> R E L E A S E S

1. RAVHA
2. CALM GARDENS (AT NIGHT)
3. STATIC ELECTRICITY vs. LOW CURRENT FLUCTUATIONS
4. LOW VOLTAGE REQUIREMENTS
5. ALTERNATING CURRENT
6. KOOCHA ELECTRICHESTVA (MIX.UP.IN.FORMATION)
7. DIRECT CURRENT

Ravha \ Electricity Gardens is an international split \ collaboration between Moljebka Pvlse (sweden) and Seventeen Migs Of Spring (Israel).
500 copies. digipac. artwork & design by Niko Skorpio
TP015. TOPHETH PROPHET. 2007

After a long time of work outside of public eyes, we're proud to announce our first CD released on Topheth Prophet. We would like to thank Uri from TP for releasing it, b_w for excellent ELECTRICITY GARDENS photos and MOLJEBKA PVLSE for highly enjoyable collaboration "CALM GARDENS (AT NIGHT) and his excellent "RAVHA".
ELECTRICITY GARDENS is the fourth installment in the "Tel Aviv Soundtracks" series.

DOWNLOAD "KOOCHA ELECTRICHESTVA (MIX.UP.IN.FORMATION)"  VIDEO (MPEG-4)

2007 © SEVENTEEN MIGS OF SPRING / MOLJEBKA PVLSE / TOPHETH PROPHET

REVIEWS:

7 tracks, the first by Moljebka Pvlse, the second by both bands and the remaining five by Seventeen Migs Of Spring.
MP, from Sweden, meld elliptical, processed drones with an array of field recordings into a bewildering whole. Their 27 minute track has the feel of a journey to it. Small train journeys interspersed with brief conversations and hazy distractions. Track two's collaboration showcases the tightly controlled musicianship of SMoS given an extra (Nth) dimension by MP's judiciously used recordings.
The remainder of the album is taken over by Israeli group Seventeen Migs Of Spring who are a far more (but by no means stereotypically so) musical prospect. Over their five tracks they show the diversity of their oeuvre by weaving tapestries of drone, noise and rhythm. There is a playfulness to their music that is hard to deny as it softens the more wilful and oblique strategies they like to employ.
It's rare for a split release to work as well as this. usually one band stands head and shoulders above the other, whether that be through personal taste or through musical quality is often a moot point. Here however we have two acts perfectly suited to each other. My one complaint would have to be that i think it's a shame that there was only the one brief moment of collaboration as for me that is the absolute highpoint of what is, undoubtedly, a very fine album indeed.

wonderfulwoodenreasons

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This split release from Sweden’s Moljebka Pvlse and Israel’s Seventeen Migs Of Spring features one track from the former, five from the later, and one collaboration between both artists. Moljebka Pvlse’s 27 minute Ravha takes as its core material Mathias Josefson’s urban field recordings, which are patiently played with as the track progresses.
To these only mildly processed sounds are added the crackle and scratching of Karin Jacobson’s recording of walking in leaves and Styrofoam; with significantly, and to disorientating effect, more happening in the right side of the stereo field than the left. The final component is Maria Nordin’s discordant violin that cuts muffled, simple figures above the soundscape, offset by Jacobson’s ringing of bells. Ravha never strays far from its field recording sources, but the Calm Gardens (At Night) collaboration between Moljebka Pvlse and Seventeen Migs Of Spring employs more obvious drones and processing of samples, resulting in a more immediately satisfying track.
The fives pieces from Seventeen Migs Of Spring underscore this preference for processing, with bass rumbles and drones mixing with other sampled sounds that reflect, to greater and less extent, the electricity-themed titles of the tracks. Though sometimes veering into the use of annoying sound sources, Seventeen Migs Of Spring create engaging pieces that prove to be the highlight of this release.

Written by Abby H.
for Judas Kiss

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It’s amazing how much we as humans take for granted the full spectrum of our sensory cues (especially sight followed by hearing) in order to enable us to navigate and make sense of the world around us– so imagine the sense of displacement and separation should any of us lose the use of our eyes, the prime sensory organ. While we can do without touch, smell and taste (and hearing to a degree) and not suffer too much, it’s that convergence between sight and sound especially that helps us to locate ourselves within a spacial framework. Take away the visual cues and suddenly the world becomes a strange place; it may as well be another planet entirely.
The preceding long-winded preamble does have a point; Moljebka Pvlse’s drone and field recording pieces are a good illustration of how the world becomes that strange place without the benefit of sight. ‘Rahva’, the twenty-six minute opening track, is indeed another planet, where even the sound of a lone mournful trumpet takes on a disturbingly unfamiliar colour and shade. The same goes for the dog barking in ‘Calm Gardens (at night)’, the track created by MP along with K-76, Gurfa and B-74 of SMoS; the apparently dichotomous simultaneity of the familiar and yet unfamiliar. By isolating commonplace sounds like voices and everyday life and weaving them around subtle drones and tones the pieces detach themselves from what we take for granted and are removed from their proper places. We are encouraged to reassess our relationship with both the mundane sounds and noises that are a part of our everyday experience. This seems to be MP’s particular forte, the ability to shift sound sideways and make it seem as if we are experiencing them for the first time.
The five pieces that comprise Seventeen Migs of Spring’s evocatively titled suite ‘Electricity Gardens’ are aptly named; serried ranks of pylons marching across miles and miles of fields or the buzzing flowers of conductors and transformers in the walled beds of the ubiquitous substations. Metallic boings, clangs, buzzes and hums crackle with a barely contained energy that just wants to break out; despite the uninspiring and unpromising track titles the pieces surprise with an animation and power entirely in keeping with the subject matter.
Again, we can hark back to the point I made about Moljebka Pvlse’s pieces: the point about taking things for granted. Electricity is such a major part of our everyday lives that we almost cease to function as a civilisation when it suddenly stops flowing. In the same way that we take our eyes for granted we also do the same with that light-switch, never once stopping to think how we would cope without either of these essential elements. I may be miles off in my interpretation; however given the current concerns with energy generation and its future then I think it’s entirely natural to entertain this train of thought.
A quietly thought-provoking CD, created by very different sound-artists who nevertheless know how to shepherd their materials to conjure up the right atmosphere and images in order to set off thought-patterns that help instigate re-evaluation and reassessment. This one’s definitely a keeper...

Contributed by: S:M:J63
Heathen Harvest

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It is not every day you find reviews of albums released by Israeli labels in Vital Weekly. Topheth Prophet is an independent Israeli label formed in summer 2002 whose aim is to spread the knowledge of the Israeli noise scene to the outside world. The label focuses on styles ranging from harsh noise across power electronics to dark ambient. This 13th release from the label deals with drone-based ambient music. On this particular release one of the presented projects has its origin in Sweden. It is a split album between Israeli project SEVENTEEN MIGS OF SPRING and Swedish project MOLJEBKA PULSE. The album opens with the 27 minute long track titled "Ravha" from the latter mentioned project. The brain behind Moljebka Pvlse is the Swedish sound artist Mathias Josefson who explores the sounds of both acoustic and electronic origins, quite often with the starting point taken in found sounds and field recordings. The "Ravha"-track is a nice example of Mr. Josefson's ability to transform the sounds of reality into a world of drone-based minimalism. Opening with a mixture of concrete natural sounds and buzzing drones the expression slowly turns more and more harsh as the field recordings develops into noisy drones including spoken words. At a point the concrete sounds fades away or turns into sonic abstraction. The track moves into pure drone ambient minimalism. Nice work.
Seventeen Migs Of Spring is an Israeli project consisting of three members, Gurfa, K-76 and B-74. As was the case with aforementioned Swedish project the conceptual approach of this Israeli project is sonic drones based on concrete sounds. Compared to the Swedish project the Israeli projects goes further to the extremes with sounds of a rather noisy kind. Especially four or the five tracks get quite harsh with the use of an on-going mixture of static noise and radio-based shortwave frequencies.
Inbetween the two projects comes a collaborative track that successfully combines the style of the two projects. Everyone interested in drone based ambient with focus on concrete sounds should definitely check out this album.

(NM)
VITAL WEEKLY

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This collaboration album by Moljebka Pvlse (this time as a trio, with Karin Jacobson and Maria Nordin as the extra members) and the Israeli band Seventeen Migs of Spring contains both individual works from each project and a material that has been made together. It starts with Moljebka Pvlse's nearly 27 minutes long Ravha, a soundscape with breeze-sound and crowd noises as its most obvious elements. There's of course lots of other things in the mix as well, such as a violin and "walking in leaves and Styrofoam". What results is a strange, developing sound-art work that defies catgorization. It breaks and changes, yet stays intact at all times. Second in line is the shared work, Calm Gardens (at night), which clearly fuses together the styles of both groups into one whole. It is also the definitely best piece on the album. The solo part of Seventeen Migs of Spring is divided into five tracks, all of the different from one another, yet existing as a logical procession. Electricity Gardens thus moves forward, track by track, in an increasingly minimalist, increasingly clinical-sounding fashion. There is nevertheless a warm tone and a certain fullness to it. In addition, the structure of even the most minimalist parts is remarkably solid; for example, Alternating Current uses in its squeals patterns that far more typical in harsh noise than in the glitch music it sound-wise resembles.
This album is in no way easy to approach or light to listen to. It also becomes more and more difficult and increasingly distant from the listener the further it progresses, that's how weird it gets.. Despite these issues, it is a very fine piece of work, something one can genuinely call "experimental music" in the best sense of the phrase, and something that well combines the legacy of avant-garde to new innovativeness.

J. Tuomas Harviainen
kuolleenmusiikinyhdistys

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Throughout our everyday existence there is a constant aural stream flowing from our environment. Everything from conversations between strangers, the crackling of leaves, and the machines of modern industrial living wailing and cranking away seeps into our unconscious mind. While most people can easily discard these bits of disassociated memory, the artists behind Moljebka Pvlse and Seventeen Migs of Spring utilize these relics to form a lucid dream of disconnected familiarity.
The album is essentially a fusion of two works. The first is Moljebka Pvlse's "Ravha," a single twenty-six-minute track, which is followed by Seventeen Migs of Spring's "Electricity Gardens" (tracks two through seven). Both works are centered on the heavy use of field recording manipulation. "Ravha" is a bit more organic, with more voice recordings and sampling of mundane activities. It starts off with light crackling and the turning of gears. A controlled cacophony is overlaid by what seem to be casual conversations amongst travelers, a train operator announcer, and the footsteps of children. The entirety of the track is a steady continuation of this theme, everyday sounds manipulated to create an eerie sense of anxiety and unfamiliarity.
"Calm Gardens (At Night)" is a joint collaboration between the two artists. Here we have a steadily growing mechanical rumble enveloped by faint electronic glitches and oscillating frequencies. Towards the end something of a beat arises from the clanging of sticks. The rest of "Electricity Gardens" follows the along the same lines, with cold electronic and random bits of environmental sampling. The weird twanging strings, metallic crashes, and sped up clangs rearranged for surround sound on "Alternating Current" can get a bit repetitive until the feedback kicks in towards the end and jars the listener with a schizophrenic assault. "Koocha Elektrichestva (mix.up.in.formation)" has an almost harsh noise feel to it, with the levels turned way up and variety of electronic feedback wailing in from different channels. "Direct Current" calms it back down with electric pops and glitches on top of a thick drone.
While this breed of experimental music takes a certain mood and environment, say a surround sound system and a quiet evening, I would definitely recommend this release for a new perspective on sounds we easily take for granted.

Raul A. [8/10]
connexionbizarre

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"Ravha / Electricity Gardens" is a split collaboration between Swedish collective Moljebka Pvlse and Israeli duo Seventeen Migs of Spring. The 27 minute long "Ravha" by Moljebka Pvlse features sustained bells from Karin Jacobson, squeaky violin playing from Maria Nordin and a ton of rich, all-encompassing field recordings made by Mathias Josefson. Crackles, sounds of dry leaves underfoot and strange cacophony populate the extended piece. "Calm Gardens (at night)" feature a true collaboration between both groups. While Seventeen Migs of Spring members add layers of thick, luscious drone, Moljebka Pvlse contribute electronic treatment, violin bits and styrofoam sound. The last five tracks are solo pieces by Seventeen Migs of Spring. All of these are imbedded with a deep, dark, drilling drone that careens even deeper into the listener's collective mindset. This is truly a great collection, which only begs for the floodgates to be opened for more from these two undervalued bands.

Tom Sekowski
gaz-eta