Untitled #21

Album, OKVLT009, 30th June 2021

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French musicians Alban Mercier(Officium) and Eric Desjeux (Tzii) team up after years of friendship for a 9-tracks collaborative album. Ltd. edition of 70 pro-dubbed tapes and risoprinted cover.

Mixed & mastered by Tioma Tchoulanov. 
Artwork & design by Gaëtan Bizien.
https://okvlt.bandcamp.com/album/watching-myself-forget-with-no-resistance

○ Officium & Tzii — Space Time Beyond

From Endurance's Long-Term Memory, out now on tape and digital:
https://muzaneditions.bandcamp.com/album/long-term-memory

Endurance - Expanding Repetition

'A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth' is available at https://blankforms.org/publication/kazuki-tomokawa-a-string-of-paper-cranes-clenched-between-my-teeth-lp/, and as part of the Kazuki Tomokawa CD box set at
https://blankforms.org/publication/kazuki-tomokawa-kazuki-tomokawa-1975-1977/.

In a generation of musicians that came of age in postwar Japan, Kazuki Tomokawa stands as a pioneer of radical individualism, with a sound marked by shocking intimacy and blistering honesty. In his third album, A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth, released by Harvest Records in 1977, Tomokawa creeps “ever more inward,” as Kiichi Takahara writes in the record’s original introductory text—embracing an attitude pervasive amongst musicians of the time who interrogated the prosaic and the profound alike, eschewing politics and society in favor of an “attitude of total self-containment.”

Tomokawa recorded the album over the course of a month—from August 24 to September 25, 1977—at Tokyo’s famed Onkio Haus studio in the bustling Ginza district. The arrangements, accordingly, are amped up: paired with the Black Panther Orchestra, Tomokawa’s “screaming philosopher” vocals find their match with the orchestra’s electric guitar, bass, piano, tuba, and ground-thumping drums played by the Brain Police’s Toshi Ishizuka—who appears on Tomokawa’s first three records and remains his collaborator to this day.

“This is Kazuki Tomokawa in the flesh,” concludes Takahara. A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth is, in Tomokawa’s uncanny way, able to cut through facade and artifice in pursuit of truth. “You call that life?” he heckles, exhausted by the melodrama and nihilism of youth counterculture, “try saying you’re alive!”

Kazuki Tomokawa (b. 1950) is a prolific singer-songwriter from Hachiryu Village (now the town of Mitane) in the Akita Prefecture area of northern Japan. Since his first release in 1975, he has recorded more than thirty albums. The 2010 documentary about his life, La Faute des Fleurs, won the Sound & Vision award at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, and that same year saw the Japanese release of the book Dreams Die Vigorously Day by Day, a collection of his lyrics spanning forty years. His most recent albums are Vengeance Bourbon (2014) and Gleaming Crayon (2016), both on the Modest Launch label.

Kazuki Tomokawa - Try Saying You're Alive!

Prism Architecture

Falling Through Graves And Houses

shouting at nuance

Shouting at Nuance

problematic interior 3

Splash

0223 22 Lv 1 L10 Swm I Ii Mini Arg B

BILL LASWELL & PETE NAMLOOK 'Outland' 6CD Boxset (CSR327BX)

The 'Outland' album series was a collaborative endeavour by the visionary US bassist-producer Bill Laswell and the late German musician Peter Namlook that pushed the boundaries of dark ambient and electronic music. 

Spanning five albums released over a thirteen year period from 1994, this new boxset serves as a testament to the creative synergy between the two masterminds.

At the time the duo joined forces, the New York-based Laswell was already a famous producer with a massive client list that included cutting-edge rock, pop, funk, jazz and electronic artists, but he had also founded the Axiom label in 1989 and been responsible for groundbreaking work in genres that included ambient, dub and world music. Namlook was recognised as a pioneering figure in the ambient techno scene, having founded the label FAX +49-69/450464 in his native Frankfurt in 1992.

'Outland' became a fusion of their individual musical sensibilities that resulted in a unique set of releases. At the heart of the series is an exploration of sound as a vehicle for emotion and contemplation, with Laswell's signature basslines and experimental soundscapes interweaving seamlessly with Namlook's ethereal textures and intricate sonic layering. Each album is characterised by a sense of expansiveness, taking listeners on a voyage through rarely charted sonic dimensions. All have the ability to evoke a wide range of emotions and have their own distinctive sonic palette, ranging from ambient tranquility to cosmic intensity.

'Outland' has endured as an influential touchstone, its impact felt not only in its captivating soundscapes but also in its invitation to engage in deep introspection and cosmic contemplation. With each album, the duo beckoned listeners to transcend the mundane and embark on a sonic voyage into the extraordinary, where sound becomes a conduit for spiritual and artistic expression.

The lavish matte-finish boxset opens to the 5 "Outland" albums in separate matte sleeves, with all-new designsby Abby Helasdottir (Gydja), and all audio completely remastered by Martin Bowes (The Cage). This box also contains a new addition to the OUTLAND series - an album of dense, bass space drone by Bill Laswell, entitled "Blackland". The boxset also contains an exclusive card with an essay about the project written by BIll Laswell, July 2023.

Order 6CD Box: https://coldspring.co.uk/csr327bx

https://coldspring.bandcamp.com/album/outland

Listen: https://soundcloud.com/coldspring/sets/outland

Digital: https://orcd.co/csr327bx

Out 13 October 2023.

BILL LASWELL & PETE NAMLOOK - Outland 1 - From The Earth To The Ceiling - Part 1

BUY LINK

RUINS OF THE DAMNED

Toull-Karr

Desertshores (Memorial Mix) is an exclusive remix of the track from 'Desertshores  / The Final Report' double album release. The track is a gathering of the voices of thirty five of Sleazy's friends and acquaintances. The lyrics are simply "Meet me On The Desertshore". A full list of contributors is here > http://127.0.0.1:53932/industrialrecords/industrialrecords/xtg-desertshores.html

Promo Videos:
https://vimeo.com/49072037 
https://vimeo.com/49072036
Released on Industrial Records 26th November 2012.

Desertshore

Desertshores (Memorial Mix)

Buy Album Here

Vlada BC

Framework 3 (arbitrary11)
1, 2 / Vinyl side A 

https://www.arbitraryproject.com/Framework-3

Framework 3 - side A (arbitrary11)

Ústí Údolí

Ambient / Field Recordings / Synth / Drone / Noise / Experimental

Ústí Údolí

rlung

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