Browse by Label: SONIG (GERMANY)

Artist:	WANG INC.
Title:
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 004EP

Previously available in the US on Thrill Jockey, that version is now out of print. This is the original German pressing on Mouse On Mars' label, Sonig. "Wang Inc. is a corporation of sound research founded by the Bartolomero 'Bart' Sailer. The laboratories of Wang Inc. synthesize a product with a new concept: the sounds of industrial articles are caught, isolated, manipulated and applied to the final product that Wang Inc. produces. That product is electronic dance music. Bart is a resident of Bologna, Italy who is a student of ancient history and a passionate reader of science fiction. His interest in both the past and future combines to form a description of the present in his music. His favorite sounds are the sounds of objects encountered on a daily basis, those to which nobody pays attention but everyone hears and recognizes. Bart considers his 'masters' to be the futurist composer Russolo and A. Mayer, the famous Italian contemporary 'music concrete' composer.' Wang Inc. performed with Autechre on their Italian tour."

Artist:	ESOGNOMIG
Title:
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 009LP

"With Mego's Ramon Bauer, Hecker, Tina Frank and Sonig/Mouse On Mars' Frank Dommert, Andi Thoma, Jan St. Werner. An abstract psychedelic-electronic session done in 1998 after a Mouse On Mars show in Vienna. Up to now the weirdest release on Sonig, no beats, far more suitable for fans of Mego. Improvised electroacoustic experimentations, hybrid wooshings, subsequenced crackles, microharmonical adventures, strange, tense, cool and full of superb pranks. DSP extremities from the new school of improvised music." Limited remaining stock...

Artist:	MICROSTORIA
Title:	Improvisors
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$10.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 010LP

"Microstoria (Markus Popp and Jan St. Werner) is back on the radar with this six track live album which precedes their upcoming studio album. Improvisers features alternative versions and reconsiderations of tracks from Microstoria's 1996 album, as well as the two new tracks 'Mem Brand' and 'Glocky Bit'. The recordings were made in the fall of 1998 during rehearsals for Cologne's improv and avant-garde music festival, Jack Pohl. Popp and Werner played powerbook, CD-R, and tape effects. Here Microstoria present evergreens and favorites in a more organic and playful way than on their studio recordings. The dispute between 'really' played music and virtually 'playable' music is abandoned for a more detailed, consciously personal analysis of what music can be. Improvisers is the background for a 'read audio' concept. It translates the idea of music into a proposal for a logically modifiable and analyzable system of musical thinking. Improvisers documents an alternative effort to examine strategies in a real world full of irritating consumerism."

Artist:	VERT
Title:	The Köln Konzert
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 012CD

"The Köln Konzert was directly inspired by Keith Jarrett's recording of the same name. Featuring five parts, it was recorded live at the White Noise Bar in Köln on May 6th, 1999. Throughout jazz, there has always been a fundamental problem: to get the music onto the disc without losing the vital spontaneity it has when you are there while the artist is creating. This is the thing about live music -- when it is right, you have the overwhelming feeling that at every moment there are more imminent surprises, more imminent delights. It is this quality that caused Jan Thommert, a longtime student of jazz music and a longtime listener of Vert, to say that live music should be heard only once -- when it is played. But the special quality of Vert is to overcome this very real thing that Thommert was talking about and to breathe into his mosaic that kind of life that lets you hear it anew every time. We may listen to this album enough to memorize every nuance, but it still sounds fresh. I don't know what does this, I don't know how Vert achieves it, and I doubt whether even he knows. All I know is that it is in there. 'An artist is never ahead of his time, but most people are far behind theirs,' Edgar Varèse once said. Here's our chance to catch up."

Artist:	SCRATCH PET LAND
Title:	Solo Soli IIIII
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 014CD

"Scratch Pet Land was formed in 1996 as the result of a unique and legendary live performance inside a Belgian carpet store. Solo Soli IIIII is the band's first new recording in over 2 years and their first for Mouse on Mars' Sonig label. Sonically at home with the Köln music scene, Scratch Pet Land has found an ideal breeding ground for their experiments. The music here percolates with the energy of the newly animated: Pop hooks surface and are then shredded and spit back out by the band's irreverent melodic sensibility. Scratch Pet Land is a world where nothing is ever quite as it seems. Welcome the Scratch Pet Brothers into your homes and their old Atari Computer, their Gameboys and turntables, their bongos and jew's harps and ukuleles. They'll never do the same thing twice. For Scratch Pet Land, it's always the first time. Take this record, listen to its unique melodies and discover how exotic things can get in the kingdom of Belgium."

Artist:	VERT
Title:	9 Types Of Ambiguity
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 017CD

". . . first there was the punch-up at the classical music section, then, to read that one would inevitably encounter things in the quest for the absolute: well, Adam Vert was beside himself. However, now he understood the music, the sounds, the tones of natural beauty, the function of coupling, the methodology of inversion, and the loneliness of the orchestra music stand with its solid wooden music rest . . . 'Music plus noises, then? No, the noises have liberated themselves and no longer merely annoy; rather, they enhance the tonal body comprising melody, nostalgic evocations of disrupted beats and the ornament of clef symbols.' And yet it sucks and slurps, distorts, explodes and seethes, just like blowing into a lava flow through a straw.' Bla bla bla. Every noise is capable of being music, and all music is capable of being noise. It all depends on dramaturgical positioning?These dilapidated hover-trains made of mildly distorted harmonies, the ticker-licker Wall of Sound, Hacker-Jazz; but then there's reggae-style bottom-end from the deep: Hancock's wah-wah funk and Brighton beach at dusk. People like Reilly and Reich can put away their fishing rods. Finally, tonal-haiku with interference -- there's always something disturbing you . . ."

Artist:	FAN CLUB ORCHESTRA, THE
Title:	Sun Papa And The Fan Club Orchestra Vol. 1 & Vol. 2
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 022CD

"The Fan Club Orchestra is a side project of Scratch Pet Land with more or less 10 people involved. They play percussion, guitar, harmonica, gameboys, mouth organs, trombone, turntables and lots of other instruments and devices. Everything depends on the energy of the group and their ability to improvise together. Laurent Baudoux gives the directions on an overhead projector (like the ones businessmen use for their meetings). He makes drawings, gives the BPM, he introduces musical themes and he manipulates the mixing board that gets all the sounds of all the musicians. After all the sound data is recorded (at live concerts or improv sessions) Laurent and Nicolas Baudoux edit the recordings in their studio. For this project they like to work fast, don't hang on details for too long but still try to get a minddazzling and fresh result. Now the two vinyl records of the Fan Club Orchestra have been remastered and edited to become the first electronic-live-improv-orchestra compact disc."

Artist:	DÜ
Title:	Transformation 19 Mal Einfach Hergestellter Komplizierter Mu
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	7"
Price:	$6.50
Catalog #:	SONIG 023EP

"Dü is Jan St. Werner (Mouse On Mars, Microstoria, Lithops) and F.X. Randomiz (Holosud). Their debut album Slow already gained fantastic reviews, e.g. The Wire: 'an instrumental, electronic masterpiece; a mature pre-Oval example for state-of-the-art sample skills'. Jan St. Werner produced a CD-R with noises and sounds without any digital equipment -- Randomiz digitalized and arranged those sounds and sent them back to Werner--- 6 of those edits can be found here."

Artist:	HAJSCH
Title:	1992
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 024CD

"About ten years ago the Cologne school of experimental electronic music was taken over by new generation of young musicians. Hajsch was not only influential in its development and differentiation, but he pioneered new recording and editing procedures and set new standards with his unconventional compositions. The combination of experimental-electronic, electro-acoustic and serious music is ideally revealed and realized in Hajsch's music. Now after a ten year period the compositions released in 1992 on his own label, 'Quiet Artworks' can be heard on CD. Originally these recording were only available as limited edition vinyl pressings. Despite this fact, the recordings quickly received distribution. Musicians such as Jim O'Rourke, John Zorn, Thurston Moore, or Masami Akita were inspired by Hajsch's music. He was offered numerous opportunities for collaborations. Despite this interest, or perhaps precisely because of it, this independently-minded artist withdrew from the scene. Hajsch is a classical, quiet perfectionist, eschewing both loudness in music and the unbridled din of the media in equal measure. He is uncompromising in both his work and his thinking and manages to gain an astounding musical power from his extreme designs through which traditional and modern musical structures can be blended anew. His works 'Nagual' and 'Akasa/Für Cleo' still sound fresh and current. Hajsch's quiet, powerful music, in which concept, experiment, concrete music and classical composition are equals, will still be attracting a host new listeners long after the hysteria surrounding speedily engendered powerbook-electronica has subsided."

Artist:	VA
Title:	.ilation
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 026CD

18 exclusive tracks, 72 minutes. "Following the release of Comp in 1999 and after months of meticulous labor, Sonig, the Cologne-based byword for spiky irregular electronica, has put together a new compilation of work by artists on its roster. .ilation brings together twenty-two musicians from five countries with eighteen tracks covering the whole gamut from the avant-garde to out-and-out pop hits. Despite the broad spectrum of projects represented here (hardcore DSP assaults, electronic elegies, electro-acoustic experimentation, high jinx in rock and improvisation, as well as hybrid pop & jazz mutations), its still all about carefully worked-out music, about the joy of experimentation and of listening, about the communication of complex musical ideas. For a total of seventy-two minutes the musical vista branches out and diversifies, yet retaining the listeners attention throughout. A bit like tuning in to a radio programme and finding you want to make a note of every single song played." Artists include: Wevie de Crepon, æ, Scratch Pet Land, Aelters, Mouse On Mars, Oval, F.X. Randomiz, Vert, Schlammpeitziger, Fan Club Orchestra, Niobe, So, Lithops, Microstoria, Workshop, C-Schultz, Hajsch, and Dü.

Artist:	NIOBE
Title:	Tse Tse
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 027CD

"After listening to Tse Tse a few times, you might find yourself wondering whether Niobe's Yvonne Cornelius hasn't departed to the other side. Much of the album momentarily assumes form only to dissolve once more in an instant, coalescing into a whole at the end. Piano, acoustic guitar, soulful horns and strings resound like film music. Against a wistful, melancholic, an abstract background that meanders in a continually arresting flux, the German-Venezuelan artist sings, whispers, coos, laughs and murmurs with a singularly cautious eloquence. The nostalgic glamour of the Ratpack is artfully deconstructed here. The sub-division of material into individual songs or tracks is scarcely perceptible on Tse Tse, a soft-sift through the listener's fingers. The album represents a further development of everything laid down in Niobe's Tomlab debut -- enchanting jazz vocal renditions, siren-like with apposite timbre; strange electronic effects and 8-bit sampling; narrative structures reminiscent of a radio play. A treasure trove of textured sound, rich in melody and harmonic phrasing. Cornelius was born in Frankfurt and has been living in Cologne since 1994. For over a decade she has developed a unique approach to electronic production, as well as a style of singing ranging from diva-esque acrobatics to comic excess. Concerts in Mexico City, at Berlin's Volksbuehne, and the Batofar in Paris have already exposed her to an international audience."

Artist:	AE
Title:	Bootleg
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 028CD

"Electronics man Andrew Sharpley (Stock, Hausen & Walkman, Dummy Run, Mami Chan Band etc.) and female percussionist Emiko Ota (Urban Sax, Mami Chan Band etc.) got under way in 1998 as a sort of trash-electro-punk duo with shouting. (They were joined for a period by the notorious avant-guitarist Noel Akchoté (Rectangle), and became more structured and song-oriented.) Returning to their original line-up as a duo, they create a wild mixture of rhythmic cut-ups, crazy, cracked-up punk collages and lounge melodies, but despite the genrehopping, Bootleg sounds like a well rounded piece of work, Coming across like a musical freakshow, a telling collection of rejected pop music of the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries, it is critical of the pop-media-machine, the duo's own quotation-machine runs at open throttle. Like label-mates Wevie De Crepon, Æ produces 'meta-music' that is a lot of fun to hear, a welcome disruption of musical stereotypes, and in the end a proud presentation of an animal by the name of 'Affrodil'."

Artist:	AELTERS
Title:	Ardchilds' Com.undo
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 029CD

"Aelters spends a lot of time on the production of microscopically small cut-ups. Technical errors are not eradicated, but integrated into his music. There is no such thing as a mistake. When the software is stuck, when machines hum and click -- this is when making music starts. The computer has a mind of its own, and Aelters is happy to let it have its way. Plunderphonics, the joyful, media-critical poaching of the musical rubbish by which we are surrounded, is key to Aelters's work principles. His mixture of scraps of breakcore, scattered hard beats, spoken word collages, clicks, nursery rhymes and scenes of violence from action-packed movies are created 'with enough weirdness and clicks to keep both the dancers and the laptop nerds happy.' Aural snapshots (a family murmuring over supper, neighbors' sex-noises, those somehow ironic beats) 'fall into the right places.' His music knows no plan, but 'just mutates along.' Some of the compositions on Ardchilds' Com.undo are about three years old and have been reworked for this album multiple times; they have been re-re-re-arranged, until barely anything is left in common with the source material. This manic restlessness makes Aelters a typical Sonig artist. Aelters grew up with heavy metal, '90s pop hits, the traditional Spanish music of his mother, and his friends in Dat Politics."

Artist:	VERT
Title:	Small Pieces Loosely Joined
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 030CD

"The masterful sound design of Vert's third Sonig album creaks and splutters, rumbles and rocks, breaks and blows from all sides and every angle. Despite complexity, British exile and resident of Cologne Adam Butler grooves with the best of them. Small Pieces Loosely Joined comprises both flirty come-ons in pop's direction and short sketches, apropos of its title. Using accordion, Rhodes, lots of piano, and a dense tissue of electronica, the tracks approach musical themes, toy with them, view them from different angles, and then move on to new pastures. The listener is by no means swept away in a maelstrom of sonic events, but rather engaged by the pace of Small Pieces Loosely Joined. You simply can't not listen. Vert conjures up tension and dissolves it by turns in a wonderfully charming, articulate and unpredictable manner. This string of loosely, even randomly connected musical clippings contains a clear thread of musical rigor, embedded deep down in the complex arrangements, traceable throughout the entire album."

Artist:	SCHLAMMPEITZIGER
Title:	Everything Without All Inclusive
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 032CD

"After interim activities such as remixing Depeche Mode and appearing at several festivals, the likable master of the Casio releases his fifth album. The aural handwriting of few contemporary electronic musicians is as distinctive as Schlammpeitziger's. Everything Without All Inclusive perfects and expands his signature friendly Casiogrooves and irresistible melodies with surprising elements beneath the surface -- seriousness and doubt. Schlammpeitziger always augments his melodious tracks with subtle layers of noise. Many here have an ambiguous quality that's hard to grasp; arrangements are shot through less with a barrel organ sort of humor than with desire and melancholy. Nevertheless, this music is surely big fun and good for love at first sight. But it also stands the test of the second and third sight. On further hearings, this music reveals qualities submerged by a wave of sympathy in the initial encounter."

Artist:	FORREST, JASON
Title:	The Unrelenting Songs of the 1979 Post Disco Crash
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 036CD

"Jason Forrest, an artist formerly known as Donna Summer, is a celebrity among electronic artists; featured by magazines all around the world, he is one one of the most brilliant Plunderphonic artists who has ever walked the Earth. He samples, deconstructs and reconstructs himself into a rage while driving audiences to the verge of madness. Forrest obviously knows his disco and his prog rock; he's a maniac who controls his machines with dreamlike competence. His knowledge of repertoires and styles seems boundless. He mixes the most trashy with the most beautiful and the most rocking elements of the disco-decade into lavish sets, which, believe it or not, are perfectly danceable. Samples sound as if they had been broken three times and patched up four. Big band-like brass sections! Wild guitar solos! And, of course, always disco, Disco, DISCO! All this is combined in such a euphoric mix."

Artist:	WORKSHOP
Title:	Yog Sothoth
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SONIG 037CD

"The seventh album by Workshop (aka Kai Althoff and Stephan Abry) is an extreme. Its predecessor Es liebt dich und deine Körperlichkeit ein Ausgeflippter showcases fascinating yet disturbing songwriting, both textual and musical. Yog Sothoth continues in that tradition and moves freely through various styles: electronica, house, rock, industrial, trip-hop, easy listening, folk, and German circus cabaret. Despite the assortment of styles there is cohesion throughout -- a Workshopification, if you will -- that helps Yog Sothoth from coming across like a compilation album. Althoff's lyrics are written in an idiosyncratic, inner-worldly code, while the accompanying music appears to be a blurred, dreamlike picture of something known yet unknown. Comparisons dropped in the past include Can, Robert Wyatt, Neu!, Pink Floyd, Red Krayola, and Boredoms."

Artist:	DJ ELEPHANT POWER
Title:	No Si, Ni So
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 038CD

"Witnesses to live appearances by the brothers Nicolas and Laurent Baudoux of Scratch Pet Land have found themselves spellbound. These two Belgian lunatics express a no-holds-barred attitude and jump to and from laptop music, sportive scratching and high-pitched clatter-grooves. No Si, Ni So has a lot in common with the music of Scratch Pet Land. But one could also mistake it for the lost Zappa-album Jazz From The Dangerous Kitchen. The music is never phat or tight, but simply meanders on (and on). Musical themes are introduced and then left by the wayside, only to reappear unexpectedly. The percussion, which at times seems to have more in common with a domestic accident than with beats, is cushioned by a surprisingly jazzy Rhodes piano and obliquely filtered Moog sequences. This music is laid back, artful, never silly but, in spite of its intelligent trickiness, immune to artificial seriousness, as well as krautrock-y and funky in the played-mainly-on-kitchenware-and-samplers sense."

Artist:	NIOBE
Title:	Voodooluba
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 040CD

"The restlessness, distraught magic, and collage-like sleepwalking beauty of Niobe's previous album, Tse Tse, also reign supreme on Voodooluba. Yvonne Cornelius introduces her listeners to carnivalesque rhythms performed on timpani and trumpets, then changes direction almost unnoticeably and picks up a new theme just to dissect it a few moments later. Strangely burlesque melodies and grooves interlock and are replaced by fragments of texts only partially intelligible. Far from cliche and stereotype, unfazed and in complete control, Cornelius continues to develop her signature sound: her trained voice. With it, she samples catchy melodies as well as complex vocal arrangements with a great feeling for tone, modulation and harmonies. On Voodooluba, she takes a big and decisive step forward and reaches beyond the compositional style displayed on her last album: she puts elaborated song arrangements and all-knowing pop-elegies above all, resulting in wonderfully and unexpectedly equable tracks, songs and ballads from late modernism. Then again we encounter unambiguous massive rhythmic moments in which the inquiring voices fall silent and Niobe suddenly becomes magnificent pop music. Andi Toma of Mouse On Mars is one of the producers responsible for this."

Artist:	C-SCHULZ
Title:	5. Flicker Tunes
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 042CD

"C-Schulz's new solo outing 5. Flicker Tunes is on par with C-Schulz & Hajsch as far as economy of means and musical depth are concerned. The Cologne-based composer grants himself as well as his listeners the luxury of taking one's time to embark on a journey through his 'concrete' sounds and expansive sonic planes. The result is that no matter how often you listen to 5. Flicker Tunes, it never sounds the same, nor does it ever wear out. To a worldwide circle of industrial and electronic fans, C-Schulz is a kind of cult figure. His work has always been detached from the general trends in electronic music (most of which have been hyped to death) and thus it has never lost any of its freshness over the years. On the contrary: far off from any mainstream and the compulsion to be modern, C-Schulz continues working on and expanding his own musical cosmos."

Artist:	MOUSE ON MARS
Title:	Wipe That Sound
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 044EP

"They play their next trump card: The voice on the remix-12" of their smash single 'Wipe That Sound' belongs to none other than the mighty Mark E. Smith himself. With this release, Mouse on Mars surpass the wildest dreams of critics and fans alike. Smith, whose band The Fall have taken (and still take) the deepest of bows influencing generations of artists, is a legend and an institution. The collaboration Mouse On Mars + Mark E. Smith is a jumbo merger -- and nothing less. The deconstructivists from Cologne and Dusseldorf and the iron willed character from Manchester turn out to be an unrivalled dream team."

Artist:	WAISVISZ, MICHEL
Title:	In Tune
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 045CD

"One might assume that an album by the director of the STEIM (STudio for Electro-Instrumental Music) in Amsterdam is a soundtrack for dusty libraries. But the new full-length CD by Michel Waisvisz (inventor of the analog and interactive Crackle Box, an electroacoustic sound-modulator controlled by STEIM software, Lisa), sounds anything but academic. A very musical, humorous, and extremely fresh approach on Waisvisz's first album since 1978 colors these live recordings made between 1977 and 2000, edited by Sonig label head Frank Dommert. Amid morphing noise -- strangely leaping reggae quotations, modulation sessions seemingly forgotten in time and space, and hard, metallic staccatos of chords -- outlines of songs and flashes of harmonies are always discernable."

Artist:	MOUSE ON MARS
Title:	Live04
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 047CD

"Mouse on Mars avoided releasing live recordings for ten years. They left the documentation of their stage shows to bootleggers, secret archivists and fidelity resistant butterfly collectors. Apart from a limited seven-inch and some quietly tolerated bootleg CDRs, the band had never released anything that hadn't been painstakingly assembled and galvanized in the studio. But now Live04 -- highlights of extensive touring in 2004 culled from about 600 hours of live material -- makes clear as day why the band's gigs can be just as exciting and unpredictable as their records. The music of Mouse On Mars is constantly reinventing itself and this magical energy, benefiting from ten years of live performance, is especially evident when the band takes it to the stage."

Artist:	FORREST, JASON
Title:	Shamelessly Exciting
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 049CD

"Jason Forrest turned heads with his first Sonig release, The Unrelenting Songs of the 1979 Post Disco Crash, a musical rollercoaster ripping through genres like an amphetamine-crazed hobo. It received rave reviews from a respected array of international press -- a remarkable accomplishment for such an odd and ambitious mix of high-speed disco and breakcore with a '70s swagger. The question, of course, was 'can Forrest possibly repeat this success?' A few beats into Shamelessly Exciting and there is suddenly no doubt -- yes, he can and he does it in style! Cascades of sound taken from virtually every form of rock music (hard/soft/punk prog/blues) pour down heavier than ever before. Even more intense is the sound of shattering samples, every single one of them vying for the listener's attention. Forrest sets off fireworks of ideas and references, exuding enormous energy along the way, filling every possible nook with a rocking good time."

Artist:	USKE ORCHESTRA
Title:	Niko Et La Berlue
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 050CD

"The Uské Orchestra's music is a mixture of styles, but not in the avant-garde sense. There are no pop music styles referenced, wildly combined or rendered ridiculous. Rather microscopic bits from all possible genres are assembled into a teeming musical bazaar. Within seconds they're likely to change mood, instrument, timbre or arrangement. Imagine the soundtrack to The Matrix, performed by a hyperactive brass band from the Balkans or Mexico. Up close, nothing about Niko Et La Berlue appears ostentatious, but taken as a whole, the voluminous magnitude of the assembled tracks emerges from the masses like mighty Leviathan. Though there are key themes discernable in the music of these four Belgians, they keep the music flowing liberally in all directions. Parts of Niko Et La Berlue sound, in fact, like freeform jam sessions spliced together randomly. When the ensemble sounds the attack, the tones are free but the vocals don't dominate, they settle casually into the overall picture. The group combines this unique singer-songwriter approach with a simultaneous cut-up madness and affected eccentricity that the world hasn't faced since the non-music of Nurse with Wound. The album's wonderful artwork completes the 'Gesamtkunstwerk' or 'successful synthesis of the arts'."

Artist:	AELTERS
Title:	Mixitch Mjeuga Djisc
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 051CD

"Aelters, Frenchman and former member of Dat Politics, has described his take on the creative process as 'gentle mutation.' Though his approach to making music has remained consistent over the years, Aelters has definitely evolved where style is concerned. On Mixitch Mjeuga Djisc, the rattling, high-speed breaks of previous releases give way to hardcore disco-tech. The beats have become slower, distorted and heavier. Samples from an astounding range of sources still dominate -- spoken voices, beatboxes, Gameboys, old synths -- but his software now seems beyond human control, operating under the spell of some manic groove generator. The resulting tracks, much like the French themselves, are dense, concrete, often fun and always unpredictable."

Artist:	LITHOPS
Title:	Queries
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 052CD

"Is there any point at which artists like Jan St. Werner run out of steam? St. Werner represents a third of Mouse On Mars and should be exhausted from the activities of that band alone. Since 1997, St. Werner has also recorded under the alias Lithops. The last Lithops release, 2003's Scrypt, impressed with its non-linear compositional structures and dense organic sounds, a rare synthesis in electronic music. His latest seems almost carelessly light in comparison. From the first track Queries surprises with subtly bouncing electronica, intuitive rhythms and comical bleeps and clonks -- quite a surprise, considering Scrypt managed almost entirely without beats. Collecting previously unreleased and rare material from the late '90s, Queries offers an enlightening view of a time when abstract sounds established themselves as significant elements in electronic music."

Artist:	SUN OK PAPI K.O.
Title:	Orchestre Philharmonok
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 053CD

"It goes without saying that Orchestre Philharmonok (what is this Belgian obsession with orchestras?) presents music that has -- seriously -- never been heard before. Scratch Pet Land's influences are never too far away, but Laurent Baudoux raises his cocktail of broad bass, game boys, metal guitars, trashy keyboards and cracking beats to the next level. Bizarre string instruments from the Far East twist and turn in the grooves, yet most of the album sounds fabricated from some new synthetic miracle plastic. A musical dilettante and professed non-virtuoso, Sun Ok Papi K.O. creates music with the innocent attitude of the enthusiast, free from any impulse to repeat or mimic. Orchestre Philharmonok is like club culture without the club or avant-garde without the music theory. It's got the unmistakable, euphoric appeal of authentic fan admiration, unburdened by cliché or stylistic reference, probing ceaselessly for unexplored turns at an incredible speed."

Artist:	DJ ELEPHANT POWER
Title:	Scratch The Hulu
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 058CD

"Nicolas Baudoux's (aka DJ Elephant Power) 2004 solo album No Si, Ni So was more than just an enjoyable debut. Almost en passant, the album redefined the job and the self-image of the DJ. Baudoux is the legitimate successor to the turntablists who dominated the mid '90s but without the battle attitude or b-boy posturing. An anti-perfectionist, Baudoux performs on the verge of complete loss of control; his tracks are anything but tight, yet they groove like hell. He constructs monumental grooves from tinny hip-hop samples, coaxes grime from electric guitars and layers jolty drum patterns, pumping distorted bass and clanging string instruments to create some radical dynamics. As one half of the duo Scratch Pet Land, Baudoux belongs to a posse of Belgian artists known for their improvisational electronics and absurdist humor. Scratch The Hulu has plenty of both."

Artist:	A&E
Title:	Oi!
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 060CD

"Those who recall the anarchic electro-punk of the duo's 2003 debut, Bootleg, are in for a surprise. Of course it's possible that this meld of traditional Japanese singing, deft jazz guitar and Gameboy chirping could surprise a lot of people. Junkshop keyboards and punk drums? Drum 'n' bass mayhem and Hawaiian lap steel? Oi! is rife with such fiendish concoctions. In cross-pollinating sounds from different eras, while exploiting a century of popular music, this 'no-genre' band has in fact created a new one. Though A&E create meta-music, or music about music, by placing familiar elements outside their original contexts, they're not overly concerned with culture-clash made into sound -- the primary focus is music, not music theory. On Oi!, pleasant ballads drift into daringly arranged pop songs and at any moment conventional playing can yield to wild experimenting."

Artist:	SCHLAMMPEITZIGER
Title:	Collected Songs Of My Temporary Past
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	SONIG USCD001

"A lifelong Cologne resident, Jo Zimmerman aka Sclammpeitziger, has been recording his homemade brand of electronic music for more than a decade now. This release collects the best moments from his first release in 1993, Erdrauchharnschleck on the Entenpfuhl label, to the most recent Augenwischwaldmoppgeflöte on A-Musik. In all, Zimmerman has released 4 albums in addition to numerous 12"s and split LPs under the Schlammpeitziger moniker. Along with F.X. Randomiz, Zimmerman is also one half of the duo Holosud whose 1998 LP Fijnewas afpompen was widely hailed in electronic music circles. First time listeners to Schlammpeitziger will be delighted by his playful, romantic sound that draws just as much inspiration from little pleasures such as fishing, food, and drinking Koelsch, Cologne's local beer, as he does from the inventive spirit of Cologne's vibrant music scene. The future looks bright for Schlammpeitziger, as he prepares to begin recording another Holosud album in the near future, why not brush up on the past now?"

Artist:	VA
Title:	Sonig Comp.
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	SONIGUS 001CD

"This compilation is striking in that it has collected artists such as F.X.Randomiz, Microstoria, Lithops, Mouse On Mars and also C-Schulz & Hajsch, who work, albeit very differently and yet in conceptually and biographically related ways, on expanding the concept of electronic music. Sonig began several years ago as the label on which Mouse on Mars and Lithops brought out their music; music that otherwise appeared nowhere else; music that was too important to be thrown under the typical cycle of publications and therefore was only available on vinyl. By last year, however, it became apparent that Sonig was more than a musicians label serving as a pressure nozzle for the overflowing productivity of its owners. Andi Toma & Jan St. Werner (Mouse on Mars) and Frank Dommert (Entenpfuhl, a-Musik) started a maxi series that used the classic techno format, the Maxi, to publish extremely independent and highly unusual, well yes, dance music (or what one considers the parallel universe in which Voice Crack are stars). Records from Wang Inc. and Vert, who are both on the compilation, are found here as well as a smash from Mouse on Mars and a fervently longed for sign of life from F.X.Randomiz. It has long been clear that Sonig is not only about Mouse on Mars. Even now a scope is emerging that stretches from electro-acoustic concrete music (C-Schulz & Hajsch) and dance music produced with the means and instruments of electroacoustics (Wang Inc.), through dynamic and complex group processes served with great clarity (Microstoria, Dü), hits for another era (F.X.Randomix, Mouse on Mars) and desktop improvisations (Scratch Pet Land), to idiosyncratic music that indulges in a happy funky isolationism (Lithops) or subtle reminiscences on Keith Jarrett's Cologne Concert embedded in a hypermodern setting (Vert)." Contains only exclusive tracks.

Previous Page Index of Labels Next Page

Artist:	RANDOMIZ, F.X.
Title:	Stack
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 007EP

Artist:	C-SCHULZ/HAJSCH
Title:
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 013LP

Artist:	WEVIE DE CREPON
Title:	Ton Wah
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 034EP

Artist:	VA
Title:	IrregularCD Vol. 1
Label:	SONIG (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SONIG 039CD