I remember quite vividly the debut release by this band, they proposed a good bland of classic music-soundtrack-rock feel with a touch of irony and a sunny attitude. This power trio based on a drum, piano, violin/viola intersection is always working on hectic tracks therefore if you think by combining their strings and skins they will probably bore the shit out of you, you're simply wrong. The rock and the "swing" (not meant as a genre but as an attitude) elements are always driving the majority of their songs as I've probably said in the review of their debut they have a strong gipsy-rock influence that's also why I imagine live they probably kick ass. This' exactly the music you can tap your right foot at while getting drunk glass after glass. They probably enjoy so much playing what they play and you don't have to go too deep between the lines to find it, their heterogeneous musical background is well expressed in every track, even if as I've said their rock attitude is still the captain of the boat, that's why they avoid to go for a safe navigation. Welcome back guys!.

I really didn't know what to think about this release since you know Snowdonia is a quite eccentric label and I'm not exactly in all of their releases, but it's been a great surprise since I've been positively impressed by what Laboratorio Musicale "Suono C" have created for this recording. The music here featured sounds like a strange kind of soundtrack for a movie, Canterbury sound, some classical interventions and a bit of weirdness just to make it all a bit odd in the typical style of the label. Laboratorio Musicale "Suono C" is a small orchestra, consider beside some solo-computer episodes usually they play three or four instruments for every track: sax, bass, guitar, vocals, percussion, vibraphone, objects. While using a plethora of instruments they never superimpose one on top of each other, usually there're a couple of sounds well dosed together and after that a sequence of other movements coming in and out of the track. Somewhere else they move play and think like an old/new fashioned street-band. The global result sounds quite melodic and even if the weird seventies flavor is still there behind the door the music is really accessible. An interesting surprise.

This single track effort by Kim Cascone made me think how unfortunately I haven't listened to many of his works and obviously I write that cause everything I've tasted gave me the idea this musician is able to reach a high level of intensity. The Knotted Constellation confirms Cascone ad one of the most catchy experimental/contemporary computer musicians of the period. His music usually duels with space and silence (like every kind of music you may say!), by some means it gives the impression he's one of those artists who learned John Cage and Morton Feldman's lessons by heart, just listen to this barely touched metallic sounds, their reverberation and how the move in the aural space and tell me I'm wrong. Despite the abundance of sounds well diluted in this recording the half an hour length of this composition shows an incredible use of patience, infact Cascone differently from Morton Feldman doesn't give the impression everything is a still life painting frozen in eternity, let's say he conspire with time to bring the listener to an inner journey. Despite the great use of proportions the sound definition is always top class and for what I know here you will find some characteristic intervention that give recognizability to the way of composing of this american musician. Among the different musician featured on this record I read C. Spencer Yeh you'll also notice we have Cage and Christopher Cascone, as some one once said: keep it in the family!.

I love spoken words, nay, I love good spoken word performances and as you can easily imagine Eugene Robinson vocals alone on this recording were worth the price of the ticket. The fact is that Philippe Petit has done a great background work for Eugene, therefore the whole effect is a mix of weird sounds and deep as fuck vocals. The french electronic musician has melted together a mixture of concrete noises, jazzy horns, scary dark ambient drones and post contemporary assemblages. Robinson's vocals float on this odd ocean of sounds as an apparently self bored Buckowsky alike reading that makes you feel like you still a kid listening to some scary tales. The chapters of this recording speak about modern obsessions, about real things. Differently from his previous releases with Oxbow, Eugene's voice is much more relaxed (and obviously also the music follows that trajectory) like it was some thoughtful post-coital conversation. There's something very crude in the stories here performed and even if the music is never that heavy it feels really cerebral and like it was coming from behind the twilight zone, that's why here and there it gave me the impression this recording was hiding some early industrial, Current 93, Nurse With Wound, Hafler Trio influences. Despite the many parallels I've been drawing during this review, this cd has a strong personality and brings back to life the old spoken performance formula with a new restyled image.

An odd pair we should know quite well, infact on this very webzine you can read an inteview to Moljebka Pulse and at the same time we've been reviewing the majority of Cria Cuervos releases so far. Given the fact we're dealing with two top notch musicians, I had great expectations for what concerned this collaboration and I'm glad I've been disappointed by the final result infact in someway it puts together the best of the two works. As some of you could have guessed this work mixes two characteristic shared both by the italian and by the swedish musician and so here you have drones and soft non melodic and quasi-concrete sounds. The global work give the impression to sound as an oniric trip in which this organ like drones playing sad melodies lull the ship through the waves of memory. The two long tracks (about 24 minutes each) won't escape that post dark ambient edge both the artist have kept in their music. If the opening suite has that melancholic ambient feel the closing closing half reinforce the idea this quite sad feeling works as 'a trait d'union' between the two artists. If compared to their last releases I've listened this cd is softer and mellowed down to reach a more listenable level, infact even if despite heavy works they kept a certain amount of melody for what regards the music, this cdr could be accessible for a different range of listeners.