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LP
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ITA 091RM-LP
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Von Spar celebrates the 10th anniversary of their groundbreaking 2009 album, Foreigner, with a reissue edition of the long-time out-of-print LP. Von Spar consist of Sebastian Blume, Jan Philipp Janzen, Philip Tielsch, and Christopher Marquez. On Foreigner, Von Spar has once again put themselves to the task of juxtaposing seemingly disparate musical spheres. The spectrum ranges from electrified pop and krautrock elements to fusion experiments to clubby electro tracks. Based in Cologne and Berlin, the four musicians celebrate an elaborately constructed disorder. Like their previous releases, it defies categorization. The quartet left the planet entirely for the duration of the album production in Cologne in late 2009, smoldering with a psychedelic heat before combusting into light-flooded cosmic haze -- full of warm bass and rolling rhythms. All around, cosmic melodies shimmer clearly, aimed straight into the future. And even when the percussive patterns spread earthy rhythms, there is still a synthetic sound buzzing around somewhere, telling of the vastness of the universe. The multi-layered vocal-parts which appear in well-dosed intervals work as anchors on this colored trip: The single "trOOps" combines almost R&B-ish vocals with a kraut-y disco groove. This contrasts with the calmness of the nautically inspired album opener "Scotch & Chablis" or cosmic space-mantra odes like "Lambda". Foreigner is a science-fiction album chock full of trippy pop, which tumbles through unexplored terrain without forgetting to look in the rearview mirror and allowing the listeners enough room to use their own imagination.
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LP
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ITA 100LP
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Von Spar celebrate the fifth anniversary of their groundbreaking 2014 album, Streetlife, with a reissue LP edition pressed onto 140 gram white vinyl. Precarious bon vivants, gifted musicians, radical guys -- Von Spar are many things, but above all, they are one of the most amazing bands in the realms that the British music press once baptized as krautrock. Sebastian Blume, Jan Philipp Janzen, Christopher Marquez, and Phillip Tielsch have in past been praised even more than the revenants of the genre (in 2012, together with Stephen Malkmus, before the watering eyes of Can founding members Irmin Schmidt and Jaki Liebezeit, they provided a reinterpretation of the album Ege Bamyasi at the Cologne Weekend Festival) -- even if the four were inspired equally by techno, synthpop, noise, post-punk, and new music. "The concept of the collective Von Spar seems to be to torpedo listeners' expectations from album to album," wrote the German newspaper TAZ about their album Foreigner (2010). And once again, much is new on Streetlife. Four of the eight pieces were recorded with the Canadian singer Chris Cummings, aka Marker Starling (formerly Mantler), whose fragile voice at moments recalls that of the great communist and musician Robert Wyatt. Other pieces feature the voice of Ada (Pampa Records) and of Scout Niblett (Drag City), for whom Jan Philipp Janzen has played drums on various tours (as he has for the likes of Owen Pallett and The Field). Streetlife has emerged as a heterogeneous album ranging from melodic piano disco ("Chain Of Command"), to tripped-out soundscapes ("Hearts Fear"), to grandiose soft rock ("Try Though We Might"). One might call it music for a better world, if that didn't sound so lofty. Yet Von Spar is not at all lofty, they are wide awake. This is not escapism, but life in the streets. And that's how they live it.
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LP
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BB 322LP
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LP version. "It's the terror of knowing what this world is about," David Bowie sang in 1981, backed by Queen. He performed the remarkable feat of taking a song with such lyrics and creating a hit. Von Spar's Under Pressure also knows what this world is about, with its intimidatory posturing, acute social competition and the fight for survival as we enter an age of surveillance capitalism. The music's inherent urgency is in evidence from the very first beat, yet it still appears to float freely, creating space for reflection and self-interrogation. What others call a "band", Von Spar see as a modular system. The creative community of Sebastian Blume, Jan Philipp Janzen, Christopher Marquez, and Phillip Tielsch is in a state of constant flux. Von Spar is an interface, providing access to rediscovery and fresh experience of, to all intents and purposes, the familiar. Under Pressure is their fifth album, not counting their homage to Can (recorded live with Stephen Malkmus). 15 years have passed since their debut Die Uneingeschränkte Freiheit Der Privaten Initiative (2004), five since Streetlife (2014). On closer examination, there is a chameleonesque quality to Von Spar's discography. Their records are the result of continuous metamorphosis, opening wormholes to post punk, krautrock and '80s art pop. The constants: rhythmic refinement and harmonic quantum leaps, swirling synthesizer arpeggios, backwards guitars with no hint of retrogradation. The eight songs on Under Pressure were recorded in Von Spar's Dumbo Studio in Cologne, with various guests from adding noteworthy contributions. As on Streetlife, the formative voice belongs to Chris A. Cummings aka Marker Starling. His distinctive falsetto graces over half of the songs, asking: "Is there a cure for this/Unhappiness, happiness?" On the opening track, Cummings is joined by Eiko Ishibashi (Kafka's Ibiki, Jim O'Rourke, Merzbow) in a Japanese dream sequence exploring where they might get to if the shackles of the flesh are cast off. Punk and reggae professor Vivien Goldman (The Flying Lizards) picks up the thread and liberates herself from the ghosts of the past on "Boyfriends (Dead Or Alive)". Lætitia Sadier (Stereolab) sings on the album's kraut-pop hit "Extend The Song" which could run and run for ever, powered by motoric energy: "If someone would ask me/Could I go on?" Less answers, more questions -- this is the song's greatest leitmotif. It is left to low-fi maverick R. Stevie Moore to pose the question on "Falsetto Giuseppe" "Should I worry?" Of course!" --Arno Raffeiner
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CD
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BB 322CD
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"It's the terror of knowing what this world is about," David Bowie sang in 1981, backed by Queen. He performed the remarkable feat of taking a song with such lyrics and creating a hit. Von Spar's Under Pressure also knows what this world is about, with its intimidatory posturing, acute social competition and the fight for survival as we enter an age of surveillance capitalism. The music's inherent urgency is in evidence from the very first beat, yet it still appears to float freely, creating space for reflection and self-interrogation. What others call a "band", Von Spar see as a modular system. The creative community of Sebastian Blume, Jan Philipp Janzen, Christopher Marquez, and Phillip Tielsch is in a state of constant flux. Von Spar is an interface, providing access to rediscovery and fresh experience of, to all intents and purposes, the familiar. Under Pressure is their fifth album, not counting their homage to Can (recorded live with Stephen Malkmus). 15 years have passed since their debut Die Uneingeschränkte Freiheit Der Privaten Initiative (2004), five since Streetlife (2014). On closer examination, there is a chameleonesque quality to Von Spar's discography. Their records are the result of continuous metamorphosis, opening wormholes to post punk, krautrock and '80s art pop. The constants: rhythmic refinement and harmonic quantum leaps, swirling synthesizer arpeggios, backwards guitars with no hint of retrogradation. The eight songs on Under Pressure were recorded in Von Spar's Dumbo Studio in Cologne, with various guests from adding noteworthy contributions. As on Streetlife, the formative voice belongs to Chris A. Cummings aka Marker Starling. His distinctive falsetto graces over half of the songs, asking: "Is there a cure for this/Unhappiness, happiness?" On the opening track, Cummings is joined by Eiko Ishibashi (Kafka's Ibiki, Jim O'Rourke, Merzbow) in a Japanese dream sequence exploring where they might get to if the shackles of the flesh are cast off. Punk and reggae professor Vivien Goldman (The Flying Lizards) picks up the thread and liberates herself from the ghosts of the past on "Boyfriends (Dead Or Alive)". Lætitia Sadier (Stereolab) sings on the album's kraut-pop hit "Extend The Song" which could run and run for ever, powered by motoric energy: "If someone would ask me/Could I go on?" Less answers, more questions -- this is the song's greatest leitmotif. It is left to low-fi maverick R. Stevie Moore to pose the question on "Falsetto Giuseppe" "Should I worry?" Of course!" --Arno Raffeiner
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12"
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AVM 063EP
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Von Spar present their Garzweiler EP on Altin Village & Mine, named after the Garzweiler surface mine in the outermost western corner of Germany. Opener "Metaxourgío" features a futuristic atmosphere, which is most prominent in the fantastic and strange nucleus of the EP. "Garzweiler III" and "Garzweiler IV" are among the band's most abstract work in the past decade. Here, Von Spar realize a breezy, machinic anonymity to which any "human touch" is foreign and external. "Omónia" works as a sort of unexpected summary of the record transposed to the dancefloor, the urgency creating a grandiose, almost anthemic, finale.
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12"
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AREAL 067EP
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Areal Records presents a 12" by Von Spar with a remix from none other than techno legend John Tejada. With "Jon Voight," the Hamburg-based artists have created another epic masterpiece in line with their earlier electronic tracks with great emotions and melodies you will never forget. Tejada's remix has already proven immensely effective on the dancefloor.
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12"
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IRR 008EP
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International Records is honored to release this fantastic track by Von Spar, a track that might as well be found on their outstanding album Foreigner from 2010. Maybe it is because International Records is such a big label and the crude, elegiac, and emotionally mighty sound of these guys fits just perfectly. And whoever would like to get out of this tunnel of infinite deepness should rely on the remix Ada comes up with.
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