The Wire Tapper 24 Your track by track guide to this month’s free CD

01Callers“Dressed In Blue” From Life Of Love (Western Vinyl) Recorded in the Brooklyn studio Seizure’s Palace, Life Of Love is Callers’ second release – and the first since the New Orleans three-piece relocated to New York. Sara Lucas’s precise and haunting voice, backed by the vocal harmonies and Eastern-like rhythms of Ryan Seaton and Don Godwin, give full life to “Dressed In Blue”, an acoustic folk number reminiscent of Swedish guitarist José Gonzales. Callers will be touring their new album from late autumn onwards.

02Flatline Skyline “Unbound”PreviouslyunreleasedThemembersofPhiladelphia duo Flatline Skyline met in 2002 at a science fiction literature class, where they were drawn together by their mutual love of Eno, early Industrial music, Mute Records and vintage technology. Since then, they have released two albums; the latest, All Sound/No Vision, was released in April 2009 on Mechanoise Labs. On “Unbound”, Jacen Kemp’s alien-like voice fuses with Robert Andrew Scott’s melodious piano lullaby and their homemade instruments, resulting in a mournful, surrealistic piece of electronic spoken word.

03Locrian“Elevations And Depths” (excerpt) From The Crystal World (Utech) In 2005, painter, installation artist and singer Terence Hannum started the Industrial Noise/drone group Locrian with bassist André Foisy (Break Of Dawn, Unlucky Atlas). After releasing two studio albums, the Chicago unit added a third member in drummer Steven Hess (Haptic, Pan American, Ural Umbo). Locrian have just released a third LP, The Crystal World, their first on Utech. This excerpt from the song “Elevations And Depths” appears to be running at half speed, with Hess’s slow rhythm and Foisy’s heavy bassline drowning out Hannum’s muffled, subliminal screams.

04Schurer“Equivalency Of Dissimilarity Denotation (Track 2)” (edit) From Equivalency Of Dissimilarity Denotation (Domizil) Bernd Schurer is a prominent figure in the Swiss sound art scene. Born in Zürich in 1970, the former philosophy, film science and visual art student now co-edits and curates several electronic sound pieces for that city’s domizil.ch imprint. Schurer’s work is based on what he calls “a strong fascination in the study of the perception of sound and our interpretative patterns”. The noise on this computer based track is obtained using genetic algorithms to transform and reproduce patterns of sound. Schurer is currently studying electroacoustic composition and theory/media technology.

05Ninni Morgia &William Parker “Prism VI” From Prism (Ultramarine) Two members of New York City’s free jazz scene, Italian guitarist Ninni Morgia (Quivers and The Right Moves, and ex-member of 1990s Noise group White Tornado) and double bassist William Parker, teamed up for a one-off collaboration, resulting in the double LP Prism. The track “Prism VI” explores various fields, from early electronic music to Improv and free jazz.

06FaravelliRatti“RaiseYourVoice”ExclusiveWireTappertrack (Boring Machines) Comprised of Nicola Ratti (guitar) and Attila Faravelli (computer), this Milanese duo record with a tower of specially prepared speakers and a tape recorder, the idea being to feed the speakers with different languages and have them resonate in a controlled way within the same physical space. The ethereal “Raise Your Voice” is taken from the same session that created their first release, Lieu.

07Yann Novak & Robert Crouch “Untitled Landscape” (installation excerpt)ExclusiveWire Tapper track (Dragon’s Eye) This track is an exclusive extract from the sound installation Untitled Landscape, a collaboration between Los Angeles based sound artist and Dragon’s Eye label boss Yann Novak and visual artist Robert Crouch that was exhibited at Los Angeles gallery PØST last July. Novak and Crouch created Untitled Landscape following a trip to Joshua Tree in California, where they gathered audio field recordings and video recordings for use in the installation. The piece aims to explore the relationship between contemporary art making practices and the historical tradition of the Romantic landscape.

08The DSM 1V “Rest In Pieces” From Advertising (ASC) Manchester based duo The DSM 1V consists of Steve Plews and Mike Langley.

In this collaboration, Plews’s skills as a producer, jazz pianist and classical composer meet Langley’s experience as an engineer and producer at Big Noise Audio. Citing David Bowie and Arnold Schoenberg as influences, “Rest In Pieces” is a mix between jazz and triphop. Advertising is available on Plews’s own label ASC, whose previous releases have included music by the likes of Howard Riley, Mike Westbrook and Vladimir Miller.

09Gentleforce“TheDesertSong” (edit) From Sacred Spaces (Feral Media) Sydney based Eli Murray – aka Gentleforce – started out as a drum ’n’ bass, dubstep and Ambient DJ, then took part in the organisation of electronica night Submerged. But it was while experimenting with various instruments at home – chimes, a singing bowl and an African finger piano, along with synth, piano and guitar – that his debut album Sacred Spaces took shape. “I’m drawn to music that has a physical presence of weight and warmth,” says Murray. “Music you can feel with your body just as much as your ears when it’s played at a decent volume.”

10Israel Martínez “Xiriah”FromTriptych (Aagoo) Imagine an extraterrestrial orchestra rehearsing near a spaceship landing pad: this is pretty much the sound of Israel Martínez on “Xiriah”. A renowned Mexican sound artist, Martínez achieved an Award of Distinction in the Digital Music Category of Prix Ars Electronica 2007. Apart from co-running the electronic music label Abolipop, he has released three albums since 2008: Exorcisios, Nareah and Triptych – part of an audio-visual trilogy with artist Luis Felipe Ortega. Martínez is currently working on different projects, including a sonic sculpture and composition for theatre and dance.

4 | The Wire | The Wire Tapper 24 11Dawn Of Midi “A Way With Words” Previously unreleased Based in Paris and New York, Dawn Of Midi are a jazz and improvisation trio, composed of Qasim Naqvi (percussion), Aakaash Israni (double bass) and Amino Belyamani (piano). They released their debut album, First, this year on Accretions. The group’s taste for minimalism and musique concrète is noticeable in the way silence and space inhabits this piece. Meanwhile, Dawn Of Midi recently made a six piece suite recorded for New York City radio station WFMU available on their website.

12Ars Nova Ensemble Instrumental & Franck Vigroux “Broken Circles Live” From Broken Circles Live (D’Autres Cordes) Based in Poitiers, Ars Nova Ensemble Instrumental are a collective of 26 musicians, conducted by Philippe Nahon. Franck Vigroux is a French composer, guitarist and head of D’Autres Cordes. This track is arranged for ten musicians and electronics. “With Broken Circles Live, our collaboration takes a step further in the encounter of two dreamers,” says Vigroux.

14Fuzzy Lights “Obscura”FromTwinFeathers (Little Red Rabbit) Formed in 2004 by husband and wife team Xavier and Rachel Watkins, British folk/ Noise group Fuzzy Lights were later joined by Chris Rogers, Daniel Carney and Mark Blay. Twin Feathers is their second album, released on Little Red Rabbit. The opening track on this new record is “Obscura”, a grandiose, deep instrumental piece in which blossoms a tense guitar/violin duo that is the core of Fuzzy Lights’ sound.

17Harmonious bec “Solitary Bonze Prayer” From Her Strange Dreams (Monotreme) Harmonious bec refuse to reveal their real names or publish photos of themselves. All we do know about this mysterious Japanese electronica duo is that one half is musician and poet ZaMaRoo, and the other is a multiinstrumentalist whose main project, a kind of downtempo DJ Shadow, is called From Vapor To Water. Taken from Her Strange Dreams, out in November, “Solitary Bonze Prayer” starts as a quiet Ambient track, with violins and sequenced beats, and progresses into intense IDM with grinding vocals and an unexpected finale à la Aphex Twin.

15Macaw“FiveMinutes At The Rainforest Cafe” (Wire Tapper edit) From a forthcoming Sockets release Wilson Kemp, the drummer from Washington DC’s Hume, is set to release an EP under the name Macaw, from which “Five Minutes At The Rainforest Cafe” is taken. On this project, Kemp mixes machine and human drumming, adds synths and echoing vocals. The result on this special edit of the song is lyrical and dreamlike, halfway between soft electronica and neo-psychedelia.

18Plapla Pinky “Analclaire”Fromaforthcoming Sonore release Toulouse electro duo Plapla Pinky are Raphaël Hénard and Maxime Denuc. Now spending their time between Paris and Brussels, they have remixed several artists in the past year, among them Animal Collective and French rapper Booba. They have also won a laptop battle at Tokyo Super Deluxe in 2009, and are currently working on their first album, coming out soon on Sonore.

schedules. Alongside running the label SRA, Szczepanik has released three solo albums; apart from his solo project Horseback, Miller plays guitar in Mount Moriah. This extract, “Cranberry Sauce”, is powerfully static, both loud and tranquil, and vibrating with saturated frequencies. Their first album American Gothic will be released later this year on the American label Small Doses.

20To Blacken The Pages “Sodium Haze” From Bogland (Colony) “It’s a panoramic overload of emotion, as immense as a visit to a Bronze Age city or a legendary lake, a music that drenches listeners and leaves them ensnared in its clutches and weakened with sonic exhaustion,” wrote Julian Cope, about To Blacken The Pages. This is the solo project of Paul McAree, Dublin musician and curator, who bases his work on chance, randomness and mistakes. Layering looped guitars, “Sodium Haze” at times recalls Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla’s soundtracks for Alejandro Iñárritu’s films (Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel).

13Gerritt Wittmer “Vessel” (black out edit) From Vessel (Misanthropic Agenda) Gerritt Wittmer is a sound and performance artist from Oakland, California who has collaborated with Sunn O))), Sissy Spacek, John Wiese and Paul Knowles, among others. On disc, Wittmer’s raw and abstract “Vessel” sounds in many ways like it is made up of field recordings of heavy breathing and birdsongs – but in the flesh it more resembles theatre and body performance.

16Ketem“#A85400”FromColour(Electroton)TelAvivduoKetemisthe side project of Shay Nassi (Mise En Scene) and Tom Kemeny (Darmock). Recorded in winter 2007, their first release was on German electronica platform Electroton. Expect their forthcoming album to feature minimalist, experimental electronica full of beeping, sizzling and muffled sounds, some so low as to be barely perceptible.

19Nicholas Szczepanik & Jenks Miller “Cranberry Sauce” (short edit) From American Gothic (Small Doses) Washington DC sound artist Nicholas Szczepanik and North Carolina musician Jenks Miller have found the time to work on an album together despite their hectic

The Wire Tapper 24 is the latest volume in The Wire’s ongoing series of new music compilations (for details of previous volumes, turn to page 105) and is given away with all copies of The Wire 320 (October 2010). If your copy of the CD is missing or damaged, either return the magazine to where you bought it to get a replacement, or contact The Wire: +44 (0)20 7422 5022, subs@thewire.co.uk

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