While surfing the webpage of Maja K. Ratkje, I came across POING:
"This unusual Norwegian trio is doing interesting work off the beaten track. The unusual begins with the instrumentation ...and display considerable technical depth and breadth, as well as strong ensemble identity."
-Julian Cowley, The Wire
There was a big update at the official Faust homepage. Now Faust is offering many MP3 files to download!
Allmusic.com: There is no group more mythical than Faust," wrote Julian Cope in his book Krautrocksampler, which detailed the pivotal influence the German band exerted over the development of ambient and industrial textures. Producer/overseer Uwe Nettelbeck, a onetime music journalist, formed Faust in Wumme, Germany, in 1971 with founding members Hans Joachim Irmler, Jean Hervé Peron, Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Rudolf Sosna, Gunther Wusthoff, and Armulf Meifert. Upon receiving advance money from their label, Nettelbeck converted an old schoolhouse into a recording studio, where the group spent the first several months of its existence in almost total isolation, honing its unique cacophonous sound with the aid of occasional guests like minimalist composer Tony Conrad and members of Slapp Happy." Read more@ almusic.com
Composer of orchestral works, composer of electroacoustic works, opera performer, free improviser and experimental electronica artist: Maja Ratkje was able claim all these titles before her 30th birthday. The Norwegian singer has been active on many fronts since the mid-'90s, winning composition prizes in her home country before starting to build an international reputation first as part of the all-female free improv quartet Spunk, then as a solo artist. Her first solo album, simply titled Voice, came out in late 2002. Her experimental singing has been compared to Jaap Blonk and Phil Minton, although her use of electronics and theremin in her performances set her apart.
Richard D James is the alpha male of electronica, a sinewave surfer and synthesiser symbiant, as likely to set up his FX under the polythene peaks of a well appointed Wendy house as choreograph the flexing of a bunch of fully pumped female bodybuilders whose muscle profiles suggested they'd changed their order from cheesecake to beefcake.
Of his multiple aliases and alter egos - AFX, Polygon Window, Caustic Window, The Dice Man - none are active, even Aphex Twin, the primary conduit for his creativity is at rest or play, compensating for the years of accelerated development. Maybe he's just enjoying the fruits of his labour. The six figure sum he received for supplying the cranked-up soundtrack to tyre manufacturers Pirelli's world spanning athlete ad proved that all the extra income from company's risqué calendars, de rigueur fixtures on the workshop walls of grease monkey mechanics the world over, wasn't going to waste. Like any modern mercenary, Aphex sunk his lucre into a tank and a bank, both decommissioned husks, one several tonnes of army surplus hardware sitting in his parent's front garden, the other a disused financial institution converted into living quarters. [BBC]
When Faust first emerged in 1970/71, the rock landscape wasn´t yet electrified. It was, however, dominated by 15 years of Anglo-American build-up.Working in parallel with, yet quite separately from, Krautrock contemporaries like Can, Faust cloistered themselves away and set about improvising and reconstructing modern music as if from nothing. With their huge, primordial riffs they seemed to be tapping into the molten lava of some prehistoric rock era; simultaneously, their use of synthesizers, eddying in huge, black sustained waves of intensity, pointed to a future that we have perhaps still to arrive at.
<img src="www.cdemusic.org"align="left" hspace="3"> Since first emerging in the late '60s, Joe McPhee has been heralded as one of jazz's most talented multi-instrumentalists and greatest improvisers. He has also become one of its most emotional and daring composers. McPhee first encountered jazz while serving in Germany with the U.S. Army. Originally a trumpet player, he took up the saxophone shortly after he began playing professionally, and has since gone on to investigate a wide range of instruments, including the pocket cornet, clarinet, flugelhorn, piano, and even electronics. It's this spirit of voracious creative inquiry that has marked all of his work to date.
Paul Dolden begins his career at age 16 as a professional electric guitarist, violinist and cellist. Excited by the possibilities offered by recording technologies, Paul Dolden turns to contemporary modes of production and dissemination in the creation of his music. At age 29, he wins the first of a string of European awards that establish him as a composer. Now the winner of over twenty international awards, Paul Dolden’s music is performed in Europe and North America to wildly enthusiastic audiences.
The human voice is by far the most complex, and perhaps the least recognised of all instruments. Maja Ratkje knows the importance of the voice as a musical element like no-one else. Her first solo album, simply entitled Voice and based entirely on her vocal performance, reveals the vast array of sonorities and contrasts that can be found in one’s voice.
Be glad that the members of Black Dice have chosen to pursue careers in music, rather than as, say, bus drivers or postal carriers; the results of these guys being trapped in miserable service sector jobs could have been disastrous, possibly on a global scale. That's how much aggression this Providence hardcore noise terrorism outfit has pent up inside. Live, the band's startling mix of ear-splitting sonic chaos and audience intimidation can be so traumatizing to those who attend their shows unprepared that it can lead to their institutionalization. On record, you're just glad they're trapped in your stereo and not loose in the room with you. [epitonic.com]
Composer of orchestral works, composer of electroacoustic works, opera performer, free improviser and experimental electronica artist: Maja Ratkje was able claim all these titles before her 30th birthday. The Norwegian singer has been active on many fronts since the mid-'90s, winning composition prizes in her home country before starting to build an international reputation first as part of the all-female free improv quartet Spunk, then as a solo artist. Her first solo album, simply titled Voice, came out in late 2002. Her experimental singing has been compared to Jaap Blonk and Phil Minton, although her use of electronics and theremin in her performances set her apart.
Richard D James is the alpha male of electronica, a sinewave surfer and synthesiser symbiant, as likely to set up his FX under the polythene peaks of a well appointed Wendy house as choreograph the flexing of a bunch of fully pumped female bodybuilders whose muscle profiles suggested they'd changed their order from cheesecake to beefcake.
Paul Dolden begins his career at age 16 as a professional electric guitarist, violinist and cellist. Excited by the possibilities offered by recording technologies, Paul Dolden turns to contemporary modes of production and dissemination in the creation of his music. At age 29, he wins the first of a string of European awards that establish him as a composer. Now the winner of over twenty international awards, Paul Dolden’s music is performed in Europe and North America to wildly enthusiastic audiences.
The human voice is by far the most complex, and perhaps the least recognised of all instruments. Maja Ratkje knows the importance of the voice as a musical element like no-one else. Her first solo album, simply entitled Voice and based entirely on her vocal performance, reveals the vast array of sonorities and contrasts that can be found in one’s voice.
