New release: “Meubles” by Arturas Bumšteinas

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Crónica is delighted to present the new release of Arturas Bumšteinas, “Meubles”, performed by the Works & Days ensemble.

  1. HSZCZ (17:05)
  2. LLULL (20:06)
  3. DAVID (13:20)

Recorded and mixed by Arturas Bumšteinas on various portable studios, 2011-2013.

Performed by the Works & Days ensemble:

  • Arturas BumÅ¡teinas (1, 2, 3) — electric organs, sampler, flute
  • Ilia Belorukov (1, 2), Maarten Ornstein (3) — saxophones
  • Kamil Szuszkiewicz (2) — trumpet
  • Lina LapelytÄ— (1), Tadas Žukauskas (2) — violins
  • Anton Lukoszevieze (2) — cello
  • BirutÄ— AsevičiÅ«tÄ— (2) — piano
  • Piotr Bukowski (1), Bartek Kalinka (3) — guitars
  • Hubert Zemler (2, 3) — percussion

Arturas Bumšteinas
If music could be furniture, which piece of furniture it would be?

Anton Lukoszevieze
If music could be furniture it would be an ornamental chaise longue, covered with purple velvet and with intricate carved wooden legs. I would lie on this chaise longue for hours, sipping green tea and caressing a meek and mild Ocelot.

Hubert Zemler
If music was furniture it would be something that isn’t essential for living, but essential for being a human. Something that could be easily dispensed of, but you would miss it. Something that contains love, hate, tears, happiness, sadness, calmness, enthusiasm, boredom, amusement or any emotions you can feel. Something which sometimes contains nothing. Something which not everybody needs or wants. I don’t know… Maybe music would be a wine cabinet?

Bartek Kalinka
I would like music to be a stove. Because it’s a place where cooking is done, so it’s an alchemical altar, where substances are transferred by the music’s heat.

Kamil Szuszkiewicz
A bed. Definitely. Human civilization has began when people invented some kind of bed (no, not a circle; circle was much later). We are born in a bed, we die there, we sleep, fuck, lay there looking up to a ceiling and pondering. The rest of a lifetime seems to be meaningless interruption. I want music to be like that: ancient, basic, necessary (in a way).

Birutė Asevičiūtė
Music is not material thing, so it’s hard to materialize it… But… if music could be a furniture, it could be “pufikas” (tuffet with removable top). You can put anything inside, but nobody knows, what’s really inside it… It can have many segments inside, but it can be empty as swell. And you don’t feel you really have this kind of furniture (music), it exists somewhere, beside you or very near. It can have different forms, many segments or just “to be”.

Tadas Žukauskas
If music could be furniture it would be a window. Medium between myself and the Images of the World or the Imagination itself.

Piotr Bukowski
Billy Bookcase by IKEA — basic furniture in every home. You can use it it to store whatever you need, it uses space effectively by accommodating various items in a minimum of space. Known all over the world, flag product of IKEA, cheap and practical.

Ilia Belorukov
A couch. One may sit or sleep on it; one may also unfold it to get more space. It is not a univocal piece of furniture, it has multiple functions. The couch reminds me of the fact that music is just as multi-faceted, and the perception of sound largely depends on the listener – namely, his or her wishes/moods/needs. If you want to lie down, here you go; if you need more seats for guests – just move the couch closer to the table. One can immerse oneself in a music piece or merely use it as a background.

Maarten Ornstein
Furniture? Well, a bed I suppose. It’s nice to lie down in some good music.

Lina LapelytÄ—
If i could be music and if this music could be furniture then with no doubt i would prefer to be music & furniture than just to be furniture or just to be music. If i could be music, furniture and a woman — that would really please me! On the other hand — i would probably annoy somebody if i am a sofa or dinning table that always produces a certain tune.. How boring it would be to have me around! I probably would end up being thrown away… and the good thing about that is that undoubtedly i would travel to a new house – somebody would be very happy to find a musical table or sofa that maybe is also a woman. So to be clear – i would like to be a little drawer in the closet – so i am only audible when wanted. Did i get the question right?

You can download “Meubles” from Crónica’s bandcamp page, from Boomkat or other selected retailers in a variety of formats!

Shay Nassi releases “syn3rgy” as ket3m

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ket3m are Shay Nassi (aka Mise_en_Scene) and Tom Kemeny (aka Darmock) currently located in Tel Aviv, Israel. They joined together for a side-project to explore the boundaries of sound and express themselves together as one, each contributing his own very-unique techniques and perspective. They now release “sy3rgy” as a 3″ mini-CDr in a limited edition of 75 copies.

More info at ketemta@gmail.com

Futurónica 97

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Episode 97 of Futurónica, a broadcast in Rádio Manobras (91.5 MHz in Porto, 18h30) and Rádio Zero (21h GMT, repeating on Tuesday at 01h) airs tomorrow, September 20th.

The playlist of Futurónica 98 is:

  1. Cem Güney, Water-Nature (2013, Water-Nature-City, Crónica)
  2. Cem Güney, A Phonetics Theme (2008, Praxis, Crónica)
  3. Cem Güney, City I (2013, Water-Nature-City, Crónica)
  4. Cem Güney, Undulations (Dedicated To Janek Schaefer) (2008, Praxis, Crónica)
  5. Cem Güney, Impulse (2008, Praxis, Crónica)
  6. Cem Güney, Bodrum (2010, Crónicast, Crónica)

You can follow Rádio Zero’s broadcasts at radiozero.pt/ouvir and Rádio Manobras at radiomanobras.pt.

Durán Vázquez releases “Nuovo Ordine Nuovo” at Tecnonucleo

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Durán Vázquez’s new release on Tecnonucleo netlabel, Nuovo Ordine Nuovo, is now available through: http://archive.org/details/tn039

This work returns to the idea sketched in “50, 50 y 2” (Doministiku, 2010), with a recording for one loudspeaker, and hopefully with loud volume.

“50, 50 y 2” was an improvised live recording. The new work shows improvised digressions at the homestudio, mainly playing with effect parameters and with no overdubs.

“Five Years on Cold Asphalt” reviewed by The Sound Projector

Five Years on Cold Asphalt
It’s more than likely that the only time I’ve ever come across product from the Portuguese Crónica label was back in 2009 with a peculiar strand of sensual electronica, in the willowy form of Erotikon by The Beautiful Schizophonic, which delivered a reassuringly human touch, instead of the usual clanky, cold metallic feel of a poorly articulated claw hand. A great release for sure. So there were high hopes in spadeloads, when I received one of the more recent outpourings from the house of Crónica; namely Quarz‘s Five Years On Cold Asphalt, which effectively blurs the distinctions between live and studio and improv and scored audio. A collective of some seven years standing, that’s masterminded by Austrian composer Alexandr Vatagin (also with Tupolev and Post-Royal), who beachcombed diligently for other like-minded individuals and guest empaths along the analogue way. These include electronicists Nicolas Bernier (also of Radian), Stefan Nemeth (Lokai) and Alexander Schubert (Sinebag) to mention but three. Five Years… is a thirty-four minute exercise that actively resonates with methodically constructed studio strategies in pre and post production. The gist of which is that the recordings of player three are a reaction to the output of players one and two and so on. A kind of pyramidal recording concept I guess. This approach surprisingly, avoids an expected scattershot tableau and instead reveals a pleasing example of organic mid-period AMM’isms captured in a widescreen Mille Plateaux styled setting, replete with bowed cymbals, drawkcab tapery, amorphous field recordings and keening, gently screechy electronics. As a p.s., I could’ve easily stood for an extra twenty minutes or so…as the exuberant percussives of Bernhard Breuer come in and are ushered out in what seems to be double quick time. Now that’s no way to treat a guest (drummer)!

via The Sound Projector

“Never so Alone” reviewed by Essmaa

Never So Alone
Les matériaux sonores, base de cet album, ont été enregistrés à Lisbonne en Avril 2010 lors d’un séjour prolongé à Lisbonne suite au réveil du volcan Eyjafjallajökull en Islande.

Comme après la première grosse pluie de printemps.

La musique fait remonter du sol l’odeur des massifs, les résonances de l’asphalte, les bords boueux à l’embouchure du Tage, les carreaux sales des ruelles sombres, de l’errance solitaire dans un infime mouvement de la lumière en arrière-plan.. Une discrète odeur de suie froide, une odeur de poussière humide et prenante qui se cache les jours d’été. Comme si la douleur et la résignation, n’avait pas lieu d’être lors de la saison touristique. Et pourtant, en sortant des grands axes..

On retient alors un vol d’étourneaux dans le ciel d’une placette, le bruit du tramway fatigué.. et des sourires ridés invitant en rendre le temps moins lourd.

via Essmaa

“No End of Vinyl” reviewed by RNE3 Atmosfera

No End of Vinyl
Catorce años después de la versión original de “the.end.of.vinyl”, la primera referencia exclusivamente digital de Pure, diez artistas se reúnen de nuevo a modo de evocación para reinterpretar las composiciones de Pure con sus propias reflexiones sobre las músicas digitales y su futuro. “The.end.of.vinyl” fue una de las primeras publicaciones de Mego, sello con sede en Viena que a final del milenio nos mostró lo que la música del futuro podría ser. Hoy os presentamos “No End Of Vinyl” que comenzó a ser concebida como un conjunto de discos que podrían publicarse en vinilo a partir de composiciones digitales. En algún lugar a lo largo del proceso, la disonancia entre la naturaleza de las piezas y el formato comenzó a manifestarse y se tomó la decisión de volver a la forma “antigua” del disco compacto. Un disco muy intenso que merece un amplio recorrido, paseo que hoy iniciamos con dos de sus propuestas. Hemos comenzados con la de JSX o lo que es lo mismo Jorge Sánchez- Chiong y el tema Biological Agents of Vinyl Degradation y el segundo tema que os proponemos de este recopilatorio del sello Crónica es el de Goner, compuesto por Martin Maischein.

“No End of Vinyl” reviewed by Headphone Commute

No End of Vinyl
13 years ago, Mego label released Pure’s the.end.of.vinyl on a 3” CD. The release marked a shift in Pure’s sound from more dancefloor-oriented productions toward something more abstract and experimental. Ironically, the release was pressed on CD because it was the prevalent format at the time; the name describes the techniques used to create the music (working with vinyl run-out grooves as the primary source material). Now the CD format has waned to such an extent that it appears to be on its way out, while vinyl has continued to flourish as a format for avid music listeners.

No End of Vinyl organizes several formidable artists to revisit, rework, remix, and reinterpret Pure’s original recordings into new tracks. The approach varies from sculpted noisescapes to more beat-driven excursions, a range that is not only broad but also quite nice in terms of listening dynamic. To fully appreciate the process of the album, I recommend downloading the original the.end.of.vinyl, which is available as a free download from Crónica. It’s quite good on its own, but it’s also interesting to hear the source material that inspired this new collection.

Several artists opt to remain in the same highly abstract arena in which the source material existed, including the swirling, manipulated “Zeiundneunzig (für Pure)” by @c or the post-industrial, shimmering haze of “Miyamizu” contributed by Cindytalk. Elsewhere, a handful of contributors steer the material more in the direction of beats and hooks. Christoph De Babalon, someone from whom I haven’t heard new music in years, contributes my personal favorite, with a shimmering, hazy refrain and sputtering drum patterns. As a point of contrast, a close second favorite of mine is Pita’s surprisingly meditative “This & That Edit,” buzzing with beatless tension but oddly serene considering his tendency for noisier material. JSX and Goner each use Pure’s source material as a starting point for fairly dense, more industrial and rhythmically musical workouts, while Rashad Becker stands apart in manipulating the source material into the weirdo chorus of synthetic organism voices that characterize his recent solo album.

“the.end.of.vinyl” was one of the early releases on Mego, the Vienna-based label that in the end of the millennium showed us what the music of the future could be. In 1999 its title resonated with post-analog angst, recalling the transformation (maybe even the demise) of the music market and of the cultures that it had helped to breed. It announced and perhaps confirmed an end that is still latent.”

It’s a decidedly mixed bag of material, but the scope of styles and sounds within maintain a healthy balance between worlds of abstraction and accessibility. Fans of the original Pure work will no doubt find at least a few tracks that fall in line (different enough to be interesting but similar enough to feel of the same world) with several others that might broaden their horizons. The compilation is released on Crónica, a Portugal based label and is available on CD as well as digital download.

via Headphone Commute