Browse by Label: 12K

Artist:	KIRSCHNER, KENNETH
Title:	September 19, 1998 et al.
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1024CD

"Kenneth Kirschner's music combines the influence of the 20th century avant-garde (most importantly Morton Feldman) with the techniques and technologies of contemporary electronic music. His methods mix a systematic use of chance procedures with the sort of rigorous editing only possible in the digital environment. An advocate of the freedom of information, Kirschner makes his work freely available online, and releases material on CD under intellectual property licenses that encourage, rather than inhibit, the music's free proliferation and appropriation. 12k is pleased to present September 19, 1998 et al., the first available CD collection of Kirschner's highly varied output. The opening track, 'September 19, 1998,' juxtaposes a spare, Cagean piano line with percussion sounds derived from found household objects, principally kitchenware. 'September 27, 2002' is a dense, polyrhythmic study in the possibilities of software synthesizer sound design. The final piece, 'February 8, 2003,' transforms tiny, unconsciously selected fragments of the composer's mp3 collection into a flowing assemblage designed to evoke the late-period orchestral music of Feldman. (All of Kirschner's pieces are titled for the date on which they were begun.)"

Artist:	MOTION
Title:	Every Action
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1027CD

"The 3rd full-length release from the UK's Motion (Chris Coode). The work on Every Action spans from 1999-2004, some of the material created around the time Pictures was produced, sharing that release's more obvious tonal and melodic content. Using a stripped-down setup of studio equipment Coode crafts his sound by sampling, processing, resampling, reprocessing.. back and forth, like generations of tape transfers or photocopies of photocopies, until the final results are smeared and distorted ghosts of the original: detuned, groaning, fragmented. Despite the digital sources, Coode's music is highly organic, utilizing randomness, openness and dysfunction to create an oddly ambient and quieting sound made from stressed melodic flickering and skittering, tones, drones, and overprocessed textures. Motion is important in Coode's work, too; slow motion formed in grainy timestretches punctuated by dynamics that swell and disappear creating odd suggestions of performance, structure, and deconstruction built from his always live mixdowns."

Artist:	MINAMO
Title:	Shining
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1031CD

"Japan's Minamo. Shining is the quartet's 5th full-length release to date and continues in a common tradition of being sourced and edited from live performance recordings, a practice central to the band's interest in improvisational forms and organic track growth. While guitar is still the prominent instrument, Shining takes a slightly different path from the drone-oriented releases of the past. Still pursuing vague and evasive atmospheres Minamo now inject much more prominent rhythm and turbulence, as on 'Crumbling's' software driven looping or 'Stay Still's' 16th note picked guitar repetition that is quietly offset by sparse piano. This is part of what makes Shining a work of subtle pairings and contrasts. Digital hums and crackles merge with the glacial pace of peaceful, melodic string resonance, blurred echoes of familiar sounds fall away into pools of feedback. This is highly free-formed work yet at the same time there is an obvious communication between musicians (and instruments) that makes Minamo's music a language unique to a 4-piece band as they continue to explore the unstable boundaries of free improv, post-rock, and live electronic ambience."

Artist:	DEUPREE & KENNETH KIRSCHNER, TAYLOR
Title:	Post_Piano 2
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1032CD

"Taylor Deupree and Kenneth Kirschner's Post_Piano 2 continues the two New York composers' collaborative investigation into the intersections of digital minimalism and experimental piano composition. Working with his childhood acoustic piano and the accidental sounds of an imperfect recording environment, Kirschner first composed a simple, austere 'piano sketch' to serve as raw material for the project. This sketch was then passed on to Deupree, who created three new compositions entirely out of sounds derived from Kirschner's piece. The two then collaborated on editing the new recordings, which transform the original piano sketch into a diverse array of sounds both familiar and unexpected. Like their previous CD, Post_Piano 2 is released as an open source project, and the composers invite other artists to continue the interpretation and transformation of their work in an ongoing process of open collaboration."

Artist:	BRETSCHNEIDER + STEINBRUCHEL
Title:	Status
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1033CD

"12k presents Status, the result of two of the genre's most talented, and different, composers; Frank Bretschneider and Ralph Steinbrüchel, sharing their sounds and styles. Status began in the Spring of 2003 when they designed their own sound sequences and samples and sent the material to each other, waiting and hearing what the other would create out of it. They played this game for nearly two years, sending sequences and tracks back and forth until both of them were satisfied with the result. When the minimal 120bpm rhythmic structures of Frank Bretschneider and the austere sonic minimalism of Steinbrüchel get together, a rare piece of atmospheric rhythmics is created. Sometimes very melodic, sometimes abstract, sometimes very rhythmic, sometimes nearly pop, and always minimal. Detailed, fragile and full at once, Status shows where rhythmic and abstract music can get together, how different sonic worlds combine to create a unique listening experience."

Artist:	RANNISTO, ANTTI
Title:	Ääniesineitä
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1034CD

Classic sinewave pulse, rooted in the grand Finnish tradition! A la early Sähkö releases. "The debut full-length CD by Antti Rannisto. Rannisto [b1978] is a Finnish artist whose ultra-spare sound was formed via a diverse background of hip-hop, house, and experimental electronic music. Despite the highly improvised and free-form influences, Ääniesineitä is highly calculated music so stripped down to the basic elements that subtle shifts in panning, envelope, or phase become instruments in themselves. He explores the ideas of rotation in much of his music, utilizing repetition and overlapping, out of sync structures that create networks of hypnotic patterns. Ääniesineitä is a minimalist foray that defines Rannisto's sound and breaks away from 12k's recent mold of organic and melodic microsound. The beating of a sinewave over a 4/4 kickdrum, or a blipping polyrhythmic loop creates ever-shifting patterns forming his style that is too sparse to be called techno, but far too rhythmic to ever be called ambient. His palette is simple, pure, colorless, and free of any unnecessary sound or movement. It is minimalism in the truest sense. It is challenging music that demands attentive listening."

Artist:	ROUX, SEBASTIEN
Title:	Songs
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1036CD

"Songs is the much-anticipated follow-up to Parisian sound designer and musician Sébastien Roux's beautiful CD Pillow. The simple title of Songs hides a deep work that Roux states is based in mathematics, symmetry (and asymmetry) and organized randomness. Songs is a skillfully and beautifully rendered album of gentle and sometimes not-so-gentle acoustic instruments and melodic granular clouds. Each song is titled simply by the instruments that make it, thus stressing the process involved in their production. From the ubiquitous guitars, piano, and drums to the more exotic metallophone, harp and contrabass, Roux combines these acoustic instruments with digital sounds and makes a point to keep the focus on the instruments themselves, allowing for their subtleties and idiosyncrasies to come to the forefront. Roux's music is personal and multi-faceted; From warm and drowsy ambient tones to digital fests of errors and erratic rhythms to a more song-structured approach hinting at a distant relative of submerged pop music. His influences include musique concrete, folk songs, and electronic music and his work at IRCAM in Paris wraps his eclectic tastes into an expertly produced work of digital sound that does not rely on one particular sound or motif but rather highlights a breadth of processes and unique sonic juxtaposititons."

Artist:	FOURCOLOR
Title:	Letter of Sounds
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1038CD

"Following the release of his work as part of the electro-acoustic quartet Minamo on 12k and the proto-pop outing under his new moniker Filfla (Plop, 2005), Fourcolor (Keiichi Sugimoto) is back with his second release on 12k, Letter of Sounds. His previous work, Air Curtain was a critical success selling out the first pressing in little over one month. On Air Curtain, Fourcolor explored new directions, building upon delicate, implied rhythmic structures moving away from the strictly drone-based material on his debut CD Water Mirror. With Letter of Sounds, Sugimoto pushes his sound even further by bringing the rhythms more to the foreground and taking influences from his previous, more pop-based work, as Filfla. The album uses many dominant rhythmic structures such as on the opener '02' which couples catchy guitar harmonic hooks with sliced melodic beats, or the beautiful 'Rowboat' in which Sugimoto collaborates with long-time friend Naoko Sasaki/Piana (Happy) using a variety of instrumentation and vocals. Similarly, a majority of the work on Letter of Sounds finds itself working around tight, syncopated micro-rhythms. Of course Letter of Sounds is not without its delicate undercurrents and warm, stretched-out, whispy tones that have become signature to Sugimoto's sound (the gorgeous finale 'Frame'), but his desire for a more up-front and structured approach continues the evolution from a style he has mastered into new, more challenging territory, and expands his palette as an artist."

Artist:	VA
Title:	Blueprints
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1039CD

"Over the past 10 years, 12k has established itself as a label on the forefront of minimalist music and has become home to some of the most important artists of the genre. It is a label that time and time again has not been afraid to release debut albums from new artists, drawing on the new energy they interject into both the scene and the label. With the release of Blueprints, 12k presents 2 tracks each from 6 artists new to its roster and showcases some of the new sounds and influences that will carry the label into its 10th year (2007). The artists on Blueprints span the globe and offer a variety of sound that both compliments and expands on the style that 12k has become known for. Christmas Decorations tread a fine line between organic and electronic, experimental and rock music. Seaworthy: their compositions often blur the lines of conventional categorisation with elements traditionally considered part of 'indie' or 'post' rock blended with processed musical and field recordings usually associated with electronic artists. Autistici: Autistici's music incorporates a wide range of sources and inspirations including obsessional microsounds, textural orchestration, near silence and field recordings. Jodi Cave explores the potentials of home-made, MaxMSP-based software, to extend, augment and re-contextualize acoustic sound in composed works and improvised performance. Pjusk has an electronic sound that is deep, dark and pulsing that evokes a narrative and sense of other-worldliness. Leo Abrahams: using a laptop to process his guitar in real time, he creates music which contains elements of folk, electronica and contemporary classical."

Artist:	SEAWORTHY
Title:	Map In Hand
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1040CD

"Seaworthy, a three piece collective based in Sydney, Australia that revolves around core member Cameron Webb as well as Sam Shinazzi and Greg Bird, was formed in early 2000 to explore melodic and experimental approaches to the construction of minimalist soundscapes from looped guitar, warm drones, piano, electronics and field recordings. Map In Hand often blurs the lines of conventional categorisation with elements traditionally considered part of 'indie' or 'post' rock blended with processed musical and field recordings usually associated with electronic music. Instruments and samples are often looped through amps and effects pedals, giving the sound an organic feel. Avoiding the muscular approach of loud/soft dynamics, Seaworthy concentrate on subtle shifts in melody, tone and texture to convey a sense of time and place. The core sessions for Map In Hand took place over a few days in early Spring, 2006 and were book ended by recordings of birds from outside the home studio. There was little rehearsal or preparation with many pieces featuring a strong element of improvisation. Recorded initially to cassette and reel-to-reel tape, the guitar loops and drones were then transferred to computer and assembled with minimal processing, preserving the initial feel of the music's performance, complete with the happy accidents of errors, tape hiss and microphone overload that became intrinsically part of the compositions as much as any sounds produced by the instruments themselves. There is a reflective quality to Map In Hand. A reminder that things don't always need to be changing, to be attention grabbing or distracting and that there is beauty, not only in the object itself but in the process of appreciating that beauty."

Artist:	MOSKITOO
Title:	Drape
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1041CD

"12k kicks off its 11th year with a new release that takes the label down new sonic pathways. Caught between the organic and electronic minimalism that 12k is known for and the unconventional Japanese pop musings and songwriting style of Happy, Moskitoo's Drape is an infectiously strange, bleepy, and dreamy debut release. Sanae Yamasaki (Moskitoo) hails from Sapporo, Japan in Hokkaido, the country's northern-most prefecture. Perhaps a reaction to the cool climate of her home, her multi-instrumental talents bring a wide range of warm tones and textures to Drape by means of guitar, metallophone, organ, drum machines, synthesizers and nostalgic toy instruments. Yamasaki's gentle, airy vocals play off of broken beats and aqueous sound drops evoking half-awake memories lost and found. Influenced by visual art (she painted the cover image), modern electronic music and abstract pop, such as Eno's explorations in the 1970s, Yamasaki does not set out to write a particular style of music, but rather, lets her creative process emerge naturally, following whims and experiments. Drape is, by far, the most structured and songwritten release on 12k to date. It's a release that signifies not a complete directional change for the label but the creative go-ahead to add new nuances to the already established sound that the label has pioneered."

Artist:	CAVE, JODI
Title:	For Myria
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1043CD

"On his CD debut, UK sound artist Jodi Cave creates seven short compositions united by themes of singularity and natural randomness. One of the most immediate features of For Myria is its restrained sound palette. Like an instrumentalist who has laid a small collection of choice instruments out in front of him, Cave creates beautifully intimate collages, each touching on maybe only 2 or 3 sounds, woven together by computer processing which has been pushed into the background, utilized more as a compositional aid than a sound source. With instruments such as harmonium, clarinet, and guitar, through field recordings, stones, and scraps of metal, Cave paints a most introspective music in blurred swatches of minimal color. The tones are musical, delicate, punctured by the scraping of close-mic'd found objects rattling across the stereo field. Cave's choice of instrumentation helps him create pieces that exist as singular objects, each ebbing and shuffling with accidental dynamics. There is a very tactile and earthy feel to his work as he lets the sounds take a natural course, influencing and sculpting them with his own studio techniques. Who (or what) is 'Myria?' It is not known, but, Cave says... 'It sounds yellow...'"

Artist:	AUTISTICI
Title:	Volume Objects
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1045CD

"In the desire to make recorded sound as tactile as possible Autistici (UK), recently featured on 12k's Blueprints compilation , has sculpted found objects, broken acoustic instruments, synthesizers and environmental recordings into Volume Objects. Expertly realized and designed, Volume Objects is loose and organic but demands careful listening. Melody and form are hinted at and then in a whisper, a crackle, are gone. A sense of narrative and place created as if a hundred tiny objects are scattered in front of you, a fractured story that you thought you once remembered."

Artist:	WILLITS + SAKAMOTO
Title:	Ocean Fire
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1046CD

"Christopher Willits and Ryuichi Sakamoto's new release, Ocean Fire, is a sublime soundtrack for the ocean. It is an intense and stirring wash of cascading tones and textured harmony. Willits + Sakamoto surprise with rare form in this collaboration, creating a sound world unlike anything they have produced previously. Each artist has gently pulled the other into new sonic territory. Sakamoto's gorgeous processed piano sound reflects Willits' beautiful shimmering clusters of notes, a new aspect of Willits' pioneering guitar/computer approach. Together, their sounds merge effortlessly, creating deep and seamless swells of gigantic melodic waves. Ocean Fire was recorded live at Sakamoto's studio in NYC in spring 2006. The improvisations found their final form through some further editing in the months to come, and final mastering by Clayx in Berlin. We hear the artists exploring their relationship to each other, new sounds, and the ocean's boundless force and importance. This release is dedicated to the healing and restoration of our fragile oceans. Sakamoto is a living legend in music. His numerous releases in YMO, and his Grammy award-winning solo work has inspired two generations of fans and artists. Christopher Willits is a young talented artist who has shown he can do just about anything. In the late-'90s Willits began integrating his guitar playing with unique custom digital processing, and has since been instrumental in redefining the sound palette of the guitar. Overlapping all forms of music, sound, and visual art, Willits' work defies genre and retains a presence of its own. 12k is proud to release this work that pairs one of its core artists with a legendary composer."

Artist:	SAWAKO
Title:	Bitter Sweet
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1047CD

"New York/Tokyo-based Sawako is a musician, software designer, and multimedia artist whose multi-disciplinary works intermix and pollenate her music with inspiration ranging from nature, science, academia and poetic motion. Following releases on Anticipate and And/Oar, Bitter Sweet is Sawako's 2nd release on 12k after the critically-acclaimed Hum in 2005. Her music is fragile and intimate, delicate, ephemeral and resonant. Bitter Sweet is unmistakably Sawako but finds itself moving into much, much deeper territory than her previous works. Building on her past forays into experimental pop, she uses low and mid-frequency drones and soft, melodic highlights to shape beds of stripped-down, hypnotic and very linear tracks that fill the space in which they exist. Bitter Sweet is more drone and tonal-based than Sawako's previous works. However, these gentle movements are punctuated by field recordings and acoustic instrumentation with cello provided by Jacob Kirkegaard and guitar by Radiosonde and Ryan Francesconi who also co-write two of the pieces on the album. In what has become a bit of a signature, Sawako lends her own voice to the ending lullaby, 'A Last Next.' These combinations produce rich results. Bitter Sweet's diffuse and hazy soundscaping is Sawako's most mature work to date, relying less on her previous child-like melodies while remaining feminine and tender. She has come into her own after having established herself for a number of years as a New Yorker where she has tirelessly performed, studied and created as an important member of the city's electronic music community. Bitter Sweet is packaged in a 6-panel digipack with photography throughout by Brooklyn-based artist and photographer Maki Kaoru."

Artist:	MACHINEFABRIEK + STEPHEN VITIELLO
Title:	Box Music
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1048CD

"Rutger and Stephen sort of accidentally met through e-mail. A simple note regarding an ordering question for a CD led to an enthusiastic e-mail conversation and climaxed in a musical collaboration. This all happened in a very short period, both musicians being very inspired by the concept of 'exchange,' as a means to cross space and time -- Rutger living in the Netherlands and Stephen in Virginia. Most of the time, when (electronic) musicians work together, it's a matter of swapping digital files. In this case they decided to do something different and sent each other a box full of (mostly non-musical, or musically non-functional) objects and recordings, with the 'assignment' to make music with those objects and all as source materials. As the titles tell, we're talking about an egg cutter, thumb piano, a broken Kraakle box, rice, chocolate sprinkles, old cassette tapes, a broken 7" record, etc . Both musicians made two of their own solo tracks with the box they received, and the last track was done together by Rutger adding sounds and processing to a piece started by Stephen. For Rutger/Machinefabriek, this is part of his most delicate work. For Stephen, it was a new and extremely enjoyable form of long-distance collaboration."

Artist:	AMPLIFIER MACHINE
Title:	Her Mouth Is An Outlaw
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1049CD

"Amplifier Machine began in 2002 with James Dixon (Swordfish, Supagroop, James Dixon) on guitar, Korg & piano, Seth Rees (The Spheres, This Is Your Captain Speaking, I Want A Hovercraft, Seth Rees) on drums, violin, samples, piano & guitar and Alex Jarvis (Automatic, Black Cab, Registered Nurse, Alex Jarvis) on guitar & drums, with the intention of combining their songwriting talents. Something about getting three solo artists together, or maybe something about what rehearsing for so long in a freezing Collingwood warehouse does to the brain, caused the pop-bred members of Amplifier Machine to spiral out into a peculiar music of inquisitive, atmospheric, half-improvised mini-epics. Amplifier Machine is a self-described experiment in anemocratic process and near-improvisation (anemocracy = rule by whim or the wind). Through earnest discussion and endless unending jams, Amplifier Machine came upon The Rule: that when the other two members have settled, it's your turn to change. The Rule was found to be useful, not only in musical terms, but also as a strategy in discussion, advocacy for the devil, and reducto absurdums. Each members' musical approach is informed by knowledge of various artistic process, including: visual art, drama, the written word, carpentry and car maintenance. Thus, in music and in discussion, Amplifier Machine tends to start with a thesis, then to spiral out into varying antitheses, to arrive at some sort of synthesis. At least, that's the idea. Somewhat of a departure, in terms of sound, for 12k, Her Mouth Is An Outlaw breezes darkly languid chords over a post-rock-meets-experimental structure that is decidedly lacking in micro-electronics. These echoes reach for new 12k-heights while the spirit of ambience and space remain familiar."

Artist:	IELASI, GIUSEPPE
Title:	Aix
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1051CD

"Aix is the latest work from Italian artist Giuseppe Ielasi and the follow-up to 2007's August (12K 1044). With Aix we see Ielasi building his layered, atmospheric music around rhythmic grids. Most of the time these are quite irregular and the pulses are not necessarily stable or clear. Where his previous work approached sound in a linear fashion Aix imposes a strong vertical development with the aforementioned grid and a production consisting of ons and offs, employing as much improvisation as Ielasi's previous work, but in a different way. Despite the self-imposed grid structure, Aix relies heavily on randomization. Not in the traditional sense of sound placement but instead of the spatialization of sounds, echoes, reverbs and the stereo image. As a result, Aix has an amazing sense and clarity of space as the small fragments of sound breathe and find their own place in the mix, thanks to Ielasi's sublime skills as a mixer and engineer. Ielasi relied heavily on numerous short samples and combining them in ways that fell into his groove; some found from others' recordings and many more recorded during the past year. We hear fragments of percussive (acoustic) objects, drums, piano, trumpet, guitar, and, of course, synthetic textures. Although there is a distinct rhythmic pulse to Aix, Ielasi manages to mold it into something wonderfully languid and warm... and strangely inviting."

Artist:	PILLOWDIVER
Title:	Sleeping Pills
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1054CD

"Sleeping Pills is the debut release from Germany's Pillowdiver, whose concepts of simplification and minimalism led him to self-imposed limitations for the creation of this work. Utilizing primarily a Fender Jazzmaster, with a small amount of synthesizer and field recording, Pillowdiver took advantage of very lo-fi and modest mediums such as 4-track cassette and various guitar stomp boxes. Appropriate to its title, Sleeping Pills is a dark and dreamy album of often-melancholic, post-rock influenced ambience. Most tracks rely on a bed of one or two simple loops over which guitar melodies, incidental sounds and harmonies are overlaid, enveloping the listener in a sleepy din of tape distortions and warm noise. Sometimes about dreaming, sometimes about escaping, Pillowdiver's focused approach is a unique voice among artists who tread the fine line between experimentalism and indie rock.'

Artist:	BEDNARCZYK, TOMASZ
Title:	Let's Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1055CD

"Let's Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow is the third full-length CD from the young Polish musician Tomasz Bednarcyzk. Following Summer Feelings and Painting Sky Together (Room40), Bednarczyk naturally continues his process of utilizing mainly treated piano and guitar to create fragile, lingering structures that hover around only a few fundamental notes. Let's Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow is divided into two sections, split down the middle by 'The Sketch,' which was written in cooperation with Adrian Klumpes (Triosk). The first half of the album floats like a pellucid veil: higher frequency whispers, surface noise and glassy textures create light, calm drones, and noticeable bass tones aren't heard for nearly 20 minutes. 'The Sketch' serves as a turning point, a snap from light to dark; field recordings of children alongside Klumpes' punctuated piano contrast sharply with the linearity of the surrounding works. The listener is then presented with the final four pieces, which descend into deeper territory. Darkness and murky frequencies prevail, and the surfaces become more distressed and stormy, finally submerging to 'Night,' which closes the album with its languid, sleepy bass loop that lulls away to silence."

Artist:	SOLO ANDATA
Title:	Solo Andata
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1056CD

"12k presents Australian duo Solo Andata along with their second album, self-titled. Translated literally from the Italian as 'one way,' Solo Andata portrays the theme of a one-way journey that moves from (and represents a thread between) water and land, fluid/stasis, cold/hot. Following Solo Andata's debut album Fyris Swan (Hefty, 2006) and their 12k inception on Live in Melbourne, Solo Andata presents us with an ambient affair, with dark drones coupled with ethereal sonic environments. It could be said that Solo Andata is carefully sequenced to a narrative structure: beginning on boat in the cold, arctic night of 'Ablation,' and then ending on foot in the hot wilderness of 'Woods, Flesh, Bone.' However, concepts and narratives that seem clear to the artists are often left oblique to the listeners. This is perhaps why Solo Andata represented this narrative in a strict sense by recording what the titles literally refer to. For example, 'Woods Flesh, Bone' presents us with sweltering woodlands, the sound of a fresh carcass being torn apart and the clattering of bones. The same can be said of 'Hydraulic Fluctuations,' 'Canal Rocks,' 'Ablation' and 'In the Light Storming.' These organic sources, then, help tie music and concept together. Solo Andata utilizes very little, if any, electronic instruments. Acoustic guitar, piano, cello and the natural resonances of organic materials (usually by way of a violin bow, pluck, or home-made contraption) become their main instruments, and as their live shows often attest to, Solo Andata can turn almost any object into an instrument capable of producing beautiful, other-worldly music." Includes a 12-page booklet with photographs by Taylor Deupree.

Artist:	SMALL COLOR
Title:	In Light
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1057CD

"Four years after the release of their debut album Outflow, Japan's Small Color, a duo comprised of Rie Yoshihara (aka Trico!) (accordion, voice, vintage keyboard instruments) and Yusuke Onishi (guitar, banjo, bass, programming and production) are back with the beautifully polished In Light. This album marks what some may consider a departure for 12k: sublime and gentle, minimal, acoustic J-pop, which once may have been destined for the now-defunct Happy label, but can now sit comfortably beside 12k's roster of electronic/acoustic ambient hybrids. For the past four years, Small Color has been performing live and honing their sound. Inspired mostly by the very act of performing and the way their sound relates to interactions with a live audience, In Light is truly a mature album with a very focused aesthetic. Being primarily an acoustic band, their recordings are not created in front of a computer screen. With the musicianship of Yoshihara, an accomplished accordion player and instructor, and Onishi, who plays guitar for many artists in Japan, live performance and songwriting are what Small Color is all about, as is quite evident on In Light. Small Color's sound encompasses many moods in its modest shell: joy, sorrow, love and sadness, the feelings of everyday life, with influences from such diverse musical genres as jazz, world music, pop and experimentalism, as well as design, architecture and cooking (Rie is an accomplished chef and has a recipe book being published in the near future). Their songs are delicate yet rich in texture, brimming with the warm sounds of electric pianos, acoustic guitar, glockenspiel, accordion, toy pianos and a studio full of other instruments accented by small beatboxes, electronic sprinklings, and Rie's faraway and lulling voice with lyrics in both Japanese and English. The first 1,000 copies of In Light will be packaged in a full-color slipcase over the ubiquitous 12k digipack."

Artist:	MINAMO
Title:	Durée
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1058CD

"Back in 1999, on the forefront of the Japanese electronic/acoustic microsound scene, was the then two-piece live improvisation band Minamo (two more members were added in 2001 to make the current four-piece lineup). Their live concerts helped pioneer this hybrid of delicate and natural instrumentation with microscopic electronics and subtle digital processing bringing an organic richness to a genre that threatened to remain coldly digital. Fans of Minamo not lucky enough to see them create their music live have enjoyed their studio albums and collaborative releases which captured these performances and processed them into hypnotic drones and electro-acoustic soundscapes. Durée, their last studio work since 2007's collaboration with Tape, and their follow-up to Shining on 12k (12k1031, now out of print), takes influence from the French philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson's concept of 'pure durée,' an idea that one's consciousness is a constant flow and not something that can be divided, reversed, or measured. Minamo used these ideas in creating their music, despite the contradiction of the time-stamped CD format, to try to subvert the ideas of compartmentalized 'time' and 'space.' With a strong sense of non-linearity and flow taken from Bergson's ideas, Minamo have created a colorful, skittering wash of music, noise, and texture that embraces a sense of out-there-ness. Minamo are Yuichiro Iwashita (acoustic guitar, percussion), Namiko Sasamoto (keyboards, saxophone, percussion), Keiichi Sugimoto (electric guitar, computer, nintendo, bells, recording/mixing) and Tetsuro Yasunaga (percussion, harmonium, analog synthesizer, pedals, small instruments). Like all of their music, Durée was recording during long, live, improvisational sessions and later finessed and mixed in the studio for release. Their process this time around, however, was much more analog than before. While they have always incorporated guitars, computers and synthesizers into their work, Durée captured performances created with an abundance of acoustic and percussion instruments and analog synths, keeping digital effects to a minimum and preferring the dirty sound of guitar pedals. The process this time around came easier due to the natural musical communication built between the members over the past 10 years. Durée simply finds more playing and interaction than editing and programming as compared to previous releases and, according to Sugimoto, is finally the mark where Minamo wants to be, and a template for work to come."

Artist:	DEUPREE, TAYLOR
Title:	Shoals
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1060CD

"Shoals is perhaps Deupree's most specific album in material concept and sound. In late 2009, he was invited to an artist residency program at the University of York (UK) Music Research Center. He was given the freedom to create a project with the resources of the University and staff at his disposal. The idea was to find a unique idea that he would be unable to realize in his own studio -- and this was when he discovered the University's extensive collection of Javanese and Balinese gamelan instruments. Without hesitation, the groundwork was established for his project at the residency: he would create an album using only these instruments by developing a simple yet powerful audio looping program in the Kyma programming language to capture it all and provide the structure for the finished pieces. After the first day in the studio, Deupree quickly realized that he was less interested in the traditional ways these instruments were played and more fascinated by the sounds of the surfaces of the instruments. And so he began to utilize their edges and undersides and find their flaws, such as broken strings. These instruments, played by scraping, tapping, or with an eBow, became the basis for long and meditative looping beds of sound. In addition, the microphones in the studio would by accident occasionally pick up the sounds of Deupree moving around, brushing the edge of an instrument or setting down mallets. These incidental sounds became as important as the instruments themselves and lend an incredibly physical element to the recordings. Much of Shoals is the sound of microphones in a room as Deupree loops and composes live. The software Deupree developed in Kyma allowed him to very simply layer loops and change pitches of his sounds, often transposing them down 2 or 3 octaves to further emphasize the cracks and fragments. After recording many hours of densely layered loops during the residency, Deupree returned to his 12k studio and finessed the works into the 4 tracks on Shoals, each based around one of the loops. The result is an album that has the slow pace of Stil. mixed with the acoustic imperfections of Weather & Worn and the randomness of Occur. Particles of percussive sounds -- bells, wood, mallets -- are caught by the loop and repeated into a hypnotic underbelly that is coated with a loosely strung Celempung droned by an eBow. The unexpected and almost playful sounds of the instruments' natural surfaces and room sounds are in stark contrast to the smooth tonal melodic elements, yet together they create an immersive space that seems to offer a microcosm of exploration."

Artist:	MURRALIN LANE
Title:	Our House Is On The Wall
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1061CD

"Our House Is On The Wall is the debut release from Swedish duo Murralin Lane. While the project is new, Murralin Lane's David Wenngren is no stranger to the scene. Recording solo as Library Tapes for Kning Disk and Home Normal, he has established a loyal following with his piano-based experimentalism where he puts texture, distance and longing to good effect in its melodic, grainy ambiance. Murralin Lane is Wenngren's latest project, which was formed in 2009 when he paired up with partner Ylva Wiklund and set aside the piano to take on new, collaborative audio explorations. Instead of the trademark piano that Wenngren has become known for, Murralin Lane thrives on highly distressed, lo-fi beauty formed by a more process-intensive creation. Wiklund supplies vocals (sometimes recorded through a mobile phone for effect) as pretty as they are creepy, adding an otherworldly sense of fragility to the dark and melancholic compositions made of noisy, tonal layers that sound as though they're on the verge of breaking apart. Recorded in the wee hours of the morning, Our House Is On The Wall pushes the boundaries that 12k has set with its tactile, electro-acoustic, ambient minimalism, touching on the label's occasional forays into more pop territory, yet bringing something decidedly darker to the table."

Artist:	SEAWORTHY & MATT RÖSNER
Title:	Two Lakes
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1062CD

"In April 2010, 12k recording artist Seaworthy (the recording project of Cameron Webb) and Matt Rösner traveled to the south coast of New South Wales to undertake a detailed field recording study of two coastal lake ecosystems at the Lakes Meroo and Termeil. The aim of the project was to explore the sounds of a fragile coastal Australian environment and to build from those sounds unique musical pieces that provide a place for listener contemplation and reflection. Field recordings were taken from the lakes and surrounding beaches, forests and streams at different times of the day. Various equipment including a hydrophone, a shotgun and stereo microphones were used to capture the natural sounds of each lake. During breaks in field recording, the artists set up recording equipment in a nearby lakeside cabin. Using acoustic and electric guitars, a ukulele, and electronics, a series of improvised performances were documented. On the last day of the trip, with the experience of the recording process still fresh in mind, rough arrangements were created from the field recordings and improvised sets. Matt Rösner then took these arrangements back to his studio in Myalup -- a small coastal town on the opposite side of the Australian continent -- to mix and finalize the production. Both Rösner and Webb have been active in the Australian experimental music scene for over ten years, with a plethora of releases on local and international labels sharing a similar vision of molding found sounds and field recordings with traditional instrumentation and electronics. Aside from shared musical interest, both artists grew up in close connection with the Australian coastline, albeit on opposite sides of the continent. This connection with their landscape as a remote and diverse place is evident in the pieces created by the artists during their collaboration on the South Coast. Two Lakes marks the third full-length appearance for Seaworthy on 12k following 2006's Map In Hand and 2009's 1897 and blends his signature guitar style with the beautifully arranged field recordings and electronics of Matt Rösner. Two Lakes is a strikingly stark and lonely album undeniably influenced by the remote recording cabin and delicate Australian ecosystem. The blend of instrumentation comes off more like a natural, live duet between artist and nature than a modern-day layered recording. Webb's finger-picked acoustic guitar and ukelele play off of the sounds of wind, reeds and insects in perfect harmony, supported by soft beds of eBowed drones and careful electronic tones. Despite their human presence, Rösner and Webb manage to create music that resonates on another level, as if composed by the lakes themselves."

Artist:	FISCHER, MARCUS
Title:	Monocoastal
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1063CD

"Monocoastal was inspired by Fischer's movements up and down the West Coast of America over the last two decades. Washes of tape hiss play homage to the Pacific Ocean, while multiple layers of details reveal themselves differently upon each listen. Tiny sounds originate from field recordings and are given the same attention as conventional instrumentation. Found instruments -- such as a piano discovered in the corner of a salvage warehouse and a xylophone made of metal wrenches -- create sounds captured through both analog and digital recording. Detail is removed rather than added, and harmonic tones are discovered in natural resonances. The compositions on Monocoastal are built upon a bed of low-fidelity textures, an exercise in restraint and tension. Space between notes plays an important compositional role to create this balance and tape loops provide organic repetition that wavers subtly with warmth and imperfection. There is a fractured and naturally worn sense to Fischer's compositions, each one an object itself summed from carefully selected instruments and tones used in their making. Monocoastal is another 12k release next to Taylor Deupree's Shoals, Solo Andata's self-titled release and the latest CD from Seaworthy + Matt Rösner that represents the current aesthetic of the label: a passion for acoustic and found sounds, a minimal of obvious DSP and synthesis, and a natural warmth created by analog recordings and the use of physical space. Fischer's instruments include a variety of guitars, both acoustic and electric, lap harps, melodicas, ukelele, homemade instruments, field recordings, and the use of manually manipulated cassette recorders to create stop-and-start compositions. Much like Fischer's creative blog DustBreeding, Monocoastal finds beauty in everyday objects and surroundings and portrays a hazy, personal narrative, like the cover photography taken by Fischer himself on expired Polaroid film."

Artist:	MATHIEU, STEPHAN
Title:	A Static Place
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1064CD

"A Static Place is about the journey of sound. Between 1928 and 1932 the earliest recordings of historically informed performances of music from the late Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque era were etched into 78 RPM records. I used some of these records from my collection, playing them back with two mechanical acoustic HMV Model 102 gramophones. The initial soundwaves produced back then by period instruments like the clavichord, viols, lute, hurdy-gurdy are read from the grooves by a cactus needle to be amplified by the gramophones diaphragm housed in a soundbox. Those vibrations travel through the tone arm which is connected straight to the gramophone's horn, which releases the music to my space. Here the sound is again picked up by a pair of customized microphones and sent to my computer, to be transformed by spectral analysis and convolution processes." -- Stephan Mathieu, Madrid, Nov. 31, 2010

Artist:	FOURCOLOR
Title:	As Pleat
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1065CD

"Fourcolor is the solo project of Keiichi Sugimoto (Minamo, Filfla) and should be well known to the 12k audience with his two previous releases, Air Curtain (2004) and Letter of Sounds (2006) both highly regarded and now out of print, which established him as one of the label's leading roster figures. As Pleat takes the familiar sound of Fourcolor and explores some subtle new sonic territory. It's as tonal and warm as always but he expands on his style by including more fractured, accidental sounds and an obvious growth in experience and talent. What makes Fourcolor's music so engaging is how Sugimoto manages to coax a lovely spectrum of sounds from his guitar without it ever sounding too over-processed or digital. From bubbling, low bass that provides a foundation to woven harmonies, pulses, and shimmers, there is a rich palette of sounds created. Add in a bit of careful, jittery skip-editing and implied rhythms and a groove starts to emerge from the ambience. Hints of his poppier Filfla project also come into play once again as Fourcolor brings in some guest-vocals courtesy of Sanae Yamasaki (aka Moskitoo) who lends her angelic voice to 'Quiet Gray 1' and 'Iris (Familiar)' adding further dimension to the works. As Pleat is unquestionably Fourcolor, but there is a pillow-like quality to the sound, a softness that plays beautifully off of the more organic edits and sharper plucks that all combines to create the most engaging Fourcolor album to date."

Artist:	KIRSCHNER, KENNETH
Title:	Twenty Ten
Label:	12K
Format:	3CD
Price:	$26.00
Catalog #:	12K 1066CD

"Following 2008's critically acclaimed double-CD Filaments & Voids, Twenty Ten sees Kirschner's use of real-world instruments become even more accomplished while still remaining steeped in conceptual outlines, meticulously married with computerized processes that emphasize the natural instruments' flaws. Like most of Kirschner's work, he starts the listener off easily, introducing the instrument or set of instruments for a particular piece with relative pragmatism. However, things don't remain so simple for very long, as the works' harmonic balance gives way to microtonal relationships and beautifully crafted computerized decay. By the end of his long compositions, you find yourself wondering how you got where you were, having been completely drawn into Kirschner's sound-world and thrown out the other side as if tossed into a churning sea. Disc One starts off with the shortest piece of the set (a mere 23:40), 'January 4, 2011' (all of Kirschner's compositions are titled for the date on which they were started). This piece, created with metallophones and xylophones from a local school, is perhaps the most chaotic, and the most natural, we've ever heard Kirschner's music, as two simultaneous layers of subtly microtuned percussive bells roll and skip, sped up, slowed down and playing off of one another. Natural, because there was no computer trickery, only hours of playing and recording edited down to this 'short' length. As almost the polar opposite, the second track on Disc One (the only disc with more than one piece), 'November 7, 2010', takes piano, strings and celeste into severely microtonal territory - at first perhaps a difficult listen, but at the end of the 42-minute piece it somehow all makes sense. It's a dynamic recording whose high-pitched bowed sounds whisper across low piano notes, leaving the listener sometimes holding their breath, afraid to disturb the delicacy."

Artist:	ILLUHA
Title:	Shizuku
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1067CD

"12k presents Shizuku, the debut album from Illuha (a play off the word 'island' in Portugese) comprised of Tokyo residents Corey Fuller and Tomoyoshi Date. Shizuku was recorded in a 100-year old church in Bellingham, Washington and the duo used ambient and quad-microphone techniques to capture the natural acoustics of the high-vaulted ceilings, wooden floors, stained glass and the natural resonances of the space. A beautiful variety of instruments were used to create the soft tones of the album at once like liquid and at the same time like air. Pipe organ, vibraphone, dulcimer, accordion, rhodes, piano, and analog synthesizer are only a selection of what was used to create the rich, and tonally warm sound of the album. It's as if movements and textures were dropped into the ocean to let float around and combine with others that touched. Field recordings and the most delicate touch of computer processing give a modern feel to this electro-acoustic world. In a bit of a departure for 12k, the fourth song on the album features spoken word from renowned Japanese Tanka poet Tadahito Ichinoseki. A deeply moving poem, essentially one about Christmas; silence, god, birth, death, Ichinoseki's raw, vulnerable voice carries over a tonal backdrop that gradually swells in intensity with plucked string harmonics and soft, echoing percussion. Artist John Friesen also adds cello on tracks 2 and 3. The deeply encompassing and personal sound of Shizuku is by no coincidence. During the year it was recorded both artists underwent intense personal pain and happiness as well as the earthquake that rocked their lives in March of 2011. Shizuku stands as an emotional release for the artists that clearly comes through in its progressions, carefully played sounds and enveloping atmosphere."

Artist:	BOATS, THE
Title:	Ballads Of The Research Department
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1068CD

"The Boats are a duo consisting of Craig Tattersall (ex-Hood, The Remote Viewer, and owner of the Cotton Goods label) and Andrew Hargreaves (Tape Loop Orchestra) as well a rotating roster of guest musicians and vocalists. With the Boats, 12k, who continues to move away from the 'electronic' tag, further plays the line between experimental electro-acoustic sounds and structured music creating an intoxicating hybrid of instrumentation, vocals, electronics, piano and drums. They work in these grey areas by combining elements of various musical styles--ambient, pop, classical, and experimental --creating overlaps, gaps and layers, nudging the boundaries in the most sincere and natural of ways. The Boats' music is warm, rich and complex but never over-complicated. They rarely rely on any sort of studio trickery instead opting to use the most honest tools to get the sounds they want-- be it proper recordings of acoustic instruments or recording to analogue tape. This doesn't, however, override a passion for experimentation as they are happy to throw away the rules in favor of the aesthetics of error."

Artist:	PETERS & STEVE RODEN, STEVE
Title:	Not A Leaf Remains As It Was
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1069CD

'"In 1995 Steve Peters and Steve Roden toured as a trio with singer Anna Homler; sometimes they would vocalize behind her, and they liked the way their voices blended together. They then spent about 15 years saying that 'someday' they should record a voice-based project together. Aside from the physical distance between them, the problem was always: What would we sing? Neither wanted to write or sing lyrics. Inspiration came in the form of a book of Japanese jisei -- poems allegedly written by monks on their death bed -- printed in both English translation and Romanized Japanese. Phonetically pronouncing the Japanese reminded Peters of the technique Roden has used of systematically chopping up the syllables in English texts to transform them into sound poems. Since neither of them speaks Japanese, it seemed like a good place to begin. The two of them applied for a residency at Jack Straw, a non-profit recording facility in Seattle that gives grants of studio time. They had no exact plans other than they intended to avoid electronic instruments, or directly referencing the poems' literal meaning, or imitating any Japanese musical idioms or 'Zen' stereotypes. Culling some of the poems that made references to sound and noting them on 3x5 cards, Peters and Roden sorted the cards into four groups according to the seasons of the year that the poems represented, divided the cards between them, and taped them to their music stands. They then sang random fragments from the various cards - a word here, a line there, maybe backwards, maybe the English translation. They made no effort to keep the poems intact or retain any of their meaning, instead treating the material simply as phonemes to put in their mouths. 12k is known to be a label of understatement and restraint, however, Not A Leaf Remains As It Was is arguably the most hushed and delicate record in the label's catalog. Every sound on the album's four tracks, be it the artists' voices, a pump organ or melodica hangs by a thread, played ever so slightly, with utmost care. Noises, created from turtle shells, leaves, and bells shuffle and flutter, as if they are quietly alive, in the background providing a textural backdrop to the sublime tones and ghostly voices."

Artist:	DICKSON, GARETH
Title:	Quite A Way Away
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1070CD

"Given the episodes that lead up to Quite A Way Away it's only fitting that the album lands on 12k, whose road from stark, synthetic post-techno, fourteen years ago, to the textured electro-acoustic ambience of today has been a gradual but well-documented voyage. The label's flirtations with song structures being fused into its experimentations have defined the label as one to skirt the edges of boundaries and genre labels. But no release has quite stepped out of 12k's bounds like Quite A Way Away. Yet despite the fact that Dickson's music is classified as 'singer/songwriter' and there isn't an electronic gadget to be heard anywhere on the album, it's remarkable how well it seamlessly blends into 12k's existing catalog. The minimal, fragile, and engrossing sounds of 12k's well-established brand of experimental music is ever-present in Dickson's quiet finger-picked guitar and breathy vocals that hang on the edge of disintegration. Quite A Way Away is somehow as much '12k' as it is a step in a totally new direction. Dickson, who hails from Glasgow, often gets comparisons to Nick Drake but it's important to mention the influence he takes from experimentalists like Brian Eno, Aphex Twin, Bert Jansch, and Glenn Gould. His music is characterized by an intimacy gleaned from his dream-like approach to singing and playing guitar as well as the immediacy of being captured shortly after being written by whatever recording device is closest at hand, be it a cassette machine, handheld recorder, or 4-track. His use of analogue delays and reverb add to this soft, spacey vibe. The lo-fi nature of his sound harbors all of the cracks, flaws and rough edges of humanity, soul, and the deeply personal circumstances that surround the creation of art."

Artist:	SCOTT, SIMON
Title:	Below Sea Level
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1071CD

"Below Sea Level is the first 12k release from seasoned musician and electronic sound artist Simon Scott. The inspiration behind Below Sea Level, including its music, title, artwork and photography (see accompanying journal) originally derives from Scott's desire to musically explore the desolate and controversial environment of the Fens in East Anglia, UK. The memories Scott has of visiting this area as a child makes this a poignant and highly personal project that explores nostalgic familiarity with a desire to capture the musicality of the landscape. For two years Scott ventured into this former wetland with hydrophones and self-built recording devices to explore the land that is cartographically below mean sea level, trace the devastating history of this environment caused by the drainage of the land, and arrange it into conceptual musical and visual project. Scott has, in the main, eschewed the guitar backbone of his previous releases, preferring instead to capture the timbres and textures of the landscape to form the basis for the seven tracks. His signature reverberated guitar does still surface, the beginning of the album begins with sparse finger picking reminiscent of Laughing Stock-era Talk Talk, but it only adds brief flickers of colour to the central field recordings throughout the album. Below Sea Level explores the aesthetics of active listening and, via a self-built MaxMSP patch, digitally dissects the natural and man-made recordings Scott discovered within the Fens. The juxtaposing of analogue and digital timbres and textures, the man-made and natural world sounds, create epic interwoven soundscapes that blend the recognizable (e.g., birdsong) with indistinguishable sounds, sometimes confusing what is natural and synthetic. Scott presents an abstraction of a place that is arranged and manipulated for aural contemplation outside of the Fens (in alien environments) where the music collaborates with each unique listening environment. For the final stage of Scott's process he played the mixed songs out of portable speakers and re-recorded them in the wide open spaces and natural ambiences of the Fens to capture the collaborative nature of Below Sea Level. Having these field-recorded sounds; the crows, the passing trains and tractors, recorded in real time with the mixes rather than multi-tracked in the studio provides a strong sense of place and immediacy. The environment breathes around the songs in a very natural and uncertain way."

Artist:	IKIN, KANE
Title:	Sublunar
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1072CD

"The word 'sublunar' can be read to contain many conceptual layers important to the album. It is music about moonlight, darkness, the faintest hint of light and shadow. Moons locked in orbit, repetition, gravity, weight, pressure. Subconscious, subliminal, distant, deteriorated signals, like radio waves lost in a noisy haze of transmission, and about dust, noise and over-saturation. Kane conveys all of these ideas with little thought for technique, instead putting all of his energy into, as he puts it, 'Quality of the sound, over quality of the sound.' His disregard for any 'proper' recording techniques leaves Sublunar with waves tape hiss, buried details and sounds warped beyond recognition. Unlike other work Kane is known for there is a strong sense of rhythm on this album. Mechanical, yet natural, beats pulse in and out of time, simultaneously washed away and restructured by pulling the tail end of tape echoes forward into the mix emphasizing their warm, analogue flaws and giving the album a semi-structured feel, like the backbone of a long-dead creature buried in the earth. Sublunar is Kane running free in his studio and, quite characteristically, utilizing nearly everything he can touch as an instrument; from grimy 78's, uncovered from his grandfather's shed, to early drum machines and analogue synthesizers, reel-to-reel recorders and anything within arm's reach that can be hit, plucked, or bowed. Kane has a wonderful talent of turning his immediate world into a soundtrack for existence that speaks on a near-primal level."

Artist:	DEUPREE, TAYLOR
Title:	Faint
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1073CD

"The clock is slowing and time is held like a breath as daylight falls from the horizon. Waking hours spin to a slow finale through a subconscious haze flecked with deep autumnal reds and quiet yellows. Memories gradually transform into moonlit ripples on a lake until the shadows emerge and slither across the surface of the water. I shift my body weight to the other side of where I lay. A distant radio hisses like wind through dead grasses as I move past crisp woodland branches that snap and crack as I seek a place of shelter. Hundreds of unseen eyes, hidden behind tree trunks and bracken, curiously trace my movement. I crouch down to rest as a hare approaches and briefly stops to tilt her head to make eye contact with me. I hold my breath and my feet and fingers sink into the decaying soil. My balance shifts and my tired eyelids open for a moment. Turning my head I see an opening close by partially masked by shadows. I count silently to myself and then cautiously venture out into this unknown open space. Here the snow-covered ground rises above me in ascending steps arcing through the plains. As my breath slows I follow the faint constellations of star clusters that hang buoyantly above me. I am softly breathing and almost asleep, unsure of where I am. Cresting the hill the sound of running water carries me back into the trees once more. I'm enticed by glistening droplets of near-frozen dew on the fallen logs that conceal the singing insects residing on the woodland floor. I pull tightly on my bedclothes as warm harmonic tones ease across my frost-kissed ears until broken twigs underfoot break my state of slumber. Back now, my pillow is familiar and warm. The tiny fraction of time between waking and sleep, with no distinct perception of reality is a moment to be held and absorbed for as long as possible. It is the ontologically fleeting moment of the present, as our heavy eyelids close and our pulse slows, that is the inspiration inside the music of Faint, the new album on 12k by Taylor Deupree."

Artist:	MARSEN JULES
Title:	The Endless Change of Colour
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 1074CD

"The Endless Change of Colour exists somewhere between our future and the mistakes and accidents we've made along the way. It is a celebration of both the system and the unexpected. Marsen Jules' latest work is a generative music piece upon a single phrase of an old jazz record split into three audio streams. These streams are transformed into loops which break the original instrumentation down into sound resembling pure waves, harmonics, and overtones. These loops play to different time signatures to create phasing patterns that continuously move and dance around each other in a constantly-evolving lattice of sound. Despite it being based on a very strict and limited set of rules the music could, in theory, be endless and ever-changing. Here, the listener's discovery is a quiet and engaged one. Ripples and pulses set within a field of color that sometimes feels like water, sometimes like air and sometimes like glass. Electronic tones hum with warmth and the softness of slumber. The patterns are there, familiar to our modern ears, but they're not always what they seem. The wandering mind steers this one along more than the generative grid on which it was based and The Endless Change of Colour becomes exactly as its title suggests."

Artist:	DEUPREE, TAYLOR
Title:	Northern
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.50
Catalog #:	12K 2009CD

"12k is re-issuing Northern in an expanded package with re-mixed and re-mastered audio. Not content to merely order a re-pressing of the same masters on hand at the CD manufacturer, Taylor Deupree set out to create what he calls the 'director's cut' of one of the most important CDs in his catalog. The idea was to open the now 2-year-old computer files to remix and remaster the tracks. Of course, over the course of years computers change, formats change, and Deupree found himself faced with missing plug-ins, errored sound files and other oddities that made working with the files difficult. What first seemed like roadblocks turned into a mission to work with what was there and re-do what was not. The result is a Northern that will, on the surface, seem quite similar to the original, however, listeners will hear new sounds, extended endings, shortened endings and most of all, an overall mix that presents these works with a new clarity and spaciousness. Mastering in the analog domain has given the work a new-found sense of delicacy and detail. A heavyweight cardboard wallet with debossed typography on the front cover. Inside are two pockets, one for the CD and one for a 24-page booklet of photography, credits, and lots of white space. All printing, as with the original, is in black and white. The inspiration behind Northern (including its music, title and photography) comes from Deupree's recent relocation from the heart of urban activity in Brooklyn to the tranquility of the forest in upstate New York. Inspired by nature and the winter during which it was created, Northern, like much of his recent work, explores Deupree's interest in stillness and a slowed sense of time. Through quiet textures, subtle movements, faint loops and echoes, it was his goal to create the type of music that comes naturally to him while also highlighting the input from his dramatic new surroundings. In contrast to the brazen repetition found on Stil., Northern's more ephemeral approach to Deupree's theme comes from looking at the stillness found outside of his studio windows: large, looming boulders, the softness of snow, and the hushed whisper of wind and fallen leaves; it is a world of countless tiny movements -- so active that an implied stillness results from the din it creates."

Artist:	STEINBRUCHEL
Title:	Mit Ohne
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$10.00
Catalog #:	12K 2010CD

"Eighteen-minute CD-EP, with EP pricing. Mit Ohne is a sound documentation of an audio/visual installation by Yves Netzhammer and Steinbrüchel. The installation entitled 'The Feeling Of Precise Instability When Holding Things' was part of the group exhibition 'Wohnträume/Wohnräume,' exhibited from 26.07. to 28.09.2003 at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich, Switzerland. The audio sections by Steinbrüchel were composed in sync with the visuals by Yves Netzhammer and succeed in translating and supporting the poetic vibrancy and slow morphing movements of the 3D rendered animation. For the exhibition, an atmospheric, fragile and detailed work was created involving a three-part projection and multichannel sound which conveys an abstract audio and visual approach to the environment surrounding us and the concept of a room itself. Each audio track takes the listener into a new form of 'room' and simple patterns of single tones are layered into dense movements surrounding the listeners space. The crystalline polished sounds form a highly precise environment which interacts with particles of melodies searching for space to breathe. Between the tracks there are no pauses, which gives the dedicated listener the feeling of being moved suddenly from one room to the other. Space and silence are sensitively woven into each other while forming an atmospheric and organic surrounding. Through the sound the feeling in every room changes from dark to bright, from large to small, from lonely to crowded, from silent to loud."

Artist:	BERG & STEPHEN VITIELLO, MOLLY
Title:	The Gorilla Variations
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 2013CD

"This is the first full-length collaborative release by Richmond, VA-based musician and sound artists Molly Berg and Stephen Vitiello. The CD title, Gorilla Variations came about from a request for a short-soundtrack from Éder Santos, a Brazilian video artist who Vitiello has worked with for 20-years on an uncounted number of projects. For Santos' recent video installation, Boxing The Game, Éder asked for a 3-minute soundtrack to accompany a video portrait of Idi Amin, a lonely gorilla housed in the Belo Horizonte Zoo. Molly and Stephen recorded a 40-minute improvisation, straight to a stereo hard disc recorder (no overdubs) with the intention of choosing 3-minutes to send to Santos, the bulk of the material from that session becoming the basis for this CD ('Variations' 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). The 'Variations' include layers of looped electric guitar, clarinet, voice, whistling and samples played from laptop and from Molly's Fischer Price cassette player. For Stephen this is a return to playing guitar, the first time in 6-years. A desire for melody to accompany voice was certainly an impulse to play again, as were recent collaborations with Machinefabriek and with Steve Roden, both of whose use of guitar offered useful reminders of what a nice thing it could be to play again. Additional tracks on the CD were performed, edited and performed again over a period of 6-months, drawing primarily on improvisations but also allowing for healthy doses of editing and processing in post-production. Field recordings from sites in and around Richmond are heard throughout. Recurring characters include the 14 hunting beagles in Stephen's neighbor's yard. Throughout, a shared desire to bridge songwriting with soundscape, melody with texture shape the intention of the project."

Artist:	YSATIS & TAYLOR DEUPREE, SAVVAS
Title:	Hourglass
Label:	12K
Format:	12"
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	12K 2015EP

"Instead of creating mere objects of aesthetic seduction, a new form of art is surfacing that invites audiences to transcend the limits of habitual perception. It seeks to shift the observer's attention from the physical objects that stimulate perception to the act of perception itself. Savvas Ysatis and Taylor Deupree were at it again in Deupree's country studio, about two years after the creation of 2007's The Sleeping Morning CD-EP. They gave themselves one week to see what they could create with the studio as a blank canvas, and the two emerged with Hourglass, four songs of carefully crafted pop-infused ambient music destined for release on 12" vinyl. Hourglass follows in The Sleeping Morning's footsteps with two instrumental pieces and two vocal songs created with a multitude of acoustic instruments, analog synthesizers and very little computer aided programming. The idea of treating the computer as a tape deck instead of a programming device was vital to their process as they surrounded themselves in the studio with as many noise-making devices as possible, shunning nothing if it could be used in interesting ways. 'Clouds' opens the A-Side with a crisp and spacious arrangement fueled by Ysatis' airy vocals and a warm, driving harmonica line over a bed of bass synths and looping autoharp. Utilizing room tones, microphones and treated guitar, 'Hourglass' is a distant, longing and highly textured escape into ambient territory that the duo knows so well. Side B opens with the 2nd 'poppish' song, 'Like Ice On A Summer's Day,' aptly titled for both its glistening and warm textures driven by acoustic guitar and the spacey swirls of a Jupiter-8. 'Somewhere On Earth' closes out the EP in an organic mood where the whole studio becomes a live, swirling world of improvised instruments and playful experimentation. Hourglass is the much anticipated next step for Ysatis and Deupree who have been collaborating since 1994 and have been known for embracing many different genres with their critically acclaimed catalog of releases. The Hourglass 12" is limited to 400 numbered copies and comes packaged in a beautifully printed full color jacket."

Artist:	DEUPREE, TAYLOR
Title:	Shoals (Edition)
Label:	12K
Format:	7"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	12K 2017EP

"Shoals (Edition) is a companion release to Taylor Deupree's 2010 full-length CD Shoals. This limited edition 7" record has a shortened version of 'A Fading Found' (from the album) on side A and a B-side called 'Sere.' While the 7" format only allows for brief works -- and in this case extracted from much longer compositions -- Edition creates intimate and physical vignettes into these highly acoustic and tactile recordings. Shoals (Edition) is packaged in 12k's 7" style with a heavy chipboard sleeve." Limited, numbered edition of 300 copies. On clear vinyl -- last copies of this now deleted edition.

Artist:	IELASI, GIUSEPPE
Title:	Tools
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$10.00
Catalog #:	12K 2018CD

"With a title such as Tools, Ielasi has set no preconceptions or metaphors with his music except for the idea to make an experimental (and somewhat ironic) play on the traditional 'DJ-tools' type of record that contains building blocks to allow a DJ to layer and combine with other records. In Ielasi's case, however, the twist is in the fact that these tracks, despite being simple and stark, are complex, captivating structures and explorations of physical objects, composed in a way that is becoming signature Ielasi, that becomes perfect experimental music for hazy summertime listening." Total playing time: 19:47.

Artist:	VA
Title:	Tasogare: Live In Tokyo
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	12K 2019CD

"Tasogare: Twilight. The light between day and night. Recorded live on April 10 and 11, 2010, Tasogare: Live in Tokyo documents the performances of five 12k artists at two temples in Tokyo, Japan. Komyoji Temple (April 10) saw the first-ever performance in Japan by Australia's Solo Andata, known for creating deep, textured music with found objects, homemade instruments and very little in the way of electronics or software tricks. The duo was joined by 12k veteran Sawako whose voice and delicate computer work were accompanied by guitarist Hofli and Moskitoo, who always plays the line between experimentalism and abstract pop. On April 11, the 12k weekend moved to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Jiyu Gakuen Myonichi-kan where Solo Andata performed again, this time with the improvisational beauty of the four-piece Minamo and label- founder Taylor Deupree whose travel-worn state musically played out in the most hushed and calming way. Tasogare: Live in Tokyo represents the importance of recording and keeping documents of performances seen and heard around the far corners of the globe -- a chance for many others to hear what went on a world away in live sets that can't, and won't be duplicated again. This edition also represents the adventures formed by artists connected by a label, sharing travels, food, photography, music and sleepless nights. It is the way in which each artist, in their own unique and completely different sounding way, contributes to a collective spirit."

Artist:	BERG/OLIVIA BLOCK/STEVE RODEN/STEPHEN VITIELLO, MOLLY
Title:	Moss
Label:	12K
Format:	CD
Price:	$10.00
Catalog #:	12K 2020CD

"Moss, is a live recording from a unique collaboration by sound artists/musicians Molly Berg, Olivia Block, Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello. This was a midnight concert at the beautiful Trinity Cathedral in San Jose, CA which was part of the 01SJ Biennial. Olivia and Steve had performed solo sets on the previous nights. The final night was meant to be a duo with Molly and Stephen but the opportunity to play with musicians/friends who we admire so much called out for an invitation to play together. As the set was entirely improvised, the billing really changed in our minds from being a duo with guests to becoming a quartet. The church itself was certainly inspiring, it's dark wood and clean dry acoustics. There was a very small but dedicated audience. No one slept and the church crew were able to amazingly quiet the rowdy revelers on the street for the duration of our set. Anyone familiar with any of the four musicians involved in this recording will know the level of craftsmanship and attention to sonic tactility that can be found within. They each exercise such incredible restraint, a feat difficult to pull off in an impromptu improvised session where musicians are often found competing for space, and allow for a sense of place to work its way through the quiet recording. 'Moss' breathes like a living being lying down to sleep -- a delicate wave of hushed field recordings, tape tracks and subtle electronics provides a bed for which Molly Berg's clarinet and voice (joined at times by Steve Roden) ebb and sway, allowed center- stage, in movements across the piece's 24+ minutes. Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello provide guitar (lap steel and electric, respectively) while Olivia Block manipulates the tapes, field recordings and electronics. Moss is a perfect example of how four like-minded friends and musicians can come together at a moment's notice and create, unrehearsed, a captivating and beautiful sonic landscape. The connection between them as artists is completely evident while at the same time disappearing into the background to allow the piece move like a singular body." Approx. 25 minute run time.

Artist:	DEUPREE & MARCUS FISCHER, TAYLOR
Title:	In A Place Of Such Graceful Shapes
Label:	12K
Format:	CD BOX/7"
Price:	$30.00
Catalog #:	12K 2021CD

"In the fading days of autumn in 2010, Taylor Deupree and Marcus Fischer, having become acquainted only earlier that year, set out on the sort of cross-country collaboration typically executed via technology and the web. However, having made a few rough sketches, they became disenchanted by the Internet and the machines between them, and quickly realized that the only way forward was via a plane ticket. Marcus left Portland for New York in February of 2011. The two met face-to-face for the first time, and without any hesitation embarked on 4 days of creating music and photographing the bitter cold and deep snow that covered the state. Buried in a sea of guitar pedals, looping boxes, analog synths, tape recorders, found objects and percussion instruments, Deupree and Fischer settled into the 12k studio and began crafting long passages of music, with no editing, into what would become the single composition on the CD. The creative energy didn't stop in the studio, however, as the frozen bay and snow-covered hills of a park along the Hudson River became the visual backdrop that brought the project to completion. The fruits of their collaboration could not be realized only with a single compact disc, and grew to become a boxed set containing a CD, a 7" record and a booklet of photographs. Titled In a Place of Such Graceful Shapes and limited to only 500 copies, the stark and austere package starts with a black box adorned with a monochromatic photograph of a winter landscape, with the artists' names and the album title only appearing in tiny print on the bottom of the box. Inside, the jacket of the 7" shines in a bright, warm yellow -- the only color in the landscape, provided by waterside grasses -- and contrasts with the black and white photography (taken by both Deupree and Fischer) inside the booklet. A warm grey tone ties everything together on the CD and outer box to balance the color palette."

Artist:	IKIN, KANE
Title:	Contrail
Label:	12K
Format:	7"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	12K 2022EP

"Contrail marks Kane Ikin's debut solo release outside of Solo Andata and while the same sense of dark, warm space is present he returns to his roots and focuses more on shoegaze guitar experimentations, lo-fi sample manipulations and warped field recordings. He recorded everything through and onto old technology -- aged analog consoles, reel-to-reel tape -- and all heard through a hazy science fiction filter. Steering away from the computer as a one-stop production tool, Kane's recording process and mindset behind these songs makes for soft and lush sound. Pillow tones hover quietly over guitar plucks and warmly-distorted drones. 'Sailing' finds a gentle, broken rhythm, made from found percussion looping underneath a bed of strummed acoustic and walls of inharmonic ambient texture while the title track bathes the listener in sleepy chords and touchable, organic field recordings. Contrail comes packaged as a limited edition 7" pressed onto clear vinyl and includes a download card for the two vinyl tracks as well as two additional songs, thus creating a 4-song EP." Hand-numbered edition of 300 copies.

Artist:	MATHIEU, STEPHAN
Title:	Coda (For WK)
Label:	12K
Format:	CD EP
Price:	$10.00
Catalog #:	12K 2024CD

"The new CD-EP (clocking in at 20 minutes exactly) from Stephan Mathieu is a coda to A Static Place (2011, 12k), created with his highly focused setup of two mechanical-acoustic gramophones and computer. Coda (For WK) is dedicated to the legendary 'quiet' pianist Wilhelm Kempff, whose 1927 recordings of Beethoven's 'Piano Sonata No. 26 Les Adieux' from a double 12" 78RPM set on Brunswick were used as input for an auto-generative process. Mathieu's process emphasizes the archaic beauty and texture of this early media while using the original tones for the body of this rich extended work that is both hypnotic and grainy; a journey into the essence of sound that can be appreciated on many levels. Mathieu has made this gramophone and computer setup a constant factor for his signature process of late and the work he produces becomes more deep and personalized with each release. The echoes of the past can be heard in these ghostly compositions and Mathieu's love for not only the process but the original music is clearly seen in his passion for the work. Coda (For WK) was first released by Minority Records on the vinyl version of A Static Place in an edition of 155 copies. 12k is presenting it here on CD, packaged in a sleeve that echoes the designs of the era that gave birth to this music."

Artist:	YSATIS & TAYLOR DEUPREE, SAVVAS
Title:	Origin
Label:	12K
Format:	LP
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	12K 2027LP

"In the distance, they thought they heard a noise. This sound, that lay upon the hum, that those who lived here incessantly heard, crept into their consciousness as their breath slowed. The search was drawing on, time was becoming physical. The landscape was brown, a reddish brown, dusty and warm, and the smoke that was always somewhere off in the distance was still not far enough away. The noises of everyday always seemed like layers of different lives sounded off by the people. Each voice a mystery, yet vital to the whole, but most knew nothing of the lineage. Sometimes the voices called louder when the sun was high, making them long for the cool earth beneath the soil. Memory forgets small details, it fades into now, and you can see that in their eyes. Each step to get here was felt; the earth under foot, and each breath taken was part of the price to pay. Tomorrow will bring another experience, another mystery. But even the tiniest of ideas will set them out again; a hum, a crackle, a reflection. This is where it will continue as they search for the origin. Origin is the latest album from long-time collaborators Savvas Ysatis and Taylor Deupree. Released as a 12" LP Origin sounds quite unlike anything they've done in the past after nearly 20 years of releases together. Cryptic, noisy and warm, Origin searches for details in the layers."

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