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viewing 1 To 10 of 10 items
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LP
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C 027-2EP
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The second vinyl EP from Terre Thaemlitz's first album in five years Deproduction features its two bonus tracks: "Admit It's Killing You (And Leave) (Piano Solo)" and DJ Sprinkles' corresponding "Dead End" deep house mix. Presenting vinyl versions of the bonus reworks to his 43-minute Deproduction album track "Admit It's Killing You (And Leave)", the A-side includes Terre's haunting 14-minute "Piano Solo", where he drops the unsettling backdrop of samples of domestic violence to leave the keys suspended in reflective space, reverberating in plangent overtones which take on a starker effect if you care to play it at 33rpm. The B-side is Sprinkles' uncannily brilliant "Dead End" house mix, a more percussive adjunct to the "House Arrest" mix off EP1 (C 027-1EP), framing traces of the original vocal and keys in a sumptuous, rolling and swinging deep house workout full of rustling congas and lustrous low-end that marks up among her most affective, especially in its closing minutes. So damn good... Mastered by Terre Thaemlitz, cut at Dubplates & Mastering.
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LP
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C 027-1EP
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Terre Thaemlitz presents an exclusive vinyl edit of "Names Have Been Changed" taken from the epic Deproduction album (2017), backed with the incredible "House Arrest" mix as DJ Sprinkles. Asking pertinent questions about the hypocritical nature of relations between LGBT agendas and western humanist notions of the nuclear family, Terre's Deproduction sensitively yet unflinchingly broaches topics usually considered taboo by a mainstream who is all too happy to pick and choose parts of radical, fringe culture to fetishize, while swerving the bigger questions proposed by those niches. In the vinyl edit of "Names Have Been Changed", exclusive to this LP, Terre contracts the original, 43-minute blend of strings and unsettling scenes of domestic violence into a 17-minute version, beautifully suspended in the cut at 45rpm in order to best represent the work's unique democracy of frequency -- from the muffled row heard next door, to its hyper-realistic avian chirrups and modestly spare, foregrounded strings. On the B-side's 10-minute "House Arrest" mix Terre's ideas feel even more radical when juxtaposed with a sublime deep house production, placing them in context of what was and still can be a radical artform when done with insight and consideration. The result is one of this decade's most sublime yet unsettling house tracks, bar none. Mastered by Terre Thaemlitz, cut at Dubplates & Mastering.
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2LP
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C 026-2EP
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2018 repress; 2016 release. You may still be dazed from the first volume (C 026-1EP), but Will Long and DJ Sprinkles have already cued up their second session, with Mint / Clay landing on Terre Thaemlitz's Comatonse Recordings. The format and aesthetic remains the same as Purple / Blue, namely two raw pieces by Will Long, backed with overdubs by Sprinkles, amounting to the deepest house this side of Larry Heard's nuclear love bunker, all subtly executed and held up as a comparison to the aesthetics and intentions (or, ironically, the excess and lack of) of that sound in relief of current, conceptually-detached takes on the original, queer NYC deep house sound which Sprinkles was instrumental in shaping as a downtown DJ during that formative era. Again, Will Long, who's best known for his experimental ambient work as Celer, proves that it ain't what you've got but what you know and can do with it that matters. "Under-Currents" places sparing samples of T.R.M. Howard -- a mentor of Jesse Jackson and founder of Mississippi's Regional Council of Negro Leadership -- amidst a dream sequence of carbonated hi-hats and lingering chords urged by a plump bass drum, whilst "Get In & Stay In" nods to civil right activist and current Georgia congressional representative John Lewis in a lush haze of crepuscular chromatics and loping swing. DJ Sprinkles goes on to contribute another pair of incredible overdubs, lending Long's minimal elements a richer, fleshlier feel, whether with additional breakbeats, or nimbly lowering the bass and layering up spirited flutes and Rhodes. Quite crucially, the concept never gets in the way of the music, perfectly demonstrating the symbiotic nature of the music and politics in the way they most likely intended, especially for the DJs, dancers, and promoters who act as gatekeepers for this music. Tsuji Aiko has provided illustrations of the activists sampled featured on the front and back covers. Mastered by Terre Thaemlitz, cut by Dubplates & Mastering.
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2LP
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C 026-1EP
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2018 repress; 2016 release. We live in an era when "change" is a soundbite to sell more of the same old ideas, and "revolution" has more to do with social trends than social change. Will Long's deep house debut on Terre Thaemlitz's Comatonse Recordings examines that pack of lies dubbed "change" from the sweaty dancefloor, sounding the aftermath of failure around attempts at equality in "progressive" societies. Made with a simple setup of rhythm composer percussion, polyphonic synth chords, and rack sampler vocals, these tracks have a minimal rawness that contends we've been wrong the whole time about how far the US -- and the world -- has come. Although they are sonically unlike anything Long has produced as Celer or his other aliases for minimal and ambient experimental audio, they share a stripped-yet-full sound that reacts against overproduction -- within the dance music industry, and societies at large. DJ Sprinkles' overdubbed contributions quite literally and psycho-acoustically resonate that intention, tactfully rending a farther, lush physicality and soulfulness through deftly applied daubs of glutinous sub-bass pressure, airy strings, and subtly shimmering FX, really bringing Long's tracks to life in a whole other dimension; and via disciplined, stripped-down, full-bodied production values that rank as perhaps the deepest productions yet in the Sprinkles' canon. They could be taken as a call for humbleness and meditative efficiency over cliched buildups and preening vanities, perhaps a comment on "deep" house as the equivalent of a fresh tattoo or sweatshop t-shirt slogan. Because, you know, it really does stand for a lot more. Tsuji Aiko has provided illustrations of the activists sampled featured on the front and back covers. Mastered by Terre Thaemlitz, cut by Dubplates & Mastering.
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3LP
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C 026-3EP
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2018 repress; 2016 release. Will Long X DJ Sprinkles' journey to the heart of deep house culminates in the third and final volume in a series of three, offering the broadest yet most subtle, spine-tingling session of the lot, presenting the former's raw and 'floor-ready originals backed by the latter's inimitably sumptuous overdubs. Conceptually rooted in the queer, black politics of NYC's late '80s and early '90s house scene -- where Terre Thaemlitz cut her teeth as DJ Sprinkles -- the series can be viewed as a vital reminder of that scene's original values and sense of social democracy, especially when contrasted with the glut of contemporary, commodified representations of that music which sorely miss the mark, or weren't even aware of the scene's provenance to begin with. Make no mistake, though; this is no lecture or snub at younger producers making deep house. Rather, it is evidence of the original form's latent potential to still generate rare, precious feelings which have been lost or glossed over with subsequent, detached and over-produced translations of its original syntax and intent. "Deep" is the key word here on many levels, from their poignant use of historical samples by civil rights pioneers Bayard Rustin, Jesse Jackson, and Kathleen Cleaver, to the unfiltered innocence of Will Long's productions and Sprinkles' corresponding, pensile overdubs, which make utterly incredible use of the frequency spectrum to reveal acres of space in the upper registers and, on the other hand, an honestly breathtaking application of layered sub-bass tones that are just impossible to describe. This one's a little bit special... Mastered by Terre Thaemlitz, cut by Dubplates & Mastering.
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12"
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C 025EP
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Terre Thaemlitz's Comatonse Recordings presents a cut from English polymath Simon Fisher Turner's 2013 soundtrack to the 1924 film The Epic of Everest. Turner's windswept, quietly pulsating "Shishapangma" is another iterations of a long and colorful oeuvre that has seen him work with an early incarnation of The The, Derek Jarman, and the Portsmouth Sinfonia, not to mention a career in acting that made him a teenage star in the '70s. DJ Sprinkles's gently sub-fueled "Deeperama" mix teases the original's horns to sound something like Peter Zummo doing 11 minutes of the deepest house -- both fathoms-deep and endlessly inspiring.
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12"
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C 024EP
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Limited restock, last copies. DJ Sprinkles serves killer alternate mixes of the massive Fresh Insights (C 023EP) session with Mark Fell. The future classic B-side "Fresh" receives a slinkier rub-down by the Tokyo-based artist, propping that rousing speech by Socialist firebrand Tony Benn on a subtly reshuffled groove -- surely one of the biggest deep house curveballs since, oh, at least their 2012 Complete Spiral EP starring Arthur Scargill. Flipside "Insights" also receives the alternate DJ Sprinkles mix treatment, forgoing the original's sharper hi-hats in favor of supple congas and louche bass linked with a web of gossamer keys and beckoning diva coos.
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12"
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C 023EP
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DJ Sprinkles & Mark Fell reprise the formula of their 2012 Complete Spiral EP to spellbinding effect on Fresh Insights. In a knowing nod to Larry Heard and countless other producers' deployment of that MLK speech, they ally a rousing Tony Benn speech with the head-high poise of classic, early '90s deep house on the 10-minute "Fresh." Bound to turn heads and move bodies, physically and emotionally, in any club. The instrumental track "Insights" is almost plain in comparison, yet is actually one of the most sick, incredibly produced pieces of deep, dub-wise house craft you're likely to hear.
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12"
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C 020-2EP
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With "Meditation on Wage Labor and the Death of the Album (Sprinkles' Unpaid Overtime)" on the A-side, Terre Thaemlitz returns to the deeply-arresting New York/New Jersey minimalist house approach which made his 2009 LP Midtown 120 Blues (MUSIQ 009CD) Resident Advisor's #1 album of that year. The B-side features an edit of the original, 29-hour long solo piano improvisation: 18 minutes of solo piano minimalism measured with a Cage-ian sense of space and time dilation.
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12"
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C 020-1EP
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Eagerly-anticipated first installment of two EPs in support of Terre Thaemlitz's convention-transgressing, 32-hour microSD card album Soulnessless. The EP features two extended reworks from Thaemlitz under his K-S.H.E moniker, clocking in at almost half an hour. Plush, puckered deep house minimalism from one of the finest operators in the field. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin and limited to 500 copies.
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