seht - the Voice of the Taniwha
Last Visible Dog CD, 2005
"While the post-Corpus Hermeticum sound may seem a different beast altogether than your copy of Le Jazz Non, the change, with inspection, is at best superficial. Minimalism and drone remain, but while 'maximalist' minimalism has disappeared, minimalism itself remains with heavy sound sampling and warped (i.e. destroyed) electronics. Seht is most certainly one of the newer generation to rise out of the ashes of HCorp, and much to his advantage, since the ensuing silence seems more his tool than the blare of guitar feedback. Here a sensitive ear is lent to even the most mundane field recordings, yielding this recording, a mix of acoustic guitar improvisations, drone, field recordings and electronics."
- LVD website
"Seht is a modern New Zealand outfit carrying on the tradition of what was once referred to as NZ noise. A good simplified scene summary perhaps, but not all that accurate. In the eighties and nineties, there was an explosion of small labels and loads of bands in New Zealand, all exploring sound in similarly unique ways, but all inhabiting their own unique sonic space. From the clattery free noise of the Dead C and Gate, to the jangle pop of almost every Flying Nun band, to the avant minimalism of groups like Omit and A Handful Of Dust. And the cool thing about the scene, was that the pop bands incorporated occasional swaths of noise and bursts of chaos, and the 'noise' bands were not above introducing a bit of poppiness here and there. Seht fall somewhere in the middle of all those groups, not really crafting songs as much as 'pieces' or maybe more accurately assemblages of sounds, but in doing so, using traditional instruments often guitars, In fact the steel string acoustic guitar is sort of a them running throughout the whole record, picking out simple melodies, while beneath, drones rumble and whir, snippets of conversations surface, as do occasional bursts of static and noise. Collages of found sounds become hypnotic drones, running water becomes a tranquil stretch of dreamy ambience, samples of laughter become a dada-ist sound poem, some strange percussive melody played on a buzzing stringed instrument becomes a lost snippet of unlikely 'world' music, and creaking industrial clatter becomes a strangely tribal exploration of sound and space. NZ noise indeed!"
"Stephen Clover, AKA Seht, has a gift for spinning the wheel of musical chance and landing in hallucinogenic waters every time. “The Voice of Taniwha” is a twisted ride through altered states and warped homemade sounds that find our hero in all sorts of provocative settings, and coming from the kind of isolated perspective that’s come to mark the most memorable of New Zealand’s fringe sound explorers.
The short “[Preamble]” is just over a minute of gentle strums and amp buzz, before “[Gas Reg Stn + Carillon]” veers into collage with scratchy feedback and environmental field recordings. These shorter pieces are the connecting tissue between more expansive mood-workouts like “Make the Baby Jesus Cry Some More,” a somnambulist rite of bass, bells and spoken word that manages to hypnotize and menace at the same time. And “Requiem for John Fahey” finds Clover’s stark acoustic picking staring down distant voices and manipulated feedback, taken from a Gang of Four song, over nearly 11 minutes of measured raga and blues. It’s a brilliant bit of folk/ noise experimentalism buoyed by the kind of playful DIY aesthetic that Fahey himself cherished.
In his own claustrophobic way, Clover conveys human alienation and psychic mystery in compact, minimalist soundtracks. On “Ac. Gtr. #2” that means oblique guitar plucks wrestle grating bows down a dark industrial corridor. “Can We Speak Freely” pushes things further with detuned strings meandering through he-said/she said spoken word which grows more bizarre with each refrain to the point that all that’s left are gurgling electronics and processed vocals. In fact, interesting tape work abounds on this strange little disk, especially on the disturbed “Canned Laughter,” which has the fevered menace that marked Nurse With Wound’s most outrageous work in the early 80s.
“St. Valentine’s Day 2003,” on the other hand, dedicates over half of its 10 minutes to rainfall and traffic sounds. A sustained drone eventually pierces the wash before a small marching band sounds what could be a lament for fallen soldiers. It’s a sadly poetic moment that exists outside of time or space but still somehow finds the heart. “The Voice of the Taniwha” is an album that regularly defies expectation and ignores any current trends in favor of a more personal brand of paranormal investigation."
- Lee Jackson, Foxy Digitalis
"Seht is a mysterious figure that emerged out of a mysterious place [I think it's New Zealand, actually] to produce "The Voice of the Taniwha". If you can call this messed up minimalism, then go ahead, be my guess. I won't stop you. In fact add on any label or moniker which you feel is appropriate, as I'm out of words. Seht is heavy on acoustic guitars [he lists John Fahey and Jim O'Rourke as influences], as well as ways of making them sound different and other-worldly. But it's not the guitar pieces that get me all excited about this record. Rather, it's Seht's explorations of the drone electronic field that has me jumping up and down for joy. His flare for field recordings which are then processed electronically to come up with the most intense but some of the most drone inducing pieces is what Seht should be applauded for. "The Voice of the Taniwha" is a perfect example of how much more can be done with less."
- Tom Sekowski, GazEta
"Stirring acoustic guitar passages and sub-everything rumbles are woven with samples and field recordings into intricate, yet spacious mosaics. Often, each track features a number of disparate elements sculpted into a shining solid. The 11-minute "Requiem For John Fahey," for instance, contains elements of Jim O'Rourke's "Happy Days" with Seht's own guitar work and feedback sampled from Gang of Four's "Love Like Anthrax." Yet, far from sounding ill accented, the piece's static swirls and well-placed plucking are entrancing. "We Can Speak Quite Freely" contains a host of voices, movie samples, UHF-band cordless phone conversations and guitar. The massive closer, "St. Valentine's Day 2003," is a 10-minute assemblage of drones and sound collage built upon a "found" recording of a Salvation Army Band. When put into words, much of this may sound impossibly inaccessible, but Seht's greatest strength is in making his tunes thoroughly listenable, no matter how avant-garde his subject matter."
- Ethan Covey, Sup is a Magazine
"almost sticks out like a sore thumb from the c-psi-p pack for being quite hi-fi (in comparison at least.) most pieces here are concerned with very thoughtful processing of guitar sounds; there’s a very nice 11 minute invocation of fahey’s ghost via fingerpicked acoustic guitar over some mean low-end square waves (not unlike something jim o’rourke would have done a few years back), a few almost mille-plateaux-esque resonance studies, and a bit of prepared acoustic sound-gathering... not to mention the guitar-free pieces, which combine field recordings and found dialogue with musique concrète-lineage collage work. listens/reads more like a composers’ album than a collection of home-studio after-hours experiments, might be the one to start with if’n that’s your proclivity..."
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