Includes Tapper CD: The Wire Tapper #18:

Free with The Wire October 2007 issue 284

Tracklist & info

[Full info]

01 Automated Acoustics "The Universal Proportion"

From the album Love To The Dedicated Listener (Alternative Blueprint)

Musician, film maker, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Lawrence Gill uses only homemade or old instruments, picking them up from charity shops and car boot sales. His work utilises autoharp, cello, mbira, violin, marimba, steel pan, percussion, keys/synth, guitar, Singapore whistle, beatboxing, body percussion and not a single recorded sample.

02 Strings Of Consciousness "Asphodel" (edit)

From the album Our Moon Is Full (Central Control International)

This rotating ensemble from Marseille, France has expanded into a 14-member collective of musicians from around the globe. "Asphodel" features Hervé Vincenti (guitars/samplers/keys), Abdenor Natouri (double bass), Karim Tobbi (guitar), Perceval Bellone (saxophone), Philippe Petit (laptop), plus lyrics and vocals by JG Thirlwell. Our Moon Is Full contains further vocal collaborations with Barry Adamson, Oxbow's Eugene Robinson, Black Sifichi and more.

03 John Luther Adams "Among Red Mtns" (excerpt)

From the album Red Arc/Blue Veil (Cold Blue Music)

Performed by pianist Stephen Drury, Among Red Mtns is inspired by Alaska based composerJohn Luther Adams's viewing of a Frank Stella painting. His works feature on the Cold Blue, New World, Cantaloupe, Mode and New Albion labels, and Adams's sound and light installation The Place Where You Go To Listen is a permanent feature at the Alaska University Museum Of The North. He is currently working on a network of installations transforming planetary weather data into music and light.

04 hamaYôko "Furies"

From the forthcoming album hamaYôko 4/29 (Entr'acte)

Yôko Higashi is a performer, vocalist, choreographer and dancer who has collaborated with Lionel Marchetti and Frédérick Galiay, and performed with Keith Rowe and Thomas Korber. In 2003 she formed Yokohama Zen Rocks and more recently the duo Octobriana with violinist Agathe Max. hamaYôko is Higashi's musique concrète-influenced electropop project. A debut album hamaYôko 4/29 and follow-up YgunN9 will be released by Entr'acte this year.

05 The Focus Group "Soho St Ives Tangier"

From the album We Are All Pan's People (Ghost Box)

The Focus Group is the name for the musical output of Julian House, co-founder of Ghost Box, the British label dedicated to exploring a retro-futuristic combination of "folklore and mathematics". House himself is well known as a graphic designer, and his collage techniques are mirrored in the cut-up kaleidoscope of antique electronics, psychedelic jazz and jagged rock on their third album.

06 Cath & Phil Tyler "Farewell My Friends"

From the album Dumb Supper (No-Fi)

Cath & Phil Tyler are an Anglo-American blood 'n' guts duo based in Newcastle. Cath is a sacred harp singing teacher and member of the group Cordelia's Dad; Phil has been a multi-instrumentalist in the North East underground for years. The Tylers have a precise vision of folk as a form of storytelling and a handing-down of information through the ages. They embark on a brief UK tour later this year to support the release of Dumb Supper.

07 The Ex, Getatchew Mekuria & Guests "Ethiopia Hagere" (edit)

From the album Moa Anbessa (Terp)

Now in his seventies, revered Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria started playing in 1947 in The Addis Ababa Municipal Band. He invented a musical style called shellele, where heroic war chants are translated to the saxophone, which he plays while wearing a lion's mane. The Ex met him while touring in Ethiopia, and in April 2006 Mekuria travelled to the Netherlands, resulting in the recording sessions that produced Moa Anbessa.

08 Modified Toy Orchestra "Black Star" (edit)

Previously unreleased

Birmingham sound artist Brian Duffy has been one of the stalwarts of the 'circuit bending' scene for some years. His live project Modified Toy Orchestra is an ongoing exploration of the surplus value hidden inside redundant technology. In circuit bending, electronic toys (bought from car boot sales) are rewired and freed from the confines of their original design. The orchestra perform live using only these toys (no laptops, samplers or conventional instruments) in an attempt to make perfect songs from imperfect instruments.

09 Heribert Friedl "Back" (excerpt)

From the album Back_Forward (Nonvisualobjects)

Vienna's Heribert Friedl has worked since 1998 solo and in collaboration with artists such as Bernhard Günter, John Norman (Radian) and Dale Lloyd. Friedl follows a minimalist aesthetic which uses few sounds, small events and nearly imperceptible movements. After numerous MP3 releases and albums on such labels as Line, trente oiseaux and and/OAR, he founded his Nonvisualobjects imprint with Raphael Moser in 2005, releasing works by artists such as Steve Roden, Richard Chartier and Roel Meelkop.

10 The Fun Years "Electricity Is A Scarce Commodity" (radio edit)

From the compilation INNATURE (Barge Recordings)

A duo of turntable and baritone guitar, The Fun Years disguise their instruments with atmospheric textures comprised of obscure samples and repetition. Isaac Sparks samples a thick haze of pops and crackles from vinyl, while Ben Recht weaves a guitar tapestry of arpeggios and open tunings. They released a debut album earlier this year, but this track is taken from a compilation entitled INNATURE featuring Circle, Tim Hecker, Polmo Polpo and others.

11 Damon & Naomi "The Turnaround"

From the album Within These Walls (20/20/20)

20 years into a career that started with Galaxie 500, Damon & Naomi now run a publishing house (Exact Change) and the label 20/20/20. They consider Within These Walls to be their most emotionally consistent album of their career and their darkest record to date. "The Turnaround" features the guitar of longtime collaborator Michio Kurihara, with whom they will tour (along with Boris) the US in October and Europe in November.

12 Goodiepal "2004 Igen Med Ralf Christensen Ved Roret"

From the album Mort Aux Vaches Ekstra (Pork Salad Press)

Danish artist Goodiepal/Gœoudjiparl (aka Kristian Vester) has had many careers - making corporate jingles, lecturing on electronic music, music therapist for psychiatric patients - all of which have shaped his unusual performances, which include him whistling along with demonstrations of self-built mechanical devices and toys. This track was taken from the nine double-vinyl box Mort Aux Vaches Ekstra, which examines languages and linguistics.

13 Icarus "Selfautoparent"

From the album Sylt (Rump Recordings)

Icarus is the UK based electronic duo of Ollie Bown and Sam Britton. Bown has collaborated with Squidsoup, Adem, the Live Algorithms For Music group and others, and has been completing a PhD on the evolution of human musical behaviour. Sam Britton has worked with Ted Milton and Diemo Schwarz, and has studied at IRCAM in Paris. Sylt is the duo's seventh album in over a decade, charting their progression from drum 'n' bass experimentation to deeper explorations into sound design, musique concrète and rhythmic inventions.

14 Tarentel "A Crystal The Size Of Our Moon In The Heart Of A Pulsating White Dwarf"

From the album Ghetto Beats On The Surface Of The Sun (Temporary Residence)

This San Francisco instrumental outfit have been releasing records since 1998 on labels such as Neurot, Static Caravan and Staalplaat. Originally released last year as a limited edition series of four vinyl albums, Ghetto Beats On The Surface Of The Sun has now been collected on two CDs, showcasing the group's cosmic noise and drone tempered by ragged rhythms and splintered melody.

15 Babils "Dent De Sagesse" (extraction)

From the album The Joint Between (Stilll)

Brussels based ensemble Babils are an extension of The Joint Between duo of Gabriel Séverin & Michel Duyck, incorporating additional members Etienne Vernaeve, Patrick Bellefroid and Lukas Vangheluwe. The Joint Between is their first official album of densely layered abstractions using guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, flutes and 'little objects' to explore realms of improvisational dynamics.

16 Luciano Cilio "Della Conoscenza" (originale versione inedita)

From the album Dell'Universo Assente
(Die Schachtel)

Originally released under the name Dialoghi Del Presente in 1979, Dell'Universo Assente (The Absent Universe) is a posthumous release with extra tracks from Neapolitan composer Luciano Cilio, who committed suicide in 1983 at the age of 33. As Jim O'Rourke says in the sleevenotes: "... you can feel in the music a sort of necessity that can be rarely found... this enormous weight that is bearing on its creators, the absolute need to exorcise it from their lives. This does not mean that it is necessarily an outpouring of angst or bereavement, but a moment in time where you are invited to hear artists truly in contact with their existence."

17 Hulk "The Moon Versus The Sea"

From the album Silver Thread Of Ghosts (Osaka Recordings)

Thematically based around notions of memory and travel, Dublin artist Hulk (real name Thomas Haugh) describes this debut album as a series of postcards from the last ten years his life. His use of organic and electronic processed sound with live instrumentation has led to the release of material for Static Caravan, Expanding and Melodic.

18 Dimension X "The Martian Chronicles"

From the forthcoming album Dimension X (KML Recordings)

Subtitled "a journey of the incredible", this encounter of rock/noise/experimental improvisors Massimo Pupillo (bass), Chris Corsano (drums) and David Chalmin (guitar) treads a path within the universe of the 50s cult science fiction radio show Dimension X. Based on stories from the show, each track unfolds a strange world of thinking machines, robots, chaos, Martians, madness and humankind's quest for emotion, truth and hope.

19 Mordant Music "Den On VelluMM"

(Wire Tapper Exclusive)

Exclusive recording for The Wire Tapper 18

Recorded especially for The Wire, "Den On VelluMM" is a composite preview of two albums planned for 2008. The first is a collection of cartoonish croons by the enigmatic London based outsider Dennis Greenidge, and the second a self-professed "overblown tirade of tiresome balladry" from the London duo of Mordant Music, aka Baron Mordant and Admiral Greyscale.