Christian Wolff & Antoine Beuger - Where Are We Going, Today (Erstwhile, 2018)

Two monsters of the avant-garde. Founder of the Wandelweiser collective Beuger and co-conspirator Wolff. You knew it was going to be long and slow but wow. There's two pieces here, 10-minute one and a 60-minute one, and I'm not really sure what justifies the two since they're virtually identical. The set up is something like this: Wolff contributes "piano, objects, charango, flute" while Beuger reads out truncated lines, sentences, stanzas at seemingly random. Beuger also plays Christian Wolff's Stones recording from 1995. Confused? I was too until I read this. Essentially Wolff's version of his composition Stones runs throughout the background as a kind of barely-there hum, like a radiator in a room. And to make the whole thing even more absurdly self-referential, Beuger himself plays on that version of Stones. So long stretches of silence are broken up by either Beuger's recitations (Cageian in tone, I find), Wolff's improvisations on the aforementioned instruments, or both. It's an absolute head-spinner of a record. Difficult yes, but also incredibly immersive. Deep Listening is required but hopefully you have the patience because it's really quite something.

Comments

Eartheater - IRISIRI (Pan, 2018)

Eartheater first came on my radar (and many others) with 2 Hausu Mountain tapes in 2015. She makes glitchy, disorienting music, combining electronics and synthesized percussion with voice, guitars and who knows what else. The whole thing is a confusing stew, kind of reminiscent of Inga Copeland but I would say even more detached from "song". Didn't do much for me.

Kevin Drumm - Jury Prize (Karl Schmidt Verlag, 2018)

Here's a new kd album on Tom Smith's Karl Schmidt Verlag label that's very much the opposite of some of the kd we've heard earlier this year - namely, it's loud as fuck. There's one 53-minute track here, "Schmickedtwice (Jury Prize)" and it sounds as chaotic and unhinged as anything from Drumm, certainly a return to the noisy Sheer Hellish Miasma days but sonically on par with analog Merzbow. Recorded this year though so not an old recording. It sounds like there's vocals buried way deep, somebody screaming through the TV static, maybe even some percussion? This one's a heater.

Albums of the Year 2017 // New Releases

//40 Migos Culture (300 Entertainment) //39 Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein Stranger Things 2: A Netflix Original Series Soundtrack (Lakeshore) //38 Unsane Sterilize (Southern Lord) //37 Hans Zimmer & Benjamin Wallfisch Blade Runner 2049: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Epic/ASG) //36 Ricardo Villalobos Empirical House ([a:rpi:r]) //35 Brockhampton Saturation II (Question Everything Inc./Empire) //34 Fire-Toolz Drip Mental (Hausu Mountain) //33 Clams Casino Instrumental Mixtape 4 (no label) //32 Yves Tumor Experiencing the Deposit of Faith (no label) //31 Lil Yachty Teenage Emotions (Virgin/EMI) //30 Thriftworks The Feather and the Sword (no label) //29 Paul White & Danny Brown Accelerator (R&S) //28 Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke & Oren Ambarchi This Dazzling, Genuine "Difference" Now Where Shall It Go? (Black Truffle) //27 Nazoranai Beginning to Fal...

Tips Zum Selbstmord

Search This Blog