Anchor and Adjust is the debut album from, Australian synth-pop duo
Syzygy; Rebecca Maher and Gus Kenny both formerly of beloved
Melbourne synth-punk band Spotting
This new project explores a more unadulterated electronic aesthetic combined
with an unabashed pop sensibility.Gus was listening to a lot of 80s synth music
and minimal wave, while Bec was deep into mainstream 80s pop divas and new
wave. The resultant album sits at a crossroads of genre. The melodies of new
wave pop meet the synth tones of 80's coldwave, the vocal dynamics of postpunk and the DIY ethos and raw edges of punk. Layered synths twist and weave.
Featuring celestial, emotive vocals, the album is often bright and upbeat,
danceable, but also moody, thoughtful and clever. It is sparkling and edgy
electronic pop.
The album's lyrics explore the power dynamics in relationships, including the
relationship with yourself. It is about control and being controlled. Attempts to
unravel years of ingrained behaviour and decision making to try and see the world
another way. It yearns for clarity, asking questions and searching for definitions to
try to understand what is perception, what is manipulation and what is truth.
I was speaking to myself, through myself. Both aware of having these feelings
and disconnected from how they were making me feel. Making this record
allowed me to create order and meaning. It was both my wake up call and my pep
talk for changes I desperately needed in my life. Rebecca Maher. Pressed on
Transparent Purple Color vinyl.
GENRE : Synth-pop, Electronic, Darkwave
Поиск:mini
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Vinyl LP[39,45 €]
A "cheval de frise" is a military defensive structure and the name Thomas
Bonvalet and Vincent Beysselance chose for their post rock duo, creating
anxious, agitated music with perpetually changing, almost baroque,
patterns
Urgent, emotional and paradoxically structured and thought out in the finest
detail, it drew much of its influences from the many forms of 90s American posthardcore, while being undeniably singular. The formation was instrumental and
the bass was abandoned for an amplified classical guitar. The band released their
first eponymous album in 2000 on Sonore, a label based in Bordeaux. It was well
received, allowing Cheval de Frise to tour all over Europe. Their second album,
'Fresques sur les parois secrètes du crâne', was recorded in 2002. The band split
in 2004 leaving their mini album 'La Lame du Mat' to be released posthumously.
Remastered by Carl Saff, 'Cheval de Frise' is reissued on New York label
Computer Students and is available for the first time ever in cassette and double
LP. The vinyl version is presented in a beautiful gatefold sleeve with an impressive
poster. The whole thing is packaged in a sealed foil pouch, a trademark of the
label.
"Intense, energetic, and audacious, this music is thrilling, unforgettable." - Pop
Matters
"An impressive debut that lingers in between pleasantry and pandemonium, o?
ering forty minutes of odd, deserving attraction." - Tiny Mix Tapes
"Highly in?uenced by many early jazz artists, this is an album that - in many ways -
de?es description." - Babysue
"This band is incredibly unique, and their music knows very few boundaries. What
these two people do with their instruments is rather amazing." - Ink 19
Having first met in 1991, music photographer STEVE GULLICK and JAMES JOHNSTON, founder of Gallon Drunk, began blurring the boundaries between audio and visual in 2004 when they formed their own band, '...bender'. They’ve maintained the habit ever since, with Gullick subsequently founding Tenebrous Liar and Johnston pursuing a career, alongside his work with PJ Harvey and a tenure in Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, as an acclaimed visual artist and painter.After working together on an art show in late 2019, the idea of making music again immediately resurfaced. Without any firm strategy, Johnston and Gullick began recording, unprompted, drawing upon a shared love of noise, folk, and classical. This became the album ‘We Travel Time’, a compelling and mysterious record that bravely embraced beautiful piano, voice, violin, and guitar to create a drifting haze, forging an imagined soundtrack which offers echoes of Big Star, Nico, Lee Hazlewood and Palace Brothers alongside the haunting influence of contemporary minimal classical. Due for release this coming November 18th via God Unknown Records, Johnston and Gullick have returned to their craft to create a stunning new selection of songs and moods, brought together for the album ‘Everybody’s Sunset’. Recorded at their homes throughout 2021 and 2022, the ten songs on this new album take the fragile intimacy and agenda-free approach of its predecessor and go out even further into the fringes of tone and feeling. Utilising a vast selection of instruments between them (violin, organ, guitar, banjo, autoharp, harmonica, piano, synthesisers….), ‘Everybody’s Sunset’ ebbs and flows, bringing different instruments and signals to the fore as the album progresses. a bold, adventurous musical trip that finds Johnston and Gullick’s musical bond grow ever deeper and closer. Tune in and watch the Sunset glow. All songs written, arranged and recorded by James Johnston and Steve Gullick James Johnston: Violin, voice, organ, piano, guitar, banjo, autoharp. Steve Gullick: Voice, guitar, piano, organ, harmonica, harmonium. 1. The Moon & The Stars 2. Shimmer 3. Fear of Everything 4. Save Our Souls 5. Ice Moon 6. The Town That Couldn't Sleep 7. Medieval Death Song 8. Greater Silence 9. Who I Who 10. Everybody's Sunset
Fleeting configurations of piano, wind, strings, synthetics, and field recordings, inspired by the Greek isles.
Previous albums adored by the likes of The Quietus, Exclaim, Drowned In Sound, etc.
For fans of Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch soundtracks, Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, and Global Communication.
While on the island of Syros in the Aegean Sea for a film festival performance, Christina Vantzou experienced what she characterized as “a moment of focus”—a specific vision for the sprawl of raw recordings she’d been amassing for her fifth album. Upon relocating to the Cycladic island of Ano Koufonisi, she situated herself outside at a patio table with a laptop and headphones, taking brief breaks to swim, and began the “reductive process” of shaving and shaping the source material into uneasy but lyrical movements, alternately austere and adorned with strange inflections: glottal groaning, cavernous water, glittering eddies of modular synth, languorous silences. Mixing the pieces herself without outsourcing to an engineer compounded the intimacy and autobiographical dimension of the music; she refers to No5 as “almost like a first album.”
Drawing on sessions staged in February 2020, Vantzou’s editing instincts emphasize process and isolation, spotlighting resonance and restraint, liquidity and long tails. Fleeting configurations of piano, wind, strings, synthetics, and field recordings, these are spaces as much as compositions, surreal grottos of shifting light, suffused with a sense of invisible divinity. Although seventeen musicians appear on the record, the proceedings feel minimalist and malleable, sculpted from interstitial moments and oblique synchronicities. The definition of a composer as “one who joins things” is here both plumbed and proven; Vantzou describes No5 as “a letting go,” a place of “soft borders,” unfixed and undefinable.
Through Twelve is an electronic-dyed combo powered by 80’s synthpop and shiny post-production by Italoconnection. Their Mini LP “Inner bridges” is full of layered basslines, pulsating rhythms, catchy vocals and retro synth warmth. Tracks such as the richly melodic “Silent Radio’ and the New Order-ish sweeps of “New Town” are irresistible invitations to stand-up and move your hips.
T12 have a tendency for emotive analogue leads, expressive pads and inimitable synth sequences, in duet with electric bass phrases.
Through12 signature sound becomes immediately recognizable in the dancefloor-ready song “This Love”, starring Italo disco icon Fred Ventura. “Silent Radio” receives an exuberant electro-remix treatment from Italoconnection and “This Love” goes hand-in-hand with Mono Han version.
Freestyle Records drop an unmissable LP of foundational UK dance music made between 1982 to 1984, in the form of the collected output of Contact-U - aka Rick de Jongh and Andy Sojka's stripped-back electro boogie project.
At the turn of the 1980s Challenge Records was founded on North London's Holloway Road - formed by Andy Sojka & Rick de Jongh to act as a sister-label to Sojka's seminal soul & boogie-focused Elite imprint. Initially releasing a smattering of lovers rock singles, Challenge would quickly begin to focus-in on the emerging sounds of Hi-NRG & electro - with Contact-U, an alias for Rick & Andy's own stripped-back productions, becoming Challenge's first act in this vein.
Recording the sublimely wonky spaceage funk of 'Inside You' in November of 1982, de Jongh & Sojka followed this up over the next 2 years with three 12" releases for Challenge before hanging up the moniker. Providing infectious synth-based melodies & basslines with killer drum-machines & minimal but effective live percussion - and in a couple of instances (see "Inca Sacrifice" and "Breaking Point') crucial dub re-versions on their B-sides - these tracks are some of the strongest electro-funk records to come out of the UK during this period. Dig in!
Printed Sleeves - LTD
With precious Konik you'll get an Electro Techno master piece.
Kemi takes the second position here with No Beat, and a special Kick out from nowhere and an electro techno base totally shaking around and opening on an acid industrial feeling after the drop !
On the flip, FTR and Angi makes it with a light minimal lullaby ambiance... With, as usual... a fat kick for sound systems !
Resh G finishes the job with an Electro Techno/Disco banger.
Big !
Not every two-year period measures out the same, noted Brendan Benson, the 51-year old Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and co-founder of The Raconteurs. Benson had just finished his well-received seventh album, "Dear Life" in 2019 when his world came to a stop. "I was rehearsing for South-By-Southwest and gearing up for a tour and had a band ready and then, of course, the world shut down," he said in a recent interview. The lockdown then began to reroute lives, societies and ambitions worldwide. "Everything changed," Benson said. "I went to work on some songs so I"d have new material when things opened up." Over months with minimal interactions, those songs coalesced and took on lives of their own, he said. Two years of semi-isolation, of fading relationships, of the natural inward turn that comes with less human contact unexpectedly pushed Benson"s song-writing into new places. Instead of being an afterthought, Benson"s solitude evolved into, "Low Key" the eighth album by the idiosyncratic songwriter who has enjoyed both world-wide popularity with the Raconteurs and a devoted cult following for his numerous solo projects. Low Key, the Nashville-based artist said, was his chance to explore how lives and relationships changed during the lengthy isolation from the normal interactions of everyday life.
Duper, the new release from Morgan Geist, is a not-so-subtle callback to his 2001 EP, Super. "I was working most days with Kelley Polar on our new vocal project, Au Suisse, which isn't really dance music at all," he explains. "I started fooling around with these instrumental tracks at night for fun. Each track was in a different style, but they seemed to work nicely as a group. By the time I asked Kelley to contribute strings to the A-side, the record really started feeling like the sequel to Super."
Super Duper - get it?
Indeed, the playful synth riffs and sweeping disco strings of "Twilight Express" echo the palette of Geist's cult classic "24K" and early Metro Area. "Black Test Car" is a unique collision of minimal, almost Krautrock-style drums, sound library textures and spacy electro percussion. Meanwhile, "Feeling Is Mutual" is a rare acid outing that pushes beyond the usual comfort zone, the 303 acting more as feather than hammer on top of major-key modulations. "I love a lot of Aphex Twin and I love sweet, "quiet storm"-style R&B," says Geist. "I figured, why not?"
*Ltd Coloured Vinyl on Transparent Blue Vinyl* London-based musician and producer Ryan Lee West, aka Rival Consoles, creates driving, experimental electronic music that makes synthesisers sound human. His consistent desire to create a more organic, living sound, sees him forming pieces that capture a sense of songwriting behind the machines.
‘Now Is’ marks a new chapter in an ongoing quest for refinement and evolution. More playful and melodic, the album draws from much experimentation in minimalist songwriting and seamlessly blends synthesisers and acoustic instruments. “There are some pieces that are influenced quite strongly by the isolation and anxiety of these times. There are also pieces which are more optimistic and vibrant, which I think is a consistent attitude of my records, as I want art to express many aspects of life.”
From the elevating arrangements of ‘Beginnings’ and motorik beats of ‘World Turns’, to the isolation of ‘Frontiers’, influenced by the barren landscapes of Iceland, Rival Consoles’ eighth studio album subtly morphs and evolves. “The title of the record ‘Now Is’ interests me because it is the beginning of a statement, but it is incomplete. I like art that is open and suggestive of ideas even if they are inspired by very specific things. With my previous record ‘Overflow’ being very dark, heavy and almost dystopian, I wanted to escape into a different world with this music and ended up creating a record which is a lot more colourful and euphoric.”
For the sonic ‘Vision of Self’, West looked to create the kind of movement and colour a string section in an orchestra would construct, but with synthesisers. “I think there’s a lot of synergy between the two worlds. I wanted to create a hypnotic journey, where the synths and sounds weave in and out of each other, so you get lost in the music and don’t know where one sound starts or another ends.” This “journey” West refers to is symbiotic of the way he has approached music throughout a progressive career – an ongoing project that is never static and always moving forward.
A sense of euphoria is reached with the pulsating title track which bursts into colour like the appearance of the summer sun, while ‘Echoes’ is a vivid exploration of rhythm and sound for summer nights. The track starts with a dense collage of modular synths, fragmented metallic tones, broken sounding drums and a downcast melodic synth line. “This is a piece where the main melody has been in my head for a long time and was just waiting to come out. I kind of think of it as the sonic equivalent to an impressionist painting in that I wanted to explore the sensation of lots of small layers of different colours and textures that are constantly moving around each other.”
Rival Consoles is set to appear at festivals across Europe this summer, with headline shows expected to follow in the autumn.
ft. Cinna Peyghamy & Jay Duncan Remix
Soreab returns to Control Freak for a full length white label release - a masterclass in organic, dubbed-out, dancefloor psychedelia, featuring live recordings by sound artist and modular percussionist Cinna Peyghamy following a recent collaboration with Azu Tiwaline.
As a DJ, producer and co-founder of Baroque Sunburst, Italian-born Soreab has been a mainstay of London’s underground electronic music scene for over 5 years. On ‘Teleportation’, he manipulates and twists Cinna’s deft percussion work into a distinct range of UK styles, ranging from 170bpm euphoria to subby, half-time ex- plorations from the school of FWD>> and Plastic People.
On the B2, Jay Duncan (Phantasy Sound / Intergraded) takes a decidedly minimal tack on her remix of ‘Untitled 1’, with deep, dubby chord stabs and immersive rhythms for late night dancefloor revelations.
For Fans Of: Om Unit, Shackleton, Al Wootton
Limited pressing of just 300 hand-stamped records - don’t miss your chance to grab one
Mastered & cut by Ruy Marine @ D&M, Berlin
Widely-loved electronic maestro Gigi Masin returns with ‘Vahinè' – a mini album of beautiful and distinct music that is unmistakably his, sounding better than ever.
Masin always pours his heart into composing, but here it takes on a potent new level of heavy emotion – as it’s a tribute to his late wife, who sadly passed away last year.
“There is a Tahitian dance called ‘Aparima’. It consists of graceful, sinuous and fascinating movements, which tell you stories and legends about love or tradition. The ‘Vahinè' are now dancing, the Tahitian females, with smiles and gestures that could be symbolic or descriptive but are always gentle, harmonious, charming. I was watching this documentary, it was almost 4 in the morning, but I couldn't sleep; I was in front of the television for hours, my wife had passed away the day before, and I was watching hands and arms swaying.
I told myself that maybe it’s so, at the end of the road it’s possible to realize dreams, and I’m sure that she is finally able to dance like never before, and is able to move without any impediment, with no suffering, free to make all the movements that she couldn't make for so long, turning to me with a smile and a wink. So, in the clouds, you will discover and see an extraordinary 'Vahinè', because she will move and dance and smile until the end of time.”
Gigi Masin
A future-retro dreamscape where stripes of early evening sun pour through partially closed venetian blinds; kalimba, piano and steel pans meet on the incredibly evocative ‘Marilene (Somewhere in Texas)’.
The Balearic/Italo house heart of ‘Barumini’ throbs throughout a celestial epiphany, whilst ‘Shadye’ is a sun blinded ambient mirage where angelic voices and electric guitar intertwine, before more heavenly music ensues on the trance-like ‘Malvina’.
A heart-wrenchingly beautiful evocation of transitioning to the other side, ‘Valerie Crossing’ is Gigi’s compelling and inspirational take on death, with a vivid evocation of something spiritual, existential and metaphysical. His exemplary approach shows decease not as a cause for despair, but a philosophical and poetic exploration of where souls go, when they leave their earthly bodies.
Masin closes with ‘Vahinè' – a twitchy, levitational piece of sublime deep techno, which transmits high strength vibrations of powerful emotions. On both this track, and the album of the same name, there’ s no pseudo intellectual ambient posturing with cod academic angles tagged on; This is music of real substance, coming from a real place. It’s saturated with feelings, but turns mourning into affecting art, and even a beacon of hope.
Repressed !
Hot of the heels form his "Omega" album Robert hood delivers 2 killer new tracks. The thundering kick and warehouse style acid line on "Power To Prophet" will add energy to any dancefloor "Clash" is a nod to the old skool Chicago minimal techno sound of producers such as Steve Poindexter.
While frontman Tom Greenhouse’s off-kilter observations and bizarro anecdotes remain front and centre, this time round the band up their game with a more vigorous sound that keeps pace with Greenhouse’s wholly distinctive lyrical style. Greenhouse continues to revel in telling increasingly surreal short stories, rejoicing in the power of the deadpan one-liner and bedecking his songs with far-flung cultural references. But now the band employ a variety of techniques with improved pro- duction, from the impulsively bashed keyboards and jubilantly repetitive guitar stabs that have be- come their trademark, to flirtations with–heaven forbid!–melody, chord progressions and arrangements which elevate their tried-and-tested blueprint into a more exciting and cohesive whole.
Opener Musicians is the perfect embodiment of this conscious development. Here, Greenhouse re- counts a sarcastic tale of half-truths that see him galavanting around town trying to put a band to- gether. Sonically, it begins with a caustic callback to the group’s first EP Crap Cardboard Pet and its über-minimalist aesthetic. But by the end of the song a joyous festival of afrobeat-inspired in- struments including samba whistles, bongos and saxophones are added to the mix as the front- man, ironically, fails in his mission to recruit more players.
With Get Unjaded, the band have somehow conjured something close to pop, without abandoning the repetition and wit that’s relished by their early fans. I Lost My Head also adopts a jangle-pop sheen with a luscious synth melody, as the frontman ditches the spoken-word for a surly croon (his first known attempt at actual singing!) that provides a welcome breather from the onslaught of dense recantations that are the band’s bread-and-butter.
While the lyrics here are still often humorous and political, Greenhouse has also notably expanded his interests on this album to include a new host of topics. The influence of extraterrestrials, for ex- ample, infiltrates the subject matter frequently. On The UFOs, the mysterious protagonist Blinkus Booth’s isolationist lifestyle is apparently interrupted by the spectres of otherworldly visitors, while closer The Neoprene Ravine feels like an extract from a deep space rock opera. Here, jaunty and angular instruments pile-on as we are fed images of an interstellar Spinal Tap, the titular fictional band “The Neoprene Ravine” who are “the alien equivalent of the Velvet Underground” and include an alien Lou Reed yelping “too busy sucking on my little green ding dong!”.
Meanwhile, Hard Rock Potato is propelled by a vortex of keys and synths, a real noise-pop gem comprised of real guitar chords (!) and rock-orientated riffs. Here the stream-of-consciousness lyrics take shots at the sinister financial industry, and include one of the many top-tier one-liners on the album: “It’s not gambling if you’re wearing a tie (even if you’ve got no trousers on)”.
On Sod’s Toastie, The Cool Greenhouse have pushed their distinctive flavour of post-punk to the point of perfection – their incongruous riffs, alchemical instrumental chemistry, and irreverent spo- ken-word vocals are a delight throughout. Sod’s Toastie is hilarious at times, and at others just hilariously good – a not-so-difficult second album.
For some, melancholy is the joy of being sad. But for A Rocket In Dub, the reawakened project of Düsseldorf producer Stefan Schwander, also known under pseudonyms like Antonelli Electr. or Harmonious Thelonious, Viktor Hugo's famous saying always applies. Two years ago, the Düsseldorf producer and musician released a 4x 7" box set on Krachladen Dub, his first release after a break of 17 years at the time. Now, two years later, 9 new tracks follow as a longplayer on double vinyl and music cassette. Even more experimental, more playful, more hypnotic and with a trombone! Monotony is nice! The rocket is back in the club, teaching genres like house and minimal Jamaican dub deepness again.
- A1: Love Song
- A2: Young Bastards
- A3: Stop It
- A4: Blind Man
- A5: Skin O Daayba - Complex Habits No.3
- A6: We Are Waiting
- B1: Mantra
- B2: Skin O Daayba - Feedbackless World
- B3: Cupping Glass
- B4: Half Monk Half Herring
- B5: Ukoidm - Fishing (Edit)
- B6: Eric
- B7: In The Garden
- B8: Sequencer
- C1: Who Are We
- C2: Hit
- C3: Yozti 2
- C4: Voices Cricket
- C5: Attempt To Raise Hell
- C6: Anna's Assignment
- D1: In Our Culture (Surname Version)
- D2: Lesson 4 Voices
- D3: Intermission
- D4: Chicken
- D5: Untitled
- D6: Against Soap
- D7: Bereshit
- D8: Caretakers
Black Truffle is pleased to announce Uri Katzenstein’s Audio Works, produced in collaboration with Holon’s Centre for Digital Art. Spanning sculptural installation, performance, video art, and many other media, Katzenstein’s absurdist, poetic, and often hilarious work made extensive use of sound and music. This, however, is the first release dedicated to the artist’s audio work, collecting 28 tracks produced between the early 1980s and 2017. Compiled from dozens of hours of recordings left uncatalogued (and in some instances unheard) at the artist’s death in 2018, these four sides are a treasure trove, offering a captivating glimpse into a uniquely uninhibited creative practice. Predominantly recorded alone, with some contributions from regular collaborators such as Ohad Fishof on the later pieces, many of these tracks stem from Katzenstein’s time living in New York in the 1980s. Feeding on the cross-pollination of post-punk energy, radical art practice, and new media possibilities that characterised the New York scene at this time, many of Katzenstein’s recordings squeeze multilayered vocal experimentation into synth-based miniatures with a distinctively pop twist, their forms ruptured with anarchic bursts of free-form electronics, sounds from self-built instruments, and field-recorded snatches of the outside world. Katzenstein’s electronic production calls up touchstones of skewed 80s art pop like Laurie Anderson, Ambitious Lovers, and Scritti Politti, but imbued with DIY directness and economy of means. The arrangements of synths, percussion, and noise elements are invigoratingly raw and, at times, almost austerely minimal. On ‘Intermission’, thick distorted chords accompany a wandering portamento melody, inhabiting the wayward carnival space of Roedelius’ most unhinged efforts. Many of the tracks centre on Katzenstein’s multi-tracked vocal performances, often moving between multiple languages, (most commonly English, German, French, and Hebrew). A bewildering range of vocal approaches are present on these pieces, from sweet wordless harmonies to hammed-up growls and monastic recitations. On ‘Skin O. Daayba – Complex Habits no. 3’, improvised resonance singing against a backdrop of echoing electronics and radio snatches. ‘Half Monk Half Herring’ layers multi-lingual syllabic fragments, crossing sound poetry techniques with melodic invention in a way rarely heard outside of Caetano Veloso’s Araçá Azul. On ‘Attempt to Raise Hell’, Katzenstein’s distorted voice spits out streams of alliterative nonsense (‘the hemlock of Henry, he was a hermit…purple pumpkin pulsates to pops’), while on the hilarious ‘Eric’, Katzenstein appears to instruct a small boy simultaneously in basic French and German conversation. On ‘Chicken’, vocal harmonies accompany the pecking and clucking of the titular fowl. Moving from bent, outsider synth pop to snatches of Jo Jones-esque automated instrumental clang and absurdist linguistic experiments, these are far more than footnotes to an artist’s gallery works. Accompanied by extensive, beautifully written liner notes by Roee Rosen and the little information that exists on the individual tracks, Katzenstein’s Audio Works inhabits an outer fringe of DIY pop and sonic experiment reminiscent of Pascal Comelade or Die Welttraumforscher, where accessible forms convey radical interrogations of song, word, and sound.
Madison, Wisconsin producer Sam Link exploded onto the breaks circuit with his debut EP on Prague-based record label YUKU - exploring classic underground jungle and juke templates and stretching them into new and distinct formats - and now the emerging artist readies four varied cuts of stylish, club-ready breakbeats and bass on Low Battery.
With one gun-finger fixated on the past and the other firmly pointing to the future, Sam implements a unique form of production within his work. Holding down a full-time job as an artist is never easy, so Sam now works in 20-30 minute bursts, capturing the creative spurts and happy accidents, and allowing space between creation to allow ideas to breathe.
Ragga-tipped jungle at break-neck pace kicks things off on 'The Breath'; a cut of vortex-breakbeats that strikes a fine balance between meditative and energetic, like all great ragga-inspired cuts should. 'Uproar' lowers the tempo slightly in favour of stretching basslines, underwater-wubs and murky atmospherics on a growling cut of breaks that transatlantically shatters over the UK-sound.
'Chance' puts the emphasis on 'less is more'. Stripped-back percussion, nature-atmospherics and hefty low-end bass vibrations combine on a minimal jungle cut designed to vibe in the rave, before Teklife and Cosmic Bridge affiliate A.Fruit rounds out the release with a stuttering breakbeat-footwork remix of its predecessor.
Charbel Haber is Lebanese musician, performer, visual artist and composer from Beirut. His work has seen him collaborate with artists from a wide range of disciplines - film, video art, visual art, theatre, dance - both in Lebanon and abroad.
As a solo artist and as a member of post-punk band Scrambled Eggs, he has composed music for directors Khalil Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas, Ghassan Salhab, Mohamad Malas, video artists Lamia Joreige and Akram Zaatari, Maqamat dance company and playwrights Rabih Mroueh and Lina Saneh, to name but a few. His prolific and collaborative career includes free improv group Johnny Kafta Anti-Vegetarian Orchestra, psychedelic Arabic music ensembles Malayeen and Orchestra Omar, cold wave band The Bunny Tylers and minimal ambient duo Good Luck In Death. He is the founder of Those Kids Must Choke and co-founder of Johnny Kafta's Kids Menu - two experimental record labels - and he has recorded and collaborated with notable artists from the fields of free rock and improv such as Oiseaux-Tempête, Radwan Moumneh, Tarek Atoui, Jean Francois Pauvros, The Ex, Michael Zerang, Mats Gustafson, Eddie Prevost, Xavier Charles and Tony Buck.
And once again, here I am telling you to go look for the truth and its beauty in the words of dead poets, in the little tales of ravaged cities, in aborted dreams, in the melancholy of the ruins of tomorrow, in meaningless plastic totems, in the enigmatic end of restless fools.
I'll be here long after you all disappear.
These are the first and last sentences from Charbel Haber's latest offering, A Common Misunderstanding of the Speed of Light: a multi-media musing on the chronic and the chronological, the subversive nature of time. This combination of a record and book observes the slow passing of life and the illusion of retrogradation in his every day. Simply by documenting - via image, text and tune - Haber assigns value to everything that is cast in amber by this project. There's an acceptance and appreciation of the destitution he witnesses, it is an homage given in overlapping forms.
ACMOTSOL has two parts. The book, hardcover in an embossed orange, features photographs and texts taken from Haber's personal digital diary spanning from 2020 to the start of 2022. Broken into six chapters - named for the six tracks on the record - the entries are an artist's log of sorts during a peculiar period of global hyper stagnation and navigating the aftermath of the Beirut explosions. The 96 pages highlight Haber's interest in decay, negative space and the temporality of the human condition. Instead of presenting the images and texts as they were originally paired online, they're reordered and recontextualized in the book. New connections are formed, as tenuous and fleeting as the content they surround. The images interrupt the texts in many instances, forcing pauses and inviting distraction.
At the center of the book is a sudden burst of orange pages, with stylized pluckings of the text framing a QR-code that grants access to the record. With the brilliant orange covers and matching innards, pregnant with the music at the core, it's almost as if these central pages act as a way to turn the book inside out. There, the book's purpose is altered, fixated on a mirror image of itself. It forms a self-completing arc for the project, a loop.
ACMOTSO's second half is that mirrored album. Six tracks totalling just under 52 minutes. The music could be a continuation of his solo albums Of Palm Trees and Decompositions (2016) and It Ended Up Being a Good Day Mr. Allende (2012), an exploration into the expansiveness of seemingly simple loops of a lilting guitar. Careful electronic effects add dimensions or reground the listener. There's a swelling of sound, the illusion of the push of space before it retracts back into itself or fades into the distance. Much like the images and texts the music complements, the songs challenge the purity of cycles. Endings are beginnings, beginnings are endings or is everything just the middle? Haber is quietly and elegantly grappling with the troublesome act of place-making. In music, in words and in visual storytelling.
ACMOTSOL is a work that can be calming or disorienting, depending on what is requested of it. Similar to the way loops and cycles can signify both meditation and mania. The tendrils of Haber's past - his home of Beirut, fictional and real characters encountered, authors read, films watched, composers listened, walks taken - knit themselves together for a presentation of our immediate present. An evidence of a happening. A considered project of time.
All photographs, texts and music by Charbel Haber. Album mixed by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh. Design by Maziyar Pahlevan. Printed by Albe De Coker in Belgium.
This dual-part project will be released on XX XXX 2022 on 'Other People.'
Description by Nereya Otieno.
yellow marbled vinyl / full colour sleeve / incl. dl code
"Whirlpool-Gedanken" is the next 4 track EP by Schwefelgelb. A dedication to precise, sharp and punchy drums and percussion, embedded in a floating structure of synth sequences. A sound that recalls the explosive expression of Industrial Techno as well as the smooth progression of Detroit Techno at the same time. NPLX004 comes on 140 g colored vinyl including a download code and will be released 11th of November. The digital version contains a bonus remix by Ospiel. Presale starts 7th of October.
Schwefelgelb is a Techno duo from Berlin mostly known for their strikingly energetic live performance, which brought them into clubs and festivals all around the globe. Previous releases on n-PLEX, aufnahme+wiedergabe, Fleisch Records and Minimal Wave Records' imprint Cititrax have been supported by acclaimed DJs (Adam X, Amelie Lens, Ellen Allien, Helena Hauff, Jasss, Jensen Interceptor, Phase Fatale, Randomer, Rebekah, Regis, Samuel Kerridge, Silent Servant, SPFDJ, The Hacker, Tommy Four Seven, Veronica Vasicka, VTSS and more).




















