maeror tri 'archaic states' (absurd #7)

maeror tri is one of my favest 'ambient' projects and was one of my favest for the 90's too! i mostly liked their harsh (i dare to say 'trance') side and perhaps not their so 'mellow' moods but their soundscapes were always seting up absurd's office on fire, as they still do!
initially 'archaic states' was a tape on akifumi nakajima's (aka aube) 'g.r.o.s.s.' label. was issued sometime in early 90s. upon hearing it i fall in love with the 2nd side. i liked the 1st but the 2nd was and still is an all time fave piece... 'blowing sounds from a dome' maeror tri's monstrous 30 min piece recorded to be sent as raw material to rudolv eb.er and use it, together with other participant's material for schimpfluch's legendary 'stuhlgangblockade n!' LP (there was also a tape issue of it on the italian old europa cafe).
fall 90's reissue saw a different cover and layout based on photos of beeba christopoulou, an artist that lived at the same building that absurd's main graphist (frankly i should say co-partner in crime) maya lavda.

listen and listen especially loud 'blowing sounds from a dome'!!!
enjoy!

http://sharebee.com/2c51220b

perverse series (story & catalogue)

perverse series

(september 1995 – march 1996 (unofficially)/march 1997 (officially)



while I was doing my military service and under an extreme lunacy for schimpfluch label, sometime in early 1994, asked rudolv whether he’d love the idea for my starting a sort of a label dealing with schimpfluch and related artists. we kept on discussing it during 1994 that the idea was born and rudolv offered a couple of unreleased material to be released (one of which was “morx & kotschlag” that came out in February 1995 on the Selektion Host Series). This brainchild saw the daylight in late summer 1995 to become rather quick one of my worst nightmares ever…unofficially stopped in march 1996, the official disbandment came in march 1997.



no1 : runzelstirn&gurgelstock/tac/e/factor x : collaboration cd. edition of 500.

(the 1st time mentioned was from rudolv sometime in 1991, in the schimpfluch interview for GG#3, and the work was finished sometime in early 1994 when we first discussed of the perverse series project. The whole collaboration result (both artwork & soundscapes) though was remixed in a more insane&extreme approach in early 1995. the cd was released in November 1995)



no2 : merzbow : magnesia nova cd. edition of 1000.

(a co-production with Oxy pbl (Greece) which was worldwide distributed by Staalplaat & Soleilmoon. It was to come out in march 1996 but due to financial problems luckily came out in may 1996



tapes



act 1 : aube : voltanic valley cro2 60 (edition of 60 numbered copies, came in sandpaper & wire mesh)

act 2 : emil beaulieau : pure c60 (unlimited edition, details & cover were xeroxed on transparent paper, collection of beloved tracks from his 5 cds on pure)

act 3 : mangled (originally was to be a co-production with Sin Org (Italy) but never saw the daylight as Mangled ceased to exist)

act 4 : richard ramirez : backlash c40 (edition of 77 copies)

act 5 : hauthanh/mpd (split tape co-produced with myotis (Belgium). each label was to release it with different covers. the perverse edition was never out, as long as perverse ceased to exist.

act 6 : murder corporation/mpd (edition of 99, cover xeroxed on blue paper and had a fly’s Xerox on transparent paper on it. The murder corporation side was the original side recorded for the never released atrax morgue/murder corporation 'nurses' split cd for harsh dept

act 7 : onomatopoeia : irrelevant c46 (edition of 70, recorded under an enthusiasm for flags and each cover was coming with a different flag sticked on it)


also a few tapes were released as well under perverse's umbrella (a bit weird thing though some were something in between perverse and pre/early absurd ones). here's the info on them..


started issuing them sometime before the time that perverse series ceased to exist this tape series was supposed to be a sublabel of perverse. All were c40 tapes limited to 50 copies maximum.

the tape series stopped sometime in early 98…



1 - mpd/skin crime/emil beaulieau : 23 central st (or illusion of perversion)

(one day in january 97 received a tape featuring recordings of crowd/projects done during the opening of RRR’s new store. a couple of months later mpd we played on our mixing desk with the tape and here’s the result. limited to some 40 or 50 if i recall well now.)

2 - area 42 (still unpublished, side project around Miko Aspa (the guy behind Freak Animal label & a host of other projects))

3 - deison : random screams (some 40 copies. in plastic bag, tape credits and title were glued on a broken and cut cd surface. they were coming in 2 transparent xeroxes. each glued on the cd's surface.

4 - use your pain/kadef : satan serviert bittermandeln zum desert (kind of a split tape limited to some 40 if i recall well now. packed in newspaper, w/ rope and 3 almonds glued on it)

harsh dept (story & catalogue)

harsh dept

(1991 – 1995)



back in 1989 was born the idea for a tape label, being involved into tape trading the idea evolved in the first harsh dept hybrid via which were unofficially “distributed” tapes of greek grind/noisecore bands and were issued varathron’s “genesis of apocryphal desire” demo as a chrome tape limited to 100 copies (under licence from the group) and the 2nd tape of the greek experimental outfit Fish Eye View “the 2 fish hospitality” a part of which was recorded in Greece and the rest of the tape & mix were done in S. Africa sometime in early 90’s. the harsh dept project started mostly inspired after a discussion with George Priniotakis, who was issuing back at the time the greek zine NEO ROK (RIP), and since its formation (sometime between late 1990/early 1991) was perceived as an extension to the activities of the Genital Grinder zine, nothing else but a different form of communication. ceased to exist at the time that the whole thing had started looking like mostly a label rather an activity around a deadend zine….quite accidentally was the first project in Greece to release recordings of the what so called “extreme musics” or use any label you prefer to describe it….



releases


harsh 001 : city of worms : quester (released in 1991 on a chrome 90 tape under licence from Matthias Lang of Irre Tapes(RIP). there were 2 editions of it, one in simple white xerox paper limited to some 77 and then another one on transparent paper sticked on blue carton limited to 50. the lengedary US project around IOS, Hands To, Jim O’Rourke, ea)

harsh 002 : kapotte muziek : lauter c46 (released in 1992)

harsh 003 : mental anguish : best of… (originally planned for release in 1992, due to a problem with the covers was shelved and finally never came out, was to be a chrome 90 min tape)

harsh 004 : factor X/tac : the animals c60 (mail collaboration between the 2 lunatics)

harsh 005 : factor X : directions c60 (reissue of a tape that was out on a French label)

harsh 006 : factor X t-shirt (edition of 100, 70 on red t-shirt with blank ink and 30 on black t-shirt with white ink. originally produced in order to announce the release of the factor X “noi” lp (harshlp 1) that was a part of the legendary “roh” series. the lp never came out and hope one day soon to be able to issue it on absurd…..)



abyssos series


abyss 001 : dimosioipalliliko retire : ianus cd (edition of 500. a work of the legendary greek experimental project. 2 tracks that were to be played simultaneously from 2 radios and the 3rd track the mix of the first 2. released in may 95, a week after harsh dept had ceased to exist)

abyss 002 : kapotte muziek : verder cd (edition of 1000. released in november 94, including mail collaborations of frans de waard with telepherique, agencement, haters and merzbow)

kapotte muziek 'verder' harsh dept. abyssos no. 2

'verder' was harsh dept's 1st cd release (after a couple of failed attempts for a cd compilation in 91-92 and an unpublished 'factor X' lp in 93) and came out in late 94.
the original plan was to start a cd series under the title 'abyssos', probably influenced from various labels of that time that used to divide their releases in various series or sections can't recall exactly why now...
the cd included 4 mail collaborations of frans de waard with luminaries like telepherique, agencement, the haters & merzbow.
the print run was 1,000 copies. still in it is reflected the sound of that time plus tendencies of 80's & 90's in sound, from manipulated shortwave to lots of other tricks... beloved classic sound!!!

trivia : cover colours are darker to the original design. a week before the cd was planted, a tremendous storm hit athens. the printer who used to collaborate with the manufacturing company used to have his studio in the garage of the building where his office used to be and everything flooded. films got wet, i was told that they won't have a great problem so when they got dry were used for the cd covers.

thanks also to the master dat order track 3 was placed as number 4. same mistake kept here though for the tracking i used the right track title. besides you can realise the difference when is the haters and when is merzbow! verder

mlehst 'living without feeling'

fall 90's and all brentnall's mlehst
and his bandaged hand produce label were a true sound explosion for me! harsh electroacoustics / noises that marked a series of unique cdrs. totally exhilarated with his sounds asked him for a cdr which turned to a more noisy compared to his other works of that time but trully fantastic as well!

enjoy!

trivia : 'fake' digipack cover. supposed to be limited to 150 copies, ran out of digipacks and being hard that time to track down shelved some 75 copies for a future 'reissue'. sadly never occured... though you can never know....

http://sharebee.com/6febec42

emil beaulieau 'pure'

it wouldn't be a lie to say that ron lessard / emil beaulieau are absurd's godfathers. back in 96 under a terribly difficult period for me ron has been a great help and actually helped absurd in its early steps. being the newsletter dedicated to pure's releases (& related for absurd activities like alli poli in greece and also dedicated to the ever beloved elgaland-vargaland).

being fond of the 5 first emil beaulieau cds on pure did a kind of a compilation, adding the ones i loved the most. emil kindly allowed me to do a tape issue of it that became perverse series's act #2. simple tape with a transparent xerox of the early pure inserts, taken then the boy outside the old rrr store that was the cover of the first rrr 5lp boxset.

almost a decade later thanks to the birth of orion elafros, in xanthi, was reissued in a limited edition, on a slim cd case, bearing as cover a photo of a picture of my friend costas tsiknis (from the city of amphissa, phokis) that did for the bar 'stavento' (lies at the isle of kimolos).

still stands as my favest emil! play it loud!!!

http://sharebee.com/120ae5ca

die feine trinkers bei pinkels daheim "papagoyenboom' (absurd #1)

here we are... absurd's 1st proper (cdr) release... initially to be perverse series's final tape release (act 8) and was to come out a couple of months after the release of onomatopoieia's 'irrelevant' tape (sooner or later will be uploaded).

i came across, die feine trinkers bei pinkels daheim, back then, thanks to stefan knappe of drone records, refering to them as the german big city orchestra, both for their musical style but also their crazy titles. being curious for their sound i checked a couple of their tape releases and thanks to stefan got in touch with jurgen eberhard discussing for a tape to the (already bankrupt) perverse series... (at that point absurd was dealing as a part of perverse series regarding its releases at least some limited edition tapes were issued under perverse series's name credited to absurd.)

however, early 97 thought was high time perverse stopped once and for all and continue with absurd. cdr boom was just starting, so being a new medium thought a cool idea to start doing cdrs. thodoris zioutos (partner in crime in the first absurd days) helped a lot with mastering, duplication of the early absurd cdrs. can't recall how took the decision to turn from tape to cdr, i think it was in march 97 during a trip to the city of volos. the thing is that it started accidentally without knowing back then the maelstrom of releases that was to come in 00's....

enjoy!!!


http://sharebee.com/5f41f165

absurd #6 (lost transmissions from planet zero)

[here's the texts of what was supposed to be absurd #6. 'lost transmissions from planet zero, was issued of course but under a completely different approach, packaging (check the thu 20 post about it). wanna work again those texts and i'll upload that issue too sometime sooner or later.

those ones are mostly interviews, articles or even texts for pure cds done sometime in mid / late 90's.

no matter how hard i checked archives couldn't track down that crazy tochnit aleph interview. however if i ever do so it'll be posted separately.

of course since then various links have changed...


20city / eso steel have became of course cmr and richard francis works under own name

crawl unit turned to joe colley's own name

as of harbinger the last 2 months email doesn't seem to work.

no current contact for k2 sorry.

meeuw muzak's email is still valid though if you wanna contact jos moers for infos.


so here's some info on the #6 idea / plot


(or the what was initially planned to be part of absurd#6. )



since the time of no 3/4 back in july 97, I had started working on absurd 5,
and was collecting articles, etc. unfortunately (plus also due to my
laziness/boredom at times) some material remained shelved and unpublished.
So back at the time I started working on no 5 and conceived the idea of a
sort of a "zero" trilogy (completely influenced from projects such as the
new blockaders, haters, mev, amm, idea fire company, tart, (early) le
syndicat, eric lunde, con-dom, and too loads to mention) wanted absurd 6 to
be dedicated to these "shelved" ones.



the actual "scenario" for the issue was to "invent" stories of how the
previously unpublished material was lost & (re)found or in some others to
had the chance to include "extra" material for the "reissue", such as
happens for instance with various reissues of lost (& found, afterwards, to
realize that the track order wasn't the right one, or the mix was bad, so
let's "dissapear" the reissued copies and make a new lost&found edition,
blah, blah, blah) 50's/60's/70's obscurities (w/ 80's still's a problem but
sooner or later a greater need is gonna be created in the market so.) when
for instance a band/artist (whatever) of that time had only issued back then
only but a 7" or a sole lp and suddenly today is reissued a deluxe 5
cdboxset for instance including extra unpublished material that was lying
around his house, or his ex-girlfriend's house, etc etc etc.


here's the archive

http://sharebee.com/8269de7d

absurd #2 + absurd #3/4 (texts)

archive material... absurd used to deal with the pure series and related, alli poli (greece) and its related projects, friends.... regarding pure, pure artists were contacted and were asked to send a text around their pure cd in any way they feel like...

features though included also g.m.bh., antifrost, a spot on chondros / katsiani's '51 saturdays', etc...

since then of course links have changed so here are the new ones...

click on each to check...

the haters

big city orchestra

drone records

toy bizarre

antifrost

chondros / katsiani

solndnergeist

g.m.b.h. has ceased to exist for long. sebastien keeps on with his ferns records. in the latest update i saw that he has probably returned to paris after having spent a long time in another city of france.

here are the texts too...

http://sharebee.com/3c787bcd

giuseppe ielasi '5 tracks' absurd #8 (2001)

i had just discovered fringes and its first recordings as far as i recall and liked the work of giuseppe a lot back then! actually giuseppe was the first sound artist to engage absurd's involment with gigs set up, etc... march 2001 took place the first live set that absurd organized ever. a live improv set at small music theatre between giuseppe ielasi, nikos veliotis, costis drygianakis, nikos veliotis.
however.. must thank nektarios pappas of vinyl microstore that a day before allowed giuseppe to handle a trully memorable live set at his record store (mp3 and infos on that day to follow in another post soon). to celebrate the event absurd issued a limited edition cdr to 100 copies. part of the 'research center for the definition of happiness' series. this time issued under its 'athens' branch...

still one of my beloved absurds... highly recommended for late night listening... enjoy!

http://sharebee.com/1fd9dbd9

for infos on giuseppe's current activities please visit www.schoolmap-records.com

silkworms cannot be confiscated until they have become perfect cocoons

silkworms cannot be confiscated until they have become perfect cocoons, is a project that started accidentally (trully can't recall how the idea was born) with socrates martinis (aka blanco estira nuestro, hermana helice, nixilx.nijilx). the couple of ideas we had discussed for a collaboration, turned to an installation that was handled at the folk museum of the city of xanthi (a lovely place that has supported and has housed a lot of activities that absurd has been involved), on the 11th of February 2006, day that took place a memorable live set of nikos veliotis's 'vomvos' (= drone)project. for the occasion we used 2 loops we had created, that were playing in 2 different places in the museum. enjoy the extracts of them (including 1 loop we didn't use) and play them to infinity!

http://rapidshare.com/files/183215409/silkworms.rar.html

phil turnbull's no night sweats

[another unpublished archive document... the entire interview was manipulated to an extremely short text that was to appear in an unpublished issue of overdub zine... anyway enjoy...]


i came across phil turnbull or better say he came across me a couple of years ago when droppin’ a mail in the avantgarde_cdr mail list asked for some fall stuff on cdr to listen. phil answered, we did a little trade and when received the desired cdr, i noticed he had included a cdr compilation named ‘poor galileo he has gone mad’ a kinda anthology of australian post-punk bands of the late 70’s/early 80’s… pretty funny but when i put it in the cd player could never imagine that i might get hooked to it. suddenly found myself listening to voigt/465, scapa flow, systematics, seems twice and more… and slowly too dropping a line to phil for more trades.
for those unfamiliar to his name, he was a member of the legendary voigt/465 group, then wild west and no nights sweats and the last few years he’s been one of those guys who w/ great respect & love for those good ol’days started restoring the old material in digital form trying to ‘save’ it in a way or so (call it whatever). in his site you can get infos on various reissues on comp cdrs he has done or infos on other related australian post punk groups/labels/reissues. plus much more… and why not asking him for a little trade in order to discover & enjoy some truly joyous moments?

http://www.users.bigpond.com/pturnbul


[ Smelly Fish ]
Yesterday it was Wollongong harbour (wiv me mum) where the smelly fish were smelly. Sometimes I can stand it and other times not - retching, nose blowing, ingesting water and soothing Stevesant smoke (when only the best will do) are the ways in which I can partially stop the smelliness going too far down my throat.
Luckily, none of these occurred yesterday and I was able to make a delightful bar-b-q lunch of thai kingys and succulent gem fish. See, I can cook and eat it but not ever smell the raw smelly fish.



- so when did you start restoring the old tapes archives?

i'd dabbled in digitising vinyl and cassette source material during 2000 but only really got enthused in 2001 when there was a concrete proposal to add some tracks to what eventually became the "can't stop it" compilation, released by guy blackman / chapter music. all of the material for voigt/465, wild west and the tame o'mearas was remastered professionally at one of sydney's most famous mastering studios - studios 301. but, in some ways most importantly, i got the right software and computer hardware to be able to do all the rest at home on much cheaper equipment. overall i'm very happy with the results - i may not have a mastering engineer's ears but i think the stuff i've done at home is pretty good anyway.



- how did you come up w/ the idea of the 'australian post punk' archives comp. cdrs?

as above, really. the initial impetus was doing the professional mastering but then i realized there was a lot of singles, eps and cassette 'masters' in my possesion that would only just deteriorate more if i didn't put the effort in and do it myself. the vast majority of the 'australian post-punk archives' cd-rs are studio recordings either released on vinyl that i still kept after all these years or came from cassettes that band members and studio participants had copied and kept, for the most part, in the back of their cupboards. ofcourse, the rest of the archives are sourced from bootleg live recordings that tim vandenberg and patrick gibson had made at the time. tim's collection was vast and patrick's was eye-opening.



- besides the app archives have you compiled any other cdrs/cds?

i digitised and cleaned up all of my old vinyl that hadn't been re-released on cd at the time. the 1st one was the early scritti politti singles which I did around 2000. i called my compilation "early stuff" and it was was widely copied across the internet community. the recent official release of this material is called "early". i wonder where they got that name from?? i also did lots of the fall and so on but, for the most part, it's all been re-released professionally since i did them and these always sound better than my attempts simply because my source vinyl was so degraded after all those years of cummunal living.



- a little bit 'bout the past, how did voigt/465 start? and can you give me a few details on the rest of the projects you've been into such as wild west & no nights sweats?

during the later years of high school, myself and some friends started learning to sing and play instruments in typical garage band fashion. then, before i started art school in 1976, i bought a synthesiser and i got together with 2 of my schoolfriends who had a liking for music which had a more avant leaning. we spent 76-78 learning how to play properly doing lots of systems music and spacey jams along the way. with the advent of punk and
the sydney underground rock scene - radio birdman et al - we tried to toughen up the music and, eventually, we did to some extent. voigt/465 broke up in 79 and i gravitated to another high school friend and one of the slugfuckers to make similar kinds of music to voigt - but with a more melodic bent : wild west. it started off as just more of my angular jerky rock things but this was eventually put aside, luckily, for peter nelson's slower, more moody pieces. the drummer left but we kept on using other friends as guest stars in the percussion spot until peter left to go overseas in 82. luckily we'd recorded a lot of material and we'd copied these masters onto cassette - we only have one master tape form this whole time - the voigt/465 single sessions - all the other masters were destroyed or taped over. after wild west i just played music at home onto a 4 track teac reel-to-reel where i got love my arp odyssey even more. i eventually played this stuff to patrick gibson and we started adding vocals on top and mixing them at m-squared studios. this naturally went on to live performances where the casette player was the star whilst pat and i roamed the stage in bad sinatra / martin gear.




- any other sites around the australian post punk scene of the late 70's/early 80's that you recommend?

all the links i think are important are at
http://www.users.bigpond.com/pturnbul/nns_band_links.htm





can you jot me in brief some of your memories of the late 70's/early 80's aussie post punk scene? moments, places, groups, etc. fave australian post punk bands of the time?

the main memories are of fun, excitement, huge numbers of friends and a "who gives a fuck" attitude about it all. i NEVER thought that i'd become famous with music but it was just so deeply satisfying to play with friends, to record the songs we'd created by ourselves and to play in front of all our other friends. the number of people who came to see us slowly expanded but I can pretty much say that they were all known to us - we loved meeting new people at gigs and getting drunk with them later as other bands played. It was all pretty much hand to mouth, really. no-one in the proper performance
spaces - hotels, bars, concert halls - would have anything to do with us so we had to organise gigs for ourselves in inner city community halls and soon. most of the time these ended in noise complaints, etc and we never made any money out of the gigs. for myself and most of my close friends, we kept up full time employment even if making music was our way of life. Of course, there were obviously bands who didn't have jobs to support them and who also wanted to make money from what they loved doing. boys next door, pel mel and tactics are 3 that come to mind who, in there own ways, made a living of sorts from continually playing and expanding their live performance base outside of the inner cities. my favourites are still the tame o'mearas, tsk tsk tsk and the systematics.



- hey how about fave bands, artists, records?

there's a few bands / artists that i continually return to : faust, can, neu!, henry cow, slapp happy, robert wyatt, this heat and pere ubu. all of them were ingrained into my psyche during my late teens and early twenties. i must have played can's "ege bamyasi" at least twice a month since the mid 70s - so 700 times all up. and i was sooo happy when it was re-released last year with just fantastic sound quality. wyatt's "rock bottom" was also a
very personal favourite - most of my friends liked it grudgingly but it just sat on my heart like a warm pillow. this heat's "health and efficiency" is the BEST post-punk song ever made - weird, heartfelt and played with such vehemance that it shines. and pere ubu's "modern dance" is probably the best post-punk LP - not a single dud moment.




- can you give me some infos on your monday missive's?

the monday missive's were initially a way for me to keep in contact (on a personal basis) with work friends after i strted to work from home for half the week. i felt, rightly, that people would start to forget me so i wrote some funny little stories to remind them of my stunning wit! these eventually took on a more surreal role in my life as i started to enjoy writing them and worried less about how people would react to them. eventually i gave up due to tiredness, illness and lack of response from the dwindling number of people who still remained in the office.

absurd #8 (the commodities scrapbook)

as i used peter strickland's interview in the previous post around the scb/bb cdr, i searched one of my hard discs and unearhted the unpublished archives of absurd #8 'the commodities scrapbook' from 2003. the whole plan back then or at least as it started back in 2001 was the 'zero trilogy' never finished it actually, or better say it's first number 'an issue of absolute nothingness' was out in 2001 in 1500 copies (1st print run of 1000 and an additional of 500 then). as it turned to a financial bleeding as the printing costs were back then say 300-350 euros if i recall well and had to spend some 400 for p&p costs. so the 2nd volume 'lost transmissions from planet zero' saw a release later and not at all in the form i initially thought it to be. not that i didn't like it to say the truth of course! it'll be uploaded later. a final trilogy part was never in mind however while working on ideas my mind's corridors spewn this one.. financial reasons back then that remained unpublished... stupidity as well that didn't go online back then too but already absurd's old site was facing other problems so...
anyway... here it is... enjoy it to the last bit...


http://rapidshare.com/files/182219911/absurd_8_the_commodities_scrapbook.txt.html

dimosioypalliliko retire 'ianus'

dim. retire besides being cool friends for a long long time have been an influential project for me back in the early days. legendary for their performances (at times risky and dangerous ones!) but also for their humorous, cynical (well call it whatever) view around various topics have been a project that me speaking stands as the most impressive regarding experimental musics of the greek scene of the 80's / 90's... around late 70's they used to run 'shedia'(=raft) publications, in the 80's the 'alli poli' project including publications, performances, also a same titled gallery in the city of thessaloniki. at a certain point they used to run a pirate station too. since mid 90's performed under the name of chondros / katsiani, the names of the 2/3 of the project. a series of projects, performances was handled including as well publications too. soundscapes of those performances were documented on the cd '0+' on records 'edo' (= greek for 'here'). sometime in early 00's issued a series of almost 10 cdrs including new audio works plus reissue of older material including tapes from the 80's or recordings from performances handled in late 80's / early 90's. you can still ask for infos around them here






'ianus' was supposed to be the 1st cd of the disbanded 'harsh dept prods.', well, due to various problems turned to be the project's 2nd cd release or better say almost its final or posthumous release. issued a couple of months before i finished my military service, just about to launch perverse series (that went bankrupt a few months later in 1996) i still see this cd as a turning point between a certain period to another one... initially listened to it in 93 a few months since its recording. if am not mistaken was used actually for a performance or kinda like that at alli poli back then. recorded and mastered by costis drygianakis (then of the 'optical musics' project fame). arranged its release in 93 but finally managed to see daylight almost 2 years after... the work is supposed to represent the 'faces' of janus the roman god (hence the printing mistake in title). side 1 let's say a more 'angry' face, 2nd a more 'mellow' one (at least always seemed to me like that). 3rd track is the simultaneous play of both. work initially for a radio play, or better say simultaneous play from 2 different radio stations. unfortunately such an idea never occured...

trivia : at the time the cd was handed at the manufacturing plant, greece was under the fever of a satanist or so cult, the day the master was given for the glass master i was called by the plant's representative and asked whether the voices on the 1st track are part of an 'occultist', 'satanic' ritual or an invocation of something like that!?!?!?!?!!?!


get it!

the bohman brothers & the sonic catering band

here's a recording of 2 beloved projects and friends. peter strickland (of the scb fame) is a great pal for long time. scb also have been a great fave plus the peripheral conserve label that issued such great musics back in early 00's till it ceased to exist.
bohmans as well have been this eccentric duo that have offered me not only some great times of listening but also one of my most unforgetable live sets in small music theatre some 6 years ago. needless to say about adam bohman, a long time fave not only for solo or collaborative works but also being a member of my ever beloved morphogenesis project.

'imperial metric' was supposed to be a lathe 10" between gold soundz and absurd. shelved for looong finally saw daylight as a cdr. different cover on each label.

included as well is the pdf with the initial 10" labels. used by absurd (i think also by sindre) for the inner sleeve of the cdr. so print cover photo and labels and make your own unique cover...

enjoy!


http://rapidshare.com/files/182174453/the_bohman_brothers___the_sonic_catering_band_-_imperial_metric.rar



while digging infos for the scb cover, etc.. unearthed an old interview with peter. done ages ago for (a still unplublished) issue of absurd... the plot was the following... questions asked about scb, countries he lived in, friends / collaborators and instead of answers, recipes or foods, etc that remind him of them... so here you are... enjoy this 'dessert'!


i still thank michael prime for the contact with peter strickland a couple of years ago, one of the founding members of the sonic catering band project. peter was coming to greece at the time (well he’s often here actually i’d say) so had the chance to meet & go out for drifting the couple of times we have met.
peter’s besides his activities with sonic catering band is also shooting short movies and seems like filming will be the activity which he will spent most of his time in the recent future, being either in the uk or in hungary where he’s also spending lots of his time as well working.

he’s also running the peripheral converse label where the vast majority of the scb releases was out but also releases of the eccentric bohman brothers, or the splendid 10” of clare connors. you can get an idea of scb & peripheral converse at www.soniccatering.com

being involved in a project whose major source for raw material is cooking, as they were cooking on stage manipulating the produced sounds, the same holds for studio work too, i was curious to see how’s peter’s views on some topics of his interests/life will be reflected as food or recipes.
enjoy the meal….


starting meal

Grilled aubergine slices. Garnish with chopped red onions, tomatoes and
parsley. Lightly drizzle with balsamic vinegar.


hungary

Körözött – Liptauer cheese (creamy) pressed through a sieve with half the
quantity of butter. Season with salt, red paprika, chopped chives and
chopped red onions. Serve as a dip or on bread.


uk

Garlic Mushroom Moni Puree – mushrooms, chopped pineapples and onions
with garlic and lemon sauce served on a wrap.


filming

Bread and water


cooking

Pumpkin soup - Cut a small pumpkin in half and take seeds out. Cut what
is left into big chunks and cook in water until soft. Take the chunks out of
the pan. Cool, peel and mash with a liquidiser. Put vegetable stock in the
water left in the pan. Bring to the boil and then add the mashed pumpkin.
Also add orange rind, the juice of one orange, one spoonful of ginger paste,
single cream and yoghurt mixed in with an egg yolk (a small cup each). Stir
continuously adding a dash of salt and lemon pepper, nutmeg and a spoonful
of dry sherry. Bring very gently to the boil and serve with grated parmesan
cheese and fresh coriander leaves.


music

Humous – one cup of cooked chickpeas, 2 spoonfuls of Tahini (sesame seed
paste), 2 garlic cloves, spoonful of lemon juice, spoonful of mayonnaise.
Blend and serve.


fears on stage

Pancakes – plain flour mixed with milk in a bowl. Stir well. Put large
spoonful of mixture onto flat pan. Toss both sides until golden. Add lemon
and sugar, then serve.



project members

Peter Strickland – chocolate; Colin Fletcher – Cornish Pastie; Tim Kirby
– Horse Radish


reflections on early SCB days

Baked Beans on toast


reflections on current SCB days

Omelette with pine kernels, rocket leaves, grated goats’ cheese,
pomegranate juice, chopped tomatoes and red onions


how do you feel drifting?

Burek (cheese pie) – feta cheese wrapped in puff pastry


bohman brothers

Sunday Roast – roast lamb with mint sauce (vinegar with mint). Roasted
potatoes, brussel sprouts, mashed potatoes served with gravy, baked
parsnips.


peripheral conserve

Champagne.


entomology

Honey with natural Greek yoghurt, caster sugar and crushed walnuts


dessert

250g of butter, 2 cups of caster sugar, 4 eggs, 1 cup of all purpose
flour, 1 cup of self-raising flour, half cup of cocoa powder, 1 cup of milk,
1 cup of chopped walnuts.

For chocolate cream:
250g of butter
1 cup of icing sugar
400g of chocolate (melted)
4 teaspoons of brandy

Put the sugar and eggs, one at a time into the butter. Mix until frothy. Add
milk. In a separate bowl, add two kinds of flour and cocoa powder. Add the
two mixtures together.

Butter a baking tin and put mixture in. Bake for one hour at 180°C. Cover
with foil towards end to prevent burning.

For the chocolate cream: beat the butter, icing sugar and brandy until
frothy, adding melted chocolate.

Cut the cake into slices. Cover the top with cream too. Finally add the
walnuts on top. Leave in the fridge to firm.

editions_zero #2 (stelzer / talbot / rawlings vs zioutos / grivas / malevitsis

early 00's i have just started getting in contact with howie of intransitive recordings and have just exchanged the first bunches of cdrs/cds, etc..
in one of those early packs were a couple of recordings, sent mostly for the history and to get an idea of the duo (stelzer / talbot) and trio, etc, etc recordings.

at the same time with thodoris zioutos (who back then used to run absurd's old site and was a friend since mid 90's) we were seriously thinking of starting an improv duo project. various sounds were in mind back then and host of ideas to work on. to cut the long story short, that time thodoris started teaching at a music school at the same building that was housed till 2007 small music theatre. so in a tiny room that used from thodoris for his lessons we set up a tirny rehearsal room.

it didn't take that long to come up with the idea of a split cdr release. back then i liked the split releases (at times i still do to be honest) so worked out immediately... asked howie if i could use the split cdr's recordings, at the same time we did a session in our tiny room during which anastasis, who used to run small music theatre, joined accidentally and our trio 'side' was recorded during that evening rehearsal... and that eventually became editions_zero's 2nd baby... enjoy!


http://rapidshare.com/files/182049998/editions_zero_2.rar

goem / fdw

started accidentally... we were hanging w/ jason of 1000+1 tilt that friday night at a bar downtown when (can't recall how) came the idea of a goem live set. simple as that. frans liked the idea and worked out a little masynergy fest at the school of polytechnics, athens. a super night! it would have been a dreadful mistake not to release also a cdr in order to remember the whole idea, process, festival thing. so enjoy...


goem/fdw

reasons pt.4
robbed
engine

co-produced w/ www.tiltrecordings.org


http://rapidshare.com/files/182072884/goem_fdw.rar

thu 20 mp3

here's one of my all time fave projects. the dutch thu 20, project around roel meelkop (goem, zebra, kapotte muziek, etc for further info wwww.rOm.nl), peter diumelinks (ex-v2 archief, kapotte muziek, etc), guido doesborg, jos smolders (www.earlabs.org), jac van bussel (lewd, www.antenne-tilburg.nl.

the idea for the release was to be the first mp3 release of absurd on anet.gr starting this way the zine's mp3 database...well due to problems back then the 2 tracks of which the whole piece consisted of were uploaded as real audios. eary 00's a cdr version of it was included as a supplement in the zine 'lost transmissions from planet zero (included in the zine were interviews with dale lloyd (www.and-oar.org), per svensson (www.persvenssonsoundart.com), valerio tricoli (www.bowindorecordings.com/valerio_tricoli.htm) and a thu 20 story.

finally almost after 12 years gets uploaded in the form i initially wanted it to be... enjoy!


http://sharebee.com/648a23b7

an introduction to go

it's been quite a long since the idea for a database was born. must have been fall 90's when with thodoris zioutos(of the defunct www.anet.gr) that we were thinking of an mp3 server to host nearly the entity of our local network's archives plus new ones.... sometime later in early 00's poped up the idea of a dvd or dvdr including nearly the entire absurd backcatalogue... turned to be of those ideas that pop up and die like those butterfly species that born and die within 24 hours... however for long the idea was in the air till a recent trip to the city of ioannina to meet thymios of editions_zero that did i realise he had converted a great part of the catalogue to mp3 and had scanned covers... so the blog idea to start slowly uploading them was taken...
so to cut the long story short... 'all noises swell together (by themselves) in landscapes' will be the vehicle to store sounds that slowly built my audiodiaries the last 20 years under various names, periods, etc.. be it absurd, my participation in editions_zero, genital grinder zine days and the heyday of the greek grindcore scene, blah blah... however in mind is one more crazy baby 'excrete music' (title taken from the s/t violent onsen geisha beloved cd) to upload new things. however i don't know when it'll be unleashed... till then... download and enjoy!
(to paraphrase the two shot sons killer LP title) 'in sound my memory is stored'
happy 2009!
nicolas


ps: important note... all mp3's are @320