Pole - CD1: C/D?

It is easy to dog it in 2003, but it was a work of genius 5 years ago. Let's take everything berlin, and strip it down to absolutely nothing. Rhythm and Sound is not extreme enough for us, basic channel needs to be taken to the logical conclusion! I used to listen to this LP over and over again at 33rpm at -16% because the pops and crackles and hiss were so choice. This slotted in so well with Thomas Koner and Oval. It was like minimal abstract ambient meets hiss and click before Mille Plateaux made a brand name out of the concept.

This record reminds me of the old gigs I used to do at this shitty little dive coffee house on Broadway that was called The Io. That was back when the very first Kompakt records were coming out, Klang Elektronik was the shit, and everything Basic Channel was cannon. It was such a mash of everything good from Redcell, to Detroit Escalator Company, Studio One, Thomas Brinkmann, Apollo Records, to RLW. I miss those days so much.

CD1 is an example of someone who got it absolutely right on the first go -- I really think they needn't have bothered making more records. It reminds me of a Miles Davis adage about thinking of a sound and then not making it.

It's also a record that works for me first thing in the morning or last thing at night in a way that few others do.

This is why I never bought "2" or "3". Should I have?

I always thought POle 3 represented the perfect culmination of that earler sound though. it just seems mor esoldi and involving that the earlier stuff.

i prefer 2 to 1, but theres a track on poile 1 - 'modul', which hits the spot everytime. gorgeouys bass.

pole 2 was my first 'headphone music' (urghh). ie, i just sat in my room, put it up to supaloud and listened on my headphones..
maybe i should do that again sometime....

You mean, there's more?

By the way, have any of you heard the Nonplace Urban Field (=Friedmann) 1996 EP "Raum für Notizen"? It has a quite similar sound to Pole's records, especially on the first track. I think that's where Pole might've gotten some of his inspiration from.

Such a great record. I still feel like there's some weird kinship between this and Rome's s/t on Thrill Jockey.

I'd really like some recommendations for quiet electronic dub.

Stuff a bit like this, especially:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbD4jHBmyzo

I'd recommend checking out Nonplace Urban Field and other projects by Burnt Friedman. He has a similar approach to dub as Pole, though he's more versatile and often less serious. NUF's "Whimp" (from the Raum für Notizen minialbum) sounds like a blueprint for the Pole type of minimal dub, even though it came out 2 years before Pole's debut. Friedman's (now defunct) label Incoming! also released plenty of good experimental dub and downtempo stuff back in the 90s.

Besides the NUF and Incoming! records, this album by Friedman & co (released on Pole's label) is wonderful piece of quiet dub too. And my favourite dub album on ~scape is Kit Clayton's Nek Sanalet, it's just as good as Pole's best work. (Nek Sanalet is not as quiet as Pole though, IMO it's closer to Stay Down by 2 Lone Swordsmen.)

I was really in the mood to listen to CD1 while I did computer stuff. But then my computer spent a full 30 minutes updating various software and now I'm just ready to listen to Stick Men With Ray Guns while punching the monitor rhythmically.

Ahh okay here we go. Raum is playing and I'm under a calm blue ocean.