UNTOLD FESTIVAL COMPLETES THEIR LINE UP WITH TIËSTO, THE CHAINSMOKERS, JASON DERULO AND MANY MORE
Marking the debut performance by The Chainsmokers in Romania
Untold Festival has also added Don Diablo, KSHMR, Fedde le Grand, Paul Kalkbrenner, Jamie Jones, Seth Troxler, The Glitch Mob and The Asteroids Galaxy Tour to the bill
|
|
|
On Tour With Jorja Smith
Dublin-based, multi-disciplinary artist Hilary Woods has signed to Sacred Bones Records and announced her debut solo album ‘Colt‘, which is set for release June 8th. The first single & video from the record “Inhaler” is streaming online now.
Speaking about the first track, Woods said “A response to a relenting absence that was constantly present, Inhaler is a song about homesickness, longing; an attempt to find new ways of being in the wake of separation. I directed the video and worked with friends: cinematographer and long-time collaborator Joshua Wright, and dancer/ choreographer Justine Cooper.”
Hilary Woods’ artistry is one of rare emotive reach. Her minimalist and compositional finesse combine with densely layered atmospheric instrumentation and dreamlike vocals to create music rich with both delicacy and intensity. The Sunday Times hailed her early solo recordings as “a revelation.”
After the release of two critically acclaimed EPs, Woods spent 2017 writing and recording songs on an eight-track in an abandoned flat she was living in at the time. Layering piano, synth, tape machine, field recordings, vocals, drone, unadorned beats, and old string instruments, these songs culminate in her debut solo LP Colt. Straddling the acoustic and electronic worlds, Colt is an intensely personal journey through grief, abandonment, and mutating love. Woods navigates this journey with a lyrical potency that cuts through stark piano, sensuous synth work, and textural acoustics. Somewhere between Marissa Nadler, Grouper and Julee Cruise, these songs evoke both the anguish of their content and the ecstasy of their craft.
The power at the heart of Colt is a siren’s song, at once mysterious, dark and beautiful, pulling you in. Opening song “Inhaler” is a conceptual cry for oxygen, illustrating the desolation felt in the absence of a lost lover, but the song’s velvet fluidity feels like a long, enveloping exhale. “Jesus Said” is an entrancing expression of abandonment and catharsis, seeking absolution where none can be found. Percussion is sparse and intentional throughout the record, and “Jesus Said” is one of few songs with prominent beats. When the beat finally breaks the tension of the longing introduction, it creates an intoxicating kaleidoscope of rhythm and improvised piano. Written and recorded at home in Dublin, Colt was mixed by and co-produced with James Kelly (WIFE, Altar of Plagues) in Berlin in the winter of 2017. The dynamics of the production serve to temper layers of instruments, giving the compositions breathing room to match their pacing.
Growing up in an artistic household on Dublin’s Northside, Woods studied film and literature, dropping in and out of fine art school. In 2014, she returned to music to record in whatever free space was available in and around the city. A singular vision and tenacious creativity has seen Woods cross multi-disciplinary thresholds, exploring visual and
“Colt was created as a way to process and make sense of the everyday,” Woods imparts. “As a means to speak with inner voices, explore aloneness, and understand the complexities of desire. As a vehicle for imaginative flight, as a quest for resilience and connectivity to the outside world, as a medium through which to journey into the present, to temper the mind and inhabit the body.”
Pre-order ‘Colt’ here – https://www.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FTSE – ‘PORK CHOP’
ONE OF DANCE MUSICS BIGGEST ENIGMAS IS BACK WITH NEW SINGLE ‘PORK CHOP’
OUT NOW
LABEL: ROLLER BLASTER RECORDS
After a whirlwind year in 2017, re-establishing himself as one of the most interesting characters in the industry, FTSE is back with his latest single – ‘Pork Chop’. On a mission to make people dance, it seems FTSE left very little to the imagination, with releases on two industry authorities, Rinse FM and Ministry of sound, remixing the likes of Little Mix, Kideko and Elderbrook, as well as writing and producing tracks for Mø, Peking Duk and Burna Boy.
“Pork Chop is more than just a tune, it’s state of mind… I had this beat and I knew it was special, it was basically a live MPC jam I made in half an hour but I couldn’t stop listening to it. One day I had it on and my step son said “You should call it Pork Chop” cus’ that’s what I call my daughter, and I thought it was both hilarious and brilliant… Then I had this image in my head of a character called Pork Chop, a guy with a pig’s head. it’s kinda half funny and half terrifying but I think people like that it’s weird and different.”
As his sound is ever-evolving, FTSE brings his new single ‘Pork Chop’ and as promised, it certainly is interesting; a weird and different “slice of thumping house”.
Watch the video for ‘Pork Chop’ here: https://www.youtube.com/
‘Pork Chop’ is out now on Roller Blaster Records
|
|
I’VE GOT LEVITATION DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25TH AT ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE RITZ
I’VE GOT LEVITATION – 2015 CONCERT FILM
Photo Credit: Mathieu Mardoukhaev
What is your name?
Hello, my name is Dr.Nojoke (without blank and preferably pronounced in German)
Where are you currently based and what is the music scene like there?
I´m born, raised up and still live in Berlin, a city, that is constantly changing, transforming and evolving. It is difficult to talk about a scene, because it is not coherent and split up. Sometimes it seems, that everybody is acting in its own bubble. I find it totally interesting what´s going on in the field of electro-acoustic, experimental, improvised music and performance and audiovisual art and such. The big term at the moment is “Immersion” and it excites me pretty much.
You’ve recently a new Vinyl only recording on your own label CLIKNO, what influenced the sound of this release?
Immersion is maybe the right answer here. I want that the listener gets lost in music. On my zero.one EP you find two long danceable sculptures, each about 13 minutes long. When I made these tracks my challenge was how much I can stretch musical ideas so that they start to hypnotize, until they get transcendental. The first track Copipo is about transformation meanwhile the B-side Pariko follows only one theme and is about tension and release.My influences come from contemporary art and the surroundings, where I live. But if you want musical references, that might be Romanian techno, Villalobos, Burnt Friedman, Steve Reich, bits of Jan Jelinek, Alva Noto, and my friends and colleagues here in Berlin.
Mathieu Mardoukhaev
Photo Credit: Mathieu Mardoukhaev
Where and when did you record?
The first track Copipo I recorded in 2016. I used many sounds that I collected for a theatre piece, sounds that I found and recorded in the rehearsal rooms. At home I added a kalimba, an African thumb-piano, which the melody in the second half of the track is constructed from.
The other track Pariko I did even a year earlier. The main hook is a rhythmic motif played with a muted guitar with a stereo-delay on it. I just played around with the release of the sound and a filter. All other sounds just follow and support that movement. Both tracks were worked out, arranged, mixed and produced in my home-studio.
What programs / equipment did you use?
The sounds were recorded with a binaural OKM microphone and a big-diaphragm condenser microphone, for some sounds I used only my little Yamaha Pocketrax recorder.
All were transferred to my computer and then the whole was created in Ableton Live and treated with diverse plug-in effects.
Please tell us about the concept behind your new vinyl release:
I wanted to give it a meaning. There is way too much music out there. To give it a more conceived and personal touch I came up with the idea of a transparent lay-out. Everything shines through, a bit blurry of course like a slightly transformed reality, which I like actually, but the important factor here is light, the shimmering effect and the transparency. It stands for the invisible, the untouchable and endlessness such as light, feelings, time and music – without borders or limits. I would like to see the world more equally balanced full of freedom, peace and with equal rights for everybody everywhere.
Just the label in the center of the record on the A-side holds a black & white photo of objects and instruments I am performing with plus the logo over it, which is done by my friend and member of our POOL Berlin collective Sebastian Mehl.
What is the name of your release? And where will we be able to purchase it?
The title of the EP is “zero.one”. It expresses the wish to start a new world from point zero. At the same time it is a new beginning for me. It is the first vinyl record on my label CLIKNO and my first self-produced vinyl record at all.
The record is distributed through Memoria in Holland and is available on online stores such as decks, deejay.de, triplevision, juno, technique, at selected record stores worldwide and on the label’s own bandcamp page, where there are even two special editions available, one with an A2 poster of the label artwork and the second one with an additional hand-drawing on the cover, both hand-numbered. All records come with a silver-black sticker.www.clikno.bandcamp.com
How did you first start producing dance music?
It all started for me when the Groovebox MC 303 from Roland came out – back in 1996, I guess. Before I played for more than ten years electric guitar. I got obsessed with the little electronic machine. My first self-produced CDR Die Hypnokommode was entirely made with the Groovebox (www.drnojoke.bandcamp.com). From 2002 on I explored the possibilities of software-based music, first with Propellerheads Reason. I just loved it immediately. I always dealt with the limitations of hardware instruments, what left me unsatisfied. Around January 2005 I decided to focus on danceable minimal music when I switched to Ableton Live, which is my main tool until today. Aside I still do experimental music of course.
How has the scene changed since you started?
What I can say for myself is that when I started making minimal techno it was pretty much at the end and the music industry as we knew it was changing. Luckily there was that evolving netlabel scene, which I quickly discovered and which helped me to spread my music in the first years and also luckily minimal techno was still big in Eastern Europe. But over the years it got more and more difficult to get heard so that was a good reason to start a vinyl label, something, that I haven´t tried before. Nowadays we are back to 90ies house and techno, back to the machines. Everyone discovers and celebrates the pioneers, the first retro-trend in electronic music history. Although it is important to know the references for the relevance of my music I tend to look forward or just try to live in the now for my creative momentum. As soon as an idea is worn out for me I need to go on looking for new exciting things. In Berlin the party vibe changed when party tourism and easy-jetting started off. I miss a bit that unity vibe. I mean you still can find it depending on the venue and the audience. And I love it when the crowd is a bit older and educated.
Who are you listening to at the moment?
I listen to a lot of neo-classical stuff, also drone, noise, electronica and music, which is pretty hard to categorize: Burnt Friedman, Ambiq, Klammerflimmer Kollektiv, Moritz von Oswald Trio, Dawn Of Midi, We Are We, Bing & Ruth, Hauschka, Johann Johannsson, Andrea Belfi, Samuel Rohrer, Daniel Brandt, Colin Stetson, Raime, Emptyset, Deaf Center, Ben Frost, Second Woman, Yves de Mey, Radian … and inbetween my all-time favs like Steve Reich, Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass, Tortoise, Stereolab, Jan Jelinek, Pole, Maurizio, Rhythm & Sound, Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto, SND, Pan Am, William Basinski, Tim Hecker, Oval, Neu, Can, Cluster, Edgar Varese, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Morton Subotnik, Pauline Oliveros, Zeikratzer and early Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Kraftwerk … well, I hear a lot of music to be honest. It´s a drug!
What do you have planned for 2018?
I am just about to start the production of the second EP “zero.two” on CLIKNO, which is the accompanying part to “zero.one”.Then there is a brand-new project I do with the concert pianist Jan Gerdes, which we will present sooner or later this year. We are still searching for a project-name.
I am involved in another project based on a conceptual volume of poetry called “Det” (english “it” or “that”) from the Danish writer Inger Christensen, which will be performed as a scenic reading with music. Highly recommended to read.
With the POOL Berlin group we are just launching our new platform POOL tracks this month to put out music of artists from our network and for projects such as Post_Techno, which I will curate. Post_Techno is planned as a kind of ongoing research series presenting each time four artistic positions on techno questioning innovation, retro-ism, technology, time, limitations, future, past and so on … If you are interested to participate please get in touch with me via post_techno@thepoolberlin.de. I will send you a project description.
Favourite food and place to hangout?
Oh. Hard question. At the moment I´m into fruits, salad, old cheese, Arabic and Vietnamese food, good dark bread, black tea, Turkish cookies and so onThe favourite place to hang out is at home – with friends or alone – and everywhere, where my friends are.
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
|
(Photo credit: Julien Mignot)
|
|
Phoenix will be returning to America this year with select shows throughout 2018 in support of their critically acclaimed album Ti Amo, including a newly announced residency in Los Angeles at the Fonda Theatre on September 6, 7, 10, 11, and 12. The Fonda shows follow sold out residencies in Brooklyn in July and Paris in May. The residency – which will be a very “Speciale” night with Phoenix – will feature special guests, gelato, exclusive merch items, and more. Following massive sold out LA shows at Coachella, FYF, and Hollywood Bowl over the last few years, these shows are an opportunity to say “Ti Amo!” to Phoenix in an intimate setting like no other. Tickets go on sale this Friday, March 30th.
Listen to Ti Amo HERE.
Watch the “Ti Amo Speciale” short film HERE.
Learn more about the influences for Ti Amo via All Songs Considered HERE.
Listen to the new remix of “Fior Di Latte” by A. G. Cook HERE.
Phoenix’s 2018 tour dates are:
3/27/18 Dublin, IE @ Olympia Theatre
4/21/18 Seoul, KR @ Blue Square
4/23/18 Tokyo, JP @ Toyosu Pit
4/24/18 Tokyo, JP @ Toyosu Pit
4/26/18 Osaka, JP @ Zepp Osaka Bayside
4/27/18 Taipei, TW @ Legacy Max
4/30/18 Beijing, CN @ Grammy Festival Beijing
5/25/18 London, UK @ Victoria Park
5/26/18 Paris, FR @ La Gaîté Lyrique
5/27/18 Paris, FR @ La Gaîté Lyrique
5/29/18 Paris, FR @ La Gaîté Lyrique
5/30/18 Paris, FR @ La Gaîté Lyrique
5/31/18 Paris, FR @ La Gaîté Lyrique
6/2/18 Nîmes, FR @ This Is Not A Love Song
6/13/18 Lyon, FR @ Les Nuits de Fourvière
6/15/18 Bergen, NO @ Bergenfest
6/16/18 Oslo, NO @ Piknik I Parken
7/3/18 Boston, MA @ House of Blues
7/5/18 Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
7/6/18 Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
7/7/18 Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
7/9/18 Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
7/10/18 Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
7/12/18 Quebec, CAN @ Festival d’été de Québec
7/21/18 Biarritz, FR @ Biarritz En Eté Festival
7/26/18 Madrid, SP @ Noches del Botanico
7/27-29/18 Benidorm, SP @ Low Festival
8/19/18 Saint Malo, FR @ La Route Du Rock Festival
8/24/18 Le Touquet, FR @ Touquet Music Beach Festival
8/25/18 Charleville-Mézières, FR @ Cabaret Vert Festival
9/6/18 Los Angeles, CA @ Fonda Theatre
9/7/18 Los Angeles, CA @ Fonda Theatre
9/10/18 Los Angeles, CA @ Fonda Theatre
9/11/8 Los Angeles, CA @ Fonda Theatre
9/12/18 Los Angeles, CA @ Fonda Theatre
9/14-16/18 Denver, CO @ Grandoozy
|
Andre Crom has made a name for himself in house and techno grounds in recent years, spending time in the studio and on stage while cultivating OFF Recordings. His techno side allows him to create with a lot of depth and meaning to each track he produces, something reflected in his upcoming release Mind Control, which is his second EP for Hans Bouffmyhre‘s Sleaze Records.
This four-track journey opens your mind into the direction Crom is taking with his music, it is both otherworldly and focused.
The EP opens with Mind Control which is transient in nature and we see this throughout the EP. The steady beat is accompanied by loops of lyrical pockets that are quite hypnotic and translucent.
Brazilian Wehbba got invited to remix the title track which is steeped in rhythmic expeditions to get the body moving and is an ode to the original track in which you see Crom’s signature style.
Dione follows, with a deeper beat that dynamically flows in and out of the track and as the track builds, it becomes less uniform than it starts off, which keeps the listener interested. The high hat and un-steady rhythm section builds into a flourishing electronic trip. With elements of the track leaving and returning at different stages.
The last track eases us into a trance with its arpeggiated synths, enveloping us in an otherworldly feeling. Aptly, it is entitled Saturn. Apart from a few well timed breathers, this dominant close to the EP rhythmically powers through until the end of the track.
Sleaze Records is releasing this Mind Control by Andre Crom on the 16th of April.
