Andy Ortmann – Octagonist

I don’t know if the spec for DVD-A has changed since 2008, i didn’t get this until 2022/23 and it’s not worked on either of the players I’ve owned since then
The menu shows 3 options the first one is 7.1 , that won’t play at all it just produces white noise.
The middle option (stereo?) will play but it keeps defaulting back to the menu after every track instead of playing through the whole album
That leaves the final option “3-D”
It seemed rather short but I don’t know if it was even playing through fully
How long is it supposed to be?

Before better known as Panicsville, but now moving into the realms of serious music (this new release got some sponsoring from arts councils) under his own name. The octa-thing deals with the number eight, and the three pieces here on this DVD (no images) can be played on a 7.1 installation, if you have such a thing. I only have a 2.0 installation, called 'stereo', but it sounds great still. Ortmann lists (inconveniently on the DVD itself) a list of instruments - mainly old analogue synthesizers and where he did his field recordings. Just as on the Schimpfluch disc, I'd say this is the small alley where noise is really interesting. Not because it's super loud, although there are points when things are pretty loud, but because of the fine balance between electronic, noisy sounds and the crackling of highly amplified field recordings which are all put together into an interesting collage of sound. Not like Schimpfluch of short and shorter sounds, but through longer pieces which work quite well. Great stuff, both of these releases and if noise is like this, I'd sign up again.
VITAL WEEKLY (Frans de Ward) 2008