A-Musik News

With Michaela Melián's LP "music for a while", a-Musik is releasing the first album by the visual artist, co-founder of F.S.K., and solo musician since "Monaco", which appeared on Monika Enterprise in 2013. While her last releases, Electric Ladyland (2016), Music from a Frontier Town (2018), and Tania (2022) were created as part of exhibitions and sound installations, "music for a while" is Melián's fourth autonomous LP, characterized on the one hand by her unmistakable dreamlike sound along the interfaces between dark chamber music, solemn ambient techno, and cinematic sound art.

As with her previous albums, there is also a wonderful avant-pop cover version—this time of the track “My Other Voice” (1979) by the Sparks. On the other hand, music for while, whose cover is adorned with Melián's photographs of the clouds above her new home of Marseille, spreads a comparatively ominous mood – one that is nevertheless appropriate given the circumstances in 2025 – thanks in part to the sedate, almost ticking drum sounds of co-producer Felix Raethel. Once again, the multi-instrumentalist, supported by Ruth May on violin and Elen Harutyunyan on viola, weaves her recordings of various string instruments — cello, guitar, bass, and zither — into fascinating, lurching, looping, and almost hypnotic soundscapes, but atonal synthesizer sounds in tracks such as “traverse benjamin” and “märchenwald” open up the music to electroacoustic and experimental music. The concluding cover version of Irving Berlin's “they say it's wonderful” (1946) rounds off one of this year's most impressive releases in an incomparably groovy and melancholic way.

2019 Repress of one of the most outstanding records in the history of german avantpop/punk. Originally released 1981 on the legendary ZickZack label, the debut LP by Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle soon reached cult status and became one of the most important NDW / german postpunk releases ever. Active since today (and right now working on their 13th longplayer) F.S.K. were one of John Peel's all time favourites and actually did more Peel Sessions than any other band - besides The Fall, of course. Comes with extensive liner notes by NDW-historiograph Frank Apunkt Schneider (in german).

It's like waking up. Disorientated at first, feedback, crushed stones, voices, that's how it starts and you feel protected by this music in a strange way and encouraged to gain insight. As soon as you have begun to really like a chunk of sound and develop an interest in it, it is multiplied or destroyed in some way and someone calls out "Ich". Ich. LSD is hopscotch compared to that. Later, steel rails are dissected. It is ringing in the ears. Everything trembles. It is obvious that you are being looked after, that someone really cares. You are never left alone, whether you like it or not. And then inevitably comes the moment of silence, after being sent through old telephone cables and the nightmares of your ancestors. Pretty much the exact opposite of a podcast. Nevertheless, hits are not left out. Seth is predominantly seen as a harmful god – but by far not only.

a-Musik, the Cologne-based bastion of sonic exploration, unveils a new chapter in their quest for boundary-pushing sounds.

Timekeepers II, a split LP featuring recordings of two duos by Marcus Schmickler with Jaki Liebezeit and with Hayden Chisholm. Side A bears the imprint of Liebezeit's rhythmic flow fusing with Schmickler's digital Shepard Tone interpretation. A studio recording taken before a performance at Moers Festival in 2014. On side B, Schmickler's electronics converge with Chisholm's bagpipe drones. The piece was composed for their show at Art's Birthday at Berghain and a-Musik's 20th anniversary at Gebäude 9.

Tim Berresheim's artwork serves as a visual backdrop. Berresheim mostly works with computer rendered images, which have been created for a solo exhibition at JUBG in Cologne in 2022.

Originally released in 1982 on ZickZack Platten, this EP includes the four tracks »Wir steigen ein«, »Trink wie ein Tier«, »Herzschuß Melodie« & »Viel zu viel«. The reissue is accompanied by a booklet with liner notes by Tim Klütz (in German).

Before their debut album "Stürmer", originally out in 1982 and reissued by a-Musik, there were two 7" by Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle. Both the eponymous 4-track EP (1980) by Justin Hoffmann, Thomas Meinecke, Michaela Melián and Thomas Meinecke and the 7-track EP "Teilnehmende Beobachtung" from 1981 were released on Alfred Hilsberg's legendary Zickzack Platten.

With "Moderne Welt" and the literally endless "Deutschland, Deutschland", the rare "Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle" single contains two of the most brilliant tracks ever recorded in the Federal Republic of Germany. "Teilnehmende Beobachtung" was produced by Wirtschaftswunder's Tom Dokoupil and established F.S.K.'s status as one of the most singular (and back in those days controversial) phenomena in the history of (west-)german postpunk/pop/underground history.

The LP reissue of these two 7"s comes with printed innversleeve and a 8 pp. booklet with extensive linernotes (in german) by Tim Klütz.

Titanoboa's debut album is the first a-Musik release of 2021. Porphyr contains eight tracks of delicate Electroacoustic Noire and contemporary Post-Industrial that were produced in her Cologne based studio. Being equally into rumbling noise, experimental turntablism, angelic singing, organ improvisation and a lot of studio wizardry, these recordings somehow remind of a combination of Pharmakon's raw power, Maximim Bérangère's lyrical compositions and In Camera's nightmarish ambiance. Titanoboa delivers the perfect soundtrack for the early 2020s, Marcus Schmickler took care about the superb mastering.