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A beautiful but outdated site of Scheinselbstaending can be found here.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.
Du Bist Die Stadt
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.
Spinner
Brian Eno is one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
Jah Wobble is a mad scientist with a bass.
Eno / Wobble - 1995, Spinner
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
Arovane @ DIN
This is Arovane's input in legendary DIN, a now inactive Hardwax-related label run by one of my heroes in obscurity Torsten Proefrock (nowdays one of Monolake and releasing his solo stuff as T++, sometimes just pure black label 12"s).
DIN played an important role in the european scene during the late '90s - early '00s, being the deep and experimental electronics branch of the Basic Channel tree, while other related labels sticked closer to the techno - deephouse - dub amalgam (now seemingly typical yet still unsurpassed).
There was released mostly stuff by the owner in various guises, Robert Henke as Monolake and the first 12" (if I remember correctly) of Pole. And several 12"s of Arovane, which later were compacted in these two CDs. 'Icol Diston' actually contains older stuff, the first 12"s released during 1998-1999, 'IDM-ish' electronics dipped in Berlin's melancholy, not some extravaganza ground-breaking stuff. Simply good experimental trippy music for urban landscapes. Enjoy.
Arovane - 2000 Atol Scrap
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
Arovane - 2002 Icol Diston
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
Some more DIN info here.
VocalCity
A lot of people I talk to lately haven't even heard this album. How can this be I don't really know. This is the record that alongside Motorbass' 'Pansoul' and Daft Punk's 'Homework' changed the course of modern House music in general. And bred a few sub-styles (like Micro- or Mini-House, you know) in particular, as DeepHouse or TechHouse seem too poor a tag for a work like this. Also it put Northern Europe on the map again (at last...), long before the Viking disco wave or the Trentemoeller-Martinez-etc invasion (which incidentally owes a lot of credit to this one).
Out in Forcetracks label (the older incarnation) in 2000, it's a collection of three 12"s that impacted on dancefloors and chill couches alike from the one and only (tah-daaah) Luomo aka Uusitalo aka Sistol aka Conoco, named Sasu Ripatti yet mostly known as Vladislav Delay, the prodigy child that managed to stand out even in labels like Chain Reaction and Mille Plateaux. And he's a great guy too from the little I've got, friendly and sort of low-profile. Luomo is the more accessible project, Uusitalo goes towards experimental Techno territory, all other stuff is mostly pure and good listening music, minimalistic deep and spacious excursions into the unknown, with a sentimental anchor here and there to keep the balance.
Right now he's putting out some new stuff and reprinting his discography and stuff with AGF and others in his own label Huume, so go there and buy everything. Even in MP3 it's worth it and it's for a good cause, trust me.
Just listen to 'Synkro' or 'Tessio'. A true classic.
Luomo - 2000 VocalCity
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
P.S. Links were erased without notice, probably by Huume. Well, go there and buy it.
Solid State
Another one for the more listening-oriented ones out there (I try a lot to stay clear of the IDM tag, eh?).
Most of you must be familiar with Funckarma, or Quench. Back then I wasn't, just knew the name and had a good vibe from the DUB compilations which I kept in track with, although mysteriously I missed the 'Parts' CD. But not this one, and I'm happy about it.
In my mind there are obvious similarities between this album and Arovane's 'Tides' or other Berlin electronics artists (Lux Nigra, Morr, etc.), in a sense that they all draw from the 'Incunabula' and early '90s AFX trickery and feeling, yet they're more relaxed affairs concerning avant-guardisms. As if they laid back and tried to make out their way first, they explore new territories without rushing in. Almost indistinguishable from the 'normal' electronic sounds, a lot of natural instruments blend in the mix, while drum samples roll and groove without showing off. Similar ideas (not style of music) were developed by the excellent Murcof (and many others actually, I just like his work a lot) and Leaf label.
Still the chemical tease under the tongue is there, under all the vibes and pianos, so don't think it's sweet chill-out comfy crap electronica. In loud volume it gets wider, weirder, just better actually. After all DUB is a Clone sublabel, right?
Funckarma - 2001, Solid State
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here and here.
Actually, I think I'll post these compilations later on.
P.S. I still don't have the 'Parts' CD, anyone does?
