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FAITICHE 021LP
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$20.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 10/2/2020
Faitiche presents a new album by Frank Bretschneider. abtasten_halten was made as part of the raster.labor installation first presented at CTM Festival in 2019. It is perhaps the most radical work in Bretschneider's distinctive oeuvre: abtasten_halten is a self-generating composition for synthesizer modules whose sole sound source is the movement of two VU meter needles. The resulting percussive sounds coalesce into rhythmic combinations -- all random, without repetition. The album resembles a meditation on infinite rhythmic variation. Includes download code.
Frank Bretschneider on abtasten_halten: "abtasten_halten (sample_hold) is a largely self-generating composition for a modular synthesizer system. Self-generating here means that as soon as a current flows, the various modules interact, but within limits set by the composer via the connections between the modules (patches): timing, tempo, timbres, dynamics. These conditions are kept variable to a certain extent or left to chance, so that the composition created is always similar but never the same. On the one hand, the use of random generators opens up possibilities that would not otherwise have been considered. On the other, it offers the fascination of the unfinished and the unique: totally unexpected musical events that you might hear only once. abtasten_halten combines my preferences for percussive music in general and electronic music in particular. Largely avoiding repetitive structures, the piece is more like a free improvisation, quiet and diffuse, but also extremely dense, in ever-changing contrasts and transformations. The tone generators are two modified VU meters whose needles, driven by trigger impulses, create a simple one-bar pattern by hitting against a metal spring that is connected to a piezo element. The tempo is continuously varied over a period of about ten minutes by several mutually modulating LFOs, ranging from about 0.06 Hz up to the lower audio range of about 18Hz. The percussive sounds thus obtained are then passed through low-pass filters with moderate resonance and random frequency modulation to additionally color the sound. Further processing is then executed by an echo module whose tempo and repetitions are again determined by random parameters. Finally, the audio signal is occasionally enriched with reverb to add more spaciousness to the sound."
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FAITBACK 007LP
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Faitiche presents Jan Jelinek's album Tierbeoachtungen on vinyl for the first time, originally released on Scape in 2006. The album's six tracks took their cues from Jelinek's live concerts of that period: dense, slowly unfolding loop improvisations made with a laptop, various effect pedals, and miniature synthesizers. It is music that floats in a semi-conscious state between dream and awakening, always slightly mysterious, leaving traces that lead directly to the psychedelic-cosmic music of the kraut era. Includes download code.
In his release notes for Tierbeobachtungen at the time, the late lamented Martin Büsser wrote (2006): "The animal is experiencing a renaissance in music. It provides a reflective surface for our notion of the unbridled and irrational, of that Other the philosophers Deleuze/Guattari -- as part of their 'Animalisation' -- called the embodiment of artistic deliverance. And yet, how much of a liberation can art actually tolerate? To what extent can music truly throw off its fetters without descending into chaos? Jan Jelinek's album title provides a first hint of this development: Tierbeobachtungen (animal observations) is his fourth album for ~scape, and it addresses the issue of release and liberation. Recorded almost in transit, while preparing his move to a new studio, the tracks reveal and relish in their improvisational character, and drifting, lost sound -- yet they never lose sight of their underlying structure. Tierbeobachtungen might be Jelinek's freest and most personal work, with simply arranged tracks based on four to five layered and modulated loops, while his own studio equipment provides the main sampling sources, from synthesizer and guitaret to vibraphonette. Jelinek takes on the role of observer on this record, with a level of reflection remaining audible throughout. However, this is by no means intellectual, distanced music -- Jelinek leads us straight into a thicket, an acoustic jungle where sumptuous splendour meets the uncanny. A long tradition of psychedelic music pervades the recordings -- Amon Düül, Cluster, My Bloody Valentine -- yet whatever musical memories might vie for our attention, these are no clear-cut references, just loose associations. . . Similar to the pioneers of industrial music, like Cabaret Voltaire or Zoviet France, who experimented with field recordings to challenge Western listening habits, Tierbeobachtungen takes us to new, unknown territories and brims with sounds that defy geographic or stylistic classification, not unlike the semi-conscious state between dream and awakening. (...)"
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FAITICHE 020LP
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Repressed. Faitiche presents a new album by Andrew Pekler: Sounds From Phantom Islands brings together ten tracks created over the last three years for the interactive website Phantom Islands - A Sonic Atlas. With his 2016 album Tristes Tropiques (FAITICHE 014LP, 2016), Pekler created a highly unique cosmos of ethnographic sound speculations. Sounds From Phantom Islands continues and simultaneously expands this concept: finely elaborated chordal motifs float like fog over fictional maritime landscapes. A masterpiece of contemporary exotica. Phantom islands are islands that appeared on historical maps but never actually existed. The status of these artifacts of European colonial expansion from the 15th to the 19th century oscillates between cartographic fact and maritime fiction. Sounds From Phantom Islands interprets and presents these imaginations as a quasi-ethnographic catalog of music and synthetic field recordings. The pieces on this album are based on recordings made for Phantom Islands - A Sonic Atlas, an online interactive map developed with cultural anthropologist Stefanie Kiwi Menrath. Includes download code.
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FAITICHE 019LP
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Faitiche welcomes two young artists from Canada; Jonathan Scherk and Daniel Majer hail from the post-rock and experimental scene in Vancouver, where they shared a studio for several years. In artistic terms, too, there is a surprising coherence: on It's Counterpart, their solo work naturally blends to create a joint album, making it hard to distinguish between their contributions. Majer describes his part as a shadow-like reflection to Scherk's brightly meandering collages. The album's title refers to this: It's Counterpart presents two solo artists who have met their match in one another. Scherk and Majer produce contemporary sound collages on samplers, laptops etc. using raw material drawn from YouTube videos, field recordings, cassettes, and LPs from the dollar bin -- the kind of rightly forgotten obscurities that have long since lost their audience, if they ever had one. In the hands of Scherk and Majer, they become abstract sound objects. The two artists don't concern themselves with the material's original context -- the sound's character is most important. This sets them apart from other collage artists. Their work might be called a contemporary upgrade of the classic tape collage: here, channeling a wealth of information is the main focus. Are these collages that trigger neither associations nor contexts? Au contraire! It's Counterpart is like an overheated centrifuge whose spinning extracts and joins together all of the harmonies ever pressed on vinyl. Melodies run amok. Includes download code.
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FAITICHE 018LP
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Faitiche releases a new collaboration between the Japanese sound artist Asuna and Jan Jelinek: the album Signals Bulletin brings together joint improvisations and compositions made over a period of three years in Berlin, Kyoto, and Kanazawa. Asuna's meandering organ drones merge with Jelinek's pulsating synthesizer and field recording loops to create dense superclusters that span broad harmonic arcs. Includes download code.
Jan Jelinek on the album (Berlin, 2018): "Watching the Japanese sound artist Asuna playing the organ, some people might be surprised. Asuna is no virtuoso flying over the keyboard in a rage. Instead, with the calm gestures of an office worker, he cuts strips of adhesive tape to the correct length before sticking them onto the keys of his instrument. In this way, large clusters of keys are held down, creating a dense and sustained range of frequencies, while the sound artist continually prepares further sets of keys or removes tape again. I have rarely seen a more convincing performance concept, with such a power to fascinate. I first met Asuna when we both gave a concert at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, his home city. He performed the organ drones as described above and I immediately knew I wanted to collaborate with him. Six years and five meetings later, we completed Signals Bulletin. The album includes both joint improvisations and compositions, recorded in Berlin, Kanazawa and Kyoto. Whether using prepared organ, Casio keyboards, or mechanical plastic toys, Asuna creates rich textures of sound that barely change over long stretches of time. It is a music without breaks. For a while, I was unsure how my loops made using modular synthesizers and live sampling fitted here -- until I realized the role I had to take in this duet: I would provide the rhythmically pulsating foundation over which his dense continuums could unfold. The result is harmonically drifting superclusters that put us into a meditation-like state. It can perhaps be compared to Automatic Writing -- a mode of creative expression floating somewhere between concentration and distraction . . . It is no coincidence that Asuna owns a collection of Doodle Art -- drawings jotted down during conversations or while talking on the phone . . . The artwork for Signals Bulletin features pictures from the collection, in this case sheets of paper from the pads provided in stationery shops to test out pens..."
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2LP
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FAITBACK 009LP
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Repressed. Twenty years ago, Jan Jelinek's debut album Personal Rock was released by Source Records (1999). Under the pseudonym Gramm, it brings together eight tracks that have not been available on vinyl since their original release. Faitiche presents the re-release of the album: Personal Rock will appear as a double-LP, featuring the original cover artwork. Includes download code.
What people wrote about Personal Rock two decades ago:
"Situated somewhere between Jelinek's much loved Loop-Finding Jazz Records, Farben, Move D's Conjoint project and Atom Heart's most immersive work for Rather Interesting, it's a late night album full of subtle production tricks and melodic house structures that belong to the pre-millennial IDM heyday, but which transcend its overly-masculine templates." --Boomkat
"A serene little masterpiece." --De:Bug
"Though many producers have pushed forward the clicks-and-cuts style of experimental ambience developed by German experimentalists Oval (among others), few have been able to match their knack for making abstract cuts into pieces of undeniable beauty. Jan Jelinek's first LP as Gramm is one of the precious few, and it's obvious from the opener." --AllMusic
"Organized in organic structures and minimal movements, the tracks get into utopian states and super-desirable moods, offering superior contentedness and dependable taste of the kind seldom sustained for a whole album. (...) Subway-Escalator-Soul." --Spex
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FAITICHE 001RLP
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Faitiche is ten years old. October 2008 saw the release of Ursula Bogner - Recordings 1969-1988, for which the label was created. While working as a pharmacist, Ursula Bogner experimented with electronic music, undiscovered, for over three decades. When Jan Jelinek first heard Bogner's work in 2008, he was enthusiastic. The resulting album, compiled by Jelinek from Bogner's extensive oeuvre, is being reissued in a remastered version to mark the label's tenth anniversary. This new version also includes four bonus tracks that were previously only available on a 7" single. Jelinek on the music's initial discovery: "It seems incredible that Bogner's musical talents should have remained undiscovered, but in view of her biography, this might have been inevitable. I met Sebastian Bogner, Ursula's son, on a flight, and the usual small talk led to the topic of his mother, who 'liked to play around with synthesizers', albeit purely on an amateur level. Among her acquaintances, it was considered an eccentric hobby and not paid a great deal of interest. Bogner's life seemed simple and bourgeois to the core: she was a pharmacist, wife and mother. This situation made her obsession with electronic music all the more bizarre - an obsession that saw her build her own home studio. Throughout her early twenties, she followed the activities of Studio für elektronische Musik, attended seminars by Studio founder Herbert Eimert, exhibited enthusiasm for Musique Concrète and later shared her children's enthusiasm for new wave. Nevertheless, Bogner never involved herself in any scene, never made her music public. Her compositions, betray few signs of esotericism; they are closer to studies and sketches, humorous and almost silly, rather than tied to any particular school. Nevertheless, it is remarkably hard to grasp or classify her work as a whole. Over the course of 20 years, she dabbled in many different styles, leading to a bewildering variety of titles. In the late 1960s, Bogner started to record her own music on reel-to-reel tapes. Covering a fairly short period of her creative career, this music conveys a peculiar coherence in both form and content, a coherence that reflects her accessible, rhythmic and sometimes even poppy side. My own preference played a part in the selection process, but a further compilation is already in the works. I hope that listeners will enjoy the same exhilaration I experienced on discovery of Ursula Bogner's music" Gatefold sleeve, includes download.
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FAITICHE 017LP
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Repressed. Faitiche release a short version of the radio play Zwischen (German for "between"). Devised and produced by Jan Jelinek for German public broadcaster SWR2, Zwischen brings together twelve sound poetry collages using interview answers by public figures. Each collage consists of the brief moments between the spoken words: silences, pauses for breath, and hesitations in which the interviewees utter non-semantic sound particles. These voice collages also control a synthesizer, creating electronic sounds that overlay and merge with the voices to make twelve acoustic structures. We all know the speaker's fate: you falter, you mispronounce, there are breaks, silences, and false starts. This results in delays, a language noise compared by Roland Barthes to the knocks made by a malfunctioning motor. Such gaps can be disconcerting, standing as they do for a failure of the speaker's rhetorical skills. But what happens when they become a constitutive, poetic factor? Zwischen consists of twelve answers to twelve questions. The answers were all recorded in interview situations. From the speech of the interviewees -- all eloquent public figures -- the pauses are extracted and edited together. The result is a series of sound collages of silence. But this silence is deceptive, as it is only meaning that falls silent. What remains audible is an archaic body language: modes of breathing, planning phases, seething word particles in search of sense that can break out into onomatopoeic tumult or drift off into sonorous noise. In a further step, each of the twelve collages controls a modular synthesizer via its amplitude and frequency. Supposedly defective speech acts conduct synthetic sounds and the speakers regain their composure -- not via the spoken word, but through sound. The opening questions in the various interviews are answered by: Alice Schwarzer, John Cage, Hubert Fichte, Slavoj Zizek, Joseph Beuys, Lady Gaga, Ernst Jandl, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Marcel Duchamp, Friederike Mayröcker, Yoko Ono, and Max Ernst. Jelinek extends his thanks to Frank Halbig and SWR2. Includes download code; Edition of 500.
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FAITBACK 010LP
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Faitiche present the first vinyl issue of Improvisations And Edits, Tokyo 26.09.2001, originally released on CD in 2002 on Soup-Disk. Jan Jelinek and the Japanese trio Computer Soup (Satoru Hori - trumpet; Osamu Okubo - toys and electronics; Kei Ikeda - toys and electronics) present eight tracks, all recorded one afternoon in the trio's living room in Tokyo. They are excerpts from a joint group improvisation that subsequently underwent rudimentary editing, on which Jelinek and Computer Soup worked separately. Jelinek met the three musicians at his first concert in Japan in 2001, at Tokyo's Yellow club, where Computer Soup performed as the support act. Delighted by their free improvisation on pocket-sized electronic toys, trumpet, and oscillators, he arranged to meet Hori, Okubo, and Ikeda a few days later for a session at their apartment. The resulting three-hour recording formed the basis for Improvisations And Edits. A few days later, Jelinek returned to Berlin. Over the following months, they separately chose passages from the recording that were then edited and assembled into an album. Formed in Tokyo in 1996 as a quintet (including Shusaku Hariya and Daisuke Oishi), Computer Soup began by performing with acoustic instruments on the streets of Shibuya. Ikeda und Okubo soon switched instruments, and from then on, the group's minimalistic but densely woven sound was defined by electronic toys, oscillators and Satoru Hori's trumpet. Includes download code; Edition of 500.
Original reviews of Improvisations And Edits, Tokyo 26.09.2001 in 2003:
"The mind-blowing first track 'Straight Life' is perhaps the best example of what the album has to offer. Jelinek's trademark smears and washes occupy the midrange, like ghosted images of Joe Zawinul's electric piano floating quietly in the wind. DSP jazz modes are set against a walking bassline (possibly computer generated) and a gently tooted trumpet complete with Harmon mute, a dead ringer for Miles Davis' Prestige-era ballads. The effect is something like a three-dimensional film, with different realities on each layer; images of what jazz was manage to interact with a real-time demonstration of all it could be." --Pitchfork, 2003
"Often deliciously dreamy and hazy, Improvisations And Edits is like listening to an exceptional instrumental jazz performance while half-conscious or under some sort of chemical influence. Computerised blips and bleeps, loops and treatments and murky sonic skips curl up around desolate horn notes and scattered instrumental noises that culminate in elegant music." --Exclaim!, 2003
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CD
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FAITBACK 001CD
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Faitiche presents this long-lost album on CD. Since 2003, Jan Jelinek's Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records, originally released in 2001 on ~scape, existed only as a download. Includes two bonus tracks, "Moiré (Guitar & Horns)" and "Poren", B-sides from Tendency EP (2000).
"Don't be misled by the title, though for there isn't a finger-snapping rhythm bebop lead anywhere on the album. Instead, Jelinek chooses to explore the visual effect moiré - two shifting patterns creating an implied third dimension - in the audio realm." --Alternative Press
"The title acts as explanation for the studio technique that provided the basis for this album, snippets of other people's arrangements deconstructed through a sampler into loops and then splashed onto an audio canvas." --ATM
"Jelinek's sound evolved out of his dislike for (and inability to play) keyboards." --RPM
"Jelinek has abstracted his sources beyond recognition, looping his millisecond samples into flickering patterns of sonic moiré laid atop a dub techno framework. . . . Jelinek might as well have sampled a horn player's hissing intake of breath - it would have been 'jazz' enough for his purposes." --The Wire
"It's a perfect inversion of conventional music, a sonic negative. Everything that would typically be foreground is moved back or pushed off the screen altogether, and the flecks of sonic debris that would normally be covered by other sounds are left to carry the melody and rhythm." --Pitchfork
"All you need to know is that these onomatopoeic non-specific songs . . . are warm, paradisiacal creations." --NME
"Listen carefully and you'll hear textures slowly unfolding and mutating. Presuming you've not fallen asleep of course." --iDJ
"At times, it's all a bit dripping tap Japanese water torture; so sedentary it drowns in its own motionlessness" --DJ
"Loop-Finding-Jazz-Recordsis a genuine modern classic whose re-release is anything but a cynical mortgage repayment exercise. Consider this a second chance, then pretend you had it all along." --Boomkat
"I've been fortunate enough to see Jan Jelinek live once, at Tonic NYC (...) Wearing a black and white striped shirt, he looked like a nihilistic Charlie Brown." --beachsloth
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7"
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FAITICHE 016EP
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Faitiche present the launch of its new Acoustic Surveillance Series. Each 7" vinyl single in the series presents a historical system for acoustic surveillance, beginning with Uguisubari by Jan Jelinek's field recordist pseudonym G.E.S.. The pieces feature recordings of uguisubari -- special floors in Japanese temples and castles. The nightingale floor was a popular acoustic warning system. It was very simple: when someone stepped on the floorboards, the nails holding them in place rubbed against metal clamps mounted on the underside of the boards, raising the alarm by creating a squeaking noise that resembled the chirping of the Japanese nightingale.
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7"
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FAITICHE 015EP
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Faitiche present a new Ursula Bogner record. Winkel Pong contains three previously unreleased pieces from the archive of the sound researcher who died in 1994. In 2008, Jan Jelinek put together a first album from Bogner's tape archive, Recordings 1969-1988 (FAITICHE 001CD, 2014). A second followed in 2011, compiled this time by Andrew Pekler Sonne = Blackbox (FAITICHE 005CD, 2011). For Winkel Pong, the tape archive was passed on to Lucrecia Dalt. The Berlin-based Colombian sound artist and musician chose three tracks from the 1980s (exact dates unknown), editing the tape recordings for their release on Winkel Pong.
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2LP
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FAITBACK 001LP
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2019 repress. Faitiche presents a long-lost vinyl album. Since 2003, Jan Jelinek's Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records, originally released in 2001 on ~scape, existed only as a download. Now the album is available again on vinyl, as a double LP with two bonus tracks, "Moiré (Guitar & Horns)" and "Poren", B-sides from Tendency EP (2000).
"Don't be misled by the title, though for there isn't a finger-snapping rhythm bebop lead anywhere on the album. Instead, Jelinek chooses to explore the visual effect moiré - two shifting patterns creating an implied third dimension - in the audio realm." --Alternative Press
"The title acts as explanation for the studio technique that provided the basis for this album, snippets of other people's arrangements deconstructed through a sampler into loops and then splashed onto an audio canvas." --ATM
"Jelinek's sound evolved out of his dislike for (and inability to play) keyboards." --RPM
"Jelinek has abstracted his sources beyond recognition, looping his millisecond samples into flickering patterns of sonic moiré laid atop a dub techno framework. . . . Jelinek might as well have sampled a horn player's hissing intake of breath - it would have been 'jazz' enough for his purposes." --The Wire
"It's a perfect inversion of conventional music, a sonic negative. Everything that would typically be foreground is moved back or pushed off the screen altogether, and the flecks of sonic debris that would normally be covered by other sounds are left to carry the melody and rhythm." --Pitchfork
"All you need to know is that these onomatopoeic non-specific songs . . . are warm, paradisiacal creations." --NME
"Listen carefully and you'll hear textures slowly unfolding and mutating. Presuming you've not fallen asleep of course." --iDJ
"At times, it's all a bit dripping tap Japanese water torture; so sedentary it drowns in its own motionlessness" --DJ
"Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records is a genuine modern classic whose re-release is anything but a cynical mortgage repayment exercise. Consider this a second chance, then pretend you had it all along." --Boomkat
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FAITICHE 014LP
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Faitiche welcomes back Andrew Pekler, the musical director of the 2011 album Sonne = Blackbox (FAITICHE 005CD) featuring Ursula Bogner. Andrew Pekler's Tristes Tropiques is an album of synthetic exotica, pseudo-ethnographic music and unreal field recordings. Jan Jelinek interviews Andrew Pekler about Tristes Tropiques:
JJ: You've titled your album Tristes Tropiques - a reference to Claude Lévi-Strauss's famous account of his travels among native peoples in the Mato Grosso. If I remember correctly, the book can be read in two ways: as an ethnographic study of indigenous Brazilian tribes, and as a critique of anthropological methods. What exactly about Tristes Tropiques inspired you? The melancholy travelogue, or the formation of a new, critical school of thought?
AP: Both. Lévi-Strauss's constant reflection on the purpose of his work and the often melancholy tone of his writing constitute an internal tension which runs throughout the whole book. Tristes Tropiques is many things; autobiography, traveler's tale, ethnographic report, philosophical treatise, colonial history. But ultimately, it's the author's attempt to synthesize meaning from fragments of his own and other cultures that resonated most strongly with me - and led me to a new perspective on how I hear and make music.
JJ: Listening to Tristes Tropiques I noticed a certain oscillation between references, which is what I really like about it. Obviously, your music alludes to the beloved fairytale kitsch of exotica, but it also repeatedly shifts to a mode of ethno-poetic meditation music that seems to have no beginning or end. Where do you yourself locate the tracks gathered here?
AP: As a listener and as a musician, exotica music of the 1950s and '60s has always been a constant reference point and inspiration. And perhaps my listening has been "ruined" by exotica, but as I have dug deeper into ethnographic archives of "traditional" music, I've come to the realization that all recordings that evoke, allude to, or ostensibly document other musical forms have a similar effect on my imagination: I am most intrigued when I perceive some coincidentally familiar element within the foreign (a tuned percussion recital from Malawi that immediately brings to mind Steve Reichian minimalism, or the Burundian female vocal duet that sounds uncannily like a cut-up tape experiment, etc.). I suppose this album is an attempt to recreate the same kind of listening experience as what I've described, just with the electronic means that I have at hand.
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FAITICHE 013CD
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Faitiche presents the release of Schaum by Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek. Since their debut Bird, Lake, Objects (FAITICHE 003CD, 2010), they have played improvised concerts around the world. Japanese vibraphonist Masayoshi Fujita prepares his instrument with various percussion elements as well as metal objects and toys, while Jan Jelinek layers loops made using small-scale electronic devices. Schaum (German for froth or foam) is the duo's second album. Jelinek writing to Fujita about the album: "Dear Masayoshi Fujita, many thanks for the audio files. Your additional vibraphone recordings go wonderfully with the material we have already. Preparing the vibraphone with more percussion instruments was the right decision. Combined with my tightly woven synthesizer and sample loops, the result is a fragmented sense of space. I have taken the liberty of manipulating certain recordings. While listening through our improvisations, I noticed a tendency towards atmospheric sounds. I am almost tempted to call them tropical. This has strengthened my resolve to work with dense background textures - among others, I'm using material produced in connection with my radio pieces 'Kennen Sie Otahiti?' (2012) and 'Dialoge zur Anthropologie' (2013): artificial field recordings, jungle and rain forest settings that do not hide their staged, fictional character. As you know, I have long been obsessed with the tropics. This obsession involves a mental image of a specific quality of landscape: deliriously extravagant unstructuredness, hostile to life but also excessively productive. I am fascinated by the idea of installing clear minimalist forms amid such luxuriant tropical growth. Perhaps my image of the city of Brasilia is a good example. Corresponding to this, I would like to expand our liner notes to include a quotation from Robert Müller's novel Tropics, an expressionist travelogue published in Germany in 1915. It goes without saying that this work cannot be wholeheartedly embraced: its imperialistic fantasies of omnipotence and its 'master race' posturing, characteristic of that time and place, are, of course, intolerable. Tropics is fascinating as a nervous jungle phantasm that openly indulges in exoticism at the same time as deconstructing it. In this way, the main character's adventure becomes a journey into the subjective. It resembles a feverish inner delirium, exposing exoticism as a simulated, utopian perspective. What it boils down to is insubstantial, nothing but foam and froth. With best regards, Jan Jelinek" Comes in hard-cover book-style packaging.
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FAITICHE 013LP
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2020 repress. LP version. Faitiche presents the release of Schaum by Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek. Since their debut Bird, Lake, Objects (FAITICHE 003CD, 2010), they have played improvised concerts around the world. Japanese vibraphonist Masayoshi Fujita prepares his instrument with various percussion elements as well as metal objects and toys, while Jan Jelinek layers loops made using small-scale electronic devices. Schaum (German for froth or foam) is the duo's second album. Jelinek writing to Fujita about the album: "Dear Masayoshi Fujita, many thanks for the audio files. Your additional vibraphone recordings go wonderfully with the material we have already. Preparing the vibraphone with more percussion instruments was the right decision. Combined with my tightly woven synthesizer and sample loops, the result is a fragmented sense of space. I have taken the liberty of manipulating certain recordings. While listening through our improvisations, I noticed a tendency towards atmospheric sounds. I am almost tempted to call them tropical. This has strengthened my resolve to work with dense background textures - among others, I'm using material produced in connection with my radio pieces 'Kennen Sie Otahiti?' (2012) and 'Dialoge zur Anthropologie' (2013): artificial field recordings, jungle and rain forest settings that do not hide their staged, fictional character. As you know, I have long been obsessed with the tropics. This obsession involves a mental image of a specific quality of landscape: deliriously extravagant unstructuredness, hostile to life but also excessively productive. I am fascinated by the idea of installing clear minimalist forms amid such luxuriant tropical growth. Perhaps my image of the city of Brasilia is a good example. Corresponding to this, I would like to expand our liner notes to include a quotation from Robert Müller's novel Tropics, an expressionist travelogue published in Germany in 1915. It goes without saying that this work cannot be wholeheartedly embraced: its imperialistic fantasies of omnipotence and its 'master race' posturing, characteristic of that time and place, are, of course, intolerable. Tropics is fascinating as a nervous jungle phantasm that openly indulges in exoticism at the same time as deconstructing it. In this way, the main character's adventure becomes a journey into the subjective. It resembles a feverish inner delirium, exposing exoticism as a simulated, utopian perspective. What it boils down to is insubstantial, nothing but foam and froth. With best regards, Jan Jelinek" Comes in hard-cover book-style packaging.
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FAITICHE 001CD
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New 2014 edition, with similar hard-cover bookstyle packaging, including an 8-page booklet. This is the debut release on Jan Jelinek's label Faitiche: a collection of unheard electronic experiments from an unlikely source. Ursula Bogner was a pharmacist, wife and mother, and she was obsessed with electronic music -- an obsession that drove her to build her own studio for extensive recording and experimentation. Ursula Bogner was born in 1946 and raised in Dortmund -- she moved to Berlin at 19 to study pharmacy. She immediately went to work for pharmaceutical giant Schering, followed by marriage, children and a successful yet by no means sensational scientific career within the multinational heavyweight. At the same time, she developed a keen interest in electronic music. Throughout her early 20s, she followed the activities of Cologne-based Studio Für Elektronische Musik, attended seminars by Studio founder Herbert Eimert, exhibited great enthusiasm for musique concrète and, later on, shared her children's enthusiasm for British new wave pop. Nevertheless, Ursula Bogner never involved herself in any scene, never made her music public. Besides composition, she also tried her hand at painting, printing (the booklet features reproductions of two of her linocuts) and developed a strong fascination for mysticism, esotericism, and Wilhelm Reich's "orgonomy," the psychoanalyst's bizarre late work on his discovery of "orgonenergy" or life-force. Her compositions are studies and sketches: humorous and -- in view of her biography -- almost silly, rather than mystical or scientific. Nevertheless, it is remarkably hard to grasp or classify her work as a whole. Over the course of 20 years, she dabbled in many different styles, leading to a huge wealth of work and a bewildering variety of titles, from filter modulations, tuba tweaking, bass anthems, looping experiments, synth-pulse symphonies, to rhythmic patterns trapped in echo chambers. In the late 1960s, Ursula Bogner started to record her own music on reel-to-reel tapes. With some of these titles, Jelinek only found individual tracks of pieces recorded on a four-track-recorder -- in these cases, he had to recombine the separate tracks to recreate the original piece. Invoking the original's authenticity might seem insensitive, yet there was no other way to release them in their entirety. Ultimately, only three of the tracks featured on this CD are such "reworkings." All other titles were taken straight from the original reels. Covering a fairly short period of her creative career, they also convey a peculiar coherence in both form and content. A coherence that reflects her accessible, rhythmic and sometimes even "poppy" side. An exhilarating find from a truly undiscovered electronic artist.
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CD
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FAITICHE 012CD
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Faitiche is very pleased to present a new album and, at the same time, a well-known name: Farben Presents James DIN A4. In the summer of 2013, Farben (Jan Jelinek) remixed his way through the extensive oeuvre of the sample and collage artist James DIN A4 (Dennis Busch) -- and gathered 10 of his favorite titles here. Find out more in the following interview: Jan Jelinek: Dennis, you're a musician and an artist who creates audio and visual collages, as well as designing fashion. Could it be said that the principle of collage is what underlies all of your activities? Dennis Busch: Yes, that's the common thread running throughout my output. I shake the kaleidoscope and don't know what the result will be. If I don't like it, I keep shaking -- until some sensible nonsense appears. JJ: Your tracks meander from position to position, and have the effect of seeming to lack concentration -- in a positive sense. What's interesting is that in nearly every track there is one constant: a straight beat. Is this comparable to the white sheet of standard DIN A4 paper on which the collage snippets are spread out? DB: Four-four time is a kind of diametrical baton. It creates structure and acts as a kind of hostel warden to keep the pubescent samples in line. This is important in order to conjure up a fitting little dress for the playful bumblebees and weeds that are the samples. In fact, a track may sometimes present itself as slightly unfocused, but only under the fullest concentration and dedication. A track that starts off as a swimwear vendor at the North Pole may indeed fade away as a gravedigger at the end of an exploding rainbow."
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LP
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FAITICHE 012LP
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LP version. Housed in a gatefold sleeve. Faitiche is very pleased to present a new album and, at the same time, a well-known name: Farben Presents James DIN A4. In the summer of 2013, Farben (Jan Jelinek) remixed his way through the extensive oeuvre of the sample and collage artist James DIN A4 (Dennis Busch) -- and gathered 10 of his favorite titles here. Find out more in the following interview: Jan Jelinek: Dennis, you're a musician and an artist who creates audio and visual collages, as well as designing fashion. Could it be said that the principle of collage is what underlies all of your activities? Dennis Busch: Yes, that's the common thread running throughout my output. I shake the kaleidoscope and don't know what the result will be. If I don't like it, I keep shaking -- until some sensible nonsense appears. JJ: Your tracks meander from position to position, and have the effect of seeming to lack concentration -- in a positive sense. What's interesting is that in nearly every track there is one constant: a straight beat. Is this comparable to the white sheet of standard DIN A4 paper on which the collage snippets are spread out? DB: Four-four time is a kind of diametrical baton. It creates structure and acts as a kind of hostel warden to keep the pubescent samples in line. This is important in order to conjure up a fitting little dress for the playful bumblebees and weeds that are the samples. In fact, a track may sometimes present itself as slightly unfocused, but only under the fullest concentration and dedication. A track that starts off as a swimwear vendor at the North Pole may indeed fade away as a gravedigger at the end of an exploding rainbow."
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12"
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FAITICHE 011EP
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Faitiche presents Jan Jelinek's Temple. This mini-LP is the final installment in a series of four vinyl compilations that bring together the wide variety of Jelinek's music: commissioned works, live recordings, collaborations with other musicians as well as unreleased material from the last five years. As was the case with two tracks that appeared on the 2012 mini-LP Music for Fragments, Temple stems from a collaboration with French-Canadian choreographer Sylvain Émard. "Temple" is a re-worked excerpt of the music for the dance piece "Fragments -- Volume I." The Gesellschaft zur Emanzipation des Samples (G.E.S.) welcomes a new member: Helmut Schmidt samples his way through the middle-class canon of values and assembles collages of Messiaen and Debussy (or is that Bach and Milhaud?), which are once again played back in public spaces and recorded anew. A backdrop of gambling unites the recordings: the playback locations chosen by Helmut Schmidt are Geneva, Baden-Baden and Bad Homburg -- a triumvirate of bourgeois casino tradition.
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12"
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FAITICHE 010EP
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This mini-LP is the third of four vinyl compilations that bring together a highly diverse range of Jan Jelinek's works -- including commissioned pieces, live recordings, collaborations with other musicians, as well as unreleased material from the past five years. Both titles on the A-side are live recordings of Japanese vibraphone player Masayoshi Fujita together with Jelinek. "Do You Know Otahiti?" is a two-fold collage combining unreleased material with fragments taken from a radio collage. "TOton" is a previously-unreleased track from 2009.
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7"
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FAITICHE 007EP
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Faitiche presents four new recordings from the Gesellschaft Zur Emanzipation Des Samples (G.E.S.). On More Circulations, G.E.S. instigate the following recording situations: audio playback devices are placed in public spaces in order to play the desired sample material. The resulting recordings document collages from public spaces: a hotel lobby in Lanzerote, a registry office in Berlin, Copenhagen's Tivoli garden, a beach on the Portuguese coast, the old town of Geneva as well a Mercedes Benz on the way to Eindhoven.
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CD/BOOK
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FAITICHE 005CD
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The world first learned of unknown housewife/mother/pharmacist/electronic experimentalist Ursula Bogner's work in 2008. Since then, her identity has been surrounded by rumors, her graphic work has been exhibited (CEACC, Strasbourg, France, 2011 and elsewhere) and her compositional instructions have been performed (by Mo Loschelder, Andrew Pekler, Kassian Troyer, Jan Jelinek, among others). The release of Sonne = Blackbox brings together all of these aspects in one CD and book: compiled by Andrew Pekler, the CD presents Bogner's early experiments with voice and tape music -- a previously-unknown, emotional side of her music is revealed here through her singing. The 126-page book contains, along with drawings, photos and other curiosities from Bogner's life, an introduction by Jan Jelinek, texts by Momus, Andrew Pekler, Tim Tetzner and Bettina Klein as well as interviews with the orgone researcher Jürgen Fischer and the ethnographer Kiwi Menrath. Sonne = Blackbox attempts to locate Ursula Bogner, the sound experimentalist within broader cultural history. A central theme is the phenomenon of fake: how did the erroneous suspicion of fakery come about in the case of Ursula Bogner and what is a post-fake? Answers in this book. No Neo (Ursula Bogner, 1971, Maas Media Vol. 43, ISBN 978-3-940999-25-2); Deluxe edition in a card-box: with CD (FAITICHE 005) and book (MAAS MEDIA). Text in English/German; Introduction by Jan Jelinek. Texts by: Momus, Kiwi Menrath, Jürgen Fischer, Bettina Klein, Tim Tetzner, Andrew Pekler. Book and CD in card-box. Pages: 126; Bound: 14 x 21 cm with numerous photographs, drawings and compositional instructions. CD compiled by Andrew Pekler. Total time: 35:12 mins. Last copies.
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12"
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FAITICHE 006EP
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Faitiche proudly announces the release of the second Farben 12" single. Xango gathers four new recordings that exhibit a sketch-like quality and make do without complex arrangements. While "Eroten Reiten Auf Einen Delphin" is based on a previously-unreleased theme by Ursula Bogner, the remaining three tracks perfectly exemplify the spontaneity and simplicity of Jan Jelinek's current recordings. Farben's erstwhile wish to translate the sexiness of a Burt Bacharach song into club music is taken up again on "Xango."
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LP
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FAITICHE 003LP
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2020 repress. LP version. The Faitiche label presents a collaboration between Berlin-based vibraphonist Masayoshi Fujita and Faitiche label-head/electronic musician Jan Jelinek. Queried on his favorite word in the German language, Masayoshi Fujita will pick "getragen" for its semantic signifiers, its inherent sense of "expansive, deep, quiet and sombre." And yet, "getragen" leaves plenty of room for interpretation. Does this definition apply to Bird, Lake, Objects? Only to a limited extent. Compared to previous Faitiche releases, Bird, Lake, Objects is certainly the most "getragen" of them all. From a distance, these tracks seem rather introspective, cautious even -- and reflect the recording situation: deliberately pared down, reduced to a single microphone in space and a separate track for all other instruments -- each movement and action chronicled by the treacherous mike. This presented multiple issues and external influences during the recording process: fire engine screams, street noise and footfalls became part of the recordings and part of their improvisatory nature. Each movement required careful orchestration, fully aware of its irrevocable nature. Space itself was always present and an audible entity, except on "Stripped To RM" (recorded without a microphone or vibraphone track). This record is a contemplative, aural meditation combining washes of ever-expanding electronic crackles and pulses with the gentle, droning resonance of the vibraphone. Masayoshi prepared his instrument with pieces of metal, strips of foil and similar objects. The resulting new sounds, akin to distortions, help to expand the vibraphone spectrum without eroding the instrument's intrinsic character or even abandoning it altogether. Besides his extremely reduced and deliberate style of playing, it is this aural redefinition that makes Masayoshi Fujita's craft so remarkable. Masayoshi's wood prints on the cover and booklet of Bird, Lake, Objects present concise, abstract and monochrome landscapes that are a visual complement to this music.
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