new releases:
Kobi "earplugged"
EndofhuM-11 (2010)
CD
Kai Kobi Mikalsen's solo kobi début.Usually Kai invites friends
to join in on recordings or livegigs.
This time he has deceided to do it all by himself.
The idé was to make an album where
the high and low frequences is explored.
The album is one long ever changing song
with highpitch sharp edges that will annoy your cat,
and low frequences that might blow your speakers.
Kobi "Live in Japan"
EndofhuM-10 (2010)
CD
This album contains three liverecordings from the Crazy River / Love Hz / Kobi "Japan Tour 2007"
documented on the release EndofhuM-05 (2008) (DVD-R)
Maybe it was the sushi
or the enjoyment of being in japan;
the concerts turned out to be more noisy
than you could have expected by Kobi.
Although ambient,
this is the most sonic album by Kobi so far...
Featuring:
Kai Mikalsen, Petter Flaten Eilertsen and Kelly Churko
The cds can be ordered from:
→ looop ←
"Kobi - Live In Japan
(CD, End of Hum, Electronic/experimental/progressive),
Kobi - Earplugged
(CD, End of Hum, Electronic/experimental/progressive)
Kai Kobi Mikalsen kicks off 2010 with not one...but two new releases.
Kobi is one of our favorite electronic/experimental artists so we were pumped to receive both of these discs in the mail.
Live In Japan features live recordings from Kobi's 2007 tour of Japan.
This album may surprise fans of the man because the compositions on this album are much more harsh and metallic than what he have heard in the past from Kobi.
Although a bit more on the wild side, these tracks still have that peculiar surreal quality that is simultaneously puzzling and inviting.
Earplugged is Kobi's solo debut album which he recorded entirely by himself.
The album features one lengthy track conveniently divided into thirteen track selections which makes for an easier listening experience.
Both of these albums are challenging releases that will only appeal to that tiny segment of the listening population that enjoys strange and inventive experimental music.
Here in the plush babysue offices, Kobi always effortlessly hits home runs.
Accordingly, these are both TOP PICKS. *****"
babysue
"KOBI - EARPLUGGED (CD by End of Hum)
KOBI - LIVE IN JAPAN (CD by End of Hum)
Earplugged is Kai Mikalsen's solo (studio?) " death-ambient album the world has been waiting for.." consisting of very gentle scrapes and clicks... I could save space and time by a link or cut and paste to my thoughts on Spruit. (I won't) The consequences of accepting the greatness of Kant, none seem yet to knock him down, put so simply as I can, to the extent of making the ridiculous, is that we only see, hear, feel and know by virtue of what *we are* not by virtue of *what is*. That's probably good, at least evolutionarily, because otherwise the world would appear to us like the LSD trip magnified to infinity. We cope with the world because its our world, there is no point in waiting for godot, he wont come because he is already here, if not the actual saviour, not the actual infinite being of the second coming, i.e. the product of some grand experiment in art, the whole of metaphysics is nothing more than the feeling a child has on Christmas eve, assuming she/he is living in an affluent tolerant middle class western household, and so at the most transcendental he/she will only see Santa kissing mommy. There is a chapter in John Barrow's book on impossibility entitled "Does Gödel Stymie Physics", well does Godot stymie experimentalism - I guess so. (I should have said Kant but the symmetry wouldn't be the same.)
On the second CD, Kai Mikalsen is joined by Petter Flaten Eilertsen and Kelly Churko in a live piece of abstract improv which is much more interesting as its not a dead metaphysical monster, who never existed and who never will, but good ole humanity interacting, so from the above, replace Santa with Daddy, and kissing with what ever possibility turns you on. Its amusing, worrying, funny, serious .. Human work, one in which its possible to hear the breath of God, as "performance". "
Vital Weekly (jliat)
"Kobi - Live in Japan & Earplugged
Kobi should be a well known name for people who knows their Norwegian experimental underground-music now. It's a project by Kai Mikalsen, usually joined by various friends. This time he comes with a solo studio album (Earplugged) and a live album from his Japan-tour in 2007 (surprise surprise, Live in Japan). I've never heard Kobi as noisy as this before (with the exception of the album's release concert in Oslo), but at the same time I would not say it's complete noise either. This could be said about both albums, but let's try to separate them as they're quite different from each other.
Earplugged: You'll find a good combination between low and high frequencies, and though its loads of variations on the release it's also a good example on how important a tracklisting is. It works very well as a whole and the thirteen pieces on the album floats through each other smooth as silk. Kai shows us here that he has the ability to very well control what he does and it gives me a feeling of being both a very composed, but at the same time improvised album. It's very organic and it's just enough material on there. I hear an album every once in a while where if I didn't have a clock near me I couldn't tell whether I had listen to music for 10 or 80 minutes, and this is such a release. It gives me just the right amount of music to want to maybe wanna put it on again as I could've listen to it for a little longer, but at the same time it's not at all too short. It's perfect, and I love finding records that gives me this feeling. It's also produced very well, and being packed with many high pitched tones all the way through, I think the final master has come out very well. It could easily have been an exhausting listening experience, but at least to me it was not. It may be because of my hardened hearing (to say it like it is, I'm not quite earplugged), but I think the balance is done very well here. I may have just repeated myself here with different ways of saying the same thing over and over, but I wanna get it through that I truly enjoyed the production value of the record as I hear loads of albums based on similar ideas that really doesn't work that well. It's in a way very minimalistic and I would rather call it a musique concrete album than a noise album. It's a total different listening experience than what I get from regular noise releases, and also very different from the rest of Kobi's discography so far.
Live in Japan: Here you'll find three live recordings from Kobi's Japan tour in March, 2007, that he went on with Love Hz and Crazy River. Here we get Kai joined by others as we're used to and on the first two tracks he plays with Petter Flaten Eilertsen (now a member of the regular live constellation of Kobi, and also the guy behind Love Hz) on two very different tracks. The first could hardly be classified as anything else but noise, while the second is more, well... Kobi. Its noisy ambient music and I have a hard time trying to explain what I mean about it being Kobi-sounding, but that's what it is! The same could be said about the third and last track where Kai is joined by Kelly Churko. It's a bit more noisy again and maybe a little more space sounding than usual, but Kobi nevertheless. It's way more variated as a whole than Earplugged, and more a documenting release than an album, but I bet the pieces chosen for this disc are carefully chosen, 'cause it sounds good, and never does it get too much."
Ambolthue Reviews