February News. Click For Infos.
Hallo & greetings from Berlin,
Read you soon & all the best,
BEEHATCH – Brood CD Lens
BOXCUTTER – Arecibo Message 2LP/CD Planet Mu
ERIK FRIEDLANDER – Broken Arm CD Skipstone
GUDRUN GUT – Apples, Pears & Deer In Poland EP Monika
GUIDO MÖBIUS – Gebrige CD Karaoke Kalk
KASHIWA DAISUKE – 5 Dec. CD Noble
NANA APRIL JUN – The Ontology Of Noise CD Touch
NESTOR FIGUERAS, DAVID TOOP, PAUL BURWELL CD Schoolmap
REMANO ESZILDN – R-Tracks LP/CD Planet Mu
V.A. – Colorfield Variations DVD Line
WEVIE STONDER – The Bucket CD Cack
BEEHATCH – Brood
CD Lens Records LENS0101
http://www.lensrecords.com
http://www.myspace.com/beehatched
Lens Records is very proud to work with BEEHATCH again for their second release of 2008, Brood. Their self-titled debut, released in April 2008, was hailed as a “killer” capable of “surpassing all trends and musical phases” and a “totally wonderful aural experience.” BEEHATCH started work on Brood just weeks after the release of their debut CD. Not surprisingly, Brood refines the “fully fledged sonic odyssey” of their debut and presents 11 tracks that see the band continuing to expand, explore and experiment with their unique fingerprint.
“Brood is like the dust that blows through the evening desert.” – David Flick
Brood is packaged in a custom designed matte-white card sleeve format containing 4 collectible art cards featuring original artwork from MARK SPYBEY and MARK NUGENT. Audio mastering courtesy of Frankie Pett. This release will only be available in a limited edition quantity of 1000 copies.
Each CD will contain a different set of 4 artcards. The complete set of 12 artcards – only 150 sets total – is available separately as well.
BOXCUTTER – Arecibo Message
2LP/CD Planet Mu
Streetdate: April 2009
http://www.planet-mu.com
http://www.myspace.com/barrylynnmusic
ERIK FRIEDLANDER – Broken Arm
CD Skipstone 003
http://www.skipstonerecords.com
http://www.myspace.com/erikfriedlander
ERIK FRIEDLANDER TOSSES AWAY HIS BOW ON HIS NEW RELEASE, THE BROKEN ARM
CD Is A Burning Trio Set Steeped in the Influences of Oscar Pettiford and the Small Group Feel of Herbie Nichols
Erik Friedlander, cello
Trevor Dunn, bass
Mike Sarin, drums
On his new release, The Broken Arm, cellist Erik Friedlander highlights his unique pizzicato playing–higher and more incisive than the bass, warmer than the piano, but similarly rhythmic and able to freely engage in the give-and-take that is so essential to the jazz. ìWhile there have been a few groundbreaking practitioners, notably bassist Oscar Pettiford, the cello has a tenuous connection to jazz, and is still considered a novelty,î explains Friedlander. ìThe cello is an untapped resource and I’m looking to create some new lasting traditions.î
The music on The Broken Arm is soulful and grooving, part reminiscence and part tribute. The tunes are playful, and the performances exuberant. Friedlander has made a personal statement that is, simply, a whole lot of fun to listen to.
The title of the CD comes from an anecdote about Oscar Pettiford: In 1949, Pettiford broke his arm playing baseball. He could still move his fingers even though his arm was in a sling, so he began experimenting with a cello a friend had lent to him. He tuned the cello like a bass only an octave higher and later recorded a series of cello-led projects. “For me Pettiford is a hero: he had a deep connection to the cello–he believed in it as a jazz instrument,” says Friedlander.
Friedlander grew up listening to 1950 and 60’s jazz. His father, renowned photographer Lee Friedlander, is a huge jazz fan and played the music of Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Count Basie, and Sonny Rollins, loudly at home and on long family trips. It was natural for Erik, then, to train in jazz performance traditions while in his late teens and twenties, and later choose to immerse himself in New York’s Downtown scene in groups that were creating a more modern jazz tradition, working with artists such Dave Douglas, Joe Lovano and John Zorn.
Friedlander has not only backed John Zorn, Laurie Anderson, Courtney Love, and The Mountain Goats, he has also recorded 9 CDs as a leader. Whether playing solo or with one of his bands, Friedlander pushes the limits of what the cello can do, while maintaining a firm grasp on its traditions. Pitchfork Media said, ìErik Friedlander can do things with a cello that should have a reasonable listener fearing for her life.”
Joining Erik on The Broken Arm are drummer Mike Sarin and bassist Trevor Dunn, both first-call players on the New York scene. Trevor is a co-founder of the avant-rock band Mr. Bungle, plays with Electric Masada, and leads his own jazz-inspired Trio-Convulsant. Mike is one of the most inventive drummers on the scene, making his name first with the Thomas Chapin Trio and then with Ben Allison, David Krakauer Myra Melford, Drew Gress and many others.
GUDRUN GUT – Apples, Pears & Deer In Poland
EP Download Monika Enterprise Monika 61
http://www.m-enterprise.de
http://www.myspace.com/ggut
Monika In Polen was Gudrun Gut’s contribution to the monika 10th aniversary compiltion Monika Bärchen: Songs for Bruno, Knut & Tom. Her new online release, Apples, Pears & Deer in Poland includes an exclusive Thomas Fehlmann remix of this cracking track plus 2 brand new Gut compositions which are also only to be found on this EP.
Monika In Polen, is a true monika-style number with oldschool samples of polka and yodelling. Gut’s impressive solo album I Put a Record On (monika55) came out in 2007 and, as you might guess from the title “Monika in Polen”, this track is inspired by a Monika night in Poland.
Besides his collaborations with Gudrun Gut on the oceanclub Thomas Fehlmann is famed as a “floating” member of The Orb as well for his work as a solo producer and DJ. For this EP he has woven his shuffle magic on the already very danceable tune making it a prime cut for the dancefloor.
On top of the Fehlmann mix of Monika In Polen, Apples, Pears & Deer in Poland contains 2 exclusive new Gudrun Gut recordings developed out of her live performances. The first begins with the sound of a car out on the open road and develops into a downbeat industrial groove, she takes her time with it and ends with horses hoofs rattling, while “Harz4Schleife” tells the story of roaming through the countryside.
All these tracks are available exclusively on this online EP release. Following her acclaimed 7″s on Earsugar, Move Me and Pleasuretrain, Apples, Pears & Deer In Poland is a fine new EP from monika enterprise label founder Gudrun Gut.
GUDRUN GUT LIVE
13 Feb DE Robert Johnson Club, Offenbach
20 Feb AU Fabrique at Rooftop Terrace, Brisbane
22 Feb AU The Toff, Melbourne
25 Feb NZ Marsupial, Christchurch
27 Feb NZ Mighty Mighty, Wellington
04 Mar NZ Altmusic Festival at Cassette Number Nine, Auckland
08 Mar CN Yu Gong Yi Shan, Beijing
27 Mar IT Spazio211, Turin
28 Mar IT Kalinka Club, Carpi
17 Apr USA Communikey Festival, Boulder
08 May SE MADE-Festival, Umea
GUIDO MÖBIUS – Gebirge
LP/CD Karaoke Kalk KALK 49
Steetdate: May 8
http://www.karaokekalk.de
http://www.myspace.com/guidomoebius
First of all: Gebirge sounds quite different from everything we know by Guido Möbius. His first two albums klisten (Klangkrieg) and dishoek (Dekoder) featured melodies on a collision course with sounds, styles and idiosyncracies, melancholy and humour. Everything was interwoven, multi-layered and contrasting. But despite their complexity and their finesse neither of the two records sounds severe or academic, instead they delight with genial and intelligent instrumental music.
Whereas these two predecessors operate to a great extent without any beats or basses, Guido Möbius makes full use of the latter on Gebirge. Here they are: straight bassdrums, sub-basses and handclaps. Also present: all kinds of machinery noises serving as snaredrum-surrogates, clanking metal, spluttering cables and funk-guitars. Furthermore: brass sections that sound as if the inmates of a tuberculosis sanatorium had reluctantly reached for their trumpets. It is out of these elements that Guido Möbius constructs rough, creaking tracks who despite their strangeness promt the swinging of your hips any time. After all Gebirge was greatly inspired by Möbius’ live sets who fervently dovetail funk with experiment, noise and techno.
And yet Gebirge holds another surprise: Vocals. Möbius has won 4-track-virtuoso Andreas Gogol aka go:gol (a-Musik) as a lead singer for his new album. go:gol, a multi-instrumentalist himself with a preference for grotesque sound constructions, employs a multitude of onomatopoeic, imaginary tongues on Gebirge. Which at times sounds as if James Brown’s body had received Kurt Schwitters’ soul. Both go:gol’s fake english and his Dada-funk are a great amusement.
And yet also with his third album Guido Möbius has remained true to himself in many respects. For example in the matter of subtleness: if Möbius sends one of his tracks on its journey you’ll never know where that journey might end. And it’s enormous fun to follow its musical mutations. The Berlin musician masters the art of subtly slipping us radical sounds and keeping a track in its flow even with the hardest breaks.
Like this an industrial-groove mutates into a main-floor-rave and eventually into a beatboxing-solo. Meditative slash krauty guitar-string-hammering turns out to be the priming for a tight beat. Which again runs into playfully filtered organ grooves which again sound the bell for technorock and polyphonic brass arrangements. But whoever may think he’s got it sussed out now is wrong. Because even surprise stays out at a certain point of our journey through the mountains of Gebirge. All of a sudden there’s a song who’s just that, a song, with verse, bridge and chorus.
Guido Möbius is one of those musicians you can positively recognize by their sound. At that it doesn’t matter whatever musical stops Möbius is pulling out or what instruments or stylistics he’s applying. His wit, his sobriety, his wealth of ideas and his very own musical dialect attest his authorship.
KASHIWA DAISUKE – 5 Dec.
CD Noble Records CXCA-1246
Streetdate: March 30
http://www.noble-label.net
http://www.kashiwadaisuke.com
program music I, released approximately a year and a half ago introduced audiences to a musical interpretation of two Japanese literary classics, Night on the Milky Way Railroad and Run Melos! and revealed the rich musical talent of Kashiwa Daisuke. As we enter the final one digit year of the new millennium, we are proud to release 5 Dec., an album that drops hints of what’s to come in the next 10 years.
Kashiwa’s first album released from German label, onpa, in 2006 won rave reviews from many artists including Ryuichi Sakamoto. In his second album, program music I released the following year, kashiwa daisuke defined his presence once again in the world of music. The artist’s lyrical melody and dynamic and inventive musical arrangements have led his work to new frontiers in TV commercials and fashion shows. Kashiwa casts also off a powerful presence on the online world through his musical + visual collaboration with Koji Nishida of RAKU-GAKU, the artist behind Kashiwa’s album jackets.
In his third album, 5 Dec., Kashiwa Daisuke makes yet another step into a new horizon. In this album, the artist’s signature melody with its flowing, oriental taste hides behind the shadows to be replaced by tearing voice samples and noisy and metallic guitar sounds thrashing almost violently on top of colorful uplifting beats such as break core, down tempo, bleep techno, and drum n’ bass. In contrast to the aggressive sounds of the first half, the second part of the album starting with the 6th track, “Silver Moon” guides audiences to a minimal world created through electronic sounds and the piano. As a whole, the album portrays a brilliant contrast of sound.
The melody of this album does not impose sentimentalism or nostalgia onto its listeners but rather, it takes them on a journey into rhythm from beginning to end. Even amidst the violent and excessive elements there is always a composed eye seeing into the passion that lies beneath, there is a self-disciplined, strict interpretation of the world, a sublime and metallic textureŠ this is what the artist Kashiwa Daisuke may be all about. Turn your ears and experience the fruit of Kashiwa Daisuke’s new challenge and step with him into a whole new level of musical originality.
Kashiwa Daisuke biography:
Influenced by progressive rock, Kashiwa Daisuke started composing music as a student.
2004, the artist started his solo activities as Kashiwa Daisuke and toured Germany in 2005.
2006 saw the release of his first album, april.#02 by German onpa label, followed by his remix album, april.#07 in 2007 with guest remixers such as Olive Oil, and Takeshi Nishimoto (I’m not a Gun). In August of that year, Kashiwa released her second album program music I from noble label. September 2008, Kashiwa performed at the outdoor festival, Sense of Wonder. The sounds of Kashiwa Daisuke were introduced in RADIO SAKAMOTO, a radio program by Ryuichi Sakamoto as well as in the sunaokuwahara “2006 Autumn/ Winter Collection”, and his music continues to gather news in a range of other areas including TV programs and commercials.
In addition to his own musical activities, the artist provides music to a variety of media and also works as an author, remixer, and mastering engineer.
NANA APRIL JUN – The Ontology of Noise
CD Touch # Tone 37
http://www.touchmusic.org.uk
http://www.nanaapriljun.com
Mastered by Denis Blackham
with thanks to Annika von Hausswolff
Cover art: Jon Wozencroft
The Ontology of Noise researches the dark associations of post-black metal. No traditional instruments are used on the album and all techniques are digital in their application. There are almost no arrangements or layers, but the pieces consist of single streams which change intuitively. This makes The Ontology of Noise a concrete journey through an abstract language evolving around light and darkness, nature and artificiality, and sometimes even takes the form of a sound very similar to an electric guitar…
The Ontology of Noise explores the filmic qualities of noise – the image-creating mechanisms that arise almost hallucinogenically from subtle variations of frequences. By using a special set of digital mastering and filtering techniques, the recordings often sound very much like the sounds of nature; wind in trees and water. The Ontology of Noise opens up an audial perception for these sounds of nature and ask questions about their ontology…
ref: Burzum’s Filosofem
Nana April Jun is one of the personae of Christofer Lämgren (b 1974), a visual artist, composer and art magazine YKKY [www.ykky.se] editor/curator based in Gothenburg, Sweden.
A sample of “The One Substance” may be heard here: www.nanaapriljun.com/TheOneSubstance.mp3
NESTOR FIGUERAS, DAVID TOOP, PAUL BURWELL – Cholagogues
CD Schoolmap School5
Streetdate: April 15
http://www.schoolmap-records.com
Cholagogues is a re-issue of the LP released by the musicians’ collective label Bead in 1977 and, since then, out of stock. The re-mastered album is composed of a single long track based on a performance at Action Space in London, 1st of April 1977. The performance, reported to be the first and possibly the last of this trio, was recorded by David Toop on a Sony TC164A cassette tape machine and was created with a variety of music instruments and sound producing devices including different kind of flutes, trumpets, whistles, panpipes, drums, cymbals, fiddles, respiratory and vocal sounds, body percussion.
Described by Music critic Peter Riley as a prime example of “slow music” (music that shows slowness in its reception, conception and execution) Cholagogues, musically speaking, is a very unique affair: alternating ritualistic sparseness with denser moments, mixing hints from various non-European music styles with a minimalist economy of means and a overall sense of playfulness, the record is a lost gem of European improvisation and anticipates not only different styles of experimental music but also some weird rock to come.
The CD version of Cholagogues has been digitally re-mastered by Dave Hunt with David Toop and comes with a reproduction of the original LP artwork. Edition of 500 copies.
REMANO ESZILDN – R-Tracks
LP/CD Planet Mu Records ZIQ227
Streetdate: March 2009
http://www.planet-mu.com
Planet Mu brings you the debut album from the reclusive Remano Eszildn. Scottish-born Remano currently resides in Bristol although there is no sign of any dubstep, wonky, bassline or sub bass action on this release. R-Tracks gives you more than enough killer material to satisfy. Soft gentle synths and warm pads bounce away over plucky tight beats whilst fast arpeggiated leads rush you through the various compositions. This is a must have album for fans of Ceephax, BOC, µ-ZIQ etc.
Nightrideresque rhythms lead you into the opener R-Track. “Countdown to Meltdown” is a full-blown agoraphobic nightmare with gothic overtones, sure to get you anxious even in the most calming situations. Remano’s music has the power of taking machine rhythms to new emotive levels, with the attention to detail luring the listener back for repeated listens. Great electronic music with a nostalgic edge.
V.A. – Colorfield Variations
DVD Line 038
http://www.12k.com/line
Colorfield Variations is a collection of audio/visual works reinterpreting the Color Field movement by an international array of critically acclaimed sound and new media artists and assembled by curator and sound artist Richard Chartier.
Color Field painting, an abstract style that emerged as a new direction in American painting in the 1950s following Abstract Expressionism, is characterized by canvases painted primarily with stripes, washes and fields of solid color. An alternate but less frequently encountered term for this style is chromatic abstraction. As the first critically acclaimed art movement to originate in the United States’s capital, the Washington Color School was key to the larger Color Field movement. As a reaction to the emotional energy and gestural surfaces of Abstract Expressionists, the Color Field artists broke away from the individual mark in favor of pure color itself becoming the main content of the work. By breaking painting down to its formal and fundamental elements, the Color Field artists created pure, simplified, large-format, color-dominated fields on often monumental scale utilizing the full psychological power of color.
Artists such as Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Larry Poons, Gene Davis, Jules Olitski, and others eliminated recognizable imagery from their canvas and presented abstraction as an end in itself with each work being a cohesive image. The Color Field movement can be seen as a precursor to the themes and aesthetics of the subsequent Minimalist movement.
Edition of 1000 copies.
STEVE RODEN (US) Dark Over Light Earth
ALAN CALLANDER (US) cf01
FRANK BRETSCHNEIDER (DE) Looping I-VI
STEPHAN MATHIEU (DE) Orange was the Color Of Her Dress
SUE COSTABILE (US) + BEEQUEEN (NL) amp_swell
TEZ (IT) CF #1-2n
TINA FRANK + GENERAL MAGIC (AT) Chronomops
BAS VAN KOOLWIJK (NL) FDBCK/AV – Silver
CHRIS CARTER + COSEY FANNI TUTTI (UK) Chronomanic Redux
RYOICHI KUROKAWA (JP) Scorch
SAWAKO (JP) Flirting 07121602
E.DOMNITCH + D.GELFAND (RU/US) 10,000 Peacock Feathers In Foaming Acid
ERNEST EDMONDS (AU) + MARK FELL (UK) Broadway One
WEVIE STONDER – The Bucket
CD Cack Records
Streetdate: April 1
http://www.weviestonder.com
Absurdist electronic provocateurs Wevie Stonder pride themselves on their well-honed “Cack” aesthetic. So, with gleeful wrongness, they launch their fourth album, The Bucket, with an absurd offer: be among the first 100 takers on April the 1st and they’ll pay you a quid for the pleasure!
Pitching their unique take on consumer economics from the car boot of their own label Cack records, they’ve cranked up a brimming pail of irresistibly wonky sonic surrealism from the wells of the collective unconscious.
While their stint on Skam records and a side project on Mouse on Mars’s Sonig label have seen them filed alongside whimsical leftfield electronica, Wevie take things deeper and weirder, plundering the anarchic traditions of inspired lunacy from The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band to Zappa.
Their legendary live shows mix performance art with game-show razzmatazz, a riot of surreal costumes, manic humour and a blatant disregard for musical propriety.
Wevie break into dance music’s dark basement like sonic taxidermists, re-animating discredited subgenres as a glorious freakshow.
The Bucket teems with ideas, garish chunks of musical kitsch and bizarre takes on musical clichés, strapped together with elastic and string and backed by toy pianos, broken trombones and rubber bands.
Into these chaotic soundscapes Wevie Stonder unleash their demented talent for surreal comic invention. Bizarre characters, ludicrous situations, and streams of free-association collide, only to bounce off at a tangent just before you’ve had a chance to work them out.
But however you describe it, if you listen closely you can almost hear Wevie moving in new directions, creating a sound and style that is entirely their own.
THE DRONES [ATP/R]
25/05 NL Amsterdam, Paradiso
26/05 NL Nijmegen, Merleyn
27/05 BE Brussels, Botanique (Witlof)
02/06 CH Zurich, Rote Fabrik-Ziegel
04/06 AT Vienna, Chelsea
05/06 DE Hamburg, Molotow
06/06 DE Berlin, Bang Bang Club
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Thanks for reading & best wishes
Dense Promotion
http://www.dense.de
http://www.myspace.com/densepr
