Novità e Tours. In English.
Hello,
Welcome to our anniversary newsletter.
Anniversaries seem without fail to attract exaggerated praise and wistful
sentimentalities. And induce annoyed eye-rolling and bored finger-twitching in
those asked to endure the self-indulgent ode to the celebrated party. We at
Dense thus want to save you the pain and cut straight to the chase. We are an
empirical company after all. 50 installments of daring music news, well over
1000 releases promoted, more than 70 labels served, five years of pushing the
envelope in music journalism and nurturing awareness for experimental music. A
worthy cause as we find. And always only possible with the help of you, dear
recipient of this newsletter. So, as the ditty goes:
thank you for the music and since there is so much of it, here is more for you
to explore at your leisure.
Yours
The Dense Promotion Team
>>> >>> >>>
contents:
ALEXANDER RISHAUG – Possible Landscape [CD Asphodel] ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFITTI – The Doldrums [CD/LP Paw Tracks] CHRISTIAN MARCLAY – djTRIO [CD Asphodel] ED LAWES – 14 Tracks/Pieces [CD Planet Mu] FOURCOLOR – Air Curtain [CD 12k] FOURCOLOR – Water Mirror [CD apestaartje] F.S.BLUMM – Sesamsamen [CD Plop] GUSTAV – Rettet die Wale [CD mosz] HANS APPELQVIST – Bremort [CD Komplott] JOHN HUDAK – Room with Sky [CD Spekk] METALYCÉE – Another White Album [CD mosz] MICHAELA MELIÁN – Baden-Baden [CD/LP Monika Enterprise] MOKIRA – FFT POP [CD cubicfabric] NICOLAS COLLINS – Pea Soup [3″CD apestaartje] OTTO VON SCHIRACH – Global Speaker Fisting [CD Schematic] O.LAMM – Hello Spiral [CD Active Suspension] PAN/TONE – Newfound Urban Calm [2CD Bip-Hop] SECRET FREQUENCY CREW – Forest of the Echo Downs [CD Schematic] STEPHAN MATHIEU – On Tape [CD Häpna] STYROFOAM – Nothing’s Lost [CD/LP morr music] V.A. – BROKEN CHANNEL [DVD Cocosolidciti] VITOR JOAQUIM – A Rose is a Rose [CD dOc recordings]
please reply if you’re interested in presenting or reviewing any of the releases
in this newsletter. and please check the territory specifications below.
>>> >>> >>>
ALEXANDER RISHAUG – Possible Landscape [CD Asphodel ASP 2024] http://www.asphodel.com
Alexander Rishaug is a sound artist and electronic musician based in Oslo,
Norway. A member of the country’s fertile experimental music scene, Rishaug has
toured throughout Europe and the US and appeared on compilations on the Rune
Grammofon, Jester and Smalltown Supersound labels. His first full-length, the
critically acclaimed Panorama, was released in 2002 by Smalltown Supersound.
Moving from ambient to abstract beats and classic clicks and cuts, Rishaug’s
second release, Possible Landscape, explores tones and textures creating
detailed, rich and melodic soundscapes. Based on recordings of self-played
instruments and field recordings that were then edited and processed on
Rishaug’s computer, Possible Landscape straddles a perfect middle ground between
structure and rhythm with unexpected skips and random shifts.
Also a member of the improv trio ARM with Arne Borganand Are Mokkelbost (Single
Unit), Rishaug has collaborated with numerous other artists including Håkon
Kornstad, Pål Asle Pettersen, Tonny Klyften, John Hegre, Jørgen Træen, Toshimaru
Nakamura and Salvatore.
>>>
ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFITTI – The Doldrums [CD/LP Paw Tracks PAW3]
-> no promo in UK
http://www.paw-tracks.com
After years of recording in relative seclusion in the hills of Los Angeles,
Ariel Pink (the first non-Animal Collective member on the Paw Tracks roster)
makes his official Paw Tracks debut with “The
Doldrums”. Originally a handmade CD-R release a couple years back, “The
Doldrums” by Ariel Pink’s Haunted Grafitti was discovered by the Animal
Collective during one of their west coast tours and became an immediate
favorite.
Recording at home with only a guitar, keyboard, and 8-track (the drum sounds are
all unbelievably created with his vocals), Ariel Pink blends Lite FM and warped
lo-fi pop into something beautiful and confusing, yet highly addictive.
>>>
CHRISTIAN MARCLAY – djTRIO [CD Asphodel ASP 2023] http://www.asphodel.com
Performer, sculptor, and sound artist Christian Marclay has been experimenting,
composing and performing with phonograph records and turntables since 1979. As a
musician, he was one of the first to use records and turntables as a medium for
performance and improvisation.
Mixing a wide variety of LPs on multiple turntables, fragmenting and repeating
sounds, altering speeds, playing records backwards, spinning, throwing,
scratching, and otherwise manipulating records to create his unique “theater of
found sound,” Marclay’s extreme DJ manipulations predate
by two decades the turntablists of today. djTRIO is a rotating trio founded by
Christian Marclay in 1996 to showcase the talent of some of the world’s best
avant-garde turntablists. Rooted in the context of free-improvisation, Marclay’s
latest musical project continues pushing forward the definition of what
deejaying is. The new CD features four of the most forward thinking turntablists
of the new music scene: Toshio Kajiwara, Erik M., DJ Olive and Marina Rosenfeld.
djTRIO features the deejay as an instrumentalist working collectively in a group
instead of performing as a soloist. Over the course of the past seven years
djTRIO has also included Otomo Yoshihide, Pita, and Tom Recchion, among others.
The follow-up to Marclay’s 2000 collaboration with Otomo Yoshihide, Moving Parts
(Asphodel) djTRIO continues to demonstrate that a lot more can be done with
turntables than just scratch beats. The new CD was compiled by Marclay from live
recordings of numerous performances at museums and clubs in the US, France,
Switzerland, and Portugal.
>>>
ED LAWES – 14 Tracks/Pieces [CD Planet Mu ZIQ110]
-> no promo in UK, France, Benelux
http://www.planet-mu.com
A collection of works by Birmingham-based musician & contemporary composer Ed
Lawes. He divides the works between ‘pieces’ (generally scored for or impovised
on more traditional instruments) and ‘tracks’ (which can be generalised as more
computer-based or ‘electroacoustic’ works).
The pieces include studies for violin, double bass & tenor saxophone and works
for mixed ensemble among other things. The performances, recordings and
improvisations are carefully edited and processed, layered and combined to form
these pieces (and tracks); for whatever reason there is a tremendous depth of
emotion within them. Brief references: Ligeti, Stockhausen, Autechre, Anthony
Braxton.
>>>
FOURCOLOR – Air Curtain [CD 12k 12K1029] http://www.12k.com
Air Curtain is the latest release from Keiichi Sugimoto’s (minamo, fonica) solo
project Fourcolor. Following his release Water Mirror (Apestaartje, 2004) in
which Sugimoto created gradually evolving works using guitar drones and
resonances, Air Curtain was composed to be a more diverse album
and an exploration of different processes. Still utilizing the signature drones
and ambient washes of guitar notes and resonances, Air Curtain is a very flowing
work, yet finds movement in implied rhythmic edits, synthetic percussive accents
and more structured playing techniques. The results are engaging, picturesque
works that swell and flow with an air of warmth and translucence, layered with
subtle shifts and sparks that demand attentive listening and further establish
Sugimoto’s place as one of the genre’s strongest emerging talents.
>>>
FOURCOLOR – Water Mirror [CD apestaartje staartje016] http://www.staartje.com
After releasing several stunning albums as a part of the electro-acoustic
quartet Minamo (apestaartje/cubic music) and as 1/2 of the electronica duo
Fonica (plop/tomlab) this is Keiichi Sugimoto‚s first widely distributed solo
release as Fourcolor. Focusing predominately on the guitar ‘water mirror’ blends
acoustic resonance with subtle precision to create an extremely detailed and
restrained listening experience. Sugimoto focuses on the smallest of elements
using electronics to accentuate every facet of an already tactile sound palette.
Sugimoto seamlessly blends various threads of kinetic listening in this
ever-shifting composition of gradual movement. A difficult one to memorize,
‘water mirror’ is a deceptively complex album full of warmth and rigor. The
album closes with an epic 25 min soundtrack to the film ‘Frontire’ by Japanese
experimental filmmaker Jun Miyazaki which will be screening at this years Cannes
Film Festival. Extremely gradual music.
>>>
F.S.BLUMM – Sesamsamen [CD Plop PLIP-3012] http://www.inpartmaint.com/plop
F.S.Blumm is Frank Schültge born in Bremen in 1968. In Bremen he graduated in
Art, Music and Educational Science. Eventually he moved to Hanover and since
1997 F.S.Blumm has been living in Berlin where he is successfully free lancing
as a musician, composer, radioplay author and producer.
F.S.Blumm is part of Sack & Blumm, Rebresch & Blumm and KINN. He has released on
Tomlab, Morr Music, Tokuma, Staubgold, Audio Dregs and others; his radio plays
are broadcast by the WDR, SWR, Deutschlandradio and others.
Text by F.S.Blumm: This album is about approaching a musical idea from various
sides. There are mainly two pieces on this album: one is ‘coop comp’ (which
stands for cooperative composition) the other is ‘leben lauft’. During the last
seven years I made a couple of solo-releases wherein I always invited a small
number of single musicians to play their wonderful instruments for me. One day I
noticed that all these people never really met each other on my records and so I
had the idea of
inviting all of them at once to create something like ‘a symphony of friends’.
As a basis I took my guitar and wrote a composition inspired by
Ethiopian-rhythms. I did a ‘general-midi’-version of it which I then gave along
with the score to my friends, telling them: “You can do whatever you want: stick
to the notes, do a field-recording, freak out, but the closer you stay with the
example the
better everything will be combinable, I guess.” In the end I received 10
beautiful contributions, reaching from one minute to one hour, from sparse
melodies to rich arrangements. Semuin and I combined all these pieces in
countless ways. We didn’t succeed in doing the big symphony, but we did a lot of
overtures. On this album I invited two more artists, because I have always felt
deeply connected to their specific speech in my musical ways: one is Bjorn
Kuhligk, the other is Yumiko Matsui: Bjorn Kuhligk wrote three texts combined
under the name ‘leben lauft’, which inspired me to write some music which is
heard here in three different versions. The task was to heighten the two
disciplines by giving each other space to unfold (appreciating). Listening.
Answering. Projection surfaces. Association surfaces. In the end Yumiko Matsui
did all the artwork.
>>>
GUSTAV – Rettet die Wale [CD mosz 005] http://www.mosz.org
Besides her artistic work, Eva Jantschitsch was co-founding the musical
formations Metrosau, Motorsau and Songs of Suspects. Since the end of 2002 she
has focused on her solo-project Gustav.
Like all previous Mosz releases, “Rettet die Wale” [mosz005] is an artist’s
first album. Behind the name ‘Gustav’ hides a female musician with mainly a Fine
Arts background. Though the “Rettet die Wale” is quite the opposite of
Metalycée’s “Another White Album” [mosz004], it can also be considered a pop
album in a wider sense. Each piece on this CD is electronically based, but
structured like a classic pop song. They are put into perspective by the fragile
voice of Gustav herself.
The title of the CD might seem kitschy and concerned but in fact Gustav wittily
uses both, political facts and poetic elements. In a way all the tracks contain
more or less serious lyrics – basically German and English – but they are
composed with a good sense of humour.
>>>
HANS APPELQVIST – Bremort [CD Komplott escudre03]
-> No Promo in Sweden
http://www.komplott.com
On his new album Bremort, Hans Appelqvist seeks an alternative technique of
musical story telling, a search which seems to be founded in a sort of
restlessness or maybe a mise en cause of those simple and solidly established
parameters which have been established in instrumental and conventional popular
music. Appelqvist mainly derives his particular form of musical story telling
from feature film, where the music is paralleling the story so as to amplify it
or comment it. It is in this form, where sound and image converge, that
Appelqvist is conducting his search for unexpected emotional expressions.
Bremort is the name of a fictitious city where the listener takes part in scenes
in the lives of the people of this average Swedish town. The album has no
comprehensive theme but is rather built up around several small episodes, which
have nothing in common other than the fact that they all take place in this same
fictitious city during a limited period of time. The depictions are accompanied
by different musical themes in which the beige existence of some of the
inhabitants of Bremort are portrayed and linked together in recurrent
intermezzos. As such Bremort is in a way a place of refuge, a sanctuary for the
commonplace.
In earlier productions Appelqvist has introduced a distinctive world of
resonance in which an encoded narrative is concealed. With Bremort Appelqvist is
not only creating his most comprehensive work so far, it is also a further
elaboration of his singular technique of storytelling. These are moods to return
to again and again, but at the same time not as concrete in its narrative form
as to defy the description of music. Here you find dependence between image and
sound where each part presupposes the other.
>>>
JOHN HUDAK – Room with Sky [CD Spekk KK003] http://www.spekk.net
US sound-artist John Hudak’s new material is a sculpture of his voice speaking
about the view of the sky from his room. The actual tones heard on this album
sound so delicate and beautiful like a
reflection in a mirror by going through more than 20 permutations before
arriving at this final version. This was originally released on a CDR limited to
50 copies from his own chaba recordings (now out of print) in 2003 and this will
be the official release with the remastering by Stephan Mathieu.
Text by John Hudak: Room with sky began as a recording of my speaking voice in
my bedroom, which is very sunny on sunny days. My bedroom has Bauhaus style
casement windows with views in the Southern direction (towards New York city),
and the Western direction (towards the Hudson River and the Palisades cliffs of
New Jersey on the opposite side of the river). The words that I spoke came
directly out of my mouth in a stream-of-consciousness style, with the actual
text having been lost through destructive editing within my computer. The idea
behind this piece was for me to convey in the listener the feeling of being in
this sunny room, on a sunny day. I took the recording of my voice and put it
through many permutations before finally arriving at this ending point. Room
with sky was mastered by Stephan Mathieu consisting partly of a process of
digital to analog to digital conversion…for warmth.
>>>
METALYCÉE – Another White Album [CD mosz 004] http://www.mosz.org
Armin Steiner and Nik Hummer are primarily known for their longtime project
thilges3 (Steiner, Hummer, Gammon). In this context their mission is the
acoustic introduction of public places like museums, galleries, theatres and
clubs to social transformation-triggering and visual sound innovations.
Metalycée is a very new project with the aim to salve, recover, transform and
put metal into the field of electronic music without respecting any borderlines.
Another White Album – their first CD ever – is basically made of digitally
processed guitar and drum samples, which Steiner and Hummer merge with their
modular synth sounds into a unique construction. The metal-like sounding samples
are cut and arranged precisely in an almost breakbeat kind of style, always
ready for an unexpected change between harsh & abrasive and floating
forms. In addition friends and fans of the band like Didi Bruckmayr from
Fuckhead (Mego) and John Norman from Radian (Thrill Jockey) contribute as guests
on “21H39” and “5H17” A harsh Viennese Melange and a vivid proof that there are
still new paths within electronica, which can be discovered.
>>>
MICHAELA MELIÁN – Baden-Baden [CD/LP Monika Enterprise 39]
-> Promo only in France, Scandinavia, Portugal and Eastern Europe
http://www.monika-enterprise.de
This, Michaela Melián’s first solo album, comprises slow and uplifting melodic
grooves. She uses strong yet simple beats and entrancing cello to set a relaxed
mood. Two years in the making, the album from F.S.K. bassist and singer is a
work of concisely crafted electronic beauty. Although produced as accompanying
pieces to Melián’s exhibitions as a visual artist, the album now stands proud on
its own right. The listener is even graced with Melian’s wonderful voice on the
last number, a Roxy Music cover recorded especially for this album.
>>>
MOKIRA – FFT POP [CD cubicfabric cubicf04] http://www.cubicmusic.com/fabric
Andreas Tilliander aka Mokira is regarded as one of the most important key
figures in the world of electronic music from Sweden. We can call him the guy
with various faces because of his unlimited activities that expand across the
fields of nu electronica as Andreas Tilliander, Lowfour, Rechord, Komp… and
Mokira.
It could be said that Mokira is Tilliander’s prime project now. Mokira’s first
appearance on Raster-Noton, Berlin, represented the era of new electronica with
its title “crip hop”. After that, he kept on deepening his sounds with elegant
and rich textures that remind us of the sounds of 4AD and the shoegazer phase.
Tilliander is also famous for his reliable skills and career as a mastering
engineer and producer. Based in his private studio Repeatle in Stockholm, he has
produced various music for the dance floors and the listening rooms in northern
and western Europe.
“FFT POP” is the fourth full length album following “Album” (Type Records). On
this album, Tilliander shows the one and only aesthetics with developed senses
of melodies and the manners of dub. What is remarkable is the mixture of hi-fi
sound design and the smell of decadence and beauty that 80’s
indie rock & pop possessed (Tilliander mentions that this work is an homage to
My Bloody Valentine’s “Loveless” album). Free from either low-fi romanticism or
narrative folk/poptronica, Tilliander has succeeded in completing his
masterpiece and predicting a new era of POP music. Tilliander welcomed
vocalist/lyricist Piana (cubic music/HAPPY) on a vocal track “Tsuki no Kioku”
(means “memories of the moon” in Japanese). The two realized a great
collaboration to melt each other’s world view together. We can hardly believe
that they worked together by merely exchanging audio data via www.
>>>
NICOLAS COLLINS – Pea Soup [3″CD apestaartje listen002] http://www.staartje.com
A self-stabilizing network of circuitry nudges the pitch of audio feedback to a
different resonant frequency every time the feedback starts to build. The
familiar shriek is replaced with unstable patterns of hollow tones, a
site-specific raga reflecting the acoustical personality of the room. These
architectural melodies can be influenced by moving in the space, making other
sounds, or even by letting in a draft of cold air. This recording took place in
the reverb-drenched splendor of the Plasy
Monastery, in the Czech Republic, during the 1999 “Festival Limbo 2.” George
Cremaschi gave a spirited performance on double bass.
>>>
OTTO VON SCHIRACH – Global Speaker Fisting [CD Schematic SCH044] http://www.schematic.net
Deafening audiences and defying protocol, Otto Von Schirach returns in ’04 with
a freshly-lubed full-length to give electronica another ghetto suppository. The
follow up to 2002’s Chopped Zombie Fungus (Schematic), Global Speaker Fisting is
from the underground’s underground: it’s the twenty-eyed electrified monstrosity
living in the darkest, deepest sewers of the hardcore avant-garde. Moving from
death metal send-ups to plagues and biotech disasters, Von Schirach’s third
album is easily his finest and most accomplished record to date.
Global Speaker Fisting could not arrive at a better time for this 27 year-old
Miami resident. Fresh from recent work with the likes of Skinny Puppy –
programming and sound design for their 2004
full-length, The Greater Wrong of the Right, serving as the warm-up act on the
band’s recent American tour – Von Schirach’s innovations also caught the eye of
Miss Kittin, who asked him to remix “Professional Distortion,” the first single
off of her most recent album I Com (Astralwerks.) With demands for collaboration
from artists as diverse as these, clearly Otto Von Schirach is up to
something.
File under: “Insult to Injury,” beside the fetishistic imagery of Joel Peter
Witkin’s photographs, the shuddering noise of Venetian Snares, the cartoon
cruelty of Jake and Dinos Chapman’s sculptures,
and the theme-park insanity of author George Saunders. Otto Von Schirach’s
comedy is meant to shake people free from apathy. His futuristic sound suggests
that behind all the scum and perversity, Von Schirach is an optimist. Global
Speaker Fisting is a courageous and iconoclastic leap into the frightening,
unknowable tomorrow.
>>>
O.LAMM – Hello Spiral [CD Active Suspension ACD11]
-> No Promo in Belgium, Scandinavia, France
http://www.activesuspension.org
O.Lamm is an electronic musician. He likes weird noise, upbeat wizardry,
spiraling crawling hooks and pompous melodies. He generates sounds from nothing
as much as he kneads natural sounds through the technological prism, his prime
purpose simply being to put his idealised vision of pop music into concrete
form. Meaning, a form of pop music which would be as sonically adventurous as it
is immediately accessible.
Hello Spiral means, kind of, to look straight into the eye of a spiral, without
blinking. Hello Spiral is o.lamm’s second official long play, after Snow Party,
which was released in april 2002. Hello Spiral is located thousand light years
from its predecessor, even if it doesn’t turn its back on it all the same. Hello
Spiral is a very singing and sung record. Zoé and Kumi from The Konki Duet, Noak
Katoi, The Very Ape, Davide Balula, Odot himself, as well as a twenty people
choir gathered for the occasion (the Lucifer Amp Choir) sing very nice cryptic
words, making the album very much alike something that really resembles pop
music. Hello Spiral is one big whole cut in two halves. The first half is quite
rhythmic and steep, the second is calmer, yet drilled with quite dangerous
aspirations. Hello Spiral
is indeed a very talkative record. Hello Spiral is indeed a very dense record.
Hello Spiral is full of instruments and musicians, but also full of very
abstract sounds, which go “scriiitch” and “sprooootch”, and which come from
nature and aural reality as well as from very obscure sound synthesis and sound
processing softwares. Olivier like to call this his laptop psychedelia and
actually finds it quite fun. Hello Spiral is not an acoustic record, but isn’t
really an electronic one either; Hello Spiral technoid takeoffs almost sound
like rock’n’roll improvs, and its pop songs almost like electric diarrhea. Hello
Spiral is indeed very proud of itself.
>>>
PAN/TONE – Newfound Urban Calm (includes a free CD of remixes) [2CD Bip-Hop
bleep 26/27]
-> Promo only in Germany, Benelux, Spain, Eastern Europe
http://www.bip-hop.com
Pan/Tone is known for his releases on BackGround, Onitor, Neuton, Revolver,
SubStatic but we are proud to present his best work to date. 12 new compositions
+ 10 remixes = 136 minutes filled with miniaturized techno. Subtle moves for
your body, food for thoughts leading step by step to a
restricted dance area. shelbono “barracuda” del monte ….real name (sheldon
sidney LeRock) was
born in a desolate lumber/mining town in the northern regions of Ontario,
Canada. Shelbono started composing music while living in Windsor (near Detroit),
a city known as the mecca for techno, no!…(is it?).
Pan/tone has been in the forefront of the Canadian techno movement and was
awarded “Best Techno Act, 2003” from NOW magazine. He has been featured at well
respected Music Festivals such as MUTEK (Montreal, Canada), AVANT MUTEK
(Toronto, Canada) and North by Northwest. pan/tone has been consistently
performing in Europe and Japan and has over 28 recording credits thus far
(Sub-static, Revolver, Background Records, OnitorS).
In 2003, 15 new songs have been sent to some friends so that they rework them,
the result is the double CD “newfound urban calm”. Shelbono is now based in
Cologne, Germany for his fondness with the cities laid back appeal and the
people he has befriended. Under the moniker Shed Le Rock he has inked a 4 album
deal with Ladomat / Mute, so rest assured his music is gonna spread like
wildfire.
CD1 contains Pan/tone’s compositions, showing many unique features to his sound.
Ranging from Minimal Techno to punchy techno+rock (Rockno), a sound that rocks
dancefloors and complements the whiskey in hand idea. However pan/tone’s
approach is more of a broader musical appeal. Pan/tone’s theory is to focus on
creating a “Techno” sound that will hopefully branch away from the norm.
CD2 offers exclusive reworks of Pan/Tone music by Jeff Milligan-Algorithm,
Losoul, Si-cut.db, Falko Brockseiper & Mia / SubStatic, Andy Vaz, Frank
Martiniq, Rene Braithwarth, Duplex 100, Adam Marshall, Repair.
>>>
SECRET FREQUENCY CREW – Forest of the Echo Downs [CD Schematic SCH045] http://www.schematic.net
The eclectic debut full-length recording from currently in-demand NYC club DJs
Matthew Brown, Matt Friedman, and Adrian Michna. Adding hints of classic 1980s
pop to their own unique blend of guitars,
trombones, bass and piano, Forest of the Echo Downs is a wonderfully memorable,
beat-fueled collection from the brighest young band on Miami’s delightfully
unpredictable Schematic imprint, a firm traditionally known for parenting much
harsher sounds.
With previous 12″s and EPs on the celebrated Counterflow and Mass Transit labels
– including the now classic 2-track Miami EP, (featuring an SFC remix by Andrea
Parker) and 2002’s Deep Blue 12″/CD, (featuring remixes by Eli 173 and High
Priest of the late Anti-Pop Consortium) – Secret Frequency Crew have begun to
build an audience of artists and fans alike with an increasing
taste for the band’s dark, heavily layered, downtempo jams.
>>>
STEPHAN MATHIEU – On Tape [CD Häpna H.18]
http://www.hapna.com
-> No Promo in Sweden and Norway
Stephan Mathieu is an electronic musician from Saarbruecken, Germany. Starting
out as a drummer in various improvised contexts he made the switch to working
mainly with computers in the late 90’s. Since then he has released a string of
highly acclaimed recordings on labels like Ritornell
and Orthlorng Musork. >From his interest in design and work with installations
he has acquired a fine-tuned sense of form. His music is mostly based on
acoustic instruments but so far they have always been more or less heavily
computer processed. “On Tape” is a pivotal work for Mathieu
as this is the first time we hear him leaving his source material unprocessed by
digital means.
Stephan started building this piece from recordings provided to him by Swedish
trio Tape and saxophonist Magnus Granberg. Adding his own subtle drumming, field
recordings and a focus on reworking the sound material exclusively with classic
editing techniques this is a beautiful album that weaves elements from the
electronic and acoustic worlds to a seamless whole. A very clear and
uncomplicated atmosphere around this piece distinguishes it from a lot of
electronic music.
>>>
STYROFOAM – Nothing’s Lost [CD/LP morr music mm049]
-> promo only in France, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe
http://www.morrmusic.com
The Brussels based Club Ancienne Belgique is celebrating its 25th anniversary in
2004.When it comes to bringing contemporary Indie, Club and Pop music to the
stage, this venue is Brussels’ most relevant address, especially for the city’s
young, Flemish community. When the artistic director of the club, Kurt
Overbergh, started to plan activities for their anniversary, he immediately
addressed Arne van Petegem aka Styrofoam, whose musical career he’s been
watching closely since the very beginning. They initially came up with the idea
of a special show at Ancienne Belgique which Arne was supposed to host, but as
the venue not only provides a big concert hall and a small club, but a studio as
well, they pushed their idea a bit further. The people at AB decided to provide
Arne with the opportunity to produce parts of his next album at the AB studio
and fly in and accommodate a suitable number of musical guests. Styrofoam
started to produce basic tracks, tailoring them to what he thought was suitable
for the musicians he had in mind. He then send a selection of three to four
instrumentals to his fellow musicians to choose from. To his surprise, everyone
went for the track that was initially meant for them.
If one listens to “Nothing’s Lost” as a whole, the album never appears to be a
loose compilation style collection of songs though. On the contrary, this
definitely is Styrofoam’s most accomplished effort to date. Styrofoam’s gentle
hand as both a writer, producer and voice – he sings on half of the album’s
songs himself – is as present as it is subtle.
The realisation of the recordings took many different routes. Markus Acher
(LaliPuna/The Notwist) contributed guitar tracks for “Misguided” and “Make It
Mine” right before a show he played with Lali Puna in april 2004 at Ancienne
Belgique. The connection between both is of course obviously Morr
Music, but Styrofoam has also acted as an interim Notwist member on their 2003
US and European tours. Together with Arne Markus also managed to get Lali Puna
singer Valerie Trebeljahr involved. After just a tiny bit of reluctance (because
she hadn’t been rehearsing anything for this project),
she sang the song’s chorus on the spot. Anticon artist Alias, who has been
supporting Lali Puna on their European tour this spring, rounded things off for
“Misguided”, providing one of his rare raps.
Taking advantage of a few days off, Alias stayed in Brussels a bit longer to
provide more beats for “Couches In Alleys” and “Make It Mine”.
>>>
V.A. – BROKEN CHANNEL [DVD Cocosolidciti CSC009] http://www.cocosolidciti.com
Broken Channel presents sound and video interpretations on DVD and CD of the
contemporary experience of surveillance, from a range of leading international
artists working in sound and video. Featuring newly commissioned musical and
video works exploring noises of dissent and
visions through the shattered lens of CCTV and surveillance: Coldcut (Ninjatune)
with assistance from Outerabongolia look at the police’s monitoring of protest
and protestors; Kampuchea (aka.
Phonem, Morr Music) uses sound from an immigration office to construct a
soundtrack with; Ultra Red (Mille Plateaux/Fat Cat) look at the protest at
Quebec and on the USA/Mexico border from a participants perspective; Kaffe
Matthews & Riz Maslen (aka – Noetropic-ntone) create discordant sound and image
from the mute medium of CCTV; and Made (Gescom, Skam) & Battery Operated
(C0C0S0L1DC1T1) look at how the control spaces of surveillance can be subverted
to create
radical new architectures and environments.
All works were originally commissioned for exclusive use for this project by The
Futuresonic Festival in UK. This project has already been toured with live
performances by the artists involved around the UK and in Europe. All works were
commissioned by the Futuresonic Festival In the UK.
DVD of video works which do not appear on the CD. Most of the work on the DVD
and CD are exclusive and cannot be found on any other release. This project is
being aired and shown at many festivals around the world.
>>>
VITOR JOAQUIM – A Rose is a Rose [CD dOc recordings 007] http://doc.test.at
“A Rose Is a Rose” is a red herring: Vitor Joaquim tells us that the title of
his new solo CD is arbitrary. Like a rose, however, this CD is a small
self-contained (pink!) object that carries a world within itself, one which
opens up on closer scrutiny. It is the 9th release on d0c (in spite of its cat.
nr. 7), the forward-looking label run by Pure, and offers eight separate but
closely related tracks that seem to happen spontaneously, compositions which are
snapshots of a scene already taking place by the time we get there.
According to Joaquim, a key player on Portugal’s electroacoustic scene and
director of the annual EME festival there, the music on this CD was mostly
improvised and then assembled in the studio into an organic whole. One of its
many charms is its overall intimate sound, as though the composer were allowing
the listener a confidential glimpse into a personal incident or journey or
memory.
Generally quiet but not disquieting, dusky rather than dark, the music is like a
lone walk in a vast abandoned industrial zone, by the railroad flats, or a
grainy black-and-white film of that walk. It‚s like sitting in twilight by a
concrete jetty, marveling at the ultrasonic radio waves bouncing off the
ionosphere overhead. It‚s like enjoying the shimmering, lulling surface of the
water while sounds pierce through the digital mist: the far-off rush of windy
open spaces(track 3), scrambled radio transmissions (track 4), the throb of
machinery in the distance while, deep in the mix, a low chorus of male voices
confer with each other (track 6).
The haunting beauty of track 5´s harmonic background and placid, aquatic
foreground; the protracted epiphany of track 7, with the surging and dropping
off of its digital pizzicato and moments of quiet suspense; the coda of track 8,
summarizing the foregoing even as it looks to the beyond –
all these are characterized by a deep glow that holds back, enchanting the
listener as it does so.
The artist himself will have none of this, of course: regardless of the highly
evocative quality of the soundscapes here, he says that it is all “open to
speculation, but in the end all we get are stories built on top of stories” and
that one should concentrate only on the sound itself. So do that, and create
your own stories to it.
>>> >>> >>>
LIVE DATES
MITCHELL AKIYAMA [intr_version/Sub Rosa] 12/09 GR – athens, videodance festival
AMUTE [intr_version]
10/09 BE – aalst (a lost souls)
01/10 BE – brussels (ab clus w/ fennesz)
ANTON NIKKILÄ [NB Research Digest] 23/10 BE – Anton Nikkilä at Argos Festival w/ Alexei Borisov
ILIOS, AS11 [Antifrost]
05/09 JP – Uplink, Shibuya, Tokyo
10/09 JP – Cafe Independent, Kyoto
11/09 JP – tba, Kobe
12/09 JP – KD Japon , Nagoya
15/09 JP – D.O.M, Shinjuku, Tokyo
ALEXEI BORISOV [NB Research Digest] 15/10 PL – Unsound Festival, Krakow
TRANSFORMER DI ROBOTER [deco]
24/09 IT – Cassero, Bologna
30/09 DE – Kato, Berlin
23/10 FR – electroni[k] festival, Rennes
FIBLA [spa.RK]
26/09 ES – BAM La Bàscula, Barcelona
01-03/10 NO – EKKOFEST, Bergen (+EEDL)
NITRADA [2.nd rec]
21/10 DE – Dresden, Scheune
22/10 DE – Berlin, Magnet
11/11 De – Hamburg, Weltbühne (w/ Apparat, Lawrence, Turner)
STAUBGOLD LOUNGE
09/09 DE – Berlin, NBI:
Betrieb (Klang Elektronik/D, live), DJ Ekkehard Ehlers,
Staubgold Sound System (Markus Detmer + Tim Tetzner)
PAUL WIRKUS [Staubgold]
11/09 DE – düsseldorf, tent record store
15/09 AT – vienna, rhiz
AGF [Quecksilber] 10/09 NL – rotterdam, arminius
THILGES 3 [Staubgold] + Asim Al Chalabi feat. Zohreh Jooya
30/09 AT – vienna, sargfabrik
02/10 AT – bludenz, remise bludenz
FAUST [Staubgold/Klangbad] 08/10 ES – madrid, experimentaclub festival
ARGOS FESTIVAL
15-23/10 BE – Brussels – With: Justin Bennett, Aki Onda, Hildegard
Westerkamp, Angelo Vermeulen, Yuko Nexus6, Emilio-López Menchero, Francisco
López, Maria Blondeel, Johan Vandermaelen, Martiens Go Home, Building
Transmissions, TMRX, Yannis Kyriakides, The Books, Lionel Marchetti
DAVID GRUBBS: THESE GIGS ARE CANCELLED!!!
12/09 DE – Schorndorf @ Manufaktur
13/09 DE – Köln @ Gebäude 9
14/09 DE – Hamburg @ Weltbühne
15.09 DE – Berlin @ Volksbühne
>>> >>> >>>
dense promotion
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ph +49 30 44 34 02 90
fx +49 30 44 34 02 91
dense@dense.de
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