#6 (october 05 - april 06)

..mecha/orga:: from a piner Starts with a 10 minute long bathing of frequencies, middle to high with some granulated bass in the back. does not get you anywhere or motivates you to somewhere. could be background sounds for an exhibition. it would create a feeling of uneasiness and restlesness to the people there. i guees its function in this cd is to prepare the listener for the track 2 which starts with granular mayhem and builds up. at a point various small and aggressive animals seem to scratch your louspeakers from the inside and when you start to worry you realise that the tension of the sound reached a peak but you have no time to face it: it comes down abruptly. and a second mayhem builds up, this time quickly and mersilessly. the small fury things have gone, to be replaced by low and high digital frequencies which are cut to pieces and arranged again in combat formation. ends with sounds crawling menancingly away. and with you exhaling something like a "phewww" or its equivalent in your personal semantic environment. digitalia granularia: a case. next and final track is trippy, beautiful analog-synth like frequencies melting together. not mysterious or weird or psychedelic, no dark corners here, clear sounds hide no shadows. to your disapointment? if you are that kind of listener, may be. but then you had track 2 so don't complain. rel. by LabForElectroacousticMedia and the cd contains no contact address for mecha/orga so you, in your turn, get none here
|--cd | released by LabForElectroacousticMedia

..vldosh rbski:: shkart musek This is what Iusually call easy listening electronica (mind you this is a label I also use for cases like autechre for instance). that was at least one of my first thoughts while listening this cdr. sounds not too weird or loud or noisy, nicely arranged in a peaceful and somehow playful formation and delicate rhythms which are not of the kind that moves you but rather puts you in a position of potential moving. it was when I listened to it again for a 2nd and 3rd time (something I rarely do in a short period for the above mentioned hypothetical label of music) that I appreciated its control and cleverness and the well placed and elegant sounds either of granular or microsound character. one hypothetical deity might now (but I seriously doubt it) what I will discover when I listen to it more times. which I intend to do. so, in a few words -although that is not the case in the reviews in tilt, they are online so I can use as much space as I want, one of the privileges of technology- a promising release by this macedonian guy
|--cdr | vladoshribski@yahoo.com

..crazy river:: sounds like a melon to me Does it? it is sweet indeed, although in a perverted way, a way a poor melon never manages to be. it is also yellowish sometimes, not the disgusting egg-yellow, or the insanity yellow, more like the yellow of weirdness and psychedelia. on the other hand I could never have images in my mind of wooden huts in the forest with weird guys emerging and playing strange sounds in front of the door. not with a melon that is. with this cdr I do. living comparisons aside, this is weird noise folk, drony sounds produced by analog instruments and syd barrett folk songs blending with field recordings and recorded voices, at times it sounds like drog_A_tek, but then it is too weird to stay there. violins seem to die in this cdr, could it be the recordings in a 4-track of a 60's weirdo hippy teleported in time in our era, and locked in a room with only tapes from throbbing gristle? shall I smoke a joint or what? or even better I will play it again. not surprisingly at all, it does come from norway. an apartment/humbug split release
|--cd | apartment records

..drog_A_tek:: who hurt you? Speaking about joints, this is a band I usually describe their live sets as long never-ending joints. not all the times of the best quality agreed. but then again.. this cd starts with a nice and short toy-instrument/music-in-a-room melodic weirdness, but the next tracks keep it for somewht too long, toy synths and some electronic rhythms and the everpresent sound of trompet improvising together, could be really nice if you play it (and have already smoked yourself stupid) but listening it made me somewhat sleepy. things change at track no 6 entitled biomolecular dropera, where the sound of toy synth dominates, accompanied by an electronic clever rhythm, screeching sounds and basslines, like band of holy joy vs hmm, let's see, yes, like band of holy joy vs drog_A_tek. a nice ambient track follows and then more melancholic sounds, metal pipes, a tendency to fall into nostalgia, but suddnely comes chief, track no 9, a strange groovy rhythmic phrase, a bass in dub lines and of course the toy synth and you are up again. astrovanity anarkesta features some strange arrangement of the same loops a short melody broken or whole repeating while sounds come and go. a spaced out loungy atmosphere. hold an iced lsd drink instead of martini. I am tired I should go to sleep and last track accompanies me there with its nice spacy ambience and clever rhythmic loops. lucky me
|--cd | released through quetempo drog_A_tek drog.a.tek@lycos.com

..tokyomask:: backbone As far as I know this is the first release of tokyo mask, a guy form patra. rich and deep synth sounds with slow, broken rhythms and basslines in a dark and swirling scorn atmosphere. very good sound quality for computer music and an excellent production add to the sound which is anyway nice
|--cd | released by lo-z recordings tokyomask@loz-recordings.net

..biomass:: miledrops Starts like a dynamite, a loop from miles davis, is creating a nice groove, while clean frequencies and crystal clear bass lines come and go, a track that could be panasonic's. it then moves on to more loungy and easy listening atmospheres, but than again comes another nice, groovy and panasonic-like track. as I understood this is one man project and everything is done with samplers and mixers - and not computer. that's maybe why it has so good sound quality. a quite interesting release by quetempo
|--cd | released by quetempo

..slap combat:: scratched eye A live recording of this duo from athens, the title refering to one of them having an accident during their performance. judging from one live of them I was lucky enough to attend, this should come as no surprise since the guys have a complete rock'n'roll perormance in their noise making, jumping, crawling and shouting. although their live was one of the best noise lives I saw the last 2 years, this recording as I was suspecting and as it is common with a big part of noise music fails to really keep you inrested. it starts sliding guitar sound sand noises building an atmosphere of expectation and then feedbacks and the sound of free improvisation like drums dominate until the whole soundscape is dissolved into feedbacking noise. I mean not bad, but this is music to see live and not to listen in your cd player
|--cdr | released by phase rec.

..acidtakes:: normal music Unlike his usual experimental ambient releases for this guy from macedonia, here we have some more straightforward, even commercial, dancy music. the strange thing is: it is fucking nice! true, there are the all time classic basslines and some typical synth sounds which in other cases might bore you to death, but the structure of the tracks is elegant and clever, nice voice loops and field recordings and very nice deep rhythms interact creating a groovy and pleasant atmosphere. the sound is a bit mego oriented and the quality of the sounds is great. a very nice, recommended release
|--cdr | acidfake

..polio:: concrete Starts somewhat aggressive but drones win over middle-to-high frequencies and it slowly melts in the travelling, deep and drony sound of the kind it makes you close your eyes, sit down and let yourself drift with it. music to create shadows in big halls, crooked roads in avenues and promises of repeating nice listening experiences
|--cdr | released by humbug