Nurse With Wound Ensemble - Live in Portland

Recorded December 11th, 2004. As the NWW site says on this show: Steven Stapleton and Colin Potter appear on stage during the 4th Irr. App. (Ext.) performance for a rendition of "Cooloorta Moon". Colin Potter did a solo performance, whilst Steven Stapleton performed a unique DJ set. As it says, there's an Irr. App. (Ext.), Colin Potter, Nurse With Wound and Steve Stapleton solo set. Each is about 30-45 minutes. Again, there's no cover as it's a bootleg.

Part One, Part Two

Nurse With Wound - Live in Vienna, 2005 (Bootleg)

I didn't record this one myself; I'm just passing it along. This was recorded May 7 2005 at the Anatomical Museum in Vienna. There's only one track, a live rendition of Salt Marie Celeste. No cover as it is a bootleg recording.

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Un Departement - Je Serai... + La Cassette, 1981 & 1984, France

This is a great French band I got interested in over at mutant-sounds, who uploaded their S/T LP ("La Album") and a later CD called Au Menu that I highly recommend checking out. There's really no way to describe the sound of these guys, it's just sort of all over the place electronic percussive weirdness, but I really think they're once of the best French bands of the early 80's. La Cassette in particular is really great.

Je Serai Clement en Tent Que Dictateur 7" (1981)

La Cassette (1984)


I hadn't put up much in the past few days because I got really ill (twice...go figure) so I'm putting up a few things now to make up for it. This is going to be my last post for awhile though, I'm not going to be home for a few days because I have time off; I'll probably be back Saturday or so. Hope you guys understand.

Emergency Exit - Sortie de Secours, Pole Records

A friend send me this one not long ago, and I'm incredibly excited to have found it, so I thought I'd share...as far as I know this is the 16th (and last) record from the legendary French label Pole.

As for the music, it's mostly rock-oriented, maybe you could call it prog or psych, but it strays from straightforward prog at times into its own little musical area. Most of it incorporates jazz influences and parts are improvised as far as I can tell, spread over three tracks that range from 10-15 minutes. I can't say it's some great long-lost gem of prog music or anything but it's pretty enjoyable and it has its moments. If you've heard the Melody album from Pole it's sort of similar at times (which I'm hoping to put up soon too if I can).

If anyone could provide further info on this, like a date, cover, or the personnel, it'd be much appreciated.

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HNAS/DDAA - Die zwei Arten der Fettsucht 7"

Little info exists on DDAA...but they were a very important French experimental band that often get called "The French Nurse With Wound". HNAS doesn't really need an introduction, I wouldn't imagine. Mutant-Sounds has put up a bunch of LP's by both bands; go check them out.

The only picture I could find was some crap thing from eBay, so if anyone has a better one, it'd be great if they'd share.

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M.A.Numminen - Taisteluni + In Memoriam, 1967, 1970, Finland

Mauri Antero Numminen (born 12 March 1940, Somero) is one of the best-known Finnish artists, having worked on several different fields of music and culture.

In the 1960s M.A. Numminen was known particularly as an avantgarde/underground artist, stirring controversy with such songs as 'Nuoren aviomiehen on syytä muistaa' (the lyrics of which were taken directly from a marital guide) and 'Naiseni kanssa eduskuntatalon puistossa'. He was also a member of the band Suomen Talvisota 1939-1940. In his early days Numminen often consciously tried to provoke people. Here he succeeded well, for example by his interpretations of Franz Schubert's lieds, sung with his own idiosyncratic singing voice, or managing to create a scandal at the Jyväskylän kesä festival of Jyväskylä in 1966 with his song lyrics taken from a sex guide. Numminen also did music to the writings of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. M.A. Numminen founded in 1966 with Pekka Gronow the record label Eteenpäin! ("Forward!"), which released Numminen's own music. Later on Numminen's records were published under the umbrella of the legendary Finnish label Love Records.

Additionally, M.A. Numminen has been one of the unsung pioneers of Finnish electronic music, known for his collaborations with the composer and inventor Erkki Kurenniemi who built for Numminen a "singing machine" with which Numminen participated in a singing contest in 1964, and in the late 60s the electronic instrument Sähkökvartetti ("Electric Quartet"), the performance of which wreaked havoc in a youth festival in Sofia, Bulgaria. Sähkökvartetti can be heard on Numminen's track 'Kaukana väijyy ystäviä' (1968).

In 1970 M.A. Numminen founded with the pianist Jani Uhlenius a jazz band called Uusrahvaanomainen Jatsiorkesteri ("Neo-Vulgar Jazz Orchestra"), which is still in existence; taking its cues from the 1920s-1940s jazz, swing, foxtrot, etc. Now retired from the band are the members Aaro Kurkela and Kalevi Viitamäki. The current line-up consists alongside Numminen and Uhlenius also of the accordion player Pedro Hietanen, the fiddler Jari Lappalainen and the bassist Heikki "Häkä" Virtanen.

In 1970s M.A. Numminen became a popular favourite with his children's songs in the 1973 film Herra Huu - Jestapa Jepulis, Penikat Sipuliks, where he also played the main role, and in the 1977 TV series Jänikset maailmankartalle, where he played a hare. At the same time Numminen also gained success in Sweden with his song 'Gummiboll' (Numminen's Finnish version of this was called 'Kumipallona luokses pompin ain'): Numminen has recorded Swedish versions from many of his records. He has also made several songs in English, German and Esperanto.

Lately M.A. Numminen has made a return to electronic music and modern club sound. In 2003 Numminen started M.A.N. Scratch Band featuring his long-time collaborator Pedro Hietanen with young jazz musicians Olavi Uusivirta, Lasse Lindgren and DJ Santeri Vuosara (also known as DJ Sane). The duo M.A. Numminen & DJ Sane was started in 2004.

M.A. Numminen has appeared on Radio Suomi since 1984 together with playwright Juha Siltanen on their night show Yömyöhä. In 1986 he published a book called Baarien mies ("The Man of the Bars") on Finnish keskiolut lager culture, for which he visited 350 bars around Finland. The book had a considerable role in the birth of 1980s keskiolut beer culture in Finland.

M.A. Numminen has taken part in over 30 films, either as an actor, scriptwriter, composer or cinematographer.
-wikipedia

These are his first two albums, from 67 and 70 respectively...Honestly it's not my favorite thing that's come out of Finland but he was a key innovator for the Finnish avant-garde, up there with the Sperm and others, if nothing else for his involvement with other bands. As for the sound of this particular album, it's sort of like really fucked accordion music mixed with cheap 50's rock and oddball lyrics (in Finnish). It's an acquired taste I guess. If you're into the whole Finnish thing I think it's a necessity at least to hear though.

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Just Music - Just Music, ECM 1002, 1969, Germany

This is one of those free improv/experimental jazz gems from ECM's 1000 series that hasn't been reissued. I'm not very good at writing up jazz-related reviews but I'll just say that this album is all over the place and if you like the same kind of craziness on the Music Improv Company or Wolfgang Dauner's Output LP's you'll like this (both of which were released on the same series). The largely obscure personnel is as follows:

Credits: - Franz Volhard
Cello, Flute - Thomas Stöwsand
Guitar - Johannes Krämer
Percussion, Clarinet - Thomas Cremer
Producer - Just Music , Manfred Eicher
Saxophone [Tenor], Clarinet, Trumpet - Alfred Harth*
Trombone - Dieter Herrmann
Notes: Recorded on December 13, 1969 at the Nettekoven Studios, Frankfurt.
http://www.discogs.com/release/866243

There are just two side long tracks, titled Stock - Vol. - Hard and Just a Moment.

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Philip Corner - 3 Pieces for Gamelan Ensemble, Fluxus

Bio on Corner

"'Gamelan' means for Philip Corner more than the name for Indonesian orchestras. The composer uses the word the way, apart from Europe, someone might say 'symphony'. A basis of making music, adding a few wonderful ideas from the Orient: a precise relation between the scale of time and that of musical space; a simple formal concept, expressed directly through sensual attractiveness; some freedom, or mystery, added to the precision. 'Gamelan' is the name of the first piece. In 1975 at Livingston College where Barbara Banary, who had just constructed the earliest instruments for Son Of Lion, invited Philip Corner to compose a piece. Its opening gong stroke and long resonance has gone through several revivals over the years since, and has come to seem like a 'classic'. This piece is the link to the composer's earlier works, particularly those of struck resonant instruments, like Metal Meditations, which are intensely focused on the immediate presence of the sounds. What is added here is counting, although counting so long a length dissolves again into the intuitive. The second track on this CD is titled 'The Barcelona Cathedral'. The composer Tom Johnson wrote about it in 1978: 'A few weeks ago I attended a rehearsal of New York's own gamelan ensemble, Son Of Lion. One of the works I heard that evening was a new composition by Philip Corner. Corner was conducting in big slow beats that fell heavily once every few seconds. With each beat about ten mallets fell onto the metallic percussion instruments with a tremendous clang. A variety of pitches resulted, and the general effect was much like a big church bell. The piece went on for nearly half an hour, always with that same relentless beat, but with slightly different effects.' These first two compositions, first issued on LP for Lotta Poetica, have been remastered for this CD edition that also features a previously unpublished major work entitled 'Belum'. The author wrote about it: 'There is improvisation within a structure that only reveals itself over many repetitions. The melody is quite difficult, with many syncopations and rhythmic irregularities. We have learned it well, but since no one knows exactly how each will play, there is individual freedom and group chance results. Bringing together different cultures in a new kind of harmony. ...It [the music culture of Indonesia] has added to my previous development sense of music as wonderful-sound, the sense of music as wonderful-measure. Thanks to this, I now love numbers and with no diminishing of the senses...'.-Forced Exposure

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Gerhard Ruhm - Pencil Music, ? Records, 2003

This is the Gerhard Ruhm from the Roth Ruhm & Weiner trio off the NWW List, but this album is different from RR&W and his sound poetry works. As I understand it this is a collection of works attempting to connect that of the visual with that of the auditory, by capturing the audio made from Ruhm drawing automatic images. Forced Exposure writes provides this:

"I was surprised that it was possible to read the acoustic event from the object drawn, and some insecurity about the association of visual signs and sound phenomena (caused by the directional openness of the reading process) appears to increase even more the attraction of seeing them combined. The pencil-sound piece did not always remain the by-product of the dominating drawing-process. The dynamics of the sound sequence in its turn often influenced the development of the drawing and determined it significantly. You will probably notice that even carefully listening to the CD by itself, without producing the images at the same time, has its attraction and betrays its independent musical quality, in other words can be regarded as 'absolute music'. Inversely, it is advisable to look at the drawing independently at times, either as 'pure' visual events or as spatial traces of a hidden music, perhaps caused by energetic processes. This makes one alert and sensitive for the reception of the synaesthetic dimension of the perception of the phenomenal world." -- Gerhard Rühm

It's interesting nonetheless.

If I can find my copy I'll post the booklet because it shows the artworks that accompany each track.

Copies should still be floating around various places...

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