Chromacolor – Hanno Leichtmann (vinyl)

Posted in Motto Berlin store, music, Vinyl on June 1st, 2023
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»Chromacolor« is one of those records that immediately feels like home even though it is hard to locate stylistically. Written and recorded by Hanno Leichtmann in Berlin and Madeira between 2020 and 2022, it draws on rhythmic minimalism as a guiding principle and might call to mind organic, instrument-based ambient music, but also incorporates jazzy moments as well as Annie Garlids multi-layered vocals that permeate through these nine pieces.

The foundation for Leichtmann’s Chromacolor project was laid when the prolific Berlin-based producer, musician, and drummer borrowed a vibraphone and a Fender Rhodes from two friends. Combining their unique sonic affordances with those of a Guitaret, an electric lamellophone, he further expanded his sound palette by inviting other musicians—Anthea Caddy, Sabine Vogel, Tobias Delius, Els Vandeweyer, Sabine Ercklentz, Mike Majkowski, Andrei Ladeishchikov, Oona Farchy, Gonçalo Caboz as well as Rafael and Hugo Andrade—to play small but vital parts in the production of the album.

The opener »Kisses and Wine« masterfully sets the tone for an album that is as inviting as it is challenging. Working with relaxed repetitive rhythms, Garlid’s anthemic vocals and a sprinkle of saxophone and flute tones courtesy of Delius and Vogel, respectively, as well as tender piano notes played by Leichtmann, it evokes a lot with only few means: a certain melancholy, but also an elevated atmosphere that feels both exuberant and restrained. Leichtmann’s elegant study of the power of repetition, minute rhythmic shifts and subtle use of melodic and harmonic elements creates ambiguities and polyvalences like these throughout the entire record, up until its understated finale, aptly titled »A Beautiful Day«—a drone-jazz piece, if you will, both longing and joyful. As an album, »Chromacolor« is hard to pigeonhole, but rich and rewarding. All it takes is immersing yourself in it.

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4.6m/s (cassette). Donghoon Gang

Posted in cassette, field recordings, music, Tapes on December 10th, 2022
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Donghoon Gang, a Frankfurt-based South Korean artist and composer, has released a new album titled 4.6m/s. This album is inspired by Yeondeunggut–an annual ritual summoned to the God of wind that takes place in early February in Gangʼs hometown, Jeju Island, in South Korea. In the spirit of the God believed to protect the wellness of the island and sow seeds for a fruitful spring, islanders pray, hoping for the peacefully calm sea surrounding the island during the two-week duration of the ceremony.

The title of the album, 4.6m/s, is the average wind speed on the day the God of wind arrives on the island for over the past thirty years. Each track was written and presented in the order of the traditional ceremony procedures: Calling, Telling, Seeding and Playing – all of which are symbolic gestures of welcoming the wind deity and sending her back to her origin. Every component in the album is created in mixtures of field recordings and collaborative fulfillment with traditional instrumentalists and shamans based on the island. All the tracks are also incorporated with ambient sounds, spoken words and musique concrète, generating a variety of aural and texture affections at different parts of each sequence.

Released on December 10, 2022

Edition of 200

One side (22ʼ16”)
1. Calling (06ʼ50”)
2. Telling (09ʼ38”)
3. Seeding (03ʼ26”)
4. Playing (02ʼ22”)

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18 Floors (white vinyl), Magda Drozd. Präsens Editionen

Posted in music, Vinyl on July 20th, 2021
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In her artistic practice, Magda Drozd is deeply concerned with listening. The artist and musician not only investigates the ways her audience listens but also continually hones her own auditory sensibility. For her second album, 18 Floors, Drozd trained the latter on the Lochergut, an iconic residential estate in Zurich’s Kreis 4, which she called home for several years. Over the past two years, she compiled a corpus of field recordings in and of the apartment building, which became the basis for an examination of how sound produces knowledge. The result challenges current assumptions about buildings, urban living, and the ecologies of cohabitation. In the context of her project, Drozd conceives of the building as a living organism rather than a collection of static material. The field recordings served as raw material for the compositions, which were woven into eleven speculative tracks consisting of analogue and digital sounds, including violins, guitars, synthesizers, drum machines, and Drozd’s voice. The music moves between sound art, ambient, and experimental electronics, occasionally showing flashes of pop, indie rock, and R&B.

Drozd’s album, released one and a half years after the COVID-19 outbreak, could not be timelier—even though the conception of 18 Floors predates the global pandemic. The album’s actuality derives from Drozd’s sense of the importance of the home, which has become glaringly obvious in the age of Corona. She concentrated on what was close by when attention was habitually lavished on far-away places. In this process, she examined the constitution and potential of her home, and her preference for documenting what might be over what actually is defines her avant-garde attitude. The result is an album that creates a space for what is transient, uncertain, and unstable. And it creates a space for opportunities, which we need now more than ever.—

18 Floors is Drozd’s second album. Her debut, Songs for Plants, was released on vinyl and digitally by Präsens Editionen in 2019. Her follow-up enters the label catalogue among releases by Samuel Reinhard, Belia Winnewisser, Martina Lussi, and Leo Hoffmann.

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