First reviews, courtesy of the Vital Weekly;
http://www.vitalweekly.net/813.html

LEE NOYES – XIAZHI (CDR by Ideal State Recordings)
RADIO CEGESTE & LEE NOYES – TO ORIENT THEMSELVES WITH COASTLINES (CDR by Ideal State Recordings)
AND/ALSO – LIKE ALSO AND ANY (CDR by Ideal State Recordings)
Percussionist Lee Noyes is originally from New Zealand, but moved his trade and business – Ideal State Recordings is his own label to Sweden. He plays on all three of these new releases. On ’Xiazhi’ he plays his own brand of feedback electronics. He does that in three pieces, lasting 9, 19 and 29 minutes. If I would be cynical, I could say that once all the silence is cut out, we may have 30 minutes left. Indeed a CD with lots of silence between isolated ’outbursts’ of some kind. Especially in the third piece it takes a while before sound is continuos. But I am not cynical (skeptical at times) and while I like some of this, I think the time of long silences, as outlined by many Japanese musicians – say Taku Sugimoto – is a bit behind us. Probably very zen and all that, but I like to hear music, not the beating of my own heart. But as said, when Noyes, is doing something, be it very soft, this is quite nice. This is one to crank up the volume quite a bit and it makes more sense: a whole world opens up and it turns out there is quite a bit of beauty in there.

Behind Radio Cegeste there is one Sally Ann McIntyre, who has a mini FM radio station of the same name, which she uses to perform her sounds from the electro magnetic spectrum, including morse code, shortwave and theremin. The four pieces she performed with Noyes were captured on a hilltop and include not only the sounds they produced (empty sampler, mixer, broken accordion), but also the interference from the radio’s mixed in, as well the one used to transmits this and sounds surrounding the area. I wouldn’t have minded seeing this also, as well as hearing it. But, alright, we have to settle for just the audio, which is quite nice actually. These improvisations seem a bit unfocussed – but maybe I have that romantic notion of two persons on a hill, with all things battery operated, improvising along with the elements. There are quiet moments here too, but throughout the sound is quite audible, even noisy at times. Atmospherical hissing and crackling of sounds, all becoming alive through some sparse electronic treatments. Lots of obscure sound events drop in and out and, as said, a bit unfocussed, but very nice indeed. Maybe a track too long, I thought.

With all of this we would forget that Noyes is a percussion player and he plays the kit on the disc with the duo And/also he formed with Stuart Porter, who plays saxophone. And he plays saxophone is a pretty traditional fashion, which is there where I like it least. He blows away freely, improvised, free jazz or whatever you want to call it. I think Noyes is here the more interesting player, using his kit to scrap, hit, bend with objects and bows, and in general do things other than playing a regular rhythm. I’m sure its all done very nicely, but that kind of saxophone playing gets to my nerves too much. These three discs are a farewell to Dunedin where Noyes lived up to his recent re-location to Sweden. Let’s see what the new country will bring him. (FdW)

Address: http://idealstaterecordings.bandcamp.com