eMEGO 096 Bruce Gilbert: Oblivio Agitatum CD Release Date: 02.10.2009
3 tracks: OBLIVIO AGITATUM ZEROS ISOPYRE
Total Time: 34:20
All titles written by Bruce Gilbert
Mastered @ Haswell Studio, Suffolk
Design by David Coppenhall Images: front Bruce Gilbert, inner: David Coppenhall
Editions Mego is very pleased to announce the release of a new album by Bruce Gilbert, whose career stretches back to late 1960’s British avant garde art & music scenes, and has since played an important and influential role with his involvement in various rock based formations, work for choreographic projects and art installations ‘Oblivio Agitatum’ is Gilbert’s first album length release since ‘Ordier’ (realised 1996 and released in 2004), essentially making this his first album of the 21st century. A startling and mesmerizing work which recalls some of his mid 1980’s works such as ‘This Way’ and ‘Shivering Man’. An ever shifting set of agitated and obscure tones creating a sense of confusion while still being highly structured and concentrated. A stunning return.
For 'titles' read 'pieces of music', and for 'written', read 'created'.
"‘Oblivio Agitatum’ is Gilbert’s first album length release since ‘Ordier’"
At 34 minutes, it's a bit shy of what you'd call 'full length'. Never one to outstay his welcome - when he played Dublin some years back, his set lasted five minutes, unlike the previous night in Cork, where he performed what he called 'a hippy epic' lasting twelve minutes...
"...played an important and influential role with his involvement in various rock based formations.." Wire was one of them, i guess. And the others ? Dome, P´O, Cupol, Duet Emmo ?
Ah, nevermind. Still looking forward to listen to some new stuff from Bruce.
Absolutely. 13 years since the last one ! Veering into Scott Walker timescales of productive output...
"rock based formations.." Sounds geological - which could be another way to describe Bruce's working pace...
I like the sound of that new Russell Haswell CD "Wild Tracks", also on Mego - amongst the audio delights he lists are:
EXCEPTIONALLY LOUD PROPANE GAS CANNON BIRD SCARER WASP-WAR (FEATURING APACHE AH Mk 1 DUET) A HORDE OF FLIES FEAST ON A ROTTING PHEASANT CARCASS (EXTRACT)
I'd rate This Way as his finest hour - an inspired congregation of rhythms, textures and atmospheres. Draws me in like a vortex. My first hearing of it was in the original context for which it was designed - the Michael Clark dance piece Do You Me ? I Did, in The Riverside Theatre in Hammersmith in 1984. It made a really strong impression. I just had to buy the LP the minute I got out to the foyer (for the princely sum of five pounds!). The fact that the Mego press release states that the new one recalls work from this period is indeed encouraging. I can take or leave the random noise of In Esse and the like - too arbitrary and unfocussed.
I don't have a myspace account, so I can't use the link. Maybe a kind soul with a myspace account could inquire about a downloadable version (please and thanks)?
"Like all Editions Mego titles this will be available as digtial via the usual outlets; iTunes, Boomkat, Bleep, Other Music etc etc. Release date is October 2nd.
As for the 20€ price that is also creating some grumbles, that's inclusive of postage and taxes which I have to include based on Austrian law. The Austrian postal service is insanely expensive, especially when shipping outside the EU. Sometimes twice as much as other EU member states.
Plus the $ being so bad against the € means what looks like a high price for US customers. I can only recommend that US customers hang in there for a few weeks and buy from Forced Exposure. They will have copies before release date. It's not my intention to overprice anything, but a lot of this is out of my control."
Clive Bell reviews the album in the October issue of The Wire:
"During the 1990s, after the second incarnation of Wire, Bruce Gilbert frequently played solo sets as DJ Beekeeper. On more than one occasion I remember fleeing some arty gathering as Gilbert's dense sonic concoctions rendered conversation impossible. Memories that were uncomfortably revived by Oblivio Agitatum's title track, an office-on-the-blink grind of corrugated Noise and glimmering high pitches. The sound is organised in an irregular, almost organic way, but the timbres are machine-like and intrusive.
The good news is that after this grim five minute hors d'oeuvre, the rest of Gilbert's album is intriguing, with stretches of spacious beauty. The 26 minute "Zeroes" is a wide screen landscape of processed sound, and icy tundra with plenty of mysterious low end. Veiled radio voices flit through the ether. Glissandi are just audible, descending and later ascending. Then sirens call out, like boats hooting their way across a vast river at night. However, such images are of limited use, as this is skilled abstract painting - Gilbert was already established as an abstract painter when he first joined Wire in 1977.
The closing "Isopyre" is also impressive, another big-eared slab of sonic architecture. Often in Gilbert's solo work there's a sense of teetering on the edge of distortion, as though the whole caboodle is fixing to burst. That tension is still there, but for his first release in some years he has taken the doors off their hinges and invited us into wide open spaces."