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Isolée - Rest - 23-May-03 05:11 PM
Just as a starter: ISOLÉE's first album, 'Rest', is the long-awaited revolution of house, techno, electro, well basically every type of electronic music. 'Rest' is one of the most important, best and succinct albums currently available, and above all, when you hear 'Rest' you immediately want to know what it is, in fact, feel an urge to have to know what it is. etermining what that is, a rest.
The rest of electronic music that remains if you rest, wait, put things into a state of suspense in indecisiveness, in which one must re-decide, re-determine. For those who still don't know how to think, electronic music, house and techno mean having a bass drum as the centre so to speak, as the unquestionable piece of hardware that gets the dancefloor moving. This is what ISOLÉE, aka RAJKO MÜLLER, already racked his brains with on 'Logiciel'. Following some extremely successful 12's, 'Beau Mot Plage' - one of last year's very few club hits that were as disorientating as they were connecting - various remixes and a few secret singles the bass drum is still the focal issue. The bass drum, says the first track on his first album, is a part, an element, a word used in software languages, one of the many languages mathematical ensembles we are in the midst of tend to speak in. Distinctly reminiscent of yesterday's minimalism when analogue wasn't an opposite nor by any means a swearword yet, but a kind of battle cry in which the bass drum and samples began to circulate. An issue which also redefined 'Logiciel' to make it a basis of contemporary sound. Also distinctly reminiscent of DANIEL BELL and many others, ISOLÉE dispenses the bass drum in its quasi-classical waveform of one single motion. 'Rest' is what you've split up, a term subject to linguistic complexities, one which only then offers space to project things, to create music in such a way as to make tracks out of it. A delight to listen to and above all 'nice' is Isolée's first album. Classically nice, melodious, harmonious, sound-loving, varied, but of an unnerving self-assuredness of unsureness, making ISOLÉE's music sound strange, yet nice at the same time, like a media review expressed in sounds. Like a basis to transport contents, like a vision of horror or fulfilment, because for ISOLÉE mediums are always many different entities communicating with each other, corresponding formats, languages, melodies, rhythms, things within a massive machinery made by the most different types of machines that can never be amalgamated into one. Mediums, these are structures that must first be redefined to make any sense of them. They change, and precisely this is what music far too seldom preoccupies itself with, the reason why music like 'Rest' sounds so strange, but yet so right, so unquestionable. 'Demon' defines the space between a mask, between mankind and danger, between machine and idea, one that slips under its own guard, one that runs away with itself, from its own harmonies, instigates new ones, sets new subprograms into motion, turns a track into a conglomerate of communication systems which constantly interact with one another, a track that redefines its own connections. A draw, a match that has no winner nor loser. 'Rest' talks to us in various voices not in references to sounds, to stories, but as a reference in itself, as a system of references that is constantly changing. Sometimes also directly, or so it seems, as a kind of invitation, like on 'I Owe You'. But in its preliminary definition, 'Rest' is a remnant, a plateau, pause, relaxation, no thank you we're fine, but we're a residual. Only from this perspective is it comprehensible, and only so because we listen and understand what we hear. A position that becomes blurred in front of our eyes, like a form of concentration in that you find yourself spinning, always accessible, but constantly changing domains. 'Rest' is a stage which is being worked on during the match, on which the match is no longer a place where players meet and work with rules, but a match where players revolve the same way as the rules do. And 'Rest' is not de-personalised music, but music in which people can circulate all the more, and see who's where and what, shortly before others can become something else and you yourself, too. Not an experiment which you have to give in to, but a timeline on which you function, without being obliged to do so this way or the other. ISOLÉE is familiar with the history of electronic music, he takes it apart, not to redefine parts of it, but to allow time that is music to reappear again, not to sort times in a kind of hyper-filing-system, as if knowing how everything should be, but to set files into motion, a motion that not only makes music sound new, but one in which one can summarise everything, because it follows our train of thought in creating its openings, outlooks, situations and eccentricities, luckily with us, with the machines, with software, mediums, mutations, stories, ideas, people, worlds, adventures, etc. They're all partners in crime, 'Tout se complique', and everything's in this place called 'Rest' to which complexity couldn't possibly coin an opposite, the place where everything's happening, at the right time.

Savvas Ysatis - Select - 23-May-03 05:09 PM
Greek-native SAVVAS YSATIS returns with the long-awaited follow-up to his 1999 Tresor debut.
Athens-born but transplanted to New York City at age 15, Savvas' groove works island life inspired Dub and House influences around the early electronica of KRAFTWERK and JEAN-MICHEL JARRE. Having to-date 7 albums under his own name and collaborated on 10 others under the names SETI, ARC, FUTIQUE, SKAI, and ALLOU, it's YSATIS' obvious flair for album-sized work that lets his music thrive both at home and in the clubs. Select compiles the cream of SAVVAS YSATIS' laid-back groove. Smooth and tasteful a la Isoleé or LUOMO, warm and emotive with neo-Dub: ideal sounds for the season.

Savvas Ysatis - Highrise - 23-May-03 05:08 PM
The greek native is recording since early 90ies. 1994-1998 he worked with TAYLOR DEUPREE under the names Seti, Futique, Arc, Skai in New York and released two EPs and 8 albums. The different project names stand for the variety of Ysatis' musical directions and interests. Futique: Trip Hop Electronica, Arc: Detroit orientated Techno, Skai: Tech-House. Volume 1 of a series of music based on architecture was the'Tower of Winds' album by SAVVAS YSATIS & TAYLOR DEUPREE. Basedon the structure of the building in Yokohama, Japan, which - through a series of lights that are built into the structure, reflective panels and electronic sensors - emits light patterns asit responds to environmental changes. The Ambient /Avantgarde album will be featured at the Museum of Modern Art in NY as part of a sound installation. Also SAVVAS YSATIS responds to environmental changes. Back in Greece for a while now he produced a veryharmonic summer album. Dance tracks transferring the easiness of life in the sun next to the beach - after a grey and dark winter in Northern Europe not only needed by the Tresor crew, but also definately on Tech-House floors. Ysatis works like an architect producingwise. (S) tone on (s) tone are building up to flowing sounds with laid back grooves reflecting Ysatis' time in the US. Cocktailbar? Afterhour? Dancefloor? It's music that hits yourmind and soul. Enough reason to welcome SAVVAS YSATIS in the Tresor family.

Gramm - Personal Rock - 23-May-03 05:07 PM
JAN JELINEK aka GRAMM from Berlin is known for his two highly sought after EP-releases as FARBEN on Klang (Frankfurt). Personal Rock is JAN's album-debut. Right from the start it creates an incredibly deep and warm atmosphere.
This is contemporary electronic music on the leap into thenext millenium. Technical, skillful and at the same time organic and seamless. Crackles, digital noises, cool harmonies and sublime shuffling grooves, ever shifting and floating . Minimal, experimental, streaming a tranquility that grows with every listen. The perfect ambience for some easy living, adding comfort and colour to the change of season.

Deadbeat - Wild Life Documentaries - 23-May-03 05:32 AM
SCOTT MONTHEIT, aka DEADBEAT, has been an inner circle part of Montreals (Canada) very lively and inspiring new electronic music scene since the beginning. His first records were put out by HAUTEC and REVOLVER from 1998. He has longstanding artistic and friendly relations to AKUFEN, JEFF MILLIGAN and the MUTEK festival.
His scape debut album 'wild like documentaries' delves deep into the heritage of Dub: the entire idiomatic richesse, the aural trade marks, the delays, the white noise, the tape echo, all the compressions and manipulations the history of dub has produced have found their place in his work, were used, re-interpreted, re-invented and transferred into the here and now. Technical finesse is never pushed to the forefront, though, because DEADBEAT relies much more on the traditional roots elements of classic dub, their timeless soul and very own nostalgia. On 'Wild Life Documentaries' sound experimentation joins the courage for direct, emotional statements. Daedbeat blends everything into a dub epic, a suite of nevertheless autonomous tracks, carried by a relaxed, organic warmth, the soul inherent in all true dub music.

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