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CD
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SQM 002CD
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With seemingly effortless precision and a sense for the imperfect, Popp merges ambient, third stream and minimal music on his debut album Laya. The title derives from the Sanskrit language and signifies a place of rest and mental inactivity. In the spring of 2019 Popp created these eight tracks from hours of improvisation in his own studio. The moments thus captured were then enriched with more sounds and effects to add layers and shed the manually played percussion of all its earthliness. The result is an album of concealed complexity and unadorned beauty. Raised on an old farm in rural Bavaria, Simon Popp started playing the drums at the age of nine. During his studies at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Munich, he extensively studied African music from countries like Togo, Ghana and Benin where rhythm is central to culture. On his quest for this world's sounds, Popp collected and recorded a wide variety of drums and other instruments, adding to the placelessness of Laya.
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LP
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SQM 002C-LP
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With seemingly effortless precision and a sense for the imperfect, Popp merges ambient, third stream and minimal music on his debut album Laya. The title derives from the Sanskrit language and signifies a place of rest and mental inactivity. In the spring of 2019, Popp created these eight tracks from hours of improvisation in his own studio. The moments thus captured were then enriched with more sounds and effects to add layers and shed the manually played percussion of all its earthliness. The result is an album of concealed complexity and unadorned beauty. Raised on an old farm in rural Bavaria, Simon Popp started playing the drums at the age of nine. During his studies at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Munich, he extensively studied African music from countries like Togo, Ghana, and Benin where rhythm is central to culture. On his quest for this world's sounds, Popp collected and recorded a wide variety of drums and other instruments, adding to the placelessness of Laya. 2023 reissue. Transparent vinyl.
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LP
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SQM 016LP
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On his third album, Blizz, Munich-based drummer and producer Simon Popp further blurs the line between electronic and organic sounds. In carefully crafted, slow-growing tracks tuned metal percussions cut through searing synth pads, sucking the listener into a sonic vortex. Informed by personal and spiritual themes, Popp's debut album Laya (SQM 002LP), as well as his 2021 follow-up Devi (SQM 010LP) make use of rhythms as storytelling mechanisms. Contrasting light and dark, organic and synthetic sounds, his compositions engage in a dance of subtle complexities, enticing the listener into the practice of close listening. Throughout Blizz, a panopticon of metallophones takes flight, floating freely over earth-bound counter rhythms, conjuring up call-and-response techniques inherent in polyrhythmic music. This technique favors experimentation over perfectionism, leaving space for happy accidents to unlock new melodic possibilities. According to Popp, "it's much more interesting to try to push the boundaries of an instrument to see what's possible."
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LP
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SQM 010LP
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After several collaborative releases, German drummer Simon Popp is back on Squama with his second solo album Devi. While his phenomenal debut Laya (SQM 002LP, 2019) was a percussive take on ambient and third-stream minimalism, Devi features eight tracks of bold organic grooves, uplifting and hopeful in one moment, sinister and dark in the next. This dualism is reflective of the ups and downs in Simon's own life, making the album a brutally honest and deeply personal record. Over the past two years Popp has steadily refined his skills both as a player and an engineer: There are virtuoso drumming parts, revealing his passion for polyrhythm and complex structures and recording techniques such as heavy limiting, using gated reverb and pitch-shifting give the record a modern '90s vibe. Devi is a forceful statement of what contemporary drum music can sound like today. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code.
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LP
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SQM 002LP
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With seemingly effortless precision and a sense for the imperfect, Popp merges ambient, third stream, minimal music on his debut album, Laya. The title derives from the Sanskrit language and signifies a place of rest and mental inactivity. In the spring of 2019 Popp created these eight tracks from hours of improvisation in his own studio. The moments thus captured were then enriched with more sounds and effects to add layers and shed the manually played percussion of all its earthliness. The result is an album of concealed complexity and unadorned beauty. Raised on an old farm in rural Bavaria, Simon Popp started playing the drums at the age of nine. During his studies at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Munich, he extensively studied African music from countries like Togo, Ghana, and Benin where rhythm is central to culture. On his quest for this world's sounds, Popp collected and recorded a wide variety of drums and other instruments, adding to the placelessness of Laya. 180 gram pressing, includes download.
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