OUC021 : OdNu / Falling Down in Slow Motion

Cover art by Michel Mazza

OUC021 : OdNu / Falling Down in Slow Motion

Michel Mazza aka OdNu graduated from the early Los Angeles rave scene where he performed live electronic sets during the mid 90’s as part of E.S.P. Network and later in the early 2000’s as a part of the L.A. based Terpsichore collective sharing the bill with the likes of Murcof, Mitchell Akiyama, Sutekh, and more. Later he collaborated with Big Bully on remixes for Berlin based Label Mo’s Ferry and L.A. based label "Adjunct". And he has had a few techno track releases on Blaq Records (Berlin - Mexico City). 
Michel doesn’t confine his compositions to one style of electronic music and his variety of releases demonstrates this. His compositions are a constant experiment and interplay of instruments, different techniques, electronics and his moods and feelings. 
Michel also writes and directs short films and music videos, works as a freelance film/tv video editor, composer, mixer and sound designer and runs his own post production house called Post Present Future. In 2018, he composed the soundtrack for the Argentinian feature film drama “One Shot”. 

For the past few years, Michel has been experimenting with the midi guitar and his past 4 albums are a result of that experimentation.  
Including his 2018 triptych album called “Cognitive Bias” (1- Pareidolia 2-Tachypsichia 3-Reactance) with 30 tracks of experimental and improvised midi guitar exploration and prior to that “Lejano” 2017. 
And most recently the 2019 ambient pop album “A Memory of Tomorrow” as half of the band “From” released on Submarine Broadcasting Company label out of the UK.  

“When I see images I hear music and when I hear music I see images...” – OdNu 

Michel

"Falling Down in Slow Motion" is his latest experimental / modern classical / soundtrack album.

About "Falling Down":
“Falling Down in Slow Motion” was created over a two week period of insomnia. The
album plays with the abuse and destruction of classical acoustic instrument recordings and
blurred electronics rendering the leftover debris into a soundtrack for sleepless nights.
Each track on the album makes use of a variety of recorded acoustic instruments (violin, piano, clarinet, saxophone, voices, guitars, charango, field recordings, etc...) which were then manipulated with the help of granular synthesis and mostly performed with a midi guitar. The effect is rather orchestrally dystopic where it seems OdNu is channeling a diverse array of musical influences from experimental electronic, jazz, tango, 4th world music and more. 
Some artists that inspire and influence OdNu’s music are Astor Piazzolla, Jan Jelinek, Jacaszek, Jon Hassel and Murcof.
The listener of this album will find themselves entering into a juxtaposition of feelings under an architecture of melodies that orbit each other independently integrating and disintegrating. 
Each song feels like it inhabits both the past and the future, is both familiar and alien where one feels lost and found and also equally hopeful and sad. 
A cinematic and experimental album that is perfect for falling down in slow motion…

All music composed, performed, arranged and recorded by Michel Mazza

Artwork by Michel Mazza 
Mastering by Michel Mazza

A superb video for Hide:



Digital release on the 29th of November 2019.

Track listing:

1: Deep Pain
2: Incognito
3: In Silence
4: Hide
5: Keep Failing
6: Alienated
7: Object
8: Word War
9: Often
10: Tired Soul
11: Car Drive
12: Nor Asleep nor Awake
13: Long Walk
14: Plastic Islands




And on Bandcamp:

ODG116 : Von Stroheim / Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)

Cover art by David Crumelle

ODG116 : Von Stroheim / Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)

The new single from Von Stroheim after the release of their splendid album in April 2019 (see ODG101) is a dramatic and slow reprise from the beautiful song from BuZZcocks!

This cover version couldn't make it on their debut album because of Pete Shelley's untimely death. Here it is finally.

This is what Dominique (the singer) says about the song:

"In an interview, Francois Truffaut asked Alfred Hitchcock if he ever used his dreams for film material. Hitchcock said, no - never. Truffaut asked why. Hitchcock said that once he woke up in the middle of the night after a dream containing a brilliant idea for a movie. So he got up and scribbled it down. In the morning, he remembered he'd written something down, and read his note. It said, "Boy meets girl".

In music too this is a recurring theme: Boy meets girl, Girl meets boy, Girl meets girl, boy meets boy. Being a Doom band, it made sense to cover a song about a relationship which is doomed.
Our cover of the Buzzcocks' Ever Fallen in Love (with Someone You Shouldn't've) was recorded a year before Pete Shelley's untimely death."

Dominique, Yannick and Raphael

Digital release on the 27th of November 2019.

Track listing:

1: Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)



And on Bandcamp:

ODG115 : John Americus Witt / Cyclothymia

cover art by Zack Witt

ODG115 : John Americus Witt / Cyclothymia 

Another personification of Zach Witt (see ODG102): this time as an obscure America composer obsessed by dark ambient.

John Americus Witt (3 February 1809 – 10 December 2010) was an American composer in the Modern Unclassical tradition.  
Known primarily for his posthumously released four-part symphony, “Cyclothymia”, musical scholars have long surmised that there are any number of works yet to be discovered.  
Any attempts to uncover said lost work have thus far been unsuccessful, though it is rumored that a trunk of ancient manuscripts, Reel-to-Reel tapes, DAT’s, and a few burned CD’s were recently acquired by a private collector.  

One can only hope that these make their way into the public forum, if only to shed some light on this largely mysterious figure. 

So here it is waiting for you to finally listen to this masterpiece!

Digital release on the 22nd of November 2019.

Track listing:

1: A Place Where Nothing Ever Happens
2: We Will Help You Become the Sea
3: The Burning of Notre Dame
4: What You Wish You Didn't Know



And on Bandcamp:

OJP039 - ODG112 : Wataru Iwata / Objet α

Cover art by Wataru Iwata

OJP039 - ODG112 : Wataru Iwata / Objet α

Wataru Iwata (see also OJP038) is a Japanese composer/Artist/Director engaged in TV advertising song production and playing in various pop, rock, electronic or jazz bands.

Objet α is the term used in the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan. 

In the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, objet petit a stands for the unattainable object of desire. It is sometimes called the object cause of desire. Lacan always insisted that the term should remain untranslated, "thus acquiring the status of an algebraic sign".

The "α" in question stands for "autre" (other), the concept having been developed out of the Freudian "object" and Lacan's own explanation of "otherness"is within the whole”. 

Another way of saying it : The cause of desire appears in the order of beauty when “the way I sees the other” is equal to “what I is within the whole”. Also, the term is used to expound the irrational relation between universal and particular. In this state, it sounds rather an esotericism theory transpierce from ancient philosophy to the world religion than the psychoanalytic theory. 

We can also interpret and recognize the objet α as the fundamental source of art, music, philosophy, and science is a finger-like that points at the moon.

Wataru Iwata tries to describe all those feelings and theory through 10 introspective electronic pieces that will bring you closer to that unreachable object cause of desire.

Some videos. Trilogy was made especially for the Fukushima biennal in 2016. 

Wataru

Digitally released on the 15th of November 2019.

Track listing:

1: Tone + Prayer
2: Eden
3: Prayer
4: Sine Pt.
5: Ring Tune
6: Sine 2
7: Solaris 8
8: Suite No. X
9: Pinknoise + Alpha
10: Objet α

And on Bandcamp:

OVD027 : Kings of Belgium / Quality Streets

Cover art by A.L. / P.V.

OVD027 : Kings of Belgium / Quality Streets

After Beersel (see OPV002) and Stockholm (see OPV006), as they go always farther nord, Kings of Belgium recorded their third album in Finland in studio Kïppu. 

As for their two previous albums, the way of working was always the same: enter the studio without any ideas, push the record button and just improvise for 2 hours! 
This is the result! Now just listen and jump!

Kings of Belgium are: 
Pierre Vervloesem on basses except 3/5/9 guitars
Gil Mortio on guitars except 3/5/9 basses
Didier Fontaine on drums.

Edited, mixed and mastered by Pierre Vervloesem.

A great review in Dutch by Bootsie Butsenzeller of the last Kings of Belgium here :

Digital release on the 8th of November 2019.

Track listing:

1:Gower Street
2: Pall Mall Street
3: Sayer Street
4: Grange Walk
5: Ungawa Timba Street
6: Oxford Street
7: Old Bailey
8: Faversham
9: Coventry

And on Bandcamp:

ODG113 : Domenico Solazzo / Kino

Cover art by Domenico Solazzo

ODG113 : Domenico Solazzo / Kino

Best known as the man behind PaNoPTiCoN, the free electric jazz improvisational collective (including most members of The Wrong Object and JJ Duerincjx from Ze Zorgs also on Off), Domenico Solazzo has also a great bunch of solo recordings behind him. 

Ten years after the acclaimed « Deadend », he surprisingly signs his return in 2019 with « Kino », another very personal affair but also his tenth installation so far. 

A new attempt in 14 crafted songs at defining a kind of atmospheric pop with blends of dark atmospheres, progressive hints, electronic landscapes and sheer melancholy.

The Inward secret :

Filling the Whole:



Never Tomorrow:

Domenico

The album exist also in cd that you can order from Domenico's website here.
Two very good reviews to read in Bruit de fond and Guts of darkness. 

Digital release on the 1st of November 2019.

Track listing:

1: I Should Stop
2: Bohemian Grove
3: At the Core
4: A Benevolent Threat
5: Slow Down
6: The Expansion Suite A
7: The Expansion Suite B
8: The Expansion Suite C
9: The Expansion Suite D
10: Filling the Whole
11: Just Another Fix
12: Dive in Darkness
13: The Inward Sacred
14: Never Tomorrow



And on Bandcamp: