Includes Tapper CD: The Wire Tapper #12:

Free with The Wire December 2004 issue 250

Tracklist & info

[Full info]

CD ONE

01 DANIEL BIRO & ROB PALMER THE LONG JOURNEY HOME PART 2 (EXTRACT) Sargasso label boss Biro continues his lush Fender Rhodes explorations, here in the company of improvising guitarist Rob Palmer. Echoes of Jon Hassell haunt this music, edited from an unplanned session that produced the 50 minutes of music that make up the Long Journey Home album.
Sargasso

02 GITHEAD TO HAVE AND TO HOLD From the debut EP by a new 'London supergroup' comprising Colin Newman (Wire), Malka Spigel (Minimal Compact) and Robin Rimbaud (Scanner). Githead's lyrics are derived from the nonsense of spam emails and other unwanted information.
Swim

03 BARK PSYCHOSIS FROM WHAT IS SAID TO WHEN IT'S READ (EDIT)
The first new material from the London atmospheric rock outfit in nearly a decade finds guitarist Graham Sutton shedding his drum 'n' bass alias Boymerang and hooking up with former Talk Talk/.O.rang drummer Lee Harris, fresh from his work with Beth Gibbons.
Fire

04 ATELEIA & DAVID DANIELL FTP
Ateleia is James Elliott, owner of New York's Antiopic label, and here he collaborates with San Agustin guitarist Daniell on an interference-laced rupturing of pop and Ambient themes. It was originally titled "Fuck The Polis", after a poem by Carol Mirakove.
Antiopic

05 ANDY MOOR & YANNIS KYRIAKIDES 3 LOBED 1 Moor is guitarist with Kletka Red and Dutch free music institution The Ex; Kyriakides is a composer and electronic musician whose ConSPIracy Cantata was recently issued on Unsounds. Their Red V Green CD is the product of five years of playing together in Amsterdam.
Unsounds

06 BURNT FRIEDMAN & THE NU DUB PLAYERS FUCK BACK (3'56" VERSION)
The voice accompanying this slice of typically hard edged electronic funk from Cologne's Friedman (Flanger, Drome) is that of Theo Altenberg, a member of the notorious Otto Muhl Friedrichshof artists' commune of performance artists in Vienna in the 70s and 80s, a utopian collective founded on leftist politics and sexual hedonism.
Nonplace

07 AESOP ROCK FAST CARS, DANGER, FIRE AND KNIVES(EXCERPT) The New York based rapper continues his vitriol-soaked rampage on the mad streets of Manhattan. The EP this track comes from is packaged with an 80 page booklet of all Aesop's lyrics to date, entitled The Living Human Curiosity.
Definitive Jux

08 PITA RESOG45 Taking time out from his position as key member of Austria's Mego label, Peter Rehberg adds his new solo album of digital disruptions to the exquisite lower case canon curated by Swedish label Häpna.
Häpna

09 VIOLET PRIZNAK ALUMINIUM
Jeff Surak, aka Violet, has an inventive approach to recycling: this track was created using items retrieved from his garbage, such as a wok lid, an autoharp and a grooveless record, the latter two played with aluminium foil.
Zeromoon

10 MICHAELA MELIÁN BRAUTLIED (EDIT) Vocalist and bassist with Bavarian group FSK, Michaela Meli‡n's debut solo album Baden-Baden is an entrancing mix of cello and electronics. "Brautlied", along with the rest of the pieces on the album, was composed to accompany her visual art.
Monika Enterprise

11 CHAS SMITH FALSE SECURITY OF NUMBERS
Chas Smith spends a lot of time in the deserts of Southern California, and his expansive textural pieces are made from rethinking traditional American instruments such as the 12 string dobro and pedal steel guitar. This track reassembles excerpts from two cuts from his An Hour Out Of Desert Center, plus elements from an unreleased live performance involving real-time loops.
Cold Blue Music

12 MARTIN ARCHER IT DON'T BOTHER ME/WHERE'S MIKE? Sheffield based improvisor Archer used sampled percussion sounds by Norway's Ingar Zach as the basis for this tribute to the music of Bert Jansch and Soft Machine's Mike Ratledge, in an attempt to achieve what he calls "that 70s wide-eyed anything-is-possible feel".
Discus

13 HENRY GRIMES TRIO FLOWERS FOR ALBERT
Recorded on tour in Europe in 2004, this unreleased recording underlines the return to form of bassist Henry Grimes, long out of circulation following his 60s work with Albert Ayler, Sunny Murray, et al. On his tours of Europe and the US, his trio featured Hamid Drake on drums and David Murray on tenor saxophone.
Ayler

14 THE NECKS MOSQUITO (EXCERPT) Mosquito/See Through will be the 12th album by Sydney, Australia trio The Necks, further refining their slow burning fusion of jazz and minimalism. The group tour Australia early in the New Year and will then visit the UK in May 2005.
RER

15 @C INT 10/34
Porto-based @c comprise musician/plastic artist Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais. They perform either as a duo or, when working with Viennese digital artist Lia, as an audiovisual trio, developing what they call "algorithmic compositions" in which audio and visual elements are integrated.
Crónica

16 ASCOLTAIRE CRUCIBLE PROCESS Ascoltaire's Dave Henson was formerly a member of Cambridge based post-rockers Gwei-Lo, but has focused more recently on this abstract electronica project. His twin labels Dubbel and Tripel Records share a lineage with now defunct drill 'n' bass operation Bovinyl.
Strange Lights

17 MATTHEW BURTNER D2 (EDIT) Composer, sax player and computer music researcher Burtner began his Metasaxophone Project in 1997. By fitting a tenor sax with an onboard microprocessor, he created a system whereby the saxophone's output could be picked up and manipulated by another computer. The purpose, explains Burtner, is to place "signal processing under direct expressive control of the performer".
Innova

18 STÉPHANE RIVES EBRANLEMENT 2
"Ebranlement 2" (the word is untranslatable) is an intense short piece recorded in June 2003 by French saxophonist Stéphane Rives. His Fibres album expands the language of the soprano saxophone using extended breathing techniques and unusual textures. He considers his instrument an organic object equipped with filters which alter the grain and texture of sounds.
Potlatch

19 ERGO PHIZMIZ STICKY WHITE GLUE (EXTRACT): RECTIFY Ergo Phizmiz is an Isle of Wight based sound artist whose work spans multiple album releases, radio works, installations and film soundtracks. The radio work from which this piece is taken, Sticky White Glue, is a six hour exploration of the combination of sampling with electronics and acoustic instrumentation, in which Laurel and Hardy are the focus, with a backdrop of singing animals, sound poetry and nonsense music.
Ergo Phizmiz

20 THE FALL BLINDNESS The new album by Mark E Smith and his cohorts is a mixture of re-recorded older tracks and a clutch of new songs, of which "Blindness" is one.
Voiceprint

CD TWO

01 CUL DE SAC/DAMO SUZUKI BERLIN 6 In 2003 the former Can singer hooked up with Boston post-rockers Cul De Sac for a tour of the US and Europe. This excerpt from their Berlin date exemplifies the totally improvised nature of their incandescent live relationship.
Strange Attractors Audio House

02 MEADOW HOUSE TIT FOR TAT
London poet/composer/flaneur Dan Wilson presents The Hellebore Show on Resonance 104.4 FM, and he has also engaged in musical subversion by 'tape dropping' - abandoning his songs on cassettes at random locations as "a magical way of proliferating unbounded weirdness".
Alcohol

03 MILKY GLOBE THE WARP AND THE WOOF Milky Globe is the new project from Jon Tye, label boss of of the supremely eclectic Lo Recordings. His recent relocation to Cornwall finds him in mellow musical mood on this track, recorded in St Petersburg in October 2002 with sound synthesists EU "as snow fell softly past the window and the filtered sounds of Radio Hermitage flowed through the polyvoks".
Lo Recordings

04 STAALPLAAT SOUNDSYSTEM NO TIME FOR SPACE
A product of the inventive Dutch avantist collective's junk art assemblage, which they call Happy Metal, this track uses selfbuilt and hotwired everyday gadgets including harmonica-playing vacuum cleaners, percussive electric saws, 200 radios, 24 prepared kitchen mixers, etc, plus a four-armed turntable.
Staalplaat

05 JASON KAHN & GÜNTER MÜLLER TENTH BLINK In this duo of drummers working with digital technology, America's Jason Kahn plays Powerbook and Switzerland's Günter Müller plays iPod and electronics. Their Blinks CD contains nine pieces, all titled "Blinks"; here is an unreleased tenth, recorded and mixed at the album sessions.
for4ears

06 ANDREW PEKLER WAIT Formerly a member of Matador act Sad Rockets, Andrew Pekler was born in Uzbekistan, raised in California and now resides in Germany, where his muted but colourful samplescapes of jazz, cocktail music and noir-ish moods have caught the attention of Stefan 'Pole' Betke's ~scape imprint.
~scape

07 CARTER TUTTI UNREALITY (EDIT)
This track by two founder members of the legendary Throbbing Gristle, Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, was composed from two improvised studio takes - here combined to make a third 'unreality'. The duo state that "it is about the reality we all perceive in our everyday conscious lives as having no matter at all, ie there is no real substance to it".
CTI - Conspiracy International

08 DJ /RUPTURE FEATURING SISTER NANCY LITTLE MORE OIL US turntablist Jace Clayton, now residing in Barcelona, used to be in a group with smooth chanteuse Norah Jones, but there's no trace of that association in the shattering destructo-breaks of his solo project. As well as ragga vocalist Sister Nancy, heard on this track, his Special Gunpowder includes raggamuffins Junior Cat, Wayne Lonesome and Wicked Act, plus Eugene Robinson (Oxbow), poet Elizabeth Alexander, Kit Clayton, Ghislain Poirier and others.
Tigerbeat6

09 BURNT SUGAR VS THE DOMINATRIX DOMINATA (REMIX BY QASIM NAQVI & KEITH WITTY)
Writer and guitarist Greg Tate put together Burnt Sugar from New York's finest fusion musicians in tribute to the electric funk of Miles, Herbie, etc. This piece originated as a dance accompaniment for Dominata, choreographed by Gabri Christa and Company at the NYC Dance Theatre Workshop in September 2004.
Burnt Sugar

10 AM/PM THE ENDS (13) As the title suggests, Radovan Scasascia builds music of unusual delicacy and poignancy out of the sampled endings and run-out grooves of existing records, looping them and constructing intricate sculptural forms.
Dreck

11 DAVID GRUBBS & NIKOS VELIOTIS THE HARMESS DUST (EXCERPT)
Athens cellist Veliotis was part of a group touring with Brooklyn based former Gastr Del Sol guitarist Grubbs on a US tour earlier this year. This track, recorded during a break in the itinerary, is composed of two duos: for piano and cello, and for E-bowed piano and Hammond organ. When they performed it in Tokyo, the team behind the Headz label (who also run the Japanese magazine Fader) were there, and snapped up the tape.
Headz

12 GARY LUCAS & JOZEF VAN WISSEM A HAWK FROM A HANDSAW Guitarist Gary Lucas has played with most everyone from Jeff Buckley to Captain Beefheart. This duet with Van Wissem, a master of the ten-course lute, was recorded last year, live on air at New York's WNYC FM, with Lucas on the 1926 National steel Duolian guitar.
Bvhaast

13 BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY & MATT SWEENEY BED IS FOR SLEEPING The forthcoming album by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, aka mercurial American primitive Will Oldham, was co-written with Chavez/Zwan guitarist Matt Sweeney at brother Paul Oldham's ranch in Shelbyville, Kentucky. The pair aimed to achieve a raw and intimate folk sound, helped by the wintry conditions outside their rehearsal space.
Domino

14 DAMON & NAOMI BEAUTIFUL CLOSE DOUBLE
Damon Krukowski and partner Naomi Yang, once of Galaxie 500, drafted in guitarist Michio Kurihara (Ghost, White Heaven) to write and record their new album, which they say is partly a homage to Tarkovsky's film Solaris, dealing with themes of memory and loss. On this track improvisors Greg Kelley (trumpet) and Bhob Rainey (soprano sax) were invited to impersonate a Phil Spector horn section.
Damon & Naomi

15 FAX & ALEX AYULI SPELLBOUND Fax is Rubén Tamayo from Mexicali, Mexico. His new album is a mixture of collaborations with the likes of Mike Shannon, Millimetrik, Ultra-red, Pepito and Portable. Here, he teams up with vocalist Alex Ayuli, formerly of 80s dreampop duo AR Kane, currently living in LA. The pair also plan to make an album for Ayuli's Dreampop label.
Static Discos

16 ANA DA SILVA THE LIGHTHOUSE Ana Da Silva is a former member of 80s underground all-woman group The Raincoats. On this solo record for Chicks On Speed's Berlin label, Da Silva cloistered herself with a small digital recording device and a synth to create a set of idiosyncratic electronic songs. The album features a rare appearance by Stuart Moxham of British indie legends Young Marble Giants.
Chicks On Speed Records

17 CHRISTIAN RENOU EX-VOTO (WIRE-FM MIX) Frenchman Christian Renou has been making electroacoustic music for nearly 20 years: his first cassette release came out in 1985. Up to 2001 he operated under the name Brume, until the production of Zona Ventilel in 2001 on the Elsie & Jack label. This mix is by FM Synthesis.
Elsie & Jack

18 ENIGMA DEVICE REUNIFIED Enigma Device are comprised of PS Engel, C Ruptash amd PC Hertz (Peabody And Sherman), Tarwater's Bernd Jestram and bassist C Ruptash. The vocals on this piece are by Graznya Auguscik.
Superbro

19 SHINING GORETEX WEATHER REPORT Fusing post-rock, electronica and jazz, Shining are a typical product of Oslo's fertile crossover scene. Guitarist/organist Jørgen Munkeby is a former member of Jaga Jazzist, and his quartet includes Aslak Hartberg (bass), Morten Qvenild (keyboards) and Torstein Lofthus (drums).
Rune Grammofon

20 M BENTLEY PIANO SHIP (ALTERNATIVE MIX)
Michael Bentley, the founder of The Foundry label, has recorded under several names (including eM and, with Nathan Kreisberg, Rhomb). All sounds for "Piano Ship" were sourced from his sister-in-law's piano in Nashville, and he recombined and processed the samples on a laptop to make this creepy evocation of tidal drift and shivering timbers.
Foundry