Browse by Label: WONDER (GERMANY)

Artist:	KREIDLER
Title:	Circles
Label:	WONDER (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$8.00
Catalog #:	WON 002EP

"Relax on the backseat for a sec. Let the engine run circles for you, and for a moment everything feels alright. And you know this keeps on keeping on. A dance step imported from another time into the present. When you feel responsibility, its only for the quarks. Like the knight as a portrait of independence. Laid back, leaving all the insecurities far behind. Once more you can have beauty as an argument, a modern soul movement. And it all happens in a concrete place with the two resident DJs arguing who spins first. It's the moment where everything is possible, without losing strength and linearity. Finally, Lancelot the knight tells stories of love and freedom. The break marks the in between time. From the R&B influenced 'Circles' to the soulstrumental beauties, from the deep bass re-edit to the fine groove of 'Lanzelot'. Once more, Kreidler shows its international pop sensibility. A statement of modernity in the beautiful musical tradition of Duesseldorf."

Artist:	KREIDLER
Title:	Kreidler
Label:	WONDER (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	WON 003CD

"It comes as no surprise that on their third LP, Kreidler are more imaginative and multi-faceted than ever before in their celebration of music. Celebration? Hardly any other band organizes sounds and noises with such skill that their music can sound fragmented yet complete at the same time. The songs always -- even if only briefly -- explore that enchanting moment when a sequence of notes and sounds suddenly begins to make sense: the initiation of beauty. At the same time, they have enough respect not to stop halfway; over the course of the album, scattered sounds and short intervals form a swaying, circulating track, with those melodic lines and swinging rhythms that are typically Kreidler. The record repeatedly reminds us of instances when music is perceived not merely as an everyday thing on the radio or the TV, but consciously recognized as an enrichment of a moment. In this way, in their collaboration with Momus -- the last hip-intellectual of pop music -- they have explored how a piece of music or a song can be created from a series of observations in a diary. In 'Mnemorex', Momus and Kreidler describe a sort of departure, made possible by their connection to the past, their own history and their knowledge of the loss of innocence. Here, and in the following songs, they are re-creating themselves, sounding more focused yet at the same time lighter; this is Kreidler's return as renaissance men. Kreidler's most complete and liberated album to date has achieved all this with gallant coolness, a charming sense of humor and that un-dogmatic intelligence which has always led to the most exciting music. The honor of accompanying them on this journey was well worth waiting for."

Artist:	AVIGNON, JIM
Title:	Neoangin: A Friendly Dog In An Unfriendly World
Label:	WONDER (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	WON 004CD

"Without a doubt, Jim Avignon is a name that is recognized far beyond German borders. His paintings are unmistakably his own, and he is a very well known figure in the art scene. So it follows that since 1997, as Neoangin, this passionate clubgoer has been releasing his own wildly genre-defying lo-fi pop: an overload of kindergarten chaos, also offering quiet, melancholy moments that avoid irony, often incorporating musical quotes; music featuring a slightly dusty old Yamaha organ, of which Jim says: 'I can play in every style with it, yet the sound is always special'. To better emphasize the artificiality of his music, he sticks to the preset sounds of the organ rather than using samples. However the sounds are employed in a way so contrary to their intended use that whoever first programmed them would quite probably have a heart attack if they heard what Avignon was up to with their software: he creates an art-techno track from country elements, a jump-and-run melody is mutated into a dark, moody tango and then eaten away by squeaking sound defects. And nevertheless, we are dealing with very personal, sometimes almost intimate songs, rather than some musical tour de force for its own sake. Wonder is now releasing Avignon's masterpiece: A Friendly Dog In An Unfriendly World -- 33 songs, and a booklet with a corresponding picture for each one. JIM is never 'just' a painter or 'just' a musician, rather a chronicler of and contributor to a constantly self-renewing pop culture. The collage-like music reminds one of the technical naïveté of Badly Drawn Boy, the lyrics have an existentialism reminiscent of early Cure. In a way, Neoangin is a musical reverberation of the last fifteen years, an echo of all those revolutions that perhaps didn't change the world, but certainly changed our record collections. A personal refurbishing of C-86, Grunge, Techno and LoFi-Pop, a sweeping style-jump, an unpredictable mix of everything that Jim likes, which is a lot: Doors, Stranglers, Der Plan, Blur, electronic from Rephlex and Warp, Stockhausen-Walkman, Mr. Scruff, or the DMX Crew. Sometimes these varied influences can be found within a single song, which Jim creates using the same cut-and-paste concept as old-school hip-hop producers, but with an entirely different result. It is definitely wild-style club-culture, just without the sponsoring and bouncers."

Artist:	KREIDLER
Title:	Eve Future
Label:	WONDER (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	WON 007CD

"Düsseldorf based electronic trio Kreidler is back with a new mini album. Kreidler's Eve Future is like an attic, like an archive of European song-culture. In baroque guise they take a glance back upon their own musical history, creating variations upon themes of known Kreidler songs, fabricating replicas, playing around with titles. The sound of strings, tympani, trumpets -- then suddenly an entire clockmaker's shop seems to spring into life. The listener immediately thinks of film, searching for references, before realizing that most of the images which come to mind have yet to be filmed. After the impressionistic overture 'Weekend', the constructionist cool of Re-Sport the abstract expressive 'Appearance And The Park', the renaissance-esque album Kreidler -- now the baroque miniatures of Eve Future."

Artist:	BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE
Title:	Black Earth
Label:	WONDER (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	WON 008CD

"With each album, Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore are further approaching the end of the world. There is no documentation of how Morten Gass, Thorsten Benning, Robin Rodenberg left Mülheim an der Ruhr, how they buried their own past as hardcore legend 7 Inch Boots, and how they began to explore the boundaries of time and endless darkness. Perhaps they met one night, in the shade of trees, beneath a cloudy death moon. A rising storm may have carried the howling of wolves or the flutter of black wings. This is the twilight zone of the Bohren mystery, where inconclusive evidence and hearsay strengthen the power of the dark secret. The dark secret: A few scattered film quotes were dragged into the shade without much fuss on their moody debut hit 'Gore Motel'. They called it 'horror jazz'. The addition of Christoph Clöser's saxophone brought a deceiving sheen to Bohren 's quicksand of the 'dark mainstream'. On the 'Dark Victory' tour that followed, Bohren expanded their arsenal of horror, in half darkness, with chains dangling from the ceiling like meat hooks. A cold breath could be felt. Morten: 'The goal was to create a quiet heaviness, which is otherwise only achieved using distorted guitars and lots of noise.' Bohren's trip into darkness has found the parking space closest to purgatory yet. The color particles of once-upon-a-time have finally been ground to dust. No kidding around, no excuses, just drums creeping forward with the brushes, the trademark Bohren double bass, detuned to gloomy depths, and with it Fender Rhodes, saxophone and Melotron -- for the film in your head and the knife in your back. The various parallel worlds of the Bohren universe flow together into a single seductive stream of blackest velvet. Bohren project the listener back to the horrors of one's own imagination. Chromed bone torches rummage through the scarlet-red shadows. It prefers to remain unnamed. The bridge between Black Sabbath, Autopsy and the smile of Sade. an understanding of the dark side of pop culture. Reduced, abstracted. Cast into timeless shapes. Preserved for eternity. In their early days they burnt their silhouettes onto audiences' retinas with the flickering light of the stroboscope. Now that switch remains turned off, and the senses must get accustomed to a new, intangible darkness. Time is on their side."

Artist:	MODERNIST, THE
Title:	The Modernist Comeback
Label:	WONDER (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	WON 010EP

"Of course, The Modernist hasn't just been on vacation for the last three-years, he's been working on numerous releases under names such as Triola, Geometric Farms, Auotbianchi and Pop Up (with Antonelli Electr.). The Modernist Comeback begins a series of releases on Wonder and, a bit like on Architainment (the introduction to The Modernist Explosion), it's a definite DJ-tool and an affirmation of his commitment to club culture. With 'Comeback' and 'News Value', this 12" contains two floor fillers, tested live on numerous occasions, while 'Kodac Moments' exemplifies yet again the more harmonic (or 'bionautical') side of the Modernist, giving us a preview of the album to be released early next year. "

Artist:	MODERNIST, THE
Title:	Kangmei
Label:	WONDER (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	WON 011CD

"When it comes to Techno, The Modernist is interested in a special kind of beauty: he loves classic pop harmonies, a Roddy Frame or Edwyn Collins guitar sound, the grand gestures of a Martin Fry or a Kevin Rowland. That was 'his' '80s. And this is how he transferred those song structures into the present swinging times: Be it through his melodious alter ego Bionaut, turning from spherical, uplifting trance (Cologne-style) to a calmer song-writing for home use; or as Trinkwasser, with Lothar Hempel -- between the Pet Shop Boys, New Order, The Smiths -- with enormous pop appeal which goes straight into the charts (in another world, at least); and of course with Mike Ink (aka W. Voigt) as Burger/Ink; finally Popup, the inevitable collaboration with Antonelli Electr. -- like the Modernist for clubs. The same motto applies: Pop as an attitude. Pop as a statement. And now Kangmei: The Modernist's third album. It seems as if all the threads that he has laid out over the years have come together here. Kangmei. America. We know The Modernist's labels: Virtual Elvis. Interstate 10. Burger Industries and Eat Raw. Wild Horse Annie. And productions: Johnny Cash. Fort Knox. Nashville and Las Vegas. Pop Art. Silicon Minor, in the guitar valley. Magic Lantern, the alleged FBI computer virus. Over and over again: America. Kangmei is Chinese for: 'Resist America!' It's a protest song against arrogance, against imperialism, against stupidity. Also in 'Prozac Europe', knowing that one really does love so much about, and so much from, America. Kangmei/Resist America means: let yourself be seduced, but stay awake! Love makes the difference, 'only a smile remains'."

Artist:	MODERNIST, THE
Title:	Protest Songs
Label:	WONDER (GERMANY)
Format:	12"
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	WON 012EP

"Create confusion! Smash expectations! Doesn't The Modernist just love making a statement which, at the end of the day, is so wide open it can only be explained (away) in contradiction... So it is with the 'Protest Song' on his latest album Kangmei. It's a laconic taking to task of the past and what happens when the truth lies somewhere between standing still and moving on. 'That's why the song remains the same / only the singer has gone insane'. Unusually, its Jörg Burger's own voice you'll hear on this recording. Producer turned singer? Techno gone Pop? Is this the end of an era? Under normal circumstances, Jörg Burger is the last to complain about an unanswered question mark. This time, however, he won't let it lie and has enlisted friends from the highly renowned Kompakt family Reinhard Voigt, Michael Mayer and M.I.A. to pick up the pointers. Four exclusive versions of the 'Protest Song' on one slice of vinyl, this is the Here and Now of Techno"s possibly overdue integration into the social system, or thereabouts. Little hints of our Pop history no longer leave the electronic music scene embarrassedly shuffling their feet, now its more of a knowing grin you'll spot here and there on the dancefloor. In his Modernista 90 guise, Jörg Burger winds up the 303 acid memory banks (don't drop the bass) whilst Reinhard Voigt leaps a few years further on with comically pitched vocals and what sounds like a loop orgy at an open air Tech-House rave. It just doesn't want to stop. Michael Mayer's freeze frame full on rave horn works its way up to an almost sadistic climax. M.I.A., incidentally the power behind the Sub Static label, comes closest to what we generally call minimal, dare we say contemporary. So much for end of an era. Contradiction makes sense in the end. An indispensable release uniting one of Germany's finest electronic artists with the best of Kompakt in one historical document."

Artist:	BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE
Title:	Sunset Mission
Label:	WONDER (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	WON 001CD

A classic masterpiece from the year 2000 -- available again. German horror-jazzmasters Bohren & Der Club Of Gore's third release continues in the same vein as on their previous albums in producing pieces of deadly mellow bliss. If Midnight Radio reminds you of being the alternate soundtrack to Twin Peaks, then Sunset Mission is without a doubt one of the CDs permanently in the CD changer at the Black Lodge. Lounge-y, dark, crepuscular, and more austere than their previous works, Sunset Mission stands as a singular piece of work, rather than a collection of songs. An elegant blend of sax, piano, bass, and guitar makes for a sublime mix of sonorous darkness and smoky sensuality.

Artist:	ENIK
Title:	Without A Bark
Label:	WONDER (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	WON 014CD

"Not many artists like to take risks these days. Laying one's soul bare is a rarity. Enik, from Munich, is one of those rare artists who expects a lot of his listeners, who does not hide behind empty gestures, who chooses to share with us the depths of his soul beyond any narcissistic tendencies. Without A Bark is his first solo effort, six songs which defy indifference. His name is familiar thanks to his contribution to Funkstoerung's Disconnected, the Rosenheim electronic visionaries' recently released album, helping them shape a pièce de resistance of classic song and melody around roughly-hewn soundscapes. Whilst Enik has been making music since the tender age of 13, the decision to concentrate entirely on his creative output (a poetry volume is in the making) fell around the turn of the century. 'I set up a studio in the cellar and started working earnestly on songs. Within a year, I had around a hundred... In spite of such zeal, the 23 year old multi-instrumentalist was rather more hesitant when it came to making his work public. It was Chris De Luca and Michael Fakesch from Funkstörung who dug him out of the orchestra pit of Munich's Phatos Theatre and were instantly won over by his talent. Small wonder, as the six unique songs on Without A Bark testify. Tracks like 'Micro Ocean' or 'How To Destroy' set / let the mind run free as melody lines break up in the deconstructionist manner of Tom Waits. 'This is too intense' Enik sings on 'Chaos The Drug' . How right he is. 'Tom Waits is an inspiration, David Bowie as well, of course. In fact everything I've ever listened to, from Michael Jackson to Georg Kreisler, has influenced me in some way.' Enik is fine with being a loner, and yet...'I'm sure I'll get together more musicians for my album, there's definitely something to be gained by working with other artists. I love having a band for live shows, just me and a laptop isn't as much fun'. He did have some help on Without A Bark, particularly from Hans Tauschek, who arranged the strings and co-wrote three of the songs. 'At the moment, he's the only person I let near my material. We're on the same wavelength'."

Artist:	HARDER, CHRISTIAN
Title:	Goodbye Monkey Gravity
Label:	WONDER (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	WON 015CD

"For his debut album Goodbye Monkey Gravity, Christian Harder takes the lid off his cranium and invites you on a roller-coaster ride of his thoughts, right into his snappy synapses. Dancing is alright, as are drifting, grinding, sliding along elastic basslines, spinal cords which help the music to walk tall. A poptronica highway, weaving through static pathways. A techno song bathed in light, a chorus where sounds grow like exotic flowers. Confusion concedes to a solid beat, arranged to communicate emotion and condition. Sounds beautiful, but not over-nice, rough but not unfeeling. When complexity creates uncertainty, when the exit is blocked with mind matter, Harder comes up with verse and chorus, melody and structure, outlines dance steps on the floor, so you know how to move. Harder knows: to err is to be human, he knows the perils of perception, he sees through the limited indifference of attitude and emotion. Plugged in to computer, guitar and microphone, Harder becomes an errorist, exploring towers of lies, misconstructions and hidden floors. He projects a picture of well put together sound blocks, filling in the gaps of future amnesia. Harder uses escapism to get out of double standards, bringing on the dance from a moment of inner reflection. The poetical opening track, 'Musik Für Unsere Kinder' remains a dreamy exception. Kitsch-laden declarations of love such as 'Every Moment' turn out to be transient moments of happiness when a voice from the future echoes 'I remember my time with you'. 'This World is Full of Beauty' -- only with your eyes closed. Capitalism is a cancer, love's a virus, man is trapped in the gravity of what he has learned. Harder plays with dark matter made of the rings under one's eyes and does what he does best with it: he turns it into sound. Anything clear? Well: The truth is: this man got a mission and a vision! The truth is: there is a heart in your chest and a brain in your head. The truth is: you better use both!"

Artist:	KREIDLER
Title:	Eve Future Recall
Label:	WONDER (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	WON 016CD

"2004 marks ten years of Kreidler. 10 years in the life of one band. Kreidler's biography is incontestably connected to art. One can consider their opus, Eve Future as an art project in its own right, its theme continued in Eve Future Recall. Eve Future sees Kreidler treading the path of chamber music, adopting the language of several periods, leaning towards Baroque, minimalist expression, creating a concerto of electronic music, the identity of which is filled with references beyond temporal classification. In retrospect, the 2002 'mini album' Eve Future now appears to have been a majestic overture to the actual performance. Eve Future Recall is a departure from the formal discipline which was under the surface of its predecessor. If the original work was something of a description of external circumstance, an introduction to the spectacle, a dance governed by rules, then Recall concerns itself with the inner sphere, the state of the soul and the emotional complexity of the figures contained within the theme. Kreidler have set free the musical vocabulary of Eve Future, more vivacious and open in the way that the spoken word sets itself apart from the written. Eve Future Recall zooms in. A face becomes visible. A story is told, a breath is carried on a whisper. A game of looks and love, of daring and possibilities. Experiencing freedom within self imposed boundaries and the confounding of these very restrictions. Allow us to return to the theme. The title Eve Future is taken from the novel of the same name by the French author Auguste Villiers-de L'Isle Adams, published in 1885, 1886. The story tells of the inventor Edison and the 'electro-human creature' he creates as the apparently perfect lover for the British Lord Ewald. However, he proves unable to love her because she is resistant to his refined aesthetic intellect. Hadaly shall be her name. The Eve of tomorrow. Powered by the sun, golden phonographs where her lungs would be, lined with recordings of highly intelligent speech. A mere android, metaphysically brought to life by the sacrifice of a woman. Followed shortly hereafter by a second female sacrifice as she is destroyed in a shipwreck. Kreidler orchestrate this life-given artifice. They play with the doubling, beauty and kitsch of mathematics, rows of numbers and digital form. They portray objectivity, poetry and eroticism. Bach's sense of film behind them and its counterpoint in the disco. The hymn and the song. A love of Cologne's cathedral and Schneider-Esleben's car repair shop in Düsseldorf. Rendering the politically motivated distinction between popular and classical music obsolete. Amplifying thought and sensation. Transgression, enchantment and, time and again, Europe: the modern and modernism."

Artist:	BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE
Title:	Geisterfaust
Label:	WONDER (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	WON 017CD

Cologne-based minimalist horror-jazz masters Bohren & Der Club Of Gore return with Geisterfaust (Ghost Fist), their fourth studio album. Shuffling slower than ever, Bohren has stripped down their sound to the bone, becoming more gentle and less aggressive without any compromise. The first two Bohren & Der Club Of Gore albums, Gore Motel and particularly the double CD Midnight Radio, transpose easy listening sounds into doom rock darkness. Five years afterward, Bohren fine-tuned their brand of horror jazz with Sunset Mission, the band's most accessible tome to date. With Geisterfaust Bohren tramples the last remnants of the pop idiom firmly into the ground. Let's reduce: A slow motion beat sneaks by, as rhythm lies hung, drawn, and quartered on the floor. Harmonies fall like ripe fruit from their instruments. Delicate and drawn-out final flourishes are the order of the day. A middle finger stops the clock. Any more minimal than this and we'd be onto La Monte Young.

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