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CREP 078LP
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Introducing a new project by Discrepant label boss Gonçalo F. Cardoso (Gonzo, Visions Congo, Papillon, Prophetas) and Tenerife electronic stalwarts Tupperwear (Mladen Kurajica and Dani Tupper). Diving deep into various phantom island mythologies (the elusive St. Brendan's island being a recurring motif) Lagoss borrow from the exotica playbook of ideas and twist it inside out into a bubbling melting pot of sounds, shapes, and patterns that eventually confuse, wonder, and (occasionally) scare the inattentive listener. Built like a schizophrenic booklet of moods, with 30+ vignettes describing the various habitats and moods of the local (imaginary) archipelago, Imaginary Island Music Vol. 1 offers grand visions of brave new old worlds, independent from the obvious, atypical lines of thought. There's no such thing as a break from mother nature here, fauna and flora take it all, a constant buzz of local predators, big and small, preying on everyone and anyone, constantly -- humans are just temporary guests here. A nautical almanac of remote notions from a forsaken land, built and rebuilt upon layer and layer of green and blue death -- forget Martin Denny, no armchair xylophone grooves here. All music by Lagoss. Artwork by Evan Crankshaw. Mastered by Rashad Becker. One-off vinyl edition of 500; printed inner sleeve.
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CREP 080LP
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Gritty, Odd & Good is a new weird, pseudo-music compilation curated by avant-garde experimental composer and audio artist Francisco López. As far as creation itself is concerned, big cities do not manifest anymore as the catalytic cultural centers they used to be. Their iconic status as hip locations seem more symbolic than real. The combined mighty forces of neocapitalist gentrification and telecommunication/information decentralization might have generated a substantially different landscape of geographical cultural distribution. And so unlikely places are also sources of physically-isolated, but culturally-interconnected, new creation. This is just but one more example of the larger phenomenon of techno-cultural atomization (not to be confused with the more restricted so-called "democratization") that allows millions of people to create and share, pre- and post-internet. The amateur is the new potential master; and that is decided by the crowd in the circus and the stadium, not at the academy. With all of this comes the potential for new aesthetics, or at least the open-ended evolution of the previous ones -- far better than the current confusion between ethics and aesthetics -- from the uninformed and the unknown. Atomization of this kind also brings for some the desire and the right to anonymity. And so it is for the unknown obscure artists of this compilation of weird experimental music -- "gritty, odd & good", with drones, glitches, cut-ups and more -- who won't reveal anything beyond their unlikely locations: San Marino, French Guiana, Philippines, Lesotho, Oman, Faroe Islands, Tuvalu, Liechtenstein, Kyrgyzstan. An innovative compilation presenting a world of unusual experimental de-constructed and recombined music casting a strong and exciting light into the unusual corners of our world. Dive in. Compiled and mastered by Francisco López. Vinyl mastered by Rashad Becker. Features Giuseppe Moretti, Daryana Jean, James Ocampo, Thabiso Makhetha, Rashid Al Balushi, Lív Jacobsen, Eteroa Apinelu, Zzodiakk, and Alima Akmatova.
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CREP 077LP
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After his debut album for Discrepant, Papillon (CREP 009LP, 2013), and a couple of tapes for Dinzu Artefacts (Aqueducts, 2017) and Sucata Tapes (Cercueill Flottant, 2019 (SUC 022CS)), Papillon aka Gonçalo F. Cardoso returns to the wax treatment for one last hurrah into the depths of tropical disquiet. Taking liberties from Henri Charriere's book sequel of the same name, Banco (1972), the audio reader here dives straight up/down into a world of random dream logic. The same themes of nightmare vs. paradisiac dreams are present here yet with more nuance than the first volume. The adventure here is more subdued, less spiritual as most of it is lived outdoors, free from the state's shackles of abuse. A lighter tone then, for what will probably be the last Papillon adventure. As with the first volume the album counts with contributions from fellow label artists, Mike Cooper, Cédric Stevens, David Daan, and Yannick Dauby all feature in a way or another, raw or cooked into a boiling pot of irreverence. All tracks were composed and edited by Gonçalo F Cardoso in the island of La Gomera, Lisbon and London between 2017-2019. Mastered by Rashad Becker. Edition of 300.
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CREP 074LP
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Dominique Grimaud makes you listen to the The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and many more artists from the 1960s, like you never hear before. The title says it all: 19 Feedbacks. French multi-instrumentalist and sound-experimentalist Dominique Grimaud dives into his adolescence and the 1960s, when he discovered music that he could identify with and that would stay with him for his whole life. But 19 Feedbacks it's not just about memories or music, it's about feedback. The beginning of the use of feedback on pop and rock songs throughout that decade and beyond. It helps -- of course it helps -- that Dominique feels and knows what he's talking about. He lived those years. He knows the energy and the momentum and the historical breakthroughs that were made every time a rock band pushed the boundaries of commercial approval. He uses samples of feedbacks from that era and builds beautifully enigmatic sound-pieces around them. Some of those samples/feedbacks will be very recognizable. It's not worth telling because it will spoil the experience of listening and dive into 19 Feedbacks. It's better if the listener isn't expecting them and enjoy the ways Dominique explores them and reintegrate them into modern experimental music. Although it carries that experimental side, 19 Feedbacks normally feels as a freeform library music. Tracks like "Out Of The Sand" and "Green And Blue" carry a beautiful ambiguity of handcrafted electronic sounds thought for an electronic library of sound, to be or not to be used for a movie, radio or television. While others, like "Soft Voice" or "18 Tides" dwell along the ambient spectrum. Some tracks carry a more electronic momentum. Dominique adapts the 19 Feedbacks to fit different styles and he wasn't trapped in the gimmick side of working around such specific samples. It's a brave new world of sound escapades and sonic ventures. You never thought you would hear the Beatles, Stones, Captain Beefheart or Pink Floyd sound like this. All songs by Dominique Grimaud. Artwork by Evan Crankshaw. Vinyl cut at Dubplates & Mastering Berlin.
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CREP 058CD
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Double-CD version of Mike Cooper's now classic 2018 release Tropical Gothic -- now released with a bonus live performance recorded at London's Café Oto. On Tropical Gothic, Mike Cooper studies different approaches to his method of uniting guitar and field recordings into a constant stream of sound, where he delivers chaos and melody -- not necessarily in that order. A series of shorter pieces open the album. Each of them offering a myriad of images and sensations, between the enigmatic and terror ("The Pit"), joy, happiness, and freedom ("Running Naked"), or pure contemplation ("Onibaba"). The album closes with its 18th minute magical piece "Lelong & Gods Of Bali". A mix of ambient exotica music, silent film soundtrack, and distorted rhythms that dance around Mike's guitar. It keeps reinventing and transforming itself throughout those eighteen minutes, summing up the dexterity and muscle of Mike Cooper's music of the last two decades. Tropical Gothic - Live At Cafe Oto was performed as a live improvised version of Mike's release of the same name. Joined on stage by Clive Bell and Sylvia Hallet and performed alongside three of Mike's videos -- "Ko Lanta", "Walking In Ubin", and a mash up containing excerpts from some of Mike's favorite "tropical gothic" films -- Onibaba (1964), Opera Jawa (2006), Kwaidan (1964), Tabu (2012), and White Shadows In The South Seas (1928). Both Clive and Sylvia play an array of Asian and "exotic" instruments; both are improvisers and have been playing together on and off over many years. Sylvia had collaborated with David Toop on his opera Star Shaped Biscuit, a work that might also be considered tropical gothic and Clive Bell, an international traveler, writer, and expert player of the Japanese shakuhachi flute, as well as other Asian blown instruments, is very familiar with Mike Cooper's musical excursions into ambient/electronic/exotica. Personnel: Mike Cooper - lap steel guitar, iPhone, Zoom sampletrack, Kaos Pad, Mini Kaos Pad, Mini Disc, Pitch Shifter Delay, Video; Sylvia Hallett - violin, bowed bicycle wheel, saw, sawn-off lampshade, jaws harp, mbira, delay pedal, pitch shift pedal, looper pedal; Clive Bell - shinobue, shakuhachi, khene, pi saw flute, Cretan pipes. Recorded Live by James Dunn at Cafe Oto on September 28th, 2018. Disc 1 mastered by Rashad Becker. Disc 2 mastered by Emmet O'Donnel.
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CREP 075LP
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Spencer Clark is back with a futuristic eco-friendly record. It's life on earth as you never heard it. The story goes like this: Spencer wanted to do a soundtrack for the yet to be made Avatar 2. And if you know Spencer's work, you'll know that he engaged on this mission reading material that influenced the rich and crazy imaginary world of Avatar. If you think about it a little bit, something like Avatar could have really come out from the mind of Spencer Clark. But it didn't. So, he dwelled around the idea of that soundtrack, working on what is now known as Avatar Blue. The record presented here is a selection Clark made from the double-CD released in 2019 on his own Pacific City Sound Visions. Like many of Spencer's other alias or incarnations, Star Searchers introduces the listener to a new world. Besides making sounds/soundtracks for alternative realities he cares about making a world for his music to live in. It's never superficial or dedicated just to the act of imagination, Spencer creates sounds that sustain the reality he imagined. That's why they're so rich and consequential in the realization of music as a medium. Avatar Blue is music but also literature. And cinema. Star Searchers' sound creates an absorbent sound about what's happening in aquatic life. It goes beyond the perception of what we've seen or what we've known, it's a neo-future aquatic life, with a world building structure and sounds and narratives that go along with it. All done with a sound-aesthetics that could be described as slowed-down-trance, that fits 1980s synth nostalgia and dreams of sci-fi to come. Vinyl cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.
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CREP 073LP
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Multidisciplinary Portuguese artists Calhau! return in 2020 with a new album and their first release on Discrepant. It's quite possible you've never heard about them. They're not that famous in Portugal or anywhere. Calhau! is formed by couple Alves von Calhau and Marta von Calhau, not their real names, but they're their real names in the artistic reality Calhau! have been working in the last 15 years. But now that you've read their name, you must dig in. They're one of a kind. They're not musicians, painters, illustrators, sculptures, visual artists, or performers. They're all the above but without manifesting their work specifically in any of them. While listening to Tau Tau --or any of their other releases -- that translates quite well: their sound is quite visual, the voices translate into movement and the arbitrary use of sounds reveal a strong sensibility to the architecture of aesthetic. Tau Tau manifests the voice element in Calhau!'s music as their main element. It's been present in previous releases, but it's the centerpiece here. All the words/phrases you hear are wordplays, with Portuguese words and their sounds, but also associations and co-relations. It's done with purpose and meaning, it's tailored work that carries meaning and -- like in "Bófiacult" -- a social critique. The sounds and how Marta plays with her voice expose some other areas of work in Calhau!'s domain, like their continued interest in Portuguese folk traditions, not just with music/sound but also with objects. Objects that, ultimately, you can listen in Tau Tau. If you're a fan of both Discrepant's Antologia De Música Atípica Portuguesa compilations (they've contributed with one track for the first volume "O Trabalho"), you'll find Tau Tau as a good complement of how 21st century musicians understand and recreate Portuguese folklore. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker. Composed and performed by Von Calhau. Bag Pipes by Vasco Alves.
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CREP 072LP
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Over the last decade, multi-instrumentalist Tomás Tello has been developing his own personal music style based around an exploration of the guitar and his intense personal investigation of traditional Peruvian music -- in particular Andean culture which he grew up with. Now operating out of Tavira, Tomás has been functioning like a psychic musician, a well-tuned antenna picking a unique sound universe where, among others, sounds of native instruments (quenas, drums, charangos) and experimental electronics (field recordings, loops, circuit bending, small synths, and effects pedals) merge in mystic harmony. Tomás delivers meditative compositions, sonic illuminations which seem to be the result of a direct act of contemplation, of glaring at the immensity of a landscape, a river or the proximity of strange wild animals, a vision calling that, with the aid of medicinal plants, offers a state of consciousness in tune with the early works of envisioned artists such as Arturo Ruiz del Pozo, Jorge Reyes, or Walter Maioli. Tomás Tello's music is an invitation to listen to nature from a new place. It's timeless music, which enraptures those who have the joy of entering it. Artwork by Evan Crankshaw and Raleigh Gardiner. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker.
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CREP 071LP
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"In this 24-minute composition, released here in its original name for the first time, Raed Yassin encapsulates and condenses the aural and sonic landscapes experienced by those who bore witness to the war. In the 1980s, while the Lebanese Civil War, which ravaged the country between 1975 and 1990, was raging, television but particularly transistor radios were the only means through which people heard the news during interminable periods of power cuts or waiting in basement shelters. The audio material was collected by Yassin on his regular trips to the dispersed and neglected archives of militias and political parties, radio, and TV stations, and record shops across Lebanon. Built from over 300 hours of material, Yassin has woven together a composition using political speeches; radio and television commercials; news flashes and jingles; local '80s pop music; dubbed Japanese anime songs; propaganda, resistance, and revolutionary party songs; snippets from Ziad Rahbani plays, and many more. The recordings in CW Tapes are the sonic equivalents of Proust's madeleines to any individual who was old enough to remember the war and its immediate aftermath. Commercials, songs, and speeches collide and intertwine as if Yassin had plugged a radio tuner into his mind, sounding out a deeply personal sonic terrain that echoes the hidden sonic memories of his contemporaries. Beside the diversity of its sounds, what is most striking in this record is the minute attention to the musicality of the different recordings Yassin uses, whether they are propaganda pieces, vocal patterns or news jingles. What you hear in the beginning of the CW Tapes, for example, is Raed Yassin's fascination for the different political and musical figures that populated the Lebanese media landscape across the 1980s. In this bewildering introduction, he highlights the absurdity of the war by lacing together a political speech given by Bachir Gemayel with a frivolous and upbeat pop song by Lebanese pop singer Sammy Clark whose tunes are heard at different moments in the piece. The composition unfurls an array of overlapping tonalities and textures as well as a glossolalia made of processed voices that inhabited the archaic technologies of the time . . . In his continuous efforts to mine and work through the sonic archives of Lebanon's recent past, the CW Tapes is possibly Yassin's most personal output to date." --Rayya Badran, Beirut, January 2019 Mastered and Cut by Rashad Becker
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CREP 069LP
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Previously released on CD accompanied by Gone, Gone Beyond, The Mirror is the dreamy soundtrack of an A/V project from collage artist extraordinaire Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us. With The Mirror Bennett continues her eternal disassembling of popular music by exploring how the narrative of familiar sounds/songs can change dramatically under a new context, with that context always changing, in a never-ending flow. Each song is singular. And each song is a collage of an undefined number of other songs from other artists. It sounds familiar because that has been the modus operandi of People Like Us since the early 1990s. But The Mirror plays with the notion of the familiar, driving around a collection of famous pop songs/artists, messing around with the memory of the listener and, of course, one's unique comprehension of those specific songs applied in a new context. Because of the use of familiar pop sounds, The Mirror is often grandiose, like an epic film with only highs, never letting the listener down or letting them doubt the power of pop. Even, of course, when the coordinates are twisted, mixed, over or underrepresented. Each moment feels like something that could only happen in a parallel universe. Although that may sound naïve, it's just a lost thought of reaction to the beautiful collages of People Like Us in The Mirror. This mirror doesn't reflect an image of ourselves or an image of pop. But an image on the way memories drift and are being constant rebuilt. An unfinished collage. Mastered by Mark Gergis; vinyl cut by Rashad Becker.
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CREP 070LP
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Maybe it's too much to ask for a moment of your attention. As you grow older and keep diving into this era of information, disinformation, fake news, and all that, you might also tend to take a step back and listen to the intents of those social media adverts that tell us to slow down, breathe in, breathe out, enjoy everything around you a little bit. So, if it's not too much to ask, you can press play and start enjoying D-A-D. If you're doing that, you can even stop reading this, because you don't need further instructions. It's the second time in less than two years that Discrepant has released music from London based Greek musician Tasos Stamou (Athens, 1978). The wordplay of Musique Con Crète (CREP 054LP, 2018) was a backdoor to an adventurous and "concrete" experience with sound. D-A-D follows up on that. Recorded between 2015-2018 as an homage to both his Dad and the more commonly used tuning on the Greek Bouzouki, D-A-D, Stamou delivers 40 minutes of music that explores ancient and modern languages, while crossing his unique instrumentation with celebrations of new/old folk, field recordings, and electronics. In his music, there's a constant flow of ideas that defy standard tonalities and the conception of "traditional". Improvisation was the starting point for the creation of some of the nine pieces Tasos Stamou wrote for D-A-D. The electronics often serve to interact with field recordings that are wisely manipulated, while acoustic instruments, like a Bouzouki, build up the connection with the tradition and the necessity to slow down. With his unique atmospheres, Tasos is whispering some life hacks to build a better life. Nowadays, it's quite rare for a record to organize the way the listener wants to listen to music, to sounds. D-A-D creates a beautiful systematization between old and new, folk/traditional music and the technology in sound. All songs by Tasos Stamou. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker.
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CREP 063LP
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Comic book artist, graphic designer, and free jazz improviser are only some of the many talents from Beirut born Mazen Kerbaj. After appearing as part of various ensembles on the label, Ariha Brass Quartet and Johnny Kafta Anti-Vegetarian Orchestra, Kerbaj finally lands a solo outfit of his own onto the Discrepant dancefloor of misdemeanor. 14 years after his first (and only) solo album Brt Vrt Zrt Krt (Al Maslakh, 2005), Mazen returns with a series of loud oozes (entirely) of his own with not one but two(!) solo albums of prepared trumpet that further cement his international position as a serial trumpet botherer. Showcasing his very own and singular arsenal of squawks, cackles, howls and squeals the notion of being transported to a luring mutant underwater alien community is only occasionally dispelled with the sporadic passages of fluctuating tones and pulsations, like a restful humpback whale puffing on a hookah pipe at the ocean's deep end. Mazen pulls out all the proverbial stops here, displaying a unique mastering of the instrument and its improbable add-ons creating various vignette like episodes rich in texture and variations -- unlike anything else out there -- not that you'd knew anyway. Where Vol. 2.1 shows an astounding use of the instrument without recurring to cuts, overdubs, or electronics, Vol. 2.2 raises (or shatters) the bar with its intentional use of everything Vol. 2.1 was denied. And Mazen is right about advising his listeners, the sounds emitted on each record are beyond the limits of believable. Either he is using tricks or just prepared techniques the results go far beyond the reach of a normal or casual listener. Listen to the albums back-to-back and you'll understand.
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CREP 064LP
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Comic book artist, graphic designer and free jazz improviser are only some of the many talents from Beirut born Mazen Kerbaj. After appearing as part of various ensembles on the label, Ariha Brass Quartet and Johnny Kafta Anti-Vegetarian Orchestra, Kerbaj finally lands a solo outfit of his own onto the Discrepant dancefloor of insubordination. 14 years after his first (and only) solo album Brt Vrt Zrt Krt (Al Maslakh, 2005) Mazen returns with a series of subtle compositions of his own with not one but two(!) solo albums of prepared trumpet that further cement his international position as a serial trumpet botherer. Whilst Vol. 2.1 showcases his (almost) (un)familiar arsenal of squawks, cackles, howls and squeals, Vol. 2.2 goes deep into the nether regions of waltzing drones and bell tweaks so deep that would make most cetaceans lose their concentration. The notion of being transported to a luring mutant underwater alien community is still present on these long(er) trips with the added meditative pieces being occasionally pierced by noise creepers, nothing is what you want or expect and that's the way it should be. If Vol. 2.1 is the classic follow up LP, this one is the beast from the deep, it comes surging and screeching from a deep oceanic sink hole, only to hypnotize you with perverted dance moves before diving back into the sinking, wettest and darkest cave in the world. Vol. 2.2 is a summons album; it shatters any bar there was with its intentional use of everything Vol. 2.1 was denied. It grabs you by wherever available way and it only releases you when you're ready to listen to it again. Listen to both albums back-to-back, in no particular order and you'll know that there's nothing you can do but come back to it like a doped-up seal stranded in a phantom island -- appearing and disappearing as the music dictates it to.
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CREP 068LP
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Ross Alexander first came to our attention with Memorias Vol. 1 - Bugandan Sacred Places (SUC 007CS), released back in 2017 on Sucata Tapes. The release featured a mind-altering mix of recorded sounds from a series of visited sites considered sacred within the Bugandan Kingdom and session recordings with Ugandan musicians Albert Sempeke and the Nilotika Collective layered with his own original composition using the Yamaha DX7 and programmed FM synthesis. The result was a unique reconfiguration of new age vocabulary with East African traditional sensibilities. The tape quickly sold out and the new Volume Of Memorias presented here arrives now on the mother label Discrepant, comes on vinyl with an expanded sound palette appropriate to the format. Memorias Vol. 2 - High Atlas To The Sahara Desert is the logical progression of Volume 1; based on a series of field recordings Alexander made during a trip through the High Atlas Mountains and into the Sahara Desert in 2018. The aim of the trip was to visit a gathering of nomadic musicians at an oasis close to the Algerian border. Like Memorias Vol. 1, the recordings made on the trip were then later processed, layered, and arranged with original compositions. Where Vol. 1 had clear nods to new age music, this volume explores the more ambient side of '80s industrial sound. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker.
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CREP 067LP
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Sometimes one knows it's coming, sometimes it's unexpected, but the time to hang up one's boots will always come. It's better when one has total control over the moment, even better if things end on a high (or on a low). After seven years of sonic interferences, calibrating the soundscape of field recordings and helping to recreate the old sounds of today, Gonzo is retiring from music. It's a goodbye, and a well-crafted one at that. But Ruído(s) doesn't sound like an intentional farewell. It won't be heard on any of the thirteen tracks that scavenge for a solution in the space between ambient music and field recordings. It won't be felt in the intense connection between human and natural sounds; how sometimes everything oscillates in opposite states of mind. One won't even read it in the intense-yet-subtle humor present in some of the pieces. This is all because it's not an intentional goodbye. What is it then? It's a celebration of random sound. How can one experience something scholastic and simultaneously deeply hilarious? Just think about the amazing triad formed by "A Fuga Dos Grilos." "Degredado(s)," and "Cantiga Parva". First, one is blessed with six minutes that build up on the idea that sound can be an intense religious experience, echoes going back and forth to create a fantastic Boiler Room feeling (one populated with raving Gonzos doing dabs in front of the camera) that eventually ends with a cinematic touch -- someone saying the title of the song out loud. One second after we are into the Flying Lizards world, with two songs that shake any pretentious seriousness of the previous track. Is it serious or not? It is. But it doesn't have to be. On Ruído(s) Gonzo recounts pop/electronic history through field recordings and weird-soft beats. More than compiling his seven-year history, Gonzo is more worried about understanding where he's leaving his ideas, Caretaker-style. As the album progresses and the need to revisit it grows, it becomes clearer that Ruído(s) is more than an artist self-indulging in his work -- in a very good manner. It's also a condensed catalog of Portuguese music and its sounds, a circular trip down the memory lane of a forgotten country and its landscape. Ruído(s) is a goodbye to a country and its traditions. It does it without sulking but with the most respectful loud laugh -- the Gonzo way.
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CREP 066LP
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La Danza del Agua (The Dance of Water) is an eclectic musical journey through Latin American experimentalism -- a sort of unofficial companion to the Antologia De Musica Atipica Portuguesa (Anthologies of Atypical Portuguese Music) volumes, but focusing on South American music themes instead. Originally released as two volumes (digital and cassette versions) on Papaki Records (2017, Argentina), this new concise edition presents 12 of the original 38 artists. Not to be seen as exhaustive document representing the wide styles of the even wider continent, it hopes to showcase some of its more marginal music with artists from a variety of countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, and Venezuela. As such, this compilation shines a wider light on new and exciting sounds from the vast continent with a wide range of styles such as digital cumbias, sound experimentation, freak folk, noise, exotica, danceable beats, and much more, mixed together to give life to the continuing strange world of contemporary South American experimental music. A logical continuation of our new weird South American explorations after releasing works from Meridian Brothers, Romperayo, Chupame El Dedo, and a tape batch on Sucata sister label featuring Panchasila, Los Siquicos Litoraleños, Bardo Todol, Tomás Tello, and more. Features Tomás Tello, Wellman, Joa Joys, Horacio, Simón vs Saimon, M3Y, Manrico Montero, Gil Sanson, Pandelindio, Gustavo Obligado, Ciudad Satélite, and José Soberanes.
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CREP 065LP
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Kasenian Réak is a genre of performative art from the Priangan area of west Java, organized during hajatans (life-cycle celebrations) and nowadays primarily held during weddings and circumcisions. The style, known as a seni lungsuran, is part of the greater family of Javanese horse dances, originally known in their most famous forms of jathilan and kuda lumping. Javanese horse dances, which could be as old as animistic Java, may already have been practiced before the eighth-century, traveling through the island and reaching Priangan in the thirties, when Réak is believed to have been originated and popularized by musical groups Juarta Putra and Maska Putra. While bearing more than some resemblances with its family, Kasenian Réak benefits of structures and aesthetic tracts of its own, being not only one of the newest developments of horse dance if not the newest, but also its rawest and most extreme outcome. The shows usually last up to nine hours, starting at nine o'clock in the morning and finishing between five or six o'clock in the afternoon. The morning part is dedicated to the pembukaan (ouverture), lasting up to one hour and dogcing or dogdog cicing (playing the dogdog on spot), while the afternoon is the time during which the arak-arakan (parade) takes place. After the arak-arakan goes around the village gathering people and announcing the celebration, it returns to the lot where it had begun and the show ends with a shorter dogcing. During the first dogcing it is possible to witness the dance of Bangbarongan: an animal-like creature costume representing a spirit and an ancestor, worn by a dancer who brings it alive for some hours. This is among the most exciting parts of the show. Sometimes it is also possible to witness a symbolic fight between the pimpinan and the Barong. Trance and possession obviously represent two of the main attractions of the style. The music as a sonic signal given by the speeded tempo, along with an Adorcistic practice conducted by the ma'alim are capable of inviting spirits to enter bodies and take control of them. When possessed, the individuals can, according to the entity they host, exhibit superhuman capacities. This release aims to provide a spectrum of Kasenian Réak and its music. The first side is a classic réak ouverture, played by one of the two founding groups, Juarta Putra. On the other side is Putra Jaya Melati: one of the groups that most attempts to push towards a contemporary, aggressive, and experimental version of Réak music.
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CREP 062LP
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French sound artist Félix Blume keeps pushing the boundaries of field recordings for everyone's enjoyment. Fog Horns captures the sounds of boat horns in Piraeus, Athens, Greece, the port city that serves some of the most important ferry routes in Greece nowadays. Yes, boat horns are annoying, sometimes disturbing and even absurdly disrupting if you live in a port city or one that is blessed with the arrival of cruises -- everyone knows that. But recordings of funerals could be tricky, and Félix Blume pulled a gem out of 2018's Death In Haiti: Funeral Brass Bands & Sounds from Port Au Prince (CREP 051LP). And he has done it again. The A side reveals a long track recorded during a fog horn concert whilst side B features three "remixes" of the same recordings, paying respect to what Ingram Marshall did in Fog Tropes in three different "movements". In a way, B side sounds like the perfect soundtrack for the recent remake of Suspiria (2018). But Thom Yorke got in the way. Jokes aside, there's something magical about these horns. In the eighteen minutes of the first side, Félix Blume explores the concept of a concert played by those horns. The horns dominate but sounds of the surroundings create a perfect balance to the drone hysteria. The surrounding sounds are the heartbeat of this track. The horns are the metal section of an orchestra, while the rest works like the strings. Hidden melodies are revealed when you listen to this with your full attention, and the more you do it, the horns become less present, vivid. It's one of the many crafts of Félix Blume, the more you live with his music, the more you focus outside the plot. If those eighteen minutes sound tremendously real, the three tracks on the other side feel like a horror film. The warmth disappears to become cold ambiance, beautifully textured and enigmatic sounds take over. Horns are still heard, but they're a different kind of horns. It seems that Félix Blume is playing with our perception, from bliss to horror. A honk will never be the same again.
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CREP 061LP
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In 1959, Michel Giacometti moved to Portugal and dedicated the following thirty years of his life recording traditional music all over the country. In the present decade, Portuguese music has been thriving and finally travelling abroad, long gone are the days those hidden gems were kept in secret in this distant corner of Europe. The discovery of current Portuguese music sparked an interest to Portuguese music, past and present. With both of those ideas in mind, Giacometti and the interest in Portuguese music, Antologia De Música Atípica Portuguesa creates an anthology of current sounds to the future. You can see it as history being made or a broad catalog of sounds that live and breathe the experimental and electronic that is happening in Portugal. The first step happened in 2017 with the releasing of the first volume on this anthology, O Trabalho ("The Labour") (CREP 035LP), and Discrepant now move onto Vol. 2, Regiões ("Regions"), with each track connecting with a different province from Portugal. Some names return to this volume, like Live Low with the beautifully haunting "Montemor" or Gonzo (Discrepant's own Gonçalo F. Cardoso), affirming his path in building detailed and processed field recordings music. More than a list of names, or songs, this second volume of Antologia De Música Atípica Portuguesa recreates a passage throughout different landscapes of Portugal, constantly leaving a trail of past, present, and future. The trail doesn't limit itself to the music, but to the traditions contained in the sounds and the stories spelled by the words. The beautifully slowed haunting-waltz "Por Riba", by Síria (Diana Combo), sets everything in motion and builds the way to Random Gods' upbeat march "Gazulo à Estronca da Santosa". "Malta Inquieta" (Ondness) embraces the most modern/contemporary side of this volume, proving that Regiões goes beyond the idea of catalog or even its own concept of "anthology" and provides music that's hard to categorize or even judge by modern standards. "Malta Inquieta" is an experimental jazz-electronic modern gem. It's followed by the guitar of Rui Carvalho, aka Filho da Mãe, with "Manta". "Montemor", opener on side B, sets the tone for a different trip, building up on more abstract and freeform music by Banha da Cobra ("Asylo"), Fantama ("Lamento das Beiras"), and the track by Gonzo. Regiões finishes with the right tone, fields recordings worked by Luís Antero, that tie the connection between Giacometti and the now.
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CREP 060LP
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Earlier this decade, when Óscar Silva chose his alias Jibóia, he was already thinking of the variations his music would take on in each record. Jibóia is Portuguese for boa constrictor and by his fourth record his instincts and ability to change over his sound and search for different collaborators to reach his intentions was manifest. After collaborating with the likes of Makoto Yagyu, Sequin, Xinobi, Ricardo Martins, and Jonathan Saldanha on his previous records, in OOOO he goes deep into interconnecting his music with other musicians/past collaborators. Joined by Martins and André Pinto, Óscar created a record that sounded like Jibóia with the direct collaboration of the musicians that accepted the invitation. And what does it means to sound like Jibóia? A fluent and rich dialogue between outer-world sounds mixed with a free jazz approach to rock. It's music that's doing soul-searching without any space or time barriers. It flows as it should; OOOO is no different. Inspired by the philosophy of Pythagoras and his concept Musica Universalis, it speaks about an interspatial harmony created by the movement of the planets and the sound frequency it creates. It's a poetic theory that imagines the sound produced by the movement of the planets and what we can listen to when we listen to the universe. The first three tracks are a reference to those frequencies and the last one, "Topos", references an idea of accomplishment, of arrival and the sum of the experience. OOOO is a bit of a trip, a voyage of imagined sounds produced by three musicians in a constant dialogue, and with a different focus in each track. Each of the first three tracks are developed with a focus on the instruments of each musician, while the other two expand and enrich the range of the initial movement. On the final one, they explore the flux of ideas each brings to OOOO. However, it's not intended to be a conclusion or an end to OOOO; it's an open circuit of ideas that reinforces the free-minded rock that the three musicians explore, creating a new place where their music finds new routines. It just makes one want to go back to the beginning, again and again, reinforcing the feeling that Jibóia belongs to this world without sounding like anything from this world. RIYL: Sun Ra, Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, Ohm.
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CREP 059LP
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Originally released by Wounded Wolf Press as a limited cassette in 2016, Loopworks compiles Turkish visual and sound artist Koray Kantarcıoğlu's (b. Ankara 1982) loop-based work composed of samples taken from Turkish records released in '60s and '70s as source material. Loopworks impacts almost instantly mainly because it shows some familiarity with the recent work of Leyland Kirby as The Caretaker, particularly with the "haunted ballroom" effect. Koray explores the usage and the dynamic of these sounds as ambient music for different scenarios as well as the importance of a newfound life with the raw material he used to create these songs. The source material appears as enigmatic as these new sounds and activates a sense of discovery and constant wonder throughout Loopworks. With the vinyl release of Loopworks Discrepant continues to manifest the importance of showing how technology and geography create different and original approaches to the standard western interpretation of field recordings and sound manipulation. Kantarcıoğlu's work here is a strong manifestation of that and how "haunted music" can express a myriad of feelings and sensations. Loopworks has a tremendous vision of the metamorphosis that's been occurring in ambient music during the last decade. Sometimes it's dreamy and calm as aquarium music is ("500606" or "22 47 91 Take 1"); surprising and infinite as "263 Loop", one of the few tracks with a voice, in this case a mysterious and transcendental one; or part of a John Carpenter or David Lynch film yet to be made ("Organ Extract KP 001"). A fantastic voyage, from earth to space, through time or simply as the most beautiful and peaceful dive into the ocean, this is old music transformed into something new and unique; that's special.
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CREP 058LP
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It's 2018 and it's time for some new discoveries into Mike Cooper's limitless exploration in his collection of guitars. The title itself, Tropical Gothic references Cooper's beloved areas of "the South" with a Gothic, dark, remote interplay... he explains: ''Tropical Gothic includes, but is by no means limited to, a reflection on a region where European colonial powers fought intensively against indigenous populations and against each other for control of land and resources.'' On each side, Mike Cooper studies different approaches to his method of uniting guitar and field recordings into a constant stream of sound, where he delivers chaos and melody -- not necessarily in that order. Side A is composed of shorter pieces. Each of them offers a myriad of images and sensations, between the enigmatic and terror ("The Pit"), joy, happiness and freedom ("Running Naked") or pure contemplation ("Onibaba"). "Onibaba" runs as a fitting introduction to Side B and its 18th minute magical piece "Legong/Gods Of Bali". A mix of ambient exotica music, silent film soundtrack and distorted rhythms that dance around Mike's guitar. It keeps reinventing and transforming itself throughout those eighteen minutes, summing up the dexterity and muscle of Mike Cooper's music of the last two decades. With another grand collage artwork by Evan Crankshaw.
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CREP 057LP
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Earlier this century, Spencer Clark, aka Monopoly Child Star Searchers, created a sound phantasy with Skaters and after that he pursued a new alchemy under various aliases (Charles Berlitz, Fourth World Magazine, Monopoly Child, Typhonian Highlife, etc.) and projects (like Egyptian Sports Network, Tarzana, or The Temple Defectors). The different aliases aren't a mode of dispersion or to create confusion, they're setups for the different possibilities he imagines for music. Make Mine, Macaw -- previously released in 2010 as a limited CDR on Pacific City label -- references a large long-tailed parrot and is part of a trilogy about birds, Spencer's Tropical Bird Romance Audio, which also includes, Bamboo For Two (2010) and The Garnet Toucan (2012). A deep dive into this record makes it clear why it should be re-released. In the field of experimental-tropical-cocktail music, no one does it like Spencer Clark, especially through his output Monopoly Child Star Searchers. Make Mine, Macaw explores the best cocktail recipes through five colorful pieces, using Clark's premium technique of blurry repetition and dreamy percussions. A tropical fantasy that starts in your ears, feeds your brain, and changes your life. You won't know what a pacific city sound vision is until you see one. Make Mine, Macaw makes you see one clearly.
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CREP 056LP
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Pali Meursault is a sound artist, composer, and sound designer. His electroacoustic and sound art research takes different shapes: compositions for records, radio works, installations, or performances. Environmental sound recording is central in his work, which takes from musique concrète and the sonic exploration of soundscapes. For Stridulations, Mersault confronts recorded and performed sounds, composition and improvisation: field-recordings of animal communication (insects, birds, and bats recorded in France, Japan, and South America) mix and dialog with the "sonification" of fluorescent tubes. Both the environmental sound matter composition and the electromagnetic instrument have evolved with performances between 2014 and 2017. Little by little, new recordings were collected and new electrical and electronic supplies were added to the setup. The record is altogether the outcome of that process and a different take on the project, leaving the synesthetics of the flickering lights but embracing the deepness of "blind" listening. For Pali Mersault, the long research for Stridulations has been a practice for deconstructing binary oppositions between nature and machine, bio- and anthropo-phony, and to explore the strange sonic affinities that exist between some animal voices and technological phenomena.
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CREP 055LP
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Japanese artist Sugai Ken presents a kaleidoscopic radio play inspired by the traditional Japanese art of Mingei. In Sugai Ken's own words: "In recent years I have been researching old Japanese culture and customs in order to deepen my musical production. I am still excited to find that there are many untouched roots yet to be discovered which only motivates me to pursuit my research further. As I dig deeper, I'm always struck with the general idea that 'everything has its own ground', otherwise known as rigid ideas and concepts. Indeed, it is important to have a clear ground to explore things from. Especially as our times are overloaded with too much information, things which are spoon fed to us will always be short lived, so for me it becomes a case of those rigid ideas becoming less flexible. One of the many benefits of computer music is being able to separate it from history/traditions and allowing you to simply enjoy mixing sounds and concepts, regardless of its original meaning. By being free from 'having to' make sense we can make creation much more enjoyable. When I made this album I put my priority in freedom, rather than being stuck with those rigid ideas and concepts. This way I could really enjoy and get deep into the 'mixology' of it all. Like my other works, Japanese is always a fundamental motif and I envision it like an imaginary radio drama by adding spontaneous dialogs throughout. I will be happy if listeners pay attention to these (and other) details and enjoy listening to my work." Artwork by Evan Crankshaw. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker. Edition of 500.
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