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HERMES 038
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"Disparlure is the first release by French trio Phéromone. Comprised of Pascal Battus, Eric Cordier and Jean-Luc Guionnet, the trio have been together for some three years performing improvised music using guitar, hurdy gurdy, electronics and various electro-acoustic devices involving sundry objects with contact mics. Cordier and Guionnet have played together since the mid-80s in various settings, most recently in Schams and Synapses and also as a duo (discs on Shambala and Selektion). Battus is a new collaborator for them, a guitar player with an extended technique, recently praised in the Wire by no less an authority than Keith Rowe as one of the younger guitarists worth watching out for. This disc consists of a continuous piece (indexed as two tracks) edited from home recordings of the group by long-time collaborators Eric La Casa and Pierre-Henri Thiebaut. Their favoured concert set up is to occupy three corners of the performance space and seat the audience in the middle. The analogy is with the functioning of the eponymous insect hormones, which transmit messages to other insects at a distance. The audible messages of the three musicians transmit signals from one player to the next, with the audience hearing the interaction of the signals in 'surround sound'. This is particularly apt as the overall effect of the music on this disc is of a darkened environment full of animal calls, as unseen predators stalk small mechanical prey and flocks of metal birds perch in the tinfoil trees. Actual sound sources are impossible to identify with certainty as the various stringed and amplified instruments surge and recede in a dazzling display of alternating synchronicity and conflict. The variety of sounds, the virtuosity of the interplay and the obvious mix of both seriousness and humour in their approach mark Phéromone out as a trio to keep an eye on in the future."
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HERMES 035
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"This, the third solo album recorded by the artist currently known as Bruce Russell, consists of three live slabs of improvised guitar, electronics, and analogue tape loops, recorded live in Melbourne, Australia in May 1999. This was the first of two visits he made to Australia in that year, the second being in the company of Alastair Galbraith as A Handful of Dust. These recordings are totally solo, built respectively around a pre-recorded seven metre loop taken from the Anabase LP by Dust (Black Flies #1 & #2), and a slowed down and reversed tape of thumb piano improvisation (With Rimbaud in Abyssinia). These extended works are less brutal than the pieces featured on the first two solo albums, with more space and attendant dynamics in evidence. They abrade, rather than assault, the ears. This album represents a step forward in BR's solo work, integrating the pre-recorded and live sounds ever more fully into a seamless whole. The recordings have been edited at the front and back, but otherwise are presented totally live as recorded to minidisc by Melbourne resident and Freeway Sound label curator Marco Fusinato. The Rimbaud track is subtitled 'Ass Backwards' as the reversal of the backing tape was an unintended but fortunate accident, resulting from a failure to rewind the tape after the first show. These kind of random factors do so much to enrich the work of improvisers of all stripes, as witnessed by the music on this compact disc. Going on at length about the artist responsible for these recordings would be needless in the case of the very great majority of those reading these words. Suffice to say he performs and records with the Dead C, A Handful of Dust, and Pieters/Russell/ Stapleton, manages the label on which this excellent disc has been released, and takes the kind of holiday snaps of bridges and buildings with which the cover is decorated. A 10" vinyl postscript to this recordings is being released about the same time on the Smalltown Supersound label in Norway, that record being of a much more dense and apocalyptic guitar-squall nature, recorded solo at one of the Melbourne Dust dates referred to earlier."
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HERMES 028
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"The name of Kjetil D. Brandsdal has been bandied about the world increasingly over the last couple of years. Of Norwegian origin, though resident for the last three years or so in Northern Ireland, Kjetil has carved quite a niche for himself as a 'sound artist'. Exhibiting a sterling self-reliance, he emerged first via a slew of self-released cassettes (about ten in all), then followed these with two self-released LPs and a slew of singles on labels such as Boblador, MykeDroner, and Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers. The LPs were manufactured in editions of 300, and got snapped up pretty damn fast, but not before he sent one to H-Corp HQ in the far antipodes. The CD currently under consideration was the natural result, once the Hermetically-tuned ears of the corporation got a whiff of the lo-fi, droning, tape-looped improv. spew that Kjetil was purveying, it was a done deal. The Freedom CD compiles choice tracks from both LPs, KDB and Kjetil D. Brandsdal, but also features the full-length version of 'III', originally restricted to just one whole LP side, it now closes the CD at a full 35 minutes. The recorded pieces are devoid of drums, most rhythms coming from tape loops or guitar parts, and generally levitate the consciousness pretty effectively in a ceilingwards direction. Production appears to be on porta-studio in most cases, and headphone listening reveals some pretty cool mix-work in a style not a million miles from our own Omit, but retaining a unique Nordic 'grittiness' in sound."
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HERMES 012
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"Coalescing around the inspiration of Kim Pieters (Dadamah, Rain, Flies Inside The Sun), the line-up on this album includes Sara Stephenson, Adria Morgan and Andre Richardson. Favoring a revolving door policy with instruments, the group employ guitar, bass, synthesizer, organ, drums and voice to create sound-worlds that are at once enticing and threatening, like the paradigmatic songs of the sirens in Jacques Attali's Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Their approach is strictly 'free form'; collective improvisation is emphasized at all times and the group have the uncanny cohesion and singleness of purpose which all truly great improvisational ensembles possess."
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HERMES 007
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Debut by an improvisational trio made up of Kim Pieters (bass, organ, synthesizer), Bruce Russell (guitar, perc., synth) & Peter Stapleton (drums, synth, guitar). "Pieters & Stapleton are known as the core of the now defunct Dadamah, as well as for new projects like Flies Inside The Sun & Rain. Last Glass is comprised of 6 instrumental improvisations which range from the near-ambient to the red faced and throttling, sometimes covering this range in a single piece. Obvious points of reference are AMM, Musica Elettronica Viva and the Silver Apples, but Pieters/Russell/Stapleton skirt these static reference points like downhill slalom skiers. All the pieces bar one are single takes, without overdubs, but the soundscapes are far from sparse as a result. Built around propulsive percussive rhythms, the other instruments provide plenty of the 'scrub and woosh' you'd expect from an outfit with this kind of pedigree. The CD comes in the trademark Hermescorp manila folder, which contains a 14 x 42 cm. folder of Kim Pieters' artwork."
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