Fruitman's Favorites for 1999
This selection of favourites is, naturally, utterly subjective and far from
exhaustive. But here anyway, in no particular order, are some records which
brightened up the past year for me. Stephen
Ben Wa, Devil Dub (Black Hole Records)
On its pre-release at the very end
of last year, I already knew this one was going to make the list. Deep dark
bubbling evil dub with a funky sense of humour.
Jonathan Coleclough, Windlass (Korm Plastics Introductory Paperback)
Utterly perfect.
Bill Laswell, Rasa: Serene Timeless Joy (Meta)
The best Laswell ambient ever?
Hiroshi Fujiwara, Flowers (EP Apesounds)
Lovely dub-inflected piano pieces in the most original package of the year.
V/A, Hi-Fidelity Dub Sessions: Chapter One (Guidance Recordings)
The best
from the dancefloor retooled dubwise for optimal enjoyment as home
entertainment. Eagerly anticipating the next chapter.
Vidna Obmana w/ Capriolo Trifoglio & Diego Borotti, Landscape
in Obscurity (Hypnos)
Vidna Obmana & Alio Die, Echo Passage (Musica Maxima Magnetica)
In a year in which Vidna Obmana set some sort of record for collaborations, these two
stand out. Perhaps he has some special affinity for Italians. Extremely
long, single-track releases both deserving to achieve the status of true
ambient classics.
V/A, Flav-o-Pac: Memograph I (Soundlab)
Illbient is dead - or so say most
practitioners of the art, anyway, as they continue unabated to explore the
genre. This compilation weaves a multitude of Soundlab performances into a
seminal survey of the science.
Jon Hassell, Fascinoma (Water Lily Acoustics)
Perhaps the single best
album of the year. If you'4ve heard it, you know why. Defies any description
that would do it justice.
V/A, Abstract Depressionism (APC)
"Even now in heaven there were angels
carrying savage weapons." Among them, Eraldo Bernocchi, DXT, Laswell, Mick
Harris. The comprehensive introduction to a dark, crunchy genre which
still hasn't been affixed with a clever label.
Arvo Pärt, Alina (ECM New Series)
A perfect introduction to the Estonian
composer's aesthetic and a must-have for those already convinced that he is
the most original composer of the last twenty years.
Badawi, The Heretic of Ether (Asphodel)
Raz Mesinai continues to evolve as an artist at an alarming rate, from the subterranean boogie of Sub Dub to JA-influenced Mideastern spiritual dub and now, a journey through the
imaginary acoustic desert of his fertile mind.
Gavin Bryars, The North Shore (Materiali Sonori)
The year's best chamber
music release. The Harmonia trio (cello, clarinet, piano) have a tendency
to get involved in some pretty ill-advised projects, but working in close
collaboration with Bryars, they show just what they are capable of.
Honorable Mentions
Antonio Testa & Alio Die, Healing Herb's Spirit (Crowd Control
Activities)
The best example of ethnoambient I've encountered over the past
twelve months.
Bill Laswell, Invisible Design (Tzadik)
A tightly-conceived example of
just how good a composer Laswell is when he wants to be.
A Produce/M Griffin, Altara (Hypnos)
Light and dark meet in one of the
more interesting and unexpected collaborations of the year.
Instrumental, Acoustek (Big Chill)
Because it's a fun idea - string
versions of ambient and dancefloor hits, including the definitive
interpretation of Brian Eno's "Sparrowfall".
Toshinori Kondo, Eraldo Bernocchi & Bill Laswell, Charged (Apollo)
May I be allowed to call this "ambient"? Maybe it's actually a jazz ablum,
but either way, it's a terrific and powerful record.
RIP: Augustus Pablo (1952-99)
+ December Reviews
- Jonathan Coleclough: Windlass (Korm Plastics Introductory Paperback)
- His second solo effort after the limited release Cake, Jonathan
Coleclough's Windlass is the finest ambient I've heard in ages. A low,
quiet drone sets the tone and is joined by a higher, more distant one.
Extremely subtle shifts in texture occur - now the drone seems to be
generated by a pipe organ, and the accompanying static hiss soon
metamorphoses into field recordings of chirping birds. Things get even
quieter about one-third of the way through; bass notes thrum sparsely over
one, thin, high-pitched note that borders on the inaudible, eventually
becoming a thready buzz recalling a nighttime cricket chorus. The low drone
returns for the final third of the piece before higher pitches overcome it
and carry the sounds off into oblivion and the conclusion of this
forty-minute masterpiece. Jonathan Coleclough somehow achieves comforting
warmth and chilling abandonment in concert with one another, transporting
the listener to a region of utter ambiguity. With Windlass, he has
produced a timeless work of art. Staalplaat and Solielmoon are handling its
distribution.
- A Produce/M Griffin: Altara (Hypnos)
-
Apparently, A Produce and M. Griffin have never met face to face. As their
respective previous solo albums prove, both are highly-skilled,
idiosyncratic ambienteers whom, I assume, share a mutual admiration for
each other's work. This eventually led to an exchange of DAT tapes back and
forth between Los Angeles and Portland, as the artists meticulously
sculpted a new world of sound neither had visited before. My previous
exposure to A Produce leads me to characterize him as a composer of the
dreamier sort, while Griffin has steadfastly inhabited darker regions.
Here, they encounter one another in some sonic limbo located in the place
where light meets dark. Though each of the five pieces dovetail nicely into
one another, there is something particulary engaging about the final,
thirty-six minute drone, "You Send Me the Message", vaguely reminiscent of
A Produce's "A Smooth Surface (Extended)" but now roughened up slightly and
submerged in inkier depths. Drift music in the murkiest of waters, this
collaboration is still a triumph of clarity of vision and purpose and as
such, one of the best of the year.
- Graham Haynes: Organik Mekanix (Ion)
- I just can't figure Graham Haynes out. He makes brilliant appearances on
other people's albums (e.g. Sacred System Chapter Two, Bill Laswell's
Jazzonia, Russell Mills' Pearl and Umbra), but when it's time for his
own solo projects, his work falls completely flat. His last solo album,
Tones for the 21st Century, appeared on more trading lists than any other
I can recall in the pass couple of years, and his new one, Organik
Mekanix, is likely to suffer the same fate. In an interview from 1997,
Haynes claimed that some people might find his ambient music "really
boring," but that's because in order to properly appreciate it, "You have
to sit down and get into it. When you get into it, you'll start hearing
things that you didn't hear before...." While that is the case for truly
accomplished ambient music, no matter how comfortably I sat and
concentrated on this record, I never got into it, because there is
absolutely nothing into which to get. "(Om)", the longest piece on the
album at 24:52, just drones on and on without ever revealing any inner
dynamic - just a little desultory tootling by Haynes and dull electronic FX
supplied by his three collaborators, among them Byzar's Acustyk. The
shorter tracks fare no better. While I live in hope that Graham Haynes
still has a great ambient album in him somewhere, this is definitely not
it. For successful and involving ambient trumpet music, stick to Jon
Hassell or Ben Neill's Triptychal.
- Thermal + Seofon: A Monument of Chance (Boxman); Atoi Mystery
School: Y2Kaos (2 CD Mystery School); Thermal + Freezer + CUE: Time Out
of Mind (Boxman)
-
Three recent releases from Thermal, Seofon and various co-conspiritors. A
Monument of Chance contains four thoughtfully constructed soundscapes
whose common framework consists of insistent beats and loops laced with
synthesizers and samples. "Application of Buddhistic Classics" is
appropriately Eastern in sound, though that aesthetic seems to inform quite
a bit of the music contained within. Altogether an intelligent album, much
like the comments often submitted to Hyperreal's Ambient List by Thermal's creative force,
Joshua Maremont.
The double CD Y2Kaos, on the other hand, is curiosly unengaging. For 2 x
73 minutes, the various artists go through all the usual trance motions,
beats chugging along, "mystical" voices and messages surfacing and then
receding. Some of this music was recorded live in San Franciscan chill
rooms, and perhaps that is the proper milieu in which to fully appreciate
it.
Time Out of Mind shares its title with the latest Bob Dylan album, but I
can assure readers that the resemblance stops there, if we disregard the
excellent production values of both records. A quieter affair than
Monument..., this CD is an all-list member production, featuring Maremont
solo as Thermal; Freezer, where he is joined by Peter Becker; and CUE aka
Charles Uzzell-Edwards, Fax's American friend and sometime poster. "Tone
Ref" by Thermal places quiet beats in the forefront, while guitars wail
somewhere beyond the horizon, the whole thing culminating in an almost "Ode
to Joy"-ous climax. Maremont teams up with Becker on "Ether Leak", which
pursues roughly the same ideas, but also features the extra added
attraction of spurts of muted coronet punctuating the process. Very, very
nice ambient. Finally, CUE and Thermal submit "71 Scuba - Owl Service",
perhaps the most introspective track of the three on offer here, a fine
closer to an extremely engaging seventy minutes.
Stephen Fruitman's Reviews were posted here on December 28,1999.
