Dense Promotion new releases and events list

Greetings from our new venue,

we have just moved and now share rooms with the shop/gallery Rumpsti Pumsti at

Weser Str. 165

12045 Berlin

Hope to see you over here someday!

You find our news below, quite a lot, say HI.

Ed Benndorf

SEAWORTHY + MATT RÖSNER – Two Lakes CD 12k

Release date: October 4

being friends and admirers of each other’s work for a long time, electronic music composer / visual artist alva noto (carsten nicolai) and composer / voice-artist blixa bargeld (also known as singer of einstürzende neubauten and guitarist of nick cave and the bad seeds) decided to join forces to initiate a collaborative project in 2007.

together they developed a musical concept based on the combination of improvisation and abstraction. the impulsive live performance of blixa bargeld and the elaborated beat structures and sound landscapes of alva noto merge to a surprising and unexpected result. working on their own experimental material that gains its strength from the spontaneity of the live-performance of bargeld’s voice as well as rethinking traditional songs in their own special manner, they deliver an outstanding and inspiring musical blend for their audience.

“crystalline noise formations. phrases, words, syllables of pure sound isolated until normal sense disappears, leaving new, unexpected abstractions to emerge. […] the most suggestive and nuanced version of ‘i wish i was a mole in the ground’ since bob dylan.” – sam davies (the wire 12/09, uk)

the collaboration first staged in september 2007 when they united for a special appearance in san francisco to perform at recombinant media labs studios. since then they have recorded several tracks, five of which have been released on the preliminary EP “ret marut handshake” on raster-noton (r-n 120) in june 2010. the full length album (on CD and 2LP) called mimikry is released on raster- noton (r-n 121) in october 2010. for its ten tracks the album will readopt two original tracks and two alternative versions from the EP while additionally

introducing six completely new songs. as a very special feature “katze” and “mimikry” will feature vocals/words by the model veruschka (known from the movie blow up by m. antonioni). the album will be released with a special 16-page booklet that presents original text/drawings of blixa bargeld that developed during the recordings.

the album release will be accompanied by a live tour at various festivals and concert halls around europe in august/september 2010.

CD room40 RM437

Chris Abrahams’ Play Scar inhabits a sound world that’s entirely uncharted. It’s a zone of in-betweens – juxtapositions and parallel lines – a realm in which nothing is certain and at any moment dynamic shifts might occur.

In this unusual electro-acoustic landscape, Abrahams has crafted by far his most complex and epically beautiful record to date. It’s a series of pieces that in many ways demonstrates the full scope of Abrahams’ work as a musician and composer.

Play Scar, like Thrown before it is both exotic and unfamiliar. Pieces like ‘Twig Blown’ hint at Abrahams’ interest in musique concréte, ‘Lieiden’ pulses with a distinctly electronic flare, whilst ‘There He Reclined’ shimmers in a hazy procession of organ, guitar and electronics.

At its core, Play Scar is an album of unrepentant diversity, united through Abrahams astounding sense of composition and focus. In another artist’s hands these elements might be rendered too divergent and too esoteric, but sculpted by Chris Abrahams, each piece is a continent of sound, in an auditory world of his making. Play Scar is unique, compelling and most of all visionary.

“Abrahams may be challenging expectations, but in Play Scar he has produced a record which will certainly exceed them.” Mapsadaisical

“A magnificent piece of experimental music which is so vast and complex in scope that it never appears twice in the same light.” 5/5 The Milk Factory

CD Moloko Plus 071

Berlin 23.Juli 1920 – Berlin 23.Juli 2010

90 Jahre Erste Internationale DADA-Messe Berlin

»Präsident der Sonne, des Mondes & der kleinen Erde (Innenfläche)« sind nur wenige der Titel, die Raoul Hausmann auf seiner Visitenkarte um 1919 festhielt. Ein Versagen & Versumpfen war zu diesem Zeitpunkt bereits zu verspüren. Die andauernde Misswirtschaft der Dadaisten trat zu dieser Zeit immer deutlicher hervor & führte zu einem öffentlichen Fiasko, als am 23. Juli 1920 die »Erste Internationale Dada-Messe« in Berlin eröffnet wurde. Raoul Hausmann brachte zu dieser Gelegenheit seinen neu erworbenen Mitgliedsausweis der eben gegründeten Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei mit & klebte ihn in einen von ihm installierten Marderbau. Dieser Marderbau führte vom Innenraum der Galerie (Kunsthandlung Dr. Otto Burchard) über versteckte Wege zur Schaufensterauslage & wurde schnell zum Blickfang der Passanten, die am Lützow-Ufer flanierten. Der lebende Marder, von Raoul Haus-mann in dem ebenfalls am Lützow-Ufer ansässigen Tierwarengeschäft (Reick & Stöckig) erworben, zerlegte den Ausweis, da ihm keine andere Nahrung gereicht wurde langsam & vor den wachenden Augen der Öffentlichkeit. Wenige Stunden nach der Eröffnung betraten die ersten Ordnungshüter die Galerie, um nach dem Verantwortlichen zu forschen. Hausmann hatte zu diesem Zeitpunkt keinen Rückhalt mehr von den anwesenden Dadaisten zu erwarten. Sowohl Helmut Herzfeld als auch George Grosz verwehrten dem Flüchtigen den Weg über die Hoftreppe & so wurde Raoul Hausmann vor den Augen der jubelnden Ausstellungsbesucher aus der Galerie geführt.

Digipack with 24 page booklet feat. collages by Tom Platt, Jürgen Eckloff, Stea Andreasson and Robert Schalinski

Limited & numbered edition of 500 copies

01. Präsident der Sonne (Berlin, 2010)

02. Godesberger Marsch unter der Leitung von Direktor (Butin, 2010)

03. Voranzeige oder der Moloch (Berlin, 2010)

04. Anatomie einer Waage (Berlin, 2000)

05. Berta Navarseke 1919 (Norwegen, 2003-2010)

06. Reichlich sonderbar (Berlin, 2008-2010)

07. Ich halte dies für keine Treppe (Berlin, 2006)

08. 100 Tänze & Märsche (1. Nationale Radarmesse, 2010)

09. Ladung zum Weltgericht ! (Berlin, 1920)

10. Hydronosie oder der Sprecher (Berlin, 2006-2010)

2LP/CD Planet Mu Records ZIQ291

Release date: October 18

DJ Roc, known to his mother as Clarence Johnson, was born and raised on the Southside of Chicago better known as the low end.

The crack in ‘Crack Capone’ refers to his style of production. Like an underground chemist, DJ Roc produces variant strains of Chicago Juke music, the ‘crack’ referring to the synapse snapping, potentially ankle cracking manipulation of rhythms and the sampling, hijacking and ultra-rhythmic micro-editing of black American pop’s dominant forms into a style that’s been developed and tested on the streets of Chicago.

One of the most popular and respected DJ’s on the Chicago Juke scene, DJ Roc grew up listening to house music and was inspired to make people dance, especially in the up and coming footwork scene. In 2001 he started to produce Juke via an introduction to the production programme fruityloops by his friend DJ Darkchild. Around 2004 he became more confident with his track making and became very popular in his local area by throwing parties, playing his own tracks and making personal tracks for people to footwork to. From this he co-formed a group of DJs and party promoters called ‘Bosses of the Circle’ and built up his fanbase, garnering interest from the likes of Chicago Juke legend DJ Slugo who helped him make his first mix cds. This first CD grew into 3 volumes of the ‘Juke City’ mix albums and got support from the various footwork cliques in the city and attention for his production nationally and internationally.

Over the course of the album’s 20 tracks, DJ Roc shows off his brilliant high-speed sparse manipulations of rhythm, space and sound; as in the dancehall influenced tracks such as opener ‘One Blood’ or ‘Kill Da Bitch’ to tracks which mix a heavy techno influence like ‘Make Crack Like Dis’ or mix it with Hip hop samples like ‘King Of The Circle. Then there are tracks that mix smooth soul with double-speed like ‘I Can’t Control The Feeling’, to tracks which have more of a classic Juke feel like ‘Get Buck Jones’ and ‘DJ Roc Symphony’. The album is full of brilliant production and original ideas.

CD Skipstone Records SR006

My new cd, ‘Fifty,’ is a collection of 50 miniature pieces– little worlds– some wild and free, some carefully constructed like line drawings, others lush watercolor landscapes. The piece was written during a particularly difficult time when my wife Lynn was suffering from an unexplained and worsening leg pain that eventually turned out to be a breast cancer recurrence. I found refuge from the difficult atmosphere by immersing myself in composing for the five instruments (violin, cello, piano, bass, drums) making use of style and orchestration, I experimented with the groupings, the length of the pieces, and the mood.

Composing became a fantastic escape for me during those months when we didn’t know what was going on with Lynn’s leg. I worked to write one miniature a day but often I’d get two or three done. It was exciting once I got in the groove and when you go through something like we did, it’s important to try and carry on with your other life–the life that was there before the doctors and the hospitals impinged. When it all came together in the studio on that one long day at Kampo Studios, I was thrilled. – Erik Friedlander

Jennifer Choi, violin

Erik Friedlander, cello

Sylvie Courvoisier, piano

Trevor Dunn, bass

Mike Sarin, percussion

Produced by Erik Friedlander. Mixed & Edited by Erik Friedlander at Arconomics. Mastered by Steve Berson at Total Sonic Media. Recorded by Alan Ford at Kampo Studios in New York City on May 5, 2008.

CD+DVD Störung str007

Köllt/Kulu: the power of sound

In his last publication Francisco López presents two pieces, Köllt and Kulu. Each contains an audiovisual and an audio version. In this work, the artist has blurred the boundaries between Þeld recordings and synthetic sounds via artful sonic manipulation.

Köllt/Kulu is therefore only loosely based on Þeld recordings. It is an elaborate composition and the sounds contained have been manipulated in such a way, that they have acquired a strange pristine quality. Even in the heaviest fragments, where þuttering insects and heavy machinery merge into one and the same banging noise, sounds appear clear cut and precise, while keeping also a strange and obscure character.

In the audiovisual version of Köllt, which seems to be a correspondence between the displayed images of ant activity and the frantic sounds we hear, it is never clear what these sounds really are.

The Þeld recordings used here have been altered in such a way that they are barely recognisable, preventing any attempt to establish a correspondence between the complex, diverse and slow-changing percussive soundtrack and the ant life displayed in the images. But, even though the sounds are no longer identiÞable and have acquired an obscure character, they are surprisingly more effective than raw unaltered Þeld recordings in conveying the intensity, abundance and overwhelming lushness of life that can be seen in the visuals.

The audio version of Köllt presents the most complex composition of these four pieces. With an impressive command of sound manipulation López creates powerful metal-related percussive sequences that unexpectedly lose their harshness and acquire a calming and soothing character. As in the audiovisual version of Köllt the composition here conveys an organic development. A development expressed by sliding layers of sound, which slow down, change and are reþected in the forthcoming sequence, just to be decomposed again in its changing elements, and dissolved into silence. From silence sounds are born again to show another possibility, another way in which life can express itself.

Kulu is also intense, although milder, and consists, in both the audio and the audiovisual version, of a succession of short sequences separated by long silences, where each sequence is a variation of the prior sequence. The audio version starts off with a jungle Þeld recording followed by a similar but more manipulated sequence which in turn is further manipulated, expressing altogether an evolutionary process, the way in which sounds themselves unfold. The name of this piece is therefore appropriate – Kulu is an Australian aboriginal term that means “seed”-, because it is made of small fragments, sound seeds, which develop through an evolutionary process into an unexpected diversity of sounds.

Life impregnates Köllt/Kulu, not as a concept, but as an experience. Life and death, sound and silence, seem to interplay here in such a way that they show us the impossibility of grasping life conceptually. In a certain way this work becomes a demonstration of our incapacity of grasping life through words. Life, like sounds, is just what it is, independently of our judgements and reasoning of what it should be or what we think it to be and precisely, when we acknowledge this fact we open ourselves to experience what life is, we can feel the intensity of the forces of life that surround us and the intensity of the sounds. So this work takes us a step further and becomes an open door to experience an unmediated contact between the sound and the listener. Or, should we say, it enables the experience of dissolution of ourselves in a world of sound.

Moving away from representation, from identiÞcation of sound sources, and elaborating a composition that is near to an organic development of the sounds themselves, López has created a sonic world of its own. A world where sounds acquire all their intensity, strength and power, and become all there is.

Text by S. Porrúa

CD Soopa

Electrostatic soundscapes superimposed with the evocative qualities of operatic singing.

Spectral mass where brass clusters, choirs and strings, performed by an assembled cast of Porto’s most prominent musicians, are arranged and reconfigured by multi-instrumentalist and composer Jonathan Uliel Saldanha.

Non-chronological narrative, elements of ancient Finnish and Babylonian mythologies, nymphs, ever-present ominous birds, alchemic methods in the tradition of King Tubby and Giacinto Scelsi: revolving in an illusionist’s stage distorted by infinite mirrors.

As a band leader or side-man, Saldanha performs and constructs music and soundscapes under the alias of HHY and in the following projects: Mécanosphère, Besta Bode, HHY & The Macumbas, Fujako or United Scum Soundclash amongst others. Covering styles such as: skull-dub, hip hop, highway rock, electric-zombism and choral ensembles. He frequently collaborates with artists such as: Badawi, Mark Stewart (On-U Sound), Steve Makay (The Stooges), DJ Scotch Egg and others.

Upcoming releases:

The forthcoming album of Steve Mackay, sax man for such as The Stooges and Violent Femmes, featuring Mike Watt (Minutemen, etc) and Iggy Pop.

Also, the second record of the United Scum Soundclash team of producers (Nydegger/Saldanha), featuring Steve Mackay and a host of noise rock musicians from all around the U.S. in a journey into a jungle landscape of hallucinating and highway-driven rock.

LP Pan PAN 13

Keith Fullerton Whitman bursts back with his first full length record in four years, “Disingenuity b/w Disingenuousness“, comprising of two pieces of forward thinking electronic music with a deep exploration into the analogue sound. Live and studio recordings of the past two years (Cambridge-New York-Toronto) were used as source material, which were then realized into two longform compositions. Using a Musique Concrète approach of deconstructed sounds (ala Pietro Grossi, Costin Miereanu, Basil Kirchin, Dub Taylor, etc) “Disingenuity b/w Disingenuousness” encompasses various reference points from François Bayle, Jacques Lejeune, Richard Pinhas & Heldon to the minimal textures of Basic Channel-Chain Reaction axis…

Both tape-collage pieces which derived from an hour-long improvisation based around a setup involving a tape of chance field-recordings (a helicopter, walking on snow, children) bounced to a mono nagra tape machine, which is covered in contact mic’s that translate not just the sound coming from the speakers, but the actual mechanical… “interface” of the unit into control voltage & triggers that drive a modular synth that’s processing said audio using the classic electronic music toolkit (i.e. ring modulation, panning VCA’s, filters, etc …).

Keith Fullerton Whitman is an American electronic musician who has recorded albums influenced by many genres, including ambient music, drone, electronic, drill and bass, musique concrète and krautrock. He records and performs using many aliases, of which the most familiar is Hrvatski and has been also member in many 90s bands, including El-Ron, The Liver Sadness, Sheket/Trabant, The Finger Lakes and Gai/Jin. He  started recording using his own name in 2001, and most of his work recorded today is under that name. He studied computer music at Berklee College of Music, where he was exposed to modern electronic music composition and synthesis. His moniker ASCIII has released music distributed with an academic journal. His studio and live setup usually consists of computer devices and other analogue instruments, such as guitars, ouds and synthesizers. Whitman has released albums on labels such as Planet Mu, Kranky, Carpark Records, No Fun Productions, Root Strata as well on his own Entschuldigen and (now defunct) Reckankreuzungsklankewerkzeuge labels.

The Lp is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, in a limited edition of 500 copies, pressed on 140g vinyl and comes in a poly-lined inner sleeve. It is packaged in a pro-press color jacket which itself is housed in a silk screened pvc sleeve with artwork by Bill Kouligas.

CD 12k 1061

Our House is on the Wall is the debut release from Swedish duo Murralin Lane. While the project is new, Murralin Lane’s DAVID WENNGREN is no stranger to the scene. Recording solo as Library Tapes for Kning Disk and Home Normal he has established a loyal following with his piano-based experimentalism where he puts texture, distance and longing to good effect in its melodic, grainy ambiance. Murralin Lane is Wenngren’s latest project which was formed in 2009 when he paired up with partner YLVA WIKLUND and set aside the piano to take on new, collaborative audio explorations. Instead of the trademark piano that Wenngren has become known for, Murralin Lane thrives on highly distressed, lo-fi beauty formed by a more process intensive creation. Wiklund supplies vocals, (sometimes recorded through a mobile phone for effect), that are as pretty as they are creepy, adding an otherworldly sense of fragility to the dark and melancholic compositions made of noisy, tonal layers that sound as though they’re on the verge of breaking apart.

Recorded in the wee hours of the morning, Our House is on the Wall pushes the boundaries that 12k has set with its tactile, electro-acoustic, ambient minimalism, touching on the label’s occasional forays into more pop territory yet bringing something decidedly darker to the table.

CD Mü Nest MCN007

Imagine. The amber shades of a sunset, blending seamlessly into the bluish horizons. The serene star-filled night sky that follows and covers the bustling city streets beneath it, breathing its pulse, its voices, its ever-moving sounds of life, flashing coats of colours, dimming lights, entwined lovers and quiet solitudes. Imagine. The shuffling leaves as they wave upon the edge of a branch just outside a window. The zephyr that glides across patterned curtain tails, bringing the coloured air of the ever shifting seasons: the red of springs, the green of summers, the amber of autumns and the white of winter.

It is with thus imaginations, our imaginations, that Okamoto Noriaki’s debut album Telescope welcomes us to his cinematic sonic world, an imagery-filled, delicately sound-driven, pop-infused electronica soundtrack of at once the familiar and the foreign, dreams and realities, memories and present joys. Here is an electro-pop musical-picturesque of intricate,

weaving piano melodies, soul-tripping drum and electro sound beats, with warm synths of near ethereal beauty, sampled voices of stilled wonders and airy vocals of etched realizations, written, performed and produced by Noriaki himself and mastered by the venerated Tokyo mastering engineer Naph, whose previous collaborations include renowned artists like World End’s Girlfriend and aus.

Telescope is like listening and watching gentle, broad, delicate, bold, determined and graceful brushstrokes coming together to form a magical electro beat-tripping, lyrical piano-filled, warm synth-painted sonic film that depicts the very colours of both our firm realities and dream-filled ponderings.

A well-established and awarded talent, Tokyo audio-visual artist Okamoto Noriaki brings forth a musical visual-scape in the vein of celebrated electronica mastery and sensitivity that breathes the essence of what music is made for: to move us.

Each CD of this 400-copies-only, limited edition release comes hand-numbered individually, with the Þrst 100 copies a special CD+DVD release with 3 exclusive videos of 3 album tracks, directed by 3 visionary directors including Noriaki himself.

okamotonoriaki is an established Tokyo-based audio-visual artist. The 1983 Osaka-born Tama

Arts University Graphic Design graduate has been well-recognized for his works since his undergraduate days with his graduation video piece earning him the Encouragement Prize of the Japan Media Arts Festival.

The freelance audio-visual artist is an awarded talent whose accolades includes the “Golden Wings” 2008 Digital Creators Award, The 10th TBS DigiCon6 “Sunrise Award”, DOTMOV FESTIVAL 2008 Shortlist and NHK Digital Stadium’s “Best Selection”. Noriaki is an artist who believes that “the process of producing video or music is the process of outputting little stories that come up in my mind. Each work is like a note to remember the little story that popped up from nowhere.”

It is with thus that Noriaki presents his exquisite brand of cinematic, imaginative electronica

Þ lled with intricate, inter-weaving piano lines, warm, adventurous synths, and lively, mesmerizing drumbeat programming, capturing the very essence of his audio-visual storytelling prowess and ingenuity in his moving music masterpieces.

LP Moozak MZK#004

Release date: October 27

Marc Chia’s (aka One Man Nation) approach to this piece of work is strongly influenced by Erik Satie’s “Gnossiennes”. The piano works of the french avant-gardist inspired him to combine different states of suspension of mind, body and soul when composing for this work. The result is a mystic, non-linear journey which takes the listener (for a moment or more) to different mental states before pulling them back into the unreality of reality.

Suspended In A Vortex In The Middle Of A Bowl From Tibet  / When I Was Young I Was Easily Amused, But Now It Is All, The Same. And The Same… is especially composed for the medium itself. Each piece can be assumed to continue where the other left off, but it requires also a moment of silence, which – in this case – comes from the simple physical phenomenon of reaching the end of the disc, and having no other choice but to get up and physically flip the disc to continue.

Marc Chia’s work was best described by Portuguese avant-garde collective Soopa after a concert in Porto as a performance that transmitted a deep narrative feeling of geopolitical disenchantment, ingrained into dark textures. This disenchantment exists not only on a purely narrative level, it is exorcised by the use of every part of his body, including sounds produced by the intended or accidental gestures (picked up by several self-built piezo contact microphones) and physical actions. Everything is technology by making anything and everything potentially an instrument.

With a constant sensitivity to the surroundings during his breathtaking live-performances, which are a profound and cohesive mix between computer music, performance art and improvisation, Marc Chia states an explicit expression against the prefabrication of culture. He captures his audiences worldwide by bringing to the foreground what was already pre-existing but unrecognized.

BIOGRAPHY

Marc Chia aka One Man Nation, born in 1982 in Singapore, is a musician with a background in media and sound art. He graduated in 2009 with a master in Media Design from the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam/Netherlands and investigates social and psychological situations related to tradition and its progression, the future through the eyes of history, and spirituality in technology through the medium of sound and performance. He currently splits his time between Europe and Indonesia where he is researching and developing The Future Sounds Of Folk in collaboration with Steim as well as co-directing The UnifiedField collective and art space with Marta Moreno Munoz.

Patricia Bosshard (1965) is a composer and violoniste from Lausanne, having a musical background both in jazz as well as in electronics. Besides numerous gigs in the free impro-scene, Bosshard collaborates with the video artist Nicolas Wintsch, composes orchestral music for film. She recently produced the acoustic signals for the Metro M2 in Lausanne. www.patriciabosshard.net

Simon Grab (1971), co-founder of ganzerplatz studios, has been an active musician, soundartist and producer in a wide range of musical contexts, from noise performances to radio experiments, as a producer of westafrican clubsounds or composer for film- and theatre soundtracks. Simon Grab lives and works, at least in summer, in Zürich.

Patricia Bosshard and Simon Grab have both been delighted of the harsh sounds of the MRI scanner, when they ended up in the magnetic resonance tube at a hospital due to an accident. Bosshard and Grab, always in the research of the unheard, translate this unusual acoustic situation into music.

CD Touch # TO:81

Artwork & photography by Jon Wozencroft

Mastered by Denis Blackham

Philip Jeck works with old records and record players salvaged from junk shops turning them to his own purposes. He really does play them as musical instruments, creating an intensely personal language that evolves with each added part of a record. Philip Jeck makes geniunely moving and transfixing music, where we hear the art not the gimmick.

Philip Jeck writes: “A version of “An Ark for the Listener” was first performed at Kings Place London on 24/02/2010. It is a meditation on verse 33 of “The Wreck of the Deutchsland”, Gerard Manley Hopkins poem about the drowning on December 7th 1875 of five Franciscan nuns exiled from Germany. This CD version was recorded at home in Liverpool and used extracts from live performances over the last 12 months. The “coda:” tracks are remixes of 2 pieces from “Suite: Live in Liverpool”. “chime, chime(re-rung)” was originally made for Musicworks magazine (#104, Summer 09) and “all that’s allowed (remix)” is previously unreleased. All tracks were made using Fidelity record-players, Casio SK1 keyboards, Sony mini-disc recorders, Behringer mixers, Ibanez bass guitar, Boss delay pedal and Zoom bass effects pedal.”

An ark… is Jeck’s 6th solo album for touch since ‘Loopholes’ in 1995. The Wire reckoned it was ‘Stoke’ (Touch, 2002) which ‘made him great, but his body of work and his achingly brilliant live sets are rapidly defining him as one of our best artists, and his recent award from The Paul Hamlyn Foundation confirms him as such.

Philip Jeck studied visual art at Dartington College of Arts. He started working with record players and electronics in the early ’80’s and has made soundtracks and toured with many dance and theatre companies as we as well as his solo concert work. His best kown work “Vinyl Requiem” (with Lol Sargent): a performance for 180 ’50’s/’60’s record players won Time Out Performance Award for 1993. He has also over the last few years returned to visual art making installations using from 6 to 80 record players including “Off The Record” for Sonic Boom at The Hayward Gallery, London [2000). In 2010 he won one of The Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Composition.

CD 12k 1062

In April 2010 12k recording artist Seaworthy (the recording project of CAMEON WEBB) and MATT RÖSNER travelled to the south coast of New South Wales to undertake a detailed field recording study of two coastal lake ecosystems at the Lakes Meroo and Termeil. The aim of the project was to explore the sounds of a fragile coastal Australian environment and to build from those sounds unique musical pieces that provide a place for listener contemplation and reflection.

Field recordings were taken from the lakes and surrounding beaches, forests and streams at different times of the day. Various equipment including a hydrophone, a shotgun and stereo microphones were used to capture the natural sounds of each lake. During breaks in field recoridng, the artists set up recording equipment in a nearby lakeside cabin. Using acoustic and electric guitars, a ukelele and electronics, a series of improvised performances were documented. On the last day of the trip, with the experience of the recording process still fresh in mind, rough arrangements were created from the field recordings and improvised sets. Matt Rösner then took these arrangements back to his studio in Myalup – a small coastal town on the opposite side of the Australian continent – to mix and finalize the production.

Both Rösner and Webb have been active in the Australian experimental music scene for over 10 years with a plethora of releases on local and international labels, sharing a similar vision of molding found sounds and field recordings with traditional instrumentation and electronics. Aside from shared musical interest both artists grew up in close connection with the Australian coastline, albeit on opposite sides of the continent. This connection with their landscape as a remote and diverse place is evident in the pieces created by the artists during their collaboration on the South Coast.

Two Lakes marks the third full-length appearance for Seaworthy on 12k following 2006’s Map In Hand and 2009’s 1897 and blends his signature guitar style with the beautifully arranged field recordings and electronics of Matt Rösner. Two Lakes is a strikingly stark and lonely album undeniably influenced by the remote recording cabin and delicate Australian ecosystem. The blend of instrumentation comes off more like a natural, live duet between artist and nature than a modern-day layered recording. Webb’s finger picked acoustic guitar and ukelele play off of the sounds of wind, reeds and insects in perfect harmony, supported by soft beds of eBowed drones and careful electronic tones. Despite their human presence Rösner and Webb manage to create music that resonates on another level, as if composed by the lakes themselves.

The artists have set up a blog where you will find additional photographs, field recordings and notes from the Two Lakes session. It is also a way for Webb and Rösner to keep an ongoing dialogue between themselves and to expand on the project.

CD audio + CD data raster-noton R-N 122

PONG – referring to the classic video game – is Senking’s Þfth release on raster-noton, moving its focus on stretched dubstep rhythms. To these slow motion grooves, he adds shredded melodies, sub basses and echoes, which create an atmosphere like an Angelo-Badalamenti-soundtrack known from David Lynch’s movies. His electronic sound aesthetic reþects rather an organic texture than a machine made algorithm. In tradition of former dub producers, he generates his tracks while playing, and therefore they appear to be momentary. They are aware of the club, but do not want to serve it. At Berlin’s CTM 2010 Senking proofed that PONG can be massive on stage as well.

A 3D-interpretation of classic PONG by visual artists and software producers of almost sync is attached to the album in a mac and windows version.

CD 1K Recordings 1K018

Philadelphia guitarist Tim Motzer and German touch guitarist Markus Reuter’s duo project of ethereal soundscapes features UK flautist Theo Travis, the gorgeous pedal steel work of BJ Cole (The Orb, Brian Eno), Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson, Stickment, XTC) glitch electronics, and spatial cymbal work by Doug Hirlinger. A stunningly beautiful record.

This CD is packaged in a full colour off-set print 4 panel digipak.

LP Pan PAN 12

Vinyl issue of two very important works by this early British sound art composer, compiling one of Trevor Wishart’s first ever pieces ‘Fanfare & Contrapunctus’  (from 1976) and one of his latest ones ‘Imago’ (from 2002), documenting a modern approach in composition and an extremely unique progress in sound manipulation and music technology.

‘Fanfare & Contrapunctus’ (1976) “These two short pieces were made at the newly opened electronic studio at the Sydney Conservatorium, before the advent of music computer technology. The source material derives from free improvisations by Trevor Wishart and Martin Mayes using “soft trumpets”, pop-guns, French Horn and virtuoso eating noises, plus recordings of birdsong and other environmental sources.”

‘Imago’ (2002) ‘Šthe universe in a grain of sandŠ’ “Imago is a piece of magical sound metamorphosis in which the single ‘clink’ of two whisky glasses gradually metamorphoses into a multitude of other sounds, eventually alluding to the sounds of birdsong, a junkyard gamelan, the ocean and the human voice, but never entirely abandoning its links to this minimal source. The piece was made using sound transformation software written by the composer, available through the Composers Desktop Project, and the original source sound was taken from Jonty Harrison’s ‘et ainsi de suite’.”

Trevor Wishart is an English composer, based in York. He is widely acknowledged for his contributions to composing with digital audio media, both fixed and interactive. He has been very active, since the early 1970s in the area of electro-acoustic music (first with tape manipulation, later with computer pieces) and musical theatre pieces. Not only has he composed many significant pieces, but he has also written extensively on the topic of what he terms “sonic art,” and contributed to the design and implementation of many software tools used in the creation of digital music. He was educated at the University of Oxford (BA 1968), the University of Nottingham (MA 1969), and the University of York (PhD 1973). He holds an honorary position at the University of York, and in 2006 was appointed as composer-in-residence at the University of Durham, but is mainly a freelance composer. Trevor Wishart’s compositional interests deal mainly with the human voice. He pays special attention to the objectives of musical education, to holding collaborative perform-projects and solo practice with the use of original vocal techniques. In 1973 he did his doctorate dissertation at the University of York (musical composition). Since the mid 70s he has been doing systematic research into various vocal-speech figures and the possibilities for their noting, giving special emphasis to the computer technologies. This is most evident in his VOX Cycle, Tongues of Fire, Globalalia, Two Women, and American Triptych. He has also written two major books ‘On Sonic Art’ and ‘Audible Design’, both of which have had a significant impact.

The Lp is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, in a limited edition of 500 copies, pressed on 140g vinyl and comes in a poly-lined inner sleeve. It is packaged in a pro-press color jacket which itself is housed in a silk screened pvc sleeve with artwork by Kathryn Politis & Bill Kouligas.

Release date: November 26

performed by zeitkratzer

all music by Alvin Lucier

1| Alvin Lucier – Fideliotrio [1987] 12:10

for viola, cello and piano

2| Alvin Lucier – Music For Piano With Magnetic Strings [1995] 13:21

for grand piano and as many as five e-bows

3| Alvin Lucier – Silver Streetcar For The Orchestra [1988] 10:03

for amplified triangle

4| Alvin Lucier – Violynn [2001] 09:38

for violin and tape

5| Alvin Lucier – Opera With Objects [1997] 10:59

for performers with resonant objects

zeitkratzer
directed by Reinhold Friedl
|| Burkhard Schlothauer < violin, viola, objects || Anton Lukoszevieze < violoncello, objects || Uli Phillipp < objects || Reinhold Friedl < piano, objects || Maurice de Martin < triangle, objects || Frank Gratkowski < objects || Hayden Chisholm < objects|| Matt Davis < objects || Hilary Jeffery < objects || Ralf Meinz < sound ||

[1-5] recorded live at Philharmonie Luxembourg, Luxembourg, October 3, 2009

[4] recorded at GreenHouseStudios Schwielowsee, Germany, June 4, 2010

recorded and mixed by Ralf Meinz and Reinhold Friedl, produced by Reinhold Friedl

“zeitkratzer are creating a New Music, worthy of the name!” – Rob Young, The Wire

The internationally acclaimed “hilarious releases” [vital weekly] of zeitkratzer records go on. This is the third release in the new series [old school]. The first two CDs, dedicated to the music of John Cage [zkr0009] and James Tenney [zkr0010] have been highly acclaimed. London’s Wire Magazine wrote: “The rigour and discipline they collectively bring to this compositions make both discs utterly enthralling, from start to finish.” The new release is dedicated to the music of Alvin Lucier.

In 2011, the [old school] series will continue with two more releases, dedicated to the music of Morton Feldman [zkr0012] and Karlheinz Stockhausen [zkr0014] respectively.

Alvin Lucier is one of the most outstanding American minimalists. He could be called a sound physician and his compositions regarded as acoustic research settings. Often his pieces turn inside-out the inner properties of the room they are played in and the instrument that they are played on. zeitkratzer had the chance to work with the composer in Dijon, France in 2008, and continued to work on and to program his music in different places. The Philharmonie in Luxembourg turned out to be the ideal space for recording.

On this CD you can hear how Lucier enables zeitkratzer to create sounds, most people have never heard before. Ringing overtones, a singing piano, a thrilling concert triangle, pencils on little objects, and how irritating a violoncello, a viola and a piano can sound together creating sonic interferences. This music is not only a physical phenomenology, but becomes inherently a sensual listening experience.

Alvin Lucier ist einer der herausragenden amerikanischen Minimalisten. Man könnte ihn  als Klangphysiker bezeichnen und seine Kompositionen als akustische Forschungsanordnungen betrachten. Häufig legen seine Stücke die charakteristischen akustischen Eigenschaften von Aufführungsraum und Instrument bloß. zeitkratzer hatte das Glück mit dem Komponisten 2008 in Frankreich arbeiten zu können, und führte die Auseinandersetzung mit seiner Musik an verschiedenen Orten fort. Die Philharmonie Luxemburg entpuppte sich als der ideale Ort, sie aufzunehmen.

Auf dieser CD ist zu hören, wie Lucier zeitkratzer in die Lage versetzt, Klänge zu spielen, die die meisten Menschen nie vorher gehört haben. Flirrende Obertöne, ein singendes Klavier, eine schwirrende Konzerttriangel, Bleistifte auf kleinen Objekten, oder wie irritierend ein Violoncello, eine Viola und ein Klavier zusammen klingen können, die akustische Interferenzen erzeugen. So ist diese Musik ist nicht nur physikalische Phänomenologie, sondern eine beeindruckende sinnliche Hörerfahrung.

Release date: October 22

All music by WHITEHOUSE, William Bennett

Arranged by Reinhold Friedl

1| Munkisi Munkondi 05:04

2| Nzambi Ia Lufua 02:43

3| Scapegoat 04:30

4| Fairground Muscle Twitcher 02:34

5| Bia Mintatu 06:53

6| The Avalanche 04:19

zeitkratzer

directed by Reinhold Friedl
|| Frank Gratkowski < clarinets || Matt Davis < trumpet || Hilary Jeffery < trombone|| Reinhold Friedl < piano || Rhodri Davies < harp || Maurice de Martin < drums, percussion || Burkhard Schlothauer < violin || Anton Lukoszevieze < violoncello || Ulrich Phillipp < double bass || Ralf Meinz < sound ||

rehearsals and mixing in collaboration with William Bennett [WHITEHOUSE]

All music recorded at Festival Les Musiques GMEM Marseille, France, May 14, 2009
recorded by Ralf Meinz, mixed and mastered by Ralf Meinz and Reinhold Friedl

produced by Reinhold Friedl

William Bennett is one of the great pioneers of noise and industrial music. His influential project WHITEHOUSE has become a worldwide reference. The music on this CD and the arrangements by Reinhold Friedl were worked out in close collaboration with William Bennett and the zeitkratzer musicians. The compositions are short, very clear, and have an unbelievable impact, the sounds are harsh and exactly defined. This music is an adventurous journey into the amplified acoustic noise of musical instruments.

This project would not have been possible without the experience of zeitkratzer in noise and sound music, for example in their collaborations with Merzbow, Lou Reed, Zbigniew Karkowski or Keiji Haino. This CD is one of the most concentrated and precise noise works zeitkratzer has ever presented.

William Bennett ist einer der bedeutendsten Pioniere der Noise- und Industrial-Musik. Sein Projekt WHITEHOUSE wurde eine weltweite Referenz. Die vorliegende CD und die Arrangements von Reinhold Friedl entstanden in enger Zusammenarbeit mit William Bennett und den zeitkratzer Musikern. Die Kompositionen sind kurz, sehr klar und unglaublich dicht, die Klänge harsch und exakt definiert. So wird diese Musik zu einer beeindruckenden Abenteuerreise in die Welt verstärkter akustischer Instrumentengeräusche.

Ohne die große Erfahrung von zeitkratzer mit Noise- und Sound-Musik – man denke an die Kollaborationen mit Merzbow. Lou Reed, Zbigniew Karkowski oder Keiji Haino, um nur einige zu nennen – wäre diese Produktion nicht möglich gewesen. Diese CD gehört zu den konzentriertesten und präzisesten Noisemusiken, die zeitkratzer bisher präsentierte.

30.09. DE – Düsseldorf, Aproximation Festival
01.10. DE – Kassel, Schlachthof
02.10. DE – Offenbach, Hafen 2
07.10. DE – Karlsruhe, Jubez
08.10. LUX – Luxemburg. Dqliq
22.10. DE – Saarbrücken, Sparte 4
23.10. DE – Aachen. Musikbunker

29.10. DE – Hamburg, Hafenklang

18.11. FR – Pau, Festival Acces-s

26.11. FR – Nantes, Ecole d’Architecture

07.10. Gebäude9, Köln

09.10. 59:1, München

10.12. Manufaktur, Schorndorf

11.12. Cafe Zentral, Weinheim

29/09 / Klub Moozak/FLUC, Vienna, AT

01/10 / Stadtwerkstatt, Linz, AT

06/10 / Sonntags Abstrakt /Postgarage, Graz, AT

07/10 / Goldsmiths, London, UK

09/10 / In-Sonora/La Tabacalera, Madrid, ES

12/10 / Les Instants Chavires, Paris, FR

16/10 / Skala, Leipzig, DE

18/10 / Mdm Claude, Berlin, DE

21/10 / L’mono, Bilbao, Basque

23/10 / Artium, Vitoria, Basque

11/11 / Zoo/L’usine, Geneva, CH

Sep 19 PL – Poznan, Poz Modern Festival

Sep 22 AT – Vienna, Rhiz

Sep 24 UK – Rotherham, Rotherham Festival

Oct 29 DE – Heidelberg, Enjoy Jazz Festival

Nov 20 RU – Moskow, DOM

Dec 16 DE – Berlin, Berghain

25/Sep DE – Echtzeitmusikfestival, Ausland, Berlin

21/Oct CH – Musikforum, Lucerne

22/Oct CH – Zoom In Festival, Berner Münster

24/Oct CH – Cave12, Geneve

26/Oct CH – WIM, Zurich

29/Oct FR – Instants Chavires, Paris

03/Dec GR – Absurd Festival, Xanthi

06/10 Fennesz, Hildur Gudnadóttir, Achmin Mohné, Kai Aune, Sohrab

Thanks for reading & best wishes

Dense Promotion

Ed Benndorf

Weserstr. 165

12045 Berlin