Name: Sunday Vibes April by yasuko yui
Duration: 5 min 4 s
Description: At Rhein riverside 日曜日の気分 デュッセルドルフ ライン川岸で

At Rhein riverside 日曜日の気分 デュッセルドルフ ライン川岸で

Sunday Vibes April

NPVR is the avant garde duo made up of the late Peter Rehberg and Nik Void. Editions Mego is proud to present their second and final release. No this is not some kind of Beatles synthetic AI that raises the dead reconstructed recordings but rather a new album made by the humans and their machines. 

The initial meeting of Rehberg and Void was in London in 2016 and despite or due to their mutual awkwardness found solace and compatibility in the fact that they both had a similar electronic modular set up, along with matching cases to transport all. The idea to collaborate was an obvious and organic process as a means to connect their individual gear together and observe the outcome. The fruits of these initial experiments, recorded in London, resulted in the playful experimentation of their acclaimed 2017 release 33 33 (eMego 251).

Now in 2024 Editions Mego presents the logically titled follow up, 33 34. These sessions were recorded six months after the initial recordings at Peter’s home in Vienna. This was planned out as a mirror city release to the original London recordings. With Peter having access to his full studio set up this time around we encounter a rich audio landscape which organically folds together a variety of musical genres blurring any distinction between these forms so the resulting music hovers as a new cloud of sound. Any musical form, be it industrial, electro-acoustic, ambient, drone and techno all coexist and melt into the other as the ensuing result unveils a hypnotic swarm of divergent sounds (music). When active there were no lines or contexts with NPVR, either between sound or genre within these recordings or live where NPVR were at home playing at a techno club one night and an avant garde venue the next.

The initial session of these recordings was edited by Rehberg and sent to Void to further develop.
Over time the final versions were agreed on and then shelved as other outside projects took over. The awkwardness had been surmounted and the two had become close friends. NPVR performed at a range of venues such as Tresor, Sutton House, Corsica, Blitz, Paris GRM #Focus2, LEV Festival and Rigas Skanumezs Festival. Following Rehberg’s untimely passing Void had difficulty listening back to the sessions but eventually thought it fit to complete and release this album, of which even the artwork (like 33 33, an image from Zurich photographer, Georg Gatsas) had been decided upon prior to Rehberg parting ways. 

There is an unmistakable joy to these recordings. One encounters an enthralling exploration of their chosen machines which conveys the excitement of what can be randomly conjured when people speak through such devices. There is no grand statement or argument here, just the sheer thrill of creation and the recorded results of random encounters. The art of collaboration was always a mainstay of Rehberg’s practice from the advent of the MEGO adventure. Rehberg & Bauer was an initial collaboration with former business partner Ramon Bauer. Even at this stage one can hear a relaxed sense of delight in the sheer discovery of sound.

A mix made for the Wire magazine following the release of 33 33 hints at the freedom that comes with endless urge for exploration and discovery. Abstract tracks from Z'EV. Jérôme Noetinger and Jung An Tagen are included alongside British stalwarts The Fall and New Order. There were no lines between pop / academic / underground or mainstream in Rehberg’s world. All of it sat at the same table. It is just matter in the atmosphere, like the diverse exploration found in these recordings that comprise 33 34.

33 34

Raw to the Core

NPVR 'Raw to the Core' (EMEGO312)

In the early days of Mego prior to it’s transformation into Editions Mego a most unexpected release appeared amongst the radical roster. Out of all the twisted hard drive activity from PITA, General Magic, Farmers Manual etc appeared a very different kind of release. One made from a computer, but one with a softer atmosphere, cloud-like in sonic shape and even containing discernible melodies (!). This was the debut release from Japanese artist Tujiko Noriko which not only launched her career to a larger audience but opened the doors of Editions Mego to a broader range of experimental musical forms.

Noriko’s particular synthesis of electronic abstraction, melody, voice and atmosphere has few peers as sound gently circles her mystical words morphing into a succession of emotive aural experiments framed as songs.

Noriko’s evolution since her debut Mego release has seen further solo works alongside collaborations as well as a shift into cinema, both acting and as director. 

On »Crépuscule« one can hear the influence the film medium has had on her music as visual insignia are invoked in the evocative audio at hand. Instrumental interludes further conjure a film landscape alongside the titles which also reiterate the cinematic form. 

This is synthetic music with a deep human presence. The mind of a human captured wandering the fantastic realms of the internal sphere is exquisitely rendered through machines which usually prompt one to disfigure such humanistic tendencies. The warmth, serenity and dream-like environment that Noriko conjures from her tools is what makes her such a unique and outstanding artist and »Crépuscule« is an epic testament to these powers.

The title »Crépuscule« perfectly encapsulates the somnambulant nature of the music where the nocturnal shifts evoke a broad sense of calm. »Crépuscule I« features a selection of shorter ‘songs’ whilst »Crépuscule II« allows more room for these songs / moods to breathe with only three songs running at broader longer duration. »Crépuscule« allows the listener to view the world through Noriko’s eyes. With her cunning ability to humanise machines a world of calm wonder is allowed to take focus in the frame.

Available as 2CD, digital and double-cassette. The later format by request of Noriko as it was this format she flung her debut mego demo onto Peter in Tokyo many moons ago.

Crépuscule I & II

Fossil Words

Tujiko Noriko 'Fossil Words' (EMEGO307)

»grain« is the third Innode release following on from »Gridshifter« in 2013 and »syn« in 2021.

A new methodology to make the album is applied yet again from the trio of Bernhard Breuer, Steven Hess and Stefan Németh. The approach is more an anti approach where the trio let the process of creation itself steer the development of the recording, without any prior conceptual agenda.

Irregular rhythmic patterns often served as the initial springboard for each piece with Breuer creating a loop either by playing drums or with the aid of a modelling percussion synthesizer. The results often bypass existing formulaic grids. The outfit embraced these anti-precision steps building shapes around the tarnished templates.

The process of building upon the core structures laid forth alters throughout. In the case of »Splitter« you can hear an example of Bernhard´s core loops dominating a skeletal audio sphere. The title of the track »Impactopium« reflects the process of its construction being a conglomeration of individual titles meshed into a whole. The audio is a non-linear compendium of several fragments of individual elements. A conscious method of exploring a more decentralised architecture saw three disparate elements layered randomly on top of each other with some synths added as a sonic seasoning at the later stages.

Elsewhere sonic elements are restructured in unusual ways. One member's contribution is completely stripped away, quiet sounds captured with contact mics are highly amplified, the last track introduces twisted themes of the first track.

The title »grain« refers to the roughness resulting from these explorations. It also takes note of the term grain as used in analogue photography or in the case of audio as a distorted signal, or »noise.« All of these elements, normally eschewed, are here embraced as a thematic thread to instigate the exploratory proceedings.

This is a playbox of inventiveness, a hall of mirrors and an endless search for unusual tactics and fresh results.

Tackling the initial loop tracks from a wide variety of strategic approaches Innode has concocted a strangely cohesive work. From sparse source material to heavy overdubs of overdubs »grain« is a uplifting collection of works from this relentlessly curious and exploratory Austrian outfit. Humans make the work but the random embracing of unexpected processes means the gentleman of the outfit is not fully ruling what becomes of these works.

grain

Splitter

Innode 'Splitter' (EMEGO311)

Directions Out Of Town is the latest and teased as (possibly) the last LP by DIY electronic abstract pop wizard Finlay Shakespeare.

Directions Out Of Town is a fierce mix of headstrong pop bangers. Fact. There is simply no one else traversing the field that Shakespeare is exploring. It can be lonely in the desert, Simon says. Lyrically, Directions Out Of Town is dealing with loss; personally, geographically, politically, culturally - a general decay of everything.

This new record is heavily inspired by structural film where the results unravel a method where metaphor is removed from the act of sound synthesis, production and mix of the tracks. Fiercely independent and brimming with integrity this is a deeply effective journey through machines of the human experience.

The track titles are telling: ‘Away’, ‘Get’, ‘Direction’, ‘I go for a walk’, etc. This is sentiment via complex synthesis wrung through patterns of pop. One also finds ways out that only turn out to be false/untrue. “I essentially don’t know where I belong any more. This record is the precursor to that.”

What is ostensibly an electro pop record reveals a multitude of layers and depth as one man and his machines wrestle with the reality of this tangled matrix. If the charts had brains this would be album of the year.

Finlay Shakespeare is an electronic musician working in the UK. His fascination for synthesized sound was born out of his parents’ record collection, leading him to explore the electronic music of decades past throughout his teenage years. While starting to write and record his own tracks, he also began learning analogue electronics, which led him to design and build his own equipment. To date, he has released work on Editions Mego, Superpang, and his own GOTO Records.

Directions Out Of Town

Face Value (Trio Mandala)

Finlay Shakespeare 'Face Value (Trio Mandala)' (EMEGO310)

Klara Lewis’ latest offering is undoubtedly a heartfelt tribute to her friend, mentor and former label boss, Peter Rehberg. 

The opening track Thankful resides as a direct tribute to the track recorded under his PITA moniker, the timeless ‘Track 3’. A track of which the impact has been vast and deep, still rattling the walls of the now enormous worldwide experimental electronic scene. Countless new youth carve and project wildly distorted melodic digital matter which all falls back with a knowing or unknowing wink back to this original ground zero monster. Klara’s take on this is one that resides as a tribute to Rehberg with a cascading emotional melody gradually succumbing to a euphoric digital abyss. Thankful also comes across as a farewell gesture to her deceased friend with its beautiful, almost funerale tone. The abrupt ending is not only a method Rehberg would have relished but also a signifier of a life suddenly cut short. 

Lewis was 21 when her first album Ett was released by Editions Mego in 2014. Now at 31 years of age Editions Mego is very proud to present Thankful, a profoundly mature and emotional peak in Lewis’ career thus far.

The track Ukulele 1 is another tender tribute within an album made by a human, utilising contemporary technology with absolute sincerity, surprise twists and sublime emotion. The sound of the instrument in the title gently loops and deconstructs in a recording replete with the sound of the room it is recorded in. A human element appears at exactly the point an increasingly inhuman approach is becoming the forced raison d'etre today. Top!

One of Peter’s many repeated phrases was the word ‘top’. One he used at any occasion to agree with a vast array of subjects. With this musical tribute to Rehberg’s favourite phrase, Lewis conjures a short blast of mutant acid techno which shrivels and thrives as much as it lives and dies. 

Following Top we have the reflective and deeply moving 4U. No words. Just sounds. As it was. And lives on. 

Ukulele 2 sits at the end, as an epilogue of sorts, fashioning itself as an ouroboros with the return of the initial methodology of the previous track Thankful (track 3 tribute). This time around the sublime melody of the previous Ukulele 1 plays out in returnal as it is gently swarmed by all manner of digital play. 

Thankful is an emotionally considered and precise homage to the methodology and spirit of Peter Rehberg. A new work which inhabits the spirit for what this was written for and the general guise devised with the launch of the original MEGO label many moons ago.

Thankful

Klara Lewis 'Top' (EMEGO313)

Editions Mego presents Bosko, landing exactly 30 years after the initial General Magic flights into the fantastic; the legendary first Mego release, a collaboration with Pita whereby all sounds were harnessed from the buzzing, drinking, humming sounds of fridges [MEGO 001 General Magic & Pita] and a 12” with Elin called Die Mondlandung (The Moon Landing) [MEGO 002] which embarked on a minimal techno template so austere and strange it was one of the historic progenitors of austere and wonky rhythms alongside Sakho and other European explorers.

The initial return of the playful and mystical Austrian outfit General Magic came with the 20th year anniversary vinyl reissue of their classic debut Frantz [eMEGO 010]. A record so audacious and playful it still baffles as much as it entertains. At some point whilst working on this reissue GM’s Ramon Bauer and Andi Pieper were spurred on to rummage around with ideas and tools once more and after more than two decades of inactivity sonic sorcery was conjured once again. Live shows in honour of Peter Rehberg were performed in Vienna and London. Softbop, a limited risograph collaboration with Tina Frank came with the first new recordings as a digital download came out discreetly online. The first full length album following Rechenkönig in 2000 [MEGO 032] “Nein Aber Ja” released in 2023 on Finlay Shakespeare’s GOTO Records on CD and cassette. An ongoing series of mix tapes online further highlights their interests encapsulating a new found angle on electronic mayhem. All of these elements retain the wildly eclectic and ecstatic glow that only they can harness and hand out to an unprepared world.

Now, we have General Magic’s second official full length comeback recording, Bosko. The new album is initially notable prior to the needle hitting the wax or the cursor identifying a track due to the artwork. Made by long term collaborator Tina Frank, this is Frank’s first analogue artwork, with a painting of a happy/nervous machine thing hovering in a landscape of no discernible identity. It’s quasi science fiction hovering amongst the potential for fun. Suited to the music? Natürlich.

Bosko sees Bauer and Pieper update and reframe their original investigations with a fresh supply of head scratching, heart racing tunes that hit the inexplicable with a wild mesh of drums, pianos, synthetic voices and all manner of immaterial sonic play. Startling sonics shock the ears on Club Duchamp which sounds like a conversation between synthetic adult ants in an environment still in development. Elfer features vocals supplied by a female-ish voice who, whilst grappling melody, has trouble executing a firm identity. Noorenhalt catapults along a mainframe of syncopation so unwieldy it feels like the voice, which is utterly alien, provides the only comfort. Seite 5 inhabits a fuzzy zone where a synthetic Horn of Jericho type ambience competes with rhythms never quite sure of who they are. Rise of the Ombré raises the spectral dread. Is this Science Fact? Absolutely nothing within Bosko is predictable.

The amount of change in the miasma of existence and the things we touch in order to make things has shifted so exponentially we are at the point where minds are starting to glaze over. All of this makes the return of the always original, always surprising, always fresh and exciting General Magic totally in tune with the artificial intelligent apocalyptic age we currently inhabit. The tools may have changed but the wonderfully warped gaze of Bosko offers a fresh new vision of perplexing funk and robotic punk.

Bosko

Seite 5

General Magic 'Seite 5' (EMEGO314)

Peter Rehberg is known for his pioneering electronic work with computer software which over time evolved into a modular set up alongside running MEGO and then Editions Mego labels.

Rehberg was a prolific collaborator, with other musicians and with contemporary dance and theatre productions, most notably with French artist and choreographer, Gisèle Vienne with whom he created a series of soundtracks from Showroomdummies, released under the name DACM in 2002 (Showroomdummies MEGO 056), to Crowd in 2017. A collection of Rehberg’s solo works for Vienne was released in 2008 (Work for GV 2004-2008 EMEGO 092). The outfit KTL, with Stephen O’Malley, was initiated by Gisèle Vienne for her work Kindertotenlieder and subsequently made a series of soundtracks for Vienne’s works branching off into a prolific series of live shows. The work Rehberg did for theatre and performance teased out aspects of his practice one may not have encountered in his own solo work as PITA or that of collaborations with other musicians.

Editions Mego is proud to present a previously unreleased theatre soundtrack made for Icelandic choreographer Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir, whom Rehberg had a decade long collaboration with until his untimely passing in 2021. The original composition for Liminal States was created by Rehberg for the performance Pervasive Magnetic Stimuli in 2018 and then revisited as a catalyst for the concepts behind Liminal States. This work is based on an ongoing artistic research conducted by the choreographer into altered states of perception through phenomenological embodiment. It is the last in a trilogy dealing with the notion of larger forces that act on us beyond our conscious mind. The trilogy consists of Pervasive Magnetic Stimuli (2018), Boundless Ominous Fields (2024) and now Liminal States (2024).

Rehberg's score for Liminal States is a vast canvas of spectral ambience at once tangible and unfathomable in its constantly shapeshifting lysergic dread. The results are a psychological journey through the mental effects of sound on space and subsequently the mind. The first part presents cascading waves of shimmering electronics laying the groundwork for the second part where the psychological illusion splinters into all manner of sonic effects taking the listener on a deep mental voyage. If references are witnessed the late period long form hallucinatory works of Coil, such as Time Machines and Constant shallowness leads to evil, are amongst a similar mind message delivered here. Unlike any other release in Rehberg’s output Liminal States is a single long form work which, despite the form, retains Rehberg’s idiosyncratic sound vision.

Guðjónsdóttir and Rehberg’s collaboration blurs that relationship into a greater force which truly enables the theme of liminal states to unfold in a brave new fashion. Rich in timbre and sonic invention this is powerful work easily holding its own outside of the intended performance whilst still complimenting the missions statement entirely. This profound collaboration has the cumulative effect where the concept and soundtrack are one and may be one of the strongest works in the entire Rehberg canon.

Liminal States

Liminal States (Excerpt)

Peter Rehberg 'Liminal States' (EMEGO315) - Excerpt

A remix album can be one of many things; a homage to the original material, a deconstruction/reconstruction of the original material or as found here on Klara Lewis’ Thankful Remixes a deeply moving and soulful exploration of the sounds and ideas located within the original works. All participants are a part of Lewis’ Swedish network and were invited to participate, as peers and as friends.

The gifted multi-instrumentalist Pelle Westlin launches proceedings with an intimate and moving take on the track 4U reworking the original emotional reverse tape work into a deeply affecting piece for acoustic guitar, clarinet and voice. Lewis and Westlins paths crossed as teenagers in Uppsala when they were both starting out as musicians and Lewis has since been inspired by Westlins unique fragile tone.

Baba Stiltzs’ pivot from House Music to minimal and immediate guitar and vocals sparked Lewis curiosity and after Stiltz invited Lewis to remix his track “Stockholm” earlier this year Lewis couldn’t wait to return the invitation. Stiltz presents another guitar work, one which extends the original material to a unique untethered territory. This cover of the original Thankful is laid bare as the chords found in this work are subtly strummed amongst discreet ambience.

The legendary Swedish producer Peder Mannerfelt radically switches gears with his ecstasy ladden dancefloor take on the track Top. Ten years ago Mannerfelt invited Lewis to release an EP on his label and they have since been collaborators and friends. Mannerfelts’ life affirming experimental techno is a constant inspiration for Lewis.

A more recent appearance on the Stockholm scene is that of Lokalfrågan, a duo between artist rip ME (Em Silén) and electronic musician bas bleau (Nora Pollak). Lewis describes them as an intimate and atmospheric bedroom band and that is apparent here with their minimal and beautiful take on 4U. To compare and contrast the two versions of this track on this remix album is also a delight lending as they do to the open ended nature of the original compositions.

The final contribution is from Erik Enocksson, another of Lewis favourites. Enockssons’ music for the films “Farväl Falkenberg” and ”Man Tänker Sitt” soundtracked Lewis teens in Uppsala. Enocksson brings his signature euphoric melancholy with an effortlessly emotional take on Thankful. Enockssons' version is a moving meld of the original composition with stark edits and powerfully fragile acoustic guitar and field recordings.

The theme of the original Thankful LP was a sincere and heartfelt tribute to her friend and label mentor Peter Rehberg. With this follow up of collaborations Klara extends the gesture with an invitation to her immediate community of musicians and friends. The offer to rework the original material is also a means to show gratitude to the work and inspiration each have provided to Lewis’ own vision. Thankful once again showcases a variety of deeply affecting tracks as tributes and expands warmly on the original material.

Thankful Remixes

4U - Lokalfrågan Remix

Klara Lewis '4U - Lokalfrågan Remix' (EMEGO313RMX)

Yasuko Yui is a contemporary music, electroacoustic, electronic music composer. As a pianist, she plays free Improvisation, contemporary music, experimental music. based in Düsseldorf Germany.

Sunday Vibes April

yasuko yui

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