released March 10, 2024
In 2024, attenuation circuit continues its series of four-way split albums called THING. The aim is to provide a medium for exchange and presentation of a great variety of artists. As each artist spreads the copies to their network, listeners also get to know the other artists featured on the same disc. The title references the fact that the CDs are physical objects – things! – but also refers to the 'thing' or 'ding' in old Norse and other Germanic languages, which designates the place of a popular assembly or the assembly itself and thus alludes to the 'meeting-place' character of the albums on (or around) which the four artists and their audiences meet, if only virtually.
Issue number six in the THING series starts with a calm, melancholic, piano-based track by WHΛLT THISͶEY with an almost Satie-like flavour: musique d'ameublement as ambient music in the original sense, so to speak. The following track by The Phlod-Nar is also piano-based, but with a more tense, pulsating character. This restless mobility is something that also characterises track three, by el_masmore, but here the dominant timbre is glitchy electronics. The fourth and final track by Claus Poulsen is a more droney piece of electronica, starting off with a sharp siren-like sound, which over the course of the piece calms down to something like foghorns, organs, or perhaps whales. With this tranquil ending, the album comes full circle at the end of a sonic journey through different atmospheres.
File under: electronica, ambient, drone
-----
BAD ALCHEMY
Die sechste Ausgabe der AC-Reihe THING (ACUF 1006) vereint WHΛLT THISИEY in Lissabon mit Randolf Smeets alias The Phlod-Nar, der, aus den Niederlanden stammend, sich in Belgien klanglich von Ambient über Pärt bis zu Plunderphonie und zappaesker Xenochronie auffächert; mit Jesús Alfaro alias el_masmoreund seiner Vergangenheit mit Líder y los Damnificados schon in den 80ern (?) und einem schwer überschaubaren Horizont von kuriosem Elektropop bis zu surrealem Postindustrial in Marbella; und mitClaus Poulsen in Kopenhagen mit seinem ABC von Alarm 112, Blind Man's Band, CAM über Star Turbine zurück zu Eardrops. Den Auftakt macht 'Dreams are the seedlings of realities' mit seinem trefflichen Plural 'realities' und für Fernando Cerqueira typischer Wehmut durch verstaubten Pianosound, der auf verzerrten Dröhnwellen dahindriftet und dabei pingend die Staubdecke durchstößt. 'Nadie se conoce' tastet schwammig-monoton und klimpert ebenfalls nostalgisch auf Pianotasten, in elektronischer Stereophonie bezischelt. Dass der Pianist wechselte, fällt kaum auf. Auch zu 'illuminated' gelingt ein gleitender Übergang, durch zitternde Wellen, verzerrte rhythmische Vorwärtsbewegung und keyboardistischen Klingklang, der funkelnd dahinsprudelt. 'Vertical horizon' bringt sirenenartig sirrende und heulende Sounds über einer bebenden Sinuswelle und ganz leise gedämpften Beat. Der Alarm senkt sich und verstummt, zittrig bohrende Impulse bleiben, als schwirrende Ufos und pulsende Nachwehen des Alarms, der nun wieder hoch glissandiert, in sich zittert, wabert und als uuu pulst, von drahtigem Klang umhallt, bis zum statischen Ausklang.
www.badalchemy.de
-----
VITAL WEEKLY
Also on the same label, there’s another instalment of ‘Thing’, an ongoing four-way CDR compilation series, and this is number six. I didn’t count, nor did I look at older reviews. I just took Attenuation Circuit’s word for it. Of the four, el_masmore is the one I never heard of, The Phlod-Nar I recently reviewed, Walt Thisney a few times and from Claus Poulsen i reviewed a lot of music. Walt Thisney opens here (I am not going to try and recreate the way they spell their name), and they have a piece with a slightly distorted guitar drone, on the brink of distortion, but beneath that, there is some melancholic piano playing. While the label refers to Erik Satie, that’s a bit too far fetched, as it’s just a lot of piano sound drenched in reverb. The contrast works quite well. We find more piano in the piece by The Phold Nar, but this time without any distortion. The piano is the primary instrument in this piece, played melodcially and improvised, so the player is sometimes lost here. There’s a bit of colouring of sound effects, and towards the end, there is way more electronica in the way of sound effects going out of control. That broke off the piece for me.
We have to write el_masmore (all lowercase), behind which we find “Jesús Alfaro, sound experimenter and composer. This heterodox musician based in Marbella, Spain, began his experiences with a Korg MS10, later incorporating classical and electric guitar into his works”. His ‘Illuminated’ is a lighter piece of more improvised electronics, evolving around a few sound sources, and it sounds delicate but perhaps also too easy, as if it can’t decide which direction to go. Claus Poulsen, I know, is a man of many talents, and improvising with electronic means is one of them. He, too, works with drones of organ-like variety, and they have a shepherd-tone quality, that seemingly never-ending cycle. His piece seems to be about transforming similar sounds, taking them apart over time, and deconstructing them. The best out of four, but taste is subjective.
www.vitalweekly.net/number-1429/
