mono no aware. V/A . PAN Recordings.

Posted in music, Vinyl on April 18th, 2017
Tags: ,

mono_no_aware_pan_recordings_motto_1mono_no_aware_pan_recordings_motto_4
mono_no_aware_pan_recordings_motto_3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
mono no aware (もののあわれ) is the first compilation to be released on PAN, collating unreleased ambient tracks from both new and existing PAN artists.

Featuring Jeff Witscher, Helm, TCF, Yves Tumor, M.E.S.H., Pan Daijing, HVAD, Kareem Lotfy, ADR, Mya Gomez, Sky H1, James K, Oli XL, Bill Kouligas, Flora Yin-Wong, Malibu, and AYYA, the compilation moves through more traditional notions of what is called ’ambient’, to incorporating wider variations that fall under the term.

“Mono no aware”, ‘the pathos of things’, also translates as “an empathy toward things”, or “a sensitivity to ephemera”. A term for the awareness of impermanence, or the transience of things. A meditation on mortality and life’s transience, ephemerality heightens the appreciation of beauty and sensitivity to their passing. In investigating the passing of time, the boundaries between memory and hallucination become blurred; between fiction and reality. The movement of time transforms into an eternal present.

€26.99

Buy

Fear Anger Love CTM 2017 Festival Magazine. CTM Festival.

Posted in magazines, music on March 28th, 2017
Tags: ,

fear_anger_love_ctm_2017_festival_magazine_motto_1
fear_anger_love_ctm_2017_festival_magazine_motto_2
fear_anger_love_ctm_2017_festival_magazine_motto_3
fear_anger_love_ctm_2017_festival_magazine_motto_4
fear_anger_love_ctm_2017_festival_magazine_motto_5
fear_anger_love_ctm_2017_festival_magazine_motto_6
fear_anger_love_ctm_2017_festival_magazine_motto_7

Fear Anger Love
CTM 2017 Festival Magazine

This special 96-page publication supplementing the 18th edition of Berlin’s celebrated CTM Festival for Adventurous Music and Art collects essays and articles authored by curators, music journalists, cultural workers, theorists, and artists. Together these divergent voices explore the unhinging and emancipatory potential of resonant (musical) emotion to recurrently question and challenge the status quo.

Each year, CTM Festival is oriented towards a specific theme. As the events within the 18th edition were, this year’s magazine is thematically centred on the topic “Fear Anger Love”, focusing explicitly on radical forms of musical expression and dissonant emotions found in or through music and examining the diverse strategies that are applied to unleash or harness them. Music conjures emotions more intensely than most art forms, and makes it possible to experience the ambiguous effects and possibilities of intentional emotionalisation. Including portraits and interviews of individual artists, collectives and scenes, this magazine examines different ways in which music and its effects have and can be harnessed by society and authorities, as well as individual and collective efforts to undermine, appropriate and decolonize such control.

With contributions by Alejandro L. Madrid, Ariel Guzik, Endgame, Ewa Majewska, Guillermo Galindo, James Kennaway, Jan Rohlf, Kevin Lozano, Kristoffer Gansing, Kurt Hentschläger, Lawrence English, Mats Küssner, Mollie Zhang, Pan Daijing.

€9.00

Buy

Older issues also available:

New Geographies – CTM 2016 Festival Magazine

Un Tune – CTM 2015 Festival Magazine

Dis Continuity – CTM 2014 Festival Magazine

The Golden Age – CTM 2013 Festival Magazine

Omniverse – Sun Ra. Hartmut Geerken & Chris Trent. Art Yard.

Posted in music, performance on February 23rd, 2017
Tags: , , ,

Omniverse_Sun_Ra_motto_20Omniverse_Sun_Ra_motto_6
Omniverse_Sun_Ra_motto_13Omniverse_Sun_Ra_motto_9Omniverse_Sun_Ra_motto_15Omniverse_Sun_Ra_motto_17Omniverse_Sun_Ra_motto_10Omniverse_Sun_Ra_motto_1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revised and expanded second edition of Hartmut Geerken and Chris Trent’s comprehensive reference Omniverse Sun Ra, originally published in 1994.

Omniverse Sun Ra features many previously unpublished photographs of Sun Ra and His Arkestra in New York in 1966 and Germany in 1979 by Val Wilmer, and Hartmut Geerken’s previously unpublished photographs from Heliopolis in Cairo, Egypt, in 1971, in addition to an updated comprehensive pictorial and annotated discography by Chris Trent, including chronological discography and alphabetical record title, composition, personnel, and record label indexes, as well as indexes of shellac 78RPM records, 45 RPM singles, jackets, and labels.

Also includes essays and photo documents by Hartmut Geerken, Chris Trent, Amiri Baraka, Robert L. Campbell, Chris Cutler, Gabi Geist, Sigrid Hauff, Karl Heinz Kessler, Robert Lax, and Salah Ragab.

Publisher: Art Yard
Language: English
Pages: 304
Size: 29 x 24.5 cm
Weight: 2.5 kg
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 9780993351402
€69.00

Buy

Zweikommasieben #14. Remo Bitzi (ed). Präsens Editionen, Motto Books.

Posted in magazines, Motto Books, music on December 8th, 2016
Tags: , , ,

zweikommasieben14_remo_bitzi-_motto_1jpg

zweikommasieben14_remo_bitzi-_motto_2jpgzweikommasieben14_remo_bitzi-_motto_4jpgzweikommasieben14_remo_bitzi-_motto_3zweikommasieben14_remo_bitzi-_motto_7zweikommasieben14_remo_bitzi-_motto_6jpgzweikommasieben14_remo_bitzi-_motto_5jpg

Zweikommasieben #14

Zweikommasieben is a Swiss magazine that has been devoted to the documentation of contemporary club culture since the summer of 2011. The magazine features artist interviews, essays and columns as well as photography, illustration and graphics. In addition, zweikommasieben organizes concerts, parties, club nights, matinees, raves and other fun events in various cities.

Featuring: Noological Multiobjective Outlines, Endgame, Phuong-Dan, Carla dal Forno, Zuli, Ekman, Telephones, Broshuda, meandyou, etc.

Edited by Remo Bitzi.

Co-published with Motto Books.

Pages: 146
Size: 29.7 x 21 cm
Weight: 386 g
Binding: Softcover
ISBN: 9783906282077

€12.00

Buy

Pressure Loss. Nicola Ratti. Where To Now?

Posted in Vinyl on April 1st, 2016
Tags: ,

pressureloss_nicolaratti_motto_1

Artist / Title : Nicola Ratti ‘Pressure Loss’
Format : LP + Download Card.
Cat : WTNLP04

Tracklist;
A1. W9
A2. W12
A3. W10
A4. W11

B1. W6
B2. W5
B3. Decrease
B4. W4

———————————————

Mixed by Nicola Ratti, additional mix and mastering by Giuseppe Ielasi.

Sleeve Photograph by Allegra Martin.
Design by Studio of the immaculate heart.

LP + Download card. limited to 500 copies.

———————————————

Nicola Ratti holds a rich history in the world of experimental and minimalist composition, having released music under his own name on labels such as Kning Disk, Anticipate, Preservation, Holidays, and Senufo Editions and in recent times concentrating his energy into his collaborative project ‘Bellows’, work which has seen the light thanks to Entr’acte Records and most recently Boomkat Editions. His latest solo work ‘Pressure Loss’ finds Ratti at a potential turning point in his musical career, exploring rhythm and tonality with a new vigour, in a way which embraces the fluid and consistently evolving modern world of electronic music, yet still references a history of electronics, limiting his sound palette to work only using the Serge and ARP Modular Synthesizer.

Bass, rhythm and melody, those basic ingredients of musical composition, are always present throughout the 8 compositions Ratti presents here, although it is almost like this balance was only briefly explained to someone who had never heard a conventional music piece before and was then left alone to improvise with the recipe with deep curiosity. A devastating pulse runs throughout, acting as a basin for a world of strange syncopated rhythms caught amid sonar blips, ghostly serrated hi-hats and dripping stalactites. The fluttering melodies that creep around the compositions’ edges sound like a tentative and childlike version of grime’s simple but visceral paranoid hooks. Bass, rhythm and melody, those basic ingredients of musical composition, are always present throughout the 8 compositions Ratti presents here, although it is almost like this balance was only briefly explained to someone who had never heard a conventional music piece before and was then left alone to improvise with the recipe with deep curiosity. A devastating pulse runs throughout, acting as a basin for a world of strange syncopated rhythms caught amid sonar blips, ghostly serrated hi-hats and dripping stalactites. The fluttering melodies that creep around the compositions’ edges sound like a tentative and childlike version of grime’s simple but visceral paranoid hooks.

17.80€
Buy it

Highway Magazine Issue 2. Vicente Gutierrez (ed.)

Posted in magazines, music on March 4th, 2016
Tags: ,

Highway Magazine 2_Motto books_2016_1 Highway Magazine 2_Motto books_2016_3Highway Magazine 2_Motto books_2016_4Highway Magazine 2_Motto books_2016_5Highway Magazine 2_Motto books_2016_6Highway Magazine 2_Motto books_2016_7Highway Magazine 2_Motto books_2016_8Highway Magazine 2_Motto books_2016_9Highway Magazine 2_Motto books_2016_10

 

Highway Issue 2
Summer – Fall 2015

Contents by and with:

In brief:

• Sound artist Israel Martínez discusses his work amid Mexico’s War on Drugs. A profound interview on the power of sound art.

• Mark Fisher. An interview with the radical music writer and acclaimed author of Capitalist Realism and Ghosts of My Life on music and culture today, Popular Modernism, time wars, music culture and Neoliberalism and the borrowed phrase, “the slow cancellation of the future.” Editor’s pick.

• Dadabots. A presentation of open-source algorithms which search, remix and post music throughout the Soundcloud community as told through a correspondence with the musician-hackers.

• Editorial on Spectatorship (Part 1). Read exclusive opinion, stories and revelations on what it means to be a spectator today [and yesterday] from Katie Alice Greer (Priests), Dan Deacon, Mark Andersen (Positive Force DC), Kim Gordon (Essay reproduction) and Ian MacKaye (Q & A format).

• The Photography of Sebastian Mayer. A select presentation from the accomplished German photographer.

• An Anthology of Recording Music, Volume 1. A new on-going section presents a wide variety of artists relating the situational boundaries of composing one song before presenting it to the band or entering the recording studio. Read personal accounts from C Spencer Yeh, James Hoff, Julia McFarlane (Twerps), Jane Penny (TOPS), Sadie Dupuis (Speedy Ortiz), Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance), Benoît Pioulard, Greg Saunier (Deerhoof) and more.

• Decoder. An original essay by Dan Barrow to reread and reactivate this Burroughs-inspired and nearly-forgotten punk & new wave film for 2015 and beyond.

• Visual Essay: Hundebiss. An invitational spread to the Italian imprint. Exclusive to the print edition.

In more detail:

Our second issue begins with a profound and inspiring conversation with Israel Martínez, a remarkable sound artist whose work is recorded amid Mexico’s on-going Narcowars. Since 2010, the Mexican sound artist has been reflecting, recording, documenting and exhibiting the symbolic, personal, financial, legal, civic and human costs of Mexico’s War on Drugs. Martinez’ sound and installation work has been exhibited around the world and select works are in two of Latin America’s most notable art collections. This is Martínez first substantial interview in English and includes material printed for the first time. Samples of sound work by Martínez accompany the conversation in our App edition and will be posted online soon.

In the editor’s letter of our first issue, the words “seemingly cancelled times” were used to gesture towards an interview which has been on our mind for some time. We present a straight-forward, long-form, radical interview with the music writer, culture theorist and teacher, Mark Fisher. Fisher has garnered praise for Capitalist Realism and Ghosts of My Life as one can read in an accolade from 2014: “After the brilliance of Capitalist Realism, Ghosts Of My Life confirms Mark Fisher’s role as our greatest and most trusted navigator of these times out of joint, through all their frissons and ruptures, among all their apparitions and spectres, past, present and future. — David Peace, author of the Red Riding Quartet and Red or Dead.” The interview discusses music and mainstream culture, Popular Modernism, post-punk, “lost futures,” the intersections of music and politics and the borrowed phrase, “the slow cancellation of the future.” Fisher elaborates on select excerpts from his [radical] writing in addition to his personal life and career as a writer in this “life with music.”

As algorithms increasingly play a role in our life with music, this issue profiles the on-going and open-source Dadabots project initiated by two computer programmers and musicians. An exclusive to the magazine, the interview presents a portrait of these non-human bot “musicians” which explore and present the intriguing possibilities of generative music and autonomy across social media platforms.

Our second commissioned editorial presents revelations on spectatorship in live music through our own original route, by exploring a supposed space between how we look at artists on stage and how they look back at us. Read exclusive and original stories and opinions from Katie Alice Greer (“We’re very strategic in how we operate and create”), Dan Deacon (“The internet is not the problem. Mid-size venues are disappearing”), Mark Andersen (That’s the revolution in punk, if there is one”) and Ian MacKaye (“That’s the point for the record company, but it shouldn’t be the point for the band”) with the exception of a contribution from Kim Gordon, a reproduction of “I’m really scared when I kill in my dreams” (1983) and this issue’s object of interest. As a conversation starter, habituated and transcendent acts and moments of performance and watching are shared and discussed over 60 immersive pages. Anonymous and previously unpublished photography from the Fugazi Live Series Archive accompanies the text.

The next 20 pages are dedicated to the photography of accomplished German photographer Sebastian Mayer, who has photographed several music magazine covers over a decade. A friend of the magazine, Mayer shares encounters with the likes of Iggy Pop, EYE Yamataka, Pansonic, Matthew Herbert, Carsten Nicolai, Ryuichi Sakamoto and more from some of Berlin’s heyday.

Our new on-going section, An Anthology of Recording Music, Volume 1, presents first hand accounts of artists’ headspace before entering a studio to record a song. This free-form collection listens for boundaries of writing and recording one particular song. A wide variety of scenarios of cultural production are revealed as the following notable artists discuss one song: C Spencer Yeh, James Hoff, Julia McFarlane (Twerps), Jane Penny (TOPS), Sadie Dupuis (Speedy Ortiz), Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance), Benoît Pioulard, Greg Saunier (Deerhoof) and more.

To close, a commissioned essay by writer, poet and critic Dan Barrow on an almost-forgotten punk & new wave film, Decoder (released in West Germany in 1984). Barrow’s essay profoundly reads and contextualizes the film, reactivating it for 2015 and beyond. The essay is accompanied by rare photography from the film’s production. The last pages of Issue 2 present another new on-going section for HIGHWAY: an invitational visual essay in which over 10 pages of editorial space are given over to the Italian imprint, Hundebiss to present [a distilled] visual manifestation of the label’s vision. The visual essay is exclusive to the print edition so get a print copy in our store.

 

€10.00

Buy it

Patricia. Bem Inventory. Opal Tapes

Posted in music, Vinyl on February 5th, 2016
Tags: , ,

PatriciaBem Inventory_OpalTapes_motto

Patricia returns to Opal Tapes and carries on his excursions into dusty analog techno with this six tracker featuring a collaboration with Vancouver-based Cloudface

€17.99

Buy it

Gaillard&Claude. Monkey Puzzle, Le désespoir du singe. MOREpublishers

Posted in Motto Disco, music, Vinyl on September 17th, 2015
Tags: , , , ,

monkeypuzzle_gaillard&claude_motto_books_file1 monkeypuzzle_gaillard&claude_motto_books_file2 monkeypuzzle_gaillard&claude_motto_books_file3 monkeypuzzle_gaillard&claude_motto_books_file4

7’’ single, 3’12’’, 45 rpm
numbered edition of 300 copies

collector’s edition :
digital print on Maco Mat, 150 gr., 118,8 x 168 cm.
after Untitled, Gaillard&Claude 2015 plaster and speaker stand
transparent plastic sleeve attached to the print
calligraphy by Caroline Mandale
signed and numbered edition of 12 (+3 A.P.)

Buy it

Ecology Tapes Vol. Two: Koenraad Ecker & The Pitch. Ecology Tapes.

Posted in music, Tapes on September 5th, 2015
Tags: , ,

IMG_1518IMG_1519

Side A: Koenraad Ecker / Side B: The Pitch

C60 Cassette
Edition of 200

€9.50

Buy it

Face A/B. Beatrice Dillon. Where To Now?

Posted in Vinyl on August 25th, 2015
Tags: , ,

IMG_0613IMG_0618

 

Where To Now? records are proud to present Beatrice Dillon’s follow up release to the widely well received ‘Blues Dances’. This three track 12” sees Beatrice step things up a gear in terms of intricacy, experimenting wildly to add to her already astute palette of timbre and rhythm.

‘Face A’ leads the record with the unmistakable skronk of saxophone cutting and jamming over the skeletal pulse of Beatrice’s signature dubbed out techno landscape. Initially the inclusion of saxophone acts as an aural abstraction or diversion to extract a little freedom from the pumping cavern of dark dub techno atmosphere punctuated with the mechanical juddering saw-bass, but as the piece develops and we become deep into the groove the inclusion of wild sax snorts trips us up and become the focus itself as new levels of complex melodic and rhythmic detail become apparent within this otherwise structurally obedient space. Taking it’s cues from Rabih Beaini, Miles Davis ‘Big Fun’ era, Dresvn and Keith Hudson, undoubtably ‘Face A’ is a compelling, complex trip… heads down but arms flailing.

‘Face B’ continues the theme but takes the listener far deeper into the cavern. Here the concern is more the effects of space within song, a moment where Beatrice allows herself to move away from the floor to find a little more room for playful experimentation. The saxophone is further treated with a plethora of effects to compliment the array of dub signals that scatter and skip around the basin.

The record closes with ‘Sonnier (Walk in the light)’ which strangely somehow manages to feel jazzier in its components, even in comparison to a pair of tracks riffing on a manipulated free-jazz sax part. It sounds strangely unsure of its world, adding to this whole loosely slung, loping feel which somehow fits amongst the stern, brooding, and efficient synth play. Beatrice masterfully manages to create a piece here that grows in intensity without ever increasing in pace or texture, every drop is intended to stir the listener a little more than the last. There’s a sense throughout all the pieces of having rhythm imposed or even inflicted upon the listener but this is certainly not a conflict of ideas… there is optimism, harmony and above all – wild groove nestled within Beatrice’s world of mutant shuffle.
credits
releases 21 August 2015

Written and produced by Beatrice Dillon, tenor saxophone on ‘Face A/B’ by Verity Susman.
Mastered by Rupert Clervaux at Grays Inn Road.
Sleeve drawing Sam Porritt, ‘We’re tripping myself up’, 2012, ink on paper, courtesy of the artist.

€13.65

Buy it