Reviews
'So far Greek composer Marinos Koutsomichalis produced a small number of works, which either blew me away, or didn't do much. That makes that I eagerly anticipate any new work from him, if only to check if its great or not. This new work has a self-explanatory title, this is what you get: three pieces of music, which use field recordings, sounds from a vintage VCS3 synthesizer which are picked up in a studio piece by some excellent microphones. Much of what Koutsomichalis does falls in the world of drones, ambient, minimalism and conceptualism. That goes for much of this also. The three pieces are quite low in volume on the CDR, but if you put the volume up quite a bit your speakers will produce a rattling sound of their own, due to the low end bass sound. This is perhaps the first time when my opinion on his work isn't the radical 'great beauty' or 'why on earth', but a more leveled one: yes, its alright, great even, but not the absolute greatness of some of his other works. It perhaps has to do with the fact that I heard such music before, of equally greatness, so its maybe more of the same? Nice nevertheless.'
Frans der Waard (Vital Weekly - 777)
'This release's theme is as described in the title -- being about the malfunctions of electronics and sound equipment. It's not a new idea, though. Jeph Jerman's Hands To project had a similar piece called Catalog of Abuse on a tape back in the '80, back when the underground traded cassettes rather than CDs or MP3s. Malfunctions is similar to that tape, with various amplifier hums and clicks.
Track 4 has a great machine-drone with what sounds like a flock of crickets, however. Track two and six has plenty of noisy moments, sounding a bit like early Consumer Electronics, but track 5 has very little detectable sound at all, making it a mystery as to why Marinos included it in the first place. Malfuctions is an interesting piece with a familiar theme, probably the kind that was more fun to make than to listen too. Not that it's bad, just a case where the theory is more prominent than the practice.' (3/5)
Lawrence J. Patti (Musique Machine)
‘It's no accident Greek artist Marinos Koutsomichalis named this CD-r Malfunctions. There's a lengthy artist statement included with the disc which ends with Koutsomichalis stating the goal of the release was to "listen to all those sounds that were not meant-to-be." The first of seven untitled tracks is a very minimal drone affair using synthetic tones that sound pretty normal to me. Though I guess I may have a skewed sense of "normal" compared to most other people. That seems to be the point Koutsomichalis is trying to make though, that what are perceived as malfunctions are not limitations inherent to the machine but limitations projected by the person using or experiencing the object. The second track is a lot louder and thicker. Electronics spit a variety of "malfunctions," spluttering tones, white noise, jittery, crunchy loops. It's a very dimensional piece of work and Koutsomichalis definitely put a lot of work into the mixing and arranging of the piece. All the interweaving layers, enter at different volume levels, drop in volume or out completely to return later. There's a very methodical use of dynamics, despite the constant changes, Koutsomichalis develops a complete continuity to the piece and its rhythms. The third track is a single tone percussively stuttering and sputtering in a haphazard way. I really can't tell if there is any manipulation here or if Koutsomichalis is just leaving the tone to its own devices. I'm gonna go with the former but it could go either way. Koutsomichalis seems to be most at home with a lot of sounds as the next track is an excellently dense and noisy trip. The thing just throbs, sick with static, incinerating everything in site. It maintains this constant heaviness while still throwing plenty of curve balls, but ultimately all of the malfunctioning electronics are whipped right back into shape. What really surprises me about the piece, and one of the reasons why its so great, is that for a bunch of malfunctioning sounds this piece is really melodic. There isn't a melody per se, but Koutsomichalis organizes the piece in a very consonant way letting the piece move smoothly despite the seriously jagged texture. Damn fine work. The next track continues the minimal/maximal pattern with a minimal piece of snaps, crackles and pops. This one gains a simple polyrhythm after a while based on one machine making something akin to the tick tock of a pocketwatch. The next track is another noisy one, which also the first place on the record to engage in loopy, squiggly hi-pitched frequencies. The eight minute finale looms along in a constant state of agitated, prickly static. There's vague movement underneath, but you only get intimations of it which draws you deeper and deeper into the piece. It doesn't change a whole lot, but its mystery never fades either. It's a great note to go out on.
Though the minimal experiments aren't as strong, Koutsomichalis is a fantastically adept "noise artist;" he knows how to sculpt/carve/whatever with pure noise and make it compelling. That's not something I can say about many people.’
‘I don't make music. Never have, probably never will. But from what I'm told, it's not an easy process. Lots of shit can go wrong, equipment breaks, strange feedback coming from unknown places, the whole Murphy's Law thing. Koutsomichalis laughs in Murphy's face. Malfunctions is an album comprised entirely of those unwanted sounds. The mistakes that you seek to eliminate and destroy. Marinos purposefully manufactured those random artifacts and fine tuned them, resulting in a brilliant electronic noise album.
If I hadn't been told the sound sources on Malfunctions were "mistakes," I wouldn't know. I mean, come on, it is a noise record. That being said, this is some seriously fantastic noise. Huge harsh squalls of static folding over itself, hidden blips on the radar, power line hum, bug zappers, there's even an entire track that sounds like Airsoft machine guns blasting from single shot to full-auto.
Not all of the songs ramp up to full blown body crushing walls of sound, some are sparse glitchy skipping hard drives, but the ones that do are absolutely beautiful. So many fucking layers of astounding chaos. Honestly, my speakers can't go loud enough when I listen to Malfunctions. Cranked all the way up, I feel my bones vibrating to dust and I still want more. This album works great as a concept, but throw that idea out with your hearing, fucking turn it UP and you just have one of the best noise albums of the year.’
'Greek sound artist Koutsomichalis is a conceptualist, a designer of sound installations that function to present the public with sounds linked to intellectual ideas, and on this disc he is concerned mainly with what he calls "obscure or unwanted sounds" - that is, sounds that result from malfunctioning equipment. Amplifier hum, feedback, static, and other sounds that one would normally attempt to avoid in the usual application of sound generation equipment are the focus of his work here, with each of the seven untitled tracks devoted to some different aspect of broken sound. Don't let the academic-sounding nature of this outing fool you, though; there's some high-quality noise on here that can be appreciated even without getting into the intellectual end of things. This is a sound experience with appeal to both experimental conceptualists and noiseheads lusting for harsh tones. It's also nice to hear from Greece, an under-represented country in the kingdom of noise.’
‘A better example of Koutsomichalis’ “fixed works”, ‘Malfunctions’ is geared toward recording as it captures the performance of “found systems” - that is, malfunctioning circuits. Without indicating the exact schema of the instruments used, the malfunctions which sound – each in their own unique way: feedback in a tonal symphony, clipping beats in a polyrhytmic necklace, sine-waving garble – sound for the most part ambiguous, without indicating the level of interaction by the artist or other components. Any scholarly novelty is thus diminished as the pleasure of the sound becomes central, like any other recording without pretense, and like the deliberate malfunction of analog synth works, the natural degradation adds a wonderful organicism to each noisy entry, again indebted to careful engineering and a fine-tuned sense of texture.’
'I haven’t heard any music of this person before but Marinos Koutsomichalis is a music composer/sound designer with the emphasis on sound experiments. This CDr is packed inside a booklet that has a lot of text about the nature of this release. This album is based around the unwanted sounds in our lives, like static sounds, hums and feedback that not necessarily was ‘meant to be’. With this idea he created an album full of soundscapes embracing those sounds that normally we wouldn’t pay attention to.
The title of the album is therefore very well-chosen. The songs vary from very minimal sound structures to all-out noise, where some parts could even be very nice to listen to for the lovers harsh-noise. It is also a very difficult recording and certainly not of any interest to the average industrial fan. This release can be kind of meditative on one hand, on the other it is also very heady with thought of what you are actually listening to. In the end this is more of an experimental academic soundscape release.
If thus you like your soundscapes to be of a partly noisy academic variety, this cd will suit your needs, but it is definitely not for the average ambient fan to pick up on.’
Fabian (Gothtronic)
'So far I heard four different releases by Marinos Koutsomichalis. The first 'Chroma' (see Vital Weekly 663) didn't do much for me, too static in its straight recording of machines, but 'Anasiseipsychos' was a great release (see Vital Weekly 677) with sine waves and treatments, a highly minimal yet exciting release. Then 'Peripatetic' was a more like work of various field recordings which I thought was alright but not great. But the other one, released at the same time, 'Trevor Jones Studio Sessions Vol. 1' was again a very nice work with drones (the latter two reviewed in Vital Weekly 703). So quite a mixed bunch of releases so far, but its with some anticipation that I play this new work.
'Malfunction' deals with 'unwanted' noises, machines behaving not as they should be and other forms of hum and static from machines. He does that through a variety of shorter pieces, seven in total, which seems to be a new thing, following the lengthy previous releases. Here Koutsomichalis works in a more 'industrial' music context, with heavy static sounds, hum and suppressed feedback. A bit noisy perhaps, but surely not unpleasant stuff. Koutsomichalis knows how to pull back and a very quiet piece (the fifth one) too. Throughout a release that was pretty alright, again highly conceptual like so many Koutsomichalis releases, but not his best. That would still be the 'Anasiseipsychos' release'.
Frans der Waard (Vital Weekly - 724)
'Peripatetic is the most recent project by composer and sound artist Marinos Koutsomichalis. Here we find a field recording of the daily life in a city. The cities used were Berlin, York, Leeds, Liverpool, Amsterdam, Athens, Vienna, Brussels, London, Gent and Antwerp. All were recorded with simple means and sparse editing.
To begin let’s uncover what Peripatetic means. Peripatetic relates to the philosophy of Aristotle, who while walking about, gave lectures to his students. It also means “traveling from place to place, especially working in several establishments and traveling between them (Encarta Dictionary)”. This gives us a small background to the ideas used herein.
Here we have one track (to label it a song is a stretch) and within that track we have all the sounds of the above mentioned cities. With that said while listening to it, it does feel like one is taking a meandering walk through a city. All the sounds are there: traffic, sirens, birds, dogs, conversation, weather, construction and transportation. Koutsomichalis is able to present us with the subtle rhythm and “music” of the everyday sounds we hear.
This is a unique study in the composition of the sounds we listen to daily. There is virtually no music, only what was recorded in the background during the actual field recordings. The ideas and theory behind the project are imaginative and thoughtful. It seems to be a work destined for headphones (or a wonderful sound system).
At times it feels like the piece would be more appropriate and understandable as a sound installation. The question does need to be asked if the listener is willing to sit through and experience the sounds of the city for 44 minutes. While original and artistic, it may be a somewhat out of grasp for the casual listener. ' (2/5)
Viktorya Kaufholz (Musique Machine)
'Στο “Peripatetic”, o Κουτσομιχάλης, με τις σοβαρές σπουδές στο Music Research Centre, του Πανεπιστημίου του York (είναι, επίσης, ενεργό μέλος του ΚΣΥΜΕ), επιχειρεί μία προσεδάφιση στην καθημερινότητα – δίχως το γεννητριακό μέρος να… καίγεται – έτσι όπως «προσωποποιείται» αυτή μέσω field recordings, που συνέβησαν στα πάρκα, τους δρόμους, τις αγορές, τις αίθουσες, τις… τις… του Άμστερνταμ, της Αθήνας, του Βερολίνου, του Λονδίνο ή αλλού. Το 44λεπτο πλάνο παρακολουθείται με κλειστά μάτια.'
Φώντας Τρούσας (Δισκορυχείον)
‘Lately I like a lot listening to this so called ‘field recordings’. I enjoyed a lot ‘peripatetic’ by Marinos Koutsomichalis which was released by his own label (?), called ‘agxivatein’. The concept of this cdr is based on the ‘Peripatetic School’ which was founded by Aristotelis in 335 b.c. in Athens. The sounds / music that surround us, other than pure information is a secondary knowledge for a deeper sociological analysis. According to Marinos, Cities are sound installations and organic sounds, that each of us can identify with and focus on what he considers to be important. It is an information system that people respond according to the stimuli. Touring itself is often the subject to study. The stimulus can be both important and unimportant for our personal growth.
In the Peripatetic Marinos Koutsomichalis composes using sounds gathered from the tours in Amsterdam, Athens, Berlin, New York, London and so on ... to tell us his own perspective, focusing more on noise effect, on the mix and on the action. This is a very interesting project that would be even better if we could discern where the field recordings were made so that we could compare the different soundscapes! You know...!’
M. Marios (Random)
‘This Greek label specializes in promoting the work of sound installations and organized sound germane to a post-modern aesthetic, and this disc - by the label's founder - definitely fits the bill. The title is an adjective for "traveling from place to place" an appropriate title for a collection whose theme is the sound of the city and composed of field recordings made in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Gent, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Vienna, and York. The sounds are presented almost entirely in their original recordings - post-production editing was limited largely to trimming out some portions spoiled by overmodulation and handling noises - and it makes an entertaining guessing game to try and figure out which sounds originated in which cities. The sounds themselves consist mainly of conversations, street noises, transportation sounds, and the usual sonic detritus present in any major city. It would be interesting to know how he chose to layer the field recordings, for despite the wide variety of sounds and the vastly different character of each city, the single forty-plus minute track has a distinctly composed feel; it flows like a cryptic travelogue that reinforces the idea that cities of all nations are united through certain sounds. No indexing has been provided as a deliberate method of thwarting any attempt to associate certain sounds with certain cities, and indeed the origin of the sounds on this disc are a discreet mystery.’
'Beautifully neat little CD of cityscape field recordings all collected whilst travelling in one manner or another. It's filled with sounds both nebulous and distinct. Occasional snatches of music or speech help to humanise the recordings and allow a brief tantalising eavesdrop into another's world.
This sort of (almost) pure field recording is never going to be to everyone's taste. Personally I love it. It's taken me a number of years to really arrive at a place where I can truly appreciate the dislocation necessary to fully understand and immerse myself in the soundworlds recordings of this type conjure. It is recordings such as this one however that make me very glad to have made the effort.'
Ian Holloway (Wonderful Wooden Reasons)
'Δεν θα το έλεγα δίδυμο με το «Trevor Jones Studio Sessions vol.1» («α» 520) καθώς, εδώ, τα field recordings (ηχογραφήσεις πεδίου στα καθ' ημάς - αλύχτισμα σκύλου, μοναχικό περπάτημα, γκάζια δίτροχων, λαϊκή αγορά...) εναρμονίζουν -φαινομενικά- το έξω παρά το έσω τοπίο παραγκωνίζοντας κάθε τεχνητή μουσική πηγή. Καλλιτεχνική άποψη το δίχως άλλο, όχι άμεσα επικοινωνιακή όμως.’ ***
Αργύρης Ζήλος (Αθηνόραμα, τ 521)
‘I must say its not a bad work, but its not a great one either. Pretty decent stuff of field recordings, ambient sounds from ventilations systems and street sounds. Like stuff on Gruenrekorder - unchanged field phonography. Nice but no cigar.’
Frand de Waard (Vital Weekly - 703)
'Δεν ξέρω αν θα το πάρει ποτέ κανείς, άλλα το Peripatetic είναι ότι καλύτερο έχω ακούσει εδώ και χρόνια'
Ιωσήφ Αγγελίδης (ιδιοκτήτης δισκοπωλείου)
'Haha, was für ein cooler Name für eine Raumarbeit. Marinos Koutsomichalis hat eine Rehe von generativen Klangarbeiten komponiert, die den Versuch unternahmen, einen Raum akustisch zu dominieren, wie er es ausdrückt. Wir hören synthetische Drones, die hallig anschwellen und an Nebelhörner oder das Dröhnen riesiger Maschinen denken lassen. Kraftvoll und dicht aber auch ohne jegliche Überraschung.'
Zipo (aufabwegen)
'Στο 44λεπτο “Trevor Jones Studio Sessions Vol.1”, ηχογραφημένο στο φερώνυμο στούντιο, στο York της Αγγλίας, o Κουτσομιχάλης επιχειρεί να περιγράψει έναν τρόπο μέσω του οποίου ο ήχος (ό,τι παράγει μία… δομή γεννητριών) θα μπορούσε να επηρεάσει την αισθητική και τη φυσική ενός χώρου και προφανώς του υποκειμένου, που βρίσκεται στο χώρο και που γίνεται μάρτυς του ηχητικού συμβάντος. Η μουσική, ο ήχος καλύτερα, μπορεί να λειτουργήσει στο επίπεδο της υποβολής, βοηθούμενος, ενίοτε, και από κάποιες αυθόρμητες τεχνικές… αυθυποβολής.'
Φώντας Τρούσας (Δισκορυχείον)
‘When I saw the title of this release I had some obvious questions. Who the fuck is Trevor Jones and …what kind of linkage could be between Jones and Marinos Koutsomichalis? The first right answer is that Trevor Jones is a South African orchestral film score composer especially well known for numerous film soundtracks like “the last of the Mohicans”, “Arachnophobia” e.t.c. The second one is that Marinos Koutsomichalis has nothing to do with Trevor Johns.
In this release Marinos Koutsomichalis focusing on …”how sound alters the aesthetic and physical qualities of the site and how it challenges its functionality.” In the control room of the Trevor Jones studio in York, Marinos built a sound installation and he started to experiment using as a tool only a pair of Neumann u-87i microphones. The sonic result of this effort is this release full of electroacoustical interest. Original recordings highly depended on the site, interacting together creating chaotic feedbacks, ruling space. This is a very interesting release that refers to similar works from the past. [m.marios]’
M. Marios (Random)
‘Marinos Koutsomichalis claims his music is about texture and qualities of sound, not expression. Certainly, his textures are often as subtle and perfectly processed as the work of Aube or z'ev, high praise coming from me. There is only very loose structure to the pieces, an important distinction from the often mathematical, precise compositional work of the aforementioned artists. He admits this. It sometimes leads to an awkward and discontinuous listening experience; your time is apparently not important to the artist, who also happens to be an incredibly patient, meticulous man. To some, I suppose this merely means he is uncompromising.
This is the sort of album where complete silence, concentration and a good soundsystem are required. If you have those, then the music becomes audible, though not necessarily listenable or enjoyable. I find it impossible to listen to the whole album at one volume. It is much of an experience? To many, it will be pointless, because there is truly little human feeling to the sound. In a way it is like standing in nature - the messages and moods you receive from the sounds are not easily interpretable. Koutsomichalis wishes to express an existing acoustic environment, not express himself, and so there is nothing emotional to become immersed in except sound itself. Said sound periodically proves unreliable here... nice sounds thin back out into silence. As if to prevent the listener from processing these sonic textures as a three dimensional space, the sounds often fade away as soon as they begin. Harsh, obnoxious metallic ringing sounds, easy to create and much less harmonically rich, tend to dominate monotonously for minutes, as in the last of the 8 untitled pieces, one of the longest on the album at 11:43. He consistently employs the use of but a single sound at once, likely because these may be unedited recordings. All the sounds on the entire record could easily be categorized as 'formless metallic digital resonances'. It's a very hollow sound, and these tracks certainly sound generative, and I mean that in a bad way. I cannot hear the structure as anything but random, oftentimes. And yet, I admit, the listening is mostly not boring to me, and it's because of the depth of Marinos' explorations into this particular timbral subclass.
Track 1 is certainly the most ambient and warm of all the tracks, and is thankfully a good 13 minutes long. It has a wonderful swelling, ebb and flow sort of rhythm. It's a transcendent experience, and easily my favorite track.
Coming off of the first, the second piece is a letdown, sounding quite a bit like someone is using a powersaw in the next room over. I cannot perceive any change in the sound within its 7 minute duration; I can't help but tune it out.
Sound levels are incredibly low for first 3 tracks, but don't turn it up. Come Track 4, the trebley shrieks bore through your skull! It's still one of the two or three highlight tracks. At least the volume catches your attention. The rest of disk following the 4th track continues at a much louder volume, but continues in the sound of the first 3 tracks. I am irritated by this - in order to fully enjoy the first track, especially, it must be played at higher volumes. As the sounds become harsher later in the disk, they become less and less aesthetically pleasing and increasingly alienating. Though the sounds are generally louder, it does not seem to be any kind of linear progression towards harshness.
Why would we listen to a man creating sounds completely free of structure or actual 'composition' when so many equally meticulous artists create themed pieces and real sound environments with sound as deep and subtle as this? Well, it's true that the human brain will automatically attempt to organize in all circumstances, and Marinos' mind has certainly done so with this sound to an extent, but the results only occasionally rise above the status of 'perplexing' to become 'fascinating', and will to 99% of listeners be mostly just 'grating'. All in all, if you are a fan of z'ev or Aube, seek this out and see if you like it. It's possible this album is even more inaccessible than those artists, as it has a larger dynamic range and can become earsplitting completely without warning. To other potential listeners - this is one of the most challenging albums I have listened to. First ask yourself how far you're willing to go into the realm of sound for its own sake, and realize this is about as far in as it's possible to go. Then, ask yourself if the timbres contained on this disk sound like the kind you could listen to and concentrate on for 45 minutes straight. It is possible to enjoy this disk, and doing so is a fleeting, unique pleasure, but I can't in good conscience rate it highly since even within the context of highly experimental music it can be repetitive and tedious. I would like to seek out his other work - I hear he's been recording at an ancient and historic river in Greece. That sound palette would much better fit my taste.’
Josh Landry (Musique Machine)
‘Last month in WWR I reviewed my first exposure to the work of Koutsomichalis which was a nifty little set of interwoven urban soundscapes. I liked it very much. This time out he's operating further in the realm of noise drone. His sounds are more amorphous and his whole premise is more musical than on that other release. It's a nice enough set of textural, isolationist ambient. It's quietly low-key with few moments of extroversion to keep you interested and listening.
Personally I preferred his other album. There're just too many people doing this sort of stuff at the moment and whilst Marinos does what he does here well - truly he does - he doesn't manage to raise himself above and beyond his contemporaries. I would have preferred to hear him meld the two sides of his musical personality and create a more unique voice.’
Ian Holloway (Wonderful Wooden Reasons)
‘Athenian Marinos Koutsomichalis performs classic experimental passions with his label Agxivatein and his eponymous recordings. The first for the label entitled ‘Trevor Jones Studio Sessions vol I’ is an etching of his academic work on site-specific sound. Taking over the Trevor Jones Studio in the UK, Koutsomichalis uses Supercollider software to fashion generative music in order to fill the studio space and imprint the “sonorous architecture” of the room. This is of course an odd thing to think to document on CDr, as we lose all but one dimension of sound from this otherwise “specific” space, and the author is quick to realize this. What develops instead is a less-determined soundscape which requires little pretext to achieve an aesthetic profile. One would be hard-pressed to identify what architectural qualities emerge in these pieces which remain opaque in other, non-site wary recordings, but nevertheless there remain intra-album distinctions which, if we limit the depth of indeterminacy at play in each of these eight generated compositions, reveal a rich variety of resonances and static. Most notably, 13-minute opening track “2120” murmurs vacantly, with a forceful air which blows and groans upon surfaces, an off-white plane which is not reflected in the high/low vibration of “2137” which follows. Antsy for some action, the central tracks grow briefer and more dynamic, crashing into these same open spaces which explosions of motoric noise; these offer some of the most pleasing sounds, and the profound boom which breaks regularly mid track comes always with a metallic lining which can only be captured so clearly with the pristine space and quality equipment selected.’
‘The music on this album is again of very experimental nature and in an academic way. This album seems to be one deep sound research and is also a decently interesting listen. The sound has sometimes a very deep and mystical quality to it which makes this release a better listen than ‘Malfunctions’. It is mostly the longer first and last tracks that have that quality. There are also some short tracks which are more noisy and make use of lots of high-pitched sounds.
Again a very academic release, this sound research has especially in the first and last tracks an interesting and ominous sound that can go very deep on headphones.’
Fabian (Gothtronic)
‘Συζητιέται κατά πόσον ένα περιβάλλον, μια αίθουσα, ένα δωμάτιο, μια έκφανση χώρου εν πάση περιπτώσει αναδρά με το φαντασιακό ενός μουσικού τόσο γόνιμα όσο μια... εμπιστευτική συζήτηση με τον εαυτό του. Βεβαίως, ως «άσκηση ετοιμότητας» μόνο θετικές εμπειρίες έχει να προσφέρει σ' έναν σοβαρό ηλεκτροηχοθέτη - και, πιστεύω, ο Μαρίνος ανήκει σ' αυτή τη «χορεία». Μόνο μην το κάνει σύστημα.’ ***
Αργύρης Ζήλος (Αθηνόραμα, τ 520)
'...Great powerful drone music at work here - caution is needed. Its music that seems to working from a system. Once set in motion it moves back and forth between certain parameters, making small changes, seemingly on its own. Powerful in all its roughness but also in all it's silence, this is great mood music. Not drones that wash away like ambient music sometimes does, but forces itself upon the listener and pierce in your head. Great!'
Frans de Waard (Vital Weekly - 703)
"Third was a work composed from a very different compositional muse: in the words of the composer, Marinos Koutsomichalis, 'Apraxia' explores the musical possibilities of timbre, without trying to become narrative, or programmatic in any sense. From the unconventional combination of bass clarinet and double bass, a number of unusual and often unexpected textures and ideas emerged. Snippets of sound hung in space, creating a sense of timelessness. The timbral qualities achieved were by turn ethereal and aggressive, aided by ingenious use of remarkable instrumental techniques."
Becky Thumpston (The Yorker)
'A full hour of sine waves, the result of “late-night improvisations” at home by this knob-twiddling Greek man who knows what he’s doing. Let’s make it clear right now: Anasiseipsychos is a great CD, one of those releases made to be played endlessly, day in day out. For this writer sinusoidal tones represent something nearing cosmic perfection, therefore how could anybody expect a “critical” analysis of what’s just a product of interweaving purities?
OK, here we go, get a cheap description: permanent lines, slowly arching frequencies, decaying ellipses, intertwining glissandos. Wait a minute, I hear voices shouting, everybody can do this. No, sir: a person must possess a special kind of ear to set this type of resonance into a structure definable as “music”, and it looks to me that Koutsomichalis is up to the task.
Nothing here is designable as “unprecedented”, but these creations are peacefully beautiful in their crystalline minimalism. Not to mention all those deceptive geometric allusions that inquisitive ears find tangentially, or in some corner, or at the vertex of a virtual triangle…more or less everywhere. And what about the customary natural equalizations deriving from the different inclination of the head, and the non-existent pulses that an efficient cerebrum generates? Pure illusion, like everything that’s being told to keep believers docile and ignorant, as Frank Zappa would have it, until “enlightenment”.
Sound does not claim to heal people; on the contrary, it kills those who are talking nonsense around it, little by little. So be careful: what is functional for complex intelligences is instead lethal for hollow-minded followers of alleged deities that, in turn, encourage psychological illness, the whole inevitably causing the rational (and possibly physical) collapse of both creators and adorers in a reciprocal sucking of vital juices.
When losers are left alone with the purity of real vibration – that which a creature is (or is not) able to resonate within from the birth, and nobody can teach - the inconclusive bitterness of loophole living becomes really hard to swallow. You are what your brain and body eat, you are what you say, you die for what you are. And you didn’t learn to listen'.
Massimo Ricci (Brain Dead Eternity)
"Athens, Greece-based electro-acoustic composer and sound artist Marinos Koutsomichalis adopts an obviously different approach to Montgomery (Will Montgomery - Legend) in the single-track Anasiseipsychos. Koutsomichalis's interests lie in timbre, texture, and the “architectural possibilities of sound,” all of which are addressed in his hypnotic manipulations of sine tones in the hour-long piece. Multiple tones successively swoop up and down, typically in slow-motion and often pushed to their seeming breaking points, with Koutsomichalis winding up the pitch of tonal masses to almost unbearable degrees of tension (a little bit like a rocket ship shooting up into space). Adding to the disorientating effect, the overlaying of tones also generates a multitude of resonating beats and frequencies. The material turns especially forceful at about the forty-eight-minute mark when one tone, having ascended into the stratosphere, is then joined by a second, then third, and so on. Though his sonic palette is obviously minimal, Koutsomichalis's treatment of it proves seductive and the listener not so much willingly surrenders but more gets sucked into the inexorable pull of the spiraling vortex. One is advised to adhere to the composer's own instruction to “Play loud!” in order to reap maximum psycho-acoustic rewards."
Ron Schepper (textura)
"Athenian composer Marinos Koutsomichalis is very much a product of the academy - his website include a small essay on methodology which asserts that, in his work, "traditional ideas of formalism, causality or transformation are abandoned, for the shake of sound itself, which is no longer the carrier of an artificially planted 'meaning' or 'message' but the very message itself". And Anasiseipsychos dramatises this fixation with pure sound convincingly. It' s a single, hour long track constructed entirely from unalloyed sine tones, the product of a string of late night improvisations. Koutsomichalis slides his primitive building blocks alongside one another, letting them thrum and squirm, merge and clash, and so setting in motion a haze of unruly overtones. He' s clearly absorbed by the way simplicity can bread complexity and by the sheer immersive pleasure of the constant textural change, but in the end this music feels like it was more fun to make than it is to experience."
Chris Sharp (the wire)
"Koutsomichalis ist mir kein Begriff, wenngleich seine Biografie auf einen angesehenen Künstler schließen lässt. Eine Stunde lang moduliert er hier nun Sinustöne, sei es in Reinstform oder als Sheppard-ähnlicher Tonverlauf, das Ergebnis ist bei leisem Volume erstaunlich interessant. Grundpulse variieren nur gemächlich, die Oberflächentöne wirken wie akustische Lücken, die nur das an die Ohren der Hörer kommen lassen, was sich auch bei leiser Grundlautstärke durchsetzen kann. Das war es dann leider auch schon. Irgendwann kippt das Interesse an der klanglichen Gesamtsituation, der berüchtigte Redundanzeffekt tritt ein.abei hätte die Idee durchaus potential. Das Verhältnis von hohen und tiefen Tönen ist nicht beliebig, sondern zeugt von einer musikalisch hochwertigen Vorbereitung. Sicherlich ist es angesichts des Konzeptes und Materials schwer, eine ansprechende klangliche Umsetzung zu gewährleisten, aber Koutsomichalis zeigt leider nicht die Raffinesse von Alva Noto oder gar CM von Hausswolff.ie Linernotes der CD sprechen von »Sideeffects« und anderen psychischen Begleiterscheinungen die während der Wahrnehmung auftreten sollen, aber so ganz überzeugen will mich die Sache nicht. Dafür ist das Material einfach zu dezent und glatt. Vielleicht wäre eine Addition weiterer Elemente aus dem konkreten Bereich dann doch eine bessere Wahl gewesen. Sehr spezielles Konzept. 3/5"
Thorsten Soltau (AEMAG)
‘Multiple, richly layered sine tones, often acting in concert to give the impression of perpetually rising or falling (a la Tenney). The sonic effects, the eat drum-rattling and all are fine, but the conception struck me as too shallow, too science-experiment-y for me to find aesthetic purchase.'
Brian Olewnick (Just in Time).
"This is a tough one. A mathematical piece? A conceptual piece? Difficult to get a grip on. Still we made several efforts to give you an idea. The idea deserves attention.This is what you'd say when listening to this disc for the first time:
The concept behind this music is that wave frequencies are confronted with each other. What we then get is several interference patterns which sound wobbly and shift continuously. Koutsomichalis glued several fragments into one composition of 60 minutes. This is of course a strong conceptual approach, simple, clean. (...)
But that's not what you'd say after carefully listening to it a few times. You might come to the conclusion that you've been judging this too quickly and that the true composition unfolds much more unwillingly and hides its true identity. This is not really concept music but a carefully laid out composition with long lines of rising and descending frequencies which are underpinned by other frequencies yielding a more volatile sound experience.(...)
This is conceptual in the way any composition is conceptual in its structure. It is mathematical but it aims at nothing else but the sonic experience it is. This in contrast to the experiments of James Tenney and (in yet another way) Marianne Amacher.
So, what's the final verdict. It's not really my thing. In a critical mood I'd say the end result is too flat to be really enjoying. It's too pure for informalists and it's too informal to be attractive to purists. 7.5 / 10"
Jos Smolders (earlabs)
"I never heard of Marinos Koutsomichalis but his work 'Anasiseipsychos' blew me away. Apparently it was recorded during a series of late-night improvisations, using sine waves, which he waves together. Perhaps this sound quite dull to you, as so many other people have used sine waves before, but Koutsomichalis does some pretty neat things with the sine waves. (...) Not an easy listening one, but certainly, when played not as loud as possible, this has a relaxing, ambient quality. When the volume is turned up things become a bit more grittier, but also more detailed. I'm reminded of Paul Panhuysen's work on Plinkity Plonk, but Koutsomichalis is more freely working around with the sine waves, and less conceptually based. A great work."
Frans de Waard (Vital Weekly - 677)
"Ο Μαρίνος Κουτσομιχάλης ισορροπεί στην κόψη ενός ξυραφιού. Συνειδητά. (...) εδώ έχουμε δύο όμορφα - ναι, σωστά διαβάσατε, όμορφα - ηχητικά ανάγλυφα διάρκειας 25 λεπτών έκαστο, στατικά στο έπακρο, άλλα με χιλιάδες μικρολεπτομέρειες που όλο αλλάζουν και τους δίνουν ζωή, μαζί με τις αλλαγές της αντιληπτικότητας που συμβαίνουν στο μυαλό του ακροατή. Η δηλωμένη αποχή από την επέμβαση και την δόμηση σαφώς αποτελεί εδώ έναν αισθητικό άξονα και εδώ λειτουργεί καλά. (...) Είναι ένα μεγάλο στοίχημα για τον Μαρίνο Κουτσομιχάλη να καταφέρει να συνεχίσει να ανακαλύπτει ηχητικά ευρήματα που να έχουν λόγο να παρουσιάζονται και να συναρπάζουν το ανθρώπινο ακροατήριο και στους καιρούς που θα έρθουν."
Κωστής Δρυγιαννάκης (Δίφωνο)
‘(...) The substance is easily illustrated: an unremitting motionless purr, much similar to amplified electricity but with a higher percentage of harmonic substratum and well-perceivable pulsations (...) Here, too, a double efficacy is experienced: in the daily trip this stuff isolates and stimulates to the point of having my head reeling, from the speakers the result is one of the most entrancing listens of the last weeks. This sort of thing is often harshly criticized by yours truly – no compositional endeavour in sight - yet this nerve-massaging mumble is extremely efficient.’
Massimo Ricci (Temporary Fault)
"(...) αυτές και διάφορες παρόμοιες σκέψεις τριβέλιζαν τα μυαλά μας όταν αργότερα βάλαμε να ακούσουμε το cdr. και ειλικρινά αν κάποιος θέλει να μιλήσει αντικειμενικά είναι η καλύτερη δουλειά του. εννοιολογική (θα ταίριαζε άψογα για εγκατάσταση ή κάτι παρόμοιο παρεμπιπτόντως) και άκρως στατική και μινιμαλιστική. σε τέτοιο βαθμό που πραγματικά αν κυκλοφορούσε πριν απο περίπου 7-8 χρόνια δε θα μιλάγαμε για μια ωραία & ενδιαφέρουσα κυκλοφορία όπως τώρα αλλά για ένα 'μινιμαλιστικό και εννοιολογικό διαμάντι', κλπ. αφού η τάση εκείνης της εποχής ήταν αυτή.. ίσως κρίμα απο τη μία για την κυκλοφορία αλλά απο την άλλη τώρα έχει κανείς την ευκαιρία να την αξιολογήσει καλύτερα. υπάρχει φυσικά και ο αντίλογος, γιατί δεν έκοβε ένα βινύλιο με 2 αποσπάσματα απ'τα κομμάτια, 1 σε κάθε πλευρά στη μέση της με ένα lock groove και να το art record. απο την άλλη ίσως έτσι να χανόταν αυτό που προσπαθεί εδώ να παρουσιάσει... μια industrial λογική (όσον αφορά τις μηχανές) & προσέγγιση σε ένα άλλο περιβάλλον (ας το πούμε πιο 'στατικά μινιμαλιστικό'). και για να μην πλατιάζουμε άλλο, είναι ίσως ότι καλύτερο έχει δείξει μέχρι σήμερα σα δείγμα γραφής ο μαρίνος. μας τρώει η περίεργεια ειλικρινά για το τι θα μας δείξει πάλι στο μέλλον... "
Νικόλας Μαλεβίτσης (tranzistor)
"(...) Two pieces of twenty five minutes of various pieces of machinery recorded with contact microphones. Nothing happens in these highly static pieces of sound. Sound is a great phenomena, and surely you can record a bit, and then say it's a composition, but perhaps its even nicer then to go into your kitchen and listen to your fridge yourself. Nice thing to upset unsuspecting visitors"
Frans de Waard (Vital Weekly)