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viewing 1 To 20 of 20 items
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2LP
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UR 133LP
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$35.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/5/2021
This double album is a new collaboration between long-time Umor Rex artists Andreas Gerth (one half of Driftmachine) and Carl Oesterhelt (11 Pieces for Synthesizer). Both developed their shared musical cosmos during their time with the now defunct Tied +Tickled Trio. Oesterhelt is also known for his solo compositions for orchestras and for collaborations with Johannes Enders and Hans-Joachim Irmler of Faust. As futurism seems inherent to electronic music, the backward-looking view is alien to its nature -- consequently, a dialectical struggle between these principles is rarely expressed with the means of electronics. Especially today, its essence as a medium of progress stands in opposition to a skeptical position. The Aporias Of Futurism seeks to define a critical location, that stands in opposition to the postmodern concept of interpretation, deconstruction and reformulation and the belief in progress that goes with it. The working method for the album Andreas and Carl followed was the usual musique-concrète-technique -- cut/assemble/edit/process pre-recorded sounds -- but instead of deconstructing the concrete noises into an abstract sound entity, they followed a different path: the organic interweaving of orchestral structures with the electronically processed noise layers into a composition in the sense of classical modernism at the beginning of the 20th century. Carl started with sketches recorded via a broken CD player, processed through a ring modulator, which sounded like old electronic music from the 1950s. To interact with these fragments Andreas recorded and processed a plethora of everyday noises, atmospheres, tonal fragments from the modular, industrial and shortwave radio noise, percussion in the form of door slamming, falling metal sheets, ball tracks, and so on. So, while they still played within the futuristic discipline, the reference to the past is actually unmistakable. One can hear it in the tonality of the contrasting orchestral passages, in the sound character of the processed samples and the sonic electronic layers. Free associations of concepts, books and authors from a wide period of time, such as Milton's Paradise Lost, William Blake, Robert Graves, ancient Rome, as well as Borges and Juan Rulfo. This flood of images is also incorporated on the album cover as a "free interpretation" of cultural objects and their relations in time. The overarching motif of a skeptical rejection of the idea of Futurism is illustrated by a quote from Emile M. Cioran, the writer who most closely embodies the common spirit of the work presented here. Gatefold sleeve; includes download code; edition of 300.
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LP
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UR 131LP
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Gudrun Gut and Mabe Fratti have worked together on a powerful hybrid album, where taut rhythms fuse with haunted vocal melodies and spoken word, and field recordings meld with extended ambient pieces. As part of Umor Rex's 15th anniversary, the label presents an album that builds a dialogue between two lands and two unique artists. Mexico is the origin and conceptual residence of our label, while Germany is where the label produces and manufacture our records. The intertwining imaginations belong to German producer Gudrun Gut (Malaria!) -- a notable figure of the subculture and the German music scene since the early '80s, and also a founder of Monika Enterprise and recipient of the "Listen to Berlin" Award in 2019 -- and singer, multi-instrumentalist and composer Mabe Fratti (originally from Guatemala, now based in Mexico City). The process started with Gudrun and Mabe having long distance conversations, asking about their whereabouts and discussing the weather. This might seem rather commonplace, but it works as a key thematic component for the entire album. The weather as the new great unknown, perceived through the optics of everyday life. Sound files were methodically exchanged, with Mabe exploring words and vocals, and Gudrun working with field recordings taken from each city. In the end, this joint musical venture would provide a healing effect for both artists during life in quarantine. "Aufregend", the opening track of the album, reflects upon a general lack of excitement in modern life. It wonders what the future might hold. Is it cold? Is it warm? Will it be the same? "Air Condition" is an eerie, dazzling collision of climates: the hazy warmth of Mexico City, the deep cold of Uckermark. The last track, which gives the album its name, is a long ambient piece composed of four parts: sound sculptures, field recordings of city life, news and weather forecasts, and private conversations about the climate. It's kind of a collaborative diary, obsessed with a single, all-encompassing subject. Produced and recorded by Gudrun Gut and Mabe Fratti between Berlin, Uckermark, Veracruz, and Mexico City. Mixed by Gudrun Gut at Stern Studio; mastered by John Tejada in Sherman Oaks, USA. Artwork and photos by Daniel Castrejón in Mexico City. Yellow vinyl; includes download code; edition of 500.
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LP
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UR 100LP
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2021 clear vinyl repress with new cover art; originally released in 2017. Post-minimalist American composer Rafael Anton Irisarri's Umor Rex debut. Inspired by a troubled socio-political climate, buried melodies punch their way through a bleak cover of noisy drones, periodically veering into some of Irisarri's most eerily pertinent music to date. One of Rafael Anton Irisarri's most thematically and sonically cohesive records to date The Shameless Years came together in a relatively short burst of creativity starting at the end of 2016. Rediscovering some relatively older tools -- namely Native Instruments' Reaktor, Absynth, and Kontakt software -- Irisarri combined them with his collection of guitars, pedals, amps, and analogue processing gear, turning his Black Knoll Studio north of NYC into a powerful writing tool. Completed quickly by Irisarri's standards, let alone during a period of social upheaval in American society, the record faces down several key personal themes. Two tracks were completely remotely between Irisarri in New York and Umor Rex veteran Siavash Amini from his home in Tehran, Iran. This music came together at the peak of all the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric happening in the USA, not to mention the banning of Iranians from entering the country, explains Irisarri. The diptych with Amini, "Karma Krama" and "The Faithless", seems bathed in additional waves of sorrow and dread. The wash of symphonic storm clouds of synth drones and processed notes on the latter gradually appears and disappears over the course of thirteen mournful minutes. "Rh Negative" marches gigantic guitars through towering valleys of scarred ambient noise dealing with Irisarri's own heritage, many of his ancestors having come to America to escape poverty and oppression. The refusal of modern America to extend similar sanctuary to refugees escaping turmoil weighs heavily on the composer. Elsewhere an emotional onslaught of notes buried in mounds of greyscale noise on "Sky Burial" aims to deal with Irisarri's very own mortality -- something he was recently confronted with following health scares, an accident, and a near-death experience in 2016. Pushing 40 as this album was being made, the composer is constantly aware that he's already outlived his own father, who died at the age of 32. Facing down both intolerance and the void, the epic soundscapes of The Shameless Years are a vast cry of emotion from Irisarri. Mastered by James Plotkin. Includes download code.
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UR 130LP
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Punctual like a Swiss watch, Driftmachine presents a new album that once again astounds and delights. Spume & Recollection is the sixth Umor Rex album by the Berlin duo. Regarding Nocturnes (2014), their debut album, Umor Rex described their sound as precise and symmetrical, identical concrete blocks mounted and articulated in a random order. Their already obsessive style continued to evolve with their third record, Colliding Contours (2016), now pushing further into abstract dub, ultra-tense grooves, and even more kinetic loops, moving further away from conventional musical structures. Between these two albums they released the remarkable Eis Heauton (HG 1601LP, 2015), a kind of hypnotic experiment informed by shadowy atmospheres, chance, and an intuitive dialogue with their musical machines. A similar map was explored with Shunter (UR 113LP, 2018), a superb secret meeting between avant-garde phantasmagoria and concrete experimentation. Radiations (2017) offered B-sides and bonus tracks, in addition to collaborations with Shackleton and The Sight Below, a kind of preamble that united Driftmachine's different expressions and leanings. When Andreas Gerth and Florian Zimmer come up with new material, one listens with high expectation. Looking back on their discography, one could safely anticipate a high-quality album densely layered with their familiar leitmotifs. Yet, Spume & Recollection takes you by surprise and finds a new way to transfix. Fresh methods and ideas are introduced to their dynamics and formula. You can still expect a healthy dose of kosmische, a dominant feature in Driftmachine's DNA; but this is now entwined with novel materials, semi-material patterns of alien code stretching over exhilaratingly tense and detailed grooves, clouds of gas shifting on top of deep dub architecture and blocking out the sun for prismatic effect. Even more of a surprise is the immediate, streamlined nature of these tracks, making Spume & Recollection their most accessible record and, perhaps, the most addictive (and this without sacrificing the essential mystery and strangeness at the core of Driftmachine's sound). Umor Rex have previously described their work as post-industrial-dub; right now, it could be called hypno-music for man and machine to dance and dream together. Spume & Recollection takes this concept as far as it can go without breaking, and finds some strange new feelings, and weirdly danceable grooves, to shed some light on this dark and dazzling ride. Mastered by John Tejada. Artwork and photos by Daniel Castrejón. Violet vinyl; includes download code; edition of 300.
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UR 127CS
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Maatsethe's solo output is all about ambient and sound collage. Loads of processed guitars and samples meander between walls of sound, intimate harmonies and a kind of melancholic cinematic landscape. Stoic basslines are surrounded by soft and gentle spheres. A bit of post-rock feel, every now and then, always wrapped up in a meditative monotony, slightly interrupted by small epic narratives to gaze up. Maatsethe (Matthias Neuefeind, Berlin) curates the KeplarRev series with vinyl reissues of essential electronic albums from the '90s and '00s, he plays in the band Fonoda and is part of the project Washer, Zimmer & the Guitar People. Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 composed by Maatsethe Tracks 5, 7 composed by Fonoda. All tracks recorded by Maatsethe. Mastering by Edgar Medina. Artwork by Daniel Castrejón. Includes download code; edition of 100.
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UR 128CS
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Shapes is the solo project by Niklas Dommaschk, one half of Phantom Horse. As one half of Phantom Horse, his long-serving electronic duo with Ulf Schütte, Dommaschk co-produces beautifully muted, kraut-inspired jams that seem to soundtrack fictitious TV ads for wondrous imaginary household appliances, e.g. a calmly efficient, if slightly unsettling kitchen robot with an integrated lava lamp feature. In contrast, Shapes cuts tracks down to size -- nothing here is longer than five-and-a-half minutes. Also, Dommaschk has turned up the treble, the prominence of the higher frequency spectrum adding bite and menace to these deceptively simple synth polyrhythms. Whereas opening track "Benzin" (German for "Petrol") manages to conjure the paradoxical image of something or someone meandering with urgency, "Einzeller" (German for "single-celled organism") channels a John Carpenter-style pulse, complete with horror sound effects. "Interference" is a truly effective representation of the term, with piercing, but quiet tinnitus frequencies set above a beat as sparse as it is crunchy. "Two Stones", by contrast, offers a kind of robotic wistfulness whereas closing piece "Energies Of The Mind" fizzes out like a jumble of toy keyboards attempting to score a science program -- and failing, but instead revealing some much grander emotional truth. This is the sound of breaking some kind of inner lockdown, of turning inwards and then projecting parts of murky inner shadows outward, as well-defined and sometimes lurid shapes, individually clear, but still in the process of becoming organized into a complete whole. The unfinished is what is most exciting. May the shapes never find their slot in the jigsaw puzzle. All songs by Niklas Dommaschk. Recorded between 2017 and 2020 in Berlin and Nijmegen. Mastering by Edgar Medina. Artwork by Daniel Castrejón. Includes download code; edition of 100.
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UR 129LP
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Mehr Null translates to "More Zero". The title of Phantom Horse's third record for Umor Rex could either be seen as a request (to the listener? to the sound engineer?) to expect or to do or to imagine less; or just as the description of a state. The Hamburg/Nijmegen based duo of Ulf Schuette and Niklas Dommaschk is indeed moving nearer to zero: the arrangements are less illuminated; there's a significant nod to JD Emmanuel's working-class vision of minimalism. Hitherto walking in the kraut tradition (but moving away more and more), Phantom Horse heads toward the synth swamps where the old-fashioned shamanic disco is not yet abandoned. From the light green melancholy of "Owl" to the unexpected playfulness of the title track, the duo has obviously worked hard on leaving things out. Still, there's light-footed magic like in "Common Magic", the background music for a comet rain coming into your world. You can find hints to the lower-key film scores by Tangerine Dream, but Phantom Horse's approach fits more into a factory building where sad robots are working their night shifts on a sea horse machine. It's the perfect soundtrack to the non-hungover day after. Pink, transparent vinyl; includes download code; edition of 300.
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UR 125CS
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Matthewdavid is a co-founder of the Los Angeles label Leaving Records, and a collaborator of Flying Lotus, Sun Araw, Julia Holter, Laraaji, Odd Nosdam, among others. Experimental Bliss is his first album on Umor Rex, two long pieces devoted to the bliss of experimental music creation. This is unconventional music, aiming to assist the listener in attaining a state of bliss or relaxation. It incorporates obvious artifacts of compressed noise and texture with harmonic tonal elements. The creative process is always evolving and changing, often relying on digital music software and hardware technology to process and re-sample collected "organic" sounds from analog or environmental sources. Side A, "Lo-Fi Bliss Music", was recorded and performed live at the Leaving Records modern new age night event, using dynamic compression experiments with a processed and looped Critter & Guitari pocket piano, and ocean sounds samples from a cassette. "Dynamic Rhythmicals" was recorded live at home, using digital marimba samples. Includes download code; edition of 100.
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UR 124CS
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Tropical Syndroms is the second album by Thé Déluge, aka Vincent Caylet, also known as Cankun (Not Not Fun, Hands in the Dark). Like his debut album Forest Structures (Umor Rex, 2017), this new installment is an amalgam of sounds generated through multiple devices and analog synthesizers, loops and layers creating an incredible mix of textures, sounds that can almost be touched. In Caylet's work, there is always a certain familiarity in the tones, there is an implicit nature present, an ancient ecosystem that evokes somewhat ghostly landscapes, intrinsically friendly, subtle and sweet, concrete and sharp. Tropical Syndroms is one piece lasting almost 38 minutes, a cinematic trip inspired by Asian films. One single piece with many different atmospheres, but with one unified idea leading to a melancholic statement. Includes download code; edition of 100.
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UR 123CS
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In just a few years and with a handful of releases, the Canadian producer better known as Yves Malone has earned himself a reputation. In The Beginning of Nothing he continues working with many layers of analog synths and a keen sense of drum machines to create atmospheres and textures extracted from late twentieth-century collective fears of a dystopian future. Created as a sort of score to an internal elegy, Yves Malone creates soundtracks of the daily fear, regret, and resignation that is his waking life, an effort to isolate and negate this anxiety, which is a constant and unwanted companion. Sequenced on mostly working vintage gear, The Beginning of Nothing tries to extricate a bit of beauty from a rapidly darkening landscape. Includes download code; edition of 100.
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12"
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UR 113LP
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2018 release. Shunter, the album by the Berlin-based duo Driftmachine, is their most ambitious work to date. Although instantly recognizable, featuring their trademark kosmische and avant-garde sounds, it also presents a new journey into abstract and hallucinatory worlds. Filled with eerie textures, their electronic visions are darker and more vaporous than ever. Driftmachine's fourth album (also the fourth one for Umor Rex) offers a new perspective on their ample sound spectrum and systemic narratives. Shunter overlaps and mutates their post-industrial-dub motives. It was conceived and produced in search of a very different kind of imagery, with sections of noise and field recordings intersecting with analogue sounds; a mixture of contrasted fragments, where the usual creative process of modular-synthesis leads Andreas Gerth and Florian Zimmer to the discovery of a dark, hazy and diffused experience. There is a protean quality to the rhythmic elements, with tempos constantly contracting and expanding, a departure from the mono-beat-rhythms of "Nocturnes" and "Colliding Contours". The first half of Shunter is made of four pieces named "Shift"; although individually separated, they are conceptually linked and can be understood as a sort of score. Imagine a late stage of the industrial revolution, with the interaction between heavy machinery and human beings. The second half of the album is not completely separated, but it has three other substantial melodic moments. Somewhere between the hauntological and the realms of archive-music, a huge range of subterranean beats and distinct patterns dotting the landscape of early electronic and post dub music. All songs written and produced by Driftmachine, Berlin. Design by Daniel Castrejón. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri.
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UR 110LP
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2018 release. Exit Future Heart follows three Good Willsmith albums released on Umor Rex and three albums by Dustin Wong and Takako Minekawa on Thrill Jockey. Recorded live at home in Chicago over the course of one night when Wong and Minekawa passed through on tour, Exit Future Heart showcases a program of spontaneous compositions that flow through mutated tropes of rock music, focused ambient/kosmische synthesis, and expanses of raw textural sculpting. The singular performance styles and improvisatory gestures of each member of the quintet fuse into a delicate interplay charged more by open spaces and deep listening than by overload or abandon. Takako Minekawa and Natalie Chami chase each other through the mix with layered angelic vocalizations that flit from operatic highs to close-mic whispers. Minekawa's flute-like Casio tones, prominently featured in her catalog of seminal shibuya-kei pop albums starting in the mid-90s, cut through in moments of colorful melody and hover in clouds of restrained pointillist harmony. As in her solo recordings under the name TALsounds, Chami's signature Juno organ chords and cascading monophonic Moog blips compound through live looping and processing into the undulating bedrock of each session. Dustin Wong's guitar shines in passages of crystalline clean tone picking and rockets into bursts of effect-soaked abstraction, capturing the glowing precision of his solo albums and the optimistic energy of his former noise/rock band, Ponytail. When he's not painting the mix with smeared arpeggios and quivering synth textures, Doug Kaplan (one half of Chicago label Hausu Mountain) locks with Wong into tiered guitar riffs. In step with the frantic, style-mashing electronic arrangements of his solo project Mukqs, Maxwell Allison (the other half of Hausu Mountain) steers a rig of synths and drum machines through shifting IDM-esque bass and drum patterns, steady krautrock-inspired beats, and bleeping 8-bit square wave patches. Channeling a varied palette of sounds at their disposal, the Dustin Wong + Takako Minekawa + Good Willsmith quintet's extended improvisations segue through contrasting atmospheres and emotional zones. Rock backbeats pulse behind dense clouds of guitar and voice before fading into clattering arrhythmia. Empty passages embodying the Japanese notion of "ma" (or intervals of negative space) erupt for short moments with individual interjections before sinking back into near nothingness. Design by Daniel Castrejón. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri.
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LP
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UR 105LP
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2017 release. Music for post-apocalyptic deserts. Experimental synth-sounds with hypnotic percussions -- imagine Moondog performing with John Carpenter and Cabaret Voltaire. Relating to their live appearances, Phantom Horse might be named a lazy combo since they are not to be found on stage all too often. Yet their withdrawn approach fits this album very well; Als Ob is once more a journey through inwardness, a contemplative excursion to the electronic outback, still friendly asking for your attention. There's plenty of things to discover if you listen mindfully; the Phantom Horse rides out where you as a listener like to be lonely. Those ancient synths are still around, playing their melodies as if* there were no time thieves waiting around the corner (*That is what "Als Ob" means). Altogether, the sound has become more electric yet not eclectic, the duo has de-krauted, describing their sound as "more ritual", but of course avoiding any kind of mysticism and fairy-tale dullness. Since 2015's Different Forces (also on Umor Rex), Phantom Horse have fleshed out their friendly stoicism that hauls their experimental synth sounds into the area of songs -- maybe even pop songs that aren't tangible at least. Welcome to the insular state of Phantom Horse.
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LP
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UR 058LP
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2013 release. Shareek Hayaat is the second album by Safiyya, the duo formed by Brad Rose and Pat Murano. Brad Rose is the head of the Digitalis label, and he is also well known for his work as The North Sea, Charlatan, and Altar Eagle. Pat Murano, head of Kelippah Records, has also worked under the name Decimus, and as a member of the venerable No Neck Blues Band. When Max Ernst said that the forest was a supernatural insect and a drawing board, Pat Murano and Brad Rose hadn't been born yet, but this odd couple of fine woodcutters would one day grow up to prove his point with sounds. What kind of sounds? Electronic and organic, the sounds derived from the intricate and layered process one can expect from wizards like Brad Rose and Pat Murano. Do you need to speak Arabic to decode their stuff? Maybe... The title of each track seems to allude to some kind of archetype and to describe a stage in some sort of ritual. Maybe there's a specific meaning tied to the words, but feel free to project your own. The important thing to keep in mind is that there is some kind of black rite happening in the deepest part of the woods (or the desert), and Murano and Rose are the ones in charge of setting the mood and deranging the senses. Hacky mediums need not apply. This is how you conjure the spirits and direct them through sound; this here indeterminate musical object is the real deal. Let's say music is a walled country and noise is the barbarous wasteland where cartographers fear to tread. In between, there's a wild and dark forest, a forest of terror and wonder: that's Safiyya, that's Shareek Hayaat. You can picture it as a shape-shifting image of the forest as a supernatural bug, doodled on a drawing board with the alchemy of musical and non-musical instruments. If you like brilliance with your weirdness, and you'd like to take a trip down to the land between music and noise, this one's for you. Includes download coupon; edition of 300.
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UR 117CS
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2018 release. Best known for playing guitar for Britain's legendary post-punk trailblazers Wire since 2010, Matthew Simms assumes his nom de plume Slows to craft slow and serene instrumentals. Recorded throughout winter in his small studio space in the Kent (UK) countryside, Enormous Pause comprises passages of electric organ and modular synth, variously droning and rumbling across two gorgeous, side-length pieces. In addition to Slows and Wire, Simms is also a core member of dream poppers It Hugs Back and improv supergroup UUUU, while increasingly in demand as a producer and session musician, recently working with Chastity Belt and Bill Fay. "This is the first time I've recorded music knowing it was going to released on cassette," says Simms. "I was reminded of how I first started recording music when I was 12 on a four-track; of the fantastic effect it has on capturing overdriven sounds." Improvisation is at the core of Slows' music, Simms attempting to come up with at least one entirely original piece for every live show he plays under the name. Much of the music on Enormous Pause originated while preparing to play opening slots for two of his favorite bands: Chicago's Tortoise and London's Tomaga. The result is two ethereal sides of gossamer keyboard melodies, buoyed by analog warmth as they slowly move through space echo chambers. This is easily some of Simms most impulsive and varied solo to date, flowing freely between cosmic synth ambience and the all manner of tape-distorted emotion without ever ceasing to engage deeply with the listener.
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UR 122LP
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Sol Oosel presents an album with a complex mixture of tones and structures, striking a close relation between a sort of devotional music and a trancelike state. Beyond his own specific exploration of the possibilities of electronic modular synthesis, Sol Oosel searches for hacks in different states of consciousness by way of sound. En allégeance à l'inconnaissable - Une étude en chorégraphie pour le flux d'énergie is meant as a musical aid for visualizing the ability to dance with and manipulate attainable flows of energy. Largely produced using modular synthesizers and the Roland SH-09, Sol Oosel stretches beyond the fields of ambient music, adding a special sense of drama to this psychoactive journey. Each song is built around solid structures and infused with a mystical atmosphere. Harmonically, this album is close to Hans-Joachim Roedelius' early works; it is emotionally positive, informed by pop nuances that are rarely found in this type of ambient music. Sol Oosel also owes to the works of Klaus Schulze; however, while Schulze was concerned with space and made music of the unknown but conceivable cosmos in his mind, Sol Oosel is more interested in Earth and the force that weighs us down in this complex physical reality. His music speculates on the relationships between inner and outer worlds. En allégeance à l'inconnaissable... is a soundscape and a choreographic exercise for relaxation, intentionally disrupted by "Here (Au Bord De L'Univers)", a deconstructive piece covered in multiple layers of repetition, progressive beats, and kosmische pulsation which detours from the flow. In a way, it represents the bridge between all these cosmic and earthly energies. This is Sol Oosel's debut on Umor Rex. He previously self-released the album Janus, and was member of several bands and projects before focusing in Sol Oosel. He lives in the rural village of Tepoztlán, México, where he works as an artist, performer, sculptor, sonic landscaper, and dancer.
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UR 121LP
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Umor Rex presents Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer, a collection of synth instrumentals by German composer Carl Oesterhelt. Oesterhelt has been recording a mixture of straddling kosmische and classical traditions for years on his own reel tape machine, overdubbing stacks of analog gear to create a compelling body of work that brings fresh emotional depth and rhythmic experimentation to the syntax of the modern synthesizer. Born in Munich in 1968, Carl Oesterhelt has worked in a variety of fields throughout a long and impressive career. His discography includes tenures with Neue Deutsche Welle legends FSK, intellectual disco outfit Merricks, and German legends The Notwist. His solo work has travelled even further and wider, taking in contemporary classical and chamber music, music for exhibitions and radio plays, not to mention notable collaborations with saxophonist Johannes Enders and legendary founding member of Faust, Hans Joachim Irmler. Oesterhelt augments his own analog arsenal with synthesizers borrowed from musician friends, resulting in almost fifteen different synthesizers -- some in fruitful states of disrepair -- which feature on the album. Opener "La Chapelle de Francis Lai" pays tribute to the French film composer with a synthesized church organ procession, disintegrating kraut-funk-noir which emerges on "Poro Secret Society". Then, eerie sound effects mash with minimal techno rhythms on "Makonde Pattern", and -- most surprisingly -- Oesterhelt turns his keys into a sub-Saharan drum ceremony on "Trinidad Pattern". The sheer range of Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer is an impressive achievement unto itself. Yet it is Oesterhelt's instincts as a composer which make these (largely improvised) recordings so compelling. Tensions build and emotions stir throughout each piece with a proficiency perfected through his work for the stage. Musically associates, and directly connected to a heritage of German electronics, Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer touches upon similar ground to the likes of Musik von Harmonia (1974) in its pulsations, Klaus Schulze's sonically adventurous Cyborg (1973), and Tangerine Dream at their earliest and most primitive. The hypnotic ritualism of early African field recordings, or the spiritual regality of European organ music also convey key reference points in the formulation of this collection. Oesterhe's compositions here have taken the musically primitive and the emotionally raw, and woven them into a rich synthetic sound world all of his own.
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UR 112LP
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James Place returns with his new LP Still Waves To A Whisper (the fourth release on Umor Rex). Flitting between the dreamworld of hauntological synth music and hypnotic techno functionality, Still Waves To Whisper showcases James Place's continuing development of dramatic (and varied) sound worlds. Musically, Still Waves To A Whisper contains both some of the most immediately danceable and straight up beautiful tracks of James Place's career. Utilizing voice samples from the same source as his last album, Voices Bloom, opener "Known Cry" is a heavenly coda of sunlight bursting through clouds, warm synths drifting across restrained pulses. "Timing and Lighting" went through countless live iterations before the current version was tracked for this album, a tunneling exploration of rhythm with a dose of sardonic humor. "Move In Blue (Homeward Mix)" is James Places's rework of a track from 2017's Voices Bloom, obsessively remixed and revisited, here littered with additional melodies and populated by newly sampled voices. Closing track "Names" is perhaps the most outright beautiful James Place recording to date. A stripped back rework of a live version of Living On Superstition's "Another Mourning In America" (2015), the tune is based on a melodic line written after the studio recorded version. Interwoven with a sampled vocal, and rinsed of all of the original song, "Names" is left behind a stark and compelling descendant. The title, Still Waves To A Whisper, stems from a conversation between Place and another artist on methods to ease anxieties and the benefits of a focused practice. The hope is for this music to continue that conversation on a larger scale. All songs written, produced and recorded by Phil Tortoroli between 2015-2018 in Brooklyn, NY. Vocals by Sam Sally and an unknown guest. Photos and design by Daniel Castrejón. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio, NY.
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LP
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UR 099LP
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2017 release. A distillation of cultural memory through electronic process, James Place, the creative guise of New York native Phil Tortoroli, returns with his third release for Umor Rex. The sonic realization of love and loss, re-sculpted for the post-modern age, pursuing his glacial take on techno into newly intimate depths. Departing from a line in TS Elliot's Four Quartets "the moment in and out of time", its works take form through the haze of a dream. Over the course of several months Tortoroli tracked heaps of live stereo jams at home, jamming on his drum machine, sampler, polysynth, and effects setup. Poring over these hours of hazy jams, Tortoroli heard himself straining for an additional voice to further emote. Rifling through a vast library of old bounces and experiments, Tortoroli rediscovered the music of Sam Sally to complete Voices Bloom, resampled live and again "subdued into explorations of an old practice". Voices Bloom is the musicality of cultural collage, immensely personal and intimate, arms stretched out, gathering diverse sonic worlds. The artist and his craft as a self-reflexive lens for an electronic age -- a sonic patchwork heard from afar -- impressions of memory, drawn close to the heart. Within the album's cool displaced tones, rise nostalgic romances, drifting rhythmic works which defy the beat. A world where time enters multiple frames, those possible, literal, implied, forgotten, and remembered anew. The final results on Voices Bloom are the most reflective yet from James Place. The hopeful kosmische beats and hauntological synth music on previous albums, and more delicate melodies, riding crisp minimal rhythms that flow elegantly from vignette to vignette. Rhythms of abstract techno with glistening melodic lights.
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LP
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UR 066LP
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"Local Agent is the fourth LP by Charlatan, a.k.a. Brad Rose, label-head of Digitalis, also known as The North Sea and one half of Safiyya. Local Agent is Charlatan's streamlined statement, an amalgam of spy and sci-fi techno with touches of abstract dub, finely mastered by John Tejada. Local Agent is a great culmination of several years' work by Brad Rose, who has been studying and styling a conceptual and abstract merge between industrial-beat and techno structures, with a sensitivity for narrative and the description of futuristic landscapes (retro-futuristic / Lab style). While employing his usual set of tools (electronic synthesis, cyclical melodies and techno/abstract rhythms), this time around Brad Rose/Charlatan is also playing inside the most turbulent dub territories, jointed by crushed and anonymous bass lines, to create tracks loaded with kinetic content, pieces that move within the grounds of science fiction and spy thrillers, a paranoia-rich sound apt for a J.G. Ballard novel." Limited to 300 copies; pressed on transparent yellow vinyl.
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