These are two compilations released by the legendary Quatermass, the electronic and (comparatively) accessible sublabel of godlike-status freak haven Sub Rosa. Both labels in their own inimitable style have been reference points in the development of global avant-garde and electronic music in general for three decades, with too many artists to be mentioned (check some names here and here) and more than many compilations of totally weird and rare music.
Based on a loose concept of Subjectivity (total creative freedom expressed in 15 minutes), each CD contains a number of tracks by three guests. Preset 1 contains tracks by Pan American (Mark Nelson of Labradford, one of my all-time favorite artists), Komet aka famous Frank Bretschneider and Joe Kingman aka Fisherofgold, of whom I know nothing. Preset 2 features oldschooler David Morley, the unknown to me Mikhael Van Straaten aka Nodern and the original G-Man, Gez Varley of early LFO fame (who surprisingly is just a bit older than me... crap, he must have been 20 during the LFO years). There was also a 12'' with 3 tracks from here and one more of Electric Birds (the connection with the Mille Plateaux HQs is obvious).
As you can guess, music ranges from static ambient 'post-rock' meanderings and dubby landscapes to oldschool electro, deep techno and abstract 'IDM'. Electric instruments were used subtly (it was the first Post Rock era anyway) but the means are mostly electronic. The minimalistic approach was very common despite music styles (still not all-conquering), but the concept was in a way leading to this. Most of the tracks are more or less typical of their famous creators. Nodern plays a subtle indie-tinted electronica, while Fisherofgold's track (the longer one) is an abstract noisy poem. On the whole, both CDs are beautiful and interesting.
The Quatermass people were looking for unknown artists to be released on future Presets (it's on the in-sleeves), something very commendable actually for such a big label. Of course the mp3 revolution stomped down on them a bit, as they are a work-of-art based kind of label (opposed to the 'I'll make money from DJing' mentality of dance labels and Beatport artists). And those labels don't sell anymore, unless they start meddling with the collectors' market.
I don't really know what I think about that.
VA - 2001 Personal Settings. Preset 1
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
VA - 2002 Personal Settings. Preset 2
Here.
Info here.
Personal Settings
I & I Produkt
OK, this post is a surprise for me.
I had bought this one almost by accident. I knew it was dubby and that it probably came from Austria, as it has the G-Stone logo on the back cover (I guessed as a distributor or something). I didn't like a lot of things from Vienna then, but the production level was always high and a lot of them are a bit crazy (the Cheap posse, Stereotyp and many more). I had also just heard the name Dub Club out of some remix-CD of Submission out in Berlin label Meteosound, (which I now realize is sub of Shitkatapult...). The CD was cheap, I took a shot. I never had a clue who Sugar B was. It was some of the heaviest dub I've heard ever and since, spooky and dark and deep and totally stoned and I was guessing the artist was some oldschool freak gone mad, that put a record out and disappeared. The only clue was that Pulsinger did some additional production and for a time I thought it was him (wrongly). Not so much of an Internet around back then...
Last night I left it playing for some times and fell asleep with it. It reminded me once again of the Submission CD (which I have to post here someday) and it still sounded really weird and smokey and in a way one of a kind. It's like a weird Lee Perry-ish affair made by a white guy in a wooden cabin in the darkest forest with lo-fi equipment (is this a politically correct thing to say?) . It's abstract and cerebral and unsettling where typical dub it would be earthy and root-oriented, still it sounds very personal and genuine and in a lot of ways moving. Did I mentioned it's also scary?
Today I found he is Martin Forster, the head of Dub Club and one of the Edelweiss project. This is the one record he recorded solo. What more can I say?
No one I know has heard this one, yet it makes even the Crooklyn records sound poppy. Give it a try. At nighttime with headphones on it would be fitting.
Sugar B - 2000, I & I Produkt
Here.
Info here.
Atina.Latino
This is the first Mambotur album I talked about in the last post, also through MultiColor.
More latino colored than the next one, it's a product of a process similar to the Senor Coconut records of the time, a fusing of latino 'ethnic' music elements with a touch of pop and european 'experimental' electronic music techniques. Uwe Schmidt is attributed some additional production credits (and thanks), his influence though can be easily heard throughout the whole album. The reason I think I like 'Al.Frente' a little more is that it has the Mambotur mark, it's more original in its own way, where as this one is the First Record, showing its influences more, going down a certain path already trodden. But it's all just about personal taste, so...
Mambotur - 2002, Atina.Latino
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
Al.Frente
Mambotur is a project of Argenis Brito and Pier Bucci, now both famous on their own and, at the same time, constantly in groups and collaborations with the Cadenza/ Perlon guys. They are really well known, I think, so I'll cut to the chase. This (of course) went out in multiColor.
If you're expecting minimal dance elements and lots of funky clip-clop techno, you're for a small surprise. This Mambotur album is closer in style with the already posted 'Blind Behaviour' (where Bucci played a part in the recording, and which btw was recently re-printed in vinyl, run now). This is almost an electronic pop album, though the occasional deep techno track will casually turn up, in the almost typical now neo-latin style (call it sentimental minimalism). Some tracks have SA-spanish lyrics over sweet melodies, all are more or less dub infused, never going uptempo but without getting at all boring. Of course, the 'electro-latino' character of these recordings is obvious as a mannerism, but also is artistic expression and choice.
To sum up, this is the counterpoint to Cadenza's percussive marathons, without which those tool-tracks would be no more than... well, just tool-tracks; it would be stretching to call their producers artists. Personally, I like a lot Pier Bucci's music, the album in Border Community in particular (maybe my favourite release there, along with Adamski's and Heim's). And Argenis Brito has a really good voice. And stage manners, I watched him a few years ago with the Senor Coconut live band. Despite Mr.Schmidt's overwhelming maestro presence, he effortlessly managed to gain the crowd by being pleasant and entertaining. In a good sense, and believe me that is rare.
I remember I found this CD in the 'Lounge' shelf... Hmm. At the moment I've lost track of the first one (I was going for a double post actually), but soon I'll find it and up it.
It's summer down there...
Mambotur - 2005, al.frente
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
Quiz #2C
It's really weird that no one has yet recognized the Great Beast, the allegedly greatest magician of the previous century, the industrial era Lucifer incarnate. Him who paved the way for a LOT of others who later claimed fame and fortune for achievements rightly of his own.
I'm talking of course about Aleister Crowley, the one big guy that single-handedly managed to provoke so much admiration and spite at the same time that even though decades have passed and hundreds of books about him are still around, very few (should claim to) have understood what he really tried to accomplice with his life. And because everyone that 'knows' who he was seems to have an opinion on him, I won't share mine. If you're interested to check him out, you must do by yourself. I can only tell you it's worth it.
A simple Google search will feed you with thousands of links, but it's better if you stick to what unbiased bios you find and his books. Lots of stuff to read here. 'Yoga for Yahoos' may be the best written book for Yoga you will ever read, and 'The Book Of Lies' is my personal favorite.
I think that if I had put this photo up in the first place it would be more obvious who he was, right?
Du Bist Die Stadt
I found this one yesterday. I guess it says "You are the City". By the cool layout and the very informative booklet (if you read German, which I can't), I gather it's a compilation by artists participating in a festival that took place in 2002 throughout the city of Koeln/Cologne. There is also a bicycle-bar maskot, but after that it's getting confusing... I hope it was paid by the municipality (ah, those northeners ...).
It was released by the (incredibly named) Scheinselbstaending label, which in my opinion is one of the best pop oriented electronic labels, a evolutionary branch parallel in a way with Ladomat, more towards the electro-pop direction. There were definitely some strong connections with Kompakt from the beginning, while a (very) similar style was more or less adopted by Kompakt Pop later. The label boasts an amazing release by Luomo (with Raz Ohara vocals), some Pet Shop Boys-sounding 12'' by Baxendale of later 'I Built This City' fame, the first release of Drei Farben House and some stuff by Lothar Hempel aka Blitz (Auftrieb) aka Magnet (Kompakt) aka Phong Sui (Kompakt Pop) and once collaborator of Joerg Burger. Main feature artist is Brant, possibly the owner (any help here?).
The CD more or less clarifies its intentions from track one, embedding Burger-like pop techno sensitivities with Salz-like sweet fat minimal. Contains some typical mellow techno by Reinhard Voigt, M. Schaffhaeuser and the unexpectedly good Bum Khun Cha Youth (?), along some vocal pop bastardized with tech-house quality tracks by more or less unknown (at least to me) artists. Also an atypical '80s Brinkmann german vocal track and a Cologne-pop cover of The Smiths' 'Last Night I Dreamed That Somebody Loved Me' by Brant & Mr. Roper, which two years later got a remix by Ada and went on and slipped into the marvelous 2007 'Please Please Please' mix by master Tobias Thomas [Kompakt CD 58]. Who had written a small introductory text on the folder of this CD back in 2003, to come back full round.
It's unexpectedly and refreshingly good. If more pop was like this, I wouldn't need much else.
VA - 2003, Du Bist Die Stadt
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
A beautiful but outdated site of Scheinselbstaending can be found here.
Last but not least: check THIS.
Counting
I've been checking my RS downloads indicators and doing some thinking. To start with, a big thanx to everyone for checking out this page and for the occasional comment. And I've also been lucky to have the minimum of spam, which by the way I still hate so quit it.
It's amazing how popular the Drexciyan records posted here have been. Really don't know why, though I love them too. I think people recognize them or search for them and just download them. They are now of a cult status, I understand. Rightly, don't get me wrong. But I wonder if there is a logo more recognizable than 'UR'. Some classics like 'Pop Artificielle' and 'Soundtrack 313' follow with (much) lesser clicks. Some of the Rother ones also go unexpectedly well. Less popular but still strong stand some listening electronics or 'IDM' releases, but only the ones from well known names (like Pole, Friedmann, or the Toytronic one). And the Heckmann ones.
Cologne techno and listening stuff is sadly overlooked (with the exception of Gas' apparently rare debut 'Zauberberg'). For example take 'Forever Sweet', which it's an album by as much a supergroup as you can get in this style of music, it's supposed to be commercial, and I know that not a lot of people have it. But it's not that much wanted. Or the magnificent 'Dancer' compilation (which I intentionally left without comments and had even fewer downloads), some years old and not so rare but still top quality, ahead of it's time and surely worth it. Kompakt fans seem to be more interested to get the latest release two weeks before it's out than listening to something from the back catalogue. Maybe history is a totally boring lesson after all. But it still makes me sad, cause I like it.
Most of the times when I post a release, I try to keep in mind if it's available around, searching as much as I have the time. I also like to share some not-so-much known or rare numbers and low-profile compilations with unreleased tracks by famous artists. Most exceptional example of this is the 'Ego' compilation, a limited pressing, 2CDs full of unreleased improvised live stuff, good tracks by artists that are still considered top. Which was downloaded by only two persons. Or the 'Station 17+' remix compilation, the prophetic 'WiR' Ladomat compilation and the 'Music For Children' concept, which were mostly ignored.
The thing is, does a record really have to be charted to be good? Everyone with an IQ over 20 could reply to that, still more or less we all do act like it has to. If the 'Ego' CDs were released by Soul Jazz or Raster-Noton or simply Kompakt, they would sell millions and everybody would pick them. It's normal. If I find somewhere a bootleg by a band I'm sure I like, I'll pick it up with saliva dripping, but if it's a band I've heard it might be good but haven't heard it yet, propably I'll pass. There is so much more music I have to check before spending my so few but precious money, so I've got to move on. More or less this was also happening during the vinyl era, you could just miss some records even though it was later apparent you'd loved them (check so many comments on old records everywhere). But I feel this is happening in a so much larger scale now.
The info overload by all types of marketing (corporate, mouth-to-mouth, MySpace, journalists' hypes) brought us to a point where, literally, all meaning is lost. A track might be considered successful, cause it was played by XXXX XXXXX last week and it made three hundred people on coke scream at the same time (which is a really difficult thing to do...). Someone edits it out of an illegal recording directly from the mixer and plays it every night or, worse, releases it as a bootleg in 2000 copies, making money instead of the producer that created it. After two months time when the official release is at last out it's already OLD and sells merely 500, while a new super hit remix by another 'artist 'will be played everywhere in its place.
When you have thousands of people trying to be DJs/producers, i.e. trying to achieve all this as a lifestyle so they can have sex and drugs and say they do music, all you get is the current situation. Where the average teen DJ-to-be has no role model to look up to, unless he wants to be a merchant (or a pimp, as it goes for the hip hop side). Where all that can be bought can be found everywhere for free, but no one's giving you any hints what to get. And where the only hints you get are either from illiterate journalists that often get paid (in demos mostly) to support someone over the other, or the sales' charts of Beatport/ Juno/ Bleep/ Decks/ etc, which of course have some very good reasons to promote certain artists and hypes. The reasons being, some of them 'star' artists own those stores, or are friends/partners with the owners. For certain labels, it's considered worthy of having almost all of their releases, just because the last one topped for two weeks on the charts of some famous (friendly) DJ who has decided to promote it, regardless of originality, quality or time endurance . For the rare one that truly deserves this kind of treatment, a hundred others don't.
And that leaves us normal people with the share-net. Where we can propose stuff to each other, listen to their proposals in turn, help each other out of this swamp of crap floating around which sooner or later we'll feed back. Obviously, as important as the roots are for the tree, the new branches are the future. New music is important. So, dear friends, instead of posting the latest stuff just because it's new and then fight about it with someone like you because s/he "stole" the links (?!?!?!?!?!?), maybe it'd be better to write some shit about why you are posting this. Even if this means you'll post two instead of twenty records. Maybe then you'll see you don't have to listen to a lot of crap, just the crap you like most. And maybe we'll have some more time to listen to them, instead of just piling them in hard drives, lost amongst a flood of faster downloads, more downloads, earlier promos, fake exclusives, CUT.
I really believe the music we hear is overestimated. And more over-evaluated than music is the lifestyle and the mentality it promotes. Most of you are too young to know, but hey, some say there is nothing new in art. This rush for the new big thing, this feeling that no one has done it before, is only partially true. 'No one has done it like this before' would be more accurate, I think. So, when someone rushes you for something new that's old in two days, check if he's charging you for something. And take your time to decide if you like it. And if you do, stand for it and support it. Then and only then will something be of value to you or to the people you communicate with.
