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Search Result for Label 12K
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7"
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12K 2023EP
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"In A Place of Such Graceful Shapes (Edition) comes packaged in a heavyweight folded package housing the white 7" and a download coupon for the full-length project that existed on the original CD. Limited to only 250 hand-numbered copies, this is a beautiful object for the first-time listener or for the collector fortunate enough to have a copy of the original box."
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12K 1069CD
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'"In 1995 Steve Peters and Steve Roden toured as a trio with singer Anna Homler; sometimes they would vocalize behind her, and they liked the way their voices blended together. They then spent about 15 years saying that 'someday' they should record a voice-based project together. Aside from the physical distance between them, the problem was always: What would we sing? Neither wanted to write or sing lyrics. Inspiration came in the form of a book of Japanese jisei -- poems allegedly written by monks on their death bed -- printed in both English translation and Romanized Japanese. Phonetically pronouncing the Japanese reminded Peters of the technique Roden has used of systematically chopping up the syllables in English texts to transform them into sound poems. Since neither of them speaks Japanese, it seemed like a good place to begin. The two of them applied for a residency at Jack Straw, a non-profit recording facility in Seattle that gives grants of studio time. They had no exact plans other than they intended to avoid electronic instruments, or directly referencing the poems' literal meaning, or imitating any Japanese musical idioms or 'Zen' stereotypes. Culling some of the poems that made references to sound and noting them on 3x5 cards, Peters and Roden sorted the cards into four groups according to the seasons of the year that the poems represented, divided the cards between them, and taped them to their music stands. They then sang random fragments from the various cards - a word here, a line there, maybe backwards, maybe the English translation. They made no effort to keep the poems intact or retain any of their meaning, instead treating the material simply as phonemes to put in their mouths. 12k is known to be a label of understatement and restraint, however, Not A Leaf Remains As It Was is arguably the most hushed and delicate record in the label's catalog. Every sound on the album's four tracks, be it the artists' voices, a pump organ or melodica hangs by a thread, played ever so slightly, with utmost care. Noises, created from turtle shells, leaves, and bells shuffle and flutter, as if they are quietly alive, in the background providing a textural backdrop to the sublime tones and ghostly voices."
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12K 1070CD
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"Given the episodes that lead up to Quite A Way Away it's only fitting that the album lands on 12k, whose road from stark, synthetic post-techno, fourteen years ago, to the textured electro-acoustic ambience of today has been a gradual but well-documented voyage. The label's flirtations with song structures being fused into its experimentations have defined the label as one to skirt the edges of boundaries and genre labels. But no release has quite stepped out of 12k's bounds like Quite A Way Away. Yet despite the fact that Dickson's music is classified as 'singer/songwriter' and there isn't an electronic gadget to be heard anywhere on the album, it's remarkable how well it seamlessly blends into 12k's existing catalog. The minimal, fragile, and engrossing sounds of 12k's well-established brand of experimental music is ever-present in Dickson's quiet finger-picked guitar and breathy vocals that hang on the edge of disintegration. Quite A Way Away is somehow as much '12k' as it is a step in a totally new direction. Dickson, who hails from Glasgow, often gets comparisons to Nick Drake but it's important to mention the influence he takes from experimentalists like Brian Eno, Aphex Twin, Bert Jansch, and Glenn Gould. His music is characterized by an intimacy gleaned from his dream-like approach to singing and playing guitar as well as the immediacy of being captured shortly after being written by whatever recording device is closest at hand, be it a cassette machine, handheld recorder, or 4-track. His use of analogue delays and reverb add to this soft, spacey vibe. The lo-fi nature of his sound harbors all of the cracks, flaws and rough edges of humanity, soul, and the deeply personal circumstances that surround the creation of art."
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12K 1068CD
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"The Boats are a duo consisting of Craig Tattersall (ex-Hood, The Remote Viewer, and owner of the Cotton Goods label) and Andrew Hargreaves (Tape Loop Orchestra) as well a rotating roster of guest musicians and vocalists. With the Boats, 12k, who continues to move away from the 'electronic' tag, further plays the line between experimental electro-acoustic sounds and structured music creating an intoxicating hybrid of instrumentation, vocals, electronics, piano and drums. They work in these grey areas by combining elements of various musical styles--ambient, pop, classical, and experimental --creating overlaps, gaps and layers, nudging the boundaries in the most sincere and natural of ways. The Boats' music is warm, rich and complex but never over-complicated. They rarely rely on any sort of studio trickery instead opting to use the most honest tools to get the sounds they want-- be it proper recordings of acoustic instruments or recording to analogue tape. This doesn't, however, override a passion for experimentation as they are happy to throw away the rules in favor of the aesthetics of error."
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7"
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12K 2022EP
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"Contrail marks Kane Ikin's debut solo release outside of Solo Andata and while the same sense of dark, warm space is present he returns to his roots and focuses more on shoegaze guitar experimentations, lo-fi sample manipulations and warped field recordings. He recorded everything through and onto old technology -- aged analog consoles, reel-to-reel tape -- and all heard through a hazy science fiction filter. Steering away from the computer as a one-stop production tool, Kane's recording process and mindset behind these songs makes for soft and lush sound. Pillow tones hover quietly over guitar plucks and warmly-distorted drones. 'Sailing' finds a gentle, broken rhythm, made from found percussion looping underneath a bed of strummed acoustic and walls of inharmonic ambient texture while the title track bathes the listener in sleepy chords and touchable, organic field recordings. Contrail comes packaged as a limited edition 7" pressed onto clear vinyl and includes a download card for the two vinyl tracks as well as two additional songs, thus creating a 4-song EP." Hand-numbered edition of 300 copies.
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CD
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12K 1067CD
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"12k presents Shizuku, the debut album from Illuha (a play off the word 'island' in Portugese) comprised of Tokyo residents Corey Fuller and Tomoyoshi Date. Shizuku was recorded in a 100-year old church in Bellingham, Washington and the duo used ambient and quad-microphone techniques to capture the natural acoustics of the high-vaulted ceilings, wooden floors, stained glass and the natural resonances of the space. A beautiful variety of instruments were used to create the soft tones of the album at once like liquid and at the same time like air. Pipe organ, vibraphone, dulcimer, accordion, rhodes, piano, and analog synthesizer are only a selection of what was used to create the rich, and tonally warm sound of the album. It's as if movements and textures were dropped into the ocean to let float around and combine with others that touched. Field recordings and the most delicate touch of computer processing give a modern feel to this electro-acoustic world. In a bit of a departure for 12k, the fourth song on the album features spoken word from renowned Japanese Tanka poet Tadahito Ichinoseki. A deeply moving poem, essentially one about Christmas; silence, god, birth, death, Ichinoseki's raw, vulnerable voice carries over a tonal backdrop that gradually swells in intensity with plucked string harmonics and soft, echoing percussion. Artist John Friesen also adds cello on tracks 2 and 3. The deeply encompassing and personal sound of Shizuku is by no coincidence. During the year it was recorded both artists underwent intense personal pain and happiness as well as the earthquake that rocked their lives in March of 2011. Shizuku stands as an emotional release for the artists that clearly comes through in its progressions, carefully played sounds and enveloping atmosphere."
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CD BOX/7"
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12K 2021CD
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"In the fading days of autumn in 2010, Taylor Deupree and Marcus Fischer, having become acquainted only earlier that year, set out on the sort of cross-country collaboration typically executed via technology and the web. However, having made a few rough sketches, they became disenchanted by the Internet and the machines between them, and quickly realized that the only way forward was via a plane ticket. Marcus left Portland for New York in February of 2011. The two met face-to-face for the first time, and without any hesitation embarked on 4 days of creating music and photographing the bitter cold and deep snow that covered the state. Buried in a sea of guitar pedals, looping boxes, analog synths, tape recorders, found objects and percussion instruments, Deupree and Fischer settled into the 12k studio and began crafting long passages of music, with no editing, into what would become the single composition on the CD. The creative energy didn't stop in the studio, however, as the frozen bay and snow-covered hills of a park along the Hudson River became the visual backdrop that brought the project to completion. The fruits of their collaboration could not be realized only with a single compact disc, and grew to become a boxed set containing a CD, a 7" record and a booklet of photographs. Titled In a Place of Such Graceful Shapes and limited to only 500 copies, the stark and austere package starts with a black box adorned with a monochromatic photograph of a winter landscape, with the artists' names and the album title only appearing in tiny print on the bottom of the box. Inside, the jacket of the 7" shines in a bright, warm yellow -- the only color in the landscape, provided by waterside grasses -- and contrasts with the black and white photography (taken by both Deupree and Fischer) inside the booklet. A warm grey tone ties everything together on the CD and outer box to balance the color palette."
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3CD
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12K 1066CD
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"Following 2008's critically acclaimed double-CD Filaments & Voids, Twenty Ten sees Kirschner's use of real-world instruments become even more accomplished while still remaining steeped in conceptual outlines, meticulously married with computerized processes that emphasize the natural instruments' flaws. Like most of Kirschner's work, he starts the listener off easily, introducing the instrument or set of instruments for a particular piece with relative pragmatism. However, things don't remain so simple for very long, as the works' harmonic balance gives way to microtonal relationships and beautifully crafted computerized decay. By the end of his long compositions, you find yourself wondering how you got where you were, having been completely drawn into Kirschner's sound-world and thrown out the other side as if tossed into a churning sea. Disc One starts off with the shortest piece of the set (a mere 23:40), 'January 4, 2011' (all of Kirschner's compositions are titled for the date on which they were started). This piece, created with metallophones and xylophones from a local school, is perhaps the most chaotic, and the most natural, we've ever heard Kirschner's music, as two simultaneous layers of subtly microtuned percussive bells roll and skip, sped up, slowed down and playing off of one another. Natural, because there was no computer trickery, only hours of playing and recording edited down to this 'short' length. As almost the polar opposite, the second track on Disc One (the only disc with more than one piece), 'November 7, 2010', takes piano, strings and celeste into severely microtonal territory - at first perhaps a difficult listen, but at the end of the 42-minute piece it somehow all makes sense. It's a dynamic recording whose high-pitched bowed sounds whisper across low piano notes, leaving the listener sometimes holding their breath, afraid to disturb the delicacy."
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CD
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12K 1065CD
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$13.00
NOT IN STOCK, SPECIAL ORDER
"Fourcolor is the solo project of Keiichi Sugimoto (Minamo, Filfla) and should be well known to the 12k audience with his two previous releases, Air Curtain (2004) and Letter of Sounds (2006) both highly regarded and now out of print, which established him as one of the label's leading roster figures. As Pleat takes the familiar sound of Fourcolor and explores some subtle new sonic territory. It's as tonal and warm as always but he expands on his style by including more fractured, accidental sounds and an obvious growth in experience and talent. What makes Fourcolor's music so engaging is how Sugimoto manages to coax a lovely spectrum of sounds from his guitar without it ever sounding too over-processed or digital. From bubbling, low bass that provides a foundation to woven harmonies, pulses, and shimmers, there is a rich palette of sounds created. Add in a bit of careful, jittery skip-editing and implied rhythms and a groove starts to emerge from the ambience. Hints of his poppier Filfla project also come into play once again as Fourcolor brings in some guest-vocals courtesy of Sanae Yamasaki (aka Moskitoo) who lends her angelic voice to 'Quiet Gray 1' and 'Iris (Familiar)' adding further dimension to the works. As Pleat is unquestionably Fourcolor, but there is a pillow-like quality to the sound, a softness that plays beautifully off of the more organic edits and sharper plucks that all combines to create the most engaging Fourcolor album to date."
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CD
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12K 2020CD
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"Moss, is a live recording from a unique collaboration by sound artists/musicians Molly Berg, Olivia Block, Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello. This was a midnight concert at the beautiful Trinity Cathedral in San Jose, CA which was part of the 01SJ Biennial. Olivia and Steve had performed solo sets on the previous nights. The final night was meant to be a duo with Molly and Stephen but the opportunity to play with musicians/friends who we admire so much called out for an invitation to play together. As the set was entirely improvised, the billing really changed in our minds from being a duo with guests to becoming a quartet. The church itself was certainly inspiring, it's dark wood and clean dry acoustics. There was a very small but dedicated audience. No one slept and the church crew were able to amazingly quiet the rowdy revelers on the street for the duration of our set. Anyone familiar with any of the four musicians involved in this recording will know the level of craftsmanship and attention to sonic tactility that can be found within. They each exercise such incredible restraint, a feat difficult to pull off in an impromptu improvised session where musicians are often found competing for space, and allow for a sense of place to work its way through the quiet recording. 'Moss' breathes like a living being lying down to sleep -- a delicate wave of hushed field recordings, tape tracks and subtle electronics provides a bed for which Molly Berg's clarinet and voice (joined at times by Steve Roden) ebb and sway, allowed center- stage, in movements across the piece's 24+ minutes. Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello provide guitar (lap steel and electric, respectively) while Olivia Block manipulates the tapes, field recordings and electronics. Moss is a perfect example of how four like-minded friends and musicians can come together at a moment's notice and create, unrehearsed, a captivating and beautiful sonic landscape. The connection between them as artists is completely evident while at the same time disappearing into the background to allow the piece move like a singular body." Approx. 25 minute run time.
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