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PPR02 - HsDOM "VOMC" CD
— $14 —This is the first official release of a classic album from 2001, originally only available in small quantities with hand-made packaging. It represents the first step towards our goal of putting the entire back catalog of HSDOM releases out on Phaserprone. Brooklyn based Jochen Hartmann of UW OWL, presents 12 tracks of apocalyptic sound collages mixed with electronic renderings (digital and analog) of 80s style minimal taunts. In HSDOM's own words -- 'recordings about excursions to lakes, the apartment and the old canal in Berlin, branches drying on the shore and other subjects.'
Packaged in a self assembled hand razor scored, photo-tipped, letterpressed CD gatefold, with insert. Edition of 135.Excerpts
Elevator Action II (mp3) | Wohnung am Kanal (mp3) | Eulen Flug (mp3) | Finnen Siedlung (mp3)Reviews
Animal Psi »
U W OWL, HsDOM, Southern Man / Pykrete, Grasslung
Phaserprone is a young label run by two swell guys, Jochen and Jonas, who also made the label's first release as UW OWL; Grasslung is just Jonas, while HsDOM is just Jochen. The label's first outsider release comes as a very fine collaboration between Southern Man and Pykrete. Sticking it to everyone, you cannot ignore Phaserprone's insane album couture: thick vinyl in die-cut jackets with letterpress art; cassette with printed labels, cardstock inserts and custom sleeves; and CDrs come in thick, thick paper digipaks with trays, letterpress and photo art. All this and in batches of little more than 100 copies; the prices may be a touch steep, but the product will certainly recompense.
A heavy, abandon-the-bunker throb pumping with industrial whips and accumulating layers of effects opens "Black Flag", the first of ten tracks on UW OWL's 'Thorn Elemental'. The 'ghost, but not really' cover art reminds me of a couple different Sun City Girls LPs for obvious reasons, but the laser-tag battles inside bare no resemblance at all. There seems to be a disparity between sides, with A being a bit darker, sparser, and eightiesier. The next track, "Aero Birdhaus" bounces on springy percussion with light rhythmic themes, and is the first indication of the latter-day Black Dice comparisons to come; somewhere the track melts-down into a drip tempo with a variety of organic beats applied, some hints of acoustic guitar, and a momentary tape impression of guitar thrash. The tracks flow together like oil-swirls and in due time "All Have Hooves" appears with gunky, didgeridoo rhythm to close out the first side of this dark dancehall. "Thorn Face" on side B is a busier track, still mid-tempo but with fills and a waving guitar/feedback loop running behind it - reminding me of how Nine Inch Nails played that Joy Division song on the Crow soundtrack. The next track, "Hearth & Salamander" breaks the formula with a totally psychedelic jam of clean, electric strum and tap, and reverb vocals; half-way through they flip it, inducing that bouncy beat we love and heading into "Asylum", another 'Creature Comforts'-type creation which beats your head into a nod as you dodge hi-end lateral beams in time. "Forbidden Ones" is an exit of sorts, blending vocal samples into an almost beatless soundtrack of long horror shrieks and thick globs of bass. All told, this record is very nicely recorded and mastered, with bright blacks and rich tones; and again, sure to please fans of Black Dice and those who like a little casual gloom with their beats. On 140g vinyl, packaged in a self-assembled, die-cut and letter-pressed jacket by Jonas himself. Limited to 333 copies. $15ppd
Listening to each of the boys' individual releases, it is evident who brings what to the UW OWL table: as HsDOM, Jochen uses 'VOMC' to reach beyond the collaborative limits of 'Thorn Elemental', pushing further the erotic circuitry the latter only hints at. The cover framing two portraits of micro-processed man and the inserts a digital melt-down of human obsolescence, the album opens on the sound of the last analog device destroying itself: its moving parts (ha!) melting from friction and a lifespan of limited potential. "Elevator Action 2" vibrates loose into "Ausflug ans Wasser", sounding like a Terminator nightmare, with helicopter beats hovering just above your head and screaming sheet metal being torn from the streets. "Seewege" tests the threshold of the disc, shredding way-trashed bass and digital bubbles into a swelling dance beat. Things begin to dissipate at this point, with the Black Dice vibe entering as sounds come in little packets strategically placed over thick blasts of bass. "Eulen Flug" is almost sweet by comparison, with up-tempo beats and cheery synths skipping away like a Mouse on Mars allusion. "VOMC Track" and "Finnen Siedlung" combine for a wicked experiment with layers, pulsing like an alien EKG with light trails dissolving in all directions - the whole album has keyboards set to 'Vangelis'. The center of the album is the most sparse and experimental, with later tracks like "Zweig am Ufer" and the manic highlight "ASCii" returning to techno-nightmare dance beats and invisible crowds of screaming fans; in fact, the back end of this album holds an unexpectedly diverse batch of gems like these, including the scary/fun/bouncy "MOT/9,596,700" and the space-madness reverie of outro "Mercadian Masques." Jochen's all-in-one production is tops, as the album bumps, grinds, and seers in all the right places. Very nice! Packaged in a self-assembled, razor-scored, photo-tipped, letter-pressed CD gatefold with sexy insert. Edition of 135. $13ppd. Get this!
If Jochen is UWO's Timbaland, then Jonas is the band's Eno: 'Psychic Venom' is two side-long tracks (maybe 40 minutes total) of pure atmosphere. Heavy synth foot-prints pace up and down this tape as swirls of electronics cloud the sky. Never abrasive, but definitely intense, this is no ambient recording. Long sold-out at home, the Grasslung 'Psychic Venom' cassette has been in scarce supply, with just the Troubleman distro coddling a few copies. However: of late, Phaserprone has taken mercy and unleashed a second batch of 45 (legal?), and the cassette is again available through the label. Packaged in an ink-jet slip case, with "scanned inner rendering of solvent and ink letterpress experiment on paper." Second pressing limited to 45 copies. $7ppd
*The Phaserprone SITE crashed a while ago and is still in disrepair; for now contact them through EMAIL, and check out UW OWL's new page HERE. Those guys are cool - get in touch! [Animal Psi] | » read original review
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Outerspace Gamelan »
OUTER SPACE GAMELAN Reviews
When Jonas of the New York born and bred Phaserprone label wrote to me asking if he could send some stuff in for review, I didn't hesitate to accept. Because I'm a leech. No actually it's because a quick glance at the Phaserprone website revealed four very slick-looking albums that anybody should love to get their hands on. But I was completely unprepared for when the day came to crack open that box and unleash these four (I know I only listed three, more on that later) gems. I don't know if there's government money at work or if the Phaserprone guys were art students and have access to all kinds of fancy machinery but the packaging here is totally decadent - the CD-Rs come packaged in super thick, heavy cardboard gatefolds with letter-pressed art, glossy photos and really weird quasi-dot-matrix-style print outs and Xeroxes (and the CD-Rs themselves have some professionally-printed art going on too). The tape they sent is housed in a cardboard wrap-around with great silver inked artwork and the LP features more letter-press, more photos, and more inserts. I know it's ultimately the music that matters man but isn't it just a billion times better when it comes in such lovely, eye-pleasing formats? I think so.
The bizarrely monikered U W OWL released their debut LP "Thorn Elemental" last year, and as it turns out they're also the same guys who run the label, Jonas and Jochen. What's strange about this record is that it doesn't actually say the title anywhere, so I'm just going by what their website tells me. The first track on the first side is called "Black Flag" but actually reminds me a lot more of Black Dice circa their latest record. It's quite a bit bouncier than the dark cover art would suggest, although there sure are plenty of industrial/dark ambient shadows afoot. I could easily throw some rhymes over this track. Okay not me. But somebody with talent could. There are four more tracks on the side but it's not altogether clear when one stops and the other begins - or I just wasn't paying enough attention. Besides, sometimes it's more fun to just float along with their super thick bass throbs like mega-slowed versions of Coil's "Panic" or perhaps something from a non-shitty Skinny Puppy. At times the duo's synth and keyboard (and who knows what else) squelchs err a bit too much on the side of electro/goth pastiche for my liking, but that only really happens at the beginning. Near the end of the first side they're sounding like a strange combo of Wolf Eyes in their come-down moments (or their quieter phases like on parts of "Dread") and a psychedelia-laden shoegaze band by way of laptop. The second side pushes their sound a bit more "out there", with unplaceable samples, scrap metal, digital drones, moans and foreign alien jazz chants. I don't think "Thorn Elemental" would be at all out of place alongside bands like Supersilent and MoHa! on Rune Grammofon. I'm not in love with every part of this record at every time of the day but I think that's part of its charm - I certainly want to revisit it a few more times and try and crack the black magick code Jochen and Jonas are weaving here. The website and insert claims these tracks were selected from a series of improvisations spread out across the past few years, something which I'm altogether suspicious of (the improvisation thing I mean - these pieces often sound so coherant I'm beginning to wonder if the two U W OWL men aren't attached at the brain).
Jochen also moonlights in a solo project with an even more difficult name, HsDom. His album is called "VOMC" and doesn't sound at all far removed from the U W OWL record except I detect a bit more of a Fennesz or FM3 touch on the near-hour-long disc, specifically on tracks like "Seewege" and "HP Burning Hand". There's still a definite 80's Coil/Nurse with Wound vibe, but Jochen throws plenty of loops like the Aphex Twin/"Selected Ambient Works"-style dream haze found on "Eulen Flug" and "MOT/9,596,700" and the foggy busted rhythm break of "ASCii". The rest of the CD-R locates HsDom in a highly-digital and programmed lair, layering raygun sound effects atop looped dark ambient wing rides.
Finally there's a collaboration between two artists I'm completely unfamiliar with, the North Carolina/Berlin duo of Southern Man and Pykrete, also from North Carolina. The sounds here are quite a bit more difficult to place but the playing shakes out images of taking a bath in the vast outer space landscape, with various stars exploding and fizzling out around you and the gentle weeping of Pluto trying to get over its total scientific smackdown. "No More Love" is a bit too jittery to be classed as straight-up ambient but it sure has those tendencies. There's a lot of broken-electronic clatter cobbling itself together to form some kind of mutant, bent rhythm that the group cultivate for the duration of the track, before moving on to something new. The 9-minute "Apheresis Cathect" is almost catatonic as it shifts subtlely between dead battery gizmo gasps and gentle droning white noise dizzy.
As I mentioned before I also got a tape from the Phaserprone folks by Grasslung, who is Jonas of the U W OWL duo. The tape is called "Psychic Venom" and limited to just 45 copies, but there are two snags here - one, I couldn't get my animated GIF to work if I included the tape cover art (hey fuck you computers are TOUGH) and secondly, the website states this is a 45-minute tape but for some reason my A-side clicks off after about two minutes and my B-side features about five more minutes of sounds followed by a huge whack of silence. Now I didn't play around with the tape to find out if it was my set up causing the technical difficulties since I was already way behind on writing the review, but I'll definitely dig into that later. Anyway the roughly 7 minutes of action I did get were of an impressive, locust swarm/storm sounding throttle, considerably more noisy than anything else featured here. I would've liked to hear more, but alas it was not meant to be this time around. I'm pleased to report at the end of everything that the audio on the Phaserprone releases lived up to the heart-warming packaging, especially on the U W OWL LP which is such a mysterious beast that I encourage you to buy one and then we can have a sleepover where we discuss it at great lengths and try and wrap our grey matters around it (you bring the popcorn). Also try and get the Grasslung tape so I can swap mine for yours when you go to the bathroom. Thanks. [Matt McKeogh/ Outer Space Gamelan] | » read original review
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Other Music »
GRASSLUNG/HsDOM/Southern Man/Pykrete - Other Music
The dudes behind the UW Owl LP have launched a shotgun blast of new, beautifully packaged, obscuro/limited releases on the un-expecting public. More explorations on the theme of electronically (analog and digital) manipulated chaos and disarray. Grasslung (a beautifully slip-cased, cassette-only release in a 45 copy limited edition) is U W Owl's Jon Asher, cutting two long tracks of dark, black metal-inspired, doom-drone scrawl. Vivid images of an arctic desert are contained therein, with vast and bleak soundscapes alternating between cold and hot.
HsDOM's VOMC CD is UW Owl's Jochen Hartmann. I expected more dark, throbbing mutant techno like the "Rotlicht" track on UUAR's They Keep Me Smiling compilation, but it ends up that these tracks are earlier jams that are a little less 'reined-in,' with more variety, and the also have a bit more 'rabies'. Think of a one-man Black Dice boiling and troubling in a huge, cast iron cauldron ("Wohnung am Kanal"), or at times an analog, exploratory, sci-fi IDM sound probing through a dark cave ("Finnen Siedlung").
Last up is the Southern Man and Pykrete CD, the first non-New York artist on Phaserprone. The sound is like Lithops doing 'construction-site' techno or subtle, industrial composition. Simple, insistent rhythmic structures are slowly covered in bulldozer/earthmover textures (see "Distance Player"). There's quieter stuff too; "Vacation Rigonda" has warbly analog voices trading space with rummaged metal and other unknown sound sources that build into a small wall of cacophony. New sounds, in beautifully letter-pressed, hand-cut and folded sleeves with inserts and/or tipped in photos. Painfully limited edition pressings of 145 copies or less, so get 'em while they exist. [Scott Mou / Other Music]
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Sound Collector »
HsDOM / VOMC
An anonymous and alienating collection from the Phaserprone label; it's Jochen Hartmann, one half of UW OWL with Jonas Asher. They are like-minded souls who appreciate a good episode of cold, garbled electronic music, fit for using as soundtrack to episodes of depression and despair. This CD is a punchy, stripped-down collection of minimal electronics: battery-operated, hand-soldered, and as home-made as a tin-can radio set.
The first track refers to an elevator, and if you take a trip in this particular mode of transport as proposed by HsDOM you'll soon be descending into the lower depths of a private hell. Just listen to the obsessive workings of "Ausflug ans Wasser", or "Wohnung am Kanal"; rarely have you encountered such grim determination to burn things down, to erode one's own sense of being, to take everything to the lowest possible level; it's a splendid process of attenuation that involves sharp knives and bludgeoning with rubber hoses.
The best thing about Hartmann (and indeed his other project with Jonas Asher: UW OWL) is their exclusive use of analogue instrumentation to realize their brutalistic aims; not a digital shard to be found anywhere on their grooves. But the warmth of those valves and circuits is here made into something colder, harder and nihilistic. While we find some attempts here to use drum machine and mechanical rhythms (e.g. on the rather weedy "Eulen Flug" or the bleepy "Finnen Siedlung" which is like an evil twin of early Kraftwerk), for the most part this is a CD of abstract, meandering trails blazed through deep and foggy nights, urban blighted zones lit by pale street lamps, and alleyways where the paranoia is so palpable you could cut it with a chainsaw. And while it may seem that after track 7, the ideas are starting to run a bit thing, you should endure to hear final cut "Mercadian Masques", a harrowing and dark little narrative that is strong enough to be a lost B-side from The Residents DUCK STAB period. On it, each squelchy pad of the synth is a sinister footfall across a damp carpet in a n old ruined house, where the lurking fear waits within. A fine CD for inducing nightmares on your own behalf, and arrives packaged in a letterpress digi-pack of solid black cardboard, mounted with eerie photographs. 135 copies only.
— ED PINSENT 28/07/2007 [
The Sound Projector 16th Issue 2008]
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