Jealousy Party - All Yours (2013)

Audition

/Free jazz, Improvised music, Dub, Avant-jazz, Dada music, Leftfield, Avant-garde, Experimentalism, Improvised noise/

Comment: Jealousy Party is a challenging Italian combo (Roberta WJM Andreucci, Matt Pogo, Edoardo Ricci plus Kunto Bertiaka on percussion in some tracks) whose 29-minute session comprises extreme jazz or borderline noise explorations filled with choking energy and strangling intensity. It can say the trio is inspired both by glorious Italian noise tradition, French Dadaist scene and leftfield free jazz improvisers. Frenzied attacks of natural instruments (alto and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet, trombone) and frantically chopped vocal tasks are juxtaposed against chameleon-like rhythm torrents and turntable based techniques which in turn do have references either toward experimental electronic directions, dub music or unclassified factor.  The result is betwitching chiming like having the purpose to exorcize the demons from an evil person.                   

Julian Percy, Jon Evans, John Murphy - Last Dominion Lost (2012)

Audition

9.5

/Electro-acoustic, Avant-metal, Noise rock, Ambient noise, Avant-garde, Brutal metal, Psycho-acoustic, Sound art, Experimentalism, Noise/

Comment: this bundle of 6 compositions is a sultry blend of chirping noises, signal-based frequencies, and suggestive pitch effects and phase changes below and overhead. Sometimes the soundscape is carved with the assistance of distorted voices and clattery drums and thudding bass vibes, however, changing its situation into a quite clinical case. Even an instance of ambient progressions is represented within it (of course, it is made up in their own mode of expression). In a word, at times the whole used to sound in a mesmeric way, sometimes in a more straightforward way, though, being uncompromisingly idiosyncratic throughout the course. By kindred souls the combo can be compared with the likes of Interlard, and Hella. Truly extreme indeed.

Jaap Blonk - The Splinks & BRAAXTAAL (1993/2011)

Audition

9.4

/Avant-garde, Weird, Experimentalism, Conceptual, Free jazz, Improvised music/

Comment: my first experience related to Jaap Blonk`s oeuvre does hark back to 2004 when I did confer honour upon his collaboration with Maja Ratkje. The Dutch musician can be compared with such artists as Michael Schiefel, Meredith Monk, Laurie Anderson who are known by their vocal experiments/acrobatics. Here are uploaded 10 tracks, taken out from two albums The Splinks, and BRAAXTAAL (1993) both of them issued on the Kontrans records. There can be detected for dizzy grooves and acute experimentation by both sides, by Blonk and his co-musicians, respectively. Of course, Blonk`s sound is sophisticated and highly self-conscious based on within the frames of the academical avant-garde and jazz-relied improvisations. In a word, this is a legacy in the compartment of intriguing music.

Electroacoustic Mexico 1960-2007 (2011)

Audition

9.2

/Conceptual, Electro-acoustic, Experimental electronica, Avant-garde, Experimentalism/

Comment: undoubtedly the music history is an exciting realm for any melomans to concern for. Indeed, any new compilation or discovered albums may release a new gambit for a new theoretical approach and concept. (The most well known are Sub Rosa`s anthologies of noise and electronic music). Here is an eligible legacy of 23 notches regarding the past of the Mexican electroacoustic music over the 4-5 decades. More detailly, such miscellanies are the clear-cut evidences of how electronic music has been developed, containing a loads of conceptual ideas (serialism, for instance), pitchbent textures and minimalism-induced phase changes, passionless sonic effects, ambiance-related bleak vistas and so on. And of course, lush appearances of analogue sounds. In any cases, take care of it.

Adam Bohman, Adrian Northover – Granite, Silk & Soldering - Solo And Duo Recordings 2010-2011 (2011)

Audition

8.9

/Free jazz, Improvised music, Electroacoustic, Crossover, Experimentalism, Drone/

Comment: in the course of 15 notches the listener can concentrate on tight electro-acoustic rustles spiced up with jazzy whiffs and sharp shards or on the other side, mixed up with some chords, which are more treated, stretched, and gleamingly droning. In true, this album can be viewed as if free jazz/improvised music were wrapped up in a sort of abrasive ambience. Yet, the release shall have to be listened carefully because of containing more layers and progressions you are able to follow at the first sight. Adam Bohman takes care of the prepared strings, and Adrian Northover plays two diverse kinds of saxophones on the album being issued by a label publishing very intricate music from the past and today.