from 'S/t' [CD|2xLP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den157
available on all formats at http://www.denovali.com/thealvaretensemble

The Alvaret Ensemble

The Alvaret Ensemble - Ond

from 'In Memoriam' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den349
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/thelovecraftsextet

Jason Köhnen (Mansur / The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble / The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation) returns to his experimentations within the realms of Darkjazz.

The Lovecraft Sextet is his new creative outlet regarding further explorations into cinematic jazz orientated compositions.

'In Memoriam' is a debut inspired by death, release and rebirth. Jason Köhnen has chosen to incorporate funereal aspects of classical, operatic and Gregorian music for this debut release.

The music is also linked to his first short-story which was written to accentuate the music (and vice-versa) and will be part of the 'In Memoriam' release.

In Memoriam

The Lovecraft Sextet - Funebre Macabre [Vocalis]

from 'The Last Garden' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den366
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/birdsofpassage

After 3 years, New Zealand based Alicia Merz breaks her silence with her 5th Birds of Passage album ‘The Last Garden’. Alicia doesn’t share much with the public, except through her music, and so this album offers a rare glimpse into her secret world. Lose yourself in a universe of minimalist soundscapes, reinvented shoegaze, and the words of a poet who all too well knows the cold loneliness of the dark, but can find the breathless beauty in it also.

"Birds of Passage is humble and heartbroken. Her warm words are crimson berries that bear fruit in the cold depths of winter, hanging over crooked, bare branches where nothing else survives. Her dove-like vocals soar, but her introverted lyrics blossom with the fondness of love." (Fluid Radio)

"Alicia presents us with an endearing invitation into her fragile world, a captivating journey through the landscapes of her emotional euphoria and agony, a further commitment to musical experimentation… The cold minimalist-drones, distorted field recordings, and sparse instrumentation, illustrate an icy, desolate and dark world. It’s as if we are listening to the sound of winter itself; an audio exposure to the unforgiving elements of winter." (Headphone Commute)

The Last Garden

Birds of Passage - The Creed

from 'Odham's Standard' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den191
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/origamibiro]

Origamibiro is a collaborative project consisting of three core members: musician, soundtrack composer and producer Tom Hill, visual artist and filmmaker The Joy Of Box, and multi-instrumentalist Andy Tytherleigh. Originally started as a solo project for Tom, Origamibiro has since evolved into an audio-visual collective, producing studio music, art objects, interactive installations and hauntingly original live audio-visual performances. Origamibiro like to create work with an array of unorthodox processes and contraptions, found objects, video feeds and multi instrumentalism. Their unique live performances involve treated books, typewriters, found celluloid, paper, eerie wildlife recordings, home movies, sellotape and bespoke visual contraptions. All of these things had been added, adapted, even destroyed as a way to generate images and audio that could evoke a feeling, a response, an understanding or perhaps a question from audiences.

2014 sees the re-release of Origamibiro's entire back catalogue - the albums ‘Cracked Mirrors and Stopped Clocks’, ‘Shakkei’ and ‘Shakkei Remixed’ - through Denovali and also the release of their fourth studio album 'Odham's Standard'. Discussions concerning tone and theme took place much earlier in the writing process this time around and unbeknown to each other, both Tom and Jim were taking an interest in more supernatural aspects of audio and video material generation. Jim had begun to research into spirit photography, where images of deceased spirits are apparently imprinted onto photographic plates through the presence of a medium. Looking for an audio equivalent, Tom began looking into EVP or electronic voice phenomenon whereby hidden voices from deceased spirits appear to present themselves in audio recordings. What is fascinating about this process is not how legitimate the phenomenon actually is but how dependant it is on the decision or need of the viewer or listener to believe it is significant or even personal.

Interestingly, there have been many attempts over the years to debunk or disprove the validity of spirit photography and yet for every court case there are also a number of witnesses willing to passionately testify that not only is the phenomenon real but that it applied directly to them. Arthur Conan Doyle was the creator of the most famous detective in the world and, conversely, a staunch defendant of the validity of spirit photography. In his infamous treatise 'The Case For Spirit Photography' he is both naive and strangely prescient: “Victorian science would have left the world hard and clean and bare, like a landscape in the moon. (however) There is nothing scientifically impossible, so far as I can see, in some people seeing things that are invisible to others. One or two consequences are obvious, the experiences of children will be taken more seriously. Cameras will be forthcoming. These folk who appear to be our neighbours, with only some small difference of vibration to separate us, will become familiar.”


Odham's Standard

Origamibiro - Butterfly Jar

from 'RAEON' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den374
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/subheim

Exactly two years after the release of ΠΟΛΙΣ, Subheim returns with RAEON; a collection of eight new tracks for lonely evenings and long night drives. With RAEON, Subheim continues to expand into the sonic area he has steadily been exploring since 2015’s Foray, the album that marked a conscious shift towards moodier, lo-fi territory. While this new release feels like a natural continuation of the producer’s most recent work, it is also entirely stripped of any percussive elements with the focus being placed on space, ambience and melody. Each composition feels like a distant, fading memory that unfolds faster than you'd expect it to and dissolves into an echoing nothingness before you’re able to hold on to it for more than a few seconds. Much like a long-distance train passing by, the momentary flickering of city lights at night or a song you might hear in your sleep. Every piece functions as a different chapter of the same open-ended narrative; one where stillness, movement, darkness and light simultaneously coexist in harmony. Intentionally imperfect, naturally gritty, spacious as ever, the record balances between fragility and conviction, and once more reveals the deeply human side of its creator. In contrast to some of Subheim's darker material, RAEON is filled with an undertone of bittersweet hopefulness and a strong desire for new life. With the juxtaposition of nostalgic, synthesized, analog sounds and neoclassical elements, this mini-album strikes a near perfect balance between past and future, melancholy and anticipation. And while the closing track is almost ironically called “Forget”, its ending will surely leave you longing for more.

Raeon

Forget

Subheim - Forget

from 'Walizka' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den201
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/johnlemke]

Working across a variety of media John Lemke explores all things sonic through live performance, sound design and his work as a documentary film composer. The Walizka EP is his latest solo release on Denovali Records.

Three items in a suitcase, a clarinet, a looper and a microphone - is how it all started. 

A free improvisation with friend & collaborator Łukasz Bernacki (on clarinet) sparked John’s desire to bring his compositional and production approach back down to the most basic elements. Creating simple, yet distinctive rhythms only through tapping contact microphones run into noisy guitar amps became the base for the EP’s three tracks, consequently inspiring its live, lo-fi feel. Written and recorded between John’s native Berlin and his adopted home of Glasgow, Walizka (Polish for ‘suitcase’) somehow absorbs the defining atmospheres of both cities in its core.

Previously released digitally as a teaser for John’s debut album, the Walizka EP actually presents newer material, progressing the electro-acoustic nature of ‘People Do’ towards more dub drenched territories. Refining John’s blend of prepared piano and field recordings with hand crafted beats and swampy bass lines, this deeply moody and danceable release bends genres with refreshing ease.

The EP is furthermore enhanced by a second half of remixes by fellow Denovali artists Piano Interrupted, SaffronKeira and Petrels and the ever elusive Everyday Dust. Far from conventional remixes, these pieces fall more in the category of re-imaginations, complementing the EP’s first, more rhythm anchored half with a coherent ambient counterpart.

Written, performed, recorded & produced by John Lemke in 2013
Mastered by Alex Gámez at Störung Studio
Artwork by Łukasz Bernacki

Walizka

John Lemke - Walizka (Piano Interrupted Remix)

from 'Onegin' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den375
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/maskxsoul

MASKxSOUL is the new international project, featuring the baritone Alexander Korenkov (of Mariinsky Theatre, Theatre du Chatelet, and JFK Center fame, who performed with Vladimir Yurovsky, Valery Gergiev and Anton Batagov) and introducing the voice and music of Tatiana Selivanova (Vanilla Quartz), backed up by Jason Kohnen (The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, The Lovecraft Sextet, Mansur) and Dimitry El-Demerdashi (Mansur). One might say that MASKxSOUL blends dark-jazz, tsar punk, and Eastern folklore with the setting of the romantic landscapes inspired by the Russian classical tradition. MASKxSOUL presents a new vision of a perennial classic, namely, Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, a romantic novel in verse that has served generations of artists across the globe as inspiration, with a debut single dedicated to Pushkin's 222nd anniversary on June 6th 2022. The complete eight track MASKxSOUL debut album "Onegin" is available now through Denovali.

Onegin

MaskXSoul - Onegin

from 'Parole de Navarre' [CD|2xLP|DIGITAL] Reissue
Denovali Records · den060
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/dalecooper]

AFTER 4 YEARS FINALLY REPRESSED - COMES WITH A NEW CD & LP ARTWORK. Formed for the improvisation nights Dynamo in Brest, France, this quartet made of musicians covering a wide variety of musical styles creates a sound that mixes electronic (samples, cuts, sound treatments) and acoustic elements (guitars, saxophone, trumpet). They’re playing moody ballads that sound as if they would come out from one of David Lynch's movies. Like in the films of Hollywood’s master of bizarre pieces, there is something like a dark and poisonous colour broken by red thunderlights and blue cigarette smoke. The music spawnes some odd characters and landscapes while the listener makes out some more friendly faces that loom up out of this nowhere place: the voice of Zalie Bellaccico, Milanese streets sounds, a lazy flute, or some distant breathing swim on the surface of this deep troubled waters. "Paroles de Navarre" is an invitation for opening the red curtain of this Dark Jazz cabaret made of shimmering and whirling walls. One of the best musical outputs from France of the last ten years and already a classic.

Parole De Navarre

Preorder / Buy

Dale Cooper Quartet & The Dictaphones - Aucun Cave

from 'The Unified Field Reconstructed' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records ·  den226
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/pianointerrupted]

Piano Interrupted, the anglo / french duo formed by Tom Hodge and Franz Kirmann is a musical entity in continuous reinvention, their music constantly evolving and transforming from concert to concert, record to record. Studio compositions are deconstructed for live shows, becoming brand new pieces, which in turn serve as a basis for future new compositions, like a never-ending “mise en abyme”
It was just a question of time then before the pair turned to other producers to ask them to rework their music. Concentrating exclusively on material from their last LP “The Unified Field”, Piano Interrupted invited a handful of artists and producers from Denovali Records' roster including Hidden Orchestra, Floex, Origamibiro, John Lemke, Saffronkeira and Second Moon Of Winter to reinvent some of their compositions. Oscillating between dub, techno, abstract hip hop, ambient and post-classical, each interpretation offers a completely fresh approach to the work, sometimes barely recognisable, and sheds new light on the infinite directions that Piano Interrupted's intricate compositions can be taken.
“The Unified Field Reconstructed” is a reminder of the possibilities and a promise of more exquisite exploration in the duo's 3rd album, scheduled for later this year, based on recordings taking place in Senegal (where Franz spent his childhood) in February 2015.


The Unifield Field Reconstructed

Piano Interrupted - Cross Hands (Hidden Orchestra Remix)

from 'HYMNEN UND HELDEN' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den387
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/sanktotten  


Alongside with the release of the new album “Tote Winkel”, Sankt Otten will be delighting us with another limited vinyl bonus release. “Hymnen und Helden” (hymns and heroes) is a collection of cover versions created over the last few years. As the album title suggests, it pays homage to self-proclaimed musical hymns and heroes from the seventies and eighties.


HYMNEN UND HELDEN – track by track:

A well-known Moog sequence leads us on the way into the cover album. Giorgio Moroders 1977 disco classic “I feel love” has been tackled here. Sankt Ottens instrumental interpretation starts out familiar, but ends in a slightly disturbing disharmony of mellotron and ebow guitar.

The instrumental version of the melancholy Wipers anthem from 1983 starts with a rather unusually fast 808 beat for Sankt Otten. The 80s electronic echoes suit the punk rock earworm “Doom Towen” surprisingly well.

Without Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, more unusual electronic music would hardly have been conceivable in Germany in the early 1980s. “Alles ist gut” tribute to this band and singer Gabi Delgado-Lopez, who passed away in 2020 and with whom they shared the festival stage in 2015. Gabi‘s lyrics are rendered by text- to-speech software with the voice of an unknown Claudia.

“Wishing (If I had a photograph of you)” was made famous in 1982 by A Flock of Seagulls. This record was regularly played on Stephan Ottens turntable back then. Reason enough to remember this with “Sehnen (Hät- te Ich von dir eine Fotografie)”. The recordings for this album were made in 2007 and have been updated and completed in the last year. Carsten Sandkämper, who was also featured on Sankt Ottens debut album “Eine kleine Traurigkeit”, contributed the vocals and lyrics.

The Swiss band Grauzone became famous with the NDW hit “Eisbär”. Instead of this title, they took on the B-side of this single with “Ich liebe sie”. A synthpop love song full of innocence, stylishly sung by Carsten San- kämper and refined with Kraftwerk-like choral sounds and an herbaceous motorik beat.

The band has enjoyed a personal friendship with Harald Grosskopf since their collaboration in 2013 on the album “Messias Maschine”. With “So weit, so gut”, they take on his little hit from the album “Synthesist”, which is one of the gems of the synthesizer albums of the eighties.

“Kriegsmaschinen, fahrt zur Hölle” is an anti-war song from 1974 by Günter Schickert, the Berlin master of the echo guitar. Unfortunately, the lyrics are still relevant. Oliver Klemm contributes the delay guitars and Stephan Otten puts the lyrics through a vocoder. Sankt Otten compress the 17-minute original to just under 5 minutes and move it musically from the 70s to the 80s.

Sankt Otten’s adaptation of David Bowies “Heroes” is equipped with warm Juno 106 sounds, ebow guitar and synthesizer pads. The German “Helden” version, known from the movie Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo, is sung in a touching way by Carsten Sandkämper.


New York-based Rafael Anton Irisarri was responsible for mastering of the record. As part of the series with graphic covers, this die-cut artwork was also created by Mexican designer Daniel Castrejon. The one time only vinyl pressing, limited to 350 copies, comes in a beautifully designed die-cut cover and colored vinyl. The Osnabrück duo Sankt Otten, founded in 1999, have been releasing on Denovali since 2009. The band has dedicated itself to the holy trinity of Krautrock, Ambient and contemporary Electronics.

Sankt Otten - Doom Town

from 'TOTE WINKEL' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den387
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/sanktotten  


In spring 2022, Sankt Otten released their album “Symmetrie und Wahnsinn”, and now the next record is ready to enlighten our maltreated minds. “Tote Winkel” (Blind spots) is once again part of an album series with a geometric context, both creatively and musically.

Stephan Otten and Oliver Klemm made productive use of 2021, which has been decelerated to the maximum by Corona. For the first time, an external studio was booked (Mühle der Freundschaft, Bad Iburg) and the pool of analog synthesizers and other sound generators there was dusted off. Sankt Otten came up with the master plan to first free the spirit of 50 years of German electronic music trapped in the antiquated keyboards and oscillator housings, then to dismantle it, turn it inside out and reinterpret it. Echoes of music from Düssel- dorf are joined by sounds familiar from the Weserbergland, or mystical, sublime arcs of sound and, of course, the sequences typical of the Berlin School - whether side by side or interwoven. In a departure from the usual way of working, the majority of the tracks were created in the studio and in part from improvisations, which makes “Tote Winkel “ the most organic material we have heard from Sankt Otten to date.

New York-based Rafael Anton Irisarri mastered “Tote Winkel”, as he has done on productions by Biosphere, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tycho, Terry Riley, Fennesz and many more. As part of the series of graphic covers, this extraordinary die-cut artwork was also designed by Daniel Castrejon. The vinyl version comes in a die-cut cover and colored vinyl, the CD in an elegant cardboard slipcase.

The Osnabrück duo Sankt Otten, founded in 1999, have been releasing on DENOVALI since 2009. “Tote Winkel” is their 14th album of timeless (instrumental) music. The band has dedicated itself to the holy trinity of Krautrock, Ambient and contemporary Elecronics.

Tote Winkel

Sankt Otten - Goodbye, Düsseldorf

'Pentatonic Ruins' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den385
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/mansur

"Pentatonic Ruins" is MANSUR’s 5th release on Denovali - it follows the 2022 "Oscuras Flores" album. "Pentatonic Ruins" is more of a song adaptation album than a new material album. It highlights the vocals of Martina Horvath and presents a collection of Mansur songs in a more hypnotic and trance like manner. This album can be seen as songs for transcendental rituals.

Mansur - Szaturnusz

'Guanyin' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den390
available on all formats at denovali.com/tauceti


Tauceti (Lilou Chelal) is a DJ / producer / composer from Lyon. As a DJ Chelal distills a dark, tropical and sensual techno with percussive and vaporous rhythms in her mix. She stands for a very particular elegance and a certain, clearly audible maturity, which makes her stand out. "Guanyin" is her very first full length - where she transfers the elegance of her sound into a very personal and unique journey.

Tauceti about "Guanyin":

I am pleased to announce the release of my very first ambient album on the Denovali label. This is probably the most personal record I produced so far, because it is in a way a tribute to my Middle Eastern and Asian origins. It is a hybrid and intimate object, at the border between futurism and cultural heritage, with a desire to approach a more contemporary environment at the limit of classical. I used traditional instrument patterns, sounds intimately linked to oriental instruments, all the while using my electronic touch composed of drone/ ambient and sound distortions. This is the result of a year of reflection and increased exploration of new frontiers in the studio, which has gradually evolved into a desire to make an album concrete. Composed of eight tracks, some of you may have heard some of them during my ambient set during the last edition of Nuits Sonores, just before Vail and Rodhad’s magnificent live performance. It’s a kind of homecoming for me, the very first tracks I produced years ago already being part of the ambient register. This is an opportunity for me to reaffirm the multi-faceted aspect of my artistic project, drawing on various aesthetic registers, between ambient and techno. I would like to warmly thank the Denovali label for their trust here, and with whom I will have the chance and the opportunity to maintain a privileged relationship for the next years.


Tauceti - Black Mamba

'Unstable' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den397
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/dictaphone

Dictaphone are back with their 6th full length called "Unstable". In the 25th year of the project Brussels born composer and mastermind Oliver Doerell is surrounded again by a lot of musicians & friends. Roger Döring is there, his clarinet and saxophone play has always been a trademark sound of the band - also Alexander Stolze's ghostly violins. The dark atmosphere and experimental sound of the new album is a reference to the 80s belgian art music scene, which Doerell had the luck to experience in his formative years. Minimal jazz meets musique concrete meets a postpunk mind. On this new album “Unstable“ more voices and vocals than usual can be heard - especially Helga Raimondi (who already sang on the last album “Goats and Distortions 5") . As a collage artist she is also responsible for the visual side of Dictaphone - she designed the cover artwork and the visuals for the live shows.

The Brussels-Berlin-Teheran connection: Other guests on "Unstable" are the voices of Kaveh Ghaemi and Ashkan Afsharian, who Doerell met during a modern ballet production by Modjgan Hashemian (2008). The trumpet of Shahab Anousha can be heard in the track “La fin“ - Oliver Doerell and Shahab Anousha also share the spoken words Project “Noufān”. For nearly 20 years Oliver Doerell is linked to the Iranian Diaspora in Berlin and the Dictaphone track “Rattle” from the classic album “ Poems from a rooftop “ (2012) has been a hit in Teherans underground scene since the beginning. Furthermore the title track “Unstable“ is a homage to Ian Curtis of Joy Division. The words of this piece are based on the setlist of Joy Divisions last show.

Dictaphone played more than two hundred shows all over the world (including festivals Mutek, Transmediale, Unsound , Benicassim and many others). Their music can be heard in countless films, tv series and theatre pieces - (“the responder“ (BBC) , “the love he knows” (Ali Mohammad) , “Don´t move“ (Modjgan Hashemian) , Ring (Felix Ruckert) among others.


Dictaphone - Desplendor

from 'Machine To Machine' [CD|2xLP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den235
available in July on all formats at [http://denovali.com/ricardodonoso]

Following on from early 2015’s exercise in dissonant formalism “Sarava Exu”, “Machine to Machine”, Donoso’s newest full length work sees a return to a more melodic sound. “Machine to Machine”, continues to bridge the gap between Donoso’s more rhythmic and melodic work alongside his more experimental, loose and dissonant side yet still maintaining his unique signature feel; “WTF”-polymetric rhythms, elegant cinematics and spine chilling tension. Recorded over the last two years in between visual commissions and more through-composed heady works such as “Sarava Exu” and “A Song for Echo”, “Machine to Machine” represents Donoso’s return to the songbook format for the first time since 2012. 

Influenced by the work of Edward Bernays, Gustave Le Bon and Ernest Dichter - wherein past efforts have seen Donoso looking inwards, “Machine to Machine” has him looking outward - incorporating subliminal advertising techniques such as backmasking, ZMET and steganography, “Machine to Machine” is a meditation on priming with and without awareness and a treatise on the psychophysics of our contemporary age. 
“Machine to Machine”’s collection of songs are Donoso’s most versatile yet, incorporating all major elements from his discography into a unified album. There is something for everyone on “Machine to Machine”, and that is well the point, a vast range of emotion eliciting stimuli for your consumption.
 
RICARDO DONOSO is a composer, percussionist and electronic musician from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil who currently resides in Boston. After having studied composition at Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory he has participated in a slew of projects over the years, most notably playing drums for avant-death metal unit Ehnahre and being one half of the ever morphing electronic duo Perispirit. Ricardo's musical vocabulary draws as much from contemporary composition, drone, to techno and noise.


Machine to Machine

Ricardo Donoso - Dance of Attunement

from 'Nomad Frequencies' [CD|2xLP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den237
available in September on all formats at [http://denovali.com/johnlemke]

An ardent moulder of sound, John Lemke began carving out a very unique music blend on his debut album 'People Do' (2013) and its follow up EP 'Walizka' (2014). Informed by his work as a sound designer & composer for documentary films and his natural inclination towards fusing rhythm with rich textures and emotive melodies, he set out on a musical path that had been long in the making and is ever evolving.

The quest for unusual, inspiring sound sources has always been at the heart of John's process, however the genesis of his second album 'Nomad Frequencies' was rooted in much more inadvertent circumstances. In the summer of 2014, forced to indefinitely evacuate his Glasgow flat and studio due to structural damage from one hour to the next, with nothing more than a laptop and a bag of clothes, John embarked on a six month odyssey of soul searching, couch surfing and spending an extended period of time in his old hometown of Berlin for the first time in years - it was to be an odyssey that would help ferment and distill the ideas of his second album on which work had just begun. 

A year of particular global turmoil and upheaval, combined with John's personal, albeit very minor, 'displacement', caused a lot of questioning, frustration and anger, which somehow found its way onto the new material: a more confrontational, at times aggressive sound, paired on the other hand with a yearning for harmony, balance and space. Other influences came less from the world of music, but rather in visual form, through the densely textural art of Anselm Kiefer and the political, yet poetic musings of film maker Adam Curtis.

Intent on refining his sound toward a more minimal, bolder style, John set out to limit his sonic palate to a handful of carefully chosen elements. At the centre of this new direction remains the muted piano already introduced on his debut, but in a much more purified and raw form. This organic base is adorned by the warm fuzzing and wavering of analogue synthesisers, tape echoes, meditative tuning forks, field recordings from John's 'exile' period and percussion based on his rigid approach to sampling, which started developing on 'Walizka'. The guiding principle of his orthodox style of recording and sampling is to only use home-made sounds by utilising his own field recordings, applying contact microphones or hydrophones to objects and instruments, running them through different kinds of speakers and re-recording the sounds to arrive at a 'lived in' quality, often misunderstood as plainly 'lo-fi'. Touches of viola and woodwinds parts (Kim Moore of WOLF and Andrew Baker respectively) provide melody fragments and subtle details throughout the journey.

With John's healthy disregard for genre boundaries, the array of influences on 'Nomad Frequencies' is vast, but never over-powering. From the meditative tuning fork that starts proceedings on 'Of Elsewhere', the dub echoes to the hints of minimalism, free jazz explosions to the Lynchian atmospherics, all elements serve nothing more than the album's narrative journey between friction and harmony, best appreciated in its entirety. A rhythmic backbone collides with rich ambience and melody, often infectious and jarring at the same time, forging a soulful whole which most likely only reveals its true self after multiple spins.

Nomad Frequencies

John Lemke - The Unwinding

from 'Nomad Frequencies' [CD|2xLP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den237
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/johnlemke]

An ardent moulder of sound, John Lemke began carving out a very unique music blend on his debut album 'People Do' (2013) and its follow up EP 'Walizka' (2014). Informed by his work as a sound designer & composer for documentary films and his natural inclination towards fusing rhythm with rich textures and emotive melodies, he set out on a musical path that had been long in the making and is ever evolving.

The quest for unusual, inspiring sound sources has always been at the heart of John's process, however the genesis of his second album 'Nomad Frequencies' was rooted in much more inadvertent circumstances. In the summer of 2014, forced to indefinitely evacuate his Glasgow flat and studio due to structural damage from one hour to the next, with nothing more than a laptop and a bag of clothes, John embarked on a six month odyssey of soul searching, couch surfing and spending an extended period of time in his old hometown of Berlin for the first time in years - it was to be an odyssey that would help ferment and distill the ideas of his second album on which work had just begun. 

A year of particular global turmoil and upheaval, combined with John's personal, albeit very minor, 'displacement', caused a lot of questioning, frustration and anger, which somehow found its way onto the new material: a more confrontational, at times aggressive sound, paired on the other hand with a yearning for harmony, balance and space. Other influences came less from the world of music, but rather in visual form, through the densely textural art of Anselm Kiefer and the political, yet poetic musings of film maker Adam Curtis.

Intent on refining his sound toward a more minimal, bolder style, John set out to limit his sonic palate to a handful of carefully chosen elements. At the centre of this new direction remains the muted piano already introduced on his debut, but in a much more purified and raw form. This organic base is adorned by the warm fuzzing and wavering of analogue synthesisers, tape echoes, meditative tuning forks, field recordings from John's 'exile' period and percussion based on his rigid approach to sampling, which started developing on 'Walizka'. The guiding principle of his orthodox style of recording and sampling is to only use home-made sounds by utilising his own field recordings, applying contact microphones or hydrophones to objects and instruments, running them through different kinds of speakers and re-recording the sounds to arrive at a 'lived in' quality, often misunderstood as plainly 'lo-fi'. Touches of viola and woodwinds parts (Kim Moore of WOLF and Andrew Baker respectively) provide melody fragments and subtle details throughout the journey.

With John's healthy disregard for genre boundaries, the array of influences on 'Nomad Frequencies' is vast, but never over-powering. From the meditative tuning fork that starts proceedings on 'Of Elsewhere', the dub echoes to the hints of minimalism, free jazz explosions to the Lynchian atmospherics, all elements serve nothing more than the album's narrative journey between friction and harmony, best appreciated in its entirety. A rhythmic backbone collides with rich ambience and melody, often infectious and jarring at the same time, forging a soulful whole which most likely only reveals its true self after multiple spins.

John Lemke - Vessel

from 'III' [CD|2xLP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den246
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/bersarinquartett]

Melancholia. Longing. It is difficult to speak about these moods or states of the mind without invoking stereotypes. In ancient medicine, melancholia was considered to be one of the four temperaments, matching the four humours. In fact, melancholia, meaning "black bile" in Ancient Greek, was thought to be caused by an excess of this very body substance. By contrast, in more modern interpretations, literates and Freudians relate many variations of longing to the one primordial longing, the desire to return to one's mother's womb. In this context, the womb is considered to be the place of absolute comfort and cosiness, of total bliss. Thus it should not be surprising that to many of us melancholia is a mood which we like to invoke and to maintain, we like to envelop ourselves in it like in a warm blanket. Our brain and our sensory systems appear to be made for perceiving and emotionally responding to music in a very immediate fashion. Consequently music is the obvious drug for all of us melancholia-addicts. However, there is a thin line between melancholia and sadness, and music which is meant to be melancholic too often crosses this line by far. Only very few artists succeed in avoiding this crossing, and in creating music which is melancholia in its most pure form. It is safe to say that BERSARIN QUARTETT - the electronic music project of Thomas Bücker - is one of them.

After his successfull selftitled debut in 2008 and the sophomore "II" in 2012 - album of the month in many magazines and in numerous "Best of the year" lists - Bücker returns with his third BERSARIN QUARTETT album "III", due for release 6.11.2015 on Denovali Records. Much like his two predecessors, III is a pure paradox. It is the creation of a perfectionist, an adamant control freak. Every element, be it a note, an ambience layer, a string arrangement, a field recording, a baseline, a vocal (Clara Hill on Track 11) or a beat, is meticulously modified and then assigned its place in Bücker's vast but still minimalistic arrangements. Thus, superficially Bücker's pieces seem to radiate a certain mechanical bleakness. However, there is a unique reduced warmth and liveliness emerging from these stainless compositions and transcending them. This transcendence is precisely the point where Bücker ironically looses control over his creations. In contrast to the first two BERSARIN QUARTETT albums, III offers a few darker shades and succeeds even further in narrowing down the arrangements to the absolute essentials without loosing the characteristic grandeur of Bücker's sound. Whereas BERSARIN QUARTETT's debut was merely a description of melancholia in its most pure form, III maybe even goes as far a defining what melancholia really is. It is the only emotion in the vast spectrum of human states of mind which one can bear forever. 

Bersarin Quartett - Sanft verblassen die Geschichten

from 'Synecdoche' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den240
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/saffronkeira]

In the beginning the universe was full of light. Shining bright and incredibly energetic no solid matter could exist. As the universe expanded, the light became less energetic until the very first hydrogen atom could form. More followed forming molecules which in turn merged into gargantuan molecular clouds until they collapsed under their own weight, giving birth to the first stars, illuminating the universe once again. Being monstrous fusion factories, these stars burned hydrogen to complex chemical elements and eventually exploded leaving even more complex elements behind. After two such stellar cycles, there was enough material in the universe to form all solid matter that we know to exist today. Yet, everything began with the very first atom ...

Synecdoche - the whole consists of parts, and each and every part embodies the whole. This motif is at the heart of Saffronkeiras so named fourth album. Saffronkeira is a project established in 2008 by Eugenio Caria from the island of Sardinia, Italy. With Saffronkeira, Eugenio Caria lives out his passion of being a researcher of the possibility of expression offered by currently available technology. Indeed, in his tracks he experiments a lot with electronics and unconventional elements, which sometimes seem meaningless at first sight, but uncover their significance only on a closer examination. Combining subtle and sometimes even almost invisible rhythms with textures of sound he confidently moves between minimalistic pieces and classic ambient tracks which should please both the analytic ears and the listeners who just want to dive into the music.

Saffronkeira's previous album "Cause and Effect" constituted the first ever collaboration work of Caria and resulted from a close and unique joint work with trumpeter Mario Massa. Synecdoche picks up this collaboration idea, but this time features collaboration with various different artists, namely Mia Zabelka and Siavash Amini & Idlefon, as well as the Denovali artists Field Rotation, Sebastian Plano, Subheim and Witxes. Mixed and mastered by Alex Gámez at Störung Studio, Synecdoche brings Saffronkeira's distinct electronic sound to a next level which is further perfected by the individual and fascinatingly diverse collaborations.

Synecdoche

Saffronkeira - Epifonema (with Witxes)

from 'Scandinavia' [CD|2xLP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den245
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/multicastdynamics]

Samuel van Dijk is an electronic music producer, sound designer and media artist from the Netherlands, having released electronic music under a variety of projects, namely, Mohlao and VC-118A. With his current project Multicast Dynamics he creates ever-evolving sound textures culminating in intriguing soundscapes while preserving a tranquil cinematic atmosphere. Drawing inspiration from nature, technology, film and fiction, his music productions, live sets and audiovisual work presents a carefully arranged, recorded and processed body of work, using a vast amount of layered sound textures, field recordings and live improvisation. In May 2015, Denovali Records released the first two albums of a four part series by Multicast Dynamics, conceptually linked by our undeniable connection with nature and its wide range of landscapes, colors and movement. Now the third album called SCANDINAVIA follows in October 2015??.  The album series moves from an evolutionary to a cosmological scale: Starting from dry land filled with light and streams, to the constantly changing surfaces of the oceans, into a frozen and murky underwater world, finally up to the arrival in an interstellar space and the cosmos. With this concept Multicast Dynamics explores organic and aqueous worlds in a dreamlike and spiritual appearance.

SCANDINAVIA is the third installment in the four part series. Assembled during the coldest season, it’s an album full of contemplative electronic recordings, created by the use of granular synthesis, obscure delay units and rudimentary looping techniques on magnetic tape. Recorded with a longsighted outlook, SCANDINAVIA features washes of subdued tones and textures as well as melancholic and warm sounding pulses of noise - all characterized by distinctive aquatic features. Steadily flowing, but slowly awakening the album draws frozen remote landscapes ranging from dark, cold and desolated to melting, warm and hope.
SCANDINAVIA opens with a bleak arctic environment in deep hibernation, where echoes of glacial bursts cut the silence. An undulating mass of viscous ambience sends out blurred out signals through the storm. In this inhospitable surrounding of frost and ice slow changes appear. The form of the landscapes alters and the cold air no longer hinders the breathing. Slowly meltwater seeps out underneath thick layers of ice, slowly building up in momentum and space. Layers of hypnotic atmospheres with barely perceptible undercurrents, brooding pulses of bass and tonal patterns lead to the core of the sonic landscape. Gently radiant layers of light and soil emerge and aquatic echoes expose new paths. The water is harnessed. Preparations for a long journey have begun.

Scandinavia

Multicast Dynamics - Scandinavia

from 'Symmetry'
Denovali Records · den227
available on 3xCD | 4xLP | DIGITAL formats at [http://denovali.com/rd]

Limited collectors edition containing the albums:
Progress Chance
Assimilating The Shadow
As Iron Sharpens Iron, One Verse Sharpens Another

Ricardo Donoso has composed a new paradigm of ambient music, in which concrete textures and digital synthesis expand on an abstract world in constant movement & mutation. Under a chain of progressive rhythm’s, cinematic textures and elegant melodicism, Donoso’s work pushes through with piercing strength, manipulating a sonic wave through space with nothing but pulse and mind blowing intensity.
Although Donoso’s work has coalesced into a much broader and dynamic beast, his early work continues to be a source of inspiration. ‘Symmetry’ now compiles Donoso’s first three albums, lovingly referred to as the “Digitalis Trilogy” which includes Progress Chance, Assimilating the Shadow and As Iron Sharpens Iron, One Verse Sharpens Another in a deluxe 4LP boxset & 3CD edition.
A truly entrancing journey of polyrhythmic counterpoint, the ‘Symmetry’ collection takes in influence from minimalist composers such as Reich & Riley, early techno and trance, and lush and deeply harmonic ambient music. It’s possible to look at the ‘Symmetry’ trilogy as a blueprint to Donoso’s later work in both its musical scope & thematic grandeur. Amidst all of its wide eyed, dreamlike states there is always a rumbling of subtle violence piercing just underneath the surface creating a truly immersive experience.

Progress Chance

Ricardo Donoso - Morning Criminal

from 'Landscapes of the Unfinished' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den251
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/pianointerrupted]

Recorded partly in Senegal with local musicians playing traditional instruments, "Landscapes Of The Unfinished" is Piano Interrupted's 3rd album for German experimental label Denovali.

This album sees pianist Tom Hodge and “electronician” Franz Kirmann explore a more introspective approach to their sound. The sonorities and recordings the pair brought back from West Africa are deconstructed, mangled and texturised, turned into a pointillist landscape until only a faint and distant souvenir remains.

These beds of pulsating soundscapes and earthy textures serve as base for Hodge’s delicate piano phrases and intricate compositions, interlaced with long-time collaborator Tim Fairhall's fluid double bass playing.

Harsher territories are also visited during the 9 tracks that compose the LP; fuzzy Senegalese radio voices and the distant memory of African percussion collide with distorted bass and buzzing drones or screaming textures battle with screeching double bass sounds and tortured piano strings.

The overall tone of the album reflects the duo’s desire to musically translate the experience of the Dakar trip (where Franz Kirmann grew up), but also to break away from the first two albums' intricate programming and editing and instead go towards a writing and recording experience directly inspired by their live experience. Hodge’s clarinet, an important facet of the Piano Interrupted live show, is captured on record for the first time. 

This surge towards documenting a moment, leaving a trace or examining something concrete is further reflected in the choice of titles (all named after the musicians who took part in the recordings) and also the design, which is for the first time a photograph. Taken by filmmaker Cath Elliott, who travelled with the pair to Dakar to document the process, the album artwork captures one of the numerous half-built structures, infinite and abandoned, surrounding the studio in the suburbs of Dakar, and provides both an unfinished urban landscape and yet when viewed as a single moment in time, one of many compellingly complete landscapes of the unfinished.

Landscapes of the Unfinished

Piano Interrupted - Vieux

'Vantdraught 4' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den256
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/kubakapsa]

Kuba Kapsa is a Polish pianist and composer being the leader of the avant-jazz combo Contemporary Noise Sextet (2006-2014). Beyond that he is a renowned composer for film and theater plays. His latest venture is the first of a sophisticated series of projects of modern classical music bearing the common title "Vantdraught".

The first part of the "Vantdraught" series was called "Vantdraught 10 · Vol. 1" and featured ten classical instruments - 4 violins, 2 violas, cello, vibraphone, marimba and piano. The now appearing second part is "Vantdraught 4", a quartet album written for violin, clarinet/bass clarinet, trombone and piano. The minimalistic style of Vantdraught 10 is preserved although the music is less repetitive and much more intimate. Instinct and intuition is the main force behind the writing process, usually avoiding typical chord progressions and the classical cadential technique. In contrast to "Vantdraught 10 · Vol. 1", the rhythm domain is also less important, thus allowing the melody and harmony to come to the fore. The pieces of "Vantdraught 4" are mainly tonal music but Kapsa also makes use of atonal and polytonal harmonies which requires the listener to put more effort into listening to these parts. The unusual set of instruments is what makes this quartet album unique and fresh sounding. "Vantdraught 4" is certainly linked to classical and minimal music in general but one can find other influences such as jazz and "new music".

Much like its predecessor, "Vantdraught 4" features an astonishing artwork based on "The Reluctant Conscript" by the seminal artist duo Kahn & Selesnick.


Vantdraught 4

Kuba Kapsa Ensemble - Vantdraught 4 No. 5

from 'Turmalinturm' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den268
available on all format at [http://denovali.com/foghdepot]

Fogh Depot continues its quest for the fifth element, experimenting at the confluence of jazz, modern classical, and electronic music. Two years after their first S/T release, the Moscow-based trio presents a new album - Turmalinturm.

Like the previous recording, this is a unique blend of ostensibly incompatible elements. A traditional academic approach fuses with lo-fi spontaneity. The raw and vivid texture of the bass springs forward from a modular sterility. At times the mixture is explosive. No wonder the studio where the album was created burned down a month after it was completed.

This album imparts a new, architectural dimension to Fogh Depot's music. A fortress named 'Turmalinturm' rises from a solid foundation of jazz, neoclassical minimalism, and experimental electronica. But the sophistication of the fortress' towers makes one suspect that each had its own architect. 'Quicksilver Spoon' is virtually flawless in geometric form. 'Who The Last Says No' is so fragile and delicate that it is a miracle it does not collapse. 'Oscar' is perhaps the most complex and substantial tower of the ensemble. 'Alice, Bob & Cypher' has a secret of its own in the old vaulted underground crypt. One of the structures is topped with a Gorgoneion, a stone head of Medusa. Another houses a bell tower borrowed straight from Rachmaninoff's Suite No. 1.

Tourmaline is a stone that appears to change its color depending on the angle of view. Turmalinturm's listeners get to choose how to approach the fortress. Some will discover the same pensive melancholy sounds that Fogh Depot started with. Others will find lighter, brighter, occasionally even euphoric motifs.

Turmalinturm

Fogh Depot - Quicksilver Spoon

from 'Collection' [3xCD|4xLP BOX|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den287
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/dictaphone

The first 4 Dictaphone releases now available as a very limited Boxset with a wonderful new timeless design. The vinyl edition is also available as limited single LPs.

Already formed in the late nineties in Berlin, Dictaphone was born by Brussels-bred multi-instrumentalist Oliver Doerell. In 2000 Oliver Doerell found a partner in Berlin's Roger Döring, who shares Doerell's love for the Brussels-based music of the eighties. In the following years the duo and several guest musicians (e.g. Stephan Wöhrmann (SWOD) , Malka Spigel (Minimal Compact) & more) released the critically highly acclaimed "m.= addiction" (2002), the "Nacht" EP (2004) and "Vertigo II" (2006) via the City Centres Offices label of Thaddeus Herrmann and Shlom Sviri (Boomkat, Modern Love). In 2009 the violin player Alex Stolze joined the band. During their two decades of existence Dictaphone played shows in more than 20 countries with festival appearances at Mutek, Transmediale, Unsound, Benicassim & more. Their latest release "Poems from a rooftop" from 2012 came as a very limited edition through the Berlin-based boutique label Sonic Pieces. In 2017 the band released the long awaited third album "APR 70" on denovali. The label now also offers a reissue of the trio's past repertoire.

Dictaphone never make music for the sake of it, they always want to create something which was missing before. And they did.

Praise for Dictaphone:

"minimalistic and subliminal elegancy" (ARTE)

"timeless, unusual & beautiful" (Colin Newman)

"Dictaphones gives warmth to the concept, your thoughts a body and atmosphere to the music" (Spex)

"This is the music to fall in love with over many evenings, each subsequent rotation capturing another moment of time to be recalled in the future. Highly recommended" (Headphone Commute)

"When played from a rooftop, this music may be as quiet as a poem, but it carries the power of a manifesto." (A Closer Listen)

Poems From a Rooftop

Dictaphone - The Conversation

Compiled and mixed by Bersarin Quartett (first hour) & Nadia Struiwigh (second hour)


Tracklist Bersarin Quartett (first hour):

NILS FRAHM - harm hymn
BURIAL - endorphin
W - 在扭曲的水中受损的灵魂
STEFAN WESOŁOWSKI - prelude
BJOERK - arisen my senses (lanark artefax remix)
INON ZUR - rebuild, renew (fallout 4-soundtrack)
CHARLESTHEFIRST - beacon
DJRUM - blue violet
GHOST WARRIOR - double vision
PHIL FRANCE - jackal
CATERINA BARBIERI - unreleased (live-recording, helsinki)
SKEE MASK - rev8617
HAWK. - 88glam - 12 (hawk. edit)
CLAUDE SPEEED - no kings
GEWALT - guter junge, böser junge (ensslin research rmx)
CHRIS READ & PUGS ATOMZ FEAT. WES RESTLESS - drum roll
ANDREA - track xl
KLLO - candid


Tracklist - Nadia Struiwigh (second hour):

Aphex Twin - #3 (Original Mix)
Digital Rain - Night Passion (Original Mix)
Rabbit - Fossilized Universe (Original Mix)
Clubroot - Dry Cured (Original Mix)
Hydrangea - Beyond The Invisible (Original Mix)
Answer Code Request - Calm Down (Original Mix)
Tzusing - O.D.D. Metapop Remixes (FMProducer Remix)
b2 - love goes on and on (Original Mix)
Lowfish - Knives (Original Mix)
Blac Kolor - Wide Element (Original Mix)
Alfredo Mazzilli - Njord (Original Mix)
Biome - YOOF (Original Mix)

05.01.2019 · Denovali NTS Radio Special

from 'Cycle and Reveal' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den319
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/mariodiazdeleon

Denovali is pleased to present Cycle and Reveal, the fourth full length LP of contemporary classical works by acclaimed composer Mario Diaz de Leon. Featuring bold performances by a cast of longtime collaborators, this compilation is an essential chapter in his celebrated series of recordings for acoustic instruments and electronics.
 
The output of Mario Diaz de Leon defies easy categorization, spanning the worlds of contemporary classical composition, experimental electronic music, extreme metal, and creative improvised music. Working extensively with an inner circle of close collaborators (ICE, Talea, and TAK Ensemble, among others) his classical works have been celebrated over the last decade for their “hallucinatory intensity” (New York Times), “snarling exuberance” (Pitchfork), “helter-skelter, electronically enhanced cadenzas” (New Yorker Magazine), and coupling of “crystalline clarity with the disorienting turbulence of a sonic vortex” (Wire Magazine). 
 
The A-side features two works written in early 2017, which colorfully embrace hypnotic repetition alongside dynamic contrasts and distinctly embody the electrifying post-minimalism that Diaz de Leon is known for. Opener Sacrament is written for a trio of musicians from Talea Ensemble and features the composer’s shimmering, bass heavy electronic production. This energetic piece, driven by the virtuosity of marimba player and Talea executive director Alex Lipowski, makes use of rapid-fire arpeggiations and heavy rhythmic unisons. These are starkly contrasted with moments of reverberant echo, bursts of noise in the flute and electronics, and ecstatic rhythms. Labrys, written for ICE bassoonist Rebekah Heller, builds on the celebrated legacy of solo + electronic works heard on his 2015 album The Soul is the Arena. Built around virtuosic interplay between bassoon and synthesizer, Labrys features shifting and hypnotic repetition alongside expansive melodies and sub-bass frequencies.
 
The B-side consists of two works composed in July of 2016 which draw from primal, incantatory, and improvisatory sonic landscapes. Irradiance, a collaboration with cellist Mariel Roberts, begins with a series of spacious riffs exploring the extremes of the cello’s register and transforms over time into a climactic frenzy of noise loops. Tuning the cello’s low C down to a growling G, Roberts interpreted the sounds of each pre-recorded loop by ear.  The piece gradually builds from cavernous depths into an ecstatic climax of anarchic noise. Concluding track Mysterium is written for the ICE trio of flutist and ensemble founder Claire Chase, clarinetist and artistic director emeritus Joshua Rubin, and bassoonist and current artistic director Rebekah Heller. Archaic melodies, improvised heterophony, spectral transformations, echoes of Klang-era Stockhausen, and the colorful noise of Moog and Ciat-Lonbarde synthesizers combine to create an expansive and wildly ritualistic atmosphere.
 
Cycle and Reveal was recorded in vivid detail by Marc Urselli (John Zorn, Laurie Anderson) at East Side Sound, Stephen McLaughlin at EMPAC, and mastered by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio. Diaz de Leon invited Melbourne-based visual artist Yuria Okamura to design the cover image and inner sleeve symbols. Sharing Diaz de Leon’s interest in the reinterpretation of spiritual art, Okamura’s cover “maps and reconfigures geometric patterns and symbols that reference esoteric symbolism, occult diagrams, religious architecture and decoration.”

Cycle and Reveal

Mario Diaz de Leon & Talea Ensemble - Sacrament

from 'Methoden und Maschinen' [CD|2LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den323
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/bersarinquartett

Nikolai Erastowitsch Bersarin, the ambivalent colonel general, communist and first Soviet city commander of Berlin, had an accident with his motorcycle in 1945 at the age of only 41. In the enraptured, now somewhat more compressed and at the same time more colorful (not more cheerful) electronic sound(track)s of the strange Bersarin Quartett, in its East Block sea landscapes with latently kitsched wallpaper and double bottoms, shadows of this strange figure Bersarin can be guessed - still or again - at a good 70 years later. But perhaps that is also irrelevant. This 'band' could just as well play imprisoned in the remixed court of the eternal, crazy North Korean presidents, whether embodied in an orchestra, quartet or as masked solo entertainer. It brings us supposedly post-rock and post-socialist grandeur, which has degenerated very slightly, in a great new splendour amidst all our irritations and emotions. And everything takes place in our heads.

The Bersarin Quartett - after thirteen years and three epic, (bad-)dreamlike beautiful albums - have settled down with their fourth album "Methoden und Maschinen" ("methods and machines"). For the time being. Because at the same time many new layers and paths are emerging. Playing live in many arrangements and at great concerts in Slovenia, Poland, Czech Republic and Russia, this has grown into a quartet, but it is still the project of DJ, musician, graphic and audio designer Thomas Bücker. The numerous concert evenings with Andy Stott, Tim Hecker, Fennesz, Murcof, Dictaphone or Hidden Orchestra, among others, are undoubtedly noticeable on "Methoden und Maschinen". The Bersarin Quartett continues to stand for the outing of a complex musical subconscious. 'The Dark Side of the Moon', only that the moon is shimmering here, at least now and then. It's probably also due to the sun shining on it. Minimalism and bombast go together. Constantly developing and entangling contrasts, paradoxes and contradictions are the motor. Constantly caught between two sides. Don’t believe the hype!

Methoden und Maschinen

Bersarin Quartett - Das ist alles, was wir haben

from 'I Forsee The Dark Ahead, If I Stay' [CD|2LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den259
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/tkde

The highly praised live album of the Dutch cult ensemble from 2011 finally available on cd & vinyl.

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble’s liveshows were known for their transcendental journeys, mixing live improvisation with the structure form studio album songs. TKDE always worked with a complex live set up, linking multiple laptops, channeling, effects and looping systems to recreate the intricate sound of their music. During the period from 2007 till 2011 many live performances were recorded, and decided was to release a compilation of songs as a live album. In 2012, a year before the split of the project, the live album was released digitally to show the diversity and flexibility of the band live.

- "The album presents a series of tracks recorded from shows over the last five years, doubling as essentially a "best of" and insight into the live TKDE experience. (...) And it is exactly this weaving of disparate threads, often in an unexpected and chaotic fashion, that make TKDE so fascinating. Compositions can—and do—traverse through multiple genres, as one would expect from a pooling of such eclectic backgrounds." (4.5 / 5 Resident Advisor)

- "A consistently impressive collection that manages to vividly document TKDE’s spectacular live show" (Cyclic Defrost)

I Forsee The Dark Ahead, If I Stay

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - Adaptation Of The Koto Song (Hungary, 2011)

from 'Here Be Dragons' [CD|2LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den260
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/kilimanjarodarkjazz

2020 Reissue of "Here Be Dragons" - the second album of The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble from 2009. Not existing anymore since 2012 The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble & The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation now finally make all long-time sold out releases available again on all formats (cd | vinyl | digital).

- "Here Be Dragons is a timeless piece of music. Composed and created with total musical freedom, unrestrained by any genres or artistic restrictions, resulting in what is definitely, in my opinion, TKDE's best release." (Jason Kohnen /  TKDE / TMFDC / Mansur)

- "Here Be Dragons strikingly original. The instrumentation is constrained and subtle, and it works wonders by enveloping rather than overwhelming the listener; this is shadowy music for dark days and grey nights." (Sputnik Music)

- "Here Be Dragons is an intelligent and nuanced record, full of swells and sighs, utterly epic yet incalculably subtle, existing somewhere between keen, intuitive live improvisation and the best-laid plans of mad scientists. Experimental music is rarely this consistently captivating."  (Pop Matters)

- "Here Be Dragons offers a fantastic, weirdly frightening yet exotic journey through the Middle East that lightens up over the course of the album: the second half is by no means jolly, let alone gleeful, but illumines the timbre to include layers of wondrousness, hope and contentment." (Ambient Exotica)

Here Be Dragons

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - Embers

from 'Miscellany' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den348
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/origamibiro

After an almost 6 year hiatus, and the break up of the audio-visual trio it had evolved into, Origamibiro returns with Miscellany, a body of work amassed during the years since the release of 2014’s Odham’s Standard.

Though the group never officially disbanded, a number of life-changing events meant it simply became impossible to continue together. As such, the project organically reverted back to the solo pursuits of composer Tom Hill. Fellow multi-instrumentalist Andy Tytherleigh, however, remains a strong collaborator.

Miscellany comprises a varied mixture of work, ranging from electroacoustic to orchestral chamber music. Drawing upon much of the found-sound style for which Origamibiro became known, the DIY approach to sampling and composing continues to play a central role in the process.

Exploration into the tangible nature of everyday objects and textures - both in and outside of the home - is a theme relished in much of Origamibiro’s work. Forest brambles and plastic toy Easter eggs are examined in surgical detail alongside the debris of demolished piano parts, to be repurposed into whatever sonic potential they offer up.

However, new additions to the instrumental palette - viola da gamba, piano, zither, singing bowl, glockenspiel, drum machines and gongs - contribute to an even broader timbre.

Miscellany will be released on Denovali, March 2021.

Denovali

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