Until January 6, get two Crónica releases for the price of a single one when you order directly from us. It’s simple: for each CD you pay for, you get to choose a second one, our offer!
http://www.cronicaelectronica.org/?p=buy
We know it’s a shameless advertisement. We’re just getting into the season’s spirit, so here it goes again: http://www.cronicaelectronica.org/?p=buy
From November 22 to January 22, Ran Slavin’s “Insomniac City†will be presented as a 3-channel Video installation at the Petah Tikva Museum of Art, Israel.
This debut album by a producer and multi-instrumentalist from Izmir comes replete with an impressively elaborate self-description. It talks of “Phonetics themes”, using phonemes rather than words to tell stories, with digressions into “Nada Yoga” and the claim that the producer is “beholden to the harmoniousness of two essential properties that maintains the forcefulness of a cognition space.” Even after several readings, soundtracked by the aural results, it remains opaque what the actual links are between the theory and Praxis.
What we have here is a record that is consistently sophisticated, sometimes almost beautiful, but remarkably standard. The palette here — a collage of field recordings, laptop distortion, minimal instrumentation and subterranean hums — is remarkably familiar from any number of iBook creations released in the last decade or so. Praxis is a particular serene version of this idiom. The ideas seem to be confined to the jerky cut-ups of the opening “A Phonetics These”, whose spliced syllables evoke something between Stockhausen’s Stimmung and Goodiepal. After this, tracks are left to drift along prettily, in a by now predictable international laptop style.
The rather misnamed “Visceral (In A Figurative Sense)” for instance, elegantly features doleful organ chords, a punctuating synth, and some background clutter and scrape, as if to give the impression that the piece is far less structured than it is. “Behold Now Bikkus, The Sounds of Nada Yoga” promises something slightly more outré, with its chants hovering in the background — but there are no major departures.
Owen Hatherley
Known for pulverising works on the Mego label like Noonbugs and The End Of Vinyl, Austrian sound sculptor and former member of the notorious Ilsa Gold, Peter Votava returns to his noisy oeuvre via the excellent Cronica label, this time toting dark ambience, digitally remodelled guitars (sampled from the fretboard of Digital Hardcore survivor Christoph De Babalon) and plenty of ear-melting microsonic experimentation. This one gives KTL a run for their money in the experimental metal stakes. Powerful stuff. “Ification presents a collection of seven highly diverse tracks that revolve around dense, filmic and eerie atmospheres, without ever drifting into obvious or simple harmonies. As in his previous work, Pure takes from music history whatever serves his narrative needs and appropriates it through his very own sound-mangling strategies. Complementing this approach, here, and for the first time in his work, there is a very tight integration of various instrumentalists, whose recordings – produced for this CD – are often the compositional base of the tracks.” Highly recommended.
via Boomkat
Praxis sits in a strange place between surreal and often slurred electroinca, slow moving musique concrete, bent ‘n’ bizarre ambient soundscaping and touches of improv.
Through things start off fairly manic with the track A Phoetics Theme and its rapid fire sampling and comic cut up elements, don’t be deceived by this happy go luck opening shot. You see most of Praxis settles into a strange, surreal wonder or near slumber with Güney utilizing electronic drifts, sampled film music loops, eerier & spacey drone scaping, cut-up instrumental hit’s and texturing & all manner of odd, bizarre and effective cut-up field recordings. The tracks wondering and drifting between uneasy, strange, comic and atmospheric with Güney aways keeping alive the elements of surprise and invention through out the nine tracks on offer here.
With Praxis Güney has created a series of strange and atmospheric sound places, which through for the most part remain fairly unintrusive and subtle manage to worm their way under your skin to create uneasy and surreal thought patterns and emotions. (Roger Batty)
via Musique Machine
From today until January 6, Crónica is offering one free release for each release you order directly from us. Just order one item and let us know in the notes which other release you’d like to receive as a gift from us.
“Black Outâ€, a performance by João Samões, with sound processing by Vitor Joaquim, video by João Dias and João Samões and interpretation by João Samões and João Galante, will be presented today and tomorrow at the Temps d’Images festival in Culturgest, Lisbon. Entrance is free until the limit of the room’s capacity. More information at the Temps d’Images website.
Tomorrow, November 7, Vitor Joaquim will perform with Hugo Holim at ARTECH 2008, the 4th International Conference on Digital Arts, in Porto. In the same evening, Ajay Kapur and Arne Eigenfeldt will present their “Collaborative Composition for Musical Robotsâ€. Several other talks, keynotes and events are scheduled, check the full program at the ARTECH website.
November 7, “Tender Prey†a 2 channel video-sound installation at Plateaux festival. November 8, screening of “Insomniac City†at the opening of Plateaux festival. November 9, live video performance at Plateaux festival, Contemporary Arts Centre, Torun, Poland.
After more than ten CDs and several vinyls under different aliases, projects or collaborations that ranged a multitude of musical styles over the last 15 years, Pure’s newest release is now proudly presented by Crónica.
Three and a half years later than scheduled, and six years after his previous studio CD release “Noonbugs†on Mego, Pure returns with his fourth solo full-length album — “Ification†— the outcome of a long period of live work (documented in the first two volumes of the “Home Is Where My Harddisk is†series), residencies — in France, with Johnny Dekam, where the “Reqoil Displaced Peaceoff†DVD was produced — and collaborations — the “Heart Chamber Orchestra†with Erich Berger, an audio-visual performance based on the heart-beats of an orchestra of 12 musicians.
“Ification†presents a collection of seven highly diverse tracks that revolve around dense, filmic and eerie atmospheres, without ever drifting into obvious or simple harmonies. As in his previous work, Pure takes from music history whatever serves his narrative needs and appropriates it through his very own sound-mangling strategies. Complementing this approach, here, and for the first time in his work, there is a very tight integration of various instrumentalists, whose recordings — produced for this CD — are often the compositional base of the tracks.
The intro FIRE is a short statement based on a guitar recording of Christoph de Babalon (Digital Hardcore artist and owner of the label Cross Fade Enter Tainment) freed from all flesh with only the bare-bones left.
AFTER THE BOMB is a long, gentle, deep meditation on the nature of low-frequency sounds with tiny melodies and subtle percussion sliding in at the end.
With APPROXIMATION Pure enters new fields with a simultaneous minimal and bombastic track built around what reminds high string instruments, low horns, and sparse percussion giving the track a classical touch.
NIGHT FLIGHT is an epic, slow-changing drone piece that glides through time like a car by the night on an endlessly straight road.
SONOMATOPEIA melts a composition of isolationist sounds with vocal experiments of female metal singer Alexandra von Bolzn going from silent whispers to bursts of aggression that out-power power electronics’ voices.
END takes the longest time to develop. In almost 16 minutes it travels from an eerie space filled with echoes of percussions and cymbals through a tunnel of static distortions of bass played by sound artist Anke Eckardt.
Closing the album, METAL SKY introduces one more surprise. Built around drums played by Martin Brandlmayr (drummer of austrian band Radian who also provided the percussion on AFTER THE BOMB) like only he can play them and another appearance of Alexandra von Bolzn the last track starts off with held-back heaviness decreasing to a standstill and ends in a melancholic, noisy rock-like piece.
“Ification†was written, recorded and mixed by Pure, mastered by Martin Siewert at Motone Sound Services, in Vienna, and its cover art was specially created by Jan Rohlf.
You can listen to Approximation or Iron Sky, read the Press-release, or buy it direct from Crónica or through Boomkat.
