Bee Mask - Canzoni dal Laboratorio del Silenzio Cosmico 7.1

                 Here’s the first release from Edition Mego’s ‘Spectrum Spools’ division. If this is the kind of quality they’ll be having, I’m perfectly fine with it. Before I went to bed, I put this on and sort of drifted around for a while. That’s the kind of music you’re getting into.

                Side I starts off as if it was a irr.app.(ext.) track. Tension gradually builds through the light scraping sounds. Chris Madak teases this out as a loud drone is processed in the background. Eventually it just overwhelms you. Compared to Side II, this one is considerably louder.

                Almost as an exact opposite, Side II sounds much more melodic and calm. Sure, there are a few blasts of static noise. For the most part though, the Cleveland native touches upon the calmer aspects of drone music. The ending is pure gold.

                Overall, Bee Mask moves extremely quickly for a drone artist. During the course of 30 minutes, he introduces all sorts of strange themes. Some of these would not be out of place on a James Ferraro recording, while others feel more homages of Terry Riley’s early work. Either way, he does it well. It moves by quickly while still giving you plenty to ponder.

CD_Slopper – SaskieWoxi 3.8

                A duo of Florian Hecker and Oswald Berthold (from Farmers Manual) come together to create a rather strange album. Consisting entirely of jagged pieces of digital garbage and noise, it completely confounds the listener’s expectations of what sound should do. Some parts of this get extremely loud, and conjecture up images of an extremely unstable molecule. Unfortunately, the lack of coherence or a unifying theme besides random chance makes it hard to enjoy or digest.

                By no means are Hecker or Berthold strangers to an unorthodox approach to music. Usually though their experiments, as obtuse as they can be, do generally have a purpose. With this, it appears pure chance music. While that gives it a certain appeal, it lacks the sort of rigor Hecker puts into his project or what Berthold adds to Farmers Manual.

                Instead, you’re presented with 44 tracks of digital debris. Combining this with another, more unifying theme, like what Mark Fell gave to his “Ten Types of Elsewhere” might have helped in making this more approachable, enjoyable, and interesting. Even putting various similar sounds or suites might have helped in making this a better album.

                Pieces and moments exist on here which point to greater things, but they are never elaborated upon. Instead, you’re even a giant stream of data incoherently presented. That’s unfortunate, as usually these two artists have much to say.

Spectrum Spools: A New Label

                Editions Mego may be one of my all-time favorite labels. Originally they started out as plain-old Mego. Due to various circumstances I have yet to be privy to, they became a Phoenix, burning out and rebirthing as a new label which does essentially the same thing.

                Lately they’ve been changing that format a little bit. For one, they’ve been releasing a lot more ambient-based sort of stuff like Mark McGuire and Emeralds. Sure, the noise hasn’t ended; they have the wonderful Robin Fox and Hecker. But its gradual shift towards more mellow soundscapes is hard to ignore. Plus, some of their releases have begun to get greater attention: Oneohtrix Point Never got a positive write up in none other than Pitchfork, alongside a few others from the Editions Mego roster. Usually it is just Boomkat covering them, so having a review site that more people read has definitely helped them out.

                Keeping this in mind, they created a sub-label: Spectrum Spools. Spectrum Spools will serve as their North American comrade. According to their blurb on their website, they claim it will be: “showing yet more talent shining up out of the North American synth underground”. Hopefully they’ll be right. It is about time the wonderful American experimental underground got some credit. 

                I look forward to these guys making good on their promise. Their diversity often means that I don’t always like what they put out, but more often than not, they release quality, something many labels forget when trying to jump on the bandwagon. Keeping tabs on experimental classical, digital, noise, metal and even folk (see Bill Orcutt’s unstable material) they make sure to try accept the weirdest of the weird.

                Right now I’m eagerly awaiting Fabric and Bee Mask’s material. We’ll see whether or not this proves to be a prudent move by Peter Rehberg, or if it will show he’s losing his mind. Be aware this is the same guy who thought participating in race car competitions would be a good idea for an Avant-Garde record label. Not sure why he thought that, seems kind of insane thinking about turning the masses onto obtuse noise and ambience with race car drivers. Plus, I think it ended up costing them a ton of money they probably didn’t have, though record label owners have to be somewhat crazy I figure.

                March I’ll start having these two artists reviewed and seeing what they really have to offer, or if it’ll turn out being phoned-in ambient garbage like what I’ve been hearing more and more of lately. Here’s hoping for success.

PXP - while(p){print"."," "x$p++} 7.4

Oswald Berthold’s work in Farmers Manual just couldn’t satisfy his itch of the deeply weird. Here you’re given stuff so absolutely bizarre that the album is copy and pasted spam nonsense and the music doesn’t help you understand anything. Indeed, it is as if his computer was trying to say something before it died.

This is pure digital manufactures. At no point are you reminded of anything approximately a beat or melody. Rather the music floats freely around your ears, referencing nothing but the broken math equations that made it possible.

Rhythms form occasionally, in an attempt to make sense of the chaos. In the third track a beat and rhythm begins to form out of random noise. Slowly but surely, structure reasserts itself. Even the structure is attacked by all sides. 

What’s interesting is the gradual decrease of loud (like the opening track which is nothing but barely treated static noise) into almost hypnotic and near silent “meta” suites which close out the disc. It sounds like the computer freaked out in the beginning only to be talked down from that level of insanity. 

Clearly there is something larger going on in here. Prix Ars Electronica stated: "Here was a jutting mass of digitized disturbance that fueled our direct reckoning with destabilized mathematics. (...) Spam data malformations. Direct waveform bitstream. Seizure. Disengage. Smitten." I couldn’t have said it better myself. They gave it an honorable mention.

Really, this isn’t something you’d want to delve into every day. But with the right mood and proper digital fetish, this hits the spot. There’s something oddly engaging in such random sequences that makes me happy whenever I listen to it. 

PXP's Bizarre website 

Farmers Manual – No Backup 8.9

I think Farmers Manual embodies the myth of the nerd. The amount of information floating around about these people is ridiculous and not all of it is accurate. Among the more interesting tidbits: they recorded in a disused auto repair shop, they worked in the advertising industry, were influential wiki makers before it was cool, and heavily participated in the Viennese electronic scene in the early nineties.  Due to the conflicting information, I can only confirm the last bit.

Numerous anonymous web junkies were involved in the proceedings, but the main anchors were Mathias Gmachl, Stefan Possert, and Oswald Berthold. Together these three brought much weird music into the world, but I’m going to focus on their first effort, No Backup.

What distinguishes this record from so many other Mego releases is how it merges the normal with the sublimely weird. Usually Mego releases (especially the early ones) were either dance or extremely experimental. No Backup included both, so you could play it for your friend who grew up on Aphex Twin, and he’d know it was different, but would not be able to put his finger on it.

According to the few interviews that existed with this trio, the music’s focus was rhythm, not melody. Upon starting up the disc, you see what they mean. “Macro-Woeb” does consist of a warped sense of time keeping. “Biomagic I” could pass as a dance track, except the infinite ratcheting of suspense and an ever insistent near-melody makes such a thing impossible. The follow up of “Biomagic II” is like listening to the previous track getting dissembled into its most basic elements. 

Most of the music on here has a sense of humor to it, whether it is of the sorts of sounds used or the extremely bizarre references. “Perimeter 87” gives off the impression of a lackadaisical spy with its stuttering guitar-like sounds. But one of my favorite songs on here has to be “Farmers Manual”. It is nothing more than oddly delayed high-hats, which remove any sense of dance. What is interesting is how the background noises are the actual song, and the synthesizer in the background, giving the only hint of progression, is going through a quiet breakdown.  

Farmers Manual are currently on hiatus following their release of every live performance they ever did (the RLA) in 2003. But this is perhaps the easiest way of getting acquainted with their sound. Consider it a Rosetta stone for their later recordings.

Hecker – Acid in the Style of David Tudor 9.2

Hecker occupies a realm of experimental electronics that very few ever venture. Acid in the Style of David Tudor represents sort of a completion of various projects and ideas that he has been exploring through various one-off releases and art gallery presentations.

Nothing that would be considered “natural” noises is used here. Usually an artist will try to reference some sort of environmental phenomena in their work, either through snares, organ, drone, etc. This is the most pure computer music you will find and it is taken to some heady extremes.

The warning on the CD states that “Headphone use is not recommended”. Headphones are alright for listening to it, but due to the extreme three dimensional qualities of the pieces, it is much better to let the sounds roam around the room. 

“Recordings for Rephlex”, Hecker’s release for the Rephlex label, gave you some inkling of what sounds were interesting to him. “Precedence” and later the entire album of “Hecker, Holler Tracks” began his obsession with spatiotemporal confusion. With this release though, he basically saw those ideas through to their logical conclusion.

Jarring effects introduce you to the album. The “ASA” tracks serve as a way to sort of clear your head for the next onslaught. “Acid in the Style of David Tudor” tracks are the opposite; they brim with life and flirt with groove and tempo, though rarely comfortably settling with either. And the closer “Ten” pretty much mixes it all together to have a mono, bi-aural and stereo sound. That means that the sound digs deep into your ears, mine tickled upon hearing this very odd piece.

Ultimately, it is reassuring that there are artists still exploring the furthest reaches of what digital music can do. And although some may claim that Hecker’s music is self-consciously off-putting, there remains a current humor that makes the proceedings surprisingly playful.

Emeralds – Does it Look like I’m Here? 7.3

Emeralds specialize in a certain type of progressive rock gone amok. Think of endless synthesizers blazing a trail straight into the sky, and you’re halfway there. Obviously this works well as background music for whatever you might be doing, but there’s certain moments that remind you human hands are behind this.

Those bits are like the halfway mark at “Candy Shoppe”, the last fourth of “Genetic” and so on. Pieces of genuine emotion are thrown in there to bring you back from space, down to reality once again. Most of these songs are relatively short, and the mixing between each track is really enjoyable.

Mego continues down a different path this year. So far, there’s been considerably mellower stuff from Peter Rehberg’s label. Even the new Hecker material gives me the sense that perhaps this cosmic sound might be making a comeback. Hopefully Emeralds and their side projects continue to deluge us with material, though I still happen to enjoy Mark McGuire’s solo stuff over this.