| April 2005 news
April 25, 2005
LOVERS TORTURE MOMENT
• tube'|014 - sal. - Öhne Titel Mit Titel
«sal. is a bit of a multi-talented artist. He does photography, new media, mixed media, he runs a multi-cultural venue called ovírus (the virus) with a group of friends, and of course, he makes his own music (most people do it in these days...). But not any kind of easy, unsuspected or familiar music, like garage pop-rock, hip hop, techno or whatever. sal. makes pure noise music, also called 'white noise', based on static electricity fluctuations and stuff. I really don't know how he makes it, but he knows how to make it. And it hurts. It hurts a lot. His music hits you so hard, that you'll feel like you've been run over by a train.
Now... I could write some lines here, about Merzbow, Ryoji Ikeda and maybe Scanner and others, and how sal.'s music picks references from each one of them, etc. It would be rather pointless, because although most Noise and White Noise music has a solid structure, usually we get carried away by the violence of its sound and we tend to overlook those basic structure references and movement sways, and hidden patterns, hence, any reference to this work or that artist wouldn't do much for you, dear reader, just listen to the damn thing.
SOME IMPORTANT NOTES BEFORE TAKING THIS EXPERIENCE:
'Öhne Titel Mit Titel' needs you to be fully awake, with your mind and ears set to 'i-don't-know-what-the-hell-i'm-going-to-listen-to-but-i-don't-fucking-care-anyway mode', to be completely and truly... ahem... enjoyed.
Also, you wouldn't want to listen to this with your stomach empty. Have a snack a couple of minutes before, or something like that. Some tea would be nice, too.
Lie down on your bed or sofa. We want you to be at your most comfortable position. Don't even think about taking this out to the street.
And please, try this first with your volume set to low, then gradually upping it until it reaches the borders of pain. You're set to go.
Test Tube is not responsible, in any way, for future hearing problems related to the overuse of this release. Use it at your own risk. You have been warned.
And no, this is not a joke. I'm not laughing.» - Pedro Leitão
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April 16, 2005
HYPERLINKS CHECKUP
News on the Netlabel world. Check out:
PENTAGONIK [link]
Berlin based Netlabel with one release so far. pntg001 'Pentagonik Label Compilation' is a collection of nine old-school electro-techno hit-the-floor tracks. Fabulous selection. Keep 'em coming, guys!
-N [link]
-N (minus n) comes from Russia, apparently, but this information isn't confirmed. Could be japanese... anyway, -N is pretty new to the scene, but, as Pentagonik above, started off with a bang compilation, 'va - First'.
Great ambient and shadowy music, an excellent selection of artists and tracks, with irish featured on the list. This is a good one to follow.
[edit: it's japanese].
UNFOUNDSOUND [link]
Philadelphia Found Sound Records sister Netlabel, unfoundsound explores Field Recordings based music, with beat experimentation in mind.
foundsound says: «this new philadelphia-based label showcases quirky, dancefloor-friendly minimal techno and microhouse constructed from fragmented samples, sounds, and random field recordings.».
unfoundsound says: «(...) in addition, unfoundsound provides a series of free downloadable field recordings (the unfields) available to everyone for creative sampling, musical composition and whatever your fuzzy, little heart desires. enjoy!»
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April 14, 2005
NEW, NEW, NEW!
New artists added. We're getting stronger, people. Here they are:
- Gamma Ray Blast (Portugal);
- Darren McClure (Japan);
- Jo Jena (Germany);
- Plumb & Plumber (Spain);
- Con 7 (France).
Some great releases are coming this way...
Meanwhile, new reviews:
We added a couple of new ones for tube012 and tube013.
Yes, already one for our latest one, thanks to our big fan (and now test tube artist Con 7) LaFresto. Peace, man. ;)
Also, a new live date:
Phoebus will do a gig at Via Latina, Coimbra on April 30th.
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April 12, 2005
OH, THAT IS SO UNPREDICTABLE!
• tube'|013 - Frango - Sitting San
«All improvised music compositions, and most instrumental pieces, are strongly illustrated by the freedom they concede to the interpreter. On ‘Sitting San’, the composers act on the work’s structure and reflect on the notes duration or sound streams. This collective, called Frango, has Jorge Martins on guitar & bass, Rui Dâmaso on guitar & drums and Vítor Lopes also on guitar & drums, and they write unfinished and indefinite messages all over this release. We are not (at all) before a work that asks to be rethinked in any given structural direction. There are 5 tracks full of improvisation patterns, and they have the ability to unbalance the order therein (yeah!).
Throughout ‘Sitting San’, drone guitars humanize the process, with synapse-like and stripped down keyboards here and there, and hit-and-run drum breaks, which transports us to a creative work that is - lets say - not tonal, as if there were no laws and no dogmas, taking away from the listener the possibility to predict where the compositions are heading.
‘Sitting San’ keeps evolving towards its end, adding new space, our space.» - Bruno Barros
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April 05, 2005
DISQUIET
Another excellent review of our latest tube...
«SUPERB SPANISH FOLKTRONIC MP3 EP:
The latest from the Portuguese netlabel test tube is a truly superb mix of acoustic and electric elements, with all the elegance of classic minimalism and all the presence of an early-1970s singer-songwriter album. It's sure to appeal to fans of Greg Davis' Arbor (Carpark, 2002), and other so-called folktronic music. Credited to Aitänna77 (aka Spanish musician Mikel Martínez), the 'Spring is Coming Soon' EP's four tracks mix gently plucked acoustic guitar and a smattering of digital effects. What makes the work special is that the blend of analog and digital isn't predicated on conflict, but on how the elements work together. This isn't the countrified hip-hop of the Dust Brothers' collaborations with Beck, or the electronified blues of Moby's Play, in which contrasting sounds rub against each other to stoke the frisson of pop fusion. On the title cut, soft hums serve as ghost images to the melody, and then bits of reverb exaggerate the finger picking. On "Licking Ice Cream Cones", which has John Fahey's way with a lifting melody, guitar parts accumulate thanks to multitracking, veering slightly apart from one another and lending the cut the hypnotic quality of overlapping patterns. Other instrumentation on the brief set includes electric guitar, xylophone and that touchstone of dub, the melodica. Be sure to check it out, at monocromatica.com/netlabel.»
- Disquiet / April 1, 2005
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