One of the things I like Berlin (and some other German cities), is the backyards which houses. A small entrance and then you are surrounded by four sides of houses and apartments, and which are excellent for parties, concerts and such like. A form of social control also, that might be the downside, but I don’t know: I never lived in Berlin. The backyard is also the place were all the technic stuff from buildings come together, like ventilation, trash, recycling containers and electrical wiring. A noisy place by itself, and sometimes allowing street noise to come in. I never made any recording in there, but Gilles Aubry, who lives in Berlin since 2002, did, perhaps with the same fascination for these places. Its not easy to say what, if anything at all, Aubrey did to the sounds he recorded. In these eight pieces there are moments when I think these are pretty straight forward field recordings, and in other cases I seem to think that uses loops of the material. My best guess is however that’s a combination of both. There is however very little other ‘processing’ going here, save for a bit of panning and equalization. I thought that was a pity, since eight of these pieces is pretty much. The street sounds, electric power station, the rolling of containers: after about six pieces you know the drill of it.
Something entirely different is the latest album by Pure, from Vienna. He works under various guises, and this is fourth Pure CD, following ‘Noonbugs’ on Mego for four years ago. Seven pieces of electronic music, six of them recorded with the help of others, like Christoph de Babalon on guitar samples, Martin Brandlmayr on drums, the screams of Alexandra von Bolzn and Anke Eckardt on bass guitar. What Aubrey lacks in variation is made up here by Pure. The heavy start of ‘Fire’, into to post nuclear war zone with no survivors of ‘After The Bomb’ (an appropriate title), Pure takes the listener on a ride that ranges from subtleness to the utter crude, which ends with the nightmares of ‘Iron Sky’. Excellent music for b-movies that deserve a-music. Certainly not always ‘pleasant’ in terms of nice background music for your living room, but unpleasant music to make your life a bit easier and less painful. (FdW)
via Vital Weekly