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LP
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BR 157LP
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Gurun Gurun is made up of Tarnovski, Tomás Knoflíček, Federsel, and Ondřej Jezek who took their name from the fictional planet in the old school Slovak children's TV show She Came Out of the Blue Sky. Since the beginning, it has been clear that apprehending their working and reflecting it would be a tough nut to crack. Is this even a band? Do they play compositions or is it all improvised? On the stage, you see four men hunched over tables overflowing with strange objects, hard-to-identify electronic devices, musical and non-musical instruments, and a chaotic tangle of cables, producing slow, constantly developing melodies and a hypnotic atmosphere that works a little like falling through a strange wormhole full of sounds, noises, and soft female vocals, mercilessly sucking you in, forcing you to collapse into yourself and enter a parallel universe. This new album, Uzu Oto, featured the Kyoto-based singer Cuushe and Asuna, a sound artist from Kanazawa, was also created in concert -- each track at a different show. Despite this fact, GG do not consider it a traditional live album. And as this group generally exists independently of the common conception of time, the history of the new recording reaches back to before their previous record, Kon B (HOMEN 074CD, 2015). Attending a Gurun Gurun concert is like taking part in an expedition by a pack of monkeys to explore the wreckage of a spaceship that was shipwrecked a long time ago. Their improvised live sets are a mix of post-club-music deconstruction, metamorphosed acoustic and electronic sounds, generative music, and musique concrète. This is also the spirit of Uzu Oto. No, this is not music to play while you wash the dishes. Or perhaps it is, but you have to factor in the fact that the dishes will become a tangle of roots, threads, ropes, lianas, and spider webs. And that your entire kitchen may well catch on fire. Mixed by Tarnovski. Mastered by Jezek. Artwork by Petr Válek. Edition of 300.
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CD
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HOMEN 074CD
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Czech music pioneers Gurun Gurun follow up their 2010 critically lauded self-titled debut with Kon B. Their work combines guitars, analog synthesizers, turntables, acoustic instruments, and digital effects to span musical spaces ranging from hypno-minimalist atmospheres to warm tones of slow-moving, repetitive melodic stanzas. The quirky nature and melodic structure of their debut was regarded as innately Japanese, which perhaps isn't surprising given that the album featured the unique vocal talents of Moskitoo, Sawako, and Aki Tomita. The quartet of Tomas Knoflicek, Jara Tarnovski, Tomas Prochazka, and Federsel present another supremely collaborative effort with special guests Alexandr Vatagin on cello, Irena and Vojtech Havlovi on alto and tenor viola da gamba, Mikel Etxegarai on drums and percussion, and, last but not least, the wonderful vocal talents of Japanese artists Cuushe, Cokiyu, and Miko. An amazingly weird and wonderful album with stunning artwork by one of the most talented and highly-sought artists around, Angela Deane. Deane's continuing series of mysterious Ghost Photographs plays on questions of human memory and meaning. This idea of the unknown but connected plays beautifully with the fragile lines drawn throughout Kon B, as they play with peculiar experimentalism and gorgeous, child-like, magical melodies.
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