Vanny Zero Love Is A Serial Killer (Kill Mommy Records)

How to give the adequate definition to the starting point of punk music? What kind of assessment we could ascribe to it? I would be disappointed if I recognized it for myself only as a business project of Malcolm McLaren. Sex Pistols was the embodiment of this project, and they are previously remained as the prevailing part of collective consciousness of punk nowadays. In reality punk had developed into better directions. There were some groups who had artistically rebelled at the highest level – Clash, Public Image Limited, The Fall, Swell Maps. Punk is previously remained as one of the most acknowledged hype movements over decades. No doubt, nowadays it is the symbol of rebel and fatuity as well. I have heard how the punks come together in one European city at mid-day to go together shopping all this punk stuff. Ironic and symbolic simultaneously, isn`t it.

In last years I have good memories with the music coming out from Sicily. The sound which holds up the spirit of the music of Creative Commons (in a sense it is very rebellious attitude toward the music business). fracoz combo, msk, The Last Merendina, Barbagallo and Vanny Zero are some decorous names amongst others. Vanny Zero is Giovanni Calvo who runs the Kill Mommy Records, entirely dedicated to homemade music. He is also known as Darth Zero, the “zombitpop” project, which obviously has a flirt with acid and electronic pop, slightly keen on the punk music, and TV Zombie. He is also working on the first album of Lightgreen Blues Connection at the moment. He has also involved in the line-up of such projects like Marx Basement Band and Caputo Bros.

Love Is A Serial Killer is a combination of different influences. The open track (title-track as well) attacks with a mix of rough rockabilly and blues rock. Anyway, it presides over directions coming visible during this album. Probably this music is recorded without any plug-in details. Indeed, it sounds like a live recording. Through feedback-created noise it has been given another essentiality besides all possible combinations of blues and punk rock. A guitar, a bass, voice, drums are impinging on tempo. All the shouting tracks are supposed to be the powerful dynamic tunes from start to the end. Actually this is the music which needs no many words to be described. There are some exceptions which differentiate from the other tracks and reach the top of greatness. Killin` Myself Today is an amazing track where blues is crossovered with moderate psychobilly, and it`s all thanks to Calvo`s dreamy and playful voice. The finishing track No Tomorrow gives him the next opportunity to showcase his good timbreful and wide-range voice once again.

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7.7

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Interview with Bert Vanden Berghe

KS: You have been very profilic with 2 released albums Winter EP and insert coins to continue this year. When will be the next album coming out by Bert Vanden Berghe?

BVB: Well, in fact there have been released two new albums in june.
Both Passive Cable Theory albums, so not quite as accessible as brunk (that’s really an understatement). It’s loud noise and deconstructed sounds. One is called ‘non selective deposit feeder’ and can be downloaded for free at http://aurevoirrr.blogspot.com.
The other one, ‘I’m so impressed by your pop culture reference’ was released on the bleak netlabel and can be downloaded at http://www.bleak.at/index.php?iwant=arts&release_nr=bleak017.
In july, a remix a made (as ‘brunk’) from a track of belgian trip-hop band Koala, was released via iTunes. It was my first iTunes release. I’m really curious for reactions on that one.
There will probably be some other stuff too, later this year: maybe some other brunk release, and/or maybe a release of Karen Eliot (that’s an experimental improv project I’m involved with)…
Whenever there’s some news I’ll announce it on my blog http://brunkville.blogspot.com .
So you see, I’m kind of busy.

KS: You have used a lot of aliases to express yourself as the artist. By drawing the borders between your acts in that way, is it actually the easiest and most distinct method for you to keep yourself drifting between different genres?

BVB: Yes, that’s something I do make it easier for me to explain’ what I do.
Last few years I tried to make a more clear distinction between the directions of the different projects I have. Before, I did pretty much everything I liked to do or I wanted to experiment with as ‘brunk’, but that way ‘brunk’ was very difficult to explain to people: sometimes I recorded quiet and accessible stuff, sometimes it was loud and weird, sometimes it was very experimental – and that way it was harder to listen to as a whole too: too much fragmentation in styles and directions. So I started to focus more on a certain direction on each album, and somehow a more clear distinction in styles between the different projects. These days I try to do the quiet stuff with brunk, and the very noisy things with Passive Cable Theory, for instance.

KS: I have always marveled about your ability to exploit skillfully natural and electronic sounds. Are you a self-taught musician or have you some academic musical background behind you in the past?

BVB: I had studied classical guitar and music for some years when I was younger. So that gave me some technical background. But on the other hand, I mostly don’t approach things on a technical level, but one a very intuitive way. More feeling than mathematics. I do like to learn new things on the guitar though, sometimes I just learn how to play a certain song, or some new chords or techniques on the guitar, and then without really thinking of it, some things I learned sneak into some music I make – mostly in a totally different musical context, or not in a way they’re intended to be used. But I guess, that’s the way it goes with most musicians, learn a language and then write your own story with the words you’ve learned…

KS: You have used such a expression as “Brunkville”. Let`s explain it up more closely.

BVB: That’s just a funny visual way of seeing all the different musical projects I have – it’s a big imaginary town or city with all kinds of different corners, streets, buildings, atmospheres, people, stories… but they’re all part of the same city they live in. Like all this different music, all aspects and parts of who I am.

KS: Yes, let`s keep talking about brunk. It has to be said, though, in comparison with your other acts the soundscape of brunk has more affinity toward melodic and natural-sounding textures. Is it the result of using analog tehnique in the creative process too?

BVB: I think it doesn’t necessary has anything to do with technique, more an approach of keeping things honest and spontaneously. I mean, in the making of brunk music, a computer and software are involved, so that’s not really analogue, but I approach all that equipment in the same way I would approach a simple 4-track recorder. And of course there are more acoustic instruments (guitar), melody and soft melancholic lo-fi sounds involved in this music – that gives a more analogue vibe than the heavily processed sounds I often use in Passive Cable Theory or Karen Eliot.

KS: In the embodiment of brunk you have been active in dealing with experimental indie and dream pop tunes being thereby sonorously and methodically related to your contemporaries such as De Portables, or Barbagallo as well. Actually, how important is it for you those invisible connection with other similar acts?

BVB: That’s funny, it’s cool that you actually know De Portables: they’re from Belgium to, even from the same town I live in (Ghent). I like their music a lot! Barbagallo on the other hand I’m not familiar with… I’ll check them out.
To answer the question: to me, that connection is not something I’really aware of very consciously – but the music I like, obviously gets reflected in the music I create myself. A simple case of influences. And obviously, I like lots of very different things, really enjoy all those different styles.

KS: Actually, how often do you think about how would your music facade be seen from outside? What other people mean about your music?

BVB: Hmm, I only listen to the opinion on my music of people who are really close to me, like my girlfriend, my brother or some friends. Besides that, I try not to be concerned too much about other peoples perceptions.

KS: Nowadays, for all of those music which refer somehow to experimental rock, it is supposed to draw paralleels with krautrock. Indeed, what are your main influences in music?

BVB: I’m not really familiar with much krautrock. I have lots of influences, and they also evolve. I like all kinds of music from Neil Young to Merzbow, from classic to rock to fusion, from minimalism or ambient and drones to even some prog rock, etc etc… In all kinds of musical styles, you can find people who do something truly personal and creative. That’s what matters to me…

KS: Your improvising side is more perceptible in doings of invertebrata. What is the improvisation by your case? Is it deliberately manipulated process or is it just a row of sounds happened and following each other occasionally?

BVB: Some of both. I like to play with things that happen accidentally, even with mistakes, and create something emotional or musical with that. Some things just come out better this way than in a rational way.
But on the other hand I deliberately create some notes, chords, noises, progressions, layers, to achieve a certain sound, effect or atmosphere. Because that’s what really makes it my own personal thing of course.

KS: By concerning more circumstantial on the music of invertebrata or brunk, we can admit you have been a peculiar maverick in music. Are there any connections related with your convictions about freedom of expression?

BVB: Well, I can easily answer this one: it really is related with my convictions about freedom of expression. Staying true to myself and not caring about restrictions like sticking to one style or directions. It’s all about creativity, personal expression… and also having fun, of course.

brunk official site
brunk on Myspace
invertebrata on Myspace
Passive Cable Theory on Myspace
Karen Eliot on Myspace
fi_ber on Myspace
The Returns on Myspace
SkullyS LandinG on Myspace

brunk insert coins to continue (WM Recordings)

Bert Vanden Berghe (BVB) is a 31-year-old Belgian (Flemish) musician from Ghent who is known by his aptitude to get embodied into many aliases. brunk, invertebrata, Passive Cable Theory are the names as the most known ones amongst his other projects. He has also appearing in the lineup of such groups like Karen Eliot (with Luther Blissett), The Returns, and Skully SlanginG. As summarized, all it is a very diverse stuff, ranging from the examples of alt-folk, straightforward pop punk and twee-pop to free form guitar improvisations and noise music.

Though Insert Coins To Continue LP has been released under WM Recordings this year, this is the old album recorded and completed between 2003 and 2006. In some sense it is a kind of trash one, because the ICTC at first started as a bunch of leftovers and unfinished ideas. For a while BVB didn't have definite plans what to do with them, they didn't fit onto any album he had worked on until then (the albums so lo so fi and none of the above are mentioned herein). He has done everything on his own, has played some acoustic parts, bass guitars, a lot of electric guitar parts, recorded and edited in all kinds of ways, using an mexican Fender Stratocaster and an modified Epiphone Les Paul, a cheap acoustic guitar, and a Squier Jazz Bass, also used some cheap dynamic microphones. Some recorded sounds and voices are also derived from TV. Some samples are taken from seven-inch vinyl recordings of some kind of library music - farm animals, car and plane sounds, weather sounds. In addition of it, there are also represented scratches, buzzes, crackling.

However, face to face with previous brunk albums it is absolutely the different one. First 20 seconds consist of a blend of defective electronica, acoustic guitar touch, spoken word and ragged guitar riffs which will predict us what will be happening next – it could describe as in a fashion of anti-manifesto per se. A kind of destructive posture in reference to his previous works as brunk. Furthermore, some song titles are also marked bellicosely, or otherwise just have a meaning referring somehow to deflexion (got it!; carcrash; blitzkrieg; mechanical errors; berror; violence on tv). At never ever ever, the blasting attack by three first tracks will be displaced and changed into dreamy mood music, as if we were back to quiet and melodic brunk again. However, shifts (a mix of heavy metal riffs and dub guitar), flipperkast dub (experimental-fashioned dub with guitar solos and wah wah effects – one of the best tunes on the album!). de wraak van de kiekens (similar to zip) is dominated by jazz guitar-alike sound and programmed beats. Indeed, it would be very good chill out track as well if it had much more longitude to come over us. The another possibility is just to push “repeat track” button on, and keep enjoying it... . There run also some floating bubblegum funk undercurrents (this should be played at high volume... preferably in a residential area!) being so characteristic to sampledelic or samplecore music that I am pretty convinced Bert Van Der Berghe has listened to Chenard Walcker and Felix Kubin a lot indeed. violence on tv reflects through its sonic aggressiveness and insane variability the meaning of the song title at its best. Furthermore, some knotty organ passages and a haunting orchestration segment have added some odd dimensions to all of it. However, in general and broader sense, the only artist who might have some reminiscence to BVB`s recent work is a Russian avant-garde combo Burrito (especially their doings and tearings around on the album Fridtjof Nansen (2008/2009).

At first sight the ICTC would probably seem to be sounding too harsh to your consciousness to get broken through to. Indeed, it is like the tzunami of overloaded information flowing on you at high speed, destroying and flushing all around you, letting you live and waiting with dread the coming of the next wall of noise. The one and only question which could be questioned is – are you able to channelize all this information into understandable form for yourself? In fact, the more I listened to it, the more I enjoyed it.

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8.6

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Cagey House Lark (Free Range Beats)

Cagey House is the pseudonym for David Keifer, an american musician, who has released shitloads of albums under (net)labels during last 5 years. However, it is quite complicated to figure out the complete list of his discography. Cagey House is partially defined through electronic pop fused with art-pop, weird pop and synthetic fusion influences, and thereby sharing the similar position with such acts as Drugs Made Me Smarter, Nogaro and Bockholt, for instance. David Keifer has his first start described in the following way: “I was writing fairly typical rock/pop instrumental things. Kind of like what the Ventures would have done if they'd played fruityloops instead of guitars.” Indeed, Keifer`s sonic texture is quite unconventional in these days. It is strongly influenced by fly high electronic pop of 70s a la Kraftwerk and Droids, and by the retrofuturistic signs and undercurrents, particularly by exotica pop and space age pop tunes. In fact, Keifer`s aim to create music is obviously not beared down on the utopistic beliefs to the omnipotence to (music) machines to establish something like never-have-listened-to-it-before. It just could only have an ironic flashback to those “old good times”. By the way, on the album Elephant Orange (2006, Umor Rex) I found a track entitled as Bebe Ebullient (I would even surprised if it wouldn`t have the reference to Bebe Barron, one of the biggest names in space age pop). Furthermore, Keifer is supposed to use spare sonic language (it usually does it mean, his music is more linear, rather than polyphonic), and the songs have the length no longer as 3 minutes. Actually, the only albums which were tended more toward conventional electronic music, and also modern classical music, were Model City (2007, Nishi) and Drawing Monsters (2008, Dog Eared). Those LPs were run through seemingly lazily developing yet catchy melodic lines, thereby were drew apart from colourfulness of the sonic textures on the first albums. In fact, Steel Tantrum (2005, Nishi) is being an exception too, from time to time fulfilled with harsh and desolate tunes coming out from dystopic society out of Earth somewhere. The soundscape of this album doesn`t even sound gruesomely, it is rather like to bring forth one hopeless world for the listeners.

After The Cosmic Drain (2008, Umor Rex) Keifer started with collecting his own sound samples, which he used in place of the sounds in Fruityloops. All those sounds he had collected from the web – cartoon sounds, radio telescope sounds from outer space that astronomers have recorded, samples of Viking instruments, and instruments from India and Africa with a lot of vocal samples – are appeared at its best on the albums The Cartoon Mouse Regards (2009, Bump Foot) and Lark (2009, Free Range Beats).

Lark is in its all extensions veiled through haunting melodies, obscure mini-orchestrations, analog electronic sounds conjured from vintage synths and theremins, appeared as thing-in-itself and in all possible combinations of the aforementioned elements. The vocal samples which tonality has been varied through drifting between the half notes and whole tones, and thereof transformed into an elusive form, will only magnify the obscurity of the album as the whole one. You can touch an intimate but eerie milieu on this album more suitable to get sonic frames for the horror doll show than for usual listening. Otherwise it can imagine as the return back to the old house again, having brimful of good memories, and baleful shadows as well. From start to finish, all those 23 minutes are the very intense ones, and instantly ready to uncover David Keifer`s nature as a genius.

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9.0

Tor & Sufjan Stevens Illinoize (S-R)

Searching for some connections between indie and hip-hop music, it is possible to go back in time even further than it would have supposed to be. At first I could remember that My Bloody Valentine`s frontman Kevin Shields suggested once in one interview that before recording legendary Loveless (1991) he was listening to Cypress Hill a lot. Also, I was able to keep in mind Yppah`s album Your Are Beautiful At All Times (2006). It was actually a pure shoegaze album just made by the musician having himself hip-hop background. Nowadays it is very popular make available such tapes where hip-hop people are bending indie styles off in strange ways, making up crossovers of them. For example Amplive`s “Rainydayz Remixes” (2008) and Wildabeast`s Wildahead – Portibeast (2008), operating the music of Radiohead and Portishead correspondingly. Max Tannone aka Minty Fresh Beats wrote down Jaydiohead (2008) by mashing up Jay-Z and Radiohead into the new one. Avant-rocker Kevin McCraney faced CAN and Rakim each other in one track on the album Uncleared Samples (2008).

It is time reserved for folk-indie star Sufjan Stevens now. Illinoize is a free remix tape put together by Montreal-based producer Tor. Tracks are sampled from Steven`s Illinoise LP (2005), and 3 of his other albums as well, A Sun Came (2000), “Seven Swans (2004) and Songs for Christmas (2006). Sufjan Steven's acoustic guitar, piano and horns and mildly orchestrated sounds have been blended into with vainglorious featurings of Aesop Rock, Big Daddy Kane, Gift of Gab (Blackalicious), C.L. Smooth, Outkast, Brother Ali, and Grand Puba. I tell you, it is a quite peculiar experience for me listening to medieval flute tunes sounding partially psychedelic and mixed with Outkast`s hip-hop rhymes and a minimal stomping piano rhythm (Dumb I Sound / ATLiens (f. Outkast). My personal favourite track is The Tallest Man/I Like It (feat. Grand Puba). Violins and an orchestrated voice have created the subtle textured background. The only gripe I felt I had had in 26 minutes, was about absence of further interesting hip-hop sound effects. This set of songs brings forth a kind of perception as if it consist of a unvaried stream being a little bit anemic in that way. Indeed, I was expecting for more harsh-edged sonic manifestations because of that potential-filled format looseness to be enough for experimentation herein.

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7.4