Info (English):
With the „Red Hook Soil EP“ Nick Höppner delivers a complex, many-facetted record. On the A-side Nick opens in a classic style, but „Red Hook Soil“ quickly develops a modern, atmospheric mood. Tender stabs, soft synth washes and a metallic groove complement each other in surprising harmony.
The B-side opens with „Bait & Tackle“ which creates a darker vibe. The track builds a bridge between genres within its driving beat, the inspired use of percussion, bass and synths with trance borrowings suceeds in creating an unexpectly gripping combination.
On the final track „Decal“ industrial sounds and rich, hissing background noise meet pushing hi-hats over a dry, rolling kick drum, Nick adds sublte variations at the deepest levels throughout and so maintains a perfect balance and flow, creating a rich texture.
Info (German):
Nick Höppner liefert mit der „Red Hook Soil EP“ eine vielschichtige, facettenreiche Platte ab. Auf der A-Seite eröffnet Nick gefühlt klassisch, doch „Red Hook Soil“ entwickelt sich zu einem stimmungvollen, modernen Statement. Zarte Stabs, weiche Synthieflächen und ein metallener Groove ergänzen sich in ihrer Vielfalt überraschend harmonisch.
Eine dunklere Atmosphäre schafft „Bait & Tackle“, mit treibendem Beat schlägt der Track eine Brücke zwischen den Genres. Percussion, Bass und Synths mit Anleihen von Trance schaffen eine einzigartig fesselnde Kombination.
Auf „Decal“ treffen industrielle Klänge und eine reiche Geräuschkulisse auf drängende Hi-Hats über einer trockenen, rollenden Kickdrum, ausgefeilt bis in die Tiefe sind die Variationen eher dezent aber vielfältig und geben dem Track eine ausgesprochene Fülle.
Press Info:
This special Planete Rouge EP series kicks off with the re-release of two classic tracks taken from Terence Fixmer’s first album ‘Muscle Machine’, which was originally released on DJ Hell’s International Deejay Gigolo Records in 2001.
This acclaimed debut album spearheaded the fusion of modern techno and EBM. In particular the tracks ‘Warm’ and ‘Rage’ both combined the raw and dark atmosphere of EBM with the energy of driving techno.
On ‘Relapse Volume 1’ the re-mastered original versions of these two tracks are accompanied by remixes from Sandwell District’s Regis and Planete Rouge’s own Alexey Volkov.
Regis (Karl O’Connor) hands in a sinister, looped-up version of ‘Warm’ replete with ghostly samples and a dizzying groove, while Alexey Volkov turns his hand to ‘Rage’ delivering a deep, thumping remix that plays with frequencies and a squelching bass.
The release also features artwork by gifted visual artist, Pierre Debuscherre (www.pierredebusschere.com).
Look out for more in the ‘Relapse’ series, coming soon to Planete Rouge.
Info :
The music recorded by Ernest Greene as Washed Out has been nothing if not dreamy, but for his second full-length, he’s taken the idea of letting your mind wander to another state a huge leap further. On Paracosm, due out Aug. 12 on Weird World, the Georgia-based musician explores the album’s namesake phenomenon, where people create detailed imaginary worlds. The concept has been used to describe fantasy lands like Tolkien’s Middle Earth and C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, and it’s at the heart of the 2004 documentary In The Realms Of The Unreal about outsider artist Henry Darger.
The idea of escaping is all over Paracosm’s lyrics, and it’s also the main thrust behind the music, which finds Greene distancing himself from the modes and methods that informed Washed Out’s previous recordings. No, he hasn’t thrown away his computer or synths, but Greene made a conscious decision to expand his sonic palette, which resulted in the employment of more than 50 different instruments, the most significant of which turned out to be old keyboards like the Mellotron, Chamberlin, Novatron, and Optigan. Designed during the middle of last century and made up of prerecorded sounds with individual notes sampled for each key of the chromatic scale (the flute sound in The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” is a well-known example of the Mellotron in action), these relics allowed Greene to use his sampling expertise while also offering the flexibility to explore new creative avenues.
“I’ve grown as a songwriter to the point where I want to have more involved arrangements, and that’s really hard to do with sampling,” says Greene. “These machines were kind of a happy medium: The sounds have a very worn, distressed quality about them, much like an old sample. But they also offer much more flexibility because they’re playable. Pretty much all the keyboard sounds, and strings and harps and vibraphones—all of that comes from these old machines.”
Following two years on the road in support of the critically acclaimed Within And Without—which itself followed the lauded Life Of Leisure EP, led by the otherworldly magic of “Feel It All Around,” which can still be heard during Portlandia’s opening credits—he and his wife, Blair (who plays in the Washed Out live band), decided to relocate from the big-city hubbub of Atlanta to a house on the outskirts of Athens. Working daily for nearly six months, it was easy for Greene to begin shutting out the real world in favor of an alternate universe of his own making, with the rural setting acting as a prime catalyst.
“Subconsciously that’s a big inspiration for some of the sounds,” says Greene, who completed about two-thirds of the record in Athens before finishing up in Atlanta with Ben H. Allen (Animal Collective, Deerhunter, Gnarls Barkley), who also worked on Within And Without. “While the last record was very minimal, very monochromatic in a way, I knew from the beginning I wanted this record to be optimistic, very much a daytime-sounding album. I think the last record felt more nocturnal in some ways. This one I just imagined being outside, surrounded by a beautiful, natural environment.”
Listeners will be immediately struck by Paracosm’s seamless melding of organic and synthetic sounds, which are related to Washed Out’s past but also find Greene redefining his trademark dreaminess. (The songs themselves are also seamless, connected in such a way that they tell a linear sonic story.) The live drums, bass, and guitar recorded at Allen’s Maze Studios help take the new material to another level—specifically a place where, despite the vintage instruments and Greene’s throwback tendencies, everything feels like it was made right here and now. It also has a more human quality to it than most people are probably used to hearing on an electronic album. Take, for instance, the sunny, laid-back groove of the appropriately titled “Great Escape” (“All I need is the simple life / make believe the world has vanished around us”) and first single “It All Feels Right,” which is as wonderfully hypnotic as anything in Washed Out’s discography yet uses an almost tropical feel to get there.
“‘It All Feels Right’ was one of the first songs that I started for Paracosm,” says Greene. “It’s my favorite song on the album because it’s the closest to the vision I had when I started. Paracosm is the first work I’ve done where I knew from the beginning what I wanted it to sound like.”
Elsewhere, amidst the sound of kids playing and birds chirping, Paracosm offers plenty of opportunities to sing along, including with the beautifully bent “Don’t Give Up,” the jangle-squiggle jam “All I Know” (which sounds like Smiths-era Johnny Marr collaborating with Passion Pit), and the romantic-pop tune “Falling Back.” Regardless of where you turn, the album is packed with beautiful moments, the most moving of which can be heard while Greene gets his shoegaze on during the Cocteau Twins-esque “Weightless” and album closer “All Over Now.”
With its gorgeous execution and uplifting attitude, Paracosm is primed to be this year’s summer record that gets you through the winter. And it promises to do what its name suggests: Take listeners to another, better, world.
Press Info :
SUPER.TRIGGER is an absolute trove of percussive tensions and frequency driven finesse and deals mainly with the basic principles of any modern music: rhythm.
frank bretschneider takes his, never simple, but all the more heartfelt relationship to rhythm and its complexity, to an intense inventory and, this time, works less out of suspenseful abstract sounds, than out of grooves. there is a real sense of perpetual evolution and coiled tightness to the pulsating rhythmic programming, while the subtle sheets of noise that fill the void behind the beats compete against the rhythm and their own sonic purity for a higher state of energy — a constant flux of tension and release.
SUPER.TRIGGER comes again in bretschneider’s signature style of ultra-clean bleeps and bouncing machine beats with terseness and precision, and a preference for high-voltage sounds halfway between noise and tone.
the combination of programming, composition and construction is connected with his very idiosyncratic aesthetic of digital sound: controlled and objective. the whole follows simple mechanical states — on/off, up/down, soft/hard, slow/fast, loud/quiet — and is characterized by the absence of any romanticism. still this return to the elementary, the fundamental, does not diminish the music to dance-floor functionality, instead bretschneider always stays emphatically musical and manages to generate sophisticated and complex rhythm-structures, which respectively induce minimal deviations in frequency and timing relationships to generate a surplus of funk.
in all, SUPER.TRIGGER is bretschneider’s most straightforward, clear and compact work yet.
frank bretschneider works as a musician and composer in berlin. since 1996 he has published a number of albums for raster-noton, such as RHYTHM (r-n082) & EXP (r-n108). SUPER.TRIGGER is essentially a collection of various studio improvisations and was created between 2012 and 2013.
We at NovaFuture Blog are happy to announce the winner of our contest, it’s Johan Jacobsson. He will get the CD of Nitzer Ebb’s new album “Basic Pain Procedure”, kindly provided by Pylon Records. He was informed via email. Congratulation!
