★BASKARU
Approaching Nothing
Approaching Nothing is Lawrence English’s response to one of his favourite concrète works, Luc Ferrari’s Presque Rien. Its title is a direct english translation, and the piece follows very similar methods of recording and collaging with minimal alteration made to the original source material, which was also collected on and around the Croatian island of Vela Luka where Ferrari visited and made his original recordings in the ‘60s.
What Matters Is That It Matters
Simon Whetham is an acute listener, a field recorder, a thinker, a globetrotter, and a mobilizer. However, he is also a sonic cook. Wherever he goes, he picks up sounds and atmospheres as if they were exotic ingredients. And for 'What Matters Is That It Matters', he made us a stew, slowly simmered until all the flavours come through.'What Matters Is That It Matters', Whetham's first album for Baskaru, is slow music. And slow music deserves to be taken in slowly - you don't wolf comfort fo…
Calibrated contingency
When you saw those two names – Achim Wollscheid and Bernhard Schreiner – side by side on a piece of paper, you probably thought "Of course, this collaboration makes so much sense!" Unless you went "Who?"True, Wollscheid and Schreiner are not what you would call household names of the experimental music scene. Although the former gained serious "street" credit on the Industrial scene in the '80s with his moniker S.B.O.T.H.I. and his collaborations with P16.D4. Wollscheid also cofounded the influe…
Sky Limits
Hill towns and empty mountains pass by, but the smoothness of the train blurs the view, and it's easier than ever to fall asleep in the low morning sunlight coming in through the train's windows', writes Will Long, the artist behind the Celer moniker, in his liner notes to Sky Limits, one of his most fulfilling records to date. First created as a duo project in 2005, Celer has been US-born musician Will Long's solo vehicle since 2009. Through the years and thanks to an astounding rate of produc…
Green heights
Baskaru is proud to present this gorgeous collaboration among three masters of sound experimentation, all three great artists whose soundworlds turn out to be incredibly complementary. Tomoyoshi Date's toy piano and field recordings bring a lightness that has very seldom been witnessed in the projects of Toshimaru Nakamura, whose specialty is the no-input mixing board. As for Ken Ikeda, he uses antiquated equipment (like the DX7 synthesizer) to create unheard-of sonics that bridge the gap betwee…
Nouvelles Upanishads Du Yoga
The art of substraction. Baskaru is now up to 25 releases, and each one is unique, but none are as singular as Nouvelles Upanishads du yoga, a series of deep reflections on feedback, sound synthesis, and the art of substraction. Paris-based visual and sound artist Emmanuel Allard has been making electronic and digital music since the late 90s. Beside contributions to several compilation albums and despite live performances on three continents, he has been keeping a very quiet release schedule. …
Un Coeur Simple
Stephan Mathieu's latest work transforms music made for Gustav Flaubert's titular play. First published as part of the book Trois Contes (Three Tales) in 1877 and translating to 'A Simple Heart', the text, a modern rereading of an old tale, makes for a neat analog to Mathieu's sonic practice - augmenting recordings of obsolete formats - wax cylinders, 78s - and early instruments by computer processes. Using pieces written by early renaissance composer Guillaume Dufay (1400-1474) and performed in…
Regolelettroniche
Italians Maurizio Bianchi and Emanuela De Angelis have a generation between them, but that does not prevent them from delivering their first collaboration entitled "Regolelettroniche".However, to get there, they had to agree on a few rules, alluded to in titles such as "Earthly Principle" and "Cosmic Norms", and through these "rulelectronics" credited to both of them.That being said, these rules are left unexplained; listeners can discover them on their own when they experience this drone-based …