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LP
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UR 112LP
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James Place returns with his new LP Still Waves To A Whisper (the fourth release on Umor Rex). Flitting between the dreamworld of hauntological synth music and hypnotic techno functionality, Still Waves To Whisper showcases James Place's continuing development of dramatic (and varied) sound worlds. Musically, Still Waves To A Whisper contains both some of the most immediately danceable and straight up beautiful tracks of James Place's career. Utilizing voice samples from the same source as his last album, Voices Bloom, opener "Known Cry" is a heavenly coda of sunlight bursting through clouds, warm synths drifting across restrained pulses. "Timing and Lighting" went through countless live iterations before the current version was tracked for this album, a tunneling exploration of rhythm with a dose of sardonic humor. "Move In Blue (Homeward Mix)" is James Places's rework of a track from 2017's Voices Bloom, obsessively remixed and revisited, here littered with additional melodies and populated by newly sampled voices. Closing track "Names" is perhaps the most outright beautiful James Place recording to date. A stripped back rework of a live version of Living On Superstition's "Another Mourning In America" (2015), the tune is based on a melodic line written after the studio recorded version. Interwoven with a sampled vocal, and rinsed of all of the original song, "Names" is left behind a stark and compelling descendant. The title, Still Waves To A Whisper, stems from a conversation between Place and another artist on methods to ease anxieties and the benefits of a focused practice. The hope is for this music to continue that conversation on a larger scale. All songs written, produced and recorded by Phil Tortoroli between 2015-2018 in Brooklyn, NY. Vocals by Sam Sally and an unknown guest. Photos and design by Daniel Castrejón. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio, NY.
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LP
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UR 099LP
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2017 release. A distillation of cultural memory through electronic process, James Place, the creative guise of New York native Phil Tortoroli, returns with his third release for Umor Rex. The sonic realization of love and loss, re-sculpted for the post-modern age, pursuing his glacial take on techno into newly intimate depths. Departing from a line in TS Elliot's Four Quartets "the moment in and out of time", its works take form through the haze of a dream. Over the course of several months Tortoroli tracked heaps of live stereo jams at home, jamming on his drum machine, sampler, polysynth, and effects setup. Poring over these hours of hazy jams, Tortoroli heard himself straining for an additional voice to further emote. Rifling through a vast library of old bounces and experiments, Tortoroli rediscovered the music of Sam Sally to complete Voices Bloom, resampled live and again "subdued into explorations of an old practice". Voices Bloom is the musicality of cultural collage, immensely personal and intimate, arms stretched out, gathering diverse sonic worlds. The artist and his craft as a self-reflexive lens for an electronic age -- a sonic patchwork heard from afar -- impressions of memory, drawn close to the heart. Within the album's cool displaced tones, rise nostalgic romances, drifting rhythmic works which defy the beat. A world where time enters multiple frames, those possible, literal, implied, forgotten, and remembered anew. The final results on Voices Bloom are the most reflective yet from James Place. The hopeful kosmische beats and hauntological synth music on previous albums, and more delicate melodies, riding crisp minimal rhythms that flow elegantly from vignette to vignette. Rhythms of abstract techno with glistening melodic lights.
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