(Aural Innovations no. 24) Falafel Avantgarde is an experimental ensemble from Israel which I understand has nine members. This 7" EP consists of two songs that are quite different from one another. "Mousse Tang (Electric Jahnoon)" is an avant-garde and nicely spaced out workout for electronics and voice, though some of the cool whining sounds might be guitar. Like Hawkwind and Tangerine Dream for the experimental set. I didn't know what to expect from "Landerian (Eric The Half Bee)" as any Monty Python fan will know the "Eric The Half Bee" song. However, the only connection ended up being the title. The music differs from the flip side in that it's not dominated by electronics. The music has a jazz feel at the beginning though it evolves into a dirty Bluesy acid-space tune. I hear bass (sure sounds like a standup), guitar, drums, electronics, and there's probably additional instrumentation if they've really got nine musicians. But there's a nice groove to the music which jams along like an old time Krautrock band. This track could have easily gone on for 20 minutes or so and I wish it had. I don't know which side better represents what Falafel Avantgarde is about but I'd be very interested in hearing more from them. - Jerry Kranitz

(Vital Weekly no. 356) I do not know much about the Falafel Avantgarde, other then, recognizing some people from the line up, they are from Israel. A big line up of 'knobbers, pickers and thumpers' (that might be then synths, guitars and percussion players), nine players in total. They play two steady rocky tunes on their 7", with some added weirdness on the synths, somewhere remotely away in the mix. Two nice tunes from a country that is not much known for their avantgarde. - Frans de Waard

(Ampersand Etcetera 2003_A) A factor in making a single effective can be diversity – which Falafel Avantgarde provide. The A side 'Mousst tang (electric jahoon)' is an eccentric journey from a female voice looping with voice tones and drums to which are added turntabling tones, then echoed percussion, spooky reverbed tones, spirals, a possible Theremin so that by the end it is a complex electronic. Slip it over to 'Landerian (eric the half bee)' and improvised percussion and twangs gets some guitar, becomes sorta loungey-groovy when violin is added and then shifts into driving 'kraut rock' spacey with guitar and synths. The two sides have something in common, but also strike different directions, and are both entertaining and listenable. A good single. - Jeremy Keens

(Eld Rich Palmer no 12) One of the most interesting things about this group is that they’re a nonet based in Israel. You hear about Chaos As Shelter from time to time, of course, but one swallow doesn’t make a summer… Falafel Avantgarde adds their own two cents to the mass of innumerous releases that fail to bring anything new to the canon of electronic music (called by some the avant-garde music), but isn't crap either. Two tracks, different in style, are too little for one to form an opinion of the band, but when it comes to the release itself, things are quite simple. The first piece is atmospheric electro muzak, with pulsations, sound modulations, loops and female singing in French. The Coil of their middle period meet Toy Bizarre. The other side is trancey psychedelic rock, longingly gazing into the unexplored expanses of the cosmos (space rock?). All in all, as I said, neither outstanding nor shitty. The only puzzle is: what so many people for? - Krzysztof Sadza

(Jump Arts Journal) Public Eyesore has been doing unheralded yeoman service to the free and avant garde for some time now, releasing dozens of CDs in cardboard sleeves. Almost all are worth checking out at the check-out. Here’s my (their?) first vinyl sliver, at seven inches at 33 1/3. On side one we find a loop of a woman speaking in French, (I believe she’s saying “Jamais cris,” never cry, if my grammar’s still vaguely decent) almost as if Diamandas Galas’ voice was slowed down but it’s not. The voice is interfered with by wonderful analog sounds: some grinding, some tapes slowed up a down as if a snail-like accordian chord or a motor revving up and down. There’s a momentum which builds, layer by layer, and the synth, which sounds more like a kazoo, adding an anthemic feel, making this piece enjoyable fun, at times even beautiful, fading after seven minutes. Side two is a rock bass guitar riff, psychedelic in effect. It too has swirling whooshes but also a guitar making a pulsing rhythm, parodizing in form some of the great extended rock and soul vamps which have always hooked me (Sly’s “Sex Machine, Charles Wright’s “High As Apple Pie,” Isaac Hayes’ work on Enterprise). It also runs seven minutes. - Steve Koenig

(I am Cancer 1-26) two sprawling pieces of acoust-o / electr-o drone and putter. side one = warp zone! electronic squeels blasted through a black hole. plenty o knob twissting, while far away the orchestra plays. side two = tribal jazz? smaking bass and a robot doing the funky chicken dance. my instrument broke apart in my hands. - Chris Fisher

(Splendid Ezine 3/14/2003) Israeli knob-twiddling music? Why the hell not. Perhaps the key to world peace is just getting a cultural-cross-section of like-minded techno-twiddlers together in the basement of United Nations HQ, supplying them with all the gear and snacks they want, and letting them bond over a marathon weekend of music-making. Perhaps they'd make something a little like this. Ever wonder what it would be like to be trapped in a fixed moment in time while your present and future destabilize, expanding and contracting like elastic? Perhaps it would be like listening to A-side "Mousse Tang (Electric Jahnoon)", in which a bedrock synth chord is stretched and bent across the musical spectrum. Voices drift through the background, accompanied by shortwave tones, vague snatches of structured music, static fizzles and other quasi-musical noise-squorts. From a listening standpoint, it straddles the line between pretty and purposeless, but never lapses into gratuitous noise or static tedium. B-side "Landerian (Eric the Half Bee)" is slightly more structured -- a sort of Middle Eastern techno-tribal jazz combo thing, shot through with synth squiggles and oblique guitar details. There's a distinct build-up of tension, almost Godspeed You Black Emperor style, but the payoff is muted at best -- more of a modest, sustained peak than an all-out wailing climax. The whole affair is rather distant and sterile, as if the music was recorded through the wall from the next room, so it's hard to build much sincere emotional involvement in "Landerian" -- you never quite feel like you're a part of the action. Interesting stuff...but probably not the key to global harmony. - George Zahora

(Aiding & Abetting no. 239) An all-too-short dose of assembled electronic brilliance. The two pieces here are loopy in construction and stunning in their simplicity. This is the outer limits, and the water's just fine. - Jon Worley