wake-up call for brain dead ears
last album on Confineless rec.
Aepiel is a dub techno, ambient and experimental music project from the UK focusing on layered drum patterns, deep ambient textures and field recordings for productions and DJ sets. The first release is a seventy minute long non-stop CD album. All Tracks are interconnected with ambient interludes or field recordings. Mastered by Nicholas Barron @ Tenth Egg Studio.
free download / archive.org / pocketfields
Caterpillars Dressed In Their Finest consists of Gimu and Emily Loren Moss Ferrell. Gimu, a successful Brazilian sound-design artist, brings both light and heavy drone to the project and Emily, an American poet from Virginia, adds her spoken word and poetry. It all began when Gimu asked Emily to send him some of her poetry to experiment with his music. Initially it was a just-for-fun project until they realized they had created something special. With the primary focus of blending spoken poetry into a wall of sound. They have since became great friends through internet exchange and both plan on working more together on future songs and/or releases.
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With his microphones, Emmanuel Mieville captures moments of reality in exotic lands (Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Malaysia). Then, he edits these field recordings with a computer to create sound compositions driven by the paradox between natural forces (see the chunk of Paradise photographed inside the booklet) and human footprint (the city skyline featured on the cover).
*Senking returns to Raster with another double-headed set of slowed-down, rugged and dark transmissions.* Senking’s 2nd EP follow-up to 2010′s heavyweight ‘Pong’ LP sees him add chiming harmonies and even vocals to his abyssal bass contours. With gargantuan A-side ‘The Dance Hall Walk’ he lasers warped and glooming features into a hulking iceberg sculpture, perching a blunted text read by Michael Cramm over unshakeable, plunging bass ballast. This will sound shocking on a big rig! B-side’s ‘Closing Eyes’ swipes away any extraneous sounds to leave a desolate scape of plangent, ringing tones skidding across icy synth surfaces and harmonised bass drones which threaten to crack the ice and consume your psyche whole. Excellent.
FUCKING YEAH…
*Includes a Radio edit of album track “This” plus new track “All Buttons In” on the flip* ‘This’ certainly isn’t the first time German pranksters Modeselektor have teamed up with their biggest (or at least most famous) fan Thom Yorke, but it might be their most successful collaboration so far. Yorke’s familiar vocal is set to a backdrop of hoover bass, pounding kick drums and synth arpeggios and Modeselektor seem to have absolutely no problem with slicing and dicing them almost beyond all recognition. It works though, coming across like a meeting of minds rather than simply a feature.
It’s hard to believe that ‘The End of Music’ is only the second album from Swedish dream poppers De La Mancha. I guess it makes sense, given that part of the band’s core duo is none other than Dag Rosenqvist, who’s been quite busy under his Jasper TX guise for the last few years. Along with childhood friend Jerker Lund, however, he is responsible for some of the most gorgeous ambient pop music this side of Iceland, and ‘The End of Music’ is the band’s finest document to date. Emerging from the esteemed Karaoke Kalk imprint, this showcases the band’s ability to compose mini-symphonies in each carefully pieced-together track. ‘The End of Music’ isn’t an outwardly electronic album by any means, but repeat listens reveal glimpses of what’s going on under the hood, and the more you listen the more you begin to hear.
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**Limited edition of 500** ‘Kippschwingungen’ finds Frank Bretschneider returning to a rare and obscure bit of East German electronic equipment with compelling results. In 2007 Frank was invited to compose music for the Subharcord, a unique electronic instrument developed in the 1960′s for the creation of “special effects” at the RFZ, the technical centre for radio and television of the East German postal service. Of the eight machines originally made only three survive to this day in Vienna, Trondheim and Berlin, which could be considered as the Soviet counterparts to the Mixturtrautonium made famous by Oskar Sala. Given access to a model, Frank Bretschneider spent two weeks exploring the instrument, finally deciding to mainly use the extraordinarily narrow-band “Mel” filter and built in “Rhythmisierungseinrichtung” (rhythmization installation) coupled with a Clavia Micro Modular to generate alternating sinewaves on the ring modulator input of the instrument. Performances in 2007 and 2011 followed before Bretschneider revisited the original recordings, which he edited and added new overdubs for this CD to create a wormholing 37-minute experience, deftly and intently exploring the machine’s limitations to discover mind-warping cosmic turbulence and penetrate extraordinary, otherworldly sonic dimensions whilst somehow sustaining a tangible narrative arc. It’s more “out there” than either his ‘Rhythm’ or ‘Komet’ albums and strongly recommended.
Buy: insound / boomkat / mbari / honestjons
Lush Balearic psyche trip from Portuguese quintet featuring Six Organs of Admittance/Comets On Fire guitarist Ben Chasny, and Detroit’s master percussionist Jerry The Cat. ‘Positano’ sounds like a Talk Talk groove taken to warmer climes, Chasny drifting sanguine over lounging drums and sun-blushed synth pads with a wonderful half-way switch into late night psyche-rock bliss. ‘Broda’ features a leaner, driving mix of funked-up Suadade rhythms and fiery guitars. ‘Brain’ checks a spiralling fusion groove with Jerry’s intricate congas to the fore. Production from Tiago Miranda (a member of the brilliant Pop Dell’Arte) and mixing/mastering job from Rafael Toral seal the deal: this is a certified winner. …
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Lorn returns with a new full-length album, his debut on Ninja Tune, and it’s a huge stride forward since ‘Nothing Else’ (released on Brainfeeder, June 2010). Listening back to his first album, Lorn says it now seems “cold and strict.” ‘Ask The Dust’, on the other hand, is “haunted, oily, smeared,” and with this description he captures something of the intensely felt, visceral aliveness of the music.
“Saturday Gay-Time part II”
You may know Oskar Offermann as the boss of Berlin based label “White”. You should know their quality deep house output! The title track on the A side is a good mixture of the early New York house sound and nu-school German deep house sound, similar to the releases of Smallville or Laid!
“Saturday Gay-Time part I”
First single cut from upcoming mule musiq compilation “i’m starting to feel ok vol.5″. a side,our one of the most favorite producer “juju&jordash” gave us the brand new song. it’s very unique psychedelic techno stuff and off course essential!! juju&jordash remix of kathy diamond on endless flight is also coming very soon. move d on a2 and dj sprinkles on b side are first available on vinyl. it’s just for vinyl lover. second single cut which coming in may have the track from vakula, kuniyuki and lowtec.
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another great trip into dub/techno from Confineless Rec.
News just in of the third limited edition CD album on Confineless Recordings, this time by Aura Fresh – sublime, dub techno, ambient lushness. Limited copies as always.
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a reup of a great great lp
Finally, we’ve got our hands on a stack of Tin Man’s exquisite ‘Scared’ LP, which was released nearly a year ago on White Denim (home to records by Mi Ami and M Ax Noi Mach). It follows very much in the languid vein of his exceptional ‘Cool Wave’ and ‘Wasteland’ records, distinguished by hushed and subtly affecting vocals relayed over blunted acid murmurings and haunting synth pads. That may seem a reductive description but it’s essentially what he does, albeit with a genuinely individual temperament compared with almost anyone we can call to mind. Perhaps, if anything there’s an absence of the L.A. (twi)light that could be found on ‘Cool Wave’; all his sounds are hued with a lustrous midnight tone, his vocals sounding just as collected, yet somehow creepier and with a subtly shadowier sense of sleaze, or maybe unease. There are hints of the highly sophisticated pop experimentation of his forthcoming ‘Perfume’ LP, especially in the auto-tuned harmonising of ‘Zone Unknown’ and the highly structured arrangement of the title track, but overall the mood is blissfully dark, detuned and deeply individual to this LP. Therefore, in our opinion it’s a complete must-have if you missed out 1st time around.
quicksails Buy: boomkat / stashed goods / underthespire
Under The Spire has struck gold again with this, a vinyl reissue of Quicksails’ Silver Balloons In Clusters, which was originally released on cassette by Deception Island in early 2011. Ben Billington drops the sticks for the most part here and wires up the synths instead. Quicksails is a radically different sound for the man best known for his drum work in Tiger Hatchery and some almighty solo percussion sessions. Anyone who knows him from White Prism will have a better idea of what to expect. …
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Weapons Reference Manual is the third album by American ambient craftsman Wes Willenbring. As a further progression from his acclaimed debut Somewhere Someone Else and his stunning sophomore album Close, But Not Too Close, Weapons Reference Manual features a varied and richly hued palette of visceral guitar tones, effects-warped textures and achingly beautiful piano work. Immersive and darkly emotive soundscapes, such as droning opener ‘Dreams and Schemes’ and the 15-minute epic ‘Quaaludes’, are counterbalanced by seductively melodic pieces, such as ‘People Disappear Everyday’ and closing track ‘Ashes’. Meanwhile, single ‘Consequences of Recklessness’ is Weapons Reference Manual’s shimmering centrepiece, setting icicles of delayed guitar amid an aching tapestry of drones and feedback. It sets the tone for the album as a whole, perhaps Willenbring’s most complex and satisfying release to date.
Komet = Frank Bretschneider = I really like it
The second release from Tel Aviv’s False Industries imprint features three new tracks from Frank Bretschneier aka Komet, backed with remixes from Donnacha Costello, Tramway V, Diebs for Kane, Yair Etziony and Logreybeam. Bretschneider’s original tracks are his first to use the Komet tag in a long while, concerned with more groovesome House and Techno templates than the clinical glitch-hop of his recent Raster Noton produce. ‘P.S.T’ in particular is quite removed from what we’re used to hearing from him, primed for cooled-out dancefloors with rich, supple bass and warm melodies, whereas ‘Clap 05′ and ‘Flight 09′ are gruffer, rumbling techno tracks. On the remixes, Mr Costello raises the heartrate of ‘Clap 05′ with a proper Latin-ized techno workout, while Yair Etziony swings deep into a T++-style aqautic steppers mix of ‘P.S.T’ and Logreybeam strips ‘Clap 05′ down to twitching micro-rhythms and places it in a cavernous echo chamber for bewitching effect.
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one of first vinyl I bought (this is the DGTL download)
this 2012 version has only a different colour of the cover
“Blending folk music with electronics and a vibe like sunshine pouring raisins down on you from the heavens, San Francisco’s The Alps are America’s premiere morning musicians. Put on something like “Spray,” from their latest full-length Easy Action, into your wake-up routine, daylight peeking out over the trees and buildings, an abundance of noise and effects co-existing around stern acoustic folk guitar melodies, traditions smashing against one another like metaphysical Japanese monsters to make room for more skies and visible horizons in your life. Featuring Alexis Georgeopolous (Arp), Jefre Cantu-Ledesma (Tarantel) and Scott Hewicker (Troll), the Alps make music that is made to move the mountains in your mind, and help you to take some time for yourself, out of focus from the rest of the world, and think about what you can do today to make the world better.”
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