The droned and the saved

D

droid

Well-known member
martin said:
Yep - always enjoyed a quality weekend in my dickie bow round Hermann's gaff, sipping cognac with the prime minister of Andorra's daughter while Hermann sprayed us with BSE and black pudding.

To be honest though, I always felt his early recordings lacked the offal-splattered mayhem promised by the insane covers. A lot of those really rare vinyl releases that go for stupid money have superb, menacing, OTT artwork but are sonically dull over the course of 30+ mins - or, at best, never quite lived up to expectations.

His 'masterpiece' is probably 'Island' - think you can grab the 4xCD set for under £25 on Discogs. It pretty much contains all of Nitsch's standard Live Aktion moves: livestock moaning, long droning brass sections, proto-Whitehouse high-pitched whistling, jolting drum thuds, sudden excursions into oompa music, sections of cable/amp hum, etc. Put it this way, he didn't 'vary' styles much in a live setting. There's not a massive world of difference between that release and 'Musik Der 60 Aktion', which features a 'punk band' (PVC, from Germany) - not that you'd be able to tell.

His first proper vinyl outing, "Akustisches Abreaktionsspiel", is a real oddity worth hearing (via torrents, unless you're spectacularly flush this month) - mainly people screaming their heads off and oompa band nonsense, with an Austrian radio presenter cutting in and out and 'explaining' what's going on. Proper 'art nutter' release, though perhaps less droney than the later, numbered 'Aktion' stuff.

That Harmoniumwerk 1-4 CD you posted is also pretty lovely. I don't think you need to track down the other volumes though. He recorded something like 1,000 hours' worth of harmonium drone, fuck knows how much of it has been released since, but I think Cortical Foundation put out another three double-CDs of that stuff.

Oh, and off the beaten track, but, somewhere, perhaps on a corrupted hard drive, there's evidence of me and Kek-W (from Kid Shirt) doing a hardcore gabba track called 'Hermann Nitsch's House' and screaming SPRINGTIME FOR DEWHURST and DRONE WAR IN KEBABHAUS!! like lunatics, plus some unpleasant text regarding Babsi from 'Christiane F'
Click to expand...

I should have known youd be a fan.

Got about 12 vols of Harmoniumwerk from Ubu web, the other stuff Ive heard seems like a mix of semi-classical and concrete style experimentation, as you say.

Did he have any direct relationship with the industrial/postpunk/weirdo scenes, or was he more of a titular figurehead or fringe figure?

He's such a ridiculous figure - like something from a Vic and Bob sketch or a bad horror film. There's a story about him doing a gig in Paris on the same bill as Charlemagne Palestine and getting so annoyed that the press mixed up the names/photos afterwards that he refused to speak to him again for decades.

When can we hear this lost BTI/Kek masterpiece?
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
not electronic drone, but that new roy montgomery 4cd set has some sweet guitar pieces.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
RE: Nitsch / Industrial

The Aktionists were a direct influence on Coum Transmissions and all that.

Fellow Aktionist Rudolf Schwarzkogler was popularised in the UK via an booklet put out by R&D Group 28 who also did a bunch of stuff with Coil. His stuff also slides into some of the Neoist stuff iirc.

I have vague memories of putting on a film about Nitsch (possibly just called "Nitsch"?) at the Scala in the late 80s / early 90s as part of a TOPY event.

A mate of mine hung out with him - I think while performing in some huge piece he did - and said he was a good laugh though mental.
 
D

droid

Well-known member
I can picture you at one of his aktions, white robe, sloshing around in the sheep's entrails.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
Ha it's great they did a Boiler Room. I bet the live chat was interesting... saw them as part of that Schimpfluch festival in Bristol. Very good. Very trippy, time distortions etc.
 
D

droid

Well-known member
I have a brand new, beautifully crafted, painstakingly selected, cosmically dissolute drone/ambient mix I might be willing to share here assuming the requisite amount of ego stroking occurs.
 
D

droid

Well-known member
It was a collective effort, so I shouldnt take all the credit (but I will).

*********************************************************

01 Dead Flag Blues - Godspeed You Black Emperor - F♯ A♯ ∞
02 Gentle so gentle - Sarah Davachi - Vergers
03 Kyema - Eliane Radigue - Trilogie De Mort
04 At the sea ice edge - Douglas Quin - Antarctica
05 The Molendinar - Claire M Singer - Solas
06 Schwarzschild Radius - Stephan Mathieu - A Static Place
07 The Stones Continued Intermittently - Chris Abrahams - Fluid To The Influence
08 Silence/Sound - Pat Collins and Tadhg O'Sullivan - Silence/Sound
09 Wind in the Trees - Irv Teibel - Environments (Totally New Concepts In Sound - Disc 5)
10 Pop 5 - Gas - Pop
11 Musique pour Le reve et L'amour (part 1) - Ariel Kalma - Musique pour Le reve et L'amour
12 Antarctica - Windy & Carl - Antarctica
13 Eternal Note - Anthony Child - Electronic Recordings From Maui Jungle Vol. 1
14 Deceleration - David Sylvian & Stephan Mathieu - Wandermüde
15 Untitled #193 - Francisco López - Escaping From Color
16 Sealevel.2 - Simon Scott - Below Sea Level
17 Lamptest - Anjou - Anjou
18 Xerrox Radieuse - Alva Noto - Xerrox Vol. 3
19 Subterraneans - David Bowie - Low
20 Nosferatu Dialogue (Excerpt)

Its the studio version of the festival set we played late last year. So fresh we havent even given it a proper name yet, not really properly mastered either come to think of it. :eek: Best listened to on headphones.

Please dont share - will only be up for a couple of days.
 
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luka

luka

Well-known member
ta. started listeing to a load of this sort of thing fairly recently when i was having to do homework and needed stuff with basically no beats or voices
 
D

droid

Well-known member
I hope so! It should reward deep listening. Starts of pretty bleak though, so hope you can handle it.

Theres a few voices in there, but not many. Much more traditional approach than usual. Straight up track by track, finding things in key and exact places for mixes then finding the right pace, mood and flow, rather than the 6 deck improv technique.

Particularly happy with the Bowie mix at the end. Took 20 years to find that one.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
sort of about 50 minutes in enjoying it very much particulalry this bit, bit harsh bit like that coil time machines druggy thing. dunno what it is, do you?
 
F

forclosure

Well-known member
Hey people i've been listening to Pelt again lately and it's reminded me of how much i love drone music


could somebody give me a run down on if there's any interesting/noteworthy releases that have come out?


the last thing i made a note to check out was that Ian William Craig album
 
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