v.a. un tributo to james t. russell Alku (Spain) CD-R $6

"James T. Russell, an American physicist and inventor responsible for the development of the compact disc, is the man of the hour on this Alku's compilation CD (which is actually only half an hour in length). The disc features tracks by Terre Thaemlitz, Tasunao Tone, Wobbly, cd_slopper, Discmen, Javier Hernando, Oval/Frank Metzger and Alku itself. Thaemlitz starts things off with 35 tracks, each 4 seconds long and utterly silent with the exception of an extremely brief piano sample (less than a second long) in the 34th track. Ex Fluxus member Yasunao Tone offers his tribute with a long piece of frantic CD scratching and cut-up collage, characteristically restless and abrasive, and certainly not the most interesting contribution here. Wobbly (aka Jon Leidecker), who released a wonderful 3 inch disc on Alku last year titled Regards, provides the next piece, which sort of presents a similar concept of cut-ups as the track by Tone, but in a more succinct and amusing manner, with more of a sensibility toward rhythm (albeit highly skewered and fragmented). Next up is cd_slopper, with a brief but excellent track of quiet and subtle electronic chimes, tones and pulses. Discmen, an outfit from Portugal who sound very much like Oval, follow with a very brief track of edits, errors and ear-friendly cut-ups. Javier Hernando comes next with a similarly subdued piece of digital cut-ups and edited sounds, followed by three tracks by Frank Metzger, one of Oval's original members and still carrying the torch by releasing projects under the conjoint name Oval/Frank Metzger. Since these pieces sound very similar to Oval's work (especially from when he was a part of what was then a trio), I guess there's no harm in keeping the name. Alku completes the set with its funny track "burning cds", in which we hear the sounds of — you guessed it — burning CDs, but in the literal sense." [Richard di Santo - incursion]