Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Cyclic Defrost Magazine

Cyclic Defrost Magazine

Link to Cyclic Defrost Magazine

Diatribes / Demierre / Bourquenez – Piano(s) (Insubordinations Netlabel)

Posted: 15 Jun 2009 10:07 PM PDT

Diatribes is a Geneva-based open-ended improv ensemble guided by a desire to explore differing musical approaches and create a ‘malleable musical mass’. On ‘Piano(s)’ the group is centred around regulars Johann Bourquenez and Jacques Demierre on – yup – pianos, joined by guests Cyril Bondi on drums and D’Incise on laptop and objects, a collective which delivers on the group’s mantra but whose results can best be described as patchy.

With the drums generally whipping up a maelstrom, Diatribes suffer from a lack of outlet through which to channel Bondi’s restless frenzy. The group used to count saxophonist Gaël Riondel as a core member, and his blowing would inject some much needed direction into much of this session. For the most part, Bourquenez and Demierre are content to add colourful splashes to Bondi’s loosely-tethered anchor, but these are decorative, with little sense of constructive interaction. D’Incise’s contribution is similarly restrained, but more in tune with the surrounding action, or at least his bowed and tinkered scrapes and rattlings blend in more easily. Opener ‘Tornade’ offers the album’s strongest statement, one piano hammering out Charlemagne Palestine tintinabbulation, the other adding more measured touches while the drums slug away, while ‘Presque Mourir’, in it’s onkyo-like silence, enforces close and attentive performance. Elsewhere it’s a power struggle, one in which Bondi too often dominates, overwhelms, and drowns the other participants.

The whole album can be freely downloaded from Insubordinations.

Joshua Meggitt

Stendeck – Sonnambula (Tympanik Audio)

Posted: 15 Jun 2009 05:41 PM PDT

Imagine if Underworld made their music using a crunchy drum’n'bass/dubstep/breaks template instead of a techno one, and you would be in the ballpark of what to expect from the new Stendeck album, Sonnambula. The overriding intent is grandeur and epic-ness, with layers of reverberating synths flooding the background behind heavily distorted rhythms. Likewise, track titles such as ‘Through Tiny Windows We Wonder Constellations’ or Different Exotic Forms Of Lightning And Collateral Atmospheric Phenomena’ hint at a pompousness, yes, but it definitely feels like Stendeck is well aware of this and playing up to it is all part of the plan – nothing so over the top could actually be that over the top – surely there is a knowing irony.

There is certainly a great deal to admire. A track like ‘Lullabies From The Cliff By The Raging Sea’ is absolutely huge in it’s sound and ambition. And while the rhythms have an obvious heritage, a variety of tempos are explored rather than regular fallback 130/160bpms. For maybe half an hour, I actually find the album quite engrossing. My problems tend to set in after that time, when the insistence of the big sheen, the unrelenting minor keys and the issue I often have with IDM strains – a lack of any real melodic focus and bite in spite of being structured on massive swathes of harmonic information. And Stendeck really does push it to the limit – 70-odd minutes and 17 tracks with little in the way of timbral, chordal, structural or dynamic variety.

Sonnambula has some great ideas. But these need to be enjoyed in briefer chunks if listening indifference is to be kept at bay. The masses of reverb and distortion are maximalist to a fault, but my ears weren’t up to the task of not feeling overwhelmed and I struggled to stay for the duration.

Adrian Elmer

“Revert to Fade” – Extended Playlist 150609 – www.2ser.com 107.3FM

Posted: 16 Jun 2009 01:20 AM PDT

This week we revert to form with a solid block of early 80's synth pop to loosen us up. Your life is not complete without Data's Opera Electronica!
Brand newbies from Gang Gang Dance via TV on the Radio, Sleeper's wall of bent American sound and Ninja Tuner Yppah get the balance right again and set the stage for some praeter-Teutonic EBM/industrial stomping from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Downer curtains close with some horribly hate-y humans and two beautiful slabs of vinyl co-released by Touch in the UK and Autofact in the US.
It's a travelogue!

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More themes at your leisure, please, to extendedplay@2ser.com .
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The Human League – Only After Dark
("Travelogue" – 1980, Virgin)

Data – Opera Electronica
("Opera Electronica" – 1981, Polydor)

Visage – The Damned Don’t Cry
("The Damned Don’t Cry" 7inch – 1982, Polydor)

Silicon Teens – Doo-Wah-Diddy-Diddy
("Music For Parties" – 1980, Mute)

Devo – Jocko Homo
("Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo" – 1978, Virgin)

Stephan Eicher – Noise Boys Song
("Swiss Kult Hits Vol. 2 – 80’s Wave" compilation – 2001, mital-U) (original 1980)

Add N to (X) – Ann’s Eveready Equestrian
("Avant Hard" – 1999, Mute)

Amorphous Androgynous – The Isness
("The Isness & The Otherness" 2xCD – 2004, Future Sound of London) (original 2002)

Shriekback – This Big Hush
("Oil And Gold" – 1985, Island)

Sleeper – Abdomen
("Behind Every Mask" – 2009, Mush)

Yppah – Shutter Speed
("They Know What Ghost Know" – 2009, Ninja Tune)

Dntel – (This Is) The Dream Of Evan And Chan (Safety Scissors Spilled My Drink Mix)
("(This Is) The Dream Of Evan And Chan" 12inchEP – 2002, Plug Research)

Gang Gang Dance – First Communion (TV on the Radio Mix)
("First Communion" single – 2009, Warp)

Borghesia – Ni upanja, ni strahu (No Hope, No Fear)
("No Hope No Fear" – 1987, Play It Again Sam)

Actus – Alászállás (Descent)
("Egy út az erő és a rendszer birodalmába (A Way To The Empire Of Strength And Order)" ltd LP – 1990, Novum Organum)

Boyd Rice and Friends – Disney Land Can Wait
("Music, Martinis And Misanthropy" – 1990, New European)

Philip Jeck – Intro Roll
("Suite: Live In Liverpool" ltd LP – 2008, Autofact/Touch)

Marcus Davidson – Standing Wave (Live In Masthuggs Church, Göteborg, as part of the GAS Festival, 4 Oct 2005)
("Spire Live – Fundamentalis" 2xLP – 2008, Autofact/Touch)

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