★Editions Mego
The Wires Cracked
The recordings for The Wires Cracked were completed in a frenzied two week period in October of 2012. I had mentioned in discussing a previous album's construction that I prefer to forget how I build any particular electro-acoustic amalgam. This is so that I don't get to precious with them, so that I could refine them further, so that the sounds themselves speak beyond their aggregate parts. With the album being relatively fresh in my mind, I can still recall various components to "The Wires Cra…
Retro-2038
COH is the moniker used by Ivan Pavlov from Russia for more than a decade. COH is also the Russian word for 'sleep'. Yet, do not be deceived - RETRO-2038 is much more of a deep space than a deep sleep. The second COH release on Editions Mego is a true delight to behold, inviting as it does its exploration of electronic sound in minimalism, futuristic pop and the uncharted territories inbetween. Ranging from digital updates of Giorgio Moroder's pulse experiments to menacing lingering LF tones, wi…
Hostile Environment
Bolder is Martin Maischein, who used to record as Heinrich At Hart on Position Chrome, and Peter Votava, also known as Pure, who has recorded previously for Mego and was half of Ilsa Gold. With their combined background in electronic music of all kinds, Bolder introduces a significant proposition to the current experimental electronic boom. Blurring the lines between industrial, techno, dub, ambient, and narrative forms, the work on Bolder's debut presents a dance amongst the abyss, a world wher…
Dome 1
With the demise of the group Wire in 1980, founder members Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis joined forces to create Dome. With the assistance of engineer Eric Radcliffe and his Blackwing Studio Dome took the ethic of "using the studio as a compositional tool" and recorded and released three Dome albums on their own label in the space of 12 months: Dome (July 1980), Dome 2 (October 1980), and Dome 3 (October 1981). A final fourth album, Will You Speak This Word: Dome IV was released on the Norwegia…
Practical Electronics with Thighpaulsandra
LP version. As audacious as the sleeve it comes housed in, the UK's most eccentric audio malefactor returns with his eighth studio album, Practical Electronics with Thighpaulsandra. Unique in the Thighpaulsandra oeuvre, this one eschews the usual group-based recordings, consisting of electronics and vocals only. Hovering between haunted narratives and extended instrumental sequences, Practical Electronics is an eccentric excursion into playful pop and fearless electronic experimentation. Simulta…
Hence
Hence is the third collaborative release from Oren Ambarchi and Jim O'Rourke, following on from Behold
(EMEGO 176LP, 2015). Building on the refined combination of electronics
and acoustic instrumentation found on their previous releases, Hence presents two side-long pieces combining synthesizers, heavily effected guitar tones, and tabla rhythms played by special guest Uzhaan.
On the first side, an explosive opening chord sends out ripples of
sparse, irregularly pulsing guitar and synthesizer…
Aanet
Ilpo Väisänen returns to Editions Mego under the guise of I-LP-ON with, ÄÄNET, an immense tribute to the outfit he played in alongside his friend and former creative partner Mika Vainio. ÄÄNET takes inspiration from the life of Pan Sonic, the outfit they inhabited for over two decades. Recorded in Kuopio, Barcelona and Karttula, ÄÄNET is made up of a series of miniatures that harness the many shadows this legendary act absorbed: industrial, ambient, dub and club all figure into this edgy slow bu…
Routine
Snapshot release by new Editions Mego signing, the Bristol-based Finlay Shakespeare. Routine is a twitchy electro monster confronting the listener with a worked up a blend of AFX, Cabaret Voltaire, and New Order.
The B-Side "Perris" propels itself as a crazed analog drama that is as
ambitious as it is unholy. Simultaneously a modern throwback to the
brooding synth pop age and an absolute belter in the contemporary
mainframe, Finlay Shakespeare has made it quite clear, that he is here.
Throne
LP version. On Throne, Heather Leigh takes her place as queen of pedal steel with a suite of heart-rending ballads cauterized with burning riffs. After the rawness of its precursor I Abused Animal (SOMA 023LP, 2015), Throne is a record of late night Americana and heavy femininity; intimate love songs smoked in sensuality. The songs on Throne are woozy, gorgeous and uncomfortable, smothered in thick layers of bass but lifted by multi-tracked vocals. These are rich song forms that stand in contras…
Uuuu
Two new tracks from UUUU, featuring members of Coil, Wire, and Tomaga. The motorik music hinted at on UUUU (EMEGO 239LP, 2017) is given space to unfold here. "Electric Blanket" chugs along with perpetual percussion, blankets of feedback and state-of-the-art electronics all embedded with a spectral melody that moves into more mystical ambient planes. "Nice Setting" places a strange short spoken narrative at the center of a shifting sonic landscape of skittering electronic debris and a deep shifti…
Ex Nihilo
Editions Mego’s 250th release continues its ongoing legacy of cross-pollinating and perverting various threads of radical 20th Century music whilst concocting and properling further ideas into the nebulous region where we currently reside. With Ex Nihilo, Editions Mego resumes it’s enduring relationship with long term collaborator and stalwart representative of the labels aesthetic with a new release from London’s most charming deviant occupant, Mr Bruce Gilbert (formerly of Wire, Dome etc…
Agent Im Objekt
Jung An Tagen is practicing sonic animism on a molecular level. With Agent Im Objekt he confronts his listeners once more with a form of highly abstracted electronic music -- puristic club sounds for an accelerated future. Kicking off with an accumulation of high-pitched, psychoactive sounds, Agent Im Objekt takes you into a hyperreal sphere reigned by sonic entities. Playing with swarm-dynamics and singular signals, moments of distance and proximity and noise textures that stimulate percept…
33 33
NPVR is moniker taken on board by Pita, AKA Peter Rehberg, and Factory Floor's Nik Void. Peter and Nik both share formidable reputations in the post-industrial shape-shifting world of sound and form with a vast range of releases and collaborative endeavors over a number of years. Together they tie together their collective experience into a vast array of sonic devices unleashing an album of pragmatic imbalance and psychedelic orientation. Blurring the lines of techno, ambient, avant garde,…
Modern Methods For Ancient Rituals
The title of the debut album from The Transcendence Orchestra outlines the modus operandi of this pairing of Anthony Child and Daniel Bean. Recorded in a remote English rural setting over a period of 24 hours, this is an apt location for a recording that eschews time and space in favor of methodological displacement and deep psychological navigation. Modern Methods For Ancient Rituals is an experiment in acoustic and synthetic symbiosis which is deeply influenced by the atmosphere and acoust…
Takt Der Arbeit
Originally developed as a film score, Takt Der Arbeit is inspired by a handful of industrial and instructional films from the early 1960s until the early 1990s that portray different forms of work. Felix Kubin translates these historic documents into a musical poem of conceptual depth. Takt Der Arbeit - "the beat of work" - is not only serving as a title but also as constructive element in this endeavor. Being hunted down by the ever-accelerated pulse of our reality is an omnipresent issue i…
On A Fateful Morning
On her latest release, Chra, aka Christina Nemec, sketches out a psycho-geographical map that guides you to the border of the internal and external world -- On A Fateful Morning lets you enter a sphere where the imaginary and the subliminal cross. Evoking abstract images that transcend reality, Chra installs an autarchic time-and-space continuum of vague, nocturnal beauty. Pastose bass drones, airy ambient synths and processed audio samples form a hypnotic stream that lets you enter an alter…
Buy Corals Online
First outing for this collaborative effort from the prolific Posh Isolation mainstay Loke Rahbek and Frederik Valentin of KYO, also on the revered Danish label. As old friends circling around the same scene, this is the first time they have combined their respective perspectives. The results are an ambitious aquatic infused audio environment. Recorded near water at Valentin's studio within the vicinity of the new aquarium in Copenhagen, Buy Corals Online channels the sensual floating aspect…
Cohgs
The ongoing relationship between Editions Mego and CoH continues with this special collection of works made by CoH over a number of years, released on a variety of labels. What brings these works together is the incorporation of vocalists and lyrics. Neatly compiled here, a diverse pool of vocalists elevate the otherwise instrumental works of CoH (Ivan Pavlov) into worlds of narrative, the human and the haunted. Little Annie brings her sly subversive cabaret style to one of the works whilst…
Some People Really Know How To Live
Shit And Shine's sidestep from percussion-led bunny rabbit rock ensemble performance based glee to ultimate heavy fools of the sticky dancefloor remains one of the more inspiring turn around's in recent years. With highly acclaimed releases on Editions Mego, Diagonal, Riot Season, and others, Shit And Shine have wasted no time clearing away the rubbish whilst cutting up their own path towards giddy bass-heavy shape-shifting dance mutations. Snapping the twigs of disco, hurling clouds of e…
Massif Trophies
BJNilsen is a composer and sound artist based in Amsterdam. His work primarily focuses on the sounds of nature and how they affect humans. Recent work has explored the urban acoustic realm and industrial geography in the Arctic region of Norway and Russia. His original scores and soundtracks have been featured in theater, dance performances, and film. Celebrating 27 years as a recording artist, Massif Trophies is his first solo release for Editions Mego. In 2015, he set off on a month-long…