Novità Dalla Dense Di Berlino.Hello,
welcome to newsletter 053 from Dense Promotion.
It’s the last one for this year, and so we would like to thank you for being
with us another year.
We’re gonna finish 2004 with some really extraordinary titles. Have fun tracking
them down.
We wish you a happy new year and a nice x-mas time with your family and friends,
wherever you may be.
Yours
The Dense Promotion Team
>>> >>> >>>
Contents:
ARBEIT – Marx [CD Grob] CHEVRON – Everything’s Exactly the Same [CD/LP Planet Mu] DDAMAGE – Pressure [EP Planet Mu] DIE WELTTRAUMFORSCHER – 21 Weltraum-Standards [2CD/LP Staubgold] GUTEVOLK – Twinkle [CDEP Happy] KONK PACK – Off Leash [CD Grob] KYO ICHINOSE – Lontano [CD cubic music] LAMBENT – these days [CD/LP Expanding] MARSEN JULES – Herbstlaub [CD/LP City Centre Offices] MONOCEROS – When i was a child i wanted to be an astronaut [CD/LP Expanding] PITA – Get Off [CD Häpna] POLA – Meme [CD Plop] ROD – All My Love EP [Underscan 12″/CD] V.A. – MONIKA FORCE [CD Monika Enterprise] V.A. – THE AGENTS OF IMPURITY [Book&CD Sonic Arts Network]
please reply if you’re interested in reviewing any of the releases but before
please check the territory specifications below.
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ARBEIT – Marx [CD Grob 657] http://www.churchofgrob.com
Which musical expression actually fits the working class? Fifteen years after
state-run socialism was finally discredited and in times, which – at least in
the still rich Northwest – has been stamped by the culture industrial bread and
game complex and the progressing deregulation of the working market?
Or to put it more precisely, which form would the great song tradition of the
German worker movement – like that of Hanns Eisler, the composer, Bert Brecht,
the poet, and Ernst Busch, the actor and singer, a tradition full of traditional
song heritage – have to take on, in order to comment upon today’s atmosphere of
decay and resignation within the workers’ movement (which really has become a
movement of union bureaucrats and representatives)?
“arbeit” [in German, “work”], the Frankfurt group of Marcel Daemgen, Oliver
Augst and Christoph Korn (active in Blank last year, see GROB 538 and the
current GROB 653) asked themselves this question in the scope of a project made
possible by German Radio. What has remained unredeemed of the questioning of the
revolutionary workers’ movement and its aesthetic intervention? What has not
worn down in the course of time via the demoralizing strategy and party
development discussions? What stands for a utopian-critical content, which
points beyond historical material, that lifts [aufhebt] it in all three meanings
of the word [annul, lift and compensate]?
Daemgen, Augst, Korn and their guests do not deal with the material squeamishly,
but rather bet on the necessary radicalism. Their music is brutish, noisy,
nerve-racking and shrill, or the exact opposite of this: nearly inaudibly quiet.
“The International” sounds like a pop hymn, “Off, off to fight” shudders with
fear via an apocalyptic foundational tone, Franz Fanon is cited and Tony Cliff,
a communist dissident. It is a matter of the construction, albeit in vain, of a
better Germany, of the German Democratic Republic and of the (hidden) self doubt
in all the pathos of construction. The band uses its musical means freely and
souverainly. They know the improvisations, the hard rock, the new music and the
Frankfurt techno of the larger discos. But never does this freedom fall into any
old way. MARX is hard, but still joyful work (sic!) on the material.
The CD is called MARX – and it reminds one not of the contemporary Marx, who had
little in common with the working poets in his surroundings, from Herwegh to
Freiligrath, who at best appreciated Heine and Georg Weerth – who died very
early – and who honored Balzac, who was of a clear and clairvoyant vision. It a
matter of preserving, or rather of winning anew an equally reflective and
incorruptible radical position, for which Marx and his critique upon the
political economy exemplarily stands.
>>>
CHEVRON – Everything’s Exactly the Same [CD/LP Planet Mu ZIQ092]
-> no promo in UK, Benelux
http://www.planet-mu.com
Debut album from Chevron (Jonathan Valentine – on Valentine’s day naturally).
Melodic breakcore, poppy 2-step and cartoon jungle make this the most upfront
album yet from the breakcore scene. Quite a few vocal tracks litter the album &
remind me of Mouse on Mars’s earlier period but with a strong Rave and Belgian
Hardcore influence.
Reference points: Acen, T99, Venetian Snares, Kate Bush. Comes with fold out
poster sleeve.
>>>
DDAMAGE – Pressure [EP Planet Mu ZIQ108]
-> no promo in UK and Benelux
http://www.planet-mu.com
Follow up e.p. to the fantastic “Radio Ape” album, dDamage have been taking
France by storm with their eclectic take on instrumental hiphop beats and
electronic sounds. We take the album’s lead track and back it with 3 new
compositions from the Parisian brothers.
Blasts of analogue noise, pummelling hip-hop beats, buzz-saw synths and delicate
female vocals make a strange combination but it works!
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DIE WELTTRAUMFORSCHER – 21 Weltraum-Standards [2CD/LP Staubgold 57]
-> Promo only in UK, France, Benelux, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe
http://www.staubgold.com
Staubgold goes Pop with the Welttraumforscher.
First things first: Staubgold are immensely proud to present this cooperation
with one of Europe’s most enduring avantgarde pop groups ever.
Since their formation in Zurich in 1978, the Welttraumforscher’s music has been
moving to and fro in a field marked by the cornerstones of the classic pop song
as epitomised by Burt Bacharach or Simon and Garfunkel, the emotional barrenness
of Nick Drake’s compositions, the escapism of Syd Barrett and electronic
homerecording-miniatures of cinematic dimensions as [co-]developed by Der Plan
and Cabaret Voltaire.
In the first 25 years of their existence the band created a body of work
surrounded by a mystic aura similar to that of the Residents – with the
difference that Welttraumforscher-Mastermind Christian Pfluger has never tried
to stay anonymous. At the beginning of the Eighties he started the band’s own
Monif label which henceforth released almost all of the band’s output, at first
exclusively on cassettes, and from the middle of the Eighties also on limited
vinyl editions. Since 1993 the band has also issued their music on cd. ’21
Weltraum-Standards’ does not lay claim to being a representative cross-section
of the band’s output over the last 25 years; the intention of this compilation
is more one of presenting the Welttraumforscher from their friendliest and more
accessible side, thus trying to introduce them to a larger audience.
The vinyl version of the “21 Weltraum-Standards” will be released as a single lp
while the digital version will appear in the form of a double cd (for the price
of a normal cd!). The latter will include the album ‘..remixen die
Welttraumforscher’, formerly released as a vinyl-only on Felix Kubin’s label
Gagarin Records and which has long sold out. This album contains remixes by
Mouse on Mars, Barbara Morgenstern, FX Randomiz, Neoangin, Schlammpeitziger,
Minitchev, Nova Huta, Harald “Sack” Ziegler, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Joe Tabu and
Klangwart. As a bonus the CD is augmented by two most charming (but then what of
the Welttraumforscher’s output could defy that adjective?) and hitherto
unreleased videos of the band.
Produced and compiled by Tim Tetzner.
>>>
GUTEVOLK – Twinkle [CDEP Happy HAP002] http://www.12k.com/happy
Gutevolk is the solo project of Hirono Nishiyama, whose previous releases on
Noble and Childisc defy categorization with an eclectic musical fusion of
electronics, bossa nova, and quirky pop playfulness.
Twinkle is her follow-up to 2003’s Suomi (Noble, Tokyo) in which she has created
6 songs (stories/dreams) that intentionally stand on their own, as opposed to
one unifi ed whole. During the creation of Twinkle Nishiyama read and took much
infl uence from the stories and rhymes of Mother Goose; weaving much of their
surreal, yet childlike imagery, into her songs. With this, she mixed a
fascination with space science and immersed herself in knowledge of stars,
moons, and black holes during the album’s writing process.
The result is a very peculiar and unique sound that is both light and dark.
Uptempo loops, hooks, and lyrical imagery loop and intertwine with wistful,
dreamlike vocals and off-centered chords and textures.
>>>
KONK PACK – Off Leash [CD Grob 654] http://www.churchofgrob.com
Off Leash is the third release of the delicate high-energy trio Konk Pack –
founded in 1998 and made up of Thomas Lehn on EMS-synthesizer, Roger Turner on
drums and Tim Hodgkinson on la-top steel guitar and clarinet.
Big Deep (1999, GROB 102) was a selection of their first concerts: Warp Out
(2001, GROB 323) was the first studio recording. Off Leash is a live recording
again, from a concert in Utrecht in 2001 that was made under most favorable
conditions conceivable. The sound is superb, the details of the live performance
can be heard in the CD’s tonal image, the instruments are present and clear. If
you close your eyes, you can easily imagine sitting directly in a stirring
concert. But what are the best recording conditions worth with the music cannot
keep with them?
Off Leash bears up to the musicians’ critical ears. For the first time they are
so convinced of their own concert that they found it valuable to release it in
its entirety on a CD. (This, by the way, is why the CD is only being released
now: they listened to the music again and again, checked it, compared it to
other recordings, and then it was mastered by Thomas Lehn in the end.) For the
first time, Off Leash offers the opportunity of following an entire Konk Pack
improvisation in real time, without any post production dramaturgy and
cosmetics. The extremely powerful passages, their legendary free punk, is in a
perfectly balanced proportion to the peaceful, sometimes fragile, passages that
nearly crumble apart.
The music is both: it is consistent, like of a cast, like from a group that had
played far more than 100 concerts (which is seldom in the world of improvised
music); the music, however, is also eruptive, often surprising, fragmentary and
heterogeneous. The music from Konk Pack is the contradiction made productive:
finely engraved tonal work and hard free punk are not placed non-reconcilably
next to each other; in fact, they determine each other
An essential reason for this is the radically horizontal improvisational method
of the musicians. All three constantly play with each other. There is no fore or
background, no soloists and no accompaniment; in general no solo and no
“feature” of one individual. The system “Konk Pack” means that each has to
constantly keep the other two in his ear. Their music is and remains
consequently collective. Off Leash, the Utrecht concert, is currently the best
live recording of their holy palaver.
The cover art work is from Tim Hodgkinson and Roger Turner.
>>>
KYO ICHINOSE – Lontano [CD cubic music cubicmusic14]
http://www.cubicmusic.com
http://www.kyo-ichinose.net
cubic music is proud to announce the release of Kyo Ichinose’s second album
“lontano”.
Ichinose started his musical career as a composer of contemporary music when he
was in Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.
Now he keeps on expanding his activity domain as a musician/composer/sound
artist stepping across various fields of music and sounds like classic,
contemporary art, electronica, sound design.
“lontano” is Ichinose’s second album following his impressive debut album “The
Machieneries of Joy – Yorokobi no Kikai” (2002, current/ directed by Yoshihiro
Hanno). “lontano” is an Italian word which means “from a distance” and also be
used as an instruction “play as if heard from a distance/like echoes” in
classical scores.
“I always wish if the sound could be free from cheap and common “emotions” and
be heard from somewhere beautiful and far beyond.” You will know that he
successfully reflected the desire on his opus after you went through the
atmosphere that reminds us of humidity of black forest, or rumbling from deep
inside of the sea. Ichinose smartly packed two different approaches – one is
structured by classical strings based on accurate scores, the other is textured
with modern electronica/ambient flavors.
Going through his career from installations in public spaces to compositions for
TV commercials, Ichinose brushed up his way of sublimation of sensuous images to
composition.
It can be said that “lontano”is not only an intimate snapshot of Ichinose’s
existing worldview, also a monumental work which points wonder of openness and
sincerity of music which cannot be covered with simplistic categorize or cheap
tricks.
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LAMBENT – these days [CD/LP Expanding ecd17:04/eva9:04]
-> no Promo in UK
http://www.expandingrecords.com
Lambent is Akira Inagawa he was born in Japan but now lives in Berlin.
The album ‘These Days’ is a project based on tracks making a diary of a
particular time in Akira’s life, the basis for each track made in just one day.
No computers were used in the making of the album, Akira works with samplers and
synthesizers prefering a more hands on live approach to recording.
He started making music as part of a sculpture project while studying sculpture
at art college in London and while he was at college he met the guys from the
london label ‘Insine’ it was then that he started to release tracks of mostly
ambient music and began playing live.
In 2002 he moved to Berlin and became a part of the electronica scene there
playing live electronica and as a hip hop dj. He has also makes music for dance
performance groups, video artists and web sites.
In 2003 he toured with Arovane and the Tokyo label Progressive Form, he’s also
recently played in Berlin with Fluxion, Andreas Tillander, and Jamie Lidell.
>>>
MARSEN JULES – Herbstlaub [CD/LP City Centre Offices Towerblock 023]
-> promo only in France, Northern and Eastern Europe
http://www.city-centre-offices.de
Simply translated as “autumn leaves”,”Herbstlaub” offers an ethereal narrative
that accompanies both its title and artwork perfectly. The tools of construction
are almost irrelevant here – although Martin manages to weave samples and live
instruments in a manner that’s almost impossible to fathom: the recording of a
string trio, a harp orchestra, a symphony in rehearsal – all pieced and
unraveled alongside his own played instruments. Martin sets out to paint a
picture made up entirely of sounds, layer by layer you find yourself at first
engulfed by a sparse shedding of leaves, (turning into a deep hue of rusty brown
before your very eyes), the air starts to thicken, the atmosphere closes in as
the leaves form a weave across the horizon and dusk turns the world into an
intimate, impossibly
romantic space. The soundtrack evolves without the interference of beats or
unnecessary padding:
it’s an exposed, infinitely evocative study of emotion and space without a hint
of academic
intention or impenetrable experimentation.
Everything around you starts to unfurl with endless strings and delicate loops
that don’t seem to have a beginning or an end – an autumnal symphony built with
the greatest respect for tradition but that couldn’t have been made at any other
point in time except this – the juncture we’ve reached where technology enables
tradition to hide under so many mysterious, impossible layers. It’s a symphony
carefully constructed, designed to draw you into its sweet tasting, thick fog.
Step inside and, like us, you won’t want to come back out for a while.
>>>
MONOCEROS – When i was a child i wanted to be an astronaut [CD/LP Expanding
ecd18:04/eva10:04]
-> no Promo in UK
http://www.expandingrecords.com
Monoceros is Joan Male’ who lives and works in a little town called Sant Marti
D’empuries by the sea in Spain in Girona just above Barcelona, ‘When i was a
child i wanted to be an astronaut’ is his debut album. His first instrument was
a casiotone at the age of 10 moving on to a commodore 64 then to a guitar at the
age of 13. He played and recorded with several bands but in 1996-97 started to
listen electronic music, bought his first computer instead of a new guitar and
started working on his own
electronic music. After several projects (dance oriented, ambient, noise) he
played some gigs in Barcelona including the LEM festival in 2000 and released a
12″ with his house project Lumiere. He then began an electronica project called
Salad which was the precursor of Monoceros.
Joan also took the cover photo for the album which is part of a series of
experimental photographs using just the light of the full moon.
As well as his album release a 7″ by Monoceros will also soon be available as
part of the Expanding EVS series.
>>>
PITA – Get Off [CD Häpna H.19]
-> no Promo in Scandinavia
http://www.hapna.com
This is the fourth solo album from groundbreaking sound artist Pita (real name
Peter Rehberg). His previous solo albums as Pita (all on the Mego label) have
all been landmarks in electronic music. His sound ranges from furious to
minimalistic, but always with the same uncompromising attitude. To be true to
ones ideas when trends come and go is something admirable in every artist. “Get
Off” is his most varied album to date.
“Get Off” was made over a two-year period, with most of the material originating
from various ‘live’ situations. It was then compiled and completed during the
summer of 2004 in relative isolation.
Apart from his solo work, he also collaborates with choreographers Gisele Vienne
(DACM) and Chris Haring, as well as being a member of the MIMEO project.
>>>
POLA – Meme [CD Plop PLIP-3013] http://www.inpartmaint.com/plop
Pola is a young sound artist from Tokyo, Japan.”Même” is his first full-length
album which took 2 whole years to complete the album. He started producing
tracks around year 2000 and was influenced by the early 90’s techno then to
experimental electronic music. Whereas many artists uses the laptop to create
digital music, he mainly uses his favorite hardware for many years, MPC2000 –
which gives the special analog warmth to his sound textures. He delicately
manipulates digital disfunction, clicks, skips and crystalline pads to build his
beautiful architecture and the music flows rhythmically with subtle changes over
time.
But from the start till the end, the overall impression is the blissful comfort
of the atmospheric loops. Maybe his music can be easily described as a mixture
of SND and Oval which are his all time heros. An outstanding album that would
satisfy both ears and the feet.
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ROD – All My Love EP [Underscan 12″/CD us007] http://www.underscan.de
Rod Morris from Dublin/Ireland presents with this release a truly emotional
experience into his inner self. Lush Hip Hop breaks meet dreamy melodies,
electric piano licks and deep seductive basslines sculpting a unique listening
pleasure. The feeling of warmth and pureness arouses to define Rod´s production
essences where he is taking it to a very personal level. A truly special release
for the cold days of wintertime.
Having already had huge responses from all over the place for the main track
“All My Love” which appeared on the Neo Ouija compilation titled “Cottage
Industries 3″ Underscan is now making this song available on 12” for the first
time. (The track has additionally been reworked by Spectac who has re-mixed
Planet-mu’s Ambulance and already gained interest by various Irish labels.) The
release is a joint venture of Irish based label Front End Synthetics and
Underscan.
Rod’s deep affair with music has stemmed from an early love of electronic sound.
Born and bred in Dublin, Rod studied piano, drums and music theory from an early
age before packing it all in to focus on composition and sequencing.
In his teens Rod began writing and producing hard breakbeat, a style that was to
eventually mellow as his own taste in music broadened. His focus shifting to the
melodic, and to greater degrees of subtlety. He has been making music quietly in
his home studio for over 10 years, his music only recently appearing on various
compilations from record labels such as Neo Ouija, Underscan & Dublin based
Front End Synthetics. He is currently working on his first full length solo
debut on Neo Ouija.
>>>
V.A. – MONIKA FORCE [CD Monika Enterprise monika 40]
-> promo only in France, Northern and Eastern Europe
http://www.monika-enterprise.de
Music is an art. Music may well be the oldest form of human socialization and
interaction.
Music can change people, express visions and maintain one’s mind. The music of
Monika can do all three.
Monika was founded in 1997 by art-punk giantess Gudrun Gut [Mania D and the 80s
female damaged-punk band Malaria!, Matador and still Ocean Club] to cultivate a
smooth but subversive collective of lyricists, instrumentalists and programmers.
These acts, names like Barbara Morgenstern, Cobra Killer, Chica + The Folder,
Masha Qrella, Quarks, etc. would go on to expand the feminine voice of music: a
voice that can be
pensive and subtle, or erratic and confrontational.
With that in mind, Monika is proud to introduce its compilation of salvos:
MONIKA FORCE. Consisting of rarities, b-sides and selections from Gudrun
herself, Force is the best and the rarest of the Monika sound. Included on the
70 minute compilation: Manuela Krause and dub experimenter Stefan Betke [aka
Pole], The Burka Band’s “Burka Blue” (an afghani all-girl band), the DNTEL remix
of B. Morgenstern’s ‘Aus Heiterem Himmel’, Cobra Killer’s “Heavy Rotation”
remixed by Like a Tim, the amazing off-kilter single from Masha Qrella “I Want
You To Know”, an exclusive Komëit remix from T. Raumschmiere, a Dinky mix
from Chica + the Folder’s award deserving debut album and more contributions
from the entire Monika roster make up over an hour’s world of music. Also
included is a bonus video of B. Morgenstern’s “We’re All Gonna Fucking Die.”
Monika Force is a perfect opportunity to stand back and look at Monika as a
whole, as a concept and as a plan. 40 releases in, the label has not wavered
from Gut’s original dream and has continued to challenge the status quo:
redefining the meaning and exhibiting the power of music. By moving away from
the artificial club atmosphere, and reengaging the rock paradigm, Monika is
making a new way for music in the decades ahead.It’s time to follow: Monika
Force.
>>>
V.A. – THE AGENTS OF IMPURITY [Book & CD Sonic Arts Network] http://www.sonicartsnetwork.org
Based on avant-garde art, but not avant-garde art, the sights and sounds within
this limited edition publication just might be the new avant-garde (assuming
that the newest art will look/sound nothing
like what we know to be art today).
Sonic Arts Network’s new limited edition CD series invites guest curators,
chosen for being specialists in their field, to reconsider some of the tropes
that inform current sound practices. This new release, The Agents of Impurity,
is a celebration of guilty pleasures, as viewed through the lens of the historic
avant-garde.
Using audio examples from Antonin Artaud to Sean Landers, and textual works from
Gertrude Stein to Dan Graham, the works presented within it challenge their
received histories and genres, and by doing so, speak directly to our sense of
the present; a present ruled by the constructive chaos of decentralised
horizontal media, as well as the celebration of notions like ‘incorrectness’ and
‘uncreativity’.
The numbered, limited edition publication has been curated by Kenneth Goldsmith,
mastermind of the epochal UbuWeb (ubu.com) and a poet whose own writing has been
described by Publishers Weekly as “the most exhaustive and beautiful collage
work yet produced in poetry”.
>>> >>> >>>
LIVE DATES
ENCRE + MY JAZZY CHILD [Active Suspension]
15/01 FR – Point Ephemere / Paris
20/01 NL – Paradiso, Amsterdam
23/01 NL – Patronaat / Haarlem
27/01 DE – Astra Stube / Hamburg
29/01 NL – Theater Kikker / Utrecht
HYPO – ITALIAN TOUR 2004 [Active Suspension]
14/12 IT – Roma
15/12 IT – University Venue, Cosenza, Cantiere
16/12 IT – Giarre, Catania
17/12 IT – TBA
18/12 IT – Fabbrik, Cantania
19/12 IT – TBA
HYPO + dDAMAGE / 24 hours live performance
22-23/12 FR – “You know : Fun, Disorder…” http://www.youknowfundisorder.com/
Point Ephemere / Paris
>>> >>> >>>
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