CoH

Uncompromising sound artist Ivan Pavlov, aka CoH, releases his latest body of work in a special edition for France's Rotorelief label, housed in a stunning and unique pop-out digicase CD design. While relating to the release of Takahashi Miike's 'Zebraman 2' - a low budget Japanese superhero farce - 'Z-Rated' also doubles as a compilation of rare and previously unreleased early material dating from 1992 right up to 2009. If you've followed CoH's records over those years, you might know to expect the most advanced computer music and dynamic digital sonics sculpted with an innately playful, and eternally baffling sense of composition, an aesthetic which has marked him out as one of the worlds foremost and distinctly individual electronic musicians. Inside this disc you'll find two tracks from 1992; the almost Raymond Scott-like zaniness of a previously unreleased and untitled composition recorded at the Dept. of Acoustics, University of Nizhny Novgorod, made without a soundcard and mixed through the internal speaker, and another equally nutty ''92 track apparently recorded in an "attempt at sonic humour". Further in we find two versions of a track commissioned by Coil's Jhonn Balance for a project called 'Star Shaped Individual In Society' which never actually materialised, besides his meditation on the Japanese martial art Aikido. Fast Forward a few years and there's his awesome extraction and abstraction of The Beatles on 'The Dakota Strawberries' from 2004, besides a tribute to Mika Vainio and Jimi Tenor's 'Kocmoc' taken from his explorative 'Electric Electric' 12" on Mego, and again, plenty more artifacts of utterly inexplicable and completely compelling electronic music. Heartily recommended! (Boomkat)