We first heard Operative (a.ka. Scott Goodwin of Bonus) at the Root Strata curated music festival, On Land, last September here at San Francisco's Cafe Du Nord. Expecting to hear some piercing long-form drone meditation, we were pleasantly surprised that Goodwin was joined by two live drummers for a set of exuberant and organic minimal house workouts that were a welcome change of tone from much of the beautiful but exhausting roster of introspective drone experimentation that had been happening throughout the day.
Likewise, we're keen on this 12". "Ramp" begins with a slow-rising siren tone that continually elevates in pitch. As it's countered by other rising tones in a sort of Charlemagne Palestine-ish way, the drums and steady bass tones kick in taking the track to an urgent futuristic thriller as scored by Giorgio Moroder kind of territory. "Pulse" is more organic, taking warm rhythmic synth loops and looping them on top of each other to a pulsating and hypnotic 4/4 rhythm. So good!
This 12" marking Operative's debut comes courtesy of Honey Owens' (Valet, Jackie-O Motherfucker) new label for left-field techno, Ecstacy. Look out for her Miracles Club 12" on a future list!
During the past four or five years, the Raster Noton label has developed a very precise aesthetic or language of the electronic glitch within in a post-techno context. While artists like Goem and Taylor Deupree have taken the Raster Noton vocabulary of utopian purity and clinical sterility as an endgame of overly conceptualized minimalism, Raster Noton has recognized the folly of
Well versed in the spatial relations of digi-dub techniques and a whimsical approach to IDM melody & rhythm, the Danish electronica artist Opiate (aka Thomas Knak) has nestled himself right in between Boards Of Canada and Pole. Released on the label Morr specializes in the electronica-pop hybrids of Lali Puna, Ms. John Soda, and other Notwist related projects, "Sometimes" politely follows the productions that Knak offered on a couple of the tracks on Bjork's "Vespertine." These 6 concise tracks of subtle programming skitter and fragmented melodies strike the balance between opposites (space vs. density, slow vs. fast, harmony vs. dissonance, etc.) with a mathematical precision. Nice.
MPEG Download: "Amstel" [/audio/opiateamstel.mp3]
With pretty little electronic bells, pretty little electronic melodies, and pretty little electronic rhythms, Opiate has crafted a pretty little record in "While You Were Sleeping." Denmark's Thomas Knak (aka Opiate) has had the good fortune to work with such electronica luminaries as Bjork and Carsten Nicolai, with his own work falling squarely in between those two distinct aesthetics, bringing a wide-eyed and wondrous sense of melody to the clinical sterility of the Raster glitch 'n' pulse. "While You Were Sleeping" appears to be a collection of oddities, collaborations, and compilation tracks that Opiate produced during the past couple of years. If you never read the liner notes, you would probably never know that this was a compilation as Opiate's sound is so uniformly solid that an album of ephemera even sounds pretty good all the way through. Opiate's success hinges upon the interplay between stuttering, often oddly timed electronica rhythms and the perpetually minor-key melodies. For the most part, the album pulls off a moodiness similar to Boards of Canada's "Music Has The Right To Children" or Autechre's "Amber;" although Opiate's child-like lego-beats and melodic plinkiness can be a little overly cute. But that's never stopped the legions of Boards of Canada fans.
What hath the popularity of The Osbournes wrought? Music for the weirdest nightclub you've never been to, apparently. Opium Jukebox is actually Martin Atkins of Killing Joke -- Opium Jukebox seems to be his project for doing trancey techno cover versions of rock music. He's already done a Sex Pistols tribute, an alt-rock one with Nirvana and Jane's Addiction tunes, and has a Rolling Stones tribute in the pipeline. None of which much interest us...but THIS does. He's roped in a sitar player and dug up some vocal samples ("courtesy some dodgy market place in the Far East") to do a "Bhangra" style album of Black Sabbath covers!! Yep, a blend of traditional Indian instrumentation and modern electronic synth and beats making essentially instrumental and 'exotic' (but mostly recognizable, if you know your Sabbath) versions of the likes of "Iron Man" and "War Pigs". For some reason they've neglected "Sweet Leaf", which seems odd 'cause this has a definite hookah-suckin' vibe -- most of the synth effects sound like bong hits, even. It's super-cheesy, but how can you resist? We couldn't. While we would certainly recommend the artistry and atmosphere of Rondellus' Latinized early music style Sabbath-chants above "Bhangra Bloody Bhangra", there's still a place on our shelves next to that AQ-fave Rondellus "Sabbatum" disc for this. It's a worthwhile novelty for sure. Wonder why it exists, but listen and enjoy (or at least, confuse your friends). Track list: Supernaut, Iron Man, Heaven & Hell, N.I.B., Paranoid, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Snowblind, Embryo, War Pigs, Suicide Solution (hey that's a solo Ozzy song, not a Sabbath one!), and Supernaut again.
And as we later discovered, if you dig this, check out the Opium Jukebox Sex Pistols record which is done in a similar style, sitars and all.
Uptempo blazing jammers selected by Optimo.
Raver Techno DJs like their psych music too! That's the idea with this disc, wherein two edgy Scottish DJs who spin as Optimo (JG Wilkes and JD Twitch are their names), present a mix of spaced-out grooves from the past and present, some danceable, some towards the "chill-out" side of things. Everything from old school freak rock like Silver Apples' "Oscillations" and Hawkwind's "Hash Cake '77" to club trax like "Acid Thunder (Fast Eddie Mix)" and a Carl Craig remix of Throbbing Gristle... It's pretty varied, actually, mashing the Chambers Brothers' psychedelic R&B anthem "Time Has Come Today" right next to "Johnny Cash" by Scottish indie-rockers the Sons & Daughters, for instance. However, bewarned a lot of this is pretty house-y and electro-y, maybe not for someone normally shies away from dance music (though who knows, maybe you'll find you like some of it -- and it could cross-over the other way too). It's not clear to us what makes a bunch of this so "psychedelic" after all.
But then we thought of this: Nanjo Asahito, bassist for Japanese garage psych acts High Rise and Mainliner, told us once that, for breakfast, he preferred sausage to bacon because sausage was "more psychedelic"... we think what he meant (aside from a joke) is that sausage is mix of things, and that a mix is always more psychedelic... well there you go. Ingredients in Psyche Out's sausage include, besides the aforementioned: Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom, Vapourspace, The Stranglers, Acid Test, The Temptations, Sinnamon, Herbie Hancock, Simple Minds, Systeme Imaginique, Dinosaur, Dorau/Kohncke, Sweet Exorcist, Mr. Fingers, Chris and Cosey, Damien Donato, Koenig Cylinders, Hole In One, The Step, and Skatt Bros.
Now this is the kind of DJ mix cd we like! Optimo (a pair of Glaswegian DJs, though only one of 'em is responsible for this release) have already proved, with mixes like last year's Psyche Out, that they can throw down some proto-industrial or psychedelic rock tracks into a seamless set of mainly modern electronic dance stuff and make it work just fine, perking our ears up for sure. On this disc, Optimo start off with some vintage Throbbing Gristle from TG's 1979 debut LP, then skipping years (but not changing gears, that much) follow it with a recent cut by Kompakt artist Grungerman (aka Wolfgang Voigt). And so it goes. An eclectic, eccentric mix indeed. Other artists on here include: Suicide, Herbert, Black Dice, Marc Houle, Like A Tim, Godsy, Databrain, Leny Dee & Nicolai Vorkapich, 6K, Shane Berry, and Eventell and Metaboman. And Finland is represented by both Pan Sonic and Philius. At about the halfway point, Optimo even manage to include something by Japanese psych-heavies Boris! "My Machine" off of Pink, which though fuzzed-out and beat-less, somehow segues smoothly betwixt the much more dance-friendly tracks found to either end of it. Maybe the only unintentional glitch in the program is the track by Thomas Brinkmann -- though y'know we love him, his "Momomexico" included here is a bit of a party-pooper, unless a voice intoning "Mexico... Mexico... Mexico..." is your idea of a dancefloor filler. But once past that repetitious voice bit, it's a good 'un. And really, the idea isn't really that you're gonna put this on to dance to, is it? That's the question with a lot of electronic "dance" music we sell I suppose. Maybe drive, work out, jog, something like that though.
And as techno-y and house-y as a lot of this is, there's a healthy amount of grinding droning experimental bzzzz everywhere on here too. We imagine that at an Optimo night in Glasgow, there's probably people dancing, but just as many sitting there nodding their heads, spacing out. If you're like us, you might pick this up 'cause of the names you know and as a result get introduced to some cool stuff you wouldn't otherwise have heard. Recommended.
Previously a quadruple lp, now on double cd in a deluxe oversized package!!
Perhaps the only bright side to the passing of one of the most ambitious but relatively unsung figures in early electronic music, is that the archives of hundreds of reels of unreleased recordings of sound experiments, tape compositions, field recordings, cinematic sound effects and�Musique Concrete are just starting to be released to a wider audience. Young Americans did a stellar job with the first Daphne Oram vinyl overview, Oramics, which was a retrospective of her long and varied career from her time as a wartime radio technician to becoming an electronic instrument pioneer and founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Now that her invention, The "Oramics" machine (the first electronic musical instrument designed and built by a woman), has gone on display at the Science Museum in London, Daphne Oram's legacy is finally moving into its rightful place. This deluxe compilation is the first in a planned series of releases that dig deep into Oram's vast recording archive. Painstakingly compiled and restored from over 400 tapes and mastered at Dubplates & Mastering, The Oram Tapes Volume One features 37 previously unheard recordings (a bit less than what was on the vinyl version). While most of the pieces are short, they show a darker and more layered compositional style than what one may be used to from the bigger names of The Radiophonic Workshop. While the typical Workshop compositional bloops and bleeps were often steeped in a science fiction futurity, Oram was more often concerned with the mystery and science of sound composition, and the place where the sounds of machines and nature overlapped. That is probably why her effects reel for the film 2001 sounds more like haunted insects and cathedral-like atmospherics rather than say, robotic whirrs and laser-like phasing. There is a thoughtful and cerebral consideration in her compositions that allows us to imagine and nearly inhabit the world she is building in sound. Quite stunning!
Wow, What a nice and welcome surprise for early electronic music fans! This 2cd anthology is the first re-issued work from one of the most important and unsung heroes of electronic music, Daphne Oram, co-founder of the BBC Radiophonic workshop. Beginning her career in the forties with the BBC as a "music balancer" (an arduous task of syncing recorded taped music with a live performance feed so that broadcasts would remain uninterrupted in case of war-time blackouts), Oram spent most of her nights fascinated with synthetic sounds and experimenting with oscillators and tape machines, as well as composing unperformed orchestral works and sound pieces for film and play commissions. Promoted to music studio manager, she campaigned for the BBC to provide electronic music facilities for composing music and sound effects using electronic music and musique concrete techniques for use in its programming which led to the founding of the Radiophonic workshop in early 1958. However, her desires to compose music and further her studies and development of synthetic music theory, caused her to leave the BBC a year later. Working off two grants from the Gulbenkian foundation in the 1960's, and supplementing her income through advertising work, she developed her most unique contribution, the Oramics composition machine and the drawn sound technique, an elaborate mechanism that allowed her to create pure sound through the transcription of drawn lines. For being the first woman to direct an electronic music studio as well as the first woman to design and construct an electronic music instrument, her legacy remains largely unnoticed in this male-dominated field. She lectured extensively and wrote one of the most philosophical books on electronic music, called An Individual Note of Music, continuing her developments with early Apple computers until a series of two strokes forced her to retire. She died in 2003. Culled from an extensive archive of compositional pieces, film and play commissions, early sound experiments with the Oramics machine, and advertising jingles, this anthology covers material from the late fifties to the early seventies. Fans of Delia Derbyshire, Raymond Scott and early electronic music enthusiasts of all sorts will find lots to love here. Highly Recommended!!!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Man, this sucks. What happened? First the album starts out with a really bad '80s revivalist track sounding like the worst from Severed Heads, then it delves into really bad '80s synthetic dub. There could be something worthwhile on this album, but with two
For some reason it feels like this is the first Orb record in forever, when in fact they have been plugging along pretty steadily for the last 15 years, a record every year or two or three. Maybe it's because this is the best Orb record in years. And maybe that's because of some strange alchemy resulting from the magical combination of the Orb and Kompakt. Either way, this is a gorgeous slab of minimal techno and lush crystalline pop ambient, the perfect blend of the Orb's pioneering ambient house, or chillout or whatever you want to call it, and Kompakt's clinical Cologne dub infused techno. The opening track is like the best Gas track that never was, a murky mumbly throbbing pulse, wrapped in a thick cowl of glistening, crackly ambience. So lush and thick you sort of just sink into it, lovely and luxurious. We would have been pleased as punch if the whole record was more of the same, but instead, things get gloriously mixed up. From the bizarre Foetus like industrial cabaret of "Lunik TM" to the shuffling bouncy techno-hop of "Cool Harbour" to the blissed out epic M83-like fuzz of "Beatitude", but all of it wrapped in the Orb's gauzy gritty production, and knack for subtly catchy melodies. The last third of the record slowly slips back into that perfect warm and swirly, lush and gritty, abstract shimmer we got but a glimpse of in the opening track. The perfect airy, fluffy-clouded send off, letting us drift off and float away.
Keep your ears peeled and you might detect a brief little bit of AQ faves Longmont Potion Castle amidst all the drift and flutter!
Christian Fennesz (whose Hotel Parallel was one of the best electronica albums of 1997) and Christol Kurzmann laid down basic electronica compositions for academic jazz musicians to play around. At times it sounds like Amon Tobin being accompanied by Peter Brotzmann...and guess what...Brotzmann appears on one of the tracks. Quite a favorite around here.
The second album from the massive rotating ensemble of Viennese electron technicians, ensemble performers, and jazz musicians is just as much a Dadaist assault as the previous venture. Fronted by Christian Fennesz with his wicked powerbook manipulations and Christof Kurzmann on horns & electronics, Orchestra 33 1/3 rolls through damaged free jazz spliced erratically like a Burroughs' cut-up, lengthy drone workouts, and occasional electronica breakbeat algorithms. Certainly for fans of Mego.
Groovy, baby! Are you a filmmaker making a movie about sex kittens on the moon? A crime drama with rocket ships and ray guns? A documentary about swinging space aliens building the pyramids? Or just daydreaming about such subjects? Well, have we (and Omni) got the totally fab, pre-fab soundtrack for you!! Swank futuric funky jazz loungey freakbeat electronic grooves perfect for any kitschy exploito-flick you could imagine, pounded out by a band led by composer Peter Thomas, whom perhaps you know already as the man responsible for scoring Raumpatrouille (Space Patrol), a classic German '60s sci-fi TV show. His "in-kraut" stylings on many, many other soundtracks have earned him a cult following.
This exuberant disc consists of prime Peter Thomas stuff, material recorded in 1970, released as an obscure library music lp in 1975, and never before released on cd, until now! Remastered, from the original master tapes, and expanded with 4 rare bonus tracks, this features 16 tracks in total, most about 2-3 minutes in length, each categorized variously as either "Beat", "Electric Beat", "Strong Beat", "Rock Beat", or "Fast Beat", for what it's worth. They've ALL got bombastic beats, along with brassy horns, sizzling synths, fluttering flutes, and occasional wordless vocals... Any TV commercial or film project that was wild enough to made use of this library music would sound pretty hip, considering that the players in the Orchestra Peter Thomas included close associates and/or members of krautrockers Amon Duul II and Brainticket... Oh, and on lead guitar, Vampyros Lesbos co-composer Siggi Schwab!
Definitely another awesome Omni find. Packaged with informative, photo-illustrated liner notes, where you can read about PT's one of a kind "Tho-Wi-Phon" synthesizer, among other interesting things.
With almost each release now, Richard H. Kirk offers us a new pseudonym, although he's still best known for his collaboration with Stephen Mallinder in the legendary industrial / electronica outfit Cabaret Voltaire. Purportedly rediscovering classical music and
An Atom (Heart) project here, with a cool Talking Heads cover, of "Burning Down The House"!
The latest release on Pre-Cert Home Entertainment, a mysterious label/imprint run by Finders Keepers head honcho Andy Votel and hauntological soundscapers Demdike Stare, and as you might imagine from the folks running the label, not only is the music fantastical and strange, it's also of questionable provenance, with both Votel and DS keen on whipping up wild tales, and imagining far out backgrounds for record they themselves have made. But all we have to go on at this point is what we're told, which is that this is the vinyl debut, after a series of custom books and tapes, from David Orphan, who runs something called Devon Folklore Tapes, a Smithsonian Folkways like research/cultural heritage project/label, which in this case is concerned with a witch called Hannah Henley, and this tale of her ruthless mistreatment of the locals, and their revenge via the work of a white witch. The story is spelled out on the back of the sleeve, but it's unclear exactly what part the music plays, other than perhaps an imagined soundtrack to those long ago proceedings, and it does play like that, heavy on the found sounds and field recordings, starting out almost like the story, sans narration, set to vinyl, foot steps, creaking chairs, Hannah (we assume), humming and singing to herself as she works, the clink of glasses, all manner of sounds. Gradually strange musical cues begin to surface, and eventually play a much bigger part than those ambient sounds. ominous chords, mysterious wheezing harmoniums, pulsing synths (?), woozy bass melodies, all laced with whispered voices, the resulting soundscape sinister and quite haunting.
The B side opens with some dreamy druggy psychedelic folk, softly crooned female vox (Hannah again?), simply strummed guitar, underpinned by super creepy EVP like vices and bursts of demonic hissing. The record progresses with synth flecked woozy organ gypsy folk, giving way to dirgey sea shanties, al wheezing squeezebox and wild barroom percussion, long stretches of tripped out ambience, and a final burst of chaotic buzz drenched psychedelic freakout.
Hard to say how much of this is based in reality, but it hardly matters, it's really the perfect hauntological artifact either way, full of sonic mystery and heavily supported by all sorts of intriguing (mis)information, the cover featuring a sigil based on the story and a bone supposedly used in the creation of these sounds, and while it won't necessarily be of interest to fans of Demdike Stare and the like, as this is way less electronic and beat oriented, anyone into strange sounds, outsider art, and mysterious sonic archaeology, this will definitely hit the spot.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
Originally released in 2007, the oddly named Find Electronica sees Italian soundscaper / audio alchemist Orsi, conjuring up some hushed delicate beauty, that sort of hazy, otherworldly fuzzy drift we can't seem to get enough of. Warm slowly whirling melodies blurred into long lazy drones, the layers constantly shifting, gorgeous overtones surfacing here and there, melodies buried and revealing glimpses now and again through the hushed lush shimmer of these tracks. The opening track is total Pop Ambient bliss out, anyone who digs that beatless shimmer, that washed out glistening thrum of groups like Gas and Klimek will be in heaven, Heck even the second track which finds Orsi looping an acoustic guitar into a bit of Appalachian mesmer, takes that guitar and wreathes it in a gorgeous gauze of muted electronics and muted psychedelia, the sort of late night sky-full-of-stars dreaminess that could go on forever, before slipping into a strange bit of post rockiness that quickly transforms into a sort of electronic music box bleepscape.
The record closes with the darkest of the three, a murky, low end rumble, shot through with glistening textures and subtle melodies, the sound ominous, but still warm and weirdly welcoming, gradually thickening, becoming something akin to a much more minimal Nadja, heavy, but woozy and warbly and completely mesmerizing. So fantastic. One of the coolest things we've heard from Orsi, which makes it all the more sad, that WE ONLY HAVE FIVE COPIES OF THIS!! Sadly the label is no more, which means we can never get more, which means these are the very last copies we'll ever see...
Yay, it's the third album from this truly distorto-delic UK outfit, with much more of that 'trance-inducing throb' we love about 'em. We've been into the krauty hypno-pop oscillations of The Oscillation since we first heard their 2007 debut on electro label DC. They've only gotten darker and heavier since then . From Tomorrow is a killer collection of echoing dubbed-out grooves and moody coldwave pop, alternating electronically-treated, hushed vocal tracks with rhythmic FX-laden instrumental stretches that often evoke the motorik beats and tribal thump of Circle, given a late-night, neon-lit makeover. Fans of Moon Duo, too, will dig the shake/stomp of tracks like "No Place To Go", with its Suicide groove. The album has also got a tightly-wound post-punk vibe to it, as well as spacey moments of druggy drift.
Dunno what else to say, if you like The Oscillation already you'll totally dig this; if you haven't heard 'em, tune in and turn on right here, now. Shoulda reviewed this before we all did our top tens for 2013, whoops! Woulda maybe had to make room for it...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Otaku is a San Francisco electronica outfit adding lots of digital dub to the current breakbeat flares sported by Meat Beat Manifesto and the like.
You'd almost like to think that with a title like Turntables and Computers, this would turn out to have been made with rocks and sticks. But no, the title is indeed a very literal labelling of this disc's musical contents. Otomo Yoshihide is one of Japan (and the world's) top turntable experimentalists, whilst his countryman Nobukazu Takemura is a laptop jockey of some reknown. Together they craft a humming, droning, pulsating, glitchy bleepathon. It sounds like a field recording from some sorta sci-fi birdhouse, with a radio on in the background. Voices from Otomo's vinyl records drift in and out of the mix, as if from persons lost amid the pleasantly noisy chaos being created. It's one long 46-minute track, the result of a live improv session. Apparently it was the first time these two had ever worked (or played) together. What they came up with is probably closer to the less pop, more abstract aspects of the Powerbook electronica that Nobukazu is known for, intersecting with the minimalist electronic rather than jazz side of Otomo's ouvre. By the end it gets into mindshredding noise territory, a real nice finale to a disc that visits much quiet beauty as well.
Impressive full length debut from ex-Californian, now Brooklynite band Out Hud. This group plays the instrumental, angular dance music that the indie rockers currently adore. You know the type -- think ESG, Liquid Liquid, Cabaret Voltaire, the Disco Not Disco comps, etc. And of the many bands that now sport this sound, I think Out Hud do it best. Icily precise guitar gets the echo dub treatment and is used sparingly. Metronomic drumming. Spacy stereo separation tricks. Warm, not melodramatic, cello. Strange metallic crashes. Doesn't annoy or call too much attention to itself, and pleasantly low key and slow to mid tempo. Really restrained in a good way. All of that, plus actual melodies that show off the group's rock roots. Highly recommended!
The impressive Spectrum Spools imprint has been churning out a fantastic array of progressive electronics both modern and vintage, tracing a similar aesthetic thread regardless of time-period. We have John Elliott to thank for all of this expert sound selection. In years past, he might have been best known for his membership in the brilliant kosmische trio Emeralds, but that project has inexplicably been dormant since their 2010 masterpiece Does It Look Like I'm Here. For the previous 18 releases on Spectrum Spools, Elliott himself has been conspicuously absent from his own curatorial vision for the label. That is, until now. Outer Space was once a solo moniker for Elliott to work out various synthmusik permutations that might have detoured from the Emeralds general vibe. Sometimes that detour has been pretty radical (the glorping velocity of an eponymous album on Arbor), others less so (the sprawling zoner trax of Lightyear Demonstrations); and here, Elliott is proudly bellowing "EMERALDS!" in the synth arpeggiation and nebula extrapolation of Akashic Record. Elliott has also roped in a few like-minded types under the Outer Space banner, including Drew McDowell (a former satellite member of Coil!), Philip Whiteside, and Jeff Hatfield. While much of the album tends towards the kirlian glow of the Schulze / Schnitzler axis, the dark-minded chords and arpeggiations found on "October 27, 1989: Bay Village, Ohio" is much more indebted to the Carpenter / Goblin models of '80s horror soundtrack design. This date and place refers to the kidnapping and subsequent murder of a 10-year old girl in Elliott's hometown, warranting the much more bleak vibe of the Outer Space sound. The album's finale "February 8th, 1990: Ashland, Ohio" refers to the time and place that girl's body was later found. Throughout the album, Elliott and crew are in fine form, making this pretty much required listening, especially for those of you who who were smitten by that aforementioned Emeralds record Does It Look Like I'm Here.
If you didn't know already, Emeralds synth-advocate John Elliott is one hell of a busy man. Yeah, there's a ton of Emeralds cd-r's and tapes that disappear before we even know about them, and the same goes for a bunch of Elliott's side projects. Outer Space is one of those projects, which has been hailed at times as a solo venture of Elliott's, but sometimes he's wrangling fellow Cleveland jammers to zone out on the electronics with him. Needless to say, this double cassette from Deception Island is the first time we've heard the sounds of Elliott's Outer Space, but it's certainly a very different animal from his Mist project, whose eponymous LP we've managed to stock from time to time. Where the Mist recordings tend toward the airy, effervescent, brighter end of the kosmische electronic spectrum, Outer Space swings toward the darker, grey smears of industrial din through electronic means. Long filter sweeps push the spectral tones and static laced synthesis towards a leaden oblivion via a turgid application of twin Moogs (with Elliott being joined by Jeff Hatfield).
Smartly packaged in a jumbo double cassette case... but be careful with it, we have no idea where you'd be able to find another, if it were to slip out of your hand and smash upon the floor. Super limited to 200 copies, and destined to be out of print shortly after we type these words.
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.
Arrrgh. My cd player is STILL skipping. 5 years later!
Some of the most beautifully pure and emotional electronica we have ever heard, kind of like a more digitally-"clean" Labradford, if you need a comparison, and also like Carl Stone and Cluster, but composed entirely on the computer. WAY BETTER THAN THEIR PREVIOUS ALBUMS. This is the one. And if you already have the German import, know that both the cd and lp of this domestic version have 2 extra (very good) songs, plus the lp has an extra 12" with remixes by Jim O'Rourke, Scanner, Mouse on Mars, and Christian Vogel. As close to new age as we will ever come. Highly, highly recommended.
Just months after Oval's recent Oh 12", Markus Popp's first release in more than a decade, comes this, the similarly titled O, a sprawling, nearly sixty track, double disc, which continues on right where Oh left off. In fact, listening to O now, it sounds like most likely all of these tracks were recorded during the same session. They certainly have the same feel. A strange hybrid of past and present Oval, the cd skipping liquid glitchery of classic records like Diskont and Systemisch, and the new, more organic, 'real instrument' Oval. The main instrument sounds like a steel string guitar, sampled and chopped up and fed into the computer and spit out in strange gnarled glitchy shards. When we reviewed the 12", we mentioned that the new Oval sounded a bit like Michael Hedges or Derek Bailey all chopped up and computerized, which still holds true, but that's probably a bit reductionist. As Popp obviously has a keen ear and a deft hand at assembling digital errata into weirdly dreamy popmusik. The opening suite of songs perfectly encapsulates the new Oval sound, while setting the stage for the two discs to come. In "Panorama", over soft shimmery, warm and languid melodic swells, Popp flings flurries of grinding glitched melody, little spurts of melodic tangles, jagged and looped, their echoes and ripples allowed to ring out, as the first track progresses, the background shimmer seems to dissipate as the foreground glitchery becomes more and more clipped, the shimmer only returning briefly alongside the glitch, like a hazy shadow. "Ah!" is a loping bit of looped guitar tapping, while all around, soft steaks of gauzy electronics drift and swirl and swoop, and then in come real drums, another new addition, less present than on the 12", but here, evoking the same sort of post rock vibe, a little bit Tortoise, a little Stereolab, especially with its little swaths of melody and female vocal sounding "Ah"s. On the surface, it's a sweet bit of electronic post rock confection, but there's always so much going on, layer upon layer, little bits of glitch, little shards of melody, mysterious effects, but all perfectly placed. The result, some modern electro space pop, that sounds incredible. "Shhh" takes the same sort of approach but instead crafts the same elements into a hushed lullaby, the tones muted, the track laced with bits of keening metallic high end, drifting over a softly looped bit of mesmer. "Glossy" is another bit of electronic post rock, the big booming drums, shuffling beneath a cloud of constantly shifting notes and tones, clipped and skittery and stuttery, a scattershot spray of electronic sound draped over a minimal rhythmic backdrop.
And so it goes, for nearly 60 more songs, most 2 minutes or shorter, many clocking in closer to 30 seconds, all sounding like they were cut from the same sonic cloth, or maybe more accurately, they all sound like micro-movements of the much larger, sprawling epic whole, the electronic post rock symphony that is O, separated into tiny parts, miniature separate segments, every one its own little fragment of electronic avant pop, but all of those parts (maybe not so) loosely connected into Popp's grand masterwork, a whole that is perhaps easier to absorb broken down into its constituent parts, or perhaps not, maybe this is in fact a collection of mini-tracks, the sounds broken down into commercial length segments designed for the modern attention span, but who really knows the method to Popp's madness, all we really know is that O is deliriously delightful, mysterious and playful, and totally fantastic.
The vinyl includes extra tracks NOT on the cd (as well as a digital download of all the cd version tracks).
It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since the last Oval record, even longer since Oval's Diskont record, which was and always will be an all time aQ favorite, with its gorgeously languid underwater ambience, burbling dreamily, washed out and so totally mesmerizing, all created from skipping cds, and Oval mastermind Markuss Popp's meticulously handcrafted soft AND hardware. But Oh is a whole other musical beast entirely. Right out of the gate, it sounds more like a band like Tortoise than Oval, big loud, REAL drums, spread out over what sounds like guitar harmonics, as well as a very Oval sounding lush landscape of shimmer and whir in the background, but the point is, it sounds like a band, some kind of electronic avant post rock band. And it's not just the sound, it's the process that has changed, gone are the days of expensive computers and one of a kind plug-ins and software, all of Oh, and the forthcoming double cd, was created on a stock cheapo PC computer, using regular old software anyone could buy, with Popp playing all the instruments, and creating, in his own words, 'real' music for the first time, after years of dissecting and pulling apart sounds, and the results are pretty incredible.
Folks looking for more of that classic Oval sound might definitely be disappointed, but will more likely be pleasantly surprised. Imagine Tortoise, or maybe Battles, fed into a computer, and then reprogrammed, the drums still propulsive, but more scattered and skittery and abstract, almost like post rock free jazz, while guitars aren't strummed so much as allowed to ring out, chime, and all around, various bits of electronics and strange processing transform this new 'rock' Oval into something as unique and original as the Oval we've always loved.
The A-side is made up of longer, more song-like tracks, while the B-side is a bunch of super short snippets, but short and long alike, these songs are all about melody, and rhythm, and harmony, where as old Oval was more about mood and texture, for as abstract as these new tracks are, they are definitely more 'musical', the A-side playing out like some super far out post rock band, the B-side more like some avant solo guitarist, whose guitar is super processed and transformed into something beautifully alien, and subtly electronic, without losing the sense of the organic, the sound of a proper instrument. The shorter tracks, while melodic, are also very percussive and buzzy, almost like a computerized Michael Hedges / Derek Bailey hybrid, effortlessly slipping from tangled scrape and crunch to softly hazy fuzz to heavily processed almost-folk.
It's all definitely a big change for sure, but those old Oval records are pretty much perfect, and impossible to improve upon we think, and these new sounds, these new SONGS, are just as exciting, albeit in their own, obtuse and idiosyncratic, 2010, post 'rock', post glitch, post-Oval fashion.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, cool fancy jackets with a paste on front image (featuring a still from that birds and guitars installation at the Tate Museum in London), and comes with a download coupon as well...
Oval's 94Diskont still ranks as one of the most gorgeous, emotional and lush and lovely electronic music records we've ever heard. Oval mainman Markus Popp arranging a symphony of glitches and skipping digital sound into something impossibly organic and beautiful. For whatever reason, around the turn of the century, Popp seemingly hung it up, only to return almost a decade later with a new record, and a new sound. With this first new release, an ep called Oh, Popp offered up something that sounded like a proper rock band, gone was the pure glitch and experimental electronic collage, and in its place was something that sounded more like some strange post rock / free jazz hybrid, which weirdly enough sounded more like something that should be on Thrill Jockey. Still rife with glitch and jagged edits, but definitely a strange new direction. Next came O, which positioned itself as the perfect meeting point of this new band-like Oval, and the Oval of old, and we have to say we dug it quite a bit. And now it seems like Popp must be re-energized cuz here we are not more than a year later, with a whole new full length, and yet again, the sound has shifted, in one respect, more toward the warm liquid soundscaping of those early records, but with hint of nineties IDM in the mix, the result is a record that shifts from swirling contemplative glitched out drift, to stuttery, propulsive groove, albeit those grooves assembled from the same strange elements, resulting in a bastardized electronica, that even in that more 'groovy' state, could be no one but Oval. Popp's new sound palette continues to amaze as well, a veritable symphony of clicks and chitters, of creaks and bleeps, strange synth sounds, and what sounds like heavily processed, but proper recorded drums, warm chordal whirs, haunting melodies, lush textures, the sound brittle and crunchy one second, hushed and lush the next, with an attention to detail that's staggering, yet even as meticulously crafter and deftly assembled, the music sounds alive, and emotional, and the more we listen to it, on headphones especially, the more we're sucked in, and utterly transported.
Accompanying the cd is a second disc, a DVD, but not to be played in a DVD player, instead, loaded with extras, including videos, a ton of bonus tracks, a TV special, extensive liner notes (which are also in the booklet) from David Toop, Atsushi Sasaki, Minoru Hatanaka as well as Popp himself, not to mention a whole library of Oval sounds, which one can use to make your own OvalMusic, and there's a link in the packaging to the Shitkatapult site, where you can download OvalDNA software as well!
Lovely-looking new Oval disc, the Japanese import version of what will be released domestically on Thrill Jockey sometime in 2001. However, this appears to have 4 Japan-only bonus tracks, in addition to the 8 listed on the package. The sounds? More of noted German technojerk Markus Popp's digital glitchworks, as he processes elements of his own output from '96-'99. Solid work.
In the honored tradition of giving credit where credit is due, we must mention that regular AQ customer Richard Ross was apparently instrumental in designing the software that is the basis of Markus Popp's multi-media installation as well as the new Oval record. "Ovalprocess" repesents the innovative software design of Ross and Popp as well as the basis of Oval's new 'Ovalprocess' sound installations. The installation invites the public to manipulate sound terminals in the "Ovalprocess" application, rendering the exhibit a customizable workstation, which Popp will reportedly be taking on tour. The sample-set utilized by Popp has a harsher grit and a more difficult agenda than some of Oval's recent output. Gone are the burbling underwater murmurs, and in their place, scratchy grit and stuttery clicks and cuts.
This is actually the Japanese import version of "Ovalprocess" which features 4 tracks not to be found on the upcoming Thrill Jockey release (June 20).
Still stands as one of Oval's best!
The very first album by this German electronica duo, available again. If you liked their Mille Plateaux/Thrill Jockey releases, you will find more of the same lush sounds of skipping and otherwise abused cd's here, but there's also singing! It's probably good that they gave up on that, but there's still some great music on here...
An odd matchup indeed. We weren't sure whether this was a joining of convenience, since both bands are now labelmates, or if it went deeper than that, considering the two groups are sort of iconoclasts, Markus Popp and his Oval project constantly reinventing himself and following his own idiosyncratic path, and Liturgy, whose 'transcendental black metal' has been known to ruffle a few feathers, and whose frontman Hunter Hunt-Hendrix has been outspoken in his academic/spiritual approach to black metal, which seems to be at odds with the true grim hordes, not to mention his distinctly UN black metal pretty boy appearance. Regardless, these two definitely make a good team, at least in terms of splitting a record. We were secretly hoping this was in fact a collaboration, but this is the next best thing.
Popp's Oval has definitely moved on from those beloved skipping cd underwater dronescapes we love so much, his return heralded a move toward manipulating acoustic instrumentation, and the tracks here continue in that direction. The main song here is a sort of glitchy electronic flecked post rock, sounding a bit like a more warped and abstract Tortoise, all manner of squiggles and squelches tangled up into the loping rhythm and melancholic strum, the result blissed out and melodic. The following three tracks are brief bits of experimentation, solo guitar it seems, processed buzz, transformed into distinct melodies that sound less like guitars and more like thumb piano or gamelan.
Liturgy subvert all expectations and come out with some seriously chugging churning math rock, repetitive and droney, looped and mesmerizing, it's pretty compelling, a sound we love, and these guys nail it, it's not until about halfway through that any black metal riffing comes in, but instead of launching into it, the track slips into something way more minimal, a haunting, pulsing electronic ambience, so gorgeous and hushed, until FINALLY, the song does explode into that soaring and majestic transcendental black metal we love so much, but even here, the blasting is kept to a minimum, the rhythms more midtempo, seemingly a sonic extension of the math rock opening. Great stuff. Definitely has us chomping at the bit for the new full length, and hoping for more of this transcendental math rock!
This too was a Record Store Day release, and thus was extremely limited, so not sure if we can get more once this batch sells out. Includes a download coupon as well.
Ove-Naxx is not only the first non-Rupture project to be released on DJ/ Rupture's Soot label, but only the second release since Rupture's debut "Gold Teeth Thief" -- almost two years ago. If you suspected that such selective behavior from Rupture would signify a high level of quality control at Soot... you would be right on the money. "Bullets From Habikino...", the work of an up and coming Japanese artist known only as Ove-Naxx (or is it actually Rupture himself under a new name as someone we know recently surmised?), is a brutally beautiful 30 minute drill and bass opus. As varied in source material as Rupture's mixes, as dark and pummelling as Scud's dancehall blowouts, and as manic as any Wobbly channel surf freakout. Recommended.
MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT!! MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT!! MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT!!
The above is of course for the benefit of the legions of Mississippi obsessives, that seems to be growing with each and every release. Fans who will buy anything and everything Mississippi, whether it's blues, or gospel, or world music, whether it's African or Greek, classic New Zealand pop, or legendary underground Portland Punk. Which is totally understandable, the guys at Mississippi have great taste, and besides their incredible compilations, and unearthed rarities, they also have a knack for picking out old records that folks have been DYING to get on vinyl. But even if you're not a Mississippi obsessive, this here is well worth checking out. And may be just the disc to convert you to the cult of Mississippi...
Here we have a kick ass gospel record from 1963, originally reissued on Arhoolie, now available on Mississippi, ON VINYL. And while we're not super well versed in gospel music, we do dig what we've heard, but very little of what we've heard sounds like the Rev. Louis Overstreet. It's festive and inspirational, but at the same time it's super rocking. Most of the tracks collected here are relentless garage gospel grooves, the guitar and drums locked into killer jams, the guitar occasionally pealing off some wild licks, but for the most part offering up a jangly twangy strum, the congregation clapping in time, and hooting and hollering. The testifying is minimal, and when there are vocals, they are alternately crooned and howled, The Rev.'s voice is gritty and soulful, but even when he's singing, it's the groove, irresistible and unstoppable and most certainly inspired. It does slow down here and there, and gets all super bluesy and soulful, but for the most part, An Evening With is some seriously rollicking and rocking praise-the-Lord good time gospel rhythm and blues!
Probably would have been a lot easier to get us to go to church when we were younger if it sounded like this!
Third mysterious sonic missive from this Northwestern lo-fi synthscaper, and like the two tapes that came before, it's another wild and wooly mad scientist concoction of stuttery beats, creepy soundtracky synths, woozy loops, and all manner of warped effects. At first we dug this stuff just cuz it was kinda far out and fun, but with every record the sounds get better, the arrangements more fully fleshed out, and with Octagonal Wax, we're really beginning to wonder how this guys has remained such a secret. Just check out the opener, "50 Times Higher Than Any Normal Man", with its weird little blurts of synth squelch, woozy haunted house ambience, bloopy bleepy 8-bit video game melodies, all wrapped on a creepy cinematic Goblin-y gauze, playful but also infused with a strange sinister streak, which is precisely what makes this stuff so good. The last Oxykitten played out more like a summer party record, but this one is ominous and a little bit wintery, the opener a herald of strange dark times to come, leading directly into "Drowning Inside", which weds a thick buzzing synth to swoonsome melancholic strings, some weird wah wah melodies and a lumbering staticky beat. But it too has a strangely melancholy cast, with some almost choral like sounds that give this the vibe of some heartbreaking montage, and weirdly enough, sort of sounds like a WAY better produced Fastest.
From there on out, the sounds continues on in much the same fashion, definitely slipping into much more sun dappled sonic climes, but almost always drifting back toward something more woozy and moody, with a lot of the tracks touching on Carpenter / Goblin retro-synth soundtrack territory, making Oxykitten definitely ripe for discovery by fans of Umberto, Zombi, Majeure and all that stuff. That said, this is much definitely way more home brewed and DIY, which also in many ways makes it more appealing, strangely idiosyncratic, a dizzying melange of retro soundtracks, modern beatscaping, and outsider synth oddities. Another weirdo winner from Oxykitten!
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! Includes digital download coupon!
Full length number two from this mysterious cinematic lo-fi synthscaper from the Pacific Northwest, whose first record was a surprise hit around these parts. A surprise in part because of the strange band name, that didn't and doesn't even begin to hint at the creepy synthy bliss that lurks inside. And if anything, this new one takes everything we loved about the first tape, and shapes it into something less lo-fi summer-synth party jam, and more haunting John Carpenter style cinematic 8 bit mood music. And holy shit is this stuff good. All the bands out there peddling their particular brand of retro futuristic synthesized sound, would do well to keep an eye on this guy, cuz if this stuff gets the attention it truly deserves, the rest of the synth wranglers out there are really gonna have to up their game.
Needless to say, if you're a fan of folks like Gatekeeper, Bitchin Bajas, Xander Harris, Nightsatan, Stellar Om Source, Umberto, Majeure, Roll The Dice, Solar Bears and all the rest, then odds are you're gonna love this. But Oxykitten definitely has his own take on that sound, adding flurries of old school 8 bit bleepage and bloopage, or some darkly propulsive krautrock groove, often in the same song. Robotic space funk turns into alien eighties soundtrack turns into droned out analog kosmische drift and back again, "Nar Nar Dargarstar" might be our favorite, a buzzy creep, with dense swaths of thick low end buzz, warped minor key melodies, and cool little high end trills, like the soundtrack for the NES version of Deep Red Or Suspiria. AWESOME.
Includes a download code as well.
Everything about this cool little tape that showed up in the mail one day hit the spot, the bright red tape, with silver metallic lettering, the eye popping crocheted cover art... Everything that is except the band name, not sure why, but the name Oxykitten just had us imagining the music would be way too twee, to cutesy, too fey, a sort of Hello Kitty vibe, but in the interest of not judging a book by its cover, or a tape by its band name, we threw it on, and BAM. Or POW. Or KABLOW. Or whatever sound would indicate you that you just stumbled on the bad ass, old school electro synth lo-fi party jam of the summer. Or whenever. The opening track is a killer, with super buzzy synths, some simulated 'meow's, retro drum machines, thick deep ominous synth basslines, the melodies weirdly haunting, a weird combo of mysterious and groovy, creepy and funky, with some rad squiggly synth freakouts, very soundtracky, or like the music to the best video game you've never played. The closest reference might be Black Moth Super Rainbow or Tobacco, that sort of lo-fi 8-bit bastardized hip hop, but the sound here is way more retro, and weird. That aforementioned opener throws in some creepy John Carpenterisms too, as if Carpenter had scored Castlevania for the Sega Saturn.
The rest of the record definitely mixed it up, from super stripped down electro grooves, to goofy vocoder driven electropop, to fuzzed out Ed Banger style synth blowouts, to full on 8-bit videogame music, to wild and seriously damaged eighties party jams, to awesome, creepy soundtracky creepscapes, and on and on and on. Definite contender for party jam tape of the year, odds are a bunch of these songs will end up on summer fun mix tapes, or get blasted at full volume from car stereos, or at the very least, get pumped through those headphones, rollerskates, parachute pants and satin jackets optional.
Bright red cassette, full color eye popping covers, and a download code for those of you who no longer sport that walkman clipped to your belt...
Hey kids it's Karaoke Oye! Erland's remixing and singing atop seventeen of his fave songs to house-y backing tracks including ones by The Rapture, Cornelius, Royskopp, Phoenix, Justus Kohncke and many by the man himself. He sounds more than a little bit like Jamiroquai bustin' a groove. This is very much in the same dance-y vein as his solo album from last year. Now, for those familiar with us here at AQ, you know very well our feelings about 'dance music.' Hey, don't be mistaken... sure, we like to shake our booties every now and then, just not to such faceless formulaic fodder. This cd just makes us wish he'd take a breather from the dancefloor and get back to his dreamy folk-pop bliss band Kings Of Convenience.
Greet the solo album from Kings Of Convenience's singer Erlend Oye. We've had folks asking about this one for months! What was anticipated by many was the incredibly mellow lushness of KOC's Quiet Is The New Loud and/or the follow-up remix collection called Versus. Instead, this comes across somewhat disappointingly as Oye singing over fluffy 80s-ish electronic dance tracks. Imagine a quiet, sweet, folky lad singing for Erasure. Written collaboratively and recorded over a one year period in ten different cities around the globe with the likes of Prefuse 73, Schneider TM, Mr. Velcro Fastener, Metro Area's Morgan Geist, Soviet, Kompis, Minizza, Kilogram, Bjorn Torske. With that in mind, it's surprising how little distinction there is from track to track. Everything is super smooth. I have to admit though that halfway through Unrest, I was struck with the urge to revisit Quiet Is The New Loud rather than continue listening to this. It's just seems to be a more engaging setting for his voice. Nonetheless, fans of the laidback electronic danciness of groups like Aluminum Group or Kruder And Dorfmeister (or their offshoots Peace Orchestra and Tosca) might take a shine to Oye and co. Note: this domestic pressing has a bonus 'hidden' track not available on the import.
