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viewing 1 To 12 of 12 items
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LP
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ABST 023LP
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Reissue of the first Juan Belda album, released in 1986 by Grabaciones Accientales. Originally part of a multimedia concert, a show involving actors, video, and scenography called Móviles. The record is a complex world of sounds blending rhythmic experimental electronics, industrial sounds, samplers, ambient-downtempo passages, loops, musique concrete... and everything from a punk-Fluxus-existentialist approach. In the vein of other Spanish bands of the era like Randomize, Mecánica Popular or international artists such as Cabaret Voltaire, Chris & Cosey, Thomas Leer, NWW... The record was produced by the Spanish composer Luis Carlos Esteban at his studio, with one of the largest synth collections in Europe. Belda squeezed precious synths such as Yamaha cs80, Emulator 2, Linn 9000, Mini Moog, DX7, PPG Wave, VCS 3, etc., with the help of Esteban to round his compositions. The result is a very personal and unique record. Belda is an eclectic composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist from Canary Islands, Spain. He studied structural composition with Zaj founder Juan Hidalgo and jazz with Luis Vecchio. Since the beginning of the '80s, his music has always been one step ahead in the Spanish scene at the time. Both with his new wave projects Arte Moderno (with Javier Segura), África Gráfica or with this debut album. Multidisciplinary artist, he has also been responsible for installations in art galleries and has composed music for ballet, theater, television and cinema. Includes insert with an extensive interview with the artist. Remastered by Damián Schwartz at Lyrebird. New artwork.
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ABST 022LP
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Eighteen Movements is a collection of recordings captured at live performances between 2017-2019. The record's rich textures combine ambient, tribal rhythms, field recordings, ritualistic vibes, and a meditative feeling that runs through the entire LP. Đ.K. is in full flight mode, illustrating the project's aptitude for deep transcendence. Đ.K. is a DJ, composer and producer based in Paris, France. A versatile and prolific artist, Đ.K. has cultivated an eclectic body of work in recent years, with acclaimed output on renowned labels including Antinote, Melody As Truth, 12th Isle, Good Morning Tapes, Music From Memory's Second Circle imprint, and L.I.E.S. (as 45 ACP). Luminous and mesmeric, Đ.K.'s work combines finetuned traces of house, synth pop, ambient, Balearic, minimalism, and fourth world music, creating energies and soundscapes which aim to invoke elevated forms of consciousness.
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ABST 021LP
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Reissue of this amazing 1986 album where drum machines meet improv jazz. Wayne Horvitz gathers together his drum machine and synths along with his talented friends -- Elliot Sharp included -- for this really original record that is both composed and improvised. An obscure gem by one of the most spirited musicians to populate NY '80s avant-garde, a golden era for vanguard attitudes and sounds. Horvitz, keyboard player at Naked City (along with John Zorn, Bill Frisell, and Fred Frith) had classical musical education and an ulterior demise of the discipline; radical jazz sensibilities, and rock n' roll vitality. That made up for a very unique, highly distinctive, breed of cutting-edge music. The boundaries of contemporary composition are expanded, breathing from improvisatory strategies and awareness of both the pop world and the most experimental milieu's discoveries. Large is the importance of his long-time collaborator Butch Morris' Conduction method, a system of structured free improvisation. Dinner At Eight offers new turns on the development of these mixed approaches by being both composed and improvised but also neither fully electronic nor fully acoustic. Written mostly in the loneliness of a San Francisco apartment, the project is less collaborative than others by Wayne, and its sound palette becomes more electronic and rhythm-based. Nevertheless, the helping hand of the most stellar musicians in New York becomes crucial as it rounds the timbral and structural magic of the project. The rhythmic and sound design experiments of tracks such as "Dinner At Eight" or "Conjunction For C" go hand in hand with the machine funk of "This New Generation" (where angular bass and guitar are provided by Elliot Sharp). You can find a robust synthetic marimba and bass jazz in "Extra Extra" or insistent dry percussions on "Second Line" that wouldn't be far from Marc Barreca's investigations. "True" and "These Hard Times" are also harmonizing with these mechanic sounds. Joyous, exotic, and whimsical songs that prove how an ear for experimentation is an open ear to all sounds, including the most melodic and overtly fun. Brilliant fresh sensibilities and musical interests collide in Dinner At Eight to form a very special milestone of NYC avant-garde music, offering an even richer vision of that amazing fertile scene.
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ABST 019LP
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The Mecánica Clásica project combines modified elements of early electronics, krautrock, ambient, minimalism, and fourth world music, generating an interplanetary space where enterprising guitar tones, lush synth sequencing and off-kilter percussion coalesce. Mar Interior the new album by Mecánica Clásica is a fusion of kosmische and fourth world music inspired by ancient Mediterranean culture. Loosely translated as "Inland Sea", Mar Interior is thematically centered on the history and legacy of the ancient civilizations that proliferated around the Mediterranean Sea. Augmented by environmental recordings, Mecánica Clásica renew the extensive topographies opened up by early pioneers like Craig Leon, Jon Hassell, Brian Eno and Cluster, in an immense vision of Spanish space ambient. On Mar Interior their work expands upon these influences, moving into a shimmering, hypnotic sound world which finds common ground with the likes of O Yuki Conjugate, K. Leimer, Roberto Musci and X.Y.R. Mastered by Colin Potter (Nurse With Wound).
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2LP
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ABST 018LP
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Abstrakce Records present a reissue of Erik Wøllo's Silver Beach, originally released in 1987. Minimalistic electronic instrumental music from Scandinavia. Erik Wøllo is a unique Norwegian musician that has been active since 1980, covering a wide range of styles but mostly known for his very personal take on electronic ambient music. Silver Beach is his fourth album, and it meant a new direction in his compositions. Gentle rhythms hold center for lush beautiful melodies to unfold, manifesting a restrained elegance in the way the chords hover around this percolating heartbeat. The result is synthetic walkabout music, an album of simple yet vibrant sophistication, perfect for wandering around, or sitting contemplating imaginary beautiful vistas with eyes closed. These fifteen stunning tracks create a sense of ceaseless motion without arrival, the pleasure of travelling without destination: walking on an outer limits beach. An early electronic music masterpiece, it was made using the latest MIDI technology at that time. Everything was composed and recorded on the now vintage Roland MSQ700, and all the diverse synths and rack modules were mixed directly down to 2-track analog tape (no multitrack tape was used). The original Silver Beach album was released on vinyl on the Norwegian label Cicada Records in 1986. In 1988 the album was released on CD (also Cicada) and included the additional and very rhythmical tracks "Little Big Tune" and "Mountain Train." The album was also re-released on CD on the Spanish label Margen Records in 2005, remastered and fine-tuned with five additional previously unreleased tracks from the same era. This tunes just refuse to be forgotten, their glittering beauty having both an air of nostalgia, but also of validity, as they continue to haunt new ears. There's no doubt that this is a classic of European eighties electronic music composition, a polished artwork with the best aesthetic and emotional signifiers of its era.
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LP
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ABST 016LP
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Reissue of this obscure cassette from 1987, a really interesting rarity by Carl Matthews under the CAM moniker. Sturdy synth basslines sculpt solid rhythm patterns that bring to mind the innovations of the moment in electro and dance records. Having in mind that Matthews was a white ambient composer, it's very curious to find him dropping these groovy bombs that sound like a primitive Detroit electro or hip-hop beats, mixed with sampled voices that recall Art of Noise influences. Also. to mention the conceptual work: Quid Rides is inspired in Roman Civilization, as the name of both the album and tracks point (all of them in Latin). Experimental-roman-electro seems to be a pretty weird label but works fine here... Mutant-futuristic-proto-electro for Roman statues would work too. Letterpress cover, including insert with liner notes by Colin Potter.
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ABST 017LP
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Abstrakce Records present one of the most rare, interesting, and difficult-to-find of Carl Matthews's cassettes. On vinyl for the first time and remastered by Colin Potter. Composed and recorded at his own home studio in 1991 and influenced by Harmonia and Cluster, Matthews develops a really personal project. A very delicate usage of rhythm machines, samplers, sequencers, e-bowed guitars that show up briefly hinting at a lo-fi Innovative Communication feeling... The capricious nature of these experiments opens many different doors of wonder to the curious heads, easing deep listening away from clichéd Berlin School, new age or krautrock -- the most obvious reference points here --, into a forever-land of non-academic modernism, where to take shelter and briefly vanish. Quiet but not static, mellow but not too new age-y and trippin' but not too trancey, this music finds its own space and character in the world of home recorded electronica. A true jewel of the European electronic underground.
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2LP
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ABST 011LP
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Repress forthcoming, expected Nov/2020. Abstrakce Recods present a reissue of Nurse With Wound's Rock 'n Roll Station, originally released in 1994. First time on vinyl since 2006 and first time with its original track listing. Limited one-off pressing with letter press cover and bonus track. Rock 'n Roll Station began life with Steven Stapleton asking engineer Colin Potter to remix some of the more rhythmic elements of "Colder Still" from 1992's Thunder Perfect Mind (SPHERES 020LP). As Potter gradually warped these sections into weirder and weirder pieces, a new album began to emerge. Potter himself explained it to David Keenan in England's Hidden Reverse (2003): "What I sometimes did in the studio was to 'over-use' effects and processors to totally mutate a piece into something completely different" while Stapleton observed how it was almost as though telepathic messages were sent over to Colin. [We'd] started an album [together at IC Studio] that was never finished. He [then] sent me some vague mixes, which were just what I had in mind. So, from that basis, I started putting the album together." Potter would quickly become a key player in Nurse With Wound's productions, a position he continues to fulfil to this day. He was first credited as a member on 1992's Thunder Perfect Mind, a tour-de-force of cold, at times hostile, machined atmospheres, but considers Rock 'n Roll Station from the following year to still be his favorite. Building on percussion and drone elements, Stapleton and Potter throw in a huge range of bizarre and atmospheric elements: didgeridoos, chanting voices, and their usual selection of unidentifiable sounds. Its strong focus on rhythm was erroneously surmised by some as an attempt to join the then rising electronic dance music scene. The album's title alluded to two specifically rock-related stations of influence: the song of the same name by Jac Berrocal, of which a surprisingly straight cover opens the album in homage; and the tragic life of the '60s British R&B organist Graham Bond who influenced bands such as Deep Purple and Cream. Beset by mental health problems (at one point believing he was the son of Aleister Crowley), Bond died under a train at a Tube station in 1989 and it is this tragic scene that Rock 'n Roll Station's closing track, "Finsbury Park, May 8th, 1:35 PM (I'll See You In Another World)", sets in sound.
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LP
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ABST 009LP
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An ambient journey to the inner reaches of the sound modulation. An LP of experimental minimal electronics with ambient traces. A cyclical cloud that renovates the orography of places already explored by artists such as Dieter Moebius, Steve Hauschildt, Conrad Schnitzler, Cluster, Harmonia... Mecánica Clásica is a new project bound by members of some of the most interesting electronic projects in Spain, such as Güiro Meets Russia and Polígono Hindú Astral, altogether with the restless experimentation of Negro or Mental Signals. Recorded and mixed by Mecánica Clásica; Mastered by Colin Potter. Edition of 300. "Trippy! Definitely 'classic' electronic synth music, but with a modern edge." --Colin Potter
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LP
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ABST 010LP
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A conceptual and contemporary approach to early music, exploring its ambiences, timbres and feelings. Delicate experimentation with sound textures where different white noise tones can meet the strings from a viola da gamba. A cinematic work, very touching and emotional. Almost mystic, spiritual ambient. K. Leimer and Marc Barreca are two American synth/multi-instrumental musicians that have been active since late '70s. They have some previous collaborations released in Leimer's imprint Palace Of Music. Presented in a very careful edition, the record comes packed in a folder printed in letterpress with wood and lead types. Six letterpress cards -- one per track -- are also included, contextualizing the artists' references used as an inspiration for their compositions.
"These three pieces spring from a love of early music, specifically the works of Sainte-Colombe, Marin Marais, and John Dowland. Each of these composers -- their lives spanning a period of great musical innovation and change from 1563 to 1728 -- is represented by a track included here. While there are no direct quotations present from any of their pieces there is a now familiar reliance on timbre and even on drone, elements that flourished in the often slowly-paced and harmonically narrow style of early music. Those stylistic elements have been taken up today, deliberately or not, by ambient, dark ambient, post-ambient, and slow music artists. In atmosphere early music often evokes a melancholic -- even elegiac -- sensibility appropriate to the present time." --K. Leimer
"These three tracks were inspired by the shadows, streams of sunlight, muted colors and peaceful interior ambience of Spanish cathedrals. Calm and mystery combined." --Marc Barreca
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LP
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ABST 004LP
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The Abominable Slowman, is the logical follow-on from Colin Potter's previous 2015 LP, Rank Sonata (HG 1505LP). Like that album, there are elements that were recorded many years ago, but this work also contains new music. Again, the emphasis is on rhythm, although the rhythmic components range from conventional drum sounds to strange electronic and/or mutated outbursts, often accompanied by squalling guitars. As to what this sounds like, keywords would be: soundtrack, experimental, ambient, electronic psychedelia, contemporary, drone... There's constant experimentation throughout the album, a search for never-before heard sounds to create obscure atmospheres and a pleasantly disturbing feeling of disquietude. The LP is housed in a beautiful grey cardboard sleeve, hand-printed by letterpress, and die cut to reveal the printed inner sleeve, which features a number of pictures of The Abominable Slowman during the recording of the album at IC Studio's current London location.
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LP
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ABST 006LP
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"I close my eyes, I open my memory, the pages go free: infinite images like a book of sand." --Pablo Guerrero
"Creating collages of avant-garde ambience using instruments from the many corners of the earth, along with tape loops and samples, Finis Africae created a fourth world sound that was both exotic and mysterious." --Andy Thomas
First vinyl edition ever of this lost experimental Spanish essential album. A delicate work that absorbs specific aspects of different music -- minimalism, tribal sounds, new age, ambient, spoken word -- to create its particular universe. With an absolutely contemplative recording climate, the poems and their sound environments explore the deepest self of the poet and singer from Extremadura, Pablo Guerrero. The work combines memories of childhood through the valleys of his native village, Esparragosa de Lares, with the evolution of life to reach the contemplative state in adulthood. A score written in a collaboration with two old friends, Juan A. Arteche Gual and Juan C. Fdez Puerta (Finis Africae), who weave a beautiful tapestry of electronic sounds so that the deep and serious voice of the poet shells all the images that his ode encloses. The recording, through fourteen poems, breathes an aroma of maturity, balance and total freedom. Maturity and balance with minimal arrangements, small gestures surrounded by abundant silences. Total freedom with instruments of the most varied, without restrictions or complexes: samplers, synthesizers and field recordings mixed with rattles, self-arches of the Appalachian Mountains, zithers, saxes made with reeds, conches, shortwave radios, plastic pipes, Hindu harmoniums...beauty can arise from any element and all these minimal arrangements come together to create the perfect ambience that sublimates the poem. Completed in the spring of 1996, the recording was moving in no man's land until the end of 1999 saw the light in book format of poems, accompanied by a CD. Abstrakce Records recover this masterpiece of experimental Spanish music, contributing its bit to place the album where it deserves. Folder printed in letterpress with lead types; Includes extensive booklet in both English and Spanish containing liner notes, lyrics, an interview with Juan F. Puerta and a text by Juan A. Arteche about of the recording of the record. Remastered at Sountess Studio in 2018 by Pablo Peiró.
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