Tumult!
Avarus : Ruskeatimantti (rec.2001-2003) (FIN,2005) CD1*°°/CD2***°
I thought this would be a new release, but only when I had this in my hands I notice it was a compilation of earlier more limited recordings released as limited CDR releases on Lallallal and one 7”, including the CDR I already had from them, so then I knew already what to expect for the first CD.
About this early stage of Avarus (2001) I still was a bit sceptical about the first attempts. “Posum Ekor Kait Dataran” with its two tracks and the second release “Horuksen Keskimmäisen Silman Mysteerikoulu” both have very stoned, dark, shadowy ritualistic amateur acoustic improvisations, with some drones and repetitions and interwoven layers that give it a good effect. This kind of drone-folk & experimental folk, as it is often called, I still prefer here to put in a different category, an outsider side-category of psych-folk. The music here still has not much attempt at structure, clarity or skills. It arrives at the “psych” thing, by accident, without filtering any ideas of structure. Each improvised moment it starts anew, it is always, always in this stoned context. The music itself IS borderline. All ideas are interesting enough, but never over the top, because of the little attempt to expand the accidental maximum horizon of the moment. All created sounds just work as if coincidentally improvised together, without any other starting point, but the production process of the ritual event. Dali said once about modern art that it didn’t offer anything new. It is only fragments of what happened before in art : fragmented details, and not even painted too well. This music is like such ragments, fragments that are interesting, and that are collected like a collage. They hang well together, become like a carpet, and listens like a carpet-ride, without other visions from what’s happening all around it. From this early stage of Avarus, I miss the vision to make such a concept work for any length. It is no new music or contemporary music, no psych-folk, it is not really experimental, just stoned. Still there are moments of becoming unique and hypnotic, like “Yö..”, in a sense I heard it also on their latest album.
*Audio from 'Horuksen Keskimmäisen Silman Mysteerikoulu' (12 track cdr) :
The second CD however, compiled from three recordings between 2002-2003 takes an important step further. The group and commune feeling here began to form some more indicvidual sound because they start from more unique moments and ideas of which combinations of instruments and oscillating minimalism works best. All these recordings are taken from live recordings. “Maximum Highway lifestyle” for instance has a commune-like group hanging well together for this, with more free music, some abstract parts, partly rhythmic, with some middle eastern improvisation on the background somewhere with lots of echoed noise, then with some Can-like atmosphere with rhythm and electronics, as a great underground psych jam, which became focused and kept this energy for a while when improvising further within a certain hypnotic style. Also the last track “A-V-P” has a continuity and balanced evolution. Both of these recordings are amongst the better recordings of Avarus. Within all primitivism here the group succeeded to realize a hypnotic creation, of and even Krautrock-like atmosphere, formed out of their limited abilities.
* Info on "Maximum Highway Lifestyle" (1 track cdr) :
I would have preferred if the release would have been re-released in some kind of digipack and with some of the original artwork included (like show above).
