I originally wrote, about 2 weeks ago, a much longer review of these two albums as one same problem, question, direction and text. It started like that: »Claude Simon died […]

Plain is what the Lithuanian Arturas Bumsteinas brought in with »Live@Rixc« at his guest performance at Riga’s Media Art Centre. Ambient Drones and glitchy samples, generated on a notebook. What makes this document distinguishable from anything else? Bumsteinas capability to create soundtrack-like soundscapes in a continuous track. This wide build-up of a tension, transporting threatening…

Luc Ferrari possessed a sparkling sense of humor and quality of focus or presentness that, for anyone lucky enough to have enjoyed his company, will be impossible to forget. In this lifetime, you might meet a handful of individuals whose work really speaks to you. Really sparks you…

Saxophone, organ and drums. »Like Back In The Days« is indeed a proper expression and a clear intention for this album. Everything takes you back to the great organ combos, […]

Seven years did pass by since Tanita Tikarams last album. These days the new album Sentimental (V2/Edel) is released – time to talk to Tanita about songwriting and ideal working situations.

Would she not come out the same month as Duran Duran’s Re-take-off, I’d probably re-route you all to Amy Whinehouse’s »Frank« debut album as »the« thing you need to hear. […]

»Octoscope Music« (Loewenhertz 012/Extraplatte) by HANNES ENZLBERGER is a live recording of a pretty particular band. Well, just looking at three trumpets, two drums and a double bass is something that can remind you of Herb Robertson or earlier Tim Berne associations. The music is as much shaped and designed as played live I should…

In the past, I haven’t particularly been excited at all by Onkyo Music (sort of a post Fluxus musical movement that takes place in Tokyo around the club Off Site and that has been linked to the like of Polwechsel, Radu Malfatti and other »reductionists«, since). But this time I decided I ought to give…

Good Lord, they gave me the complete series on DVD!

I love surprises. I expected just a late duo album and here I find a serie of radio broadcasts presented by Marian Mc Partland herself. Everyting’s the old fashioned way […]

Unlike many sound experiments, this one is listenable, even enjoyable. Keeps the attention for what happens next. The first impression I got was that it is a recording of sounds […]

The beginning of the CD doesn???t leave the impression that you would listen to it to relax, when you come home late at night, all tired and stressed out. Noise […]

A very heterogenous CD. It starts with something you might hear in a worn out bar somewhere in New Orleans. Also you can hear several minutes of blowing instrument raping which is not so unusual in todays music art. Often musicians practice this sport, I would call it a lack of inspiration. It is possible that it depicts the state of mind and soul of the artist, then it served its aim, but it is not something a listener can enjoy.
Another mood that this CD presents, and which I liked the most, was something which would fit well with a hypothetical European film about a nameless, lonesome person with no future or past, in a big nameless city, living in a cold apartment. Noises of his dull life. Something you can actually hear in your own life if you listen. Most of us just don???t notice it, and if so,
this CD might make one aware of it.
IVANA PRIMORAC

If you liked Abba, Beth Orthon, the Beach Boys or Buddy Holly, you’ll welcome now Ephemera without any complex. Three girls from Norway singing altogether simple and lovely pop & […]

Mimi Secue are a bunch of adolescents from the Burgenland, relocated to Vienna.
Mimi Secue is a collective, hence all their answers and responses in this interview are marked »M«.
Mimi Secue spreads a vast aural canvas, inviting their listeners to project their own imaginary visual track there upon. Let’s start out with my personal associations first, and then proceed to Mimi Secue’s.

Under the title »The Social Construction Of Technology« the international Max Brand Price will be awarded in New York on April 26, 2002

When the renowned British music magazine Wire published a cover story on Vienna Electronica in 1997, the international music scene suddenly paid attention to artists that had heretofore gone unnoticed. Major record companies started to flock to a city they had previously considered only a sales market. The majors were surprised to find out that small independent labels had established themselves in Austria since the early 1990s, catering to an audience of cognoscenti.

For some people a pain in the ass, for others a fruitful contribution to art in the information society – and for some a guarantor for funny evenings. The Mego crew has almost reached one of its major targets. Obviously satisfied, Mego spokesman Peter Rehberg comments on a concert of the Mego band Farmers Manual: »They seem to manage to annoy as many people as they entertain. Always a good sign«.

Observations about recent improvisation and experiment trends,
with a focus on Vienna

Curd Duca, a musician from Vienna sojourning in sunny Florida during the cold Austrian winters, might be called a slow burner. Since 1992 he’s been releasing his »Easy Listening« series of electronic space-lounge exotica for the disco 2000, but it was not until now that the one-time outsider, who had always been regarded as a quirky eccentric, has been acknowledged as one of the major electronic musicians of the nineties.

Active at the cutting edge of digital music culture, combining old practices with novel techniques, and meeting with international acclaim, Fennesz has come up with the finest, purest music as his answer to today’s myriad and multiplying techno- and ideo-logies. It is high time that we portrayed former Maische guitarist Christian Fennesz.

Harder, faster, farther or the principle of »total submission«: one nation under one groove; shiny happy people gyrating to 150 bpm and beyond. Hans Kulisch as surf instructor through the Austrian techno jungle.