Songs For A Tired City – Songs For A Tired City (digital, self-released)
Indian musicians Shiv Ahuja (Eurorack synthesizer and tape loops) and Jayant Manchanda (computer with Max/MSP) composed here a minimalistic ambient album that often includes voice samples, glitches, drones, sometimes gentle beats. A music that sometimes evokes some lost radio transmissions and forgotten post-industrial soundscapes. [cdrk]
The Japanese duo group A comes back with a new album, such as the previous one (70 + a), while they keep their uniqueness, industrial music influences as well is 1970s-1980s minimalist electronic music spread through their compositions : tiny bits of Cabaret Voltaire, SPK or Tolerance references here and there.
This new album is also more instrumental than what they released before. [cdrk]
Two new tracks by Kenyan artist KMRU : cinematica ambient with field recordings. [cdrk]
Kid Fourteen – Love (Side B) (digital, self-released)
Lebanese singer project led by Khodor Ellaik (ex-Beirut Scum Society) together with Karim Shams and Dani Ghassan released four tracks that didn’t make it on his latest album Love. While electronic (rock ?) Love is still strongly influenced by Suicide, three of the tracks take another direction, quieter but still deeply rooted in the 1970s. [cdrk]
Kenyan artist Slikback comes back with a new LP that includes two of his previous digital releases (Lasakaneku and Tomo as you may have understood) and several more tracks.
Slikback presents a minimalist rhythmical music that contains heavy and deep bass drums, treated voice samples and electronics ; Slikback develops his own style but grabs some influences here and there from trap (on Kite) to hardcore techno (on Zuhura), some touch of gqom or heavily distorted beats and East African rhythmic structures are never far away.
If you are used to what the label SVBKVLT releases, this new LP might be of interest, this new album is less distorted and not as punchy as his collaboration with Chinese musician Hyph11E but nevertheless very interesting. [cdrk]
Intense free improv, noise jazzcore, hatever you name it, well known figures of the Berlin and international scene (Palestine, Switzerland, Turkey, the Netherlands) who really go to the extreme, take Sudden Infant‘s noises, spoken words and screams , BEEATSZ v2.0999e‘s heavy noisegrind drums, Dirar Kalash‘s noise experiments and Jasper Stadhouders‘ distorted free improv guitar, put this in a blender and here we go, all recorded at Loophole, Berlin. [cdrk]
Originally released as cassette in 1985, these three tracks were composed with guitar, objects, tape. Sound experimentations, free improvisation and sometimes noise. [cdrk]
Thai guitarist iPlayAlone (Pengboon Don) improvises with guitar and field recordings or do the birds, frogs and insects improvise with him ? [cdrk]
AtheerSoot – Like we’re spinning in a glass Carousel (digital, self-released)
Syrian composer AtheerSoot presents two ambient tracks : Like we’re spinning in a glass Carousel where sad and slightly distorted melodies and drones let you dive into a state of trance until you suddenly wake up next to a river while Let the sea washes it all away brings you back to an eerie and melancholic place. [cdrk]
13 minutes of relaxing ambient music by Iraqi musician Omar Fadel Hadi. [cdrk]
Asher.Zax – The Last Shall be First (cassette, digital, self-released)
Meira Asher and Eran Sachs (who is also a member of Hyperion Ensemble, Lietterschpich and more), well known politically active Israeli musicians present here an album that explores noise, industrial, experimental music with a touch of power electronics, together with Ben Riftin featured on several tracks.
The album includes L’abolition De La Croix (Antonin Artaud) and Resist my people, resist them, a text by Palestinian poet, photographer, and activist Dareen Tatour.
“Asher.Zax directed their machines at the occupation and the anniversaries of: 69 years of Israeli state occupation of Palestine, day 21 of the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike, the death of Bobby Sands who died on day 66 of his hunger strike in 1981.” [cdrk]
Yasuyuki Uesugi – I Have A Lot Of Insistence That No One Else Understands (digital, self-released)
Old school noise composed with (very) old and also new gears (such as some Japanese-built JMT synth and effect). The music is very repetitive and gives the impression to the listeners that they are visiting a factory, the sounds are not abrasive but mesmerising, sometimes close to harsh noise wall. [cdrk]
Filipino composer Gen Thalz presents four tracks whose sound source are electromagnetic noises of laptop and cellphone. The result is a drone, ambient, lowcase, onkyokei album, if I may summarise it so : extreme minimalism. [cdrk]
For a few years now, I see and meet plenty of feminist enthusiasts who try to develop new networks, events, workshops, festivals dedicated to women and feminism in the often male-centric experimental and electronic music scenes, where indeed, most djs represented are men, most famous electro-acoustic composers are males, most power electronics artists are males, most famous electronica artists are males and so on and so forth.
Many of those who call themselves feminists and quite rightly scream and shout that they want more equality, more exposure and recognition and want to offer women more opportunities to access the electronic and experimental music world have for most a western-centric vision of the scene.
Never did I see them promoting female artists in the field of electronic and experimental music who come from Asia and Africa (or even Latin America). The victims of exclusion exactly behave like their oppressors and should definitely admit that their fight is a failure and will remain so unless they include all women of the various scenes (including underground rock, metal, punk, grindcore, etc.), no matter what their ethnicities, nationalities, geographic locations, social classes are.
Of course, I hear some of you fulminating against me, accusing me of disempowering them, telling me : “But we didn’t know ! We never heard about them ! How could we imagine there were women doing this music in those places !?” (sic).
It sounds to me like those men telling :”Seriously ? You know of women building modular synthesizer ? I never imagined that it would be ever possible !”
Zero difference.
This is one of the problems of the Western World, it is so much self-centred that it often lacks of imagination and curiosity (even not going so far away as Asia or Africa, how many times did I hear some being surprised that there are musicians in Sardinia or Kosovo or whatever remote village lost in the Swiss mountains who do play underground music).
Now that we live in a more and more interconnected society, to me it is some kind of pure egotism and a certain form of social racism to imagine that only women (or people in general) in the west do compose electronic, experimental music or punk, metal, oi, you name it… In the time of the invasive internet where those who want, especially those who pretend to fight for some rights, can search, deeply, all kinds of informations using search engines, social networks, databases, music streaming services, it is a shame to see that those born in the “wrong” place still often remain excluded.
I remember women from some networks I will not name here telling that they wanted full support and promotion for women´s projects but how many of them bought or promoted the works and publications I was telling them about ? How many of them attended the concerts I organised ? Very few ! Some even decided to work in closed circles, excluding men from their networks or activities, even those who supported them from the beginning. Some gave me the feeling that they were working for their own ego, that the feminist fight was an excuse for them to clime higher and reach the peak… I may be wrong, I wish so but this is how I perceive this situation for many years.
Now to conclude this small article, here are a few CD references among many others, and following those, you´ll find a non-exhaustive list of under represented women. The CD list is only a small sample that what is currently existing, of course.
Art of the Muses (CD and digital, Syrphe, 2012, international) with Alice Hui-Sheng Chang [Taiwan], Aki Ito [Japan], Itta [South Korea], Tomoko Sauvage [Japan], Kismett [Singapore], VAVABOND [China], Pei [Taiwan], Verita Shalavita Koapaha [Indonesia], Lương Huệ Trinh [Vietnam], Lau Mun Leng [Malaysia].
Egyptian Females Experimental Music Session (CD, 100Copies, 2013, Egypt) with Asmaa Azzouz, Shorouk El Zomor, Hala Abu Shady, Jacqueline George, Nina El Gebaly, Ola Saad, Yara Mekawei, details on 100Copies.
_Litter – Newfound Grids (CD and digital, Syrphe, 2013, Lebanon)
VAVABOND – HOLOGRAM OF sea (CD and digital, C.F.I Records, 2012, China)
PEI – Normality Envision (CD, Sub Jam, Kwanyin Records, 2007, Taiwan), details and extracts here.
Leila Bela – Angra Manyu (CD, Ellahy Amen Records 2003, Iran/USA), details here.
Hui-Shen Chang Alice – When She Was Asleep (Cassatte, Antifrost, 2011, Taiwan).
Okkyung Lee – Noisy Love Songs (CD, Tzadik, 2010, South Korea), details at Discogs.
And one more western oriented ones that I anyway find worth to mention (and because most feminist activists I talked to in the scene told me they never heard about it and it´s a pretty good one !) :
Women Take Back The Noise (3xCD, UBUIBI, 2006) with Michiko Kawagoe, Dark Muse, BCO Women’s Auxiliary, Passiflora, Suzanne Quincey, Ava Mendoza, Meri von KleinSmid, Analog Tara, Fe-Mail, Experiment Haywire, Hertta Lussu Ässä, Cosey Fanni Tutti, etc.
This non-exhaustive list comes from this database I´m permanently working on, this database contains more than 1500 references for Africa and Asia. I could have added more of them but sorry, my time is limited at the moment !
Note I noticed that the formatting of the list appears incorrectly but I can´t correct it for some odd reasons…)
Algeria :
Rula El Bahr Soundcloud [electronic, sound art, lives in France, see Kamekaz]
Armenia/USA :
Farhadian, Thea Site [electro-acoustic, improv, video, lives in the USA]
Iran :
Bela, Leila (ليلى بلا) SiteMySpaceDiscogs [noise, sound art, lives in the USA]
Bigdeli Shamloo, Sara SoundcloudTwitter [electronic, sound tracks, lives in France]
Hatam, Farahnaz MySpace [sound art, lives in Germany]
Pazhutan, Honey Haq SiteSoundcloud [see vH+] / vent aitcH Plus (vH+, V H +p) SiteSoundcloud [ambient, drone, see Honey Haq Pazhutan]
South Africa :
Beckmann, Inge MySpaceDiscogsFacebook [electronic, contemporary]
Isadora Dustmite Junk MySpaceBandcampFacebook [electro-acoustic, noise, sound art]
Schneider, June [electro-acoustic, multi-media installations][1971 ?]
South Korea :
Itta (있다) https://www.youtube.com/user/TxNxGxRMySpaceFacebookTwitterMySpace [sound art, ambient, minimal, member of 10 and Tengger]
Okkyung Lee SiteMySpace [classical, improv, sound art, lives in Germany]
Shin, Amy Soundcloud [classical, sound art, post rock, etc., USA/South Korea] – she´s an American of Korean descent who migrated to Seoul.
Ha Jane Facebook [improv, see Pika & Pikasland] – from the US I think but lives in Seoul.
Syrphe magazine 杂志 