W.E._AA – ཀ
There’s a fair amount of confusion to start with. What’s with a band/artist name like W.E._aa, and the album title ཀ, representing Ka, the first letter of the Tibetan abugida script?
And then there are the track titles: all written in Braille (or what seems to be braille), completed with a vague description in parenthesis. Riddle me this!?!
The Shimmering Moods label information is not very informative, and there’s no further information about W.E._aa to be found on Discogs either. A quick search reveals the W.E._aa is a Japanese sound artist with quite some tracks on his Soundcloud page. His motto: “I think that the world changes by this situation of a listening person …”
And then there’s the BandCamp page, where r.m. ʝ〜ʎ / W.E._aa simply translates to rmmusic (finally: something that neither human nor computer chokes on) – “touching the emotions of those who listen”.
Maybe it’s best to forget all about context and submit yourself to the music. You’ll soon find out that the music of W.E._aa is every bit as surprising and unconventional as can be expected from the typography.
Electronic soundscapes built with field-recordings, occasional glitchy beats, deep ambient layers – it’s all there, and it’s -eh – ‘different’, more than my description suggests. Not in an extremely abstract (and therefore hardly listenable) way, but in a refreshingly confusing way.
The CD-version was limited to 30 and is unfortunately sold out by now, so you’ll have to deal with the digital download version.
SANDRO MUSSIDA – DECAY MUSIC N.3: RUEBEN
The Italian label Die Schachtel presents the Decay Music series “to highlight inspired contemporary experimental efforts in the ambient, ethereal, and emotively abstract music”.
Sandro Mussida‘s Rueben is the third release in this series.
Rueben is described as “music on three tuning systems, for electric guitar, bass clarinet and cello samples”. Which, by the way, sounds wáy better in Italian: “Musica su tre sistemi di intonazione, per campioni di chitarra elettrica, clarinetto basso, violoncello.”
The sources of these recordings may be created with conventional instruments, but they are treated in such a way that their origins cannot be recognized anymore. Recorded in the church of St.Giusto in Volterra, Italy, Mussida incorporates the reflections of the space into the “multi-layered, contemplative sonic landscape: the identity of individual sound sources fades against their collective whole.”
“This is not music to listen to with your eyes closed, but rather, the opposite. It is music composed to magnify the action of the eyes, the sense of active observation in the present moment and of the space around us.”
Sandro Mussida plays the cello, in just intonation (II partials), the electric guitar samples are performed by Alessandra Novaga (twelve true Fths, Renold I), and Edgardo Barlassina plays the bass clarinet part (Hypodorian aulos).
I must be honest here: I’m not a musician and I don’t know anything about these particular tunings. But my ears tell me they fit together very well!
Rueben (Decay Music N 3) is released on vinyl and also available as a digital download.