vhf#99 Richard Youngs & Simon Wickham-Smith 5 Years CD
"5 Years" is the venerable duo's first release since "Lammergeier" (vh#58) in 2000. After recording and releasing nearly 20 albums between 1990 and 2000, Richard and Simon decided to try a novel and opposite approach to music making - they met once each year to record a solitary 10 minute track. The results show the duo remarkably unaffected by the half decade that elapsed - the tracks on "5 Years" reflect their long established signature mix of "real human" instrumental expression and explosive musique concrete sensibility. "2002" starts with several minutes of looped snippets building up subtle patterns as they slide in and out of phase, leading to a change to a tremulous chord organ driven section. "2003" starts with a drastically filtered base of hand drumming, with full-on hand-on-the-knob tweaking, before giving way to an over the top fuzz organ solo that sounds like Mike Ratledge on 200 rpm. "2004" is a throwback of ululating noise as heard on 90's efforts such as "Metallic Sonatas." "2005" is based on electronically treated percussion, the sparest and most minimal track of the bunch. Recorded mere weeks ago, "2006" finishes where we started, with a baffling electronic test pattern drone that segues into a section of beautiful, weird ambience. CD $9Related Items:
