★Editions Mego
What You Hear (Is What You Hear)
CD edition. Thomas Brinkmann is renowned for audio works that hover among forms such as techno, minimalism, and ambient. Alongside such pioneering works as Klick (2000), Studio 1 - Variationen (1997), and 2012's duo with Oren Ambarchi, The Mortimer Trap (BT 006CD), with What You Hear (Is What You Hear) Brinkmann moves further to separate his art, not only from descriptive musical terms that oppress creative output, but also from the notion of an author in the act of creation. The 11 tracks on …
The Black Death
Originally released in 1992 on CD by Tatra; never previously reissued. "Coming out of the 1980s Norwegian post-punk scene, When is the solo project of Lars Pedersen. The first albums were in a similar landscape as what he was doing with industrial art-rock band Holy Toy, and his later works have veered into a wide range of territories, but in between all this we find his fourth album from 1992 -- The Black Death (titled Svartedauen in Norwegian) -- a decidedly darker creation. Inspired by Theo…
Empty Airport
The title of Empty Airport, Chra's second LP and her first on Editions Mego, may be read as a reference to Brian Eno's ambient classic, though this time we find ourselves in a territory of transit that sounds like a dystopian swan song on civilizatoric debris -- a heterotopia emptied of human remains, with only ghostly echoes behind. Chra aka comfortzone foundress Christina Nemec has traced out a post-anthropocene area in which acoustic entries of field recordings are stratified in layers …
Communist Dub
"Communist Dub is Pan Sonic member Ilpo Väisänen's second solo album for Editions Mego (Asuma having appeared 2001). This striking new release is a statement against technocracy and the erosion of human community. Whilst Jamaican dub and ska are often cited as an influence on Väisänen's work, this album utilizes dub as strategy as opposed to genre -- the precise manipulation of sound and the removal of all extraneous material to create a disorientating landscape of austere spaces. Pulled in…
Quixotism
LP edition.Recorded with a multitude of collaborators in Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA, Quixotism presents the fruit of two years of work in the form of a single, LP-length piece in five parts. Oren Ambarchi's work in recent years has evinced an increasing fascination with the possibilities of combining abstract sonic textures with rhythm and pulse, whether in his drumming with Keiji Haino, the subtly driving ride cymbals provided by drummer Joe Talia in their work together, or the mot…
Behold
Behold is the second collaborative release from Oren Ambarchi and Jim O'Rourke following the 2011 LP Indeed. Ambarchi and O'Rourke seamlessly blend field recordings, electronics, guitar, drums, and other acoustic instruments into a subtle combination of krautrock, minimalism, and classic free flowing electronics. Side A takes the listener into the Fourth World adventures pioneered by Jon Hassell on Fourth World Music Vol. I: Possible Musics (GB 019CD/LP), while the flip seems like an unlikel…
To Beat Or Not To Beat
Special double set of COH's To Beat album (released previously as CD) featuring exclusive remixes by Matmos, JG Thirlwell, John Parish, Ryuchi Sakamoto, and Drew McDowall. Vinyl-only. No digital. Original To Beat notes: Picking up right where the last track on the previous COH release RETRO-2038 (EMEGO 172CD/LP) left off, the new album is focused on the use of beats within the similar aesthetics. While most of the previous COH records openly shy away from accentuated beat structures and inste…
My Ghost Comes Back
The aptly named My Ghost Comes Back witnesses the return of Tujiko Noriko after a hiatus, exploring worlds beyond those we regularly inhabit. The results of these travels provided the formula for this, her most accomplished record to date. As rich in ambition as it is skewered in its melodic stance, My Ghost Comes Back is a decidedly more acoustic affair in which a host of guest musicians incorporate mandolin, viola, musical saw, optigan and other such wares into the exotic environment whe…
Trouble
Trouble is the brand-new dispatch from the assorted output of Kevin Drumm and sits as one of the quietest in his entire catalog. A single continuous 54-minute excursion into the netherworld of the audio spectrum, Trouble is neither ambient nor drone, but a more complex investigation into the deep recesses of sound. One which discreetly works itself into the mind of a listener willing to invest in the path laid out in this extremely subtle, beautiful and exceptional release. Recorded in win…
All under
All Under', the companion release to 'All Over' compiles soundtracks to films, installations and a self penned short story. This is familiar terrain for Lewis who, along with Bruce Gilbert produced the early interactive audio-visual installation 'MZUI' at London's Waterloo Gallery in 1981. Since this period Lewis as been involved in countless soundtracks to all manner of cultural artefacts. The haunting score to Gunilla Leander's 2003 short film 'All Under' was improvised in real time with a sam…
All over
LP version. All Under, the companion release to All Over compiles soundtracks to films, installations and a self-penned short story. This is familiar terrain for Edvard Graham Lewis, who, along with Bruce Gilbert, produced the early interactive audio-visual installation "MZUI" at London's Waterloo Gallery in 1981. Since this period, Lewis has been involved in countless soundtracks to all manner of cultural artefacts. The haunting score to Gunilla Leander's 2003 short film All Under was improvise…
Hephaestus
Arne Deforce is renowned for his passionate and unparalleled performances of contemporary and experimental music. As a soloist, his repertoire consists mainly of solo and chamber music with a special interest in works deemed "unplayable" but "performable" from composers such as Iannis Xenakis, Richard Barrett, John Cage and Brian Ferneyhough. Mika Vainio was one-half of the minimal electronic duo Pan Sonic. His solo works, under his own name and under aliases like Ø, are known for their…
D/evolution
LCC (previously known as LasCasiCasiotone) is Ana Quiroga and Uge Pañeda, who hail from the Asturias region of northern Spain, and are now based in Gijon. After a couple of digital-only releases, Editions Mego is now set to release their first physical full length entitled D/evolution. Encapsulating the paradox between man and earth, it reflects on the paradigm that is Evolution, and examines the extent to which our development and technological advancement, which is inevitably bound to t…
To beat
Picking up right where the last track on the previous COH release RETRO-2038 left off, the new album is focused on the use of beats within the similar aesthetics. While most of the previous COH records openly shy away from accentuated beat structures and instead build up their rhythmical content by layering waves and pulses, every track on To Beat is padded with just that - beats. The music transition is illustrated in the album's artwork, displaying transformation of a sine-wave, a tone, into a…
Becs
CD edition: the last time Fennesz released an album on Austrian label Mego it was 2001 and the name of that release was 'Endless summer'. Now, in 2014 Editions Mego is extremely proud to release the conceptual follow up that landmark of abstract pop. Bécs (pronounced 'baeetch') is Hungarian for Vienna and is the first full length Fennesz solo release since 2008's 'Black Sea'. Eschewing the more drone orientated works of 'Black Sea', 'Bécs' returns to the more florid pop mechanisms as dep…
Politiken der Frequenz
LP version. Following a hypothesis according to which "Music and Economics share a fundamental object: number," Marcus Schmickler and Julian Rohrhuber's project Politiken der Frequenz circles around the acoustic rendering of number concepts. Inspired by Alain Badiou's Le Nombre et les Nombres, and accompanied by mixed choir, the piece attempts to question the apparent immediacy of numbers that allows calculation to govern today's economy, social sciences and everyday life. "Change, flexibilit…
Shut In
'Shut In' is a "Beautiful piece of Easy Listening for Cabin Fever courtesy of Kevin Drumm" says Editions Mego, and who are we to argue? It yields some of the inimitable artist's most beautiful, oneiric sounds since his immense 'Imperial Distortion' album for Hospital Productions; in fact, we wouldn't be surprised if we were told it came from those same sessions. One singular piece unfolds for just over 30 minutes across two sides, slowly radiating a sort of soothing harmonic balm with an …
Toxic Cosmopolitanism
Kassel Jaeger is a Swiss-French artist based in Paris, France, and is a member of the GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales). Toxic Cosmopolitanism is his second full-length release for Editions Mego -- a release which explores and questions the very nature of the material experiments contained within. Each side consists of two clearly-defined sections based on the same material. Side A comprises of "Toxic Cosmopolitanism," a large-scale work based on distinct sounds of different cultures, …
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…
Goda Nott
Last winter we got snowed in, luckily we were at the studio, so with no food or drinks, we had to take our minds of the fact that we´ll have to spend the time locked in until the snow melted, so we decided to work on new recordings influenced by the situation. The snow is all up over the window, It might be even up over the top of the house, and from time to time we had the feeling that we may have been asleep for a week, for all we know.. We couldn't even tell what day it was, or whethe…