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WIRE
Courtis/Moglass/Kiritchenko-s/t
Ukrainian sound artist Andrey Kiritchenko is the founder of the Nexsound label; on these two releases he revelas an uncanny knack both for assembling sympathetic collaborators and for alchemising processed guitar and field recordings into something unsetting without bludgeoning the listener with abject noise. His collaboration with Argentinian guitarist Anla Courtis, formerly as Reynols, and Ukrainian post-rockers The Moglass is especially excellent, with the participants swapping, manipulating and augmenting each other’s sonic matter with a fine balance of boldness and sensitivity. The sixth track in particular credited to The Moglass with sound sources courtesy of Courtis, is an imposing, glassy drone of immense power and boasts an emotional pull almost worthy of Popol Vuh.
Joseph Stannard
Etherreal
Courtis/Moglass/Kiritchenko-s/t
Ce split à trois ce compose logiquement de trois parties bien distinctes puisque chaque participant se partage équitablement l'album. Le premier tiers se compose de trois titres de Kiritchenko construits à partir de sons d'Anla Courtis. Les trois titres suivants sont produit par The Moglass, là aussi à partir de sources sonores de l'Argentin. Anla Courtis dispose d'un peu plus de temps puisqu'il nous propose quant à lui cinq titres, les trois premiers à partir de sons de The Moglass, les deux suivants à partir de sons de Kiritchenko. Un travail croisé donc, mais sans explorer toutes les combinaisons, et au final un album très centré sur le travail d'Anla Courtis.

Andrey Kiritchenko est ici assez éloigné de son True Delusion. Il tente de rester sur un style ambient, mais les sources sonores fourmillantes de Courtis procurent une certaine complexité à ses titres, flirtant même avec le bruitisme. Mélodies minimales et métalliques, ajout d'une guitare, impression de chaos, voire même de fouillis entre deux accalmies. De la même façon, The Moglass rajoute voix, guitare et clavier aux sources sonores de Courtis. La volonté du groupe est certainement très différente de celle de Kiritchenko, mais le résultat nous apparaît tout de suite mieux maîtrisé. Drones sombres, égrenage de guitare post-rock, timide mélodie électronique, le premier titre est un petit bijou d'ambient sombre et mélodique. Le deuxième morceau opère dans un tout autre registre, misant tout sur l'improvisation, très free, dense, kaléidoscopique. Le dernier titre semble être une synthèse des deux, pour un résultat à situer entre ambient et psychédélisme à la Acid Mothers Temple. Il sera intéressant de voir ce que produit l'Argentin en retour. On retrouve sa patte avec un son globalement assez dur, quelques esquisses mélodiques lorsqu'il réutilise les guitares de The Moglass, une ambient foisonnante et féerique, ou un véritable kaléidoscope sonore. Légèrement plus calme quand il travaille à partir des sons de Kiritchenko, cette dernière partie s'avère très expérimentale.

Difficile à appréhender de part la composition même du disque et sa musique à la fois dense et sans véritable direction, cette collaboration est à réserver aux plus curieux, amateurs d'improvisations et collages sonores. Pour découvrir ces trois excellents artistes, on conseillera avant tout leurs travaux solos.

Fabrice Allard
le 04/12/2006

Aquarius
Courtis/Moglass/Kiritchenko-s/t
An awesome three way collaboration, five way label split, with each artist using mainly sounds contributed by one of the other artists. The three include Andrey Kiritchenko who runs the Nexsound label, Ukrainian abstract drone folk combo the Moglass and Anla Courtis formerly of the mighty Reynols! A strange combination but it definitely works, with each artist twisting and turning the sounds of the others into something completely their own. Kiritchenko uses sounds sourced from Anla Courtis, but also incorporates bandura, guitar, objects and field recordings. His first two tracks are thick glistening snarls of keening high end, ringing chimes, warm processed warble, grinding industrial whir, all coaxed gently from his super limited palette. His final track is our favorite, a super spare cavernous soundscape, constructed from swirling wind like whirls and muted white noise hiss. Over the top is a stumbling damaged, deconstructed guitar melody that scrapes and buzzes and rumbles. So good. The Moglass also use mostly Anla Courtis sounds, introducing guitars, synth and vocals. And as you might imagine, they manage to turn those disparate sounds into dark dronelike dreamscapes of slow oceanic swells, thick buzzing rumble, and an occasional blast of super strange circusy psychedelic freak out, a dizzying collision of scraping strings, creepy falsetto vocals, moans and chants and all sorts of falling apart melodies. Finally, Courtis gets the chance to return the favor, borrowing a little from both the Moglass and Kiritchenko. His first three tracks are assembled using ONLY sounds taken from the Moglass, the results vary, from murky shimmer, to glistening ambience, soft blissed out whir, to sparse skeletal industrial landscapes. The last two tracks again feature Courtis using only sounds borrowed from Kiritchenko, one ends up being a super pare abstract mechanical percussive shuffle, lots of creaks and clatter, sounding a bit like a rainforest, or some sort of giant shower, the final track is wash of fuzzy clang that sort of settles into a dense field of tightly woven chimes and tinkles, amidst a swirling sea of hiss and fuzz. An amazing concept that actually produces some incredibly beautiful results!
nowamuzyka
Courtis/Moglass/Kiritchenko-s/t
To wydawnictwo wzbudziło we mnie o wiele mniej emocji, niż poprzednia recenzowana w serwisie nexsoundowa produkcja (The Moglass – "Sparrow Juice"). Album bazował na wymianie materiałów i ich późniejszej obróbce. To nie musi koniecznie źle wróżyć, chociaż poprzednie podobne inicjatywy, w których Kiritchenko (szefujący Nexound) brał udział: z Lopezem oraz projekt Fourfold symmetry (z Cascone’m, Berthlingiem i Kotrą), niespecjalnie do mnie trafiały.

Na tej płycie (wymieniam, tak jak leci tracklista) Kiritchenko używał dźwięków Anly Courtisa, dołożył gitarę, nagrania terenowe (bardzo subtelne), również niezidentyfikowane "objects". Pierwsze trzy utwory mile wprowadzają w nastrój, jest w nich wiele umiejętnie rozłożonych szczegółów. A.K. trochę mniej liryczny niż na "True Delusion" (zwłaszcza drugi kawałek – pod koniec analogowe piski tworzą powidoki ‘noise’u’), ale wciąż jest w tym specyficzna, lekko "kosmiczna" aura. Następne trzy kompozycje należą do The Moglass – oni w materiał od Courtisa wmieszali syntezator (znów zapewne coś bardzo retro), gitarę, również głos. Piątka to jest dla mnie najmocniejszy moment w całości – wokal rozprzestrzeniony efektami, lekko bełkotliwy, ale jednocześnie natchniony, profetyczny. Ostatnie pięć tracków okupuje wcześniejszy dostawca materiału – tym razem on korzysta z tego, co zaoferowało mu The Moglass (3 utwory) i szef Nexsoundu. Moim zdaniem dużym błędem było umieszczenie nagrań Courtisa bazujących na Moglass, zaraz po ich kawałkach. Twórca nie pokazał ich muzyki w jakimś nowym kontekście, podrasował ją jedynie. Dźwięków jest więcej, brzmienie jest mocniejsze, pełniejsze, ale aż do granic percepcji. Po kilku minutach robi się z tego szarobura plama, całość staje się okropnie monotonna, elementy taplają się w bajorku Courtisowych zabiegów – aż każdy traci urok, znaczenie.

Tak więc te nagrania przykrzą się najbardziej, szczególnie, że Moglass w poprzednich trackach zaprezentowało podobną stylistykę, ale przy okazji pewną fantazję i rozsądek w "gmatwaniu" dźwięków. Wieńczące album utwory są całkiem dobre, szkoda tylko, że ostatni zostaje przerwany w momencie, gdy właśnie mogło zacząć się dziać coś ciekawszego (tam się wkradają jakieś ciekawe konstrukcje, a tymczasem 3 minuta, sekund trochę i myk w ciszę). Wiem, że Courtis ma różne muzyczne pomysły, szkoda, że nie rzucił czegoś na miarę (i w stylu) ciekawej epki „Harmonica f’ever”. Dokonania na albumie Nexsoundu idą raczej w stronę "Kokura" – nagranego razem z Makoto Kawabatą i Rokugenkinem.

Album nie zbyt dobry, ale też nie spisywałbym go na straty. Ma kilka ciekawszych momentów, choć czas trwania (blisko 70 minut) powoduje, że trudno wysłuchać go od początku do końca. Nieźle się do niego wracam od czasu do czasu, próbując gryźć drobnymi kęsami.
Piotr Tkacz

Cracked
Courtis/Moglass/Kiritchenko-s/t
Anla Courtis provides sounds for Andrey Kiritchenko to work on. Anla Courtis also provides sounds for The Moglass to work on. And both provide sounds for Anla Courtis to work on. Obviously, this three way global interchange of sounds and noises has Anla Courtis at the centre (this time), though Kiritchenko starts off followed by the Moglass and ended by Anla Courtis. So much for the basics of this release. What is missing to fill the matrix are the interchanges between The Moglass and Andrey Kiritchenko, but there are no reasons to fill a matrix aside purely formal ones and formality is something that you should forget about completely when confronting this release. Or any release on Nexsound for that matter, because they are all challenging your senses, your hearing restraints and the status of fringe music. What combines the three artists is that they tend to take on sound as something physical, elevating it to a tangible level that works not only through the auditive sense but also via the skin. Even though The Moglass are the most “song-oriented” of the lot from their history onwards, they also step into the chaotic-dynamic lines of this animated soundforgery. They seem to work with sound like a lion tamer works his wild animals, teasing them and teaching them, but always on the lookout for they might break out and wound someone. They are also very eclectic in their work, splunging into all kinds of ambients and sounds which were neatly divided by journalist types and collectors and with a wave of their hand mixing them all together again. And in the end all three have long careers, discographies and impressive biographies to show for them. Andrey Kiritchenko’s tracks are like a wave, but no tsunami but a slow motion wave that surrounds and embrazes you, tightly and densely, and starts to drag you down. His processed field recordings and noises (the notes say guitar but it is hard to believe and anyway wouldn’t be recognizable from something else in this mix except for some parts in his third track) are dynamic and frantically changing while remaining massive and powerfull throughout. When they start to fade out your brain starts to breathe again and you wonder if the crackles of fire in your head are for real or still coming from the CD. But what did you expect from on of Eastern Europe’s foremost proponents of noise and electroexperimental music? This adds very nicely to his growing and recommended discography. The Moglass start off almost atmospherically with waves of almost new age sounds and synths. The stress lays on almost, as almost always. The band is know to prefer being led by the sounds than to lead the sounds, so this time the sounds first lead them to a really quiet and peaceful place and afterwards to more rocky and rough terrain, which still has a lot of good echo. They also add spooky and tripping vocals to great effect and with lots of echo and sustain, though it has to be said that I like their current release “sparrow juice” (also on Nexsound) some more than the big walls and monumental sounds they build up on here. On the other hand, the finely carved and worked out songs on their album wouldn’t really fit here. Anla Courtis has adopted many names during his long career, which started off in Buenos Aires when he studied classical guitar, piano and composition, then threw all of that away to play a very early form of free rock with another guy and a third guy, one of which was a mongoloid who sang and played the drums, under the name of The Reynols. Believe it or not, before Courtis called it quits for The Reynols the trio released more than one hundred CDs and vinyls worldwide almost everywhere and, which is much more important, has connected to likeminded musicians in every town of the world possibly. Here he connects on a completely different level. He actually flies off in various directions during the course of his four tracks, and sometimes he flies into different directions at the same time. A combining element of his contribution is wild creativity and a sense for being “out there”. I have no better words to describe it. He dares to use gentle tone and to fall into more softer paces at times where his cooperators might have chose power and volume in favor of subtlety or microsounds, for instance when he lays softly swaying yet deftly distorted guitar chords over a bass-heavy basis of crackling industrial noise. All in all this three way cluster is a great and powerful invocation of the liberating spirits within noise and experimental electronics. I don’t believe anyone reading the reviews on Cracked regularly has never heard of any of these three artists, but if so, let this be an introductory guideline for you. It is available from a whole bunch of places (see below.)
Skug Magazine
Courtis/Moglass/Kiritchenko-s/t
Improvisierte Musik muss nicht per se höchst vertrackt und unsexy klingen. The Moglass aus Kharkiv in der Ukraine sind da eine treffliche Ausnahme, die auf flächige Sounds setzt. Hier zerfließen auf hohem Niveau Gitarren, Synths, Field Recordings und Saxofon. Wo auch gesamplet wird, liegt ein Post-Rock-Verdacht auf der Hand, doch schichtet das Trio die Sounds dermaßen entspannt, das eher von galaktischem Free Noise die Rede sein muss, allerdings die Klangwolke dermaßen grazil und melodienüberfrachtet wirkt, das man geneigt ist, das Wort Lärm wieder zu streichen. Und wenn dann The Moglass nach Kiritchenkos komplizierten Verästelungen Soundquellen von Alan Courtis (Co-Gründer von Reynols, u.a. Releases auf Trente Oiseaux, Lucust etc.) anzapfen, dann schwingt sich der Sound in höhere Sphären auf. Bedrohlich schwären grummelnde Bassloops, doch jubilieren drüber spacige Synth- u Gitarrengeschwader, ein ganzer Droneschwall ergießt sich aus den Boxen. Und dann hört man förmlich ein Glockenläuten, wenn The Moglass Courtis Soundscapes zuliefern. Gibt es schon so etwas wie einen Droneoszillator? Klingt so, dies ist pure Psychedelia! Vielleicht würde Syd Barretts Alterswerke heute ähnlich klingen, wenn ...
ALFRED PRANZL
Vital
Courtis/Moglass/Kiritchenko-s/t
The Moglass are also present on a three way compilation, together with Andrey Kiritchenko and Anla Courtis (of former Reynols fame). A release by Nexsound, but also on Gold Soundz, Tib Prod and 1000+1 Tilt. This compilation presents various works by each artist/band, but each of them uses sounds from the others. The Moglass pieces are a bit heavier than on 'Sparrow Juice', dwelling more distortion and psychedelic sound effects. The result is nice, but doesn't match up with their own full length CD. Anla Courtis has three tracks in which he works with the sounds of The Moglass, but fails to set a difference with the group's own sound. Quite spacey and cosmic sound. In the two pieces using Kiritchenko's material, things are also spacious, but less closed. The best pieces are by Kiritchenko, who takes the various sources from Courtis and The Moglass into the world of the computer treatments and processing, creating with their sounds, a music that bears similar markings, but then entirely in the digital domain. Ambient and glitch related, but both at it's very best. (FdW)
  • Alla Zagaykevych-motus
  • Alphonse de Montfroyd-Silence
  • Alphonse de Montfroyd/Nihil est eXcellence-defect analysts
  • Andrey Kiritchenko-True Delusion
  • Andrey Kiritchenko-Stuffed With/Out
  • Andrey Kiritchenko-Misterrious
  • Ballroom of Mars-Cedre
  • Bluermutt-When I'm Not
  • Bluermutt-Decivilize after consumption
  • Courtis/Moglass/Kiritchenko-s/t
  • Critikal-Graphorrhea
  • Francisco Lopez/Andrey Kiritchenko-Mavje
  • I/DEX-Seqsextend
  • Kotra-Dissilient
  • Kotra-Stir Mesh
  • Matsutake-nine and seventeen
  • Nole Plastique-Sourire en Souriant
  • Nole Plastique-Escaperhead
  • Ojra & Kiritchenko-A Tangle Of Mokosha
  • ok01-various
  • Perlonex/Keith Rowe/Charlemage Palestine-Tensions
  • Saralunden + Andrey Kiritchenko-There was no end
  • Saralunden.Björkås.Mjös-Dubious
  • the Moglass-Kogda Vse Zveri Zhili Kak Dobrye Sosedi
  • the Moglass-Telegraph Poles ...
  • The Moglass-Sparrow Juice
  • the Moglass/Nihil Est eXcellence-split
  • the Moglass/Tom Carter & Vanessa Arn-Snake-Tongued, Swallow-Tailed
  • v/a-Fourfold Symmetry
  • v/a-Polyvox Populi
  • v/a-Rural Psychogeography
  • Zavoloka-Plavyna
  • Zavoloka-Suspenzia
  • Zavoloka vs Kotra-to Kill the Tiny Groovy Cat E.P.
  • Zavoloka-Agf-Nature never produces the same beat twice

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