Accompanied by mysterious pictures of nearly deserted places, but with a blurred photo of a cheering crowd in a stadium or concert hall, Autodigest's new installment is a tough one to, ahem, digest. Conceived as a "history of audience applause" ("Somewhere along the way, we seem to have forgotten what exactly we were cheering for... Until we eventually stopped cheering, as nobody was playing anyway"), the hour-long track is exactly made of that: endlessly looped samples of applauses and cheers and delirious screaming. No other sounds, except for a minimal drone which actually sounds like a kind of resonance or echo of that hyper-exposed apocalyptic mess. Quoting the press sheet, "[The piece] is presented as less of an archive and more of a critical eye loaded with a few conceptual cards as foundations, from Debord to Baudrillard, from Harvey to Adorno". Whatever. It was fun to read a few reviews which have been published meanwhile, as they spanned from "pure genius" to "pure crap" to a more diplomatic "most bizarre record of 2004". I recall listening to an untitled work by Francisco López and thinking it was a bad joke as it was only crickets sounds throughout, then re-listening to it some years later and losing myself in it with amazement. Save for the political/conceptual differences, this is a similar case: it starts sounding like a joke, then it finally makes your bowels churn. The screaming voices, once looped and overlapping in a droning mass, pass from pop hysteria to pure tragedy - this could be a nightmare of Altamont. But on a deeper level, what makes this cd so frightening to me is the sense of futility and loneliness oozing from this sweaty über-audience - Autodigest coldly re-creates and contemplates modern nonsense as in an in vitro test.

Adventurous, oblique instrumentals played by Paolo Cantù and Xabier Iriondo (previously involved in remarkable and unique projects like Six Minute War Madness and A Short Apnea) with a legion of friends and guests. Guitars, bass, clarinet, voices, tapes, organs, electronics, etc. collide in these bizarre architectures and ready-made objects - as if the anarchist spirit of the "Faust tapes" was revived by Storm & Stress or their label mates A Short Apnea (minus the tragic feel), Bron y Aur or I-O. A loose, but oddly powerful and cohesive interplay, where melodies and found sounds are continuously shattered and recomposed into new forms, makes this a captivating listen, probably closer, at a skin-deep level, to folk and rock than to academic avantgarde.

Issue # 2 in Cold Blue's recent series of mini cds, Lentz's piece is also the most agitated and least explicitly minimalist one. Played by Marty Walker (clarinet), Brad Ellis and Lentz himself (electronic keyboards), Peter Kent and Robin Lorentz (violins), Maria Newman (viola) and Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick (cello), "Los tigres de Marte" is indeed a powerful, exhilarating and bright composition, which tends to ravish rather than lull you. Lentz himself talks of "tight clusters, glissandi, and even some bebop-driven rhythms". Quite a beautiful work, but when it comes down to personal tastes, also one I find less emotionally engaging than other Cold Blue titles.

Both Bunkur (Holland) and Moss (UK) have reached a sort of cult status in the ultra-underground niche of extreme drone-doom, in spite of their relatively limited discography. This anticipated split release is a sort of tribute to two major influences of theirs, i.e., respectively, Burzum and Swans. Bunkur's cover of "Erblicket..." (originally from the gloomy masterpiece "Filosofem") begins with a mess of spacey, disjointed feedbacks, gradually evolving into a recognizable remake - Burzum's trademark riffs are there, though played by Bunkur's peculiar line up (two basses, a synth, screams and drums). Less recognizable is Moss' "Cop", though their desperate, obtuse sludge-doom (reminiscent of Eyehategod, early Cavity, Corrupted, etc.) is a good tribute to the tortured sounds of early Swans. A nice ep thing, though I was honestly expecting something more - I'm now looking forward to Bunkur's anticipated studio full-length (due out next year on Deserted Factory) and for something more consistent from Moss.

Amir Baghiri is an Iranian artist who explores the boundries between world music, electronic music and field recordings in a matter that results very similar to the style of Muslimgauze. After his 2003 "Yalda", Vivo puts out his new album, which turn out to be very percussion-focused overall. Some instruments used are: khaliji drums, persian tumbak, egyptian dumbak, liquid drums, bendirs, azerbaijan frame drum, surdo, mahogany pro djembes, tamborin and persian zarb & dohol drums. rababa, ouds, saz, kamancheh, panjab clay flute, native iranian ney and sipsi stone flute and various chimes, shakers, rainstick and some other forgotten objects. To that you'll have to add additive fm and analog synthesizers, processors & subliminal nature sound programming, groove programming & multidimensional ambient creations. The use of electronics in this album is remarkable becase it is mixed in subtly and yet makes for a fundamental element of the mixture. The balance between the percussive grooves and the digital rhythmical structures is so skillfully achieved that sometimes it's actually hard to tell whether or not it is in and in what percentage. The field recordings come from near eastern desert ambience and nature atmos, all recorded by amir baghiri on a sony DAT recorder in different places around asia & north africa. More technical info (such as software, hardware etc) can be found in the beautifully packaged trifold digipack. Vocals are to be found as well, but mostly as added ear candies or quasi-sampled recursive patterns, rather than lead parts. The middle eastern flavours are strong and intense in this record, you can almost smell it. Overall its grooves are pretty uptempo, which makes it easy to listen to and enjoyable.
Finally the album features some guests, including: Reza Ardalani (addtional zarb and ney), Malek Halime (distant azan, nohe khani and spoken words) and zhale mikhaili (tar, setar, additional spoken vocals as sample foods).