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LP
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SONIC 013LP
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Oliver Doerell and Roger Döring's Dictaphone might not be the most prolific project around, but what they lack in frequency they make up for in sheer impact. Poems From A Rooftop is their third album in 10 years, and is the first to feature new member Alexander Stolze on violin. The dusty, haunted jazz of m.=addiction (CCO 010CD/LP) and Vertigo II (CCO 032CD/LP) is still visible, but joined by Stolze's shimmering string tones, giving the already rich sound a further layer of depth. The title comes from Iran's "green revolution," where people were so afraid to go out on the street, that they emerged on their own rooftops to protest the stifling regime. This sentiment carries into the conflict and shrouded mystery in each song, from the rhythmic, emotive bar-room crawl of "The Conversation" to the phenomenal "Rattle," led by vocalist Mariechen Danz. It seems as if Poems From A Rooftop catches a point in the band's career where they appear perfectly at ease with their sound, and able to distil the jazz, subtle electronics and haunting ambience of their previous records into one deftly-coherent whole. The result is an arresting and poignant narrative record which is sure to stand as their finest to date. Poems From A Rooftop is proof that the greatest poems might not even need lyrics at all, and Dictaphone manage in a flurry of notes to carry more emotion than an entire script of languid language. These are, without a doubt, poems you won't be so quick to forget.
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LP
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CCO 032LP
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LP version. Vertigo II is the second album from Oliver Doerell and Roger Doring under the Dictaphone tag. Laying down a membrane of mealy clicks, glitches and sliced digitalis, Vertigo II at times resembles the intricate bedrock of artists such as Jen Jelinek or Angelo Badalamenti.
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CD
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CCO 032CD
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Vertigo II is the second album from Oliver Doerell and Roger Doring under the Dictaphone tag, further honing their delicately homespun tape loops and jazz emissions into a new kind of midnight effervescence that has won them a sizeable following and a dedicated audience for their hugely acclaimed live shows. As anyone who has had the indignity of using one will know, dictaphones tend to be awkward little buggers that happily tape a conversation across the room whilst rendering the intended subject incomprehensible. Dictaphone have taken this appellation as a starting point and there is undoubtedly something of the "overheard" about Vertigo II. Laying down a membrane of mealy clicks, glitches and sliced digitalis, Vertigo II at times resembles the intricate bedrock of artists such as Jen Jelinek or Angelo Badalamenti. Vertigo II happily indulges in sonorous bass, allowing the loose-limbed horns and digital detritus to roam the spectrum without becoming detached from the guiding core. Peppering the album with snatches of shortwave-interference (most memorably a snooker match), found-sound snapshots and soundtrack conventions (including a haunting nod to Ed Wood), Dictaphone manage to massage an astonishing amount of material into an end result that feels as light as a feather and refreshingly clean, while avoiding the inherent sterility this can often imply. Littered with a vault full of lost memories and escaped snatches of conversation, Vertigo II reads like a montage of recollections torn and taped by David Lynch in a smoky hotel room, someplace in the middle of nowhere.
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CD
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CCO 010CD
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"From the very beginning, Dictaphone was the idea of Oliver Doerell. Born and bred in Brussels, multi-instrumentalist Doerell now lives in Berlin and has been working on the Dictaphone project for the last three years. Together with Roger Döring, saxophone and clarinet player, he has slowly been developing his version of electronically processed slo-motion jazz, which is nothing but a collection of beautiful lovesongs. A deep bass meets an ocean full of warm, enchanting melancholy. m.=addiction feels like a French autumn dream. Strings are struggling against precisely placed artefacts and rhythmic noisy bits. Field recordings from public swimming pools meet strange messages recorded with old dictaphones. Maika Spiegel ('minimal compact') makes one of the tracks even more beautiful with her unique voice. m.=addiction simply makes you drown in a soft, velvety atmosphere."
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LP
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CCO 010LP
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