1. L'Orecchio Di Dionigi
2. Le Chateau Est Une Oreille
CATALOG: mikroton cd 71
FORMAT: CD
EDITION: 300
RELEASE: April 2018
Jérôme Noetinger revox reel-to-reel recorder, electro-acoustic devices
SEC_ revox reel-to-reel recorder, feedback system, laptop
This album is the result of the studio editing of two live recordings: at Cave12, Genève (CH) on 11.10.2015 and at Standards, Milano (IT) on 15.10.2015.
Editing and mixing by SEC_
Produced by Kurt Liedwart
Design by Kurt Liedwart
Pictures by Jungjin Lee
Thanks to Sixto, Nicola Ratti, URSSS, Vlad
Jérôme Noetinger founded Cellule D'Intervention Metamkine in 1987, with French cinematographer and performer Christophe Auger and Xavier Quérel. They have performed with Nachtluft, Voice Crack, Tom Cora, Keith Rowe… He has collaborated with longtime partner Lionel Marchetti since 1993 and is a member of avant-improv orchestra MIMEO. He founded and runs the record label and distributor Metamkine (curating its “Cinéma Pour L'Oreille” collection). He mostly plays the tape recorder Revox B77. This is his second album on Mikroton following “Disturbio” with Angélica Castelló.
SEC_ is the moniker of Mimmo Napolitano, electronic musician and composer from Naples, Italy. With his tape recorder Revox, that he uses in a very physical and unconventional way, SEC_ has brought new nourishment to the Italian experimental panorama, pushing the musique concrete and the acousmatic sound outside the academic boundries, mixing them with more spontaneous musical practices (power electronics, no-input feedback, electroacoustic improvisation). He plays in solo or in collaboration with Aspec(t), Jerome Noetinger, Andy Guhl, Dave Phillips, Valerio Tricoli, Olivier Di Placido, Ken Vandermark, Dario Sanfilippo.
“La Cave Des Étendards” or “The Cave Of Standards” is a wordplay between Cave12 and Standards, two venues where they recorded the concerts which became the foundation for the tracks of the album. "L'orecchio Di Dionigi" is a cave in Siracusa with a special echo that allows to hear from the entrance any sound from the inside; in the past it was probably used as a prison because of its aural properties, very useful to control what the prisoners said. "Le chateau Est Une Oreille" is inspired by Italo Calvino's text "Un Re In Ascolto", written for Lucian Berio, where he describes sound narrative of a castle from the position of a paranoid king. You can use these references as a way to enter the cinematic world both musicians created with multiplicity of tape sampling and the use of extra tools to make the music as complex and inter-refential as possible.
REVIEWS
vital weekly, howard stelzer:
I remember attending a concert by Jerome Noetinger & Lionel Marchetti back in 2000 (or sometime near then) and thinking: damn, Jerome's music is so good! I wonder why he doesn’t have very many recordings available? Thankfully, that's no longer an issue; Noetinger has become quite prolific in the ensuing years, which is good news for listeners who aren’t able to catch his performances of wildly manhandled tapes, radios and a table full of electronic gadgets. The Mikroton label has just produced two more CDs of his, both in different collaborative duos: one with SEC_ (aka Italian artist Mimmo Napolitano) and one with Mexican composer/sound artist Angélica Castelló. While both albums are studio-created compositions, both retain the raw, energetic immediacy of live performance. “La Cave Des Étendards”, which features both Noetinger and SEC_/Napolitano playing Revox reel-to-reel tape recorders, is an unsettling and demanding listen. The artists create a jarring, event-driven collage that hurtles forward without providing any space to breathe. It rapidly cycles from one storm cloud of aggressive noise to the next, with bits of warped dialogue and squealing tape contorting violently across the stereo field. This harsh music is in constant flux, refusing to permit any atmosphere to settle in for too long. On headphones, the sonic clarity is striking; rounded low bass, confrontational percussion slam and fidgety white-noise blasts play across a sound field that remains legible even at its most dense. Towards the end of the first song, “L’Orecchio di Dionigi”, they reach a crescendo of especially remarkable malevolence. I can even imagine fans of power electronics getting a kick out of this.
REVUE & CORRIGEE, Julien Héraud:
Pour cette deuxième collaboration, Jérôme Noetinger et Sec_ font dans le rapide, le fort et le puissant. Des explosions harsh, des beats forts, des triturations magnétiques, des enregistrements sombres, des collages nerveux, encore des explosions de bruits, des ondes poussées à leur limite audible, du bruit, encore du bruit, et toujours du bruit, assemblé en un superbe montage qui fait encore preuve du talent de ces deux explorateurs des musiques électroacoustiques dans sa forme la plus extrême. L’exploration des sons, des textures et des timbres est sans limite, elle est ahurissante, mais le plus frappant, c’est encore ce sens du montage, le jeu avec les dynamiques et les intentions, ce sens très précis de la composition en somme. L’exploration des bandes à travers le Revox, ce n’est peut-être pas si commun, mais je doute qu’un seul des lecteurs de cette revue n’en a jamais entendu. On commence à être habitué aux triturations de vitesse, aux découpages secs et aux manipulations électromagnétiques. Et pourtant Jérôme Noetinger et Sec_ ne cessent de surprendre. Alors oui, ils ont un sens aigu de l’exploration sonore, aucun doute, mais je retiens surtout ce jeu sur les dynamiques qui n’arrêtent pas de varier, cette virtuosité à passer de manière inaperçue et subtile d’une masse sonore assourdissante au plus subtil grésillement, de pouvoir passer d’une courte boucle explosée à une longue fréquence modulée sur la longueur, du bruit le plus harsh à un beat entêtant sans que cela ne choque jamais. Tout est d’une fluidité et d’une continuité déconcertante, surtout en sachant que ces deux morceaux ne sont pas une longue composition, mais le montage de plusieurs enregistrements live. Encore une fois, mon seul regret est que ça ne soit pas plus long, on aimerait que ça dure, et à défaut, on n’a plus qu’à le faire tourner en boucle dans la platine.
bad alchemy, rigobert dittmann:
La Cave Des Étendards (mikroton cd 71) ist eine Höhlenmalerei, wenn ich die Herkunft aus dem Genfer Cave12 mal so umschreiben darf. JÉRÔME NOETINGER & Mimmo Napolitano alias SEC_ spielten dort beide mit Revox-Tonbandgeräten, wobei der Mann aus Marseille noch elektroakustische Gerätschaften und sein neapolitanischer Partner Feedback und Laptop einsetzten, vom nachträglichen Studioediting ganz zu schweigen. Mit 'L’Orecchio di Dionigi' führen sie in die eselsohr-förmige, hellhörige Steinbruch-Grotte bei Syrakus, um die sich allerhand Legenden mit den Tyrannen Dionysios ranken, dem selbst das Geflüster der Arbeitssklaven zugetragen werden konnte. Wir werden zu Aufsehern, die jeden Flüsterfitzel, jedes noch so leise Zucken von Protest oder Widerstand lautstark aufschnappen. In Satzfetzen und abgerissenden Revox-Scratches, die sich plötzlich bandsalatartig türmen. Und wieder zerreißen in einzelne Rumpler, umbrodelt und umnesselt. Immer wieder explodieren oder glissandieren geknebelte Laute aus einem Grundrauschen, Scharren und Rumoren, das zu einem rauen, kratzigen Groove verdichtet wird. Der wiederum impulsiv die Wände besplattert in der krachigen Videospielversion vom martialischen Hauen und Stechen eines Aufstands und versuchten Tyrannensturzes. 'Le Chateau Est Une Oreille' variiert das mit brummigen und perkussiven Verwerfungen und impulsiven Schüben. Flötende Quietscher stehen unter bombender und paukender Belagerung, unter dem crescendierenden Bombardement eskaliert der Lärmpegel. Danach surren Schmeißfliegen um die Leichen, vor deren Anblick der Tyrann sich einen runterholt. Aber wieder werden die Bänder für einen etwas unrund loopenden Groove zurechtgezerrt. Die Fahne hoch!
squid's ear, jeph jerman:
Two edited live recordings from Cave12 in Geneva and Standards, Milan in 2015, which give us the title of this grainy spackle (The Cave Of Standards). Jerome Noetinger and SEC_ (Mimmo Napolitano) both play Revox reel to reel tape recorders whose outputs are processed in various ways, using laptops, electroacoustic devices and feedback systems.
For the first 3 minutes or so we get abrupt sound swipes, bits of chopped up speech and periods of quiet low rumble. Then all hell breaks loose. Torn paper mixed with large bouncing balls and spinning falling saw-toothed tones. A dead stop reveals mousy whining soon engulfed by stop/start wind and low-end pummel. A breath. A creak that is feedback. Maelstroms of garble and squeal get cut off around the 17 minute mark.
Take a breath. The second piece begins in a stuttering rhythmic chatter, pausing occasionally for quiet insertions or unintelligible speech. After 2 minutes or so, a sense of foreboding enters with low end warble and creepy whispering. Slowed down crows? Trying to describe it is almost as much fun as listening to its mysterious and captivating forward motion. Even when things seem to settle into a pattern of sorts, new material is constantly being introduced in tiny blips. This is the aural equivalent of an abstract painting that you cannot look away from, but just get closer to, inspecting the detail.
we need no swords, paul margree:
I haven’t written anything about Kurt Liedwart’s Mikroton Recordings since …ooh, around 2017 I think. It’s not for lack of enthusiasm. I dig Liedwart’s dedication to producing well-designed artefacts that cover a wide territory of electroacoustic sound-making. In fact, I suspect that I enjoy it rather more than Liedwart himself, who has professed fatigue with this scene and has expressed a desire to take the label in a more electronic direction in the future.
What will be will be, I guess. Liedwart is free to take his label in any direction he pleases, but I still think there is plenty of worthwhile stuff in his back catalogue. True, there’s the odd misfire, but that’s surely understandable in such a comprehensive discography.
Here, then, are a few tidbits from Mikroton’s past year or so. Some aren’t that recent, but they are all worth investigating, and they’re all still available from the label’s Bandcamp.
Two Revox reel-to-reel tape machines go head-to-head, accompanied by the usual array of unidentified devices and a laptop, in this chunky, abrasive slab of sound. Emerging from a sweet spot of musique concrete, electroacoustic improv and noise, Noetinger and SEC_ craft thick, rubble-strewn soundscapes, their hands-on tape manipulations adding a tactile dynamism to their grey stew. Stop-start eruptions nudge fidgeting bleeps into grunting chasms. Power-grid throbs dance around defunct assembly line crashes.
On ‘L’Orecchio Di Dionigi’, sudden accelerations transform monochrome noise into bleeping Kodachrome jigs, scrambled dreams of deranged raves floating free over the scarred land. Later, heavy percussive lurches stomp through the murk as meandering fizzles lend gripey accompaniment.
‘La Chateau Est Une Orielle’ pushes further into the garbage disposal, its steel-jaw chomps munching all manner of junk sonics into digestible slurry. Gastric rumbles abound, although propeller flaps, uncooperative sparks and fan-belt jitters suggest that all is not well in the cyborg gut. Maybe a peppermint tea would help? Or some engine oil?
THE SOUND PROJECTOR, ED PINSENT:
Jérôme Noetinger and SEC_ team-up on La Cave Des Etendards (MIKROTON CD 71), the second time this French-Italian duo have recorded since 2012’s Testacoda. It’s made with tape recorders (old Revox devices, natch) plus feedback, laptop, and something which Jérôme calls his electro-acoustic device. They did it line in Cave12 (the go-to spot for contemporary racket in Geneva) and the CD you now hold was edited down into a distilled wallop. I’ve often found Noetinger to be a pretty reliable heavy-hitter when it comes to strong dynamics and contrasts when his equipment is tuned to fever pitch, and this one is no exception; ‘L’Orecchio Di Diogni’ teams with menace, incident, and noises that are on the verge of turning nasty if they have one more sip of brandy. Barely is the chaos kept under a saucepan lid as it bubbles furiously.
As for ‘Le Chateau Est Une Oreille’, I like the promise of the title which reads like a chapter from a “lost” Gothic novel, describing a hideous castle containing a gigantic ear 300 feet high, against which our hero Rodolfo is powerless, although the music for this one isn’t quite as compelling as the Dioginic suite; sluggish, slow to start on cold mornings, too many hit-or-miss bumps and collisions before we get to the main banks of solid noise bludgeons and crash-tests. Even so the texture along the way is tasty, rough, and hard to miss as it snuggles against your aural tongue receptors.
Your man SEC_, Mimmo Napolitano in real life, passed through these portals with his 2016 album Mefite which had a strong theme borrowed from classical antiquity, a vibe which I’m also picking up from today’s disc; might be the cover images, which look like orphaned objects from a 1950s museum catalogue or anthropology journal. In all, a fine bazooon of live & dangerous hand-crafted noise performance. From 30th October 2018.