January 29, 2009 at 3:00 pm · Filed under Articles, Media, News
Joshua Eustis, of New Orleans based duo Telefon Tel Aviv, today announced that his friend and ‘better half’ in the band, Charles Wesley Cooper III, had passed away on 22 January at the age of 31. In a message on the band’s myspace page, Eustis paid tribute to his long term friend, who he described as ‘a total sweetheart of a guy, a loving friend and confident to people everywhere.’
John Hughes, head of Chicago-based Hefty Records, who released the band’s first two albums, also paid tribute to Cooper on the label’s website, saying that ‘Cooper was an integral part of my label, but more importantly, my life. […] The most defining memories of my career in music were spent with Telefon Tel Aviv’.
No further detail was given about the circumstances of Cooper’s death.
CBS Chicago:
A 31-year-old Louisiana-born musician—missing from a Wicker Park residence since an argument with his girlfriend last week—has been found dead in the Near Northwest Side neighborhood.
Charles Cooper went missing last Wednesday night after an argument with his girlfriend. He had been staying with a friend in the Wicker Park neighborhood when he got into the argument, according to Grand Central Area detectives.
Cooper left the residence, located near 1400 N. Milwaukee Ave., before midnight on Jan. 21 and had no contact with friends or family members since, police said. He reportedly has a history of threatening suicide, but did not make such threats last week.
“Back in October, he took off for Louisiana, where he is from, for a month,” a Grand Central Area detective said Sunday.
Cooper was found Monday at 2306 N. Lawndale Ave., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office. Pronouncement information was not available and an autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday to determine the cause and manner of death.
Our thoughts are with Charlie’s family and with Joshua Eustis.
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Charles Wesley Cooper,
telefon tel aviv
January 4, 2009 at 1:15 am · Filed under Articles, Media, Reviews
Motorcitysoul - Technique: Frankfurt veterans and deep house pioneers Matthias Vogt and Christian Rindermann aka Motorcitysoul will release their second studio album ‘Technique’ on Simple Records on October 13, 2008. Finally, after 4 years, following two very successful releases (‘Kazan’ and Space Katzle’) on Will Saul’s Aus Music last year, the guys started putting together an album and Will saw his Simple label as the perfect avenue to release it. After more than six months of intense work and experimentation in the studio ‘Technique’ is now ready and it´s their first album fully written and produced together as a duo (the first album was written by Matthias, and C-Rock helped produce it). A feast of lush melodies and harmonies, lovingly crafted beats and percussion, ambient excellence and smart vocal numbers. On the album’s title C-Rock explains: “It’s an elegant word that refers to the way we work and hopefully how our music sounds. We’re very technically focused yet we aim for our music to have genuine soul and warmth. We also do everything in the studio so technique is the key to that.”
Lee Jones - Electronic Frank:As one third of My My, Lee Jones is responsible for one of the few great techno albums to have emerged in recent years: 2006’s sonorous, sky-scraping Songs For The Gentle. Since then, My My have been dormouse-quiet, and Jones has turned his attentions to solo work for Will Saul’s Aus and Simple labels – the culmination of which is Electronic Frank.We begin appropriately enough, with ‘Beginn’ – a typically bijoux, micro-edited house track coloured with Middle Eastern string and vocal textures. It’s a strong start, and you find yourself wondering whether the British-born, Berlin-based producer can pull off a whole album of the stuff. Thankfully, our man is on form: ‘Honey & Ginger’ is the perfect marriage of sugar and spice, ‘Roadwork’ has all the swing and elastic energy of primetime Mike Shannon or Alex Under, while the clipped orchestral flourishes of ‘Theme For Frank’ are absolutely delightful. Neo-trance-fest ‘MDMAzing’ is just about ecstatic enough to justify the godawful pun.
Bruno Pronsato - Why Can’t We Be Like Us?:Bruno Pronsato’s new album ‘Why Can’t We Be Like Us’ promises to bring drums, drums and an honest-to-god story arc to the techno album format.Once a drummer, always a drummer, it seems. With singles on minimal labels such as Perlon, Orac and Hello? Repeat, it comes as a shock to find out that Pronsato spent a good portion of his early adulthood playing drums in punk and metal bands. But as his new album Why Can’t We Be Like Us proves, put a computer in front of a drummer and what you get is, well, more drums.Billed as a true longplayer and not just a collection of dance tracks, Why Can’t… promises percussion, grooves and, er, lots of things being hit in between darkly organic melodies and a home listening-friendly concept: “I grew up listening to Roxy Music and My Bloody Valentine and even Led Zeppelin,” Bruno told RA recently. “These bands orchestrated the idea in my mind of what an album is - the beginning, the story and sort of the electricity of it.
Minilogue - Animals:Minilogue’s Marcus Henriksson and Sebastian Mullaert from Malmö, Sweden, seem particularly interested in revisiting, and revising, history. Nowadays they’re essentially minimal producers, but their early progressive trance days never seem far away, no matter how absurd the connection. (This may prove minimal’s most lasting legacy: its influence upon other styles has indeed proved dramatic. Few from the ceaseless deluge of lackluster, identikit minimal releases churned out each week are likely to be remembered – although their volume may – but now we can listen to music as ridiculous as trance and enjoy it.) Tracks such as ‘Girl from Botany Bay’ and ‘Space’ for Wir and Traum rein in these early blustery excesses in line with contemporary reductionist codes, and the results are staggering. Animals, their debut LP for Cocoon, performs a similar feat but on a much grander scale, viewing the wider history of house and techno through minimal goggles, and after 80 largely successful minutes of that there’s another 80 minutes devoted to ambient.
Animals is firmly progressive in form and length, recalling both drum n’ bass at its most overblown and seventies progressive rock. Yet their revisionism is subtle, keeping to a strict, linear rhythmic template with frequently wonky analogue melodic flourishes, familiar from ‘Elephant’s Parade’. If earlier tracks hinted at a trademark sound, here it becomes firmly established, almost to the point of cliché.
Luomo- Convivial:Sasu Ripatti is the producer and head writer behind Luomo, his musical outfit that has redrawn the boundaries of what house music can achieve. Always a shy man, Ripatti returns into view to introduce to the world Convivial; his latest, and fourth, album as Luomo. But this time he doesn’t have to arrive alone. In addition to long-time collaborator Johanna Iivanainen (from Helsinki, Finland), he lands with a semi-underground star cast; Cassy (Panorama Bar), Sascha Ring (Apparat), Jake Shears (Scissor Sisters), Robert Owens, Sue-C and an anonymous singer masquerading as Chubbs. The album is not so much of an assembly as a series of commentaries, interspersed with contemporaneous studio stylings and entries from travel diaries he kept while working on the album. For the first time there’s a real collaboration between him and the singers; where he didn’t write all the lyrics himself but left plenty of room for his collaborators to bring in the lyrics and musical ideas. The title refers to the rather convivial vibe and social atmosphere that surrounded the making-of the album; something new in Luomo’s production history. The main hub to record and create the album was again Berlin, as is in so many cases today, but since then he decided to relocate to his home country of Finland, where he finished the album and is currently living.
Delon & Dalcan-Tanz :Greg Delon DJ’s at Barlive since 2003, well known after in Montpellier, as well as in the most famous clubs in France or Europe. André Dalcan (label manager of Scandium Records) has been playing his hard hitting and dancefloor-oriented live-act across the world since 1995. They have often performed during the same events since their first encounter in 2000, but the Delon & Dalcan project as such was set up in 2003 after a gig in Crete island. The point was to mix the electro-house influences of Greg with the dancefloor side of the André’s live-act.In 2004 they released their first EP : DUNUFUS, on the Cologne based label Boxer. Since 2004, the duo made more than 20 reference released and remixs on great labels as Boxer, Great Stuff Recordings, Karaté Music, Nordwest.
They remixs famous artists as Maxime Dangles, Patrick Zygon, Oscar and get honnor to be remixed by Gui Borratto, Tekel, Martin Eyerer. They are now part of the international musical scene, and they never forget the dancefloor, with a lot of dj’s sets and live act around Europe and famous clubs or events like Benicassim in Spain (2007). From House music to Techno via electro, their live act and mixes are as exciting as their productions.
Robert Owens-Night time stories:In the Eighties it seemed as if all dance music was vocally rooted in R&B or various flavors of soul. By the time the 90s hit us, you’d think this would have changed, but in fact, when it came to house music, especially Chicago’s brand of the stuff, the vocal influence remained the same. Now that we’re past the tipping point of the Two-thousands, you simply have to accept that R&B/Soul vocals are always going to be the backbone of dance music.The outcome of all this diversity and Robert’s inevitable musical maturity can really be appreciated in a song like “Now I Know“. Produced by well known UK talent Atjazz, this song has a slower tempo than most of the dance-oriented tracks on the album, but really displays an amazing depth. It’s followed by another great slow jam called “Never Give Up” that was produced by Charles Webster. In my opinion, it’s what you hear and feel in between each beat that really makes the connection. I guess that’s why dance music seldom draws me in; there’s no time to feel what’s in between the beat.
Bersarin Quartett-Bersarin Quartett:Contrary to its namesake, Quartett is merely a one man show — a “Thomas” — who at this point in time remains mysterious and would rather let the music speak for itself.Albums of this caliber, you will find, have no specific mood requirement. While many ambient artists are shackled to a singular theme or mood that permeates through an audio recording and guides the listener through the experience, a select few are able to transcend this limitation and create more universal music which is independent of time, space, and body, merely existing and satisfying all whom happen to connect with it in any way, shape, or form. It’s one of the best you’re likely to hear all year..
