This live recording at the Logos Foundation in Ghent presents the performance of another interesting live-impro trio using a massive dose of electronic filters and sounds: Dafna Naphatali (voice, live processing) and Hans Tammen (endangered guitar) twist and reshape heavily the nature of their "instruments" while Speicher's alto-sax and bass clarinet is more easily distinguishable. One of the most interesting characteristics offered by the trio is represented by their natural attraction for dilated atmospheres and for we can label as a visionary approach. Don't expect it to be your usual abstract aphasic fragmented performance, they superimpose different layers without creating a wall of sounds but at the same time they team-up to paint the whole room of a single color. They also throw in several odd melodies which ease the tension a little bit, infact even if this' not exactly a nervous release most of these odd melodies end resulting weird or deep. Believe it or not the whole work is not just odd or weird, these improvisations have a melodic heartbeat pulsing underneath and its intensity sometimes is really catchy. Some really long tracks showing improvisation world sometimes can be looked at with a psychedelic eye.

Available for free at the Tartaruga Records website, LUNG MANGLED BEAR is the title of the Bleeding Heart Narrative remix album. To celebrate the release of Oliver Barrett's second album "Tongue Tangled Hair", Tartaruga Records asked to different artists to pick up one song from the latest album and to remix it. Every one reworked the tracks trying to carry Bleeding Heart Narrative's essence into theirs. Did they succeed? As usual this is up to your musical taste but if some of them (Brassica, Brometer, Max Bondi, Throwing Stones and Blinddate) decided to show the romantic shoegaze side of the project and others (The Exploits of Elaine, Talkingmakesnosense, Ala Muerte, DJ Topgear, Euhedral and Keyboard Choir) went for the experimental string/drone side, the remaining ones (Okkam, Ladyscraper, Destructo Swarmbots, JR Seaton and DJ Floorclearer) gave to Bleeding Heart Narrative tracks a new life by giving to them a total new sound using breakbeat, dub, techno influences, surprising me. Destructo Swarmbots, for example turned "The Cartographer" into an anxious ambient dub and Ladyscraper transformed "Port and Cigars" into a melancholic breakbeat/idm track song, where melody, upbeat tempos and a bit of craziness sound just fine. Try it, it's free...

I already talked about Seven Octaves some time ago when I reviewed their "Simple Work" CD and since their approach to electronic music is quite unconventional I didn't know what to expect from an E.P. of Christmas carols. Kenny MacKenzie on this digital release (which is on sale at 1.98 USD) presents four traditional X-mas songs "Coventry Carol", "O Little Town of Bethlehem", "Deck the Halls", "Si Me Dan Pasteles" and an original tune titled "Incarnate". The four traditional tracks have been filtered through Kenny's techno ambient touch and sound great. A bit of mystery have been added to the joyful themes and now it seems to listen to Kraftwerk play X-mas tunes going door to door looking for robot hearts to warm. Now "Deck the halls" seems ready to be used for the soundtrack of the next "Clockwork orange" like movie but just check if Santa has a knife when he will visit you and everything will be ok. "Incarnate" is the only original and it sounds like a ambient funk tune that recalls me Vangelis. Nice...

A while back I favorably reviewed Nick Slaton’s last recording project, Trio Slicnaton. There were a few more players involved in it than there are here in this pared-down project, as this is just Slanton on basses and electronics and Ian Davis on drums and electronics. The music can be defined as electro-acoustic free improvisation, not far afield from avant-garde jazz. I suppose when you think Bass N’ Drums (or D N’ B, whichever you prefer) you think artist like Shapeshifter, Logistics, Goldie, J Majik, Dieselboy, Deep Blue, etc. Well, this isn’t anything like that really. Take all the clubby elements out, substitute live playing for programming, make the rhythm more arrhythmic and use acoustic bass and drum instruments along with gray-area electronics and you’ll get a better idea of what is going on here.

Opening track "Plong" sounds a bit like a couple of pairs of damp sneakers thumping around in a laundromat dryer while someone idly taps on the counter with a stick waiting for the footwear to dry. The brief track "Conjur" which follows is eerie electronic ambience with some brushing effects. "Speckled" is a series of noise tones coupled with percussive accents reminding me a bit of a muted Autechre. "Suite Life" has whale-like sounds amidst very busy percussive elements in a sonic blender underpinned by a lot of low-end. "Logs" is about the fastest BPM drum solo I’ve ever heard... with nearly as much processing and ambience as there are drums. It eventually morphs into something a lot less frenetic. "Shote" may be the most interesting track on the album with very nice off-kilter interplay between the drums, bass and buzzy electronics. "Wrecked" begins with a more overtly electronic ambience and the rain-spattering percussion (eventually picking up steam) enhances what might otherwise be just a new-agey drone session. Drums cease for a while then eventually return. This would seem to be as accessible to non-avant-garde ears as the music gets on basendrums’. "Lost" has a spacey kind of ambience with enhancement of cymbal effects. To me, this is the coolest track on the album, just because I really like this sort of thing. "Anism" incorporates a number of atonal electronic elements with sporadic drumming. Strangely fascinating. "Into the Box" submerges into dark ambient territory and very high quality dark ambient at that. The percussive elements are used to good effect where it hardly seems like percussion most of the time, save for the cymbal accents. "In the Bushes" I just found too nervous and busy to enjoy. "Pitch," the track that followed, was more to my liking with a number of interesting elements that worked well together. Final track "Perspective" returns to dark ambient territory with sounds you wouldn’t expect in dark ambient.

Overall, basendrums’ is a pretty good effort that may be appreciated by some more than others. The effort and skill put into it (a lot, I can tell) doesn’t always live up to the results, but in experimental music you take your chances, and aesthetics aside, you can’t please everyone all of the time. If you really like experimental music, I suggest you check this out. Certainly not like any Bass ’N’ Drums you’ve ever heard before.

After the appreciated project consisting of the re-releasing of some of their most important (and less considered) past work-outs, Martin Bowes adds this candied cherry onto the Attrition cake he cooked throughout the reassuring mark of his label Two Gods by releasing an high-quality collection of cover versions, made by a plenty of talented band and musicians of its own entourage, which is going to enjoy Attrition's fans pavilions and Martin's musical nodding in approval (by his own admission!) stands as the best good quality proof for them! And for us as well... Seventeen new levers and renowned musicians of the gothic , neo-folk , dark wave and electro-goth scene have been called to arms, they've been asked to choose a track (and justify their choice... you'll find an exhaustive explanation of it in the leaflet of this release) and their enthusiastic reply has resulted in an astonishing collection of 17 cover versions, the best body of evidence about the fact they've come to surface again after a lot of music collectors and critics complained about the hidden identity of this revolutionary band, able to create a sort of chamber-techno-pop by departing from an unedited crossover of EBM and synth-pop danceable tunes, the industrial experiments by Throbbing Gristle and a powerful narrative poetry between decadence, social creepy realism and dark atmospheres.


There're a lot of musical pearls in the long tracklist '“ my favorite ones are the two reinterpretations of A Girl Called harmony, the foggy electronic reprise of Favourite Things by the Lovercraft-inspired project Nyarlathotep, the evocative one of A great Design by Fluxu§yndrom, the breathtaking reinterpretation of Fate Is Smiling by Patricia Wake '“ I've almost developed an addiction to it!!! -, as well as the gentle sinister touch Remora added to Fusillade!!! '“ and you'lll easily enjoy taking notes about your fav ones. We imagine Martin Bowes'll keep on nodding in approval while listening and you'll be surely induced to imitate its body code, folks (and saddened gravy stone angels!)... naturally wrapped in the guise of his golden friends (a quote-into-the-quote!!!)... Highly recommended!