Just quick heads up to you all that the new Merck / Narita Mailorder is live and kicking. Finally have a proper shipping and cart system. Also, the new Anders Ilar & Fredrik Hedvall cd entitled “Melt” on Narita is finally released (and available from the new mailorder!). Also some repressed and domestically priced versions of the Arctic Hospital - Citystream CD on Narita as well. Please go check out the new mailorder and grab a copy of those Narita discs if you haven’t already. You owe it to yourself if you are any kind of techno enthusiast. Not to blow my own horn, but that Arctic Hospital disc is one of the most listenable techno albums in my collection (along with Signer - Low Light Dreams, that shit is AMAZINGLY good).

New Merck / Narita Mailorder + New Narita CD available

ps. gonna have to do a post about listenable techno albums down the road.

Last year I quietly put out a little 7″ soon after the demise of Merck (pretty much only available in our mailorder). Its by a group of guys from Wisconsin, one of which (Eric Bray) has released music with me on my Narita label under the guise of Arctic Hospital. Now that being said, the music really has nothing to do with the Arctic Hospital sound in any similar way, other than the excellent technicality of the production. All the tracks on their debut album were arranged/produced by him, with the instruments, etc. played by the rest of the group. This album came out only in Japan, so you probably were more likely to hear about the 7″, than the album. The ultimate point of this is that I released the 7″ cause the music is great. Musically it is the kind of stuff you would expect to read about in The Wire, or hear as the soundtrack to a great independent film, or that you may hear on a label with the likes of Helios or Deaf Center. It is best filed under Post Rock Shoegazer Ambient, and as usual on here, I highly recommend you check it out. Especially if you think that the Lateduster and Aurora 2 CDs on Merck put in a blender would sound nice (figuratively, not literally).

Discogs Link

While I’m at it, for those of you more in the mood for IDM, I’ll plug something from Esem’s blog from last year around this time. He has an opening post with links to a bunch of mixes/sets/whatever that he has put together, a lot of good stuff in there (I reccomend the Brothomstates mix for sure, as well as the “Off The Radar” mix).

Check it here.

Have to put in a plug for my friend Juho aka Blamstrain aka DJ Laiska Lauantai’s dubby minimal techno mixes. He’s coming out with his own techno label later this year, so I want you all to know that he has got his shit in order. These are from 2003, and he has done more since then, but his first batch are just such an excellent selection of music, gotta start with them. He’s done 9 mixes in this series now, I’m gonna link to 4 for now (also so as not to overwhelm you all). He has got such a lovely ear for good music of this genre. Tracks are included from Pub, Burial Mix, Deepchord, Jan Jelinek, Sense, Brothomstates (unreleased!), Basic Channel, Monolake, etc. So keep an ear on these mixes, and keep an eye out for ‘Erotus Records’ in 2008. Hopefully him or me can pop on the comments here and answer any track spottings if needed.

Mix 1
Mix 2
Mix 3
Mix 4

Enjoy!

Disclosure: More music by some friends. But on the realness, this is probably the most underrated release to ever come out of Miami. Probably because its vaguely IDM, and was released on a ‘hip-hop’ label. Its a perfect collection of 26 minutes of music, 5 tracks (forget the remixes, they’re inferior) by 3 smart and unique guys from Miami. It really is a densely emotive, fringey IDM, downtempo masterpiece. Who knows if you can still buy it anywhere, as I’m sure this release is probably last priority to Counterflow nowadays (who never quite had their shit together), but I highly recommend any Merck fans check this out, as its really gold. It also has some lovely art by Miami’s own AS1 as well (see Otto Von Shirach covers, or early Rawkus stuff).

Discogs Album Link

Lovely little half hour of free music from Finland that I’ve been enjoying for the last year. A mini-lp by Northbound, entitled “Landscapes of Late”. Its a bit poppy, but it cleanses the palate nicely of everyone trying to be so experimental. Disclosure: one of the members of the group (Olli Jäderholm) is the brother of Fthr, one of my main Merck Designers. Its hard to classify it in an exact category, but its got hints of jazz, indie rock, pop, and electronica. Its also pleasantly instrumental (I listen to people talk all day, why do I want to hear it in my music?). To speak in terms of groups from Merck, or mentioned on this blog, its like Tstewart, Lateduster, Pivot, Landau Orchestra, plus pop sensibility, put into a blender. Though honestly that doesn’t really capture it. Its free, so just go listen to it, so I can stop trying to describe what is ultimately undescribable (music).

You can grab the album here

This is a nifty little gem I found by accident one day. Its a 45 minute “beatmix” that Aesop made for exclusive sale on Itunes, sponsored by none other than Nike. It is intended to be listened to when exercising, and the structure is oriented as such (warmup, cooldown, etc.). Its quite good, all the production is done by Aesop himself, and then he scatters random snippits of vocals throughout the mix, nothing overpowering though. I played this thing into the ground obviously, which is odd, because I haven’t liked much of any of his stuff from the last few albums (though the most recent album had a few gems).

Sorry I’ve been taking so long on the posts recently. I’ve been rather busy. As I expected, I got pulled back into putting out some music, though it was somewhat to keep a promise I made to one of my artists. (Not that the music is not worth it, I’m just trying to actually ‘quit’). So you all will be happy to hear that on top of re-issuing the out of print Arctic Hospital - Citystream CD on Narita, we will also be releasing the label’s third CD release next month entitled “Melt”, by Ilar & Hedvall (Anders Ilar & Fredrik Hedvall). A bit of info about the disc (see: press release). This time my buddy Anders is teaming up with sometimes collaborator Fredrik Hedvall, to present some thick dark techno from the depths of Sweden. They both originate from the same part of the country, the old mining districts. They grew up in neighboring cities and both started toying around with synthesizers and electronic gadgets about the same time in the late 1980’s. Though they have never met in real life, their friendship started on the Internet. They began working together on music in 2006 and first released a 12″ on the Italian label Defrag, and then a second appearance on Soniculture out of Portugal, this will be their third collaboration release.

This disc celebrates their common love for the deep Basic Channel sound, as well as Cologne influences. People familiar with the vein that Ander’s previous Narita material runs in, will definitely find this disc enjoyable. It hovers around the wickedly dark and complex electronics that he is known for, but it is no stranger to the dance floor. The CD also closes out with 2 remixes from labelmate Arctic Hospital. One the vicious beat workout he is known for, the second being an excellently dense ambient number to close out the disc.

There are soundclips up now on the Narita Website, the disc should be available in the second week of April, though it will be pretty much only available exclusively to Japan, and in the newly revamped Merck Mailorder (coming in April).

Enjoy!

A while back, along with my buddy Proem, I was on a bit of a dark ambient binge. Around the same time, along with my buddy Twerk, I was on a bit of a dub techno binge. Fortunately at that time I found the perfect pairing of the two in a fellow from Dortmund, Germany known as “krill.minima”. Some of you may know him better as Marsen Jules (from CCO). He’s been nice enough to release a majority of his music so far as free downloads on Miasmah and Thinner (see below). He also has a lovely little CD album on San Francisco’s Native State Records called “Nautica”. That CD and the release “Urlaub Auf Balkonien” are what you should check out first. If you’re a fan of either of those 2 genres above, I think you’ll really dig it.

Thinner Releases
Miasmah Release
Discogs Link

Here is the final installment in the ambient square series. Its a kind of blend of the styles from the previous mixes. With a final track that most of you will hopefully recognize (from one of my favorite movies of all time (and from an awesome soundtrack)). Hope you all enjoyed the mixes, and continue to enjoy them in the background of a productive workday, or as a final bit of music to help you drift off to sleep. Thanks for all the nice comments!

Here it is.

Enjoy!