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album reviews + press

Jérôme Descamps – Un Éphémère

“The album “Un éphémère” aims to capture every delicate sound. The work is patient and carefully crafted, with the bow of a string instrument extending the notes of a trombone generating a thick, layered sound.

The track “Défardé” is the most notable piece on the album. It is somewhat dark in tone yet elegant and poetic in its minimalist approach. After listening to this track, one will undoubtedly crave to hear more.”

– Franpi Barriaux, Citizen Jazz, France

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Paradoxe – S/T

“This is a very easy album, a complex album, a very clever piece of art, an album that is easy to enjoy, to go with, to flow with, a rewarding piece of serious contemporary art.”

“…there’s something just a little more to what they do, a little more depth, substance, something a little deeper than most of the sound art flavoured experimentation that comes our way.”

— Organzine, UK

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Ensemble Ex Materia – EP

“The four souls making up Ensemble Ex Materia demonstrate the art of the possible to the n^th degree.”

— Greg Fenton, Magazine Sixty, UK

 

“In this EP, Ensemble Ex Materia moves between composition and improvisation, delivering beyond the borders of the avant-garde.”

— Guillermo Escudero, Loop, Chile

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On Liberty – an Augenmusik Piano Suite

John Dante Prevedini

“Fascinating…brilliantly conveyed with a powerful emotional effect.”

— Colin Clarke, Fanfare Magazine

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Kernel & Grit 

Victoria Jordanova

“…musical storytelling can be about the creative potential of something as humble as an unwatered seed or a layer of dust. Jordanova presents us with a pair of pieces that reveal the transformative within the deceptively minimal.”

— John Dante Prevedini, Classical Music Daily 

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Maelstrom

Soheil Shirangi + Shervin Abassi

“…Brilliant, haunting new works from Iranian composers Soheil Shirangi and Shervin Abbasi.”

by Delarue – New York Music Daily

The two draw on influences from European minimalism and traditional Iranian sounds. Teheran-based composers Soheil Shirangi and Shervin Abbasi have released an aptly titled haunting new album, Maelstrom. It’s a diverse but persistently dark collection of works for both solo instruments and small ensembles. In a year of one horror after another – especially in Iran, which was one of the first countries crippled by propaganda and hysteria – this is indelibly an album for our time. Yet the music here also offers considerable hope and even devious humor.

The first work is Trauma, a Shirangi trio composition played by cellists Ella Bokor and Mircea Marian with accordionist Fernando Mihalache. The strings enter with a syncopated, mutedly shamanic drive that quickly rises to an insistent pedal point. The accordion first serves as a wary chordal anchor while the cellos diverge, return with an increasingly stricken intensity, and then wind out with plaintive washes.

Violinist Mykola Havyuk, clarinetist Yaroslav Zhovnirych, and pianist Nataliya Martynova play Abbasi’s The Rebellion, beginning more hauntingly microtonal, its austere resonance punctuated by simple, forlorn piano incisions. Eerie, circling chromatics from the piano underscore troubled, anthemic phrases. A couple of vigorous flicks under the lid signal a wounded call-and-response: slowly but firmly, a revolution flickers and eventually leaps from the desolation. The obvious comparison is the livelier moments in Messiaen’s Quartet For the End of Time.

It’s the most distinctly Iranian piece here. By contrast, To Lose Hope – another Abbasi piece featuring clarinetist Mykola Havyuk and a string quartet comprising violinists Marko Komonko and Petro Titiaiev, violist Ustym Zhuk and cellist Denys Lytvynenke – first takes shape as a hazy cavatina, Havyuk’s crystalline leads balanced by brooding cello and shivery vibrato from the rest of the strings. The jauntiness, acerbity, and suspense that follow are unexpectedly welcome. The point seems to be that hope is where you find it.

Afrooch, an Abbasi solo work played by violinist Farmehr Beyglou, requires daunting extended technique, shifting back and forth between ghostly harmonics, moody atmosphere, insistently hammering riffs, shivery crescendos, and a call-and-response that grows from enigmatic to puckish. The ending is too funny to give away.

The closing composition, Shirangi’s The Common Motivations, is a solo piano piece, Sahel Abaei’s low murk contrasting with muted inside-the-gestures, expanding with spacious minimalist accents and eventually forlorn, Messiaenic bell tone chords. If this is characteristic of the new music coming out of Iran these days, the world needs to hear more of it.

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Campsites — Doug Haire

“[Campsites is] atmospheric and rich in nuance.”

by Guillermo Escudero – Loop, Chile

Doug Haire is an experienced sound artist with 30 years as a recording engineer and producer. He has credits in something like 400 albums and eight albums of his authorship.

He’s a member of Seattle’s Phonographer’s Union, a collective of sound artists, composers, and recordists who improvise live in real-time with unprocessed field recordings.

He founded the Sonarchy radio show in Seattle 22 years back, and he has produced hour-long live broadcasts that provide avant-garde musicians with a space to perform, experiment, and develop their ideas.

This album displays a soundscape rich in nuances and atmospheres. “Campsite” collects field recordings such as the sounds of a train horn, a campfire, a barking of a dog, while thick layers of drones are the backdrop for this environment in the city’s outskirts. Silence is also an element in this album because, behind those minimalist processed sounds, there is a pristine, pure space on which our listening is focused. For example, on “Campsite # 16 River Donner und Blitzen,” a subtle, heavenly choir hovers in the environment as birdsongs and streams of water complete this bucolic image. The flip side of this album is the haunting atmosphere of “Jackblock Campsite” and the track that opens this album, “Campsite Nocturne # 3”.

 

“Campsites is as pictorial as a sound-work can be and leaves a lasting impression of an artist’s vision, offering his experiences to any open-minded listeners.”

by Carston S.- Chain D.L.K., Germany

This collection of sound pieces is the work of a very experienced recording engineer—Doug Haire, from Seattle, USA. He has dedicated many years to supporting experimental musicians with the radio show “Sonarchy” and recording exclusives for it. He is also a member of the Seattle Phonographers Union—a collective working and performing with unprocessed field recordings since 2002. Campsites is his first solo release since 2012’s Removed And Haunted.

I imagine him now retired from session work, sitting by the campfire and capturing the moods. It is incredible how he transmits the atmospheres with his field recordings, later supplied with resonant drones. This reflecting on reflection is executed with true mastery.

The overall calm sounds aided by the underlying subliminal drones lead inescapably to a loss of the sense of time.

The seven tracks are all subtle individual works but a coherent whole. None are too lengthy, and all mixing, mastering, and production were done solely by Doug Haire himself.

I’ve found myself sitting suddenly in the last fading light of the day, mentally wholly caught up in the moment – just like a campfire meditation – with engaged senses fully aware of the never-ending surroundings. Campsites are as pictorial as a sound work can be and leave a lasting impression of an artist’s vision, offering his experiences to any open-minded listeners.

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Bile Noire

Strotter Inst. + Peter Vukmirovic Stevens

“[Bile Noire] really stirs the fireplace and stokes the mental boilers….”

from The Sound Projector – London, UK

We are quite taken with Bile Noire (ARPAVIVA AVLP 001), a vinyl item housed in a moody black cover on the Arpaviva label. It’s a team-up between Strotter Inst. and Peter Vukmirovic Stevens – Strotter Inst. is Christoph Hess, the Swiss turntablist who can’t put a tonearm wrong as far as we’re concerned, and like most sensible folk, we worship the very belt-drive of his kit. We last heard him on Miszellen, a double LP of fairly staggering proportions for the Hallowground label, which showed him teaming up with notables and big names from the world of art music and underground noise.

Today’s record could be read more as a showcase for the piano of Peter Vukmirovic Stevens, and Strotter Inst. exhibits grace and restraint with his subdued, minimal contributions to the work – almost relegating himself to a background, time-keeping role – but his distinctive imaginative moves still win through. Stevens appears to have achieved certain worldwide renown already with his compositions for orchestras, and orchestral music has picked up a few prizes for his mantelpiece and still finds time to make colourful abstract and pictorial art. But his piano work here really stirs the fireplace and stokes the mental boilers, mainly by his use of lower-register notes to evoke dark and brooding emotions. Already, I feel like we’re in a dank 19th-century salon in some non-existent European country where, due to time warps and inter-dimensional distortions, the course of history has been drastically altered. Everyone lives under the yoke of multiple right-wing regimes, yet people still find time to act the part of the decadent dandy type replete in a velvet cape and top hat. As a matter of fact, such a figure has left his gloves and cane on the piano lid and set down to deliver himself of these six exercises in grimitude and ghastlery.

 

“[Bile Noire] is a great musical experience. Terrific!”

by Zipo – Aufabwegen, Germany

(Translated from German)

“It is likely this album could only be realized given the range and depth of these artists’ musical experience. The Swiss turntable artist Christoph Hess, aka Strotter Inst., well respected in experimental music circles, joined concert pianist and composer Peter Vukmirovic Stevens to create a truly amazing product. This music is dramatic, organic, and tense. For us, the second piece of the A-side (all the tracks have monstrously long French names) best characterizes their efforts in which dark-melodious, rolling piano tones and pulsing bass notes are mixed with scratchy-roughened sounds. Because the piano’s tone is easier for the ear to follow, it would be easy to assume the sounds are arranged as foreground and background – but it is not that simple. The pulsing and processed oscillations created by the turntables sound in unison with the piano and combine with the piano keystrokes on the hammers. Ergo: the sound layers combine in a natural and balanced way and create a great musical experience. Terrific!”

 

“BILE NOIRE is a perfect conceptual addition to the collection for both fans of electronic experimental music and followers of contemporary classical music.”

from Baze.djunkIII – Nitestylez, Germany

“Coming in from Switzerland [is] BILE NOIRE, a limited to 300 copies vinyl pressing produced by Christoph Hess, a.k.a. Strotter Inst. and pianist Peter Vukmirovic Stevens. Combining Hess’ trademark use of prepared turntables with Vukmirovic Stevens’ approach to his instrument results in a total of six compositions to be found on this album which can be described best as darkish, score’esque, and dramatic in its overall approach, bringing forth a captivating amalgamation of layered, partly stumbling experimental loops and scraping, manipulated sounds as a foundation and an expressive, moody take on piano noir which both reminds us of catastrophic winter thunderstorms and intense, early experimental movies shot in grainy black and white putting the entire range of human emotion and expression on vintage display. Interestingly, the unprocessed solo piano and the electronic backing interact and complement each other perfectly instead of providing a harsh disturbing contrast of sorts, which makes BILE NOIRE a perfect conceptual addition to the collection for both fans of electronic experimental music as well as followers of contemporary classical music, but will also sit well with collectors of scores and other dramatic music.”

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Postcard from Heaven

Victoria Jordanova

“It is impossible to describe what 20 highly electronically manipulated harps sound like, but it certainly confounded my expectations…there are many delicacies here, fantastic detail, and unique sound combinations.”

by Peter Burwasser – Fanfare Magazine

 

“Jordanova performs with a wide range of sound quality and with the greatest devotion to the music’s profound absence of dramatic rhetoric.”

by Haskins – American Record Guide

“I hear the polyphonic texture of various melodic parts, often in different rhythms, while other times I hear cascades of complex, ravishing chords. Jordanova performs with a wide range of sound quality and with the greatest devotion to the music’s profound absence of dramatic rhetoric. She also adds Cage’s ossia vocal part…beautifully performed by Pamela Z.”

 

“This music is so surprising; it approaches in some kind of free fall, totally relaxed and yet powerful, like the orbit of the International Space Station as it keeps on falling and falling around the Earth…” 

by Ingvar Loco Nordin – Sonoloco Reviews

“I rarely get the sense of sheer beauty or spacious spiritual or physical realms when I listen to John Cage’s music… It’s often more of witty practicality that comes to mind or an auditive intellectualism with a quirky smile added in the corner of the mouth….but not this soaring beauty. This music is so surprising, as it approaches in some kind of free fall, totally relaxed and yet powerful, like the orbit of the International Space Station as it keeps on falling and falling around the Earth…” 

 

“Mesmerizing…, Jordanova’s approach has given the work new life.”

by Frank J. Otery – NewMusicBox

“Cage’s prophetically-titled Postcard from Heaven, a mesmerizing, roughly 40-minute 1982 composition scored for 20 harpists, receives its world premiere recording on this new disc from Arpaviva. Jordanova’s approach has given the work new life, and the work does sound like a postcard from heaven written by John Cage.”

 

“[Postcard from Heaven] is a strangely cool and cooling listening experience.”

by Josef Woodard – Notes on Film 

“The “heaven” connection, with visions of spaced harpists playing without a coffee break for eternity, is half tongue-in-cheek. But only half. Victoria Jordanova does the harp honors, oscillating between a solo setting to rippling overdubs of 20 harps. Pamela Z supplies sustained and delayed sung tones in what is a strangely cool and cooling listening experience.”

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In A Landscape by Victoria Jordanova

“…A blow-your-socks-off new sound—indeed a whole new realm of sound.”

by David Wolman – Fanfare Magazine

“I guess I always thought of the harp as a delicate instrument suited for Debussy and played by pretty long-haired women. I had no idea it could be souped-up, amplified, and multi-tracked, producing a blow-your-socks-off new sound—indeed, a whole new realm of sound. Victoria Jordanova, originally from Yugoslavia, lives in America now, and we are richer for it, as she has single-handedly revised the script for harp and harp music. As a performer, composer, curator, and producer of her own CD label, Jordanova is breaking new ground not only with the harp but with performance, improvisation, and concert programming to boot.”

 

“Very strange and fascinating, very personal and delicate, full of great imagination.”

by Jan de Kruijff – Musicalifeiten, Netherlands

 

“[Jordanova] never lets tradition wear her down.”

by Ingvar Loco Nordin – Sonoloco Revews

“Jordanova uses a variety of harps and swings their lofty properties through technologies of her choice, always shaping new realms of audio, never playing it safe, never resorting to clichés or down-home formulas or principles. She never lets tradition wear her down. On the contrary, she shakes all those gluey, sticky memories off. This is a rare quality among contemporary and avant-garde artists, who oftentimes are the most traditional ones, sticking to and canonizing an avant-gardism that was in swing a few decades earlier, in the 1960s or -70s.”

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Innerland by Stéphane Furic-Leibovici

“This is an incredible album…unlike anything you’ve probably heard. It’s one of the best things I’ve heard in a long while and well worth discovering.”

by David Toub – Sequenza21

 

“An atmosphere achieved through research and conscious use of electro-acoustic techniques in order to create sound spaces and dimensions yet unexplored.”

by Fred Audin – Classique Info Disque

 

“Innerland  highlights fascinating [and] unusual idioms.”

by Jan de Kruijff – Musicalifeiten, Netherlands

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Panacea by Peter Vukmirovic Stevens

“Three crystalline works that bring a lot of light to our ears..”

by Marçal Borotau – Sonograma, Spain

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Phantasmagoria by Michael ZT Rose

“[Phantasamagoria] is the most succulent feast for the ears!”

– Jan Hocek, His Voice Magazine 

“Immerse yourself into the mercilessly driven robotic-minimalism, with the lighting flashes of piano runs and the relentlessly flowing cascades of music in which the makeup of each song becomes the blueprint for the album as a whole. It is the most succulent feast for the ears!”

 

“It is immediately clear that composer [Michael ZT Rose] has something special and individual to offer.”

– Musicalifeiten

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