CLAEM Festival: un gol de media cancha [a midfield goal]. Buenos Aires, Argentina. June 17–24, 2011. Edited by Meg Sheppard.    One of the best contemporary music festivals I have attended took place in Buenos Aires from June 17–24, with symphonic concerts at the Belgrano Auditorium, and chamber music and electroacoustic music concerts at the Centro Cultural Borges.[...] Read more

Concerts and Events alcides lanza Issue 112

Chris Watson and Marcus Davidson. Cross-Pollination. Of all earthly creatures, insects come the closest to resembling aliens: exoskeletons, multifaceted eyes, barbed legs, and an impenetrable collectiveness. Their sonic world is highlighted on Cross-Pollination. Central to the two tracks on this CD are recordings of insects by Chris Watson,[...] Read more

Recordings René van Peer Issue 112

Chris Watson. El tren fantasma. Sound recordist Chris Watson’s latest CD is a homage to the sounds of trains, sounds that until ten years ago travelled the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of Mexico. The ten pieces on El tren fantasma abound with the screeching and the rhythms of steel wheels rolling over the tracks,[...] Read more

Recordings René van Peer Issue 112

Nick Storring. Rife. Remarkably, the sound for Artifacts, the first of three compositions that make up Rife, is entirely sourced from a small, broken violin that was a childhood gift to Storring from his grandmother. From these initial sound samples, Storring builds a piece of music that is incredibly engaging[...] Read more

Recordings Chris Kennedy Issue 112

Aki Onda. Diary and First Thought Best Thought. Cassette tapes have been one of the more unlikely sound devices to have a resurgence in popularity these last few years. Vinyl can at least by claim to high sound fidelity, but what’s the motive for making space on the shelf for a new wave of cassette releases—let alone for[...] Read more

Recordings Chris Kennedy Issue 112

NINA. Place Where the Trees Stand in the Water. This ten-inch record documents a live performance of NINA—Chris Cogburn, Bonnie Jones, and Liz Tonne—at the 2009 Fusebox Festival in Austin, Texas. The trio explores their converging timbres—Cogburn on bowed and scraped percussion, Jones on electronics, and Tonne on voice[...] Read more

Recordings Chris Kennedy Issue 112

Nightjars. The Natural Playmate. The Natural Playmate, apparently the final release in the Rat-Drifting catalogue, is a series of extremely concise and focused improvisations performed by Eric Chenaux (guitar) and Jason Benoit (banjo). The familiar misshapen melancholy found on many Rat-Drifting albums runs through this[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 112

Les Rhinocéros. Les Rhinocéros. The eponymous debut album of the young trio Les Rhinocéros from Washington D.C. is a crazy, playful musical collage. On one track, birds sing, an elderly singer croaks a folk ditty, loops pulsate, a guitar’s spiky notes seem bent on puncturing a waterbed, a drumkit rolls and[...] Read more

Recordings René van Peer Issue 112

Maki Ishii. Maki Ishii Live. Distinguished composer, conductor, and curator Maki Ishii (1932–2003) created a body of music inspired by his lineage, heritage, and situation. The poetic sense of movement, gesture, and pace that pervades the three percussion concerti on this disc bespeaks the influence of his father[...] Read more

Recordings Jason van Eyk Issue 112

Joe Hertenstein/Thomas Heberer/Joachim Badenhorst/Pascal Niggenkemper. Polylemma. Drummer Joe Hertenstein defines polylemma as “a choice from multiple options, each of which is (or appears) equally (un-)acceptable or (un-)favourable.” He then applies the term to one of his compositions here and also to the group, a quartet of European musicians—Germans[...] Read more

Recordings Stuart Broomer Issue 112

Erdem Helvacioğlu and Şirin Pancaroğlu. Resonating Universes. Resonating Universes is an apt title for this collaboration between electroacoustic composer Helvacioğlu and harpist Pancaroğlu. Each section of this disc-long composition teems with microscopic activity—flocks of muted plucking and granular shivers weave their way around resounding[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 112