THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
With a number of releases on structuralist techno labels MaxErnst and Chain Reaction, this Finnish prodigy has been slowly breaking from the pure-tone oscillations of artists like Thomas Brinkmann and Mika Vainio, in favor of the digital facsilimies of rusted detritus which corrode monophunk techno pulses into atmospheric murk. Another quality release from Mr. Delay.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Thomas Brinkmann's influence on Vladislav Delay is far well beyond the fact that Brinkmann released this single on his Max Ernst label. The motorik machines that tick with clockwork precision (and a very static 'groove') are signature of Brinkmann's minimalist techno. However, Vladislav Delay (who also has a great album on the New Zealand label Sigma) does appear to be doing more with the digital metronome in sprinkling cavernous dub and frozen atmospheres, falling closer to the sound of Plastikman or some of the Chain Reaction kids.
Yay, this long out of print Chain Reaction classic from Finnish minimalist Vladislav Delay is now reissed by Huume... here's what we said about it long ago, the first time 'round:
The scope of the anonymous metallic techno sound of the Chain Reaction / Basic Channel core of artists has been fractured by the simple fact that Berlin is no longer the locus of activity. Rather, Fluxion, Hallucinator, and Vladislav Delay (the latest wave of Chain Reactors) come from lands quite far from Berlin. Finland's Vladislav Delay retains only a semblance of the Chain Reaction 'heroin house'. Instead of stripping the already minimal techno to its most hypnotic particles, Delay densly layers murky percolations of dubbed pattern phases with the teutonic 909 thump only sporadically emerging from the sonic substrata. An exceptional variation on a proven theme.
"Naima" is an edited document of Vladislav Delay's extended live performance at Ars Electronica Klangpark 2001. While his previous albums were of the digidub / ambient electronica sound alongside Pole and Kit Clayton, "Naima" is a spartan abstraction of
Vladislav Delay has long been regarded as one of the most astute electronic producers, having successfully investigated a Chain Reaction morass of heroin house percolating with dubbed out granular synthetic bleep and bloop, then making quite a splash with numerous bona fide club anthems under the Luomo moniker. The Four Quarters marks the first record in quite some time as Vladislav Delay; like his electrifying Chain Reaction recordings, The Four Quarters is a submersive experience albeit a far more downtempo excursion with plodding breakbeats and super slow-motion ambient wash and synth vibrations, all smothered in a frigid digital dub.
Sasu Ripatti (the man behind Vladislav Delay mask for a decade now) has long touted his jazz roots when talking about the complex pixel-fizz and digi-blur he crafted above his seminal Chain Reaction records of abstracted techno from the turn of the century. It seemed a bit of a stretch; but yeah, you could hear some tinklings of jazz expressionism lurking within his liminal electronic rhythms. Jump to 2009 with his first album as Vladislav Delay in two years (there was a Luomo record from 2008, mind you!), and Ripatti has made a fine piece of noir-laced electronics that balance his formative years as a jazz drummer and his contemporary explorations with digital synthesis. Boozy atmospheres, scatter-shot percussion occasionally tightening into repeating sequences, looping organic rhythms, and dub-inflected electronics abound.
It's been a couple of years since we've heard anything purely electronic from the Finnish techno abstractionist Vladislav Delay. Recently, Sasu Ripatti (the man behind the Vladislav Delay moniker) has fronted an electro-jazz quartet, emblazoned with the rather obvious name - the Vladislav Delay Quartet, a project that must have been inspired by Ripatti's time as the drummer for Mortiz Von Oswald's hypno-jazz trio which sported an equally eponymous nom de plume. By contrast with all of the wooden explorations of post-Kosmische grooves that hinted at Terry Riley, Can, and Cluster, Vantaa turns back to his celebrated work for Chain Reaction, radiating its dub-inflected electric lullabies from within the heart of the machine. As Vladislav Delay, Ripatti has been known for a decentering form of abstracted techno, where the rhythms are erased, blurred, muted, shifted, and otherwise obfuscated amidst a constantly morphing array of whirring mechanics and granulated synthesis, making this some of the most difficult forms of techno to try to tap out a rhythm to. Vantaa continues brilliantly along this line of thought, with organically spun networks of electrical synapses responding through metabolic fluctuations and dream-like dubbed echoes. By the time, he slips and trips his way to "Lauma" at the end of the record, Delay glides into a high-octane techno pulse without anybody really noticing; but with all the shimmering hypnotic electronics cast suitably in loads of delay patterns, the track becomes more of an accelerated ambient tonic. Vantaa is downright messy for the machinist rigidity one can normally expect from a label like Raster-Noton, but the album is all the more sublime for it.
With the exception of the Huume label's reissue of Vladislav Delay's Multila album, it's been a while since we heard from that masterfully skilled Finnish practitioner of minimal glitch-y techno, dub and house (aka Sasu Ripatti). Whistleblower is his new album, the follow-up to 2005's Four Quarters. It very well might be his most subdued work to date. A slow spreading presence of synth washes, melting drones and deeep basslines seeps out of your speakers. Anything resembling beats is muted into gentle pulses, sputters and stutters. Beautiful and understated.
Vladislav Delay continues to drift ever further from the spaced out minimal electronic dub and spare skeletal Chain Reaction techno that so defined him, this being maybe the strangest thing we've heard from him, this newly formed Quartet finds Delay (aka Sasu Ripatti) back behind the drum kit, where he started as a young jazz drummer, teamed up with Lucio Capece, Derek Shirley and none other than Pan Sonic's Mika Vainio (which makes sense as Delay now calls Finland home). Besides Delay's drums and percussion, the sound is rounded out by an appropriately eclectic, and is some ways traditionally jazzy array of instrumentation, acoustic bass, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, sruti box, preparations, electronics and live processing.
The opening track is an impressionistic soft noise blur, all hazy thrum, murky electronic burble, and what percussion there is exists more as barely audible skitters, and reverbed sizzle and clang, but it's an arresting introduction, dark and dense, washed out and psychedelically laced with the buried skree of horns and constantly shifting textures, the perfect lead in to the first 'proper' track, the nearly 12 minute "Santa Teresa", which is super minimal, low slung, Delay's drums spare and skittery, the bass locked into a warm jazzy pulse, the horns emitting sheets of brassy shimmer and skree, hard to say whether this is minimal experimentalism, or far out deconstructed jazz, or freeform improvised electronica, it actually sounds like all three, dark and haunting, dense and tense, with the drums marvelously effected, giving the sound a darkly dubbed out vibe as well.
"Des Abends" at its core is a variation of that opening track, but way noisier and dirgier, the sound more chaotic and distorted, the sound more industrial, laced with fragmented grooves, and thick clouds of blurred electronic noise.
And so it goes, from crunchy, buzz drenched low end dirgery, to charged electronics wreathed pulsing drones, from tripped out celestial kosmische electro-jazz to hushed, blurred, almost Portishead sounding downtempo slither, and from noisy cinematic horn flecked chaotic crunch to lush haunting layered ur-drone mesmer. Fantastic stuff.
The Deletist (aka Bitter Pie) is a member of the SF Entartete Kunst arts collective. While conveying the group's socio-political ideas, she also makes some beautifully aquatic sounding music. Using both acoustic and electronic sources, she blends her dark processed experimentations with airier, delicate melodic lines. The latter is particularly notable on tracks like "Sans Toi" and the "The Lure Of War" in which waves of obscure/effected vocals flow in and around tapped woodblock-y rhythms, acoustic string, keyboard or harpsichord (?) sounds, programmed beats, distorted hiss and sputters. There's also a number of heavier passages that bring to mind the Cold Metal Perfection album by Atari Teenage Riot's Nic Endo. The result is a sharp, effective contrast between The Deletist's enveloping, almost-soothing tracks and her moodier, more abrasive ones.
MPEG Download: "Sans Toi" [/audio/deletistsanstoi.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Sans Toi" [/audio/deletistsanstoi.m3u]
A new split single by two artists from the Bay Area Entartete Kunst collective - a diverse group of outspoken artists who address social and political issues via word and sound. As they state it, they produce "no-field electronica, radical literature and propaganda that promotes positive social change". The Deletist offers the looming "Americans Eye Aeroplanes" filled with shadowy effected strings (note: this track also appears on her new album). On the flipside, Drowning Dog's "Crimson" is a track of sampled spoken word with an ominous backdrop of tactile drones and digital bleep.
Not a new release, but damn if we don't need a little more of the fantastic Delgados in our lives. And here the dose comes in the form of five BBC Sessions (including two for the legendary John Peel from 95/96). Not quite the epic grandeur of The Great Eastern but still very rich, beautiful pop. With a cover of Guided By Voices' "Indian Fables".
The Scots certainly have a magic touch when it comes to creating absolute pop splendor. Just think of artists like Belle And Sebastian, Mogwai, Teenage Fanclub, Arab Strap, not to mention supergroup The Reindeer Section... and then there's this band! You might recall Windy and Cup both gushing over the Delgados' last album The Great Eastern a couple of years back. Oh my! Well, we're happy to report that with this, their fourth full length, they've picked up right where they left off. That is, continuing to finely craft their splendid compositions full of a swirling carousel of strings, woodwinds and horns, honey-sweet male and female lead vocals, and an angelic choral accompaniment. Plus they've done so once again with the notable presence of Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Sparklehorse, Mercury Rev) in the producer's seat. Such a wonderful combination it is! Making for an even grander big picture than they created together on the super lush Great Eastern. Clouds of shimmering cymbal crashes punctuate the glorious, dramatic atmosphere, definitely revealing that distinct Fridmann touch. Wistful, lulling melodies are introduced in the most spartan of settings -- a lone voice and guitar -- but soon build to epic proportions. And the lyrics? Ah yes, quite capable of stirring heartswelling sighs and misty eyes from the coldest of men with their crushingly bittersweet imagery (lyrics are included in the cd booklet). If you've even a glimmer of affection for glorious orchestral pop, the Delgados are for you! Luminous and lovely and so very recommended.
Note: Includes a video for their song "Coming In From The Cold" and two bonus tracks not on the Mantra UK pressing.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Without fail if this album is played in the store, customers immediately ask who this is. Leans gently towards lo-fi and unassuming, yet epic and orchestral, this Scottish outfit has produced a majestic pop album of instantly catchy, toothsomely epic ditties and waltzes. The second track "Accused of Stealing" is a beautifully crushing composition. One of Cup's favorite albums of all time. Highly recommended.
Attention all Delgados completists... Here's the newest single from your fave Scottish band! That said, the two previously unreleased songs included on this EP makes this a worthwhile acquisition for any bittersweet grand pop fan. The Emma Pollock-sung "Mad Drums" was recorded during the Hate sessions and surely sounds fitting as a lovely addendum and the E.L.O. cover "Mr. Blue Sky" is a rambunctious number that when done Delgados style recalls their early more raucous garage pop sounds.
MPEG Download: "Mad Drums" [/audio/delgadosmad.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Mad Drums" [/audio/delgadosmad.m3u]
We weren't expecting a new album yet from these Scottish lovelies. It came right outta the blue, but what a delicious surprise it is!
What do you do when you reach the highest of glorious heights in dreamy popdom two albums in a row? Well if you're the Delgados, it seems you give the candy bag a shake to uncover fresh aural delights. They've traded out their longtime producer, the kickass Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Sparklehorse, Mercury Rev, et al) for the equally distinguished producer/engineer and fellow Scotsman Tony Doogan (Belle & Sebastian, Mogwai, Mountain Goats among many others) -- taking a step back from Fridmann's trademark dizzying studio wizardry and towards more stripped down, back to basics production and song structures. Never fear, there are still plenty of lovely embellishments, but they're not the kind characterized by overblown-to-the-point-of-distortion clouds of reverb and epic orchestral tidal waves. The most noticeable result of this crisp new direction is thatthere's more space for the vocals to breathe. And who doesn't want Ms Emma's heartmelting vocals more upfront and center?! Oddly enough this 'new' direction sorta brings the band full circle back to their early rough'n'tumble lower fi garage-y sound and plants it next to their more recent slower, more polished introspective sweet-tarts. A prime example of this comes early in the album. The third song "Everybody Come Down" is a peppy pop tune and the next "Come Undone" brings things way down into their more recent gauzy, wistful tempo. On Universal Audio, the beloved Delgados have truly achieved a faithful balance of their old and new selves. Recommended.
While these are songs that Dionne Warwick made famous this 1972 album could have easily been called The Dells sing Burt Bacharach as these were all songs that Bacharach wrote for Dionne. With the great producer Charles Stepney (Rotary Connection, Chess Records, Ramsey Lewis, etc.) at the helms adding his dynamic touch on arrangements complete with a full string section and a tight funk band featuring members of The Pharoahs. The Dells managed to breathe new and exciting life into songs that have been covered many times. As romantic and majestic as Bacharach originally dreamed them but with a little more raw soul underneath it all. One of the finest moments for this long standing classic Chicago soul outfit.
Delphium's first recordings situated themselves along the Scorn/Ice/God axis of devastating, electronic dub fused with bleak isolationist atmospheres. The overall darkness remains for their latest album, but it's been jacked up with time-stretched drum & bass breaks, angular 8-bit bleeping, and synthetic strings manuvering through all sorts of minor chords. "Nobody Sees The Monster In The Light Of Day..." wants to be a bad-ass/industrial strength companion to things like Springheel Jack or Chemical Brothers, but doesn't quite have all of the grooves down right. A strange hybrid.
Finally! For years we've been hearing teasers from this Leeds, England group. A song here and there on a Rough Trade comp, Chicks On Speed covering their first single "Mind Your Own Business" and it kept our mouths watering waiting for someone with the right mind to finally make their stuff available again. Luckily Kill Rock Stars stepped to the plate and have reissued these totally influential sounds for all of us to hear and play over and over like we have here at AQ. Imagine Gang Of Four injected with a healthy dose of estrogen and you begin to get a sense of what Delta 5 were all about. These three gals and two guys were delivering infectious post-punk with a feminist stance and were at the vanguard of the Rock Against Racism movement. It's easy to see how along with The Slits and The Raincoats they helped influence bands that would later play a major role in the start of riot grrrl and queer positive post-punk. We immediately started thinking about Electrelane and Erase Errata (especially towards the end of the disc when the songs get a little more rough, jagged and aggressive, yet still keeping a beat that makes you want to dance throughout the whole album). To top it all off they look so sassy and cute on the cover. A band to love from inside to out. So totally recommended!
Lots of hammond organ and wah-wah guitar riffage (sometimes reaching the status of 'heavy'). Plenty of chops from a guy who must wear his bass too high. Note for note Rolling Stones quotations. Working man's blues (made for indie-rockers with tight pants) and Jon Spencer posturing. Hey, it's the Delta 72!
Number two from the Paul Butterfield Blues Explosion.
SF group Delta Song make a pleasing mellow racket on their seven song cd-r. Their music is primarily draped around a jazzy post-rock framework - much like San Diego's Tristeza or any number of Chicago combos - however what sets them apart are their distinct warbled folky male vocals. Maybe not for everyone, in-store play has drawn both very warm and chilly response to the singing. Wanna decide for yourself? Check out "Exorcist IV" (which also stands apart from the other six, in that it sounds as though it was recorded in a school classroom). All in all, a very well executed and promising debut.
Here's the label-supplied blurb: "'Positive Contact' is the new single from the most talked-about Space Age Hip Hop Opera of the 31st Century, Deltron 3030. Featuring remixes of both 'Positive Contact' and 'Time Keeps On Slipping' (featuring Damon Albarn of Blur). Track listing includes radio edits, instrumentals, acapellas. Remixes by Charlie Clouser (Nince Inch Nails), Cut Chemist
Back in October of 2000 when the Deltron 3030 album came out we expressed our sadness that an album of such great potential was sullied by the pedestrian vocal stylings of Del "Tha Funky Homosapien" and hoped that at some point Dan The Automator would
New supergroup project conceived 'n produced by AQ-fave Dan The Automator and featuring AQ-fave Kid Koala on turntables. With more hot shot cameos than you can shake a Technics 1200 at -- including Prince Paul, Sean Lennon, Peanut Butter Wolf & Mark Bell -- you'd think this has got to be the record of the century. Sadly, all it takes is one bad needle to destroy a record and this one is played all the way through with the dullest needle in the cabinet: Del "The Funky" Homosapien. While Jake (Allan and Andee's bowling partner) claims that Del is "a way better rapper than Ice Cube", where he gets this idea we don't know. Del is not only one of the most "unfunky" rappers, but his vocalizings this time around are so totally derivative of Kool Keith's Dr. Octagon schtick as to be flush red embarrassing; lots of poorly written outer-space, 'wacky' scientific, non-sequitir raps that lack originality (repeated shouts of'3000, 3000!' ala Dr. Octagon) and are delivered stiffly Will Smith/Fresh Prince style. We hope that Dan and Kid Koala will work on an instrumental version of this album, cos the instrumental accompaniment is stunning, full of great sweeping washes of emotive grooves and inspired beatmaking. Bravo to the Automator, at least.
We had SO many people asking for this over the last few weeks, the debut full length from Mac Demarco, out on Captured Tracks, one of our favorite labels, who have a pretty stellar track record for sure, so we of course got some copies in, and were pretty surprised by the sound. There are certainly some sonic ties to other outfits on Captured Tracks, but Demarco's sound is way more laid back, woozy and sun dappled, the vibe is a little like a more lo-fi jangle-pop Jimmy Buffet actually, or a hazy softly psychedelic Grateful Dead at their very poppiest, softly groovy, a wee bit funky, lazy drawled vocals, sometimes slipping into a wavery falsetto, spidery, warbly guitar melodies, all drenched in chorus, giving it a strange ethereal feel, the instrumentation super stripped down and minimal, the drums skeletal and spare, with a slightly off (in a good way) production, seemingly barebones, but close listening reveals all sorts of weird textures and strange swirling filigree in the background. But don't let that paint a too weird picture of what's going on here, the sound slipping easily from strummy soft focus folk to low key psych pop, but all infused with an old school singer/songwriter vibe, which definitely reminds us more of the aforementioned combos than any modern outfits, Captured Tracks or otherwise. It's not hard to imagine Mac Demarco, fronting the house band in some open air, divey Tiki bar, set right on the sand, at some mysterious beachfront resort, in some alternate universe, softly serenading a room full of lost souls.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This upstart, outsider world music label (a sub-label of Drag City) is giving the Sun City Girls' Sublime Frequencies label a serious run for their money. It's only release number three, and we're already thinking crazy thoughts like "new favorite label!". Hard not to after getting an earful of this stuff. All smoldering and dark, moody and emotional, raw and intense, funky and bluesy and just totally gorgeous.�
The first release was a recording of vocalist�Yoro Diallo teamed up with a musician called Pekos, who plays a lute like instrument but wields it like a fuzzed out psychguitar, all blown out and distorted, the perfect accompaniment for Diallo's super intense toast-like vocalizing. Release number two was a disc of field recordings of a sort called�Bougouni Yaalali, sounds and songs captured in Bougouni,�a small city in Mali, late night jams, backyard parties, wherever folks were gathering to hang out, talk, and most importantly, play some of the most amazing and inspired music we had ever heard.�
Which brings us to the third, and most recent in the series, from a griot named�Daouda Dembele. Griots are the oral repositories of an area's history, entrusted with the tales of a people, and blessed with a gift for spreading those tales in song.�Dembele plays a bamboo necked, three stringed instrument, and is accompanied by someone playing an overturned gourd, and delivers a gorgeous narrative, a tale of people and peoples, going back perhaps thousands of years. It's of course impossible for us to tell what he is speaking of, but it almost doesn't matter. His voice is so fluid and passionate, his delivery a sung/spoken near-croon. Dynamic and passionate, going from hypnotic and repetitive to animated and exclamatory and back again, always mirrored by the looped cyclical riff beneath, mesmerizing and simple, totally trancelike, with little flurries of extra notes here and there, but for the most part, a gorgeous and seemingly endless cycle. A completely entrancing�droney, bluesy buzz that when combined with Dembele's subtly musical storytelling, totally transports us to another place and time like all great music should.�
The recording only adds to the appeal, lo-fi, but super hot and live sounding, with the vocals and instruments occasionally getting too loud and peaking, or distorting, pegging the needle into the red, like you're right there sitting in the shade, back on the cool grass, ear up against some old beat up PA, hearing it live, buzzing and immediate... there are even some strange tape drop outs and curious ambient inconsistencies, and for those of us who dig that sort of stuff, it only makes this disc that much more amazing, for those who maybe don't, it's more than made up for by the power and the passion of the songs, the sounds, the lyrics and the music.
We would have made Demdike Stare's sprawling quadruple vinyl 12"s epic Elemental our Record Of The Week had it not been for a few things. One, the four records were released over the course of several months, two, the combined cost of all those records ended up being nearly $100, and three, we knew it was eventually gonna come out on cd. So now that the cd version is here, we can finally make this twisted hauntological epic our Record Of The Week, which is great news for everybody, EXCEPT maybe crazy completists, who will be dismayed (or perhaps perversely thrilled) to discover, that not only does the double cd version tack on a bunch of extra tracks (nearly 33 minutes worth!!), but it also features alternate versions of some of the tracks from the 12"s. So it's really up to the folks who already shelled out for all four 12" if they want to buy it all over again, but for everybody else, we can't recommend this highly enough. More on the bonus tracks at the end, but let's talk about Elemental proper first...
Elemental was probably one of the most anticipated records around here recently, the sprawling epic from hauntological duo Demdike Stare, a four part songsuite, Chrysanthe, Violetta, Rose and Iris, the duo's new sound seriously dark, much more industrial sounding, the vibe blackened, the sounds layered and way more dense.
Chrysanthe opens with "Mephisto's Lament", which is all foghorn buzz, deep whirring drones, keening high end melodic fragments, murky buried rhythms, peppered with creepy synth squelches, and when the song gets rolling, it's almost like a hauntological SUNNO))), the same sort of roiling downtuned heaviness, but here stretched into something a bit more sinister and abstract, almost like the soundtrack for some subterranean factory, all rumble and clang, all shadows and very little light. "Kommunion" is up next, a lush looped slow build, all repeated piano motifs wreathed in chanted vocals, and all blurred into fuzzy soft focus swells, the sound suddenly expanding into a blisteringly blown out in-the-red buzz, a swoonsome melody hidden in there somewhere, the sound slipping from caustic and crunchy to blurred and murky, before switching gears completely, lacing a sprawl of staticky hiss to a skeletal trip hop pulse, extra percussion provided by found sounds, clatter and crunch, atonal piano, all woven into a strange almost Art Of Noise sounding beat. Then comes "Unction", a super creepy stretch of undulating lowend, demarcated by a strange sonar ping rhythm, one that is quickly augmented by a twisted effected croaking frog skitter, and another beat seemingly assembled from the sounds of workman scraping and dragging, a crunchy noisy lurching groove, that is soon overtaken by another cloud of reverberating pianos, which finishes off the side with a coda of swirling minimal washed out thrum.
The second part, Violetta, begins with "Mnemosyne", a blissed out sun dappled bit of witch house-y skitter, all hazy and gauzy and dreamlike, until a sudden burst of clattery noisy rhythmic crunch changes everything, and then assembles itself into a strange lumbering cacophonous beat, the sound eventually underpinned by some Eastern style folk music, which drifts briefly, before that clattery beat crashes back in, now accompanied by that Eastern melody, sounding like a weirdly stuttery bit of gypsy electro. Which leads directly into "In The Wake Of Chronos", which opens with some distant mysterious melodies, some sprinkler like textures, some super minimal skeletal skitter, and some seriously deep bass thrum, the minimal drift soon peppered with short sharp bursts of metallic crunch, clipped bits of hiss and skree sculpted into a sort-of-beat, also soon joined by tinkling melodies, wreathed in echo, the sound gradually expanding, and becoming more and more lush, that beat drifting off, leaving the various other sounds to shimmer and hover ethereally over a blackened backdrop of blurred hum. And finally, Violetta finishes off with the title track, a soft cacophony of pounded piano, the chords allowed to ring out and slowly fade, all subtly warped, an ominous sort of avant classical doom, laced with little sonic squiggles, and wreathed in clouds of hiss and static, soon those little squiggles transform into beats, a wild chaotic looped rhythm, which is strangely at odds with that funereal piano, still pounding away in the background, a twisted bit of hauntological IDM, the piano subtly replaced by a hazy sprawl of synth simmer, which is left to fade out once the beat drops off, a thick swirling final movement, washed out and woozy.
Part three is Rose, and begins with a churning industrial chug, grinding through a woozy washed out haze, wreathed in a distant ethereal vocal drift, looped and mesmerizing, the sound is most definitely epic and cinematic, the sound laced with bits of clatter and crunch, and than BAM, the track is transformed into a gorgeous stretch of Middle Eastern string laden groove, all wrapped around that opening industrial rhythm, sounding like a more dense, more psychedelic Muslimgauze! The second track is more murky and dubbed out and spacey, anchored by a muted slo-mo house beat, buried in the murk, the beats wreathed in soft metallic billows, the surrounding sounds swirling dreamily, hazy melodic streaks and blurred background shimmers, clouds of tripped out drift, through which that industrial flecked rhythm soldiers druggily on.
The third track begins as a gauzy, ethereal thrum, that seems to hover wraithlike, before suddenly in drops an impossibly dense and heavy ribcage rattling bass pulse, accompanied by cool spare tabla like rhythms, that Muslimgauze vibe is definitely huge here too, a keening high end sine wave tone flutters over fragmented chunks of dubstep bass wobble, all drifting in the sonic ether.
Finally comes part four, Iris, which might be the grimmest and darkest of the bunch. Opening with buzzing cellos, and swirling blackened drones, which are soon joined by a plodding doomy rhythm, laced with streaks of prismatic feedback and hauntingly melodic harmonies, all the whole in the background, textures and layers softly swirl and undulate, the result is definitely creepy and cinematic, but also a bit blackened and industrial. The second track dials it down even further, unfurling a hushed, blurred thrum, a wash of hazy shimmer, a dubbed out murk laced with mysterious industrial percolations, reverbed clatter, and strange squelches, like a field recording of an old abandoned office building with all the air conditioners and printers and computers whirring away, a creepy disembodied hum which is soon enveloped by crunchy caustic high end, keening shards of buzz and skree, growing ever more dense and noisy. Next up some surfacing sonar pings, over a skittery, skeletal beat, shuffling through clouds of effects swirl, droned out bass warble, and more of that unidentified background shimmer, the sound is cavernous and hypnotic, the background sounds gradually solidifying into sheets of chordal whir, all wreathed in a cowl of soft buzzy sonic gauze, all the while that rhythm churns relentlessly, and that bass thrum stretches out into a strangely undulating low end drone.
Obviously, that should be more than enough to sell you on it, but folks who are after the bonus tracks will not be dissappointed, more than a half hour's worth minutes of extra music, six tracks, the first of which, "New Use For Old Circuits", opens up the set with a blast of psychedelic noise, before oozing into something much more liquid and murky, a sort of subaquatic space dub, a little bit like Chain Reaction style 'heroin house', but instead of hearing the music through a wall, we're hearing it through the thin steel walls of a submarine, stranded in the inky blackness of the deepest sea. "Shade" is a short stretch of gauzey high end shimmer, a haze of blurred melody and buried plink plonk piano, while "10th Floor Stairwell" is a fantastic chunk of thrumming low end pulsations, a minimal blackened drone that slwoly blossoms into something more tonally colorful, eventually becoming a sort of blackbuzz raga. "Metamorphosis" takes a field recording of voices and wraps it in soft swirls of static and tape hiss, soon introducing more of that impossible low end, the voices locked in a chant-like loop, while that skull rattling bass tone, pulses ominously, eventually introducing some throbbing 4 on the floor house music, but all murky and muddy, as if blasting in an upstairs apartment, just the rhythm oozing though the walls, a darkly propuslive slab of late night housemusic murk. "All This Is Ours (Sunrise)", unfurls soft swells of new age synth shimmer, a crystalline drift that soon sinks into a thick layed morass of crumbling bass-synth squelch and gradually intensifying distorted crackle, before finishing off in a squall of soft noise and sc-fi FX swirl, and finally, "We Have Already Died", strings some tribal skeletal skitter into a looped almost Muslimgauze sounding groove, all draped over an ominous sprawl of post industrial hum and layered swirls of blurred ghost-grey ambience.
Packaged much like the last Demdike Stare, in an oversized six panel digi-sleeve, with original Andy Votel artwork, mirroring the artwork from the original quadruple gatefold sleeve that housed all four 12"s...
Rose is the third volume in Demdike Stare's latest sprawling multipart sonic hauntological tetraptych, the first two volumes of which were released together as a double 12" a little while back, and housed in a massive quadruple gatefold sleeve, designed to hold all four volumes, so obviously if you were one of the many folks who got the first two, you're gonna need this one as well, it does come in a fancy Andy Votel designed sleeve, but that sleeve fits right into the third pocket in above mentioned gatefold jacket. And sonically, it fits perfectly alongside those first two as well, beginning with a churning industrial chug, grinding through a woozy washed out haze, wreathed in a distant ethereal vocal drift, looped and mesmerizing, the sound is most definitely epic and cinematic, the sound laced with bits of clatter and crunch, and than BAM, the track is transformed into a gorgeous stretch of Middle Eastern string laden groove, all wrapped around that opening industrial rhythm, sounding like a more dense, more psychedelic Muslimgauze! The second track is more murky and dubbed out and spacey, anchored by a muted slo-mo house beat, buried in the murk, the beats wreathed in soft metallic billows, the surrounding sounds swirling dreamily, hazy melodic streaks and blurred background shimmers, clouds of tripped out drift, through which that industrial flecked rhythm soldiers druggily on.
The side-long third track begins as a gauzy, ethereal thrum, that seems to hover wraithlike, before suddenly in drops an impossibly dense and heavy ribcage rattling bass pulse, accompanied by cool spare tabla like rhythms, that Muslimgauze vibe is definitely huge here too, a keening high end sine wave tone flutters over fragmented chunks of dubstep bass wobble, all drifting in the sonic ether. And while like many 12"s, this sounds great at 45rpm, it sounds WAY better at 33, so much darker and woozier and druggier and more drowsily divine!
If you're after the whole set, might be a good idea to preorder the final volume, which should be coming soon, and as we mentioned in the review of the first two volumes, there WILL be a double cd version available sometime this year as well, according to the label, but apparently the music will be (somehow?) different, with altered versions of all the songs...
Here it is, the final installment in Demdike Stare's sprawling new hauntological epic, Elemental, split into 4 separate 12"s, the first three already sold out and out of print, as this one will be too shortly. Obviously, if you bought the first one, which came in the super deluxe Andy Votel designed quadruple gatefold sleeve, designed to hold all 4 records, you're gonna want/need this one too, but like we said with the last volume, the record do work pretty well on their own.
This fourth one, titled Iris (they're all titled after different flowers), might be the grimmest and darkest of the bunch. Opening with buzzing cellos, and swirling blackened drones, which are soon joined by a plodding doomy rhythm, laced with streaks of prismatic feedback and hauntingly melodic harmonies, all the whole in the background, textures and layers softly swirl and undulate, the result is definitely creep and cinematic, but also a bit blackened and industrial. The second track on the A side dials it down even further, unfurling a hushed, blurred thrum, a wash of hazy shimmer, a dubbed out murk laced with mysterious industrial percolations, reverbed clatter, and strange squelches, like a field recording of an old abandoned office building with all the air conditioners and printers and computers whirring away, a creepy disembodied hum which is soon enveloped by crunchy caustic high end, keening shards of buzz and skree, growing ever more dense and noisy...
The flipside introduces sonar pings, over a skittery, skeletal beat, shuffling through clouds of effects swirl, droned out bass warble, and more of that unidentified background shimmer, the sound is cavernous and hypnotic, the background sounds gradually solidifying into sheets of chordal whir, all wreathed in a cowl of soft buzzy sonic gauze, all the while that rhythm churns relentlessly, and that bass thrum stretches out into a strangely undulating low end drone.
CRAZY LIMITED of course, already sold out, so these are the last copies we'll be able to get. Comes in another Andy Votel designed sleeve, pressed on blue vinyl, and something weird this time (we didn't notice with the other records), the run out groove is on the OUTside, with the music toward the center, as if it was a 10" with extra empty groves wrapped around the circumference, etched of course with a mysterious message as well...
Probably one of the most anticipated records around here recently, the sprawling QUADRUPLE 12" epic from hauntological duo Demdike Stare. These, the first two 12"s are available now, released in a massive quadruple gatefold book-style jacket, which could be what accounts for the price. Sorta steep for sure, but the idea is that parts 3 & 4 will be released soon too, and can be housed in this very same jacket, so theoretically, those will be significantly cheaper (we hope). And while there WILL be a double cd version available in the next year as well, according to the label, apparently the music will be (somehow?) different, with altered version of the songs. Sheesh. It's almost like something Boris would do!
Anyway, Elemental is a four part songsuite, Chrysanthe, Violetta, Rose and Iris, each one pressed on a different color vinyl, and if these first two parts are anything to go on, the new sound is seriously dark, much more industrial sounding, the vibe blackened, the sounds layered and way more dense.
Part one opens with "Mephisto's Lament", which is all foghorn buzz, deep whirring drones, keening high end melodic fragments, murky buried rhythms, peppered with creepy synth squelches, and when the song gets rolling, it's almost like a hauntological SUNNO))), the same sort of roiling downtuned heaviness, but here stretched into something a bit more sinister and abstract, almost like the soundtrack for some subterranean factory, all rumble and clang, all shadows and very little light. The flipside starts with "Kommunion", a lush looped slow build, all repeated piano motifs wreathed in chanted vocals, all blurred into fuzzy soft focus swells, the sound suddenly expanding into a blisteringly blown out in-the-red buzz, a swoonsome melody hidden in there somewhere, the sound slipping from caustic and crunchy to blurred and murky, before switching gears completely, lacing a sprawl of staticky hiss to a skeletal trip hop pulse, extra percussion provided by found sounds, clatter and crunch, atonal piano, all woven into a strange almost Art Of Noise sounding beat. The B side finishes off with "Unction", a super creepy stretch of undulating lowend, demarcated with a strange sonar ping rhythm, one that is quickly augmented by a twisted effected croaking frog skitter, and another beat seemingly assembled from the sounds of workman scraping and dragging, a crunchy noisy lurching groove, that is soon overtaken by another cloud of reverberating pianos, which finishes off the side with a coda of swirling minimal washed out thrum.
The second part, Violetta, begins with "Mnemosyne", a blissed out sun dappled bit of witch house-y skitter, all hazy and gauzy and dreamlike, until a sudden burst of clattery noisy rhythmic crunch changes everything, and then assembles itself into a strange lumbering cacophonous beat, the sound eventually underpinned by some Eastern style folk music, which drifts briefly, before that clattery beat crashes back in, now accompanied by that Eastern melody, sounding like a weirdly stuttery bit of gypsy electro. The flipside starts off with "In The Wake Of Chronos", which opens with some distant mysterious melodies, some sprinkler like textures, some super minimal skeletal skitter, and some seriously deep bass thrum, the minimal drift soon peppered with short sharp bursts of metallic crunch, clipped bits of hiss and skree sculpted into a sort-of-beat, also soon joined by tinkling melodies, wreathed in echo, the sound gradually expanding, and becoming more and more lush, that beat drifting off, leaving the various other sounds to shimmer and hover ethereally over a blackened backdrop of blurred hum. And finally, Violetta finishes off with the title track, a soft cacophony of pounded piano, the chords allowed to ring out and slowly fade, all subtly warped, an ominous sort of avant classical doom, laced with little sonic squiggles, and wreathed in clouds of hiss and static, soon those little squiggles transform into beats, a wild chaotic looped rhythm, which is strangely at odds with that funereal piano, still pounding away in the background, a twisted bit of hauntological IDM, the piano subtly replaced by a hazy sprawl of synth simmer, which is left to fade out once the beat drops off, a thick swirling final movement, washed out and woozy. Look out for some hidden locked grooves too.
Definitely a lot different than past Demdike records, but we're digging it, a lot. If you want it on vinyl, you're definitely gonna want to get these first two parts before they run out, and as far as we know, this is the only way to get the jacket that houses all four parts. Asking us to put your name down to preorder parts 3 & 4 would also probably be a good idea...
The first in a planned 3 part 12" series from this hauntological electronic duo, whose sound we had previously described as sounding like a black metal dub record on Chain Reaction, and we're pleased to report that the sound is indeed still blackened, and dubby, and weirdly house-y, and sprawling and epic and creepy and cinematic...
Two side long tracks, the first starts out all deep shimmer, with a softly melodic buzz, spidery acoustic guitars, long stretches of billowy black ambience, bits of shuffly jazzy drift, peppered with thick shards of buzzy fractured dub bass and Kompakt style skitter, giving way to glistening late night techno, whirling pop ambient, and blissed out ethereal dronemusic.
The flipside is cinematic and dramatic, epic and majestic, like some lost Italian soundtrack, big drums, orchestral and ominous, looped samples, blurred melodic smears over deep pulsing bass, whirling clouds of cymbal shimmer, insectoid FX buzz, jumbled atonal melodies (hints of Bernard Herrmann), the vibe tense and haunting, with some dubstep bass buzz, that slowly dissolves into a Caretaker like outro, all layered strings wreathed in hiss and crackle, hazy and druggy and divine.
So good. We're already anxiously awaiting part two...
Originally, Demdike Stare's dark and dizzying, murky and mysterious hauntological black dub triptych, was available via three separate slabs of vinyl, but was then gathered up and released together as a triple cd set entitled Tryptych, which we made our Record Of The Week. Now, the cds set has been split up again back into 3 lps, pressed up on vinyl once again, this time as a bundled triple lp set, for those who missed out on the vinyl versions the first time around...
Demdike Stare are one of the few bands who seem to be a unanimous aQ favorite, everyone here LOVES these guys, and judging on how many of the various lps AND cds we've sold, everyone out there does too. Which makes sense, when you consider, DS basically create a kind of black metal dubstep, or as we (and others) like to describe it, a blackened dub record on Chain Reaction. Either one should give you an idea of the sort of dark sonic energy these guys conjure up. Thick claustrophobic atmospheres, skeletal rhythms, thick throbbing bass, skittering dubbed out beats, disembodied voices, stuttering minimal sort-of-dubstep, looped and processed African folk music (??), swirling glitched out electronics, deeeep pulsing dronemusic, reverb drenched post-rock-via-techno skitter, all woven into a swirling organic mass of dub flecked blacktronica, dark and sinister and dubby, and weirdly house-y, sprawling and epic and creepy and so totally sweeping and cinematic.
The first lp, Forest Of Evil starts out all deep shimmer, with a softly melodic buzz, spidery acoustic guitars, long stretches of billowy black ambience, bits of shuffly jazzy drift, peppered with thick shards of buzzy fractured dub bass and Kompakt style skitter, giving way to glistening late night techno, whirling pop ambient, and blissed out ethereal dronemusic, before transforming into something darkly dramatic, epic and majestic, like some lost Italian soundtrack, big drums, orchestral and ominous, looped samples, blurred melodic smears over deep pulsing bass, whirling clouds of cymbal shimmer, insectoid FX buzz, jumbled atonal melodies (hints of Bernard Herrmann), the vibe tense and haunting, with some dubstep bass buzz, that slowly dissolves into a Caretaker like outro, all layered strings wreathed in hiss and crackle, hazy and druggy and divine.
The second lp, Liberation Through Hearing, is thematically related to the Book Of The Dead, and focuses on the space between death and rebirth. Rendered in greys and blacks, in buzz and rumble, beginning with some woozy late night Portishead style downtempo trip hop, low slung looped skitter and swell, lush swirls of cinematic strings, ghostly choirs, a softly lurching rhythmic stutter, a deep cavernous throb, sounding like a ghostly stripped down dubstep. Which gives way to heaving expanses of black tidal thrum, muted scrapings, all wound into hypnotic pulses of dark energy, laced with distant chiming melodies, a haunting, gauzey faded memory in sound, drawn from radios with dying batteries and gradually slowing turntables, a soft focus symphony of creaks and rumbles and blurred low end shimmer. The first half of the record finishes with a swoonsome smear of looped ambience, like a field recording of an after hours nightclub captured in a temporal loop, warm and druggy and fuzzy, strangely hypnotic and rhythmic, totally trancelike, a creeped out wasteland soundscape, mysterious and chilling, which is eventually augmented by thick slabs of corrosive low end, and heavily reverbed industrial clatter, which eventually emerges into a strange sea of crackle and hum, of warbly rhythms, chiming bells and distorted crunch, sounding a bit like Jeck spinning Pole record, abstract and spaced out and hauntingly lovely.
The second half opens with thick streaks of ghostly mesmer, all washed out and slowly decaying, underpinned by thick swaths of dubstep style bass wobble, but muted and smoothed into soft smears of undulating blackness. Subtle skitter surfaces, as do distant voices, the sound getting more and more dubby, a bit like a Caretaker record on Chain Reaction, that sort of hazy abstract drift, but anchored to barely there beats, the buzz building to an intense coda, all the while wrapped in throbbing woofer punishing low end. Some super stripped down rhythms are laid over a swirling ghostly backdrop of fragmented melodies and a buried house music thump, tangled and blurred strings wrap the proceedings in a veil of softened reverb and subtle echo, the almost Eastern sounding pulse and swell reminding us a bit of the late great Muslimgauze.
Finally, the record collapses into some sort of melancholic sonic reverie, a hushed ambient outro, a tranquil sea of soft swirling swells, clouds of echo and reverb, a dreamy darkness, a blackened bit of blurpop minimalism, laced with muted streaks of fuzz and hiss, but all gradually sinking into Demdike Stare's endless trancelike billowing blackness.
Finally, the third lp, Voices Of Dust, unveils the Tryptych's final movement, opening with "Black Sun", a short stretch of some super minimal electronic dronemusic, all layered overtones and strange sonic shadings, which gives way to the chopped and looped and stuttery vocal driven "Hashshashin Chant" which takes tribal drums and traditional folk music vocals, and twists them all up, and tangles those elements with strange percussion, industrial buzz, the whole thing a dizzying chunk of hypno-electronic collaged psychedelic mashup weirdness, before slipping into the much murkier and minimal "Repository Of Light", which unfurls like some sort of Hawkwind-meets-Pole spaced out digi-dub drift. And so it goes, the sound flitting between impossibly realized miniature sound worlds, cinematic electronic ambience, ominously pulsing low end rumble, hazy glitchy dubbed out Jeckian smears, super blown out electronic big beat bombast, almost industrial sounding avant big band abstraction, roiling corrosive soft noise, bellowing foghorn-like melodies, warped and woozy scratchy old lp warblescapes and beyond.
Gorgeously evocative, creepy and cinematic, abstract and otherworldly, druggy and dreamy, fantastically haunting and utterly spine tinglingly stunning. And thus, absolutely recommended.
Three individual lps, bound together by a Japanese style obi, with metallic print. LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!!
Part two, in Demdike Stare's planned trilogy of 12"s, a comprehensive hauntological study in sound. For those new to Demdike Stare, we tend to fall back on this succinct description: black metal dubstep, or sometimes this one: a blackened dub record on Chain Reaction. Either one should give you an idea of the sort of dark sonic energy these guys conjure up. Thick claustrophobic atmospheres, skeletal rhythms, thick throbbing bass, skittering dubbed out beats, disembodied voices, all woven into a swirling organic mass of dub flecked blacktronica, the sound seeming to grow ever darker, as evidenced here on part two, which is thematically related to the Book Of The Dead, and focuses on the space between death and rebirth. Rendered in greys and blacks, in buzz and rumble, beginning with some woozy late night Portishead style downtempo trip hop, low slung looped skitter and swell, lush swirls of cinematic strings, ghostly choirs, a softly lurching rhythmic stutter, a deep cavernous throb, sounding like a ghostly stripped down dubstep. Which gives way to heaving expanses of black tidal thrum, muted scrapings, all wound into hypnotic pulses of dark energy, laced with distant chiming melodies, a haunting, gauzey faded memory in sound, drawn from radios with dying batteries and gradually slowing turntables, a soft focus symphony of creaks and rumbles and blurred low end shimmer. The A-side finishes with a swoonsome smear of looped ambience, like a field recording of an after hours nightclub captured in a temporal loop, warm an druggy and fuzzy, strangely hypnotic and rhythmic, totally trancelike, a creeped out wasteland soundscape, mysterious and chilling, which is eventually augmented by thick slabs of corrosive low end, and heavily reverbed industrial clatter, which eventually emerges into a strange sea of crackle and hum, of warbly rhythms, chiming bells and distorted crunch, sounding a bit like Jeck spinning Pole record, abstract and spaced out and hauntingly lovely.
The B-side opens with thick streaks of ghostly mesmer, all washed out and slowly decaying, underpinned by thick swaths of dubstep style bass wobble, but muted and smoothed into soft smears of undulating blackness. Subtle skitter surfaces, as do distant voices, the sound getting more and more dubby, a bit like a Caretaker record on Chain Reaction, that sort of hazy abstract drift, but anchored to barely there beats, the buzz building to an intense coda, all the while wrapped in throbbing woofer punishing low end.
Some super stripped down rhythms are laid over a swirling ghostly backdrop of fragmented melodies and a buried house music thump, tangled and blurred strings wrap the proceedings in a veil of softened reverb and subtle echo, the almost Eastern sounding pulse and swell reminding us a bit of the late great Muslimgauze.
Finally, the record collapses into some sort of melancholic sonic reverie, a hushed ambient outro, a tranquil sea of soft swirling swells, clouds of echo and reverb, a dreamy darkness, a blackened pop ambience, laced with muted streaks of fuzz and hiss, but all gradually sinking into Demdike Stare's endless trancelike billowing blackness.
LIMITED TO 700 COPIES!!
If you can imagine a black metal DUB record, released on Chain Reaction, then this debut from Demdike Stare might be just what you're looking for. A collaboration between one half of the group Pendle Coven, and one of the guys who helps run the amazing Finders Keepers label, the duo craft suffocatingly dark drones, and stark skeletal minimal house music, fusing the two into some sort of mysterious rhythmic black beast. The sound dense and dark, grim and frosty, but infused with all sorts of world music elements, Middle Eastern folk, Indian soundtracks, Turkish psych, the result is really hard to pin down, super stark and dubby a la Pole one minute, then lush and Middle Eastern sounding a la Muslimgauze the next, but just as often, something much more spare and harrowing, buzzy and drone-y, and very very very dark.
The record opens with "Suspicious Drone", which is just that, a dense, deep, throbbing chunk of low end rumble, but shot through with undulating synth pulses, and laced with muted effects, before, a super skittery rhythm is introduced, all wreathed in a haze of Goblin-y synth. The second track, "Haxan Dub", is as you might have surmised super dubbed out, spacious and spare, the beats clipped and minimal, until about halfway through when a second beat joins in, creating a strange stuttery offbeat, very darkly groovy. And then there's "Regressor", a super abstract sprawl of rhythmic clicks, echo reverbed ambience, and very little else, bar the occasional synth squiggle or disembodied sample, the result is truly haunting and weirdly gorgeous. And so it goes, the second half of the record is a bit heavier on the world music, with much of the music being made up of chopped and looped samples, or recontextualized motifs, like on "Trapped Dervish, where a fragment of fiddle and a reverb drenched snippet of female vocals, are blurred into a gorgeous expanse of murky rhythmic ambience, but "Haxan" gets all Chain Reaction heroin house-y, while "Conjoined" is all tangled rhythms, and layered drums, until "Ghostly Hardware" finishes things off in appropriately ominous fashion, a long buzzing low end dronescape, all whirring synths, crackling textures, and pulsing bass, never truly locking into a rhythm, instead drifting and floating ghostlike. So good. One of our favorite new electronic records for sure.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
More so than any of the other singles they've released, Demdike Stare here drop two heady tracks of darkened techno and horror-disco. We've long loved their mysterious, hauntological blacker-than-black dub tricknology and claustrophobic atmospherics, and all of that is still firmly intact on these tracks. What IS different here however is that DS push the rhythms forward, jacked in the mix, and not just teasing with a Chain Reactive rhythm here or a Middle Eastern groove there all of which would typically collapse into a pool of echo, dread, and ghostliness. It's actually quite nice to hear Demdike work out a more rhythmic, creeped-out floorfiller sound on these two tracks. The A-side "Collusion" begins with an intense snarl of electrocuted noise that eventually locks into a bassline throb of a skeletal drum-n-bass (yup, the quintessential Amen Break is deconstructed once again). Steadily, Demdike Stare build the rhythm back through its component parts -- a skittered snare fill, a rollicking hi-hat, and that manic frenzy which is why everybody loves this rhythm -- with those thickened, tesla-coil bursts of electricity firing around the programmatic dervish. Think Hrvatski and Aphex at their heights of influence but given over to the dark side. The B-side "Misappropriation" locks in a zombified rhythm culled from West African drum patterns, taking a cue from William Bennett's Cut Hands projects and really cranking the dynamics and darkening the tone if that were even possible. Totally brilliant! Who knows if this is a detour or a new direction for Demdike Stare? But who cares, cuz it's fucking great. Unfortunately, destined to be out of print in the blink of eye.
Here be the second 'Test Pressing' from Demdike Stare, which of course is not a real test pressing, but an actual release in an edition of 500 or so. The first of these sold out here in a weekend, and we're expecting the same result for this one too, especially given that we're presented with two more great cuts from Demdike Stare, one of our all time favorite electronica projects, divining the dark arts through horror score allusions, dubstep claustrophobia, and a witchy set of production tricks that are both heavy and ghostly at the same time. The A side "Grows Without Bounds" is a lurching number of industrially grinding electronics that are tempered into a Nocturnal Emissions sound dirge, with a quiet heartbeat pulse easing into the mix. The B side "Primitive Equations" is an updated version of the darkened, cocaine-laden drum & bass stylings of Metalheadz and No U Turn from the mid '90s, complete with sparse placed basslines that stab at a very nice breakbeat that sorta falls between the seminal Apache and Amen breaks, but seems to be something else entirely. Always great to hear Demdike Stare, but if you blink, you might miss out on this one.
The third in the super limited series of 'test pressings' from the genius witchy electronica duo Demdike Stare. As the other two earlier 'test pressing' singles are out of print (along with all other Demdike Stare vinyl at this point), those with any interest in the dark arts of Demdike Stare would be well served to pick this one, pronto. The A side "Eulogy" is cut at 45 rpm setting up an understated engineering somewhere between Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol. I (the really early stuff!), the techno minimalism of Carl Craig, or even the more subdued offerings from Sandwell District (i.e. Silent Servant, Rrose, Regis, etc.). Here, Demdike Stare serve up a bulbous acid-trak syncopation guided by a relatively downtempo rhythm quietly thumping behind cybernetic shimmer and off-world weightlessness. The B side darkens things considerably and follows up where Miles Whittaker left off on his recently reviewed 2013 solo album Faint Hearted. Tribal drum programming encircles the duo's interpretation of the classic Basic Channel sound of black-hearted techno accentuated by sharply rendered hi-hats and cavernously deep kicks, while haunted drones and distorted, metallic melodies creep throughout the rhythms. These singles are getting more and more 'clubby' but there's still plenty of Demdike Stare's hauntological production to keep things interesting. Grab it before it disappears!
Fourth in this ongoing series of 'test pressings' (the first three are sadly sold out) from hauntological electronic duo Demdike Stare, and like the first three, number four finds DS continuing to explore the more overtly dancefloor side of their aesthetic, delving into a twisted world of darkened techno, that is really not all that far removed from their usual sound. At least mood- and vibe-wise, it's still all shadowy and hauntingly harrowing, although this time around, DS continue to move even closer to the post industrial murk of all the Dom Fernow projects (Vatican Shadow, Christian Cosmos etc.), and the dour techno gloom of Silent Servant, with the A side featuring a buried beat, wreathed in a keening high end drone, and driven by a thick distorted pulse, like a slowed down 4/4 throb, the beat mechanical and robotic, swaddled in a softly roiling cloud of psychedelic noise and layered drones, while the B side adds some skitter and stutter, maybe the grooviest thing they've done, with chopped up jungle beats, more big distorted bass rumbles, a wild tangle of greyed out ambience, and big beat crunch, all filtered through Demdike's warped electronic sensibilities, which has us hoping that maybe there's a Demdike jungle record in the cards somewhere down the line. Here's hoping!
Like the first three volumes, these come packaged in simple, black and white, paper test pressing style sleeves, and they're SUPER limited, we usually blow out of these crazy quick, so grab one before they're gone!!!
Yet another installment in this ongoing series of 'test pressings' (the first four are all sold out) from hauntological electronic duo Demdike Stare, and like the others in the series, the tracks on the rest pressings tend to be pretty well removed from the moody creep of the Demdike records proper, and this new one is no different. The A-side, "Procrastination", begins with a barrage of sliced and diced distorted vocals, and weird stuttery burst of industrial percussion, sounding like it could explode into some sort of dense EDM at any minute, but instead, woozy rubbery bass warbles drift up from below, give the sound a sort of melting dubstep vibe, that low end rumble is soon joined by some spacey synth swirls and some strange droned out tones, all the while, that initial stutter step percussion marches on unwaveringly, as the surrounding sounds build and billow into dense clouds of gauzy ambience, and murky atmospheric smears.
On the flip, "Past Majesty" begins with a churning synthy squelch that almost sounds like electronic doom metal, especially when the weird distorted guitar sounding blast comes in, it's like electro Sabbath, and then when the loping beat kicks in, it gets even more off kilter, a lurching gallop, that is rhythmically sort of at odds with the main loop, and then when yet another loop swoops in, it just gets more chaotic and dense, but remains sort of driving, the second half settles into a similarly driving groove, but the synth churns and pulses, and suddenly it sounds like some alien heavy synth kraut-psych, but one made my machines gone haywire, some grim, terrifying scene from Fantasia that ended up on the cutting room floor, where robots armed with synths, march in unison to overtake and eventually rule the humans, and when everything drops out at the end, leaving just that thick synth riff, it's about as heavy as electronic music gets. So good.
Like the first four volumes, these come packaged in simple, black and white, paper test pressing style sleeves, and they're CRAZY limited, we always sell out of these lickety split, so grab one before they're gone for good!!!
Barely a month has passed since volume 5 in Demdike Stare's series of Test Pressing 12"s, and along comes number six, and like the previous installment, it finds this hauntological duo moving even further from their gloomy electro creep, into a world of alien dancefloor avant electro. The A side almost sounds like two different club tracks playing simultaneously, with looped pitch shifted vocals, over a skittery breakbeat, and wreathed in swaths of thick buzzing noise, and dense swells of ominous rumble, a sort of industrial hip hop hybrid, all tangled up into some post-dubstep noisiness, with the second half getting totally wild, the production splintering into all sorts of strange shapes, before finally jettisoning the beat, and finishing with a killer sprawl of thick, crumbling, almost blackened dronemusic, before unexpectedly, the beat re-surfaces right at the end, for one final beat heavy flourish.
The B side manages to somehow get even more dense and noisy, brutal and bombastic, a sort-of rhythm constructed from skipping static and throbbing bass gristle, less dancefloor and more floorcore, not hard to imagine hearing some weirdo noise dude spitting out this sort of caustic crunch, that is until part way through, when those blasts of static coalesce into a super dark, dubbed out beat, that's thick, and heavy, and darkly groovy, fiercely minimal, but ominous and sinister and seriously sick. Here's hoping the upcoming Demdike full length continues to explore similarly fierce and fucked up sounds. Might just be the best of the Testpressing so far, most definitely the meanest...
Finally, Demdike Stare's dark and dizzying, murky and mysterious hauntological black dub triptych, previously available via three separate slabs of vinyl, is now available on cd, gathered up into a single, nicely packaged triple disc set. And loaded with bonus tracks (nearly 40 minutes extra all told), which makes this pretty much a shoe-in for Record Of The Week...
Demdike Stare are one of the few bands who seem to be a unanimous aQ favorite, everyone here LOVES these guys, and judging on how many of the various lps we've sold, everyone out there does too. Which makes sense, when you consider, DS basically create a kind of black metal dubstep, or as we (and others) like to describe it, a blackened dub record on Chain Reaction. Either one should give you an idea of the sort of dark sonic energy these guys conjure up. Thick claustrophobic atmospheres, skeletal rhythms, thick throbbing bass, skittering dubbed out beats, disembodied voices, stuttering minimal sort-of-dubstep, looped and processed African folk music (??), swirling glitched out electronics, deeeep pulsing dronemusic, reverb drenched post-rock-via-techno skitter, all woven into a swirling organic mass of dub flecked blacktronica, dark and sinister and dubby, and weirdly house-y, sprawling and epic and creepy and so totally sweeping and cinematic.
The first disc, Forest Of Evil, was originally two sidelong tracks, the first starts out all deep shimmer, with a softly melodic buzz, spidery acoustic guitars, long stretches of billowy black ambience, bits of shuffly jazzy drift, peppered with thick shards of buzzy fractured dub bass and Kompakt style skitter, giving way to glistening late night techno, whirling pop ambient, and blissed out ethereal dronemusic, while the second is darkly dramatic, epic and majestic, like some lost Italian soundtrack, big drums, orchestral and ominous, looped samples, blurred melodic smears over deep pulsing bass, whirling clouds of cymbal shimmer, insectoid FX buzz, jumbled atonal melodies (hints of Bernard Herrmann), the vibe tense and haunting, with some dubstep bass buzz, that slowly dissolves into a Caretaker like outro, all layered strings wreathed in hiss and crackle, hazy and druggy and divine. The bonus track "Quiet Sky" conjures up just what the title implies, a quiet sky, but a dark, bruised midnight sky, flecked with stars, soft swirls of metallic shimmer like gauzy clouds, the song gradually developing a strange minimal hiccuppy rhythm, underpinning the deep melancholic swells, a strange almost industrial tinged bit of pop ambience.
The second disc, Liberation Through Hearing, is thematically related to the Book Of The Dead, and focuses on the space between death and rebirth. Rendered in greys and blacks, in buzz and rumble, beginning with some woozy late night Portishead style downtempo trip hop, low slung looped skitter and swell, lush swirls of cinematic strings, ghostly choirs, a softly lurching rhythmic stutter, a deep cavernous throb, sounding like a ghostly stripped down dubstep. Which gives way to heaving expanses of black tidal thrum, muted scrapings, all wound into hypnotic pulses of dark energy, laced with distant chiming melodies, a haunting, gauzey faded memory in sound, drawn from radios with dying batteries and gradually slowing turntables, a soft focus symphony of creaks and rumbles and blurred low end shimmer. The first half finishes with a swoonsome smear of looped ambience, like a field recording of an after hours nightclub captured in a temporal loop, warm and druggy and fuzzy, strangely hypnotic and rhythmic, totally trancelike, a creeped out wasteland soundscape, mysterious and chilling, which is eventually augmented by thick slabs of corrosive low end, and heavily reverbed industrial clatter, which eventually emerges into a strange sea of crackle and hum, of warbly rhythms, chiming bells and distorted crunch, sounding a bit like Jeck spinning Pole record, abstract and spaced out and hauntingly lovely.
The second half opens with thick streaks of ghostly mesmer, all washed out and slowly decaying, underpinned by thick swaths of dubstep style bass wobble, but muted and smoothed into soft smears of undulating blackness. Subtle skitter surfaces, as do distant voices, the sound getting more and more dubby, a bit like a Caretaker record on Chain Reaction, that sort of hazy abstract drift, but anchored to barely there beats, the buzz building to an intense coda, all the while wrapped in throbbing woofer punishing low end.
Some super stripped down rhythms are laid over a swirling ghostly backdrop of fragmented melodies and a buried house music thump, tangled and blurred strings wrap the proceedings in a veil of softened reverb and subtle echo, the almost Eastern sounding pulse and swell reminding us a bit of the late great Muslimgauze.
Finally, the record collapses into some sort of melancholic sonic reverie, a hushed ambient outro, a tranquil sea of soft swirling swells, clouds of echo and reverb, a dreamy darkness, a blackened bit of blurpop minimalism, laced with muted streaks of fuzz and hiss, but all gradually sinking into Demdike Stare's endless trancelike billowing blackness.
The bonus tracks on this one (3 of them, clocking in at nearly 20 minutes) continue the record's surreal sonic journey, spidery rhythms, and chiming melodies are looped and layered over a simple pulsing propulsive groove, the whole thing slightly warped and warbled, as if recorded onto an old piece of tape, and played back on some dusty old ramshackle tape player, ghostly, but surprisingly playful at first, before slipping into some seriously creepy, deeeeeep droning rumbles, wreathed in shimmering solar winds, softly billowing sheets of hiss and static, eventually shedding all of that, leaving just a thick morass of softly undulating low end, shot through with a slo-mo house music pulse, only to have the hiss and whir return, this time relegated to the background, until the track finishes surprisingly with what sounds like a bit of African style funkiness, before disappearing in a brief cloud of swirling hushed buzz.
Finally, the third disc, Voices Of Dust, unveils the Tryptych's final movement, opening with "Black Sun", a short stretch of some super minimal electronic dronemusic, all layered overtones and strange sonic shadings, which gives way to the chopped and looped and stuttery vocal driven "Hashshashin Chant" which takes tribal drums and traditional folk music vocals, and twists them all up, and tangles those elements with strange percussion, industrial buzz, the whole thing a dizzying chunk of hypno-electronic collaged psychedelic mashup weirdness, before slipping into the much murkier and minimal "Repository Of Light", which unfurls like some sort of Hawkwind-meets-Pole spaced out digi-dub drift. And so it goes, the sound flitting between impossibly realized miniature sound worlds, cinematic electronic ambience, ominously pulsing low end rumble, hazy glitchy dubbed out Jeckian smears, super blown out electronic big beat bombast, almost industrial sounding avant big band abstraction, roiling corrosive soft noise, bellowing foghorn-like melodies, warped and woozy scratchy old lp warblescapes and beyond.
The bonus tracks are the perfect, hazy, ghostly coda, the first, a warm, whispery bit of keening abstract melody and thick pulsing thrum, all very washed out and space-y and dreamlike, a constantly vibrating living thing, a throbbing organic expanse of minimal space drone psychedelic ambience, until finally, the whole disc is laid to rest with 9 minutes of heaving, glacial, metallic creep and creak, wreathed in record crackle, the final sounds unfurl like some old dusty Tim Hecker 45 spinning at 16rpm, mournful moaning melodies, buried rhythmic thumps, shimmery sitar like buzz, all hazy and smeared and lysergic and mysteriously murky, the perfect slipping-into-darkness, leaving-this-world-behind finale...
Gorgeously evocative, creepy and cinematic, abstract and otherworldly, druggy and dreamy, fantastically haunting and utterly spine tinglingly stunning. And thus, absolutely recommended.
Packaged in a super swank, oversized, hardcover book style digipak.
Finally part three in Demdike Stare's strange and wonderful hauntological black dub triptych, a logical continuation of both Forest Of Evil and Liberation Through Hearing, a sprawling twisted landscape of sound, from lurching stuttering minimal sort-of-dubstep to looped and processed African folk music (??) to swirling glitched out electronics, to throbbing pulsing deeeeeep dronemusic, to reverb drenched post-rock-via-Chain-Reaction skitter to... well wherever these cracked sonic alchemists decide to dream up.
The record opens with "Black Sun", a short stretch of some super minimal electronic dronemusic, all layered overtones and strange sonic shadings, which gives way to the chopped and looped and stuttery vocal driven "Hashshashin Chant" which takes tribal drums and traditional folk music vocals, and twists them all up, and tangling those elements with strange percussion, industrial buzz, the whole thing a dizzying chunk of hypno-electronic collaged psychedelic mashup weirdness, before slipping into the much murkier and minimal "Repository Of Light", which unfurls like some sort of Hawkwind-meets-Pole spaced out digi-dub drift.
And so it goes, the sound flitting between impossibly realized miniature sound worlds, cinematic electronic ambience, ominously pulsing low end rumble, hazy glitchy dubbed out Jeckian smears, super blown out electronic big beat bombast, almost industrial sounding avant big band abstraction, roiling corrosive soft noise, bellowing foghorn-like melodies, warped and woozy scratchy old lp warblescapes and beyond.
So gorgeously evocative, creepy and cinematic, abstract and otherworldly, druggy and dreamy, fantastically haunting and spine tinglingly stunning.
Rumor is all three lps are getting reissued as a cd box sometime next year, but the vinyl tends to disappear pretty quick, so act fast...
