FOTW Audio Productions

Yes, Daft Punk have parents too! — French band Space performing live in Sicily, 1977

France has a solid history when it comes to electronic music. The first group that usually comes to mind is Daft Punk. But there are many who have come before them that have laid down the foundations: the disco band Space  and Jean Michel Jarre.

Son of the famous film composer who scored Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, Jean Michel Jarre took a different route to his father by embracing the newly emerging synthesizer technology of the early 1970s. He had a breakthrough success with his album Oxygene in 1975, pioneering a particular sound of cascading arpeggios that was contemporary to what Vangelis and Giorgio Moroder were doing, and has had a lasting legacy with electronic musicians.

One current label that draws on both these influence is Radio Cosmos. Based in Bretagne, France, Radio Cosmos was set up by Fred Bergamaschi to release vinyl only compilations of space-influenced synth-pop. So far, he has put 4 full length LPs on coloured vinyl, with cover art by science-fiction illustrator Gil Formosa, as well as a couple of split 12” of Keen K and Infinity Night.

Recording as Infinity Night and Aldo Bergamachine, Fred is a big fan of old-school analogue synthesizers like the Arp Solina, the Moog, and Sequential Circuit’s Prophet 5. Giving us an idea of the dominant forces in his sound, in both what he creates, and what he likes, he has put together a mix of the first two synths, the Solina and the Moog. The Solina is the sound of strings and pads, while the Moog holds the melody.

This is a great mix that showcases some of the artists from his own label; simpatico labels like Astro Chicken, Annalogue and Aube (coincidentally, three “A’s”); as well as some wonderful tracks that have been in hiding: the opening “Soldato” by The Mitgang Audio (having come out in 2003 on Suction Records) and “Silenzio” by Theremynt, just released in the last few months on Neopren.

You won’t regret listening to this; this is one of the best things Fred has done.

The Radio Cosmos back catalogue is available digitally at Juno Records, but also visit the Radio Cosmos website for the latest releases.

Trans-European friends (from left to right): Michael Künzer, Keen K, and Fred Ventura

The German electronic outfit Alba are on a winning streak at the moment. They kicked it off late last year by releasing the sparkling, three-part powerhouse Philomena, and are now following it up with the emotionally electric torch-song, Without You.

Though the London-based member of the group, Roland Sebastian Faber has sat this particular release out as he works on his solo album, the other two members who are based in Germany — Michael Künzer and Keen K — have gained a singer, the legendary Fred Ventura.

A well-respected veteran of the italo scene, Fred Ventura started his music career in the late seventies playing drums with the Milanese new-wave band, State of Art. He went on to have a solo career through most of the eighties as a vocalist with a string of hits like “Love Theme from Flexxy Ball (You’ll Never Change No More)” and “Body Heat” with the group Fockewulf-190 that have come to be regarded as italo classics. In recent years, he has come back into the limelight outside of Italy through the work of I-F and Alden Tyrell.

Working with Fred Ventura marks a milestone in the history of the Aube label, as their first official release back in 2007 was another italo-styled track, Hold Me by Jupiter Black, that was built around lyrics provided by Ventura. After its release, it received great feedback from music journalists and fans alike; it was championed by I-F on his internet radio station, CBS, and was described by music journalist Lina Goldberg as one of Fred Ventura’s strongest songs.

For this new release, Flemming Dalum, the legendary Danish DJ, mentor and custodian (with a record collection numbering in the thousands)  has given it the thumbs up for capturing an authentic italo sound, but without what he calls the cheesiness of italo. This is down to Ventura, who has the ability to handle dramatically over-the-top themes, like lost love and bitter seperations, with a poigancy that fits perfectly with moody synth-pop.

Künzer and Keen K are also very talented electronic musicians; they are able to recreate sounds from over twenty years ago, but never lose themselves in it with enough of their own musical inventions and signatures to keep it fresh.

They have also inherited the creative mantle of the Düsseldorf school of electronic music. They don’t put out a lot of music; but when they do, it is of a very high quality, with great technical skill hidden behind the vinyl. This particular release was recorded entirely on analogue equipment to get the sound outside of the computer box that most electronic music is often trapped in.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, one of the great features of Aube”s releases are their record sleeves, featuring original artwork by internationally reknowned artists like Emil Schult and Marc Brandenburg. The latest is a return to Syd Brak, who did there first release, Hold Me, and whose iconic airbrush art is instantly recognisable  as a major feature of early eighties art.

Although CDs are certainly becoming a thing of the past, I still think that they are a great way for artists to collect their best work together and give themselves some posterity, rather than to be scattered to the four-winds of the internet. I hope that Alba one day collect the best tracks together onto a single album.

Without You is available as a limited edition 12″ and digital download through the Aube website, as well as the regular internet music outlets. (You can also download a preview from the soundcloud embed below)

Promo Aube011 – Alba feat. Fred Ventura “Without You” by Aube Records

   The noble Prophet-5 synthesizer (picture courtesy of synthgear.com)

Igloo Magazine is an online magazine dedicated to the more unusual areas of electronic music: italo-disco, synth-pop, new wave, detroit techno, abstract and experimental genres, covering obscure labels and artists from around the world, and describing itself as ”focusing on electronic music that is unique and under-represented.”

In its tenth year — quite a feat for any website, especially one covering music, they have kept track of releases and profiled labels like Anna Logue, Das Drehmont and Aube, Belgium’s Flexx and New York’s Minimal Wave, as well as bigger labels like Warp and Environ; reviewed a range of international artists, from Australia’s Snog and Oren Ambarchi to Sweden’s Prins Thomas, Holland’s Novamen, and the Finnish experimental artist Mika Vaino. Igloo Magazine has also introduced its readers to new genres like chiptunes (way back in 2001), IDM and doombient, and has covered landmarks in the music industry like the demise of music retailing chains, netlabels and the impact of the ipod.

The strength of Igloo is its range of contributors, all with specialist knowledge, overlapping to create an expansive guide to interesting music. One of the greatest problems of the internet is its lack of original material; most of it is information repeated ad infinitum, pinched from traditional news websites, especially news about entertainment, music and movies.

Igloo Magazine is a rare bird in that it is has a high editorial standard (you’ll rarely find a typo), articles are well-thought out and researched, and discretion is used in the material they choose to review. Think of Wire Magazine, but on a shoestring budget.

Igoo Magazine (igloomag.com)

Pretty in Pink: Emil Schult’s design for the Gropiusstadt EP (Aube009)

Electronic musician, Roland Sebastian Faber, although based in London, has always been strongly connected with the Düsseldorf label, Aube, since its inception in 2007. He worked as their audio engineer for their first release ‘Hold Me’ by Jupiter Black and Fred Ventura.

Although known under the pseudonym Kinky Roland (as well as a gamut of other aliases) he has worked on everything electronic from speed-garage to dark-wave synth-pop, and has a massive number of remixes under his belt.

However, some of his most highly regarded releases have been under his birth name, Roland Sebastian Faber, where he has gone back to his musical roots of melodic synthesizer music, found in the work of Klaus Schulze and the Berlin School of Electronic Music, and French composer Jean-Michel Jarre.

His first 12″ on the Aube label, Hommage An Die Jugend Europas (Homage to Europe’s Youth) in 2007 got great reviews, and ranked very highly in the Cybernetic Broadcasting System’s annual polling. He followed this up a year later with another 12″ on Aube, Wettkampf Der Moleküle (Race of the Molecule).

Faber uses original analogue synthesizers to create his sound, and they’ve long been a part of his life: he received his first synthesizer as a present from his parents when he was 15; and he’s gone on to master their use on both a technical and musical level. Some of the best elements of his music are his key changes; the subtle use of little ‘sound effects’ to enhance the atmosphere; and his ability to keep the listener engaged in a progressive musical experience — the trademark of his idol Klaus Schulze.

His new EP ‘Gropiusstadt’ takes its name from a housing estate district within Berlin, designed by the late German architect, Walter Gropius, who was the founder of the Bauhaus school.

The first two tracks of the EP have a strong Pink Floyd influence: Löffelkinder is an ultra-smooth track, slightly funky, with delayed guitar riffs, and heavily-reverbed female vocals. It’s a perfect blend of electronica and traditional instrumentation, and has a great sophistication in how it all fits together.

The second track, Gropiusstadt, is very reminiscent of Shine On You Crazy Diamond with it’s combination of shimmering synth pads, and solo guitar; but it’s well blended, and has enough of Faber’s trademark synth arpeggios to keep it original. It’s also got some great filmic moments too, with string sounds supporting the melody.

The third track, Morgengrau, is more low-key than the previous two, and has a dark electro feel, like the early work of Anthony Rother; but unfortunately, it does not stand out the same way the first two tracks do.

But it doesn’t really matter: this is still a great release.

Some of his traditional synthesizer sound also comes through in his work with Keen K — an old school friend from Germany — as the duo Starcluster. Their output so far hasn’t been prolific, but almost everything they have touched has turned to gold.

They started out by remixing Jupiter Black’s dynamic and humorous tribute to Giorgio Moroder, We Like Moroder in 2007, but their first major release wasn’t until 2008, when Aube released the self-titled Starcluster EP. It featured Smoke and Mirrors with vocals by Soft Cell‘s Marc Almond; but the stand-out track was Winter of Ice, a stand-alone song with a verse and chorus structure, and an instant addition to the canon of dark-wave music, in the spirit of bands like Laibach and Death In June.

As a live act, Starcluster also are high-achievers: they have a clear, tight sound, which is always a difficult thing for electronic artists to achieve, given the multi-layered and heavily sequenced nature of electronic music.

The good news is that there is a new EP from Starcluster to be released later this year by Aube, as well as another 12” from Roland Sebastian Faber  — possible even a full album which his music deserves.

BEHIND THE LABEL

The Aube label is run by Michael Künzer, a Düsseldorf native, who has also been active in the music scene for a number of years. He is better known as Michael Black, one half of Jupiter Black, and one half of Unit 4, who released Bodydub back in 2003.

Michael describes aspects of Aube’s sound as “future-retro”, warm electronic music created with analogue instruments — a move away from purely using 1s and 0s, finding an accord with the pre-digital age of Jean Michel-Jarre, Alan Parsons, and Mike Oldfield.

On the Aube books are a diverse and international range of artists: the already mentioned Roland Sebastian Faber and Starcluster, but also the Dutch duo Elitechnique, who create New York-style disco, The Fascination Movement, a Seattle based synth-pop outfit making music in the vein of early eighties new-wave/new romantic artists; as well the vocal talents of the British singer Marc Almond and the Italian singer/producer, Fred Ventura.

From L-R: Artist Emil Schult, Marc Almond of Soft Cell, and artist Marc Brandenburg

But it’s not only musicians that Aube is harnessing; visual art plays a big part in the label and Michael works in close association with two German artists: Emil Schult, who designed album covers for Kraftwerk through the seventies, and the Berlin-based artist, Marc Brandenburg, who creates photo-realistic pencil drawings. He has also used the work of the British based commercial airbrush artist, Syd Brak, for the Jupiter Black releases.

There are many new releases on the horizon for Aube in 2010: Michael has almost finished a new Jupiter Black release with Fred Ventura; he has also teamed up with Roland Sebastian Faber to put out a release as Alba; as already mentioned, the new ones from Starcluster and Roland Sebastian Faber, as well as a full album for The Fascination Movement. — And if we’re lucky, there will also be a ‘Best of Aube’ somewhere in there.

Gropiusstadt is due to be released in February 2010.

Listen to the audio version of this article with music from the new EP:

Download podcast version here

LINKS:

Roland Sebastian Faber:
http://www.myspace.com/rolandsebastianfaber

Aube Label:
http://www.aube-prod.com

Something old, something new: a couple of synth-disco classics, John Carpenter’s The End and Italian group Automat–along with new entries to the field, Radio Cosmos’  second compilation Synthesize Me, and Jupiter Black and Fred Ventura’s Hold Me on the Aube Label

Journalists have been talking for years now about how the internet has changed the music industry. One of the most recognised changes has been the massive drop in CD sales as a result of internet downloading. However, there has also been many small positive changes in the way people consume music. One of them has been the growth of independent labels focusing on vinyl only releases. These labels are pouring their own money into producing elaborately designed records with original artwork and releasing them in limited runs, usually no more than a 1000.

One of these labels, Radio Cosmos based in France, recently put out their third compilation LP, Synthetic Memento, a follow up to their 2008 release Synthesize Me and SynthStation in 2007. It is hard to believe that only 300-500 copies were ever pressed of these records. They feature original sci-fi artwork by comic artist Gil Formosa, and original tracks, some of which are stunning. These are the kind of releases that quickly become collectors items.

At the other end of the design scale is UK-based label Dissident Distribution, releasing music in a similar vein, but with minimal features: single-sided 12” discs, white sleeves, and a black and white label - and none of them available as a digital download.

Dissident also have a remarkable non-presence on the internet: their only point of contact is an email address on the record label. But like Radio Cosmos, they only press a small number of records at a time - 100-200 - and so far, most of them have sold out.

Although dance music and more underground genres like punk never moved too far from vinyl releases, a lot of others did for a good part of the nineties. Vinyl only seemed to creep back in with the lounge-music scene in the mid-1990s, when labels like Crippled Dick Hot Wax began sifting through stock-music libraries for obscure movie music, issuing what they found on vinyl compilations for DJs and collectors.

But the actual large-scale re-emergence of vinyl over the past three years probably has a lot more to do with the younger generation’s taste in music collecting, than anything else. Perhaps disillusioned with the ephemeral nature of mp3s and wav files, they have become interested in vinyl.

And a couple of things have helped to give this momentum.

Firstly, there is tonnes of old records out there circulating in second-hand stores, record fairs, op-shops, and garage sales that can be picked up cheaply, allowing listeners to easily build a music library for themselves. Secondly, vinyl itself is an attractive medium (rarely will you see a CD stuck up on a wall as a decorative feature), and its large sleeves showcasing original artwork and liner notes make record collecting a pleasurable past-time.

This trend has encouraged the major record labels to start releasing vinyl again - certainly not on the same scale as a few decades ago, but enough to keep people happy. Though vinyl sales reached their lowest point in 2006, with each year since, the number of sales have significantly increased.*

Another major change to music is how transient the formats have become. A piece of music is no longer linked to a dedicated shell like a CD or a record, and can end up on any number of storage devices. For many artists, this can be quite discouraging: they spend so much time making the music that they don’t want to just throw it away on a nondescript format.

Despite its limitations - easily scratched, hard to transfer to other formats, and awkward to play (compared to computer files) - vinyl has a great lastability: people are still finding and collecting discs from the 1930s, making it appealing to artists in the same way that acid-free paper is to authors.

Vinyl has made a comeback through the work of dedicated labels, collectors, and the artists themselves, and at the moment is helping to redress the balance lost with the decline of the CD - a balance between the resourcefulness and immediacy of internet downloads, and the sense of pride that comes with owning a material object like a record.

And these small runs are a brilliant model for the future: don’t make more than you need, which leaves the possibility for represses, and saves resources. And in both social and economic terms, this is the way to go.

*According to the RIAA 2008 Year-End Shipment  

Dissident Distribution’s no-frills labelling and Flexx’s colourful centrepieces by Belgian designer TineZ