News archives: Issue 14

Kraftwerk to tour in 2004
By Glenn Folkvord
Legendary doesn't even start to describe the reputation of the techno-pop pioneers from Germany. Following their first new album in 17 years, Tour de France Soundtracks which was released in September, Krafterk will tour extensively throughout the late winter and spring of 2004. Venues are being added almost on a daily basis, with Scandinavia, Japan, Germany and a few other Western European countries covered so far. No dates have been announced for South America or USA at the time of writing, but you should check our concert listing regularly for the latest updates.

Coinciding with the tour will be the release of the second single from Tour de France Soundtracks on March 15th; Aero Dynamik. The single version will be different from the one on the album, in addition to a series of remixes of the track. [ Top ]

Jarre soundtrack in Canadian documentary
By Glenn Folkvord
The new Candian documentary movie Beresford en héritage, by director François Boudreau, includes eight pieces of Jean Michel Jarre music; Eldorado, Calypso, Zoolookologie, Orient Express, Magnetic Fields 2, Oxygene 8, Oxygene 10 and Oxygene 13. The documentary portrays the village Beresford and it's history. Other music for the soundtrack includes music by Greek composer Andreas Smagadis, the Russian musician Artyom Tiunov, a performance by the Belgium choir Les Petits Chanteurs de Bruxelles, as well as several pieces from local composers and Québec composer Robert Lebel. For more information, write to boudrefr@nbnet.nb.ca [ Top ]  

AtmoWorks fall/winter new albums
By Glenn Folkvord / label press release
Recorded in the streets of New York's Chinatown, James Johnson's EP Environment 1 is the first in a serial of location-specific long form works, released by AtmoWorks. An aural presentation of the city; "the sun slowly moving in and out of the veil of rain clouds above". AtmoWorks has also released the new Vir Unis CD / CD-rom combo Book of Mutations where electro-organic soundscapes "mutates and evolves". Accompanying is a CD-rom with digital artwork by Vir Unis, compiled from the past five years while working and listening to the music.

Scheduled for the near future from AtmoWorks is The Elf Machine's experimental Tokyo Highway where atmospheric voices, broken beats, and radio static is mixed with eastern influenced electronic percussion, electro grooves, noisescapes, clicks, drifts, and squeaks. Also in the works is Stativ from Foy, a combination of sweeping ambience and contemporary glitchscapes. [ Top ]

Vangelis' paintings on exhibit
By Glenn Folkvord
One of Vangelis' lesser known talents is painting; 75 paintings were on display in Valencia, Spain last year. The same paintings will tour South America; Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales in Montevideo, Uruguay will exhibit the paintings from December 19 to February 2004. Then the paintings will be at the Museo Nacional de Bella Artes in Buenos Aires, Argentina in March, followed by Pinacoteca do Estado in Sao Paolo, Brazil and in Salvador de Bahia, also in Brazil, but exhibit times have yet to be set for the last two locations. The exhibition tour is organized by the Generalitat Valenciana and the Consorcio de Museos do la Comunidad Valenciana, Spain. [ Top ]

Space for Music new albums
By Glenn Folkvord / label press release
Space for Music's new music releases include Brannan Lane's new CD Escape Velocity, his second release on the SFM label. A Hidden Space is a collaboration from the team Aashid Himons, Giles Reaves and Tony Gerber. These three space / ambient musicians are longtime collaborators and they got together for a live multimedia performance entitled Mind Orbit back in 1991. A Hidden Space was captured the day prior to the performance and set the tone for their musical dialogue.

November also saw the SFM releases American Steamboat by Roedelius, featuring Eric Bonerz, Alec Way, David Bickley and Eric Marlyn, and True Degrees of Freedom by Zero Ohms. For December One Step Into The Unknown by Mason Stevens is scheduled, as well as Nocturnal Emanations by Max Corbacho from Spain.

On the video frontier, Space for Music released in November the DVD-R Natural Montage by label artist William Linton. The movie features the musical work of William Linton, Tony Gerber, Spacecraft and others, coupled with video footage by Linton. [ Top ]

Plans underway for OMD DVD compilation
By Glenn Folkvord
OMD has scheduled a compilation of unreleased songs next year, of which one is the single Sister Marie says which was originally titled Sister Maria Gabriel. At the time of writing, Virgin is also restoring OMD's original music videos for a planned DVD collection. OMD's Dancing song is also featured on the BBC DVD called Old Grey Whistle Test Volume 2, along with performances from Roxy Music, Suzanne Vega, Pet Shop Boys and others. [ Top ]

Erasure video DVD and compilation album
By Glenn Folkvord
Erasure has had a busy 2003 with two successfull albums, and will close the year with a bang as they headline the Concert In The Gardens festival at the Royal Bank Street Party in Edinburgh on 31st December, as part of a four-day festival from December 29th to January 1st. This follows the release of a digital (downloadable-only) single of the remixed Oh l'amour on October 24th, which originally appears on their October-release of HITS! The Very Best of Erasure. The DVD video collection HITS! The Videos was also released in October, featuring all 35 of the duo's music videos. A bonus disc with TV performances, alternative videos, live performances, interviews and hidden extras is included. Erasure's album of cover versions of their favourite songs, Other People's Songs was released in January 2003. Erasure also held two sell-out tours in the UK the past year. [ Top ]

New book on Norwegian contemporary electronica
By Glenn Folkvord
A new book-CD combo has seen the light of day in Norway; Money Will Ruin Everything (pictured) is a 96-page hardback book designed and compiled by Kim Hiorthøy, featuring essays by The Wire editor Rob Young and design writer Adrian Shaughnessy, as well as an interview with Rune Kristoffersen of Rune Grammofon, the ambient / experimental record label. Included with the book comes two CDs with exclusive tracks from Supersilent, Biosphere, Alog, Deathprod, Jaga Jazzist, Arve Henriksen, Nils Økland, Phonophani, Lasse Marhaug, Information, Svalastog and many more, as well as key catalogue tracks from Tove Nilsen, Arne Nordheim, Monolight and others. In other words, a selection of Norwegian improvisation, electronica, ambient, jazz, contemporary soundworlds and all things inbetween. [ Top ]

Steve Roach news
By Glenn Folkvord
Recently released by Steve Roach is Life Sequence, featuring electronic sequencer based pieces of "spiraling melodic sequences and floating majestic textures" with melodic contributions by guest artist Paul Ellis. More atmospheric is Texture Maps: The Lost Pieces vol. 3, which includes previously unreleased Roach music from the 80s and onwards. The centrepiece is a 20-minute lost piece from 1987 that foreshadows Roach's later albums The Magnificent Void and Mystic chords & sacred spaces.

The future also promises new Steve Roach albums; first is Spirit Dome which is a collaboration with Vidna Obmana, to be released on Project in January 2004. This is a live studio recording made a few days before performing at the 2002 Project festival. And following in April is the next Steve Roach solo album, titled Fever Dreams. Patrick O'Hearn contributes bass guitar on one track. [ Top ]

Craig Padilla coming projects
By Glenn Folkvord
California based synthesist Craig Padilla has joined forces with Paul Ellis and recorded the album Echo System under the name PadEllis. The collaboration started two years ago and is now in the finishing stages. The album is described by the artists as "hypnotic and spacey sequences and mysterious melodies [to form an] cinematic experience". This album will be released by Groove Unlimited in Holland during the first quarter of 2004.

For the US based Spotted Peccary label, Craig is working on Genesis, the follow-up to the critically acclaimed album Vostok. Genesis is expected to be released in Spring 2004. [ Top ]

New compilation from Ed Starink
By Glenn Folkvord
How many people have not been introduced to the world of electronic music through Ed Starink's countless cover versions of famous synth hits? It has been seven years since his latest compilation, but now the new double-CD Synthétiseur was released in France (a title which is confusingly similar to other compilations of this type) in September by the label Wagram. The set contains 33 cover versions, which all previously appeared on other Starink compilations, mostly Synthesizer Greatest volumes 1-6. The new Synthétiseur is very much a best of from that and similar series of CDs, published in Europe since 1989. Of the 33 tracks, 14 are by Jean Michel Jarre and Vangelis. Retailers in France are Fnac, Virgin Megastore, and Carrefour. [ Top ]

Boddy and Shreeve's new collaboration
By Glenn Folkvord
UK synthesizer veterans Ian Boddy and Mark Shreeve has released their third album under the name ARC, entitled Blaze. Also playing drums on the album is guest musician Carl Brooker. After having known eachother for 15 years, ARC was founded in 1998 to allow the duo to explore a more experimental and ambient vein. The new 55 minute album features five rythmic and three atmospheric tracks, with the band's signature sound of Moog sequencer patterns supported by layers of ambient soundscapes still very much present. With Blaze, ARC have attempted to compile a mix of the early Teutonic synthesizer style with modern ambient electronica. Only 1500 copies have been pressed of this title. [ Top ]

DVD with Enya soundtrack planned
By Alex
enya.com is reporting that the The Celts is being considered by BBC America for a North American DVD release sometime this winter. For those who may not be familiar with The Celts, this was a 1986 documentary mini-series that featured a soundtrack by Enya. Selections from the soundtrack were released as her first full album, Enya in 1986 (later reissued by Warner as The Celts). Enya appears at the start of each episode performing the theme song, and one episode features a music video-style performance of Aldebaran. The series was released on North American VHS a few years ago. [ Top ]

Skytracker new album and future plans
By Glenn Folkvord
Norwegian ambient & industrial noise artist Skytracker, who is recording for Electronic Shadows Records, released the remix compilation Technova in early November. The album includes seven remixes of the artist's original Universe compositon, and five remixes of the unreleased Hypnautic part 4. Both tracks were remixed by various artists without hearing the original songs, and only working from short soundbytes. Technova is Skytracker's only release for ESR in 2003, but two more albums are nearly finished and will be released in 2004. [ Top ]

Experimental music from Finland
By Glenn Folkvord
The Finnish record label MIR has released a number of CDRs with experimental music of an electronic and / or acoustic nature. Included in the catalogue is the 2CDR set of highlighs from four Verde concerts, simply called Live. The compilation Music Makes A Quiet Mind - Musically Incorrect Compilation vol. 2 features Haare, Rats With Wings, Toni Kandelin, Uton, Armenia, and Gelsomina, a total of over 75 minutes of sound art ranging from lo-fi experimentalism to extreme noise. This compilation is a limited edition of 100 copies. Other releases are with artists such as Uton, Clay Figure, The Nihilistik Kitchen Unit, The Human Neutron Missile Squad and others. For more information, write to pekper@utu.fi [ Top ]

New electronic music releases in short
By Glenn Folkvord

• Michael Rother announced in November that his next solo album will be released in January 2004 at the latest.
• Synth pop band Ganymede released in October their new album Space and Time on Cohaagen Music. Two release parties were held in Los Angeles and Miami to mark the release.
• A new tribute album to synth pop pioneer Giorgio Moroder is on it's way. Entitled Utopia, over a dozen bands will interpret Moroder's songs, including Simulator, Gary Flanagan and Nukleon. The release is expected sometime during the winter 2003/04.
• The second single from Enigma's current album Voyageur was released in Germany and other countries on November 10th. The single includes two remixes of the title track Following the sun, and one new remix of Voyageur.
• A revised version of the recent Sandra DVD music video collection is in production. It is not yet clear if buyers of the first and faulty version will get their DVD replaced.
• The Norwegian synthpop band SuperJupiter recently released their new EP simply called EP 03. The CD contains 6 tracks. A release party was held in Halden on November 20th to launch the EP.
• Jean Michel Jarre is currently working on two albums, of which one is a compilation of his most famous songs, re-recorded by Jarre for this release, which should happen in the first quarter of 2004. Another studio album has also been confirmed to be in the works, though no release as been announced.
• The Dutch label Quantum Records is currently working on five new album projects. The plans include new albums by Akikaze and Par Example, and a collaborative work by Free System Projekt and Dweller at the Threshold.
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