Ulan Bator, Club Init, Weds May 13th 2009? (first posted online May 2009)

by Anton Black

I really should pay more attention sometimes. If it weren't for the fact that I randomly picked up a copy of Roma C'e (i.e., Time Out for the Italian capital), I would have missed the fact that Ulan Bator were playing at Rome's Init club. UB is the brainchild of ex-Faust musician Amaury Cambuzat, an amiable Frenchman resident these days in Milan. I first came across him when Richo helped organise Faust's first ever Polish gig a few years back (a phenomenal show, documented on the LTC release From Our Souls To Your Ears, or however the fuck it translates into Polish). Amaury had been great company on that occasion and kindly handed me a few Ulan Bator CDs, which turned out to be full of fine, muscular guitar rock of the type rarely found these days.

So arriving at Init (located bloody miles from my flat in the poncey boozwah part of Northern Rome) I track down Amaury and we catch up. He apologises profusely for a guest-list screw-up, but I assure him that I really don't mind paying to get in like everyone else. The rest of the band (including London's James Johnston - Faust, Bad Seeds, Gallon Drunk, etc) is relaxing with the homemade wine of the roadie's Southern Italian grandfather - such geographical specificity is important in this country. At 11pm they disappear off to perform.

It seems that Rome is infected with the big-city gig-crowd malaise that afflicts places like London - everyone stands around like statues, refusing to react, so it's left to roadie Diego and me to move around a bit. This has always annoyed me - apparently, you risk the fate-worse-than-death of looking 'uncool' if you dare to show any sign of being viscerally affected by the music you just paid 10 Euro to listen to. Jesus, shake your booties, people!

It's the least this band deserves, because they're a PHENOMENAL live act. I tend to see the guitar/bass/drums/synth setup as largely redundant these days, especially given what the disease that is Indie Rock has done with the format, but UB injected an intensity and ferocity into it that I haven't seen since Swans' final gig in London a decade ago... or since Faust in Poland for that matter. Working seamlessly with each other, each musician displays both virtuosity and - more importantly, perhaps - SHOWMANSHIP, throwing themselves fully into the gig, culminating in a 'musical orgasm' (a la 'Death Valley 69') that left me gasping.

The new CDEP, 'Soleil' (to be reviewed elsewhere here soon enough) is a fine piece of work (ta for the freebie, Amaury!) but it can't do the impossible and reproduce the potency of the onstage experience. UB gigs a fair bit in Europe these days; if they play in your town, do yourself a favour and drag your lazy arse out to see them. Their finely crafted sound-of-the-mountains guitar work will shake you up in a way that little else seems capable of doing these days.

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New Continent of Noise: Cut Hands in Krakow, 5/5/09: First posted online in May 2009

by Richo

Photo of Cut Hands in Lodz,
Friday 8/5/09



Despite the fact a cold had just begun to throw me into its turbulent waters, I dutifully broke away from the murky subterranean confines afforded by one of Krakow?s few venues, Alchemia, in order to meet William Bennett from the airport and get him there. In doing so, I missed saxophonist Ray Dickaty?s duet with Rafal Mazur, but such things cannot be helped. Half hour back from the airport and we?re in the venue?s vague semblance of a dressing room, nursing drinks and chatting whilst Alan Licht, Aki Onda and Noel Akchote take to the stage. Never having been impressed by Licht?s recordings before, I wasn?t so bothered about catching him live really, but what I could see and hear of his own improvisations in this trio setting from the stage?s wing seemed okay. Occasional plumes of textural glaze bombarded by shards of crystalline distortion and spiralling sonic shavings penetrated all conversation well enough, sustaining my generally good mood that was only otherwise dented by my losing the battle with the germs. Another Coke for William and beer for me later and it was time for the Cut Hands DJ set. Only the fact it had to happen after midnight and, as such, being a weekday, the audience began to thin out really betrayed everything once the line check was out of the way?

Of course, there were a few people around who clearly wanted some Whitehouse, going by the few song requests I heard being shouted out, but the entire Cut Hands deal is a world away from Whitehouse?s often overblown theatrics-led dabblings with perception via sound, language, ideas and, of course, an image supported by a rich history itself awash in notoreity. Only William?s obvious ability to create vast shifting torrents of electronic sound as dynamic as the best structures to be found in rock music furnish one with a link between the two platforms, really. Beyond this, whilst delivering what he has long called ?afro-noise?, he?s onstage and bears more similarities to other DJs given to only focussing on their craft whilst performing. And by DJs I don?t mean the kind who play other people?s music, either. Akin to certain artists who?ve arrived from dance culture (I?m thinking Richie Hawtin, for example, here), William?s notion of Djing amounts to him playing around with, sequencing and live mixing sounds he?s mostly prepared himself via a laptop. Onstage, nestled amongst the darkness he?s insisted on playing in, there?s very little engagement with the audience or even, come to that, the drink carefully placed nearby. Full concentration is the order of the day, allowing the music to completely shout for itself. And shout it does.

Dashing all expectations, there?s greater emphasis on William?s (personally played and, as he points out later, non-looped) djembe drum workouts. These alone form incredible polyrhythmic soundbeds that instantly transport many around me. I notice people sat down nodding their heads with eyes closed, helplessly locked into proceedings, whilst others take to the limited area there is to dance in. Then there are the electronic washes of blissed-out sound weaving in and out, cascading over or replacing the rhythm segues. Peaks and troughs again commanding the listener and clearly indebted to both William?s own background in such music and, to a far lesser extent, those live house or techno DJs who cut their teeth creating music destined to become new genres. On one hand, the ?noise? at work appears fully controlled and as carefully hewn as anything presented so far by Whitehouse?s ?second phase?, on the other it is poised to the brink of going all Mount Pompeii on us and leaving everybody drenched in sonic sputum in its wake. What?s likewise noticeable is how the music which constitutes a Cut Hands set doesn?t pander to those whose bodies are firmly glued to it, either (mine included!). Anybody can be thrown off the scent at any time before then having to rethink a route back into it. As many doors are slammed violently in one?s feet as are actually opened for them.

But then, well, this is neither ordinary dance music or ordinary music to begin with. If it appears to be about anything then it may well be the basic premise of elevation or at least taking listeners to that very point where its both in their grasp and could be as dangerous as exciting for them. The place where possibilities, in all their guises, exist. And, yes, this might also be something which can be levelled at Whitehouse. I personally wouldn?t expect anything less from William Bennett?s music, though. Which is precisely what sets it apart from so much else?

Richard Johnson

Footnote: I also caught the third of three Cut Hands sets here in Poland in Lodz a few days later. This time the venue was an art gallery and I am certain that the audience, much as some clearly wanted to, wouldn?t ?allow? themselves to move to the music for all the (supposed) inhibitions this brings. Behaviour can easily be influenced by the environment and all preset ideas one may have about that. Or maybe it was the fact William was backed by three short Jean Rouche films from the late ?50s this time. Or the combination? Either way, I strongly feel dancing in art galleries should be encouraged. Well, to live music in them, at least!

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The Fine Arts of Language and Sound: An Interview with Michael Begg of Human Greed: First posted online in May 2009

The following interview took place between Michael Begg and Kate MacDonald sometime during April 2009, a mere cluster of months after the release of Human Greed's third CD album, Black Hill: Midnight at the Blighted Star, released on Lumberton Trading Company and featuring a number of collaborators such as Julia Kent and David Tibet. During this same timeframe the duo (also comprising phenomenal artist Deryk Thomas, known for his work on various Swans and Angels Of Light albums) have also played their first ever live shows (in Poland) and plan to embark on more...

AE: Start with a basic: What was it that originally made you want to start Human Greed?

MB: To tell you the truth, I have no recollection at all of wanting to start it, probably because there was no real start. It just kind of grew out of what had been going on before.

The start Start START was when Deryk and I met, aged 12, sat down in a room with my father's electric guitar plugged in to a hifi and tried to pick out the theme music from John Carpenter's Halloween. Fast forward through years of aiming two cassette recorders at each other to create primitive multi tracks, a few effects boxes, a propensity for sticking a guitar into the back of an amp then kicking the amp to make the reverb wires crash together in the midst of the beautiful howl of feedback and the recipe for disaster was pretty much there.

We were good suburban boys though and had no conception or notion of taking this racket out to the world. It just kind of hummed in the background while we got on with other things.

The whole brew I suppose began to surface in the late nineties. I was writing at the time, and had my own theatre company, and was looking to do a new kind of performance. I didn't quite realise at the time how far I was subsequently going to come into personal dispute with the act of writing itself. I was just feeling my way forward in the dark, as it were. I had these ideas of pure sound leading to pure emotional response, and arrangements of sounds that would lead to some form of direct narrative that somehow would evade the negotiated meaning inherent within language. It was as vague at the time as it is pretentious now!

I travelled to Morocco and I was lucky enough to meet Paul Bowles. We had some nice chats: about dogs and dentists mostly, but sometimes writing. He, of course, was a composer who was unsatisfied at music's limitation at presenting negative emotions. Which these days seems an extraordinary thing to say. We have come to appreciate music, sound, as being very well equipped to present negative feelings. So he turned his back on musical composition to address his negativity in poetry and prose. I turned my back on poetry and prose in order to face the same demons with sound.

Round about this same time a friend introduced me to audio applications on the computer, and so I found myself tinkering with early versions of Cakewalk, Wavelab, Cubase, Sound Forge, etc.

I was like a kid in a sweetie shop. I sunk deeper and deeper into a dark pool of delight, where I would swim around, shredding, stretching and twisting synths, samples and instruments. It took a while, but I soon gained a reasonable degree of competence and began arranging and sequencing the results. It was exactly what I was after. Purity of intent, non-negotiable emotional response. I never thought of it as music, or noise, or anything really. I just knew it was right: and that is a feeling that I rarely ever have.

It just so happened that a play that was being worked up at this time was called Human Greed: A Mortality Play in 3 Courses. When I heard that Steven Severin was, at that time, composing work for theatre I decided, more or less on a whim as I recall, to send him a cassette of these arrangements, and Human Greed was what I wrote on the side of the cassette. In retrospect it seems outrageous that this approach should lead to the first HG album, but there you go. Says something about Severin too. Either that he has great insight, or is more desperate than I thought! Ha!

AE: After your first album, you started your own label, Omnempathy and then moved back to releasing music through another label for the third album. How would you compare the experiences of releasing your own material versus having it on someone else's label?

MB: Omnempathy was just a word I came up with and I wanted it to be something - a nom de guerre, a website, a publication, a family motto. It just so happened that the way fate wandered from day to day it presented itself, at the right moment, as a name for a record label.

I am enough of an enthusiast to say that I really liked being involved and in control of the whole enterprise, but on the other hand I have enjoyed not having to put capital up front for the work that appears on other labels.

That said, the general level of incompetence that sits under the administration of the majority of boutique labels is quite astonishing to me. There's no doubting the enthusiasm there but the marginal audiences involved in this kind of enterprise seems to allow them to give up entirely on any will to market or promote the artists in any way whatsoever. You end up with this weird scene where label owners act like artists, and that just doesn't work.

AE: Your music has a very strong visual and literary component ("the musical investigation of a writer and a painter"- stolen from your website). How do you think the other artistic pursuits of the HG members shape your sound? Are there other elements you'd like to add to Human Greed for future recordings? (kabuki-style puppet shows during live performances, slow-moving can-can dancers, kazoo orchestras...)

MB: I'm not really sure how to answer that one. It's not possible to separate one element of your life entirely from another so there is always going to be some kind of bleed. It would be difficult to pinpoint a single source for a particular intervention. As a writer I have a good grounding in narrative structure and that certainly informs my approach to composition. But its questionable whether it has any more or any less impact than my response to the sound of trains in the morning, or the way that a road drill fills me with profound melancholy - both direct examples that have informed HG recordings in the past - I really can't be sure. Deryk is an illustrator and there is a similar formality to his approach in that work. But it also demands a huge capacity for patience that is also valuable in navigating the long gestation periods of HG recordings.

You have to think of it, and I'm sorry to go on about this, the purity of the emotion. What is the emotional impulse and what happens to it on the way to expression? Language distorts because of its need to negotiate meaning in its presentation. Sound and image are much more representative of the pure thought. The prerogative of expression. As an illustration, think of a child at a kitchen table drawing pictures. They seldom do this in silence. They make all these lovely sounds as they scratch out their lines. They are expressing the same little thought in two representative mediums simultaneously. We tend to lose that approach as we get older. Probably round about the time we begin picking up writing skills.

I have been quite down on the written word for some time now. Though the ongoing experience of HG seems slowly to be resolving itself back towards some kind of embrace of language. We'll see, we'll see...

But it seems to me that the written word in the 21st century serves only a single purpose: To take something from you. Your money normally, but increasingly, your trust, your faith, your mind. Oh, I could go on, and I do. But I am tiresome, and pretentious.

How about this? Deryk and I set up an idea for a live routine that would involve us standing on stage and opening a cardboard box brimful of puppies. Then amidst a blizzard of noise we would shave the puppies with electric shears and set them loose, pink, terrified and pissing themselves into the crowd. That seemed to be a good way of generating the desired emotional response from an audience - that heady cocktail of disbelief, horror, pity. Of course, we could never follow through on such a plan. Not fair on the puppies, of course. And you can't really get puppy actors to consent to perform it as a role.

You will have read about the artist whose work amounted to a stray dog in a room that over the course of the exhibition starved to death in a pool of its own ordure. Who was it, Vargas? Costa Rican, I think. There was a huge outcry. Its not art, its cruelty, they screamed. It was absolutely very cruel, but it seemed to me a perfectly valid artistic statement. Who's to say what is and what isn't?

To be perfectly honest, I am now familiar enough with the process of recording an HG record that I can safely say at this point I have no idea whatsoever will make its way onto the next record! There are certainly new elements that pop into my mind on a daily basis, particularly since undertaking the live shows in Poland late last year.

But if you do happen to have a can-can dancer among your friends, pass on my number.

AE: You have comparatively recently started to perform live. Have you been (generally) happy with the results? How does the live environment change your sound (if at all)?

MB: Very, very happy. It was so thrilling to be able to take it all out on the road. And I love Poland, so it was just perfect. Those doomed, winter-savaged flatlands, those beautiful, sad Slavic faces, those late night smoky basements under the mediaeval squares - and there, tangled up in the Christmas lights, little old us with our fistful of sounds. Quite, quite beautiful.

As you say, we have only looked at this aspect of our work recently. That's on account of three things I suppose. The advances in software, the experience of my playing with Fovea Hex all over Europe, and the introduction of the visual element brought in by film maker Neil McLauchlan. He is another old friend of mine who is based out of Galway, Ireland.

I'd like to do more. In fact, I am in London right now and I'll be meeting a promoter later in the afternoon to look at possibilities. A London show would be good. And I'd like to go back to Italy. I've played there several times with Fovea Hex. I think they'd go for us there. From what I can gather we have a bit of a following there - largely on account of a pirate copy of Black Hill leaking out onto the Italian bulletin board communities.

The live sound is, necessarily, I suppose, much less contemplative, much more immediate. There is little room for subtlety, but there is still a lot you can do with these soundbeds of ours, particularly at high volume, that shifts the material in a whole new direction.

It was always a concern of mine that a show of beat-less, melody free laptop generated music would be the most boring thing in the world. God knows the world is jam packed to the gunnels with duos staring intently at computer screens and indulging in the ludicrous practice of improvised electronica. Everyone we met on the road always seemed to say that same thing; "Ya, ya, I'm, like, into doing improvisational electronica right now, ya!" Fuck that!

I had to think in a very traditional way about what works on stage. Instruments. Visuals. Vocals!

So, I configured the set to afford Deryk as much time as possible to work with a treated guitar. Neil composed some very effective visuals to be projected behind us, and I invited Gosia (Warsaw's Brenda LeeDVD) to read some texts from 'Moonsuite' (a piece of writing that has been occupying me recently). It worked really well, but sadly she could not make it with us as far south as Krakow. We still had a mic on stage and at some point during the Krakow show I picked it up and began singing, after a fashion. It was not so much catharsis as purgative. Kind of like what I was saying earlier about children making noises with their mouths because the gateway to the pure emotion wasnít being opened quick enough by the act of drawing. The surge needed to get out fast, and in this case it just came from my throat. I don't know if it will ever happen again. Its not something I can envisage working up in rehearsal or introducing in any substantive way to the recording process. But it worked on the night.

I am pleasantly surprised at how flexible the performance set up was in the end. I didn't expect there to be so much room for improvising. Oh shit - improvised electronica!

For more information: http://www.omnempathy.com

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ART OF DARKNESS: CocART, Torun, Saturday March 28, 2009

by Richo

Long, long time since I last embraced a huge journey for any music. In fact, the last time it happened was probably for Whitehouse?s show at The Garage in London around a year ago, if I?m to conveniently overlook the fact I since happened to be in Warsaw for a Human Greed show there in December. But that doesn?t count. No, last time was the trip to London for Whitehouse although, similar to this particular instance, there were outside factors to the music concerned. In London, I not only had a chance to finally meet Kate MacDonald but also a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and faces hardly seen for a considerable while (years, even, in some cases): people such as good pal Steve Pittis, Stephen Meixner, Justin Mitchell and Jo, and many others. A good music event can often serve as a great social gathering, too. An ideal way to at least meet people not seen for a long time, if not the best way to actually catch up with them properly.

Whatever. Fast forward. I?m ensnared by a similar circumstance as I travel to Torun by train. Alone. Following almost two weeks of deliberation during which my only friend from Malaysia, Yin, stayed with me for almost one of them. Whilst she was at my place, I made a decision to go to one day of the second edition of the annual CocART Festival in Torun and duly set about setting things up. A little groundwork conducted via old emails between Stefan Knappe of Drone Records/Troum and myself, plus my obtaining the festival organisers? contact details, and I was in. With Yin on the plus-one. Only the train ticket and place to stay remained to be conquered, as well as the necessary finances for both, but Yin soon took care of the hotel situation and played her part in activating my otherwise latent decision. As such, several days after she left my place for Gdansk and following my usual couple of days teaching in a town 120km away from Krakow, I?m on my way to join her once more?

?via a train journey that lasts over 7 hours and gives me a chance to not only catch up with some much needed sleep but also devour half of Ian McEwan?s incredible Enduring Love in fits and starts clouded by daydreams, idle contemplation and the occasional jotting of notes in a compartment that thankfully becomes my own after Lodz. If anything can justify travelling such great distances for me it?s the fact I rarely make time to relax or sit down with a book at home (most of my reading is done whilst away each week in the town I teach at, Polaniec). Even when I watch a film, I remain restless (at least at home).

Anyway, I get to Torun at 16.40. Tired and laden enough with a bag full of CDs to give to various people. It?s raining, of course, and once I?ve got to the hotel with the aid of a taxi driver who forgets to put his meter on till 2 minutes into the journey (I notice these things?), I am left with all of 40 minutes to settle into my room, freshen up and walk around the very heart of the city that saw Copernicus become the person we all know him as before I have to meet Yin in the reception. I feel tired, but good and at least content. Well, quite content.

Yin and myself meet and I?m pleased to finally talk to somebody who isn?t just a ticket inspector or a stranger attempting to make smalltalk with me on a train. We head for a restaurant and need a beer with our respective meals before heading back out into the downpour and a search for a venue which seems to magically and predictably evade its address. Fifteen, maybe twenty, minutes later, we find it. Opposite directions always seem to make the most sense in such circumstances.

Whatever. Not too drenched and we are truly in. The venue is some kind of art centre and the festival itself takes place in its underground car park: a location perfectly suited to the first group for its notions suggesting escape. Yes, Column One are into their set as we arrive, and I?m instantly reminded of so many groups who think they?re something they are clearly not. I?ve never been really into such music a great deal, anyway, but their mish-mash of horror movie textures, farmyard sounds and intergalactic grunts coupled to a man strutting about in his underwear and a large cardboard tube over his head, plus others in Japanese masks, only succeeds in making me look for a viable alternative: another beer. I?m sure Column One spend time on what they?re doing, and maybe even take their slightly Dadaist performance art sensibility seriously enough to believe it means something beyond all the usual cliches, but their music moves in concentric circles to the point it becomes a powerless and insignificant dot. When it comes to music of this kind of faltering and wispy disposition, I am glad there are other things in life worth savouring far more.

Such as meeting people. Luckily, one of the festival organisers, Rafal, from drone outfit Hati (who performed the previous night), is there to greet me almost as soon as I make my way for a glass of beer. CDs are exchanged, lightening my bag, and I thank him for letting Yin and myself into the show for free before we tentatively discuss the idea of collaborating at next year?s festival. This idea of some kind of Lumberton Trading Company spotlight has been simmering away for a while now, actually. Another flash in the pan mooted for only too long by various parties that must be realised at some point. No question.

Also meet Agnieszka, a photographer who?s been in touch a lot recently. Always nice to put a face to some writing. We catch up a little, disagree over Column One and then watch The Magic Carpathians soon commence their set. When I saw this group in Krakow last year, I was mesmerised by their blend of folk and psychedelia strained with an avant sensibility, but the performance on this particular night started out like a hippie tea party in a church hall and ended as an excuse to get lost in thoughts so far removed from the proceedings it was impossible to return. I think I ended up surveying the audience instead, plus engaging in more beer and conversation with my various friends and associates. I?ve absolutely nothing against music drifting through pseudo-Pagan corridors smothered by the stench of lentil soup and slightly stupid yearnings for ?a better world?, but it needs to be backed up by something that may actually pull you in, even if momentarily. These mountain folk just couldn?t do it, though. At least, not on this particular night. When it comes to so-called hippie music, I want Amon Duul or Can or whatever. Hippie music with bollocks (and, indeed, a yearning to evade the ghastly hippie trappings it may be attached to in the first instance). The Magic Carpathians may have been striving for that ?transcendental? level of music afforded by certain minimalist artists, such as Charlemagne Palestine or, better yet, Christina Kubisch, but nothing actually worked. When the female vocalist started playing around with her own capabilities, Yin remarked that it all sounded like Enya. Which just about encapsulated it perfectly. Hippie trance-out music for office workers isn?t quite what I want from my own listening experiences?

Thankfully, Frenchman Richard Pinhas was up next to save the night. Although, perhaps to my shame, I?ve not kept up with his solo work since his group Heldon disbanded (and didn?t he collaborate with Merzbow recently, too? Mind you, who fucking hasn?t??!), certain people over the years have often mentioned it as being pretty strong still. And the show here clearly illustrated this. Aided by two other musicians and, between them all, utilising a guitar, laptop and various electronic devices set to some suitably bright and tantalising abstract visuals, Pinhas moulded a molten soundbed of shapes and textures into focus. Sometimes jarring and taking on an almost quasi-noise approach, the music mostly, however, remained anchored to a palette owing as much to his background in Tangerine Dream-inspired ?70s electronics as its then stretching its tendrils out to more filmic concerns. Ultimately, Pinhas? psychedelia successfully honours his past without sacrificing its potential stakes in the contemporary arena. On top of this, the moods constantly shifted. With enough abstraction woven in to keep us transfixed, melodic swells crumbled into ominous twilight pools as enchanting and exciting as being reminders of our solitude. This performance was worth the trip alone, and I hope I will one day get the pleasure of seeing Pinhas again.

More drinks, more talking, more lapping up the moment. All is good, and the combination of alcohol, fatigue and having perhaps not eaten enough during the previous few days send me reeling to a space where Oren Ambarchi?s set doesn?t do so much for me. During his 45/50-minutes solo show of electronics, I keep telling myself I should be enjoying it more than I am. Stitching drones and fragments together, Oren?s music once again assumes a psychedelic stance that at least worms its way through some interesting corridors, but I find it hard to get as excited about it all as Yin. I put this down to my own state of mind rather than the music, though. Maybe I?ve just had too much electronic music for one night?

Once Oren finishes, I grab another beer and make my way to an adjoining room, where the smokers are allowed to indulge their habits, and catch up with Stefan and others a little more. My beer quota has reached the point where I need conversation rather than music, plus a little less noise disturbing it.

When I leave this room to return to the main one where the concerts are, a Japanese guy is banging out some techno hopelessly muted by the seated audience and its sounding not only out of place and awkward but slightly out of date.

It?s time to leave.

Yin and myself are asked along to an after-show party at a nearby bar. We tag along for a while, walk into the new venue and decide, after only a minute or two in this smoke-choked and busy environment, that it?s time to head back to the hotel.

I fall asleep knowing that my journey back to Krakow is going to be padded out by a monstrous hangover and that the notion of hell will once again consume me on it. But at least I've enjoyed myself, if not all of the artists on offer.

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