“Memento” (DiN52) is the fifth DiN CD collaboration between label
boss Ian Boddy & renowned composer and touch guitarist Markus
Reuter. They were there at the birth of DiN in 1999 with their inaugural
release Distant Rituals (DiN2) and this latest work not only
affectionately looks back to that album but forges ahead into new
musical territory.
The album opens with the powerful tour de force
of “Gyroscope” with its ever evolving guitar arpeggios and thunderous
percussion. The following track “Spindrift” has a mysterious harmonic
feel highlighted by Reuter’s beautiful guitar playing & Boddy’s
ambient production. “Linger” & “Stay” form a pair of soundscapes
where Reuter’s guitar loop ambiences are intermingled with extraordinary
analogue textures from Boddy’s Serge modular synthesiser. The former
provides a breathing space within the album after the two opening tracks
whereas the latter brings the CD to a gentle, drifting close. The title
track hearkens back to the duos first collaborative album with it’s
pulsing cut up treatment of a Reuter guitar loop soundscape and perhaps
informs the listener as to the nature of this “Memento”. Although Boddy
often keeps in the background in terms of lead solo work when working
with Reuter the track “Deadlock” features an Ondes Martenot style synth
line that soars above this dark emotionally laden piece.
Once
again Reuter & Boddy have proved to be a potent musical team with
their balance of styles producing a complex, deep album. Effortlessly
crossing genres between prog and ambient electronica it not only looks
back to their roots but creates new sonic landscapes for the listener to
explore.
- "No-one else makes music like this: devilishly complex but warm and
intuitive, stirring together a dizzying assembly of outernational and
outerspace influences, whilst retaining the subby funk-and-hot-breath
pressure of Shackleton’s soundboy, club roots.
The result is an evolutionary, truly alchemical music — great shifting
tides of dub, minimalist composition and choral song (Five Demiurgic
Options); ritual spells to ward off the darkness (Before The Dam Broke,
The Prophet Sequence); radiophonia and zoned-out guitar improv (Seven
Virgins); even the febrile, freeform psychedelia of eighties noise rock
(Sferic Ghost Transmits / Fear The Crown).
Over the five years since Music For The Quiet Hour, Vengeance’s vocal
and lyrical range has rolled out across this new terrain. Throughout
these six transmissions he’s hoarse preacher, sage scholar and ravaged
bluesman; blind man marching off to war, and exhausted time-traveller
warning of impending socio-ecological catastrophe.
Six dialogic accounts of our conflicted times, then, expanding beyond
the treacly unease of the duo’s early collaborative work into something
subtler and more emotionally shattering — its shades of brightness more
dazzling, and its darkness even murkier.
“We almost didn’t hear it when the foundations went.”
With this ambitious project partly recorded in Beirut with local
musicians and featuring Mondkopf, Charbel Haber, Sharif Sehnaoui, G.W.
Sok, Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, Oiseaux-Tempête have achieved a far more
complex work, richer in texture, the intertwining of acoustic elements
with electronica, roaming and shaking the foundations of this almost
labyrinthian personal opus of an album. As ever, the group realises both
the immersive and also the total physicality on the record.
The third part of a journey that commenced in 2012. A two part -
aesthetic and political - proposition. How to build something that
speaks of the present, that transcribes it, mirrors it, opens discourse
and questions, and provokes the sharing of experience that conjures away
this contemporary malaise of powerlessness and, in turn, opens doors to
a common future?
The destination, Beirut - the very heart of, what
perhaps it's most famous historians named, the "storm zone". With 17
different communities and all the cultural and religious fusion that
that implies, its common frontiers with Syria and Israel, streams of
Palestinian and Syrian refugees, the stigmata from a 15 year civil war
still very much in the air, this enclave that opens onto the sea appears
to be a concentrated amalgamation of all the political challenges that
are faced by the Middle-East.
Above all though, was the music. The
chance to collaborate with two members of Johnny Kafta Anti-Vegetarian
Orchestra, guitarist Charbel Haber (Scrambled Eggs, The Bunny Tylers)
and percussionist Sharif Sehnaoui (Karkhana, Alan Bishop, Okay Temiz)
presented itself. As always, working with urgency, spontaneity and
without pre-written material, they found themselves performing in the
local improv scenes or in the studio with Charbel, Sharif, Ali El
Hout and Abed Kobeissy (Asil ensemble for contemporary classical Arabic
music, Two or the Dragon), Pascal Semerdjian (Postcards) and the oud
player Youmna Saba. Each arrived at their own unique language, creating
the terms of a dialogue rooted in the present and without set rules.
These recordings from the Tunefork studio and made inside the flat
they're renting in Mar Mikhael (only a short walk from the port where
the refuse of the city piles up), would give birth to the early sketches
of what can now be heard on AL-'AN! . Back in France, in Brittany and
in Paris, the sessions were completed at Kerwax and Magnum Diva studios
with drummer Sylvain Joasson (Mendelson), electronic musician Mondkopf,
the soprano saxophone of Stéphane Rives and the vocalists Tamer Abu
Ghazaleh and G.W. Sok.
As a seismograph it measures. Aware to the
heart beat, of the hypnotic pulse from the analogue machines to the
explosion of matter and matters. And in the same way, AL-'AN !
remembers. Memories in the far more intimate form of the travel diary,
each track the capturing of a moment, brief sketches, the first notes
the faint outlines of a specific atmosphere, the chords building little
by little the heavier lines of a coherent edifice, an innate sense of
structure beneath the apparent fragmentation. The keystone reveals
itself only as the journey ends, the final side of the record, in the
form of the epic 17 minutes of "Through The Speech of Stars" resolving
in the misty haze of " À l'Aube". AL-'AN ! proceeds from a logic of
abundance, from the diversity of character to the binds that give it its
structure. Not only because this opus is blending the Arabic, French
and English languages, and in doing so constructs a dialogue between
Europe and the Middle-East. But also because it safeguards moments of
wondering (« I Don't Know What Or Why (Mish Aaref Eish w Leish »), of
self doubt, of nocturnal reveries, of times of fervour and of compact
and condensed energy. The feeling of tension and confinement is mirrored
in the open spaces of the night beneath a blanket of stars. Silence
responds to the heat of noise, urban chaos greeting endless space,
creating moments of calm which on previous albums had been only hinted
at. Sacred songs (In "Carnaval" the echo of the track "Wa Habibi"
from Fairuz, captured from a street corner on a Holy Friday can be
heard) give way to secular poems. The words of Mahmoud Darwish his own
voice on "The Offering" and his words, taken from "The Red Indian's
Penultimate Speech To The White Man" ,resonate on "Through The Speech Of
Stars". The speech of the political, an articulated language ,finds its
counterpart in the anonymous scream or the sound of singing birds. Like
a chorale, AL-'AN ! blurs the origins. It embraces this "Now!" the
living and the dead, the world and us, the misery and the bliss of
being. Here and now. One thing is certain: the story of the night that
OISEAUX-TEMPÊTE paints is one that moves towards the day, and is one in
which Eros still has words left to say.
Following from their 2015 release “EVOLVA 5”, Porya Hatami and Artificial Memory Trace continue their ongoing collaboration. Since 2014 the artists, based in Iran and Ireland respectively, have been exchanging field recordings from their local areas and processing them into otherworldly soundscapes. This extensive project’s latest chapter is “REPREMONITIUM”, a single piece lasting nearly 70 minutes and covering a lot of ground in its duration. Soft bell-like chimes flicker across the stereo field, the resonances of which grow into longer shapes and forms, until overtaken by more abrasive sounds that resemble Shepard tones, rising and falling, undulating into infinity. Darker moods are conjured in the middle section, more submersed, aquatic and buried. Varying from dense and super-structural, to ultra-minimal, the final third ends with the faintest of harmonics and distant melody. This is abstract sound art presented as a journey, where music isn’t so much played but implied. The found sound of everyday caught by microphones, constructed and composed.
- Released in 1995 and rereleased by a label called Fábrica de Sons in 2017:
Telectu, Chris Cutler & Jac Berrocal - Telectu Cutler Berrocal
Telectu
- is a Portuguese experimental, avant-garde music duo formed in 1982 by Vítor Rua (former member of GNR) and Jorge Lima Barreto, a jazz musician and musical essayist. Their music incorporates a variety of elements from free jazz, rock, electronica, minimalism and concrete music.
They are arguably the most important project of its genre in Portugal.
Their career spanning 30 years, includes a voluminous discography, many
national and international performances and collaborations, both live
and recorded, with important experimental and improvisation musicians such as Elliott Sharp, Carlos Zíngaro, Jac Berrocal, Sunny Murray, Chris Cutler amongst others.
They have also composed music for theater, video art and multimedia
performance. The project ceased activity with the death of Jorge Lima
Barreto in 2011
Jac Berrocal
- “Trumpeter” is hardly an adequate epithet for Jac Berrocal, a
1946-born musician, poet and sometime film actor who came of age in the
‘70s Paris improv scene, where the boundaries between music, art and
theatre were porous and begging to be breached. Inspired by bebop,
chanson, free jazz, beat poetry, early rock ‘n roll and myriad Eastern
influences, and with an iconoclastic, anything-goes approach to
instrumentation and technique that would later align him with post-punk
sensibilities, Berrocal blazed an eccentric and unstoppable trail across
the underground throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, both solo and as part of
the Catalogue group he co-founded.
During this time
his uproarious performances routinely wound up jazz and rock audiences
alike, but earned the admiration of no small number of wised-up weirdos:
Steven Stapleton invited him to perform on two Nurse With Wound albums,
and other notable collaborators in his career include Sunny Murray,
Lizzy Mercier-Descloux, Lol Coxhill, Yvette Horner and James Chance. In
the 90s his protean achievements were celebrated on the Fatal Encounters
compilation, but far from slowing down in the autumn of his life,
Berrocal has maintained an extraordinary work-rate, keeping studio dates
with Pascal Comelade, Telectu and Jaki Liebezeit, among others. In 2014
he released his first solo album proper in 20 years, MDLV.
Editions Mego is pleased to welcome Danish Loke Rahbek (Damien
Dubrovnik, Croatian Amor and Posh Isolation) to the fold. Known for
countless creative and commercial endeavours Loke presents his first
solo full length under his own name. As with all of Loke’s output City
of Woman harnesses the radical with the aesthetic in a manner of extreme
pleasure for all who encounter.
Harnessing his thorough knowledge and experience in extreme electronics,
melodic encounters and sultry showmanship Loke ties together disparate
threads of various underground movements to create a singular and deeply
personal journey through industrial temptation, noise refraction and
melodic seduction.
This is 21st Century pop music. One which dismantles previous held
borders of sound to present a wide palate of sound, song, abstraction
and intense emotion.
Loke Sebastian Kruse Rahbek (born June 22, 1989)
is a Danish musician and co-owner of independent record label Posh
Isolation. He is also known as LR, Sebastian Kruse, Hvide Sejl, and
1989.
Rahbek has collaborated with many musicians over the course of the past years, including Elias
Bender Rønnenfelt of Iceage, Hannes Norrvide of Lust for Youth, and
various other individuals. He has been / is apart of the following
musical acts: Body Sculptures, Caucasian Colony, Contour, Damien
Dubrovnik, Days In Return, Document One, En Tragedie, Erotikens
Historie, Garrotte, Limepit, Lust For Youth, Olymphia, Pruneface, Severe
Photography, Sexdrome, Shooting Gallery, Skurv, Vår, War, Womanhead.
The music collected here was written for the short film "Youth" directed by Brett Marty and produced by Joshua Izenberg. These eleven tracks make up the original score as well as material not included in the final version of the film. All of them are variations on a few melodic and tonal themes and several feature my frequent collaborator Ted Laderas on cello and synthesized strings.
Ian and Wil started collaborating almost eight years ago, yet ‘Transparencies’ marks only the first full album release by Ian and Wil. Utilising piano, guitar, glockenspiel, flute, vocals, and found sounds, the album contains the fragile yet melodious nature both have become known for. Following on from Wil’s own ‘Bokeh’ release, ’Transparencies’ features cover art by Hitoshi Ishihara and package design by Christian Roth.
After two albums of electro-acoustic ambience as The Ashes of Piemonte back in 2013 (on Time Released Sound and Twice Removed), Lee Norris and Wil Bolton return under the new guise of Orphic Signals, a more purely electronic, hardware-based project.
'Sounds of the Neutron' blends influences from ambient, drone, detroit techno, Berlin school and the BBC radiophonic workshop. A palette of analogue sequencers, loopers and vintage analogue keyboards plays slowly pulsing arpeggios and melodies, blurred and washed out with multiple reverb and delay pedals into droning, textural space music.
Environmental sounds recorded by Richard Harvey at the Institut Laue-Langevin neutron science research centre in France provide an immersive and eerie backdrop to the music - the sounds of geiger counters and neutron detectors reflected in the walls of concrete blockhouses and control cabins. This is the sound of machines adrift, a hazy psychotropic soundtrack to a sci-fi vision of a lone scientist working on an abandoned space station.
- "Iraqi-American trumpeter, santur player, vocalist, and composer Amir ElSaffar has
mastered disparate musical styles and created a singular approach to
combining aspects of Middle Eastern music with American jazz, extending
the boundaries of each tradition. ElSaffar’s Rivers of Sound Orchestra presents
17 musicians from a broad spectrum of traditions; together, the group
creates an entirely new musical language that transcends established
notions of style and convention. In performing Not Two,
a composition by ElSaffar, each musician in the Rivers of Sound
orchestra interacts with the group to create a new approach to
transcultural music through the combination of improvisation and
composition, the merging of musical languages, maqam and polyphony, and
the novelty of the sound. . . . ."
- Rivers of Sound is a large ensemble of
instrumentalists from Western and Middle Eastern traditions, exploring
the confluences of a musical language that transcends notions of
tradition and style. In performing Not Two, an original
composition by Amir ElSaffar, each musician interacts with the group
through both improvised and composed material to create a novel
composite sound.
Composer, trumpeter, santur player and vocalist, Amir ElSaffar, an
expert in Jazz and Iraqi maqam, has forged his novel approach to
combining musical languages through his six-piece ensemble Two Rivers. Over the past eight years, the group has released three CD’s on Pi Recordings. Crisis, the
most recent, was a Newport Jazz Festival commission. Jazz critic of the
The Chicago Tribune, Howard Reich, declared Crisis “one of the most
beautiful and evocative jazz recordings of the year.” A reviewer for The
Wire, stated that “ElSaffar is uniquely poised to reconcile jazz and
Arabic music without doing either harm…the result of engagement across
the board, presented with clarity and eloquence. . . . .”
Frans de Waard @ Forthwith, Winnipeg, February 10, 2017
- "Recorded at Firthwith Festival, Winnipeg, February 10, 2017. With
extensive thanks to Paul, Jen, Wouter, Megan, Al, Barb and everybody
else.
A mixture of music from my projects QST, Modelbau and Quest"
Frans de Waard
(1965) has been producing music since 1984. First as
Kapotte Muziek, but throughout the years, he also worked as Beequeen
(with Freek Kinkelaar), Goem (with Roel Meelkop & Peter Duimelinks,
both of whom are also a member of Kapotte Muziek these days), Zebra
(with Roel Meelkop) and such solo projects as Freiband, Shifts as well
as his own name. He has worked for Staalplaat (1992-2003) and since 1986
as a reviewer for his own publication Vital, now only Vital Weekly, an
online music magazine, which has been the online source for underground
music since 1995, and which celebrated it’s 1000th issue in 2015. In
February 2007 he played various solo concerts as Goem|FDW in Japan, as
part of a package tour with Pan Sonic. Frans de Waard also likes to play
sets of improvised music with whoever is available, just as he did with
people like Guiseppe Ielasi, Jaap Blonk, Howard Stelzer, Roel Meelkop,
Andrew Liles, Radboud Mens and the mayor of his home city Nijmegen. In
2008 film maker Harrie Timmermans made a small documentary about his
work with Kapotte Muziek under the title ‘What You See Is What You
Hear’. He has given workshops and lectures at various places, such as
Extrapool, the art academy of Maastricht en ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Glinka
Conservatorium in Moscow and Lithuania. With Scott Foust he formed the
duo The Tobacconists in 2009, with Wouter Jaspers the duo Ezdanitoff in
2010, with Jos Smolders he started playing as WaSm in 2015 and in 2016 a
new duo With Sindre Bjerga as Tech Riders. In 2012 he added Modelbau to
his long list of names, this time for all things lo-fi and noise based.
In 2016 Timeless in France published his first book, an autobiography
of life in Staalplaat called ‘This Is Supposed To Be A Record Label’.
Frans de Waard has played concerts in The Netherlands, Belgium,
France, UK, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Sweden,
Norway, Lithuania, Canada, Japan, United States, Russia and Italy.
Zwartjes is new to me and I couldn't find much written about him in english - Maybe @rolandkuit knows more than I was able to find out. (just a thought)
- So "we" will have to do with a google translate from dutch:
Frans Zwartjes (Alkmaar, 1927) is a composer, photographer, draftsman, painter and sculptor. However, he acquired the most fame as a filmmaker.
In 1968, Zwartjes began to experiment with film as an artistic medium. Short films, mostly in black and white, with high contrast, a very own narrative and often without any text. "I'm someone who thinks you should look at the movie, not what's being filmed."
Everything that happens when making a movie is done by Zwartjes himself. From camera mood, direction and assembly to the music, the sound and the development of the movies. Also internationally, the style of Zwartjes is considered to be influential. Susan
Sontag (1933-2004) - author of, amongst others, the famous essay bundle
On Photography (1977) - called him the most important experimental
filmmaker of his time.
The films of
Zwartjes are characterized by unexpected perspective and image changes,
which gives them an alarming and somewhat psychedelic character.
Extreme
close-ups of eyelashes, lips and shadows are interspersed with Spectator
(1970) with recordings that also portray the persons to whom they
belong. In Living (1971) Zwartjes filmed himself and his wife Trix while rubbing through an empty house. The recordings are made with a wide-angle lens. The film is not spoken, it is a combination of sounds, perspectives, empty spaces and facial expressions. "The eye moves, the ear is moved," said Zwartjes.
Zwartjes studied music and played viola at the Dutch Opera. In 1990 he was the first winner of the Ouborg Prize. Werk van Zwartjes was exhibited in, among others, the Fotomuseum The Hague, GEM (The Hague), EYE (Amsterdam) and ICA (London).
- Really fascinating stuff and a must check out for all interested in the history of electronic music.
I know Frans Zwartjes from the Vrije Academie Den Haag were he teached experimetal film. At that time I was teaching Sound Art there. Before filmmaking, he studied music for 5 years. Especially of interest was his cooperation with France's-Marie Utti, the cello player. Film: Confidential. More on Frans Zwartjes: https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/film/frans-zwartjes-home-sweet-home
Charlemagne Palestine & Grumbling Fur Time Machine Orchestra
Omminggg and Schlomminggg
Performed by Charlemagne Palestine, Alexander Tucker and Daniel O'Sullivan
Important Records presents Omminggg and Schlomminggg, the second
release by continuous music pioneer Charlemagne Palestine and Grumbling
Fur consisting of London based multi-disciplinary artists Daniel
O'Sullivan and Alexander Tucker; the Time Machine Orchestra being the
extended drone arm of Tucker and O'Sullivan's experimental avant-pop
conception. This double LP captures a performance of the trio at
Copenhagen's illustrious Jazzhouse in 2016. The pin-drop acoustic
clarity of the venue providing an ideal setting for this mesmeric
recital of eternal music.
The signature strumming of Palestine's piano augmented by Tucker and
O'Sullivan's earthware electronics and processed strings create seamless
sonic ripples in a constant state of unfolding. This is perhaps the
most demonstrative document of Palestine's powerful vocal delivery - an
alien hybrid of sacred music drawing deep from the well of the cantorial
synagogue and Hindustani classical styles in a bid to channel
inter-dimensional beings from ancient cultures. In some respects this
could be thought of as Charlemagne in dub as Grumbling Fur carefully
twist and mangle their palette of electrified harp, viola, bowed
mandolin, percussion, tapes and voice transformers through chains of
loopers resulting in a slowly dilating vapour.
Mixed at O'Sullivan's Dream Lion Studio with gatefold sleeve art by
Alexander Tucker and a Grumbling Fur redux/remodel constituting side
four, this is a unique document of portal opening music that defies time
and space.
Brand new from the mysterious and intriguing Hanetration
Still nothing about this guy, except for some photos and a short bio written by himself on LastFM:
An anonymous project from London, UK, which surfaced online in early
2012 with a series of self-released EPs of ambient soundscapes and
glitchy sound collages.
Omdrejninger (Rotations) is a unique project conceived by
sound-installation artist Christian Skjødt and composer, and guitarist
Mark Solborg aiming at investigating and challenging the listening
experience for both musicians and audience. A site-specific work for
ensemble, space and loudspeakers. Solborg and Skjødt call it a spatial
instrument. It is played by these amazing artists:
Christian Skjødt - Processing, Shortwave-radio and RC Oscillator
In brief the music consists of composed and improvised pieces played by a
handpicked ensemble and then processed through a system developed and
designed specifically for the project. The system (the patch) can only
treat what it receives from the ensemble and the microphones. Delay,
enlarge, distort, sample, and geographical displace through the speakers
in different patterns and tempi. The audience is placed around the
ensemble, the loudspeakers around everybody. An original version of a
contemporary and very special listening experience. Another type of
communication of relatively abstract music and sound.
The first
version of Omdrejninger was a commission by the Wundergrund festival,
premiered in KoncertKirken at Nørrebro. The participants was, besides
Skjødt and Solborg, the legendary german trumpet-player Axel Dörner,
cellist Jakob Kullberg, vocalist Michael Rexen and drummer Bjørn
Heebøll. It was an intense and unique experience for both audience and
musicians.
“..a sensation of a spatial instrument with the powers to lift and take off with all of us.” - Laura Berivan Nilsson, Omlyd
During
Copenhagen Jazzfestival 2015 another edition was brought to life. This
time with an explosive combination of Dörner, the Norwegian
percussionist Ingar Zach, Solborg and Skjødt.
Both editions where
recorded in sound and picture by The Lake Radio, John Fomsgaard, a.o.
Then it was processed, mixed and mastered by Solborg and Skjødt in
collaboration with true experts within the field. The result is a
limited deluxe 2x180g vinyl album with two visual renditions by director
and cutter Laurits Flensted-Jensen in video-format with surround audio
(5.1.) on a USB stick and a photo-montage with pictures by Peter
Ganushkin, Hanne Budtz-Jørgensen and Raphael Frisenvænge. The release is
also available in a reduced version on CD and digitally.
Omdrejninger
holds a dense and nuanced sound-universe in many layers. We recommend
good listening equipment, or headphones , for a full and detailed
experience.
. . . On april 1st 2016 danish sound artist karsten pflum and the library of
herlev invited a limited audience into nine hours of otherwordly ambient
soundscapes in a darkened environment. to let this audience dive into
their subconscious mind, the long sleep journey was initiated by a half
hour of body scan meditation led by two professional mindfulness
instructors. rather than being a social concert experience, this event
was an individual one, where the listener absorbed the electronic sounds
from the composer, somewhere in the border between sleep and
wakefulness - in the dream state. as karsten sent the first waves of
ambient sound transmissions into the silent room of pale blue darkness,
the atmosphere was gentle and harmonic, reminiscent of the tranquility
surrounding the cradle of an infant. in the opening hours the sound work
was gently loud, but as evening turned into night, the ambient waves
softened as the audience drifted from light sleep into deep sleep. as
the first signs of sunlight gently illuminated the room, the soundscapes
took a step from subconscious ambient spheres into discreet rhythm
textures. as the pulse of the beat gently increased the music turned
from deep ambient into chill-out friendly idm. slowly the atmosphere of
the library changed from night to day as people were lifted to the upper
levels of the sleep state. as the smell of coffee and bread saturated
the room, karsten slowly ended this lengthy ambient journey. leaving the
library twelve hours later, the audience had experienced the power of
ambient music consumed in a sleep state with meditation being their
invisible friend for diving deep into the subconscious. this concert
reached more than 650.000 user walls on facebook with more than 10.000
interested to attend. the 80 tickets for the show on september 2nd, 2016
were sold in less than one minute.
Karsten’s approach to creating an album based on this event involved
using a broad pallet of electronic equipment to create otherworldly
soundscapes dedicated to the borderlands between sleep and wakefulness.
soon after the listener starts the nine hour sonic voyage, the sound of a
magick box fades in. whether the sound of the lullaby awakes a feeling
of warmth and comfort or it creates horrific nightmares, is the first
question for the brain to process. nevertheless the listeners entering
the realms of mr. pflum's work will experience a sleep zone, they have
never experienced - and never will again - unless they repeat the
journey. and they probably will - again and again. have a pleasant
journey!
Karsten Pflum is the moniker of Jacob Helverskov Madsen, Danish electronic music producer and DJ.
Inspired
equally by 1980s synth pop, Detroit techno, and Nordic folk-music,
Karsten Pflum started experimenting with old synthesizers and sequencers
in the middle of the 90's using the name Slaphead Faun.
After discarding that name he released his first album Tracks
on the label Worm Interface in 2003, soon followed by EPs and full
length releases on labels like Jenka Music, Tender Productions, Suburban
Trash Industries, Mindwaves (where Slaphead Faun rose again as an album
title), Ad Noiseam and Hymen Records (Ant-Zen). His music has been
broadcast by famous British DJs John Peel, Mary Anne Hobbs and Karl Hyde
of Underworld, and he has toured in places like Scandinavia, Germany,
Switzerland, Belgium, UK, Spain, Turkey and China.
Over
the years he became part of the intriguing and very talented young
Danish school of electronica and a driving force of the North European
electronic music scene. Currently he lives in Berlin and studied
electronic music at the academy in his former hometown of Aarhus.
In
his work, he explores the boundaries of heavy bass driven dubstep,
frantic d'n'b and breakcore, combining soulful soundscapes with complex
rhythm programming and treatment.
Over the past 18 months i have released well over 25 albums and most of them recorded in Italy.This double cd set is a continuous mix of some of the tracks i made while living in Northern Italy.The album features music from my Nacht Plank and The Angling Loser projects and highlights my ongoing collaborations with Mick Chillage as Autumn Of Communion,Ishq as Ishqamatics,Ashtoreth's Gate with Craig Murphy,The Ashes Of Piemonte with Wil Bolton,Moss Garden with Dimitar Dodovski and with Porya Hatami...Over 2 hours of music.
Dais Records proudly reissues “Sand” by Ragnar Grippe on vinyl for the
40th anniversary of its original release in a limited edition repress
edition of 200 copies on blue vinyl and 300 on black vinyl featuring new
liner notes by the artist .
Since its original release in 1977, Ragnar Grippe’s seminal debut album
entitled “Sand” has been adorned with immense praise and influenced a
myriad of ambient musicians and minimalist composers. Grippe’s unique
approach of bonding post-modern classical composition into the tape
techniques of musique concrète allowed him to be one of the leading
experimental electronic musicians of the late 20th century.
Originally
trained as a classical cellist, Grippe had relocated to Paris in the
early 70’s to study at the famous Groupe de Recherches Musicales (more
commonly known as GRM) founded by musique concrète pioneers Pierre
Schaeffer, Pierre Henry and Jacques Poullin. Around the same time,
Grippe had struck up a close friendship with French avant-garde
minimalist Luc Ferrari. It was under Ferrari’s direction and guidance
that the young Grippe started to build a shared experimental music
studio, aptly named l’Atelier de la Libération Musicale (ALM), in which
Ferrari shared his knowledge and instrumental supplies, thus forging
Grippe’s implementation of harmonic tone within the confines of musique
concrete.
After a brief stint of electronic music study at McGill
University in Montreal, Grippe returned to Paris in 1976 to compose
with Ferrari at the now fully-realized ALM studio. One of the visiting
artists passing through the creative epicenter of the Cité
Internationale des Arts during this time was the painter Viswanadhan
Velu. Velu’s recent works consisted of various Sand paintings which were
to be exhibited at the Galerie Shandar, the avant-garde art gallery and
home to the Shandar record label which was the home to minimalist
composers Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Cecil Taylor and Charlemagne
Palestine.
Grippe was asked to compose a composition that was to
be played during the Sand painting exhibition and was then to be
released on the Shandar imprint in 1977. This release would be the first
official album that would start Grippe’s career as a modern avant-garde
composer and electronic musician. After a celebrated release, “Sand”
has since been out-of-print on its original vinyl format for four
decades and original copies fetch high prices amongst minimalist
listeners and collectors.
“From
the Middle Ages comes the iconic figure of Lady Fortune standing beside
her wheel which she slowly turns, blind-folded, affecting without
prejudice the fortunes of both kings and paupers. Her wheel is a focal
point for this album of diverse and strange music.
“IntrOverture”
is an “introverted” overture — a quality which bucks that of the genre.
The piece introduces all five instrumentalists and provides via digital
voices a guide to non-French speakers on the pronunciation of “Concert
Imaginaire.”
“Fortune’s
Wheel” is Lady Fortune’s wordless song which she sings as she slowly
turns the large wheel, affecting everyone’s fate with a single move. As
fortunes change, twist and turn, she stands blind-folded, unconcerned.
“Fuse!”
begins with a driving ostinato bass line over which an angular melody
is played. In the second half of the piece, the medieval process of
rhythmic augmentation is used: all the instruments play the same melody
but twice as slowly, then twice as slowly again. The piece gradually
slows and dissipates as the players unravel a gradually slowing canon.
Emily
Dickinson’s singular image of a sunset, linked to the carnage of the
Civil War, is astonishing. In this sotto voce setting of “The Massacre
of Suns”, the words guide the music. Supporting the singer is a
sustained synth chord and bottle percussion.
Written
for the seminal 1990s Northwest band Animal Sperm, our track “I Hate
Being White!”, a song that is neither racist nor about wanting to be
like Michael Jordan… or Michael Jackson. All the lines rhyme!
“Always
Thinking of Myself” has a jazz influenced head, which seamlessly
progresses into a free improvisation. During rehearsal, one player
remarked: “I tried not to listen to anyone else and think only of
myself!”
“Like you thought…” is a rant which gradually increases in dynamic and intensity.
Both
“World Circus News”— a circus waltz — and “Bosna” were composed in the
late 1990s and relate to the wars of succession in the former
Yugoslavia. By its stalling and muddying the waters, some powerful media
outlets abetted the violence and bloodshed. “Bosna” (Bosnia) is a poem
by Gordana Crnković focusing on a young victim of the first genocide
Europe has seen since World War II. The boy at the end, recorded in 1995
in Zagreb, reads a quote based on verses from the Koran.
“Bishop”
is an improvisatory piece based on a simple chord progression and
fragments of a melody, and inspired by the chess piece.
I
had been thinking about “There’s Only One Thing” for several years. The
words were written in 1947, a few days before German author and soldier
Wolfgang Borchert died at the age of twenty-six. This, his final poem,
was written in the white heat of resentment of war and our complicity
with the crime of war. This is a symphony of anti-war sentiment that
comes from someone who experienced Hitler and the Russian front.
The Native American inspired Prayer Circle helps calm the mind after the turmoil of the previous piece.
Whatever
a “prepuce” is, “Do The Prepuce!” certainly does it! Arising from the
dream of a snoring dog is a fiendishly active ostinato figure topped by a
scary dissonant melody. The second half is a turgid 10/4 dance with a
rocking organ solo finishing it off.”
is an acoustic-electric chamber ensemble with a unique and
varied musical palette, founded in Seattle in 2011.
The core ensemble is Becca Baggenstoss, percussion, Ruthie Dornfeld, violin, Evan Robertson, bass, Lewis Thompson, piano, and David Hahn, guitar / music director. In concert the group is often joined by singers and dancers, with special visuals.
Concert
Imaginaire pushes the boundaries of music, drawing listeners into a
world that is as much psychological as it is visceral.
The
chamber ensemble records, performs concerts, and gives new music
workshops at colleges and universities in the Pacific Northwest.
- is an American composer and lecturer, who has created a diverse
styles of music, ranging from audio collages and electronic music to
chamber and orchestral music, featuring traditional instruments and
voices. His specialties are music composition, sound design, guitar
performance, music history, education, music for film, dance and other
media.
Hahn
began his career as a performer on lute, guitar, and mandolin with such
groups as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony and
Opera Orchestras, Boston Musica Viva, the Seattle Symphony, Musica Nel
Chiostro in Florence, and the City of London Festival. He received a
doctorate in Musicology at Stanford University in 1993.
Hahn has composed over 100 diverse pieces of music, many of which have
been commissioned and performed by established professional ensembles
and soloists. He is the music director and guitarist in Concert Imaginaire, an ensemble signed on Sublunar. He has also collaborated with artists in film, theater, spoken word, and other media. Zagreb Everywhere,
for example, is an experimental video, that was shown at the Rencontres
Internationales Festival in Paris and Berlin. Hahn has won awards from
Meet the Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Soros
Foundation, Seattle’s Artist Trust, the American Classical Mandolin
Society, and the Jack Straw Foundation.
His
music has been performed throughout the United States, as well as in
Canada, Chile, Cuba, Turkey, Croatia, France, Germany, Bolivia and
Cyprus. In 2016, Hahn and The Sublunar Society signed a record contract,
resulting in the avant-garde album Your Time Is Up. In 2017, his critical of society and experimental EP Giraffes! was released.
Disques Ocora, a French label dedicated to capturing and publishing the
sounds of folkloric culture from around the world, is held in the
highest possible regard in the realms of professional and amateur
ethnomusicology. Instigated in 1958 by Pierre Schaeffer, the founder of
musique concrète, Disques Ocora developed a sterling reputation largely
for its publication of composer and musicologist Charles Duvelle's
pioneering field recordings, as well as his now-iconic photographs and
graphic design.
Charles Duvelle's work is indisputably one of the most important
contributions to the human understanding of the rich biodiversity of our
planet's music and language. In 1977, his field recordings from Benin
were selected by Carl Sagan for inclusion on the Voyager Golden Records,
which were carried into outer space by the Voyager spacecraft to stand
as an example of humanity's highest musical expressions for the
universe's unknown listeners.
This release includes 16 tracks of archival recordings (some of which
have never been published before) selected and compiled by Duvelle
himself. Most of the first 13 tracks, which focus on Africa, are
complete versions of truncated tracks from out-of-print Ocora LPs. The
final 3 tracks are focused on material from Asia, with two long tracks
that have never been released before and a complete unedited version of a
previously released track.
^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^ ^^^^^^^^^ Love that collection! Beautifully done!
Indeed !
Released July 27, 2017
- This is PIANO IS EVIL. a live piano+voice endeavor based on my 2012
kickstarter-funded album "Theatre is Evil", which i recorded with a full
band: The Grand Theft Orchestra (bass! drums! guitars! horns! strings!
SYNTTTHHHHS!).
the original “Theatre is Evil” is available for FREE/pay-what-you-want at amandapalmer.net.
it was originally funded by almost 25,000 people on kickstarter and i
am forever grateful for their backing. PIANO IS EVIL was made possible
by over 8,000 people supporting my patreon page in October 2016.
if you are enjoying this album, please consider joining the patreon so i
can make more unfettered art/music/writing/THINGS, as i want, when i
want. it would mean the world to me. go to: patreon.com/amandapalmer
love,
AFP
p.s. this record owes very special thanks to Justine Marzack, Neil Gaiman, Melissa auf der maur, superkate, hayley, bill h, alex and nick
& courtney @ fame house.
Universally acclaimed as a pioneer in live laptop
electronics, Ikue’s signature style is still uniquely her own and has
influenced two generations of laptop performers. Her new band project
Obelisk is a super-band featuring three of the most acclaimed and
original players in the Downtown scene—Okkyung Lee, Jim Black and Sylvie
Courvoisier. Ikue’s startling compositions blend gorgeous melodies with
hypnotic rhythms and evocative soundscapes. Strange and beautiful music
from a legendary master of laptop improvisation!
Universally acclaimed as a pioneer in live laptop
electronics, Ikue’s signature style is still uniquely her own and has
influenced two generations of laptop performers. Her new band project
Obelisk is a super-band featuring three of the most acclaimed and
original players in the Downtown scene—Okkyung Lee, Jim Black and Sylvie
Courvoisier. Ikue’s startling compositions blend gorgeous melodies with
hypnotic rhythms and evocative soundscapes. Strange and beautiful music
from a legendary master of laptop improvisation!
hey now @Brighternow Took me a couple of goes as my pc didn't want to talk to emusic but basically read about, found, d/l and listened to in 10 minutes. Great players on this album, all of whom I've seen at one time or other.
Hey BN do you know this one? Works very well with just two instruments so there's space (but it is a bit busy)
https://www.emusic.com/album/61625946/Craig-Taborn-and-Ikue-Mori/Highsmith I've also just picked up the two Maryanne Amacher releases on Tzadik. Still recall the sensory overload of her performance at The Arches in Glasgow (Install Festival) walking around with sound bouncing off underground railway tunnels at frighteningly loud volume that made the air feel like soup!
Comments
Markus Reuter & Ian Boddy - Memento
- DiN - Emusic
Shackleton & Vengeance Tenfold - Sferic Ghost Transmits
Before The Dam Broke
Oiseaux-Tempête - AL-'AN ! الآن
Oiseaux-Tempête
Artificial Memory Trace & Porya Hatami - Repremonitium
Telectu, Chris Cutler & Jac Berrocal - Telectu Cutler Berrocal
Jac Berrocal
Loke Rahbek - City of Women
Marcus Fischer - Film Variations
Amir ElSaffar's Rivers of Sound Orchestra
Frans de Waard @ Forthwith, Winnipeg, February 10, 2017
Zwartjes is new to me and I couldn't find much written about him in english
- Maybe @rolandkuit knows more than I was able to find out. (just a thought)
- So "we" will have to do with a google translate from dutch:
- Really fascinating stuff and a must check out for all interested in the history of electronic music.
At that time I was teaching Sound Art there. Before filmmaking, he studied music for 5 years. Especially of interest was his cooperation with France's-Marie Utti, the cello player. Film: Confidential.
More on Frans Zwartjes:
https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/film/frans-zwartjes-home-sweet-home
and
http://hollandsemeesters.info/posts/show/8990
New from Pi, with a couple long tracks at Bandcamp
Charlemagne Palestine & Grumbling Fur Time Machine Orchestra
Omminggg and Schlomminggg
Performed by Charlemagne Palestine, Alexander Tucker and Daniel O'Sullivan
- Important Records
Still nothing about this guy, except for some photos and a short bio written by himself on LastFM:
Lee Antrhony Norris - Italian Works
- The Sublunar Society - Emusic
Love that collection! Beautifully done!
Released July 27, 2017
Ikue Mori - Obelisk
Ikue Mori
Took me a couple of goes as my pc didn't want to talk to emusic but basically read about, found, d/l and listened to in 10 minutes. Great players on this album, all of whom I've seen at one time or other.
https://www.emusic.com/album/61625946/Craig-Taborn-and-Ikue-Mori/Highsmith
I've also just picked up the two Maryanne Amacher releases on Tzadik. Still recall the sensory overload of her performance at The Arches in Glasgow (Install Festival) walking around with sound bouncing off underground railway tunnels at frighteningly loud volume that made the air feel like soup!