short notes on
short ideas, not necessarily small.
By Aeron Bergman
I grew to love
7" but I am behind the times. In college when all the kids
were collecting the latest emo core splits and noise boyz on collector
vinyl, the only 7" I owned was the moon landing flexidisc my
dad bought me in the 1970's. Even today the record player in our
house is quite bad, I had to force a bigger hole in the Rosy Parlane
and Mainpal Inv. 7"s because the vinyl quality was too good.
But overall, the short and dual nature of the siete pulgadas (as
the Spaniards call them), reminds me of life, and our constant need
to abridge.
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Short pop tracks:
depeche mode, broken hearts, bad equipment and bad taste. It maintains
a quality of vague origins, what is this? Why does it seem so commanding
and so passive at the same time? The cover makes me squirm a little,
a handsome little boy with the eyes cut out to reveal what was behind
the photo when it was scanned. I think it is Murray when he was
a kid.
Felix said his
fascination with Finland begins with a general description of the
Finnish character as being between Europe, Russia, and outerspace.
I have some Finnish blood in me (American mutt that I am), so Nokialand
has a mysteriously cold magnetism for me. The credits on the back
of this finely tailored Guaranteed Diskono Quality 7" mention
Franz Kafka's and Falk Klennert's cameos in the sailor choir featured
on the album. That hefty admission aside, the music is stupid style
rock and hamfisted organ playing, and I dont like it much. Although
I like this 7" as a whole, I'm not sure why.
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Anonymous 7"
unattainable text. Diskono. Scotland
Here we have a
clear vinyl beauty with no name on it. (Other than the label name.)
Diskono would like to avoid the name game and have us listen to
the sound with our ears instead of by reputation. They are speaking
to the music industry, fat chance the brickwall will hear. However,
they get the spirit award employee of the month for effort.
The record is made
by playing the runout grooves on another record. It sounds nice,
especially because this record player is not so hot, and adds sound
by itself. Side b is a bit more adventurous with the needle, a brief
bluegrass snatch (or something folksounding) repeats without regularity,
indicating the author may have been recording real-time and simply
picking up the needle whenever he or she felt like it.
The sounds in this
record are a little boring, unfortunately, made quickly like a scribble,
but the overall atmosphere of the oeuvre is great. I would like
to buy them all a round of pints.
Lasse Marhaug:
"One eye and watching". Melektronikk 02 7" Safe
As Milk. Oslo, Norway.
A live electronic
concert series, the two pieces combine performance tension with
the short composition space available on the 7" format. Although
it does not reach silence, it is not exactly noise, and hovers to
the left of music as well. I dislike the title "untitled"
as a rule, and here I would have liked some more guidance. The other
side titled, "one eye and watching", could somehow reference
Classical myth or perhaps Masonic imagery, but more likely not.
Narrative probably does not concern Marhaug. The record moves in
a measured, yet subtle meter that suggests worldly activity rather
than strict sound. A lovely piece really, especially the a-side
with its equal fractions and water movement. Oh, that's the kettle
boiling then...
=========================================
Tore Honore Boe
Solvstoy. (Opus for silver cutlery , magnetofon and neon light.)
Melektronikk 01 7" Safe As Milk.
Oslo, Norway
The photo on the
cover depicts Solvstoy on stage, kneeling in front of a small electronic
set up framed by small monitors, and ringed by cables. His performance,
and the piece on this 7" is a meditation on what a Norwegian
can do with some patience, some practice, and some contact mics.
It sounds like the title: cutlery and some buzzing. It moves slowly,
and sounds like a field recording of a kitchen in a country summer
house where no one speaks. I am convinced by the purpose, I am happy
about the atmosphere, I am also not listening very closely this
evening.
Jan Van Den Dobbelsteen.
"Trainsongs" , 7" Cosmic
Volume 14, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
A simple, luscious
and silly idea. Dobbelsteen sets up toy trains for exhibitions,
and then plays electronics overtop. This 7" is immediately
rewarding, and inspires youthful dreams of innocent travel without
consequences. At approximately one minute into both sides a and
b, he floats a slow ska track overtop, matching the 1,2,3,4 train
motion, and taking it further into the romance of armchair travel.
Of course, camp threatens to topple this illusion at any moment,
its simplicity remains clear, and the record plays its short ride
like a kids toycar at the supermarket that needs 50 cents to go
for three minutes. The cover is a mythical European landscape of
a medieval hamlet with a barely noticeable traintrack photoshopped
in a circle around the town. I like it a lot.
The first thing
I noticed about this series is color. Glorious cartoon color inside
and out. Pink vinyl, gray label, green and white cover, baby blue
vinyl, purple label, beige cover, lime green cover, smurf blue vinyl,
cafe con leche vinyl, cafe solo label...
Ekkehard Ehlers.
Plays Robert Johnson 7" Bottrop-Boy
7" B-Boy005
Side A is a house
track with a soul sample. Side B is guitar pasta. I don't like the
house track, and neither do I like the guitar scribbling, but I
like the combination of Side A and Side B very much. Because the
vinyl is pink, and the attitude seems playful, I hear an animated
dialogue between "serious" and "less serious"
music that is very attractive.
Ekkehard Ehlers.
Plays Cornelius Cardew 7" Bottrop-Boy
7" B-Boy010
Continuing with
his style changes, this work is a jubilant, perhaps slightly triste
watercolor using major chord progression and Cardew's background
toy noises. This music is more to my liking (purely subjective),
but again, in combination with Ehlers' other works it takes on striking
shape beyond genre. As a contemporary condition, the computer lends
its platform as a spring to combine personalities. Ehlers is as
free to explore several combinations of his tastes as anyone is
to own a Cardew record next to Moby. The satellite map on the back
of the record, of what I suspect is the English Channel, adds what
perhaps may be a dialogue on global communication, colonialism,
or perhaps is just a pretty picture.
Stylistically speaking,
this is an 80s electro-pop sketch on deep blue vinyl. I resent its
winning steps, especially on side a. But by side b, a manic yet
playful arpeggio of pop phrases melts the glossy consumerism built
on side a. Both these tracks could be commercial soundtracks, but
at least side b would be for a miracle anti-hairloss shampoo instead
of the Gap. It is enjoyable either way.
Rosenberg: Single
7" Bottrop-Boy 7"B-Boy006
Rosy Parlane and
Peter Rehberg make the darkest sounding contribution to the series,
and likewise, the vinyl is Dutch winter gray. Live improvisation
between two people who normally do not play together is crippled
at the start due to the dangerous meaninglessness that quickly impales
and bleeds down the legs of said meeting. (improv. purists can bite
me) This 7" treads dangerous ground without taking life so
seriously, and in the end, Pita's twisted harddrive puts sense and
short edits like quotation marks around bits of spontaneous conversation
sparked by two new friends at a pub. They are speaking the same
language, which helps keep it fluid. Then, just when you are getting
into what they are talking about, the guvnor rings last call and
everyone goes home.
Stephan Mathieu
{...} version 7" Bottrop-Boy
7" B-Boy007
Akira Rabelais
plays the piano and Mathieu makes notes in the margin. Baby blue
vinyl lies to the face of its nearly gothic content. Sad sad, nearly
dangerous music from a documentary about a mentally ill princess
during the Russian revolution, or just scratches surrounding a sleepless
night at the piano? The pauses are so tense that I hold still not
knowing when it finishes until the needle comes around back to its
housing.
A nastly little
record, but really quite sweet. Contains bits of the mega hit that
goes "sailing, take me away..." you know the one. This
remake contains some of the cheap formal romanticism found in the
original, yet its politics are front and center like a quarterback.
The quotations on the back cover are dead on. I doubt these are
real quotes, perhaps they are, but anyway each magazine exposes
its barely hidden agenda with a single line disguised as praise
for the very record that dishes critiques.
The Wire says "'selling' picks up where A-Muzak left off",
indicating that their finger is on the pulse, but they forgot to
pay attention and lost count, "oh, is that important?"
They might ask.
XLR8R goes for the 70's pop and turntable references to keep it
cool and easy for the Americans.
The computer music journal goes straight to the climax, dashing
precoital foreplay to the rocks, (like proper serious study should
do) "...implying a relationship between the formulaic content
of today's blandly formalist digital 'glitch' music and vacuous
canned corporate pop music."
And finally representing the cautious self-serving alliances and
backstabbing reactionary smug and snub of the English press, NME's
quote is the best: "WE LOVE IT- 'cross' our hearts!"
My question here is with sad reservation: but everything good goes
corporate no? Side B is called "soon I will be free" and
offers unspoken salvation from the circuit of evil. Critical yet
lush, take me away.
Dat Politics 7"
Bottrop-Boy 7" B-Boy002
The opening twisted
and exuberant chop-pop licks solidifies dat politics' representation
of democratic post pop tart. Imagine a EU finance ministers visiting
a French Poodle grooming mini-van. Part subsidized art, and part
sideshow acrobatics, these tracks seem to have been constructed
by throwing their laptops into a storage warehouse of toy animals
and then sneaking around back to record. Anthropomorphic and ready
to party, the sound of 20 years of birthday surprises gets squeezed
by a busy little mouse pack onto another record for us to wonder
in vain: what the hell?
Taking Russian
constructivist graphics and two ballad records from the 1960s nearly
up to date: not formal, but formally informal. An anniversary that
ends in a fight -- play that old tune again, light up a smoke and
finger the record as it goes around. There is some lipstick on the
vinyl, it is red vinyl. Watch out for the cake on your baby blue
lapel, it may give something away. What's that on the runout? A
harpsichord? But they don't play those in department stores anymore.
Elegant and mysterious, like everything should be.
Medieval wedding
music with a whammy bar. Madman, --not "crazy" or "messed
up", but a man who is upset. The more he learns about how things
work, the more he becomes upset, and the more he becomes upset,
the more attention he tries to suck towards himself, not out of
selfishness, but out of generosity. However, he doesn't realize
that people don't want to fix it, they are happy with it the way
it is. Using this music, and these labels, (this time mega electronics
giants Hitachi), demonstrates an inside longing to fix what he thinks
is broken. Actually, he wants to fix what is considered normal.
Kristian said he can sense people who want to act "messed up",
but who are normal on the inside vs. people who are actually "messed
up". This sensitivity is going to get him in trouble, but it
will also keep his conscious clear, for the ladies.
It is unclear who
made the actual tracks on this 7", because the label, as usual,
is marked with a system only known to the Goodiepal. The sound is
good and bad at the same time. It is boring and interesting at once.
It is dirty London and clean Copenhagen, and something from the
airplane ride in between.
=========================================
Rosy Parlane, "The
peetoom files" 7" Tonschacht
009 Cologne, Germany
Quite luscious.
Not funny, not stuffy either. It is too short, not because it needs
to be longer, but because I want to keep listening to it. (I'll
just put it back on... there.) A beep from a portable CD player
sets the meter and a guitar riff introduces a theme. The theme repeats
with growing tension and wind in the bellows. But then there is
no climax, a porno with no money shot. Rock with no release. It
sounds like a study on memorization, a circle that does not meet.
Side B is the cup of tea, summer sun pours in, and everything is
ready. Slight interruptions, cannot concentrate, tea is getting
cold, should I go outside to get some air? Feel dizzy when I stand
up, should sit back down. The TV switches itself on, the news starts
to talk about something bad. I pass out, the record stops.
EP "a good
bargain c/w hells bells" 7" Electric
Cafe. (supplied with bad alchemy magazine number 37), Germany
Side a is A field
recording of a man trying to sell everything in his shop. I think
he is Scottish. He seems to be selling junk, and just wont shut
up about it, he even made a little song with a preset on his keyboard.
It is quite sad. It is totally sad. What is happening in this man's
life that he needs to sell everything in his shop at "bargain"
prices? Side b is a drifting and quiet haunted box of ribbons. Nothing
jarring, no sharp points, but it goes straight under the skin anyway.
It moves at a pace not quite musical, quiet round sweeps reoccur,
but never repeat. I imagine this is the sound the man hears when
he closes his shop.