Magia Potagia (Mego 038, 5" Compact Disc, 2005).
Mastered by Martin Siewert in Vienna. Cover image by Stephen Sharp. Purchase

1. Punani Potagia
2. Pus pus pus
3. Walpurgis

Keywords: algorithmic composition, rodents, noise, nasty mathematics.

Punani series part 3

Evol's recordings and performances explore the many sides of digital noise and algorithmic-driven composition. Harsh and bloody trips along the most extreme path of academic music, putting together sonic brutality, crazy algebra, fractal structures and a slight ironic touch. When they are not working on Evol, they are probably playing Playstation, building Lego robots, trying to run their home-imprint Alku, spreading digital Chindogus from imbecil.net or feeding Perkele, the luckiest chinchilla in Europe.

"Magia Potagia" is a document of the work Evol have been doing within the field of algorithmic composition for the past three years. It features three tracks from two different periods, all of them 100% computer-generated and almost no edited at all, to preserve their fractal nature.

"Punani Potagia" is the third composition in a series of pieces that started in early 2002, involving a combination of complex Frequency Modulation techniques and strange attractors. Previous tracks of this ongoing series have been released on Fals.ch ("Super Punani") and Scarcelight ("Punani Shell").

"Pus pus pus" and "Walpurgis" (*) are part of a series of stochastic generative works from 2001. These pieces mark the beginning of Evol's interest for what they call anti-climax tracks, where despite constant nano-changes in pitch, velocity or general structure, there's no relevant variation from beginning to end.

Some things said about EVOL's previous release:

"Furious, loud and mad music"
(Vital Weekly)

"...a razor sharp atonalism that follows its own sense of abandoned humor"
(Igloo Mag)

"Glistening, hard-edge and almost beautiful in its technological ferocity and abuse"
(Earshot Online)

(*) Walpurgis Night - Valborgsmässoafton
When it was about time for spring to arrive the Vikings had a celebration in its honour, they lit bonfires so to hurry along the coming of spring and to scare off evil spirits.
In the year 710 a woman named Valborg/Walpurgis/Wealdburg/Valderburger was born somewhere in northern Europe. According to legend she is supposed to be the daughter of the great king Richard. Her name though would rather suggest a Celtic, German or even a Scandinavian background. The most popular belief is however that she was born somewhere in today's Britain.
During her life she travelled to Germany with her brothers and she founded the Catholic convent Heidenheim in Wurtemburg1, Germany. She later became a nun there. She died the 25th of February 779. That day still carries her name, Valborg, in the Catholic calendar. She was not made a saint until the 1st of May 779.
Now because of the date of her being declared a saint her name became associated with the Viking spring and fertility celebrations which took place at approximately the same time of the year, around the 30th of April. She was worshipped in the same way as the Vikings had worshipped spring. So as the Vikings spread across Europe the two dates became mixed together and produced the Valborg celebration. Valborg was usually symbolised by three oat ears and a small bottle of oil. This was supposed to indicate fertility.
So how big was the religious impact of the Valborgsmäss? This solemnity was most probably just a big excuse to socialise with your friends and neighbours and having a good time. Considering the fact that it took two elements that had really no connection what so ever and made it into a holiday. First we have Valborg, a catholic nun, and then we already have a small spring festivity celebrated by the Vikings. The most probable reason for why the spreading of Valborg is that the rest of Europe wanted yet another fun day. In return for this the celebration received a name, the name of a saint, so that the celebration would be more accepted by the Catholic Church. There probably was no religious impact what so ever, except maybe a small nudge when Scandinavia was supposed to be christened. Valborg is today celebrated without parallels to Christian church or religion.

1. Notice the connection Valborg - Wurtemburg (Wurtemmberg). We cannot know if the saint took her name from the area or if the area was named after her.

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