With the three key albums of Thomas Koner's work having recently been reissued individually on vinyl, Type has now collected those records - Nunatak, Teimo, and Permafrost - in a handsome oversized folio for presenting those albums on compact disc. Here's a recap of our reviews of these stunning pieces of glacial minimalism:
Thomas Koner's debut album Nunatak Gongamur (now truncated as Nunatak) was a record that quietly emerged on the Dutch label Barooni in 1990. Almost all of Koner's recordings (at least his solo recordings), speak to the tundra of the Northern environs, with a lot of allusions to the expanses of Greenland in particular. Nuuk was the name of one Koner record, which happens to the capital and largest city of that frigid island; and Nunatak is an Inuit word describing any rocky outcropping not covered in snow. And of course, Koner excels in the producing of cold cold music. There is a considerable difference between this album and the rest of his catalogue, as Nunatak is an electro-acoustic album entirely sourced from huge gongs. His other records definitely obliterated the source material (some of which was cited as being the sound channel on blank 16mm film stock) into deep space shadow and blackened noise. Here on Nunatak, Koner leaves the resonance of his metal gongs alone, occasionally catching them in languid loops but always focusing on vast deep rumbling overtones and the vast subharmonic frequencies. Given the rasping textures from the gongs, this one is less the all-consuming isolationism and more of an adventurous dronescrape as if extracted from the hull of a cargo ship.
Teimo is an album that was originally released as a cd on Barooni in 1992. Like its predecessor Nunatak Gongamur, Koner had sourced much of Teimo from recordings of gongs, using contact microphones and hydrophones to capture an unusual assortment of resonance, timbre, and decaying frequencies from his gongs. In these recordings, Koner was investigating what he qualified as an 'aesthetic of decline' shaped by the processes of decay, thermal cooling, and any gradual event that will achieve stasis. Water seeking its own level. Glaciers amassing in frozen landscapes. The metal fatigue of submarines, cracking under the pressure of an entire ocean. The long sustained metallic resonances of the gong is an apt tool for his conceptual framework, with Koner further manipulating his sources into elegant passages of subharmonic rumblings that utter subtle melodic phrases whilst shaking the bottom of the seafloor. Amidst the low-end drones and allusions to barren landscapes, Koner takes great care to keep the sounds immersive without imbuing them with terror. Yes, this is 'dark' ambient music, but his aesthetic of decline is far more clinical than say the theatrical drama that Lustmord can muster through his deadly recordings. Koner's quest is for the sublime, filled with awe and beauty simultaneously; and he has effortlessly achieved that quest throughout his career, certainly including this masterful record.
In Permafrost, we have the third and final chapter of this series of reissues from Type, documenting the long out-of-print isolationist composition from Thomas Koner. As with the previous recordings - Nunatak and Teimo - the German sound artist has masterfully captured the frigid atmospheres of the most northern ecosystems, and the title Permafrost leaves little to the imagination as to where this one will be travelling. Cold. Barren. Black. Sublime. The sounds are thoroughly abstracted into shifting blocks of grey noises slipping above seismic rumblings of infinitely bellowing low-end frequencies. By doing so, Koner eschews the use of the gong scrapes and metallic glistenings which graced those early records, adopting the bleak ethos which he continued to master on such albums as Kaamos and Daikan (the latter of which is probably the pinnacle of his career).
All of Koner's work is required listening for anyone who has been interested in drone-based recordings from any time period (e.g. Eno, Lustmord, Chalk, Hafler Trio, Roland Kayn, Alan Splet, Bernhard Gunter, BJ Nilsen, Kevin Drumm, etc.). His subtle use of movement and half-melodic phrasing in his arctic-driven ambience has warranted him quite a reputation, and fortunately none of his reissues fail to sound timeless, breathtaking, and bone-chillingly beautiful. Highly recommended.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
In Permafrost, we have the third and final chapter of this series of reissues from Type, documenting the long out-of-print isolationist composition from Thomas Koner. As with the previous recordings - Nunatak and Teimo - the German sound artist has masterfully captured the frigid atmospheres of the most northern ecosystems, and the title Permafrost leaves little to the imagination as to where this one will be travelling. Cold. Barren. Black. Sublime. The sounds are thoroughly abstracted into shifting blocks of grey noises slipping above seismic rumblings of infinitely bellowing low-end frequencies. By doing so, Koner eschews the use of the gong scrapes and metallic glistenings which graced those early records, adopting the bleak ethos which he continued to master on such albums as Kaamos and Daikan (the latter of which is probably the pinnacle of his career).
All of Koner's work is required listening for anyone who has been interested in drone-based recordings from any time period (e.g. Eno, Lustmord, Chalk, Hafler Trio, Roland Kayn, Alan Splet, Bernhard Gunter, BJ Nilsen, Kevin Drumm, etc.). His subtle use of movement and half-melodic phrasing in his arctic-driven ambience has warranted him quite a reputation, and fortunately none of his reissues fail to sound timeless, breathtaking, and bone-chillingly beautiful. Highly recommended.
Here's the second of three vinyl reissues of the early, seminal work from Thomas Koner, who alongside Andrew Chalk may stand as the greatest drone artist from the past few decades. Teimo is an album that was originally released as a cd on Barooni in 1992. Like its predecessor Nunatak Gongamur, Koner had sourced much of Teimo from recordings of gongs, using contact microphones and hydrophones to capture an unusual assortment of resonance, timbre, and decaying frequencies from his gongs. In these recordings, Koner was investigating what he qualified as an 'aesthetic of decline' shaped by the processes of decay, thermal cooling, and any gradual event that will achieve stasis. Water seeking its own level. Glaciers amassing in frozen landscapes. The metal fatigue of submarines, cracking under the pressure of an entire ocean. The long sustained metallic resonances of the gong is an apt tool for his conceptual framework, with Koner further manipulating his sources into elegant passages of subharmonic rumblings that utter subtle melodic phrases whilst shaking the bottom of the seafloor. Amidst the low-end drones and allusions to barren landscapes, Koner takes great care to keep the sounds immersive without imbuing them with terror. Yes, this is 'dark' ambient music, but his aesthetic of decline is far more clinical than say the theatrical drama that Lustmord can muster through his deadly recordings. Koner's quest is for the sublime, filled with awe and beauty simultaneously; and he has effortlessly achieved that quest throughout his career, certainly including this masterful record. Limited to 500 copies.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Mille Plateaux has seen fit to reissue two of the three early isolationist recordings from Thomas Koner. At the time (being the early '90s), those three records (sadly there's no sight of a reissue of the best of the three: "Nunatak Gongamur") stood as a bleak dark ambient monuments that were too alien for the global hippy ambience of contemporaries like The Orb or Future Sound of London. However, Koner's membership in Porter Ricks - which defined the trajectory of the Chain Reaction washed out techno minimalism - has inspired more than a few techno boffins to look back at Koner's post-industrial roots. Very nice deep listening drones.
As an objet d'art, Thomas Koner's "Unerforschtes Gebiet" is almost perfectly executed from beginning concept to final product. The title translates from Koner's native German as "Unchartered Territory," a common theme for electronica's isolationist whose previous work has prompted metaphors of arctic desolation, astrophysical emptiness, and Zen-like nothingness. Inscribed upon one of the loveliest picture discs we've ever seen with images of antique seafaring maps of the Arctic Ocean / North Pole, Koner's "Unerforschtes Gebiet" is a very quiet composition that explores variations of low frequencies which crawl very slowly in and out of audibility amidst down-pitched cracklings and muted rumbles. It could be assumed that Koner has kept this album relatively quiet and has geared-down all the frequencies to give more presence to the surface noise inherent in all picture discs (which for better or for worse never sound as good as a thick slab of 220 gram vinyl). Koner has stated that this album has its origins from his experiments with the projections of a really dusty piece of blank 16mm film; thus, he's done his best to cover all the conceptual bases between the historical references to those old maps, the surface noise, and that dusty film. Of course, if you can't stand surface noise, by all means stay away and be content with the knowlegde that a slightly different CD version of this album will be published later on this year. But if you waffle on this one, I guarantee you will miss out as Die Stadt has manufactured a mere 700 copies!
For all of the successful albums that Thomas Koner has produced and been a part of, it was inevitable that he'd release a dud. "Zyklop" -- a double disc featuring radio plays, incidental music for installations, and live performances -- will never be remembered as Koner's finest moment. Many of the tracks have this feel of being "Imaginary Sound Design." Not dissimilar to the Imaginary Film Score, these pieces sound as if they had been lifted directly from an unidentifiable film, having two distinctly different layers of sound. The first being the ambient sounds, voices, and everything that matches up with the action seen through the camera, and the framing mechanisms of synthetic atmosphere which underscores a set of pre-determined moods that the director uses to develop context and atmosphere. The sporadic narration of French and German texts are clearly anomalous to Koner's previous albums, and without the film, installation, or live performance, these voices simply don't work very well. Koner's much better at establishing meaning through the unspoken languages of the isolationist drone. Futhermore, entire passages from his masterful album "Daikan" have been regurgitated onto "Zyklop." As Koner's work explicitly asks for careful listening, why would you think you could get away with releasing the same material twice?
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
If there was ever a more unlikely split record, we sure can't think of one. But if there was ever a split we'd most like to see, it would be hard to do better than Konono No1 and the Dead C. Not sure if the two bands are a perfect fit, or just happen to satisfy our weirdly eclectic tastes, but this split 12" is fucking amazing. Two new tracks from Konono No 1, who if you are an avid reader of the AQ list are no doubt already familiar with ( we carry both their full lengths, their live record Lubuaku, as well as their studio album Congotronics). An African ensemble led by a trio of amplified Likembes (thumb pianos) and whose equipment is cobbled together from car parts, branches, batteries and other urban detritus. The sound is wild and joyful, rollicking and totally exuberant, the likembes sounding like some alien underwater psychedelic guitars. Wow. And then there's the Dead C. What can you say? One of the most important bands to ever come out of New Zealand. The masters and originators of the NZ free rock sound that has influenced hundreds of bands and been copied by hundreds more. The first 5 tracks are locked grooves, but skip past those (or not!) and you'll find three brand new tracks, 17 minutes of the Dead C in clattery chaotic rock mode, bursts of stumbling, distorted, propulsive free rock, like some lost Krautrock classic, played through crappy practice amps and on a beat up old drum kit, everything drenched in tape hiss and recorded in some cavernous space. Now if they had only managed to get Konono to record WITH the Dead C...
There are a handful of purposeful mispellings of this project's moniker. For the sake of simplicity, we'll just go with the spelling on the cover. Konstruktivist was essentially the solo project of Glenn M. Wallis, who had been affiliated with Throbbing Gristle as something of a bouncer / heavy, given the rather suitable title in some texts as their "control agent." Would you really think that Genesis P-Orridge could take and/or throw a punch? No, Glenn Wallis did that for TG. After their mission was terminated in 1980, he began to explore the darker regions of electronic music and deconstructed minimal wave under those variously spelled Konstruktivist recordings, as well as maintaining an artistic relationship with Chris & Cosey and moonlighting as one of the revolving door members for Whitehouse on stage and on record. A languid synth melody introduces the record with a deathly pall resembling that of a Tibetan thighbone horn (whose eerie bleats graced Lustmord's Heresy album), that slides into a deliciously turgid piece of DIY garage-electronica for creeping drum machine and distorted basslines sounding like those great tracks by Cabaret Voltaire from way back when. A slippery piece of step sequenced synths on "Karnage" much more of a darkly kosmische vibe taking up the sci-fi electronica of Conrad Schniztler. The plodding "Karnal" follows the murky, abstractions that TG created with a distant, heavy drum machine, atonal guitar formations, and subliminally suggestive media collages. Wallis mostly fashioned his disenchanting rhythms and electronics to be instrumental, and when vocals did creep into the mix they tended toward a bleak monotone. The three bonus tracks on this cd seamlessly blend into the dour, DIY electronics of the original album; but sadly this cd reissue is also limited, to just 300 copies.
With the same generic packaging: a white cd envelope and no-nonsense typography, as its predecesors, Kontakt Der Junglinge's third album reveals the novel concept that the order of their ongoing catalogue is heading in reverse, from "1" to "0" and now at "-1." Here, the German duo of Asmus Tietchens and Thomas Koner present another live documentation, this time at the Lagerhaus in Bremen, Germany. Initially, the artists appear to alternate between their individual styles as the sterile, neutered sounds of Tietchens' electro-acoustics takes center stage at first followed by Koner's prediliction for the very cold dronescapes of isolationism. Despite the two working methodologies, Tietchens and Koner appear to have found common ground in their drawing from an industrial landscape -- something like an iron foundry or a nuclear power plant. Throughout the album, both parties incorporate the scraping sounds of what could be heavy metal objects being dragged across a concrete floor. The intrinsic din of an architectural space gradually becomes more present, beginning with the processed drones from air vents then expanding into ominous electro-static cracklings and finally erupting into massive turbine-engine slabs of noise. As both Koner and Tietchens are masters at sonic engineering, it's a little difficult to discern what (if anything) may have come from field recordings of such industrial spaces or if they've managed to perfect electronic manipulation as a simulation of organic constructions. Regardless, Kontakt Der Junglinge have come up with another great noise / drone recording.
"0" is the second installment in the apparent series of live releases from Kontakt Der Junglinge, a collaboration between Thomas Koner and Asmus Tietchens. Recorded in the formerly Eastern Bloc controlled German port town of Rostock inside the M.S. Stubnitz
Two noted German electronic composers Thomas Koner (of Porter Ricks) and Asmus Teitchens gave this collaborative project a hybridized name of two compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen -- "Kontakt" and "Gesang Der Junglinge." Their first documentation is a bit unusual for both artists, as it is a live recording taken from a performance in Bremen, Germany in late 1999. While both
Fortunately, Die Stadt didn't issue "1" as a video, effectively removing the physical presence (or lack thereof) of Koner and Tietchens from the listening experience, and simply leaving the amazing sounds behind. The 45 minute Kontakt Der Junglinge begins as a slow 'n' steady series of deep rumbles which are gradually accompanied by very distant Arvo Part-like choral elements. Later still, oceanic swells of processed static and granular synthesis fluidly encroach into the mix and take over the low end rumblings. As Tietchens' DAT whirrs ahead, fragments appear from his "A-Menge" album of asynchronous computerized clicks. Koner treats these sounds with a considerable amount of isolationist reverb, eroding some of the sharp edges of Tietchens' clinical sounds. Altogether, this is an exceptional record easily on par with anything that either artist has produced to date. Well worth checking out!
As good as the previous three Kontakt Der Junglinge records are, "N" is perhaps the most perfectly realized synthesis of the aesthetics of Thomas Koner and Asmus Tietchens, the two artists who comprise Kontakt Der Junglinge. In their respective solo careers, both artists have developed exceptionally strong sound signatures, with Koner preferring an edgy isolationist quality in his cinematically grand drones, and Tietchens honing the language of cosmic electronics which he pioneered alongside Cluster, Conrad Schnitzler, and Brian Eno back in the '70s. Where the previous albums had either alternated between the two distinct styles or positioned each other's sounds in a dialogue of polite conflict, this album quietly merges the two voices into a singular expansive voice. Archetypally Tietchens-tones encapsulating a sterile plasticity, expand and collapse slowly throughout the album, while Koner's cavernous bass frequencies cradle each of Tietchens' sounds with his arctic atmospheres and lulling soundscapes. As with all of the Kontakt Der Junglinge album,"N" is a live recording; this time, the performance was held at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and happens to also be the quietest of their collaborations, which certainly helps to achieve the album's delicate balance. Highly recommended to all fans of dronemusik.
Not sure if you're a gore hound, horror movie obsessive or exploitation freek, but odds are, if you are, then like us, you spent a good chunk of your free time, 10 or 12 years ago trying to track down a copy of the film Nekromantik. The film itself wasn't all that great, the highlights being the female fucking a corpse with a condom covered screwdriver and the testicles in the fridge scenes. Eww. And at the time, we were so obsessed with the gross out factor and the blurred nudity that we barely even noticed the soundtrack. So here it is, over a decade later, and surprisingly enough, the soundtrack is really cool. And holds up quite well on its own. Super freaky instrumental squeals that ends with what can only be the sounds of a dead limb being hacked off, haunting almost atonal string quartet. like a slowed down, warped Balanescu Quartet, haunting Tom Waits-ish creepy clatter, with whining violing being transmitted through a crappy little transistor radio, with clanking slow motion rhythms, creepy underwater sound scapes of burbling and swooshing space sound effects, industrial buzz, with a distant mournful melody, all scratchy played over the top and even occasional full on synth heavy Goblin horrorscapes. Definitely cool stuff!
Tomas Korber is a Swiss avant-guitarist who has enjoyed many a collaboration with the likes of Keith Rowe, Toshimaru Nakamura, and Otomo Yoshihide. His work emerges from the microsound school of pristine digitality, with the guitar being an electro-acoustic springboard for noise, grains, textures, harmonics, and overtones that get further distilled through laptop tricks. Effacement is not unlike a Christian Fennesz / Bernhard Gunter collaboration, if such a thing were to take place. Fizzing electricity steadily builds up to crescendos of thick locust chorales; shimmered surfaces of post-Birchville Cat Motel amplifier drones slowly dissolve down to the point of near silence; and rasping clatters of digital noise do blast forth, but in very small doses cast against the long passages of subdued activity.
Hey, remember that crazy Infidel?/Castro! double cd we reviewed last list? Well the guy from the I?/C! duo who isn't also the guy from Behold The Arctopus has released a 28-track solo album about, uh, trilobites! (Y'know, those three-lobed Paleozoic marine arthropods.) It's a completely wacky concept album, featuring (indeed, celebrating!) a musical kitchen-sink approach beyond even what I?/C! is willing to incorporate. There's (fake?) BBC-style documentary samples. Slap bass. Squiggly Yngwie guitar. Jazz. Electronic noise. Drum and bass. Black metal. Munchkin voices. Really, just all kinds of genre-parody ("9+ styles" boasts the sticker on the cover). Including goofy whiteboy rap music that sounds just like our pal Steven Schulz! Indeed, this whole project seems to have a lot in common with the virtuosic but silly aesthetic of such Steven Schultz releases as No One Will Ever Understand Our Genious (by Puny Humans) and I Forgot To Get A Rap Name. So that could be either a recommendation or a warning, depending on your tolerance for dorkiness.
This is so bewilderingly diverse that it could almost be a various artists comp, with all the songs supposedly somehow having something to do with trilobites (though even that's not entirely clear). And as with most comps, you'll probably find good tracks and bad, according to your taste (and theirs!). George Korein is joined in this madness by several guests from the East Coast indie-prog scene that I?/C? is a part of, including members of Behold The Arctopus, Kayo Dot, Dysrhythmia, and Stinking Lizaveta.
The first appearance on the aQ list by these Texas based guitarnoise terrorists, was a recent collaboration with Irish doomdronedirge outfit To Blacken The Pages, but this is the first proper record of theirs we've managed to get enough of to list. And it's a doozy.
Previously a one man band, and previously more of an oozing blacknoise Skullflower psychguitar buzz drone dirge freakout-fit, the band has expanded to a duo (unless the new member is just the drum machine), either way, the sound has definitely shifted gears, less abstract, less noisy, and more industrial, with proper songs; a lurching, lumbering, downtuned chunk of miserable abject slo-mo heaviness. The programmed beats minimal and robotic, the guitars murky and crusty, the vocals a super reverbed and heavily effected demonic croak, the songs, creeping and crawling, haunting and harrowing, shades of the Swans, Godflesh of course, the label compare their sound to Loop crossed with Abruptum, and we can definitely here that in places.
The sound is way less caustic than in the past, and more psychedelic and hypnotic, "Ouroboros: First Lesson", for all its croaked vocals and grim guitar buzz, locks into a looped mesmer and gets downright psychedelic, like Spacemen 3 covered by some basement black metal band, it's pretty bad ass. And a bunch of the tracks follow a similar path, building to a lurching groove and then getting all spaced out hypnorock. Then there's tracks like "The City Of Lost Girls", that are downright pretty, the guitars smoldering, laced with piano, mournful and melancholy, drifty and droney and dreamlike. And even in the harsher jams, hidden amidst all that crunch and pound and howl are strange melodies, unlikely hooks, gorgeous textures, all woven into a dense industrial tinged, blackened psychedelia, that will most likely have lots of you scrambling for all those Korperschwache releases you missed.
Includes a link for a download to a companion record, featuring early/alternate versions and a handful of unreleased tracks.
The Austrian post-industrial provocateur Michael DeWitt attained notoriety in the mid-'80s for his project Zero Kama whose sole album was sourced entirely from human bones and skulls, with plenty of smoke and mirror production techniques to arrive at a Crowleyian sound parallel to the likes of early Current 93, Coil, and Psychic TV. Beyond the one album as Zero Kama, DeWitt released another obscure recording in 1982 under the moniker Korpses Katatonik. This cassette - sometimes referred to as Sensitive Liberated Autistiks, sometimes as Subklinikal Leukotomy Aphrenia Spasmophilik Lyssophobo Asphyxia Sinister Lethal Anorex - delved into parallel concerns of societal pathologies and death-obsessed transgressions through very dark electronics. It's very much in step with the classic industrial productions of SPK (when is anybody going to reissue those records again?) and the pre-Brighter Death Now project Lille Roger, with blackened squalls of grim noise belched through slow-grinding rhythms and an ominous proclamation that "we're all fucked." Such doomspeak from Industrial Culture was commonplace, but DeWitt's Korpses Katatonik said it with just as much brutalist force and conviction as SPK, TG, and Cabaret Voltaire at their most zombified. All of the tracks from that cassette and a compilation track make up the entire body of work for Korpses Katatonik, which have been remastered and repackaged for this anthology. The template for much of what Wolf Eyes did later is found here. Terrifyingly great.
Friend OR... compiles the incidental music Alexander Kort composed and performed for a three act play titled FOE which was presented by the University of California - Berkeley's department of theater, dance and performance studies. Kort, who also performs with Bay Area groups such as Subtle and Themselves, loosely entwines multiple glacial string movements with the sounds of waves, sputtering rainfall and other mysterious effects and sources. The somber moan and creak of Kort's compositions on this cd bring to mind an antiquated ocean liner listing sleepily on a calm eve. Actually come to think of it this makes for a more spartan companion to Nurse With Wound's very nautical Salt Marie Celeste album. Hauntingly beautiful.
What might one expect from a band called Kosmonaut, and a record called Future Machines? Some serious psychedelic space synth obviously. A kosmiche songsuite beholden to the early masters: Froese, Schnitzler, Pinhas, etc. And aligned with present day practitioners like Umberto, The Slasher Film Festival Strategy, Zombi, Majeure, Expo 70, M. Geddes Gengras, Roll The Dice, etc., as well. But for all the sonic similarities Kosmonaut shares with his space synth brethren, he's managed to conjure up a sound that is nothing like any of them. Sure there are pulsating arpeggiated synths, shimmery celestial swirls, motorik rhythms, but Kosmonaut's sounds are dirtier, gristlier, noisier, opener "City Deterioration", is like a crumbling Carpenter score, especially part way through when the sound shifts and becomes a churning low end buzz, laced with swirling faux strings and jagged melodic shards. And that's just the beginning, the albums trajectory swinging wildly from the furthest reaches of deep space ("Prime Meridian"), to a 2am chase through rain slicked back alleys in some seedy big city ("Haus Maschine"). The synths employed get totally abused, and often instead of dreamy cosmic shimmer, the sounds are garbled and crunchy, distorted and dirty, check out "Wings Of The Sun", the first two minutes of which, sound like Sun Ra going apeshit on the synths, and trying to conjure up some celestial deity, that is before in swoop the shimmers, but even then the shimmers are soon swallowed up, but layer upon layer of sci-fi zoner synth buzz and roiling rhythmless pulses. For all the more 'easy listening' synth music out there, the music of Kosmonaut is actually quite challenging, dark and twisted, off kilter and experimental, avant and abstract, the various space/synth tropes utterly subverted and transformed into something urgent, dangerous and dark, at times frantic and frenetic, and at others brooding and wreathed in shadow, and only occasionally bathed in the prismatic glimmer of deep space starlight.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES. Housed in screen printed fold over sleeves, includes a printed insert, as well as a download card, that includes not just a digital version of the whole record, but also six download only bonus tracks. Warning to anal record collector nerds, all of the sleeves came slightly damaged, mostly just rumpled corners, and there are no more sleeves in existence with which to replace them, thus, all the copies we got, have slightly bumped / rumpled corners, so if that sort of thing bothers you, steer clear, if not, grab one of these beauties before they're sold out and gone for good!
From Japan, the artist/producer known as Koss (real name: Kuniyuki Takahashi) has apparently been around for a while, involved in the electronic scene since back in the '80s, dabbling in everything from electro body music to dub to hardcore noise to chillout techno to deep house. This, however, is the first album of his we've heard. Well better late than never. Four Worlds Converge As One is lovely, lovely, calm, and lovely. It starts with the soothing, beatless ambient drift of "Water", the first of four tracks on the disc and at 29+ minutes the longest. Hissing, humming, with field recordings of obvious watery origin worked in, this track is like the sound of a white mist rising from the shore of a gently lapping lake, with a wind softly blowing. A relaxed, melodic drone piece. That could have been the whole disc right there and we'd be sold. But there's three more parts, each over a quarter of an hour in length, representing the other elements of fire, air, and earth...
Track two, "Fire / M Point (40N42-34N33 Mix)" is immediately more active than "Water", with pleasantly creaking noises, eventually joined by shuffling electronic beats, and glitchy clicks worked into the washes of more feedbacky drone. Following that, "Air / MW Point (137E35 Mix)" is back to the blissful shimmer of the first track, but with the addition of minimalist Reichian (Steve, not Wilhelm) pulsations. Looping, layered sounds from some classical stringed instrument. Utterly hypnotic of course. And then, Koss brings us down to "Earth / S Point", wrapping this disc up with a surprising mix of forest-at-night nature sounds and percolating, processed tribal percussion, with echo and effects. It gets denser and denser, but remains quite soothing, the sort of "exotica" you might expect from, say, one of Eye Yamataka's remixes... though perhaps a little "rainstick-y" for some. But the more "Pop Ambient", droney-synthy explorations that mostly fill this album are enough for us, so good, reminding us of Eno and Budd (Harold, not the Aussie grunge band) and Tangerine Dream and even composer John Luther Adams.
And by the way, the "converge into one" idea of the title has a special meaning - apparently Koss intends that if all four tracks/elements on this disc were to be played simultaneously (you could buy three extra copies of the cd... or make them yourself), a whole new song will emerge. Hmm...haven't tried it, we're happy with the four just by themselves so far. Recommended!
Man, do we at ever AQ love that Japanese '70s group the Taj Mahal Travellers! Masters of organic drone, utilising bowed cymbals, violins, loudspeakers, tape loops and all sorts of unique source material. And we've been blessed of late with the reissue of lots
Stepping out from his day job in Wilco, Kotche really stretches out on these four pieces, all performed on acoustic and electronic percussion with occasional cello. This actually sounds a lot like something we would expect from Celebrate Psi Phenomenon (the awesome NZ drone label) or Last Visible Dog (esoteric RI cd-r label). From clicking clattering insect percussion over melancholy drones, wispy and ephemeral, to throbbing noisescapes augmented by chimes and bells, to faux gamelan glitchscapes to dreamy burbly ambience. Maybe Jim O'Rourke got a little too much of the credit for Wilco's new found penchant for experimental sounds...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The day we first got this in stock, it was pouring rain -- appropriately enough, because playing this made it seem like it was raining in the store as well as outside, quite a lovely effect we thought. Truly, this is a stunningly beautiful concert/field recording, the culmination of a series of concerts held at (the very rainy) Koukiji temple in Japan. The concerts were organized by Yasushi Utsunomia -- whose claim to fame was as recording engineer for art rockers After Dinner. According to Utsunomia, his initial efforts were unsuccessful due in part to demanding and flaky performers (apparently all rock bands) and a crappy sound reinforcement system supplied by the temple. In the end, the first problem was solved by turning to traditional musicians and the second by constructing a sound reinforcement system worthy of such a space (a detailed diagram of the performance space and speaker locations is included on the back of the booklet's cover.) The performances heard here are on shakuhachi, ryuteki (both Japanese bamboo flutes), sitar and stone flute (played by the legendary shamanistic composer Akio Suzuki). All are accompanied by rain, from soft patter to heavy downpour. At times the rain is so loud it completely drowns out the soft playing of the instruments, essentially being an instrument itself -- and as a warning to those who would say otherwise, says Suzuki: "I'll tear out the ears of whoever says this is just rain." For its part, the electro-acoustic elements added via DSP and Utsunomia's custom built horn loaded speaker array are all but completely transparent for much of the concert. During Korei Deguchi's ryuteki performance is when the processing is most noticeable, with what sounds like the work of a harmonizer. Aside from that, the musicians' playing, the space, the rain and Utsunomia's equipment are seamlessly wedded and, if nothing else, you'll feel drenched by the time you finish listening. This numbered edition comes beautifully packaged with a nicely printed cover drawing (some thick rubbery ink that feels nice to pass ones fingers over) of a couple of cats performing for an audience of felines, and is hand-stamped on the inside. Also it includes a printed fold out with liner notes in Japanese and English. The whole thing -- package, idea, music -- is simply beautiful. Several of us here (Andee, Byram, Allan, at least) have already taken copies home...
For those who remember the escapades of Jewelled Antler, the various tunnels and concrete bunkers of Battery Townsley provided a musty ambience of crumbled mortar and mold spores to any number of that collective's psychedelic ragas. But the Battery's intended use was to house a couple of huge artillery cannons dug into the top of one of the higher peaks just to the north of San Francisco's famed Golden Gate Bridge, all in preparation for a Japanese invasion during World War 2. As this never came to pass, the vast network of bunkers throughout the Marin Headlands landed in the domain of the National Park Service, who had done a major renovation job on Battery Townsley, by resealing the massive steel doors and cleaning out decades worth of detritus - both manmade and natural. Those Jewelled Antler excursions had occurred well before the National Park Service's renovation, and the bulk of Battery Townsley remains under the watchful eye of the staff, who open it up weekly for docent led tours.
Many of the bunkers throughout the Headlands have attracted sound artists from across the globe, given the massive sustained reverb and interesting acoustics of the various bunkers. But nearly all of these recorded sessions needed to be held surreptitiously, given that the Park Service doesn't want to have to rescue somebody with a microphone who plummeted into a cistern in the heart of a mountain. But in 2010, the curators of the Soundwave Festival approached the Park Service about setting up a concert in Battery Townsley, and were pleasantly surprised that the Park Service was very keen on such a presentation. There, of course, were some challenges to overcome - the most daunting of which was the lack of electricity. But the Festival gathered a pretty kick-ass assemblage of artists making amazing sounds without having to plug into the grid, including Danny Paul Grody, Hora Flora, Jacob Felix Heule, Jim Haynes, and Gregg Kowalsky. Of course, Kowalsky went into the thick reverberant space with his arsenal of tape decks, which he's employed for his ever-changing Tape Chants performances.
On this super limited recording, Kowalsky presents a live recording of his performance in the bunker and a studio reinterpretation using the same material. The source tapes have the radiant glow of a church organ, beaming with luminous hues as the slippery tones bend in and out of dissonant ripples and downright heavy drones. While the studio recording is gorgeous, it's all the more impressive to hear this material as broadcast within a bunker thick reverberation, as the tones begin to growl and the tape deck speakers' crackle being pushed to their limits, giving the whole collage of swirl and drone a heaviness never heard in any of Kowalsky's previous recordings. It's more of a Surface Of The Earth recording of corroded amplifiers and slumped guitars, but it's all tape decks. Totally fucking great!
Unfortunately, this LP is limited to 250 copies of which we got the very last batch from the label.
Finally, a second release from Mr. Kowalsky, with all his heavy electronic /cassette wizardry, he has been a long time favorite for us at aQ, and we couldn't be more impressed with Tape Chants. After spending several years working and reworking these aptly named tape and oscillator compositions, Gregg offers up his opus, a beautifully sculpted expanse of midnight meditations and thick, buzzing walls of analog radiance. Working with digital composition and software, and becoming frustrated with the seemingly unlimited possibilities of digital music-making, Gregg challenged himself to work with more organic, analog-rich source material. The result was a live performance that involved placing 6 to 10 cassette recorders around a space, and playing them simultaneously to create an experiment in live mixing and psychoacoustics. While Tape Chants is not meant to be a document of these live performances, it attempts to channel the mood and aesthetic of these live invocations. And take it from us, the result is an extremely deep and entrancing listen, beaming with melodic overtones and hypnotic pulsing, Tape Chants is like being at the center of a gong or inside a bell tower. Long tones ringing out through a low-lit cavern or cathedral, slow creeping layers of shruti box and mixer feedback thicken the mix to an overwhelming, otherworldly bliss. And unlike most minimalist composition, this record is super engaging, lots of subtle details and deliberate movements that keep you fully immersed. Not that dissimilar from recent releases on Root Strata or Miasma. If you couldn't tell by now, this is highly recommended and a must have!
- MPEG stream: I-IV
- MPEG stream: V
Super limited release from this long time aQ fave, continuing on in his recent Tape Chants direction, where, tired of working digitally, decided to work with tapes and old tape players, the results of which were displayed on the Tape Chants disc on Kranky reviewed back in May. These particular Tape Chants were recorded live, and were pressed up as a cd-r (in super swank screenprinted sleeves BTW) for his current US tour.
Like the cd proper, Kowalsky works magic with his tapes, on the first lengthy track, creating a symphony of bells and chimes and gongs, letting the overtones drift and overlap and bleed into one another until they begin to crumble and buzz, and on the second track, where similar sounding bells are set amidst a field of deep grinding rumbles and softly buzzing low end, the bell like tones bobbing as if on some soft black sea. Softly percussive, almost nautical sounding, whirring and hypnotic, meditative and ethereal.
Gorgeous stuff. Obviously grab one of these while you can, before we run out, and if you get the chance, don't hesitate to see him live conjure these sonic mysteries in the flesh!
Some of you may remember Kowalsky from his first solo record released on Kranky back toward the beginning of this year, a pleasant slab of smeared indistinct ambience, shimmery and soft focus, a delicate soundscape of abstract sound that was definitely perfect late night listen.
With his first release for Root Strata, Kowalsky continues in the same direction, this time utilizing a much more eclectic array of source material: tape cassettes, sine oscillators, contact mics, bells, bird callers and a computer. Recorded live on KFJC in May, this half hour epic is another gorgeous slab of abstract ambience, those disparate sounds smoothed into thick warm swells, billowy swirls of smeared melody, and huge stretches of blissy whir. This is another one of those records that perfectly captures that sound we can't ever get enough of, a testament to the power of the drone, completely mesmerizing and hypnotic, when the music finally stops, your ears and your head feel empty, and it's only a matter of moments before we can't help ourselves, press play again and fill them back up.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!! We will not be able to get more. Packaged in gorgeous cardstock half sleeve, a printed paper insert, and a folded over QSL ham radio card from overseas holding the cd in place. Cool!
Oof. Already out of print from Arbor, but we've got as many of these as we could!
It makes perfect sense that a selection of the early experiments from Kowalsky's ongoing collection of Tape Chants would end up as a cassette release. More of a method of working than a complete body of work, the Tape Chants material involves a bunch of drones, tones, and clustered notes that are played back on an arsenal of handheld cassette decks in any given performance space. The spiralling web of crossed frequencies and compacted echo patterns always make for one hell of a good performance, and they made for a pretty damn good album as well, like the one Kowalsky released on Kranky in 2009. This tape is a collection (as the title suggests) of his earliest manifestations of his Tape Chants, selected by Darwinsbitch. For the most part, Kowalsky presents grey smears of pedal driven feedback tones and electrical sinewave drones that are caught in loop patterns and abraded with some occasional distortion (possibly an effect, possibly an artifact of overdriven 4-track compression). There's one extract on the first side that is more percussive in nature, with Kowalsky gently tapping out pseudo-Gamelan rhythms on various bells, gongs, and resonant metals. Limited to 125, and as we mentioned already out of print.
Latest release from this Bay Area composer, electronic musician and dronologist Gregg Kowalsky. A one sided lp documenting part of his Master's Thesis, which entailed taking one of his electronic compositions, scoring it for a live ensemble and then conducting the performance.
Kowalsky enlisted the Contemporary Performance Ensemble, directed by Fred Frith, who also contributed violin. Recorded in 2005 at Mills college, the result was sublime. A gorgeous organic piece that references Feldman and Part and Melnyk as much as Kowalsky's previous works.
The strings are low and buzz and throb dramatically, the piano is minor key and delicate, fluttering in brief little flurries, streaks of high end run through the swirling moodiness, over the top voices soar in choral fragments, washes of cymbals sizzle, horns moan, all manner of instruments are smeared into a heaving organic whole, shakuhachi, vibraphone, flute, a sonic cloud constantly expanding, intensifying chordal whir, like some moody rock band with the bones pulled out, leaving just a gloriously amorphous sound shape, slithering and drifting, creeping and billowing, building and building, some sort of classic chorale stretched out into a shimmering dreamlike blur. On the surface, it's a dark drift, but beneath the surface, sounds are roiling and churning, a sonic sea of tension and emotion, subtly psychedelic, a gorgeous, organic, orchestral drone.
Packaged in a thick cardstock sleeve, with a Xeroxed yellow paste on cover.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
Having earned an MFA under the tutelage of Fred Frith at Mills College, Gregg Kowalsky landed his debut album on Kranky, a perfect home for his polite and pleasant swatches of ambient music. Kowalsky blurs all of his diverse source material (i.e bowed acoustic guitar, sounds he composed for the Mills Ensemble, and even samples from Isis!) into a twinkling mass of harmonically aligned tones. Furniture Music for the 21st Century.
Another weird and wonderful release from Moniker records, who have recently supplied us with not one, but two aQ Records Of The Week, the weirdo warped electronic downer pop of Jealousy, and the recent sci-fi synth outing from Stacian. Somehow, even though this sounds nothing like either of those, it fits alongside them pretty perfectly. We know next to nothing about Kraus, other than they're from New Zealand, and that this is a fantastically confusional collection of low fidelity, retro-futuristic sci-fi-scapes, slipping easily from murky, stumbling, analog synth dirgery, to woozy outsider space folk, and whatever fucked up stops lay in between.
The opener sounds like Amps For Christ, if he was obsessed with the sixties vision of outer space and the future, it's raw, and garage-y, primitive and spaced out, it's the musical equivalent to some cheesy Z-move epic with aliens and monsters, heavy on the reverb, and some ridiculous drum programming, something like the Shaggs crossed with Joe Meek. Whatever it is, it's awesome. And it only gets weirder. The second track, takes harp like guitar strum, dreamy and woozy, and wreathed in in a warped squiggle of insectoid buzz from some primitive analog synth, a dizzying abstract psych folk space ballad maybe? Who knows? We just know we LOVE it.
From there on out, it's like some wild ride through the cosmos, or at least through the cosmos as envisioned by a teenaged mad scientist who built a lifesize replica of the cosmos out of paper mache, and dressed his pets up like aliens, and offered the neighborhood kids tours of this 'other world'. THIS is the soundtrack, grinding buzzing melodies, over woozy warbly basslines, swirling malfunctioning electronics, warped swells, lazer blast blurts, totally inept drum stumble, the occasional burst of seriously fierce, super distorted fuzz guitar, plenty of percolating electronics and random percussion, detuned guitars, scrapes and hum, hiss and whir. Some tracks sound like drug addled, brain damaged surf rock, or caveman garage stomp, but with a twisted futuristic bent, while other tracks are straight up kitchen sink, weirdo mad scientist electronic experiments, all seemingly recording on a busted old tape deck, giving the proceedings a very Faxed Head like productions, constant warble and pitch shifts, drop outs, bleep and blurts. Some tracks coalesce into practically being real songs, but before they can become proper songs, it's as if something malfunctioned, machine failure, or brainmelt, either way, it seems the song implodes, and splinters, and is gloriously transformed into a fantastically demented slab of warped musical whatthefuck radness.
Another shoulda / coulda been Record Of The Week! You know what that means...
Record number two from the mysterious Kreng, aka abstract soundscaper / sonic surrealist Pepijn Caudron, and even more than the first, Grimoire evokes some impossibly haunted otherworld, inhabiting a world not that far removed from the land of lost memories that the Caretaker calls home. But that land is wistful and melancholy, whereas the world of Grimoire is abjectly terrifying, not merely haunting or ominous, this is the soundtrack to something or someplace truly frightening, a blackened ambience of disembodied voices, of creaking clattery percussion, hushed shimmer, deep blackhole swells of rumbling low end, swooping backwards melodies, echo drenched throat singing, tinkling chimes, wheezing drifts of chordal thrum, plink plonk piano, moaning strings, but all of those elements hushed and subdued, a whispery slice of soundtracky minimalism. Bits of glitch and crackle wreath a lumbering rhythmic thud, mournful melodies drift through fields of bleary blur, barely-there beats surface and fragment, horns bleat way off in the distance, thick impossibly low bass tones reverberate like pulsing black clouds, each track is like some spectral soundscape, equal part swoonsome classical music, grim black ambience, and minimal abstraction, the various tracks bleeding into one another, slipping from jazzy clatter, to symphonic bombast, to dark rumbling, to lurching looped rhythmic skitter, but always seeming to settle into a near static bit of black drift, this songsuite a lost soundtrack to some dark depressive mystery, a lost noir, a characterless black and white epic, these are the sounds of empty streets, of derelict houses, of dark defeating the light, of a world cast in permanent darkness, impossibly beautiful, but a beauty blackened by loss and decay, a descent into madness, a physical descent into the crumbling hidden world that lurks just beneath ours, a gorgeous sonic representation of what awaits us beyond the dark, on the other side, in the next world, the world of shadows.
Super intense, and harrowingly gorgeous. Most definitely for fans of The Caretaker, as well as other haunting Miasmah releases like Elegi, FNS, Jacaszek, Gultskra Artikler and all the various purveyors of dark minimal drift, haunting cinematic dronemusic and spectral black ambience.
Sombre and strange record of post-classical miniatures originally recorded to accompany various ballet and dance pieces. Sparse piano, Eastern-European strings, field recordings, eerie found sounds and electric-acoustic chamber drones with dark and haunting textures reference a kind of surrealist narrative that wouldn't be out of place in a film by Luis Bunuel. Perhaps not as somnolent as past Miasmah recordings from Elegi and Jacaszek, as the dynamics of the score can veer into some occasional, theatrical dramatics. Best not let it lull you into sleep, for fear of unsettling dreams or being abruptly jarred awake. Recommended nonetheless!
Sombre and strange record of post-classical miniatures originally recorded to accompany various ballet and dance pieces. Sparse piano, Eastern-European strings, field recordings, eerie found sounds and electric-acoustic chamber drones with dark and haunting textures reference a kind of surrealist narrative that wouldn't be out of place in a film by Luis Bunuel. Perhaps not as somnolent as past Miasmah recordings from Elegi and Jacaszek, as the dynamics of the score can veer into some occasional, theatrical dramatics. Best not let it lull you into sleep, for fear of unsettling dreams or being abruptly jarred awake. Recommended nonetheless!
The first release from Kreng since 2011, but well worth the wait. While the sound sources on The Summoner are quite the departure from his 2011 release Grimoire, the dark and disorienting atmosphere is still here. Here Kreng (aka composer Pepijin Caudron of Belgium) conducts a dozen string players, creating a twisted and droney orchestral mass that explodes and dies without warning, bringing to mind the terrifying works of Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. The song titles here, too, tell Caudron's story as the five stages of grief, going from "Denial" to "Acceptance". The first four tracks are dark, twisted, orchestral soundscapes, dynamic and haunted that slowly goad you into Caudron's warped world. The climax of the album is without doubt the titular track, sandwiched between "Depression" and the somber "Acceptance". The 15-minute long track features Belgian doom band Amenra (whose album Mass V we reviewed back in 2013) providing the slow, crushing trudge (with maybe the slightest, SLIGHTEST hint of uplifting melody) to bring the whole piece to a bombastic, epic zenith. Very few out there can capture the range of emotion and atmosphere that Kreng can - terrifying, cathartic, bleak, and maybe just a little bit uplifting. For fans of Gnaw Their Tongues, The Caretaker, and anything on the Miasmah label.
David Kristian spent a fair part of the winter of 1998/99 collecting various field recordings arourd Montreal (underground parking lots, freezers, tunnels, etc.) and multritracked the greyish very organic drones with subtle low-end minimal beats, not unlike Pan Sonic's minimalist techno layered sporadically with the drone work of Jonathan Coleclough.
Noted electronica minimalist David Kristian here collaborates with the Shalabi Effect's Alexander St-Onge and Sam Shalabi for this interesting improvised album of quiet acoustic drones and accompanying electronics. Thankfully not a laptop ensemble featuring Jim O'Rourke or Christian Fennesz, this trio resists the temptation to lapse into dense free jazz phrasings, and instead focuses on
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Circle's Jussi Lehtisalo recommended this to us: another Finnish band that operates in the in-between realm of rock, improv, jazz, and prog. Kroko are an all-instrumental basso/perkussio/kitara trio featuring the guitarist from Bad Vugum recording artists Deep
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Austrian metallers Silenius (of Summoning) and Martin Schirenc (Hollenthon, ex-Pungent Stench) have crafted this disturbing and confusing collage of sampled sounds. If I knew more German we might have a better idea of their intent, but what we can tell you is that this combines snippets of fascist-era speechifying, ominous horror-movie keyboards, folky themes, WWII sound effects, militaristic drumbeats, electronic noise, mysterious dialogue, and brief industrial-dance interludes. It's a bit like being trapped in a bunker circa 1944 as the bombs fall, tuned into a shortwave radio that is somehow, at moments, picking up a Rammstein broadcast from the future. A very intriguing and creepy listen indeed.
Heaving, psychonaut droning from this Russian project, Kshatriy. The name of Sergey Uak-Kib's project is actually Sanskrit, as a now deracinated caste of warriors from ancient India. Uak-Kib posits something of a balance between the spiritual and the physical in the beliefs for this class of enlightened fighters. The holistic fortitude found in that statement seems to be furthered in the glowingly psychedelic artwork that has graced some of Kshatriy's other recordings. So much for first impressions, as this is fucking bleak. Anenzephalia bleak. Thomas Koner bleak. Lustmord bleak. Thrumming drones of Vulcan intensity and Promethean scale gird the entire album of Slepok Soznaniya. The thunderous cracks that introduce "Lights" are cataclysmic in nature, tumbling from deep space and smashing into the Siberian forest, unleashing shockwaves across the curved surface of Russian's landmass and creating elegantly harmonic ripples across the swampy taiga. Iron wheels grind on long-train tracks which lead to destinations unknown on the "Hymn To Kali," which is more of a dirge than a hymn through the slow, militant pound and evolving reverberant chord shifts for an ashen, musical negativity. The almost self-evidently named "Space Travel" surfs the solar winds with echoes of distant pulsars and glowing nebula clouds flickering through the endless expanses of nothingness.
We were awestruck by the work that Kshatriy produced for the 2014 Drone-Mind / Mind-Drone III compilation; and so we're delving into his catalogue. Slepok Soznaniya was originally released in 2009 on the bracingly good Russian imprint Muzyka Voln. Not all that much in the way of distribution west of the former Iron Curtain; so this one makes for a new favorite in the radiant black dronemusik camp.
