www.chaindlk.com - August 6, 2008: I’m sure most of the audio-art, field recording, experimental nerds among us know both Brandon LaBelle and his cult label Errant Bodies, and hell takes me if the “cult label” status is not more than deserved: from the few Errant Bodies’ materials I’ve been listening and/or reading nothing was artsy fartsy or less than attractive. This label is there to bring the sound philosophy to the next level and you can bet they’re doing it ‘cause of genuine interest but I suggest you to visit their website to make an idea. As the description reported by the label states: “micro-composition designed as counter-sonorities to specific locations or settings” and it says so much about the work than many other descriptions. The aforesaid process is so obtained by doing some electronic stormings that you were far from expecting right when they happen, they appear in the scene creeping like some thin sounds that move underneath at the bottom of the field-recordings and in many other way. I think some episodes will surprise the listener more than others, but with such a recording that’s both quite subjective feeling plus it would be a bit inappropriate to speak about single tracks when everything is conceived as a full-continuous audio journey. LaBelle is a wellknown name for many following this kind of “music” and if you never heard any of his works you’d better remember he’s not exactly one of those freaky “field-recording” artists leaving a never-changing field-work going on forever for the sake of boredom. These sketches are full of “tricks”, of nervous constructions that put an end to this or that corridor all of a sudden, making you feel like you’re constantly changing room inside of an unknown hotel. Sometimes the rooms are filled with elements, sometimes are barely empty, sometimes these rooms are flooded by an intense light like in the fifth track where LaBelle counterpoints the other sounds with a melody like those you could sing under the shower (if you ask me this the most intense fragment of the cd, I love it). As you’ve probably imagined this work deserves a careful listening with a good pair of headphones since the stereophonic games and the superimposition of different layers bring your mind and brain right where LaBelle wants you to go. In place of a collection of pictures, LaBelle wanted to show the world a series of personal “cut and paste collages” which I’m sure Dadaists would have loved for the simple fact between cerebrality and technical skill he hasn’t forgotten irony back home. Can we define it scrapbook of real life reworked and turned into a “living composition”?.
Andrea Ferraris

Vital Weekly#635 review: At the same time there is also the release of 'Dirty Ear', which has no book which seems to be a rare thing for LaBelle these days. It uses 'dirty field recordings, found sounds, sound effects, archives and sonorous dramas. Composed as a series of micro-narratives each designed to intervene onto imagined settings or spatial locations, as counter-sonorities'. Although that last bit is a bit of abacadabra to me, the actual music is quite interesting. They are indeed micro-narratives, on quite an abstract level it seems, or at least most of the times. Hard to tell what those 'dirty' sound sources are, but there is a certain muddy aspect to the music which makes it actually quite nice. Good to hear LaBelle's doing a more regular release again. (FdW)