★Bottrop-Boy
Fishforms
‘Phanta Rhei’ - everything flows. Whatever else might happen, life hurtles on and everything follows its natural course. Music is also subject to these ineluctable laws. While often breaking the mould, when everything is in its right place, the music follows its own course. As it does in the little experimental cabins of Laboratory Field, or LabField for short. This Scandinavian monster collective consisting of David Stackenäs (guitars, electronics) and Ingar Zach (percussion) knows exactly how …
Concentration of the Stare
Spend any amount of time in the company of Keith Rowe and the names of certain painters will arise in conversation with some frequency. Caravaggio, Twombly and, among others, most definitely, Mark Rothko. Just as, long ago, he'd imagined what the guitars in Braque's cubist painting might actually sound like, so, I think, he did with Rothko, often referring to the way the "tinged" the space in which they were hung. For some time, in the early oughts, Rowe tried to place his music in a similar are…
Sieben stax
Welcome to Astral Social Club : your MC is British avant-garde guru Neil Campbell. Put on your dancing shoes, because this is hallucinating, intergalactic trance music of the highest order and it's about to take off. The up-beat, cosmic vibes of Campbell's first terrestrial voyages aboard the drone/krautrock ship were already very impressive, but with Astral Social Club he sets sail for the stars. Campbell manages to create something entirely unprecedented on this album: trance music as played i…
Vito Acconci / New Humans / C. Spencer Yeh
Noise surrounds and permeates us, and no one is more responsible than the New Humans from that loudest and noisiest of metropolises: New York. From installation art to ear splitting live concerts, this infernal power trio lead by artist Mika Tajima eschews no collaboration, no matter how insane. Guitarist and artistic leader Tajimi is supported by electronics specialist and voice acrobat Howie Chen, drummer Eric Tsai, as well as a large number of guest musicians. The New Humans like nothing more…
The Magnetic Headache
Blood is dripping from my stereo and my ears. Blood stereo submerges its listeners in horror vacui. The awfulness of emptiness is made audible in all its horrific detail. This album can be construed either as a radio play for exhausted ears or the ideal soundtrack for waking up from a disturbing nightmare. Reality refuses to return this early in the morning and all that remains is a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. Voices wander around in your head, somewhere there is the creaking of …
Eternal Noise
Carlos Giffoni knows no mercy. Of all the noise terrorists on the loose today, Giffoni causes the most upheaval. We know he specialises in brutal and invincible noise collages, but there is so much more to it than that. There is always a glimmer of hope that shines through the dense clouds of noise. His noise lives, broods and swings. His latest album for Bottrop-Boy is a true revelation in this respect, not just for the listener, but also for the artist himself. After all, the Venezuelan artist…
Dance Music
Don’t be fooled by the casual title of this release; you will hear a veritable Ghost in the Machine cloaked in pure electronic sounds. Japanese composer Toshimaru Nakamura goes beyond the furthest reaches of sound in his mission to cross the border to the other side. This time it falls to dancing poltergeists and hellish, rattling machines to scourge Nakamura’s soundscapes. Toshimaru Nakamura is known worldwide as the master of the no-input mixing board. From out of nowhere he manages to conjure…
Summon With Electronic Corcery
This is the soundtrack of your favourite nightmare. The aural cinema delivered by the Starving Weirdos is best experienced with one’s eyes closed. A dark psychedelic joyride on the inside of one’s eyelids. Instead of the obvious, hypnotically safe vision or bouncing orangey sunspots, entire films are projected onto the eyeball. Think desolate valleys, sweaty engine rooms and dark alleyways. The four trips committed to record by this Californian band taunt every accepted boundary. The black magic…
No Canal
Guitar, drums and electronics. There are no further requirements for turning the world on its head. Since their inception in 2002, Mouthus from Brooklyn have delighted and enraptured their audience. Thundering noise eruptions, mail-fisted guitar drones, infernal drumbeats and an indomitable drive are these devilish duos hallmarks. This is undiluted rock ‘n’ rock for noise junkies. When it comes to live performances, Mouthus are unbeatable. Nevertheless, in order to nourish the other parts of the…
Reproduction
Secular Musics Of South Yorkshire is the new project name for Mark Fell, who is half of SND and Shirt Trax. Reproduction is his first solo album after having only released a solo 12" as .H on Hobby Industries in 2000. The album is a reworking of sorts of the same-titled album from The Human League from the 80s, using it as source material for not only the music but also for the complete album concept. Although close in sound to the SND aesthetic Secular Musics Of South Yorkshire sounds more angu…
Burned bridges and lost loves
Burned Bridges And Lost Loves is the second part of a project in which friends, colleagues and lovers were asked to remix the works of Chicago improvisation-trio TV Pow. Like its predecessor Power Friends and Devoted Lovers, a double-album that contains 29 remixes, the second and final installment also offers remixes of tracks that are mostly taken from TV Pow’s album Friendship Patrol. Adding another 31 remixes, the total amount of remixes is now equal to the amount of tracks that feature on Fr…
Powerful friends and devoted lovers
The first part of a giant collection of remixes of tracks mostly taken from TV Pow's Friendship Patrol album, which was released on their own Not For Profit label in 2001. This is a double-CD set containing remixes from Oren Ambarchi, Sutekh, Otomo Yoshihide, Stephan Mathieu, Motor, Thymme Jones, Toshimaru Nakamura, Jazzkammer, Stilluppsteypa, Freiband, Reynols, Tu M', Leif Elggren and many others. 29 remixes in total.
s/t
First CD from the quartet featuring Tetuzi Akiyama, Yoshihide Otomo and Toshimaru Nakamura under the guidance of Taku Sugimoto. Two long and extremely minimal acoustic/electric guitar tracks.
Chamber music
Taku Sugimoto has been one of the most important musicians on the improv-front for some years now with releases on Erstwhile, Grob, A Bruit Secret, Improvised Music From Japan and many other labels. Redefining guitar music with his ultra minimal way of playing, the most extreme endpoint for this was the Taku Sugimoto Guitar Quartet album released earlier on Bottrop-Boy. On Chamber Music he puts the guitar aside and composes 3 pieces for violin, cello and piano. He recreates the same sustained so…
The immediate past is of no interest to us - 10 years of continu
The 10 year anniversary full-length CD from the trio Stilluppsteypa with all new music, the last album recorded with Heimir Bjorgulfsson who has left the group. The most melodic and rhythmic Stilluppsteypa ever! Contains a 20-page booklet with texts on the history of the band by people such as Andrew McKenzie, Jim Haynes and Frans De Waard.
A little lost
Icelandic musician (now based in Hannover, Germany) Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson has been a longtime member of the band Stilluppsteypa. Since some time he has been releasing solo works as well, with albums on Trente Oiseaux, ERS and Fire Inc. This is his new solo album, and the best example of the variety of his musical talent. A Little Lost contains three lengthy tracks, one beautiful piece that gets close in spirit to ambient, one collage piece using amongst else spoken word and a third track wh…
Music for shattered light box and 7 posters
Getting a grip on the chaos that surrounds us: for American artist and trumpet/cornet player Rob Mazurek the time has come to make a statement. Every right-minded lover of modern music knows his jazz and post-rock explorations with bands such as Chicago underground duo Isotope 217 and Tortoise. Nevertheless, inside this vintage improviser there also lurks a passionate multimedia artist who likes to speak his mind, especially in a time when his home country is starting to reveal the darkest and m…
Plays Brötzmann
How to improvise on an existing work of improvisation? American outfit Pillow took the plunge by carefully placing European free jazz legend Peter Brötzmann’s group improvisation piece Images on the rack. Don’t expect any tortured notes or twisted chords, though, as Pillow respectfully and patiently square up to Brötzmann’s music. Written especially for his Tentet and released on Okkadisk, Images is one of Brötzmann’s most meditative collective works of improvisation. Tentet member and cellist F…
Pulse
Jazzkammer are Lasse Marhaug and John Hegre from Norway. Together they have been making music as Jazzkammer since 1998. Past releases include Timex, Rolex (a remix album), Pancakes and a live album with Merzbow. Jazzkammer are relentless sound explorers with no set style or specific 'sound' - they move swiftly from hardcore overload electronics and sonic freakouts to lowercase soundscapes and location recordings. Once described as 'sonic architects', Marhaug and Hegre insist they are merely tryi…
01/02/00
Jacob Kirkegaard is a Danish musician currently located in Cologne, Germany, who was a founding member of the group Aeter which has been active for years on the European underground live circuit. They had a unique sound where abstract sound, beautiful singing and an interest in connecting music with visuals came together. Kirkegaard is also a famous composer of hearplays in his native country. Last year saw the first release from him outside his band with Soaked, a live recording he made with tu…