Radio Gagarin Präsentiert:
Am 06.11.12
In der roten flora
Um 21.00 uhr offen
Zaimph (ambient noise/usa)
www.soundcloud.com/za-mph
Torba (harsh noise & drones/it-g)
www.vimeo.com/46824487
http://torbaharshdrone.blogspot.de
Jetzmann (Dj-Set/Radio Gagarin/Hamburg)
Zaimph:
Zaïmph is the solo project of ambient noise artist Marcia Bassett. Although legendary for white-hot guitar and vocal brutality, Zaimph's recent recordings and performances infuse cracked-raga song structures with dense electronic and synthesizer drones to create soundscapes where a lurking apocalypse is eclipsed by shimmering, meditative beauty.
As a co-founder of Philadelphia's shambolic psychonauts un and tectonic drone pioneers Double Leopards, Bassett is deeply entwined with the American noise underground, and has mapped regions still only dimly understood by subsequent sonic travelers. From 2003-2008, Bassett joined Matthew Bower in Hototogisu, where her mastery of cacophonous eardrum shred achieved monolithic proportions. During the same period, she explored American underground psychedelic folk-improv music with Steve Gunn and Pete Nolan in GHQ, and with Tom Carter in Zaika.
Zaïmph CDs, LPs and tapes have appeared on independent labels such as Gift Tapes, Hospital Productions, W.M.O.r, Utech Records, Gypsy Sphinx, Volcanic Tongue and No Fun records. Bassett has released numerous Zaïmph recordings on her own Heavy Blossom imprint. In 2012, Bassett retired Heavy Blossom and started Yew, a label showcasing Zaïmph and other aesthetically allied projects.
In addition to her work with Zaïmph, Bassett is a frequent collaborator with a wide spectrum of musicians including Helen Espvall (Espers), Samara Lubelski, Margarida Garcia, Jenny Graf (Metalux), Taylor Richardson (Infinity Window), and Barry Weisblat.
"It would be tough to write a history of the last two decades in underground music without including Marcia Bassett ... and any angle would have to include Zaïmph, Bassett's solo project. Through small-run releases on numerous labels including her own, Heavy Blossom), Zaïmph has carved out a unique take on decaying feedback, assaultive fuzz, echoey ambience, and abstract expression." - Pitchfork, The Out Door, 2010
"...ever-changing, fluid... intensely changing formations of blissful drone polyphony." - foxy digitalis, 2007
"The riffs slowly crawl across the cold night air, slowly becoming more and more psychedelic... dissolving into pure madness." - Brainwashed, Dec. 2007
"...blasting a hole through the flimsy wall that separates 'dark psychedelic' and 'free drone-rock'." - Paris Transatlantic, Summer 2009
"Grim tales... coalesce into a leaden curtain of narcotic minimalism." - The Wire, Sept. 2007
Torba
"armageddon polaroid" on Musique Machine
Torba’s a relatively new Berlin-based noise artist whose broken circuits and contact mics seem to have completely replaced the guitar drones of his debut in 2009. Recorded last December, Armageddon Polaroid is the latest among the 14 or so CD-Rs and cassettes Torba has released to date, comprising five short postcards from the apocalypse.
It opens with the shortest of them all which gives an unstable, two minute blast of radio static sounding somewhere between the abrasions of an arctic wind and the unpredictable explosions of a suffering gastrointestinal system. It’s familiar squeals and roars end abruptly with the complaining hum of the lead yanked out of the amp and is followed by more vivid bodily bursts in the form of ‘Liz Vicious’. This track seems to be made accapella to a degree as Torba’s mouth overloads the mic with a series of random breaths, hisses and hums that build in and out of cacophonous dimensions contrasting with the smaller sounds of lips moving without a voice. Next, ‘Death? Metal?’ provides a curious illusion of noise imitating extreme metal as a loop of fast jazzy drumming underscores Torba’s distorted turbulence that stops and starts like the pummel and pause formula of thrash guitar. It would be interesting to discover whether this seemingly convincing imitation would come across so well without the benefit of the track title.
The penultimate track, Animalmorti, is even more fidgety as a bee-like drone flies through a tunnel of rumbling, textured noise, scraping and sputtering, occasionally stopping abruptly and briefly before returning the levels into the red. By comparison, the final piece, Just A Toy, feels like a different artist as a thickly distorted lo-fi sine wave provides the accompaniment to Torba’s whispering in typical malevolent style “I’m a toy, that’s what I am” over and over again. Apparently it’s a cover - a rare thing to find among noise releases - of an Atrax Morgue track from 2003.
This release is unusual in that it flits restlessly between peddling the same harsh wind sounds that thousands of similar artists release in abundance every day, but on the other reveals the odd glimmer of free-er experimentation (on ‘Liz Vicious’ and ‘Death? Metal?) taking it briefly away from the noise norm.
