12K
Founded by Taylor Deupree in 1997, 12k has decisively defined and developed the concept of minimalism in the realms of electronic music for more than a decade Fusing elements from Ambient and Electro-Acoustic Composition with carefully arranged digital glitches and associative micro-noises, the label's aesthetics revolve around a precisely-outlined, yet deeply emotional concoction of the technological and the organic
Orwell Court
Gareth Dickson is ghostlike. From the dark outskirts of Glasgow he has sent three studio studio albums in to the world - Collected Recordings (2009), The Dance (2010) and Quite A Way Away (2012). These albums have bewitched a growing inner circle, including some of the most innovative musicians around today - Juana Molina and Vashti Bunyan to name just two. Gareth has been the only constant member of Vashti’s touring outfit over the past ten years and latterly they have stripped down to…
Between You And The Shapes You Takes
Between You And The Shapes You Take is the second collaborative album by Richmond based musician/sound artists Stephen Vitiello and Molly Berg. As with the duo’s previous release, The Gorilla Variations, tracks are created out of improvisations and sculpted through editing. Molly Berg’s clarinet and vocalizations tend to cover the CD’s lyrical content while Vitiello’s guitar and processing covers a good deal of the textures. Two of the tracks on the CD feature violin by the multi-talented Hahn R…
Somi
Somi is the new full-length from Taylor Deupree following 2014’s Faint (12k1073/12k2025). The release comes packaged as a CD inside a 20-page hardbound book of Deupree’s photographs that inspired the creation of the music. For the music, made with a small number of instruments (electric piano, glockenspiel, DX7, handheld cassette recorder) Deupree originally set out to create a follow-up to his classic album Stil.. Steeped in subtle repetition and soft electronic sound, Stil. explored themes of …
Triggered Sound
Triggered Sound is Palaver Press’ first print publication, having originally been established in 2011 to publish sound works. This book is a collection of commissioned photographs taken by sound artists, documenting the various objects in our world that playback pre-recorded sounds at the push of a button or the winding of a gear. Alarms, toys, tape players, megaphones, subway speakers, automated messaging systems, samplers, etc. The objects of triggered sound are photographed in environments bo…
In a place of graceful shapes
In September, 2011, 12k released the boxed set by Taylor Deupree and Marcus Fischer titledIn A Place of Such Graceful Shapes containing a CD, a booklet of photographs and a clear-vinyl 7”— all carefully designed and integrated. All 500 copies of this box sold out by the beginning of 2012. As a special release to be debuted at the duo’s live performance at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre in Austin, Texas on April 15th, the artists have utilized a limited pressing of unlabeled white-vinyl 7”s and mad…
Interstices
Start with a room, a cleanish one, not too rustic, not too slick, and then fill it with tools, fill it with anything that can be used to make other things. Put the room in the forest, but not too deeply in, let’s have the city on the distant horizon. Then, let’s have two craftsman, artists, explorers. Tell them a bit about where the room is, but not exactly. Make them find it, together. When they finally do they will embark on their creations, but it won’t be the immerse-and-shut-yourself-off-fr…
Collected Recordings
In 2009 Drifting/Falling released Gareth Dickson’s debut album, Collected Recordings, a stunningly beautiful and haunting ambient folk album which caught the attention of 12k’s Taylor Deupree. Thus began a not-as-easy-as- expected search for Dickson to try to coax him into writing an album for 12k. After a couple of cross-Atlantic voyages and a brief run-in involving a failing rental car and a herd of sheep on a dusty Scotish road, Deupree and Dickson met and Quite A Way Away was recorded for 12…
Akari
Akari is the third album from Tokyo duo Illuha. Following 2011’s debut Shizuku and 2013’s Interstices, Akari takes the next artistic step for the band. While Shizuku was recorded in the US and completed separately by the artists, Interstices captured the duo creating their exceptionally detailed music together live during a Japaneses tour. Akari, in turn, is the first studio album where Illuha recorded and mixed together, throughout the entire process. The beautiful st-robo studio in Tokyo put a…
Lost & Compiled
Lost & Compiled is a CD that Taylor Deupree has been wanting to make for years and, finally, as part of his 2014 Japan tour (with Illuha, Stephan Mathieu and Federico Durand) it has come to light. The album was debuted at the venues of the tour and in an attempt to keep the release on the quiet side will only receive a small amount of Japanese distribution. Lost & Compiled is a collection of early mixes of songs from the past few years as well as some previously unreleased works. The concept for…
Solstov
With their distant, icy ambient music in shades of pale blues and greys, the Norwegian duo Pjusk evoke lonliness, time and landscape with their sound that stretches slowly, carefully and patiently through the air. Having previously released two albums on 12k, their debut Sart (12k1042, 2007) and Sval (12k1059, 2010) and a third, Tele (Glacial Movement Records, 2012), Pjusk return with perhaps their boldest and most focused album yet. Solstøv is an album made almost entirely from the sound of the…
Paralell Landscapes
Parallel Landscapes is the first solo full-length album from Swiss artist Steinbrüchel on 12k, despite his relationship with the label and apperances on compilations, collaborations (Status, with Frank Bretschneider (12k1033)) and EP releases (Mit Ohne, (12k2010)). It seems that Steinbrüchel was waiting for the right moment to release such an illustrious album that is not only a release of music but of visual art as well. Parallel Landscapes consists of a compact disc in a cd wallet and a beauti…
Perpetual
In the wet heat of a Japanese summer, legendary musician Ryuichi Sakamoto was joined on stage by Taylor Deupree and the duo of Corey Fuller and Tomoyoshi Date, known as Illuha. The Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media hosted the event as part of their 10 year anniversary which also included a captivating installation by Sakamoto called Forest Symphony. The days surrounding the concert brought the artists together for food, talk and exploration. Informal but meaningful moods that prepared them for…
Mitosis
"12k kicks off its 11th year with a new release that takes the label down new sonic pathways. Caught between the organic and electronic minimalism that 12k is known for and the unconventional Japanese pop musings and songwriting style of Happy, Moskitoo's Drape is an infectiously strange, bleepy, and dreamy debut release. Sanae Yamasaki (Moskitoo) hails from Sapporo, Japan in Hokkaido, the country's northern-most prefecture. Perhaps a reaction to the cool climate of her home, her multi-instrumen…
Disappearance
Pioneering electronic minimalist Taylor Deupree and revered Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto collaborate properly for the first time with the willowy ambient beauty of 'Disappearance'. They previously crossed paths when Deupree remixed a song from Sakamoto's 'Chasm' album in 2006, and since then they've reached a mutual appreciation for the themes of 'Isolation, solitude, contemplation' which perfuse the delicate structures of 'Disappearance'. Its initial ideas were sketched out during rehears…
The Endless Change of Colour
"The Endless Change of Colour exists somewhere between our future and the mistakes and accidents we've made along the way. It is a celebration of both the system and the unexpected. Marsen Jules' latest work is a generative music piece upon a single phrase of an old jazz record split into three audio streams. These streams are transformed into loops which break the original instrumentation down into sound resembling pure waves, harmonics, and overtones. These loops play to different time …
Origin
In the distance, they thought they heard a noise. This sound, that lay upon the hum, that those who lived here incessantly heard, crept into their consciousness as their breath slowed. The search was drawing on, time was becoming physical. The landscape was brown, a reddish brown, dusty and warm, and the smoke that was always somewhere off in the distance was still not far enough away. The noises of everyday always seemed like layers of different lives sounded off by the people. Each voic…
Faint
12k mastermind Taylor Deupree presents his sole solo output for 2012. His lushly realised 'Faint' is themed around those blissful, fleeting moments between waking and sleep, and vice versa, that point where the sub-conscious kicks in after a couple of hypnagogic jerks and we begin to seep between one reality and another. It break down to five extended and beautiful pieces: from the cottony friction of 'Negative Snow', melting to the ringing resonance of air cushioned keys and acousmatic crackle …
Below Sea Level
Below Sea Level is the first 12k release from seasoned musician and electronic sound artist Simon Scott. The inspiration behind Below Sea Level, including its music, title, artwork and photography (see accompanying journal) originally derives from Scott’s desire to musically explore the desolate and controversial environment of the Fens in East Anglia, UK. The memories Scott has of visiting this area as a child make this a poignant and highly personal project that explores nostalgic familia…
Coda (For WK)
The new CD-EP (clocking in at 20 minutes exactly) from Stephan Mathieu is a coda to A Static Place (2011, 12k), created with his highly focused setup of two mechanical-acoustic gramophones and computer. Coda (For WK) is dedicated to the legendary “quiet” pianist Wilhelm Kempff, whose 1927 recordings of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 26 Les Adieux from a double 12” 78RPM set on Brunswick were used as input for an autogenerative process. Mathieu’s process emphasizes the archaic beauty and texture of…
Sublunar
Sublunar is the first full-length release from Kane Ikin who is also known as one half of the duo Solo Andata. Sublunar follows Kane’s solo debut Contrail (7”, 12k2022) picking up where that EP left off and pushing the boundaries outward in every direction into denser, deeper, wetter and more decayed terrain. The word “sublunar” can be read to contain many conceptual layers important to the album. It is music about moonlight, darkness, the faintest hint of light and shadow.... Moons locke…