Cyclic Defrost Magazine |  |
- Paradigm Shift Radioshow Playlist 27 July 2009
- Gareth Dickson – Collected Recordings (Drifting Falling)
- Duane Pitre – ED09 for String/ Wind Ensemble: Live at Roulette (Quiet Design Records)
- Hugin & Munin – Raven’s Empire EP (Jank)
- D.B.P.I.T. & XxeNa – Alien Symbiosis (Deserted Factory)
| Paradigm Shift Radioshow Playlist 27 July 2009 Posted: 27 Jul 2009 08:00 AM PDT The Paradigm Shift is a weekly Monday night radio show presented by Sub Bass Snarl on Sydney radio station 2SER fm 107.3MHz – check the 2SER website for the NEW IMPROVED live web stream! It airs Monday nights at the time of 730pm for 90 minutes (Australian Eastern Standard Time – GMT+10). Get in touch to send us your music (320s welcome!) – EMAIL: paradigmshift [AT] 2ser [dot] com King Tubby – Dub Of A Woman (Original) [Dub From The Roots] (Greensleeves) [* = Australian Track] |
| Gareth Dickson – Collected Recordings (Drifting Falling) Posted: 27 Jul 2009 02:28 PM PDT
A while back someone blasted our neighborhood with a stencil art of Zappa and the caption 'do you like my new vehicle'. While Gareth Dickson is not the subject, the very feel of Collected Recordings, the lilt of his voice, the soft melancholy, and the brittle edged folk guitar inspires the comparison to Nick Drake. As if Dickson were the new vehicle. Glaswegian Dickson opens the compilation with 'Fifth (The Impossibility of Death)', a form of sonic sculpture with layers of static, long extensions of tones, plays of surfaces extending and reshaping while a minimum of guitar play opens and heightens melodic possibilities. It highlights the use of reverb that in the more folk driven tracks is played not to as radical a conclusion but to create atmospheric effect for the delivery of Dickson's poetic weavings. If the comparisons to Drake are to abound it is clear in the halting melancholic intonation on 'Song Woman Wine', where words are extended as halting tones into wistful ether. Such is the romantic construction of the folk realm that cleverly creates a mystery with a simple shape change. 'Trip to Blanik' returns to instrumental guitar and effects landscape, where cleverness and densely packed and layered experimentation abound. Dickson squeezes counterpoised rhythm forms out on 'AGOA' in a halting tilter forward insistence, that displays his guitar prowess and just as effortlessly offers a sleek folk simplicity with velvet charmed tones lulling the listener into ambient drenched calm. It is the complex simplicity offered that is deceptive and welcome, notably in the ominously strummed 'Technology' which builds a deep tone and uses the tension of building, tempo changing melodic lines and inserting a bright break, a light revealing the shadows. It is the contrast between the two personas that Dickson presents, the guitar experimentalist ripe with ingenuity and skill brandished sharp to the ear and the charmed simplicity of the folk vocal pieces that give this album the sense of being collected. While it does not hold in a coherent statement of the album format Collected Recordings is indicative of a burgeoning talent delivers easy and sincere pleasure to the ear. Innerversitysound |
| Duane Pitre – ED09 for String/ Wind Ensemble: Live at Roulette (Quiet Design Records) Posted: 27 Jul 2009 02:02 AM PDT
‘Exploring the border between chaos and discipline’ is an over-used phrase usually adopted by ambitious conceptual improvisors, however it is an apt and deserving description of this recording, ‘ED09 for String/Wind Ensemble’, by Brooklyn-based composer and sound artist Duane Pitre. Essentially a long drone piece for chamber ensemble, utilising 21 New York musicians on the title instruments and Pitre’s own bowed guitar, in both concept and resultant sound ‘ED09′ follows in the footsteps of such long-form composers as Morton Feldman and Phil Niblock and, less so, the textural music of Ligeti and Xenakis. The combination of so many voices makes discerning individual instruments particularly difficult, strings and horns for the most part blurred into a vague, beautifully shimmering haze, and it is here that Pitre best achieves the order/chaos balancing act. Based on a score of set playing methods, pitch groups and spontaneous conduction – ‘real time mixing’, as the release puts it – ‘ED09′ seems constantly on the verge of collapsing, or rather overflowing, Pitre guiding the work through gentle shifts in depth and dynamics, the music slippery and fluid, contracting and expanding as though drawing the same breath as the wind musicians. Frequently, the music achieves such thickness – and volume – that the resultant sound mass most closely resembles an organ. In other moments the strings seem to dominate, but these moments occur almost like tricks in gestalt perception, like the ‘duck-rabbit’ phenomenon, it brings Tony Conrad to mind, but soon other elements crowd the scene and the focus is shifted. This is drone music of rare depth and power, rich with crescendos and bucolic calm. Joshua Meggitt |
| Hugin & Munin – Raven’s Empire EP (Jank) Posted: 27 Jul 2009 12:06 AM PDT
It’s curious to think that bands operating in more tropical areas of the world would particularly gravitate towards Norse Gods, but indeed the renewed interest in elder gods and pantheistic religions seems to be something that’s very much central to the black metal mythology, a genre that’s certainly expanded its tentacles with speed right around the globe over the past several years. Founder members Surt and Thorgrim had previously been responsible for forming highly respected Brazilian doom metal band Dark Eden before their increasing interests in Norse Gods and the Odinist faith lead them to create Hugin & Munin – the new project taking its name from the two fabled messenger ravens that relayed information back to Odin himself. Recorded independently by the band late last year, this debut five track EP ‘Raven’s Empire’ introduces the new group configuration and with track titles like ‘Thor In Jotunheim’ and ‘A Viking Funeral’, it’s pretty obvious what’s in store here. After a fairly grandiose faux-cinematic intro section comprised of majestic synth orchestration, horns and bells, ‘Thor In Jotenheim’ sees the quintet opting for straight-out Black Metal thunder much in the vein of Mayhem or Behemoth, massed blast beats colliding with downtuned guitar serration and Surt’s sandpaper-throated roar. ‘Battle For Asgard’ meanwhile adds a more rowdy edge, with the massed chorus yells certainly calling to mind a band of Vikings laying waste to a city, before ‘A Viking Funeral’ gets busy with the double-kick drums and a vaguely Yngwie Malmsteen-esque guitar solo. From the point of view of a metal fan, it’s certainly more than solid stuff, but in this case the strength of the songs here is compromised badly by the poor mix, which pretty squashes the drums and vocals into indistinguishable mush. A pity, as the five tracks here otherwise show plenty of promise. |
| D.B.P.I.T. & XxeNa – Alien Symbiosis (Deserted Factory) Posted: 26 Jul 2009 09:20 PM PDT
Electronic producer and trumpet player Flavio Rivabella first started his Der Berkkante Post-Industrielle Trompeter (or D.B.P.I.T.) project back towards the start of the decade, before releasing his debut solo album ‘Eleven’ through the Misty Circles label in 2002. Since then, Rivabella has spent time collaborating with a wide range of different artists, and indeed he’s certainly been extremely prolific, with his website listing around 15-20 different solo and split releases during the ensuing years. This latest collaborative CDR release on the Japanese Deserted Factory sees D.B.P.I.T. working alongside XxeNa, a painter, videomaker and graphic designer working with sound for the first time. Because D.B.P.I.T. was apparently engaged in a period of ‘personal exile’ during the recording of this project, the four lengthy pieces saw him working only with a single laptop owned by XxeNa, with the emphasis falling upon sounds sourced from around the duo’s household, including pots and pans, beads in a jar, wind-up toys and even the judicious deployment of a toilet flushing (apparently) at points. The end result is a beguiling collection that could perhaps be best labelled as electro-acoustic noise / musique concrete, though it deftly avoids the more aggressive tendencies of the former genre, balancing its more shearing, distorted elements with a sense of gentle playfulness that makes for a surprisingly accessible listening experience. The opening title track certainly provides an apt illustration of this overall approach – while much of its textures are drawn from more distorted regions that call to mind the constant flow of grainy noise, with what sounds like kitchen appliances and poured materials merged with an almost vaporous, continual hissing tone, it’s the frequent unexpected elements such as what even almost sounds like treated bird song at points that really tweak the interest factor. The appropriately spooky-sounding ‘Out Of Body Experience’ manages to traverse a similar path, with its blend of modulated electronic tones, harmonic swells and continuous, steam-like noises certainly calling to mind the disembodied sensations evoked by the title – particularly as ghostly, distant strains of Rivabella’s trumpets slowly fade into focus amidst a distant wash of what sounds like forest field recordings near its end. An extremely impressive collaborative effort from D.B.P.I.T. and XxeNa that shows both producers managing to think well outside the usual ambient noise parameters. |
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