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LP
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IMARA 005LP
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Michael Mayer's IMARA imprint announces a reissue of German electronica maestro Schlammpeitziger's second album, Freundlichbaracudamelodieliedgut. Originally released in 1996 by Köln's A-Musik label, it was the first Schlammpeitziger release to signal to a much wider audience that there was something very special going on in the music of Jo Zimmermann, the mastermind behind Schlammpeitziger. And while he's subsequently gone on to release a further eight albums for labels like Sonig, Pingipung, and Bureau B, Freundlichbaracudamelodieliedgut is where it really all started for this most singular musician, illustrator and performance artist. Like all Schlammpeitziger's music, Freundlichbaracudamelodieliedgut is overflowing with melody. Using the simplest of set-ups -- much of his early music was made with Casio keyboards -- Zimmermann magics entire worlds of joy and melancholy. The nine songs here are both rich tributes to the joys of the everyday, and surreal fantasias. Zimmermann's unique signature is everywhere on Freundlichbaracudamelodieliedgut -- simply put, no one else makes music quite as lovely and incandescent as this. The album's initial release coincided with an explosion of interest in the music coming out of Köln. This was a unique moment -- one where pop, techno, house, ambience, avant-gardism, musique concrete, heavy DSP, and all kinds of other creative phenomena got muddied up in the "general jelly" of Köln's fast-moving, spirited musical communities. Zimmermann was closely aligned with the music coming out of the A-Musik and Sonig labels -- a tightly-knit collection of artists centered around the A-Musik record store, making all kinds of weird and wonderful music, from the electronica of Mouse On Mars to the compositions of Marcus Schmickler, from the electro-acoustics of C-Schulz and Hajsch to the digitalia of FX Randomiz. Zimmermann himself would collaborate with the latter on an album under the name Holosud; friends such as Mouse On Mars and Kompakt's Reinhard Voigt turned up on Freundlichbaracudamelodieliedgut's remix EP. Here, then, is one of the loveliest albums of its era, a pop-electronics album of serious play, one as moistly melancholy as it is melodically riveting. Freundlichbaracudamelodieliedgut is rare beauty indeed.
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CD
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BB 345CD
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"Schlammpeitziger is the alias of musician, illustrator and performance artist Jo Zimmermann. He has been an integral figure in the evolving sound of Cologne since 1992, releasing his surrealist lo-fi krautronica on imprints such as A-Musik, Pingipung, and Sonig. Ein Weltleck in der Echokammer is the tenth Schlammpeitziger opus and his second album to appear on the Hamburg-based label Bureau B. The first notes of the opening title track Weltleck instantly confirm that this is no run-of-the-mill record. Jo Zimmermann confounds expectations as he wraps the art-electro sound of Schlammpeitziger in otherworldly dub echo loops -- a surprising, yet perfectly coherent development. Jo Zimmermann elaborates on the new Schlammpeitziger sound: 'Reggae expert Bettina Lattak is a good friend of mine and she has been telling me for years that there are dub and reggae influences in my music. I had never really given it much thought, but when I began to introduce these elements more consciously into my music, everything clicked into place quite naturally. I found it fascinating, completely free of any religious context, simply following the sound.' Not that these eight sun-drenched tracks are exclusively in the realm of dub rhythm; they are also sprinkled with disco beats, beguilingly low-flying bass and dreamy, sweeping melodic arcs -- everything for which we have come to love Schlammpeitziger. He launches us into outer space before bringing us back down to the prosaic dancefloors of Earth. Another new aspect is that Jo Zimmermann sings on three of the tracks, translating the whimsical, curious nature of the music into an equally unique vernacular. His verbal expansion of the enraptured cosmos illuminates the brightly lit world outside the echo chamber on 'Handicapfalter', referencing Kraftwerk's 'Spiegelsaal' like a steel drum Absurdistan. Elsewhere, 'Every Dayhey' floats like a weightless rainy Sunday dub, a dull sensation of gentle melancholy seeping into the morning after a long, long night. Stefan Mohr, the producer from Cologne, mixed the album as he did its predecessor. Zimmermann and his congenial colleague Ulrike Göken have once again crafted the cover art and created a video in visual interpretations woven from the same fabric as Schlammpeitziger's music. Ein Weltleck in der Echokammer is an album which offers answers to questions that nobody is able to ask. Dancing feet caught in a trap, lost in crowded emptiness or sucked into space through a leak in the world -- only Schlammpeitziger can do the lot." --Andreas Dorau
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LP
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BB 345LP
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LP version. "Schlammpeitziger is the alias of musician, illustrator and performance artist Jo Zimmermann. He has been an integral figure in the evolving sound of Cologne since 1992, releasing his surrealist lo-fi krautronica on imprints such as A-Musik, Pingipung, and Sonig. Ein Weltleck in der Echokammer is the tenth Schlammpeitziger opus and his second album to appear on the Hamburg-based label Bureau B. The first notes of the opening title track Weltleck instantly confirm that this is no run-of-the-mill record. Jo Zimmermann confounds expectations as he wraps the art-electro sound of Schlammpeitziger in otherworldly dub echo loops -- a surprising, yet perfectly coherent development. Jo Zimmermann elaborates on the new Schlammpeitziger sound: 'Reggae expert Bettina Lattak is a good friend of mine and she has been telling me for years that there are dub and reggae influences in my music. I had never really given it much thought, but when I began to introduce these elements more consciously into my music, everything clicked into place quite naturally. I found it fascinating, completely free of any religious context, simply following the sound.' Not that these eight sun-drenched tracks are exclusively in the realm of dub rhythm; they are also sprinkled with disco beats, beguilingly low-flying bass and dreamy, sweeping melodic arcs -- everything for which we have come to love Schlammpeitziger. He launches us into outer space before bringing us back down to the prosaic dancefloors of Earth. Another new aspect is that Jo Zimmermann sings on three of the tracks, translating the whimsical, curious nature of the music into an equally unique vernacular. His verbal expansion of the enraptured cosmos illuminates the brightly lit world outside the echo chamber on 'Handicapfalter', referencing Kraftwerk's 'Spiegelsaal' like a steel drum Absurdistan. Elsewhere, 'Every Dayhey' floats like a weightless rainy Sunday dub, a dull sensation of gentle melancholy seeping into the morning after a long, long night. Stefan Mohr, the producer from Cologne, mixed the album as he did its predecessor. Zimmermann and his congenial colleague Ulrike Göken have once again crafted the cover art and created a video in visual interpretations woven from the same fabric as Schlammpeitziger's music. Ein Weltleck in der Echokammer is an album which offers answers to questions that nobody is able to ask. Dancing feet caught in a trap, lost in crowded emptiness or sucked into space through a leak in the world -- only Schlammpeitziger can do the lot." --Andreas Dorau
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CD
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BB 276CD
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Swallowing air and farting it out, that's the main life skill of the weatherfish. But what's best about him is his evocative German name: Schlammpeitziger. When German electronic artist Jo Zimmermann launched his solo career in the early 1990s, he chose to be identified with this creature living in the flat muddy waters of the European and Asian plains. Unlike the fish, Schlammpeitziger's early reputation was built on his inventive use of cheap Casio synthesizers and the use of composite nouns to name but his first five albums. This here is his eleventh, and while Schlammpeitziger's art has moved on, true to his nature it does contain some colorful references to farting. In this forest of mysteries, his schematic, fastidiously executed drawings function as explanatory systems that are funny but at the same time complex and occult. It maps out a non-physical world that is being triggered by events in the common world, but initially only takes shape in Schlammpeitziger's perception by means of impressions buffered in Schlamm-RAM and decoded in quick succession using enormous flows of incoming and outgoing catalytic energy. Like his paintings, these formulas appear similar to seismographic studies: invisible vibrations are recorded and translated into new alphabets. In his search for inspiration, Schlammpeitziger is the eternal pedant, following up the most inconspicuous leads to find different ways of making sense of reality. A magnetist's curiosity drives this folklorist of the self, deep into the thickets of the world. Where others get caught up in well-worn symbolisms or cling to new age rituals with their drones and flickering lights, Schlammpeitziger is taking it easy. He turns his toes inwards, rotates his hips, and beams light signals up into the dark. Jo Zimmermann has the primal funk, a beat that can thread anything together. That certain clap, the short gaps between accents, not to mention the physicality of the bass taking care of the lower levels. In all of this, Schlampeitziger's own movements are an invitation to join his parade of mysteries. For those looking for a future that doesn't reach back into the past but is searching for access to engrossment, Schlammpeitziger's radiation therapy of sound should be just the ticket.
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LP+CD
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BB 276LP
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LP version. Includes CD. Swallowing air and farting it out, that's the main life skill of the weatherfish. But what's best about him is his evocative German name: Schlammpeitziger. When German electronic artist Jo Zimmermann launched his solo career in the early 1990s, he chose to be identified with this creature living in the flat muddy waters of the European and Asian plains. Unlike the fish, Schlammpeitziger's early reputation was built on his inventive use of cheap Casio synthesizers and the use of composite nouns to name but his first five albums. This here is his eleventh, and while Schlammpeitziger's art has moved on, true to his nature it does contain some colorful references to farting. In this forest of mysteries, his schematic, fastidiously executed drawings function as explanatory systems that are funny but at the same time complex and occult. It maps out a non-physical world that is being triggered by events in the common world, but initially only takes shape in Schlammpeitziger's perception by means of impressions buffered in Schlamm-RAM and decoded in quick succession using enormous flows of incoming and outgoing catalytic energy. Like his paintings, these formulas appear similar to seismographic studies: invisible vibrations are recorded and translated into new alphabets. In his search for inspiration, Schlammpeitziger is the eternal pedant, following up the most inconspicuous leads to find different ways of making sense of reality. A magnetist's curiosity drives this folklorist of the self, deep into the thickets of the world. Where others get caught up in well-worn symbolisms or cling to new age rituals with their drones and flickering lights, Schlammpeitziger is taking it easy. He turns his toes inwards, rotates his hips, and beams light signals up into the dark. Jo Zimmermann has the primal funk, a beat that can thread anything together. That certain clap, the short gaps between accents, not to mention the physicality of the bass taking care of the lower levels. In all of this, Schlampeitziger's own movements are an invitation to join his parade of mysteries. For those looking for a future that doesn't reach back into the past but is searching for access to engrossment, Schlammpeitziger's radiation therapy of sound should be just the ticket.
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12"
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PING 046EP
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Remixes of tracks from Schlammpeitziger's What's Fruit? (PING 042CD/LP). Candie Hank beams the mantra-like vocals of the title track unerringly to the dancefloor. Andreas Dorau sings over "Balcony Sofaune," warped into a disco piece by sdfkt. Springintgut brings a giddy tambourine and a cello chorus to the complex layers of "Pipe Claphorse." Mouse On Mars turns "Balcony Sofaune" into a bass monster while focusing on the original's bold brass theme. Thomas Mahmoud Zahl thwarts the melancholy of "Schneid ein Stück aus der Zeit" with a bouncing beat, and hey transforms the same track with acoustic guitar and galactic vocoder.
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CD
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PING 042CD
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With his new album What's Fruit, Schlammpeitziger touches the dancefloor more than ever before in his 22-year long career. Yet his dancefloor is a playful one. The Cologne-based composer's sounds electrify with their multi-layered melodic structures. He weaves countless details to perfection into a high-density of musical activity, always focusing on the slow, driving beats which hold everything together. Each of the eight tracks represents shades of the unique humor we love about Schlammpeitziger: the tricky question about what are those things we call fruit, or his mantric German lyrics on "Schneid ein Stuck aus der Zeit" are charming messages which never fail to be heard in the guise of those lovely synth hooks. This new Schlammpeitziger disco has its source in a situation which does not quite promise relaxed creativity: in the past year Schlammpeitziger's studio in Cologne has been surrounded by construction-work. Locked up in his private space between massive hums, squealing saws, and pulsating jackhammers, he delivers this relaxed album. It comes across with the freshness of a debut work. Contrary to his previous records, which had been mostly made with analog synths, this album was produced with iPad synths 90% of the time, before taking the mixes to Stefan Mohr's (ex-member of the band Workshop) mixing console.
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LP
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PING 042LP
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LP version. Includes download code. With his new album What's Fruit, Schlammpeitziger touches the dancefloor more than ever before in his 22-year long career. Yet his dancefloor is a playful one. The Cologne-based composer's sounds electrify with their multi-layered melodic structures. He weaves countless details to perfection into a high-density of musical activity, always focusing on the slow, driving beats which hold everything together. Each of the eight tracks represents shades of the unique humor we love about Schlammpeitziger: the tricky question about what are those things we call fruit, or his mantric German lyrics on "Schneid ein Stuck aus der Zeit" are charming messages which never fail to be heard in the guise of those lovely synth hooks. This new Schlammpeitziger disco has its source in a situation which does not quite promise relaxed creativity: in the past year Schlammpeitziger's studio in Cologne has been surrounded by construction-work. Locked up in his private space between massive hums, squealing saws, and pulsating jackhammers, he delivers this relaxed album. It comes across with the freshness of a debut work. Contrary to his previous records, which had been mostly made with analog synths, this album was produced with iPad synths 90% of the time, before taking the mixes to Stefan Mohr's (ex-member of the band Workshop) mixing console.
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