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2LP
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MARIONETT 007LP
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"Benjamin Kilchhofer is not new to the world of recorded music, yet he doesn't seem to fit into a particular scene or group. As an outsider he is, however, fully immersed and melded into his own universe. He mentally escapes to a parallel world and weaves an alternate reality. Kilchhofer avoids the spotlight; isn't really visible in today's culture of ever changing content and social media. This is where Marionette steps in, to attempt to shed as much light as possible on this unique artist. The Book Room is Kilchhofer's musical diary. His library of emotions. It is an imaginary place shaped by exotic cultures, an escape from modern society, a collage of real and imagined experiences. Influences abstracted from a wide number of musical approaches: the story-telling nature of folklore music, conflicting rhythms of tribal drums, melodies and pads reminiscent of classical minimalism and microtonal experimental music, the freeform approach of early electronic music and krautrock, and, buried deep within the tracks, some hints of dance and club music."
"Drawing principally from minimalism, ambient, and krautrock, Swiss producer Benjamin Kilchhofer's latest is a deeply immersive timbral and tactile experience." --Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork
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12"
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MARIONETT 004EP
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"Marionette wanders through the polyrhythms and shifting harmonics of Benjamin Kilchhofer's Dersu. This is an expedition into modular synthesis and physical modelling, where patches become complex instruments, and the instruments become music. Kilchhofer composes the 4th Marionette instalment, enveloped in a film of spring reverb and tube distortion."
Philip Sherburne on "Bittern": "Like all of the tracks on his new mini-album for Toronto's Marionette label, Benjamin Kilchhofer's 'Bittern' blurs the line between synthesis, rhythm, and environmental sound. At its core is a hypnotic drum pattern, resonant and wood-grained but also eerily exact, like a drum circle located deep in the uncanny valley. Rhythmic figures compete for possession of the downbeat; the nature of the pulse is largely a question of perception, as rippling refrains circle each other like the strands of a double helix, perpetually stepping on each other's toes. The sense of wandering through an ingeniously designed digital simulation is heightened by the sound effects that drift through the space of the track: laughing voices, syncopated claps, splashing water, the metal creak of what might be a swingset. You imagine a children's playground in a jungle clearing -- or a biodome. The sense of freedom is a direct result of how the music was constructed, with Kilchhofer programming complicated patches on his modular synthesizers, generating music that morphed and mutated as if of its own accord. The goal, says Marionette founder Ali Safi, was to create 'a living system which breathes and evolves.' With virtual environments like his, who needs holodecks?"
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