Most of the times, the way by which a language labels reality is profoundly influential on the way speakers could perceive the reality itself. One of the most interesting writing about this matter of fact is "The Bath" by Germany-based Japanese writer Yoko Tawada, where she analysed the words to say 'I' for females and males in Japan and focused on the fact that the nuances of meaning of the female 'I' portray a woman that cannot be other than cute or polite. The reflection about this radical linguistic injustice inspires the author's high claiming of the self-determination and the freedom of every woman to decide their nature without any more or less subliminal conditioning by language. One of the oldest member of Klanggold's family, Nobile - another moniker of label owner Andreas Usenbenz -, had to occasion to turn this mental and spiritual "sanitation" from languages when he had to make some sonic stuff for a dancing performance by the trio liquid_eMotion, inspired by Tawada's "The Bath" and intended to interpret the psychological turmoil and the relationship with the mirror and her beauty of the writer in that entertaining novel. "Soundwave for the masses" includes two 10-minutes lasting ambient tracks - the almost daydreaming flatness of "Little Insults" and the glimmering staticity of "No Room For Imitations", where he seems to have rendered the typical reverberation of a comfortable bathroom...! - centered on sonic hypnotic dilutions and amniotic sonorities. A good sonic soak.

If you might fancy the sound of a piano coupled with that of frying eggs, Kayaka's "Sonic Kitchen" may be the not-so-subtle mockery of cultivated musicianship you've been looking for! Not to insinuate that it's in any way contrived or orchestrated to lampoon the pretentiousness that surrounds experimental music, or that it is overtly gimmicky. Though it does have a neoteric snobbery about it, the short (29 minutes) album is playful, joyful, and is seemingly unfettered. Sonic surrealism, indeed!

Many tracks on the album feature solo piano, and I am left to ponder if they are all samples (which is what I suspect), or composed and/or performed by Kayaka herself? Numerous compositions marry solo piano ('Hungarian Rhapsodist' & 'Tropic of Cancer’) or a small ensemble ('Pickled Tango') with various 'living-life-noise' sounds, such as the aforementioned culinary exploits, as well as echoed footsteps, apparent rapid page-turning, and voiceover morsels.

I was left pondering where the numerous voiceover and thematic samples may stem from, though in this case decoding all of the ingredients in any one recipe is likely to miss the point. Better to quietly masticate and savor what you can of this smörgåsbord.

"Bleed" is the debut release from DunningWebsterUnderwood, an improv trio that staves off a so-called traditional treatment of their instruments (tuba, baritone saxophone, turnable) as much as possible. Throughout the album, tonality routinely functions merely as an agent to create spontaneous, discontinuous, noise-like sounds. To put it another way, during melodic and harmonic moments, the sounds are more akin to drone metal without any of the typically-associated instrumentation (distorted guitar/s and drums).

The soundstage throughout the LP is similar: Underwood's tuba is left, Webster's bari is right, and Dunning's turntable and effects down-the-middle. With only three players, there is great capacity for sonic exploration, and the spatial configuration allows for maximum definition. Lengthy album opener 'Dustbleedblip' is beautifully malicious with swelling simultaneous drones in both channels whilst the edginess stems from the turntable's static, vinyl-crackle-like roar, which almost acts as a distorted guitar of sorts. It's immediately followed by the terse 'Lavaeclustercore' complete with horse lip flap sax and turntable swells similar to that of ocean waves breaking. This is surely next-level unconventional use of instrumentation, and a fair amount of it is both intriguing and palatable.

It's no surprise that I gravitate toward the longer tracks on "Bleed". They sound perhaps a bit more thought-out, and also tinker with intonation and harmonic-minor movement. At nearly six minutes, 'Tarnlavadust' is probably my favorite. Along with sustained droning, Dunning's incorporation of what sounds like a field recording of many voices in a hall of sorts is perfect. The listener is unable to discern what is being uttered, the result of which is one of my favorite types of audible subterfuge: a sound that beckons the listener closer to decipher the message, but there is none.

The more I get to know the sound of Berlin-based double-bass player Alexander Frangenheim, the more I appreciate the attitude and the compositional approach of this guy. This release, aged a couple of years - one of those records that I guiltlessly cannot review because some stuff could be submerged by layers and layers of musical and sonic stuff I regularly receive! -, could be considered a sort of appendix if you met Alexander's sound on other occasions, as it includes eleven recordings he took before a preparation day in his own Studio Börne 45. In spite of the title, the parameter that Alexander wisely ignore is the so-called pleasure of its unknown listeners and supposed addressee, as the audience of the title is maybe himself, while his beloved double bass is the speaking entity. The unusual experiments he made on it gives an individual humanity to the instrument, which sometimes gives the impression sounding like covering many different moods of many different interlocutors, and the understanding of the listener got similarly enhanced by the recording technique of the close mic, which managed to grab the breath, the resonances of his interactions with his fair chatter and even the movements and the emotional feedback that could get easily imagined during the listening experience. An impressive set of extended techniques scratched bowing, dissonant contortions and suffocated tones feature this funnily dangerous exercise of humanization of a double-bass by his player/listener...

Out on Ghosthall, a relative new label coming from Switzerland and Lithuania, "Rakish", the new EP by Pr3snt is ready to hit the alternative dancefloors. The duo coming from Zurich and formed by Vasco Bachmann and Flurin Gishamer was active in the business since ten years but in 2013 they decided to make their own music and, since then, they released music on Yoruba Records, Hive Audio, Click Records and their own Ghosthall. The EP contains four original tunes plus a remix of the main track made by Lithuanian deep house project called 0rfeo. The EP stands out for its mix of techno and minimal house where melody and sound richness are the roots elements of their sound. Pr3snt know how to satisfy your will to dance as well as feeding your ears with nice tunes where the alternation of rhythms and melodies. If the opening "Arp Test" is a nice dark techno tune, "Boundless" (which is born from a collaboration with Zurich club dj Grauer) has lighter mood with a mix of techno and electro. If "Sunsad" will please the lovers of early Moderat, "Rakish" will satisfy your will of pure Berlin style techno. Orfeo is closing this digital release by destructuring it giving to it a deep house flavor. Check it here https://soundcloud.com/ghosthall/sets/pr3snt-rakish-ep