[abrouxados] críticas no Vital Weekly 761

[Roberto Mallo García]

ANOREXIA MENTAL (CD by Xedh)
MUBLES/COOLOOLA MONSTER - LA IMAGEN TIEMPO (CDR by Xedh)
ESCALA NO UNIFORME (2CDR by Escala)
A slightly chaotic cover for Anorexia Mental, a duo from Basque land of Daniel LLaria (who plays 'ahotsa, teklatu and baxua') and Itziar Markiegl (who plays 'ixi-software, garrasiak, and something which is represented by a symbol). Most other text is in their native language too. Which I guess is a pity. The only English line, on the press text, says it is recorded in a professional studio. Well, then! Should I now insert something about how it all sounds? There is indeed a certain depth to this. But I am slightly confused by their music. Its quite 'free', essentially based around vocals, which scream, shout and howl and a whole bunch of free form sounds. I hear a bass, electronics (reverb on the voices for instance, maybe they should have used a less professional studio), maybe a synth here and there. However they don't really seem to be interested in adding enough variation in their playing to justify a sixty-two minute album, whereas probably half that length would have been enough
to proof the same point. And its not exactly my point, but who knows there is room for some strangely improvised music.
The other new release on Xedh, run by Miguel A. Garcia (of whom I rather see having a new record out!), is Mubles, a group of which he's a member too, along with Loty Negarti, Kakofunk and Alvaro Matilla. On this occasion that is, as the group has a floating membership, as far as I know. Here they have a live recording from exactly two years ago, December 27th 2008. I am not sure why it needs to be released now. Very much along the lines of their previous release (see Vital Weekly 761), this is less about noise than the first (Vital Weekly 644) and all about free improvisation on a bunch of instruments and toys: drums, toys, electronics. Picked up via a microphone in the centre of the hall, it picks up a room in which sound is being generated. Throughout it builds up towards a crescendo through the addition of electronics. That makes this piece more controlled (but not entirely composed) than the two previous outings by Mubles. Another band from Bilbao (both of them called 'the most
controversial bands of Bilbao') is Cooloola Monster, which is Garcia and Carlos Valverde (who was in a previous incarnation of Mubles) and we find them in noise land together. Garcia did such things in an earlier part of his career and that was for me the least interesting part. Its essentially a long howl of distorted voices and likewise distorted electronics. Not my cup of tea actually, its the kind of noise that is dated, conservative, lacking dynamics and any sort of idea, composition and probably effort. No doubt for both Mubles and Cooloola Monster goes that seeing and experiencing this is the better option than releasing it on CDR.
Garcia, as Xedh, is also present on 'Escala No Uniforme' a compilation put out by the Escala netlabel, and you can download the whole thing, but since its the fourth anniversary release, you can also buy it as a double CDR. It shows that since Vital Weekly no longer reviews MP3 releases, we are out of touch what happens on netlabels, as not many of these names may much to me. Lots of electronic, rhythmic music is to be found here on disc one, in all kinds of variations. Down tempo, up tempo, IDM, straight forward 4/4 by musicians such as Pirata, Pleq, Rec Overflow & Javier Rubio, 3republica, Burdeos, Analogica, Stable Mechanism, Javier Rubio & Parsec, Erissoma, Crisopa and Logical Disorder. This is continued on disc two, but it seems to me that the material here is a bit more experimental. Still striving on beats, but somewhat lesser danceable, with longer ambient intro's. Xedh (who send me this) returns to another phase of his career when he explored beat oriented material, but here
too works around ambient themes. I think that I, not known for dancing his socks off, liked this one more than the first disc. Here we have music by Sustainer, Danieto, Daoun & C. Gonzalez, Angel Galan, Musica Para Khaos, Trikome, Xedh, Ten & Tracer, Iqbit and nnID. Excellent stuff for traveling long journeys and tapping your feet away. (FdW)
Address: http://www.xedh.org
Address: http://escalared.com

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