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viewing 1 To 14 of 14 items
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CD
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BB 410CD
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The musician Kurt Dahlke is not only a member of the bands Der Plan and Fehlfarben, founding member of the group DAF and co-founder of the label Ata Tak, he has also released a stellar line of solo works under the name Pyrolator for which he enjoys great critical acclaim. What began in 1979 with the first release Inland continues its lineal thread with new work Niemandsland -- the sixth album within the Land series. It was 1979, some 43 years ago, when Pyrolator released Inland, an instrumental protest album, as he liked to think of it. Autumnal protests against nuclear weapon stations, against the entire structures of the war generation, but without the pathos of the rebellious songs which soundtracked the 1968 movement. Apart from a few samples, there were no words at all. Now, more than four decades later, Kurt Dahlke alias Pyrolator returns to his origins. But not, this time, in protest: "The clock already stands at ten past midnight and we have arrived in no man's land. Neither the student movement nor the rejectionist stance of punk changed anything. Avarice has emerged victorious and no future is nothing more than an empty cliché. This is what global reality looks like. The principle of cause and effect." This is also a back to the roots story for Pyrolator in the musical sense. Niemandsland was created exclusively with modular synthesizers, the computer merely a recording device. All of the tracks were played live and direct -- neither storable nor replicable. The sixth album in Pyrolator's Land series is more than just a bridge to the past and the music to be found there. It has a formal language all of its own, meandering between the beauty of crystal-clear melodies and restrained ambient moments on the one hand and rugged, dystopian brittleness on the other. A cycle revolving between the hope of a revolution for humanity and arrival in no man's land.
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LP
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BB 410LP
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LP version. The musician Kurt Dahlke is not only a member of the bands Der Plan and Fehlfarben, founding member of the group DAF and co-founder of the label Ata Tak, he has also released a stellar line of solo works under the name Pyrolator for which he enjoys great critical acclaim. What began in 1979 with the first release Inland continues its lineal thread with new work Niemandsland -- the sixth album within the Land series. It was 1979, some 43 years ago, when Pyrolator released Inland, an instrumental protest album, as he liked to think of it. Autumnal protests against nuclear weapon stations, against the entire structures of the war generation, but without the pathos of the rebellious songs which soundtracked the 1968 movement. Apart from a few samples, there were no words at all. Now, more than four decades later, Kurt Dahlke alias Pyrolator returns to his origins. But not, this time, in protest: "The clock already stands at ten past midnight and we have arrived in no man's land. Neither the student movement nor the rejectionist stance of punk changed anything. Avarice has emerged victorious and no future is nothing more than an empty cliché. This is what global reality looks like. The principle of cause and effect." This is also a back to the roots story for Pyrolator in the musical sense. Niemandsland was created exclusively with modular synthesizers, the computer merely a recording device. All of the tracks were played live and direct -- neither storable nor replicable. The sixth album in Pyrolator's Land series is more than just a bridge to the past and the music to be found there. It has a formal language all of its own, meandering between the beauty of crystal-clear melodies and restrained ambient moments on the one hand and rugged, dystopian brittleness on the other. A cycle revolving between the hope of a revolution for humanity and arrival in no man's land.
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CD
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BB 160CD
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In 1986 Pyrolator moved into a sparsely furnished apartment in Berlin. This is where he wrote the tracks for the album. "I was fascinated by dream research at the time, even visiting seminars on the subject. I wanted to capture dreams in music -- not esoterically, but in a scientific, analytic manner." Pyrolator thus set his alarm to ring at the same time every night in his Berlin pad, the somnolent sonic-explorer-turned-dream-chaser noting down what he remembered. Once he had collected enough material, he headed back to the studio in Düsseldorf. Traumland is the Pyrolator work which comes closest to a band album. Saxophones, trumpets, drums, yes, even real guitars! Jörg Kemp and the New York singer Susan Brackeens took over vocal duties. How did that transpire? Pyrolator: "I had produced a few songs for Susan at the Ata Tak studio, we got on well and I liked her voice. The songs were classic pop tracks, more or less, so it made perfect sense to invite Susan back for Traumland. As a rule, my pop songs usually went to my band project, Der Plan. However, working with Susan motivated me to give them a try on a Pyrolator record. Jörg had worked with me on almost all of my solo albums. We were good friends, and we also released records by his band, Lost Gringos, on Ata Tak." If the front and back covers of the album (surrealism on one side, a band picture on the other) are diametrically opposed, then the music on Traumland is no less diverse: spheric instrumental tracks confront jazzy pop songs, reminiscent of English pop à la Scritti Politti or even ABC. "The critics liked Traumland and good reviews appeared almost everywhere, but the public reception was somewhat less euphoric. This was not the music they had expected to hear. People wanted something more experimental from me," Pyrolator recollects. Musikexpress magazine proclaimed it "springtime for consciousness," which sums it up nicely. Includes four bonus tracks.
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BB 160LP
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LP version. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl. In 1986 Pyrolator moved into a sparsely furnished apartment in Berlin. This is where he wrote the tracks for the album. "I was fascinated by dream research at the time, even visiting seminars on the subject. I wanted to capture dreams in music -- not esoterically, but in a scientific, analytic manner." Pyrolator thus set his alarm to ring at the same time every night in his Berlin pad, the somnolent sonic-explorer-turned-dream-chaser noting down what he remembered. Once he had collected enough material, he headed back to the studio in Düsseldorf. Traumland is the Pyrolator work which comes closest to a band album. Saxophones, trumpets, drums, yes, even real guitars! Jörg Kemp and the New York singer Susan Brackeens took over vocal duties. How did that transpire? Pyrolator: "I had produced a few songs for Susan at the Ata Tak studio, we got on well and I liked her voice. The songs were classic pop tracks, more or less, so it made perfect sense to invite Susan back for Traumland. As a rule, my pop songs usually went to my band project, Der Plan. However, working with Susan motivated me to give them a try on a Pyrolator record. Jörg had worked with me on almost all of my solo albums. We were good friends, and we also released records by his band, Lost Gringos, on Ata Tak." If the front and back covers of the album (surrealism on one side, a band picture on the other) are diametrically opposed, then the music on Traumland is no less diverse: spheric instrumental tracks confront jazzy pop songs, reminiscent of English pop à la Scritti Politti or even ABC. "The critics liked Traumland and good reviews appeared almost everywhere, but the public reception was somewhat less euphoric. This was not the music they had expected to hear. People wanted something more experimental from me," Pyrolator recollects. Musikexpress magazine proclaimed it "springtime for consciousness," which sums it up nicely. Includes two bonus tracks.
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CD
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BB 159CD
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Bureau B reissues Pyrolator's Wunderland, originally released on Ata Tak in 1984. Quote 1: "I have always strived for the opposite of whatever is hip at the time." (Pyrolator in June 2013) Quote 2: "Wunderland is so beautiful -- the first time I heard this record, I cried." (Andreas Dorau). New York City, 1983. Andreas Dorau has a gig at Danceteria and Pyrolator accompanies him as sound engineer. Back then, it really looked as if Ata Tak could make a go of it in the USA. "We had a New York office," Pyrolator recalls. Not bad at all -- possibly the first and only German independent label to set up shop. "Sadly, it was short-lived." A shame indeed, but the costs were too high. Still, Pyrolator was able to take advantage of the label's sporadic expansion to stay a while longer in the city that, famously, never sleeps. And he made the most of it. Right place, right time. "I was searching for new rhythms." It was in 1983 that rap, electro and hip-hop emerged from New York to take over the world -- styles and approaches to music and sound which were not so alien to the Ata Tak crew. But: look back at the Pyrolator quote before this text. The opposite of what happens to be hip, wouldn't that mean steering clear of electronic beats? Which, of course, is what Pyrolator did on Wunderland. Instead of checking the hottest sounds in record shops, he copied out bossa novas, cha-chas and mambos in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and scoured stores and second-hand dealerships for sheet music. After these forays, he returned to his Lower East Side apartment and sat down at the piano to compose melodies and modify his newly-acquired rhythms. The foundations of Wunderland were laid. Pyrolator recorded birds and other animals, used hollow wood as a marimba and now, with his modified Latin rhythms, had the conditio sine qua non for Wunderland. Modern technology (Emulator 1, serial number 13!) and hollow tree trunks, and melodies on a par with Ennio Morricone or Burt Bacharach. Includes five bonus tracks.
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BB 159LP
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LP version, on 180 gram vinyl. Bureau B reissues Pyrolator's Wunderland, originally released on Ata Tak in 1984. Quote 1: "I have always strived for the opposite of whatever is hip at the time." (Pyrolator in June 2013) Quote 2: "Wunderland is so beautiful -- the first time I heard this record, I cried." (Andreas Dorau). New York City, 1983. Andreas Dorau has a gig at Danceteria and Pyrolator accompanies him as sound engineer. Back then, it really looked as if Ata Tak could make a go of it in the USA. "We had a New York office," Pyrolator recalls. Not bad at all -- possibly the first and only German independent label to set up shop. "Sadly, it was short-lived." A shame indeed, but the costs were too high. Still, Pyrolator was able to take advantage of the label's sporadic expansion to stay a while longer in the city that, famously, never sleeps. And he made the most of it. Right place, right time. "I was searching for new rhythms." It was in 1983 that rap, electro and hip-hop emerged from New York to take over the world -- styles and approaches to music and sound which were not so alien to the Ata Tak crew. But: look back at the Pyrolator quote before this text. The opposite of what happens to be hip, wouldn't that mean steering clear of electronic beats? Which, of course, is what Pyrolator did on Wunderland. Instead of checking the hottest sounds in record shops, he copied out bossa novas, cha-chas and mambos in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and scoured stores and second-hand dealerships for sheet music. After these forays, he returned to his Lower East Side apartment and sat down at the piano to compose melodies and modify his newly-acquired rhythms. The foundations of Wunderland were laid. Pyrolator recorded birds and other animals, used hollow wood as a marimba and now, with his modified Latin rhythms, had the conditio sine qua non for Wunderland. Modern technology (Emulator 1, serial number 13!) and hollow tree trunks, and melodies on a par with Ennio Morricone or Burt Bacharach. Includes five bonus tracks.
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CD
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BB 098CD
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Just two years separate Pyrolator's 1979 debut Inland and the 1981 album Ausland. Nevertheless, they could hardly be more different from one another. If Inland reflects the industrial decay and politically-explosive atmosphere of 1977 and the years thereafter in the Federal Republic of Germany, then Ausland is a buoyant, playful and yet groundbreaking pop album. There had been some significant developments since 1979. The Ata Tak label, which Pyrolator had co-founded, had hit a rich vein of form with the debut album by Der Plan (Pyrolator was also a band member), Andreas Dorau's hit single "Fred Vom Jupiter" and Holger Hiller's debut single. Pyrolator made his first trip to the USA, travelling the land from east to west over a period of three months. This all paved the way for the production of Ausland and pointed the way ahead for the Ata Tak label as well. On the West coast, Pyrolator met up with the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS), a collective in the process of exploring the frontiers between noise and industrial on the one hand and easy listening on the other. It was the influence of such free spirits which opened up the Ata Tak world and that of Pyrolator to "Schlager" and its American equivalent, easy listening. This mix of electronic elements and supposedly left-field pop music of times past runs through the Ata-Tak oeuvre and, with the benefit of hindsight, can be identified as the label's trademark. A further difference to Inland is that a long list of musicians participated in the Ausland recordings. In the USA, Pyrolator played together with designer Chris Lunch and his brother as support act for the likes of DNA and X. This moved Pyrolator to decide that he would not produce his next album alone, but with other musicians and technicians. With the help of the genius Werner Lambertz, inventor of "Brontologik," a forerunner of midi systems, and Ata Tak and Der Plan cohort Frank Fenstermacher, Pyrolator recorded the backing tracks on which other musicians would subsequently play their overdubs. The critics were in agreement when Ausland was released. From the progressive Sounds to the rather more traditional Musikexpress, all the way to the British New Musical Express (NME), the album met with universal praise. NME heralded Pyrolator as a "great pioneer" and quite right, too. He is still a pioneer today. CD contains 8 bonus tracks, mastered from the original tapes.
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LP
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BB 098LP
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LP version. Just two years separate Pyrolator's 1979 debut Inland and the 1981 album Ausland. Nevertheless, they could hardly be more different from one another. If Inland reflects the industrial decay and politically-explosive atmosphere of 1977 and the years thereafter in the Federal Republic of Germany, then Ausland is a buoyant, playful and yet groundbreaking pop album. There had been some significant developments since 1979. The Ata Tak label, which Pyrolator had co-founded, had hit a rich vein of form with the debut album by Der Plan (Pyrolator was also a band member), Andreas Dorau's hit single "Fred Vom Jupiter" and Holger Hiller's debut single. Pyrolator made his first trip to the USA, travelling the land from east to west over a period of three months. This all paved the way for the production of Ausland and pointed the way ahead for the Ata Tak label as well. On the West coast, Pyrolator met up with the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS), a collective in the process of exploring the frontiers between noise and industrial on the one hand and easy listening on the other. It was the influence of such free spirits which opened up the Ata Tak world and that of Pyrolator to "Schlager" and its American equivalent, easy listening. This mix of electronic elements and supposedly left-field pop music of times past runs through the Ata-Tak oeuvre and, with the benefit of hindsight, can be identified as the label's trademark. A further difference to Inland is that a long list of musicians participated in the Ausland recordings. In the USA, Pyrolator played together with designer Chris Lunch and his brother as support act for the likes of DNA and X. This moved Pyrolator to decide that he would not produce his next album alone, but with other musicians and technicians. With the help of the genius Werner Lambertz, inventor of "Brontologik," a forerunner of midi systems, and Ata Tak and Der Plan cohort Frank Fenstermacher, Pyrolator recorded the backing tracks on which other musicians would subsequently play their overdubs. The critics were in agreement when Ausland was released. From the progressive Sounds to the rather more traditional Musikexpress, all the way to the British New Musical Express (NME), the album met with universal praise. NME heralded Pyrolator as a "great pioneer" and quite right, too. He is still a pioneer today. Vinyl contains 6 bonus tracks, mastered from the original tapes.
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CD
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BB 097CD
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Pyrolator's Inland (originally released in 1979) provides musical commentary on the late '70s in West Germany, with its undercurrent of paranoia and violence. Inland is one of the most radical, modern and unconciliatory albums of its, or any other, time. The cover for Inland illustrates this atmosphere: tones of grey and brown instead of '70s bliss. The political situation in West Germany is at its most volatile. The war between the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF) and the State escalated two years before. The spirit of departure which characterized the early years of government by Willy Brandt and the socialist-liberal coalition, dissolved in the so-called "years of lead." Taking part in a demonstration against occupational bans could lead to the very same, and the chances of falling into a terrorist manhunt or staring a gun in the face were not so slim, particularly for young people. Pyrolator's aim was to make a protest album, one detached from all convention. A total absence of common musical structure and an unfiltered rush of sound recordings create a nightmarish, claustrophobic atmosphere. Pyrolator used a Korg MS20, SQ10 sequencer, B20R home organ, a Davolisint synthesizer, a Logan string orchestra and a dual-channel tape machine. Inland is both a rejection of the new form of protest song, the throaty, despairing scream of punk rock, and a rejection of the traditional form of protest song as nurtured far into the 1980s by the bards of the green, alternative milieu. Furthermore, there is another side to Inland: a desire for something new, a passion for experimentation, seeking to extend one's own horizon and that of others. This desire runs through all of Pyrolator's work, from his Inland debut to his 2011 release Neuland (BB 084CD). Thus Inland remains, in spite of its protests and rejections, a positive album. For inherent in every "no" is a "yes" to something else. Maybe something better. This reissue contains six bonus tracks, mastered from the original tapes.
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LP
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BB 097LP
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2024 repress. LP version. Pyrolator's Inland (originally released in 1979) provides musical commentary on the late '70s in West Germany, with its undercurrent of paranoia and violence. Inland is one of the most radical, modern and unconciliatory albums of its, or any other, time. The cover for Inland illustrates this atmosphere: tones of grey and brown instead of '70s bliss. The political situation in West Germany is at its most volatile. The war between the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF) and the State escalated two years before. The spirit of departure which characterized the early years of government by Willy Brandt and the socialist-liberal coalition, dissolved in the so-called "years of lead." Taking part in a demonstration against occupational bans could lead to the very same, and the chances of falling into a terrorist manhunt or staring a gun in the face were not so slim, particularly for young people. Pyrolator's aim was to make a protest album, one detached from all convention. A total absence of common musical structure and an unfiltered rush of sound recordings create a nightmarish, claustrophobic atmosphere. Pyrolator used a Korg MS20, SQ10 sequencer, B20R home organ, a Davolisint synthesizer, a Logan string orchestra and a dual-channel tape machine. Inland is both a rejection of the new form of protest song, the throaty, despairing scream of punk rock, and a rejection of the traditional form of protest song as nurtured far into the 1980s by the bards of the green, alternative milieu. Furthermore, there is another side to Inland: a desire for something new, a passion for experimentation, seeking to extend one's own horizon and that of others. This desire runs through all of Pyrolator's work, from his Inland debut to his 2011 release Neuland (BB 084CD). Thus Inland remains, in spite of its protests and rejections, a positive album. For inherent in every "no" is a "yes" to something else. Maybe something better.
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CD
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BB 084CD
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Pyrolator (Kurt Dahlke) is back, after a hiatus of 24 years! And he delivers pure electronic club music gold. If the name Pyrolator is new to you, here, he explains everything: "I have been a solo performer for a long while already, but the pieces I play are not entirely suited to the medium of LP or CD. They are either created as multi-channel sound or are heavily dependent on visuals. Nevertheless, I have always had a secret love of more club-oriented music. Since the mid-'90s, I have often produced or remixed projects like Antonelli Electr., Repeat Orchestra, Kreidler or Rocket In Dub. I had a lot of fun in the process, so I began to introduce elements like these into my live repertoire. They always went down really well, which gave me the idea of releasing something along those lines." On the title: "First and foremost, it continues the 'land' series of my solo albums (1979's Inland, 1981's Ausland, 1984's Wunderland, 1987's Traumland). Neuland was always pencilled in as the title for my fifth solo album." On constructing the album: "Basically in the same way as all of the other Pyrolator albums. I only played a really small portion of the music on the keyboard. I first used 'Brontologik,' a kind of flexible sequencer, on Ausland. In those days, it still counted as hardware. Today, it's software, something I have developed continuously over the years. I am currently using the 'Monome' as an input device. I program a kind of matrix of rhythms, chords and melodies. I like to work with loops, refining them bit by bit, piecing them together. Music created through programming -- composition, one might say -- is simply nothing like the music I would come up with on a keyboard." On live performance: "For me, it is important that I have the flexibility to intervene in the music, hence I work with two special controllers. The 'Lightning II,' on the one hand, enables me to translate the various musical parameters by means of two rods and movements in the air. This allows me to control everything I need in the computer -- pitch, filters, length of the pieces etc. The other controller, the 'Manta,' reacts sensitively to any contact and thus gives rise to the most delicate of melodies, as well as facilitating other control functions."
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LP
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BB 084LP
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LP version. Pyrolator (Kurt Dahlke) is back, after a hiatus of 24 years! And he delivers pure electronic club music gold. If the name Pyrolator is new to you, here, he explains everything: "I have been a solo performer for a long while already, but the pieces I play are not entirely suited to the medium of LP or CD. They are either created as multi-channel sound or are heavily dependent on visuals. Nevertheless, I have always had a secret love of more club-oriented music. Since the mid-'90s, I have often produced or remixed projects like Antonelli Electr., Repeat Orchestra, Kreidler or Rocket In Dub. I had a lot of fun in the process, so I began to introduce elements like these into my live repertoire. They always went down really well, which gave me the idea of releasing something along those lines." On the title: "First and foremost, it continues the 'land' series of my solo albums (1979's Inland, 1981's Ausland, 1984's Wunderland, 1987's Traumland). Neuland was always pencilled in as the title for my fifth solo album." On constructing the album: "Basically in the same way as all of the other Pyrolator albums. I only played a really small portion of the music on the keyboard. I first used 'Brontologik,' a kind of flexible sequencer, on Ausland. In those days, it still counted as hardware. Today, it's software, something I have developed continuously over the years. I am currently using the 'Monome' as an input device. I program a kind of matrix of rhythms, chords and melodies. I like to work with loops, refining them bit by bit, piecing them together. Music created through programming -- composition, one might say -- is simply nothing like the music I would come up with on a keyboard." On 180 gram vinyl; includes free download code.
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12"
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BB 083EP
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Pyrolator (Kurt Dahlke) is back with pure electronic club music gold, continuing the "land" series of his solo albums (Inland, Ausland, Wunderland, Traumland). As the artist himself describes: "I am currently using the Monome as an input device. I program a kind of matrix of rhythms, chords and melodies. I like to work with loops, refining them bit by bit, piecing them together. Music created through programming is nothing like the music I would come up with on a keyboard."
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12"
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BB 082EP
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Pyrolator (Kurt Dahlke) is back, after a hiatus of 24 years, on lurid, yellow 12" vinyl. Dahlke is currently using a Monome as an input device, programming a kind of matrix of rhythms, chords and melodies. He likes to work with loops, refining them and piecing them together. The Lightning II enables him to translate the various musical parameters by means of two rods and movements in the air. This allows him to control everything -- pitch, filters, length of the pieces, etc.
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viewing 1 To 14 of 14 items
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