Live Sets at Ego 1998-2000

2CD, Ego Recordings/Imbalance Computer Music, 2002

Tasty double collection of your favourite glitch and dub techno acts, caught live off the desk at the much missed Düsseldorf, Germany club, Ego. And straight off the desk too – no edits, no overdubs, just raw sets. Came with a hefty booklet of photos documenting those glory days in the club. Why, it’s almost like you were there, only you can’t quite remember it the next morning – just as it used to be, in fact. Ego Recordings was a sub-label of Robert (Monolake) Henke’s Imbalance set up solely to release this document.

DISC ONE
01. Continuous Mode – Untitled (6:06)
02. Sutekh – Untitled (4:53)
03. Salz – Caddie’s Day (Salz Remix) (8:58)
04. Swayzak – Doobie (5:11)
05. Kandis – Inklu (4:27)
06. Antonelli Electr. – Time Destroying Machine (5:00)
07. Markus Nikolai – Just Wanna (7:14)
08. Kotai/Bader – Welltick (7:30)
09. Chris Korda – Victim Of Leisure (9:20)
10. Khan – Ride Me (3:31)
11. Jammin’ Unit – Untitled (3:02)

DISC TWO
01. Marcus Schmickler – Param (7:40)
02. Senking- Rachel (5:41)
03. Produkt – Statik (7:13)
04. Thomas Brinkmann – Jutta (4:00)
05. Opiate – Read-Thru Colours (4:42)
06. Kit Clayton – Untitled (8:33)
07. Leandro Fresco – Untitled (7:35)
08. Monolake – Pluto (9:24)
09. Smyglyssna – Who Datman? (4:51)
10. Noto – Crystal R (4:46)

Link expired – see comments | Discogs

Dorgon – IIII

CD, Jumbo, 1997

It’s drones day here at Friendsound. In a moment, some lovely Aussie sound-art, but for now, some sonic explorations from the mysterious Mr Dorgon (aka Gordon Knauer), shadowy noise-goblin from the New York art scene. Can’t beat a 33-minute tambura solo for out-there chops. Can’t beat that packaging too – just a chunk of thick card with four chalked digits. More usually, our Dorgon is a saxophonist, as you’ll discover on track 4. As Mr Dorgon he has a CD on Tzadik. He used to be in Dim Sum Clip Joint, who had a fairly shitty CD on Avant. The phrase “the Jandek of skronk” has been bandied. We read somewhere that he used to work the door at the Knitting Factory too. This guy gets arrrrround.

01. String Quartet (13:23)
02. Graphic #1 (2:35)
03. Study #2 (7:01)
04. Hardcore (Brooklyn) (8:35)
05. For JA (31:29)

Link | Discogs

D Haines – Emo

CD, Sigma Editions, 2000

Lovely elongated drone works from the Australian composer, David Haines. His first disc, Blither, manipulated piano sounds and chords, elongating them into new forms; here, though, the instrumentation is more anonymous, and far more heavily layered, leaving nothing but the sounds themselves.

Back at the start of this decade, this sort of thing was unusual to hear outside of a rip of an old LaMonte Young disc or some Organum records. These days you can’t move for droning hums and shimmering smears of bubbling noise. Wonder what the next decade will bring. Oh yeah, and that is how he spelt “Gibraltar”. Perhaps he meant a, um, different one.

01. Kosciousko (24:50)
02. Peak Communism (16:13)
03. Gibralter (18:27)

Link | Discogs

Gamma & Gorn

Here’s a pair of Fax discs from Massimo Vivona, Italian trance maestro, credited to Gamma and Gorn. They’re both in what you might call an “ambient trance” style – kinetic but gentle electronic burblings, great to work to perhaps but not aimed at the dancefloor. Vivona also released Fax discs under his own name and as Xenon, and has since produced a swathe of similarly trancey tracks for Italian labels like Headzone and Liquid Audio Sounds.

Gorn [Massimo Vivona & Bella Cox], CD, Fax, 1993

01. Giovenes (7:00)
02. Delargo 1 (9:26)
03. Trancesub (7:01)
04. Sub (4:31)
05. Move the Face (7:27)
06. Sea of Love (6:01)
07. A Lucinazion (5:44)
08. Acult (20:02)

Link | Discogs

Gamma [Massimo Vivona & Dr Atmo], CD, Fax, 1993

01. Attuale (10:35)
02. Katanga (20:04)
03. Spirituale (21:26)
04. Speltrum (10:27)
05. Intelletuale (13:15)

Link | Discogs

Various – Palace of Lights EP

7″ EP, Palace of Lights, 1981

Kerry Leimer’s Seattle-based Palace of Lights label started in the early 1980s and quickly developed, in a small, way into a little hothouse of Eno-inspired fuzzy ambience, Fourth World workouts and generally pleasing music full stop. Along with Leimer, whose music formed the bulk of PoL’s releases, there were friends Marc Barreca and Michael William Gilbert; Leimer and Barreca were also in Savant.

After a long hiatus, Leimer and his wife restarted the label a few years back. As well as reissuing some classic Leimer/Savant work has more recently been home to splendid electronic and neo-classical work from the likes of Steve Peters (who played with Leimer very early on) and Gregory Taylor. If you want to start anywhere, we recommend you try Leimer’s Closed System Potentials or Imposed Order.

Here’s a sampler EP from their earliest days. It was limited to 350 copies. The Barreca tracks are from his album Twilight; the others did not appear in these forms anywhere else.

A1. Savant – The Radio
A2. K Leimer – Assemble & Diffuse
B1. Marc Barreca – School for Whales
B2. Marc Barreca – The Wendigo
B3. Anode – Whiteout

Link: see comments | Discogs | Palace of Lights

Thomas P Heckmann

Couple of discs now from a master of hard trance – lovely pounding, acid-edged gliders that pulse and surge like racing laser beams. Probably best known as Exit 100 for Force Inc, Heckmann has also – as is usual – released work under dozens of other pseudonyms, including Purple Plejade, Trope, Skydiver and of course the ineffable Parrot Torture (!). Here we have a couple of representative discs, a collection of some of his finest moments on Labworks; and a gentler, almost kitsch record of space themes apparently inspired by the black and white German Buck Rogers-esque TV show of 1966, Raumpatrouille Orion.

Thomas P Heckmann – Spectral Emotions (The Labworks Years), CD, Death Becomes Me, 1995

01. Art Mechanique (6:31)
02. Chiswick Days (6:04)
03. Closer (5:11)
04. Spectral Emotion (6:35)
05. Kaleidescope (4:36)
06. Splash (4:52)
07. Science (8:45)
08. Pinhead (6:27)
09. Confusion (5:39)
10. Moonchild (6:13)
11. Wavescape (5:40)
12. Chiswick Days (Bluey Bros remix) (6:23)

Link | Discogs

Age – The Orion Years, CD, Mille Plateaux, 1994

01. Lichtspruch (13:16)
02. Lagrange Point L5 (6:14)
03. Imaginary Friend (7:46)
04. Parallelwelt (10:08)
05. Transmitter – Love (5:55)
06. Lancet (8:43)
07. Eine Fremde Lebensform (5:50)
08. Big E (6:55)
09. Zeitsprung (7:45)

Link | Discogs

Gorn orf

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside, trying to work out which was the A-side.

Back “in a bit”. Look out for our postcard popping into your mailbox four days after we’re back.

Biochip C – Biochip C EP

12″, Force Inc Music Works, 1992

… and here’s the other, the debut EP from Martin Damm’s Biochip C alias. Check out his Discogs entry for details of another forty-plus pseudonyms. There’s always more to find, kids, always more…

A1. Twilight Zone (5:07)
A2. Psy-Shock (5:06)
B1. Höhrstuck (4:51)
B2. Fight for Survival (5:15)

Link | Discogs

Jammin’ Unit & Walker – Egglayer EP

12″, Force Inc Music Works, 1992

Pair of early releases from Force Inc today – pounding German techno, pure and simple. Tis Cem Oral and Ingmar Koch, of course, aka Air Liquide, Madonna 303, Ultrahigh, Zulutronic and all the rest. Tasty Aliens samples on the title track.

A1. Egglayer Queen (6:16)
A2. Jammin’ Sparkle (3:52)
B1. Someone Killed Her I (6:19)
B2. Someone Killed Her II (3:55)

Link | Discogs

Various/Tim Sweeney – Rvng Prsnts Mx3

Mix CD, Rvng Intl, 2005

Rvng’s ongoing series of limited run mix CDs are like your sub-zero cooler-than-thou mate taking his vast record collection and rubbing it ferociously all over your ears, while shouting, “See, see, I’m so much trendier than you”. (Yes, just like listening to LCD Soundsystem then.) It was a toss-up for posting between this one and Twitch’s anarcho-punk fuelled #6. Check this sucker out anyway, see what we mean.

01. Unknown – Intro (2:44)
02. Manuel Göttsching – E2-E4 (7:20)
03. Can – Vitamin C (UNKLE Remix) (4:21)
04. Throbbing Gristle – Hot on the Heels of Love (3:00)
05. Aphex Twin – bbydhyonchord (1:53)
06. Tones on Tail – Performance (2:46)
07. Radiohead – Idioteque (3:17)
08. Cybotron – Techno City (3:09)
09. Kraftwerk – Numbers (1:55)
10. LFO – Nurture (2:59)
11. Scrappy – Freeze (2:26)
12. Fingers Inc. – A Path (2:59)
13. Psychonauts – Magnetic (3:19)
14. Bauhaus – Kick in the Eye (2:35)
15. Was (Not Was) – Wheel Me Out (3:50)
16. Grace Jones – Walking in the Rain (3:01)
17. Yoko Ono – Walking on Thin Ice (2:55)
18. MU – Let’s Get Sick (3:55)
19. Zongamin – Painless (2:23)
20. Carl Craig – Climax (9:23)
21. Cat Power – Free/Harry South – The Sweeney Theme (6:30)

Link | Discogs