2005 March | Kunstkamera

March 2005

Monthly Archive

Thu 31 Mar 2005

“Frogs” 2005 (aum009/TP004)

Posted by grusla under Releases
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“Frogs” 2005 (aum009/TP004): 01. the forest made of rain and frogs, 02. a frog gets over his fear of water, 03. the frog gone away with the wind, 04. women of rain forest, 05. one more song about frog, 06. the woman of the forest and clouds like sheep, 07. the forest’s song for big red frog, 08. the old frog’s dream, 09. the travel of water frog to neighbour’s forest through the rains, 10. wet frog getting cold

“I have been listening again to your “Frogs” album because I have to compile my top ten for the year and it is definately one of the most incredible things I’ve ever heard. I think it’s fantastic, just a joy…” (Mark Rayne)

This release is dedicated to the frogs and represent our collaboration with Victoria Hanna, Igor Krutogolov and Chaos As Shelter. This is a joint release between Auris Media and Topheth Prophet labels.

The Frogs is our most recent project. It is the second installment in the Fauna series coming step after for electronics and birds (Stateart). As it says in the title this album is dedicated to the frogs and represent our collaboration with singer Victoria Hanna.

We met Victoria, amazing vocal artist from Jerusalem, a couple of years ago and from the very first time it was obvious for us that well do something together. We played several concerts of chants vs. electronics in Israel and USA. One day Victoria sent us a tape with her vocal improvisations that she has recorded using some of our casual live recordings as a playback. She wrote: Do with that what ever you want. So we did.

We decided to create a totally new piece from this material. We used a lot of different techniques: from field environmental recordings to live electronics, from electroacoustics to pure synthesizer music, from free noise improvisation to endless drones. There were no compositional or conceptual limits except one thing: we tried to reconstruct that amazing feeling of infinite astonishment that probably Tutuolas palm-wine drinkard felt traveling to the town of ghosts. Something we felt every time we got together with Victoria and started to produce sounds.

In the same time one can consider album as an audio book about The Frogs, their friends the forest and the clouds, their women, their fears and their feats.

We would also like to mention and greatly thank our other collaborators: Vadim Gusis aka Chaos As Shelter and Igor Krutogolov aka Igor18.

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Mon 28 Mar 2005

Zookeeper, Grundik+Slava and Ambidextrous split

Posted by grusla under Reviews and interviews
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Jon Barnes
Reviewed 2005-03-28 A+ outing from Grundik & Slava teamed up with Ambidextrous. Some of the tunes are by G & S, some by Ambidextrous, and others are one team remixing the other. All-around stellar electronic compositions, at times leaning toward experimental. Some of the more complex experimental drum patterns are beyond my taste, but even with that said, this album is a gem start to finish. PLAY!

Best tracks: 1, 2, 9
**Track 1: BEAUTIFUL and spacey intro with touches of acid and bleepy percussion. Gets dark and more drummy around minute 4.
**Track 2: More absolutely stunning mellow synth work and astonishingly creative drum patterns. Play this anywhere, anytime, any mood – it will SET the mood.
Track 3: If there were such a thing as “industrial ambient,” this would be it. Another home run.
Track 4: OK here comes the complex meter and drum patterns. Sparse and dominated by a bouncing low-end sound that might be a talking drum.
Track 5: Dark feel with distorted complex drum patterns. Not my fav but well done.
*Track 6: Deep electronic percussion; succeeds even without a discernable melody.
Track 7: Interesting contrast of skittish drum patterns under soothing, ringing vibraphone chords
Track 8: First straight-up dance beat emerges 1:30 into this song. Melody stays lush.
***Track 9: PLAY!! Starts off sinister and ends in bliss. The perfect comedown track to end the album (or your show…)