Author: dave
Nuuk
Mille Plateaux present a reissue of Thomas Köner’s Nuuk, originally published as one of four CDs on the 1997 compilation Driftworks and re-released in 2004 by MillePlateauxMedia. Thomas Köner is one of the most influential modernist minimal composers. Alongside Wolfgang Voigt‘s Gas project, Köner has been centrally responsible for electronic music’s fascination with depth and reduction. His signature sound is vast, seemingly endless, which at first seems homogenous and infinite, but once exposed to it, when our senses calibrate to the fine nuances of changes, you discover and immerse into abundance of textures, richness of modulations, and almost infinite range of sonic titillations. Köner’s work was inspired by his frequent travels in the Arctic, and listeners feel his music as a journey to mysterious worlds of the Arctic region. The experience of being exposed to the extreme cold, the heightening of our senses and ability to notice even the slightest changes in color, sound, light or density that creates this dangerously reductive environment, is like an immersion in the sonic world of this German artist, where masterfully crafted layers of sound open into colossal spaces, teeming with aural life, waiting to be discovered by those who venture into it. The titles of Köner’s highly regarded albums from the ’90s ever so often play with this affinity — Nunatak, Permafrost, Teimo — all reference to the world of the Artic region, just as his album Nuuk that points us to the capital of Greenland. Subdued and minimal at first glance, this album is brimming with low-end frequencies, shadowy resonances, and boreal ambience, but at the same time, constant fluctuation and vulnerability of sonic events, makes it very organic, human and almost comforting, like the tiny harbor existing in the sea of ice, it is named after. It also served as the source of music material and inspiration for Thomas Köner’s video art by the same title, which was awarded a Tiger Cub Award at the 34th International Film Festival in Rotterdam a year later.
Love’s Secret Domain (30th Anniversary Edition)
PRE-ORDER…EXPECTED TO ARRIVE IN JUNE, BUT DELAYS ARE POSSIBLE.
Legendary Chicago label Wax Trax! is re-releasing Love’s Secret Domain in single and double vinyl editions (each edition is available in your choice of black vinyl or colored vinyl). The CD is also being re-released.
The deluxe edition of the vinyl consists of two LPs with all thirteen tracks from the CD edition.
1991 was a transition year in the format wars, and the CD release of Love’s Secret Domain utilized the longer running time of the format to offer 13 tracks instead of 9. For our Deluxe Edition we’ve split these full tracks across 2 LP’s in a completely separate pressing that features the expanded 13 tracks.
Remastered by Josh Bonati from original source materials, the Deluxe Edition includes a booklet with liner notes from Drew Daniel (Matmos) and quotes from Stephen Thrower, Rose McDowall, Steven Stapleton, Charles Hayward, Billy McGee, Marc Almond, Andy Wombwell and Annie Bandez.
Like the Standard Edition, the Deluxe Edition will be available in both Black and a color variant but the expanded 2LP set will not be repressed after this run. When they’re gone, they’re gone.
Gobi. The Vinyl Edit 2021
Originally released on CD in 1999, Astral Industries present the first vinyl issue of Monolake‘s much-loved Gobi, licensed from Imbalance Computer Music. Set to the backdrop of the Gobi Desert in eastern Asia, two shimmering vistas plunge the listener into a vast and deeply hypnotic nocturnal soundscape. The perennial hiss and rattle of insects float along the fresh night air in soft waves. The desert thrives with quiet activity as a westerly wind skitters across moonlit dunes, granulated folds dancing like sheets of thin silk. Tectonic plates murmur beneath the shower of stars overhead, their millennial cycles whispering of aeons past. Vividly textured and enticingly synthetic in its sound design, Gobi succeeds as a stunning piece of minimalism.
Sinedub & Other Numbers
Who is Chaircrusher and what does he want? Apparently he’s a dude named Kent Williams and he runs a ‘banging techno’ label called Cornwarning straight outta the fields of Iowa. Not exactly the cultural hotbed for electronica in the US of A, but, hey, stranger things have happened, right? Sonically though, all evidence on hand suggests that Chaircrusher’s first full-length release is going to change the profile of his homestate in a big way. Williams has no doubt fed himself a steady diet of all the rough ’n’ tumble IDM, electronica, and techno hybrids of the last few decades (Atom Heart, Norken, Bochum Welt, Lagowski, Bigeneric, et al), shoved ‘em all in the biggest cuisinart he could find, and poured the ear-popping, tone-stretched, body-warping results right into our wanting ears. It’s all a grand, glorious, gelatinous mass of expert knob twiddling, full of much in the way of low-end bass surge, will o’ the wisp synths curdling into space, rhythms that hiss and spit the colors of burnt sienna, and an energy quotient arising from an orgy of silicon swackdaddies getting down in the digital dust. If Pete Namlook prided himself on forging the ultimate strain of environmental mood alterers, the furniture music of Chaircrusher would be PA-ing its way like a psychedelic scythe through the disco lounge. Git yer bad moonboots on.
Celestial Observations
Celestial Observations was created in Autumn 2020, the album only utilises sounds that came from my various synthesizers.
What started out as experiment with layering monophonic drones, created mainly on the Moog grandmother at first it developed by various modulation patching of each part the sound would morph and change over time.
I recorded these long droning/morphing passages and eventually built on top of these foundations with some polyphonic patches I created on the Prophet Rev2 & Novation Supernova.
In some pieces however they only consist of monophonic sounds, on tracks one & four.
Within a few weeks I had the bones of an album, six tracks in all but I narrowed it down to five pieces, the omitted piece will be used elsewhere in the future. I felt these works definitely had an other worldly expanse to them and had a sense of dark & light and gave me a feeling of exploring the vastness of universe & beyond.
The title “Celestial Observations” seemed apt
I hope you enjoy my return to the more “Space Ambient” spectrum on this album
Mick Chillage
Feb 2021.
Impact Release
We’re Already There
Consolidated, the political dance/industrial music band from the early ’90s joined again for a studio session in San Francisco last summer, resulting in a new album, We’re Already There. The first release on Consolidated’s own label The End Of Records. What else to expect, the new recordings are an innovating mix of industrial, to hip-hop, to rock and funk with mixtures of live instruments and electronics. Topped with left political activism and politically radical lyrics address issues such as America, Covid, and ecocide with song “The Flood”, demand “Free Music, Stop America” with “Musica Sin Frontieras” and welcome guest vocalist Greta Thunberg on the track “The Ol’ Mass Extinction Blues”. The album starts in “traditionalConsolidatedgroove” with the song “Capitalism A.F.”, a mix of beats, industrial sounds, and hip-hop. Followed by funky pop songs, danceable industrial jams, techno beats, reggae, and blues influences plus a remarkable noise track. Main musicians are Adam Sherburne (guitar/vocals) and Mark Pistel (synths/beats) backed by Lynn Farmer (Meat Beat Manifesto) on drums, who replaces the original drummer Phil Steir. The complete album is recorded, mixed and mastered by Mark Pistel at “Room 5” in San Francisco. The cover shows art paintings from Ayelet Hay (front) and William Kendall (back). On We’re Already There, Consolidated plays more music than ever. “I have zero interest in being in a band, especially my own…” “I had to develop a different way to be involved with music for aesthetic and mental health reasons…” “FREE MUSIC! is not to the detriment of artists, it’s literally the end of artists-as anyone perceives them in the last 500 years” –Adam Sherburne. Consolidated are known for their live performances, in which a microphone is passed among audience members to discuss, rebut, argue or elaborate on song topics. Consolidated: Adam Sherburne and Mark Pistel.
We’re Already There
Consolidated, the political dance/industrial music band from the early ’90s joined again for a studio session in San Francisco last summer, resulting in a new album, We’re Already There. The first release on Consolidated’s own label The End Of Records. What else to expect, the new recordings are an innovating mix of industrial, to hip-hop, to rock and funk with mixtures of live instruments and electronics. Topped with left political activism and politically radical lyrics address issues such as America, Covid, and ecocide with song “The Flood”, demand “Free Music, Stop America” with “Musica Sin Frontieras” and welcome guest vocalist Greta Thunberg on the track “The Ol’ Mass Extinction Blues”. The album starts in “traditionalConsolidatedgroove” with the song “Capitalism A.F.”, a mix of beats, industrial sounds, and hip-hop. Followed by funky pop songs, danceable industrial jams, techno beats, reggae, and blues influences plus a remarkable noise track. Main musicians are Adam Sherburne (guitar/vocals) and Mark Pistel (synths/beats) backed by Lynn Farmer (Meat Beat Manifesto) on drums, who replaces the original drummer Phil Steir. The complete album is recorded, mixed and mastered by Mark Pistel at “Room 5” in San Francisco. The cover shows art paintings from Ayelet Hay (front) and William Kendall (back). On We’re Already There, Consolidated plays more music than ever. “I have zero interest in being in a band, especially my own…” “I had to develop a different way to be involved with music for aesthetic and mental health reasons…” “FREE MUSIC! is not to the detriment of artists, it’s literally the end of artists-as anyone perceives them in the last 500 years” –Adam Sherburne. Consolidated are known for their live performances, in which a microphone is passed among audience members to discuss, rebut, argue or elaborate on song topics. Consolidated: Adam Sherburne and Mark Pistel.
Zauberberg
Zauberberg — Wolfgang Voigt‘s most fundamental (and foreboding) release under his alias GAS and perhaps of all in his untold discography — finally stands alone once again and is released in the way its original splendor. Originally released in 1997 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint Mille Plateaux, and then reissued in 2016 as a part of GAS Box(KOM 370LP, 2016), Zauberberg is now released on CD on his own label, Kompakt. Though this narcotic symphony is not the first release under the GAS moniker, Zauberberg is the first to disclose the true nature of Wolfgang Voigt’s unified sound and ideology as GAS. Layers of ominous intensity supported by muffled kick drums as classical music loops incessantly swirl with no direction, Zauberberg is the definitive GAS album and a perfect starting point for those not familiar with his music.
