BUREAU B - Forced Exposure

$17.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 10/16/2020

"A strange world Martin Rev's fifth solo album -- Strangeworld -- was released on the cusp of the new millennium. The label responsible was Puu, a Finnish imprint belonging to Tommi Grönlund and Mika Vainio's Sähkö Recordings which came to fame in the 1990s on the strength of its uncompromising minimalist sound. Four years earlier, in 1996, Rev had unleashed See Me Ridin', an album which surprised its listeners with keyboard melody sketches and distilled doo-wop compositions. It was also the first solo album to feature Martin Rev on vocals. Strangeworld started where its predecessor left off. Melodic passages dissolved into a thicket of fragments and set pieces, coalescing in a celestial shimmer between rhythm loops and Rev's voice, which assumed the role of an additional instrument rather than a standard singing part. Martin Rev's familiar murmurs and hums are there, but the music on Strangeworld no longer feeds on the furious rumbling of the electrified city. Instead we hear wonderfully naive singing, lost in reverie, Martin Rev's condensed teenage memories of days when young hearts were breaking to the sound of doo-wop melodies on the transistor radio. There are still flashes of contemporary music and traces of dance elements, but Rev maintains these entered his musical spectrum subconsciously: 'Techno wasn't specifically on my mind while recording but for sure it was already part of the musical environment at that time so easily may have become added to some of the nuances that were revealing themselves in the album's process.' Rev took charge of the album production himself in his home city of New York: 'Strangeworld was mostly produced at a private studio that I booked as much as couple of days a week. It was the beginning of engineers setting up rental studios even in their homes since digital, then in the form of ADAT, and early computerization had suddenly made it possible.' If Säkhö seems an unlikely partner to release the record, there is, on closer examination, a certain congruity between Rev's work and the radical minimalism of the Finnish label's sound . . . Twenty years have passed since Strangeworld was first released, but the world it revealed remains as strange and enigmatic as ever." --Daniel Jahn, May 2020

$17.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 10/16/2020

"Martin Rev's fourth solo album See Me Ridin' was released on the New York label Reachout International Records (ROIR) in 1996. Received by the critics with amazement, it proved to be a watershed moment in his career. Journalist Neil Cooper wrote at the time: 'When I first heard Rev's new record, I was taken aback. Was he serious? Was this some inside joke? He had to be kidding -- or was he mentally over the top!' Its reception echoed that of the 1992 Suicide album Why Be Blue, which sprung such a surprise on fans of the duo comprising Martin Rev and Alan Vegas. On this particular solo album, Rev repeated the trick of dispensing with rough, brittle sounds. This was not Rev seeking to distance himself from his musical origins, he was actually getting back closer to his roots. Signs of Martin Rev's formative influence as an electronic music pioneer can be seen in many places. Virtually no one would have expected him to deliver a doo-wop album, but in the light of Rev's socialization and artistic tradition, it reflects a logical process of absolute reduction. Martin Rev crafted See Me Ridin' as a kind of power pop hybrid, an album which owed much to the R&B and doowop of the 1950s and 1960s; the music which a youthful Martin Rev heard on the streets of New York, the soundtrack to his teenage years which had such an intense effect on him and would resurface in his own works. Nowhere more so than here. The instrumental foundations of these 16 tracks are built on rudimentarily sketched melodic arches, outlines rather than fully defined structures, yet all the more forceful for that. As if the full potency of an R&B band has been distilled into minimalist keyboard compositions. Martin Rev's vocals are as minimal as they are sentimental, wonderfully poetic like a latter-day Chet Baker perhaps, or Jonathan Richman. This solo album not only blindsided Rev's critics and fans alike, but also painted a personal, nostalgic portrait of his home, New York; fading out the noise and contradictions of the city to channel the romantic energy of the metropolis." --Daniel Jahn, May 2020

$22.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 10/16/2020

LP version. "Martin Rev's fourth solo album See Me Ridin' was released on the New York label Reachout International Records (ROIR) in 1996. Received by the critics with amazement, it proved to be a watershed moment in his career. Journalist Neil Cooper wrote at the time: 'When I first heard Rev's new record, I was taken aback. Was he serious? Was this some inside joke? He had to be kidding -- or was he mentally over the top!' Its reception echoed that of the 1992 Suicide album Why Be Blue, which sprung such a surprise on fans of the duo comprising Martin Rev and Alan Vegas. On this particular solo album, Rev repeated the trick of dispensing with rough, brittle sounds. This was not Rev seeking to distance himself from his musical origins, he was actually getting back closer to his roots. Signs of Martin Rev's formative influence as an electronic music pioneer can be seen in many places. Virtually no one would have expected him to deliver a doo-wop album, but in the light of Rev's socialization and artistic tradition, it reflects a logical process of absolute reduction. Martin Rev crafted See Me Ridin' as a kind of power pop hybrid, an album which owed much to the R&B and doowop of the 1950s and 1960s; the music which a youthful Martin Rev heard on the streets of New York, the soundtrack to his teenage years which had such an intense effect on him and would resurface in his own works. Nowhere more so than here. The instrumental foundations of these 16 tracks are built on rudimentarily sketched melodic arches, outlines rather than fully defined structures, yet all the more forceful for that. As if the full potency of an R&B band has been distilled into minimalist keyboard compositions. Martin Rev's vocals are as minimal as they are sentimental, wonderfully poetic like a latter-day Chet Baker perhaps, or Jonathan Richman. This solo album not only blindsided Rev's critics and fans alike, but also painted a personal, nostalgic portrait of his home, New York; fading out the noise and contradictions of the city to channel the romantic energy of the metropolis." --Daniel Jahn, May 2020

$22.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 10/16/2020

LP version. "A strange world Martin Rev's fifth solo album -- Strangeworld -- was released on the cusp of the new millennium. The label responsible was Puu, a Finnish imprint belonging to Tommi Grönlund and Mika Vainio's Sähkö Recordings which came to fame in the 1990s on the strength of its uncompromising minimalist sound. Four years earlier, in 1996, Rev had unleashed See Me Ridin', an album which surprised its listeners with keyboard melody sketches and distilled doo-wop compositions. It was also the first solo album to feature Martin Rev on vocals. Strangeworld started where its predecessor left off. Melodic passages dissolved into a thicket of fragments and set pieces, coalescing in a celestial shimmer between rhythm loops and Rev's voice, which assumed the role of an additional instrument rather than a standard singing part. Martin Rev's familiar murmurs and hums are there, but the music on Strangeworld no longer feeds on the furious rumbling of the electrified city. Instead we hear wonderfully naive singing, lost in reverie, Martin Rev's condensed teenage memories of days when young hearts were breaking to the sound of doo-wop melodies on the transistor radio. There are still flashes of contemporary music and traces of dance elements, but Rev maintains these entered his musical spectrum subconsciously: 'Techno wasn't specifically on my mind while recording but for sure it was already part of the musical environment at that time so easily may have become added to some of the nuances that were revealing themselves in the album's process.' Rev took charge of the album production himself in his home city of New York: 'Strangeworld was mostly produced at a private studio that I booked as much as couple of days a week. It was the beginning of engineers setting up rental studios even in their homes since digital, then in the form of ADAT, and early computerization had suddenly made it possible.' If Säkhö seems an unlikely partner to release the record, there is, on closer examination, a certain congruity between Rev's work and the radical minimalism of the Finnish label's sound . . . Twenty years have passed since Strangeworld was first released, but the world it revealed remains as strange and enigmatic as ever." --Daniel Jahn, May 2020

$17.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 10/9/2020

Front View is the album debut of film-maker and musician Helena Ratka, alias Pose Dia. A soundtrack and theater composer, as well as resident DJ at Hamburg's Golden Pudel Club, Ratka emerged onto the scene as one half of Shari Vari (together with Sophia Kennedy). Now all these pathways or winding roads have converged to create Pose Dia and an impressive album of many facets -- a self-assured debut. Born in Hamburg, where she continues to live and work, Helena Ratka played the saxophone in her school's big band. She then set the sax aside and began experimenting with electronic sounds, initially with film soundtracks in mind for her studies. It was around this time that she picked up a regular DJ gig at the Golden Pudel Club as Ratkat, which led to her meeting Sophia Kennedy. The pair formed a duo, Shari Vari, recorded an album and played numerous concerts. This collaboration galvanized Ratka into focusing her efforts more intensely on making music, a welcome counterweight to the somewhat drawn-out process of filmmaking. Early demo sessions laid the groundwork for Front View. "The album was produced in different places between 2018 and 2020, mostly in my studio at home. Some tracks or ideas came to me in Heidelberg and Lübeck, where I was working on music for theatres." The resulting album takes you on a mysterious journey through a darkish landscape. Pose Dia's tracks assume the most diverse forms -- from supercooled synth-wave sounds or the weightless effortlessness of pop on the one hand, to the dystopian urgency of contemporary club music or flashes of hip-hop on the other. In spite of this panoply of influences and blackwall hitches, the music is never drowned out in a sea of influences, instead the songs radiate a magnetism all of their own. Within the first few sequencer-driven bars of the opening track "At The Beach", the listener is well and truly hooked. The unique quality of Pose Dia's music may owe something to Ratka's pictorial way of working. Enigmatic stories, sounds, words, and voices in the role of instruments help to make Front View into such a kaleidoscopic album, serene and yet tumultuous, minimalist and tender yet capable of exploding in raw anger.

$22.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 10/9/2020

LP version. Front View is the album debut of film-maker and musician Helena Ratka, alias Pose Dia. A soundtrack and theater composer, as well as resident DJ at Hamburg's Golden Pudel Club, Ratka emerged onto the scene as one half of Shari Vari (together with Sophia Kennedy). Now all these pathways or winding roads have converged to create Pose Dia and an impressive album of many facets -- a self-assured debut. Born in Hamburg, where she continues to live and work, Helena Ratka played the saxophone in her school's big band. She then set the sax aside and began experimenting with electronic sounds, initially with film soundtracks in mind for her studies. It was around this time that she picked up a regular DJ gig at the Golden Pudel Club as Ratkat, which led to her meeting Sophia Kennedy. The pair formed a duo, Shari Vari, recorded an album and played numerous concerts. This collaboration galvanized Ratka into focusing her efforts more intensely on making music, a welcome counterweight to the somewhat drawn-out process of filmmaking. Early demo sessions laid the groundwork for Front View. "The album was produced in different places between 2018 and 2020, mostly in my studio at home. Some tracks or ideas came to me in Heidelberg and Lübeck, where I was working on music for theatres." The resulting album takes you on a mysterious journey through a darkish landscape. Pose Dia's tracks assume the most diverse forms -- from supercooled synth-wave sounds or the weightless effortlessness of pop on the one hand, to the dystopian urgency of contemporary club music or flashes of hip-hop on the other. In spite of this panoply of influences and blackwall hitches, the music is never drowned out in a sea of influences, instead the songs radiate a magnetism all of their own. Within the first few sequencer-driven bars of the opening track "At The Beach", the listener is well and truly hooked. The unique quality of Pose Dia's music may owe something to Ratka's pictorial way of working. Enigmatic stories, sounds, words, and voices in the role of instruments help to make Front View into such a kaleidoscopic album, serene and yet tumultuous, minimalist and tender yet capable of exploding in raw anger.

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. "Schlammpeitziger is the alias of musician, illustrator and performance artist Jo Zimmermann. He has been an integral figure in the evolving sound of Cologne since 1992, releasing his surrealist lo-fi krautronica on imprints such as A-Musik, Pingipung, and Sonig. Ein Weltleck in der Echokammer is the tenth Schlammpeitziger opus and his second album to appear on the Hamburg-based label Bureau B. The first notes of the opening title track Weltleck instantly confirm that this is no run-of-the-mill record. Jo Zimmermann confounds expectations as he wraps the art-electro sound of Schlammpeitziger in otherworldly dub echo loops -- a surprising, yet perfectly coherent development. Jo Zimmermann elaborates on the new Schlammpeitziger sound: 'Reggae expert Bettina Lattak is a good friend of mine and she has been telling me for years that there are dub and reggae influences in my music. I had never really given it much thought, but when I began to introduce these elements more consciously into my music, everything clicked into place quite naturally. I found it fascinating, completely free of any religious context, simply following the sound.' Not that these eight sun-drenched tracks are exclusively in the realm of dub rhythm; they are also sprinkled with disco beats, beguilingly low-flying bass and dreamy, sweeping melodic arcs -- everything for which we have come to love Schlammpeitziger. He launches us into outer space before bringing us back down to the prosaic dancefloors of Earth. Another new aspect is that Jo Zimmermann sings on three of the tracks, translating the whimsical, curious nature of the music into an equally unique vernacular. His verbal expansion of the enraptured cosmos illuminates the brightly lit world outside the echo chamber on 'Handicapfalter', referencing Kraftwerk's 'Spiegelsaal' like a steel drum Absurdistan. Elsewhere, 'Every Dayhey' floats like a weightless rainy Sunday dub, a dull sensation of gentle melancholy seeping into the morning after a long, long night. Stefan Mohr, the producer from Cologne, mixed the album as he did its predecessor. Zimmermann and his congenial colleague Ulrike Göken have once again crafted the cover art and created a video in visual interpretations woven from the same fabric as Schlammpeitziger's music. Ein Weltleck in der Echokammer is an album which offers answers to questions that nobody is able to ask. Dancing feet caught in a trap, lost in crowded emptiness or sucked into space through a leak in the world -- only Schlammpeitziger can do the lot." --Andreas Dorau

$17.00 IN STOCK

"Schlammpeitziger is the alias of musician, illustrator and performance artist Jo Zimmermann. He has been an integral figure in the evolving sound of Cologne since 1992, releasing his surrealist lo-fi krautronica on imprints such as A-Musik, Pingipung, and Sonig. Ein Weltleck in der Echokammer is the tenth Schlammpeitziger opus and his second album to appear on the Hamburg-based label Bureau B. The first notes of the opening title track Weltleck instantly confirm that this is no run-of-the-mill record. Jo Zimmermann confounds expectations as he wraps the art-electro sound of Schlammpeitziger in otherworldly dub echo loops -- a surprising, yet perfectly coherent development. Jo Zimmermann elaborates on the new Schlammpeitziger sound: 'Reggae expert Bettina Lattak is a good friend of mine and she has been telling me for years that there are dub and reggae influences in my music. I had never really given it much thought, but when I began to introduce these elements more consciously into my music, everything clicked into place quite naturally. I found it fascinating, completely free of any religious context, simply following the sound.' Not that these eight sun-drenched tracks are exclusively in the realm of dub rhythm; they are also sprinkled with disco beats, beguilingly low-flying bass and dreamy, sweeping melodic arcs -- everything for which we have come to love Schlammpeitziger. He launches us into outer space before bringing us back down to the prosaic dancefloors of Earth. Another new aspect is that Jo Zimmermann sings on three of the tracks, translating the whimsical, curious nature of the music into an equally unique vernacular. His verbal expansion of the enraptured cosmos illuminates the brightly lit world outside the echo chamber on 'Handicapfalter', referencing Kraftwerk's 'Spiegelsaal' like a steel drum Absurdistan. Elsewhere, 'Every Dayhey' floats like a weightless rainy Sunday dub, a dull sensation of gentle melancholy seeping into the morning after a long, long night. Stefan Mohr, the producer from Cologne, mixed the album as he did its predecessor. Zimmermann and his congenial colleague Ulrike Göken have once again crafted the cover art and created a video in visual interpretations woven from the same fabric as Schlammpeitziger's music. Ein Weltleck in der Echokammer is an album which offers answers to questions that nobody is able to ask. Dancing feet caught in a trap, lost in crowded emptiness or sucked into space through a leak in the world -- only Schlammpeitziger can do the lot." --Andreas Dorau

$11.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 9/18/2020

12" version. Sorbet is a new project from producer, drummer, and vocalist Chris W Ryan (Robocobra Quartet). The first release via Bureau B, Life Variations EP is a suite of three tracks borne from the same musical seed. A presumptuous thing to tackle across 20 minutes, Life Variations EP negotiates birth, death, and that part in between. "Not just human life, but the life of planets or our environment -- and the death and birth of personal identity; of sexuality or gender." Lead single "Birth (My First Day)" is a celebration of beginnings. Explosions of reverb and breakbeat drum kits are all borne out of manipulations in ProTools, an audio software traditionally for recording and mixing studio performances. Working predominantly as a producer in recording studios and concert halls across the country, Ryan opts to use a tool he knows and re-imagine its usage. Pushing a software like ProTools to its limits and making it a creative tool instead of a utilitarian one is at the core of the palate-cleansing sound of Sorbet -- a place where electronic and acoustic sounds have equal weight. "Death (This Year I Died)" is the shapeshifting centerpiece of Life Variations EP. Recorded in São Paulo when Ryan was there as the PRS Foundation Musician in Residence last year, it distills the cyclical essence of the EP to twelve beatific minutes. Melding scorched synth arps with hypnotic patterns that traverse the flux and form of noise, post-classical, and contemporary electronica, it's a triumph of heady, Technicolor experimentalism from a kind of musical auteur. While artists such as Laurie Anderson, Dan Deacon, Oneohtrix Point Never, and Björk make their imprint both musically and conceptually, Ryan fares a singularly self-referential sound-world in his savvy for magpie-ing: borrowing musical ideas from the likes of classical music and making field recordings of street preachers in São Paulo. Ryan even goes so far as to steal a stray snare drum or cymbal hit from his own vault of the hundreds of recordings he has done as a recording engineer and producer for the likes of Just Mustard, ex-magician and the Ulster Orchestra. Life Variations ends with a type of coda in the form of "Living / Dying". One last presentation of that same chord progression, this time paired with a kind of voice-of-god in the form of Mark McCambridge of Arborist.

$14.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 9/18/2020

Auf Dem Schwarzen Kanal is one of the most outstanding, most sought-after releases in Conrad Schnitzler's extensive catalog. It was the only Schnitzler record to appear on a major label and saw him flirting with the experimental new wave sound that was emerging in 1980, particularly on the title track. Nevertheless, it still managed to sound idiosyncratically unlike any other music around at the time. Recorded with Wolfgang Seidel at Peter Baumann's Paragon Studio in Berlin, the four tracks take us on a caustic, dissonant mutant disco trip which has lost none of its fascination in the years since. It gives us at Bureau B great pleasure to reissue this long lost work.

$7.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 9/18/2020

Sorbet is a new project from producer, drummer, and vocalist Chris W Ryan (Robocobra Quartet). The first release via Bureau B, Life Variations EP is a suite of three tracks borne from the same musical seed. A presumptuous thing to tackle across 20 minutes, Life Variations EP negotiates birth, death, and that part in between. "Not just human life, but the life of planets or our environment -- and the death and birth of personal identity; of sexuality or gender." Lead single "Birth (My First Day)" is a celebration of beginnings. Explosions of reverb and breakbeat drum kits are all borne out of manipulations in ProTools, an audio software traditionally for recording and mixing studio performances. Working predominantly as a producer in recording studios and concert halls across the country, Ryan opts to use a tool he knows and re-imagine its usage. Pushing a software like ProTools to its limits and making it a creative tool instead of a utilitarian one is at the core of the palate-cleansing sound of Sorbet -- a place where electronic and acoustic sounds have equal weight. "Death (This Year I Died)" is the shapeshifting centerpiece of Life Variations EP. Recorded in São Paulo when Ryan was there as the PRS Foundation Musician in Residence last year, it distills the cyclical essence of the EP to twelve beatific minutes. Melding scorched synth arps with hypnotic patterns that traverse the flux and form of noise, post-classical, and contemporary electronica, it's a triumph of heady, Technicolor experimentalism from a kind of musical auteur. While artists such as Laurie Anderson, Dan Deacon, Oneohtrix Point Never, and Björk make their imprint both musically and conceptually, Ryan fares a singularly self-referential sound-world in his savvy for magpie-ing: borrowing musical ideas from the likes of classical music and making field recordings of street preachers in São Paulo. Ryan even goes so far as to steal a stray snare drum or cymbal hit from his own vault of the hundreds of recordings he has done as a recording engineer and producer for the likes of Just Mustard, ex-magician and the Ulster Orchestra. Life Variations ends with a type of coda in the form of "Living / Dying". One last presentation of that same chord progression, this time paired with a kind of voice-of-god in the form of Mark McCambridge of Arborist.

$17.00 IN STOCK

Tolouse Low Trax's fourth solo album, Jumping Dead Leafs. A 38-minute exorcism, Dionysac sexiness fueled with romanticism, made of mechanical incantations mixed with spectral vocals of forgotten imaginary tribes, words from a physicist (Incomprehensible Image), and mystical breathings... To remind you that music is demanding your soul and body, fully. A master irritator, disclosing this talent all the way, down to every chosen title, for the album itself and all of its components (would you put "Milk In Water"?) As repetitive or minimalist music may already make some of you feel nervous, it seems more accurate to talk here about primitive music -- notwithstanding a non-violent anarchism. But those are only words and vain attempts to attach TLT to a region or a family. Neither the burden of classical European music legacy, which eventually lead to pop music, seemed to interfere with his wild mind, and if it is no surprising to hear Bach in German electronic music, there is here a clear statement that you are out of this syrupy prison... For D.W. is a sorcerer. He's been empirically learning the language of trance with years of touring and experimenting with all kinds of audience and venues, from clubs to museums, from Mongolia to Brazil, from his performances with his bands Kreidler or Toresch to solo ones, sustained by a steady limited set up, as the one used when he's recording : one MPC, rudimentary synths, few effects, and a mixer. No sound engineer on stage as only he knows his secret language... Raw dubmaking, leaning towards hip-hop, indubitably underlining here a significant distancing from his previous industrial inspirations. The bewitchment of this record is operating with no warning from the very first seconds until the last epiphany of "Sales Pitch". He is using his knowledge of techno, psychedelia ("Inverted Sea"), UK bass ("Jumping Dead Leafs"), only to bring you out of it. We all tend to be slaves, without even being conscious about it, and a balance must be existing between being a slave and showing off. Mr. Detlef Weinrich's answer is unsettling because it is an utter call to this balance, in our world of black-and-white and political correctness. From his recording technique mainly relying on one take, his adoration of mistakes and jeopardy, to the core essence of repetitive music, it is all here about being in the present.

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Tolouse Low Trax's fourth solo album, Jumping Dead Leafs. A 38-minute exorcism, Dionysac sexiness fueled with romanticism, made of mechanical incantations mixed with spectral vocals of forgotten imaginary tribes, words from a physicist (Incomprehensible Image), and mystical breathings... To remind you that music is demanding your soul and body, fully. A master irritator, disclosing this talent all the way, down to every chosen title, for the album itself and all of its components (would you put "Milk In Water"?) As repetitive or minimalist music may already make some of you feel nervous, it seems more accurate to talk here about primitive music -- notwithstanding a non-violent anarchism. But those are only words and vain attempts to attach TLT to a region or a family. Neither the burden of classical European music legacy, which eventually lead to pop music, seemed to interfere with his wild mind, and if it is no surprising to hear Bach in German electronic music, there is here a clear statement that you are out of this syrupy prison... For D.W. is a sorcerer. He's been empirically learning the language of trance with years of touring and experimenting with all kinds of audience and venues, from clubs to museums, from Mongolia to Brazil, from his performances with his bands Kreidler or Toresch to solo ones, sustained by a steady limited set up, as the one used when he's recording : one MPC, rudimentary synths, few effects, and a mixer. No sound engineer on stage as only he knows his secret language... Raw dubmaking, leaning towards hip-hop, indubitably underlining here a significant distancing from his previous industrial inspirations. The bewitchment of this record is operating with no warning from the very first seconds until the last epiphany of "Sales Pitch". He is using his knowledge of techno, psychedelia ("Inverted Sea"), UK bass ("Jumping Dead Leafs"), only to bring you out of it. We all tend to be slaves, without even being conscious about it, and a balance must be existing between being a slave and showing off. Mr. Detlef Weinrich's answer is unsettling because it is an utter call to this balance, in our world of black-and-white and political correctness. From his recording technique mainly relying on one take, his adoration of mistakes and jeopardy, to the core essence of repetitive music, it is all here about being in the present.

$17.00 IN STOCK

Two years have passed since Bureau B released the first Sowas Von Egal compilation (BB 310CD/LP, 2018). With the musical movement or genre known as NDW celebrating its 40th anniversary, what better time than now to launch an ambitious successor to the first sampler. The beating heart of this endeavor is once again invigorated by the synchronous passions of bespoke Hamburg label Bureau B and the label's Damaged Goods nights where they present rare, obscure synth and wave discs from the early 1980s. It was clear from the outset that Sowas Von Egal 2 would need to scale similar heights of excellence as its predecessor, featuring carefully selected, sought-after, danceable tunes. Bureau B began by compiling a pool of potential tracks, a creative process of lively discussion in the spirit of "open-mindedness" which culminated in a list of priority targets. After research and rich encounters with input from musicians, friends, and acquaintances, Bureau B revised their target list several times over -- some artists simply could not be found, a few had actually passed away. There were also some who were determined not to revisit their own musical history and asked the label to leave out their songs. Some tracks are so rare that they do not even appear on YouTube. Bureau B have picked up the rights to release them. In contrast to the first volume, most of the acts on Sowas Von Egal 2 were only active in the early 1980s and have not released any records since then. The tape artists were particularly invested in the DIY ethic -- as is often apparent in their sound aesthetics and the unbridled energy which has lost none of its intensity today. Their art was seldom -- if ever -- tempered by commercial considerations or sales strategies. The photograph on the cover beautifully captures the paradoxical tensions which pervaded the atmosphere of the early Eighties: new beginnings, renewal, protest and self-empowerment on one side, frustration, hedonism, future anxiety, and destructive rage on the other. The DIY spirit ingrained in the music and attitude of the bands and artists gathered here is also brought into focus, whilst simultaneously establishing a connection to Hamburg. Mastering by Tom Morgenstern. Artwork by Biljana Tomic. Features Die Neue Weltmacht, Christian Kneisel, Silberstreif, Lieferschein, 4712, Plastiktanz, Rolf Jungklaus, Vono, Kleenex Aktiv, Conrad + Gregor Schnitzler, Partner Eins, Mark Montan, "In" Seit, Mittageisen, Die Synthetische Republik, and Casino Mariteam.

$17.00 IN STOCK

Harmonious Thelonious is the solo project of the Düsseldorf musician Stefan Schwander. His works combine American-influenced minimal music with African rhythms and European melodies. "I was busy experimenting with noisy rhythms when Bureau B asked me if I would like to release an album on their label. I was aiming for a more industrial sound; backwards cymbals, loops generated from non-musical sources such as slamming doors, and had the feeling that this would align nicely with Bureau B's own story." Stefan Schwander's new album Plong is something of a hybrid in the discography of Harmonious Thelonious, drawing on his existing strengths plus a sense of adventure in a mix of all his musical predilections. Dipping into the music, Middle Eastern elements can be heard on "Original Member Of A Wedding Band" and "Mumba", whilst tracks like "Höhlenmenschenmuziek" are characterized by more pronounced bass structures. Tuned down xylophones, evocative of ritual drums, sub bass, and electrifying basslines catalyze the idiosyncratic sound of Plong: hypnotic, danceable, irresistible. A powerful head of steam builds across the nine tracks, with subtle changes in harmony ("Geistertrio Booking") or unexpected cameos such as a new wave bassline on "Abu Synth" shaking things up before the album hurtles onward with renewed force. Take "Interpretation de Reve" as a case in point -- floating sequences and themes sweep ashore in wave after wave of melody; analogous to dreams which enter the subconscious in episodes, their apparent randomness gradually shifting into a correlative pattern. "Totentanz" closes the album in a homage to the Basle club of the same name, a place which played a decisive role in Schwander's musical socialization: "I was lucky enough to see bands like Liquid Liquid, Gun Club, Jonathan Richman, and a very young Aztec Camera there." Harmonious Thelonious comes off with an exceptional work in the genre of electronic music, successfully embracing the physical power of a club night soundtrack whilst exploring the dramatic depths of sonic worlds to create an intensive listening experience in total solitude.

$22.00 NOT IN STOCK

LP version. Two years have passed since Bureau B released the first Sowas Von Egal compilation (BB 310CD/LP, 2018). With the musical movement or genre known as NDW celebrating its 40th anniversary, what better time than now to launch an ambitious successor to the first sampler. The beating heart of this endeavor is once again invigorated by the synchronous passions of bespoke Hamburg label Bureau B and the label's Damaged Goods nights where they present rare, obscure synth and wave discs from the early 1980s. It was clear from the outset that Sowas Von Egal 2 would need to scale similar heights of excellence as its predecessor, featuring carefully selected, sought-after, danceable tunes. Bureau B began by compiling a pool of potential tracks, a creative process of lively discussion in the spirit of "open-mindedness" which culminated in a list of priority targets. After research and rich encounters with input from musicians, friends, and acquaintances, Bureau B revised their target list several times over -- some artists simply could not be found, a few had actually passed away. There were also some who were determined not to revisit their own musical history and asked the label to leave out their songs. Some tracks are so rare that they do not even appear on YouTube. Bureau B have picked up the rights to release them. In contrast to the first volume, most of the acts on Sowas Von Egal 2 were only active in the early 1980s and have not released any records since then. The tape artists were particularly invested in the DIY ethic -- as is often apparent in their sound aesthetics and the unbridled energy which has lost none of its intensity today. Their art was seldom -- if ever -- tempered by commercial considerations or sales strategies. The photograph on the cover beautifully captures the paradoxical tensions which pervaded the atmosphere of the early Eighties: new beginnings, renewal, protest and self-empowerment on one side, frustration, hedonism, future anxiety, and destructive rage on the other. The DIY spirit ingrained in the music and attitude of the bands and artists gathered here is also brought into focus, whilst simultaneously establishing a connection to Hamburg. Mastering by Tom Morgenstern. Artwork by Biljana Tomic. Features Die Neue Weltmacht, Christian Kneisel, Silberstreif, Lieferschein, 4712, Plastiktanz, Rolf Jungklaus, Vono, Kleenex Aktiv, Conrad + Gregor Schnitzler, Partner Eins, Mark Montan, "In" Seit, Mittageisen, Die Synthetische Republik, and Casino Mariteam.

$20.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Harmonious Thelonious is the solo project of the Düsseldorf musician Stefan Schwander. His works combine American-influenced minimal music with African rhythms and European melodies. "I was busy experimenting with noisy rhythms when Bureau B asked me if I would like to release an album on their label. I was aiming for a more industrial sound; backwards cymbals, loops generated from non-musical sources such as slamming doors, and had the feeling that this would align nicely with Bureau B's own story." Stefan Schwander's new album Plong is something of a hybrid in the discography of Harmonious Thelonious, drawing on his existing strengths plus a sense of adventure in a mix of all his musical predilections. Dipping into the music, Middle Eastern elements can be heard on "Original Member Of A Wedding Band" and "Mumba", whilst tracks like "Höhlenmenschenmuziek" are characterized by more pronounced bass structures. Tuned down xylophones, evocative of ritual drums, sub bass, and electrifying basslines catalyze the idiosyncratic sound of Plong: hypnotic, danceable, irresistible. A powerful head of steam builds across the nine tracks, with subtle changes in harmony ("Geistertrio Booking") or unexpected cameos such as a new wave bassline on "Abu Synth" shaking things up before the album hurtles onward with renewed force. Take "Interpretation de Reve" as a case in point -- floating sequences and themes sweep ashore in wave after wave of melody; analogous to dreams which enter the subconscious in episodes, their apparent randomness gradually shifting into a correlative pattern. "Totentanz" closes the album in a homage to the Basle club of the same name, a place which played a decisive role in Schwander's musical socialization: "I was lucky enough to see bands like Liquid Liquid, Gun Club, Jonathan Richman, and a very young Aztec Camera there." Harmonious Thelonious comes off with an exceptional work in the genre of electronic music, successfully embracing the physical power of a club night soundtrack whilst exploring the dramatic depths of sonic worlds to create an intensive listening experience in total solitude.

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Having completed his military service as a naval radio operator, Gunther Wüsthoff was in the midst of his German and fine art studies when he encountered Rudolf Sosna and Jean-Hervé Peron. It was May 1969 and each of them had a guitar so they decided to make music together. Polydor International headhunter Uwe Nettelbeck tracked them down on February 23 1971, prompting them to form the legendary krautrock band Faust with three other Hamburg musicians a few days later. Wüsthoff stayed with the band for five album and three tours through France and Great Britain before leaving in 1974. In subsequent decades, Wüsthoff had various technical jobs at Studio Hamburg and Filmhaus Hamburg and also studied technical editing so he could work as a freelancer. He continued to play music, introducing electronic instruments and computers into his work at an early stage. [to|digi]tal (pronounced "total digital"), a collection spanning the years 1979-2007, offers a clear insight into how he consciously integrated these means of production into the recording process.

"Motto: Due to previous but also temporary excesses of mainstream consumption and the omnipresent, repetitive emissions of the western world's music industry, devoid of contours and as slick as possible, we are faced with an indissoluble weariness. A criterion for music one can listen to today is, for me, that an element of friction is present: temporally, metrically, rhythmically, tonally or harmonically. Or that somewhere, something is somehow imperfect. Only then can music be truly alive." --Gunther Wüsthoff, 2005

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. About the Con-Struct series: Conrad Schnitzler liked to embark on daily excursions through the sonic diversity of his synthesizers. Finding exceptional sounds with great regularity, he preserved them for use in combination with each other in subsequent live performances. He thus amassed a vast sound archive of his discoveries over time. When the m=minimal label in Berlin reissued two Conrad Schnitzler albums at the outset of the 2010s, label honcho Jens Strüver was granted access to this audio library. Strüver came up with the idea of con-structing new compositions, not remixes, from the archived material. On completion of the first Con-Struct album (MINIMAL 007CD/LP, 2011), he decided to develop the concept into a series, with different electronic musicians invited into Schnitzler's unique world of sound.

Frank Bretschneider on his "Con-Structions": "I read the name Conrad Schnitzler for the first time in the article about Tangerine Dream in the Rowohlt Rock Lexicon from 1973. The first time I heard his music was only in 1980, when his wave track 'Auf dem Schwarzen Kanal' was played on the radio . . . It wasn't until 1988 that I heard from Schnitzler again, a tape on Jörg Thomasius's East Berlin Kröten Kassetten label. And again almost ten years later his Plate Lunch CDs Rot and 00/106 (1997). But it was all too rough and raw for me, both in terms of sound and organization, kind of mechanically and not really cool. Only after I heard Wolfgang Seidel at the NBI around 2002 with one of his tape concerts, I came slowly closer. Schnitzler's early role as cofounder of two influential bands is one reason for the ongoing reception. Another is his consequence as an artist. 'I'm not interested in having publicity or a public feedback' he declared in an 1996 interview. It remains an open question whether one has to completely refuse to do so. But I was always fascinated by this almost extinct way of being an artist in its full independence. Just as I feel connected, as a self-taught person and as someone who prefers to look forward instead of looking back: 'I don't want nostalgia.' After all it was Jens Strüver who inspired me to work with Conrad Schnitzer's material. I had the idea of flowing music in which patterns develop, shift, dissolve and finally reorganize. A modular system seemed the most suitable to connect Schnitzler's world with my own by triggering and modulating his sounds via a sampling module and supplementing them with my own."

$17.00 IN STOCK

Having completed his military service as a naval radio operator, Gunther Wüsthoff was in the midst of his German and fine art studies when he encountered Rudolf Sosna and Jean-Hervé Peron. It was May 1969 and each of them had a guitar so they decided to make music together. Polydor International headhunter Uwe Nettelbeck tracked them down on February 23 1971, prompting them to form the legendary krautrock band Faust with three other Hamburg musicians a few days later. Wüsthoff stayed with the band for five album and three tours through France and Great Britain before leaving in 1974. In subsequent decades, Wüsthoff had various technical jobs at Studio Hamburg and Filmhaus Hamburg and also studied technical editing so he could work as a freelancer. He continued to play music, introducing electronic instruments and computers into his work at an early stage. [to|digi]tal (pronounced "total digital"), a collection spanning the years 1979-2007, offers a clear insight into how he consciously integrated these means of production into the recording process.

"Motto: Due to previous but also temporary excesses of mainstream consumption and the omnipresent, repetitive emissions of the western world's music industry, devoid of contours and as slick as possible, we are faced with an indissoluble weariness. A criterion for music one can listen to today is, for me, that an element of friction is present: temporally, metrically, rhythmically, tonally or harmonically. Or that somewhere, something is somehow imperfect. Only then can music be truly alive." --Gunther Wüsthoff, 2005

$17.00 IN STOCK

Bureau B present a reissue of Conrad Schnitzler's Con, originally released in 1978. Conrad Schnitzler: In the electric garden by Wolfgang Seidel, May 2020: "... Whilst on shore leave in Düsseldorf, Conrad Schnitzler heard about a professor at the School of Art (Kunstschule) who also accepted students into his class without high school diplomas. Conrad Schnitzler became one of them. The spirit of a fundamental new beginning bonded this generation of artists together, with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Gottfried Michael Koenig the most radical proponents. Perhaps it was due to the fact that music had been so corrupted under National Socialist rule, from classical to the Schlager variety. Schnitzler was fascinated by the new sounds he heard on the radio in the evenings. To his ears, they connected the struggle for independence to the planning and precision he had learned as a mechanical engineer. At the same time, he understood that music like this was only possible within an institutional framework to which he had no access. So, he set about creating his own framework. Schnitzler bought his first synthesizer in the early 1970s -- a considerable investment at the time. The introduction of the compact cassette had liberated duplication and distribution from the realm of the record company, but Schnitzler also recognized the creative potential of the medium, beyond its practical functions. He built a 'cassette organ' out of 12 cassette recorders and two cases for his musical collages. Towards the end of the decade, he could be found on the Kurfürstendamm, West Berlin's premier boulevard, cassette recorders slung over his shoulders as his music boomed out of battery-powered loudspeakers . . . Buoyed by the success of Tangerine Dream, Peter Baumann, Schnitzler's successor in the band, established the Paragon Studio. Schnitzler had left after their first LP in the belief that the creative potential of the group had reached its limit, but their friendship endured. Baumann made use of downtime in the studio to pursue his own musical experiments. And then Conrad Schnitzler appeared at the door with a small Korg synthesizer, a sequencer, and his EMS Synthi (a portable model in an attaché case), having transported the whole lot on his delivery bicycle . . . The last record to be completed at Paragon reveals Schnitzler's lighthearted rapprochement with German New Wave (Neue Deutsche Welle) . . . The Paragon Studio era, with sound engineer Will Roper, whose work with Schnitzler gave him the opportunity to demonstrate his skills in tape manipulation, splicing, editing, and looping, came to an end when the studio was sold and Peter Baumann moved to the USA."

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Conrad Schnitzler's Con, originally released in 1978. Conrad Schnitzler: In the electric garden by Wolfgang Seidel, May 2020: "... Whilst on shore leave in Düsseldorf, Conrad Schnitzler heard about a professor at the School of Art (Kunstschule) who also accepted students into his class without high school diplomas. Conrad Schnitzler became one of them. The spirit of a fundamental new beginning bonded this generation of artists together, with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Gottfried Michael Koenig the most radical proponents. Perhaps it was due to the fact that music had been so corrupted under National Socialist rule, from classical to the Schlager variety. Schnitzler was fascinated by the new sounds he heard on the radio in the evenings. To his ears, they connected the struggle for independence to the planning and precision he had learned as a mechanical engineer. At the same time, he understood that music like this was only possible within an institutional framework to which he had no access. So, he set about creating his own framework. Schnitzler bought his first synthesizer in the early 1970s -- a considerable investment at the time. The introduction of the compact cassette had liberated duplication and distribution from the realm of the record company, but Schnitzler also recognized the creative potential of the medium, beyond its practical functions. He built a 'cassette organ' out of 12 cassette recorders and two cases for his musical collages. Towards the end of the decade, he could be found on the Kurfürstendamm, West Berlin's premier boulevard, cassette recorders slung over his shoulders as his music boomed out of battery-powered loudspeakers . . . Buoyed by the success of Tangerine Dream, Peter Baumann, Schnitzler's successor in the band, established the Paragon Studio. Schnitzler had left after their first LP in the belief that the creative potential of the group had reached its limit, but their friendship endured. Baumann made use of downtime in the studio to pursue his own musical experiments. And then Conrad Schnitzler appeared at the door with a small Korg synthesizer, a sequencer, and his EMS Synthi (a portable model in an attaché case), having transported the whole lot on his delivery bicycle . . . The last record to be completed at Paragon reveals Schnitzler's lighthearted rapprochement with German New Wave (Neue Deutsche Welle) . . . The Paragon Studio era, with sound engineer Will Roper, whose work with Schnitzler gave him the opportunity to demonstrate his skills in tape manipulation, splicing, editing, and looping, came to an end when the studio was sold and Peter Baumann moved to the USA."

$17.00 IN STOCK

About the Con-Struct series: Conrad Schnitzler liked to embark on daily excursions through the sonic diversity of his synthesizers. Finding exceptional sounds with great regularity, he preserved them for use in combination with each other in subsequent live performances. He thus amassed a vast sound archive of his discoveries over time. When the m=minimal label in Berlin reissued two Conrad Schnitzler albums at the outset of the 2010s, label honcho Jens Strüver was granted access to this audio library. Strüver came up with the idea of con-structing new compositions, not remixes, from the archived material. On completion of the first Con-Struct album (MINIMAL 007CD/LP, 2011), he decided to develop the concept into a series, with different electronic musicians invited into Schnitzler's unique world of sound.

Frank Bretschneider on his "Con-Structions": "I read the name Conrad Schnitzler for the first time in the article about Tangerine Dream in the Rowohlt Rock Lexicon from 1973. The first time I heard his music was only in 1980, when his wave track 'Auf dem Schwarzen Kanal' was played on the radio . . . It wasn't until 1988 that I heard from Schnitzler again, a tape on Jörg Thomasius's East Berlin Kröten Kassetten label. And again almost ten years later his Plate Lunch CDs Rot and 00/106 (1997). But it was all too rough and raw for me, both in terms of sound and organization, kind of mechanically and not really cool. Only after I heard Wolfgang Seidel at the NBI around 2002 with one of his tape concerts, I came slowly closer. Schnitzler's early role as cofounder of two influential bands is one reason for the ongoing reception. Another is his consequence as an artist. 'I'm not interested in having publicity or a public feedback' he declared in an 1996 interview. It remains an open question whether one has to completely refuse to do so. But I was always fascinated by this almost extinct way of being an artist in its full independence. Just as I feel connected, as a self-taught person and as someone who prefers to look forward instead of looking back: 'I don't want nostalgia.' After all it was Jens Strüver who inspired me to work with Conrad Schnitzer's material. I had the idea of flowing music in which patterns develop, shift, dissolve and finally reorganize. A modular system seemed the most suitable to connect Schnitzler's world with my own by triggering and modulating his sounds via a sampling module and supplementing them with my own."

$17.00 IN STOCK

Since 2014, Baal & Mortimer is the project of Alexandra Grübler, created in Düsseldorf, sonically exploring questions of resistance, autonomy, language, and identity. After the release of Earthrise on the label HEAVEN in 2018, her debut album Deixis will be released by Bureau B. She has collaborated with Black Merlin, Musiccargo, and Rupert Clervaux and was most recently a mentee of Laurel Halo for the Berlin Amplify program. Baal & Mortimer regularly presents her material in clubs, art spaces and festivals -- such as Torstrassenfestival Berlin or Open Source Festival in Düsseldorf -- approaching the sound of concrete potentialities in tone, body, and performance. The 13 tracks were written, recorded, and produced in bedrooms and studios throughout Düsseldorf and Berlin. Again and again, contrast and opposition are conjured up in a moment of eternal grip -- the never-arriving: "Atopos". Fragments of voices emerging from a brittle fog, icy traces of human activity and its mistakes. German, English, machine, human, male, female: corresponding to the same origin, changed, subdued and always elastic. "Prostheses" and "The Ship Of Fangs" were created during the Amplify Mentoring Program, in which Laurel Halo selected Baal & Mortimer to partake in a month-long residency. "Nathanaël" and "H/Délires" summon an elegiac echo of Düsseldorf -- where it all began at Salon des Amateurs -- and its legacy seeping through. Texture and mood of a city and its history, pushed forward by a granular humming, interspersed with fading voices, caryatids that hold everything together and yet fall. A non-linear time oscillating between grainy rhythms and the melancholic pull of soundscapes, eternally pushed by choral echoes, singing against themselves. The artwork is by artist and photographer Chris Filippini, capturing the space between heaven and earth. Spirit and matter, unity and duality; dissolving the boundaries until there are no more polarities. An inner being is taken apart and not reassembled; fragments that do not form a whole, and never have been whole; exhibited under glass they remain possibility and promise. Nathanaël, je te parlerai de tout.

$22.00 IN STOCK

LP version. Since 2014, Baal & Mortimer is the project of Alexandra Grübler, created in Düsseldorf, sonically exploring questions of resistance, autonomy, language, and identity. After the release of Earthrise on the label HEAVEN in 2018, her debut album Deixis will be released by Bureau B. She has collaborated with Black Merlin, Musiccargo, and Rupert Clervaux and was most recently a mentee of Laurel Halo for the Berlin Amplify program. Baal & Mortimer regularly presents her material in clubs, art spaces and festivals -- such as Torstrassenfestival Berlin or Open Source Festival in Düsseldorf -- approaching the sound of concrete potentialities in tone, body, and performance. The 13 tracks were written, recorded, and produced in bedrooms and studios throughout Düsseldorf and Berlin. Again and again, contrast and opposition are conjured up in a moment of eternal grip -- the never-arriving: "Atopos". Fragments of voices emerging from a brittle fog, icy traces of human activity and its mistakes. German, English, machine, human, male, female: corresponding to the same origin, changed, subdued and always elastic. "Prostheses" and "The Ship Of Fangs" were created during the Amplify Mentoring Program, in which Laurel Halo selected Baal & Mortimer to partake in a month-long residency. "Nathanaël" and "H/Délires" summon an elegiac echo of Düsseldorf -- where it all began at Salon des Amateurs -- and its legacy seeping through. Texture and mood of a city and its history, pushed forward by a granular humming, interspersed with fading voices, caryatids that hold everything together and yet fall. A non-linear time oscillating between grainy rhythms and the melancholic pull of soundscapes, eternally pushed by choral echoes, singing against themselves. The artwork is by artist and photographer Chris Filippini, capturing the space between heaven and earth. Spirit and matter, unity and duality; dissolving the boundaries until there are no more polarities. An inner being is taken apart and not reassembled; fragments that do not form a whole, and never have been whole; exhibited under glass they remain possibility and promise. Nathanaël, je te parlerai de tout.