OCD037 : Excessive Visage / You Are Lost Anyway

Cover art by Xaver Xylophon

OCD037 : Excessive Visage / You Are Lost Anyway

The band Excessive Visage was founded in June 2010 in Dresden by guitarist

Torsten Lang. He, the drummer Christoph Dehne and bass player Simon Preuß

earlier played together for several years in other projects. Soon Albrecht

Schumann joined the band as well. His excessive organ- and rhodes style

needed to be inserted in the group. Parallel to this Torsten played bass in

a post-rock group called P:HON. Their singer Larissa Blau also became a

part of Excessive Visage. They started off recording their first self titled

album through the following half year and in the course of this they

developed their sound and formed the songs until they were ripe for being

played life.

Next there was the release of the live session EP HFBK Sessions which was

recorded in the art school of Dresden and the second studio album Ruckus

Array.  The first single of this album was Time In-Depth.  For the animated

stop motion music video of this song Torsten and Larissa received a Berlin

Music Video Award in the category "Most Bizarre" and it was shown on

several film festivals across Europe.

After Ruckus Array the band separately released the song Protoempire with a

live session video played at Deutsches Theater Berlin. Then there happened

some changes in the band staffing. Rafael Espinoza, who previously played

in the band of Vernon D Hill and countless others became the new bass

player and brought in a fresh breeze with his incredible skills and

experience, just like a swiss army knife. Furthermore avant garde pianist

Rieko Okuda from Japan who is based in Berlin for some years now became the

new keyboard player to supply the wicked synthesizer variety, that was

necessary to perform the 3rd studio album You Are Lost Anyway live. 

On this album the way of songwriting changed dramatically. Previously Torsten Lang

wrote the major part of the songs, some of the lyrics and produced the

records. Larissa wrote the major part of the lyrics. Not to be ignored: the

other members added a great share to the bands geeky style.

Then the process became more open in a rather unusual way. The band went to

the recording room and started tracking drums without any composition in

mind. Like this the structure of every song was determined by the

improvised drum arrangements of Christoph Dehne. Then bass, guitars and

keys were stacked upon this to form the composition. The lyrics were in the

first instance just very roughly written by Christoph, Simon, Albrecht,

Larissa and Torsten. This happened in very spontaneous sessions, attempting

the thought systems to just leak and well out. The outcome was then again

radically re sculpted and polished by Larissa and Torsten to form the final

lyrics.

Christoph, Larissa,Torsten and Rafael

A live video of Supernova, Black Hole, Eternity & The Space:



Excellent reviews in English in Disagreement.net here, and in German in Underdog Fanzine here.

Physical and digital release on the 27th of October 2017.


Track listing:

1: Dragged In                                                                 

2: Verwöhnt Von Happiness                                        

3: Supernova, Blackhole, Eternity and the Space

4: Ron                                                                            

5: Buried in Gold                                                        

6: Nothing Nothing                                                                                            

7: Polished Eyes                                                            

8: Transfixed Reveria  

On Bandcamp:

Price

World shipping €12,00 EUR

OUC010 : Quentin Manfroy / Flute Solo

Cover art by A.L.,  original pic by Frederic Labaune. macromicrophoto

OUC010 : Quentin Manfroy / Flute Solo

This flute solo is a meditation about the chaotic organistation of the sounds of nature.
Thanks to my mountain guide, musician and soundman Thomas Manoury, this music was recorded in Iceland in the depths of frozen caves, in a lighthouse, in glacial crevasses, in the vicinity of enormous waterfalls or in more conventional concert halls.
The purpose of this disc is to succeed to make a monophonic instrument deploys the polyphony.
And perhaps through the contact with all these little drops and this water that never ceases to flow (it is its nature), the flute works here to make audible the voice of "the spirit of the sources", so tenuous it may be.

Quentin is a classical music trained flutist who studied at CRM Brussels. 

At the same time, his passage through F. Cassol's improvisation class (founder of Aka Moon) at the end of the 90ties motivated him to pursue a career as a classical musician and an improviser. He joined different jazz or rock band like Orange Kazoo (renamed Belgistan Orchestra later).

He then worked with outstanding musicians such as the Scottish composer Daniel Barbanel with whom he made many tours and records, or Song Yujhé, a Chinese singer and composer who inspired him on the level of sound directions and distances.

Thanks to Gregoire Tirtiaux and his in-depth work on Gnawa music, he discovered trance music with Maalem Hassan el-Ghadiri from Marrakesh. A long collaboration resulted from that encounter.

Currently he plays in the galaxy Mâäk (directed by Laurent Blondiau) with the big band Mikmaak and MW'soul (with the singer Ghalia Ben Ali).

He also works with the supersymmetric band Mû (with the leader Yann Lecollaire, see OUC008), Ananke quintett, Secret Base, Matthieu ha and the Syndicat d'Initiative, the spectral Gong Extensions ...

A certain tendency to desecration has been noticed in some unavoidable projects like the Gurkenpanpan 2 regressive musac cover band, or the Promethean POMPEI.

Played among others with:

Fabian Fiorinni, Sturm un klang, Garret list, Frederick Rzewsky, Coryfeye string quartet, Emmanuel Louis.

Quentin

The solo project is an intimate reflection about his instrument. For this solo, when playing live, it is purely acoustic. An instrument, a musician, an audience, a room.

Only one question is essential to Quentin: how to succeed in merging the sound of a modern flute and the techniques from the contemporary music on one side, keeping in mind that breath has come from the depths of the ages, from before history, perhaps even before language on the other side? He believes that there is a door opening "the space within ».

He is currently working on what can be labeled as "Great Catalogs" for flute. This research would integrate the contemporary techniques of his instrument to the tonal or modal music, in order to generate polyphony. An obscure and misunderstood phrase by the composer Victor Kissine, written to conclude an analysis of a cantata by Webern, is probably at the origin of this work:  ‘The vertical time is SUPERIOR to the horizontal time!’ 

The idea behind the development of these "Great Catalogs" is to give the numerous flutists in the world new multiphonic ways that could be integrated to the tonal system to "fold" the flute on itself, to verticalize it. These works will be the subject of a future record.

Sound and mix: Thomas Manoury and Vincent Poujol.

Mastering: Finnur Hákonarson

Photo: Frederic Labaune. macromicrophoto, see more here.

Quentin Manfroy Flute Solo glacier from Quentin Manfroy on Vimeo.

This acoustic solo contains twelve worked improvisations.

Digital release on the 20th of October 2017.

Track listing:

1: Flute Solo, Pt. 1

2: Flute Solo, Pt. 2

3: Flute Solo, Pt. 3

4: Flute Solo, Pt. 4

5: Flute Solo, Pt. 5

6: Flute Solo, Pt. 6

7: Flute Solo, Pt. 7

8: Flute Solo, Pt. 8

9: Flute Solo, Pt. 9

10: Flute Solo, Pt. 10

11: Flute Solo, Pt. 11

12: Flute Solo, Pt. 12

And on Bandcamp:

OUC008 : Mû / From Form

Art cover by Vincent Capes

OUC008 : Mû / From Form

The repertoire of Mû consists of "Mouves".

Mixing complex compositions and inspired improvisations, Mû spreads with those "Mouves" a remarkable and seductive music derived from chamber music, rock, science fiction soundtrack and electronic music.

Elusive, they operate by a succession of steps in continuous flow.

Mystical and sensitive, lush and intense, Yann Lecollaire's compositions and telepathic interplay open a new level of subtle nuance and transcendent melancholy in Olivier Messaien's modes.

From left to right: Yann, Eric, Quentin and Benjamin

Inside cover

Recorded originally in November 2013 by Maxime Gendebien, studio Pyramide, Brussels.

Mixed and mastered by Dre Pallemaerts.

Yann Lecollaire: clarinets, editing, programming.

Quentin Manfroy: flutes.

Eric Bribosia: Fender Rhodes, SH101, piano, Hammon dB3.

Benjamin Chaval: drums, noise, left hand keyboard, electrictable.

Digital release on the 13th of Octobr 2017.

Track listing:

1: Mouve 12

2: Mouve 11

3: Mouve 2

4: Mouve 8 

5: Mouve 6

6: Mouve 3

7: Mouve 10

And on Bandcamp:

There are still some copies of the original cd available here:

Price

World shipping €12,00 EUR

Soon on Off: The new album from German band Excessive Visage!!!

Here is the trailer of their forthcoming album 'You Are Lost Anyway'!

OUC007 : John Franek / I'm Sure You Can Imagine

Cover art by A.L.

OUC007 : John Franek / I'm Sure You Can Imagine 

Another 13 minutes pieces on harpsichord by maestro John Franek. 

All is played manually, no loops here! 'I'm Sure You Can Imagine' shows once again the love of this artist for the sound of the instrument as well as the complexity of the many layers of intended repetition of patterns. 

It could reminds us the way of the minimal music pioneered in the 60ties by great composers such as La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass.

After the subtle ambient 'La Mer dans le ciel (see ODG063), the four hands piano 'Slower' (see OUC002) and the dark elements from 'I Hav Not See What Other Saw' (see OUC005), this is another side of the multifaceted John!

Digitally release on the 6th of October 2017.

Track listing:

1: I'm Sure You Can Imagine

And on Bandcamp: