“The Wayward Regional Transmissions” reviewed by Comunicazione Interna

Ran Slavin è un artista multimediale israeliano con già alle spalle un’esperienza ventennale nei campi della musica digitale, delle installazioni sonore, della video art e del cinema sperimentale. Realizza adesso per la portoghese Crónica uno splendido disco nel quale tessiture elettroniche minimali assorbono note di strumenti acustici ed aromi etnici lungo percorsi geografici/immaginifici che dall’India conducono al Maghreb attraversando tutto il Medio-Oriente: le corde vibranti del bulbultarang (“Village”), glitches ribollenti (“Wayward initial”), note di ud disciolte in polvere desertica (“Jericho 6AM”), opacità e riverberi acquatici (“Shelters and peace”), voci tagliate e inoculate in plumbei suoni frastagliati (“DAT beats”), graffi su sottili membrane in tensione (The silente”), vita di strada e dolci melodie femminili (“kiosk in Furadis”), ultimi bagliori d’Oriente (“Hagalil”). Senz’alcun dubbio uno dei lavori più interessanti ascoltati in area elettronica da diversi mesi a questa parte.

Guido Gambacorta

“Flow” reviewed by The Sound Projector

Another strong project by this Portuguese electro-acoustic composer, whom we first noted with his 2004 CD A Rose is a Rose on the Austrian D0c label. The Rose CD made sparing use of TV and radio samples alongside churning, trundling loops of electronic noise; Joaquim does much the same here, allowing disembodied and treated voice fragments to come in at carefully-chosen points, and state disconnected words which sometimes outline a vague “theme” to these instrumental pieces. For anyone who’s ever admired the use of sharply compacted lyrics on Kraftwerk’s The Man Machine, here’s the perfect modern update on that formula. Very interesting, single-minded textures and patterns are worked into the ground as Joaquim relentlessly rotates each virtual object over and over in his virtual hands, like foam rubber cubes in a hot tumble dryer.

The eight themed woks explore highly existencial concepts, as suggested by their titles “Moments of your time”, “Moments of silence”, “Moments of emptiness”, and (my personal favourite) “Moments of skin”. Have you ever had a skin moment? It’s a lot worse than watching a L’Oréal commercial on TV. Like any good modernist, Joaquim is painfully self-conscious and aware of the fleeting moments of time alloted to us petty mortals, as we helplessly watch opportunities slip between our fingers while we’re locked in our paralysing states of indecision. This paradox is best expressed through two deeply ambiguops pieces in this record, “Thinking moments” and “Misleading moments”, the latter work proving to contain a particularly difficult stretch of desolate emptiness, followed by a minimal white-noise pulse beat and an uncertain looped chord of synthesised music.

Flow is intended as a real confrontational exercise, asking deep and imponderable questions about the nature of real human expression. The taped voice of Filipa Hora is a key part in this plan. Joaquim shows no mercy as he “alters, expands and processes” her voice in the computer, stretching possibilities to the limit. “I think this is so dangerous, this intimacy”, she whimpers helplessly. “I think I’m going to have to stop you from getting closer.” But it’s too late. Joaquim advances like an isatiable beast. Nothing left for her but “moments of skin”. All of this excellent music, which somehow manages to be very precise about quite vague subjects, could be used therapeutically — to better enhance you capacity for clear-sighted thought during those crisis-filled moments of existencial doubt. In this regard, it will deliver much better results than playing that Nintendo® DS Lite Brain Training game.

Ed Pinsent

“The Wayward Regional Transmissions” reviewed by Foutraque

Les débats politiques aidant, ces dernières semaines ont vu apparaître une nouvelle tendance que l’on pensait appartenir à un temps révolu : celle du nationalisme, du repli sur soi et du conformisme. Fort heureusement pour nous (amateurs avertis de musique que nous sommes), ces notions nous semblent abstraites et désuètes car l’une des grandes qualités de la musique est son métissage, sa capacité à se confronter à de multiples courants et à se recycler sans cesse pour créer de nouveaux espaces sonores. C’est dans cet état d’esprit que s’inscrit la dernière oeuvre de Ran Slavin.

Originaire de Tel Aviv, Ran Slavin est un artiste protéiforme, tout à la fois artiste vidéaste, cinéaste et musicien. Avec son dernier projet, The Wayward Regional Transmissions, il explore une nouvelle voie : celle de la confrontation entre musiques traditionnelles orientales et électroniques par le biais d’accidents numériques ou d’ajouts de gimmicks aléatoires. Uniques et sensorielles, les structures du compositeur israélien s’apparentent à d’immenses paysages souvent désertiques où les collaborations croisées de Ahura Ozerri (Bulbultarang – instrument à cordes venant d’Inde) et de Moshe Eliaha (Oud) servent de trames de fond, sur lesquelles viennent s’ajouter par couches ou par ruptures des éléments électroniques disparates. Le tout forme un mélange foisonnant et méditatif, une musique en aucune autre pareille, une musique du futur toute empreinte de passé, une musique sans frontières, une musique libre de tout carcan où l’auditeur surpris puis émerveillé se laisse porter vers ces paysages sonores abstraits. L’une des meilleures découvertes du moment.

Dr. Bou

“Leise” reviewed by Testcard

Es war einmal eine Gruppe names Kapotte Muziek, die vor allem das als Instrumente nutzte, was sie am Konzertort oder rund um den Konzertort vorfand, zum Beispiel Pappe, Kies oder Sand. Für Leise hat Frans De Waard, Mitglied von Kapotte Muziek, seine Tocher Elise aufgenommen, als sie drei Jahre alt war. Elise spielte mit all den “Instrumenten”, die Frans für Kapotte Muziek in seiner Wohnung herumliegen hatte, Papier, Plastik, Abfall. Der CD-Titel ist ein Anagramm auf den Namen der Tochter, aber auch musikalisches Programm: Hier geht es sehr leise zu. Die fragilen Geräusche, das Knacken und Rascheln, wurde zu warmen, dezenten elektroakustischen Sounds verarbeitet, deren Sirren den Raum erfüllt ohne allzu viel Präsenz zu beanspruchen.

“Flow” reviewed by Octopus

Depuis 2003, le label Crónica poursuit son entreprise singulière de défrichage multimédia, pistant les traces éparses de sensibilité humaine au fil de productions se nourrissant des échanges entrelacés d’abstractions mélodiques digitales et d’habillages graphique et vidéo stylisés. Une science du dialogue entre le biologique et le numérique qui s’approfondit davantage encore sur ce Flow, mené avec maestria par le vétéran Vitor Joaquim, dont les aficionados se remémoreront le Tales Of Chaos paru en 1997 sur l’autre label portugais de référence, Ananana. Flow conserve la même approche thématique, déclinant différentes variations autour de la notion de “moments”. Il en ressort un sens curieux du mélange, où l’auditeur se laisse happer par une mise en scène flottante, par une théâtralité évanescente. Sur un lit d’effets musicaux électroniques discrets et enveloppants, alternant nappes fondantes et bleeps coulissants, Vitor Joaquim noue les fils d’une intrigue environnementaliste où les premiers rôles sont confiés avec parcimonie à la voix suave de Filipa Hora et aux guitares de Joao Hora et Emidio Bucchino. On avance donc précautionneusement dans l’écoute, au gré de cet étrange jeu de cache-cache entre la voix narrative et des sensations musicales clair-obscures qui entretiennent avec une douce harmonie une cohésion improbable. Sur “Slow moments”, le temps paraît suspendu derrière la voix qui semble se robotiser au contact des matières musicales grésillantes. Sur l’intro de “Moments of sync”, le fluide sonore s’amplifie brusquement, comme si une autoroute bruyante s’ouvrait tout à coup devant nos oreilles. De quoi tendre le pouce pour saisir au vol cette nouvelle expérience aventureuse et sensitive signée Crónica.

Laurent Catala

“Flow” reviewed by Gaz-Eta

For the past two decades, Portuguese electronic composer Vitor Joaquim has worked in a number of mediums. Besides music, he also likes to create works of video, dance, theatre and multimedia installations. Latest release bearing his name, “Flow” is a strangely restrained affair that tickles the ears. In fact, it doesn’t just tickle, his sounds mostly tease. He’s excellent at producing paradigm shifts of subtle force. Atmospherics created through random TV sounds, guitars and occasional vocals are as disturbing as they are revelatory. Besides the frequent changes in landscapes – from a high-pitched drone of the TV set to subtle processed guitars [played by Emídio Buchinho and Joăo Hora] – Joaquim prefers to employ a grating sound – this is the sound of something that is rough around the edges. Nothing clean can be heard in this work. If anything, it’s mucky and jagged with a mind of its own. How do you reconcile squeaky assaults of noise with recordings of a TV? How do you merge low humming voice [provided by Filipa Hora] with that of static sound? He certainly mastered his laptop as a fully operational instrument. Glitches and pops, the hums and the flows are like family members at a picnic. Unique to the point of extremes and beautifully obtuse, “Flow” does anything but flow.

Tom Sekowski

“Leise” reviewed by The Sound Projector

The great Frans de Waard is Holland‘s finest, here performing under one of his many guises, and has been associated with deep and droney instrumental projects for a long time. This is his third CD as Freiband. Here, you must devote your time to carefuly exploring ten tracks f quite and slow and exquisite music, which de Waard has realised in his usual craftsmanlike manner. Raw sound material was generated by his daughter Elise de Waard, who played “a wide variety of musical and non-musical objects” while Frans recorded everything with contact microphones. She was three years old at the time; the objects were those which de Waard elser uses to make Kapotte Muziek, and include sheets of metal, paper, sticks, plastic and junk. Resultant soundfiles were presumably loaded into a handy laptop, then reprocessed in line with his usual alchemical methods; he first did it in 2003 while staying in Boston USA and had sufficient material to play a concert there. Subsequent additions and extensions were made, allowing him to play further concerts at many venues in Holland, including VPRO radio in Amsterdam. While de Waard‘s own descriptions of this process — clearly very important to him — are delivered in short matter-of-fact statements on the back cover, the artwork to Leise (drawn by Rui Vitorino Santos) gives us a more imaginative view of the process. A happy little girl cuddles five cats in her hand, while her hair (rendered à la Scottie Wilson) grows Rapunzel-like in all directions, terminating in a laptop computer. Along the way these wild strands embrace other animals, drown a grand piano in an ocean of hair, and loop through the windows of a huge castle in their hirsute odyssey. This visual fantasy has more brio than the rather subdues and minimalistic process-based sounds that emanate from the actual record, but I think as with most of de Waard‘s work you really have to take the time, listen carefully, and let every moment of it seep into your bones.

Ed Pinsent

“Leise” reviewed by Vital

Freiband is one of the musical projects by the ever-prolific Frans de Waard. With Frans being one half of Beequeen and me being the other half, it is a bit difficult to be fully objective about this CD. However, to me, Freiband is one of the most interesting projects Frans is involved in. The reason for this is that Freiband is the musical project that comes closest to the person of Frans de Waard. He likes his music as devoid as possible of emotions, but Freiband has proven to be an exception. Often, the music has a “warmer” side and appears to be made with more depth in composing and structure and, as a bonus (perhaps as a consequence), is more accessible than say Kapotte Muziek or Goem. On this album, Frans uses sounds created in 2002 by his then 5-year old daughter Elise. These sounds (sometimes on musical instruments, sometimes not) were reworked on the laptop, giving the music that typical “laptop-sound”. Most of the tracks on this album have been groomed in several live performances. Opening with Elise blabbing out “Freiband!” this CD more or less follows those live sets. At times the origins of the sounds can be detected in the music (as in Vuur ‘fire’ and Storm), at times this is harder to recoup (as in Knippers ˆcutters- or Daisees). Personal favourites are ‘Bij’ and ‘Daisees’ with their slow pulses and keyboard sounds. Other pieces (like Rammel ‘rattle’ or De Kabale Brug ‘the noise bridge’) are slightly more fragmented. The title Leise (“quiet” in German) is a clever anagram of Elise‚s name. The “toot toot toot toots” at the end of the CD are charming little audio signatures of Elise and were previously also used to good effect in Beequeen performances. A review of this album would not be complete without a few words on the sleeve. This one is adorned by a gorgeous line drawing of Elise with cats in her arms by Rui Vitorino Santos. It is a charming, almost naïve portrait and surprisingly well-characterized. Interestingly enough, much like the music on this CD.

Freek Kinkelaar

“Leise” reviewed by e/i magazine

Much music prods at the spirit of the child, that fatuous pendant, which has since been mired in so many petty proclivities. Taking root in young Elise’s pussyfooting around with sheets of metal, paper, sticks, plastic and other musical and nonmusical instruments, one might be quick to lump this work in with all the others who profess a penchant for all matters Arcadian and puerile. Frans de Waard employs a quietly skewed approach to his daughter’s raw source sounds, though. The ensuing works do not deal in binaries, they are not charted against a child/adult axis. In rather subtle fashion, they spin delicate webs of glissandi, shadowy half-melodies, and doodling percussion. A music of different connections, of polyvalent elements, then. And not a moment too soon—Leise charms for its consistent ability to allow a digital glint to penetrate and shiver through Elise’s warm, clattery textures like a brisk wind through the trees. The euphoria of children at play is her, but focused, done up by Waard’s make-up kit, rendered scarcely recognizable and, at times, something else altogether. Only when the so-called real childishness shows through does the album stumble, but these moments are few and far between. “Paarden” is a chorus of shimmering electrons that are simultaneously elegant and studious while the sonorous frequencies of “Vuur” dwell within a tangled network of hissing and undergo a series of undulating phase shifts. Other tracks nurse granular drones and distant metallic clangs; while yet others border on being downright flinty. Composed of a fractured loop and thumbnail digital scratches, “Daisee” opens up into a dense wall of vapor that is decidedly neutral and calming. Singing “toot toot” on the final track of this work, Elise’s voice bookends an album which is many things in-between.

Max Schaefer

“Leise” reviewed by Chain DLK

Besides being a cult hero of mine for his activity in a theory of projects (Kapotte Muziek – r.i.p. -, Goem, Shifts, Beequeen, Wander…) and his heroic “Vital Weekly” newsletter, Frans de Waard is also a father, and various raw sounds produced by his daughter Elise (hence the title anagram) were used to assemble this cd, after a series of digital manipulations. Besides some voices and more recognizable toy playing at the beginning, you won’t grasp much of the starting point: the Dutch soundmaker, as predictable, has stretched, pulverized and re-assembled the files into an algid electroacoustic pulp. The final shapes range from droning sinewaves (“Knippers”) to dusty microsound particles (“Krassen”) to para-ambient (“Daisee”) and rhythmic structures (“Vuur”, “Storm” and “Paarden”, which sounds like an even more liofilized Goem). De Waard has maintained the raw essence of child play, so that, despite their sharp electronic edges, these tracks have a spontaneous, semi-improvised feel. The final result is quite nice, though honestly not as exciting as with other releases of his.

Eugenio Maggi