Férias, Holidays, Urlaub, Vacances

Ellen Allien - Thrills

Bpitch Control


Press Release:

This summer sees the release of Ellen Allien’s third studio album. Taking time out from running her Bpitch Control label that has just turned 100 and constant global deck duties, Berlin’s Ms. Allien brings us ‘Thrills’.

“An album is a work from a period in one’s life,” states Ellen. “Constantly rushing around through clubs makes me feel distracted. I’m no longer grounded. Instead, I’m still floating somewhere inside this club action, fluttering through the night, standing between the bass drum and the emotions of the people. I’m totally absent. Often I’m no longer inside my own body. When I have more time, when I’m on holiday or just lying around in my bed, I can finally start to process things. I don’t often have this peacefulness in my life, and it’s the same with music. Learning to say no is a virtue, being able to concentrate on only one thing - my own thing. Making an album mainly means coming down, relaxing, finding myself again, making contact with myself again, finding out where I want to go, showing what I’m capable of. It’s a nice process, returning to the things I like.”

In the meantime, Ellen Allien no longer places the primary emphasis on testing her own abilities, perspectives (Stadtkind) and links to current movements in electronic music (Berlinette). Rather, her third album “Thrills” makes a clear statement: Her passions have become her profession. This also means that she has withdrawn from the daily grind of being a label manager to allow herself as much freedom as possible – namely to define herself as an artist, with all it entails. And that can only work based on the well-oiled team at BPitch Control giving her the necessary logistical support.

Concentration is vital. Creative expression has always been her outlet in the search for the thrill of sensing and feeling. On “Thrills” this builds up to a great moment of clarity. Ellen Allien puts her two feet on the ground and lets her thoughts play in the clouds. Thrills may be her balance between concentration and relaxation. She perceives excitement as a single moment, in which half-closed eyes show the surroundings in a blur, when one can feel a slight tingling beneath the scalp. This bodily sensation, of being “here and now”, may be an intention of “Thrills”, to hold on tight to this one moment of clarity. For Ellen Allien, music is expression and at the same time, a channel.
‘Thrills’ is a result of excellent teamwork with Holger Zielske (Smash TV) with whom she also produced ‘Stadtkind’ and ‘Berlinette’. But the making of ‘Thrills’ is not only defined by concentrated and experienced working methods.

The ability to let go and to feel like oneself also requires a very free and relaxed approach to handling production technologies. With new-old units like the Roland 808 and an ARP 2600 a much warmer, non-digital sound emerged, which also altered the music in a new and at the same time an old way. On ‘Thrills’ one can now interpret Ellen Allien’s search for a way to merge man and technology as an intermediate result among many others. Nevertheless, despite these recurring sound frames, Ellen Allien remains a tinkerer who objects to staying in comfortable, well known surroundings. The ARP 2600 has become Ellen Allien’s new favourite instrument, for which she searched for two months on Ebay. Her love of technology is also elementary to “Thrills”, while always remaining a means to an end – not vice versa.

Ellen Allien allows herself the freedom she needs to let out this inner thrill, this ecstasy, which can be experienced by producer and consumers alike. Her years of travel, the incredible flood of sensations, the filtering, capturing and framing, has, meanwhile, helped Ellen Allien to perceive herself more strongly. She no longer feels lost in this world – on the contrary. The relaxedness which emanates from “Thrills”, without being slow or chilly, is a sign of maturity. Ellen Allien has found her musical path, her orientation. She has built her own system of coordinates. She seeks out traces, and finds them. Ellen Allien’s musical future is a link between past and present even though she thinks that “future is dust”.

The clarity of sound on “Thrills”, the coherence, which finds its basis in Ellen Allien’s personal history, refers to memories – ones that were really experienced and not just re-produced feelings – which are still so moving that they not only become the sound of a whole generation, but also the soundtrack to her own biography. Ellen Allien’s technoid, electroid roots, the everlasting game of asking the question “What else can you do with it?” shows that techno has not come to an end by a long way – on the contrary. Because with every shout of “Techno Is Dead”, it is newly born with a different face, which at least on ‘Thrills’ is very coherent and self-contained and invites you to linger. And all this time, Ellen Allien’s orientation toward what rocks the hardest, what makes the dance floor boil over, is emblematic of her life and experience as a DJ. The bass is always the common thread and the vocals and melodies twirl around it.

‘Thrills’ is preceded by the single ‘Magma’ (BPC 105) featuring remixes from The MFA and Modeselektor on 16 May 2005. Catch Ellen DJing at The Poke, London on 22 April and at All Tomorrows Parties, Camber Sands 23 April.

CD TRACKLISTING:

1 COME 6:39
2 THE BRAIN IS LOST 5:20
3 YOUR BODY IS MY BODY 5:36
4 NAKED RAIN 4:56
5 WASHING MACHINE IS SPEAKING 5:27
6 DOWN 4:38
7 GHOST TRAIN 3:07
8 CLOUDY CITY 6:21
9 SHE IS WITH ME 5:05
10 MAGMA 5:56

EPM

Deadbeat - New World Observer

~scape

Third Album for scape by the legendary Deadbeat. The open seas - the pirates' domain - have long been a site of resistance. And if reggae, one of the world's great resistance genres, is an island ghetto music, dub is ocean song, brimming with tidal swells and pinging with the secret language of sonar. These freedoms are turned loose in the music of Deadbeat, aka Montreal's Scott Monteith. Equally influenced by German techno, dub reggae, and the digital dub of his mentor Pole, Deadbeat plumbs the unfathomable aquatic mass of the deep blue in his bottom-dredging bass lines, coral-clacking clicks, and untethered melodies. Deadbeat's third album for Scape, New World Observer, is his most accomplished attempt yet to fuse dub, techno, and ambient music into a complex, undulating form. It would be silly to call this a 'political' album, but the record's influences demonstrate how the tenor of the times filters into music that might at first listen be deemed a product for leisure consumption. If you listen closely to the introduction of "Abu Ghraib," you'll hear the appalling rhetoric of a certain North American right-wing radio announcer slowed to a brainnumbing crawl. in AB-CD


It’s interesting to see how purveyors of broken dubwise minimalism have tried to diversify their sound over the last couple of years. In thrall to the prototypes of Basic Channel and, later, their rhythm and sound incarnation, the sound reached a cultural climax with the release of Pole’s seminal first album back in 1998.From there on this generic microcosm unfurled at an exponential rate, bringing to the world the House modifications of Kit Clayton and his Belief Systems, the Scape imprint and a seemingly unstoppable roster of producers guided by the presets and configurations perfected by their master. As the scene has progressed these new diversifications have been necessary to keep the movement, well, moving, something quite evidently at the forefront of Scott Monteith's thinking cap while recording this excellent new album. in Boomkat

Albums Avulso #4

A última fornada, de albums deste ano, a ter em conta.


Bitstream - Domestic Economy 7 [Modern Love / Boomkat] Electronic, IDM
Boom Bip - Blue Eyed In The Red Room [Lex Records] Electronic, Leftfield, IDM, Post Rock
Goldmund - Corduroy Road [Type Records] Electronic, Modern Classical, Minimal
Jaga Jazzist - What We Must [Ninja Tune / Smalltown Supersound] Electronic, Rock, Future Jazz, Post Rock
Jesu - Jesu [Hydra Head] Electronic, Industrial, Experimental, Ambient
Monolake - Invisible Force [Monolake / Imbalance Computer Music] Electronic, Abstract, Techno
Out Hud - Let Us Never Speak Of It Again [Kranky / Studio !K7] Electronic, Rock, Leftfield, Disco
Quinoline Yellow - Dol-Goy Assist [Skam] Electronic, Leftfield, Abstract, IDM, Ambient
The Books - Lost And Safe [Tomlab] Electronic, Leftfield, Folk Rock, Experimental