Browse by Artist: APPLESCAL

Artist:	APPLESCAL
Title:	A Slave's Commitment
Label:	TRAUM (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	TRAUM 021CD

This is the debut full-length release from The Netherlands' Applescal. Even after releasing only one 12" on Traum, the label is confident that this young artist embodies the new wave in indie electronic dance music -- a hunch now given some weight after Applescal was voted "Producer of the Year" in his home country. On A Slave's Commitment, he combines melodic electronics and dance tracks with grunge, creating an almost live-band sound. There is a lot of explosive youthfulness here, reflecting newer heroes and influencers like Apparat and Extrawelt, rather than Richie Hawtin or Ricardo Villalobos. The CD starts off with the beautiful track "The History Of Love," making the world feel like it's twisting in slow-motion. "Nottingham Hobbits" transports and extends a similar emotion, whereas "Ugly But Nasty" introduces dirty acid bass lines, reminiscent of his Traum 12" track, "Monster." "In The Mirror" has a bit more of a band approach, sounding like The Cure, My Bloody Valentine or Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, and carrying a ghostly atmosphere with chords and feedback. "Music For Her Ears" is the ambient piece... a bit of a sad and melancholic track that somehow connects modern electronica with piano. "I Can't Stand" also works with ambience, but rocks away into a sort of a shuffle beat. "The Forms Of Abstract Life" is a masterpiece, intimately visualizing the beauty of flowers and nature. "The Red Dress" is a noise interlude -- psychedelic, alienated and strange. "Funk and FC" is a grinding acid track that starts quiet and works with a classic build-up, getting frantic and noisy. Applescal also remixed a track by the Dutch band Local Daddies, using the vocals and bass of the original and changing everything else around it, giving it a Portishead twist. The album closes with "Reeeer," a melodic and comic track that swallows everything in its path, like a colorful and happy/sad Aphex Twin.

Artist:	APPLESCAL
Title:	A Mishmash Of Changing Moods
Label:	TRAUM (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	TRAUM 022CD

The Netherlands' Applescal presents a hotly-anticipated second full-length album for Traum. These new tracks are cinematic, with moods ranging from uplifting and joyful to dark, melancholic and claustrophobic ones. Working on a stronger conceptual level has allowed Applescal to pull all the tricks out of the bag. "The Curle In Me" is a driving, quirky drum and bass sort of track that works with a disturbing deepness and melancholy. "A Former Curse" is a short interlude which sounds like a falling star, tumbling and spinning around its own axis until it is burned out. "Dialeague" is a heavy and mighty grinding caterpillar of a track, and "The Key Of Genes" features a superbly-composed melody with unearthly, Aphex Twin-like attachment. "MC Iron" feels like a trip through an impenetrable jungle, full of beauty and tension, while "IB OK" is full of droning noises, engine-like, heavily spinning until it gives up its life. "Roofs Of Heaven" is a piece of heavy, Detroit-touched psychedelic rock with great organ parts and feedback. "The Flop" feels like a hard and edgy piece of metal and its beat is like a smack in the face. Hard to imagine that it it turns to Krautrock after that. "Black Spirals" is almost a piece of easy listening with very sweet moments and hilarious changes of patterns and dynamics. "Door Weer En Wind" has a cinematic soundtrack feel -- almost classic electronica a la Terry Riley. A Mishmash Of Changing Moods has the fresh and lively spirit of handcrafted electronica, with an incredible analog sound.

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