Suche:monologue

Unreleased album from 1981, a collaborative project by David Behrman, Paul DeMarinis, Fern Friedman, Terri Hanlon and Anne Klingensmith recorded at Mills College in 1981.

Previously known only to cognoscenti through an obscure self-released three-track 7”, this is the first publication of the complete album, an outrageous confection that mixes art-song and theatrical monologue with live electronics. Starting life as a performance art piece described by the artists as ‘Western Performance Noir’, the record centres on a series of texts written by Friedman and Hanlon in which female narrators comically embody a series of iconic roles (The Recording Artist, The Former Movie Star, and The Rancher). Other lyrical themes include recurring references to the notorious cannibal pioneers, the Donner Party, an ironic take on Japanophilia, and the luscious “Archetypal Unitized Seminar,” a satirical poke at self-help culture, whose lyrics are rendered in Indian raga style to the accompaniment of electronic glissandi and toy noisemakers. Delivered by Friedman, Hanlon, Klingensmith and special guest Maggi Payne in forms ranging from spoken monologue to Country & Western waltz, the texts are accompanied by instrumental and electronic contributions by Behrman and DeMarinis. Musically, She’s More Wild is truly unique, demonstrating these two pioneers of live-electronic performance adapting their signature processes to something approaching a ‘pop’ format: we hear the gliding, frequency-sensitive electronics familiar from Behrman’s classic On the Other Ocean and the mutant hacked Speak n’ Spell heard on DeMarinis’ Songs Without Throats propelled by drum machines and twisted into song forms. Perhaps comparable only to the David Rosenboom and Jacqueline Humbert’s contemporaneous Daytime Viewing in its interweaving of performance art tactics, high-tech electronics and pop sensibilities, She’s More Wild is an essential document, both immediately gratifying and ultimately thought provoking.

SIS003 welcomes Boston's deadliest modern wave duo Dead Husband to the SISTERS family across the murky waters of the Northern Atlantic for a host of dance-floor focused workouts.

A mixture of syncopated drum work and reverb drenched arpeggiators define Dead Husbands debut on the label across a capricious collection of tracks/music.

Doug Lee gives Facial Recognition the usual An-i treatment drawing out a monologue of emotion through the sub bass and sweet undulating use of distortion which constantly helps the track and the low end move forward, whilst electro aficionado Privacy offers up his take on the track with a rolling 4x4 composition true to his unique modus operandi, slowed down powerful.

And a remix debut for Papers, 5 years after down tooling from their white label series, they round off the record bridging the Atlantic gap with their distinctly steezey techno sound.

Montreal-based Common Holly (Brigitte Naggar) appeared a few years back with the surprisingly accomplished debut album, Playing House. Holding fast to the honesty of her debut, her impending follow-up is a look outward, a submergence into the dark and the dissonant with consolation found in harmony and humour. Like a ticking internal monologue, the nine labyrinthian yet catchy tracks observe the complexities of mental health, the precarity of life and the challenges of finding strength in the face of grave misunderstanding.

No one sculpts volts & frequencies into a story quite like David Morley. For Futurepast’s third release, he has delivered a precise rendering of its vision to transcend temporal associations and perceptions. In the title track Boundary Travels, he ascends quickly into a weighty melodic line that oscillates like the natural intonations of an inner monologue, built upon a foundation of tightly knit hits and bleeps. The story of Limbo unfolds in the infinitesimal margin where intensity becomes softness, hesitation becomes resolution, and boundaries become intersections. Sounds drift past, above, and below in Crushing Pressure as if a city, or its memory, was suddenly suspended in a black hole. Boundary Travels might be the closest we can get to such a horizon.
- DVK

Jac Berrocal, David Fenech and Vincent Epplay return with Ice Exposure, their second album for Blackest Ever Black. A sequel and companion piece of sorts to 2015's Antigravity, its title couldn't be more apt: sonically it is both colder, and more exposed - in the sense of rawer, more volatile, more vulnerable - than its predecessor, capturing the combustible energy and barely suppressed violence of the trio's celebrated live performances with aspects of noir jazz, musique concrète, no wave art-rock, sound poetry and spectral electronics all interpenetrating in unpredictable and exhilarating ways. While there are moments of great sensitivity and even a cautious romanticism, the prevailing mood is one of anxiety, paranoia, and mounting psychodrama: close your eyes and Ice Exposure feels like a dissociative Hörspiel broadcasting from the seedy backstreets of your own troubled mind. Before he picks up an instrument or opens his mouth, Berrocal's unique and compelling presence can be felt: a combination of studied, glacial cool and anarchic, in-the-moment intensity that has served him well over a long and storied career. It was honed during his time as a theatre and film actor, and in the 70s Paris improv scene, it powered his influential Catalogue group in the 1970s, numerous seminal, sui generis solo sides, and far-sighted collaborations with the likes of Nurse With Wound, Lol Coxhill, Pascal Comelade and James Chance which have seen him come to be valorised by two generations of avant-garde agitators and eccentrics. Now in his eighth decade, it comes with an added gravitas, perhaps, but no less energy or vitality. On Ice Exposure, his lyrical, instantly recognisable trumpet playing is a key feature - see especially the ghostly, dubwise take on Ornette's 'Lonely Woman', the dissolute exotica of 'Salta Girls', and the sublime echo-chamber soliloquy 'Opportunity'. But more often it's his voice that commands centre-stage, whether casually discharging surreal poetic monologues or moaning in animal despair - a vocal tour de force that transcends language and culminates in the Dionysian frenzy of 'Why', Berrocal's half-spoken, half-howled exclamations jostling with David Fenech's slashes of dissonant guitar, over Badalamenti-ish, panther-stalk drums. Fenech's origins are in the mail-art scene of the early '90s, when he led the Peu Importe collective in Grenoble, and since then, in addition to his own recordings he has worked as a software developer at IRCAM and played with Jad Fair, Rhys Chatham and many others. Together with Vincent Epplay he is responsible for Ice Exposure's inspired arrangements and vivid, vertiginous sound design. Epplay is a visual artist and composer with particular interest in aleatory composition, concrete, and the reappropriation of vintage sound and film material. He and Fenech fashion a remarkable mise-en-scene for Berrocal to inhabit, one that embraces cutting-edge electronics while also paying homage to the best traditions of outlaw jazz and libidinous rock'n'roll ('Soundcheck' invokes the brutish spirit of Berrocal's hero Vince 'Rock N Roll Station' Taylor). On 'Blanche de Blanc', Berrocal's voice is framed by a groaning, ghoulish orchestra of industrial drones, while 'Equivoque' evokes the most humid and hostile Fourth World landscapes and 'Panic In Surabaya' lives up to its name, a hectic, pulse-quickening concrète collage that leaves you gasping for air. This is a searching and singular trio operating at the absolute peak of their powers, with an interplay that transcends studio and stage and occurs at an almost telepathic level. Ice Exposure is a triumph of that group mind, an underworld dérive as life-affirming as it is unnerving and psychologically precarious.













Panic In Surabaya

In 1975, the prolific and multi-talented Brazilian comedians Chico Anysio and Arnaud Rodrigues recorded an album based on the protagonist of one of their most celebrated TV series. Sporting a dodgy moustache and an equally troubling haircut, Carioca conman Paulo Maurício Azambuja (played by Anysio) would flog his own mother's leg if he could, and his ever-ridiculous scams are inevitably always destined to fail. This soundtrack/musical re-imagining of the series combines jazz-funk with samba soul and MPB, with the help of cult Brazilian trio Azymuth. Keyboard maestro Jose Roberto Bertrami, who arranged the album alongside renowned conductor and composer Jose Menezes, elevates the groovy odd-ball sound to another dimension, with his set up including Fender Rhodes, Arp Strings, Arp Omni, Clavinet and Hammond organ. Remaining Azymuth members Ivan Conti (drums) and Alex Malheiros (bass) provide the signature Azymuth foundation, and saxophone prodigy Victor Assis Brasil and legendary multi-instrumentalist producer Durval Ferreira also feature.As well as its distinctly comedic character, what makes the music so special is the coming together of traditional samba roots, and Azymuth's ahead-of-its-time psychedelic funk influence. Each side ends with a comedy monologue, complete with live audience laughter, but before that you get seven tracks of weird and wonderfully emotive Brazilian groove music.

The Land of Look Behind soundtrack returns to vinyl in a remastered and expanded edition that includes a download of three previously unheard and unreleased tracks from the original sessions. Alan Greenberg, who wrote and directed this film documenting the funeral of Bob Marley, provided K. Leimer with location tapes which were used to originate many of the rhythmic patterns for Land of Look Behind. Loops of the monologues and phrases that exhibited more distinctive cadences and pacing, the words, glottal stops, clicks and coughs of witnesses were used as cues for the percussion instruments. In effect, speech became the organizing principle of the musical score. By eliminating the accuracy of click tracks, musicians were prompted to rove through the inconsistent intervals of the voice-derived patterns. Also included is a four-page insert featuring an essay by Paul Dickow.

K. Leimer founded Palace of Lights in 1979. Leimer's early work has recently been reissued by Autumn and RVNG, and his early cassette work is in the critically acclaimed VOD box set American Cassette Culture. Leimer has been actively producing music since the mid 1970s — his current catalog includes seventeen albums plus two collaborative albums with Marc Barreca.

Leimer's work is included in the collection of The British Library.

DsorDNE (pronounced Disordine) is a project from Torino, Italy that evolved as group out of the electronic experimental post punk project Novostj in 1987. At the core of DsorDNE is Marco Milanesio, musical engineer and co-founder of the HAX record label, joined by a revolving cast of musicians. Their spectrum ranged from experimental to structured electro-poetry and Soundtrack like instrumental electronic music. In 1987 they released their first track on a split-single with The Legendary Pink Dots. Between 1987 and 1994 they released 6 full length albums, 3 split-EPs and appeared on various cassette compilations. à Un Sole (Itâs a Sun) was the groupâs only vinyl full length originally released in 1990 on HAX. Itâs 8 tracks of electro-beat poetry and experimentation recorded between July 1989 and January 1990 by Marco Milanesio (music) and Roberta Ongaro (vocals) with guests Claudio Burdese (guitar), Danilo Beltrame (guitar) and Cristiana Bauducco (vocals). The album is broken up into two distinct halves. Side A contains four chunks of hard hitting, percussive patterns and rushing bass sequences. Dark, moody female vocals force their monologues through the machinery in their native Italian tongue. The traditional song structure is carefully avoided by giving lyrics equal opportunities be they recited, half-sung, whispered or spoken. Side B displays moodier moments, less savage attacks and subtler sensuality, veering towards the more melodic and existential. All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The record is housed in an exact replica of the original jacket featuring a black and white drawing with silver metallic spot color housed in a clear PVC plastic cover with a three color screen-printed design. Each copy includes a 11x11❠double-sided lyrics sheet with English translations as well an 8x11❠sheet with original press notes from 1990 by Marco Pustianaz.

Air Lows is the debut solo album by Silvia Kastel. The Italian artist has been a fixture of the underground since her precocious teens, clocking up many miles in Control Unit with Ninni Morgia ('It's like Catherine Deneuve dumped two cases of post-Repulsion psychiatric notes over Pere Ubu's Dub Housing, lit the fuse and, ahem, stood well back" - Julian Cope), including collaborations with the likes of Smegma, Factrix, Gary Smith, Aki Onda and Gate (Michael Morley of The Dead C). Both solo and in her work with others, Kastel has explored the outer limits and inner workings of no wave, industrial, dub, extreme electronics, free rock and improvisation. Air Lows is both her fullest and most refined offering to date, a work of vivid, isolationist electronics which draws deeply on her past experience but assuredly breaks new ground. Prompted by a late-flowering interest in techno and club music, Kastel sought to create something which combines a steady rhythmic pulse with the otherworldly sonorities of musique concrete, and avant-garde synth sounds inspired by Japanese minimalism and techno-pop (Haruomi Hosono's Philharmony being a particular favourite). The formal artifice of muzak / elevator music, the intros and outros of generic popular songs, the extreme light-heavy contrasts of jungle, the creative sampling of hardcore, and the very 'human' synths in the jazz of Herbie Hancock's Sextant and Sun Ra: all were touchstones for Air Lows' conception and composition, and all strains of music addressing - or complicating - the relationship between the human and the technological. By extension, visual inspirations also proved important: anime, and the avant-garde fashion of Rei Kawakubo. What does that shirt or dress sound like Though used sparingly, Kastel's voice remains her key instrument, whether subject to dissociative digital manipulations as on 'Bruell', delivering matter-of-fact spoken monologues, or providing splashes of pure tonal colour. Recorded between her expansive Italy studio and a more compact, ersatz set-up in Berlin, Air Lows gradually takes on some of the character of the German capital: you can hear the wide streets and uninhabited spaces, the seepage of never-ending nightlife, the loneliness. Air Lows is The Wizard of Oz in reverse: the glorious technicolour J-pop deconstructions of its first half leading inexorably to the icy noir of 'Spiderwebs' and 'Concrete Void'. These later tracks are reminiscent of 2015's magnificent 39 12', Kastel in the role of numbed, nihilistic chanteuse stalking dank, murky tunnels of reverb and sub-bass. But in fact there is contradiction and emotional ambiguity to Air Lows from the outset, and throughout - a sense of both infinite space and acute claustrophobia; energy and inertia; fluency and restraint.

That we live in a world changed is beyond question. Since 2015's Zenith, Berlin-based songwriter Molly Nilsson has surrendered to the world, traveling from Mexico to Glasgow, observing the changing socio-political landscape and imagining a better world. For an artist who has so successfully created her own environment and gradually let others in, her 8th studio album Imaginations sees Nilsson directly engaging with her surroundings, engendering change and allowing love in. Imaginations dreams big, recasting storming, stadium-sized pop into the internal language of the solo auteur. Imaginations is not escapism, it's a kaleidoscope and an alternative view, an agent of change.Opener Tender Surrender encapsulates Imaginations, a tango on the ruins of the past, like many of Nilsson's best songs a collision between the political and personal. Though potentially a love song, there's a glowing anger in the lines I want your ruin, I want destruction, I won't be through until we mend this...' this is rapturous transformation, order and chaos. Molly has built an almost 10 year career on perfectly summing up how we feel and this is no different... Who else could write a song about privilege (Let's Talk About Privileges) and make a heart-rending chorus of It's never being afraid of the police, it's expecting every thank you, every please.' The artist's vision on this album is perhaps more forceful than the emotionally fragile moments of previous album Zenith, at times exemplified on songs like Memory Foam, a bright, driving pop song that belies themes of nostalgia and the past, reminding us that Molly alone can make us feel so welcome in loneliness. If there's overt anger in songs like Money Never Sleeps, an anthem for a post-capitalist utopia if ever there was one, there's also seams of optimism sewn into the album's genetic code. Any revolutionary will tell you that anger alone achieves nothing - Nilsson's mission on Imaginations is to offer some alternatives we can hold close. Not Today Satan is a song about accepting love as the agent of change, Don't be sad, but do get mad at all the small men who act so tall, in the end they always fall, there ain't no sin in giving in to love, that's just how we're winning the fight.' Love can be visceral, a weapon with which to fight the power.On Imaginations Molly is recasting her interior monologue as a prism through which to see the world, a means to live differently and to reject the status quo. We can Think Pink, change our destiny together. This is an optimism about the future when we need it the most. New boys, new girls.. give me your smile and I'll give you mine' Clearly, we are living through a transformation but with alchemists like Molly Nilsson, we're never alone in the process.

Madeira-born Robert S makes his Konstruktiv debut after appearances on Sleaze, Arts, Planet Rhythm and his own Robert Limited imprint.

Moderna is straight shooting techno, hard-hitting with hints of rolling funk and a bleak contrast to the sun-drenched Portuguese setting that saw its inception.

The synth stabs of EP opener Moderna steadily rise and open up, driving the track forward while low-slung drums keep the beat in check. Label-boss Rekord 61 drops in on A2 with his remix of the title-track. The original stabs take an aerial backseat and a compact beat powers through vapor and wear.

Trilha Acida sets things straight from the first second on the flip. A threatening acid line pummels the listener with mechanical consistency while a startling chord rehearses a monosyllabic monologue. Black Jocker, the fourth and final cut closes on a dystopian note, with austere drums and a dark souvenir triggering arpeggiator.

Once upon a time...in the midst of masked identities, artist pseudonyms and the like, Midnight Shift introduces a creature not even of human form.

Tapirus conjures music reflecting the duality of his soul. On one hand, rough and acidic to tell of the terrain of his past. And on the other, pure ethereal sounds borne of another place. This EP, showcasing 3 songs of the Tapirus alongside a remix by label artist Basic Soul Unit, is just the introduction to his tale.

The wiggly 'Acid Love Story' enters the room with its tight drum programming and infectious bassline commanding attention. A voice speaks of a love lost: 'She left...she left. Dark time ahead. Dark times in my head.' But perhaps the story is not yet over.

'Trying to Make Something of Life' continues the monologue, conveying an acidic almost bitter experience. Freaked out and haunting, this track is literally inspired by the dead. It lays as atribute to losing yet another close companion in life.

On the flipside, 'To Live in the Hearts...' and its remix comes through. Ascending the scales of life, its Asianic influence and soaring chords take one beyond the clouds. Basic Soul Unit's transforms the track helter-skelter, a frantic pace turning the peaceful tune into beautiful art of war.