HUFFDUFF - 7" . DRONE RECORDS. 2005

High Frecuency Direction Finder is inspired by some parts of the book "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson and also by documentary and fiction films about communication among submarines in World War II. Both tracks are constructed with radio waves and customized audio software. Finished at some point during the awaited Spring of 2005.

" TZESNE is quite a new project from Spain, who has only two brilliant CDR-releases out to date. On HuffDuff's two tracks 'Enviar Ayuda Ahora' and 'La Voz Flamante' one dives deep into mysterious sounds derived solely from radio-receivers, creating a droney and eerie imaginary soundtrack to the communication between Submarines in the Second World War. 'Something' is there in the sub-ether, but it can´t be identified. Very thick & foggy subliminal sound-waves, the time is standing still... "

Stefan Knappe - Drone Records ( mailorder )

Drone Record marches on with their impressive series of obscure projects presenting their post-industrial drones on the unlikely format of super limited edition 7" singles. Tzesne hails from Spain, and that's pretty much all we know about them / him / her. Whoever this is, Tzesne has presented an exceptional twin set of eerie sweeping drones derived from radio transmissions filtered through customized audio software. Much like Andrew Lagowski's paranoiac SETI albums of mutated radio signals and the Kallabris recordings of submariner ambience, Tzesne's Huffduff (which may be the shorthand for High Frequency Direction Finder, lending a cryptographic allusion to the work) stands out as a bleak WWII soundtrack of ghostly communications haunting the ether of the radio spectrum.

Aquarius Records ( mailorder )

" Tzesne's was reviewed before (Vital Weekly 461 and 470) and here he moves away from the analogue synthesizers and restricts himself to the sole use of "radio waves and customized software". It's not easy to detect these radio waves in this sea of drones. Somewhere far away, it seems indeed that it so, but overall both sides are gentle waving clouds of sounds, in which 'La Voz Flamante' (the b-side) is a little bit more present than 'Enviar Ayuda Ahora', which hoovers very much on the quiet side of things. Dark atmospheric and drony: they are the keywords to many, many releases on Drone Records, and Tzesne is no different. It's however one of the more refined additions to the label's catalogue. "

Frans De Waard - VITAL WEEKLY 492

"Tzesnen Drone on saanut inspiraationsa toisen maailmasodan sukellusveneiden välisestä kommunikaatiosta. Raidat on rakennettu radioaalloista ja itsekyhätyillä tietokoneohjelmilla.

Herkullisen sähköistä radioaaltomeininkiä Huffduff juuri tarjoaakin. Ykköspuolella taajuudet ulvoa ulisevat dynaamisesti edes takaisin, kakkospuolella soi yhtenäisempi ja voimakkaampi, painostavan hitaasti nouseva ja laskeva magneettinen valli. Tuo hieman mieleen Wiltin Radio 1940:n, mikä on aina positiivista. Tyylikästä kokeellisuutta. "

John Björkman - www.kuolleenmusiikinyhdistys.net

"Aus Spanien kommt TZESNE, ein Projekt, das vor HuffDuff (DR-74, 7“ EP) gerade mal Kraken (la leyenda) (Series Negras, CD-R, 2004) und Time of Bonfires (TIBprod, mCD-R, 2005) in die Dröhnwelt gefunkt hatte. Die Imagination wird ultramarin eingetaucht, mit Radiowellen, die Assoziationen anstoßen an U-Boote auf Schleichfahrt, das langsame Absinken in dunkle Tiefen, an Überdruck, heimliche Kommunikationsversuche. "Huffduff‘ steht für HFDF, High-Frequency Direction Finding, Kurzwellen-Funkpeilung, wie man aus Neal Stephensons Cryptonomicon erfährt. Tauchkurven sind hörbar gemacht als diagonale Dröhnvektoren, als kontinuierlich gestauchte Welle, ein hohles Dröhnen, das hell-dunkel-hell den Raum durchschneidet. Francisco Lopez kommt einem dabei in den Sinn, nur dass Tzesne dessen letzte Konsequenz, die azoische Kryptik, scheut. Bei aller Totstellheimlichkeit zwischen weißem Weiß und schwarzem Schwarz lässt hier ein fernes Licht noch einen Blauton zu und zielstrebige Bewegung. Die Kommunikation ist nicht erloschen, sondern nur gefiltert. Tzesne sieht Freiheit in Relation zur Fähigkeit zu selektieren und zu subtrahieren. "The freedom of the person is restricted to the field of the selection and not to the one of the creation.“ Soll ich darin den "posteuphorischen, prämelancholischen Reflexionsschritt der Cyberkultur, die ihre Teenager-Phase hinter sich zu lassen beginnt “ (Ekkehard Knörer) wiedererkennen, den Stephenson, der Pynchon für den kleinen Hunger, angeblich verkörpert? Während ich darüber nachdenke, kann man sich die Zeit vertreiben mit www.ottosell.de/otto.htm."

Rigo Dittmann - Bad Alchemy Magazine

" Offer the sounds of overheard intergalactic transmissions. A soft crackle that eventually builds, with warm sine tones burbling through, whistley noises and strange languages, rumblings. More tonal on the second side with another almost voice behind, rumbling and roiling, shimmers and rings to a very long soft fade. Listen to the late night radio. "

Jeremy Keens - Ampersand Etcetera

" The result is a mysterious soundtrack with a quite minimal sound and a mysterious effect. The soundscape is dense and shady, resulting in a suffocating underwater feel. Drones slowly swell in volume, as if the submarines are gaining in speed. Between the rumbling machinery you hear subtle frequencies and hummings, like coded messages coming from distant wavelengths. Now and then you seem to recognize human origins, which soon fade away again.

Quite a fascinating piece of drone music, which could form a nice little companion to for instance Andrew Lagowski's S.E.T.I. project, the aural secrets of Galerie Schallschutz or Wilt's album Radio 1940."

Hans D. - Funprox webzine - www.funprox.com

"Quite a mysteryous project coming from Spain - I only know the person behind Tzesne is probably Basque, since he took part in a recent Euskal-only sampler on Antifrost, curated by Mattin, and that he's previously released two cdrs. "Huffduff" features two tracks ("Enviar ayuda ahora" and "La voz flamante") based on shortwave radio signals as the only source. The press-release talks of "a droney and eerie imaginary soundtrack to the communication between Submarines in the Second World War", which is an appropriate description indeed. The work reminded me of Chaos as Shelter's "Dead air broadcast" cd - radio-based industrial ambient, which I think works best in the more abstract atmospheres of the B-side. A pleasant release, but not exactly an outastanding one in shortwave-based compositions. Hand-assembled and silk-screened covers made using photocopies, glue, paint, etc., which must look quite good."

Eugenio Maggi - www.chaindlk.com

" Delle nuove uscite della Drone Records, questa dello spagnolo Tzesne è sicuramente una delle meno incisive e convincenti. Questo musicista - impegnato in svariati progetti in ambito electro - propone su questo EP due tracce di una elettro-ambient incerta e poco significativa, dominata da sample radiofonici risalenti alla Seconda Guerra Mondiale. Le scelte operate in entrambi i pezzi sono cose già sentite e risentite e i così definiti 'radiowaves-drones', assemblati da Tzesne, passano lasciando pochissimo all'ascoltatore e dissolvendosi come una leggera foschia. Le info-sheet allegate, ci spiegano che l'intento dello spagnolo era quello di ricreare una comunicazione radio fra sottomarini militari, ma l'obiettivo non sembra pienamente centrato. Se volete realmente percepire la claustrofobica sensazione di trovarvi metri e metri al disotto della superficie marina, procuratevi piuttosto l'enigmatico 81ƒ n.Br., 178ƒ –.L. dei Kallabris, numero trenta della serie di EP pubblicati dall'etichetta teutonica. In conclusione, segnaliamo che, come nella migliore tradizione della label tedesca, anche l'artwork è
affidato alla creatività e all'estro degli artisti e, per questa release, abbiamo trecento packaging arricchiti da collage fatti a mano, tutti uno diverso dall'altro. "

Franz Gemelli - www.musicboom.it

"You'll have to turn into a wave yourself to fully appreciate this.
Using the radio as an instrument may not be a new idea. But it is becoming ever more effective as time passes. When Pink Floyd connected two songs of their “Wish you were here” album by mimicing someone turning the frequency dial, it was a kind of special effect. Today, it sounds like a ghost. And this ep goes back even further in time.

“huffduff” owes as much to Neal Stephenson’s “Cryptonomicon” (an epic parable on decoding Axis codes) as to staying up late and watching discovery channel documentaries on World War II and would therefore make a perfect lullaby for Tzesne’s label colleague on “Drone Records”, Pawel Grabowski (who holds a similar interest in everything 39-45). In fact, the title refers to the first efforts of the allied troops to crack Nazi signals and to a device called High Frequency Direction Finder (whose abreviation HFDF the Germans malappropriated into “huffduff”) – and therefore to one of the 20th century’s most popular literary themes: communication, the lack thereof and its inherent deficiencies (The HFDF was initially only able to locate the cource of the signal, without being able to decipher it). Quite appropriately, “enviar ayuda ahora” kicks off with deep static, which is overlayered with high-frquency radio waves, switching pitch and modulation. Blurring the border between music and reality, this takes you back into a faintly lit room filled with damp, cold air and stale smoke and the silhouette of an officer bent over a black box, carefully fiddling the knobs. After the sounds have all but subsided, a few almost inaudible bass rumblings appear, only to drop back into oblivion. “la voz flamante” is more drone-related and lets two slowly vibrating plates of noise rub against each other, before an upwardly moving pull sucks the piece gently yet irresistibly into a black hole. Subtle almost to the point of being without physical substance, you'll have to dissolve and turn into a wave yourself to fully appreciate this.

But if you do, you’ll be able to see the beauty of “huffduff” and recognise that there is an infinite stream of communication flowing through everything around us: The air, the water, the noises of the big city, the ceaseless babbling of the people around us. And, of course, through the radio, that wonderfully old-fashioned and mysterious apparatus, to which this release pays a delicate hommage".

Tobias Fischer
www.tokafi.com

"Uff i jeszcze jedna plyta z gatunku mrocznego i minimalistycznego dark ambientu, jakie dane jest mi opisywac. Tym razem jest to czarna 7-io calówka hiszpanskiego projektu TZESNE. Material o jakze dziwacznej nazwie "Huffduff" poswiecony jest zagadnieniom zwiazanym z II Wojna Swiatowa - a dokladniej z komunikacja radiowa pancernych lodzi podwodnych, co niewatpliwie jest swoista ciekawostka. Przejdzmy zatem do muzyki zawartej na tej epce. Obie kompozycje na "Huffduff" wypelnione sa wszelkiego rodzaju dzwiekami pochodzacymi z fal radiowych, tudziez urzadzen radiolokacyjnych, co mi momentami przypomina niektóre dokonania BAD SECTOR. Pelno tu zatem róznych "dziwnych" odglosów bazujacych na zmieniajacej sie czestotliwosci przybrudzonych o róznego rodzaju szumy i trzaski, co trzeba przyznac wytwarza calkiem niezla, mroczna otoczke. Drugi utwór na tym kawalku czarnego vinylu to z kolei bardziej dronowe i narastajace odglosy utrzymane nieco w stylistyce minimalistycznego dark ambientu. Dzwieki delikatnie plyna tworzac nastrój niepokoju przed czyms, co ma za moment nastapic. Calosc idealnie pasowala by jako soundtrack do jakiegos filmu opartego o wojenne lodzie podwodne, gdyz "Huffduff" potrafi przeniesc sluchacza bez problemu w tego typu nastrój. Ja sie do tego materialu przekonalem i podejrzewam, ze wielbiciele tajemniczych, intrygujacych dzwieków takze znajda cos dla siebie w muzyce TZESNE. Szczerze polecam!"

Tomasz Lewicki - Dark Music Magazine
www.beastofprey.com

Huffduff stands for "high frequency direction finder.“ The Spanish project Tzesne got inspired by Neal Stephenson's book Cryptonomicon as well as by documentary and fiction films about communication among submarines in WOII. And what they present on this single fitts the concept very well. Listening to this music one can imagine sitting far beyond the water surface. Side one features a strange paced-down conversation under
mysterious circumstances as well as exploring radiowaves. And side two reminds of the journey of the submarine itself, first gaining speed to disappear in eternal depths. Both tracks are constructed with radio
waves and customized audio sofware. Suberb and fascinating release!

Paul Bijlsma - Phosphor Magazine
www.xs4all.nl/~phosphor

Onde subliminali!

TZESNE è un progetto spagnolo, con all’attivo alcuni cd-r autoprodotti , un 3”cd-r per la norvegese TIB.Prod ed alcune partecipazioni a compilations, ha la scopo, attraverso la manipolazione dei suoni, rumori e frequenze di giungere ad un’espressione musicale dei pensieri e sogni i quali suggestionano e assorbono la mente umana cercando di creare una sorta di libertà mentale al di fuori di canoni standardizzati. E cioè?!
Due lunghe canzoni `Enviar Ayuda Ahora` e `La Voz Flamante` dove le dilatazioni ambientali e droniche (una must per la label tedesca) sono create ora (side A) da alte frequenze ispirate al ‘Cryptonomicon’ di Neal Stephenson ora (side B) da subliminali, stratificate, profonde, amniotiche comunicazioni radio tra sottomarini della seconda guerra mondiale. Dilatate, cupe, subacquee e misteriose sequenze di onde e frequenze atte a creare plumbee e dense suggestioni mentali.
Un bel vinile la cui copertina è stata creata completamente a mano!

Davide Buongiorno - www.kronic.it