HEATSICK – ‘Intersex’ (PAN 19)
Intersex is the debut LP by Steven Warwick a.k.a Heatsick. The title references the work of German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld looking at how music and sexuality can operate in flux on a constantly sliding scale. Executed on just a Casio keyboard and manipulated loops via guitar pedals, Intersex deliberately evokes “ersatz” notions of electronic dance music and early electronics in the line of Roberto Cacciapaglia’s Ann Steel record , the work of Warner Jepson and the kaleidoscopic sound of Ron Hardy, pushing dance/body music through a saturated psychedelic lens. Steven Warwick is a Berlin based performer, also known for his work in the electronic duo, Birds of Delay. His approach is one of carefully thought out loops which are then sent into varying interactions and play. Active in the club, art and music scenes, Warwick’s work is one existing in a liminal space, meditating both at once in real time and the “just past”. The Lp is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, in a limited edition of 500 copies, pressed on 140g vinyl and comes in a poly-lined inner sleeve. It is packaged in a pro-press color jacket which itself is housed in a silk screened pvc sleeve with artwork by Steven Warwick, Kathryn Politis & Bill Kouligas.
ANDRE VIDA – ‘Brud: Volumes I-III’ (PAN 20)
Brud is a three volume compilation of recordings from 1995 to 2011 by Andre Vida, morphing seamlessly between a sense of total irreverence and the sublime. His spontaneous compositions and notated works are the angled mirrored counterparts of a transient saxophone driven performance language, drawing on elements of 1970s performance art, new music, improvisation cult, folk and pop hybrids, channeling them into asymmetrical tunes of feral beauty. BRUD traces the development of Vida’s wayward language through 16 years of copious ruminations. The three delightfully polymorphic perverse discs unite sparkling solo sax, pieces for cello and woodwind sextet, synth / concrete electronic music, nocturnal improvisations, rare 90’s New York free jazz compositions, and the Kreuzberg suite — a distilled culmination of a hundred nights of Berlin mayhem into ecstatic swinging lyricism. Both solo works and as well as various collaborations with Anthony Braxton, Rashad Becker, Axel Dörner, Matt “MV” Valentine, Tim Barnes, Helen Rush, Olaf Rupp, Clare Cooper, Clayton Thomas, Brandon Evans, Elisabeth King, Steve Heather and many more. Andre Vida is a Hungarian American saxophonist, composer and lyricist living in Berlin. More downtown cheeky grin than mere caveman smile, he is cosmically notorious for continuing the Rahsaan Roland Kirk one man horn section legacy with hydra headed style. He has been at the forefront of several major developments in experimental music, being mainly in Anthony Braxton’s original Ghost Trance Ensemble, as founding member of New York collective the CTIA, subsequent ‘freak folk’ groups such as The Tower Recordings, and his extensive collaborations with electronic music visionaries Jamie Lidell, Tim Exile and Kevin Blechdom, Elton John, Gonzales, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman to name but a few, sewing up some heavy threads in downtown sax patchwork refracted through a Borgesian lens. The 3xCD is a limited edition of 1000 copies, and is packaged in a pro-press digisleeve jacket which itself is housed in a one-tone silk screened pvc sleeve with artwork by Andre Vida and Bill Kouligas.
ELI KESZLER – ‘Cold Pin’ (PAN 21)
Over two years in the making, Cold Pin is the new full length record by Eli Keszler. Both a composition and stand alone installation, 14 strings ranging in length from 25 to 3 feet are strung across a 15 x 40 curved wall, with motors attacking the strings, connected by micro-controllers, pick-ups and rca cables. Recorded in Boston’s historic Cyclorama, a massive dome built to house the Cyclorama of the Battle of Gettysburg painting in 1884. The b side features in addition, a ‘dry’ version of the installation with motor attacks on metal squares rather then strings, creating dense percussive clusters. Cold Pin works within the frame work of left to right time and vertical structure. The installation acts as the architecture of the music, surrounding and immersing the live instruments into incredible density and sharp angular mass shapes, and functions alone as the performers stops. Rather then an individual sound the sustained horns, strings, drums and metallic attacks function as a singular unit, and continue too when they stop alongside the installation. Cold Pin features Eli Keszler (drums, crotales installation and guitar), Geoff Mullen (guitar), Ashley Paul (clarinet, guitar, greenbox) Greg Kelley (trumpet), Reuben Son (bassoon) and Benjamin Nelson (cello). Eli Keszler is a composer, artist and multi-instrumentalist based in New York City. In performance, he often plays drums, bowed crotales and guitar in conjunction with his installations. In his ensemble compositions, he uses extended strings, motors, crotales, horns and mechanical devices to create his sound, balancing intense harmonic formations with acoustic sustain, fast jarring rhythm, mechanical propulsion, dense textures and detailed visual presentations. Eli has toured extensively throughout Europe and the US, performing solo and in collaboration with artists such as Phill Niblock, Aki Onda, Joe Mcphee, Loren Connors, Jandek, Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Coleman, Joe Morris, Steve Beresford, C Spencer Yeh, Greg Kelley (Nmperign), T Model Ford, Ran Blake, Ashley Paul and Steve Pyne. He has recorded solo releases for labels such as hiw own REL Records, ESP-DISK’ and Type (Red Horse). His installations have appeared at the Boston Center for the Arts and Nuit Blanche NYC and the Shreveport MSPC New Music Festival. He has most recently won the Mata composers competition for the 2012 season. Eli Keszler is a graduate of the New England Conservatory in Boston where he studied with Anthony Coleman and Ran Blake. The Lp is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, in a limited edition of 500 copies, pressed on 140g vinyl and comes in a poly-lined inner sleeve. It is packaged in a pro-press color jacket which itself is housed in a silk screened pvc sleeve with artwork by Kathryn Politis & Bill Kouligas.
JOHN WIESE – ‘Seven of Wands’ (PAN 22)
As a composer, John Wiese is an elusive one. Employing a very healthy range of conceptual framework throughout his oevure, he’s unmistakably recognizable, but rarely easy to predict. No matter what the sound, we find it always sounds like Wiese. Seven Of Wands contains a romanticism only hinted at previously. Comprised of pieces from a range of eras and sequenced into a narrative arc, this very unique album has a quality of being beautiful, listenable, immersive, and transportive all at once. He probably wouldn’t like this, but I dare say “musical.” Let’s look for a second at the development of Wiese’s solo albums to date: Magical Crystal Blah (2003), Soft Punk (2002–2005), Dramatic Accessories (2007), Circle Snare (2008), Zombie (2009), and now Seven Of Wands (2004–2010). With the exception of Zombie’s rigid conceptualism, what we can see is a development of a completely individual approach to cutting and stereo spectrum, with a constantly fluctuating degree of severity in choice of sounds. On this latest, we see this transposed to a longer-form, with more emphasis on beauty and musical qualities (well, don’t get me wrong), employing strategies and techniques of musique concrète and electroacoustic music throughout, all the while further emphasizing the mixing desk as a true instrument. Two of the albums central pieces were developed while touring the US, UK and Europe with Liars, No Age, and (in quadraphonic) Matmos, and feature source material contributed by Angus Andrew (voice, field recording) and Julian Gross (percussion) of Liars. This is Wiese’s second release on PAN, following the vinyl edition of C-Section, his duo album with Evan Parker. The CD is a limited edition of 1000 copies, and is packaged in a pro-press digisleeve jacket which itself is housed in a one-tone silk screened pvc sleeve with artwork by John Wiese and Bill Kouligas.