Isolee

Ricardo Villalobos - 'What You Say' Isolee remix (white)
Isolee - 'My Himatic' (Playhouse)
Tiga - 'You Gonna Want Me' Isolee remix (PIAS)
Egoexpress - 'Aranda' Isolee remix (Ladomat)
Isolee - 'Monstermania' (white)
Willson - (unreleased track) (white)
Isolee - 'All Over' (white)

dunno if I'm feeling the latter half...

*what the fuck is the point of creating something that is designed to be an easy to access CD compilation of recent popular tracks from your label, and then putting the most drool worthy song on the vinyl editon. At least the Total series, have the excuse of a) not being exlusively best of compilations, and b) the vinyl exclusives being being aimed at the DJ use - the isolee remix falls into neither catagory. Sooky behaviour is now over, and thanks again for the mix.

Similarly annoying was how Booka Shade put one of the absolute best Memento album tracks ("Aint' Got Much To Lose") on the vinyl release only, though at least in that case I was able to track it down.

http://www.kompakt-mp3.net/cwMP3Shop/images/temp/6d9d4698b6627c88dcf3ef6093b423e5.gif

01 BLEU [05:28]
02 INITIATE II [06:04]
03 ROCKERS [05:35]
04 MONITOR [06:24]
05 SURFERS [06:27]
06 SIMONE RIDES [06:12]
07 KING OFF [05:35]
08 CITE GRANDE TERRE [04:01]
09 POISSON MORT [01:16]
10 I OWE YOU (RMX) [04:37]
11 LOST [09:30]
12 BEAU MOT PLAGE (FREEFORM REFORM PT.1&2) [10:34]

It's released.

tracklist:
a1 - cite grande terre (lucianos luck of lucien edit)
b1 - lost (and then stripped by the glimmers)
c1 - djamel et jamshid (villalobos edit)
d1 - bleu (dixon edit)

okay, the a side of raum einz 12" (1997) is pretty good so far. really warm and queasy keyboards a la rest, but the drums are more bouyant, like on the western store record. maybe not the most cohesive thing he's ever done. it has this breezy five note ascending 1 2 3 4 descending 5 keyboard riff that screams seashore. where is that lebanese beach party thread?

also, this is just as detailed as anything he's ever done. there are so many sounds! it's almost too decadent but of course that is the perfect amount.

b side really wispy synth stuff... boring? yes. also trite. oh well. has a nice piano break near the end, though - sounds like end of dfa remix of relevee.

the new single's a little blah, straightahead techhouse with some neat sounds but none of the sense of melody of playfulness of wearemonster

curious

HOlding anyone up to the standard of Wearemonster is flat out unfair!

Well how about holding the single up against the rest of Isolee's catalogue? Oh wait that's still unfair. I guess you're right that the single is fantastic when compared to pretty much any other techhouse I've heard, but....

I have to admit I was a bit surprised by the release - after his recent remix of the Imps I was more worried his new work would be a bit aimless rather than focussed but blah techhouse with neat sounds.

Haven't heard the single. How is that IMPS CD? (I asked on another thread but got no response :( )

I've only heard it in bits and pieces as the 12"s were released - I would say its a by-the-numbers release - but considering the people involved - fehlmann, isolee, jelinek, etc that it is still pretty damn good. The Strategy remix was a pretty nice surpise. I wasn't expecting anything much from him - but he provided a nice piece of cartoonish bump.

I shouldn't be too mean to October yet - have only listened to it a couple of times. It's just that I was appalled by the idea of not judging Isolee by his previous work - I like judging Isolee by Isolee standards because he's spent a decade or so meeting them.

is this on playhouse? bizarre, i hadn't heard anything about it....

it's on diynamic

xxpost: I think you were taking me a bit too seriously (though I have bought many records on the basis of 'this is the guy who made wearemonster') Just saying it's a hell of mark to meet, for anyone.

Don't worry I wasn't taking you too seriously (hell, I/everybody knows Wearemonster was a let down after Can't Sleep All night).

october is fucking great

way more restrained but it's still got all his lovely little twists and turns in the arrangement

the 'fun' is all under the surface of that very generic pad stab

can't wait from another album from this guy

October would be much better if the first 2-3 minutes were just cut. On the other hand Isolee's Albacares 12" for Mule is classic, tied together with a lovely goofy guitar loop. It almost makes the October 12" a deliberate slap in Diynamic's face - deny me my Stefan Marx cover etc.

^^ yes this new one on mule is great, b-side track is funky as hell too

Just catching up (a few months late) with "October" - which I do like a lot, but OH MY GOD THE B-SIDE ("A Nightingale") - a wonderful creation, full of unexpected twists and turns. Surprised that it hasn't been talked about here at all?

New album in January. :)

YESSSSSSSSSS

Details from Resident Advisor

http://www.residentadvisor.net/images/news/2010/isolee-well-spent-youth.jpg

Isolee's next album is called Well Spent Youth, and will come out on January 21st via DJ Koze's Pampa Records.

Real name Raijko Mueller, Isolee is one of the most acclaimed producers of the past decade, thanks to his lush but minimalist style of house music. His early singles on Playhouse helped lay the foundation for microhouse in the '00s, especially 1998's Beau Mot Plage. Seven years later he released We Are Monster, an album that cemented his reputation as one of electronic music's richest talents and remains something of a classic today. Since then his output has slowed, with just a few EPs and compilation appearances in the past few years, though this fall he released a new 12-inch on Dial, The Fantastic Researches Of Yushin Maru.

Well Spent Youth features 11 new tracks by Mueller, making it his biggest release since We Are Monsters. It also marks the first album on DJ Koze's Pampa Records.

Tracklist
01. Paloma Triste
02. Thirteen Times an Hour
03. Taktell
04. Journey's End
05. Going Nowhere
06. One Box
07. Celeste
08. Trop Pres De Toi (97' Interlude)
09. Hold On
10. Transmission
11. In Our Country Paloma Triste

ooh good - really liked the albacares ep from last year

oh and its on pampa!

can't wait, this is great news

Psyched for this. Might be time to dig out Wearemonster again.

When is it not time to!

ooh good - really liked the albacares ep from last year

― cherry blossom, Thursday, 25 November 2010 15:43 (8 minutes ago)

yeah, and october/nightingale were awesome too

he's super talented no doubt

2011 hasn't even begun and we already have the album of the year, mean ol' Pampa for letting it leak so early.

holy shit, rapidshare is fast!

― ken taylrr has gone off the internet because of you (ken taylrr), Monday, 3 October 2005 21:12 (5 years ago)

want!

this is very good. wearemonster was super tuneful but this is more restrained, no really obvious standout tracks but the quality of the architecture is unmistakeable. reminds me a little of newworldaquarium's 'the dead bears' from a few years ago.

This splits the difference between Rest and Wearemonster. Pretty incredible album. Heavy replay value.

yeah i've had it playing pretty consistently for the last three days. i've never quite loved 'rest', although it must have seemed pretty amazing in 2000. wearemonster was of course great, but i think i like his recent singles more than either of them.

I think I'll go with that as well, summery is wrong, but Isolee's restraint gives the tracks a certain lightness of touch that belies the tracks' compulsive details. Hearing Paloma Triste on Isolee's Beats in Space session (plus the relatively reduced length of the album tracks) had lead me to suspect that he'd turned Well Spent Youth into an outlet for his more tuneful work, but I'm kind of happy he followed through with the numbed* trackiness of his recent singles.

*High compliment obviously.

Just became obsessed with We Are Monster after revisiting it this year. My tastes are at a point where I like more than ever since it came out.

There are worse places to be - just make sure you have his Hermelin EP, and The Jacko Theme, both are continuations/improvements of his Monster style.

hermelin is only thing of is i didn't rate

~his~

I've never loved the track Hermelin wholeheartedly, but Sleazy Bee sounds like g-funk made out of drool and slobber - and all the better for it, while Willy Skipper's gradual transmogrification into an oily acid belter marks the peak of Isolee's constant-mutation approach.

If you ask me, the whole Hermelin EP is entirely ace

Incredible Isolee mix on this weeks Resident Advisor podcast.

Kind of underwhelmed by the new album, anyone have a different first impression?

I keep hoping that the version I grabbed is actually a fake

:(

it's streaming here; http://3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal/
I'm really enjoying it. Certainly not the hooks and sound palette as Wearemonster. I think he said in an interview he didn't want to repeat the 'indie' sound and wanted it to be more electronic.

Got it in the post a month ago, gave it a listen and struggled to get into it though I was getting over i particulaly bad bout of flu. Im up for giving it another whirl, I like the last EP he did on Diynamic

was wearemonster really 'indie'?

'indie feel' is the phrase he used in interview here http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=244 I think of Wearemonster having an influence on Four tet etc, so perhaps that is what he is getting at? Well Spent Youth and Rest feel more 'electronic' in comparison.

Wearemonster came out in 2005. four tet's previous album (before 2010) also came out in 2005, then he took a 5 yr break. i dont hear the influence, not to mention see how it's possible given that timeline ¯\(°_o)/¯

maybe if he was influenced by Rest?

I think maybe he's responding to the relative crossover appeal of Wearemonster, and that he just means that this is something less accessible (not in the way that say, Schrapnel is to those not heavily into electronic music).

I just heard Isolee's Kandy Beat off the Katapult compilation. Oogly Boogly! Either it's been completely mislabeled or it's Isolee doing a Luomo (as a variation on four tet) - right down to the breathy vocals.

Well Spent Youth is great.

I'm so late to the party on these guys, and on minimalist/micro/whatever kind of house this is.

Now I'm doubly confused: once by Kandy Beat and a second time by my Four Tet reference. The Luomo bit still holds.

FWIW I think this is an album that gets a lot better in its second half. I mean I love the fake slap bass in Paloma Triste but other than that I think it really starts to pick up at One Box. Celeste and Hold On are great to and Transmission is kind of the standout of the record for me.

Beginning of Fall is a good time to listen to Rest

title track of the new ep is gorgeous

http://soundcloud.com/pamparecords/pampa013-isol-e-allowance-1

Like the way the track ends as something else seems to be in the beginning.

Thanks - love that, been catching up w/Isolee and others since xmas.

weird how it took so long to come out, he was on beats in space fucking ages ago playing new stuff. like a year or maybe two.

new track sounds amazing btw

man, allowance -- beautiful

three-song thing showed up on Spotify -- is that the whole EP or is more coming?

just realised allowance is so like booka shade.

I'm hearing Allowance in lots of mixes used in different ways and it works so well every time, great track.

It's got more than a bit of a 'Night Falls' vibe to it but at the same time I could never imagine Booka Shade making a track like 'Allowance' even when they were good. It reminds me of something earlier as well that I can't put my finger on, something late 90s IDMish.

Amazing track anyway.

Looks like it's a 3 track EP. Disappointed 'Wobble' wasn't a Skrillex cover tbh. 'You could do your memories' also has a prettiness to it.

New 3-track out, p nice. I love the bass whomp on the first track.

the kick whomp I mean

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJTF_Qe7mJM

rest is the best album ever made

it really is though

I bought it years ago based on hyperbole (or heartfelt sincerity!) about its greatness and never really got it.

It's definitely a classic dance full length for me, sounds so ahead of its time too. Can't believe that stuff came out 1999/2000. Funky squiggly digital shards, headphuq tech

On the basis of this thread I'm listening to 'Rest' for the first time in maybe ten years and wow. I know 'Beau Mot Plage' has unimpeachable classic status already but people should really talk more about the rest of the album in the same breath as 'Alcachofa'.

It’s good but Villalobos is on another level (and not just on Alcachofa).

I've seen those photos of him gurning, you're right

ok yeah yeah i know isolee "rest", last night i played a beau mot plage remix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWCoQbabBRs

but really friends ... losoul "belong"!

Belong is a wonderful album - I’ve been super into LoSoul’s 90s stuff lately. I mean, I aways was into it but have been finally buying those record in the last year. That said, I just got “Getting Even” last week, after long being hesitant about it - I was right, it’s not very good. But Belong though.

Anyways, Rest is good but I’ve never felt it compared to Wearemonster, which is definitely among my top albums of the 21st century.

Ginster 12" is pretty good. "Sudden Frost" is possibly the highlight.

new album sounds really good in this hot weather we're having: crisp, bumpy and rumbling all at once

I would def take rest over wearemonster, always felt like the latter’s acclaim was a little ott

agreed, I do like “today” off wearemonster a lot, though, it reminds me of flash and the pan or something

I actually listened to Wearemonster recently for the first time in many years and was mostly like yeah this bangs

Wearemonster is not as good as Rest, and yes some of the acclaim was more reflective of how Isolee's rep had grown in the interim (Rest and Vocalcity both had a lot of people playing catch-up between 2001 and 2003, but Isolee more than most probably got a boost from the crossover acclaim for Alchachofa as well) than of the album itself, but it's still pretty great, and its layered mutating disco sound really caught the moment, it feels a bit like a prequel to the first Lindstrom and Prins Thomas album that came out later in the year.

the packaging of “rest” is timeless and classic, that probably rubs off on how i hear the music (vs his other efforts)

they just reissued the holy garage remix single, which has 1996 isolee on one nice and 1996 losoul on the other, their remixes neatly encapsulate their dynamic

I always liked Wearemonster better for whatever reason

I never got the ambivalence towards wearemonster, or the idea that it pales compared to rest. To me it’s such a high-water mark of my favourite dance-music sounds, whereas Rest is great but never had that kind of gut-level feeing. The Stefan Marx covers on isolee releases feel more classic to me too, compared to Rest. But Wearemonster also has the benefit of being released at a formative time for me, so I may be biased. But I also just love about everything isolee does and have huge respect for him, so I suppose I don’t really care which album is less good.

for me it’s something like this: isolee and losoul stand in front of a bubbling cauldron, asking themselves “what can we possibly add to improve this heady minimal house brew?” after some consideration, one of them says “i know, we’ll add a generous splash of post rock!”

and the soup was forever ruined

"my hi-matic" is one of my fav tracks ever, it goes on a whole ass fantasy adventure without ever feeling like it's breaking minimal house kayfabe like some of the other tracks do