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“It’s just too easy to make a standard dance track,” Aphex Twin said of his mindset back in 1992. “You’ve got to put a bit of thought into it to get something a bit different.”

‘Digeridoo’ was released on the Belgian R&S Records label in 1992, and originally peaked at #55 in the UK singles chart in May of that year. Over the last 32 years the track has become one of the essential Aphex Twin tracks in a gargantuan catalogue that continues to amaze and inspire.

“I wanted to have some tracks to play to finish the raves I used to play in Cornwall, to really kill everybody off so they couldn’t dance,” Richard D James, AKA Aphex, told Select magazine back in the 90s. “Digeridoo came out of that.”

Released as a 4 track EP that also included early Aphex productions (now classics) including the industrial, acidic clang of ‘Flap Head’ and hyperbolic futurism of ‘Isopropanol’, the release cemented a relationship with the R&S label that went on to release the ‘Xylem Tube’ EP and the pivotal album ‘Selected Ambient Works 85-92’ in the same year. The label’s owner & A&R Renaat Vandepapeliere reflected “When I first heard Aphex Twin’s music I said, ‘This is it!’, and everybody else said, ‘You’re crazy!’ …a lot of the hardcore R&S fans dropped us. To them it wasn’t music.”

‘Didgeridoo’ (Expanded Edition) is the first time the EP has been re-issued with extra material. Whilst digging in his DAT archive (allegedly stored in an airtight military ammo box), Richard James revisited the recordings, encoding them through a Nakamichi CR7e cassette deck, using the customised deck with vari-speed to encode at speeds “felt right at the time”. Alongside these CR7e versions, the original mixes have been remastered by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering, offering a dilated insight into one of electronic music’s most endearing releases.

‘Didgeridoo’ (Expanded Edition) by Aphex Twin is available on R&S Records from 31st May 2024.

Track order on pressing (side A) swapped

Otto is back with a Maximal Super Sound Maxi 12″ on Eine Welt. The label, run by Alexander Arpeggio concludes this 12″ series with an obscure banger by the Berlin-based Organ Band Otto. On the A-side: Obscure uptempo Italo Madness, bassline-heavy, and featuring dirty vocoder Ansagen.

On the other A-side: a driving and full of surprises midtempo groover with mysterious german voodoo ritual chants. Get a copy of this limited 12″ and get your fun fair ceremony started. Limited 300 Copies only – special cover finish with metallic look.

In The Red Records is proud to announce a previously unreleased new album by Brooklyn-born master of minimalism Alan Vega, Insurrection. The eleven songs here showcase the unparalleled vision and uncompromising force from one of the most influential artists of all time.

Alan Vega was born in Brooklyn in 1938. He co-founded the legendary New York City punk band Suicide with Martin Rev in 1970. Suicide’s groundbreaking 1977 debut is considered one of the most influential albums of all time. Vega considered his solo records the audio counterpoint to his visual art that reflected the world around him while simultaneously exploring universal themes. It makes his work as relevant today as it was when he created them. It was during his highly experimental period beginning in the late ’80s that he began working with Liz Lamere, who became the most crucial collaborator of his solo career until his death in 2016.

Lamere, along with Jared Artaud, resurrected these newly unearthed collection of lost recordings, which they co-produced and mixed. Lamere and Artaud spearhead the Vega Vault project, which aims to bring rare, unreleased and back catalog work spanning Alan Vega and Suicide’s career to the public for the first time.

On Insurrection, Lamere says: “Insurrection was created in the time period around 1997/98, after Mutator and prior to Vega’s 1999 release of 2007 and captures the intense energy of NYC in the ’90s rife with crime, killing, hate, fascism, racism, and moral bankruptcy. You can hear the tortured souls floating through this album. Post-Gulf War angst still enveloped Alan. He was having premonitions about a major terror attack in the US, well before 9/11. The upcoming birth of his son raised further awareness of the state of our world. All these emotions are mirrored in the sounds he magnetized. And true to Vega form, there remains hope and empowerment coursing through the tracks. In the almost three decades of going into the studio with Vega, we recorded significantly more material than the seven albums released. Vega’s intention was to experiment with sound which would become the canvas for the poetry that reflected his vision of the universe. Because the goal wasn’t to make albums, he had no timeline or constraints and would freely follow new paths uncovered along the way.”

Reissue!

Higher Intelligence Agency was founded in 1992 by Bobby Bird during the heady days of Birmingham's legendary Oscillate nights, where he improvised & performed live, developing HIA's signature sound, as well being a resident selector . In 1993 HIA released the ambient dub classic 'Colourform' LP on Beyond Records.

This record is a reissue of HIA's 1993 Ambient Dub classic 'Colourform' album, originally released on Beyond Records, now re issued on Headphone as 2 x 12" vinyl, with a fresh new cut by the legendary mastering engineer & elecronic music producer Stefan Betke (Pole / Scape Mastering). Colourform received critical acclaim and favourable reviews on its release, and continues to be widely played to this day, with new generations discovering the music of HIA via digital platforms as well as through occaisional live HIA performances. These have included perfromance at the Detroit Electronic Music festival in 2007, at Beyond The Tracks Festival Birmingham 2017 , O.Z.O.R.A. festival Hungary 2018, and Oscillate Club 2019. More live dates are planned for 2020, including at Houghton Festival, Glastonbury and O.Z.O.R.A.

Reviews:

Tony Corbin – Echoes 1993 "Beyond Records' Ambient Dub Compilations have provided us with some of the countries most innovative and exciting electronic dance music over the last couple of years, not least from the Higher Intelligence Agency whose 'Speedlearn' single caused more than a ripple in ambient/trance circles earlier this year. The said single, in all its minimalistic hypnodub glory, is included on this, their debut set, as is 'Ketamine Entity', the ridiculously catchy ascending bass riff and trippy echoed beat highlights the groups dub sensibility….the album is quite a low tempo affair which actually adds to its intensity, particularly on tracks such as 'Influx' and 'Conoid Tone' which contain sounds that remind me of the Future Sound Of London. However HIA's identity is firmly maintained through their liberal use of spiraling 303 style sequences. A brave and bright debut".

Calvin Bush - Burning Bush 1993 "Colourform sweeps you up and trans-ports you across broad vistas of shimmering ambience via their heavenly slow acid grooves and hypnotic melodies, with plenty of space to just step in and explore. The perfect horizonless soundscape for the mentally unshackled listener".

Benn Wilmot NME 1993 "Inevitably there can only be one criteria for judging an album like 'Colourform', and that is whether it moves the listener into a state of bliss. Painstakingly constructed without sacrificing spontaneity or soft pedalling on their basic shuddering groove, 'Colourform' is always intelligent and undeniably high. Based on their finely honed live set, it builds from the bassy rumblings of 'Delta' and 'Speedlearn' upwards and onwards, slowly gathering pace until the double climax of 'Re Echo and 'Ketamine Entity'. That state of bliss is comfortably attained "

The Late Night Tales compilation is a bit of a ‘stealth’ project for me personally. I’m very proud of it, but at the time, I probably didn’t appreciate it as much as I do now because there was so much going on. You do these things in-between touring and you don’t really have time to reflect on them because you’re immediately onto the next thing. It’s nice to know that it’s getting re-released.

For an aesthetic of (dis)obedience. The impressions Richard Siegal and his company Ballet of Difference gathered on a trip to Japan in September 2022 now find their way into a full-length dance evening. Siegal and his team had set off for Tokyo to learn the practice of Shuudan Koudou, also known as "Japanese Precision Walking". The strictly synchronised group choreographies are astonishing in their radical stringency and have become a secret YouTube hit, not least because of their peculiar subtle humour. Siegal recognises in the extreme disciplining of the bodies an analogy to the training practice of classical ballet. In the mutual exchange of these movement cultures, questions are raised about individual and collective thinking, about personal decision-making power and social responsibility. For this extraordinary project, Richard Siegal has invited a special guest: Nazareth Panadero, long-time companion of Pina Bausch, who has long since become an icon of Wuppertal dance theatre and will be on stage with the BoD ensemble.

The production BALLET OF (DIS)OBEDIENCE is sponsored by Goethe Institut, with the kind support of Sissel GmbH.
CHOREOGRAPHY & STAGE: RICHARD SIEGAL
COSTUME: FLORA MIRANDA
LIGHT & VIDEO: MATTHIAS SINGER
MUSIC: ALVA NOTO
DRAMATURGY: TOBIAS STAAB

more info to: Shuudan koudou

'Shuudan koudou' Shuudan Koudou Is the Japanese #art of Synchronized Precision ...YouTube · Boson TV: Tech Marvels & Cool Discoveries22 Dec 2022

Kottke.org https://kottke.org › shuudan-koud...Shuudan Koudou Is the Japanese Art of Synchronized Precision Walking

On the other hand, hybrid 3 is inspired by Noh Play - Japanese performances and deals with the refusal of rules musically, hybrid three continues the two previous albums and weaves both rhythmic and beatless musical pieces into a holistic work.
The idea for me has always been that these albums are not only perceived as individual tracks, but as a whole piece, which is why I find the possibility of experiencing and listening to these albums in the right order and as a whole particularly important. For me, the pieces are not only closely related to the ballet that was created for them, but also function as individual pieces as pure, musical pieces and mark a new quality for me, which is very strongly focussed on producing electronic sounds and structures in such a way that they can develop a sculptural quality.

Much appreciated reissue of R.N.A. Organism’s ‘R.N.A.O Meets P.O.P.O’ (first released by legendary Osaka label Vanity Records in 1980). A key document of the late ’70s experimental music scene in Kansai, Japan, R.N.A.O Meets P.O.P.O is a hallucinatory trip of dubby bass, churning guitars, sputtering rhythm boxes, twisted vocals and unidentifiable sound effects.

Carefully remastered by Stephan Mathieu from the original tapes, cut by Josh Bonati, pressed by RTI, and housed in a hefty Stoughton tip-on sleeve. This oedition also includes an expanded insert with an illuminating essay by R.N.A. Organism producer Kaoru Sato.

(This double LP is cut in reverse, plays inside out) Jeff Mills Presents his new album 'The Trip', The World's First Cosmic Opera. What happens on the cosmic journey toward the black hole? What is on the other side of the black hole?Jeff Mills is set to explore these questions through a performance and an album release, that appeals to the auditory and visual senses.

An art performance focusing on being lost In space

``The Trip'' began about leaving Planet Earth and searching the cosmos for a new locations to live. Now, at 23 years later, we are entering a new chapter of the project where we encounter The Black Hole "Black Hole". A black hole is a celestial object whose gravity is so strong that no information leaks out, so it was impossible to observe it, and it was only a theoretical existence, but its location was identified for the first time in 2011. The latest research shows that it rotates on its own axis. Black holes are physically contradictory entities that are difficult to imagine, but what Jeff Mills is trying to deal with in ``The Trip'' also overlaps with singularity, which is the beginning or possible end of time and space. Displayed in 5 theoretical scenarios of what could happen after entering through the Black Hole and exiting on the other side.

Special guest: Jun Togawa

The provocative vocalist artist Jun Togawa was invited to participate by Jeff Mills as one of the highlights for this project. Among many talents such as acting and modeling, she is a trailblazing artist representing Japanese new wave, and her emotional songs have an unparalleled impact and continue to break down generational barriers. She is one of the greatest influences on Japanese avant-garde music and media, and her career spans over 35 years.

Jeff Mills, fascinated by Jun's unique way of singingas well as a commanding stage presence, approached her through the right channels and by the evening of the same day, Jun Togawa agreed and the lyrics had been written. The recording sessions of the collaborated songs which were conducted remotely between their locations in Japan and the US, went smoothly.

Two songs are: "Contradiction" and "Hole." For both songs, Jun added the vocals to the rhythm originally composed by Jeff Mills, and the final synth pad added by Shinichi Yamaguchi was edited by Jeff Mills. On "Contradiction" (Long Radio Mix), he wanted to include a guitar similar to the style of rock and roll legend Bo Diddley, which is masterfully played by Kazuhide Yamaji of the current Yapoos.

Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan's new album, Your Community Hub, compellingly continues his sonic exploration of the New Towns movement. The issues the councillors, planners, and architects set out to solve still resound and echo throughout society.

For the latest instalment in this unique project, Gordon Chapman-Fox turns his laser eye to focus on Community and the Community Centres that populated Warrington and Runcorn in order to provide all the facilities people needed within a five minute walk from their home. These planning ideas predated the current discussions of fifteen minute cities by fifty years.

Those 50 years have seen a decline in our community centres and services: handy access to a GP or dentist, Post Offices, youth clubs, local shops, banking and much more. Successive governments have undermined and eroded those basic services. The decline in community services has also been matched with a decline in community and shared experiences with a knock-on effect on the population's health and well-being. The disastrous austerity policies imposed over the last 15 years have exacerbated this long, slow reduction in available spaces for people to meet and communicate, with seemingly no recognition of the societal impact that causes. Short-termism at the expense of the community and how we live our lives.

Margaret Thatcher's statement that "there is no such thing as society" has been taken as a mission statement by successive Conservative governments who have aimed to remove as much support and communality from the citizens as possible. It continues now, the wrong-headed idea that everyone can be left to fend for themselves.

Chapman-Fox's latest album decries the cruelty of where we find ourselves in 2024 and his quiet incandescence about the loss of optimism for what communities should be and could be. It's his most powerful work, and as always, it will deeply resonate with those who tune in to his unique vision and unparalleled productions.

All four Wrntdp albums to date have had increasing critical and commercial success. Your Community Hub will resonate with anyone with a social conscience, anyone who feels how badly the state has let us down, and anyone who loves the best synthesiser music currently produced.

As ever, beautifully packaged and designed by Gordon, the album artwork features photographs from the archive of the architect Peter Garvin, which was kindly provided by his son Richard Garvin. The photographs show Peter's work on the Castlefield Community Centre, a sleek modernist structure clad in white ceramic tiles.