The Berlin-based electronic duo Tarwater (Ronald Lippok and Bernd Jestram) formed in 1995. They have produced 11 regular studio albums and various collaborations (e.g. with Piano Magic, Tuxedomoon, B. Fleischmann), as well as numerous film and theater scores. Lippok also plays in the band To Rococo Rot.
"We are not minimalists," emphasize Tarwater. Perhaps the term is overused to the point of meaninglessness, but it can certainly be assumed that the band has been labeled as such more than once. They make music in a "laboratory with changing experimental arrangements."
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CD
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MORR 204CD
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$17.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/22/2024
Nuts of Ay, the thirteenth album by the Berlin-based electronic pop duo Tarwater (Ronald Lippok and Bernd Jestram), is their first in a decade, since 2014's Adrift. Beautifully poised and smartly dressed, it's an album that draws Tarwater's various pasts into a high-definition present, while bringing the duo, yet again, into productive dialogue with all kinds of fellow travelers. Tarwater's music has always been marked by a hypnotic pop-ness, but that's particularly evident on Nuts of Ay, where a song like "Hideous Kiss" weaves together jangling guitar, pastoral flute, and flittering electronics into a gem-like construction. While the lyrics of "Hideous Kiss" are written by the duo, Nuts of Ay also continues a longstanding Tarwater tradition of recasting the words of others in their own mould. This time, their remit is broad: poetry from Derek Jarman ("All Nuns") and Millner Place ("Trapdoor Spider"); lyrics from Jean Kenbrovin ("I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles"), the late Shane MacGowan ("USA") and, again, John Lennon ("Everybody Had a Hard Year"). This cast of found and borrowed lyricists also finds collaborative echo in the guest musicians dotted throughout Nuts of Ay. Schneider TM turns up on the lovely, Felt-like "Spirit of Flux", where guitars channel the tangled reveries of Vini Reilly and Maurice Deebank into lush pop. Carsten Nicolai joins, as Alva Noto, dappling "On Waves and Years" with intimate glitching textures; he also provides the album cover art. Elsewhere, Masha Qrella appears on "Down Comes the Goose," and actor Lars Rudolph pitches in for "USA." Both voracious and committed in their creative energies, Jestram and Lippok say there was no concept for the album, which is surprising, perhaps, given its holistic mood, explaining it "grew together like a coral reef in the studio over a period of several years." This music shares a strong sense of place -- whether in the world, or the mind -- and the twelve songs on Nuts of Ay have such similar presence; a shared mood, a shared world, a shared sense of the possibilities of what electronic pop music could, and should, be. A bold and brave pop experiment.
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LP
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MORR 204LP
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$35.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/22/2024
LP version. Nuts of Ay, the thirteenth album by the Berlin-based electronic pop duo Tarwater (Ronald Lippok and Bernd Jestram), is their first in a decade, since 2014's Adrift. Beautifully poised and smartly dressed, it's an album that draws Tarwater's various pasts into a high-definition present, while bringing the duo, yet again, into productive dialogue with all kinds of fellow travelers. Tarwater's music has always been marked by a hypnotic pop-ness, but that's particularly evident on Nuts of Ay, where a song like "Hideous Kiss" weaves together jangling guitar, pastoral flute, and flittering electronics into a gem-like construction. While the lyrics of "Hideous Kiss" are written by the duo, Nuts of Ay also continues a longstanding Tarwater tradition of recasting the words of others in their own mould. This time, their remit is broad: poetry from Derek Jarman ("All Nuns") and Millner Place ("Trapdoor Spider"); lyrics from Jean Kenbrovin ("I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles"), the late Shane MacGowan ("USA") and, again, John Lennon ("Everybody Had a Hard Year"). This cast of found and borrowed lyricists also finds collaborative echo in the guest musicians dotted throughout Nuts of Ay. Schneider TM turns up on the lovely, Felt-like "Spirit of Flux", where guitars channel the tangled reveries of Vini Reilly and Maurice Deebank into lush pop. Carsten Nicolai joins, as Alva Noto, dappling "On Waves and Years" with intimate glitching textures; he also provides the album cover art. Elsewhere, Masha Qrella appears on "Down Comes the Goose," and actor Lars Rudolph pitches in for "USA." Both voracious and committed in their creative energies, Jestram and Lippok say there was no concept for the album, which is surprising, perhaps, given its holistic mood, explaining it "grew together like a coral reef in the studio over a period of several years." This music shares a strong sense of place -- whether in the world, or the mind -- and the twelve songs on Nuts of Ay have such similar presence; a shared mood, a shared world, a shared sense of the possibilities of what electronic pop music could, and should, be. A bold and brave pop experiment.
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CD
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BB 183CD
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"The Berlin-based electronic duo Tarwater (Ronald Lippok and Bernd Jestram) formed in 1995. They have produced 11 regular studio albums and various collaborations (e.g. with Piano Magic, Tuxedomoon, B. Fleischmann), as well as numerous film and theater scores. Lippok also plays in the band To Rococo Rot. File under: indietronics, neo-Krautrock. Their new album Adrift is an album of voices and rhythms, with an atmosphere that may at first seem reduced, yet further listening reveals a wealth of detail. Adrift was created in 2013/2014 and completed after Ronald Lippok and Bernd Jestram worked together with Maurus Ronner on the soundtrack for the documentary 24h Jerusalem. Tarwater encourage the state of being Adrift. The cover of the album shows the empty field of the former Berlin airport at Tempelhof, photographed by Robert Lippok. Adrift is a dream diary; its characters act not as in fantasy, but reality. Tarwater agree when the album is described as 'somnambulist.' Adrift contains 13 songs, four of which are instrumentals. The opening track, 'The Tape,' is an introduction to the sonic landscape of the album. Drum 'n' bass in slow motion: a recurring hissing sound meets an acoustic bass and associative percussion. The drum kit in the traditional rock format is conspicuous in its absence. Tarwater, who particularly in the British music press are happily and quite fittingly placed in the tradition of the Krautrock of the '70s, tap into a different close relative on Adrift. Robert Wyatt, with his jazz filtered through progressive rock, comes to mind. Adrift is one of the few Tarwater albums not to feature a cover version. Instead there are four assimilations of texts by befriended and esteemed poets: 'Homology, Myself' is by the Viennese-Berliner poetess Ann Cotten, quoted from 'Dichten = N. 10. 16 New (To American Readers) Poets.' She speaks of the impossible task of being a robot. The rhythmic backdrop, in which Tarwater install Cotten's lecture is anything but mechanical. The lyrics to 'They Told Me in the Alley' also come from Ann Cotten and Kerstin Cmelka. The title suggests something rather pastoral, yet we hear as Ronald Lippok's voice travels through different room ambiences. 'Log of the Sloop' and 'The Evening Pilgrims' are taken from the collection The Man Who Had Forgotten the Name of Trees by Milner Place. Adrift finishes on an ethereal note: 'Rice and Fish' features a cameo by Sabrina Milena alias Milenasong. Milena provides the shimmering background to Ronald Lippok's laconic vocals, alongside psychedelic guitar sounds, electronic loops and a bossa nova rhythm. Minimalism sounds different." --Marek Flohner
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LP+CD
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BB 183LP
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LP version. CD of full album included. "The Berlin-based electronic duo Tarwater (Ronald Lippok and Bernd Jestram) formed in 1995. They have produced 11 regular studio albums and various collaborations (e.g. with Piano Magic, Tuxedomoon, B. Fleischmann), as well as numerous film and theater scores. Lippok also plays in the band To Rococo Rot. File under: indietronics, neo-Krautrock. Their new album Adrift is an album of voices and rhythms, with an atmosphere that may at first seem reduced, yet further listening reveals a wealth of detail. Adrift was created in 2013/2014 and completed after Ronald Lippok and Bernd Jestram worked together with Maurus Ronner on the soundtrack for the documentary 24h Jerusalem. Tarwater encourage the state of being Adrift. The cover of the album shows the empty field of the former Berlin airport at Tempelhof, photographed by Robert Lippok. Adrift is a dream diary; its characters act not as in fantasy, but reality. Tarwater agree when the album is described as 'somnambulist.' Adrift contains 13 songs, four of which are instrumentals. The opening track, 'The Tape,' is an introduction to the sonic landscape of the album. Drum 'n' bass in slow motion: a recurring hissing sound meets an acoustic bass and associative percussion. The drum kit in the traditional rock format is conspicuous in its absence. Tarwater, who particularly in the British music press are happily and quite fittingly placed in the tradition of the Krautrock of the '70s, tap into a different close relative on Adrift. Robert Wyatt, with his jazz filtered through progressive rock, comes to mind. Adrift is one of the few Tarwater albums not to feature a cover version. Instead there are four assimilations of texts by befriended and esteemed poets: 'Homology, Myself' is by the Viennese-Berliner poetess Ann Cotten, quoted from 'Dichten = N. 10. 16 New (To American Readers) Poets.' She speaks of the impossible task of being a robot. The rhythmic backdrop, in which Tarwater install Cotten's lecture is anything but mechanical. The lyrics to 'They Told Me in the Alley' also come from Ann Cotten and Kerstin Cmelka. The title suggests something rather pastoral, yet we hear as Ronald Lippok's voice travels through different room ambiences. 'Log of the Sloop' and 'The Evening Pilgrims' are taken from the collection The Man Who Had Forgotten the Name of Trees by Milner Place. Adrift finishes on an ethereal note: 'Rice and Fish' features a cameo by Sabrina Milena alias Milenasong. Milena provides the shimmering background to Ronald Lippok's laconic vocals, alongside psychedelic guitar sounds, electronic loops and a bossa nova rhythm. Minimalism sounds different." --Marek Flohner
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CD
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BB 085CD
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This is the eleventh studio album by Bernd Jestram and Ronald Lippok aka Tarwater. On board are eleven songs that reflect the different facets of the Tarwater sound cosmos: dense soundscapes created by skillfully interweaving electronic and analog sounds. When the duo began working on the album, they initially intended to create a "Space Opera." That was not to be, but the resulting visions of the future, fictional knowledge and the distant and unknown served as the inspiration for these songs. Yet despite titles like "Inside The Ships," "Radio War" Or "Do The Oz," this is not a concept album. Tarwater have always befuddled the fanatics of stringent categorization among pop analysts. The synesthesia produced upon hearing the new album -- seeing alien worlds by means of acoustic stimuli -- is deftly created by Jestram and Lippok in their own special way. They have dispensed with coldness and overtly technoid sounds. Science-fiction folklore remains sidelined. The "otherness" is produced, for example, through the use of brass (tuba, saxophone, horn, trumpet and trombone) and other instruments that are otherwise used far from the pop-context -- such as the cimbalom. Even with these unusual elements, Tarwater's sound cosmos remains an organic whole and is immediately captivating on first listen. "Sato Sato" marks the first time that German lyrics appear on a Tarwater album. The text is taken from a track by Deutsch-Amerikanischen Freundschaft (DAF) on their 1981 album Alles Ist Gut. However, it's not really a cover: The phonetics of the lyrics serve primarily as another instrument with which Tarwater forms the song. Only the text is used, embedded within a new composition. This also applies for "Do The Oz" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. While Jestram and Lippok's work includes composing and performing music for film and theater, this album served as the model for the short film The Eagle Is Gone by Mario Mentrup and Volker Sattel. The film is set at night, in Berlin, at Alexanderplatz. The unique black and white aesthetic blurs the boundaries between the late Expressionism of the '20s, the cool charm of the '80s, and the present. The whole thing is supported by Tarwater's songs, which were not written for the images, but rather provided the inspiration for the visuals, and thus actually generated the images. In this respect, the album becomes a form of dialogical introspection. Making a guest appearance on the record is Detlef Pegelow, a Klezmer musician who also performed as a guest in Tarwater's predecessor formation Ornament & Verbrechen (1980-1983). Inside The Ships also works as a metaphor for the "inside," whether within a ship or construed metaphysically. The song "Palace At 5 AM" is based on a poem by Charles Baudelaire that paraphrases the images and emotions induced by the rush of intoxication. Setting off with Tarwater means discovering something new and intensifying the familiar.
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LP
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BB 085LP
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LP version on 180 gram vinyl with download code.
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7"
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EARSUG 037EP
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"Extraordinary new 7" from Tarwater, landing out of nowhere on the excellent Earsugar Jukebox imprint, now also situated in the band's hometown of Berlin. 'Tar Babies' plays out the label's charmed mission for finding perfect pop from parallel universes. Here Lippok intones nonchalantly over a definitive, Madchester flavored, disco dub. For our money though, its the awesome 'Strawberry Statement' on the flip which defines this record --modulating out of a Chronomad-esque beats and Raster-ized bass vamp into some gorgeous lilting and lonesome guitar-drenched psychedelics. Heavy indeed!" Pressed on red vinyl.
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CD
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MORR 073CD
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Bernd Jestram and Ronald Lippok sit in their recording studio located in the heart of their city and turn the knobs, press the buttons, and shift the regulators until they find a sound, or until a sound finds its way to them. A rhythm, a melody, a noise. For Spider Smile, Tarwater have found pop music: they, the electro duo, each of them with his roots in East Berlin's subculture and avant garde. The sun that rises and sets again and again in "Arkestra" shines for everyone at another place, originating from a joint bus trip with members of Sun Ra Arkestra through the hilly landscape of Scotland. America -- or rather, different ideas of what America is like -- is its essential motif. "Shirley Temple" that marks the beginning, is a clouded electro-overture. The recording studio is Bernd Jestram's and Ronald Lippok's favorite instrument, but still, a number of analog instruments landed up in front of the microphones. A harmonica, for example. And with it the blues. It changes "Witchpark" into a dark dub-landscape. Guitars send several songs on their way -- like the pushing "World of Things to Touch." Violins are plucked distinctly in other songs, an oboe spreads melancholy patina. Later, there is repetition and modification, song- and soundwriting from the spirit of modulation -- a central motif within the music of Tarwater. The album's Virgin Prunes cover makes its way through an echo-chamber. "Home is where the heart is," a line that sums up the entire album very well.
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MORR 073LP
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2LP
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MORR 054LP
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Double LP version, gatefold jacket. Includes four additional tracks, compared with the CD version.
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CD
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MORR 054CD
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Tarwater (Ronald Lippok and Bernd Jestram) present The Needle Was Traveling, their fifth full-length album and their first release on Morr Music. It shows the duo at the height of their artistic abilities. There is a new tone to their music here, breathing a narrative quality into their songs. Carried by a warm and softly insisting pulse, they glide from one track, one chapter to the next, while exploring bewitched, yet strangely familiar landscapes -- you'll never really know if they are placed on an axis in a far away future or if they are part of a long-forgotten universe, which is said to have been the place where truth once lived.
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CD
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ROOM 008CD
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"The music of Tarwater as re-imagined by a cavalcade of international 'post-rock' superstars. Tarwater, aka Bernd Jestram and Ronald Lippok, have been making music together for a while now, starting years ago in a punk band under the wary eye of the East German secret police. More recently, Tarwater have effected a more subtle subversion, garnering praise for their latest album, Silur which combines song structures with spoken word fragments and sub-aquatic electronics. Most of the mixes on this EP were sourced from Silur. Along with fellow travelers Mouse On Mars, To Rococo Rot and Kreidler, Tarwater is creating some of the most adventurous sounds to come out of Germany since the heyday of Krautrock.." Five track EP, with remixes by To Rococo Rot, Third Eye Foundation, Kiln, Birdwatcher (Windsor For The Derby) & Bundy K. Brown. Limited stock.
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