*KILLER DEBUT FROM DEM HUNGER, FUSING SQUASHED BEATS, HEAVILY NARCOTIC FOUND SOUNDS, DRONES, 8-BIT SYNTHS, FIELD RECORDINGS AND FILM SAMPLES - INCLUDES TWO TRACKS EXCLUSIVE TO THE CASSETTE EDITION!* Dem Hunger gets our weekly WTF?! award for his debut release 'Caveman Smack' on the Leaving Records label. And believe us - this is a very good thing. A little research tells us this fella is behind a string of highly respected mixtapes, which makes a lot of sense when you encounter the psychotomimetic collages of his music. It's like The Gaslamp Killer has finally lost it and locked himself in the studio pretending to be the alternate personalities of Madlib and Phillip Jeck with only a broken MPC, a copy of Eraserhead and a crackpipe full of DMT for company. This is mental, incredible music. Very Highly recommended!!!

Four years after the release of his dedicatory for record (LINE_026), Carsten Nicolai as alva noto returned to assemble a second recording of compositions devoted to a number of creative figures including industrial designer Dieter Rams, filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky and German dramatist Heiner Müller.

Opener "garment", inspired by a translucent textile designed in connecting sections, may serve well as a metaphor for this collection of tracks that take as their source of inspiration shifting zones and in-between places, links in chain-letter music, luminous bubbles, fragments of orchestral strings, and slowly decaying resonances. In "anthem berlin" alva noto delivers a national anthem for artists Carl Michael von Hausswolf's and Leif Elggren's fictional land of Elgaland-Vargaland. Rather than relying on traditional orchestration, he snaps off a section of a marching band's snare drum roll and lets the percussive rattle reverberate to a tonal hum. "ans" acknowledges Russian Evgeny Murzin's research into obtaining sound from a visible image and vice versa—a central aspect of Carsten Nicolai's work as a visual artist. For this recording, alva noto was invited to draw onto the glass plate of the ANS synthesizer, producing the modulating sound heard on the composition. "interim" and "t3" were composed for a prize-giving ceremony in honor of designer Dieter Rams. Performed live at the event, the background audio layers of "interim" recalled the alva noto xerrox project in which peripheral sounds are elevated to a conscious composition. In "villa aurora" we find ourselves among the dying moments of a held chord, until seconds later the lid of the piano is dropped shut, amputating its echo forever.

As we listen we are almost aware of this record having breath, as a watchful vacuum draws in influences before exhaling them back into the music. This ebb and flow marks time over for 2's reference points, reminding us that creativity is perceptive of that which lies at its edges and, similar to language, absorbs it within. — Andrew Cannon

02: field recording with piano decay recorded at Villa Aurora / Pacific Palisades. 03: for Ryuichi Sakamoto's Chain Music. 04: commissioned by BCN 216. 06: recorded for Evelina Domnitch and Dmity Gelfand’s Camera Lucida project involving the phenomena of sonoluminescence (DVD LINE_030). 07+08: composed for the prize ceremony of the German Design Award for Dieter Rams. 09: contains a sample of Phill Niblock—thanks Phill. 10: national anthem for the Kingdom of Elgaland-Vargaland—premiered at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin on October 21, 2006. 11: drawing recorded live with the ANS Synthesizer at Theremin Center, Moscow State Conservatory. 12: arrangement by Max Knoth. Cover image: Carsten Nicolai. milch 110 Hz. 2000 / courtesy Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin and PaceWildenstein.


Carsten Nicolai (a.k.a noto / alva noto / aleph), lives and works in berlin and chemnitz, germany.

"in Nicolai's work neither music nor visual art are by-products of one another—the one calls the other into being"
– Rob Young, Modern Painters, 2006

Berlin based visual artist/electronic musician Carsten Nicolai performs and records using the pseudonyms noto and alva noto. Described as 'metal machine music of a most beautiful kind', Nicolai's powerfully synaesthetic live performances combine minimal electronic sounds and real-time visualisations. Nicolai's works captivate consistently through their elegance, simplicity and cool technicism. alva noto has performed in many of the world's most prestigious spaces and has won a number of highly regarded prizes for art and electronic music. He has collaborated with the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Blixa Bargeld, Ryoji Ikeda, Mika Vainio, Michael Nyman and Thomas Knak. With Olaf Bender and Frank Bretschneider he founded the pioneering label 'supergroup' Signal.

In my opinion the emphasis of self-generating processes is a reaction to the claim to plan everything. Many of my works underlie a rule and introduce a model as organiszing sceme to recognize chaotic movements. I am interested in both moments, they lie really close together. (...) A major impact on my work had the article Active mutations of self-reproducing networks, machnes and tapes (1996) by Takashi Ikegami and Takashi Hashimoto. They wrote about loop strcutures and self-organisation. Loops get ceated by mathematical processes whose results at the same time are the source for new calculations. By constant re-calculating mistakes occur, build up changing patterns and become the origin of new intelligent processes.
— Carsten Nicolai

www.alvanoto.com

For many a discerning listener, memories of the summer of 2009 will carry in the mind a soundtrack of Clubroot,
who’s eponymous debut album seeped gently across the low-end underground with its stately and beautiful interpretation
of bass music’s more etherial qualities. For the artist, events and experiences since then have co-mingled to catalyse a new
series of graceful objects of sound to be emitted. Visits to such disparate locales as Turkey and Poland became parts of the
cinematic ambience that is the new Clubroot album, a record with no “official” title save for the ‘II : MMX’ date-mark adorning
the front cover. This most inspired producer has created a series of audio-images, distilled to a previously unheard refinement
within his chosen genre, and with a nature and overall shape and scope that largely transcends any style one could attempt to
ascribe it to. It is still electronic music, yet it all sounds so absolutely married to its accompanying elements that it seems as if
it was unearthed in complete form as opposed to constructed by deliberate process. ‘II : MMX’ possesses some of the most
pronounced and arresting basslines ever heard, yet is delivered musically in a language that shares dialectic origins with fellow
stratospheric travellers like Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins, or Muslimgauze. In this sense, and taken as a whole, the thread
of pronounced themes and dramatic moments passing through the 11 pieces of ‘II : MMX’ combine and develop to create
something almost magisterial in scope and effect. An early report on The Quietus website speaks of “another, if not richer,
exploration of that whole wistful garage sound Burial made so prevalent”, and much more effusive praise is promised for
what will surely be welcomed as one of the most elegaic and transporting albums of the year, either within or without the
low-frequency firmament. Comparisons with Burial will continue to abound, yet with this release Clubroot is emphatically
establishing his own markedly individual vision of the music of the spheres. ‘II : MMX’ will be available initially in three
distinct formats : standard 11 track CD, 500 copy numbered edition double CD containing bonus disc of three previously
unavaliable Clubroot remixes packaged in hand-made letterpress box, and limited eight track double LP set in vinyl-plus
artwork jacket with uncased copy of the standard 11 track CD included.

The much in demand collab by LV & Untold finally hits wax, back with a stunning Mount Kimbie remix.
Possibly the most minimal tune to date by either artist, "Beacon" rolls on a bare bones set-up of deep swung bass,
barely-there percussion and simple bleep-track melody. In the true spirit of the original dubstep pioneers, making very little,
sound very BIG. On the flip Mount Kimbie deliver a stunning remix. Layering a heap of their trademark melody onto the intro,
following that with an instantly memorable rave hook, then easing us out gently with some
sweeeet R&B inflected chopped vocals. Stunning stuff.

Genre: Eerie Emotional Music
Label: Prophecy
Catalog Number: Pro 103
Release Dates: 29.03.2010

Magical – mystical – masterful

In the last few years, the French art scene had quite a few surprises in store. In the wake of exceptional bands such as Alcest and Amesoeurs, a new project proceeds to do away with France's position as exotic outsider. Originating from the same set as the above-mentioned artists, Les Discrets – the solo project of enterprising musician, filmmaker, and painter Fursy Teyssier – continues their tradition. With his debut album "Septembre et ses dernières pensées," he has created a captivating achievement far beyond a purely musical framework – a fusion of music, film, and painting that results in an oft-attempted, but seldom achieved total work of art.

Conceptually dedicated to the trinity of nature, love, and death, even the title of the album ("The Final Thoughts of September") merges with the predominant undertones. In tracks filled with thoughts of sadness and devotion such as the painfully beautiful "Chanson d'automne," the French vocals sound restrained and nearly sacral, and the guitars in "Effet de nuit" paint a misty picture of the nightside of nature. Les Discrets weave folkloristic motifs and dabs of post rock into their music in an equally fragile way, but in the end, they are only bound to themselves and to the artistic expression of this profound album.

"Septembre et ses dernières pensées" marks a brilliant start for this young project, a piece of art full of evocative power and ruminant depth that breaks fresh ground by combining music with other forms of art. Apart from a regular Digipak CD edition, "Septembre et ses dernières pensées" will also be released as a 56-page art book edition containing numerous illustrations and background information as well as Fursy Teyssier's award-winning short film "Tir Nan Og" on DVD.