Probably the name Carl Michael von Hausswolff doesn’t need much introduction. His conceptually edged releases on labels as Sub Rosa, Touch and Raster Noton deal with such subjects as architecture and voices from beyond. Here The Wonderful World of Male Intuition is the subject. To shed some light on it, he uses sine wave oscillators, field recordings (sea, land, outer space) but also the voices of persons important as ‘positive energies in a world that obviously is feasting on itself without knowing how to go to the toilet’, being the Dalai Lama, Willem de Ridder, Gregory Bateson, Alvin Lucier, John C Lilly, Albert Hofmann, Friedrich Jürgenson and Brion Gysin. Many of these voices are processed through the use of the sine waves, in some way or another, which makes the voices hard to understand, but of course that is not the intent anyway. Throughout the forty some minutes, I learned nothing much about the male intuition (if that exists at all), but purely as a work of sine waves and field recordings I must say that this is a particular strong work by Hausswolff. Not too overtly minimal, leaning on his sine waves, but it’s the combination of all three components works quite well, the sine waves, field recordings and voices. It might perhaps even the best Hausswolff I ever heard (despite not having heard all, he admitted straight away).

A couple of years ago, The Wire has a list (they love them) of “100 Records that set the world on fire (when no one was listening)” and the double Monoton LP (Monotonprodukt 07 [20y++]) from 1982 was one of them. I remember that LP with it’s striking minimal cover well from my early days, browsing through the weirdo section of the local record store, but never having the cash to buy it. In the words of The Wire this record “is so alive with the pulses that triggered many Electronicas to come, from Techno through Trance to Mego’s creeping music” and with it’s monotone sequencers, synths and alien voices (plus the sparse use of violin, saxophone and even steeldrum), this is indeed a more than welcome re-issue. The re-issue from 2002 is not at discuss here, but we do mention that another pressing has become available (thank god), but today we have ‘Blau’ [Monotonprodukt 02 [Blau — 26y++]] (meaning ‘blue’) a record from 1980 that is now released, along with three unreleased tracks from the archive. The tracks here see a continuation of Monotonprodukt 07 [20y++], even when it predates that record. The rhythms are slow, much slower than any early techno this is said to influence, feeding through a simple delay and somewhere in the background there is a minimal throb of the sequencer, or scratch on the violin. ‘Blau’ is an even more raw diamond than Monotonprodukt 07 [20y++], with more minimalism in the tracks. Usually a simple, single idea per track, which is worked over it’s course. My favorite pieces are those that are based on a sequencer rather than a rhythm machine, reminding me of the urgency of Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft or Liaison Dangereux, but in a less pop related way, and more in classical minimal music manner. Both Monoton records bridge gaps between pop and classical music, and as such they were indeed way ahead of their time, whereas today they still sound as fresh as then.

Membre du duo Crackhaus (avec Deadbeat), Stephen Beaupré signe la plus récente parution de l’étiquette Mutek_rec avec le compact Foe Destroyer, un album à la fois éthéré et férocement rythmique. De son côté, Guillaume Coutu Dumont (du duo Egg) lance le vinyle Sélection surnaturelle, qui propage aussi d’alléchantes pulsations.

Le 6^e festival BIMESP — dirigé par Flô Menezes — s’est déroulé du 10 au 17 juin 2006 à la Villa Mariani à São Paulo (Brésil). Plusieurs concerts ont présenté les œuvres retenues et lauréates du 4^e CIMESP 2001 dont Vol d’Arondes de Francis Dhomont, Serendipities and Synchronicities de Pete Stollery, Rojo de Hans Tutschku, Silk to Steel de Mathew Adkins et Éden de Robert Normandeau. Notons aussi un concert consacré à la Suède qui a présenté la toute récente Dreaming in Darkness de Åke Parmerud et des œuvres de Skog, Johansson, Hedman, Grahn, Sundin et Liljekvist.

Il y aura quelques événements en électroacoustique aux Journées mondiales de la musique 2006 à Stuttgart (Allemagne). D’abord dès le 14 juillet 2006 l’installation … raumKLANG raum… entgrenzend qui, sous la direction de Sabine Schäfer et Joachim Krebs, explore les dimensions du son, de l’espace, du temps et du mouvement avec leur musique et celles de Ferrari, Minard, Sistermanns, Schafer et Westerkamp. Ensuite, le 21 juillet la «longue nuit» pilotée par le DEGEM avec des pièces de plus de 18 compositeurs dont Tutschku. En parallèle, le ZKM a organisé le concours Short Cuts: Beauty, consacré aux pièces électroacoustique de 3 à 8 minutes. Les œuvres retenues seront présentées au Chillout Lounge du Kunstmuseum Stuttgart dès le 18 juillet.

Åke Parmerud a participé au Festival Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo à León (Mexique) du 25 avril au 7 mai 2006. Son concert solo, le 28 avril au Teatro María Grever, regroupait les pièces Dreaming in Darkness, Bows, Arcs and The Arrow of Time, The Beauty of Change et La vie mécanique. D’autres concerts de ce festival de musique, danse, théâtre, arts visuels et cinéma ont présentés des œuvres életroacoustiques de Manuel Rocha-Iturbide, Kanata Horio, Roscoe Mitchell et Roberto Morales Manzanares. De plus les artistes (dont Parmerud, Manuel Rocha-Iturbide et Roberto Morales Manzanares) participaient à une série de conférences sur l’art et la technologie.