16/05/2014 - Holy Mountain Records - NEWS 02

Lincoln Sea Part 1 (excerpt)

Black Hat
Thought of Two
LP/CD
Hausu Mountain, March 4th 2014
www.hausumountain.com/
Stream in full at http://hausumountain.bandcamp.com/album/thought-of-two

Black Hat - Imaginary Friends

Alwin Nikolais
Choreosonic Music Of The New Dance Theatre Of Alwin Nikolais
10CACK
Choreosonics was the name of the music for the choreography of Alwin Nikolais - a unique theatre exposition that was described in the late 50s as “the new theatre of shape, motion, light and sound.” In 1953 Nikolais attracted people interested in new art to his dance concerts at the Henry Street Playhouse in New York City. In these concerts dancers became colourful motivating sources for sculptural shapes; moving in changing atmospheres of light and sound their relationship carefully integrated into a new kind of audiovisual abstract theatre art. The sounds created for this were not conceived from traditional music points of view but were designed to share and support the total visual dynamics.

Such a creation was possible because of Nikolais’ background as a musician as well as choreographer. At sixteen he was playing piano and organ for the then disappearing silent films, improvising and coordinating music four to six hours daily to the dramatic content of the movie. With this profession obsolete, he turned his skill into accompaniment for dance. Through this his interests led to his study of percussion accompaniment and exploration of new sounds. These ideas were stimulated by the kind of dance accompaniment introduced by the famous German dancer, Mary Wigman. This, in turn, induced Nikolais to study dance and ultimately to switch his career from musician to dancer and choreographer.

Nikolais was soon heralded as one of the leading figures in modern concert dance, he is credited with bringing about revolutionary ideas opening up new vistas for dance and theatre. Nikolais' activities were centered at the Henry Street Playhouse in New York. His work was created there with his assistant Murray Louis; sound engineer David S. Berlin; artist George Constant and members of his Playhouse Dance Company. All of whom had a hand in the final productions. Performances with names like Prism, Cantos and Totem were met with positive critical view for their multidisciplinary achieve- ments. While his collaboration with Harry Partch on The Bewitched established his name alongside another true maverick of American sound design and forward-thinking composition.

Some of Nikolais' dancers were also trained as percussionists who improvised on a curious assortment of sound producing instruments and objects while other dancers worked through the choreography. David Berlin, who assembled and constructed the sound recording equipment, would operate from the sound booth from a window overlooking the stage. Nikolais would direct the experiments and improvising.

Within any performance there would be numerous tests of the original sound and their possible electronic conditioning, including many playbacks of short phrases tested to the dancers’ motion. When the sound phrase proved satisfactory the next cut was started. Sounds were cut down, enlarged, replaced and then the whole piece would be linked together and given final editing much the same as a filming process. Nikolais generally tried to avoid any identification of the sound sources, thus inviting the ear to perceive the sound itself divorced from its initial derivation. This, however, was by no means a final criterion, the ultimate one being the value of the sound to the theatre idea at hand whatever its source or manner of conditioning was. The objects used to pro- duce these sounds were without limit except for practical material size. Within the collection many percussion instruments were used: drums of all kinds, rattles, bells, gongs, cymbals, wooden blocks, etc. Also whistles, tubes, pipes, pieces of wood, alu- minum, steel and tin containers were utilised alongs-ide glasses, elastic bands, coils of wire, etc. The back of an upright piano in addition to a grand piano were also often at hand. The human voice would be used freely, hand clapping, foot stomping and any sound producing device whatsoever that might served a purpose.

Lythic - Alwin Nikolais

Matter “Biorhexistasy”
Catalogue # : KVITNU 29
Released: 17.04.2013
Formats: 12″ vinyl LP / Digital download
Buy: shop.kvitnu.com/matter/92-matter-…iorhexistasy.html
kvitnu.bandcamp.com/album/biorhexistasy

Layers

WALLS/ORAM - Sound Houses LP (Ecstatic/Kompakt)
Release Date: 5/5/14

WALLS collaborate with the private sound archive of legendary electronics pioneer / composer and BBC Radiophonic Workshop creator Daphne Oram


WALLS / ORAM - Extremely Long Corridor

Taken from the album 'Toxic Cosmopolitanism' released as LP / Download

Kassel Jaeger 'Exposure Scales — Sunlight' (eMEGO 183)

Akio Suzuki "mu ro bi ko" extract (Senufo 44)

Michael Pisaro / Miguel Prado "White Metal" extract (Senufo 45)

Francois Tusques - La Reine Des Vampires Theme Take 5

donato epiro - FIUME NERO
Lp out soon on Black Moss

http://www.blackmoss.tk/

La Vita Acquatica

Taken from the album 'Ett' released as LP and Download

Klara Lewis 'Shine' (eMEGO 190)

from upcoming "Seed" album available April on Spectrum Spools.

"Luau" by Brett Naucke

Taken from the single 'Phantom Center' released as 12" EP and Download

Outer Space 'Arrival and Assessment' excerpt (eMEGO 196)

"Suck Out the Reason" by Prostitutes from upcoming "Petit Cochon" LP.

"Suck Out the Reason" by Prostitutes

Taken from the album 'd/evolution' released as LP / Download

LCC 'Quarz' (eMEGO 198)

Artist: Fennesz
Title: Bécs
Label: Editions Mego
Format: CD/LP
Release date: 4/29/2014 

The last time Fennesz released an album on Austrian label Mego it was 2001 and the name of that release was Endless Summer. Now, in 2014, Editions Mego is extremely proud to release the conceptual follow-up to that landmark of abstract pop. Bécs (pronounced "baeetch") is Hungarian for "Vienna" and is the first full-length Fennesz solo release since 2008's Black Sea (TO 076CD/LP). Eschewing the more drone-oriented works of Black Sea, Bécs returns to the more florid pop mechanisms as deployed on Endless Summer. "Static Kings" features the extra leverage of Werner Dafeldecker and Martin Brandlmayer, who deploy a range of atmospheric abstract effects to shape a bewitching sound-world. The 10-minute centerpiece "Liminality" (featuring Tony Buck on drums) is classic Fennesz: epic, evocative, beautiful, impossible. "Pallas Athene" creates a sanctuary of hovering beauty which leads into the title-track. Emotional and assured, the track "Bécs" is an astonishing contribution to contemporary pop. "Sav," co-written by Cédric Stevens, (aka Acid Kirk) inhabits a less structural terrain as one enters a forest of small sounds and oblique atmospheres, where on the closing "Paroles," a gentle melody unravels amongst swirls of electronics and fried disruption. Bécs is not just an album or a series of songs, it's a world to inhabit, a landscape ripe with sounds, songs and that esteemed Fennesz signature. A singular work by a singular artist. All tracks by Christian Fennesz, except *by Cédric Stevens & Christian Fennesz. Modular Synthesizer on "Sav" by Cédric Stevens. Bass on "Static Kings" by Werner Dafeldecker. Drums on "Static Kings" by Martin Brandlmayr. Drums on "Liminality" by Tony Buck. Recorded & mixed at Amann Studios, Vienna, 2013/2014. Tony Buck's drums recorded by Martin Siewert at Garnison7, Vienna, July 2013. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin, February 2014. Cover design by Tina Frank. 

Track Listing:

01. 	Static Kings
02. 	The Liar
03. 	Liminality
04. 	Pallas Athene
05. 	Bécs
06. 	Sav
07. 	Paroles

- Editions Mego presents an album by electronic music luminary Christian Fennesz -- the first full-length Fennesz solo release since 2008's Black Sea.
- Features contributions from Werner Dafeldecker, Martin Brandlmayer, and Tony Buck.
- Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.
- "Fennesz takes musical warmth, glowing melodies and lush arrangement and subjects them to sharp digital decay, providing another deep layer of meaning." --Pitchfork (9.4)

Official web site:
www.fennesz.com  


Fennesz - Static Kings (taken from Bécs, out April 29th)

Limited-edition, 180-gram, clear vinyl, gadefold cover

“My electroacoustic music knowledge encouraged me to attempt a mix of voices, percussions, instruments and synthesizers to deal with a theme that had fascinated me for some time: the eschatological-Dantesque environment in its transcendent metaphysical imagination and, at times, even ironic interpretation. 
The search for sound materials of the most varied origin allowed me to achieve particularly effective timbric results, the fruit of a patient elaboration of the materials themselves with operations suggested by the mixer and by the various systems for treating sound. 
What I would define essentially as ‘electroacoustic music’, finds its unavoidable realization exclusively in recording, as by nature one cannot imagine other and different forms of execution: therefore I believe that the most effective and intimate listening the disc allows is the logical point of arrival of my artisan work, which I hope can achieve its own artistic meaning.” 
Fabio Fabor.

There are certain records that burst into the cultural mechanisms of "modernity" of each period, which mould fashions and manners, styles of life and shape the thought of what's contemporary. 
These records, and the music they contain, transform themselves into signals, points of arrival, undisputed targets for the youth cultures they meet. They are points of reference for the reading of sound periods. Others instead are invisible at their time, lost and mysterious for decades and decades. They transmit sound signals that cannot be heard by common people, squeaks for the most attentive ears, maybe, but no signal for the mass of the Society of Spectacle. Then the volume rises again, suddenly. Decades later, those forgotten records resurface from the stocks of the scrap merchants and start shouting out the power of their sound and culture. Despite being recorded decades earlier, they become contemporary and very modern, the sounds that the grooves produce seem to predict tomorrow's sound landscape. This is what happened with Pape Satan by Fabio Fabor, which Plastica Marella (editor in Modo Moderno) released in 300 limited edition copies, in see-through 180 g. vinyl. 
Pape Satan was mysterious from the beginning of its creation (to this day it's impossible to set a precise release date, which is believed to date back between 1978 and 1981), inscrutable and occult, but Fabio Fabor has always been the unaware protagonist. After all, Fabio Fabor created this record for pure personal pleasure, for research and individual curiosity. Initially produced to fuel the circuit of library music, it almost immediately transformed into something different, halfway between electronic music, electroacoustic and esoteric alchemy applied to music. The author himself is a riddle; Fabio Fabor was one of the pseudonyms adopted by Fabio Borgazzi, who was born in Milan in 1920 and died in Rome on the 3rd of August 2011. Great composer and musician, author of over 500 songs, 8 times his tracks were protagonists of the Festival of Sanremo, the temple of Italian pop music. He also worked on numerous musical and lyrical operas, pieces for theatre, radio and television. In the end the meeting with electronic music and its declensions: he created tens and tens of recordings to enrich his personal archive, a treasure of sounds we hope will soon be unlocked. 
An underground cult that of “Pape Satan”, fuelled by the reaffirmation of the occult electronic scene, which has in Demdike Stare its maximum expression. And Miles Witthaker was the person who rediscovered the work of Fabio Fabor; he found a very rare copy of “Pape Satan” in Rome, in the most famous Italian flea market, and since then Fabor became a part of his personal sound Olympus. 
When one listens to Fabio Fabor's work today, it's like a very fast fall into the soul's oblivion, occult psychedelia for enraged hearts. A masterpiece. Absolute

Fabio Fabor: Stige (extract) - from Pape Satan

all instruments, composition, recordings etc by Robert Piotrowicz 
released on Bocian Records, on "Rurokura and Eastern European Fol Music Reserarch vol. 2" vinyl 7"

Robert Piotrowicz - School Girl Band of Gromovaya Balka

Released 11th March 2013 via Low Point.

www.low-point.com

LP053 - Nickolas Mohanna - Parallax View (Album Preview)

http://shelter-press.com/main/category/038/

Slipping Control is Ben Vida’s new LP.

Slipping Control derives from the text piece « Tztztztzt Î Í Í…. » wrote last year by Ben Vida (and published as a book by Shelter Press).

Composed to act as a score, a sound piece and as raw data for electronic control source, Tztztztzt Î Í Í… became the intrinsic element that tied all different pieces of art made by Ben Vida.
 » I was interested in the rhythm of speaking, interested in using the voice to create rhythmic patterns that would inevitably break out of time and become asymmetrical and awkward. I wanted to create one set of control sources (the text) and run them through a bunch of different systems (the video, the book, the record etc) and see how the original source material morphed and changed as it manifested in these different modalities. The process of developing each unique work involved setting of control paths for the text to be processed though. In terms of this path the first step after writing the text was to find the primary filter of interpretation and translation that would start this process of slipping control – and this is where Tyondai and Sara come in… »

A Control Path may look something like this:

Text > Performer/Vocalist > Voiced Recording > Electronic Analysis > Reconfigured

Text > Audio Synthesis > LP Record.

Or maybe like this:
Text > Performer/Vocalist > Video/Audio Recording > Electronic Analysis > Audio Synthesis > Video Editing > Color Synthesis > Video Installation.

Or this:
Text > Performer/Vocalist > Video/Audio Recording > Electronic Analysis > Audio Synthesis > Video Editing > Color Synthesis > Video Installation > Color Field Panel Display.

Or more simply:
Text > Poster

Mastered and cut by Helmut Erler at D+M,
Pressed at Pallas in an edition of 500 copies worldwide.

16/05/2014 - Holy Mountain Records - NEWS 02

Holy-Mountain-Records