Suche:pat travers band

From its earliest utterances, experimental music has been particularly disposed to transnational and cross-cultural collaboration. Seeking the answer for a fundamental problem - how to transcend the boundaries of difference, distance, and time - it presents a means to find common ground and communicate through the elemental form of sound. Over the last 5 years, this precisely what the duo of Félicia Atkinson & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma has achieved, intertwining sublime sonorities across the geographic expanses between their respective homes in France and the United States. Their third album for Shelter Press, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ (‘A winter in the middle of summer’) - the first to have been largely recorded by Atkinson and Cantu-Ledesma together in the same space - distills a mesmerizing pallet of acoustic and electronic sources into an open discourse of radically poetic forms, offering glimpses of warmth and intimacy waiting in the post-covid world to come.

Both veteran experimentalists with celebrated bodies of solo work behind them - each traversing the challenges of electroacoustic practice in their own singular ways - prior to their first recorded outing in 2016, Félicia Atkinson and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma had only crossed paths in person once, initially meeting in San Fransisco during 2009. The mutual bond formed during that brief encounter flowered into their first LP, ‘Comme Un Seul Narcisse’, followed two years later by 2018’s ‘Limpid As The Solitudes’. Both recorded remotely - sending files back and forth, fortified by conversations on a vast range of subjects - these two albums were guided by impassioned conceptual nods to Guy Debord, Baudelaire, Brion Gysin and Sylvia Plath, while seeking resolutions for the challenges and unique possibilities that working at a distance provoked.

Where the triumphs of its predecessors rose from the bridging of disparate moments and divergent spaces, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ culminates as a celebration of closeness, a result of Atkinson and Cantu-Ledesma working together in the studio, responsively in real time, for the first time. Recorded in Brooklyn during August of 2019 - a handful of months before the pandemic would impose chasmic distances across the globe - its six discrete works, carefully crafted and finalized over the ensuing year, evolve seamlessly across the album’s two sides, weaving a sprawling tapestry of sonority, within which both artists retaining their own voices and visions, while drawing each other towards uncharted ground.

Atkinson likens the recording of ‘Un hiver en plein été’ to have been akin to “a playground”, each artist “hungry for each sound, a bit like the rush in the Louvre in Godard’s Bande à part”, to which Cantu-Ledesma adds that the process seemed to have had “a mind of its own”, with both “along for the ride”. This organic sense of entropy and enthusiasm - a joyous exploration of the unknown - guides the momentum of the album’s evolving arc, as unfolding chasms of ambient space ripple with humanity, life, and fleeting glimpses of the actions that led to its material core.

Crafted from deconstructed melodic elements and drifting long-tones - laden with subtle nods to Indian classical ragas and free jazz - searching patterns of speech, textural elements captured within the studio and the outside world, and searching tonal and percussive interventions, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ coheres as a multi-faceted series of electroacoustic dialogues; nesting conversations between two artists working at the juncture of abstraction and narration, field recording and harmony, and the philosophical and phenomenological, in search for the meaning of friendship, and its manifestation in pure sound.

"Released in October 1971, Frank Zappa’s “200 Motels” was a miraculous feat, a cinematic collision of the venerated musician and composer’s kaleidoscopic musical and visual worlds that brought together Zappa and his band, The Mothers, Ringo Starr as Zappa – as “a large dwarf” – Keith Moon as a perverted nun, Pamela Des Barres in her acting debut, noted thespian Theodore Bikel, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and an incredible assortment of characters (both on screen and off) for a “surrealistic documentary” about the bizarre life of a touring musician. The 2LP set : We are pleased to present the original soundtrack, a double-album set featuring all original packaging including the booklet & poster and a brand new remaster by legend Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering. Pressed on 180g black vinyl by Optimal Media in Germany.
In celebration of “200 Motels” golden anniversary, Zappa Records, UMC and MGM have assembled a definitive Super Deluxe six-disc box set of the beloved, yet hard to find, soundtrack. Fully authorized by the Zappa Trust and produced by Ahmet Zappa and Zappa Vaultmeister Joe Travers, the monstrous 200 Motels 50th Anniversary Edition brings together the original soundtrack, newly remastered by Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, along with a staggering amount of unreleased and rare material unearthed from FZ’s Vault, including original demos, studio outtakes, work mixes, interviews and movie ads, along with newly discovered dialog reels, revealing an early audio edit of the film. Also included is a wealth of never-before-heard audio documentary material surrounding the project.
The six-disc set will be housed in a 64-page hardcover book in a handsome 12” x 12” slipcase. The packaging replicates the original booklet updated with revealing new liner notes from Pamela Des Barres, Ruth Underwood and Joe Travers, as well as Patrick Pending’s essay from the 1997 reissue, and is chock full of motion picture artwork, stills and images, from the film and its making, many which have never been seen before. This must-have collector’s release will also include a custom “200 Motels” keychain and Do-No-Disturb motel door hanger and a full-size replica of the original movie poster. Years in the making, all the audio was meticulously identified and transferred over several years as Travers dug through the Vault to create a new high resolution 96K/24B digital patchwork stereo master from the original analog tapes. The Vault material was mastered by John Polito in 2021. We are pleased to present the original soundtrack on 2 compact discs featuring all original packaging including the booklet & poster and a brand-new remaster by legend Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering. *Existing orders still stand."

‘The Alienist: Angel Of Darkness (Original Series
Soundtrack)’ is now available on vinyl.
 The album features music by Ivor Novello Awardwinning composer Bobby Krlic (The Haxan Cloak).
 The album is pressed on blue vinyl, with a deluxe
spined sleeve with deboss artwork and the vinyl itself
housed in its own double sided inner sleeve. Digital
download card included.
 Bobby Krlic is an award-winning British artist,
composer and music producer based in Los Angeles.
Over the past decade, Krlic has created music under
the The Haxan Cloak, releasing two critically
acclaimed full-length albums (2011’s ‘The Haxan
Cloak’ and 2013’s ‘Excavation’) and touring
extensively as a solo artist building a devout fanbase.
As a producer, Krlic has worked with artists including
Björk, Khalid, Troye Sivan, Goldfrapp, serpentwithfeet,
The Body and noise-rock band HEALTH.
 Krlic scored Ari Aster’s 2019 horror film ‘Midsommar’,
earning him an Ivor Novello Award for Best Original
Film Score. Last year, he made new music for ‘Red
Dead Online’ and also co-produced Father John
Misty’s ‘To S.’ and ‘To R.’.
 An unflinching, gripping, turn-of-the-century murder
mystery that traverses both New York’s wealthy elite
and the struggling underbelly of the city’s ‘Gilded Age’,
‘The Alienist’ follows Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Brühl),
a brilliant and obsessive ‘alienist’ in the controversial
new field of treating mental pathologies.

Frank Zappa’s “200 Motels” was a miraculous feat, a cinematic collision of the venerated musician and composer’s kaleidoscopic musical and visual worlds that brought together Zappa and his band, The Mothers, Ringo Starr as Zappa – as “a large dwarf” – Keith Moon as a perverted nun, Pamela Des Barres in her acting debut, noted thespian Theodore Bikel, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and an incredible assortment of characters (both on screen and off) for a “surrealistic documentary” about the bizarre life of a touring musician. In celebration of “200 Motels” golden anniversary, Zappa Records, UMC and MGM have assembled a definitive Super Deluxe six-disc box set of the beloved, yet hard to find, soundtrack for release on November 19. Fully authorized by the Zappa Trust and produced by Ahmet Zappa and Zappa Vaultmeister Joe Travers, the monstrous 200 Motels 50th Anniversary Edition brings together the original soundtrack, newly remastered by Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, along with a staggering amount of unreleased and rare material unearthed from FZ’s Vault, including original demos, studio outtakes, work mixes, interviews and movie ads, along with newly discovered dialog reels, revealing an early audio edit of the film. Also included is a wealth of never-before-heard audio documentary material surrounding the project. The six-disc set will be housed in a 64-page hardcover book in a handsome 12” x 12” slipcase. The packaging replicates the original booklet updated with revealing new liner notes from Pamela Des Barres, Ruth Underwood and Joe Travers, as well as Patrick Pending’s essay from the 1997 reissue, and is chock full of motion picture artwork, stills and images, from the film and its making, many which have never been seen before. This must-have collector’s release will also include a custom “200 Motels” keychain and Do-No-Disturb motel door hanger and a full-size replica of the original movie poster. Years in the making, all the audio was meticulously identified and transferred over several years as Travers dug through the Vault to create a new high resolution 96K/24B digital patchwork stereo master from the original analog tapes. The Vault material was mastered by John Polito in 2021. The remastered 200 Motels soundtrack will also be reissued on vinyl as a 2LP pressed on 180-gram black vinyl and on a 2CD format - both will include a smaller version of the movie poster.

‘The record is inspired by the idea of humanity’s ever-increasing entanglement with technology and artificial intelligence, balancing fears and moral concerns with the possibilities of evolution’s next phase’

A new Soccer96 album is a chance for Danalogue (Dan Leavers) and Betamax (Maxwell Hallett) to return to something of a spiritual creative home. Between them, the keyboardist and drummer have become synonymous with the thriving London jazz scene and, in their mind-bending incarnation as the astral synths-and-drums pairing, they’ve traversed stylistic worlds. Over nearly a decade, the duo have metamorphosed from a DIY outfit whose rough-edged recordings hit with a punk spirit, to cosmic dreamers that use sound to travel the reaches of the mind.

First single Dopamine features Nuha Ruby Ra on vocals who sings from the perspective of human and machine throughout the track. This concept overlaps with the music seamlessly, forming a meeting point between technological and human exploration.

Dialogues between the band and Nuha crystallised a shared vision of a future where humans and artificial intelligence are entangled in a codependent relationship based on the giving and receiving of pleasure hormones, the robots only source of dopamine is to receive it from humans, and the humans’ ability to unleash the monsters of the worst of human emotion.

Danalogue and Nuha sing together ‘It’s a Long Way down’ .. the feeling of jumping from the cliff of our current state as humans and ‘free-falling’ into the unknown of robot-human intertwining. By the outro they are pleading with each other over their dopamine co-dependency, in terms of both giving and receiving the hit. "Dependency leads to free-falling integration, a moment of freefall into robotic consciousness. Humans and machines are locked in a dance of addiction." explains Betamax.

Soccer96 has always been a vessel for Danalogue and Betamax to find clear water from their multitude of other collaborations, their most notable being as two-thirds of The Comet Is Coming alongside Shabaka Hutchings. Danalogue’s other recent production credits include Snapped Ankles and Calabashed, whilst Betamax has been making music with Champagne Dub and Coma World.

“Through collaborating with various artists and developing our own sonic language, it feels like we have created a sound of our own,” says Danalogue. “Now we think less literally and take more liberties to not necessarily sound like a duo. It’s more like a production team that can be augmented or stripped back depending on what the music calls for.”

Dopamine, though, sees the pair back together once again, incubating their findings of the past two years and moving Soccer96 into new territories. The record is maybe darker in some senses than what they’ve put out before; it’s inspired by the idea of transhumanism and humanity’s ever-increasing entanglement with technology and artificial intelligence It balances fears and moral concerns with the possibilities of evolution’s next phase. “The LP title Dopamine refers to the type of neurotransmitter associated with pleasure, that enables technology to hack into our minds and control us, creating addiction, dependency,” Betamax explains.

Dopamine began life as a sonic reaction to the graphic novels of ‘Moebius’ Jean Giraud. The duo then started swapping reel-to-reel tape ideas through each other’s letterboxes in lockdown, before eventually convening in the studio and displaying one of the revered French artist’s images in the middle of the studio for inspiration.

“All musical decisions would centre around this image,” Betamax says. “It was a depiction of a cosmic traveller gazing across a desert at a sort of crystal city. If the music was resonating with the image then we knew we were on the right path. We are both glad there is a lot of emotional warmth underpinning the whole thing. We are trying to connect with the human essence at all times.”

This journey, this slowly drifting sonic meditation, is an 'inner soundscape', a dialogue between the senses, the conscience and the world, inside / outside, interconnected. Like waking up from a long dream, and being stuck into its echo. The April Sessions immerges the listener into a drone-ish universe, full of random acousmatic events, inner monologues and a vast and unwritten subjective map to be drawn.

The April Sessions has been living in a seedy hotel in Brussels for a few months. She listens to the sparse traffic outside her window, locked in and locked down. 'Everything is constructed', she says to herself, 'even the sound of a solitary aircraft at 25,000 feet traverses the sky no further out than the inside of my skull'. Other weird sonic phenomena criss-cross the inner cosmos of her brain and streak across her private sky like comets. And then there is the unshakeable presence of that inner monologue, known to her variously as the Tacit Dictator, the Subvocaliser and, nightmarishly enough, the voice of the Merlucid Hake. (Anthony Moore, St Leonards, 10th of March 2021)

Anthony Moore, Dirk Specht and Tobias Grewenig have known each other and worked together since the early 2000s. They have collectively participated in a number of projects including live performances and recordings. In 2016, as part of The Missing Present Band, they released the live LP 'The Present Is Missing' on A-Musik. The following year they released 'Ore Talks', a double LP, realised in collaboration with Therapeutische Hörgruppe Köln.

Anthony Moore was born in 1948, founded the band Slapp Happy (circa 1972) with Peter Blegvad and Dagmar Krause, then worked alongside a.o. Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson in the unclassifiable band Henry Cow. He released several solo albums, composed soundtracks for experimental movies. His path also crossed Kevin Ayers's, Pink Floyd's, Richard Wright's. He was appointed professor for research into sound and music in the context of new media at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany. He still continues to write and perform.

Dirk Specht is a sound artist, musician and curator. He studied architecture and media art and is active in the fields of sound works for choreography, radio drama, sound art, film and video art soundtracks. He published releases with several bands and projects. He has been an assistant for research into sound from 2011 to 2016 at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, and is a founding member of Therapeutische Hörgruppe Köln.

Tobias Grewenig studied at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. He primarily deals with non-linearity in his audiovisual installative works and performances, including projects with the artist group 'Therapeutische Hörgruppe Köln', the ensemble 'The Knob, The Finger & The It' and the improvisation collective "Frequenzwechsel". The conception and development of electronic instruments and code is a key component of his artistic work. He lives and works in Cologne.

“WOLF KING” have returned with a follow up to 2018’s blistering release, Loyal To The Soil. Having lost none of their bite, everyone’s favorite Bay Area blackened heavy metal band has crafted a twelve track opus that will set 2021 off to a smouldering start. The Path of Wrath tells real life tales of existential struggles and explorations of life and death. This abrasive take on mortality and the afterlife traverses themes of judgement, salvation, and looking ‘beyond the veil’. As they pick over the weight of sin and uncover the burdens of both damnation and forgiveness, ripples of pure darkness infiltrate every crevice of the album. Few do blackened heavy metal better than WOLF KING. For an uncompromising, filth-drenched, smoke-infused take on the genre, The Path of Wrath delivers the goods and then some.

Lost Futures is a new label that explores experimental and often radical approaches to dance music from the past. In a musical landscape that increasingly claims to seek and reward new forms and ideas, Lost Futures delves into the recent past to revisit forward-thinking, optimistic projects that, owing to the social, musical or outright political climate, perhaps struggled to find an audience. Allowing only time to re-contextualise these leftfield, sometimes misunderstood and ultimately human bodies of work, Lost Futures taps into the inherent idealism of rave.

LF001 trips back until the early nineties to revisit the alternative scene emerging from the Dutch city of Utrecht. Here, three young men - DJ Zero One (Sander Friedeman), TJ Tape TV (Arno Peeters) and DJ White Delight (Richard van der Giessen) - joined forces to form 'The Awax Foundation'. Inspired by the transcendent and revolutionary electronic music arriving on their shores imported from Chicago and Detroit, combining their knowledge, gear and ever-expanding vinyl collection allowed additional freedom in paying sincere tribute to these intoxicating sounds, while also developing their tastes in a more personal, eclectic direction.

The musical flavours of Awax initially leaned toward acid house and the roots of techno. However, with three different mindsets in the mix, their tastes were rarely fixed. One thing each shared in common was a devotion to collecting rare sounds, specifically more adventurous and international samples than those emanating from the increasingly-hard, masculine dance music emerging from the Netherlands during the period. Inspired by the cross-over global sound of bands like Suns of Arqa, or 'World Music', as it was perhaps patronisingly termed at the time, the trio became interested in the idea of making techno with 'ethnic instruments'.

Of course, this being 1992, none of The Awax Foundation had access to such instruments, instead, they had a vast, collective library of samples from all over the world. There were no collaborations and no clear plan. Instead, they set to work using a Yamaha TX16W sampler, the legendary Atari 1040ST computer, a cheap mixing desk and a couple of low-end synths and FX machines. When Richard mentioned the project to his friend, Akin Fernandez, the London DJ and owner of cult label Irdial Discs, Fernandez was intrigued enough to invite the trio to record a one-hour show for his 'Monster Music Radio' series on London's then-burgeoning Kiss FM.

Forced to come up with a name, 'CultureClash' seemed like the obvious choice, even if the members of Awax were only creatively sparring among themselves. Along with the term 'ethno-techno', slightly dubious to a hopefully more conscious Western audience in 2017, these were the only guiding principles to the quietly ambitious project that soon combined cutting-edge machine rhythms with samples sourced from everywhere from Bolivia to Togo, and inspired by everything from Ravi Shankar's epic soundtrack to the Oscar-winning movie Ghandi, to the technical limits of their own setup requiring a dazzling degree of cut-and-paste work. Some tracks even emerged out of academic studies within the ethnomusicology department at The University of Amsterdam.

The show aired on October 2nd, 1992, recorded in one blistering take and without any rehearsals, traversing a huge variety of tempos and styles. If the performance wasn't seamless, it was undeniably thrilling, fresh and ambitious. As such, several labels, including Fernandez's aforementioned Irdial Discs expressed an interesting in commercially releasing CultureClash, while another imprint proposed a series of twelve-inches and an album. But the sheer complexity of the project meant that it never saw the light of day, while the trio embarked on different journeys ahead, both creative and personal.

Twenty five years later, and the original CultureClash lineup and founding members of The Awax Foundation provide the sound of the first release from Lost Futures. An otherworldly, ambitious and optimistic compilation, accompanied by extensive sleeve notes from the trio, CultureClash is a timeless ode to experimentation in dance music's ever-overlapping culture.