s w e e t b e a t s
august.24.2000 - #252
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album : Staedtizism
artist : Various Mixed by Pole
year : 2000
genre : Lo-Fi
label : Scape
catalogue : scape005cd
url : www.scape-music.de
quality : CD 192k HQ True Stereo
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01.Gramm--Siemens.Bioport (Live Edit) 09:23
02.Vladislav Delay--.D-Kompiila 04:54
03.Sun Electric--Echelon 05:02
04.To Rococo Rot And I-Sound--Milker 05:19
05.Kit Clayton--Reins 04:33
06.Pole--Sachtesachte 05:11
07.Trash Aesthetic--Pavonia Mix 06:06
08.Thomas Fehlman--Fellmaus 06:04
09.The Modernist--Eurojah (Immigrant Dub) 04:57
10.Burnt Friedman & The Nu Dub Players--Hard Drive Dub 03:43
10 tracks | 55:12 mins | 75.9 mb
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This compilation by Stefan Betke's label, ~Scape, manages to address
the heavy-duty concept of soundtracking urban life in Northern European
postindustrial cities, whilst producing a music which is seductive,
funky, smart, and ultimately as deep as a seam of Ruhrgebiet coal. The
pieces comprise work by Gramm (aka Jan Jelinek aka Farben); Vladislav
Delay; Sun Electric; To Rococo Rot and i-sound; Kit Clayton; Pole (aka
Stefan Betke); Trash Aesthetic; Thomas Fehlmann; The Modernist; and
Burnt Friedman and the Nu Dub Players. Casting an eye over these
artists reveals a certain pattern. With the exception of Kit Clayton,
almost all the musicians revolve around Mittel Europe - consequently
this "soundtrack for an urban state of mind" (as the press release has
it) is a particularly north European one. This is music to be overlaid
onto the naturally occurring rhythms of the great post-industrial
cities of the North - a conscious attempt to conjure and reflect upon
everyday life in urban focal points on this great strip of land,
running from Holland and Belgium through Germany (with a quickstep
over to Finland). The notion is that you immerse yourself in this
music as you take a train, leaving the city and slowly gliding past
the suburban working communities, ghosts of factories past, scrapyards
and wasteland, housing projects and heavy industry ... This scene can
be replayed right across Europe (and many cities in Northern Britain
and North America of course), and Betke's notion to draw together
artists whose work will be aesthetically consistent with this vision
is a fascinating one. The music here has the transient drive of the
journey from city to city - lent largely by dub and techno; the
mechanistic trappings of industry - a dominant glitch-based MO
producing rattles, scrapes, static crackle; all draped in the cold,
overcast, light of Northern Europe. Betke is clearly drawn to this
world: for all its faults, he still needs it. Talking to motion
recently, he said "My studio is based in an old industrial area in
Kreuzberg, which is really stripped down - there is no business around
there, so it's a bit like countryside ... without trees. Very quiet!
... on the one hand it's definitely urban, and I need the city, and
on the other hand it's ... not. It's also relaxed." This
contradiction within the built environment - desolation within a city
- is made into music here, and elsewhere throughout Betke's ouvre.
The music has an attractive sense of space and lonely emptiness -
it's very personal music, hence the solitary journeys with headphones
- and at one and the same time is full of bustling rolling rhythms and
a lively fizzing clattering dynamics. This isn't a literal sound
mapping of particular cities - the people at Scape are smart enough
to know that "a 'Stadt' can also be a metaphor for a network of
like-minded people." So this is music for a Soft City. Pretty much
every piece works here, both as a whole and as individuals. Careful
curating and compilation pays off. ~Scape continues to evolve into one
of the most interesting European labels at present and Betke deserves
as much credit for ~Scape as he gets for Pole. Staedtizism is released
on CD only, but there's an accompanying 12" with tracks by Pole,
homas Fehlmann, Kit Clayton and Trash Aesthetic.
--motion.state51.co.uk
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s w e e t b e a t s
Meditate on the fact that the
German word "gift" means "poison".
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greetings to klangwerk, mgc, sour, & impg
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