Les Rallizes Denudes – “The Oz Tapes” – [Temporal Drift]

Louie Caliente   2/13/2023   12-inch, A Library

Previously unreleased live recordings from legendary Japanese emperors of heavy psych.

The OZ House was a cafe and performance space in Kichijoji neighborhood of Tokyo that existed for only a year, where Les Rallizes Denudes were regulars. These tracks were recorded in 1973, and kept in storage for almost 50 years. They shed new light on this enigmatic band and their notorious sound.

Unlike many of their poorly-recorded bootlegs, the OZ Tapes is not a feedback-soaked wall of distortion (except for the brief opening track). While I do enjoy the muddy lo-fi soup that the band is known for, the tracks here capture more nuance and a range of emotions that their other albums lack. The tracks here are warm with reverb, not fried. Feedback is present, but not all-encompassing. Instrumentation is actually discernible.

“The Last One” is an epic psych rock jam, the centerpiece of the album, and you get two takes of it (B1, D1). “Wilderness of False Flowers” (A3) and “Vertigo Otherwise My Conviction” (C2) are also solid high-energy freak-outs. Other tracks are prettier, mellower, and even melancholy at times. I don’t speak a word of Japanese, but the nostalgic “Memory is Far Away” (C1) makes me tear up every time I listen.

Brovold, Bill – “Stone Soup, The Michael Goldberg Variations” – [Public Eyesore]

Louie Caliente   2/11/2020   A Library, CD

All the tracks in this soup are made from the same stone: four sparse notes plucked on a clattering, slightly detuned acoustic guitar. The recording of these scattered notes was given to 12 different musicians who each add to the sound in their own way.

Brovold’s minimalist guitar work maintains center-stage through all the tracks, and most retain the drony spacey feel of the original, though all have a unique perspective. Rhys Chatham (T3) augments the guitar with meditative chants and whistles. Fred Lonberg-Holm (T4) turns it it into a kinetic blissful sun salutation. Franz Shultz (T7) adds twangy steel guitar. Karen Haglof (T10) creates soothing psychedelic explorations. Probably the most unique of the bunch is the pairing of guitar with punchy beats and percussive grinds from Leonardo ProtoPeople (T5)

The album is inspired by Bach’s Goldberg Variations (composed of an aria and 30 variations), and a folk tale wherein an entire village contributes small ingredients each to a pot that originally contained nothing but a stone, yielding a delicious soup.

The album is hand-printed and colored by Brovold.

Barriga, Rodrigo – Silere/Continuo

Louie Caliente   1/21/2020   A Library, CD

Rodrigo Barriga is a Mexican composer who studied at Mills College. His work focuses on improvisation, communication, and openness. Silere/Continuo contains three new performances of his early works. The mood is seriously avant-garde, but playful and rooted equally in rock, jazz, and classical.

Continuo (T1) is a piece for voice trio, exploring harmony and resonance. Soaring acrobatics, shifting pitches, sustained gurgles, and raspberry trills.

Silere (T2-T5) features Barriga on electric bass alongside with electric guitar and drums. These pieces have lots of space in them and can take a while to warm up (many start with near silence), but they are well worth the wait. Quiet, accidental sounds flutter, slowly gathering momentum Cohesive grooves emerge abruptly out of thin air, but somehow remain intangible, and melt away before your ears.

Continuo (T6) again features Barriga on electric bass, this time paired with a trio of electric guitars. Collective concret noodling. Psychedelic time warps.

Eight Trails, One Path [coll] – [Three Lobed Recordings]

Louie Caliente   12/10/2019   12-inch, A Library

Infinite sounds from finite fingers. Eight tracks of solo acoustic guitar, put out by Three Lobed Recordings for Record Store Day 2012.

Some highlights: (A1) Alvarius B.’s toe-tapping American Primitive with a Cairo flair. (A2) The Lush, intricate picking from William Tyler. (A4) A sonic bath from Six Organs of Admittance, layering warm tones over distant vocals that slowly come in to focus. (B1) Steve Gunn’s raga trance that builds on repetition into a full-fledged jam. (B4) Closing out the album is Sir Richard Bishop, as expressive and energetic as always.

Spykes & Parashi – Braille License Plates For Sullen Nights [Radical Documents]

Louie Caliente   11/6/2019   7-inch, A Library

Warbly psyjazz sax-skronk and multifarious electro-fuckery from Spykes (John Olson) and Parachi (Mike Griffin).

Loops and feedback from unreliable equipment. Scraping strings and buzzy tones soaked in deep echos. Disordered and discombobulating.

Both sides end in locked grooveys.

Curley, Sean – Empire State Observatories 3 [Opuscula Records]

Louie Caliente   10/29/2019   12-inch, A Library

Experimental aquatic-themed drones from Seattle guitarist Sean Curley (also a member of New Weather).

Empire State Observatories 3 is inspired by long walks on the beach and somber oceanic suicides. Dramatic explorations of murky Titanic depths, with only fleeting shimmers of sunlight to remind you of the surface far above. Moments of calm stillness yield to powerful undercurrents of throbbing resonance. A1, A2, and B2 are guitar-based, while B1 is comprised of more synthy oscillations, bobbing in the surf, anchored in deep low-frequency rumbles.

Johnson, Chuck – "Balsams" – [Sruti Music]

Louie Caliente   10/8/2019   A Library, CD

Pedal steel guitar drones from this Oakland-based guitarist.

Ambient Americana. Warm flowing ethereal twang.

Perfect for unwinding after a raucous Reverb Hour.

Eleh – "Living Space" – [Touch]

Louie Caliente   9/24/2019   A Library, CD

Space-filling, mind-healing sound baths. Introspective and uplifting. Suitable for headphones and cathedrals alike.

Deep room-rattling hums. Microtonal tweaks and binaural bounces. Subsonic subconscious vibrations.

Minimal pulsating drones that evolve on a human time-scale. Glacial, not geological.

Explorations in resonance and repetition, featuring synthesizers, piano, organ, bass and chimes.

La Danza Del Agua [coll] – [Discrepant]

Louie Caliente   9/10/2019   12-inch, A Library

A compiltion of modern experimental music from South America.

Artists from Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia & Venezuela build on tradition, using cumbia beats, folk flutes, and exotic latin rhythms. But the focus is purely modern, with synthy instrumentation, electronic beats, and soundscapes. Everything is very creative, playful and highly listenable.

These tracks were originally released on a larger compilation from the Argentinian Papaki records, which is available online in the Free Music Archive. The original album featured 38 artists across two volumes (both cassette). Discrepant out of the UK focused things down to just 12 tracks and released on vinyl.

A1. Space age synths and binaural Peruvian flute.

A2. Electro-cumbia. Dancy and hypnotic.

A3. Shimmering day-dreamy guitar. Heavy on the echo.

A4. Digital congas and saw-tooth slaps and lazer zaps.

A5. Hyper latin rhythms and surf guitar. Reverb-hour approved! Wish it was longer.

A6. Concret sound exploration. Blissful drones mix with crunchy loops and aquatic scraping sounds.

B1. Distorted pop debris. Distant, scratchy and beautiful.

B2. Solo percussion drips and drops. Rhythms appear, evolve, and return to emptyness.

B3. Folk drones for horns and percussion.

B4. Whistling flute and marching-band drum groove.

B5. Thumping bass-heavy electro beats with spanish spoken-word.

B6. Abstract digital cosmic soundscapes.

Knurl – “Nervescrap” – [Pure]

Louie Caliente   6/11/2019   A Library, CD

Walls on walls on walls of noise. Blistering, full-spectrum, ear-piercing, colon-clenching noise. Bottomless layers of samples, static, and screeches combine to an overwhelming chaos that fills every second of this album.

Knurl is Toronto-based experimental musician Alan Bloor. He avoids synthesizers digital sounds, instead using found objects such as fan blades, typewriters, scrap metal and car springs to create music that is completely devoid of rhythm, melody, vocals, and production quality.

Released in 1994, Nervescrap is Knurl’s second album (after Initial Shock). First a self-produced cassette, it was later released on Pure Records, the budget imprint subsidiary of RRR.

Refree – “La Otra Mitad” – [Glitter Beat]

Louie Caliente   5/22/2019   12-inch, International

Modern Flamenco explorations from Spanish composer, producer, and musician Raül Fernandez Miró, aka Raül Refree. Intricate acoustic and electric guitars — often looped and delayed — mix with spiritual vocal incantations and subtle street recordings.

Songs blend elements of jazz, classical, experimental, and folksy singer/songwriter styles. Most of the songs were composed as a soundtrack to the the film “Entre Dos Aguas”, while the others seem to be spontaneous improvisations. While quite varied, the whole album is very peaceful and calming, with the exception of “Flamencos Negros” (B-2) which layers traditional Flemenco with harsh stabs and deep static drones.

Moor, Andy / Kyriakides, Yannis – “Rebetika” – [Unsounds]

Louie Caliente   5/13/2019   CD, International

Rebetika is a type of Greek folk music dating back to the Ottoman Empire, popular in coffee shops, hashish dens, and prisons of the era. Lyrics often describe crime, drink, drugs, poverty, prostitution, and violence. The music is traditionally played on the bouzouki, a Greek instrument with Turkish roots, and can be accompanied by voice, accordion, cymbals, and a variety of other stringed instruments.

Here we have modern re-interpretations of 9 classical Rebetika songs for guitar and electronics from Andy Moor (The Ex) and Cypriot composer and sound artist Yannis Kyriakides. Almost all were recorded live.

Moor’s intricate guitar picking is sampled, layered, and looped. The Greek influence is pervasive, but Kyriakides’ electronic treatment takes it in entirely new directions. Traditional tunes melt into heavy drones. Notes and phrases are deconstructed into sparse collages, then congeal under their own weight into stuttering glitchy rhythms, harkening back to the urban nightlife where this music first took shape. Faint vocal samples (also Greek) heighten the dramatic tension on a few tracks, more like memories of vocals rather than vocals themselves. Love, joy, and sorrow.

Deadbeat and Camara – “Trinity Thirty” – [Constellation]

Louie Caliente   4/16/2019   A Library, CD

Deadbeat (Scott Monteith) and Fatima Camara are Canadian electronic musicians now living in Berlin. Here, the duo have taken on the almost scarily ambitious project of re-envisioning one of the most iconic albums of all time: Cowboy Junkies The Trinity Sessions.

2 years in the making, and released 30 years after the original, Trinity Thirty strips down the already-sparse sound to the bare bones, and the song’s tempos are slowed almost to the breaking point. Wistful ethereal vocals hover over minimal dubby beats and tranquilizing synth drones. The mood is somber and even haunting at times.

The Trinity Sessions was famously recorded around a single microphone in inside Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity, which gave the album a unique sense of space and acoustics. Trinity Thirty, recorded at Berlin’s Studio Chez Cherie, similarly emphasizes wide open spaces, solitude, and emptiness, moods further enhanced by the mastering work of Stefan Betke (aka Pole).

Houser, Dylan – “Dismal King / Dreary” – [Self-released]

Louie Caliente   4/15/2019   A Library, CD

Guitar and found-sound oddness from Floridian Dylan Houser. It’s a two-EPs-in-one-CD kinda thing, combining recordings from late 2018 and 2019, all recorded and released directly by the artist.

Dismal King is spontaneous solo guitar compositions, looped and layered. Lo-fi but not too soupy, and with just enough distortion to take the edge off. A wide range of styles and moods on display, starting with the introspective and melancholy “Spring Vein” (T1). Things quickly ramp up to the propulsive “Dismal King” (T2) and the positively shredding “Locust Driver” (T3). We mellow out a bit (just a bit) with the psychedelic “Molting Riviera” (T4) and wrap up with an extended crunchy synth noise jam on “Tinker Galute” (T5), the only non-guitar piece on the EP.

Dreary is harder to categorize. It begins with “Lungform Deth Radio” (T6) a schizophrenic field recording collage featuring spoken word and the sounds of proper dental hygiene. The following track “Sarcophagus in Orbit” (T7) is more spaced-out improvised guitar work. The last three songs are rich synth drones with varying amounts of noise (T8, T10) and cheese (T9).

Mamarracho – “Fifty-Nine” – [Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers]

Louie Caliente   3/26/2019   7-inch, A Library

Mamarracho are Shobu and Fuyuhiko Saitoh, two Japanese brothers and both former members of The Gerogerigegege. According to the liner notes, Shobu is the “young captain with false sportsmanship”, while Fuku is the “eternal bench warmer”.

“Fifty-Nine” is a banana-yellow baseball-themed 7″ with four aggressive tracks. A joint release on Destroy All Music and Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers.

Hunt The Sluggers (A-1) and Camping For Victory (B-1) are face-smashing thrashy grindcore. Big walls of distortion, squealing feedback, and real drums! Both have vocals (of sorts), although they are completely unintelligible, and in the case of Camping, sound like the microphone was swallowed before recording.

Next Generation Of H.H.S. (B-2) is traditional Japanese power electronics. Quasar blasts, machine gun static, electro-squiggles, and radio tuners. For me, Deformed Uniform (A-2) is the stand-out track. A hypnotic bass line with K-hole beats and an electronic edge. Slow and sludgy.

Minimal Technology – “Play – Musica Para Videoinstalaciones 1991 – 1993” – [Hueso Records]

Louie Caliente   2/26/2019   12-inch, A Library

Minimal Technology is an avant-garde trio from Santiago Chile that formed in the early nineties. They explored new forms of video art and sound sculptures, and performed only twice, both times at the University of Chile.

Tell Me What Will Happen Today (B-2) contains the recording of one of their performances, which was accompanied by a video installation. Traditional rhythmic percussion and flute mixes with chopped samples and slow throbbing synth waves.

The other two tracks were recorded and released in Tokyo on Kino Mitsouko’s record label Dinn International. Listen to this Example (A-1) consists of cut-up fragments of English and Spanish dialogue over a repetitive bass riff, mechanistic clicks and whirs, and what sounds like a dot-matrix printer. Se Armó La Rosca (B-1) is an experimental turntable piece that scratches and mixes a variety of Spanish music at different speeds, both forwards and backwards.

Bloland, Per – “Chamber Industrial” – [Tzadik]

Louie Caliente   2/26/2019   A Library, CD

Per Bloland studied music composition at Stanford and now teaches at Miami University. He often composes for an electromagnetically-prepared piano of his own design. The piano has a series of electromagnets placed along different strings, each of which can be driven by audio signal. This allows the timbre, sustain, and dynamics of each note to be controlled, and enables new type of resonance and feedback.

Chamber Industrial contains 5 works for chamber ensemble inspired by a variety of literary works and performed by The Ecce Ensemble. Moods are tense and suspenseful, contrasting delicate flutes and bells with the discordant growls produced by the sax, double-bass, and piano. Bloland evokes the energy of industrial music through abrasive, distorted textures and simple motifs. The electromagnetically-prepared piano is featured on T4, while T2 and T4 are purely acoustic.

Mineta, Tetsu – #4 – [Union Pole]

Louie Caliente   2/11/2019   A Library, CD

Tetsu Mineta is a Japanese guitarist and singer. He’s a member of the rock group “Both Cheese”, but here he’s solo with an acoustic guitar and tape recorder. As the album title implies, this is his fourth release, all on cassette.

Most of the album is slow, soothing, lo-fi acoustic guitar work layered over quiet beds of tape recorder hum, indiscernible distant rustles, and occasional backwards instrumentation (T2, T6). Fahey-esque at times, but shrouded in a mysterious opium haze. “Nova E.x.P.” (T4) is a rich, blissful stoned-out guitar drone.

The first track, “Moshpitloser”, is unlike the rest. A quick rhythmic percussion riff featuring bongos, toms, cymbals, and a cowbell played faster and faster until the whole thing blasts off like a spaceship.

Maioli, Walter / Gales, Fred / Piccinelli, Pit – Amazonia 6891- [Black Sweat Records]

Louie Caliente   2/4/2019   A Library, CD

Semi-synthetic fantasy field recordings from the heart of the Amazonian rain-forest. Accurate, intricate, and immersive.

Recordings of real Amazonian animals and artifacts mix with electronics, drums, and reeds — all faithfully mimicking a dense jungle. Birds chirp, cackle, and caw. Insects hummm. Rain drops puddle and splash. Distant tribes sing and dance, engaged in a mysterious ritual.

Amazonia 6891 was recorded in 1985, after Italian artist and composer Walter Maioli crossed paths with ethnographer Pit Piccinelli and his collection of South American artifacts. Maioli recorded their sounds and later shared them with anthropologist and electronic musician Fred Gales. The two musicians performed a 30-minute live mix of jungle and electronic sounds, a work that was then released on cassette via Sound Reporters records. This new 2016 CD edition is from Italy’s Black Sweat label.

Track 1 is the main event: a 30-minute visceral Amazonian jungle experience. Overwhelming growth. Overwhelming fornication.

Track 2 contains all the raw recordings that were used as material for the first piece. A listing of the exact sounds and their sources can be found inside. Although it is less “composed” than Track 1, it still manages to flow nicely, and is a compelling and interesting listen the whole way through.

Wai Fat, Chan – Foo Cup Kwan Nan (Hardly Breathing) – [Fatsound]

Louie Caliente   1/29/2019   A Library, CD

Chan Wai Fat is a self-taught musician and composer from Hong Kong. He’s been active since the late 80s, playing in a number of noise-rock bands before later focusing on totally free improvisation. He is the founder of CIMG (Collective Improvisational Music Group), and has performed with John Zorn, Yamatsuka Eye, Fred Frith, and many others.

Foo Cup Kwan Nan (Hardly Breathing) is Wai Fat’s debut solo recording, released in 1996. Here he plays a variety of stringed instruments, including prepared guitar, Hawaiian steel guitar, octavilla (a 14-string Spanish instrument), and a damaged cello. All tracks are completely improvised and recorded direct to DAT, with “no overdub, remix, synthesizers, or pre-recorded samples.”

The center-piece of the album is the “12 Pieces for Prepared Acoustic Guitar” (T5-T16) which feature beautifully sparse and delicate guitar strumming and tinkering, as well as a few more “accidental” sounds. Wai Fat evokes similar peaceful moods with his pentatonic plucking on the Hawaiian steel guitar (T2) as well as on the octavilla (T20). There are some nice drones here as well — “Miles Away” (T3) is probably my favorite on the whole album. The final (listed) track “Songbird: Variation on a Theme by Kenny G” (T21) features the most energetic — often frenetic — noodling (again on the octavilla) with no discernible sign of Kenny G.

DJs TAKE NOTE:
1) The first track ends with the sounds of a skipping CD player. Do not panic, the CD is fine. I actually really recommend this one.
2) The final track (T22) is not listed in the liner notes, and is almost completely SILENT, except for the sound of the tape recorder, very distant birds, and an occasional footstep.