The Beauty of Nature

A I W A - Some Time Maybe

Artist: Elko B.
Title: I Bambini Di Basilisco
Format: 12 inch vinyl (incl. download)
Release date: 8th of February 2017
Cat no: EKS013
Edition: 500

Pre-order here: https://eksterlabel.bandcamp.com/album/i-bambini-di-basilisco

Introducing Elko B.’s debut on Ekster: “I Bambini Di Basilisco”. Twelve tracks pressed on 180g vinyl with pantone printed sleeves and silk screened (glow in the dark) plastic over-sleeve.

Considering Elko Blijweert's been active in the Belgian music scene for about fifteen years now, it comes as quite a surprise that "I Bambini Di Basilisco"is only his first ever solo album. Known mainly for his virtuoso yet ever idiosyncratic guitar playing, Elko B. treats the listener to much more than just that. With the exception of the heavily guitar-driven western pastiche "Cochon Torrero", the emphasis here lies on dark Carpenteresque synthesizer sounds as well as jolly child-friendly melodies. The twelve pleasantly concise songs, mainly based on compositions Blijweert made as soundtrack material for contemporary dance theatre and children's puppet theatre, beautifully blend together into a whole as the listener is presented with a unique glimpse inside the wide-ranging imagery that is Elko B.'s ever-expanding musical world.


Track list:

A1: Une Fille Dansante
A2: Krokodil
A3: Afrikakat
A4: Crawling Night Bears
A5: Aurelia
A6: Save The Knight

B1: Chyena
B2: Une Fille A La Plage
B3: Nachtelijke Verwelkoming
B4: Cochon Torrero
B5: Karabair (solo)
B6: Basilisco

I Bambini Di Basilisco

Elko B. - I Bambini Di Basilisco (preview)

Another track from Köhn's new album 'Kreis Plön', out on KRAAK, on the 9th of June. Pre-order at kraak.bandcamp.com.

Almost 20 years ago Jürgen De Blonde debuted on KRAAK with the nowadays unfindable and almost visionary album köhn 1. It was the starting point for a vital and wondrous exploration that lead him over paths of glitch, idm, shoe gaze, hypnagogic pop, improvised music, straight forward synth music, field recordings and kraut. 

In the middle of this ungraspable adventure through contemporary electronic music, Köhn stands as a genuine artist that stayed true to the curious spirit of the DIY knob twiddling and boggling boy he once was. 

KRAAK is proud to present his 7th album on KRAAK — Kreis Plön, which documents and envisions 20 years of exploring. It’s an album that is about a fusion of the past and the future, of separation and reconfiguration, of mourning and rejoicing, of noise and peace. Kreis Plön is about geolocation. It’s about probable fiction and looking for bits of different puzzles that fit together. An exercise in linear and perpendicular coherence devoid of any objective logic. 

In the middle of the album an artist is envisioning his place in the Now, questioning how or when he got there, as he links memories to imaginary places, and real places to imaginary histories. Kreis Plön stands as such a masterpiece that bluntly envisions the future of electronic music.

Klinker

Track A1 from Tsembla 'The Hole In The Landscape' [NNA110]
Available May 25th, 2018 on Limited Edition Vinyl & Digital formats.
http://nnatapes.com

The Hole In The Landscape

Tsembla "Gravitating Bones"

Unreleased work included on the "A Turn of Breath: Deluxe Edition" 2xLP
Available to pre-order now, available on June 29th, 2018
www.recitalprogram.com/a-turn-of-breath
www.recitalprogram.com/purchase

R8 - Ian William Craig - "Heaviness Sketch in Winter" from A Turn of Breath 2xLP

General Rehearsal

From the Neptunalia LP compilation (LAL-92 / IKU-054). Edition of 300. Release day hopefully July 23rd.

NEPTUNALIA, a festival of Neptune, celebrated at Rome, of which
very little is known. The day on which it was held, was probably the 23rd
of July. The festival was celebrated with games. Respecting the ceremonies
of this festival nothing is known, except that the people used to build
huts of branches and foliage, in which they probably feasted, drank, and
amused themselves.
From a "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities" by John Murray, London,
1875.

Side A:
David Edren - Whale Bubbler
H. Takahashi - Deep
Nuslux - Hippocampi
Olli Aarni - Eliksiiri A & B
Ilpo Numminen - Speleothem

Side B:
H. Takahashi - Coral
Non Local Society - Latiaxis Mawae
Kuupuu - Jään alle
Marja Ahti - Silent Floor
Miaux - Rip Current at Avalon Beach

Compiled by Roope Eronen
Cover Art by Leon Sadler
Mastered by Tommi Keränen
Laquer cut at Duplates and Mastering

Lal Lal Lal & Ikuisuus, 2018

Miaux - Rip Current at Avalon Beach

R. Elizabeth is the recording name of London-based artist and academic Rachael Finney. Every And All We Voyage On is her
solo recording project’s second full length and is a focused distillation of her practice in sound art and her knack for pop
minimalism. It follows a long sold out release on Where To Now? Records and a prolonged period in which she concentrated
on artist residencies exploring her interest in recorded sound and voice. Immediate and natural, Every And All We Voyage On
manages to sound joyful while tackling complex themes, handling everything with an improvisatory touch. The songs are full of
air and light; infectious, melodic and off-the-cuff.
Recorded using a single 80s Casio keyboard, reel-to-reel tape manipulation, piano and vocal, Finney’s practice with R. Elizabeth
belies a studious attention to detail. Her academic work is often focused on analysing sounds – particularly voice and language –
divorced from meaning and R. Elizabeth challenges the listener with overtly emotional tropes: sweeping portmento lap-steel
guitar keyboard tones on Back From Ten suggest a nostalgic melancholy when it intersects with the narrator closing her eyes,
realising she has nothing left to give. The lilting vocal cloaked in reverb is disarming, with an almost child-like surrender to the
undertow of the song. On Tragedy And Trade there’s a rough grace to the mixing with visceral, manipulated tape sounding like
the artists’ hands are literally in the speakers wrenching the melodies in mid-air. When it intersects with chants about the “gaps
and the silences” it has an eerie, hauntological effect. R. Elizabeth is constantly playing with sound and song: a Wonderland of
perceived emotion, the listener’s perception of what they’re hearing constantly in flux, it’s deceptively simple and deserving of
repetitive listening.
Cut Piano opens the album and introduces a documentary-feel which the album upholds through-out. It’s the sound of the artist
mangling a tape of her own piano recording, twisting it out of shape and suggesting a bend in reality. We’re listening to the artist
becoming a ghost in her own machine, a 3rd or 4th generation copy of an emotion rendered a long time ago, chilling and playful at
the same time. An Image Is Different bursts out of this with a sunny Casiotone beat, a melodic contrast that also introduces
Finney’s vocal. It flitters between a gorgeous repetitive melody ruminating about the nature of reality and a seemingly careless,
conversational tone. The effect is joyful, but you don’t really know why. The lyrics instruct someone (you? The artist?) to “go
outside and break someone’s neck, make it feel so real” before ending with R. Elizabeth nonchalantly stating “I dunno, to be
honest I don’t really care” as if on the phone to someone they’re bored with. It would be jarring if it wasn’t so catchy and uplifting.
The title track is a slow-tempo meditation with droning synths providing the background to slow, dragging tape sounds and
grounding, just-out-of-focus vocals bunkering down in the mix. The methodology suggests the work of Broadcast: there’s a
loping bassline that propels the track forward but the duet/duel between Finney’s haunted vocal and the soloing tape warble
provides aural snakes for the listener’s ear to follow.

R. Elizabeth - SPIRITUAL TO SYMPHONY (from Every And All We Voyage On)

Carl Oesterhelt "Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer"
LP & Digital © 2019 Umor Rex Records
www.umor-rex.org

Umor Rex presents Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer, a collection of synth instrumentals by German composer Carl Oesterhelt. Oesterhelt has been recording a mixture of straddling kosmische and classical traditions for years on his own reel tape machine, overdubbing stacks of analogue gear to create a compelling body of work that brings fresh emotional depth and rhythmic experimentation to the syntax of the modern synthesizer.
 
Born in Munich in 1968, Carl Oesterhelt has worked in a variety of fields throughout a long and impressive career. His discography includes tenures with Neue Deutsche Welle legends FSK, intellectual disco outfit Merricks, and German legends The Notwist. His solo work has travelled even further and wider, taking in contemporary classical and chamber music, music for exhibitions and radio plays, not to mention notable collaborations with saxophonist Johannes Enders and legendary founding member of Faust, Hans Joachim Irmler. 
 
Oesterhelt augments his own analogue arsenal with synthesizers borrowed from musician friends, resulting in almost fifteen different synthesizers –some in fruitful states of disrepair– which feature on the album. Opener “La chapelle de Francis Lai” pays tribute to the French film composer with a synthesized church organ procession, disintegrating kraut-funk-noir which emerges on “Poro Secret Society”. Then, eerie sound effects mash with minimal techno rhythms on “Makonde Pattern”, and –most surprisingly– Oesterhelt turns his keys into a sub-Saharan drum ceremony on “Trinidad Pattern”. The sheer range of Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer is an impressive achievement unto itself. Yet it is Oesterhelt’s instincts as a composer which make these (largely improvised) recordings so compelling. Tensions build and emotions stir throughout each piece with a proficiency perfected through his work for the stage.
 
Musically associates, and directly connected to a heritage of German electronics, Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer touches upon similar ground to the likes of Musik von Harmonia in its pulsations, Klaus Schulze’s sonically adventurous Cyborg, and Tangerine Dream at their earliest and most primitive. The hypnotic ritualism of early African field recordings, or the spiritual regality of European organ music also convey key reference points in the formulation of this collection. Oesterhelt’s compositions here have taken the musically primitive and the emotionally raw, and woven them into a rich synthetic soundworld all of his own.

Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer

Buy LP & DL

Carl Oesterhelt — Simple Theme

forthcoming in Feb 2021, contact abby@cafeoto.co.uk

Double CD documenting the magic meeting of one of the all-time great rhythm sections in jazz: percussionist Hamid Drake and bassist William Parker, with London’s brilliant Black Top (Orphy Robinson and Pat Thomas) and Elaine Mitchener. Across two sets the quintet are infectiously energetic and inspired, striding from synchronised heavy groove to star bright solos, whilst incorporating dub effects, guimbri and sumptuous blues piano playing. 
 
Formed by Orphy Robinson and Pat Thomas but always realised with an ever changing number of invited musicians, Black Top's blend of lo-fi samples, dub effects and experimental electronics has been daring free improvisation since 2011. Their virtuoso performances draw on their Afro-Caribbean roots with delicious spontienty and humour; the histories of Ridley Road Market, the LIO and Islamic West Africa are sounded out side by side on iPad, marimba and vibraphone. Having met in 2006, Black Top played with bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake as part of their residency at Cafe OTO in 2016; forming a quartet grounded in transatlantic kinship but which looked outward to the Carribean, calypso music and Saharan gnawa rhythms. When Parker and Drake returned to OTO in 2019 Black Top reformed again, but this time with the brilliant addition of vocalist Elaine Mitchener. 
Over the last few years the clarity with which Mitchener has explored vocal expression in the global Black Avant Garde has been stunning, but here the range in her influences is manifest, moving effortlessly between phonetic and poetic experimentation and spoken word, all the while at ease with soul soaked jazz and dissonant free fall. A hand drum duet with Hamid Drake astonishes before being laced perfectly with cosmic theremin and Parker’s fantastic acid shehnai. 

Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Sunday 28th July 2019 by Paul Skinner and mixed and mastered by James Dunn. Photos by Dawid Laskowski and artwork by Oliver Pitt. 

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Hamid Drake / percussion

Elaine Mitchener / vocals

William Parker / double bass, guimbri

Orphy Robinson / marimba, electronics

Pat Thomas / piano, electronics

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OTOROKU
18-22 Ashwin Street
E8 3DL

ROKU025

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CD1
Put the Brakes On - 50:08

CD2
Some Good News - 56:43

ROKU025 "Some Good News" [sample]

A record label since 2001.
Orders from roopealpertti ( a t ) hotmail ( d o t ) com.


Miaux - Rip Current at Avalon Beach

Lal Lal Lal

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