You probably know about Metaxu if you know about Z_E_L_L_E, because Maurizio Martusciello is a part of both of them: with Nicola Catalano they’re Z_E_L_L_E and with Filippo Paolini — Metaxu. Maurizio Martusciello is well known composer on the international electroacoustic scene. Filippo Paolini is also interested in electroacoustic music and improvisations… Rumors of War is their second album. I haven’t heard the previous one, but it’s quite amazing what they’ve done on this new album. The music is calm and peaceful, without any disturbing or too harsh moments (it’s also not an improvisation), but it’s still clearly and fully present. There’s an electronic and an acoustic side of the music, presented through the use of samplers, turntables, tapes and cds. The sound is placed in a wide atmospheric context, but there are certain moments when some concrete clicky sounds or some parts of the whole musical soundscape are pointed out on the surface. There’s another context on this album: the war. All track-titles are a name of a place and a certain date when some war culminated, like: 06091945 Hiroshima, 11092001 New York, 25031999 Belgrade… It should be mentioned though that the music it’s not suffocated by this context, the music can freely breathe. This is a very successful album by Metaxu, released by one of the most interesting and forward-thinking labels today, also one of my favourite labels in 2003 year, No Type.

The idea of a Canadian road movie may conjure up perversely disturbing images of defensive driving, speed limits rigidly observed and perfectly nice people encountered along the way. For the most part, that’s what Calon and Dumas deliver in these two pieces realised for Radio Canada’s L’Espace du son and Deutschland Radio in Berlin.

Made for the former, Le petit homme dans l’oreille presents its found materials with a minimum of manipulation. Wind, birds, snatches of conversation, background ambience from a threshermen’s reunion and stampede in Manitoba contribuate to a gently bucolic cross-country journey. At times the spirit of R Murray Schafer’s prolific music is invoqued but without his ambitious grandiloquence. The key emphasis here is on the human trace in the lanscape. An awesome landscape acoustic, stirred with breaths of air and occasional bird twitters, is suddenly transformed by the Doppler wail of a freight train, human voices are caught either in the boxy acoustic of a camper van or in the delicious echo of the Ouimet Canyon.

And so it goes, gentle and strangely uninvolving, like a long distance journey when fatigue and a drift of attention eases the miles by in affectless boredom. On Documents de surface, the human archaeology is minimal, replaced by animal and weather sounds. Canadian Pacific still puts in an appearance, but the action is more operatic with long naturalistic recitatives intersperced with choric effetcs from trees and watercourses and odd dramatic aria provided by birds.

As a radio experience, these are doutless compelling pieces. They’re more troublesome on CD. They could have done with some visual enhancement, possibly a CD-ROM of location photography or a virtual map of relevant routes.

Metaxu is a new project by Filippo Paolini and Maurizio Martusciello. This Italian duo have made important political statements on their rumors of war release. This album features tracks examining the thin line that exists between war & peace. Through their compositions it is evident that they have concerned themselves with pivotal moments of recent World History… especially the times when History itself seemed to end all at once. They examine chaos and violence through tones, loops, microtones and strangely composed drones and arranged keyboard lines. They examine the many tragedies of the world including those that have happened at Hiroshima, New York City and Sarajevo. These tracks are drenched with hints of darkness, pain and hope. The quietly interwoven clips of news and other spoken word statements scattered around the tracks makes it even more intense.

As a whole this CD is a relaxing yet challenging listen. The track titles are clearly pointing out the meanings behind the music, directing your attentions to events that we should be clearly remembering in the world. The music can be easily played in a set with Jeremy Boyle, Takagi Masakatsu, Tetsue Innue and newer pieces by Donnachea Costello.

A Todd Drootin által életrehívott Books on Tape formáció mindenképpen kielégíti a kiadója által támasztott feltételeket, miszerint alkotásai elég nehezen skatulyázhatóak be. A kanadai mûvész beatpunk néven jellemezte saját számait, ami nagyjából fedi is a valóságot, de ezzel együtt valami elektronikus dologra gondoljunk és akkor már képben is vagyunk. Helyenként a Kid 606 ugrik be, a váltások és a gegek terén, de itt azért nincs akkora zúzás, sõt az Oceania címû szám már majdnem downtempo, lehet rá bólogatni is. A 120 grammos, strandpapucskék bakelit 3 figyelemreméltó dalocskát tartalmaz a többit pedig a hamarosan megjelenõ, második Books on Tape nagylemez rejti.

A svéd mûvésznõ felvételei korábban a Mitek és a Mille Plateaux kiadóknál láttak napvilágot. Mûfajváltás nem történt, tehát ezen a kislemezen is minimal-house és electronica párosítása érhetõ tetten. Bár otthoni hallgatásra ajánlják az anyagot, a nyitó tétel, a Consumer Culture enyhén szólva is zaklatott világa erre kevésbé alkalmas, a mély hangoktól még kisebb hangerõn is minden mozdítható berendezési tárgy beindult a szobában. A címadó May ’68 sokkal lassabb, dub orientált, mély zene. A fonákon pedig újra a sodróbb, lendületesebb, de azért nagyonis atmoszférikus zenéké a terep. Akinek bejönnek Kit Clayton, vagy a Tennis munkái, ezt is csípni fogja.

Located in Saskatoon, Haiven and Vaughn are electroacoustic composers concerning themselves with a wide range of sound sources. Over the course of this 73-minute piece, the duo explores a range of complex textures, repetitiously shifting rhythm patterns and audio cut-ups. Drifting from sheer walls of intense feedback to quite sparse audio plains, this composition is a detailed and considered work that highlights the two composers’ developed sensibilities.