Moisten Before Use - "Awkwardnisity"
(Fragment Music 2000, Clod 18)
Moisten Before Use - "Awkwardnisity"
(Fragment Music 2000, Clod 18)
From Aural Innovations #22 (January 2003)
This is quite a strange and interesting CD of music from England by Clive Richards and his friends, and the 5th CD release. A really nice sound considering this was all done on an old 8 track recorder! The music is a mixture of unusual percussion, samples, vocals and noises spread over 10 tracks. Richards has provided some nice liner notes describing the creation of most tracks. The opening track, "Bonds", is a long, nearly 10 minute rhythmic track with female spoken word vocals, digeridoo, and great percussion and perhaps the best track on the CD. "A World Without Handles" is next and starts off with some strange percussion but then becomes very rhythmic and several different vocal samples are layered over the top. "Keeping A Busy Head" sounds like they made the piece in the kitchen but it was completely performed on an old Atari! "Tattingstone Dub" is an interesting piece taken from samples from an improvised session from 1990. The piece slowly builds in its rhythm as well as intensity. "Vigitus" has a very dark and mysterious quality to it and the sampled baby is quite disturbing. "Immersion" is quite different from the rest of the tracks on the CD as it has no real percussion just like waves of sound.
If you think you might enjoy experiments in percussion, then you should for sure check this CD out and the other material by Clive Richards.
For more information you can visit the Fragment Music web site at: http://www.fragmentmusic.com.
Reviewed by Scott Heller