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…
In a Fit of Delirium 1978-82
Lucas Trouble is a French multi-disciplinary musician who has released over 300 records in the past thirty years under a variety of guises including The Gitanes, Jerking Idols, The Mystic Riders From Spectral South, Temple Gates, and Vietnam Veterans. His earliest recorded work dates to 1978, and his close friendship with Philippe Fichot of Die Form, which began in the early to mid 1970s, is audible throughout the minimal synth recordings collected here: the influence of early Ptose and Die Form…
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…
Recordings 1978/79
Marc Barreca is a Seattle-based composer who has been making electronic music since the mid-1970s, inspired by Brian Eno and the ambient school but taking that influence into more textural and multi-layered territory than most of his contemporaries. By 1980 he had already recorded three cassettes: In a Foreign Land (1977), Raw Fish and Green Tea / Surrogate Religions (1979), and Currents (1979/80), all released and distributed by Eurock in tiny quantities. That year he also released his first LP…
1980-1985
Music has a time and a place. Early 80's post punk eclecticism gave rise to an independence of mind and spirit which opened doors to infinite possibilities. No longer confined by the strait jacket of major labels and imbued with the confidence and imagination of a new era new sounds appeared. The spirit of punk engaged with an aspiration for a wider musical vision and a willingness to experiment with sound. The era of home made cassette music allowed people to share and copy - and more importan…
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…
1
Mens and Kouw have worked together since 2001, when their first album emerged from the clicks 'n cuts vocabulary via raw mixer feedback recorded to minidisc and broadcast live on Amsterdam's Radio 100. The duo has since migrated into tonal and timbral long-form, combining software, recorded acoustic instruments and modular synthesizer into electro-acoustic drone with audible debts to the American minimalist canon. First half of a two-part album, recorded live in December 2014.
Uno Todo Tres
A beautiful drone like a line shaping in time, from silence to silence. Clara de Asís is an electroacoustic music composer and experimental guitarist, born in 1988 in Spain and based in France. Her musical practice is held away from any formal academicism, aiming to transcend conventional instrumental approaches. She works mainly on prepared electric guitar, focuses on exploring the specificities of her instrument, and develops them both in live situations and throughout electroacoustic composit…
Wurmwulv
Lotus Eaters is Stephen O'Malley (Sunn O))), KTL, etc.), James Plotkin (Khanate, Phantomsmasher, etc.) and Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom, etc.). Previously issued on CD, Plotkin has remixed, remastered and rearranged Wurmwulv for this vinyl edition using alternate takes from the original recording sessions. The 2LP also includes reworked material from Lotus Eaters' self-titled 7" released by Drone Records. 52 minutes and 29 seconds on 3 sides of direct metal mastered 200 gram virgin vinyl, t…
El Khela Al'Akhdar
Tip! Twenty years after its initial release, Amon's "El Khela" still shines out like a pillar in the dark ambient field. Mysterious, catacombal, bleak, monumental, cryptic ambience. This new edition contains a remastered, repackaged and graphically renewed version of the original album + a second CD with rare, unreleased and reworked tracks. Coproduced by Eibon Records and Silentes, "El Khela Al'Akhdar" comes in digisleeve + 2 inner sleeves."This album from Amon (Andrea Marutti) is a particular …
Grisailles
** Deluxe Ed. Attached onto handmade sleeves using thick card stock with textured debossing/rounded tabs outside sleeve construction. Limited to 300 copies **The glowing momentum captured in a suite of five movements for speechless voice rooted in a flair of earthly instrumental strokes. A sensual twilight where ashes become seeds. An original hand printed edition etching by Timo van Luijk is featured with each copy.
"Elodie is Andrew Chalk and Timo van Luijk. Grisailles is certainly a sea chan…
Divergence
A four-movement work probing the reciprocal interference of sound and space. The source material is reduced to elementary sonic primitives - sine waves, white noise - then physically degraded through tape manipulation to generate pulses, beats and emergent waveforms. From this collision between idealised digital signal and the analogue artefacts of magnetic media, van den Broek builds a heightened spatial perception where pure tone and altered source act on the listening field simultaneously.
Tria Atoma
Recorded in Athens in July 2014, the second album by 300 Basses extends the trio's move from free improvisation toward fixed composition. The investigation here turns on minimal but precisely framed actions: the beating patterns generated by long tones at slightly detuned pitches, the unstable timbre that emerges when reed sustains are layered with bowed cymbal, the slow permutation of a reduced interval set. A sound world built from infinitesimal elements, dense in vibration and microvariation.
SIMEON
2013 release **
"Korn presents two pieces, each 30 minutes long, which, though dissimilar in pitch (the second is higher), are otherwise tougher to prise apart than the Beugers above. Each is composed of a single sine tone, initially heard as a continuous sound for some 1 1/2 minutes, then repeated with silences interpolated, silences which increase in both length and number upon each iteration. The last line, the eighth in the example printed in the booklet, consists of three very brief blips. …
ein(e) ausfuhrende(r) seiten 218 - 226
2006 release **
"'ein(e) ausführende(r) seiten 218 - 226' is Manfred Werder's composition from 2002, realized by Antoine Beuger's electronic sound and released by Edition Wandelweiser in 2006. The 72-minute piece consists of a very quiet single electronic sound from Beuger, and short silences alternately appearing between electronic sounds. Beuger's minimal electronic sound, which evokes in me a chirr of a small cricket on a quiet autumn night, contains an absolute purity that seems to reject an…
phontaine
2006 release **
this cd is not conceived just to be listened to.supplemented with a simple "score", it may induce a "performance at home".you are invited to experience with your ears, eyes, body and mind, the space of your everyday life, your home, "colored" a little bit differently, alone or in the presence of one or more close persons.the cd consists of a one hour sequence of sounds, three times interrupted by substantial silences. the "score" contains 7 suggestions for simple activities.adjus…
New Mexico
"Minimal Wave proudly presents a newly remastered deluxe double album of archival material by pioneering '80s minimal electronic duo Oppenheimer Analysis. Oppenheimer Analysis was formed in London, England, in 1982 by Andy Oppenheimer and Martin Lloyd. Their first meeting though was at the 1979 World Science Fiction Convention in Brighton. They quickly became good friends, sharing an interest in the work of David Bowie, electronic music, and early synthesizer bands such as the Human League and S…
Wizards
This CD reissue of JD Emmanuel's Wizards contains two tracks excluded from the original 1982 LP due to master tape problems. "Wizards was my first deep trance electronic music album. This album was inspired by Terry Riley, one of the earliest people ever to compose and perform long, extended, cyclic pieces in the electronic format. This music was composed and performed in '81 and '82. I consider this album my best work. The instrumentation is three Sequential Circuits PRO-1s, Crumar Traveler…
The Abstraction Years 1979-81
Adrian Smith of Luton spent three years playing in punk-inflected bands with his brother Derek (Those Nervous Surgeons, Half Nervous) before retreating alone to a bedroom and a synthesizer in 1979. What emerged was something no one in his immediate environment was making: long, atmospheric, analogue pieces built from hand-played sequences, emotionless production, and a palpable air of melancholia. His first two tapes, From the Silent Days and Absolutely Safe, were given only to friends, having n…