Reviews by Alan Bindig
Adelaide - Tuesday 12:00 midnight to Wednesday 1am

Lotto mini-CD

Kettle's "Lotto" is a 3-inch CD containing 45 tracks, ranging between 11 and 19 seconds in duration. The sleeve artwork helpfully points out that the CD, in conjunction with the "Random" button on your CD player, can therefore be used as either a lotto selector to pick winning numbers, or as a device to run a lotto competition of your own. This gives the CD an appealing functionality. By calling the CD itself "Lotto", and making its purpose blindingly obvious, Kettle brings up interesting questions - is it musical art or just a utility that makes sounds? Is it both? Which is more important? Fortunately, Kettle has stopped short of including samples like "oh look, it's number 26...could be your lucky number" etc, and as a consequence, the CD is sonically far more interesting than it might otherwise have been!
The music ranges from ambient soundscapes (although there is a definite limit to the amount of ambience one can cram into 19 seconds or less) to disjointed rhythmic loops, sample assortments and harsh noises. Some tracks warranted a second look at the timer to make sure that the CD itself wasn't skipping, while some of the mellower moments sounded like they had been lifted from film soundtracks. Although I'm making this mini-album sound fantastically varied (and it is, in a sense), it is suprising how much some of the adjacent tracks blend together - listening blindly (without looking at the track numbers) I had trouble working out where many tracks began and ended. I found that playing the CD in the normal way and thinking of it as one 13 minute long song was very effective - the vocal samples in the first and last tracks suggest to me that this is no accident, as they are very fitting bookends.
Also suggested in the sleeve is the idea of infinitely looping tracks, which isn't a bad idea, although it does make the music wear thin a bit quicker. Overall it's a really good concept, one that I'm surprised someone hadn't done sooner. It does seem to suit this type of experimental music well, raising questions that many musicians in this field may find uncomfortable (for instance - what is the purpose of noise without function?). This recording has all the functionality of a plastic ball-bearing lotto selector and makes a far greater variety of sounds!

Kettle - Fading - 20:31

"Fading" is a recording of live performances of previously released and now unavailable Kettle works, reproduced in shortened form. The sleeve explains that re-releasing the material in a shorter length induces "a fading effect as recordings subsequently disappear distilled to the essence of the original performances". Having not heard the originals, I can't say whether I think this approach is a good or a bad thing in this particular case, but it has one obvious benefit: it allows an artist to keep the best of their back-catalogue available and let the rest be forgotten. One could argue that this is like a "Greatest Hits" approach - but that's not necessarily a bad thing. "Greatest Hits" albums are, after all, very popular.
The musical highlight of this CD for me was "Turing Test" - four minutes of gradually ascending keyboard chords recorded at the Zoo nightclub in Brisbane. The chatter at the bar, the punters playing pool, and an occasional unidentifiable rumble which may or may not have been part of the performance, all seem to add rather than detract from the ambience in a way that is unusual for such a mellow piece. Other pieces are generally harsher - "Beautiful Noise #3" is particularly ear-piercing. Consisting mainly of simultaneously very low and incredibly high-pitched throbbing drones, it comes across like Whitehouse but without the lyrics (which is probably a good thing). "High Rise Swarm" seems to be really just a gentler variation on the same idea, and other tracks incorporate drones with other found-object noises. "Soundcheck" has some very seductive bell tones, as well as a few noises that sound not unlike DAT tracking errors. The only track that seems a bit pointless is "Launch" - just one chord, and a very unchanging one at that, fortunately taking up only 30 seconds out of the 20 minute running time. Overall it's generally quite interesting music, and it's quite pleasing to see that it's obviously not impossible to get experimental music gigs in Brisbane!

Undecisive God/Kettle - Digilogue - 17:29

This recording is a collaboration between Melbourne artist Clinton Green (Undecisive God) and Brisbane artist Andrew Kettle (Kettle). The title of the work refers to the fact that Andrew uses all digital equipment, while Clinton uses all analogue gear. Apparently these two artists have never met face to face, and that the recording is the result of email correspondence, an increasingly common manner of collaboration these days. The mini-CD contains only two tracks, with the artists swapping roles for each track.
In "The Mundane & the Stark", Andrew lays down a bed of digital noise, over which Clinton churns out reams of distorted feedbacking guitar, in a disjointed style that will be very familiar to those who have heard much of Undecisive God's other work. This lasts for approximately six minutes, which for me overstayed its welcome just a little - but then the guitar noise peters out and some very quiet piano is introduced, changing the mood of the piece drastically for the last minute and a half and making things far more interesting. On the other track, called "699", the roles are presumably reversed, with Clinton providing the bed for Andrew to work over. However, it's much more difficult for me to discern in this song which part constitutes the "bed". The piece lasts about ten minutes, and consists of long hypnotic drones created by god-knows-what, punctuated by odd blipping sounds. That may not sound too enticing, but it works really well as a mood piece, and probably also would work as an ambient track for a film, reminding me in parts of the atmospheres in David Lynch's "Eraserhead".
It's worth noting that this recording is available both from Brisbane's label:KETTLE on mini CD, and Melbourne's Shame File Tapes on cassette. This is useful information for the few of us whose CD players don't accept the 3-inch CD disc. You should also be warned, if you buy the mini CD, that it may contain nuts. Apparently.

Poota - Chunks - 20:37

"Poota" is the name of a collaboration between Andrew Kettle and Lloyd Barrett. "Chunks" is a mini CD containing what the band considers to be their best material from 1998, constructed from various live and studio recordings. On the sleeve is "The Poota Manifesto", which talks about the band's reasons for existing, namely, frustration about the "stale linearity" of experimental music and a lack of like-minded peers.
The CD kicks off well enough with a fairly interesting first track (all the tracks are untitled), but it's the second one that really got my attention, containing an amalgam of noises that are really quite unique and undescribable. It almost threatens to become techno at one point before the beat fades out and noise takes over again. Next up is a fantastic track full of driving distorted rhythms and incidental computer-game-like sound effects, before the fourth track hits with an incredible wall of noise before transforming into looped rumbles, strange rhythms and keyboard loops. The final track is a much quieter moment, featuring a slow, repetitive drum track and a keyboard melody, with only a vague hint of noise in the background.
This is a CD that will probably appeal greatly to those who like their experimental music on the hard-edged side. It's the most abrasive tracks on this CD that are the most successful, and the most musically varied and interesting. The music is suprisingly good, especially in light of the somewhat self-deprecating tone of the "Poota Manifesto", which suggests that the majority of Poota's output isn't really up to par. Definitely worth a listen.

Various Artists - Deviations Live Sampler - 20:39

Wow - another fabulous looking mini-CD, exactly like ")+(" but with a green tint. This CD contains extracts from live recordings that are available on other label:KETTLE releases, and as such is a good overview for newcomers to this sort of music, or to label:KETTLE.
The music ranges from electronic extreme-noise workouts ("Agit8") to improvisatory live-music jams ("Ross River") to ambient pieces ("A Short Journey"). Pick of the bunch for me was "The Neil Armstrong Experience", which contains a brilliantly constructed combination of classical samples, guitar feedback and sonic manipulation. "X=Y" was also interesting, and recalled William Burroughs-style vocal cut-ups. Some of what I felt were the weaker tracks suffered a bit by either not really doing anything except throbbing-on-the-spot ("SEO"), or veering dangerously close to new age ambient territory in parts ("Mirko"). So it's a mixed bag, but that's what you'd expect from a compilation like this. The important thing is that it's a good introduction to this sort of thing, and almost anyone should be able to find at least one track that they really like on here. Highly recommended to label:KETTLE newbies.