Tampere's monotrax (hard percussive techno) artist Tuomas Rantanen celebrates his tenth anniversary -- Rantanen's first release, "Access Denied EP" (Template 8.9) came out on Template/Planet Rhythm in 1999 -- with this new download EP reflecting Tuomas's interest in philosophy (especially that of Martin Heidegger).
Artist: Tuomas Rantanen Title: The Philosopher EP Format: download Label: Armatura Clandestine Cat.no.: ACS 006 Date: 13 May 2009
Tampere IDM/dubstep/etc. music collective Swaeg announces forthcoming Net releases:
SWG009 - TOIMINTO - FLEA CIRCUS TAKES; coming soon! [Some tracks to be heard at Toiminto MySpace page.]
SWG008 - DKSTR - I R; coming soon!
"DKSTR from Turku, Finland is one half of Videovalvontaa. DKSTR signed up for year 2009 RPM Challenge. Idea was to make record during february 2009. In 28 days, 10 songs or 35 minutes of music. Debut album “I R” is mostly made by sampling my Yamaha SHS-10, so it’s kinda lofi stuff. Songs are mellow and slow, but there are some more banging parts here and there."
N&B Research Digest has three wonderful archival releases out now as digital downloads
Swissair: "15. joulukuuta 1981"
”15. joulukuuta 1981” (”December 15th, 1981”) was recorded during one afternoon in Helsinki and first released as a cassette in early 1982. At this point the six 16-year old members of Swissair, whose earlier music had been inspired by punk and new wave groups like PiL, Wire, Chrome and MX-80 Sound, were becoming acquainted with the history of avant-garde music and immediately started experimenting with its ideas while having practically no traditional playing skills at all. At least Anton Webern’s music in which "silences matter as much as sounds" was discussed before pressing the rec button and starting to improvise... READ MORE and LISTEN TO PREVIEWS: http://www.nbresearchdigest.com/15
Jungle: "Live in Leningrad"
Jungle was formed in 1983 in Leningrad Rock Club’s new wave milieu, continuing a local tradition of giving groups names that had to with animals and domestication. Jungle was an exception among Aquarium, Zoo and other prominent underground groups in Leningrad in another respect: its music was purely instrumental and the musicians cited European ”avant-progressive” Rock In Opposition musicians and American proponents of Ornette Coleman’s harmolodics as their influences instead of The Velvet Underground or British new wave groups... READ MORE and LISTEN TO PREVIEWS: http://www.nbresearchdigest.com/leningrad
F.R.U.I.T.S.: "Studio Recordings Vol. 1"
F.R.U.I.T.S. is a duo formed by Alexei Borisov and Pavel Zhagun in Moscow in 1992. Borisov had started in the early 1980’s as a guitarist in Centre, the very first Russian new wave band, and later formed his own experimental group Notchnoi Prospekt. Zhagun’s background was quite different: he had been a brass player in the touring group of Soviet Union’s biggest pop star, Alla Pugachova, and wrote lyrics for her and other so-called "official" pop stars, but gradually turned into an enthusiast of contemporary academic composition. Together Borisov and Zhagun started to make hypnotic, musique concrète-inspired pieces on samplers, and theoretised about concepts like optical sounds, "reframing", "noise reconstruction" and ”no music”... READ MORE and LISTEN TO PREVIEWS: http://www.nbresearchdigest.com/studio
All our download albums are available both as best-quality mp3's (for the tech-oriented: LAME/extreme quality, no copy protection) and, at a slightly higher price, as lossless flac files (= CD quality).
ELSEWHERE ON THE NET Alexei Borisov & Anton Nikkilä have a track called "Pink Bread" on the download-only compilation "Sound Canvas 1 - Compilation of sound art, minimal and improvised music" made available for free by Moscow's Mikroton label and featuring Alva Noto, Frank Bretschneider, Lawrence English and many others: http://www.mikroton.net/md1.html
Anton Nikkilä has also contributed a track entitled "Lasijauholaivakeikka Revisited" on the free download-only compilation "Fifteen Sounds of the War on the Poor, Vol. 1" released by the Los Angeles-based Public Record and featuring Ultra-red, Terre Thaemlitz, Alejandra and Aeron, Christopher DeLaurenti, and more: http://publicrec.org/archive/2-06/2-06-002/2-06-002.html
NEW ITEMS IN OUR OWN WEBSHOP include the Lithuanian compilation "Un/Typical" (featuring Alexei Borisov & Anton Nikkilä), the Slovenian compilation "Fabriksampler V2" (featuring Alexei Borisov & Tania Stene) and the album "M S :4" by the Moscow group Rivushiye struny. Read more about them on our website: http://www.nbresearchdigest.com.
With best seasonal wishes, hyvää joulua & с наступающими праздниками!
The new mini-album by I Was A Teenage Satan Worshipper, Dark Business, can be downloaded for free until the end of January 2009 from the following sites:
Talking about favourite blogs: if I didn't have such a short attention span and if I didn't hate reading long texts off computer screen (especially here in a local free Net café amidst the clamour of 10 - 15-year old boys coming to play RuneQuest and shoot-'em-up games after the school), I would pay more attention to the Web diary of Momus where the Scottish-originated artist and writer -- born as Nick Currie in 1960 -- gives his regular views on art, culture, politics and naturally music, his own and of the others.
Anyway, I try to give at least a brief daily glance to what Mr. Currie is saying, so I recently noticed he's going to give for free (or for a voluntary donation) six Momus albums recorded for the legendary Creation Records, according to certain fans some of his best. In his own words from the blog:
"Six Momus albums -- the ones I recorded for Alan McGee's Creation label between 1987 and 1993 -- are out of print. Creation doesn't exist any more, and in theory Sony owns the rights to these albums, but isn't doing anything with them and probably never will. In the meantime, only Russian pirates are profiting, charging punters for illegal downloads.
So, during the rest of December, I've decided to release mp3s of my six Creation albums here on Click Opera, for free. Think of it as a sort of Creation Advent Calendar, with a new old Momus album every couple of days. If you're the sort of person who likes to donate to the artist when you download, do it here. But it's not really necessary; these albums paid for themselves long ago. Think of this as a Christmas present. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!"
This is the era when Momus (the name borrowed from the Greek god of satire and mockery) took cues, alongside the more obvious Jacques Brel, Serge Gainsbourg, Scott Walker and David Bowie influences, also from such contemporary electronic artists as Pet Shop Boys, to his witty, ironic and bittersweet songs of literary style, wry commentary and "tender perversion" not unfamiliar with controversy. As is found from Wikipedia entry, in his time he has managed to anger both the trans-gender electronic music pioneer Wendy Carlos and Michelin Tyres (comparing the famous Michelin Man to a blow-up doll), not to forget songs mentioning paedophilia, necrophilia, adultery and Tamagotchis.
I have to say my own knowledge of Momus' music is more sporadic and limited to owning some albums from this era of the late 80s and early 90s. Though the artist himself comments the album in question: "This is really just a funky book-end, pleasant enough as a mood piece, but not really essential", my own favourite Momus record is the futuristic-themed Voyager of 1992 (where 'Cibachrome Blue' video seen here is taken from) -- and he even had a gig at Yo-Talo in our measly Tampere during those days, which I remember witnessing.
The other connection Momus has to this country is the Man of Letters documentary film made of him in 1994 by Finnish director Hannu Puttonen (who also created the videos for 'Pornography', 'Marquise of Sadness' and 'Rhetoric' by Momus) -- the film is available as a DVD with extra material on Cherry Red Records.
Kirlian Crossing is a Finnish act comprising at the moment Ilai Rämä (also of Siniaalto fame), Teemu Sinkko, JP Linna and Jussi Miettola. Inspired by Kirlian photography, they claim "the original idea was to combine acoustic folk songs into Soviet Union era science fiction in Tarkovsky spirit", "building microphones and effects", using "Soviet-made technology and Russian microphones" and "we've gone by channeling sessions, books, cinema. Eventually we've counterfeited UFO footage and looked the world through pinhole cameras. We are the chance of a dog wandering into the scene in Stalker". You can see their spooky Kirlian and pinhole photographs at their gallery.
Repeat and Repeat Vol. 4 by Kirlian Crossing in their series of Net releases is out now at:
In the repeat there's quiet, developing change. Hopefully the changing never stops.
This is our fourth series of downloadable records containing improvisations by Kirlian Crossing. (You'll find previous ones on the release series page). This series will contain nine volumes, released on the 2nd of each month until May 2009.
You can download three types of .zip files:
'wav', which is a .zip package including .wav files for cd-r burning, .mp3 files for free internet distribution and a printable cd-r cover (.pdf). 'mp3', which is a .zip package including the music in mp3-format 'cover', which is a .zip package including a printable cd-r cover 'torrent', which includes the same as 'wav'-package.
Finnish IDM artist Lackluster (a.k.a. Esa Ruoho) announces two new online releases. Compcomp includes 20 tracks taken from Lackluster's various compilation releases over the past eight years. Remixcomp features 20 remixes by Lackluster from 2002 to 2008, released on vinyls, CDs, CDRs and digital downloads. Some have been made in Dublin, some in Kontula, one in Augsburg.
Exclusively available for digital FLAC/MP3 download at:
I told you some time ago about Tampere's club and Net label Swaeg, run by Joonas Toivonen (born 1981) a.k.a. Toiminto and some friends. Now Toiminto has his new Net release out, an album of eight tracks; promising "adventures in dubstep-ish dimensions". You can download the whole album as MP3s or one ZIP file from http://www.swaeg.net/.
Artist: Toiminto Title: Lost In Low Frequencies Cat.No: SWG-005 Label: Swaeg Length: 43 minutes Date: April 2007
