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CD
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BB 318CD
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" 'You can't walk on water/ but you can swim in it/ the coast is clear/ add land from here': A slow, slightly erratic pulse ripples underneath Tellavision's voice as she sings -- evoking the fears which paralyze us, the fears which inspire us. Magnetic fields crackle over a sharply contoured yet dimly lit beat on Add Land, the new Tellavision album. It doesn't take much for her voice to shine . . . Add Land, the fourth Tellavision album, is a rigorous exercise in musical reduction, reaching new levels of intricacy and virtuosity which prove to be warmer and more touching than ever. For a decade, Tellavision has been one of our most exciting sonic inventors, carving out her own inimitable style through her previous three albums, two EPs, and countless tracks. New music abstractions echo against a backdrop of old krautrock mechanical motorik rhythms, allied to the physically gripping immediacy of techno and noise . . .Add Land marks a departure, a shift, a move towards a new horizon, 'the coast is clear/ add land from here'. Tellavision has severed those connections which increasingly felt like constraints to her -- the close link to machines, for example, the way her voice became entangled in electronic sounds. Now, her vocals occupy a clear space in the foreground, whilst she still chooses to add her own choral voice on some songs. The difference is that these choirs no longer blur her subjectivity, instead they serve to magnify or multiply it. No matter the flutters, shivers and doubts in the shadows, there is a new strength in evidence here, a new steadfastness in her music: Add Land is an upbeat, optimistic work, meeting the world head on. Fear may be a leitmotif on Add Land, but the spotlight is directed more towards the love which enables us to overcome our fears: our love for each other, for ourselves . . . Once again, Tellavision has written and recorded all of the songs herself. She was joined on production by Thies Mynther, better known to us as one half of the Phantom/Ghost duo, who met Tellavision through one of her more recent theatrical works . . . Tellavision has never sounded so immediate, so confident, so very much in the moment. This is her finest album to date: 'Drop utopia/ drop dystopia/ it's all here.' " --Jens Balzer (translation Gareth Davies)
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LP
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BB 318LP
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LP version. " 'You can't walk on water/ but you can swim in it/ the coast is clear/ add land from here': A slow, slightly erratic pulse ripples underneath Tellavision's voice as she sings -- evoking the fears which paralyze us, the fears which inspire us. Magnetic fields crackle over a sharply contoured yet dimly lit beat on Add Land, the new Tellavision album. It doesn't take much for her voice to shine . . . Add Land, the fourth Tellavision album, is a rigorous exercise in musical reduction, reaching new levels of intricacy and virtuosity which prove to be warmer and more touching than ever. For a decade, Tellavision has been one of our most exciting sonic inventors, carving out her own inimitable style through her previous three albums, two EPs, and countless tracks. New music abstractions echo against a backdrop of old krautrock mechanical motorik rhythms, allied to the physically gripping immediacy of techno and noise . . .Add Land marks a departure, a shift, a move towards a new horizon, 'the coast is clear/ add land from here'. Tellavision has severed those connections which increasingly felt like constraints to her -- the close link to machines, for example, the way her voice became entangled in electronic sounds. Now, her vocals occupy a clear space in the foreground, whilst she still chooses to add her own choral voice on some songs. The difference is that these choirs no longer blur her subjectivity, instead they serve to magnify or multiply it. No matter the flutters, shivers and doubts in the shadows, there is a new strength in evidence here, a new steadfastness in her music: Add Land is an upbeat, optimistic work, meeting the world head on. Fear may be a leitmotif on Add Land, but the spotlight is directed more towards the love which enables us to overcome our fears: our love for each other, for ourselves . . . Once again, Tellavision has written and recorded all of the songs herself. She was joined on production by Thies Mynther, better known to us as one half of the Phantom/Ghost duo, who met Tellavision through one of her more recent theatrical works . . . Tellavision has never sounded so immediate, so confident, so very much in the moment. This is her finest album to date: 'Drop utopia/ drop dystopia/ it's all here.' " --Jens Balzer (translation Gareth Davies)
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LP
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KR 031LP
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180-gram vinyl. The Third Eye is the third album by Hamburg's Tellavision aka Fee R. Kürten, who has been deeply rooted in DIY culture right from her start in 2007. Kürten calls her original aesthetic "hardware post-pop," work which she uses to deconstruct borders between (anti-)pop and avant-garde, and between high and low art. The Third Eye follows 2011's Music on Canvas (FTR 111EP) and 2013's Funnel Walk, which was recorded with Tobias Levin (Tocotronic; Mutter; Ja, Panik). Developed and produced during a stay at the Whitehaus, one of Boston's self-governing cultural centers, the tracks play with Tellavision's reception across different genres; too punk for an arty audience, too arty for the punks, Kürten, who studied arts at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (attending classes taught by Jutta Koether and Felix Kubin, among others), follows an interdisciplinary approach that combines visual arts, film, and music, taking in a wide range of pop-cultural references, rejecting them, and finally mashing them up for new positions in contemporary arts that defy conventions. Defied too is the concept of the traditional A-side and B-side; instead, The Third Eye is split into two named sides. Ease Tikky Tab continues and refines Tellavision's atonal, dub-infected trademark sound, while Cryptic Snash Man crystallizes as an oscillating field of krauty repetition and industrial ambiences. Oppressive, dissonant soundscapes, created by a reduced set-up of analog synthesizers, percussive elements, and fragmentary field recordings, go along perfectly with Kürten's elegic, soulful voice. It's a unique sound that situates the young artist, 27 at the time of this release, among like-minded lo-fi-advocates Ariel Pink and John Maus, the rhythmic grooves of ESG, and a generation of female artists including Fatima al Qadiri, Inga Copeland (whom Kürten has supported in concert), Gazelle Twin, and Klara Lewis.
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12"
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FTR 111EP
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Gorgeous first LP by German visual/sound artist, Fee Kürten, whose previous work has been available only via the German Bloody Hands label. Singing in English, accompanying herself on electronics, harmonica and strings, Fee creates oddball vistas of minimal pop aktion reminiscent of early Young Marble Giants, mixed with overtones lifted straight from the women of the Neue Deutsch Welle, and the slangy delivery of Omnivore. The results are a beautiful, throbbing Euro-American art-pop hybrid that functions in truly Internationalist terms. Some of it is akin to the nudest American avant-garage inventions around, other parts bleed like the waffle-filled air of the deepest Belgian underground. Just when you think you have Tellavision's modus operandi decoded, something different happens and you have to start re-evaluating your conclusions. Surreal, abstract, imagist, literal and utterly lovely, this is music for sitting around an internal campfire, crackling like crazy. Edition of 300.
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