Shoals
Almost 3 years have passed since the release of Northern, Taylor Deupree’s last proper full-length album on 12k. For Deupree, Northern was a particularly personal work, with the added pressure of following up what many considered to be his seminal album, Stil. By many accounts, Northern was even more widely praised than its predecessor and set Deupree on a path of a more tactile organic sound. Since Northern, Deupree has released a number of short solo works: Sea Last (12k2011), 1am (12k2004), a…
In light
Four years after the release of their debut album Outflow, Japan’s Small Color, a duo comprised of Rie Yoshihara (aka Trico!) (accordion, voice, vintage keyboard instruments) and Yusuke Onishi (guitar, banjo, bass, programming and production) are back with the beautifully polished In Light. This album marks what some may consider a departure for 12k: sublime and gentle, minimal, acoustic J-pop, which once may have been destined for the now-defunct Happy label, but can now sit comfortably beside …
Box music
Rutger and Stephen sort of accidentally met through e-mail. A simple note regarding an ordering question for a CD led to an enthusiastic e-mail conversation and climaxed in a musical collaboration. This all happened in a very short period, both musicians being very inspired by the concept of “exchange,” as a means to cross space and time -- Rutger living in the Netherlands and Stephen in Virginia.
Most of the time, when (electronic) musicians work together it’s a matter of swapping digital files…
Ocean fire
Christopher Willits and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s new release, Ocean Fire, is a sublime soundtrack for the ocean. It is an intense and stirring wash of cascading tones and textured harmony. Willits + Sakamoto surprise with rare form in this collaboration, creating a sound world unlike anything they have produced previously. Each artist has gently pulled the other into new sonic territory. Sakamoto’s gorgeous processed piano sound reflects Willits’ beautiful shimmering clusters of notes, a new aspect of…
Volume objects
In the desire to make recorded sound as tactile as possible Autistici (UK), recently featured on 12k’s Blueprints compilation (12k1039), has sculpted found objects, broken acoustic instruments, synthesizers and environmental recordings into Volume Objects. Expertly realized and designed, Volume Objects is loose and organic and demands careful listening. Melody and form are hinted at and then in a whisper, a crackle, are gone. A sense of narrative and place created as if a hundred tiny objects ar…
For Myria
On his cd debut, UK sound artist Jodi Cave creates seven short compositions united by themes of singularity and natural randomness. One of the most immediate features of For Myria is its restrained sound palette. Like an instrumentalist who has laid a small collection of choice instruments out in front of him, Cave creates beautifully intimate collages, each touching on maybe only 2 or 3 sounds, woven together by computer processing which has been pushed into the background, utilized more as a c…
Drape
12k kicks off its 11th year with a new release that takes the label down new sonic pathways. Caught between the organic and electronic minimalism that 12k is known for and the unconventional Japanese pop musings and songwriting style of Happy, Moskitoo’s Drape is an infectously strange, bleepy, and dreamy debut release.Sanae Yamasaki (Moskitoo) hails from Sappporo, Japan in the country’s northern-most prefecture of Hokkaido. Perhaps a reaction to the cool climate of her home, her multi-instrumen…
Map in hand
Seaworthy, a three piece collective based in Sydney, Australia that revolves around core member Cameron Webb as well as Sam Shinazzi and Greg Bird, was formed in early 2000 to explore melodic and experimental approaches to the construction of minimalist sound scapes from looped guitar, warm drones, piano, electronics and field recordings.Map In Hand often blurs the lines of conventional categorisation with elements traditionally considered part of “indie” or “post” rock blended with processed mu…
Blueprints
Over the past 10 years 12k has established itself as a label on the forefront of minimalist music and has become home to some of the most important artists of the genre. It is label that time and time again has not been afraid to release debut albums from new artists, drawing on the new energy they interject into both the scene and the label.With the release of Blueprints, 12k presents 2 tracks each from 6 artists new to its roster and showcases some of the new sounds and influences that will ca…
Letter of sounds
Following the release of his work as part of the electro-acoustic quartet Minamo on 12k (12k1031, 2005) and the proto-pop outing under his new moniker Filfla (Plop, 2005), Fourcolor (Keiichi Sugimoto) is back with his second release on 12k, Letter of Sounds. His previous work, Air Curtain (12k1029) was a critical success selling out the first pressing in little over one month.On Air Curtain, Fourcolor explored new directions, building upon delicate, implied rhythmic structures moving away from t…
Songs
Songs is the much-anticipated follow-up to Parisian sound designer and musician Sébastien Roux’s beautiful cd Pillow (Apestaartje, 2004). The simple title of Songs hides a deep work that Roux states is based in mathematics, symmetry (and assymetry) and organized randomness. Songs is a skillfully and beautifully rendered album of gentle and sometimes not-so-gentle acoustic instruments and melodic granular clouds. Each song is titled simply by the instruments that make it, thus stressing the proce…
Ääniesineitä
12k is proud to release Ääniesineitä, the debut full-length CD by Antti Rannisto. Rannisto [b1978] is a Finnish artist whose ultra-spare sound was formed via a diverse background of hip-hop, house, and experimental electronic music. Despite the highly improvised and free-form influences, Ääniesineitä is highly calculated music so stripped down to the basic elements that subtle shifts in panning, envelope, or phase become instruments in themselves. He explores the ideas of rotation in much of his…
Status
12k presents Status, the result of two of the genre’s most talented, and diffferent, composers; Frank Bretschneider and Ralph Steinbrüchel, sharing their sounds and styles. Status began in the Spring of 2003 when they designed their own sound sequences and samples and sent the material to each other, waiting and hearing what the other will create out of it. They played this game for nearly 2 years, sending sequences and tracks back and forth until both of them were satisfied with the result.When…
Post_Piano 2
Taylor Deupree & Kenneth Kirschner’s Post_Piano 2 continues the two New York composers’ collaborative investigation into the intersections of digital minimalism and experimental piano composition. Working with his childhood acoustic piano and the accidental sounds of an imperfect recording environment, Kirschner first composed a simple, austere “piano sketch” to serve as raw material for the project. This sketch was then passed on to Deupree, who created three new compositions entirely out of so…
Every action
12k presents Every Action, the 3rd full-length release from the UK’s Motion (Chris Coode) and the follow-up to 2002’s critically acclaimed Dust (12k1019). In addition to his work with 12k (Dust, as well as a collaboration with Doron Sadja on 12k’s recent Two Point Two compilation, and an MP3 only release on 12k’s term. series) Coode has worked with Fat Cat and also released the debut Motion cd Pictures (now out of print) on his own imprint.The work on Every ActionPictures was produced, sharing t…
Tasogare: Live in Tokyo
Recorded live on April 10th and 11th, 2010, Tasogare: Live in Tokyo documents the performances of five 12k artists at two temples in Tokyo, Japan. Komyoji Temple (April 10th) saw the first-ever performance in Japan by Australia’s Solo Andata, known for creating deep, textured music with found objects, homemade instruments and very little in the way of electronics or software tricks. The duo was joined by 12k veteran Sawako whose voice and delicate computer work were accompanied by guitarist Hofl…
Alpi
oreledigneur is the duo of giuseppe ielasi and renato rinaldi and “alpi” is the new film by photographer and filmmaker Armin Linke. rinaldi followed linke’s shooting sessions between 2004 and 2009, recording on-location sound for the film, which was then edited and sound-designed by oreledigneur. the whole sound archive was used by ielasi to edit and compose (without any additional processing) those two sides, which bear very little resemblance to the final soundtrack of the film. the lp consist…
The Gorilla Variations
This is the first full-length collaborative release by Richmond, VA-based musician and sound artists Molly Berg and Stephen Vitiello. The CD title, The Gorilla Variations came about from a request for a short-soundtrack from Éder Santos, a Brazilian video artist who Vitiello has worked with for 20-years on an uncounted number of projects. For Santos’ recent video installation, Boxing The Game, Éder asked for a 3-minute soundtrack to accompany a video portrait of Idi Amin, a lonely gorilla housed…
Northern
The inspiration behind Northern (including its music, title and photography) comes from Deupree’s recent relocation from the heart of urban activity in Brooklyn to the tranquility of the forest in upstate New York. Inspired by nature and the winter during which it was created, Northern, like much of his recent work, explores Deupree’s interest in stillness and a slowed sense of time. Through quiet textures, subtle movements, faint loops and echoes, it was his goal to create the type of music tha…
Mit ohne
Mit Ohne is a sound documentation of an audio/visual installation by Yves Netzhammer and Steinbrüchel. The installation entitled “The feeling of precise instability when holding things” was part of the group exhibition “Wohnträume/Wohnräume” exhibited from 26.07. to 28.09.2003 at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich, Switzerland. The audio sections by Steinbrüchel where composed in sync with the visuals by Yves Netzhammer and succeed in translating and supporting the poetic vibrancy and slow morp…