guess is long since i dropped a line.. lotsa happening the last year here. time for a quick update on news while listening to the tasos stamou CD on editions_zero that sets the office on fire! plus dropping violent onsen geisha & early masonna tunes in between…

most vital is a weekly column in the greek e-zine ‘tranzistor’ (www.tranzistor.gr) under the name ‘multiple personality disorder’ writing ’bout new & old releases occasionally as part of a diary documenting our daily life here. tranzistor has turned one of the most beautiful things i’ve been involved in athens since the days of ‘genital grinder’ zine or the short lived period of the ‘genital necrosis’ zine (genital grinder + meganecrosy – the zine ‘rotting christ’ & ‘varathron’ were doing back then)!!! great time w/ great pals!!!

plus the frequent releases insanity… the collective thing w/ editions_zero also takes lots of time turning it more to the ‘outsider’ moniker we were dreaming of…

lotsa forthcomings as well such as…

- absurd #66 tetuzi akiyama / michel henritzi : destruct guitar cdr
(limited to 66 copies. a stellar live recording at alchemy music store, osaka back in march 07)

- absurd #67 haptic 7″
(if you fancied the mouths/haptic 12″ on entr’acte, then here’s the chance to get more drone dopes of serious and devastating electroacoustics!!!! in conjuction w/ entr’acte!!!!! www.entracte.co.uk )

- absurd #62 imca cd
(at last the reissue of one of my beloved LPs on korm plastics.. includes the LP which was an electroacoustic/concrete collab between ios smolders, frans de waard and das synthetische mischgwebe and was issued in early 90’s in a print run of 77 copies and then vanished into obscurity plus bonus pieces of the imca tape including collabs w/ john hudak. reissue artwork by mr. meeuw! www.meeuw.net) couldn’t be a better gift for frans’s & mine birthday in august!!!

- editions_zero #14 jacob smigel “band nerd love” cdr
as title suggests…found sound tape of a totally in love pal recording audioletters to his love. intended or not to be ‘posted’ includes some trully stellar moments!!! one of jacob’s favest as well!!! (www.jacobsmigel.com) w/ arrtwork by marina & tasos of dynasty zine (www.myspace.com/dynastyzine)

- a question of re_entry #6 sansomdavies cdr
long delayed but super duper drones from the duo of matthew sansom and rhodri davies!!!! artwork by marina & tasos of dynasty zine (www.myspace.com/dynastyzine)

- a question of re_entry #7 jeff gburek : virtuous circles cdr
a lo-fi live set of lovely field recordings and processed electronics.(guess its babis of the ’sunshine lsd’ label that i have to thank him for that. he has a 7 minutes of nausea 7″ coming out this month as well…)

seems it’ll be a busy summer… autumn & on the saga continues…. blasting it w/ a stellar, werner durand cd!!!!

nicolas

Tags: absurd

pascal battus & christophe cardoen put on two blazing shows in thessaloniki & xanthi in the middle of june amidst total darkness and audio-visual overload. well, not exactly overload, as i wouldn’t necessarily describe their work in such an oppresive manner, but i can happily say that quite a few people walked out from the thessaloniki show with their notions on these performances positively challenged.

the armoury enlisted by christophe was selected lights, control devices & an on-the-spot construction to help diffuse the lights in the space, while pascal had with him a wide range of objects (from coffee mixer, to ebows, to shards of metal) that he used to excite two isolated guitar pick-ups. and while during the soundcheck i enjoyed seeing them work parallel with each other -subtle modifications in the lights from christophe, long stretches of aural explorations from pascal where he would stumble upon a rich source of musical sounds coming from his objects, staying with them until depletion- it was during the concert itself that they concentrated on bringing all the elements together. taking into full account the enviroment and the people gathered they worked less on their own contribution and more on responding with joint, fully improvised, actions. and at some point, after some initial long stretches of silences combined with darkness punctuated by measured sounds & flicker, they exploded into our eyes surpassing all expectations of what an improvising duo like this could achieve.

as for xanthi, nicolas informed me that they rocked. and as for my small set opening the show at thessaloniki, all i can say is i sucked; big time. but oh well, this is supposedly the stuff that only makes us stronger.

hats off to the wonderful people at horos theatre company who hosted the show in thessaloniki. the encounter with them was fruitful & of course the show couldn’t have been set up without their help.

a view from the window

some of pascal's tools

show inside

Tags: shows/tour diaries, thessaloniki