from burningemptiness

v/a 'in brine' - ffr - cdr - beautiful plastic envelope and full color cover
/i had this a long time ago and who knows why it got buried in a drawer and was only exhumed today. and this is because it consists of all stuff before ffr#18 (which is this one): not only the records in mp3 format but nice b&w printable covers. so it plays only in my computer and that may be why it got lost when we moved: packed with computer stuff instead of neatly arranged with other ffr releases. i won't review the albums presented here and the exclusive stuff and say the layout is beautiful and all but i'll speak about myself instead, which is fair enough as far as i'm concerned. i like records you can't listen to they say and there's a great one in there: klunk's 'ultrathin'. the title's just neat and the music is my kind of impossible music: droning ambient, incredible rhythmic tick&clack sounding like you're making techno with mickey spillane's underwood, pulse waves, static: ahhhh, again!!!

In Brine
MP3 CD-R, Fencing Flatworm Recordings, ff018

Bargain of the century? This cd-r contains all the releases from the first three years of nautically obsessed Leeds electronica label Fencing Flatworm. For your £6 you get MP3s and covers for seventeen full releases and two 7" split EPs, and for a limited time only there's a real 7" single packaged with the release. But what of the quality of these fruits de la mer? Excellent, unlike a lot of homegrown electronic labels, label boss Rob Hayler has always been adamant that every release meets his standards of taste and quality. I wish there was space enough to give each release a full critique, but in the absence of such a luxury, I'll pick out a few of the high points.

There are three Midwich albums here - largely slowly moving pieces of electronic drone, lovingly done and with the odd surprise. Highlights are Every Day is the Same, Life Underwater (love the way the music changes depending on where you are in relation to the speakers!) and the creepy nautical atmosphere of Spiderous.

Sometime Vibracathedralist Neil Campbell has a couple of amazing releases on here, which are worth the asking price each! Excerpt from the Never Ending Bowed Metal Song sounds like an ethereal alien orchestra tuning up, full of beautiful tones and drones. Pure flotation tank music - I swear I was hovering a foot off the ground by the time this one finally faded out. Neil's Hearing Force of the Humanverse fits nine perfectly formed tracks into 34 minutes - electronics and organics clash head on, synths drone and violins wail before merging into one, bells ring and a broken piano tinkles, recording static becomes part of the universal song. There's even a nice bit of noise in there.Amazing, Diesel Kingdom is the stand out track, reminding me of Helicopter by Sand.

Played on broken toys, violin and reeds, Kneale-Monk-Henderson's dark, chaotic Cicada Shrines is a perfect free-form jazz-type accompaniment to reading William S. Burroughs.

Another exceptional album is The Cuckoos Sang in their Appropriated Nests by a trio of Neil Campbell, Phil Todd and Bob Lewis. Two very different tracks, one beautiful piece of drone, the other a bit of retrained on feedback and noise.

I must also say how much I enjoyed The All New Sounds of Trademark-TM - a definite progression from the other stuff I've heard. Sort of a bit glitchy, but very warm and spacious The track Burnt Oak is truly captivating and even vertiginous! The opiate Ideal For Dreaming has got a quite dark edge, it sounds as though the music was channeled from the edge of sleep. Beautiful.

However, there was a lot on the disc that I didn't get on quite as well with. I'm not really a fan of music with an explicit beat, although Straight Outta Mongola was a damn funky, amusing, maybe even kitsch listen! The bizarre electro-pop of Baby Drives a Spaceship is a perfect antidote to "electroclash"! I'd really like to write more, but if you're a fan of experimental music or just curious, I urge you to but a copy, you can't really loose - there's so much variety on here that I'm sure you'll find something that grabs your attention. Really excellent, and kudos to ffr for taking the decision to release their catalog in this format. PL.