Where’s the CD Review?

S – Z

Codec Scovill: Clinical Imperfections (2002) Nonresponse nr-001

Pushed forward as America’s answer to Empreintes Digitales, I fail to see the connections between Nonresponse records and the groundbreaking Montréal EA label. Nevertheless, the music in this first release is of an exceptional and often breathtaking quality. Haunting and ephemeral, Codec Scovill, a trio of electronic improv musicians always create music with an exceptional human quality to it. This is difficult to achieve in electroacoustic music and all credit to them. I was particularly one over by the loops of the fifth track “triaging”. Just when I thought all hope had gone for repetitive music, Codec Scovill pulls out a few twists. This is a fun disc and I’ll admit, often the last thing I listen to before settling down for my dreams at night.

(Reviewed April 21, 2002)

Steven R. Smith: Lineaments (2002) emperor jones EJ51CD

Ambient honky-tonk. Well now I’ve heard everything. First of Mr. Smith, please tune the piano. But a pressing concern…Why does everything that the folks at emperor jones release sound like music to a movie that has never been made? Unlike Concentrick’s Luciddreaming at least there are no birds to fill in, but in a way this disc seems all the more terrible. Ah, Godspeed You Black Emperor will your influences ever end. Music that wanders is all fine and dandy but for goodness sake get out of the muck, tune your instruments, say something. Everybody and their pet cow Frances seems to think that long sweeping lines are the way to go these days. “Dust on coils” is a perfect example of this. The marvellous thing about Godspeed is that they always push it a little more when you least expect it. When they become predictable they will cease to entertain. Mr. Smith puts together some very nice sounds, but quite frankly the disc doesn’t twist or turn enough on me. It is far too predictable. It sounds like good music to drive across the desert to. Lineament can mean many different things. If Smith refers to the geographic origins of the word, what topographical feature is he trying to evoke here?

(Reviewed May 8, 2002)

Stephen Vitiello: bright and dusty things (2001) New Albion 115

Beautiful sounds here. Beautifully put together but without a real clincher. Despite the high sound quality this disc left me a little cold. Vitiello was inspired by the use of a photocell. This is a device that measures the type and intensity of a light source. Vitiello captured many different scenes and downloaded them into his computer and translated the information to audio. The result is a sort of ambient sound particularly synonymous with the New Albion label. A nice disc to listen to with some interesting sonic features but somehow a little flat.

(Reviewed March 11, 2002)

Stephen Vitiello / Frances-Marie Uitti: Uitti/Vitiello (2000) JDK jdk05

Albeit not a new disc, a new disc to me. And one that is so interesting and illuminating I couldn’t pass up the chance to tell you about it. The collaboration between sound artist/guitarist Stephen Vitiello and cellist France-Marie Uitti. Uitti’s name is not a familiar one to me, but I’m hoping for more off the basis of this CD alone. This is a mini CD, running under twenty minutes, but is just jam packed with some beautiful and often astonishing sounds. Vitiello’s mix is superb. The music hears more like a dreamscape than anything resembling music. Often extremely gritty, the lyrical passages in the middle are overwhelming (in a good sense). Vitiello told me that this disc was sort of thrown together rather quickly. A limited release, I recommend it wholeheartedly if you can find one. I managed to track one down in Montréal and what a rewarding find it has turned out to be. If you are curious about this, why not try out an excerpt of the CD.

(Reviewed May 14, 2002)

Bert Wrede: Actronic Hamlet ACT Music and Vision (2002) ACT 9294-2

“We near a point where the elemental melodic feel is reminiscent of Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman”… This is jazz for the 21^st century with a view to the shape of things to come. It confronts us with a kaleidoscope of surroundings, tonal colors and contents, now and then with a hint of a melodic idea which immediately turns out to be a mirage.”

Bert Wrede is based in Berlin and is a guitarist, composer and sound artist who founded the jazz band Frigg. The above, taken from the liner notes, for his new electronic disc Actronic Hamlet got me pretty excited. But this CD fails to deliver. If this is supposed to be 21^st century jazz than worrying over its future is well founded. Wrede’s electronic sounds are at best boring and very much dated. The shear lack of originality in this is a bit baffling. At one point, there is a decidedly placid SPK quality to the disc but it disappeared and we were left with amateur-sounding loops and drones. Louise Schumacher, who provides vocals on many of the tracks, certainly has an alluring voice, but all too often it sounds like really nice car commercial music. Without the simplicity of the clicks and cuts vein or the smooth and lyrical qualities of electronic lounge the disc failed to make much of an impression.

(Reviewed Feb. 14, 2002)

John Young: La limite du bruit (2001) Empreintes Digitales 0261

In trying to get a grasp on John Young’s musical style and own personal language I wondered whether it might have anything to do with the remoteness of his native New Zealand. Right from the opening work, Pythagoras’s Curtain, Young’s musical style places itself out of the confines of the traditional acousmatic school. It’s the daring simplicity of it all that I like so much. Don’t listen to this disc while bathing your pet parrot or doing your dishes. Sit down, quiet the environment around you and prepare to listen very carefully. Inner, demands the same attention as the first. Young’s exploration of sonic manipulation is wonderful here, as is his conceptual use of space. Unlike the mind chilling drones and loops of recent EA discs, Young explores dry and often nearly extinguishable sounds. Young’s exploration of rain sounds in Liquid Sky is wonderful. Until more than two minutes into the sixteen-minute piece, the sounds are dissected until they are unrecognisable. There is something shocking about all of this. Young throws us for a loop by pulling out his sound microscope and delving into the inner recesses of a few sounds. A very interesting disc.

(Reviewed May 4, 2002)