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LP
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IDEAL 170LP
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Vain marks the prodigal return of Venezuelan artist Carlos Giffoni to the avant-electronic music scene he was instrumental in shaping with the seminal, hybridiszng No Fun Fest and No Fun Productions label, which was home to debut releases by Oneohtrix Point Never and Noveller, and classics from Haswell and Prurient during the late '00s to early part of the '10s. Carlos's first new release in six years, Vain was drawn from hundreds of hours of improvisations made at Carlos's Malibu studio, the final LP describes a tumultuous narrative in affective abstract swells and pulsating rhythms that trigger curious sensations and emotions ever familiar to his variegated, extreme, yet essentially organic output. Despite not releasing anything for the past six years, Carlos still sounds like he lives and breathes electronic music. Where those "noise" artists who originally played at No Fun Fest and released on his label have arguably carved out major career paths from myriad mutated genres, Carlos's music still feels captivatingly ancient yet advanced and uncannily hypnotic. In a cascade of minimalist Arps and cloud dynamic harmonies, the album's story starts in the vortex of "Vain's Face" and sweeps through the granular flux of "The Desert" to a staggering piece of noise techno dissonance in "Erase The World", which calves away into the curled plunge of "Hands" and the anxious needling of "We Pay The Price". At the mid-way point it turns lusher with the pulsing and coruscating kosmische tang of "Stop Breathing", leading to the metric complexities woven into "Faith And Pain" and the heightened high-register sensitivities of "I Can Change", whose shatterproof hyaline steeples ultimately deliquesce into the shimmering beauty of "Sun Rain". With hazy resolution and ambiguity of effect, the record works its magick in memorable style. Like the best abstract sonics of Peter Rehberg or Keith Fullerton Whitman, an intuitively applied formula of geometry, rhythm, tone, and timbre add up to inexorable effect, rendering the closest possible connection between the machines and the artist's pathos. For synesthetes and attuned listeners, the effect is likely to conceive new colors on the mind's eye and move them to finer states of emotive response. In others words: it's a seriously good listen. Cover painting by Wiley Wallace. Master by Al Carlson; Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Edition of 500.
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12"
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SFT 007EP
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"Carlos Giffoni is a Venezuelan electronic musician residing in the New York City area for the past ten plus years. It's here where Giffoni established himself not only as a jammer but as a curator of contemporary out music as label head and festival director for No Fun Productions. Giffoni uses modular synthesizers, custom-built instruments, and various modes of analog and digital synthesis to compose electronic music pieces for physical formats. He is also well-versed and respected in the international improvisational circuit. Giffoni's recent work focuses on live analog synthesizer pieces in line with early cosmic electronic and techno music, while maintaining the harsher edge of his previous noise works. A perpetual believer in 'no rules' jam creation in the face of stringent genrefication, Giffoni's No Fun Acid project puts this belief into practice on Evidence, a two track 12" for Software Recording Company. Evidence stylistically reintegrates lessons learned with a newfound and brazen songcraft that few would expect from the tenured noise artist. The synergy of Giffoni's monotone vocals with acid leads and pulsescapes suggests something strangely erotic that was hinted at on the Adult Life and Severance records. The killer surprise on Evidence is Laurel Halo's manually mechanized piano and synth riffage on the title track. A refreshing look at experimental synth craft that is closer in nature to the explorations of EBM and industrial without relying on typical cold/masculine tropes, and couldn't be farther away from the overly placating and demonstrative kosmische tendencies of late. Times change, disintegration is imminent, and here is the Evidence." Limited edition + high quality virgin vinyl + download code.
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CD
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HOS 253CD
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"After developing his calling card on Adult Life and The Eternal releases, Carlos Giffoni defines his signature with compositional electronic music. Melding the analog drone colliding tonality of the past expressions and inducing minimalist sequencer details, a pure electronic landscape is cultivated that nurtures the formation a man makes in stepping from the mysteries of youth into adulthood."
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LP
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IMPREC 201LP
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Limited edition of 300 copies in a heavy stock screen-printed jacket. "A Zamuro is a dark South American vulture of great size. Zamuro is also a solo composition piece for portable synth and analog filter. Side A on this LP is a live realization of this piece recorded at the Compound in San Francisco in 2006 (mastered by Lasse Marhaug). Carlos composed and performed this piece live on several tours in the U.S./Europe/Japan all throughout 2006 and 2007, if you saw him live in those two years, this is the piece he performed. This was the most complete version of it that made it to tape. Side B is a studio piece recorded live on a much larger modular synth, based around the same theme, but with structural and tonal variations not in the original composition. This is pure psychedelic electronic music. Cover illustration by Megan Ellis. Screenprinted at Monoroid."
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CD
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IMPREC 064CD
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"Welcome Home is less of a homecoming and more of a coming out for Carlos Giffoni, a highly respected and active NYC collaborator who typically shares the stage and records with the likes of Jim O'Rourke, Nels Cline, Chris Corsano, John Duncan, Massimo, Thurston Moore and many others. Giffoni has long been the experimentalist's experimentalist and now on Welcome Home, his first official full length, finds him center stage where he belongs. Like many of the great electronic artists Giffoni builds his own custom electronics and programs his own software with which he's able to achieve sounds uniquely his own. Welcome Home, taking over three years to complete, is full of heavy electronic compositions using meticulously arranged microsound particles generated from Giffoni's unique equipment."
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