Chemistry between individuals is an amorphous and elusive notion. It is usually seen as something that occurs between two people who are sharing a physical space, with access to each other's body language and energy. However, modern technology has provided many other opportunities for chemistry to blossom and be explored and this record is just one example of that: Vent is proud to present Kina, a double LP of musical collaborations between MAYa and Tolga Baklacioglu.
Tolga Baklacioglu is an associate professor in aeronautical engineering. He is also a musician. For several years, he has been steadily building a body of work that explores the outer boundaries where techno and abstract textures merge and blur. In 2014, Tolga created a label, VENT, as a platform for his explorations and those of likeminded travelers within this sonic realm.
MAYa Hardinge works in film. She is also a musician. She has collaborated with numerous artists. Beginning in 2008, She released 4 EPs under her solo guise MAYa. Considering her background in film, it comes as no surprise that her work has a strong visual element. Pre- dating Beyonce´'s Lemonade by many years, her last two EPs were visual albums made in
collaboration with various directors.
It makes total sense that MAYa and Tolga should have made an album together. Their interests and backgrounds overlap and diverge meaningfully in a way that has all the hallmarks of good musical chemistry. There is however one unusual element to their collaboration: they have never met. Tolga lives in Eskisehir (Turkey) and MAYa lives in New York City.
Always on the look out for inspiration and new collaborators, Tolga stumbled across MAYa's videos online. What he saw and heard inspired him to reach out and contact her. After some correspondence they decided to experiment with the prospect of making music together. Perhaps deprived of the traditional notions of chemistry defined by proximity, they found inspiration across time and space in the name of exploration and discovery. Tolga began by sending MAYa files of beats and ambiance. Upon finding the ones that spoke to her, MAYa went to work disassembling, adding, subtracting and rearranging. MAYa's work would then go back to Tolga, a world away, for further input and then back again. In this way each track was painstakingly constructed and a true chemistry was born. One built on sensitivity, support and honest artistic communication. In a word: LISTENING.
The songs cover a broad spectrum of topics, from the deeply personal feelings and experiences, to world events, and the fundamental aspects of life and death. Kina is a document of two artists from different backgrounds and their shared visions of the interplay
between one's private microcosm and the global macrocosm of our time; a testament to the fact that, for all its vastness and diversity, this world offers inspiration and potential collaboration around every corner. The music contained within has traveled around the world many times before reaching your ears. As MAYa and Tolga have done before, it is now your turn to LISTEN.
Cerca:mo pot
The Orbit was founded in 2016 by saxophonist Soren Lyhne Skov and pianist Peder Vind. The two had been playing together for over a decade in various groups inspired by afro-beat and ethio jazz. The idea with Orbit is to maintain the feel of certain musical traditions but to explore them through a modal jazz perspective.
The ominous Orbit Bound is centered around the figure played by the bass clarinet. The time is 9/8 and with the sound of the bass clarinet you might get a Balkan feel. But the scale is more Middle Eastern making it difficult to place precisely - like an orbit constantly moving.
NV is a tribute to the North Western borough of Copenhagen, which is a multi-ethnic and partly still ungentrified part of Copenhagen. The area has its struggles and social problems but at the same time it is also a place of warmth, surprises and lot of untapped talent.
This song has a loose minor scale theme with some sparse piano chords and a solid bassline leading the way. The drums are constrained giving the track a feeling of unreleased energy similar of the potential energy in NV.
Fresh off their latest VA, The Press Group hand the reins over to up-and-coming Ukrainian producer Sasha Zlykh, here delivering his debut 12" effort. Clocking in with a quartet of club-oriented weapons and off-road house-y pumpers that shall bring dancefloors to a slow but steady simmer, the Kyiv-based producer blends in an avalanche of breaks-strewn rhythms, bleepy melodies and reshuffled UK bass patterns to create his own distinctive hybrids, halfway straight dance functionality and non-formulaic experimentality.
As playful in essence as it is serious in its execution, 'Lie To Your Mom' EP starts off with the title-cut, which works a wonky swagger that proves all the more infectious as bars fly by. Engineering a finely-woven mix of off-kilter drum programming, raucous analogue belches and volatile harp stabs distorted to the max, the track's shadowy intro is eventually offset by overlapping tides of luminous pads, released as one lets the light break through a vampire den. 'RnB Ritual' follows up close in the vein, meshing a brooding late-night-ish atmosphere with playful percussive mechs and sustained rhythmic accidents.
Flip sides and you'll be treated to a choice pair of remixes from in-house groove traders Rupert Marnie and Youthman. First in line, Marnie turns 'Lie To Your Mum' into a straight jacking and shuffling Chicagoan chugger. Going deeper into soulful terrains and lavishly-textured expanses, TPG's main operator exploits the whole melodic potential of Zlykh's original, bringing its anthemic power to further completion beautifully. More on the dubby end of things, Youthman adds his uniquely vibey touch to the main cut, deftly navigating betwixt a classic deep house kinda vibe, post-rave'y electronics and a Basic Channel-esque sound spectrum, which all in all should have people instinctively clapping their hands as their mind begins to sink into a weirdly introspective sense of euphoria.
After the success of their sophmore album "Nick & Astro's Guide To The Galaxy" last year, Potatohead People are back with a special remix of the first single "Morning Sun" off the album (featuring vocalist Nanna.B) on the album rom the legendary DJ Spinna.
Spinna gives "Morning Sun" his signature Galactic Funk flip, beefing up the drums into a cosmic shuffle, with an analog arpeggiating bassline, lifting strings and synth squelches. Also included is the instrumental on the flip. Cover art comes from Berlin's Rahel Susskind who revists the Guide To The Galaxy concept from inside the funky spaceship. Blast off!
Split album by Joe Corfield and Slim, two of UKs most promising beatmakers. It's the follow-up to the 'KO-OP 1' album by Smoke Trees and Juan Rios on KO-OP, the sub-label and community dedicated to the art of beatmaking founded by reknown hip-hop label Melting Pot Music from Cologne, Germany.
When we started KO-OP in the summer of 2017, little did we knew where this journey would take us to. Ever since we had the pleasure to work with 21 artists from all over the world and have put out almost 80 tracks on lp, tape and digital. Now we are happy to share with you KO-OP 2 - a split album by two of our favourite producers from the UK: Slim and Joe Corfield. Slim is one half of London rap group Summers Sons. The Sons are signed to MPM where they have released two albums ('Undertones' & 'Uhuru').
In February 2019 Summers Sons will play their first German tour together with Children of Zeus. Slim has released instrumental cuts on KO-OP, Brownswood and Banoffee Pie, plus a beattape on Yogocop Records. Joe Corfield hails from Birmingham and has released a string of albums via Radio Juicy and Yogocop.
He is coming with his very own sound. Futuristic and soulful, with a great ear to detail. It was actually Flofilz' idea to have them both on one record. 'KO-OP 2' will be released on one LP with two individual covers by Rahel Süßkind, a Berlin based artist (and part of Money $ex Records) who is responsible for all KO-OP artwork.
THROUGH GODS OWN EYES
MusicForSunrises&SunsetsDarkCornersOfTheDanceFloorDarkCornersOfTheMind.
FastDeepSlowRaveInspiringInspirtational&CosmicUpliftingWildPitchedHeartMelting&HeartPoundingSexMusic
Conceived in Bali as a club event to allow Phil Cooper and Indonesian DJ, Dea Barandana a chance to flex their rave potential and dig out those obscure, heavy dance floor cuts it has been hosting sporadic parties for the last 3 years, with no specific musical boundaries, it is about the late night, early morning dance floor experiences, heads down and lost in music!
A label was also planned, but when that would happen was always unclear, however a chance meeting in Croatia at Love International Festival 2018 between Phil and Carlo Bragagnini AKA La Mano has led to the inaugural release, TGOE001 La Mano 'Tana del Lupo' EP
Side A - Sirena, inspired by the classic Italo stable, a deep and driving intro that builds with a rolling, solid bass line, shimmering effects, gun fire handclaps and siren sounds before the piano line eases in to take it to a euphoric crescendo of soaring synths for maximum hands in the air vibes...
To add weight to the release, remixer options were discussed and both agreed on Man Power, and his rework has taken it to a much different place, adding a solid breakbeat to it, dirtying up the piano and extending the mix to 9+ minutes, this is HEAVY for the floor...
Side B - La Mano, the ying to the yang of Sirena, this is a much more progressive track, subtle in the arpeggio build up and layered to create a big sound culminating in a swirling series of dreamy chords and synth lines.
The Ambiente mix takes away the kick and percussion to allow the full dream like state to take effect, one for sunrises and sunsets across the globe...
Limited Lenticular 10y Anniversary Edition w/ heavyweight vinyl, printed inner sleeve + digital companion album of unreleased demoes and outtakes from the album
Late of the Pier announce a special 10th anniversary edition of their cult debut album Fantasy Black Channel, produced by Erol Alkan and released in 2008 to great acclaim. Fittingly, the reissue - released on a limited lenticular sleeve, pressed on to heavyweight vinyl and accompanied by a digital companion album of unreleased demoes and outtakes from the album recording sessions. It's set for release through Alkan's Phantasy Sound label, landing in stores on January 18th, 2019.
LOTP (Sam Eastgate, Andrew Faley, Ross Dawson and Sam Potter) were a band of inter-dimensional musicians who landed in the late noughts, whose wild journey took them from the quiet North West Leicestershire countryside to the stages of Coachella, Tokyo and beyond, touring with the likes of Soulwax and Justice. Their music was a mutant take on pop that described the chaos of being a teenager by looking forwards and backwards over and over again until the present moment started to make sense. Following the release of Fantasy Black Channel they put out singles 'Blueberry' and 'Best In The Class' in 2010, picking up fans from Mike Skinner to Dave Grohl along the way. Talking in a 2014 interview, Grohl exclaimed, 'They blew my fucking mind. They're called Late of the Pier. They made one record and disappeared. They use crazy computers and then they rock and it sounds like dubstep for one minute, then it's a crazy prog thing, and it's like, 'Wow'.'
"The bird songs which I had recorded in the West Indies in 1969 made me inclined to find out more about those of the nearby South American continent, and convinced me, moreover, that musically speaking, they possessed an unquestionable originality in comparison with those of Africa and Europa. I therefore decided to carry out a series of orthonological trips on this continent, starting with the North: Venezuela, and so, with this in mind, i disembarked at Caracas on 27th May 1972.
The unusual musical volume of this tropical country made its impact on my arrival in town, where the unbearably shrill chirping of the cicadas overwhelmed me each time I passed under a tree. At night fall, around even the meanest of ditches filled by the daily rain, myriads of toads and frogs struck up a concert, which, through its sheer intensity, muffled all other surrounding noises. When I penetrated the forest, I could hear bird species literally by the dozen and individuals by the hundred, all calling and singing together at dawn and at dusk..."
- Jean C. Roché
"Among many of his amazing records I came across Jean C. Roché's Birds of Venezuela, beautifully produced LPs of birdsong. I began to plan a trip to Amazonas, to record the unearthly song of potoos and Yanomami shamanism."
- David Toop
Jean-Claude Roché (May 11, 1931) is an French ornithologist and wild life field recordist. Roché recorded bird songs worldwide for over 30 years and released over 130 records out of his recordings.
Perhaps one of the most unique and unlikely exponents of the highly collectible genres of ambient electronics, experimental tape-music and PINA (Private Issue New Age), this English-born Jamaican- raised sound designer, artist and existentialist furrowed his own unblinkered path through lesser chartered electronic fields for many moons before eventually teaming up with Bill Laswell (with Material) and Daevid Allen in New York to bring self-taught synthesis to Gong during their most oblique periods.
Creating two impossibly rare self-pressed vinyl LPs of conceptual inner-visionary outer-galactic angular tonal-dronal alien-art soundscapes in the process, the man known under figure shifting guises such as Dennis Wise/Denis Weise/Dr. Wise etc, combined a culture of sound system circuitry and radiophonic trickery adding Tea-pot poetry and sci-fidelity future- folk to his magnetic mesh.
Presented here as the first ever dedicated Wize Music collection this record combines compositions spanning 1979-1984 in both a solo capacity as well as small- group projects featuring members of the Emerald Web band.
Imagine a comic book where a Funkenstein monster called 'Laraaji-Scratch Perry' invaded your record shelf while Komendarek and Holger Czukay kept lookout... Dr. Dennis might be the only one Wise enough to outsmart all of them with his powerful amorphous anaesthetic.
Marco Faraone returns to Drumcode with some of his most inspired work ever, comprising of four tracks crossing the Techno spectrum.Growing up Marco was surrounded by 90s Italo house and techno, which have all had a part in the current sound he produces today. Never one to stick to any individual style, he can often surprise his fans with a set pumping out peak time beats to down tempo house cuts with catchy vocals.
'With this release, I took some inspiration from listening back to some old Vitalic sounds and giving some extra power to the use of synths in each track. It's got a festival vibe to it, which is something I wanted to achieve' - Marco His last Drumcode EP was back in 2016, so this October he makes a welcome return showing his multiskilled productions at their full potential on this mega 4 tracker, opening with the gargantuan 'Never Forget'.Mutating rhythmic synths hark back to the good ol' days of BXR and the limitless talent of the Italian Techno scene in the late 90s. Boiling over in the main break this is crowd-pleasing dance music at its finest.
'Cruiser' is a bumpy upbeat ride with a strong melodic hook that will have the hands raised and the feet stomping.Title track 'Lunar Eclipse' is a dense, at times claustrophobic roller. Menacing to begin with, the addition of the main melodic motifs lifts the mood midway. 'Take This Trip' rounds out an incendiary EP. Lighter and more musical that the previous three, it offers a joyful, softer message. 'This is a special release for me, I wanted this to have explosive power yet the perfect balance of melodies and sounds to create a different and unique atmosphere for each track'
- Marco Faraone
Having remained continuously active since 1971, the Yoruba Singers are the longest-running musical group in Guyana. Emerging from a music scene mostly dominated by slick, commercial entertainment, the Yoruba Singers brought a new dimension to Guyana popular music, cooking up a potent stew of afrocentric vibes, steeped in a committed invocation of the country's African heritage. The Yoruba Singers released several recordings during their imperial period in the nineteen seventies and eighties, but what is broadly regarded as the group's magnum opus is the 1981 album Fighting for Survival. The album sums up the group's first decade of operation, serving up a heavy mix of calypso, jazzy funk, reggae and afrobeat. Initially released on the short-lived Interculture label and later reissued on a Guyana-only compact disk, the album has long been more talked about than actually heard. But thanks to Cultures of Soul a new edition is now available in wide release, and with it comes the opportunity to experience some of the deepest grooves the Caribbean has to offer!
Emotional Response is delighted to announce Foreign Affairs - a limited edition special remix 7-inch single featuring reworks from Alexis Georgopoulos & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's "Fragments of A Season" album by Woo and Felicia Atkinson.
Last year's ""Fragments of A Season"" represented a unique chapter in both artist's canon. Georgopoulos, who released the Arp album "Zebra" in June this year and Cantu-Ledesma, who released "On The Echoing Green" in October 2017 - both on Mexican Summer and to critical acclaim - wanted to stretch out and create a discrete work. A peripheral listen to "Fragments" revealed a resonant album of delicate, ambient vignettes, suggesting a Balearic take on Vini Reilly, Young Marble Giants and other poetically-minded, minimalistic post-punk era bands.
The Brothers Ives aka Woo were a major influence on the album's makers and so AG and JCL are thrilled they've submitted a beautiful reworking of the album's "Marine". Whereas the original sounded like Marine Girls and The Gist getting together for a nice beach day jam, Woo's rework transforms it into pulsating track of glistening proportions. Percolating synths, some guitar and clarinet - the true classic, idiosyncratic Woo-ification - creates a woozy, romantic, impossible to categorize slice of Balearic meets dub atmospherics.
If "Marine" is all midday sun, intoxicating and potently optimistic, Atkinson's remake represents the literal and figurative flip, bringing out the overcast dreaminess to "Cleo". Sounding like an outtake from a Rohmer film, or perhaps Cocteau Twins and Broadcast having a picnic in Biarritz, the version veers between abstraction, celluloid ambiguity and suggested narrative. Atkinson's reworking adds poetry of the tune (quite literally!) with her soft vocal under-gliding to perfection. Representing a temporary idyll, a meeting point where cobblestone streets lead to the sea. At nightfall, a discotheque heard in the distance. The morning mist burns off. Only such memories remain.
D-Leria returns to the scene more than a year after debuting on Berlin-based label Delirio, releasing a collection of work produced between 2014 and 2018; ten tracks which mark a new beginning for this young Italian producer, sweeping between heavy ambient excursions to hypnotic/ tribal techno, modernized and polished off in his own way.'Driving to Nowhere' is the summation of an extended journey; a year-long hiatus due to unforeseen health concerns allowed time to meditate and consider his past experiences in Italy's various underground electronic music scenes, and the potential directions inspired by thriving Berlin.
From 2014 to 2017 he released several EP's, each developing upon this new style, until joining the young label Delirio as both a musician and a manager. With Delirio he has hosted artists such as Stanislav Tolkackev, Roberto Bosco, Plaster, Retina.it and more, with a unique agenda to record precisely produced music live, instead of laboring in the studio to achieve over-polished audio. His first album inaugurates the beginning of the new DLP catalog, which will be dedicated to LPs, albums and other projects released on 12-inch vinyl. Through these 10 tracks D-Leria experiments with various production methods, as in 'Makumba' where he precisely combines the kick drum with a tight bass line in a 12-step sequence, making the track fluid and never predictable. 'Reborn' is an even more ambitious undertaking, initially recorded on tape before being sent back to the mixer via Hi Fi stereo, D-Leria modulated the cassette coil with a bic pen to create a unique 'detune' effect. 'From the Ground' and 'Driving to Nowhere', both made through the same setup, combine tribal voices and moans, combining an ethereal ambience with drums and analog percussion, connecting the rhythm directly to the soul. The opening track 'Libero' is dedicated to himself, while 'Her Smile' and 'Uragano' are both dedicated to the person that was closest to him in his last period of stop and realization of the album, where he expresses his most deep moments in the first, and more difficult in the second.
Just like in most of the EP already released on Delirio, Giuseppe Tillieci aka Neel took care of the mastering of the tracks, while the artist has taken care of the smallest details from the production, to the mixing, to the graphics and also to the titles of the tracks, which refer to personal thoughts and events that happened during this long journey to nowhere.
Loya is a new project by French producer Sébastien Lejeune, which allows him to research his
own cultural heritage, as a native of La Réunion.
For the past five years, Loya has been exploring the musical environment of the sister islands of the
Mascarenes (Indian Ocean), breaking down the boundaries between electronic music and
traditional music in a globalized world. Growing up in the great melting pot of La Reunion, Loya was
exposed to a number of cultures and rhythms that fueled his curiosity.
Settling in metropolitan France in the mid-90s, Loya's first encounter with electronic music
happened upon discovering acts such as Autechre, Plaid and Boards of Canada. Soon, Loya was
drawing from Intelligent Dance Music and bleep techno to build complex rhythm arrangements and
ethereal melodies. Throughout this research, Loya gradually managed to tame the erratic nature of
his machines to summon states of trance that reminded him of the music he grew up listening to as
native of the Mascarene.
From this route through the meanders of contemporary electronic music, Loya developed a
trademark sound based on triple time beats, pointillist sound design and a taste for experimentation.
Such distinctive features can already be heard on his first self-produced album Eruption, released
in 2014 and the EP Indian Ocean, released in 2016 on Mawimbi Records, although Corail is his
most accomplished work and a testament of his clear talent.
Exploring the blue depths of the Indian Ocean with the fluency of a native, the ten compositions of
Corail unfold like an archipelago. Showcasing the talents of traditional musicians such as Mauritius
ravanne icon Menwar and Madagascan accordion master Régis Gizavo, Corail finds a fine balance
between the soft, velvety ripples of modular synthesizers and the rawness of frantic percussion
motifs and local field recordings.
Known for a broad swath of genre-obliterating club tracks on crucial labels including Critical, Exit, and 50Weapons, Sam Binga approached us earlier this year with a radically different kind of project, a collaboration with Welfare, true junglist and label boss at D&B bastion Rua Sound. The result of their team-up is Conamara Fieldworks. Its unique inspiration and patient process are best described by the duo themselves:
"In early November 2016, we set off through the bleakness of an Irish November into the wilderness that is Conamara, County Galway, Ireland, with about half an idea of what we wanted to do. Our friend Laney had been kind enough to allow us the use of a 300 year old cottage overlooking the sea, itself belonging to her family through generations which she was bit by bit restoring to its former glory. The isolation was perfect - very little in the way of creature comforts, no network coverage, but plenty of turf for the stove and Guinness for the belly.
Our routine for the next few days consisted of trudging the length of the rugged coastline in search of interesting sounds we could potentially process into usable elements for some kind of dub/dub techno-inspired composition...This took us inside tidal caves and abandoned ruins, across sheep fields, up and down mountains and winding country lanes, in and out of the odd pub, under upturned boats and (carefully) across huge washes of seaweed-covered shoreline. Using our handheld recorder (shouts Danny Scrilla for the lend) we assembled a palette of varied noises, constantly battling with the peaking and distortion created by the incessant Atlantic gusts.
Each evening, following some intense huddling around the stove and vital Irish home cuisine and stout, we'd examine and dissect what we had collected that day, sometimes discovering the most interesting material firmly planted in the background of the soundscapes. A certain amount of (but not too much) processing later we had the bones of a few short loops of each sound which made some kind of musical sense when played alongside each other.
Binga suggested staying true to the craft and keeping the rawness to the foreground by attempting to develop the loops into full compositions via live desk mixing, arrangement and effects. We said our goodbyes to Conamara and a month or two later said our hellos to the Dubkasm shedio. Following a crash course from the dynamic duo, we set to work for the day, learning as we went along and enjoying to the full the unpredictability, intuition and sheer vibes a dubbing session can bring, particularly in a studio kitted out with some fine analogue gear which undoubtedly helped us to keep that damp, saturated feeling that Conamara had sown."
The resulting collection of music speaks for itself, and does so in its own language. It is meditative, deeply textural, and richly saturated, with awesome sound design, generous bass weight, and dubwise finesse. Referencing ambient, concrete, and dub techno while never letting any genre dictate its path, Conamara Fieldworks is a deeply rewarding and intensely involving listen. A restrained yet transporting remix from the one Ossia completes the set.
We are excited to release a 6-track EP from San Francisco based DJ, producer, and remixer Sepehr Alimagham. The San Jose native has been a fixture in the Bay Area house and techno scene for quite awhile now — on the dance-floor, behind the decks, in the studio, or all of the above. Early influences like Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin and post-hardcore bands later in high school started his affinity for off-kilter, underground music. In 2017 he began performing live PA sets, utilizing his immense production backlog to perform vivid and electric sets, from potent dance music to psychedelic and esoteric soundscapes.
"Body Mechanics" is six tracks of acid drenched dance music that ebb and flow from floor filling club thumpers to more cerebral soundscapes. Inspired by the new wave of the acid sound as well as nostalgia from his formative years in the San Francisco music scene, 'Body Mechanics' takes a functional, yet psychedelic approach to 303 styled techno and electronica. Attention demanding basslines, indiosyncratic structures and hallucinatory atmospheres provide an effective framework for Sepehr's vision. The themes of the track titles take root from a series of dreams Sepehr had with a common atmosphere of strange characters and textures, akin to scenes from David Lynch's 'Twin Peaks'. All songs have been mastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The vinyl comes housed in a jacket featuring a dark and inviting cyborg hand holding a rose designed by Nicole Ginelli.
Photonz is the alias of Marco Rodrigues a DJ, producer and driving force of Lisbon's underground scene. For little over a decade now, he's been crafting his own deeply personal style of Portuguese house and techno for labels such as Créme Organization, 20:20 Vision, Don't Be Afraid, Skylax, Unknown To The Unknown and his own One Eyed Jacks. As a DJ, Photonz grew a reputation for deep crates and intensely euphoric sets and in 2017, together with Violet (co-founder at his Radio Quantica) and Lisbon's own Rabbit Hole collective, he started the now infamous Mina parties - a monthly, sex-positive, queer and intersectional-feminist techno party aimed at using the dissociative potential of intense raving to create a temporary space of suspension away from patriarchal expectations.
Etheric Body Music is Photonz's debut 6-track EP for Dark Entries and a simultaneous reference to hermeticism and EBM (Electronic Body Music). Marco loves that 'aesthetic when 80s industrial and EBM bands split up and start to make trance in the early 90s and all the ritual magick pushes them to zen stuff and they do ecstasy.' There's this concept in theosophy and hermetic philosophy of the Etheric Body, which is an energy body superimposed and connected to the physical body, similar to the acupuncture idea of an energetic body. That idea manifests itself as six primal club cuts, which also channel early techno, Drexciyan rhythms, balearic & old school jack. Raw arpeggiated synth lines and bass blast jut against metallic stabs and highly percussive shakedowns to create mournful atmospheric warped house. All songs have been mastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The vinyl comes housed in a psychedelic jacket with snakey green and purple velvet in an electric acid spewing weird biological alien energy form designed by Eloise Leigh.
Bitter End continue to forge a path that's entirely their own, with another in the limited pre-release series...
'Dimension Extension' on side A, cooks up a sumptuously throbbing, cockle-warming Disco stew from the meagre ingredients of a sprouted wah wah guitar potato, brass carrots and a bouquet garni of dizzying strings. Yum
On the flip 'Be There Again' takes as inspiration a swirling Funk-Soul nugget from '77, augmented with some 21st century sonic sorcery and most welcome synth noodle in the 3rd act
Once again Bitter End rips up the rule book, and crafts a whole set of new, better ones in which freedom reigns
Light years ahead !
Ever since Onom Agemo & The Disco Jumpers broke the dreaded curse of the difficult second album by releasing "Liquid Love", a cocktail so spicy and delectable that it could warm the cockles of the grumpiest man alive's heart, even in the most Arctic conditions, everybody wondered how the Onom crew could top that one. But now you have an opportunity to whip out your "Magic Polaroid" as proof that this wasn't an impossible Project. Never before has the band so successfully captured their full-on live sound as they do here, thanks to three days of recording frenzy at Daniel Nentwig and Sebastian Maschat's Butterama studio, a haven of analog hardware hidden in a remote part of Berlin's Neukölln district. The exploding kaleidoscope of styles that make up this album, perfectly reflected by the stunning cover artwork from Nick Henderson and photography by Christoph Rothmeier, means that they can no longer be confined to their early description as an "Afro-Funk Quintet" or merely described as a lively tribute to the artists which have influenced them: their sound is 100 per cent pure uncut Onom Agemo, even though every track feels like a new beginning. The presence of a charismatic in-house vocalist who brought her own lyrics along has also boosted their confidence considerably and provided a further knock-out punch to their onstage performances.
And no one will be disappointed as soon as the first bars of "The Trumpets Of Denmark" stomp on stage like a boisterous fanfare, with Johannes Schleiermacher's impressive wall of sound production making the musicians sound like a much bigger band than what their line-up suggests (with Maria Schneider from Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra adding some extra percussive clout) and just the right amount of dizzying cross-rhythms to steer it away from potential bombast. When Onom Agemo's powerhouse vocalist Natalie Greffel starts chanting what at first sounds like a string of Onomatopoeia, it soon becomes clear that she's laying down her manifesto for a nostalgic Space-Age yet to come, with a few key words serving as Mantra (Focus, patience, tears and creation): an invitation to drive off the Information Superhighway and its endless litany of polite noises, to redirect our gaze inside ourselves and learn to understand and sometimes question how others perceive us.
The new album from Danish electronic trio System is a special kind of collaborative effort with piano magician Nils Frahm. His purpose-built improvisations on synth, organ and piano served as source material for the members of System (Thomas Knak, Anders Remmer & Jesper Skaaning), who merged his warm acoustic tones with their minimalist digitalism and set out to translate their distinctive clicks 'n' cuts electronics into vivid soundscapes. Over two years in the making, the resulting nine tracks are as sonically intriguing as they are touching. Ranging from the mellow bliss of the title track to echoes of 90's and 2000's electronica and ambient sequences frequented by mesmerizing movements and sounds. The blending of piano and digital tones and noises into emotive pieces might instantly recall the work of Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto, though System and Frahm come to quite different results.
Thomas Knak met Nils Frahm at one of his concerts in Copenhagen. They stayed in touch, exchanging thoughts and ideas. Two years later, Anders Remmer was also introduced to Nils. From then serious ideas for a collaboration formed. As Nils was a fan of System's self-titled debut album (released in 2002 via Pole's Scape label) their talks centred around Dub and minimalism, elements that constitute most of System's music as well as their side and solo projects. This in mind, System began producing sketches and brought them to Nils´ Durton Studio in Berlin in December 2015, where they recorded ten hours of him playing keys and effects to their drafts. Back in Copenhagen, they decided to change direction. - As Nils had told us about his fascination with our debut album, we tried to rediscover this minimal clicks 'n' cuts era. But hearing Nils playing to our rhythmic beds, we felt the need to scrap those beats and instead head in a more cinematic direction.'
So they started building new pieces from the Durton recordings, maintaining some of the minimal and static quality while new layers of synth sounds and noises created a richer and more organic quality compared to older System albums. The solo projects of Thomas (Opiate), Anders (Dub Tractor) and Jesper (Acustic) always relied on steady beats or rhythmic material, so the productions of 'Plus' with their focus on acoustic and melodic elements, ambient layers and cinematic moods, sees them pushing forward into new areas.
This way, the trio avoided copying what they had already done years ago, when they built a reputation as Denmark's prime originators within electronic music in the 90's and 2000's. 'Plus' is a triumphant example of collaborative experimentation and may be the dawn of a new era for System: - For us it was really satisfying to focus more on actual sound rather than rhythmic aspects. There is a lot of potential in this field, so it would only be natural for us to pursue this, maybe as a series of collaborations with other people who's music we admire.'




















