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viewing 1 To 13 of 13 items
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CD
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BB 423CD
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A pivotal figure in Düsseldorf's Salon Des Amateurs, Stefan Schwander has already amassed a remarkably rich musical repertoire. Through his Harmonious Thelonious project, he has spent the past dozen years exploring the worlds of Pan-African, South American, and Middle Eastern rhythms in combination with a minimalistic electronic sound, distilling his very own groove from the point at which they converge. His new album -- challengingly entitled Cheapo Sounds -- sees Schwander move away from tried and trusted recipes.
"This musical reorientation starts with the fundamental approach to production: the entire record was created using a single instrument -- the Monomachine -- which lends a very physical sound to the ten tracks featured here. The polyrhythms of earlier works are no longer in the foreground, replaced by melodies and chords interwoven on a base frame of brittle, simplified beat constructs and rugged bass pulses. On closer inspection, this is, at times, a new vision of an old technique. There are still the old amps in Schwander's rehearsal room, along with a primitive rhythm box, a programmable drum machine and various synthesizers, including an MS-20. None of these made it onto Cheapo Sounds and yet the idea with which these instruments are associated is written into the DNA of the album. When new wave superseded punk and the last throes of rockism, a new and particular spirit emerged, one which Stefan Schwander sought to capture on his new works. A new wave record informed by techno. His success in this venture brings us back to the elemental idea of the Harmonious Thelonious project: a form of dance music which, like a good club night, does not succumb to formulaic rigidity or generic expectations, but challenges the crowd, trading with jazz, krautrock, industrial, punk, dub, and disco. Stefan Schwander has never shown any interest in trends, but Cheapo Sounds and the ten pithy pieces contained therein, few of them exceeding the four-minute mark, can arguably be considered an exceedingly modern record -- in the best sense of the word. And even when the closing track 'Afterhour' has played out, Schwander's mesmeric variations on minimalism still hang in the air, like quiet clouds of smoke." --Daniel Jahn
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LP
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BB 423LP
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LP version. A pivotal figure in Düsseldorf's Salon Des Amateurs, Stefan Schwander has already amassed a remarkably rich musical repertoire. Through his Harmonious Thelonious project, he has spent the past dozen years exploring the worlds of Pan-African, South American, and Middle Eastern rhythms in combination with a minimalistic electronic sound, distilling his very own groove from the point at which they converge. His new album -- challengingly entitled Cheapo Sounds -- sees Schwander move away from tried and trusted recipes.
"This musical reorientation starts with the fundamental approach to production: the entire record was created using a single instrument -- the Monomachine -- which lends a very physical sound to the ten tracks featured here. The polyrhythms of earlier works are no longer in the foreground, replaced by melodies and chords interwoven on a base frame of brittle, simplified beat constructs and rugged bass pulses. On closer inspection, this is, at times, a new vision of an old technique. There are still the old amps in Schwander's rehearsal room, along with a primitive rhythm box, a programmable drum machine and various synthesizers, including an MS-20. None of these made it onto Cheapo Sounds and yet the idea with which these instruments are associated is written into the DNA of the album. When new wave superseded punk and the last throes of rockism, a new and particular spirit emerged, one which Stefan Schwander sought to capture on his new works. A new wave record informed by techno. His success in this venture brings us back to the elemental idea of the Harmonious Thelonious project: a form of dance music which, like a good club night, does not succumb to formulaic rigidity or generic expectations, but challenges the crowd, trading with jazz, krautrock, industrial, punk, dub, and disco. Stefan Schwander has never shown any interest in trends, but Cheapo Sounds and the ten pithy pieces contained therein, few of them exceeding the four-minute mark, can arguably be considered an exceedingly modern record -- in the best sense of the word. And even when the closing track 'Afterhour' has played out, Schwander's mesmeric variations on minimalism still hang in the air, like quiet clouds of smoke." --Daniel Jahn
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LP
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BB 385LP
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LP version. "Outer-national dance discourses, that strive for no country and obey to no flag: when Düsseldorf based producer, Stefan Schwander creates music as Harmonious Thelonious, highly percussive rhythms, dissonances and melodic twists tango chatoyant virtuosic. Since 2008 he releases music, that unites Detroit techno districts, widescreen minimalistic structures and African rhythm patterns into a wide dynamic scale. All eight musical objects collected on Instrumentals! document a chapter in Harmonious Thelonious's work, that left the noisy background drones behind in favor for a signature sound full of echoes of ancient rituals and ecstatic ceremonies. Eight growing outlaw music studies crammed with living, deeply haunting entities. They all came to life in different cities like Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, London or Paris, first published on labels like Asafa, Disk, The Trilogy Tapes, or Versatile. United under one roof, they unfold their magical groove symbolism, notable hypnotic harmony and agitating rhythm archetypes in a total overpowering coalition. Tunes like 'Beiläufige Muziek' or 'Yusuf' embark with a new breed of psychic leftfield Motor City techno, perfect for an electric drive on a multicultural utopian future highway. In contrast, tracks like 'Abel', 'Ayranman', 'Apakapa', or 'Halb Ding' perform tricky snake dances enlarged with Ghanaian highlife tones, Senegalese guitar folk and manic serpentine Moroccan flute wizardry. Intense buzzing voodoo music, driven by swinging bass pulses, sequencing looniness, moving up somewhere on a polyrhythmic horizon between Occident and Orient, end-to-end danceable, thoroughly transcending space and time." --Michael Leuffen
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CD
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BB 385CD
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"Outer-national dance discourses, that strive for no country and obey to no flag: when Düsseldorf based producer, Stefan Schwander creates music as Harmonious Thelonious, highly percussive rhythms, dissonances and melodic twists tango chatoyant virtuosic. Since 2008 he releases music, that unites Detroit techno districts, widescreen minimalistic structures and African rhythm patterns into a wide dynamic scale. All eight musical objects collected on Instrumentals! document a chapter in Harmonious Thelonious's work, that left the noisy background drones behind in favor for a signature sound full of echoes of ancient rituals and ecstatic ceremonies. Eight growing outlaw music studies crammed with living, deeply haunting entities. They all came to life in different cities like Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, London or Paris, first published on labels like Asafa, Disk, The Trilogy Tapes, or Versatile. United under one roof, they unfold their magical groove symbolism, notable hypnotic harmony and agitating rhythm archetypes in a total overpowering coalition. Tunes like 'Beiläufige Muziek' or 'Yusuf' embark with a new breed of psychic leftfield Motor City techno, perfect for an electric drive on a multicultural utopian future highway. In contrast, tracks like 'Abel', 'Ayranman', 'Apakapa', or 'Halb Ding' perform tricky snake dances enlarged with Ghanaian highlife tones, Senegalese guitar folk and manic serpentine Moroccan flute wizardry. Intense buzzing voodoo music, driven by swinging bass pulses, sequencing looniness, moving up somewhere on a polyrhythmic horizon between Occident and Orient, end-to-end danceable, thoroughly transcending space and time." --Michael Leuffen
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12"
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NT 010EP
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With the indeed adventurous Aventure EP on Couldn't Care More Harmonious Thelonious further explores the depths of his unique vision, merging African rhythms, European harmonies, and American minimalism. The title track keeps the same yet ever-changing lighthearted melody effortlessly meandering back-and-forth over electrified beats while "Some Blue Beats" is more on the minimalist side, as controlled as eccentric. "Ta Ta Ta" keeps it darker, with hypnotic percussions, organ chords noir, and a big bass. Advanced music. Play loud.
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CD
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BB 352CD
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Harmonious Thelonious is the solo project of the Düsseldorf musician Stefan Schwander. His works combine American-influenced minimal music with African rhythms and European melodies. "I was busy experimenting with noisy rhythms when Bureau B asked me if I would like to release an album on their label. I was aiming for a more industrial sound; backwards cymbals, loops generated from non-musical sources such as slamming doors, and had the feeling that this would align nicely with Bureau B's own story." Stefan Schwander's new album Plong is something of a hybrid in the discography of Harmonious Thelonious, drawing on his existing strengths plus a sense of adventure in a mix of all his musical predilections. Dipping into the music, Middle Eastern elements can be heard on "Original Member Of A Wedding Band" and "Mumba", whilst tracks like "Höhlenmenschenmuziek" are characterized by more pronounced bass structures. Tuned down xylophones, evocative of ritual drums, sub bass, and electrifying basslines catalyze the idiosyncratic sound of Plong: hypnotic, danceable, irresistible. A powerful head of steam builds across the nine tracks, with subtle changes in harmony ("Geistertrio Booking") or unexpected cameos such as a new wave bassline on "Abu Synth" shaking things up before the album hurtles onward with renewed force. Take "Interpretation de Reve" as a case in point -- floating sequences and themes sweep ashore in wave after wave of melody; analogous to dreams which enter the subconscious in episodes, their apparent randomness gradually shifting into a correlative pattern. "Totentanz" closes the album in a homage to the Basle club of the same name, a place which played a decisive role in Schwander's musical socialization: "I was lucky enough to see bands like Liquid Liquid, Gun Club, Jonathan Richman, and a very young Aztec Camera there." Harmonious Thelonious comes off with an exceptional work in the genre of electronic music, successfully embracing the physical power of a club night soundtrack whilst exploring the dramatic depths of sonic worlds to create an intensive listening experience in total solitude.
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LP
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BB 352LP
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LP version. Harmonious Thelonious is the solo project of the Düsseldorf musician Stefan Schwander. His works combine American-influenced minimal music with African rhythms and European melodies. "I was busy experimenting with noisy rhythms when Bureau B asked me if I would like to release an album on their label. I was aiming for a more industrial sound; backwards cymbals, loops generated from non-musical sources such as slamming doors, and had the feeling that this would align nicely with Bureau B's own story." Stefan Schwander's new album Plong is something of a hybrid in the discography of Harmonious Thelonious, drawing on his existing strengths plus a sense of adventure in a mix of all his musical predilections. Dipping into the music, Middle Eastern elements can be heard on "Original Member Of A Wedding Band" and "Mumba", whilst tracks like "Höhlenmenschenmuziek" are characterized by more pronounced bass structures. Tuned down xylophones, evocative of ritual drums, sub bass, and electrifying basslines catalyze the idiosyncratic sound of Plong: hypnotic, danceable, irresistible. A powerful head of steam builds across the nine tracks, with subtle changes in harmony ("Geistertrio Booking") or unexpected cameos such as a new wave bassline on "Abu Synth" shaking things up before the album hurtles onward with renewed force. Take "Interpretation de Reve" as a case in point -- floating sequences and themes sweep ashore in wave after wave of melody; analogous to dreams which enter the subconscious in episodes, their apparent randomness gradually shifting into a correlative pattern. "Totentanz" closes the album in a homage to the Basle club of the same name, a place which played a decisive role in Schwander's musical socialization: "I was lucky enough to see bands like Liquid Liquid, Gun Club, Jonathan Richman, and a very young Aztec Camera there." Harmonious Thelonious comes off with an exceptional work in the genre of electronic music, successfully embracing the physical power of a club night soundtrack whilst exploring the dramatic depths of sonic worlds to create an intensive listening experience in total solitude.
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12"
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TRILOGY 073EP
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Four tracks of mystifying explorations, with international rhythms and tones divided by the micrometer. Musci on Acid.
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12"
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ITA 113EP
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Stefan Schwander, aka Harmonious Thelonious, presents four expansions of his latest album International Dance Record. Two new tunes, as well as two remixes each from Tolouse Low Trax and Wolf Müller. The new tunes, condensations of the 2016 album: the waist-deep sway "Blinky" and the pumping "Shark Dance". A Walkman set too loud, ghetto-blaster too quiet, crosstalks in the bazaar, sun-bleached fabrics shimming in the Mediterranean wind. Tolouse Low Trax's "Rivera" remix drags on a hoarse scratch, relentlessly spurring on in the rhythm of approach. Wolf Mueller's remix of "RFS (Vol. 3)" does not detour, and takes no prisoners.
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LP
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MARMO 008LP
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Since 2008 Düsseldorf-based producer and live wizard Stefan Schwander deeply concentrates on his always evolving electronic venture named Harmonious Thelonious. It besprinkles the world with fractional musical structures in the spirits of American minimal music, in order to immingle them with African rhythm patterns. Exceptional hypnotic opiates, enlarged with twisted harmonies and tricky rhythm archetypes, and all heavily danceable. After five magnetic albums for labels like Emotional Response and his old home base Italic as well as a highly-acclaimed string of EPs for in-demand platforms like Asafa, Diskant, Disk, Kontra-Muzik, Meakusma, The Trilogy Tapes or Versatile Records, he has now produced the arresting Petrolia LP for Marmo Music, a label that is itself not new to Harmonious Thelonious. On the label's second release he remixed Tru West on The DOWC Part 2 (2014); his "Sunset Liturgy" fingerprints are audible with a moving remix. Now he delivers six epic tunes that only partly dance the familiar Harmonious Thelonious dance. There are deep traces from Africa and Arabia, there is the polyrhythmic witchery that makes his music special, but in contrast his new tunes are more mental than his former ones. They have a menacing industrial feel but yet continue to be enlarged with the enchanting spirits of the land of the Sahara. Furthermore, there is a slight manic touch arising from nervous electronic and foremost organic melodies. The live-played jittering is coming from the Berlin-based experimental musician Ghazi Barakat, also known under monikers like Pharoah Chromium or Crème de Hassan for mind-shredding ambient, drone, experimental, noise, industrial, free jazz, and free improvisation music from beyond. For Harmonious Thelonious, Barakat, who also worked with Marmo Music artist Günther Schickert on the collaboration album OXTLR (2014), tuned his wind instruments, Rauschpfeife and Kangling in a elflock-stricken Master Musicians of Jajouka way. Instead of giving them a prominent lead position, however, Schwander deeply implements their tones into his propulsive creations to evoke a modern rhythmic meltdown of Occident versus Orient, exhaling a deeply absorbing soul. This a record whose psychedelic energy fits perfect into the Marmo Music cosmos, a world where the progressiveness of the 70's continue to live in the current to disband all white-bread musical norms for the energy of music without classes.
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12"
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TRILOGY 059EP
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"Harmonious Thelonious looks to the Arab world for inspiration on this epic chugger for The Trilogy Tapes." --Resident Advisor
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12"
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DISK 012EP
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"From the label: 'This is our favourite Harmonious Thelonious 12" ever! All four tracks are original and self-contained, both in relation to the other and to electronic music in general! The sounds are deep and delicate at once, there is never a standard kick... infectious rhythms... interlocking patterns, made of sounds from diverse sources.' Each record includes one of two risograph prints featuring a lino cut by the artist."
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12"
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ASAFA 003EP
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"Three tracks from Harmonious Thelonious, including 'Kwaku,' with Ben Zabo and an H.T. remix of his 'Danna.' All tracks written by Harmonious Thelonious, except 'Danna' written by Ben Zabo."
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viewing 1 To 13 of 13 items
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