IDM Mailing Archive

Twine: Recorder Bip-Hop Records (2002) Tangled guitars and frequencies blend and repel in the opening track None Some Silver, from this debut Bip-Hop recording by US sound sculptors Twine (Greg Malcolm and Chad Mossholder). French label Bip-Hop, normally known for their quality catalogue of microsound and experimental electronica, have taken a risk to release this futuristic cross between rock music and a locomotive submerged in a gelatinous body. Cign is a paced, linear track that takes the listener on an altered joyride complete with clanging drone and constant percussion halted, distorted and echoed. The feedback plays cautiously throughout this Amtrak meets the Giant Colossus on rails to no end. Working in the fields of video game sound design and engineering it is no surprise that Malcolm and Mossholder have built creative outlets with such passionate ends to balance their heady careers. Fine Music is representative of the kind of collaborative work you might see defined after years of experimentation. Here we witness this first ear with treatments rich in vibration and ample planning. The sampled voices speak to us from the cockpit of a world in turmoil. The understated percussion and mechanics wind around the base of the topical drama. On Factor Twine plays with your irritable sensibilities. There is a claustrophobic, almost compacted inversion of how the beats are built and sampled. Filled with quirky percussion and chunky beats and blips, Factor has the inflection of a wanna-be dance track that doesn’t quite make its way to the disco floor. It seems to battle within its structure, and that is what makes it interesting. The stark Curved pops with tunnelvision. Parts Dr. Who, parts Nocturnal Emissions, a crypt of unearthly delights bares the stamina on truths invented. Having toured with Mouse on Mars, Oval and Thomas Brinkmann, Twine has had its share of brainy hosts. Touched is a shaken collision of amplitude with trace caustics. As the disc comes to conclusion on There Is No One Else we are ready for any turn they want to take. Crispy vinyl wheezes as a space age interview is conducted. There are general comparisons to Godspeed You Black Emperor and even KK Null, but nothing concrete enough for any direct link. Recorder presents a unique unit prepared to go where no laptop has gone before. Various Artists: Bip-Hop Generation V.5 Bip-Hop Records (2002) Updated Asian influences from Accelera Deck (Chris Jeely) representing the US on this collection by French label Bip-Hop in its fifth such compilation in a series of influential recordings. Bloom is the final track that Jeely has recorded under this project name after releasing material on Morr Music, 555, Endorphin, and Scarcelight among others. There is a tingling sensation to the track that repeats in patterns and doesn’t get out of its loop until two minutes from its conclusion. Its surface is sweet harmony. The last minutes, however, skew the basic lines, but it seems like a long time to wait before the track will be tinkered with to effect. The final edit could have easily found this gemstone in the rough. In the next corner, representing Canada, is Andrew Duke’s Alphabetic. Duke, whose Cognition Audioworks, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia has been gaining momentum since the latter 80s when he started hosting his radio show In The Mix. Having also recorded for Phthalo, Bake/Staalplaat, pHinnMilk and Tsunami Addiction, Duke has pulled in front of a number of other electronic whizkids vying for club attention with his distracted and oblique tracks like this one. The rhythm is blended with drone and static and at its midpoint an important transition takes place in this fifteen minute long player. The ambience shifts and the percussion is one beat off its path making for an observant, complex mix. Alphabetic reminds me of some recordings on former mystery label EM:T. House favorite (my house that is) Mikael Stavostrand of Stockholm, presents Spann, an electro-acoustic track with digital stimulus. Based on small soundbytes and minimal structures, Stavostrand has much in common with colleagues on the Mitek and Mille Plateaux labels. This is the inverse of conventional techno, the breaking down of commercial barriers, getting to the root of raw sound experimentation. The romanticism of his bare beats and tiny sound oddities make for intimate listening. UK-based Tonne is a rather new act who has created visuals for Scanner, Pole, Tennis and others. Having been involved in the Lovebytes Festival, Sonar and Steim they have lots of excitement under their belts to share. The fireworks seen inside Auto Loader are subdued in a wash of warmth. Utilizing natural sounds (crickets) and other samples the subtleties fear nothing. This is the type of teaser track that begs for a full-length. Bip-Hop has also included Tonne as part of this enhanced CD on BiP-Hop’s soundtoy. Berlin’s Rechenzentrum (Christian Conrad, Lillevän, Marc Weiser) is the dark horse in this comp. Their Le Joujou Du Pauvre is a decoded, restructured lock-groove of voices and strained electronics. Hyperventilated anxiety reigns in this noise puzzle filled with spare parts of mishapes. Their work is original composition, in line with late 80s tape culture. Like mail art, returned to sender and then re-addressed to another set of unsuspecting ears. The final three tracks here belong to France’s own D’Iberville (Julien Berthier). The reverse processing has a reflector of Reich and is filtered through an emergency ward. Warning signs chime and alert in this triptych’s first track Le Souffle C’est La Vie. Tongue-in-cheek as the titling may be here the forced entry of Bruit Venu D’Ailleurs births an uneasy, cut-up beat. The distorted buzz-sawed lines are uniquely unsettling and then reversed in the bop-friendly Gigue with its bubbly, super-colorful synthetic sound. This recalls a unique crossing of a leisure suited player organ salesman and Windowlicker-era Richard James on a bad day. TJ Norris, Gallery Director SoundVision 625 NW Everett St #108 Portland, OR 97209 USA Phone: 503-238-7007 Cell: 503-702-2708 Fax: 503-210-7812 www.tjnorris.net Event Schedule: http://www.tjnorris.net/soundvisiongallery.htm Music and Art Reviews:Vital Weekly (The Netherlands), Tablet (Seattle), Just Out (Portland), Igloo (CA), Grooves (NJ), Capital Magazine (Toronto), Instrumental Weekly (WI) --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org