SAT Stoicizmo – Mah 2

1997 • Artware Products / Graph Zahl

One more dive into the land of the mysterious underground '80s avant-garde for the week: this time it's Czech band SAT Stoicizmo, who recorded this album back in 1985 and let it sit around until 1997 (ten years after they disbanded) before releasing it. This album has a lot more polish and a lot more interesting things going on, though, and though it's tough to get into it's a really neat listen.

Like a lot of sound collage records, the music on Mah 2 is quite hard to define as it's all over the place—but to start somewhere, the liner notes describe it as an "attempt to combine the achievements of (punk)rock-music with the classical concept of futuristic bruitism"... and I'd say that's at least somewhat accurate. Well, while there isn't much musically "punk" about Mah 2, the intent is there, as is the futuristic influence. The album presents itself as a bizarre but very deliberately-composed sound collage: plenty of found sounds, a bizarre assortment of music clips, manipulated field recordings, and plain noise barrage the listener.

It's a lot to take in—I've had this album around for a few years and listening now, it still feels completely fresh (even after several listens the past few weeks); there's just so much to take in. But at the same time, that's definitely what makes this album (and others like it) so appealing: it's not afraid to surprise the listener with different textures and sounds. At the same time, it feels like everything fits together as it should (particularly the more rhythmic "Nehaj") so it's not too jarring or alienating when things get switched up.

Obviously this kind of music is not for everyone, and even for me it took a long time to really get into it. But with a little patience, Mah 2 is absolutely worth it.

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Bernhard Günter – Un peu de neige salie

1993 • Selektion

Shh, quiet for a minute. Do you hear that? The sound of your own breathing, maybe the hum of the fluorescent lights above your head... or is that just your tinnitus acting up again?

I decided to check out Un peu de neige salie solely out of desire to try something incredibly new and different, in a genre I have almost no experience with: microsound, music essentially composed of sparse, miniscule electronic samples. It's more or less the first microsound release I've ever heard, and while I love these kinds of fresh, almost alien experiences, at the same time that makes it difficult to know how to approach a work like this. Even after a good handful of listens, I still don't have a very good idea of what to think of it. At the very least, it's a damn interesting experience.

One of the most important things about this kind of music is that it requires the listener to really listen carefully—in fact that is the only way to listen to it; you cannot just passively put on and let it sit in the background, because you'll miss absolutely everything. (I've done this, unfortunately.) Without that hold on your attention, it sounds like just random noises and static, but if you let it, it can really pull you in to its bleak, monochromatic world. There's something a bit unsettling about that, but I can definitely appreciate it.

The music—or sounds, rather—are difficult to describe. It's mostly high-pitched tones and subtle glitches and static, almost sounding like playing a slightly dusty record with some bad wire connections in a canyon during winter. It's abstract, murky, and above all else very cold, almost like it doesn't want to be heard. The sound sometimes fades in and out, and can do so for quite a long time, leaving me wondering if I just need to turn the volume up louder or there really isn't anything there. (But even turning it up isn't always the best idea; the occasional loud, screeching stab of noise can be, well, almost painful.)

It's just so strange. Something about the opening of "Untitled II/92" opens with that low, sputtering, visceral noise is strangely both captivating and unnerving. The whole album has this odd sort of foreboding to it; it's like there's a bare glimpse of... something... just behind the static, but you'll never see what it is. But that's just how I read into it, I suppose.

But onto business: Is Un peu de neige salie any good? What's the point in my answering that? It depends on you entirely. This kind of music is not for everyone (or most people, probably). It requires a lot of patience, thought, and likely multiple listens. All I know is that I am glad I found this, as it's given me an incredibly rewarding listening experience. That won't be the case with everyone, but you'll just have to try it to know, won't you?

(Okay, fine, if you must know.) 8

Big City Orchestra – A Child's Garden of Noise

May 1994 • Drone Records

This release completely baffles me. No matter how much I think about it (though I try not to), I cannot figure out what the purpose of it is and how anyone at any point thought it would be appealing. Every bit of it is irritating and goes against all aspects of what good music should be.

Essentially, the A-side of this EP is a collage of spoken word clips and random noises (mostly sound effects, but some vinyl crackle and static as well). The spoken word segments seem to mostly come from educational records for young children about sound, and they are cut up in what I assume is an attempt at being creepy, which fails. They are sort of interesting at first, but eventually turn annoying as they repeat purposelessly. Nothing else happens.

The B-side is more sound collage, but instead of spoken word segments it mostly combines clips of things like piano recordings, various percussion mashing, and children attempting to sing. While the first side was tolerably bad, this side is completely horrid. The singing is atrocious and the instruments and sound clips don't attempt to justify it. And I cannot fathom the stupidity of including a typical parody of that Barney & Friends song every kid comes up with thinking they're clever; it wasn't funny when I was four and it isn't funny now.

Simply put, this EP sucks. I hated listening to it and I hated writing about it. Just about every second of it is completely annoying and an utter waste of time. Do yourself a favor and just forget you ever heard about it.

1

Ground Zero – Revolutionary Pekinese Opera Ver.1.28

1996 • RēR Megacorp

I hated this album the first time around. I think I was justified, though—it's unlike just about anything I'd heard before (I was, and still am, pretty new to the whole "sound collage" thing). To my unsuspecting ears, Revolutionary Pekinese Opera ver.1.28 was a complete mess of seemingly-random, disjointed, repulsive samples and utterly chaotic live instrumentation that simply made me want to stop listening. I perservered, though, and as it turns out, underneath the impenetrable layers of bizarreness and confusion lies a really solid work of art.

Sure, on the surface it seems like random samples thrown together, but what I didn't realize was that the reason this album works is the way they are juxtaposed to create cohesive pieces. On each track, the samples (or the theme of particular samples) is repeated throughout, acting like instruments, often becoming recognizable (yet still bastardized) genres like industrial ("Opening - Flying Across the J. P. Yen"), heavy rock ("Crossing Frankfurt Four Times"), cool jazz ("Grand Pink Junction Ballad"), or ambient art pop ("Paraiso 1"), while others remain extremely chaotic and noisy ("The Glory of Hong Kong - Kabukicho Conference"). It's a very surreal and somewhat cerebral experience; it's blink-and-you'll-miss-it music. But concentrated and repeated listening is very rewarding as the album is so incredibly dense with an enormous variety of sounds.

While sometimes I claim that too much diversity in an album is a bad thing, here it is probably one of the album's greatest strengths. Despite each track being quite different in sound and instrumentation, somehow—I'm still not sure how—it is never a turn-off for me. I think that the fact that the album is always keeping you on the edge of your seat, always surprised by what's next, makes it a really interesting experience. One minute it's noisy and abrasive; the next it's subdued and peaceful, but you never know when it might change one way or the other.

The individual tracks themselves aren't consistently good, but overall they're good. There are a couple that I really don't enjoy (mostly the ones with the most random, rapid-fire sampling) but since most of them are so short it's tough to even get the time to become too irritated with a particular piece. Besides, I don't think listening to the tracks individually is even possible if you tried; each track is very dependent on the album as a whole. If it doesn't make much sense put together, it'll make less taken apart.

This album is not for the faint of heart, or for the beginner to experimental music. Even the calmer tracks can still be an assault on the senses. But when really given the time to digest this album, it had an impact on the way I perceive music (not many albums can claim that). It may disgust the listener, or change them; it's as unpredictable as the music itself. Regardless, it's a great trip.

7