WCR Dark Train C19#87 – bleed Air/superpolar Taïps Mix – 06-12-21

Author: bleed Air
Date: 11. December 2021
Categories: Radio/Mixes

With huge thanks to Dark Train host Kate Bosworth for the invite!

Kate Bosworth / Dark Train

  • f5point6 – Charting Unknown Constellations
  • Ffion – Lights That Burn Twice As Bright
  • Lisa Bella Donna – (Excerpt) Atagahi, of the Great Smoky Mountains
  • Kindly Spoken Thieves – Rheostat
  • Ordnance Survey – Connolly Station December 1962

bleed Air / superpolar Taïps

  • bleed Air – proper time – time, ferocious (superpolar Taïps 2021)
  • Ardor – Flux – Split w/ Smylex Attack (Strategic Tape Reserve, 2021)
  • Therapeutische Hörgruppe Köln – Enchanted Isle of Entanglement (Flexi postcard single, self-released)
  • Gordan – Seediq – Down In The Meadow (Morphine, 2021)
  • Adderall Canyonly – Thine Hands Rend As Well As Reap – Stand Alone And Burn (Opal Tapes)
  • Field Tape – Yellow – Ambient Journal (Yellow), self released
  • Leaaves – Another Bright Nothing – Asleep for a YearB side (Cassette single, superpolar Taips, Dec 2021)
  • The Incidental Crack – I lost it – Detail (Anticipating Nowhere Records, 2021)
  • Guybrush – Distrazione – Music for queuing at the supermarket (SØVN Records, 2021)
  • Phirnis – Gated Communities – Non Traumatic Events, split with Chorchill (Submarine Broadcasting, 2021)
  • Ergo Phizmiz featuring Depresstival – Scream If You Wanna Go Faster – Plaza Centraal (Strategic Tape Reserve, 2021)
  • The Fall – New Face in Hell – Grotesque (Rough Trade, 1980)
  • Jacques Palminger & 440Hz Trio – Die Kirschblütenrakete (Staatsakt, 2016)
  • Carsten Erobique Meyer – Schottys Traum – Tatortreiniger Soundtracks (A Sexy Records, 2018)
  • The Tuesday Night Machines – The Long Way Down – Roof Tent Rhythms (Strategic Tape Reserve, 2019)
  • Schmitz & Niebuhr – Pinky – The Very Best Of (superpolar Taïps, early 2022)
  • Brigitte Fontaine, Areski Belkacem and the Art Ensemble of Chicago – Lettre à Monsieur le Chef de gare de la Tour de Carol – Comme à la radio (Saravah, 1969)
  • Hualun – 野兽 – An Elephant Sitting still Soundtrack (?, 2018)
  • Can – Mother Upduff – Unlimited Edition (Harvest/Caroline, 1969,1976)

Kate Bosworth / Dark Train

  • JayetAL – Typewriter
  • The Loved One – Paradox Zn
  • Apta – We Tire
  • Crisp Packet Jackets – (Excerpt) Opposition Is Obsolete
  • dogs versus shadows – Futura (1972)
  • mold omen – duality of the zookeeper
  • Maxx Silver – Visionary
  • Southfacing – Muted Response
  • Zyklus – Porridge Funnel

bleed Air – time, ferocious

Author: bleed Air
Date: 1. October 2021
Categories: Releases

Concepts of time, in (tape) music. 

Time as physical quantity, the nature of time as defined by general relativity, the resulting model of spacetime (German: Raumzeit) and ripples therein caused by gravitational waves. Time dilation, time offset, time measurement. Present, future, past. 

An attempt to approach the complex subject of time and spacetime sonically, using devices that allow time manipulation (somewhat): Analogue tape recorders, effect pedals with ‘time’ knobs. 

All instruments were recorded to and with (mostly half broken) tape machines on looped reel to reel or endless cassette tapes. On some tracks, these machines were also used as tape echos, mostly by exploiting their saturation, warm overdrive and noise capabilities. 

Instruments and sound sources and tools used: Field recordings (Star City Tserkov’ Spasa Preobrazheniya church bells; Mbira, Kalimba, Acoustic Guitar, electric bass guitar, cello bows, human voice, found reel to reel audio that came with used tape recorders I bought), synthesizers. 

In a way, this album concludes, albeit in a somewhat noisier, abstract and sometimes deafening way, what I started with the ‘Ogehiko/Yahiko’ cassingle. 

QST cassingle & new bleed Air album

Author: bleed Air
Date: 26. September 2021
Categories: Promo

Friday 1 October sees the release of a new Cassette Single by QST, Frans de Waard’s – as he says – ‘failed attempt’ on producing ambient house music. I must say I’m glad he failed since what he produces as QST (with beats) and Quest (w/o beats) is way better than what the genre name suggests. In simple terms it’s pretty captivating minimal synth stuff.

The QST cassingle will be accompanied by a new bleed Air album, titled ‘time, ferocious’ – the first following the eponymous 2020 debut album. It is an attempt at sonic exploration of concepts of time.

bleed Air concludes the work started with Cassingle ‘Ogehiko/Yahiko’, albeit in a somewhat noisier and more abstract way. Again, all instruments and other (found) sounds were recorded to and with mostly half broken reel to reel and cassette tape machines, fully exploiting their fantastic manipulation capabilities.

Both cassettes will be available from Friday, 09:00 CEST and also offered as a bundle, so that you can save on postage.

P.S.: The ‘time, ferocious’ digital download will be ‘name your price’ for the first couple of weeks.

Stichflamme Dormagen – Ihre Meinung ist uns wichtig

Author: bleed Air
Date: 2. August 2021
Categories: Uncategorized

‘Ihre Meinung ist uns wichtig‘ is the artist’s debut under his Stichflamme Dormagen moniker and, in Vital Weekly’s words, “a most curious piece of voices, chanting exotically, along with wooden drum percussion and line hum for electronic component (…)” as well as “urgency and weirdness at work.” (www.vitalweekly.net/1294.html)

Stichflamme Dormagen is the mischievous incarnation of Rudi Baumgärtner, a music producer born and raised in the city of Remagen, in western Germany. 

Not much is known about Baumgärtner except his attempts to self-publish criminal stories under the moniker Sulke Diebler and his deep mistrust of public transport. 

In 2006 he took part in a macramé class. Baumgärtner makes his living from soundtracks for local adult film productions. He spends his free time in his little garden in the Remagen suburbs, where he breeds rare slug species. 

— THE CASSINGLE SERIES — 

30+ Artists. 30+ cassette singles with an intentional, conceptual limitation of under 3 mins per track, exclusive B-sides. Individual artworks. Merely 10 hand-dubbed copies per tape will go on sale. Eventually, all tracks will be released on a compilation, planned for late 2021. That’s the SPT Cassingle series in a nutshell

Carnedd Aur – Beetles

Author: bleed Air
Date: 27. July 2021
Categories: Releases

Following the long sold-out ‘Blessing of the Hand​-​Sanitizer’ cassingle, superpolar Taïps is very happy to present the first full-length release by prolific and versatile artist Simon Proffitt, here under his Carnedd Aur moniker. 

Here’s Simon’s take on ‘Beetles’: 

“After a few years of exploring drones / tones / field recordings (as Cahn Ingold Prelog), fictional ritual trance (as The Master Musicians of Dyffryn Moor) and the outer limits of acoustic instrumentation (as Simon Proffitt), the Carnedd Aur project came about as an answer to the question of whether I was capable of writing electronic pop music. 

It turns out that I am not – at least, not yet – but what arose instead was actually far more satisfying. Armed with just a MicroKORG, bought years earlier for a one-off gig in a swimming pool and then not used since, I set about trying to make shorter pieces with a focus on rhythm and melody of the kind that my parents (harsh critics of my other work) might not actually like, but might at least understand as music. 

Carnedd Aur translates into English as Gold Cairn, a sort of Welsh-language take on Cahn Ingold Prelog. 

I’ve long been fascinated by evocative common names for species (mushrooms, moths etc), and especially so in the case of beetles – these names add a layer of mystery and magic to creatures that are well known from a distance but fascinating and alien when viewed close up. It seems to me that there’s a definite link between shuffling drum machine rhythms and busily meandering insects, between shimmering synth pads and shiny, multi-coloured wing-cases.” 

Read more about Beetles here.

CARNEDD AUR DISCOGRAPHY 

Moths (Wormhole World, 2020) 
Hel Bwyd Cennad y Meirw (Exotic Spresm, 2020) 
Music for the Welsh European Funding Office (Exotic Spresm, 2019)  

credits

releases August 6, 2021 

Written, performed and recorded by Simon Proffitt at the Museum of Dust, January-March 2020 with a MicroKORG and Toshiba Satellite L300.

Phirnis – Culinary Delights [Cassingle #15]

Author: bleed Air
Date: 15. April 2021
Categories: Releases

Oops. A maxi cassingle. Phirnis aka Kai Ginkel’s super dark, noisy and haunty tracks are awesome, but impossible to squeeze into two minutes and thirty seconds. So for once I break the otherwise strict rule. Further info on the BC release page …

Sinusoidal Frequency Modulations by Robin Barnick

Author: bleed Air
Date: 16. February 2021
Categories: Releases

A minimal synth EP, garnished with harsh noise, composed entirely on a Yamaha DX7. Despite the minimal setup, it creates an intense, sometimes uplifting, sometimes eerie atmosphere.. We believe that you’ve rarely heard the DX7 like that before. 

Artist Robin Barnick sold his DX7 a long time ago – it was a rocking DX7IIFD in excellent shape… and yes, he regrets it, a lot. There was just too little space in his apartment and he thought the NI FM7 would do too. Far from it. Here’s what he has to say about the album: 

“At the time, I guess it was around 2001, I was trying to program the DX7 and accidentally deleted all of the presets when I started to experiment with emagic’s SoundDiver. Every single patch was reset to the “Init” sound, a simple sine wave. 

OK, never mind, I thought, and then got hooked when I started manipulating this ultra simple patch live, with the help of Sounddiver’s quite impressive capabilities. 

I was fascinated by how easy it now was to elicit experimental sounds from this otherwise difficult-to-operate machine. I didn’t care about sequencing, so this is just me, playing simple chord progressions and notes with the left hand and manipulating them with my right hand on the mouse, twiddling SoundDiver’s faders. All was recorded live on Minidisc (in mono). 

At the time I really wasn’t sure whether the music was good at all, so I put the MD aside … and forgot it. When I remembered it again some time ago, I spent endless hours searching – all my MDs were there, just not this one. When I was about to give up, I rediscovered it, edited the material and subsequently processed the tracks with some few effects.” 

Robin Barnick resides in Niederkassel-Lülsdorf-Ranzel, in the lovely rural-industrial no one’s land between Cologne and Bonn, in the wild, wild western part of Germany and at the heart of Europe.

Cassingle #3 – Harald Sack Ziegler [SPT05]

Author: bleed Air
Date: 26. October 2020
Categories: Releases

25 Artists. 25 C-5 (that’s 2:30 per side) cassettes with two tracks (exclusive B-side). Strictly limited to 10 hand-dubbed copies each. Custom design. 

superpolar Taïps proudly presents the third release of its Cassette Single series.  superpolar.org/2020/10/20/the-spt-cassingle-series/

The number of his entries on discogs is 49 – in reality there are innumerable and probably half of them are cassettes or other obscure formats such as a (CD-sized 5″) vinyl single called “See Dee”. To keep it short: Harald Sack Ziegler – or simply “Sack” – is a lo-fi experimental trash pop/punk legend. He is by no means just a solo artist, as he has already worked with musicians like E*Rock (Sack & E*Rock), FS Blumm (Sack & Blumm), Mouse on Mars and many more. Harald studied orchestral music and is a master of French horn, guitar, drums and toy instruments – but rarely uses them as inventors usually intended. 

With Ahornschraube (“maple screw”) and Blechriff (“brass riff”), Harald provides two tracks which have his main instrument – the French horn – at the centre, albeit heavily processed and sometimes literally chopped up. And, as always, to listen with pleasure.