Taken from the album: Professional People out 2021-06-25
Order the album on 2 Lps here: https://linktr.ee/fehlerkuti

The album Fehler Kuti “Professional People“ is part of the same multiverse as “The History of the Federal Republic of Germany as told by Fehler Kuti und die Polizei”. 

A production by Julian Warner. In cooperation with Münchner Kammerspiele. Funded by the Department of Arts and Culture of the City of Munich. Released by Alien Transistor.

Professional People

All Ausländer Go To Heaven (REPRISE)

Vinyl/DL/Stream

Fehler Kuti: All Ausländer Go To Heaven (REPRISE)

After releasing their 2nd Album „A Lie“ in early 2013 Cico Beck and Nico Sierig aka
Joasihno gave their songs into their friends hands. „Vimes“ an electro-duo from cologne,
that got international recognized with its support for „Hot Chip“ on their South America
Tour, recreated a beautiful soundscape out of the beats and bytes of Joasihno's "dream
of a disappearing friend"


Joasihno: Dream of a disappearing friend (Vimes rmx)

Joasihno & JEL
Alien Transistor - N38

There's something going on between California and Bavaria, as you might have recognized collaborations between "Themselves" and "The Notwist" ("13&God") or "Odd Nosdam" and "Saroos". And on it goes when "Jel" a true producing mastermind behind the Anticon experimental Hip Hop scene is creating a mind blowing track out of loops from Munich based experimental Pop Duo "Joasihno". And here's the small sensation: Jel is not only tinkering with soundscapes and beats but even puts his vocals and his track "Hypnotize Us". 

Cat.no.: N38
Format: 7"

Tracklisting
1. Lay Down
2. Hypnotize Us

Release Dates:
Dec 13, 2013 (Worldwide) 

Buy on itunes

Joasihno & JEL : Hypnotize Us

Compiled by Markus Acher with big help from Saya
Coordinated and organized by Saya, Ken Manabe
song- licensing by Jürgen Söder
Cover-drawings by Takashi Ueno
Cover designed and screenprinted by Senor Burns

*. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *

In September  2019, Saya from the Tokyo-based duo Tenniscoats invited our combo Hochzeitskapelle to the AlienParade Japan, a caravan of bands featuring Zayaendo (Saya’s and Satomi Endo’s brass band), Tenniscoats, Kama Aina (aka Takuji Aoyagi, who released an album together with us) and our Kapelle as main acts traveling from Tokyo to Kobe. There were 14 concerts in 9 cities, in restaurants, concert-halls, on a market and in a beautiful colonial-style villa with garden.
Many musicians were involved, other bands joined and even more friends helped, cooked, listened and danced… days filled with music, colours, talking and laughing, the best food, coffee and cold beer, and so many discoveries. Magic! Like a dream, and the most memorable tour I've ever experienced.
 
During this time especially, but also on other visits and tours in Japan, Saya and her friends recommended a lot of music to me that I didn’t know of, and I was surprised and excited to find so many Japanese bands who use brass and woodwind-instruments. Until then I thought of the Munich scene, where we come from, as being quite unique in having ex-punk and still-indie musicians form loud acoustic bands with many brass instruments and play a wild mixture of styles, sitting without a stage and PA-system in beergardens, bars or on the river. But in Japan I discovered a whole new universe of adventurous bands and artists, some of them coming from indie pop or jazz, some from experimental music, including some ex-members or musicians inspired by the sound and ideas of Tori Kudo‘s collective Maher Shalal Hash Baz. I could hear influences from New Orleans brass bands, of the Japanese street-musicians Chindon’ya, different folk music, and some arrangements recalled Italian Morricone-style-soundtracks; there were one-man-home recordings.... but in the end, all of them were impossible to categorize and not part of any definable genre. What I found and still love in all of them is a certain melancholy and a very unique, beautiful sound that I rarely find in bands outside of Japan... the courage to break the rules… and incredible melodies and songs. They sound new and special, but also strangely familiar, as if I already knew their music for a very long time. Far away and very close. And always straight to the heart.
 
This collection is a very personal view of Japanese bands using brass and woodwind instruments, many of them friends of the Tenniscoats and their Majikick label or the scene around Taku Unami and Kanji Nakao... many different connections can be made between all of them, musically and personally.
So, this compilation is not a representative anthology. It‘s mainly held together by my personal taste, experiences and friendships. It tries to capture the atmosphere of a very special tour, like a diary or a calendar of an intense and happy time, and it tells the story of a music that is not afraid of limitations or making things differently, and that can connect people from different parts of the world. And I hope it makes some people want to look for more of these wonderful bands and artists.
 
Thank you Saya especially for helping so much, recommending songs and supporting the idea of this compilation. It would not have been possible without your help. And for the idea to organize the Alien Parade... that started so many things.  
Thank you to Ken Manabe for helping to realize this compilation. And thank you to Koji Saito (7e.p.) for organizing the Alien Parade Japan, and Takuji Aoyagi (KAMA AINA) and Masayuki Tanaka (fete musique) for arranging concerts with the „Wayfaring Suite“.
And どうもありがとうございます to all the bands, artists and labels !!
Markus

Alien Parade Japan

Vinyl

Gratin Carnival グラタンカーニバル - „Just Watching“ „シャッターチャンスは５年前“

Cico Beck, Robert Klinger, Carl Oesterhelt, Stefan Schreiber, Peter Thiessen, Markus Acher , Micha Acher.

Fuchs 03

Buy the record

THOUSAND LIGHTS DISTRICT

Taken from "Turtle Roll" out on Alien Transistor June 16th, 2023
LP/DIGITAL: https://linktr.ee/saroos
Animation by Petra Péterffy

Turtle Roll

The Sign

LP/Digital

Saroos: The Sign (サイン) Feat. Kiki Hitomi

Recorded by Shinya Wada and Hazuki Chigusa at Guggenheim House, November 2022
Mixed by Shinya Wada
Coverphoto by Rinko Kawauchi
Taken from the album: Hochzeitskapelle + Japanese Friends - “The Orchestra In The Sky”

The orchestra in the sky

Garden of peace

LP/CD/Digital

Hochzeitskapelle + Tenniscoats: Garden Of Peace

Taken from the album: SUN - “I Can See Our House From Here”
Out on Alien Transistor June 7th, 2024
Order LP: https://linktr.ee/sun_music
Artwork by Laurent Impeduglia

SUN: Daydream

Buy the vinyl: www.alientransistor.de
Buy the album on itunes: api.morrmusic.com/itunes/945484393
Between 2008's ‘The Devil, You & Me’ and this year’s 'Close To The Glass', The Notwist not only concentrated on various solo projects, but also worked for several theatre productions and radioplays.
'The Messier Objects' is a compilation of some of these works.

Buy the vinyl 

The Notwist: Object 06

Taken from the album: "Electronic Eye"
Out on Alien Transistor Oct. 11th 2024
Pre-order LP: https://linktr.ee/osummervacation
"Shooting by Masayuki & Maggie Aviation. 
Designed,directed & edited by Maggie Aviation"
Follow o`summer vacation: https://www.instagram.com/osummervacation/

o'summer vacation: 宿痾(Shuku - A)

Buy the vinyl: https://alientransistor.com/shop/
Buy the album on itunes: api.morrmusic.com/itunes/945484393
Between 2008's ‘The Devil, You & Me’ and this year’s 'Close To The Glass', The Notwist not only concentrated on various solo projects, but also worked for several theatre productions and radioplays.
'The Messier Objects' is a compilation of some of these works.

The Notwist: Das Spiel Ist Aus

Warmes Licht

LP/STREAM

Spinnen - Warm

Taken from the album: "Sterner Stuff"
Out on Alien Transistor Sept. 20th 2024
LP/Digital: https://linktr.ee/soft_violet

Soft Violet: Feu Vif

Alien Transistor and Tokyo-based label Afterhours release a vinyl-version of tenniscoats' masterpiece "music exists". It consists of 4 LPs, which will be released over the year, full of intimate, wonderful, psychedelic folk-music. With the fourth LP, there will be a strictly limited box available, either for putting in your already purchased other 3 records, or as the whole glorious 4-LP-package.

Buy the vinyl

Tenniscoats: Korin

Original taken from Le Millipede's self-titled debut album, out June 5th 2015.
Buy the track here: http://bit.ly/2aTbH9M
Follow Le Millipede:
soundcloud.com/le-millipede
www.facebook.com/lemillipede
Follow Alban Endlos:
soundcloud.com/alban-endlos
www.facebook.com/alban.endlos.musik
www.alban-endlos.de

Buy the track

Le Millipede - Johann Palisa (Alban Endlos Remix)

From The Notwist live album (release date 10/14/16) Superheroes, Ghost-villians & Stuff
Preorder / Europe from Alien Transistor
https://alientransistor.com/shop/
api.morrmusic.com/itunes/1147635972

Preorder / North America from Sub Pop
megamart.subpop.com/releases/the_no…lains_and_stuff
itunes.apple.com/us/album/superhe…ins/id1143629066

This new album documents the latest live incarnation of this very band, which also features Andi Haberl, Max Punktezahl, Karl Ivar Refseth, and Cico Beck. Recorded on December 16, 2015 on the second of three consecutive, sold-out nights at UT Connewitz in Leipzig, Germany, "Superheroes, Ghost-Villains & Stuff" indeed feels like a first-hand live experience caught on triple vinyl. That’s why it’s the definitive album of The Notwist’s career.

Superheroes, Ghost-Villains + Stuff

Buy The Vinyl

The Notwist: Pick Up The Phone (Live)

Alien Transistor and Tokyo-based label Afterhours release a vinyl-version of tenniscoats' masterpiece "music exists", which consists of 4 LPs in total.
"Music exists" Disc 2 functions as a complement and extension of Disc 1. Even more incredibly beautiful melodies, more subtle and psychedelic orchestration (spanish guitar, casio-keyboards, trombone, drumcomputer), and more heartfelt singing and playing.

"It may even be their greatest ever music, essential plus" Monorail Music, Glasgow

"Whatever's ailing you, Tokyo's Tenniscoats have got something for that" Boomkat, Manchester

Music Exists Disc 2

Tenniscoats: Kyoku Wa Mirai

This track was composed for a movie "Lost Town" by Jörg Adolph.
Available as download via itunes or as 7 inch at  the alien transistor shop.
www.alientransistor.de

The Notwist - blank air

Taken from " Music Exists DISC 3" out Sept 29th 2017 
Follow Tenniscoats : 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
Tenniscoats / Twitter: https://twitter.com/tenniscoats_say

Music Exists Disc 3

Music Exists 3

Tenniscoats: Yoru Wa Nagame

There are a thousand reasons to establish a band. And probably a thousand reasons not to. For example, regularly setting the alarm for three in the night, getting up, making music for an hour, and going back to bed. And the next morning during daylight, checking to see whether it was all a dream or reality.
Or filming commuters in a train station, writing a computer program to accompany the film which generates music on the basis of the movements of the people filmed, and calling the whole thing 'Sonata for the Unaware'.
One person who likes to follow such unusual practices is Alexander Chen, aka Boy in Static – 23 years old, residing in Boston, grew up in New Jersey and downtown Philadelphia, musical socialisation via classical piano and viola in the school string orchestra, later guitar and discovery of the wonderful world of CPU-clocked sounds and music. No (notable) band memberships, just going it alone. This can be difficult, when the heliocentric part takes the upper hand, but can also lead to revelation and fulfillment, when your own demo somehow finds its way to the label of your favourite band and is well received, leading to the release of the first album.
Enter "Newborn": ten times DIY-homerecording using contemporary methods, ten songs made up of acoustic guitar, crazy fingerboard playing, rumbling bass, muted singing, distorted drums, expressive string sequences galore, cheap E-Bay organ and carefully orchestrated laptop manouvres. So it is something that has not yet been heard in this world of reference-modellers and categerisers. Not rock, not electronic, not folk. Not 'post-', not 'pre-', simply there. Present. At first glance perhaps a little bit of each, but on the second glance not the usual sum of its parts. Rather, more. Much more. A completely unique universe with delicate miniature mood portraits without over the top sentimentality, but with maximum effect. Accompanied by song titles that are like rays of sunshine on autumn days: "Warm Blooded", Kissed Under The Sun", "Truly Yours" or "Slept Fine". Melodious sound and beauty. Warmth and atmosphere. Stillness and drama in hectic times.
Layer by layer, colour spot by colour spot, mosaic tile by mosaic tile, pieced together according to an invisible personal master plan that will never be understood by outsiders, but will simply be enjoyed - with a happy heart and the knowledge that something very special has been discovered.

Boy In Static: Bellyfull

Chronomad is Saam Schlamminger
Saam Schlamminger, born 1966 in Istanbul. Until the age of 12 years, he lived in Iran, since then, his main residence is Munich. A couple of visits at different musicians and teachers all around the world for studying eastern rhythmics.

Specialized in the instruments Persic Zarb and Daf, which he alienates electronically.

Worldwide performances with artists of different styles, e.g. Susan Deyhim and the Notwist.

Consultant and director of several documentaries abroad.


All music played by Saam Schlamminger
with Markus + Micha Acher: additional sampler, keyboards, programming
Guido Hieronymus: additional programming

Recorded at turbopop-studio, uphon-Studio and Guido Hieronymus-Studio
Mixed+produced by Micha+Markus Acher
Mastering by Michael Heilrath/ Bereich 03

Chronomad: Sard

Cookies" is the first single from Odd Nosdam's upcoming album "Mirrors" out on Alien Transistor 12-04-2019

This spring, acclaimed abstract hip-hop producer and cofounder of Anticon Records, Odd Nosdam, will release MIRRORS - a new LP via Alien Transistor. Composed entirely of found sounds, most of them sourced from rare and private press vinyl, MIRRORS’s instrumental beats and sound collages pulse with a sense of exploration and rediscovery that has been Nosdam’s calling card since the turn of this past century. Its every track presents a treasure trove of unique aural gems, each nestled in atmospheric textures that swirl like a cloud of dust just blown off of some once-overlooked heirloom.

Mirrors

Odd Nosdam: Cookies

I remember the first time I read W.E.B. DuBois eclectic masterpiece The Souls of Black Folk. The way in which this Weberian scholar flowed from personal account to prose to sociological analysis to music and even political intervention has had a lasting impact on my own work as a cultural anthropologist. It made me understand that as scholars we must use different means in order to give expression to the totality of the lived experience: There is only so much in an academic text.

The experience of alienation has always been at the heart of my scholarly and artistic practice. I have used academic writing, lecturing, theatre performance and electronic improvisation to understand and represent it as a theoretical concept, postcolonial condition and lived experience. I believe, some issues need to be told like a story, some analyzed in most abstract terms and others need to be sung like a gospel. The medium changes the message.

In this sense, I guess, I’m a singing cultural anthropologist.

For some time now I have been engaged in the use of dystopian themes and sounds to paint a sonic picture of structural racism and whiteness of our present. But recently I have grown weary of this Ballardian idea of Future Now and the resulting phantasmagorian aesthetics myself and others have been invested in. The widespread availability of Digital Audio Workstations, sequencers, loopers and delay pedals has lead us into a futuristic cul de sac best described by Mark Fisher as the very absence of future.

Likewise, I am most skeptical of the “naturalist” countermovement, the return of folk. Especially in Germany, I am convinced there is no such thing as an innocent or progressive folk musical expression as it is always connected to the idea of the homeland (“Heimat”) which in turn produces the colony. It seems to me, the current zeitgeist is stuck between a “museum of a dystopian future” and a “museum of an idealized past”, but I wanted to sing about the present.

So, I involuntarily returned to pop music in its two-folded meaning of something popular and addressing not an essentialist notion of “Volk” or its woke cousin “communities”, but society as a whole.

I entered the studio just with a few lo-fi sounding melodies and rhythms from my circuit bent CASIO synthesizer. I had no clue what the finished product would sound like. But as soon as Markus started drumming, in a way strangely reminding me of CAN’s Ethnographic Forgery Series, my uptight sounds were suddenly embedded within a warmer global sound spectrum. The alien at home and abroad and the strange overlapped: We were seeing one and the same sound differently but were gently held together by Tobias’ producing.

Making music is about building coalitions. It’s about suggesting an articulation of styles, sounds and people, that hasn’t materialized, yet, but may help us in the current crisis: I wanted Amon Düül II to send their drug induced archangel thunderbird to rescue the refugees, that had tried to escape the police by climbing up a tree in Munich in 2016. I wanted Sun Ra to taunt far-right protesters in Chemnitz in 2018. And I wanted to mourn the loss of a former kebab shop cum discotheque that served as proof that there is such a thing as a minoritarian universalism.

SCHLAND IS THE PLACE FOR ME is a pop album featuring songs of alienation, not only as a tragic experience, but as a pop-cultural promise. Maybe Bill Callahan sung it best, “I am Star Wars today, I am no longer English grey”. I want those who suffer from alienation to stand in alliance with those who seek alienation, and vice-versa. A coalition, that tolerates the possibility that we are moved by the same groove for contrary reasons.

Schland Is The Place For Me

Fehler Kuti: Mayday Mayday

Taken from "OLU" out on Alien Transistor 2020--03--06
https://linktr.ee/saroos

Follow Saroos:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saroosmusic/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/saroosmusic

Tatsu Jam

Saroos - Tatsu Jam

"Cord Burn PT.3" out on Alien Transistor 2019-11-29 
Download/ Stream: https://linktr.ee/alientransistor

Saroos: Cord Burn Pt. 3

Joasihno – A Lie (Release date: April 2013)

The ongoing love affair between US-Americans and rectangular, grid-like shapes is hardly a secret: There’s Manhattan’s grid system, and pretty much all state lines are straight; even Mid-West farmers prefer their plains and fields nice and square, as any domestic flight from one coast to the other will teach you. Yet, contrary to popular belief, things are not much different in Old Europe, or rather, in southern Germany: The “rectangular fields” surrounding, shaping, and defining the Upper Bavarian village Joasihno call home once again turned out a significant influence and defining factor during the duo’s recording sessions for its sophomore effort A Lie. Former sole mastermind Christoph “Cico” Beck (Aloa Input, MS. John Soda) and his new band mate Nico Sierig (Missent To Denmark) have referred to them before, and apparently these oblong, “rectangular fields” work pretty much like blank sheets – just waiting to be filled with Joasihno’s shape-shifting, rather circular, meandering, and free floating tracks that are full of surprising little twists and turns.  
Having recently played another round of gigs with The Notwist and Owen Pallett – they previously also shared stages with Beirut, Sóley, 13 & God, and Youth Lagoon –, the opening track of Joasihno’s second album feels a bit like a plane’s smooth landing at sundown: the air is shimmering, and suddenly there’s this new thirst for action upon touchdown, it’s something Germans like to call Tatendrang. In other words: It’s a proper kick-off to set the tone, gleaming, strumming, clapping euphorically; the sonic equivalent to a movie’s “happy ending” right at the beginning. Further down those fields, they present a sound that seems to say “why not keep that level of playfulness”, sometimes bolting and shooting off into the wind – “Oh Boy!” – but also staying true to its melancholy undercurrents reminiscent of the underrated Matt Marque. Elsewhere, Joasihno even live up to Cico’s last name when “Some Light” indeed sounds a bit like a certain Beck Hansen trapped in the garden of intricate beats. 
Over the course of the LP, the duo weaves a vast array of influences ranging from World Music to Minimal and back – Cico mentions Reich, Glass, Ligeti, and Nancarrow when asked about his key influences – into an electro-acoustic tapestry of sound that includes hypnotic layers (“Dream Of A Disappearing Friend”), surprising melodies almost reminiscent of The Strokes (“Oceans”; albeit using the kind of instrumentation you’d find in Hymie’s Basement), and some fine home-made soundtrack material that would make any super-8 collection look even better (“In Our House”). Apparently, living that close to the ultimate border, the Limes of ancient Rome, results in a rather unbounded and limitless approach when it comes to DIY musicianship. 
It’s been a while since Joasihno dropped the first EP “Papiertonnentigertum” (2009) and the debut album We Say: Oh Well (2011), and so it’s great to see that the spirit of DIY is still vehemently blowing from all sides across the “rectangular fields” of northern Bavaria. And just like the first rays of sunlight are about to return to the barren fields when A Lie finally sees its release, the sonic snapshots and moments gathered on this album are humming like an old-school slide show – in fact you can almost feel the shimmering air against the skin. 

Links:
http://www.alientransistor.de
http://www.joasihno.de
http://www.myspace.com/joasihno
https://www.facebook.com/joasihno

Booking:
Moutique
booking@moutique.de

Joasihno - Oh Boy


Two countries, two cities, one river. The Oder River not only separates the German city of Frankfurt from Slubice in Poland, it separates two different worlds from each other. Whether rich or poor, people try to seek their fortune there – but often only find their limits.

Hans-Christian-Schmid („Nach fünf im Urwald“, „23“, Crazy“), one of the most successful and exciting young German directors, made a moving film with an impressive ensemble, telling emotional, deeply human stories, subtle and moving, tough and yet full of poetry.

Notwist composed the music for this film, based on a pianoloop and minimal electronics, and recorded it with participation of Sebastian Hess (cello) and Saam Schlamminger (zarb). For the twelve-inch release the piece was remixed by Martin Gretschmann aka Console.





Alien Transistor shop

The Notwist - Lichter 1

Zayaendo is a Tokyo-based brassband, colorful, unique and adventurous...you won’t find any of the typical brass-bands-cliches here, nor are they a free-unit of improvisors…they nothing less then invited their own genre...Zayaendo Music !
Zayaendo was formed in 2016 by Saya (Tenniscoats, Spirit Fest) and Satomi Endo (Biobiopatata) after Saya was inspired by a performance of the acoustic instrumental band Hochzeitskapelle, who she saw in Munich. 
The band also includes Tomoaki Saito, Masaharu Seki (sekifu), Takashi Ueno (Tenniscoats), Kiyokazu Onozaki (Andersens, 2B) and other musicians who play with other bands or as solo artists. Zayaendo consists of somewhere between ten and twenty musicians (depending on who is available to play at that time) and forms an orchestra that plays each other’s compositions as well as covers of experimental timeless masterpieces. Since the band play acoustic instruments, their performance venues vary from the street to the forest. 

In 2018, the band played at the Alien Disko Festival #3 with their beloved Hochzeitskapelle, where together they took part in a parade through the streets of Munich to celebrate and ring in the festival. In 2019, their first album Zayaendo music was released on the majikick label, and now, as vinyl, by Alien Transistor, Munich.

Zayaendo are:
Satomi Endo (s-sax), Ryoko Kajiwara (fl), Ken Manabe (t-sax), Masaharu Seki (eupho), Kiriko Kasamatsu (trb), Yutaka Hirose (tuba), Takashi Ueno (banjo), Tomoaki Saito (mandolin), Mitsuru Tanaka (perc), Shintaro Kiyonari (perc), Haruhiko Seki(perc),Saya (perc)

Zayaendo Music

Hiyodori

Zayaendo: Hiyodori

Alien Transistor was founded in 2003 by Markus and Micha Acher from The Notwist.The labels concept is to produce music that has a musical or personal relation to the Notwist- microcosm: From electronic soundscapes through abstract hip-hop to laptop-treated contemporary, from processed oriental music to Nick Drake-inspired-songwriting: Alien Transistor doesn’t respect any musical boundaries.

alientransistor

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