Opinions on FAX Records and Pete Namlook

Yeah, it's a no-brainer.

I wonder what's next? If anything

Drum and bass.

It also appears to be recorded live in parts - there's clapping on it. Processed clapping but definitely applause and someone saying thank you.

Oh, it says as much in the booklet (only vol 8). There's also an advert for the third box...

indeed - recorded live.

http://www.klaus-schulze.com/disco/3991da.htm

and yeah, the d-n-b section took me by surprise as well.

I remember reading some interview where Namlook said it was Schulze who wanted to bring the contemporary dance music sound into TDSotM, Namlook would've been fine with just some old-school synth jamming. Though Namlook himself wasn't averse to trying to follow current electronic music trends, IIRC he even made a full drum'n'bassy album in the 90s with one of his collaborators? And some of his early 00s material is trying to sorta imitate the electrocrash sound, though not very succesfully, I would say.

Haha that's exactly how I imagine those recent collaborative recordings of Jean-Michel Jarre with various younger producers go...they come to Jarre's studio all excited how they're finally going to patch analogue synths with the master, and instead the first thing Jarre asks is: "alors, were do I pute ze dubstep wobble?".

third and final boxset of DSOTM arrived this weekend.
volume 9 is sounding rather good.
glad i decided to get the full set now.

Reissue of Zenith (Carlos Vivanco, Tetsu Inoue) on Psychonavigation Records.

Hmmm.

https://www.discogs.com/group/thread/718249

Sadly, that Zenith screwup wasn't just a solitary case, Psychonavigation Records is also planning to reissue Peter Benisch's "Waiting for Snow" against the direct wishes of the artist:

https://www.discogs.com/group/thread/725019

I guess, given the rarity of many FAX releases, it'd be inevitable some vultures would gather around its corpse, but this is still very sad. On top of that, it seems Psychonavigation hasn't paid any royalties to many of the other artists whose records they've released. So at this point I'd recommend boycotting the whole label. Since the rights of FAX albums now seem to have reverted back to the artists, hopefully we're going to see some well done and legit reissues in the future, like the Dark Side of the Moog boxes.

Of course that won't be happening Tetsu Inoue's albums anytime soon, with him still missing... It's sad that the circumstances have made it impossible for his records to be reissued legitimately, but I still wouldn't buy a bootleg that only benefit scammers like Psychonavigation and not his family (or whoever it is to whom the royalties should go).

very strange

https://www.discogs.com/group/thread/728417

The whole Psychonavigation debacle just keeps getting more ridiculous, the label owner has now started a new label called "Where Ambient Lives", apparently under a false name. This is seemingly to distance the new label from the justified bad rep he's gotten from releasing albums without the artist's permission and not paying any royalties.

mickchillage about 17 hours ago

As a previous artist of Keith Reid aka Keith Downey aka John Williams etc via his Psychonavigation imprint, I can confidently state that all criticism are fair game at this stage. He doesn't pay any royalties or supply any statements, tells artists he makes no money and their CD's haven't sold, so why is he still in business after all these years? Seeing your passionate hard work end up in one of his bargain bin €1.00 sales is an absolute insult too any artist!

He gets abusive when you disagree with artwork, formats and packaging, therefore not respecting the artists vision often bullying to get his own way, referring to artists as "Muppets" in nasty threatening emails. Peter Benisch recently fell into a nasty situation with a re-release of "Waiting For Snow" and was forced to expose the situation on social media.

These are not isolated incidents, many people have messaged me privately or have spoken openly on social media about their similar experiences, so there is a solid pattern here sadly.

Lets not forget about the Re-issue of Tetsu Inoue's Zenith Collab, how did he obtain the rights when Tetsu's closest musical friends have not made contact with him for years? When asked about this, Keith has replied "Mind your own business" or "Its a private matter" so no respect for potential consumers of his product or those who are either passed away or missing ?

Kicking a dead horse it may be but if Keith was a different sort of guy with some kind of moral compass and integrity he could have redeemed his character and label but instead he chooses to continue with more ways to try and cheat consumers and artist with false identities and labels.

If you ask me he's like an ugly wart on our small and precious scene that just wont go away.

Spent the last few weeks listening to a bunch of these records, some highlights observations:

Dark Side of the Moog series is hit or miss. I find myself more interested in the bits that are more purely Klaus (or Klaus-inspired, as I gather Namlook would've been perfectly happy doing retreads of the 70s records and Schulze wanted to fold in more electro stuff).

Electro Harmonix by Tetsu Inoue and Jonah Sharp -- really nice synth textures for about an hour.

Wechselspannung I + II by Jonah Sharp and Namlook are good ones -- I gather Sharp played a ton of analog synths and Namlook chopped them up on his sampler and turned them into the rhythms. These records probably fit my vision of what I wanted FAX to be: analog squiggles and spacey textures absent dance or house dogma that often drags me uncomfortably into 1994.

To that end, I also really found myself liking the Richie Hawtin From Within records. I was expecting these to be far more dance-y than they are based on Hawtin's rep. But they're surprisingly spacey and enjoyable.

I totally agree on you with all those points. The From Within albums aren't like any Hawtin solo material that I've heard, and yet (according to Namlook) he was more responsible for the synths and Namlook for the beats, not the other way around, as you'd expect.

The DSotM is really overrated within the FAX catalogue, mostly it just sounds like two guys randomly noodling with synths in Namlook's studio (which most likely is exactly how they were done) with not much rhyme or reason, and the bits with the beats (which were indeed there on Schulze's insistence, as Namlook would've been happy to just do old school space music) are dated. Some of Namlook's solo records on FAX are better at capturing the spirit of 1970s synth music than the ones he did with an actual '70s synth legend.

If you liked the Wechselspannung albums, you should check out the two Alien Community albums by Namlook and Sharp too. They're largely in the same mold, but more spacey and less electro.

Agree as well, those mentioned were among the ones I returned to most. I'd say most of Wechselspannung is kind of redundant - just skip to part 5 (I think) for the pretty gated melody, the beats are clunky. Sharp does a similar thing in Floating Sync on Electro Harmonix. Actually I never felt Wechselspannung 2 or the Alien Communities were particularly essential. From Within is very nice, Homeward Bound in particular obvs.

These are all 'entry level' Fax but for a reason. See also Dreamfish and Silence.

If you want to check out a classic period FAX album where the samples and beats are treated in a more unique and interesting fashion, I'd recommend Modula Green's Shellground. The fact that it's not by any of the "name" FAX artists also means you can get a used copy for relatively cheap, but IMO it's on the same level as any of the better known albums from the golden age of 1993–1995.

so, a week ago i broke 2 ribs in my back and have been housebound ever since.
the only viable soundtrack to such a situation = a lot of FAX.
so, today after months of promising myself i would do it, i tidied up my digital FAX collection making it a lot more simple to find my FAX stuff via Sonos (and realised that i had never digitised From Within 2 !).
and yeah, while they may be overrated by those that picked up all the DSoTM releases at the time, i didn't.
hence they have become a big part of this weeks needs.

i found out last night that air II has aged very badly

will give dreamfish a try tonight

other than a track on the Ambient Cookbook i never heard any of the AIR releases.
suspect you will think dreamfish hasn't aged well, but since i picked up Thief by Tangerine Dream last week, i have been in the mood for synth music, so its all hitting the spot for me.

air has a lot of uh "ethno percussion" and didgeridoo jamz

and didgeridoo jamz

ouch.

none of those on either DF releases, just lots synth washes and twinkly bleepy arpeggios

yeah i seem to recall he said air (or at least air ii) was his attempt to blend ambient + world music

i have had the first dreamfish for years now but rarely break it out ... when i am in the mood for mixmaster morris i usually break out "global chillage" instead

i love GC.
speaking of MMM.
he has just released a new album.
his first in quite a while :
https://www.discogs.com/The-Irresistible-Force-Kira-Kira/master/1235636

i used to have (20 years ago, when i was in college) a reflective global chillage poster on my bedroom wall (basically a blown-up 2' x 2' version of the cover on thick cardstock)

don't recall where i got it or where it ended up :-(

its holographic coverart is very much of its time.

'School of Fish' off the first Dreamfish is one of my favourite Fax tracks period. There's some surprisingly deep sub bass lurking in its depths. The rest of the record doesn't quite live up to that high.

There's some surprisingly deep sub bass lurking in its depths.

indeed, as i found earlier.
i only ever listened to my FAX collection via low spec kit before today.
was lovely to experience the sound in a far more appropiate manner at last.

http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2018/11/fax-pete-namlook?fbclid=IwAR3KmyMrPjtbxri6lWJ-i7VK6ca5UTYeyLjjUpXHM4SWigepDJJ9CfxTFZQ
bookmarked for reading

enjoyed that.
ta for the pointer.

yes, good stuff

Great read, thanks Willem

..
I had no idea re DSOTM XI !
and yet I have the boxsets.
its very JMJ-esque with a lot more beats than the rest of the collabs.
ta for the nudge Tuomas.

Yeah, apparently they were gonna stop at X, but decided to do XI after all. It's pretty nice, like I said in the other thread, DSotM is not among my favourite FAX series (especially when they try to sound "contemporary" with all those d'n'b beats etc, which apparently was Schulze's idea, not Namlook's), but the final album is cool.

I've always felt a wave of melancholy when I think of Fax. The label passed me by during its heyday. Now Pete Namlook is dead, Tetsu Inoue appears to have vanished from the face of the early, presumably dead, the label is defunct, not just defunct but destroyed in such a way that most of the master tapes have been chucked out and no-one owns the rights any more. jeffery up the page back in 2005 points out the CDs go for high prices on the used market, and that's still the case. I'm sure you can get reissues, but just like the Vivien Meyer industry they're all vultures selling something they didn't help create.

And the music. It was the future in the late 1990s but now we live in the actual future most of it sounds very much of its time. There's a great internet ambient radio station called Sleepbot, and a fantastic podcast called Low Light Mixes - that's how I hear 90% of music - and they occasionally play tracks from Fax records, and they're good! The label's output appears to have been consistently good. It sounds very old-fashioned, even the later stuff like Inland, but because it was mostly minimal it hasn't dated all that badly. But there's still something wistful about futuristic music that wasn't really futuristic after all.

I didn't realise until recently that 2350 Broadway was an actual building. Bretton Hall, which at one time was apparently an artists' collective:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Hall_(Manhattan)

"In the early 1980s, an organization called Artists Assistance Services rented out apartments in the Bretton Hall to people in the arts, with the unusual proviso that they would have to share the use of the space with a "cultural activity" such as a karate class."

I wonder if Namlook etc benefited from this, or if it had stopped long before the 1990s. A quick google reveals that Wikipedia's source is an article in New York magazine from May 1985. "One of the things that seems most unfair about Upper West Side gentrification is that the people who paved the way for it, the musicians and artists who made it chic, are now among the ones being forced out by higher prices."

Apparently rents were really high in New York in 1985 and landlords weren't afraid to use underhand methods to drive the poorer tenants out. But that was 1985, I imagine things are a lot better now. Let's hope it doesn't happen here in Britain!

Meanwhile I am off to light the candle I use for heating in my unheated and in fact roof-less bedsit.

Hi, nice post. I hope you find some warmth.

As far as I know, Tetsu is still alive and well!

There were a bunch of these in Flashback in Islington this afternoon. No obvious bargains though.

and they occasionally play tracks from Fax records, and they're good! The label's output appears to have been consistently good. It sounds very old-fashioned, even the later stuff like Inland, but because it was mostly minimal it hasn't dated all that badly

great post.
this to the power of xxxx.
welcome to the FAX family Ashley.
better late than never.

the label is defunct, not just defunct but destroyed in such a way that most of the master tapes have been chucked out and no-one owns the rights any more. jeffery up the page back in 2005 points out the CDs go for high prices on the used market, and that's still the case. I'm sure you can get reissues, but just like the Vivien Meyer industry they're all vultures selling something they didn't help create.

I'm sure the rights for Namlook's solo recordings are owned by his daughter, but it doesn't seem she's interested in reissuing those. And the rights of collaborations and non-Namlook albums seem to have reverted back to the other artists, who are free to reissue them as they see fit. AFAIK the only vulture who's tried to take advantage of this state of things is Keith Downey and his psychonavigation label, as discussed above. But besides that, all the other reissues (DSotM, Fires of Ork, Lorenzo Montana, Labyrinth, etc.) are either released by the artists himself, or with their permission.

The biggest problem are really the Inoue albums, as he still seems to be missing, or at least no one is able to contact him, so obviously they can't ask for his permission to reissue them either.

I didn't realise until recently that 2350 Broadway was an actual building. Bretton Hall, which at one time was apparently an artists' collective:

2350 Broadway was the address where Inoue lived in Manhattan. AFAIK all those albums were recorded there, just like the 62 Eulengasse was named after Namlook's home address at the time, where he and Inoue recorded that album.

As far as I know, Tetsu is still alive and well!

Do you have any recent knowledge of his whereabouts? Because as discussed here, his colleagues and label owners have been trying to contact him for years, with no results, so I'm sure they'd be happy for any info you can provide. (His supposed disappearance was even mentioned by Namlook in the liner notes of one of those Ambient Gardener comps, where he speculates Inoue might have died in the 2011 tsunami.)

Has Pete's daughter said anything about the label since his death? I hadn't heard she "chucked the master tapes" -- tho it's not like third generation tapes are all that exist. These were CDs, after all, and pristine recordings would be pretty easily salvaged from existing CDs.

The Inoue records are what I've been listening to these last few weeks -- Electro Harmonix, Shades of Orion 1/2/3, Organic Cloud, Ambiant Otaku, 2350 Broadway I & II, Second Nature. I prefer my FAX when it's super spacey. Would be great if he's okay but I haven't heard anything other than the tsunami rumors either.

Also, this is a great thread (seemingly?) started by Namlook himself on Discogs a few years before he died trying to get the pulse of fans as to what should come next. He explains in some depth what had changed business-wise since the label's heyday and perhaps why things had petered out: https://www.discogs.com/group/thread/629833

I had the impression that MMM didn't know about the Dreamfish reissue until well after it was released so I don't know what that suggests about its status.

which Dreamfish reissue, the rising high edition ?
or has it been reissued since that version ?

No I meant the one that's on Bandcamp but actually I see it originally came out on that label in 2001.

ahh .. was just wondering.
I once saw DF 1, the original FAX cd in Vigin in Leeds and left it cos I had the RH edition.
needless to say, I have never seen it out in the wild since.

I didn't know about the new 2001/2016 reissue of Dreamfish, but since it has the cover art of the '90s Rising High edition, I assume Rising High must've licensed it to that label (Avatar Records), unless they're violating RH's copyright really blatantly? And the original RH edition of Dreamfish certainly was a legit release, didn't RH license it from FAX because Morris was signed to them? (Just like Apollo licensed Fires of Ork, because they were Biosphere's label at the time.)

But yeah, depending on what kind of deal Avatar Records has with RH, it's certainly possible MMM wasn't informed of the Bandcamp release. Though of course that doesn't mean it's a bootleg like those Psychonavigation reissues; they should've been courteous enough to get his approval, but it's perfectly possible they're license contract doesn't necessitate that.

Has Pete's daughter said anything about the label since his death? I hadn't heard she "chucked the master tapes" -- tho it's not like third generation tapes are all that exist. These were CDs, after all, and pristine recordings would be pretty easily salvaged from existing CDs.

No, as far as I know Fabia Kuhlmann hasn't given any statements regarding the label, reissues, or the master tapes. When I said she doesn't seem to be interested in any sort of reissue project, I was merely speculating based on the fact that legit reissues of several FAX collab projects and non-Namlook albums have come out in the last couple of years, but there's been no reissues of Namlook solo records, not even on Bandcamp or anything. I can sort of understand it tho, FAX was (by design) a label with a small, cultish following, and most of the reissues have been of projects with artists (such as Klaus Schulze or Biosphere) who have a larger output and fandom outside FAX, so they have better sales prospects too.

And you're right about the master tape issue, so unless someone wants to remaster them (which Namlook was against, he felt FAX albums sound just fine as they are, and I agree), it shouldn't be a problem using the CDs as a master. Apparently this was exactly what was done with those bootlegs on Psychonavigation Records.

Circling back the past few days to the From Within records, which are available on Hawtin's Soundcloud page. I love how spacey these are ... at times they feel a little like the Orb at their least tongue-in-cheek.

Also, was listening to the second disc of 2350 Broadway I on the drive in to visit a client today ... you can really hear what Uwe Schmidt and Bill Laswell were saying in that Red Bull piece about how Namlook refused to do much in the way of editing or re-recording. There are literally a few points on there were Namlook or Inoue just drop some sound into the mix that distorts horribly and rings forever with that 25-second reverb they're using -- which almost certainly suggests that these records were really just long jams.

Yeah, there's an interview with Move D where he says that he used to go Namlook's house in the countryside, where they did some jamming for a weekend, and Namlook then released the results as the next Move D/Namlook album or two. He also felt they should've rerecorded and edited some of the material, but I guess then we wouldn't have gotten 26 duo albums by the pair. :)

I guess Namlook's background as a jazz guitarist made him feel that releasing the results of jam sessions as such captured something that would've been diminished by further tinkering? It's certainly an uncommon approach in post-80s electronic music, but IMO it works well on some of the long-form, drifting mood pieces, such as on Shades of Orion 2 and 3, and on the best of the Move D/Namlook and Inoue/Namlook material. OTOH, Dark Side of the Moog and some of Namlook's solo albums show that it can also result in fairly boring noodling.

Also, I seem to recall a MMM interview from back in the day, where he says the first Dreamfish album was done in a day?

It's certainly an uncommon approach in post-80s electronic music, but IMO it works well on some of the long-form, drifting mood pieces, such as on Shades of Orion 2 and 3, and on the best of the Move D/Namlook and Inoue/Namlook material.

I was revisiting to Move D/Namlook's Space & Time because of the ambient poll, and yeah, it definitely works here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UPurIZ3FHk

Does anyone know what the differences are between the two Fax Compilations and the first volume of The Ambient Cookbook? I assumed they were exactly the same but in a recent Discogs discussion some people were saying it's a different sequence and, on some tracks, an entirely different edit or mix.