Nexsound – experimental, ambient, noise, improv record label

Review

hybridmagazine

Kotra – Dissilient

Larry: They are making the feedback feedback on teh feedback. This may be considered art…
Darrel: random squawks fcompiled for the sole purpose of destroying critics’ ears. No one will buy it.
Daryl: Obviously the product of secret Soviet medical experiments.
Dick: Look at the cool stamps from the Ukraine!

WMUC

Kotra – Dissilient

Reviewed by J Max G.
This is noise-it’s annoying but then again it’s supposed to be. It features loud electronic blasts & piercing sound that will annoy you & your neighbors. It isn’t constant noise-so you might think there’s actually some kind of musical pattern-but you’d be wrong-it’s noise. Points of Comparison: Merzbow, Masonna

Cracked

Kotra – Dissilient

High pitched frequencies cutting into your neuro-electronic system, destroying any conditioning available and tuning you into a sender that comes from within your core and from the depth of the universe at the same time. Personally, I prefer bass-noise, heavy and thundering subwoofed bass-sounds. Kotra prefers making run chills up and down your spine and into the back of your neck like syringes being stuck into your central nervous system. “Dissilient” takes some getting used to, but as soon as you’re hooked, you’ll be hooked for good. If you found Alexei Borisov and Anton Nikkl

Octopus

Kotra – Dissilient

La tendance des musiques electroniques experimentales actuelles est de solliciter les tympans a renfort de sinusoides (cf. Sachiko M). Si certains excellent dans cet art bruitiste et strident, Kotra se perd souvent dans un eparpillement desorganise. Dmytro Fedorenko est habile dans la creation de frequences percantes, dans le faconnage de sifflements metalliques, mais < Dissilient > laisse un gout d’inacheve dans l’assemblage de ces sonorites extremes qui semblent n’avoir ete ici que des pretextes a des babillages pseudo-noise. Un disque qui fait tache dans la production jusque-la soignee du label ukrainien.

Industrial.org

Kotra – Dissilient

As much as I enjoy clicks n cuts and similar glitch based difficult music, it has occurred to me that this style of sound could be considered a contemporary equivalent to progressive rock. It is almost by definition self-indulgent and for some folks likely just as hard to take seriously as Rick Wakeman’s ill fated “Myths and Legends of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table” on ice debacle. I’m not sure who prog-rock was actually for (before my time) but geeks could easily be accused of being an elitist demographic and therefore the genre directly analogous to the complaints that partially led to the birth of punk rock. Now while this has struck me from time to time, it certainly doesn’t stop me from enjoying collections such as this one from Kotra regardless of whether sets of blips and blats is something most folks do not want to hear sputtering out of their stereo. That said, “Dissilient” veers dangerously close to endurance test in some sections with out much accompanying catharsis to compensate for the occasional excesses of art for art’s sake.
This is more of an EP really since 34 minutes is only a full length album if you are AC/DC. The tracks are all named as mathematical offsets which is as good a choice as any for a series of sounds that taste like the end of a probe plugged into a function generator. While all of the sounds are digital in nature if not in actual execution, there is an analog type approach to the feedback and distortion appearing here which finds repetitive beeps and modem squawks getting wrapped up in themselves to the point of bumping their heads on the dynamic ceiling. This is not always pleasant and the first few minutes are likely to lead to removal of headphones or at least volume reduction unless you are completely deaf already. It is quite unique sounding it should be noted, just perched at a frequency akin to screaming babies in the seat beside you when stuck on a public bus in a traffic jam that spreads around you as far as the eyes can see.
Some rhythmic structures comparable to 8 bit beatbox appear mid disc and of course this is the most approachable section since the beats (if you can call them that, more like gating effects) help provide some momentum past the more nasal and shrill feedback bursts. There is also a wide variety of little bitty cutups that sound less like data files in a wave editor and more like a modem suddenly breaking into a solo. The kind of music that makes you yearn for an oscilloscope and data analyzer. At its best the varied trace can be quite captivating, like the smoke trails from a soldering iron or watching vials of blue fluid being mixed together.
I guess it is part of the point (call me a wimp if you must) but my main complaints here are to do with how the frequency spectrum falls out – it almost hurts to listen to this at any sort of volume at all. While that may sound all bad ass on (virtual) paper what this means is that to hear the overall recording at a true discernable level you would need to sport earplugs in your own freaking living room. Raucous cacophony is welcome in these here parts but unlike a release like Dustbreeders and Junko’s “Mommy Close The Door” which as their label suggests, “peels paint from the walls” this release does not offer enough fist in the air teeth grinding payback for its abuse of your cochlea. It is just too academic and stuffy most of the time which tilts the scales towards dry frustration instead of neuron driven arcing electricity. If the mastering had trimmed just a little from about 1kHz upwards this likely would be a glowing review because there are some very cool functions cavorting about the soundscape but it’s so damned nasal and sharp that I feel like I am chewing on tinfoil while suffering a flu headache as well as feeling like I am being forced to adjust the volume at gunpoint. Unless you feel like remastering this yourself definitely only of interest to the most dedicated prog fans, er I mean difficult glitch converts.

Wire

Kotra – Dissilient

Kotra is ukraine musician Dmytro Fedorenko whose past endeavors have included playing bass in a jazz/noise group, being one half of noise duo Zet and playing alongside such fellow soundshifters as Kim Cascone, Andreas Berthling and Andrey Kiritchenko. The 21 pieces of Dissilient can be heard separately or as a whole. Each is a characteristically different shard of experimentation, loosely held together by Fedorenko’s guitar feedback explorations which, as they progress, become more complex. Titled either “Minus”, “plus” or “Plus/Minus”, each section is a finely cut and polished jewel of noise.
Edwin Pouncey

Nueral

Kotra – Dissilient

Sperimentazione estrema dalla fredda Ucraina, modulazioni stridule, feedback e dissonanze tonali per la Nexsound (la label di ‘Rural Psychogeography’) che questa volta si prende cura di Dmytro Fedorenko (aka Kotra), un passato in ambito jazz-noise e con il duo denominato Zet, fra il 1996 ed il 1998 attivo negli ambiti vicini a performance, video ed interactive-art (in quel di Kyiv), con diverse partecipazioni in compilation, sei precedenti album e collaborazioni di pregio (a fianco di Kim Cascone, Andreas Berthling e Andrey Kiritchenko). Un progetto questo di ‘Dissilient’ che nulla concede all’ascolto, senza mediazione alcuna ad agitare frequenze metalliche, distorsioni anche aggressive, assieme a microsuoni ed ispide emergenze. Sonorita volutamente poco comunicative, fin dai titoli delle tracce che sommano ben quindici incisioni denominate ‘Minus’ e tre ‘Plus’, piu una traccia muta di 32 secondi, ‘Zero’ ed altre due ‘Plus/Minus’ e ‘Minus /Plus’, giusto a render ancor piu indistinta la decifrazione di un codice sottostante (che gli studi in matematica alla National University Of Ukraine fanno pero sospettare). Integralista e coraggioso ‘Dissilient’ e un vero assalto alle sinapsi intasate dal pop (comunque di difficilissima fruizione).
Aurelio Cianciotta

Phosphor

Kotra – Dissilient

Dmytro Fedorenko’s project Kotra is already known among the insiders inelectronic music. Not just because he co-operated with Andreas Barthling,Kim Cascone and Nexsound label manager Andrey Kiritchenko, or because heplayed live at the Club transmediale Festival, the Kryptonale, Emaf orNetmage. Dmytro Fedorenko released six albums, which left quite animpression behind.Kotra investigates the possibilities of precise digital found sound. Heworks with short frequencies, most of the time high-pitched, which comeand go irregularly. Different combinations and lengths are tried and thesounds are manipulated.This way a noise palette is created. Some sounds remind of morse codes,submarine sonar echoes, or ticking clocks, whereas other moments can becompared with Tom Hamilton’s London fix album.It’s fascinating what Kotra does with his found noises. Each time he seemsto explore a different approach and technique, thus creating a differentatmosphere during the 21 short and slightly inaccessible tracks.Kotra has decided to head in a new direction, though this is just asinteresting as his material on previous releases, such as Stir mesh andFourfold symmetry.

Sonic Arts Network

I/DEX – Seqsextend

After a little research it turns out that like most electronic musicians, I/DEX also has a few other aliases such as Harmash, Mystique and of course his real name Vitaly Harmash and started on doing field recording/tape experiments around ’97 and combining them with a Sony playstation of all things. His release for Ukraine Nexsound label is a bit different from what you’d imagine and it seems that Harmash has moved into the slicker world of minimal digi-dub constructs that would fit nicely into the ~Scape catalogue. Harmash’s ability to build from the crackly minimal warmth platform of his cohorts his shown on Seqsextend. He gives a nod to the moody melodies of early the early Detroit/Berlin techno and I can’t help but think of the old Kenny Larkin and The Black Dog records when I listen to the patches he uses. Comparisons aside, this is an excellent release (but perhaps a bit too long) and will be interesting to see how Harmash’s style develops in the future.
Reviewed by Justin Hardison.

Etherreal

I/DEX – Seqsextend

I/Dex est le projet de Vitaly Harmash, musicien bielorusse qui n’est pas tout a fait un debutant puisqu’il a commence a faire de la musique il y a plus de 10 ans, dans des formations rock d’abord, avant de s’interesser a toutes les methodes de composition electronique. Apres les synthes, les fields recordings et la Playstation, le voici au laptop avec ce premier album en temps que I/Dex, juste pres un split-MP3, toujours chez Nexsound.
Harmash possede un son bien particulier, mais pas forcement facile d’approche. Les premiers titres sont assez particuliers, semblent eviter la facilite alors que les melodies flirtent avec la naivete. Rien de tres accrocheur donc, le musicien posant juste des ambiances, dessinant des paysages aux couleurs douces a base de motifs repetitifs, d’elements rythmiques timides, sourds, et d’une foule d’etranges bruitages, certainement soigneusement selectionnes parmi ses enregistrements en pleine nature. Apres cette premiere partie flottante, reveuse, le son s’eclaircit doucement sur Rand, et la rythmique ressemble un peu plus a quelque chose de connu, mais le style de I/Dex est toujours la, gardant cette meme legerete.
Et puis on bascule dans un autre univers a partir de .Doc sur lequel le Bielorusse se concentre sur le traitement du son avec une atmosphere plus sombre. Les souffles deviennent regulier, tout comme les craquements, les clicks, et notes feutrees qui nous rappellent la vague dub-electro menee par Pole il y a quelques annees. Une musique ambient douce, parsemee de cliquetis, presque sautillante sur le syncope Recor, et lugubre sur Evox, a la fois point d’orgue et charniere de l’album.
Mais petit a petit s’amorce un retour a la lumiere. La brume s’estompe sur E_Caps, des bruits d’animaux et autres chuintements signalent le reveil de Mere Nature, tandis que de petites notes creent une ambiance paradisiaque. On imagine une grosse creature qui emerge d’un long sommeil sur Scalene, alors que sur pres de 8mn des elements plus classiquement musicaux s’echappent d’un magma de souffles et claquements. Le soleil se leve sur Eunet, et la vie reprend son cours, une superbe journee commence avec Comm, le tube electronica de l’album, efficace et concentre sur le strict minimum. C’est serein et repose que l’on quitte Seqsextend avec Outsert, retrouvant notre legerete et laissant derriere nous les contrarietes de la veille.
La musique de I/Dex, c’est aussi ca. De l’Intelligent Listening Music, legere sans pourtant etre facile, car ne laissant guere de points d’accroche a l’auditeur. Un disque deconcertant de laptop music qui devrait plaire aux amateurs de pop.
Fabrice Allard