Archiv der Kategorie: Allgemein

out on october 15th: AIDAN BAKER – Seeing Past What Things Seem

AIDAN BAKER – Seeing Past What Things SeemA

Format: tape / download

Release date: october 15th 2021

https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/seeing-past-what-things-seem

New album by Canadian multi-instrumentalist AIDAN BAKER and his first solo release for KARL after the critically acclaimed collaboration albums “Invisible Cities” and “Invisible Cities II”.

AIDAN BAKER is a classically-trained multi-instrumentalist using the electric guitar as his primary instrument – applying alternate methods of playing the guitar, along with various electronic effects, the Berlin based artist creates music which generally falls within the ambient / experimental genre but draws on influences from (post-)rock, electronic, classical, and jazz.
A highly prolific artist, Baker has released numerous recorded works, both solo and with various group projects (NADJA, CAUDAL, NO PLACE TRIO et.al.), on such independent labels as GIZEH RECORDS,MIASMAH, IMPORTANT RECORDS, ALIEN8 RECORDINGS, and his own imprint, BROKEN SPINE PRODUCTIONS. Baker is also the author of several books of poetry. A regular live performer, Baker has toured extensively around the world, including appearances at such international festivals as FIMAV, SXSW, Incubate, Unsound, and Mutek, among others.
“Seeing Past What Things Seem” delivers four finely shaped ambient / drone pieces, crafted with electric guitar, bass, flute at BAKER’s home-recording studio in Berlin, the title referencing the American artist and author EVE BABITZ.


credits:
Recorded March 2021 at Broken Spine Studios, Berlin
Instrumentation: electric guitar, bass, flute
Titles paraphrased from Eve Babitz
Cover photo by Thomas Herbst

out on sept. 17th: ARASH AKBARI – Fragments Of Yearning

ARASH AKBARI – Fragments Of Yearning

Format: tape / download

Release date: september 17th 2021

https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/fragments-of-yearning

After PORYA HATAMI and SABA ALIZADEH, we are excited to welcome the 3rd Iranian musician on KARL: the sound and new media artist ARASH AKBARI.

ARASH AKBARI is a musician, sound, and new-media artist, based in Tehran, Iran. His interest in dynamic art systems, human perception, nonlinear narrative, and the co-existence between physical and digital worlds compelled him to explore the fields of generative systems, interaction design, and real-time processing. He explores the relationship between human, technology, space, and the environment, and examines the ways interactive cybernetic systems, natural emergent behaviors, and phenomena can evoke meanings as well as social and emotional responses. Akbari directs his experimental practices into audio-visual performances and installations, interactive applications, and multisensory experiences.
His compositions investigate experimental approaches to sound generation, field recordings, acoustic instrumentation, digital synthesis, DSP, and noise to create immersive sonic environments that explore the agency of autonomous systems, indeterminacy, memory, and the perception of time and space.
His works have been exhibited in different festivals and exhibitions around the world, such as Athens Digital Arts Festival, Simultan Festival, New Media Fest, 3D Web Fest, Cinnamon Colomboscope, and Graphical Web Conference. He has released albums on Flaming Pines, Unknown Tone Records, Taalem, and Soft Recordings among numerous other labels.
“Fragments Of Yearning”, AKBARI’s latest solo work, is a finely crafted sonic journey into ambient soundscapes, centered around the topics of yearning, memory and humanity. In his own words:
“Some moments linger in us,
buried in time but molded the eternity.
The dusty echoes from the past,
yet are vividly unraveled.
The irreplaceable momentary fragments of being human.”

Credits:
Composed, recorded, mixed by Arash Akbari (fall / winter 2020-2021)
Mastering by Lawrence English at Negative Space
Artwork by Arash Akbari
Layout and design by kaidoh

out on august 27th: KONSTRUKT feat. THURSTON MOORE – Turkish Belly

KONSTRUKT feat. THURSTON MOORE – Turkish Belly

Format: 180gr LP with downlode card / download

Release date: july 10th 2021

https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/turkish-belly

The latest entry in the ongoing series of exciting collaborations sees the Turkish free form ensemble KONSTRUKT live on stage with THURSTON MOORE.

#5 in the continuing series of KONSTRUKT collaborations on KARL is a live document of the concert by the Turkish freeform group with THURSTON MOORE. KONSTRUKT, the Istanbul based free jazz / freeform group founded and led by UMUT ÇAĞLAR and KORHAN FUTACI, are known for their openness to and interest in collaborations – and regularly meet up and perform with new partners that range from JOE McPHEE, WILLIAM PARKER, AKIRA SAKATA, MARSHALL ALLEN, EVAN PARKER, ALEXANDER HAWKINS, KEN VANDERMARK or OTOMO YOSHIHIDE.
This latest release sees the quartet join forces with one of the indie rock icons: THURSTON MOORE, who besides his decade-long main band SONIC YOUTH always found time and inspiration for solo projects and collaborations of different kinds.
„Turkish Belly“, recorded live at SalonIKSV in Istanbul in february last year, is as adventurous and daring as one will expect from such a pairing and a highly rewarding experience for the fans of KONSTRUKT and those of MOORE alike.

credits:
Korhan Futacı: alto sax, flute, voice, loops
Umut Çağlar: electric guitar, synthesizer
Apostolos Sideris: electric bass, upright bass
Berkan Tilavel: drums
+
Thurston Moore: electric guitar
Recorded live at SalonIKSV (21.02.2020), Istanbul.
Mixed by Kıvılcım Konca.
Mastered + vinyl cut by Helmut Erler at D&M, Berlin.
Artwork concept by Umut Çağlar
layout by kaidoh


IANNIS XENAKIS > 100th anniversary box sets


Karlrecords is excited to announce a 5 LP / 5 CD box set celebrating the 100th anniversary of IANNIS XENAKIS (on May 29th, 2022), one of the most influential 20th century avantgarde composers.

As with „La Légende d’Eer“ and „Persepolis“ before, the tracks have been newly mixed by longtime zeitkratzer sound engineer MARTIN WURMNEST and mastered by RASHAD
BECKER and now reveal their full sonic range and dynamics.
„This is the definitive Persepolis“ stated The Wire (May 2018, issue 411) and this will be true for the new sets as well.
Scheduled for release as part of the Perihel series curated by REINHOLD FRIEDL in January 2022 and flanked by several performances across Europe in the Xenakis jubilee year (details tba), while preorder starts early December.

Formats:

5x 180gram LP incl 4c insert and download code + booklet

5x Digipack CD + booklet

Digital download

Listen to „Mycenae Alpha“:
https://soundcloud.com/karlrecords/iannis-xenakis-mycenae-alpha

Tracklist:
I: EARLY WORKS
Diamorphoses (1957)
Concret PH (1958)
Orient Occident (1961)
Bohor (1962)

II: LES POLYTOPES I
Hibiki Hana-Ma (1969)
Mycenae Alpha (1978)
Polytope de Cluny (1972)

III: LES POLYTOPES II
Persepolis (1972)

IV: LES POLYTOPES III
La Légende d’Eer (1978)

V: LATE WORKS
Taurhiphanie (1987-88)
Voyage Absolu Des Unari
Vers Andromède (1989)
Gendy 3 (1991)
S.709 (1992)

out on july 10th: KARKHANA – Al Azraqayn

KARKHANA – Al Azraqayn

Format: 2x LP (180gr, gatefold sleeve, downlode card / download

Release date: july 10th 2021

https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/al-azraqayn

The furious double LP “AL AZRAQAYN” documents KARKHANA (with members of KONSTRUKT, THE DWARFS OF EAST AGOUZA, LAND OF KUSH, PETER BRÖTZMANN CHICAGO TENTET, “A” TRIO) at their very best and intense: live on stage.

Consisting of seven of the most adventurous and innovative artists from the Middle Eastern experimental scene (and a veteran jazz percussionist from Chicago), KARKHANA are surely among the most unique and interesting ensembles around. When MAURICE LOUCA (THE DWARFS OF EAST AGOUZA), SAM SHALABI (LAND OF KUSH, THE DWARFS OF EAST AGOUZA), UMUT ÇAĞLAR (KONSTRUKT), MAZEN KERBAJ (“A” TRIO, JOHNNY KAFTA ANTI-VEGETARIAN ORCHESTRA), MICHAEL ZERANG (PETER BRÖTZMANN CHICAGO TENTET), SHARIF SEHNAOUI (“A” TRIO, ORCHESTRA OMAR) and TONY ELIEH (ORCHESTRA OMAR, JOHNNY KAFTA ANTI-VEGETARIAN ORCHESTRA ) come together to perform and / or record, the result is as diverse as their individual musical backgrounds. The septet’s sound is neither retro nor avantgarde, not folklore nor jazz or rock – it’s an astonishing blend of all these different styles and elements where seductive oriental melodies can intensify and turn into a psychedelic freak-out, fuelled by reeds, guitars and electronics, only to re-start again from quiet sounds till the ensemble seeks catharsis in a collective improv outburst! Defying simple categorization, and in lack of proper terms for the intense experience of KARKHANA’s music (as well as the member’s other projects mentioned before), someone labelled it “free Middle Eastern music”.
And it’s not surprising that these skilled musicians are at their best live on stage – as documented on this live recording from a furious, highly energetic concert at Bimhuis / Amsterdam! 

KARKHANA are:
Mazen Kerbaj: trumpet, objects, electronics
Umut Çağlar: double reeds, bamboo flutes
Sam Shalabi: oud, electric guitar
Sharif Sehnaoui: electric guitar
Maurice Louca: organ, synthesizer
Tony Elieh: electric bass
Michael Zerang: drums, darbouka


Credits:
Recorded live at Bimhuis / Amsterdam on july 3rd, 2019
All music by Karkhana except “Sidi Mansour” a tunisian folk theme by Cheikh Mohamed Boudaya الشيخ محمد بودية.
Artwork by Mazen Kerbaj.
Inner gatefold picture by Tony Elieh (Inter Arts Center, Malmö, 2018)
Mastered & cut by Helmut Erler at D&M, Berlin, in january 2021

out on may 14th: AN MOKU & STEFAN SCHMIDT – Raum

AN MOKU & STEFAN SCHMIDT – Raum

Format: tape / download

Release date: may 14th 2021

https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/raum

the first chapter of the „raum“-trilogy by dominik grenzler aka an moku and stefan schmidt. finely crafted ambient / soundscapes using bass, cello, electronics and field recordings.

the album:
as for many musicians, if there was anything positive about the lockdown in the spring of 2020, it was having more time to create music, to experiment and to maybe even start a completely new project with someone you may never have worked with before. when dominik grenzler aka an moku, a sound artist and bass player based in zurich, approached stefan schmidt (guitarist, composer and improviser from baden-baden) with the idea of collaborating, it turned out the initial spark for a fruitful process and artistic exchange: within just a couple of weeks they managed to craft an album which turned out edgy and harmonic at the same time. despite its abstractionism, „raum“ has a very organic feeling to it, provides a richness of details and finely processed sounds of different origins like bass, cello, field recordings and a vast array of electronic equipment. according to the 2 musicians, the process of creating the ten tracks was a smooth and intuitive one with hardly any need to discuss the concept or details, the communication took place within the music and the exchanged files.

the musicians:
dominik grenzler (born 1977) is a sound artist and bass guitar player with a spot for experimental and ambient soundscapes. In 2008, after years of playing e-bass in several bands or being hired for concert tours, he began with the initial recording sessions for an moku. the literal translation of the japanese word “anmoku” is “tacit, unsaid, implicit” conveying that an idea or thought cannot be put into words but is subconsciously understood. inspired and animated, with this approach, dominik’s abstract, cinematic music gives the listener room for imagination and interpretation. his approach to ambient is highly personal, as he manages to generate tension with a hidden musicality, drowned in a miasma of organic, yet manipulated sounds. dominik often describes an moku as distinctive atonal madness.
privately, dominik grenzler lives and works in his adopted hometown of zurich where he co-owns a café with an artisan cake bakery section.

www.anmoku.net


stefan schmidt (born 1974) is a guitarist, composer, improviser and teacher. he gathered his first musical experiences as a member of various punk bands and later studied classical guitar at the hochschule für musik trossingen with professor andreas higi and at the conservatorio juan josé castro in buenos aires with victor villadangos. while early projects (e.g. farang) and several collaborations put focus on distorted sounds and rhythms, recent works center on slowly evolving structures, sound design and free improvisation, giving more emphasis on his main instrument, the classical guitar, and the exploration of other stringed instruments such as tenor ukulele, fretless bass ukulele, fretless classical guitar, electric guitar, [d]ronin & ronin, stringed psalter, cello and baroque lute.

www.musicforoverexposedcelluloid.com

all tracks composed and produced by an moku and stefan schmidt
mastered by weldroid
cover artwork by stefan schmidt
electronics, field recordings, bass guitar by an moku
electronics, field recordings, cello, vocals by stefan schmidt

out on january 29th: MARTINA BERTONI – Music For Empty Flats

MARTINA BERTONI – Music For Empty Flats

Format: LP (180 gr, incl download code) / tape / download

Release date: january 29th 2021

https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-empty-flats

cello player and electronic artist martina bertoni‘s new album „music for empty flats“ delivers masterfully crafted experimental ambient / drone for fans of hildur guðnadóttir, giulio aldinucci or lawrence english.

martina bertoni is a berlin based cellist and composer. she started playing the cello at a very young age. classically trained, bertoni‘s career soon developed around experimental and film music where her cello has been featured in numerous records, soundtracks for awarded movies and tv series and collaborations, among others with blixa bargeld and teho teardo with whom she recorded several albums and performed at many prestigious festivals all around the globe.
the core of her solo work is based on deconstructing the relationship with her own instrument by combining acoustic sound, repetition, analog and digital synthesis. after the eps „in a paradise you would be happy“ (2018) and „the green ep“ (2019) she released her critically acclaimed full length album „all the ghosts are gone“ with the reykjavík based label falk in january 2020. on her new album she continues to explore the sonic possibilities of her instrument which she uses as sound source – sounds which are then processed, adding reverb, feedback and sub-bass frequencies and thus crafting sonic sculptures, rich of atmospheres and frictions.

„the inspiration for the title „music for empty flats“ comes from a fraction of time during last winter, while i was visiting iceland. i had the strange opportunity to spend lots of time listening to music, alone in a brand new but unoccupied – therefore completely naked – empty flat in the suburbs of reykjavík. it was christmas, it was constantly dark, outside there was snow, inside there was this strange dystopian empty space in which i could listen to my favourite pieces of music in complete solitude. this is when i started sketching the new record.“ says bertoni.
the resulting seven new tracks deliver masterfully crafted experimental ambient / drone, dense and intense but fragile and sensitive at the same time. A more than impressive new artistic statement by martina bertoni, recommended not only for fans of hildur guðnadóttir, giulio aldinucci or
lawrence english!

tracklist:

  1. bits
  2. bright wood
  3. in circles of thoughts//blue ed.
  4. music for empty flats
  5. fearless
  6. moving nature
  7. distant tropics

all music composed and produced by martina bertoni in reykjavík & berlin 2019-2020
mastered & cut by helmut erler at dubplates & mastering, berlin
martina bertoni: cello and electronics
artwork by kaidoh
cover photo by martina bertoni

out october 23rd: SUMMER OF SEVENTEEN – dto.

SUMMER OF SEVENTEEN – dto.

Format: LP (180gram, incl. DL code) / download

Release date: 23/10/202

https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/summer-of-seventeen

SUMMER OF SEVENTEEN are MONIKA KHOT (NORDRA, ZEN MOTHER), WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS, DANIEL MENCHE, FAITH COLOCCIA (MAMIFFER), and AARON TURNER. (SUMAC, SPLIT CRANIUM).

Wildfires plagued Washington state during the summer of 2017, their smoke drifting westward toward the Seattle area and toxifying the air. Shortly before that trauma, MONIKA KHOT, WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS, DANIEL MENCHE, FAITH COLOCCIA, and AARON TURNER had gathered at the latter two musicians‘ House Of Low Culture studio on idyllic Vashon Island with revered producer RANDALL DUNN. There they cut eight songs that capture the makeshift band’s feelings of what COLOCCIA calls “a kind of doomsday lurking in the background.” It’s as if these highly attuned players had a premonition.
„Summer Of Seventeen“ – which was edited and arranged by MONIKA KHOT, who records apocalyptic music solo as NORDRA and plays in the avant-rock band ZEN MOTHER—is a nuanced admixture of these musicians‘ sounds and a culmination of all of their previous collaborations. COLOCCIA and TURNER have created eldritch folk and chamber rock for over a decade in MAMIFFER while engaging in various solo and group projects that explore their profound spirituality in sound. MENCHE has been a fixture on the abstract composition scene for 31 years and COLLINS is a savvy explorer of drone and ambient forms. Their ephemeral summit meeting has yielded a masterwork for the ages.
A heaven/hell and beauty/beastliness dichotomy pervades the album—as if a titanic struggle was transpiring in that small studio. The fearsome trumpet fanfare that starts “Chorus Of The Innocents” heralds a baleful fate. With a subliminal industrial rhythm bristling beneath the eerie exhalations, the song submerges us in a slow-motion maelstrom, a horror-film facsimile of MILES DAVIS‘ “Bitches Brew“. “Perceived Slight” threads death-metal screams through a stark, suspenseful atmosphere, with austere glints of guitar and beats like fists on a casket lid intensifying the dread.
Angelic chants and celestial drones perfume the air in several of the songs on “Summer Of Seventeen“, countered with muted blast beats, serrated hums, jagged glitches, simulacra of grinding gears and lightning. It’s as if no good deed goes unpunished. “Spirits Of Redeemer” could be an elegy for the human race while “Cultural Orphan” sounds like a symphony for a malfunctioning factory. The album ends with “Theatre Needs An Audience,” a harrowing ballad somewhere between EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN and MERZBOW; it’s a savage rent in the space-time continuum.
“Thinking about this record now,” COLOCCIA recalls, “it seems like we were all sort of anticipating something like this current pandemic happening, although we were thinking about it as fire in the hands of man (literal fire, and also gunfire) that would overturn the normal running of things and reveal the current false beliefs systems holding up most of America.”
That grave aura infiltrates “Summer Of Seventeen“, However, a hopefulness bubbles beneath the foreboding architecture of sound and noise summoned here. The bunker is the new penthouse.
-Dave Segal, April 2020

credits
musicians > Monika Khot, Daniel Menche, Faith Coloccia, Aaron Turner, William Fowler
Collins
recorded and mixed by Randall Dunn
edited and arranged by Monika Khot
mastered by James Plotkin
vinyl cut by Helmut Erler at D&M, Berlin
art and design by Faith Coloccia

out on october 23rd: MESIAS MAIGUASHCA – Oeldorf 8

MESIAS MAIGUASHCA – Oeldorf 8

Format: LP (180gram, gatefold, incl. DL code) / Digipak CD / download

Release date: 23/10/2020

https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/oeldorf-8

First-ever official re-issue of the Ecuadorian composer’s stunning electroacoustic composition “Oeldorf 8” on vinyl and CD. Remastered by KASSIAN TROYER at D&M, Berlin.

MESÍAS MAIGUASHCA (b. December 24th, 1938 in Quito / Ecuador) is a composer of Neue Musik, especially electroacoustic music, who studied at the Conservatorio Nacional de Quito, at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY (1958–65), with ALBERTO GINASTERA at the Instituto di Tella in Buenos Aires, at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne and, after a short return to Ecuador, attended the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt and the Fourth Cologne Courses for New Music in 1966–67 where he studied with KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN. From 1968 to 1972, MAIGUASHCA worked closely with STOCKHAUSEN in the Electronic Music Studio of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne and joined STOCKHAUSEN’s ensemble for performances at the German Pavilion at the Expo ’70 in Osaka. In 1971 he became a founding member of the OELDORF GROUP of composers and performers, and began work at the Centre Européen pour la Recherche Musicale in Metz, at IRCAM in Paris, and at the ZKM in Karlsruhe. From 1990 – 2004 MAIGUASHCA was Professor of Electronic Music at the Musikhochschule of Freiburg im Breisgau where he still lives today.


The OELDORF GROUP, named after the small village 40 km away from Cologne where they lived and worked in a rented farmhouse where they set up their own studio for electronic music and studio productions, was a musicians‘ collective active during the 1970s. In the adjacent barn, the group held concerts for audiences up to 300 people with an emphasis on live-electronic music and other kinds of new and avant-garde music. Thanks to a long-standing contact with the Westdeutscher Rundfund, the core members of the OELDORF GROUP (PETER EÖTVÖS – electronics and keyboards, the violinist/violist and composer JOACHIM KRIST, electronics specialist and composer MESÍAS MAIGUASHCA, who also played keyboards, and his wife GABY SCHUMACHER – cello) received commissions for compositions, invitations to perform in the Musik der Zeit concert series, as well as having many of their summer concerts recorded for the late-night broadcasts of WDR3.
One of these commissioned compositions is „Oeldorf 8“: a retrospective portrait of the OELDORF GROUP consisting of a series of ten short pieces for four instrumentalists (clarinet, violin, cello, electric organ/synthesizer) and tape which may be played either simultaneously or continuously without a break. It premiered in 1974 at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse and was released on LP two years later and turned into a sought-after, but not very well-known rarity achieving collector‘s prices., and was later unofficially reissued on KEITH FULLERTON-WHITMAN’s Creep Pone CDr label.
Conceived as a sonic diary with an edge to encompass radical electronic synthesis, the 48 minute composition proves „ … a thing of wonder; from the outset, MAIGUASHCA’s spoken introduction of the players & concept gets slowly eroded by errant, pointillist electronic sound … which then lets loose for a good 10 minutes before a swarm of slowly rising held tones c/o the players acoustic arsenal slowly comes to the fore. On the second side, the acoustic sounds – patiently, elegantly state their cases across a good half of the segment until a rising pulse-wave drone essentially annihilates the more nuanced phrasing & slowly builds to an almost ROLAND KAYN-esque climax of raw oscillator gristle” (Soundohm).
44 years after its original release, MAIGUASHCA’s stunning album finally sees its deserved and overdue re-release on CD and LP, carefully remastered by KASSIAN TROYER at D&M, Berlin.


„Maiguashca … is part of the first generation of South American maverick sound explorers that in the 1960s paved the way for a tradition of innovation that persists in the present noise and psychedelic scenes of the continent. Along with Edgar Valcárcel, César Bolaños, Beatriz Ferreyra, Mauricio Kagel or José Vicente Asuar, he contributed to expand the
possibilities of musical language beyond the dominant Western canon …“
David Jarrin / Kraak Festival


credits:
violin: Joachim Krist
clarinet: Dietrich Fritsche
violoncello: Gabriele Schumacher
electronic organ: Peter Eötvös
direction: Mesias Maiguashca
recording: Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne, ® 1975 WDR
remastered by Kassian Troyer at D&M, Berlin, 2020
layout re-issue: kaidoh

out on september 25th: ARURMUKHA – 14.11.90

Arurmukha – 14.11.90

Format: 180gr LP / download

Release date: september 25th 2020

https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/141190-ein-akustisches-psychogramm

Re-release of the album which MARC WEISER (RECHENZENTRUM, zeitkratzer) and JÜRGEN HENDLMEIER (producer for THE FLAMING SIDEBURNS, THEE ULTRA BIMBOOS) created as ARURMUKHA. With the use of soundbites, field recordings, and stylistically diverse tracks, they reprocess the eviction of 13 squats on Mainzer Straße in Berlin-Friedrichshain in November 1990, forming it into an acoustic scenography in the style of the „Maifestspiele“ by EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN.

Re-release of the album which MARC WEISER (RECHENZENTRUM, zeitkratzer) and JÜRGEN HENDLMEIER (producer for THE FLAMING SIDEBURNS, THEE ULTRA BIMBOOS) created as ARURMUKHA. With the use of soundbites, field recordings, and stylistically diverse tracks, they reprocess the clearing of 13 squats on Mainzer Straße in Berlin-Friedrichshain in November 1990, forming it into an acoustic scenography in the style of the „Maifestspiele“ by EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN.

14.11.2020 marks the 30th anniversary of the clearing of 13 squats on Mainzer Straße in Berlin-Friedrichshain. The violent confrontation between the police and about 500 squatters, involving armored vehicles, helicopters, and 10 water cannons, was the biggest police operation in Berlin’s post-war history, with 4000 officers deployed, and is deemed to be the last big „battle“ of left-wing squatters in Germany. The insert for the LP provides a detailed chronicle of the events (taken from the book „Berlin Mainzer Straße: Wohnen ist wichtiger als das Gesetz [Berlin Mainzer Straße: Housing is more important than the law]“, published in 1992 by Basis-Druck).

On the occasion of the anniversary, the Berlin label KARLRECORDS is making a contemporary document that has been out of print for more than 25 years available to the public again. The album „14.11.90“ by internationally renowned electronic musician and co-founder of the CTM Festival MARC WEISER (RECHENZENTRUM, zeitkratzer a.o.) and JÜRGEN HENDLMEIER (producer for THE FLAMING SIDEBURNS, THEE ULTRA BIMBOOS a.o.) was originally released in 1993 as a vehicle for them to work through their personal experiences as contemporary witnesses of the eviction, on the label GOLDRAUSCH-TONTRÄGER, which was founded for the release. The project’s name, ARURMUKHA – „avaricious demons“, is a term from Vedic mythology, here alluding to the capitalist logic of exploitation guiding the West German corporations that bought out the former GDR after reunification.

Shunning the popular clichés of squatters, the duo processes original recordings of the clearing action, as well as material from radio and tv as their musical-textural starting points, composing them into a densely packed acoustic psychogram, recounting the events of the time with dramaturgic skill, in chronological sequence over the course of the two sides of the vinyl. Armed with a sampler as their main instrument they create an acoustic scenography which, as a sonification of memory, pits itself against oblivion. While constructed as a soundtrack, the heterogeneity of its styles gives the album the character of a compilation, aggregating drones, industrial, electronics, post punk, outsider music and political texts into an imaginary meta music film of resistance. The subject matter and music may suggest comparisons with EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN’s piece „Maifestspiele“. The covers of the original edition at the time were individually designed by many different friends of the scene in the form of a „social sculpture“ of the squatters‘ movement and comprised screen prints, collages, graphics, and photos. Selected for the re-edition of the LP: a picture by the Berlin photographer HARALD HAUSWALD, who is considered one of the most famous photo-chroniclers of the GDR and who also provided a collection of hand prints for the original.

Despite its age, the album is an alarmingly relevant one, with its contents not having lost any of their urgency. Especially in view of the displacement of affordable housing and free cultural spaces in metropolitan cities, „14.11.90“ is a plea for creative resistance culture with the hope for change in the existing conditions. 

all music composed by Marc Weiser & Jürgen Hendlmeier

remastering & vinyl cut by Andreas [Lupo] Lubich

cover photo by Harald Hauswald