Asmus Tietchens / Robert Rutman - Schritt Um Schritt / Buzz Off (Die Stadt, 1999)

1 Asmus Tietchens - Schritt Um Schritt 4:47
2 Robert Rutman - Buzz Off 7:58

Le truc important que j'ai oublié de préciser hier; c'est qu'Asmus Tietchens jouera, avec Le Syndicat, le 25 novembre aux Instants Chavirés....

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Z'EV / John Duncan / Aidan Baker / Fear Falls Burning - Untitled (Die Stadt, 2005)

A Z'EV - Elementonal 5:01
B John Duncan - Offffffff 5:01
C Aidan Baker - Drone Four (Excerpt) 10:06
D Fear Falls Burning - The Beautiful Decline (Excerpt) 9:47
CD1-1 Z'EV - Untitled 20:34
CD1-2 John Duncan - Bkg 12:03
CD2-1 Fear Falls Burning - Drone Four 36:46
CD2-2 Aidan Baker - The Beautiful Decline (Declining Mix) 14:15
CD2-3 Aidan Baker - The Beautiful Decline (Declined Mix) 9:58

On October 2nd 2005, the four above mentioned names performed at Bremen's Lagerhaus in a concert curated by Die Stadt's Jochen Schwarz who, in customary fashion, released a commemorative double 7-inch of the proceedings, one track for each artist. No surprises as to what we get: Z'ev's "Elementonal" is a crashing pandemonium of metal and irregular rhythm, John Duncan's "Offffffff" sounds like treated white noise (but it could be heavily processed breath or something), Aidan Baker's "Drone Four (Excerpt)" explores different approaches to guitar looping in what is the deepest music on offer, while the flat repetition of Fear Falls Burning (aka Vidna Obmana)'s "The Beautiful Decline (Excerpt)" is the shallowest. What counts more is the double CD that comes with the limited mail order edition, which finds the four manipulating and reworking each other's sounds in settings that allow the mind better to adapt to the sonic circumstances. Z'ev transforms a short field recording by Duncan into a violent grey uncertainty of haunting voices and concrete rumbles saturating the listening space with oppressive power. Duncan's response in "BKG" is to attack tweeters with nails and teeth and send the listener into a maze of intoxicating distorted sibilance. Disc 2 finds Fear Falls Burning and Aidan Baker at work on each other's trance-fusion: Baker's "Drone Four" is re-looped and progressively degraded with effects and slow beats into something curiously reminiscent of sections of Genesis' "White Mountain", while Baker's remix of "The Beautiful Decline" adds some much-needed inner movement, transforming it into a Frippertronic forest fire with hopelessly screaming guitars heard from every treetop.
Paris Transatlantic

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Untitled (Die Stadt, 2002)

A1 Asmus Tietchens Hydrophonie 19A
B1 Thomas Köner Zud
C1 Illusion Of Safety Rolling
D1 Ditterich Von Euler-Donnersperg Der Morgengnattel Des Kleinen Fritz
E1 Dittel & Tuttel Ausschnitt 1
E2 Dittel & Tuttel Ausschnitt 2
F1 Illusion Of Safety Just

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John Duncan - Crucible (Die Stadt, 1999)

1 Crucible (23:11)

CRUCIBLE is a 23 minute sound installation recorded at an outdoor concert in the tiny village of Topolò on the Italian-Slovenian border in July 1997. Its thunderous opening is literally the sound of a downpour which Duncan harnesses and treats to produce something elemental yet edgily unnatural. Bruce Gilbert's work springs to mind though Duncan has a less synthetic touch. The aquatic theme continues as water drains down pipes, gutters and sewers. Thereafter an eerie quiescence pervades. There is still static in the ether, the ebb and flow of mountain air currents and the occasional chance human or animal intervention, but it is the calm after the storm.
How Duncan actually achieved this process is ... ultimately inconsequential. Presented in a neat wooden box, the results reveal little but yield something fresh with each listen.
The Wire

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Mirror - Islands (bonus 7") (Die Stadt, 2001)

1 Untitled
2 Untitled

the album is here

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Organum - Birds' Wings Were Glued To Their Bodies And Their Feet Froze To The Ground (Die Stadt, 1999)

1 Untitled (7:28)
2 Untitled (35:34)
3 Untitled (4:40)

Trois drones qui apparaissent comme des mouvements d'un même morceau, enregistrements caverneux, cymbales, drones de guitare, ... sans doute un des meilleurs disques de David Jackman....

The dense acoustic scrapes & drones recorded in richly sonorous environments (cavernous warehouses, freeway overpasses, waterducts, etc.) appear much more orchestrated here on "Birds' Wings..." than on the previous Organum records. Solid fragments of bowed cymbals and clattering metal have been mapped out strategically against the hypnotic austerity of droning quitars and bowed steel wires. Along with the mastermind of the project David Jackman, Organum's line up includes Robert Hampson (Main /Loop), Michael Prime (Morphogenesis), Emma O'Bong, and Mat Fox. Both Jim and Byram give the thumbs up on this one!
Aquarius Records

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Monos - Generators (Die Stadt, 2005)

1-1 Sleep (23:07)
1-2 Generators (21:50)
1-3 Slowly Fading (26:25)
2-1 The Black Sea (48:01)
3-1 Generating A Black Sea (45:50)

Monos voit collaborer Darren Tate et Colin Potter. Le premier disque est essentiellement basé sur des field recordings, le second sur des sons électroniques, le troisième inclut des composantes de chacun des deux précédents pour donner quelque chose un nouveau résultat....

Monos is the collaborative project by Colin Potter and Darren Tate. This double album consists of two different works recorded between 2002-2003 at IC studio. Disc one features 3 tracks that are loosely based on processed field recordings in the ‘classic’ Monos style, exploring internal spaces. Disc two has one long track of organic and electronic tones which combine to give a dense cloud of flowing sound. Additionally there will be a special mail order only edition includes an extra CDR, containing a track made up of components from both discs, which produces a completely different result.
Intuitive Music

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John Duncan / Andrew Chalk & Christoph Heemann - The Elgaland-Vargaland National Anthem / Old Hive (Die Stadt, 1998)

A John Duncan The Elgaland-Vargaland National Anthem (2:34)
B Andrew Chalk & Christoph Heemann Old Hive (6:03)

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Mirror - Islands (Die Stadt, 2001)

A1 Part I (5:32)
A2 Part II (13:59)
B1 Part III (8:25)
B2 Part IV (6:06)
C1 Recorded In Concert Austin, Texas (19:13)
D1 Recorded In Concert Austin, Texas (17:23)

Double LP de Mirror, le premier comprend quatre drones enregistrés en studio, le second est l'enregistrement d'une performance live donnée en 2000 à Austin avec drones à trois guitares où l'instrument devient méconnaissable....

Mirror began as a collaborative project between Christoph Heemann (of HNAS) and Andrew Chalk (of Organum), They have now been joined by mult-instrumentalist Andreas Martin, whose collaborations with Heemann have been documented on the notable Memoirs of a Lepidopterist double-CD released by Robot Records in 1999. Islands, their new double LP on Die Stadt, contains four studio tracks on the first LP plus a recording of a concert they gave in Texas last year on the second. Mirror has amazed me with every one of their releases. Their records are always presented in beautiful packaging, very limited press runs and each one has never failed to fill me with wonder at some of the most mysterious and compelling sounds I have ever heard. This new work is no exception; these sounds seem to breathe and expand far beyond the limits of my sound system. On the first LP, beautiful deep drones unfold, surrounded by a gentle rainfall which introduces the "islands", and which you also return to as the LP comes to an end. The final piece ends abruptly and in a fashion listeners of Heemann's work will be accustomed to - in a climax of dramatic sound (in this case the sounds of rain) intensifying and then suddenly cut to silence. The live performance on the second LP continues in this vein. All three players perform on guitars (processed in ways to make the sound sources almost unrecognisable, save for the scrapings of an ebow, occasional rough textures and a returning motif on sides 3 and 4), and here as on the first LP the sounds echo and warp into stunning drones, scrapings and harmonies. The three members of Mirror seem to have a direct access to the void; their music is the dynamic soundtrack of the view from here, a bridge over the void ("un ponte sul vuoto", as Calvino has written), and like the steps of this bridge, intervals of emptiness open between sounds and echoes.

Limited to 1000, 500 of which are pressed on blue vinyl, and 150 of those 500 come packaged with a bonus 7 inch of exclusive material available only through Die Stadt's mailorder service. Very highly recommended.

Incursion

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