Browse by Label: HUUME RECORDINGS (GERMANY)

Artist:	VLADISLAV DELAY
Title:	The Four Quarters
Label:	HUUME RECORDINGS (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	HUUME 005CD

Vladislav Delay (aka Luomo and Uusitalo) is a techno producer and one of the most highly-regarded Finnish innovators in experimental music and especially with the method referred to as clicks and cuts. The Four Quarters is his third release on his own Huume label, not counting his releases under his alter-ego Luomo. The longer, more ambient aspects of his approach were revealed through releases on Chain Reaction (Multila), Mille Plateaux (Entain, Anima) and Staubgold (Naima). This solo record continues the Delay tradition of intriguingly moody motifs in his most personal and intimate recording to date. Having become slightly sensitive and critical towards "electronic" music in some way, the composer challenged himself and set a goal to create an "electronic" album he'd like to hear and listen to. While ignoring labels and sub-genres and concentrating on sound and music instead, something of a personal revelation was experienced while producing The Four Quarters; for after having escaped the electronic sounds and his recent musical past for some time now it felt refreshing and inviting to go back to where it all had begun some ten years ago. A quest to find music not yet heard. This time around, though, it was possible for him to paint the picture with the exact colors he wanted; to realize his vision in sound and beyond. The soundtrack of Vladislav Delay. Music for the humans. As the title suggests, there are four lengthy pieces of music being offered for more than casual listening. During the making of this music, the utmost care was taken to create something for the pure pleasure of it, and nothing was protected or kept sacred, and no over-thinking or analyzing ever took over the artist. As always, Vladislav Delay is on the look-out for new and surprising elements, sounds and arrangements, and it might be that on The Four Quarters the aspect of sound design is taken to the furthest limits imaginable amongst all his works. The result is the unmistakable, warm sound of Vladislav Delay.

Artist:	DOLLS, THE
Title:	The Dolls
Label:	HUUME RECORDINGS (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	HUUME 006CD

The Dolls are Vladislav Delay aka Luomo (Finland), Antye Greie aka AGF (Germany) and Craig Armstrong (Scotland). Huume Recordings are happy sponsors of this collaboration between three solo musicians, admirers and explorers. Craig Armstrong (Massive Attack, Moulin Rouge soundtrack) had heard AGF's (Antye Greie) music and became a fan. He invited Antye to sing on his second solo album, As If To Nothing, and they performed a few successful shows together, with Vladislav Delay as central groupie and sometime performer. Armstrong later recorded a few of the songs off his solo piano album Piano Works in Berlin at AGF/Delay's home studio, dipping into idea-sharing and collaboration. They recorded hours of piano played by Armstrong, bringing in their computers and various studio toys. And at times when the machines didn't do their thing anymore, then the piano itself became a platform for something new, going well beyond "treated piano." The Dolls believe in the soothing qualities in music, both as a catalyst for themselves while making it as well as for soothing frayed nerves for the modern condition. But this trio of authors also believe in the child-like catharsis of music-making, even to the point of nonsense. Using drums, piano and vocals, The Dolls take on character-roles, tell stories, and share intimate personal memory, transforming the pieces into multi-layered musical fantasy. Different generations with various backgrounds, musical ideas and visions meet here and mix-and-match there, leaving behind something you haven't heard before. This is an archive recording of a surprising and uncompromised musical event. Bliss.

Artist:	UUSITALO
Title:	Tulenkantaja
Label:	HUUME RECORDINGS (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	HUUME 007CD

Berlin-based Vladislav Delay (aka Sasu Ripatti, Luomo) releases a second techno album under his Uusitalo disguise. Each track is inspired by Finnish literature, and is a tribute to his author father and grandmother. The title of the album, Tulenkantaja (a flame bearer), is taken from the name of a radical literary group in Finland in the early '40s to which his grandmother was a part of. Delay takes the best parts of Cologne and Berlin and transforms them into a method of storytelling that incorporates organic beats and rhythms close to the heart. On Tulenkantaja, Delay plays around with strange time signatures so subtly that you wouldn't notice if it wasn't 4-to-the floor but maybe 5 or 6 or 9-and-a-half. He creates poems with beats, telling stories with those intricate rhythms and bass lines. He invites interesting sounds that include living elements, mistakes, drums and field recordings. He synthesizes the synthesizer, and says goodbye to the drum machine looping the same loop and instead plays the loop himself. A true rhythm fanatic, on this record he searches for the patterns and rhythms more than ever -- they might be more simple or at least more straightforward and direct than on his Vladislav Delay albums. On this record he demonstrates not only his unique studio and production skills, but also the ability to speak and express himself highly in musical terms. On Tulenkantaja, he makes techno which may not be techno at all. Except that it is for him. There are excerpts from his father and grandmother in the booklet included with the CD, as well as a beautiful graphic design to enhance the experience made by long-time collaborator Kaisa Kemikoski. This time techno has a story to tell.

Artist:	LUOMO
Title:	Paper Tigers
Label:	HUUME RECORDINGS (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	HUUME 010CD

Vladislav Delay is finally back as Luomo. Widely regarded as one of dance music's most forward-thinking producers, Luomo has recorded for Kinetic/BMG and Force Tracks, done remixes for DFA and Massive Attack and started up his own label called Huume. Paper Tigers is the new Luomo, it is out on his own Huume label, it is brilliantly lush and expansive dance music, and it is here to stay. As the trends of electronic music shift like Saharan sands, there are a few releases which stand as classics. One of those belongs to Luomo: Vocalcity (2000). An impossibly deep record with a smoky vision of the dancefloor, Vocalcity did to house music what Aphex Twin's Classics did to techno -- it accentuates the genre's most developed signifiers until it became art. For Luomo, House music is an aquatic experience, vocals are edited, beats are environments and atmosphere extends outward past the solar system and inwards towards the ear canal, until the two meet at your feet. He continued to pioneer the new House sound with the release of the smooth and sexy The Present Lover (2003) -- but Paper Tigers calculates a future house. House music that is delicately crafted from disco-ball shards. House music that filters vocals through space-age parabolics. House music that transcends the dancefloor and leaps into your eardrums. That Luomo is Finnish cannot be overlooked. Brought up on sound as art, away from the super-clubs of Ibiza or London, he brings a fresh perspective. Using the English lyrics of a famous Finnish jazz vocalist (Johanna Iivanainen), the vocals sound practically Martian. Her technique is signature Luomo and here the magic amplifies on tracks like "The Tease is Over" and "Really Don't Mind." Ambient house begins to enter his pallette as well with songs like the title track and "Make Believe." Luomo also employs the vocals of Wire magazine cover star AGF (Antye Greie) on one track. So Vlad is back as Luomo, and it is as though he has never left. House music will never be the same... until he returns... again.

Artist:	LUOMO
Title:	Really Don't Mind
Label:	HUUME RECORDINGS (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$8.50
Catalog #:	HUUME 011EP

Huume Recordings presents the first 12" single "Really Don't Mind" from the third Luomo (Vladislav Delay) album Paper Tigers. The release includes the album version of the song and an exclusive vinyl-only club mix. On "Really Don't Mind," vocals are courtesy of Johanna Ilvanainen, a long-time collaborator and one of the most well-known jazz singers in Finland. This first single from the album offers a long-evolving song with a creative arrangement. The song could be chart-hitting hyper-pop if so wanted but in Luomo's world it turns into original and experimental dancefloor beauty few dare to make, or can think of. In addition, the B-side features a brave and minimal club version for the adventurous.

Artist:	UUSITALO
Title:	Karhunainen
Label:	HUUME RECORDINGS (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	HUUME 014CD

Berlin-based Vladislav Delay (aka Sasu Ripatti, Luomo) releases a third techno album under his Uusitalo disguise. Influenced by and named after his late father's well-known theatre play, Karhunainen (Bear Woman) Delay continues to search for his rhythmic roots. With his groove offerings from the past he often resembled an undertaker at a disco. This new album might change some of those impressions, with more up-front beats than he has ever created before. In spite of being noted for experimental sounds and compositions not yet heard, some of his warmest feelings are reserved for the drum beat. This deep-rooted loyalty to rhythms, even though hidden and strangled in most of his productions, is about to come to the surface again. And above all else, he is a rhythm passionista, a drum collector, a cymbal maker -- a true percussion freak. The new album consists of 10 songs, 8 of which are dedicated to the infamous bass drum. In an act of conspicuous non-consumption, he chose to only use analog equipment on this album and leave all digital sound processing out, which explains the warm and full sound of the album. His rhythmic fortune is used to great effect on Karhunainen -- he quite wonderfully replaces the drum machines on more than a few tracks with a drum stick and anything else he could hit, be it random metal surfaces or his young daughter's toys. To complete the album, there's hauntingly beautiful tracks with cinematic beginnings and endings. This is a mix of traditionalism and futurism, coming through in the song titles, artwork and design. The artwork is by Kaisa Kemikoski, but the booklet also introduces another aspect of the producer himself; he's a keen photographer and his private collection captures the world around him, making up the raw material for the 16-page booklet.

Artist:	VLADISLAV DELAY
Title:	Anima
Label:	HUUME RECORDINGS (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	HUUME 015CD

Huume Recordings re-release of Vladislav Delay's (Luomo) classic Mille Plateaux album, originally released in 2001, including a previously-unreleased alternate version. Anima is an opus of over 60 minutes, a continuous mix that reveals itself beyond audio design. Delay succeeds in developing his new, atypical methods of production: rather than familiar electronic traits of looping sounds, Anima continually develops in an organic flow, thus giving the interpretation that perhaps the music is less a digital excursion and more an instrumental development. Vladislav Delay is setting on potentials, effects and impulses of the never-heard: a new world of audio. Furthermore: the word "anima" is a psychological term meaning "an inner feminine part of the male personality." Both the artwork and the music, demure and beautiful, perfectly reflect these qualities. The original song is indexed as a single 62-minute track, a continuous flow that constantly, unpredictably shifts gears while retaining recurrent themes and coherence. The sound set is a vast, atmospheric sonic sandbox of Arctic synth pads, low-end blips and throbs, fragments and smears of fractured audio and an expansive selection of percussive minutiae. Melody and rhythm are sometimes more implied than expressed, allowing your brain to fill in the blanks, and at other times they coalesce effortlessly, flawlessly and gracefully all on their own. The recording marked a decisive change and break in Delay's production style from programming/sequencing to playing live; the whole album was played from beginning to finish in full takes, instrument by instrument and sound by sound with only a minimum of editing or post-production. The original recording is joined by the author's previously-unreleased favorite version of Anima at a slower speed. Edited and produced in 2008, it's a collage/remix of the original, offering a different view of this important piece of electronic music.

Artist:	LUOMO
Title:	Convivial
Label:	HUUME RECORDINGS (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	HUUME 016CD

Sasu Ripatti (aka Vladislav Delay, Uusitalo) is the Finnish producer and head writer behind the project Luomo, his musical outfit that has redrawn the very boundaries of what "house music" can achieve. Convivial is his fourth album as Luomo. In addition to long-time collaborator Johanna Iivanainen, Convivial features a semi-underground star cast of collaborators such as Cassy, Sascha Ring (Apparat), Jake Shears (Scissor Sisters), Robert Owens, Sue-C and one anonymous singer who hides behind the name Chubbs. The album in question is not so much an assembly as a series of commentaries, interspersed with contemporaneous studio stylings and entries from travel diaries he kept while working on the album. For the first time there is a real collaboration with the singers; where he didn't write all the lyrics himself but left plenty of room for other lyrics and musical ideas. Cassy participates on a dancefloor-friendly song, while Sascha Ring makes a touching appearance singing a semi-ballad. Jake Shears adds a touch of glamour, while Sue-C takes lead vocals. Classic house vocalist Robert Owens gets a soul treatment, while Johanna Iivanainen vocalizes in experimental pop form. Aside from great production, the charm of listening to Luomo's music lies in his ability to put people at ease even when he doesn't share a common language or theme with them, with vocals becoming like instruments among synthesizers, effects and other machines. More than anything, his Kafka-esque productions come with a wonderful petulance that bring more depth and meaning to dance music in the bigger picture. The Luomo project is nothing less than a great tragedian, holding a mirror before a music society that sometimes would like to hear less stories. Nevertheless, he finds the dance music medium most suitable for his pop explorations, which has earned marked respect for its wide-ranging catalog of unique no-frills releases, with Convivial certainly being no exception.

Artist:	LUOMO
Title:	The Present Lover
Label:	HUUME RECORDINGS (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	HUUME 70202CD

Re-issue of Finn-turned-Berliner Luomo's (aka Vladislav Delay) now-classic second album, originally released by the Force Tracks/BMG label in 2003 (licensed to the Kinetic label in the U.S. -- that version is now deleted). The debut of his Luomo alias began with Vocalcity (2000), a pared-down masterpiece of soulful subtlety that teased the high-gloss garb of vocal house into a sexy skitter of glitchcraft and hazy echo. Despite its assured flair and roots in Delay's familiar sound palette, it retained the investigative, experimental spirit of an outsider's perspective, at once deeply committed to the conventions of house and subversive of them. Though Delay still professes his outsider status, the scrubbed sheen that marks The Present Lover rattled listeners expecting a return to more ethereal dancefloors. His sophomore effort infuses the preceding strands of dubby, minimal house with a rich vein of sophisticated pop. Whereas Vocalcity whittled the vocals of house down to filtered rasps coiled into sensuously ambiguous ciphers, The Present Lover presses them to the forefront to simultaneously polarizing and mesmeric effect -- flirting with the trappings of disco excess, seducing house's most unabashed populist tendencies. "Visitor" possesses gauzy synths and erratic bass pops that wrap around breathy female vocals, "So You" charts a similar course atop a tide of off-beat hi-hats and rubber band bass that propels a stream of warm dub echo as the sole refrain. "Cold Lately" builds momentum from a procession of clipped vocal fragments and atomized bass that split and suspend the assuredness of the 4/4 pulse into tense pauses in sympathy with its haunted vocals. "What Good" withholds its floor-rattling hooks for what feels like an aching eternity while Delay snips its introductory pleas into increasingly desperate blips before unleashing a tide of anthemic choruses and anchored kick drum thump. As the final vocal hook of "Shelter" detaches from its bass foundations and ascends into infinite reverb, there's something that suggests that Delay has refined the core elements of both classic house and its minimal reincarnations and wandered into something newer and bolder. The Present Lover is neither crass genre exercise nor blind tribute, but something altogether more imaginative and strange. It's simultaneously accessible and deeply mysterious, a set of slinky exteriors wrapped around a spiky and desperate center as nervously detached as the album cover model's emptily lustful gaze. Whether a brilliant revision of what has come before or a template for things to come, The Present Lover is as taut and sexy as a black dress and as tantalizing as a half-heard whisper on the dancefloor -- immediate, intriguing, essential.

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