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2LP
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KEPLARREV 019LP
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Released in 1999 on Taylor Deupree's 12k label, optimal.lp was the debut album by Dan Abrams under his Shuttle358 moniker. For its 25th anniversary, Keplar presents it on vinyl for the first time with three previously unreleased tracks, as well as a new artwork recreated by Daniel Castrejón and a remaster by Andreas [LUPO] Lubich based on the original pre-masters that were been restored and cleaned up for the reissue project by Abrams. optimal.lp was inspired by the rich tradition of ambient music and the rhythmic complexity of 1990s electronica while also sharing many traits with the then-emerging clicks'n'cuts movement, making it a true sui generis piece of work -- both informed by tradition and visionary, idiosyncratic and seminal for many artists after him. During the 1990s, Abrams increasingly immersed himself in the electronica scene and the output of labels such as Instinct, where Deupree worked as an art director and released his first records as Human Mesh Dance. Abrams found a home on 12k after sending Deupree a demo tape that would later evolve into optimal.lp, released as the label's fifth catalogue number. This sense of timelessness remains tangible after a quarter of a century after the album's original CD release and is even being expanded upon by the vinyl reissue, which is complemented by three pieces that were made while Abrams was working on the album. The digital release even features an entirely new take on the original album's final piece, "Tank." While Abrams let one of the masters go through his customized reverb unit when preparing the reissue, he started recording the results of this accidental dialogue between past and present. It's a fitting tribute to an album whose delicate circular rhythms, rich textures, and ethereal melodies are precisely so exhilarating because their interplay seems to suspend the passing of time altogether.
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2LP
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KEPLARREV 006LP
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Keplar reissues the fourth album Chessa by Dan Abrams' project Shuttle358 on vinyl for the first time. The double LP edition includes three previously unreleased tracks from the same recording sessions back in 2004, as well as an extended artwork with unseen photographs by Dan Abrams. While undoubtedly associated with the microsound and "clicks & cuts" movement around the turn of the millennium, on Chessa, Shuttle358 left behind the classical rhythmic patterns of the genre and shifted further towards warmer territories, meandering between modern digital minimalism and the soft tones of ambient music. Counter to his microsound synthesis approach on Frame (2000), Abrams created Chessa by writing software that manipulated samples from his unreleased songs, guitar pieces, and vintage Japanese films sampled from video tape. In particular, a special granulating technique was written and performed at intentionally low sample rates that gave the uniquely fragile, yet dense sound to the album. Over fourteen tracks, Abrams arranges slowly evolving sonic entities of unfading elegance. Strayed and hazy melodies pulse and cascade, elongated but brittle harmonies shimmer and disappear, echoing far-off in the rounded corners of the mind. The patient and detailed way Abrams combines the broken with the beautiful in creating organic collages of sound that retain the euphonic essence of a song, makes this piece of work so powerful and timeless, sounding just as relevant today, as it did upon release. Under modern scrutiny in Abrams latest studio, he refocused the original recordings to emphasize the elements most important to the original vision. The final mastering and vinyl preparation was done in collaboration with Stephan Mathieu, vinyl was cut by LUPO. From the original press release in 2004 by Taylor Deupree: "... Chessa is the third release from Abrams' Shuttle358 moniker on 12k and he continues to do what he does best: attempt to move microsound away from the world of theory and towards absolute real life. Like his photographs, Chessa is music about, and to be listened to in, unexpected places. It is a narrative, a simple slice of life that plays out through the incidental photography of the cover artwork. To achieve this Abrams fuses irregular granular sound particles, like the movements of everyday life, with a deliberate melodic base that captures emotion and simplicity." Edition of 500; includes printed inner sleeves and download code.
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