Semka - Front Matter Dead Souls 
Cat. Nr: DN021
Format: DL
Release Date: September 20, 2023
Buy / stream: dansenoire.ffm.to/Semka

Semka (aka Sem Lala)’s Front Matter Dead Souls is an examination of affect as a construction. A composite of found sounds and field recordings, the New York-based Albanian artist’s album of process-based noise, ambient, and musique concrète sound design ploughs the shallow depths of artifice in this intensely evocative experiment in manufacturing emotion. Ten textured tracks are arranged in a coarse patchwork of sonic elements that exposes the music for its own illusory meaning.

Whether in the stormy environmental sounds and scrambled orchestral echoes on “Thuderdome Exclusive” or the crisp spoken word sample-pack stems on “Secret Sadness of the 21st Century,” Front Matter Dead Soul insists on the artificiality of how feelings are conveyed in art by divorcing it from its source. And yet, this very rejection of music as anything but an instrument of inducement, is what makes Lala’s work so deeply intimate, and, paradoxically, authentic.

Born in Elbasan and for a time residing in Zürich, Lala co-founded the Czarnagora label in the aforementioned Swiss city, releasing music under his Jon Neverdie alias, along with other artists like Jan Vorisek and Tapiwa Svosve. The latter saxophonist—perhaps best known for a recent collaboration with Asma Maroof and Patrick Belaga—appears on the groaning clatter of Lala’s “Technic Angel.” Tobias Koch features under the Maria moniker on the collision of “Attack Angel.” That Swiss composer, in turn, has presented Lala’s audio works on his own As we leave the window open sound art platform, with one such release—Diversity and Inclusion Course Work (Stems)—critiquing the didactic representation of semantic conflicts in educational training. That piece echoes the similarly profound ambivalence of Front Matter Dead Souls, where its name alludes to the emptiness of its own veneer—a surface promise of substance concealing a lifeless void beneath. 

Mixed by Tobias Koch 
Mastered by Rashad Becker
Design by Niels Wehrspann and photography by Virginia Ariu

Semka - Front Matter Dead Souls (DN021)

An ode to failure!

Departing from the image of the genius artists, the Hit&Miss compilation wants to show the hidden parts of creation, by embracing missteps and abandonment as a natural part of any artistic journey. 

Open to all members of the Global URL Nation, it proposed a new home for projects that couldn't find a place to exist otherwise, due to artistic (self-)exigency, technical problems, bad timing or any other reason often unknown to the general public. 

With more than 20 artists from a broad range of styles, experience and locations, it gathers unfinished projects such as aborted WIP, forgotten drafts, lost files, unconvincing demos, compulsive emotional bursts or technical experimentations. 

With all its flaws and raw cuts, Hit&Miss asserts the strength of trial and error, and cherishes the impossibility to develop an idea into a finished object as a learning process towards one's growth.


++ TRACKLIST ++

01. Antilita Octovyk - Mother Earth Solitude
02. Basura - Erythritol
03. Bademjan - The Blade Is Over
04. King Demitri - Reinitializing Heaven
05. Lukann - Blossom
06. Antilita Octovyk - Here Comes The Moon
07. Ancestral Vision - Mana Double Cup
08. RougeHotel - Sync 2 (demo before PSM 2020)
09. Bademjan - Ringfields
10. indigoblue - 060421
11. Pénélope - La rosée
12. Bademjan - Steel Lumens 
13. Sxmbra - Gloss
14. grrggg - unnerving rdm demo
15. Heart Shaped DJ - Me or everyone else
16. Fungal Mat - Dead or dormant?
17. jjjacob - Kijana
18. Nagruv - Barp (more percussion needed)
19. Bouzouk - Future Dog (Whatever)
20. grrggg - celestial gates demo
21. Cralias - ?collab
22. DJ Criminal Edit - Libertinages dans la pyramide
23. DJ Rotule - Ponpon
24. crat - too dudey
25. Medejin - Má forma
26. Antilita Octovyk - Fuck Marry Kill
27. LMN3 - CANNAPEASE
28. Antilita Octovyk - Лайка
29. grrggg - rocky rdm instrumental 
30. SNKLS - Problème avec personne (Brandy & Monica VIP)
31. J Sliwa - External Schism
32. Andres Komatsu - Tecmo
33. grrggg - CB2012
34. DJ Rotule - Departure (HxH NxC Edit)
35. crat - Asynchronous voice
36. Bademjan - Bleu Lunaire


++ CREDITS ++ 

Tracks produced by Ancestral Vision, Andres Komatsu, Antilita Octovyk, Bademjan, Basura, Bouzouk, Cralias, crat, DJ Criminal Edit, DJ Rotule, Fungal Mat, grrggg, Heart Shaped DJ, indigoblue, jjjacob, J Sliwa,  King Demitri, LMN3, Lukann, Medejin, Nagruv, Pénélope, RougeHotel, SNKLS, Sxmbra

https://soundcloud.com/ancestralvision
https://soundcloud.com/andreskomatsu
https://soundcloud.com/talitaotovic
https://soundcloud.com/bademjan
https://soundcloud.com/bazura
https://soundcloud.com/bouzouk
https://soundcloud.com/cralias
https://soundcloud.com/becrat
https://soundcloud.com/fungalmat
https://soundcloud.com/grrggg
https://soundcloud.com/indigoblue97
https://soundcloud.com/jjjacob
https://soundcloud.com/jsliwa
https://soundcloud.com/kingdemitri
https://soundcloud.com/lmn3muzik
https://soundcloud.com/lukann4
https://soundcloud.com/medejin
https://soundcloud.com/nagruv
https://soundcloud.com/poirot-penelope
https://soundcloud.com/rougeh0tel
https://soundcloud.com/snakeleserpent
https://soundcloud.com/sxmbra

Cover & visual works by Boris Van de Walle & Robin Lopvet
https://www.instagram.com/magicienboz/
https://www.instagram.com/robinlopvet/

Mastering by Bademjan

DOWNLOAD

Heart Shaped DJ - Me or everyone else

@fausto_mercier 
@digitonica

The first half hour is played by the Fausto Mercier mix. His unbridled experimental electronica, while resonating with hardcore digital culture and bouncy rhythmic heaviness, is closely connected to his fascination for natural soundscapes and their fractal nature. In particular, the artist skillfully manages to depict a violent, tense world populated of minuscule yet grand sound variations, intertwined in a web of apparently chaotic textures. In the second half of the program, listen to Digitonica's mix of new favorite tracks, songs, neo-ambient, lulling and taking you to other worlds of dreams.

TRACKLIST 
Fausto Mercier:

woopheadclrms - Transparent sword (To the lungs)
FITNESSS x trngs x LAG SWITCH - cBLOCK
Yvu - BGC
Voronhil - ACT02_PART03
sineraw - WATER MELT (unreleased)
2x-n & Gyur - Gritting
Skee Mask - Absence
woopheadclrms - My nap

DIGITONICA:

asvanyviz2 & SUTA - Szöcske
Comechelet - Супротив
Personalbrand - Mycelium Drill 2
Pondus - calendula
Infant - lark (shovel)
ishi vu – A.S.I.S.O.A. 1000
Azrel - Black Luster
B La B - ISSA ROBERY (Apu Nanu remix)
ecovoron - shadedancer
online threat - acceptance of fate
Seneviratne - 58s & Zeks

LUNAR PRISM ⏤ DIGITONICA invites Fausto Mercier

Eyeroll

anticare

++++  my sisters' legacy endures, whispering through the tides. they endow these words, fucking up their timeless meaning.
-	Tracing Fragments And A Tapestried Void (Trilogy - Notebook X)
++

Tracklist: 
Visio - Angelo Ribelle
TRSSX - Reiteration
Core Self - COMBAT ZONE
Variscan - B130D
HULUBALANG - Cerca
Shapednoise - Blaze
Shapednoise - Moby Dick
Richie Culver - Love Like An Abscess (Aho Ssan Remix)
Hyph11E - Enter Nowhere
ZAGAM - 0666999
Ruhail Qaisar - Fatima's Poplar

The Only Lasting Truth (Mixtape)

eeee

Semka - Front Matter Dead Souls 
Cat. Nr: DN021
Format: DL
Release Date: September 30, 2023
Buy / stream: dansenoire.ffm.to/Semka

Semka (aka Sem Lala)’s Front Matter Dead Souls is an examination of affect as a construction. A composite of found sounds and field recordings, the New York-based Albanian artist’s album of process-based noise, ambient, and musique concrète sound design ploughs the shallow depths of artifice in this intensely evocative experiment in manufacturing emotion. Ten textured tracks are arranged in a coarse patchwork of sonic elements that exposes the music for its own illusory meaning.

Whether in the stormy environmental sounds and scrambled orchestral echoes on “Thuderdome Exclusive” or the crisp spoken word sample-pack stems on “Secret Sadness of the 21st Century,” Front Matter Dead Soul insists on the artificiality of how feelings are conveyed in art by divorcing it from its source. And yet, this very rejection of music as anything but an instrument of inducement, is what makes Lala’s work so deeply intimate, and, paradoxically, authentic.

Born in Elbasan and for a time residing in Zürich, Lala co-founded the Czarnagora label in the aforementioned Swiss city, releasing music under his Jon Neverdie alias, along with other artists like Jan Vorisek and Tapiwa Svosve. The latter saxophonist—perhaps best known for a recent collaboration with Asma Maroof and Patrick Belaga—appears on the groaning clatter of Lala’s “Technic Angel.” Tobias Koch features under the Maria moniker on the collision of “Attack Angel.” That Swiss composer, in turn, has presented Lala’s audio works on his own As we leave the window open sound art platform, with one such release—Diversity and Inclusion Course Work (Stems)—critiquing the didactic representation of semantic conflicts in educational training. That piece echoes the similarly profound ambivalence of Front Matter Dead Souls, where its name alludes to the emptiness of its own veneer—a surface promise of substance concealing a lifeless void beneath. 

Mixed by Tobias Koch 
Mastered by Rashad Becker
Design by Niels Wehrspann and photography by Virginia Ariu

Semka - Envy 2020

Danse Noire

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