Air Base (Gerco de Ruijter) from Michel Banabila on Vimeo.
Video: Gerco de Ruijter / Sound: Michel Banabila
track = remix of: 'The Lost Drones Tape No. #2' (from: Early Works - Bureau B)
Friday, 25 November 2016
Air Base (Gerco de Ruijter)
Video: Gerco de Ruijter / Sound: Michel Banabila
track = remix of: 'The Lost Drones Tape No. #2' (from: Early Works - Bureau B)
Saturday, 19 November 2016
Periwinkle Here And Now: Macrocosms
(review by Perry Holt)
I know, it's not brand spankers, however, outing number four for Banabila & Machinefabriek - and it just keeps on getting better. Between them these two guys have such a plethora of musicality behind them that I feel the fourteenth release between them will still keep one intrigued and captivated. I got ruminating that this is their most exotica sounding release, that is, in a fourth world sense. Insect noise, digital clicks, bird song, synth keyed crystalline tones, ambient washes surge both subtlely and forcefully. Narration and radio transmission snatches, the microworld of human observation/language, appear and dissipate - subsumed by music and sound. There's a percussive thread throughout Macrocosms too, sampled and played through Rutger and Michels careful library of listening (check Turmoil, Echo Chamber), as too with all other sounds and music on this release. Also amongst these sources are sounds recorded at the Biała Woda nature reserve in Poland by Michel - here within a regional macrocosm are also the minutae of life - hidden worlds revealed. As with previous releases between them, the recording process was through file swapping. I wonder if through this, both Michel and Rutger's voices can sound more truly themselves; sounding more of a collaboration than a compromise. Or am I missing something there?! I got to first listen to this at cruising altitude above the ocean somewhere between Australia and Japan - between cultures. Apt. And detail, it unfolds continuously. I hear-look at paradise from afar, subsumed inside a dystopian threat - within a dream. This sense appears first in Kaleidoscope with its gamelan isolate and chinking buzz exotica, it closes with a dislocated kind of cooing, gorgeous. Then, as if looking down from a space station (or is it from a submerged city) with piped nostalgia choruses fed through a PA, so too does Upwards hint of this dread. There is still beauty within the waste however, koto strike, anthromusicological ephemera from a forest through the throats and tongue of men. Majesty broods, swells and surrenders in ambient free-float. Prey too sounds a forboding - slow drone hum builds and dissipates as gong miscellany fleck the sound-field. E-bow like sounds are sirens. Squirl and hum on close. So much detail! Cricket clicks & chirps, electric flutter and a lock groove sishi-odoshi suggest we're headed to the mad-house in Awake - before the forest beckons towards a calming glockenspiel melody and key tones. The flutter at closing is more avian - less electro-claustrophobic. Is that digitally altered tingsha in Turmoil? Tin water can strike foils, morse enters/leaves, a 1:22 clash heads into a sound fray and bird-song sonar returning to the songs beginning to end. All is not what it seems and excels on realisation. There's more to hear and immerse oneself within, whether canned or from the speaker, it rewards. Music from innumerable continents and imaginal realms - a post cultural melting pot of musical memory and remembering. Post apocalypse exotica - damning the romantics with the reality of mankinds decline.
http://periwinklehearandnow.blogspot.nl/2016/11/banabila-machinefabriek-macrocosms.html
I know, it's not brand spankers, however, outing number four for Banabila & Machinefabriek - and it just keeps on getting better. Between them these two guys have such a plethora of musicality behind them that I feel the fourteenth release between them will still keep one intrigued and captivated. I got ruminating that this is their most exotica sounding release, that is, in a fourth world sense. Insect noise, digital clicks, bird song, synth keyed crystalline tones, ambient washes surge both subtlely and forcefully. Narration and radio transmission snatches, the microworld of human observation/language, appear and dissipate - subsumed by music and sound. There's a percussive thread throughout Macrocosms too, sampled and played through Rutger and Michels careful library of listening (check Turmoil, Echo Chamber), as too with all other sounds and music on this release. Also amongst these sources are sounds recorded at the Biała Woda nature reserve in Poland by Michel - here within a regional macrocosm are also the minutae of life - hidden worlds revealed. As with previous releases between them, the recording process was through file swapping. I wonder if through this, both Michel and Rutger's voices can sound more truly themselves; sounding more of a collaboration than a compromise. Or am I missing something there?! I got to first listen to this at cruising altitude above the ocean somewhere between Australia and Japan - between cultures. Apt. And detail, it unfolds continuously. I hear-look at paradise from afar, subsumed inside a dystopian threat - within a dream. This sense appears first in Kaleidoscope with its gamelan isolate and chinking buzz exotica, it closes with a dislocated kind of cooing, gorgeous. Then, as if looking down from a space station (or is it from a submerged city) with piped nostalgia choruses fed through a PA, so too does Upwards hint of this dread. There is still beauty within the waste however, koto strike, anthromusicological ephemera from a forest through the throats and tongue of men. Majesty broods, swells and surrenders in ambient free-float. Prey too sounds a forboding - slow drone hum builds and dissipates as gong miscellany fleck the sound-field. E-bow like sounds are sirens. Squirl and hum on close. So much detail! Cricket clicks & chirps, electric flutter and a lock groove sishi-odoshi suggest we're headed to the mad-house in Awake - before the forest beckons towards a calming glockenspiel melody and key tones. The flutter at closing is more avian - less electro-claustrophobic. Is that digitally altered tingsha in Turmoil? Tin water can strike foils, morse enters/leaves, a 1:22 clash heads into a sound fray and bird-song sonar returning to the songs beginning to end. All is not what it seems and excels on realisation. There's more to hear and immerse oneself within, whether canned or from the speaker, it rewards. Music from innumerable continents and imaginal realms - a post cultural melting pot of musical memory and remembering. Post apocalypse exotica - damning the romantics with the reality of mankinds decline.
http://periwinklehearandnow.blogspot.nl/2016/11/banabila-machinefabriek-macrocosms.html
Saturday, 12 November 2016
Rescoring La Antena - Esteban Sapir
The Chi Factory performed live during the screening of Estena Sapi's beautiful film La Antena, yesterday in Kino Rotterdam.
Commissioned by Cinesonic, The Chi Factory improvised with sampler, drums, bamboo flutes, clarinet, keyboards, voice and electronics.
Left - Hanyo Van Oosterom / Mid - Jacobus Derwort / Right - Michel Banabila. photo by Joke Schot.
Commissioned by Cinesonic, The Chi Factory improvised with sampler, drums, bamboo flutes, clarinet, keyboards, voice and electronics. 
Left - Hanyo Van Oosterom / Mid - Jacobus Derwort / Right - Michel Banabila. photo by Joke Schot.
CineSonic 64 - Chi Factory play La Antena from CineSonic on Vimeo.
Performed live by Hanyo van Oosterom, Jacobus Derwort & Michel Banabila, November 11, 2016.Monday, 7 November 2016
Final revised version Big Data Poetry at Trouw (2013)
A final and revised version of Big Data Poetry - Geert Mul & Michel Banabila live at Trouw Amsterdam (2013) was just uploaded. A 23 minutes edit from a 45 minute live show
One of the first versions of this audio visual live set is currently shown at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, as a high resolution 3 panel video installation with wireless headphones
BIG DATA POETRY Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam @ trouw Geert Mul & Michel Banabila from Geert Mul on Vimeo.
One of the first versions of this audio visual live set is currently shown at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, as a high resolution 3 panel video installation with wireless headphones
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