Sound art, art of sound, a lovely waltz by the great Moondog and a where ideas around minimal, ambient, jazz and electronic music are regarded as just variations of a common language….

DSPSSSSD – Offcuts From Reality (ITCH04) – Sound art, art of sound, people playing with electronics (usually playing by themselves) and then expecting some kind of wordery to be stitched together based on what it is they’ve done. I could say that bit there sounds like robotic hamsters chewing on the wires but that would be a little disrespectful and really the truth is there are no words and really who needs then when you have the sound at your finger tips and hey, repeat a lie or a indeed squelch enough times and it becomes truth and is that, no, can’t say that, I mean, this is good, it has more character than most electronic sound art, it bubbles in a slightly different way, it kind sound like, well no, can’t say that either, here, you have a listen, you know our policy, the rules that we hardly ever break, we only cover things when we feel positive about them. bloody boring artwork/typeface though. Out as a limited edition cassette tape if you like that kind of thing, the label sent some hype in, find it under the Bandcamp…

‘dspssssd (dispossessed) is the electronic concept of artist Aniruddha Das who creates tense, agitated soundscapes using layers of sampled noise. The idea emerged out of live sessions of his ‘mutant dancehallʼ project “Dhangsha” where he often plays non-metric passages to transition between his beat orientated tracks.

With an instrument called the “Microgranny,” he explores the nether regions of sound: the cracks and crevasses that exist in a sample waveform. When he detunes an already lo-fi fragment, a foreboding landscape opens up, often with the release of significant artefacts. When itʼs then subjected to simultaneous bit-crushing and granular shifting, their interaction creates a further sense of disorder and disruption. Real-time adjustment of the parameters, rather than leaving on one setting is a key principle and makes this process performative

For Aniruddha, the studio door always remains open to the world. “Offcuts From Reality” is a frequency analysis of the emotional and political state of Britain in the early 2020s. The insistent geiger-like glitch that permeates the set represents unprecedented levels of social anxiety and frustration, the brooding bass an all pervading sense of dread and the crush distortion. spontaneous  outbursts of anger and animosity. We have been psychologically ‘kettled’ for years – the police version is just a physical manifestation. Though bruised and nursing sore heads, we must re-focus and re-group. Battle lines are being drawn.’
The album will be presented in a super glossy black tape case with dspssssd sticker and released a limited edition of 50″.

I still think it sounds like electronic hamspters chewing at wire and strange frogs and no, I didn’t really hear “a frequency analysis of the emotional and political state”, did kind of like it though (besides the boring artwork)

Here’s some Voodoo Drummer and a track they put out recently..

“Elf Dance is a lovely waltz by the great Moondog (Louis Thomas Hardin). The duo divide this beautiful melody between Balafon and Cello, as the drums keep the 3/4 rhythm. Instead of playing the bridge they experiment with an improvisation from the cello and then the drums. Moondog, also known as the “Viking of Sixth Avenue”, was a true original, whose compositions and drum pieces in odd times have been a major influence for the duo. It’s been 25 years without Moondog so we chose our new single to be his “Elf Dance” in memory of our favourite composer!”

The Afro-Dionysian Voodoo Drummer duo are Stavros Parginos on Cello and Christos Koutsogiannis on Drums and Balafon

and here’s a little bit more…

And…

Kali Trio (from Zürich, Switzerland) are Nicolas Stocker (drums, electronics), Urs Müller (guitar) and Raphael Loher (piano and electronics), they work in “a world of contemporary music where ideas around minimal, ambient, jazz and electronic music are regarded as just variations of a common language”.

“Whether working with composed or improvised material, the three musicians follow their intuition and draw on their deep and anti-ideological understanding of music history. The sound they create is on a correspondingly broad canvas, where cinematic washes of sound combine with intricate, often tessellate patterns. Meditative, sometimes mercurial percussion acts as a binding element”.

This is just a quick sign post, a public service if you like, a sharing of the information that jsut came our way and this is a rather rewarding track off next year’s album The Playful Abstract, (an album to be released on 14^th February via Ronin Rhythm Records) Find the track, or single if you wish, on Bandcamp

And while we’re here, just for the pure pleasure