Another dose of whirring rhythms and dark drones courtesy of Stefan Schneider and Sven Kacirek. This time around they have introduced the beguiling tones of Swedish singer Sofia Jernberg on three pieces, taking their music to a new level.Since their debut release, they have toured extensively with the likes of John McEntire (Tortoise, The Sea and Cake).A fascination with repetitive rhythm is the common thread which runs through the musical development of both musicians: listen to Stefan Schneider in his other projects, the bands Kreidler and To Rococo Rot and his albums with Hans-Joachim Roedelius. Further evidence can be heard on Kacirek's solo albums, in particular on his much-lauded "Kenya Sessions". 

Music from the "Rauhnächte" - DIE WILDE JAGD go hunting in the thicket of Neo-Krautrock, Electronica and Synthpop.

Every year anew, during the Rauhnächte (those harsh nights between Christmas and Twelfth Day), the Wild Hunt (Die Wilde Jagd) rides across the country: raucous, jeering hunters from the nether world, whose path it is better not to cross. This is an ancient Germanic myth, which, in slightly varied form, is known in many parts of Europe and whose name Ralf Beck and Sebastian Lee Philipp have aptly chosen for their new project. The two first met in 2006 in Düsseldorf's Salon des Amateurs , a meeting place for new and established experimental musicians and artists, also known as Germany's "postpunk Hacienda". It seems no coincidence that Düsseldorf is the duo's founding city: their music is full of subtle references to local acts, such as Kraftwerk, NEU!, DAF, Liaisons Dangereuses, Pyrolator, the Krupps and Propaganda. Since their first meeting, Beck and Philipp regularly come together during the time of the Rauhnächte to record in Beck's well-equipped studio. Using the numerous analog keyboards and recording devices assembled there, and combining them with a diverse range of percussion instruments, they create their own "hunting music", which at times sounds unsettling, like swampland or a dark forest, but also urgent and pressing, like incandescent lasers or a hypnotic dance. Their soundscape is marked by repetitive guitar loops, electronic percussion, drums and synthesizers. Booming tom-toms and medieval-sounding flutes herald the start of the hunt. Whispering, reciting voices conjure up the spirits of the woods, while synthetic sounds, melodies and noises flit about before they are re-captured, structured and grounded by crystalline beats and pulsating bass lines.

About the musicians: Ralf Beck is a musician and producer from Düsseldorf. He has released several albums as part of the duo Nalin & Kane, as well as under the name Unit 4. He collects old synthesizers and effect pedals and has already worked together with Karl Bartos. In his studio Uhrwald Orange he has recorded music by Propaganda, Kreidler, Black Devil Disco and many more.

Sebastian Lee Philipp is part of the Berlin-based electro-wave duo Noblesse Oblige and composes music for theatre and radio plays. Between 2001 and 2006 he lived in London where he ran the club night "Caligula" and performed as a DJ.

TRACK LISTING

1 Wah Wah Wallenstein (7:46)
2 Austerlitz (7:24)
3 Torpedovogel (3:59)
4 Durch Dunkle Tannen (4:56)
5 Der Elektrische Reiter (6:45)
6 Morgenrot (6:27)
7 Jagd Auf Den Hirsch (7:25)
8 Der Meister (4:18)

Hamburg’s kosmische custodians at Bureau B proudly welcome legendary synth maestro Peter Baumann back into the studio for his first solo album since Machines Of Desire (2016). A defining force in the Berlin School of electronic music, both as a member of Tangerine Dream in their most essential era, and as a solo artist, Baumann has always bridged the cerebral and the cinematic.

With Nightfall, he embarks on another sonic odyssey, crafting an atmospheric album steeped in mystery and evocative storytelling. Baumann’s artistic vision has long been shaped by his exploration of the human condition. From his pioneering work with Tangerine Dream to his influential New Age imprint, Private Music, and his philosophical pursuits through the Baumann Foundation, his creativity and curiosity remain undiminished.

Nightfall is the latest chapter in his five-decade journey - a deeply emotional album that embraces impermanence to transport the listener into a series of shapeshifting soundscapes.

"The cover of Nightfall shows an imprint on a sand dune, symbolising the fleeting nature of our lives, our experiences, our existence," Baumann explains. "The track titles, as with much of my work, reflect the ephemeral, ungraspable nature of our existence."

The misty melancholia of opener "No One Knows" pairs hypnotic woodblock rhythms with desert guitars, while "Lost In A Pale Blue Sky" floats through celestial choirs and rolling timpani, evoking dreamlike introspection. Elsewhere, "On The Long Road" pulses with insect-like percussion and serrated synth tones, exuding a ritualistic energy. Tracks like "A World Apart" and "From A Far Land" build tension through cascading melodies and rhythmic precision, evoking distant horizons and uncharted territories. "Sailing Past Midnight" melds bass mallets with feedback-laden synths, conjuring a sense of movement and urgency, while "I'm Sitting Here, Just For A While" layers snaking saxophones and hand percussion into a mystical, arcane soundscape. The album closes with the title track, "Nightfall", a deeply atmospheric piece wrapped in choral textures and shadowy undertones.

"I love instrumental music because it bypasses any concepts, it is an expression that words can never capture," Baumann reflects. "We can’t hear music exactly the same way twice, it’s always experienced differently, sometime slightly sometimes substantially. Like a river, never exactly the same."

From the very beginnings of his career, Peter Baumann has infused his work with a sense of the beyond and Nightfall is no exception. Each track invites the listener to interpret, to feel, and to immerse themselves in its crepuscular beauty. “

For the better part of five decades in every music project I was involved in, I aimed to infuse it with a transcendent quality." Baumann states.

With Nightfall, the composer has created a shimmering doorway, just waiting for you to step through.

TRACK LISTING

A1 No One Knows
A2 Lost In A Pale Blue Sky
A3 On The Long Road
A4 A World Apart
B1 From A Far Land
B2 Sailing Past Midnight
B3 I'm Sitting Here, Just For A While
B4 Nightfall

Agree to disagree: A selected Krautrock discography

Krautrock, what is it anyway? A genre, a derogative term, a song by Faust, … or: a welcome (and recurring) opportunity to talk about all of this. The music associated with the term in question has eagerly been canonized. From the enthusiastic and idiosyncratic ramblings of Julian Cope’s 'Krautrocksampler' to encyclopaedic approaches like Alan and Stephen Freeman’s 'Crack in the Cosmic Egg', there are plenty of books to read and lists to discuss: Who’s in, who isn’t? The quarrels and disputes surrounding the terms "Krautrock" and "Kosmische Musik" are a testament to their enduring relevance and fascination. I won’t get into the weeds discussing how to separate one from the other – for all those who do want to, the book 'Krautrock Eruption' by Wolfgang Seidel addresses some of those questions. In this book, you will find an annotated discography of fifty albums. Out of these fifty, we are presenting an even narrower selection of tracks from twelve albums on this compilation. Lists and compilation track listings inevitably see tracks missing and being left out. In our case, the compilation was produced in cooperation with the label Bureau B and therefore has a partial focus on some of their back catalogue. That said, the list is meant to inspire repeated or further listening, to spark discussions and – potentially – to provoke new lists, perhaps your own! It’s all part of the fun. Music is made for enjoyment in the first and for friendly debate in the second place, after all.

TRACK LISTING

1. Conrad Schnitzler - Ballet Statique
2. Faust - I’ve Heard That One Before/Watch Your Step
3. Eno Moebius Roedelius - Foreign Affairs
4. Harald Grosskopf - Emphasis
5. Cluster - 21:32 (bureau B Edit)
6. Moebius & Plank - Rastakraut Pasta
7. Roedelius - Glaubersalz
8. Pyrolator - Minimal Tape 3/7.2
9. Riechmann - Himmelblau (bureau B Edit)
10. Kluster - Kluster 2 (Electric Music) (bureau B Edit)
11. Günter Schickert - Apricot Brandy II (bureau B Edit)
12. Asmus Tietchens - Falter-Lamento

Conrad Schnitzler (1937–2011), composer and concept artist, is one of the most important representatives of Germany’s electronic music avant-garde. A student of Beuys, he founded Berlin’s legendary Zodiak Free Arts Lab, a subculture club, in 1967/68, was a member of Tangerine Dream (together with Klaus Schulze and Edgar Froese) and Kluster (with Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius) and also released countless solo albums. The yellow album appeared in 1981, yet it contained recordings from the year 1974, originally released in a limited run on cassette.

Exactly 50 years after its original release, "Samtvogel" has returned. Günter Schickert used only guitars, echo devices and a modest recording technique for "Samtvogel". The album is a genuine DIY production – radical in every respect and not at all in keeping with the zeitgeist of the time. "Samtvogel" is a particularly important album because it makes it clear what was musically possible in the 70s. There is no doubt that the album is extreme, even though it is of high quality musically and technically. Schickert initially self-released "Samtvogel" in 1974 in an edition of 500 copies.

Area Silenzio is eat-girls' debut record and it is both haunted and haunting. For the past four years, the French trio have been crafting their songs into little self-contained worlds with the patience of entomologists, taking them out all over the country and Europe to confront them with the wilderness of a live audience. The ten resulting tracks are a collection of electronic madrigals, groove-driven songs played on a mischievous multi-speed Victrola, ranging from languid dub drips to full-on drum machine cavalcades. Part no-wave disco rhythms, part post-punk throbbing basses, folk tunes and synthesizers in equal measures, with a perpetual attention to hooks and melodies.

Forty years since their inception, and almost two decades since their last release, art-synth auteurs Propaganda return with a brand new chapter in their enthralling story. This self-titled set from principal songwriting partnership Ralf Dörper and Michael Mertens embodies the depth and drama of their early work, while exploring fresh sounds and styles, and reflecting the personal and societal changes since their last outing. Conceived and crafted entirely in their native Düsseldorf, a deliberate decision to help them stay true to themselves, and featuring guest appearances from the acclaimed Hauschka and ascendant Thunder Bae, this is Propaganda at their most essential.

Though an embryonic incarnation was formed by Ralf Dörper, former synthesist with electro-punks Die Krupps, and Andreas Thein in 1982, it wasn’t until the addition of Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra percussionist Michael Mertens that the outfit emerged as the dark synth-pop powerhouse which would see chart success as part of the ZTT machine. Upon signing with Trevor Horn’s irreverent imprint in 1983, Propaganda, now comprised of vocalists Claudia Bruecken and Susanne Freytag alongside Dörper and Mertens, delivered their classic debut LP A Secret Wish and a slew of international hit singles, “Dr Mabuse”, “Duel” and “P Machinery”, leaving an indelible mark on the alternative scene and securing an enduring place within the pantheon of synth-dance greats. After a late 80s hiatus spent escaping their unfavourable contracts, during which the singers went their separate ways, the project returned on Virgin in 1990, with a new line-up, including Betsi Miller on vocals and former Simple Minds rhythm section Derek Forbes and Brian McGee. Working alongside producers Ian Stanley and Chris Hughes, the ensemble delivered the smoother sophomore offering 1234, featuring collaborations with the likes of Howard Jones and David Gilmour. After which our protagonists pressed pause and pursued separate goals, Dörper resurrecting Die Krupps and Mertens moving into TV and Film composition and providing a conduit for Düsseldorf’s experimental electronic scene via his Amontillado Music label. The intervening decades passed with the persistent rumble of reunion from outside voices, but it was a 2015 remix request from Zang Tumb Tuum chum and former Frankie Goes To Hollywood frontman Holly Johnson which finally prompted the pair to reconvene behind the console. The success of those sessions behind them, Dörper and Mertens began to consider what the Propaganda of the present would be. A lot had changed since 1990 – they had changed since 1990, and a new incarnation of the project would have to reflect that. So they waved goodbye to the Pop-aganda of the past, left the clubs to the kids, and pressed forward with complete creative freedom. The result is the immersive, emotive tour de force Propaganda.

At once sleek, sensual and cerebral, album opener “They Call Me Nocebo” is the perfect introduction to their sonic evolution. This taut and toxic love/lust song is imbued with the nocturnal mood of vintage Propaganda but expresses itself within the context of the IDM and electronic sounds reverberating through the 21st Century. “Purveyor Of Pleasure” provides the perfect foil, as a rhythm section of infectious synth drums and swelling bass recalls the dance floor preoccupations of the past, but sates itself with a supporting rolehere, allowing the widescreen chord progressions and Thunder Bae’s expressive vocals to take centre stage. Their lyrical lineage of subversive subject matter remains intact, but these meditations on sex and sin contain seasoned self-reflection. The operatic inflections and cinematic grandeur of “Vicious Circle” (emphatically reworked from its 1234 origin), “Love:Craft” (with its lyrical homage to the American master of cosmic horror) and neo-classical instrumental “Dystopian Waltz”, attest to Propaganda’s perennial penchant for the dramatic, now enriched through Mertens’ subsequent soundtrack work into searing, swooning heights. Elsewhere, “Tipping Point” offers an ecological poem set to the trancelike chug of swirling arpeggiators, and “Distant” dissects loneliness and isolation, particularly poignant after the shared experience of lockdown. The beautifully gothic “Wenn Ich Mir Was Wuenschen Duerfte” closes both the album and a loop, its English translation “If I Had A Wish” harking back to the title of their debut album, while the song itself continues the exploration of new sonic territories. A German standard from the thirties, written by Friedrich Hollaender and popularised by Marlene Dietrich’s 1960 recording, the song presents sadness as political strength, and remains as pertinent and powerful now as it ever has. This rich and textured rendition, featuring haunting prepared piano from Hauschka, a long-time musical acquaintance of Mertens’ and now AcademyAward winner, is a fitting finale to this powerful album. And make no mistake, this is an album. In an era of impermanence, Propaganda wanted to produce something real - to be played from start to finish, with artwork and packaging which allows a deeper understanding of the theme of the release. Finding the perfect label to match their ambitions in Bureau B, Propaganda have delivered a third album well worth the wait.

TRACK LISTING

LP (Black/Yellow LP/CD)
A1) They Call Me Nocebo
A2) Purveyor Of Pleasure
A3) Vicious Circle
A4) Tipping Point
B1) Distant
B2) Love:Craft
B3) Dystopian Waltz
B4) Wenn Ich Mir Was Wünschen Dürfte

Tracks On LP2/CD2
C1) Not Good For You
C2) Solace In Sin
C3) World Out Of Joint
D1) I Feel Mysterious
D2) The Calling

After dipping into the archive to deliver a series of essential reissues, Bureau B continue to encourage the chaotic brilliance of Faust with an LP of brand new music curated by originator Zappi Diermaier and a band of musical friends, including fellow founder Gunther Wüsthoff. Over the years Faust has become many things, each as separate as the fingers, but as together as the hand which makes up their eponymous fist. From 1971 to 1974 the Hamburg band blazed a bold sonic trail, helping to create the distinct and delirious strand of German music we've come to know as Krautrock. Uncompromising, innovative and experimental, their releases in that period, and the stories accompanying their creation, are nothing short of legendary, and the fact that after a hiatus, the band returned and remained active in a variety of separate and simultaneous incarnations is entirely fitting for these musical revolutionaries. On Blickwinkel, Diermaier's incarnation embrace synchronicity and chance in order to capture the moment in a six track snapshot of industrial churn, unsettling ambience and psychedelic motorik.

Sonically and politically, Blickwinkel is a profoundly Faustian venture, a communal project based on democratic ideals which eschews external influences to create something entirely out on its own. As with the previous LP, Daumenbruch, the journey started with Zappi behind a drum kit at the home studio of his neighbour Dirk Dresselhaus AKA Schneider TM (bass), alongside electronics whizz Elke Drapatz (drum effects). The trio embarked on a session of instant composition, playing wordlessly with a deep empathy to each other as well as the energy in the room. While the Daumenbruch session, which took place in the midst of lockdown, delivered three long-form pieces, this two hour spell served up six diverse tracks, an audio analogue for the speed of life post-lockdown. These considered and complex creations, as far from simple jams as it gets, were mixed by Dirk in a third hour, and then sent off to a varied cast of collaborators, each adding their overdubs independently with no knowledge of what the others were doing.

These contributions came via a multidisciplinary melange of approaches and instruments including Gunther Wusthoff's Spieluhr (a sequencer unit he built for his ARP synth back in the early 1970s) and Andrew Unruh's percussive objects; the guitar, kalimba and harmonium of Jochen Arbeit (all twisted through an fx unit, naturally) and Sonja Kosche's inventive use of a harp fashioned out of the wires of a bed and a ventilator. Drones, delays, clatter and clang came from all corners - in fact, only Uwe Bastiansen (Stadtfisch) added melodies, lending long distance support to Dirk Dresselhaus' insistent bass sequences, and channeling the magic of their moment into potent pagan tonalities. Despite their differing practices and processes, these musicians all have a long history together, and their free association produced unexpected outcomes which were embraced by Zappi and Dirk when it came to reassemblage. Dismissing veto power as the height of neo-liberal bullshit, they chose to keep more or less all the overdubs on the album, harnessing the power of arrangement and the mixing desk to fuse all these assorted elements into the impactful entities you hear on Blickwinkel.

The result is a shapeshifter, at times commune friendly psychedelia, then grinding industrial, eerie ambient or driving motorik, but always refusing easy categorisation. The stylistic definitions are constantly disrupted by unexpected guests - baroque strings, impish horns, found sound breakdowns, or else mind melting phasing and flanging - each offering a new combination on this

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: You know you're always in for a winner with a Bureau B release, and this time sees the turn of legendary Krautrockers, Faust. Zappi Diermaier and a host of collaborators smash through a selection of wild psychedelic grooves and insistent hypnotic jangles. Brilliantly done, as ever.

TRACK LISTING

A1 For Schlaghammer
A2 Künstliche Intelligenz
A3 Sunny Night
B1 Kriminelle Kur
B2 Die 5. Revolution
B3 Kratie

"A positive sonic chocolate box".
With Sähkömies, Jimi Tenor released his legendary solo debut in 1994 on Puu, a spin-off of the Finnish label Sähkö Recordings founded by Tommi Grönlund and Mika Vainio in 1993. Recorded in Tenor's former home in New York, the album offers a previously unheard mixture of drum machine driven, electronic sounds and Sun Ra-inspired jazz. Written, recorded and produced entirely by Tenor in his apartment, the pieces have lost none of their spontaneous, roughcast charm to this day.

TRACK LISTING

Theme Sax
Crazy Hammond
Union Ave
Take Me Baby
Matti B
Teräsmies
Voimamies
Travelin Dem Spaceways

In the beginning. Martin Rev's eponymous debut solo record was released in 1980, not long after the second Suicide LP appeared. It is one of the most seminal albums to have emerged in the early years of electronic music.

Musician and writer Karl Bartos has long been admirer of Weimar-era culture. During his time in Kraftwerk, he helped create the stunning track 'Metropolis', directly inspired by a band viewing of the classic 1927 Fritz Lang film of the same name.

The original orchestral music composed for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by Giuseppe Becce had long been lost and in 2005, after watching the film, Bartos imagined what it would be like to create an entirely new one in the 21st Century in his home studios in Hamburg. Now with crystal clear images, digitally restored by the Friedrich-Wilhelm -Murnau-Foundation, the film is visually the best quality it has ever been, and now, with Bartos' soundtrack, there is impressive sound to go with the haunting vision. Narrative film music and sound design for Robert Wiene's classic 1920 psychological thriller.

For the task, Bartos ransacked his own library of musical compositions, recreating pieces he had written as a young classical musician in his pre-Kraftwerk days whilst creating new sounds, melodies and textures. The intention was not simply to write a film score per se. This was to be an immersive listening experience with special sound effects to match the action as we enter the film as both spectator and participant. A creaking door, footsteps on gravel, the turning of pages in a ledger, a half-heard fragment of dialogue are seamlessly synchronised to the action on screen. By taking the characteristics of Expressionism in the arts, and transferring them into film making, a disturbing, distorted depiction of reality enwrapped and entrapped the viewer.

The subjective replaces the objective. We are sucked into a parallel world lit in menacing chiaroscuro, where dimension, proportion and perspective are all off skew. From the convex polygon-shaped windows of precipitously sharp-inclined buildings to the surreally odd tables and chairs with long spindly legs to be found in preposterously small and oddly shaped rooms, alienating camera angles and impossible vanishing points, the town of Holstenwall in which much of the action takes place, is the world of the imagination, not the empirical world of our own eyes and ears. 'The cinema image must become an engraving,' the film's set designer Hermann Warm said. We can hear melodies that lie within the tradition of the Baroque Age of Bach, the early Romanticism of Mozart, the dissonance of Schoenberg, the unsettling metric play of Stravinsky and the harshly dramatic repetitions of Philip Glass.

From outside of the classical tradition there is the folklorist bricolage of the fair- ground barrel organ tempered playfully by some psychedelic backwards musique concrete along with some melodies which would not have been out of place on a Kraftwerk album from the classic era. All the time the listener is on a journey, sounds move in and out, music weaves and entwines, the soundscape is immersive and intoxicatingly rich. It is music which is, by turns, beautiful, amusing, playful and profoundly dis- quieting and it is perfect fit for the aesthetic of era-jumping in the actual film. Dr. Caligari's action switches from the then present day to the past century and even further back before rebooting back to the imagined present. 'There's something about this film. No matter how often you watch it, it keeps its secrets. Who is mad and who is not always remains a question of interpretation,' says Bartos. The film remains an enigma, but now one with the soundtrack and soundscape it deserves.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's a classic format isn't it, wise synth maestro crafts found-sound collage (in this instance it's his own 'lost sounds' that got 'found'), over classic psychological thriller. It's on Bureau B, and Karl Bartos and it's an absorbing and beautifully crafted listen. What's not to love.

TRACK LISTING

1. Prologue
2. Scary Memories
3. Atonal Floating
4. Full Of Life
5. In The Town Hall
6. At The Funfair
7. A Mysterious Crime
8. At The Funfair 2
9. The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari
10. Jane's Theme
11. March Grotesque 2
12. Janeâs Theme 2
13. Shadows
14. Tragic Message
15. Suspicion
16. Tragic Message 2
17. The Plan
18. A Dark Figure
19. Caligari's Theme
20. Arrest Of The Suspect
21. Caligari's Theme 2
22. Worried Jane
23. Interrogation
24. Jane's Fear
25. Francis's Observation
26. Cesare's Attack And Escape
27. Safe And Sound
28. Francis At A Loss
29. Caligari's Deception
30. Lunatic Asylum
31. In Search Of The Truth
32. Out In The Field
33. The Director Rants And Rages
34. Scary Memories 2
35. Who's Mad Here?
36. Francis Rants And Rages
37. Epilogue

Kreidler's seventh long-playing record for Bureau B is an affair of electronic pop music nurtured in now-clubs and rooted in Rhenish kraut, British post-punk (with a touch of NYC and Brussels) and international polyrhythm. In the 30th year of the band's history, on Twists (a visitor arrives) "Düsseldorf's second most famous band" (Boomkat) collaborated on four of the nine tracks with guests Khan Of Finland, Maxim Bosch, Natalie Beridze and Timuçin Dündar. They left the cover design in the hands of Fette Sans.

Welcome to Kreidler's postpostpostpostpostpostpostpostmodern album!

The band has been around for 30 years now. And I've gotten into the habit of synchronizing the phases of my life with the respective current Kreidler album. It’s a game I've come up with – my checkup: I listen. And this listening does something to me. And there I have to name this something, I have to mark it, find words. Then I treat the record like a symphony. And I envy Thomas Klein, Alex Paulick and Andreas Reihse, because they can tell stories with music even without stories – unlike in my profession of filmmaking, where it's always about stories for the story. So here I write my libretto for an album that probably wanted to tell something else. Because what Kreidler had in mind, I don't know. Kreidler don't know it either. There's nothing to guess, it's about giving another life to something inside you and this other will be a completely different child. And that is the most beautiful sign that something is interesting and exciting. I don't know anything about the source of this music, but I can check how my perception is to the perceptions of the band that translated it into the medium of music.

(Zaza Rusadze)
+ Zaza Rusadze is a renowned director and filmmaker who also works in theater. In 2020, together with Andreas Reihse, he won the MUVI Award for Best German Music Videoat the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen for directing the video Kreidler – Eurydike +

TRACK LISTING

01. Polaris
02. Tanger Telex
03. Diver
04. Loisaida Sisters
05. Arithmétique
06. Hands
07. Hopscotch
08. Mount Mason
09. Kandili

Holger Hiller presented his solo debut having left Palais Schaumburg. Originally released in 1983 on the Düsseldorf scene label Ata Tak, an international release followed in 1984 via Cherry Red Records. Combining electronic sequencer sounds and sampling fragments with unconventional lyrics its multidisciplinary approach locates it somewhere between the pop and avant-garde. Bureau B is now making the work accessible again on its 40th anniversary.

The archetypal Martin Rev sound – a perennial influence on generations of musicians – is most prominently in evidence in the works of Suicide, the duo he played in across the decades with Alan Vega. However, the radical and distinctive nature of his music can be traced further back in time, originating in the base energy of rock’n’roll which the teenage Rev experienced as the ubiquitous soundtrack to his home city of New York.

Rev initially explored free jazz and similarly free forms of musical expression before discovering the magnetic attraction of electronic production and instrumentation, enabling him to create music in a wholly independent and autonomous environment. Using the most rudimentary equipment, he grafted the roots of rock’n’roll into the process of combining effects and devices to generate electrified sounds, the likes of which had never been heard before. This music would map out the way forward not only for Suicide, but also for a fascinating solo career.

Martin Rev’s predilection for experimentation knew no bounds. At home, he played around with rough ideas, trying out all manner of variations and colorations. These tape recordings provide a captivating insight into his modus operandi, often representing the early stages of what would later become Suicide tracks or cuts on Rev’s solo albums.

Spanning the period 1973 to 1985, the recordings on "The Sum of Our Wounds" are much more than a collection of demos and outtakes. One has the sense of listening to a rounded album of familiar compositions, now portrayed in a completely new light. The brittle fragility of these cassette pieces reveals a deep-lying sensitivity, like a collection of wounds.

Martin Rev himself remains as transfixed as ever by these recordings, as if he could immediately pick up where he left off and continue to expand on the ideas that came to him decades ago: »They often have a certain freshness or unpolished energy here... and (there is) always scope for new ideas, to be derived from them as a whole or even in small areas.«

The cassette medium proves to be more than a means to an end – the tape recorder itself has a role to play as an instrument, the ideal basis for an artist who understands how to condense an idea into its fundamental elements: »The cassette sound, with its individual peculiarities, many even thought of in terms of inferior sound, can have an interesting dynamic. Maybe especially in certain minimal contexts when they are not being overloaded. Although they often seem to take on a lot of texture as well and with a warm response.«

And so these snapshots can be seen as stages of a ceaseless evolution, one we are allowed to witness as we sit alongside Martin Rev at the tape deck, listening as he captures the sounds of the unquiet city. - Daniel Jahn, June 2023

TRACK LISTING

01. Yearning
02. Dreams
03. Skateboard
04. Laredo
05. Zeitpunkt
06. Rio Grande
07. Baby O Baby (Mix)
08. Abracadabra
09. Lineup
10. El Barrio
11. She's Back
12. Temptation (Mix)
13. Asia (Mix)
14. Around The Corner
15. Mari (Mix)
16. Whisper (Vocal)

Over the last ten years a strange mycelium was sprouting from the ground of Germany’s sound topography, going widely unnoticed while creeping its way up through the copse of the ubiquitous “Neo-Kraut”, “Diskurs-Pop” and the like. We’re talking about a small underground network of artists and projects with poetic, mysterious names such as Brannten Schnüre, Baldruin, Kirschstein, Freundliche Kreisel and Balint Brösel. Operating in the margins and intersections of folklore, experimental electronics, dreams and nightmares, the “Gespensterland” LP archives and compiles their magic works for the very first time and already today it stands as a contemporary testament with an auratic presence comparable to that of Pordenone’s “Great Complotto”.

This compilation represents an initial – and long overdue – foray into the years 1980 - 82, when KLAR! 80 was a cassette label, paired with a shop of the same name in Düsseldorf. Founded by Rainer Rabowski, KLAR!80 released 18 cassettes of varying length and a box set containing three 12” vinyl Eps which fetch handsome prices among collectors nowadays.The KLAR!80 - Ein Kassettenlabel aus Düsseldorf 1980-1982 collection reaches even further back in time than the SAMMLUNG - Düsseldorfer Kassettenmusik 1982-1989 (BB236/2017) collection, similarly curated by Stefan Schneider, which focused on the mid-1980s Düsseldorf cassette scene. It captures the brief period between the end of punk and the looming capitalisation and digitalisation of so many aspects of life.

Welcome to Silberland - where the streets are paved with strobes. Home to neon lights, straight lines and open roads, this futurist fantasy was first founded in the mid-seventies, when Germany’s creative class chose musical therapy in order to indulge their shared hallucination of a new Europe. Fuelled by the catalytic fusion of globalisation and new technology, the world was turning ever faster and the kosmische generation were ready to keep the pace. With synthesisers, rhythm computers and human metronomes turned to a gallop, these electronic innovators set modernity to a motorik beat, and Bureau B’s second trip into Silberland cuts right to the thrust of the genre.

The set begins with the propulsive opener from Harald Grosskopf’s 1986 LP Oceanheart, in which pristine sequences play in counterpoint atop a mechanical kick, hurtling forward until the rest of the kit catches up. Live drums take centre stage for Cluster’s feverish “Prothese” and the time travelling “Elektroklang” by Conrad Schnitzler, which foreshadows industrial and techno innovations while maintaining a primal punch. You offer astral ascension on “Son Of A True Star”, weaving proggy square waves and pulsating arps around an irresistible shuffle from mysterious percussionist Lhan Gopal (Grosskopf in disguise), before the optimistic “Für Dich” fuses classic kosmische chords with Thomas Dinger’s pummelling beat. Asmus Tietchens’ detuned keys and drum machine samba are imbued with a punk spirit shared by Moebius Plank Neumeier’s discordant jazz-tanz jam “Search Zero”. “Beat For Ikutaro”, plucked from a mid 80s demo tape by Camouflage keyboardist Heiko Maile, swerves into icy electroid territories where moonlit melodies ride robotic riffs and a whirring low end. The cassette energy continues with the mechanised boogie of Lapre’s “Flokati”, a funkier take on the style in wonderful contrast with Adelbert Von Deyen’s breakneck, straight shooting “Time Machine”, a massively motorik night drive down the A7 which finally runs out of gas at the compilation’s midpoint. Günter Schickert takes us inside the fuel pump on the weird and watery “Puls”, while the charmingly disruptive Faust complete the pitstop via the blasted blues of “Juggernaut”, a fuzzbox stampede which builds from ratchet whirrs to a V8 purr in no time at all. Moebius & Plank return sans Neumeier for the deep and dubby “Feedback 66”, all murmured vocals and surging pedals powered by a seismic bassline from Holger Czukay, whose collaborations recur throughout the duo’s 1980 classic Rastakraut Pasta. Wheels spun and rubber burned, we move up through the gears via the airy tones of Roedelius to arrive at the high tension electronics of Serge Blenner’s “Phonique”, an anxious amalgam of insistent percussion and agitated sequences from the French import’s 1981 release. Moebius & Beerbohm’s “Subito” follows in a flurry of tribal drumming, guttural distortion and corrosive drone, a synthesised translation of punk spirit which mellows into the soft focus serenade of Tyndall’s “Wolkenlos”, a thrilling contradiction of pastoral motifs and breathless tempo. Pyrolator’s 1981 creation “180°” maintains the lightening pace, lurching forward in bursts of chaotic drum programming and sampler abuse, sending us spinning out into the strange beauty of Die Partei’s “Guten Morgen In Köln”. Enmeshing fragments of musique concrète and yearning guitar with throbbing sequences and a rigid rhythm grid, the duo signpost a melodic destination finally delivered by Streetmark keyboardist Dorothea Raukes under her Deutsche Wertabeit alias. A fitting finale, “Auf Engelsflügeln” radiates human warmth and cosmic wonder, serving electronic emotion from start to finish.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Bureau B are one of the greatest labels in the game, and responsible for some of the greatest records in electronic music history, so when they bring you a compilation, you listen. Every bit as brilliant as you'd expect, this is a beautifully curated and perfectly paced cosmic synth tome.

TRACK LISTING

01. Harald Grosskopf - Eve On The Hill (bureau B Edit)
02. Cluster - Prothese
03. Conrad Schnitzler - Elektroklang
04. You - Son Of A True Star (bureau B Edit)
05. Thomas Dinger - Für Dich (bureau B Edit)
06. Asmus Tietchens - Bockwurst á La Maîtresse
07. Moebius Plank Neumeier - Search Zero (bureau B Edit)
08. Heiko Maile - Beat For Ikutaro (Tape 52) (bureau B Edit)
09. Lapre - Flokati (bureau B Edit)
10. Adelbert Von Deyen - Time Machine
11. Günter Schickert - Puls (bureau B Edit)
12. Faust - Juggernaut
13. Moebius & Plank - Feedback 66 (bureau B Edit)
14. Roedelius - Band 068 3 Bock Auf Rock (nicht Verwendetes Stück)
15. Serge Blenner - Phonique
16. Moebius & Beerbohm - Subito
17. Tyndall - Wolkenlos (bureau B Edit)
18. Pyrolator - 180°
19. Die Partei - Guten Morgen In Köln
20. Deutsche Wertarbeit - Auf Engelsflügeln (bureau B Edit)

Gegenwelt (Parallel World) is the second LP by CEL, a duo Kubin and Zemler formed. More melodically evolved than their eponymous 2020 debut, it is an even more explicit example of the syncretic impulse that impelled these guys to form the band. Their basic notion was to explore the juncture between two streams of German underground sounds -- the Motorik 4/4 rhythms first posited by Can's Jaki Liebezeit and Kraftwerk's Klaus Dinger, and the sequencer-driven brain loops of early, experimental pioneers of the NDW, such as der Plan.

After a period of distance Station 17 just wanted to stand in a room together again and make some music, so they drove out of Hamburg to a remote site in the hills of the Hohe Geest in Schleswig-Holstein and played some new song sketches together – all day and late into the night. Afterwards they wanted to play the results live at a concert in Fabrik, a venue in Hamburg.

No one in the band expected that the sessions would result in an entire album, but the music told them once again: what had been created here in the radiance of the moment could not be reproduced. A moment of happiness for the band collective. "Oui Bitte", Station 17’s 11th album had been born – quite unexpectedly, between pool and trout pond

Konzert in der Erlöserkirche, Ost-Berlin, 3.9.1986 In 1982 Schnitzler had already met the New York musician Ken Gen Montgomery, who then regularly performed Schnitzlers' compositions live at various venues worldwide. And so Schnitzler also produced 4 cassettes especially for his concert in East Berlin, which were sent by courier from West to East Berlin. On the evening of 3.9.1986, the privately announced and illegal concert took place in the Erlöserkirche in East Berlin/GDR. Montgomery mixed Schnitzler's music live from the tapes. The elaborately restored original recording is now being released for the first time on LP and CD.

Renowned acid cosmologist Johannes Auvinen, best known by his alias Tin Man, leaves the club floor behind for a full-length kosmische excursion on Bureau B. Since his first Tin Man records nearly 20 years ago, Auvinen has impelled acid—in the grand tradition of Phuture and co.—into shapes and forms heretofore uncharted. He does it again on his latest, "Arles," exploring a new realm of impressionistic beauty where pristine, heartfelt melodies dance delicately atop austere motorik rhythms. It's a trip you'll want to take again and again.

Originally part of 2021’s Faust Box Set release commemorating the bands 50th anniversary Momentaufnahme I and II are now set for their own stand alone release by popular demand. This is for all those that missed out on the limited edition box set release. They collect together music recorded at the band's studio - a converted schoolhouse in rural Wümme between 1971 and 1974 in a similar vein to the way in which 'The Faust Tapes’ (released in 1973) was assembled. These two albums range from minimal electronic pulses, ambient dreamscapes, vocal collages to heavy drone, ritualistic percussion and psychedelic grooves. Highlights include the hypnotic space jams of ‘Vorsatz’ and ‘Rückwärts Durch Die Drehtür’, the delicate acoustics of ‘I Am… An Artist' and the radiophonic workship-esq 'Weird Sounds Sound Bizarre‘.

Let’s let founding member Jean-Hervé Peron explain more…. Faust were originally a group of musicians, each following our own inspirations, desires, illusions: many facets, many directions, different styles, different languages. We often had to struggle with the clash of our egos but there was also a natural tacit understanding of each other's role. We had the privilege to work with a great producer and an extraordinary recording engineer. From spring 1971 to spring 1974 we existed as a group. Then Faust became a Gestalt with various incarnations. Momentaufnahme? Don't panic here, it is only German for 'Snapshot’. Momentaufnahme I and II present a collection of unreleased snapshots which offer a wonderful insight into the world of Faust. Some tracks are extremely raw and experimental, others are fully rounded productions. So far we have MA I and MA II but we plan to do more of these when we come up with more material or new ideas.

TRACK LISTING

01. Naja
02. Flaflas
03. Es Ist Wieder Da
04. Mechanika
05. Weird Sounds Sound Bizarre
06. Karotten
07. RéMaj7
08. Fin De Face
09. Vorsatz
10. Acouphènes
11. Interlude 18. Juni
12. Dadalibal
13. Bonne Soupe Au Fromage
14. Rückwärts Durch Die Drehtür

Originally part of 2021’s Faust Box Set release commemorating the bands 50th anniversary Momentaufnahme I and II are now set for their own stand alone release by popular demand. This is for all those that missed out on the limited edition box set release. They collect together music recorded at the band's studio - a converted schoolhouse in rural Wümme between 1971 and 1974 in a similar vein to the way in which 'The Faust Tapes’ (released in 1973) was assembled. These two albums range from minimal electronic pulses, ambient dreamscapes, vocal collages to heavy drone, ritualistic percussion and psychedelic grooves. Highlights include the hypnotic space jams of ‘Vorsatz’ and ‘Rückwärts Durch Die Drehtür’, the delicate acoustics of ‘I Am… An Artist' and the radiophonic workship-esq 'Weird Sounds Sound Bizarre‘.

Let’s let founding member Jean-Hervé Peron explain more…. Faust were originally a group of musicians, each following our own inspirations, desires, illusions: many facets, many directions, different styles, different languages. We often had to struggle with the clash of our egos but there was also a natural tacit understanding of each other's role. We had the privilege to work with a great producer and an extraordinary recording engineer. From spring 1971 to spring 1974 we existed as a group. Then Faust became a Gestalt with various incarnations. Momentaufnahme? Don't panic here, it is only German for 'Snapshot’. Momentaufnahme I and II present a collection of unreleased snapshots which offer a wonderful insight into the world of Faust. Some tracks are extremely raw and experimental, others are fully rounded productions. So far we have MA I and MA II but we plan to do more of these when we come up with more material or new ideas.

TRACK LISTING

01. Danach
02. Gegensprechanlage
03. Lampe An, Tür Zu, Leute Rein!
04. Purzelbaum Mit Anschubsen
05. Tête-à-Tête Im Schredder
06. Dampf
07. Testbildhauer
08. I Am... An Artist
09. Wir Wollen Mehr Volumen Kriegen
10. Arrampicarsi Sul Vesuvio
11. …und Alles Durcheinander
12. The Fear Of Missing Out
13. Ma Trompette
14. As-tu Vu Mon Ombre?

For eight years now, songwriter and producer Sebastian Lee Philipp has been steering his project Die Wilde Jagd through the field of tension between contemporary electronic music and avant-pop. Between 2015 and 2020, three studio albums were produced as documents of Philipp's rigorous musical creativity. Most recently, «Atem», a composition for Roadburn Festival, was released in 2022, documenting yet another, more experi- mental side of the project. On the new, eagerly awaited fourth album, all these multi- faceted worlds are brought together in an impressive way.

«Ophio, Ophio» you say. Lies in the end of you Still the best ahead of me? With these lines from the title track, Sebastian Lee Philipp poses the question that spans over the entire album like a parenthesis. The work entitled «ophio» tells of constant trans- formation, the blurring of beginning, end, and the various dimensions in between.

«It's about the constant unfolding of the self, about the seductive forces of life, an ode to existence and the transformation to happiness.» Says Philipp himself about his concept- tual direction of the album. The meandering between leaving behind and starting anew is not only found in the lyrics, but also in the music itself. The production seems more consistent than ever before, stripping away all frills and trinkets, like a skin that has become too tight. The compositions form a concentrate in which every single sound finds its space. In a certain sense, it's like listening to an introspection in which the bundled voices become a single, demanding murmur that is both drone and whisper in equal measure.

I see you in blows of delight
Where have you been?
Make my eyes to love the things that want to love
(From «In Wonnenhieben», engl. «In Blows of Delight»)

As on the previous album «Haut», the drums were played by long-time stage partner Ran Levari. The new album also features cellist and singer Lih Qun Wong («Lihla»), who first joined Die Wilde Jagd for the Live performance of «Atem». This collaboration sounds particularly impressive on «The Hearth», the band's first English-language song. A beguiling track as if of shiny, heavy tar, carried by Philipp's dense composition, Levari's pulsating beats and lyricist Wong's voice. Other production partners were Philipp Otterbach («Kelch») and Vactrol Park («In Wonnenhieben»). Nina Siegler, who could already be heard as a duet partner in the song «Himmelfahrten», also lends her voice again to the tracks «Ouroboros» and «In Wonnenhieben».

When the journey ends after just under 50 minutes with the questions «Will your songs blind me again? Be sparkling eyes to me in the dark?» and dissonant choirs release you out into the distance, it's as if you're right back at the beginning again, only to set off once more. An album as strange as it is beautiful.

TRACK LISTING

1) Ein Anfang
2) Ophio
3) Perseveranz
4) Gnafna Nie
5) The Hearth (ft. Lihla)
6) In Wonnenhieben
7) Kelch
8) Ouroboros

Bonus 12":
1. Obus
2. The Hearth (Shelter Mix Ft. Lihla)
3. In Wonnenhieben (Douce Mix Ft. The Allegorist)

With "Leave Me Alone", Detlef Weinrich presents his fifth album under the moniker Tolouse Low Trax. Weinrich, who has meanwhile turned his back on Düsseldorf and lives in Paris, has long since ceased to be an insider tip and is a guest in renowned clubs and festivals all over Europe. With his new album, he succeeds in an exciting, unforeseen new direction. The velvety heaviness and rawness of earlier records seems to have given way to a new playfulness. A playfulness perhaps in the sense of an electronica reminiscent of the late 1990s, which in its idea of deconstruction and reduction is currently enjoying a new appreciation in the clubs. But also in the sense of an urban vibe of hip hop and dub references, which are woven into a very unique mix in Weinrich's tracks.

Nervous mechanical murmurs, drifting comic-like through razor-sharp rhythm cliffs: welcome to "Leave Me Alone", a loop meta-level dreamland of styles and mental meteorology. A repetitive notion on the overwhelming speechlessness towards the world, its clocking, and all the despairs that come along with it. Wholly veiled in a sharp sonorous language, that brings a complete agreement of the expression with the idea, a sense of harmony, of a secret beauty, that often escapes the judgment of the crowd. It marks the latest longplayer by Tolouse Low Trax. After his stunning collaboration with French singer and hurdy gurdy player Emmanuelle Parrenin and myriad remixes for artists like Aksak Maboul, Ex Ponto, or Sebastian Tellier, he sharpened his artistic skills for a fresh musical treasure hunt. "Leave Me Alone" is a renunciation from the industrial slow drone zones, waving into spectacular decon- structed style collages.

13 veiled drum machine experiments, featuring dubby jazz districts, hip-hop flair, haunting little melodies, and the TLT signature funk. Again, he listened to the prose of his rhythms deeply, connecting the tones, placing rhythmic commas judiciously, like stops on a long road. All obscured into a new, ironic, yet totally serious sound layout, that is mirrored in the minimalistic shaped cover art- work full of suggestions to ramified cultural meanings. For a wonder, this time almost no pocketed vocal samples in the TLT creations. Instead, freshly recorded spoken words and singing by Brooklyn based producer Chris Hontos aka Beat Detectives, poet and multidisciplinary artist Fran from Paris and Italian synthesist and singer Andrea Noce aka Eva Geist, chanting introspective verses and Pier Paolo Pasolini poems over rugged grooves and suggestive sounds, opening his creative universe into a crisp manic eroticism. A cluster of genres, dancing in a rebellious, blistering swing, whirling styles upside down with an overall atmosphere that is flourishing on a positive spirit. An accessibility unusual for TLT and his non- conformist MPC driven music. So, let’s leave him alone and get lost in a wavering jaunt that chase away angst and depression with smoky musical spells and dramatic interlocking beat patterns.

TRACK LISTING

1. Albatros
2. How To Beat The Sea
3. Gates
4. Impure Nature
5. I Would Prefer Not To
6. My
7. Non Giudicare
8. Yellows
9. A Great, Strange And Moving Work
10. Ossia
11. White Flicker
12. Muddy Floors
13. Bianca From Rome

Hazy dream chronicles.

A Martin Rev album is always liable to spring a surprise. Think of the rough guitars which unexpectedly appeared on his 2003 release "To Live" instead of synthesizers.

"Les Nymphes", which followed in 2008, saw Rev return to dream-laden melodic miniatures, but came from a resolutely more radical place than its predecessors. Once again, this work demonstrates the rigour of Martin Rev's approach, his willingness to embrace risk and his uncompromising rejection of a single aesthetic framework. "Les Nymphes" is, without question, the work of an artist who is constantly in search mode.

American indie label File 13 Records released what was already Martin Rev's sixth solo album in the autumn of 2003. The previous year, Rev and his musical partner Alan Vega had struck out in a new direction on their "American Supreme" album and Rev's solo works continued in a similar vein. If "Strangeworld" from the year 2000 actually felt more like a timeless abstract of Martin Rev's entire spectrum of musical influences,

"To Live", three years later, introduces more contemporary elements, including guitar samples for the first time. "To Live" is not easy to digest, a work of contradictions which marks a transition in Martin Rev's overall output as a child of its time, worthy of special attention in his legacy.

Without a doubt, To Rococo Rot are an exception within the German music landscape. From 1995 until they broke up in 2014, the group around Robert Lippok, Ronald Lippok and Stefan Schneider researched a unique sound between electronic music, ambient, post-melancholy and the further development of a new, free music like krautrock. The trio was invited 3 times by John Peel to record radio sessions in the BBC. Available on record for the first time, which, in addition to the versions of selected album tracks, also contains exclusive, unreleased songs.

TRACK LISTING

Intro
Thomson Colour
Tour De Repechage
Glück
This Sandy Piece
Prado
A Little Asphalt Here And There
Rocket Fuel
Telema
Esther
Glas

For their second foray into the fringes of German pop, Bureau B delve deeper than before, raiding cassette culture, 7" obscurities and overlooked album cuts to further frame this free- thinking strain of sonic expression. Starting the count from punk’s year zero, this set sees a newly liberated generation get weird and wild with anything they could lay their hands on, delivering demented, detuned and disorienting tracks brimming with DIY spirit. Where their kosmische predecessors preferred immersive, expansive compositions, these artists opted for immediacy, quickly capturing one idea before moving on to the next. Exploiting advances in home recording to say outside of industry confines, these art-school extroverts and commune drop outs often came together in unplanned collaborations and one off projects, capturing their whole creative lifespan on one side of a C45. As such, there’s a youthful charm to the sounds found on this compilation – an infectious combination of energy, expression and naivety running though each unlikely melody. This shift in approach and outlook even informed established acts, as evidenced by the perverse pop curiosities from Cluster and Moebius & Beerbohm lurking on the line up beside unreleased and un- remembered gems from the likes of Maria Zerfall and E.M.P.

Once again those expert selectors at Bureau B have done the hard work, digging deep to deliver a disparate, different and dissident side of German Pop Music. All you have to do is press play.

The sparse drum machine of ALU’s »Aludome« opens proceedings, laying the foundation for wavy guitar chords and simple melodies on this tender 1980 composition, which only came to light in 2005. From there we sink into the watery electronics, free jazz bass and abstract guitars of Detlef Diederichsen charmingly abrupt »Pissnelke 2000«, before Maria Zerfall moves us into the shadows with the dark and punkish dirge »Der Mond«, a haunting track with double tracked and distorted spoken vocals. Butzmann / Kapielski’s avant-dance masterpiece »Do The VoPo« diverts us to the dance-floor, where the oddball synth sounds and skewed sampler vox of Rüdiger Lorenz’ »Francis & Friends« traps us in a strange slow motion groove. The tempo raises via E.M.P.’s dubbish sabotage of 80s smooth jazz, turns inside out on Vono’s charming interlude “Der Zauberer”, then finds its feet again via Reichmann’s ’78 composition »Wunderbar« taken from the Sky LP of the same name. This frazzled fusion of cosmic country and Asiatic melody shares a widescreen worldview with Deux Baleines Blanches’ »Draht 9«, on which post punk electronics and chiming guitars combine with bittersweet beauty. The time-travelling Rolf Trostel takes us to the midpoint with pulsating chords which predate Basic Channel by a decade, while Phantom Band’s »Dream Machine« stitches together two decades of the psychedelic continuum in a riot of tumbling toms, panning sequences and brain melting waveforms. »Glucose« sees Moebius & Beerbohm unleash their strange music at a delinquent tempo, before Jimmy, Jenny + Jonny offer a second subversion of smooth jazz with their skronking Mediterranean fantasy »Salome«. Thomas Dinger’s frosty music box romance »Alleewalzer« and The Wirtschaftswunder’s stomping ska-like »Television« follow in quick succession, leading us into Cluster’s narcotic fairground »Oh Odessa«, a queasy assemblage of detuned FM bells and percussive piston bursts. From there, the dubbed out post punk of Sprung Aus Den Wolken, experimental dance of Notorische Reflexe and unhinged disco of Günter Schickert capture different ends of the alternative dance floor, before the pastoral outsider pop of Lapre’s »Septer« signs in a swell of yearning melody.

TRACK LISTING

01. ALU – Aludome
02. Detlef Diederichsen - Pissnelke 2000
03. Maria Zerfall – Der Mond
04. Butzmann / Kapielski – Do The VoPo
05. Rüdiger Lorenz – Francis & Friends
06. E.M.P. - Tanne-totSamba
07. Vono – Der Zauberer
08. Riechmann – Wunderbar
09. Deux Baleines Blanches – Draht 9
10. Rolf Trostel – Hope Is The Answer
11. Phantom Band – Dream Machine
12. Moebius & Beerbohm – Glucose
13. Jimmy, Jenny + Jonny – Salome
14. Thomas Dinger - Alleewalzer
15. The Wirtschaftswunder - Television
16. Cluster – Oh Odessa
17. Sprung Aus Den Wolken – Noch Lange Nicht
18. Notorische Reflexe – The Wisp
19. Günter Schickert – Leihst Du Mir Dein Ohr
20. Lapre – Septe

Conrad Schnitzler is one of the great pioneers of electronic music. Here Baal & Mortimer constructs new music utilising Schnitzler’s archive. Instead of reworking the material on its own,she chose to find traces of melodies, harmonies, notes within it, using them as seeds to add and derive new compositions. Schnitzler’s archive became the foundation and departure point from which a process of accumulation and chiseling away started. Through playing things on wrong speed, stretching, or warping, fractal structures appeared, one unfolding out of the previous one, almost like chaos magick set in motion.

Krishna Goineau was born in Sri Lanka In 1981 Goinau moved to Düsseldorf, where he met Christo Haas (former DAF member) and Beate Bartel (Einsturzende Neubauten founding member). He became the singer of the joint project Liaisons Dangereuses and lent his unmistakable voice to the band's big hit ("Los Niños Del Parque"). In 2007/2008 he worked at home with analog synthesizers on a series of songs that to this day have never been released. Electronic cut-ups and haunting compositions that sound as contemporary as they are detached from any zeitgeist. Bureau B is very pleased to finally make a selection of these lost recordings available with this collection "I Need A Slow“.

When the Welttraumforscher (world dream explorer) started their journey on July 14, 1981, it was not foreseeable that it would last so long. For over 40 years now, Christian Pfluger from Zurich has been working with drawings, texts and songs on the idiosyncratic and fascinating universe of the imaginary trio. This has resulted in numerous cassettes, LP & CD releases.

Most recently, a two-part retrospective was released in the spring of 2021 on Hamburg's Bureau B, giving an insight into the wonderfully rapturous dream world of the project, which despite the continuous work remains something of an insider tip to this day. With their new collection "Liederbuch", the Welttraumforscher are going on tour for the first time in many years.

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, but also is Pyrolator.The sixth album in Pyrolator’s Land series 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.

Dieter Moebius is one of the most important protagonists of avant-garde electronic music in Germany. Alongside his bands Kluster/Cluster and Harmonia, he participated in numerous collaborations (with the likes of Brian Eno and Mani Neumeier/Guru Guru). Asmus Tietchens, one of his musical companions, compiled this collection for Bureau B – he concentrated on his solo works "as they offer the clearest insight into his personality and inventive potential".

Composer and conceptual artist Conrad Schnitzler (1937-2011) was one of the most influential figures of the electronic avant-garde in Germany. In 1967/68, the Joseph Beuys student founded the Zodiak Free Arts Lab, which became a playground for Berlin subculture. In addition to numerous solo releases Schnitzler was also involved in various band formations not least Tangerine Dream and Kluster. Representing another of his musical landmarks are the 'Consequenz' releases. 'Consequenz II' emerged from a collaboration with Wolfgang Seidel alias Wolf Sequenza, and is the follow-up project to 'Consequenz' which was a low-budget production that had an overriding aim of liberating music from its elitist circles in a 'Beuys-ian' sense. 'Consequenz II' returned to the theme with electronic apparatus that professionalised the sound but by no means reduced the fun he found in experimentation.

"There are no secret devices. ERUPTION are proof of that" - thus read the claim on an early 1970s flyer for Conrad Schnitzler's band Eruption, the group he started after splitting from Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius, who persevered as Kluster, and later Cluster.

Schnitzler had studied sculpture under Joseph Beuys and the statement echoed his teacher's philosophy: "Everyone is an artist." The flyer continued in similar vein: "ERUPTION are freeing the prisoners from their ivory towers." Schnitzler viewed art as social practice, not the realm of specialists. Anyone could get involved. You didn't even need to be able to play an instrument. The flyer also announced: "Members of the audience who bring transistor radios will get reduced admission if they play music on their radios inside the venue."

That was back in 1971, ten years before we produced and recorded the Consequenz LP. We included instructions inside the sleeve for setting up just such a project with the minimum of technical fuss, inviting submissions which used the record as a playback tool. One cassette arrived all the way from New York, but that was about it. Not really enough to satisfy our ambition of liberating artistic endeavour from the ivory tower (perhaps not so much of a surprise, considering we only pressed a hundred discs). We had almost resigned ourselves to life in the ivory tower when a letter from a Spanish label (Esplendor Geometrico) reached us, asking for a sequel - Consequenz II. It didn't take long for us to decide to accept the offer, encouraged by the fact that we would not have to finance the release out of our own pockets - as had been the case with the first Consquenz.

Certain "secret devices" had materialized in our ivory tower in the meantime. Conrad Schnitzler had purchased an 8-track recorder with money he had earned from "proper" art. I borrowed various bits of equipment from my band - Populäre Mechanik - including a drum computer, so we could really let rip. The little songs we made sounded much more "professional" than the cheerfully low budget music of the first Consequenz. I'd taken days off work for the sessions and after a week we had enough material to fill one side of an LP. The last track was further evidence of Conrad Schnitzler's sense of humour, as previously revealed on our "pop"album CON 3 (1981) and the "Auf dem schwarzen Kanal" single (1980). "España" on the A-side of Consequenz II is a vocal collage of the words "Buenas Tardes" and "España".

All we needed now was music for the B-side, but our enthusiasm for the borrowed drum computer had waned somewhat. It was always the first track we recorded, which meant that everything else had to follow its lead. The beat itself was singularly unimpressed by what came next. This was an unsatisfactory state of affairs for two players (musicians?) who had begun with free improvisation, with either of the participants able to change the direction of the whole thing. Unsatisfactory, in spite of the fact that I was able to play to the beat with perfect timing, which led Conrad Schnitzler to give me the nickname "Sequenza" (hence the Consequenz title). The natural division of an LP into an A-side and a B-side lends itself to a caesura when the disc is flipped. So we decided to return to free-floating sounds on the B-side and, listening back now, I'm glad we did. Instead of competing with each other, the two sides dovetail perfectly.

TRACK LISTING

1. Von Hand
2. Zack Zack
3. Fiesta
4. Hommage á Gaudi
5. Erotik
6. Windmill
7. Alhambra
8. España
9. Kastilien

Composer and conceptual artist Conrad Schnitzler (1937-2011) was one of the most influential figures of the electronic avant-garde in Germany. In 1967/68, the Joseph Beuys student founded the Zodiak Free Arts Lab, which became a playground for Berlin subculture. In addition to many other musical stations, bustling Schnitzler was a member of the Kraut-Electronic formations Tangerine Dream and Kluster. Numerous solo releases complete his extensive oeuvre. One of them is »CON 84«, probably his most composed work, on which he challenges the traditions of so-called Ernste Musik. The result is a complex electronic sound structure that marks a break with Schnitzler's previous work in a subversive flirtation with traditionalism.

»Schnitzler is an inquisitive chameleon«, as a friend of mine once said, whilst attempting to assemble Schnitzler’s musical output into some form of retrospective system. An enticing zoomorphism at first glance, yet not quite so convincing on closer inspection. Firstly, a chameleon uses its ability to change colour as camouflage. Schnitzler never needed, nor had any desire, to camouflage himself. Secondly, curious as he was (particularly with regard to how his own work developed and the results it would bring), he never, to my knowledge, demonstrated the urge to study his artistic activities through the inquiring prism of science or methodology. Perhaps what my friend was driving at was Schnitzler’s mastery of different forms, moving dexterously between them and integrating them into his own inimitable language. CON 84 is a perfect example thereof.

CON 84 is evidently the product of a computer-supported sound generator – a sampler. The original LP came complete with sheet music inserts, so a music printer must also have been part of the package. It is hard to say which instruments Schnitzler had at his disposal in the early 1980s. And more to the point, where did he record these pieces? Was he still at Peter Baumann’s Paragon Studio? Leaving such questions aside, what really matters here is the opportunity to gain an insight into Schnitzler’s complex musical imagination and powers. It appears as if he wanted to show the listener that he can still compose in the classical sense, creating a series of miniatures which are not so far away from the infinite glittering patterns of the existing Schnitzler cosmos. CON 84 lines up polyphonic compositions from start to finish. John Cage, Fluxus, randomness – nowhere to be seen. Schnitzler the traditionalist? A highbrow composer? On the contrary. Just as he so marvellously subverted common conceptions of art, Schnitzler crafted CON 84 to sound like Ernste Musik - serious (classical) music. He was a master of camouflage (with a wink of the eye) and repeated the trick nine years later on the French release CD CON BRIO. Following Schnitzler has always meant being ready to expect the unexpected. When he could, and had the financial means to do so, Schnitzler liked to use the latest technology. CON 84 was technologically advanced for its time, yet the music was paradoxically conventional. I imagine that Schnitzler took great delight in such contradiction. With shiny new digital technology at his fingertips, he chose to compose music in traditional form. Did »conventional listeners« enjoy the results on CON 84 as much their author? I doubt whether his parodies and twists on traditional composition resonated with them. Alas, there is no record of any Schnitzler reflections on this singular music, I would dearly have liked to have heard his thoughts. When the album appeared in 1984, it enriched an already diverse experimental music scene. The willingness to engage with the genre was growing - regardless of how many listeners there actually were. I clearly remember finding CON 84 in a record shop which specialized in new wave and industrial sounds. How did that happen? Simple: boundaries were now blurred.

TRACK LISTING

1. X19 II
2. X18 II
3. 28.6.84 Blasen
4. 16.4.84 I (1+2)
5. X19
6. X18 # I
7. X18 I
8. 16.4.84 I
9. X19 I
10. X18 (1+2)
11. 16.4.84 Frei
12. X18 # (1+2)

Jimi Tenor has always been something of a Renaissance man. On leaving his Finnish homeland for New York in the early 1990s, and later as he travelled through Europe, he quickly discovered what he calls his ikigai, his great joy in life: to record and produce music in DIY mode at home with the most rudimentary of means, spont- aneously and intuitively. In more than 30 years of making music, Tenor has remained true to his ideal, whether as a solo artist on his early electronic albums or in the widely diverse collaborations and constellations which followed (with the likes of Tony Allen, Kabu Kabu, Abdissa Assefa). "Multiversum" is now his third album for Hamburg-based label Bureau B.

Jimi Tenor and Bureau B first teamed up in 2020 on the former's "NY, Hel, Barca" retrospective and continued their association with the release of "Deep Sound Learning", a collection of rarities, in spring 2021.

Whilst Tenor has predominantly released jazz and Afrobeat records over the past two decades, his live performances have often seen him return to his minimalist roots. Enthralled by how Jimi Tenor the solo artist conjured up his space music with just a synthesizer, flute and saxophone, Bureau B ultimately invited him to record an album with this basic and yet astoundingly effective set-up.

Within just a few months, Tenor delivered an impressive selection of new pieces to Bureau B; all recorded in his Helsinki home studio. These tracks are now presented on "Multiversum", a record which provides further proof of Jimi Tenor's versatility. Based on drum machine beats and synthesizer loops, Tenor's music invites the listener to drift into open, limitless expanses - he is a master of the unforeseeable, audibly infusing all twelve new tunes with a sense of joie de vivre and intuition, with no recourse to standards. "Multiversum" is a declaration of love to the DIY spirit, somewhere between bedroom jazz and deviant techno.

As a counterpoint to the album release, "Omniverse" is one of the first books to be published in ‚Bureau B/Tapete Records' joint venture with the Mainz- based publisher Ventil. It is an impressive portrait of the artist, packed with photos and stories documenting Jimi Tenor's life and career in music.

TRACK LISTING

1. Slow Intro
2. Life Hugger
3. Jazznouveau
4. Uncharted Waters
5. Baby Free Spirit
6. Monday Blue
7. Bass Kalimba Dance
8. Birthday Magic
9. Gare De Noir
10. RajuRaju
11. The Way To Kuusijärvi
12. Bad Trip Good

After the overwhelming success of last years 1971-74 box set release, containing the first four studio albums and for the first time ever this lost 'last' album recording, 'Punkt' gets a deserved and necessary stand alone release to the relief of fans and collectors and the undoubted future gratification of those yet to experience the magic in these recordings.

'While working on the "lost" album which the band recorded in Munich, it became clear that I was listening to the last ever made recordings of this band lineup. It had been their attempt to release another album, which did not happen for several reasons. After this Munich session every band member focused on other things.So this was the end of Faust. No further recordings, no shows. Punkt. Which means "full stop" in German and has "punk" in it as well. An attitude which the band or at least some of the members certainly approved'. Gunther Buskies - bureau b

The band called it 5½, fans referred to it as the "Munich album" and for almost fifty years it's been the missing chapter in Faustian mythology. Now for the first time, the German iconoclasts' previously unreleased fifth album sees the light of day as Punkt. Not only does this title place a bold full stop after the final recording by the group's seminal line up of Péron, Irmler, Sosna, Wüsthoff and Diermaier, but it also references the unflinching anarchism of German rock's ultimate outsiders. Punktis Faust at their most unhindered, untethered and unstoppable.

Returning to Germany after a loss-making U.K. tour and after their manager Uwe Nettelbeck had split with them,the group dusted themselves down and planned their next project, what would have been their second for Richard Branson's Virgin. Joined as always by their engineering genius Kurt Graupner, the band took residence in the Arabella High Rise Building, the luxury hotel which housed Giorgio Moroder's Musicland Studio in its basement. At the time, the Italian's space disco odyssey was yet to blast off, and he gave the group the studio downtime around his sessions with Donna Summer.

Off the leash and on the lash (running up a record breaking room service bill), Faust spent their nights below ground, creating the sublime cacophony which courses through these seven tracks. Driven by Diermaier's primitive repetition and Péron's rabid low end growl, "Morning Land" stomps its way through almost ten minutes of heavy psychedelia. Vocals disintegrate into the sonic landslide of guitar feedback and synth scree, momentum building until the track rends open the hellmouth with its unthinkable heft. A Luciferian spirit courses through the beatless "Crapolino", a tumult of scorched guitar chords, strident FXs and disembodied vocals which bares all the hallmarks of a black mass. And just like that, the group summon some demonic hunting party for "Knochentanz" (bone dance), arguably their most immersive creation. Opening with Péron's plangent horn, the track soon establishes a hypnotic c ounterpoint between Irmler's electronic sequences and Diermaier's sparse rhythm, a pulse which continues to build for six minutes as kick drum, snare, shaker and toms pile on beneath the ever-present drone. The storm clears for a second to allow a celestial chord progression to emerge from the darkness before the heavens open and Sosna's snarling, sawing guitar rains down from above, carrying "Knochentanz" through its final iteration, a collision of muscular fretwork, percussion freakout and bleeping organ which completes the most psychedelic recording you've never heard.

The frazzled optimism of "Fernlicht" buzzes away like an acid Beethoven bathed in neons, before the breathless "Juggernaut" stretches the definition of blues rock to its limit as squirming sine waves, clattering cymbals and corrosive guitars pan, reverse and overlap, each following its own unhinged rhythm. Then for a time the sound and the fury abate, making space for the frankly sublime "Schön Rund", a piano-led diversion into the soul-swelling realms of ECM jazz and fin de siècleimpressionism, which rivals anything else in their catalogue for pure beauty. And in case you thought they'd gone soft, Faust sign off with the guttural groans and course drones of "Prends Ton Temps".

After ten days of recording, it became clear that Branson wasn't footing the bill and Péron, Irmler and Sosna were arrested until the mothers of Sosna and Irmler paid the bill - though not before smuggling the master tapes into an undisclosed location, where they've waited ever since...

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: This final 'Lost' article from the Faust pentalogy sees the German experimental powerhouse in fine form, wildly swaying between avant jazz, lounge funk and krautrock in a musically surprising triumph. Bonkers and brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. Morning Land

2. Crapolino

3. Knochentanz

4. Fernlicht

5. Juggernaut

6. Schön Rund

7. Prends Ton Temps

Hamburg synthesist Richard von der Schulenburg returns to Bureau B with the follow up to last year’s Moods & Dances 2021, harnessing hardware crunch, cryptic found sounds and field recordings on a mission for Cosmic Diversity. Taking inspiration from the haunting electronica of BoC and Plaid, refracted here through the half-life of a Zeiss lens, RVDS navigates the musical multiverse, simultaneously straddling electro, IDM, kosmische and dub across eight exploratory compositions.

(Experimenteller Elektronik-Underground DDR 1989) Bureau B presented a compilation of experimental, electronic music from the GDR's underground cassette scene in 2017 under the title "Magnetband" and now the Hamburg label is following up this thematic focus with the release of "MEZ 31,00" by Dieter Zobel aka Didier Leboz, recorded in 1988 and originally released on Thomasius' Kröten Kassetten label in 1989.

Experimenteller Elektronik-Underground DDR 1980-1990) Jörg Thomasius, discovered progressive sounds in the early 1970s. He was increasingly drawn towards the electronic signals emanating from West Berlin, so close and yet so far away, carried on radio waves through the Iron Curtain and surfacing sporadically in eager record collector circles on the eastern side of the wall. The material collected on “Acht Gesänge der schwarzen Hunde” spans the years 1980-1990. Spanning a full decade, the selection presents Thomasius as the multifaceted artist he is, even if he sees himself as more of an experimental DIY sonic creator: spherical, elegaic sounds float around whimsical jewels of extreme playfulness, weaving obscure vocal fragments into strange minimal constructs.

In a year of the moon, Kreidler have produced the album Spells And Daubs. In a year of the moon – and in a year with 13 moons. Such years are known for not being the most comfortable.

In September 2020 the band met for exploratory sessions and initial recordings in Düsseldorf, in the familiar settings of the Kabawil Theater. That already has a certain tradition. The impetus this time was a solitary gig in the conspicuously spacious surroundings of the (former) Philipshalle. In a year that threw everyone back on themselves. Over the winter Kreidler worked remotely, sifting through the material, arranging the pieces, adding textures and contours. They met again in the spring of 2021 for further recordings at the Uhrwerk Orange studio in Hilden, near Düsseldorf. That, too, has a certain tradition.

From fifteen pieces they filtered out ten, and thus held an album in their hands. Then – and this is new – they took it to London, to Peter Walsh, so that he could mix the tracks.

Daubs are in no doubt here. This is a tenfold of colourful-blotches-thrown-onto-canvas. Then a stepping back, contemplating, remixing paint, layering, overlaying, scraping free again elsewhere. And these spells are not devastating curses, rather they are enchanting incantations, a calling forth a spring without having to ban winter in a sombre masks. Spells And Daubs is a melodious interplay. Not that Kreidler neglect the rhythmic; their characteristic drive runs through all the pieces on Spells And Daubs. Perhaps it's like this: The beat is musicalised, the melody rhythmitised.

Spells And Daubs is like a collection of short stories. Its ten pieces explore the same space drawn together by an overlaying arc. All of them have the length of a single, and each one has the potential of a single in the way the arrangements are laid out – so enticing is the melodic line and the beat. This succinctness was perhaps last heard on the 2000 eponymous Kreidler album. The drums are powerful with a light swing. The bass alternates beyond its functionality and its indicator just of the low frequency, swoops up and takes over the melodic lead. Perhaps most beautiful in the irresistible pop gems Arena, Unframed Drawings, and Revery. Aptly Alex Paulick moved to the fretless Bass – conjuring the spirit of Mick Karn.

For all of their Krautrock attributions, Kreidler never tire of reminding us that their musical development stemmed form a love of British pop music. So you might say the co-op with Peter Walsh is a match made in heaven. His illustrious mixing and production skills have lifted works from Shalamar or Lynx to Heaven 17 to Scott Walker, Pulp or FKA Twigs into other spheres. Kreidler had previously collaborated with him in 2013 for two tracks (Snowblind, Escaped, BB169). On Spells And Daubs, Walsh's methods and magic are especially audible in the spatial production, with his hallmark blend of depth and punch. Spells And Daubs is wrapped up in an enigmatic black-and-white drawing by prolific artist and filmmaker Heinz Emigholz from his Basis of Make-Up series. Their ongoing collaboration feels like a constant now. The mutual interference of Heinz Emigholz's and Kreidler's universes started about ten years ago, when he expanded the album Den with seven videos.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Tantrum
A2 Toys I Never Sell
A3 Dirty Laundry
A4 Revery
A5 Unframed Drawings
Side B
B1 Freundchen
B2 Arise Above
B3 Music Follows Suit
B4 Arena
B5 Greetings From Dave

Dinked Edition Bonus Disc:
Side C
C1 Howling At The Third Moon
C2 Moon
Side D
D1 Howling

Die Wilde Jagd is the music project of producer and songwriter Sebastian Lee Philipp. Channelling minimalist, tenebrous intensity, Die Wilde Jagd's music weaves a dense and atmospheric web of drama, romance, ecstasy and melancholy Written for wooden organ pipes, cello, percussion and electronics.

A composition commissioned by Roadburn Festival. Performed by Sebastian Lee Philipp, Lih Qun Wong and Ran Levari.

Berlin based artist Sebastian Lee Philipp releases with his project Die Wilde Jagd a new work: "ATEM", a Live recording of his composition commissioned by the 2021 edition of Roadburn Festival, performed in Tilburg in the Netherlands on April 16th 2021.

An audacious 45-minute trip into the depths of evolution, organism and metabolism, this piece is an exploration of the mechanism and science of breathing and its essential role in life. Philipp himself plays synthesizers and an instrument developed specifically for the performance: a wooden organ pipe construction operated with an air compressor. The composer is joined on stage by collaborators Lih Qun Wong on cello and voice, as well as Ran Levari (who has played drums in Die Wilde Jagd since 2017) on percussion.

Speaking of his composition, Philipp says: "As human evolution enters new realms of reality, I find myself drawn to explore the basic essences of life: the things we are made of, that we take for granted and are, yet, still full of mystery. The parallels between breath and music are undeniable: pace, rhythm, volume and dynamic fluctuations influence us deeply. Breath is the elixir of life and the fuel for one of the most primitive vibrations: the human voice." The themes of creation and spirit within the composition are skillfully enhanced by Turkish Visual Artist Mürsel Güven.

A double album and single CD exploring the explosion of wealth of music springing from the squats and bedsits and artschools of Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg and West Berlin in the aftermath of punk from the likes of Der Plan, Holger Hiller, Palais Schaumberg, Conrad Schnitzler and a host more.

Do not adjust your sets. Take a step back from the tracking. This is the sound of Germany’s musical youth let loose on cheap synths and pawnshop guitars. A record of a disparate s cene of squat pop-stars, artschool upstarts and committed non-musicians who redefined German music in the first half of the 1980s.

By the dawn of the new decade, punk had burnt out in a frenzy of feedback, reshaping the musical landscape before burrowing back into the underground for a period of reinvention. But the scorched earth it left behind proved to be fertile soil, nurturing a new movement grass-rooting through Germany’s major cities. For the first time the country had its own youth culture, spilling out of the squats of Hamburg and West Berlin, occupying the art scene in Düsseldorf and Köln and congregating around independent record shops stocked with angsty import 7”s. Empowered by punk’s DIY spirit, these kids valued conviction over competence, opting to ignore the industry and make music for themselves, sung in their own language. Even the cats we now call krautrock, revolutionary though they were, mostly sang in English, adopting the lingua franca of rock & roll as a shorthand for authenticity for a native crowd who wouldn’t have it any other way. This new scene rejected the expected, celebrating freedom of expression above all else. Armed with unconventional instruments, newly affordable electronics and rudimentary recording gear, they worked from the ground up, building basic rhythms and simple melodies into mutant grooves and following their imagination wherever it took them. The result was a genre-fluid wave of fusion pop pulled from funk, punk, jazz and reggae; united in attitude rather than aesthetic. Lyrically, the groups explored the serious and silly, embracing the irreverence of dadaism to deliberately displease the earnest alternativen of the older generation.

TRACK LISTING

01. Der Plan – Hey Baby Hop
02. Die Partei - Austauschprogramm
03. P!OFF? - Mein Walkman Ist Kaputt
04. Palais Schaumburg - Wir Bauen Ein Neue Stadt
05. Dunkelziffer - Keine Python
06. Populäre Mechanik - Muster
07. Andreas Dorau (Die Doraus & Die Marinas) - Sandkorn
08. Pyrolator - Im Zoo
09. Träneninvasion - Sentimental
10. Deutsche Wertarbeit - Guten Abend, Leute
11. Asmus Tietchens - Höhepunkt Kleiner Mann
12. Die Fische - So Verrückt
13. Conrad Schnitzler - Auf Dem Schwarzen Kanal
14. Carambolage - Die Farbe War Mord
15. Xao Seffcheque - Sample & Hold (Wer Bitter Im Munde Hat,kann Nicht Süßpricken)
16. Foyer Des Arts - Eine Königin Mit Rädern Untendran (Gerd Bluhm Remix)
17. Die Zimmermänner - Erwin, Das Tanzende Messer
18. Östro 430 - Sexueller Notstand
19. Die Radierer - Angriff Aufs Schlaraffenland
20. Holger Hiller - Jonny (Du Lump)

The new album by electronica producer Ulrich Schnauss and the Engineers guitarist Mark Peters 'Destiny Waiving' lands in store on Hamburg's Bureau B.

Hailing from Kiel in North Germany, it's now 20 years since the electronica prodigy Ulrich Schnauss released his debut album. His second, 'A Strangely Isolated Place' cemented his reputation as both a pioneer and an artist who routinely creates inspirational music that is adored by many. As a full time member of Tangerine Dream since 2014, his lifelong passion for their work inspired a creative resurgence for the band, resulting in their most successful new album for over 30 years, 2017's 'Quantum Gate'.

Liverpool born guitarist (and founder of the dream pop outfit Engineers) Mark Peters shared a similar musical path, exploring ambient textures and effect laden songwriting via a series of blissful albums for the band. In 2017 he released his first solo album, 'Innerland' which was enthusiastically received by BBC6 music and later included in Rough Trade's top ten best albums of 2018.

'Destiny Waiving' completes a collaborative trilogy that began with 2011's 'Underrated Silence' and followed by 2013's 'Tomorrow Is Another Day' (Schnauss also became a full time member of Engi-neers at this time). Initial sessions began at Ulrich's East London home studio in early 2017 and final mixes where completed there in late 2020. Despite it's extended conception, most tracks where com-pleted during 2017, in part informed by improvisational sets in London, Dublin and St James' Church in Birmingham (as part of the Seventh Wave electronica festival).

Despite these exercises in exploration, 'Destiny Waiving' is perhaps the most focused and concise collection of all three releases. Ranging in tone from precognitive foreboding to soaring optimism, the album delicately hones a particular atmosphere that is unmistakable in their work. While track titles such as 'The Supposed Middle Class' acutely display a concern for society at large, compositions and performances reveal a great deal more light and shade. This inherent balance is a key facet of the duo's chemistry, signposted by the titles of 'Chiaroscuro' and 'Clair-Obscur' and the shifting moods within the tracks. For every rushing, upward sweep (Hindsight is 20/20, 'Circular Time'), contemplative countering is evident in tracks such as 'Words Can Be Dismissed' and 'So Far', 'The Moment'.

As we're all tired of hearing now, the global situation in 2021 is less than ideal, but if it's any consolation, Ulrich and Mark have fulfilled their destiny by creating a work that's both undeniably potent and endlessly immersive.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. The Supposed Middle Class
2. Hindsight Is 20/20
3. Circular Time
4. Chiaroscuro
Side B
1.Words Can Be Dismissed
2.Speak In Capitals
3.Clair-Obscur
4.So Far, The Moment

Bonus Dinked EP
Side A:
1.Hindsight Is 20/20 (Count Two Four Version)
2.Circular Time (Measure By Measure Version)
Side B:
1.Words Can Be Dismissed (Talking Snare Version)
2.Speak In Capitals (Uppercase Drumming Version)

The most massive of ups goes to Daniel and Gunther at Bureau B for some sterling A&R here, locking the world's daftest drum savant, Niklas Wandt into his first solo LP. This percussive polymath keeps his diary fairly full with production, radio shows, DJing and a shitload of collaborative pursuits, whether with Joshua Gottmanns in N-NDW funksters Neuzeitliche Bodenbeläge, Dusseldorf gee Wolf Müller, Sascha Funke or ambient heart-throb Cass.

For 'Solar Müsli' though, Niklas takes centre stage with a debut solo LP informed by kosmische, jazz, Afrobeat and ambient, but placed in a universe of its own. This is not formalism at work, but an exhilarating, freely flowing album which started out as an exercise in improvised percussion and developed into a multidimensional journey, at times both introverted and ebullient. Stitched through with snippets of spoken word by some of his nearest and dearest, this wildly psychedelic listen is a journey through the nebulous realm of electronic jazz, both emotive and escapist.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Der Glaeserne Tag
A2. Durch Den Spalt
A3. Lo Spettro
A4. Wo Es War
B1. Kusnacht
B2. Solar Musli
B3. Am Rande

Hamburg's post-kraut-electro trio Love-Songs and Ulf Schütte (Datashock, Phantom Horse, Little Whirls) have formed a group named Love-Songs & U. Schütte for the duration of one long-playing record.

This body of work bears the modest title [Spannende Musik] – an attribution which sounds not in the least bit pejorative to those with no skin in the game: "Yes, it really is exciting music!" The adjective pinned to the music may go deeper: "spannend" can also express tension, in this case not to convey a mood or a tense thriller, but in a physical sense.

The musical foursome's nocturnal world tour begins (and ends?) in a shamanistic factory hall with no clocks. Rigorous polyrhythms are accentuated by dexterously frayed edges. Radio wave rituals are revealed by flickering fluorescent lamps, a tribalistic screw box is in danger of falling from a conveyor belt.

The dualism of minimalistic asceticism and long-distance free improvisations create that selfsame tension which lends the spacious music of Tony Conrad, Joshua Abrams or the kosmische, yet earthed music of Pulse Emitter et al, such an original voice and atmosphere. One must search far and wide to find space and movement interlock so seamlessly through such meticulous layering and barely perceptible shifts in order to maintain the tension alluded to earlier.

The purely descriptive titles of the individual tracks, lifted from annotations of music in film sub-titles, lead us further astray than we might have first thought – which brings us back to the actual meaning of tension and what it is capable of evoking on a semantic and aesthetic level, something which contemporary music painfully lacks: a certain unreliability.

TRACK LISTING

Surren Steigert Sich
Dumpfes Hammerndes Drohnen
Unregelmassiges Klicken
Ulf & Thomas Spielt Im Hintergrund
Spannungsvolles Rattern
Dusteres Wabern
Langgezogener Hoher Ton

"Kiosque Of Arrows 2" is Detlef Weinrich's (a.k.a. Tolouse Low Trax) first compilation for Bureau B. Echoing the spirit of the legendary samplers found on Les Disques Du Crépuscule or Made To Measure, this hybrid journal collates unusual pieces of music - rare and undiscovered pearls from the experimental underground of the early 1980s through to contemporary unreleased recordings It all helps to pinpoint Tolouse Low Trax as artist and curator in the grander scheme of things, whilst evoking the spirit of countless nights at the Düsseldorfer Salon des Amateurs.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Macromassa - El Consecuente Aspecto De Geometria
A2. The Stupid Set - Basset
A3. DsorDNE - Il Senso Di Torpore
A4. Techno Twins - Donald & Julie Go Boating
A5. Venus In Furs - La Valse De Salon
A6. Javier Segura - Camino Largo
B1. Bassae - Oedipa Maas Y Los Atomos
B2. Lydia Tomkiw - Hot June Evening
B3. Iueke & Lippie - Van Gogh - La Farandole Op1
B4. Kaoru Hirose - Dah-May-Yoo
B5. Viola Renea - Chariot Of Palace

"Spring" is Thomas Klein's fourth Sølyst release on Bureau B, gleaned from material spanning the past three years. The time he has spent with these pieces has been time well spent. In revisiting them, he has posed new questions, rearranged and reworked some elements, dismissed or discarded others. Photophobic dancers, tar on their shoes, flashes of light, monochrome is our only colour. "Spring" is the soundtrack to a night such as this, plotting its course through to the late morning: take "Sheroes" and play it between Martin Rev and Chris & Cosey, take "Atlas" and play it, if you will, after Tolouse Low Trax. And before the doors reopen, take "Spiral".

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Sheroes (5:30)
2. Flex (2:53)
3. Thief (6:30)
4. Flush (4:02)
Side 2
1. Hold (5:23)
2. Atlas (3:40)
3. Spiral (6:51)
4. Spring (4:09)

Barely pausing for breath after 1983's Colours And Soul, Dunkelziffer delivered In The Night the following year, their revolving line-up prompting an evolving sound. Though the playful elements of their debut remained through a trio of sun-blushed dubbers, the album also housed the ensemble's most dense, intense and serious tracks to date. After Rebop Kwaku Baah (vocalist on their previous album) sadly died a perfect reinforcement was waiting in the wings, and the unmistakable Damo Suzuki led the charge with Helmut Zerlett taking double duties on backing vocals.

Though better known as fine purveyors of kosmische and 'krautrock', Bureau B have been making excellent inroads into the NDW scene of late, and there are few more sought after records from the Neue Deutsche Welle than this self titled beauty from Munich's P!Off?. Released in 1982 by Transparent, the album achieved some respectable successes at the time, but quickly disappeared in the flood of NDW releases of the early 1980s. Songs like the boogie track "Mein Walkman ist kaputt" or the enchanting slow disco jam "In der Nacht" are still very popular among diggers and DJs to this day. They are happy to finally make this rarity available again. The ‘82 Album has become a sought-after collector’s item and cult object so we are very happy that Bureau B is presenting a lovingly remastered reissue after almost 40 years.

TRACK LISTING

Das Dicke Kind
Mein Walkman Ist Kaputt
Pass Auf!
In Der Nacht
Starker Bruder
Ich Kann Kein Franzosich (Dansez)
Schau Dich Doch An
Was Ist Das?

Irish producer Chris W Ryan (Just Mustard, NewDad and his own Robocobra Quartet) began releasing music under the moniker SORBET in 2020 with the express intention to cleanse the palate; both for the listener and himself. Exploring freely across genre bounds, the world of SORBET is informed by electronic music just as much as classical and alt-pop, with nods to artists like Laurie Anderson, Arthur Russell, Kate Bush and David Byrne.

Vienna, the early 1980s. Krautrock, electronic and ambient pioneer Hans Joachim Roedelius, co-founder Cluster and Harmonia and saxophone free spirit Alexander Czjzek meet for the first time. Their longstanding collaboration found its climax in the fantastic album "Weites Land", which was released in 1987 for the first time, but has been out of print for many decades and became a sought-after rarity.

Bureau B is pleased to make this organic jazz masterpiece finally available again!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Einklang 
A2. Sonniger Morgen
A3. Beruhrung
A4. Ballade
A5. Weisst Du Noch?
B1. Nahe
B2. Weites Land
B3. Hoffnung

Ever since he released his music in the early '80s Michel Banabila has been hard to pinpoint to a specific genre or style. His musical output includes jazz, experimental cut-up electronics, world music (especially influenced by the Fourth World music as developed by Jon Hassell), New Age, eclectic pop tunes, music for dance or other stage projects, and soundtracks for TV. Some listeners may have found it difficult throughout the years to find their way in this versatile output.

For this particular release, Bureau B chose a different approach. Instead of archiving early works from the 1980s, Wah-Wah Whispers focuses on Banabila's more recent output. It is a collection of works showcasing many facets of his music: a journey visiting the minimal and cinematic sample scape, contemplative ambient / fourth world scenes and more. The album ends with a kaleidoscope of atmospheres gradually building up to a noise climax.

This is the eighth Mapstation album Stefan Schneider has released since 2000. Hailing from Dusseldorf, the electronic music artist and producer finds inspiration in African and South American folklore, dub and, naturally, Krautrock, taking his time to process his responses in a consistently thoughtful manner, never resorting to cliche. He has also found time to pursue other projects in recent years, one with Electronic Music pioneer Hans-Joachim Roedelius for example (2011).

With the band’s tenth anniversary in their viewfinder, CAMERA release “Prosthuman”, their fifth studio album. As befits an age in which realities can change in the blink of an eye, from one day to the next, the Berlin band never tire of changing themselves, their music or personnel.

As Karlheinz Stockhausen noted: “New methods change the experience. New experiences change man.”

Taking this as their lead, Michael Drummer (the drummer) and CAMERA surprise us once more on “Prosthuman” as they reinvent and reformulate their sound without sacrificing the project’s identity which has matured over the past decade. Less surprising is the fact that some record stores give CAMERA their own section, alongside Krautrock pioneers like NEU!, Can and La Düsseldorf. “Emotional Detox”, the predecessor to this album, was distinguished by the presence of two keyboard virtuosos (Steffen Kahles and CAMERA founder member Timm Brockmann). Finding replacements for “Prosthuman” was, as Michael Drummer stresses, “a difficult process.” The two keyboardists had – in different creative periods – formed the backbone of a band structure otherwise prone to fluctuations. Decisive input came from an unlikely source: Tim Schroeder, who first teamed up with CAMERA as a performance and video artist on their six-week tour of the USA in 2017.

Over the course of various jams and recording sessions, he was able to offer ample proof of his synthesizers skills. Alex Kozmidi, a musician and composer with a flair for experimentation, completed the triumvirate on guitar, with Michael Drummer adding his own guitar riffs here and there. Change and friction can be useful allies in pursuit of creativity, something to which Drummer has grown accustomed as the only ever-present member of CAMERA. The pleasures and pain of isolation – suddenly a mass phenomenon in pandemic times – are well known to the quasi frontman of the group. Over the years, he has spent many hours alone or with a shifting cast of co-musicians in the band’s basement studio, beneath a former factory site in a less than hip southern district of Berlin. Virus-induced social distancing and quarantine measures that came into force during the recording process (June 2019 to June 2020) thus posed no great challenge.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's always a delight when something hits the shelves from Bureau B. This time sees Camera revisiting their familiar heady kosmische groove, albeit with different staff. Drummer and Schroeder here perfect the warmingly organic duality of synthesiser and live percussion, resulting in a fluid but cohesive build and release narrative and a hypnotic, rhythmic nod.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1.Kartoffelstampf
2.Alar Alar
3.Prosthuman / Apptime
4.Überall Teilchen / Teilchen Überall
5.Freundschaft

Side B
1.El Ley
2.Schmwarf
3.A2
4.Chords4 / Kurz Vor
5.Harmonite

Exclusive Dinked Bonus 12”:
A2 – Lloyd Cole Remix
Schmwarf – The Telescopes Threw A Way Through Experimental Health Version
Alar Alar – Love-Songs Remix
Prosthuman – Extnddntwrk Remix (Andrew Robert Lindsay Fearn Of Sleaford Mods)
Freundschaft – Dead Skeletons Planet Book Remix (Ryan Van Kriedt, Henrik Björnsson)

Revered Hamburg musician, synthesist and DJ RVDS joins the Bureau B ranks with the meditative and mellifluous sounds of ‘Moods and Dances 2021’ - a musical present from the future past.

Inspired by the otherworldly exotica and imaginative electronics of library music’s golden age, Richard von der Schulenberg conjures palm trees and pyramids, promenades and portals, all observed from the heart of a Holodeck. Seven Of Nine tracks are named after the equipment used to create them, offering an additional journey through the patch bay-mayhem of the RVDS home studio, and paying homage to the tonal nuance among his collection.

Now whether he’s atop Mt. Acid with a molten 303, caressing tender Fender keys through an improvised jazz set or live scoring some stage-based theatrics, Richard’s music always offers an immersive experience, but perhaps never more directly than this latest opus.

We wash up on the digital shoreline of ‘Mrs Yamaha’s Summer Tune’, sparkling with salt water and the shimmer of polished mallets and subtle percussion. ‘Caravan of the Pentamatics’ heads inland through the tree line, carving a silk road through Ethiopian jazz tones and snaking rhythms until it encounters the mystical presence of The Farfisa Sphinx. Cryptic melodies float a top a bed of spheric bass, intangible and irresistible until they fade into the sand storm. The gentle and jazzy ‘Roland’s Night Walk’ provides a little rest from the desert deities, though distant gunshot and the unceasing cicadas add tension to the moonlit majesty of those delicate keys. The dawn brings heartbreak via the dewy melodies and tonal malady of Richard’s DX7, but somewhere someone’s dancing to the propulsive bassline, eerie vocals and Arabesque sounds of ‘The Space Pentas’, a little kosmische boogie which just builds and builds. But dervish whirls are thirsty business, so it follows you should take a drinks break at the ‘Wersimatic Space Bar’, a sophisticated kind of cantina awash with exotica. Then the boogie is back for the penultimate track, a deranged, demented and diabolical bit of commune chaos brought back from ‘Planet Dragon’, and translated into a Radiophonic workout. Parting is such sweet sorrow on any planet, and ‘The End (Lala)’ captures the sentiment superbly, serving space sirens, somnolent bass sounds and bursts of static at a stately tempo.

Though Library inspired, and undoubtedly indebted to the hardware in action, this intriguing intergalactic trip is more passionate than a pastiche; playful, poetic and enigmatic in true RVDS fashion. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Hamburg's synth genius RVDS fires up the hardware to create a mystical homage to the Italian library records of old. Alongside the Balearic lullabies and digital exotica there are also a couple of groovers for the more adventurous dance floor ("Dance Of The Space Pentax" I'm looking at you!)

TRACK LISTING

A1. Mrs Yamahas Summer Tune
A2. Caravan Of The Pentamatics
A3. Flowers For The Farfisa Sphinx
A4. Rolands Night Walk
A5. DX7s Broken Hearts
B1. Dance Of The Space Pentax
B2. Wersimatic Space Bar
B3. Planet Dragon
B4. The End (La La)

Viennese artist Conny Frischauf's music is a whirl of Kraut, leftfield electronica and synth pop. She playfully shines a new light on on tradition to create a fresh, contemporary sound. Having released a brace of EPs - Effekt & Emotion" (International Major Label, 2018) and Affekt & Tradition" (Kame House, 2019) - Frischauf now presents her debut album, Die Drift. The sheer immediacy of the album owes much to Frischauf's aptitude for integrating experimental sound structures into the microcosm of a pop song. A work of sonic depth, the record marries free music with irresistible pop appeal. Sam Irl, musician and engineer, takes on co-production, mixing and mastering duties. "Es geht rauf, rauf, rauf" - this single line heralds the journey which is about to begin, one on which Conny Frischauf's voice functions as a GPS: a rhythmic, chirping instrument interacting with electronic drum machine grooves, using language as sound to carry words, disorienting material which enhances the overall associative impact.

Texts which go beyond narration, opening up perspectives, locations confusions. Inside is outside is in-between, right, left, front, back, until you don't know whether you're coming or going. An endless drift, as the album title announces, the constant movement of waves generating currents on the water's surface. Frischauf deploys a wide range of instruments, adding a wealth of colour whilst balancing her playful approach with unfailing transparency, each element clearly arranged to create a particular sound. The complexity of simplicity. Sounds shimmer like kaleidoscopic reflections in a rush of echo loops, yet these are never used for mere effect, instead they represent careful brushstrokes on the broader fabric. All ten tracks on the album share an almost random, economically sketched intensity of effect, mirrored in Anna Weisser's cover art. Everything comes together on the closing track of the album, "Freundschaft" – in the end, friendship. Waves ripple outwards like a mantra, still in motion as they dissolve. All you have to do is let yourself fall in.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Bureau B are one of the greatest labels out there for weird electronic music (some of my favourite acts of all time have been on BB), and Die Drift is every bit as exciting and groundbreaking as the rest of their roster. Hypnotic psychedelia mixed with classic krautrock and *that* German bass sound. It's a beautiful journey, and a rewarding one.

TRACK LISTING

1. Rauf
2. Parapiri
3. Fenster Zur Straße
4. Sonntag
5. Auf Wiedersehn
6. Zeit Verdrehen
7. Roulette
8. Eingaben Und Ausnahmen
9. Private Geheimsache
10. Freundschaft

Bureau B have already re-released four classic albums by Der Plan and now they present to you reissue number five. The name of the album is simultaneously the concept. Numerous diverse pieces which illuminate the world in all its absurdity. The album title is lifted from the David Lynch movie Blue Velvet (It’s a strange world). The songs on the album were, for the most part, composed in a legendary session, improvisations really. They decided to play each piece in a different key and use irregular time signatures: Der Plan was often seen as a fun, colourful, NDW (Neue Deutsche Welle) band and they wanted to counter that image by bringing their obscure roots to the fore. Ladies and gentlemen, lean back and enjoy the wonders of a strange and peculiar world.

TRACK LISTING

A1. 1 Moment = 2 Sec
A2. Ich Hab Den Jordan Gesehen
A3. Get Out!
A4. Frisch Verliebt
A5. Die Paranoia Kritische Methode
A6. Kennen Sie Koln?
B1. Komm Zuruck!
B2. Wenn Du Nicht Zuhause Bist
B3. Kreuze Niemals Deinen Weg!
B4. Die Geschichte Des Schwarzen Goldes
B5. Bleib Gold!
B6. Press G Punkt!
B7. 1 Mann, 1 Ball
B8. Bye Bye!

The final instalment (for now) in this little series of classic Der Plan album reissues. Eleven years had passed since the release of "Geri Reig", their debut album. Tiki and electronica, noise and schlager, psychedelia and industrial, Kurt Martin and jerry-rigging, Cargo Cult and Ata Tak, Wuppertal and Dusseldorf, Hans-Albers-Platz and West-Berlin, Emulator I and Emulator II, old pizzas and new masks, making the most out of the least and living in the gallery, abstraction and pop, Japan and Japlan. A lot going on in those eleven years! Good times ... they had a ball. Beautiful.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Es Werde Licht
A2. Die Peitsche Des Lebens
A3. Anders Sein
A4. Wenn Wir Beide Auseinander Gehn
A5. Kathedrale Der Konzentration
A6. Alles Ist Sinnlos
A7. Alter Mann
A8. Vive La Vie
B1. Wir Babies
B2. Kleiner Junge
B3. El Cigarro
B4. Live At The Village Vanguard
B5. Das Bose Kommt Auf Leisen Sohlen
B6. Erst Ich Dann Du
B7. Spiel 77
B8. Das War So Schon

Neuzeitliche Bodenbeläge is the musical vehicle of Niklas Wandt and Joshua Gottmanns. They released a single - Ich verliebe mich nie - in 2018 and an EP entitled Leben in 2019 on the Düsseldorf label Themes For Great Cities. Now the time has come for the Berlin duo’s long-awaited debut album. The 7 tracks comprising Der große Preis distil the inimitable NB sound which blends velvety synth-pop and crystalline digi-dub, basslines like cubes of glass and whiplash snares. The album title certainly lives up to its name: The Grand Prize. This is adventure time, from wild romance to petty crime – it’s all waiting for you right here.
It was early 2019 when, led by their very own energy coach Ali Europa, the band ensconced themselves in an offseason hotel on Lake Constance to record the album, the same procedure that spawned their afore-mentioned
EP. Between a mothballed breakfast buffet and darkened wood furnishings, bright winter sunshine and lonely nights, Wandt and Gottmanns set about conjuring up smoke clouds. The two protagonists have always been drawn to the most contradictory scenes of local nightlife, indeed the project was born in the underground bars of Berlin. On their lakeside sojourn, they paid a quotidianal visit to the neighbourhood watering hole, where a “No Problems” playlist - parts 1 to 5 - blared out of the jukebox and semi-anonymous players lost themselves in a blur of numbers and fruit as the slot machines whirred and flashed at one end of the room. Many a Euro coin was lost here, but a valuable concentrate seeped through the ether which would allow new tracks to grow. A mixture of dark brown artificial leather upholstery and grey FRG decor and synthetics, cosiness and a railway station milieu, aching heads and excitement. The magic ultimately reached completion in the converted studio suite; a pile of analog synthesizers and rhythm machines, a Studer desk, computer, a vocal booth in the shower. Irregular working  ours, and paradoxical daily routines caused considerable friction and, at times, the two musicians worked separately from each other. When contradictions reach breaking point, how rewarding it is for everything falls into place, just like that. Crack open the champagne, pour an Averna and Arabian Mocha.
One eventful year later, the finishing touches were applied in Vienna 1070, or to be more accurate, in Sam Irl’s home studio and the International Major Label Studio just around the corner: Gelb's Groove emerged from smokeladen nothingness in February 2020. The end product was honed with overdubs, refinements and vocals. Finally, the title track, Der große Preis, based on supercharged lyrics that had been floating aound for some time, was completed with Daniel Meuzard piloting his spaceship-like EMS synthesizer. A month later, cultural activities came to an end and Neuzeitliche Bodenbeläge had their debut album in the bag, like one big promise. Sounds evoking fragrances of yesteryear, yet as young as the present day. Tales of long nights and hot mornings, a market square and leather car seats, all as fresh as the day after tomorrow, having outgrown any scene imaginable. Everything pulsating, every one breathing, the expansion of now. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Ja ja ja! Utter gees Niklas Wandt and Joshua Gottmanns are back on an N.B. tip, treating us to a weird, wavey and wonderful LP on the rejuvenated Bureau B! Blending Deutsche boogie and wonky electronics the duo conjure up the stickiest synth funk imaginable on an LP packed with treacle dancers and junk food hallucinations.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Der Grosse Preis
A2. Gelb's Groove (feat Sam Irl)
A3. Haare
B1. Keramik & Konflikte
B2. Marktplatc
B3. Maske
B4. Rausfahr'n

Bureau B continue their awesome A&R work here, delivering the debut longplayer from Hamburg's Love-Songs. Over the course of several EPs and the mini-album 'Inselbegabung', the trio have skirted the neon swamp, fusing kosmische sequences with organic percussion and improvised electronics to create their own brand of auditory hallucinations. Here they extend a hand and pull us into the shimmering water, baptising the listener in their psychedelic sound in a forty minute ritual. Over the course of seven tracks, the German group deliver their most ecstatic tracks to date, mesmeric and mind expanding commune eletronics, tribal bouncers and concentric cuts for all you techno pagans.

TRACK LISTING

Proxy I
Selbstauflöser Teil 2
Das Labyrinth
Nicht Nicht
Tisch Mit Drei Weinen
Proxy II
Og

Martin Rev's fourth solo album See Me Ridin' was released on the New York label Reachout International Records (ROIR) in 1996. Received by the critics with amazement, it proved to be a watershed moment in his career. Martin Rev's vocals are as minimal as they are sentimental, wonderfully poetic like a latter-day Chet Baker perhaps, or Jonathan Richman. This solo album not only blindsided Rev's critics and fans alike, but also painted a personal, nostalgic portrait of his home, New York; fading out the noise and contradictions of the city to channel the romantic energy of the metropolis. 

Martin Rev's fifth solo album - Strangeworld - was released on the cusp of the new millennium. The label responsible was Puu, a Finnish imprint belonging to Tommi Grunlund and Mika Vainio's Sahko Recordings which came to fame in the 1990s on the strength of its uncompromising minimalist sound. Four years earlier, in 1996, Rev had unleashed See Me Ridin, an album which surprised its listeners with keyboard melody sketches and distilled doo-wop compositions. It was also the first solo album to feature Martin Rev on vocals. Strangeworld started where its predecessor left off. Melodic passages dissolved into a thicket of fragments and set pieces, coalescing in a celestial shimmer between rhythm loops and Rev's voice, which assumed the role of an additional instrument rather than a standard singing part. 

Front View is the album debut of film-maker and musician Helena Ratka, alias Pose Dia. A soundtrack and theatre composer, as well as resident DJ at Hamburg's Golden Pudel Club, Ratka emerged onto the scene as one half of Shari Vari (together with Sophia Kennedy). Now all these pathways or winding roads have converged to create Pose Dia and an impressive album of many facets - a self-assured debut. The resulting album takes us on a mysterious journey through a darkish landscape. Pose Dia's tracks assume the most diverse forms - from supercooled synth-wave sounds or the weightless effortlessness of pop on the one hand, to the dsytopian urgency of contemporary club music or flashes of hip-hop on the other.

TRACK LISTING

A1. At The Beach
A2. Smoz Opera
A3. How To Find The Exit In Case Of Fire
A4. Harvest III
A5. Scanner
A6. Walking Running
A7. A Gap In The Step
B1. Phrase Paraphrase
B2. Get Up High
B3. Infinity Pool
B4. Spacerine
B5. Cloud

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. 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.

Harmonious Thelonious is the solo project of the Düsseldorf musician Stefan Schwander. His works combine American-influenced minimal music with African rhythms and European melodies.

"I was busy experimenting with noisy rhythms when Bureau B asked me if I would like to release an album on their label. I was aiming for a more industrial sound; backwards cymbals, loops generated from non-musical sources such as slamming doors, and had the feeling that this would align nicely with Bureau B’s own story." Stefan Schwander’s new album Plong is something of a hybrid in the discography of Harmonious Thelonious, drawing on his existing strengths plus a sense of adventure in a mix of all his musical predilections. Dipping into the music, Middle Eastern elements can be heard on "Original Member Of A Wedding Band" and "Mumba", whilst tracks like "Höhlenmenschenmuziek" are characterized by more pronounced bass structures. Tuned down xylophones, evocative of ritual drums, sub bass and electrifying basslines catalyse the idiosyncratic sound of Plong: hypnotic, danceable, irresistible. A powerful head of steam builds across the nine tracks, with subtle changes in harmony ("Geistertrio Booking") or unexpected cameos such as a new wave bassline on "Abu Synth" shaking things up before the album hurtles onward with renewed force. Take "Interpretation de reve" as a case in point – floating sequences and themes sweep ashore in wave after wave of melody; analogous to dreams which enter the subconscious in episodes, their apparent randomness gradually shifting into a correlative pattern. "Totentanz" closes the album in a homage to the Basle club of the same name, a place which played a decisive role in Schwander’s musical socialisation: "I was lucky enough to see bands like Liquid Liquid, Gun Club, Jonathan Richman and a very young Aztec Camera there".

Harmonious Thelonious comes off with an exceptional work in the genre of electronic music, successfully embracing the physical power of a club night soundtrack whilst exploring the dramatic depths of sonic worlds to create an intensive listening experience in total solitude.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Durian Bro and Dusseldorf sorcerer Stefan Schwander gets industrial and middle eastern on this Bureau B LP, translating his usual sonic manipulations into a hypnotic set of trance dancers for the alternative club kids. I'm gonna buy like 5 copies of this!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Original Member Of A Wedding Band
A2. Höhlenmenschenmuziek
A3. Geistertrio Booking
A4. Abu Synth
A5. Mumba
B1. Young Kong
B2. Interpretation De Reve±
B3. The Roller
B4. Totentanz

This is Tolouse Low Trax’s 4th solo album Jumping Dead Leafs.
A 38 minutes exorcism, dionysac sexyness fueled with romanticism, made of mechanical incantations mixed with spectral vocals of forgotten imaginary tribes, words from a physicist (Incomprehensible Image), and mystical breathings… To remind you that music is demanding your soul and body, fully. A master irritator, disclosing this talent all the way, down to every chosen title, for the album itself and all of its components (would you put Milk in Water ?). As repetitive or minimalist music may already make some of you feel nervous, it seems more accurate to talk here about primitive music - notwithstanding a non violent anarchism. But those are only words and vain attempts to attach TLT to a region or a family. Neither the burden of classical European music legacy, which eventually lead to pop music, seemed to interfere with his wild mind, and if it is no surprising to hear Bach in German electronic music, there is here a clear statement that you are out of this sirupy prison… For D.W. is a sorcerer. He’s been empirically learning the speaking of trance with years of touring and experimenting with all kinds of audience and venues, from clubs to museums, from Mongolia to Brazil, from his performances with his bands Kreidler or Toresch to solo ones, sustained by a steady limited set up, as the one used when he’s recording : one MPC, rudimentary synths, few effects and a mixer. No sound engineer on stage as only he knows his secret language… Raw dubmaking, leaning towards
hip hop, indubitably underlining here a significant distanciation from his previous industrial inspirations. The bewitchment of this record is operating with no warning from the very first seconds until the last epiphany of Sales Pitch. He is using his knowledge of techno, psychedelism (Inverted Sea), UK bass (Jumping Dead Leafs), only to bring you out of it. We all tend to be slaves, without even being conscious about it, and a balance must be existing between being a slave and showing off. Mr. Weinrich’s answer is unsettling because it is an utter call to this balance, in our world of black and white and political correctness. There is no morality in music… Don’t expect anything else than an unaccountable liberating immediate experience. Don’t expect any kind of music because you are already in the past or the future… From his recording technique mainly relying on one takes, his adoration of mistakes and jeopardy, to the core essence of repetitive music, it is all hereabout being in the present. No ears no glasses. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Dusseldorf's dance floor Derrida comes correct with his first solo album in six years, providing a little club deconstruction for the fringe DJ and haunted home listener! Frankly, no one sounds like Detlef, and as this LP blazes its hazy trail through warehouse smog, dislocated dubspace and an entirely crepuscular strand of psychedelia, it becomes increasingly clear how much we've missed him.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Inverted Sea
A2. Berrytone Souvenier
A3. The Incomprehensible Image
B1. Jumping Dead Leafs
B2. Milk In Water
B3. Dawn Is Temporal
B4. Pulse Skit
B5. Sales Pitch

Notorische Reflexe was an experimental band, art form and a film performance group from West Berlin. Existing from 1982 to 1986, they were part of the early 80s Berlin art scene along with groups like P.D., Die Tödliche Doris, Einstürzende Neubauten or Malaria. Their only LP – originally released in 1985 – is an impressive outburst ranging from minimal electronics to more experimental takes with some jazzy/ethnic touches. Now reissued on LP featuring a bonus track, extended artwork and liner notes by Mark Reeder. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Total grail of the German underground this! Falling somewhere between NDW, tribal electronics and avant jazz, this killer LP balances ethno-industrial freakouts and noise experiments with absolute floor fillers for the weirdo dancefloor.

TRACK LISTING

1. Das Afrikateil
2. Metalltanz
3. Waiting
4. Advanced Medicine
5. The Wisp
6. Jalan Bai
7. Bresnjev Rap
8. Yang Sun, Ein Stellungloser Flieger
9. Next Stop
10. Je Veux Partir
11. Le Beat (Continue)
12. Südseekonventtango
13. Hammer (Live Mitschnitt)

Rudolf Langer (formerly of Tyndall) and Peter Preu teamed up to create Lapre as a vehicle for their adventures in sonic experimentation. They set about capturing their nocturnal rehearsal room sessions on tape, Langer on synthesizer and Preu on guitar. With the exception of a solitary single and a few extremely limited cassette runs, Lapre released no further material during their active phase. It was not until 2018 that their works became accessible to a wider audience, when Bureau B released the Auferstehung retrospective, drawing on tracks from 1983 to 1984.? Banzai, the second collection of Lapre recordings, follows up by concentrating on their creative output from the years 1985 to 1987. A well-kept secret at the time of its inception, this music was barely audible beyond the borders of Berlin's underground scene. It thus gives us great pleasure to give these tracks the attention they ultimately deserve, more than 30 years later.

Composer, radio dramatist and performance artist Frieder Butzmann began exploring experimental music in the late 1960s. One of the pioneers of German industrial music and a member of the Geniale Dilettanten movement, Butzmann has collaborated with artists such as Genesis P-Orridge, Blixa Bargeld, and Santrra Oxyd, as well as releasing numerous solo works. Frieder Butzmann joined forces with author and artist Thomas Kapielski in the early 1980s. Most of their compositions are minimalist tracks interspersed with everyday noises and fragments of speech, as can be heard on their WAR PUR WAR album, first released on Zensor in 1987. This utterly unique work is an idiosyncratic mix of eccentric electro-pop and bizarre sonic collages and has gone on to become a sought-after collector's item. Now lovingly remastered, with refreshed artwork and two bonus tracks, WAR PUR WAR is being reissued on LP and CD on Bureau B, complete with previously unpublished photos and liner notes by Frieder Butzmann. 

Finnish composer and multi-instrumentalist Jimi Tenor has joined forces with Bureau B to release "NY, Hel, Barca" - a retrospective compilation spanning the years 1994 - 2001. The double LP features early works and selected tracks from his first six albums, long since deleted. The 20 tracks on "NY, Hel, Barca" document key stages of Jimi Tenor's remarkable creative path, underlining the prolific and varied nature of his artistic output. Then as now, he shines like a satellite hovering over the European pop landscape. 

Reissue (originally released 1981 on SKY records).
Cold, concise analogue synthesizer instrumentals — on his second album Serge Blenner remained true to his style, albeit shifting course slightly towards pop territory. The juxtaposition of dark harmonies and pop structures is what makes this album so appealing. In places, it feels like a blueprint for early Depeche Mode.

Having seen his first album La Vogue snapped up by the Sky label and fast tracked for release in 1980, Blenner delivered his second LP (Magazin Frivole) the following year. Mindful of the success of its predecessor, Blenner added the name of his debut in big letters to the front cover of the new sleeve. Better to be safe than sorry.

Blenner remained faithful to his musical style, albeit adding more of a pop flavour. Magazin Frivole would not look out of place filed alongside Depeche Mode on the record shelf, as a certain resemblance is undeniable. Moreover, Blenner was one of the few proponents of electronic music who preferred to keep his songs concise, in contrast to the meandering odysseys of many of his electronic contemporaries. The far better known French artist Jean-Michel Jarre adhered to similar principles, yet although Blenner was often compared to his compatriot, he claims only to have heard his music long after La Vogue had appeared.

Blenner’s creative approach is quite remarkable. He is at pains to point out that he is a composer, not a musician. Improvisation does not play a part in his music. Minor chords dominate his harmonies, the bass performs octave leaps which mirror the zeitgeist. Unexpected key changes abound, adding a restless, almost disquieting quality. Overall, Magazin Frivole is less dark than the preceding album, but a picture of cheerfulness it is not. Nevertheless, a poppy drum computer introduces a lighter note.

From the very first track, chord changes pop up at unexpected junctures — they seem to come in prematurely, before harmonic sequences have run their course. Blenner doesn’t have any explanation for this curiosity, other than to note that “most of the music was played by hand, so of course it wasn’t all perfect.” Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be too catchy. “I did all I could to avoid being successful — on a subconscious level, at least. Unpredictable metrics and irregular beats were definitely part of the process” Blenner admits with an enigmatic smile.

As a matter of fact, Blenner prefers not to listen to his older recordings, dismissive of their adolescent air. Juxtaposed with Blenner’s more recent works, one can see what he means. His latest album Musique de Chambre (2008) comprises modern classical chamber music, built on digitally sampled real instruments. Besides, Blenner points out, handling all of those analogue devices was a convoluted and complex undertaking. Help was at hand. With an impeccable sense of timing, his friend Wolfgang Palm launched the PPG Wave, the first commercially available digital synthesizer. Blenner sings the praises of the PPG (Palm Products GmbH) today as enthusiastically as when he first got his hands on one. “Suddenly I had all the equipment I needed in one box.” He never used analogue equipment again, leaving his first two albums as the only ones of their kind. Which is a real shame.

TRACK LISTING

1. Magazin Frivole (6:46)
2. Envoutement (4:11)
3. Derivatif (3:57)
4. A L’Ouest (3:45)
5. Métropole Agile (4:50)
6. Phonique (5:03)
7. Frivolité (2:44)
8. Polyphase (4:52)

The two-man band are set to release their long-awaited debut album in 2019 on Bureau B. The eight tracks contain familiar OTTO ingredients, from organ sounds and rhythm presets to disco strings and the monophonic waves of a 1970s synthesizer. Arpeggio and Hohner notes add extra sharpness to the proceedings. Classics from their live repertoire sit alongside brand new numbers, invariably strange synthesizer compositions.

Imagine if you could listen to the nervous whirling of methane and helium, that's what this album sounds like - at least in the mind of experimentalist Conrad Schnitzler. The Berlin artist first released these recordings on a small American cassette label. An uncommonly rhythmical vortex, we would suggest.

Conditions of the Gas Giant reflected the atmosphere associated with the music, clouds of manifold colours, whirling nervously above a gaseous planet. A methane and helium tryst in sonic form - fireworks, pyrotechnics for the eyes, like the surface of Jupiter, just as Schnitzler's tracks are pyrotechnics for the ears.

Martin Rev is best known as one half of the seminal duo Suicide (with Alan Vega). Listening to his solo albums, it becomes clear that Rev was responsible for the group’s music. Suicide mirrored the reductive and radical traits of the contemp- oraneous punk scene that was in the process of emerging, but their electronic, minimalist form of language was so unique, so innovative, that they would become a major influence on the likes of Daft Punk, Air and Aphex Twin. Alongside his work with Suicide, Martin Rev continued as a solo artist, releasing his eponymous debut album in 1980 on New York’s Infidelity label. Rev’s early solo excursions can be traced back to the original ideas which can be found – in modified form – in Suicide songs: as instrumental versions which have been texturally enriched, like a familiar figure which has nevertheless taken on a completely new existence.

Clouds of Glory
His second solo effort, was released on the French label New Rose in 1985, although the recordings on Clouds Of Glory actually dated back to the earlier part of the decade, following on from the Suicide sessions for the duo’s second album. Martin Rev remembers: “Clouds of Glory was produced from visual and musical sketches I had in mind which then coincidedwith an invitation by Marty Thau, previously Suicide’s manager, to take advantage of studio time he had accumulated from other projects. The essence of my ideas was then realized in the studio. Clouds was started in 1981 and completed in 1984 when additionalstudio time was made possible to complete it, based on the offer by New Rose Records.” In spite of Clouds Of Glory having been recorded with the sameequipment as the Alan Vega / Martin Rev Suicide album, it occupies a completely different space, evoking the solemnity of religious music through its underlying meditative tone. “I look now upon the album as part of a personal journey into the frontier of music; a process which is never ending in its revealing of possibilities to satisfy my musical aspirations.”

TRACK LISTING

1 Rocking Horse (5:45)
2 Parade (6:45)
3 Whisper (4:04)
4 Rodeo (6:37)
5 Metatron (6:25)
6 Clouds Of Glory (6:22)

Martin Rev is best known as one half of the seminal duo Suicide (with Alan Vega). Listening to his solo albums, it becomes clear that Rev was responsible for the group’s music. Suicide mirrored the reductive and radical traits of the contemp- oraneous punk scene that was in the process of emerging, but their electronic, minimalist form of language was so unique, so innovative, that they would become a major influence on the likes of Daft Punk, Air and Aphex Twin. Alongside his work with Suicide, Martin Rev continued as a solo artist, releasing his eponymous debut album in 1980 on New York’s Infidelity label. Rev’s early solo excursions can be traced back to the original ideas which can be found – in modified form – in Suicide songs: as instrumental versions which have been texturally enriched, like a familiar figure which has nevertheless taken on a completely new existence.

Cheyenne
Although it was not released until 1991, Martin Rev’s third solo album features a wealth of material from the year 1980. For “Cheyenne”, Rev created instrumental versions of many of the tracks which had formed the basis of the second Suicide LP entitled “Alan Vega / Martin Rev”. The sphere of Martin Rev’s influence and the relevance of his music may well be related to the fact that he was one of the first artists who succeeded in grasping the abstraction of electronic music, infusing it with a sense of immediacy built on raw energy. Whilst the likes of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass and Kraftwerk were busy digging in the electronic music garden, Martin Rev found inspiration in the streets of New York. Rev’s music is informed by characteristic influences of the city, a place where doo-wop harmonies intermingle with the hiss and hum of the metropolis, dissolving into a collage of noise. So it is that dreamy, chiming melodies blur into ominous whirrs and drones emanating from rhythm machines and layers of distorted synthesizer. This polarity between convergence and alienation describes something deeply American, as reflected in the track names and the cover image of a rodeo rider: “The idea came from the way the tracks sounded as instrumentals. They took on a different visually descriptive dimension, even more so in combination. The visualization was an immediate sound- scape of the American landscape. That’s where the titles and cover came from.” Many of the pieces found on Cheyenne can be traced back to the sessions for the second Suicide album Alan Vega / Martin Rev (1980) which was produced by Ric Ocasek, singer for The Cars. Almost a decade passed before Martin Rev got around to editing and developing the material. “Most of the album was recorded in 1980, but the remaining few tracks from 1988 into the early 90’s. The 80’s tracks all went under a concerted editing process, to make them work for me even better as instrumentals. I didn’t get around to that until there was an offer to release them, which was in the early 90’s as well.” Indeed, Cheyenne plays out like a rural, yet intense road movie, crossing a landscape rich in beauty and contradictions.

TRACK LISTING

1 Wings Of The Wind (7:58)
2 Red Sierra (6:36)
3 Dakota (2:58)
4 Cheyenne (3:09)
5 River Of Tears (3:49)
6 Buckeye (2:15)
7 Little Rock (7:00)
8 Prairie Star (2:27)
9 Mustang (2:40)

When you think of the music to have emerged from Seattle, grunge and Sub Pop are probably the first things that come to mind. But Seattle was already home to a vibrant alternative music scene back in the 1970s. One of the most prominent synthesizer acts of the period was the trio Young Scientist. Influenced by the likes of Cluster, Harmonia and Tangerine Dream, they released their music exclusively on cassette. We are delighted to present their superb debut album from 1979, the hypnotic-meditative-cyclical "Results, Not Answers" on vinyl for the very first time!

Five years after the release of the highly acclaimed ‘Streetlife’ album the Cologne based Neo-Kraut/Electro-Pop band returns with new recordings. ‘Under Pressure’ includes collaborations with Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier, with Vivien Goldmann, R. Stevie Moore and Chris A. Cummings who was the guest vocalist on their successful ‘Chain Of Command’ single.

Since 1981, Wilfried Franzen and Thomas Grotz have been developing their own version of experimental pop music, which oscillates between song structures, noise, and psychedelic trance. Bass and keyboards form the instrumental substructure of the duo’s compositions, which are enriched with guitars, violin, piano, electronic percussions, and samples. After self-publishing various cassettes and cds, "Nachtwerk" is the first official release of SOLARIZE, which presents selected pieces from the years 1991 to 1998.

French electronic music from California: "Last Wave", the fifth solo album by the artist and musician Bernard Xolotl, was originally released on cassette in 1982. He named himself after the Aztec god of lightning and death. His music is influenced by the Berlin school of electronic music. This reissue includes a previously unreleased bonus track (not on vinyl)! As a teen, Bernard Xolotl (born 1951 in France) was introduced to electronic music through the works of musique concrete composers like Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer, although he found the early recordings of Pink Floyd to be more inspirational. During the early 1970s, Xolotl began creating music of his own, working in studios across Europe and the US before settling in California in 1974, where he slowly built his own studio. Between 1978 and 1981 he recorded four solo cassette albums. On his album "Last Wave" Xolotl expanded his musical palette with many new instruments such as the Yamaha CS60 and the PPG.

Bernard Xolotl on the creating process of "Last Wave": The first "Last Wave" I started early on while still living in San Francisco, as a simple and longish piece which could be used as a background for the concerts I was giving with Daniel Kobialka and Richard Horowitz, both of whom I saw almost every day at that time. However, after I moved to the residential suburb of Marin to build up my studio, I kept adding tracks to it so it just became part of my next album. This was going to have more instruments and progressively, I got to do everything myself, playing and recording one track at a time. But mixing there was still out of the question, so I had to wait for the right opportunity to use the proper San Francisco studio with the best reverbs and acoustics. This took several years in the end and was the last album I didn't mix at home.

Following the vaguely poppy shapes of 1980's album East West, his fith album L'Ethique saw ex-Heldon guitarist and synth wizard Richard Pinhas return to bigger and bolder band-like methods. After the release he disappeared from the limelight for nearly a decade and returned in the 1990s.

Interviewed by "Electronics & Music Maker" magazine in 1982, Richard Pinhas spoke in buoyant terms about the future of his recording career. Having just unveiled his fifth solo album, L'Ethique, he was already scheming towards its follow-up. The next record. It would see him shift from analogue-based methods to digital systems. He expected the album to arrive in 1984. Little did anybody know that the mooted record would not actually materialise.

The year after that interview took place, Pinhas was plunged into a long period of depression. "I stopped everything and didn't think I would ever come back to music," he remembers. "I decided music was no longer for me. I'd said what I had to wanted to say, and it was done. It was out of my head and out of my life." Thus, he sold all his synthesisers and tried to survive on their profits along with royalties from his back catalogue. L'Ethique now looked as though it was Pinhas' final artistic statement. It was a strong collection to go out on. L'Ethique saw Pinhas return to bigger and bolder band-like methods. His collaborators included bassist Bernard Paganotti and Clément Bailly, both of whom performed stints in the prog band Magma. Moog player Patrick Gauthier made a reappearance too. The line-up brought a phat and forceful feel to the crunching jazz-rock fusion of 'Belfast' and 'Dedicated To K.C.', a vibrant space-rock stomper that lurks on some distant planet between the extraterrestrial habitats of King Crimson, Pink Floyd and Hawkwind.

Part 1 of 'The Western Wall' has a particularly fast tempo. Interspersing these rockers sit some mellower moments. The title of the gorgeous synth rumination 'Melodic Simple Transition' seems far too modest. Despite its dark and brooding synth chords, the second instalment of 'The Western Wall' has a strangely calming effect on the senses. Pinhas disappeared from the limelight for nearly a decade under the weight of his depression. On the strength of this record, not to mention the works that preceded it, there's little wonder that so many labels and promoters were falling over themselves to persuade Pinhas to return to music, which he eventually did in the 1990s. "The real miracle is that I reconnected with the music-making process," says Pinhas on overcoming his reclusive years. "It is easy to fall, but very difficult to come back."

TRACK LISTING

A1. L'Ethique (part 1) 
A2. Dedicated To KC 
A3. Melodic Simple Transition 
A4. Belfast 
B1. L'Ethique (part 2)
B2. The Western Wail (part 1)
B3. L'Ethique (part 3)
B4. The Western Wail (part 2)
B5. L'Ethique (part 4)

Mesmerizing D-I-Y electronic music from Cumbria, UK. Influenced by the Berlin School but, even more, by Tim Blake. Released 1984 on cassette only. This is the first time vinyl!

Carl Matthews is by no means immune to the maelstrom of geo-caching notebooks. Krautrock (tick), guerrilla D-I-Y cassette-era artist (tick), under-rated UK electronic composer (tick). Man with a beard, surrounded by synths. (tick). Best of all, he was once described as the Edgar Froese of Cumbria.

Is there a suspension bridge which connects Carl Matthews to the mainland European tradition of Harmonia, Cluster and Tangerine Dream? 

Fourth solo album by French spacerock mastermind Richard Pinhas. 'East West' was his first and only album to be released by a major label (CBS). Some say it is his most commercial one, Pinhas doesn't see it that way. East West contained some surprises for those who were used to Heldon’s extended jams or the sparse and moody atmosphere of the previous year’s Iceland.

East West’s average track length is four minutes, indicating greater accessibility. It also has a David Bowie cover, although Pinhas naturally chose one of the thin white duke’s more avant-garde moments: the foreboding 'Sense Of Doubt' from Heroes. East West’s synth-centric tracks, resemble siblings to the groundbreaking work of Kraftwerk. Others evoke Brian Eno or Tangerine Dream but hold their own distinct flavour.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Houston 69: The Crash Landing (part 1)
A2. London: Sense Of Doubt
A3. Kyoto: Kyoto Number 3
A4. XXXXX: La Ville Sans Nom
A5. Home: Ruitor
B1. New York: West Side
B2. Paris: Beautiful May
B3. Keflavik: The Whale Dance
B4. Houston 69: Houston 69 (part 2)

Richard Pinhas is one of the most important French electronic space rock musicians. Following five albums with Heldon, his band, he released solo records from 1977 on. His transition to 'solo' material gave the guitarist and synthesist an opportunity to work on material that was a little lighter and less constrained. 'Chronolyse' was his second solo album. At the time of "Chronolyse"’s gestation, Pinhas had been listening to a lot of classical music. Bach, Scarlatti and Wagner were key. So too were the new wave of American minimalist composers; Philip Glass in particular. After the out of this world "Variations" on the A-side, skip to the flip for the Dune inspired tone poem "Paul Atreides".

TRACK LISTING

A1. Variations I
A2. Variations II
A3. Variations III
A4. Variations IV
A5. Variations V
A6. Variations VI
A7. Variations VII
A8. Duncan Idaho
B1. Paul Atreides

Started as the so called 'Krautrock Guerrilla' in 2012, six years later the Berlin combo Camera are releasing their fourth full-length album. Customarily associated with the likes of NEU! and La Dusseldorf it is time to allow Camera to break free of the krautrock tradition and accept that they are very much doing their own thing now. Motto: "It's not repetition, it’s discipline"

TRACK LISTING

1. Gizmo
2. Patrouille
3. Ciao Cacao
4. Himmelhilf
5. Cosm
6. Pacific One
7. Nicenstein
8. Super 8
9. Feuerwerk

"Sowas von egal" is a collaboration between the Hamburg record label Bureau B and the Hamburg party series Damaged Goods. The divergent trajectories of a record company on the one hand and DJs on the other are happily aligned through a love and passion for seeking out, collecting, releasing and playing rare, remarkable music which simply needs to be heard.
The Damaged Goods DJs created the party as a danceable party where they could play music beyond the regular and repetitious repertoire of (dark) electro clichés. The focus is on seldom heard post punk and synth wave from the 1980s. Many of the old records had only been pressed in small quantities, often sold exclusively at the respective bands' gigs. More than 30 years later, it is almost impossible to get hold of these tracks... until now. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: I've declared my undying love for Neue Deutsche Welle many times before, so you'll understand I was very happy to see this Bureau B comp land in my lap. What's more, I don't know a single track on here, and it's full of killers!

TRACK LISTING

01. Träneninvasion - Sentimental
02. Der Moderne Man - Blaue Matrosen 
03. Silberstreif - Bei Dir Ist Noch Licht 
04. El Deux - Computermädchen 
05. Nullzeit - Dein Ganzes Leben 
06. Hoffnung & Psyche - Sie Bleibt Kalt 
07. Schwellköper - Liebe, Triebe, Diebe 
08. New Dimension - Stuttgart Schwarz
09. Berlin Express - Die Russen Kommen
10. Pension Stammheim - US-Invasion
11. Alu - Bitte Warten Sie
12. Matthias Schuster - Für Alles Auf Der Welt
13. Gorilla Aktiv - Spiegelbild
14. 08/15 - 1000 Gelbe Tennisbälle

"Elemente" - album number seven from the third incarnation of the legendary krautronic project Kluster/Cluster springs a surprise with a minor sensation: sequencer lines! Using an array of exclusively analogue instruments, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Onnen Bock and Armin Metz have recorded eight tracks which, at one and the same time, are intrinsically hypnotic and sublimely beautiful.

Dennis Young is best known as the percussionist of the New York band LIQUID LIQUID, which is known for their piece "Cavern" from 1983, which in turn became very well known because Grandmaster Flash sampled it and used it as the basis for their hit "White Lines". But Young was more than just a member of the band, he produced plenty of his own music, much of it reflecting his passion for analog electronics. He was fascinated by the pioneers of the genre. In 2016 Bureau B released "Wave", a collection of pieces Young had issued on cassettes between 1985-1988. "Synthesis", by contrast, features tracks from 1984-1988 which have never been previously released.

Richard Pinhas is one of the most important French electronic space rock musicians. Following five albums with HELDON, his band, he released his first solo record in 1977. Backed by Heldon’s congenial drummer Francois Auger but no longer bound by the group dynamic, he explores his freshly purchased Moog Modular system in search of new sounds.

On four of its five tracks, Rhizosphere presents just the 25- year-old Pinhas and his synth alone together, a melding of man and machine that gradually becomes an expansive, outward-bound journey. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: We see the beginnings of Pinhas' evolving, industrial swirling synths and cosmic chugging krautrock on this, his debut from 1977. Airy pads and self-oscillating filters swirl and bend into an intoxicating, fascinating synth odyssey. Absolutely essential addition to any collection.

Schlammpeitziger came through in the same 90s wave of German eclectronica as Oval, Mouse On Mars, To Rococo Rot, Mike Ink etc..

Uncut - 8/10 review Feb 2018 - 'Blissed out electronic reveries'.

In the early 1980s, the French musical duo Fondation, comprising Ivan Coaquette and Anannka Raghel, released three tapes of fantastic electronic music which owed much to the experi-mentalism of the seventies. Synthesizer, drum computer, solo guitar. Repetitive, meditative, hypnotic. Between ambient and synth pop.

"Les Cassettes 1980-1983" presents a selection of their finest pieces from this period. 

Originally released on cassette in 1980. The first live recording by Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius, recorded 1980 in Vienna. The only collaboration with the Austrian musician Joshi Farnbauer who played drums and percussion and a sonic throwback to their early years. First time on vinyl!

Limited 12" vinyl (500 copies). To mark its 40th anniversary in 2007 the Kunsthalle Dusseldorf organized the "Dusseldorf Sounds - Festival of Art and Music from Dusseldorf. One particularly noteworthy event was staged in the Kunsthalle's cinema auditorium: the only Dieter Moebius and Stefan Schneider collaboration ever. On the night of the concert, they improvised everything. After the show, a journalist asked Moebius to expand on the differences between the fine arts and music. His riposte was succinct and disarming in equal measure: "What differences? - they are both art." Available for first time. 

Dieter Moebius (1944-2015) - one half of the legendary duo Cluster and the godfather of electronic krautrock - was one of the most important protagonists of avant-garde electronic music in Germany. The Americans Tim Story and Jon Leidecker are two electronic musicians who could not be more different to one another. Story is known for his warm soundscapes whilst Leidecker has made an name for himself, or rather for his "Wobbly" pseudonym, with experimental adventures in sound. He is also a member of the music and art collective Negativland.

Harald Grosskopf and Eberhard Kranemann transmit cosmic sonic visions of today, tomorrow and beyond in one of the most exciting collaborations in recent years. Harald Grosskopf played on the early Klaus Schulze albums and recorded with Ashra..  Eberhard Kranemann co-founded the electronic bands Kraftwerk, NEU!

Der Plan have met in the studio after 25 years and recorded a new album. One can claim without exaggeration that DER PLAN were one of the - and perhaps the most -powerful German bands during the time of musical adventure at the beginning of the 1980s. Maybe they still are?

Jurriaan Andriessen (1925-1996) was a Dutch composer. Although he was actually at home in classical music, he recorded three synthesizer albums in the late 1970s, the first of which, "The Awakening Dream" (1977), is an outstanding excursion into experimental ambient and minimal music. Andriessen himself, 52 years of age at the time, called it a "a trance symphony". The music-perhaps surprisingly for a contemporary classical composer-is less in the tradition of his peers such as Pierre Boulez or Karlheinz Stockhausen and more in tune with the electronic sounds of the Seventies emanating from Berlin, Dusseldorf or Forst, the likes of Cluster, early Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, in places echoing Conrad Schnitzler.

In their 23 years of existence, KREIDLER have often made music that might be described as "dystopian". Kreidler were in a recording studio, in Mexico City, when they were hit by the news of the election of US President Donald Trump. With renewed vigor they realized the studio live sessions of “European Song”, a record that maintains the suppleness and the icy nonchalantly of the the German quartet, but contaminated by a slight claustrophobic feeling, an intensification of the accents as if to face up to exorcised, the fulfillment of such a political event similar to a nightmare that had seemed, until then, rather remote.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another masterful collection from Kosmische masters Kreidler. Clanging industrious electronics, driving hypnotic basslines, and Kreidler's textbook execution make this another well-deserved notch on their musical bedpost. As brilliant as expected.