review: CTI - CORE "A Conspiracy International Project" (1988)

This was one of my post-Skinny Puppy "first" exposure to more ambient-abstract-experimental music (this could have been around the time I was also exposed to Of Tanz Victims). A friend of mine had bought this record principally for it being a Netwerk release, and we were very much Netwerk supporters back in the day, and our hunger for more material seemed unsatisfiable. I admit that I was generally completely unaware of most if not all of the "collaborators" on this release, save for Chris and Cosey, and that was by name principally and maybe one or two compilation tracks (I wasn't even aware they were members of Throbbing Gristle nor aware of Throbbing Gristle at all!). Over the years many people have claimed that the efforts of all people involved in this release were sub-par, a mere "shadow" of what they all were capable of either individually or collectively. However to my untrained ears, these pièces sounded bright, clean, and helped to open up my point of view and appreciation for this "different" type of music.

The opening track "Feeder" featuring Coil as collaborators was my first introduction to Coil, a band I would soon learn to appreciate and love quite a bit for a few years. Starting off with a little piano riff which slowly morphs into what could easily pass as a film soundtrack for a while until it again transforms into a rhythmic piece complete with muddled spoken words, reverb, effects, and some other louder elements, until it simmers back down to it's earlier soundtrack-phase and piano riff. To this day I do believe this remains my favorite track from this album, and served as my first teaser introduction to Coil.


Track two "Trapezoid" which features John Duncan and Joe Potts is where the album stats getting it's more ambient/abstract sound. Completely unfamiliar with Duncan or Potts, I could not judge this piece on any merrit except for what it stood for: it's self. Later on I would familiarize myself a little more with some of the works by John Duncan, but that's a different story.


Anomaly number one is the third piece "FutureShock" which features
Monte Cazzaza, another unknown name for me at the time who brings us the closest to a beat-oriented single off of the album. Mixing what I would then call C+C (Chris & Cosey) synthetic brass chords and a driving disco-industrial beat, "Futureshock" was a sort-of high point for me at the time, but as I started appreciating the abstract and experimental a bit more later on, the piece started to feel more like a filler of the era, a representation of the times. Maybe this was one of those contractual obligations from the record company who insisted on having at least one semi-radio-friendly track from the LP?

Side two starts off with what I consider the second anomaly from the album, the track called "Unmasked" featuring Robert Wyatt, and Cosey Fanni Tutti on lead vocals. It is essentially more or less another C+C track with synthetic voice-like keyboards, meant to take this track more into the low-fi, slow lounge pseudo-cabaret-like flavor it is going for. Even when I tried to re-listen to it years later, I still could not appreciate it to what the artists involved probably wanted it to be...


Second off side B is "Over Abyss", a collaboration with none other that Lustmord (Brian Williams). I grew to appreciate some of Lustmord's work, starting from "The Monstrous Soul" up until "Metavoid", where I thought he was going too much into that Caul category of cinematic-like string music, almost goth-ish in general tone. For anyone vaguely familiar with Lustmord's work, this has his deffinitie touches all over it!


Next up the track "Guest + Host = Ghost" featuring the semi-legendary Boyd Rice, remembered for along of his odd experimental lock grooves vinyl releases, and for his project NON. I remember being introduced to the world of NON and Rice one afternoon over at Pierre Martel(RIP)'s house on the South short in early-mid 90s when he made me discover an incredible amount of trully underground and obscure stuff. Anyway, back then I was unfamiliar with Rice, but this is amongst some of his lesser-abrassive material which fits perfectly within the parameters of this release!

We end our entire ordeal of Madness with a track entitled "Core", featuring everyone on this album, and thus is it credited to the name of CTI. This is what you would expect when you mix all these ingrédients into the melting pot (except the rhythm-based structures of "Futureshock" and "Unmasked") and does have a quality of being both somewhat well constructed as well as a blueprint for a possibly longer offering, but it feels just right as is.


On the CD re-issue I bought years later I noticed very subtle low-volume sounds and arrangements during the end and beginnings of some of the pièces, something which was mostly lost in the vinyl record (probably due to poor sound reproduction). It helps to explain why at times it felt as though there was a minute-long break in between songs from the LP. Anyway, again not an end-all-be-all album for everyone, but the excellent production quality and "general" focus of each piece serves as a good disc to have in your collection. Now if you consider this a "compilation" album or a stand-alone release is up to you.

review: PANASONIC's "Osasto" EP

As with my previous review of Vromb's "Jeux De Terre", this isn't so much a classic review format as it is a retrospective of that first initial exposure to the band via this release, in a part of my life which has greatly influenced my own musical tastes. Much like Vromb, Panasonic went on to being one of my favorite musical outfits and a great influence on me, even though I was never able to remotely even come close to their type(s) of sound save for my 2017 homage album to Mika Vainio (RIP) and two pièces to ReCyClor's second and final album, "Aborted Before Baptism",

It all began on one night in summer in the mid-90s. I was now Spike's second-in-command for his radio show Lunadic Wax on CKUT, on Tuesdays-Wednesdays 2am to 5am. He would cover the first half with more techno and beats while I would soothe and change things up for the second half, with more weird and experimental stuff. I would more often than not take the last buses and métros from the South shore (I still lived there in those days) and arrive at CKUT around midnight or so, and would spend the time either hanging out and listening to Gordon's own show from 00h00am to 2h00am, or prepare my portion of the show, or just loudge around the studios, going through their various libraries of records and CDs (and even tapes).

On this particular night, I was setting up for my portion of the show and Gordon had left me this Strange looking record. At first I thought it was some kind of stereo test record from the electronics company Panasonic, and I asked him about it just before he left. He just said "Listen to it I think you could enjoy it", not divulging any additional info about the contents of the record. I set it aside as I had to do my show, and when 5am came around and the next radio host would come in (ah Donald my man, we had our moments of chilling out didn't we?), I went into a listening booth, dead tired and red-eyes and gave this record a spin. I did not even listen to the whole thing that I knew I had to get this as soon as possible as it trully resonated with me on a level I could not verbally express at the time. And so I went back home (on the South shore), slept a few hours, and upon my wakening, I returned downtown to Montréal and went to a music store (back when we still had record shops!) and found a copy of "Osasto" on vinyl, which I picked up without a moment's hesitation. And from that moment forward, I was hooked, a dedicated fan of the band, and subsequently their solo and side projects!

Panasonic's "Osasto" EP is a very good introductory point to anyone who was not familiar with the band at the time. Released after their debut "Vakio" (when Ilpo and Mika were also with Sami Salo, who left shortly afterwards) and just before the album "Kulma", it offered four distinct pièces which captured the band's sound and would help prepare any one not already versed in their music to what was to come. Opening up with the very representative "Uranokemia", which is essentially a self-evolving piece of basic rhythm and sounds, alongside synthetic noise scrapes. Next up is "Telako", a very repetitive basic rhythm device, complete with fuzz, hums, and a generally dense and thick electronic noise wall. the B side starts off with "Parturi", a welcome change of pace with a softer approach and slightly syncopated/disjointed rhythm structure. We close off the EP with an oddly effective kicker of a track, "Murto" - It almost sounds like it could be a minimal dancefloor killer if any type of club hosting this brand of brutal beats ever existed, evolving into an increasingly intense fuzz wall until at one point someone just stops the beat, and everything return to quiet to hear the sound of the record needle on the grooves of the record. A few years ago I re-purchased this EP on CD format, but kept the record due to it's strong impact on my own musical evolution. As I said, I have been a fan ever since!

review: VROMB's "Jeux De Terre - Lieu Et Matiere"

Anyone who knows me and the music I started doing in the early-mid 90s knows that Vromb was Nothing short but THE inspiration in my abstract evolution in music. Not so much a review of his amazing debut album on the now defunct Bâtaar Records (RIP Pierre Martel, on s'ennui de toi et on ne t'oubliera jamais), but a recollection of that initial exposure and how it influenced me in my next musical evolution (of the era)

Once in a while, a CKUT DJ who had a late night radio show (the worst time imagineable: 2am to 5am!) would have his second half of the show partner / co-host cancel, and he would ask his then girlfriend to bring in weirdo noise music to fill in the gap after his own set(s). On one particular occasion, I had arrived with about a good half-hour's worth of music for a set, although back in those days I really really did not have much in terms of obscure dark ambient noise material, so I really worked with what I had. When arriving at the radio station, she had her own set pretty much ready and one disc she had was Vromb's debut album ("Jeux de Terre - Lieu et Matiere"), and I was fascinated by the look of the release. The design and illustrations were quite impressive and I was equally thrown off balance when I heard the "music" on the CD. This was, at the time, exactly what I was looking for in terms of experimental electronics/noise music.

The real blow was when I saw that this release was not just Canadian in origin ("Canadians make this kind of music?"), but also Québécois ("Quebequers make this kind of music?") but locally sourced: Vromb was from Montréal, and Pierre Martel who ran Bâtaar Recs was on the South shore, where I lived at the time as well! Insert explicit foul language used in incredulous positive surprise, they make this kind of music in Montréal and these parts? Needless to say that it opened my eyes and sparked in me the idea of starting my own label of similarly themed music. In fact, for petty much all my life since that time, I basically wanted to sound like Vromb, and would indeed start to grasp some form of basic understanding of his Genius with ARCHangel's 1994 "Skulking" release, specifically the two tracks on side 2, "Sedentary" and "Kerosine".

"Jeux De Terre" flows like a concept album, with it's centralized theme of a micro universe living alongside our own, the insect world and the "bowel" movements of our own earth underneath our feet, the soil of the planet as a form of living entity, part of the greater whole. It starts with a prologue, moves into a short introductory trilogy, explores some contaminations, has an intermission, continues forth with more sonic adventures, and ends with a long, calming, peaceful outro which closes the first chapter of this one man's long audio Journey. To purists, this debut remains his best release due to the lack of straighforward rhythms and such, as Vromb would simultaneoulsy evolve and re-invent himself with almost every single release, never really repeating himself save for making additions and addendums to projects and concepts.

I was lucky to have purchased one of the first prints/editions of the original Bâtaar Recs release in 1993/1994, and more recently (2018) purchased the Ant-Zen re-release due to the inclusion of a previously unreleased track from around the era. I have been and remain a dedicated Vrom fan and follower, making sure that I try to "collect" (for appreciation purposes, not as a collectability) everything he has done, which is more than one imagines since he has done collaborations and compilations throughout the years. 2019 marks the 25th anniversary of me being a fan of Vromb, and there is no sign of wavering any time soon!

Great album covers: Christoph Heemann/Merzbow "Sleeper Awakes On The Edge Of The Abyss"

Yes I know these posts are getting redundant and quite boring, but I thought I would do these things just to keep my sanity in the workplace. I've always been a fan of Christoph Heemann's stuff as a solo artists, to varying degrees of appreciability of course, and I do have a little spot for Merzbow as well, since amongst some of his most intense and dare I say almost unlistenable material, he does have intriguing moments. This one-shot collaboration where Christoph would work over material donated by Merzbow, is a true gem of the genre. It is what a meeting of two extremes in the realm of abstraction and what has transpired over a small amount of time. Not for everyone, and many do feel it is more of a hype than an actual good release, "Sleeper Awakes On The Edge Of The Abyss" remains in my permanent collection to this day after having purchased it upon it's original release.

You can clearly see Christoph's influence on the artwork. In fact, Heemann seems to follow a specific "pattern" of sorts when he designs his releases' covers, as well as those by other artists and collaborations, such as the fantastic Mimir project. So it is not always easy to choose an album cover by Heemann which stands out from the rest, but when I stopped myself just to give it a thought, this one popped into my mind instantaneously.

If you can find a copy of this album for yourself, I recommend it although as I said, it isn't for everyone, since it isn't noise enough for the purist Merzbow fans, and it isn't as "quiet" as your average Heemann sound. It's neither dead air drone ambience nor harsh noise; it is simply elements of both extremes and worked in a way that seems to inspire what the title suggests: a slumbering state between consciousness and the dream-world, with moments of being brought back to reality and others when you lose track of when and where you are.

Great album covers: Einstürzende Neubauten ‎"Kollaps" (1981)

Although the front cover itself is NOT what I wanted to showcase for this post about good looking album covers (in my opinion) - see below:

... it is actually the BACK cover of this album which I find more interesting:

Many of course make the parallels with the infamous Pink Floyd "Ummagumma" album cover which, about a decade or so earlier, had a similar thematic of having their instruments laid down on the pavement next to a tour bus (or Something like that). I was mostly unaware of Pink Floyd's experimental album back in the day so I couldn't actually do a comparisson with this back cover. All I knew is that for some reason this spoke to me and make it rather more impressive to show the band's then primitive and DIY noise objects used in their recordings. Of course, the music on their first official release was very difficult and quite primitive (lacking any type of lush production), but it worked well considering these guys were amongst the first "industrial" and "noise" pioneers.

Great album covers: Mika Vainio's "Onko"

Many years ago I used to spend a day per week as well as get most of my musical products from this man who used to live in the Outremont area of the 514. Our tastes were rather similar but we did clash on a few things. Anyway, one day I discovered he had this album on CD in his collection, Mika Vainio's "Onko". Now back in those days, I was (and still am) a die-hard Panasonic fan, and anything I could get as side projects from the duo as well was a high priority. I kept hassling him to "sell" me his Onko CD seeing as how he was not as much a fan as I was, but he kept holding on to it, week after week, month after month, saying stuff like he'd have to give it a good spin before deciding what to do with it. Well years have passed, I lost touch with him (he was becoming quite a negative experience in my life) and eventually started purchasing music online since record stores were closing up faster than a bar at 3h00am on a Monday night. I managed to score a copy of Onko on CD at a reasonable price, and always thought that the cover was quite magnificient in it's minimalism. The music on the CD itself could be considered strictly minimalist as well, and such perhaps the visual aspect of the cover lends itself quite perfectly. Anyway, I like it!

Coming soon from Wreck Age Recordings: The A.W. Solo Quartet album!

As stated, this won't be the official artwork.

In 1996 I released a song on the "A Cosmic Noise Compilation Volume 1: A Noise Byte Collective" (see: https://www.discogs.com/Various-A-Cosmic-Noise-Compilation-Volume-I/release/777859) Under the name of The Alexander Wheill Solo Quartet. It was just another noise niblet I wanted to do to introduce the album. For a long time I never re-used that name although I did have quite a few moments when I wanted to do some crappy unlistenable noise and just release Under than monicker, but I never got around to it... Until now! With the help of the Impromptu Theater Noise Project, I/we decided to record some of the most chaotic and unlistenable Junk crap shit noise you wouldn't even allow your farts to come up with, and managed to make an album's Worth for the sheer kick of it. Although the album is officially finished, I still need to "master" it in order to be able to digitalize it (i.e. make it available on Bandcamp and CDr). Here's the basic data so far:


1. Zummm Zummm Zummm (Quarter Century Later)
2. Thumpa Thumpa Bang Bang (featuring Silvia Sanguine)
3. Kree-Gah (Glugg Glugg) (featuring Luca Segreti and Silvia Sanguine)
4. Arf! Wuf! Fortuna Favet Fortibus! Splotchh.. Sllotch..  (featuring Timothy Sprawl and Silvia Sanguine)
5. Thee Thellth Thea Thellth By The Thea Thore...  (featuring Luca, Silvia and Timothy)


Little extra notes include the following blurb:


Libidinous psychiatrists! Neurotic Strippers! Horny little creatures from outer space! An explicit, somewhat metaphysical sex tale from the deviant and devious co-creators of The Impromptu Theater Noise Project in this eXXXpanded edition! Includes brand new material! Gilgamesh... Lachesis...Ofuscar...
Dedicated to Simon Sinistar (1971-2015) "He would have loved this sh!t"

Track 3: "Kree-Gah (Glugg Glugg)" was recorded and mixed all wrong (what a mess!)
Track 4: "Arf! Wuf! Fortuna Favet Fortibus! Splotchh.. Sllotch.." was mastered by a gluton and a drunk while under the influence