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PT18
Noish & Xedh
- rlhaaa
to c41
A. coyote mp3
B. psy
htgu mp3
70 copies
Released
February 2012
OUT OF PRINT
REVIEWS:
Foxy Digitalis (John McCormick)
April 2012
These two
side long duo electronic improvisations from Noish and Xedh provide a
wide array of sonic material. The recordings are clear, allowing for
absorption of the sounds performed. The content ranges from silence, to
sparse distortion and fuzz passages, to spurts of aggressive
synthesized sounds replete with color, to moments of harsh noise.
The
instrumentation, while being firmly grounded in the electronic palette,
is broad due to the array of sonic material. Some things are certain;
radios are tuned and de-tuned, while many of the sound sources remain a
mystery. Many of the sounds allude to circuit bent instruments and
cracked electronics due to some of the more uncontrollable throbs and
bleeps yet, some of the material sounds controlled and refined,
alluding to computer play. I do think these are live recordings; there
is something about the energy and movement of the two pieces that point
toward live collaboration.
The best moments
of this cassette (for me) are when all emotion is eschewed. There are
times when it sounds too dark or menacing. However, there are large
passages when what is being displayed is pure sonic information and
it’s quite engaging. The duo resists repetition in these improvisations
which keeps the listener on their toes as some sound masses are built
and shifted and others are created, entertained and abandoned within a
few seconds. Even more interesting is that among the beautifully
crafted and timed sounds, both sides of this cassette end abruptly.
Screen printed
card-stock covers with art work by Pilgrim Talk main man Nick Hoffman.
A very solid release indeed, recommended for any fan of electronic
improvisation, Noish and Xedh supply a unique take on the give and take
of a new language.
The Watchful Ear (Richard Pinnell)
April 2012
Tonight
another cassette. (The things still seem to be arriving here relatively
frequently I’m afraid). This one is a release from a bit earlier this
year on the excellent, Chicago based Pilgrim Talk label. I wrote about
another double cassette release on the label for The Wire this month if
you have a copy to hand). This one is credited to Noish X Xedh, which
would appear to be a collaboration between Oscar Martin and Miguel A.
Garcia respectively. At least I think its that way around. These two
musicians work with what sounds like rough, low grade electronics,
perhaps with some laptoppery thrown in, but as little is explained on
the tape’s inlay card to at the PT website its hard to know what to
credit to whom.
Compared to
Garcia’s other recent release on Pilgrim Talk, which I wrote about
here, this cassette, named, peculiarly, rlhaaa to is a much more
refined affair. The sound palette is typical of that I am hearing quite
often these days, a rough, raw sound wrenched out of simple
electronics, with little sense of finesse or preciousness, the sounds
more familiar to the noise music scene than improvisation’s particular
history, so forging a new path for the music that falls somewhere
between the two. If the two tracks here, each lasting around twenty
minutes keep the volume generally at an average level, they don’t
attempt to sanitise the actual sounds used at all, with the music
formed out of harshly textured buzzes and yelps, bits of barely tuned
radio and assorted forms of interference, some of a feedback variety,
some just more generally ugly. Given that we don’t know who is
doing what, its hard to follow any narrative between the two musicians,
but one would guess that everything here is improvised in realtime
straight to a mixer. Its hard to imagine how post production editing
could really make much difference to this music, it exists as a stream
of wildly flailing sounds, analogue scribbling, AM radio hiss and buzz
and the kind of odd alien intrusions you hear down a mobile phone line
when you are left on hold listening to supposed silence. There isn’t
really much of a sense of progression or any overarching structure,
rather a feeling of music that keeps folding back on itself, never
staying with one sound for more than a few seconds before finding
another that fits the general theme, though the connection between each
consecutive element is never entirely obvious.
This is hard
music to sit down and concentrate on, as I might with other improvised
music. Lacking aesthetic beauty in any conventional sense, but also not
really involving any obvious feeling of narrative to latch onto, rlhaaa
to feels as uncomfortable and awkward as its title. However as the
volume is kept in check and the music is always as clear as a cassette
release ever could be, it feels like the musicians are making
concessions to people like me, challenging us to engage with this
awkward sound world but not in the manner we are used to. Spending time
with the cassette, listening to it several times over wasn’t easy, and
the abrupt ending to each side does not help matters, as the music
never really resolves itself in any way, and the sensation is merely of
a stream of interconnected sounds that just follow a line from one
place to another. The journey is a fascinating one, but once you have
made it from A to B you wonder why you did so.
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