Since January, 2003 Crónica has managed to amass thirty-one releases in its catalog. Now, to celebrate their 5th anniversary, the label’s thirty-second release comes in the form of a free, digital-only download that initiates the beginning of the Unlimited Release Series. Mus****c is a 192-minute, 24 track compilation featuring almost as many Crónica artists. It’s one more instance of the label’s publishing strategy that is focused on “the dissemination of electronic culture†with a special interest towards the distribution of significant electronic/experimental music.
Listening to broad compilations such as Mus****c has its rewards. Not only do you get to hear first-rate sounds from some of your favorite electronic/experimental music artists, it also brings to your attention the music of artists that you might not have never heard of had it not been for the compilation. In the case of Mus****c, I’m only familiar with about one-third of the artists featured here (Janek Schaefer, Lawrence English, The Beautiful Schizophonic, Paulo Raposo, Marc Behrens, TuM‘, Gintas K. and Freiband). In a way it’s like opening an old antique trunk that‘s been stored away for awhile. Not only do you get to rediscover some old memories, you are also provided the opportunity to make some exciting new discoveries (@c, Gilles Aubry, Ran Slavin, Mosaique, paL, Heitor Alvelos, Audiodigest … to name a few ).
So what can you expect to find here? Just about everything under the experimental electronic music umbrella – microsound, scratchy glitch, melodious electronica, readings, vocal experiments, field recordings, manipulated insturment samples, processed piano melodies, dissonant collages, abstract noise, harmonious drones, orchestral ambiance, intense percussive experimentation, etc.
Some of my personal favorite tracks on Mus****c would include Janek Schaefer’s Broadstairs Children’s Piano Trio – which is perhaps the simplest and most unassuming of all of them. Schaefer refers to it as a “innocent little piece†and indeed it is. It consists of looped piano segments extracted from an old 7†and softly textured with a layer of nostalgic vinyl crackle and wear. Also included would be three beautiful ambient pieces: Mosaique’s Tapis, Ran Slavin‘s Summer Clouds, and TuM‘s Sea n° 4 . Tapis consists of cathedral organ recordings whose tones are recursively processed and layered into gorgeous, undulating drones while Summer Clouds is a thick, hazy, cinematic panorama of sound detailed with processed guitar and reversed melodies. TuM’s Sea n° 4 is a stunning piece of shimmering melodies, misty textures, and melancholic atmospheres.
Two vocal-based works have kept my attention. Paulo Raposo’s A Bag of Water features a voice-reading of a work by French writer, philosopher, and literary theorist Maurice Blanchot accompanied by some rather disconcerting electronics. Music for Lonely People contributed by Jorge Mantas, The Beautiful Schizophonic, begins with a young woman’s spoken lament that gradually evolves into a very melancholy and stirring ambient soundscape.
Lawrence English delves out some impressive Musique concréte born of ocean recordings on A Certain Death by Drowning. Splashing ocean waves, recording workings on a ship (grating machinery, hiss and drone of an engine), and some added electronic textures all work together to provide a very saturated ambiance.
For those who might relish some abstract noise variations, Pure’s 643 and Marc Behren’s Website would be good back-to-back listening. Pure’s piece is filled with distorted, cacophonous noise and bent, discordant tones that rise and fall while Behren’s twittering work is glitch in the truest sense – fragmented, noisy, and machinelike. Still noisy but, in addition, warped and shadowy, James Eck Rippie’s Black Tranmission, Pedro Tudela’s Op1s2sm, and Durán Vasquez’s Segunda Natureza (Noite) traverse twisted, darker paths. If your cup of tea is dense, grating ambiance based on room acoustics, then Gilles Aubry’s s6t8r should be more than enough proof that empty rooms aren’t necessarily quiet.
And if this isn’t enough: If you’re up for some driving percussive madness, then Heitor Alveos delivers with his O Corpo é que Paga. As an antidote to this unrelenting piece, o.blaat‘s Snark and Carmel tempers things with some minimal noise, shrill fequencies and scratchy textures. The first half of Gintas K‘sExcerpt from is a fairly potent rhythmic piece that transforms into a beatless composition of electronic sounds and real instrument samples. paL’s shezalready5 manipulate a child’s voice transforming it into some jittery vocal jazz. The duo @c shows two opposing sides of their approaches to sound art and electronic music. 73 is, at the same time, noisy, glitchy, gritty, and abstract while 68 exposes an orchestral/classical ambiance. Vitor Joaquim‘s The Devil is in the Detail is mesmerizing soundtrack music – looped samples, layered with instrumental melodies and vocals, cycle endlessly. For more beautiful, repetitive strutures, Gigantiq’s post-rock tinged A Few Steps from Your Should is sure to please. Also included on the compilation are compositions by Freiband (Frans de Waard)and Cem Güney.
In addition to the excellent music found on Mus****c, the label has also kindly provided links to information about most of the artists in addition to notes from many of the authors themselves concerning their particular contribution. There’s also a PDF that provides the artwork, notes, and track list.
RATED: 10 / 10
Larry Johnson