Taken from the album 'Piano Muisc 1-7' released as LP, CD and digital.


Editions Mego is proud to welcome Powell to its roster with a bizarre and strangely emotive new LP of synthetic computer works entitled Piano Music 1-7.

Via his own Diagonal Records imprint, his work on XL Recordings and, most recently, the opening of audio/film platform A Folder [afolder.studio], Powell has firm footing in the contemporary electronic landscape. During a wry and obstinate musical life he has twisted myriad synthetic forms into shapes that explore and expand upon the districts of post-punk, techno, noise + computer music, and in the the last year alone he has released four albums of hi-def abstractions, each inspired by a formalisation of music proposed by Iannis Xenakis. 

As an extension of this intense period of work/research/play with stochastic functions [using probabilities to compose music], various processes emerged that Powell then began to apply to more traditional musical events. Where ordinarily in his work the probabilities and relationships are used to define parameters such as wave-shape, folding, FM, filter modes etc., he now began to use them to create musical formations and visual scores that could be played back using any software/MIDI instrument [one of these can be seen on the rear cover of the LP release]. While mapping out this cartography of relations, he used a basic Grand Steinway sampler as a placeholder instrument; the longer the process went on, though, the more he began to embrace the acoustic properties of the synthetic piano and make it the bedrock for this new constellation of work. 

Piano Music 1-7, subtitled ‘Music for Synthetic Piano and Assorted Electronics’, consists of seven different synthetic islands strung together into a single composition. All were composed using the aforementioned processes that allowed Powell to play a piano, even if he never learned to do so with his hands. After all, ’In writing electronic music,’ Robin Mackay once wrote, ‘you also have to direct the invention of new tools.’

At times the piano skips gleefully over shadowing synthesis, whilst at others the synthetic sheets swarm and envelope the keys. The interplay between the two create a fantastical alternate reality, a cosmic machine in which time is eroded, shrunk and expanded, like a wax upon which operations and relations are inscribed or engraved. Many of the pieces express a playfulness or optimism verging on vitalism, as bundles of piano notes dance and interpolate with a never-repeating range of electronic gestures. The feel is of a brightly coloured flower-bed in various stage of bloom. This interplay of the [artifical] acoustic and the electronic builds on the pioneering processes developed by David Behrman in works such as Leapday Night, and Piano Music 1-7 could also be posited as a modern take on Conlon Nancarrow’s investigations for player piano. Similarly, the razor-sharp sonic properties and unfolding of non-human events recall the computer works of Xenakis and the surgical precision of Mego mainstay Florian Hecker.

Recorded in late 2020, these new Powell works propose not just a bold and bright vision of electronic music but serve also as a map with which, for 35 minutes at least, we can navigate our way out of the current milieu. As the artist himself remarks in the sleeve-notes, ‘. . . What emerged from this fog or soup [for me] were ideas and processes that felt affirmative and life giving — sensations I had always hoped to convey in my music. Perhaps the optimism or positivity I felt at these musical events unfolding, these clusters and knots tumbling in different directions across time, can also be felt by you.’

Music for Synthetic Piano and Assorted Electronics

Composed and recorded by Powell, 2020
Mixed by Powell and Tobin Jones at The Park Studios, London
Mastered by Russell Haswell

Art direction by Guy Featherstone
Photography by John Cronin

Powell 'Piano Music #1' (EMEGO 301)

She brEak WolfX🐺🐺🐺(Bootleg)

Test Dept - Paul Jamrozy's exclusive mix for Industrial Soundtrack For The Urban Decay. www.industrialsoundtrack.com 

Industrial Soundtrack now available on DVD & Blu-Ray www.industrialsoundtrack.com/shop

Zev - Wipe Out - 1982
Test Dept - Gdansk Live London - 1982
The (Hypothetical) Prophets - Back to Siberia - 1980
Thomas Leer and Robert Rental - Attack Decay - 1979
Monte Cazazza - Kick that Habit Man - 1980
DAF - Kebabtraume - 1980
Plus instruments - Freundschaft - 1981
Einstürzende Neubauten  - Autobahn - 1983
Laibach. Opus Dei 1 - Leben Heist Leben - 1987
Cabaret Voltaire - Expect Nothing - 1979
Art Deco (Budapest) - Furcsa Zene - 1983
Throbbing Gristle - Discipline (Live) - 1981
Forward Strategy Group - Industry and Empire - 2012
Perc - A New Brutality - 2012


Industrial Soundtrack For The Urban Decay traces the origins of Industrial music, taking you on a journey through the crumbling industrial cities of Europe to America's thriving avant-garde scene.

Featuring Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, NON, SPK, Test Dept, Clock DVA, Re/Search - V Vale, Z'EV, Click Click, Sordide Sentimental, Hula, In The Nursery, Hands Production / Winterkälte, The Klinik / Dive, Ant Zen, Orphx and Prima Linea

www.industrialsoundtrack.com
www.facebook.com/IndustrialSoundtrackForTheUrbanDecay
https://twitter.com/Industrialsound

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www.facebook.com/pages/Test-Dept/318314904862073
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Test Dept - Exclusive mix for Industrial Soundtrack For The Urban Decay

Track 5 from 'Sound System Persepolis' by Sote. Forthcoming on Diagonal Records [DIAG065]

Sound System Persepolis

Pre-Order

WVTADTSSPXDAMAVAND by Sote from 'Sound System Persepolis' [DIAG065]

on the feet of a wind is a wild assemblage of carbonated synthetic music from Powell and a sister record to ‘flash across the intervals’ and ‘multiply the sides’ — two albums already released in 2020. The record is released via a folder, a new music and film platform created by Powell, Michael Amstad and Marte Eknæs that bundles up music, film, image, text and other forms of madness into folders that are shared/expanded online.

➜ afolder.studio

The release is accompanied by a ‘Hi-sensitive’ film directed by Amstad and Eknæs entitled ‘flares, currents’. The film contains a recombined live version of ‘rise, world unfold’, the musical series that concludes this album.

➜ watch film

a folder is a collection of disorienting works of experimental film, ambiguous texts, and other assorted media set to the most brazenly strange and formlessly mesmerising musical structures of Powell’s career. It’s also a work of artistic assemblage — without fixed notions of time. Tarkovsky once described his filmmaking as “sculpting in time,” and a folder exists in a similar kind of “zone;” it is a project continuously added to, subtracted from, abstracted, and injected into the glut of cyberspace like a slow moving pathogen that refuses to be defined or categorised. Shunning titles in favour of oblique category markers, films like aƒ34 present a mosaic of images of biological forms and sublime landscapes set to super-synthetic, carbonated compositions. All of this signals an artist liberated from the confines of the narrow branding signifiers an electronic musician can find themselves in. While it is aware of its place in cyberspace, this project also connects to something primordial and awesome. “Xenakis talked about creating universes with sound,” says Powell, “and we are all free to create our own worlds in life, art — whatever. This is what happened to me in a way: I have been in this world for three years or something, and I don’t really want to leave. The folder is a refuge.’

powell ⤴︎ a line of flight, 1-3 → aƒ20

Welcome to the 103rd Unmasked Discussion.
Guest: Amélie Ravalec.

Amélie Ravalec is a Parisian, London-based filmmaker, record collector and DJ playing industrial, modern classical, post-punk, hard industrial techno, soundtrack music. She has been directing and producing documentaries independently since 2009: Art & Mind (2019), Industrial Soundtrack For The Urban Decay (2015) and Paris/Berlin: 20 Years Of Underground Techno (2012).
Amélie started the record label Fondation Sonore in 2011, with releases by Ancient Methods, Kareem, Adam X's Mass-X-Odus, Regis, Makaton,
Grovskopa, Terence Fixmer and Oyaarss.

Amelie's experimental and introspective approach will take you into this mesmerizing exploration. A driving mix packed of cinematic sound, deep and enchanting voices, imaginary soundscapes, classical and soundtracks music, all touching the humans' emotions. Enjoy this masterpiece.

Tracklist:

Die Wilde Jagd - Ginsterblut
British Murder Boys – Receiving The Law
Coil - Red Queen
David Lynch - Ghost of Love
Dead Can Dance - The Fatal Impact
Deutsch Nepal - Heartbomb
Current 93 - Invocations of Almost
Raison d’être - Sophrosyne
In The Nursery - Lectern
Hildur Guðnadóttir - Call Me Joker
Leftina Osha - Part II
Coph Nia - Our Lady Of The Stars
Arcana - Emperor Of The Sun
Matt Dunkley - Cycle 15
The Secession - Archangels
The Secession - One Hundred Strings
Clint Mansell - Death is the Road to Awe

Amélie Ravalec - Web Links:
https://www.amelie-ravalec.com/?fbclid=IwAR15uWin50iLu_rdpRvIViMz9lOMP7wYw9bRuogvVLHQmO4V-QE59UIJfVA
https://www.art-mind.co.uk/?fbclid=IwAR3T0F_6TfgmrDhvUSGAwv5WgowWjIwrzOeaFLmduwJX6b5k3GdZbg72pOU
https://www.facebook.com/amelie.ravalec

Unmasked - Web Links:
www.unmaskedtechno.com/
www.facebook.com/unmasked.events/
www.instagram.com/unmasked.london.official/
www.residentadvisor.net/profile/unmasked
www.youtube.com/channel/UCRDYlRi_9_TXs_8OoJ1h3Xg

UNMASKED DISCUSSION 103 | AMÉLIE RAVALEC

on the feet of a wind is a wild assemblage of carbonated synthetic music from Powell and a sister record to ‘flash across the intervals’ and ‘multiply the sides’ — two albums already released in 2020. The record is released via a folder, a new music and film platform created by Powell, Michael Amstad and Marte Eknæs that bundles up music, film, image, text and other forms of madness into folders that are shared/expanded online.

➜ afolder.studio

The release is accompanied by a ‘Hi-sensitive’ film directed by Amstad and Eknæs entitled ‘flares, currents’. The film contains a recombined live version of ‘rise, world unfold’, the musical series that concludes this album. 

➜ watch film


a folder is a collection of disorienting works of experimental film, ambiguous texts, and other assorted media set to the most brazenly strange and formlessly mesmerising musical structures of Powell’s career. It’s also a work of artistic assemblage — without fixed notions of time. Tarkovsky once described his filmmaking as “sculpting in time,” and a folder exists in a similar kind of “zone;” it is a project continuously added to, subtracted from, abstracted, and injected into the glut of cyberspace like a slow moving pathogen that refuses to be defined or categorised. Shunning titles in favour of oblique category markers, films like aƒ34 present a mosaic of images of biological forms and sublime landscapes set to super-synthetic, carbonated compositions. All of this signals an artist liberated from the confines of the narrow branding signifiers an electronic musician can find themselves in. While it is aware of its place in cyberspace, this project also connects to something primordial and awesome. “Xenakis talked about creating universes with sound,” says Powell, “and we are all free to create our own worlds in life, art — whatever. This is what happened to me in a way: I have been in this world for three years or something, and I don’t really want to leave. The folder is a refuge.’

powell ™️ acid always equal to the base → aƒ20

Taken from the album LP + 12" / Digital released as LP + 12" and Digital.

Russell Haswell 'Spezi' (EMEGO 292)

TF #250: Amélie Ravalec [@industrial-soundtrack]

Amélie Ravalec is a filmmaker and DJ, and runs record label @fondation-sonore (https://fondationsonore.bigcartel.com/). She directed three music and art documentaries, Art & Mind (2019), Industrial Soundtrack For The Urban Decay (2015) and Paris/Berlin: 20 Years Of Underground Techno (2012).

https://www.amelie-ravalec.com/

Tracklist  - The Chemistry Of The Imponderable

Einstürzende Neubauten - Alles in Allem
Haus Arafna - Deine Liebe [Durchdringt die Welten]
Deutsch Nepal - In the Other End of the Bottle
Die Wilde Jagd - Sankt Damin
Click Click - What A World
Test Dept - Generous Terms
Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares - Polegnala E Pschenitza (Harvest Chant
From Thrace)
Rukkanor - Beauty and Beauty
UV PØP - Psalm
Konstruktivists - Love Light Eyes
Pure Ground - The Silent Age
MDS51 - Fear Reactor
Matriarchy Roots - More More More More (Courting Insanity)
Der Blaue Reiter - Prologue
Coil - The Sea Priestess
Der Blaue Reiter - Prologue

Artist links:

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Facebook: https://bit.ly/2YtbUaf
Twitter: https://bit.ly/2MzT9PQ

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DISCLAIMER: All tracks are loaded in low quality for promotional purposes only and with purchase links to respect the label and the artists.

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Pawel Tkaczyk