april

Welcome to Europe

2017

minimal

Papaoutai Stromae

Λένα Πλάτωνος (Lena Platonos) is a Greek musician, pianist and music composer. One of the pioneers in the Greek electronic music scene of the 1980s, she remains active until today. Lena was born on the island of Crete and grew up in Athens. She began learning how to play the piano at the age of two and became a professional pianist before turning eighteen. Soon afterwards, she received a scholarship and studied in Vienna and Berlin where she was exposed to jazz, rock and Middle Eastern music. She permanently returned to Greece in the late 70’s and began working with the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation. Her debut album was released in 1981 and marked a innovative change in Greek music by featuring the strong use of synthesizers, which Platonos had begun to experiment with.

‘Γκάλοπ’ (‘Gallop’) was Lena Platonos' second record that she solely composed, produced and sang. The record was released in 1985 and had a profound effect on the contemporary Greek music scene. ‘Gallop’ was composed in the wake of a painful separation and took several months to complete. Lena says, “It’s a study in the mythology of urban population of the contemporary metropolis and also a gaze into the future life of it.” The album is made exclusively of analog synthesizers and heavily features the iconic Roland TR-808 drum machine. Lena’s narrates each song, reciting her own surreal Greek poetry with unique skill. Lyrics deal with heartbreak, dreams, desires and the foresight of society’s obsession with computers in our daily lives. ‘Gallop’ is an album ahead of its time and Lena has an exceptional talent for conceiving issues that were to conquer Greek TV screens and newspapers many years later.

All songs have been remastered from the original master tapes for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The jacket is an exact replica of the 1985 edition featuring Lena’s original collage. Each copy includes a two-sided lavender 11”x11” insert with lyrics, photos and liner notes by Lena, filmmaker Antonis Boskoitis and fellow Greek musician Vassilikos. Prepare to become fully enveloped and entranced by this haunting masterpiece.

Μάγισσες

Lena Platonos - Shadow Of Blood

△ FACEBOOK ► www.facebook.com/Minimatic
△ SPOTIFY ► spoti.fi/2QTBOz1
△ YOUTUBE ► bit.ly/2xhyoyJ

BUY (@Bandcamp)

Le Tunnel Sous La Manche (Minimatic re-grooved)

Golden Sun

Credits;

Org - Murat Ses
Acoustic Guitar, Electro Guitar - Cahit Berkay
Bass, ARGUM (eski bir Antakya sazı) - Taner Öngür
Drums - Ayzer Danga

Moğollar - Alageyik Destanı (1972)

Nach langer Zeit ist es mir endlich einmal wieder gelungen etwas Zeit für Musik einzuräumen! Ich hoffe euch gefällt die Reise durch die Nebelschleier - Euer Ziesel

Like Me!

Nebelschleier

'Are You Trending?' is released digitally on 20th May 2016

Official video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6dA_iY8_TU


Are You Trending?

Siona is used in a couple of different films. Among them, Siona is most known for a serie commercials made for Volvo Car Sweden. 

See links below:
Live Fully Now - Tove Holmgren (https://youtu.be/jKrrwiExx5k)
Live Fully Now - Mark Watts (https://youtu.be/6Vj-J_s8zAg)
Live Fully Now - Magnus Nilsson (https://youtu.be/31XZCMRVexU)
Live Fully Now - Louise Östberg (https://youtu.be/CpL1ItE8WzM)

Siona

http://manarecords.com/001
http://honestjons.com/shop/label/Mana

First commissioned by the French Government in 1981, the LP Rose Des Vents. Action Musicale evolved out of a six year project by Swiss composer Pierre Mariétan to document and musicalise the sound environment of urban landscapes within France, creating an inter-geographical auditory map of cities and townships located in the suburban reaches of Paris, including Bezons, Herblay, Montmagny and l’Isle Adam.

Through a mix of field recording, interviews, vegetable market catcalls, braying animals and urban hubbub, Mariétan paints a broad, psycho-acoustically vivid and decentralised profile of metropolitan life from the period; carried to the ear through a coupling with musical studio performance and serialist compositional technique. Over an hour and forty minutes, the recording provides an intersectional and ambient passage through environmental and urban narratives, the radiophonic voice of Ana de Carvalho offering fleeting, poetic orientation with announcements of each titled scene, divining and evoking the sonorous qualities of each landscape as it comes into focus. Each scene tangible yet non-specific, the artist arranging and signalling the possibility of civic and pastoral space as a musical container for spontaneous, sonorous interactions.

Mariétan’s profile is of a rigorous yet open and exploratory composer, utilising principles of chance and curiosity in organising found sound and often negotiating or encouraging encounters with improvisatory gesture or incidental and occurring sound. In 1966 he established the outfit GERM, grouping composers and musicians dedicated to developing new meeting points between composition and improvisation. Members assist in contributing recordings and performances throughout Rose Des Vents, including musical passages on piano, synthesizer, horn and saxophone. These studio pieces, played on saxophone by Daniel Kientzy or piano by Gerard Fremy, recall and redeploy techniques developed over the lifespan of the project, where site specific actions and concerts were performed within each of the towns.

In many ways, the album is a folding of each facet of the author’s life and work into a single representative culmination. A sympathy towards radiophonic or documentary production values is recognisable—Mariétan produced two iterations of Rose Des Vents. Action Musicale for Alain Trutat and Jean Tardieu’s ground-breaking Atelier De Création Radiophonique on Radio France Culture ahead of this LP release—alongside the influence of his work in urban acoustics and research into forms of sound ecology. So too is the obvious pleasure taken in introducing the sweetness of music to children, with notable samples from his educational workshops and sound installations helping to internalise and evoke a sense of inquisitive delight.

It’s these components, combined with themes and concerns about the acoustic environment that resonate 30 years later and establish Rose Des Vents as such an approachable, listenable and lovely piece of experimental sound art. The conjuration of an emotional or psychological plane through musical and metaphorical synthesis allows the listener to situate themselves within the montage in a near cinematic manner, discovering an underlying sonority embedded in the psychic atmospheres of communal life.

Mastered and cut at D&M. 
Distributed by Honest Jon's, London.

Pierre Mariétan - Rose Des Vents. Action Musicale (excerpts)

A2. Simo Cell - Echo Doppler

Louisa Tounsia - Heukm Ennessouane [Side 2], (Pathé, c. 1930-31)

https://lesyndicatdesscorpions.bandcamp.com/album/mimosa

A5 - Uptown Top Ranking

Mana is a record label established in 2017 by Andrea Zarza, curator at the British Library Sound Archive, and Blowing Up The Workshop founder Matthew Kent. 

Publishing works with an archival and contemporary sound, Mana is a platform redrawing narrative boundaries and perspectives through a playful, radical and unexpected approach.