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sound/music CD reviews


 Da Contents H2

May 1 2013
Jon Rose
Rosin

April 3 2013
zephyr quartet
a rain from the shadows

July 17 2012
the wired lab
wired open day 2009

May 22 2012
ros bandt, johannes s sistermanns
tracings

March 20 2012
new weird australia editions: thomas williams vs scissor lock, spartak
jewelz & nippon

October 25 2011
avantwhatever label collection
gulbenkoglu gorfinkel; ben byrne; alex white; ivan lysiak

May 24 2011
decibel
disintegration: mutation

May 10 2011
blip (jim denley, mike majkowksi)
calibrated

various
listen to the weather

March 22 2011
topology
difference engine

November 22 2010
various
artefacts of australian experimental music volume II 1974-1983

September 20 2010
clocked out
the wide alley

September 7 2010
clocked out
foreign objects

August 23 2010
matt chaumont
linea

July 26 2010
sky needle
time hammer

May 10 2010
mike majkowski
ink on paper

November 6 2009
various
new weird australia vols 1 & 2

October 26 2009
clare cooper & chris abrahams
germ studies

July 17 2009
erdem helvacioglu
wounded breath

rice corpse
mrs rice

April 28 2009
james rushford
vellus

joel stern
objects, masks, props

January 22 2009
loren chasse
the footpath

mark cauvin
transfiguration

December 12 2007
the splinter orchestra
self-titled

October 24 2007
various
artefacts of australian experimental music 1930-1973

August 28 2007
jouissance
akathistos fragments

pateras/baxter/brown
gauticle

various artists produced by le tuan hung; dindy vaughan
on the wings of a butterfly: cross-cultural music by australian composers; up the creek

May 1 2006
ai yamamoto
euphonious

camilla hannan
more songs about factories

found: quantity of sheep
monkey+valve

philip brophy
aurévélateur

rod cooper
friction

December 1 2005
anthony pateras
mutant theatre

December 1 2005
charlie charlie & will guthrie
la respiration des saintes & building blocks

dj olive
buoy

hinterlandt
new belief system

jodi rose & guest artists
singing bridges: vibrations/variations

lawrence english
transit

lawrence english
ghost towns

michael j schumacher
room pieces

robin fox
backscatter dvd

tarab
surfacedrift

the necks
mosquito/see through

tim o'dwyer
multiple repeat

toydeath
guns, cars & guitars

warp: various artists
warp vision: the videos 1989-2004

zane trow
for those who hear actual voices

 

Room 40: 2004, RM405
www.room40.org


Zane Trow has had an extremely distinguished career in Australian music and the arts. However his latest CD, For Those Who Hear Actual Voices, sadly does not represent his finest hour. Trow's career dates back to the 1970s and listening to …Actual Voices, one cannot help but feel that his compositional methods have been frozen in time.

Although this release apparently had its origins in a live performance for which Trow sampled the chaotic speech of the likes of Antonin Artaud, Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys, there is no discernable sign of these arresting sonic and intellectual references within the CD itself. Instead Trow presents a collection of muted, largely harmonic tones and soft organ atmospheres in a fashion strongly reminiscent of the early ambient movement and artists such as Vangelis and Brian Eno. The latter's proposition of "wallpaper music"–of a series of sounds so gentle and wafting as to function purely as subconscious background listening–may well have been an important development in the history of abstract electronica, however it is hard to see the appeal of such dated motifs in the context of today's more dynamic sound worlds, especially following the horrendous appropriation and reworking of Eno's principles in malls, Starbucks and shopping centers around the world.

After some fairly banal meditative early tracks, Trow does break things up a bit with deeper, more bassy tones and works which, rather than simply hovering or sustaining, become interrupted in unpredictable ways. This is however not enough to seriously challenge the overall mood of meditative sonic filler otherwise produced here. For that small audience for whom New Age sound art and un-provocative ambient music remains a preferred genre, Trow's CD may well still have appeal.

Jonathan Marshall

© Jonathan Marshall; for permission to reproduce apply to [email protected]

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