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AMAZING SOUNDS No.98 / January 19, 2001
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IN THE VIRTUAL SHOPS OF AMAZING SOUNDS AND AT-MOOSS RECORDS YOU
WILL FIND A SELECTION OF INSTRUMENTAL ELECTRONIC MUSIC MADE WITH
ANALOGIC AND LAST GENERATION SYNTHESIZERS

http://www.amazings.com/mailorder.html

http://www.arrakis.es/~at-mooss

====================

CONTENTS:

NEWS

VIOLA KRAMER. Viola Kramer explores new performing techniques and
new musical sonorities by means of experimentation utilizing all
the advantages that modern technology makes available to human
creativity in the musical arena.

REVIEWS:
ZERO OHMS: "ATMA-SPHERIC SURFACES" ZOP
DJAM KARET: "REFLECTIONS FROM THE FIREPOOL" Cuneiform Records
ERIK WOLLO: "GUITAR NOVA" (Re-release) Spotted Peccary Studios /
Brain Laughter

====================

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====================

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if they appear cut into two or more lines. In case you cannot use
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to copy the COMPLETE link (including each one of its fragments) at
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entirety in a single line.

====================

BJORN LYNNE
New studio album "REVIVE"

A driving, positive, uplifting and melodic album of progressive
and symphonic rock. This music wasn't written to be "clever" -
just great listening. Featuring guest appearances by the awesome
lead guitarist Rory McLeish (with a playing style not unlike
Satriani), Revive is a bombshell of an instrumental rock feast
that will keep you nailed to the floor... no... the ceiling!

-"With searing guitars, 'Revive' leaves most instrumental projects
in the dust" - (Symphonie Fantastique)

-"Powerful and consistent stuff. Bjorn Lynne has done it
...again!" -(Margen Magazine)

-"The talent of this artist is not only obvious in the composition
of the music, but also in the rich orchestration, the careful
selection of sounds and even the mixing. Definitely, a luxurious
album in the already intrinsically brilliant career of this
composer." - (Amazing Sounds)

Available now from your favourite prog-rock pusher or:

http://www.lynnemusic.com

Bjorn Lynne bio:

Originally from Norway, this multi instrumentalist moved to
England in 1995 to have a full hearted go at making a living as a
progressive rock and synth-rock artist. He has since lived in
Yorkshire and has established himself as the new and fresh voice
in progressive, symphonic and electronic crossover music. His
music keeps the listener on tip-toes throughout, described by
reviewers as a mix of Dream Theater, Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd,
Flower Kings and Ayreon - but without wasting time on boring
vocals! His albums are released on Cyclops Records and should be
available through the normal symphonic rock dealers - or you can
get them direct from Bjorn himself, at his personal web site :

http://www.lynnemusic.com

(Secure online ordering and fast delivery world wide.)

Also available from Bjorn Lynne:

- "Witchwood" (1996)
- "The Void" (1997)
- "Wizard of the Winds (1998)
- "Wolves of the Gods" (1999)
- "Revive" (2000)

http://www.lynnemusic.com

====================

NEWS

The CDs "Binary secrets" by Dom F. Scab, "The sound museum" by
Chuck van Zyl and "Pulse n atmo" byVir Unis are at the pressing
plant. These albums will be available within two weeks.

Vidna Obmana's webmaster has updated the Vidna Obmana mp3.com page
with the second batch in the anthology 1992-1994 series,
exclusively for the mp3-page. Five new songs are available.

Bang On the Can All-Star members Maya Beiser (cello) and Steven
Schick (percussion) release their first CD of music. All of the
compositions were commissioned by and written for their duo. This
disc features new works by five composers including Jack Body (New
Zealand), Nick Didkovsky (USA), Chinary Ung (Cambodia), George
Lewis (USA), and Franghis Ali-Zade (Azerbaijan). The disc
entitled, Caught by the Sky with Wire, ranges from pieces
influenced by world music to the gritty, electronic sounds of Nick
Didkovsky.

NEW RELEASES / RE-RELEASES / DISTRIBUTIONS
(For more information and sound clips, use the links)

Patrick O'Hearn: "So Flows The Current"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000058511/thesciencebookbo

Danny Wright: "Soul Mates"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000054A4S/thesciencebookbo

Sacred Spirit series: "Sacred Spirit II"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005176Y/thesciencebookbo

John Tesh: "Pure Orchestra"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000560S9/thesciencebookbo

Adiemus: "Adiemus IV: The Eternal Knot"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004WC6I/thesciencebookbo

====================

VIOLA KRAMER

Viola Kramer explores new performing techniques and new musical
sonorities by means of experimentation utilizing all the
advantages that modern technology makes available to human
creativity in the musical arena.

IN THE BEGINNING OF HER MUSIC CAREER

Viola Kramer completes her musical studies at the Higher School Of
Music in Rheinland, together with professors Shivanat Mishra and
Pandit Prakash Maharaj. In 1984 she joins the Bass E Tronic Band,
and this same year she founds the band Double X Project with Peter
Sonntag. Likewise, the band goes on a tour with the Music Ensemble
from Benares. In 1985 she engages on a new tour with her band
Double X Project and releases a solo album. In 1986 she makes the
soundtrack for the video "Ada Grafin Lovelance" and participates
in a radio program. The following year she is awarded the "Golden
Camera Award" from Chicago for her video "Ada Grafin Lovelance",
and she releases another two albums with the band Double X
Project. Likewise, she collaborates with several musical
workshops. Also in this year the artist participates in Ars
Electronica with her works "Chain Reaction", which lasts
approximately seven minutes and nineteen seconds, and "If Misfits
Wear It", a piece with a total running time of ten minutes thirty
seconds. In 1988 she develops new projects, among them one for
television, and organizes a new tour, this time to Canada, with
Double X Project. Also, she creates new movie soundtracks, and
continues with her studio work, while at the same time she
collaborates in an album with the band "People in Sorrow". Viola
also composes the soundtrack for the musical documentary
"Alemania-Bolivia". Her activity extends to the performance of
live concerts with other bands. In 1989 she gives a solo
performance and engages a new tour with Double X Project and with
SSP. This same year she is awarded a prize for her composition
"Raindogs Awaikin'", a piece with which she contacts once again
the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz. The artist engages a new
tour with "Appel a Tous" in France, and participates at the St.
Remy Festival with Ami Denio and Katie O'Looney (New York).

NEW SOUND WORLDS

Viola shows a deep interest in the combination of acoustic
instruments with the electronic medium, looking for new sonorities
that sometimes mean for the listener to learn to listen from
scratch so as to be able to understand her complex musical and
sonic creations.

As she herself explains, her music has the qualities typical of
chamber music, in a fusion that integrates the electronic
technology with the traditional concept of chamber music.

In her musical research, the artist compares the kind of sonic
modulations of the acoustic instruments with the electronic ones,
finding that acoustics influences the sound in a spontaneous
manner according to the kind of room where this sound has its
ressonance, at the same time depending on the tempo and the sonic
production of the ensemble. This fact implies for her to
instinctively carry out the necessary "corrections" of the sound,
based on experience.

As the artist claims, it is not enough to play the adequate note
in the precise moment, but rather the musician must be able to
control her instrument tending to virtuosity of performance
whenever it is feasible. To her, nowadays there are too many
fanaticists of technology who neglect this aspect, above all among
the musicians specializing on keyboards. The artist claims that to
be a virtuoso one must learn how to play a pre-programmed sound as
fast as possible without losing control of the modulation of this
sound

Viola considers that electronic sounds do not have the same "body"
that is for instance produced with a bass or with a violin or a
saxo, which does not permit it to expand and fill the room in the
same way as the sound produced by acoustic instruments, such as
could be done with a Stradivarius. Kramer prefers to work starting
from a conceptiom of the room where she creates her music as if it
were a ressonance box where, with the help of 24 computer
controlled hi-fi equipments, she can manipulate the sounds in the
most adequate manner in each case.

Her musical experiments include what she calls "Zeiträume",
techniques defined as"irritations to the listener and irrational
effects", among which most remarkable is the one that tricks the
audience by making them believe, for instance, that they hear the
time beaten according to the parameters that are normal for them
at a human level, when in actual fact what they hear is the time
beaten by a computer at a higher volume than that of a
conventional acoustic instrument such as the piano, thus proving
the fact that the human hearing tends to filter the sound produced
by machines and reduce it to parameters that the human mind can
cope with. In this way, the artist creates electronic poliphony in
real time, where the contrast between subjective time clashes with
the objective time of the machine by tricking the senses. To her,
auditive psychology is an interesting field to explore.

(By Montse Andreu)

====================

REVIEWS

ZERO OHMS:
"ATMA-SPHERIC SURFACES"
ZOP
Somehow, this music is perceived as nocturnal. This does
not imply the fact that it is sinister, although there are
some pieces where it certainly is so. Most of the time, the
themes give out a mixture of nocturnal aromas, dominated by
the presence of the stars in the sky, the legends about the
creatures of the night, the relative nocturnal quiet and
silence, as well as the way we think and feel at early
dawn, sometimes very different from what we would feel and
think in full daylight.
EDGAR KOGLER

If you wish to purchase any recordings by this artist you
only have to use this link:

http://gemm.com/q.cgi?rb=AMAZINGS&artist=zero+ohms

DJAM KARET:
"REFLECTIONS FROM THE FIREPOOL"
Cuneiform Records
Each of the nine themes that constitute the CD portray the
creativity of the members of Djam Karet, and their
unsurpassed skills to combine the psychedelic qualities of
Progressive Rock with Pop rhythms and New Instrumental
Music. The rhythmic diversity, the melodic inventiveness,
as well as the brilliant character of their imaginary
quests to distant places and times make of this album a
must in the collection of the followers of Djam Karet in
particular, as well as that of the fans of New Instrumental
Music in general.
EMMA DORS

If you wish to purchase this recording you only have to use
this link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004WF2J/thesciencebookbo

If you wish to purchase any recordings by this band you
only have to use this link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/155538/thesciencebookbo

ERIK WOLLO:
"GUITAR NOVA" (re-release)
Spotted Peccary Studios / Brain Laughter
Erik Wollo has composed a fine work that can be labelled within
the New Instrumental Music for guitar. The 14 compositions
included in this album by him have a symphonic melodic character,
with romantic parts and other mysterious ones. There also appear
classical and Ambient elements. The music is not static, but it
flows at a medium speed. The rhythmic structure is based on the
guitar and harbors the melody within itself. The music is pleasant
to listen to and will no doubt appeal to those who enjoy the
guitar as a soloist instrument. In my opinion, "Source" is the
most imaginative theme.
PASCUAL JURADO

If you wish to purchase this recording you only have to use
this link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004YWUB/thesciencebookbo

If you wish to purchase any recordings by this artist you
only have to use this link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/86939/thesciencebookbo

====================

We are preparing an international directory of record companies,
artists, festivals, radio shows, zines, webs, journalists,
associations, and other organizations & people working in the
field of electronic music, Ambient, New Instrumental,
Experimental, World Music, and so on. The inserts are free. The
persons or firms wishing to be included can send us a file of no
more than 600 words with the data they consider as being of
interest (contact addresses - snail mail, telephone number, fax,
email, URL... -) and an explanatory text on their activities in
English) to: amazings@...

We are also preparing an encyclopaedia of composers of electronic
music. The artists wishing to be included can send us a biography
(with a list of works and contact address if they wish to) of no
more than 900 words, in English, to amazings@.... Inserts
are free.

The persons or firms having a page in internet related in some way
to the alternative musics can communicate the URL, as well as a
brief description of its contents, to webmaster@..., and
we will set a link from our web to theirs (The insert of a link in
our web is free whenever it is corresponded with a similar link
from their web to our web)

====================

Our warmest greetings for our readers and until the next edition
of Amazing Sounds.

====================

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