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3LP
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SA10YEARSLP
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Stroboscopic Artefacts releases X Ten Years Of Artefacts a 13-track album curated by Lucy, the nom de techno of Luca Mortellaro. It celebrates ten years of his label by boldly confirming its raison d'être: a continual redefinition of modern techno. X Ten Years Of Artefacts is a various artists album in which the label's key artists respond to its tenth anniversary with fresh compositions; artists with divergent perspectives are equally at home expressing themselves. These tracks' timbres, tempos, and moods differ greatly yet -- somewhat improbably -- they seem together, ideologically unified. On X Ten Years Of Artefacts, Mortellaro features solo as Lucy, in collaboration with Rrose as Lotus Eater and together with Speedy J as Zeitgeber. (Rrose also appears alone with "The Myth of Purity.") Shifted, Efdemin, L.B. Dub Corp (Luke Slater), James Ruskin, Denise Rabe, Adriana Lopez, Chevel, Alessandro Adriani, and Serena Butler each also feature, representing a group of singular artists whose relationships with the label range from years to months; Stroboscopic Artefacts' past, present and future must exist simultaneously. Back in September 2009, Lucy released Why Don't You Change/Dub Man Walking (SA 001EP), the first record from Stroboscopic Artefacts, which began a discography that, ten years later, is almost unparalleled in its ambition and vision. Put simply, Mortellaro wanted to create something that didn't exist. Stroboscopic Artefacts would be respectful of, and indebted to, the great techno and electronic music artists of the past but would develop new paths forward for the label and the genre. The label refused to perpetuate the established dichotomies of electronic music: between the dance floor and home listening, between club music and experimental music, between the past and the future. It took risks knowing it wouldn't always work. But within a year or so of the label's inception, it was obvious Stroboscopic Artefacts' approach had captured imaginations far beyond its Berlin base, showing us that the boundaries of techno are often constructs of limited imagination. The label pursued constantly evolving methods of releasing music. It created concept-driven series like Monad, Stellate and Totem, establishing frameworks that would give freedom in limitation. Standout albums by Lucy, Xhin, Dadub, Zeitgeber, Chevel, Kangding Ray, Lotus Eater, and Alessandro Adriani were deeply considered longform presentations. Now is the moment for Stroboscopic Artefacts to look fondly at its past while drawing breath, re-energized, and hinting at new chapters. In four-panel gatefold; includes download.
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10"
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SATOTEM 006EP
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A staple of South America's ever-effervescing techno community, Colombian-born producer Adriana Lopez sure ain't no stranger to the aficionados of wild four-to-the-floor epics, having delivered the totality of her typical, custom cut bunker-busters on Developer's Modularz and her own imprint, Grey Report, in about a decade of intense dancefloor activism, For her first sortie away from her usual recording homes, Adriana steps up in no real unknown territory either, with Stroboscopic Artefacts' Totem series providing a much suitable shelter for her deep-penetration, quaky club weaponry to grow and expand. Kicking things off in frontally brutal fashion, the title-track "Embera" sets the mood right away, swallowing us amidst the countless spans and layers of hypno-tech quicksand. With the kinetic energy gauge now set to eleven and kicks thumping their way across a forest of obsessive synth spirals, Adriana then whips up a frenzy of delayed percussions, spaced-out riffs, and jammed radar echoes on "Saija", sure to keep the dancers in a state of willful enslavement. Opting for a more straightforward, steady-flying angle of attack, the EP's closer "Awa" tops it all off on an equally abrasive and elegant note, true to Adriana's trademark mix of groove-making finesse and uplifting potency.
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10"
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SATOTEM 005EP
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True to her love for all things drone-y and psychoactive, Berlin-based DJ and producer Denise Rabe has you descending into rugged, hostile sonic terrains on this 10". Hosing off the loud, churning 909 kicks and passive-aggressive machine talk straightaway, "Manifesto" sets the tone for the warehouse-sized hammering to come. With floor-ready dynamics, the adrenaline booster "Don't Leave" offers a truly mind-bending tip. "Clouds" heads for quieter high-altitude spheres as the dubbed-out drums beat an off-kilter, left-field friendly pulse and ominous synth stabs and pads envelop the listener in entrancing textural folds and interplays.
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10"
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SATOTEM 004EP
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Caustic, dense, and centered around complex but exquisitely executed percussive motifs and driven, rising sequences -- many would argue an alliance between Shifted's heady, monochrome recordings and Lucy's beloved Stroboscopic Artefacts label is long overdue. "The Light Touch" is perhaps one of Shifted's more idiosyncratic pieces, rich with groove. "Seel" showcases the artist's talent for building tension with minimal elements. "Mixen" riffs on its predecessor's approach but strips back the percussive elements further and ups the ante with searing drone signals rising up above the lead sequence driving the track.
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12"
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SA 035EP
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Mannequin boss Alessandro Adriani returns to Stroboscopic Artefacts with Embryo -- an immersive four-track micro-odyssey, opening up the path for his sophomore album, Morphic Dreams (STROBO 011CD/008LP). "Elapsed Emptiness" works a dark and unremittingly oppressive vein, slowly sinking its listener into an abstract continuum. Back to groovier spirits, "Symmetry" breaks the bleak maelstrom-like movement. Tailored in collaboration with Chicago's Beau Wanzer, "Inverted Aspects" trades the filthy filters and spacious horizontality of its foregoers for a passive-aggressive acid tech swagger. "Aria (New Beat Version)" maintains a precarious balance between dancefloor-optimized music and a certain spiritual freedom to dream and escape.
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2LP
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STROBO 008LP
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Double-LP version comes in a gatefold sleeve. Hot on the heels of his preliminary EP on Stroboscopic Artefacts and two years after the landing of his 2016-released inaugural LP, Montagne Trasparenti, Mannequin helmsman Alessandro Adriani returns with his highly anticipated full-length debut for Stroboscopic Artefacts, Morphic Dreams. Throughout eleven cuts painstakingly executed but lacking not an iota of the fresh, spontaneous oomph that made his sound stand out of the crowd of techno producers to have emerged over the past decade, Adriani lays the foundations to a suspended sound imaginarium, governed by its own rules and principles of gravity. Revolving around the notions of sublimation and quest for inner balance, Morphic Dreams is comprised of four distinct sequences, conceived and designed as reflections of four mental states, each of them linked to the four alchemical elements -- i.e. Water, Earth, Air and FireFluid and enveloping, the first part takes the listener in some zero-G uterine vortex, pitching, and rolling from the slo-burning exotic sensuality and tribal spell of "The Tropical Year" to the trunk-bending, arpeggiated fast-track pulse of "Storm Trees", through the feverish electro swing of "Raindance". Entering a further abrasive, minerally rich phase, Adriani unleashes his dark side with optimum conviction. Deeply anchored in earthly materiality, this new evolution stage starts off to the frantic Italo bass of "Dissolving Images", rushing headlong into a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of fractured reflections and nasty giallo-like ambience. The delirious body stretch sequence then rather abruptly swerves onto a calmer flux with "Dust/Mist", a much enticingly hip-swaying collaboration with Simon Crab, ex-member of the seminal '80s UK industrial-experimental band Bourbonese Qualk, before "Casting The Runes" engulfs you into a tormented world of swollen eeriness and disquieting esoterism. Back to a widescreen showcase of drone-y distortions, nasty acid swashes and other quirky drum programming, "Hors De Combat" opens a new chapter, shortly followed by the playful bass intricacies and modular jeu-de-piste of "Invisible Seekers", featuring Avian affiliate and longtime friend Shawn O'Sullivan. A further mind-expanding piece, "Crow" deploys its blackened wings wide and high as a chaos of martial percussions and liquefying synths slivers crash past the red-hot skyline. A fluttering melodic interlude, "Things About To Disappear" blazes a clean trail for "Make Words Split And Crack" to flourish, slowly but surely blooming into a nonstop grandiose twelve-minute-shy finale geared up with the stirring cacophonic force of a Ligetian symphony and something of an epic-scale Kubrickian soundtrack.
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CD
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STROBO 011CD
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Hot on the heels of his preliminary EP on Stroboscopic Artefacts and two years after the landing of his 2016-released inaugural LP, Montagne Trasparenti, Mannequin helmsman Alessandro Adriani returns with his highly anticipated full-length debut for Stroboscopic Artefacts, Morphic Dreams. Throughout eleven cuts painstakingly executed but lacking not an iota of the fresh, spontaneous oomph that made his sound stand out of the crowd of techno producers to have emerged over the past decade, Adriani lays the foundations to a suspended sound imaginarium, governed by its own rules and principles of gravity. Revolving around the notions of sublimation and quest for inner balance, Morphic Dreams is comprised of four distinct sequences, conceived and designed as reflections of four mental states, each of them linked to the four alchemical elements -- i.e. Water, Earth, Air and FireFluid and enveloping, the first part takes the listener in some zero-G uterine vortex, pitching, and rolling from the slo-burning exotic sensuality and tribal spell of "The Tropical Year" to the trunk-bending, arpeggiated fast-track pulse of "Storm Trees", through the feverish electro swing of "Raindance". Entering a further abrasive, minerally rich phase, Adriani unleashes his dark side with optimum conviction. Deeply anchored in earthly materiality, this new evolution stage starts off to the frantic Italo bass of "Dissolving Images", rushing headlong into a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of fractured reflections and nasty giallo-like ambience. The delirious body stretch sequence then rather abruptly swerves onto a calmer flux with "Dust/Mist", a much enticingly hip-swaying collaboration with Simon Crab, ex-member of the seminal '80s UK industrial-experimental band Bourbonese Qualk, before "Casting The Runes" engulfs you into a tormented world of swollen eeriness and disquieting esoterism. Back to a widescreen showcase of drone-y distortions, nasty acid swashes and other quirky drum programming, "Hors De Combat" opens a new chapter, shortly followed by the playful bass intricacies and modular jeu-de-piste of "Invisible Seekers", featuring Avian affiliate and longtime friend Shawn O'Sullivan. A further mind-expanding piece, "Crow" deploys its blackened wings wide and high as a chaos of martial percussions and liquefying synths slivers crash past the red-hot skyline. A fluttering melodic interlude, "Things About To Disappear" blazes a clean trail for "Make Words Split And Crack" to flourish, slowly but surely blooming into a nonstop grandiose twelve-minute-shy finale geared up with the stirring cacophonic force of a Ligetian symphony and something of an epic-scale Kubrickian soundtrack.
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12"
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SA 034EP
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Stroboscopic Artefacts boss Luca Mortellaro, aka Lucy, returns with Dyscamupia, a multisensory techno triptych revolving around the sequence of Albert Camus's The Stranger (1942), namely the infamous "killing of the Arab". "Dyscamupia (Forward)" happens before and right until the actual killing -- hence time flowing at a metronomic, heartbeat-like tempo; the second cut "Dyscamupia (Pause)" takes place right after the nameless man's death, when the narrator enters a kind of existential "pause"; the third sequence, "Dyscamupia (Backward)", plumbs the depths of the action itself as played backwards, like an equally hazed-out and dizzying reminiscence of the sad encounter's mechanism.
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10"
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SATOTEM 003EP
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Stroboscopic Artefacts returns with another in its Totem series, a unique set of releases pressed on transparent 10" vinyl, capturing the essence and effusiveness of multidimensionality of club culture. Stepping up for the third release in the series is Berlin legend Efdemin, bringing a three-track journey that is unequivocally enduring and flexible for journeys on-and-off the dance floor. Efdemin takes on the challenge of Totem's conceptual subjugation and subverts it with his emotionally honest take on a stimulating and subdural sonic experience within three parts. Narratively dense and expertly-paced, the Totem series has another outer-worldly insertion to its catalog. Clear vinyl.
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2LP
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STROBO 007LP
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Double LP version. 140 gram vinyl; includes download code. Lucy and Rrose, now coming together as The Lotus Eaters, have established themselves separately as techno artists who are just as comfortable operating in the uncharted area of experimental music. Running their own labels (Stroboscopic Artefacts and Eaux, respectively), they have gained a cult following, both influencing and challenging the direction of techno. Their first collaboration took the form of mutual remixes. Lucy remixed Rrose, taking on his modern classic "Waterfall" while Rrose remixed Dadub for Stroboscopic Artefacts, and shortly thereafter contributed an extended EP as part of Stroboscopic Artefacts's Monad series. Eventually, the idea of working together became inevitable. Several intense sessions in Lucy's Berlin studio followed, using mainly analog hardware. These sessions gave birth to a new project, starting with two EPs signed Lucy and Rrose, called The Lotus Eaters (SA 028EP, 2016) and The Lotus Eaters II (2018). With the Desatura album, the first release signed under the project name The Lotus Eaters, their common work is refined further, also becoming a live act which will debut at ADE (Amsterdam) 2018. With Desatura, Lucy and Rrose explore themes of physical density, emptiness, and space, creating sonic objects which can be rotated and viewed from multiple perspectives. Eschewing the typical instrumentation of techno, the duo uses synthesized sound and feedback as fundamental sources to generate both textural and percussive elements. A sense of tension and weight emerge from sources that cannot be easily pinpointed. The resulting album forms a complex narrative from a paradoxically simple and restrained set of sound sources. A mysterious and profound accomplishment.
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CD
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STROBO 010CD
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Lucy and Rrose, now coming together as The Lotus Eaters, have established themselves separately as techno artists who are just as comfortable operating in the uncharted area of experimental music. Running their own labels (Stroboscopic Artefacts and Eaux, respectively), they have gained a cult following, both influencing and challenging the direction of techno. Their first collaboration took the form of mutual remixes. Lucy remixed Rrose, taking on his modern classic "Waterfall" while Rrose remixed Dadub for Stroboscopic Artefacts, and shortly thereafter contributed an extended EP as part of Stroboscopic Artefacts's Monad series. Eventually, the idea of working together became inevitable. Several intense sessions in Lucy's Berlin studio followed, using mainly analog hardware. These sessions gave birth to a new project, starting with two EPs signed Lucy and Rrose, called The Lotus Eaters (SA 028EP, 2016) and The Lotus Eaters II (2018). With the Desatura album, the first release signed under the project name The Lotus Eaters, their common work is refined further, also becoming a live act which will debut at ADE (Amsterdam) 2018. With Desatura, Lucy and Rrose explore themes of physical density, emptiness, and space, creating sonic objects which can be rotated and viewed from multiple perspectives. Eschewing the typical instrumentation of techno, the duo uses synthesized sound and feedback as fundamental sources to generate both textural and percussive elements. A sense of tension and weight emerge from sources that cannot be easily pinpointed. The resulting album forms a complex narrative from a paradoxically simple and restrained set of sound sources. A mysterious and profound accomplishment.
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10"
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SATOTEM 002EP
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Stroboscopic Artefacts is releasing its latest addition to its Totem series, L.B. Dub Corp's Roar. Luke Slater's L.B. Dub Corp moniker seen him be a pioneer throughout the genre's many corners since techno was a newborn phenomenon. Roar injects a carefully measured dose of dance floor adrenaline, getting a gradual rolling start with the title track, a kind of minimal rapture that's enveloped by an unforeseeable boiling of tape delay and ambient space. "Hard Wax" is a hardnosed amalgamation of dirty analog sounds, while "Step Sure Dub" keeps the machine minimalism rolling.
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12"
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SA 033EP
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Serena Butler returns with We Want Neither Clean Hands Nor Beautiful Souls, a four-track recording of Butler's personal juncture with the Queerverse and his engagement in queer politics. "If Nature Is Unjust, Change Nature" is a shadowy crescendo of whispered rhythms and minimal-synth leitmotivs. "Globular Hymen" is the club supernova of the lot; an interstellar blizzard of layered arpeggios. "Science Is Not An Expression But A Suspension Of Gender" lays on the feel of afterlife, a dubbed-out lullaby between lo-fi drums and subtle interference patterns of noise. "And With Sexism Came Disparity" unleashes a vocal swarm of declaration and rebellion.
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10"
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SATOTEM 001EP
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Stroboscopic Artefacts presents the Totem series -- a chain of transparent 10" vinyl -- with Lucy, aka Luca Mortellaro, kicking things off. "Tarkomania", builds dark hued mood and texture over one of the spilling monologues of Russian cult classic film director Tarkovsky's in Stalker (1979). "Tarkomania Dub" takes the listener one circle deeper into the groove-filled anxiety, flickering between a set of industrial sounds, the guttural voice of Takovsky's writer, and warm, moody synth. "Tarkomania Acapella" is a summation of these elements with an emphasis on the "Stalker" monologue.
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2LP
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STROBO 006LP
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Double LP version. 180 gram vinyl; Comes in matte-finish, gatefold sleeve; Includes download card. Flowers From The Ashes: Contemporary Italian Electronic Music is the latest multi-artist project to bear the acclaimed Stroboscopic Artefacts imprimatur. There is a sensibility of decadence and corroded grandeur etched within the album, reminding you that historically "decadent" times have nonetheless resulted in some of the boldest acts of individual and collective creativity. Like the "floral" theme that has remained a consistent feature of S.A.'s graphic presentation, the music here equally presents fragility and intensity in a way that really drives home this visual metaphor for good, while still holding out the promise that similar creations will be seeded in the near future. Though many of the artists involved have set of residence outside of their native Italy, all contribute here to make a captivating portrait of a shared spirit and cultural memory. The album opens with "Errori", deceptively fragile sonic ornaments crafted and suspended in space by Blackest Ever Black artist Silvia Kastel. This is followed closely by the mellifluous, warming glow of percussionist Andrea Belfi's "Spitting & Skytouching", and then by the resolute electric bass patterns and luminous fog of "Lux Et Sonus" from Eeri label head Marco Shuttle. Hospital Productions alumnus Ninos Du Brasil enters with a similarly dense, amorphous construction built from tribalistic chants and rhythmic patterns, to be followed by Mannequin label boss Alessandro Adriani's "You Will Not Be There For The End", showcasing his distinctive take on the "paranoiac breakdance" aesthetic of classic EBM. S.A. veteran Chevel comes in with interlacing several percolating synth lines together into a richly conversational piece. The journey continues with "Starving The Mind", an undulating mini-epic from S.A. founder Lucy that is animated by his signature balance of seductiveness and concentration. The bright, biting acid synth tones of "PRV-HH3-X", by Lory D, then takes a sharp right turn into an invisible metropolis ruled by reflective high fashion and hidden intrigue. The imposing architecture of "Virgo Rebellion", designed by modular synth futurist Caterina Barbieri, acts as an excellent companion piece, and sets up the closing "4G" from Spazio Disponibile co-founder Neel -- a crepuscular serenade that accurately sums up much of the foregoing activity.
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CD
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STROBO 009CD
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Flowers From The Ashes: Contemporary Italian Electronic Music is the latest multi-artist project to bear the acclaimed Stroboscopic Artefacts imprimatur. There is a sensibility of decadence and corroded grandeur etched within the album, reminding you that historically "decadent" times have nonetheless resulted in some of the boldest acts of individual and collective creativity. Like the "floral" theme that has remained a consistent feature of S.A.'s graphic presentation, the music here equally presents fragility and intensity in a way that really drives home this visual metaphor for good, while still holding out the promise that similar creations will be seeded in the near future. Though many of the artists involved have set of residence outside of their native Italy, all contribute here to make a captivating portrait of a shared spirit and cultural memory. The album opens with "Errori", deceptively fragile sonic ornaments crafted and suspended in space by Blackest Ever Black artist Silvia Kastel. This is followed closely by the mellifluous, warming glow of percussionist Andrea Belfi's "Spitting & Skytouching", and then by the resolute electric bass patterns and luminous fog of "Lux Et Sonus" from Eeri label head Marco Shuttle. Hospital Productions alumnus Ninos Du Brasil enters with a similarly dense, amorphous construction built from tribalistic chants and rhythmic patterns, to be followed by Mannequin label boss Alessandro Adriani's "You Will Not Be There For The End", showcasing his distinctive take on the "paranoiac breakdance" aesthetic of classic EBM. S.A. veteran Chevel comes in with interlacing several percolating synth lines together into a richly conversational piece. The journey continues with "Starving The Mind", an undulating mini-epic from S.A. founder Lucy that is animated by his signature balance of seductiveness and concentration. The bright, biting acid synth tones of "PRV-HH3-X", by Lory D, then takes a sharp right turn into an invisible metropolis ruled by reflective high fashion and hidden intrigue. The imposing architecture of "Virgo Rebellion", designed by modular synth futurist Caterina Barbieri, acts as an excellent companion piece, and sets up the closing "4G" from Spazio Disponibile co-founder Neel -- a crepuscular serenade that accurately sums up much of the foregoing activity. CD version comes in a gatefold cover with high-quality matte finish.
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12"
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SA 032EP
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The Tel-Aviv centered Yotam Avni returns to Stroboscopic Artefacts with Perlude To Dybbuk. "Avka (New Life)" opens with the twin stimuli of chthonic, rolling percussion and ambience, and later includes sharp, organic drum fills and sighing strings. "Dybbuk" uses insistently slicing helicopter as a foundation, building a genuinely unique construction with shamanic beats, throttled horn, and an undertow of frenzied electronics. "Modern Matters" is the most readily club-friendly selection. This potent, floor-shaking and perspiration-inducing number superimposes resonant vocals from traditional Middle Eastern folk song onto this alchemical mixture of machine oil and sweat.
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12"
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SA 031EP
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Alessandro Adriani's debut EP for Stroboscopic Artefacts, Enter The Fire, is the first evidence of a new mutation in the Stroboscopic DNA. Adriani's skillful distillation of the impactful elements from EBM, acid, darkwave, and industrial is on display on "He Who Harnesses The Souls". "Rituals (707 EBM Version)" is a tense martial stomp designed around a classically effective sequence of 16th notes and bruising kick drum. A more contemplative version of "Rituals" is a deviously designed mirage of shifting audio sands. "Astronomy" evokes a private investigator on a stakeout with continuous high-frequency tones, magnified surface noise, and other encoded signals.
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12"
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SA 030EP
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Lady Starlight's expert control of sound extremes colors each of the EP's four hard-hitting and authoritative techno tracks. It begins with the relentless cycling beat and echoing synth stabs of "E12", the energy of a peak rave hour never far away. "E3.2" is another take on similar themes but with progressively more hypnotic simplicity and beneficial pressure. "E2.2" is built on a less rough-edged, shinier set of bouncing and panning synth hits. Lady Starlight unleashes full-spectrum audio warfare with "F8", a seamless interlocking of industrial clang and 16th-note percussion hits with the basic elements used for the previous three tracks.
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3LP
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STROBO 005LP
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Triple LP version. Includes download card. The tension between the natural and artificial, the body and mind, are central themes in electronic music in general, and techno in particular, as the means of creation, focused around technology and interactions with machines, contrast with the emotional response to sound, the mystical ritual of collective dancing, and the ethos of liberation and tolerance embedded in the culture it produced. We're navigating a world of engineered pleasures, big data monitoring of movements and consumption habits, and falsely objective representations of reality, further blurred by a reduced attention span and several opaque layers of cultural interpretation and political manipulation. Manichean simplifications are used to create hate and fear in order to achieve domination and impose limits on freedom, and the irrational belief in endless growth, increasingly disconnected from nature, led to massive environmental destructions and waves of unprecedented extinctions of species. Our primal sensuous perception, vastly more abstract, emotional and sensual, make us feel the world as an ambiguous realm we are part of, but not in control of; a complex network of interacting forces and enigmatic patterns, a matrix of overlapping desires. Rebuilding our bonds with nature, reconnecting with our senses, and spreading love in the process become an essential act of resistance. Hyper Opal Mantis is a triptych on three states of desire, and the first long player of Kangding Ray for Stroboscopic Artefacts. Hyper is the primal, sensual lust, Opal is the emotional catharsis, a blissful desire for love. Mantis, like the insect it refers to, is the destructive, fatal attraction. French-born, Berlin-based composer and producer David Letellier, aka Kangding Ray, uses the combination of slowly swelling melodies and emotionally charged machine sounds to gives way to a sensitive, rhythmic symphony of staggering beauty - a juxtaposition of organic and synthetic, of acoustic instrumentation and digitized beats. His darkly textured techno grooves - a palette of throbbing bass lines, necromantic synths, processed guitar loops, rattling walls of distortion and unorthodox field recordings - accounts for a brooding, futuristic entity that connects him with both experimental and club culture.
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CD
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STROBO 008CD
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The tension between the natural and artificial, the body and mind, are central themes in electronic music in general, and techno in particular, as the means of creation, focused around technology and interactions with machines, contrast with the emotional response to sound, the mystical ritual of collective dancing, and the ethos of liberation and tolerance embedded in the culture it produced. We're navigating a world of engineered pleasures, big data monitoring of movements and consumption habits, and falsely objective representations of reality, further blurred by a reduced attention span and several opaque layers of cultural interpretation and political manipulation. Manichean simplifications are used to create hate and fear in order to achieve domination and impose limits on freedom, and the irrational belief in endless growth, increasingly disconnected from nature, led to massive environmental destructions and waves of unprecedented extinctions of species. Our primal sensuous perception, vastly more abstract, emotional and sensual, make us feel the world as an ambiguous realm we are part of, but not in control of; a complex network of interacting forces and enigmatic patterns, a matrix of overlapping desires. Rebuilding our bonds with nature, reconnecting with our senses, and spreading love in the process become an essential act of resistance. Hyper Opal Mantis is a triptych on three states of desire, and the first long player of Kangding Ray for Stroboscopic Artefacts. Hyper is the primal, sensual lust, Opal is the emotional catharsis, a blissful desire for love. Mantis, like the insect it refers to, is the destructive, fatal attraction. French-born, Berlin-based composer and producer David Letellier, aka Kangding Ray, uses the combination of slowly swelling melodies and emotionally charged machine sounds to gives way to a sensitive, rhythmic symphony of staggering beauty - a juxtaposition of organic and synthetic, of acoustic instrumentation and digitized beats. His darkly textured techno grooves - a palette of throbbing bass lines, necromantic synths, processed guitar loops, rattling walls of distortion and unorthodox field recordings - accounts for a brooding, futuristic entity that connects him with both experimental and club culture. CD version comes in gatefold sleeve with hi-quality matte finish.
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12"
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SA 029EP
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Israeli producer Yotam Avni returns with Tehillim. The galloping rhythm of "Tehillim" brings a whole inventory of struck wood and metal elements into play, and leads listeners on an voyage through liturgical chanting and volcanic eruptions of synthesizer magma. "Orma", while more stripped down, continues down the same path with clever spatial arrangements. "Shtok" begins with a deep subterranean kick pattern and percolating bell tones that are reminiscent of recent efforts from Planetary Assault Systems. The closer "Even" brings the EP's most forceful and demanding beat, overlaid by a shimmering latticework of piano, breeze-like pads, and concentrated string plucks.
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12"
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SA 028EP
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Lucy and Rrose team up as a production duo for The Lotus Eaters. "Chloroform" is anything but anesthetic: at high volumes, its monstrous low-end surge and prickly, scintillating sonic ephemera bring attention to imperceptible phenomena. "Peeling" develops its own cascade of sensory impressions from deep-bass loops, injections of surface noise, and pitch-shifted/harmonizer-effected phantom phrases. "Stained Glass" is a potent distortion of the mundane, primed with shivering bell tones, tamed feedback and hints of speaker cones fraying. "Foil Gardens" is an elegant study in harmonics whose time-dissolving ability nods to the works of Charlemagne Palestine or Eliane Radigue.
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2LP
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STROBO 004LP
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Double LP version. 180-gram vinyl. Gatefold cover with luxurious gloss print. Includes download code. The third entry in Lucy's trio of adventurous full-lengths is visually introduced by artwork of a pearl-bearing shell, designed by Stroboscopic Artefacts resident visual artist (and Lucy's brother) Ignazio Mortellaro. This drops a subtle hint as to the nature of its contents: just as a pearl slowly forms within its enclosing body in response to organic challenges, Lucy's work is also a kind of crystallization of memory and experience into an artifact of great value. Listeners will be struck immediately by how different Self Mythology sounds from past Lucy productions, while still retaining the feel of relentless questing ("precision and exploration," in Lucy's words) that defined his two previous solo albums, Wordplay for Working Bees (2011) and Churches Schools and Guns (SA 005CD/STROBO 002LP, 2014). The album is enriched by several layers of ambience and by the wordless, improvisational (yet still somehow narrative) vocals and flute of Jon Jacobs. Without a doubt, it's an album with an initiatory atmosphere best heard in one sitting, with as little interruption as possible. However, unlike many initiatory rites, this is no arduous ordeal; great care has gone into connecting each chapter of the album with the same silver thread of entrancing storytelling. On standout pieces like "She-Wolf Night Mourning," electronic arpeggiation and persistent synthetic flutters perfectly merge with the unique tone colors of resonant acoustic percussion and pensive woodwind. Elsewhere, pieces like "A Selfless Act" reconcile technoid pulses with melancholic yet intoxicating echoes of Mediterranean musical traditions. Interestingly, many of the tracks on Self Mythology refer to old legends and well-known fairytales or to more broadly defined states of consciousness ("Samsara," which features an especially strong, sustained choral interplay between glassy synth sequences and earthy flute sonorities). This is where the album is truly unique and relevant in its ambition. The interplay between the graphic design, the vocal and flute performances of Jacobs, and the sound design chosen by Lucy aims to be an intimate audio autobiography of its creators while also referring back to the stories that have shaped human destiny for millennia. This work is a meditation upon the reciprocity between personal hopes and fears and collective dreams and nightmares; an exploration of the endless interplay between the universal and the deeply individual. It is the tale of that uncanny process by which our own conscious experience draws from the pool of archetypal information, while also contributing to it.
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CD
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STROBO 007CD
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The third entry in Lucy's trio of adventurous full-lengths is visually introduced by artwork of a pearl-bearing shell, designed by Stroboscopic Artefacts resident visual artist (and Lucy's brother) Ignazio Mortellaro. This drops a subtle hint as to the nature of its contents: just as a pearl slowly forms within its enclosing body in response to organic challenges, Lucy's work is also a kind of crystallization of memory and experience into an artifact of great value. Listeners will be struck immediately by how different Self Mythology sounds from past Lucy productions, while still retaining the feel of relentless questing ("precision and exploration," in Lucy's words) that defined his two previous solo albums, Wordplay for Working Bees (2011) and Churches Schools and Guns (SA 005CD/STROBO 002LP, 2014). The album is enriched by several layers of ambience and by the wordless, improvisational (yet still somehow narrative) vocals and flute of Jon Jacobs. Without a doubt, it's an album with an initiatory atmosphere best heard in one sitting, with as little interruption as possible. However, unlike many initiatory rites, this is no arduous ordeal; great care has gone into connecting each chapter of the album with the same silver thread of entrancing storytelling. On standout pieces like "She-Wolf Night Mourning," electronic arpeggiation and persistent synthetic flutters perfectly merge with the unique tone colors of resonant acoustic percussion and pensive woodwind. Elsewhere, pieces like "A Selfless Act" reconcile technoid pulses with melancholic yet intoxicating echoes of Mediterranean musical traditions. Interestingly, many of the tracks on Self Mythology refer to old legends and well-known fairytales or to more broadly defined states of consciousness ("Samsara," which features an especially strong, sustained choral interplay between glassy synth sequences and earthy flute sonorities). This is where the album is truly unique and relevant in its ambition. The interplay between the graphic design, the vocal and flute performances of Jacobs, and the sound design chosen by Lucy aims to be an intimate audio autobiography of its creators while also referring back to the stories that have shaped human destiny for millennia. This work is a meditation upon the reciprocity between personal hopes and fears and collective dreams and nightmares; an exploration of the endless interplay between the universal and the deeply individual. It is the tale of that uncanny process by which our own conscious experience draws from the pool of archetypal information, while also contributing to it.
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