[larger image]

1. 250904 [sample]

running time: 18:10

released date

format

status

2006.10.21

CD-R

out of print

[review by Frans de Waard at Vital Weekly #565]
Slowly the world of experimental of music is no longer limited to a few western countries and Japan. Balloon & Needle is a small label from Seoul in South Korea, but for their first release they have some Westerns to play the music. Wether that is a pity or that maybe Korean music will come later, I simply don't know. Tomas Korber, who usually plays guitar and electronics but he restricts to electronics and Bernd Schurer who plays computer played a gig in a squat in Zurich in 2004. Apart from the opening which is really loud, the remainder seventeen minutes are very quiet, with lots of careful feedback/sine waves sounds and crackles of a contact microphone. Everything is of course improvised, but in the usual delicate manner. Sounds fade in and fade out, moving through various textures and spaces. It's a powerful piece that requires intense listening. It's like what both do usually, but still fine. (FdW)

[review by Dan Warburton on Paris Transatlantic]
In the letter that came along with this elegantly packaged disc from South Korea, Choi Joonyong informs me that this 18-minute set featuring Tomas Korber (electronics) and Bernd Schurer (computer) was recorded in a Zurich squat after a day's serious drinking. Well, nothing new there; I'll bet a fair number of fine improv albums were recorded after (maybe even during) the consumption of prodigious quantities of alcoholic beverage, though perhaps Mr Joonyong feels compelled to share this information with us in order to add a "human dimension" to this austere assemblage of pale sinewaves, mildly disturbing rustles and odd screes of bright white noise (the opening and closing blasts should be sufficient to clear any hangover you might be suffering from). It doesn't need it; the music works its charms very well all by itself, thanks very much. Another fine though perhaps not absolutely essential addition to the ever-expanding Korber discography.–DW

[review by Massimo Ricci on Touching Extremes]
Balloon & Needle is a South Korean label run by Choi Joonyong and this CD, containing a brief performance by Korber (electronics) and Schurer (computer) recorded in Zurich on the record title’s date, is my very first meeting with it. Schurer “triggered and mixed” sinewaves, while Korber used a feedback system and a contact microphone. Although the recording lasts only 18 minutes, it is full of events that shape up silence while clearly altering the relationship between the artists and the space that surrounds them. Overacute emissions start the process, only to be swatted away by a violent, shrilling hiss a la Mattin; then infrasounds, sinewaves and feedback take center stage, with both artists content of letting undulating frequencies penetrate our skulls, complemented by micro-clicks and barely audible digital minutiae. Stinging highs and bleeping signals introduce a sort of harmonic undercurrent, then again soft glissandos and additional doses of ear-pricking stuff cancel any hope for wallpaper ambient lullabies. When all the elements combine, rhythmic modules appear between the most entrancing tones to generate a kind of emotional growth that instantly fades out, leaving room to a strong pulse which projects the sound towards the back of our head. The record ends with gentle clusters in a slight distortion, subdued “concrete” elucubrations and a final crescendo where a harsher saturation flows into complete silence. Short and non-sweet, as everything should always be in these lands.