a/r06:Stephen Cornford is an improvising musician, sound artist, sculptor, installation artist, inventor and vital figure in the contemporary experimental music scene. Six Tape Machines is his first LP. It follows three beautiful, and well-received duos with Samuel Rodgers (on Another Timbre, Cathnor and Cordford's own Consumer Waste) as well as the CD, Binatone Galaxy (on Senufo Editions), for twenty eight prepared cassette players, which documents Cornford's gallery installation of the same name. Six Tape Machines documents another of Cornford's homemade instruments. In his own words: "These pieces were composed from analogue and digital recordings of four open reel tapes machines and two walkmans made with contact and condenser microphones, geophones and the machines' own built-in amplifiers. No digital processing was used, although some sounds we acoustically manipulated by playing them back through other parts of the machine." Edition of 250 with four-color screen-printed jackets. (LP)
a/r11: Meridian is Tim Feeney, Nick Hennies and Greg Stuart. The trio's debut CD, Hoquet, contains three tracks of tense, focused improvisation. All three percussionists are accomplished interpreters of contemporary music: Hennies and Stuart are perhaps best known for their associations with the Wandelweiser composers— the former having played on CD recordings of pieces by Radu Malfatti and Jürg Frey, and the latter having worked extensively with Michael Pisaro, collaborating with the composer on eight recorded works between 2008 and 2012— and Feeney's credits include performing with the new music ensemble Callithumpian Consort and as a founding member of So Percussion. But all three are equally adept in other genres of musical practice— Hennies drums in the experimental rock band, Weird Weeds, and Feeney's longstanding duo with cellist Vic Rawlings has produced a number of excellent releases. On Hoquet, the trio finds a kind of middle ground of shared musical language, exhibiting the constraint and care required by composed music, but unleashing an energy and vitality that is only possible in improvisation. Mastered by Joe Panzner. (CD)
a/r04:PCM contains one long acoustic drone for piano and cymbals performed by two fourths of the Oregonian doom metal band Trees. John Krausbauer (also of Tecumseh) and Bill Holloway have produced a composition that is at once indebted to the heavy Minimalism of Tony Conrad and Phil Niblock, and also wholly original. Where much drone music is the result of artists plugging in some gear, dialing in a desirable sound, and then zoning out, the apparent stasis of PCM is the result of incredible physical stamina and focus as both players keep up a constant, energetic pulse throughout. Their metronomic pummeling conjures a shimmering fog of overtones under which the piano and cymbal's percussive attacks are clouded. Play it loud and let it envelop you. Mastered by Daniel Menche. (CD)
