Dissonant Plane will be open late for the Ballard Art Walk on Saturday August 8th. To celebrate, Sparkle Girl (Jim) will be making fun noises to mix with the sounds of the space. Jim is moving away in less than two weeks, so this might be one of your last chances to catch him for a good while!
Starting now I will be making occasional recommendations for certain items in the store that I really like. Kind of like a staff pick and also like our other blog entries that describe recent items, only now we will be covering a lot more metal. This is something that I might do daily, weekly, every other day, whatever. It depends on what is on my mind.First I would like to tell you about an incredible band that is way too underrated. Psyopus, although they are signed to a major metal label don’t gather fans like other bands as they are far less accessible to the common and untrained ear. This greatly misunderstood monster hails from Rochester New York with Guitar extraordinaire Christopher “Arpmandude” Arp as the ongoing mastermind behind the compositions. Their sound is a brutal, blasting yet versatile form of tech grind that uses lots of time/tempo changes, fearless use of atonal chords, and unorthodox instrument techniques. Some reviewers complain the music is too tasteless, and over the top. Although I don’t really agree with the first comment at all I will admit that it’s over the top, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of. This music is to be approached with intentions other than looking for something to dance/mosh/get stoned to. It’s almost impossible to compare them with anything familiar, but I would have to say that it is a precise blend of Primus with Buckethead, playing Schoenberg compositions while layering that with Psychedelic, Avant Garde movie soundtrack sequenced Synthesizers translated and arranged for a band similar to Origin (with occasional appearances by Sun City Girls). As crazy and as smoke-blown-up-the-ass as that sounds I get the impression that these guys are actually quite modest and well educated people that really like having fun with their music and like to play with the listeners. For instance, on their album “Our Puzzling Encounters Considered” is a song titled “Siobhanis Song” where there are 24 guitar tracks with one for each note used during a certain part of the song to give the impression that the notes are falling from all over the place. Another great example of this is the “Imogen’s Puzzle” Trilogy. One track on each of the three albums and the first and third parts are meant to played simultaneously. “Imogen’s Puzzle pt.3″ is essentially part one played backwards then reversed. I haven’t tried this out for myself but I can imagine that it is quite a freakfest. Other than the intentional musical challenges that they put themselves through their lyrics cover a wide range of odd ideas and issues ranging from insects and siamese twins, to sex changes and snuf films. In conclusion I would really advise that you pick this up. I wanted to expose this band to an audience different than the common metal fanatics that they are marketed to. I felt that if listened to the right way that this could be something that music appreciators that lurk in all sections of Dissonant Plane could find to appreciate if they gave it the chance and well studied listen that it deserves.Psyopus on Myspace
Unrock is an alternative record store in Krefeld, Germany. Like us they put on some in store shows, and to document this the label Unsound Recordings was founded. Normally this releases are only available directly from Unrock, but we got a few copies of the most recent batch for Dissonant Plane. We are probably the only place in the States that has these. The three titles we got are limited edition CDRs in lovely screen printed Digipaks. The first is by ME & EE with the Golden Road. Six tracks of psychedelic blues where Matt and Erika are joined by Doc Dunn and Samara Lubelski. Matt Valentine often reminds me of a very laid back Neil Young. Ramping up from this is Sunburned Hand of the Man whose disc is one 39 minute Krautrock inspired jam of craziness with a quartet line up. Both this and the MV & EE are hand numbered editions of only 150 copies. The third title in the batch is by Temple of Bon Matin and comes in a tinier edition of only 50 copies. And it is the most out there of the batch. Usually a very large group, the Temple was only a trio at this gig. Made of Ed Wilcox (vocals), Eric Baylies (bass) and Jay Reeve (electronics), they let loose some crazy free music which bears a passing resemblance to rock, but goes further out and doesn’t have any drums to fall back on.
Chicago based duo Locrian combine elements of noise, psychedelia, noise and drone. We first heard it here on their CD “Drenched Lands“. This fine album has now been reissued on vinyl in a very limited edition of 200 copies with a bonus 3″ CDR. It seems like a really small edition, especially as we almost missed out on this - it seemed to sell out in a very small window of time. Anyhow, we landed a few copies and it is gorgeously packaged in a letterpress sleeve with a glossy insert and pressed on clear vinyl. The CDR is exclusive to this edition and is a live recording from Phil von Zweck’s program on WLUW FM. For that session they were joined by Andrew Sherer of Valnias and Mark Solotroff of Bloodyminded and Intrinsic Action. Heavy and doomy stuff. We also got some of the last copies of Locrian’s 7″ “Plague Journal“. All white, cover and vinyl, the 33 RPM grooves contain some awesome psychedelic noise. Blissful stuff.
Two very special items from Japan:
Akio Suzuki “Ki-date” DVD & book
A beautiful retrospective of this very special Japanse sound artist. The 210 minute all region NTSC DVD features live performances on Akio’s instruments such as the Analapos and Suzuki Type Glass Harmonica, as well as exhibition views and field recordings. The performances are sublime as Suzuki lets loose delicate and magical sounds from his instruments and plays with small objects. Also in the box is a 190 color catalog with texts in Japanese and English (translations by Alan Cummings) documenting 40 years of sound creation with many lovely photographs. Also included in this set is a map of the location that Suzuki marked for ‘Oto-Date’. This on going projects marks good listening spots in urban areas with Suzuki’s whimsical icon combining feet and ears. This map shows the locations around the museum that Akio liked and the DVD documents these spots. In a stroke of genius the video faces the opposite direction of any action so that sounds are heard, but the visuals are mostly stationary, yet impart the sense of the place. The performance recordings on the DVD, these sounds are also recorded by Kuwayama Kijima of Lethe. Documents of Suzuki’s work are always hard to find and therefore in demand, so don’t miss your chance to pick up this set!
Lethe “Catastrophe Point #6″ CD
Privately released limited edition CD from 2005 packaged on an A4 (about letter size) cardboard sleeve with beautiful artwork by Isao Mizutani.
Nagoya based Kiyoharu Kuwayama has an interest in reverberant spaces, recording under bridges and flyovers as well as in warehouse and Shinto temples at night. Although he occasionally employs cello, his works tends to explore space and perspective in utterly unconventional ways. Typically, he favours objects found in situ to sound the acoustic environment and is as likely to use a chair scraped along the floor as a standard musical instrument. But music this most definitely is. The first piece on offer here foregrounds what sounds like a handful of pebbles being clicked together against a distant backdrop of scraped sheet metal. The thickness of the room’s acoustics lends the whole an almost frightening clarity, and there’s an unreality to the way the two different reverberant layers combine that only adds to the sense of unease. We’re thrown into a subtly heightened acoustic realm, in which scale and perspective are altered, to disquieting psychological effect. The second piece heightens and complicates the acoustic picture even further, and increases the density of the sonic activity. The sound sources here seem to be bundles of sticks, bottles, tea trays and iron girders thrown down lift shafts. Once again the ear tries to make sense of the altered relationships Kuwayama set up between loud and soft, close and distant. Slowly, the piece starts to focus more and more strongly on a huge, dark vibration at the furthest end of the acoustic spectrum, which builds in intensity, racking up the tension and subtly disturbing the mind’s equilibrium. By this point, the music sounds like it’s taking piece in a vast, pitch black aircraft hangar of the soul. - Keith Moline (Wire No. 264)
Volcanic Tongue made comparisons with Christoph Heemann, Sean Meehan and AMM when describing this one.
Four new titles from Hospital Productions in for the first time:
Cold Cave “Cremations” CD - Old style minimal synth - simple melodies and rhythms with monotone vocals. Cold and perverse atmosphere. This collects tracks from the instantly out of print 7″, cassette and LP releases.
The Grey Wolves “Judgement” CD - Lo-fi, creepy, ritual industrial from the U.K. originally released on cassette sometime in the 1980’s. The Grey Wolves were still associated with T.O.P.Y. at this early point in their history as can be seen on the logos from the original cover art reproduced here. The Grey Wolves are better known for power electronics, so this is an unusual release for them and sounds more like Trev’s other project Nails ov Christ.
Malkuth “Sefirah Gevurah” CD - Underground, raw and rough black metal from New York. This is their second album, the first one was vinyl only and sold out very fast. Malkuth features members of Zashiki-Warashi, No Neck Blues Band, and K-Salvatore and sounds nothing like those bands.
Yellow Tears “Don’t Cry” 12″ - Dark and psychologically disturbing trio from New York. The sounds of pain, fear and dread.
Also, back in stock:
Controlled Bleeding “Shanked and Slithering” CD - totally violent electronics/vocals/junk metal assault
Jason Crumer “Ottoman Black” CD - heavy noise and thick drones
Diapsiquir “Pacta Daemoniarum/Crasse” 2 x CD - reissue of two rare black metal French CDs from 1999 and 2001
Kevin Drumm “Imperial Distortion” 2 x CD - deep and minimal stark atmospheres
Carlos Giffoni / Prurient “Heavy Rain Returns” CD - deep throbbing analog power electronics noise
Over the weekend, Jesse Paul Miller played what he estimates as only his second solo performance. For this he mixed together field recordings and played them back through 6 speakers surrounding the audience. It started incredibly delicate and slowly built into a mass of sounds. I recognized several things as being from Asia as I’ve heard these wonderful self produced CDRs of his recordings from there. The latest one is “Asia Radio Environments“, a fairly self descriptive title. However in addition to picking up frequencies in Asian countries, Jesse has recorded the environment around him as he was exploring the shortwave dial. So the unstable signals are paired with bird singing, traffic and other ambient noises heard in Java, Bali, Lombok, Myanmar, Thailand and Japan. The results are suprisingly calm. However, I think the most meditative title he has done is the popular “Asia Archive 2008 Volume 2: Muslim Call to Prayer, Java, Indonesia” which we finally got restock of. Both discs are quite limited and come in hand numbered editions.
Hemingway just completed a mini-tour of the NW with Mammifer, taking in Seattle, Portland and Eugene. Now back in town, Demian Johnston has brought us copies of these two releases. The first is “Live at the Josephine 2009“, a 15 minute CDR EP in a limited edition of 30 copies. The sounds are heavy and brutal here with screaming vocals and seering guitars. It’s not unlike what they did on the “Hutterites” EP on Debacle Records. On the other hand, the C32 “Strange, How the Night Moves” is more glacial in its approach. Heavy waves of sound make this more of a doom ambient release. This one comes in a numbered edition of 50 copies, and is more polished than the CDR. Together they make a nice pair contrasting different aspects of this duo’s sound.
John Olson started American Tapes before there was a Wolf Eyes. Early on he already had a diversity of musical projects and these days seem to be no different. This week we got a box of the latest releases from the label, all new things that they didn’t have on offer at the recent Josephine show. None of them is by Wolf Eyes, but most of them seem to be related in some way, if not in actual membership than in aesthetics. All these releases are packaged in handmade covers with very little info and come in limited editions of 40 to 100 copies. The oldest title we were able to get was the special edition of Dead Machines “Plays Kwaidan”. Dead Machine is John Olson (Wolf Eyes) and his wife Tovah Olson. This one of several releases where they create soundtracks for old movies, in this case the brilliant Kobayashi film from 1964 which had brilliant music by Toru Takemitsu. The Dead Machines version was released as a 7″ by the Swedish label Ideal, but American tapes made a special edition of only 30 copies with a bonus CDR featuring exclusive tracks by Dead Machines, plus the solo projects Spykes and Tovah D-Day. Slightly more recent is the Paul Flathery & Jeff Hartford one-sided LP “8-01-08” named for the date on which it was recorded. Flaherty is a free jazz alto sax player and dominates the recording, athlought Jeff Hartford’s electronic noises can be heard in the mix as well. This one is limited to only 100 copies, as is the other single-sided LP we were able to get, “Learning for Insipid Zeal“. Peopled by Pool Water, People Pollution (members of Raven Strain and Sick Llama), and Imaginary Unit In Electronics, this album is a great little selection of murky noise electronics and seems to be the only appearance on vinyl of these groups. However, Pool Water does have a CDR titled “Live at Warm & Covering” which is quite nice. Although it is not revealed on the release anywhere, this group is made up of John Olson, Mike Connelly (Wolf Eyes, Hair Police), and Mike Collino playing violin, cardboard percussion, flute, tapes. From here we go into the region of total mystery acts about which I know nothing, except that they sound good, and that is all that really counts in the end. The other two CDRs in this batch are About ‘Needs’ and ‘Crisis’ by Rain of Dissolved Sedatives and Paradox 11. Rain of Dissolved Sedatives is a great name and stirs up some wild electronics. Paradox 11 is a magazine with the sort of wild graphics you see displayed on all American Tapes releases. No text anywhere, just images, so you don’t even know who exactly is behind the insane noise on the accompanying CDR. Rounding things up in this batch are three cassette only releases: How People Speak “I Was Tempted To Tell Him That I Had I No Idea What I Really Wanted But Decided To Keep It To Myself“, Sad Policemen “Uninvolved, and We Are The…“, and Zero Days United “A Front As Well As Any Other“. All three are editions of only 50 copies and feature zany electronic noise. If you like Wolf Eyes, branch out and check these things out. You’ll be kicking yourself later if you don’t grab them. The label has done over 800 release and the entire back catalog is already out of print.
Did you know there is an experimental music scene in Malaysia? It’s pretty small still, but there are two labels that are putting out things on CD fairly regularly. The most active is Herbal International run by Goh Lee Kwang, but the Xing-Wu label has also put several titles as well. Both labels seem really keen to release European artists at the moment, especially ones from France. In the most recent batch from Herbal are a double CD by Jean-Luc Guionnet, a collaborative disc by Eric La Casa and Cédric Peyronnet, and a reissue of the second Beequeen album. Beequeen are a Dutch duo and create really nice ambient textures with minimal organic rhythms and “Time Waits for No One” is one of their better early works. Cédric Peyronnet is better known as toy.bizarre and like his collaborator Eric La Casa is known for working field recordings into lovely compositions. Their duet together is entitled “La Creuse” and finds them mapping a particular area in central France. Eric La Casa was previously in a trio called Afflux, and one of the other members of this group was Jean-Luc Guionnet. On his double CD “Non-Organic Bias” he presents three long works. They focus on the organ which he plays in a very experimental way exploiting lone tones and silences with great dynamic effect. These works would have sounded at home in Deutsche Grammophon’s Avant-Garde series of LPs. Quite a different facet of Jean-Luc’s work is heard on the CD “Le Bruit Du Toit” where he plays saxophone. This album released by Xing-Wu is a duet with original Fushitsusha drummer Seijiro Murayama. Recorded at a temple in Japan, the two improvisations reveal a delicate attention to timbre and close listening to each other. The third member of Afflux. Eric Cordier, is represented on another Xing-Wu disc called “Dispositif: Canal Saint Martin“. Recorded in collaboration with Emmanuel Mieville, this disc takes another approach to field recordings as it is a real time composition made by placing 30 microphones around the Paris city hall and manipulating them via laptop triggered ’sonic objects’. Although not French, Michael Northam and Seijiro Murayama met in France and Switzerland and slowly developed the album “Moriendo Renascor“. A meeting of acousmatic composter and free improviser has resulted in a finely detailed meditation on small sounds and drones. But that is not all from Xing-Wu as we also got the one release they have done featuring only Malaysian musicians. “Shàng” presents the three artists who I believe to be behind the label. Each presents a very different work. Tham Kar Mun is very minimal with sudden outbursts of sound and Yandsen presents solo improvised acoustic guitar. However for me, the best track here is the 26 minute “Funeral” by Yeoh Yin Pin. Based on a recording of a Chinese Taoist funeral ceremony, the sounds here are just magical and reason enough to own this disc.
