Volume Two
On the 2nd of two entrancing Beast volumes, modular maverick Koen Holtkamp (Mountains) further distinguishes his new, rhythmelodic velocity in four studio-based iterations, making a subtle contrast with the live performances of Volume 1, and beautifully exemplifying the distance travelled from his earlier works released by Type, Thrill Jockey and Umor Rex since the late ‘00s. Hemming the finest line between the ‘Process Music’ approach of ‘70s minimal/maximalists Jon Gibson and Steve Reich, and…
Volume One
Pre-Echo Press present Beast, a new project and moniker from acclaimed sound/visual artist, Koen Holtkamp (Mountains). A somewhat radical departure from Holtkamp's previous working modes -- where sound has typically been treated as an edifice to be sculpted -- the works here are far more concerned with the generative possibilities of rhythm. The pieces on Beast developed out of Holtkamp's creation in 2016 of an audio-visual performance that centers on the physical properties of light via 3…
Tres Precieux Sang
*2017 repress* Terrific record! Eight charged, intimate meditations by Julie Normal and Olivier Demeaux, playing a rickety ondes Martenot and an old church harmonium. Gripping, detailed, stately improvisation -- a bit like the ùrlars in classical bagpipe music -- which nervily mixes the sternly doom-laden with precarious, other-worldly wonderment. (The ondes Martenot is an amazing twentieth-century instrument -- beloved by Messiaen, for example, and Varese. The theme-song of Star Trek is a voca…
Die Nacht Der Seele
‘Die nacht der seele’ is the twelfth album by Popol Vuh, originally released in 1979 by Florian Fricke and friends–Daniel Fichelscher on guitar, Djong Yun and Renate Knaup on vocals, plus guests Alois Gromer on sitar and Susan Goetting on oboe. Popol Vuh had moved again one step farther, ellaborating a complex world music opus based mainly on acoustic instruments plus Fichelscher's electric guitar and the use of multitracked vocals to reproduce the sounds of Tibetan monk chants.‘Florian was and …
La Otra Vanguardia Musical En Latinoamerica 1976-1988
Double LP version. The artists on Invenciones: La Otra Vanguardia Musical En Latinoamerica 1976-1988 come from an intermediate period between the high-point of diverse artistic currents influenced by the hippie movement and the advent of punk -- a watershed between the expansion of the industry and the emergence of a new DIY distribution system. Features: Manongo Mujica, Banda Dispersa De La Madre Selva, Miguel Flores, Amauta, Autoperro, Malalche, Decibel, Jorge Reyes, Grupo Um, Carlos Da Silvei…
Embrace
Nice ambient/minimal reissue from the good folks at the Italian label Orbeatize. The duo of Martin Kornberger and Volker Kuhn put out two lone cassette tapes back in the 80s that all but vanished from the public eye bar a few hardcore collectors of the era. The music sits somewhere between post-kraut German synth and the electronic fourth world excursions of Per Tjernberg. Drifting piano and basic drum machine patterns also recall the work of Paki & Visnadi, the new age stylings of Paulin…
The Shameless Years
Post-minimalist American composer Rafael Anton Irisarri makes his Umor Rex debut with bold new album, The Shameless Years. Inspired by a troubled socio-political climate, buried melodies punch their way through a bleak cover of noisy drones, periodically veering into some of Irisarri’s most eerily pertinent music to date. LP limited edition of 700 copies pressed on red colored vinyl, includes a post card with original artwork and free download coupon. One of Rafael Anton Irisarri’s most th…
Traced
Hugely impressive second album from Jasmine Guffond landing again via the collectable Sonic Pieces imprint and sounding something like a much more disturbed Holly Herndon or this years mind-altering new album from Felicia Atkinson. It’s a compellingly immersive study of digital surveillance technologies and the way they, along with myriad other machines, impinge upon and frame our waking life.
In Traced, Guffond takes the textural and spatially sensitive ambient aesthetics of her previous L…
Reconstructing Debussy
Double LP version. Includes download code. Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was one of the most popular and forward-thinking composers associated with impressionist music. His innovative and at this time new way to compose music with non-traditional scales and chromaticism inspired countless artists from the likes of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Miles Davis, and Herbie Hancock. Remarkable attributes of his music include the usage of parallel chords, bitonality, and the many compositions using whole…
Passive Aggressive
Superb dreamy collaboration between Jonny Nash and likeminded ambient soul, Suzanne Kraft. Produced in 2016 and “in close proximity to the M56 Motorway”, which, weirdly enough, lulls me to sleep every night. We’d imagine that Passive Aggressive is intended to do the same thing, operating at such lowlit and hushed levels that it’s almost hard not to be seduced to slumber by its sandman tones. It really is best consumed whole, but if you’ve got a shorter attention span or need some highlights, che…
The Petrified Forest
Norwegian ambient maestro Geir Jenssen aka Biosphere maintains his fascination with natural landscapes in The Petrified Forest, in a sort of impressionistic illustration of Archie Mayo’s 1936 film of the same name. After imaginary trips taking us to Trømso, the Wolski forest on Poland, and more esoteric corners of his mind, this time his music inhabits a noirish world on the edge of the desert, populated by nervous and disillusioned characters who crop up in snatches of sampled dialogue ac…
Murrille
A long overdue CD edition of Timo van Luijk’s first full-length album, originally released in 2002 as a small private edition LP on La Scie Dorée (Belgium). "Murrille" features a collection of extraordinary "songs" integrating a palette of acoustic instruments such as glass harmonium, flute, hand percussion, as well as voice with real time synthesis. With a host of bizarre inflections and aural investigations, Van Luijk’s music recalls some of the of the great experimentation of early krautrock,…
Ideas Of Beginnings
Mark McGuire reminds us why he is among the most beloved guitarists of our new age. McGuire returns to VDSQ with a beautiful album of fractal introspection, a succinct collection of deeply melodic and emotive themes. Ideas Of Beginnings a direct statement of modern guitar, running the gamut from brightly focused acoustic compositions to late night electric vapor trails. Ideas Of Beginnings is another highlight from this …
Voices Bloom
A distillation of cultural memory through electronic process, James Place - the creative guise of New York native Phil Tortoroli, returns with his third release for Umor Rex. The sonic realization of love and loss, re-sculpted for the Post-Modern age, pursuing his glacial take on techno into newly intimate depths. Departing from a line in TS Elliot’s Four Quartets “the moment in and out of time”, its works take form through the haze of a dream. Over the course of several months Tortoroli t…
Bei
The art of listening is something not only an attentive audience will acknowledge as a high value in music. It’s also the basis of an engaging collaboration and plays a key role in every duo’s encounter. While Henning Berg and Christoph Schmiedt already stand out in operating their respective instruments, their new record also shows that they master in paying attention and responding to one another’s approach simultaneously.
As a result we’re treated with a charmingly spontaneous expression of m…
Removed
In 2000, The Wire wrote of Richard Chartier’s work: “it’s worth stretching the ears in search of Chartier’s sequences of exquisitely sculpted sonic events, as gorgeous detail bodies forth out of the shadows”… the same holds true today. Formed over the course of 5 years, Removed was a process of removal/erasure. Only trace elements appear from what was. Their interactions merely a ghost of a composition - subtle echoes across the sound spectrum. A glacially paced progression of discreet relat…
La Niña Junco
Argentinian musician Federico Durand returns with his 2nd full length album on 12k following 2016’s A Través Del Espejo (12k1085). Taking his already minimalist composition style Federico challenged himself by using only one synthesizer for this beautiful album of sparse, hypnotic dustiness. His talent for creating works of so much emotion out of so little attest to his concentration when working and his passion for the craft. La Niña Junco is a handwoven gem. Music with a humble origin an…
The Electronic Tapes
In the early 1980s, Ahmed Malek was already in his 50s, when he discovered synthesizers and electronic music for himself and started to experiment with sounds. None of it was ever released but we got a huge box of master tapes from his family and we're happy to present this different side of Ahmed Malek's music. It was compiled and co-produced by Flako, a fan of early electronic and synth music. This is not a remix album though, Flako's aim was to create an album out of 2 hours of materia…
S/W
Future music duo Second Woman's sophomore full-length for Spectrum Spools further hones their distinctive fusion of shape-shifting software sculpture and tessellated footwork. Shivering digital textures oscillate with and against algorithmically mapped percussion samples; smeared synthetic chords levitate in the distance; stabs of digital noise punctuate the mix in twitchy, time-distorting patterns. Their anamorphosis verges on ascetic: stark, splintered waveforms rendered into unique fib…
The Wind Collector
*5 very last copies just found by chance - original Divergo LP edition* As we’re becoming steadily aware, Gigi Masin and his mates made some truly beautiful music in the late ‘80s which is only just properly coming to light in recent years. Blessed with an almost ineffable air of sophistication and a sort of Venetian play-of-light, their music had existed quietly on the fringes, minding its own business until Music From Memory illuminated their work with 2014’s gorgeous Talk To The Sea com…