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viewing 1 To 10 of 10 items
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LP
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MARMO 003LP
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If one always looks at the sky, he will end up with wings, a wise French man once declared. Halifax, Nova Scotia based musician Jeremy Costello had wings, long before he looked up. Wings of imagination. Brandishing in his head, transforming deep-rooted emotions into poetry and sound. Since 2012 the Canadian self-releases music as Special Costello, a moniker under which he records solo or with local friends like saxophone player Nick Dourado or guitarist Dave Burns. His lyrics are sincerely woven poetic enunciations that balance between introspective emotions and existential philosophical demands. Glimpses of synth-pop, psychedelic rock nuances, traces of new romantic utopia, infantile Casio minimalism, shoegaze haze, drama wave: Special Costello blends many styles, uniting all in his very own musing grandeur of pop music. After an array of digital releases, Berlin based label Marmo Music now publishes the Special Costello touch for the first time physically fabricated on vinyl. Seven songs featuring the longing voice of Jeremy Costello, sometimes in correlation with spoken words and dialogues by noted artists, poets, and scientists. All creations have been recorded by himself between Spring 2017 and winter 2020, using the extrasomatic help of instruments and machines like Farfisa Combo Compact transistor organ, Roland JX3P polyphonic analog synthesizer, Roland D50 linear synthesizer, Roland Rhythm Composer TR-08, Arturia Microbrute monophonic analog synthesizer or a Gibson Thunderbird IV bass guitar. In communication with his sensitive inner blues, they created an atmospheric voyage into the heart of Special Costello, that fulfils Arthur Russel's sapient declaration: being sad is not a crime. Seven musical paintings full of intimate, vibrant feelings and existential thoughts, veiled in an antidepressant neo new romantic glam. An epic tune like "The Next Day", in which Costello's singing links with thought-provoking spoken word samples, sounds like Robert Ashley is meeting Hans-Joachim Roedelius in a psychic séance with Brian Ferry. In comparison, a song like "If Not Depression, Then What?" grooves with a pulsating wave bass figure and an overall gently floating electronic majesty, while Costello's voice takes deep listeners to an unknown higher ground. On the other hand, a composition like "Unsetting" offers a nonchalant graceful funk drift with reverberant hand claps, minimal guitar strains and a chromatic synth pop grace. Above all the music Costello's voice cries, screams, whispers, and weeps with a compelling introspective elegancy, that invites to associate intensely with the nonpareil Special Costello touch. Includes printed inner sleeve and download code; edition of 300.
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CD
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MARMO 002CD
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Günter Schickert, krautrock maestro of echo-driven psychedelia, returns on Marmo Music one-year-and-half after the release of the Labyrinth LP (MARMO 001LP, 2018). Mauerharfe consists of old and special material, which has officially never seen the light before. Berlin, August 1990, first post-wall Summer. Two friends, the locals Günter Schickert and gallerist Peter Unsicker perform a spectacular yet symbolically intimate interpretation of those epochal changing days by building a sound installation with a damaged piece of the Berlin Wall. They persuade the patrol "Feliks Dzierzynski" of the DDR army to transport and relocate a piece outside Peter's Wall Street Gallery on the Zimmer Strasse, in the borough of Mitte, where only a few months back the intact structure actually passed through. Once the wall was positioned, they bend down the bars of the iron structure that crop out the concrete, bind piano chords to them, stretch the strings down to the bodom base of the construct and connect guitar amplifiers to the set up. The Berlin Wall is ready to be played as a harp. Günter Schickert's Mauerharfe are executed between August and October 1990, resulting into three long field recordings. "Aufnahme bei Mauerblüten, Sommer 1990" features a 19-minute long piece. The tape-induced background noise lays down a carpet of haunting atmospheres and introduces the experiment. Günter starts to test the chords by pulling out, with his fingers, dry and acid timbers. The warm-up evolves by investigating wider sinusoidal waves and dilated metallic riffs. The track takes the form of a more conventional music narration, as the artist bangs the harp with a sort of rudimental violin bow creating marching percussive patterns. On "Zwei Spuren nacheinander aufgenommen, Herbst 1990", a similarly long take opens up with ferocious urge, like being catapulted into a warfare between iron and cement. As the strings get hit and pulled, the metal seems to crash into thousands of pieces, dissolving into merciless distortions. The third piece (CD-only), "Mauerharfe 3", is a 30-minute long performance dated August the 13th, 1990. As Schickert recalls, 29 years before exactly on that same date, the construction of the Berlin wall was accomplished. The recording is cleaner than the previous two, giving more width and definition to the sounds resulting in discrete and meditative, deep, gong-like percussive timbers. Includes exclusive pictures, liner notes, a prose poem by Peter Unsicker and some draft writings by the artists with reflections on the project.
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LP+CD
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MARMO 002LP
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LP version. Includes CD. Edition of 300. Günter Schickert, krautrock maestro of echo-driven psychedelia, returns on Marmo Music one-year-and-half after the release of the Labyrinth LP (MARMO 001LP, 2018). Mauerharfe consists of old and special material, which has officially never seen the light before. Berlin, August 1990, first post-wall Summer. Two friends, the locals Günter Schickert and gallerist Peter Unsicker perform a spectacular yet symbolically intimate interpretation of those epochal changing days by building a sound installation with a damaged piece of the Berlin Wall. They persuade the patrol "Feliks Dzierzynski" of the DDR army to transport and relocate a piece outside Peter's Wall Street Gallery on the Zimmer Strasse, in the borough of Mitte, where only a few months back the intact structure actually passed through. Once the wall was positioned, they bend down the bars of the iron structure that crop out the concrete, bind piano chords to them, stretch the strings down to the bodom base of the construct and connect guitar amplifiers to the set up. The Berlin Wall is ready to be played as a harp. Günter Schickert's Mauerharfe are executed between August and October 1990, resulting into three long field recordings. "Aufnahme bei Mauerblüten, Sommer 1990" features a 19-minute long piece. The tape-induced background noise lays down a carpet of haunting atmospheres and introduces the experiment. Günter starts to test the chords by pulling out, with his fingers, dry and acid timbers. The warm-up evolves by investigating wider sinusoidal waves and dilated metallic riffs. The track takes the form of a more conventional music narration, as the artist bangs the harp with a sort of rudimental violin bow creating marching percussive patterns. On "Zwei Spuren nacheinander aufgenommen, Herbst 1990", a similarly long take opens up with ferocious urge, like being catapulted into a warfare between iron and cement. As the strings get hit and pulled, the metal seems to crash into thousands of pieces, dissolving into merciless distortions. The third piece (CD-only), "Mauerharfe 3", is a 30-minute long performance dated August the 13th, 1990. As Schickert recalls, 29 years before exactly on that same date, the construction of the Berlin wall was accomplished. The recording is cleaner than the previous two, giving more width and definition to the sounds resulting in discrete and meditative, deep, gong-like percussive timbers. Includes exclusive pictures, liner notes, a prose poem by Peter Unsicker and some draft writings by the artists with reflections on the project.
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12"
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MARMO 009EP
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Berlin-based trio Keller Crackers likes to shape haunting esoteric sounds, in which self-built instruments dance with ritualistic synthesized rhythms, field recordings, psychoacoustic drones, and poetical spoken silhouettes. Their debut record KC is a four-track EP resulting from various improvisational studio sessions, a bag full of spontaneous visionary DIY sound fashion that melts meandering serialism, foggy Chris & Cosey-ness, exoticism and freely expressed emotions. Includes a tripping Tolouse Low Trax signature remix. "Colours" features Robert Würz.
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12"
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MARMO 007EP
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The Hamburg-based project Giraffe loved short musical expressions. On their latest recordings for the Berlin based hard to pigeonhole label Marmo, they took the epic road and produced two arrangements that drift long and adventurous. With "Climate" a new member becomes part of their ongoing mission to find new sounds beyond cliché-ridden textures. All live and direct in the legendary "Le Garage" studios in Hamburg. For Marmo the trio did not only tune in two epic dateless trips that you should date. Berlin-based Italian producer Marco Shuttle provides a remix and transforms their music into a percussive club track.
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LP
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MARMO 001LP
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Günter Schickert, four decades of multi-instrumental cosmic explorations, under Berlin's sky, above genres, and compromises. Marmo present on his seventh album to date, Labyrinth, the first to be released on vinyl format since 1983's Kinder In Der Wildnis. Schickert's Samtvogel (1974), equaled the imaginative leap and sonic power of the early Pink Floyd, Manuel Gottsching's 1975 album Inventions For Electric Guitar (MGART 401CD/901LP) or A.R. & Machines's Die Grüne Reise (1971). Überfällig -- originally released on Sky Records in 1979 and reissue by Bureau B (BB 096CD/LP, 2012) -- little acclaimed, spans a large spectrum of music styles, always through a distinctive and personal aesthetic, that is deeply linked to the one he firstly crafted back in '74, when Schickert pioneered the use of echo effects applied to guitar playing. And now Labyrinth, a record that stands for versatility, where soundscapes or life situations take over. The album is divided into two parts, two different production bulks and periods of Günther Schickert's life. Side A features a selection of tracks recorded in 1996, appearing on the 2012 album HaHeHiHo, released via Pittsburgh based VCO Recordings. The raga-inspired "Morning" opens Labyrinth with exotic charm and bitter-sweet nostalgia. "Sieben" kicks off with the same guitar scales of the previous theme, before the motorized progressions of a Korg MS-20 synth surprisingly storm in. "Ninja Schwert" remains on astral dimensions, it is a struggle of cosmic forces, where the steady ride of a pounding beat gets embraced by different guitar layers and analog electronic filtering. The side closes up with "HaHeHiHo", a slow ballad featuring Schickert on vocals, guitar, bass guitar, and drum machine. Side B contains material produced between 2007 and today. "Tsunami" shows the multi-instrumental and recording abilities of Günter Schickert: a field-recorded storm with mesmerizing powers, a peculiar progressive approach to guitar playing. In contrast, "Oase" muffles the intensity and jumps into a completely different soundscape, where in liaison with the sounds of a rolling drum tom and a desert-like trumpet. Like "HaHeHiHo", "Checking" represents the vocal gem of the B side, in a raw and direct way of songwriting like if Syd Barrett was his invisible helper. "Palaver" assembles different vocal recordings of Schickert into a bizarre free-style conversation. "Morning (Slide)", reprises the opening theme, this time solely performed through the caressing dilated sounds of Günter's slide guitar. Includes printed inner sleeve and download code.
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10"
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MARMO 005EP
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"It has in mind a snow storm painting, by Turner. A brawny, bubbling, clangorous, locomotive house thumper is winched -- arpeggiated -- into the swirling light. On the flip, a different, sustained-release sublimity... skipping, all-body, shimmering, basking in the sun. Ace ten."
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12"
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MARMO 004EP
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"Fresh, expansive, experimental EP by Martino Marini and Niccolo' Daniel Rufo (from Tru West and Nightdrivers). Warmly spontaneous forays into tribalism, motorik punk, twisted disco... including field recordings, live guitar and electronics."
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12"
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MARMO 003EP
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"An outstanding clutch of techno groovers from the Genoan, with fresh touches of musique concrète -- inspired by a visit to the IAN-GRM Institute in Paris -- and expansive stretches of open-sky suspense. (The tail gunner knows they're out there.) Plus some exhilarating, rude-boy acid from Hieroglyphic Being."
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12"
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MARMO 002EP
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"Gripping jazz improvisation and noise, with reworks by Mass Prod and Harmonious Thelonious. Schwander really gets his teeth into it, conjuring up the tough D-funk of Waajeed and Jay Dee."
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