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Reviews

Brown / Buck / Mayas — Blue Plum Bloom
(Bandcamp Shame File Music no#, 2024, LP / DL)

Astasie-abasie — Vestegial Gamelan
(Bandcamp Shame File Music no#, 2025, LP / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2025-05-14

Blue Plum Bloom Cover artVestegial Gamelan Cover art

Under most circumstances, we wouldn’t review albums by two completely different artists in the same review, but in this case the distributor of the LPs (Soundohm) sells the two albums as a single package. Why? I really dunno — both artists are from Australia, and both of these are pretty out-there avant-garde endeavors, what might be called electroacoustic free improvisations, but that’s where the similarities end. Then again, they can be purchased seperately as downloads on Bandcamp instead of on vinyl.

Tony Buck (drums and percussion), Magda Mayas (piano, objects), and David Brown (prepared guitar and electronics) are a free improvising trio, and it appears that Blue Plum Bloom is the first collaboration of all three together, although Buck and Mayas have recorded several times together previously. I recognized Tony Buck’s name as a member of The Necks, the minimalist jazz trio that released a number of albums on RéR about a dozen years back. The other two I have no previous familiarity with. Blue Plum Bloom consists of three tracks, the first, “Polyamorous Sea,” takes up the entire first side of the LP, while the title track and “Forager” share the second side. The music could best be described as pure free improvisation, a wandering through sounds and shadows of sounds produced mostly using extended techniques, with the percussion (cymbals, drums, etc.) being  the most recognizable, though the prepared guitars and prepared piano are fairly omnipresent throughout the set, just in different amounts at different times, always more or less subdued and gentle, never loud, crazy or overtly abrasive. One might find this to be Interesting, though without any real cadence or melody, it remains out there on the very edge. I dig it while I’m listening to it, but as soon as it’s gone, everything seems to evaporate and there is nothing to recall.

Astasie-abasie is the pseudonym (one of many) of Sydney based film, video, and sound artist Ian Andrews, who has been working the Australian experimental music scene since the early 80s. Vestigial Gamelan is the third in a series — the earlier releases are Molecular Gamelan (2021) and Elliptical Gamelan (2022) — where the many instruments of the gamelan orchestra to produce experimental sound collages. While nearly all of the sounds are percussive and recognizable if one has listened to any amount of Indonesian gamelan, the sounds and textures are purely improvisational, with no other relationship to the traditional gamelan music one may be accustomed to. And there are other mysterious sounds in the mix as well, sounds of wood being scraped and tapped on, and the gongs, bells, and drums often sounding like free-floating wind chimes. The album consists of eleven short experimental vignettes in the three to four minute range, explorations of sounds if you will, without any real order, but not chaotic or noisy either; it’s easy to listen too, never jarring or harsh, just sort of random. There are field recordings in the mix of some of the pieces as well. Both of these albums are excellent and worthy of a listen.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases, 2025 releases

Related artist(s): Brown / Buck / Mayas, Astasie-abasie (Ian Andrews)

More info
http://shamefilemusic.bandcamp.com/album/blue-plum-bloom
http://shamefilemusic.bandcamp.com/album/vestigial-gamelan

 

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