Amplified drum skins, brass pipes, violin, and electronics are used to craft two meditative, drone-laden pieces of musique concrete on this reissue of a 1990 cassette.
Side A – amplified drum skin, brass pipes, violin, answering machine & synthesizer recorded at Gencave, New York City, mixed at Arcane Device Studio NYC 1990, performed at Gateway Theater, NYC August 26, 1989 as part of the Festival of The Swamps (recording available on Audiofile Tapes NYC).
Side B – processed electronics, violin, voice with additional live recordings made outside the window of D. Myers during mixdown, recorded in the Gencave NYC 1989, mixed at Arcane Device Studio NYC 1990.
“I am not entirely sure, but I don’t think I reviewed ‘Endogeny’ when it first came out on Direction Music in 1990. Hearing the music I am not even sure I heard it, even when being in contact with the label at that time. I surely heard Gen Ken Montgomery’s music by then and was always fascinated by that, his connection to Conrad Schnitzler and his Generator space in New York, which was a venue doubling as a shop (or vice versa) for weird music.
The pieces here are for various instruments that were mixed. ‘Gattertor’ on the first side has “amplified drum skin, brass pipes, violin, answering machine & synthesizer” and which was played in concert and later mixed. It has all the markings on Gen Ken Montgomery, using mechanical sounds, tape-loops and synthesizer to provide a more ongoing mix of sounds, set against the more impromptu playing of the violin or voice treatments. The piece is divided into sections where one instrument is the dominant sounds, be it bell sounds in the beginning, scraping the violin, the machines and the synthesizer drone towards the end.
‘Father Demo Swears’ on the other side is a recording of “processed electronics, violin, voice with additional live recordings made outside the window of D. Myers during mix down” and is a more continuous action of scraping the violin in front of the open window while in the background various degrees of sound effects are applied, mostly delay. This is a form of direct music that shows the influence of Conrad Schnitzler, I think. This is unconventional music, certain brutality in playing the instruments and right at the moment, direct action. A nice revived document, hopefully, to be followed by more of that.”
Review by Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly 1220