Frederik Croene and Esther Venrooy - 'Hout' (Robo)

I don't know who these Dutch experimentalists are but this CD is a great exploration of electroacoustic space, built around intense miniature interactions. There's a lot of acoustics - piano (played by Croene) is the dominant instrument, but there are plucked and bowed strings, metallic resonances, and occasional field recordings and vocal samples. There's a stop-start jerkiness that keeps this lively, avoiding AMM-soup while retaining a delicate balance. At times, Venrooy's computer processing takes over and the pieces feel overly worked-on, but nothing lasts too long (the 11 pieces, with confusing two-column titles, make this "classic album length"). The movie dialogue samples are the nadir of this, just because it doesn't make thematic sense with the dancing prepared piano sounds. I'm more of a fan of Hout when the musicians actually feel things and respond to each other, even if I know this to be layered studio work instead of live improvisation. There's a lot of reversed/backwards tonalities - echoes that fold in on themselves, and ringing tones that seem to disintegrate instantly. They know when to hold a note and let the soundwaves reverberate. It's slightly academic, yeah, but has a spontaneity despite being delicate and (mostly) quiet. The final/epic track, 'Pine::Lodge', gets more built-up in terms of white noise/hiss than anything else, eventually opening into a shining bolt of what sounds like zither strings (though I assume is just piano, processed in some way). It rises and falls majestically; the focus and craft of these two is most apparent here on the juxtaposition between echoing room-sound and thick electronic density. You'll never get me to say anything should be on CD instead of LP, but this is definite "CD" music - a sadly obscure treasure from the world of electroacoustic composition.

Bingo Trappers - 'Juanita Ave.' (Animal World)

A few years after their masterful Sierra Nevada, the Bingo Trappers returned on a new label with this CD, which (if I remember correctly) was marketed fairly strongly: magazine ads, college radio play, and a big US tour. All in vain, methinks -- they sank without a trace and now this remains an obscurity, though less than a decade old (2000). Given the preponderance of bedroom-lofi thumb-twiddlers making their rounds now (I'm looking at you, Woodsist label!) you'd think it would be time for a comeback. I expected as much when Woods put out a record on Shrimper - that seemed to link the two 'movements', if there is any such thing to link. But the Bingo Trappers, if they still exist, are probably just hiding out in some Amsterdam suburb now. Juanita Ave. is a strong set of songs, and generously so - 15 of them in 50 minutes - and the tone shifts a lot to prevent it from ever sounding samey. There might not be anything as earth-shatteringly classic as 'King in Exile' here, but there's a similar bummer/ramshackle feel throughout. 'Is That a Fact' reminds me a bit of Suicide or Lou Reed - there's definitely more 'tude here than these Nederlanders ever showed before. The first half of the album is strongly guitar-jangle heavy - not aggressive or distorted, but frantic and lyrical. Deeper investigation would probably reward a r willing to lose themselves in 'God's Biographer', 'White Bikini' or 'The Last Resort/Seinpost 1976'. I can hear sentimentality, self-criticism, and resignation, even on the goofier sounding stuff like 'The Real Mr. Tambourine'. Energy is great, especially when brushed over 4-track recorded rock drums, but I love this band when they're at their most pastoral. 'Twilight Kids' recalls 'Walkin' Through the Clouds' from Sierra Nevada, and is a step above the rest of the songs in terms of fidelity. It's followed by 'My Virtual Things', which takes a page from the Bats songbook and hits that mellow NZ sunshine vibe. I should say here that this record is lo-fi, but honestly so. There are no deliberately disfigured tunes, apart from maybe 'Sneakers' ghetto-industrial rhythm/theremin loop. These last three songs actually are a great coda to the album - my favorite part - and make me think of the 'Nighttime'/'Blue Moon'/'Take Care' trilogy that ends Big Star's Third (which, coincidentally, is the last CD reviewed here). I suspect there's hundreds of these discs somewhere in a box in Tallahassee, which is a shame for the band, the label, and the public.