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CD
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BB 439CD
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$16.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 10/20/2023
"[Martin] Rev initially explored free jazz and similarly free forms of musical expression before discovering the magnetic attraction of electronic production and instrumentation, enabling him to create music in a wholly independent and autonomous environment. Using the most rudimentary equipment, he grafted the roots of rock n' roll into the process of combining effects and devices to generate electrified sounds, the likes of which had never been heard before. This music would map out the way forward not only for Suicide, but also for a fascinating solo career. Martin Rev's predilection for experimentation knew no bounds. At home, he played around with rough ideas, trying out all manner of variations and colorations. These tape recordings provide a captivating insight into his modus operandi, often representing the early stages of what would later become Suicide tracks or cuts on Rev's solo albums. Spanning the period 1973 to 1985, the recordings on The Sum of Our Wounds are much more than a collection of demos and outtakes. One has the sense of listening to a rounded album of familiar compositions, now portrayed in a completely new light. The brittle fragility of these cassette pieces reveals a deep-lying sensitivity, like a collection of wounds..." --Daniel Jahn, June 2023
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BB 439LTD-LP
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$28.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 10/20/2023
LP version. Red color vinyl. "[Martin] Rev initially explored free jazz and similarly free forms of musical expression before discovering the magnetic attraction of electronic production and instrumentation, enabling him to create music in a wholly independent and autonomous environment. Using the most rudimentary equipment, he grafted the roots of rock n' roll into the process of combining effects and devices to generate electrified sounds, the likes of which had never been heard before. This music would map out the way forward not only for Suicide, but also for a fascinating solo career. Martin Rev's predilection for experimentation knew no bounds. At home, he played around with rough ideas, trying out all manner of variations and colorations. These tape recordings provide a captivating insight into his modus operandi, often representing the early stages of what would later become Suicide tracks or cuts on Rev's solo albums. Spanning the period 1973 to 1985, the recordings on The Sum of Our Wounds are much more than a collection of demos and outtakes. One has the sense of listening to a rounded album of familiar compositions, now portrayed in a completely new light. The brittle fragility of these cassette pieces reveals a deep-lying sensitivity, like a collection of wounds..." --Daniel Jahn, June 2023
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BB 439LP
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$26.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 10/20/2023
LP version. "[Martin] Rev initially explored free jazz and similarly free forms of musical expression before discovering the magnetic attraction of electronic production and instrumentation, enabling him to create music in a wholly independent and autonomous environment. Using the most rudimentary equipment, he grafted the roots of rock n' roll into the process of combining effects and devices to generate electrified sounds, the likes of which had never been heard before. This music would map out the way forward not only for Suicide, but also for a fascinating solo career. Martin Rev's predilection for experimentation knew no bounds. At home, he played around with rough ideas, trying out all manner of variations and colorations. These tape recordings provide a captivating insight into his modus operandi, often representing the early stages of what would later become Suicide tracks or cuts on Rev's solo albums. Spanning the period 1973 to 1985, the recordings on The Sum of Our Wounds are much more than a collection of demos and outtakes. One has the sense of listening to a rounded album of familiar compositions, now portrayed in a completely new light. The brittle fragility of these cassette pieces reveals a deep-lying sensitivity, like a collection of wounds..." --Daniel Jahn, June 2023
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BB 437LP
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Double LP version. Compiled by Ralf Koster, DJ and curator of Hamburg's Golden Pudel Club, Where The Rabbit Sleeps is an extensive collection of tracks by Sensorama, a project comprising Jorn Elling Wuttke and Roman Flugel. Working as a production team since the late 1980s in various guises such as Acid Jesus, Alter Ego, and Primitive Painter, the pair also founded several labels with DJ Ata and Heiko MSO (Ongaku, Klang Elektronik, Playhouse). They released their debut album as Sensorama in 1995. Their music draws on a wide range of influences which reach far beyond the generic borders of techno. Sensorama released the last of their three albums in 2001, leaving us with an extraordinary body of work which still resonates today. The new compilation Where The Rabbit Sleeps offers a deep insight into the musical world of Sensorama. It is available on CD or as a double LP with a gatefold cover, remastered by Andreas "Lupo" Lubich, with new artwork by Rike Weigert and liner notes by Charlotte Goltermann, Christoph Dallach, and Andreas Dorau.
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CD
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BB 437CD
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Compiled by Ralf Koster, DJ and curator of Hamburg's Golden Pudel Club, Where The Rabbit Sleeps is an extensive collection of tracks by Sensorama, a project comprising Jorn Elling Wuttke and Roman Flugel. Working as a production team since the late 1980s in various guises such as Acid Jesus, Alter Ego, and Primitive Painter, the pair also founded several labels with DJ Ata and Heiko MSO (Ongaku, Klang Elektronik, Playhouse). They released their debut album as Sensorama in 1995. Their music draws on a wide range of influences which reach far beyond the generic borders of techno. Sensorama released the last of their three albums in 2001, leaving us with an extraordinary body of work which still resonates today. The new compilation Where The Rabbit Sleeps offers a deep insight into the musical world of Sensorama. It is available on CD or as a double LP with a gatefold cover, remastered by Andreas "Lupo" Lubich, with new artwork by Rike Weigert and liner notes by Charlotte Goltermann, Christoph Dallach, and Andreas Dorau.
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BB 102LTD-LP
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There was a particular type of artist who could only have emerged in the legendary early 1970s. Few musicians fit the bill better than Conrad Schnitzler. Revolution, pop art and Fluxus created a climate which engendered unbridled artistic and social development. Radical utopias, excessive experimentation with drugs, and ruthless (in a positive way) transgression of aesthetic frontiers were characteristic of the period. The magic words were subculture, progress- positivity, and avantgardism. West Berlin, with its unique political status, was a crucible of turbulence. Founded in 1968, Zodiak was the ultimate point of convergence for subculture in West Berlin, with Conrad Schnitzler the driving force behind it. It was also here that Tangerine Dream and Kluster First met up to perform in public (the red album, Rot, was Schnitzler's first solo effort). As a member of Tangerine Dream, however, he had participated in the band's debut release Electronic Meditation some three years earlier (1970). He, Dieter Moebius, and Hans-Joachim Roedelius had also already founded Kluster, whose first album Klopfzeichen attracted a wealth of attention. On Rot, meanwhile, Schnitzler uncompromisingly pursued his very own vision of electronic music. As an acolyte of action and object artist Joseph Beuys, Schnitzler embraced the former's "extended definition of art," in which controlled randomness assumed an important role. Schnitzler actually extended the concept of music. Or to put it another way: he cared not one iota for existing rules of music, preferring to create his own or conceptualizing a certain degree of lawlessness. Improvisation grew in importance. The most exciting aspect of Schnitzler's music is not the fact that he only used synthetic sound and noise; the apparently chaotic movements of his microscopic particles of sound draw the listener into a paradoxical, yet also crystalline and vibrant artistic world. It doesn't get much more outlandish than this. Schnitzler's debut surpassed virtually every other pioneering artist of the day in terms of radicalness. Not content merely with making psychedelic soundtracks, he turned these on their head with his defiant artistic will. The rigor of his approach has never been matched. Schnitzler's inimitable cascades of sound and their transparency were, and remain, unique. Limited 50th Anniversary Edition: embossed, reverse board, hand numbered, limited edition red vinyl.
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LP
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BB 431LP
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LP version. Oui Bitte is the eleventh studio album by Station 17 and was recorded in Forellenhof, Nordhastedt, North Germany. In 2001, the legendary label Mute Records released the album Mikroprofessor with remixes by DJ Koze, Thomas Fehlmann, Justus Kohncke, and To Rococo Rot. In 2011, the Goldstein Variations Remixes followed, including versions by Erobique, Tobias Thomas, but also by Ada and Mense Reents. Timidly, the band began to ask their favorite producers most of whom agreed without hesitation. Soon, a top-class remix of Oui Bitte came together, with a who's who of the local electronic music landscape, and even if only the bases of the original pieces are recognizable, a completely new listening experience has been created here. It's grown into an independent work through the versatility of the participants and their expertise and can be enjoyed detached from the original material. As if by magic, a simultaneously stringent and diverse vibe has emerged that makes Oui Mixe more than just an addition to Oui Bitte. Also featuring Efdemin, Paul Frick ist mude, Pantha du Prince Sharing Lunch with Apes, and Toto Belmont Sophisti.
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CD
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BB 431CD
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$16.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 9/8/2023
Oui Bitte is the eleventh studio album by Station 17 and was recorded in Forellenhof, Nordhastedt, North Germany. In 2001, the legendary label Mute Records released the album Mikroprofessor with remixes by DJ Koze, Thomas Fehlmann, Justus Kohncke, and To Rococo Rot. In 2011, the Goldstein Variations Remixes followed, including versions by Erobique, Tobias Thomas, but also by Ada and Mense Reents. Timidly, the band began to ask their favorite producers most of whom agreed without hesitation. Soon, a top-class remix of Oui Bitte came together, with a who's who of the local electronic music landscape, and even if only the bases of the original pieces are recognizable, a completely new listening experience has been created here. It's grown into an independent work through the versatility of the participants and their expertise and can be enjoyed detached from the original material. As if by magic, a simultaneously stringent and diverse vibe has emerged that makes Oui Mixe more than just an addition to Oui Bitte. Also featuring Efdemin, Paul Frick ist mude, Pantha du Prince Sharing Lunch with Apes, and Toto Belmont Sophisti.
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BB 436LP
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LP version. Over the last ten years a strange mycelium was sprouting from the ground of Germany's sound topography, going widely unnoticed while creeping its way up through the corpse of the ubiquitous "neo-kraut", "diskurs-pop", and the like. This is a small underground network of artists and projects with poetic, mysterious names such as Brannten Schnüre, Baldruin, Kirschstein, Freundliche Kreisel, and Balint Brösel. Operating in the margins and intersections of folklore, experimental electronics, dreams, and nightmares, the Gespensterland LP archives and compiles their magic works for the very first time and already today it stands as a contemporary testament with an auratic presence comparable to that of Pordenone / Great Complotto.
"... For as much as these bands differ in their respective sonic approach, Gespensterland can still be considered as a cipher for a shared cosmos and a mutually found aesthetic language. It is always a similar sentiment of a slightly disconnected, shifted and delayed reality that manifests itself in Brannten Schnüre's wistful and whimsical ambient-folk loops, the evocative and rhythmic poltergeist interludes of Baldruin, the sweet and naïve C86-jangle of Balint Brösel, Kirschstein's rhenish mutant-NDW and post-kraut-romanticism and the electro-acoustic séances of Freundliche Kreisel. Think of it as a rampant yearning, a manic laughter, but mostly as a feeling of some somnambulistic thirst for adventure and journeys into the unknown, a feeling that is grounded deep inside the heart of the continent. We imagine, this is the music of a few like-minded recluses, sitting alone at night in their chambers, immersing themselves in the darkest and innermost Tibet of their own work. It's not too far-fetched either to read Gespensterland as a contribution to a specifically German response to Mark Fisher's hauntologic theories. In every track, the fancy of an abandoned future uncoils a narrative thread that has long been discontinued, a dream vision that remained unredeemed forever, now haunting the dull grey corridors of the post-historic presence. These songs glimmer and shine with moods and stories that draw their tension from the same force fields that once gave rise to Alfred Kubin's demonic visions, Hans Henny Jahnn's nightmarish 'Night of Lead' or the bizarre adventures of Baron Muenchhausen. And yet, it is not the specters of the past that are being summoned or dealt with here, but instead the quotidian, perpetually recurring disintegration of reality that lies within the close encounter with one's own unfamiliarity: 'is this my hand, or is it someone else's?'-- Margot Benetti, Walpurgis 2023
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BB 436CD
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Over the last ten years a strange mycelium was sprouting from the ground of Germany's sound topography, going widely unnoticed while creeping its way up through the corpse of the ubiquitous "neo-kraut", "diskurs-pop", and the like. This is a small underground network of artists and projects with poetic, mysterious names such as Brannten Schnüre, Baldruin, Kirschstein, Freundliche Kreisel, and Balint Brösel. Operating in the margins and intersections of folklore, experimental electronics, dreams, and nightmares, the Gespensterland LP archives and compiles their magic works for the very first time and already today it stands as a contemporary testament with an auratic presence comparable to that of Pordenone / Great Complotto.
"... For as much as these bands differ in their respective sonic approach, Gespensterland can still be considered as a cipher for a shared cosmos and a mutually found aesthetic language. It is always a similar sentiment of a slightly disconnected, shifted and delayed reality that manifests itself in Brannten Schnüre's wistful and whimsical ambient-folk loops, the evocative and rhythmic poltergeist interludes of Baldruin, the sweet and naïve C86-jangle of Balint Brösel, Kirschstein's rhenish mutant-NDW and post-kraut-romanticism and the electro-acoustic séances of Freundliche Kreisel. Think of it as a rampant yearning, a manic laughter, but mostly as a feeling of some somnambulistic thirst for adventure and journeys into the unknown, a feeling that is grounded deep inside the heart of the continent. We imagine, this is the music of a few like-minded recluses, sitting alone at night in their chambers, immersing themselves in the darkest and innermost Tibet of their own work. It's not too far-fetched either to read Gespensterland as a contribution to a specifically German response to Mark Fisher's hauntologic theories. In every track, the fancy of an abandoned future uncoils a narrative thread that has long been discontinued, a dream vision that remained unredeemed forever, now haunting the dull grey corridors of the post-historic presence. These songs glimmer and shine with moods and stories that draw their tension from the same force fields that once gave rise to Alfred Kubin's demonic visions, Hans Henny Jahnn's nightmarish 'Night of Lead' or the bizarre adventures of Baron Muenchhausen. And yet, it is not the specters of the past that are being summoned or dealt with here, but instead the quotidian, perpetually recurring disintegration of reality that lies within the close encounter with one's own unfamiliarity: 'is this my hand, or is it someone else's?'-- Margot Benetti, Walpurgis 2023
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BB 434LP
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LP version. All the herbs have been smoked. Datashock deliver a new album: Geltungsbereich Universum. Their second for Bureau B and the eighth in a career as an internationally active collective of musicians which has spanned two decades (so far). Space is the place, as the moonstruck sparrows sing from the rooftops, or is the Earth the most beautiful place in the universe? Some say yes, others no. Datashock say nothing at all.
"Twenty years and counting, and yet here they are, as shoulder-shruggingly nonchalant as ever, in the environs of pop culture, where (seeing) the wood for the trees means the world. What's going down, what's not? What the heck! Is this still krautrock, is it space rock or experimental music? What's the difference? Does it even matter? What's important is that something is happening. This much we know. And now something else has happened. A new Datashock release: Geltungsbereich Universum. Of course, it couldn't be any other way. Why set themselves limits? That has never been a concern for them. Even if, in all likelihood, they don't make it into space, at least not this year, they have been most places and always stick to their own thing. Which is what, exactly? That's for others to decide. The critique? This is your captain speaking, ... your captain is dead. Use your ears. Listen closely and take your time to discover the musical spheres -- the infinite worlds -- of Datashock. For card-carrying space travelers only!" --Holger Adam
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CD
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BB 434CD
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All the herbs have been smoked. Datashock deliver a new album: Geltungsbereich Universum. Their second for Bureau B and the eighth in a career as an internationally active collective of musicians which has spanned two decades (so far). Space is the place, as the moonstruck sparrows sing from the rooftops, or is the Earth the most beautiful place in the universe? Some say yes, others no. Datashock say nothing at all.
"Twenty years and counting, and yet here they are, as shoulder-shruggingly nonchalant as ever, in the environs of pop culture, where (seeing) the wood for the trees means the world. What's going down, what's not? What the heck! Is this still krautrock, is it space rock or experimental music? What's the difference? Does it even matter? What's important is that something is happening. This much we know. And now something else has happened. A new Datashock release: Geltungsbereich Universum. Of course, it couldn't be any other way. Why set themselves limits? That has never been a concern for them. Even if, in all likelihood, they don't make it into space, at least not this year, they have been most places and always stick to their own thing. Which is what, exactly? That's for others to decide. The critique? This is your captain speaking, ... your captain is dead. Use your ears. Listen closely and take your time to discover the musical spheres -- the infinite worlds -- of Datashock. For card-carrying space travelers only!" --Holger Adam
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BB 435CD
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Klar!80: a label with no program This compilation represents an initial -- and long overdue -- foray into the years 1980-82, when Klar!80 was a cassette label, paired with a shop of the same name in Düsseldorf. Founded by Rainer Rabowski, Klar!80 released 18 cassettes of varying length and a box set containing three 12" vinyl EPs which fetch handsome prices among collectors nowadays. The Klar!80 - Ein Kassettenlabel aus Düsseldorf 1980-1982 collection reaches even further back in time than the Sammlung: Düsseldorfer Kassettenmusik 1982-1989 (BB 236CD/LP, 2017) collection, similarly curated by Stefan Schneider, which focused on the mid-1980s Düsseldorf cassette scene. It captures the brief period between the end of punk and the looming capitalization and digitalization of so many aspects of life.
"Spontaneity and understatement characterized the brief creative period of Klar!80, which lasted from April 1980 until October 1982 . . . The DIY ethos of punk saw the emergence of a new type of producer: an instrumentalist, arranger, author, publisher, manufacturer and retailer all in one. Cassettes pre-empted the influence of personal computers to the extent that they enabled a single person to cover multiple steps in the production process which had hitherto been the remit of specialists. The musicians who release their works on Klar!80 are, at once, distinctly individual spirits and yet related, familiar and yet unfamiliar, like-minded and yet, and yet not... the personal is mixed with adjacent art. New forms of collaboration are explored, sometimes lasting only as long as a single recording session: from a band to a project. So it was that Klar!80 introduced the early experiments of Christo Haas and Beate Bartel, performing here as CHBB, to the world. Before long, they would enter the international dance charts with their pulsating sequencer sounds as Liaisons Dangereuses. Eva Gössling imported no wave from New York to Düsseldorf, grafting electronic and motoric elements into the sound. Strafe für Rebellion, who opened the record with a sculptural sonic collage, would later release numerous albums on the prestigious Touch label in London. Today, the Aachener Strasse shop in the Bilk district of Düsseldorf survives in a few Polaroid pictures and video recordings made by Agi Yuzuru and Mamoru Shibuya, two journalists visiting from Osaka. The label shut down in October 1982 and, in the years that followed, the original cassettes, master tapes and artwork were either given away or misplaced. The recordings you can listen to here have been gleaned from private collections of well-preserved cassettes, painstakingly restored and digitalized..." --Rainer Rabowski and Stefan Schneider, Düsseldorf March 2023
Features Strafe für Rebellion, Roter Stern Belgrad, Und Piloten, Europa, Ralph & Ernie, Xao Seffcheque und der Rest, Rara, Axel & Ralph, Eraserhead, P.Projekta / G.Ranzz, CHBB, and BLÄSSE.
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BB 435LP
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LP version. Klar!80: a label with no program This compilation represents an initial -- and long overdue -- foray into the years 1980-82, when Klar!80 was a cassette label, paired with a shop of the same name in Düsseldorf. Founded by Rainer Rabowski, Klar!80 released 18 cassettes of varying length and a box set containing three 12" vinyl EPs which fetch handsome prices among collectors nowadays. The Klar!80 - Ein Kassettenlabel aus Düsseldorf 1980-1982 collection reaches even further back in time than the Sammlung: Düsseldorfer Kassettenmusik 1982-1989 (BB 236CD/LP, 2017) collection, similarly curated by Stefan Schneider, which focused on the mid-1980s Düsseldorf cassette scene. It captures the brief period between the end of punk and the looming capitalization and digitalization of so many aspects of life.
"Spontaneity and understatement characterized the brief creative period of Klar!80, which lasted from April 1980 until October 1982 . . . The DIY ethos of punk saw the emergence of a new type of producer: an instrumentalist, arranger, author, publisher, manufacturer and retailer all in one. Cassettes pre-empted the influence of personal computers to the extent that they enabled a single person to cover multiple steps in the production process which had hitherto been the remit of specialists. The musicians who release their works on Klar!80 are, at once, distinctly individual spirits and yet related, familiar and yet unfamiliar, like-minded and yet, and yet not... the personal is mixed with adjacent art. New forms of collaboration are explored, sometimes lasting only as long as a single recording session: from a band to a project. So it was that Klar!80 introduced the early experiments of Christo Haas and Beate Bartel, performing here as CHBB, to the world. Before long, they would enter the international dance charts with their pulsating sequencer sounds as Liaisons Dangereuses. Eva Gössling imported no wave from New York to Düsseldorf, grafting electronic and motoric elements into the sound. Strafe für Rebellion, who opened the record with a sculptural sonic collage, would later release numerous albums on the prestigious Touch label in London. Today, the Aachener Strasse shop in the Bilk district of Düsseldorf survives in a few Polaroid pictures and video recordings made by Agi Yuzuru and Mamoru Shibuya, two journalists visiting from Osaka. The label shut down in October 1982 and, in the years that followed, the original cassettes, master tapes and artwork were either given away or misplaced. The recordings you can listen to here have been gleaned from private collections of well-preserved cassettes, painstakingly restored and digitalized..." --Rainer Rabowski and Stefan Schneider, Düsseldorf March 2023
Features Strafe für Rebellion, Roter Stern Belgrad, Und Piloten, Europa, Ralph & Ernie, Xao Seffcheque und der Rest, Rara, Axel & Ralph, Eraserhead, P.Projekta / G.Ranzz, CHBB, and BLÄSSE.
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BB 433CD
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With Attack Time by sound tinkerer Zeus B. Held, Bureau B is re-releasing one of the most exciting records of the original experimental kraut-pop period. After various stints, including prog band Birth Control and underground dance tipple Gina X Performance, he also put out a string of solo releases. Attack Time, originally released on Aladin in 1981, gave Zeus B. Held the opportunity to experiment sonically outside the mainstream and subversively undermine the hegemonic MTV sound of the early 1980s. Unfortunately, the album was a commercial failure at the time. So, it's all the nicer that it's now being brought out into the world again with all its supposed contradictions between enraptured new wave, cosmic electronics and weird rock grooves.
"Zeus B. Held's origin story begins behind the keyboards of progressive powerhouse Birth Control, a six-year stint which saw his technique toughened in the crucible of hundreds of all night performances. After a brief pause in Paris to session for those space-age cyborgs Rockets, he came back to Köln in '78 and swapped commune living for a spot in the city. Soon he was picking up session work at the local Sound Experience studio and indulging his electronic obsession on a couple of solo LPs, Zeus' Amusement and Europium. In league with like-minded studio owner Martin Hömberg and art scene savant Gina Kikoine, Zeus took his new sound even further with a trio of icy electropop LPs as Gina X Performance. Their combination of queer culture, disco rhythms, and synthesizer sleaze captured the underground dancefloor, influencing Human League and Martin Gore, and making a splash at Arista, who were looking for someone to handle production duties on Fashion's sophomore album. Relocating to London in '82, Zeus spent a decade behind the desk for the likes of John Foxx, Dead Or Alive, and Pete Wylie, cementing his position among the pantheon of studio greats, where he's remained ever since . . . Recorded in '80 and '81 after the third GXP album wrapped, Attack Time is Zeus on the loose in Sound Experience, spending late nights alone learning how to play the studio as an instrument. Pre-MIDI and prior to the sampling revolution of the Fairlight, the ten tracks are awash with analogue techniques -- snip tapes and Revox time dilation, the pulsing PPG modular, groan tubes and eerie collages from the studio dustbin..." --Patrick Ryder
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BB 432LP
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LP version. "Taking inspiration from deep in the mediaeval mists of times long past, CV Vision comes riding over the hills like a knight to the rescue, and his new album Im Tal Der Stutzer is packed full of galloping drums, feudal prog riffs and poetic lyrics harking back to a golden age. You might've caught CV Vision in Berlin, either on stage or behind the mixer at some of his favorite clubs like Arkaoda, Heiners or O Tannenbaum. He could be accompanied by synths, or drum kit, or even full band -- channeling his love of Bo Hansson and Claude Larson, or Soft Machine and Picchio dal Pozzo. Always heavy on the backbeat, the songs awash with heady synths and expansive psych inversions. For this record, CV Vision recruited two wayfaring collaborators in the form of songwriter and musician Martha Rose, and drummer Uno Bruniusson. They started the project at the dawn of the Covid outbreak, and it quickly became a coping mechanism against the lockdown. During those months of uncertainty, the collaboration blossomed into a sanctuary of psychedelic prog, acid folk, and warped feudal weirdness, a refuge built on layered synth lines and reel-to-reel delays. Im Tal Der Stutzer invites you into its kaleidoscopic reality from the get-go -- from the pulsating swing of 'Die Frommen Wanderer' and frenetic synth arpeggios of 'Die Nachricht Schneller als der Wind', to the misty-eyed folk of 'Lichtermond'. The whole record is punctuated with field recordings of ironmongers and cowherds and campfires, adding to the theatre. It's a testament to the wide-ranging world that CV Vision has created, that he can at once invoke the 'Hildebrandslied' while sounding like a library record that DJ Shadow might've sampled. In CV Vision verse, it all makes perfect sense." --Max Cole
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BB 433LP
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LP version. With Attack Time by sound tinkerer Zeus B. Held, Bureau B is re-releasing one of the most exciting records of the original experimental kraut-pop period. After various stints, including prog band Birth Control and underground dance tipple Gina X Performance, he also put out a string of solo releases. Attack Time, originally released on Aladin in 1981, gave Zeus B. Held the opportunity to experiment sonically outside the mainstream and subversively undermine the hegemonic MTV sound of the early 1980s. Unfortunately, the album was a commercial failure at the time. So, it's all the nicer that it's now being brought out into the world again with all its supposed contradictions between enraptured new wave, cosmic electronics and weird rock grooves.
"Zeus B. Held's origin story begins behind the keyboards of progressive powerhouse Birth Control, a six-year stint which saw his technique toughened in the crucible of hundreds of all night performances. After a brief pause in Paris to session for those space-age cyborgs Rockets, he came back to Köln in '78 and swapped commune living for a spot in the city. Soon he was picking up session work at the local Sound Experience studio and indulging his electronic obsession on a couple of solo LPs, Zeus' Amusement and Europium. In league with like-minded studio owner Martin Hömberg and art scene savant Gina Kikoine, Zeus took his new sound even further with a trio of icy electropop LPs as Gina X Performance. Their combination of queer culture, disco rhythms, and synthesizer sleaze captured the underground dancefloor, influencing Human League and Martin Gore, and making a splash at Arista, who were looking for someone to handle production duties on Fashion's sophomore album. Relocating to London in '82, Zeus spent a decade behind the desk for the likes of John Foxx, Dead Or Alive, and Pete Wylie, cementing his position among the pantheon of studio greats, where he's remained ever since . . . Recorded in '80 and '81 after the third GXP album wrapped, Attack Time is Zeus on the loose in Sound Experience, spending late nights alone learning how to play the studio as an instrument. Pre-MIDI and prior to the sampling revolution of the Fairlight, the ten tracks are awash with analogue techniques -- snip tapes and Revox time dilation, the pulsing PPG modular, groan tubes and eerie collages from the studio dustbin..." --Patrick Ryder
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BB 414LP
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Double LP version. With synthesizers, rhythm computers, and human metronomes turned to a gallop, these electronic innovators set modernity to a motorik beat, and Bureau B's second trip into Silberland cuts right to the thrust of the genre. The set begins with the propulsive opener from Harald Grosskopf's 1986 LP Oceanheart, in which pristine sequences play in counterpoint atop a mechanical kick, hurtling forward until the rest of the kit catches up. Live drums take center stage for Cluster's feverish "Prothese" and the time travelling "Elektroklang" by Conrad Schnitzler. You offer astral ascension on "Son Of A True Star", weaving proggy square waves and pulsating arps around an irresistible shuffle from mysterious percussionist Lhan Gopal (Grosskopf in disguise), before the optimistic "Für Dich" fuses classic kosmische chords with Thomas Dinger's pummeling beat. Asmus Tietchens's detuned keys and drum machine samba are imbued with a punk spirit shared by Moebius Plank Neumeier's discordant jazz-tanz jam "Search Zero". "Beat For Ikutaro", plucked from a mid-80s demo tape by Camouflage keyboardist Heiko Maile, swerves into icy electroid territories. The cassette energy continues with the mechanized boogie of Lapre's "Flokati", a funkier take on the style in wonderful contrast with Adelbert Von Deyen's breakneck, straight shooting "Time Machine", a massively motorik night drive. Günter Schickert takes you inside the fuel pump on the weird and watery "Puls", while the charmingly disruptive Faust complete the pitstop via the blasted blues of "Juggernaut". Moebius & Plank return sans Neumeier for the deep and dubby "Feedback 66", all murmured vocals and surging pedals powered by a seismic bassline from Holger Czukay. You move through the airy tones of Roedelius and arrive at the high-tension electronics of Serge Blenner's "Phonique". Moebius & Beerbohm's "Subito" follows in a flurry of tribal drumming, guttural distortion and corrosive drone, a synthesized translation of punk spirit which mellows into the soft-focus serenade of Tyndall's "Wolkenlos", a thrilling contradiction of pastoral motifs and breathless tempo. Pyrolator's 1981 creation "180°" maintains the lightening pace, lurching forward in bursts of chaotic drum programming and sampler abuse, sending you spinning out into the strange beauty of Die Partei's "Guten Morgen In Köln". Enmeshing fragments of musique concrète and yearning guitar with throbbing sequences and a rigid rhythm grid, the duo signpost a melodic destination finally delivered by Streetmark keyboardist Dorothea Raukes under her Deutsche Wertabeit alias. A fitting finale, "Auf Engelsflügeln" radiates human warmth and cosmic wonder, serving electronic emotion from start to finish.
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BB 414CD
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With synthesizers, rhythm computers, and human metronomes turned to a gallop, these electronic innovators set modernity to a motorik beat, and Bureau B's second trip into Silberland cuts right to the thrust of the genre. The set begins with the propulsive opener from Harald Grosskopf's 1986 LP Oceanheart, in which pristine sequences play in counterpoint atop a mechanical kick, hurtling forward until the rest of the kit catches up. Live drums take center stage for Cluster's feverish "Prothese" and the time travelling "Elektroklang" by Conrad Schnitzler. You offer astral ascension on "Son Of A True Star", weaving proggy square waves and pulsating arps around an irresistible shuffle from mysterious percussionist Lhan Gopal (Grosskopf in disguise), before the optimistic "Für Dich" fuses classic kosmische chords with Thomas Dinger's pummeling beat. Asmus Tietchens's detuned keys and drum machine samba are imbued with a punk spirit shared by Moebius Plank Neumeier's discordant jazz-tanz jam "Search Zero". "Beat For Ikutaro", plucked from a mid-80s demo tape by Camouflage keyboardist Heiko Maile, swerves into icy electroid territories. The cassette energy continues with the mechanized boogie of Lapre's "Flokati", a funkier take on the style in wonderful contrast with Adelbert Von Deyen's breakneck, straight shooting "Time Machine", a massively motorik night drive. Günter Schickert takes you inside the fuel pump on the weird and watery "Puls", while the charmingly disruptive Faust complete the pitstop via the blasted blues of "Juggernaut". Moebius & Plank return sans Neumeier for the deep and dubby "Feedback 66", all murmured vocals and surging pedals powered by a seismic bassline from Holger Czukay. You move through the airy tones of Roedelius and arrive at the high-tension electronics of Serge Blenner's "Phonique". Moebius & Beerbohm's "Subito" follows in a flurry of tribal drumming, guttural distortion and corrosive drone, a synthesized translation of punk spirit which mellows into the soft-focus serenade of Tyndall's "Wolkenlos", a thrilling contradiction of pastoral motifs and breathless tempo. Pyrolator's 1981 creation "180°" maintains the lightening pace, lurching forward in bursts of chaotic drum programming and sampler abuse, sending you spinning out into the strange beauty of Die Partei's "Guten Morgen In Köln". Enmeshing fragments of musique concrète and yearning guitar with throbbing sequences and a rigid rhythm grid, the duo signpost a melodic destination finally delivered by Streetmark keyboardist Dorothea Raukes under her Deutsche Wertabeit alias. A fitting finale, "Auf Engelsflügeln" radiates human warmth and cosmic wonder, serving electronic emotion from start to finish.
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BB 432CD
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"Taking inspiration from deep in the mediaeval mists of times long past, CV Vision comes riding over the hills like a knight to the rescue, and his new album Im Tal Der Stutzer is packed full of galloping drums, feudal prog riffs and poetic lyrics harking back to a golden age. You might've caught CV Vision in Berlin, either on stage or behind the mixer at some of his favorite clubs like Arkaoda, Heiners or O Tannenbaum. He could be accompanied by synths, or drum kit, or even full band -- channeling his love of Bo Hansson and Claude Larson, or Soft Machine and Picchio dal Pozzo. Always heavy on the backbeat, the songs awash with heady synths and expansive psych inversions. For this record, CV Vision recruited two wayfaring collaborators in the form of songwriter and musician Martha Rose, and drummer Uno Bruniusson. They started the project at the dawn of the Covid outbreak, and it quickly became a coping mechanism against the lockdown. During those months of uncertainty, the collaboration blossomed into a sanctuary of psychedelic prog, acid folk, and warped feudal weirdness, a refuge built on layered synth lines and reel-to-reel delays. Im Tal Der Stutzer invites you into its kaleidoscopic reality from the get-go -- from the pulsating swing of 'Die Frommen Wanderer' and frenetic synth arpeggios of 'Die Nachricht Schneller als der Wind', to the misty-eyed folk of 'Lichtermond'. The whole record is punctuated with field recordings of ironmongers and cowherds and campfires, adding to the theatre. It's a testament to the wide-ranging world that CV Vision has created, that he can at once invoke the 'Hildebrandslied' while sounding like a library record that DJ Shadow might've sampled. In CV Vision verse, it all makes perfect sense." --Max Cole
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BB 430CD
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"... Oui Bitte shows Station 17 as a band of experts in a kind of acoustic transcendence. Their music tenderly forces you to engage in all of this at the same time. Already in the field recordings of the Elbe shore with which '20.000 Meilen unter dem Mond' begins you are being offered a pact: Hand over all control to the music, swim out to the open sea and be thrown back to yourself -- just so you can indulge in the sonic waves. That prelude seems programmatic: In the following 40 minutes you are being carried along, you are being amused, catapulted, earthed, moved. Oui Bitte manages to douse the resonance body, to drift away, to wash ashore, to take off. The landing: always soft! The biggest continuity is the positive vibe, a reliable air host, pleasant, more shell than irritation. Station 17 do not produce cracks in the dam, they are smoothing out riverbeds. 'Bewegung' then appears as the highlight of the album, a manifestation of the idea Station 17. Move your mind and move your body, as Birgit Hohnen says here, a deceased companion of the group who is being projected into the present of the song through a sample. With your eyes closed this track allows you to take off meditatively. And then there's the latent melancholy which finds its way in. This futuristic music of the past stays warm, stays cordial, stays inviting: to the sonic utopia of a more beautiful world which has already been established by this album at this point and by this band in any case. In the end the record takes its time, a wide room is designed, meters are being covered. In the calmness of the last song a contradiction pops up: 'Das Rasen' ('The rushing'). But the contradiction dissolves: If you listen closely, you are gliding through the high grass ('Rasen') on which to lie down and listen to Oui Bitte invites. Yes, please: Repeat!" --Hendrik Otembra
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BB 430LP
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LP version. "... Oui Bitte shows Station 17 as a band of experts in a kind of acoustic transcendence. Their music tenderly forces you to engage in all of this at the same time. Already in the field recordings of the Elbe shore with which '20.000 Meilen unter dem Mond' begins you are being offered a pact: Hand over all control to the music, swim out to the open sea and be thrown back to yourself -- just so you can indulge in the sonic waves. That prelude seems programmatic: In the following 40 minutes you are being carried along, you are being amused, catapulted, earthed, moved. Oui Bitte manages to douse the resonance body, to drift away, to wash ashore, to take off. The landing: always soft! The biggest continuity is the positive vibe, a reliable air host, pleasant, more shell than irritation. Station 17 do not produce cracks in the dam, they are smoothing out riverbeds. 'Bewegung' then appears as the highlight of the album, a manifestation of the idea Station 17. Move your mind and move your body, as Birgit Hohnen says here, a deceased companion of the group who is being projected into the present of the song through a sample. With your eyes closed this track allows you to take off meditatively. And then there's the latent melancholy which finds its way in. This futuristic music of the past stays warm, stays cordial, stays inviting: to the sonic utopia of a more beautiful world which has already been established by this album at this point and by this band in any case. In the end the record takes its time, a wide room is designed, meters are being covered. In the calmness of the last song a contradiction pops up: 'Das Rasen' ('The rushing'). But the contradiction dissolves: If you listen closely, you are gliding through the high grass ('Rasen') on which to lie down and listen to Oui Bitte invites. Yes, please: Repeat!" --Hendrik Otembra
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BB 424LP
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LP version. As part of Bureau B's series Experimental Electronic Underground GDR, the label make a very special recording available again. The first contact between Conrad Schnitzler, who lived in West Berlin, and Jörg Thomasius, who was based in the east party of the city, came about in the late 1970s. In 1985, Schnitzler visited Thomasius in East Berlin for the first time. In the meantime, Thomasius had released cassettes in the GDR both as a soloist and with his group DFO (Das freie Orchester). The following year, the idea of a joint concert in East Berlin's Erlöserkirche was born. In the GDR, it was not possible to hold events in public without a so-called state "classification". DFO did not have this permit at that time and so public performances were only possible in the context of private or church institutions. In 1982, Schnitzler had already met the New York musician Ken Gen Montgomery, who then regularly performed Schnitzlers's compositions live at various venues worldwide. And so, Schnitzler also produced four cassettes especially for his concert in East Berlin, which were sent by courier from West to East Berlin. On the evening of 3.9.1986, the privately announced and illegal concert took place in the Erlöserkirche in East Berlin/GDR. Montgomery mixed Schnitzler's music live from the tapes. Jörg Thomasius recorded the performance and released the recording in 1987 on his own underground cassette label, Krötenkassetten. Elaborately restored, the original recording is now being released for the first time under the title CAS-CON II. In addition to photos and contemporary documents, it also includes Jörg Thomasius's and Ken Gen Montgomery's written memories of this very special evening.
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BB 424CD
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As part of Bureau B's series Experimental Electronic Underground GDR, the label make a very special recording available again. The first contact between Conrad Schnitzler, who lived in West Berlin, and Jörg Thomasius, who was based in the east party of the city, came about in the late 1970s. In 1985, Schnitzler visited Thomasius in East Berlin for the first time. In the meantime, Thomasius had released cassettes in the GDR both as a soloist and with his group DFO (Das freie Orchester). The following year, the idea of a joint concert in East Berlin's Erlöserkirche was born. In the GDR, it was not possible to hold events in public without a so-called state "classification". DFO did not have this permit at that time and so public performances were only possible in the context of private or church institutions. In 1982, Schnitzler had already met the New York musician Ken Gen Montgomery, who then regularly performed Schnitzlers's compositions live at various venues worldwide. And so, Schnitzler also produced four cassettes especially for his concert in East Berlin, which were sent by courier from West to East Berlin. On the evening of 3.9.1986, the privately announced and illegal concert took place in the Erlöserkirche in East Berlin/GDR. Montgomery mixed Schnitzler's music live from the tapes. Jörg Thomasius recorded the performance and released the recording in 1987 on his own underground cassette label, Krötenkassetten. Elaborately restored, the original recording is now being released for the first time under the title CAS-CON II. In addition to photos and contemporary documents, it also includes Jörg Thomasius's and Ken Gen Montgomery's written memories of this very special evening.
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BB 428CD
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Renowned acid cosmologist Johannes Auvinen, best known by his alias Tin Man, leaves the club floor behind for a full-length kosmische excursion on Bureau B. Since his first Tin Man records nearly 20 years ago, Auvinen has impelled acid -- in the grand tradition of Phuture and co. -- into shapes and forms heretofore uncharted. He does it again on his latest, Arles, exploring a new realm of impressionistic beauty where pristine, heartfelt melodies dance delicately atop austere motorik rhythms. It's a trip you'll want to take again and again.
"'Cosmic,' as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, means 'of or relating to the cosmos, the extraterrestrial vastness,' or 'relating to abstract spiritual or metaphysical ideas.' In that light, the first record by Tin Man, aka Johannes Auvinen, on Bureau B is cosmic indeed -- kosmische, if you will. Auvinen is best known for his manifold expressions of acid, in the house and techno sense, that pull your heartstrings as they move your feet. But on Arles, he leaves his dance floor bonafides behind for an album-length journey through inner and outer space. Although Arles isn't built for the club, it's unmistakably a Tin Man record, through and through. (Fret not: adventurous DJs will find much to work with here, naturally.) Auvinen's tender melodies, coaxed from an array of gear including his signature Roland TB-303, dance delicately atop minimal, propulsive rhythms. The form is different, but the fundament remains the same. In the manner of its namesake city, Arles is a portrait of impressionistic beauty. One might call it a turning point for Auvinen, a new direction, but like Auvinen's best work elsewhere, Arles is disarming in its unveiled simplicity. There is no artifice here; this album has nothing to prove, no need to convince the listener of anything. Its elegance is accessible immediately, its grace given freely. And after the record's done, chances are you'll find yourself dropping the needle right back at the beginning. Each listen reveals a new tenor -- each track becomes a new favorite. It's a trip you'll want to take again and again." --Chris Zaldua
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