Received 06. 12. 2004 -- 16:51 from from
FW: dense news 053
----------
Von: dense [at] dense [dot] de
Antworten an: dense [at] dense [dot] de
Datum: 6 Dec 2004 15:15:04 -0000
Betreff: dense news 053
Hello,
welcome to newsletter 053 from Dense Promotion.
It's the last one for this year, and so we would like to thank you for being
with us another year.
We're gonna finish 2004 with some really extraordinary titles. Have fun
tracking them down.
We wish you a happy new year and a nice x-mas time with your family and
friends, wherever you may be.
Yours
The Dense Promotion Team
>>> >>> >>>
Contents:
ARBEIT - Marx [CD Grob]
CHEVRON - Everything's Exactly the Same [CD/LP Planet Mu]
DDAMAGE - Pressure [EP Planet Mu]
DIE WELTTRAUMFORSCHER - 21 Weltraum-Standards [2CD/LP Staubgold]
GUTEVOLK - Twinkle [CDEP Happy]
KONK PACK Off Leash [CD Grob]
KYO ICHINOSE - Lontano [CD cubic music]
LAMBENT - these days [CD/LP Expanding]
MARSEN JULES - Herbstlaub [CD/LP City Centre Offices]
MONOCEROS - When i was a child i wanted to be an astronaut [CD/LP Expanding]
PITA - Get Off [CD Häpna]
POLA - Meme [CD Plop]
ROD - All My Love EP [Underscan 12"/CD]
V.A. - MONIKA FORCE [CD Monika Enterprise]
V.A. - THE AGENTS OF IMPURITY [Book&CD Sonic Arts Network]
please reply if you're interested in reviewing any of the releases but
before please check the territory specifications below.
>>> >>> >>>
ARBEIT - Marx [CD Grob 657]
http://www.churchofgrob.com
Which musical expression actually fits the working class? Fifteen years
after state-run socialism was finally discredited and in times, which at
least in the still rich Northwest has been stamped by the culture
industrial bread and game complex and the progressing deregulation of the
working market?
Or to put it more precisely, which form would the great song tradition of
the German worker movement like that of Hanns Eisler, the composer, Bert
Brecht, the poet, and Ernst Busch, the actor and singer, a tradition full of
traditional song heritage have to take on, in order to comment upon
today¹s atmosphere of decay and resignation within the workers¹ movement
(which really has become a movement of union bureaucrats and
representatives)?
³arbeit² [in German, ³work²], the Frankfurt group of Marcel Daemgen, Oliver
Augst and Christoph Korn (active in Blank last year, see GROB 538 and the
current GROB 653) asked themselves this question in the scope of a project
made possible by German Radio. What has remained unredeemed of the
questioning of the revolutionary workers¹ movement and its aesthetic
intervention? What has not worn down in the course of time via the
demoralizing strategy and party development discussions? What stands for a
utopian-critical content, which points beyond historical material, that
lifts [aufhebt] it in all three meanings of the word [annul, lift and
compensate]?
Daemgen, Augst, Korn and their guests do not deal with the material
squeamishly, but rather bet on the necessary radicalism. Their music is
brutish, noisy, nerve-racking and shrill, or the exact opposite of this:
nearly inaudibly quiet. ³The International² sounds like a pop hymn, ³Off,
off to fight² shudders with fear via an apocalyptic foundational tone, Franz
Fanon is cited and Tony Cliff, a communist dissident. It is a matter of the
construction, albeit in vain, of a better Germany, of the German Democratic
Republic and of the (hidden) self doubt in all the pathos of construction.
The band uses its musical means freely and souverainly. They know the
improvisations, the hard rock, the new music and the Frankfurt techno of the
larger discos. But never does this freedom fall into any old way. MARX is
hard, but still joyful work (sic!) on the material.
The CD is called MARX and it reminds one not of the contemporary Marx, who
had little in common with the working poets in his surroundings, from
Herwegh to Freiligrath, who at best appreciated Heine and Georg Weerth who
died very early and who honored Balzac, who was of a clear and clairvoyant
vision. It a matter of preserving, or rather of winning anew an equally
reflective and incorruptible radical position, for which Marx and his
critique upon the political economy exemplarily stands.
>>>
CHEVRON - Everything's Exactly the Same [CD/LP Planet Mu ZIQ092]
-> no promo in UK, Benelux
http://www.planet-mu.com
Debut album from Chevron (Jonathan Valentine - on Valentine's day
naturally). Melodic breakcore, poppy 2-step and cartoon jungle make this the
most upfront album yet from the breakcore scene. Quite a few vocal tracks
litter the album & remind me of Mouse on Mars's earlier period but with a
strong Rave and Belgian Hardcore influence.
Reference points: Acen, T99, Venetian Snares, Kate Bush. Comes with fold out
poster sleeve.
>>>
DDAMAGE - Pressure [EP Planet Mu ZIQ108]
-> no promo in UK and Benelux
http://www.planet-mu.com
Follow up e.p. to the fantastic "Radio Ape" album, dDamage have been taking
France by storm with their eclectic take on instrumental hiphop beats and
electronic sounds. We take the album's lead track and back it with 3 new
compositions from the Parisian brothers.
Blasts of analogue noise, pummelling hip-hop beats, buzz-saw synths and
delicate female vocals make a strange combination but it works!
>>>
DIE WELTTRAUMFORSCHER - 21 Weltraum-Standards [2CD/LP Staubgold 57]
-> Promo only in UK, France, Benelux, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe
http://www.staubgold.com
Staubgold goes Pop with the Welttraumforscher.
First things first: Staubgold are immensely proud to present this
cooperation with one of Europe's most enduring avantgarde pop groups ever.
Since their formation in Zurich in 1978, the Welttraumforscher's music has
been moving to and fro in a field marked by the cornerstones of the classic
pop song as epitomised by Burt Bacharach or Simon and Garfunkel, the
emotional barrenness of Nick Drake's compositions, the escapism of Syd
Barrett and electronic homerecording-miniatures of cinematic dimensions as
[co-]developed by Der Plan and Cabaret Voltaire.
In the first 25 years of their existence the band created a body of work
surrounded by a mystic aura similar to that of the Residents - with the
difference that Welttraumforscher-Mastermind Christian Pfluger has never
tried to stay anonymous. At the beginning of the Eighties he started the
band's own Monif label which henceforth released almost all of the band's
output, at first exclusively on cassettes, and from the middle of the
Eighties also on limited vinyl editions. Since 1993 the band has also issued
their music on cd. '21 Weltraum-Standards' does not lay claim to being a
representative cross-section of the band's output over the last 25 years;
the intention of this compilation is more one of presenting the
Welttraumforscher from their friendliest and more accessible side, thus
trying to introduce them to a larger audience.
The vinyl version of the "21 Weltraum-Standards" will be released as a
single lp while the digital version will appear in the form of a double cd
(for the price of a normal cd!). The latter will include the album
'..remixen die Welttraumforscher', formerly released as a vinyl-only on
Felix Kubin's label Gagarin Records and which has long sold out. This album
contains remixes by Mouse on Mars, Barbara Morgenstern, FX Randomiz,
Neoangin, Schlammpeitziger, Minitchev, Nova Huta, Harald "Sack" Ziegler,
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Joe Tabu and Klangwart. As a bonus the CD is augmented
by two most charming (but then what of the Welttraumforscher's output could
defy that adjective?) and hitherto unreleased videos of the band.
Produced and compiled by Tim Tetzner.
>>>
GUTEVOLK - Twinkle [CDEP Happy HAP002]
http://www.12k.com/happy
Gutevolk is the solo project of Hirono Nishiyama, whose previous releases on
Noble and Childisc defy categorization with an eclectic musical fusion of
electronics, bossa nova, and quirky pop playfulness.
Twinkle is her follow-up to 2003's Suomi (Noble, Tokyo) in which she has
created 6 songs (stories/dreams) that intentionally stand on their own, as
opposed to one unifi ed whole. During the creation of Twinkle Nishiyama read
and took much infl uence from the stories and rhymes of Mother Goose;
weaving much of their surreal, yet childlike imagery, into her songs. With
this, she mixed a fascination with space science and immersed herself in
knowledge of stars, moons, and black holes during the album's writing
process.
The result is a very peculiar and unique sound that is both light and dark.
Uptempo loops, hooks, and lyrical imagery loop and intertwine with wistful,
dreamlike vocals and off-centered chords and textures.
>>>
KONK PACK Off Leash [CD Grob 654]
http://www.churchofgrob.com
Off Leash is the third release of the delicate high-energy trio Konk Pack
founded in 1998 and made up of Thomas Lehn on EMS-synthesizer, Roger Turner
on drums and Tim Hodgkinson on la-top steel guitar and clarinet.
Big Deep (1999, GROB 102) was a selection of their first concerts: Warp Out
(2001, GROB 323) was the first studio recording. Off Leash is a live
recording again, from a concert in Utrecht in 2001 that was made under most
favorable conditions conceivable. The sound is superb, the details of the
live performance can be heard in the CD¹s tonal image, the instruments are
present and clear. If you close your eyes, you can easily imagine sitting
directly in a stirring concert. But what are the best recording conditions
worth with the music cannot keep with them?
Off Leash bears up to the musicians¹ critical ears. For the first time they
are so convinced of their own concert that they found it valuable to release
it in its entirety on a CD. (This, by the way, is why the CD is only being
released now: they listened to the music again and again, checked it,
compared it to other recordings, and then it was mastered by Thomas Lehn in
the end.) For the first time, Off Leash offers the opportunity of following
an entire Konk Pack improvisation in real time, without any post production
dramaturgy and cosmetics. The extremely powerful passages, their legendary
free punk, is in a perfectly balanced proportion to the peaceful, sometimes
fragile, passages that nearly crumble apart.
The music is both: it is consistent, like of a cast, like from a group that
had played far more than 100 concerts (which is seldom in the world of
improvised music); the music, however, is also eruptive, often surprising,
fragmentary and heterogeneous. The music from Konk Pack is the contradiction
made productive: finely engraved tonal work and hard free punk are not
placed non-reconcilably next to each other; in fact, they determine each
other
An essential reason for this is the radically horizontal improvisational
method of the musicians. All three constantly play with each other. There is
no fore or background, no soloists and no accompaniment; in general no solo
and no ³feature² of one individual. The system ³Konk Pack² means that each
has to constantly keep the other two in his ear. Their music is and remains
consequently collective. Off Leash, the Utrecht concert, is currently the
best live recording of their holy palaver.
The cover art work is from Tim Hodgkinson and Roger Turner.
>>>
KYO ICHINOSE - Lontano [CD cubic music cubicmusic14]
http://www.cubicmusic.com
http://www.kyo-ichinose.net
cubic music is proud to announce the release of Kyo Ichinose's second album
"lontano".
Ichinose started his musical career as a composer of contemporary music when
he was in Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.
Now he keeps on expanding his activity domain as a musician/composer/sound
artist stepping across various fields of music and sounds like classic,
contemporary art, electronica, sound design.
"lontano" is Ichinose's second album following his impressive debut album
"The Machieneries of Joy - Yorokobi no Kikai" (2002, current/ directed by
Yoshihiro Hanno). "lontano" is an Italian word which means "from a distance"
and also be used as an instruction "play as if heard from a distance/like
echoes" in classical scores.
"I always wish if the sound could be free from cheap and common "emotions"
and be heard from somewhere beautiful and far beyond." You will know that he
successfully reflected the desire on his opus after you went through the
atmosphere that reminds us of humidity of black forest, or rumbling from
deep inside of the sea. Ichinose smartly packed two different approaches -
one is structured by classical strings based on accurate scores, the other
is textured with modern electronica/ambient flavors.
Going through his career from installations in public spaces to compositions
for TV commercials, Ichinose brushed up his way of sublimation of sensuous
images to composition.
It can be said that "lontano"is not only an intimate snapshot of Ichinose's
existing worldview, also a monumental work which points wonder of openness
and sincerity of music which cannot be covered with simplistic categorize or
cheap tricks.
>>>
LAMBENT - these days [CD/LP Expanding ecd17:04/eva9:04]
-> no Promo in UK
http://www.expandingrecords.com
Lambent is Akira Inagawa he was born in Japan but now lives in Berlin.
The album 'These Days' is a project based on tracks making a diary of a
particular time in Akira's life, the basis for each track made in just one
day. No computers were used in the making of the album, Akira works with
samplers and synthesizers prefering a more hands on live approach to
recording.
He started making music as part of a sculpture project while studying
sculpture at art college in London and while he was at college he met the
guys from the london label 'Insine' it was then that he started to release
tracks of mostly ambient music and began playing live.
In 2002 he moved to Berlin and became a part of the electronica scene there
playing live electronica and as a hip hop dj. He has also makes music for
dance performance groups, video artists and web sites.
In 2003 he toured with Arovane and the Tokyo label Progressive Form, he's
also recently played in Berlin with Fluxion, Andreas Tillander, and Jamie
Lidell.
>>>
MARSEN JULES - Herbstlaub [CD/LP City Centre Offices Towerblock 023]
-> promo only in France, Northern and Eastern Europe
http://www.city-centre-offices.de
Simply translated as "autumn leaves","Herbstlaub" offers an ethereal
narrative that accompanies both its title and artwork perfectly. The tools
of construction are almost irrelevant here - although Martin manages to
weave samples and live instruments in a manner that's almost impossible to
fathom: the recording of a string trio, a harp orchestra, a symphony in
rehearsal - all pieced and unraveled alongside his own played instruments.
Martin sets out to paint a picture made up entirely of sounds, layer by
layer you find yourself at first engulfed by a sparse shedding of leaves,
(turning into a deep hue of rusty brown before your very eyes), the air
starts to thicken, the atmosphere closes in as
the leaves form a weave across the horizon and dusk turns the world into an
intimate, impossibly
romantic space. The soundtrack evolves without the interference of beats or
unnecessary padding:
it's an exposed, infinitely evocative study of emotion and space without a
hint of academic
intention or impenetrable experimentation.
Everything around you starts to unfurl with endless strings and delicate
loops that don't seem to have a beginning or an end - an autumnal symphony
built with the greatest respect for tradition but that couldn't have been
made at any other point in time except this - the juncture we've reached
where technology enables tradition to hide under so many mysterious,
impossible layers. It's a symphony carefully constructed, designed to draw
you into its sweet tasting, thick fog. Step inside and, like us, you won't
want to come back out for a while.
>>>
MONOCEROS - When i was a child i wanted to be an astronaut [CD/LP Expanding
ecd18:04/eva10:04]
-> no Promo in UK
http://www.expandingrecords.com
Monoceros is Joan Male' who lives and works in a little town called Sant
Marti D'empuries by the sea in Spain in Girona just above Barcelona, 'When i
was a child i wanted to be an astronaut' is his debut album. His first
instrument was a casiotone at the age of 10 moving on to a commodore 64 then
to a guitar at the age of 13. He played and recorded with several bands but
in 1996-97 started to listen electronic music, bought his first computer
instead of a new guitar and started working on his own
electronic music. After several projects (dance oriented, ambient, noise)
he played some gigs in Barcelona including the LEM festival in 2000 and
released a 12" with his house project Lumiere. He then began an electronica
project called Salad which was the precursor of Monoceros.
Joan also took the cover photo for the album which is part of a series of
experimental photographs using just the light of the full moon.
As well as his album release a 7" by Monoceros will also soon be available
as part of the Expanding EVS series.
>>>
PITA - Get Off [CD Häpna H.19]
-> no Promo in Scandinavia
http://www.hapna.com
This is the fourth solo album from groundbreaking sound artist Pita (real
name Peter Rehberg). His previous solo albums as Pita (all on the Mego
label) have all been landmarks in electronic music. His sound ranges from
furious to minimalistic, but always with the same uncompromising attitude.
To be true to ones ideas when trends come and go is something admirable in
every artist. ³Get Off² is his most varied album to date.
³Get Off² was made over a two-year period, with most of the material
originating from various 'live' situations. It was then compiled and
completed during the summer of 2004 in relative isolation.
Apart from his solo work, he also collaborates with choreographers Gisele
Vienne (DACM) and Chris Haring, as well as being a member of the MIMEO
project.
>>>
POLA - Meme [CD Plop PLIP-3013]
http://www.inpartmaint.com/plop
Pola is a young sound artist from Tokyo, Japan."Même" is his first
full-length album which took 2 whole years to complete the album. He started
producing tracks around year 2000 and was influenced by the early 90's
techno then to experimental electronic music. Whereas many artists uses the
laptop to create
digital music, he mainly uses his favorite hardware for many years, MPC2000
- which gives the special analog warmth to his sound textures. He delicately
manipulates digital disfunction, clicks, skips and crystalline pads to build
his beautiful architecture and the music flows rhythmically with subtle
changes over time.
But from the start till the end, the overall impression is the blissful
comfort of the atmospheric loops. Maybe his music can be easily described as
a mixture of SND and Oval which are his all time heros. An outstanding album
that would satisfy both ears and the feet.
>>>
ROD - All My Love EP [Underscan 12"/CD us007]
http://www.underscan.de
Rod Morris from Dublin/Ireland presents with this release a truly emotional
experience into his inner self. Lush Hip Hop breaks meet dreamy melodies,
electric piano licks and deep seductive basslines sculpting a unique
listening pleasure. The feeling of warmth and pureness arouses to define
Rod´s production essences where he is taking it to a very personal level. A
truly special release for the cold days of wintertime.
Having already had huge responses from all over the place for the main track
"All My Love" which appeared on the Neo Ouija compilation titled "Cottage
Industries 3" Underscan is now making this song available on 12" for the
first time. (The track has additionally been reworked by Spectac who has
re-mixed Planet-mu¹s Ambulance and already gained interest by various Irish
labels.) The release is a joint venture of Irish based label Front End
Synthetics and Underscan.
Rod¹s deep affair with music has stemmed from an early love of electronic
sound.
Born and bred in Dublin, Rod studied piano, drums and music theory from an
early age before packing it all in to focus on composition and sequencing.
In his teens Rod began writing and producing hard breakbeat, a style that
was to eventually mellow as his own taste in music broadened. His focus
shifting to the melodic, and to greater degrees of subtlety. He has been
making music quietly in his home studio for over 10 years, his music only
recently appearing on various compilations from record labels such as Neo
Ouija, Underscan & Dublin based Front End Synthetics. He is currently
working on his first full length solo debut on Neo Ouija.
>>>
V.A. - MONIKA FORCE [CD Monika Enterprise monika 40]
-> promo only in France, Northern and Eastern Europe
http://www.monika-enterprise.de
Music is an art. Music may well be the oldest form of human socialization
and interaction.
Music can change people, express visions and maintain one's mind. The music
of Monika can do all three.
Monika was founded in 1997 by art-punk giantess Gudrun Gut [Mania D and the
80s female damaged-punk band Malaria!, Matador and still Ocean Club] to
cultivate a smooth but subversive collective of lyricists, instrumentalists
and programmers. These acts, names like Barbara Morgenstern, Cobra Killer,
Chica + The Folder, Masha Qrella, Quarks, etc. would go on to expand the
feminine voice of music: a voice that can be
pensive and subtle, or erratic and confrontational.
With that in mind, Monika is proud to introduce its compilation of salvos:
MONIKA FORCE. Consisting of rarities, b-sides and selections from Gudrun
herself, Force is the best and the rarest of the Monika sound. Included on
the 70 minute compilation: Manuela Krause and dub experimenter Stefan Betke
[aka Pole], The Burka Band's "Burka Blue" (an afghani all-girl band), the
DNTEL remix of B. Morgenstern's 'Aus Heiterem Himmel', Cobra Killer's "Heavy
Rotation" remixed by Like a Tim, the amazing off-kilter single from Masha
Qrella "I Want You To Know", an exclusive Komëit remix from T. Raumschmiere,
a Dinky mix
from Chica + the Folder's award deserving debut album and more contributions
from the entire Monika roster make up over an hour's world of music. Also
included is a bonus video of B. Morgenstern's "We're All Gonna Fucking Die."
Monika Force is a perfect opportunity to stand back and look at Monika as a
whole, as a concept and as a plan. 40 releases in, the label has not wavered
from Gut's original dream and has continued to challenge the status quo:
redefining the meaning and exhibiting the power of music. By moving away
from the artificial club atmosphere, and reengaging the rock paradigm,
Monika is making a new way for music in the decades ahead.It's time to
follow: Monika Force.
>>>
V.A. - THE AGENTS OF IMPURITY [Book & CD Sonic Arts Network]
http://www.sonicartsnetwork.org
Based on avant-garde art, but not avant-garde art, the sights and sounds
within this limited edition publication just might be the new avant-garde
(assuming that the newest art will look/sound nothing
like what we know to be art today).
Sonic Arts Network's new limited edition CD series invites guest curators,
chosen for being specialists in their field, to reconsider some of the
tropes that inform current sound practices. This new release, The Agents of
Impurity, is a celebration of guilty pleasures, as viewed through the lens
of the historic avant-garde.
Using audio examples from Antonin Artaud to Sean Landers, and textual works
from Gertrude Stein to Dan Graham, the works presented within it challenge
their received histories and genres, and by doing so, speak directly to our
sense of the present; a present ruled by the constructive chaos of
decentralised horizontal media, as well as the celebration of notions like
'incorrectness' and 'uncreativity'.
The numbered, limited edition publication has been curated by Kenneth
Goldsmith, mastermind of the epochal UbuWeb (ubu.com) and a poet whose own
writing has been described by Publishers Weekly as "the most exhaustive and
beautiful collage work yet produced in poetry".
>>> >>> >>>
LIVE DATES
ENCRE + MY JAZZY CHILD [Active Suspension]
15/01 FR - Point Ephemere / Paris
20/01 NL - Paradiso, Amsterdam
23/01 NL - Patronaat / Haarlem
27/01 DE - Astra Stube / Hamburg
29/01 NL - Theater Kikker / Utrecht
HYPO - ITALIAN TOUR 2004 [Active Suspension]
14/12 IT - Roma
15/12 IT - University Venue, Cosenza, Cantiere
16/12 IT - Giarre, Catania
17/12 IT - TBA
18/12 IT - Fabbrik, Cantania
19/12 IT - TBA
HYPO + dDAMAGE / 24 hours live performance
22-23/12 FR - "You know : Fun, Disorder..."
http://www.youknowfundisorder.com/ Point Ephemere / Paris
>>> >>> >>>
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