Hello

Ok so some of you who've used the .co.uk links to Quiet World or Wonderful Wooden Reasons might be a little surprised to find yourselves landing here.

Basically it was time to renew the website and it simply wasn't economically viable to do so so I had to kill them off.  I did save all the contents so much of it will reappear here in some form.  the WWR content is going to be turned into a book so you if you appeared in the pages of the zine then you will soon appear in the pages of a book,  which is cool, yes?

After several years of incident and accident and associated recovery times I am starting to return to the world.  Quiet World is starting to emerge from its enforced hibernation with a couple of releases on the horizon - the first one around September time.

I'm also going to start trying to use this blog more - potentially as a weekly roundup of what's been going on so if you're so inclined you might like to click follow to keep updated.

More soon

Peace
Ian

Some not so Wonderful Wooden Reasons

I'm tired.  So very tired.

I've been burning every part of the candle that would catch light for so long now that something has got to give soon and I think that it's going to be me.

I've been down this road before about 12 years ago and it's not somewhere I want to go again so I think I need to take this opportunity to change direction.

I need to take things out of my life and make space and it looks like one of those things is Wonderful Wooden Reasons.

I've loved doing my little magazine and it's led me to so much amazing music and I've met so many lovely people through it.  At it's height each issue was clocking up thousands of hits and it was truly humbling how many of you cared enough about my witterings to come back and read each issue.  But, I simply don't have the room at the moment to give it, not just the attention I should, but seemingly, any attention at all.

So, for now,  Wonderful Wooden Reasons is turning it's lights off, closing it's doors and saying goodbye.

I'm going to be continuing with Quiet World but perhaps in a much quieter fashion but your support is always appreciated.  There's a new album available there this week which is something I've been pottering with for about a year now, I hope you like it. 

Thank you for all your support over the past 12 years.  It's been a pleasure getting to know you all and hearing your amazing sounds.

Music Review: Listening Center - Other Voices 2

(Ghost Box GBX712)
7" Single

Listening Center is the musical persona of NYC musician David Mason.  For his contribution to the new Ghost Box series of 7" delights he has brought a short set of synthesizer ditties that invoke a sprightly library vibe alongside Vangelis-esque beats and a Kosmicshe-pop sensibility.

It's a wonderful pop record that feels like it should have been released a couple of decades ago but I'm glad it wasn't because back then I was all about the fast and the heavy and so would have never gotten to hear it.

(www.ghostbox.co.uk)

Music Review: Brooks & O'Hagan - Other Voices 1

(Ghost Box GBX711)
7" Single

Ghost Box regular Jon Brooks (he of The Advisory Circle) here teams up with Sean O'Hagan of the High Llamas for two pieces of gentle, hazy, lazy sunshine pop or 'poptology' as my brain keeps insisting I call it.

Brooks' trademark hauntological tendencies are here giving the two tracks the feel of a 'Programmes for Schools and Colleges' countdown tune (which is no bad thing in my book) whilst O'Hagan's influence (and strings?) steers the music away from imminent lectures on 'Chemistry in Action' into the sunnier warmer climes of the gentle pop of The Free Design and The Beach Boys where instead you can feel chemistry in action. 

Singles were meant to sound like this.

(www.ghostbox.co.uk)

Music Review: Delia Derbyshire & Anthony Newley - Moogies Bloogies

(Trunk TTT008)
7" Single

Here we have an unreleased collaboration between Delia and the multi-talented Anthony Newley created apparently as soundtrack pieces but remained unused due to his move to the US with then wife Joan Collins.
Side one is a whimsical slice of vintage Delia all nursery rhyme atmospheres and tooting melodies over which Newley has added a voyeuristic commentary all sung in his best mockney manner (think Blur's 'Parklife').  Lyrics here - http://wiki.delia-derbyshire.net/wiki/Moogies_Bloogies

Over on the B side is something much, much stranger. 'I Decoded You (Moogies Bloogies pt.2)' sounds unlike anything else by Delia that I've ever heard and for it's 1 minute 28 second run time it is filled with busy clangs and tootles before twisting suddenly into a calliope waltz; over it all Newley, in another (more 'cultured') accent again signs a frankly creepy love song.  The notes on the reverse of the sleeve make the claim that musically this is an example of Delia sampling which seems reasonable and these folks are far more knowledgeable on this topic than me.

7 inch singles are rarely particularly cheap these days but they remain my favourite format and combining it with an unreleased rarity by a favourite musician makes this a real treat that's very much worth the asking price.

(www.trunkrecords.com)

(please note, that's not actually Delia (or Anthony Newley for that matter) in the video below but American composer and musician Suzanne Ciani)

Music Review: Pauline Oliveros, David Rothenberg, Timothy Hill - Cicada Dream Band

(Gruenrekorder  Gruen149)
CD

When we last heard David Rothenberg he and some friends were making beautiful Bug Music on his earlier Gruenrekorder release.  This new one finds him continuing along that unique path again in the company of vocalist Timothy Hill but joined also this time by the (as if you needed me to tell you this) accordion playing Pauline Oliveros. 

CDB is a similar sort of creature to it's successor, which is no bad thing, but this time out the instrument seem to be taking a prominent role in the recordings.  Previously it seemed that Rothenberg was reacting to the insect's cavalcade of sound. Here the critters are more integrated into the music; as though the music was assembled around their exclamations.  It works really well but it does seem more deliberate and, for lack of a better word, 'composed' (which seems unlikely to me) than the previous.

It's a really lovely set.  Rothenberg is centre stage and on fine form, Oliveros is a more withdrawn presence but her contributions are precise and work particularly well alongside Hill whose vocalisations are restrained and avoid the overt (and for me very annoying) vocal gymnastics that many avant-vocalists are prone to.

Highly recommended and another in a long line of phenomenal releases from this eclectic and wonderful label.

(www.gruenrekorder.de)

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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more.

Music Review: Craig Safan - Warning Sign

(Invada Records)
CD

Safan is an American soundtrack composer with a long filmography that includes things such as 'A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master', 'The Last Starfighter' and the TV series 'Cheers' for which he provided all the original music except the theme.  Here though it's his electronic score for the ultra-obscure 1985 zombie movie 'Warning Sign' that concerns us.

I'm pretty sure you can take a fairly accurate guess from that date what this is going to sound like.  Recorded on the Synclavier synthesizer - the synth of choice for many 80s pop music stalwarts such as Sting, Genesis and Michael Jackson - 'Warning Sign' is awash with sounds that have been rendered utterly passé by overuse.  The polyphonic tones of the Synclavier though are rich and endearing and weighted with nostalgia and Safan manages for large parts of this soundtrack to conjure up and maintain some heavy, dramatic and occasionally melodramatic ambiences.  Sometimes they all come crashing down to earth with a (now) clichéd 'du du dum' noise but, as I said earlier, he's got a pedigree for this stuff and knows how to build and hold a mood.

I've had a copy of this sitting around for a little while now and, as is my way, I've tried it in different environments.  Of them all it proved to be most at home in my car.  The cinematic scale of the compositions and the depth of the Synclavier's tones means it's perfectly suited to motorway driving; particularly at night as it decorates the journey with cyberpunk textures. 

It is dated sounding and is lacking that certain spark that similar, and classic, soundtrack work of the same era such as 'Blade Runner' or some of John Carpenter's work has and as such I can't see it ever being more that a reasonably well thought of piece of cult ephemera but that's no bad thing.

(www.invada.co.uk)

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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more.

Music Review: Howlround - Torridon Gate

(A Year in the Country)
CD

This third album from London's finest manipulators of magnetic tape, Howlround, is a slow burning, deeply atmospheric corker.  Produced entirely from recordings made from the gate referenced in the title, the duo of Robin (the Fog) and Chris (Weaver) have coaxed a dizzying array of unsettling and even sorrowful sounds from this most functional of objects and have layered them to astonishing effect.

The Howlround modus is based very much on that of the early years of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and as such they record their sound sources onto loops of tape of varying sizes which are then played via three tape recorders with all processing and editing done within the machines.  In this way the composition that the two have persuaded the tapes to reveal is as otherworldly and queasily creepy as it is beautifully earthy.  There's a gritty texture that evokes stories of the gate's history, it's place and it's age but through all that there is movement. The sounds expose themselves, transform and meld producing a piece of music that is at times introspective, at times vociferous and in a constant state of resurgence and restless agitation. 

The end result as presented here is a piece of music that whilst acknowledging the debt it's playful manner of execution owes to the workshop of the 1960s, is, in conception, timeless and really rather fun.

(www.ayearinthecountry.co.uk)
(www.howlround.co.uk)


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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more.

Book Review: No Wave: Post Punk Underground. New York 1976-1980

Thurston Moore & Byron Foley
(Harry N. Abrams Books)

No Wave is the first book to visually chronicle the collision of art and punk in the New York underground of 1976 to 1980. This in depth look at punk rock, new wave, experimental music, and the avant-garde art movement of the 70s and 80s focuses on the true architects of No Wave from James Chance to Lydia Lunch to Glenn Branca, as well as the luminaries that intersected the scene, such as David Byrne, Debbie Harry, Brian Eno, Iggy Pop, and Richard Hell.
This rarely documented scene was the creative stomping ground of young artists and filmmakers from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Jim Jarmusch as well as the musical genesis for the post-punk explosions of Sonic Youth and is here revealed for a new generation of fans and collectors.
Thurston Moore and Byron Coley have selected 150 unforgettable images, most of which have never been published previously, and compiled hundreds of hours of personal interviews to create an oral history of the movement, providing a never-seen-before exploration and celebration of No Wave.

No Wave was for me always better in the abstract. For the most part I'm really not all that into the music. There are exceptions but truthfully these are mostly exceptions to the scene anyway - Glenn Branca's guitar ensembles and some of the latest Lydia Lunch things.

As I'm sure this is the case for many folks it was that lady back there (along with Sonic Youth) that was my entry point into the scene. Truthfully though I have read more about the bands than I have heard them. The book increases this discrepancy via an abundance of quotes and snapshots. There's a vague authorial narrative but the bulk of the journey is conducted via the words of the participants.  The photos are a mix of band promos, gig pics and snapshots.  They work well with the text reflecting it's monochromatic delivery and lack of fussiness with their directness.

Searching and indepth it wasn't, interesting and personable it absolutely was.

Book Review: Alan Moore - 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom

(Harry N. Abrams)

With each new technological advance, pornography has proliferated and degraded in quality. Today, porn is everywhere, but where is it art? 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom surveys the history of pornography and argues that the success and vibrancy of a society relates to its permissiveness in sexual matters.
This history of erotic art brings together some of the most provocative illustrations ever published, showcasing the evolution of pornography over diverse cultures from prehistoric to modern times. Beginning with the Venus of Willendorf, created between 24,000-22,000 bce, and book-ended by contemporary photography, it also contains a timeline covering major erotic works in several cultures. 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom ably captures the ancient and insuppressible creative drive of the sexual spirit, making this book a treatise on erotic art.

This is a reproduced essay written by Moore on one of his non Lovecraftian obsessions - pornography.

It's an interesting little read that is entirely and obviously Moore and feels like it fell straight out of the pages of Dodgem Logic. The really odd thing about it are the remarkably prudish illustrations. For an article that is championing the decline in quality of pornography it's remarkably coy about showing almost anything that could be considered actually pornographic.

A light but enjoyable article that is more polemic than argument but was possible better suited to be a magazine article rather than a book in its own right.

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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more.  

Book Review: Alan Moore & Facundo Percio - Fashion Beast

(Avatar)

Alan Moore's lost masterpiece comes to life as an incredible comic book series almost three decades later! The mid-80's were a stunning period of brilliance for Alan Moore, seeing him create true masterpieces including Miracleman, Watchmen--and Fashion Beast! Working with Malcom McLaren (Sex Pistols), Moore turned his attention to a classic re-telling of a Beauty and the Beast through his unyielding and imaginative vision.
At long last, Fashion Beast is presented in deluxe trade paperback and hardcover collections of the complete ten issue Fashion Beast series. Doll was unfulfilled in her life as a coat checker of a trendy club. But when she is fired from the job and auditions to become a "mannequin" for a reclusive designer, the life of glamour she always imagined is opened before her. She soon discovers that the house of Celestine is as dysfunctional as the clothing that define the classes of this dystopian world.

This is an old Alan Moore based on an idea he'd worked on with Malcolm McLaren way back when. It tells of a self obsessed cloakroom attendant named Doll who finds herself hired as the feature model at the world most prestigious fashion house. As the world falls apart outside she discovers that life inside the fashion house to be wholly dysfunctional.

It's an entirely of sort of thing that didn't really grab me to the point most of Moore's things do but it's lack of anything to grab onto may be a fairly good reason as to why it never saw the light of day until now. It seemed empty, almost vacuous even. The ending is heavy handed and the pacing was uneven but an intriguing read nonetheless.

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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more. 

Book Review: Barry Gifford - The Stars Above Veracruz

(Thunder's Mouth Press)

A high-wire artist named Ropedancer is our guide to Gifford's world in The Stars Above Veracruz. His tale opens and closes this book of linked short fictions that take place in Honduras, France, Cuba, Paris, New York, New Zealand, Mexico, and other locales. Gifford's lyrical stories are often confessional, involving crimes large and small and narrators who, win or lose in their battles, never emerge unscathed. There is little triumphing here; victory lies in the completion of the journey, the survival of the high-wire artist who, step by step, follows his lifeline with utter concentration. At once tragic and humorous, full of pathos, and reminiscent of Thornton Wilder's humanist classic The Bridge of San Luis Rey, The Stars Above Veracruz is Gifford's most significant work since Wild at Heart.

This set of shorts from the author of the Sailor and Lula novels (the first being Wild at Heart made into a movie by David Lynch) had some gems mixed amongst them and there were some moments of pure Gifford but it wasn't all gold. Some parts dragged which is really saying something with stories that often only lasted a couple of pages.

I'm a huge Gifford fan. I've read everything I can get my hands on and he very rarely disappoints.  This is also the case here and on the whole though it was still a typically fun piece of Gifford-ana.

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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more.  

Book Review: Charles Stross - The Apocalypse Codex

(Orbit)

Bob Howard used to fix computers for the Laundry, the branch of the British Secret Service that deals with otherworldly threats, but those days are over. He's not only been promoted to active service but actually survived missions against cultists, enemy spies and tentacled horrors from other dimensions.

I really like these very British Lovecraftian books about the UK's magical secret service The Laundry that Stross has done but I'm not sure I could actually read one. All the one I've come across (and I'm fairly certain that it's all of them) have been audiobooks and now all the characters are so entirely tied up with the voices that reader Gideon Emery has given them that this is the only way for me now.

This latest one pits our promotion bound hero, computational demonologist Bob Howard, against an American evangelist with a hard on for waking the Sleeper which would be bad news for all involved and everyone not involved. Helping him along the way are two external operatives - Persephone Hazard and Johnny McTavish, a witch and an ex-squaddie respectively - who slowly reveal to him the the true hidden history and nature of The Laundry.

This time out it's less obsessed with the bureaucracy of the agency and what we get is more of a straight adventure story but as Stross has been writing each as a pastiche of different authors such as Len Deighton, Ian Fleming and Anthony Price and here inserting Bob into Peter O'Donnell (Modesty Blaise) novel that's understandable. These have fast become amongst my most anticipated releases and are an absolute joy to find out where Stross is going to take Bob next which is a particularly apt way to end this review as it mirrors the tantalising end of the book

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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more. 

Book Review: Mitch Cullin - A Slight Trick of the Mind

(Canongate)

Behind my head as I write this is a shelf with about 20 Sherlock Holmes books plus various DVD adaptations / versions. It would be pretty safe to say I'm a fan. I am not however even remotely precious about it. Amongst those 20 odd books and sat alongside the canon are a number of pastiches, some are downright silly - the 'War of the World' one springs immediately to mind (written by the magnificently named Manly Wellman). Another features him teaming up with a young Teddy Roosevelt, whilst a third pits him against the gentleman burglar Arsene Lupin although he is called Herlock Sholmes in that one. There's even a first edition of Michael Chabon's masterclass of a novel featuring an elderly Holmes, The Final Solution.So basically, do what you want with him. The character is malleable and durable enough and I'm enough of a fan to go along on the journey and see if it's going somewhere interesting.

In 'A Slight Trick of the Mind' Mitch Cullin takes Holmes somewhere very interesting indeed, to the end. Cullin places the nonagenarian Holmes in two very different settings and the younger version into what at first seems like a rather nondescript case that eventually takes on much deeper meanings.

Switching effortlessly between his life amongst his beloved bees in the company of the housekeeper's son, his beekeeping protégé, and a trip to postwar Japan ostensibly to search for prickly ash but also to satisfy a young man's curiosity regarding his estranged father whilst also being drip fed the resolution of the earlier case; Cullin's book is that rarity, a literary pageturner. It's beautifully written and reveals it's heartbreaking secrets both far too soon and frustratingly slowly. The carefully crafted links between the various stories are given the time and space to allow their tales to tell and to allow us to more fully understand what it means to be both Holmes at the height of his powers and Holmes at their decline.

For many people this will no doubt be an ill fit alongside the canon but those people will be missing the point. This isn't a book about Sherlock Holmes the great detective; he is simply the principal in a book about loss both great and small. Loss of friends, loss of family, loss of a child, loss of love, of memory, of things, of direction and ultimately loss of self. Holmes is ourselves wit large and as such any loss is born magnified and intensified. Through him we are shown what it means to be ultimately, inevitably, inescapably fallible.

I found this to be a beautiful and poignant read that took me to a place I've not visited in a while and brought me back filled with questions for which the answers can only be experienced when the time comes for them to be asked.

Heartily and resoundingly recommended.

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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more.

Book Review: Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill - Nemo: The Roses of Berlin

(Top Shelf)

This is the second League of Extraordinary Gentleman spinoff books to feature the exploits of everyone's favourite sub aquatic pirate goes off to Germany to rescue her daughter and her son in law, the air pirate Robur.

The book mixes in The Great Dictator, Metropolis, Cabinet of Doctor Cagliari, She and more to great effect. I've got to say though that if it wasn't for the majesty of Jess Nevins and his explanatory website - http://jessnevins.com/annotations/rosesofberlin.html - much of it would have been incomprehensible to me as it was written in German and I don't currently have a friendly German to hand..

It's a quest book (of sorts) and as such is a little thin on plot but what there is is typical Moore and there is plenty of distraction in the always beautiful art from O'Neill who as ever brings the most absurd worlds to life in stunning, awe inspiring and eye popping glory.

Not the best of them but still wonderful.

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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more.

Book Review: Ray Bradbury -Fahrenheit 451

(HarperCollins UK)

Time, I think, for a classic. I do this every now and again. I'm a fairly freeform sort of reader normally and just go with what catches my eye but now and again I like to dig into the classics for a while. They rarely disappoint. I did A Canticle for Liebowitz recently which turned out to be a corking experience so, as I said, time for another. This is one of those books that regularly sits near the top of 'Greatest ever...' lists so I had high expectations for it and disappoint it did not.

The story, as I'm sure you all know, tells of the awakening of fireman Guy Montag from a world of blinkered, sanitised corporate delusion where he burns books for a living to one where he becomes one of the saviours of the very things he's meant to hate.

It's a poignant, sad and exhilarating and is as tightly wound as Montag's nerves. Most of all the novel seems utterly and depressingly real. Magnificent.

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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more.

Book Review: Neil Gaiman - The Ocean at the End of the Lane

(Headline)
(HarperAudio)

Every now and again it's fun to do into Gaiman's worlds again and see what he's been up to. This one is fairly safe ground for him telling - in flashback - the story of the time when he and the family of 3 ladies who lived down the end of the lane accidentally brought a grey thing into the world and then sent it away again.

In a lot of ways it felt like a kids book but with some decidedly adult scenes dotted throughout. The version I got was the audiobook as read by the author and it was, as you'd expect, nicely done and it very much lent an extra autobiographical feel to the proceedings in support of the first person narrative.

It was an enjoyable trip, not for me on a par with his best but still bags of fun.

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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more.

Book Review: Robert Chambers - The King in Yellow

(Wordsworth Edition)
This has been sat on my bookshelf for at least two years waiting for me to get the urge to read it.  I finally have and just in time for all the references in True Detective to start appearing.

The book is a strange sort of thing with the first 4 stories concerning the effects of reading the titular play on different people.  These tales are odd and sometimes very dark - 'The Repairer of Reputations' and 'The Yellow Sign' - sometime M.R. James type ghostly - 'In the Court of the Dragon' - and the fourth (or second in chapter order) is kind of lovely.  The rest of the book is entirely unrelated to either kings or the colour yellow and are largely forgetable.

Later in his career Chambers made a very good living out of writing romance stories and the seeds are already here whether they are hidden amongst ghost or war stories there is often love in amongst the narrative.

Truly this entire book threw me for a loop.  Absolutely not at all what I was expecting but fun nonetheless.

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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more.

Music Review: Peter Orins - Empty Orchestras

(Helix / Circum-Disc LX 006)
CD

Peter Orins is the drummer in Kaze who we had the pleasure of hearing recently (check the Wonderful Wooden Reasons archives) and has returned to these pages with his band mates replaced by electronics which makes a nice change as it's usually the drummer who is ousted by circuitry.

On this, if my reading of the slightly over-written press release is correct, Orins is dueting with his autonomous - their word - noise producing gadget. Whether he is in some way triggering the textural changes via his drums or whether this little electronic Merzbow is entirely going it's own way and he is responding to and interacting with is something of which I'm unsure. It is all rather fun though. The drums are sometimes a little too high in the mix but the end result is an odd, abrasive, rhythmic, stompy and thoroughly enjoyable collection of old school industrial improvisations of the type not seen around these parts for far too long.
(www.circum-disc.com)

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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more.

Music Review: Merzouga - 52°46’ North 13°29’ East – Music for Wax-Cylinders

(Gruenrekorder Gruen 124)
CD

There are two predominant forms of field recording releases I get sent here at Wonderful Wooden Reasons. The first is of the collector variety; a compendium of noises often on a particular theme (usually location) meant to represent, reproduce or chronicle. The second is the field recording as instrument, or perhaps more correctly sound source, to be manipulated and processed often until it's unrecognisable and a thick soupy grey murk.

Of the two it is the former that I hold in higher regard (which is not to discount the latter entirely) but there is a third and much rarer form that comes my way on occasion that is by far for me the preferred. Here the field recording becomes a clear and equal partner in the work, neither hidden nor dominant, and this is what we have here.

At the heart of this album are a number of wax cylinder recordings created in the early 20th century by globetrotting Germans and kept in the archives of the Berlin Phonogram Archive. These phonograms have been digitised and made available to artists to explore and utilise.

Merzouga are the duo of Eva Popplein (electronics)and Janko Hanushevsky (electric bass) and here they have seamlessly interwoven a selection of beautifully worn, warm, crisp and crackly recordings of song and speech into their music. The voices guide the piece with the Hanushevsky's bass giving the proceedings a real melancholy perfectly at home with the aged beauty of the recordings whilst also occasionally pushing itself to the fore and fluttering against your perceptions like one of the more broken of the elder recordings. Popplein's electronics insinuate themselves in between the sounds adding subtle textures and colours with the realisation that its presence is all the stronger for it's restraint.

This is a glorious recording. It's a communion with voices past, an exploration of the ethnographers curiosity and, most of all, a celebration of the vitality of sound.
(www.gruenrekorder.de)

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For the last 11 years Wonderful Wooden Reasons has championed experimental and non-commercial music of all forms. Please visit to access our extensive archives of music, book and movie reviews.
It is the in-house magazine for the Quiet World label which has released music from artists such as Ian Holloway, Darren Tate, Banks Bailey, Philip Corner, Colin Andrew Sheffield and many more.