cheeers.

How to Explain Music to the Dead

Full track playback for Pitchfork - Read article here : bit.ly/Pitchfork_LM

Kilchhofer / Hainbach - Acosta
Cat. no.: Marionette-LM01
Format: 12” Vinyl EP (180g) + Digital
Release Date: May 2017
Artwork by Benjamin Kilchhofer
Distributed by : Rubadub Distribution

Little Mary strays from the pack, floating from one rock to another, in the midst of the narrow cascading river stream. Feeling the respirating leaves ebb and flow, she caught a glimpse of a pagan rain dance, a drum circle within a pocket of sunshine – where all mantras come to life.

This captivating split EP (titled ‘Acosta’), sees Kilchhofer’s second 12”, after his ‘Dersu’ EP on ‘Marionette’. The flip side features Hainbach who gets his work pressed on vinyl for the very first time – after a few tape releases, his latest being on Ted Butler & Cortini’s ‘Limited Interest’ label. This is truly something wonderful from two very gifted and unique artists.

Little Mary is a series by Marionette (a spin-off Marionette artists) – focused on split EPs and collaborative works.

Marionette-LM01

Acosta

Kilchhofer - Suckfuell [Marionette-LM01]

Pierre Bastien orchestrates his meccano marionettes on Tinkle Twang ‘n Tootle to form the charming imaginative ensemble that he’s been known for since the late 80s.

Equal parts composer, inventor, mechanic, and performer - Bastien translates his imagination into instruments and compositions that defy any musical categories. Whether it’s preparing instruments like playing a trumpet underwater or through a kazoo, using belt-driven motors and mechanical components to perform cumbersome yet surprisingly musical operations on traditional instruments and household items, or using a fan to hit the strings of a kundi harp with flowing paper - Bastien’s love for tone, rhythm, noise and harmony is poetically reflected across his quite extensive oeuvre.

Playful and melancholic, the sound sculptures that Bastien invents and plays with are partly inspired by the work of Raymond Roussel, a visionary French author who at the turn of the 20th century wrote a unique form of literature which inspired and guided artists from the surrealist and pataphysical movement and was declared by Michel Foucault as one of structuralism's founding fathers. On that note, the influence of literature and syntax on Bastien’s work cuts all the way through to the palindromes he uses for his track titles - which, much like his machines, infinitely loop.

True to it’s adorable title, Tinkle Twang ‘n Tootle is a music box of unfolding whimsical structures, half broken rhythms, detuned harmonies, and fantastical sound collages that evoke a childlike sense of wonder and an urge to explore the spaces in between the sounds.

Pierre Bastien - Tenet

Experimental trio Giraffe crystalize time on ‘Desert Haze’, their new LP on Marionette. Giraffe is the musical project of Sascha Demand (guitar), Juergen Hall (keys), and Charly Schoeppner (percussion). With only a couple of releases to date on the wonderful Meakusma imprint, little is known about Giraffe.  After letting go of other artistic projects, the trio now focuses solely on Giraffe by continuously searching for and finding their own unique language.

Sascha, Juergen and Charly have quite diverse musical backgrounds, though morphing into Giraffe they tower into one single composer. Their music is a critical statement, not in a political sense but rather an artistic one. The trio is mindful about what it means to create and how to position themselves as artists nowadays and in no way are concerned with the constant hassle of being en vogue and short-lived trends - affirming their rather rare and stoic artistic stance, an expression that has developed ever so naturally and refreshingly honest to witness.

On Desert Haze, they’ve created a vibrant and minimalistic tribal sound that feels inspired by the Saharan traditional music of the Tuareg, Jazz, and German psychedelic krautrock. Giraffe themselves list the radical music of the Viennese School (Schoenberg along with his pupils Berg and Webern) as well as the Köln School with its early electronic experiments as their main influence and inspiration. More precisely the composition process and the organization of musical material within space and time, where a conceptual and intellectual approach melds with an experimental yet expressive sound searching method.

Side A focuses on the trios studio work; it is built around tone color and pitch analysis of resonating prepared guitar sounds. Through a unique mixture of free improvisation and a serialism "rule set”, Giraffe develop instrumental layers and structures to form their tracks. Side B sees Giraffe playing more freely with a reduced setup - representative of what you may hear when listening to the trio live.

Desert Haze, along with its track-titles, showcases an almost mimetic approach to art. The haptic music grabs the listener not as a passive recipient but as an active resonant body to vibrate through. One can almost feel the Elements, pressure and heat forming a diamond, hypnotic overtones ringing through windy caves, shamanistic rhythms conjuring up mysterious and ancient landscapes - where the constant cycle of sedimentation and erosion reveals structures of fragile beauty - always gentle to the hand’s touch and the mind’s eye. 
Desert Haze will be released on vinyl and digitally end of October 2019. The Artwork by Benjamin Kilchhofer may very well be the entrance to the entombed sounds we hear on this album. Thanks Sascha, Juergen and Charly!

02 Deception

Tony Peppers - Metropolitan

a mix i made for earthday 2020 which aired on reformradio

tracklist: 

01	Broadcast and the Focus Group - A Medium's High
02	Mike Ratledge - Riddles of the Sphinx, Sequence 2
03	Feedback with Answering Machines
04	Ariel Kalma - Almora Sunrise
05	Kilchhofer - Lefu
06	Terje Isungset, Stian Westerhus - Laden With Rain#2 
07	Found Tape
08	Ami Shavit - Alpha Rhythms 1
09	John McCowen - Quartet no. 1
10	Julian Sartorius - Vich – Genève
11	Kilchhofer Anklin - Irrig
12	Kilchhofer Anklin - Tal
13	Clive Bell - Golden Bat Cigarettes
14	Ken Nordine - Fibonacci Numbers
15	Black Zone Magick Chant - 
        Where will we meet when our ashes are spread in the wind
16	Steve Roden - Red White Blue
17	Ernest Hood - Gloaming
18	Will Guthrie - Catlike

Kilchhofer - Reformradio Mix

WITHERY 2020

exploratory record label publishing a wide spectrum of experimental music and visual art through timeless physical editions.

Pierre Bastien - Tenet

Marionette

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