwhile Francisco Lopez works more on machinery and engines. The result is a strong and intense body of work, a total immersion into industrial estates sounds. This isn't a work on microsound or lowercase music but a real physical experience.

Michael Gendreau (San Francisco), former member of the underground duo Crawling with Tarts, studied composition at Mills College and now works as an acoustician specialized in machinery vibration isolation and environmental noise studies (among other things). He releases now his works under his own name.

Francisco Lopez (Madrid) : "Francisco López is internationally recognized as one of the major figures of the underground experimental music scene. Over the last twenty five years he has developed an astonishing sonic universe, absolutely personal and iconoclastic, based on a profound listening of the world. Destroying boundaries between industrial sounds and wilderness sound environments, shifting with passion from the limits of perception to the most dreadful abyss of sonic power, proposing a blind, profound and transcendental listening, freed from the imperatives of knowledge and open to sensory and spiritual expansion." [Pedro Higueras, Sonom Studios]

"Let’s walk together through a great modern capital, with the ear more attentive than the eye, and we will vary the pleasures of our sensibilities by distinguishing among the gurglings of water, air and gas inside metallic pipes, the rumblings and rattlings of engines breathing with obvious animal spirits, the rising and falling of pistons, the stridency of mechanical saws, the loud jumping of trolleys on their rails, the snapping of whips, the whipping of flags. We will have fun imagining our orchestration of department stores’ sliding doors, the hubbub of the crowds, the different roars of railroad stations, iron foundries, textile mills, printing houses, power plants and subways."
Luigi Russolo - The Art of noise 1916

Reviews :
"(...) Looking at the sparse credits on the cover this seems not to be a collaborative effort, but both deliver two long pieces entirely based on their own recordings of machines in Taiwan and Malaysia (Gendreau) and Singapore, China, Taiwan and Japan (Lopez). In the first Lopez piece he comes close to the old Vivenza sound: hammering machine rhythms with lots of sound effects to transform the sound, but his other is entirely different. Very low in volume, and the sounds of the machines seem to be pushed to the background. There is a sense of rhythm to it, but it sounds quite strange. Ultimately, in fine Lopezian twist, things go up and the real machines comes in and as suddenly disappear. In the two pieces by Micheal Gendreau machine sounds play, obviously I say, a role too, but somehow he seems to be interested to create 'more music' out of it, especially in 'M928', with its organ like tones comes in and out of the piece, before it slips into silence first and then into noise. The first piece by him has a similar built-up but a different ending. Four different sides of the same coin. Excellent stuff, but I don't think I expected something else." (Frans de Waard - Vital Weekly 656)

" (...) Part of the fun, as a listener, with these types of compositions made from industrial field recordings, is that it is left up to me to interpret and intuit what exactly it is going on. I will probably never know whether or not I am right or wrong in my assumptions about a given sound source. In the end I take them of their own accord, enriched by my experience of arm chair traveling, an eager to journey further. Lopez and Gendreau are invaluable tour guides." (Justin Patrick - Brainwashed)
Read the full review here.

" (...) Together these four pieces deliver something archival and undeniably musical. It’s a success in itself that two individuals (one in Madrid, one in San Francisco) should independently pursue their own intentions, share the same underlying interests, and come up with such a unique and listenable collaborative project." (Alan Jones - Bagatellen)
Read the full review here.

December 07

BOWLINE - st
CD

Bowline are :

Francisco Dillon - cello
David Maranha - hammond organ, violin, vox amplifier (with Francesco cello signal), glass harmonica, tremolo and distortion pedals
[mp3 - track2 ]

"Behind Bowline we find the more and more present musician David Maranha, who was once best known as Osso Exotico, and these days also works as a solo musician and one Francesco Dillon. He is from Italy and studied the cello. These days he is a member of Alter-Ego (see Vital Weekly 602 for their work with Gavin Bryars) as well as playing with people like Matmos, Pan Sonic and Scanner. A man of many talents. Here too Dillon plays cello, whereas Maranha gets credit for 'hammond organ, violin, vox amplifier (with Francesco cello signal), glass harmonica, tremolo and distortion pedals'. Of the four tracks , the first is the most silent one, taking several minutes to get started. Like with so many other projects of David Maranha, in which ever form it takes, this is a work of minimalism. Of sheer, utter minimalism and what beauty, once again. The careful strumming of various string instruments, the drones added, sparsely of course, from the other instruments. Three short tracks which eventually culminate in the fourth track, which takes up about two-third of the CD and in which the three previous excursions return but glorified. Everything comes together here. If you love Osso Exotico or any of the works Maranha did after that, this is will be a most welcome addition. Also fans of traditional minimal music, especially Lamonte Young will find this a great release, I'm sure of that." (Frans de Waard - Vital Weekly 605)

Bowline traces the first documentation of Maranha's duo with Francesco Dillon, cellist for Italian New Music ensemble Alter Ego. Dillon's cello alternately glides and rasps, swooping from the the edges of audibility to full tonal range, providing a rich foundation for Maranha's violin, Hammond organ, glass harmonica and amp/pedal manipulation. He often parallels the warp and weft of Dillon's playing with yet more tremolo action, so everything trembles in tandem. It's an audio aquivalent of a slow motion, multiscreen flicker film, with each strand developing in parallel, cleaving in and out of direct reference. (Jon Dale - The Wire, april 08)

Bowline is the project of David Maranha joined by Francesco Dillon,italian cellist member of the group Alter Ego. The first thing that comes to mind is : if you love harsh and painful minimalism, made up of long eternal-like phrases, which are typical of the portuguese musician, run to buy this Bowline release because the two musicians, together ,give us 30 minutes of music that you won’t forget.
With Dillon on the cello, and Maranha on hammond, violin, glassharmonica and effects, more than just creating a dialogue, they mix, melt and create an austere sound, almost religious, wich tastes like late autumn, like rocks and stones, like dust fallen from an ancient era.
Imprisoned in this digital grooves are ecstatic notes, constantly pelting down (hammering) in long, frightening spirals, only now and then illuminated by flashes of gentle light, and in the last track, 22 minutes wich in reality represent the whole album, we reach the highest pinnacles of absolute beauty.
We hope the project will continue, because Bowline, despite its brevity and its many high moments, leaves still the desire for more. (Valerio Mattioli - Blow-up, march 08)

Based on four tracks, it's a work of absolute uniformity and simplicity (these elements make it beautiful) that would not disfigure if compared with other illustrious pieces of minimalistic tradition.
The first three tracks are linked in a continuous progression, dominated by a melodic flow, that generates a crepuscular atmosphere. The fourth is almost similar, but more structured, with a variety of resonant textures and incidental drones, hypnotic fluctuations, cello vibrations.
Undoubtedly a successful interaction between these two artists. (Spiritual Archives blog)

It does sound like many stringed & bowed instruments going at it, impacting each other, and then slightly manipulated. Pleasing and tension filled at the same time. Lower stringed instruments are the clearest, the higher pitched ones are almost tone generators. There is shorter 'staticy' bits to add texture on top of the held notes, all in all well done, and tough to say if it is relaxing or gets me edgy. A subtle power moves through the music. (Don Poe - Ear Rational)

Bowline est la rencontre de David Maranha et Francesco Dillon, pour cordes mixées ainsi que différents interventions noyées dans la couleur d'ensemble d'un glass harmonica, pédale de tremolo, orgue hammond. L'idée étant d'accorder différents timbres selon des rapports de hauteur plutôt consonants et d'animer cette texture de glissandi, de trilles, de bisbigliandos et doigtés instrumentaux susceptibles de donner vie à un bourdon.
Si Bowline évoque en premier, c'est vrai, le minimalisme de LaMonte Young et de son « dream syndicate », son aspect mélodique récurrent, son lyrisme légèrement nostalgique l'en éloignent. Les pièces ont bien plus traversées d'échelles modales acquises que de la « scie à os » du « syndicate » et de son laminoir à vriller les nerfs.
Morton Feldman conviendrait-il mieux pour approcher le travail de Maranha et Dillon ? Peut-être mais l'absence d'attaques, les nuances réduites au seul 'piano', la durée, la lenteur, corollaires du rejet forcené de tout pathos de ce dernier, en limite là aussi la pertinence. Non, Bowline serait plutôt un rejeton pop de tout ce background savant d'un coté et populaire de l'autre celui d'une prégnante beauté qui procure un sentiment de détente, de sérénité immédiate. Un possible versant, mélancolique si l'on veut, métissé de microtonalité du minimalisme plus euphorique de Reich et Glass sans répétition.
En tout état de cause un beau disque, un point de passage heureux entre l'écriture et le studio, le radical et sa déclinaison tout public.
La rencontre sur une table de dissection de God Speed You Black Emporor avec cordes et du « Early minimalism » de Tony Conrad ! (Boris Wlassoff – Revue & Corrigée 75)

February - 07 :
These 3 records are now available !


KOZO INADA J[] SNS-03 - 11 euros new release	DAVID MARANHA Piano suspenso SON-21 - 11 euros reissue	STEVE RODEN The radio SON-22 - 7 euros reissue

The records are now packaged in a 4 pages cardboard (in a plastic envelope).
Glad to be still here after this 4 years break....