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fluidsf · 6 years ago

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Fluid Label Focus on Flaming Pines 1

Various Artists: Kaleidoscope (2019)

Reviewed format: Advance review copy of Digital Compilation as kindly provided by Flaming Pines

Welcome to the first review in my new series about Kate Carr’s Flaming Pines label in which today I’m reviewing the most recent release on the label, the compilation Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope is a compilation of underground music from Ukraine, compiled by Igor Yalivec from the group Gamardah Fungus (whose albums have also been released on Flaming Pines) and is released on CD and as a Digital Download. As Igor Yalivec writes in the introductory essay in the info text file in the press kit (which was kindly sent to me by Kate Carr through email) the compilation idea was inspired by growing attention by the media for Ukrainian avant-garde music after the Flaming Pines releases of Garmadah Fungus’ albums. As he writes, the compilation is meant as an introduction and promotion of Ukrainian underground music and for reasons of format limitation, brought back to 12 track totalling around 76 minutes playing time (for the CD and download versions). Indeed the compilation aims to offer a varied look into Ukraine’s underground music scene through these 12 pieces by 12 artists, as the music varies from Dark Ambient soundscapes, to synth minimalism to more Braindance like music, as Yalivec calls it, a Kaleidoscope of music. The Kaleidoscope compilation features cover artwork by young Ukrainian artist Alina Gaieva who created a funky cartoon like drawing that represents this compilation in quite a quirky fun way by a combination of cubist stylized people, various devices and tree branches that also look like cables. In the image she blends all these elements together to depict the way the artists featured on the compilation are “inter-connected” to each other, this is indeed quite appropriate as I found out after doing some research that many of these artists have either played gigs together or have featured on similar labels or releases together as well as there being a bit of a cross of members from the groups featured on the compilation with some artists featuring in multiple groups on Kaleidoscope, like Igor Yalivec himself. The image also has a nice element of abstraction to it with the various trippy shapes scattered around the image adding some wild energy to the image which is also apparent on the music on this compilation and the hand-written like typeface of the Kaleidoscope title adds a sweet DIY aesthetic to the image. So, some great artwork to the compilation indeed. Before I move onto my review of the music on this compilation I’ll point out the contents of this download version. The audio files in my version are all WAV files, with varying audio resolutions however, most likely the direct masters so they’re all good quality. For convenience however (if you’re gonna get the lossless download), I’ll note which tracks have which audio resolution. 16-bit/44.1kHz - 4-6, 11-12, 24-bit/44.1kHz - 1-3, 10, 24-bit/48kHz - 7, 24-bit/96kHz - 8, 32-bit/48kHz - 9. Furthermore there’s the back cover in good resolution, an info text file, and the front cover (both cover files are in 3543x3543p).

Kaleidoscope starts with the piece Voice Way by composer Alla Zagaykevych. It’s a gorgeous piece of music that features (what sounds like) various manipulated sung female vocals filtered into glassy resonant droning waves of sound. The ghostly and distant filtered sound of the piece makes it feel like you’re walking through a mysterious tunnel, light shimmering randomly in a cloud around you, distant muted singing reaching your ears, but the sound is never quite distinguishable. There’s a great constant evolution between sonic ambience and more recognisable vocal textures that keeps switching and changing into a new form. The music consists mostly of this cloudy resonant haze of filtered glassy sound, though sharper resonances also shine through but stays relatively subdued, at least until the end of the piece. In the final 1:16 minute of the piece suddenly a metallic intense synthetic frequency modulated sound comes in which is way louder than the haze we heard before building towards an intense short climax that ends in a calm tail of vocals fading out. A great dynamic rich piece to start with. On the next piece Partita For Two STOs by Heinali, Heinali has created a partita for a modular synth system featuring two Make Noise STO modules. Looking up partita, I found out this type of music is normally for solo instrument but since this can also mean one type of instrument the name definitely matches. After the progressive but still quite gradual piece by Zagaykevych, Heinali’s track contrasts quite a bit with a more minimalist sound. But I definitely like this adventurous sequencing in the tracklist and with an aleatoric performance approach in this piece but with the modular synth still retaining a calm subdued tone it’s a sweet second track. Partita For Two STOs features quite a twirling sound, especially in the melodic tones that fall mostly in the mid-high registered, these are often accompanied by long tones forming a kind of base to the piece. However, this base still always shifts and indeed at first this piece might be quite challenging to get into with the seemingly random melodies. But if you keep the base tones as reference and closely follow the melodic patterns the piece becomes clearer, the calm atmospheric organ like texture of the STOs also helps to give the piece a pleasant calming ambience which can help some listeners. Besides the aleatoric atmospheric element there’s also something organic about this piece in that the movements of tones at times seem to resemble birds or other elements, although going to the opposite directions the movements could also represent short strings of data, but whichever way you interpret it, it’s definitely a sweet piece you can listen to multiple times and gradually untangle all of its layers. Afterwards we have Monocube with his gorgeous piece Hortus Amoris, a deep and dark Ambient piece with a melancholic and sad ambience, almost like losing hope but even though the melody itself sound quite sad and desperate, the textures themselves are quite bright in fact. The vocal like sounds hidden in the depths of the cloudy atmosphere sounds sad but also still quite energetic, it’s like feeling fear for something but the fear isn’t fully overtaking you and there is still hope coming in the distance. Gradually evolving, the pieces textures shift through various metallic resonances, glistening high pitched droning filtered whirring and at times quite ominous glissandi. I love the depth, strings like textures of some of the droning ambiences within the piece and ominous elements in the resonances and there’s a great evolution in both subtle melodic shifts and changing textures, a very good piece, one of my favourites on Kaleidoscope. On next track Memories, the group Gamardah Fungus creates a meditative Ambient soundscape featuring calm improvised guitar melodies backed by a mellow filtered drone and richly textured field recordings. It’s very nice piece to relax with, but there’s also a lot of good depth in the piece with the drone forming a mid frequency resonant ambience that keeps on flowing really nicely and the field recordings add a lot of pleasant but also excitingly dynamic sonic details to the piece, like the “laughing” like high pitched sounds, the soft sounds of cars driving by and the mixture of nature recordings adding peaceful clanging rhythmic organic elements to the soundscape. The melodic guitar improvisations are also quite minimalist, never going very fast or intense in terms of tempo and dynamics but the melodies are playing well into the ambience and have a good balance with all the sonic elements surrounding the guitar, a very nice piece again. Then on Isolation we have a piece by Endless Melancholy that also moves into the droning Ambient direction. This track however, is a much more gradual developing piece with a pretty intense noisy diffuse continuous drone that is very harmonically resonant again. The noisy drone fluctuates and evolves quite a lot in the piece, moving from glimmering harmonic sections to more harsh waves of distorted fuzzy ambience, sometimes crunchy, sometimes hissy. The slow calming guitar lead melody adds an introspective element to the curious mixture of atmospheric and distorted elements in the music that gives the music a Shoegaze like kind of “ambient rawness”. Like meditating in a room full of loud machinery with your own mind creating a peaceful glow of tranquility within you, as expressed by the warm resonant drone and guitar melody in the piece, very nice. On Ujif_notfound’s piece Noi_Cht1056 we find quite a different sonic environment. As I could already guess a bit from the artist name, it’s quite a glitchy digital piece of music. Consisting of various wild stereo panned Noise manipulations over ghostly feedback like resonances and filtered drones, the piece is very abstract and like most of Ujif_notfound’s work is most likely generated through a custom algorithm. It’s a sweet cross between AM radio like sound manipulation and mysterious Industrial tinged droning in which the noise is definitely forced quite a lot to the foreground through some intense compression. There’s a lot of enjoyable scattered, ticking and vibrating stereo glitches and variation in noise texture and the resonance do have some kind of melody within them even though they do sound quite abstract. This is definitely a great piece especially for its many variation in sonic manipulation and the fuzzy intense compression of the piece makes it quite intense listening with all the rapid impulse rhythms within especially, nice sounds. Additionally, the resonances do have quite an oriental sound to them too, which is quite intriguing combined with the digital noise and glitches, like hearing sounds from a ritual in a temple through all the noisy manipulations. On the next piece Flux, Andrey Kiritchenko then brings us into some smooth atmospheric Braindance vibes with a nicely subtle but also quite funky piece of music. The music is based around drones and is a blend of various layers of mellow synth drones, a calm but quite distorted guitar melody, some nice glitched vocal samples that are panned around and a bouncy mid tempo beat at the end of the piece. The music doesn’t really undergo dramatic developments, but instead flows quite gradually from section to section, with variations in the drone, guitar melody, voice glitches, forming most of the evolution within this piece, but it definitely works to give the music a good ambience but also a structure in which the music moves towards a new phase, which is the groove at the end of the piece. This groove feature some sweet synth drums, funky squelchy bass and various quirky synth effects, there’s definitely a sweet relaxed vibe in the piece, very nice. Then we have Kayak with the piece Astra, a minimalist piece of electronic music with a pretty classic Glitch / Braindance sound to it. The piece builds from a quiet calm subtle first half featuring filtered “liquid” synths and bit-crushed resonances to the more dynamic second half which features irregular drum rhythms and squelchy short glitches and synth tones. The piece has got a feeling to it like waking up on a Sunday morning in a house near the river, quiet sounds all around you, water and water drops being very noticeable to hear and a general feeling of introspective rest. The melodic elements are very calming and serene and most of the progression in this piece is audible through the rising and falling loudness of various elements within, like the bit-crushed droning tones and the irregular bouncy drums that seem to get busier especially towards the end of the piece. All in all a sweet subtly flowing piece in which the separate layers of sound, glitches, tones, drums also layer over each other rather well with several of these layers move forwards and backwards in the sonic space to great effect. Afterwards we have Craving, a piece by Motorpig which is relatively short. On this droning ambient piece, the resonant filtered and quite rhythmic organ like drone forms the base of a warm glowing Spring ambience. The drone is accompanied by field recordings of a strange bird sound, soft noise and wooden crackling sounds. A soft chiming melody leads the piece as the drone subtly fluctuates in overtones and filtering for a pleasant organic waving kind of sound, a very nice meditative piece again and the mixture of the tones and field recordings / noise create a great “nature” themed atmosphere that is very immersive on listening to the piece. Then we have r.roo’s track Far Far Away From You in which we have quite a different kind of sound. Leaning towards a kind of Tango like instrumental Synthpop sound the piece is more melodic and Electronic based than the music before but still has quite an atmospheric tone to it. I especially like the dynamically changing filter frequency of the lead melody synth which adds a nice swing to the melody, this melody is accompanied by an instrumentation consisting of quite clean sounding reverberated synth drums, a deep detuned wobbly bass synth, as well as some sweetly clicking string like synth patterns as well as a sweet additional high pitched PWM synth melodic synth pattern that comes in the second half of the track. Definitely a great piece which combines catchy melodies with some sweet synth and drum work that sounds very vibrant and also a bit dark and mysterious. Afterwards on Thunderstorm, Submatukana bring us a sweet Downtempo piece that sounds like an aural picture of a drive through a thunder storm, with the windscreen wipers, rain, care engine noise all contributing to the rhythm and sonic details of the piece. The piece features a simple distorted lead melody until the final section of the piece in which a second different melody on subtly saturated piano comes in. Thunderstorm’s got a great attention to detail in how the sounds are used and the field recordings combined with the melodies and punchy mid tempo beat form a great ride of a track, the underlying droning tone also adds a sweet bass tone to the music. A very nice piece, I like how the music subtly evolves in this one based on the car related sounds, thunder and rain. Final track Salt by Kadaitcha is one of the most varied pieces on Kaleidoscope in terms of instrumental performances. Featuring a combination of electric guitar improvisation and quirky electronics, it’s a sweet drone based piece of improvised electro-acoustic music. The guitar plays various melodic patterns and chords, at times quite diffuse sounding and the sound of the guitar itself is also effected at times by reverse effects, while the electronics vary from ring modulated synth effects to mallet like repeating resonant patterns, glassy glistening harmonics to the crunchy rhythmic noise in the second half of the piece. All in all it’s got a great peaceful ambience within it with the guitar and synth improvisation adding plenty of curious and intriguing sonic paths that move through the drone ambience, a very nice closing improvisation of this excellent compilation.

Kaleidoscope is a really nice compilation of underground music from Ukraine which has got quite an atmospheric, often drone based theme to it but in which the music can also vary from this Ambient to more experimental abstract pieces, Dark Ambient, Braindance and improvised music. I particularly like how this compilation not only gives a good introduction to the music of these 12 artists but the variation of sounds and styles also brings the listener to various places, situations and compositions that are all quite personally attached to the artists themselves. The selection of music is very consistent and Kaleidoscope is therefore also a great listen on its own as a flowing compilation album. I definitely recommend this compilation to listeners who are interested in getting introduced to Ukrainian underground music, fans of Ambient mixing field recordings and experimentation in it and if you’re a fan of Braindance, Glitch and more rhythmic styles of electronic music you’ll also find some great music on here. I would say, go check this out.

Pro-printed CD and Digital version of this compilation are available from the Flaming Pines Bandcamp page here: https://flamingpines.bandcamp.com/album/kaleidoscope

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klara-radio · 8 years ago

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tracklist:

Dennis James: Quintet for Glass & Strings I Dance (Comp. Garry Eister) - Cristal: Glass Music Through The Ages - Sony Music 89047 - [0:02:49]

Ensemble Recherche: Adagio Für Glasharmonika In C-Dur, KV 356, 617a (Comp. Salvatore Sciarrino; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) - Liebeslieder / Love Songs - Wergo 6792 2 - [0:03:10]

Ensemble Recherche: Notturno amoroso (Comp. Cornelius Schwehr) - Liebeslieder / Love Songs - Wergo 6792 2 - [0:03:38]

Jean-Yves Thibaudet: Miroirs: Oiseaux Tristes (Comp. Maurice Ravel) - Beautiful Starry Night - London 448618 - [0:04:31]

Signe Bakke: Crystalline (Comp. Karen Tanaka) - Crystalline (Music by Karen Tanaka) - 2L-074 - [0:06:54]

Aranis: DSK (Comp. Maarten Van Ingelgem ) - Made in Belgium II - [0:03:38]

Janosi Ensemble: Transylvaanse Roemeense Dansen: (bronnen van Roemeense volksdansen - Bela Bartok 1915) (Comp. Trad.) - Rhapsody (Liszt & Bartok Sources) - Hungaroton 18191 - [0:05:06]

Zoltan Kocsis: 6 Roemeense Volksdansen 1. Stick Dance (Comp. Béla Bartok) - Zoltán Kocsis Plays Bela Bartok - Philips ?475 6720 - [0:01:07]

Bela Bartok: Veldopname van Bartok: 128_MH2040b (Comp. Trad.) - Népzene Bartok Müveiben (veldopnames Bartok) - ISBN 963-736-309-2 - [0:01:26]

Zoltan Kocsis: 6 Roemeense Volksdansen 2. Sash Dance (Comp. Béla Bartok) - Zoltán Kocsis Plays Bela Bartok - Philips ?475 6720 - [0:00:29]

Bela Bartok: Veldopname van Bartok: 129_MH1719c (Comp. Trad.) - Népzene Bartok Müveiben (veldopnames Bartok) - ISBN 963-736-309-2 - [0:00:27]

Zoltan Kocsis: 6 Roemeense Volksdansen 3. In one Spot (Comp. Béla Bartok) - Zoltán Kocsis Plays Bela Bartok - Philips ?475 6720 - [0:00:55]

Bela Bartok: Veldopname van Bartok: 130_MH1715c (Comp. Trad.) - Népzene Bartok Müveiben (veldopnames Bartok) - ISBN 963-736-309-2 - [0:00:49]

Zoltan Kocsis: 6 Roemeense Volksdansen 4. Dance (Comp. Béla Bartok) - Zoltán Kocsis Plays Bela Bartok - Philips ?475 6720 - [0:01:24]

Bela Bartok: Veldopname van Bartok: 131_MH1446b (Comp. Trad.) - Népzene Bartok Müveiben (veldopnames Bartok) - ISBN 963-736-309-2 - [0:00:37]

Zoltan Kocsis: 6 Roemeense Volksdansen 5. Roumanian Polka (Comp. Béla Bartok) - Zoltán Kocsis Plays Bela Bartok - Philips ?475 6720 - [0:00:28]

Bela Bartok: Veldopname van Bartok: 132_MH0863b (Comp. Trad.) - Népzene Bartok Müveiben (veldopnames Bartok) - ISBN 963-736-309-2 - [0:00:34]

Zoltan Kocsis: 6 Roemeense Volksdansen 6.Fast Dance (Comp. Béla Bartok) - Zoltán Kocsis Plays Bela Bartok - Philips ?475 6720 - [0:00:50]

Bela Bartok: Veldopname van Bartok: 133_MH0863d (Comp. Trad.) - Népzene Bartok Müveiben (veldopnames Bartok) - ISBN 963-736-309-2 - [0:00:23]

Bela Bartok: Veldopname van Bartok: 134_MH1410a (Comp. Trad.) - Népzene Bartok Müveiben (veldopnames Bartok) - ISBN 963-736-309-2 - [0:00:49]

John Schott: Elegy: Thomas Edison And Emile Berliner (Probably Emile Berliner-Twinkle, twinkle, little star. c. 1888-90) (Comp. John Scott ) - Shuffle Play: Elegies For The Recording Angel - New World Records 80548 - [0:04:07]

Fumio Yasuda, Drew Gress, Theo Bleckmann, Jane Taylor, Caleb Burhans, Jo Lawry, Akimuse, Rubin Kodheli, Bohdan Hilash: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (Comp. Trad.; Jane Taylor) - Mother Goose's Melodies - Winter & WInter 910195 - [0:04:19]

Daniel Barenboim: Variaties op "Ah Vous Dirai-Je Maman", K 265 - Var. 11 (Comp. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) - Mozart: The Piano Sonatas & Variations - EMI 573915 2 - [0:02:50]

Steffen Schleiermacher: Etudes Australes XVI (1974-75) (Comp. John Cage) - Complete Piano Music Vol. 9 - MDG 61307952 - [0:08:27]

The Cockpit Ensemble o.l.v. Gavin Bryars: Fulness of Wind (uit Three Variations on the Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel) (Comp. Johann Pachelbel, Brian Eno) - Discreet Music - EG 23 - [0:09:58]

Chad Hoopes; MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra o.l.v. Kristjan Järvi: Concerto voor viool en orkest - Chaconne: 'Body Through Which the Dream Flows' (Comp. John Adams) - Mendelssohn - Adams: Violin concertos - Naive 5368 - [0:11:04]

Werner Jacob: Ciacona (Comp. Johann Pachelbel) - Pachelbel Music for Organ - Virgin 7591972 - [0:08:29]

Philip Glass Ensemble: Koyaanisqatsi - I.Koyaanisqatsi (Comp. Philip Glass) - Glass: Koyaanisqatsi - Island Records ?255 626 - [0:03:31]

Steven Osborne: Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus IV Regard de la Vierge (Comp. Olivier Messiaen) - Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus - Hyperion CDA-67351 - [0:05:04]

Steven Osborne: Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus XV Le baiser de l'Enfant-Jésus (Comp. Olivier Messiaen) - Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus - Hyperion CDA-67351 - [0:11:43]

Ensemble Recherche: Blicke der Verliebten (Comp. Alla Zagaykevych) - Liebeslieder / Love Songs - Wergo 6792 2 - [0:08:11]

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