quête:arche

Der Multi-Instrumentalist und Produzent hat sich mit fein strukturierten und enthusiastischen Kompositionen bereits einen Namen gemacht. Sein 2016 erschienenes Album „Forms“ zog mit seiner spielerischen Verwebung von Rhythmen und Samples die Aufmerk-samkeit der elektronischen Musikszene auf sich. In diesem Jahr veröffentlicht The Micronaut nun Olympia (Summer Games) – ein Album, das seinen sorgfältigen Produktionsstil weiterführt und dem Geist der Olympischen Sommerspiele gewidmet ist. Denn auch wenn diese abgesagt wurden, so sind die damit verbundenen Tugenden wie Durchhaltevermögen und Zusammenhalt zeitlos und gerade in diesen Wochen um so wichtiger. Solch grundlegende Prinzipien, die den Geist der Olympischen Spiele ausmachen, sind es auch, die The Micronaut umgetrieben haben. Und so war es kein Zufall, dass Summer Games entstanden ist: „Ich habe bisher immer Konzept-Alben veröffentlicht. Dieses Mal habe ich Olympia gewählt, weil es nicht nur Wettkampf, sondern auch eine Friedensbewegung ist, bei der es um die Menschen geht, ganz egal welcher Nation sie angehören.“ Diesen vielfältigen und stets vitalen, lebhaften Geist spiegelt das Album wider: Das verspielt-zarte Uneven Bars oder das träumerisch-sphärische Table Tennis, sie alle erzählen von den besonderen Momenten, von Siegen und Niederlagen und all den Facetten, die dem Sport innewohnen. Dadurch ist eine Reise entstanden, eine schwungvolle, aber auch turbulente Achterbahnfahrt, die den künstlerischen Anspruch The Micronauts abbildet: „Lebhaft, expressiv, dramatisch, manchmal ruhig, manchmal kraftvoll – ich versuche immer die Vibes von Wanderlust, Hoffnung und individuellen Momenten in meiner Musik einzufangen“ – erzählt der in Leipzig lebende Künstler. Und dieses Mal liegt das Spannungsfeld zwischen sportlichen Disziplinen – in dem sich The Micronaut musikalisch ausdrückt. Wobei seine Musik keinesfalls zum Sich-Messen anregt, vielmehr sind viele Tracks mit ihrem übermütigen, optimistischen Vibe für die Tanzflächen der Clubs geeignet, um sich die Anspannung der zuweilen olympischen Herausforderungen des Alltags von der Seele zu tanzen. Dazu hat The Micronaut anspruchsvolle Arrangements mit fließenden Melodien und unaufgeregtem Gesang kombiniert und den Weg für ein neues, collagenartiges musikalisches Genre geebnet. Bisweilen dreht Summer Games sogar in Richtung Elektro-Pop ab, dann wieder ist es inspiriert von old-schooligem Hip Hop and in anderen Momenten mündet und explodiert es förmlich in intelligent gesetzten musikalischen Hochsprüngen. Die Messlatte liegt hoch – doch bei allem Auf und Ab scheint immer durch, dass The Micronaut ein begeisterter Musikliebhaber ist, der Ideen und Inspirationen von überall her sammelt und sie unter Einsatz seines ganz eigenen emotionalen Prismas übersetzt.

"A Western Circular" is Will Archer’s debut under his new nom-de-plume, following early EP's- and an Album under the now-retired Slime moniker. Within ‘A Western Circular’ lies an exciting- and varied crew of guest artists including MF DOOM,Samuel T. Herring (Future Islands), Sudan Archives & Laura Groves, all contributing vocals to his rich, dexterous compositions!

An Album that’s been in the works for the past half-decade, ‘A Western Circular’ is a bold, reflective piece that directly relates to Archer’s personal experiences of life and death, centred on one particular week where they breathed with equal intensity. Ostensibly, it’s a poignant reflection on the duality of the human condition.

After 3 months holed up in the studio Blair French has emerged to bring you Genes/Space Conductor 7” in support of his forthcoming album The Art Of Us on Rocksteady Disco. The A-side holds the “Loose Fit” mix of “Genes”, where Blair channels his inner Tony Allen for an expertly executed modern psychedelic Afrobeat cut featuring a heavyweight cast of Detroit characters including Todd Modes, John Arnold, and Paul Randolph. On the flip is “Space Conductor”, a cosmic afro broken beat joint with heavy drums, a huge bassline, kora, and Blair’s vocals, exclusively available on this 7” only. Housed in a full color jacket, cut loud to lacquer, and pressed heavy with pride at Archer on Detroit’s east side.

Unreleased album from 1981, a collaborative project by David Behrman, Paul DeMarinis, Fern Friedman, Terri Hanlon and Anne Klingensmith recorded at Mills College in 1981.

Previously known only to cognoscenti through an obscure self-released three-track 7”, this is the first publication of the complete album, an outrageous confection that mixes art-song and theatrical monologue with live electronics. Starting life as a performance art piece described by the artists as ‘Western Performance Noir’, the record centres on a series of texts written by Friedman and Hanlon in which female narrators comically embody a series of iconic roles (The Recording Artist, The Former Movie Star, and The Rancher). Other lyrical themes include recurring references to the notorious cannibal pioneers, the Donner Party, an ironic take on Japanophilia, and the luscious “Archetypal Unitized Seminar,” a satirical poke at self-help culture, whose lyrics are rendered in Indian raga style to the accompaniment of electronic glissandi and toy noisemakers. Delivered by Friedman, Hanlon, Klingensmith and special guest Maggi Payne in forms ranging from spoken monologue to Country & Western waltz, the texts are accompanied by instrumental and electronic contributions by Behrman and DeMarinis. Musically, She’s More Wild is truly unique, demonstrating these two pioneers of live-electronic performance adapting their signature processes to something approaching a ‘pop’ format: we hear the gliding, frequency-sensitive electronics familiar from Behrman’s classic On the Other Ocean and the mutant hacked Speak n’ Spell heard on DeMarinis’ Songs Without Throats propelled by drum machines and twisted into song forms. Perhaps comparable only to the David Rosenboom and Jacqueline Humbert’s contemporaneous Daytime Viewing in its interweaving of performance art tactics, high-tech electronics and pop sensibilities, She’s More Wild is an essential document, both immediately gratifying and ultimately thought provoking.

First released on digital formats back in 2016, and here now given a richly deserved full vinyl release, 'Holy Science', the debut outing from Amirtha Kidambi and her New York based quartet The Elder Ones, is a work of dazzling singularity. Delicately yet unashamedly divulging its complex network of influences at every turn, 'Holy Science' simultaneously disperses of boundary and limitation, emerging as an album steeped in tradition yet located firmly in the futuristic present.

Amirtha Kidambi, the Elder Ones' leader, composer and vocalist, was a child of South Indian heritage, and she grew up immersed in the tradition of devotional singing, joining in with free-form, improvised Bhajans on regular Sundays. She began simultaneously accompanying her voice with the harmonium from the age of three.

These formative experiences continued to instruct and merge with her ongoing musical explorations as she went on to study Classical music, all the while ingesting the Punk, R&B and Rap that surrounded her. A particularly significant discovery was that of free and avant jazz, and in particular the music of Alice and John Coltrane, in whom Kidambi found clear echoes and parallels with those Bhajans and Ragas of her earliest musical awakenings.

All these influences collide on 'Holy Science', at times as explosive blasts of sky-opening thunder, at others as moments of soothing, meditative bliss. These holy bursts are enacted by Kidambi's assembled musicians and are given permission to explore the science of spiritual alchemy, plundering their individual and collective soul for the sake of musical expression, and all of the unpredictable and profound revelations such an approach might yield.

'Holy Science' is a work underpinned by traditions, be they the Bhajan spirituals, or the Jazz and Classical avant gardes, that are in their own manner, archetypal. But perhaps most importantly, all of these forms contain an inbuilt capacity for discovery and progression.

Amirtha Kidambi's musical pathway has been defined by a studied determination to occupy this specific space, the unbounded realm of improvisation and exploration, summoning the acquired instruments of experience, knowledge, culture and tradition to unlock secrets of the past, present and future. The most cherished music is often remarked upon as having a timeless quality – ancient, modern and futuristic, all at once. And so it is with 'Holy Science'.

This time we'll treat you with a very special branded practical bag.
A small bag, to put inside small things, important things. Once you'll open it that little vinyl smell contained inside ("Air De Wax") will forever evaporate but you'll know that the bag will be forever useful!

Apparel Wax comes back after a long summer with another EP, the 7th of its catalogue and yet again another display of four different musical approaches brought together as one. The EP is, indeed, a 4 tracks one and starts off with a groovy execution of a classic house track, an archetypical and simple house tune with a defined personality and the perfect start, from square one. With 007A2 we start to shift the perspective to a more funky and tribal vibe with the help of the percussions, piano chords and simple bass and guitar lines to close an A side which is a modern view on something classical.

007B1 breaks in bringing an energetic overload since the first seconds with a heavy rhythmic section and keeps up the same pace throughout the whole track even when slowing down. Its insistent and slightly distorted hi hats, along with decisive piano chords helped by some well crafted vocal samples, take us all round this journey through a packed imaginary dance floor. Let's take the foot off the pedal for 007B2 which is instead the most desirable closing with it's smooth yet impactful sounds which create an ideal sunset mood to plunge into. So the sun sets on APLWAX007 and we hope you dig once more what the masked hero brought us this time around.

Stefan Fraunberger's Quellgeister#3 Bussd is Recorded entirely on an abandoned church's organ in the village of Bussd, Romania, the album is the third installment of the series by Austrian artist and composer Stefan Fraunberger. His research on the influence of nature on culture touches on time, periphery, memory, and transience as evidenced in his Quellgeister research. The album is an archeological sonic research on the deteriorating Organ discovered in the saxon church in Transylvania.

‘Synth Expressionism/Rhythmic Cubism’ LP from Chicago’s Jamal Moss aka Hieroglyphic Being is a collection of idioms that have no past and no future, his jarring use of polyrhythmic polyphony imbues a sense of timelessness.

The prolific catalog of Moss’ covers many musical dialects from his hometown and beyond. Never standing in one artistic sphere for too long, this adventure for On the Corner Records sees Hieroglyphic Being exploring a multitude of expressions of the American Avant-garde.

Abstractions Of The Future Past — Afro-Cubism: The Designation, conceived by an African With A Mainframe — An Etude Of Effigy — A Hieroglyphic Being.

Rhythmic Cubism: In this ‘Dissertation Of Disorientation’ Neal Andrew Emil Gustafson temporal considerations are put aside as polyrhythmic propulsion is the current flowing through the work. As prelude the fastidious ‘Rhythmic Cubism’, Moss enacts a flurry of white noise and musical coda as it phases in-and-out of synchronicity.

The disjointed dance of an alternative Black Music, ‘The Spiritual Or ‘Electromagnetic Worlds’ takes the meter down a fraction to exonerate a granular groove of visceral refracted complexity. Sonorus static sits alongside spastic shards of synthesis to reveal a melancholic medley before its conclusion.

‘Apocrypha’ collages distinct rhythmic source materials in an entrancing abstraction of ‘Hypersonic Hemiola’. An assertion of Art Blakey proportions. Perpetually pushed forward through the building of distorted percussion, Moss precludes into syncopated synapsis before and end of reductive symmetry.

Evolving into a studdered off-kilter groove, ‘The Redemption Project’ flows as a dissipating organ medley dissolves into a deluge of layered sonic textures, creating an indiscernible metric center before fading to a distant vanishing point.

Departing with a common-time ‘Timbuk2’ takes off like a classic Chicago Acid track, then makes a left turn towards the center as it drives the rhythmic motion into a dystopian dreamland, as the sax line surges forcing the track to break free from it’s charted course.

The Fragmented Fantasy of The Synth Expressionism/Rhythmic Cubism LP is a conclusive work that has no end, a conundrum of conceptual calculated improvisation. Drifting through time, this fragmented abstraction of Afro-Cubism leaves room for posterity, as each listen summons a new perspective on the suite. Something ever so common in the work of Jamal Moss. Charting new sonic directions, the very nature of its precedent makes it a truly Hieroglyphic affair.

Words By Neal Andrew Emil Gustafson

Destiny is made. Realised. Driven by the acts of vision. Hireroglyphic Being is a seer. Atomic resonance echoing from the big bang defies the conceptual reality of purity. The nuclear static of ‘white noise’ is HBs canvas. Channeling poly rhythms into the universe. Experience, repetition and eternal decay. From purity back to the absolute by way of a deluge of slurry across time. Infinite layers of distortion and refracted complexity. This is HBs canvas. Sound of eternity channelled through a bass bin, represented by its own impure reflection and fragments. Always more than it's whole but never as was before.

This album seeks to reach beyond ideas and emotions, beyond the comprehension of a human archetype. Beyond ultimate history, forwards and back. To ends and a singular beginnings. Timbuk2 is the frenetic intersection where the call and response of these ideas lock and dissipate back into the void.

After a seven year hiatus since the release of their debut LP on ESP Institute, Kyle Martin and Jonny Nash’s Land Of Light return with their sophomore album for Melody As Truth. Written and composed over the course of two years, “The World Lies Breathing” reflects the pair’s shared development towards spacious, abstract composition crafted from a wide range of contrasting sound sources. Utilising a combination of acoustic instruments, contact microphones and Martin’s self-built modular synthesiser “The World Lies Breathing” focuses on the space between sounds, conjuring up an organic yet alien landscape that exists on the edge of an unknowable void.

Razen celebrate their 10 yr anniversary with “Ayîk Adhîsta Adhîsta Ayîk”, an album that takes a paragraph from CG Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections as a reference point to set off a journey that goes from light to dark, from day to night, from life to death, and back.

As much a reflection of primal imagery and rituals of knowledge as a way of coming to terms with anxieties about the chaos of the night, the album concerns itself with the question: who - or what - are we in the moments before (re-)birth, before waking up, in the state inbetween darkness and light?
On “Ayîk Adhîsta Adhîsta Ayîk”, the wind instruments and organ stabs of band leaders Kim Delcour and Brecht Ameel are expanded with Pieter Lenaerts’ five string double bass and sarangi, Jean-Philippe Poncin’s bass clarinet and chalumeau, and Paul Garriau’s hurdy gurdy.

The album sees the group explore new straight-to-the-gut emotional territory, while simultaneously showcasing Razen’s intuitive, continuous investigation of the acoustic properties and resonant possibilities of churches and chapels in the countryside around Brussels; after “Remote Hologram” (2014) and “ The Xvoto Reels” (2017), this time the St Agatha Church (St.-Agatha-Berchem) functions as the conduit for Razen’s acoustic sound jolts.

With the past ten years entirely devoted to the search for archetypical timbres and connotations by improvising on Early Music instruments, it’s no wonder that the world of Razen would one day collide with the world of CG Jung and take his writing as an inspiration.

A sonic hex tour de force from this unique ensemble, “Ayîk Adhîsta Adhîsta Ayîk” is a present-day, nocturnal emitter of the Coleridge quote that opens Jung’s Memories:
‘He looked at his own soul with a Telescope. What seemed all irregular he saw and shewed to be beautiful Constellations and he added to the Consciousness hidden worlds within worlds’.

King Of Kong Records, a new venture of Artur8, Anton Klint & Edvin E. presents it’s new release, the “World Museum” EP - a modern classic from Newborn Jr.

Warsaw-based producer Adam Brocki released a string of collaborative records - with Earth Trax (Bartosz Kruczynski) for Phonica, Dopeness Galore, Echovolt and Rhythm Section, or as Private Press for Rekids and Indigo Area. His mature, carefully crafted sound, stripped yet powerful, now finds its place on King Of Kong.

“What What What” starts the EP off on a right foot: broken rhythm, clever voice snippets, cosmic pads and heavy bassline reminds of some archetypal Shake productions, off-kilter yet somehow infectious. “World Museum” rolls out relentlessly on a steady kickdrum, and again the backbone is held firmly by bass. Swirling noises come and go, adding a dash of melancholy into this club-ready tool. “NJ Public Pool” again sounds like a long-lost timeless classic, with just right amount of melody and irresistible party vibe. It’s accompanied by a moodier and denser remix from Warehouse Preservation Society (aka TK Disco and Tavish (ESP Institute)), a druggy chugger for late night and dark corners. Rounding off the EP, Yourhighness of Rollerboys & Cocktail D'Amore Records fame straightens the beat and pushes up the tempo of “What What What” to deliver a proper party stomper. A classic sound of two decades of dance music underground updated for here and now.

There is no such thing as confused programming! Relentless, grungy dark Acid with an industrial feel at a reasonable pace by I-F as Jungian Archetype!

For the second release on the Galaxiid imprint, a label of electronic music archeology and quality, we are transported to the strange sonic world of an elusive 90s pioneer. Solar X's 1997 album X-Rated will be released for the first time on vinyl, as well as reissued digitally, with new artwork by the Japanese artist Keiichi Tanaami. Two worlds connecting sonically, visually and culturally.

Solar X enjoyed a burgeoning career in post-Perestroika Moscow making playful, low-tech electronica from Soviet analogue instruments, which he masterfully configured to forge animated compositions and dancefloor rarities. Fascinated by chaos and complexity, his music explores the ways in which our minds can be manipulated by structure - an endeavour quite plausibly linked to his other career as a lecturer and researcher of AI, information theory and cognitive science, his interest in which was in turn triggered by his young experiments in computer music.

Solar X gained international attention at a time when Russia was (quite unfairly) seen as a vacuum for electronic music, but was exploding in the period of piracy, poverty and freedom following the collapse of the USSR. Young Russians had benefited from the soviet education system and there was a strong DIY computer programming and music scene, fuelled by hackers, gear freaks and party animals. Viewed from today, the album is reborn at a time of further political and social strife, which many see as fuelling the huge creativity and radical thinking of modern Russia's young creatives.

X-Rated treats tempo and form as fluid concepts, administering sudden changes to its sonic landscape with disorienting effect, underlain with a subtle dose of humour and experimentation. Downtempo trip-hop sits alongside frenetic IDM and blistering electro, all bound together by peculiar melodic inflections and lively distortions. Warm, trippy harmonies and robotic synths are offset with angular drums, shifting erratically through moods and genres with cunning intent. Much like his contemporaries from the era, it's his ability to breathe life into a humble production setup that makes his music so compelling some twenty one years later.

The track titles are from a book of call girl cards in London phone booths, that reached the artist in Moscow in 1995. "I liked the titles from these cards, which were self-promoting and offering pleasure (e.g. "Mistress awaits you"). So, I thought since my tracks also offered some kind of pleasure, they might as well advertise this through their titles.'

Label head Nina Kraviz was introduced to the work of the 83 year old sensei Keiichi Tanaami by Ukawa Naoshiro, founder of Dommune in Tokyo, one of the brightest figureheads for the arts in Japan, responsible for the graphic design of the cover. In September 2017 Nina played for the opening of Tanaami-san's first exhibition in Moscow at Gary Tatintsian Gallery. Nina performed a live sound palette, to accompany the looping 7 minute animation, of experimental music from the Soviet Union, Russian pioneers of electronic music like Species Of Fishes and SolarX, Soviet-time pioneer Lev Termen, Kuryochin, avant-guard rock mixed with some Stockhausen and just pure abstract sounds, as well as treasured artists like Biogen.

Tanaami's illustrative work has strong sexual elements, so out of the five art pieces Nina selected and commissioned for Galaxiid, the first fits perfectly for 'X-rated'. The vertical line of text on the left is the traditional form for Japanese covers of foreign releases. The cover, together with the accompanying poster and sticker, are printed in Japan to ensure the highest print quality and purity of the colours.

180g
In order to celebrate 5 thrilling and inspiring years, we gathered well-known artists, Goldmin regulars and emerging talents. It was really important for us to express the elusive nature of the Goldmin sound, in the form of a compilation tracklisting. Over the past 5 years, we had the chance to meet most of these guys in person, follow their very own creative path, share ideas, thoughts and there’s no doubt that they all had their part to play in crafting our sound. This intimate and stimulating kind of collaboration had to be expressed and there couldn’t be a better way to capture what we’ve been busily working for, than a serie of Various Artists 12″. What it comes down to is a quintessential, hard-to-follow Goldmin selection devoid of any specific standard or norm. And this whole compilation seems to reflect that non-septate artistic direction, this little something, which has grown throughout our whole catalogue, since the label’s birth.That’s why, picking these select few tracks, that could illustrate Goldmin Music’s essential freedom was probably our toughest work yet. It was also important to pick only the most original and iconic tracks from each artist. In the end each track had to be their most Goldmin one and they all have been tried in all types of situations, in club at 1 and 5 AM, on the highway at night or even staring at the ceiling during a sleepless insomnia session. They all fullfilled their duty.

This release is LP and it's individually 300 hand-numbered limited edition. The first 100 copies are pressed on WHITE & GREEN MARBLED vinyls (AR016).
It's dedicated to the 1988 Experimental / Electronic masterpiece by the Italian contemporary guitarist Riccardo Giagni, originally released on Stile Libero (Italy) + a special Balearic Remix by SIMON PETER.

Archeo Recordings is a reissue record label that regenerates old, lost, obscure and forgotten rare gems of mostly Italian music but also all over the world of the 70s, 80s and 90s.
All outputs are licensed by the artists and the vintage labels; audio tracks are remastered in their original form; the sleeves and center labels are graphically recreated for today but all based on the original images.
Archeo would like to make the music available to a wider audience of collectors, DJs, music lovers of a forgotten time.
All releases are hand-numbered limited edition vinyl. The first copies of each release are pressed in coloured vinyls.

Over two years in the making, 'Talisman' is a retrospective and re-interpretative celebration of the work of American musician Robert ÆOLUS Myers. Touched first by the emotional depth of the music, and subsequently by the warmth and wisdom of the man, Origin Peoples sought to capture a snapshot on this special vinyl release.

This newest chapter of the ÆOLUS myth seen for the first time on vinyl are five of his most expressive pieces, alongside a quartet of remixes by kindred spirits from all corners of the globe. This is the first time his music has been interpreted by others, and Robert's delight at the result speaks volumes of his adventurous and open-minded attitude. Approaching the often intangible new age genre with a humanist approach, Robert creates immersive and expansive pieces which connect with the listener on a spiritual and emotional level.

Archetypal narratives are retold through nuanced electronics, evocative motifs and empathetic flute, the varied compositions informed by Myers' classical training, spiritual pursuits and study of ethnomusicology. Part retrospective, part remix project, 'Talisman' is the perfect reflection of Robert ÆOLUS Myers, a musician whose timeless expression of theme and emotion has enriched minds, bodies and souls for almost 40 years.

This release is LP and it's individually 300 hand-numbered limited edition. The first 100 copies are pressed on WHITE & BLUE MARBLED vinyls (AR015).
It's dedicated to the 1979 New Age / Electronic masterpiece by the Italian contemporary multi instrumentalist Pepe Maina.

Archeo Recordings is a reissue record label that regenerates old, lost, obscure and forgotten rare gems of mostly Italian music but also all over the world of the 70s, 80s and 90s.
All outputs are licensed by the artists and the vintage labels; audio tracks are remastered in their original form; the sleeves and center labels are graphically recreated for today but all based on the original images.
Archeo would like to make the music available to a wider audience of collectors, DJs, music lovers of a forgotten time.
All releases are hand-numbered limited edition vinyl. The first copies of each release are pressed in coloured vinyls.

*Highly recommended* 2019 Repress of Archetype ''CN2'' alias project.
NYC Veteran and machine wizard Charles Noel aka Archetype reaches deep into hissonic archive to present another incredibly special release on Bright Sounds.
Featuring exclusive previously unreleased material ranging from abstract to sublime in the form of a new & unique alias, (CN2). Essential

NYC Veteran and machine wizard Charles Noel aka Archetype
reaches deep into his sonic archive to present another incredibly
special release on Bright Sounds.
Featuring exclusive previously unreleased material ranging from
abstract to sublime in the form of a new & unique alias, (CN)2.
Essential

Archeo Recordings is a reissue record label that regenerates old, lost, obscure and forgotten rare gems of mostly Italian music but also all over the world of the 70s, 80s and 90s.
All outputs are licensed by the artists and the vintage labels; audio tracks are remastered in their original form; the sleeves and center labels are graphically recreated for today but all based on the original images.
Archeo would like to make the music available to a wider audience of collectors, DJs, music lovers of a forgotten time.