JD Emmanuel

Wizards was my first deep trance electronic music album. This album was inspired by Terry Riley , one of the earliest people ever to compose and perform long, extended, cyclic pieces in the electronic format. This music was composed and performed in '81 and '82.

I consider this album my best work.

The instrumentation is three Sequencial Circuits PRO-1s, Crumar Traveler One and a Yamaha SK-20, all real time recording to a Teac 4-track reel-to-reel. I mixed the four tracks to a Teac A-7300 Master 2-Track tape recorder using a DeltaLab DL-2 to create the delay track. In 2006, I used a Tascam 34B 4-track to remaster all my master tapes to digital master of 196 KHz/24 bit .WAV files using Soundforge 8 software.

The original Wizards LP was published in the Summer of 1982 with the black and white cover. The initial tracks had not names and were call Movements I-V. Several years later sales had slowed down, in an effort to improve sales we tried the color cover and I created names for each track, as shown on the samples.

Here is a picture of me taken in 1982 during the creation of Wizards.

Deleyaman

Following the release of the album “3”, in 2006, over 25 titles were written and composed by Deleyaman. 11 of these compositions, entirely recorded, mixed and mastered in the band's studio in Normandy, France, are now presented as “Fourth, Part One” . The remaining material is set to appear later as “Fourth, Part Two”, a complimentary yet contrasting sister-release which will come later this year.

The overall mood of this new album is different from their prior releases, yet the sincerity with which they continue to explore their art is a constant in Deleyaman's work. Inspiration for the lyrics comes partially from the works of American poets E.A. Robinson, A. Hecht, R.W. Emerson, E.A. Poe, H. Crane and T. Stickney, but also from the Lebanese mystic poet Khalil Gibran. Most of the titles are sung in English, except for two tracks sung in Armenian and the track “Jardin”, sung in French, the words taken from the poem “Nous n'irons plus au bois”, by T. de Banville. The use of several languages by Beatrice Valantin and Aret Madilian, the two vocalists, has always been a distinct characteristic of the band, whose members all come from different backgrounds.

Deleyaman’s style, which to this day remains difficult to classify into a single genre, is further defined by the inclusion of the duduk, an Armenian wind instrument. More than simply adding an ethnic reference to their compositions, the duduk grants them a unique tone, emphasizing the ethereal and exotic qualities that allow the album to reach beyond the darker specter of alternative music from which the band originally derived. Through their art, Deleyaman translate a sense of timeless spirituality into a contemporary and universal language, carrying the listener into a mesmerizing world which still sounds comfortably familiar and close at heart. “Fourth, Part One” is presented in Digipak format, accompanied by a 32-page booklet.

DJ Sprinkles

Midtown 120 Intro

House isn't so much a sound as a situation.

There must be a hundred records with voice-overs asking, "What is house?" The answer is always some greeting card bullshit about "life, love, happiiness...." The House Nation likes to pretend clubs are an oasis from suffering, but suffering is in here with us. (If you can get in, that is. I think of one time in New York when they wouldn't let me into the Loft, and I could hear they were actually playing one of my records on the dance floor at that very moment. I shit you not.)

Let's keep sight of the things you're trying to momentarily escape from. After all, it's that larger context that created the house movement and brought you here. House is not universal. House is hyper-specific: East Jersey, Loisaida, West Village, Brooklyn - places that conjure specific beats and sounds. As for the sounds of New York dance floors themselves, today's house classics might have gotten worked into a set once in a while, but the majority of music at every club was major label vocal shit. I don't care what anybody tells you. Besides, New York Deep House may have started out as minimal, mid-tempo instrumentals, but when distributors began demanding easy selling vocal tracks, even the label "Strictly Rhythm" betrayed the promise of it's own name by churning out strictly vocal after strictly vocal. Most Europeans still think "Deep House" means shitty, high energy vocal house.

So what was the New York house sound? House wasn't so much a sound as a situation. The majority of DJ's - DJ's like myself - were nobody's in nowhere clubs: unheard and unpaid. In the words of Sylvester: reality was less "everybody is a star," and more "I who have nothing."

Twenty years later, major distribution gives us Classic House, the same way soundtracks in Vietnam war films gave us Classic Rock. The contexts from which the Deep House sound emerged are forgotten: sexual and gender crises, transgendered sex work, black market hormones, drug and alcohol addiction, loneliness, racism, HIV, ACT-UP, Thompkins Sq. Park, police brutality, queer-bashing, underpayment, unemployment and censorship - all at 120 beats per minute.

These are the Midtown 120 Blues.


Ball'r (Madonna-Free Zone)

When Madonna came out with her hit "Vogue" you knew it was over. She had taken a very specifically queer, transgendered, Latino and African-American phenomenon and totally erased that context with her lyrics, "It makes no difference if you're black or white, if you're a boy or a girl." Madonna was taking in tons of money, while the Queen who actually taught her how to vogue sat before me in the club, strung out, depressed and broke. So if anybody requested "Vogue" or any other Madonna track, I told them, "No, this is a Madonna-free zone! And as long as I'm DJ-ing, you will not be allowed to vogue to the decontextualized, reified, corporatized, liberalized, neutralized, asexualized, re-genderized pop reflection of this dance floor's reality!"


Grand Central

In 1986, at age 18, I left Missouri by train, pulling into Midtown Manhattan's Grand Central Station some 72 hours later. Until that point life had, quite frankly, been miserable, each and every day facing verbal and physical harassment as a queer-fag-pussy-AIDS bait. The climate in New York wasn't really so different. But from within my isolation I saw others isolated like myself. One of the places we met, in our self-containment, was on the dance floor. The nastiest and seediest clubs were located in Midtown. That's mostly where I DJ'ed, at tragic places like Sally's II and Club 59. In the early 1990's, Disney bought 42nd Street, closing the places around which transgendered life revolved for many of us. That "community of isolation" was scattered to other cities, other states, other countries. Isolated, still....

M. Pyres

1. Banishment Cycle
2. Refrain for Lens Flair
3. Dark Waves (silence)
4. Central Taxi for Dreamland
5. Vacation to Old Wax Island
6. Light Waves (silence)
7. Cold Hawks on Heat Wave

runtime: 27:11

recorded by matthew alone in his bedroom
synths, guitars, old records, field recordings, hammond organ
November - December 2009
Dedicated to : a dead dog, a long year, a break up, a bedroom and indifference.

DSMMBR is not an official PS release, but if you would like a special ordered CDr (for $5 w/ shipping included)
please email Matthew and he will burn/make/send you one

msagesound@gmail.com

Harald Grosskopf

Thanks to one thing he's best at and two artists he collaborated with in a major way, Harald Grosskopf is one of the fine percussionists in the classic length and impact of electronic music - and the first to ever combine dubs between rhythms and synthesizers, as a soloist drummer and in his solo music, from what the bio here points out with precision. His spirit would effortlessly be the mask of a musician that's representative to the German electro-rock movement, if only we wouldn't cautiously prefer not to rise him up such subjective scales. In the same way, we would name him very easily one of the fantastic drummers and percussionists of the classic decade, if only the entire vast period of kraut, electro-kraut then finally electro rock wouldn't be absolutely rich in icons and excellent musicians, including drummers and rhythmicists (plus, Grosskopf didn't impressively appear in many bands of the early years). So let's just mention his prime work with Ashra, after Gottsching changed quite consistently his solo band sounds (meaning Blackouts onwards), plus with Klaus Schulze/Wahnfried, friend, fine collaborator and (this time) grand master in the electronic music course. On a personal note, but also by some of his solo music, Grosskopf seems and in the end is an enjoyable and crafted musician, open-minded at least to when drumming and the fusion of electronic dynamics can have their idle succulence.

Starting his solo small achievements up in 1980, somewhat synchronized with Ashra's final days of continuity but not with Schulze's new ideas of electronic digital music - with percussions mit dabei -, Grosskopf solves rather simplistically the problem of electronic/keyboard music-playing. Simple become the albums as well, meanwhile a dose of playfulness and an acing in sequencing/synthesizing the right stuff (the right buttons) make up the real qualities in his music. Grosskopf does make music as an individual artist, at least in albums such as this Synthesist, but also follows the strict principles that, mostly, were handled by Ashra to a point. Synthesist's narrow edge is that it lacks originality, yet it finds an almost natural freshness, sticking to light-synth music and even dowsing the drum-bomb that could easily make up a heat, nonetheless creating a gentle, successful, admirably essential and recommended work; mainly for altruists listeners, but eventually for soft-boiled critics and great fans of this sort of fusion as well.

Synthesist also rhymes with sequential here on, where Grosskopf's powerful pleasure goes deep into dynamic, fizzing electronic compositions, the combination of fairy melodies, cycling keyboard sounds and (last but not least) the percussion infusion being probably dubbed over several rehearsals and synchronized recordings. The taste of these tracks flows exactly like Ashra's un-sensational, but intense and cheerful glimpses (a la Correlations or a bit of un-fluesy Belle Alliance). The soil for this style is nowhere near rich, but it's no pop or grease either, Grosskopf preferring at any time an ambitious and curios dance over fine art or complex looping. On some moment, the drumming is convincingly superior, alternating upwards to some Nietzsche fast taps, or downwards to a split end of lite-disco. The contrast is set by focusing entirely on keyboards and organs (B. Adrian, Trauma), the result being nothing but ambient, lofty and un-smashing, but yet again enjoyable and un-superficial. There's a weak spot in the album, down precisely the last two tracks, which slip deeply and unforgettably into pop-electric/new-age simple hopping music (a la Baumann and other 80s minor soloists).

For how nice it sounds and how ideal it's worked, Synthesist is probably Grosskopf's finest and is a real treat above a normal session of synth-sequence music. With drums (and a small post-prog feeling).

-Ricochet, progarchives.com

Julianna Barwick

Julianna Barwick is a Brooklyn-based musician who has self-released two
records. 2007's Sanguine, a collection of loop-based vocal arrangements,
was made in her bedroom and completely improvised. 2009's Florine EP adheres
to the same loop-based, mostly vocal structure with minimal
instrumentation.

Michael Garrison

Michael Garrison or Garri was a synthesist from California, USA. He was born on November 28, 1956 in Oregon and died on March 24, 2004. At the age of 13 he wrote his first song and later, during his musical study at the Idaho University, he formed the basic for the first release on his own label Winspell Records, later Garrisongs Music. The original work was titled In The Regions Of Sunreturn and Beyond and based on the expeditions of Voyager 1 and 2. But when he managed to get a contract with BMG in 1980 the title changed to In The Regions Of Sunreturn and so he became also known in Europe. His style was typical strong sequences with monstrous solos played with various electronic instruments on top. Often a real wall-of-sound experience. An Earth-Star Trilogy differs from the rest of his work by having a much more calm atmosphere. He was strongly influenced by the European innovators of Electronic Music, like Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream.

Queeen Victoria

The Endless Night is a ten-song album recorded at strange hours in a basement in Pittsburgh. Everyone else was asleep. The music is made up of acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, drums and voice. The songs are written by Nick Malkin.

Well Hung

Finders Keepers break yet more ground with this, 22 stomping selections from the vaults of Eastern Europe's best kept secret, Hungaraton / Qualiton Records. This first ever compendium piles heavy psych, jazz, glam and funk onto a heaped spoonful dripping with the cream of the 60s/70s Hungarian rock scene - Omega, Metro, Locomotiv GT, Skorpio as well as Finders Keepers' very own jet-set fit-bit Sarolta Zalatnay.

The unique ways in which Hungarian rockers interpreted such sporadic and disparate influences and unknowingly mirrored embryonic developments in Western rock from behind a political blindfold is truly unique. The national pride of Hungary's pre-war musical heritage ensured that the state-owned label Supraphon's in-house studio was designed to immaculate classical standards with acoustic specifications that would put its surrounding Eastern European labels to shame. The quality of phonograph records, from a part of the world that was usually notorious for low quality pressings and repeatedly recycled vinyl, would surpass the European standards ensuring that the hand crafted sound of Hungary's futuristic pop music was light years ahead of its time and would stand the test of time for many (delayed) years to come.

The introduction of electronic instruments penetrated Hungary like a double-edged sword and polarised progressive pop aficionados over night. Where the introduction of Czechoslovakian electric guitars unified Eastern Europe's rock 'n' roll fantasists and spawned the rock in opposition movement in the mid 60's the spurious arrival of synthesizers ten years later spawned a host of new streams of hybrid rock which embraced funk, soul and disco.

The restrictions of communism coupled with the silver-spooned Westerners musical xenophobia, however, as good as guaranteed that no matter how close Hungarians got to the authentic rock 'n roll sound their music would still never safely make the journey over the language barrier. In recent years, as much as 15 years since the collapse of the iron curtain, the interjection of many forms of latter day communist era art into popular western culture has become apparent and increasingly well documented. Hopefully at some stage discerning palettes will develop a taste for Hungarian rock music in the same way that we have come to accept, champion and be inspired by Polish poster art and Czech cinema.

Fall Mix

It felt like Fall for a few days here in LA.Sorry for the lack of posts. A lot of good things coming soon!!

Fall Mix

1. Crocodiles - Young Drugs
2. HTRK - Marry Me Tonight
3. The XX - Heart Skipped A Beat
4. Cold Cave - Love Comes Close
5. Swishahouse - Luv Ya Girl RMX-(Screwed & Chopped version)
6. Blues Control - Tangier
7. Richard Hawley - Don't Get Hung Up in Your Soul
8. Greg Cartwright - Reptile Style
9. Kings of Convenience - Mrs Cold
10. The National - Ashamed of the Story I Told
11. Fleetwood Mac - Dreams
12. Lusine - Two Dots
13. Atlas Sound - Quick Canal (w/Latetitia Sadier)
14. Rameses III - I could Not Love You More Vinyl

Far East Family Band

Regarded by many as the first Japanese progressive rock group, the Far East Family Band featured the keyboardist and future new age composer, Kitaro. A keyboard-dominated space rock band, the Far East Family Band played extended compositions that brought comparisons to Tangerine Dream and early Pink Floyd.

The group's first album was released under the band name of Far Out. After changing their name, the band released The Cave Down to Earth in 1975. Their first European release, Nipponjin -- Join Our Mental Phase Sound (1975), featured re-recorded versions of material from the previous record and the album attributed to Far Out. The group's next record, Parallel Worlds (1976), was profoundly influenced by Klaus Schulze who Kitaro met on a trip through Europe. With the first track over 30 minutes long, the album bears similarities to Krautrock legends Ash Ra Tempel. Tenkujin (1977) followed and was the band's first and only American release. By this point, the band consisted of Miyashta (vocals, synths, guitars, bamboo flute), Hirohito Fukushima (guitar, vocals, koto), and Yujin Harada (drums, percussion). It would be the band's last record. ~ Geoff Orens, All Music Guide

A few years back, former Quiet Sun / Roxy Music / 801 behind-the-scenes mastermind Gill Manzanera--no relation to guitarist Phil Manzanera (whose real name is Philip Targett-Adams)--offered up a beguiling reminiscence of those heady days to the Swiss fanzine Sombre Reptiles:
"What we were trying to do, you see, was harness the future into the present. However, we were severely at odds with technology, a ring modulator on a Fender Rhodes and a bit of funny business through an analog synth being about as far as one could go then. The work with Quiet Sun was the foundation, then later Phil and Eno built upon that within Roxy and if only Ferry had acquiesced to Brian having a go at 'Bogus Man,' I think the results would have been stunning (as well as longer-lasting). But alas, so then for 801, the decision was to incorporate the progressive and avant garde through a chamber of fusion (so to speak), the results of which are undeniable. Mind you, this was all during the burgeoning punk era, so it took a bit of time for some to settle in with what was happening. But isn't that the future, really; someone has to be the first out the door to know if the rest of us will need a jumper or not. It was all quite brilliant in that way, absolutely so, I should think."

Hmm, well, that all sounds... quite English. Oddly enough, that sliver of quinine-sotted nostalgia could be used as a swab of historical DNA pap to describe the fantastic newest shimmer from Blues Control. While past releases have been beauteous extrapolations into the miasmic core of psychedelia and billowing fog of ambient space, Local Flavor is the one where all the chickens have come home to roost.

The opening track "Good Morning" is practically a sideways step into boogie rock (horn accompaniment provided by none other than Jesse Trbovich and Kurt Vile); with the proper seismic shift, it could almost be heard as an alternate reality take on "Re-make/Re-model." It's easily the band's longest stomp in the forest of rock since their debut cassette, and, man, them boots leave a bruise!

The remaining three tracks morph and ebb harmoniously--in true Blues Control fashion--the timbre occasionally elegiac, yet more often riffing on a plane that has yet to be transcribed. Local Flavor is 801 plus an extra one (8101, if you will), providing an unimaginable future that will take your breath away. So make sure you've paid your oxygen bill, because there are no free rides in the 82nd Century.

Phaseone

St. Louis producer Phaseone gained quite a following with his amazing remixes of Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Bloc Party, Banjo or Freakout, and more. He recently followed this up with a free album showing that he’s not too shabby at creating his own tracks as well. Click HERE for the free download of Thanks But No Thanks.

Tonstartssbandht

"Two brothers from Florida ... now in New York and Montreal. An international power duo without borders. High Rise disciples with angel voices. Here they've made an album of 12 anti-genre pop burners,An When. Thick with human voices. Choose your own single... Dad's on the cover" -Dœs Are

obfusc

STUNNING!!!!

Kreng

Shrouded in the mystery and the opaque, otherworldly quality we've come to expect from the consistently remarkable Miasmah imprint, this beguiling debut album has been wrecking our collective heads here in the office for some time. Pieced together from a plethora of unidentified samples, field recordings and found sounds, Kreng taps into a unique, almost indescribable corner of the musical universe that originates from, and proceeds to completely re-imagine, the world of music for film and theatre. The eleven pieces here were, indeed, originally made for a variety of theatre productions and retain that illusory quality that's so often associated with arts-based music, but without any of the site-specific pretension or impenetrability that you'd think goes hand hand in with this kind of material. There's an intensely overbearing darkness to this work, covered by a dense thicket of layered drones and fuzzy sound recordings, but as each piece progresses narrow cracks begin to emerge, letting in shards of colour and light painted through fragments of jazz and classical music re-painted in shimmering, luxurious colours. It's very hard to think of any singular points of reference, but there are elements here that remind us of György Ligeti, Cliff Martinez, Moondog, Arvo Pärt, Arthur Lipsett, Deathprod, Bernard Herrmann and Dictaphone - while really sounding very little like any of them. "L'Autopsie Phénoménale De Dieu" is an incredible, utterly mesmerising collection of pieces that we have little doubt will entice, seduce and terrify you in equal measure and, needless to say, comes to you with our highest possible recommendation. ESSENTIAL

Cat Stevens

Cat Stevens virtually disappeared from the British pop scene in 1968, at the age of 20, after a meteoric start to his career. He had contracted tuberculosis and spent a year recovering, from both his illness and the strain of being a teenage pop star, before returning to action in the spring of 1970 -- as a very different 22-year-old -- with Mona Bone Jakon. Fans who knew him from 1967 must have been surprised. Under the production aegis of former Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith, he introduced a group of simple, heartfelt songs played in spare arrangements on acoustic guitars and keyboards and driven by a restrained rhythm section. Built on folk and blues structures, but with characteristically compelling melodies, Stevens' new compositions were tentative, fragmentary statements that alluded to his recent "Trouble," including the triviality of being a "Pop Star." But these were the words of a desperate man in search of salvation. Mona Bone Jakon was dominated by images of death, but the album was also about survival and hope. Stevens' craggy voice, with its odd breaks of tone and occasional huskiness, lent these sometimes sketchy songs depth, and the understated instrumentation further emphasized their seriousness. If Stevens was working out private demons on Mona Bone Jakon, he was well attuned to a similar world-weariness in pop culture. His listeners may not have shared his exact experience, but after the 1960s they certainly understood his sense of being wounded, his spiritual yearning, and his hesitant optimism. Mona Bone Jakon was only a modest success upon its initial release, but it attracted attention in the wake of the commercial breakthrough of its follow-up, Tea for the Tillerman.

The 6ths

The 6ths are a side project of the Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt, who produced and wrote all of the material on 1995's Wasps' Nest, as well as playing much of the music. He only sang one of the tracks, however, giving all of the remaining lead vocal slots to alternative rock faves like Barbara Manning, Dean Wareham (Luna), Georgia Hubley (Yo La Tengo), Chris Knox, Lou Barlow, Robert Scott (the Bats), Chris Knox, and Mary Timony (Helium). Brighter and poppier than his contemporaneous efforts with Magnetic Fields, it demonstrated (intentionally or inadvertently) that his principal talents are as a producer and composer, rather than a performer.

Subway

Amazing new album of krautrock-inspired beauty!



Subway II, the debut album by Subway on Soul Jazz Records, is a startling cosmic marriage of influences – German electronic rock music from the 1970s (Cluster, Kraftwerk, Neu, Harmonia, Ash Ra Tempel), 80s Detroit science fiction techno (Carl Craig, Juan Atkins, Jeff Mills) and a hint of Italian and European disco (Danielle Baldelli meets Cerrone, Space, Moroder and Jean Michel Jarre).

Subway are Michael Kirkman and Alan James and have been releasing music since 2000. Subway II was recorded at home in East London using a plethora of analog equipment and techniques that enabled them to create sound reflecting cityscapes such as Berlin, Dussseldorf, Detroit and Paris whilst at the same time creating a contemporary musical commentary of London in 2009.

This album is a cosmic progression of post-dance music, focused more on meditative thought and space than one made for the dancefloor, yet still encompassing the rhythm and constant beat at the heart.

Their most recent appearance is on Soul Jazz Records Singles 2008-9 alongside Kode9, Digital Mystikz, Tetine, Secondo, Ramadanman and other forward thinking electronic pioneers.

With three previous sell-out singles on Soul Jazz Records (Simplex, Satellites and 4410), an album ‘Empty Head’ (released in 2005) as well as a string of one-off projects, the group are currently name-checked by everyone from Hot Chip to DFA, Prinz Thomas to Carl Craig, with good reason.

‘Subway II’ is a fitting conceptual statement of their current sound. Cosmic, post-dance, organic, meditative and hypnotic.

Gnaw

Gnaw present their debut album This Face, viciously assaulting listeners with their unique brew of ultra-depressive, scathing, slug-paced extreme metal.

Formed in 2006 by Alan Dubin (ex-Khanate, OLD) along with Jamie Sykes (ex-Burning Witch, Thorr's Hammer, Atavist), Carter Thornton (Enos Slaughter), Jun Mizumachi (ex-Ike Yard: 80's NYC industrial legends) and Brian Beatrice (Emmy Award winning sound design/mix wizard),

Gnaw's debut album This Face is the sonic culmination of over a year of sound experimentation. It's a genre-destroying journey that almost defies description. Sykes is a percussive madman blasting out anything from tribal beats to ultra slow tom killings. Mizumachi is a sound designer for film and television and is a master of electronics including synth, factory noise, metal bashing and other craziness. Beatrice is also a sound designer and mixer for film and television and was responsible for mixing This Face, as well as experimenting and adding additional sounds of torture. Thornton is a crafty musician who actually makes his own instruments, contributing guitar, bass, piano and some unnamed homemade "things" to the album. Dubin rounds out the group with his gut-wrenching vocals, noise and arrangements. Screaming, singing, whispers and chants can be heard throughout This Face. Dubin's lyrics will mentally rape you.