With respect to the staggering amount of music that Antony Milton has released since the mid-90’s, I feel a little ill-equipped to review this recent CD on Ben Spiers Transient label. The only other disc of Antony’s that I’ve heard is the petite, insidious, but quite enjoyable motorised noise outing Small Engine Funk Tantra.

http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3432/artsbooks/5515/crude_effective.html...

Outside the moveable but reassuring guidelines of genre and tradition – perhaps especially in the white-guy tradition that likes to think it’s always about boldly going beyond them – choice paralysis and worse confront the musician who takes seriously the possibility that anything goes. Self-conscious experimentation collapses easily into convention: clownish genre hybrids, or genre fare in thin disguise (self-important club music, conspicuously).

Call it one of the worthiest legacies of 20th century music: overcoming the given vocabulary of a musical instrument. Consider the electric guitar and just how many creative souls have taken on and extended the known language of sound and technique. It seems quite remarkable that anyone can find still more to be done. But they do …. And moving beyond the conventional structure of the guitar – both physically and musically – has been a concern of Greg Malcolm’s music for nigh on 20 years.

The idea of a sextet, y’know … a musical group with six members, isn’t anything too unusual, That is, until you venture into the world of new improvised, electro-acoustic, noisy, post-electronic (whatever) music. Here, the small unit is the dominant format – soloists, duos, maybe three-piece. Six is something special. Anyone familiar with the extensive discographies of these gents: Tim Coster, Richard Francis, Rosy Parlane, Mark Sadgrove, Clinton Watkins and Paul Winstanley will find anticipation of this mega-ensemble (convened by Richard last year) well-rewarded.

The 3 cm CD format exerts a considerable gravitational pull on audio culturists world-wide. Its compact attractions show no signs of diminishing, and why should it? While some struggle with the almost limitless scale of the conventional CD (with all respect to those file share enthusiasts who don’t even go there), there’s a steady supply of concise, single-concept works on the mini-media, with all the accompanying virtues that come of “smallness”.

Paul Winstanley has leant his unique vision to such a wide range of projects lately. Traditional blues unit Rent Party and folk anarchists Fats White sit at the more conventionally “musical” end of the spectrum. Somewhere out the other side sits Sci Hi, his solo venture of some years standing into the pure sonography of “no-input” feedback. (Late 2004 saw a new development on a larger scale, with a highly diverting concert, under Mr W’s able baton, by the Sci Hi Arkestra.)

http://www.digitalisindustries.com/foxyd/reviews.php?which=2299
This little 3” cdr by Swung offers five vignettes into a fascinating sound world. Recorded over a period of ten years, these subtle and sublime works function on a fragmentary dream-like level, taking the listener from place to place, experience to experience, in a manner that is almost abrupt, but manages to remain fluid.

Yet another great team-up from the extremely healthy Auckland scene. Both men have a string of fine solo releases (Sadgrove mostly working under the mhfs moniker) on fine labels …. it seems only a matter of time until the world outside sweaty old K Road catches on (in a just world at least …. so who the hell knows). But in the meantime Tim and Mark give us these two gems of computer-based dream sound, one a piece on their own labels.

It's a shame that New Zealand's thriving experimental/noise/improv scene has gone so neglected by our local press when it's been so revered overseas. While the words "noise" and "experimental" might suggest some level of inaccessibility - and I'll be the first to admit some of the shit still scares me - this lovely compilation by Auckland sound artist Tim Coster should perhaps unlock a few doors for those curious to explore other rich musical frontiers beyond the realm of the conventional.