well received...

AUTOMATING - REPRESSURED (cassette by Patient Sounds)
Work by Australia's Automating has been well received here (see Vital Weekly 930, 862, 843 and 841) and here Sasha Margolis offers a rather short tape of two new pieces of music. Loops seem to be the primary interesting here, still, which sound as rusty as they could be. Or should be rustic? While 'Cloud Burst' is more electronic, 'Third Eye' seems to have more recordings from the farmland, with the sound of water running down pipes and a shifting microphone. Mistakes are left in. Sometimes things swell up to with processed sounds, all dark, all ambient, and what I noted before seems still valid here: Automating owes to the music of The Hafler Trio, but surely has more to say. Again, on 'Third Eye', it slowly develops into a musical song of sorts, with a decaying rhythm and a surprisingly musical ending. 'Cloud Burst' starts out with shorter, Reichean looped sounds, which, as the piece evolves, slow down and space out, before entirely disappearing and just some sounds stick around, humming on end, making vague orchestral gestures. Twenty-some minutes of more great music! Another excellent Automating release. (FdW)

Get it here! (in the states) ... or HERE from Australia <-- There's also a free download on this one

Some nice words here...

AUTOMATING - BEREITSCHAFTSPOTENTIAL (3"CDR by Ice Age Productions)
Sasha Margolis hails from Melbourne, Australia and offers here a highly limited 3"CDR (edition of 25 copies) of 'studio created binaural soundscapes and archaic tape based drones. Field recordings, found sound, tape manipulation, noise and effects units', which perhaps sums it all up, already. We reviewed some previous works (Vital Weekly 841, 843 and 862) and I still have not much more information than just this, so let's go straight the music, which lasts exactly twenty-one minutes, and goes from noise 'n rhythm to drone to medium sized noise walls. And one point the sound goes down a bit, and overall this quite a diverse piece of music, moving in a dynamic way from medium low to a harsh ending. It has perhaps something that one could identify as 'retro sounding': the (perhaps) low resolution samples of the casio SK-5 maybe, topped with some fine sound effects and somewhere in the end stages of the piece a meandering desolated melody. This piece is made with some great care and consideration. Someone who knows what works and what not. I wouldn't have minded some more music by Automating, whose previous releases already gave me much pleasure. (FdW)

Listen to an excerpt in the podcast below before it disappears, or click on this to stream/download/buy the whole thing from Iceage Productions

Vital Weekly #930 by Vitalweekly on Mixcloud