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viewing 1 To 15 of 15 items
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CD
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KR 101CD
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11th album by the one-of-a-kind collective: psychedelia and free form jazz (not jazz) trigger a sophisticated excursion into weird textures with drastic turns. Dislocated dense music full of secret connections.
"... On Schemen, familiar fragments float gently around their core -- a Fender Rhodes tone, a bass figure, a guitar motif, a masterful drum shuffle, a moment of icy stasis borrowed from the harmonium playing of Christa "Nico" Päffgen. Triggering brief associations, they slowly rush off in other directions through free jazz-informed editing work, whereupon such zones can also arise in which perception has a few tricks ready and earlier experience suddenly breaks into the now in a completely different way. Half suspected, half seen. Half-music like Can from Cologne -- also masters of improvised editing -- sometimes produced a few decades ago in their in-between moments. The first minutes of 'Future Days' for example, which fade in gently, sketch a barely graspable figure emerging from all directions of the room. Kammerflimmer Kollektief also engages in similarly open moments of development. Loosely, it eludes the first formative impressions, keeping itself ready for moments that do not follow any logic of appointment. This looseness in handling makes Kammerflimmer Kollektief so fluidly audible, even when dissonant peaks and free playing arise. What Karlheinz Stockhausen is to Can's understanding of composition, the recordings of The Cocoon are to Kammerflimmer Kollektief. The Cocoon, a meeting of garage psychedelics from the Hannover area with free jazzers from the Galaxie Dream Band, whose album While The Recording Engineer Sleeps, recorded in 1985 in unguarded moments, operates in a very similar way with decentralized perceptual ambivalences and only appeared more or less secretly four years later on Wilhelm Reich Schallspeicher. Other traces of Schemen lead to the debut album of Quicksilver Messenger Service. The guitars of Gary Duncan and John Cipollina, which refer to themselves in an unforced manner, are instructions to let go. They don't want to be traced in every note as a solo, but they give their music a sense that the essential takes place off center, in the mutual and intuitive gift of loving attentions..." --Werner Ahrensfeld
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LP
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KR 101LP
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LP version. 11th album by the one-of-a-kind collective: psychedelia and free form jazz (not jazz) trigger a sophisticated excursion into weird textures with drastic turns. Dislocated dense music full of secret connections.
"... On Schemen, familiar fragments float gently around their core -- a Fender Rhodes tone, a bass figure, a guitar motif, a masterful drum shuffle, a moment of icy stasis borrowed from the harmonium playing of Christa "Nico" Päffgen. Triggering brief associations, they slowly rush off in other directions through free jazz-informed editing work, whereupon such zones can also arise in which perception has a few tricks ready and earlier experience suddenly breaks into the now in a completely different way. Half suspected, half seen. Half-music like Can from Cologne -- also masters of improvised editing -- sometimes produced a few decades ago in their in-between moments. The first minutes of 'Future Days' for example, which fade in gently, sketch a barely graspable figure emerging from all directions of the room. Kammerflimmer Kollektief also engages in similarly open moments of development. Loosely, it eludes the first formative impressions, keeping itself ready for moments that do not follow any logic of appointment. This looseness in handling makes Kammerflimmer Kollektief so fluidly audible, even when dissonant peaks and free playing arise. What Karlheinz Stockhausen is to Can's understanding of composition, the recordings of The Cocoon are to Kammerflimmer Kollektief. The Cocoon, a meeting of garage psychedelics from the Hannover area with free jazzers from the Galaxie Dream Band, whose album While The Recording Engineer Sleeps, recorded in 1985 in unguarded moments, operates in a very similar way with decentralized perceptual ambivalences and only appeared more or less secretly four years later on Wilhelm Reich Schallspeicher. Other traces of Schemen lead to the debut album of Quicksilver Messenger Service. The guitars of Gary Duncan and John Cipollina, which refer to themselves in an unforced manner, are instructions to let go. They don't want to be traced in every note as a solo, but they give their music a sense that the essential takes place off center, in the mutual and intuitive gift of loving attentions..." --Werner Ahrensfeld
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BB 304CD
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After twenty years of Kammerflimmer Kollektief, with ten albums thus far, the Karlsruhe combo here guide their listeners through seven pieces in which a listening space emerges at the intersection of improvisation and composition, a space where certitude slips out of reach, oscillating furiously between cut-up and palimpsest before it disappears altogether. There Are Actions Which We Have Neglected And Which Never Cease To Call Us is one for the fearless, wordlessly conjuring up enchanted places in the richest of tones, simultaneously confronting its listeners with magic which captivates, and the realization that they may never be released from its spell. Mirror images come into view, images of ourselves driven away, tormented by feelings of guilt, frozen in powerlessness, even when you believe you are still moving. The wetlands of the Upper Rhine plain, Cuernavaca in the Mexican highlands, a southern California stretch of Pacific coast, the Baltic Coast in Mecklenburg; haunted places, scenes of melancholy, repeatedly searching for acts of liberation. This may not be the record to set you free, but it offers a soundtrack for a melancholic state. One thing is clear when it comes to the Kammerflimmer Kollektief: regardless of any interpretive traps snapping shut, here is something which cannot be voiced; whichever labels are stuck on the Karlsruhe collective, they all feel patently unsatisfactory. Like all music, their music can neither be narrowed down to concepts nor fixed semantically. It cannot be organized as language, yet it is no more pre-conceptual in its existence. These carefully unconsidered atheist jam supplications lead you into the darkest corners of your souls, out of the night and into the night. The bass of Johannes Frisch creaks and hums, evolving into barely discernible undergrowth with a life of its own, yet becoming the foundation of everything, a basso continuo, constantly leading into nothingness. Heike Aumüller's harmonium is elementally a wind which has much to tell us about life, but even more about what tortures us, leaves you restless, while Thomas Weber's whirring guitars and gadgets drag us into a wondrously reverberating space of special effects. Amidst all the excitement which awaits you on this short journey, it is worth remembering that as the shaman hangs out his magic roots to dry in the morning as preparation for the ritual ecstasy of the evening, so the Kollektief follow an everyday principle in their own ritual.
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LP+CD
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BB 304LP
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LP version. Includes CD. After twenty years of Kammerflimmer Kollektief, with ten albums thus far, the Karlsruhe combo here guide their listeners through seven pieces in which a listening space emerges at the intersection of improvisation and composition, a space where certitude slips out of reach, oscillating furiously between cut-up and palimpsest before it disappears altogether. There Are Actions Which We Have Neglected And Which Never Cease To Call Us is one for the fearless, wordlessly conjuring up enchanted places in the richest of tones, simultaneously confronting its listeners with magic which captivates, and the realization that they may never be released from its spell. Mirror images come into view, images of ourselves driven away, tormented by feelings of guilt, frozen in powerlessness, even when you believe you are still moving. The wetlands of the Upper Rhine plain, Cuernavaca in the Mexican highlands, a southern California stretch of Pacific coast, the Baltic Coast in Mecklenburg; haunted places, scenes of melancholy, repeatedly searching for acts of liberation. This may not be the record to set you free, but it offers a soundtrack for a melancholic state. One thing is clear when it comes to the Kammerflimmer Kollektief: regardless of any interpretive traps snapping shut, here is something which cannot be voiced; whichever labels are stuck on the Karlsruhe collective, they all feel patently unsatisfactory. Like all music, their music can neither be narrowed down to concepts nor fixed semantically. It cannot be organized as language, yet it is no more pre-conceptual in its existence. These carefully unconsidered atheist jam supplications lead you into the darkest corners of your souls, out of the night and into the night. The bass of Johannes Frisch creaks and hums, evolving into barely discernible undergrowth with a life of its own, yet becoming the foundation of everything, a basso continuo, constantly leading into nothingness. Heike Aumüller's harmonium is elementally a wind which has much to tell us about life, but even more about what tortures us, leaves you restless, while Thomas Weber's whirring guitars and gadgets drag us into a wondrously reverberating space of special effects. Amidst all the excitement which awaits you on this short journey, it is worth remembering that as the shaman hangs out his magic roots to dry in the morning as preparation for the ritual ecstasy of the evening, so the Kollektief follow an everyday principle in their own ritual.
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STAUB 136LP
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LP version. Staubgold presents Désarroi, the tenth album by German ensemble Kammerflimmer Kollektief. Since Thomas Weber founded the group in 1996, its work has meandered between precision and freedom, delivering music that would scorch the paper if one tried to score it. Kammerflimmer Kollektief's art is deception -- a persuasive and seductive art of disorientation and misdirection, with a lucidity and precision approaching what Robert Musil (above suspicion of being a romanticist) called "daylight mysticism." Désarroi (Disorientation), perhaps the group's wildest work, does it again: welcome back to the Kammerflimmery! The Kollektief delivers a few characteristic elements right from the opening track, with Heike Aumüller's free, unsentimental harmonium, played with an air of sehnsucht (inadequately translated as "longing"), resembling a free jazz counterpart to reggae producer and melodica master Augustus Pablo, while Johannes Frisch's magic, free-wheeling double bass creaks along. The album explodes with a dash of Swedish biker-rock passion that momentarily dispels the trappings of modernity, though concrete reality seems to return by the album's end. The Kollektief has long been developing an amalgam of FX culture, psychedelia, free form, dub, improv, and ritual activities, taking only what is of use, with the collected elements taking on a mythical weight. What was once a bass becomes a creak. What was once a voice becomes a phoneme. What was once a guitar becomes a gnarly notion of something strummed. All the while, Weber masks his guitar's effects, leaving them as unidentifiable yet familiar sounds to be incorporated into the singular tone continuum of Kammerflimmery. Like the shaman who in the morning simply hangs up his magic roots to dry in preparation for his nightly ecstatic routines, the Kollektief incorporates the ordinary and familiar into its rituals. Maybe that's why they cover "Zurück zum Beton" ("Back to Concrete"), the 1978 hit by West German punk legends S.Y.P.H. They interpret the track not as a grim punk anthem but as an erotic celebration of a life in order, of alltag and künstlichkeit -- familiarity and artificiality. Over there, pure nature. Over here, humankind. In between, the magical pragmatism of Kammerflimmer Kollektief. On Désarroi, in a fashion perhaps even more pronounced than on previous works, the Kollektief works with a delicate, tender sensibility, highlighted by Aumüller's voice, which has never been heard like this on record before. The lyrics and music want to be heard, explored, even suffered. Tenderness maximized to a radical degree.
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STAUB 136CD
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Staubgold presents Désarroi, the tenth album by German ensemble Kammerflimmer Kollektief. Since Thomas Weber founded the group in 1996, its work has meandered between precision and freedom, delivering music that would scorch the paper if one tried to score it. Kammerflimmer Kollektief's art is deception -- a persuasive and seductive art of disorientation and misdirection, with a lucidity and precision approaching what Robert Musil (above suspicion of being a romanticist) called "daylight mysticism." Désarroi (Disorientation), perhaps the group's wildest work, does it again: welcome back to the Kammerflimmery! The Kollektief delivers a few characteristic elements right from the opening track, with Heike Aumüller's free, unsentimental harmonium, played with an air of sehnsucht (inadequately translated as "longing"), resembling a free jazz counterpart to reggae producer and melodica master Augustus Pablo, while Johannes Frisch's magic, free-wheeling double bass creaks along. The album explodes with a dash of Swedish biker-rock passion that momentarily dispels the trappings of modernity, though concrete reality seems to return by the album's end. The Kollektief has long been developing an amalgam of FX culture, psychedelia, free form, dub, improv, and ritual activities, taking only what is of use, with the collected elements taking on a mythical weight. What was once a bass becomes a creak. What was once a voice becomes a phoneme. What was once a guitar becomes a gnarly notion of something strummed. All the while, Weber masks his guitar's effects, leaving them as unidentifiable yet familiar sounds to be incorporated into the singular tone continuum of Kammerflimmery. Like the shaman who in the morning simply hangs up his magic roots to dry in preparation for his nightly ecstatic routines, the Kollektief incorporates the ordinary and familiar into its rituals. Maybe that's why they cover "Zurück zum Beton" ("Back to Concrete"), the 1978 hit by West German punk legends S.Y.P.H. They interpret the track not as a grim punk anthem but as an erotic celebration of a life in order, of alltag and künstlichkeit -- familiarity and artificiality. Over there, pure nature. Over here, humankind. In between, the magical pragmatism of Kammerflimmer Kollektief. On Désarroi, in a fashion perhaps even more pronounced than on previous works, the Kollektief works with a delicate, tender sensibility, highlighted by Aumüller's voice, which has never been heard like this on record before. The lyrics and music want to be heard, explored, even suffered. Tenderness maximized to a radical degree.
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CD
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STAUBDIG 016CD
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What is a "Teufelskamin?" A "Devil's Chimney" is a natural geological phenomenon, a natural rock formation built by tidal powers. Take for example, the natural shaft on the Crozon peninsula in Brittany, France. Waves push into this pit and spit out a giant jet of seawater. Watch out! It's a cold, Satanic soup coming from Hell's kitchen. When chef Satan starts cooking, wet showers come out of his hut, not dry smoke. At least the devil cooks with water. What is cooking when the old Kammerflimmer Kollektief invites you to sit on their Teufelskamin? There is a familiar electric guitar that takes you on a ride into black mountains. There is the ground making the sound of the breath of an Indian harmonium. There is the gentle, dark push from an upright bass. And there is the female voice amplifying wordless moods over wordless songs. For years now, the Kammerflimmer Kollektief have skillfully sailed waves of various musical genres. On Teufelskamin, a spooky guitar sound, a sort of "Surf Noir" is the new ingredient. And bravely, they call out for Albert Ayler's helping ghost. Kammerflimmer Kollektief has created a great, authentic dish over a nice long-running fire, and like the devil, they cook with water. Cool, cool water. Heike Aumüller, Johannes Frisch and Thomas Weber stir up some salty beauty from which no one can escape.
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STAUBANA 009LP
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LP version. What is a "Teufelskamin?" A "Devil's Chimney" is a natural geological phenomenon, a natural rock formation built by tidal powers. Take for example, the natural shaft on the Crozon peninsula in Brittany, France. Waves push into this pit and spit out a giant jet of seawater. Watch out! It's a cold, Satanic soup coming from Hell's kitchen. When chef Satan starts cooking, wet showers come out of his hut, not dry smoke. At least the devil cooks with water. What is cooking when the old Kammerflimmer Kollektief invites you to sit on their Teufelskamin? There is a familiar electric guitar that takes you on a ride into black mountains. There is the ground making the sound of the breath of an Indian harmonium. There is the gentle, dark push from an upright bass. And there is the female voice amplifying wordless moods over wordless songs. For years now, the Kammerflimmer Kollektief have skillfully sailed waves of various musical genres. On Teufelskamin, a spooky guitar sound, a sort of "Surf Noir" is the new ingredient. And bravely, they call out for Albert Ayler's helping ghost. Kammerflimmer Kollektief has created a great, authentic dish over a nice long-running fire, and like the devil, they cook with water. Cool, cool water. Heike Aumüller, Johannes Frisch and Thomas Weber stir up some salty beauty from which no one can escape.
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CD
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STAUB 097CD
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German music conglomeration Kammerflimmer Kollektief presents another release for Staubgold, Wildling. Cemented into the core trio of members Thomas Weber (guitar, electronics, piano), Heike Aumüller (harmonium, vocals, synthesizer, percussion) and Johannes Frisch (double bass and percussion), the Kollektief is at its most impassioned and emotive. Aumüller sits on the floor, making music, singing in a type of English which can only be understood by people who truly listen. Frisch fondles his double bass like Kate Bush did in her video to "Babooshka." But while Kate Bush didn't play, Frisch does while simultaneously playing around with it, winding himself around the instrument. On the other side sits Weber, bent over his guitar, occasionally operating the electronics in front of him, while his other hand plays the guitar. What one sees there is vulnerable and strong at the same time. The Kammerflimmer Kollektief has made itself strong, had made itself strong even before it merged into a band and then as a band, it grew even stronger. And more vulnerable. Where the music used to be beautiful, it is now powerful and momentous. Dietmar Dath speaks the truth when he suggests that one should listen to this music loud -- because in this way it acquires even more depth. The Kammerflimmer Kollektief is as lucid and precise as those moods which Austrian writer Robert Musil (who is above suspicion of a being a romanticist) called "daylight mysticism." The lyrics and the music want to be heard, they want to be explored, even suffered. Sound builds songs which are made of sounds, and yet they're no longer songs. Wildling is the trio's strongest and most vulnerable album to date. It is a solipsist which floats solitary in its own space, somewhere between the orbits of jazz, Krautrock, pop and hell. This space is an earthly heaven, which we are permitted to inhabit -- if we only can hear, with our ears as well as our heads.
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CD
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STAUB 077CD
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This is the sixth full-length release from Karlsruhe, Germany's Kammerflimmer Kollektief, recorded by Tobias Levin at Electric Avenue Studio. This band is still a "collective," although within the last years and extensive touring through Europe, a group of three core members emerged from the original line-up: Thomas Weber (guitar, electronics, piano), Heike Aumüller (harmonium, vocals, synthesizer, percussion) and Johannes Frisch (double bass and percussion). Whispering, a laid-back pop rhythm and something that sounds like an overwound gramophone, the eight songs on Jinx leave the wide-screen cinemascope soundscapes of the previous albums behind. With their serenity, these songs sound almost like a sediment of the band's earlier approach. This becomes evident in a track like "Nest" (which is reminiscent of the folk-jazz-approach of early Pentangle albums), or the beautifully minimalist yet very touching country-epic "Live At The Cactus Tree Motel." Faced with this music, the usual groping for stylistic comparisons and genre attributions appears more helpless than ever. This is mainly due to the focused use of instrumental improvisation on this album. In their dialogue with the sound impulse, the musicians re-endow data-folk with a body and electronic music with its metaphysics. This becomes evident on both the title track and in "Both Eyes Tight Shut," where in a repetitive swing, Aumüller's voice persistently fishes half-words from the vortex of sound particles. On "Gammler, Zen & Hohe Berge," a tiny echo from the beat on a small wood block that is electronically slowed down, dies away. Time drips through the spheres, quietly. Jinx -- the mythological bird that heralds bad luck -- comes to you when you return from the quest for happiness in the computer game world of virtual identities. With Jinx, the Kammerflimmer Kollektief has created a touching soundtrack for these moments -- when you leave the simulated wonderworld of commerce like "Second Life," when you log off your avatar and suddenly find yourself confronted with the disdainful universality of your own thinking.
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STAUB 077LP
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LP version. This is the sixth full-length release from Karlsruhe, Germany's Kammerflimmer Kollektief, recorded by Tobias Levin at Electric Avenue Studio. This band is still a "collective," although within the last years and extensive touring through Europe, a group of three core members emerged from the original line-up: Thomas Weber (guitar, electronics, piano), Heike Aumüller (harmonium, vocals, synthesizer, percussion) and Johannes Frisch (double bass and percussion). Whispering, a laid-back pop rhythm and something that sounds like an overwound gramophone, the eight songs on Jinx leave the wide-screen cinemascope soundscapes of the previous albums behind. With their serenity, these songs sound almost like a sediment of the band's earlier approach. This becomes evident in a track like "Nest" (which is reminiscent of the folk-jazz-approach of early Pentangle albums), or the beautifully minimalist yet very touching country-epic "Live At The Cactus Tree Motel." Faced with this music, the usual groping for stylistic comparisons and genre attributions appears more helpless than ever. This is mainly due to the focused use of instrumental improvisation on this album. In their dialogue with the sound impulse, the musicians re-endow data-folk with a body and electronic music with its metaphysics. This becomes evident on both the title track and in "Both Eyes Tight Shut," where in a repetitive swing, Aumüller's voice persistently fishes half-words from the vortex of sound particles. On "Gammler, Zen & Hohe Berge," a tiny echo from the beat on a small wood block that is electronically slowed down, dies away. Time drips through the spheres, quietly. Jinx -- the mythological bird that heralds bad luck -- comes to you when you return from the quest for happiness in the computer game world of virtual identities. With Jinx, the Kammerflimmer Kollektief has created a touching soundtrack for these moments -- when you leave the simulated wonderworld of commerce like "Second Life," when you log off your avatar and suddenly find yourself confronted with the disdainful universality of your own thinking.
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STAUB 070CD
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This is the sixth album by this German sextet, based in Karlsruhe. With previous albums on Staubgold, Quecksilber, Afterhours, and Temporary Residence, they have been compared to Amon Düül, Four Tet, The Notwist, Styrofoam, the Morr Music roster, etc. Musique concrète, soundscapes, country, free jazz, jazz, the scores of yet unmade films etc., all these components make up Kollektief's art without ever being there simply for their own sake, a fact which they communicate to the listener. After the successful and critically acclaimed release of their Absencen album in 2005, Staubgold now offers a killer collection of remixes, previously only released on two limited edition 12" EPs. Besides the eight mixes by Jan Jelinek, Sutekh, Aoki Takamasa, Secondo, Radian, Nôze, David Last and Lump200 which appeared on the vinyls, this CD also includes two exclusive bonus mixes by Hans Appelqvist and David Last again, now under his Pocket Pet alias.
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STAUB 064EP
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After the successful and critically acclaimed release of Kammerflimmer Kollektief's Absencen album last year, Staubgold now offers the second in a series of two remix 12"s featuring four beautiful and kicking mixes, from Sutekh, Secondo, Lump200 and Radian. The result is a marvelous blend of rhythm and space covered with diffused grooves that is as varied and eclectic as the mix of involved artists.
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12"
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STAUB 063EP
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After the successful and critically-acclaimed release of Kammerflimmer Kollektief's Absencen album in spring of 2005, Staubgold now offers the first in a series of two remix 12"s featuring four beautiful and kicking mixes, done by Jan Jelinek, Aoki Takamasa, Nôze and David Last. Kammerflimmer Kollektief have been compared to Amon Düül, Four Tet, The Notwist, Styrofoam, the Morr Music roster, etc. Musique concrète, soundscapes, country, free jazz, the scores of yet unmade films -- all these components make up Kollektief's art without ever being there simply for their own sake, a fact which they communicate to the listener.
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QUECK 007CD
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"Re-release of this long-deleted Kammerflimmer Kollektief classic feat. 15min+ of new studio recordings. An assemblage of intriguing electro/acoustic elements, Hysteria is the newest offering from Karlsruhe's Kammerflimmer Kollektief. Incorporating samples, analog synths, and a plethora of stringed instruments (including an acoustic jazz ensemble), Hysteria taunts the fine line of control between abstraction and realism, with a beauty that's stunning at times. Kammerflimmer Kollektief began as the one-man experimental excursions of Thomas Weber. Trapping ambient noise, live and synthetic drums, guitars, strings, upright bass and keyboards into interlocking rhythmic explosions, Weber expanded the group to a live six piece in 1999 and has been brilliant and busy ever since. From their Karlsruhe, Germany home base, this ensemble effortlessly blends experimental electronic elements and moody free-form jazz to stunning effect. File under: cosmic country."
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