MONKEY COMIXAPINAN RAVIOLIA by Tuomas KärkkäinenTHE OBSERVER by Gianluca Missero

NEW APSKAFTERS RELEASESCARLO BARBAGALLO

HOX VOX

APSKAFTERST H E O F F I C I A L S O U N D O F A P S K A F T M A G A Z I N E

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 3 - n . 6

APSKAFT PRESENTS:COUNTRYWIDE CANTICLES

Small collection of national anthemsreplayed by Apskaft musicians

APSKAFT PRESENTS: FOLKYeah, something about folk

3. LETTER TO LISTENERS by Gianluca Missero

APSKAFT RECORDS 4. APSKAFT PRESENTS: FOLK by Maxim Betmakaev 6. APSKAFT PRESENTS: COUNTRYWIDE CANTICLES by Maxim Betmakaev

NEW RELEASES by Gianluca Missero 8. CARLO BARBAGALLO * HOX VOX

MONKEY COMIX 10. APINAN RAVIOLIA by Tuomas Kärkkäinen 16. THE OBSERVER by Gianluca Missero

SUMMARY:

APSKAFTERST H E O F F I C I A L S O U N D O F A P S K A F T M A G A Z I N E

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 3 - n . 6

Dear listeners,

In Apskaft Records rubric Maxim Betmakaev reviewed last 2 albums released by our collective: Apskaft Presents: Folk, a collection of songs inspired by worldwide folklore; Apskaft Presents: Countrywide Canticles, odd manipula-tions of national anthems (St. Kitty and Nevis, France, Russia, Kuwait, Greece,

Cuba, New Zealand and a bizarre world national anthem by Peter-David Smith). There are 3 new records in New Releases: ./root: the Singles (2009 - 2012) by Hox Vox

and 2 albums by Carlo Barbagallo, A1/So Free and Ground Noise.

In Monkey Comix rubric this month you will find 6 new panels of Apinian Raviolia by Tuomas Kärkkäinen, and an old graphic novel I started in 2004 and titled The Observer (it was a prequel of Empire Collapse).

Enjoy!

Gianluca Missero (Hox)

APSKAFTERSLETTER TO LISTENERS

APSKAFTERS N. 06 - JAN 20133

APSKAFT PRESENTS: FOLK

Project started in: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 11, 2012Release:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .December 15, 2012Number of tracks: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Total lenght of record: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26:15

Bands involved:

John the Fox * Hox Vox * Peter-David Smith * Nick Blessing.

The first Apskaft effort to be reviewed in this issue is a take on the folk songs. It appeared to have the smallest number of par-ticipants by far - Opera project seems never to be released. Only four artists to make eight songs. At least, it is longer (just a bit longer) than 14 minutes of Countrywide Canticles (those were nice 14 minutes, though).

Actually, I should’ve started with a claim that I had never heard any versions of the folk songs covered on that album (as well as any other non-Russian folk song) before I pressed “play”. Except the Tuvan throat singing, which is very similar to the throat singing of neighboring area - Altai - natives (that’s actu-ally where I live). It was not a problem though, since folk songs tend to vary in lyrics or music.

APSKAFTERSAPSKAFT PRESENTS:

APSKAFTERS N. 06 - JAN 20134

What we have here is nothing extraordinary. All artists keep moving their groove, so I didn’t have to see the name of the artist to say who was playing at that moment.Both John the Fox’s tracks are very rock’n’roll in their nature - lively, energetic, songs that make you move, though the lyrics’ mood is quite the opposite. The words are hard to make out sometimes - especially for a non-English speaker like me - wonder if John did it purposely. Hox Vox is a constant guest (host?) on Apskaft releases, so I got what I expected - something exotic and something more com-plex. While the throat singing reminds you of shamans, spirits and other paganism stuff, “Tammuriatta Nera” takes us to some crowdy place - perhaps, bazaar or festival or a simple Neapoli-tan marriage.

Peter David Smith has done three tracks that are like a chande-lier swinging around my head, so the singing light is on the one side and the musical shadows are on the opposite. Peter admi-rably presented his tracks very groovy with catching rhythms, even when the vocal is only thing that makes rhythm.Nick Blessing, the last but not the least, also keeps doing his way - something more of the Doors than of Pink Floyd. His vocal part is probably the best on the release.

The real problem is - and those of you who keep an eye on Apskaft affairs know it - Apskaft is impoverished. No new artists with the number of participants decreasing, no new ideas in composition, no interest in the new projects or the usual ones like Apskafters. What does Apskaft need now - reset or shutdown?

APSKAFTERSFOLKApskaft Catalogue N. 25

APSKAFTERS N. 06 - JAN 20135

by Maxim Betmakaev

APSKAFT PRESENTS: COUNTRYWIDE CANTICLES

Project started in: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August 11, 2012Release:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .December 15, 2012Number of tracks: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Total lenght of record: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14:42

Bands involved:

Hox Vox * Drn Drn * Kommunistiska Medlöpares Idrottsklubb - KMIK 2003 * Toffeljagarn * Lurholm * Peter-David Smith

One of the two Apskaft releases, started as a part of six simultaneous projects, but been finished only a month ago presents the compilation of national anthem covers (canticles, as they are called, but nothing religious in their character). There are eight tracks presenting not only the nations’ but organizations’ anthems.

Peter-David Smith went a little bit further - he used the elements of Canadian (preserving the original words, substituting Planet Earth for the word Canada ) and Irish national anthems - which defines his indirect descent - as well as of The Internationalle and Beethoven’s Ode to Joy resulting in the anthem for the whole planet. A small extra-musical reference - The Internationalle (words by Eugène Edine Pottier, music by Pierre De Geyter) is an es-sential part of socialist movement, serving as a national anthem for the USSR and some of its parts during various times of its history. It (with the Russian words, of course) is still used as an official song by the Communist Party of Russian Federation. Ode to Joy (originally germ. - An die Freude) composed by Ludwig van Beethoven as an appeal and encouragement for uniting of the whole humanity is now used as the EU and EC official song. The whole idea is superb and well thought-out, but since it is made in the usual Peter style, I am afraid it will not be adopted as a real planet anthem - the excitement or inspiration here is depressed by some kind of mystery and even estrange-ment. The Peter’s anthem does not encourage me to unite, but I must admit one more time - the underlying motif makes up for it.

APSKAFTERSAPSKAFT PRESENTS:

APSKAFTERS N. 06 - JAN 20136

It happens so, that this is not the only reference to social-ism on this album. A very groovy La Marseillaise (French national anthem, Worker’s Marseillaise also was the na-tional anthem of the Soviet Russia for the first months after 1917 revolution) by Drn Drn, recorded, according to Tuomas, via the phone is a pure lo-fi, DIY and distorted track with lots of delay. The Soviet national anthem (which is at the same time Russian anthem) done in the toy-instru-ments style by Toffeljagarn which is then accompanied by a guitar, playing in a dub style and distorted sounds - per-haps, speech. Kommunistiska Medlöpares Idrottsklubb performed with Kuba’s national anthem. This one sounds very happy, and it is similar to Lurholm’s Greece and Hox’s St. Kitts and Nevis anthem covers. They sound as if they were a part of a soundtrack to educational cartoons about geography - very soft and playful. On the other hand, Ku-wait by Hox Vox is a very intense and aggressive track, and his gentle Aotearoa with its samples of birds, water and wind conveys the ecological nature of New Zealand.

In the whole we have eight songs, six artists, ten coun-tries, one planet. What makes this release even better than the previous The Dark Side of the Monkey is that it is more or less musically homogeneous and every track is viewed as a part of the whole album. The main highlights to me are O Planet Earth and Aotearoa.

APSKAFTERSCOUNTRYWIDE CANTICLESApskaft Catalogue N. 26

APSKAFTERS N. 06 - JAN 20137

by Maxim Betmakaev

APSKAFTERSAPSKAFTERS RECORDS

CARLO BARBAGALLO - THE NOJA RECORDINGS ARCHIVES: A1 / SO FREE Noja Recordings The experimentation of the sound possibilities of audio feedback systems is an aspect I always find very fascinating and interesting, esthetically and conceptually. With “A1” (presented at Prize Phonologia - Centro Culturale San Fedele, Milano - November 10, 2012) I focus my attention around electronic feed-back, assembling an instrument with stomp-boxes effect pedals in a multiple feedbacks closed system. I used different kinds of effect-units as filters, delays, modulations and distortions; analog and digital, commercial and self-builded. My intent was to experiment the playability and expressiveness of this as-sembled instrument. During rehearsals I defined a list of “sonically” interesting parameters settings to manage the auto-oscillation of the system and the different sound “aspect” of the noise generated by the electronic components and the electrical network. I proceed to find modes and times to “slip” between the listed settings, so discovering the musical functions of switches and potentiometers noises. Experimenting and improvising I writed a sort of operational score to follow, freely, when performed and recorded the piece. Listening the recording I had the idea to create two more parts generated by the recording itself. I’ve done this, sending the recording through the modulation chain of a physical modeling synthesizer (Korg Ms2000) and improvising different changes to its parameters. Recording this im-provisations, I set a threshold where the recording signal (from the synth output) feed back into the input of the synth, so allow me to use another feedback system, generating digital distorted and compressed clips (for the joy of professional sound engineers!!!) as unexpected synthesis events. I editing these re-cordings as two parts played live by two synth players and the result is “A1” (the title indicates the month and day when I realized the piece - April 1st, 2012). The days after I think how it could be to work on the spectral analysis of the stomp-boxes and synths parts of this piece to realize a sort of orchestral tran-scription for traditional instruments. I use SPEAR to analyze the first synth track and with an empirical, casual and visual approach to the spectrogram I choose some relevant frequencies for each sound event in a window time of few second. I played the selected frequencies through different acoustic instru-ments or programmed sample-based software instruments and after a lot of hours analyzing, choosing, playing, programming, editing and mixing I realized a minute of the arranged transcription of the spec-tral content of the synth track. Since that days I didn’t work again on the piece and now I’m not anymore so “deep in it” to do it, so I decided to leave it as it is, a miniature titled “So Free”. (Carlo Barbagallo)

TAGS: alternative, experimental, home recordings, indie, lo-fi, ambient, art, avant-garde, electronic

APSKAFTERS N. 06 - JAN 20138

APSKAFTERSNEW RELEASES

CARLO BARBAGALLO - THE NOJA RECORDINGS ARCHIVES: GROUND NOISE Noja Recordings

When I started to work on this piece my first intention was to record something with my Harmony elec-tric guitar but frustrated with the hums and noises of the pickup I decided to loop half-a-second of these, duplicate this loop in three tracks, send them to three buses with a lot of plugins in-chain, then using the mixer of the digital workstation as an instrument to manipulate all this stuff live in real time.Playing with phases, delay and pitch modulations, noise reduction processors with equalizing noise-profile, channels faders, mute buttons and buses sends, I record three stereo improvisations of twenty minutes each on my Yamaha MT8X cassette recorder.After converting to digital the six tracks recorded onto tape, I mixed the three improvisations, taking care of create a sort of three-way dialogue between the sound developments of each impro.I listened to this stereo version (Ground Noise Tape) for hours that I started to hearing (or imaging) other sounds than the recorded ones, generated between the surfaces and depths of the noise textures. I thought to try to concretize in recorded sounds a few of the infinite possible interpretations of these sonic illusions generated by the intersected plans of changing noise.I played (improvising for the most part), recorded and mixed different instruments (real & software) and manipulated some yet recorded sources.

The result is Ground Noise Suite. (Carlo Barbagallo)

TAGS: alternative, experimental, home recordings, indie, lo-fi, ambient, art, avant-garde, electronic

HOX VOX - ./ROOT: THE SINGLES (2009 - 2012) Jamendo

Collection of singles released in last 4 years, comprising collaborations (with Sébastien Gramond, Neil Morrison, Andrea Ferrantelli, hold_the_gun, Zakrewsky, Chetuha Garibaldi), un unpublished take (Mon-tana), remixes (of Doug Sharp’s 5DBSSS and El Monstuo Resuscitado), and 20 tracks for 11 collective records by The Sound of Apskaft. As bonus, two silly birthday tracks I made for Neil Morrison (my band-mate in Turbogrind Terrorizers) and David Preston (in The Wreck Up). (Gianluca Missero)

TAGS: experimental, electronic, eclectic, avant-prog, progressive rock, world, reggae, contemporary, d’n’b

APSKAFTERS N. 06 - JAN 2013

by Gianluca Missero

9

Freudin revolveri (Freudian revolver)

APSKAFTERSMONKEY COMIX

APSKAFTERS N. 06 - JAN 201310

Pupun piippu (Bunny’s pipe)

APSKAFTERSAPINAN RAVIOLIA

APSKAFTERS N. 06 - JAN 2013

by Tuomas Kärkkäinen

11

Vapaasalo (The professor)

APSKAFTERSMONKEY COMIX

APSKAFTERS N. 06 - JAN 201312

Onnenpyörä (Wheel of fortune)

APSKAFTERSAPINAN RAVIOLIA

APSKAFTERS N. 06 - JAN 2013

by Tuomas Kärkkäinen

13

Yllätyslahja (Surprise!)

APSKAFTERSMONKEY COMIX

APSKAFTERS N. 06 - JAN 201314

Luchador

APSKAFTERSAPINAN RAVIOLIA

APSKAFTERS N. 06 - JAN 2013

by Tuomas Kärkkäinen

15

APSKAFTERSMONKEY COMIX

APSKAFTERS N. 05 - DIC 201216

APSKAFTERSTHE OBSERVEREpisode n. 1

APSKAFTERS N. 05 - DIC 2012

by Gianluca Missero

17

APSKAFTERSMONKEY COMIX

APSKAFTERS N. 05 - DIC 201218

APSKAFTERSTHE OBSERVEREpisode n. 1

APSKAFTERS N. 05 - DIC 2012

by Gianluca Missero

19

APSKAFTERSMONKEY COMIX

APSKAFTERS N. 05 - DIC 201220

APSKAFTERSTHE OBSERVEREpisode n. 1

APSKAFTERS N. 05 - DIC 2012

by Gianluca Missero

21

APSKAFTERSMONKEY COMIX

APSKAFTERS N. 05 - DIC 201222

APSKAFT 026Countrywide Canticles

APSKAFT 001The Cover Project

APSKAFT 005Volume 2

APSKAFT 002Volume 1

APSKAFT 003Volume 2

APSKAFT 004 Collageborations, vol. 1

APSKAFT 009Popskaft

APSKAFT 006Spice

APSKAFT 010Toccata and Fugue in d minor or...

APSKAFT 007Rolling Stone 500

APSKAFT 008 Collageborations, vol. 2

APSKAFT 017Chinese Whispers

APSKAFT 018Musique Concrète

APSKAFT 019They Might Be Giants

APSKAFT 016Apskaft Against Fascism

APSKAFT 020The Non-Commercial Album

APSKAFT 013Battleship Potemkin

APSKAFT 01421st Century Schizoid Men

APSKAFT 015Inbreeding Apskaft

APSKAFT 011Sheena is Several Punk Rockers

APSKAFT 01221st Century Schizoid Men

APSKAFT 021Apskaft 5th Anniversary

APSKAFT 025Folk

APSKAFT 022Poems

APSKAFT 023Fairy Tales

APSKAFT 024The Dark Side of the Monkey

THE SOUND OF APSKAFT COMPLETE CATALOGUE 2008 - 2012

HAVE A LOOK ALSO TO OUR MOVIE PROJECTS!

THE WORLD OF APSKAFTBATTLESHIP POTEMKIN

APSKAFTERS N. 06 - JAN 201323

- The Sound of Apskaft official monthly magazine Web presence: WEBSITE - APSKAFTERS MAGAZINE - BLOG - YOUTUBE CHANNEL - BANDCAMP -BITTORRENT - INTERNET ARCHIVE - FACEBOOK PAGE - FACEBOOK GROUP

All music, lyrics / articles, graphics and videoclip by The Sound of Apskaft collective are released under a Creative Commons 3.0 nc/nd license.

APSKAFTERSEDITOR, DESIGN, COMICS, WRITERGianluca Missero (a.k.a. Hox)

COMICSTuomas Kärkkäinen (Simiarbeit)

WRITERMaxim Betmakaev (Betmax)

T H E O F F I C I A L S O U N D O F A P S K A F T M A G A Z I N E

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 3 - n . 6

APSKAFTERS