The veteran experimental producer will release his next LP on Bill Kouligas’ label next month.
With Rene Hell’s third LP due for imminent release on PAN, the Los Angeles-based artist speaks to Brendan Arnott about the themes behind it and his latest obsession.
It’s common knowledge that record labels parsimoniously wind back the floodgates during the weeks in August and this is reflected in a limited selection of standout record sleeves this month.
PAN will release a 4xLP box set of a three hour live performance by enigmatic Japanese group Marginal Consort.
It would seem fair to say that Golden Pudel resident Helena Hauff has aroused a certain degree of suspicion in certain quarters of late thanks to her seemingly meteoric rise from relative obscurity. This is perhaps because talk has focused on her music rather than her undeniable skills as a DJ, and while her solo production debut on Werkdiscs was good, it was perhaps not quite spectacular enough to convince those who hadn’t seen or heard one of her excellent DJ sets or mixes quite what all the fuss was about.
The travel-inspired “vertical narratives” of Vanilla Call Option will be released in September.
The lot of the mastering engineer is normally an unsung one in music. As the final step between creative inception and release, there are few practitioners of the ‘dark art’ that gain recognition beyond the internal workings of the industry, let alone cross the bridge back into the production camp. Bob Katz, one of the leading authorities on all things mastering, has some amount of notoriety, but really the only name that gets mentioned with any kind of regularity is that of Rashad Becker.
Listen to “Dances III” from the prominent mastering engineer’s album for PAN.
Bill Kouligas’ PAN label, ISSUE Project Room and the Goethe-Institut have announced details of a joint festival in New York and Boston this June.
London promoters BleeD return to South London venue Corsica Studios later this month for a specially curated night of electronic chaos featuring Morphosis, Objekt, Container, John Heckle and more – win entry here.
Say hello to the Deli Twins, otherwise known as Future Times co-founder Max D and L.I.E.S. Records boss Ron Morelli. Read more
Greek chamber music is next on the menu for PAN with the label debut of three piece act Mohammad. Read more
With his role as one half of Snd, Mark Fell has been party to a hushed kind of reverence for well over a decade now, existing in the fringe micro-electronic realm of labels such as Mille Plateaux and Raster-Noton. The allure of the formative Snd releases is palpable, as the sheer elegance and grace of composition hits you instantly, devoid of any sonic detritus as winsome chords duck and parry around sugar snap slices of beat. Subtle and deep it may be, but its lack of complexity makes it quite immediate, so that the tricks of canny rhythmic programming can shine even brighter.
Record labels are the bricks and mortar of the independent music industry, the foundations upon which artists and scenes flourish and grow. During 2012 there seemed to be a glut of new labels popping up across the board, and though some made strong statements with their initial releases, our list largely acknowledges the imprints who continue to lead the way for others to follow. The people behind our top labels are individuals we – and many others – willingly place our trust in; their curatorial abilities are integral to ensuring they stand tall amidst a sea of samey musical dross.
In many cases, passion for the music these labels have released is the over-riding factor, any notion of profiting from the releases secondary to the rush of seeing it out there, pressed on wax and housed in a nicely presented sleeve. For regular readers of Juno Plus, these ten names should make perfect sense; a selection of labels whose output has made it easy for us to show our support for over the course of the last 12 months.
There’s definitely a strong pedigree behind Kouhei Matsunaga’s latest release for the Bill Kouligas-helmed PAN label. Releasing music since the late 90s, the Osaka-born artist has produced for Mille Plateaux, Tigerbeat6 and Skam amongst other greats of leftfield electronica, not to mention collaborating with artists as revered as Merzbow. Even with a frankly intimidating career to delve into, and a sterling first volume released just earlier this year, Dance Classics Vol. II seems like an ideal jump-off point for grasping what Matsunaga’s M.O is.
Athens based artist Jar Moff will release his debut album, Commercial Mouth, next month on Bill Kouligas’ PAN imprint.
Among the frankly intimidating number of releases Bill Kouligas’ PAN imprint have put out this year is a strand of material that seems to recompose familiar dance music forms in unusual ways; Heatsick’s lo-fi demo-track house music made on a basic Casio keyboard, NHK’Koyxen’s incandescent, hyper-processed take on breakbeat and techno, and NHK’s split release with SND that further decimated standardised house music tropes into a shattered prism. UK artist Lee Gamble is another name to add to that list, with Diversions 1994-1996, an album composed entirely from samples taken from old jungle mixtapes. However, unlike the aforementioned artists on PAN, who are imitating and reconstructing established forms with their own set of tools, Gamble uses Diversions as an opportunity to examine the genre itself at a microscopic level; just as everyday objects become alien bodies when examined at the cellular level, so Gamble hones in on jungle by sinking the listener so deep into it that he obscures almost all of its recognisable signifiers.
More audio visual intrigue from Bill Kouligas and his PAN imprint in the shape of this video clip for NHK’Koyxeи’s “703”.