This is Thursday night. Melbourne

ooh have we got a video?

YES WE”VE GOT A VIDEO!

Tea time for MONOLITH

DOG ACT (all caps) two in the pink

The Greater Horny Coke Owl

SLR016 (cassette by Second Language Records)
A compilation from Australia with four bands, two of them clocking in at ten minutes and two at just under fifteen. Dark Monolith I don’t think ever made it to these pages, the other bands did. Constant Light open up here with a fine piece of darker than life ambience, of humming analogue synthesizers and likewise old sound processing devices. Cosmic music anyone? No, not really. This is just black hole music. Very nice. On this side we also find Peter James and Zac Keiller, also known as Dark Monolith, who one afternoon last year recorded ‘field recordings and drones’ of a more lo-fi nature. This reminded me very much of older New Zealand music, rusty drones captured by a microcassette, cleaned up on the computer. A particular fruitful afternoon that was. Seaworthy are perhaps the best known band from this lot, from a Vital Weekly perspective, for he had releases on 12K. Maybe it’s because it’s on a cassette, but it seems to me that he’s in a bit more noisier mood than usual, and could perhaps easily be lumped in with Dark Monolith with some almost violent ambient drone onslaught. Excellent change-over! Scattered Order might be the most well-known band here, but no doubt of a different generation, and here team up with a band called Breathing Shrine, whom I actually don’t know. The loud drone mood is continued here, and doesn’t that much like Scattered Order (as far as I know them!), but it’s in turn the heaviest slab on this fine cassette. I normally don’t like compilations but with such lengthy pieces its always easier I guess, including the nice music. Obviously. (FdW)

AUTOMATING - SOMNABULIST (CDR by Second Language Records)
More music by one Sasha from Melbourne. The digital version of this is released by the netlabel Wood And Wire, while Sasha has a few copies of this on CDR with a handmade package on his own Second Language Records. “Originally conceived as a demonstrative show reel for various psychoacoustic techniques as a form of data delivery and an approach to a philosophical understanding of the world”. About sleep states, hypnagogia, why we need to sleep and source material from field recordings, found sound, tape manipulation, noise and effects units. While it has been cut into eighteen tracks, with as many titles, it sounds like all of this music belongs together with all of these flowing straight into each other. While its not the same in some ways I am reminded of the older Hafler Trio most of the times, with some ambient textures, collaged voices and processed field recordings but all in a more rougher state. Like things recorded on dictaphones before being processed into shady loops and slowed down voices. Maybe alike ‘A Thirsty Fish’. Maybe it’s because the Hafler Trio came up in conversation a few times last week. From the three releases I heard by them so far, I thought this was by far their best release. An excellent example of raw musique concrete, philosophical thought and fine execution through minimal means. (FdW)