Respite

Blog on hiatus until New Year’s Day.

François Banholzer ‘Onion and Day-Dreamed Love’

01 Almost (:51)
02 A Light In The Upper Room (2:59)
03 Star-Spangled Mind (3:17)
04 P.E.A. (1:13)
05 The Gentle Guy (3:48)
06 Phantoms And Their Shadows (4:30)
07 Yellow Pants, Blue Boots (:32)
08 Wondering (4:11)
09 Onions And Day-Dreamed Love (2:43)
10 Day-Glo Colors (3:10)
11 The Lemon Sheen Of Electric Light (3:38)
12 Fridge And Stew-Pan (:39)
13 This Is Heaven (3:25)
14 Onions Give Flowers (4:40)
15 Candies And Holocaust Parade (2:36)

Total time 42:05
Self released cassette, France, 1989

François Banholzer’s second tape after his amazing A trip to heave and ho, up, down, to and fro, posted last year, Onion and Day-Dreamed Love is even more song-oriented and psychedelic, while Banholzer’s songwriting skills have dramatically improved. This collection of exquisite and haunting songs sounds more professional and the cassette as a whole is homogenous and consistent, thanks perhaps to Fabrice Janicaud and Patrick Kollender’s efficient production work.  The Psychedelic influences re-emerge as Banholzer’s own take on Psychedelism-cum-Melancholy, a bit like a mix between Syd Barrett and Marguerite Duras, if one can figure that out.

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Germain Hubert Ales e.p.

01 Morne Hermaphrodite (1:04)
02 Pudeur (3:54)
03 Ornière Des Corps De Main (2:28)
04 La Traversée Du Bois Par Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (4:02)
05 Chocolats Câlins (3:49)

Total time 15:10
7” ep in oversized cover, released by A.A.A., ref# S01, France, 1982

Germain Hubert Ales was the duo of A.Y.A.A. label founder Etienne Himalaya and Dorian Feller, aka Brodé Tango aka Bruno Chapoutot (see previous post), who both would later be members of Look De Bouk, 1984-91.  Their unique disc was the first release on A.A.A., as it was then known, followed, also in 1982, by the Rock Feller ep and the legendary ‘Douze Pour Un’ compilation LP, including one other track by Germain Hubert Ales. The label was also very active with a Festival and a weekly radio show in Reims, the Notes music magazine and a mail order business. GHA’s music is inspired by Der Plan and Renaldo and the Loaf, while the group’s name is itself a pun on the famous Deutschland Über Alles hymn and Dead Kennedys 1979’s parody on their first single. The duo’s instrumentation includes: drums, castanets, guitar, synth, vocals, sped-up instruments and voices. The first track, for instance, is for bass and multi-tracked kazoo. Ripped at 320kbps though the music is rather lo-fi and the pressing quality is unimpressive.

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Vassil Kazandjiev ‘Icônes Vivantes/Images de la Bulgarie’

ICONES VIVANTES (1970)
Apothéose de la Crypte Saint Alexandre-Nevski, Sofia
[Living Icons - An eulogy to the Sofia Crypt]
01 Sancta Maria Odigitria (5:03)
02 Annunciatio (3:57)
03 Nativitas Domini Jesu Christi (5:02)
04 Crucifixio Christi (4:08)
05 Transfiguratio (2:46)
06 Judicium Ultimum (3:38)
07 Christus Pantocrator (6:15)

IMAGES DE LA BULGARIE (1970)
[Pictures of Bulgaria]
08 Le Monastère de Rila [The Rila Monastery] (4:21)
09 La Ville de Veliko Pirnovo [The City of Veliko Pirnovo] (2:38)
10 Cornemuses [Bagpipes] (1:38)
11 Casse-langue [Tongue-twister] (0:00)
12 Chant villageois [Folk song] (1:50)
13 Danse des Koukers [Koukers' dance] (2:16)

The Sofia Soloists Chamber Ensemble
Vassil Kazandjiev, conductor

Total time 48:10
LP released by Harmonia Mundi, France, ca. mid-1980s

Vassil Kazandjiev (b. 1934) has been a key figure on Bulgaria’s music scene since the early 1960s, first as the founder of the Sofia Soloists Chamber Ensemble in 1962, then as conductor of the National Radio Symphony Orchestra, and, since 1984, as a pedagogue teaching conducting at the State Academy of Music. This disc is apparently the French reissue of a Balkanton LP (# BCA 1424), titled Zhivite Ikoni (Living Icons), released 1971 in Bulgaria. The 2 works presented here showcase Kazandjiev’s extraordinary skills at tone colors and ability to get striking sonorities from soloists and small ensemble alike, i.e. skillful members of the Sofia Soloists Chamber Ensemble. This is program music – each piece describes what the music is about. Composed 1970, Living Icons is based on several episodes of the Gospels, possibly from artworks or icons located in the crypt of the Bulgarian Orthodox, Alexander Nevsky cathedral in Sofia. It is probably no coincidence if some of the music in Living Icons is reminiscent of Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky film score, though Kazandjiev also draws from various 20th century music composers like Bartok or Penderecki, not unlike an Einojuhani Rautavaara today, for instance. On #3 Nativitas . . ., cow bells, wooden sticks, celesta and trumpet are used  to conjure supernatural sound effects surrounding the birth of Christ. Elsewhere, mystical, birdlike pizzicati from solo or ensemble strings create the appropriate atmosphere for the Biblical events described in Living Icons. Various historical and folk traditions were the inspiration for Pictures of Bulgaria, composed 1970 as well. Here again, Kazandjiev avoids mere postcard illustration to actually evoke the essence of places, traditional instruments and dances, through creative instrumentation and clever use of sound effects from instrumentists.

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Roger Turner ‘The Blur Between’

01 In (12:36)
02 E (7:54)
03 All over (5:40)
04 Further inn (9:20)
05 Going fast (3:32)
06 Almost finito (6:15)
07 Finito (or loose as a prune) (6:18)

Roger Turner: pedal drum, cymbal

Total time  51:30
LP released by CAW Records, UK, 1981

There were apparently no more than 2 releases on Roger Turner and Anthony Wood’s CAW Records, established 1979 in Kent, England. The first was Turner’s trio with trumpet player Toshinori Kondo and guitarist John Russell, titled Artless Sky, 1979 ; and the second was the present solo LP, released 1981. Starting 1982, Turner formed a new trio with Lol Coxhill and Mike Cooper, called The Recedents, with several LPs on French Nato Records. For more info on Turner, see the All Music Guide notice written by Eugene Chadbourne. On ‘The Blur Between’, Turner focuses on a modest equipment, a pedal drum (a tom with a pedal to alter pitch) and a cymbal. Even more perversely, he also reduces his playing technique to a few gestures, one per track on average, be it rubbing the drum with a brush or bowing the cymbal with a stick. On the 2nd track, for instance, Turner raises eerie sonorities from the cymbal by relentlessly rubbing it with a stick for 8 minutes, thus revealing rarely heard harmonics from the instrument. Any show-off pyrotechnics have been excluded from these performances, to focus on timbre exploration and unconventional pitch.
The ee cummings of drums or something? Great sounding LP and mp3s.

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David Fenech ‘Vous Etes Ici’

01 Couvre feu (2:38)
02 Bal masqué (2:28)
03 Passage à niveau (2:29)
04 Furie (2:22)
05 Une poule à Venise (1:35)
06 ZAP (1:05)
07 Conversation piece (5:15)
08 ZAP ZAP (:48)
09 Sortie de prison (et en plus il pleut) (2:53)
10 Giboulées (5:19)
11 Soap Opera (2:24)
12 Capacités de découplage (2:25)
13 Poteaux/Feux (2:43)
14 Pluie d’insectes (2:23)

Total time 36:40
Cassette released by Echtzeit, Germany, 1993
Drawing by François Xavier Boutin

A programmer and software developer since 1995, David Fenech, born 1969, worked for several years as a full time engineer and software developer at IRCAM, Paris, and now as an acoustician engineer for large PA systems. He created his own Demosaurus label in 1997 with several solo CDs out by Ghédalia Tazartès or Frank Pahl, while Fenech’s own CDs have been released by various French labels. Released 1993 on Germany’s Echtzeit label, ran by Stefan Schwab, Vous Etes Ici (You Are Here) was David Fenech’s first solo cassette. Before that he was playing guitar with Peu Importe – see previous post, and contributing to many compilation cassettes and projects of the home-taping network, in France and abroad. Some tracks of this cassette are said to have been recorded at the COREAM electroacoustic music studio in Fontaine, near Grenoble, where people like Xavier Garcia, Jérôme Noetinger or Lionel Marchetti (eg: his mini-CD Mue on Métamkine) have also been recording. This is obvious on tracks using elaborate tape manipulation, like #2 and 3, for instance. But regardless of technology used, the mood is always of optimistic experimentalism, naive melodies and tape collages, and it definitely belongs to the French toy music tradition of Toupidek Limonade, Klimperei and Pascal Comelade. Instrumentation includes acoustic guitar, melodica, violin, keyboards, toys, found sounds. Thanks to David for first hand information and permission.

“All very illuminating . . .” (cf. #7)

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John M. Bennett ‘Pod King/Uttured Thought Climatology’

In conjunction with Ubuweb

01 Pod King – A (3:35)
02 Pod King – B (4:50)
03 Pod King – C (2:58)
04 Pod King – D (7:45)
05 Pod King – E (3:50)
06 Pod King – F (1:45)
07 Pod King – G (3:30)
08 Uttered Thought Climatology (29:40)

John M. Bennett: voice, saxophone
Tom Furgas: Yamaha SY 55 keyboard
Dave Clark: keyboards, sampler (on #8)
Walter Drake: 12-string guitar, sampler (on #8)

Total time 58:00
Cassette released by Luna Bisonte Prods, Columbus, OH, 1992 (recorded 1990)

John M. Bennett (b1942) is a poet, visual poet and musician living in Columbus, Ohio. In 1974, he founded Luna Bisonte Prods, a small press releasing his own poetry and art, as well as other writers’ work. He has been publishing Lost and Found Times magazine since 1975. See his official website for more info. He now works as curator of the Avant Writing Collection at The Ohio State University Libraries, Columbus, OH. In 2002, he exhibited some specimens from this collection during a show called An American Avantgarde: Second Wave. The 84pp catalog is a perfect introduction to the world of visual poetry and is available here as a PDF file. An accomplished saxophonist himself, Bennett has teamed with numerous US avantgarde musicians since the 1970s, releasing dozens of cassettes and CDs with adventurous partners, lately with the Be Blank Consort, a quartet of sound poets including Scott Helmes, Carlos Luis, and Kathy Ernst, performing with occasional guests.

On the A side of this cassette, John M. Bennett pairs with Tom Furgas, aka ToFu – get it?, a cassette culture veteran from Youngstown, OH, who collaborated with many k7 stalwarts of the 1980s, including Zan Hoffman, Ken Clinger, John Oswald and Don Campau. On Pod King, Furgas creates endless patterns of contemporary music samples and preset sounds from his keyboard, mostly percussion and piano, with occasional weird electronic sounds. He adroitly parallels Bennett’s continuous yet angular declamation with like-minded semi-aleatory, abstract web of notes. On track #4 Pod King – D, a mournful, slow, free jazz number, Bennett switches to saxophone over an accompaniment of sparse, bass rumbles from the Yamaha SY 55.

The atmosphere is completely different on the flip side, thanks to ambiguous, hallucinatory sound effects by Dave Clark and Walter Drake, a duo from Denver, CO, who make improvised, ambient music from synth washes, samplers and acoustic guitar on sound effects. On Uttered Thought Climatology, Bennett’s voice sounds like an oracle from Ancient Times, uttering unfavorable auspices while performing bird divination. The fact this happens in front of a background of gorgeous, soothing ambient music is all the more mysterious. The guitar is only occasionally recognizable amid large doses of reverb and delay effects. Thought Climatology was actually the title of Clark & Drake’s first CD, released 1989 on their own Evolutionary Music label, itself a reissue of a previous cassette.

Thanks to John M. Bennett for permission to offer this here and on Ubu.

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Peu Importe demo tape

01 Peu Importe – a (3:00)
02 Peu Importe – b (2:48)
03 Peu Importe – Sale Chtaar (1:40)
04 Peu Importe – Une TV (3:59)
05 Peu Importe – e (1:14)
06 Peu Importe – f (1:29)
07 Peu Importe – g (1:23)
08 Peu Importe – h (4:13)
09 Peu Importe – Air de Repos (1:10)
10 Peu Importe – j (1:11)
11 Peu Importe – k (:37)
12 Peu Importe – l (5:27)
13 Peu Importe – m (1:43)
14 Peu Importe – n (2:53)
15 Peu Importe – o (1:11)

Total time 34:00
Self-released cassette, 1996. Drawing by Nuvish.

Nuvish Mircovitch, clarinet
David Fenech, guitar, voice
Nicolas Jacquin, drums
Raphaël Le Bihan (or Richard Bokhobza?), bass, voice
Julie Faivre, voice on #12
+ keyboards on #12

Peu Importe (Never Mind) was founded in Grenoble, France, in 1993, by David Fenech, Nuvish Mircovitch, Nicolas Jacquin and Raphaël Le Bihan. At their inception, they benefited from the independent art galery and alternative concert venue known as Le 102, rehearsing in the basement and playing live shows upstairs. Their style, characterized by Nuvish’s untamed clarinet playing, a free jazz drummer and absurd lyrics, is elaborated from Rock In Opposition bands like political activists The Ex or Etron Fou Leloublan, to which they borrowed prominent bass lines, square rhythms and deadpan humor. Thanks to the then very active booking agent Zoorganization, from Bordeaux, they toured extensively in France during the  1993-7 years – one show a month on average according to David Fenech (from 1998 interview). They ultimately released 7 tracks on two compilation CDs on the French Amanita label in 1996. This cassette is presumably a demo tape, it was sold at their gigs in 1996 where I bought my copy. It comes without any information, except, according to the contact address, David Fenech had already relocated to Boulogne, near Paris. Thanks to David Fenech for first hand information and being kind enough to let this appear here.

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