From Bob Bannister Sent Fri, Oct 23rd 1998, 16:53
Irene wrote: > >microstoria "reprovisors" (with the 3 12'' feat. stereolab,MoM, Ui, > >jim O'rourke, etc. >I only had the 3rd of these, with (I think) Jim O'R & Panasonic - had >to return it to the shop the very next morning coz I found it >unlistenable, but your appreciation may well differ. I'm sure the >S/lab & MoM mixes would have been more palatable to me. Unless there were mutiple releases, the O'Rourke 12" paired him with Violent Onsen Geisha - one thing that was interesting (although not necessarily successful) about the project was that it brought together people more or less under the IDM rubric with noise/experimentalists who probably don't regard themselves as part of anything remotely "dance" related. There isn't much in the way of beats on the whole CD which is more or less one big electronic collage and functions best as a whole - I have two of the 12"s but prefer the CD in general. The O'Rourke track is one of the best (imho) whereas the Violent Onsen Geisha seems designed primarily to challenge your notion of what constitutes a "piece of music". It starts with about 35 seconds of a regular drum pattern, string hits and some strange background noises, then stops dead and totally falls apart, culminating in a segment that sounds like pots and pans being thrown down the stairs while someone bumps into a turntable. On the 12" this seems a bit pointless, while on the CD it flows right into the Mouse on Mars track (which uses dissonant sounds in a slightly more regular structure) which somehow puts VOG in context. Similarly the Stereolab snippet isn't much of a "single" but makes a beautiful bridge between the characteristically hissy/clicky Oval track and Jim O'Rourke's almost orchestral approach. re: trombone propelled electronics - Nicolas Collins has been tinkering with this for at least 10 years but don't forget erstwhile "jazz" trombonist George Lewis whose been doing similar things since the late 70s. Bob