isolatedmix 61 - Christian Kleine

Classical trumpet. New wave. Post-punk. House. Hip-hop. Detroit techno...

It seems right to introduce Christian Kleine by describing his early influences, especially if you are familiar with his work. He could quickly become pigeonholed as an early pioneer of IDM and electronica, with legendary releases on Morr Music and City Centre Offices, but whilst this assumption is true for many of us, to this day he prides himself on his openness to musical styles and its many potential influences on his productions.

Christian's most notorious efforts can be heard alongside DJ Thaddeus Herrmann, as Herrmann & Kleine, or as a producer on Arovane's infamous Tides, but Kleine's detailed electronic productions have always remained true to his beliefs and signature sound. Listening back to his first album, Beyond Repair (2001), or his most recent release Coreal (2016), the ambient textures still hold strong amongst the mix of instruments, crunchy beats, glistening melodies and the odd Japanese train announcements. James Holden dropping Leaving you Behind in his Balance mix  (arguably one of the best mixes of all time) proved the timelessness of the sounds to come from Christian and Herrmann. Fifteen years of Kleine so far and we're still left wanting more of the same.

"I try not to exclude any kind of music from being heard in my life. Even at an early age I had a special interest in everything that's different from the ordinary. So at some point, when I was around 16 or so, I found no contradiction playing Detroit techno records in addition to (for e.g) Dead Kennedys, at juvenile punk parties. Some people had a different opinion and tried to stop me, but eventually some began to see some similarities in vibe and sound.  

I try to keep this sort of practice as a general principle in my life; to soak up what’s beyond or before, or what the connecting elements and attitudes in music are. As punk/post-punk, 90s hip-hop, drum&bass and later electronica were big inspirations for me, so was music which is just what it is - music not trying to be classified in any way. This kind of music can often be found from artists who are driven not by fame or money, but by passion and interest in melodies and sound itself - that’s where the most intimate and inspiring forms of music have their home and it’s a pleasure to dive into it. Just drift and let go…" - Christian Kleine.

Christian's ethos is both eclectic and unapologetic when embracing music and it just goes to show how superb both your productions, and your mixes can be when approached with such openness. Isolatedmix 61 is a detailed dive into a multitude of granular styles, with early classical and library influences, soundtracks and more recent ambient and electronica; all forming smaller parts of a bigger picture that Christian sets out to paint. 

Christian Kleine's latest album Coreal is now available on Bandcamp, or if you're more interested in his approach to production, jump into his Ableton software project Max For Cats. 

Download

01. Kagel - Nah & Fern (Montaigne - 1995)
02. Morton Feldmann – Two Hands/Intermission (Another Timbre - 2014)
03. Walt Rockman – Dangerous Deep Sea (Sonoton - 1980)
04. Tone Language – Winter's Thrill (Korm Plastics - 2000)
05. The Focus Group – Leaving Through (Ghost Box - 2007)
06. Christian Kleine – Endless Nights
07. Bola – Aguilla (Skam - 1998)
08. Gene Moore - Carnival of Souls OST (Citadel - 2006)
09. Dorine Muraille – 07 (FatCat - 2003)
10. Takagi Masakatsu – Flows (Karaoke Kalk - 2002)
11. V.A. Heroin – New Years Eve (Staalplaat - 2001)
12. Zbigniew Karkowski + Kaspar T Toeplitz – Le Depeupleur (Recordings Of Sleaze Art - 2000)
13. Raymond Scott – Sleepy Time (Basta - 1999)
14. Kawabata Makoto – I Miss You (Ochre - 2002)
15. Ooze Bap – Track 05
16. Jacob Druckman - Crystalline 

Christian Kleine Web | Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Max For Cats

Kenneth James Gibson - The Evening Falls

Kompakt's Pop Ambient album series returns with its fourth installment by multi-faceted artist Kenneth James Gibson.

Producing under several aliases, most notably his minimal techno focused, 
[a]pendics.shuffle and as Bell Gardens alongside Stars Of The Lid's Brian McBride; Kenneth has earned the respect of many across multiple genres, but The Evening Falls will be his first full ambient production, and also marks the first Pop Ambient album release by an artist previously not featured on any Kompakt compilation.

With Leandro Fresco, Jens-Uwe Beyer and Thore Pfeiffer preceding this release, The Evening Falls leaves us keen-eared in anticipation from such an esteemed multi-instrumentalist, yet whilst talking with Kenneth, an ambient album seemed to have always been on the horizon: "I have always listened to tons of ambient music and always had plans to produce a full album like The Evening Falls. It just took a little longer then originally planned to get to it. I made this record in my head many years ago, it just didn't physically come out of me till recently. There was nothing stopping me, I just wasn't in the right state of mind to see it through. It took cruising at a slightly different pace then I was at before".

The Pop Ambient sound has seen a slight progression over the past few compilations, and for the album series to continue strongly, it would undoubtedly have to stray into previously unfamiliar ambient territory. With The Evening Falls, we see Pop Ambient's least electronic foray yet, as Kenneth takes us through a range of emotionally charged pieces, simple in format, intense in storytelling, including everything from "guitar, pedal steel, pianos, strings to synths and digital processing", alongside minimal field recordings. 

Spurred by a move away from LA to the town of California's Idyllwild, the album comes from his new-found inspiration amongst the mountains: "I'm surrounded by awesome nature up here in Idyllwild and having more of a connection to that changes everything in your daily life. It's very quiet and very dark here at night. At my cabin, when it's 7 or 8 pm it feels like 2 in the morning. That feeling had a big effect on the record".

The first progression in Pop Ambient sound you'll notice is the modern-classical, soundtrack style approach. Kenneth's music is organic in feel, with only the subtlest, static buzz of synthesizers, accentuating an otherwise purely instrumental album.  Instruments interchange in lead throughout the nine tracks, but one particular sound may spike the ears of the chill-out aficionados amongst us. 

In tracks such as A Conversation Between Friends, you may start to recall a notorious instrument from an infamous '90s album adorned with sheep, Elvis and steel-guitars. When asked about its potential influence, Kenneth tells us, "Kompakt head-honcho, Michael Mayer said one of the reasons he and Wolfgang Voigt liked this record so much was because of the pedal steel and their love for The Chill Out Album, and how the album brought them to a similar place. I only heard that record a few times when it came out but it didn't stick for some reason. I did however go back and listen to it again recently and really enjoyed it. 

I'm a huge classic country music fan and obviously pedal steel is a big part of that sound. I think between country music and Daniel Lanois' use of the instrument was the big inspiration for me on that end. One of my oldest friends David Cuetter was the man behind the steel on this album. He nailed it. We were skateboard kids into punk rock growing up in Texas. I would have never imagined that we would be working on this kind of music together so many years later. I'm also in a band called Bell Gardens and get to work with another awesome steel player named Julian Goldwhite on that stuff. I'm just a big pedal steel fan. It can work well with so many different kinds of music!"

As the steel pedal lulls us across the summer skies, a melancholic piano paints a slow pace in tracks such as, Weighty Repetitions and, Failed To Interrupt; the latter of which benefits from a glorious uplifting synth that acts as an opening scene to the more introspective soundtrack score of my favorite piece, Poured Semi Silently Upon You. 

Layered string textures play a vital role amongst the album, adding the warmth and padding that often comes with any of Kompakt's ambient outputs. Combined with minimal digital processing on tracks like The Art Of Forgetting Yourself, and Long Gone Canadian Summer, you hear the faint distant electronic-echoes that have inspired so many Pop Ambient albums over the years, but in a completely new light, portrayed by a truly talented instrumentalist. No better moments exists than the tense violins of Poured Semi Silently Upon You dramatizing a sublime soundtrack moment you'd come to expect from the likes of Jóhann Jóhannsson, Dustin O'Halloran, or Bell Gardens collaborator Brian McBride. 

These elements of sheer beauty combine on a score that sits with the very best of composers, peppered with the faintest of electronic influences from its label curators. The Evening Falls welcomes a new dawn for Kompakt and their ongoing Pop Ambient album series as they push into a more experimental/modern-classical sound, whilst simultaneously serving up moments of welcoming reflection to keep you feeling at home.

Luckily for us, this doesn't sound like Kenneth's first and last jump into this majestic sound: "The follow up album is already started. I'll continue to do whatever I'm in the mood for, but there will definitely be more ambient music. There's a new [a]pendics.shuffle album coming out in July called "Aware Sequence Found Life" on my label Adjunct Audio. Lots of things always in the works..."

The Evening Falls will be available on Kompakt on Vinyl, CD and digital formats on April 29th.

Stream a continuos mix of the album in its entirety below.

Tracklist
01. To See You Drift
02. Long Gone Canadian Summer
03. Failed To Interrupt
04. Poured Semi Silently Upon You
05. A Conversation Between Friends
06. Lateral Decomposition
07. Broken Thought
08. Weighty Repetitions
09. The Art Of Forgetting Yourself

Pre-order Merrin Karras / Apex (ASIPV005)

Pre-order is now available for our upcoming release by Merrin Karras, available on limited edition "Balearic Sea' green double vinyl, and digital. 

Please note, for UK/EU customers, there will be plenty of copies available on release date (June 10th) at Juno.co.uk and other fine retailers. So to save on shipping, you can hold out until then - this pre-order is best for US customers (or those desperate to not miss out!)

You can stream the ever-so-epic synth build of Void below.

Full release information can be found here.

Comit - Trip 001

A new label and series from Texas drum'n bass outfit Warm Communications will debut with a very special colored 7" by ASC under the newly created Comit alias. 

Headed by Heath Looney, the label, Short Trips was originally inspired by mid-nineties electronica /IDM and ambient; no doubt the type we came to recognise from the likes of some of our favourites here at ASIP; City Centre Offices, Morr Music and Warp.

Whilst ASC is no stranger to us, this particular style is a new territory to his ever-expanding catalog. ASC has been producing some of the best drum'n bass, ambient and deep techno for a while now, so the release comes with high hopes of equally high production values. Luckily for us, inspiration and genre may change, but his style is as evident as ever.

Kicking off the release, Under Your Spell begins with a melodic synth reminiscent of the structure and style we found in early Hermann and Kleine tracks, but with the confident spaced-out stride of recent artists like Kiyoko / Bering Strait. The rumbling, creeping
atmospheres are pulled straight from the heart of ASC's deepest moments, creating a wonderful juxtaposition between the old and new styles at play.

On the flip, Contact High, comes closest to the style ASC has carved out for himself, with the echoes of a Drum'n Bass style reformulated into a more subdued style of IDM. The progressive pads we're used to seeing in ASC's ambient work for the likes of Silent Season, play the lead role against a sparse, heavy beat. 

The digital bonus, Soft Focus takes an even more patient, darker stance as the echoing pad is slowly adorned with hi-hats, claps and the undercurrent of heavy bass. Like a purposefully slowed drum'n bass track, it's a modern take on the nostalgic sounds you'll associate with the likes of Boards of Canada. Yet, whilst it's easy to imitate, Comit chooses to innovate - a sound that's evidently his, with a clear nod to yesteryear. 

Trip 001 (and all future Trips) will be pressed on 7" vinyl, with 001 featuring an exclusive digital bonus track. We're lucky enough to hold an exclusive stream of the A side, Under Your Spell below, alongside clips of all three tracks. 

We hear Short Trips has releases by Bering Strait and Ulrich Schnauss lined up for the near future too, so stay close to this one. 

Available May 13th on 7" yellow vinyl + digital. Follow the Short Trips Facebook page for more info or http://warmandred.com/

Aboutface - Are Birds Singing In Their Sleep?

Often comprising of field recordings and live experimentation, we've featured aboutface's sets before on ASIP, but unlike the previous weird and wonderful journeys through electronica and ambient, his latest improvised set is geared towards a recent sleep experiment in London. 

A perfect follow-up to our recent Music For Sleeping feature, Ben and his aboutface moniker recently took part in the below Soporose event which was much more than your regular ambient gig:

“Although many people will encounter a listening phenomenon at some point in their life, little is known about the environment or conditions that create these experiences.

Soporose is a research into the altered listening experiences that can sometimes be had during deep relaxation and dreaming states. It will revive the essence of early sleeping temples, like Asclepion from ancient Greece, and explore a form of secular spirituality through ritual and immersion. Each guest will have an assigned bed where they can rest and sleep while being carefully navigated through a night of film screenings, guided meditation, and live performances from sound artists.

This sleeping research concert is reserved for only 20 participants that will be selected after completion of a research questionnaire.”

— Soporose

Ben's set was designed around the birdsong, "using the rhythm to trigger synths and drums, then improvising with hardware and acoustic instruments against the back drop of field recordings". His set began at 5am and ended at 8am and a result, you'll hear the subtle beginnings and the slightly more detailed ending as people started to wake up. 

The field recordings were made from recent visits in London, Slovakia and India, and some of the instruments used were closely tied to the locations, with the Hapi Drum, Indian Bansuri Flute and a poem all playing parts alongside your more familiar KorgMS2000, a Prophet 8 and an Electro Harmonix 45000 multi-track looper. 

The result is an intrinsic and detailed journey through several different stages; some with nothing but field recordings, and others with slowly churning synths and effects, all set to a very simple yet evolving melody. It's a shamanic experience, requiring an attentive yet relaxing listen. I'm sure this would've been pretty special event to experience first hand. 

More info and future events available through http://www.eightfoldway.org/