click here for ITALIAN PRESS

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

BENE GESSERIT - STILL INSANE AFTER ALL THESE YEARS LP

Something entirely different is the music by Bene Gesserit, who started out somewhere in the early 80s. Here we find Alain Neffe, firstly known as one of the Pseudo Code trio and the Insane Music label, and a little bit later also as Cortex, Human Flesh and with his wife Nadine Bal as Bene Gesserit. From all of these bands, which I rate highly, Bene Gesserit wasn’t the one I got into easily. It’s perhaps because it’s quite heavily based on vocals by Bal, or perhaps the somewhat cabartesque, dada like approach. But as I was recently listening to the CD re-issue of their first LP from 1985 (see Vital Weekly 822) I actually seemed to enjoy it more than I did in 1985. Maybe it’s for more mature people. That’s the same here on this new LP with a title that I don’t like that much, with material that is recorded between 2009 and 2011. At the core of the Bene Gesserit sound is still the elastic voice of Nadine Bal, who calls herself Benedict G when being a member of Bene Gesserit. She sings, moans, howls, scream, laughs and cries around which B. Ghola (which is, obviously Alain Neffe) plays his loops, Yamaha portable mini synth, digital sax, 1970s organ, rhythm box, garageband loops and sounds. That is indeed an indication that things have changed and instruments and recording gear have been updated. It sounds like it indeed. But this update didn’t make the music sound any less, in fact it sounds better, when the rhythm is pounding away in good ol’ fashioned boxed style or from the loops from the computer. More worked out, clearer in the use of various layers, but never ‘drowning’ in the new techniques. Here we have eleven pieces of some of the finest electronic pop music - totally out of line with the other two recent releases on Ultramarine (or indeed much of their catalogue), but which work wonderfully well. Modern, mature, intelligent pop music. Excellent! Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly #856

We’ve visited the high, happy, perverse, insane and wonderful world of BeNe GeSSeRiT on quite some occasions earlier, both historical recordings from the 1980s when they started up and more contemporary stuff. The latest was a compilation only three moonths ago that included four BG-tracks recorded in the present millenium. And here is brand new, vinyl only, album recorded between 2009 and 2011 and released by the Italian independent quality label Ultramarine towards the end of last year. There were initially a few copies on pink and orange vinyl. By now I guess only the straight black vinyl version is back. The good news is that the album reveals new sides of the duo. Also good new for those of us who enjoys vintage BG, there’s a healthy dosis of easily recognisable songs of the 1980s and early 1990s flavour, too. The first implies some pleasant surprises. It starts immediately with the opening “I Live I Love I Sink” of the aaaH SiDe of the LP. It’s calm and moody with a trumpet sounding kind of keyboard and relaxed vocals. Amazingly playful and poppy for a BG song. An immediate favourite; this is chicken skin music! “Activités Illictites” is repetitive and also quite poppy for a BG-song. It includes normal spoken words, a bit funky bass and a jazzy trumpet something that intervenes occasionally to add a bit of the neccessary insanity. “Exhume Your Weapons (Time Has Come For Fighting)” towards the end of the Be SiDe is another goodie and pleasant surprise. It’s one of a few BG instrumentals, dominated by quite heavy keyboards, occasionally jazzy and progressive. “Chantez, Dansez” has an accordion sounding loop and effect-treated vocals on top, calm and not very danceable in the first half. The middle part is quite creepy with a cello-sounding keyboard and normal voice before the accordion returns to finish it off. Great! Well then, this album was a pleasant surprise. All in all it’s a bit mellower and brighter than expected, which match the bright colours of the sleeve. There’s only 300 copies of the LP around, so don’t hesitate too long to get in touch with Ultramarine Records if you’re interested. ”Cela Fait Longtemps Que Je N’ai Plus Vu D’arc-en-ciel” and “Shut Up!” are closer to the BeNe GeSSeRiT that we are used to from the 1980s. The former has no instruments, I guess, only a kind of oral rhythm loop over effect-treated long-drawn out seasick vocals whereas the latter includes a rhythm/keyboard loop with some sounds close to noise, and spoken and shouted words on top. Sparse and effective, both of them. The remaining tracks might be put in an intermediate category, between the BG of old and new. “Madré Zias” is melodic but pulls in a new direction compared to your average BG song because of the lengthy sung vocals and funny instrumental things going on. “Le Point De Départ” starts quite conventional, like a melancholic and folk-tinged ballad. The distrubance grows thanks to haunting vocals and an intervening Hendrix-sounding distorted guitar. (The mystery, though, is there are no guitars involved, the information on the cover states. Maybe it’s the digital sax…) The somewhat insane and moody electro-something melancholic is represented by “Insects”. There’s aslo a couple of short funny vocal ditties on offer. Well then, this album was a pleasant surprise. All in all it’s a bit mellower and brighter than expected, which match the bright colours of the sleeve. There’s only 300 copies of the LP around, so don’t hesitate too long to get in touch with Ultramarine Records if you’re interested. Luna Kafé

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

GATE - DAMNED REVOLUTIONS LP

Earlier this year the excellent British label MIE released a double-vinyl edition of The Dew Line, the 1994 album by Michael Morley’s solo project Gate. The reissue was a nice reminder of the peculiar magic Morley conjures with thick guitar, monotone vocals, and the occasional beat. At its best, such as in the two-chord, 12-minute epic “Have Not”, The Dew Line offered noise-rock slowed to a crawl and coated in syrup, as if Morley recorded it in a codeine-induced haze. Stretching riffs into drones that still maintained a rock thrust, he made lethargy hypnotic.

After The Dew Line, Morley has veered mostly toward computer-based music, incorporating samples and even some dance beats. The overall effect of the sound has been similar to that of his early work, mostly due to his mesmerizingly sluggish singing. But certainly some Gate fans must have wondered if he would revisit the heavy-fuzz style that made mid-90s records likeThe Dew Line, Guitar, and Golden so compelling (and such worthy companions to his work in New Zealand trio the Dead C.)

Damned Revolutions, the first Gate LP since 2010’s beat-driven A Republic of Sadness, is a clear return to that sound, and a triumphant one. Triumphant is perhaps an odd word to use for music this subdued and uninterested in hurrying to get anywhere. But Damned Revolutions‘ slo-mo moans and room-filling guitar are bold, persistent, and once again hypnotic. There’s no hesitancy in these two side-long, 19-minute pieces. It’s all confident, purposeful time-expansion, with no big moves or flashy changes needed to hold attention.

Which is not to say that nothing happens on Damned Revolutions. It’s actually a pretty busy record at times, with Morley cranking out extended guitar noise that rivals his farthest-out explorations in the Dead C. But even those moments stretch time more then they mark it. The tick of the clock seems to fade away as Morley’s pieces progress. That approach encourages you to get inside each sound without worrying about when it will end, and to absorb each moment fully rather than anticipate the next one.

The two halves of Damned Revolutions take different angles to achieve this effect. On “Turned And Glowing Inwardly”, Morley actually does mark time with a sparse, insistent pulse. But the more it marches on, the more it melts into his fog of vocals and guitar. Gradually, its robotic regularly starts to feel surreal and illusively lopsided, as if the woozy sound surrounding it were contagiously throwing it off.

Beats are absent on “Turning and Towards the Light”, a dark guitar improvisation filled with churning, distant chords. But instead of feeling scary or melodramatic, the track exudes a thorough, almost eerie calm, due to Morley’s uncanny ability to stop time in its tracks without devolving into stasis. Though he avoids easy climaxes, the song still creates a kind of catharsis– one felt more in reflection than action, more in reverberation than initiation. And it suggests that Morley’s achievements on Damned Revolutions might resonate as long as The Dew Line’s have– perhaps even longer. Marc Masters, Pitchfork

Massive new album from New Zealand’s Gate aka Michael Morley of The Dead C’s amazing solo project in an edition of only 300 copies: this is an epic set from Morley, with two sidelong tracks that present some of the most strung-out destructo blues of his career. The first side, “Turned and glowing inwardly”, is a massively bloody-minded minimalist mantra, with repeating storms of that classic blasted guitar sound anchored by deep, deep bass/beats before his unmistakably tortured vox push the whole deal into delirium. Think The Dead C-play-Corrupted in terms of endless/endless. The second side is even better and rivals The Dead C’s “Outside” in terms of monumentally wretched rock/roll euphoria. Morley starts out in a kinda desecrated “Power” style before ascending to peaks of crashing/clashing chords over which he brings in a double-tracked vocal that rides waves of endlessly epic melodies before collapsing all over itself. Damned Revolutions is the perfect title and beautifully captures the endless, epic quality of the jams as well as the desolate, aching quality of the last-man-standing vocals. A modern masterpiece and a major highlight in Morley’s amazing back catalogue. Very highly recommended! David Keenan / Volcanic Tongue

Flip it and there’s ‘Turning and towards the light’ continues with the intimate, brooding vibes, but things are a bit looser and less droney, with a creaking, clanking guitar patiently cutting into a dense haze of humid, sticky, crumbling womb-like murk. There’s more vocals, even weirder than on the first side, and it succeeds in being oppressively intense despite so little happening. It sounds like the soundtrack to smugglers trying to land their cargo on some remote, rocky bluff somewhere in the middle of the night. Ominous stuff. Fuzz fans will be happy to see that we’ve managed to score a few copies of this very limited new LP from Dead C guitarist Michael Morley’s long-running Gate solo project. On this album there’s a long track on each side. ‘Turned and glowing inwardly’ is a slow-drifting, dense wall of cracked, rumbling guitar drone, accompanied by distant bass drum pulses and some eerie high-pitched vocal mumbles the press release describes it as “moaning…reminiscent of pre-war blues chants”. Towards the end it seems to disintegrate into dark, thrashed crackles over which some smooth, slightly industrial dark ambient loops gradually take the fore. Norman Records

SMEGMA - EVER AND ANON LP

Brand new album from this always singular freak music tribe and central LAFMS group: no one joins the dots between frat, garage, surf and punk music and weirdo sound art, tape collage and free jazz like Smegma and it’s pretty much all in here, kicking off with an amplifier dunting homage to the thunder punk style of Link Wray before heading into squealing New York Eye And Ear Control environs, all sublimated using heady tape manipulation strategies and a lurid, cartoon approach to homebrewed psych. They pack all of the monolithic power of prime Faust into a uniquely American garage idiom that resuscitates trash culture via the application of Euro brains and the result is as ass-whooping as it is brain-massaging. A fantastic record, cover art by Ace Farren Ford, comes with an insert, edition of only 300 copies. David Keenan / Volcanic Tongue

Smegma started out in 1973 and have been connected to the Los Angeles Free Music Society. Since then they always play concerts, mainly around the current hometown Portland, Oregon. Smegma play free music; free as in how they play their instruments, how they construct their ’songs’, but also free of any kind of stylistic approach. A while ago, several people thought Smegma belonged to the school of noise, and to some extend that is perhaps true, but actually if you play together in a free mode since 1973 you may pick up a few tricks from the big book of musical history. That’s what makes this record quite a weird one. Smegma move all over the place. From surf like opening to free jazz, free rock, noise, sound collage and even something that reminded me of computer manipulated sound, along with skipping records, and analogue tape loops of found sound, this sounds almost like a compilation but it’s not.  Smegma’s rock line up, which includes various wind instruments, guarantees that things never get off the rails too much, even when they go all weird on us. This is a damn fine record. If you want to have something weird or need a proper introduction to this band, then I’d say: here’s a way to step in. Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly #856

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

BLOOD STEREO - THE EIGHT THUMBED HAND SERENADES CS

It’s been indeed quite a while since I heard ‘The Magnetic Headache’ by Blood Stereo, the duo of Karen Constance and Dylon Nyoukis (see Vital Weekly 637), which I though was nice, being the sort of noise I like. Not too loud, varied and distinctly lo-fi. There have more releases by Blood Stereo, among others on Nykos’ own Chocolate Monk. This cassette on Ultramarine Records is in fact a re-issue of four short (C14-) cassettes on that label, but put together on tape. There is still that distinct lo-fi feel to the music, the no-instrument approach, but lots of small electronic boxes and a variety of voices. The latter which seems to be more than on the CD I heard, but I’m not sure. Sometimes these voices sound a bit too much like a wordless chant of a hippy nature, which never does it for me, but most of the times I ver much dig this lo-fi rumble of highly obscured sounds of faulty cables, buzzing, hissing drones, chirping insect like sounds that have vague jungle notion and other injections brought forward by electronics and contact microphones scratching the surface. Quite a fine release of what is indeed probably ‘intelligent noise’. Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

SILVIA KASTEL - TAKE IT 7″

First single by this Italian collusionist and Ultramarine label head has sort of retro look. The music might have a bit of that going on as well, although the blend of synth and treated vocals ends up sounding quite moderne. Especially good is “Tok Wide”, a stunning, minimal chunk of weird psychedelia like no other - vocals and plonk combined in a way you’ve never quite heard before. Byron Coley, The Wire, September 2012

Label owner Kastel releases her first ever 7″, a debut for her and her label. Kastel has a background in improvised music, but in her solo work she uses beats, synths, bass, tape echo and her own voice. Especially the use of beat material make things more coherent, like I noticed with her ‘Love Tape’ (see Vital Weekly 794), it seems to me that Kastel is also interested in the music of the late 70s/early 80s. She hints, in her press release, to early Cabaret Voltaire and Clock DVA, and indeed it shares some of that sense of experimentalism within some kind of pop format. The lyrics, if any, don’t seem to matter that much and the voice is used as an additional instrument. Especially in the side long ‘Tok Wide’ she does that and sounds like a slowed down CV mantra. Topped off with a cover that looks genuinely retro also, this is a damn fine little item. Edition of 100 copies, so a pre-programmed collectors item - if not now, then possibly later. Frans De Waard / Vital Weekly #835

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –- — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

BOLIDE - FLAW GAMES CS

Brighton based free Improv sextet Bolide are so rambling yet semi-coherent in their approach to improvisations that they recall Smegma, or one of the other large, early LAFMS related ensembles. Which is a darn sight better than merely being the new new Prick Decay. The sweet, sweet sound of troubled adults. Byron Coley, The Wire, October 2012

The cassette on the other hand is the new format of choice for Ultramarine Records lately, and the new one is by a six piece group from Brighton, of which the ‘main members are Spiceberg (aka Daniel Spicer), Tom Roberts, The Sultan and other mysterious individuals’, although the website lists for the six members, Dr, Spiceberg, F. Ampism, The Sultan, Reverend Cal-Mag Boron and Dick Moss. They have been going since 2007 and there are already a bunch of releases. A band of free music I’d say. Hard to tell what they are all playing, but drums, I’d say, guitars, bass, perhaps but surely lots of sound effects. Freaky music, like there is so much other freaky music of people jamming together, creating the next musical revolution, but its rather stale, I’d say. Its one of those things that was probably quite interesting at some point, but unfortunately not so much anymore. Perhaps I am just getting too old for this youthfully enthusiasm for free music. Frans De Waard / Vital Weekly #835

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –- — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

BILL HORIST - THE SIGNAL INDEX

Solo guitar improvisations by this Seattle based musician, recently spotted with the unfortunately named Master Musicians of Bukkake. The two side-long pieces run through a wide splooge of sonic textures, from hollers of feedback to clumps of sound cluster reminiscent of Pillow Wand. Hard to know these days if someone’s doubling their attack live or in studio, but this effort reeks of multiplicity. In the best way imaginable, natch. Byron Coley, The Wire / October 2012

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –- — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

BILL HORIST - THE SIGNAL INDEX

KOMMISSAR HJULER & MAMA BAER & NINNI MORGIA & SILVIA KASTEL - LIVE AT MORDEN TOWER

The thing that is striking about the other tape is of course the location where it was recorded. The Morden Tower in Newcastle-upon-Tyne is best known as a location where legendary concerts took place in the early 80s by such legendary acts as Ramleh and The New Blockaders. I assumed it no longer existed as a venue since we never had any other concert releases out of that place. But apparently it still does exist and last year saw this quartet playing of Mama Baer (voice), Kommissar Hjuler (tapes, voice)m Ninni Morgia (guitar) and Silvia Kastel (synth). From the latter we heard some  fine improvisation which tends towards more rock/noise structures and the first two we best know for the weird music, spoken word, tape collage and insanities. This could be indeed a daring set-up for all four and it turns out that to be quite a nice collaboration. Probably exactly the one you’d have in mind if you know some of the music by those involved. Quite noise based, like good ol’ industrial music: ongoing bursts of noise, distorted guitar, screaming voices, synth bubbles, all in a rather free mode, which ties in improvised music with noise music. Maybe its all a bit long in the unedited form, but that too might be part of the deal: to make sound like before. Frans de Waard / Vital Weekly # 832

Kommissar Hjuler/Mama Baer/Ninni Morgia/Silvia Kastel

Live At Morden Tower

Necessary document of this inspired team-up that toured the UK last year, with Kommissar Hjuler and Mama Baer’s tapework, feral sound poetry and performance art married to the outer space improvisations of synth/vocalist Silvia Kastel and guitarist Ninni Morgia. Playing in the tiny historic Morden Tower – home to countless beat and post-beat poetry readings as well as many seminal Industrial performances - the quartet birth a profoundly feral amalgam of body-soundings, de-constructed language, zonked brain-bombing hysteria and weird cosmo jazz that gives way to the kinda refusenik metal meditations of classic No Wave. This is free improvisation well outside the bounds of ‘free improvisation’ with a performance style that has as much to do with Iggy Pop as Henri Chopin. Edition of 100 copies. Recommended. David Keenan / Volcanic Tongue

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

Gary Smith / Silvia Kastel / Ninni Morgia “BRAND” LP

It’s surely no coincidence that the cover of this new trio record feels like a homage to Ray Russell’s 1969 album Dragon Hill: guitarist Gary Smith was Russell’s replacement in the Bill Fay Group after they cut Time Of The Last Persecution and in many ways – if there’s any tradition that Smith could really be said to come out of – it’s the Ray Russell school of radical six-string re-invention. Unlike many of his improvising contemporaries Smith owes little to Derek Bailey, despite his own conceptions being just as radically disorientating. Early on he developed a form of stereo guitar playing that involved a clean tone, a volume pedal and a pair of amps that married the kinda ferocious sonic reducer style of Pete Cosey with blunt Japanese psych, austere electronic composition and free improvisation, cutting a series of radical solo albums alongside collaborations with the late John Stevens (released by Thurston Moore on his own Ecstatic Peace imprint), Chie Mukai, Masayoshi Urabe, Shoji Hano and more. Since relocating to Italy Smith has hooked up with guitarist Ninni Morgia and synth/vocalist Silvia Kastel. Anyone who saw Morgia and Kastel in action with Kommissar Hjuler and Mama Baer on their recent tour and on the Two Couples LP will understand the kind of explosive energy the two bring to the table, combining fire music stylings with post-tongue improvisations and alien electronics. The trio hook-up is nothing short of spectacular. Smith has moved even deeper into subtle string tectonics and Kastel wraps her tonsils all the way around them, gargling notes like ball bearings and make stunning use of post-Monk body soundings while Morgia clashes with Smith with clanging subterranean tones and the sound of metal on metal. Indeed, at points it doesn’t sound like a guitar record at all, with the bubbling notes and sudden dead halts feeling more akin to the radical formal violence of 20^th century electronic composition than anything approaching avant rock. But in its refusal of consensual modes it paradoxically feels closer to the post Ray Russell tradition of radically extended six-string technique. A monster recording that would have sat just *there* on the Nurse With Wound list. Edition of 300 copies with a download card. Highly recommended. David Keenan, Volcanic Tongue

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

Ninni Morgia - Ladyboy Sonata / CS

Busy, barbed-wire solo outing by this Brooklyn free rock guitarist. His technique is pretty interesting, and this cassette is free from some of the bland overload you generally expect with extended solo improvisations. He does a lot of baffling note suffocation and chocking that ends up being real damn intriguing. And when things do explode they don’t even always sound like guitar. Hep. Byron Coley, The Wire #335, January 2012

Following his duo record with Marcello Magliocchi, here is now a solo cassette by guitarist Ninni Morgia. Like on that LP, Morgia is an improviser, but with a rock(ist) attitude: his music is quite loud, due to the extensive use of sound effects (modulation, distortion), played with objects on the strings with a great sense of energy. Sometimes he takes back what he is doing and gets a bit more quiet, but even then his music remains a razor sharp thing with loud sounds. Quite wild, sometimes reminding me of some Japanese music, such as KK Null or Solmania on ‘Vomit Reflex’. It reminded me of the music of Lukas Simonis, solo and with his various impromptu duos. I can easily imagine a dueling guitar battle between these two. This is some powerful thirty minutes. FdW / Vital Weekly 802

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

MARCELLO MAGLIOCCHI - MUSIC FOR SOUNDING SCULPTURES IN TWENTY-THREE MOVEMENTS / CS

Last week we reviewed Marcello Magliocchi’s record with Ninni Morgia, now the same label also releases a solo tape by him. In a tower in Tuscany there are sculptures made by Andrea Dami, made out of various metals such as iron, brass, copper, steel, aluminum along with strings, stones and gongs. I don’t know if their function is to play them as percussion, but Magliocchi did and the result is twenty-three short pieces of percussion music. He explores, I guess, per piece a certain segment of a sculpture or perhaps the whole sculpture before moving onto somewhere else. Its great music, as Magliocchi is quite a gifted player, working with a great sense of sounds and timbre. Very dynamic, fast, slow, high and low pitches. At times ethnical, at times industrial. A bit like the old Harry Bertoia records, but also like Z’EV. Which made me think: maybe Ultramarine could do a whole series of these releases with different percussion players playing the same sculptures? This Magliocchi release would be a fine start. Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly 794

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

SILVIA KASTEL - LOVE TAPE / CS

Hot on the heels of her mighty performances on TWO COUPLES (see Address Drudion July 2011CE), comes Silvia Kastel’s hauntingly sexy and eerily disembodied LOVE TAPE cassette album for Ultramarine Records, on which she squeals, cooes, howls, snarls, grunts and yelps through all manner of intriguing analogue-ishness, whilst synthesizers, rough hewn bass and pre-constructed Igjugurjuk jawjaw conspire underneath to create the kind of compelling rudimentary musique concrète that post-punk ensembles such as Factrix regularly stumbled into. Better still, the cassette itself works as an art object of the kind that used only to be the realm of such record labels as Factory, Rough Trade and New York’s ROIR.  Julian Cope

If you liked that album Avey Tare did with Kría Brekkan, consider Silvia Kastel’s “Love Tape” a continuation of the eery, blurry-edged confines of one of the most controversial indie-rock records of all time. But it’s so much more. Much like that Prudence Teacup LP I Cerb’d up but-good last year, Kastel’s brand of lovin’ is distinct enough to exist on its own level, in its own zone, with its own rules and regulations. Every “song” blows in a completely disparate direction, and you never know what’s going to happen. One minute you could be chugging a bottle of liquid audio in a park as mosquitos suck out your essence and a one-man drum circle flips out hand-jamz out back, the next you could be asleep in the bathtub while an odd woman coos into your damp soul. Then it all dribbles down the drain and all we’re left with is that GODDAMN hand-drum, the title screen of Dig Dug, and a half-smoked bowl of salvia. Gumshoe / Tiny Mix Tapes

Love is the central theme on the cassette by Silvia Kastel, which has half the duration of the Magliocchi cassette - thirty minutes. She uses synthesizer, voice, bass, beats and tenori-on. Seven tracks in total of improvised electronic music, with quite a strong emphasis on the use of voice, whispering, howling, moaning - all, I guess, on the subject of love. It has that typical 80s approach to music, that in those days was also found on cassettes. Fine experimentation, sometimes a half baked idea, sometimes too long and just sometimes also spot on. I guess its more the nostalgia for me than the actual content of the release, but I think this release surely has some fine poetic moments. Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly 794

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

NINNI MORGIA & MARCELLO MAGLIOCCHI - SOUND GATES LP

This is an absolutely crucial slab of wax from Ultramarine records who have previously put out some astounding efforts from the likes of UK’s Chora and, loopy Deutschlanders, Kommissar Hjuler and Mama Baer. For this LP Italian guitarist Ninni Morgia has teamed up with fellow Italian percussionist Marcello Magliocchi. Both musicians have been active in the field of improvised music and experimentalism playing with the likes of Evan Parker and Daniel Carter. The LP is housed in a great photo which evokes the fluidity and lyricism of the pair’s approach to performance. This is most definitely a record fit for vinyl; where the active ritual of listening, flipping the wax and hearing every crackle (due to my overused and dusty turntable!) adds to the whole experience.

It is a tireless and difficult job to capture improvised music and create a feeling of endless possibility and live performance that such a method demands. Here all are achieved to vivacious affect. Both musicians assert themselves with strong voices without constricting one another; playing through varying speeds and volumes without arrogance or competition. There is a feeling of innate mutual understanding that can only come when two units are connected with both knowledge and a shared creative consciousness. Often the record remains as if teetered on a narrow ridge, searching in limited space, yet traversing expansive ground. Few clichés are used and the expansive approach is delivered with a minimal pallet through ingenious twists and turns. The quiet draws one in and the loud throws a bellow of sound that feels somewhat restrained in its aggression. It is the lack of juxtaposition and the oxymoronic expression that creates the jaw-dropping sound-scape. It must be something in the water, but a great point of reference would be Italy’s My Cat Is An Alien. The aforementioned duo have produced some of the greatest alien sounds and improvised dreamscapes I’ve heard and both Morgia and Magliocchi have most certainly matched this singular ability.

The record begins with a minimal and quiet world of rattling leaves, alien warbles and feral strings. Lunar plucks are warped and wrangled with chattering percussion that tremors and tumbles alike. At times it’s like disrupting a muted data-stream of caustic tones, yet its acoustic nature allows for organic warmth to glow trough. Guitar and cymbal play a horny dance in some fucked tryst that is joined by a grinding rhythm. Then the guitar erupts in a ferocious explosion of metallic quality. Bleating electronics sing an ode to the terminal as the percussion gongs with abrasive hands. There is a pastoral lunacy that evokes both Technicolor landscapes and barren remnants of sparsely populated wastelands. The second side continues many of the same themes, collapsing into a decayed and fractious explosion of guitar that absolutely rocks. The final section has similarities to Loren Connors most dramatic explorations. This is most definitely one of the best improvised records you’ll hear this year. Massive thumbs up!   9/10  Peter Taylor, Foxy Digitalis

A duo recording for guitar and drums, by two of Italy’s finest improvisors, although I never heard of them before. Their eleven pieces here is a combination of really wild free jazz gestures, but, and those work better, also of some great introspective moments. The techniques used here are fairly ‘normal’: the guitar sounds like a real guitar, the drums like drums. But that’s half the story: the pizzicato plucking of strings, the nervous playing of small percussive sounds, courtesy of UFIP (for which Marcello Magliocchi works), the addition of rock like effects, add a great energy to the record. Magliocchi likes his cymbals and uses them a lot, to create resonating, Bertoia like sound sculptures, bouncing of against the occasionally rock like guitar of Morgia. Quite a beast this one. Excellent to get more energy at the end of the day. Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly 793

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

KOMMISSAR HJULER und MAMA BAER & NINNI MORGIA and SILVIA KASTEL - TWO COUPLES LP

Finally, I gots to tell you about the TWO COUPLES LP, UltraMarine Records’ highly unlikely but truly superb split vinyl LP (www.ultramarinerecords.com) on which two genuine musical couples rage it out a side apiece. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, but each side is a compelling and thorough trip. Side one belongs to the screeching Nordic volva Mama Baer and her impressively named guitarist Kommissar Hjuler. And what a fucking superb Ur-racket this record is! Mama Baer, you shake me cold, ye stir me up, madam. Like Freyja Aswynn before her, Mama Baer rages far beyond her companion; indeed, part of the music’s charm is the way her inexorable inhaling of her partner’s vibe draws him on, even sometimes reluctantly. Urging urging she’s an Ur-pest worthy of a fucking Norse Myth is Mama Baer. I damn well adores it, motherfuckers. Over on side two, the slightly less deranged side two, Italians Ninni Morgia and producer Silvia Kastel nevertheless still give it a good seeing to by deploying the kind of arsenal of wild sounds and musique-concrète that woulda cropped up on some 1960 Group Ongaku LP. And when the droning and drenching, wrenching and heaving multiple violins kick into the wah-fray, Silvia could challenge Amon Düül’s Renate Knaup for World’s Krautest Yoko, if she weren’t Italian. Hey, and the front sleeve painted by Mama Baer is also a total vibe, brothers’n’sisters. So get this above everything if you just get the one. Julian Cope / Head Heritage, July Druidon

One of our recent live highlights was the insane performance at Glasgow’s Open School from a quartet that consisted of Kommissar Hjuler and Mama Baer in collaboration with guitarist Ninni Morgia and keyboardist Silvia Kastel. Performing the Zappa-inspired “Tell Me, Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?” Hjuler and Mama worked insane vocal magic with variations on the phrase while demolishing a piano and Morgia and Kastel accompanied them with jagged psych interventions. It was completely exhilarating and this LP, released to coincide with the tour, is the perfect companion. Hjuler’s side continues on the ferociously inspired form that marked out their split with The Hunter Gracchus, using guitar, tape and synth to reconfigure form and sense. The flip sees Morgia and Kastel operating in the mystery zone between psychedelic rock, free jazz and mainlined drone, a great compliment to the flip. Volcanic Tongue

The two couples mentioned in the title are Kommissar Hjuler and Mama Baer (who by now have gained some serious underground recognition) and Ninni Morgia and Silvia Kastel. The latter two are from Italy and play guitar and synth/voice. Both live in New York where they are actively involved in the world of improvised music. These two couples toured together and now there is this split LP. Two couples, one approach: weirdness. A curious mixture of free jazz/improvisation, tape manipulation and voice treatments (singing, moaning, crying, screaming), all loaded with a bunch of synths. There are however differences. Whereas Hjuler & Baer play like they do they always, which sounds like they their instruments for the first time: with complete freedom and without any control. Its probably exactly that trademark which makes that people love what they do. Morgia and Kastel use the same free-play in their work, but through experience of playing they became skilled improvisers, which is something that is shown in their four pieces. These are free yet more coherent than with the other couple. Its perhaps the side of the record that I like more, but that’s no doubt personal taste. That is not to say I don’t like the other side. It has that consistent charm that is part of the work of Hjuler and Baer, which I like when I hear it, but wouldn’t actively seek out every release. (Frans de Waard) Vital Weekly

You’ve gotta wonder what would be cooler: talking with the two couples that comprise both sides of the record, or listening to their music. In the case of guitarist Morgia, playing lightly off Silvia Kastel’s intense vocalizing and other treatments, it could go either way. And there’s never really a reason to listen to the broken, difficult sounds of Hjuler & Mama, even though they may have upwards of 600 releases out there. Think of all the things you can do with one side of a record if you knew you were never going to play that side again!

(Doug Mosurock/Still Single) /  Dusted Magazine

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

Kommissar Hjuler & Mama Baer / Ninni Morgia & Silvia Kastel

The Banshee Labrynth, Edinburgh

Monday April 18th

4 stars

Neil Cooper, The List

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

Ninni Morgia / William Parker

Prism

Ultramarine Records

2010

Master bassist and improviser William Parker has anointed many a free jazz artist in his 40 years in the business. From his work with Matthew Shipp, Charles Gayle and Joe Morris, he has shaped the direction of much American creative music. When he chooses to record with a new(ish) name, it is a reason to take note. Italian-born, New York resident Ninni Morgia has been gaining attention lately in the noise-rock band White Tornado and free jazz bands Death Pool, psychedelic outfit La Otracina, and jazz trio The Right Moves with Kevin Shea and Peter Evans.

Prism is a double LP (or digital download) release, featuring 15 shortish improvisations between the bassist and Morgia. While Morgia sticks to his distinct guitar sounds, Parker, on several tracks, switches to a slide whistle or gralle, a Spanish reed instrument. Ninni’s guitar tends to sound like a 1960s’ space computer with its human voiced pitches and electronic melodies. The playing remains quite open ended, Parker creating energy fields which Morgia can improvise over. He favors a Derek Bailey-like mixture of scattered notes and freneticism. The tempos shift song to song, never becoming redundant. The pair make a strong statement. Mark Corroto, All About Jazz

A double vinyl collaboration between free jazz bassist William Parker and avant-rock guitarist Ninni Morgia, Prism features four sides of duo interactions between these two well-regarded NYC musicians. With Morgia’s guitar sounding more like a tangle of vintage analogue electronics and Parker not only bringing his upright bass to the party but also employing both a slide whistle and a Catalan reed instrument called a gralla, the resulting pieces consistently take on an intriguing variety of shapes and sizes. Side one, for instance, features a series of duets that surround Parker’s nimble bass resonance with all manner of errant electricity - from pointed squeaks and murmurs to dynamic chatter and ghosted feedback. Elsewhere, the gralla’s sax-like song adds a more conventional jazz slant to one of the tracks while further in the slide whistle makes strange conversation with Morgia’s abstractions - all these instruments speaking different tongues but finding much common ground in the skilled hands of the players involved. (Andrew Carden, Rock-A-Rolla magazine, Dec ‘10/Jan 2011, Issue #29)

“This double vinyl slab features Italian guitarist Ninni Morgia, in duet with free jazz bassist William Parker. Listeners expecting standard jazz chords, or even skronk that obeys the rules of 21st Century avant improv, will be thrown off stride by what they hear. Morgia pushes his sound through pedals and devices until it’s a shrivelled set of electronic pulses; the sound of fingers or plectrum on strings is absent. It sounds like he’s playing a theremin sometimes, and other times it doesn’t sound like anyone’s playing at all. Instead it’s like listening to a conversation between two old dial-up modems. Parker, for his part, doesn’t always play bass, he blows a small whistle that’s ready and almost kazoo-like…when the bass is deployed, it’s with a thick, resonant rumble that anchors anything the guitar and/or electronics might come up with… Parker’s plucking is emotionally weighty, and Morgia’s guitar work, even at its most abstract and non-guitarish, has real beauty. You won’t hear anything else like this anytime soon”.

-Phil Freeman, The Wire, November 2010

This record’s like a breath of fresh air compared to most of what seems to pass for ‘free’ improv these days, it’s total ‘anything goes’ type shit (alas, not in a Cole Porter sorta way) with a sound palette that’ll have you scratching your head in disbelief, baffled at how two men can produce such a wide variety of sounds. Upright bass dude extraordinaire William Parker (who’s played with countless famous names throughout the years (perhaps most notably Cecil Taylor, David S. Ware and Peter Brotzmann) does far more than merely provide a bedrock - although he does that more than ably when required - with his bowing technique out in full and frequent force, managing to give me visual impressions on both a large scale (seismic land-shifts conjured by low frequency rumbling) and a small one (the chaos of molecules dancing blindly with one another). Ninni Morgia’s extraordinary guitar explorations provide similarly rich results and rarely sound anything like the instrument he’s using as his source.. Quite how anyone can conjure such bizarre cosmic squiggles and ghostly electronic melodies from the humble six-string is beyond me. Well, I guess he’s got a pedal or two but you know what I’m saying. A veeeeery interesting release.. And a genuinely exploratory one! -Norman Records

http://www.normanrecords.com/vinyl/121255-ninni-morgia–william-parker-prism

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

from L’Oreille De Moscou:

Je crois que c’est Frank Zappa qui dans un grand moment de lucidité avait, en substance, fait ce constat :

“Le jazz n’est pas mort, il sent juste bizarre”.

Il y a peu de chance que cet avant-gardiste ait subodoré la rencontre récente, orchestrée pour Ultramarine Records, entre le guitariste Ninni Morgia - déjà croisé pour son travail au sein de The Right Moves- et le contrebassiste William Parker. Pourtant, là encore, le diagnostic est bon…Leur jazz est louche !

Prism, cet album étrange donc, célèbre une rencontre inventée, où l’électricité s’embarque tout proton dehors à l’assaut d’une autre forme de discussion, un dialogue dissonant où l’usage d’un nouveau dialecte ne serait le fruit ni d’un hasard génétique ni du long apprentissage de la vie, mais bien celui d’une volonté de fer de mettre la créativité au centre des débats pour en faire finalement le vocabulaire de la circonstance.

Profonde et complexe, sans fioriture ni effet d’intellectualisation sonore, cette musique reste parmi les plus libres qui soient. Peut-être pas d’accès, même si chacun pourra à tout moment y pénétrer avec ses envies, et surtout ses propres fantasmes. Mais plutôt par l’extraordinaire explosion d’ingéniosité, de malice, d’intelligence, et d’humour même, qu’elle représente.

Déroutant mais tellement fascinant.

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

CHORA / QUIVERS split LP

Every Chora record is an adventure at the very least. This side (back in quartet lineup, same as Ruined Parabola) finds them in sax/percussion/whistle fight mode, which slowly transforms into a beautiful, dense rumination from the jungle canopy floor. Flutes, thumb piano and wood percussion swirl around and choke off the light. Great stuff, as usual. Quivers is a Brooklyn trio that plays in much more brittle forms, the standard guitar/bass/drums trio given a thorough reworking, pulling out of improvisation into something more mechanical and sinister. By the time their third track “Climbing” (part of a four-song suite about camping, called “Camping”) pulls in, they have shaken the bass down little more than a pulse, which anchors untenable, leaking noise and large, bowed objects in service of ideals with stress levels pinned. Every change is striking, every move precise. Great balance between these two groups, part of a new improv movement that’s definitely worth exploring. Doug Mosurock http://www.dustedmagazine.com/

Chora / Quivers, split LP

Two contemporary improv units from opposite sides of the Atlantic get a side each of long-playing vinyl to chew their way through here. Hailing from the UK, Chora expand their usual duo line-up of Rob Lye and Ben Morris to include Ben Nash and Karl Brummer, these four players borrowing deep into a single extended exploration of bowed drones and murky metallic scrape. Pursuing their own winding haunted-house course, they follow an eruption of agitated squall with a long mesmeric stretch of dark, primal magick. Divided into four shorter pieces of free-jazz rumpus Quivers’ contribution broils and simmers with a different kind of restless energy. Led by New York guitarist Ninni Morgia, along with Big Apple cohorts Jordon Schranz on upright bass and Mike Pride on drums, theirs is a terse bustle of electrical darts and disordered rhythms that starts off fractious but ultimately scores best with a spacious, more restrained mix of low-end warp and precise guitar deconstruction. - Andrew Carden, Rock-A-Rolla magazine Aug/Sep 2010

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

from Julian Cope’s Head Heritage...

Okay, now let’s move on to this month’s Vinyl-Only Reviews Section, starting with the molto meditative ice dramas of DIRTY POOL by guitarist Chris Forsyth and organist Shawn Edward Hansen. Released on Italy’s excellent Ultramarine Records (www.ultramarinerecords.com), DIRTY POOL delights in liberating hackneyed blues guitar flourishes by rendering them not as the accompaniment for some journeyman singer but re-contextualized as glorious epiphanies ringing out across Terry Rileyan organ drones. Like Henry Flynt’s glorious (and gloriously inauthentic) backporch blues, DIRTY POOL is a horribly more-ish hybrid, one that confidently unites the amphetamine over-reaching gymnastics of unaccompanied early T. Verlaine with the conservatory sedateness of Overhang Party, elsewhere imposing the droning starkness of Nico’s ‘It Was a Pleasure Then’ with Ry Cooder’s PARIS TEXAS soundtrack. Neither rural nor urban – yet defiantly unsuburban – DIRTY POOL occupies a highly useful between-time hinterland that has me spinning this vinyl again and again.

Final vinyl of this month has to go to those three unsane practitioners known as Amolvacy, whose sensational new album A LU LA LU is out now on Ultramarine Records (www.ultramarinerecords.com). I raved about their debut in my Drudion for May 2008CE, but this newbie nails the Amolvacy metaphor even more firmly to the mast. Imagine Dagmar Krause’s Art Bears attempting Longfellow’s ‘Hiawatha’ with just tuned percussion and traps; imagine sparsely orchestrating Jaki Leibezeit’s most overt drum-a-thons with ESG vocal escapades; imagine the tragic childlike ‘Loud Loud Loud’ monologue of 666-period Aphrodite’s Child interspersed with Muslim Gauzean drones; imagine all of this and you’ll maybe glimpse just one miniscule aspect of Amolvacy’s hefty and rigorous worldview. But then, I believe superb shamanic vocalist/priestess Sheila 16 could make a catchy chorus out of anything and soon have the world singing along. Kiddies, Amolvacy is one hell of an original proposition, and their new clear vinyl 12” record comes replete with that same beautiful die-cut packaging as their first offering. If you have limited funds with which to deploy sonic weaponry against your neighbours, make sure you pick A LU LA LU by Amolvacy!

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — –

Ninni Morgia Control Unit 2LP

Ultramarine