2-CD Album, Intransitive Recordings, USA 2004

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Also featuring music by: Jonathan Coleclough & Colin Potter, nmperign, Atau Tanaka, Olivia Block, Ronnie Sundin, Magali Babin, Nerve Net Noise, Le Quan Ninh, Artificial Memory Trace, das Synthetische Michgewebe, Frans de Waard, Haco/View Masters, Hideaki Shimada, Francisco Lopez, Eric La Casa, Lethe, Giuseppe Ielasi, Alexandre St.Onge, Birchville Cat Motel, and Thomas Ankersmit.

The set is launched with a scrawling old banjo in heat provided by Birchville Cat Motel on “Endless Cassette” which triumphantly flows freely into “3:45” by Berlin-based saThe set is launched with a scrawling old banjo in heat provided by Birchville Cat Motel on “Endless Cassette” which triumphantly flows freely into “3:45” by Berlin-based saxophone contortionist Thomas Ankersmit. Breathing circular life into his instrument the crisp hiss is minimal and transcendent. What follows is the cavalcade of frenzy, a brightly distorted underground shell game by players Das Synthetische Mischgewebe on “Leisure Time for Max in the Arteries of his Past Dominion.” A cryptic metal gate gaping slightly ajar swings from its hinges and illustrates the story far better than I could.

Taking the metal revel one step further Hideaki Shimada, who seems to be taking a fragile bow to some heavy metal and defying gravity in the process. Milano Giuseppe Ielasi (Sedimental, Absurd, Fringes) is one of those artists who is just now bursting into his own, with a sound that is full and pretty maximal. On his “Two Chords” a drone of friction baits and switches with a channel of icy naturalism. Hapna’s Ronnie Sundin offers “Seismo 3” which harkens back about a half dozen years to minimalist tactics taken on by John Duncan or Francisco Lopez. His quiet vinylisms are like fine raindrops. The year, 1980, the place, Prague --and so we have the warming buzz of Artificial Memory Trace. “Blue Reverie/Fragment” is a reverberating, manipulated metallic clang, with all the fixins; Deep, dark and brooding all the way. Frans de Waard (Korm Plastics, Plinkity Plonk) presents “Balloon” – airy humor, to the point, a bit gaseous and somewhat twisted, the track expands and contracts into something of a broken down engine in a winterized garage somewhere in a higher altitude. Up, up and away! “AKS21” is the piece by Sensorband’s Atau Tanaka. It’s a sound assemblage, real physical sound, layers, so thick, like lost telephone signals and meteorites appearing at the bottom of your cereal box. I think it scared my cat. Olivia Block’s “Untitled Piece for Analog 4-track, Tapes” is like a romantic rain shower, a mic’d umbrella. Its restless fiction undulates below the translucence of the skin’s top layer. “Interlace of Life” by Nerve Net Noise (Meme, Intransitive, Zero Gravity) is the symphony for the end of the life of a mosquito. The Japanese duo’s cryptic style for mixing wildly curvaceous playfulness with poker-faced pitch makes them two of a kind. French sound artist Eric La Casa keeps his ears open and his mind free from debris. On “Ici 1” the clear and distant blur of industrial concave pluralism stagnates the air, but like a slow moving virus. (Bernhard) Gal’s “In Fusion” is a split screen asthmatic wheeze at a rural construction site. The whistle is pretty down to earth, the overlapping of foreground and background seems inadvertent, though there is a tension between the two between the silences.

Montrealer sound sculptor Alexandre St. Onge creates a tearing, pouring, moving set of sound on “Ma Contrebasse Ou L’Invention de la Machine A Ecrire.” The delusional “Theremin Radio 00” comes from Japanese improv artists Haco/View Masters. This may define a space age love song. Canadian Magali Babin, recently seen live at Mutek, offers her homemade, creaking “Thermidor”. For fear of tipping, top heavy, this craft keeps mindful the dangers of not mixing metaphors with physical realities. The whisper of Jonathan Coleclough and Colin Potter’s “Leaves on the Track” brings to mind essential purity of basic colors in sound. Their slowly shaped work is drenched in isolated atmosphere and unknown. The simple, subtle elegance of Nmperign’s “Mhere’d” leaves a lot of room for interpretation, a full breath of continuity only tampered with slightly to futz with wind briefly. Even a sneezy grunt seems quite fitting in the full flow of this centered mix.

In conclusion, Francisco Lopez’s “Untitled #134” seems appropriate. It strikes the ear as a Kubrickian styled epic, in light of the fact that we have, as a civilization, surpassed “2001”.

TJ Norris (Igloo Mag, USA 2004)

Gal comments:

"...the piece consists of a sauna visit while playing a Chinese whistle called koudi. It was performed (and recorded) in one single take, fusing whistling sounds and evaporating steam in real time."

Howard Stelzer's press release for his compilation of improvisational, dronecore experimentalism entitled Intransitive Twenty-Three gushes about his love for compilations, harkening back to high school days of making mix tapes for friends. While I certainly have a strong sense of nostalgia for the mix tapes of my youth, I do not always share Mr. Stelzer’s love affair with ‘the compilation’' (in general though, not this one specifically). In many instances, compilations emerge as lackluster collections patchworked from tracks that didn't quite fit on an artist's latest album. There are obvious exceptions; and in every case, those exceptions are the result of the care that the compiler puts into what he or she chooses, where he or she places those selections, and what thematic constraints he or she demands from each of the artists. Accordingly, Intransitive Twenty-Three is one of those rare compilations that succeeds on all fronts.
When Stelzer began assembling this album, he asked that each of the artists record these tracks without the use of any digital devices. How they interpreted what ‘no digital devices’ meant was up to them. Obviously, Stelzer was seeking a more tactile approach to sound making (as opposed to the potential for sterility that laptop jockies might revert to). He also hedged his bets by asking the cream of the crop including Jonathan Coleclough & Colin Potter, Francisco Lopez, Frans De Waard, Birchville Cat Motel, Giuseppe Ielasi, Atau Tanaka, nmperign, Alexandre St. Onge, the Animist Orchestra, and many others. Across the twenty two tracks, quiet passages, textural events, and field recordings make up the bulk of the content, with everything punctuated by periodic silences which divide all of the tracks and whisper that another interesting turn of haptic improvisation is around the corner. Another great album from Intransitive.

Jim Haynes (Aquarius Records, August 2004)

(...) Intransitive Recordings out of Cambridge, MA has been doodling in experimental music for the last few years. "Intransitive Twenty-Three" is a 2 CD set of some of the finest electro-acoustic, experimental and new music the label was able to get their hands on. Some of the highlights of the compilation include a wonderful, watery and almost dub-like track "Untitled # 134" from Francisco Lopez, the kettle-whistling sounds of Gal's "In Fusion", the static world of Giuseppe Ielasi's "Two Chords", and the overtly high-pitched experimentation of Le Quan Ninh's "La ville et des sinusoides a petit budget". While it's sometimes difficult to put this sort of a mix together well, this is only due to the fact each of the tracks features a completely different mood, varied sound and a unique take on the world of sound. In no sense, is this to be used as background music. [The use of headphones is well advised.] In general, this is a very solid compilation, showcasing the world of other-worldly sounds as seen through the eyes of Intransitive Recordings.

Tom Sekowski (GAZ-ETA, Poland, July 2005)

Gal comments:

"Obviously, the author mixed up the sounds of 'in fusion' with another composition of mine, "zhu shui", which indeed is based on the sonic potential of tea kettles - a pretty close bet, but actually the piece consists of a sauna visit plus the sounds from a Chinese whistle, performed (and recorded) together in one single take, hence the title. It was a rather hot experience."