ANNE-JAMES CHATON & ANDY MOOR - Transfer/2 7" UnsoundsBEE MASK - Elegy for Beach Friday 2LP Spectrum SpoolsBIOSPHERE - N-Plants CD TouchCARLFRIEDRICH CLAUS & HARTMUT GEERKEN - Einem luftigen akustischen Kosmos entgegen CD Rumpsti PumstiGREIE GUT FRAKTION - reKonstruKtion (Baustelle Remixe) CD MonikaHOBOCOMBO - Now that is the Opposite, It's Twice upon a Time CD Trovarobato/ParadeJIM O'ROURKE - Old News #5 2LP Editions MegoKENNETH KIRSCHNER - Twenty Ten 3CD 12kLIBEREZ - The Letter LP AlterMACHINEDRUM - Room(s) 2LP/CD Planet MuMACHINIST - Of What Once Was CD Moving FurnitureMIKA VAINIO - Life (...It Eats You Up) 2LP/CD Editions MegoNICOLAS BERNIER - usure.paysage CD hrönirOREN AMBARCHI & JIM O'ROURKE - Indeed LP Editions MegoREINHOLD FRIEDL - Inside Piano 2CD zeitkratzerREINHOLD FRIEDL - Inside Piano LP hrönirSPLICE - LAB CD LoopTEMPORAL MARAUDER - Makes You Feel LP Spectrum SpoolsTHE VEGETABLE ORCHESTRA/DAS GEMÜSEORCHESTER - Onionoise CD Transacoustic Research/Monkey
ANNE-JAMES CHATON & ANDY MOORTransfer /2: Princess in a Car7" Single Unsounds 23Uhttp://www.unsounds.com/23u.html
Side A: Princess In A Mercedes Class S 280Side B: Princess In A Rover P63500S V8
Transfer/2: Princess in a Car is the second part of the 7" single series "Transfer" by Anne-James Chaton and Andy Moor. Comes in a poster sized folded sleeve.
Side A takes us on Princess Diana's last journey from Bourget Airport to Pont de l'Alma and the last hours before her fatal car accident in central Paris. Chaton recalls in a semi-detached tone, a list of her last activities and her general state of mind and feelings in her final moments. A woman's voice in the background provides an English translation of the text. The music by Andy Moor has a slow pulse with guitar samples and a rhythm track from fellow collaborator and label mate Yannis Kyriakides.
Side B, though less tragic in delivery has an equally haunting epilogue, as Chaton lists all the cars owned by Grace Kelly and connects the year of each car with a meeting that she had with various lovers, movie stars, and members of the Royal family, ending coincidentally with a meeting with Lady Diana Spencer, and the final car that Grace had her fatal accident in, a Rover P36500S.
TRANSFER is a series of 4 7" singles that will be completed in 201122U transfer1/ Departures : side A Derniere Minute ; side B D'ouest en Est23U Transfer2/ Princesses in a car : side A Princess in a Mercedes Class S 280, side B : Princess in a Rover P63500S V8
Still to come:24U Transfer3/ PLANES* Face A: mysterious data appears to be the dates of the most terrible plane crashes in history; Face B: a free interpratation of the film Airport 1975 by Jack Smight. Release: 11 September 201125U Transfer/4: RAILS* Face A: ambulation constructed from the names of subway stations around the world; Face B: a train journey inspired by the novel "Murder on the Orient Express" by Agatha Christie.
BEE MASKElegy for Beach Friday2LP Spectrum Spools SP005Release date: July 5http://www.spectrumspools.comhttp://bee-mask.tumblr.com
Synthesizers, percussion, piano, guitar, tape, electronics, and max/MSP recorded 2003-2010 in Northampton, MA, New York, NY, Cleveland, OH, and Philadelphia, PA.Edited and mixed at Tranquility Base, February 2011.Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, May 2011
For the last few years, Chris Madak has been on a tangled and cryptic path toward the full realization of his Bee Mask alterego. Now, for the Þrst time there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel - a chance for old plans to come to fruition and for new ideas to blossom into the unknown. "Elegy for Beach Friday" is a personal selection of highlights from a slew of limited cassette and CDr editions recorded between 2003 and 2010, reimagined, reedited, and remastered, offering both a cross-section for the uninitiated and a fresh enigma for the already-enchanted.
The original documents will age on the shelves of those fortunate enough to have been the know, and for the rest of the world, we now have this double LP retrospective of Chris' favorite time-stopping microcosmic suites, woven together over four instantly classic sides of wax. Here, the full range of Bee Mask's sonic palette has been carefully compressed into a dazzling and inÞnitely dense time capsule of mind-altering Martian sound Þelds and psychedelic dimension bending, bridging the worlds of Nikola Tesla and Lamonte Young and giving us the ideal soundtrack for our collective walk down a dirt road into the gaseous cloud of our Þnal days.
Spectrum Spools released in association with Editions Mego
BIOSPHEREN-PlantsCD Touch # TO:84http://www.touchmusic.org.ukhttp://www.biosphere.no
Art Direction: Jon WozencroftCover image: Yusuke MurakamiMastered by Denis Blackham @ Skye
GEIR JENSSEN writes: "Early February 2011: Decided to make an album inspired by the Japanese post-war economic miracle. While searching for more information I found an old photo of the Mihama nuclear plant. The fact that this futuristic-looking plant was situated in such a beautiful spot so close to the sea made me curious. Are they safe when it comes to earthquakes and tsunamis? Further reading revealed that many of these plants are situated in earthquake-prone areas, some of them are even located next to shores that had been hit in the past by tsunamis.
A photo of Mihama made me narrow down my focus only to Japanese nuclear plants. I wanted to make a soundtrack to some of them, concentrating on the architecture, design and localizations, but also questioning the potential radiation danger (a cooling system being destroyed by a landslide or earthquake, etc). As the head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said: "the plants were so well designed that 'such a situation is practically impossible'.
The album was finished on February 13th. On March 17th I received the following message from a FB friend: "Geir, some time ago you asked people for a photo of a Japanese nuclear powerplant. Is this going to be the sleeve of your new coming album? But more importantly: how did you actually predict the future? kind regards, David"
CARLFRIEDRICH CLAUS & HARTMUT GEERKENEinem luftigen akustischen Kosmos entgegenCD Rumpsti Pumsti (Edition) Nummer 12http://www.rumpsti-pumsti.comhttp://www.carlfriedrich-claus.dehttp://www.hartmutgeerken.de
Edition of 300 copies, 30 copies with signed & numbered original graphic by Hartmut GeerkenComes with 12 page booklet including a text by Hartmut Geerken (German only).
Collaboration performance by this two infamous german visual artists & sound-poets, recorded at Lyrik-Kabinett München, June 1991. This is Carlfriedrich Claus' only sound-collaboration ever. Both artists prepared a 60-minute backing-tape and wrote a detailled score for live-performed poetry and voice-operations. In addition to these fixed compositions they left room for spontaneous improvisation and the use of small cymbals ('tschinkas').
This is like nothing else. Very serious, raw and quite unsettling.
Between the early 1950s and his death in 1998, CARLFRIEDRICH CLAUS (born 1930) produced a corpus of work that occupies terrain somewhere between philosophy, art, linguistics and acoustic literature. Both visually with his language sheets and acoustically with his language operations, he plumbed and explored the depths of human consciousness, making a wholly individual contribution to the art of the 20th century in doing so. These sound processes and language operations have a consistency and radicalism unacknowledged hitherto.
HARTMUT GEERKEN (born 1939) is an author, composer, musician, film-maker, performer, actor, mycologist, archivist, stager of exhibitions, publisher of numerous authors from the circle of literary expressionism and dada, lumberjack, and bumble-bee-keeper. As a percussionist, he has collaborated with a variety of free jazz musicians such as Sun Ra, John Tchicai, Sainkho Namtchylak. As a poet, he is a practitioner of concrete poetry and organizes events such as the annual Bielefeld New Poetry Colloquium. As an actor, he appeared in six films by Herbert Achternbusch and appeared in two of Achternbusch's plays at the Munich Kammerspiele.
GREIE GUT FRAKTIONreKonstruKtion (Baustelle Remixe)CD/DL Monika Enterprise 73Release date: August 26http://www.monika-enterprise.dehttp://www.greiegutfraktion.com
1. AGF: Drilling An Ocean - Drilling Frrrmmm Remix2. Gudrun Gut: Betongiessen - Rubberboots Mix 3. Wolfgang Voigt: Wir bauen eine neue Stadt - Freiland Klaviermix14. Mika Vainio: Drilling An Ocean Mix 5. Natalie Beridze: We Matter Mix 6. Jennifer Cardini: Make it Work Mix (Bass Heiko Voss)7. Soulphiction: Mischmaschine Late Dub 8. Barbara Morgenstern: Cutting Trees Mix 9. Gudrun Gut: Make it Work - Get it Down Mix 10. Donna Neda: Baustein - He's a Man Mix11. AGF: Make it Work - Built It Up Interlude12. Alva Noto: Wir bauen eine neue Stadt - Remodel Edit13. AGF: Cutting Trees - Space Place Mix 14. Chra: White Oak - Sombrero Albo Remix15. Vinilette: China Memories - Ambient Remix
Following the release of their debut album Baustelle on monika last year, the Greie Gut Fraktion, also known individually as AGF and Gudrun Gut, now present you with "reKonstruKtion"; a full length album of remixes based on material taken from Baustelle and featuring remixes by Soulphiction, Jennifer Cardini, Mika Vainio, Wolfgang Voigt, Alva Noto, GGF themselves and many more. Any construction opens up the possibility of reconstruction, or in most cases even implies a need for reconstruction. The constructivist movement of the 30s wanted to openly remove the copy-cat character from art. With the remixes of GGF's Baustelle its similar; it's about finding a different approach to good material. Through progress in technology and networking, the boundaries between producer and DJ continue to blur more and more. Remixes are an integral part of this process and the results are often pleasantly surprising, as is the case on "reKonstruKtion".
Both exceptional solo producers in their own write AGF and Gudrun Gut have naturally each done individual remixes. And so the album kicks off with Antye Greie's remix of Drilling An Ocean, one of the tunes from Baustelle which came with a stunning video, followed closely by Gudrun Gut's new Ruberboots take on Betongiessen (trans. Pouring Concrete).We have Kompakt boss Wolfgang Voigt with his Freiland Klaviermix 1 of Wir bauen eine neue Stadt; a superb minimal rendition of the Palais Schaumburg classic which you might know if you got the Stadt Mixe 12that came out to accompany the original album. AGF has obviously drawn on her connections to Finland, where she is a resident, by recruiting Mika Vainio, one half of Pan Sonic, to do a remix. Mika also chose to mix Drilling An Ocean and his industrial-noise style lends itself perfectly to the subject matter, resulting in a dark atmospheric piece of sound-art. Keeping it in the family, monika artist Natalie Beridze aka TBA is the next to lend a Baustelle reKonstruKtion to this mighty collection. The Georgian artist who's fantastic album ForgetFulness recently came out on the label delivers a fine version of We Matter in a cut-up electronica style.
French minimal DJ and producer Jennifer Cardini is highly regarded as a remixer as her rmx of the functional track Make it Work proves. She brings a relaxed minimal-dubby twist to this number so as to make it just right for a club context. Staying on the dance floor, Stuttgart's acclaimed producer and Philpot label owner Soulphiction aka Jackmate supplies a prime cut with his Late Dub remix of Mischmaschine. This is a truly funky mix.As Gudrun Gut was kind enough to do a remix for the recent Barbara Morgenstern remix EP Fan No. 3 on monika, Barbara has returned the favor with a delightful pop-mix of Cutting Trees. As one might expect from Morgenstern, she brings the melodic elements of the original song to the forefront while of course finding new room for creative development within the composition.
Gut's second mix on reKontruKtion is another version of Make It Work. It's interesting, as with the two differing mixes of Drilling An Ocean, to be able to compare just how far apart two remixes of the same tune can be. Indeed Gudrun Gut's mix of Make It Work is possibly the most danceable number on the whole album. Ever supportive of new talent, monika introduces three new stars with reKonstruKtion. Greie Gut Fraktion ran a remix competition on the network female:pressure (femalepressure.net) - three of the best have their remix included on the album, the first being Hamburg based DJ Donna Neda whose Baustein mix is up their with the best of them. AGF's take on Make It Work is a short interlude and again its fascinating to hear how the two composers in the Greie Gut Fraktion interpret their collaborative compositions independently in the context of a remix.
The Alva Noto remodel of Wir Bauen Eine Neue Stadt was also included on the a fore mentioned remix 12and fans of the raster noton boss won't be disappointed as the exclusive reKonstruKtion remodel edit contains all the key elements of that Alva Noto signature sound; moody distortion, broken beats and plenty of surface noise. Antye Greie has a second mix in the form of her Space Place version of the chainsaw propelled Cutting Trees. The album draws to a close with two more winners of the female:pressure remix competition. The penultimate remix comes from Chra with the sombrero alto remix of White Oak. And reKontruKtion ends in ambient bliss with Villinette turning China Memories into a multi-layered soundscape.
The fascinating thing with remixes is always hearing the original track mutated into something entirely new and to what extent the remix artist manages to bring their own personality into the new rendition; just how far the remix deviates in style and structure from the original material. ReKontstruKtion presents 15 high quality remixes based on tracks from 2010's Baustelle album. With remix artists as diverse as Alva Noto, Barbara Morgenstern, Wolfgang Voigt, Soulphiction and Jenifer Cardini plus many more, while the collection does of course span a multitude of styles, the spirit of the Greie Gut Fraktion remains ever present in every tune. It's particularly interesting to hear Gut and Greie's individual interpretations of the duos collective compositions. No doubt reKonstruKtion is an exciting development and step forward from the Baustelle album.
HOBOCOMBONow that is the Opposite, It's Twice upon a TimeCD Trovarobato/Parade TRB P 004http://www.trovarobato.comhttp://www.hobocombo.comhttp://vimeo.com/20139859
Hobocombo is a MOONDOG tribute band, featuring Andrea Belfi at drums, percussion and voice, Rocco Marchi at guitar, synth and voice, Francesca Baccolini at double bass and voice.
Hobocombo re-interpretes some of Louis Hardin's pre-minimalist tunes, canon based songs and his odd snaketime rhythms with drums, double bass, electric guitar and voices.The result are beautiful and hypnotic songs, with a contemporary psychedelic feeling.
FRANCESCA BACCOLINI: double bass, voiceANDREA BELFI: drums, percussions, harmonica, voiceROCCO MARCHI: electric guitar, lap steel, korg ms10, voice
all song composed by Louis Hardin (Moondog)re-arranged by Hobocomborecorded at Obst und Gemüse Studio (Cerro Veronese, Italy) june 2010 by Hobocombomixed and mastered by Roberto Passuti, Rocco Marchi and Francesca Baccolini at Spectrum Studio (Bologna, Italy)produced by Francesca Baccolini, Rocco Marchi and Roberto Passutiartwork by Francesca Baccolini and Giovanni Bertani
HOBOCOMBO LIVE16/06 Berlin - Hobocombo play "Video Days" soundtrack, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Studio 1- Bisar19/06 Berlin - Künstlerhaus Bethanien (1st floor)
JIM O'ROURKEOLD NEWS #52LP Editions Mego OLD NEWS #5http://www.editionsmego.com
Introducing a nearly regular series of vinyl albums documenting analog synth and tape works (both studio and live) from the depths of Jim O'Rourke's archive, spanning a near quarter century of active duty in the Þeld.
OLD NEWS # 5 kicks off with "Pedal and Pedal", a reÞned beauty of a live set at Tokyo's Super Deluxe, to only be followed by a massive blast from the past in the shape of the monsterous "Detain The Man To Whom", recorded in 1992.
Record two delivers the genuine weirdness of studio session "Its Not His Room Anymore", backed with the ripping "Mother and Who", which is an alrernate version of what would become O'Rourke's live set at the 2003 All Tomorrows Parties Festival in UK.
KENNETH KIRSCHNERTwenty Ten3CD 12k 1066http://www.12k.comhttp://www.kennethkirschner.com
Twenty Ten is the latest epic from Brooklyn-based composer Kenneth Kirschner, who is known for his decayed, dark and usually long-form takes on modern classical and found-sound composition. With only 4 pieces spanning a 3-CD set, and nearly 3 hours of music, Twenty Ten takes Kirschner's study of space and sonic focus to new lengths.
Following 2008's critically acclaimed double-CD Filaments & Voids, Twenty Ten sees Kirschner's use of real-world instruments become even more accomplished while still remaining steeped in conceptual outlines, meticulously married with computerized processes that emphasize the natural instruments' flaws. Like most of Kirschner's work, he starts the listener off easily, introducing the instrument or set of instruments for a particular piecewith relative pragmatism. However, things don't remain so simple for very long, as the works' harmonic balance gives way to microtonal relationships and beautifully crafted computerized decay. By the end of his long compositions, you find yourself wondering how you got where you were, having been completely drawn into Kirschner's sound-world and thrown out the other side as if tossed into a churning sea.
Disc One starts off with the shortest piece of the set (a mere 23:40), "January 4, 2011" (all of Kirschner's compositions are titled for the date on which they were started). This piece, created with metallophones and xylophones from a local school, is perhaps the most chaotic, and the most natural, we've ever heard Kirschner's music, as two simultaneous layers of subtly microtuned percussive bells roll and skip, sped up, slowed down and playing off ofone another. Natural, because there was no computer trickery, only hours of playing and recording edited down to this "short" length. As almost the polar opposite, the second track on Disc One (the only disc with more than one piece), "November 7, 2010", takes piano, strings and celeste into severely microtonal territory - at first perhaps a difficult listen, but at the end of the 42-minute piece it somehow all makes sense. It's a dynamic recording whosehigh-pitched bowed sounds whisper across low piano notes, leaving the listener sometimes holding their breath, afraid to disturb the delicacy.
Disc Two's "September 25, 2010" (47:00) is a composition for strings, woodwinds and horns in which 142 different chords float in a sea of silence with no repetitions and no recurrences. Every chord was composed so that each instrumental combination only happened once throughout the piece, and the sparse approach evokes "October 19, 2006" on Filaments & Voids, where Kirschner spent as much time composing the silences between chords as he didthe notes themselves.
The final work on Twenty Ten is the 51-minute "January 18, 2011", which takes up the third disc. This piece sees Kirschner return to the instrument he is most often associated with: the aging piano. Two pairs of equal-tempered layers are microtuned against each other, with occasionally jarring edits and unexpected cuts and stops breaking the moody atmosphere created by Kirschner's use of noise and exploited lo-fi recording artifacts.
Taken in its entirety, and realizing the amount of work that went into the creation of this set, Kirschner's Twenty Ten comes off as one highly impressive accomplishment that assures his place among the top artists of our time creating thoroughly original music free of most current classifications.
LIBEREZThe LetterLP/DL Alter ALT05http://alterstock.blogspot.comhttp://www.liberez.moonfruit.com Recorded and mastered by John Hannon at No, Rayleigh, 2009 - 2010.Vinyl cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates and Mastering, Berlin, March 2011.Edition of 300 copies. John Hannon - Guitar / ViolinPete Wilkins - Drums / VocalsNina Bosnic - Vocals / TextTom James Scott - Guitar / Keyboard The Letter is the first album by Liberez, a group formed by recording engineer John Hannon and Pete Wilkins in Southend. The project began life exploring a deconstruction of the traditional "band" form before expanding to a quartet with the addition of vocalist Nina Bosnic, and multi-instrumentalist Tom James Scott (Bo Weavil Recordings). Musically rooted in improvisation, the band sought a progression from the loosely described "noise rock" sound at their inception into wider areas of sonic exploration. The tracks were recorded as a mixture of sessions at Hannon's studio and external locations where fleeting incidents were captured on crude equipment such as mobile phones, and portable cassette recorders. It wasn't until a piece of text written by Bosnic about an incident in her home country (also bleakly represented on the albums cover), where the backbone of The Letter was formed and new ideas with regards to incorporating her voice were inspired within the group. Bosnic's vocals on this record bear little resemblance to traditional singing or melody but instead use the inflection and cadence of speech to play with syntax. The repeated phrases and deconstructed sentences give the record an unusual and disconcerting atmosphere, acting as a sinister bedfellow to the sharp and broken sound of the guitar and heavily treated drums. Whilst these instruments may represent rock'n'roll, Liberez are content to take influence from the likes of Robert Ashley rather than Chuck Berry. The Letter is a bold first statement from a group that is taking full advantage of what they have, and proudly displays the vast frequency bandwidth that they now work within.
MACHINEDRUMRoom(s)2LP/CD Planet Mu Records ZIQ307Release date: July 11http://www.planet.mu/discography/ZIQ307
TRAVIS STEWART is a producer who's always been admired by the electronic cognosenti, both as a solo producer in his project Machinedrum and also as one half of Sepalcure on Hotflush recordings. After a break from producing he started to resurface in a major way last year with the 'Many Faces E.P.' on Glasgow's LuckyMe label and a performance at Sonar Festival. However, for 'Room(s)', his latest album for Planet Mu, he's well ahead of the curve.
It takes a really skilled and creative producer to see the potential for experimenting with a raw, underground and aggressive musical form like footwork and really nail it, but on Room(s), Travis' productions have turned the 160 bpm footwork conventions inside out. Here he fills the usually fierce, stripped down form with elegant sun kissed and impressionistic songs, built from r & b, autotune and dance music history's most exuberant stabs and kicks. Building on his background as a hip hop producer, he casually creates a beautiful new kind of high-speed detail-packed mutant pop that, like the early post-rave sounds of ambient jungle, is psychedelic, exhilarating and strangely relaxing in it's fast-paced washes of synths and drums. The album opens with 'She Died There', building incomprehensible looping swirls of cut-up vocal over precise, cool synths and agile kicks and snares. 'Now U know Tha Deal..' builds a new romantic flavoured synth melody over flat, heavy bass, slowly adding tough diva vocals and layers of warm chords to create something that approximates uk garage in a different matrix. 'Sacred Frequency' marries organ stabs and a catchy psychedelic chorus to create a triumphant and completely unexpectedly dizzying anthem. On 'U Don't Survive' he mixes the dubbed out, autotuned lyrics 'Out on the street you don't survive, now is the time to realise' over garage stabs and half speed hip hop drums, creating an exhilarating, airy rush. 'Come1' approximates a linear piano rave tune, but morphs into a blissed out shoegaze anthem halfway, while 'Youuniverse' adds congos and swelling Detroit chords over cavernous bass swells. The amazingly propulsive 'GBYE' cuts vocals up over sharp footwork-esque chord stabs like Todd Edwards on fast-forward, while 'The Statue' starts off minimal and dubbed out before building into a waterfall rush of needle-like snares and vocal loops. 'Lay Me Down' is sparser, leaving more space for dreaminess, building in woody, jungle-like drum breaks, while 'Doors' is more linear and subtle, adding in tiny details as it progresses, like a techno track. 'Where Did We Go Wrong?' finishes the album in an ambient style, with just the chords and vocals remaining, having omitting the rhythms, which by now might have been internalized by the listener to float away.
MACHINIST Of What Once Was CD Moving Furniture Records MFR011http://www.movingfurniturerecords.comhttp://www.machinistdrone.com The fourth full length record by Machinist, Of What Once Was, comprises of two tracks with a combined running time of 55 minutes. The diptych consists of the tracks "mono tone in d" and "of what once was". "mono tone in d" is inspired by the concept of the "Monotone Symphony" (1949) by French artist Yves Klein. In this composition a chamber orchestra plays only one note for twenty minutes, followed by an equal measure of silence. Machinist takes up this concept as a premise on which he builds an electric guitar piece in d, with the only variation being the length of tones and different shapes of resonance. Of What Once Was is a live improvised piece, a bookend and closing performance recording of a series of shows following the release of the album Viens Avec Moi Dans Le Vide (2010, Betontoon). The piece marks the transition in the sonic adventures of Machinist from guitar based drone work into new and as of yet uncharted territories and unknown spatiality. The red thread throughout the album is the use of electric guitar as a means to embark on a sonic quest for the tension between spatial sound and tonality of field recordings and the, per se, non-spatiality of computer-generated tones and noise and the inherent resonance(s) of the electric guitar and amplifier(s). These aspects all coalesce in the listening space where the listener experiences the sonic and spatial factors inherent in both pieces of Of What Once Was. About MachinistMachinist is the solo project of Dutch artist ZENO VAN DEN BROEK, who also worked as architect with a specialization in the field of urban living in a networking society. In his music there is a clear focus on urban environment and the immersive experience of space. Since 2005 he has releases several CD-R albums and performed at several Dutch festivals and venues. Leading in 2009, together with Mendel Kaelen, to win the Dutch X-Vektor, a contest for finding underground talent. About Moving Furniture RecordsMoving Furniture Records was founded in October 2008 with the idea in mind of giving more unknown musicians a platform for releasing music. MFR is run by Sietse van Erve, who is based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He asks musicians he likes to hear if they want to do a release. The first 8 releases were released as limited CD-R release. In June 2010 the first limited vinyl release Ubeboet - Archival has been presented, followed by Rose & Sandy Play Cat's Cradle on CD. The plan is to continue with vinyl and pressed CD's from this point on. Upcoming releases are by artists such as Accrual, Orphax, Christopher McFall and more.
MIKA VAINIOLife (...It Eats You Up)2LP/CD Editions Mego eMEGO 124Release date: July 26http://editionsmego.com All tracks written by Mika Vainio, except Open Up And Bleed by Iggy Pop / James Williamson
Whereas previous works by Mika Vainio have utilized guitar Life ( It Eats You Up) is the Þrst to use the instrument as its primary sound source. A fascinating, sometimes disturbing and deeply personal work this new 10 track set bears all the hallmarks (exacting attention to detail of tone, rhythm and texture) of Vainio's previous works with some stunning surprises, such as his cover version of The Stooges' 'Open Up And Bleed'.
Tracks such as 'Mining' hark bark to the banging beat excesses of Pan sonic, with 'Crashed' and 'And Give Us Our Daily Humiliation' and the opening 'In Silence A Scream Takes A Heart' reveal a new intensity to Vainio's work and is yet another superb addition to his already brilliant catalogue.
NICOLAS BERNIERusure.paysageCD hrönir hr7963http://www.hronir.dehttp://www.nicolasbernier.com
usure.paysage is Bernier's first musique concrète album, the CD is a re-release of the recently published 12"LP. It was applauded to the skies from all sides: The Wire regarded usure.paysage an "utterly compelling musique concrète album", Aquarius stated "Excellent, through and through!" and even two more Excellents came from Metamkine: "Excellente plongée dans une composition de musique concrète faisant le lien entre une esthétique des années 50 et l'étude paysagère plus actuelle. Collections de sons environnementaux et d'autres sources acoustiques organisées et montées dans une dynamique cinétique au service d'un kaléïdoscope sonore aux multiples facettes. Excellent !"
The CD is presented in the original 12" vinyl cover. It is a one-time pressing of 150 copies and contains the unreleased bonus "k.krrkphsssPOW < paysage", a 9-minute composition produced for the "trans_canada" Festival at ZKM Karlsruhe in 2005.
OREN AMBARCHI & JIM O'ROURKEIndeedLP Editions Mego DeMEGO 021http://editionsmego.com
Oren Ambarchi: Guitar, Synth, PercussionJim O'Rourke: Strings, Synth, PercussionRecorded & Mixed at Steamroom, Tokyo, Jan 2011Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin, May 2011Photographs by Shunichiro OkadaDesign by Takashi Site
While Oren Ambarchi and Jim O'Rourke have collaborated in a number of forms, from remixes to their acclaimed trio with Keiji Haino, Indeed is their Þrst duo album. Presented as two side-long, electro-acoustic explorations, what Ambarchi and O'Rourke proffer up here is also melodic and approachable, bringing to mind the warm post-minimalism of composers like Alvin Curran, David Behrman and Luciano Cilio. Indeed, it sounds a bit like the collective textural and melodic personality of their respective solo albums Þltered through the highpoints of the Lovely Music catalogue.
Beginning with a sequence of analogue electro-acoustic crunch before settling into a warm synth glow highlighted by the occasional melodic or percussive detail, it sounds like the music that two guys who have honed their skills through years of composition, pop songwriting and rigorous improvisation make when they're having fun in the studio.
REINHOLD FRIEDLInside Piano2CD Zeitkratzer zkr0013LP hrönir hr2884Release date: July 22http://www.zeitkratzer.dehttp://www.hronir.dehttp://www.reinhold-friedl.de
all music performed and composed by Reinhold Friedlrecorded at Philharmonie Luxembourg, July 8-9, 2010published courtesy of Philharmonie Luxembourgpiano: Steinway D-274, microphones: Neumann U87, Neumann KM184recorded by Ralf Meinz, mixed and mastered by Rashad Becker
"Friedl has developed his 'inside piano' technique to such a level of delicacy and precision, that any anticipated distinctions between instrumental and electroacoustic music, or between improvisation and composition are dissolved or transcended." - Stephen Robinson, The Wire
This is the first solo release of zeitkratzer's mastermind Reinhold Friedl. He teaches the grand piano how to sing and to sound like an orchestra, calling this new way of playing an old instrument "Inside-Piano". Many listeners of zeitkratzer releases do not recognise particular sounds that come from the piano and thus cannot identify it. After listening to this release, the source will become clear and they will get a new idea of the instrument!
The good old grand piano plays aggressive noise attacks, choir-like symphonic movements, strange complex sound fibrillations, sometimes lighting up single prepared piano notes, juxtaposed with the tremendous bass of the nearly three-meter long strings...
Recorded on a Steinway D concert piano at the Philharmonie Luxembourg, this double CD is released together with a vinyl LP with additional material on the label hrönir.
Reinhold Friedl lives in Berlin as a "veritable renaissance man" (Asphodel). He studied piano with the grande dame of German piano teaching Renate Werner, as well as with Alan Marks and Alexander von Schlippenbach. Besides his acclaimed solo piano work, he founded and directs zeitkratzer, one of the most resourceful and influential contemporary music groups active today. As a composer Friedl received commissions from such institutions as Wien Modern, the BBC London, the French State, Berliner Festspiele, ZKM Karlsruhe, amongst others. As a curator he invented the legendary Off-ICMC at the International Computer Music Conference in Berlin, and additionally writes professional articles and radio features. Furthermore he studied mathematics and composition with Witold Szalonek and Mario Bertoncini and has received scholarships in Paris, Rome, Marseille, San Francisco and Amsterdam. He gives concerts worldwide and has released numerous CDs and recordings for broadcast. However as this new release clearly demonstrates, Friedl always returns to his love for the piano!
SPLICELABCD Loop Records 1013http://loopcollective.orghttp://www.splicelab.com
Splice's raison d'être is to mesh together elements of contemporary jazz, free improv, loud and soft noise, punk grit, ambient music, and more... With players from England, France and Québec, the quartet dissolves boundaries with seamless blends or blunt juxtapositions.
The four musicians are all members of London's hyperactive LOOP, a collective of like-minded jazz musicians that was founded in 2005 to write, promote and perform original and improvised music. Although its music is contemporary by nature, Loop does not aim to represent a specific style or genre; on the contrary it encourages the artistic diversity of its community.
Splice launched their debut CD « LAB » at the 2011 LOOP Festival at the Forge, London. This first album was born from two years of monthly meetings where the band rehearsed, listened to and discussed about musical intentions. This was followed by an intense week of experiments in the studios of the University of Huddersfield, surrounded by both state of the art and vintage analogue electronics.
The release concert was broadcast by BBC Jazz on 3, with Splice having forthcoming gigs in Strasbourg, The Vortex (London), Birmingham, and Huddersfield.
Splice is Alex Bonney (trumpet and electronics), Robin Fincker (tenor saxophone and clarinet), Dave Smith (drums) and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay (bass guitar and electronics).
ALEX BONNEY (Reading, 1978) studied jazz compostition at Middlessex University under former Loose tubes members Eddie Parker, Chris Batchelor, Stuart Hall and also Nikki Iles.He is based in London and plays in a variety of projects, Including Splice, electro acoustic trio Leverton Fox (who in 2010 played a UK tour supporting Norwegian band Humcrush), he has a critically acclaimed improvising duo with bassist Dave Kane, a jazz quartet quartet performing original compositions featuring Jeff Williams and a tribute to Albert Ayler project featuring Paul Dunmall and Mark Sanders. He is a sideman with several other projects including Andrew Plummer's World Sanguine Report, Nostalgia 77, Northern Irish composer Brian Irvine's ensemble, drummer Steve Davis' 'Knuckle Biter' trio, and improv quartet Bonney/Hanslip/Brice/Sanders and various other improvised musical meetings. Past collaborations and recordings have included Gene Calderazzo, Hans Koller Ensemble (feat. Steve Lacy), Graham Collier Ensemble, and many more. www.alexbonney.co.uk
ROBIN FINCKER (St-Trou-du-Pet, 1968) blabla
DAVE SMITH (Norwich, 1981) is one of the finest young drummers on the British creative music scene. Drawing on a wide range of influences, his explosive style and musical sensitivity give him the versatility to play in many musical environments. Dave is best known for his work in co-leading Outhouse, who have toured the UK and performed in Canada, Germany, France and West Africa. Outhouse projects have included working with Icelandic guitarist Hilmar Jensson, [IKS], Stephane Payen, Jeanne Added and Outhouse Ruhabi a collaboration with five Sabar drummers from The Gambia. Dave co-founded the LOOP Collective in 2005, and works regularly with Outhouse, Splice, Dan Nicholls' Mirror and Tom Challenger's MA.
PIERRE ALEXANDRE TREMBLAY (Montréal, 1975) is a composer and a performer (bass guitar and sound processing) in solo and within the groups 'ars circa musicæ' (Sophie Aime, Paris), 'de type inconnu' (Ora, Montréal), and 'Splice' (loop collective, London). His music is mainly published on Empreintes DIGITALes and Ora. He is Reader in Composition and Improvisation at the University of Huddersfield in England, where he also leads the electronic music studios. He also worked in popular music as producer and bass guitarist, and is interested in video music and in coding. He likes oolong teas, reading, and walking. As a founding member of the no-tv collective, he does not own a working television set. www.pierrealexandretremblay.com
TEMPORAL MARAUDERTemporal Marauder Makes You FeelLP Spectrum Spools SP006Release date: July 5http://www.spectrumspools.com
If JEAN LOGARIN did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Never mind your outsider composers; never mind your library music. Never mind your merely unreleased records. Jean Logarin's music, like some recent unearthings by Belgium's Ultra Eczema label, exists at a remove from publicity so complete that it was nearly not among us, and has never been before. Like any obscurity, its immediate appeal might be that this music could count as a more genuine artifact of its time than any more commercial product, by virtue in part of its being outside of history. Jean Logarin's music is deÞnitely outside of history, but it is no artifact. It is so deeply consonant with the best contemporary electronic music that it is hard to believe it isn't brand new. But the biographical details, however elusive of our usual channels of veriÞcation, speak for themselves: Logarin studied under Andrew Rudin during the early 70's; his interest in electronic music further developed while working as a studio assistant for engineer Max Tanguy, an associate of famed krautrock producer, Conny Plank. Through Tanguy, Logarin met percussionist Hans Schule, an eccentric whose shady wealth bankrolled a series of recording sessions at Tanguy's studio. Together with Logarin's then-girlfriend, Llissa Zuckovich, Tanguy, Schule and Logarin proceeded to compose in the studio several hoursworth of Þnished pieces whose original purpose and intention have only become cloudier with time. There was no serious attempt made to release it, and only vague talk of attempting to sell it for commercial usage. The music on MAKES YOU FEEL is, then, from a historical perspective, purely a vanity project. A vanity project within a vanityproject, even: None of the pieces were given titles by Logarin, and the name TEMPORAL MARAUDERS does not predate this release. The album was compiled, its presentation determined, by its own Þrst fan. And here is where the story strains credulity, because it requires believing that Jean Logarin one day met, by chance, accordionist and composer Guerino Raglani, who even then was uncle to a young Joseph Raglani, today trafÞcking in romantic, kraut-tinged electronics under his own name. Two years ago, the elder Raglani passed onto his nephew a set of DAT transfers of his old tape reels, among which were (what have proven to be the only known) copies of Logarin's studio recordings. The younger Raglani, so the story goes, þipped out--became "nearly scared," in his own words--and demanded to know more. His uncle shed what light he could on how he came into possession of the tapes (a funny story in itself), but it took an extensive search to Þnd any accessible trail to Logarin. While Jean and the rest of the erstwhile group were pleasant enough when located, and happy to lend their support to the belated discovery of their work, each was mostly surprised anyone would want to go to the trouble; particularly Logarin, who declined the invitation to be involved in the project beyond its approval, and encouraged Joseph to come up with the album's names and titles himself. So, the project became Raglani's, and it bears the impression of his own aesthetic stamp, drawing from a range of references he and Logarin discovered they had in common. And yet: a "vanity project within a vanity project"? What else is music to begin with? How can it be said to begin with any purpose, and whose is itto name? In any case, this is close to the limit of what can be said about MAKES YOU FEEL. One may search for further information about Jean Logarin beyond these and a few other bare facts, but only in vain; he does not wish to be known. But to anyone who supposes that music this enjoyable and exciting, however buried, would've already been found by now if it actually existed, I would suggest that it has arrived at just the right time to be heard. And to those who will inevitably question if Logarin himself is real, the only straight answer is that we have his music. How could he not be real?-- Michael Ferrer Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, May 2011Spectrum Spools released in association with Editions Mego
THE VEGETABLE ORCHESTRA / DAS GEMÜSEORCHESTEROnionoiseCD Transacoustic Research/Monkey TRES008Release date: September 16http://www.transacoustic-research.comhttp://www.vegetableorchestra.org
ONIONOISE is the third CD by The Vegetable Orchestra, an ensemble unique to the world of music which is committed to the exploration of the acoustic qualities of vegetables.
In addition to performing on the international concert circuit, the 12-people collective from Vienna has spent the last dozen years experimenting with the building of vegetable instruments, industriously unearthing the acoustic universe of roots and legumes, cabbages and courgettes.
All the instruments used are exclusively made from vegetables: from fresh as well as dried plant material such as carrot, leek, celery root, artichoke, dried pumpkin and onion skin.All these components are used for building organic instruments and sound generators which usually only last for one concert or one day in the studio. In addition to the vegetables, various utensils like record players or power drills are used to create unusual noises and to add unexpected texture to the music.
The sounds produced by the vegetable instruments are amazingly multi-layered: transparent & crackling, shrill & massive, dark & hypnotic, funky & groovy - a heterogeneous multitude of acoustic gems and strange, unfamiliar sounds whose organic origin is not always immediately recognizable. The compositions are tailored to suit the speciÞc characteristics of the vegetable instruments being used, in terms of their sonic attributes and practical considerations to optimize performance. Stylistically the music oscillates between organic pop music and aural sound experiments, with inspiration from various sources: Minimal Techno, Ambient, Noise, Pop, New and Electro-Acoustic Music.
One important characteristic of the orchestra is its collaborative self-organization. Every aspect of the CD (from compositions, photographs, cover design, to label and distribution) has been developed and decided collectively by all members of the ensemble.
This CD is an aural voyage through phantasmagorical continents of sound and imaginary gardens. Living music: multi-layered and idiosyncratic.
The elaborate Digi-Pack also includes a poster.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 20:35 (twelve years ago) link
MIKA VAINIO - Life (...It Eats You Up) 2LP/CD Editions Mego
guitar? wtf.
― mh, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 20:37 (twelve years ago) link
I was listening to this last night on headphones - it's free with this month's Wire. I had no idea what it was about until the references to Dodi, but even before that, a very visceral feeling came over me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjiRsAd-B4k
― Sonny Chevrotain (dog latin), Thursday, 1 September 2011 12:24 (twelve years ago) link
ALVA NOTO - Univrs 2LP/CD raster-notonANGEL - 26000 LP/CD Editions MegoBILL ORCUTT - How The Thing Sings LP/CD Editions MegoCHRIS WATSON - El Tren Fantasma CD TouchCONTAINER - LP LP Spectrum SpoolsDRIPHOUSE - Spectrum 008 LP Spectrum SpoolsFENNESZ - Seven Stars CDEP TouchFUJAKO - Landform 2LP AngstromGARY NUMAN - Dead Son Rising LP/CD MortalHIGH PLACES - Original Colors LP/CD Thrill JockeyHIVE MIND - Elemental Disgrace LP Spectrum SpoolsJIM HAYNES - The Decline Effect LP Helen ScarsdaleJIM O'ROURKE - Old News #6 2LP Editions MegoKAMMERFLIMMER KOLLEKTIEF - Teufelskamin LP/CD StaubgoldKUEDO - Severant LP/CD Planet MuLAWRENCE ENGLISH - The Peregrine LP ExperimediaMARK MCGUIRE - Get Lost LP/CD Editions MegoMELT FAMAS - Serial Weather 10" MusikzimmerMONTY ADKINS - Fragile.Flicker.Fragment CD AudiobulbPURITY SUPREME - Always Already EP Ash InternationalTOM JOHNSON - Orgelpark For Chart: For Four Organs CD MazagranTROPICS - Parodia Flare LP/CD Planet MuV.A. - Archipel Electronique CD D'Autres CordesVELVELJIN - Nostalghia CD Noble
ALVA NOTOUnivrs2LP/CD raster-noton R-N 133Release date: October 17http://www.raster-noton.nethttp://www.alvanoto.com
alva noto's new album univrs will be released on raster-noton on october 17, 2011."univrs" follows on from and develops the concept of the album unitxt (raster-noton,2008). whereas the focus of unitxt was on the processing of rhythmic patterns ('unit' =unit of measurement, element) and information ('txt' = data, language), with univrs thefocus is on the conceptual differentiation of a universal language ('universum/universal'= unity, entirety).
the 14 tracks of univrs have evolved from a live context, hence the approach ismore continuous and dense. for the track uni acronym alva noto works again with thefrench voice artist anne-james chaton. the track is based on a number of 208 three-letteracronyms (set in alphabetical order) creating a random narrative. a video for this track isto be released soon.
the audio-visual performance of univrs is based on the real-time manipulation ofsoftware-generated test images by audio signals. a customised hardware box unitxt boxtriggers the video signal according to the value of the audio signal. the resulting colourpatterns change constantly without repititon.
the visualisation of univrs (uniscope version) - a expanded screen projection setup- on a digital level combines a variety of modules demonstrating different methods ofaudio analysing. the resultant signal processing is shown as a relay structure and isperformed in real-time. each module can be zoomed in on the expanded screen enablinggreater visual detail. the univrs (uniscope version) was developed with the touchdesignersoftware in close cooperation with derivative in toronto, canada (derivative.ca).a cd + dvd special edition of univrs along with a standard album release featuresa video of the live perfomance of univrs (uniscope version) perfomance in berlin 2011and the uni acronym video. it also includes two booklets on the visual concept of theperformance and the 208 uni acronym video stills. the special edition is an exclusiveraster-noton web shop release.
alva noto would like to thank anne-james chaton for his on-going inspiration, martinl. gore for providing a sample for the track uni rec, and daniel miller for advice andsupport. the album was mastered by rashad becker at clunk, berlin.
ANGEL26000LP/CD Editions Mego eMEGO 127Release date: September 27http://www.editionsmego.comhttp://www.myspace.com/angelnoise
Angel is ILPO VÄISÄNEN (Pan sonic) and DIRK DRESSELHAUS (Schneider TM) who play time-transcending freeform sound, weightlessness and gravity of electromagnetic signals together since 1999. The 5 tracks describe the last period of a 26000 years long cycle that leads to a new situation on this planet.
26000 was recorded between 2008 and 2010 at Construction Site Studios in Berlin & Ilpo's cottage in Karttula, Finland and features guest appearences by HILDUR GUDNADOTTIR, BJ NILSEN and OREN AMBARCHI. The repertoire of the instruments is very wide: glassbowls, metal objects, pieces of wood, grass, birds, dragonflies, lake echo, smoking box and the regular electronic equipment as well as acoustic instruments.
Hildur plays cello & the hallodrone (a kind of cello that feeds itself back).Oren plays percussion & guitar.Benny did field recordings and processing.
All mixed by Angel at Dirk's newly built studio called Zone and mastered by Rashad Becker in Berlin. It's all good in the tummy, bwoys, because the Black Sabbath parts were totally AC/DC. "nothing is wider than empty things" (francis bacon)"time is the accident of accidents" (epi kuros)
BILL ORCUTTHow The Thing SingsLP/CD Editions Mego eMEGO 128Release date: September 20http://www.editionsmego.comhttp://palilalia.com
Recorded Spring 2011 in the Living Room, San Francisco.
Yet another essential cracking new set of songs from Bill Orcutt, showcasing a further development of his unique visceral acoustic style. The language that Orcutt uses looks familiar at Þrst glance, but cut deeper and its myriad of twisted audio that's both full on and drenched in melancholy, usually in the same gasping breath. While a lot of it is the classic face melting style, some quieter segments counter balance on the title track as well the epic closer "A Line From Ol'Man River" and "Heaven Is Closed To Me Now".
CHRIS WATSONEl Tren FantasmaCD Touch TO:42http://touchmusic.org.ukhttp://www.chriswatson.net
Artwork: Jon WozencroftMastered by Denis Blackham
"Take the ghost train from Los Mochis to Veracruz and travel cross country, coast to coast, Pacific to Atlantic. Ride the rhythm of the rails on board the Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (FNM) and the music of a journey that has now passed into history."
El Tren Fantasma, (The Ghost Train), is Chris Watson's 4th solo album for Touch, and his first since Weather Report in 2003, which was named as one of the albums you should hear before you die in The Guardian. A Radio programme was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday 30 Oct, 2010, produced by Sarah Blunt, and described as "a thrilling acoustic journey across the heart of Mexico from Pacific to Atlantic coast using archive recordings to recreate a rail passenger service which no longer exists. It's now more than a decade since FNM operated its last continuous passenger service across country. Chris Watson spent a month on board the train with some of the last passengers to travel this route. As sound recordist he was part of the film crew working on a programme in the BBC TV series Great Railways Journeys. Now, in this album, the journey of the 'ghost train' is recreated, evoking memories of a recent past, capturing the atmosphere, rhythms and sounds of human life, wildlife and the journey itself along the tracks of one of Mexico's greatest engineering projects.
The radio broadcast received national press coverage in the UK:
The Observer:It is over a decade since FNM operated its last continuous passenger service across the country but here sound recordist Chris Watson recreates its atmospheric journey with the help of the train recordings he made while working on the BBC television series Great Railway Journeys... through desert and city, but it is the rocking rhythms of the train itself that prove most memorable. [Stephanie Billen]
The Financial Times:El Tren Fantasma (8pm) is Archive on 4's recollection of a trans-Mexico rail journey by sound recordist Chris Watson. From desert to rainforest, hummingbirds' wings to the boom of heat rising from the Copper Canyon, it recalls a beloved passenger train system abandoned by privatisation. **** [Martin Hoyle]
The Daily Telegraph:Sometimes, radio can awaken the mind and sharpen the senses like no other medium. This "sound portrait" of a now-abandoned railway line that used to run between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of Mexico is a good case in point. Captured by sound recordist Chris Watson more than a decade ago, it jostles with human, animal and mechanical life, filling the room with an atmosphere that is more richly evocative of Central America than any TV travel show I've seen. Diesel engines thrum, cicadas chirrup and passengers chatter, sing and argue. [Pete Naughton]
About the author...Chris Watson is one of the world's leading recorders of wildlife and natural phenomena, and for Touch he edits his field recordings into a filmic narrative. For example. the unearthly groaning of ice in an Icelandic glacier is a classic example of, in Watson's words, putting a microphone where you can't put your ears. He was born in Sheffield where he attended Rowlinson School and Stannington College (now part of Sheffield College). In 1971 he was a founding member of the influential Sheffield-based experimental music group Cabaret Voltaire. His sound recording career began in 1981 when he joined Tyne Tees Television. Since then he has developed a particular and passionate interest in recording the wildlife sounds of animals, habitats and atmospheres from around the world. As a freelance recordist for film, tv & radio, Chris Watson specialises in natural history and documentary location sound together with track assembly and sound design in post production.
CONTAINERLPLP Spectrum Spools SP007Release date: September 13http://www.spectrumspools.comhttp://ijustlivehere.org/container/index.html
Recorded early May and Late June 2011 at Bad Deal Studios, Nashville, TN.Mastered and cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin, July 2011Design and layout assistance by Mike Pollard.
Container is a recent moniker of Nashville, Tennessee resident REN SCHOFELD who's beenactively shifting about the U.S. playing shows and releasing cassettes on his mysterious I JustLive Here imprint for a long while now. Known primarily for his God WIlling project, a disjointed, confusing, maze of crude oscillator, tape, and guitar, Ren has established himself as a staple in the east coast underground.
Here we have a new experiment in electronic beat oriented music. This is no standard fare,however. It glows with a vision all it's own, completely isolated and separate making it difÞcult to place in the awkward world of the "genre". The sounds are a thick stew congealing new ideas and naive experiments into something in the ballpark of the new super weird Wolfgang Voigt 12"s, abstract and minimal in nature with time stopping tendencies. Take those 12"s and send them thru the garbage can, tape loop, reel to reel experiments of Ake Hodells "220 Volt Buddha" or that weird track with lawnmower by Charles Amirkhanian on the Þrst Slowscan volume and we might be getting closer.
This music, by being so unruly and deÞant of any kind of trend, has created a fresh fusion wehave not heard until now. "Application" introduces you to Container in the most suitable way. A confusing anti-rhythm accompanied by errie unidentiÞable tones before a collapse of metallic drum sounds washes you out into to the minimal motorik "Protrusion". The þip takes off with intense feedback squeal and more light speed rhythm leading into "Overþow" the albums wildest, most textural piece. "Rattler" leaves the listener absolutely bafþed and þipping the record over again to try to Þgure it all out as this record makes no sense to anybody but it's creator.
The experimental nature of this album alone warrants it's vinyl release, however, the Þne detail and unique structures will have you waiting for the next Container 12". Spectrum Spools released in association with Editions Mego
DRIPHOUSESpectrum 008LP Spectrum Spools SP008Release date: October 11http://spectrumspools.comhttp://tiny.cc/spectrum008
All tracks by DAREN HOOriginally released on cassette in an edition of 100 by Root Strata as Root 91Mastered and cut at D+M, Berlin, August 2011.
POPULAR TAGS: Ambient, Analog, Baroque, Beautiful, Bizarre, Boring, Cold, "Daren Ho", Digital, Driphouse, Drone, Electronic, Electronica, Experimental, Floating, Harpsichord, "Library Electronics", Modular, Mysterious, Piano, Psychedelic, Puzzling, Satie, "Spectrum 008", "Spectrum Spools", Sterilized, Synthesizers, Ugly, Wendy Carlos, Wobbly, WTF, Zig-Zag
FUJAKOLandform2LP Angstrom ALP09http://www.angstrom-records.comhttp://www.myspace.com/fujako
All instruments, recordings, drums & manipulations by Ripit & HHY.With vocals by Sensational (1), Seraphim (2),Ý Native (3 & 6), Cheravif (5), Scalper (7).Additional turntablism by DJ Urine (3).
For those who value such "luminous coincidences" (in the words of Louis Pauwels, of "Morning Of The Magicians" fame), I can recall that on that day in early August, as Jonathan Uliel Saldanha and Nyko Esterle, or HHY and Ripit if you prefer, packed their gear into a decaying automobile and left the city of Porto heading towards central Portugal's mountainside, it was raining ashes.
As forest fires ravaged the landscape all through the country, the sky was a fiery orange on an almost daily basis, and a glimpse of the Plagues of Egypt was offered to our modern day sinfulness. Fire is, of course, a central driving force in the process of alchemy, and alchemy is a central preoccupation permeating these two musicians work; the endless, minute recombinations and fusions of The Great Work are not at all distant from hip-hop's sampling and reconfiguring tactics, or from the miraculous transmutations of sonic matter created by dub strategies.
So, on LANDFORM, hip-hop and dub are explored as techniques of fusion; all manner of sound substances (instruments from various ages and places, all played by the duo in a short-circuit process of "self-sampling", the MCs voices, the ghostly effects) are welded in a metaphorical forge, coalescing into a form of cosmic mountain-top music.
Filipe Silva (a.k.a. The Banshee) is a portuguese musician. With Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, he runs Soopa, a polymorphic entity producing, presenting and releasing any form of music that acknowledges sound's potential for transfiguration.
"I believe in the irony of mountains" (JG Ballard)
FUJAKO is the joint venture blast from prolific producers, multi-instrumentalists and sonic wizards Jonathan Uliel HHY and Ripit - two key characters in the most adventurous underground/uncompromised music scenes in Portugal and Belgium respectively.
The monstrous, mineral instrumental sound & beat scapes of LANDFORM were recorded in a remote mountain refuge in central Portugal in the "Serra de S. Macário", a region famous for its cursed mines, abandoned villages full of wandering goats taking charge and rumours of devil worship. A zone quite like a crossover between Lovecraft's back country near Innsmouth and Arkham and the Shinig.
FUJAKO came out of the clash of Jonathan Uliel Saldanha and Nyko Esterle, two producers obsessed with echo and bass. The first one, raised in Portugal and part of the collectives Soopa and Mécanosphère, deals with sonic alchemy, and is also known as HHY. The second one, raised in France, part of the Radon collective and a rider of the sound waves, is also known as Ripit. Both met to summon music of unlooped hip-hop, filled with spectres of haunting dub and ecstatic scapes. LANDFORM, their first record (out on Wordsound Digital) was born in a small stone house studio in the burnt forests and mountains of Portugal, between paradise and the gate of hell, made from soundscapes and beats recorded on mostly acoustic instruments, created in an hostile -yet natural- environment. After the initial production phase in the woods, LANDFORM was then haunted by the voices of several guests such as Sensational, Seraphim, Native, Cheravif and Scalper, as well as by the additional trash turntablism of DJ Urine.
Uliel HHY and Ripit used the whole context as a source instrument. And what was initially and theoretically to be a fast breakcore-violent noise project evolved into a record haunted by organic, deep and slow, drum-heavy environmental reports from remote mental regions inhabited by wild desolation, silence, fracture, and the echoes of the enigmatic and immemorial mysteries of the land and of our brother animals.
They taped drumskins, stones, wind, live crickets, flowing water, wood and skulls to make most of the drumbeats and drones and the whole rhythmic and sonic texture so specific to LANDFORM. This whole reshaping and reinterpretation of urban hip-hop/dub eventually goes back where it belongs when a crew of some of the finest MCs jumps into the mix.
Fujako breaks down the language and usual methods of this rough, urban music to reinforce it back through the cosmic wilderness of haunted grounds and landscapes. Their amalgam of stone-beats, old instruments & silent animals colliding with overloaded electric manipulations, massive bass blasts and corrosive flow makes LANDFORM a unique record and a serious tour-de-force. Bringing back the parallel world into parallel music and the phantom & space back into the dub. - Benjamin Brejon / Mécanosphère
ABOUT THE FUJAKO PRODUCERSHHY is the main alias for multi-spectre instrumentalist and producer Jonathan Uliel Saldanha. His music is informed by Alchemy and Hermetic cosmologies, RA, Heavy Bass Pressure, Indian music, Calliope, Echo Chamber, Sonic Mayhem & Voodoo Downbeats.
Under his own name or with other formations, HHY shares projects and collaborations with musicians such: Mark Stewart, Damo Suzuki, Steve Mackay, DJ Scotch Egg, Raz Mesinai, Vincent Paternostro, Scott Nydegger, Benjamin Brejon, Ewen Chardronnet and countless other artists from a wide lexicon of sonic contexts (Unlooped Hip-Hop, Spectral Dub, Brass Band, Shamanic Improv, Chaos Rock...).
One of the individual entities lurking in the engine room of the Porto-based SOOPA and Faca Monstro collectives, and the transnational Mécanosphère organism; he is part of numerous projects such as HHY & The Macumbas, Herzbeat Hotel, F.R.I.C.S., Besta Bode, Mental Liberation Ensemble, and Çuta Kebab and Party. More at: www.soopa.org, www.myspace.com/hhyscumclash
Ripit or Nyko Esterle forged his sonic weapons in the alternative electronic scene of Paris. Now based in Bruxelles, he runs several musical projects (Solar Skeletons, Extern Ykon) and also music-related activities such as the recording/mixing studio Silent-Block and the booking agency Vautour Operator.
During the last decade, Nyko has toured Europe and North-America several times, delivering a wide range of musical genres, from breakcore to bluesy doom, from ambient to hip-hop, from harsh noise to Grindcore, always keeping a "Ripit's touch" that would be called Industrial by some. Among a huge list of collaborators are Mike Watt, Steve Mackay (the Stooges), Hecate, Jason Forrest, Xanopticon, Koonda Holaa, just to name a few. More at: www.myspace.com/riipiit
THE MCs & DJsCheravif is an MC from the Paris underworld. After his 2 EPs in 1999, on which the riddims are insured by cult drum'n'bass french artist Pushy, he will release new material in 2009 on Kiosk Eklektik. www.myspace.com/ cheravifNative, born in Nigeria, raised in Brooklyn, studied Arab calligraphy in Cairo, now lives in Paris. He will join Fujako on stage as an MC. www.myspace.com/soupkitchinScalper comes from the UK but is now based in New Zealand. Ex-frontman for the British band Fun-da-mental and also live vocalist for Nova Mute artist 2nd Gen. Scalper has had 3 EPs released and has provided vocals for artists across the world including Fujako, Larvae, Fun-da-mental, Sonic Area, Zodiac project, Trace- elements, T99 and Lucid State. www.myspace.com/scalperSensational, the original freak styler, began his rapping as Torture within the Jungle Brothers. He's now the heavy weighter of Wordsound crew with his incomparable flow and rhymes. www.myspace.com/chunkoblissSeraphim is a founding member of seminal NYC underground crew No Surrender. He has recorded with Radioclit (M.I.A., Santogold, Vampire Weekend) and TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe. He has also worked extensively with Badawi (ROIR, Tzadik) and Mike Ladd (ROIR). Currently, he is preparing the release of the next No Surrender album, and the long awaited follow-up to Mike Ladd's Majesticons album due later this year on Big Dada/Ninja Tune. www.myspace.com/nosurrenderDJ Urine, with his particular approach of the vinyl media, has contributed to a noisy vision of turntablism, using toy turntables, prepared records and bended toys. He collaborated with Otto Von Schirach, Dj Q-Bert and Sensational, to name a very few. www.myspace.com/cropscirclz
Plus Remix by:Tzii, for more than ten years has spread his magickal corrosive frequencies all over the world, from eastern and western Europe to Australia, USA, Japan and Africa, releasing cinematic dark ambient and raw power electronic anger through his own label Night On Earth and V-Atak collective. He's also a long time collaborator of Nyko Esterle on touring, event promotion and more recently as the second member of the band Solar Skeletons. www.myspace.com/tziiAdditional remixes will come out this year featuring Spectre and many other ill alchemists!
GARY NUMANDead Son RisingLP/CD Mortal Records MORTALCD10Release date: October 24http://www.mortalrecords.comhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNxBAqKvhf4
Gary Numan returns this autumn with a new album Dead Son Rising and a UK Tour. The new album grew out of a set of demos the singer had left from previous projects, but as he explains: "The original ideas that sparked off these songs are now barely visible. It's grown into another animal, something more experimental."
Produced and co-written by Ade Fenton (Numan's collaborator on 2006's Jagged), the material ranges from the heavily anthemic "The Fall" (written about "an old friendship gone bad") to the Arabic and ghostly "We Are The Lost" and one of the standout moments, the brooding "Dead Sun Rising" (* please note the different spelling to the album title). The latter both contain elements from a sci-fi fantasy story Numan has been writing over the last few years. Meanwhile, troubled relationships are explored on "For The Rest Of My Life" and "Not The Love We Dream Of", and there's also room for two instrumentals ("Resurrection" and "Into Battle"), showcasing some of the "soundtrack-type" material that Numan and Fenton have been working on recently. It all adds up to one of Numan's most atmospheric albums - one for those who loved his B-side experiments in the past but also containing some very direct, streamlined electronic rock in the likes of "Big Noise Transmission", "The Fall" and "When The Sky Bleeds, He Will Come".
Numan also continues to work on the "bulldozer, riff-fest" of his next album Splinter which remains his priority release next year. He's also collaborated with Battles on their new single, "My Machines", which is released by Warp Records on 15th August and plays the Nightmare Before Christmas ATP Festival which Battles are hosting on 10 December.
As the NME argues, "Numan's influence on electronic music is unparalleled." He's been namechecked as an influence by everyone from Kanye West to Foo Fighters and Queens Of The Stone Age, and an ever-growing list of artists have covered and sampled his music. These range from Basement Jaxx to Damon Albarn; Afrika Bambaataa to RZA and GZA from the Wu-Tang Clan.
Dead Son Rising Tour September 2011:15 Nottingham Rock City16 Bournemouth Academy17 London Shepherds Bush Empire18 Wolverhampton Civic Hall19 Leeds Academy20 Glasgow ABC21 Liverpool Academy
HIGH PLACESOriginal ColorsLP/CD Thrill Jockey Thrill286Release date: November 7http://www.thrilljockey.comhttp://hellohighplaces.blogspot.com
High Places is ROB BARBER and MARY PEARSON. The two create danceable pop music that is both artistic and refined. While very much involved in the music scene of New York and later migrating to Los Angeles, High Places has always been on its own unique musical path. The consistent dialog between the duo over the span of three albums is always through rhythmic and melodic ambient space. The two mix their particular internal rhythms with a long-standing love of UK and US dance sensibilities such as that of UK garage, drum and bass, Chicago/NYC house, Detroit techno, dub reggae, and electro dancehall. The early influence of visceral live experiences of NYC/Philly hip hop of the late '80s and early '90s is evidenced in the band's massive sound system. With Original Colors, they are at once pushing forward with much heavier and more complex beats, but also returning to their more gritty, electro-acoustic roots.
Recorded in the band's home studios in Los Angeles, Original Colors dives headlong into driving bass pulses and dynamic rhythms. Rob and Mary's singular visions are built upon a foundation of syncopated beats, while still adhering to their layered, collaborative style of writing. From the four-on-the-floor dance rhythms of album opener "Year Off" to the more extended and darker phrases of tracks like "Sophia", the end result is more forceful than ever. Throughout their nearly five years of existence, the band has traveled extensively and performed in a multitude of environments. Whether it's at the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan or in an industrial warehouse in Santiago, Chile, their travels are reflected in Original Colors. The album is dotted with sun-drenched references to Australia's inimitable foliage, the expansive desert of Northern Mexico, and the crystal, blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Such allusions are presented over a bed of swirling stereo rhythms and infectious melodies that are the band's signature. Each track possesses a specific texture and emotion that serve to create a variegated yet unified album that is held together by the binding force of Mary's mezzo-soprano vocals. The air of naïveté has been peeled away since the first album, and her voice is pushed to the fore; liberated from the dense sonic waves of previous work, and blossoming into a truly melodic instrument.
Visual art plays an important role in Mary and Rob's collaboration. The two make video projections for their stage shows, keep a photo blog that documents their travels, and create their own album artwork. In this way and others, Mary and Rob challenge the conventional parameters of a rock band and instead give us a multi-sensory aesthetic partnership that continually defies expectations.
High Places has plans to tour this fall; bringing their sound to new environments, always in the hope of collecting experiences that will shape the evolution of their truly unique sound.
HIVE MINDElemental DisgraceLP Spectrum Spools SP009Release date: October 25http://www.spectrumspools.com
"Elemental Disgrace" is an album many years in the works. An album recorded and edited over a number of years and tediously mixed into a stunning double side-long record of some of the U.S. best underground synthesizer music. Whatever rise to the synthesizer came later on in the 00's is hardly of any concern to Greh Holger and his Hive Mind project. Having released private press cassettes of solo synth works as far back as 2002, Hive Mind exists as enigmatic in world of new-jack synthheads and the title wave of "neo kosmische" þying far under the radar.
The silence is now broken and here we are treated to some of the most unique sounds Spectrum Spools has yet presented. No blisscapes to be found here. No soaring latched arpeggios, no cosmic vistas. Not a single melody. This is two sides of ancestral ruin in its clearest presentation. The brutality of the Earth and the harsh reality of all that it holds.Unknowable sounds - that of the dawn of Earth, or perhaps its demise. A swamp of chemicalsand creatures left behind long after man has wiped himself away for good. Field recordings from the end.
While others are racing for the stars, Hive Mind's tetonic plate shifting and brutal rumble will give you a brand new way to look at modern synthesizer composition.
It's worth noting that Spectrum Spools as a label would not exist without Hive Mind. An inspiration and a pioneer in the U.S. synthesizer circuit, it's with pleasure and honor to release "Elemental Disgrace" into the world.
JIM HAYNESThe Decline Effect2LP/DL The Helen Scarsdale Agency HMS021http://www.helenscarsdale.com
Parapsychology introduced the notion of the decline effect as a statistical phenomenon of diminishing results whilst investigating extra-sensory perception and psychokinesis. Where initial findings might substantiate proof of such abilities, further studies would almost always demonstrate the contrary. As such, this ontological disappearing act stands in allegorical parallel to the entropic art of Jim Haynes and frames his 2011 opus of the corroded drone and a compacted disintegration of sound.
This San Francisco Bay Area artist has long defined his work through the pithy phrase: "I rust things." The Decline Effect continues his investigations with electroacoustic decay through four bodies of evidence left behind from ephemeral aktions, shipwrecked electronics, re-engineered field recordings, and transmissions from the ether. Haynes composes through all of these sources through a patient suturing of sympathetic elements, whether they be textural, tonal, visceral, heavenly, sodden, or monolithic. Here, embers foretelling a nuclear winter gently waft upon industrial chorales amassed from an army of fidgeting motors; the sulfur-laden hiss from volcanic vents erupts from an organic thrum into boiling crescendos of environmental noise; geiger counter palpitations stream along a leaden sea of modulated radio noise; a warm explosion of sun-bleached distortion caresses the evanescent halos from an undulating mesmerism inexplicably not sourced from a guitar and / or digital patch authored by Christian Fennesz. On The Decline Effect, Haynes' broken minimalism orbits somewhere near the work Joe Colley, The Hafler Trio, Nurse With Wound, and BJ Nilsen.
The 2LP of The Decline Effect is strictly limited to 350 copies, comes in a handsome gatefold sleeve, and sports the necessary download coupon. Zener cards not included.
JIM O'ROURKEOld News #62LP Editions Mego #6http://editionsmego.com
Recorded at Steamroom, Tokyo, 2009-2011
Hot on the hells of OLD NEW #5 comes #6.A new 70+ minute electronic piece split over four sides. Two years in making, 'all that's cold is new again' was partly commissioned by Christian Zanesi for GRM's Présences Électronique Festival in Paris.
An intense and rewarding listen rich in detail and of full of some classic O'Rourke hooks and turns, which he has masterfully developed over the last two decades.
This one is for Peter F.
Available only in this format.
Side One: all that's cold is new again part 1Side Two: all that's cold is new again part 2Side Three: all that's cold is new again part 3Side Four: all that's cold is new again part 4
KAMMERFLIMMER KOLLEKTIEFTeufelskaminLP/CD/DL Staubgold digital 16 / analog 9Release date: October 28http://www.staubgold.comhttp://www.kammerflimmer.com
It's cold. It's winter. You are out in a deserted snowed out countryside. What would make you feel warm and dry? It's the hut on the horizon - a soft warm plume of smoke coming from its chimney. They invite you into the house to sit on the fireplace. They serve you soup. You are safe and sound.
What is a 'Teufelskamin'? A 'Devil's Chimney' is a natural geological phenomenon, a natural rock formation built by tidal powers. Take for example the natural shaft on the Crozon peninsula in Brittany, France. Waves push into this pit and spit out a giant jet of seawater. Watch out! It's a cold satanic soup coming from hell's kitchen. When chef Satan starts cooking, wet showers are coming out of his hut, not dry smoke. At least the devil cooks with water.
What is cooking when the old Kammerflimmer Kollektief invites you to sit on their Teufelskamin? There is a familiar electric guitar that takes you on a ride into Black Mountains. There is the ground making breath of an Indian harmonium. There is a gentle dark push from an upright bass. And there is a female voice amplifying wordless moods over wordless songs.
For years now the Kammerflimmer Kollektief have skillfully sailed waves of various musical genres. On Teufelskamin a spooky guitar sound, a Surf Noir is a new ingredient. And bravely, they call out for Albert Ayler's helping ghost. Kammerflimmer Kollektief is creating a great authentic dish over a nice long running fire and like the devil they cook with water. Cool, cool water. HEIKE AUMÜLLER, JOHANNES FRISCH and THOMAS WEBER are stirring some music of salty beauty from which no one can escape.
Want more?
How do you get visitors out of your house? Well, jam the chimney over the fireplace. Smoke them out like these devils do in Western movies.
BiographyThe Kammerflimmer Kollektief plays music, which should not be written down, for it would scorch the paper. The project, whose music meanders between precision and freedom, has been founded in 1996 by Thomas Weber. Up to now, the Kollektief has released eight albums in all sorts of line-ups. Live performances all over the world are realized as a trio (with Heike Aumüller and Johannes Frisch).
KUEDOSeverantLP/CD Planet Mu ZIQ309Release date: October 17Vertrieb: Cargohttp://www.planet.mu
On his debut long-player Severant, JAMIE TEASDALE a.k.a. Kuedo has made an album of dreamlike music, loaded with his own preoccupations with futurism and escapism, that's very different from his musical past as one half of Vex'd. With his intentions re-evaluated for the making of this album, his process to capture them has evolved to a more automatic way of creating tracks, cutting back on the endless technical options available to the modern producer and rendering them at a quicker pace to reveal a lighter, more truthful music, as he puts it: "On the side of modernism". In terms of feeling, Severant explores the space between the detached world of the imagination and the real-time world; that feeling of coming out of a daydream, on the edge of the drift from the day-to-day grind. Jamie says of this moment "As reality shapes imagination and escapism affects your choices in the real world, there is a strange relational loop between the two and the space in between the two. There's a bitter sweetness in that gap, it has a certain emotive quality, kind of in between being and non-being". Again, musically Severant is inspired by related themes. It sounds as if it's in a sweet spot between the emotive, innately futurist synth soundtracks of Tangerine Dream and Vangelis, borne from a time when the very idea of futurism was more prevalent, in combination with musical ideas and inspiration from the emotionally ambivalent, materialist fantasies of 'coke rap' such as The Clipse. Rhythmically the record is influenced by what Jamie calls "the two ultra modern musics of modern times", footwork from Chicago, which Planet Mu has explored in depth on its recent releases, and again the drum machine grids of coke rap. Jamie says "I wanted to capture a really futurist sentiment, kind of melancholy and grand luminescent, so I used the instrument that most evokes that for me - that sweeping Vangelis brass sound."And on coke rap he talks about the emotional 'half being' of the music, the energetically charged, detached ambivalence of the MCs, and the admission that the MCs could be "fantasising without admitting to doing so." The title Severant refers to stark changes of circumstances in Jamie's life when the album was made and the music works strangely like scenes from a film: tracks are concise and direct and one of the albums great and unusual strengths is that on repeated listens different songs rise to the surface and the album repeatedly changes and develops in the listeners ears and mind.
LAWRENCE ENGLISHThe PeregrineLP Experimedia explp020Release date: September 20http://label.experimedia.net/020http://lawrenceenglish.comhttp://soundcloud.com/experimedia/lawrence-english-the-peregrine
This release is strictly vinyl only and all promotional audio was ripped directly from a vinyl copy of the album.Cover Image by Eugene CarchesioCut and Mastered by Andreas [Lupo] Lubich At Dubplates & Mastering, BerlinRecorded and Produced by Lawrence English at 158, 2011 1
It is truly an honor and privilege to present the latest work by long time comrade, inspiration, and one of the modern masters of the craft Lawrence English. Over the past decade English's work has been published widely on respected imprints including Touch, 12k, Winds Measure, his own Room40 label and has collaborated with fellow contemporaries such as Tujiko Noriko, Stephen Vitiello, Ben Frost, Francisco Lopez, Minamo, DJ Olive and Tenniscoats.
Lawrence's latest work the Peregrine was realized in sound during the first half of 2011. Based upon J.A. Baker's book of the same name, the album finds it's structures through the descriptions of land, environment, and movement contained within the books' chapters and further develops Lawrence's experimentation with harmonic distortion and saturation.
"Swiftly now he is resigning his savagery to the night that rises round us like dark water. The great eyes look into mine. When I move my arm before his face, they still look on, as though they are seeing something beyond me from which they cannot look away. The last light flakesand crumbles down. Distance moves through the dim lines of the inland elms, and comes closer, and gathers behind the darkness of the hawk. I know he will not fly now. I climb over the wall and stand before him. And he sleeps." - passage from J.A. Baker's book The Peregrine
"I first discovered The Peregrine some years ago whilst visiting with David Toop in London. The book had popped up on David's radar and whilst chatting in his loft, I happened to pick it up. The page I opened to described the sound of a Barn Owl on the hunt. Before I finished that paragraph I knew I needed to own this book and find out more about the somewhat mysterious English author J.A. Baker.I feel The Peregrine epitomizes a kind of obsessive rendering of landscape and environment. Throughout the book, Baker places central focus on the micro and macro worlds which surrounding him. He expends as much attention on the shape of clouds or the murmur of a river as on the bird, which inspires him to write. At no point does the idea of humanness come to dominate - in fact human kind merely appears as haunting images that, as Baker summarizes, 'stink of death'. Elegantly misanthropic. Even the author remains oddly mute - we never discover anything about him, not what he does, how he lives or even where he sleep or eats. He is merely a conduit through which land is rendered.This record is a homage to The Peregrine. Having not spent any great amount of time in East Anglia where the book is set, I have used Baker's descriptions and suggested mappings as a guide to the character and composition of the LP. The Peregrine has profoundly affected my work and it's for this reason I felt compelled to create this piece.I hope it conjures up for listener just a few of the lasting impressions the book has left on me and in the process I dearly hope others can discover J.A Baker's evocative writings - thankfully now back in print!" - Lawrence English June 2011
MARK MCGUIREGet LostLP/CD Editions Mego eMEGO 123Release date: September 27http://www.editionsmego.comhttp://mcguiremusic.blogspot.com
This album is dedicated to my family, friends, and the spirit of the summer night sky
Electric and acoustic guitar, vocals, and guitar-synthesizer recorded digitally between June 2010 and July 2011 in Westlake, Ohio and Portland, OregonMixed at Hardbodies, July 2011 by Mark McGuireMastered and cut by Helmut Erler @ Dubplates & Mastering, BerlinPhotography and Art by Mark McGuire 2011Layout by Julian Gulyas
And yet another killer album from the ever productive Mark McGuire. It just keeps getring better, as he delivers another Þne set of tunes in his perfected style. A few more electronic elements than usual and even some voices., but still the unique blend feell good riffs, electric and acoustic loops and melodies that just stick in the head. Its game of 2 sides of course, with side one chocabloc a short hits with side two stretcning to one side long jam of blissed out McGuire ambience.
Awesome.
MELT FAMASSerial Weather10" Musikzimmer MZ001Release date: September 30http://www.kunstraumaarau.ch
MUSIKZIMMER LABEL:The label Musikzimmer is based in Aarau (Switzerland) and Berlin. It was born with the idea of giving birth to music not only in a ethereal way. We want to materialise what we like. We want to produce, to touch and to spread it.
It all started 21 years ago with one of the first independent" exhibition spaces in Switzerland, the Kunstraum Aarau. Since approximately 7 years we focus on soundart and sound related site specific interventions. And because not every manifestation finds its form in a frame work of an exhibition, we started to organise concerts and offer now a stage without stairs to concertant situations. To can those situations as long as possible we decided to cut them into vinyl.
Serial Weather is the first conserved situation. It will be followed by a 10" of chained melodies by RM74. The concept is simple. 10", one cover version and the cover sleeve is designed by an artist who does not play on but maybe with the record.
MELT FAMASWhen the movement of a terrestrial object around a static point is repetitive, we talk about oscillation... When two people oscillate around several electric devices according to a nearly repetitive movement, we talk about rock'n'roll. At Melt Famas, during the supper, we talk about oscillations, aquatic rock'n'roll. Dessert comes when the table has already been cleared.In the living room, guitar screams exhort to indiscipline, and voices invite to the reconstruction of a new order. At Melt Famas', codes are made for others. According to the stars position, the degree of gravity and the level of caffein of the last tea, sounds meet under the fingers until dizzyness spreads, and invite us to an immobile trance. Fred Billet and Nicolas Magot, or l'invitation au voyage with a one way ticket.
FRED BIGOT (aka Electronicat)The root of Fred Bigot's music is in guitar. The way he makes music is all related to the way he plays guitar, including imperfections, lo-fi sound, noise, melody and the practice of improvisation. The distorted but melodic guitar, the unquantised rhythms, the delay-heavy vocals and the buzzing rumbling 808 bass drum all became characteristic features of the Electronicat sound. His songs encompassed an array of influences in all respects - particularly glam rock, psychedelia, 60s garage rockabilly and experimental electronic music - and took it further making electronic music sound more rock n roll and vice versa. To date he has released numerous albums and singles on international labels (Holy Mountain, Onitor, Disko b, Optical Sound, Ldrr). He has produced tracks for pour Beans, Miss le Bomb, Marina Ribatski (ex- Bondo de Role), remixes for Depeche Mode, Numbers, Bretzel Göring. Fred played all around the world alongside with artists such as Felix Kubin, Stereolab, Adult. He has collaborated with numerous artists and musicians, building up an impressive resume that includes projects with musicians J.G Thirwell, Gerhard Potuznik, Khan and contemporary artists Nicolas Moulin, Anu Pennanen and Pauline Curnier-Jardin.
NICOLAS MALLETAfter having visited experimental and post-punk music, Nicolas Mallet turned into Nicolas Metall. Melodies in minor chords, Bach is never far. Keyboards, guitars and rhythms. He plays with Fred Bigot (Electronicat) in Melt Famas, with Marie Germinal in a rock-post punk style, he has organised events and works with artists and dancers (Nicolas Moulin, Marie Reinert, Olivier Dohin, Grégoire & Elise Charbey, Clémentine Roy). His most recent Release Growing Ideas Of Falling Generations is a Double Vinyl on Nicolas Moulin Label Grautag Records. Growing Ideas Of Falling Generations, as the first double LP of Nicolas Metall, has to be heard as the psychoanalysis of the Space Odyssey computer HAL 9000. Electronic-wave music to dance on a Russian's suburb discotheque dancefloor or to listen to by staring at the sunset, The 2nd release of the berlin-based label Grautag records" (Grautag Records)
MONTY ADKINSfragile.flicker.fragmentCD/DL Audiobulb Records AB035http://www.audiobulb.comhttp://www.montyadkins.com
An electroacoustic masterpiece of abstract melody, texture and timings. The ArtistMonty Adkins is a composer and performer whose music is characterised by slow shiftingorganic instrumental and concrete soundscapes. Having worked across a number of genressince 1994 his work has, since 2006, become increasingly minimal and introspective. Thisrecent work focuses on encouraging a deeper immersive listening experience. Workingwith a reduced sonic palette Adkins draws together elements from ambient, minimalelectronica, acousmatic and experimental electronic music. His last album Five Panelsreleased in April 2009 on Signature/Radio France was nominated in the 'album of the year'category at the 2010 Qwartz Awards, Paris and has now been licensed to Renault. The Albumfragile.flicker.fragment is a deeply moving album. The fruit of an expert musician whohas both a technical and intuitive grasp on sound design and composition. Every frequencyis beautifully catered for in these tracks of shimmering acousmatic beauty and deeplyresonating foundations. Each layer occupying its own place whilst building the overallacoustic experience. Adkins' quest to reconcile abstract electronic sound material andmelody is explored in this album. This is further strengthened by the inherent visualquality to the tracks, reflecting the relationship between his work and paintings by PipDickens (with whom he had begun to collaborate with). In his own words: "Although I am interested in experimental sound I never start off from thispoint consciously. To me my music is a reflection of my humanity, the people around me and the friends who play on and record samples for albums. The tracks that eventually emerge are a result of my thoughts, emotions and relationships at that time."
PURITY SUPREMEAlways AlreadyVinyl EP Ash International (reserva) # Ash 10.1Release date: October 24http://www.ashinternational.com/puritysupreme/halfpast3cowboy.mp3
Artwork & Design: Philip MarsallCut by Jason @ Transition Studios, London
Four new tracks from Purity Supreme. Purity Supreme is a collaboration between French musician, composer and producer CHRISTOPHE VAN HUFFEL and American writer, musician and composer LESLIE WINER. Always Already was recorded in France at Studio7Love in May 2011.
Leslie Winer's 90s album Witch, released under the artist name ©, is a genuine lost classic, pioneering many of the sounds that have followed. Since this prescient release she has chosen to work in the shadows. Leslie's voice has graced recordings by Bomb The Bass, Jon Hassell and Holger Hiller, and her words used on "This Is", the lead track on Grace Jones's latest effort. She has also worked with jah Wobble amongst others. Alongside Purity Supreme, she is currently writing short stories to be published by The Bookworm.
Christophe Van Huffel, ex-guitarist of Tanger, has recently worked producing legendary French singer, Christophe. He is based in France.
Side A1. Milk St.2. Half Past 3 Cowboy
Side AA1. Famous Inhabitants of Louth2. Dunderhead
TOM JOHNSONOrgelpark for Chart: For Four OrgansCD Mazagran MZ003http://www.mazagran.orghttp://www.editions75.com
"I have two good minimalist composer friends who have been writing drone music for many years, Phill Niblock and Eliane Radigue. When I told them I had finally left my metric melodies and harmonies and was writing a one-note piece, they were quite surprised and pleased. So am I. This came about because of that amazing four-organ situation at Orgelpark, and it probably won't happen again." - Tom Johnson
Five hundred hand numbered copies edition.
TROPICSParodia FlareLP/CD Planet Mu ZIQ305Release date: September 19Vertrieb: Cargohttp://www.planet.muhttp://soundcloud.com/tropics
Tropics is CHRIS WARD, a British producer and multi-instrumentalist in his early 20s who came to our attention last year. During the time we signed and released his first single 'Soft Vision', his early unreleased tracks and remixes were being given attention from the likes of Pitchfork and others, so we knew we were onto something special.
Since that time things have moved on. He's released two singles and the synth-pop of his early tracks has evolved into a more substantial and personal sound on this, his debut album. 'Parodia Flare' features Chris as a multi-instrumental auteur, playing drums, guitar, and a range of synths and electronic boxes, as well as singing on these songs.
Coming from a family where music was always played, it made sense as a musician for Chris to act almost as a conduit by wiring the sounds he enjoyed growing up with into his own creations. The music he makes weaves vintage sounds, the Rhodes keyboard (an instrument associated with Jazz fusion sits central to the songs on this album), alongside banks of old synths, software and guitars, live drums and electric bass. Tropics is a suitable name for Chris's music as each song is like a warm analogue jungle of sounds, drawn into focus by Chris' naive singing voice and his knack for a lush melody. Given that the album was recorded in a walk-in wardrobe at his house, the steamy heat that the album gives off is a testament to his imagination.
The opening short 'Navajo' sets the scene with atmospheric clouds of reverbed chords and electric guitar, quickly followed by recent single 'Mouves' with its gently sung verses disappearing into clouds of echoey Rhodes chords and floating synths with low-slung New Order-esque bass and soft drums keeping the track in shape. Next up 'Parodia Flare' majestically stretches shimmering keyboard tones and a light guitar over a tight bass and drums, gently teasing out the serene atmosphere. 'Going Back' features a keyboard refrain borrowed from a 70's jazz fusion track, with a low bass and Chris snowy voice cutting through the middle of phased guitars. 'Wear Out' is the morning after, sounding like an exhausted take on late period Beatles, with a lolloping drum beat and horns that sound like they're drunk, interrupted by shimmering marimbas while cold keys screech in the background. 'Celebrate', revised for the album, is a vortex of aerial dub, with echoes and reverbs layering and looping over a very minimal drum and sub-bass, the whole track moving in glorious slow motion. 'Figures', meanwhile, delicately projects Chris's whispered vocals onto a chord borrowed from late 80s Detroit techno, inside a chilly electronic atmosphere that gradually breaks into an 80's electro funk bassline. 'Telassar' is a soft focus 80s synth epic, while 'Playgrounds' is more upbeat, with lyrics remembering the past. 'After Visiting' is made out of a strange airy atmosphere, full of tiny dropped-in details and smudged synths stretched over minimal drum pads borrowed from dubstep, while 'Sapphire' is based around a repeating piano refrain, guitar, sax and vocals. Final track 'On The Move' sounds like prime Chicago post rock but with the Mizell brothers on production, it's musical mixture that tidily bookends the album.
V.A.Archipel Electronique Vol.1CD D'Autres Cordes DAC2010Distribution: Metamkine, iTunes, Amazonhttp://www.dautrescordesrecords.com
Archipel Electronique is a fine overview of what D'Autres Cordes have to offer in terms of electro-acoustic, acousmatic and electronic noise from the French 'younger' generation.
Archipel électronique Vol 1 features a fabulous cross-cut of material, moving from the radical white noise of Kasper Toeplitz to the chaos of sample collagist ErikM, or from the field recording of Sebastien Roux to the analogue sounds of Franck Vigroux.
9 tracks by: Sébastien Roux, Jerome Montagne, Annabelle Playe, Samuel Sighicelli, ErikM, Kasper Toeplitz, Bérangére Maximin, Christophe Ruetsch and Franck Vigroux.
VELVELJINNostalghiaCD Noble NBL-202Release date: October 14http://www.noble-label.nethttp://velveljin.com
Noble labels is excited to introduce velveljin, our new friends following Serph.
velveljin is an irregular band formed in Kyoto in 2009, comprised by the core members of YOHEI YAMAKADO and MANA HARAGUCHI. After self-producing and releasing their first album in 2010, yohei yamakado crossed to France to study film and the band currently plays mainly in Europe with Paris as its base.
The band's second album was inspired by Nostalghia, a film by Russian director Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky, also known for the string ensemble of the same name, composed in his memory, by composer Toru Takemitsu. Though decadent, the somewhat abstract, warm, and overwhelmingly beautiful world of this album is an ambitious challenge with the musical elements of ambient, deep house, minimal techno, dance step and electronica, residing together in a stoic and refined musical creation of freedom.
Based on a controlled monotone and minimal 4/4 beat, a doleful ambient synthesizer weaves a melody of deep lyricism. The sounds of superior elegance and experiential spirit, makes this album suitable for listening in the bedroom but just as good on the dance floor. It is cinematic and modern electronic music at its best. Please enjoy the music wherever you like with whatever images you'd like in your mind.
― scott seward, Thursday, 8 September 2011 17:21 (twelve years ago) link
I was almost stung by bees on saturday -- it was odd, these little things that felt like pellets just fell out of the trees, I reached to brush them out of my hair, and when I looked at my hand there were three little bees writhing in my palm and then one of the two people I was hiking with cried out. I realized the three bees in my palm had prematurely deposited their stingers in my hair and were in the process of dying, then I heard two people down the trail a bit yelp, and then we started running.
evidently due to global warming, killer bees are nesting further and further up the california coast.
― Milton Parker, Thursday, 8 September 2011 18:04 (twelve years ago) link
anyway, good to hear a new Gary Numan song
I am interested in many of these.
― mh, Thursday, 8 September 2011 18:52 (twelve years ago) link
I listened to the Mark McGuire about an hour ago and it was effing rad
― Amazing pic of the universe! - VERY NSFW (DJ Mencap), Thursday, 8 September 2011 21:48 (twelve years ago) link
BYETONE - Symeta LP/CD raster-notonCHRISTIAN BOUCHARD - Automacité DVD-Audio empreintes DIGITALesDEAD VOICES ON AIR - Michael and the Angels Fought CD LensDOME - 1-4+5 5LP Box Editions MegoEMMANUEL MIEVILLE - Four Wanderings in Tropical Lands CD BaskaruFRANCSICO LÓPEZ - Untitled (2009) 2CD BaskaruJACASZEK - Glimmer CD GhostlyMARK FELL - Periodic Orbits of a Dynamic System... LP Editions MegoNETTLE - El Resplandor: The Shining in Dubai CD Sub RosaPHAROAH CHROMIUM - Electric Cremation 2LP GrautagPIERRE ALEXANDRE TREMBLAY - Quelques reflets DVD-Audio empreintes DIGITALesREINHOLD FRIEDL - Eight Equidistant Pure Wave Oscillators... DL room40RUSSELL HASWELL & FLORIAN HECKER - Kanal GENDYN LP+DVD Editions MegoV.A. - Bangs & Works Vol.2 2LP/CD Planet MuVEGA - Wormsongs CD ArtekYASUNAO TONE - MP3 Deviations #6+7 LP/CD Editions MegoZEITKRATZER KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN - Old School CD Zeitkratzer
BYETONESymetaLP/CD raster-noton R-N 130http://www.raster-noton.net
byetone's new record symeta" opens with a combined track - a transit - since topas" and telegramm" could be seen as one single piece. both tracks convey the atmosphere of a live session rather than the character of a studio production. the tracks are quite long and deal with repetition, layers of sounds, density and energy, more than melodic and engineering finesse. the whole album follows this approach, as it was fashioned within the context of live performances during the last two years.
neuschnee" - the third track - has an obviously reduced tempo, creating a wide landscape of sound with an intimate aura, which works as a counter draft to the other tracks of the record. with opal, the tempo speeds up again, a polyrhythmic phrase whirls around a straight beat, filters are turned, all that evokes the impression of early-90s minimal techno. byetone is basically interested in remembering, in a way to preserve, in citing rock/pop styles, without getting stuck in the past, whereas non of the tracks really fit into a specific genre.
seen from this perspective, helix" opens the final, more rocky block of the album. here, the tracks are offensive and rude and sound like a band in a rehearsal room. this part peaks with black peace" in a high speed heavy metal session. finally, golden elegy" closes symeta" and a band-like situation occurs. the track ends with a wired lament, presented by jan kummer in the tenor of chemnitz, hometown of both artists. in former GDR-times, they started their musical activity with the brilliant-dilettantish AG geige, together with frank bretschneider (komet). symeta", the title of the album, appears mysterious. this synthetic word arouses associations with symmetry, synthesis or (meta-)structures. it doesn't stand for a definite object, there isn't any solution, and that is the reason why the title has been chosen. byetone's music tries to create such associations without really fulfilling these expectations. in this sense, symeta" consequently follows death of a typographer" (r-n92), the well received predecessor.
BYETONE LIVE22.10. CH salle des fêtes. lausanne.23.10. UK supersonic festival. birmingham.25.10. CZ meet factory. prague.26.10. ES red bull music academy. madrid.04.11. DE berghain. berlin.04.11. IT club to club festival. torino.
CHRISTIAN BOUCHARDAutomacitéDVD-Audio empreintes DIGITALes IMED 11108http://www.empreintesdigitales.comhttp://www.electrocd.com/en/bio/bouchard_ch
"Pollock's name is also associated with the introduction of the All-over style of painting which avoids any points of emphasis or identifiable parts within the whole canvas and therefore abandons the traditional idea of composition in terms of relations among parts." - Nicolas Pioch, WebMuseum, July 16, 2002
Impasto is a triptych about expressionistic-abstract painters (Pollock, Riopelle, and Shiraga) I started in 2006. It consists in a work on the spontaneity of composition, information density, intentional awkwardness, "obvious editing" (Michel Chion). Destabilization through a lack of direction, interrupted segments, struggles between different materials. It is also abandoning any form of narrative or poetical expression in an attempted non-relationship between sounds - form - work. Research work on the possible velocity of sounds. An attempt at recreating this form of pictural frenzy. [English translation: François Couture, iv-11]
"Impasto" was realized in 2006-08 at the composer's studio (synthesizers: Sonic Core-Flexor, Reaktor; samplers: Emulator X2, Kontakt, Shortcircuit, Reaktor; processing: Flexor, Reaktor). This version was mastered in March 2011 by Dominique Bassal in Montréal.
"Parcelles 21" was realized in 2008 at the composer's studio and premiered under the title Ersatz on December 12, 2008 as part of the concert series Akousma (5) presented by Réseaux des arts médiatiques at the Monument-National's Studio Hydro-Québec in Montréal (Québec). Thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA). This version was mastered in March 2011 by Dominique Bassal in Montréal.
"Objet menacé" was realized in 2010 at the composer's studio and premiered on November 25, 2010 as part of the concert Électro-chocs 2 celebrating the 20th anniversary of empreintes DIGITALes in the Salle multimédia of the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal (Québec). Thanks to the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ). This version was mastered in March 2011 by Dominique Bassal in Montréal.
DEAD VOICES ON AIRMichael and the Angels FoughtCD Lens Records 0126Release date: November 15http://www.lensrecords.comhttp://www.myspace.com/deadvoicesonair
Michael and the Angels Fought is five tracks that continue to develop the sonic fingerprint that is Dead Voices On Air, but at this rate we've lost count of how many hands DVOA's Mark Spybey must have because the sonic toolkit from which Mark pulls is bottomless. This may be DVOA's most collaborative release to date which has allowed Mark to absorb, process andassemble the aural puzzlebox into a more quiet and reflective experience. DVOA recordings have always worked best taken as a collective whole and Michael and the Angels Fought surprises and delights your careful attention like all Dead Voices On Air recordings that have come before.
Michael and the Angels Fought is the third Dead Voices On Air album in as many years for Lens Records. Spybey is known for his primitive approach to music making. He views himself as a non-musician but his work has incorporated song structures, real instruments, collaborations with film-makers and increasingly, contributions from musicians from around the world. Whereas early albums were recorded from improvisations using his collection of ethnic instruments and children's toys, later works have increasingly become studio focussed, relying heavily on the editing process. Michael and the Angels Fought features contributions from the American-Serbian singer Ivana Salipur, from the British cellist Bela Emerson, the Portland, Oregon throat-singer Soriah, the French auteur, Philippe Petit, the Toronto based electronic musician, Michael Morton (Displacer), the Massachusetts based guitarist Michael Page (Sky Burial), the keyboards of Lori Cole from Utah and cameos from Robin Storey (Rapoon) and Jared Louche (Chemlab). MARK SPYBEY has worked under the name of Dead Voices On Air (DVOA) for twenty years, following his departure from Zoviet-France. He's released 15 albums and collaborated with animpressive list of people, including members of Can, Faust, Throbbing Gristle, Swans and others. Mark was part of the band Download with members of Skinny Puppy and works withRobin Storey (Rapoon, Zoviet-France) under the name Reformed Faction; with Simon Fisher Turner as MzMz LaLaLa and Phil Western (Download) as Beehatch. He's currently workingwith Main, Sky Burial, Orbit Service and a host of collaborators such as Edward Kaspel, Robert Hampson, Simon Fisher Turner, Troum, Jochen Arbeit, James Plotkin and others on a series of joint seven inch singles for Tourette Records celebrating the 20th anniversary of Dead Voices On Air.
DOME1-4+55LP Box Editions Mego DOME12345Release date: December 6http://editionsmego.comhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_(band)
DOMEB.C. Gilbert & G. LewisFloating-point re-master by Russell Haswell, August 2011Cut at Dubplates & Mastering by Rashad Becker, August 2011New artwork and layout: Dave Coppenhall
Editions Mego are proud to release the complete recorded works of DOME in a deluxe vinyl box set that that also includes newly designed artwork by David Coppenhall, reproductions of the original Atelier Koninck posters that accompanied Dome 1 and Dome 2, insert with sleeve notes by Howard Jacques and Neil Martinson as well as unseen photos from the period. If that wasn't enough it also contains a matchbox to put matches in to shake along to your favourite Dome tune!
With the demise of the group Wire in 1980, founder members BRUCE GILBERT and GRAHAM LEWIS joined forces to create Dome. With the assistance of engineer Eric Radcliffe and his Blackwing Studio Dome took the ethic of "using the studio as a compositional tool" and recorded and released three Dome albums on their own label in the space of 12 months: DOME (July 1980), DOME 2 (October 1980) and DOME 3 (October 1981). A final fourth album, WILL YOU SPEAK THIS WORD: DOME IV was released on the Norwegian Uniton label in May 1983.These albums represent some of the most beautifuly stark and above all timeless exercises in studio experimentation from early 1980s alternative music scene.
As Howard Jacques points out in his liner notes: "Spontaneity was the key - to make something fresh, unlike anything else."Spontaneity was the key - to make something fresh, unlike anything else."Spontaneity was the key - to make something fresh, unlike anything else. With such an abstruse attitude to popular appeal the visual approach was iconically symbolic. The artists themselves, imaged anonymous as smartly besuited gentlemen with heads masked by elongated black cylindrical tubes - a dualistic collision of serious and silly - a homage to Dada and surrealism that introduced a perhaps sardonic, quasi-religious vista - all serving as pointers to focus on the form and content of the audio material and the paradox of absence and presence."
With the re-activation of Wire in 1985 it was thought that all Dome activity had ceased. Whilst no new recordings appeared Dome utilised any spare time to secretly record new pieces. In 1989 dancer/choreographer Michael Clark commissioned them to record a piece for his new ballet 'Because We Must'. In the same year they also performed live in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. In 1999 WMO commissioned Dome to record new pieces to accompany the recordings from 1989. This compilation, entitled YCLEPT, would be the final recordings, to date, that Dome have made. DOME 1-4 appearing on vinyl for the first time in over 30 years, whereas the recordings making up YCLEPT (DOME 5) appear for the first time on vinyl.
EMMANUEL MIEVILLEFour Wanderings in Tropical LandsCD Baskaru karu:19http://www.baskaru.comhttp://emieville.free.fr
Fields Recorded...
Someone is gently knocking on metal; a dog is barking in the distance; far away, an Arabic-sounding voice, maybe a muezzin's, can be heard; insects buzz over a background of human activity.
With his microphones, Emmanuel Mieville captures moments of reality in exotic lands (Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Malaysia). Then, he edits these field recordings with a computer to create sound compositions driven by the paradox between natural forces (see the chunk of Paradise photographed inside the booklet) and human footprint (the city skyline featured on the cover).
Paris-born composer Emmanuel Mieville learned sound engineering at film school, then studied musique concrète at GRM. He has been composing music since 1986. He has a keen ear for hearing the stories behind each landscape, the melodies trapped inside objects - such as the metal sculpture he plays in "Cahuita, Costa Rica" - and the sonic pairings that let a story unfold without having to actually tell it.
After being featured on a few important compilation albums (like the first volume of Overheard and Rendered on AND/oar) and two CDs released in Malaysia (Balok Night Birds on Herbal Records; Dispositif: Canal St-Martin on XingWu, in collaboration with Eric Cordier), Mieville is now offering four wanderings in tropical lands, his first full-length CD to be released in his native France.
FRANCSICO LÓPEZUntitled (2009)2CD Baskaru karu:20http://www.baskaru.comhttp://www.franciscolopez.net
Great Sounds Also Come In Small Sizes...
Francisco López, the undisputed master of aural mystification, is best known for using time, silence, and sound to confound our perception of reality through large-scale works. However, occasionally, he also revels in shorter forms. A rare case in his impressive discography, the 2-CD set untitled (2009) features 14 sound art compositions ranging from two to twenty minutes.
In the course of these two hours of music, López performs one magic trick after another: are these really snores prominently featured in "untitled #220" and "untitled #239", or are they more trivial sound sources, devilishly transformed? What is real, and what is masqueraded, transmuted? Can we believe our ears at all?
And beyond this mystification layer hides an in-depth research on aural aesthetics, a finely developed approach to sound, philosophy, and sound ecology. A great traveler, López is using materials recorded all around the globe.
Internationally recognized as a leading figure in field recording, sound art, and experimental music, Francisco López has assembled a major discography, both in terms of size and influence. His concerts and sound installations often invite listeners to reprogram the way they listen. The double CD set Untitled (2009) is his second release on Baskaru, following HB, his collaboration with Lawrence English.
MARK FELLPeriodic Orbits of a Dynamic System Related to a KnotLP Editions Mego eMEGO 133Release date: November 29http://editionsmego.comhttp://www.markfell.com
THIS SIDE 23m 16sTHAT SIDE 23m 16sTotal running time 46m 32s
The music here came about in various ways - one section is an outtake from my recent Multistablity album and is reworked here, another began as a quadraphonic piece composed for and performed at "Supersimetria: New Languages in Computer Music" (curated by Anna Ramos and Roc Jiménez de Cisneros in Barcelona 2011), others were taken from live versions of previously released and unreleased tracks. The idea was to bring these together in an 'almost-live-album' format. The album features three presets taken from Yamaha's four operator frequency modulation synthesisers of the late 1980's--JazzOrg, LatelyBass and Rich Strg #3-modified to produce numerous descendants. The project was entirely written, mixed, and edited with MIDI. No audio recordings were present, with the following exceptions: the sound of a Mac Mini failing to mount a DVD, recorded with the internal microphone on a MacBook Pro (this provided a rhythmic template for the patterns that follow it); and a short section of Pi Saw flute played by Jan Hendrickse. The project was written in transit during a house and studio move, and exclusively produced using the internal speakers on a MacBook Pro. Due to time constraints, the mastering session with Lupo at Dubplates and Mastering was unattended.
The cover image is of my partner's arm after cutting the pampas grass in our front garden in preparation for the house's new occupier.
Thanks to Paul Emery for early advice and comments about the structure of this album, Jan Hendrickse for Pi Saw flute, Lupo at Dubplates and Mastering, and finally Peter Rehberg for his support of this project..
NETTLEEl Resplandor: The Shining in DubaiCD Sub Rosa SR324http://www.subrosa.net
Nettle is a band project led by DJ Rupture.For this album, Nettle imagined a remake of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining set in a luxury hotel in Dubai, U.A.E.El Resplandor: The Shining in Dubai is their soundtrack for that nonexistent film. Cello, violin, guembri, guitar, and voice combine with digital processing to create a complex soundworld whose acoustic and electronic elements are in intimate dialog. Produced by arranged by Rupture, El Resplandor offers vivid, haunting pieces that draw on the band's various backgrounds in North African folksong, experimental electronics, contemporary classical, and free improvisation.
The album features photographs by acclaimed Emirati artist Lamya Gargash, who was the U.A.E.'s featured artist for the 2009 Venice Biennale, and liner notes by architecture writer Geoff Manaugh (BLDGBLOG). This October the band will release a free set of audio software tools called Sufi Plug Ins (written in Max/MSP) that they built specifically for live performance.
Nettle began as a DJ Rupture's duo with Moroccan violinist Abdelhak Rahal and has since evolved into a five-piece. They have performed at Spain's SONAR festival, Rome's Maxxi Museum of 21st Century Art, and at Morocco's Cinematheque de Tanger, and have toured the UK and Belgium with Nass El Ghiwane. Nettle's work foregrounds issues of friction, translation, and displacement as necessary counter-narratives to the standard paradigms of 'cross-cultural exchange' and metaphors of mixing or hybridity.
JACE CLAYTON is an interdisciplinary artist living in Brooklyn. Performing as DJ /rupture, Clayton has toured internationally, DJ'ed in a band with Norah Jones, done two John Peel Sessions, and was turntable soloist with the 80-member Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. Recent collaborators include guitarist Andy Moor (The Ex) and filmmaker Jem Cohen. He has released several critically acclaimed albums and mix CDs, starting with 2001's influential & groundbreaking live mix CD, Gold Teeth Thief. Clayton maintains a busy international schedule performing in clubs around the world as well as venues such as The Whitney Museum, MoMA's PS1, The Apollo Theater, and the Pitchfork Festival. His album Uproot was named one of the 10 Best Albums of 2008 by Pitchfork. He maintains a blog and hosts a weekly radio show on WFMU, which is re-broadcast on several European stations.
PHAROAH CHROMIUMElectric Cremation2LP Grautag Records 003Release date: December 2http://www.grautagrec.com
"When I die, they'll say 'he couldn't play shit, but he sure made it sound good!" Hound Dog Taylor
Pharoa Chromium s a project by GHAZI BARAKAT, a Berlin musician and transformist, mostly known as a performance oriented rock'n'roll singer in bands such as the Golden Showers, Boy from Brazil, the Assassinations. Pharoah Chromium took its name from a Chrome song to create an entity channeling meta-music that goes beyond the usual conventions of his musical past. A sound-fiction novel where machines are used like life support devices. A cardiopulmonary bypass playing the soundtrack of your life.You have the right to turn it off!
Electric Cremation is the third release of Grautag Records, a label initiated and run by french contemporary artist Nicolas Moulin, who is also and always responsible for the artwork of the releases. Mainly based on improvised and edited sessions with samples of internal and external sources and live instruments.The album has been recorded and mixed by Tim Gane in his studio Neu-Kölln.
The double lp is divided in four sides.
ATOMIC SIDE:A musical reflection on the nuclear disaster of Fukushima. Contains a hebrew interpretation of the Elli et Jacno song "L' age atomique, suite et fin." by israeli filmmaker Rebeca Ofek.
FERAL SIDE:Five vignettes that deal with neo-brutalist ideas, science-fiction, after-life and the occult.
GHOST SIDE:Pharoah Chromiums interpretation of new age and world music with strong Kraut influences.
ARABIC SIDE:Where the concept of Ethno-Doom reaches epic proportions.Shedding light and shadows on the stereotypical fears of Islamophopbia.Based on 12 loops of two turkish Saz-players from Kreuzberg, with concrete contributions from Tim Gane on the Voyager.
PIERRE ALEXANDRE TREMBLAYQuelques refletsDVD-Audio empreintes DIGITALes IMED 11109http://www.empreintesdigitales.comhttp://www.pierrealexandretremblay.com
The first four works of this album were composed in the same number of consecutive residencies in the respective commissioning studios, as part of a sabbatical year project between August 2009 and July 2010. They were refined in May 2011 by the composer in the electronic music studios at the University of Huddersfield (England, UK) and then mastered in June 2011 by Dominique Bassal in Montréal (Québec).
Throughout this adventure, the following people contributed to my musical research by their comments on the drafts, and I would like to thank them deeply: Claudine Levasseur, Dominique Bassal, Nicolas Bernier, Helena Gough, Scott McLaughlin, Sam Pluta, Sylvain Pohu, Dominic Thibault, Jean-Christophe Tremblay, Monty Adkins, and Stewart Worthy.
Such a year of travel would not have been possible without the financial and logistical help of the CeReNeM (University of Huddersfield), the Canada Council for the Arts, the commissioners of each work, and my dear family. I am forever grateful. - Pierre Alexandre Tremblay (Huddersfield, England, UK)
REINHOLD FRIEDLEight Equidistant Pure Wave Oscillators, while Slipping very Slowly to a Unison, Textually Spatialised on Eight Speakers, Concret, 60 MinutesDL room40 DRM405http://www.room40.orghttp://www.reinhold-friedl.de
Reinhold Friedl's Eight Equidistant Pure Wave Oscillators, While Slipping Very Slowly To A Unison, Textually Spatialised On Eight Speakers, Concret, 60 Minutes is an algorhithmic composition that speaks to his unique compositional vision.
A deeply affecting psycho-acoustic work, 'Eight Equidistant Pure Wave Oscillators...' draws thelistener into a gently lilting sound world in which pure tones work for and against one another,creating a swelling cascade of intonation. At its core is a carefully crafted and astutely exe-cuted exploration into the possibilities of spatial sound. The guided movement of the signalsacross the speaker arrays, generating a very specific set of acoustic outcomes.
Like much of Friedl's work 'Eight Equidistant Pure Wave Oscillators...' taps into his interests and research into the connections between mathematics and music. The tension and release of the glissandi tones is a representation of this.
This is a provocative work that not only prioritises the act of listening, it also invites the listener to consider their position to the work and how psycho-acoustics can shape the listening experience. 'Eight Equidistant Pure Wave Oscillators...' is an utterly sonic experience crafted by one of the great contemporary European composers.
The edition is published in Flac, MP3 and 24bit 48Khz versions.
BIOGRAPHYReinhold Friedl, born in 1964, is a critically acclaimed performer, interpreter and composer. His studies in piano, mathematics and musicology have guided not only his music releases, but also his writings and seminars on the topics. One emphasis of Friedl's work is the 'insidepiano'. He founded and directs the new music group zeitkratzer.
PRODUCTION NOTESrecorded at GMEM (Groupe de Musique Experimentale de Marseille), France, 2010programming: Sukandar Kartadinataprogram adjustment & recording: Charles Bascou
FROM REINHOLDEight Equidistant Pure Wave Oscillators, While Slipping Very Slowly To A Unison, Textually Spatialised On Eight Speakers, Concret, 60 Minutes is an algorhithmic composition, I realized in the Studios of GMEM in Marseille, South France, when I was working there together with the programmer Charles Bascou on my second string quartet in 2010.For this string quartet, I used a spatialisation program, I had originally developed for a projectwith the first existing electro-acoustic piano, the so-called Neo-Bechstein, built in 1928/29 inBerlin.The main idea was, not to use the concept of a virtual position of a sound in a room, as a re-sult of an addition of different speaker signals; but eight speakers as concret instruments. Al-ready in the first research with the programmer Peter Segerstrom in the Asphodel studios inSan Francisco, it turned out, that this concept has two advantages, compared with commonspatialisation programs, used in used in electro-acoustic music.On one hand, eight different independent movements of eight sound sources on eightspeakers become feasible, - not only the movement of one virtual sound position. And on the other hand, this movements are able to produce a texture or spatialisation, that is perceptible for each listener, independent from his position in the room. This means, that the problem of only having one ideal listening place - normally as Stockhausen loved it as master of the ceremony in the middle of the concert room - is gone, as the musical position of a sound is no longer thought of as a virtual position in relation to the ideal point of the centre of the circle of the speakers.So my idea was, in the implementation of the spatialisation program, to explore the possibili-ties of moving sounds independently in the space by defining the result as a virtual positionand ultimately to work concretely with the speakers. This led to a very simple setting, that has been programmed first in Pure Date, than in Max MSP by Sukandar Kartadinata. This setting was based on the idea, that there are only a few kinds of characteristics of moving in the space:1) rotation with the parameters direction and velocity,2) jitter: a sound is jumping randomly between two given positions in the circle, parameters: speed of jumping, maximum angle of jumping3) width: how the signal is spread to the neighbour speakers4) random variables working on those characteristics, as for example difference of two running rotations, etc.The program was developed with Sukandar Kartadinata at ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany, and thecomposition premiered there. Most of the audience was convinced that we used effects suchas a harmonizer etc, which we actually never did. But extreme spatialising in this extreme setting e.g. with very fast jittering, evokes this impression. As I reused the program for another composition, my second string quartet for the Diotima quartet, premiered in Marseille, we adjusted the program with the help of the programmer Charles Bascou at GMEM Marseille.There I realised, that it might be interesting to have only sine waves as input, in order to present the spatialisation settings purely. So eight equidistant pure wave oscillators, while slipping very slowly to a unison, textually spatialised on eight speakers, concret, 60 minuteswas realised as an algorithmic composition for eight speakers. But as the eight speakers aretreated as instruments and not as producer of virtual sound positions, it seemed to be consequent, to just record the speakers like you record instruments. So we put two microphones in the middle of the circle of eight speakers in the Marseille studio, started the algorithm, (compare image of the values) closed the door and left the room. The result is what you hear
RUSSELL HASWELL & FLORIAN HECKERKanal GENDYNLP+DVD Editions Mego eMEGO 129http://editionsmego.comhttp://haswellhecker.blogspot.com
Vinyl = Kanal GENDYN Stereo [A = 29:53.39] + [B = 32:59.69]DVD = Kanal GENDYN 4.0 [62:53.10] (AUDIO ONLY)
Recorded and produced by Russell Haswell & Florian Hecker, 2004-2011Stereo Version mixed by Haswell & Hecker @ CCMIX (Centre de Création Musicale Iannis Xenakis), Paris, March 2004
Digitally Mastered by Russell Haswell @ Haswell Studio, Suffolk, England, July 2011DVD authored by GOP , Köln, September 2011
Editions Mego is happy to announce the release of 'Kanal GENDYN', a Vinyl and DVD set by Russell Haswell & Florian Hecker. This is the first full length release by the artists following their highly acclaimed albums, 'Blackest Ever Black (Electroacoustic UPIC Recordings)' (Warner Classics, 2007), and 'UPIC Warp Tracks' (Warp, 2008), in addition to their remix's of Popol Vuh, and Voice Crack.
In the late 90s, early 2000s, it became common for bands, or solo artists to perform live - often alternative - soundtracks to feature films or silent classics. Critical of obvious instrumentation and the combination with known classic film, the artists Russell Haswell & Florian Hecker chose to create a real-time soundtrack, to an unscored film, 'Kanal Video' (1992, 60 min.) by the Swiss artist duo Peter Fischli & David Weiss.
Core to Kanal GENDYN is Haswell & Hecker's ongoing research on the legacies of polymath Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) and in particular his concept of the Dynamic Stochastic Synthesis, an abstract sound synthesis procedure that creates 'sound out of nothing'.
In an interview with Peter Hoffmann, the artists recall: "This video, which consists of an hour long 'ride' through the Zurich sewage system, with a remotely controlled maintenance vehicle equipped with a video camera to survey the sewers for eventual irregularities of defects - struck us both as an ideal piece to be projected in a 'nightclub' or music venue with a GENDYN only performance. We found twisted relations with such an hour long 'tunnel vision'. Once with the seemingly endless amount of computer generated video projections used as visuals accompanying raves and techno parties during the 1990's - and also to the accounts of visual hallucinations induced by Mescaline as described by Heinrich Klüver in the 1920's - with the so called 'form constants' - where he mentions amongst others, 'tunnel like' patterns. The particularities of GENDYN, with its ever changing and meandering waveforms appeared to us as an ideal counterpart."
Kanal GENDYN was performed on the occasion of the event 'Musterraum 9. Dual Presentation - Peter Fischli & David Weiss - Russell Haswell & Florian Hecker' at Musterraum, Munich, 30.01.2004. Originally constructed as an experimental building, 'Musterraum' - German for sample or reference room - was a freestanding cube with a base area of 10 ? 12 meters. Built as a test and reference space for the planning and construction of the adjacent Pinakothek der Moderne.
Two stereo feeds were crossed for quadraphonic (4.0) diffusion using a L&B F12 / B12 loudspeaker system. Performed concurrently to the Peter Fischli & David Weiss, 'Kanal Video' (1992, 60 min.) screened on three facing walls.
Kanal GENDYN is released as stereo vinyl LP + 4.0 DTS 24 Bit / 48 KHz DVD (audio only) set. The cover features 10 stills from the original Fischli & Weiss video, included inside is a 30 x 30 cm 170 gramm paper insert with a further, full-page still, plus extensive sleeve notes by musicologist and software developer Peter Hoffmann, and everything was designed by NORM, Zurich.
Its also worth noting that, with a running time of over a hour, this is one of the longest single LP releases you will come across! Cut by Rashad 'the Master' Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin, Setpember 2011
V.A.Bangs & Works Vol.2 (The Best of Chicago Footwork)2LP/CD Planet Mu Records ZIQ310Release date: November 7http://www.planet.mu
Last year Planet Mu released 'Bangs & Works Vol.1'. It was a carefully curated, first of its kind compilation of Chicago footwork, a style of music which is possibly some of the most genuinely future-facing, innovative new electronic music on the planet. Simon Reynolds recently noted in an interview for his book Retromania that "one thing I thought was really innovative was all this stuff from Chicago, the footwork stuff...That's one of the few things in recent years that has made my jaw drop a little bit-the Bangs and Works CD that Planet Mu put out. "I put on one of my blogs that Mike Paradinas [who compiled the CD] deserves a knighthood for this, because he went through a lot of stuff and there must have been a lot of quite indifferent material."
Well all of that is pretty much fact, and since the release of that album the attention paid to this little known local scene has increased drastically, so much so that we were able tour DJs Rashad and Spinn plus footwork dancers in the UK and Europe. What's more the music has been adapted for different uses by people outside Chicago, and has influenced new productions not only by Planet Mu artists such as Machinedrum and Kuedo, but by many others as well.
'Bangs & Works Vol.2' brings the focus back onto Chicago's own producers, showing where the real innovation in the scene still lies. The album attempts to show different sides of footwork to Volume 1. Where the first compilation showed off some of the more hallucinatory and leftfield elements, this cd has a wider remit, covering mad techno-style tracks such as DJ Metro's 'Tekno Bangz' or DJ T-Why's immense 'Juice' and 'Finished', to tracks that sound like Musique Concrete gone footwork, like Young Smoke's 'Space Muzik Part 3' or tracks built around long forgotten europop songs, soul and hip hop. Tracks like Traxman's 'Funky Block' and DJ Clent's 'DJ Clent #1' display the obvious influence of flipping samples, Hip hop style to the rhythms of footwork, while DJ Rashad and Gant-Man's amazing 'Heaven Sent' shows the influence of P-funk and Detroit's hi-tech soul. Boylan's 'Bullet Proof Soul' is a tender track of pitched-up and looped soul, giving the album a moment of strange, gentle ambience.
The album features established producers who've come up through the juke and ghetto house scenes such as Rashad, Spinn, Traxman, Roc, Clent and the pioneer of footwork RP Boo, all of whom featured on the last CD, as well as younger producers, who are still making their way. DJ Solo, now a popular R&B producer in Chicago, who pioneered the slowing down and speeding up of samples in footwork is one of the older producers not covered in the first comp, as is Flight Muzik's DJ Metro whose grimey tracks here are culled from a slightly earlier period.
Of the younger producers not featured on the first compilation, there is the talented Jlin who builds all her tracks from sound sources she's made herself; Young Smoke, a teenage producer who is also part of Flight Musik and has a very unique and impressive refinement to his productions; DJ MC, whose track 'Y Fall' has an entrancing minimalism and DJ Rome, an older producer whose 'Showtime' is like a fevered hallucination of pitched horn samples. On Bangs & Works 2, the synapse snapping intensity of footwork is ever present, but this selection shows a widening diversity of approaches to the genre's independent and unique sense of production focus. The music becomes even more impressive and beguiling as you're drawn in.
CD Tracklisting:01 RP BOO - HEAVY HEAT02 JLIN - EROTIC HEAT03 DJ EARL - HIT DA BOOTZ04 DJ RASHAD & GANT-MAN - HEAVEN SENT05 DJ METRO - BURN DAT BOI06 DJ CLENT - BALL'EM UP07 DJ MC - Y FALL08 DJ SPINN - CRAZY 'N' DERANGED09 TRAXMAN - FUNKY BLOCK10 DJ ROME - SHOWTIME11 DJ T-WHY - FINISHED12 THA POPE - WHEN YOU13 BOYLAN - BULLET PROOF SOUL14 JLIN - ASYLUM15 DJ T-WHY - ORBITS16 DJ ROC - GET BUCK JUICE17 TRAXMAN - BRAINWASH18 DJ CLENT - DJ CLENT #119 DJ METRO - SMAK MY BITCH UP20 YOUNG SMOKE - SPACE MUZIK PT.321 DJ T-WHY - JUICE22 DJ SOLO - WHAT HAVE YOU DONE23 YOUNG SMOKE - PSYCHO WAR24 YOUNG SMOKE - WOULDN'T GET FAR25 DJ METRO - TEKNO BANGZ26 RP BOO - OFF DA HOOK
VEGAWormsongsCD ARTEkSOUNDS ART001http://www.arteksounds.comhttp://www.vimeo.com/15708129
The Wormsongs is a one-hour music performance for voice, electronic sound and real-time visuals created by HENRY VEGA and performed alongside vocalist ANAT SPIEGEL and visual designer EMMANUEL FLORES.
Vega's digital language covers the spectrum between noise and pure sine. Using this sound world, Vega writes music in block gestures that can be described as micro-minimal with a passion towards machine-kind.
The songs strip away with the ideas of lyrical lines, replacing them with automatic instruments triggered to match an equally automatic vocal part. Inspired by Spiegel's voice, each score in the Wormsongs is motivated in part by social evolution.
The music often touches on practices such as religious intoning and spoken-word. These practices were internalized to compose an original vocal and computer language that drives Vega's Wormsongs and its message. The songs strip the ideas of lyrical lines, replacing them with automatic instruments triggered to match an equally automatic vocal part brilliantly performed by Anat Spiegel.
YASUNAO TONEMP3 Deviations #6+7LP/CD Editions Mego eMEGO125http://editionsmego.comhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasunao_Tone
Notes: The MP3 Deviation album contains pieces that are results of the collaborative research by a team of the New Aesthetics in Computer Music (NACM) and myself, led by Tony Myatt at Music Research Center at the University of York in UK in 2009. My idea was to develop new software based on the disruption of the MP3. Primarily I thought the MP3 as reproducing device could have created very new sound by intervention between its main elements, the compression encoder and decoder. It turned out that result was not satisfactory. However, we found that if the sound file had been corrupted in the MP3, the corruptions generated 21 error messages, which could be utilized to assign various 21 lengths of samples automatically. Combining with different play back speeds, it could produce unpredictable and unknowable sound. That is a main pillar of the software. We, also, added some other elements such as flipping stereo channels and phase inversing alternately with a certain length of frequency ranges, which resulted different timbres and pitches. I performed several times at the MRC and I was certain that this software would be a perfect tool for performances. I have tentatively performed the piece in public in Kyoto, May 2009 and in New York, in May 2010. I also performed it successfully with totally different sound sources when I was invited for The Morning Line in Vienna in June 2011.
Track 1. MP3 Deviation #6 (30:36.29)Performed and recorded by Yasunao Tone June 2, 2011 in New York City.Track 2. MP3 Deviation #7 (22:15.38)Performed and recorded by Yasunao Tone July 3, 2011 in New York City.The original sound sources made by Yasunao Tone.Producer, Yasunao ToneExecutive producer, Peter RehbergCover design, Tina FrankPhotogrpahy, Tina Frank, Florian VoggenederDigital Mastering, Russell Haswell
Thanks for the support by NACM, Tony Myatt, Mark Fell, Peter Worth, Thom Blake, Oliver Larkin, Peter Rehberg, Tina Frank and Russell Haswell.The New Aesthetics in Computer Music research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK.
zeitkratzerKARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSENOld SchoolCD Zeitkratzer ZKR0012Release date: November 29http://www.zeitkratzer.de
"I do not want a spiritualistic session. I want music." - Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen proclaimed his intuitive music in 1968. He performed his text composition From the Seven Days with his ensemble quite often. This ensemble only existed until 1970, as the musicians demanded partial authorship for this type of composition and Stockhausen in turn accused them of bad interpretation and indiscipline.2 As a result Stockhausen did not abolish the composer, but went back to notating his music accurately.
That's why From The Seven Days is a kind of monolith in his work. The score comprises fifteen texts. In the first moment, those texts seem to be fairly free and associative. However, if you look at them carefully, you will find very precise definitions of modular sound material and sometimes even cyclical sequences. Some theorists, as for example the British Stockhausen specialist and BBC producer Robert Worby, consider this work to be a serial composition and underline, that Stockhausen thought so too.
This opinion is not only theoretical banter, but has concrete consequences. The musical instructions for Night Music state: "play a vibration in the rhythm of the universe / play a vibration in the rhythm of dreaming // play a vibration in the rhythm of dreaming / and slowly transform it / into the rhythm of the universe / repeat this as often as you can."
We might think from this, that the musicians should just choose some arbitrary vibrations, repeat them somehow and transform them one into another. However, if you look at this text with a serial approach then it means: each musician first plays a defined vibration in the rhythm of the universe, then a vibration in the rhythm of dreaming, and finally the transformation of this vibration into the first one. Subsequently, the whole procedure is repeated in exactly this order. Once the musical material is defined, it is actually defined for the whole piece and is repeated in the same way. If the musicians each play these serial progressions, the overall sound is made from superpositions of single cyclic, non-synchronised chains.
In Connection each musician has to choose seven different vibrations (in the rhythm of your body, of your heart, of your breathing, etc.), mix them freely, but leave enough silence between them. The musical material does not change, but is repeated in free sequences. Nine musicians doing this independently results in a texture of nine multiplied by seven different materials, some of them being more prominent than others, and therefore more recognisable. This strict setting can be misinterpreted as overly sober, but in fact, it is exactly what makes intuitive music possible: "Thinking, consciously forming and reacting is not at all excluded; but it is in every moment consciously subordinated to a intuitive, uniform inspiration, and it happens directly, now, unreflected, undialectical, instrumental."
Unlimited is even simpler: "play a sound / with the certainty / that you have an infinite amount of time and space"
It means: play exactly one sound, nothing else. In addition there is a graphic, which shows an ascending and a descending line. zeitkratzer interpretes these forms as curves of loudness. The certainty to have an infinite amount of time and space is understandable in the same sense as some crescendo-signs for sustained piano in the romantic literature; and for sure this does not mean, that the piece has to be very long.
Stockhausen's interpretation of Intensity was a physical one: "play single sounds / with such dedication / until you feel the warmth / that radiates from you." It is reported that Stockhausen wore several wool pullovers, hammered nails into a wooden block, and was wet from sweating during his performance of this piece. This served as an inspiration for the zeitkratzer musicians. They chose single instrumental actions, which would produce bodily heat. Again, this opens the door for intuition - the unconscious coordination of these activities between the musicians.
Finally, Set Sail for the Sun asks for the merging of single tones into the ensemble sound, until the "whole sound turns to gold / to pure, gently shimmering fire." For the musicians,this means, to forget themselves and to lose themselves in the overall sound. Stockhausen wrote: "musical meditation is not sentimentality, but ultra alertness and - in the lightestmoments - creative ecstasy."
zeitkratzer rehearsed and performed From the Seven Days in April 2011 at Kino Siska in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and subsequently at the Music Biennale Zagreb, Croatia. The present recordings were made during this working period and at the two concerts. This project could not have happened without the great support of Petar Milat (Zagreb) and Matjaz Mancek (Ljubljana).
zeitkratzerdirected by Reinhold FriedlBurkhard Schlothauer ................... violinAnton Lukoszevieze ................. violoncelloUli Phillipp ....................... double bassReinhold Friedl ........................ pianoMarc Weiser .................... electric guitarChristian Lillinger ................... percussionFrank Gratkowski .................... clarinetsHild Sofie Tafjord .................. french hornHilary Jeffery ....................... tromboneMartin Wurmnest ...................... sound
text ......................... Reinhold Friedltranslation ...................... Hilary Jeffery
zeitkratzer was founded in 1997 by Reinhold Friedl. The eleven-piece ensemble performs a wide variety of new music. zeitkratzer's members come from different European metro polises and meet together for rehear sals in Berlin. zeitkratzer performs internationally at festivals of contemporary, electronic and avant-garde music and has released numerous recordings.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 5 October 2011 16:05 (twelve years ago) link
ANTHONY PATERAS - Collected Works: 2002-2012 5CD ImmediataBARBARA MORGENSTERN - Sweet Silence CD MonikaBLUE ON BLUE / OS OVNI - Vision Imaginary/Holographic Dream LP Robot ElephantCALLIOPE TSOUPAKI - MEDEA: A Melodrama for 8 Instruments CD UnsoundsCHRISTOPHER WILLITS & RYUICHI SAKAMOTO - Ancient Future CD GhostlyELI KESZLER - Catching Net 2CD PANFRANCISCO LOPEZ - Untitled #284 CD CrónicaGAZELLE TWIN - The Entire City LP/CD Anti-Ghost MoonrayGEOFFREY COX - Nothig but the Hours DVD Huddersfield ContemporaryHEATSICK - Déviation 12" PANHELM - Impossible Symmetry LP PANJIM COLEMAN - Trees CD Wax & WaneKEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN - Occlusions LP Editions MegoMATS LINDSTRÖM - MIG LP Ideologic OrganMIKA VAINIO / KEVIN DRUMM / AXEL DÖRNER / LUCIO CAPECE - Venexia LP PANNAZORANAI - s/t 2LP/CD Ideologic OrganPLVS VLTRA - Parthenon LP Spectrum SpoolsPOLYSICK - Digital Native 2LP/CD Planet MuROBERT HAMPSON - Repercussions CD+DVD Editions MegoSENKING - Dazed 12" raster-notonSENSATE FOCUS - Sensate Focus 5 12" Sensate FocusSIMON SCOTT - Below Sea Level CD 12kSIR RICHARD BISHOP - Intermezzo LP Ideologic Organ
ANTHONY PATERASCollected Works: 2002-20125CD box Immediata IMM001http://anthonypateras.com
Throughout the last decade, the works of Anthony Pateras have been performed by some of the world's leading ensembles and performers. He has collaborated with a broad array of contemporary artists including Han Bennink, eRikm, Christian Fennesz, Paul Lovens, Stephen O'Malley, The Necks and Mike Patton. He is also one half of the mind-blowing piano/drums avant-grind outfit known as PIVIXKI, and is founder of the Electro-Acoustic-Free-Concréte quintet THYMOLPHTHALEIN.
This 5-disc set covers many aspects of his musical output. Disc 1 features chamber and orchestral pieces, containing a string quartet, small ensemble works and a mammoth electric violin concerto with spatilized orchestra and quadraphonic electronics. Disc 2 is a re-issue of his widely performed Chasms for prepared piano, accompanied by a brand new piece to smash any cute-sy post-Cageian grooves right back into the emotronica abyss. Disc 3 features menacing pipe organ textures recorded on the largest instrument in the southern hemisphere. Disc 4 features two extended solo piano works captured live in the opulence of Sydney's State Theatre, and Disc 5 features mind-bending works for solo and ensemble orchestral percussion. As a self-contained box - handsomely packaged with foil text, satin ribbon and containing an informative, full-colour 16-page booklet with sketches and notes - this is an astonishing overview of one of Australia's most unique, uncompromising and exciting composers. Usually releasing material on flagship labels Tzadik and Editions Mego, this is the first release on the composer's own Immediata imprint. Limited to 500 copies worldwide.
VOL. 1: CHAMBER & ORCHESTRAL1. CRYSTALLINE (2010) for amplified string quartet [11:22]Lachlan O'Donnell/Edwina George/Neil Thompson/Anna Orzech2. BROKEN THEN FIXED THEN BROKEN (2009) for cello, bass clarinet & prepared piano [6:23]Golden Fur3. FRAGILE ABSOLUTE (2010) for winds, percussion, electronics & celeste [12:44]ANAM Ensemble conducted by Anthony Pateras4. LOST COMPASS (2011) for bass flute & percussion quartet [11:05]Timothy Munro: bass flute & Early Warning System5. IMMEDIATA (2010) for 6-string electric violin, quadraphonic electronics & spatialized orchestra [19:21]Richard Tognetti: 6-string electric violin, Anthony Pateras & Samuel Dunscombe: electronicsANAM Orchestra conducted by Brett Dean
VOL. 2: PREPARED PIANO1-3. CHASMS (2007) for prepared piano [42:28]4. DELIRIOSO (2012) for prepared pianos [10:47]
VOL. 3: PIPE ORGAN & ELECTRONICS1-8. ARCHITEXTURE (2011) forpipe organ & quadraphonic diffusion [40:08]Byron Scullin: live mix and diffusion9-11. KEEN UNKNOWN MATRIX(2009-2011) for electronics (8:10)
VOL 4: PIANO1. BLOCK DON'T BLEED(2012) for piano [25:53]2. BLEED DON'T BLOCK(2012) for piano [20:03]
VOL 5: PERCUSSION1-7. REFRACTIONS (2008) for percussion sextet [19:16]Speak Percussion conducted by Eugene Ughetti8-11. MUTANT THEATRE ACT 2 (2002) for solo percussion [17:47]Vanessa Tomlinson12. HYPNOGOGICS (2005) for microsounds, crotales & electronics [8:04]Eugene Ughetti13-23. MUTANT THEATRE ACT 3 (2008) for solo percussion [13:44]Vanessa Tomlinson24. FLESH & GHOST (2010/11) for 12 percussionists [13:31]Speak Percussion conducted by Eugene Ughetti
BARBARA MORGENSTERNSweet SilenceCD Monika Enterprise 74Release date: June 8http://www.monika-enterprise.dehttp://www.barbaramorgenstern.de
SWEET SILENCE is no less than the sixth album by Berlin based musician Barbara Morgenstern. Following 2010's Fan No. 2, a greatest hits compilation of a different kind, the album contains a fresh collection of all new songs sung for the first time only in English. As with all of Morgenstern's music, SWEET SILENCE exudes a glorious honesty which is just what makes her electronic-pop sound so appealing. The record was mixed by Shitkatapult founder Marco Haas aka T.Raumschmiere giving the whole thing that unmistakable Berlin sound.
In keeping with The Tremeloes classic, BM breaks the ice on the album with the title song Sweet Silence, an anthemic intro enriched with vocal delays which sets the mood nicely. Morgenstern soon picks up the pace though on Need To Hang Around. This spirited song is a friendly reminder of how important it is to step back every once in a while. It's lighthearted while still carrying an important message; indeed it remains a large part of the singer's charm that she never takes her music seriously.
SWEET SILENCE is in many ways Barbara's most accessible record to date, not least of all for all those international listeners out there as this time the lyrics are sung exclusively in English. As German fans already know, Morgenstern's song texts have always contained a great depth of meaning and imagery as well as humour. Now with SWEET SILENCE, everyone can join in understanding the ideas and experiences at the heart of Morgenstern's songs, rather than just enjoying the sound of her voice on a purely instrumental level. That said, KooKoo works on both levels with both profound lyrics and extensive creative use of vocal sampling. Jump Into The Life-Pool tells the time old story that is the cycle of life, spiraling ever onwards just like the arpeggiated synth loops that are to be heard in the song.
Side two of SWEET SILENCE opens with a short interlude Bela. It is one of only three instrumental tracks on an album so reliant on Morgenstern's tremendous vocal presence. Highway is probably the most orchestral tune with a swelling string arrangement setting the mood and the song is proof that the way is the goal, and you never know what's around the next bend. The Minimum Says is one of the few songs to feature guitar on a predominantly electronic album. While Auditorium switches instrumentation again, this time to a rhodes and some seriously jazzy riffs. Hip Hop Mice is the second instrumental number on SWEET SILENCE and so is somewhat reminiscent of Morgenstern's collaboration with Robert Lippok on Tesri, with the focus being purely on electronica and less weight being given to any pop aspect in the music. At just over five and a half minutes, Status Symbol seems to have almost epic proportions on an album that otherwise pretty much sticks to the 3 minute golden rule of pop. It is the penultimate song on SWEET SILENCE and with it long drawn out hypnotic-jam nature, certainly has something of a Nichts Muss feel to it. And SWEET SILENCE draws to a close with Love is in the air, but we don't care the third and final instrumental on the album, which appropriately enough fades out unassumingly leaving only silence.
SWEET SILENCE is in many ways a milestone in the career of Barbara Morgenstern. A career which has spanned achievements such as collaborations with the likes of Robert Wyatt and Bill Wells and the afore mentioned Robert Lippok, as well as side projects such as the improvised trio September Collective (with Stefan Schneider and Paul Wirkus) and tours which has seen her travel to the furthest reaches of the globe and earn fans throughout the world. SWEET SILENCE is a journey or at least the next leg in Morgenstern's ongoing musical journey, one on which gladly we are all invited to come along.
BLUE ON BLUE / OS OVNIVision Imaginary / Holographic Dream Split EPLP/DL Robot Elephant Records RER011Vertrieb: Cargohttp://www.robotelephant.co.ukhttp://facebook.com/blueonbluepophttp://osovni.tumblr.com
This is the first transatlantic split EP to be released on Robot Elephant Records, bringing two uniquely talented and wonderful bands together in the form of Blue on Blue from London and Os Ovni from Florida - exploring new sonic territory in the legacy of Broadcast, Sun Ra Arkestra, Caroliner and Bruce Haack.
Blue On Blue 'Vision Imaginary'
Previous press quotes:"Blue On Blue stand out as a force gently easing their way in to a music niche of their own" i-D Magazine"Really love ita gem. Amazing progression with their musicit sounds incredible" John Kennedy, XFM about Blue on Blue's debut EP from 2011"A brilliant actdefinitely a band to watch out for." The Line of Best Fit"A jubilant take on 90s jangling pop crawling to 80s heartachehypnotic giddy stuff." Loud & Quiet
Paying homage to their roots whilst taking a bold step into raw, personal musical expression, Blue On Blue present the world with their second offering 'Vision Imaginary'. Dee Sada and Billy Steiger voice a potent collection of experimental and deeply personal journeys.Opener, 'Silent Walls' illustrates the band's unconventional approach to song structure while 'The Machinery Link of Heart and Soul' is a modern day hymn; the duo's ecclesiastical interpretation of deep personal loss. Final track, 'Night Terrors' is an intimate account of when inner demons and hallucinations become a cold, harsh certainty. It is a terrifying exploration of the fine lines between nightmares, madness and reality.The EP title is taken from a line from the poem 'Our Saviour' by Nepalese poet Shiv Shamsher Rasaily, Dee's grandfather. An acclaimed poet and author, he is also winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award, the second highest literary award in India. The EP cover is from a stained glass window in St Georges church, Beckenham, part of a set designed and made by Billy's great- grandfather, Tom Freeth, just after the second World War.
OS OVNI 'Holographic Dreams'
Previous press quotes:"A little in the moon" - Vice Magazine France"Os Ovni is a captivating group" - Foxy Digitalis"Os Ovni combine synth wave dynamics and boy/girl vocals to chilly and blissed out effect. otherworldly and imbued with a synthesized shoegaze quality here we find out that 'love' is untouchable, indescribable and thrilling." - Rough Trade Shops about previously released split single with Modern Witch on Tundra Dubs
Physicists deal in quantum probabilities.Wizards wrestle with magic.OS OVNI dream synthesizers.
Fresh off a two-month U.S. tour which ended on New Year's Day in New Orleans opening for the Silver Apples, OS OVNI are currently residing in Florida building unique electronic music instruments and recording a full length album for release in 2012.Emerging from the more idiosyncratic side of reality, the duo of Logan Owlbeemoth and Omebi Velouria build minimal sonic structures around time travel pop hooks using warm synths, galactic dipped vocals, colourful costumes set in a 2070's celluloid film setting and visual projections made of hyper changing colourful pixel bits of other dimensional beings....As the collision of rebellious oscillations and layered harmonics clash and hum, it seems that their music is trying to pry open a gateway to its own science fictional universe. The shimmering gateway opens, and what you find when you look inside is OS OVNI.
CALLIOPE TSOUPAKIMEDEA: A Melodrama for 8 InstrumentsCD Unsounds 28Uhttp://www.unsounds.comhttp://www.calliopetsoupaki.com
Performance: Ensemble MAE (live recording)
"Medea, a melodrama for 8 instruments" by Calliope Tsoupaki is the first in a series of chamber music compositions focusing on drama.The composition is written for ensemble MAE, that distinguishes itself for its colorful, direct, physical and improvisatory character; Tsoupaki uses the ensemble's palette, composing solos, duets, trios, wrapped in larger sonic fields, with a strong associative and visual impact. Further there is no story-telling for the listener to be led into the piece; the music material itself is suggestive, and the melodies have a leading role, as characters in a theater play. Coming back as in different scenes in a film, each time changed and transformed, they are the vectors of tangible dramatic development.As the music material unfolds, we get close to an ultimate Medea, ever changing, beautiful, and wild, but also dignified and powerful. But next to an exploration of the myth, "Medea" attempts to compose a self-portrait, the composer shedding light onto a deep, unspoken part of herself. Pasolini's "Medea" was an inspiration for writing this piece, and most of all Maria Callas in the role of Medea, "so tragic that she did not sing a word."
Calliope Tsoupaki, greek composer based in the Netherlands, has composed over 70 pieces from solo to orchestra pieces, vocal works and operas covering the repertoire from concert music to dance, theater and multimedia music projects, often inspired by great female figures in art and history.
CHRISTOPHER WILLITS & RYUICHI SAKAMOTOAncient FutureCD Ghostly GI-159http://ghostly.comhttp://christopherwillits.comhttp://www.sitesakamoto.com
Info follows asap
ELI KESZLERCatching Net2CD/DL PAN 32http://www.pan-act.comhttp://elikeszler.com
Side A:Eli Keszler: drums, percussion, crotales, guitarAshley Paul: alto saxophone, bass harpGeoff Mullen: guitarGreg Kelley: trumpetReuben Son: bassoon
Side B:Carole Bestvater: violinRachel Panitch: violinChloë Kline: violaLaura Cetilia: celloSakiko Mori: pianoEli Keszler: installation, score/composition
Catching Net is a collection of selected installations and compositions Eli Keszler created during the last two year. The double-CD set includes both stand-alone recordings of the installations and the integrated ensemble scores performed in conjunction with those installations. The first disc features two ensemble versions of Cold Pin, previously released in a 2011 LP of the same title on PAN, plus a 26-minute, previously unreleased live ensemble recording (mixed sextet and piano quintet; these are captured in contrasting acoustical spaces). The personnel for all three tracks is Eli Keszler drums, percussion, crotales, guitar; Ashley Paul, alto saxophone, bass harp; Geoff Mullen, prepared guitar; Greg Kelley, trumpet; Reuben Son, bassoon; and Benny Nelson, cello. The second disc begins with the title track, Catching Net, a 17-minute score for string quartet and piano with the Cold Pin installation. It is performed by pianist Sakiko Mori and the Providence String Quartet: Carole Bestvater, violin; Rachel Panitch, violin; Chloë Kline, viola; Laura Cetilia, cello. The score is fully notated, timed with stopwatch markings rather than tempo or meter. Following are two recordings of Keszler's large-scale installations functioning on their own. Collecting Basin features piano strings/wires up to 250 feet long splayed from a two-story water tower in Shreveport / Louisiana, across two large, empty water purification basins, which acted as an amplifier for the sounds produced by the installation. A 'solo' version of Cold Pin (without live performers) concludes the album. Tracks 1 and 3 on the first disc and track 2 on the second disc were recorded at the historic Cyclorama, a massive dome at the Boston Center for the Arts. Cold Pin was installed directly on a large curved wall in the dome, using micro-controlled motors and beaters to strike extended strings ranging in length from three to 25 feet.
Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, visionary composer/percussionist/multimedia artist Eli Keszler began playing drums at eight, and composing at twelve. Before finding an interest in experimental music and improvisation, he played in rock and hardcore bands; his work retains an intense physicality and churning, often ferocious energy. He is a graduate of the New England Conservatory, where he studied composition with Anthony Coleman and Ran Blake. A self-taught visual artist, his aesthetic outlook owes as much to Richard Serra and Robert Smithson as it does to musical icons like Xenakis, Nancarrow, and Ornette Coleman. He has collaborated with Phill Niblock, Roscoe Mitchell, Joe McPhee, Loren Connors, Jandek, and many others, and has recorded more than a dozen CDs and LPs for ESP-DISK, REL, and PAN. Keszler's installations employ piano wires of varying lengths; these are struck, scraped, and vibrated by microprocessor-controlled motorized arms, giving rise to harmonically complex tones that are percussive yet resonant. These installations are heard on their own and with accompanying ensemble scores. Said Keszler in a NPR All Songs Considered interview, "I like to work with raw material, like simple sounds, primitive or very old sounds; sounds that won't get dated in any way. I was thinking of ways I could use strings or acoustic material without using pedals or pre-recordings, so the live aspects appealed to me." In addition, the patterns formed by the overlapping piano wires allow Keszler to create visual components that relate directly to the music, without having to use projections or other electronic equipment.
FRANCISCO LOPEZUntitled #284CD Crónica 066http://www.cronicaelectronica.orghttp://www.franciscolopez.net
Behind every image, something has disappeared. And that is the source of its fascination. Behind virtual reality in all its forms [] the real has disappeared. And that is what fascinates everyone. According to the official version, we worship the real and the reality principle, but - and this is the source of the current suspense - is it, in fact, the real we worship, or its disappearance? - Jean Baudrillard, Why hasn't everything already disappeared?, translated by Chris Turner, Seagull Books 2009.
Untitled #284 was created in 2011 by extensive evolutionary transformation of original environmental recordings made in Lisbon during the year of 1992. These sources were recovered for a commission of the Teatro Municipal Maria Matos, where the composition was premiered on 16 July 2011.
GAZELLE TWINThe Entire CityLP/CD Anti-Ghost Moonray RecordsRelease date: June 22Vertrieb: Cargohttp://www.antighostmoonray.comhttp://www.gazelletwin.com
"It's a mashed-up, cryptic world of ghost-cities, dead ideologies, imagined futures, ancient rituals, childhood dreams and wounded creatures." GAZELLE TWIN
Gazelle Twin aka ELIZABETH WALLING, b.1981, is a multi-disciplinary artist based in London/Brighton, UK. Working in music, performance, film, visual art, costume and multimedia, Walling is primarily the sole creative force behind everything made under the Gazelle Twin moniker, an androgynous, masked identity which continuously transforms with each project, "they're like puppets. Different forms through which I can render my human self into something else, another species, an object, a cloud of smoke...".
As a composer, musician and self-taught producer, Walling has released three Gazelle Twin singles to date, each from her debut album, The Entire City - released on digital worldwide and physical in the UK in 2011 on her co-run label, Anti-Ghost Moon Ray Records (AGMR). The LP received critical praise from international press, radio and music blogs; The Guardian and The Independent both awarded it 5-star reviews and it ranked highly in reviews by Drowned in Sound, Subba Cultcha and the BBC. Support has also come from magazines; Dazed and Confused, Bullett, Notion, Clash and DIVA in various features.
THE ENTIRE CITY - ALBUM - SINGLES + VIDEOSArt, history, civilisation, science-fiction, film, nature, dreams and even video games are all intrinsic to The Entire City. The title itself - taken from a series of paintings by Max Ernst - preceded any music, such was it's importance to Walling pre-Gazelle Twin, and thus inspired the album's narrative of multiple meanings in a fictional landscape. Likewise, the songs Men Like Gods - taken from the novel by HG Wells - and When I Was Otherwise - a song by the 16th Century composer William Byrd - both existed before any music was written to befit their titles. The novels of JG Ballard and an array of science fiction films including:- Terminator, Stalker, Colossus, Eraserhead and Alien were all aesthetic as well as sonic references and this marriage of classical, cinematic, futuristic and dreamlike visual elements is so vital to Gazelle Twin's world that the digital release of The Entire City was accompanied by an interactive visual version' made by Champagne Valentine. Featuring the LP's sleeve artwork - which uses a photocollage entitled 'Athne' by UK artist Suzanne Moxhay - the application allows anyone to stream the album in full, whilst witnessing warped visions of the various Gazelle Twin identities and other homemade footage through a single, gazing eye.
It is these various identities, created through the use of costume, together with immersive staging concepts which add further 'weight' and intrigue to the music itself. Gazelle Twin's live performances are rare, but prove to act as exploratory and physical expressions of the themes and emotions in her music. At her debut performance in Germany, at the legendary Berghain in Berlin, October 2011 (supporting Planningtorock), Gazelle Twin and live band (Jonny Wildey and Owen Thomas) took to the stage in full costume covering the entire face and body - a design inspired by David Lynch's depiction of Joseph Merrick in The Elephant Man (1980).
Unsurprisingly, with such specific visual devices, comparisons have been and continue to be made to the equally mysterious Karin Dreijer Andersson of Fever Ray and The Knife, both of whom Elizabeth consciously admits as a huge influence, "I'm indebted them for the epiphany they inspired in me about the power of disguise".
(continued)... The dreamscape vocals of the Cocteau Twins and iconic artists such as Kate Bush and Bjork have also been regular points of reference, as has Prince - of whom Walling is a new but "very obsessive" fan and whose album, Purple Rain (1984), inspired many of the rhythmic elements and drum sounds in The Entire City. Although predictable, such prestigious comparisons can also be seen to express how exciting and rare it is for a true artist like Gazelle Twin to emerge from the UK - something the METRO decided back in 2009 before any official GT releases, "...the exciting thing is that there is no one exactly like her...".
The Entire City Remixed, a 13-track album to be released digitally on 4 June 2012, AGMR, follows up the original with special guest remixes by: John Foxx and The Maths, Scanner, Maya Postepski (Austra/Trust), Nedry, Zebra and Snake and many more artists from Europe and beyond. A new EP entitled MAMMAL is due out on US label Sugarcane Recordings in July 2012 and Walling is presently working on her second LP - I Was Moulded In The Bowels Of The Earth - due in Autumn/Winter 2012.
SINGLES + VIDEOS +Changelings, Gazelle Twin's debut single, was released in 2010 on Something Nothing records and included the b-side I Wonder U, a cover of Prince which earned 'track of the week' in Time Out London. Changelings was accompanied by Walling's "first attempt" at a music video; a homemade, lo-fi, black and white film shot on webcams and iphones incorporating found-footage of demolitions and sand storms along with shape-shifting sequences featuring her (then) 12-year old niece as the "unmasked 'child twin". The video was premiered by The Quietus. For the John Foxx and the Maths remix of Changelings (The Entire City Remixed, 4 June 2012) Walling plans to remix the video itself with new footage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOXJS6iS1fg
I Am Shell I Am Bone was self-released on in 2011, on Anti-Ghost Moon Ray. The b-side was a bravely stark and stormy cover of Joy Division's The Eternal. I Am Shell I Am Bone - later becoming the title of Walling's image blog - was accompanied by a second homemade video, premiered by The Guardian. The film explored themes of sea life, evolution and the paranormal, again using found footage and scenes shot in a rudimentary set in her living room "behind jugs of water and anglepoise lamps". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t01dYTecfS8
Men Like Gods accompanied The Entire City's worldwide digital release in 2011, on Anti-Ghost Moon Ray. The video - premiered by This Is Fake DIY - introduced colour into the mix; shot in super8-style iphones and digital cameras, it involved a video shoot at a remote Sardinian village featuring footage of an ancient Pagan festival featured heavily masked figures with lassos, furs and bells. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANaabsQo-uA
When I Was Otherwise, although unreleased as a single, this album track is a favourite of visual/sound/conceptual installation artist and occasional DJ, Seb Patane, who is currently making the 'official' video for the track. Patane was born in Sicily but lives and works in London, regularly on artist residencies around Europe and beyond. His work shares various themes with Gazelle Twin including; identity, civilisation and history, not to mention a love of electronics. Last year, The Wire Magazine featured his work including a film he made: http://thewire.co.uk/articles/7093/
PRESS HIGHLIGHTS* "Walling is both star and morphing other, warping breathy harmonies and siren miasmas into elegant cyborg operas. A stunning debut" 5/5 - The Guardian* "this is an album which hints at subconscious fears and will haunt you long after listening.' 5/5 - The Independent* "The Mercury Prize panellists should probably pencil her in for 2013's shortlist today" - BBC* "fragile, understated and frightfully beautiful... crystal clear of ambition and concept" 8/10 - Drowned in Sound* "a dream-like tableau evoking Bjork, The Dirty Projectors and Vienna's Soap & Skin as well as (Fever Ray's) sly gift for otherness." - The Quietus
GEOFFREY COXNothig but the HoursDVD Huddersfield Contemporary Records HCRDVD04http://www.hud.ac.uk/cerenem
A portrait DVD of the work of composer and film maker Geoffrey Cox.
Performed by Philip Thomas (piano) and with documentary films made in collaboration with Keith Marley.
HEATSICKDéviation12"/DL PAN 29http://www.pan-act.com
If "Dream Tennis" was any indication, Heatsick has struck a nerve with his singles that stretch preset washes of polyphony through sunset-hued landscapes of disco and house. Equipped with only a Casio keyboard, he's played alongside everyone from Omar Souleyman to DJ Harvey, Daniel Wang and Legowelt, and has demonstrated his ability not only to extend his keyboard to its limits, but to transcend its musical territory, opening up a diverse range of styles, genres and gestures to his dance-addled mimicries and musings.
"Déviation" marks Heatsick's most expansive dance release to date, featuring four tracks ofkaleidoscopic house that combine a lo-fi aesthetic with clear, textured structures akin to wandering through a densely gridded, sultry urban environment. With influences ranging from Fela Kuti to Todd Terry, the EP revolves around as much of a disco aesthetic as it does a leisurely soundtrack to a casual day of hanging out.
The dub-influenced title track begins with a rhythmic, Latin-oriented introduction that delicately deviates towards its shimmering second half as the pitch spirals in a locked progression. The climax refuses to come quickly, however, and a flow of excitement frames the track until it finishes in step. The EPs subdued second track, "C'était un rendez-vous", presents a sort of chill-out vibe with a cinematic consciousness. This track features backing by the prodigious saxophonist André Vida, whose snippets of smooth to free jazz are seamlessly interlaced within the last two tracks as well.
On the B-side, the B1 track "The Stars Down to Earth" is overlaid with a vocal sample and brims with a frenetic energy that calls to mind an ebulliently bassy, Bristol mentality. The concluding track, "No Fixed Address", takes the territory of the B1 and introduces it to a '90s Todd Terry treatment, providing a jacking conclusion to this varied, densely-packed release worthy of multiple listenings.
HELMImpossible SymmetryLP/DL PAN 27http://www.pan-act.com
Impossible Symmetry is the third full length record by Helm, the project of London based artist LUKE YOUNGER. It marks a new chapter in the artists' canon as it's his first to be informed by live performance rather than studio experimentation. The recording and engineering was primarily a solo venture, with some technical assistance from John Hannon on a few tracks. Most of the compositions were created out of ideas / improvisations that were conceived in a live context and then fed back into the studio work. The album was recorded over the duration of a year in London with source material culled from acoustic sound sources in a similar methodology to his previous album 'Cryptography', whilst also simultaneously incorporating more extensive use of electronic elements and moments of rhythmic dark ambience recalling the outputs from early Coil and Cabaret Voltaire to even Traversable Wormhole's industrial minimalism.
Helm is Luke Younger - a sound artist and experimental musician based in London, working with a vast array of revolving instrumentation and abstract sound sources. Younger's compositions build a dense aural landscape that touches on musique concrete, uncomfortable sound poetry, noise, and hallucinatory drones. His most last LP Cryptography, presented a five-part suite of expertly rendered electro-acoustic study which uses processed piano, Casio MT-40, cymbal and broken guitar strings. Younger creates a world where these instruments morph into spectral rust, a shimmering klang swims alongside passive noise and the relationship between acoustic and electronic derived sounds forms a solid foundation. This sound is steered through a melange of fringe territories: glacial drone meditations, reconfigured gamelan clusters, and howling walls of organized feedback, all coalesced in a post-industrial fashion with a commitment to homemade exploratory zeal. For the past ten years, Younger has also performed extensively in Europe and the US with Steven Warwick as pioneering avant-drone duo Birds of Delay.
JIM COLEMANTreesCD Wax & Wane 001Release date: August 7Vertrieb: Cargohttp://www.jimcolemanmusic.comhttp://jimcolemanmusic.wordpress.com
Classically trained in piano and French horn, Jim Coleman exploded onto the indie rock scene in the 1990s with his seminal NYC band, COP SHOOT COP, playing alongside the likes of Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, Helmet, and Marilyn Manson. His creative work has transitioned over the years into a unique blend of cinematic, electro-acoustic music. Trees, Coleman's debut release in this genre, creates an intensely personal yet universally transcendent sonic experience.
Initially an art student at The University of Hartford, Coleman went on to obtain a BFA in film from S.U.N.Y. Purchase, being the only student in his class working in experimental film. In the 1990s Coleman's talents in music, film and art merged with the inception of the seminal band, Cop Shoot Cop. Joining up with a group of like-minded musical misfits, CSC released four full-length albums and several EP's and Singles on Big Cat Records and Interscope Records. Coleman also co-directed several of their music videos. Internationally acclaimed, CSC toured during the 90s doing shows with Iggy Pop, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soul Coughing, Jesus Lizard, and Henry Rollins.
By the time Cop Shoot Cop self imploded in 1996, Coleman had already begun scoring indie films and television series. He has worked with directors such as Todd Phillips, Hal Hartley, Beth B, and Richard Kern. He has also done a number of series and one-offs for television networks such as PBS, A&E, HBO and TLC.
From the late 1990's to the present, Coleman has been releasing original music and doing remixes as Phylr. This material is beat driven electronica, firmly rooted in sound collage with a strong cinematic sensibility. Coleman also has had two notable collaborations. The first was with Italian composer Teho Teardo and was called Here. The second was with J.G. Thirlwell as Baby Zizanie.
Trees features some extremely talented musicians: Kirsten McCord plays cello. Kirsten has a release on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label, and has worked with musicians such as Elliott Smith, Vic Chesnutt and Jarboe. Phil Puleo, drummer of Cop Shoot Cop and Swans, plays a variety of instruments, from wood flute to a variety of percussion. Phil was the drummer/percussionist in Cop Shoot Cop, and has since played extensively with Michael Gira in Swans. Dawn McCarthy adds vocals to 2 tracks. Dawn has several releases as Faun Fables on the Drag City label. Ellen Fullman plays her self -created long stringed instrument on two of the tracks as well. Ellen's music has been represented at The Whitney Museum, Lincoln Center and The Walker Arts Center.
Coleman on-goingly continues his sonic and visual explorations, creating original music and remixes as Phylr and continuing his forays in to the world of experimental video. He is also currently working on an ambient follow up to Trees, which is based on recordings of individual's near death experiences.
KEITH FULLERTON WHITMANOcclusionsLP Editions Mego DeMEGO026Release date: June 19http://editionsmego.comhttp://keithfullertonwhitman.com
Cut at 45 rpm Occlusion (Rue de Bitche)Recorded on February 18th, 2012 at LES ATELIERS DE BITCHE, Nantes, France.Performed on a 4.2 Quad Array, captured in stereo from the performer's perspective on a Zoom H1 HANDY RECORDER (auto level :: OFF)Occlusion (Weteringschans)
Recorded on February 25th, 2012 at PARADISO, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.Performed on a 4.2 Quad Array, captured in stereo from the performer's perspective on a Zoom H1 HANDY RECORDER (auto level :: ON)
Occlusion is a loose framework for a multi-channel, freely improvised piece of LIVE ELECTRONIC MUSIC, performed without the aid or consent of pre-recorded or even pre-arranged materials of any kind. A given realization will last between 10 and 30 minutes ; time is elastic. Every effort has been made to avoid divisible rhythms (although mistakes are occasionally made) ... Still, I consider it a \"kind\" of Dance Music.
These two realizations, recorded a week apart at festivals in France and The Netherlands during February 2012, capture the piece (much like those on the Generators LP) in two entirely different iterations, in states of (A) a mildly inebriated bliss & (B) an arbitrarily triggered blind rage. Both recordings were made at 24-bit, 96khz through the absolute cheapest means available to the consumer to do so. They sound fantastic.
Occlusions is a companion piece to Generators in that they share the same tool-set ... however, it is the FREE JAZZ yang to Generator's MINIMALIST yin. It is not recommended to those seeking meter, melody, cleanliness, or a clearly outlined organizational sense.
MATS LINDSTRÖMMIGLP Ideologic Organ SOMA006Release date: June 26http://editionsmego.com/releases/ideologic-organ
MIG produced by PRO ARTE Foundation for JSC "Klimov" Aviation Engines Museum, St Petersburg, Russia September 2011. Recording assistant: Vladislav Petrov, Producer: Ekaterina Puzankova.
IBM tracks recorded at EMS Elektronmusikstudion, Stockholm April 2012.
ONE tracks was premiered at San Servolo, Venezia, Italy, December 2008 together with Anna Koch "Scratch Memory".
Give Us the Tools .... was premiered at Theaterhaus Stuttgart, Germany July 2006 Dedicated to Hugh Davies.
Children of Paradise is a tape part remaining from the piece Sörmländsk tragedi for childrens string orchestra premiered at Kulturhuset Stockholm and Sveriges Radio P2 February 2003Photo by Erik Lee Snyder (December 2011).
Thanks to the administration of JSC "Klimov": Alexander Vatagin, Executive Director, Alexay Gridoriev, General Constructor, Larissa Yanushanets, Specialist of museum exposition and to the Russian Aircraft Corporation ???, Moderna Museet, Konstnärsnämnden, Fylkingen, DEGEM, SMI, WELD, Sveriges Radio, Rikskonserter, EMS-staff, Manfred Fox, Eckehard Güther, Daniel Teige, Eva-Britt Gratte, Mats Persson, Leo Hermodsson, Matilda Lindström and the Children of Paradise.
Mats Lindström works as a composer and a musician, often with strains of live-electronics. He often works with intermedia, scenic elements and visual arts as a complement to the music, and has worked both with music for concerts, theatre and dance as well as radio-art and sound installations. Formerly an engineer in the electronics industry Lindström has designed and constructed a number of unique electronic musical instruments and apparatuses.
MIKA VAINIO / KEVIN DRUMM / AXEL DÖRNER / LUCIO CAPECEVenexiaLP/DL PAN 28http://www.pan-act.com
Mika Vainio: Electronics.Kevin Drumm: Electronics.Axel Dörner: Trumpet, computer.Lucio Capece: Soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, sruti box.
The original idea of this project was to allow musicians from different scenes (but who shared common ideas) to work together. In this case, a development of two pre existent duos.
Quite often musicians from different sonic languages can be seen being put together, trying to push the artists to develop unexpected works. Vainio, Drumm, Dörner and Capece have mainly strong points in common, that have been executed in different contexts. The music map is generally divided into categories that are determined by it's most evident and often banal elements; if it has beats or not, if it is quiet or loud, if it has raw material or a carefully worked aesthetic. These four musicians have been working using all the previous elements, but these elements did not determine the music, they were used at the service of deeper ideas related to time and perception. How the sound of our environment can become music, how can music be attractive without telling a story, the work of sound in it's extreme: noise, granular and delicate, digital, electronic, instrumental extended techniques, preparations. Kevin Drumm and Axel Dörner started working together in the late 90's as part of a trio with Paul Lovens, As a duo they released an influential album on Erstwhile Records. Vainio and Drumm met in 2005 in Australia, both as part of the touring festival What is Music?. Even if both musicians declared to have a great time touring in Australia, they did never played together. Drumm's and Vainio's music is often compared by critics. Capece has released a duo CD on L'Innomable label with Axel Dörner and a trio one with Dörner and tubist Robin Hayward on Azul Discográfica label from New York. Dörner and Capece worked in several projects together, including a residence with Keith Rowe working on " Treatise" by Cornelius Cardew. Mika Vainio and Lucio Capece have released together the album "Trahnie". An album they worked for three years on, and also did several concerts as a duo.
In May 2008 the quartet made a 6 days residency and concert at Vooruit, in Gent, followed by a 5 concert European tour, that took them to Venice. In 2011 the group played at Konfrontationen Festival in Austria. In the meanwhile Capece and Vainio have been part of the Vladislav delay Quartet. Capece has played, and toured with Kevin Drumm in a trio with Radu Malfatti and Dörner has played with Drumm in a trio with Paul Lovens, at the Meteo festival, in France. The recording in Venice is a multitrack one. It was mixed by Capece with minimal edits, basically panning and volume adjustments.
NAZORANAIs/t2LP/CD Ideologic Organ SOMA009Release date: July 3http://editionsmego.com
KEIJI HAINO (guitar, vocals & synth)STEPHEN O'MALLEY (bass guitar)OREN AMBARCHI (battery)
Recorded by Chris Fullard at Gâité Lyrique, Paris 8th November 2011.Edited by Oren Ambarchi in Sydney January 2012. Mixed by Joe Talia & Oren Ambarchi at Chinatown, Melbourne 8th February 2012.Mastered by Joe Talia at Chinatown, Melbourne 17th April 2012. Vinyl cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin April 2012.Artwork: Lars Teichmann "Bathing Girls" & "Nymphos" (detail, 2010, photos by Annette Apel), "Fever" (detail, 2010, photo by Martino Gerosa).
Oren Ambarchi has been an active colleague, we have collaborated on a number of SUNN O))) projects, and also SUNN O))) related projects, film scores, tours, meals etcetera over the years. He brought us to Australia for the first time in 2004 (see SOMA010 notes), we toured Israel with Attila Csihar as GRAVETEMPLE TRIO in 2006. Oren introduced us to Haino-san in 2006 when SUNN O))) played FIMAV festival in Victoriaville Quebec (Oren was in the ensemble on that tour), in a stinky locker room (the venue was a hockey rig). Had no idea what to expect but a few hours later he was on stage with us. It was one of those "what now" moments you never imagine happening having been a fan/follower of Haino's playing, concerts and recordings over the years. 5 years later somehow we ended up as this trio. Haino, Oren and I were all in Holland for one reason or another and decided to try it. I played bass for the first time on stage with this group. Maybe it shows but the idea was a power trio backing up Haino-san, with a lot of amplification. We had the chance to repeat the trio twice again so far, and this recording comes from a concert in Paris November 2011. It's hard to describe the lessons through realtime communication in music with such a master of form, but needless to say they were much different than what I was expecting and beyond! Proof again that expectations lead to dead ends. Was a most challenging experience in real-time music. I feel incredibly honored to be part of this trio. - Stephen O'Malley
PLVS VLTRAParthenonLP Spectrum Spools SP018Release date: June 19http://editionsmego.com/releases/spectrum-spoolshttp://soundcloud.com/plvs-vltra
Spectrum Spools is pleased to release the debut album by veteran musician Toko Yasuda's PLVS VLTRA project.
Toko has been working for years already in established pop acts such as Enon, Blonde Redhead and now touring with St. Vincent handling synthesizer duties for live events. In all her years of songcraft there have been sparse, if any solo output, until now.
"And now for something different..." as we say here at the Spectrum Spools headquarters. "Parthenon" is a sugar-sweet album of catchy pop songs, crafted with expert precision and outstanding composition logic. Everything is locked in in a way that seems at once like clockwork, and also somehow very free. As if Alice Coltrane's "Universal Consciousness" was reimagined and sent into the future to be reimagined as an electronic pop record.. Most of the album's focus lies on the glowing, ethereal voice that is unmistakably exclusive to Yasuda. Swirling, fine tuned electronic washes and collaged clouds of ambiance swirl and hover around these mega catchy tunes giving them a fantastic depth which commands attention and repeat visits. Yasuda's songcraft here is in peak form as well, with ultra catchy hooks and addictive melodies that have been dialed in to perfection over the many years of making music. One of the most brilliant facets of "Parthenon" is the anti-genre omniverse vibe, where all borders and boundries set to confine music to a general one word descriptor are shattered. "Pop" is a word abused to catch-all, and like any great, well-thought album, "Parthenon" refuses to be pinned down. Here is your summer jam! Enjoy!
POLYSICKDigital Native2LP/CD Planet Mu Records ZIQ324Release date: June 18Vertrieb: Cargohttp://www.planet.mu/discography/ZIQ324
Rome's EGISTO SOPOR has been making little waves with his releases for quite a while now. Since we've known him he's released a cdr album on Legowelt's Strange Life Records and put a cassette out on the much admired 100% Silk label, both under the name 'Polysick'. As 'TheAwayTeam' he's released a DVD 'Relax & Sleep' and a cd 'Star Kinship' on Japanese label Maomoo. He is also one half of the low key video unit AAVV, whose work has graced many of the important releases of new lofi electronic movement.
Well, here is his first album proper 'Digital Native', 15 tracks of glowing, nocturnal, analogue grace that hark back to acid house and early techno, but with a mood and intent that seems to be designed for watching images dance on closed eyelids. It's no surprise that his work as a video artist resonates so strongly with the music he makes.
Polysick says of his approach, "When i make music I always have a visual part in mind. In this case, many of the tracks have been influenced by visions of tribal nocturnal mysterious explorations like in 'Preda' which is the italian word for "quarry". I tried to convey a sense of mystery and danger with those swirling flutes and the timpani rolls too, like if you were in the middle of a jungle, in a deep dark night and you're running away through the trees, haunted, like in some of those old zombie splatter movies from the 80's.. same with 'Tic-Tac Toe', with that clock ticking and the deep bass..."
Polysick has tapped straight into the synthetic pleasures of early dance music's otherworldly pulses, the hypnotic arpeggios of Italo disco, soaring Detroit chords, cosmic disco, the '4th World' music of Jon Hassell and the library exotics of Piero Umiliani. This is body music for the resting body, Imagine a nexus between early acid house and Italo music being used for mental therapy, exotic travelling and imagining, exciting the brain waves and journeying into imagined spaces. 'Digital Native' is set in this imagined line of enquiry.
ROBERT HAMPSONRepercussionsCD+DVD Editions Mego eMEGO132Release date: June 12http://editionsmego.comhttp://www.roberthampson.com
Disc One: Stereo VersionDisc Two: 5.1 Surround Mix Version
Editions Mego is very happy to announce the release Robert Hampson's 2nd solo album under his own name. Released as a special Stereo CD and 5.1 Surround DVD.
Répercussions : An Acousmatic multi channel piece commissioned by the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) in Paris for a performance the Akousma festival, diffused on the Acousmonium speaker system in 2011. Recordings of percussive intruments of all kinds - Piano, Drum skins, Gamelan, Metal grates etc are treated and manipulated to form a dense nonlinear or non rhythmical narrative. Each instrument has been 'remixed' repeatedly, to change it's sonic shape or timbre, to try and form new textures from normally recognisable ones. A more direct 2 channel Stereo version is available and a 5.1 surround version, mixed at the GRM, gives an idication of how the piece was originally conceived as a diffusion.
De la Terre à la Lune : An Acousmatic multi channel piece commissioned by Espace Mendes France for a performance at The Planetarium in Poitiers, France, diffused on a 8 channel system. The second piece, following Ahead - Only The Stars (released on 'Vectors' - Touch 2009) which takes it influence from the early Nasa missions into space, but more directly from films such as Kubrick's 2001, Tarkovsky's Solaris and even earlier films such as Pal's Conquest Of Space. Of course, there is also a serious debt to Jules Verne's novel of the same name. Again, a straight Stereo version and 5.1 diffusion mix are available.
Antarctic Ends Here : Originally released as part of a split 10" vinyl only issue with Cindytalk on Edtions Mego, this piece has it's first digital format release in Stereo and also 5.1 surround. 3 Textural drones, derived from single piano notes, stretched and looped blend with a field recording of large Bamboos rustling on a breezy Autumn day. Overlayed is a simple and repetitive piano motif which gradually disintegrates into a spectral blur. It's title is in homage to John Cale's final song on the album Paris 1919 'Antarctica Starts Here' and the piece is dedicated to him.
SENKINGDazed12" raster-noton R-N 142Vertrieb: Kompakthttp://www.raster-noton.net
with dazed", senking continues his exploration of the abysses of sound to create dark and gloomy atmospheres. the slow beats of the two tracks are accompanied by tender, harmonic melodies, but broken by nervous, unsteady tones which seem to be a warning against hidden dangers. the first track the dance hall walk" also features a vocal sample by micheal cramm - a text which reflects the nervousness and excitement in anticipation of some thrilling thingsto come. like tweek", senking's last ep, dazed" is not only concerned with the depths of sound, but also with the depths of the human psyche, where there is no escape other than music itself.
a1 the dance hall walk 7:00b1 closing eyes 7:00
SENSATE FOCUSSensate Focus 512" Sensate Focus 5http://editionsmego.com/releases/sensate-focus
SIMON SCOTTBelow Sea LevelCD 12k 1071Vertrieb: A-Musikhttp://www.12k.comhttp://simonscott.org
Below Sea Level is the first 12k release from seasoned electronic/post-rock artist Simon Scott. The inspiration behind Below Sea Level, including its music, title, artwork and photography (see accompanying journal) originally derives from Scott's desire to musically explore the desolate and controversial environment of the Fens in East Anglia, UK. The memories Scott has of visiting this area as a child makes this a poignant and highlypersonal project that explores nostalgic familiarity with a desire to capture the musicality of the landscape. For two years Scott ventured into this former wetland with hydrophones and self-built recording devices to explore the land that is cartographically below mean sea level, trace the devastating history of this environment caused by the drainage of the land, and arrange it into conceptual musical and visual project. Scott has, in the main, eschewed the guitar backbone of his previous releases, preferring instead to capture the timbres and textures of the landscape to form the basis for the seven tracks. His signature reverberated guitar does still surface, the beginning of the album begins with sparse finger picking reminiscent of Laughing Stock-era Talk Talk, but it only adds brief flickers of colour to the central field recordings throughout the album.
Below Sea Level explores the aesthetics of active listening and, via a self-built MaxMSP patch, digitally disects the natural and man-made recordings Scott discovered within the Fens. The juxtaposing of analogue and digital timbres and textures, the man-made and natural world sounds, create epic interwoven soundscapes that blend the recognizable (birdsong) with undistinguishable sounds, sometimes confusing what is natural and synthetic. Scott presents an abstraction of a place that is arranged and manipulated for aural contemplation outside of the Fens (in alien environments) where the music collaborates with each unique listening environment.
The aforementioned journal is a limited-pressing 68-page-color, small (13X20cm), hardcover book that includes Scott's essay entitled An Exploration of the Subterranean Fenland Environment, many pages of hand-written notes and sketches and a section of photography from the area. This book will be available on its own with a download code for the album as well as bundled with the CD. It is a beautiful and essential look at the process and thoughts behind Scott's passionate and in-depth work on this subject.
SIR RICHARD BISHOPIntermezzoLP Ideologic Organ SOMA010Release date: June 26http://editionsmego.com/releases/ideologic-organhttp://www.sirrichardbishop.net
All songs composed & recorded by Richard Bishop. Master & vinyl cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin April 2012.Photo by Ronald Dick. All Songs published by Karakoram Publishing (BMI).Originally self released on CDR by Sir Richard Bishop 2011.
"I met Richard in 2004 on a crazy tour in Australia (Oren Ambarchi's last "What is Music?"). He was a founding member of The Sun City Girls but he came out to play solo. Instantly we were entranced by his playing, so many beautiful elements of why I love guitar come through in his music and presence, without floating around in genre space at all. Here on the road with Kevin Drum, Dead C, Residents, Gang Gang Dance, Black Dice, etc amongst this insane lineup Richard ended up supporting Pan Sonic and really held it down, as a soloist. A few years later Peter Rehberg and I (as KTL) were invited to join a tour Richard was doing with EARTH. His incredible communication of atmosphere and texture was even more fluid than I remembered a real pleasure. If the reason to start a record label is to release the music you are truly enamored by, this is a true example of that philosophy." - Stephen O'Malley, Paris 2012
― scott seward, Monday, 14 May 2012 16:45 (eleven years ago) link