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viewing 1 To 25 of 85 items
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MACROM 080CD
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Live at Borusan follows in the tradition of Stefan Goldmann's recordings of concerts at the Philharmonie Berlin and the Honen-in Temple in Kyoto, with a music program that is just as tailored to the location and its characteristics as his other site-specific formats, such as for the LACMA in Los Angeles or the CCK of Buenos Aires. The Borusan Music House is located in the densely built-up Pera district, the old Christian quarter of Istanbul. It is a 19th century brownstone that has been carefully converted into a minimalist, multistorey exhibition and concert venue. While Goldmann was a fellow at the Tarabya Cultural Academy for an extended summer in 2023, the idea for this concert was born and scheduled to be part of the Noise Istanbul festival organized by Borusan in November 2024. The palimpsest-like character of the city with its multiple cultural layers is reflected in the structure of this concert and expressed in the language of electroacoustic composition. Accordingly, what should be a collision-ridden, restlessly advancing sequence through a multitude of references to earlier works and projects such as Veiki, Alluvium, Sfera, and Furnace, instead leads listeners on a surprisingly relatable sonic arc.
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MACROM 079CD
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Impérieux (aka Alper Durmush) is a beatmaker extraordinaire hailing from Kırcaali/Kardjali: since antiquity a hub of mythical music, located at the crossroads of Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece. Rezil is his stunning debut album, built on the ground cleared by his head-turning earlier releases for KiNK's Sofia Records and DJ Koze's Pampa. Its effortlessly mesmerizing ten tracks consolidate the outlines of forward-leaning club music. Experimentation is a well-established facet of Impérieux' approach to the adventurous techno (left)field, but more than ever on Rezil he seizes the opportunity to thrill with holistically captivating hooks, bass lines and rolling rhythms. A culmination of several years of exploration and refinement. Unpredictability lies at the heart of all this music, bound together by a consistent modernist glint. From the warped wobble of "Sword Fight" to the unhinged dairé excess of "Imana," from the drunken Casio bliss of "Rezil" to the hopeful euphoria of "Young."
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MACROM 078EP
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"Marbles" is the legendary 1970 proto punk/dance classic from John McLaughlin's US debut album Deνotion, recorded at the time in which he played on Miles Davis' Bitches Brew and taped the Record Plant session with Jimi Hendrix. "Marbles" didn't just deliver jazz rock's most danceable 4/4 beat, played by Band of Gypsies/Electric Flag drummer Buddy Miles. It is also centered with a once-in-a-generation bass line performed by Billy Rich. Larry Young's otherworldly Hammond textures predate a lot of what synthesizers were about to do much later, and the blowtorch energy emanating from John McLaughlin's cranked amp went beyond what most would had dared during the defining era of heavy rock guitar. An apex achievement at the intersection of jazz rock, guitar rock and dance music without parallel, before or since. John McLaughlin arrived in New York in 1969 to join Tony Williams' new group Lifetime which also featured Larry Young and eventually Jack Bruce (of Cream). On the second day in town, he found himself in the studio with Miles Davis, recording "In a Silent Way." His playing would also take center stage in Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, On The Corner and several other Davis key works of his much beloved first electric era. In between a busy schedule with Lifetime and Davis, McLaughlin also recorded two solo albums in 1970, Deνotion with an all-electric group and "My Goal's Bеyоnd" as its acoustic counterpart. By the time he formed his group Mahavishnu Orchestra in 1972, John McLaughlin was firmly established as the most important practitioner of his instrument of his generation within and well beyond the emerging jazz rock/fusion genre, and he has continued to evolve and surprise until today. Here, a thorough remaster is supplemented by a new and throbbing techno version by Stefan Goldmann.
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MACROM 077CD
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Layered asymmetry: With Alluvium, Stefan Goldmann explores new structural paths for machine rhythm in irregular meters. Throughout the album, different non-binary patterns run simultaneously, interlocking into twelve offerings of jagged polyrhythmic magic. Such a framework may juxtapose eleven on one axis, against seven on another and five on a third -- building stunningly iridescent edifices of multidimensional time. This is the third album in a series of "first principles" research of metric asymmetry. Veiki (MACROM 059CD, 2019) laid the foundation for "real broken beat." Then, Vector Rituals (2022) explored the bending of grids in order to yield idiosyncratic forms of organizing time. Alluvium takes these two approaches and expands them beyond their initial reach: irregular patterns moving along parallel timelines within one unifying grid.
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MACROM 074CD
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Acustica: For this acoustic sources-only mix, Stefan Goldmann cut up a vast library of recorded interpretations of 20th century avant-garde compositions. Layered segments of individual instrumental and chamber performances form emergent orchestral opulence -- just to spill over into actual orchestral segments. Goldmann has tackled acoustic archives before with his edit of multiple recordings of Igor Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps." However, this mix traverses the disparities and convergences of seven decades of score-based music with impressively results. A metalevel polystylistic work that explores vast potentials of integration, interaction and interference. An antidote to the prevailing practice of sounding compositions in scattered, sterile isolation. Here, opposing concepts of music are channeled into one continuous flow, with a coherent DJ performance as the vehicle.
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MACROM 073CD
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Less is more -- the motto applies to Luxembourg's most intriguing newcomer Arthur Clees, whose approach is minimalist, rich, hypnotic. Clees is a young prodigy drummer/percussionist/vocalist with a multitude of performances and sessions under his belt. The 21-year-old musician manages to inspire very different people with his tracks. There's both depth and a tremendous upward pull at the same time. In his debut album, Stay, Temporary Home influences from techno to electronica to the avant-garde are paired with a distinctive feeling for melodies and a signature treatment of percussion. Soul and R&B songs often appear as sonically distant yet emotionally close mirages.
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MACROM 072CD
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Insight Piano: Within just a few years Tom Schneider moved the scope of the sampler as an instrument into entirely unexpected zones of expression. On keyboards with pioneering cut-up pop band KUF, he developed a key-triggered vocal style that features no singers on stage. With trio Loom & Thread, he devised a new wave of digital improv where the sampler amplified the piano and engaged the acoustic musicians in some sort of multidimensional musical chess. Isotopes is Schneider's first solo album and witnesses him being an astonishingly sensitive and imaginative pianist. The album's material was developed and recorded in an intimate session at Bauer Studios of Ludwigsburg -- a site laden with the history of some of the most significant recordings of contemporary jazz. Yet, things don't stop at bringing just another piano solo effort. Schneider's approaches to the instrument, which range from tender hesitance to eruptive, clustered attacks, merely set the starting point. These utterances are sampled and mirrored back, ultimately rendering a unified performance which combines the depth of intricately executed composition with the urgent immediacy of free improvisation. Over the past decade there has been a resurgence of apparently opposed trends: repetitive, minimalistic sensitivity, and dashing, complex virtuosity. The linear thinking that defines these approaches as polar opposites turns out to be entirely useless when facing Isotopes. Both, the uninhibited speed of granular clouds of tones and the dense texture of multiple layered phrases fired off all at once, require a complete reconceptualization of the meaning of complexity in music. Yet, Schneider offers less of a tongue in cheek critique of the pretense usually inherent in virtuosic display -- instead, the playing field is being thoroughly leveled: Now, and really for the first time, a singular tone potentially carries exactly as much weight as the peaks of physiological sophistication. This is not at all what the axe-wielding avant-gardes of the past were after. What you are witnessing here is a thorough de-ideologization of the instrument: Neither traditions need to be shattered nor innovation kept at the gates. In a world of zero-sum thinking ("if you get to eat I must go hungry"), here we find an integrative approach that shows that we can indeed lift up without simultaneously pulling down.
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MACROM 070CD
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Death ambient: Lucaslavia operates on the outer rings of metal, melting its constituent elements into vicious torrents of fury. Furnace resembles a field recording from the sixth circle of hell. Despite its deceptively calm initial form, ancient hatreds seem to rage in violent currents just below the leaden surface. Disembodied voices range from whispered malediction to screams of utmost anger, stretched into purgatorial eternities. Gargantuan sonic fortification walls composed of drums, ripping sheets of distorted guitar, hissing residue of steel and stone blasted apart build threatening levels of intensity. The only deceptive respite comes from what appears to be the faint mechanical creaking emanating from the inexorable and towering installations found in the engine rooms of boundless pain. Lucaslavia was written and produced by Stefan Goldmann. Stefan Goldmann has performed electronic music in 45 countries across six continents, with formats ranging from DJ sets to a four-hour opera with ensemble and a room-spanning installation. He has developed special formats for Berghain in Berlin, LACMA in Los Angeles and Kyoto's Honen-in Temple and is currently artistic director of the Berlin Philharmonic's Strom Festival. Mastered by Rashad Becker.
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10"
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MACROM 071EP
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One of techno's most joyous experimenters delivers two intriguing up-tempo tracks. Instead of hitting hard and heavy "In Aggregate" and "Carob" float delicately, with explosive detail blooming freely and high above what feels rather like a bass-laden undercurrent than a persistent kick drum foundation. Both tracks expand on Stefan Goldmann's extensive polyrhythmic research and integrate tonal and metric functions within the same units of sound. Somewhat radically, the central sound of "Carob" is all in one: beat, bassline and single-note melody. By contrast, "In Aggregate" unfolds lush layers of exuberant percussion, countered by rounded drops of bass and an occasional vocal snippet ricocheting off of claustrophobia-inducing walls of glass. As future-forward as they are organic, these offerings come with appropriately idiosyncratic artwork by Jorinde Voigt. Printed on inside-out heavy paper cover; includes printed inner sleeve.
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MACROM 069LP
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KUF create emotion-laden dialogues across layers of time and dimensions of sound. With three albums the Berlin trio pioneered an astonishing inversion of the typical electronic band set up, by pairing a plethora of disembodied, sampled voices with acoustic real-time interaction on bass, drums, and keys. Yield, their fourth album, presents a shift in focus. Less weight on the vocal core -- lots of new integrations of sampling, synthesis and band action in different constellations. This diversification of sources pulls the conceptual stops out and yields a dazzling array of magical instrumentalism. Bold. Catchy. Flourishing. From Gold (MACROM 048CD/LP, 2016) to Universe (MACROM 055CD/LP, 2018), KUF solidified an irresistible marriage of android vocal cords and highly energetic beats. Their third album Re:Re:Re (MACROM 060CD/LP, 2020) applied the concept to remix/cover version hybrids of classics from Macro's stellar back catalog, tackling originals by the likes of rRoxymore, KiNK, Patrick Cowley, Santiago Salazar, and Stefan Goldmann. With proof that the concept could be applied with supremely gratifying results to such diverse contexts, time was ripe to go back to the drawing board and reimagine the perimeter. Now Yield breathes the freedom of playful reassembly of the main ingredients. A sampler's cut-up capabilities triggered by frisky fingers. Persistent bass. Adamant drums. Rough soul, intertwined by improvised outbursts and shaped with the aesthetics of raw MPC-based chunky techno. Twelve slices of hyper-integrated real-time magic.
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MACROM 065LP
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Proprietary rhythm: Vector Rituals sees techno polymath Stefan Goldmann constructing polymetric rites of percussion. Synthesized from the ground up, timbral characteristics, metric properties, dynamic expression, and micro rhythmic phrasing are shaped by the interactions of layered control voltage functions. The result is an assembly of abstract dances ranging from the intricate to the powerful. Near-humanoid behavior emerges from liquid patterns, laid out and brought to life by the freewheeling encounter of modular waveforms and snappy envelopes. Sounds evoke metallic textures -- ringing, scraping -- and group into virtual shapes from tiny spikes to vast surfaces. Some of the parametric relationships employed are as loose as to imply chance drifts. Others lock in with strict regularity as found in the 13 vs. 17 polymeter pattern of opening track "Nayba". By contrast, in the strictly repetitive yet highly asymmetrical sequence of "Yukagir" each metric step has its own uniquely irregular duration. The center piece of this collection is "Ayon" with multiple autonomous and highly agile timelines. Its constituent layers break away in radial fashion and fall back together at widely spaced points of congregation. All compositions herein present powerful proof of the unlimited capacity of electronic music to yield new principles of organization and to solidify their expression into clear-cut gestalt. Artwork by visual artist Jorinde Voigt. Printed onto the inside-out cover sleeve and continued on the inner jacket; 180 gram vinyl.
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MACROM 068CD
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Loom & Thread appear to present a take on this most classical of springboards of improvised music: the piano trio. Indeed, Daniel Klein on drums and Tobias Fröhlich on double bass forge that highly engaging, interlocking framework, set in complex juxtaposition to what emanates from the corner of Tom Schneider on keys. This would be a superbly satisfying triangle of planar relational wonder on its own. Imaginative re-adaptation of unexpected shifts, re-grouped into coherent streams of musical thought. Superb clarity despite the pressurized density of form, the emergence of intricate order from spontaneous play. And yet this would be an utterly incomplete description. Because a dozen directions and dimensions and interdependent layers open like trap doors all around, shattering any first impression of a familiar context within just a few seconds of listening. What appears to be piano improvisation in the post-bop tradition soon exhibits abrupt disruptions, impossible shifts, improbable repetitions, movements in frequency and dynamics beyond the physical capabilities of a fixed-pitch instrument deemed so familiar. How so? Tom Schneider samples his own playing and continuously feeds it back into the ongoing collective stream of the trio. Assigning starting points to the sampled phrases, these are then treated as independent musical events just like the individual tones they contain: a second order of access is created. Signifier and signified in the hands of the same musician, thus driving a two-pronged plane of immanence. This meta-improvisation is thrown at the other two players who now find themselves embroiled in some kind of three-dimensional chess game: fending off simulacra and responding to both, idiosyncratic primary phrases of tones and a vibrant multitude of sampled variants. Reflexivity: the piano/sampler continuum with its multi-layered access points to improvisational mapping is then attacking and soothing and further teasing the appropriately angular rhythm section. A wondrous dissolution of the divide between experiencing now and accessing memory.
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12" + CD
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MACROM 062EP
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Mysterious L'estasi Dell'oro returns with eight mind-boggling machine songs on Time To Breathe Inward. Techno boldness from the depths of Upstate New York. Twisted mechanical workouts, enchanted while driving hard, like nature awakening to recapture unattended industrial structures. Circular melodies cut through the metallic clutter. This is the stuff to bring us back together. Following previous releases on Macro, Field, Flaneur Audio, Fifth Wall, and Voodoo Down, Christopher Ernst leaves his Brooklyn phase behind and starts afresh with his first long-form release in five years. Includes CD.
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MACROM 063CD
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In February 2020, the Philharmonie Berlin opened its gates for the first time in its history for a fully blown electronic music program. Strom Festival continued for two days across three of the Berlin landmark's jagged spaces. Stefan Goldmann had been invited to serve as the festival's artist-curator and also performed its inaugural concert in the building's pentagonal Grand Hall. As much as this event was without precedent for one of the world's leading classical music institutions, it is also an uncannily typical match for Goldmann's rather unusual career path. Though nominally techno, his music is distinguished by an ever-imaginative take on the form. From exploring asymmetric rhythms to designing novel tuning systems to re-imagining the technological base of electronic music -- few have looked further beyond the genre's functional foundations. Respectively, his music keeps appearing in contexts far removed from techno's club institutions -- featuring work with ensembles, dance companies, film makers and his own opera, as well as site-specific performances at venues such as Kyoto's Honen-In Temple and LA's LACMA museum. Live At Philharmonie Berlin is closely tailored to the Grand Hall, featuring a wealth of material specifically developed to engage its architecture and acoustics. Apart from being a document that brilliantly captures the Philharmonie's aural footprint with clear-cut synthetic probes, it also comes close to being a retrospective of Goldmann's most striking formal ideas. Harking back to his early use of wavetable synthesis for highly liquid units of pitch, timbre, and dynamics, his recent recontextualizations of industrial preset sounds and gradual shades of distortion fuse to shape the soundscape of the one-hour performance. These sounds then swirl through shifting microtonal grids and freewheeling polyrhythms, solidifying into alien melodies, spiky transients and blocks of colored noise.
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MACROM 060CD
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Electronic/acoustic wonder band KUF deliver a special surprise for their third album: eleven sizzling hot takes on tracks drawn from the Macro Recordings' stellar catalog, as originally crafted by some of today's most respected artists in electronic music. KiNK, Patrick Cowley, Peter Kruder (of K&D), Stefan Goldmann, rRoxymore, and more get the treatment. With a nod to the label's previous highly original compilations and mixes from the Macrospective and Vinylism series, Re:Re:Re captures more new ground. KUF's previous albums presented an astonishing inversion of the typical extended electronic set up, in that they paired a plethora of disembodied, sampled voices with acoustic real time interaction on bass, drums and keys. Re:Re:Re shifts the focus of sampling altogether to scanning entire tracks and compositions which are then reimagined with the band's singular approach. Neither just remixes, nor faithful reproductions, KUF engage in careful sound archaeology. From re-programming key sounds to holistic granular deconstructions, the original's sound palettes are reproduced to serve as a springboard towards entirely new instalments. The resulting tracks range from intimate ballads to full power dance floor movers, spanning a highly engaging arc of sheer listening pleasure. Also features Santiago Salazar, Raudive, Jorge Socarras, and Anno Stamm.
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MACROM 060LP
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2x12" version. Electronic/acoustic wonder band KUF deliver a special surprise for their third album: eleven sizzling hot takes on tracks drawn from the Macro Recordings' stellar catalog, as originally crafted by some of today's most respected artists in electronic music. KiNK, Patrick Cowley, Peter Kruder (of K&D), Stefan Goldmann, rRoxymore, and more get the treatment. With a nod to the label's previous highly original compilations and mixes from the Macrospective and Vinylism series, Re:Re:Re captures more new ground. KUF's previous albums presented an astonishing inversion of the typical extended electronic set up, in that they paired a plethora of disembodied, sampled voices with acoustic real time interaction on bass, drums and keys. Re:Re:Re shifts the focus of sampling altogether to scanning entire tracks and compositions which are then reimagined with the band's singular approach. Neither just remixes, nor faithful reproductions, KUF engage in careful sound archaeology. From re-programming key sounds to holistic granular deconstructions, the original's sound palettes are reproduced to serve as a springboard towards entirely new instalments. The resulting tracks range from intimate ballads to full power dance floor movers, spanning a highly engaging arc of sheer listening pleasure. Also features Santiago Salazar, Raudive, Jorge Socarras, and Anno Stamm.
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MACROM 061EP
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Sheer power. With Tears Of Joy, Stefan Goldmann hands in an array of unapologetically bass-heavy techno cuts. Attacking a sound system's full width, these simplistic two-tone workouts turn out to have tremendous depth. Never standing still, constant feisty modulation keeps basslines and bodies moving, encircling each other, merging joyously.
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MACROM 059CD
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Stefan Goldmann's Veiki is a bold foray onto new rhythmic ground for machine-based dance music. While Veiki's sounds appear firmly grounded in contemporary techno, its pulse is neither based on the 4/4 tradition nor on the breakbeat continuum. The meters employed here are distinctly asymmetric -- i.e. they never add up to binary entities, but are odd-numbered instead. With patterns of 7, 9, or 11, they offer possibilities for dislocating the center of gravity not available to standard rhythmic fare. Thus, this may represent one of the few systematic efforts to move slamming machine techno onto an alternative rhythmic foundation: Real broken beat. Asymmetric/irregular meters are part of the ancient music tradition of the Eastern Mediterranean as well as of South Eastern Europe. The patterns employed here are also present in the traditional music of Bulgaria with which Stefan Goldmann grew up. Citing no other aspects and using no "ethnic" samples, these tracks lead a way to resolving the problem of how to bring the tools and traits of cutting-edge electronic music to alternative traditions of music, or vice versa. Structure over surface. Of course, irregular meters have been visited for structural exploration for Western musicians of different backgrounds, such as Don Ellis, Steve Coleman, or Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit who have all developed highly distinguished and idiosyncratic approaches in relation to these. Thus, a reduction of the phenomenon to its core and emergence as a clear-cut and reproducible form appeared imminent for at least two decades. The inexplicable surprise though is that despite the ongoing rhythmic differentiation of breakbeat and techno this obvious step seems to have never been taken decisively. Now here it is.
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MACROM 058CD
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Turntablist and sound artist Maria Chavez turns in her first continuous full-length audio work. Plays is a DJ mix CD that doesn't feature any tracks. It is a remix of a work whose original doesn't feature recorded sound. It is a minimalistic yet complex electroacoustic work, literally built from scratch, bootstrapping sound out of sheer silence: creatio ex nihilio. The story of this album starts with a record given to Chavez as a birthday present. It is Stefan Goldmann's Ghost Hemiola (MACROM 022R-EP, 2013), a double vinyl set of empty locked grooves. The record contains no sound whatsoever other than the vinyl's own surface noise. Chavez's work with records and turntables usually features a rich layer of recorded audio which is transformed, cut up and rearranged by a wide range of fearless physical manipulations. By contrast Ghost Hemiola is a blank canvas, unveiling her craft in its purest form, unobstructed by any audio content other than the sounds of the medium itself. Breaking up the medium is happening both ways here, literally as well as figuratively. Unlike with her live performances, for Plays Chavez employs digital processes extensively, zooming into minute details of sound and the artefacts of both mediums, the tangible vinyl record and disembodied digital audio. Narrowing down shards of sound to extremely short frames creates metallic timbres, reverberating quasi-spaces, and percussive layers. Slowing down the tempo until sound halts at one sample of its digital representation brings forth emergent frequencies, which Chavez then uses to play melodies -- vaguely resembling her analog technique of playing melodies by skipping a stylus back and forth across a test tone record. This thorough investigation of the unobstructed vinyl medium with digital means is distilled into a one-hour composition on this album. By the way -- Chavez and Goldmann share the same birthdate.
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MACROM 057CD
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Tacit Script builds its own network of interdependent grids in which sound objects move and thrive along multiple dimensions. All frequencies fall into custom scales, developed individually for each track and generated by bending the standard chromatic system. Most electronically produced music operates with a 1V per octave tuning which is divided into 12 equally spaced steps, equivalent to the piano keyboard. Stefan Goldmann skews or stretches this variable in order to achieve different microtonal spacings, wider or narrower, thus eliminating the octave -- commonly a fixture in most music. Intervals might thus be at 75 or 110 or 138% of their "regular" ratio. Melodic objects then traverse these unfamiliar spectral structures, singing electric songs with alien voices. Divergent metric layers drift apart, only to be pulled back together at critical points. Clearly pulsed elements hammer out persistent patterns, yet complex polymetric friction persists over long stretches of time. Alternating continuous sweeps and abrupt shifts through wavetables define the highly synthetic, yet organically developing timbres of Tacit Script. Relentless repetition is the force which yields coherent composite shapes in this setting. The results are emphatically in the realm of techno -- what is being pushed forward are the interrelations of its constituent layers. The music in this album is derived from works originally commissioned for the five-hour music theater work ALIF, as premiered at Berlin's MaerzMusik Festival of 2016. Revised from 2017 to 2019 for the album format, the works herein are an excellent representation of Stefan Goldmann's ongoing investigation of the wider potentials of techno.
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12" + CD
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MACROM 056EP
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An Ardent Heart is a focused techno mini-album that brings forward Stefan Goldmann's most dancefoor-centered material since 2008. The tracks push and pull relentlessly. Despite their linear appeal, there is an intricately balanced interplay between the heavy-handed kicks, the bouncy bass accents, and the sizzling, yet clear-cut details whipped up by the rallying drums. The peculiar, seemingly "vocalized" mode of synthesis is maybe the most unifying sonic characteristic of the six tracks and one coda. Formant shaping, vowel filters and airstream perturbations let a wide range of sounding elements speak in the tongues of a cybernetic Babylon. Layered polymetric patterns perforate the aural plane with alien scripts. Clearly structured, yet opaque messages that seem to have traveled for aeons emanate from the red-hot circuitry. They spill into a network of delays, channeled down into labyrinthine corridors, enveloped in electrostatic noise. Most tracks build on chance patterns evoked with hardware sequencers and freeform modulation sources. The resulting synthetic systems are as cohesive as they exhibit vast internal variation and range. Balancing simplicity and complexity right in the middle, the results are just as immediately gripping as they can feed sustained attention. A wide palette of distortion and overtones mark the contours of individual elements that seem to have near-physical qualities -- as if there were metallic strings, thick membranes, a resonating sphere, all struck by electric mallets, caused to vibrate by mechanical bows and sung by silicone lips. Includes CD with three tracks not included on 12".
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MACROM 055LP
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2x12" version. KUF create emotion-laden dialogues across layers of time and dimensions of sound. Voices recorded in private are chopped up and brought out center-stage to sing with beats hammered out right here and now. Glowing synths push forward. Basslines rise to grab the melodic role of a track while a vowel is truncated and locked into a grid, driving the rhythm. Voices move within the frame of a sample, performed by hands pushing keys, guided by the ear, immersed in a trio session's deep flow... A vortex of quirky hands, responsive ears and glowing circuits. Since Thomas A. Edison first recorded the human voice in 1877, the recording arts have changed music forever. Musicians have explored the endless possibilities of bouncing their input onto layers of tape, off the walls of an echo chamber or the circuitry of electronic helpers -- technology that modulates, spatializes, shifts, divides, or multiplies the work of human hands and mouths. An era of sampling offered a cubistic analysis of the recorded past and DJs took dancers onto intricately fractured time travels. This is the historic foundation that KUF keep probing. Just like the sampler and the DJ before them, they found new ways to re-allocate where machine and man stand when making music together. Most importantly, they turn the resulting friction into sparkling bursts of energy. Universe digs deeper into the android vocal chords. The album offers sweeping melodies, different beats, and persistent bass. Immerse in the intimacy of the voices, probably recorded in trains, backstage areas, and at late night private parties during Berlin Lichtenberg warehouse rehearsals. By striking the keys, KUF squeeze out and serve up all the soul accumulated in those savory phonetic shreds. Wood striking metal, thick bass strings moving air, oscillators humming eagerly. Physical and electrical, alive and stunningly beautiful -- after a year well spent in smoky clubs, on festival stages and in extensive nocturnal sessions, KUF deliver chapter two of their unfolding saga.
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MACROM 055CD
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KUF create emotion-laden dialogues across layers of time and dimensions of sound. Voices recorded in private are chopped up and brought out center-stage to sing with beats hammered out right here and now. Glowing synths push forward. Basslines rise to grab the melodic role of a track while a vowel is truncated and locked into a grid, driving the rhythm. Voices move within the frame of a sample, performed by hands pushing keys, guided by the ear, immersed in a trio session's deep flow... A vortex of quirky hands, responsive ears and glowing circuits. Since Thomas A. Edison first recorded the human voice in 1877, the recording arts have changed music forever. Musicians have explored the endless possibilities of bouncing their input onto layers of tape, off the walls of an echo chamber or the circuitry of electronic helpers -- technology that modulates, spatializes, shifts, divides, or multiplies the work of human hands and mouths. An era of sampling offered a cubistic analysis of the recorded past and DJs took dancers onto intricately fractured time travels. This is the historic foundation that KUF keep probing. Just like the sampler and the DJ before them, they found new ways to re-allocate where machine and man stand when making music together. Most importantly, they turn the resulting friction into sparkling bursts of energy. Universe digs deeper into the android vocal chords. The album offers sweeping melodies, different beats, and persistent bass. Immerse in the intimacy of the voices, probably recorded in trains, backstage areas, and at late night private parties during Berlin Lichtenberg warehouse rehearsals. By striking the keys, KUF squeeze out and serve up all the soul accumulated in those savory phonetic shreds. Wood striking metal, thick bass strings moving air, oscillators humming eagerly. Physical and electrical, alive and stunningly beautiful -- after a year well spent in smoky clubs, on festival stages and in extensive nocturnal sessions, KUF deliver chapter two of their unfolding saga.
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MACROM 054EP
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Anno Stamm is the revered 4/4 branch name of Berlin's Lars Stoewe. As Anno Stamm, he has been at the forefront of dark beat science. Annothek is his second EP for Macro Recordings. The three tracks build on the same set of sound sources and offer three different views at their glowing core. Elastic basslines pierce through a bed of sweet and warm chords, surrounded by sizzling noise percussion. Definitely on the more introspective side, the three cuts offer a special emotional depth while maintaining a bit more than just enough oomph to get the action going.
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MACROM 053EP
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Techno's vanguard can be found in the East right now. Sofia's quirky techno underground is dense. Roboknob are part of this movement, and this is their debut EP. A live hardware duo, Yasen and Stanislav drop noisy machine jams around the Bulgarian capital. The tracks here have been distilled from their live repertoire and mixed by Stefan Goldmann. "Dexydi" has a heavy-handed single-note bass attack that will cut through anything. "Spellbind" is bouncy with frantic upward movements, distorted percussive fallout and a seasick bass foundation. "Liulka" handles two layers of time rubbing off of each other.
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