Ital Tek Mega City Industry Civil Music This new foursome from Alan Myson, a Brighton based artist recording under the moniker Ital Tek, continues along the same trajectory he’s been on for the last several years, particularly his recent Control mini-album for Planet Mu. It’s his second outing for Civil Music after his Hyper Real EP last year. The contrast of fast and slow is again at the core of these tracks, but there is a gravity to these pieces that lends them a certain mystique that might be closer to his Nebula Dance album. ‘Mega City Industry’ arrangement is big and spacious, full of reverberated chimes and pads while his signature patient halfbeat anchors it with a serious poker face. ‘Shinra’ skitters with activity despite its slow halfbeat anchor, with bassline and melody all flitting in sync like the nervous twitching of wings. ‘Swamp Beat’ leans more into dubstep territory with a heavy-handed beat and dubbed out sounds, but his trademark sputtering patterns here sound almost like an inversion of the sounds of Myson’s Gonga 12″ on Planet Mu. The most melodic complement to the title cut, however, is in closer ‘Universal Decay’, a handsome piece of work brimming with bending pads and rolling arps.		Loops Haunt Exits Black Acre Loops Haunt is a project by Scott Douglas Gordon, a Scottish producer. Exits is his first full-length album, released on Bristol’s Black Acre, which builds on the palette of his Ark and Zenith EPs with a more varied set of sounds. Over its numerous tracks, Exits finds Gordon more unpredictable than ever, starting with the improvised prologue of ‘Exits’ and the subsequent freeform sprawl of ‘Trapdoor’ before proceeding into the downtempo dirge of ‘Hollowed’. The latter reminds me of some of the moments of early DJ Shadow and Mo’Wax, but it’s a fleeting comparison. ‘Howl’ is a galloping rock beat paired with a rousing, coarse triplet bassline, splitting the difference between Plaid and Battles. The squiggly acid lines of ‘IIVA’ push it closer to sounds that usually emanate from Rephlex than anything I’ve heard from Loops Haunt before, but it’s an effective track in the middle of the album. It’s a pretty direct contrast to ‘Hex’ which follows, a dreamy track that’s all twinkle and pulse. Elsewhere Gordon touches on chillwave (the clicks and cuts looping of ‘Ellum Tonal’), darker soundtracks (the dark imagery of ‘Tunnelling’), or more tripped out, jazz-tinged excursions (‘Tymadlyb’).
Clark Superscope Warp This 2-track release from Chris Clark is a curve-ball after the unusually lush intricacies of his previous double whammy of his Iradelphic album and its follow-up EP Fantasm Planes. Having seen Clark perform late last fall, the title cut is no surprise, with a jerky groove of effects and synths that wanders in circles around a chunky, uptempo rhythm section. It feels like Clark’s oscilloscope visuals, noodly and spazzy and strangely monochromatic compared to his often expansive arrangements on previous releases. And yet its claustrophobic squirm works, shifting and writhing over its thud-thud staggered kick and choo-choo synths that fill in overhead, sounding like a runaway 2D freight train. Despite feeling kindred to the post-dubstep UK bass music sounds of the last few years, there is still something other about Clark’s production that veers it into something more alien. By contrast, ‘Riff Through The Fog’ starts off with startlingly clear melody, a catchy refrain that loops over his otherwise textural and skittering arrangements. It’s definitely the more sedate companion to ‘Superscope’, but it’s indeed a welcome one. It’s so smooth by comparison that it can be tempting to write it off as a B-side, but in reality I think ‘Riff Through The Fog’ is more likely to get repeat listens from me. It’s a great combination of all of the things in which Clark excels: melody, unusual sound design, mix, straddling the dancefloor and a world better suited for headphones.		Christian Löffler Young Alaska Ki Records Christian Löffler follows up his superb A Forest album on his own Ki Records with this equally lush sophomore effort. Young Alaska reprises most of the sounds and styles found on A Forest but does so more elegantly, more concisely. For starters, Young Alaska is only 8 tracks at 42 minutes, as opposed to the last album’s 13-track, 80-minute sprawl, so it feels more approachable by default. But the sounds themselves aren’t so much a departure, really. There’s something quaintly home-spun about Löffler’s arrangements for electronics, often sounding as though he’s sampled household objects and surfaces for his sounds rather than synthesizing them outright or using conventional drum samples. It has this flawed, human sound in common with some of Matthew Herbert‘s late 90s Around the House tracks or some of Glitterbug‘s more pastoral dance music excursions, but Löffler has a distinct style of composition that feels at once familiar and refreshing and easy. The gloomy, smooth progression of many of the tracks here feel somehow interchangeable, all likeable parts of one whole rather than discrete tracks. ‘Roman,’ for instance, has a beautiful melody along with a variety of quiet bedroom sounds, but it still has the form and function of dance music, sounding not unlike the more chilly moments of Trentemøller‘s excellent 2005 album, The Last Resort. It’s a healthy balance of heart and body, elegant but unafraid to break a sweat.

All words by Matthew Mercer of Ear Influxion
Additional editorial by HC

In 2012, I was impressed by a self-released Kissing Cousins EP from Allan Shotter and Giada Zerbo, together recording as Vittoria Fleet. On my Sound Bytes Review I compared their output to that of Clark, Tim Exile and Apparat for the glitchy IDM beats, melodic progressions and DSP-rich processing; and to Björk for the female vocals appearing on the EP. An interesting combination that left me wanting to hear more. In fact, I left my review with high hopes that they’ll get signed by a trustworthy label. So it seems that I wasn’t alone in my discovery, and someone was indeed also impressed [wink, wink]. Oakland based n5MD (curated and operated by Mike Cadoo) picked up the project for the debut LP, on which the duo continues down the same path of their uniquely combined sound.

Acht LP delivers frequency rich atmospherics, punctuated by tight percussion with extremely high knack for attention to detail. The organic melodies are as crisp as the shuffling field recordings I pick up in my peripheral hearing. The rhythms are head-nodding feel-good summer strolls, leaving your soul warm and the mind satisfied. Although there are a few instrumental interludes on the album (‘Sávuca Redux’ is a personal favorite), it is mostly composed of actual songs, with Zerbo’s soft vocals floating above the complex machinery beneath. Take a listen to ‘Hunger’ and see if you don’t immediately recognize some of the influences already mentioned above, and whether or not these indeed make up all of the desired elements which I so highly praise.

“Two years in the making Acht LP shows the duo refining their tenet of aural and emotional contrast. Dark elastic experimental beatwork pulsate around Giada’s slithery emotive vocal delivery. IDM, bits of nostalgic trip-hop and some of the best sound design we’ve come across in some time all make the Acht LP a rewarding a treat for the ears.”

Perhaps the ‘contrast’ mentioned above is attributed to the two separate cultures clashing in the music: Zerbo was born in Sicily while Shotter is from London. It’s also important to point out that the album (and the project itself) is more than just a culmination of derived sound from the beloved artists of the day. Acht LP stands on its own, projecting confidence, passion and skill, which is not so easily attributed to most of the ‘up-and-coming’ acts today. Vittoria Fleet feels like a highly polished deliverable, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Shotter and Zerbo (individually or combined) have been quietly perfecting their art throughout the years.

Acht LP is available directly from the label on digital (including FLAC), CD and vinyl (with a download card) – there’s also a limited run of white LPs in n5Mailorder shop [and if you shop there, I recommend you add Jon Hopkins' Immunity and Plaid's Reachy Prints into your cart as well for a perfect trio!] A highly recommended listen, especially if you’re into some of the names mentioned on this page.

vittoriafleet.com | n5md.com

Words by HC

Black Swan Tone Poetry Ethereal Symphony Black Swan was new to me when I first played Tone Poetry. And what a fantastic first impression the album made! [editor's note: Headphone Commute has reviewed every single Black Swan release in the past, so it was time for Matthew to appreciate the artist.] I’ve played the album dozens of times, and yet I’ve found myself struggling with words to adequately describe it, despite how much I like it. ‘Ritual’ rolls in like a thick fog, dense and shapeless and all-surrounding, and it sets the tone for the proceedings nicely. ‘Eden’ is the longest track and a clear standout with its string harmonics and atmospheric reverb, all gliding by with glacial patience into the more harrowing sounds of ‘Prophecy.’ It is that continuity from track to track that makes Tone Poetry go down so smoothly, all sounding like one amorphous whole rather than discrete pieces or parts. The disembodied, oblique chamber arrangements (often sounding like strings or organ or other traditional instruments, buried in effects) remind me of some of the weirder more recent material from Tim Hecker, though the heavy fog of Tone Poetry might ultimately place it closer to David Lynch‘s Eraserhead on the sound spectrum, or perhaps the haunted sounds of The Caretaker. But Tone Poetry moves me more than any of those sounds, with a linear progression to it that is as patient as it is lush. For all of its darker moments, the final stretch of the album is, for lack of more eloquent words, fucking gorgeous. ‘Departed’ and ‘Elegy’ both unfold with a tragic beauty, elegant and patient. It’s an album that rises above comparisons by virtue of just how exquisite it is. Highly recommended for fans of ambient drone music, easily one of my favorites of the year so far.		K’an Anima Onyudo This is an absolutely stunning collection of tracks from artist Paolo Bellipanni. Don’t let the harrowing choral loops of the opener mislead you too much… while it begins with an unsettling tone, much of Anima is quite gorgeous. With a little patience, those introductory loops begin to shudder and shake as ‘The Tree in the Garden of Limbs’ reveals just one facet of beguiling beauty. This beauty isn’t always so pretty, either, but just as striking when it feels tragic as it does when it’s fragile and warm. ‘Arsons Beneath Eclipsed Waters’ reflects this oscillation from light to dark and everything in between with its patient but intense crescendo of tremolo guitar, drones, and feedback. At the core of Anima is Bellipanni’s use of guitar, electronics, voice, and effects in ways where it’s difficult to tell where one ends and the next begins. I suppose what’s also refreshing about K’an is that while there are so many touchpoints that feel familiar (Fennesz, Tim Hecker, Grouper, Sunn O))), The Haxan Cloak), it still sounds unique and unto itself. ‘In a River of Light You Carve Intersections of Darkness’ brings a techno pulse into the mix, sounding not unlike the gloomy, hazy throb of Fennesz’s Hotel Paral.lel, but otherwise Anima is mostly a textural, visceral, languid affair. ‘Altars’ is a slithering beast that clocks in at nearly 15 minutes, shifting shape several times before it breaks through with a cathartic power drone of voices, guitar, and electronics. It’s a moving precursor to the tightly wound title track that closes the album with a sublime swoon (plus an epilogue that surprises me every time). Though I’ve done my best, describing K’an’s music here doesn’t do justice to its power. It’s tragic that I nearly overlooked this altogether. Highly, highly recommended!
Orphax De Tragedie… Moving Furniture Sietse van Erve is the man behind the bleak sounds of Orphax. De Tragedie Van Een Liedjesschrijver Zonder Woorden is his first official full-length for the project, and my first exposure to his music. The album is divided into 6 tracks, starting with the shimmering, drony haze of ‘Onder Het Noorderlicht’. It crackles with electricity, with some tense feedback just below the surface while an undulating tide of metallic drones does its thing. ‘Geluiden Van De Eerste Dag’ is the second track, even more subtle. Its taut, minimal drones and flutters of bit-crushed texture remind me of the drone music that initially hooked me on the genre in the 90s (that’s a good thing!). ‘Samen Aan Het Water’ continues the trend, even more sublime and sedate, lacking the grit that provided the dark underbelly of the first couple of tracks. There is a subtle push and pull between the more pastoral beauty of some of these pieces, including the gorgeous glide of ‘Winterslaap in de Zomer’ and the more tense layers of drones in the opening track and ‘Ochtengloren Boven De Ijzige Vlakte’. ‘Het Bos’ brings it all down with an elegant decline in its final moments, until there’s nothing but the faint sound of nature. Fans of drone music will no doubt enjoy it, touching on familiar sounds but with a bit of its own elusive personality that reveals itself on repeat listens.		Birds of Passage This Kindly Slumber Denovali Alicia Merz‘s third album as Birds of Passage for German Denovali Records is haunting and ghostly, much like her faint voice murmuring through a wall of effects. It’s difficult to not make comparisons to Liz Harris’s project Grouper, another stark solo project that skirts the line between songwriting and ambient drones. Rather than shoegazing, instead it’s more like the aftermath of that feedback and swirl of sound, diminishing returns of reverb with a stark, intimate, human touch. ‘Ashes to Ashes’ is a gorgeous prelude, but it’s with ‘Belle du Jour’ that Merz’s gloom rises to the foreground more overtly. That graceful combination of fragility and melancholy characterizes most of This Kindly Slumber, from the stark, concise songwriting of ‘And All of Your Dreams’ to the more sprawling ephemera of closing beauty ‘Lonesome Tame.’ I find Merz’s songs to be at their most effective when she allows them to just decay freely, delicate drones of voice, guitar, and synths reverberating indefinitely in some cases. That she allows her voice to often come through clear enough to understand her vocals is a nice bonus, although I find myself lost in the overall sound more than focused on her lyrics. And that may be the point after all. Highly recommended for fans of Grouper and other Kranky artists, such as Labradford, Windy & Carl and Mirroring.

All words by Matthew Mercer of Ear Influxion
Additional editorial by HC

Benn Jordan is a Chicago based musician, who somehow manages to stay out of the spotlight, no matter how much I want to shine it on him. You see, when it comes to intelligent electronic music, lush atmospheric ambiance and astute witty IDM with just a perfect dose of organics and DSP, Benn Jordan is at the very top. Every few years, I impatiently await for his latest work as The Flashbulb, and then proceed on consuming it for months on heavy rotation. Every track, an entire universe within itself, full of ideas, prowess and soul. Today, I’m proud of bringing you the opportunity to take a peak into his studio. Enjoy!

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
I started with playing guitar and various keyboards. I suppose it depends what you define as “gear” these days. As a kid, I had a Casio SK-1 and a bigger Casio keyboard that isn’t notable enough to remember much about. I had a couple of pedals for the guitar. My first programmable piece of equipment would be the Boss DR-660 which I got as a Xmas gift in 1993 or so. A year later I somehow managed to shoplift a Roland MS-1 and talked a friend into indefinitely letting me borrow his family’s Karaoke machine. So between the drum machine, sampler, guitar, I could swap tapes back and forth and layer tracks. It was probably the most ghetto studio ever.

(2004 – click to zoom in)

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
That setup mentioned above grew and grew, eventually spiraling into chaos. In 2005 or so, I had temporarily taken over payments on my mother’s tiny duplex house. It was kind of like an invasive plant just growing around a different one. For years I slept on the floor with my head in a kick drum (the pillow inside helped the thump when playing). There was old Roland gear wired up around pictures of Jesus Christ and doilies preventing rack gear from scratching decorative tables. In the yard I had made giant wind harps and chimes that sounded like tubular church bells. My neighbors rejoiced in 2007 when I moved to a 2 story condo in Wicker Park. The studio in Wicker Park was a polar opposite. I had a recording room, a mixing room, and a vocal booth/guitar room. Everything was organized, clean, and proper. I realized that my output actually slowed down from it. I was used to working in chaos, and really just felt uncomfortable the entire time I was there. So I moved to Bridgeport, and my studio here is as chaotic as the neighborhood is. For 6 months I experimented with having a studio in a spot down the block, but I’m too attached to making music to put it at the same level as “going into work”. So all my gear came back here. I’m moving again at the end of the year, hopefully to find a good balance between organization and what I have now. But more importantly, a more peaceful and secluded environment that is closer to nature.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
There’s stuff that I will always love because I’m so comfortable with it, like the JX-305 or TB-303. Then there’s stuff that I’m playing with currently and am fascinated with, like the VP-770 or my disklavier (MIDI controllable piano). So it’s hard to pick one thing.

(2004 – click to zoom in)

And what about the software that you use for production?
I’ll never allow myself to settle down with one DAW because I’m scared it’ll stifle my diversity, but I like FL Studio the most. Once you get used to the interface, it’s insanely powerful. Everything is controllable by anything. Other than that, Reaper is a sturdy platform and I have a Mac just so I can run Metasynth. I still use Reaktor a lot as well. It’s outdated, but I’m very comfortable with its brand of node-based programming. I’m also actively learning to code, so hopefully I’ll be making my own tools sometime soon.

What do you use for field recordings or when you want to just capture external sounds?
Most people would debate this, but field recording to me is quantity over quality. If I can capture a decent recording of 30 different locations or sounds in the time it would take me to capture one amazing quality recording, I’ll choose the 30. So I have a couple of H4N’s with the poofy kitten (or whatever it’s called) windscreen filters. That being said, if there’s one thing I want to very specifically capture, or if it’s a reverb impulse, then I’ll use the H4N capturing a pair of Rode mics from an Alesis preamp.

(2008 – click to zoom in)

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
I feel like we’ve finally reached a place in technology where it’s possible to turn the ideas in your head into audio without much more than a computer. But using hardware inspires me and generates some good ideas. I’d love to get my hands on a Sennheiser VSM-201 vocoder or a number of old Soviet synths. I probably wouldn’t be able to justify spending the money on them though. Even though they’re unpopular to most enthusiasts, I really like modern workstations like the Roland FA-08. I love the idea of one keyboard being able to produce an entire track. But I can’t justify spending thousands of dollars for that experience unless I need it.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
It’s hard to explain with words (which is why I’m a musician, I suppose). When I write music with atmospheric sound design, it feels a bit like sleeping with your window open as opposed to sleeping in a stuffy room. There’s a living chaos going on. Something that thousands, if not millions of different lifeforms, machines, or natural elements helped create, and they’ll never create it exactly the same again. It’s also often subconsciously nostalgic, which kind of ties into what people feel when experiencing ASMR. When I hear a train in the distance, in the back of my head I’m associating it to my childhood. Someone else might be annoyed or distracted by it. I find the sound of a babbling brook really stressful while a lot of people are relaxed by it. I guess I just really like how it helps tell a story that is different to every person who hears it.

(2008 – click to zoom in)

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
There wasn’t too many new things on a technical level. It was really hard work. I wanted it to be personalized to the point where I didn’t work with other musicians. I usually have a violinist or cellist in to play on sessions. In this album I didn’t write something I couldn’t perform myself. I thought about all of the times I recorded a session player and just didn’t “feel it”, and wanted my own emotions driving the intensity or vibrato of the performance. Earlier this year I realized that I had accumulated about 40 songs, and it was time to shave them down and put the album together.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you go on a tour?
It’s always different. This year I’ll likely be doing half of a set of released songs, and the other half improvised stuff with my MIDI guitar and some drum machines. I try to limit myself to what I can fit into a big coffin case and a rack case. I also haven’t used a laptop live for many years now, so that makes everything a little bit more challenging (but a LOT more stable).

(2013 – click to zoom in)

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
Distractions. They’re killing my productivity here. If it isn’t someone knocking on my door asking about a fuse box in the other building or something, it’s gangbangers fighting or just screaming incoherently outside my window. This is happening live right now as I type this, haha. I need to try living and working in a more rural environment, and plan on doing so soon.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?
I’ve always come up with technical ideas while doing something more mindless and physical. In the past few years I’ve been really physically active, so the start of my day is usually spent at a training camp/gym where I’m free to brainstorm while zoning out on a speed bag or something. They mature once I try to bring them to reality. A lot of times an idea or melody in my head sounds unflattering when it actually becomes a sound. As for actually getting mastered and released, I’d say that 5% of ideas and 30% of finished songs get there. There are a lot of tracks that I’m really proud of that just don’t fit into an album or release.

(2013 – click to zoom in)

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?
I used to immediately pop it in my car or on my headphones and analyze it in every way. But now I just have a pool of songs in a folder, and I’ll listen to them a few days or weeks later once the melody is out of my head. I think my car is the best place to decide if something needs to be re-engineered because it’s absolutely merciless with bass and treble handling. Despite it being a rather good sound system for an automobile, it’s very easy for something to sound terrible in my Kia Soul. I think it’s really important to remember that 90% of the people who listen to music don’t have studio monitors or $300+ headphones. Sometimes I have to make compromises to make it sound appealing in both settings.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
Yes and no. I procrastinate things like responding to emails or shipping a package, but I don’t think I’ve really experienced boredom since I was a kid. If I’m not inspired to write music, then I’ll work on photography, programming, martial arts, etc. If I were to go on a vacation to a peaceful, deserted beach, I would probably invent a project to do there that would ensure that I’d sleep 4 hours a night and be stressed out the entire time. I think I just get anxious when I’m bored.

You seem to have a lot of great ideas in almost every piece — all very good I must say! How and where do you find the inspiration for you work?
Thanks, from you that means a lot to me! It’s hard to pinpoint exactly. In the past couple of years I tried to make it a point to not take inspiration literally from other music I’m listening to, mostly because I feel like the end result is more gratifying and all around a better use of my time. This isn’t frequently the case, but sometimes I hear music far off in the distance or in a car driving by, and since I can only make out 10% of what I’m hearing and can’t identify the music, my brain seems to fill in the blanks. That’s a fun way to start a composition.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
I’m actually pretty isolated from it, so I don’t think about it much, but I don’t mean that in a bad way. It probably wouldn’t surprise anyone that I’m not a fan of genres or scenes, even if they’re broad categories. The only divide I really subscribe to is “fun music” and “emotional music”. The former being created as a service to listeners to enjoy, and the latter being created as a form of expression, whether it is literal or abstract. I find value in both types. I think rules of genre should always take a backseat to ideas, and that’s happening more and more now.

Be sure to pick up Jordan’s latest, Nothing Is Real available on theflashbulb.bandcamp.com

theflashbulb.net

Today we welcome back Gosh Snobo, a Riga (Latvia) based selector, who has previously contributed to our program back in 2011 with A Rest From Intention, and once again, same year later, with a TEARSUPSIDEDOWN mix. Originally put together on January 1st of 2014, the selection is inspired by new beginnings celebrated with a welcoming of a new year. But to me, a calendar year does not necessarily signify a checkpoint in one’s experiences of life. And so today is as good day as any to reflect on things of past, and prepare yourself for a future. Here’s to new beginnings!

soundcloud.com/snobo | djsnobo.blogspot.com

[ STREAM ] | [ DOWNLOAD ] | [ PODCAST ] | [ iTUNES ]

You know, as the world turns and feeds off its own collective insanity, creating nothing useful but pain and suffering, I try to step back, close my eyes and simply breathe. In those moments I often turn to Brock Van Wey, and his truly blissed-out music. Thankfully for me, there is plenty from his catalog to choose from. Besides a few releases under his real name, of which Home is only the second on echospace [detroit], Wey has recorded over 20 full-length albums under his bvdub moniker, and even a few releases under Earth House Hold and East Of Oceans projects. And although at times it feels difficult to keep track of his ambitious output, it is the complete opposite feeling of being immersed in it – an effortless waft in the ocean of sound.

The work of Brock Van Wey has appeared numerous times on these pages, through album reviews, interviews, studio specials and even a few fan-dedicated mixes. Yet over and over I feel drawn to his output, compelling me once again to write these words. As I have already alluded, Home is a followup to Wey’s 2009 opus, White Clouds Drift On And On. The latter, also released on echospace, came with a second disc full of dubbed out interpretations by Stephen Hitchell as Intrusion. The sequel (if it may be called that), now nearly five years later, is also a double release, this time without the remix offering, but still, nevertheless, just as compelling.

“Brock returns in beautiful form with what he’s said to us is his most personal and self defining moment in his fruitful musical career. This album however strikes on a very different chord from the last, rather than find contentment in repeating himself he’s sculpted a unique sound slightly out of focus from his previous work, a sound one could only say is like drifting in and out of consciousness.”

The ten long tracks on Home, all over 10-minute each and some approaching even 20, showcase some of Wey’s beautiful sound perfected throughout the years. Here are the gorgeous multi-chordal pads, spreading over barely recognizable major scales. Here are the looped female vocals, layered, delayed, reverbed and then layered again. Here are the stunning waves of phrasing, crashing upon the empty beach of your consciousness, and then receding into complete still after the storm. Here is the illusion of time, stretching nearly to three hours yet feeling like a single brief moment. It’s easy to get lost in Wey’s overlapping and sonic-rich tiers, only to find yourself wrapped in a thick blanket of sound, slowly drifting away into nothingness… and that’s precisely where I want to be… as the world turns…

Be sure to read our special: In the studio with Brock Van Wey

bvdub.org | echospacedetroit.com

Words by HC

Before you read this new installment of Sound Bytes, I wanted to take a few seconds of your time to point something out. Although originally intended as short, paragraph-length write-ups, launched back in 2010, these mini-reviews have almost doubled in size over the years. I think what I’m attempting to draw your attention to here, is that the covered releases are more than just honorable mentions, and indeed are highly recommended gems. I think no less of them than of the featured albums. I hope you feel the same. Enjoy!

Celestino Kindling A Guide To Saints The music of Celestino comes on like a slow morning sunrise, announced with an early ringing bell. The tranquil chords swell into the wind like a pastel painting briefly emerging through the daylight. Its texture is hazy and blurred, droning in that essence of a meditative state of mind. There was more than a one occasion, on which I seemed to [randomly] land on Kindling in my playlist, leaving it playing on repeat, for almost an entire day. A favorite piece on the album, “Broken Open”, begins with the sounds of a distant ocean, some field recordings, and a swaying tide of a brooding drone. There is a sense of hauntology, noir-fi and phantom ambiance in this track, which has kept my growing interest in its eerie progression, until I come up for some air on the shore. Appearing on a cassette label called A Guide To Saints, Celestino is a project of a Portland based musician Gabriel Celestino Higgins, released on this Room40 sister imprint. Building on his 2012 release, Lived In, Higgins creates heavily textured harmonies, that softly lap at the sharp edges of your day, smoothing out the cringed brow, placing impulsive thoughts at rest. “On Kindling, submerged drones gently slide and rub together, one betraying the next in a cascade of truly glacial beauty. Voices haunt the outskirts of the pieces, calling from somewhere just too distant to make out. Waves of bass swell and break, leaving a tideline of endless harmonics.” It’s no wonder that Lawrence English decided to pick up Celestino as an “eighth saint” for an edition of 100 cassettes (plus a digital) after landing his adept hand at mastering the album. All this, after singing some names such as Motion Sickness Of Time Travel, Primitive Motion, Heinz Riegler, Rangefinder, Sleeper, With Moths and more… all of which I shall highly recommend you check out.		Faures Continental Drift Home Normal Another gorgeous and aptly named album comes from the never ceasing to impress catalog of the beloved Home Normal. Continental Drift is a product of Faures – a new trio consisting of Fuzz Lee (also known as Elintseeker), Samuel Landry (aka Le Berger) and René Margraff (who you should already know as Pillowdiver). The album begins with an apparent glitch [one I had to double-check and make sure it's not just my copy], and slowly spreads into a statically charged, fluid, and organic soundscape. The elements swirl between rich synth pads, soft piano keys, and swelling guitar hum, complimenting each other along the way. The concept was inspired by Alfred Wegener‘s book The Origin of Continents and Oceans, but the project has yet another special touch. The music transcends through each artist’s unique approach, picking up along the way an influence as shaped by the character of the environment. The latter is attributed to the ‘triangular’ process of composition, where each musician from a different continent would produce two tracks, and then pass it along to the next artist in line. Just like an ‘exquisite corpse’, each contribution is built on top of the last [except, I suppose, they're allowed to witness the previous section], and, just like this artistic method, each augmentation of the work is final. The output can be related to Hans Cloos‘ quote on continental drift theory, also referenced in the release: “It let them float and drift, break apart and converge. Where they broke away, cracks, rifts, trenches remain; where they collided, ranges of folded mountains appear.” The result is a blissed-out meditative exchange among the purveyors of ethereal minimalism, wafting ambiance and ebbing drone. Recommended for fans of everything from 12k.
The Ashes Of Piemonte Datura Notes Twice Removed The Ashes of Piemonte first appeared on my radar back in 2013, with the project’s début on Time Released Sound, titled Winter’s Fire, and immediately grabbed a spot on Headphone Commute’s Best of 2013, in our Music For Withered Leaves And Lonely Fishtanks category! I’ve followed the output of the label since its inception, and was particularly excited by this collaboration between Wil Bolton (co-owner of Boltfish Recordings) and Lee Anthony Norris (the same Norris of Metamatics, Nacht Plank and owner of Neo Ouija). The second album, Datura Notes, is a followup, this time on a Perth-based (Western Australia) Twice Removed micro-label (run by Gavin Catling), released on two CDs with only four tracks. The individual pieces, each approaching a 30-minute mark, are immersive, mesmerizing and sublime. This is an all-engaging ambiance, requiring attentive patient listening, full of gorgeous piano melodies, twinkling synthetic elements, and calm field recordings (‘The Colour of Space’ features something that sounds like rain in a cavern). The progression of each track is gradual, at times a bit thicker in layers, but mostly just peaceful and poised. Waves of the ocean, strums of guitar, and calming pads – all of the ingredients required to get me into that meditative state. There’s not much said about the project (or this particular release), but I assure you, it deserves your great attention. Norris, meanwhile, has also collaborated with Porya Hatami on Every Day Feels Like A New Drug for Unknown Tone Records, and he’s even got a return of Metamatics release in the queue scheduled, I believe, for August 2014 on XTT Recordings. You bet I’ll be getting my hands on that one!		Oiseaux-Tempête Oiseaux-Tempête Sub Rosa I tend to have a soft spot for post-apocalyptic post-rock post-everything music. Perhaps that spot should not exactly be called soft, but rather a raw and aching scar, so that when it finally appears to heal, I scrape at the bleeding throb. I suppose it was ever since my discovery of G.Y.B.E. that I got hooked on this particular roller coaster, and the “Opening Theme (Ablaze in the Distance)” track of Oiseaux-Tempête‘s self-titled release on Sub-Rosa surely recalls my first infatuation with the sound. The album features all of the beloved: sampled field-recordings of people with deploring urgency in their voices, soaring ascending guitars, discontent keyboards and even an alto sax courtesy of Frédéric D. Oberland, mischievous, tense and discontented bass by Stéphane Pigneul and sinister percussion builds by Ben McConnell. If a few of these names sound familiar, it is because you’ve glimpsed them being credited as members of FareWell Poetry (along with Colin Johnco, Eat Gas, Hayne Amara Ross and Stanislas Grimbert). If not, I highly recommend you pick up the 2011 release, Hoping For The Invisible To Ignite out on Giseh Records. The music on the album follows the work of French filmmaker, Stéphane C., who documented the 2012-13 political and economic turmoil of Greece. “Originally conceived as a musical and visual, poetic and militant voyage, this first album retraces, in a sonic odyssey, the qualms and queries of a sickly and dysfunctional Western society.” I wouldn’t have mentioned this November album if I wasn’t returning to it over and over, six months after its release. Recommended for fans of Esmerine, Mono, Yndi Halda, The Pirate Ship Quintet, and of course, GY!BE.

Words by HC

Walizka by John Lemke is a significantly enhanced reissue of a three-track EP which was originally released as a teaser for his 2013 full-length album People Do on Denovali. The new version includes the three original tracks (‘Walizka’, ‘Drift’, and ‘Kompass’) along with four stunning remixes by fellow Denovali artists Piano Interrupted, SaffronKeira, Everyday Dust, and Petrels. According to Lemke, the songs on Walizka were actually developed after the material on People Do and shift the electro-acoustic feeling of that record into “more dub drenched territories”.

If you have not heard the original tracks, you are in for quite a treat. Syncopated, percolating rhythms and impossibly catchy bass lines flow throughout, and the balance of acoustic and electronic elements is seamless and intoxicating. The remixes then take these tracks in surprising new directions. In each case, the guest artists slow down the original source material and uncover entirely new sonic possibilities which underscore the strength of Lemke’s compositions.

“three items in a suitcase, a clarinet, a looper and a microphone – is how it all started. a free improvisation with friend & collaborator lukasz bernacki (on clarinet) sparked john’s desire to bring his compositional and production approach back down to the most basic elements. creating simple, yet distinctive rhythms only through tapping contact microphones run into noisy guitar amps became the base for the ep’s three tracks, consequently inspiring its live, lo-fi feel.”

Piano Interrupted (that’s Tom Hodge and Franz Kirmann) slow ‘Walizka’ down into a graceful waltz with the most delicate of electronic flourishes. SaffronKeira (Eugenio Caria) takes ‘Kompass’ for a deep ambient dive while preserving the glitchy dub aesthetic, albeit in slow motion. Everyday Dust (a mysterious artist on Sparkwood Records) then takes the same track and, dropping the percussion elements, transforms it into a transcendent and contemplative drone. Finally, Petrels (Oliver Barrett) takes ‘Drift’ and stretches it into nine minute abstract excursion of changing moods and electronic alchemy.

Despite the diversity of styles and artists, it all meshes together beautifully and flows coherently. A unique and captivating album. Walizka is available from Denovali in CD and MP3 formats as well as two flavors of 180g vinyl, clear gold and black. It’s also worthwhile to note that People Do was featured on Headphone Commute’s Best of 2013 Music For The Frosty Night When I Miss Your Warm Light end-of-the-year list, so it is indeed highly recommended.

lostinsounds.com | denovali.com

Words by Brian Housman of Stationary Travels

Like the white swish of the famous Nike tick, Solens Arc swoops high above the sky, a band steep in its incline, racing against the friction of gravity. The arc, with its incredible altitude, rises in an easy swoosh and then inverts itself, cascading the underside in slight, yet noticeable degrees, its trajectory hanging like a brilliant halo high above the sphere. Running through the music is a sense of speed, determination and robotic purpose. The beats are anvil-heavy, anchored to the electronic harmonies by the force of gravity alone. High above, the synths are wrapped like a bandana around the speedy beats. The arc stares blankly down upon titanic structures and mechanical beasts, the music matching its power and accuracy.

“Serendipity March” is the opener, and it isn’t long before the beats accelerate with plenty of forward thrust. There are gaps in the onslaught, with smoother, quicker interludes that diffuse the situation, but for the most part it is war. The inner sections weave around one another, revealing tracks within tracks. Solens Arc is a multi-layered, massive labyrinth of sound, intelligently designed.

The arc travels from thick, throbbing techno to anthemic arpeggios that daub splashes of feverish colour onto the otherwise dark sky. The twelve tracks interconnect, as if the arc were chained to the black core of the planet. In the same way that the rings of Saturn are an inescapable part of the planet’s way of life, not to mention its identity, so too do the relentless beats tie themselves to the music, with electronic ruins that date back to the dawn of time. The music is electrically charged, producing an intense rush of sound. On “Blank Empire”, the beat climbs steadily, rocking and rolling repetitively. The vicious synth buzzes and grinds against the sweeping beat, punishing the speakers as it cycles around its sphere. Its sharp angle scoops up the electronic beats, sending them on their way at a speed faster than a bullet.

“A stone is thrown, just to watch it fly. A projectile launched for the sole purpose of drawing a ballistic trajectory in the sky. The Solens arc is what remains after the subtraction of the goal; a simple parabolic curve defined by gravity, impulse and starting angle. No target to hit, no catharsis to wait for, just the beauty of the flight.”

“Amber Decay” really gets the heart racing with its fierce, distorted growl and subsequent row of white, mountainous fangs. The beat lives in the low-end, submerged in a black tunnel of rage. Hi-hats swim and skip over the beat, but it’s a dark, dark track. “History Of Obscurity” is softer. Vibrating lines of synth tickle the echoing beat, smearing its delay against the music like blood on the battlefield. At this pace, beats are often accused of terrorizing the music, of being violent and brash, but if anything gets out of hand it’s likely to be down to their energetic outlook. It’s clear that both the synths and the beats need each other to survive.

With or without a burning tempo, the music of Kangding Ray blazes with intense acceleration – Solens Arc would fit perfectly on the iPod of a tornado. While the ring hangs above, the beats pound their way into the bloodstream like an unstoppable virus, and, from a distance, the jaded copper ring resembles a wounded, bloodshot eye. Solens Arc is David Letellier fourth album as Kanding Ray for raster-noton label and is the follow-up to his 2013 The Pentaki Slopes EP. Be sure to also pick up Letellier’s numerous 12″ on Stroboscopic Artefacts. Recommended for fans of Lucy, Emptyset, Dadub, Mike Vainio, Miles & Andrea, Byetone and Ben Frost.

kangdingray.com | raster-noton.net

Words by James Catchpole for A Closer Listen
Republished with permission of the author

Lucy Churches Schools And Guns Stroboscopic Artefacts Stroboscopic Artefacts label boss Luca Mortellaro has been releasing a steady stream of solid electronic music through his label, championing a variety of acts that share a similar aesthetic (Dadub, Plaster, Lakker, to name a few), but it’s been a while since he released his own music as Lucy. His debut under the moniker, Wordplay for Working Bees, was a slick hybrid of minimal techno and more corrosive, almost industrial sounds. With Churches Schools and Guns, Lucy moves further away from the dancefloor still, with only two cuts on the album (out of 12) qualifying as techno-ready for the dancefloor. That’s not to say that most of the album is lacking in rhythm, but it is a good clip slower and more introverted than one might expect. Elsewhere the album tends to vacillate between nervous energy (the twitchy shudder of ‘The Best Selling Show’, the insistent stride of ‘The Self As Another’, the galloping waves of ‘Human Triage’) and something more inert, beatless, or sprawling (‘We Live As We Dream’, ‘All That Noise’). For DJs and techno fans, he’s included ‘Follow the Leader’ and ‘The Illusion of Choice,’ each with a deep 4/4 kick and a nice uptempo clip, but otherwise Lucy seems keener on exploring murkier waters. The slow, slinky crawl of ‘Catch Twenty Two’ is both menacing and seductive, with a swirling sound that reminds me of Coil‘s ‘Nasa Arab,’ shifting shapes gradually, rich with effects and atmosphere. The only real touch of lightness is found in the the closing track, ‘Falling,’ featuring vocals by Emme. It’s a dreamy five-minute outro to the more nightmarish fog of most of the album. By the time it dissipates in its final seconds, Emme’s voice is unadorned and naked — a smart and curious choice given the hazy landscapes that dominate the album. The album reaffirms Mortellaro’s vision as both a producer and artist as well as a label owner.		Answer Code Request Code Ostgut-Ton I was only heretofore familiar with Patrick Gräser‘s project as Answer Code Request via a 12″ on Marcel Dettmann Records, not realizing that he had a new full-length on the way. He’s since migrated to Ostgut-Ton, and the album brings with it a different sensibility, something sleeker, more seductive, more varied. I expected this to be a pretty minimal techno affair but to my surprise the tempo varies as much as the palette of electronic sounds. He’s definitely sequenced Code as a proper narrative album: the music carries a certain arc from start to finish, moving you through the diverse terrain of his world confidently and smoothly. ‘Relay Access’ is a nice chunky downtempo IDM groove, haunted by the ghost of Detroit in its sweeping pads but otherwise recalling late 90s electronica (in a good way). ‘Status’ on the other hand is exactly what I would have expected for the whole album — a chugging, relentless techno bass kick with spacious pads and effects weaving in and out of the beat. ‘Field Depth’ ricochets beats and synth drips all over the place, harking back to mid-90s Artificial Intelligence era, while ‘Blue Russian’ is an effects-saturated groove that feels more in line with the techy grooves of Brothomstates‘ albums than most of the Berghain set. Code has its fair share of beatless tracks, too; opener ‘Code’ and interlude ‘Spin Off,’ not to mention the gorgeous extended floater ‘Odyssey Sequence’ and dreamer pre-closer ‘Axif.’ Techno heads might get a bit lost along the way since so much of Code diverges from that sound, but it’s better off for that reason. In many ways this feels like looking backward to a rather varied electronic albums I associate with the turn of the century (Christian Morgenstern‘s Death Before Disko comes to mind as a sign of those times), and it hits all the right notes for me.
Plaster Monad XV Stroboscopic Artefacts Plaster‘s entry into Stroboscopic Artefacts‘ quite reliable Monad series consists of four heavy-handed, post-industrial techno hybrids that fit neatly within the label’s overall sensibility. These are rhythmic beasts that demand movement — whether it’s bodies reacting to a live PA or the involuntary bobbing of one’s head as the music chugs through a good set of headphones. ‘Quasar’ packs some punch with its syncopated bass kicks and vaguely industrial grind, a handsome opener. ‘Uret’ ups the ante a bit more with its heavy low-end and plenty of kick drums, with an urgent, repetitious alarm-like musical refrain. It’s probably the most up-tempo track here, more qualified to work into a techno set than, say, ‘Tangle,’ which is far slower, with a chugging mid-tempo groove. Its intermittent white noise snares and unrelenting sixteenths give it a more ferocious physicality than the other tracks here, but it is particularly nice as a complement to the faster clip of the preceding pieces. ‘Libra’ is even more patient, but far more of a dub excursion, with plenty of reverb and pads to fill out its more skeletal rhythm section. It’s particularly dark stuff, recommended for fans of Lucy, Lakker, Pan Sonic, or the more distilled, industrial side of electronic dance music, lean on melody but packing a wallop. Complete your Monad collection with 12″ releases by Chevel, Donor, Xhin, Perc, Dadub, Lucy, Kangding Ray, Rrose and more than a dozen others. A series to keep your eye on!		Zoltan Pardon, What? Hum + Buzz Hungarian producer Zoltan‘s 6-track EP for Ikonika‘s Hum + Buzz label is both fascinating and relentless, an odd amalgamation of post-dubstep grit, techno bob, EBM muscle, and chiptune noise. It comes on strong with a pairing of pummeling machine gun tracks, stuttering and sputtering mechanically in time like Secondo put through an Amiga. The intensity of his tracks lends itself to brevity, but most pieces approach or exceed the six-minute mark. The front half is definitely my favorite if I had to pick, because these tracks’ cut-up samples and machine gun repetition feel less typical of what’s en vogue lately, almost at odds with dance music, but still likely to liven up a more adventurous DJ set in more capable hands. Zoltan shares some of label boss Ikonika’s love of chintzy sounds, dated computer nostalgia, and dry rhythm arrangements heavy on syncopated rapid-fire claps and/or kicks, and all of it is showcased on ‘Pardon, What? (Msc),’ a welcome reprise of the EP’s signature weirdness that was missing on the more conventional ‘Saturn.’ That said, Zoltan does offer up some more conventional rhythm for techno sets on ‘Saturn’ and ‘Phobos,’ with the latter still having enough weird triggering and stuttering in its arrangement to give it the same weird flair found on records from Errorsmith, Soundhack, and the MMM crew. Pardon, What? has some unique and unpredictable elements that set it apart from the pack, in all the right ways.

All words by Matthew Mercer of Ear Influxion
Additional editorial by HC

Rutger Zuydervelt Stay Tuned Baskaru Imagine a single 50-minute track with contributions from more than 150 artists… I can’t even begin to list names here but you should definitely check it out on the Bandcamp page – I’m sure it’ll raise your interest to find out more about Rutger Zuydervelt’s project, Stay Tuned. Before listening, it may help to know the background of this project: “More than 150 musicians and singers were asked to record an ‘A’ (which is the note an orchestra normally tunes to), using whatever technique or style they please. So each ‘A’ has its own unique characteristics, but is also a small part of a much bigger drone.” It must have been a hell of a job merging and mixing all these contributions into one single drone piece dedicated to an orchestra tuning, but the result is a beautiful homogeneous, and indeed orchestral sound. The drone has an organic flow, because Zuydervelt introduces all sounds ordered by groups of instruments. Also, all contributors play “real” (meaning “orchestral”) instruments: no synthesizer or electronic devices were included – which is remarkable in itself because most (if not all) contributors are artists working in the ‘experimental’ musical fields, which often includes electronic treatments. Also worth noting is that the original concept for this project is a multi-channel sound installation, where visitors could walk their way between the different speakers, thus creating their own composition (there are some short videos of this on Rutger’s website). The Baskaru release is a stereo adaptation from all the contributions for this installation. If you think a continuous performance of a single A-note can hardly be interesting enough to keep your focus for the full 50 minutes, you owe it to yourself to try it out. I’m sure you’ll be surprised. And amazed! I suggest you start by looking at the list of contributors more closely.		Pjusk Solstøv 12k Not counting their recent collaboration with Sleep Orchestra, titled Drowning in the Sky (Dronarivm, 2014), Solstøv is Pjusk‘s fourth release – and their third for the 12k label. Since their debut in 2007, the Norwegian duo (Jostein Dahl Gjelsvik and Rune Andre Sagevik) have built themselves quite an impressive reputation. With Solstøv, (sol = sun; støv = dust) they don’t disappoint – to say the least! While maintaining their original ‘glacial’ sound, the original starting point from this album is quite different: the complete album is created using the sound of the trumpet (played by Kåre Nymark Jr.). A bright natural sound to start with, but it is also heavily processed to create the characteristically delicate sound layers. 12k label owner and curator, Taylor Deupree, added extra sonic manipulations that he created using the Kyma Sound Design System. But how strange and alienating these sound manipulations may be at times, the music always stays connected to its natural source: the trumpet. The use of the trumpet in ambient soundscapes is not exactly new: think Jon Hassell, Arve Henriksen and – to some extent – Nils Petter Molvaer. (It can hardly be a coincidence that, apart from Jon Hassell, these musicians also come from Norway?) Pjusk manages to take the music to another level of abstraction. The ‘jazz’ connection is still vaguely present, but it’s a shimmer in the background, hovering behind the ‘sparkling and fractured textural fragments’. “This is an album that channels the Norwegian landscape in all of its stark beauty; its cold, its warmth, and its place in the universe. To listen to Pjusk is to sit quietly in an endless night.” The ambient music genre in general may be in danger of collapsing under a ‘sameness overload’, but Pjusk restores faith with this new album. Solstøv feels like waking up.
Kontakt der Jünglinge Makrophonie 1 Die Stadt With a real name for an album title, Kontakt Der Jünglinge (Thomas Köner and Asmus Tietchens – the name being an homage to Stockhausen) break with the naming tradition of the predecessor series released in 2001 – 2003: 0, 1, -1, N. The black color of the cover (in contrast to the white sleeves of the earlier series) suggests that there a more differences: to begin with, Makrophonie 1 is not a live set recording but the duo’s first studio album. “It’s the result of various scores which were developed before and during miscellaneous live performances. These worked out structures were then taken to the studio, where they were concentrated and received their final finish.” Musically, the difference is not as great as this would suggest: the release is perfectly in line with the earlier albums. Maybe even a bit too much: critics might state that one would expect something more different after a hiatus of over 10 years. But, on the other hand: why change such a great formula? After all, the combination of such massive talents in sound design (with their often relatively different approach in creating sounds, matching together like a good conversation) is yielding the kind of electronic soundscapes that are seldom equalled. Makrophonie 1 starts out with a low (and I mean LOW – mind your speakers!) rumble, like a distant earthquake, slowly building a wide landscape which is undeniably Thomas Köner’s. Lots of details are added [I assume that this is Asmus Tietchens' work mainly, but I'm not sure about the details of what each of the duo contributes], slowly but inevitably leading to a loud climax about halfway. From there, the process is reversed, the silence gradually returns, until (after 37 minutes) you are thrown back and left in what seems to be absolute – and pitch-black – void. Let’s hope the 1 indicates this is the start of a new series of releases!		Janek Schaefer Lay-by Lullaby 12k There is something special with the sound of passing cars, especially when recorded at night. They always bring a feeling of loneliness, of things passing by and leaving you behind. They make you think of where to go… For Lay-By Lullaby, his latest album recently released on 12k, Janek Schaefer recorded the sound of cars passing by on the M3 Motorway (“Right at the end of the road where J. G. Ballard lived“). The 73 minute album is a continuous mix of 12 tracks – or Radio FM channels – merging the sounds of passing cars with sparse musical fragments, sometimes sounding like a slowed down country & western guitar theme, sometimes like church organ, sometimes more abstract sounds or station-call themes, occasionally a distorted burst of vocals like when shifting to another channel… In fact none of the channels sound like any actual radio station would ever sound, but all add to the quiet and enjoyable (summer?) midnight atmosphere alongside the M3 Motorway. Lay-by Lullaby was created in 2013 as a sculptural installation for Schaefer’s solo London show ‘Collecting Connections‘ at the Agency gallery. A pair of reclining traffic speaker cones play back the found soundscape from a car radio installed in a little leather travel case on infinite loop. But it is also closely related thematically to his “Asleep at the Wheel” installation for the 2010 Milton Keynes Festival. The installations are a different way to present his work, and also a very different way to enjoy it. But since they usually are only meant to be temporary, it’s a good thing that these sounds were re-assembled for this full length album, so you’re able to enjoy it in the comfort of your home environment. Preferably late at night, so “the speeding traffic dopplertrails reveal fleeting passages of soporific sounds that entice you to recline, drift and fade away.“

Words by Peter van Cooten of Ambient Blog
Additional editorial by HC

Hi Monique… who are you, where are you, and what have you been up to lately?
Hi there, I’m a small girl running a small record label called Sonic Pieces. We are based in Berlin, Germany. This year has been pretty exciting and busy so far. I’ve been working on album releases by two lovely Norwegians, Otto A Totland and Erik K Skodvin, who are also known as Deaf Center. We also toured Japan together in April joined by Spanish artist Rauelsson whom I’ve released a record with last year. It’s been amazing and I can’t wait to go back.

So when was the first time that you got involved with music?
I had an early interest in music. When I was teenager I used to listen to the radio a lot and was compiling cassettes. I grew up in a tiny village in the middle of Germany and have been kind of an outsider with my musical taste. When I left for studies I got to know more like-minded people which was great for new input and exchange. My taste and interest have been growing and developing over the years, and especially the move to Berlin was a great opportunity to get more actively involved with music and meet a lot of great artists and people who are running labels etc.

Do you play any instruments yourself?
No, I don’t. I took guitar lessons for a very short time but gave up soon. I guess there were always other parts of the music circle I was interested in more. Also I rather feel like concentrating on a few things and do them properly instead of having too many projects at once.

How was the label born, and how did you come up with the name?
Everything happened more or less by accident and through a process of doing things that led to other things. Shortly after I moved to Berlin in 2002 I started working for a community radio in my free time. From 2005 to 2009 I was running a monthly show for which I have been doing interviews with artists, label owners and local promoters. It was a good opportunity to meet people.

At the same time I also started making the CD packages. I had burned CD-R copies of the interviews and was actually looking for a jacket that would make for a nice gift to the people who participated. Since I couldn’t find anything that met my standards, I thought to create my own packaging. So the first jacket I made in early 2006 and this was already very close to the Sonic Pieces covers you know today. I got a lot of great feedback, so I kept making them.

In 2007 I saw Nils Frahm performing in Berlin and it totally blew my mind. I had no idea who he was but I needed to find out, so I approached him. Some month later I invited him to play a show with Library Tapes for which I also made a 3inch CD-R for promotion. Since my radio show was called schall + raum which means sonic + room, I named the promo disc sonic pieces 001 without really thinking about it too much. Then we also made 50 copies with a recording of the concerts, mainly for the artists and I sold a bunch through myspace back at that time. All of a sudden I got some demos, which was pretty funny since I wasn’t even aware of the fact that I had started a record label.

Later I also released a 100 CD-R edition of a Konntinent EP. And when Nils was about to release his album ‘The Bells’ on Kning Disk and go on a tour through Europe with Peter Broderick in 2009, he said it would be great to have another record for the merch table and that he was thinking of making 100 copies of ‘Wintermusik’ and maybe I could create the covers for it. I already knew this album for a good while and thought it deserves a proper pressing and bigger run. It wasn’t hard to convince Nils and that’s when I knew that I had to take Sonic Pieces more serious as a label.

Do you remember the very first official Sonic Pieces release? Can you compare the initial effort to the current ongoing process?
Even though I made three CD-Rs before, I would call ‘Wintermusik’ by Nils Frahm my first proper release. It was the first CD for which I took the financial risk of a real pressing, which also involved the need to look more into distribution and promotion possibilities. Of course everything was new and there were lots of things to figure out and set up, which later become more of a routine. But it’s a misbelief to think that it’s getting easier with time. Even though certain things do get easier, in general there are always new surprises waiting and new issues to deal with. It’s a constant development and process of learning. Sometimes I think we’ve been through most things that could happen or go wrong, but then with the next release for sure there’s new problems popping up. It remains challenging. There are always new tasks and the work is definitely getting more than less.

How would you describe the output of the label to those unfamiliar with your releases?
That’s always the worst question to be honest. I’m very bad at describing or categorising music. There’re definitely a lot of piano and strings involved, but I would say much of the music is moving in between chairs. If you want to get an objective impression I recommend to have a listen. You can stream most of our releases through our website and soundcloud.

Do you feel that the sound has changed over the years?
I believe the sound is developing and growing with every new release. Each artist has its very own characteristics and even though some releases are similar or using the same instrumentation there’s also something unique about them. But at the same time I also feel there is a certain label sound to it that connects all the records in a way.

How do you go about deciding what to put the money and effort into next?
First of all I have to feel confident about the music of course. It needs to connect with me somehow and should have some kind of uniqueness to it while it still works within the label catalogue. Also it becomes more and more relevant to have a good communication with the artists. It’s so important you understand each other and have a common language and mindset. Optimally I have the possibility to meet the artist in person, which of course isn’t always possible, but luckily we have phones and skype these days at least. I also appreciate to keep working with artists and do follow-up records of which we will hopefully see more in the coming years.

Is there someone that you would love to sign?
I wouldn’t say we sign artists here at Sonic Pieces. Typically we agree on one release and in case both the artist and I feel like working together on another record that’s always a possibility, but we don’t sign contracts for several releases. Of course there are artists I admire a lot and it would be lovely to work together at some point, but it barely happens that I take the initiative to get in touch. I’m usually rather passive when it comes to that.

You’re about 20 releases in, is that right? If you could go back in time, is there anything you would change?
I just released catalogue number 20, yes. If you deduct the first three CD-Rs then it’s only 17 releases, but instead you may add four 7inch vinyl and we have 21 – one of my favourite numbers. Of course hindsight is easier than foresight. For sure there are certain things that could have been done differently, but in the end it’s all a process of learning and experiencing, so I don’t regret anything.

You still do a lot of hand made packaging, right? Can you tell us about the choice and the process?
Yes, the process of making the packaging by hand hasn’t changed much since the start, although I order in more pre-cut material now. The first step is usually to decide on the colour for the cloth. This I do together with the artist. Then I pass on a sample to Torsten at FELD, who’s been doing the layout for Sonic Pieces since ‘Wintermusik’. At the same time I start crafting the packages. I use two cardboard squares and wrap them into the book cloth. Then the covers go to a local factory that does the embossing. After I get them back I line the inside with paper and the jacket gets its button which holds the CD, the limited stamp and signature. Then I assemble it with CD, booklet and protection sleeve. For the Dictaphone release we made a video of the whole process which you can watch on vimeo, it’s in double speed.

The vinyl jackets I craft as well. I use the same cloth as for the CD covers which also gets the embossing. The cardboard is pre-cut with an opening in the middle where I paste in the cloth before I glue the jacket together.

And who takes care of all the promotion, shipping, inventory, and all the other fun stuff?
I work closely together with Erik at Miasmah. We also share offices and a webshop. Since August last year we have an assistant called Erin helping us out two days a week which is great. She’s mainly working with mailorder, social networking and promotion. Most of the other stuff including all the accounting and inventory I do myself and also I take care of ordering all the Miasmah releases. Luckily we have Morr Music here in Berlin who’s handling the main part of the distribution for both labels. And I’m also very happy to work with p*dis who are distributing Sonic Pieces in Japan.

What about pressing vinyl? How do you decide what gets the special treatment?
It took a while to figure out how to transfer the CD artwork into the vinyl packaging without being too time-consuming and expensive, so up to catalogue number 11 all releases were only on CD. Now the decision about having a vinyl or not is mainly a matter of demand estimation. I would love to have everything on vinyl, but to make it economically feasible I need to be able to sell 300 copies. For some releases that’s easy, for others it isn’t. It can help if an artist is touring a lot and is selling a good bunch of copies when playing live. Sometimes I also release a double vinyl package if an artist has a follow-up album on the label.

Can you talk a bit about the economics of running your label in this current environment?
I guess the concept of Sonic Pieces works pretty well in these times, but when I started the label I didn’t really think about it. Most people who are still buying physical releases are collectors and it seems they appreciate special items and limited editions. So if you are working within a niche market, which we do, it makes a lot of sense to rather do limited runs with extensive packaging or special features instead of trying to go for a bigger scale. It helps to sell the records faster and get liquid resources back earlier to reinvest.

On the other hand the pricing policy of pressing and printing plants works totally against small runs. Ordering 300 or 500 copies of a CD for example almost makes no difference. Just add another minor amount and you get 1000. It’s even worse with print products. So everyone’s trying to force you to get more than you need and you end up with lots of back stock that gradually fills up your storage space.

Some of the Sonic Pieces releases sell out pretty fast and we often get asked why this certain release or format isn’t available anymore and why we don’t do a repress. We do 2nd edition CDs with simpler packaging sometimes, but to be able to get break even with this we need to sell at least 200 copies which isn’t easy for most releases. It only works if we also have enough support from our distribution partners. Furthermore I noticed that many Sonic Pieces fans and regular customers appreciate the special and limited character of the releases, so doing more of those also wouldn’t do it justice. Beside that I simply don’t have the capacity to make more.

After the ‘Pinô’ LP by Otto A Totland was flying out in no time earlier this year I was looking into options for a vinyl repress as well, but I haven’t found a good solution yet to get something produced for a reasonable price that would still work within the Sonic Pieces style.

Any lessons that you would share with someone who aspires to run a label one day?
One of the most important things for starting a label is having a clear and strong concept. I would even say it is crucial to create a brand that is recognizable. Otherwise I can just recommend to be very selective with what you put out, rather release less, pay attention to good quality and be prepared for a lot of work and little income.

What are you working on right now?
I was hoping to work on my next release during the summer, but unfortunately I have to postpone this one for reasons that are out of my control. So I need to reschedule things a little bit and make the best out of the sitution. I guess I could also see it as a lucky coincidence to have a little more time during the summer for once. However it never get’s boring really and there are other projects to work on. We just have a new Miasmah release out by Shivers, a trio of Machinefabriek, Gareth Davis and Leo Fabriek. August will see the first release in our new Pattern series, a mini album by Deaf Center. Also Erik and I want to get a better storage system and reorganise our stock. And last but not least I still need to finish my taxes, which definitely isn’t the funniest project.

Thank you for your time, Monique… any list words for the readers of Headphone Commute?
Thank you for reading the interview and following this wonderful magazine! I feel lucky to have the possibility of sharing content through platforms like Headphone Commute. There are small groups of people all around the world who are interested in what we are doing. Each one by itself wouldn’t be big enough to make labels like Sonic Pieces feasible, but through the chances the internet provides us with these days, you can combine them all and make it work.

sonicpieces.com

If you haven’t noticed, I had a nice vacation in Japan (see HC’s Instagram), but now I’m back, ripping through the archives of unpublished reviews, interviews and mixes. To cleanse the palette a bit from the usual Headphone Commute fare, we invite you to check out this hour-long mix by Alastair Kelly, who has previously graced us with Ryde to Portsmouth. Unlike the latter, Let Your Light Glow is more of a deep and dubby techno journey, full of clocking rhythms and rolling bass, across an excellent selection of favorite artists. Please enjoy responsibly and support the featured artists!

p.s. Happy Birthday, Alastair!

Alastair Kelly - Let Your Light Glow by Headphone Commute on Mixcloud

[ STREAM ] | [ DOWNLOAD ] | [ PODCAST ] | [ iTUNES ]

You remember Bluetech, right? Evan Bartholomew has been producing electronic psychedelia since 2003, most notably known for his releases on Aleph Zero, Interchill, and his very own Native State Records. Sometime in 2007 (I believe), Bartholomew met up with another favorite artist of mine, Jamie Watts. The latter has been recording as KiloWatts for Austin (Texas, US) based Artificial Music Machine label, until he got packed up by Evan’s Native State. In 2010, the duo has collaborated together on Hyperdimensional Animals, grabbing a spot on Headphone Commute’s Music For Awakened Spirits And Open Minds best of the year list. And now, four years later, they are back with another full length, this time on the beloved Aleph Zero, an Israeli label run and operated by Yaniv Shulman (yes, that Shulman) and Shahar Bar-Itzhak (founder of IsraTrance).

Together, Invisible Allies explore the melding of synthetic and organic, ambient and glitchy, and incredibly well produced downtempo beats. I have previously lauded Watts’ intricate production aesthetics, infinite ideas, and incredible musicality within each piece (yes, there are many instantly memorable melodies that forever get stuck in your mind). I also have praised Bartholomew’s sound design, atmospheric ambiance and head-nodding rhythms. So you could imagine what happens when you put these two talents together. Add a touch of acoustic live instrumentation into the mix, such as flute by Meryl Joan, Violin by Nils Bultmann (from Transatlantic Art Ensemble), tabla playing by Jason Rinker, trumpet by Dan Covan, and vocals by Sonja Drakulich (of Stellamara) and you’ve got yourself a continuous hour-long hypnotic journey taking you into outer dimensions which somehow appear to be very grounded to Earth.

Invisible Allies are explorers of the digital mysteries, documenters of forbidden histories and technoid inductees into the college of prismatic sound design. Collaborating through secret transmissions written in cyphers of bark and seeds, the musical collaboration of Bluetech and KiloWatts is decidedly unclassifiable in terms of genre, skipping school with warehouse dub theatrics, having an illicit romance with psychedelic production techniques and participating in a class riot against normality with techno, ambient, downtempo, breaks, and broken beatscapes.

The release includes a poem by Lily Ross (who came up with the concept for the album), from which the duo drew inspiration which was paralleled in their work. The track titles, such as ‘Bee’s Longing’, ‘Rainfall (Jazz on Tin Roof)’, and ‘And the Weeping Stopped’, are built upon the lines from the same poem wrapping the homage to these “master gardeners of the planet” into a coherent whole. The music features elements of jazz, ethnic sounds, IDM and psybient (ok, I used that term!), all knit within a playful framework of intelligent exploration of songwriting, keeping your mind guessing at the next twist and turn. I would love to experience this sound at an outdoor summer morning party!

If you’re craving even more cranium candy, I can’t highly recommend KiloWatts’ most recent release, Seven Succulents (KiloWatts Music, 2014). And if you want a more spiritual [musical] path, be sure to pick up Bluetech’s Dreaming Into Being, released by Sounds True (a multimedia label responsible for publications on meditation and being by the likes of Ram Dass). Conversations with Bees is a definite highlight from a recent Aleph Zero catalog! Highly recommended for fans of Ott, Shulman, Aes Dana, and of course, KiloWatts and Bluetech themselves.

invisibleallies.net | aleph-zero.info

Words by HC

With Dream Tempest, Dennis Huddleston is looking to take his very successful musical project, 36 (pronounced ‘three-six’), into some new territory. The five previous albums, Hypersona (2009), Memories In Widescreen (2010), Hollow (2010), Lithea (2012) and Shadow Play (2013) all self-released by Huddleston on his very own 3six Recordings, ended up on Headphone Commute’s heavy rotation, with many appearing on our Best of the Year lists (see our Music For Capricious Souls Adrift In Noir-fi category). So we’re excited that he’s back with a new release, even if it’s “the most optimistic” of his past works.

The last thing that fans of his earlier releases would want to lose is that “glowing melancholy” [see a quote below from Huddleston], and they will find it on Dream Tempest, especially on tracks like ‘Tired’ and ‘Entropy’. But one need go no further than the arpeggio synthesizer runs and the buzzing swells of distortion on the very first title track to realize that the new album is painted with a more vivid palette and on a wider canvas than its predecessors. Here’s what Huddleston says about the album:

“Dream Tempest is my 6th studio album. It’s probably the most optimistic of all the works I have made. It still has that glowing melancholy I just can’t seem to shake from my music, but in a very different way to the pitch-black isolation of Lithea. I wanted it to be inspirational as well as downcast; playful as well as moody. I don’t want to write music that is discarded when the next big trend or genre blows up. I want to create something that you can listen to 10-20 years later and still feel a connection to.”

The playful element Huddleston mentions is here too, as evidenced by the wobbly, slow motion jazz chords of ‘Neon Sunset’, the quirky cosmic throwback sound of ‘Perfect Numbers’, and the music box tones of ‘Hyperbox’, an especially bright and ear catching track. The music is indeed of brighter aura, with chords in the major scale swirling around the pastel palette. And look at the gorgeous cover art created by Huddleston himself!

It is the inspirational element, however, that ultimately gives Dream Tempest the breadth and depth that make it such an extraordinarily enjoyable album. An outstanding example would be the beautiful ‘Sun Riders’, which Huddleston released earlier this year as a special EP reflecting his own fascination with the exploration of space he experienced while growing up. ‘Redshift’ is a melodic drone in a sea of blissful guitar textures, and ‘Always’, a lush and beautiful ambient piece with a cathartic tsunami of distortion at the zenith of its emotional arc.

Dream Tempest is a feast for the ears and should both please fans of 36 while enjoying the broader reach that he makes into both lighter and darker sonic territories. The variety of moods and styles make the time spent listening to it pass quickly and will likely have you turning on repeat mode. The album is offered in MP3 and FLAC digital formats, as a stand alone CD, and in a specially priced CD bundle which includes Hypersona, Hollow, and Lithea.

3six.net

Words by Brian Housman of Stationary Travels
Additional editorial by HC

Hey Dennis, what have you been up to this past weekend?
Mostly a stress-free weekend actually, mainly managing a few boring post-release jobs that needed to be done after my new album was released earlier in the week, as well as enjoying having my feet up, with a giant air-fan blowing a cool breeze onto my toes! It’s really warm here in England at the moment, so I’m trying to relax and take things easy before I melt away. After working on the album for the last year, I think I deserve a little break! It’s hard to overstate just how tiring and demanding releasing a new record is. In fact, it’s often far more tiring than making the music itself, especially when it’s my own label and I’m the main distributor to all the lovely people around the world who buy my music. I can’t complain though and life is good!

I wanted to start at the beginning and ask how you got involved with music production.
I’m not from a musical family in the traditional sense, but everyone in our house enjoyed music in their own way. Like most kids, if you’re surrounded by something you love as you’re growing up, then chances are it is going to influence you and become an important part of your life when you’re older. I’m from the UK, which has this really important legacy in electronic music. Almost all of my favourite artists were born here. We’re a tiny island, with a huge voice. It’s weird growing up here and being involved in music, because the shadow of a thousand ghosts is always behind you and you’re constantly aware of the groundwork these artists made as you pave you own path and discover your sound. It’s great though, because it encourages you to try harder and push yourself further.

I started making music in 2004, initially messing around with basic gear/software and not really having a clue what I was doing. I learnt production completely independently, never playing any instruments, never really understanding the theory side of things, and without reading any tutorials or have someone guide me what to do etc… just me, having the knowledge of what sounded right in my head thanks to 20 years of listening to music, trying my hardest to translate my ideas from my brain onto the computer. It’s not exactly the best way to learn, but I didn’t care really. I just wanted to see if I could do it. I made a lot of pretty naive, rubbish-sounding tunes, which at the time I thought were amazing, but in retrospect were quite awful, but every track I made was a step further and a part of the learning experience. I made loads of tracks from more genres than I could count, but it was always something I did to satisfy my own creative urges and I never initially had any intention to release anything in any official capacity.

Around 2006, on a whim, I decided to start a vinyl label with some mates, which was kind of our tribute to the 92 oldskool hardcore/breaks sound we all loved when growing up. Mostly sample-based, heavy bass/percussive music that was kinda tongue-in-cheek but made with genuine passion nonetheless. We did it as a laugh really, but it kinda took off unexpectedly and we ended up being invited to play on Eddy Temple-Morris’ XFM show in London, as he was apparently a big fan of ours and wanted to help us out. He played our stuff to hundreds of thousands of people on both the radio and in places like Ibiza, which just blew our minds really. Here we were, making these cutup-style rave tunes from old samples and it was being played to everyone, from kids wasted on ketamine, to middle-aged truck drivers, listening to the radio through the night! This was before the hardcore/rave revival thing came into effect by artists like Zomby etc, so it was almost unheard of to have such weird music played to the masses, outside the Peel show. I received so many emails from people who were around the first time in 92, telling me they were almost in tears because our music brought back memories of their halcyon youth. It was such a great feeling to know we had made an emotional impact on people, however small, even though we were just this bunch of guys, working from our bedrooms, making tunes on our laptops. I loved it. The funny thing is, we also managed to snag some pretty massive artists to make a few tunes anonymously for our label, thanks to one of our guys being very close friends to them. People still don’t know who they are, but I guarantee if they did, our old 12″ vinyl releases would be hitting ebay for hundreds of quid right about now!

Anyway, this all came to an end around late 2007. I had just finished university at the time and started working in a graphic design studio in Leeds. I had zero time for music any more, as I was working 9 hour shifts, with a daily 3 hour commute from my house to the studio. I was absolutely broken by the time I got home, both physically and creatively. I love graphic design, but this isn’t a career for lazy people. I spent time at a few studios in London and they actually have beds/showers on site, so that the staff can effectively live there, constantly working. Fuck that. People need a break from their work, if only to recharge. Eventually, I realised that this wasn’t for me and after saving up for a few months, I left my job around Christmas 2008, with the aim to work freelance from home, whilst spending the downtime I had working on music.

I had already made a few early ambient tunes called “Inside” and “2249″ a few years back, which I felt had the potential to translate into a full-length album, so I spent around 12 months working on music aimed for the head/heart rather than the feet. I can’t say I ever had any real plans to make an explicit “ambient” album, but I always loved the genre and it just felt right at this moment. Slowly, it came together and my debut album Hypersona was completed in November 2008. I’ve been making music under the alias 36 ever since.

So tell us about the name that you chose, 36 – where does that come from, if it’s not a secret? Is it a coincidence that the sum of 1 to 36 is 666?
There are few coincidences, especially with numbers! It’s weird though, the number 36 has been with me all my life. I don’t even know how it started actually, but once it embedded itself in my head, I saw the number everywhere. It’s a bit like that Junji Ito comic “Uzumaki” where people see spirals everywhere they go. I just couldn’t get away from it. It was all I thought about. For instance, I remember being at this Victorian-themed school trip when I was about 8 years old and the teacher/actor was asking everyone these really difficult multiplication math questions (well, difficult for my age!). Everyone who got the answer wrong was shouted at and a few were made to wear dunces caps and sit in the corner of the room! As a kid, this is pretty much the worst thing that can happen to you haha. Anyway, the time came for my question, and the teacher asked “Dennis, what is 6 multiplied by 6?”. I thought I was dreaming. Of all the possible combinations of numbers they could have asked, this was the one they chose. Obviously I knew pretty much everything about the number 36, especially its divisors and instantly answered it. I probably had a really smug look on my face. No dunces cap for me! It’s silly, but it’s stuck with me. I’ve got loads of stories like that.

I love everything about the number 36. The shape of the written number, the phonetic sound as you pronounce “three-six” and the association it has with various things. Take for instance the Hebrew concept of Tzadikim Nistarim. They believe that at any one time, there are 36 special individuals on earth and that if just one of them were to suddenly disappear, the world would come to an end. They don’t know each other, and they have no realisation of how important they are, but they are utterly crucial for all life to exist. It could be you. It’s a brilliant concept. I’m not religious at all, but I love a lot of the stories and ideas found in the various texts. Like you say, the sum of the integers from 1 to 36 is 666, which is a very different religious concept entirely! It’s fun learning about it, but don’t start wars or kill people over it please!

And what about the samples on “Perfect Numbers”. Reminds me a bit of Boards of Canada sound with Numbers Station samples. Where did you get those and is there a special meaning behind them?
As the title suggests, the woman is actually reciting an even “perfect number” specifically the 12th known sequence. It’s not actually sampled from a numbers station, but was something I made specifically for the track, using text-to-voice and then cutting it up to create a REX file I can trigger at will from my keyboard/sequencer. There’s this really wild arpeggio sequence in the background, which has this very unsettling, almost psychedelic response in my brain. It’s struggling to keep sync. It sounds like chaos, whereas the numbers are the antithesis; Order and perfection. It’s like this beautiful balance, striving for harmony in opposites. I’m actually rubbish at math, but I love numbers. I can see why people get lost in them.

You’ve continued to self-release music for all these years – any reason why you haven’t signed up on a label?
I think the simplified reason is that I feel I can do a perfectly good job of releasing my music myself. Talking more generally, the primary aim for most musicians who choose to publicly share their work is simply to get their music heard. Right now, thanks to the internet and sites like bandcamp, limited run, etc… this has never been easier. Labels once held everything behind lock and key, being the arbiters of what people should listen to, how an artist/band should sound, and the image they should project of themselves. This is fine and they’re perfectly within their right to curate the sound they’re trying to promote, but I personally don’t need a label to tell me how I should sound or what style of music I should make. I’m a grown man, and by now, I know myself and my music better than anyone else possibly could. I also make a lot more money selling direct, but that’s not the main reason I do it.

Labels have asked me to work with them in the past and sometimes I accept and sometimes I politely decline. For albums and other major works, I prefer to release them myself, simply because I have complete creative control and ownership of my material. I can decide where it is sold, the format it is pressed on, how many are made, and who can use it, which is a luxury many artists don’t have, much to their disdain. For compilations, remixes etc… then I actually prefer to release them on other peoples labels, mainly because they are often the brainchild of the label owner/original producer anyway and it’s more of a collaborative effort. Recently, I’ve been featured on Ultimae, A Strangely Isolated Place, and a few others I can’t discuss yet. They’re all great labels, who respect their artists and work with them so they feel at home. More importantly, they have total faith in their artists and don’t interfere in the creative process. Having the sense to leave the artist alone and let them do what they do best is what separates a good label from a bad one.

Maybe it’ll change in the future. Doing everything yourself is a lot of hard (but rewarding) work and as life circumstances inevitably shift, I may have little choice in the matter. For now though, I’m perfectly happy doing my own thing, in my own little world.

Dream Tempest is definitely a brighter and ‘more optimistic’ album, as you say yourself. Was there a particular event that prompted you to move in this direction?
No major life event, or anything as dramatic as that. My previous albums before this were Lithea, and Shadow Play. I think it’s fair to say that both of these were pretty intense, often flirting with the darker side of sound, especially from an emotional perspective. “Deluge” for example still almost brings me to tears. All my work has this inherent glowing melancholy, which is just a natural part of my sound, and one I’ll probably never shake-off. I do try to discover all aspects of the emotional spectrum during the course of my albums, sometimes with more success that others.

Dream Tempest is an album of two parts really. The first half is “brighter” because when we’re young, we look at the world with this blunt sense of awe and wonder. Everything seems like magic. I introduced this theme with the Sun Riders 7″ I released earlier this year (of which the 3 tracks are also featured on this album) which was quite a playful, child-like record, using a lot of toy-instruments, music boxes etc… Even the title track “Sun Riders” gave me a sense of wonderment and felt inspirational to me, though some people said it also made them quite sad. Maybe it’s that sense of longing for the unknown that we all sometimes feel. Something lost or just out of reach. Someone said it reminds them of Brian Eno’s “Ascent..” which is a wonderful compliment.

As the album progresses, there is a noticeable change and the tracks become more sombre, more intense, or maybe a little darker. I see it as analogy for growing up, and learning about the reality of life and responsibility. What once was seen as magic suddenly becomes explainable by science. I’m fascinated with the theory that our universe is ever-expanding, in a state of perpetual forever, eventually reaching total entropy / heat death. Everything that ever was, frozen forever, in a kind of time-lock. It’s depressing in many ways, but also quite beautiful in others. It’s quite a celestial album, but it’s roots are firmly planted on earth. Or something like that haha.

I’m sure others will see it very different to me and I love reading how people interpret my work. Nobody is wrong when it comes to music. Your feelings when listening are your own.

I love the sonic textures on the album. Can you share the hardware/software used in its production?
I intentionally used quite a lot of new instruments on this album, trying to make it sound different from my other work. I like to combine real recorded instruments (mainly from Kontakt libraries, which I blow most of my money on) with my synths, to create these hybrid sounds, which phase between synthetic and real. Even the music box in “Hyperbox” is actually a combination of many different sounds, harmonising into something quite unique. It’s mechanical without sounding soulless, at least to my ears.

I was lucky enough to work with some material Steven Wilson (founder of Porcupine Tree) sent me for the track “Redshift”. Outside of being this hugely respected prog rock superstar, he also makes ambient/experimental music as Bass Communion, of which I’m a massive fan. His drone works are often made using his guitar, but by the time they’re processed, they sound more synthetic, more otherworldly. In contrast, I mainly work with synths, so even though it might sound like I’m using a guitar, it’s actually a synth pad or bass/lead, distorted through guitar amps and doused in reverb/delay. It sounds like a guitar, but it’s not… you can sense there’s something off with it, something not quite right… and then I’ll mix that with an actual guitar and you’re left thinking “what the hell is this anyway?”

I just like to experiment and find the best instruments that realise the sounds I have in my head. I don’t care what it is. It can be a combination of 20 Kontakt patches, a real instrument, a field recording, a sample or even just a preset. By the time I’m done with it, it’ll sound like something else anyway.

I also did more live sessions on this album. The tracks “Tired” and “Entropy” for example were made in only one or two takes, with very little time spent afterwards on additional editing etc… Usually I’m very meticulous and program all notes quite obsessively, making them perfect, but sometimes it’s better just to let go, remove logic from the equation and let chance take over. Vibe the moment. Those two tracks would never work as well if they were quantised and slaved over for days on end. The soul would have been ripped out of them. I probably wouldn’t have been able to do this years ago, but I’m a little older now and know when to back off and leave things alone.

There is definitely a ton of music these days in the world, and I totally understand your desire to keep your music indispensable. What are your thoughts on the preservation of sound and what is it do you think that will keep a particular piece still fresh in a decade from now?
It’s not even about keeping music fresh really, as new genres come and go like the wind and if you’re constantly searching for only new, unheard styles of music, then chances are that you’re going to leave a lot of great music behind you. I hardly even hear much new music these days, as I’m still listening to tunes from 20 and 30 years ago, which still sound like the future to me. I mean just listen to “The Final Frontier”, “Entering Quandrant 5″ or “The Illuminator” by Underground Resistance. These are masterpieces that still sound amazing today. Production wise, they give away their age a little, but emotionally they still take you to exactly the same places they did back then. It’s the same with that track “Release To The System” by Mark Franklin from the Artificial Intelligence II compilation on Warp. I still get goosebumps listening to it.

Maybe nostalgia plays a big part in it. You can listen to tunes which meant a lot to you from back in the day and they remind you of happy times in your life. Important memories you thought you forgot, that resurface by a melody or a sound. If a piece of music means that much to you that you’ll buy it, play it on repeat for days on end and still feel a connection to it every time you click play, then I feel that I’ve succeeded as an artist. I don’t think theres any one solution to achieving this, other than being honest with yourself and writing music which you really care about and put everything into. It can be for the dancefloor or your headphones. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is you wrote it with pure intentions and it reaches the right audience.

(click to zoom in for greater detail)

Can you talk a bit about your gorgeous artwork? How did you produce it and is there a concept that you were going for to compliment the music?
I try not to use explicit imagery when designing my sleeves, as I prefer to let the listener form their own narrative. A picture of a place or a person for example leaves less room for the imagination. I prefer working with more ambiguous themes and imagery, which can be interpreted in many different ways, to let each listener decide where it takes them. Saying that, I think the cover for “Dream Tempest” is quite easy to decode, especially when you consider the themes on the album anyway, along with the title. For me, it’s like when you’re dreaming and there’s a switch-over, where things change and become increasingly more unreal. It’s like a tempest in your brain, where reality breaks down, you become aware that you’re dreaming and eventually wake up. I interpret it as an analogy for growing up, understanding the world more, as I mentioned earlier.

I usually make quite a few different covers for my albums before eventually deciding on the one I like best, but I knew as soon as I finished this sleeve that it would be the one I used. It seems that a lot of people really like it, which makes me happy. Maybe one day I’ll press the album on vinyl, so more people can see it at the size I originally designed it at.

So are you an artist / graphic designer besides being a musician? How would you say the two mediums intertwine in your life?
Music and art have always been one in the same for me. It’s why I love physical mediums and will avoid releasing music purely digital, if at all possible. I was an artist and designer long before I became a music producer, so I’m quite fortunate that I get to be involved in all aspects of music creation, from the initial notes, right down to the artwork on the packaging. It also has the added bonus of saving me hundreds of pounds, not having to commission others to do the work for me!

Art and music are very similar in many ways. One deals with the harmony of colour, whereas the other deals with the harmony of sound. Both deal with composition, space and structure and both are made using various tools/instruments. I always say that if you are a designer or film-maker, then you’ll probably gravitate to music production quite well. Likewise, musicians often make very interesting and unique artwork, if they give it a chance. You can take the skills from one and use it in the other.

It’s why vinyl is so important for many artists. It’s a beautiful format and gives your music a physicality, which no other format can offer. When you buy a record and see the sleeve artwork in full-size, run your finger across the card and smell the ink, it’s just a different level of appreciation. You feel as though real love and attention went into it. An MP3 or FLAC is fine for casual listening, but just cannot compare on an artistic level.

I remember one of the professors at my university once asked me what I wanted to do when I graduated and I said that I’d love to make artwork for vinyl sleeves. He laughed at me and said I was about 30 years too late, but I had the final laugh! I don’t care if only 100 people bought my record and it was ignored by the masses. For those 100 people, they’ll treasure that vinyl for life, handle it with the same care as holding a baby, look after the sleeve, dust it, make sure it’s safe. It’s valuable to them beyond mere monetary value. That’s the power of design and music. It elevates music to the next level. It’s why I try not to get too sad when I see my music on shitty Russian blogs/forums, because these people will never understand what it’s truly like to completely fall in love with a piece of music. I’ll never feel this way about digital data. It’s just binary to me.

I hear that you’re one of the biggest video game nerds I’d ever meet. What platform is your favorite and why? Also, what would be the latest game that you’d recommend? And, speaking of video games, have you ever considered working on a soundtrack?
My dad bought me a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k in 1988 from a local car-boot sale and I have been pretty much obsessed with video games ever since. It’s funny because during the last 25 years, I’ve played more games than I can possibly remember, yet I still get excited when new games are released, despite my reservations with how certain aspects of the industry is changing. I’ve owned pretty much every console imaginable and I also build a new PC every few years to keep up to date with all the latest hardware, etc… it’s an expensive hobby!

It’s a great sense of escapism. Many people looked down on video games for the longest time, seeing them as this nerdy thing that only weird kids played in their bedrooms/basements, but these are the kind of people who have since grown up, had kids of their own, and now play the exact same games with their friends and families, having a load of fun in the process. It’s great that games are finally getting recognition from the previously stuffy art/award shows/charities, who now see the potential of games and their importance as potentially genuine works of art, which enthusiasts knew was always the case decades ago. It’s got to the point now where it’s more unusual for people NOT to play games. It’s a funny turnaround.

My favourite game of all time is the original Deus EX, I remember playing it back in 2001 on the PC and thinking “holy shit, this is the future of video games”. It was just a demo on the cover of PC Gamer or some other magazine and even though it ran horribly on my machine, the freedom that game offered, along with the amazing story, the characters, the sheer amount of things to do and ways to reach your objectives… that game changed everything for me. I mean I played through it multiple times, and discovered new things with every playthrough. Games up until this point always felt quite linear to me, something to get from A to B, but this was a game where I genuinely felt in control and could follow my own path. It’s an absolute masterpiece.

My latest obsession over the past 5 years is the Souls series by FROM Software. These are Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls and Dark Souls II. They’ve basically nailed the perfect video game for me; challenging, open, in-depth and totally engrossing. I absolutely lose myself in their worlds.

As for more recent games over the past year I’d recommend, I’ll start with Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. It’s a wonderful, heart-wrenching game. Really beautifully made. It reminds me a bit of Journey in some ways, in that it feels like it’s lost in it’s own little world, totally unique. You can tell the developers poured a lot of love into it.

The Last of Us on the PS3 is great. It feels like you’re controlling genuine human characters, placed in this horrible situation out of their control, who you grow to truly care about. It’s really highly rated and for good reason. It has one of the best endings to any game I’ve played too. I’ll buy it again when it’s out on the PS4.

The latest game I’m playing and really enjoying is Divinity: Original Sin. I’ve been following it for a while and started playing it after I finished Dream Tempest. It’s a long, very involving game, which demands a lot of time/attention, so it wasn’t something I really wanted to play when working on an album! God knows, I have enough distractions as it is. It’s brilliant though. Very old school PC gaming and back to roots in many ways. Again, I love the freedom it offers and I think it’s brilliant that the developers made the game purely for the people who kickstarted it. It oozes passion.

As for working on soundtracks for games, alas I have never been offered! I love video game music though. My favourite soundtracks are Streets of Rage II, Journey, Chrono Trigger, Deus Ex, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Silent Hill 2, Dragon Quest VIII, Sonic 2, Mass Effect, Limbo, Bioshock, Street Fighter II, Okami, Turrican… man I could go on forever. I love the older games for their catchy melodies, whereas newer games, I’m mostly interested in how the music adds to the gameplay/narrative, especially from an emotional standpoint. When you hear those cellos burn in Journey and see the desert sun in the horizon, it’s just something else. I’d love to do a game soundtrack, though a part of me also wants to stay away from games and keep them as a hobby, rather than work. It’s like when I started making music and began to understand how it worked. A part of the magic is lost, and often I listen to music now thinking production-related thoughts like “I know exactly what software he used to make that sound” rather than just getting lost in the music itself. I’d hate to feel that way when playing games.

Thank you for your time Dennis. Any last words for readers of Headphone Commute?
Just a big thank you to your readers and everyone else who has listened to my music. I’ve probably talked enough during this interview, so thanks for your patience and I hope you enjoy my new album!

3six.net

Questions by HC

Olaf Bender (Byetone) and Carsten Nicolai (Alva Noto) have spent the last 15 years or longer along a similar trajectory, exploring digital minimalism, rhythm, and noise with a fairly severe ear. Along with Frank Bretschneider, they’ve curated a legacy befitting their aesthetic via Raster-Noton, a label whose visuals and sounds all fall directly in line with its founders’ consistent vision. Diamond Version is a more playful counterpoint to their often more severe solo recordings; it liken it to a sort of laptop rocking-out for a change (though Bender has also explored some of this more raucous sound on his recent Byetone albums), with a shot of dark humor.

For the uninitiated, Diamond Version focuses on electronic rhythm and noise, with a clean, clipped, syncopated sound that is low on melody or tunes and high on an industrial groove, without the distorted snarl that description might imply. The tempo is usually in a pretty comfortable zone of 120 or so BPM, but there are some more uptempo tracks that dial it up into something with more spring its step, touching on elements of classic electro. Of the new tracks here, three of them feature guest vocals. The first one has spoken vocals by androgynous performer Leslie Winer, with a dry, almost sarcastic tone to it (starting the album off with a glitchy “Congratulations on being a big fucking deal!”). Additional tracks feature Kyoka (“Feel the Freedom”) and Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys (“Were You There”).

The latter is easily the highlight of the entire album, but its placement at the center of the tracklist is crucial to its success. Amidst all of these glitchy and rhythmic workouts, Tennant’s vocal is startling in its melody. It’s a hymn, one of those dark odes to Christ that is probably more bizarre than moving, but its juxtaposition against Bender and Nicolai’s industrial swagger is supremely effective. There’s even a bit of a chorus hook to it — something I never thought I’d say about a Diamond Version track. It makes me want to hear more of the same, although I suspect that its virtue is in its uniqueness among the surrounding more obvious tracks.

The rest of CI that follows is alternate takes of previously released material, with the exception of “Connecting People,” a rather droll take on how telecommunications both connect us and keep us apart. Its sense of humor reminds me of Atom Heart, but the rhythmic sensibility is purely Diamond Version. The duo were smart to reprise “Make.Believe,” the last track on their fifth EP, in an alternate version to close CI — its haze of feedback and pads allows it to decay gradually as a comedown from the more mechanical pummeling that precedes.

I think that Diamond Version (as well as many of their Raster-Noton projects and affiliates) are the missing link between the harder and more mechanical side of industrial dance music and the cleanness of digital techno and other current electronic styles, aggressive enough for tougher ears but also with enough of a groove to slyly work in a more conventional techno or electro DJ set. I’d recommend their EPs as well, but CI is well worth it for some of its exclusives, too.

diamondversion.info | mute.com

Review by Matthew Mercer of Ear Influxion.

Once upon a time, a vinyl release was taken for granted; now it’s a goal to which artists aspire. After numerous releases over the course of five years, Saåad [comprised of Romain Barbot and Greg Buffier] has finally scored its first LP. We share in the duo’s joy, not only because we love records, but because the format once again seems to be the wave of the future rather than an artifact of the past. Thankfully, Hands In The Dark, an independent label based in Besançon, France and London, UK, steps up to the plate to offer the honors.

On vinyl, the drones are deeper and the reverberations stronger. The thickness of Saåad’s music is given full opportunity to wash over the listener. The album title nods to the mood of the music, as well as the listening experience. Yet the track titles share a sense of sullen detachment: “Alone In The Light”, “Giant Mouth”, “I Will Always Disappoint You”, “After Love”. Imagine how The Bodyguard might have been different had its theme song been “I Will Always Disappoint You”. Such is the plot suggested here, an inversion of expectations.

“The record is broadly inspired by [Saåad's] week-long auditory experiments at the Faï farm in 2013 where, in a valley at the foot of the Alps, they improvised music in a completely natural atmosphere using three giant horns reverberating against a cliffside to amplify their sounds. Over the following six months, the duo decided to carry on reinventing their writing. They have stripped their rig right down to its bare skin, exploring the essence of their work and coming up with an extremely minimal, almost carnal approach to their music.”

The tracks bleed into each other, offering no break from the relentless oppression of the heart. Yet they are distinguishable by shades of blackness. “Alone In The Light” opens with metallic scrapings, reminiscent of Job’s pot sherds. Humming is evident, as if the protagonist has entered a place beyond words; but it swiftly dissipates, as if he has lost even the strength to hum. Dust motes seem to tumble in slow motion through the sonic light, reflected in physical fashion as the dust caught in grooves. By the opening minute of “Giant Mouth”, something seems to be crumbling: resolve, determination, courage? Or is someone poking through the rubble of a relationship, desperately looking for something to salvage?

It’s easy to view the last three Saåad albums as a triptych. Confluences (2012) is the album of the spirit, Orbs and Channels (2013) is the album of spiritual struggle, and Deep/Float is the album of spiritual loss. This is not the story we expect, yet it’s a common story, infrequently told. The disconnected ear wants a happy ending sticker, but we don’t get one. We’re supposed to say, “after love, everything is great! We pick ourselves up and try again ~ and that’s when we find our true love! In retrospect, our earlier suffering was a favor!” We might be better off hearing the truth: that despite our best efforts, sometimes love does not work out, and the loss echoes throughout our lives. Ironically, this truth is less damaging than the encouraging lie. The choral elements in the closing track provide an unusual coda: not the choir of consolation, but the choir of deep sorrow, singing the body to its eternal rest.

saaad.bandcamp.com | handsinthedarkrecords.com

Words by Richard Allen of A Closer Listen

Rob Clouth Clockwork Atom Leisure System I’m not sure what I’m mostly surprised, impressed or excited for – my new discovery of Rob Clouth and his newest three-track Clockwork Atom EP on Leisure System, or my discovery of the label itself. With only eleven releases behind its belt, this independent Berlin-based Berghain residency imprint entered the scene in 2011 with a 12″ by Pixelord, followed by another favorite, Eprom and an extremely delicious release by Tim Exile - you absolutely have to get his Harmuni EP (2013), it’s a must! Now on to the sounds by Barcelona based Clouth, who also records as Vaetxh, Dr:oid and Ither. The title track is an immediate winner, sounding like Clark, Jon Hopkins, and Hecq entered the arena and left Autechre to judge for the outcome. The sounds are crisp, tight and warm, layered with atmospherics, melodies and bass. The rhythm is twisted, but structured and taut. Oozing with intelligent design, the eighteen-minute record is incredibly taunting with such a short taste, teasing for all the things to come from this amazing producer, forcing to play on repeat until such future time. Besides the latest, you should also check out releases by JETS (that’s Jimmy Edgar and Travis Stewart, Kronos, and Dopplereffekt on the label!		2Methyl Orb Ad Noiseam Do you remember the artist 2methylBulbe1ol? I almost forgot about Nicolas Druoton myself, until this French producer resurfaced on Ad Noiseam with a shortened alias. In my last review of Golem (OverClockHeadz, 2012), I compared 2Methyl’s “toughest, roughest, and deepest IDM-meets-dubstep” to that of DJ Hidden merged with The Teknoist and Mobthrow, all of whom, of course, have already appeared on the label. So it only makes sense that Nicolas Chevreux picks up this 3-track (plus a remix by The Sect) 12″ for the latest Ad Noiseam release. On the EP we are once again accosted with DSP-heavy punishing rhythms, approaching that dark d’n’b territory (I think I even hear the staple snare from Noël Wessels on ‘Lazarus’). The mischievous and dingy atmospherics are ripped open by digitally sharpened percussion, raw cutting bass, and a cacophony of complex, granular, and fractal synthesis. “Somber and driven, high-tech and mature, these tracks bring a new freshness and depth to a style which focuses too often on efficiency only.” Highly recommended for fans of the above, and a must for all Ad Noiseam catalog hoarders – and that of course includes yours truly.
Clockvice Nomen Enig’matik Nomen may only host three tracks, but it surely packs a punch among its sludge paced, atmospheric and glitch framed architecture. This aesthetic is not particularly surprising, since most of my favorite saw-tooth jaw-dropping IDM has come lately from Enig’matik, an Australian label scouring the earth for the next evolution in sound. Clockvice, an 18-year old producer from Sweden [gulp!], offers another excursion into a digital mayhem, thrust through a blanket of thick sonic textures, then ripped out and dropped into a pool of bass. The result is an intricate structure, heavy in process and rich in design. “Clockvice has been carefully sculpting a toolkit of reverb drenched contemporary electronica, culminating in a tasteful contrast of classical elements fused with an impressive foray of granular percussional undulations and spatial sound design techniques.” I won’t deny that the production is pretty impressive for an artist of his age, and if you feel the sway of masochism in your own inadequacy I recommend you give Nomen a spin. Hold on to your jaw. Check out the rest of the roster!		Known Rebel Ocelo Mindtrick Known Rebel is a duo from Ibiza, Spain, comprised of Germán Escandell and Jaime Irles, who first got my attention back in 2011, with their debut full-length, Hollow, out on Tympanik Audio. The Ocelo EP hosts three atmospheric pieces (plus a remix), showcasing the evolution of their sound. These are cinematic soundscapes for deep forests, morning hikes and summer gatherings, punctuated by tight thumping bass, memorable melodies and downtempo rhythms. Affected vocals (think post-Burial future-garage ghostly loops) swirl in the smoky air rising above the campfires, lakes and cavernous drops. The previously mentioned remix by Delete, lends a darker path along the journey, offering deeper bass, sighs, and post-everything-in-bass-music beats. The Rotterdam (Holland) based Mindtrick Records features this digital release along the roster of its usual suspects like Mobthrow, Semiomime, Tangent, Enk and Atiq (the label very own founder) – and definitely worth your time in exploration [you can find most of the catalog on bandcamp]. For fans of Roel Funcken, Access To Arasaka, Hecq, r.roo and pretty much everything on Tympanik.

Words by HC

SAÅAD. What is the deal with the Scandinavian character?
We used that letter because of the circle over it. It could refer to the sun, a ‘light’ to balance the sadness of our band name (which simply means ‘sad’). Circles are a kind of a trademark that we use on all of our covers since the first release. Time is a flat circle.

What and who has inspired you to start experimenting with music? Do you have any role models or absolute favourites when it comes to music?
I came to drone music by doing it. Before we started experimenting, we weren’t really aware of what was happening in this scene. At the beginning, I was really inspired by a blogspot named ‘Deleted Scenes & Forgotten Dreams’. This is where I have discovered Stitched Vision, EUS, Postdrome, The Dawns and a lot of artists with whom I felt directly connected.

Your music sounds like something that could have been made in the cold northernmost Scandinavian darkness, but you are from Toulouse, extremely close to the Mediterranean Sea. How does one decide over there to start making ambient drone music?
I know that a lot of people define our music as dark ambient, but we don’t feel that way. It isn’t totally wrong, but our music isn’t fully dark, we don’t think about it when we are recording or conceptualizing music. For example, people define ‘Orbs & Channels’ as one of the darkest record, but if you listen to tracks like ‘Savara’, ‘Hangover #8′, ‘Soft Drug’ or ‘Forever Late’, you can hear something more than darkness. We like to compare our music to a Chiaroscuro painting: there’s no shadow without light and both are really important in all of our pieces. If you want to connect our music to Scandinavia, it’s more about its strange daylight, like a sustained dawn or dusk.

Saåad started as a solo project, but recently you have decided to involve Greg Buffier, which resulted in ‘Orbs & Channels’ released on Hands in The Dark. Why have you decided to involve him? How do you think your music became different since he is also part of your creative process?
The decision came from my desire to keep this project constantly moving. For the Delayed Summer’s sessions I’ve invited some friends to jam with me, and Greg was part of the line-up. After those great sessions I asked him to join me on stage to help me with my live sets, but he naturally became more and more involved and never left me. We worked a lot on how to translate this ‘bedroom laboratory’ into a ‘real live experience’. We found a kind of equilibrium between the studio setup and our live sets, and I think there’s a huge difference. When I was alone, I spent so many nights behind a computer, manipulating sounds and using a lot of pedal chains. Sound sources weren’t important as almost everything was done on post-production. Today I just plug ourselves into our soundcard and push the record button. Improvisation was already an important part of the SAÅAD’s music, but it became the key element of our music since we’re a duo. It’s a real dialogue where you need to be totally dedicated to what you’re doing, expressing to make it work. I think it’s more sincere.

In 2010 you have founded your own label, BLWBCK which is the home of most of your own releases and other drone, ambient, lo-fi, psychedelic pieces. How did you get the idea of an own label?
We are three friends who are managing this label. When we started, our new projects were unsigned and a lot of our talented friends were in the same trouble. A lot of bands know this situation: you send 1000 mails and get no answer, neither positive, nor negative. Rather than self-releasing our albums, we’ve decided to join our forces and to create this ‘family-brand’. It became a real label when we started to dub our first tapes in late 2011. We received so much positive feedback, that we decided to go forward. By choosing tapes as a standard format, we avoid money consideration and it’s one of our rules to keep the fun & passion of the project alive. This financial aspect was one of our biggest motivation, we can release whatever we want and keep it fun. Our catalog is composed of close friends and people that we met along this adventure. I guess that’s a common story in the tape scene.

All your releases have been published in cassette and digital format, even your motto sounds like ‘Life is a Walkman’. Is there any special reason for preferring this traditional format?
I love tapes! It’s hard to explain why I love them so much. They remind me of my teenage years, when I was dubbing my own mixtapes. During the early SAÅAD years, I was more focused on lo-fi aspects of my music, I wanted to create a music based on digital lo-fi sounds, which became so common today (noises like the hiss on your webcam or digital camera, phone recordings or like in the most YouTube footage). The obsolete cassette format fits perfectly with my concept. There’s also a very strong and exciting community in the small tape world, a place where it’s easy to collaborate, release things around the world without being forced to speak about one dollar. It’s more of a passion trade scene, and I guess I wanted to be part of it. ‘Life is A Walkman’ was my signature when I was 18-20 years old, and it’s funny that 10 years later I have started up a home-made tape label.

Your first vinyl “Deep/Float” just came out with 300 copies, once again on Hands In The Dark. How does it feel that after so many years of producing music finally you will be able to hold a 12” copy of your work?
I’ve dreamed about this day since the beginning, and we couldn’t find a better label than Hands In The Dark to make our dream come true. The conception of this album was a bit ‘painful’, full of doubts. There are hours of takes that we erased because it’s was just ‘good’ music, something that we have already done. We don’t want to repeat ourselves, we want to keep ourselves surprised by the sounds we are doing. For the moment, press feedbacks are eulogistic and the label is very happy too. We felt a bit lost at some point, but now that we can hold this beautiful object, we feel relieved.

The creative procession of ‘Deep/Float’ made you retreat into nature and let yourself go totally free. How should we imagine this?
If the Faï Valley and this retreat are the backbone of this album, it’s not a contemplative or meditative record. We were more focused on how drone music can be body-related. When you play it loud, it makes your organs and bones purr… it’s not just mental music. This sensuality of drone music was one of our lead concept. Drone and sex are working on the same pattern and simple desire, the need to be entirely swallowed by something, to lose yourself, to feel alive and relieved. You can also connect it to what we are looking for in spirituality or drug experiences. It’s about love, fear, abandon, hope… It’s not a dark album, nor a peaceful album, it reflects life, a deep grey zone. During the residency, we had to remove our usual effects to be able to play on the Faï massive horns, it pushed us to learn a new way to do our music. During the mixing phase, I was less attached to ‘destroy the sound’. You can recognize a bit more of the instruments, while before it was just a boiling sea of sounds. It’s more sincere.

What is your relationship with other visual arts such as moving images? If you would have to direct a film based on your music, how would you imagine it?
We are working with Gregoire Orio since many years now and he’s the best to translate our music into a movie. He’s working on a film to illustrate the entire album. I guess it will be surrealistic, introspective, erotic but also a bit strange & dramatic. The best thing would be a collaborative film including Gregoire Orio, Gus Van Sant, David Lynch and Ingmar Bergman.

Romain, you are the man behind the cover artwork of SAÅAD albums as well. In what way does the music control your visual ideas? ‘Deep/Float’ is a 40 minutes long exquisite journey into the deepest depths of our visceral nature. How can you condense all this in one single image?
Both are really connected. Most of the time the front cover came first, as it gave us the color and tone. The photography of the ‘Deep/Float’ cover or the one that you’ll find on the inner layer can be perfect to sum up this album. It comes from photographs that I took at the Faï’s residency. I can’t say how it influenced us, but we had it months before we started to record the album.

What is your favourite album cover?
It’s impossible to reply to that question and pick only one cover. Today I will say ‘In The Court of the Crimson King‘. In the Court of the Crimson King

You will be touring in France and the UK. Any plans for visiting the rest of Europe or other continents?
We’re really open to all kind of propositions, we hope that we will be able to visit more countries in the future, maybe late 2014.

Be sure to read review of Deep/Float

Interview by soundsofatiredcity.com
Republished with permission