From the 2-track single 'Death Of The Wicked Man/The Holy Cold'.

All music composed, performed and produced by Roelof Broekman.

Vietnamese woman singing recorded by Sieu Am Thanh: Bài cúng đám giỗ - Quảy Đơm for Duyên's bà nội.

The Holy Cold - Hesperus

Archangels rapturized, to observe the alluring voice
In a state of exuberance, the mind wants to unfold
As faith erupts the soul, the dream state left behind
Captures all the nauseous sins, the failures so unkind

Foreseen in prophecies, revealed when the soul abends
As the sun appears behind, the shadow’s drawn within
Submerge uneasily, avoid the encrypted mountain
For real the innocents, relieved from the holy cold

The Holy Cold

All music composed, performed and produced by Roelof Broekman. Choir in Ukraine church, Sevastopol, recorded by Satoritec.

2-track single: Death Of The Wicked Saint/The Holy Cold

Death of the wicked saint

Dressed in black, looming slow
His hollow eyes staring in the snow
Blood bleeds on, so unconstrained
Behold the death of the wicked saint

Never seen, such a troubled mind
Born to live, on a devils shrine
O this wicked saint, lost and found
His body burned, on the holy ground

Death Of The Wicked Saint

»grain« is the third Innode release following on from »Gridshifter« in 2013 and »syn« in 2021.

A new methodology to make the album is applied yet again from the trio of Bernhard Breuer, Steven Hess and Stefan Németh. The approach is more an anti approach where the trio let the process of creation itself steer the development of the recording, without any prior conceptual agenda.

Irregular rhythmic patterns often served as the initial springboard for each piece with Breuer creating a loop either by playing drums or with the aid of a modelling percussion synthesizer. The results often bypass existing formulaic grids. The outfit embraced these anti-precision steps building shapes around the tarnished templates.

The process of building upon the core structures laid forth alters throughout. In the case of »Splitter« you can hear an example of Bernhard´s core loops dominating a skeletal audio sphere. The title of the track »Impactopium« reflects the process of its construction being a conglomeration of individual titles meshed into a whole. The audio is a non-linear compendium of several fragments of individual elements. A conscious method of exploring a more decentralised architecture saw three disparate elements layered randomly on top of each other with some synths added as a sonic seasoning at the later stages.

Elsewhere sonic elements are restructured in unusual ways. One member's contribution is completely stripped away, quiet sounds captured with contact mics are highly amplified, the last track introduces twisted themes of the first track.

The title »grain« refers to the roughness resulting from these explorations. It also takes note of the term grain as used in analogue photography or in the case of audio as a distorted signal, or »noise.« All of these elements, normally eschewed, are here embraced as a thematic thread to instigate the exploratory proceedings.

This is a playbox of inventiveness, a hall of mirrors and an endless search for unusual tactics and fresh results.

Tackling the initial loop tracks from a wide variety of strategic approaches Innode has concocted a strangely cohesive work. From sparse source material to heavy overdubs of overdubs »grain« is a uplifting collection of works from this relentlessly curious and exploratory Austrian outfit. Humans make the work but the random embracing of unexpected processes means the gentleman of the outfit is not fully ruling what becomes of these works.

grain

Splitter

Innode 'Splitter' (EMEGO311)

Directions Out Of Town is the latest and teased as (possibly) the last LP by DIY electronic abstract pop wizard Finlay Shakespeare.

Directions Out Of Town is a fierce mix of headstrong pop bangers. Fact. There is simply no one else traversing the field that Shakespeare is exploring. It can be lonely in the desert, Simon says. Lyrically, Directions Out Of Town is dealing with loss; personally, geographically, politically, culturally - a general decay of everything.

This new record is heavily inspired by structural film where the results unravel a method where metaphor is removed from the act of sound synthesis, production and mix of the tracks. Fiercely independent and brimming with integrity this is a deeply effective journey through machines of the human experience.

The track titles are telling: ‘Away’, ‘Get’, ‘Direction’, ‘I go for a walk’, etc. This is sentiment via complex synthesis wrung through patterns of pop. One also finds ways out that only turn out to be false/untrue. “I essentially don’t know where I belong any more. This record is the precursor to that.”

What is ostensibly an electro pop record reveals a multitude of layers and depth as one man and his machines wrestle with the reality of this tangled matrix. If the charts had brains this would be album of the year.

Finlay Shakespeare is an electronic musician working in the UK. His fascination for synthesized sound was born out of his parents’ record collection, leading him to explore the electronic music of decades past throughout his teenage years. While starting to write and record his own tracks, he also began learning analogue electronics, which led him to design and build his own equipment. To date, he has released work on Editions Mego, Superpang, and his own GOTO Records.

Directions Out Of Town

Face Value (Trio Mandala)

Finlay Shakespeare 'Face Value (Trio Mandala)' (EMEGO310)

Roelof Broekman is a writer, video-artist and composer from Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His video-art has been screened in over 20 countries. His novel 'In de Waitman' and non-fiction books 'Partycrash'and 'Braincrash' were published by Uitgeverij De Brouwerij/Brainbooks. He wrote a book of poems 'Azotum' from which 27 poems were published in literature magazines. Roelof composed music for tv broadcastchannel VPRO, corporate video's and his own video-art.

The Holy Cold

Hesperus

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