Exploring the joy of repetition & collaboration, Ulla Straus & Oceanic cast the Atlantic aside & combine forces to create lingering dreamy minimalism, the friendlier end of the avant-garde & quite frankly one of the most epic melodic tecnno tracks of the year for the intriguing Bakk label.

Sounded to me like an Orchestra tuning up before a heavy breakbeat session, like “Smack My Bitch Up” in memory for Keith Flint!!

soundtrack for georgian doc (Lena Tsibizova/Piper Spray)

Valentina Goncharova - Recordings 1987-1991 Vol. 2
Release date: 10 September 2021
Format: 12” LP
Catalogue number: Shukai 6

Following the unpublished works of the Ukrainian/Estonian musician Valentina Goncharova, Volume 2 of Shukai’s archival project sits in direct contrast to the solo works of Vol. 1. Spending her youth studying classical music first in Kyiv and then in Leningrad, Valentina began her musical career with rigorous compositional study and concert violin performance. This long player of duets as such casts a light on Goncharova’s experiences with early free jazz, democratic improvisation and introductions to pure electronic sound. Where Vol. 1 explored her home studio experiments and flirtations with musique concrete and new age, this volume seeks to give audience to similarly DIY recordings developed in collaborative environments away from the conservatoire. Properly documenting sessions revolving around smoky jazz cafes, art galleries, salons and theatre venues across Riga and Tallinn, these seven pieces add to the historical narrative of the soviet era avant-garde and show the broader spectrum of Valentina’s work.

Credits
Composed and arranged by Valentina Goncharova, Aleksander Aksenov, Sergey Letov and Pekka Airaksinen Recorded in Tallinn, Riga, Helsinki and Moscow during 1987—1991		
Mastered by Flaty 
Compiled by Dmytro Nikolaienko, Dmytro Prutkin and Sasha Tsapenko 
Liner notes by Fergus Clark
Master tapes courtesy by Valentina Goncharova 
Cover photo by Igor Glazistov 
Special thanks to Maarit Vainio, Sami Pekkola, Nina Aksenova, Ats Luik and Martin Jõela

Recordings 1987-1991 Vol. 2

Valentina Goncharova - Recordings 1987-1991 Vol. 2 (12" LP, Excerpts)

From the 2011 album "Sentimental Favourites" – originally released on Dekorder. Available digitally on Bandcamp at the nice price of pay what you want.
https://andrewpekler.bandcamp.com/album/sentimental-favourites

Sentimental Favourites

Name your price

The Twilight Of Your Smile

B2 track from my debut tape "High School Blues" released via @motion-ward in May 2020

"Throughout the songs on the release there is a thread of generative and freeform characteristics, but the emphasis on abstraction is balanced by grounding and at times uneasy swells of emotion that shift and sink in slowly throughout the tracks. Suitable listening for a variety of headspaces and atmospheric conditions." - JS

http://motionward.bandcamp.com/album/high-school-blues

artwork — Jesse Sappel
mastering — Aleksandr Pustynskiy

High School Blues

Equilibrium State

From "Ses Kondi" cassette album.
Released on ORILA records, summer 2019.
https://soundcloud.com/orila
orilarecords.bandcamp.com/album/ses-kondi

Ses Kondi

Lord

Plafond 4 — Ulla Straus / Oceanic [LP]

Vinyl: https://clone.nl/item57897.html
Digital: bakk.bandcamp.com/album/plafond-4

A1 Ulla Straus — I Forgot to Take a Picture (12:03)
A2 Ulla Straus — Becoming Warm (6:24)
B Oceanic — Three Sides Of A Shell (19:21)
 ↳ 1. Aperture 
 ↳ 2. Columella
 ↳ 3. Sea If You Can Hear

The fourth Plafond sees fine-crafted contrasting pieces complement each other in courtesy of Ulla Straus and Oceanic. Along the wide arbitrary landscape of listening or 'ambient' music, it is a delight to have two artists, separated by the vast Atlantic, contributing quite opposite interpretations of such to the series. Perceptual time feels as a recurrent theme which binds them, albeit in a whole different modus operandi.

In her iconic tactile productions, Straus excavates levels of advanced musical complexity in the seemingly most simple. Throughout two tracks her crude and beautiful technique riffles, compositions that remain prone to the transient, combining field recordings with morphing saxophone and guitar. This is deeply evocative music that turns its recipient into a mode of contemplation. ‘I Forgot to Take a Picture’ breathes melancholic romanticism, ‘Becoming Warm’ feels lorn yet hopeful. Pastoral haze over a rouge-tainted barren, the crackling insides of a wooden forest house. Picturesque and minimalist, Pennsylvania’s Straus manages to temporarily stop the sand from gravitating downwards.

Oceanic antagonises Straus with the triptych ‘Three Sides of a Shell’, recalling different emotions adhering to the fourth dimension. As a performing artist, Oceanic masters the element of suspense. Here, over the course of nineteen minutes, a three-note sequence is explored within the producers imaginatory, chapterised, providing moments to navigate through his fictitious galaxy. Stuttering melodies across azure waters, synthesised bleeps as flickering stars over a moonlit mountain pass. Oceanic’s music feels advanced through actively incorporating contemporary futurism, whilst never losing the glacial glance that is so familiar to its early nineties foregoers. It is as if listening to ‘Three Sides...’ heightens the senses, towards possibility, innovation even, triggering illusions of time dilation, shattering the hourglass.

Comes in hand printed dreamy, pink sleeve, including Obi-strip, by the BAKK Innerspace Ink Station.

Music: @ullastraus / @oceanicocean
Design: Mike Kokken and Heer Badoux
Words: Luke Cohlen (@lukecohlen)

Plafond 5

BAKKPlafond4 | Ulla Straus / Oceanic (LP)

Part of "Kelster" (nueen.bandcamp.com/album/kelster)

Pic by Gabriel Orozco - Nubes de espuma (2014)

Evolution Clouds

@Nikolaienko Meets Arthur Mine: Nostalgia Por Mesozóica
Format: 7", limited to 100
Release date: March 6th 2020


After four years of silence that have elapsed since the release of “Ode To The Sea” LP back in 2016, Muscut is bringing out Nikolaienko’s next collaboration, a duo with Arthur Mine, a Kyiv-based keyboard maestro and an ex-member of the ‘Blacklazer’ band. 

“Nostalgia Por Mesozóica” is an exploration of "experimental exotica" consisted of synthesized tropical attributes — an artificial landscape isolated behind the glass frame. Reminiscent of recording techniques and sonorities ubiquitous in the 60’s and 70’s, it could conceivably have been intended as a soundtrack for the Mesozoic Era exhibition at your favorite Natural History museum.


Face A
A1 Troglodytes

Face B
B1 The Ancient Musical Complex Of Mammoth Bones
B2 Muzak For Mesozoic Showreel


Limited to 1OO copies.
Includes hand-numbered and stamped postcard.

Arthur Mine: Arp Odyssey (track A), Venta synth-organ (track B2)
Nikolaienko: modular synth percussion, tape manipulations, processing, effects.

Composed by Nikolaienko and Arthur Mine and recorded at Labyrint Of Echoes Studio in Kyiv during 2017—2019.

Mastering by Flaty (@producedbyflaty)
Photos by Dmytro Nikolaienko
Muscut 16, 2020

Nostalgia Por Mesozóica

Order

Nostalgia Por Mesozóica by Nikolaienko Meets Arthur Mine (7", 2020) Excerpts

In 2019, Copenhagen based sound artist and composer Sofie Birch embarked on a trip to Colombia, taking with her a series of pre recorded synth chords and old demos of unfinished tracks. 

Over the span of the trip, she began collecting a wide array of field recordings, including bird song, Colombian instruments and jungle ambiance.

Processing her journey though music, Sofie produced a series of sound collages, initially presented as one mix and later split into two works, each of which present themselves as an audible postcard, sonically painting a diary of her journey, while encapsulating her moods and thoughts from her time spent in the South American jungle.

VAK32 | Sofie Birch - Morgenånder

Taken from I Stumble And Then I Fall, the first release in a new series of Intimations by A Colourful Storm. Out now on digital formats and December 30, 2020 on cassette.

Purchase: https://acolourfulstorm.bandcamp.com/album/i-stumble-and-then-i-fall

I Stumble And Then I Fall

Princess Diana of Wales - Cut

Taken from Not Waving & Romance - Eyes Of Fate [E065, Ecstatic]
 
Not Waving combines with Romance on the free-floating grandeur of ‘Eyes Of Fate’ : nine tracks of mythological, Old Testament ambient.

The first new music from Not Waving since 2019 and the first pairing with label mate Romance 'Eyes Of Fate’ explores the fertile territory between secular and religious music that has long fascinated artists, allegories on the divine and existential bliss and terror in equal measure. 

From the curdled invocation of opener ‘I Bowed On My Knees’ to the enrapturing devotional of ‘While My Heart Still Beats’ to the final judgement of ‘Kneel For Mercy’, the album wrenches highly emotive textures utilising a blend of centuries-old chant styles and orchestration consisting of  chamber strings, tape loops and plangent processed sounds.

BAKKPlafond4 | Ulla Straus / Oceanic (LP)

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