LABFIELD - FISHFORMS (CD by Bottrop-boy)
Four new releases from the house of Bottrop-boy, three on the main label and one of the side imprint Semishigure. Of the three, two are in the stylish, handmade new line of design of Bottrop-boy, while one has the 'old' line of design. I have no idea if there is any specific reason for it, but it could perhaps be some sort of division in music. Starving Weirdos and Mouthus (and Mattin/Bower and Sunroof of before) are in a certain musical area where you won't find Labfield. The latter is a collaboration between David Stackenäs and Ingar Zach. Stackenäs produced some nice work for Häpna, while of Zach we didn't much hear after an initial lukewarm response in these pages (the task of Vital Weekly is to be critical not to maintain good friends), which didn't lead to reviewing much more of music. On the risk of being accused (again) that I heard this only once, I must say that the work he produced as LabField with Stackenäs is great. Absolutely great. Zach plays bass drum, percussion, electronic scruti-box and electronic saranghi-box and Stackenäs plays acoustic guitars, resonator guitar, preparations and low budget electronics. With a background in improvisation you would expect careful, quiet, intimate playing - and in a way they do that. But it's not tender, soft or hardly outspoken. I suggest putting the volume up and get immersed by their wall of machine sounds. They play their instruments using all sorts of motors, fans or other mechanized instruments to create a natural resonating yet acoustic sound. Especially in 'Gin', the opening track which spans two-third of the entire CD this works wonderfully well. Dense to bone (mm, that's no expression)... dense like clouds, like being in a factory and one hears all the machines humming at once. Not deafening loud, but well constructed, balanced, varied, not from one point of the factory, but one has the feeling of walking about, hearing new aspects of the machines or new combination of the machines. By contrast 'Gin', the shortest piece, is a like bridge between that and 'Showa', soft tinkling guitars and percussive sounds, until things start to heat up again for the final piece. Hardly improvised sounding at all, this is sophisticated drone music of an outstanding order.
(FdW)
Address: http://www.bottrop-boy.com
