28/07/2025
Frans de Waard about new albums by Kurt Liedwart and FourColor in his Vital Weekly:
KURT LIEDWART – VOLTA (CD by Ton)
FOURCOLOR – MOKO (CD by Ton)
The last time I was in contact with Kurt Liedwart was about four years ago; he told me he was giving up the Mikroton label, which released many interesting works from the world of electro-acoustic improvisation, many of which I reviewed. His new label would be TON, which would be for “pop and mainstream versions of electronica” and ” ambient, electronica and techno”. After years of not selling CDs, it was time to make money. Imagine my surprise it took four years to release the first two CDs; I don’t know the reason for this lengthy delay. The big question is, of course, do we get some pop, mainstream versions of electronica, ambient, electronica or techno? The first release is by Kurt Liedwart and it sees him “return to his roots in techno and ambient genres he has been passionate about since the early 1990s when he first began crafting music in these styles”. There is not much techno on this release, no beats at all, but eight pieces of ambient music. I know Liedwart worked with modular synthesis in improvised music appearances, and maybe that’s also the case here, but for all I know, he could be using digital instruments. Liedwart uses a lot of words, “recontextualised elements of IDM, ambient, beatless techno, clicks’n’cuts, abstract electronica, and repetitive, icy synth-scapes, alongside minimal sampladelia”, but to me it sounds like ambient music. Solid, fine ambient music, with finely sustaining sound patterns, music designed to be enjoyed and ignored, as Eno once put it. It reminded me of a beatless album by GAS, even the one piece with the tracing of a beat, ‘Sometimes’, or the bleep of ‘Winds’. While nothing new under this particular horizon, this work is most pleasant and relaxing.
I had not heard or thought about FourColor, also known as Keiichi Sugimoto, in a long time. My last review was of the ‘As Pleat’ album on 12K in Vital Weekly 779. That label released more of Fourcolor, and there were also releases on Apestaartje. Looking at Discogs, there haven’t been many releases since that album, three, including this new one. Maybe Sugimoto spends more time with the groups Minamo and Fonica, which he is a part of. Primarily, he is a guitar player, but also uses synthesisers and samplers. The opening track, ‘Stof’, contains the vocals of Moskitoo, “a longtime friend and frequent collaborator”, who adds the kind of voice that makes me reach for the remote control. She returns in two other pieces but adds a simple vocal line, which is still quite ethereal. The previous time I heard Fourcolor might have been 14 years ago, and much music passed these ears, but if I had to draw a map of what Sugimoto does, it would be something along these lines. Spacious music, of heavily processed guitar sounds, but nothing scratchy or clicky, bending and reshaped into gentle ambient tones. Throughout, the sound is quite electronic, and the guitar disappears in the music; I am sure this is intentional. As I lost contact with such labels as 12K and Apestaartje, I have no idea what the current state of this kind of ambient music is. I assumed it would go the more acoustic route, the modern classical, minimalist, with some electronic tracing, and maybe it did, but not Fourcolor. I guess it would be unfair to label this as laptop music, even when I have probably done so in the past. Much like Liedwart’s disc, this is nothing new, but sounds refined. More musical and melodic than Liedwart’s more abstract ambient excursions. The cover lists Moskitoo’s vocals to be on A3, A5 and B4, which suggests there is also a vinyl version, but I don’t know if it exists. (FdW)
