Jena Paradies: May 2005

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Athough the press release states that she released this back in January, i only heard it for the first time last night. The first two songs seem written on the spot, in a ruptured rhythm and with choruses that seem caught in mid-air, announced in a startling yet soft Finnish, as if channeled through a prodigious child. The record then sets into a restrained instrumental pause, after which Islaja's voice re-enters to hover over jangly fiddles, electric guitars, whistles and her own fractured choruses, all the while gently luring me down to attest to the submersion of western civilization into primordial abyss. I'm most certainly coming along.

Friday, May 20, 2005

Two Links

The skinny on Mathew Jonson, an exclusive set consisting of most of his recent output, carefully mixed and arranged into a string of pearls courtesy of Markconsumption.

The new and improved Jena Paradies website is up.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Smoov Crunk for Pimpin' Playaz

DJ-Mixes have been popping like mushrooms after a warm summer rain lately. Supepitcher's Today and M.A.N.D.Y.'s Body Language Vol. 1 are fantastic, but there’s also several mixes and live-sets online that are well worth a spin:

Dirt Crew, aka James Flavour - Dirt Crew DJ Mix - Dirt Crew launch(es) an eponymous imprint of 'Ghetto House with Electro and Disco Influences' and celebrates with an exemplary union of above ingredients. Process, Booka Shade, and that wonderful Sasse remix courtesy of the man himself.

Marc Henning - Mumm-Ra Pick'nMix - This collection comes from the head of the Clever Music net-label. The first 25 minutes or so are unimpeachable as he starts off with arguably one of the earliest examples of what is now called micro-goth, Grungerman’s Fackeln im Sturm. The stygian atmosphere persists for the next 25 minutes or so, before it moves into more clicky territory. Sleek and proper.

Rrimöykk - Avarru - Lush, penetrating and simply sublime experimental dub from Finland. The tracklisting speaks for itself.

Mathew Jonson - LIVE PA at Planet Rose, Belgium on 26-03-2005 - More of a live show than a DJ-mix per-se, but it's something I couldn't stop listening to on repeat lately, despite the occasionally patchy sound quality. Each of his tracks feel like a recurring dream, and the opportunity of hearing them mixed and transformed in real-time ups the magic.

Intruiging Bits of Music Trivia

Below is a collection of random bits of music trivia collected from I Love Music. The Motorhead one is soooo rock-n-roll!

Columbia Records signed The Byrds based on Miles Davis's recommendation.

David Bowie owns the patent for popular game 'Connect 4'.

The climactic feedback in Motorhead's "We Are The Road Crew" wasn't intentional - it was the result of Fast Eddie Clark passing out and falling too close to the amplifiers while recording (!)

Arnold Schoenberg feared he would die during a year that was a multiple of 13. He so dreaded his sixty-fifth birthday that a friend asked composer and astrologist Dane Rudhyar to prepare Schoenberg's horoscope. Rudhyar did this and told Schoenberg that although the year was dangerous, it was not necessarily fatal. Schoenberg survived it. But in 1951, on his seventy-sixth birthday, the Viennese musician and astrologist Oscar Adler wrote Schoenberg a note warning him that the year was a critical one: 7 plus 6 equals 13. This stunned and depressed the composer, for up to that point he had only been wary of multiples of 13 and never considered adding the digits of his age. He became obsessed with this idea and many friends report that he frequently said: "If I can only pull through this year I shall be safe." ... On Friday, July 13, of his seventy-sixth year, Arnold Schoenberg stayed in bed - sick, anxious and depressed. Shortly before midnight his wife leaned over and whispered, "You see, the day is almost over. All that worry was for nothing." He looked at her and died.

More Schoenberg - he named his opera "Moses und Aron" because naming it "Moses und Aaron" would require it having 13 letters in the title.

Friday, May 06, 2005

Black Lips/Dirtbombs, Drunken Unicorn, May 5, 2005.

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Enter Summer

Isolee - We Are Monster (Playhouse, 2005)

Certainly a welcome return, Isolee re-emerges after a six-year break (!) and delivers a sparkling jewel of a record. A beguiling collection of hazy deep house and sun bathed vignettes, it builds upon 2000's 'Rest' and maybe even improves it. The funky percussion, the chunky retro synths and disco throwbacks are still there, but this time also with occasional vocal harmonies upon layers of smart, polished and lusciously funky production. So much more than the sum of its parts, this record stands in a class of its own, and is certainly one of the year's best. At least so far.

Here's one track, titled Enrico.

Jaga Jazzist - What We Must (NinjaTune/Smalltown Supersound, 2005)

I know, the cover was about the only reason I didn't rush off to get this the moment it was announced. Once I got past that, this couldn't have made me happier. Makes me want to drop in words like "mindblowing" and stuff. I'll veer off that route and only say that this is beautiful, beautiful music. Now only if they could do something about that cover...

Oslo Skyline.

Matthew Jonson & The Mole/Axel Bartsch - Speicher 26 (Kompakt Extra, 2005)

Make sure to check out this latest offering from Speicher; the first track is an 11 minute long epic with plenty of Romantic strings and dark bass, whle the B-side simply tears down the establishment, old school style.

Monday, May 02, 2005

Jena Paradies Update

OK,

So there've been a few DJ-sets by Jena Paradies floating around, and I haven't yet thought about putting them up here. So here's two sets, aimed at correcting that.

1. Kunstformen der Natur

01. Pantha du Prince - St. Denis bei Licht (Dial)
02. The MFA - The Difference it Makes (Superpitcher remix) (Kompakt)
03. Dub Taylor - Sweet Lips (Force Tracks)
04. Sami Koivikko - Tyonimi (Shitkatapult)
05. Phonique - The Red Dress (Tiefschwartz remix) (Dessous)
06. Ellen Allien - Fuse (Live Outtake) (Bpitch Control)
07. Jena Paradies - Kotka (Lifeform Project)
08. Heiko Laux - The Silent Bass (Kanzleramt)
09. Sender Berlin - Spaziergang In Neos Kosmos (Tresor)
10. Oliver Hacke - Schoener Wohnen (Trapez)

2. September

Jackmate - Wolfen (Resopal)
Kiki - Up (BPitch Ctrl)
Basteroid - Against Luftwiderstand (Remix by Ada and Jake Fairley)(Areal)
Quarks - Koenigin (Tunnelblick Mix von Turner)(Kompakt)
Losoul - You Know (Playhouse)
Kiki - So Easy to Forget (BPitch Ctrl)
Rex the Dog - We Live in Daddy's Car (Kompakt)
Frivolous - Can't Stop the One, Two... (Karloff)
I:Cube - Arp Surface (Versatile)
Marco Passarani - Clair (Peacefrog)

There's also a 4-track EP titled Ladoga, admittedly in somewhat rough shape, out on Lifeform Project from Atlanta. The last track on that record is going to be re-done and re-mastered this coming week in the Tennesee mountains, and eventually re-released. Way to have your bases covered.

More at www.jenaparadies.com