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Adaledge: Vintage Feelings
Tobias Fischer
First Shigeto, now Adelage - something's decidedly stirring
in the electronic underground: Drum beats are infused with organic
irregularities more complex than any drum computer could ever be
programmed to devise. Arrangements are shedding the shackles of linear
movement, following intriguing new logics of their own. And the digital
sequences of intelligent dance music are being traced back to the
minimalists' principle of pulsation. A music outside of all categories
is budding, a streetwise blend equally influenced by Jazz, Fusion,
Ambient and Classical Music, by academia and the gutter. Ron Wilde, head
of Triple Down Records, refers to it as „compositional electronic
music“ and as vague as that description may sound, it strangely makes
complete sense.
„Vintage Feeling“ is a perfect appetiser for the kind of multidimensional works this approach is capable of yielding: „Lionest“ opens with what could be a reference to Philip Glass, then drifts through a space filled with bewildering counterpoints, counterintuitive rhythmical changes and dissonant Marimba patterns, while „File that under never“ possibly constitutes contemporary composition's first foray into the realms of Electronica. The background story to the album is, apparently, that the two label founders overheard the music in a bar one night by complete coincidence and that Adaledge won the lottery and his since spent every single day composing. After listening to „Vintage Feelings“, that story doesn't actually sound all that improbable any more.
Homepage: Triple Down Records
„Vintage Feeling“ is a perfect appetiser for the kind of multidimensional works this approach is capable of yielding: „Lionest“ opens with what could be a reference to Philip Glass, then drifts through a space filled with bewildering counterpoints, counterintuitive rhythmical changes and dissonant Marimba patterns, while „File that under never“ possibly constitutes contemporary composition's first foray into the realms of Electronica. The background story to the album is, apparently, that the two label founders overheard the music in a bar one night by complete coincidence and that Adaledge won the lottery and his since spent every single day composing. After listening to „Vintage Feelings“, that story doesn't actually sound all that improbable any more.
Homepage: Triple Down Records
Dub45: Suizen – Cartesian Space
Tobias Fischer Prebble's new netlabel Dub45, founded almost three decades after his first seminal listening experiences, may therefore be a sentimental affair, but its first release, two deep mixes of very own „Cartesian Space“ is anything but retro: Propelled by a playfully babbling Bass and subterranean Dubstep growls, myriads of delayed musical objects – Piano clusters, trashcan rolls, digital Guitar chords – and dreamy pads are floating in a space which sounds remarkably like the bastard child of Tangerine Dream and Can jamming on Jamaica.Homepage: Dub45 Netlabel
Eric Serra: Subway Soundtrack
Tobias Fischer While the film remains a curious item, the soundtrack by Eric Serra is still worthy of attention. Serra personally starrs as „the bass player“ in Subway himself – which should seem apt, as his aggressive, precisely-cut bass lines and motoric drum computer beats are the driving force behind his score, which emulates the coolness of Jazz with digital means and juxtaposes it with completely over-the-top Horn-fanfares and Sax solos. At other points of the film, Serra hints at Industrial culture, intertwining bleak, greyish sounds with nervously asymmetrical pulses.Serra's soundtracks have often acted as a second layer to Besson-movies, operating in a zone of their own rather than a typical support function. Even though Subway already indicates how much space Besson was willing to award to his favourite bard's compositions (the scene below, based on somewhat untypical schmalzzy ballad "It's Only Mystery"), the movie is rather an exception than a suitable example in this regard. In contrast to works like „Léon“ and „The Fifth Element“, sound and image complement each other perfectly here, resulting in a audiovisual roller coaster ride, which completely ridicules criticism aimed its supposedly unambitious content.
Fescal
Tobias Fischer „Lethal Industry“ is perhaps most tangible in this regard: Haunting choirs are chanting in the distance („The Harbour Master“) and syrupy organ points are viscously flowing through clouds of hiss („Orichalcum“), while mysterious processes are stirring underneath the lense of Fescal's microscope. Tracks like „Moon Man“, with its serene pulsation and breathing layers of metallic dust or „Atlas Air“, a single complex tone sustained for six full minutes, are meanwhile turning „Endorphin“ into a feast for lovers of the drone.Most ambitious, however, is „Twin“, Fescal's latest work on pioneering German netlabel Tonatom: Glistening ambiances are interwoven with fantastical field recordings, all seemingly rotating around eight-and-a-half-minute „Sunday Morning“, which injects a dose of genial tranquilisers into an otherworldly vision of musique concrete and dreamy chimes.
Homepage: Fescal
Homepage: 1789 Netlabel
Homepage: Bypass Netlabel
Homepage: Tonatom Records
Hans Zimmer: Inception Soundtrack
Tobias Fischer His second collaboration with Nolan, however, sees these conflicts resolve into absolute determination. Inception's intricate layering of time, complex psychological layers and confusion of dreams, memories and „physical reality“ sparked sounds of previously unprecedented power and depth. When the curtain is raised and the camera zooms in on a stranded Cobb (Leonardo di Caprio) on a surreally beguiling beach, the spectator is greeted with colossal horns which seem to sound straight from the darkest and most obscure corners of the limbus, that ominous place of oblivion, where concrete objects, shapes, thoughts and ideas dissolve into pure and undiluted subconsciousness. Likewise, some of the subsonic frequencies are of a threatening physicality, sending shock waves through the audience.While these examples may seem to suggest that the work is mostly about suggestive sound sculpting rather than composition, few Zimmer-soundtracks have combined the ambitious with the accessible as organically as Inception. When Cobb is chased through a labyrinth of narrow side-streets, a ferocious bass line and polrythmical percussion patterns are enough to create a hypnotic pull. On other occasions, meanwhile, puckering (analogue?) sequencers provide a sense of subtle, weightless motion.
While these action-movie tactics reference previous pieces like the „Black Rain“ suite, the Inception soundtrack is foremost marked by a poignantly bittersweet chord progression („The Dream is Collapsing“) that holds the different layers together on a thin thread of hope, sorrow, emotional turmoil and inexplicable consolation. While it is the only theme to continuously accompany the narrative's development, it never plainly attains the function of a Leitmotif and is never reassuringly resolved – the ambiguity that is one of the trademarks of the film carries over into its music as well.
Few movies keep their audiences glued to their seats from beginning to end, but Inception even manages to keep them sitting through the entire closing titles. When, on an otherwise empty screen displaying nothing but the title-logo against a black background, the fulminant horn blows make their final and resolute return, they seal the triumph of sound over image in one of this year's most visually stunning feature films.
Homepage: Inception
Homepage: Hans Zimmer
Havergal Brian: King of the Symphony
Tobias Fischer Especially so, since Brian wasn't just about „big“. The first movement, an extract of which you can listen to in this clip, is full of haunting string washes, ethereal solos at the borders of sound and silence and goldenly gleaming brass chord progressions. This isn't Gothic, this is Star Wars, one listener commented – which is strangely true, but not in a derogatory sense. Certainly worthy of a rediscovery, especially since there are finally a couple of fine recordings available: The vintage 1966 version broadcast by the BBC (merely available as a bootleg for decades and re-released by Testament only last year), a Marco Polo interpretation as well as the budget edition by Naxos.It would have given great pleasure to Brian to see his work slowly attaining more widespread attention. He, however, only got to see a tiny fraction of his oeuvre performed, some of it very late in his life. Even today, as „the official Brian Havergal“ website reports, „the Australian premiere of Brian’s vast Gothic symphony, scheduled to take place in December 2010, is encountering an unexpected funding shortfall of £15,000“, putting the first performance of the symphony in thirty years in danger – showing once again that it's not easy to be the king of maximalists.
Heinali & Matt Finney: Lemonade
Tobias Fischer Even though Finney's main project Finneyjerkes was already marked by a pretty impressive stylistic diversity, his collaborative efforts with rising Sound Artist Heinali are uncovering yet new territory, embedding his spaced-out, somnambulant vocals into a hallucinatory, robotic band-context, like pouring Bourbon on top of a burning fire. A heavenly string arrangement cushions the harsh blows of „End of July“, the title track is a pure drone-piece and closer „The Dream“ an unapologetically romantic Piano ballad. Never once even coming close to acoustic soda, these two artists have created a veritable musical equivalent to an exquisite red wine instead.Homepage: Download and listen to „Lemonade“ by Heinali & Matt Finney at Bandcamp
Higucci: Nobody
Tobias Fischer On the third of „Nobody's“ eight untitled tracks, a pensive piano is placing plaintive patterns on a canvas sparsely filled with sentimental hiss, sad strings and romantic choir echoes. On the fifth, the instrument is firing off angular percussive impulses, as it is ducking angry robotic fusillades. Similar motives are carefully spread out over most of the material, but these references to traditional melody and harmony are never just clever quotes, but harbingers of the exciting fusion the genre has long promised but failed to deliver: Higucci has gone beyond the mere abstractions of many of his colleagues and, astoundingly, arrived at an all the more progressive statement.Homepage: Higucci
Lowercase Noises
Tobias Fischer Sound Artist Andy Othling uses his loops with care and subtlety: Rather than creating repetitive, hypnotic patterns, Othling switches back and forth between compositional modules with great precision, creating an organic flow between subdued, expectatant passages and elegant dynamic sequences, in which the plaintive splendour of the music is brought to a quiet climax. The performance at hand is already the eleventh part in an ongoing series of spartan videos featuring nothing but close-ups of his legs and effect pedals and airy atmospheric soundscapes, but nowhere has he sounded more brittle and classical than here.Philip Glass: Glassworks
Tobias Fischer Over at amazon, people are still debating, whether it's lazy to just keep on playing the same chords over and over again and if his ideas on harmony are boring. For anyone else, this video of Branka Parlic, who recorded an entire disc of Glass in 2006, performing the opening section of Glassworks may be more rewarding than those discussions.Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night)
Tobias Fischer „Verklärte Nacht“ („Transfigured Night“), originally a String Sextet later reworked into an orchestral tone-poem and a more minimal Piano trio (see our review of a recent performance by the Vienna Piano Trio for an account of the latter's charms), is perhaps the best example of his capacity to evoke a sense of deep yearning and sensuality. Marked by a mostly fluent narrative over the course of its half-hour-long single-movement-structure, the music develops through tight, almost claustrophobic and evocative textures, which spiral slowly but surely towards an uncertain resolution.As befits this passionate outburst, composed in a mere three weeks, Transfigured Night was inspired by his wife-to-be Mathilde and can be regarded as a coded declaration of love.
Shostakovich: Symphony No 5 Movement III – Largo
Tobias Fischer Shostakovich's fifth symphony bares plenty of parallels and resemblances with the work of Mahler, not just with regards to the sound and dramaturgy of the work but also in terms of its underlying concept. The most obvious point of reference perhaps is the third movement of the symphony, a darkly burning Largo around the quarter of an hour mark. Here, Shostakovich evokes the same brooding moods evoked by Mahler's slow movements of his fifth and sixth symphonies, but adds a touch of pitchblack utopian beauty to it – John Frizzell may have been listening to this as he composed the beguilingly ambivalent string palpatations to „Alien Resurrection“.Zelienople: Hollywood
Tobias Fischer There is a fascinating duality to „Hollywood“, whose microstructures, composed of grotesque brass-intermezzi, analog synth blurbs, sustained choir sheets and sweet Flute lines, are composed of a colourful mosaic of broken shards, while combining into a coherent, mesmerising and sweeping macro-cosmos. There is a flow to these two pieces which can only be attained by three musicians sitting in the same room together, yet „Hollywood“ simultaneously makes use of the possibilities of post-production by aligning occasionally stunning inventions into a entirely organic storyline. At the end of „Drug Legs“, a sequencer line peals itself off a static soundscape, infusing it with antsy tension and a bewildering rhythmical urge – this is not for the faint of heart.Homepage: Zelienople
Homepage: Under The Spire Recordings
interviews articles
cd-feature articles
CD Feature/ Nino Rota: "Sinfonia sopra una Canzone d'Amore, Concerto-Soirée for Piano and Orchestra"
CD Feature/ Taylor Deupree, Kenneth Kirschner, Tomas Korber, Steinbrüchel, Aaron Ximm: "May 6, 2001"
movie articles
Our Aim
"One of the leading sources for new music!" (Barry Schrader)A short description of our aim would be:
We set up tokafi as a portal for all those who want to discover and share great new music.
A slightly longer explanation goes like this:
At some point, something went terribly wrong in music journalism. It can all be put down to two factors: The demise of Classical music as a marketable product and the institutionalising of Rock and Pop. The decline of “serious” music led to bitterness and fear of the new. The result: The art-sections of news papers and Classical music magazines withdrew into their shell of intellectualism and rejected everything to do with a bass, a guitar and a drum set. Meanwhile, the Rock revolutionaries of the 60s and 70s saw their dreams endangered by techno and a lively electronic scene. Their answer: Upholding the miracle of Rock n Roll, regardless of its current value. And a rejection of everything to do with more than a bass, a guitar and a drum set.
We can’t deny it: The way the media write and talk about music is influencing our perception of it. And they have lost touch with our lives. There’s disillusionment among all kinds of journalists and it has everything to do with the feeling that a new group of listeners and artists are steeling their memories of youth. It is understandable that someone who dressed in a smoking to meet up with his friends at home and listened to Schumann-Lieder over champagne will be disappointed when young music fans are chilling comfortably in sofas, grooving to hip hop beats. And we can see why someone who has spent years analysing Bob Dylan’s lyrics would turn against a style that has made “Open your mind” its highest intellectual motto. We just wouldn’t want to read their negative thoughts again and again in music magazines. Every day, every week and every month the search continues for another Gould, another Callas, another “wild child” who throws television sets out hotel room windows and dies of an overdose. But who really cares?
Of course, it can be great to argue about music, to talk about it for hours, to categorise it and compare one artist with another. But what it should really be about is finding music that hits you like a bomb in a personal way, like it was made for you and to enjoy it just the way you want. Tokafi is here, so you won’t give up on this. We can assure you: The music you’re looking for is out there, waiting to be found. Actually, there’s probably more of it than you could ever listen to in a lifetime. That’s why, everyday, we present a selection of Classical, experimental, new and avantgarde music, as well as everything else we deem interesting. That’s why we have a radio show that mixes all these styles together, regardless of whether this serves traditional categories. And that’s why we are always happy when you give us a hint and let us know about new artists and albums. After all: Music is a form of human expression, and as such it can elevate your mind and broaden your horizon – if you only rid yourself of expectations and the constant urge to qualify as “bad” all the sounds that merely don’t appeal to you. Come with us on a journey and discover your music!
The Team
Tobias FischerTobias is editor-in-chief of tokafi and a cultural editor for Germany's biggest Printmag on Recording, „Beat“. His main area of interests are the intersections between sound art, classical music and contemporary composition. He has made it his mission to uncover the international aspects of these genres and how their interpretation through the lense of different cultures is shaping a new musical language and community.
Tobias regularly writes for New-Zealand based arts magazine “White Fungus” and has contributed to Online- and Print-Publications such as All About Jazz, Klassik.com, Earlabs, Oro Molido and MacLife. He is also head of the einzeleinheit and ex ovo labels (the latter in unison with Mirko Uhlig) and the man behind the Feu Follet project. Tobias currently lives in Münster, Germany.
Contact Tobias for any editorial questions: tobias@tokafi.com
Dirk Fischer
Dirk is a recording producer. As a founding member of tokafi, he has worked on questions of concept and organisation from day one and mixes and masters the tokafi radioshow.
Starting out as a tape editor and freelance engineer, he has worked for artists such as Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Alfred Brendel, Seiji Ozawa, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. From 2005 – ’07 he was appointed senior engineer of the recording department of international music publisher De Haske Publications, where he worked closely with contemporary composers and numerous accomplished soloists. Since then, he has spent two years in South East Asia, working on a variety of projects in Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing.
Contact Dirk for any questions & suggestions regarding the tokafi radioshow: dirk@tokafi.com
Michael Martinides
Michael is an engineer, homecare consultant and IT specialist. His interest goes out to creating user interfaces, which will create unique and new perceptions of the arts. Through his involvment with tokafi, he was one of the early users of the django content management system. As a musician, he founded the GOS project with Dirk Fischer, releasing two albums of contemporary electronic music. Michael currently works with Linde Homecare in Munich, Germany.
Contact Michael for Website and IT-related questions: michael@tokafi.com
Ralph Grundmann
Ralph Grundmann is an expert in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and marketing manager for tokafi.
After initially meeting as colleagues at a marketing agency, Tobias and Ralph began collaborating on various projects – joining forces with Olaf Spinkel, responsible for technology and development. One of their early projects included a website which would later turn into one of Germany's biggest music portals for Metal and Gothic culture. In 2005, Ralph and Olaf founded AweSEM, concentrating on monetising small to medium sized web projects across different sectors and industries, also offering Online Marketing services to clients in the United Kingdom and Germany. Comprising a quartet with over thirty years of combined experience within the digital marketing industry, AweSEM have had the opportunity to develop and promote many interesting businesses and organisations using individualised digital marketing solutions and a variety of channels. Since 2008, the trio of Ralph, Olaf and Tobias have combined forces again, with AweSEM handling Online Marketing and SEO for tokafi.com. Ralph currently lives in Hamburg, Germany.
Fred M. Wheeler
Fred is a journalist, musician and customer consultant. After a journalistic training (spending part of his time at the famous Aschendorff Verlag) and several years as a writer for big newspapers, he moved his career into international territory. A lengthy stint in Amsterdam followed, as well as a stay in the United States. After braving several hurricanes, it was time to return to his old hometown and take up the profession that fulfills him most: Writing and being involved in publishing. Fred lives in Münster, Germany.
Guillaume Dulhoste
Guillaume is a Quality Manager and Metal editor for tokafi.
Guillaume has been involved in underground Metal journalism for the past ten years. He has written for a variety of publications, including O2 (former AH) as well as Leprozy (Print). In his function as an editor and radio moderator for Metalland.com, he assisted bands in finding distribution deals, never hiding his preference for the more extreme edges of the genre. In early 2009, he joined the ranks of Metal-fourpiece "Memories of Agony", currently preparing for their debut release. Guillaume currently lives in Münster, Germany and heads the tokafi column "Metal Visions International".
Contact Guillaume for Questions about the "Metal Visions International" column: guillaume@tokafi.com
Patrick P.L. Lam
Patrick holds the A.R.C.T. diplomas for Performers and Teachers from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Patrick has a keen interest in the fields of Diabetes and Gastroenterology, in which he is determined to complete a clinician-scientist track in Medicine to merge his academic interests from the bench to bedside. Patrick is the recipient of research awards, including those from the American Diabetes Association, American Gastroenterology Association, Canadian Digestive Health Foundation, Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Hong Kong Medical Association. He has made important scientific contributions in his field with the help of his PhD mentor, Prof. Herbert Y. Gaisano, with scientific publications made available on PubMed.
Besides working on the lab bench, Patrick enjoys his pastimes with family and friends, particularly with the elderly and young kids. He enjoys a variety of indoor and outdoor activities, while Classical Music has remained a #1 passion of his for many years. He has been a freelance music critic and writer for both local and international publications, where his articles have been quoted by colleagues and institutions, such as the HKPO and Opus 3. Patrick is also the contributing founder of the Toronto Mahler Society and the Gustav Mahler Society of Hong Kong, respectively.
For all further inquiries, especially regarding classical reviews & concerts, please contact Patrick at patrick.p.l.lam@tokafi.com
Ansgar Eilting
Ansgar is a free-lance designer and has, among other things, worked on an advertising plot to get people back into classical music halls. He designed the tokafi logo, as well as the signature of its predecessor, “mouvement nouveau”. Ansgar currently lives in Münster, Germany. Visit his homepage at www.eiltinx.de
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