quintetAvant - "En Concert À La Salle Des Fêtes"

Don't you just love super-groups? Whatever musical category you pick, they've always existed and for as long as record companies are willing to look at ways of increasing their cash flow, they always will. Though Quintet Avant is a French music concrete-improv ensemble, I somehow doubt their grand raison d'être is to make money. Lionel Marchetti, Jérôme Noetinger, Jean Pallandre, Marc Pichelin and Laurent Sassi all play a variety of musical objects — from analogue synths, to microphones and reel-to-reels.

Recorded back in 2002, the audio represents what was happening at that time musically, though to be fair, this is still fresh stuff. Sensory overload is what the ensemble does best. Through the squeaks, the furiously paced glitches, the abrasive scratching sounds, through to the turntable sounds of records being manipulated to death, they do it all. Make no mistake; this isn't easy listening by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, if anything, it requires that you absorb yourself in the world they've created — fully and completely. On the other hand, there's much humour in their presentation. How else would you enjoy sounds that mimic wind-up toys, shutting doors or sounds of crazy birds chirping up a storm? Even the calm moments sound plausible. Nothing is impossible in the world this quintet has dreamed up. In the name of good fun and under the heading of serious music served up to entertain, anything is possible.

Tom Sekowski- music live report

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Ekkehard Ehlers - "plays"

In 2001, Ekkehard Ehlers released a compositional cycle of abstract tributes to artistic personalities. Released as a string of five EPs and singles on Staubgold and Bottrop-Boy throughout 2001 and early 2002, they were later culled and issued by Staubgold as Ekkehard Ehlers Plays in May of that year. The album comprises ten tracks, two per artist. Ehlers' music never references the works of its namesakes. Instead it draws inspiration from a certain state that the music of Cornelius Cardew, Albert Ayler, and Robert Johnson, the films of John Cassavetes, and the writings of Hubert Fichte create in Ehlers' mind. Although each set has its own character, associating it with the corresponding artist simply doesn't work -- and to add to the intentional confusion, the order in which the EPs' titles are listed on the front cover and the actual track list given in the booklet differ. Ehlers' music draws on German experimental ambient and minimal techno, but also post-rock melancholy and drone-based improvisation. The best pieces are the two "Ekkehard Ehlers Plays Albert Ayler" tracks, featuring slow cello notes (almost drones) by Anka Hirsch. They sound like funeral marches. The two "Ekkehard Ehlers Plays Hubert Fichte" tracks, with delicate guitar work by Joseph Suchy, also captivate. On the other hand, the dancefloor-friendly beat in the concluding "Ekkehard Ehlers Plays Robert Johnson" brings things to an awkward end. This album generates its own universe of cultural references but, beyond its conceptual side, it draws the listener into a highly introspective sound world, slow-changing and mesmerizing. It eschews the clichés of clicks + cuts, microsound, or any other trend rooted in experimental electronica at the time, making it definitely one of the strongest, most personal artistic statements of 2002.

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K11 - "Metaphonic Portrait 1230 A.D."

Continuing with his interest in cathedrals, with the new K11 release “Metaphonic Portrait 1230 A.D.”, Riparbelli entered Assisi Cathedral in the Umbria region of Italy, not far from Riparelli’s hometown of Tuscany; the 1230 A.D. in the album’s title referring to the date of completion of the original cathedral. Audio was recorded in the cathedral’s lower basilica, the oldest area where the actual relics of St. Francis Of Assisi are kept.

Again utilizing short-wave radios as his primary “instrument” Riparbelli has captured a haunting array of cavernous sounds, displaced signals and found ambience. With the addition of some voice and organ elements, Metaphonic Portrait 1230 A.D. sounds not unlike the recordings of experimentalists Philip Jeck and William Basinski under the influenced of Crowleyean Magick and Sacred Geometry. A psychedelic meditation from some medieval crypt captured out of time in the present.

The numbers used in the songtitles are chosen with purpose, all related to the Gematria, the ancient system that assigns numbers to words and how they relate to each other. A video shot inside the cathedral by Riparbelli is included on the disc to give the listener a visual picture of the aging structure. As in all K11’s work, the themes of magick, religion, numerology and esotericism are present throughout this reverent document of aural mysticism.

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3/4HadBeenEliminated - "Oblivion"

The group (guitarist/double bassist Stefano Pilia, turntablist/sound assembler Claudio Rocchetti, tape manipulator/vocalist/guitarist Valerio Tricoli and percussionist Toni Arrabito) has created a work wich is at the same time new and refreshing and yet completely consistent with their vision: a deep interaction between human, environment, traditional instruments and live electronics that creates a floating atmosphere filled with a natural energetic flow which borders on the psychedelic. Thanks to the versatile use of the voice, capable of experimenting new solutions and suggestive ways of emission, and to the instrumental and electronic surround, they are able to create a three dimensional space, also thanks to the continuous switch between a concrete, rough world and a dream-like one.
"Oblivion" is their fourth full lenght album, and a further confirmation of the outstanding talent of these Italian musicians.

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Ghost - "Opvs Eponymovs"

Standing motionless and anonymous beneath the painted faces, hoods and robes (which their sect demand), the six nameless ghouls of Ghost deliver litanies of sexually pulsating heavy rock music and romantic lyrics, which glorify and glamorise the disgusting and sacrilegious. The simple intention to communicate a message of pure evil via the most effective device they can find: Entertainment. This is Black Metal at it’s most original and deceiving; compositions such as “Ritual” and “Death Knell” majestically weave their melodic spell of evil through the senses until the listener finds themselves utterly possessed and open to any diabolical suggestion.

A daringly beautiful combination of satanic rock music with an almost unthinkable pop sensibility, Opus Eponymous is a must hear for 2010.

For fans of early Mercyful Fate, Angel Witch & The Devil's Blood.

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Oreledigneur - "Oreledigneur"

Oreledigneur is the duo of Giuseppe Ielasi and Renato Rinaldi.
Their collaboration started in 1998 with the release of the cd "may 15th" (Fringes) with Domenico Sciajno and Gino Robair, followed by the first Oreledigneur LP (co-released by Fringes and Fusetron), in collaboration with Alessandro Bosetti.
On this cd, they are credited as playing 'big and small objects and instruments'. We can hear guitars (motorized, activated, and even conventionally played and filtered via tapeloops), field recordings (close miked small motors, working machines, nature and whatever), small percussion. The last section was recorded live in the open air, with the essential contribution of Stefano Pilia on loops and double bass. Recorded between 2002 and 2003 and assembled in the summer of 2003.

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Dracula Lewis - "Omnichord Improvisation"

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