Sorry, haven't found a way to get into Song Book yet. I was similarly bemused / disappointed by Andrea Neumann's recent foray into "pop". Mattin's work with Billy Bao is much more interesting. A shitty recording just sounds like, well, a shitty recording.. Though I'm missing out on some profound statement or something. Still working on it. Happy New Ears, everyone.

I received the Billy Bao "R 'n' R Granulator" disc also and, in turn, haven't found a way into that one. Not even to say I "don't like it", just that I can't quite grasp what the intent is enough to say anything much about it....

Haven't heard Neumann's recording.

Well I have copies of Mattin's Song Book and the Andrea Neumann disc Dan mentions... the Neumann is probably the second worst disc I listened to throughout 2005, and guess what was the worst?!

Brian, I have no idea how you can find anything in Song Book other than a uncoordinated, painfully bad to listen to mess, sorry.

I still haven't been able to work out whether it was a serious recording or a typically anarchic Mattin prank but either way it took pride of place as my coffee mug coaster after the first few attempts to listen to it.

I'm not being a snob here, my background is in indie rock music, and although I listen to it very rarely these days I can still recognise a good CD... which unfortunately Song Book isnt. :)

Guerra was partly responsible for one of my favourite records of 2005, so I will check out Empty Kingdoms if I see it anywhere... but so far there isn't a great track record for abstract musicians turning out pop records.....:)

as much as ive liked much of mattin's work, song book has to be one of the least interesting things ive heard recently. i just didnt find the lo-fi aesthetic charming at all; theres lo-fi and theres crap. and the strumming became monotonous real quick. yeah, maybe im missing something too or just not getting the joke if there is one...

Hey, don't tell me Olewnick's gone and gotten one wrong?

Curious to hear from fans of Lindsay's, Chadbourne's or others who work a somewhat similar area. I'm actually not overly fond of either (I prefer Lindsay--at least the Lindsay of the early Ambitious Lovers as I haven't fllowed his output for a long while--given the choice), but "song book" doesn't seem to me to be all that far afield from those guys' stuff. I though a few of the pieces, notably "Entre Residues de Sida", "Matama Bien" and "Simpatica" had nice melodic hookage too.

Ah well...

I'm sure if this one had been done by someone you'd never heard of Brian you'd have frisbeed it into the bin double quick. I suspect that, like me, the fact that it's by someone I consider to be one of the most intriguing musicians working today leads you to suspect there's more there than meets the ear. There isn't.

But Guerra's CD is a good one, though, very atmospheric. I've just reviewed it favourably for that printmag I write for.

Dan: I'm sure if this one had been done by someone you'd never heard of Brian you'd have frisbeed it into the bin double quick.

Impossible to say, of course, but I'd like to think not. I'm not an enormous fan of Mattin by any means, having liked some things (notably Via Vespucci with Dion Workman) and been unmoved by others.

I've only heard about 90 seconds of the Mattin disc (on Richard's discman, pre-coaster days) so I can't say for sure, but I'd think it's more likely that Mattin is singing in Euskadi than Spanish, given his Basque background. Can anyone confirm this?

I was wondering about this, Alastair but the titles sounded Spanish to me (not that I'd know Basque if bitten by same) as did the vocals.

The only Basque musician I know who's capable of answering that is.. Mattin himself! Maybe one of our London denizens will forward this thread to him.

Having put the titles into Babelfish it seems they're mostly Spanish, but there are some that it can't translate...which means they're either not Spanish or the software is rubbish. 50/50 chance, I'd say.

"Mattin's work with Billy Bao is much more interesting."

is billy bao the real person's name or some nom de son...i seem to recall from a conversation with a friend of mattin's i met in amsterdam last month that he was from bilbao?

A shitty recording just sounds like, well, a shitty recording...

but a guitar is not a guitar, alas, i wonder...
a shitty recording in a well starts to sound like something else...alvin lucier...kirkegard... a process can begin anywhere...nigredo
to lambent

The personnel listing for the wmo/r 23 CD is: Billy Bao / Xabier Erkizia / Alberto Lopez / Pablo Reche / Mattin & Alan Courtis

I talked to Mattin recently and guess what- Song Book II is finished and ready to go and he already recorded part III in Amann studios in Wien w Werner Dafeldecker & Noid ha

I enjoyed Empty Kingdoms as well, though from initial talk with Anthony, I was expecting it to be more 'indie/melodic' than it was. I personally don't see how if you like Anthony's guitar playing already, you wouldn't enjoy this. It's funny you mention Dean Roberts in your review, Brian, as I believe Anthony features briefly in a Kranky release of his, a recording from a session in Vienna incorporated into one of the tracks.

One of the thoughts in the back of my head while reading the comments on Song Book, and in fact the introduction to the review, is that I've never considered Mattin a guitarist. He's got much more skill on laptop, that's what I see as his real instrument. Personally in this case I'd read the review intro as 'song forms from a guitarist and a laptopper who also plays guitar'. I'm not saying Mattin shouldn't touch a guitar and I haven't heard Song Book, so I can't comment on that disc. But perhaps this angle might help with assessing differences between these two recordings and their nature.

Billy Bao is Mattin, there's little doubt in my mind. He is from Bilbao, but I don't believe he can speak Basque language. But you'd have to ask him direct for confirmation on that one.

Oh yeah, Black Petal is a new label. The mention in November's Wire indicates this I think. So no surprise website is forthcoming...

I think the song book is a masterpiece, it really brings back real playing to the field of electronic music (I am thinking about the hiss of the computer that you hear in all the tracks). his singing is crap but there is real commitment and a possitive attitude that I really enjoy, at the same time I think that mattin is taking the piece of computer music but I might be wrong. Miachel have you heard Billy Bao (you can download for free from his website)? Mattin plays guitar there and I think he does a pretty good job, Billy Bao sings and as far as I know he composes the tracks.

As far as i know the whole working (recording method) of Mattin's Song Book project is recording the tracks straight on his small computer mike. Althou the last part of series was recorded in Ammann studios Mattin still recorded the whole thing straight into his computer via mike that is already in there. So extremly lo-fi. Hissing may be the cause of it but i don't think that sounds from laptop (in his case internal feedback) have been used at all ...
Also as i understand the first part of series was being rehearsed and composed (as far as Joel Stern said to me coz he lived w Mattin in London for a while), but for last part of the series the songs were made on the spot ...

Tom, I'm confused by this part "taking the piece of computer music...". I tried hard to interpret what that means and then I suddenly realized it might've been intended as "piss" not "piece"! Is that right?

I've heard the Billy Bao mp3 from the site. The guitar playing on that track is adequate. It's on par with loads of guitaring on various local punk albums I used to listen to, which is pretty good in terms of what Billy Bao intends to be. On the other hand, I used to listen to punk bands that had really good guitarists . . .
I'd still consider the guitar a sideline instrument for Mattin.

I'm really surprised that many people, especially reviewers, would so quicky believe that Billy Bao is a guy who moved from Nigeria to Bilbao and 'discovered punk rock.' Did anyone stop and think to themselves whether a Nigerian migrant would use terms like 'primitive' in reference to drumming, or describe his songs as 'the degenereation of Rock&Roll against the degeneration of Bilbao' or use lyrics like when you listen to the rhythm/when you listen to the beat/don't you realize/you can not do anything in between/you can not dance like an spastic fuck/people are laughing at you? It sounds more like the language of someone who went to college rather than someone who moved to experience the better living standards of Europe, as most migrants do.

Plus, that's Mattin's voice and non-nigerian accent singing . . .

The only funny part for me is it showed how reliant reviewers can be on the press release. Some seemed to just blindly repeat the details, not even wondering what this Nigerian guy's name was before he moved to Bil(ly)bao.

M

michael, i think you are right about billy bao, probably is mattin fucking around. about his guitar playing, I think you are also right that fits punk aesthetics but it is not very experimental or that special. perhaps in the new billy bao cd things are a bit more strange but I do not know who plays what (alan courtis from reynols is also credited), have you heard the new billy bao stuff? you can get it from the wmor website. also michael what do you think about the deflag stuff? I think mattin plays guitar there and it pretty full on.

could somebody advice what stuff I should get from anthony guerra? I am very curious about what he does

I'm a big fan of Guerra's solo CD, "spool[#2]" on Two Thousand And. According to their website it's now oop, but definitely worth seeking out by other means ;)

Haven't listened to the new BB stuff. Currently got some ogg playback problems. I've heard snippets of the Deflag disc, but I probably saw at least half of the shows those tracks were recorded from. That kind of guitar playing is a gray area in terms of assesing 'guitarist' skills. He can certainly play it loud, and his messy amp works well, too.

Deflag's another case that had me chuckling with puzzlement upon reading its reviews. It's funny how not being there can affect one's perception. No doubt the recordings sound intense, but the speculation and mythologizing that the Deflag live experience is intense and terrorizing? The shows I saw were mostly unintentionally comical. No people running scared from the unmitigated sonic terror, that's for sure. Unless they just thought it was too loud :) Rockin yeah, but not shockin.

I'm glad they finally got that one out though as Tim was really putting a lot of effort into it.

Anthony's got a real nice one out on Pseudo Arcana with drummer Matt Nidek. there's also a Stern/Guerra for PA that I haven't heard, but the Guerra/Nidek one is a nice builder from spare guitar playing into dense layers. Kind of mix between the no-effects playing you'd hear from him in Broken Hands, and the processed guitaring you hear elsewhere. Empty Kingdoms is nice. The guitar is looped/processed, but not abstracted. The Psudo Arcana stuff is probably easier to get a hold of than EK at the moment?

I can endorse Alastair's approval of Spool, a nice disc if you can find a copy.
My favourite Guerra at present is 'In' his duo with Matt Earle on L'Innomable. Its not easy listening, plenty of piercing sinetones and brittle blocks of noise but it would be my recommendation if you only wanted to pick up the one disc.

Guerra' work with Joel Stern is generally all pretty solid as well. I have four releases, but there may be more. My favourite by some way Stitch, a duet on Impermanent that is head and shoulders above the aforementioned Pseudo Arcana disc Michael mentions above that is called Outdoor Bowers.

The other two Stern/Gurra's are trios. One is a 3" with Margarida Garcia on Absurd and is therefore going to be hard to find, and the other with Paul Hood's turntables under the name Low Resistance Group is on the Japanese Paradisc label. these last two are probably not essential, and I would definitely go for Stitch if I had to make a choice....

Stitch is a great record. Strongly recommended.

It irritates me when leftfield musicians "go rock", ( as they're all secretly dying to ;-) ) the impliciations are rather patronising. For what it's worth, there are several local punk/hardcore bands in the mid sized English town i live in who display genuine commitment in their playing and therefore would wipe the floor with Mattins' "punk band" in any kind of live setting. Personally i appreciate his computer music, but i can't swallow his singer/songwriter fantasies at all, for all their wilfully sloppy execution.

Have to say i enjoyed the Low Resistance Group disk!

richard wrote:

"I have four releases, but there may be more."

where do you *store* all your stuff, man?! ;)

I gather there's a large field (it's called Oxfordshire) out back of where Richard lives, and he buries his CDs like a squirrel does its hoard of nuts and returns to them when/if he remembers where he put them.

so kids, if you wanna hear some nice music, go to oxfordshire - but don't forget to bring a shovel!

Just think of the treasure trove that the archaeologists of the future will discover! They'll assume that Jeph Jerman in 21st century England was, given the sheer number of CDs he's released, of comparable popularity to Handel in the 18th century. Therefore, in accordance with the same warped reasoning, Merzbow = Mozart.

I think much the same thing happens in the other direction as well. A lot of people rooted in rock try to 'go experimental' and their rock friends might think it's out of this world, but people rooted in 'experimental' see it as derivative crap. Likewise improv heads who don't have much experience could be blown away by Mattin's forrays into punk as they don't have the same qualitative reference. In my hometown Memphis some kids from the hardcore scene started a country band, which all the kids loved, but anyone who REALLY knew country would think it sucks. However, they practised a bit more, and the whole 'Alt Country' thing caught up and took them under its wing...

I think it's totally possible to exist in a few genres. There are people who do it, but it's very difficult.

The problem is that maybe it shouldn't look like the person is try to 'go' anything. It should seem more natural. And while people might be surprised to hear it, it shouldn't be a big deal like your mate revealing he's secretly been into something else. I'm not articulating that very well...

I guess Walker's mention of 'patronising' hints at what I'm thinking. If a left-field musician 'goes-rock', that fine. But are they 'going rock' because they really can, or are they 'going rock' because they love the idea of it? There's plenty of music that each musician loves, but shouldn't try to play themselves. Like I will never attempt playing bass in a serious reggae band, no matter HOW MUCH I wanna hit those deep grooves! It would be a waste of time for myself and the genre.

Okay I'm going home now . . .

The field out the back is called the English Ridgeway and runs for thirty odd miles down to virtually the south coast, so plenty of room for storing the CD hoards at the moment... though if the Korber Wing of the underground warehouse continues to grow at this rate we might expand all the way to the coast and knock Brighton into the sea.... Sorry about that Brian :)

Oh and if someone buried a load of Merzbow CDs it certainly wasn't me, I actually have never heard one 'note' from him.... :)

No, no, Richard, you misunderstood me, the Merzbow CDs aren't buried in Oxfordshire, they're buried in the Lake District, not far from where Kurt Schwitters built the last of his Merz constructions (which, by the way, is now housed in the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne).

When he was in his 20s just after WWII, my dad went on a sketching trip to Ambleside in the Lake District and was approached by an elderly gent who struck up a conversation. He turned out to be Schwitters, who'd moved there in 1945 and who, my dad recalls, as said he had to scrape together a living painting by rather tacky pictures to flog to local tourists. Seeing the hordes of people flocking to the recent Dada exhibition at the Pompidou Centre, I just hope some of the zillions of Euros that show pulled in find their way back to the Schwitters estate. Talking of the Dada show (this has bugger all to do with the thread but it's a fun story), did you hear that the infamous Duchamp "Fontaine" (ie urinal) was smashed to bits by a 76 year old French artist wielding a hammer? (This actually happened while I was visiting the exhibition a week ago last Wednesday, though I didn't see him do it unfortunately.. just saw the empty table and crowds of security guards on the way out) It wasn't the first time he'd had a go at it either - back in 1993 he had a pee in it in an exhibition in Nimes!
If your French is up to it, read this - you'll like the bit about how he cut his own finger off too - bon weekend à tous
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3246,36-728163,0.html

"Mattin's work with Billy Bao is much more interesting."

just spoke with mattin last night in berlin. and so went to his site finally. rock n roll granulator is hilarious. both from a trash punk point of view and from the digital point of view. it is so shredded you really must wonder if you got a bad disc or downloaded it improperly. reminds me of early caroliner albums back before noise became fashionable and mills college students started replacing the skate-punk chicks bouncing on trampolines. a brave departure from the feldmanesque.

yes I agree that R'n'R Granulator is very crazy, this is something more than experimental musicians trying to Rock. it is not the kind of rock and roll that you understand the first time that you listent to it.

yes I agree that R'n'R Granulator is very crazy, this is something more than experimental musicians trying to Rock. it is not the kind of rock and roll that you understand the first time that you listent to it.

I've heard Empty Kingdoms now and its not so bad, kind of somewhere between Lorren Connors and 1990's shoegazer music.
Compared to the Mattin or the Neumann is a far more palatable prospect... it actually got played several times as its not too long, though I would still rather listen to his duo with Matt Earle a hundred times more than this.