http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ The Tapeworm - a cassette-only label. The cassette will never die! Long live the cassette! en Copyright 2010 Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:16:59 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Le Guess Who? and PAUME present a night curated by cassette label THE TAPEWORM featuring Leslie Winer, Leif Elggren, Zerocrop, Ananizapta, Savage Pencil, People Like Us and Philip Marshall. 

PAUME, the Utrecht (Netherlands) based Platform for Avant-garde and Urban Media Explorations invited The Tapeworm to curate a programme presenting all aspects of the cassette labels' roster and vision. The Tapeworm gladly accepted the invitation and presents its selection on the closing night of Le Guess Who?

 On Sunday 28th November 2010 Leslie Winer, Leif Elggren, Zerocrop and Ananizapta all perform live in a continuous ‘revue’ performance, hosted by The Tapeworm. 

 In the lobby of Theater Kikker, sound installations feature the ‘Wormcast’ mixes of released and unreleased works from The Tapeworm's catalogue. There’s more: Savage Pencil exhibits his art in a gallery setting and Leif Elggren and People Like Us are featured with their video art. PAUME also commissioned a special and exclusive sound art piece by Philip Marshall based on field recordings made by PAUME in Utrecht.  

PAUME invited The Tapeworm to produce an exclusive cassette release for this event. Featuring a splendid selection of artists from the label, The Tapeworm presents ‘The Tapeworm Comes Alive!’ in a limited edition of only 100 copies for sale at the event only. 

Established in June 2009, The Tapeworm is a true cassette label. Feature articles in magazines like The Wire, Gonzo Circus and RUIS are testament to the label’s status. No barcodes, but styled in typical black and white and adhering to the relentless pace of releasing two tapes every month, mostly specifically recorded for The Tapeworm, the label has featured a dazzling line-up of artists since its inception. Every tape is strictly limited; to only 250 copies in most cases. "The Tapeworm Comes Alive!" on Facebook www.leguesswho.nl www.paume.nl]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/le_guess_who_and_paume_present_the_tapeworm_comes_alive.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/le_guess_who_and_paume_present_the_tapeworm_comes_alive.html other Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:16:59 +0000 Buy in the TouchShop Track listing: A1: Black Spirituals I-IV A2: Black Spirituals II-IV B1: Black Spirituals III-IV B2: Black Spirituals IV-IV Tracks A2 & B1 engineered by The Norman Conquest in October 2009. Mixed and Mastered by Zachary James Watkins 2009-2010. Illustration – SavX. Zachary James Watkins writes… “Black Spirituals was recorded during fall 2009 in Northern California. These four works grew out of intense dialogue with sound artist Morgan Craft that dealt with our mutual interests in questioning the stakes and pushing our art amidst a landscape of sameness... It’s these spaces where ideas on race, gender, sex, politics etc. inform the imaginations of artists in communities and influence new works. Also around this time, I found a dusty tape recording of a lecture from the late 70s on the topic of Black Spirituals given by scholar and musician Bernice Reagon an original member of the vocal group Sweet Honey on the Rock. This tape has helped me incorporate into my performance, stories and voices of New America. These improvised tapestries are tuned by ear and offered as meditations. What does Black Spirituals mean to you?” - Zachary James Watkins, Santa Cruz, CA, 24 March 2010. Biography: Zachary James Watkins is a sound artist living in Northern California who has earned degrees in composition from The Cornish School and Mills College. Zachary has received commissions from various organizations and performance groups including The Microscores Project, The Beam Foundation, Somnubutone Radio Series, the sfSoundGroup and the Seattle Chamber Players. His 2006 composition Suite for String Quartet was awarded the Paul Merritt Henry Prize for Composition. Zachary has performed in festivals across the United States and in Berlin, Germany. In 2007, Zachary premiered a new multi-media work entitled Country Western as part of the Meridian Gallery’s Composers in Performance Series that received grants from the American Music Center and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. His sound art work entitled Designed Obsolescence, "spoke as a metaphor for the breakdown of the dream of technology and the myth of our society’s permanence," review by Susan Noyes Platt in the Summer 05 issue of Art Lies. Zachary was raised in Lubbock, Texas also known as “Big Sky Country.” His works reflect this open space… www.zacharyjameswatkins.com Reviews Aquarius Records (US): One of two new strange sonic artifacts this week from the seemingly bottomless vaults of The Tapeworm, a UK tape label trafficking in the strange, the mysterious and the bizarre, this right here, an interesting bit of sound art based on the concepts of race and gender and sex and politics, and how those inform the works of artists, and what's at stake for artists as they try to push the boundaries and strictures of art, especially in terms of the above powerful themes. These references are however not so obvious on a purely musical level, Watkins weaves a slowly undulating dronescape, of deep sonic swells and muted electronic buzz, utilizing analog synths, guitars, drums and percussion, cassette, Casio, bass, and of course SuperCollider(!). Those deep swelling drones, grow more and more corrosive, the buzz intense and crumbling, building to a SUNNO))-like squall, but shot through with streaks of glitch and crunch, all draped over swirling clouds of hiss, and haunting undulating melodies before slipping back into a more tranquil stretch of deep resonant dronemusic. The piece is somehow based on a cassette tape Watkins found of a lecture by scholar and musician Bernice Reagon, a member of vocal group Sweet Honey On The Rock, which Watkins sometimes incorporated into live performances, though we don't hear it here. Definitely recommended for all the drone lovers out there, had this been a super limited cd-r, in mysterious black packaging, with some name like Blackened Blood Sphere, all you grim heavies would be all over this, so maybe that's actually what the dripping oozing crucifix cover is all about, and the title, cuz these are indeed some seriously grim black sonic spirituals. And are thus, as with pretty much all Tapeworm stuff, totally recommended. LIMITED TO 250 COPIES. With cool dripping crucifix cover art by Savage Pencil. Boomkat (UK): New from the ever-essential Tapeworm series, this release is by Californian sound artist Zachary James Watkins, whose CV reveals a seasoned background in composition that boasts multiple degrees, awards and commissions. Black Spirituals was recorded last year, arising from Watkins' "intense dialogue" with fellow artist Morgan Craft - comparatively little else is revealed in terms of the genesis of these four pieces, although Watkins cites the use of a dusty tape recording of a late 1970s lecture given by Bernice Reagon (of the vocal group Sweet Honey On The Rock) - something you can hear dissolved into the frenetic drums and rather uplifting, loose guitar chords of 'Black Spirituals III-IV'. The music here is improvised, although certainly, the opening piece feels like a very measured and considered affair, furtively undulating through a modulating synthesizer drone. That account might not make it sound like anything particularly out of the ordinary, but in practice there's something utterly captivating going on here. 'Black Spirituals II-IV' is very different, however, stirring up a torrent of distorted bass noise the like of which you might expect to hear from someone like Stephen O'Malley, Oren Ambarchi or Daniel Menche. At more than twenty minutes this piece's running time is hefty, but the full duration reveals all manner of aggressive overtones and feedback formations. The cassette concludes with a ten-minute recording that's closest in spirit to the synth drone of the opener, though it even more clearly invites comparison with the LaMonte Young school of minimalism. Excellent stuff - limited to 250 copies.]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw22.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw22.html tapes Mon, 03 May 2010 10:38:16 +0000 Buy in the TouchShop "Johnny Remember Me" written by Cathi Unsworth, as read by A: Cathi Unsworth B: Pete Woodhead Recorded by Pete Woodhead at Techsmex, London W10 on 18.04.2010 Illustration: SavX Biography: Cathi Unsworth is a writer and editor who lives and works in London. She is the author of three pop-cultural crime novels, Bad Penny Blues, The Singer and The Not Knowing, and the editor of the short story collection London Noir, all published by Serpent's Tail. Cathi has written on music, film, art, fashion and culture for Sounds, Bizarre, BFI Flipside, Mojo and Nude, amongst many others. Her collaborator on this release is Pete Woodhead, an electronic composer who cut his musical teeth as part of O Yuki Conjugate and The Sons of Silence and is now best know for his soundtrack contribution to the hit British zombie movie Shaun of the Dead. Pete and Cathi previously collaborated on the Transmissions Series that are available for free download on www.cathiunsworth.co.uk and continue to conspire on new projects. Cathi Unsworth writes... "Johnny Remember Me was originally commissioned by Brighton's Literary Loogster Jay Clifton for his Peripheral Vision series of live screen talks, in which authors were requested to pick a movie and spin off a character or situation from the film into an original short story. Already deep in research for Bad Penny Blues, a novel set between 1959-65 in Ladbroke Grove and Soho, I chose Edmond T Gréville's Beat Girl (1959), set around a swinging beat cellar club in Berwick Street that is populated both by art students and the strippers and their moody bosses from the nitespots of neighbouring Walker's Court. It was the club itself that I chose as my starting point. I had originally wanted a band to appear in the novel and had based The Buccaneers mainly on Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, but with Carlo Little, the drummer from Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages, morphing into my character Fredo Long. As it gradually became apparent that I would never fit the band into the finished tale, I let them take centre stage in this story instead. I have always been somewhat obsessed with the John Leyton song 'Johnny Remember Me', and while researching the life and times of its producer and co-writer Joe Meek for Bad Penny Blues, had pause to wonder why it was that he ended up with Johnny Kidd's band as The Tornados – but without Johnny. The song being so evocative of curses and ghosts, I wove a little urban myth of my own. Here's how it begins..." "He stood at the back of the room, in a smartly cut pale blue suit, so cleanly shaven his skin still had a rosy glow from the razor’s kiss, thick brown hair set into a shiny pompadour that looked as though it had been set in plastic. His bulbous dark blue eyes darted around the cellar, and he pulled on a cigarette fretfully. For a second it seemed that he was too nervous to come across the floor, but then his eyes became still as they settled on what he was searching for. With a sudden sense of purpose, he walked towards Johnny. And that was when all the trouble started." www.cathiunsworth.co.uk Reviews Aquarius Records (US): Another batch of sonic mysteries from UK tape label The Tapeworm, and if you didn't think the Tapeworm was eclectic already, these two will undoubtedly convince you. Johnny Remember Me is not a band, or really a record, instead, it's actually a book on tape, written by UK author Cathi Unsworth, who has a pretty serious resume (Sounds, Bizarre, Mojo, Uncut, not to mention a handful of novels), and besides writing about music, also writes about crime, but through a pop culture, new music filter, a hip hybrid of bands and artists and gangsters and criminals, which is what you get here. Unsworth is teamed up with musician Pete Woodhead, from the group O Yuki Conjugate, who did the music for awesome Rom-Zom-Com Shaun Of The Dead, for a pretty straight reading of Unsworth's novel Johnny Remember Me. It's a pretty cool story, rife with pop culture references, loads of music, and yeah, some criminal activities, with Unsworth and Woodhead each tackling the story, both with appropriately thick UK accents, which gives Unsworth's tale the perfect British crime novel vibe. LIMITED TO 250 COPIES. With killer cover art by Savage Pencil. Boomkat (UK): Further proof that anything goes when it comes to the Tapeworm series, this latest installment is a short story penned by novellist, crime/noir fiction writer and critic Cathi Unsworth, read by the author herself (on the A-side) and by her musical collaborator Pete Woodhead (on the B-side). Set in 1950s Soho, the tale concerns itself with London's burgeoning rock & roll scene, the seedier, underworld elements of the city and Joe Meek. … Limited to 250 copies.]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw21.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw21.html tapes Mon, 03 May 2010 10:35:11 +0000 Buy in the TouchShop Track listing: A1: Get Down A2: Big Galactic Strut A3: Theme for the Buck Rogers Light Rope Dance A4: Sittin' On Your Face A5: Sugar Crash B1: Blue Icee B2: John's Theme (Shock It) B3: Big Pickles at the Skate Corral B4: Wriggly Worm B5: Gremlin B6: Fucked Up Recorded: 1996, Memphis USA. All tracks by Lester Fuero and Jeff Hanes. Human beatbox on "John's Theme (Shock It)" by John Consigli. Original mastering by Terre Thaemlitz for Comatonse Recordings. Illustration - Michiel de Vreede. Comatonse Recordings press release, 14 Mar 2010: "Fresh... for '96!" Memphistophelis by Chugga (a.k.a. Lester Fuero and Jeff Hanes) is a deliciously dated blend of trip-hop, 70’s disco, funk, Jeep-dub and lounge, mixed well and served chilled. Each track on Memphistophelis picks up on a different 70’s sound while tying in that unique Memphis combination of sparsity and orchestration. The album was mastered by an unlikely culprit - and friend - transgendered electro-acoustic/ambient/house Jack-of-all-genres Terre Thaemlitz (a.k.a. DJ Sprinkles). Although it was shopped around and two or three cuts trickled out over the years on obscure vinyl and compilation releases, Memphistophelis never found a home... until The Tapeworm. And what a suiting label indeed - nostalgic, obsolete, lo-fi... is this even in stereo? "When we started making Memphistophelis we just wanted to emphasize that wicked Memphis 70’s sound - Isaac Hayes and crew," said Jeff in a 1996 press release, "but as we got going we found ourselves working in all the old roller-disco camps we grew up with as well, from the DeLite label to Casablanca to shock-rock stylin'." "Memphis is a long way from the Bronx," added Lester, "so the mixing we grew up with as kids had a strong pop-culture influence, although we thought it was really underground. K.C., Donna Summer, Sugar Hill and Funkadelic would all get thrown together, and we loved it all. We aren't stuck up about our influences - Memphis won't let us be. We keep the mixes lean with the best elements, slow down the groove and push that Jeep-bass. It’s evil and all Memphis - Memphistophelis!" And Chugga knows about pushing bass, each track front-lining a massive dose of subsonic vibrations from Jeff's home-built Low Frequency Unit (L.F.U.) so that you’ll literally keep moving even when just kicking back. "When Jeff first showed me the L.F.U. I just about shit my pants," laughed Lester, "That same sucker who flunked out of air-conditioner repair school with me had made the bomb!" "The L.F.U. is a turd of a box that only does one thing," added Jeff, "but it does it well." When Terre was asked what he thought of Memphistophelis finally being released by The Tapeworm, all he could say was, "Like a lot of other gay couples trying to have babies, it took those two lovebirds 14 years of delays and wondering. Congratulations - it's a cassette! I'm just glad I was there to witness the conception! What a night..." www.comatonse.com Biography: Hailed as the funkiest rebels to ever flunk out of air-conditioner repair school, Memphis based duo Chugga (a.k.a. Lester Fuero and Jeff Hanes) combine the straight-on breaks of old-school hip-hop with 70's funk and 90's jeep dub. Their stripped-down approach to making music pays tribute to the mixing styles of 70's DJ's such as Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa, while maintaining a relaxed flow that works just as well for deep listening. Chugga made their debut in 1996 on the compilation Abstrakt Workshop 2 (US: Instinct Records) with the dub-infused hip-hop break track "Old School Fattie." It was followed by the 1997 release of their first 12-inch single, "Theme For The Buck Rogers Light Rope Dance" (Japan: Comatonse Recordings), which featured remixes by friend and mentor Terre Thaemlitz that went on to be cherished house classics, and was ultimately covered by the premiere European experimental acoustic ensemble Zeitkratzer. In 1997 there was also a track on the compilation Synthetic Pleasures 2 (US: Caipirinha), and a random 7-inch released in 2003 by the Austrian label Klanggallerie... and that's basically it. Oh, and most of those releases were pieced together from the same old Memphistophelis sessions. When asked what they were currently up to, Jeff quipped, "Use your time machine to send that question back 15 years, when somebody might have cared." Chugga continue to reside in Memphis. Reviews Boomkat (UK): *Another inspired selection from the Tapeworm label, this time making use of some longstanding connections to Terre Thaemlitz aka DJ Sprinkles* Chugga are an immediately interesting proposition: two air conditioner repair school flunkies with a crazy homemade subbass device and a thing for slack, heat-hazed deep south funk and disco with a dub pressure. The pair of Lester Fuero and Jeff Haines hail from Memphis and made this sly tribute to their city 'Memphistophelis' in 1996, gleaning eleven tracks of dope, lean and groovesome disco that's since been plundered for releases on Terre Thamlitz's Comatonse label and even covered by Austria's Zeitkratzer electro-acoustic ensemble. The full sessions never got a proper release until now though, suitably showing up now on The Tapeworm with a strangely out-of-time-and-place value which puts it in great stead among the labels disparate schedule. At the base of each track is Jeff's 'L.F.U' or 'Low Frequency Unit', wildly dominating the set with quivering subsonic pressure that mercifully benefits from Terre Thaemlitz's mastering onto tape to sound even more claggy and potent. Musically, their ideas are scraped together from classic samples and bagfuls of funk and soul snippets used sparingly to achieve a sparse yet close and humid sound dripping with a latent late night sensuality. Fans of Terre's DJ Sprinkles sound will find much to like here, as will lovers of Mark E or NewWorldAquarium. Highly Recommended. Aquarius Records (US): Latest slab of sonic wonder and weirdness from UK tape label The Tapeworm, this one from a duo called Chugga, a name that probably doesn't ring a bell, but most folks will probably know their partner in retro-sonic crime, musician/sound artist Terre Thaemlitz, the three have cobbled together this fuzzy, buzzy, old school assemblage of seventies disco groove, synthfunk, drug dub exotica, and while it most definitely sounds dated (it was recorded in the nineties after all), it's MEANT to, but real dated, as in seventies, not nineties, and it sounds pretty good alongside other contemporary retro groovers like Zomby, Martyn, etc. Thick rumbling subsonic bass, woozy porno wah guitar, liquid basslines, simple stripped down drums, spaced out sci fi synths, cheesy electronic percussion, all woven into super rad instrumental grooves, some new wave-y and propulsive, others laid back and sexy and sultry, still others ethereal and skeletal, clouds of tangled melodies drift over warm low end rumbles, Latin percussion wrapped around lazy unfurling melodies, orchestral disco stabs, strings, organs, the songs slipping from lush and over the top, big production, to spaced out and sinister, spare midnight grooves. Killer old school dancefloor destruction for sure. ]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw20.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw20.html tapes Mon, 03 May 2010 10:30:05 +0000 here and here. Biography: "DRAMA is the goal. Maybe to you it's noise and maybe it's music yet DRAMA is my only goal. I only desire to create the most dramatic energy possible with sound. Whether it's quiet or loud the aim will always be DRAMA." Born and still living in Portland, Oregon USA, Daniel Menche has been recording and performing music since 1989. He has a large catalogue of recordings, including 2009s "Katerakt" on Editions Mego, an episode for TouchRadio, a full length for UK-based computer music label, OR and much besides. For a complete discography, click here. danielmenche.blogspot.com Reviews Boomkat (UK): Fans of Daniel Menche, or for that matter the Editions Mego label in general, will no doubt already be aware of the Portland artist's interest in the ferocious sounds made by waterfalls. Last year's 'Katarakt' was constructed from a number of waterfall field recordings made around the pacific Northwest of the USA, and while the end product featured some heavy-duty processing, this new Tapeworm edition gives us an insight into the unconditioned sonic profile of these natural forces. Each side spans around twenty minutes and captures a different location: the first is a raw recording of "Tunnel Falls at the Eagle Creek trail in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon, USA" while the second side depicts the "South Falls in Silver Falls State Park located in the Oregon Cascade Mountains, USA". There's a certain matter-of-fact-ness to these documents that recalls Russell Haswell's Wild Tracks, and the omission of post-processing or sanitising treatments comes as a welcome strategy. The first side tends to be highly active among the higher registers of the frequency range, and a little close listening soon reveals the more nuanced attributes of what initially might manifest itself as a bombardment of white noise. You'll hear a flow of resonant, dripping noises merging with the falls itself, and the overall intensity of the piece varies, prompting you to wonder from what vantage point Menche made the recordings and whether or not he was moving around at the time. The second side proves the more fearsome of the two, gradually developing into an overwhelming roar in its latter stages, which itself suggests that Menche is edging closer towards the falls as he records - not only does the document seem to get louder, it acquires a more middle-y, throaty quality. The effect is subtly quite menacing, as if you're approaching the maw of some enormous beast. Another fine Tapeworm edition then, and as usual supply is highly limited, with just 250 copies circulating. Grab one while you can. Aquarius Records (US): Man, is The Tapeworm tough to figure out. But maybe we don't want to figure them out. A label, a CASSETTE ONLY label, that traffics in an insanely wide range of sounds, how they're all connected we're not sure, field recordings, seventies style disco funk, obscure trip hop by super models, gorgeous soundscaping, avant outsider sound art, spoken word, turntablism, strange women reading Baudrillard, heavy drones, solo piano, interviews with artists, faux sixties psychedelic jazz, lost new wave... All we know is their aesthetic kind of reminds us of... well, OURS! Which is maybe why we're so in love with this label, and pretty much everything they release. This week elsewhere on the list you'll find some nineties recorded but seventies style dubbed out weirdo disco funk, and then there's this right here, a collection of field recordings from Daniel Menche, two side long tracks, each a recording of a waterfall in the Oregon mountains, and both weirdly lovely. Knowing that these are in fact recordings of waterfalls, makes it easy to identify the sounds the second they start, but after a few minutes, the sounds become less and less obvious, and if you were played this recording with no knowledge of the source, you'd likely just assume it was a collaged soundscape of white noise and muted hiss, blurred fuzz and swirls of static, a weirdly hypnotic abstract, totally random and ever shifting soundscape of muted white noise, almost like a Merzbow record, dialed WAY down, all the edges smoothed, into something strangely serene, a sound that while totally natural, when removed contextually from nature, sounds manmade, even though it's a sound we've all heard, camping, hiking, and which once again demonstrates that much of what we discover and create, already exists in nature, which is both incredible and incredibly humbling. A fantastic sonic document. LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw19.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw19.html tapes Mon, 03 May 2010 10:03:48 +0000 Buy in the TouchShop Track listing: A: Mesmer - 21m05s B: Mesmer - 19m17s Written by Peter Rehberg. Recorded summer 1995 Mego Studio, Vienna. Illustration – SavX. "Mesmer" was Peter Rehberg's first ever solo composition, originally released in 1995 as part of "mesmervariations", a (long-deleted) double CD by Ash International presented in an oversized plastic wallet with eight card inserts. That release contained various original compositions influenced by the work of Friedrich Mesmer, and included pieces by Ryoji Ikeda, Gescom, Edvard Graham Lewis, Robert Hampson, Bruce Gilbert, C M von Hausswolff and Drome (Bernd Friedmann). The artists featured on this release were given a copy of the vinyl recording "Mesmer" (Ash 1.8) and asked to compose a piece influenced by the work of Friedrich Mesmer the 19th Century 'animal magnetist and hypnotist'. The brief was - there is no brief; method and style were left entirely to the discretion of the composer. Rehberg's contribution is reproduced in its entirety here, the B-side of the cassette containing a copy of the weathered dubplate of the track he cut in 1996 for personal DJ use. Biography: Peter Rehberg (a.k.a. Pita) (b. 1968, London) is an Author and Performer of electronic audio works. Rehberg has given live performances throughout Europe, North & South America, Japan and Australasia. Selected festival appearances: Sonar, Barcelona; Ars Electronica, Linz; All Tommorows Parties, UK & USA; Avanto, Helsinki; ICMC, Berlin; What Is Music, Sydney & Melbourne; Taktlos, Bern; FIB, Benicassim; FIMAV, Victoriaville; Route du Rock, St. Malo; MUTEK, Montreal; Articulating Space, Melbourne; NowNow, Sydney; Skanu Mezs'06, Riga. He has collaborated with: General Magic, Jim O'Rourke, Christian Fennesz, Tina Frank, Tujiko Noriko, Kevin Drumm, Stephen O'Malley, Matmos, Marcus Schmickler, Michaela Schwentner (aka Jade), Russell Haswell, Florian Hecker, Carlos Giffoni, Gert-Jan Prins, Mika Vainio, Zbigniew Karkowski, Z’EV, Rosy Parlane, Keith Rowe, Dennis Cooper, Gisele Vienne, SUNNO))) as well as being a member of MIMEO. Collaborated with choreographers Gisele Vienne (DACM), Meg Stuart, Gyula Berger, Chris Haring Took part in the 2nd Göteborg Art Biennale (Against All Evens) curated by CM von Hausswolff. Has contributed commissioned works for Austrian Broadcasting Corporation and Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation. Received 1999 Prix Ars Electronica Distinction Award for Digital Musics, alongside Christian Fennesz Audio works by Rehberg have been published on the following labels: Mego, Häpna, Mosz, Asphodel, Tochnit Aleph, Alku, Digital Narcis, Ritornell, Moikai, Ash International, Source, Touch, Raft, Absurd, as well as compilation appearances. He also runs the Editions Mego label. www.peterrehberg.com Reviews Aquarius Records (US): While the music of Pita, aka Peter Rehberg, can tend toward the harsh and caustic, this archival release, a reissue of Rehberg's first ever solo composition, is anything but, a gorgeously hypnotic, dreamlike rhythmic dronescape that sounds more like Philip Jeck or Tim Hecker than Pita. The latest in The Tapeworm label's ever expanding catalog of super limited cassette tape oddities and artifacts, Mesmer was originally released in 1995 as part of a compilation, for which the various contributors (including Ryoji Ikeda, CM Von Hausswolff, Robert Hampson, among others) were given a copy of an early vinyl recording, called Mesmer, released on Ash International, and tasked with composing a piece dedicated to Friedrich Mesmer, an “animal magnetist and hypnotist” from the 19th century Rehberg's piece is definitely hypnotic, a slow, softly churning, gradually evolving sprawl of muted hiss, smeared pulses, mechanical and industrial, but also warm and organic, a woozy, shimmery landscape of blurred textures and barely there propulsion, and as mentioned above, not at all what you might expect from Pita, plenty of static and buzz, a glowing sepia toned sonic patina wreathing the whole thing, if forced to guess the creator, we definitely would have been thinking Philip Jeck. The flipside is the same piece, but in a drastically different form, an original dubplate of “Mesmer” that Rehberg used to DJ, presented here with nearly 15 years of accumulated clicks and pops, clouds of hiss and whir, the original even more blurred and washed out and hazy. So so lovely. LIMITED TO 250 COPIES. With cool Savage Pencil cover art. The Wire (UK): Don't really know dick about Pita, but this is a great cassette, as full of hissing head-gobblers as anything I've ever heard. Really has a nice dead wax quality. What I can say is - cotton. Huge balls of cotton. Contact miked. Boomkat (UK): Another indispensable limited edition (250 copies) from the wonderful Tapeworm cassette label, this time reissuing a long out-of-print composition by Editions Mego boss Peter Rehberg. 'Mesmer' was in fact Rehberg's very first solo work, commissioned by Ash International as part of their Mesmervariations double CD, released in 1995. This themed compilation included pieces by fellow sonic experimenters such as Gescom, Ryoji Ikeda, Robert Hampson and CM Von Hausswolff, all inspired by the work of 19th century "animal magnetist and hypnotist" Friedrich Mesmer. The first side of the cassette features the original nineteen-minute composition, while the B-side is a slightly longer, alternate rendering, culled from Rehberg's own dubplate, which he had cut for DJ use back in 1996. Far from the auricle-scouring extremes that were to come from Rehberg and his Pita project, 'Mesmer' is a comparatively meditative digital drone piece. The narrative still bristles with noisy ruptures and flecks of glitchy distortion, but at its essence the track is a stream of undulating tones guided by a pervading sense of uncharacteristic sobriety and steadiness. Pita fans will no doubt be glad to hear that as drone-based records go, this is a million miles away from the sort of pastoral exercises you tend to encounter nowadays, and instead offers a kind of intelligent, hovering ambiguity that's neither especially menacing nor welcoming. Just as was found to be the case with the recent Kevin Drumm reissues on Perdition Plastics, 'Mesmer' still harbours plenty of intrigue despite its age, and there's something timelessly powerful about its technology-defying aesthetic as a wiry, disrupted mass of signals. The B-side manifests itself as a grubbier version in a more advanced state of erosion, which resonates nicely with the lo-fi analogue formatting and the archival nature of the release.]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw18.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw18.html tapes Sat, 01 May 2010 13:48:45 +0000 www.johnbutcher.org.uk Reviews Boomkat (UK): This new John Butcher release on the Tapeworm cassette label features two distinct works from the legendary Brit improvisor, the first (on the A-side) capturing a concert recorded last October at L'Eglise Saint-Merri in Paris, featuring unaccompanied tenor and soprano saxophone solo work, the second (on the B-side) taking more of an abstract and intimate feel. This latter piece, titled 'More Of An Urge Than An Idea' merges sax, controlled feedback and piano, all seemingly played simultaneously by Butcher in an act of elaborate, one-man-band style autonomy. Across nearly twenty minutes, Butcher coaxes some incredible sounds from his horn - sustaining deep, resonant tides of feedback tonality, whilst intermittently harmonising or punctuating all this with the subtlest of piano keyings. Through certain stretches you'll even encounter some ear-defying percussive runs; it's extraordinary stuff. In the light of such innovations the A-side's concert recordings could easily seem comparatively humdrum, but in the fine tradition of fellow experimental soloists such as Evan Parker, Butcher's performance is filled with clever melodic developments and ferocious explorations of overtones. The natural reverb of the Church setting further adds to to the power of the document and late into the set, Butcher's staccato, quack-like voicings play off the performance space's acoustics. Trace is quite some album, and certainly one of Tapeworm's most memorable outings to date. Aquarius Records (US): We had never been that interested in the music of John Butcher, an accomplished improviser and saxophonist, a master of skronk and squeal, whose electronically treated sax is capable of whipping up a serious sonic storm, and who has played with a ton of other incredible musicians, Derek Bailey, Phil Durrant, Eddie Prevost, etc. Not sure why, but for whatever reason, lots of the Butcher stuff we've heard just didn't do it for us. But doing a bit of research after getting this tape in the mail, we're thinking maybe we just weren't hearing the right stuff, seeing as Butcher is much more than your run of the mill avant improv jazz guy, treating his saxes, processing them into strange buzzing drones, and haunted layered pulses, exploring space and timbre, recording in caverns and caves, metal containers and abandoned railway stations and we should know by now that UK cassette label The Tapeworm would not lead us astray. Two side long live improvisations, the first a three part epic for tenor and soprano saxophones, that takes the sound of the saxes and adds all sorts of grit and buzz and crackle, it almost sounds like an old crackly record of a sax solo being played in a big empty hall, multiple saxes are layered and the overtones throb and undulate, the sounds crumbling and moaning, ringing out, wreathed in a super spacious natural reverb, totally mesmerizingly intense and beautiful. It does get a bit more traditionally jazzy part way through, but even then, the sound shifts from blown out drone, to wild chaotic skronk, to spaced out fluttery dreaminess, to incredibly high pitched symphonies of tangled whistle, that at times almost sounds like guitar feedback. Intense! And speaking of feedback, the flipside is in fact a sprawling 20 minute piece for 'saxophone controlled feedback' and piano, and consists of deep swirling tones, lustrous fields of muted shimmer, the piano not so much being played as offering up sympathetic vibrations, the whole thing delicate and crystalline, long stretches of hushed distant keening, slipping into warm bell like swells, deep low end rumbles, all laid atop one another, creating a sort of ethereal sonic field of abstract melody, until finally (or perhaps for the first time audibly) the piano enters, offering up isolated plinks, allowed to ring out, as the feedback swirls around each note sympathetically, creating something truly mysterious and otherworldly. So nice.]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw17.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw17.html tapes Sat, 01 May 2010 13:48:40 +0000 Sven Schlijper and originally published in RUIS Magazine issue #58 (April 2010). Visit www.kraak.net to download the magazine as a .pdf and read the interview in its original Dutch. When starting a new label, why did The Tapeworm decide to opt for the cassette as the 'weapon of choice'? We did not choose the tape. Tape chose us. Please allow me to explain. One Worm had been gifted a limited edition tape by Joachim Nordwall of iDEAL Recordings. It was a fine thing. At the same time, another of the Worms had been commissioned to create a sound installation for a small but perfect Kreuzberg gallery, based on an N-th generation videotape - wow-and-flutter a-gogo –- “hey, this would sound great as a tape!” Worm three knew what we should be called and a logo appeared out of nowhere, fast. A sweet idea, shared by friends -– seemingly simple as that. Then we dreamed on... Of course as many of our certain age might The Tapeworm has a respect for the format. The Tapeworm recalls being frightfully excited at a young age to learn that the Art of Noise's singles were, when experienced in the superior cassette format, radically remixed -– fantastic Horn and Morley maulings of the original 12"s. The Tapeworm can remember standing by the Wall, or where the Wall once was, exiting E-Werk or Tresor, blinking in barren Berlin daylight in its 1990s. The Tapeworm has shoeboxes full of mixtapes, cherished memories from back then. And that is not to even go deeper, to the underground tape cultures that thrived and thrive to this day, or amazing 80s publications such as Audio Arts' editions. Or back to basics –- John Peel and the Top 40, tape trading in the playground. However this is not a project by misty-eyed retro-fetishists attempting to snog a dead format back to life. What we do is, contrary to the convenient edited thoughts of certain quarters, not intended to be about retro-chic, boutique label cool. Something totally other, in fact. We gave consideration to what we love about the format: its shape, its feel, its difficulties, its packaging, its limitations. This is what excited us about the project. What The Tapeworm is, is a question posed to artists and consumers, asking all parties involved in the process to embrace a set of sexy restrictions. Who's part of the Tapeworm crew? Technically, there are millions of us…... What are the ties between The Tapeworm and Touch? Touch have been a great support helping us find our feet, which is a darned hard thing for a worm to do, you know.… Mike Harding assists with our logistics, selling our tapes in the TouchShop, helping with distribution, getting our editions to Forced Exposure Stateside and suchlike. But, editorially we are a totally separate entity with entirely different aims. With the A and B side(s) on cassette tapes playing a key role in some of the editions, do you think the A and B perspective in music and (sound)art or live in general is often too easily glanced over or not internalised or given deeper thought; i.e. the idea of different perspectives or irony? Every technology has its own limitations. Out of limitations grow strengths, ways of working around a problem. The compact disc had its duration defined and proposed dimensions redefined when Sony decided it should be able to fit all of Beethoven's 9th on it, uninterrupted: a technological convention defined by an arbitrary decision. Many similar stories can be discovered in vinyl's history (RCA Victor's name tells a tale). With CD, the art of sequencing music into A and B sides started to become less cared for; careless. Now, as we dive deeper into an iPop era, even the concept of a suite of music in a certain specified order seems somewhat old hat. So, obviously, when considering the tape format, artists can take the opportunity to rewind and rethink. Their music will be presented as A/B and its audience shall not have the easy convenience of skipping or shuttling through. When we decided to edition on the tape format, we wanted its differences to be amplified, made into strengths. Many of our contributors have taken the A and the B to heart when submitting work to us. Some have gone one better, such as Stefan Goldmann, whose tape for us is programmed in such a way that the suite of music on the A-side is different to that on its B, but “beat-matched”, so one can create new listening experiences by hitting the Autoreverse button. Such a splendid idea. Another great feature of the cassette is it considerably more flexible in duration than wax (consider the tape's enduring popularity in the long-form audiobook market), while retaining the A/B split of vinyl.  We are charging into an era where, seemingly, all music is fantastically available, all the time, a click away, oftentimes even before it's “released...”… How wonderful! Yet, this abundance, this glut, is seemingly altering how we digest music –- no longer collecting, instead collating a virtual archive. It strikes us that the download experience trades convenience for engagement -– easy-come, easy-go. The Tapeworm makes life awkward!  Here's a compendium of fantastic music from a broad range of cult contributors. Their work for us is available in minute editions from a few locations in a supposedly dead format. These tracks will, mostly, not be found anywhere else, nor reissued. The format enforces the audience to listen to the artists works in a sequence. Play, turn over. The format's supposed awkwardness will, we hope, focus the listener, force the listener into making the required effort, to commit. Of course, it should be noted that our lives are made considerably easier thanks to "“the cloud"” -– FTP, email and suchlike make this project possible. In no way are we luddites clinging to a faded past. We are simply interested in seeing how an artist and their audience respond to a challenge, a set of restrictions…... Cassettes keep a warm place in many people's memory from the complition tapes made for friends and lovers in forlorn days. The Tapeworm concentrates on bringing high art to the format. does this imply a premeditated merge of high and low (popular) arts by means of the format as representational for an ongoing blurring of barriers of high and low? Is there still any high/low distinction? Is The Tapeworm per se high art and decidedly 'elitist', for example in the limited amounts of tapes released? Or can there be no elitist stance since there's no high nor low, thus no elite to speak of? High or low does not interest The Tapeworm. Good or bad does. We keep our editions low for the obvious reasons. We want to create a series of collectables, yes. We also want to keep their turn-around fast -– partially as this excites us personally, partially as this creates its own momentum…... But the most fundamental reason to edition in low numbers is, that is simply how many we can comfortably sell!  The tape has historically brought us high-art content –- think back to Audio Arts editions of the earliest Touch tape magazines from the 80s, for example. However, The Tapeworm has no specific desire to be seen as high-art. That seems somewhat of a tired concept. All we ultimately care about is, releasing the best possible product created by our friends, colleagues and people we deeply admire. All that matters is that each edition is strong. The Tapeworm's dream? An edition by Pet Shop Boys… - is that "“high-art”"? Would the context make it into art…? A dear friend of The Tapeworm, Kamal Ackarie, put out a splendid release a few years ago. Titled “"Recovery"” it was a Box Set of twenty cover versions -– ten 7" singles, lovingly packaged, performed by some of the brightest stars from the avant-garde.– Fennesz covering a-Ha, Robert Lippok performing a Wham! song, Ryoji Ikeda deconstructing ACDC...… This release revealed the surprising and seemingly incongruous relationships that often exist between these artists' earliest musical inspirations and their own unique current practices. These barriers do not need to be blurred from an artists' viewpoint, seemingly. Does the name The Tapeworm imply an objective to infiltrate the body of the current music industry and eat at it from the inside? plus: in the process of doing so prolifically growing itself and thus taking over from the inside? Still: The Tapeworm retains a non-parasitic course of action, therefore: could this be a very specific and hithereto unknown species of 'taenia'...? Great idea! I wish we had thought of it…... From spoken word to noise to modern classical and drones The Tapeworm features a quite diverse range of sounds. where will the roster expand to next? Who knows!  The Tapeworm's collective tastes are very broad-ranging, from black metal to Berlin techno. We have a hit-list -– artists we lust over whom we would dearly love to contribute. And then, there's always the unknown...… Currently, there are six tapes in various stages of completion, with invites extended wide to others we wish to ensnare! We are interested in releasing fantastic works created for a fantastic format by fantastic artists -– so, let's see what happens next! And: can you forsee The Tapeworm ever crossing over to other release formats or does the Tapeworm crew envision releases on other 'near-dead' (this is to quote the mainstream idea) formats? The Tapeworm's members (and, remember, there are millions of us…) already work on a daily basis with other media, plastic and physical, print and digital. But, The Tapeworm is its own world. Let me think –- ah yes! Books, perhaps…? The Bookworm -– gosh! And to tie-in with this: what comes first, the fetish for a certain format or the music as such? For example: Aphex Twin once made a commissioned piece of sound art using the unique shuffle feature of the MiniDisc format allowing short snippets of music to be randomly played, forming a unique pattern every playback. Therein the format was the primary force for the development of the music contained on the MiniDisc. I am certainly aware of the Gescom MiniDisc-only release. I believe Stefan Goldmann calls what we do “format fetish”. We are certainly fetishising the format, no doubt -– but, hopefully my answers above give lie to the fact that we are interested in an artist's reaction to a format and the audience's response…... Can you inform us on any of the forthcoming editions of The Tapeworm? Leslie Winer has an amazing tape for us, titled “"& That Dead Horse".” – Leslie is a splendid mystery. She found fame in 80s New York as one of the first Supermodels. An enfant terrible, she soon split, befriending Basquiat then becoming Burrough's assistant. In the early 90s she recorded her sole album, under the artist name ©” - "“Witch"” was a phenomenally prescient album, predicting many of the stoned tones of the mid-90s. Then, silence. This is her first release since then. John Butcher needs no introduction. He is contributing a pair of recordings;. One side live from L'eglise Saint Merri, Paris, last November coupled with a recording for saxophone controlled feedback and piano (no overdubs, played together). Quite simply spectacular. The Tapeworm loves pop with an edge. Edgy popster Zerocrop is contributing something splendid. The release will be titled "“On Tape"”. Its lead track, “Dear Jim”, is a beautiful electro-ballad, its chorus dubbed directly from an ansafone tape message a former lover left for him, years ago. Very unexpected and special. Edition Mego's very own Peter Rehberg has a mesmeric tape due, maybe May... Seemingly the same song on both sides - or is it...? And finally, Fennesz…...]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ruis_magazine_interview_042010.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ruis_magazine_interview_042010.html other Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:57:30 +0000 www.fennesz.com Reviews Boomkat (UK): Limited to just 500 copies and already sold out at source, this latest edition from the Tapeworm cassette label is likely to be the most feverishly sought after to date. One of experimental electronic music's biggest names, Christian Fennesz has collected his library of samples (dating between 1989 and 1996) made for his old Ensoniq EPS-16 Plus and ASR-10 samplers. It probably goes without saying, but this is an amazing hour or so of music to trawl through. Any long-term fans of Fennesz's music will no doubt be enormously excited by the prospect of sifting through these fragmentary, sketched curiosities; you'll hear one or two snippets you'll recognise too, with some moments even presenting early prototypical snatches of Endless Summer (for instance, around eight minutes into the first side you might catch a fragment of 'A Year In A Minute'). Each side flows like a half-hour stream of disconnected miniatures, with a range of material that shifts between the kind of serrated noise that characterised his early Mego output, sketched guitar pieces, orchestral textures, piano interludes, fearsome drones and even some unexpected beat loops lifted from pop music. Incredibly, it still all sounds very specifically like Fennesz. You get the impression that you could lock this man up for a fortnight with a fourtrack recorder and a tuba, and the outcome would still exhibit the same set of sonic hallmarks that single out this Austrian's compositions and sound designs from those of his peers. Szampler presents a revelatory listening experience for the established Fennesz fan and by any measure represents a great set of from an artist who's clearly been ahead of his time for a good while now. Get one while you still can... Other Music (US): Listening to almost an hour of collected sampler bounce-downs might not sound like a particularly enjoyable experience, but then it really all depends on who's been tinkering with said samples, right? Emerging from the shadowy Tapeworm stable is this bumper package of off-cuts from the studio of one Christian Fennesz, a man who surely has enough fan drool to ensure this limited tape disappears into a dust-cloud within a matter of weeks. So yes, you DO have to have a cassette deck, but then the hipsters among you should be prepared regardless, as cassettes seem to be staging a comeback. In any case, the crumbly analogue format absolutely fits the release in this case – and with the collection being positioned over a period between 1989 and 1996, it was probably fitted up with tape in mind in the first place. Maybe. It is more fascinating than you might think to get a window into Fennesz's working mode; there are tiny fragments of songs you might recognize from his early career laid bare in their proto-song forms. Parts of the early EPs and albums are almost discernable, albeit in slightly less hectically edited iterations. These snippets, however, are markedly less interesting than the examples that didn't make the grade; rhythms and drum machine patterns, textures and half-songs. The complexity of these vignettes make Szampler far more than simply a reward for fanboys like myself; indeed there are moments here that are actually 'playable'... who'd have thought? Recommended. Aquarius Records (US): This one probably needs very little in the way of description, a new archival release from guitar/laptop maestro Christian Fennesz, the latest from limited edition UK tape label Tapeworm, gathering up an eclectic collection of samples, which were used to create various recordings from 1989 until 1996. Which means maybe some of these will definitely sound familiar, even here in there yet to be Fennesz-ed state, offering a glimpse into the creative process for sure, but functioning fairly well as an album proper, albeit a somewhat fragmented album, short sonic selections, from murky glistening shimmer, to strange creaks and glitches, to warped acoustic guitar strum, to skipping stuttering electronic dronescapes, to psychedelic textural noise blowouts, to haunting loops, a dizzying array of sound and texture and timbre, many of these pieces already sounding practically finished (if it weren't for their brevity), gorgeous and hazy and melodic, mysterious and otherworldly, others simple, obvious building blocks for a bigger whole, the (perhaps hundreds of) fragments seamlessly sequenced into a constantly shifting, ever evolving, fractured and fantastical soundscape, that would also appeal to fans of Philip Jeck, with its weird sensation of skipping and glitching and recontextualization, the short sample format reminiscent of flitting from record to record, but this is obviously essential listening for Fennesz fans, a perfect companion for his records proper. LIMITED TO ONLY 500 COPIES. With cool Savage Pencil cover art! Bubblegum Cage III (Canada): A scrappy cassette release is not the sort of thing you’d normally expect from Fennesz – a man who, by habit, likes to digitally craft his solo albums over a period of several years. Clearly then, this extremely limited-edition cassette is something of an anomaly in Fennesz’s discography. As such, it casts light on a few of the lesser-known artefacts lurking in the dark corners his sound-world. The concept seems to be that Fennesz has dumped all of the sounds that were sitting on his old Ensoniq hardware samplers onto a cassette tape and made the results available to the world. Said results work surprisingly well, on a musical level, though – Szampler comprises a series of murkily intimate sonic vignettes that have that distinct “reading under the covers” aura about them. The real surprise, though, is how many recognizable snippets of Fennesz’s classic albums crop up here. One would have been forgiven for thinking that, following his debut EP Instrument, Fennesz abandoned hardware samplers completely, in favour of Mac laptops and Max/MSP. However, this release makes it clear that he has continued to run sounds through his samplers, presumably to utilize the signature low-resolution Ensoniq sound (which is perfect for his aesthetic). So, for example, the riff from Endless Summer‘s “A Year in a Minute” is clearly audible in this extract from near the beginning of side one (and it reappears, in a much less processed form, around the middle of side two). This review should have come a lot earlier. Szampler arrived at Bubblegum Cage III’s palatial offices some weeks ago but busyness prevented this post from showing up until now. In the interim, Szampler seems to have gone waaay out of print. Sorry about that. The Wire (UK): I would not recognise Christian Fennesz's music if I heard it, but this tape, collecting some of the base material he used to create his compositions, is quite gear. These samples were created and employed from 1989-96, and they remind me a bit of the raw tapes Jim Thirlwell issued on the recent Limb CD. Really interesting stuff, although not always overtly musical. Like that matters.]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw16.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw16.html tapes Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:38:55 +0000 Reviews Boomkat (UK): The Tapeworm presents a brilliantly unexpected curveball of prescient productions from notorious/enigmatic NYC model/badgyal Leslie Winer. Recorded in '94, '& That Dead Horse' fixes on a slow and cold brand of songs that garnered her '91 debut 'Witch' so much acclaim, also earning her the title of "Grandmother Of Trip-Hop". There's undoubtedly a strong parallel with Massive Attack or Tricky in her drowsy, deadpan, and smoked-larynx vocals with dub grooved bass, but Leslie preferred a more stripped approach, shunning soul samples in favour of dry lo-fi beats with occasional flickers of junglist breaks and minimalist wavey atmospherics. Her lyrics draw on a decades experience working in the fashion industry, jaded by its excesses and most likely pushed to express herself in this manner by close friends William Burroughs and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The result is 45 minutes of darkly intimate songs, strangely unsullied by 15 years of changes within musical to sound brilliant today in the midst of a cold wave revival. Recommended. Aquarius Records (US): Another list, and another batch of obscure tapes from UK tape label The Tapeworm, this one from someone called Leslie Winer, a mysterious former model, a pal of William Burroughs and Jean-Michael Basquiat, a sometime guest vocalist on records by groups like Bomb The Bass, who ditched modeling, dropped off the map, but not before making a record called Witch, considered to be an essential early chunk of proto trip hop, and this batch of tracks, dating just a year or so after Witch, does indeed offer up a gorgeous murky bit of skittery, downtempo weirdness. Obvious references are Tricky, Massive Attack, even Portishead, the same sort of creepy crawly late night shimmer, dark and dubbed out, the rhythms skeletal, the vocals, hushed and whispered, a sort of slow motion toasting, dark croons over billowing clouds of thrum and whir, loping rubbery basslines, slowed down samples, bits of reggae guitar, druggy and dubby, woozy and warbly, everything wrapped in a gauzy haze of record crackle, tape hiss, blurred ambience. Here and there the drums are cranked up into something more block rocking, but even then Winer transforms it into something more murky and surreal, the bass gets super distorted and fuzzed out (some dubstep foreshadowing for sure), everything wrapped around effected acoustic guitars, more sampled vox, strange little flurries of percussive filigree, all smeared into a mesmerizing bit of shuffling tripped out, psychedelic downtempo moody muddy groove. LIMITED TO ONLY 250 COPIES! The Wire (UK): 1994 archival recordings by this underground fashionista legend, sometimes referred to as the grandmother of triphop. The ten tracks here are of a piece with Winer's sole LP. The mood is drifty, casual, smoky and beat-flecked, but non-reliant on samples to a degree that gives it a nude feel.]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw15.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw15.html tapes Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:35:13 +0000 Sound Threshold and Charlotte Engelkes. (Further details about this event: .pdf) Biography: Leif Elggren is a Swedish artist who lives and works in Stockholm. Active since the late 1970s, Leif Elggren has become one of the most constantly surprising conceptual artists to work in the combined worlds of audio and visual. A writer, visual artist, stage performer and composer, he has many albums to his credits, solo and with the Sons of God, on labels such as Ash International, Touch, Radium and his own Firework Edition. His music, often conceived as the soundtrack to a visual installation or experimental stage performance, usually presents carefully selected sound sources over a long stretch of time and can range from mesmerizingly quiet electronics to harsh noise. His wide-ranging and prolific body of art often involves dreams and subtle absurdities, social hierarchies turned upside-down, hidden actions and events taking on the quality of icons. Together with artist Carl Michael von Hausswolff, he is a founder of the Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland (KREV) where he enjoys the title of King. www.leifelggren.org Reviews Aquarius Records (US): One of two new Tapeworm cassettes on this week's list, the other being the truly strange Autodigest recording of 40 years of bootleg recordings, and then there's this, the latest from Swedish artist Leif Elggren, who has consistently delighted and baffled us with recordings that ranged from totally confusional high concept ultra minimalism, to gorgeous dark dronemuic, to full on NOISE, not to mention lots of writings and art projects, the most infamous being the creation of the 'imaginary' country, he dubbed the Kingdoms Of Elgaland-Vargaland (KREV), a country which just so happens to have Elggren as its king! All Animals Are Saints is a collection of live recordings, the first of which is called "The Life Of The Plants" which features Elggren discussing experiments that found scientists placing electrodes and various recording devices on plants to record their electrical fields, resulting in, a series of strange glitched out minimal soundscapes, which pepper Elggren's talk. A staticky sound field of muted grinding rumbles, stuttery clicks and scrapes, fluttery bits of low end, a distinct drone component, lots of hiss and shimmer, and subtly swooping effects and glitches. As Elggren's story about the experiments continue, the scientists introduce stress into the plants' lives resulting in sounds that are much more abrasive, more rhythmic, a dense cloud of skittery streaks of high end and crackling sheets of skree. Hard to say if we're meant to believe the veracity of Elggren's storytelling, there are plenty of sound artists who have explored the electrical output of plants, or if it's just another high concept art piece, either way it's quite entertaining, and the sounds are definitely fantastic. The piece on the B-side is called "Swedenborg's Organ", and again begins as a talk, about a man called Swedenborg, from the 1700's, a musician, a writer, Elggren 'plays' a recording of someone playing Swedenborg's organ, the sound of creaking floorboards, squeaks and moans, thumps and rumbles, precedes a truly haunting, seriously fucked up stretch of slowly unfurling, totally abstract, sort-of-organ music, it's hard to describe, notes moan and wheeze, partial melodies crumble in slow motion, a stumbling, lurching, slow motion, minor key lament, very reminiscent of the recordings of Gurdjieff, but with the addition of those never ending creaks and groans, it's very much like a busted organ being played on a rickety old pirate ship, and sounds very much like something Nurse With Wound could have conjured up! Like all Tapeworm stuff, extremely limited, this one TO JUST 250 COPIES!!! Boomkat (UK): *LIMITED EDITION CASSETTE - 250 COPIES ONLY* Swedish artist Leif Elggren has roots in various disciplines: he's a composer, visual artist and stage performer, having previously released on Ash International, Touch and Radium, with perhaps his most famous work being alongside Carl Michael Von Hausswolff for the Kingdoms Of Elgaland-Vargaland project. The first piece on this cassette is 'The Life Of Plants', recorded at London's Cafe Oto late last year. Elggren starts the performance as a spoken-word piece about electromagnetic fields associated with plants and then plays back a supposed sound recording of this botanical energy. It's conspicuously similar to a computer-generated glitch piece in the vein of Pita or one of his Mego contemporaries, but the act is worth going along with, making for a clever and very creative way of presenting music to an audience. The second piece, 'Swedenborg's Organ' was recorded the day after 'The Life Of Plants', also in London, this time at The Showroom. This performance coincided with the launch of Elggren's DVD release, Death Travels Backwards, and begins with talk of the 18th century Swedish inventor, philosopher and mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg, who claimed to be in contact with the spirit world. Elggren plays back supposed recordings of his tinkerings with Swedenborg's organ (if you'll forgive the unfortunate turn of phrase), which allegedly resides in Swedenborg's summerhouse. Sure enough, the piece unfolds with wheezing organ sounds and what sounds like creaky floorboards. It's all very spooky and hypnotically rather lovely. The cassette is limited to 250 copies and comes highly recommended. The Wire (UK): It takes a certain wayward determination to run a cassette-only label in the 21st century, eschewing the ubiquitous ease of CD-Rs in favour of the clunky plastic artefact. Since 2008 [2009 - ed.], The Tapeworm has been justifying that effort with a series of releases that make explicit use of the benefits and limitations of the format, and each of the disparate works that make up this latest batch highlights, in its own way, the enduring peculiarities of magnetic tape. Swedish conceptual/performance artist Leif Elggren taps into the cassette's long association with spoken word. "The Life of Plants" provides a treatise on the emotional experiences of plants, coupled with understated electronic interpretations of vegetable moodswings; and, on "Swedenborg's Organ", a brief lecture on the Swedish philosopher introduces a field recording on Elggren playing the eponymous instrument, with the wheezing, rhythmic creak of the bellows building a lulling, nautical reverie. Vital Weekly (NL): Leif Elggren was in London in November 2009 to present his DVD release 'Death Travels Backwards' (see Vital Weekly 710). The first night he read a story, followed by music of a highly strange kind. It sounds electronic, with all sorts of peeps with intervals of a varying length - it could be processed voice. It has that sort of minimalist sound that we know and love Elggren for. Then the story continues and more processed sounds. An odd piece. The b-side is entirely instrumental with some odd sound from a small organ, and what seems to be the squeaking of a door or some other object being rubbed. Perhaps not indeed the sort of thing to put on a CD release, but surely quite captivating. A great private document.]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw14.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw14.html tapes Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:34:59 +0000 autodigest.wordpress.com Reviews Aquarius Records (US): Autodigest might be best known around these parts for their confusing, and amusing, and to many wholly irritating record A Compressed History of Everything Ever Recorded, Vol. 2: Ubiquitous Eternal Live, which was essentially an entire record of applause, the cheering and clapping and whooping and hollering, from before and after various performances, all woven into an hour long 'piece'. In some weird way, the concept did actually become something almost listenable, a sort of strangely textured and dynamic bit of weirdo dronemusic. So we were pretty excited to hear this latest in Autodigest's Compressed History series, this one purporting to contain "Every Bootleg Ever Recorded"! The liner notes on the tape elaborates: "The Music on this cassette spans over 40 years and was originally recorded on analogue and digital equipment. We have attempted to distance ourselves as much as possible from the sound of the original recordings. Autodigest Volume 4 is an attempt to reveal all limitations of the source tapes." And so what we initially imagined as some insane plunderphonic cacophony of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Bob Seger and the Doobie Brothers and Hall & Oates reveals itself as something more akin to their applause record, or even more appropriately, Reynols' Blank Tapes record. As Autodigest have collected what sounds like the leaders, and the almost blank spaces between songs, the left over tape at the end of recordings, and woven them into a swirling abstract wash of hiss and whir, laced with little fragments of actual music, buried voices, muffled melodies, layered barely there rhythms, everything seems to be way off in the distance, and while there does seem to be full on rocking going on here and there, it's rendered nearly unrecognizable, buried beneath a haze of crackle and buzz, layer after layer after layer of tape hiss. The 'music' in this Compressed History definitely benefits from headphones. In the store or on the stereo, these sounds might tend to bleed and dissipate, blend into the sounds of daily life, but with headphones, it's a total minimal psychedelic abstract spectral sound headtrip, until the very end of side one, when the murky sonic clouds clear and a voice calls out from the stage "Awwww, for fuck's sake, stop letting off fireworks and shouting and screaming, I'm trying to sing a song..." The flip side begins with a flurry of shouting, and caterwauling from the stage, which begins crystal clear but quickly dissolves into another hissy buzzy swirl of abstraction and absence, a gorgeously textured sprawl consisting of the sounds that lurk between the sounds, not just tape hiss this time, recordings of muted muffled rocking, recorded from what sounds like the dressing room beneath the stage, the B-side much more dense and dark and noisy, like some fucked up field recording (which it pretty much is), but still shot through with random voices, shards of music, bits of sirens, distant shouts, and all the other mostly non musical detritus of a surreptitiously captured live recording. Quite cool, if not entirely musical enough for most folks, but most aQuarians into far out found sounds will definitely dig this. For some reason this one is limited to ONLY 100 COPIES!!! So grab one while you can... The Wire (UK): It takes a certain wayward determination to run a cassette-only label in the 21st century, eschewing the ubiquitous ease of CD-Rs in favour of the clunky plastic artefact. Since 2008 [2009 - ed.], The Tapeworm has been justifying that effort with a series of releases that make explicit use of the benefits and limitations of the format, and each of the disparate works that make up this latest batch highlights, in its own way, the enduring peculiarities of magnetic tape. For the fourth instalment in its 'compressed everything' series. the UK's [Portuguese -ed.] Autodigest collective turns its attention to both the physical properties and the social functions of tape, purporting to boil 40 years of pirate recordings down to half an hour of layered tape hiss, murky loops and muffled meodic ghosts, like a painter mixing all his pigments into a featureless brown gloop. As with all Autodigest's work, there's a satirical intent - commenting on the alienating degradation of modern popular culture - but it also achieves a dreamlike drift that echoes the work of American post-Noise artists such as James Ferraro. Brainwashed (US): Autodigest’s A Compressed History Of Every Bootleg Ever Recorded gives exactly what it promises, but does so in a mesmerizing, ghostly way. Tape hiss, crowd noise, screams, and distant badly recorded music are all smashed together into a roiling cascade of complex noise. The second side of the tape initially loses some of that momentum, but soon evolves into a similarly twisted (though less aggressive) soundquake. The anonymous members provide a very erudite theory behind their releases (this is actually their fourth installment) that references Baudrilliard’s theory of hyperconformism and explains that their music is created to provide “a space for the analysis and allegory of the catastrophic state of contemporary social and cultural structures.” Usually such a mission statement is a harbinger of very, very bad music to come, but not this time- Autodigest manage to expertly balance their high-concept philosophical roots with an unexpected amount of humor and raw, visceral power. That doesn’t happen very often, but it is a convergence that has found the perfect home. ]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw13.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw13.html tapes Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:30:36 +0000 grohs. Biography: Stefan Goldmann is an artist based in Berlin. He runs the Macro label and holds a DJ residency at Panorama Bar. His work ranges from genre-bending techno hits ("Sleepy Hollow" / "Lunatic Fringe") to electroacoustic concept albums ("Voices Of The Dead") and a CD-length edit of Igor Stravinsky's "Le Sacre Du Printemps". www.stefangoldmann.com Stefan Goldmann writes… "Since I'm a less than mediocre guitar player, but a quite versatile editing engineer with a decade of experience of handling samplers and midi-sequencers, I could finally realize an old project which I can trace back to a lesson with my bass teacher in my teen days. He had found out a bass player with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra had recorded hours of improvisations and paid an engineer to cut it together into an enjoyable "jazz" album. The teacher, a profound jazz player himself, found this to be some sort of scam, while I was deeply impressed by the idea of merging hi-tech and improvisation. Finally I had a reason to play and record some guitar for this fine project and cut it to death afterwards (and I honestly hope no one will ever hear the source tapes - I'll have to make a note to erase the tapes tomorrow!).     "Haven't I seen you before" is a cycle of five pieces, with two versions each, so it can be listened to as a continuous performance, as well as looped recordings when employing the reverse function some cassette players have. The latter can be done at any point, since the parts on the A and B sides match. All material in this album has a guitar (amplified and microphoned simultaneously) as its only sound source. These initial recordings were cut into loops with durations ranging from a fraction of a second to more than a minute. They were arranged into compositions, adding reverb, stereo panorama and volume adjustments. Layering the loops creates polymetric structures, but I've tried to avoid the usual loop minimalism by the sheer number of looped segments which appear and disappear at distinctly different rates. Micro-loops vs macro-loops is the main structural feature of the music on this cassette, playing around with a key feature of the format (isn't it a shame creators tend to overlook there are different benefits to each format, be it vinyl, CD or cassette?).    Three recordings inspired this effort: John McLaughlin's 1970 "My Goal's Beyond" album, which offered a side of multitrack solo guitar improvisations (I believe this was the first jazz record to do this) as well as his unreleased guitar/voice album with his wife ("John and Eve McLaughlin"). McLaughlin was heavily under the influence of Guru Sri Chinmoy and both albums have this very unique dark drug/sect edge, adding an extremely intense quality to the modal guitar figures (well, probably also due to the Indian music he has been studying and merging with some impressionist composition techniques). I have tried to capture a bit of the mood and apply it to a loop based cut up orgy. Another crucial record to me has been Derek Bailey's "Ballads" - I've been astonished by the tidal movements in and out of the standards he's playing around with. So there is a harmonic base to my guitar mishandling, which is present throughout the entire album - moving in and out of it. I'd also like to note I apllied an altered tuning to the guitar to achieve different natural harmonics than the ones one gets with the standard tuning - and not to give in to the temptation of cutting some blues licks." – Stefan Goldmann, Berlin, 5 Nov 2009 Reviews: Gonzo Circus (Belgium): Het was een kort bericht op de website van Touchmusic: Philip Jeck brengt werk uit op het nieuwe cassettelabel The Tapeworm. Amper zes maanden later is er een kleine hype ontstaan rond The Tapeworm, niet in het minst omdat Stephen O'Malley, Simon Fisher Turner een release op het jonge label uitbrachten. Binnenkort brengt ook Geir Jenssen (Biosphere) oud plaatwerk (onder zijn vroege alter ego E-Man uit op het label. Ook de nieuwste release van Stefan Goldmann ‘Haven’t I Seen You Before’ mag een verrassing heten. Goldmann werd op korte termijn een household name in dancemiddens en wordt vaak de evenknie van Richardo Villalobos genoemd. Met ‘Sleepy Hollow’, ‘Le Sacre Du Printemps’ zijn bewerking van het klassieke meesterwerk van Igor Stravinsky, een residentie in de Panorama Bar en zijn eigen Macrolabel wist hij een prominente plaats op te eisen. Met ‘Haven’t I Seen You Before’ laat hij een onbekende kant van zichzelf horen. Goldmann bespeelt hier de akoestische gitaar en waagt zich aan een lange improvisatie. Uit deze sessie knipte hij vijf stukken die hij in cycli laat terugkomen. ‘Haven’t I Seen You Before’ is voor Goldmann een idee dat al lang rijpte, een jongensdroom die waarheid wordt, maar misschien vooral een moedige stap in een ongekende richting. Liefhebbers van het werk van Derek Bailey en fingerpicking vinden hier een mooie, integere en uitzonderlijke plaat. Aquarius (USA): The one thing about The Tapeworm label, is that while you never know exactly what you're gonna get, you do know more than likely it's definitely something you want to hear, whether you realized it or not. One of two new tapes from The Tapeworm this time out, this one from Berlin electronic producer Stefan Goldmann, who also runs the Macro Recordings label, but don't be expecting any sort of beats or techno here, instead, it's a gorgeously dark record of solo guitar. Goldmann describes himself as a mediocre guitarist, but a versatile engineer, so for his Tapeworm contribution, he recorded a whole bunch of little guitar bits, softly struck harmonics, simply strummed chords, pizzicato notes, plenty of clicks and scrapes, even his barely audible breathing as he hunched over the guitar, and cut and chopped and spliced and diced the various elements into 5 tracks, two different versions. The result though is not some sort of rapidfire plunderphonic workout, instead, it's delicate, and sublime, lots of space and subtle melody, warm little chordal tangles drift over softly shimmering expanses of space, strange plucks and thumps are built into barely there rhythms, one track does coalesce into something almost propulsive, but somehow remains minimal and abstract, even what sound like mistakes, mis-hits, muted notes, get reworked into the slow shifting anti-folk, free jazz dark drift tapestry Goldmann creates. Each side contains the same program, but different versions, so using the reverse function on your tape deck, you can further loop and tangle and reassemble the original tracks into different arrangements. So cool. Boomkat (UK): Having previously distinguished himself on labels like Perlon, Mule, Cocoon and his own Macro imprint, renowned techno artist Stefan Goldmann makes a surprise shift towards abstract home-listening fare on cult cassette label Tapeworm, releasing an album that's available in a tiny, limited edition run of just 250 copies. Picking up his guitar, Goldmann's project offers two different versions of a five-part cycle, made from cut-ups of solo guitar recordings that have been fashioned into what he terms "polymetric structures" made up by a discourse of "micro-loops vs. macro-loops". When Goldmann himself has spoken about these compositions he's been quick to self-deprecate as far as his credentials as a guitarist go, yet he's amply qualified to approach the music from a slightly different angle: as a renowned electronic producer, Goldmann cleverly constructs Haven't I Seen you Before during the editing process, joining snippets of natural harmonics, chord strums and even what would ordinarily be regarded as recording detritus like exhalation noises and fret buzz. You can hear the electronic intervention, yet despite all that, Derek Bailey is the first name to spring to mind upon hearing the end product of Goldmann's craft. The great British improvisor's influence can be heard all over this record, particularly during Goldmann's very physical attacking of the strings, his inclinations towards sudden dynamic shifts and his fondness for those aforementioned natural harmonics. The end result of the producer's work is a very unusual, if not entirely unique record: Stefan Goldmann has set about harnessing the energy and spontaneity of a great, organic improv record via elaborate, painstaking editing. More bizarre still is that he's actually pulled it off. Excellent. The Wire (UK): It takes a certain wayward determination to run a cassette-only label in the 21st century, eschewing the ubiquitous ease of CD-Rs in favour of the clunky plastic artefact. Since 2008 [2009 - ed.], The Tapeworm has been justifying that effort with a series of releases that make explicit use of the benefits and limitations of the format, and each of the disparate works that make up this latest batch highlights, in its own way, the enduring peculiarities of magnetic tape. Berlin's Stefan Goldmann uses multiple tape loops to transform source recordings of acoustic guitar into a delicate collage of throbbing harmonics and minimal strumming - minutely arranged and precisely orchestrated into a haunting suite that allows tape players with a 'reverse' function to play it as a continuously looped performance. It's the most immediate proof from among these four releases that - far from merely indulging in a retro fetish - The Tapeworm is providing a platform for artists to continue finding ways to make tape new. Brainwashed (US): Daring and unexpected, […] Haven’t I Seen You Before is culled entirely from guitar improvisations. By his own admission, Goldmann is not a particularly skilled guitarist. However, he was inspired to attempt a guitar album long ago when he heard a story about a bass player from the Berlin Philharmonic that paid an engineer to edit hours of aimless improv into a coherent jazz album. Relying on his own studio wizardry, Stefan finally got an opportunity to attempt a similar feat, cutting and looping his own noodlings into a very meditative and likable suite of avant-garde guitar sketches. Amoeba (US): Stefan Goldmann is the latest guest on the Tapeworm's cassette only label - previous cast has included Philip Jeck, Biosphere, and Stephen O'Malley from Sunn O))). Goldmann's guitar is the only sound source here, cut into loops of various durations, overlapped and sequenced. In proof that tapes are not merely cool ornaments or glamorized for the sake of nostalgia, Goldmann utilizes the full and unique potential of the format, such as encouraging the listener to use their auto-reverse function to flip between alternate versions of the take. Creative and fun! ]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw12.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw12.html tapes Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:18:55 +0000 Reviews Aquarius (USA): The second of two new mysterious sonic missives from UK tape label The Tapeworm, this one comes from the strangely monikered Tongues Of Mount Meru, who might be more familiar to people by their given names, noisemaker Lasse Marhaug (of Jazzkamer), and Jon Wesseltoft, a member of black metal legends Thorns. Seems like a strange combination for sure. And the strangeness is further heightened by the fact that you won't find any crunchy noise, Merzbowian blur or blackened blasts here, instead, we're treated to extended mantra-like Niblockian drones, layered and hypnotic, pulsing and ever shifting, fuzzy and buzzy and dense, recorded live, the sound is rich and intense, the edges rough and prickly, within the core drone, drift all sorts of buried melodies, and prismatic overtones, strange little electronic shimmers seems to surface here and there, occasionally, the layers blend perfectly into haunting harmonies, only to slowly drift apart once again. Hard to tell what the sound sources are, but at one point it sounds like an accordion or harmonium, that lush, rich, organic wheeze, all warm and ever-changing. Two sidelong drones, the first side is more aggressive, more intense and almost abrasive, the second much more swirly and moody, but both similarly dreamy and mesmeric. Total longform hypnodrift drone bliss. The Wire (UK): It takes a certain wayward determination to run a cassette-only label in the 21st century, eschewing the ubiquitous ease of CD-Rs in favour of the clunky plastic artefact. Since 2008 [2009 - ed.], The Tapeworm has been justifying that effort with a series of releases that make explicit use of the benefits and limitations of the format, and each of the disparate works that make up this latest batch highlights, in its own way, the enduring peculiarities of magnetic tape. Tongues Of Mount Meru - a Norwegian duo comprising Noisician Lasse Marhaug and Jon Wesseltoft of Black Metal outfit Thorns - offer the least tape-centric release: two deep drones that fizz and hum in near stasis, with warm overtones slowly unfurling like a magic eye puzzle revealing its hidden design. Both pieces are nearly 20 minutes long and make full use of the binary polarity of the format, Side A wielding a more biting edge than the hypnotic Side B. Vital Weekly (NL): Behind Tongues Of Mount Meru we find one Jon Wesseltoft and the well-known Lasse Marhaug. One would perhaps expect some noise release, or cut-up collage like sounds, but these two pieces sound like these two found a bunch of cheap bontempi keyboards. Pressing a few chords down on all of them, they sit behind a mixing board mixing the sounds together. Welcome ye of drone music! Its the kind of drone music I like very much - lover all of organs. Hardcore minimalism at work here, with slow changes in the sound material, but piercing throughout. Not in a noise way, but in a more upfront manner. The new plasticity of drone music. Simply yet effective. Great release. Anti-Gravity Bunny (USA): Noise + black metal = hypnodrone... obviously. Jazzkamer's Lasse Marhaug and Jon Wesseltoft (of Thorns) got together and decided they need to chill the fuck out and throw some hardcore minimal drones down on tape. Hence Tongues Of Mount Meru. The Delight Of Assembly has two sidelong pieces of static synth organ drones. Total existential revelation shit. Your eyes & ears get that foggy glaze and you hear the most beautiful, intricate insect hum. This is super textured stuff made of fuzz & buzz, while still being as soft and ethereal as clouds & dust. Seriously, this is the easiest way to attain enlightenment. Climb Mount Meru, bliss out, and become omniscient. This is almost as minimal as it gets, at least when it's not being compared to artists like Phil Niblock. The best comparison would be Deceh's self titled LP on Important. Both are made up of similar sounding drones, long form, sidelong pieces, etc. But like all things Tapeworm, liiiiimited. Hurry!]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw11.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw11.html tapes Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:15:32 +0000 Buy in the TouchShop--> Track listing: A1: The Difference A2: De Du Da Da Di A3: Upland I A4: Visjoner A5: Upland II A6: Great Nations A7: Hosono B1: Jeg Er Moderne B2: Upland III B3: Nibsy the Newsboy B4: Heaven & Hell B5: The Mission B6: Upland IV B7: De Du Da Da Di (Original) E-Man was the first apparition of Geir Jenssen – these days better known as Biosphere. This tape, originally released in 1984 on Likvidér # LIKV 4025, features contributions from Per Martinsen (Mental Overdrive) and Nils Johansen (Bel Canto). All tracks recorded on a Teac 4-track cassette recorder at Elverhøy Studenthjem, Tromsø and Nord-Norsk Studenthjem, Oslo, Norway between 1983-1984. All tracks written by Geir Jenssen except: A1 written by Jenssen/Martinsen, A4 written by Jenssen/Johansen/Larsen, A6 and B4 written by Jenssen/Larsen, B1 written by Jenssen/Høyer/Larsen. Geir Jenssen: electronics, Ragnar Larsen: vocals and bass (A4, A6, B1, B4), Frank Jensen: vocals (A1, B5), Per Martinsen: electronics (A1, B7). Illustration – SavX. www.biosphere.no Reviews Aquarius (USA): A long lost eighties artifact from UK tape label The Tapeworm, released along with three other strange and wonderful tapes, to be found elsewhere on this week's list. E-Man is probably not a name familiar to most folks, and Geir Jenssen might not be either, but odds are, most aQ customers and drone obsessives do know Jennsen by his 'other' name, Biosphere! But before you freak out and nab one of these expecting some sort of icy grim minimal ambience, be prepared, this was originally released in 1984, and is a whole 'nother beast. E-Man specializes in gloomy synth driven new wave, with crooned dramatic vocals, programmed electronic percussion, Joy Division-y basslines, Kraftwerk like melodies, wicked cool, but definitely of its time. Although folks who have been digging on the recent resurgence of new wave / cold wave, should for sure check this out, cuz this is the real deal, warm whirring swooshes of synthesizer, "Rockit" like rhythms, electronic drums, even some scratching, a little bit funky, but also cold and clinical, space-y here and there, with haunting snippets of found sounds, mysterious voices, but all would around the groups propulsive sound. There are some moments that hint at the Biosphere to come, a little more spacey and abstract, but even those tracks are strangely new wave-y, almost new age-y actually, and often lead right into some stiff outerspace robo-funk, usually overlaid with the above mentioned reverb drenched croon. Not at all what we expected, but we're totally digging it. Bad ass Savage Pencil artwork too... Igloo Magazine (USA): E-Man was the first project of Geir Jenssen, who went under a number of later monikers such as Biosphere. Jenssen's Biosphere productions are a quite distant from his E-Man sound, with minimal synthesizers and vocals preceding his ambient and techno compositions but there are some undeniable hints in the album. The tracks of this LP were recorded between 1982 and 1984… The LP opens with "The Difference" with halting synth chords playfully toppling over each other with cold indifferent lyrical slices dissecting the analogue twiddling. The track is more of an instrumental than a vox version, with the emphasis being put on the machine sounds and the sonorous spiraling of the vintage electronics used. Likewise, "De Du Da Da Di" is instrumental; with larger brasher bass sounds making their way into the frame. "The Upland Part I" is a wonderfully warming piece of synthesizer music, mirroring some of Jenssen's later Biosphere sound. The track has some of the qualities of S.C.D.'s music, a work of real music gift that borders into space but remains somehow grounded. "Visjoner" ups the tempo with despondent vocals coiling around the chords before "The Upland Part II", an aural breath before "Great Nations" brings a typical MW style track. "Hosono" and it's squelching bass and organ chords finishes the a-side with "Jeg Er Moderne" starting off side –b, an addictive new wave number that featured on Masikdans. "The Upland Part III" and "Nibsy the Newsboy" follow, two instrumental pieces of rich synthesizer sounds. "Heaven and Hell" moves into slower synth pop lovers style. The track's measured down-tempo sound echo a number of 80s electro tracks, lonely and unrequited. "The Mission" is an clever work of discordant lyrics and warm synthlines. The final ambient whirrings of "The Upland Part IV" introduces the split original version of "De Du Da Da Di". Japanese samples melt into a squelching soundscape of synthesizers and space tone.]]> http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw10.html http://www.tapeworm.org.uk/ttw10.html tapes Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:17:40 +0000