Browse by Label: SCAPE (GERMANY)

Artist:	FRIEDMANN & THE NU DUB PLAYERS, BURNT
Title:	Do Not Legalize It
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$8.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 003EP

"Though the five trusty deckhands that make up the Nu Dub Players are only household names to those whose investigations of the underground have permitted them a peep below the surface, the arrival of all five of them on Great Barrier Island (New Zealand) in January 1996 caused immediate geothermal rumbles all around the musical world... Programmer, producer and engineertician Burnt Friedman is the mucousy substance that holds the highly creative and temperamental strands of the Nu Dub Players together. Having made his name as conductor for top pop combos Drome, Nonplace Urban Field and Flanger (collaboration with Atom Heart), one could imagine that this project (with the intense demands of the individual members) could be a trying one for the Kolonic cut crusader. But it is within the dub-soaked melange of misappropriated mischief and endless echo that the smouldering one is most at home. Reining in the individual skills of each of his semi-psychotic sidekicks and channeling them through the mixing desk Burnt ensures that the Nu Dubs highly skilled musical mutterings don't turn into a pile of muso wank."

Artist:	FRIEDMAN & NU DUB PLAYERS, BURNT
Title:	Just Landed
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 004CD

Re-issue of Burnt Friedman & The Nu Dub Players' debut album from February 2000. This CD includes three bonus tracks from the 12" Do Not Legalize It! (previously only available on vinyl). Recorded at a secret sonic hide-away on a Great Barrier Island just off the New Zealand coast Just Landed is the masterwork of five gunslingers of the gargantuan groove: Burnt Friedman (programmer, producer and engineertician), Crucial Guenther (brain surgeon of boom and bass bandito from Berlin), DJ Booth (and his phenomenal home made effects-in-a-suitcase-rig), Bernie The Bolt (drums n' perc.) and Cousin of the Sausage Smearer (gat twanger and meat meister extraordinaire). Having made his name as conductor for top pop combos Nonplace Urban Field, SMC and Flanger, those who associate his work with plunderous programming, brittle electronics and Latin-tinged lullabies may be surprised. Just Landed is a dub-soaked melange of misappropriated mischief and endless echo. Complex rhythms from Bernie The Bolt and his feverish funhouse of hot jerk perc. collide with the inter-planetary thud of low-end loosehead, Guenther. The shadowy C.O.S.S. rubs tangential tones while DJ Booth the revolutionary record-changer reveals hidden talents at the keys. Friedman harnesses the wild energy and wickedness concocting a rub-a-dub relief that belongs in a different class to all the would-be King Scrubbys, Prince Clammys and Sad Professors. Feel free to fraternize, socialize, scrutinize or disorganize but please don't even think about attempting to sterilize, neutralize, terrorize or legalize!

Artist:	VA
Title:	Staedtizism
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 005CD

Full length CD version with mostly exclusive tracks, from: Gramm, Vladislav Delay, Sun Electric, To Rococo Rot & I-Sound, Kit Clayton, Pole, Trash Aesthetic, Thomas Fehlmann, The Modernist, Burnt Friedman & the Nu Dub Players. "Departure. Here is what it takes. Headphones. A travelcard for your local transport authority. And a Walkman, preferably a digital one. Now, go to the railway station and look for suburban railway services. Choose an old, rusty train. They normally depart from the one and only platform that hasn´t been redecorated yet. Take a seat by the window. As the train slowly leaves the station, press start. Watch the sun go down. The next station is Staedtizism. 'Nonsense', you mumble to yourself, as the train leaves behind the shiny inner city. 'Staedtizism...what the hell does that mean?' You´ll soon begin to understand. As a matter of fact, you suddenly realize that what you hear fits what you see. As the train rumbles towards suburbia, you see powerplants, scrapyards, old, run down factories and spooky housing projects. Meanwhile, you listen to stories on your walkman which mysteriously circle around the same things. With Staedtizism, Scape, the Berlin-based outlet for dub-influenced electronic music presents a soundtrack for an urban state of mind. Staedtizism is a result of research. A piece of sonic evidence of what happens when musicians try to re-think and to re-design all they ever knew about reverb, delay, deepness, distance, width, melody, melancholy and successfully set to music their lives in cities."

Artist:	JELINEK, JAN
Title:	Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 007CD

Classic 2001 release, repressed. "Specific ideas require specific labels. Jan Jelinek releases a new album on the Stefan Betke/Pole-label ~Scape and we welcome a new concept: 'loop-finding-jazz-records'. Jan Jelinek? You know, the production link no 1 between SND and Blaze, the human sound poetry generator any computer, be it Amiga or the Mac Cube, would be honoured to work with. With the aid of his sampler Jelinek has developed an exclusive music discovery approach, building on three central themes: jazz, the loop finding modulation wheel and moiré. Jazz sequences from the '60s and '70s are cut up into second-long loops, shifted by the wheel of the sampler and combined into spacial arrangements with maximum depth of field, re-creating the notorious moiré-effect, this ground-breaking painting technique of creating three dimensional space in a plane without the classic tools of perspective. When Vasarély slightly tilted a few lines in a square grid it seems to flicker three-dimensionally. Similarily, when Jelinek uses his modulation wheel to twist linear loops, sounds dance into zero gravity. It´s just a little twist for Jelinek´s index finger and a large step for the grammar of crackle poetry. Should anyone enquire after the lyrical scope of clicks and cuts and glitches, 'loop-finding-jazz-records' will overwhelm them like Jericho's trumpets. The more gentle, the more insistent. And the initial concept will be forgotten amongst excited listening surprise."

Artist:	VA
Title:	Staedtizism 2
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 008CD

"No idea why the best time of the day for a good dream seems to be dawn. However, these short periods of time, periods of transit, during which the day transforms from dark into light, from silence into noise or the other way around, are very special moments of our daily 24 hours. It almost seems like the city, just for a moment, has gone offline, in order to prepare for the things to come. Being offline is wonderful. The computer has been put to sleep, your favorite record is playing, you look out of the window to catch a quick snapshot of the city, a little picture of endless rest and calmness. A picture for those moments when the city suddenly is slower than you and you, by pushing an imaginary button, can freeze a whole road. Listening to Staedtizism 2, it almost seems like all the producers managed to make music for exactly these personal field trips. Short soundtracks for you only, engaging like the last remaining piece in the puzzle of the daily reset. As far as new music is concerned, a lot of things have happenend since the release of the first Staedtizism compilation about a year ago. Therefore, the second part of the compilation series features tracks by artists working in the currently most interesting fields. Their visions just fit our times. For Staedtizism 2, projects like system, the Danish supergroup with Thomas 'Opiate' Knak and Anders 'Dub Traktor' Remmer joined forces with scape as did Low Res and John Tejada out of the Californian Plug Research camp. Even Plug Research founder Alan Avanessian, supported by Dntel and his father J.A. Tamborello (saxophone) is on there under the pseudonym Headset. Process from Brighton, well known for his works on FatCat and Traum, Beige, Leaf Records' sensation from 2000, Sad Rockets (Matador) and unknown artists like Nolte and Bus they all made their computer-based dawn reveries available to Scape. In such a context, musical backup from Scape InHouse stars Burnt Friedman & The Nu Dub Players is as natural as the fact that this international group of artists used very different strategies in order to bring the fundamentals of the Staedtizism idea like reset, calmness or rest to life. The crackling fascination of noisy chords (System) meet friendly yet eccentric ideas of House (John Tejada), microscopic and highly accurate experiments in Jazz (Low Res) and the Reich-influenced deconstruction of an electric piano (Kit Clayton).Once again Scape offers a very special view on the city and what makes the place so special. No doubt that it will be possible to have better dreams that way every time when, at dawn, the city belongs to you. Welcome to Staedtizism 2."

Artist:	POLE
Title:	R
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 009CD

"R is the new album by Berlin-based producer and Scape founder Stefan Betke aka Pole. R stands for Room because central to the album are 'Raum 1' and 'Raum 2', two tracks produced in late 1996. Around this source of inspiration, all other tracks are clustered -- formally re-workings by Burnt Friedman, Kit Clayton and Pole himself, but all of them totally new pieces. R stands for Rework as well because while Burnt Friedman worked on the two original 'Raum'-tracks Pole got inspired to try his own hands at the old material. Besides Friedman's and Kit Clayton's contributions the result was four new Pole-tracks, all centered around the idea of room and space. At the same time, all 'reworkers' studied the source material, entered into an intense relationship, re-modelled it and thereby transformed the tracks into something decidedly unique. R also stands for Redefine because it's Pole's first collaboration with another artist -- his versions of the 'Raum'-tracks were recorded with D. Meteo (Submission) on guitar which wasn't easy as Betke says but nevertheless emphasizing the new horizons the collaboration has opened up and the creative potential to be reaped from collaborative production and bilateral feedback, contrasted by initial thoughts of 'compromise' or 'restraint' that often occur when a solo artist decides to work with other musicians. This influx of new ideas as well as the input by Burnt Friedman and Kit Clayton turn R into an extraordinary journey through sound."

Artist:	BUS
Title:	Westen
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$8.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 010EP

"After a sneak preview on Staedtizism 2, the Scape compilation assembling a wide range of well-known electronic artists touched by jazz harmonies and dub approaches, Bus, a project by Daniel Meteo and Tom Thiel, has devised a unique formula to expand this medium. Like a chemical reaction they have synthesized a brand new alloy from pop and dub, leaving no obvious traces of the original input. Bus deal in subtleties: you won't find direct stylistic references or even discernible samples on either 'Westen' or 'Spanish Techno'. Preferring the file to the crowbar dub marks the boundaries of soundscapes where slickly grooving, atypical noises adopt the rhythmic patterns of a hiphop beat and undoubtedly reggae-based guitar picks merge into subliminal streams. This is music which, as Meteo suggests, would feel at home on a club's second dance floor -- a place less concerned with forced exhilaration or the need to dance, but with fresh and open listening approaches. AG Penthouse's (aka Jörg Burger & Antonelli Electric aka Popup) HDR-remix, too, is reminiscent of a chemical treatment: the recovery and isolation of elements. While Bus prefer to hide pop references, AG Penthouse do no shy away from experimenting with its heart-wrenching qualities, creating space pop more than a Cologne-Düsseldorf divide away from similar approaches favoured by the likes of Air."

Artist:	PEKLER, ANDREW
Title:	Station To Station
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 011CD

"On this, his first album under his own name, Andrew Pekler deals with the possibilities of combining the precise funk of machines with the unpolished playing of human hands. With an appreciation for the early jazz/electronics experiments of Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis and Sun Ra, but also with an interest in the use of sounds devoid of obvious musical-historical references, Andrew Pekler offers an interesting variation on the theme of man/machine interplay. Until now Andrew, a California native living in Heidelberg, was known for his involvement in Sad Rockets (Source/ Matador) and Bergheim 34 (Klang Elektronik). His relocation to Berlin in the Fall of 2001 brought with it not only a change of scenery but also new acquaintances, contacts and musical interests all of which combined, inspired the making of Station to Station. While tracks like 'First Snow, Last Year' suggest the influence of Berlin´s urban dub history, 'Manchild' is centered around the inspired saxophone playing of Elliott Levin. A veteran of Cecil Taylor's big band, Levin is among Philadelphia´s most free spirited jazz musicians, having played with members of the Sun Ra Arkestra and in various improve and experimental settings. This process of retro-fitting a track onto an improvised performance, (done on several pieces here) is indicative of the changeover from recording in real time onto analog tape, as with Andrew Pekler´s previous Sad Rockets records, to the programming of tracks and hard disk recording, (and the range of possibilities this brings with it) on this album. Similar to the music of Burnt Friedman, the tracks here break up the repetitiveness of their grooves with tiny details and variations. The somewhat static norms of loop based music are relaxed through the use of 'imprecise', (but not random) accents. The music does in fact travel from station to station, but along the way takes detours, shortcuts and a few surprising turns.?"

Artist:	VA
Title:	Instrumentals - Staedtizism 3
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 012CD

"With an ongoing diversion, HipHop adopted elements from all kinds of music and, at the same time, heavily influenced other musical genres as well. Within what we call electronic music these day, HipHop has a strong, solid standing, not only because people do not waste their energy any longer with 'genre-watching', but are interested in all kinds of music. More importantly, there is a growing number of artists who approach HipHop from a completely new direction. To dedicate the third part of Scape's Staedtizism compilation series to HipHop, is nothing but a logical Step. After Dub (part 1) and Jazz (part 2), it is up to HipHop, both a lifestyle and a musical genre open to all kinds of influences and references, to distill the perfect Scape sound. Open to all directions, it is easy for the artists involved to find staring-points creating their very own blends of HipHop. Somewhere in between Jazz and weird funk, A. Pekler, Jan Jelinek & Bus are floating along. Cappablack from Japan and John Tejada, who teams up with D. Styler, fan an earthquake full of Scratch-inspired Oldschool attacks. Kit Clayton's special brew of CutUp-R&B-Hop challenges Timbaland and, at the same time, invites him to hang out with him in San Francisco. In the meantime, Thomas Fehlmann is more interested in the relaxing power of the break and how beautifully crafted dub chords can work with it best, Deadbeat from Montreal approaches HipHop from a much darker angle and takes advantage from what he has learned from minimal techno. Process then hits the brakes quite heavily, deletes a couple of sounds, just to make sure that his slow-motion jazz fits on top of the break. Gazoo aka Dan Bell follows this strategy, although he spells jazz with a Detroit-dawn-technobassdrum. Antonelli Electr. joins in with a cute little technogroove which makes everybody go out and sit in the sun. In the meantime, System are doing research on HipHop in Danish minimalism and win the Nobel Prize. Staedizism 3 is the perfect, long awaited showcase of new HipHop."

Artist:	SYSTEM
Title:	------
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 013CD

"System are three producers from Kopenhagen, Denmark, who not only have been close friends for a long time but can also look back on a very successful joint musical history. They decided to start a new project, dedicated to special musical likings all the three of them share. While their other common project 'Future 3' over the years turned more and more into popmusic, Knak (known as well as Opiate and producer of the important tracks on the recent Björk album Vespertine), Remmer (aka Dub Tractor) and Skaaning (aka Acoustic) realized, besides a big variety of other influences, a common love for Dub and the sonic trademarks of this music: Reverb, Echo & Bass. Dub is a starting point, a always returning reference, the base for System´s very modern, experimental sound, guided by a love for reduced, warmth full of digital static, motivated by an overwhelming interest for new software tools and driven by the gift of using these new technical possibilities in a very subtle way and integrating them into the sonic spectrum. Let's be honest here: Can you think of musical experiments of that kind which actually have such a flow?"

Artist:	JELINEK, JAN
Title:	Avec The Exposures
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$8.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 014EP

"Jan Jelinek celebrates. He celebrates the discovery of straightforward directness. No more abstract concepts, no more hide-and-seek between glitchy hisses. Jan Jelinek invents Jan Jelinek. This is music like a passport picture, a full-frontal approach. Exposures. New contours emerge. If his Farben series was a paraphrased homage to soul, 'Jan Jelinek - Avec The Exposures' stretches from quiet smoulders to a Brazilian exuberance that catches us unawares -- but on the right footing. How present and movement-inducing his music can be! Of course, Jelinek stays Jelinek and his crackling exploration of limbo states remains just that. But the evolutionary leeway lent to melodies and bass grooves is enormous, samples unashamedly betray their heritage. On 'Jan Jelinek - Avec The Exposures' sources are no longer anonymised in his atomiser, they are allowed to colonize the dancefloor as fully-fledged characters. With Jelinek in the middle. And his reaction? He sings, sings happily to himself."

Artist:	DEADBEAT
Title:	Wild Life Documentaries
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 015CD

"Scott Montheit, aka Deadbeat, has been an inner circle part of Montreals (Canada) very lively and inspiring new electronic music scene since the beginning. His first records were put out by Hautec and Revolver from 1998. He has longstanding artistic and friendly relations to Akufen, Jeff Milligan and the Mutek festival. His scape debut album 'wild like documentaries' delves deep into the heritage of Dub: the entire idiomatic richesse, the aural trade marks, the delays, the white noise, the tape echo, all the compressions and manipulations the history of dub has produced have found their place in his work, were used, re-interpreted, re-invented and transferred into the here and now. Technical finesse is never pushed to the forefront, though, because Deadbeat relies much more on the traditional roots elements of classic dub, their timeless soul and very own nostalgia. On Wild Life Documentaries sound experimentation joins the courage for direct, emotional statements. Deadbeat blends everything into a dub epic, a suite of nevertheless autonomous tracks, carried by a relaxed, organic warmth, the soul inherent in all true dub music."

Artist:	JELINEK WITH THE EXPOSURES, JAN
Title:	La Nouvelle Pauvreté
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 016CD

Awaiting repress. "Jan Jelinek has always enjoyed the play with concept and consistency -- in the reassessment of soul music phrases (as Farben), reduced flirtations with the dancefloor (as Gramm), or by shifting linear loop fragments on his first Scape album Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records. After a number of consistent and concept based works, a productive urge to create a heterogeneous album, with equally varied references and tracks, has now resulted in La Nouvelle Pauvreté. The term is borrowed from a Belgian anti-fashion movement who once countered the overladen 80s pompousness with deliberately angular, prudish creations. In the search for depth and true pathos Jelinek turns his production tools into pure means -- center stage is again taken by the actual material. Sources are no longer blurred, encoded or retouched, samples may betray their heritage, and even Jelinek's voice is allowed the part of an additional instrument. While Jelinek's previous explorative and sampling excercises were based on black music, house or dub, he now supplements these with a segment of musical history new to his compositions -- classic white rock, pop and folk. Playing with the means and structures of traditional music The Exposures act as his fictitious backing band, Jan Jelinek's alter ego and extended self, bolstered by the new, carefully introduced rock references."

Artist:	BUS FEAT. MC SOOM-T
Title:	Keep Life Right
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$8.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 018EP

"When, in 'Keep Life Right', she raps about disappointed love, loss of trust and realizing that the only person she can truly rely on is herself, she conveys the perspective of a woman whose serenity and wisdom is far more real than stereotypical role models in- and outside of the genre would like to make us believe. Soom-T's presence is strong throughout. Her presence remains noticeable even during the strictly instrumental tracks, as if listening in to ready herself for the next song. Perhaps bus play a version of dub that illuminates the other side of the coin -- definitely her agenda, too."

Artist:	BUS FEAT. MC SOOM-T
Title:	Middle Of The Road
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 019CD

"Whoever considers dub an invitation to either armchair or dancefloor will enter shaky ground with Middle of the Road, the new album by Berlin duo Bus. Here, in the middle lane, giving way on the left, overtaking on the right, rules are disregarded and accidents only a microsleep away. In the realm of Scape's characteristic tilde the coordinates of relational localization fail in the same way as Daniel Meteo and Tom Thiel disobey any directional marching orders. Instead they have chosen to cruise the Bermuda triangle of dub, minimal electronica and hiphop in a veritable craft, bursting the questionable airbag of attitude, ego and representation with their first stumbling beat. Bus do not stop at unmasking genre-typical poses, but move one step further. They collect all the tiny inconsistencies that unveil the desolate yet strong core of their own fragility, sometimes through a slightly wobbly beat, sometimes via brutally honest lyrics -- and always head for the limits. But don't worry -- the view remains enchanting, perhaps because it is so familiar. And the Bus dub, a warm engine, leads a likeable life of its own -- with small hiccups and endearing quirks. Spurred by this drive, armchair and dancefloor are soon forgotten -- and we step into the middle of the road, come what may. In their efforts to combine dub, minimal electronica and hiphop in one riff they have managed to win over strong vocal support from Glaswegian underground shooting star MC Soom-T -- the only woman to reach the finals of the recent 8 Mile MC Championships 2003. Soom-T employs a wrongly forgotten recitative style, voice full of sharp, credible femininity and demanding involvement far from the prevalent lady, bitch or girl patterns."

Artist:	TRIOSK MEETS JAN JELINEK
Title:	1 + 3 + 1
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 020CD

"Sydney-based jazz trio Triosk and Jan Jelinek from Berlin have opened up a common equation. In musical terms, their joint album 1+3+1 does not make 5, but only one thing: sense. And the title reflects their production method: Jelinek mails selected samples and textures to Australia, Triosk use these as a basis for composition and recording, the enhanced material then returns to Berlin for Jelinek to finalize. But the mileage covered does not become audible. In fact, the origin of their music seems to be tied to the moment of synchrony, in this case 'four different instruments multiplied by four different approaches make one sense', irrespective of causal or temporal interdependencies. This might make Triosk meets Jan Jelinek an alliance in entangled space (analogous to quantum physics), but it is the rarely audible magic of a resourceful crystalline musicality which fills the album with sophistication and clarity. Triosk and Jan Jelinek play together with eerie assurance and emphatic sensibility. An important feature of their music is the synchrony of events. Seemingly loose ends of separate figures join in a clear train of thought, conveying information not in succession, but simultaneously. In return, the listener is free to leave this complex world of sound and decide by himself to follow the bass line, piano or vibraphone, to concentrate on drum patterns or decrypt electronic textures. Archetypal, dissolving jazz elements correspond to repetitive patterns not known to the genre, electronics and acoustics circle each other but remain conjoined. A double helix begins to form, a musical strand of DNA whose individual elements, taken by themselves, might not make sense. But in the right place and order, read out in their entirety, they define not only life itself, but (in their sequences) also its individual features."

Artist:	DEADBEAT
Title:	Something Borrowed, Something Blue
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 021CD

"Deadbeat returns to Scape with the sequel to 2002's Wild Life Documentaries, a chronicle of the nine months leading up to his marriage in June 2003, entitled Something Borrowed, Something Blue. Continuing to explore dub's far-reaching root system, this sequel sees Deadbeat push the boundaries of his frame of reference to further extremes at both ends of the spectrum. While the legacy of Kingston's dub proper and Berlin's techno hybrids are still audible, the album's crunchier moments adopt a more aggressive version of the dub recipe, with echos of perhaps Tackhead or African Head Charge bouncing around some far corner of the reverb tank. The cinematic format of Wild Life Documentaries is also taken to new heights here, with track boundaries becoming increasingly blurred, thoughts left to unfurl in slow motion, and sounds disappearing and reappearing like characters in an ever thickening plot...or perhaps forgotten and frantically remembered entries on an ever-growing wedding reception 'To do' list. As one might expect from a document of such an intense time in a person's life, Something Borrowed, Something Blue is an emotional landscape of widely varying elevation. 'A Brief Explanation' begins the journey by introducing us to a new friend, a cricket, who perhaps was caught in the hard drive spindle at the completion of the last chapter. Like all good friends, he remains for the duration of the journey. 'Head Over Heels' provides the warmth and comfort of a crackling fireplace on a cold winter night, set to a jangling ukelele melody augmented with piano shards and a round, insistent kick. 'White Out' captures the raging blizzard just outside the door: icy chords and a militant dancehall stomp build to a climax before being shattered and reconfigured into triplicate techno shrapnel. 'Requiem' provides an excellent reference for testing the bass response of even the most well-equipped sound system. Drums and bass are submerged to the furthest depths of the dub sea, with shimmering chords burbling to the surface throughout. 'Steady as a Rock' is perhaps the album's most deliberate nod to the Jamaican kings, with a roaring organ and fractured guitar line pulled along by a chugging engine of drums and bass. 'Fixed Elections' sees Deadbeat voice his political frustrations with a slippery Detroit synth line and a tear-jerking reggae chorus. 'A Joyful Noise Part 1' weaves digital-synth textures and heavily processed field recordings around a hopeful organ and rolling bassline. 'Part 2' sees the same sources deconstructed and reassembled to form a lullaby of static and melodic noise. On 'Quitting Time' Deadbeat bashes out a colossal kick-snare pattern on his bath tub in a mournful ode to the exhaustion we've all felt after a hard day's work. Our journey ends with 'Portable Memory (The Final Cut)', a cloud of digital debris that rises to a distorted crescendo before dissipating into the final sustained chord and the familiar chatter of our friend the cricket, bringing things, as is so often the case, full circle."

Artist:	VA
Title:	But Then Again
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 023CD

Subtitled: 'Celebrating 5 Years of ~Scape'. "Half a decade and still going strong -- to mark its fifth anniversary, Berlin-based label ~scape has decided to release a new compilation: But Then Again. Entirely by chance this notable release coincides with catalogue number 23, but mysticism, confusion or conspiracy theories are pretty much the opposite of what ~scape represents. On the contrary -- the label´s philosophy is based on clear statements, quality and aesthetics, on meticulous R&D and its translation into sustainable ideas, to continue the label´s history and integrity. ~scape´s consistently high standards focus on the delicate equilibrium where a healthy mix of conceptual density and substantial purity prevents any dilution of quality or principle. In this field, far from any arbitrariness or repetition, futility or posing ~scape explores its unbridled passion for music, based on sincerity and an astute presence of mind. But Then Again is a felicitous homage to the swung dash -- after many artist albums and EPs this is the first ever ~scape compilation to completely and voluntarily dispense with any conceptual framework, something which had worked extremely well for the brilliantly executed 'Staedtizism'-series. Again, openness is paramount, plenty of scope and ~scape for the diversity characteristic of the label and its artists after five years. All fifteen tracks featured on the compilation are new and as yet unpublished, most of them were created with this minor anniversary in mind. Although references to the intricate ~scape sound abound, But Then Again is anything but a review of the label´s back catalogue. In fact, it serves as an experimental piñata with a bellyful of musical ideas ranging from dub and clicks to hip-hop, jazz, funk and popart, a rich surprise best cracked with a laser beam." Artists: Cappablack, Thomas Fehlmann, Mike Shannon feat. June, John Tejada, Deadbeat, Bus + Dabrye, Triola, Jan Jelinek, Epo, Andrew Peklar, Triosk, Heaset and Soulo, Rechenzentrum vs. Masha Qrella, System, Crackhaus.

Artist:	BUS FEAT. MC SOOM-T
Title:	Diamond EP
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$8.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 024EP

"This year, Bus have become a convertible. On their new Diamond EP everything is pervaded by a new, dynamic, open feel -- just like the sensation of loving your favorite club with renewed vigour after an elongated redecoration break. Maybe, just maybe this new direction has something to do with Daniel Meteo and Tom Thiel's new studio, finally allowing them to crank up all those tunes beyond sedentary, neighbor-friendly levels. And 'Diamond in the Rough' (its vocal version again graced by Scottish MC Soom-T) is one of those minimal, exuberant pieces of flickering dub better played loud. But while its funky claps and tiny melodies might point it towards the nearest the disco, it is more likely follow the signs to the nearest open air, pursuing that fluffy cloud high up in the sky shaped like an airy and eerie phantom Bus. 'Don't Change It' brims with self-confident chuckles and clucking cadences, always finishing in harmony -- and again features MC Soom-T who, unlike her insistent performances on the album Middle of the Road, adds a relaxing, yet forceful rap to this track. And finally, 'Slow' deigns to rumble out of the experimental corner with affirmative leisureliness to indulge in some slightly bonkers jangly vibraphone sounds."

Artist:	PEKLER, ANDREW
Title:	Nocturnes, False Dawns & Breakdowns
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 025CD

"One and a half years after new Berliner Andrew Pekler, a former Californian and proud purveyor of a solid indie background ('Mucus 2', 'Bergheim 34', 'Sad Rockets'), had surprised the world with his very own atmospheric blend of click & cuts aesthetics and sampled analog jazz sounds on his astonishing, self-titled ~scape debut album, he now presents us with his second, rather more ambitious coup. All 14 tracks on Nocturnes, False Dawns & Breakdowns play with and around different facets of urban noir sentiments. The night has many faces from the promise of excess to social gatherings under the club dictate and the alcohol-induced, melancholy mildness of the 'wee small hours of the morning' (Sinatra), to name but a few of the myriad possible associations. Nevertheless Nocturnes, False Dawns & Breakdowns heads down a different, far more contemplative route. Not only did Andrew Pekler's produce his tracks at night, but he allows them to reflect and reproduce the prevailing nocturnal mood. But unlike the above-mentioned associations, this album is about individual experience, circling around terms like introspection, clarity or concentration. And this is something all of us have experienced at one point or other: the later the night, the less we are assaulted by external input or exposed to ever-present, ambient noise and this changes perception, throwing us back upon yourself. With titles like 'Soft Dissolve', 'Stardusting', 'Leaden Lids' or 'Sleepless' this particular state suffuses Pekler's tracks, leaving a lot to the listener's imagination. As on 'Station to Station' Pekler's language might superficially hint at the heroic phase of late 60s/early 70s electronic fusion jazz. With the drums high up in the mix, accompanied by threatening keyboard clusters, the resulting sound is decidedly reminiscent of the open textures of classic Miles Davis records like In a Silent Way or Bitches Brew, even early Weather Report like 'I Sing the Body Electric'. While Peklar's sound might remind you of the soundscapes of collectively produced (and improvised!) music, he on the other hand prefers to work on a bricolage of found material which in turn helps to artfully open up further spaces. What, at a cursory listen, might seem easily categorizable, suddenly gains depth, indifference and richness. Like motifs, his distinct repetitive brass or vibraphone loops add enough recognition value, but these embellishments only mask a veritable abyss of diversity most of Peklar's sampling material hails from the analog jazz of the late 50s. With this album Andrew Pekler proves that historical sounds cannot be deleted from the memory of a declared fan of music. Everything remains in place, preserved in wax, hidden, but not gone, just like the subconscious. Should we call this electronica? Or jazz, after all? Pop, even? Well, pigeon-holing has never been less important."

Artist:	DEADBEAT
Title:	Preliminary Findings
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$8.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 026EP

"Where does techno end, and dub begin? Since the late '90s, Deadbeat has explored both sides of the equation, swinging his pendulum between the two genres on recordings for labels like Cynosure, Revolver, and ~scape. Following in the wake of dub-techno pioneers like Pole, Deadbeat has explored half-speed exercises in sonar ping and pooling delay, where every bass drop explodes like a depth charge in unfathomably pressurized waters. And as one half of the hillbilly-techno duo Crackhaus, influenced by hyperkinetic masters like Matthew Herbert and Akufen, Monteith has dug his fingers into every angular crevasse of dance music's splintery, up-tempo jig. The two sides come together on his new EP, Preliminary Finding. 'Abu Ghraib (Rage Mix)' sands down Chicago house's jagged, jacking swing until every surface is smooth. Beneath its buffered skin, jazzy keyboards flare, dueling bass lines knit a new low-end DNA, and spinning dubwise squeals scrape the horizon like a lighthouse beam. If that makes you dizzy, just listen for the sample of a North American radio announcer spewing right-wing filth in the introduction to 'Abu Ghraib (Tension Dub)'. There's rage here, but it lurks just below the glassy, buffered surface of a track that seems to float in space, uploading information from a distant island soundclash. Its only tether is a spooling acid-rock guitar line loosely linked to a mothership set adrift for eternity. Mike Shannon's remix of 'Texas Tea' brings things back to Montreal, where snow-crusted boots stomp on iron steps and the horizon glows with a peculiar northern light. An emissary of a global techno community, Shannon knows what it takes to kick-start a dance floor, and his skipping, rolled-shouldered mix carries the motion forward from an easy ambient breathing exercise to a furious workout of drums and battered bells; you can feel the energy, as mercurial as the northern lights, prickling on your skin."

Artist:	DEADBEAT
Title:	New World Observer
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 027CD

Third Album for scape by the legendary Deadbeat. The open seas -- the pirates' domain -- have long been a site of resistance. And if reggae, one of the world's great resistance genres, is an island ghetto music, dub is ocean song, brimming with tidal swells and pinging with the secret language of sonar. These freedoms are turned loose in the music of Deadbeat, aka Montreal's Scott Monteith. Equally influenced by German techno, dub reggae, and the digital dub of his mentor Pole, Deadbeat plumbs the unfathomable aquatic mass of the deep blue in his bottom-dredging bass lines, coral-clacking clicks, and untethered melodies. Deadbeat's third album for Scape, New World Observer, is his most accomplished attempt yet to fuse dub, techno, and ambient music into a complex, undulating form. It would be silly to call this a 'political' album, but the record's influences demonstrate how the tenor of the times filters into music that might at first listen be deemed a product for leisure consumption. If you listen closely to the introduction of "Abu Ghraib," you'll hear the appalling rhetoric of a certain North American right-wing radio announcer slowed to a brainnumbing crawl. "I don't know how any artist in any discipline who has been reading the paper or watching the news over the last year could not have countless atrocities penetrate their work," says Monteith. His response isn't intended to define as political such 'abstract' electronic music, but by including such sources -- as well as the distraught Palestinian woman whose voice ushers in"'O Little Town of Bethlehe"' --Monteith refutes the idea that electronic music (or pop music, call it what you will) exists in a vacuum. If Deadbeat's slow-burning anger differentiates New World Observer from his earlier projects, the other distinguishing factor here is the presence of vocals. Several tracks benefit from the contributions of Montreal vocalist Athesia, a singer with a background in house, bossa nova, and jazz. "I treated the vocal sources as I would any other element," says Monteith, "and it was a very long, baby-steps journey for me -- unlike anything else I've ever tackled." The album lays bare that journey, just as each individual track shines forth a sea-borne beacon indicating further potentialities, further directions. Pull out your compass and survey the world from Deadbeat's perspective.

Artist:	BUS FEAT. MC SOOM-T
Title:	Feelin' Dank
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 028CD

Feelin' Dank is the second Bus album on Scape. Berliners Tom Thiel and Daniel Meteo aka Bus have created a truly relaxed record that mops up and redispenses the fun and vastness around them. As on previous Bus excursions, dub, hiphop and electronic elements provide the imaginary, triangulated demarcation lines for an expansive freestyle adventure playground that might even spawn the odd house track. The overall mood of Feelin' Dank is that carefree abandon has returned to dancefloors across the globe and left its mark on impassioned DJ and club-goer Meteo. On their latest outing, Bus conjure up transgressive paradises, while gentler elements have snuck into the Bus mix -- "soul" and "party vibe," they call it. On "Rose Specs," they crank up the might of the handclap, kickstarting a jam which, for a good two minutes, leaves raw, untweaked keyboard and guitar tracks to their own devices. Glasgow MC Soom-T also adds her boyish and soulful rap recitative to this track, as well as to the instrumentals of "Diamond In The Rough" and "The Answer." Soom-T, who already graced the first Bus album Middle Of The Road (SCAPE 019CD/LP), is part of the Glasgow crew Monkeytribe. On Feelin' Dank Bus chose to treat her voice just like the live instruments -- instead of demanding 100% mathematical accuracy they preferred to leave passages with feeling in place. They took a similar approach with Soom-T's colleague MC Rhino and Gonzales-collaborator Paul PM (whose vocals can be heard on "Twistin" and "Perdu"), while the final offbeat house of "My Night" features a session with Ras T-Weed of the Birmingham-based Overproof Soundsystem.

Artist:	PORTABLE
Title:	Version
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 029CD

Version, Alan Abrahams' (aka Portable) second full-length album, is simultaneously archaic and totally futuristic, avidly exploring the fringes of techno and house. A resident of London via Capetown/South Africa, a superficial listen to Portable will reveal close parallels to the hyper-modern splinter-funk of the likes of Sutekh and his Context label where Portable also released his first record. On this release, futuristic elements that sound like miniscule spikeless particles strung together, pop up and then disappear within the tiniest fraction of a second, but are not relegated to the barrenness of micro-sampling techno. The archaic aspects of Portable's sound become most apparent in the unique sources Abrahams has unearthed for this release: reassembled field recording fragments of ancient African polyrhythms and syncopes. These snippets offer blurred glimpses of the jungle or a campfire, with the crackling taking on the character of ur-beats. Using modern audio software to digitally rework and filter these samples, they are given new shine, while preserving their old heritage -- their lore. The resulting sound is far from the "world music techno" some may have feared. Instead, Abrahams' Version represents a truly unfettered Afro-futuristic variant of techno that elegantly and serenely circumnavigates any prevalent beats, sub-scenes and trends. Abrahams allows syncopated bass drums, like dancehall rhythms, to mess with the static matrix of conventional 4/4 signatures while adding a polyrhythmic flow to the proceedings. Nevertheless, Version is also deep, soft, round and organic. Here "Portable" refers to Alan's home, often no more than the soft glow of a laptop in the twilight of a hotel room, somewhere in this world.

Artist:	SAFETY SCISSORS
Title:	Tainted Lunch
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 030CD

Tainted Lunch, the second full-length release from Matthew Patterson Curry (aka Safety Scissors), as mixed in Berlin by Vladislav Delay, shows a healthy but strange diet of influences and thoughts. With widescreen electronic pop music wearing its heart on its sleeve, the Berlin/San Francisco-based artist proves that clever songwriting, frisky arrangements, and slanted dancefloor maneuvers will always trump formulaic thumping and shrill, chilly attitudes. From amnesia to French cooking to transatlantic affairs of the heart, the lyrics sidestep cliché in favor of an awkward vulnerability, deliberate off-rhymes and quotidian details. Balancing smarts with slapstick humor, Curry sets a Rimbaud poem about trench warfare, but calls it "I Am The Cheese" and keeps an eyebrow cocked throughout. When his wavery, emotionally direct voice (think Chet Baker as a sozzled tech support worker) and wry lyrics are combined with brisk, brittle electronic production and twangy guitars, the result adds up to classic synthetic pop music of the kind that makes everybody reach for their New Order and Magnetic Fields albums. But there's a substantial freakiness/funkiness to Curry's production too which takes '80s synth funk stabs, saxophone, a rubber bass guitar, electric piano, kazoo and banjo in stride, and sets beats and basslines spinning in odd directions, as frazzled quakes and dubbed out bleeps fizz through the mix. The cast of supporting characters and guest artists reveal a considerable pedigree: guest singers and co-songwriters include Erelend Øye of Kings of Convenience, Kevin Blechdom, Françoise Cactus of Stereo Total, and Kim West of Crack W.A.R., and there are additional production flourishes from Apendics Shuffle, and Wobbly. On these ten songs the elegant techno pop classicism of Germany is tainted by the prankster freak flag spirit of California, and the results are yummy.

Artist:	JELINEK, JAN
Title:	Kosmischer Pitch
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 032CD

Jan Jelinek (aka Farben, Gramm), is perhaps the leading German click-house/electronica artist and the most well-known producer within the experimental electronic music scene. This is his third album for ~scape. Back in the heyday of Krautrock people often talked of "cosmic music." Bands like Popol Vuh began to experiment with early Moog synthesizers, Holger Czukay's Can aspired to a "plasmatic sound," and the era was awash in sound blurring, flow -- a musical haziness of sorts, perceived as a transcendental moment, with the pioneers of electronic music on a quest for liberation. Airy vibrations instead of earthy rock. Jan Jelinek's new album Kosmischer Pitch (Cosmic Pitch) holds plenty of allusions to this era. Jelinek decided to work with loops and layers the outcome of which really does sound "plasmatic" and ties in with the drifting sounds of the early seventies -- not by way of recycling, but by reconstructing a certain mood. This album is all about tranquility, submersion in sound, and long-lasting tracks, drawing on the rationale of those variants of modern music deliberately unconstrained by the song format: whether it be La Monte Young's minimalism, psychedelia or deep house -- all these aural forms of expression circumvent any conventional sense of time. The "Pitch" referred to in the album title exploits this premise of rising above time and refers back to the arrangement idea of "wild pitch" deep house with tracks that are resplendent with layers and intensity. By transforming this basic principle of drifting into something audible -- his music, albeit blurred, has always been transparent, hiding nothing. Jelinek forges a new connection: from Conny Plank's studio, the master console of early '70s electronica, to Detroit and back. Moreover, Kosmischer Pitch is the exact opposite of retro, deliberately omitting references to a specific time or place for vibrations that defy localization.

Artist:	JELINEK, JAN
Title:	Kosmischer Pitch
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 032LP

LP version, deluxe gatefold sleeve. This is the best electronic music album of 2005.

Back in the heyday of Krautrock people often talked of "cosmic music." Bands like Popol Vuh began to experiment with early Moog synthesizers, Holger Czukay's Can aspired to a "plasmatic sound," and the era was awash in sound blurring, flow -- a musical haziness of sorts, perceived as a transcendental moment, with the pioneers of electronic music on a quest for liberation. Airy vibrations instead of earthy rock. Jan Jelinek's new album Kosmischer Pitch (Cosmic Pitch) holds plenty of allusions to this era. Jelinek decided to work with loops and layers the outcome of which really does sound "plasmatic" and ties in with the drifting sounds of the early seventies -- not by way of recycling, but by reconstructing a certain mood. This album is all about tranquility, submersion in sound, and long-lasting tracks, drawing on the rationale of those variants of modern music deliberately unconstrained by the song format: whether it be La Monte Young's minimalism, psychedelia or deep house -- all these aural forms of expression circumvent any conventional sense of time.

Artist:	PORTABLE
Title:	The San
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$8.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 033EP

Alan Abrahams aka Portable acknowledges a considerable debt to "The San," the collective term for a group of tribes found in the south of Africa -- who are being driven from their homeland after 20,000 years due to diamond prospecting. In his techno productions, the South African uses field recordings featuring the intricate polyrhythms these people have been beating out of percussive instruments for millennia. Despite their polyrhythmic momentum -- all three exclusive techno tracks are suffused with a deep melancholy: "Symmetry" with its forlorn vocal fragments, "Diorama" with ethereal guitars and pizzicatos and "Sunblind Remake" with its detached drumming. Some tracks feature Leo Fernandez on guitar.

Artist:	BEAUPRE, STEPHEN
Title:	Macro-House EP
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$8.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 034EP

Those prone to motion sickness best steer clear of this latest offering from Montreal's Stephen Beaupré, as the swirling clouds of jagged musical fragments contained herein are certain to send you stumbling for the dance floor in the throws of full cranial spin. A devoted musical prankster, as has been clearly documented by his work with Deadbeat as Crackhaus, The Macro-House EP sees Stephen spray painting happy faces and scribbling lewd limericks on the church of minimal's typically pristinely kept walls. Where others may click, he clunks; where others might break, he coasts confidently through the guard rails.

Artist:	SHANNON, MIKE
Title:	Possible Conclusions To Stories That Never End
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 036CD

Recently relocated to Barcelona, Mike Shannon established himself as Canada's most respected techno and house DJ. Involved with the Cynosure and Revolver labels (and artists like Akufen, Deadbeat, Pan/tone), Mike Shannon himself has been actively performing and promoting a very specific genre of minimal house and techno that today is reaching a new level of awareness in the global electronic community. On Possible Conclusions To Stories That Never End, Shannon switches skins, putting aside overt techno nuances he has been punishing parishioners of the dance floor with for well over a decade to explore a different region of actualization. The album commences using field-recordings of a typhoon hitting the streets of Tokyo, and the listener is shunted into an environment where each song is chimeric conclusion bathed in a cinematic light. On "Taken Only Road" (featuring Anais) Mike Shannon's sparse, sedate jazz manifestations form with a subtle electronic prosthetic to make a seamless hybrid of haunting lyrical form and near-ambient formlessness. Anais's vocals wander from sweet supplication to a silky lament over neon throbs of heady keys dappling over a languid bass-line. Atop the springy malleable groove of "Last One Terrified," spoken word elemental Moral Undulations catalogs the soul-stunting elements in North American culture with measured but casual defiance. In addition to Anais and Moral Undulations, Toronto-based jazz drummer Tim-Stokes Reese's smooth percussion ghosts and weaves through the album, serving as beacon points to the thick narcotic groove espoused on this fourteen track offering. On "Tears" Montreal musician Patrick Watson gently flays with piano ripple in time to Reese's drum patterns to make a resoundingly emotional result. The innocuous dread that underlies many of the tracks contains trace elements of influence from cinematic composer Angelo Badalamenti, to Montreal electronic wizards Marc Leclair and Deadbeat. With releases on various imprints worldwide Mike Shannon has consistently maintained an aesthetic quality to his techno productions defining him a key player in the global circuit.

Artist:	MAPSTATION
Title:	In the Loss of Clarity Something Else Gets Heard
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	7"
Price:	$5.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 037EP

DJ Magazine (UK) about Mapstation's Distance Told Me Things To Be Said: "A truly beguiling album.....4/5." Stefan Schneider (To Rococo Rot) produced the tracks "In the Loss of Clarity..." and "...Something Else Gets Heard" shortly after completion of this record. Both pieces were developed from the same base track and modulated with variations and differences. Somewhere the sequencer starts, the 303 and the filter curves. Everything lives their own life and steps to their own paths. Mapstation shouts a warm YES to absolute diversity and possibility.

Artist:	MAPSTATION
Title:	Distance Told Me Things To Be Said
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 038CD

Behind Mapstation is Stefan Schneider (To Rococo Rot, Music A.M.) from Düsseldorf, and this is his fourth recording and debut for the ~scape label. Distance Told Me Things To Be Said brings us to unknown topographies and familiar surroundings alike. Produced between 2003 and 2005 at various studio and living places in London, Berlin and Düsseldorf, it was mixed by Bernd Jestram of Tarwater. On songs like "Horns Version" and "Warm Distance" we hear wonderful guest appearances by London- based trombonist Annie Whitehead, and Martin Bra

Artist:	FRIEDMANN, BURNT & THE NU DUB PLAYERS
Title:	Just Landed
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	2LP
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 004LP

Artist:	HEADSET
Title:	Space Settings
Label:	SCAPE (GERMANY)
Format:	2LP
Price:	$16.50
Catalog #:	SCAPE 022LP