[Microsound-announce] DEKORDER///NEWS///03.2006

[marc]

...now available:

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BLACK TO COMM - Rückwärts Backwards
CD Dekorder 014

Black To Comm is an alias for Dekorder label 
owner Marc Richter's audio excursions. "Rückwärts 
Backwards" is his debut full-length album 
recorded between 2003 and 2005 in his adopted 
hometown Hamburg and his childhood home in the 
Black Forest located in the south of Germany. 
With a background in many musical styles (from 
Psychedelia to pure Computer Music) BTC's music 
is never easy to pin down.

This album is essentially created from scratchy 
shellac and vinyl loops merged with ambience 
field recordings (with some voice manipulations 
and kitchen gamelan thrown in for good measure). 
The warm hiss of analogue recording techniques 
combined with the apparently antique sounds of 
vintage organs, acoustic & electric guitars, 
pianos, glockenspiel and mbira used on these 
tracks generate a kind of hyperreal, fake 
nostalgia playing with one's perception of a 
pseudo-recollection. The layering and hypnotic 
repetition of short loops extracted from old 
Psychedelia, Free Jazz, Vaudeville and 
Traditional records reveal a haunting melodic 
quality sometimes not distinguishable within the 
original source material, evoking a hovering 
feeling of bittersweet melancholy with an 
omnipresent, slightly disturbing atmosphere 
hidden beneath the surface.

The 8 songs constantly sway back and forth 
between simple, almost naive arrangements and 
dense surreal drones with rare, yet intense 
distorted climaxes making this album one 
constantly absorbing listening experience.

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some early reviews:

"Richter basically revisits pre-existing melodies 
by using shellac and vinyl loops, adding some 
bizarre vocals here ("Bees"), some toy gamelan 
there ("Virtuosity Is A Means To An End") and 
environmental recordings, creating floating and 
fragile soundscapes which will appeal anyone into 
Philip Jeck's humane turntablism. Tracks like 
"Laccifer Lacca", with its looped choirs and a 
slowed down, hyper-dilated string plucking, or 
"March of the Vivian Girls", with a triumphant 
crescendo of distorted melodies and skipping 
snare drums, show Richter's talent for out there 
but emotionally moving compositions - I'd dare 
say "experimental pop" (there are a lot of pops 
throughout, actually) if it didn't suggest 
radically different things."
Eugenio Maggio / Chain DLK

"The whole album is very dream-like, mystical and 
fascinating, like being in the middle of a fog 
bank and loosing your sense of direction but 
always knowing that you'll find your way out one 
way or the other."
Mats Gustafsson / The Broken Face

"His pulverous, gravelly electronic laminates are 
liberally dosed with digitally altered field 
recordings, incorporated in a way that adds to 
the musicality of the whole. The title track is 
chalky and crackly as space dust, recalling 
Fennesz or Tim Hecker's crumbly, floury 
vapournoise. "Levitation" is like the intro to a 
Gas track, a sampled unidentifiable musical 
source flayed to reveal the heart; "March Of The 
Vivian Girls" a militaristic step over a 
contorted Weimar movie sample. You can clearly 
hear him mixing, as though watching a painter 
crushing pigments from silica and lapis blocks. 
As with so much currrent laptop sound, the lines 
between organic and digital are invisible, a 
reminder that no one thought of music as 
'organic' anyway until the computer arrived on 
the scene."
Rob Young / The Wire

"Brilliant und extrem angenehm, eine Platte die 
zurecht eine schnurrende Katze auf dem Cover hat."
*****
Bleed / De:Bug

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Also, there's a brand new Black To Comm lathe cut 
picture disc 7" (limited edition of 100) 
available from the website:
http://www.blacktocomm.org

or try A-Musik, Eclipse, Time-Lag, Fusetron, Drone, Norman...

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The John Hegre/Maja Ratkje "Ballads" CD is pretty 
much finished and will be available in the next 
few weeks. It is an extremely beautiful work of 
art, believe me! Probably not what you might 
expect though. After that one there will be two 
LP releases by the lovely Kuupuu from Finland 
compiling the best material from her early 
hard-to-find CD-R and cassette releases. Uhhhh....

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on tour:


GUIDO MÖBIUS

09.03.06 Berlin, Roter Salon

16.03.06 Hannover, Feinkost Lampe

17.03.06 NL - Rotterdam, Worm

18.03.06 Köln, Kunstwerk (Purer Luxus)

19.03.06 Wuppertal, Thalia

25.03.06 NL - Amsterdam, Steim (w. David Grubbs)


JAZKAMER (John Hegre/Lasse Marhaug)

China, Thailand and Singapore in march/april.
check http://www.jazzkammer.com for updates
and get their new heavy metal album "Metal Music Machine" asap!

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...still available:

[013] GUIDO MÖBIUS - Dishoek LP/CD
[012] TU M' - Just One Night CD
[011] UN CADDIE RENVERSÉ DANS L'HERBE - Atlas 
saltA (Map Lies, Border Lies...) 3"CD
[010] VOKS - Darkvaks 3"CD
[009] PXP - Nada CD
[007] UN CADDIE RENVERSÉ DANS L'HERBE - Like A 
Packed Cupboard But Quite... LP/CD
[006] BLACK TO COMM - s/t 10" (last few copies)
[005] MATT WAND - Public.Exe 10"

...out soon:

[015] MAJA RATKJE/JOHN HEGRE - Ballads CD
[016] KUUPUU  LP

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http://www.dekorder.com

Distribution:
A-Musik (Germany & World), Darla (USA), Target 
(World), Lowlands (Benelux), Plop (Japan), 
Metamkine (France), Staalplaat (Germany), 
Risonanza Magnetica (Italy), Warpmart (UK)