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2LP
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IDEAL 164LP
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2020 relist, last copies; black vinyl. Monstrance documents Mika Vainio and Joachim Nordwall reshaping guitars, drums, and incendiary electronics at Einstürzende Neubauten's Berlin studio back in 2010. The results were originally issued by Touch in 2013 with this new double-LP edition arriving on Nordwall's iDEAL Recordings label five years later as a posthumous tribute and reminder of his erstwhile collaborator. It's one of Vainio's most crucial and absorbing collaborations; moving away from ice-cold electronic precision and into a more visceral re-rendering of metal. In a sort of fantasy regression imbued with the spirit of their shared heroes -- Einstürzende Neubauten -- Mika returns to the instruments he cut his teeth on way back in the '80s, manning electric guitar, drums, and effects, while Nordwall takes control of electronics, electric bass, Hammond organ, and vibraphone, with both arriving at a mutually primal conclusion of distortion and fiercely charged electro-acoustic air. The first side's "Alloy Ceremony" comes on like an Earth death march (especially if played at 33rpm), before the furnace blast of "Live At The Chrome Cathedral" settles to the sepulchral croaks of "Midas In Reverse'. In the second part, the duo communicate in reverberant, hollow knocks, and guttural bass waves on "Irkutsk", leading to a moment of raw, staggering poignancy with the shimmering primitivism of "Praseodymium", leading each other in acres of negative space, with needled strings creating a fine tension that dissolves into the funereal, floating tones of "In The Sheltering Sanctus Of Minerals" in a sort of blue, etheric and almost ecclesiastic resolution. All the track titles allude to metal (in the material sense), which gives you a firm sense of the hard, grey tonal palette the duo worked with. But Nordwall and Vainio generate such an impressive array of music out of this ascetic approach that we can't really think of much in either of their extensive repertoires that sounds much like the hour of music they created here. It's one of Vainio's most impressive and unique collaborations outside of Pan Sonic, an essential exploration of silence and noise. Mika Vainio: Electric guitar, effects and percussion; Joachim Nordwall; Electronics, bass, organ and vibraphone. New artwork by Philip Marshall. Mastered at EMS, Stockholm by Daniel Karlsson.
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2LP
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TO 088LP
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Mika Vainio was a member of the legendary minimal electronic duo Pan Sonic. Emerging from the Finnish industrial and rave music scene in the early '90s, they became one of the most important electronic music acts. Vainio's solo work goes from abstract drone to minimal and experimental techno, under his own name or as Ø for labels like Touch, Raster Noton, Sähkö, and Editions Mego. He has worked with Alan Vega, Keiji Haino, and many others. His music is always extremely physical and present. Mika Vainio lives and works in Berlin. Joachim Nordwall has run the iDEAL Recordings label since 1998, releasing intense electronic music of various kinds and organizing club nights and festivals around the globe. He started making electronic music as a teenager in the late '80s in the psychedelic drone duo Alvars Orkester (Ash International), drifted off to sweaty avant garde punk rock with Kid Commando in the late '90s and formed the ritual rock and electronic drone group The Skull Defekts in 2005. He is also recording solo works under his own name and works with Mats Gustafsson, The Gagmen (with Aaron Dilloway and Nate Young), Mark Wastell, and The Sons Of God. Nordwall is based in Stockholm. Monstrance is their first album together and consists of drone works and pulsating electronic minimalism, but also guitar, acoustic elements, organs, and metal percussion. It was recorded in Einstürzende Neubauten's Berlin studio during an intense session in early summer of 2010. Monstrance is a place where Vainio's and Nordwall's backgrounds as musicians and composers meet, and something new and extremely powerful is born. Something deep, raw, and direct. Mika Vainio (electric guitar, processing, metallic percussion) and Joachim Nordwall (electronics, electric bass guitar, metal objects, Hammond organ, vibraphone).
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CD
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TO 088CD
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Mika Vainio was a member of the legendary minimal electronic duo Pan Sonic. Emerging from the Finnish industrial and rave music scene in the early '90s, they became one of the most important electronic music acts. Vainio's solo work goes from abstract drone to minimal and experimental techno, under his own name or as Ø for labels like Touch, Raster Noton, Sähkö, and Editions Mego. He has worked with Alan Vega, Keiji Haino, and many others. His music is always extremely physical and present. Mika Vainio lives and works in Berlin. Joachim Nordwall has run the iDEAL Recordings label since 1998, releasing intense electronic music of various kinds and organizing club nights and festivals around the globe. He started making electronic music as a teenager in the late '80s in the psychedelic drone duo Alvars Orkester (Ash International), drifted off to sweaty avant garde punk rock with Kid Commando in the late '90s and formed the ritual rock and electronic drone group The Skull Defekts in 2005. He is also recording solo works under his own name and works with Mats Gustafsson, The Gagmen (with Aaron Dilloway and Nate Young), Mark Wastell, and The Sons Of God. Nordwall is based in Stockholm. Monstrance is their first album together and consists of drone works and pulsating electronic minimalism, but also guitar, acoustic elements, organs, and metal percussion. It was recorded in Einstürzende Neubauten's Berlin studio during an intense session in early summer of 2010. Monstrance is a place where Vainio's and Nordwall's backgrounds as musicians and composers meet, and something new and extremely powerful is born. Something deep, raw, and direct. Artwork & photography by Jon Wozencroft.
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