die ablenkung

from the ~scape website:

scape44
		pole
steingarten „Writing about music is like dancing about architecture” … underestimates the urge many people have to read about music, even if it’s difficult to capture music in words. And this phrase was also coined by somebody totally unfamiliar with Pole’s music. Because when you listen to Pole, you always have the feeling that this is music that could be architecture, an elegantly spare form that reaches out into space. And it would thus be architecture you could dance to.

Tags: pole.

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I saw Thomas Köner perform live for the first time only a few days ago, despite having been a fan for many years. His dark drone-scapes are incredibly rich in tone and texture; the recordings are intoxicating and the music even more so live. That’s what I’d hoped anyway but, sadly, it wasn’t so.

The performance space was a big let down and came close to ruining the whole experience. Maybe I should have expected as much — the concert was part of a short film festival program. A kind of bookend to the films. He played in the bar/cafeteria/patio area of Haus der Kultur der Welt in Berlin, a building which has many beautiful spaces that would have been perfect for this kind of performance –- if only one of them had been used! Instead, we had to put up with crappy lighting that was being constantly adjusted by a guy on a ladder, an audience that drifted around like flotsam through the space between the bar and the outdoor smoking area, and people talking gaily over the top of the performance at alcohol fuelled volumes. It was a pity. 

The concert itself was …nice. Köner incorporated various field recordings of Japanese train station, which I’ve begun to find unbearably kitchy when presented with such solemnity, as well as kids and other stuff. It was nothing like the immersive, space-expanding experiences I’ve had listening to his best recorded works at home.

THE BEST OF KÖNER

Köner is a Chain Reaction alumnus. He worked with Andy Mellwig under name Porter Ricks for a number of years with several releases not only on Chain Reaction, but also Force Inc. and Mille Plateaux. Porter Ricks made staticy, noisy music backed by hissing house beats. Interesting at times, but not essential. 

Köner’s best work was already around before Porter Ricks, and was released on a fairly obscure Dutch label called Barooni in the very early ’90s. The original two albums, Teimo (1992) and Permafrost (1993) were limited and are long out of print. But they were released as a double album, Teimo/Permafrost, by Mille Plateaux in 1997. Both albums are chilling, spaciously minimal soundscapes.

Later releases on Mille Plateaux that are also worth checking are 2002’s Daikan, a live recording of a performance at the 2000 European Media Arts Festival in Osnabrück, and 2003’s Zyklop, the first disc of which is a performance from Radio France in 2002 called “Une Topographie Sonore: Col De Vence” that includes lots of field recordings.

TEIMO/PERMAFROST [Mille Plateaux MP035 1997]

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Buy: Teimo/Permafrost

DAIKAN [Mille Plateaux MP107 2002]

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Buy: Daikan

ZYKLOP [Mille Plateaux MP118 2003]

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Buy: Zyklop

And, just for laughs, here’s a taste of Porter Ricks …

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Tags: drone-scape, Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid, soundscape, Thomas Köner.

The new Basic Channel CD compilation is an excellent springboard into the entire collection for vinyl-phobes. Unlike the mixed and edited BCD-1, BCD-2 brings together six tracks in their full and glorious original length. The six tracks are the clubbier classics that are on the pumping end of the BC atmospheric spectrum. Personally, I like having Basic Channel stuff on vinyl. Not only because it seems to fit better with the original intention [Buy Vinyl!], but it seems appropriate to allow the records to wear and age naturally, it fits with the aesthetic. I’m not dogmatic about vinyl either, I don’t think digital is ‘inauthentic’, but especially for this sort of sound it just seems right. That said, I’m happy to have the digital version as well for ease of use and portability.

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Buy direct from the source: Hardwax

Buy digital: digital tunes

Tracklisting:

Tags: Basic Channel, BCD-2, digital, vinyl.

A haunting unmelody plinked out on a piano over a sustained electronic chord. Snatches of synthesizer wisp through. Music for Airports, extended version. Over 59 minutes the gentle atmosphere builds almost imperceptibly. Like an Escher drawing, at times your not sure if your going up or down, forwards or backwards. Hypnotic.

Originally produced for a video piece, it was released as a studio album in 1985.

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Buy: Thursday Afternoon [61 min version]

Tags: ambient, Brian Eno, Thursday Afternoon.

Taylor Dupree is back under the new moniker Ando, and in surprisingly good form with this mini-album on Raster-Noton relative Bine Music. Four tracks of looped micro-melodies that are spun so finely they could be carried away in wisp of a breeze. They reference both the much maligned ‘minimal’ of recent techno and Dupree’s work in harder days as a member of Prototype909 in the early ninties. (Prototype909 are still active, incidentally, if their Myspace page is anything to go by).

But Habitat is probably closer in spirit to the work from late nineties on Raster-Noton - the wonderful miniatures of polr, for example, but with more funk. In fact, the two tracks of the  second half, ‘Optal’ and ‘Templ’ have a degree of swing that earns them the brand new portmanteau MICRO-DUB as in microhouse and dub-techno combined. Indeed, the first track ‘Cyte’ has dancehall tropes in the form of a version of the ubiquitous foghorn sound. Dupree’s recent 12k productions have been much more folk-ambient oriented, acoustic guitars etc, so Habitat is something of a surprising return to abstraction, rhythm and danceability. The beautiful cover artwork is by Benjamin Brunn, of recent Songs from the Beehive [Smallville] fame. 

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Buy: [Habitat]

Tracklisting:

Tags: Ando, Benjamin Brunn, Bine, Habitat, micro-dub, Taylor Dupree.

In lieu of the new Basic Channel CD -not available just yet - I thought I’d post the old classic of Berlin dub-techno, but so much has been said about it, it’s hard to know where to begin.

The Basic Channel CD was released back in early 1995 in a non-descript cardboard sleeve. A reduction of the classic series of nine vinyl dub-reductions, it was at the time a welcome addition to the catalogue in for those who’d chucked their record players. This was long before the advent of mp3 or other digital formats. Though it still came with a reminder in the form of a sticker on the back to ‘buy vinyl’. 

It also remains an excellent introduction to all things Basic Channel, a sampler of what you will find on the records.

The sound: stripped Detroit techno drenched in dub and reverb. Minimalist, deep and spacious.

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Buy: [Basic Channel CD1] 

*notes from discogs: Track 2 is better known as “Remake (Basic Reshape),” track 5 is actually an edit of “Radiance III,” track 8 is the entire fourth cut from “Q 1.1,” track 10 is an edit, and track 11 is the entire “Radiance II.”

Tags: Basic Channel, berlin, dub techno.

It seems appropriate to open Ablenkunger’s  blog with a post about Gas. 

It’s been ten years since this particular manifestation of Kompakt founder Wolfgang Voigt appeared, much less since I first fell in love with it, but the re-release of these Mille Plateaux classics in a new package - ‘lightly remastered’ - is nonetheless a fitting celebration indeed. 

Voigt’s thick textures and gradual variations are, of course, as spellbinding on the re-release as they are on the originals, sounding not the least bit dated; still a deep pond to get lost in.

Seminal. Essential. What more can be said?

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Buy US: [Nah und Fern]

Tags: gas, kompakt, nah und fern, wolfgang voigt.