The long overdue and highly anticipated new full-length album by Montréal's very Vromb is finally available. Once again released by Ant-Zen Records, "Épisodes" takes the good Doctor Heurel "Glugloïde" Gaudot's scientific experiments one step further.

"Épisodes"'s theme is somewhat blurred to those not yet familiar with Vromb's natural proggression and evolution. While Hugo Girard provides all sonic and audio excursions, his mechanical and electronic renderings are also based on and using recorded voice tapes by Dr. Gaudot. Seperated into four main episodes (each including four pieces), and sandwitched between a prologue ("Le Thème") and an epilogue ("Générique"), the format prooves to be quite the sonic journey.

Once the album begins with "Le Thème", we are off into an introspective audio excursion which comes to and fro the background of audible/unaudible sound. The first episode is called "Vision Stoboscopique" and quickly puts the listener into the right frame of mind. An introductory segment by Dr. Gaudot is followed by static intermissions and rhythm-heavy experimentalism. Episode two is "Le Temps À Vitèsse Variable" and features a difficult yet precisely executed mixture between a slow-moving synthscape and frantic speeded sequencing compositions. Only Vromb can try and succeed at this! Next comes "L'objet Synchronisateur", the third episode. By this time, both the listener and Dr. Gausot are getting into deep sounds, each wave segways into another electronic movement. The fourth and final episode, "Mouvement Multiplicatif" prooves to be the most experimental of them all, with sounds multiplying themsleves (as the title of the episode suggests) to a mass of deep, dense electronic drones and rhythms.

We close off the episodes with "Générique", which basically serves as the end titles sections, if this CD was in fact a motion picture.

While a few other Vromb fans have told me they were left unsatisfied with "Épisodes", I find the CD to be enjoyable for the most part. As always, Vromb's sound is constantly evolving, so perhaps the subtle changes from release to release isn't as tantalising to certain fans as it may be to Vromb himself. As for myself, I found "Épisodes" to be as good, if not superior to some of his previous work.

Released in three formats:
a) Generic jewel plastic case/regular packaging
b) Metal sliver box, which a bonus 5" vinyl record which includes two unreleased pieces ("Cercle" and "Cylindre"). This specially-sized vinyl record will not play on automatic turn tables.
c) Deluxe full-sized triple vinyl LP in heavy-duty carboard box packaging. The four main episode segments are featured on the two 12" records, while the intro ("Le Thème") and prologue ("Générique") are seperated onto a third, 7" record.

Again, the artwork and visual graphic design was perfectly executed by Bio-Z, mixing the tones of grey, silver, and black in perfect unison.

A match made in a frozen hell, Barry Adamson and the Finnish duo Panasonic (now known as Pan sonic) release another difficult release on the Kitchen Motors label, notorious for its highly experimental and non-user-friendly releases.

This odd release is built around the concept of having the Kitchen Motors crew perform a brain scan on the Icelandic electronic pioneer composer Magnùs Blöndal Jòhannsson. While drifting betwwen slumber and in-between conciousness, Kitchen Motors had Jòhannsson listen to the so-called "music" on this CD. Whether the brain scan was later added as an audio track to any piece on this CD is unknown, but an interesting idea to juggle.

The first piece is the lengthy "The Hymn Of The 7th Illusion", written and performed by Adamson and Panasonic. The choir arrangements and manipulation by Adamson is oddly disconcerning at first, especially when cut back and forth with Panasonic minimal low-end electronics. As the piece slowly proggresses (impatient people be warned!), the mix become more homogenious; the choir is manipulated to effortlessly mix into the electronic components. Very dark, somewhat scary, and strangely subversive.

The second track is a 20 second intermission simply called "". It is mainly a 15 second sniplet of analogue silence (you can hear the hum of recorded silent machine), with a deep breath at the very last few moments.

The third piece is an incredibly long, crazy, schidzophrenic and deffinatly not radio-friendly Halfler Trio remix entitled "The Illusion Of The 7th Hymn". Some will argue that the piece is not a remix per se but a re-interpretation of the first track, completelly re-recorded by The Halfler Trio. Others will sustain that the piece is but a remix, and therefore shouldn't be considered a stand-alone track per se. Others who are less concerned with such matters will be immersed in a world beyond normal electronic listening. The choir elements from the first track are greatly manipulated and re-worked, transforming the human/organic sounding element into a machine trying to imitate a human element. More whacky and unclassifyable electronic elements are thrown in, with ambient-like segways that seperate more sequence/rhythmic-oriented portions of this piece. At a later point (15 minutes or so into the song itself), fans of Panasonic will get a short but memorable glimpse of more typical Panasonic-esque movements, with added dystopian elements which will make the volume control very handy.

Although deffinatly not everyone's cup of tea, this CD is a must for fans of very difficult and nerve-wrenching electronic manipulations, without ever falling into the realm of pure harsh noise. The only drawback is the CD's short running time: 35 minutes.

Packaged in a beautiful "digipak" with photographic inserts contained within.

This extended CD EP by Sam Auinger and Rupert Huber are probably the pioneers of "art radio". They started their individual journeys in the late eighties and have now extended their exploration to the internet (where instead of worrying about the bad sound quality the focus on what sounds are best to use with real audio technology). Their attitude and their knowledge makes every concert unique in the fact that it lets people have a glimpse of what could be done. This "Live" CD (almost 25 minutes, three tracks) was recorded in Berlin and Linz. The first song constructed around a loop of speech parts that gets so disturbing and obsessive that you might be tempted to skip to the next track, where calmer sounds, light sound waves, distant noises create a ghost-city-like ambience; the third track is built on a windy tone with hi pitch cricket-like sounds... The art work is very peculiar as well: a digipack cd with a screenshot of a Netscape browser opening a page of their website. Inside the CD there are 18 different (mainly austrian, some german) URLs related to "art radio", or like they say in german-speaking countries "kunst radio".

As much as I enjoy experimental music, after a full immersion afternoon of listening and reviewing weird sounds a CD like this is almost like breathing in fresh air ;-). Extremely smooth and beautiful jazzy sounds create a lush laid back washed ambience where brushes on drums, hi-pitched whispered female singing (by Marie-Louise Munch), lazy distant easy hammond chords and lonely, dreamy, floating and ethereal atmospheres catch your attention and convince you all the way through. What a pleasant and pleasing listening experience! The "Here to Go" extended AB/2 CD EP (which means a 31 minutes long CD with a transparent outer part) is basically sort of a maxi single of the award winning song "Here to Go" (from their other full lenght CD "#1" - read review elsewhere on these pages). After the opening radio edit of the single, the other 5 versions of the song are remixes by techno producers Full Swing (former Stol drummer) with Stephan Matheiu, Zammutto, prolific Chris Jeely aka Acclera Deck, Matematics (also known as Lee NOrris, Norken, Tone Language, Small Medium and Nacht Plank) and Geiom (collaborator of Skam, City Center Offices, Hem and Small Medium). These remixes are not techno though, most of them are sort of trip-hop... They keep the slow laid back motion and make it more exciting by stepping into the fields of electronica, pop, ambient and, like I said, trip-hop (I can't seem to stop thinking about Portishead...). The design is green and immediately reminds of their blue main release "#1". Ladies and gentleman this is a GREAT CD that I strongly recommend to anybody feeling the whole uk-style jazzy/trip-hop/electronic vibe... Get in the groove... extend your Antenna!

Danish Kim Hansen (formerly with Institue of the Criminally Insane and Grind) has put out a new full length CD entitled "#1" under the moniker of his current one-man-band Antenna. Released by Korm Plastics (Staalplaat network), this beautiful CD presents you with eight groovy trip-hop electronica compositions with female vocals. The label keeps using the word techno, but I believe that would likely and highly mislead almost anybody... Minimal melancholic electronic music with occasional experimental sounds that turns into state-of-the-art trip-hop or maybe even trip-pop when the rhythmical grooves step in and the lead is taken by the female vocalist: that's what it is! Her voice is gorgeously lush, mysteriously sexy, harmonically whispered. She can very easily remind of Jane Siberry (probably closest comparison - remember her astonishing breathtaking closing performance on "the Crow" soundtrack), Bjork, Portishead, Massive Attack, Kirlian Camera (just on the "Something Not to Do" track) and the like (when she gets all hot and seductive I would even dare to mention Marylin Monroe!). After the opening jazzy "Here to Go" (of which an extended CD EP exists too - cmp review on these pages) the rest of the "#1" tracks take a dip into more experimental territories, but every now and then going back to the warm and laid back trippy ballads that are just absolutely brilliant and amazing... Very convincing stuff!!! I would DEFINITELY go out and get myself a copy if I were you!
PS: If you would like to see the fastest-loading and most minimal and simple website out there check out Antenna's website!