ALIEN TRANSISTOR - Forced Exposure

$24.00 IN STOCK

Fuchs is a band that never was. It vanished as quickly as it appeared in the picture. In 2005, Kante singer and guitarist Peter Thiessen travelled to Weilheim to visit Markus and Micha Acher in their studio, where they were joined, among others, by Notwist-affiliated musicians like Cico Beck, Robert Klinger, Carl Oesterhelt, and Stefan Schreiber. Spirits were high, but schedules were full: after a week of improvised sessions, everyone went their own way. The recordings gathered dust until Markus Acher found them again in 2021 while cleaning out his studio. After carefully re-evaluating the rough mixes, the musicians decided to finally release them. The resulting album comprises six tracks that musically draw on jazz, aesthetically lean on dub techniques and ideologically pick up on krautrock: there's no solos to be heard on this record, just a few equally skilled and open-minded musicians listening to each other carefully, providing each other with space in which to unfold. Fuchs is a document of egos dissolving in a collective spirit. Thiessen and the Acher brothers met in the 1990s and bonded not only over their shared background in hardcore music and the DIY ethos in which it was rooted, but also over their love for jazz. Thiessen invited Micha Acher to join his band Kante on flügelhorn in 2004 for a tour that saw the expanded group play unusual encores after the official concert was over. The Acher brothers didn't have to ask twice when they invited him for a visit in Weilheim to further explore their mutual interests in a studio setting. Between immersing themselves in books by the photographer Leonore Mau, cooking together and drinking the occasional fruit schnapps, the trio went into the studio. Thiessen considers the resulting recording sessions to be a kind of attempt at musically translating their conversations during those days. They discussed different approaches to jazz, whether sampling and musical mis-citations can unlock ecstatic potentials and the possible parallels between syncretistic religions and pop music. The six pieces on Fuchs are chock-full of exactly these moments. When at one instant, the players seem to disperse and improvise freely, they always meet again on common ground a short time later, continuing on their way together. There are no conventions or even previous agreements that guide them, just a shared will to explore a vast range of curious sounds and unusual rhythms together as a truly unified constellation of very different musicians. Silk-screen artwork; includes download code; edition of 500.

$33.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 8/5/2022

Alien Transistor present Alien Parade Japan, a joyous double-album compilation of groups from Japan's indie-pop and avant-garde undergrounds, all of which feature brass or woodwind instruments as part of their line-up. Compiled by Markus Acher (Alien Transistor, The Notwist, Hochzeitskapelle) with plenty of support and help from his Spirit Fest bandmate, Saya (also of Tenniscoats), it features some familiar names -- Tenniscoats, naturally, but also Zayaendo, Tori Kudo's Maher Shalal Hash Baz -- alongside lesser-known groups like Biobiopatata, Mitamurakandadan?, Kourakuen, Sekifu, and Noah Lewis Mahlon's Taits, amongst many others. The collection of songs here rests upon a simple question, and an interesting parallel: Why do so many groups from Japan include brass and woodwind, and how closely does this echo the scene that Acher is involved with in Munich? The idea was formulated in Acher's mind after one of his groups, Hochzeitskapelle, had been invited by Saya to Japan in 2019, to take part in the Alien Parade Japan tour. A wide variety is reflected in the twenty-two songs on Alien Parade Japan, which flits from the pastoral melody of Maher Shalal Hash Baz's "Crossin The Tama River", through the tenderness of Various Sighhorns's "people have called them flowers", to the folksy lament of Gratin Carnival's "Just Watching". Alien Parade Japan reaches further afield, too, drawing in some groups, like Hose, Fuigo, and popo, that feature musicians like Toshihiro Koike, Masafumi Ezaki, and Taku Unami, who may be better known for their experimental and improvised releases on labels like ftarri and Erstwhile. It also looks back to material recorded in the 1990s -- the swinging slide guitars and sax/tuba duet of Strada's "Swamp", from 1998, and Compostela's energetic, rousing "ghhgh", from 1990. Both pieces were written by, and feature, saxophonist Kanji Nakao; Compostela's membership also included late saxophonist Masami Shinoda, who was also part of such storied Japanese groups as Pungo, A-Musik, Orquestra Del Viento, Ché-SHIZU, and the fiery free jazz outfit, Seikatsu Kōjyō Iinkai. Groups like Compostela help to draw some through-lines to the aesthetics of chindon'ya, a type of Japanese marching band made up of costumed street performers who advertise businesses. Alien Parade Japan weaves all of this together -- chindon'ya; jazz; indie-pop; psych-folk; big band -- into one beautiful, big tapestry of gorgeous melody, sweetness, and melancholy, with plenty of creative fraying at its edges. A wonderfully coherent collection of some of the most playful and elated music you're likely to hear this year. Also features Pascals, Tail, Noahlewis' Mahlon Taits, K`DLOKK, Petit Daon, NRQ, and Satomi Endo. Silk-screen artwork; edition of 500.

$28.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Sounds like supergroup. Rarely have outstanding figures of such a variety of musical styles collaborated on one album to pay homage to a nearly forgotten artist, one of the few black Beatnik poets, Bob Kaufman. All Those Streets I Must Find Cities For by The Plastik Beatniks is an attempt to acoustically reanimate Bob Kaufman, to return the beat to him in a transatlantic collaboration. It is a shimmering psychedelic, at times jazzy concept album, sometimes reminiscent of krautrock or hip-hop, about a beat-era poet who was as great as he was forgotten. It takes spoken word to a new level, as a transatlantic showcase of musical avant-gardes and a joyful "sound archaeology" of modernity, in which the tracks of the "Plastik Beatniks" meet the best voices of America. The 12 wildly different songs and audio collages, on the transatlantically-produced album, All the Streets I Must Find Cities For, is based on lyrics by beat author Bob Kaufman. They were originally part of the radio play Thank God for Beatniks, for which author Andreas Ammer (Ammer & Einheit), Notwist's Markus Acher and Micha Acher and loop maker Leo Hopfinger (LeRoy) formed The Plastik Beatniks. On the eastern side of the Atlantic they composed music and crafted soundscapes. On the west side of the ocean, they asked three of the most renowned singers, activists and producers in the US to recite or sing Bob Kaufman's poetry. Punk-pop icon Patti Smith immediately signed on to read Kaufman's poem "Ginsberg (For Allen)". Free jazz vocalist Moor Mother passionately performed Bob Kaufman's "War Memoir". American jazz clarinetist, composer, singer and "International Anthem" labelmate Angel Bat Dawid, a legitimate successor to Sun Ra, polyphonically read and sang such poems as "The Sun is a Negroe" and "West Coast Sound 1956" and included some clarinet solos on top. Also on the album, Bob Kaufman himself recites his previously unknown poems "Hollywood Beat", "Would You Wear My Eyes", and the "Jail Poem," "All Those Streets I Must Find Cities For". Beat chronicler Raymond Foye, who still lives at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, contributed an interview he conducted with late beatnik Allen Ginsberg about Bob Kaufman. Completing the circle was hip-hop artist Adam "DoseOne" (13&God), who once gave Markus Acher a well-thumbed volume of Bob Kaufman, whom he admired. He contributed some raps. Thus 12 tracks emerged, as diverse as the artists, poets and musicians who contributed to it. More than an album. An epitaph. A work for the eternity of beat. Silk-screen artwork; includes download code.

$15.50 IN STOCK

Following their recent solo releases Soniscope (Dauw) and Cells #5 (SAUNA 064CS), Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist Midori Hirano and Tokyo based string experimentalist Atsuko Hatano have teamed up for their first collaborative full-length: Water Ladder. An intense, multilayered continuation of earlier collaborations (Atsuko was featured on Midori's debut LP back in 2006), the foundation for this new collaborative album was laid when they shared stages in Berlin (Ausland) and Japan in 2019. Working remotely at first, they later recorded parts of the album in Nara's snoihouse (using omnidirectional polyhedral speakers). "As we rallied back and forth with our recordings in the process of creating this album, unanticipated fluctuations and irregularities emerged, coming together into a kind of music with a unique resilience and buoyancy that cannot be confined to existing molds. It was as though we had built a Water Ladder to bridge the gap between us," explains prolific composer and viola player Atsuko Hatano, who's been busy recording solo and with colleagues such as Jim O'Rourke, Eiko Ishibashi, Mocky, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, Takeo Toyama, and Anzu Suhara (Asa-chang and Junrei). Kyoto-born, Berlin-based Midori Hirano, who's also been releasing music under her MimiCof moniker, adds multiple instruments to the ever-changing sonic landscapes of Water Ladder -- an album defined by suspenseful and seemingly suspended compositions that often feel like floating in midair, a sensation the musicians compare to "that distinctive feeling you get from riding a high-speed elevator, where you can no longer tell whether you're going up or down." Devoid of birdsong, the late summer air is nevertheless full of buzzing, whirring, hissing sounds on foreboding album opener "Summer Noise," a cinematic intro with slow-moving piano chords and an ominous build-up over the course of its sprawling eight minutes. Elsewhere, sudden bursts of viola cut through nighttime peace ("Nocturnal Awakening"), followed by "Cotton Sphere" -- which makes the sensation of floating in midair complete: harmonies and melodies rise and form to fall apart again. Whereas the title track truly explodes half-way in, the final "Cascade" brings closure to the electro-acoustic six-track collection: the floating continues. "Water cannot retain its form on its own, and can take any shape as effected by external forces. Its movements cannot be captured by eyesight alone: A body of water that appears to be crashing down into a deep, bottomless waterfall could actually be rising up very slowly into midair," says Atsuko. "This is an invitation for you to cross the ever-transforming Water Ladder built between Midori and myself."

$23.50 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes download code. Edition of 300. Following their recent solo releases Soniscope (Dauw) and Cells #5 (SAUNA 064CS), Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist Midori Hirano and Tokyo based string experimentalist Atsuko Hatano have teamed up for their first collaborative full-length: Water Ladder. An intense, multilayered continuation of earlier collaborations (Atsuko was featured on Midori's debut LP back in 2006), the foundation for this new collaborative album was laid when they shared stages in Berlin (Ausland) and Japan in 2019. Working remotely at first, they later recorded parts of the album in Nara's snoihouse (using omnidirectional polyhedral speakers). "As we rallied back and forth with our recordings in the process of creating this album, unanticipated fluctuations and irregularities emerged, coming together into a kind of music with a unique resilience and buoyancy that cannot be confined to existing molds. It was as though we had built a Water Ladder to bridge the gap between us," explains prolific composer and viola player Atsuko Hatano, who's been busy recording solo and with colleagues such as Jim O'Rourke, Eiko Ishibashi, Mocky, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, Takeo Toyama, and Anzu Suhara (Asa-chang and Junrei). Kyoto-born, Berlin-based Midori Hirano, who's also been releasing music under her MimiCof moniker, adds multiple instruments to the ever-changing sonic landscapes of Water Ladder -- an album defined by suspenseful and seemingly suspended compositions that often feel like floating in midair, a sensation the musicians compare to "that distinctive feeling you get from riding a high-speed elevator, where you can no longer tell whether you're going up or down." Devoid of birdsong, the late summer air is nevertheless full of buzzing, whirring, hissing sounds on foreboding album opener "Summer Noise," a cinematic intro with slow-moving piano chords and an ominous build-up over the course of its sprawling eight minutes. Elsewhere, sudden bursts of viola cut through nighttime peace ("Nocturnal Awakening"), followed by "Cotton Sphere" -- which makes the sensation of floating in midair complete: harmonies and melodies rise and form to fall apart again. Whereas the title track truly explodes half-way in, the final "Cascade" brings closure to the electro-acoustic six-track collection: the floating continues. "Water cannot retain its form on its own, and can take any shape as effected by external forces. Its movements cannot be captured by eyesight alone: A body of water that appears to be crashing down into a deep, bottomless waterfall could actually be rising up very slowly into midair," says Atsuko. "This is an invitation for you to cross the ever-transforming Water Ladder built between Midori and myself."

$18.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

A quick, spontané voyage to the French Riviera ca. 1968, good times long before things went south, Organi's Parlez-vous Français? is a woozy, tripping, soothing sojourn: DIY dream pop, hazy psychedelia, blurred-but-steady beats dripping down the golden boulevard, complete with mystical chants, a dash of half-remembered Franglais that goes down like some vintage eau-de-vie. There's a fine massage waiting behind those venetian blinds. Pay half an hour, you'll be relaxed and revived after 22 minutes. Très irrésistible when streamed, Organi's haunting, hard-boiled French lesson is even better with that classique vinyl crackle in the mix. Following the cinematic title skit with its bass loop appendix, Oakland-based producer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Walti (and his songwriting partner Maryam) aka Organi invites singer Jessica Bailiff along for the majestic entrée, an interpretation of Philamore Lincoln's 1970 tune "The North Wind Blew South", adding anticon. heavyweights Jel and Odd Nosdam on synths and bass for à la mode enhancements and additional bric-à- brac. Whereas the theme tune "Organi" comes with big drums, big organ, seductive overtones, pure hypnosis, "Whispers" is the soundtrack to some kind of psychedelic campfire tableau vivant: all brumeux, hazy, with spare guitar, Gauloises or Gitanes dangling, a glass of Bordeaux waiting on the dusty old amp, and featuring guest vocalists Yea-Ming Chen and Susy Borhan. It gets even more Parisienne after that: a French woman just knows how to look classic, even when all she's got is some attitude, a ramshackle tambourine, a craving for old Sukia weirdness and those budget-couture "4 Dolla Jeans"... Clearly in love with analog equipment, Organi turn The Vaselines' "Slushy" into a slow- moving, bottomless lullaby -- "... you'll never miss what you never had" --, and the femme fatale minimalism of "Stay The Night" is too magnétique and alluring: A fuckin' sexy chanson, très léger and yet such a hard-knockin' head-nod anthem, it'll make you stay for sure, hungry for la petite mort. Before the expansive denouement -- a bank robbery in style: with bangs and a bucket bag ("Danger Walked In") -- the session gets super loose on "The Getaway," head scarves and berets shimmering in the cabriolet, and featuring Jena Ezzadine on vocals and Headnodic on bass. Includes download code; edition of 300.

$25.50 IN STOCK

In 2016, the Japanese duo Tenniscoats (Saya and Takashi Ueno) visited Munich for the first time to play at the Alien Disko Festival, invited by the band the Notwist. In the Japanese-Bavarian bar Nomina, Saya and Ueno listened and joined the acoustic brass-string-combo Hochzeitskapelle (Markus Acher and his brother Micha are also members), who use to play in between people in restaurants, on the street, on boats, etc... but only on a real stage, if they have to. Inspired by this evening, Saya founded the brass-band Zayaendo back home in Tokyo, together with her friend Satomi Endo, who plays the soprano-saxophone. They started to play in parks, forests and bars, and many friends joined, making them a collective with up to 20 musicians. Some of the members are also composers and contribute their compositions. In 2018, the collective came to Munich, and joined the Alien Disko festival. In 2019, they invited the Hochzeitskapelle to play with them on a two-week-tour to japan. When they returned to Munich after this for the 2019-edition of the festival, their Munich friends organized a welcome-surprise-party for them, playing one evening only cover-versions of Zayaendo-songs. Taking part were the Hochzeitskapelle joined by Kofelgschroa-acoordion-player Maxi-Pongratz, the experimental duo Schnitt, who play with a vinyl-cutting-machine, trumpet and bass-clarinet, Joasihno alias Cico Beck (Notwist) with his music-machines, the duo of Munich-based Japanese pianist Sachiko Hara and clarinetist and composer Christoph Reiserer, and a school-big-band led by g.rag-trumpet-player Alois Schmelz, who excited everybody by beautifully singing one song in Japanese. They played Zayaendo-compositions from the album Zayaendo Music (N 073LP). Every band had recorded their cover-versions at the rehearsals... just to give as a souvenir to the Zayaendo-members... but as this is such a wonderful and special compilation and just beautiful songs, Alien Transistor decided to make a small, limited vinyl-edition of this as well for others to hear. And traditionally, this has of course to be housed in a screen-printed jacket by master Señor Burns, numbered and individually colored.

$20.00 IN STOCK

Deliberately breaking all the rules Mr. Hornby once famously outlined regarding the creation of homemade (tape) compilations, Saroos's members indeed had the term "mixtape" on their minds while working on their latest full-length -- albeit in the hip-hop sense: a sonic snack box, interconnected shots from the hip, something that just came together and immediately felt right. Whereas hip-hop folks nowadays often use the vacuous term "project" in order to steer clear of the ontological debate caused by the almost synonymous use of album/mixtape, Florian Zimmer, Christoph Brandner, and Max Punktezahl, otherwise busy with The Notwist, Driftmachine, and Lali Puna, stick to the classics: their new 16-track project OLU (Off Label Use) is, officially, still an album. But it's wild and vibrant like a mixtape, interwoven like its cover: a seamless burst of ideas, impulsively combined to form a split-screen snapshot of recent moments and momentums. Re-appropriating the term "Off Label Use" -- which actually means: using prescription drugs in ways that aren't mentioned on the instruction leaflet -- in their own "off-label" way, Saroos never sounded more loose-limbed and elastic. Whereas the trio's earlier releases were rather conceptual and homogenous, OLU indeed has a more loose, spur-of-the-moment feel, a spontaneous force at its core. Checking the weighty sci-fi inspirations at the door, they use that Bomb Shelter-type of freedom to reinvent themselves at every turn, chasing sounds that happened to emerge in the group's triangular energy field. "Quarantaine", the massive reverb-stumblin' adjustment between beats and bass, opens and cross-fades smoothly into "Humdrum Rolloff", an early hint at the group's off-label practices: the underwater creepers floating around here were really voices (mostly). From majestically built oriental sound-pieces ("Looney Suite Serenade"), synth-based "End House Mario", and a triptych of speaker-boxxxing gas lamp experimentations entitled "Cord Burn 1-3", Saroos have rarely sounded this playful and unrestricted: there's a new energy at work that welds all the different sonic playing fields together to create one continuous 40 minute mix. "Tatsu Jam" billows over the kind of sizzling hi-hats you'd expect to hear on real trap tapes from Hotlanta. A prelude to a bunch of quicker-paced instrumentals ("Scratch Pets", "24h Love Gumbo") and ambient sun showers, until the next "Plateau" (Mo'Wax vibes!) brings the beats to the fore once again ("Tomorrow's Kudos"), and the ultimate "Whirligig" sounds like a mix of Oktoberfest 2020 and Johnston's "Casper The Friendly Ghost" coming apart at the seams. Features Wild Card. Includes download code; Edition of 300.

$19.50 IN STOCK

Fehler Kuti on the album (Munich, Autumn 2019): "I remember the first time I read W.E.B. DuBois eclectic masterpiece The Souls of Black Folk. The way in which this Weberian scholar flowed from personal account to prose to sociological analysis to music and even political intervention has had a lasting impact on my own work as a cultural anthropologist. It made me understand that as scholars we must use different means in order to give expression to the totality of the lived experience: There is only so much in an academic text . . . The medium changes the message. In this sense, I guess, I'm a singing cultural anthropologist . . . The widespread availability of Digital Audio Workstations, sequencers, loopers, and delay pedals has led us into a futuristic cul de sac best described by Mark Fisher as the very absence of future. Likewise, I am most skeptical of the 'naturalist' countermovement, the return of folk . . . I involuntarily returned to pop music in its two-folded meaning of something popular and addressing not an essentialist notion of 'Volk' or it's woke cousin 'communities', but society as a whole. I entered the studio just with a few lo-fi sounding melodies and rhythms from my circuit bent CASIO synthesizer. I had no clue what the finished product would sound like. But as soon as Markus [Acher] started drumming, in a way strangely reminding me of Can's Ethnographic Forgery Series, my uptight sounds were suddenly embedded within a warmer global sound spectrum. The alien at home and abroad and the strange overlapped: We were seeing one and the same sound differently but were gently held together by Tobias [Siegert]'s producing. Making music is about building coalitions. It's about suggesting an articulation of styles, sounds and people, that hasn't materialized, yet, but may help us in the current crisis: I wanted Amon Düül II to send their drug-induced archangel thunderbird to rescue the refugees, that had tried to escape the police by climbing up a tree in Munich in 2016. I wanted Sun Ra to taunt far-right protesters in Chemnitz in 2018. And I wanted to mourn the loss of a former kebab shop cum discotheque that served as proof that there is such a thing as a minoritarian universalism..."

Music by Julian Warner, Markus Acher, and Tobias Siegert. Recorded and mixed by Tobias Siegert in Munich. Includes download code; Edition of 300.

$19.50 IN STOCK

Any trademark, any defining trait is a double-edged sword: it is, of course, the catchy part, the kind of stuff people will remember, but in turn they tend to miss some of the other feats, some of the actual details and intricacies. Look at Schnitt, a truly unique duo hailing from Augsburg in Southern Germany. Comprising Moritz Illner and Markus Christ (formerly Kitty Empire), who've been adding to their sizable arsenal of sonic tools (e.g. trumpet, bass clarinet, prepared flugelhorn, Rhodes, pedals, turntables, drums) since 2012, the former is responsible for the band's signature "shtick": His sole instrument is actually a vinyl-cutting machine. A contraption that allows them to go massive, to go meta: live-cutting his multi-instrumentalist partner's live parts to then add them as samples, in order to create even richer, thicker walls of sound, wilder improvisations. It's a spectacular approach -- because it's probably the most haptic and Rube Goldbergian way to manually pull off what a sampling device normally does. No wonder they picked it as their name: "cut" translates to "schnitt" in German. And yet, apart from how they do it, there's a lot more to discover on Wand, the group's sophomore offering (its first for Alien Transistor) -- because after all it's about how they sound, part sonic installation, part beat-based exploration at the intersection of postrock, jazz, minimal music and noise. Starting off as an incremental brass collage, opening/title track "Wand" sees Schnitt create crisp and scratchy units of sound, which are then aligned and rearranged along the track's steady groove. With "Unwucht" -- meaning dynamic unbalance -- things indeed go off-kilter for a static-filled moment, yet there's always a way out: There's the laid-back minimalism of "Raus", some improvised contortions ("Torso"), wonderfully catchy lacunas between interlocked brass melodies ("Konstrukt"), and wild excursions even amateur bass-clarinetist André 3000 would endorse ("Tumult"). Almost radio-friendly and cinematic: The duo's delicately moving "Saum", the perfect cut for nighttime cruising. Elsewhere, there's more steady beats that almost feel like a reprise to the hey-days of Mo'Wax and the '90s: the thumping bass drum of "Splitter" is complete with a shimmering, slow-moving hint of a tune on top, or the jazzed-out, head-nodding crackle of "Fragment". So naked, so banging. Schnitt have created an album that's 100% deep cuts. Includes download code; edition of 300.

$19.50 IN STOCK

Acclaimed abstract hip-hop producer and cofounder of Anticon Records, Odd Nosdam, presets Mirrors, a new LP via Alien Transistor. Composed entirely of found sounds, most of them sourced from rare and private press vinyl, Mirrors' instrumental beats and sound collages pulse with a sense of exploration and rediscovery that has been Nosdam's calling card since the turn of this past century. Its every track presents a treasure trove of unique aural gems, each nestled in atmospheric textures that swirl like a cloud of dust just blown off of some once-overlooked heirloom. Designed specifically for vinyl, the record's A and B sides play out like a pair of cohesive psychedelic dreams. Yet even a skilled psychoanalyst would struggle to categorize these reveries as either pure seraphic bliss or full-on nightmare. By sneaking strategic bursts of beauty into Mirrors' more sinister beats ("Mirrors I") and by lacing its largely angelic compositions with foreboding tones ("The Burn"), Odd Nosdam has crafted a record that is not only engrossingly nuanced, but that captures a highly specified, often hypnogogic, mental state with breathtaking accuracy: cognitive dissonance. The sensation of experiencing an emotion that runs in direct opposition to one's circumstantial narrative -- a sense of melancholy when things are ostensibly fine, a smile as the world seems to crumble -- may once have been predominately the stuff of dreams. But in our current age of ebullient social media facades, and at a sociopolitical moment when joy feels like an aberrant blip in an up-scrolling sea of horror, Mirrors provides an unsettlingly apt soundtrack to the waking experience of the modern era. Oneiric interpretations aside, at its core Mirrors is simply a stunning and dynamic beat tape. As he has for two decades -- whether in crafting instrumentals for avant-rap legends cLOUDDEAD and art-rapper Serengeti, sound tracking skate videos for Element Skateboards, or adding to his prolific catalog of solo recordings -- Odd Nosdam uses his special knack for marrying monolithic, lumbering drum arrangements with novel melodic flourishes to create a breed of experimental hip-hop music entirely his own. An evocative record that seamlessly blends transcendence with menace, Mirrors is a captivating addition to the producer's body of work and one that will continue to leave listeners awed by his creativity, versatility, and his singular vision. Includes download code.

$22.00 IN STOCK

The demons of night are out again: Seoul's one-stop shop creative collective Byul.org returns with its third international album, Nobody's Gold. Comprising 14 new songs, it's a dizzying, haunting affair that channels the group's manifold influences and references points (from post-punk to Stockhausen and back via club culture) and yet sounds intriguingly coherent. Moving in and out of the shadows, Nobody's Gold breaks forth as pure sonic landscape, a universe of its own, folding and unfolding into both more experimental patterns, yet also with occasional hooks and dark catchy structures, gracious build-ups flickering among the hazy roar and thunder. After the screak and squeal of "Lamb With A Wolf Mask," the foreboding sounds of "The Museum Of The Two Of Us" segue into a synthesized party tune about a missing friend being chased by police ("Nari Yuko Yin"), one of several vocal tracks with a sinister edge. Taking things up another notch, "Friendly Enemies" is probably the closest this group will ever get to creating a stadium-ready anthem. On the other end of the spectrum, "The Place Where Designers Go To Die" is a magnificent void with an immense and irresistible undertow. Never too jolly (not even while "Day Drinking At A Seaside Town" or during takeoff via epic pop tune "Bats We Are"), Nobody's Gold compiles soundscapes with a very tangible, corporeal presence. Inspired by everyday life, half-remembered drug/club experiences, Pascal Quignard's disturbing La Haine De La Musique (1996), Stockhausen and Bill Evans, Nobody's Gold sees the collective remain true to its DIY foundations while repeatedly questioning our listening habits and "the exaggerated love for the concept of love," as they put it. Founded around the dawn of the millennium as a group of poetry-loving friends who'd occasionally meet for drinks, Byul.org has long become an extremely prolific and versatile collective within Seoul's scene. Main song-writer TaeSang Cho and his mates Yu Hur, Jowall, YunYi Yi, SuhnJoo Yi, HyunJung Suh, and SoYoon Hwang went from publishing to recording, from releasing tunes to design, art direction and more. Although their list of clients includes Atelier Hermes and the Venice Biennale (they did the Korean Pavilion twice), the group still remains a drinking circle of close friends at its core: Pals who simply like to create and carouse and dream and live and perform and play tunes together.

$18.00 NOT IN STOCK

Alien Transistor and Tokyo-based label Afterhours release the vinyl-version of Volume 4 of Tenniscoats' masterpiece Music Exists, originally released in 2016. The final piece in this magic quadruple release by the Japanese experimental folk luminaries. Tenniscoats have devoted followers all over the world, but their releases were always hard to find outside of Japan. Except for their album Tokinouta (2011), which saw a very limited run on vinyl, and the seminal Two Sunsets, their collaboration with the Pastels (and a small handful of 7"s), there were never any vinyl-releases, and also the CDs were hard to get for anyone who doesn't speak or read Japanese. So, this is the chance to dive deep into the beautiful, unique world of the Tenniscoats and their opus magnum Music Exists. Fourth in a series of four vinyl-only "discs" by Tenniscoats. In their 20 years carrier the band collaborated with the Pastels, Jad Fair, Norman Blake, and others. Includes double-sided fold-out insert.

"It may even be their greatest ever music, essential plus" --Monorail Music, Glasgow.

"Whatever's ailing you, Tokyo's Tenniscoats have got something for that" --Boomkat, Manchester.

$20.00 IN STOCK

Brookland Suite is inspired by Micha Acher's travels to New Orleans and Johannes Enders's admiration for the soundscapes of Gil Evans. The unique instrumentation and the rough sound make Brookland a very special suite for lovers of deep sounds. Johannes Enders is a saxophone player with his own distinguished voice, and a rich international performing experience, covering gigs with artists as diverse as Donald Byrd, Jeff Watts, Roy Hargrove, Vincent Herring, George Cables, Lester Bowie, and Jamaaladeen Tacuma. He won a Silver Award at the American MusicFest in San Francisco (1990) and was finalist at the Monk Competition in Washington D.C. (1991) and won the German "Jazz Echo" prize as best sax player. Micha Acher is best known as a founding member of innovative German post-rock band The Notwist. Enders and Acher grew up together in Weilheim, a small town near Munich. Already back in 1992 they played together in the electro/free jazz band Tied & Tickled Trio (with Billy Hart). Now they decided it's time for another collaboration. For Brookland Suite they invited New Orleans based sax player Dan Oestereicher and drummer Howard Curtis from Washington to join them. Color vinyl; silk-screen artwork.

$18.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Edition of 500. Alien Ensemble's trombone man Mathias Goetz caused quite a splash when he released his eponymous debut LP under his Le Millipede moniker back in 2015 (N 042CD/LP): The multi-instrumentalist's initial offering was clearly something else, impossible to grasp, a musical vessel that carried an almost cosmic kind of song-craft. Followed by remix album Mirror Mirror (2017), it's now time for album number two: The Sun Has No Money. Following an initial warm-up round sans electricity, this new album soon begins to glow: Goetz doesn't need pedals, he boosts circulation by single-handedly playing tons and tons of different instruments -- it actually feels like thousands, easily. There are various sonic illusions... and yet Le Millipede doesn't hide anything: He's also willing to show the inner workings, the actual recording process and everything else. In short: he goes meta. Some of these melodies appear to be shadows of earlier tunes, dating back to, say, 1898 or even before that, melodies that were first registered in the Tin Pan Alley publishers' offices back in 1912 or 1917. You'll actually get to see this Alley at that point in time. You'll see the ropes, the workings. Suddenly, you can hear the shadows! Okay, so one side of this street is America. The opposite side: Russia. And smack dab in the middle: Europe. All the back-and-forth that occurs between these two poles ultimately depends on the movement of the sun. You'll get to meet Prokofiev's and Scriabin's ghost, among other spirits, reframed and published by Le Millipede's own imaginary label imprint on the historic Tin Pan Alley. Indeed there are moments on this album when Le Millipede seems to be playing Scriabin's clavier a lumieres, when his performance seems to be based on synesthesia, a wild cross-pollination of colors and sounds. In case you didn't know this: In the States, Prokofiev goes by the name Brian Wilson, and Scriabin's also known as Sun Ra -- yet another guy who's usually broke, but gets to spend a lot of time out in the sun. Together, these assorted protagonists ask the people of the Antilles for Mutabor dance-tokens and send postcards to Moondog in Germany, right back into the darkness. Le Millipede controls the very center of this hustle and bustle: going as far as to employ some southern chopped-and-screwed styles, he's 100% current and zeitgeisty!

$14.50 IN STOCK

Alien Ensemble's trombone man Mathias Goetz caused quite a splash when he released his eponymous debut LP under his Le Millipede moniker back in 2015 (N 042CD/LP): The multi-instrumentalist's initial offering was clearly something else, impossible to grasp, a musical vessel that carried an almost cosmic kind of song-craft. Followed by remix album Mirror Mirror (2017), it's now time for album number two: The Sun Has No Money. Following an initial warm-up round sans electricity, this new album soon begins to glow: Goetz doesn't need pedals, he boosts circulation by single-handedly playing tons and tons of different instruments -- it actually feels like thousands, easily. There are various sonic illusions... and yet Le Millipede doesn't hide anything: He's also willing to show the inner workings, the actual recording process and everything else. In short: he goes meta. Some of these melodies appear to be shadows of earlier tunes, dating back to, say, 1898 or even before that, melodies that were first registered in the Tin Pan Alley publishers' offices back in 1912 or 1917. You'll actually get to see this Alley at that point in time. You'll see the ropes, the workings. Suddenly, you can hear the shadows! Okay, so one side of this street is America. The opposite side: Russia. And smack dab in the middle: Europe. All the back-and-forth that occurs between these two poles ultimately depends on the movement of the sun. You'll get to meet Prokofiev's and Scriabin's ghost, among other spirits, reframed and published by Le Millipede's own imaginary label imprint on the historic Tin Pan Alley. Indeed there are moments on this album when Le Millipede seems to be playing Scriabin's clavier a lumieres, when his performance seems to be based on synesthesia, a wild cross-pollination of colors and sounds. In case you didn't know this: In the States, Prokofiev goes by the name Brian Wilson, and Scriabin's also known as Sun Ra -- yet another guy who's usually broke, but gets to spend a lot of time out in the sun. Together, these assorted protagonists ask the people of the Antilles for Mutabor dance-tokens and send postcards to Moondog in Germany, right back into the darkness. Le Millipede controls the very center of this hustle and bustle: going as far as to employ some southern chopped-and-screwed styles, he's 100% current and zeitgeisty!

$18.00 NOT IN STOCK

The third release in Alien Transistor and Tokyo-based label Afterhours' series of four vinyl-only releases documenting the Tenniscoats' four part masterpiece, Music Exists. Disc 3 was originally released on CD in 2016. Disc 3 reunites the couple with their old friends and colleagues, the Swedish musicians from Tape, and sees them concentrate once more on their very own language of making music, offering another collection of essential Tenniscoats songs. Tenniscoats have devoted followers all over the world, but their releases were always hard to find outside of Japan. Except for their album Tokinouta (2011), which saw a very limited run on vinyl, and the seminal Two Sunsets, their collaboration with the Pastels (and a small handful of 7"s), there were never any vinyl-releases, and also the CDs were hard to get for anyone who doesn't speak or read Japanese. In their 20 years, the band has collaborated with the Pastels, Jad Fair, Norman Blake, and others. This set of vinyl releases provides a chance to dive deep into the beautiful, unique world of the Tenniscoats and their opus magnum Music Exists. "It may even be their greatest ever music, essential plus" --Monorail Music, Glasgow. "Whatever's ailing you, Tokyo's Tenniscoats have got something for that" --Boomkat, Manchester. The eventual Disc 4 release will come with a limited box, either for putting the other previously purchased three records in, or as a glorious four-LP package. Includes a double-sided fold-out insert.

$14.50 IN STOCK

Berlin's Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra returns with its fourth album Vula. Having celebrated their ten-year anniversary with a stunning series of concerts in 2016, the 18-piece's new full-length showcases a stronger focus on harmony and melody -- and yet AMEO sound no less explosive or unpredictable than before. It arrives gently, with shimmering lights, soft winds, sashaying melodies, and of course, the isotherms and isotheres function just as they should: All of a sudden, lighting strikes amid the concord of instruments, unforeseen energies erupt and upset the rhythmic scenery. Making a combined effort to create sheltering patches of harmony within the unfolding drama, leader Daniel Glatzel and his 18-piece "working band" set out to harness album number four: Vula. Another musical tour de force that connects too many dots, decades, traditions and genres to mention, Vula is quite a different beast compared to its live predecessor or the orchestra's last studio effort Bum Bum (N 029CD/LP, 2012): There's bigger, bolder strokes, and the compositions are linked by recurring motifs and harmonies, which is why the new album sounds like one entity: It is one hour-long adventure that needs to be listened to in full. The title Vula, taken from the Tumbuka language (spoken in the northern region of Malawi), indeed translates to tempest or thunderstorm. Ranging from softly trickling melodies courtesy of older masters ("Lakta Mata Ha") and hazy interludes, the mood, vibe, and pace change faster than cloud formations come flying across the screens nowadays (e.g. "Qwetoipntv Vjadfklvjieop" with its arrangement a` la H. Lachenmann). Head-nod bliss, motion picture soundtrack vibes, and even J.B. licks aren't mutually exclusive in these compositions, as AMEO showcase with "J Schleia", a track that nods both to Dilla/Grandmaster Flash and to Bach-era counterpoint techniques. Elsewhere, a pounding surf-rock beat metamorphoses over the course of 14 minutes ("In The Light Of Turmoil"), only to see them return to patches that are surprisingly catchy and calm. The final applause turns out just as thunderous though, after the album ends with the vibrant and throbbing "Papaya Flyers IX Epsylon", a live recording that already foreshadows the group's later collaboration with Hermeto Pascoal. The entire process, from writing to intricate post-production, took almost five years.

$25.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Double LP version. Gatefold sleeve. Includes download code. Berlin's Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra returns with its fourth album Vula. Having celebrated their ten-year anniversary with a stunning series of concerts in 2016, the 18-piece's new full-length showcases a stronger focus on harmony and melody -- and yet AMEO sound no less explosive or unpredictable than before. It arrives gently, with shimmering lights, soft winds, sashaying melodies, and of course, the isotherms and isotheres function just as they should: All of a sudden, lighting strikes amid the concord of instruments, unforeseen energies erupt and upset the rhythmic scenery. Making a combined effort to create sheltering patches of harmony within the unfolding drama, leader Daniel Glatzel and his 18-piece "working band" set out to harness album number four: Vula. Another musical tour de force that connects too many dots, decades, traditions and genres to mention, Vula is quite a different beast compared to its live predecessor or the orchestra's last studio effort Bum Bum (N 029CD/LP, 2012): There's bigger, bolder strokes, and the compositions are linked by recurring motifs and harmonies, which is why the new album sounds like one entity: It is one hour-long adventure that needs to be listened to in full. The title Vula, taken from the Tumbuka language (spoken in the northern region of Malawi), indeed translates to tempest or thunderstorm. Ranging from softly trickling melodies courtesy of older masters ("Lakta Mata Ha") and hazy interludes, the mood, vibe, and pace change faster than cloud formations come flying across the screens nowadays (e.g. "Qwetoipntv Vjadfklvjieop" with its arrangement a` la H. Lachenmann). Head-nod bliss, motion picture soundtrack vibes, and even J.B. licks aren't mutually exclusive in these compositions, as AMEO showcase with "J Schleia", a track that nods both to Dilla/Grandmaster Flash and to Bach-era counterpoint techniques. Elsewhere, a pounding surf-rock beat metamorphoses over the course of 14 minutes ("In The Light Of Turmoil"), only to see them return to patches that are surprisingly catchy and calm. The final applause turns out just as thunderous though, after the album ends with the vibrant and throbbing "Papaya Flyers IX Epsylon", a live recording that already foreshadows the group's later collaboration with Hermeto Pascoal. The entire process, from writing to intricate post-production, took almost five years.

$15.50 IN STOCK

"... A listener's first impression may suggest the enchanted soundscape of a fatigued electronic soloist, but 1115 are a duo: Fehler Kuti and Grey provide us with a sonic vision that can only emerge from the synthesis of two radical minds. Think of the meetings of Suicide, Yello, or The KLF: A pop big bang of conceptual art and bodily music. The fusion of Fehler's onomatopoeic vocal tracks and Grey's bass/organ/808-drum machine elements create a unique and original work; an Afrofuturistic musique concrete, which could not be heavier in its psychedelic might. Totally hypnotised, we hear old instruments, lost along an ocean passage. . . . The plot of this supposed instrumental music is, in short, a story of 'invisibility' -- and of how this invisibility, experienced as negation and extinction, is given a 'visually audible' expression through the invention of a new language. . . . If we follow 1115 down their Underground Railroad, a mythology that becomes more vivid with each station emerges, and takes on a cartographic form. A spatial sculpture made of music! Fehler Kuti performs the role of the Invisible Stranger -- without any use of language in the semantic sense -- not in a dissimilar way to Caetano Veloso on Araçá Azul or Miles Davis, though different and novel. Once you understand that Miles Davis did nothing else but tell stories of racism and alienation throughout his career, will you then understand Post-Europe. Post-Europe is therefore not only music, just as an opera is not only music. Drawn into the deep, through subtext and shiftwork, 1115 dive through a stream of electronic music alongside colleagues like Arca and Dean Blunt, Drexicya and Dopplereffekt, as well as Juan Atkins and Moritz von Oswald, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Sun Ra. But the voices of the libretto belong to the non-musicians and non-artists, the erased and forgotten. The invisibles. If we listen to the phonograph patiently while playing this music, unheard sounds surface. In time, voices tear off, and become distinct. They say what they need to say. They let others speak. And suddenly there is a space... that unfolds, that speaks. Deep inside it, an ancient lament emerges, wrapped within the invisible words: What did I do to be so black and blue? ..." --Pico Be CD version includes fold-out poster.

$18.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Printed inner sleeve. Includes download code. "... A listener's first impression may suggest the enchanted soundscape of a fatigued electronic soloist, but 1115 are a duo: Fehler Kuti and Grey provide us with a sonic vision that can only emerge from the synthesis of two radical minds. Think of the meetings of Suicide, Yello, or The KLF: A pop big bang of conceptual art and bodily music. The fusion of Fehler's onomatopoeic vocal tracks and Grey's bass/organ/808-drum machine elements create a unique and original work; an Afrofuturistic musique concrete, which could not be heavier in its psychedelic might. Totally hypnotised, we hear old instruments, lost along an ocean passage. . . . The plot of this supposed instrumental music is, in short, a story of 'invisibility' -- and of how this invisibility, experienced as negation and extinction, is given a 'visually audible' expression through the invention of a new language. . . . If we follow 1115 down their Underground Railroad, a mythology that becomes more vivid with each station emerges, and takes on a cartographic form. A spatial sculpture made of music! Fehler Kuti performs the role of the Invisible Stranger -- without any use of language in the semantic sense -- not in a dissimilar way to Caetano Veloso on Araçá Azul or Miles Davis, though different and novel. Once you understand that Miles Davis did nothing else but tell stories of racism and alienation throughout his career, will you then understand Post-Europe. Post-Europe is therefore not only music, just as an opera is not only music. Drawn into the deep, through subtext and shiftwork, 1115 dive through a stream of electronic music alongside colleagues like Arca and Dean Blunt, Drexicya and Dopplereffekt, as well as Juan Atkins and Moritz von Oswald, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Sun Ra. But the voices of the libretto belong to the non-musicians and non-artists, the erased and forgotten. The invisibles. If we listen to the phonograph patiently while playing this music, unheard sounds surface. In time, voices tear off, and become distinct. They say what they need to say. They let others speak. And suddenly there is a space... that unfolds, that speaks. Deep inside it, an ancient lament emerges, wrapped within the invisible words: What did I do to be so black and blue? ..." --Pico Be

$18.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes download code. Selected Tracks For Nacht Dämonen compiles rare and early recordings of Seoul's Byul.org, an influential creative collective known for its multidisciplinary/one-stop shop approach, and post-punk-inspired DIY aesthetics. The album was carefully compiled by the collective's director TaeSang Cho and The Notwist's Markus Acher. What started out in 2000 as a group of friends who'd meet for drinks (and for sharing the occasional poem), has long established itself as a shape-shifting key player of Seoul's thriving scene. With a huge amount of both commercial and non-commercial projects under their collective belt, Byul.org's members - TaeSang Cho, Yu Hur, Jowall, YunYi Yi, and SuhnJoo YI - went from publishing to recording, from releasing tunes to doing art shows, offering everything from branding to consulting and art direction, from naming and design to software development along the way. Accordingly, for Byul.org's members, music has always been one outlet among many, one mode of expression to accompany and soundtrack others. Most of the songs on Selected Tracks For Nacht Dämonen were originally released on CDs that came with the collective's own Monthly Vampire, A Magazine, while others were self-published via the group's own label Club Bidanbaem. Featuring sonic diary entries recorded between 2000 and 2007, the album is a nod to personal favorites such as Eno and Aphex Twin, Joy Division and Kraftwerk, personal hero Robert Smith, as well as Korean stalwarts such as Jae Ha Yoo and Min Ki Kim - and yet there's hardly any daylight around, to be precise - hence the title: "Traditionally in Korea a "BamDokkebi" (Nacht Dämonen) is a kind of ghost or monster of the night, but it has also come to mean people who spend their nights out instead of sleeping. We've always been a group of 'BamDokkebi' - drinking, DJing, doing stupid things." Far from polished and often sparse, the 13 tracks all share a rather dark and haunting vibe that's partly inspired by drug culture, dancefloor scenes, the LGBT scene, and the hippie culture in Korea. Ranging from fairly straightforward synth/electro tracks ("Friday Night") to hazy pop ("20thcenturyofmeandyou"), from more experimental textures ("Job") to minimalist bangers ("A Customer"), it's difficult to escape the soothing, cinematic pull of this nocturnal "Secret Show". These 13 tracks offer a peak into a hidden but vibrant Korean music scene: Nocturnal soundscapes, brooding electronics, ambient layers, and occasional hooks.

$15.50 IN STOCK

Selected Tracks For Nacht Dämonen compiles rare and early recordings of Seoul's Byul.org, an influential creative collective known for its multidisciplinary/one-stop shop approach, and post-punk-inspired DIY aesthetics. The album was carefully compiled by the collective's director TaeSang Cho and The Notwist's Markus Acher. What started out in 2000 as a group of friends who'd meet for drinks (and for sharing the occasional poem), has long established itself as a shape-shifting key player of Seoul's thriving scene. With a huge amount of both commercial and non-commercial projects under their collective belt, Byul.org's members - TaeSang Cho, Yu Hur, Jowall, YunYi Yi, and SuhnJoo YI - went from publishing to recording, from releasing tunes to doing art shows, offering everything from branding to consulting and art direction, from naming and design to software development along the way. Accordingly, for Byul.org's members, music has always been one outlet among many, one mode of expression to accompany and soundtrack others. Most of the songs on Selected Tracks For Nacht Dämonen were originally released on CDs that came with the collective's own Monthly Vampire, A Magazine, while others were self-published via the group's own label Club Bidanbaem. Featuring sonic diary entries recorded between 2000 and 2007, the album is a nod to personal favorites such as Eno and Aphex Twin, Joy Division and Kraftwerk, personal hero Robert Smith, as well as Korean stalwarts such as Jae Ha Yoo and Min Ki Kim - and yet there's hardly any daylight around, to be precise - hence the title: "Traditionally in Korea a "BamDokkebi" (Nacht Dämonen) is a kind of ghost or monster of the night, but it has also come to mean people who spend their nights out instead of sleeping. We've always been a group of 'BamDokkebi' - drinking, DJing, doing stupid things." Far from polished and often sparse, the 13 tracks all share a rather dark and haunting vibe that's partly inspired by drug culture, dancefloor scenes, the LGBT scene, and the hippie culture in Korea. Ranging from fairly straightforward synth/electro tracks ("Friday Night") to hazy pop ("20thcenturyofmeandyou"), from more experimental textures ("Job") to minimalist bangers ("A Customer"), it's difficult to escape the soothing, cinematic pull of this nocturnal "Secret Show". These 13 tracks offer a peak into a hidden but vibrant Korean music scene: Nocturnal soundscapes, brooding electronics, ambient layers, and occasional hooks.

$18.00 IN STOCK

Jam Money is the shared musical vision of Kevin Cormack and Mathew Fowler. Mathew (Bons) and Kevin (Half Cousin, Harry Deerness) first began collaborating as part of the Blank Tape Spillage Fete, an ongoing collective project of art and music which focuses on the creation and perpetuation of small DIY exhibitions, related events and limited releases that celebrates the hobbyist nature of home recording. Jam Money revolves around a passion for the simple and sometimes restrictive nature of four-track cassette recording. Using old half-broken guitars, clarinets, charity shop keyboards, toys, family heirlooms, zithers, home-made percussion, and household objects a shared dialog appears, involving both mark making and musical mishaps, allowing the makers to be carried along as the music finds its own way. Genre definitions melt away in Jam Money's music as ambient dissolves into lo-fi rock, noise into fragile, naive classroom melodies. Creativity beyond easy categorization. The first recordings titled Blowing Stones were self-released in 2014. The cover and insert artwork for this record featured abstract paintings by the artist Aimée Henderson whose work and process is a great influence on their music. Having played gigs alongside kindred spirits National Bedtime and Plinth, the tail end of 2015 saw the band travel to Germany to play with The Notwist and Le Millipede for a series of "Alien Disko" nights organized by Alien Transistor, a label with a shared kinship of both the weird and wonderful. A Gathering Kind is the second album by Jam Money: a journey of sound and color, subliminal images and narrative. The roots of this collection found Fowler and Cormack using an earthier, more instinctive language, making it a rougher-edged sibling to their other recordings, with parallels to the home-spun worlds of Flaming Tunes, Pumice, Maher Shalal Hash Baz and World Standard. Henderson's artwork features again, both paintings and music forming a collective language of dream-like adventure. Poignant and exploratory. Melting together acoustic and electronic elements, the narrative throughout is one of a ghostly world heading for winter. A firm fan favorite Stephen Pastel on Blowing Stones: "Created in question and answer form, their songs exist like little sculptures - wayward and peaceful, sometimes whirring into automatic life under the pair's combined attention." Includes a booklet and a download code. Edition of 300.

$18.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Includes download code. It's a well-known fact that millipedes, though frequently referred to as "thousand leggers," actually have no more than 750 legs, usually way less. Accordingly, it should come as no surprise that the band Le Millipede is actually just one guy -- who happens to play a whole lot of different instruments with his own two hands. He goes by the name Mathias Götz. Arranging various layers of piano, xylophone, glockenspiel, Stylophone, Moog, and harmonium, Le Millipede creates minimalist, instrumental pop gems, tracks with an immediate quality that seem rather simple at first listen. In fact, Götz's recordings are somewhat comparable to the work of France-born, Barcelona-based composer Pascal Comelade, known for his use of toy instruments. In both cases, there's a certain childlike quality at work, a disarming naïveté. While Comelade often uses toy piano, Götz is particularly fond of the Casio VL Tone mini-keyboard; and even though most people will associate said instrument with Trio's "Da Da Da" single, Götz actually considers it a nod to artists such as Sufjan Stevens, Arvo Pärt, and Moondog. In order to create the intricate beats of Le Millipede, Götz used a vast range of percussion instruments, including maracas, claves, darbuka, seashells, mbira (thumb piano), davul, zils/finger cymbals, small bells, caxixi, and even mules' teeth, occasionally joined by layers of tom-tom drums, snare, bass drum, and cymbals. Another key element of Le Millipede's sound is certainly the way Götz employs his voice; instead of foregrounding it and focusing on literal messages, he merely adds his vocal layers as yet another instrument. Last but not least, there's the trombone, an instrument that's probably the most obvious hint at Mathias Götz's background; he actually studied jazz trombone and composition (after learning how to build brass instruments as an apprentice). And yet, his musical approach, tastes, and skills are so wide-ranging and eclectic that, apart from recording as Le Millipede, he also plays in bands as diverse as Micha Acher's Alien Ensemble, the Münchner Hochzeitskapelle, the Unterbiberger Hofmusik, and various big bands. Following a 2007 EP with Robert Alonso as RoBErT GoEtZ, Le Millipede is Mathias Götz's full-length debut.