CURRENT SPINS

          1.  Maurizio Bianchi - THE SELF-PORTRAIT OF MB
          2.  Sutekh - PERIODS.MAKE.SENSE.
          3.  Leighton  Craig - 11 EASY PIECES
          4.  Vivenza  -  FONDAMENTS BRUITISTES
          5.  Esplendor Geometrico - BOX 2
          6.  Severed Heads - VIVA HEADS!
          7.  The Hacker - REVES MECANIQUES
          8.  Benge - TWENTY SYSTEMS
          9.  Kevin Drumm - IMPERIAL DISTORTION
         10. Keith Fullerton Whiteman - MULTIPLES
      
      

 
      

OSCILLATIONS: BIOMETRY by Der Zyklus

Der Zyklus is another sub-project by Dopplereffekt's Heinrich Mueller (Gerald Donald),  whose penchant for science-related subject matter is again in full bloom here. The words "biometry" and "biostatistics" refer to the application of statistics to a wide range of topics in biology. How this relates to the music is a mystery to me,  but there may be a manifesto here somewhere,  possibly within "Biometric ID",  a spoken-word stab at significance.  In terms of sound,  BIOMETRY goes well beyond the Electro of early Dopplereffekt and the Industrial influences of latter day releases like CALABI YOU SPACE.  The tracks here often rely on repetitive motifs,  but with a greater emphasis on texture,  tonal color,  and abstraction.  A high point for this man of many alias.

SEQUENTIAL Sort Of

TWISTED: The Sequential Circuits Pro One

I must confess to preferring a sea of knobs over a poorly lit menu any day of the week.  And while the keyboard on my late model Pro One is very much unusable in a traditional sense,  it does function well as a method of triggering notes when creating a sequence or arpeggiation.  Once that is accomplished,  one is free to twist those sounds into bizarre shapes using the Pro One's modulation section knobs or routing that job to the mod wheel.  Its dual oscillator design makes this one powerful little monosynth,  capable of beefy bass lines and equally subtle or scary analog noise-making.  The Pro One was in production between 1981-84,  and was the company's best selling instrument.  No midi,  no polyphony,  no problem.  Snap one up if you can.

SERGE Video

SERGE Video

POWER SERGE

One of the most compact, affordable,  and functional of modular synths,  the Serge Creature is rightly described as "a box of monkeys"  by Rex Probe,  President of Sound Transform Systems,  the company that carries on the legacy of Serge Tcherepnin.  Rex's colorful description may seem ridiculous to some,  but the Creature is a synth of great depth,  little documentation,  incredible patching potential,  and surprising unpredictability.  He told me that he often uses it as a relaxation tool after a hectic day of business,  allowing those "monkeys"  full voice...  oh, really?  Ironically,  those monkeys feed on a steady diet of stackable banana cables,  making experimentation quicker, easier,  and perhaps even more relaxing (especially when compared to the quarter-inch or eighth-inch forests one often finds on modular synths).  My Creature is joined by the Serge Sequencer A,  making for quirky sound chains and even more chaos.  These two M-Class "M-Odules" seem the perfect start for anyone wanting to experience the Serge sound creation ethic,  an ethic based on both quality and simian playfulness. A perfect combo!

SOME VELVET MORNING on TV

OSCILLATIONS: SOME VELVET MORNING by Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood

While this 1968 nugget may not be cathartic noise,  it does have a kind of ambiguous hypnagogic (you really must love that word!) poetry that sets it apart from other psychedelic epics of its time and gets right under your skin without resorting to pop cliche.  It is absolutely one of my favorite duets,  and in keeping with its time,  seems to combine mysticism,  Greek mythology,  and Freudian psychology into a gorgeously inventive arrangement full of contrasts and contradictions.  The vocals form a male/female duel that results in a kind of gender consolidation that would have psychologists' tongues wagging for ages.  An entity name Phaedra  makes several appearances,  and she/he is the light that listeners follow until the song's dramatically unresolved end.  The word Phaedra is derived from the greek word for "bright",  but does little to illuminate meaning here,  and that's just about perfect. Enjoy.

MARS: From NO NEW YORK

OSCILLATIONS: MARS EP by Mars

While most No Wave groups seemed to signify New York nihilism at its most extreme,  their endeavor seemed to suggest just the opposite.  Here were visual artists who picked up instruments in hopes of creating sound without recourse to traditional musical guide-rails like melody,  chord structure,  or even narrative lyrical content.  Yes, frustration was rampant in the art community and in a downtown NYC littered with burned out buildings and high crime.  What was produced was noise pushed into convulsions of purpose and chaotic intimations of form.  This is the kind of sonic sludge that is heard throughout the MARS EP (1980).  The voices are meaningless mutterings and howls,  all catharsis with no subtle shading or contrast.  Everyone seems to be playing in every direction full-on at the same time,  making harsh,  abstract electronic sounds that almost appear to have no relation to the basic two guitars, bass,  and drums format.  It was frightening and exhilarating at the same time.  Just listen to the manic energy of "Puerto Rican Ghost" (on the NO NEW YORK compilation)  for Mars at their most succinct.  Better yet, check out what was originally a side long opus on the MARS EP charmingly called "The Immediate Stages of the Erotic",  a study in convulsive rhythms,  tortured guitars,  speaking in tongues,  and channeling the environment in which they lived.  This was their summit,  and as such,  they were done.

OSCILLATIONS: MONOTONPRODUKT 07 by Monoton

One of my favorite German sequencer-driven records,  and as it's from 1981 (first released as a double album) it easily stands out as a very early and influential example of the various Electronicas that were to come. Everything from techno to ambient to Raster Noton is hinted at here.  This is music that is both rhythmically hypnotic and textural,  and certainly does not speak in any kind of monotone at all. Track three,  "Water" even boasts something that could be called a vocal.  That voice,  which I assume is auteur  Konrad Becker,  makes appearances sparingly throughout the track list.  Here are sound pieces that are not in any way cold or analytical,  yet still suggest a forbidding landscape alive with physical and mental dangers. The comforting repetition almost always reveals slowly moving menacing drones that sometimes even echo a human voice.  An inviting presence,  but beware!

SCOTT WALKER: Final Words On THE DRIFT

SCOTT WALKER: From THE DRIFT

SCOTT WALKER: From TILT

OSCILLATIONS: TILT by Scott Walker

The cover reveals everything and nothing,  and that's what one is going to get here. Its dark and ambiguous visual architecture (is that an eye, a hand, feathers?) seems more memento mori than diary,  a futile grasp at something.  Ten years plus after the gauzy revelations of CLIMATE OF HUNTER came the second installment of Scott Walker's sonic and poetic re-invention,  TILT (1995).  A hint to the listener comes during "Farmer in the City (Remembering Pasolini)".  The singer states "remember that dream,  we talked about it so many times...",  as if we're expected to understand and embrace the sleep that brings impossible imagery and half-understood mutterings.  This is the album where Scott finally lets go of his formidable baritone with Camus fixations and dives off the deep end into a very, very private world.  The music reflects this all through TILT.  Electronics,  noise,  clustered percussion,  traditional instrumentation and silence share single tracks,  especially evident in the contrasts that form "The Cockfighter".  The swelling massed strings of "Farmer in the City (Remembering Pasolini)" are especially poignant and one of the few returns to Scott's past glories.  But what is he talking about in these songs?  I just don't know,  yet references to religion,  art,  film,  contemporary events,  and politics populate the songs until little miracles emerge that just need to be experienced before critical faculties come into play.  Much like the guitar graced "Blanket Roll  Blues" that brought CLIMATE OF HUNTER to a conclusion,  TILT ends with "Rosary",  Scott on his Telecaster.  He boasts of various rituals and devotions,  but ultimately exhausted,  sings "and I gotta quit,  and I gotta quit".  He didn't, of course.  THE DRIFT emerged eleven years later from a man still possessed by sacrifice,  artistic ambition,  and disappearance into song.

NOISE TOYS: THE SERGE CREATURE/SEQ A & THE CHIMERA bC16

NOISE TOYS: THE CHIMERA bC16 PATCHABLE SYNTHESIZER

LOUIS & BEBE BARRON: EXPLORING THE SOUNDS OF FORBIDDEN PLANET

Louis and Bebe Barron are widely credited with composing the first all electronic  film score in 1956.  Considering the meager machinery at their disposal,  the soundtrack for "Forbidden Planet" is otherworldly,  dreamlike,  and richly psychological in its summoning up of internal demons and their destructive possibilities.  Armed with only a few reel to reel tape recorders and some circuits built by electronics wiz Louis,  the couple slowly and laboriously used cut and paste tape editing to create their masterpiece.  Bebe,  the composer used looping to create rhythms,  reversed and speeded up tapes during the mixdown to further modulate the original sounds,  and added delay for spatial effects. The result was a blurring of the line between music and sound effects.  The film's producer had originally wanted Harry Partch to do the score,  but I believe that the Barron's  use of pure electronics was more appropriate to the movie and brought what were once thought arcane sounds to a much wider audience.  Sound and vision, indeed.

FORBIDDEN PLANET: COMPOSER BEBE BARRON

TROPPO RUMORE?

Is there too much noise inherent to contemporary culture,  be it from television commercials or a what we like to call "popular music"?  In the electronics field,  noise is defined as "a random or quasi-random sound made up of many frequencies,  perceived by the ear as hiss".  This is often called pink noise or white noise depending on its place on the frequency spectrum. What may at first appear random is in actuality a complex aural event.  We presently live in a world that has attuned itself to some noises that were once considered disturbances,  in direct contrast to what was understood as "music" or "organized sound".  That we now feel free to sculpt sound using various means,  both analogue and digital,  has made these  sonic events viable beyond notions of good or bad,  aesthetic considerations,  or musical composition.  Now many of us create "sound art" based on ideas such as dynamics,  textures,  and tonal coloration.  What was once heard as static or noise may now be perceived in terms of the above qualities,  and perhaps the idea of "beauty" may apply as well.  Troppo Rumore? No!  The tyranny of form? Yes,  but to a lesser degree than before.

SANTA MARIA DELL' ORAZIONE E MORTE

A tiny church located near the banks of the Tiber on the beautiful Via Guilia  and quite near Piazza Farnese,  is one of Rome's many little secrets.  It predates the better known Capuchin Cemetery by almost sixty years,  yet contains similarly ghoulish decorative motifs.  Its name is translated as "Saint Mary of Prayer and Death",  and was built for a confraternity of monks responsible for interring corpses found on the streets (and surely the Tiber) of Rome.  It is only open for very limited hours every Sunday.  On our first visit,  my wife and I found a simply decorated interior (the facade is where expectations rise,  as you're greeted by various sculptural skeletons, etc.) and a flight of stone stairs.  We descended to find ourselves surrounded by shelves of skulls in various conditions and a large cross made entirely of human skulls.  Unlike the Capuchin Cemetery on the Via Veneto,  this church always seems without tourists,  and as such has my highest recommendation.  There may be little instructional value here (no "Ars Moriendi" or "art of dying"),  but as a simple encounter with one's own mortality,  it can't be beat.

MEMENTO MORI

On my trips to Italy,  Rome in particular,  I've always been struck by the sheer volume of imagery pertaining to the transitory nature of life in a culture that very much feeds on its fleeting pleasures.  It may seem ironic, but that acceptance of life's contrasts is certainly vital to living it to the fullest.  This genre of artistic creation and intention is called "Memento Mori",  and is loosely translated as "remember your mortality".  Fun, huh?  The tradition dates back to pre-Christian antiquity, but really took hold in the Christianity of Medieval Europe,  and helped put a somber face on Ash Wednesday.  Early Industrial Music seemed to have taken this imagery to its bosom and tumbled it into cliche later in its development (much like its screaming processed voices and no fun attitude).  Another vital idea shorn of its power.

GEOMETRICO REVISITED

MORE THIS SECOND SLEEP STUDIO VIEWS

MERZBOW/POTTER: The Spoken Word

Pattern.  He dragged the dog to make his numbers,  throw his leg against the wall.  This was recreation.  He hitched paper to a face on the wall, as if covering was forgetting.  This,  called travel.  He noticed the moon was ill,  so he used a shovel to tap a remedy,  count his way home.

A NEARLY LOST MERZBOW/POTTER TRACK (1992/2010)