TIMR 9: eno box sets

The Eno CD box sets: released in 1993 they come in a nicely designed box from Russell Mills reflecting Eno's interest in soft-porn playing cards and 50s images. And also with ready made coffee stains and cigarette burns.

They weren't Eno's first box. Working backwards 1983-1973 was a vinyl collection of 11 albums that included a couple of rarities: an EP with singles (RAF and 7 deadly finns) and some instrumental tracks. And music for films 2. Luckily for me (who had all the main albums) Impact records in Canberra broke the sets up, so I could buy the missing disks and the box.

This set was rumoured for a while, and was going to be called Familiar strange and Strange familiar (as in making the familiar strange - an oblique strategy). But eventually there were called I and II, or Instrumental and Vocal.

Instrumental has Music for Films 1 and 2, a couple of tracks from Another green world and Before and after science on disk one, collaborations (such as Fripp, Budd, Bowie or Cluster) on disk 2 and long Eno pieces on 3 (some in edit).

Vocal has almost all of the four 'song' albums across the first 2 disks (with some frustrating omissions) and the singles, then the third disk is again collaborations (Cale, Cluster, Byrne) and the grabber - some tracks from My squelchy life - the almost released album which circulated in review copies but was then pulled. Some tracks were reworked for Nerve net - but this was a sought after item at the time.

The material was reproduced using Sony's Super-bit mapping - to give higher fidelity 20 bit sound instead of the standard 16 bit on most CDs. Wow!

But it was great to get all of this on CD. The quality control on some aspects of the packaging was iffy: I remember I had to return one disk which was duplicated, and it was probably made harder in the plants because the screen-printing on the disks seemed to put I or II almost randomly (2 of the disks in Box II have ENO I on them). So enough rarities, better production, plus the fantastic content. A great pair of boxes.

This link to discogs has some nice images of Eno Box I to give you a better idea!

TIMR 8: talking heads

This is the one that almost got away.

When we lived in Canberra a godsend was Impact Records - back in those glorious days of independent record stores that imported albums. Their selection was great and every year there was the Impact sale where you could pick up things to try and delight in - especially 12" single - there are many in the loft from there. I would buy anything from Factory (single or album), things I had sort of heard of, ones which looked interesting, and then the must haves like Bill Nelson's Das Kabinet and La Belle et La Bete. And of course buying stuff in the not sale - my first Severed Heads for eaxmple (The Big Bigot, aus version with free 12").

One day there was the latest Talking Heads. Speaking in Tongues. But it was a premium price. Why? Because of the Robet Rauschenberg cover.

The album comes in a clear plastic container - not a sleeve. The disk itself is clear vinyl (I bought a YMO cause it was on red, my favourite Jona Lewie is on blue). But the killer is three plastic disks printed in red, blue and yellow which sit in the sleeve - transparent red and yellow above the album, blue below. The blue has album details which can be rread from the back. But the main impression is from the front where the colours overlap, blur with the album, have elements which align but others which don't - which altogether give a unique impression and a Rauschenberg artwork to own.

Couldn't afford it. And when I could it had gone. So along with PiL's Metal Box it was a missed opportunity. Yes I still had the music (with this a cassette which had some extended plays, and the double album Second Edition from PiL). But...

Until, through our connection via Muslimgauze, I saw that Terry Bennett had a copy for exchange. Which I jumped at and am now the happy owner of.

When looking at Ebay etc I am surprised about how relatively cheaply you seem to be able to find these. I can't fathom why.

The plastic sleeve is starting to yellow with age, I've never played the disk, but it is a wonder.

DGM live

In TIMR 5 I mentioned the record label Robert Fripp set up DGM - Discipline Global Mobile which reflect the philosophies of the organisation: discipline which is something essential to guitar craft and the Bennett/Guerdjieff teachings, global obviously and mobile being able to respond quickly.

It was started in 1992  to circumvent issues with copyright and distribution which have plagued Fripp like many musicians. In the first phase it release disks from King Crimson and spin offs and solo albums, Fripp, various of his interregnum groups (League of Gentlemen, Sunday All over the World), various guitar craft combinations and an expanding roster of related acts. The physical side of the label seems to have been dwindling of late, most energy seeming to be focussed on the ongoing rerelease of anniversary King Crimson editions

In 1998 they started the started the Collector's club: initially a subscription service and then individually purchased CDs of live concerts. And this is still going.

However, DGM have also embraced the idea of downloads quite dramatically - some have said to fuel Fripp's desire to see everything he ever recorded being released, but probably more significantly to beat the bootleggers (and in fact overwhelm them) and to meet the desire of fans for live recordings.

I first went over to the DGM live website a few years ago when I read about a live Fripp/Eno recording - it was of a bootlegged Paris recording from 1975: 3 disks, one of which is background and test loops. One advantage DGM have over the bootleggers is that their engineers (particularly david Singleton) work on any available recording (including master tapes, desk tapes, cassettes, bootlegs) to retrieve the best sound and the maximum concert. Usually these are terrific, but you are warned of poor quality. Anyway, the Fripp and Eno is fantastic - I had had a tape recording of someone's vinyl bootleg but this was great.

A bit later I bought the final Fripp & Eno recording, the Cotswalds Gnomes, which was a combination of sketches, outtakes and tracks from their career: a nice collection of various curiosities.

When David Bowie's new album came out there were reports that Fripp had leaked the secret recordings, because in his diary on DGM he had mentioned a dream he had had of working with Bowie. He had not in fact been asked to play - and would have considered it even though he has withdrawn from creating music. This intrigued me so I did some searching and found that yes he had withdrawn - the ongoing legal battles (culminating in the rap ripoff of 21st century schizoid man where the sample was used without his knowledge or permission). A great pity.

But, for me it reintroduced me to DGMlive, and as it was around Christmas when you get access to money and segueing into my birthday, I have been rather excessive in my purchases.

The site contains a variety of concerts

• Frippertronic sets from the 70s and 80s where the base tracks (some of which were on albums such as God Save The Queen) have often been reunited with their subsequent solos.
• Soundscape concerts from the mid 80s to the most recent available 2006
• Some free soundscape soundworks from 2005 and 2006
• King Crimson and Project concerts
• Fripp with others such as Travis, Slow Music, the League

And the number is huge - the search is good but I had to page through all the Fripp related releases (which includes KC) to find the soundscapes which I have now made a spreadsheet of.

Now, I have never been a big live album person - I will and have bought ones from my favourite artists but have few if any bootlegs. And one or two from various stages of their careers seems to do me (eg the Bowie various live CD and DVD {though I don't actually watch the DVD, I rip the soundtrack and listen to that} or KC across the various combinations) so the collectors club didn't really interest me.

But the soundscapes are different - I bought all the albums when they came out & have recently got the last 2 physical releases. As the output of one person focussed on that moment, each is different. And from the DGM selection I have bought a large number (Ok - count the concerts: somewhere over 35 not including 4 free sculptures and some short excerpts). And also four concerts from Projekct Six - Fripp and Belew - because while Belew is not a great favourite of mine he is on electronic drums and Fripp solos over that magnificently.

The main reason I have bought so many is that each is different - even when they are consecutive nights the themes and responses change and develop; and there are changes across time.

However another reason is DGM's excellent pricing policy. There are 2 aspects. First, related to the length of the concert. Shows which were less than 35 minutes or so (usually when Fripp was a support act) are $7, regular length is $10 and a few where he was in residence for an extended period are about $14. But the real sucker-innerer is the tour sets. The first ones I bought were a series of churchscapes in the UK and you got something like 6 for $20; a recent upload of the nordic start to that tour was $16 for 6. So it makes sense if you like them to buy a whole tour - for the projekct tour I wasn't really sure but it was only 4 concerts and getting the 4 was only slightly more than buying one to try (which I did with the 1981 tour, but as that was 12 concerts it wasn't too bad). But the Projekct set has become a favourite.

Most of these have not been released as CDs (though on now is At the end of time, a CD from the Churchscape tour, much of which can be purchased across a few concerts) and some old CDs now out of print are available. Surprsingly not all concerts that are sampled on CDs like Live in the USA are available as downloads

This music is so magical, sublime, varied, exciting, relaxing that any one concert has much to recommend it - I might not play all 12 concerts from June 2004 in a row, but slowly I am recognising each's distinctive features. I don't regret getting any of them - but have probably paused for the moment!

Also, the site has something called Stormy Monday's selection where an engineer goes through and selects a track or two that may be of historic interest - a KC rehearsal, something from the Vicar, a Fripp outtake - these are available for free download for a couple of weeks, and then removed, eventually to become a 2 'disk' download (to buy). I have been following this year and putting together an interesting and eclectic collection.

(NB all prices are for MP3, FLAC is also available for a little more
The images are randome ones from a couple of concerts)

prepublishing update: last week a new set of concerrts from 1983 was augmented: there were three and now there is a set of 22 for about $70. Relatively short concerts but most (haven't paged through them all) include a 'lecture' by Fripp.

TIMR 7: roden catalogues

steve roden will crop up a few times across this series. If I had to pick a favourite all round artist it would be him. I find his music sublime, but also appreciate his work in the broadly defined plastic arts. These are three catalogues I have which to some degree cover both. (I have restricted myeself to catalogues of exhibitions rather than CDs of installations which often include a booklet)

First, translations & articulations, a small brochure (1997 - griffin contemporary exhibitions, Venice Ca) bought, as you might guess, from Peril. There are a couple of essays and reproductions of some of the works in the exhibition. And there is also a cd to accompany it, which is what attracted me at this early stage, when steve was primarily music to my mind. The images show at this stage the range of steve's art - thre are sculptures, drawings donme withNot Wheels stencils, spidery additions and text to alphabet cards and colourful paintings. And an essay on his video work. The music included is of space enclosed by planes or surface, and my review from years ago:

When I first heard Of Space... at Peril it sounded like someone moving furniture about upstairs, but there is probably a more subtle source! Anyway, a slow echoing drag-noise, bumping like a microrecording of a match strike, forms the ground loop for this piece. After some 5 minutes it is joined by a repeating synth line and hollow bass, and these elements, together with some minimal percussive components, weave their way around each other for the remainder of this 22 minute disc, ending in a long slow fade as the music disappears from our aural environment.'

Fast forward to 2010 and two exhibitions, a retrospective and new work. when words becomes forms was at the Pomona College at the end of the year and  features new work - in two parts. First, an installation called bowrain - a construction where steve 'translated' a small drawing of Buckminster Fuller's into a large structure like giant pick-up sticks based on a code he 'saw' in the original drawing, built using random processes and incorporating coloured twine, video and a soundwork in the final piece. There are pcitures here and avideo on the web. The other translation isn a series of paintings inspired by postcards accompanied by texts from Michael Ned Holte which are impressionist poems. This reminded me of Tom Phillips who has done a variety of things around repainting postcards (and also reminded me of his Works/Texts to 1974 which has paintings created in the size of the book). Steve, however, rather than reproducing them takes their essence and implies them in his work. One beauty of this catalogue is that the paintings are small and reproduced in actual size. The colours, lines, brushstrokes are all there to see - and the catalogue includes a wrap around which reproduces small versions of the originals.

And there was also an extensive retrospective in between (a 20 year survey) at the Armory Centre for the Arts in Pasadena that stretched into 2011, and which had another lovely catalogue. Here there is a sample of art from across various periods of roden's career from 1990 to 2010 to be sampled and savoured - not life size but the flavour of the range of his works is apparent from drawings through to paintings and sculptures, textual pieces to video stills. It also has a CD accompanying it which has 3 excerpts from installations in 1999, 2004 and 5 and a piece from 2010. These are, as usual, excellent pieces which are disappointing only in their length. blinking lights at night developed from a recording of the rhythms of lights on a bay and recorded on a 7" which can be heard is only 4 minutes, there is 10 minutes of translation which is lines and spaces (to be covered later). duet, which was at the show is the longest at 11 minutes. And observatory, which was also at the show, is 7:28 that makes you want more, as a soundwork based on recordings including natural ones that makes you want it to just keep going.

One of the many regrets in my life is that I haven't seen a steve roden installation or exhibition, nor beento a concert. Books, images from the web, CDs and MP3s (the 4hrs 45minutes of the Soundwalk show is mesmeric) will have to be it unless he gets here or I get to one of the many places in the world (which are not Australia) that he gets to.

Dave Stafford (2) Dreamtime and Sky Full of Stars

In my ongoing introduction to the works of Dave Stafford, 2 more albums - I am not reviewing in either chronological order, nor the order of my discovery, but rather in pairs that work together. These two albums belong together in my mind for structural and musical reasons, as well as being recent releases. 

We'll start with Dreamtime which is actually by Scorched by the sun and was released in January this year through bandcamp. SBTS is Dave Stafford with Bryan Helm - and while this is the first release by this 'group' Stafford and Helm go way back to 1989 where as alumni of guitar craft they formed The dozey lumps and Luxury yacht (1 album a piece) but more significantly formed Bindlestiff which released 6 albums in the 90s. These albums are well sampled on the 2 free pureambient compilations available on the site, and vary in ambience and intensity, but all very listenable. 

For various reasons there was a musical hiatus, but eventually Bryan sent Dave a link to a site with 12 pieces in it (as noted by David Byrne in his book, transcontinental collaborations are now able to spawn news ways of working). The basis for an album! When he started to work on the pieces, adding his layers, Dave initially fell back on his role as the guitarist in the duo (Bryan was keyboards) but it didn't work. And then he realised that his m-tron mellotron e-synth would work perfectly. He then set to work adding his parts (he has hinted that a bonus release of his and Bryan's components) to the 12 tracks, all bar some piano on the first part, played using the m-tron; then adding a mellotron solo in the middle of the album, and mixing the tracks so that the 11 'seams' are, while not invisible, at least not obvious and so the track unfolds as a single mutating and modulating piece. And it does work very well - this is true furniture-music {coincidence - while looking at the pureambient site I came across a single of a cover of Bill Nelson's furniture music: my reference here was of course to the original Satie quote} ambient where you can have it as background music but that repays closer listening. The album opens with an active ambient piece and closes with vocal tones singing a melody to layered synths. In between there are layers of drones and loops, notes and sounds drift through the mix - a descending riff, a call, some atonal, edgy loops - a mellotron flute, the satisfying intermission solo. And while each is part is an ambient gem, as they are sewn together to make a complex quilt the album becomes a complete experience that is more than the sum. Other than for musicological reasons, or that old faithful completism, I don't think the two halves of the album should be released as it is the combination that works (my first though was, hey yeah, that could be interesting, but I changed my mind).

Fast backwards to 2011 and Dave releases Sky Full of Stars. This was my fourth purchase, bought because it was described as a mellotron album - all keyboards (and bought before Dreamtime). While many of his releases are guitar/loop based I seem to be jumping about sampling his whole range (the looping will be in the next review). But when I first played it I was a little confounded - I had expected Epitaph-like flute or choral tones, the sort of things that bought 60s & 70s progrock to life! But here were long held tones layered, building density and texture. And then I was dumbfounded as, as I said to Dave in a two word review, it is simply beautiful. What the synth retains from the original is a warmth and depth of tone - and apparently you can recapture the sound of the original as Dave has used those on Dreamtime and Gone native. These pieces almost glow, and I have played them through my sound system to gain the full value from the tones. In New day dawning the deep resonances give a solid quality to the sounds. Elsewhere the tones pulse, drift, ring and just sing: there is also a sense of stately majesty throughout the album. There are tunes - The other half of your soul has a melody dancing slowly over the drones - and long evolving pieces (the title track is almost 18minutes based around some delightful backward tones - the shorter pieces tend to be more active). But if you like tonal drifting keyboard ambience with occasional pulsing, you will love this: as with many great albums it is really indescribable. Other than Simply beautiful

TIMR 6: taming power tapes

A shelf of cassettes - 40 altogether.

In 2003 I received my first (unsolicited) package from Askild Haugland, from Norway, accompanied by a personally typed letter. It was one of the many pleasures of reviewing that people entrusted their music to me, and that I got the opportunity to be regularly surprised.

Askild records as Taming Power and releases on his own Early Morning Records. Except for a couple of compilation 7" records, all the material on the label has come from Askild,  and I think (again, except for a compilation) this is the sole media for Taming Power.

Since then I have had the privilege of getting all of the Taming Power releases. It includes these 40 tapes and 19 vinyl disks (7", 10" and 12"). The only CD is a promotional copy of a compilation TP appeared on. So why is this important to me?

Before talking about the music there are some aspects that underlie the appeal of Taming Power:
First, the adherence to 'old' technology resonates with me - you are limiting your audience but being true to yourself. Some of the cassettes were editions of 12 and up to 20. With trhe vinyl the issues have got larger partly reflecting the economic realities of disk production, and unfortunately that has also made it harder to Askild to keep releasing material.
Then there is the look - EMR has a house design based on Askild's writing, layout and (in mnay cases) photography.Vinyl releases have images which until the last few were pasted onto the front and back. The back cover includes details of the recordings and the instruments. In the cassette days, again the covers were individually designed (you can't tell in the photo, but the spines of each release have a different calligraphic-like work on them. The inside cover has all the details again. Inside the folded cover, though is a set of images (the same size as the cover) like a small pack of cards. For EMR cassette release #1 (1997) this include forests, a bird of paradise, B&W reproductions of colonial photos and electronics diagrams. In #39 (2001) the cover folds out with images of a glass roof and the inserts are processed colour photos. Other releases have Askild's drawings, more photography and found images. (Tape 40 is a later compilation of outtakes from EMR 10"-010)
Finally; I noted the details on the back - an Askild is meticulous in documenting his works. They are tape looped pieces and for each we know the instruments and equipment used, and also the dates for the final master and the components that have been used to make it . These have got more detailed over time: so on EMR 10"-005 the tracks are simply named by their date (eg 3-5 on side 1 are all 4-10-1998) by 10"-010 each of the tracks on side 2 has 2 dates (eg 17-9-01VII/9-7-02IV) indicated record and mix dates. The most recent (EMR 2x12" - 018: a double album, and you may have noticed the catlogue number includes the media size) has tracks like the third on side 3 where there are 3 dates in the title, but then a complex, bracketted list of 17 dates/recordings which led to the final 26-6-09. I have to admire and respect someone who has this focus on their music making.

So - the music. The various releases come in two naming formats: one is basically descriptive Six pieces, Selected works 1992-98, Autumn works 2002. But others are more specifically descriptive For electric guitar and tape recorders, 16 movements for electric guitar.(Some vinyl are rereleases of cassette material)

And this is what really impresses me about Askild. He has used tape recorders and cassette recorders as tools and instruments and found a way of working with them, using his guitar and a developing array of other instruments (the radio, resonant bowls, casiotones, the voice). The resulting oeuvre is surprisingly varied within the selfimposed constraints. There are guitar solos with a classic simplicity of melody line, complex layered and looped pieces that develop a drone ambience, passages of noise, guitar pieces that are layered and modulated through the tape (no effects other than distortion and delay): in short a voice that is distinctive and also very satisfying. I have (I am afraid) digitised the lot and can happily put on any of them and enjoy the works. And can happily recommend (and have) any or all of them.

And as I sit here the tapes are down to my left, the records are behind me, and a selection of images that Askild sent me separately sit in a frame on the bookcase, changed regularly.

But the final thing, why the collection gets on this list, is that I think I am the only person (or one of a maximum of 12 people, based on the smallest tape release) who has a complete collection of this material. I am humbled to realise that Askild was willing to send halfway round the world not only the original releases on vinyl for review, but then entrust the cassette collection to me.

Taking the sentiment from the start of this further, since the early days of the internet which I was lucky enough to be part of (I remember FTP, the text based pages, the first browsers with images and the massive growth since) the connections between people in disparate parts of the world sharing information, music, passions has been amazing. This collection - along with others that will pop up on TIMR remind me of these long distant friendships and interactions