Four years after "Absurdity" the Japanese duo Jack Or Jive is back with a new work titled KAKUGO. The album takes inspiration from Bushido's "kakugo" concept which tells to think about death differently: Kakugo" does not suggest violence, it tells us to think of death and don't do honor-less acts in everyday life. The album is divided into twelve tracks which during almost one hour of length create tense and melancholic soundscapes made of ambient electronic pads, experimental intuitions and characterized by the presence of the particular voice of Chako. Her voice isn't perfect but it is functional to the creation of the sort of ambience which translate into music people's sorrow. The track I appreciated most is "It can't be reset". A song which recalled me Cocteau Twins atmospheres but here the dreamy atmospheres are turned into nightmares.

Also declared under the sub-title "Hidden Forms Compilation Series One", the new US-label Tympanik Audio offers its first release of a well packaged DCD digipak-set. Musically they have collected 29 appearances based into the wide and mysterious fields of Dark Electro, Experimental, IDM, Techno, Dark Ambient and Electronica music. This isn’t that sort of a Harsh EBM collection, which gets often praised and released like sand on the beach, the whole concept rather tends to collect Electronica music with demand – the featured music here requires attention from the listener.
Some international renowned names like the haujobb-project ARCHITECT (with a double-remix-play on here, remix works got provided by DRYFT and DISPLACER), S:CAGE, the up and coming NEGATIVE FORMAT side-project DISTRAUB, TOTAKEKE (Frank Mokros, new signed to Tympanik Audio!), FLINT GLASS, AB OVO, HECQ or MNEMONIC are proof of a diverse and quality-oriented selection. CD 1 is mostly influenced by Dark Ambient and technoid Industrial tunes, but – as strange as this sounds – I tend to say that the most promising appearances got provided by the rather unknown artists of this compilation. ARCHITRAV seems to be a Dark Ambient-inspired side-project of Germany’s MNEMONIC and offer a static and ominous sounding opening track. We had already the Alaska-based project LUCIDSTATIC in our review section on here, but this new tune left me breathless! So it has to sound if multiple programmings can mean multiple drum patterns, this "Night Vision" is a rhythmically bomb and the best piece of work of this project so far. Good to know that Tympanik has signed on them too, a new album should be come out during summer. TZOLK’IN is a mutual project between EMPUSAE and FLINT GLASS and got recently signed to Ant-Zen. Their track comes out quite melodious and straight oriented, while not at all forgetting its musically belongings. There are more favorites worth to be named available on CD 1 for sure, but since this whole compilation is that filled with more than 143 minutes of purest Experimental Electronica music, I just like to concentrate only on the to me very best.
CD 2 offers a decent collaboration between the Ant-Zen AB OVO and FLAQUE, while the Swiss act STENDECK gets remixed by Slovakia’s top-notch act DISHARMONY. FREEZE ETCH and their track "Stalwart" is another straight example with inserting layer sounds. Other highlights I like to name with GINORMOUS (straight and effective) FLAQUE ("Black Shadows In The Fog" – the title couldn’t explain it better how it sounds...), while the Big-Beat- and sample-driven "Witching Hour" of Canada’s DISPLACER causes a smile in the face of the listener. Same judgement like on CD 1, here can be named several other act, which my satisfy the listeners even more.
However, Tympanik Audio have released a full-scale quality compilation which is a feast to all open-minded listeners who get thrilled by some more Experimental-oriented music. Another nice side effect is the fact that this DCD set will never enter the world of legally download portals. Although I have already seen a link available on a well-known illegal Russian downloading portal, I like to forward congratulations to the responsible people behind this label – this may is the right initiative to start a rage against downloading procedures to save the format CD. Soon more with new releases about this fine new label.

Track list:

EO¹:

Architrav: Bewegungsspielraum
Eretsua: Proto-Awareness
Rekt: Somebody Set Up Us The Bomb
Urusai: Slow Forward
Lucidstatic: Night Vision
Architect: Caine in the Brain | Displacer remix
Distraub: Motion Sensor | Recalibrated
Tzolk'in: Imix | Hidden Forms remix
Totakeke: Power of Ideas | Hidden Forms mix
Talvekoidik: Hymn
S:cage: Unearth
Freeze Etch: Irrotator
Architect: Stairway | Stairwell Sidearm remix by Dryft
Unterm Rad: On the Brink (Verge) | remix by Dreams Are Maps

EO¹ - Run Time: 71:30

EO²:

Flint Glass: At Takwi
Ab Ovo vs. Flaque: Circle of Memories
Stendeck: Like Falling Crystals | Disharmony remix
Freeze Etch: Stalwart
Atomatik13: Traffic Lights
Hecq: Moonkissed
Ginormous: Part of Him Died That Night
N0nplus: In Your Wake | Lying Right Next To Me remix
Phylum Sinter: Shadow Codex
Justin McGrath: The Last Thing You Said Was Fall
Displacer: Witching Hour
Flaque: Black Shadows in the Fog
Nebulo: Reverse | remix
Mnemonic feat. Qasot: Porous Dreams
Aural: Narcoleptic

EO² - Run Time: 72:04

Total Run Time: 143:34

First off open your ears and eyes since this small label in just a bunch of releases it's been able to show they've good taste and this new release is nothing but the confirmation of what I’ve just wrote. I mean, this the first time I hear Whispers and Wolves but this girl name is already written in my agenda for she managed to put out an unconventional and audacious release. This "Language of dards" despite its laptop quintessence has been assembled with several acoustic instruments, for example in the first of the three movements of which this work is composed you can clearly distinguish some vocals and an acoustic guitar flying over a confused odd magma. The second suite is much more drone oriented and both the instrument and the voice are drowning in the pool of sounds. While during the first track you happen to think the music is just odd, its psychedelic nature comes slowly to the surface during the listening, infact I could locate this "Language of dards" in a equidistant point situated on the distance dividing Diamanda Galas from Yoko Ono. You may think the last of the two comparisons suck? Don't come to an easy conclusion, at last it was the japanese wife of Mr. Lennon that nourished Reich and a bunch of avantguardist that played in her loft. The last and closing chapter of this weird release presents a softer and more relaxed suite where the vocals are echoing in the scenario, but despite the overabundance of delays the situation is way less magmatic if compared to the first two episodes, here the loops and the sounds selected reminded me some early experimental post industrial artists like Asmus Tietchens or Nurse With Wound when working on more abstract composition and far from their heaviest episodes, the only considerable difference is due to that monochord female voice haunting the stage like a ghost. As you've read the global effect is really odd but this girl definitely catched my attention, and confirmed what Berio was thinking about many contemporary U.S. musicians, that their production present the portrait of music written in what could be a solitary confinement, it was probably true when Berio was still alive but now is even more tangible than before.

I could haven’t find any better title for this release and if mighty Jules Verne only could have the chance to choose a soundtrack for "20000 Leagues Under the Sea" I’m sure this release would have some serious chance to win the first prize as official soundtrack for that masterpiece. Envenomist is David Reed you may know for a bunch of releases he’s signed during the last three years, honestly I didn’t know that much about it till a couple of months ago but the while surfing the infamous myspace net I’ve been captured by a couple of tracks. For the simple the sound is, after having listened just a couple of recording I’m not afraid to write in a world overcrowded of noise and neo-industrial artists this guy has something that makes the difference and that I really appreciate. Abyssal siege is mainly based on distant drones, echoes and noises so that’s it all sounds like you were listening to the sonorization of the abyss while in the womb of a submergible. From what I can guess the majority of the material composing this cd is borne out of superimposition of layers, but the work has been done in a really soft way and you always have a dominant sound which usually corresponds to the darkest one. That said despite the odd and grey atmosphere resulting from that stratification you don’t have that never-ending drone effect many newjacks coming out from black metal use with no moderation dragging it around for the whole recording. As you’ve probably understood we’re really far from one of those Sunn o))),Wolf eyes replicants the world never asked for, David Reed works in a really discrete manner and with a really light dark ambient touch that displays he really knows how to reach the climax and when it’s time to do it.

While first approaching Machida's release on Baskaru I was quite sure what I was going to review was a good japanese ambient cd but in someway that's a restrictive definition for Hypernatural #3. Infact while working with ambient sound and not betraying her being japanese, Machida joins the aforementioned characteristic with a strong contemporary attitude that's why this work by some means reminded me some of the early ambient composers coming from a learned background like David Cunningham who's 1991’s "water" on Made to Measure label remains a real masterpiece. Hypernatural #3 also reminded me of David Toop and again I think there a thread between the two artist I’ve mentioned so far in this review. On the other hand as I've said he's from the land of the raising sun and you can bet those ambient-japanese electronic sounds you either love or hate are probably part of the DNA and sure I'm in the ranks of those who love them. It's a soft work that despite some electronic aesthetic is much closer to classic ambient than to Minamo, Neina or names like those we've encountered so far. Simplicity and refined gentleness as you probably expect a release like that to be and you won't be disappointed since Hypernatural #3 won't betray those simple but basic rules. What I found quite characteristic of this release and that makes the difference between Machida and many young japanese composers is the fact he has this old school ambient approach that makes it in some way heavier but in a positive way, for example just take the closing tracks of the cd, the music is so low it's even hard to get what's happening you have this really distant sound fading in the background while on the surface you hear a soft and silent field recording of birds singing I'm not surprised he gave this closing track the same title of this release, the fact is it probably embodies the spirit of the whole concept thought It really sounds hyper-natural. Another reason for which I’ve been comparing Machida and Cunningham, despite the fact their music is considerably different, is that they’re both musicians before using electronics, infact Yoshio is a steel pan player, believe it or not from this work is really hard to get this thing and to me that’s another point of interest to give a listen to his last work.