Following up yesterday’s introduction to the Noisejihad Live! netlabel, here’s another recommendation. In brief, don’t be scared off by the site’s thus far longest and largest track, a nearly hour-long opus by Danny Kreutzfeldt. His entry appears on the label’s second release, dated February 19, 2005, and shares its virtual space with the group Ryfylke. The track starts off quiet, and takes its time before breaking that spell. First comes a thick layer of moist haze, then reflected beats that bring to mind dub, though only by association. This is much more the echo of a dank cave than of a Caribbean sound system. The only arguably weak moment is a brief section where the sound is evidently sourced from heavy breathing, which contributes a literal blemish to an otherwise ambiguous whole. The closing section sounds more like dawn than dusk, coming to life with a bright, creaking spaciousness — the image of the sun rising registers with a music that came of age in the clubs, not the concert hall. Check it out at noisejihad.dk/netlabel. (Kreutzfeldt was mentioned in a previous Downstream entry, for his soundscape contribution to the Stadtgruenlabel’s Janus [here]).
Noisejihad MP3
To paraphrase Pavement, “Music scene is crazy/ Netlabels start up each and every day/ I saw another one just the other day/ A special new netlabel.” Yes, there’s a new netlabel, and it’s something of an instant favorite. Noisejihad Live!, at noisejihad.dk/netlabel, posts live recordings of noise acts (no surprise there), and it’s already released three sets this year: Massaccesi and Pol Mod Pol; Ryfylke and Danny KreutzFeldt; and Mag Necro and Ultimate Combat Noise. The tracks are lengthy and sizable (one is nearly an hour, at 50 megabytes), and it’ll take a while to work through ’em, but it doesn’t hurt to start off with the most recent: Kyoto, Japan-based Mag Necro‘s half-hour guitar performance, a suffering soundscape of improvisatory edgework. Drenched in gloom, it’s a fine example of the axiom that the difference between noise and ambient music is often just a matter of where you set the volume level.
Autechre Stream
For the time being, the Disquiet Downstream remains focused on freely downloadable music, but exceptions should be made for the occasional noteworthy streaming-only release. In this case, for the past week or so the background track at the website of Autechre‘s record label, Warp (warprecords.com), has been “Fermium,” a track off its forthcoming album, reportedly titled Untitled, due out April 18 in the U.S. The track, which repeats at length a short glitchy rhythm before breaking off into dubby abstraction, has received some airplay, though it’s not yet commercially available; it appears on the February 17 playlist of BBC DJ Rob da Bank (here), slipped between the Wedding Present and Lady Sovereign.
Global Glitch MP3s
Bless the folks at the minusn.com netlabel (aka -n). Not only is its debut release, out earlier this month, the various-artists set First, a fine international collection of solid minimal glitch, featuring Andrey Kiritchenko (the Ukraine), Coeval (Spain), Masaya Sasaki (Japan) and others, and not only does the album include proper, descriptive, informative liner notes, but the standard square-format “cover” art is a fine innovation: it isn’t a static image intended to be printed, cut out and placed in a jewel box; it’s a lovely Flash animation (by Japanese artist Syun Osawa) of a snow-encrusted field, across which a man slowly trudges, like a figment from a Hayao Miyazaki film.
Geneva Lounge MP3
Now, as loaded words go, “chic” is a tough one with which to to burden yourself. If you fall short, it’s self evident. And if you achieve your goal — well, then you’re chic. Now what? So, don’t hold the alpinechic.net netlabel’s name against it. For one thing, the organization is based in Zurich (maybe “chic” means something different there). For another, it doesn’t skimp on the downloads. Just head over and download the label’s latest, the five-track Detour EP, by D’Incise, a Geneva-based solo artist whose music plays like an underwater lounge. The opening track, “Ombre et Soleil a St. Chartier,” is probably the keeper of the set, especially for how it exemplifies the ways that bistro techno and abstract microsound share a habitable bit of common ground. But is it chic? Who’s to say?