Miba - "The Corporate Porblem"
(Pax Recordings 2004, PR90270)
Miba - "The Corporate Porblem"
(Pax Recordings 2004, PR90270)
Uploaded to Aural Innovations: June 2004
Miba is the duo of Mark Bartscher and Kristin Miltner, who make music with acorns, bells, washers, voice, laptops and self-created software patches. I'm fairly computer literate but I can't say I know what software patches are. But no matter. "Weird Birds" opens with chaotic tonal blasts rifling between the left and right channels. But while the meteor shower continues a minimalist ambient pattern arises over the horizon, ultimately blending with the bleeps. I like the combination of pleasant ambience and spastic urgency. "Bathing In Similar Objects" is next and leads us far deeper into a dense, howling, pulsating, multi-layered atmospheric realm. "Pulled Towards The Earth" and "Until Something Bigger Stops You" play like one track and is a deep space piece, at the core sounding like old time Klaus Schulze but also drawing on experimental and other assorted influences. Very nice. "Getting Stuck In Sleeping Bags" (parts 1-3) and "But Now We Must Go" are similarly spacey, but include a virtual parade of sound samples. Banging, clattering, bleeping, blurping.... fun! And the latter incorporates eerie alien robotic voicings into the mix. Lots of interesting ideas here and would appeal to space ambient fans who are also into avant-garde sound-art explorations.
For more information you can visit the Pax Recordings web site at:
http://www.paxrecordings.com.
Email at: info@paxrecordings.com.
Contact via snail mail c/o Pax; PO Box 591138; San Francisco, CA 94159-1138.
Reviewed by Jerry Kranitz