Silence at the hunting lodge

No blogging for quite some time. University exams and almost unbearable summer heat prevented all activity. Merzbau officially now slips into summer hiatus. Back in full by Fall with some interesting collaborations. There will be a couple of more posts in a about a weeks time mostly concerning shares to last you through summer.

Next Saturday [July 5th] I am leaving for a trip abroad. Milan, Paris, London [1 day stop] and Venice. Most time will be spend in Paris [about a week]. Two dear friends living there provided me with invaluable info [thank you so much losfeld and continuo]. If you have anything related to these towns, places to visit, record stores, galleries, museums, exhibitions, book stores and so on, you feel like sharing, please drop me a line. Keep in mind though that I have been already more than once in London and Venice and only something really special or a current event will be of interest concerning them. Paris and Milan are Tabula Rasa so anything is more than welcome.

A pile of new arrivals at Merzbau evolving place, blessed are the trades! Moorman’s box set [at last!], two Gandera tapes, two Comelade tapes, one cassette tribute to Crowley, three Coil, Berrocal, four Silvester Anfang, about ten Graveyards and Graveyards-related releases, Meads Of Asphodel, Joe Jones, Michel Chion, Teiji Ito, Daniel Kientzy, Pierre Henry, Gurdjieff’s Harmonic Development and more.

A decent tape deck now obtained, up and running, making dmtls able of enjoying cassette obscurities.

Reading Breton, Petropoulos and Bataille.

Tulse Luper suitcases on Greek cable TV!

All in all, everything is ok with Merzbau, there was only too little time and not the right mood for much blogging, so don’t worry, just in case you did.

fun with nuns in town!

Fun with Nuns on stage for another sonic assault, prepare!

31st of May @ Department Of Music Studies of A.U.T.H. university. Their act will be part of a Cage-ian Musicircus. No more info on other appearances, if you have any drop me a line.

sardines can opened to reveal a bunch of music

Another big update to merzbau trade / sell page. 44 items added [!]. Diamanda Galás, Tunguska-Guska [Ultra Rare], more Blood Stereo, more Residents, more Death In June, a couple of rare experimental/noise compilations, Pere Ubu, a rare Uchihashi Kazuhisa VHS video, a miscellany of vinyl [7" and 12"] for starters and many more. Come on in, take a look.

EMW 08

I got to Warehouse ‘Art Factory’, where the festival was held, on the first day at about six twenty [opening was arranged for six o' clock sharp]. I felt that it was not a really great idea to attend the opening of the festival given the fact that I was not very interested in the first day’s programme. Unfortunately I had the right feeling. As soon as I got there, everyone was going up and down the place in fury trying to make the last checks, the last arrangements. Such things where to be expected but I was optimistic. It was about an hour+ later that we finally heard a sound. No announce, nothing. Someone from the organizing crew sat behind the console and kicked off the performance. Acousmatic [!] Music - International Selection read the programme and I expected to actually see the composers at work, not just their works performed. There was a constant coming and going along with chattering and laughter [that was a thing about all afternoons in the event] as if nothing was going on. It was far from ideal circumstances to listen to these acousmatic works which at least demanded attention. To be honest though I was not impressed by their quality. I left the place just in time to miss the opening speech, that would bore even more. End of day one.

Thursday. Having previous experience with Acousmatic Music - International Selection [at six also] I decided to go to the festival a little later to catch with Karlheinz Stockhausen feature starting at 19.30. It was about eight when I entered the ‘Art Factory’ and Acousmatic Music was still going strong! Stockhausen feature and the following …in 3 movements performance were mysteriously canceled/postponed [never to find out what actually happened]. Then there was uninspired video art for some ten more minutes and after that flute, saxophone, clarinet, electronics and video performance by Demetrius Spaneas. He was in my opinion overtheatrical in his moves but I enjoyed his set, probably because I was at last seeing something [see photos]

After that I was expecting one of the stand outs of the festival [in my opinion at least], Gerard Pape plays Gerard Pape. It was at this point that things started going seriously wrong. Pape was there but just to announce that due to a strike at the airport he was not able to get in time here to make a soundcheck and that he would play his set Friday evening [see photo]. This moment after, it became clear that

The Tone Generation

Check this:

Over 10 programmes, artist/musician Ian Helliwell delves into his archive to look at the development of electronic music right across the world in the classic era of analogue technology. Starting in Europe and finishing up in the Southern Hemisphere, he will be playing vintage tracks from celebrated and overlooked composers from each country.

6 programmes already completed [Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Holland and Belgium, Scandinavia]. Next programme announced: #7, Eastern Europe. Stay tuned here.

D.D.A.A. play Ronsard

This obscure group of radical experimental noise makers used improvisation and collage to craft strange sounds and deconstructed songs for highly creative music that is as far off the path of conventions as that of similar but more known visionaries like the Residents and Nurse With Wound. In fact, DDAA roughly began the same time as NWW in the late ’70s, started by three visual artists, Sylvie Martineau, Jean-Philippe Fee, and Jean-Luc Andre in Lion sur Mer, France. The multi-talented trio originally formed Illusion Productions to create plastic sculpture and other various artistic pursuits and DDAA became the musical arm of Illusion. Déficits des Années Antérieures, their full name, translates roughly in English as “last year’s deficit,” though perhaps more appropriate is the fact that their initials are an anagram of Dada, that pre-Surrealism art movement at the time of World War I. As none of the three were trained musicians, their music had a distinct naïve quality of outsider art and with few noticeable influences, exists on a plane of its own. Like others whose music is too uncompromisingly different to become commercial, DDAA began releasing recordings under the umbrella of Illusion Productions.

[via The Thing On The Doorstep blog]

Here is presented the cd version of DDAA play Ronsard. There are five tracks featured in it, two from the original LP [tracks 1 & 2], two from the limited 7″ [tracks 4 & 5] and one bonus track [track 3, All my mistress Marie]. As soon as I found it in Athens I decided to upload it having no knowledge of the post on The Thing On The Doorstep. I finally made my post to give a chance of obtaining it in better quality (FLAC) [to my best knowledge, it is OOP in all formats] and for the bonus track. There is much more info and sounds to be found in two of the most interesting blogs around, my friend continuo’s and The Thing On The Doorstep by fellow minded Cranio, I only recently discovered. Thank you for all these great shares.

DDAA play Ronsard

[part 1 / 2 / 3 / 4]

a casket full of aural oddities #1, Paraffin Affliates

A casket full of aural oddities, this is the title of a new merzbau post series, inaugurated by the present one. I could have started a separate blog for these [I've seen others doing so] but I chose to stick with my current entity. Merzbau after all was, is and will remain a casket full of oddities.

There is no clear line to separate what belongs to these series and what not. Generally small run releases limited or not, sonic products on which little, fuzzy or incoherent information is available, outsider sound art, found music and in general everything dmtls considers obscure or weird enough will find its place here. Frequently bought in large volumes and/or rather cheap, found in all places possible these recordings have a special beauty of their own.

The idea for these posts came after a package was received from Finland, a package I could only describe as A casket full of aural oddities.

Presented here are two cdrs from the aforementioned package.

Paraffin Affiliates is [or was, unsure about their current state as the last signs of their existence found over the net, date five to six years ago] a Finnish free jazz impro/noise unit. Our music is noisy and furious, and yet intuitive. It is more a question of variations in intensity than of structure says Joonas Virtasalo, clarinetist of the band and he is putting his finger exactly on how Paraffin Affiliates works sound like. Squeaks and skreaks, noise and chaos. Wild free improvisations featuring clarinet, guitars, bass, drums and even accordion in a couple of tracks, make for a study of variations in intensity while retaining that little something [structure of some kind?] that keep these recordings from falling apart , from making another dull noise statement

.

demo 2002 [1 / 2]

demo/promo 2003 [1 / 2]

ElectroMediaWorks 08 [it happens now]

ElectroMediaWorks 08 is open to anyone interested in the theory, technology, philosophy and practices of mixed media arts in today’s state-of-the-art cultural landscape.

Medea Electronique, CMCP (Center for Music Composition and Performance) and EPHMEE (Electroacoustic Music Research and Applications Lab, Music Dept. Ionian University) co organize an intensive program over five days and nights, presenting international shows and productions featuring innovative media art, electronic music and cross-over work performed by musicians, video artists and sonic artists.

ElectroMediaWorks ’08 is hosted in an 1800 square meter industrial space in down town Athens. A full 16-channel sound diffusion system will be installed for electroacoustic and live electronic music performance, with a 5.1 surround system for video art installations.

Yes it is final, tickets issued. I am off to Athens next week for ElectroMediaWorks festival [?], a great concept, a major event, for free [!] in a wide abandoned factory space [it couldn't have been more suitable]. Five days of cutting edge avant-garde in the heart of Athens, in the heart of May. dmtls will be there on the first three days only [unfortunately], that makes for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Any friends or readers of merzbau also attending are strongly urged to come in contact.

Drawings on Writing

Advertised under the slogan 100% text, 99% illegible the book Drawings on Writing edited by Serge Onnen, seems really promising. Recently published [Spring 2008] immediately entered dmtls future shopping list.

Take a look at the dedicated website.

Anestis Logothetis “erSCHAUTE KLÄNGE”

A Video on putting across score reading regarding the graphic notaion of Anesis Logothetis. A film by Julia Logothetis, kindly supported by “Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien”.

More Logothetis to follow soon.