Jump Cuts

Found sound from youtube. This month I started to sample voices and environmental sounds again... Combining lots of samples, often amazed by synchronicity. I couldn't stop, as I was enjoying it a lot, and two wonderful contributions by Joost Kroon and Maryana Golovchenko completed this little EP, that sounds perhaps more like my previous VoizNoiz albums. Furthermore I used some photos from recent trips for creating the artwork, inspired by the music. These recordings are available as a download, and track 1 & 3 are also available on CD





AMBIENT BLOG
When he introduced his recent digital-only EP-release Jump Cuts, Michel Banabila hesitantly apologized for the fact that it wasn’t exactly experimental music. But because he enjoyed making it so much he decided to release it to the public. While it may not exactly be abstract hardcore experimental music indeed, I can probably safely assume that this is still much too experimental to the ears of about 95% of radiomakers and – listeners. But what is more important: it’s a return-to-style to the music that bears the unique Banabila trademark. The kind of patchwork sounds he created for previous albums like Voiznoiz and Precious Images – let’s call it his pre-abstract-electronic era. The kind of music that also perfectly fits theatre, dance, documentary or movies soundtracks. A jump cut in film editing is a cut in which two sequential shots of the same subject are taken from camera positions that vary only slightly, giving the effect of jumping forwards in time. Banabila achieves the effect by synchronizing all kinds of seemingly unrelated found sounds and vocal snippets with a compelling background rhythm track. It’s easy to hear why Michel Banabila enjoyed creating these tracks so very much. I’d say: don’t worry about experimentalism…. more of this, please! (Peter van Cooten)



NIEUWE NOTEN:
‘Jump Cuts’ is het derde recente album en in tegenstelling tot ‘Music for Viola and Electronics II’ en ‘Error Log’ is dit album alleen digitaal te verkrijgen. Naast een gastbijdrage van drummer en percussionist Joost Kroon, die ook op ‘Music for Viola and Electronics II’ meewerkt, horen we zangeres Maryana Golovchenko. Verder maakt Banabila hier veel gebruik van veldopnames en allerhande samples. Dit album is tevens opvallend ritmisch, zeker in vergelijk met de twee andere albums. (Ben Taffijn)



UTILITY FOG - FBI RADIO:
Michel Banabila's latest EP sees him returning to rhythmic sampled vocals, with a pan-world music feel. In some ways it could be a throwback to the '90s ethnomusicology of Deep Forest or something – or even Jean-Michel Jarre's strange, groundbreaking Zoolook, but it has enough of a contemporary sheen to set it apart, particularly with the glitchy vocal interruptions. Calming dubby grooves and lovely disembodied vocals make for great travelling music (even if you're sitting on your sofa travelling in your head). (Peter Hollo)



MUSIC WON'T SAVE YOU:
Reduce da una nuova collaborazione con Rutger Zuydervelt (“Error Log”), Michel Banabila racchiude in un Ep digitale una serie di divertite variazioni su field recordings e samples vocali, rimaneggiate e plasmate in quattro brani dalla poliedrica resa sonora. In “Jump Cuts” l’artista olandese torna ad applicare l’approccio istintivo e impressionista di lavori quali “Voiznoiz” e “Precious Images”, discostandosi in parte da sperimentazioni dotate piuttosto di una matrice cerebrale o concettuale. Se nei brani collocati in testa e in coda della breve tracklist il naturalismo elettro-acustico elettro-acustico della materia grezza delle registrazioni affiora in superficie appena contornata da oscillazioni avvolgenti e minute screziature, nei due pezzi centrali sono le componenti ritmiche a prendere decisamente il sopravvento, sotto forma di pulsazioni sintetiche che, lungo i nove minuti della title track, assumono cadenze incalzanti. Il tutto sembra rispondere a un’estemporaneità persino divertita, che contribuisce a desacralizzate l’essenza stessa del linguaggio sperimentale di Banabila, evidenziandone al contempo potenzialità insospettate e appunto discendenti dalla capacità dell’artista olandese di cogliere l’attimo, assemblandone gli elementi e modellandolo secondo la mutevole ispirazione del momento. (Raffaello Russo)



NOWAMUZYKA:
Michel Banabila to muzyk, kompozytor i producent. Jego kariera zaczęła się wraz z wypuszczeniem albumu „Voiz Noiz” w 2000 roku, który został bardzo dobrze oceniony przez krytyków. Wyprodukował wiele ścieżek dźwiękowych do filmów pełnometrażowych, dokumentalnych, jak i sztuk teatralnych. Holender ma na swoim koncie mnóstwo różnych kolaboracji. W ubiegłym roku wydał znakomitą EP-kę wraz z kolektywem Cloud Ensemble (recenzja). Zaś w tym roku opublikował kilka interesujących wydawnictw: Michel Banabila & Oene van Geel – „Music for viola and electronics II” (recenzja), Banabila & Machinefabriek – „Error Log” i Banabila, Erker, & Samson – „Viewpoint”. Najświeższą jego pozycją jest solowa EP-ka, pt. „Jump Cuts” (Tapu Records, czerwiec 2015). Inspiracją do stworzenia tego materiału były sample z YouTube’a pochodzące z amatorskich klipów. Na EP-ce znalazły się cztery kompozycje, dzięki którym twórca wraca do swoich korzeni, a mianowicie do tego, co prezentował m.in. na krążku „VoizNoiz”. Banabila zaprosił do współpracy dwóch artystów: Joosta Kroona – (perkusja w „Jump Cuts”) i Maryanę Golovchenko – (wokal w „Field Trip”). Z kolei sam odpowiada za gitary, syntezatory, field recording, głos, pad kaoss, meksykański flet turtle, elektronikę i instrumenty perkusyjne. Minialbum „Jump Cuts” to niezwykle ciekawa fuzja przeróżnych brzmień, od elektroniki, jazzu, krautrocka, etno aż po downtempo, ambient czy muzykę eksperymentalną. (Łukasz Komła)



WSZYSTKIE STANY SKUPIENIA:
Jeśli spędzacie popołudnie na jutiubach, to możecie równie dobrze posłuchać najświeższego materiału od Michel Banabila. Jump Cuts to cztery ciekawe utwory inspirowane amatorskimi filmikami na wyżej wspomnianym portalu. Wiele się dzieje w tej przestrzeni. Zarówno muzycznie, jak i instrumentalnie. Szkoda tylko, że tak szybko mija.

GONZO CIRCUS 129:
Op het alleen digitaal verkijgbare Jump Cuts laat Banabila zich van een toegankelijke kant zien. 'Field Trip' is met zijn ritme en betoverende stem van Maryana Golovchenko misschien wel zijn meest poppy nummer ooit opgenomen. Tussen haar stem zijn veel omgevingsgeluiden te horen en dat is ook elders op dit album het geval. Zoals in het lange ambient-achtige eerste deel van de titeltrack waarin het tempo gaandeweg word opgevoerd door ritmische percussie. In 'Take Me There' zit je dankzij gemelanklanken en omgevingsgeluiden ineens in Nederlands Indie. In 'Tortoise' waan je je door de combinatie met trompet in een nummer van Jon Hassell. Bij de bandcamp-versie van 'Jump Cuts' zit een gratis bonustrack met alleen maar rustige elektronica en field recordings. (Oscar Smit)

Released June 21, 2015.

Michel Banabila: guitar, keys, field recordings, voices, kaoss pad, samples from youtube amateur video recordings, mexican turtle flute (with ZPlane treatment), electronics, percussion, logic audio, melodyne and artwork.

Joost Kroon: drums & percussion [3]
Maryana Golovchenko: additional vocal [4]

008TR - 2015 © Tapu records
All tracks composed by Michel Banabila.

VoizNoiz - Urban Sound Scapes

Electronic. CD &12inch vinyl (Pork Recordings / Tone Casualties)

WAX MAGAZINE:
A thoroughly engaging, amusing and charming debut from new Pork signing Michael Banabila. Slightly more random than your usual Pork output, but still retaining the essential ingredients, Banabila strings together 20 soothing skunk funk oddities that delight and bemuse in equal portions. Tender beats, oddball samples, live instrumentation and vocal snippets weave together to make a warming abstract picture, one of those ones that looks good whichever way you hang it. (Nov 2000)

ALL MUSIC GUIDE:
The strength of this fascinating found-sound pastiche will be enough to send fans of musique concrete, advanced turntablism, and trip-hop scouring the import bins. Most of the material that comprises these 20 tracks comes from field recordings of human voices speaking, singing, declaiming, and arguing, all of them reportedly made in the streets, buildings, and train stations of Holland and Yemen. The recordings are cut up and pasted together in sometimes eerie and frequently downright funky ways: the result sometimes sounds like a collaboration between Jon Hassell and African Head Charge (as on the danceable "Do Something About It" and the even more Hassell-ish "Sorokin Blues") and sometimes like a cross between Tricky and the Residents (as on the darkly funky and melodically quirky "Chickensoap). On "Where?" the snippets of speaking and singing are arranged by pitch, and the result is a sort of techno version of hocketing; it's an example of medieval technique meeting 21st century technology, and the result is wonderful. This is an exquisite album by an artist who deserves much wider recognition. (Rick Anderson).



KORTEX Electronica:
VoizNoiz c'est avant tout, des collages sonores mélodiques et urbains. C'est aussi Michel Banabila et une fantastique collaboration de musiciens de Rotterdam. L'ensemble ainsi crée s'aventure dans des territoires voisinants l'Acid Jazz, le trip hop et la peinture sonore abstraite. VoizNoiz c'est un film qui défile dans notre tête : l'ambiance cinématographique propagée par les différentes pièces de l'album s'impose à notre esprit et nous fait voyager un peu partout à travers le monde à l'aide d'un fond musical riche doublé de différents échantillons hétéroclites. Chaque mouvement est pourtant bien clair, et on peut facilement associer les pièces à tel ou tel événement fictif. VoizNoiz est un album diversifié qui bénéficie pourtant d'un solide fil conducteur qui permet à l'auditeur de ne pas se perdre au sein des myriades de sonorités exploitées par Michel Banabila et ses copains. Une belle et amusante expérience auditive. (Yanik Trudeau)

'Where ?' by MAITE KLIS & YUNFENG FU from Michel Banabila on Vimeo.

ALTERNATIVE PRESS:
Post modern assemblage of found sounds and vocal fragments. Sound collage can often be more conceptually interesting than listenable. Michel Banabila handily avoids this on the unclassifiable VoizNoiz. He uses location recordings from Holland and Yemen, along with live guitar, voices, bass and percussion to construct what he calls "urban sound scapes". Banabila assembles riffs from found-sound and vocal fragments into oddly conversational grooves. This approach recalls Coil, but without their inward-looking menace. VoizNoiz is every bit as post-modern as the work of today's DSP-terrorists, but it's a much easier listen. (Kent Williams).

COOL AND STRANGE MUSIC:
Holland's Michel Banabila is one of those rare musicians who can take an avant-garde conception and turn it into a highly entertaining work of art. VoizNoiz is a masterpiece of found sounds and voices used rhythmically and humorously with obvious nods to Jean Michel Jarre's classic collaboration with Laurie Anderson, Zoolook, without the dark psychological edge, and Coil, without the homo-erotic magick. VoizNoiz is an update of the genre into contemporary trip-hop, with touches of exotica and Asian house music. There is a slight Carribean edge in some parts, but the jack-hammer editing of the sound montage is so intense that by the time one is able to digest an influence, it has been replaced by something completely different. Think of a tropical island version of Tipsy, only more cartoony (which is no surprise as the executive producer is the legendary animator Gabor Csupo.) Though the CD is separated into 20 different tracks, I defy anyone to figure out which one is which without looking at the track indicator. It's like a lovingly unified vision of schizophrenia done Tex Avery style. (Wilhelm Murg)



PITCHFORKMEDIA:
The Pork folks discovered Banabila and flourished this remarkable disc with "Mono/Metro," a holler-sampling-and-contorting fragment of genius that Moby would stomp Fairfield County, Connecticut into the subsoil for. (Paul Cooper).

'Where ?' by TIM VAN HELSDINGEN from Michel Banabila on Vimeo.

Banabila, Club Cult, Moscow, 2005.


Pork Recordings

Steamsounds Publishing

Buy at CD BABY





EARPOLLUTION : VoizNoiz 2
Michel Banabila has an ear for sound and a pulse which runs through his fingers. Taking a nearly limitless number of samples, he finds a common pulse that they gravitate towards, and produces groovy - nearly trip-hop style - songs. There are no voices other than the stolen ghosts which become halting, tripping verse-chorus-verse arrangements under his skillful manipulation. "Voiz IX" is a wheezing street orchestra, a tiny marching band made up of two kids banging on trash cans, one over the hill tuba (worked over by a much younger player with a decent set of lungs), a couple of single-stringed guitars, a kid with an old radio sporting exposed wiring, and a drum major with a three-dollar megaphone. Banabila reworks all these elements (and the echoes which their street performance leave rattling down the long alleys) into something else, something a little less than a recognizable tune and more into a musique concrete abstraction. At the other end of the spectrum is the following track, "Speak," which hums along at 144 bpm, hammering and jabbering beneath a cut-up vocal track that speaks in starts and stutters. Like all good pastiches, you find comfort in the recognizable elements and thrill in their unexpected juxtaposition. Banabila's work on VoizNoiz II is a soundtrack to the urban chaos which is the overwhelming reality of city living. (Mark Teppo)

INK 19 : VoizNoiz 2
Considering you can give a whole group of people a fancy recording studio, tons of personal attention and pampering and they create audible crap, artists such as Banabila are all the more wonderful. His sophomore release in the Urban Sound Scapes series, Banabila recorded VoizNoiz 2 completely in his home studio. Mainly, sounds are used to create "words" of sound that speak in the language in which we hear. There is a world flavor, a little "trip-hop" label floating around, and one visionary artist behind every moving track. Creepy, loungy, jazzy, sexy, mysterious, fun, and artsy, this is for anyone who's bored with their current musical interests. This album makes you open so many musical doors. A few standout tracks: "Heavy Gravity," the bouncy, tribal "U Beat," sporadic "Speak," and "To The Angels." Learn a new language with Banabila, the language of sound. (Vanessa Bormann)



ALL MUSIC GUIDE : VoizNoiz 2
The second volume in Banabila's series of Urban Soundscapes is much like the first, a kaleidoscopically funky collage of found sound, aural experimentation, trip-hop beats, and promiscuous sampling. As on his first effort, a willfully bizarre sonic design sense is constantly counterbalanced by a thoroughly populist approach to the groove ‹ there is nothing on this disc listeners won't be proud to dance to and nothing that won't catch them by surprise if they listen hard enough. A few examples: the creaking door, splashing water, and severely altered voices on "Voiz VIII" that rub sensuously up against metallic guitars and a thick, slow groove ; the lurching, Tom Waits-ish "One for the Road," with its turntable-scratching and locomotive sample; and the slow-building "Dinoh Dinoh," which starts off with layers of deeply tweaked voice samples and slides into an irresistible mid-tempo breakbeat with horn section and Hammond organ. The avant-garde is at its best when it's funky, and funk is at its best when it's avant-garde. (Rick Anderson)


Steamin' Songs Publishing released October 9, 2001