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Vital Weekly Review: X+Y=XY

Alku is a small CDR label which never cease to surprise the listener with new ideas. '10 Citas A Ciegas' means '10 Blind Dates'. Twenty artists were invited to send in a track of exactely two minutes, which was coupled to another one of two minutes. Alku made the selection for this combinations, so nobody knew what the final result would be. X+Y=XY indeed. It turned out to be strange combinations, like Needle & Thomas Dimuzio or Plank and Kubin & Garland. One of the great advantages of laptop musics is of course that the possibilities are unlimited and in the realms of digital sound anything sounds digital and most of the time good. If you ever saw some people improvising on a laptop, you know what I mean. Here the laptop crackles work in various directions, from technoid lounge (Beige/Mainpal) to noise (Errorsmith/Opopop) and a most curious piece between Kevin Drumm and Francisco Lopez - who incorporate the most of noise and a bit of silence... and Wobbly and Time's Up going for the real feedback noise. Curious meetings here in the world of blind dates. Worth checking out! -- Frans de Waard