There is a youtube taishogoto ensemble video for those who, like most of us, don't know what it is

From Vivisect to ambience to the newsletter to the website to the blog and back. Returning from a period of stasis (appropriately for an ambient blog) we are re-energised to provide more solipsism. There will be some reviews, some comments and a new trip-down-memorylane called Things In My Room which combines it all. Thanks for listening
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
2 Days - Bryan Day
There is a youtube taishogoto ensemble video for those who, like most of us, don't know what it is
Monday, October 29, 2007
Shelf Life and Fernandes/Horist
The cynic says that you start a record label to publish yourself – and that is often a stimulus to small labels. But usually they grow beyond that, and here are two label bosses whose labels have never really been about themselves – but about their music community
Shelf Life – Bryan Day, Alex Boardman, Joseph Jaros and Jay Schleidt from various States and different groups – started in 2003 (by the first two) and has gradually developed over the years. The instruments include guitars, stringed things, percussion, electronics, reeds, Theremin, sampler, contact mikes etc. In 2006 they spent 2 days a week improvising in Bryan’s Omaha apartment studio to produce 80 hours of material – edited down to 80 minutes for Ductworks (public eyesore pecd107). This is, therefore, quite an unusual improv album. They usually seem to be recorded in a day and we get ebbs and flows, crescendos and noise. The selection of the 13 tracks (titled with some anagrams of ductworks) seems to focus on stasis and mood. The selections are 2-8 minutes long and combine the same range of sounds (scrapes feedback percussion electronics somevoices bowing picking clatter twinkling mellotron-tones) so that without concentrating you don’t notice one piece changing to the next. However they do have different flavours or moods with different elements highlighted or collected. It is therefore some of the more ambient improv I have heard, with a steady subtlety that makes it quite distinct. I found myself warming to this more and more as I replayed it and I am sure it will be a favourite. A fine work. (a strange indicator of the smallness of the world – this comes in a card sleeve printed in the Ukraine)
And from Accretions, Jerks and Creeps by Marcos Fernandes (phonography, electronics) and Bill Horist (guitar, electronics) (www.accretions.com, ALP046) which is primarily two tracks from concerts in Japan. In Kobe which supplies three fifths of the album, they were joined by Haco on electronics and voice, while in Osaka Masafumi Ezaki (trumpet), Bunsho Nishikawa (electronics) and Tim Olive (bass) helped out. The two concerts are spacious explorations of the possibilities of the instruments: they only occasionally slip into recognisability. Fernandes had left behind his percussion and provides textures and depths to those emerging from the guitar. My notes read like an abstract poem which follow the music, words scattered over the page – mysterious, ambient, processed occur throughout. The guitar is percussive, tonal, sliding frippish, arpeggios. The density is in flux, at times dropping almost to single sounds at others a nightmarish display, and then again some ambience, but always absorbing. Haco’s most obvious addition is strangled vocals at times throughout Kobe. The phonography is sometimes obvious – the Middle Eastern horn and drums late in Kobe 1 or a tannoy – but it is not always apparent. In Osaka the sound is fuller (not surprisingly) but again swinging between density and more spacious sections. The part played by the members of the ensemble is harder to extract – some possibly blowy trumpet sounds, string scrapes could be either bass or guitar. And electronics is electronics! I am not sure the 2 minute Kobe coda adds anything to what is two strong pieces, but it doesn’t diminish them either. More in-ya-face than Shelf Life, but not too aggressively harsh though its intensity is satisfying.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
A new Roden
a few web labels
My recent wanderings have identified a number of labels (in a label watch folder and I open them all every now and then). Here are a few which may interest
Test Tube: http://www.monocromatica.com/netlabel/releases.htm
thirteen songs (http://thirteensongs.net/Main.htm) which ranges across the web to create
themed and wide ranging compositions. Again, a good way to test some labels and artists.
Just some thoughts - I might expand on my 'label watch' list later - the Russians and more.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
iTunes pricing and international bargains
But poking around I found some bargains - prices in australian dollars - such as
Penguin Cafe Orchestra - History - 4cds for $17
Clash - On Broadway - 3 cds $17
Philip Glass - 2 Pages - $5
and the real corker
Steve Reich - 1965 to 1995 - 10 cds $17
I was going to let people know - but decided to have a look at some international stores -and found that the Reich is still US$99 for example. I'm not going to complain, as I like a bargain, but it's a funny old world!
Ampersand on-line
When Ambience turned into a newsletter and then unfortunately passed on, I had reviews left and decided to keep going by posting on news groups and building an address base.
Ampersand Etc has lived for some years as an email newsletter, riding the waves of changing computer systems, reviewer burnout, work commitments. The last couple of years it has been random notes sent out - and I am not sure if people are getting them (I do get a few responses).
The whole exciting history - ie the back issues of the e-zine - are available at
http://ampersandetc.virtualave.net/ampersand.html#latest
Until recently I had been avoiding Blogs like the plague - but then came across Steve Roden's ripper one (airform archives) and some he points to, Tom Phillips' view into an artists world and more, I decided that the fragmented history of &etc may fit here. I still get occasional stuff to review, find things that I like on the net, etc - so this was born.
Thanks to all who may have read me in the past, welcome to anyone who may read this. And let me know if you want music reviewed.
Welcome