Michael Esposito & Various – Pandemic Response Division

VITAL WEEKLY
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Number 1260
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Week 48
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PANDEMIC RESPONSE DIVISION (USB compilation by Spectral Electric)

When the pandemic started to hit hard, March and April earlier this year, many people started initiatives to 'do something', as concerts were no longer possible. Degem, which stands for Deutsche Gesellschaft Fur Elektroakustische Musik release annually a compilation around a theme and this year the theme is '2020' (by which they don't mean the 'vision'), which was easy I guess, with the pandemic and all that. As always there is a booklet with information about the individual pieces, but I decided to have a look at that when I would be playing the CD for a second time; you know, have a fresh approach. Throughout I would think that these composers use the laptop/computer to create their pieces and
looking at the titles, listening to the music, I am not sure what the message is, or how I should feel; more in particular, of course, about this year. Privately I have mixed feelings anyway about this year (not bad actually), but I realize my life isn't a regular one anyway. The music was, save for some minor differences, very much alike. Thoughtful collages of heavily processed sounds most of the time, all dealing (I think) with field recordings or electronic sounds (or even an old modem in Peter Kiefer's 'Data Flow web 1.0/4.0'). Sometimes a very classic approach (Ralf Hoyer), but also working with the lo-fi drone and ambient sounds (Gerald Fiebig). The only one that was very much different was by Maximilian Marcoll, 'Our Daily Bread I: "Beautiful Dirty Rich" - Lady Gaga', which was a cut-up collage of said song by Lady Gaga, and this was the first I looked up to see what that was all about and which I can’t repeat in a few words. Which is something that can be said of many of
these pieces. Some of these make perfect sense, given the concept, and some just seem to elude me, even when it was a particularly interesting read.
Something entirely different but also a result of the pandemic was organized by Michael Esposito, who should be best known for recording Electronic Voice Phenomena, also sometimes known as voices from the 'other side'. To everybody who asked he mailed a bunch and asked it to incorporate into new music. Sometimes this is very clear, and sometimes not at all. That resulted into an album of 109 tracks, with various people delivering a few pieces; the nine tracks by Earthmonkey (some with guests) is almost an album by itself. So, here we have almost 100 artists and that results into eleven hours, twenty-seven minutes and fifty-eight seconds of music, with the shortest being fifty-seven seconds and the longest a still modest twenty-one minutes and forty-nine seconds. Many of the artists are from the world of electronic music, be it
ambient, dance, microsound, glitch but a small section also with guitars and drums (Earthmonkey again, but also The Closets) and some crazy drum computer and even crazier guitar solos (Pronoia). Over the past months, as tracks come in and were posted on Bandcamp, I heard a few already and I very much enjoy the many approaches, but after the many ambient/microsound/drone variations, I enjoyed mostly the ones that offered a lot of extra sounds, rhythms (Adi Netwon, TeZ, Ruisch, Carsten Aniksdal, for instance), the fine Fender Rhodes piano of Rapoon or something very different altogether (Tony Wakeford, Earthmonkey, Kristof Hahn, Pronoia). It is a who's who in the world of experimental music, and there are lots to discover. Comes with hand sanitizer and a patch! The ultimate gift for Christmas. (FdW)
––– Address: https://aufabwegen.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://spectralelectric.bandcamp.com/