El Topo Sndtrk - The Hell Of The Prostituted Angels - El Topo Soundtrack (Abkco)
Parlet - Are You Dreaming - Pleasure Principle (Real Gone Music)
Monk Higgins - Straight Ahead - Extra Soul Perception (Real Gone Music)
Dr Al Jameson - Love-Honey Melting Within The Infinite-See - Nada (private pressing)
The Bonzo Dog Band - Noises For The Leg - Keynsham (Liberty)
Bamboo Trading Company - Tweet (Don't Talk Anymore) - From Kitty Hawk To Surf City (Steelsurf Records)
Big Star - Thirteen - Big Star Live (Ryko)
Kompyootur Muhsheen, Teenage Algorithm - Waiter, There Are Some Flies in My Madness! (Remastered) - K IS 4 Kompyootur (https://kompyooturmuhsheenteenagealgorithm.bandcamp.com)
Murderfog with special guest Overflow - 02 An Animal Drags Its Prey - Problematic Apocalypse 1 (https://mrdrfog.bandcamp.com/)
Mount Shrine - Underpass - Ghosts On Broken Pavement (Cryochamber)
From: Various Artists Working to Avert the Collapse of American Democracy - Good Music to Avert the Collapse of American Democracy- Volume 2
Arcade Fire feat. David Byrne - This Must Be the Place
Guided By Voices - Game Of Pricks (Live)
Dan Deacon - Rally Banner
YOKO ONO PLASTIC ONO BAND - There's No Goodbye Between Us
John Prine -Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore
David Byrne - People Tell Me
Alice Coltrane - Om Navah Sivahya - Spiritual Eternal (Real Gone Music)
The ElectroZone - Mayhem- by Human Resources and Khamieleion - Electrophile Dysfunction, Vol. 1 (https://theelectrozone.bandcamp.com)
Eno-Mobius-Roedelius - The Belldog - After The Heat (Gyroscope)
Saturday, October 03, 2020
BARTLEMANIA! October 8 & 10 (WRFI) and 11 (WBDY-LP), 2020
Tuesday, September 01, 2020
SUPERLATIVE SUNDAY! Capsule reviews by Doctor B.
SUPERLATIVE SUNDAY!
August 30, 2020
Capsule Reviews by Doc Bartlemania.
Dr. Hamburger
https://soundcloud.com/drhmbrgr
Monotonal, mesmerizing electro-noise from this Rochester, NY act, with psychoactive black-and-white and color video imagery to match.
Tungsten Lungs
https://tungstenlungs.bandcamp.com/
Melodic, processed-sample-salted danceable electronic music emanating from a bedroom studio. Two guys, two PDJs and like the song says, a whole lotta shakin' goin' on. The man in the interesting print shirt brings the vibes while the other cracks open a can of something and dances to the music.
Ruckzuck
https://ruckzuck.bandcamp.com/
Saw these guys (2 women and a man, actually) perform at the Sacred Root Kava Bar in Ithaca last winter. They weren't too shabby! The band apparently takes its name from an early Kraftwerk tune. They now hail from the mountains of Northeastern PA, where they are working on among other things, their fifth album.
Steady, psych-y, slightly spacey guitar/keyboard-driven rock with synth and nicely-reverberated vocals. The keyboard player has a nice singing/warbling voice!
Without A Chord
https://www.withoutachord.com/
Goes from dark, doomish but danceable electronic music to light, soothing stylings and back at the drop of a hat. Analogue and digital synth sounds with heavily-processed out-of-the-basement vocals.
Deluxe Ultra
https://deluxeultra.bandcamp.com
As this one-person act's name implies, danceable beats, lovable melodies and interesting vocal samples, all of which morph and change as the performance progresses. Rock those PDJs!
Panther Smoothie
Now, this has to be the spaciest performance of the evening! Atonal synth riffs intermixed with one another with some old-fashioned oscillations thrown in for good measure! The wall of space gets heavier and denser as the set progresses. A musical smoothie, indeed! Things get considerably more chill toward the end of the set, which is no less engaging.
The Electrozone is Ithaca's salon for electromusicans and experimenters, a pop up reality devoted to the weird, the new, and the DIY.Please donate to support the artists.Donations can be made at
https://venmo.com/i/electrozone and
https://www.paypal.me/theelectrozone
Sunday, August 23, 2020
Capsule reviews of a recent ElectroZone show, Spasmodic Obsessions, August 22, 2020
ElectroZone
Spasmodic Obsessions!
August 22, 2020
Ghost_Slut
https://www.soundcloud.com/ghost_slut
Electronic dance music stylings which do a great job of holding one's attention! Ghost_Slut makes good use of their tablet and their pair of PDJs to keep the beats, tunes and samples going. There's a video screen in the background showing anime.
Bent Noise
https://bentnoise.bandcamp.com/
Is that "bent" as in circuit-bent? I see a see-and-say and...is that a toaster, chockablock with dials and switches? I spot a few of what look to me like home-brew synthesizers too. And is that an ancient portable computer with an acoustic dial-up modem on it? Now on top of classic synth riffs I hear what sounds like the kind of shortwave noises we stopped hearing over shortwave radio years ago! Classic ambient technoise!
Pallid Mask
https://pallidmask.bandcamp.com/
Solo project of Al Baldwin. A lot more melodic and dreamy than the previous acts if somewhat darker and more mysterious. You travel through an abstract, black-and-white world on the screen as his droney, rhythmic music reaches your ears. Reminiscent of old-school electronica. I think Klaus Schulze would approve!
Josh Oxford
www.joshoxford.com.
"I’ll be messing with ASU’s Roland Modular [analog synth] and the Aceto Ribbon Synth. The school’s DX7 doesn’t really seem the right vibe, but that can be added too." - Josh Oxford
Josh gets off to a quick and decisive start with a wild synthesizer break, followed by his musical partner, Derek Judge's electronic flute stylings and old, old school oscillator sweeps and bleeps, straight out of 1967. Now Derek is "playing" a stainless steel mixing bowl as Josh serves up tasty synth chords. The second piece is also old-school analog synth work, with Derek chiming in through a vocoder. The third piece, played on the school's DX-7, is much more conventionally musical. His final piece, "American", is space-age twitters, bleeps and breaks while Derek accompanies him on harmonica and selected vocal samples, or is that blue plastic box in his hand a radio? (Wait a minute...is that Martin Luther King's voice?)
Modular Moose
ModularMoose.bandcamp.com
The tangle of wires and flashing lights behind him are no doubt what inspired his performer name. His set starts with what sounds like a space vehicle cranking up its warp engines, then going to cruising speed. Eventually, the performance progresses to free-form old-school electronica with trippy drones and scattered notes with occasional heavily-processed vocals.
Ombient
http://www.ombient.com
Off to the performer's left in the video is a light show of the kind you might have seen during a concert at the Fillmore East during the sixties. The music consists primarily of rhythmic, sequencer driven melody lines. Rhythmic space or rhythmic ambient music is what I might call it. Early Mother Mallard springs to mind.
As of this writing, the videos of these performances can be seen at
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/718663152.
Donations, which go to all of the musicians, can be made at
https://venmo.com/i/electrozone and
https://www.paypal.me/theelectrozone
Sunday, July 12, 2020
Review: Sonic Realisms, July 11, 2020 - 6PM - 10PM
Videos available at: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/676922473
The Electrozone is Ithaca's salon for electromusicans and experimenters, a pop up reality devoted to the weird, the new, and the DIY.Please donate to support the artists.Donations can be made at https://venmo.com/i/electrozone and
https://www.paypal.me/theelectrozone
Inanimate Sound https://inanimatesound.bandcamp.com/
From the profile: "Tara Escudero - Multi-instrumentalist, bowed saw and voice Robert Frisk - Percussionist"
First thing I saw was the performer (Robert) starting a reel-to-reel tape recorder. (ElectroZone said that Inanimate Sound is normally a two person act. Today Tara's [bowed-saw] part is performed by tape.) Robert plays the cymbals with two bows. Eerie. A bit sitar-like in places. Robert also plays xylophone and bowed vibes.
Human Resources (Search for "Human Resources Ithaca" on Google or Soundcloud)
From the profile: "Human Resources are Andrew Paine (laptop) and Matthew Grigorov (guitar and electronics) Two guys who have been improvising music together for ten years. The hypnotic sounds create journeys through vast landscapes of space and time."
Very spacey guitar, synth and samples sound piece. Nice steady electronic drum & perc beat to go along with the lovely guitar licks and synth drones. Starts off nice and mellow, then picks up the tempo about halfway through.
Staticer https://staticer.bandcamp.com/
The 1943 surrealist film "Meshes In The Afternoon" plus another surrealist film with a medieval theme (this one in color) with Staticer's sweet, glowing ambient music in place of the original soundtracks. I think I like these versions better!
Bobby Pharaoh www.instagram.com/bobby.pharaoh
From the profile: "Bobby Pharaoh is an artist, currently residing in Philadelphia, who partakes in low fidelity audio/visual experimentation. Pharaoh uses a dissociative combination of feedback loops, minimal synthesis techniques, and modified antiquated hardware to create an overstimulating consecution of synesthetic distortions."
His music is a lot more sit-up-and-take-notice than the ambient music of the previous two acts. Very buzzy, very aggressive. Very basic, intense, and crude but engaging visuals. One listener called it "arcadecore".
Nick Fagnilli https://fagnillious.bandcamp.com/
From the profile: "Nick Fagnilli is a composer, producer and synthesist in Pittsburgh, PA. After graduating from Ithaca College with his Composition degree, Nick is starting out in a new city with his girlfriend and trying to find his way as a young adult and as a composer. He has spent his time in quarantine listening to records and reading scores, and he is excited to perform on his synthesizers for the first time in a long while."
Back to ambient spacey goodness. Looks like at least some of his synths are home-built. Could be wrong about that. Lots of wires and lights on one of them. Two keyboards that I can see on-screen. Music sounds more like a loose guitar performance than electronica. That, or the soundtrack to an imaginary sixties sci-fi movie. Some of it is punctuated by what sounds like firecrackers going off.
Grant Bouvier www.grantbouvier.com
www.instagram.com/midi_lizard
From the profile:"Grant Bouvier is a sound and video artist, technologist, and educator based out of Philadelphia . His art and research typically deals with topics in DIY electronic music, instrument design, dead media formats, and glitch art as well as the sonic aesthetics of postdigitalism, hauntology, minimalism, and lost futurism. His favorite thing to do is to find lo-fi solutions to hi-fi problems, and he thinks its always best to build it (or break it) yourself."
More traditional seventies-style drone-tronica a la early Kraftwerk. Colorized scope traces on-screen with the music.
Billy Jackass http://billyjackass.bandcamp.com
From the profile: "the_electrozone: Billy Jackass is an Anishinaabe intergenerational place-bound historical construct dealing industrial ASMR on Cayuga territory. The duo is comprised of Shaawano and Cleo Keahna Warrior, both writers and multi-instrumentalists who promote survivance through voice and machine."
Industrial ASMR is right. Starts out with feather-light drones and indistinct but very present voices in the background. Things get buzzy after a few minutes, more in the mold of traditional electronica. Electronic noises and tape-manipulated voices enter the mix. At one point, Cleo reads a poem. What's that I see? An electric wooden flute? Fits the mix smartly as do Cleo's sampled electronic organ breaks and Shaawano's heavily-processed guitar notes.
Thursday, June 11, 2020
Review: Secret Synth Society - Tuesday, June 9, 2020
Tuesday June 9, 2020
Virtual Synth II Featuring: Pettiecord, Kompyootur Muhsheen: Teenage Algorithm, Pam the Webivore, & Sloopygoop
You can send donations to @SecretSynthSociety on venmo. All proceeds go to performers.
Kompyootur Muhsheen: Teenage Algorithm (Elijah Joseph Weber-Han) (Ithaca, NY)
Processed (synthesized?) vocals at the beginning. Sounds like a newscast taken from today's headlines. Segues into a storm of synthesized sounds. The vocals change character as the music becomes more complex and intense. (Wait a minute. Isn't that the voice of the president in the mix?) The music becomes progressively more abstract, vocals less identifiable, less intelligible. An intense, reverberant sonic rabbit hole.
Pettiecord (Brooklyn, NY) https://pettycord.bandcamp.com/
Pleasantly simple synth tones and licks accompanied by complex and colorful, sometimes Rube-Goldbergish falling-domino installations by Hevesh5. (hevesh5.com)
Pam The Webivore beats.thewebivore.com
This tune (which I believe is called Tidal Cycles) starts out as two subtle but distinct rhythm lines with a simple tone way back in the mix. The music builds up layer by layer. Tones. Rhythms. Bird calls? This is definitely music that's meant to be danced to. But not just yet. The music hasn't been allowed to develop fully yet. What's that, a processed tabla? Now we're into sampled and processed glockenspiel notes mixed with electronic rhythm, bird calls and baby noises. Now there are 808-style rhythm machine breaks and synth notes. All the while, we see the performer's computer screen as she changes commands in order to change the sound during the performance.
Sloopygoop facebook.com/sloopygoop, instagram.com/sloopy_goop, soundcloud.com/sloopygoop
"Awesome tunes from old Game Boys". He has at least three on a music stand behind him. I think he also has two more in front of him. His singing voice, kind of reminiscent of Daniel Johnston, isn't too bad either. Splendid chiptune pop. Straight-ahead 8-bit rockin'! The mannequin with the light-up head is a nice extra touch, especially when it contributes backing vocals!
Sunday, May 24, 2020
REVIEW: The ElectroZone - Machines In Your Screen - Friday, May 22, 2020, 9PM
Machines In Your Screen
Friday, May 22, 2020, 9PM
https://www.twitch.tv/the_electrozone
Donations for each show of US$10.00 can (and should) be made at
https://venmo.com/i/electrozone and
https://www.paypal.me/theelectrozone
Andrei Jay andreijaycreativecoding.com
Kind of a retro feel to this performance. A simple drone, followed by some harmonizing drones. All the while, what looks like a stylized oscilloscope trace graces the screen on a black background. More analogue-synth-sounding tones enter the mix and influence the display. Eventually, color is added. The display and the music become more abstract. Or should I say trippy?
Illestpreacha Kofioduro.myportfolio.com/links
Facebook.com/illestpreacha
instagram.com/illestpreacha
twitter.com/illestpreacha
Performance begins with a short poem. And a pleasing color wave display. The music starts with a repeating figure with other musical sound bites mixed into it. (The program code for the sound and the video display is visible on-screen too!) At times the music becomes very simple, down to simple tones and a beat. More of the performer's poetry is mixed in. The visual display continues for a few minutes after the music has stopped, the last poem recited. Wait, there's more music? Actually, just a beat and a simple tone. What's he going to put into the mix this time?
5tok3 https://5tok3.com/5ToK3
The white metal box on the screen festooned with knobs and with wires crisscrossing it promises more of a traditional analogue synth sound. And that's just what our man here delivers! A bit more free-form and EDM-like than any of the familiar electronic acts from the past, but he does get melodic in places. Think um...Buchla with a touch of Moog. Along with images of the artist hard at work, in one corner of the screen hovers a virtual yellow-jacket. (Hell of a mascot. Those things are a nuisance in real life!) You can watch close-ups of the performer operating his machines. You can tell that he's really into it too!
Saturday, May 16, 2020
Weird Music - ElectroZone - Friday, May 15th, 2020
ElectroZone, Friday, May 15, 2020
Live feed and archives - https://www.twitch.tv/the_electrozone
The Electrozone is also on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ithacaelectrozone/. Find out about upcoming events there.
Donations of US$10.00 can (and should) be made at venmo@electrozone.
Or PayPal - ithacaelectrozone@gmail.com
6runge5ong @GrungeArt https://www.facebook.com/pg/6rungeArt/posts/
This Mexican solo act swings between danceable Kraftwerk-esque electronica and what sound to me like slightly spaced-out versions of old pop standards.
Tara & Bobby (Inanimate Sounds)
He does Floydian cymbal work (think "More" or "Ummagumma"), far-out drumming, percussion, and bowed or hammered vibes. She accompanies him on a spooky bowed musical saw. Gaps appear to be filled in by feedback and synthesis. Noise is added at critical points.
Sandy Ewen - http://www.sandyewen.com
Heavily processed electric guitar, played with a stick, an e-bow, anything but a pick. Sounds more like a synth or oscillator than a guitar. High-frequency drones, reminiscent of bells or wind chimes. Visual is a steadily-rotating palette of spherical flowers. Sound effects, like a barking dog, are added in places.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
MUSIC/FUN - a review of a recent ElectroZone event
Here are my capsule reviews of what went on. I strongly recommend that you check out the shows video archives. Links below.
Deep Creature (twitch.tv/deepcreaturemusic)
Deep Creature is the solo project of New Jersey keyboard player Sam Gutman. This guy has a sound that reminds me of Roger Powell (circa Cosmic Furnace) with a little bit of George Duke and mid-70s Herbie Hancock tossed in for good measure. A very vintage, analogue sound. Three keyboards and a roomful of other electronic goodies. One piece features the voice of the late Carl Sagan, describing our planet in loving detail, another the sampled calls of songbirds.
Samuel Aronoff (http://www.samuelaronoff.bandcamp.com)
Much more minimalist setup than the previous act, only two keyboards and a sequencer. But the sound is no less fat, or vintage. And it's no less engaging. Samuel does a lot with his minimal setup. If you weren't watching, you might think he was playing a room's worth of analogue synths. Faint echoes of Kraftwerk, circa Autobahn.
Grant Bouvier (http://www.grantbouvier.com)
Sounds a bit like we may have another Kitaro here! His instrumental stylings owe more than a little to Asian musical styles, at least until he gets into full-on analogue-flavored noise-music mode before returning to more mellow but no less interesting electronic sound. Rather than show images of himself at the controls, his highly-psychedelicized videos accompanying the music are of trains, urban scenes and machinery. The sampled vocals are equally spacey.
Viola Yip (http://violayip.com/)
I last saw Viola Yip perform at the Greyhaven Motel in Ithaca a few years ago. Her music was unconventional to say the least. It involved electric buzzers which injected buzzing tomes into the mix, and controlled a bank of different-colored light bulbs. This time, she is playing a specially-modified PVC pipe which is rigged as an amplified one-stringed instrument. It produces some dreamy, droney and sometimes mildly disturbing sounds. She plays it by hand, or with a bow, a stick, and/or a motorized wire brush (shades of Remko Scha!).
To see future and past ElectroZone online performances, follow the links below:
Live link: https://www.twitch.tv/the_electrozone
Archive: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyCbFTaMYPshyMQLaQS4s7Q
Donations of US$10.00 can (and should) be made at
venmo @electrozone.
Or via PayPal - ithacaelectrozone@gmail.com
