Xian Orphic

Edition of 500 copies - a new project from Andy Votel and Demdike Stare's Pre-Cert Home Entertainment Label* Pre-Cert's library of second class curios expands again with 'Xian Orphic', a neo-tantric episode of synth collage posited by the enigmatic Shallkross (work it out) at Villa Scott. Its influences are typically far-flung and esoteric, synching kindred spirits from transcendental, nu-religious and metaphysical sound forms with a rich sensuality evoking the private, new age pressings of pioneers such as Kat Epple, Marc Disler, Dariush Dolat Shahi, Mark Shreeve, Suzanne Ciani and Rameses, while acknowledging the structural aesthetics of sound sculptors like Egisto Macchi, Bernard Parmegiani or Bruno Spoerri. Like many Pre-Cert releases this project is as much a micro archive of experiments and references as opposed to a contrived finished product and leaves an open ended avenue for further volumes. By contrasting processed modular synth tones with recorded and transposed melodic pulses, Xian Orphic adds lo-fi domestic sounds and classic Kosmische to paint positive psychological relationships. The effect reflects the rhizome of pre/cusp-of-digital/analog German electronics and their intrinsic relationship with celluloid imagery, delineating the more optimistic moments of popular horror soundtracks by artists like John Carpenter, Alan Howarth, and Klaus Schulze.