Königsforst
Following the 1997 release of Zauerberg, Wolfgang Voigt’s GAS project returned with Königsforst, a full length that has stood the test of time as a template for introducing fundamentals of 90’s techno into the principles of contemporary electronic music. Originally released in 1998 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint Mille Plateaux, and then reissued in 2016 as a part of GAS Box, Königsforst is now released on his own label Kompakt on a 180 gram 3LP vinyl set in its original artwork. Königsforst bri…
Infinity
Infinity is the new release by Melbourne-based Leo James, and the second Patience production. Leo scratches a longstanding itch and delivers two sidelong excursions that inhabit a similar sonic space but spin off in opposite directions on the continuum. Desert Nightflower hums with vitality in a seemingly lifeless landscape. Impressionistically tracing the lifecycle of a flower’s bloom in the desert night – from the searing afternoon sun through dusk’s chill, the midnight blossoming and symbioti…
The 1978-1983
Chen Yi aimed for a collective approach of art. As an isolated group of humans/numbers operating directly from a secret place in Chelmsford (UK), they developped a personnal and "bizarre" utilisation of guitars, machines, voices, distortion, giving as result an unconventional regroupment of compositions amongst a lot of lost or unreleased recordings. This is likely what got John Peel interested which brought to an inexplicable contract with CBS. Due to their raw and alternative 'self-made' music…
Selected Works
**250 copies** Selected Works is a 2xLP compilation highlighting the definitive material of the cassette releases of Juma, a project led by hyper-prolific Hiroshima artist K. Yoshimatsu that existed from 1981-1982. Yoshimatsu released six cassettes with his Juma project (as well as 20+ under his own name) on the legendary cult industrial/experimental label DD. Records run by prophetic artist T. Kamada. While attending Yamaguchi University in 1978, Yoshimatsu was introduced by classmate and futur…
Quiet Ends
The penumbra diffuses mysterious textures and a melancholic hypnotic atmosphere conductive to introspection. Another absolutely gorgeous recording from Timo van Luijk
Chords
With ‘Chords’, the Stockholm-based musician and composer Ellen Arkbro returns to Subtext, following her acclaimed debut album ‘For Organ and Brass’. This new longplayer sees Arkbro adopt a more minimalist approach, focusing on the immediate qualities of sound and elegantly expanding the tonal capacities of acoustic instruments using precise, subtle synthesis. Composed of a carefully selected combination of tones, ‘Chords’ stretches, extends and obscures the timbral character of the instruments i…
Dry Lake
**300 copies** Il Grande Silenzio is a project by Japanese artists Atsuo Ogawa and Minoru Sato. On 'Dry Lake' they offer two minimal compositions that feature banjo, field recordings and electronics.
Meeting of Waters
** 300 copies ** Back in 2017 the unassuming Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Josiah Steinbrick released his first collection of solo pieces and we’ve been listening to it compulsively since then. Given that its initial release was only in North America, both on cassette with Leaving Records and in an extremely limited vinyl self-release via Banana Editions, we felt that this meticulously crafted, essential work righteously deserved to get a proper spin in Europe too! "Meetin…
Re.Sort
Sora’s celestial 2003 Japanese electronica LP Re.Sort released on vinyl for the first time. Conceived by Sora aka Takeshi Kurosawa, Re.sort is a miracle of Japanese electronica. Widely unknown but very necessary. Fragments and textures playfully flirt with each other, bossa nova and jazz records float in the air, an old phonograph sits by the sea. Leftfield that feels like a home away, where joyful nothings are everything. Sweet minimalism and micro melodies. Kyoto composer and producer learned …
Sterminato Piano
*175 copies on Orange vinyl.* I've known Fabio Orsi for almost fifteen years now, artistically and humanly. Since the days of "Osci" his first album released by SmallVoices, my label at that time, up to some essential records published by A Silent Place, another label that I managed, in a period that seems almost unrepeatable. Each of his work, whether in music or photography, is always a certainty for me, but lately also a surprise; in fact Fabio Orsi has learned to surprise himself and surpris…
Runes
Subliminal Sounds present the first ever vinyl release Kano's Runes, originally released in 1986. A unique, dark and sparse, tribal, minimal synth, drone, trance, new age recording from the mysterious Kano. Previously only issued as an obscure cassette back in 1986 which is now much sought after. Runes is much darker and brooding compared to its new age peers of the era. Drums, metallophone, synths, and more leads you on a deep inwards trip via damp, cold and foggy caves to the ancients. Runes a…
Arctica
Pionneering production from the Düsseldorf mid 80s electronic underground world. Transferred for the first ever time from the original cassette to vinyl and CD. Konrad Kraft (Detlef Funder) is one of the still overlooked producers of Düsseldorfs fertile electronic music scene. Arctica was originally released on Cassette on Funder's imprint SDV Tonträger in 1987 in a handmade edition of about 50 copies only. Reduced to its essential musical elements, Arctica certainly contains some of the most un…
Dutch Wave: A History of Minimal Synth & Wave in The Netherlands
The first chapter of Onderstroom digging into the history of Dutch
minimal synth and wave. Who needs a big, expensive recording studio with
all those fancy high-tech machines that only make your weary head spin
when you can do it all by yourself at home in your (teenage) bedroom?
Way back in the early eighties all you really needed was an idea, quite a
bit of guts and some rudimentary equipment. You could basically do
whatever you wanted. The means were limited, yet the sky was unbounded. …
Sister Age
Onderstroom present a vinyl edition of Martial Canterel's Sister Age, originally released on cassette in 2004. Essential recordings by the minimal synth master of the present. With the staccato surge and somber vocalizing of Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, the distorted synthetic soundscapes of Dirk Ivens's eeriest work, and the industrial strength of The Young Gods, Martial Canterel's earliest outings are a bleak intellectual exercise in the dark and danceable. His music creates a cold atmo…
Drilling Backwards
Onderstroom present a vinyl edition of Martial Canterel's Drilling Backwards, originally released on cassette in 2006. Essential recordings by the minimal synth master of the present. With the staccato surge and somber vocalizing of Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, the distorted synthetic soundscapes of Dirk Ivens's eeriest work, and the industrial strength of The Young Gods, Martial Canterel's earliest outings are a bleak intellectual exercise in the dark and danceable. His music create…
Freq
“Freq” is a 1985 album by from the Hawkwind member, famed poet, author and lyricist Robert Calvert. Recorded in 1984 at the Computer Music Studio in London during the UK miners’ strike, “Freq” is a concept album which puts as its point of departure the social and political issues faced by the country at the time. From the opening piece “Ned Lud,” dedicated to the proletarian heroes of the 19th century, to the “Talks” tracks recorded directly on the striking site, the rising of the machine-orient…
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…
Lixiviation (1969-1985)
2017 repress. With a sonic portfolio that boasts commissions for the Xenon classic pinball machine, the sounds for the Meco Star Wars theme, the Atari TV commercials and the electronic sound effects in the original Stepford Wives film (amongst many others) the mutant electronic music CV of Suzanne Ciani is proof that in a 1970s commercial world of boys toys, monopolized by a male-dominated media industry, a woman's touch was the essential secret ingredient to successful sonic seduction. A classi…
Built Through
The acoustic architecture of Robert Curgenven and Richard Chartier forms a delineation of space built through dismantling the constitution of internal and external. Beyond dividing space, creating a façade or habitable zone, the perceptibility of the surface is turned back in on itself and with it a shift in the ideological and social context of the space. A seamless integration of digital and analogue, a suffusion which creates a mutual modulation, transforming purpose chosen materials—dense, u…