Less Ordinary

April 16, 2008 at 6:28 pm · Filed under Articles

Artist:Naoki Kenji
Title:Less Ordinary
Label:4mpo
Year:2008
Genre:Lo-Fi

After a 2 Year period of pause Naoki Kenji is presenting his 7th Longplayer named “Less ordinary”. This CD contains more vocalfeatures as previous releases of german-japanese soundgenius. On this album again he has invited several vocalguests such as frontlady Pat Appleton (De-Phazz) on the track “Modern Unreal”, or the wellknown Nu-Jazz Formation “Jazzamor”. Beside this, Kenji did 2 songs with the known producer/songwriter Torsten Stenzel - “Tonight” and “Into the deep Sea”.Beside the wellknown chillout sounds you`ll find also some deephouse flavored tracks next to ambient tunes. Summer inspiring timeless album!

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Stadtgruen

March 13, 2008 at 2:27 pm · Filed under Articles, Media

Monographic’s new guest, Stadtgruen, has focused on the fundamental anthitesis of stadt (culture) and gruen (nature) and the dialogue between them, through the investigation of new ways of expresing art helped by new technical possibilities.What is characteristic and defining of this netlabel is its diferenced series: Stadt & Gruen, the first featuring “deepest ambient, contemporary grooves” and “twisted techno, impressions from Motor City” for the second. As a superficial aproximation can be resumed in styles like minimal dub, minimal techno and clicks&cuts.
The mix is signed by Renniac, aka René Finken (Germany), curator of Stadtgruen and contains an aproximate 50% Stadt and 50% Gruen. Along with the task of mantaining the netlabel and his English, German and Philosophy studies, has produced tracks for Stadtgruen, Aerotone and Shitkatapult. With no delays here is the episode wich i place all of you to enjoy.

Tracklist:
01 Lomov - Open Port [gruen001]
02 Gras - Glasperlenspiel [gruen005]
03 Dubsuite - Eigenleben (Das Kraftfuttermischwerk Autoexistenz
Remix) [stadt016]
04 Nights in Ural - Florakon [gruen014]
05 Siegmar Fricke - Neuromechanik [gruen019]
06 Monoide - Crashed Car [stadt007]
07 elektronischerGarten - Summer Shock [gruen024]
08 Gurtz - Luna [stadt010
09 Acidrain - Morning Hours [gruen004
10 Frank Biedermann - Rumble the Bumblebee [stadt017]
11 Georg Neufeld ft. Astral T. - Lakeside People [stadt015]
12 System-Pi - Please Repeat [stadt013]
13 Rob Keens - Seek [stadt001]
14 Renniac - This Morning Summer [unreleased]

Download Stadgruen 013 Mix 

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Safe and Sound

February 28, 2008 at 6:26 pm · Filed under Reviews

Justus Köhncke’s two previous full-lengths on Kompakt, Was Ist Musik (2002) and Doppelleben (2005), were slightly frustrating affairs. Both albums were filled with clever pop structures, quality sound design and subtle shifts in mood, but somehow they tended to fall short of pure emotional captivation. Partly of course this was due to Köhncke’s notorious vocals, which are at times just too deadpan and at times just too camp (check his destruction of Jürgen Paape’s seminal ‘So Weit Wie Noch Nie’ for the evidence, but the albums were also occasionally marred by Köhncke’s weakness for soft-focus disco, with kitsch rather than glamorous and decadent results. Safe and Sound combines many of these tendencies, but happily, it’s a much more satisfying listen. So much so you’ve got to wonder what inspired the difference. Perhaps this more muscular sound is down to Köhncke spending a lot of time in the clubs, or perhaps it’s a product of his new studio (located in an old butcher shop). The newfound help of the album’s co-writer/producer Fred Heimermann (certainly on ‘Tilda’, but likely more) might also be a contributing factor. But perhaps there was just something in the air? Those leaves on the Pop Ambient-esque cover, after all, do look suspiciously like marijuana.Köhncke’s disco tendency come to the fore on several tracks, but more confidently than on the previous two albums. With its ‘70s strings, ‘Parage’ is downright funky and would, in an ideal world, play on radios in Cadillac cars with whitewall tyres. ‘Molybdän’ lives up to its elemental name (attn non-scientists: ‘molybdenum’ is a heavy metal) and mimics more disco ball glitter than disco sound itself with sparkling stabs of sound and winding analogue washes. More overtly disco is the brilliant opener ‘Yacht’ which pays strong homage to ‘Slave to the Rhythm’, but then develops its own melodic narrative.Grace Jones isn’t the artist from the past to get name-checked. The first single from the album, ‘Feuerland’, is a cover of Krautrocker Michael Rother’s track from his 1977 LP ‘Flammende Herzen.

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Joris Voorn

February 28, 2008 at 6:15 pm · Filed under Articles, Media

Joris Voorn is a producer, a DJ, a live act and a visual artist. Like many Dutchmen, he makes techno with a nod to Detroit, first pricking up ears in 2004 with the release of the ‘The Lost Memories’ EPs which included the big dancefloor cuts ‘Missing’ and ‘Incident’, the latter of which became one of the most hammered anthems of the year. Since then Voorn has released two full lengths albums, ‘Future History’ and this year’s ‘From a Deep Place’, both of which fused together deep house, old skool Detroit and even some ambient landscapes.Aside from his own bleeps and bloops, Voorn also spins records. Last year his debut mix compilation for Belgian club Fuse headed in a more minimal direction, fusing together Detroit classics from Robert Hood, Carl Craig and Jeff Mills with newer outings from Sleeparchive, Marc Houle and Matthew Dear. Those who’ve heard ‘Fuse’ or one of Voorn’s high energy live shows might be surprised by his RA podcast though: This one is fifty-four minutes of deep house meets ambient with an emphasis on silky synths and even silkier vocals.

Joris Voorn - Resident Advisor Podcast #62 16-07-2007

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No Model No Tool

February 20, 2008 at 8:50 pm · Filed under Articles, Media

How many times his gig to istanbul canceled? Good question.These days minimal star Luciano is living the quiet life in rural Switzerland.His lifestyle change happened approximately a year ago, when Luciano moved from Berlin to Bossey, a small Swiss village near the French border.Luciano: “My philosophy is that a DJ should always try to transport emotions onto the dancefloor. To dig deep and bring everything up that mattered emotionally in their life, that made them laugh, everything that caused sensations. To try to transport that from their childhood to the now. You know, I’m very influenced by melodies I heard in my childhood. I never studied music. All my skills came from my own ear.” An Introduction Minimal just got messier.Minimal techno has always been about stripping things down to their essence.The series is a riff on the old idea of “DJ tools” offering stripped-down tracks meant to be mixed in performance.Now, with Cadenza’s Split Composition series, the opposite approach comes into play: building a new sound, and a new tradition, from the beats up.Each edition will consist of four sides of vinyl broken out into several skeletal rhythm tracks and a handful of supplementary parts: ambient fantasias, shimmering drones, treated vocals, electro-acoustic collages. The series is a riff on the old idea of “DJ tools” offering stripped-down tracks meant to be mixed in performance. So thats the idea, but is it worth spending over a tenner on as Luciano shares some original tools crafted only for those who dare to dive into creative waters ie these are tools and not tracks. Saying that, lead track “Keridos” is a shimmering techno surface that evolves over 10 minutes. “Saulitude” has an amazing bassline that is perfect for afterhours but its the ambient tools that, whilst not gonna encourage a DJ to buy it, could be both.

Tracks:

1 Keridos
2 Saulitude
3 Toneites
4 Afghan Birds
5 Alternated Tones
6 Somewhere Near His Heart
7 Le Chant
8 Inner Sirens

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