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CD
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EMEGO 205CD
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After the Rain is the latest offering from Mark Van Hoen and Louis Sherman's Locust project. Following up the 2013 release You'll Be Safe Together (EMEGO 162CD/LP), this new album sees Locust stepping away from the abstracted forms of previous works, presenting a more melodic/harmonic proposition. Bathed in a warm nostalgic memory, After the Rain draws on Mark's formative influences, primarily '70s electronic music. With greater input by Louis Sherman (who, although being born when Mark was originally taking in this music, shares an equal enthusiasm for this particular period of European melancholic machine music). Unlike previous Locust and Mark Van Hoen releases which relied on programming and sequencing, much of this new record was played live, creating a space where innovation is secondary to the suggestive power of time, space, mood and melody. Rich in melancholia and a yearning for a world once suggested, After the Rain explores a crack in the historical framework, one embracing female identity and astute observations of melodic atmosphere. After the Rain is a melodic electronic mood record which presents itself as a triumph of historical revisionism. Louis Sherman (keyboard synthesizers, samplers), Mark Van Hoen (pianos, modular synthesizers & organ), Celeste Griffin, Candace Miller (vocals), Julie Manescau (spoken voice).
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LP
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EMEGO 205LP
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LP version. After the Rain is the latest offering from Mark Van Hoen and Louis Sherman's Locust project. Following up the 2013 release You'll Be Safe Together (EMEGO 162CD/LP), this new album sees Locust stepping away from the abstracted forms of previous works, presenting a more melodic/harmonic proposition. Bathed in a warm nostalgic memory, After the Rain draws on Mark's formative influences, primarily '70s electronic music. With greater input by Louis Sherman (who, although being born when Mark was originally taking in this music, shares an equal enthusiasm for this particular period of European melancholic machine music). Unlike previous Locust and Mark Van Hoen releases which relied on programming and sequencing, much of this new record was played live, creating a space where innovation is secondary to the suggestive power of time, space, mood and melody. Rich in melancholia and a yearning for a world once suggested, After the Rain explores a crack in the historical framework, one embracing female identity and astute observations of melodic atmosphere. After the Rain is a melodic electronic mood record which presents itself as a triumph of historical revisionism. Louis Sherman (keyboard synthesizers, samplers), Mark Van Hoen (pianos, modular synthesizers & organ), Celeste Griffin, Candace Miller (vocals), Julie Manescau (spoken voice).
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12"
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EMEGO 162X-EP
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Limited 12" with remixes of material from the Locust album You'll Be Safe Forever. Features Ulrich Schnauss, COH, and Nicholas Bullen.
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CD
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EMEGO 162CD
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You'll Be Safe Forever marks the first release from Locust in 12 years. Mark Van Hoen, who made a string of influential releases as Locust on R&S records in the 1990s, all but retired the alias at the end of that decade. In May 2012, Van Hoen was invited to perform a live set on WFMU radio. In order to make the set more spontaneous and add a further dimension, he asked friend and fellow musician Louis Sherman to collaborate. While improvising new material in Sherman's Brooklyn rehearsal studio, it swiftly became obvious that the material sounded like Locust. Inspired by joint explorations with found sound sources and ambient textures, and sharing a pan-dimensional immersion in the length and breadth of analog and digital recording, the duo performed a series of tracks live. This material, combined with previously-recorded tape tracks dating back to 2006 form the bulk of the album. The melancholic depths of electronic music explored in those improvisations, expanded further through subsequent sessions at Van Hoen's Woodstock, NY studio, have resulted in this latest entry in Locust's impressive discography. The record showcases prime examples of Van Hoen's compulsively hypnotic beats and abstracted pop vocals -- already hallmarks of his collected work since 1993 -- manipulating a global variety of samples in Celemony's Melodyne software to weave a unique sonic tapestry, as inviting as it is intricate. Paired with Sherman's evocative synth improvisations -- an immediately visceral element new to Locust -- these collaborators have crafted a shattered landscape that bridges two perspectives of progressive movement in electronic music under a single name. Sherman, an American from Baltimore, comes to the band armed with a vast knowledge of the history of electronic music. This, combined with Londoner Mark Van Hoen's known musical pedigree, maps the complete topography of a landscape -- its shadow and light, depth and height, mesmerizing complexity and ethereal simplicity -- with a break-beating heart and alchemical ear.
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LP
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EMEGO 162LP
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LP version. You'll Be Safe Forever marks the first release from Locust in 12 years. Mark Van Hoen, who made a string of influential releases as Locust on R&S records in the 1990s, all but retired the alias at the end of that decade. In May 2012, Van Hoen was invited to perform a live set on WFMU radio. In order to make the set more spontaneous and add a further dimension, he asked friend and fellow musician Louis Sherman to collaborate. While improvising new material in Sherman's Brooklyn rehearsal studio, it swiftly became obvious that the material sounded like Locust. Inspired by joint explorations with found sound sources and ambient textures, and sharing a pan-dimensional immersion in the length and breadth of analog and digital recording, the duo performed a series of tracks live. This material, combined with previously-recorded tape tracks dating back to 2006 form the bulk of the album. The melancholic depths of electronic music explored in those improvisations, expanded further through subsequent sessions at Van Hoen's Woodstock, NY studio, have resulted in this latest entry in Locust's impressive discography. The record showcases prime examples of Van Hoen's compulsively hypnotic beats and abstracted pop vocals -- already hallmarks of his collected work since 1993 -- manipulating a global variety of samples in Celemony's Melodyne software to weave a unique sonic tapestry, as inviting as it is intricate. Paired with Sherman's evocative synth improvisations -- an immediately visceral element new to Locust -- these collaborators have crafted a shattered landscape that bridges two perspectives of progressive movement in electronic music under a single name. Sherman, an American from Baltimore, comes to the band armed with a vast knowledge of the history of electronic music. This, combined with Londoner Mark Van Hoen's known musical pedigree, maps the complete topography of a landscape -- its shadow and light, depth and height, mesmerizing complexity and ethereal simplicity -- with a break-beating heart and alchemical ear.
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2CD
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TO 051CD
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"Mark Van Hoen's second for Touch after The Last Flowers from the Darkness. The instrumentation is purely electronic analog synthesizers, edited and manipulated in Digidesigns' Protools. Mark Van Hoen, who programmed and produced the LP, wanted to invoke some of the spirit of late '70s British electronic music, combining that sound with his now familiar brand of electronics for which he became known during the '90s. The fragility and unpredictability of vocalist Holli Ashton's personality and vocals, combined with the decayed and warped quality of the sound offer a warmth rarely found in such pure electronic music. Imperfections are the source of that warmth and there are several connections here between the late 70's (the period which first inspired Mark to make music) and the last few years. Electronic music in the late '70s was forced to become more inventive because the limitations of the instruments of the time needed the musician to craft each sound by hand, and the instruments often went wrong; out of time and out of tune. These same instruments were used on this album; there are no samplers, guitars or anything else but analog synthesizers and vocals on this recording. More recently, artists such as Ryoji Ikeda, Pan Sonic, and Hazard have sought to bring out imperfections in digital music, and those influences are here, too. Even the second CD, to be played simultaneously with the first is a 'misuse' of technology, yet it makes a beautiful sound."
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