From Pietro Sent Fri, Sep 17th 1999, 17:22
From Pietro Sent Fri, Sep 17th 1999, 17:22
>From the DEI press.. not me. FENNESZ / O'ROURKE / REHBERG=20 The Magic Sound Of Fenn O'Berg=20 MEGO031CD=20 UPC: 1753-32372-2 Christian Fennesz - Jim O'Rourke - Peter Rehberg (Pita)=20 Recorded in Tokyo, Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna and Paris With a hardcore attitude and approach to sonic manipulation that equals=20 peers like Autechre, Pan Sonic, and Merzbow, Vienna's Mego label has been=20 active at the cutting-edge of digital music culture for the past four years. Hacking out their own, distinctive audio print, based around abrasive=20 tonalities, glitches and wrinkles, and skittering, abstract structures,=20 they operate across a variety of modern electronic media, consistently=20 pushing and interrogating the technology =F1 searching out spikes, cracks= and=20 creative spaces. Like the above-mentioned trio, the visceral grain of the=20 sound and its placement appear rigorously, obsessively worked. With Mego,=20 you can literally feel the quality, the difference. Whilst a bunch of blokes sat ponderously at laptops may be visually dull,=20 Mego's live shows have always seemed other than mere promotion. Providing=20 a vital articulation of their NOW-ness, and a head-on engagement, they=20 become the ground-zero of the label=EDs activities. Recorded at various=20 locations over the course of the last year, "The Magic Sound Of Fenn=20 O'Berg" documents the live collaboration of Pita, Christian Fennesz, and US= =20 ally Jim O'Rourke. Each armed with a powerbook and mixing desk, and=20 usually little prior knowledge of one another=EDs material or intentions,= the=20 results are a stunning flood-and-fold adventure in sound. Of course, the=20 very nature of improv necessitates periods of boredom, false-starts and=20 wrong turns. Yet these excerpts generally witness a trio in staggering=20 form. Whilst all three have delivered superb solo efforts, you get the=20 feeling that it's perhaps the process itself, rather than finalised form=20 that inspires them - twisting and pulling, re-working their sonics, getting= =20 off on the "heat" of live collaboration. Dense and dark, murkier and more=20 disorganised than "Get Out", the live passages draw on a wider sound-world.= =20 Fizzing and flickering, bursting with gritty chatter, all manner of sonic=20 detritus is pushed through the mangler: twinking glockenspeils, bursts of=20 piano, overloading bass drones and frequency-fogs, crumbling traces of pop.= =20 When a lengthy section of John Barry=EDs stirring, string-lead "Moonraker"= =20 theme takes the foreground, it works precisely because it=EDs the last thing= =20 your expecting. Not so much a series of new maps, as a doing away with them= =20 altogether, immersing yourself in the freeform thrill of (live) sounds /=20 events unfolding around you. Wired in, the flow becomes a draining= adventure.=20 Fucking hardcore. _____________________________________ Pietro Da Sacco, m b m @ n e t c o r e . c a ::: Grooves Magazine 002 ::: ::: Experimental Electronica in Words ::: http://www.rain.org/~audio/grooves/ ::: Insound.com Zinestand ::: http://www.insound.com/zinestand/grooves/