Stanislav
Kreitchi - Voices And Movement (ELCD 23)
This is the second album by Stanislav Keitchi on Electroshock,
and Voices And Movement continues his explorations into sound using
the unique ANS synthesizer that made Ansiana so distinctive. The
album opens with the eighteen minute long Rhapsody In Rorschach,
which aptly describes the cosmic, post industrial soundscape here. The
track oozes atmosphere, the sounds darting here and there, just like the
coloured charts that inspired it. It doesn't make for easy listening,
there are no tunes as such, but the soundscapes when played at low volume
are quite effective in an ambient way. The next four tracks make up a
suite called Four Fantasies - and like Vivaldi's Four Seasons,
these comprise Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. For me
this set of tracks are the highlight of the album, while being nothing
like Vivaldi's classic work, they do share a strong evocation of the seasons
that is both highly atmospheric and beautiful. Perhaps where Vivaldi's
work ultimately praises God, Kreitchi praises the cosmic which perhaps
isn't that diametrically opposed. Winter, for example shimmers
with the arctic cold and sparse samples of howling wolves and eskimo chants
raise the atmosphere. In Spring, the ice and snows melt and new
life appears, inuits chant to welcome the new sun, life begins. Summer
opens with birdsong and assorted spacey bleeps and blips - the overall
effect is of life [and light], thriving and spreading across the world.
With Autumn the darkness returns, heat-leeching winds howl and
life recedes across the tundra, awaiting the dreaded long winter night.
This suite is one the most evocative things I've ever heard and it should
become a classic of electronica. The penultimate track is Ruins In
The Waste and it does share a lot of the atmosphere and ambience of
the previous Four Fantasies, though this track has added brass synths
and a number of new sounds - in some ways the horn parts are reminiscent
of Wagner [if he was alive now and using synths]. Ruins... is very
broody and it evokes [in me] the numbing dread of an H.P. Lovecraft tale,
with its Stygian horrors rising from the depths. Finally there is Voices
& Movement, this opens benignly with crashing waves, footsteps
on the sand, half-discerned voices that could be crying or laughing. The
samples of footsteps and voices endlessly shifting across the soundscape
do offer a literal translation of the track title - at least until the
marching band appears! This is one very weird track... Voices And Movement
[the album] is not going to appeal to everyone, and it strains the definition
of what is considered music at times, but it has more than its fair share
of defining moments and the Four Fantasies suite is an ambient
classic.
Antanas
Jasenka - Deusexmachina (ELCD025)
Out of all of the recent batch of new Electroshock
albums Antanas Jasenka's Deusexmachina is probably the hardest
for me to find anything to like in it. The album contains music in its
most abstract and confrontational form - music that is barely recognisable
as such. The opening track Silence is the most approachable in
the sense that its ambient mix of low-key drones, buzzes and what sound
like wooden percussion blocks do set up a palpable atmosphere of ambience
and mood. Unfortunately, the remaining tracks sound like the sound effects
you'd get on a fairground ride through the tunnel of mirrors. A mixture
of sampled voices, atonal keyboards and percussion, topped by loud stabbing
bursts of electronic static [not unlike a demonised chainsaw] permeate
the remaining tracks. Indeed, it sounds like music composed by and made
for machines by machines. There's no denying that the contents of this
album are extremely dramatic sounding, but easy on the [human] ear they
are not and I can only recommend Deusexmachina to the listener
who appreciates the ultimate challenge. There is no way I shall condemn
this album because I didn't like it, the composer/musician obviously lives
in a very different world to mine, but one visit is more than enough for
me.
Various
Artists - Electroshock Presents Electroacoustic Music Vol VII
(ELCD026-027)
This is the latest in Electroshock's series of cutting
edge and experimental music compilations. This is art with a capital "A",
there are no commercial considerations here, no pop hits. The two cds
contain a total of twenty tracks, and feature artists from right across
the world. Those represented this time include: Claire Laronde, Vidna
Obmana, Geert Verbeke, Roderik De Man, Rodrigo Sigal, Robin Julian Heifetz,
Lukazs Szalankiewicz, Michal Bukowski, Jorge Antunes, Jose Mataloni, Oophoi,
Arie Shapira, Mirjam Tally, Eternal Wanderers.
It has to be said that the contents on this double
CD is in no way easy listening. It represents a challenge for anyones'
ears, including mine - one really needs an appreciation of the surreal
and perhaps the bizarre to even gain a foothold with the sound presentation
on this double album. I have to admit that I found most of the tracks
a little too extreme for my tastes, but then I am inherently a conservative
listener. If you enjoy a challenge then the Electroacoustic series may
well fit the bill for you...
Anatoly
Pereslegin - Fastgod: e-psalms (ELCD028)
The inspiration for this album is taken from the Bible
and more specifically David's Book of Psalms. The nine tracks musically
illustrate a selection of quotes and feature a variety of electronic backings
with what sounds like tape loops of various male baritones singing phrases
from the various psalms. The music is multi-textured, for most of the
time it is quite propulsive and throbbing with energy. The synth 'voices'
are churchy to some degree - chiming bells, organ, deep drones, shimmering
synth loops. The music has the circular feel of Philip Glass to it, looping
back on itself, layer upon layer until it threatens to implode. Indeed,
there's a strong flavour of Old Testament Hellfire and Brimstone searing
through this music - this is no oratorio based on the 'happy clappy bible'
favoured by most born again christians. I can't be definitive here but
this album sounds like it has been influenced by Eno, Klaus Schultz, the
aforementioned Philip Glasss, early Kraftwerk and perhaps even Stockhausen.
Fastgod: e-psalms challenges the listener's tolerance of what can
be considered to be 'musicality' throughout its length - you can't put
this album and let it settle in the background. Anatoly Pereslegin has
created something that is literally a musical monster. The jury is out
as to whether it is a masterpiece.
Various
Artists - Electroshock Presents Electroacoustic Music Vol VIII
(ELCD036)
I have to admit that I usually find this Electroacoustic
Music compilation series the hardest to listen to of all the Electroshock
albums - mainly due to the extreme cutting edge nature of the music, and
the problem of refining [in my head] what is music and what is just noise.
And with Vol VIII the problem doesn't get any easier.
The album begins with Transients, by Lisa
Walker, a very listenable piece of shifting violin melodies backed by
equally shifting layers of sampled voices and sounds, ambience and synths.
Altogether a rather moody but memorable track. Next is Claire Laronde's
Matiers de Piano, which sounds like a slab of boogie woogie treated
piano played by a dyspeptic robot. Next is Lulla by Milica Paranosic
- this begins with mechanical birdsong and chiming voices backed by droning
synths. Despite being discordant and jarring this is both atmospheric
and exotic. Racing Inside the Milky Way by Vivain Adelberg Rudow
follows, a pure mindbomb of discordant synth fireworks. Jukka Ruohomaki's
Neuromancer Suite is next - a cosmic soundscape full of shifting
drones, sampled sounds, swirling starstuff, mutating beats, overlaid with
a whirlwind ghostdance of wierdness. Not recommended for listening in
an old overgrown graveyard. And so the album continues, the remaining
contributors include Robin Julain Heifetz, Christopher Andrew Arrell,
Diego Miniciacchi, Gary Di Bendetto and Chaos as Shelter - all of them
challenging to both the ear and the brain. This collection is a very mixed
bag and should appeal to anyone with a passion for experimental music.
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Artemiy
Artemiev & Peter Frohmader
Transfiguration (ELCD021)
 Transfiguration
is a collaboration between two multi-instrumentalists and their multi-track
studios - in other words it is magic time! Part I starts with some
simple loops and samples, repetitive but it sets up the rhythm for this
track and underpins it while Peter Frohmader's guitar does its own loosely
cyclical part. Part II begins with a slow drum beat and ambient
synth washes followed by some flute-like synth melody lines that are lovely
to listen to. All in all, this one very dreamy track that packs a bit
of a surprising punch in the last minute. Part III continues with
a very similar melody line, clothed in sampled voices and synthesised
atmospherics, staggered percussion and a low-key but persistent groove
pushes the track along very nicely. So far so good - overall impression
is that I am loving this. Part IV is next, ethnic-style percussion
and deep echo-laden drums crash out as layer after layer of instrument
appears - very dramatic sounding, definitely an oriental vibe and would
make a great soundtrack for a Hong Kong-produced thriller. One can almost
visualise the chase across HK harbour in junks... Final track is Part
V, the longest track on the album at nearly thirty minutes, it's also
the most cosmic, a series of loose drum rhythms, limpid keyboard lines,
ambience and an overall feeling of drifting where the sun doesn't shine.
Transfiguration is an album of many moods,
at times forceful but also laid back, it ranges from avant garde to commercial
electronica, but it is always listenable and at times quite stunning in
its range of sounds and their musical manipulation. It's difficult to
allot credit to either musician, their individual styles have merged seemlessly
together here. Another winner for Electroshock.
Artemiy
Artemiev & Phillip B.Klinger
A Moment of Infinity (ELCD022)
 A
Moment of Infinity opens with Broken Sleep In The Fracture Zone,
an eleven minute collage of ambient drones, industrial creaks and groans,
distant 'tribal'-like percussion, and an overwhelming feeling of being
a speck in the cosmos. I also get a disturbing mind-picture of a blasted
landscape full of the distant howls of whalesong or mutated foghorns...
Next track is The Other Side Of The Inner World - this opens with
some slow and very deep marimba-type vibes mixed with gentle, almost industrial
style drones, a gamelan drifts in and out, the whole soundscape just drifts
in space past that orbiting Dunkin' DoNuts franchise with its flickering
fluorescent sign. Endless Voyage is next, and as the title suggests
it is extremely cosmic - again a drifting, shifting variety of drones
and samples weave and entwine across the speakers, a clock strikes the
hour and then morphs into a mutated twang, this track doesn't really go
anywhere, but that, of course, is the whole point. The overall effect
is of hanging around one of the LaGrange Points in a spacesuit and literally
chillin' out...
Track 4, In A Moment of Infinity is the album's
magnum opus in terms of length - twentyseven minutes and small change
- and once again a clock is striking the hour over some low key drones
and pulses, riven here and there with sampled choral voices and radio-astronomy
radio chatter. One keeps expecting to see the monolith from 2001: A Space
Odyssey floating across the speakers. Despite its length, there's a richness
in sound and feel here, and an awe-inspiring timelessness - space is kinda
huge, ya know, but that space between your ears is even bigger! The final
track is A Rite Of Passage, darker sounds now, perhaps the ghouls
of a graveyard are coming out to play, the sounds are certainly more demonic.
A tribal, almost voodoo, beat emerges from the crowing voices and it chugs
along as the drums beat on, joined by the flapping of batwings. Voices
chant in the distance, debatable whether they are angelic or that of the
Hellish Host - then again, this could be where all the rappers go when
they die...
A Moment of Infinity is an impressive album
- for much of its duration it is a space trip, the nearest thing to hitching
a lift on that ufo doing the grand tour of the Solar System and all points
up. Only the final track tends to darken that vision into something akin
to falling into a black hole. This collaboration between Artemiy Artemiev
and Phillip B.Klinger seems to have brought out the visionary in both
of them and it is a vision worth seeking out.
Oöphoi
- Bardo (ELCD 024)
 Bardo
consists of four lengthy tracks, each one a sequence of electronic drones
overlaid with Tibetan percussion and other sounds, though these are mixed
so low down that you almost hear them by inference rather than by definition.
From the sleevenotes I assume that Bardo is a type of eastern meditation,
and each of these tracks is designed to help one meditate to a specific
goal. These tracks aren't really music as we know it, the drones lock
onto a pitch and don't vary, only the overlaid tracks slowly evolve. As
a sound installation it works well, creating barriers around the listener
that block out distractions and help one focus on meditating or just the
task at hand. I think Oöphoi is an Italian and this doesn't surprise
me - for all of its musique concrete feel these four tracks have a baroque
ornateness to them. I'm still not sure whether I like this album as it
tends to defy categorisation.
Artemiy
Artemiev & Christopher De Laurenti
57 Minutes To Silence (ELCD029)
 Never
has an album title been more apt than this one - this collaboration between
Artemiy Artemiev and Christopher De Laurenti certainly packs a lot of
sound into the CD's 57 minutes. I say sound because I'm not sure what
I am hearing could be classified as music as we are used to it. This album
has a cosmic theme running through the track titles, and to be honest
if you told me that what I was hearing was the sounds of stars and planets
recorded via a radio telescope then I would believe you.
The album opens with Conlon's Dub, not as
you might think a quick visit to an Irish watering hole but an almost
tribal-beat piece of electronica that whizzes between the speakers and
fades to and fro in a demented fashion. A Glimpse is a short piece
of cosmic chimera, followed by Internal Static Bursts which again
is exactly what it says it is. Transmission From The Coalfire begins
very quietly, the most peaceful section of the album by far - it grows
slowly, a series of drones, buzzes, hums and cymbal crashes over fifteen
minutes of extreme oddness before fading into the void again. Aboard
The Coalfire starts with what sounds like crashing pianos and voices
yelling incomprehensibly. Recalibration starts with distorted bells
tolling and what sounds like rustling scaffolding, mixed with a ringing
sound. Very weird. Received Through The Nebula continues the cosmic
theme with a slowly building soundscape that is mixed so low for first
half that you need to crank up the volume just to hear it. This is the
most atmospheric piece on the album and an ideal soundtrack if you are
reading the source material for 2001 A Space Odyssey. The final track
Solar Speech is really just a coda to the previous one, ending
the album with more cosmic chimera. This is probably one of the more satisfying
and challenging albums of the latest batch.
Edward
Artemiev - Three Odes (ELCD 030)
 This
new album by Edward Artemiev is something of a surprise - it is arguably
the most commercial sounding album in the new batch of Electroshock releases.
The composer has dropped his usual semi-classical style for what I can
only describe as an over-the-top style of prog-rock on steroids - along
with what sounds like huge banks of synths, there are a number of different
choirs and solo vocalists - plus an orchestra and a rock band. I have
to say that I love it - the overall feel is of an album that rocks mightily.
The album opens with some hard riffing synths and
sequencers in Tangerine Dream mode - this is the start of Ode #1: Ode
To The Herald Of Good. This ode is split into six sections, each with
a rich and sometimes highly dramatic [aka: 'over the top'] synth backing
supporting a variety of solo vocalists and choirs. Unfortunately, most
of the lyrics are in Russian [I think], so I have no idea what they are
singing about. But that aside, the performances are highly robust and
up-tempo. The first two sections of Ode #1, A Torch and
Herald Of Good, certainly sound as if Rick Wakeman and/or Emerson
Lake & Palmer were a main influence. Section Three, Harmony Of
The World, is much calmer, ambient washes of sound mix with bubbling
synths and a celestial choir to provide a small oasis of calm before Sport
- You Are A Perpetual Progress kicks in with high octane synths and
choir. Section Five, A Beauty Of The Earth goes all cosmic again,
chiming sequencers, echo-laden trumpets, Pink Floyd style guitar and a
wistful vocal. Magic stuff! Ode #1 concludes with Appeal, a slow
tempo piece where everything comes together.
Before the next ode we have a two part interlude
[Interlude and Sport - You Are A Peace], with the first
part sounding very much like Vangelis crossed with Tangerine Dream, while
part two brings in a mighty choir and much drama. Ode #2: Phantom From
Mongolia [Fantasies On Mongolian Tunes], drops the synth bombast for
a more ethnic feel, oriental percussion vies with ambient drones, more
celestial voices ride over the top and it's all very ethereal until halfway
through when the rhythms start to kick in. The final track is Ode #3:
There & Here [Terzetto], a more conventional orchestral and operatic
vocal track that brings the listener back down to Earth and something
resembling normalcy - almost.
This is one very strange album - I'm so used to
the music on Electroshock albums being rather cold and clinical sounding,
more suitable for art installations than listening for pleasure, yet with
Three Odes we have an album that merges the worlds of electronica,
prog-rock and opera so seemlessly that one wonders why it has never been
done before. I can't recommend Three Odes highly enough - it is
a gloriously mad melting pot of musical styles and pre-conceptions all
stirred into something magical by Edward Artemiev and his collaborators.
This is my album of the year - I can't conceive of hearing anything as
remotely imaginative and pleasurable in the near future. To be heard and
not believed!
Artemiy
Artemiev & Karda Estra - Equilibrium
(ELCD 031)
 One
of several collaborations that Artemiy Artemiev has produced in the latest
batch of albums, Equilibrium matches the cold chill of Russian
electronica with the more romantic sounding 'goth new age' [as it has
been called] sound of Richard Wileman's Karda Estra group. The opening
track Preliminary Steps is a slowly expanding ambient soundstage
of echo-drenched weird electronic drones and muted percussion, with sampled
voices, cello drones and plangent guitar. Last Scene On Earth follows,
a rather spatial piece of ambience full of menacing sounding deep bass
drones, electronic washes and Richard Wileman's atmospheric guitar - you
can almost imagine floating above the Earth, waiting for a climatic event
to happen. Open The Window sounds more like a Karda Estra track,
slow tolling drums, more atmospheric guitar, the synth lines are very
muted. The Teller Of The Tale is the first of two nineteen minute
epic tracks: the build-up is slow, a muted drum and bass lays the foundation
for a mixture of synths and guitars weaving a stately dance that seems
both timeless and endless. The empahisis shifts continuously between the
synths and guitars, until Ileesha Bailey's ghostly voice drifts in and
out of the mix. This is one of the standout tracks of the album, very
timeless. The title track Equilibrium returns to the shorter timeframe,
beginning with ambient rolls of synth topped with dramatic piano chords
that slowly evolve into a ghostly duet with Caron Hansford's oboe and
cor anglais. The final track is The Curtain Falls, and is the second
lengthy epic track, woodwind once again floats over a muted dramatic chording,
weaving between various ambient electronic soundscapes - very much 'out
there' but also with a foot in the traditions of classical music, thanks
to the woodwind solos. Equilibrium is a highly satisfying album
in that each collaborator hasn't tried to snatch the focus from the other,
but have shared a vision of what they wanted to achieve. This is music
that drifts, perhaps without purpose [or perhaps not], it is spacious
and spacey, intimate yet embraces the cosmos and is luxuriously rich in
the imagery it offers. One of the very finest of the new batch of Electroshock
releases.
Victor
Cerullo - Visions (ELCD032)
 Subtitled
"A Homage to Andrei Tarkovsky", Visions is a tribute
to the much respected and admired Russian film-maker of 'Solaris' fame.
Surprisingly, the linked series of tracks are more soundscapes than soundtrack,
with each track built up using a series of samples, anything from sound
effects, Russian choirs, clips from operas, treated sounds and, of course,
overlaid with synthesiser drones, bleeps and yes, even music. It makes
for a very eerie listening experience. These twelve tracks certainly are
as far removed from 'easy listening' as you can get, but if you are willing
to explore the glacial spaces this music conjures up then there are rewards
to be had. One of these is the gently drifting melody line that permeates
track five, Andrei Tarkovsky - a hauntingly beautiful and unexpectedly
'organic' tune amongst all the electronics. Track seven, Lullaby for
a Distant Son is another outstanding track full of melody and beauty.
Indeed, the overwhelming feeling of this album is of music and sounds
flowing together - what seems discordant at first constantly shifts and
changes into something very different. Give this album half a chance and
it will dazzle you to the possibilities of electronic music to enhance
and perhaps even magnify the human spirit. A fitting tribute from one
artist to another.
Richard
Bone - Indium [ELCD033]
 Yet
another album of what could be called 'experimental' music that crashes
through the barriers of expectations and is actually quite approachable.
This is my introduction to composer Richard Bone, and on the basis of
this album I'd be more than happy to hear more. Whereas the Victor Cerullo
album [see above] was extremely cosmic, Indium is a little more
organic sounding - the opening track, Indium P-1 features the sampled
sounds of wildlife underpinning a mixture of choral synths and piano.
Very reflective and beautiful. Mercurial Wave follows, this is
more 'spacey', I guess - utilising those shimmering steely sounds that
seem to be a trademark sound of Electroshock recordings. Yet, again, the
spaciness is tempered with lyrical piano lines that bring in some welcome
humanity. The Mists of Pallenque is another gently atmospheric
mix of electronics and piano which could almost be classed as 'new age',
though it's much better than that. The next track, Mayapan, changes
again, into one of those Eno-like ambient soundscapes that just seem to
drift outside of time. The same goes for In A Space Between Marigolds,
a simple repetitive piano motive that slowly shifts in space. Very reflective
and hauntingly sad. Track Seven, Jasminia, carries this sadness
on with a piece built on soft drones and synth pads, though the end result
is perhaps more wistful than outright sadness. The final track is Indium
P-11, the album's magnum opus, lasting a whopping thirty minutes -
and it doesn't disappoint, taking the disparate elements used in all of
the previous tracks and creating a wonderful soundscape with them. Indium
is an excellent album, mixing ambience and trance to good effect.
Roman Stolyar
- Credo (ELCD034)
 This
is the first solo album on Electroshock by Roman Stolyar, a multi-instrumentalist
and composer from Novosibirsk. The focus on this album is less electronic
instrumentation but musical improvisation using an assortment of acoustic
instruments such as piano, harmonium, recorder and shanti. There is, of
course, some synths and programming going on as well, but this is subordinate
to the acoustic instruments. Stolyar brings this altogether in Credo
RS, a musical self-portrait containing all the musical styles that
he plays: jazz, rock, ethnic and improv. It's all impressive stuff but
it left me unmoved, at times there's just too much going on sonically
and the various elements jar the senses. Songs of the Seasons,
featuring vocalist Yelena Silantieva, is a short cycle of songs [in a
tribute to poet and painter William Blake] in a more pronounced rock idiom
and is much more enjoyable [to these ears]! The final track is called
Meditation and is the most 'electronic' and akin to the 'Electroshock'
sound one expects from an album on this label. All in all Credo
is a very mixed bag and while the musicianship is impressive the album
didn't really click with me overall - but that's personal taste... you
might find it the album of your dreams.
Valery
Siver & Kiryll Trepakov - Midway (ELCD035)
 Midway
is a new album from Electroshock fusing the labels' trademark cutting
edge electronic sounds with more conventional instruments. In this case
it is guitars [acoustic and electric] and it shows in the way the music
has a much more approachable feel and openness to it - indeed, the third
track Hot Wind is positively jazzy and soul-stirring. In fact this
sense of 'swing' permeats the album throughout, making it one of the most
melodic albums I've heard in a long time. Mixing traditional instruments
and synthesisers has always been a difficult task for musicians - they
aren't natural bedfellows after all - but on this album Valery Siver and
Kiryll Trepakov seem to have cracked it. The synths and samplers create
the bedrock of percussion and melodic background and the guitars subtly
weave their magic throughout. Track seven, Don, is a fine example
of this magic, a limpidly funky backbeat is layered with soft synth drones
while the guitars dance slowly with a synth lead, not exactly Ravel's
Bolero but very exotic. The more I hear of Midway the more I like
it, it is an album that deserves to be heard by as wide an audience as
possible. It is quite simply a magical album. I do hope it won't be too
long before Valery Siver and Kiryll Trepakov release another album.
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