Stephen Fruitman

Machinefabriek, Nerf (3" CDR Machinefabriek)

Although generally very impressed with his long-form works, I´ve always felt the best way to enjoy Machinefabriek is in small bites, in the seemingly unending stream of three-inch discs issuing from his Dutch factory. Each is like a little work-in-progress, a status report. The content may turn up elsewhere completely rehauled and recontextualized. Or it may remain as it is, where it is.

Here are three studies in acoustic and electric guitar. On "Sluimer", single notes carefully explore the space into which they´ve just entered, wide apart from each other. It is Machinefabriek´s answer to Brian Eno´s "Neroli" writ small.

Overlapping, irregular shudders form the soft ground of "Ax" on which is sprinkled brief, random flutters of fingers lightly tangling with nylon strings. In the far distance, a great mill breathes with more regularity until it breathes its last.

The title track is a disjointed, angular affair which left little impression. Apparently it appears on a compilation in an alternate version.

This release also, if I am keeping track correctly, heralds the start of a new, handsome, white-on-almost white design series.

http://www.machinefabriek.nu

Alio Die, Tempus Rei (Hic Sunt Leones)

Tempus Rei is further evidence that the ambient artist known as Alio Die is in fact the reincarnation of a very old soul, Elizabethan at the very latest but more likely High Medieval.

The matter-of-fact list of devices used to make this extraordinary album - "drones and loops, zither and field recordings" - reveals nothing about the depth and mystery of the two, half-hour long pieces. Stating however as the artist does that it was "celebrated", rather than created, speaks volumes.

The first piece features a leitmotif so inherently beguiling that I feel sad and disappointed when it disappears. Happily, a few minutes into the second offering, it slowly reemerges. The entire album is redolent of old, musty wooden beams and fusty, book-lined rooms, as entire collections of ancient instruments appear to have been sampled and woven into this irresistably captivating tapestry.

As an added temporal twist, the entire recording features its own, discreet background track of rainy, current-day street sounds, tires whishing by on wet pavement, a heavy, gusting wind casting raindrops at the window.

One of the most understated and yet most powerful of Alio Die´s many unforgettable works.

http://www.aliodie.com

DJ Spooky, The Secret Song (CD & DVD Thirsty Ear)

Another hugely ambitious project by Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, which means plenty of food for thought, much savoury delight, and some flavour combinations which leave your palate flabbergasted.

As usual, he throws in everything and then some more. Usually the plethora of artists appearing on a DJ Spooky album have made their way there via vinyl, but this one is jam-packed with actual guest performers. So many guest stars, in fact, that some of them, like Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth and the terrific pianist Matthew Shipp, just drop through the cracks with off-hand performances.

The overall production sound is supringingly spaced out – in the sense of room to breathe. Which is a good thing. The typical DJ Spooky mix leaves little room in which to move around. Which can also be a good thing; the senses need to be aurally assaulted occasionally to clear the cobwebs.

The Secret Song is not an album, it's a political, poststructural artifact. It wants to be seen as a proposal, or series of proposals, which we must confront. It is the sound of the clash of civilization (in the sense of being civil) with capitalism. It cannot be pinned down, that´s for sure. There is so much more clarity in his musical production than in his writings, which really should only be released in precis form after having been revised by a loving but ruthless personal assistant.

You cannot help but be beguiled, maybe infuriated, drawn into the conversation with strong opinions. And you´ve got to credit his taste in collaborators and session musicians (the Golden Hornet Project quartet are particularly talented and refreshingly understated). He is one of the few artists whose rappers I care to listen to - cf. The Coup´s ”5 Milllion Ways to Kill a CEO” here. Spooky looks back by remixing an iconic tour-de-force of turntablism by Rob Swift and stares the present straight in its bloodshot eyes in his collaboration with Iranian singer Sussan Deyhim. ”Azadi (The New Complexity)” is not only a tasteful showcase for her remarkable voice, but also a rallying cry dedicated to the protesters of the current regime in her homeland.

And he´s got a heckuva sense of humour, though maybe he pushes it sometimes. A "Dazed and Confused Dub" in honour of the influence Led Zeppelin has had on hip-hop is exemplary. But as the music continues to wend its way, sometimes down shiny yellow-brick roads, sometimes into deadend alleyways, it often returns to iconic gestures of seventies arena rock - the guitar riffs, the Jethro Tull flute and erratic time changes, strings where there should be no strings.

Even some of the jazz in which Spooky has dabbled successfully, particularly under the auspicies of this label, sounds filtered through progressive rock (”Heliocentric”). Some tracks are rambling, indulgent and absolutely indecipherable – why call a lethargic guitar and strings instrumental ”No Quarter Dub”? Indeed, why on earth make it?

But then ”Iago´s Lament” intrudes. Vijay Iyer sits down at the piano and in a mere two minutes holds the producer in thrall, leaving him capable of merely dressing up the background with just the right amount of non-distracting ambience. And the closing drum and bass duet is thoroughly distracting and infectious.

The DVD is an unnecessary bonus insofar as it really has nothing to do with the music CD, only sharing Spooky´s theory of remix culture and complementary multimedia. Dziga Vertov´s ”Kino Glaz” is a unique piece of social art, but Spooky´s soundtrack really adds little and in fact exposes weaknesses in his (non-DJ) composition techninque; it´s really quite average, and influences can be spotted as they are trotted out – Mussorgsky, backward-tape Baroque, Reich, Glass, gamelan, a little smooth jazz (nifty drumming, though). Biosphere has soundtracked Vertov and done a much better job of it, without the agenda. More relevant to both the collection and Miller´s social activism is ”Rebirth of a Nation”, his incisive attack on one of the foundation stones of American film and American racism.

http://www.thirstyear.com

Yukitomo Hamasaki, d+p (mAtter)

mAtter is the brainchild of Tokyo´s Yukitomo Hamasaki and is more than a "mere" record label, gathering writers, architects, video artists as well as experimental electronic composers who design buildings and commercial products with as much seriousness as they invest in their music.

That there is no hierarchy or differentiation between genres is made apparent by the list of ”works” on its webpage, combining installations and record releases in simple chronological order. The ultimate goal is to redefine the place in which matter exists and ”construct dense space”.

Focusing strictly on the music, mAtter is quietly building up a small, challenging, but sturdy roster of releases. ”Scytale” is comprised of four pieces created in tandem by Shinkei and mise_en_scen, followed by three remixes. ”Cryptology” is a fitting name for both the first track and the album as a whole, as we are treated to collage-like tracks, mixing a soft underlying drone or high-pitched whistles conjured digitally with bits of business utilizing contact microphones and field recordings that may have just as well have been made in the kitchen as in the nearby woods. It is up to the listener to decode and understand. All four pieces are rather humble offerings and while meticulously constructed, not particularly engaging.

What do the remixers do with such open-ended raw material? Luigi Turra´s ”Agrandissement” of the first track follows the original quite closely before stirring up its contents in a great iron cauldron. TV Pow member Michael Hartman´s ”Dreaming Ascent Redux” fiddles a bit with the original bits and pieces before lifting it skyward with a confident and attractive electronic sweep. The onset of Yukitomo Hamasaki´s ”Asbt. B., No. 2” dovetails perfectly with the end of Hartman´s piece, before going off on its own, quiet tangent, laying down soft drones like barely-rung gongs and playing with static like one does with metal filings and a pocket magnet. All the artists involved in this project are deft with the small gesture, but in this company Hamasaki is the master.

Hawaiian Andy Graydon´s ”Geomancy” is a moody work puncuated with high-pitched frequencies disturbing an otherwise enjoyably somber listening experience which seems to embrace all the rumblings of the surface world - those of nature and those of industry. The seven-part piece is precise and surgical. The silences and near-silences are as significant as the overt sounds. The final section eases itself into a beautiful, crepuscular drone, really like hearing a slow, beautiful sunset.

Accompanying the CD is a DVD of Graydon´s video art, super 8 diptychs and triptychs and attractive abstractions exploring themes of place and displacement and featuring some of the acetates utilized in the making of the audio disc.

The most elegantly concise and representative work is Yukitomo Hamasaki´s own d + p both in visual, musical and philosophical manifestation. In a series of releases that could hardly be accused of excess, his is by far the most austere, from title and cover design to the untitled seven pieces within, which range from one to eleven minutes. They exist on the fringes of earshot. Hamasaki often erects a soundwave as hard, smooth and curved as the side of a Frank Gehrey building and impresses small, intimate, almost missable detail work along its edge. The occasional flash of static, like a bird sharply veering past a closed windown, rouses the listener from any possible torpar into which the music may have lulled him.

Sometimes, like on the sixth track, the only tangible thing the listener has recourse to is the air itself. Between the prickly electronic discharges of the closing track, you can heard angels sing.

http://www.matter.jp

Náhvalur, Aboideau (CDR Mystery Sea)

A perfectly amphibious album - splashing about in and around the water - harmoniously constructed by Alexandre Rito and Matthew Ellis as Náhvalur, "narwhal" in Icelandic and Faroese.

”Roth Ramach” achieves admirable aquatic stillness with nothing but a low rumble disturbed only by the occasional bubble rising toward the surface. ”Remora” sounds absolutely ear-splitting in comparison, wind whining across the surface of a chill Scottish loch. As it sweeps unrelentingly past, the listener seems to be moving toward something more substantial, a mysterious buoy or even a crowd of rescuers on the shore, brought to the scene by the ringing of village church bells. For it does indeed convey a sense of danger.

”Laveer” sounds just as nautical but its rough seas seem much less threatening, as if viewed from a secure, dry place, perhaps the "aboideau" (tide gate) of the album title. This the longest piece opens to present a wider and broader albeit still grey-scaled vista as it proceeds, punctuated by mystery sounds.

The ”Pleistocene” is of course the era of the glacials and eventual emergence of modern man. And if this track is meant to convey the harsh snow squalls confronting an ancient hunter and gatherer somewhere in the central European Alps fighting the cold in search of quarry, it certainly succeeds in a surprisingly cinematic manner.

http://www.mysterysea.net

Nils Frahm, Dauw (business card CDR Machinefabriek)

German pianist Nils Frahm´s piano transcription of Machinefabriek´s "Dauw" (from the long-player of the same name) is infused with quiet passion, an interesting contrast to the stately intellectualism of the original. His interpretation, stating the track´s simple four-note theme then digressing from it, is virtuosic while stubbornly unspectacular, each crystal-clear note pegging itself straight into the heart.

To hear the original and see the brilliant video made to celebrate it, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AkGNHkrtnc

For a review of the original Machinefabriek album, go here: http://sonomu.net/text/~machinefabriek-d/

http://www.machinefabriek.nu

Cone, Massimo (3" CDR Fieldmuzick)

Massimo is the record of a Dutchman on vacation in Sicily, where he captured and mixed a handful of field recordings over which he plays simple, musing abstractions.

These field recordings rise and fade into the background, giving unusual depth to Cone´s instrumentals. On "Bus Stop Wake Up", an increasingly impassioned acoustic guitar riff competes with a busy streetscape in Catania, joined by an oddly affecting toy xylophone and cheesy organ.

"Fire on the Mountain" - the mountain being Etna seen through the window of a train - is an electric guitar wig-out held on track by a steady Oriental rhythm. "Massimo´s Secret Room" features the fat echoes of the huge, grand old Teatro Massimo in Palermo. Cone tries his hand at a variety of stringed instruments, seeming to rehearse more than perform.

And a sweet little organ tune piped over some children frolicking at the beach leaves the picture-postcard final impression of a visit well spent.

http://www.fieldmuzick.net