★Arbitrary
Heartbeats
*300 copies limited edition* Arbitrary presents the second in a series of 10" vinyl remix collaboration releases by Danish musician Mads Emil Nielsen and Chromacolor. Side A features Heartbeats, a composition Nielsen originally made for a radio soundtrack. The track is derived from loops and granulations of sine waves and pulses from Nielsen’s modular synth, which he later combined with recordings of synthesized bass and layers of organ-like tones. On side B is a remix by German sound artist and…
Code & Melody
*300 copies limited edition, digipak w/ metallic pantone print * Just because Denseland take inspiration from the past, doesn’t mean they're stuck in it. On their first album since 2017, their second for arbitrary, the Berlin-based trio instead ventures slowly but steadily into unknown territory. Hanno Leichtmann and Hannes Strobl’s dub-infused, bass-heavy rhythmic minimalism in combination with lyricist David Moss’s sonorous yet deadpan delivery opens up a space that feels both claustrophobic a…
Terrain Vague
Arbitrary presents Terrain Vague – the debut of Danish group Mesmer. The album is a series of (deconstructed) live-recordings taken from three live concerts. The sounds on this record are taken from two years’ worth of sound research and creative outbursts with inspiration from field trips to the outskirts of Copenhagen. Intrigued by the auditive landscapes of places where nature and culture meet and challenge each other. Listening to the field-recordings led Mesmer to interpret the moods, music…
Dissolvè / Scillions
Big Tip! Arbitrary presents Dissolvè / Scillions by Antoine Hubineau. Derived from the same series of compositions, Dissolvè and Scillions are drawn from modular synthesizer recordings which have been reworked, treated and composed in the computer. Dissolvè is a mosaic which is in constant motion. The inner details are guided by an outer structure which act as a kind of rhythmic subtraction. It is destabilised to the point where it fractures, from the macro to the micro level; abstracting a fili…
Desert Dictionary
300 copies limited edition* Desert Dictionary navigates sonic territories oscillating between language and landscape, between notation and noise. Voices responding and contributing to a complementary narrative, connecting personal memories, political considerations and psychological effects of a landscape seemingly empty and quiet. Adjacent, beneath and intertwined a modular synthesizer score based on field notes – a synthesized soundscape appearing as imaginary field recordings, at the same tim…
Chromacolor
*300 copies limited edition* "Chromacolor" is one of those records that immediately feels like home even though it is hard to locate stylistically. Written and recorded by Hanno Leichtmann in Berlin and Madeira between 2020 and 2022, it draws on rhythmic minimalism as a guiding principle and might call to mind organic, instrument-based ambient music, but also incorporates jazzy moments as well as Annie Garlids multi-layered vocals that permeate through these nine pieces.
The foundation for Leich…
Black Box 3
* Edition of 500 * Arbitrary presents the third in the Black Box series of releases by Mads Emil Nielsen. The release, which showcases a more sample- and grid-based side of the Danish musician/composer’s work, is part of a sequence of publications with music and audio originally made for theatre, radio soundtracks and more.
Black Box 3 is based on sound pieces produced for Sprækker (Cracks), a dance performance & installation in Denmark, 2021. The starting points for these pieces are improvisati…
Delirious Cartographies
Tip! **300 copies limited edition* Arbitrary presents »Delirious Cartographies« by composer, improviser and synthesist Richard Scott. Part of the Danish imprint’s Framework editions, this release includes three pieces on 12” vinyl and 6 printed drawings – as well as a text by Scott – published as a limited edition portfolio folder.
"These compositions capture aspects of my personal sonic experience of specific times and places. Extending beyond my usual work with analogue synthesizer, these piec…
Constellation
Arbitrary presents the first in a series of remix collaborations and releases by Mads Emil Nielsen and Chromacolor, a project from the German sound artist and producer Hanno Leichtmann.Mads Emil Nielsen’s Constellation (side A) was created by combining several granulations and textures based on a single short recording, extracted from improvisations made with the Buchla synthesizer at EMS, Stockholm – combined with randomly looping orchestral samples, edited and produced in his studio in Copenha…
PM016 - 2020 Remaster
* Edition of 300 * Arbitrary presents the 2020 remaster & vinyl reissue of PM016 by Danish musician Mads Emil Nielsen, re-mastered and cut by Kassian Troyer, with cover artwork by visual artist Dane Patterson. Originally released as limited edition C30 tape on Plant Migration Records in 2014, the four pieces on Nielsen’s first solo release are based on short orchestral and percussive samples manipulated by various synthesizer modules and effects processors. Variations are created by emphasizing …
Framework 3
Danish musician/composer Mads Emil Nielsen continues his Framework series; a collection of open, hand-drawn graphic scores and recordings. Framework 3 is the latest instalment in Nielsen’s sequence of graphic scores and recordings. The series includes the Danish composer’s own subjective translations of visual materials and sound pieces accompanied by visual notations.
On this release he collaborates with Katja Gretzinger and Nicola Ratti. Published as a limited edition art print folder, Frame…
Framework 2
Danish musician/composer Mads Emil Nielsen continues his Framework series; a collection of open, hand-drawn graphic scores and recordings. The series includes Nielsen’s own subjective translations of the visual material and sound pieces accompanied by visual notations, and collaborations – in this case with Andrea Neumann, Jan Jelinek and Hideki Umezawa. Framework 2 consists of printed scores and recordings, released on 2 x 10” vinyl + DL. Circles (Disc1: side A) is a dense, 03:45 collage of sy…
Percussion Loops
"On this record, Mads Emil Nielsen divvies up two sides of 7” with a healthy ratio of two to two drum loops, each offering a smattering of ricocheting, crackling and structureless percussion, occasionally abetted with a bit of the ol’ synth additive.As far as comparative pointers go, what comes to mind first is Nicolas Jaar’s construction site ambient record ‘Pomegranates’, which used drums to punctuate long, meandering trails of drone or textural excess. Here, though, Nielsen’s compositions sta…
ASPHALT
Improvised concert as live soundtrack for the German silent film Asphalt (1929), shown in Cinemateket, Copenhagen, February 2014, presented by Goethe-Institut and Wundergrund. Released on The Being Music and arbitrary. Performed, edited and produced by Jomi Massage (voice, keyboard, chimes, kalimba, effects), Maria Laurette Friis (Korg MS-10, upright piano, human whistle, effects) and Mads Emil Nielsen (synthesizer, effects, cymbal/percussion).