Kosmonautenschule

Jeremy Jay

2009-02-19T07:16:00.000-08:00

Drunk? Stoned? What was it?
Questions we had to think about while enjoying a free beer and Tom Tom Club in Cologne's “King Georg”.
It was Saturday, 14th of February when we got to know the promise of a nice indie-new wave-disco concert (concert: analog and instruments and stuff) by Jeremy Jay, hailing from L.A., California.

Jeremy attracted our interest through his superb down-tempo cover of Suicide's Ghostrider and after further investigation we did not hesitate to arrange an interview for after the gig when the cologne-show was announced.
It led us down to the lowlands of our belief and “King Georgs”, right into the storage cellar where I once more pulled out my ancient recorder.
We thought about not posting the following, but for various reasons we did. Everything is literally typewritten. We did not change or cut a word.
Find it whatever you want. Funny, sad, confusing, annoying...

What we're planning on doing with „Ghostrider“ is to put it on a b-side...of something...I don't know.
Actually we have a session tomorrow in Amsterdam.

Oh yeah, you're playing in Amsterdam tomorrow. Where are you playing?

I don't know how to pronounce it...but we have this session there tomorrow...but it's probably going to be on a b-side of a 7” or 12”.

That would be cool. We're so much into vinyl you know. CD doesn't mean anything to us.

Not more than MP3.

Sometimes...I don't know...that's the thing. Like our new record “Slow Dance” has been downloaded for free so many times. (weird noises) Well, I mean I'm saying it's not even out yet till next month.

You just sold it.

Well, because I had one copy. I have one and she asked me for it, I was like: “ok”. But we will have a “Slow Dance” Record-Release-Party in Paris on March 14th. That's a secret show. Record Release!

Where is it?

Fleche D'or. The show is gonna be...sold out. I mean it's gonna be packed. A good show. You should go!

Ok. Actually, how does it come that you do, you know, so many 80s New Wave Covers?

I did New Horizon, Ghostrider...

New Horizon was originally by?

Section 25. That's on the CD that you didn't get. (Hilarious laughter)

Yeah.

Yeaaaah. But it won't be on anything else. I mean it's not going to come out.

But how come that you do this kind of stuff?

I make CDs that are handmade.

Yeah, yeah. Ok.

That are special. Not through a record label. I make it personally.

Yeah yeah ok, cool, but...

And that is made for a tour you know...we probably got bonus songs like stuff that we just do and...the CD is this record plus 6 songs. Like “Jeremy's On Fire”, a Brian Eno cover, Section 25 cover, Blondie cover...

Yeah but what I wanted to know is...this kind of 80s new wave stuff is one of you big influences or how does it come that yo do these ones?

The way that I did the “ghostrider” was...I was listening to the record and then I slowed it down four times. You know : danananananana and then: den den/den den/den den/den den

Sounds like B52s.

Ja. den den/den den you know like the “Planet Claire” record. Yes I guess you can almost compare it to “Planet Claire”...Almost. But not.(laughter) ...But for no reason, I mean, a year ago I was doing more show tunes like “You are My Lucky Star” from the movie “Boy Friend”, MGM 1971 I covered it on another tour-cd. More romantic stuff. And this kind of stuff was more for shows. You know, you can play “Ghostrider” for show and it's fun. But stuff like “You Are My Lucky Star”...we played it one show at “The Smell” in L.A...like in 2007...and that was on another...I mean I do a lot of covers all the time.

Why is it so?

I don't know. I get inspired to. I mean I did a Section 25...one that isn't released...”Looking From A Hilltop”...

I know that song.

Well I did that one and “New Horizons”...

Yeah yeah but what is interesting to me that the songs in their original form are quite different from what you are actually playing.

Well the way that I play “Ghostrider” and the way that we were there is on “Slow Dance” and like other songs that we play live is similar the way I play it. It goes together in a show you know.
And tonight we did “The Living Dolls” with just a guitar and that to me is special to me like that's where I come from. I love the dancey stuff but I also like to rewind and backup and be serious. (laughter).

I also recognized you often got disco beats in the background. The drummer plays this disco kinda thing. One of your influences?

Mhm...

You got a synthesizer...

I think the new record “Slow Dance” has a couple of disco beats.

Where does that come from?

I don't know. 70s....

You're into that kind of stuff?

Oh yeah. I've got hundreds of records. Vinyl (laughter).

What's your favourite artist of that era? Late 70s / 80s.

I like Pop Music. One of my favourite bands of Pop from the 70s is definitely...

(One of the Clubs employees now enters)

“Hallo.”

Hallo.

“Beautiful concert.”

Thank you so much.

“Thank YOU so much. Do you have the key?”

I have the keys...these ones?

“No for the wardrobe?”

No I don't. I tried to get in.

“He said he gave you the key.”

No he gave me these ones.

“Oh you're doing an interview?”

You ruined it.

“lalala. I ruin everything.”

Soooooo.eeeeh...

Favourite Pop-Band...

Oh yeah I mean...whatever.

No no. You just wanted to tell us your favourite Pop-Band.

Oh no no no. no! Blondie. Debbie Harry?

You just had one in mind.

That's the one I was going to say. Debbie Harry? But yeah It's like you know...fun you know. Not serious...fun. But... New York City 75...74.
I think I should go back up.

myspace.com/jeremyjay

Rebolledo

2008-12-02T04:46:00.000-08:00

„I don't really get along with computers“ is a sentence that makes musicians appear likeable. In a time where so many new releases never saw real instruments from a distance it is unfortunately very rare.
Mauricio Rebolledo belongs to this romantic type, that still prefers the warm unperfectness created by analog instruments.
Born in Xalapa, now living in Monterrey, Mexico, he started his musical career in 2002 behind the DJ stand fighting like a „Guerrero“ against the predominant „plain and monotone sets“ he hates.
„When I DJ I don't lock myself up in one specific genre.[...]I like playing music from really new to really old.[...]I like to mix house and techno tracks, I play my own productions...a lot of disco, but actually...any kind of music can pop up during my sets.“
6 years later then only DJing did not suffice no more. Rebolledo felt the necessity of producing his own music.
This is the moment where globetrotter Matias Aguayo and his new label Cómeme came into play.
Aguayo, a former member of Closer Musik on Kompakt had moved back from Cologne to Buenos Aires where he organizes parties called Bumbumbox with some friends. The collaboration also gave birth to a new label (Cómeme) and Rebolledo, for the time being, ranks among the tiny South American selection of artists (the other ones: Matias Aguayo, Chantal, Diegors and Djs Pareja)
“Matias and me got to know eachother a couple of years ago when he came to play in Mexico. We became friends and kept in touch. The last time he came, almost one year ago, I told him about my desire of starting to produce and he said he was interested in listening to my ideas. When I started to make my own music he would always listen to it...and liked it right from the start.“

Back to present and computers: Rebolledo creates his sounds in various ways. Producing „Guerrero“ for example, he used some kind of electronic toy drums, that he bought on a Mexican market for a mite. Other instruments of choice are basic synthesizers, maracas, cowbells, various percussion instruments and even his own voice to create bass-lines, melodies and rhythm. Whenever he's making use of effects, they have to be analog („I prefer to produce and record them in real time“) Being no accomplished musician his way of producing is a lot of playing around, testing sounds and noises.
„I don't have any musical background nor education, I come from the DJ stand. My music is probably not the best for listening to on the Ipod...but it totally works on the dancefloor. All tracks have a reason or objective,...an intention to provoke the crowd.
My music might appear basic, simple and repetitive, but smartly used you have great results on the dancefloor.“
Whenever there is need for extern input he has his friend DanDaMan a.k.a. Daniel Gutierrez, who in fact has this musical education as a sound engineer.
„Producing with him I can make use of other other elements than in my solo productions. We add guitars (he plays them)...analog synthesizers...a moog and a juno by roland...among other things. If you listen to his solo music you will notice that what we do together is kind of a mixture between his instrumental rock-pop and my simple sound, made for the dancefloor.“

At the end Rebolledo can't avoid working with a computer to put all the sounds together. (I think we can cope with it.)
As already revealed before, his DJ-sets no genresque borders, so that his eclectic musical influence he names is not too surprising: besides the psychedelic elements of West Coast House, Disco, Da Funk by Daft Punk („key moment“), Mareadora by Greenvelvet he doesn't even shie away from Country music.“But it's not only music that inspires me, when I want to make music I rather think of emotions and intentions than of other music. A lot of things are based on ideas and memories from my childhood. My imagination was totally released and crazy those days“

Cómeme plans to release their first records at the beginning of 2009. Here probably distributed on Kompakt.

myspace.com/rebolledosound
myspace.com/musicacomeme
myspace.com/dandamansound
myspace.com/bumbumbox

Algo en espanol

Diamonds In The Dark

2008-11-26T05:04:00.000-08:00

S I X Q U E E N S
P A S S T H E M E T R O
C O U N T R Y W A L K S
G I L S L E E P I N G
T H E B O Y W H O K I L L E D T I M E
M O T O R C Y C L E
T H E S U N D O N ' T S H I N E
M E E T M E B Y T H E G E T A W A Y C A R
C Y C L O P S
A U T O N O M Y B O Y
B R E A K I N G T H E I C E
C L E A R S K I E S
H I D D E N T R A C K

Kosmonautenschule - Diamonds In The Dark

Ojos de Agua

2008-11-07T15:30:00.000-08:00

I could lie. I could make up a really special and cool place to make this more interesting. But I won't. It was a pizza place in Uyunin, Bolivia, a village that lives of this adjoining Saltfield and natural park, attracting many tourists, where I met these two people, even hailing from Buenos Aires. Consisting of a male bongo/guitar player and a completey divine singer, Ojos de Agua play rhythm reduced (yes, again), accoustic, ethnic Latin American music (actually African stuff too as I had to discover listening to the cd).
However, in this overprized restaurant, with only a few backpackers, I was the only one applauding after the songs. Well, of course when I did so, the packers felt too unconvenient to go on refraining.
Yeah, I want to denounce this culture of travelling around, but not opening oneself for the stuff you see or hear. Example: I'm sitting in the middle of nowhere on 5000 metres, having no hot water, but having to listen to "Söhne Mannheims" out of some German's Ipod (feel lucky if you don't know them) instead of some fresh Bolivian flute tunes.
So now, after this post's portion of social criticism, just go for the music. Like it.

Aguas De Ojo - Unknown

Aguas De Ojo - Unknown

Aguas De Ojo - Unknown

Aguas De Ojo - Unknown

Aguas De Ojo - Unknown

Aguas De Ojo - Unknown

Chancha Vía Circuito

2008-10-20T16:41:00.000-07:00

... that is Pedro Canale, a lanky, young musician, hailing from the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Pedro made himself a really well fitting name here as Chancha Vía Circuito (more or less like: „small wooden cart on the railroad“) in urban beats club Zizek, which meanwhile also became a record-label and is celebrating its second anniversary these days. The really interesting and attracting thing about his label is, that it not just queued itself into the row of these million labels, with their similar sounding and irrelevant electronic productions, trying to get a piece of cake from the big players. All the artists, playing in Zizek every thursday, follow their Latin-American roots, trying to transfer the music to presence and just doing something new, something unique in order to set themselves apart from the pabulum.

Therefore Pedro focuses on Cumbia, a really popular type of music, still nowadays in South America, especially Argentina, Mexico, Peru and Panama. It originally came from Africa, as music of the courtship ritual and was called cumbe. Through the Spanish colonization and Spain's need for gratis workers, cumbe came to Latin-America on board of the slave ships. At that time it was played with just drums and claves (percussion instrument, consisting of two thick dowels).
The slaves naturally came in touch with the indigenous population (obviously slaves as well) and borrowed their typical instruments like flutes and percussion instruments.Cumbia was born. For a long time, the music and dance, as part of the courtship ritual, were considered vulgar and a „thing“ of the lower class. Nevertheless you nowadays also find an European influence in the music, since it can contain guitars, accordeons, bass guitars and the modern flute.
Until today, Cumbia developed to various directions apart from the classical way. There exists Cumbia Villera, which comes from the slums, as well as cumbia rap and tecnocumbia.

Pedro interpretes it his own way, electronic- and digitally, slipping in folk and music that he grew up or rather dealt with in earlier projects. Although he produces with a computer, he sounds organically, almost like real sampled sounds of everyday life. His music is very reduced and rhythm focused, downbeat, but danceable; a thing that is important to him...

Let's start with the most important thing: How do you work? How do you produce you music?

In the first place I dedicate a lot of time on developping a library of sounds that attracts me. That can include elements recorded at home like samples from other librarys or other music. With those sounds then I set my base in Fruty Loops (Sequencer) and export it against to Cubase (Multitrack) where I add accoustic and virtual instruments and vocals.

Which instruments do you use?

Various percussion instruments, guitars, flute, synthesizers etc.

What are your influences and what are your inspirations working on new material?

I have many influences because I listen to loads of different styles of music. For this particular project I would say it's Latin American Cumbia, folk from the Peruvian plateau, Dub, Minimal and IDM among others.

It's probably obvious...but I know Cumbia only for little time: what is the relation between your music and classic Cumbia?

It is highly related since this type of music is one or the principal influences.

When did you feel like starting a project where you can deal with Latin-American music?

Particularly when I felt the necessity of making danceable music. That was the point when I rediscovered the marvellous world of Latin-American Rhythm, like Cumbia.

How did you „enter“ this world?

Thanks to internet and fanatic friends I got acquainted with different styles of Cumbia, such as the Colombian, the Mexican, the Peruvanian etc...

Your music is extremely reduced and downbeat. In my opinion different to the other artists on ZZKRECORDS. How did the collaboration start off?

It started with the Zizek party; The alter-ego Chancha Vía Circuito and Zizek were born at the same time. This project is different to the others because each artist of the label reinterpretes these musical roots in a completely personal way.

How did the ZIZEK people get to new eachother?

Although some of them already new eachother before, we all came together in ZIZEK.

What do you think of the musical scene of Buenos Aires?

I think there are a lot of really talented people making music here...really good producers, which not necessarily are the often seen faces on the these mega-partys from the pop-scene.
The people of our underground predominantly more interesting. You just need to pay atention.

If you could change something, what would it be?

I would give upcoming talents more space to present themselves.

ZIZEK just became two years. What does that club mean to you?

It means a lot. First, because the guy who realised these parties is my brother (a.k.a NiM) and I started working with him right from the beginning. Second, because thanks to it, a lot of musicians like me got the chance to experiment with the dance floor, the place where we all grew up.

Do you consider it a movement?

Actually yes, I don't know any other club, as impartial as this one, where you can here fresher sounds and with so many competent musicians who really want to produce something.

Although it is really unique music, based on a certain part of the world, do you think Zizek will still grow? Maybe get famous in other parts of the world?

Yes; I think we will continue growing. Not only because it is good music, but because we're transforming all the time, like in a constant change, invastigating new rhythms and sounds.

What kind of people go to Zizek?

All kinds of people. Also foreigners.

Which music do you play there?

Only my own music. And I always invite musicians and singers.

Where do these people come from?

In general they're friends, people I made music with or people I got to know through my music.

You've got two more projects: Universildo and Verde Kiri. Which creative needs do you serve with these ones? Are there differences in the way you produce?

Verde Kiri was the first one, there I play an accoustic guitar. It is a lot more introspective and reflexive. Universildo is similar, but composed with a computer, actually way of composing as with Chancha Vía Circuito.

Which on of these products do you like most at the moment?

Right now I'm really enthusiastic with Chancha. I love it that the people dance to what I do.

Are you planning to publish more as Chancha after the Rodante record?

Yeah, I'm actually composing right now...I'm definitely going to publish more.

When?

Possibly next year.

Thank you

myspace.com/chanchaviacircuito

Die Aufreisser

2008-09-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

Acht wilde Raubkatzen warten auf Ihre Dressur...

I can't say what exactly made me flip this compilation to check out which tracks were featured on it (I actually don't know what made me dig through the filthy compilation bin at all, let's call it fate hehe). But i guess the trash-as-trash-can-styled cover artwork was one reason to pause in front of it . The german descriptions printed on the cover ("8 hot disco-singles - a special release for discjockeys") gave me the rest so I gave the whole thing a try.
Big respect goes to the guy responsible for the promo texts. To stand out in this crap producing branch is not easy but he does easily with sentences like these: "Eight cats of prey are waiting for your dressage: Why don't you put a leash on these wild cats? You will see how tenderly they can purr, these beasts with velvet paws."
It's always surprising and funny when you discover tracks on comps like that which you never ever would have presumed to be there. In this case among all the other bullshit there is this little piece of early cosmic essence:

John Forde - Stardance

"Englishman John Forde has been workin as a studio musician
for a long time, before his voice was spotted. His specialty: Keyboards.
He used this perfection for his first single "Stardance", whose
space rock sound climbed the british charts astronomically fast."

That's what the descriptional text says here. And beside the fact that I can't imagine that this track would have ever seen the charts from any distance , I agree on the text in this case.
Stardance was originally released in 1977 as a 7" and was later also featured on the Woman 12" by John Forde. These releases are very hard to find nowadays as they got some hype because they were favourites of DJs like Daniele Baldelli and later on DJ Harvey.
What's so special about Forde's work is in my opinion the functional use of synths at this early point. The usual disco orchestration is replaced by the cosmic sounding synthesizers giving it a futuristic feel. This kind of production actually sounds quite up-to-date even today. I would give a lot to be living at this time, the late 70s, where the synthesizers started to conquer dance music. Dancing to this kind of music must have given a strange and exciting feeling to the crowd.
The song-writing and the way John Forde is singing here on the other hand are a bit too much for me. But sometimes that kind of cheesy athmosphere is also working for me. The louder I play it the more i like it.
Also, if you are into this kind of stuff, you should definitely check out the "dirty space disco" compilation by the dirty soundsystem. There is also a track by John Forde featured on it: "Atlantis". This one is even more cheesy and therefore not really my cup of tea, but there's some other really nice stuff to be discovered.

Nehmen Sie unsere Wildkatzen doch mal an die Leine.
Dann werden Sie schon sehen, wie zärtlich die schnurren
können, diese Aufreißer mit Samtpfoten.

2008-08-07T01:04:00.000-07:00

Machine Gun (No Vocals Edit)

We Carry On (No Vocals Edit)

Coming back to you with quality journalism soon. hopefully.

Summer Slump

2008-07-28T03:46:00.001-07:00

Wtf

2008-07-07T07:04:00.000-07:00

A bit too late for a CSD special i'm afraid...

Suicide

2008-06-17T15:37:00.000-07:00

Tonight I want to draw attention to music that touched me a lot lately: No Wave. Actually the so called godfathers of this „non“-movement: Suicide. Besides the super-coolish name, the first song I got to hear was „Dance“, a tune lets me shake immediately putting it on my record player. Martin Rev, one half of the duo, created these totally hypnotic and driving beats on a broken drum-machine that was used for bar mitzvahs earlier while Alan Vega sang and talked on it. His vocal style referred to Rockabilly and method acting.
Suicide's irregular concerts frequently ended in a mess and were abandoned very fast; their texts often dealt with The American Dream and its brokenness which during the 70s would often hit an audience with little understanding. Nevertheless they had a concept that brought them the status of an art-band and inspired leaders of No Wave, probably the most radical scene ever, such as Lydia Lunch, who got literally adopted by Rev, and James Chance.
With their debut LP 1977 Rev and Vega led New York's underground scene out of the blind alley of punk with all its conservatism in music production.
Although Suicide nowadays is regarded as an inspiration of bands like DNA, Mars, James Chance & The Contortions etc. they were much straighter and more stringent compared to the total chaos a few years later.

The following two dancing-musts both occur on „Second Album“ from 1980.

Suicide - Harlem

Suicide - Dance

And don't miss the chance of watching insanity:

Der Räuber Und Der Prinz

2008-06-08T15:05:00.000-07:00

Kosmonautenschule is proud to present the Düsseldorf-Berlin collaboration Der Räuber Und Der Prinz consisting of Sebastian Lee Philipp from Noblesse Oblige and Ralf Beck from Unit 4. We first heard Der Elektrische Reiter in 2007 when it was played on beats in space and now, short-time before they're finally releasing their 12", we felt like posting something about this coolish instant-classic. With their analog way of producing they're sounding so much more timely and outstanding compared to many other current releases.
Here we have a short interview with the newest act on Amontillado records:

Hello!
How did this collaboration come about?

Ralf: We met at the Salon des Amateurs in Düsseldorf. Sebastian did a Gig with Noblesse Oblige and later we talked about the possibility of a N.O. Remix for Musiccargo.
So somehow we ended up doing a studio recording session, taping Sebastian on a broken 3 String electric guitar.

Sebastian: Yes, our mutual friend Mr. Tolouse Low Trax introduced us and when I saw all the equipment in Ralf’s studio I was eager to play around with it.

Does this DAF quote with your name have any deeper sense? Or is it just random?

Ralf: Sebastian dropped the name all of a sudden while hanging out at the RIO club in Berlin.
We are both fans of DAF, you could say random.

Sebastian: It was a spontaneous decision. There's the Düsseldorf reference of course. I recently met Robert Görl and told him about the project and he seemed happy about this little tribute in our name.

What about “The Electric Horseman”? We first thought of Joachim Witt until we found out it is a film.

Ralf: Yes it is a film. But it does not relate to this movie. We just like everything that relates to horse riding in general i think.

Sebastian: I didn’t realise there was a film called The Electric Horseman! The title came from Ralf’s twisted mind.

Where did you record?

Ralf: We record/recorded at the Uhrwald Orange and Sebastian’s Studio in London/Berlin.

You produced your music only with analogue equipment. What kind of advantages do you see going this way?

Ralf: More time for playing music, not programming music.

Sebastian: Like preparing a nice home cooked meal rather than a microwave dinner. You can taste the love in it.

In how far do you think that such an “old-fashioned” way of producing can still lead to a modern sound?

Ralf: Well, the word "modern" is an oldschool relic itself. I think Kasimir Malewitsch´s "Sieg über die Sonne" will give here some brief answers. Today’s average music production uses the development of music progression of the last 30 or 40000 years. So everything is quite oldschool. The most oldschool thing ever is a singing voice. The age of an instrument will say nothing about its quality of sound it can reproduce. Imagine the invention of the wheel or eating bread, it’s so oldschool. Retro fashion has always been on demand. The American Capitol, it’s a Greek temple. So to say, a well balanced combination of temporarily forgotten and recent clichés will do the job.

Seb: When music contains “soul” it becomes timeless.

How would you describe your style, influences etc?

Ralf:
Style: Analog.
Influence: A pair of my parents Acoustic Research A3-3a speakers along with a collaboration with Karl Bartos, Lothar Manteufel and Emil Schult for the "Electric Music" project and my friends’ record collections.

Sebastian: Ralf introduced me to some great music I hadn’t heard before like Indoor Life or Geile Tiere. I sent him some soundtracks I was really obsessed with like Stuart Staple’s score of the Claire Denis film L’Intrus or Michael Bundt’s The Brain of Oskar Panizza.
So I think we influence each other with our music knowledge which we obviously incorporate in our own music.

Are there things you can let out as DRUDP which you’re not able to as UNIT 4 or NOBLESSE OBLIGE?

Ralf: Of course, together we create a different mood. But it’s not made of the need to do so.
It’s just natural.

Sebastian: The music comes out of these moments that develop in a very natural way.

Sebastian, you know both: creating music, playing gigs, spinning records in Berlin AND in Düsseldorf. Do you see any differences?

Sebastian: Of course there are a few differences because there’s a lot more access to music and bands in Berlin nightlife, whereas in Düsseldorf there is only one good club. So when I think about the Düsseldorf scene I really mean only the SDA which through its programmation and music policy has become a place for people to discover music if they want to, which I think is a rarer thing to happen in Berlin nightlife for instance.

When do you release your 12”?

16th of June in selected record stores. A list of stores is available soon at
www.amontillado-music.com or www.myspace.com/amontilladomusic.
There will also be a release party on June 14th at the Salon des Amateurs Düsseldorf.
The B-Side track "Torpedovogel" is featured in the upcoming New York "K48 mix" artzine.

And afterwards: Any plans for the future of this project?

We are working on a new 12" and would like to have a finished album soon.

Check out Der Elektrische Reiter, Torpedovogel and Stripped Reiter on myspace.com/derräuberundderprinz
and don't miss the release-party on 14.07. at Salon Des Amateurs!

Unfinished stuff

2008-06-02T04:57:00.000-07:00

To allude yesterday's comment I want to show you this:

For the first time the arrangement of Why me was released in 1982 on X Records titled No Human. It came out simultaneously with the more known Explorer. Both records were results of the cooperation between Tony Carey and Peter Hauke who produced it.
Carey said :"Explorer and one called No Human were just ... some guy raping my archives. I didn't even know about two of the releases. It's all unfinished stuff."

Adoring the version of No Human I feel like the mentioned guy must have been a clairvoyant who saved the unfinished stuff before the Planet P-rape one year later on Geffen Records.
Nevertheless, another example shows how the ingenious duo in fact was able to finish their stuff: the track No. 8 was used for the Hai Samurai 12" release under Carey's alias Yellow Power in 1982 which was re-released on the Dirty Space Disco compilation last year.

Explorer - No. 8

Sad story:
Last week we found a original No Human for incredible 7 Euro on the internet. After an affirmation on the part of the seller the next day he wrote that he didn't have it anymore. Probably found out about his crazy offer...

What remains...at the end of the week (XXII)

2008-06-01T08:56:00.000-07:00

No Human - Why Me (incomplete)
Cevin Spacey doesn't get how Tony Carey could dare singing on that.

Nina Simone - Ain't Got No (I Got Life)
Captain Clark ain't got no shoes.

Capturing The Streets

2008-05-29T08:13:00.000-07:00

"The city is a ‘body without organs’, as Deleuze says, an intersection of channeled flows. The skaters* themselves come from the territorial order. They territorialize decoded urban spaces – a particular street, wall or district comes to life through them, becoming a collective territory again."

Jean Baudrillard

What remains...at the end of the week (XXI)

2008-05-25T07:29:00.000-07:00

Propaganda - P-Machinery (Beta Mix)
Cevin Spacey + Düsseldorf = infinite affection

Foreverly Brothers - All I Have To Do Is Dream
Captain Clark is the Reläxxer of the week.

What remains...at the end of the week (XX)

2008-05-18T11:21:00.000-07:00

Neon Judgement - Voodoo Nipplefield
Cevin Spacey finally has time for voodoo and nipples.

Troy Tate - Love Is (Dance Mix)
Captain Clark's borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered 80s.

What remains...at the end of the week (XIV)

2008-05-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

The Organ - Memorize The City
The Cevin Spacey is indie.

Jack Bruce - Make Love (Part II)
Captain Clark wants to make love to you.

Gorillaz LP

2008-05-05T12:51:00.000-07:00

I lately dug up this highlight of my childood when I was driving and looked through the cds in my glove box. It's really uncool to post it, eh? Yeah, maybe.
But what I want to get at is not the ultra-funny and cool story about this notorical mopish cartoon band and neither is it Damon Albarn, De La Soul or Dan The Automator since you can read about all that stuff on wikipedia if you really want to.
It's basically about my astonishment when I fingered out the cd. With my 11 years in 2001, when their debut came out I more or less skipped from Clint Eastwood to 19-2000 to Rock The House and didn't really get the album. Now, 7 years and a musical emancipation later these songs seem boring and straight. Tunes like Double Bass and Latin Simone (Que pasa con tigo) now attract me with their undetermination and tastefulness aside from any mainstream capacity and built up cultic factor. You can't really declare the album good; the wanted eclecticism is definitely forced to much. The dispensable punk-song Punk at least includes a certain irony but other tracks like M1 A1 are just over the top. Albarn wanted to run riot with this project but wasn't officially included in the progress of producing. I find that without his voice on some songs (listen to Starshine) the whole record would have gained a lot.
The evidence that the project as such already created quotable material is supplied by remixes or fine-tuning by Quiet Village and on Chapter One of the DFA Remixes.

Gorillaz - Latin Simone (Que pasa con tigo)

Gorillaz - Double Bass

What remains...at the end of the week (XVIII)

2008-05-04T06:21:00.000-07:00

The Smiths - Meat Is Murder
Cevin Spacey likes animals...fried.

SBB - Trojkat Radosci
Captain Clark says nothing, because it would destroy the beauty.

Baleardo Villalobos

2008-04-28T09:02:00.001-07:00

Watching this video totally made my day when I saw it. Ricardo takes an old South American folk tune and is mixing it with a deep German minimal techno track. Seems to be an incredible moment for the crowd which is completely out of control. I wish I was among them! The video proves that Ricardo is really holding an exceptional position in the techno scene. There’s not a single other DJ who can create such an emotional moment. And Ricardo is always testing borders and sometimes even passing them. It’s the love to music, the curiousness, a daring attitude, being keen on experimenting, what it’s about. Ricardo is one of the very few DJs where I can see these ambitions. What a pity that I don’t like most of Minimal at all…

Ricardo doesn’t get tired of pointing out that he sees so many origins and analogies of modern dance music in old folklore from South American. A kind of music he often came across with as a child, because his family comes from Chile and he was also born there. He came to Germany when he was three years old. And Germany stands for a tradition of creating and developing electronic music, he says in one of his interviews. It’s probably these two halves which characterise him well. And the video above captures this kind of background quite accurately! And it proves how based on rhythmical elements such an old folk tune can be. It stays in beat the whole time, probably because of Ricardo’s mixing skills, too.

However, people were so surprised when he took Shackleton’s “Blood On My Hands” and integrated it into his sets. It’s a Dubstep track, dark and mesmerizing, but quicker than most of Dubstep. There’s no straight beat, just lots of congas and percussions. It’s a risk to play this to the common techno crowd I guess. But it just made sense. I totally dig the Voodoo-Vibe of this piece of music. Ricardo later turned it into monster remixing it. This track was SO dark and hypnotic. An almost 20-minutes-long trip through the evil parts of human life. It became one of the few tracks I like of the minimal genre!

When Ricardo spoke to German Groove Magazine last year, he said he wishes for a place where the music would be played the whole day and would not have to fulfil any dance-expectations. I like this No-Rule-Mentality. It shows where things should go to. And I’d love to hear the music Ricardo would play without having to entertain the minimal crowd.

For me, it’s just a question of time before this guy will break out, step free, whatever! Perhaps an exceptional mix for this blog would be a good start, Ricardo? Hehe…Till then, just keep it up dude!

What remains...at the end of the week (XVII)

2008-04-27T08:08:00.000-07:00

Plaza Hotel - Bewegliche Ziele
Cevin Spacey thanks Jaki for producing, Tako for digging and Dette for playing it last night.

Yello - Salut Mayoumba
Captain Clark hears an important battle being lost in this.

Mythos

2008-04-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

Mythos was a Berlin krautrock band that existed in various orders from 1969-1981 with singer Stephan Kaske as its only constant. Together with bassist Harold Weiße and drummer Thomas Hildebrand, who were all self-taught musicians, he founded the band in 1969. After their debut Mythos from 1971 they split and Kaske recruited Axel Brauer on drums and Michael Krantz on bass for a new attempt. This formation never recorded anything though. Stephan Kaske then tried his luck as solo artist still using the Mythos pseudonyme and killing time with TV and film soundtracks. In 1975 Mythos published their/his second LP Dreamlab. One year later Kaske took Sven Dohrow as guitarist,Eberhard Seidler as bassist and Ronnie Schreinzer as drummer in Mythos. Their sound now became more concrete compared to former releases. After Strange Guys (1978) and Concrete City (1979) they changed to Sky label and recorded their two best albums Quasar (1980) and Grand Prix (1981). Afterwards Kaske left the band in order to pursue solo projects. Schreinzer and Dohrow founded that trash synth-pop band The Twins; this shows quiet well who was head of Mythos, doesn't it;)?

The track Grand Prix from the homonymous LP appears on Savant Dance by Tolouse Low Trax beginning at minute 43. It attracted my attention and let me buy Quasar lately. It ends with when the show's just begun, a melancholic ballad with awesome harmonies and beautiful vocals. Listening to other songs, such as just a part I find that the singing often sounds really unmotivated and destroys the outstanding melody.

Mythos - Grand Prix

Mythos - when the show's just begun

Mythos - just a part

What remains...at the end of the week (XVI)

2008-04-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

Mistral -Starship 109
Cevin Spacey's soundtrack of infinite freedom.

Lou Reed - The Bed
The perfect escape from all last week's excitements for Captain Clark.

Tolouse Low Trax

2008-04-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, this time it's really special for us. Hopefully for you too. We are more than proud to present you an interview with Detlef Weinrich and an exclusive mix by him. He's the man behind the turntables at the Salon Des Amateurs over here in Düsseldorf, member of the succesful band Kreidler and also producing his own stuff under the alias Tolouse Low Trax. We have spent so many Saturday nights losing ourselves to the music played at the salon, staring at the turntables with dim eyes and trying to make out the names on the labels. Listening to "Savant Dance" captures quite well the musical experience at this place. It's especially the variety of different styles and genres that makes this mix appear very modern without losing a certain coherence. We were also able to meet Detlef and talk about his story, his productions, Düsseldorf, the Salon and so on. We even ended up philosophying about the state of music today and its problems...So here's the result of a nice meeting on a Wednesday evening with some tea and beer, a crappy voice-recorder, but the right music in the background:

Your name Tolouse Low Track is an allusion to painter Henri de Toulouse Lautrec. Why did you choose this pseudonyme?

In 2002 during the „Hell-Gruen“ art competition here in Düsseldorf I did a live gig in a former bar of mine called „Baron“, which I ran with a friend called Aron, who somehow played with this Tolouse thing before. Cause I needed a name since this was actually my first solo project, I just took Tolouse Low Track. Being honest I don't really know much about him except that he liked visiting brothels.

The pseudonym alludes more to my own music than to my DJ activity but I use it therefore as well.

Are you from Düsseldorf?

No, I'm from Southern Germany, near Swiss border.

Since when are you living in Düsseldorf?

1992

Did you start with Kreidler then?

No, I first started studying sculpture at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1993 where I then met Stefan Schneider who brought me to Kreidler, first just for DJing, because I played a lot black poetry records at that time, which well fitted to the Kreidler gigs. Later then I became a full band-member. In fact that didn't really agree with my studies which maybe explains that I didn't finish it.

Did you immediately have success?

Actually yeah. Of course we started playing small gigs but our first tape was already published on some Parisian label. Then Spex Magazine came and we glided into this post-rock discussion and everybody was like „You're from Düsseldorf, you're Krautrock!“. Later Klaus Dinger did something with us so that our fame-grade increased really fast; Especially in Japan. When I went there with my art-course I discovered real supporters clubs and found us in lots of magazines, which was somehow weird to me cause I didn't know Krautrock at all at that time...“Neu“ was neu to me.

Does Kreidler still exist?

Yes, we just started doing sessions...drums, bass, samplers, keyboards, almost no editing. But there are still a lot of questionmarks. Don't know yet if we can publish on our old label for example.We'll see.

You let of steam with your solo-project the last years?

Definitely. There was this record on Amontillado (Boarding to Rio), a tour with Goethe Institute and Stefan Schneider in Siberia and some smaller concerts. Couldn't advance it as ambitioned as I wanted to since Salon requires a lot of my time but I definitely need that...making music.

When did Salon des Amateurs open?

In 2004.

Did you plan DJing here?

Yes of course. DJjing and having a voice in the musical choice. That was clear when it opened.

Did you play those cosmic records right from the beginning?

No. That developed during the last 1 and a half year...with its full consequence. I rather knew the cosmic stuff from my youth. If you're living near Swiss border you went clubbing in Basel and Zurich and that's where cosmic was played. Or also in Northern Italy.

In every Swiss record store you could buy those Loda and Baldelli tapes which I found so great. It was so strange music, so different. But I first really started busying myself with it two years ago.

When I did the first cosmic evening here, when I really called it like that, there were about 5 people here. One was from Bavaria and he was the only one who knew it

You’re friends with Beppe Loda, how did this come about?

I think I just wrote him. I had many of his tapes and became interested in the tracks as such.

How would you describe Salon audience? People who are interested in the music, or just the hedonistic party crowd?

I think it's always a mixture. Of course you sometimes wish that people are more interested in the music. I'm always happy when there are 4,5 people who ask me what I'm playing right now on a Wednesday evening. But it's not always like that, I think it can't be. Therefore Düsseldorf is too small.

When it comes to age it's getting really interesting. We have the full spectrum here I think and that's what we always wanted, that's what makes a club good in my opinion. There are the older people who rather know this Sky or Klaus Schulze record and the young ones come and ask what it is whereas the older ones are happy it's played...I find it beautiful.

When did you actually start going to the SALON?

Well, one of the first nights I remember was the BLACK DEVIL gig. The show was simply amazing!

Oh yeah, the show was totally rad! I was very proud that I got the guys to play here. That night was extraordinary; it was really a big highlight for me. It was also quite expensive for us, but we got aid money from the “institute francaise”, because they support us financially once in a year. Then you can do such a night.

Also the music you were playing before and afterwards really amazed us. That was about the time when we started to wonder where all this beautiful music played here was coming from.

That’s quite interesting because the spectrum is really diversified. There’s plenty of stuff to discover. You can always find new incredible records. It’s really open minded. And as a DJ there is so much stuff you can play out. It’s only about the quality of the music and that’s totally lovely. Maybe you should leave that “cosmic” term aside because the people don’t like to hear it at the moment. But I think that it’s a kind of music that you never can write off!

In your opinion...why was Düsseldorf always such an important music-city?

I was asked that a lot in interviews with Kreidler: „Is there a typical Düsseldorf sound?“ Neu was asked that a lot and Kraftwerk, too.

I think it's an advantage that the town is a bit provincial. You can create your own cosmos, sound without any input from outside all the time. It's a process from inside, based on cooperation I would say.

I think Akademie and Ratinger Hof also played an important role at that time. Akademie was more dynamic than nowadays for example. And without Ratinger Hof many artists wouldn't have developed the way they did. It was like a social place who absorbed people.

By the way to me it was always clear that if I'm opening a bar it should be like Ratinger Hof...translated to our time of course.

It's often like that, a bar, club or record store, which we don't have here at all, just a place that educates people musically in the long-distance. This often was the base for a regional musical scene.

It's really sad that there's nothing to go out here besides salon anymore or, as you said, not one good record store in a town like Düsseldorf.

Definitely is. And the city praises itself with exhibitions like „Zurück zu Beton“ where our mayor delivers a speech and says how great „Ratinger Hof“ was (laughter on both sides)...it was actually him or rather the city who paid the Salon. There is this anecdote that he walked through SoHo in New York and saw all those artist bars and decided that Düsseldorf needs that, too. He was here once when we opened...

What are your favourite places here?

Mhm...that's difficult. I don't go out here at all...My Wednesday and Saturday evenings suffice.
I like going to exhibitions...but my favourite place is home I think. I like being there.

Do you prefer playing on Wednesday because you can spin everything you want and your records don't have to be danceable?

No actually not. I like both nights, Wednesdays and Saturdays. I mean I'm playing what want anyway; especially at Saturday nights. I think I got quiet a well feeling for how far I can go and what I can play in order to not lose the people

I remember when you played Herbie Hancock's Rockit on 33 at peak. It was so slow but people really liked it. What directs you doing your set?

Well, there are some rules of course. You know that you should play some newer stuff like, wouldn't say Lindstrom but all those edits, in the beginning. They are produced for that, for working in a club. Mostly the sound pattern is much phatter.

Then you go over to disco where you know this is always working somehow. But I try to work against that cause it's too much these days and therefore somehow boring. Also when people like Lovefingers and Lee Douglas or also Tako came...in the end they always ended up at disco when it came to dancing. That's why I loved the last Beppe Loda gig so much. When he played this Italo records of course, but then also went in a New Wave direction. He wants to get away from that disco stuff because he means that it's played everywhere.

I think it should change with the time. When you know there was a lot of disco this month you should try to have an emphasis on something else the next month. „With what“ is not easy to answer. Maybe just getting more wavey, and more electronic...should have more changes...maybe a little bit from the beginning of the nineties.

Which DJ that was here did you like most?

I think Peak Nick. Was a great evening. No I have to correct myself: I think the best evening was with Gwen Jamois from Black Devil. That was super interesting and the maximum you could go here.

The one who played with 4 decks?

Yes, exactly. People really liked it. At some point they danced to everything that came on...he made blatant interruptions...that night was exceptional. He played music I never heard before...much musique concrete, much electronic...just incredible. He deals with vinyls. Do you know his website? Its www.iueke.com. Unbelievable stuff and horrendous prices.

You said you liked playing danceable records...

Of course I do. I also like dropping big hits from time to time. I don't want to be always obscure. You need a recognizability value. Many people who don't know anything about the music recognize me, my style in DJing. The right mixture is important, you need to spoil your audience once in a while with little hits for example. That's really important because almost everything is about emotionality.

I think that's what everyone was missing during the last years in electronic music and techno...well not everyone but many. It's somehow like in the 80's where DJing was really different, where you served a wider spectrum and people drove up to 100 kilometres for a club like „Totentanz“ in Basel.

Your own productions also sound quite different from today’s dance productions.

Well…I’m also playing some own productions here from time to time, and I think they’re working quite well. But they are surely not as straight as a, let’s say Lindström track. But I’m not interested in that kind of sound. I mean there are lots of productions that you play out only to fill gaps or create a certain mood. But these are often things which you don’t like that much; you think they are ok. The whole production of these newer things sounds really boring to me. Lots of the sounds and melodies are rip-offs from old tracks. And they are made on computers, you can hear that. It sounds incredibly good, but it actually sounds much “too good” for me.

And with my own stuff, I intentionally try to work against that overproduction. That’s a bit the idea behind it. Like in the eighties when the whole thing started. There are many records which are so great because of their “underproduction”, because they were made at home. Many Italo productions actually sound bad in a sense: The frequencies don’t fit, the vocals are much too loud, the piano’s too loud, or the bass line’s too mouldy. But that’s why they have a totally different effect, that’s why they are so interesting. And I like to work with these things. Because you ask yourself: How can you oppose that whole perfection in music today at all? It brought up this whole computer policy with all the software. You mostly can’t do it wrong. It always sounds good, but it always sounds like plug-ins too. There are few artists like UNIT 4 who produces all his stuff completely with analogue technology. All the other stuff…you can hear that it was made with a computer. It has a certain sound which can be recognized easily. There are often clichéd elements. And that’s not what it is about.

I try to create my own kind of afro electro in a sense. It’s very beat-oriented and percussive, but I try to work only with MPC and synthesizers, it just sounds different.

As a DJ, where do you get your records from? Do you go out for digging?

Yes, a little bit, but not that extremely. When I’m somewhere else I always look out for records. Beside that I often use eBay. At the moment I calmed down a bit, I’ve become more patient. At the beginning I always wanted to get things immediately. I spent a lot of money…then I started to realize that I actually paid too much, because the prices are enormous in this field. But when you can’t wait for a record…The problem is that you can’t find those records in this region. There’s not a single record shop here in Düsseldorf or also in Cologne where you could find such things…you have to go to Belgium or Netherlands…also concerning the newer stuff. It takes such a long time before these things arrive in Düsseldorf. I’d like to have more new stuff, too. You don’t want to play the old records all the time. Sometimes you’re fed up with them and you’d like to have more new great records. But on the other hand there aren’t many new productions that totally get you. They’re just ok mostly.

You’ve played that STUDIO record quite often recently, haven’t you?

Oh I dug that one up again now. I’ve played it a bit some time ago and rediscovered a track now which sounds pretty good to me played at 45rpm.

Are there some other current records you like?

There’s this new 12”…wait a second! It’s the new project by PILOOSKI. I quite like it. Record is called RING MODULATION. It’s really good…

Oh and what just came to my mind is that we got FRANZ LITIWENKO doing a live set here on the 5th of April. He was involved in the cosmic scene right from the beginning. He was playing in Innsbruck and Tyrol, North Italy and that corner. He works a lot with the computer, making lots of edits and mixing short elements of the tracks and so on. But it sounds incredibly good. He also invited me to play in Innsbruck. We’re organizing a nostalgic cosmic night there in an old classic cosmic disco. I’ll be doing a semi-live set with MPC, edits and that kind of stuff.

The guy of QUIET VILLAGE, Joel Martin, he was also playing here only with CDs. That night was special too. But it was also very British in a sense. I expected it to be much more on the obscure side, that he would play more exceptional records. But it was very downbeat and relaxed, very British as I would say. The music was rather accessible, there was no record which totally surprised you although he has this kind of music! But I think that it was so because he played here for the first time and expected it to be a usual club night so he thought he better played it safe.

I think it’s quite normal that he decided to play rather this kind of stuff when he gets booked for a Saturday night in a club.

Yes, for sure. They all don’t expect it to develop like it does here usually. I-F did the same. After playing here he said to me, shit I should have brought totally different records.

Ok well, I’m gonna spin some records now!

We also asked for some current favourites and this is what he gave to us:

Voice of Taurus - Hello World
Savant - Stationary Dance
Vertigo - You
Michael Bundt - Future Street No.7
Epidaurus - Mitternachtstraum
John Carpenter - The Duke Arrives
I.A.O - Places Of Soul
The Sparks - Kiss Me (On 45)
Tolouse Low Trax - Two Time Measure
Kaoru Inoue - The Secret Field

And here's finally the mix:

Tolouse Low Trax - Savant Dance

A second one called Eternal Streets Mix will follow soon. So if you like Savant Dance and I guess you will, check it out soon.

Bon Anniversaire!

2008-04-09T08:22:00.000-07:00

Le Grand Monsieur Belmondo

Anna Karina - Ma Ligne De Chance

Does anyone know if this is JP singing there (as done in the movie Pierrot Le Fou)?

Traditional Beauties

2008-03-28T05:21:00.000-07:00

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Forbidden Colours

Forbidden Colours appears on the official soundtrack of "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence", a picture from 1983 with Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Bowie. It takes place in a Japanese prison camp during Second World War where Bowie plays an English soldier and Sakamoto a young Japanese Captain who has a homo-erotic attraction towards him: wouldn't that have been a genius couple? However, the soundtrack was produced only by Sakamoto which made him known to a broader public. Forbidden Colours consists basically of this song plus David Sylvian's vocals.

Holger Czukay - Persian Love

As the title Persian Love already reveals, Can-member Holger Czukay ventured to the empire of thousand and one nights where the mufti sings his morning prayer. It's taken from his solo work Movies from 1979. We were lately discussing if you could play it at a Saturday night, what do you think?

Akiko Yano - Rose Garden

Rose Garden appears on a British sampler called Tokyo Mobile Music, a project to support Eastern "talent, as much as possible". It was published in 1982, the year when Yano married Ryuichi Sakamoto (they divorced in 2006). Like this driving tune and the Japanese typical chant.

White Noise

2008-03-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

If you're an attentive reader of kosmonautenschule, you probably downloaded our Settings For The Control Of The Sun. Track number 3 is called "My Game Of Loving" - a psychedelic blackly song with synthesizers, bongos, drum solos, various voices/languages and striking orgy groanings. In my opinion this is a masterpiece as it is the whole debut album, since we could have dropped any song from An Electric Storm without quality decreasement.

White Noise was formed by the American David Vorhaus in London 1969. At that time he was a student of physics and elecronic engineering there which explains White Noise's sophistication in using electronic devices for their sound. His musical know-how came from his classical bass-player education. Initially he was joined by Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson, both BBC Radiophonic Workshop composers and former members of an electronic music project called Unit Delta Plus.

On the album An Electric Storm that was published in 1969 on Island Records Vorhaus made use of the first British Synthesizer ever (remember: it was 1969): a EMS Synthi VCS3. He played with tape manipulating techniques and used a lot of voices to create this hardly comparable sound which was at that time totally new: "I use voices a lot too, but not as conventional vocals. I always use a lot of voices, and if somebody having an orgasm in the background is used as part of one of the waveforms, it makes the sound more interesting, without the listener actually knowing what they're hearing". He actually organized the orgies and joined them by the way.
Although An Electric Storm didn't sell good when it came out, it's nowadays seen as a milestone in electronic music's history and Vorhaus ranks among it's pioneers.

White Noise - An Electric Storm

A Mountain Of One

2008-02-29T06:58:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, 27. February at Salon Des Amateurs - the Londoner Combo "A Mountain Of One" is playing a gig in front of an interested and homely crowd. Not sold out though - yet, I think.
Rough Trade describes AMO1, that consists of the three core members Mo Morris, Leo Elstob and Zeben Jameson, as a "drugged out" Fleetwood Mac, "the full 70's" Santana, Arthur Russel, Laurel Canyon, JJ Cale and Talk Talk. Vice Magazine already calls them a "Balearic Classic".
For me, as I don't really like this kind of comparisons, it is finally just great progressive music, hard to categorize. The drumming enchains you, singer Jameson's voice (he played keyboard for Travis before...) is intoxicating and even the endless guitar solos, during and between their songs, were fun.
Although they only played six or seven songs, the concert was beauteous and I'm glad that I got the chance to enjoy handmade balearic music at it's best.

I decided to upload Ride (appears on Collected Works), my favourite track and nightly highlight of the last weekends when resident DJ Tolouse Low Trax prepared his audience for the upcoming event and dropped it at peak.
I also took a video but the sound quality isn't that good.

A Mountain Of One - Ride

myspace.com/amountainofone

Captain Clark & Cevin Spacey Are Setting The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun

2008-02-25T08:54:00.000-08:00

1. Rare Bird - Vacuum

2. Halina Frąckowiak - Myśli twoje śnić zaczynam

3. White Noise - My Game Of Loving

4. Eberhard Schoener - Why Don't You Answer

5. Mudd - Speilplatz (Quiet Village Remix)

6. Justus Köhncke - Homogen (33 rpm)

7. Joachim Witt - Ich Fahr' Nach Afrika

8. Pink Floyd - Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun

9. Edgar Froese - Pizarro And Atahuallpa

10. David Sylvian - Backwaters

11. Fleetwood Mac - You Make Loving Fun

12. Joakim - Peter Pan Over The Bronx

13. Peter Baumann - This Day

14. Soft Machine - Etka

15. PiL - Go Back

16. JJ Cale - Ride Me High (Joakim Edit)

17. S.B. Devotion - Tender Silence Of The Night

18. Vangelis - Multi Track Suggestion

19. Space - Ballad For Space Lovers

Captain Clark & Cevin Spacey Are Setting The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun

Savage Progress

2008-02-17T05:50:00.000-08:00

Let's attend to another forgotten synth pop pearl from the eighties today! ...did I hear a sigh?:) Ok, the picture above deserves nothing else than the grade "trash", i agree on that. But this British band made some über-cool stuff in the olden days.
Savage Progress was founded in 1982 by Rik Kenton (who had been a temporary member of Roxy Music) and Glynnis Thomas. A friend of them worked at a studio and used some free time to record a bunch of songs with them. The result convinced the head of the studio, so that he offered the band a contract. Kenton and Thomas recruited Andrew Edge as a drummer, Carol Isaacs as singer and also Ned Morant as percussionist though he actually never really learned to play percussions. But he helped the band to get a more rhythmically based style which seperated them from many new wave bands of their time. Anyway, now they were a proper band and released some singles and an LP called Celebration on "Ten Records". They toured with the Thompson Twins before they unfortunately called it a day in 1985 after Glynnis had left the band. Ok, that would be the story of Savage Progress, shortly reproduced. Let's talk about the music.

The first track is "Heart Begin To Beat" which was also released as a single. This song is one reason that the band is still remembered these days as it is such a great "unclassic" and was used by the DJs of the arising house scene in the middle of the eighties such as Larry Heard/Mr. Fingers and Frankie Knuckles. The song has got such an incredibly cracking beat that it is no wonder that it was dropped oftenly in house clubs like the "Power Plant" or the "Muzic Box". I really love those mixes from that era. It was a time were the DJs created a unique style by searching the past for useful tunes they could play out next to the latest modern house tracks. It was a great mixture of old italo-disco songs, some decent disco classics, industrial and new wave-ish songs like "Heart Begin To Beat". The track is very unique in its concetration on rhythmical elements and the cold and "fey" voice of Carol Isaacs combined with a funky bass riff. You won't get the lines "begin to beat let my heart begin to beat, begin to beat let my heart begin to beat..." out of your head, trust me! This tune is still a killer on every dancefloor today. i found a copy of the 12" for 1€ on a flea market over here in düsseldorf. Quite a good find i guess.

The second track "Hip Parade" is taken from their LP Celebration. It's the standout track of the record for me. The song is unbeatable in its supercooled new-wave-extravaganza! Carol Isaacs sings like an original Snow Queen on valium over a straight beat with some nice synthesizer action going on. You can even here some nice ice wind echoes in the background if you listen intensively enough! I guess it's really Isaacs' distinctive voice which makes the music so cool. Also in the actual sense of freezing you, hehe.

Savage Progress - Heart Begin To Beat

Savage Progress - Hip Parade

New York Recordstores

2008-02-10T06:52:00.000-08:00

When I visited New York last weekend to escape from this great festivity called Karneval I used one day explore some of Manhattan's and Brooklyn's recordstores. In fact the ones I went to were tips from Andrew Hogge who I annoyed with emails a few weeks before.

The first destination on my list was Academy Records in Manhattan 12 W. 18th St. and being completely honest i didn't spend much time neither money in there. Academy is basically about classical music and even at the risk of coming out as a philistine I have to say that this was not what I was looking for.

My next stop was Academy Lps (415 E. 12 St.)
Just like Academy Records the East Village store is specialised. You predominantly find second hand jazz records next to some rock and pop. The atmosphere in there was kind of oppressing due to missing customers and aggressive instructions that told me how to touch the records which should obviously be funny but reminded me of overblown coolness.

A1 Records (439 E 6TH St) was at 12:30am still closed so that I went on to "Other Music" at 15 E. 4 St. which serves almost every genre and is more commercial than the previous ones. They also sell Cds and the vinyl section is comparatively small. I finally made my way to the cash desk together with Kreidler's faboulos Weekend, Glass Candy's Miss Broadway, a 1 Dollar single that doesn't even have a name and two Justus Köhncke 12". I especially fell in love with his track "Homogen" which gains a lot if you play it on 33rpm.

I now went to Brooklyn to look for so called Dope Jam's (580 Myrtle Ave. Brooklyn). There was no subway station near so that I had to walk half an hour through a droll African-American quarter until i finally stood in front of the recordstores black door. I had to knock and wait till the owners opened. In there it was really dusky and frankincense smell that rapidly made me feel dizzy was in the air.
They carry loads of disco records which are partly second hand and partly re-released, some techno and house. After a long to and fro I decided for Tango-Saty by Klaus Schulze, the melancholic Multi Track Suggestion by Vangelis, Walking On Thin Ice, a Yoko Ono disco-track from 1981, Washing Machine and Got The Bug by Mr. Fingers, Cerrone's Where Are You Now and the long overdue 12" of Pilooski's Re-Edit of Frankie Valli's Beggin.

Klaus Schulze - Tango-Saty

Vangelis - Multi Track Suggestion

Yoko Ono - Walking On Thin Ice

Further Recordstores advised by Hogge are:

Halycon (57 Pearl Street,Brooklyn)
The Thing (1001 Manhattan Ave.,Brooklyn)

Resignation

2008-01-23T05:13:00.000-08:00

When Clark and I lately lingered over some small jumble sale somewhere in London a specific tape attracted our attention. It was labeled completely black on both sides, only the handwritten name "Resignation" and a hardly readable phone number were visible. When we asked the owner he could'nt tell us anything about it except that he found this piece on his former manchesterian house's attic. Being fixed we brought it home for 50 pence.

Back in Düsseldorf we couldnt really decide if we had found a jewel or a layman's work. After a short and fruitless investigation on the internet we at last dialed the number from the tape. The person answering was a man called Henry Square. When we told him of our found he started laughing. It was indeed one of Resignation's members and he still had the same phone number.

He told us that Resignation was formed in 1979 in Manchester and consisted of him, Joshua Steiner and Edgar Douleur (both pseudonyms, Douleur died in plane crash in 1986). In 1980 they published "I am not blitheful" EP (well, they recorded tapes) which became the only release in this band's history. Square went on that they broke up 2 years later when they were at the age of 22 and recognized that they would'nt have commercial succes in the music business. Him and Steiner lost contact after Douleur's death when Steiner moved to London.
Square promised to send us more demos and some band pictures they took in 1980 simultaneous with their EP.

That was 2 weeks ago and while we're waiting for the demos we already received the photos which are so typical for a Manchesterian band in the late 70s, early 80s.

Clark and I decided to already upload the track Angstlust (they were also playing with german words and history trying to provoke) and further to create a myspace for Resignation.

Angstlust is a synthie impregnated track with
a continous deep bass-line and spherical screeching which obviously doesn't fit to the image they played with. Their music was hearable influenced by the fact that Square's father owned a store for musical instruments where the band could borrow the expensive equipment.

Resignation - Angstlust

www.myspace.com/resignationuk

Some Random Beauties

2008-01-18T04:46:00.000-08:00

Claude Bolling - Who Are You

Here we got a beautiful psychedelic pop pearl from french composer and jazz musician Claude Bolling. He wrote this song for the soundtrack of the movie "Qui?" from 1970. The Movie was directed by Monsieur Léonard Keigel and the female leading character was played by Romy Schneider. It was one of her early roles where she tried to get rid of her "Sissi" image. As Marina, she survives a car crash caused by an argument with her boyfriend who was driving the car. She is not sure whether he survived or not because the car fell into the sea. After this accident she gets to know her boyfriends brother who falls in love with her. But then Marina feels traced by a mysterious ghost which leads to a serious paranoia. However, Claude Bolling's track seems to be the perfect background music for this psych thriller!

The Velvet Underground - Ride Into The Sun

Early Velvet Underground have always been seen as the evil counterpart to the hippie movement of the late 60ies. Later Lou Reed continually changed their sound into a more conventional one. So it comes that we have an authentic stoned hippie ballad here. It's still supersweet! The song originally emerged in the early 70ies (during the "Loaded" sessions i think) but it first appeared on a bootleg in the late 80ies. It's said that the vocals are sung by Lou Reed himself. Not too sure about that.

The Klan - And I Love It So

Some really adorable psych pop from belgium to finish this. Loving the strings on that song! It's quite astonishing that the members of the band were only 18 and 19 years old when they recorded this song in 1967. They were seen as one of the first pop groups of belgium and played shows with Chuck Berry and even The Rolling Stones. The Klan quickly fell into oblivion though.

Burundi Black

2008-01-04T08:25:00.000-08:00

In 1967 Sevac Ekian recorded a ceremony of Ingoma Tribe in the East African State Burundi. Back home he developed the idea to arrange a "musical marriage"(mariage musical). Therefore he asked the producer Mike Steiphenson to create a fitting tune to those absorbing drums he brought.

Steiphenson produced a psychedelic harmony consisting of e-guitar and piano and inserted it in Ekian's recording.

In 1971 the track was published under the pseudonym Burundi Black. On Side A there is "Part 1", the drum-solo version, on Side B ("Part 2") the version by Steiphenson. The single went top 40 in the UK. Later, Steiphenson released under his own name or rather aliases some further obscure stuff which didn't receive any attention.

If you like the sound of Quiet Village you should definitely check this out. It fairly reminded me of the remix they did for the Gorillaz.

Burundi Black - Part 1

Burundi Black - Part 2

Captain Clark's Trip Through Outer Space

2007-12-30T09:20:00.000-08:00

1. Jan Turkenburg & Geert Grote Pupils - In My Spaceship

2. Kraftwerk - Spacelab

3. Lovefingers - Zoysia

4. Space - Magic Fly

5. Ilya Santana - Quasar

6. Padded Cell - Moon Menace

7. Charlie Mike Sierra - On The Moon

8. Laser - Laser

9. Kano - Ikeya-Seki

10. Rune Lindbaek & Lindström - Alien In My Pocket

11. Xenon - Xenon Galaxy

A Trip Through Outer Space

Lee Douglas

2007-12-28T10:25:00.000-08:00

The first thing i heard by Mr. Lee Douglas was an edit he made of the chant Misa Criolla by Fuego. I recognized this song immediately as one of Tolouse Low Trax favourite tracks at "salon des amateurs" over here in Düsseldorf. So when I went on his myspace I got pretty surprised that this guy from Brooklyn, NY was Asian and long-haired.

However, when he finally came to Düsseldorf in November (Holy Weekend) it was easy to recognize him. But certainly more important than his outward appearance was his tasteful set. Beside some classy disco records Douglas played his awesome hit New York Story and, on our wish, Misa Criolla incredibly high pitched.

The next day he came back with his buddy Lovefingers, with who he went on that Europe-trip, to enjoy Loda and poach some groupies.

Lee Douglas - New York Story

Lee Douglas - Our Song (Exclusive Extended Mix 1999)

Fuego - Misa Criolla (Lee Douglas Edit)

Partly Minus 8

2007-12-20T12:23:00.000-08:00

1. The Mission - Wasteland

2. Sisters of Mercy - Phantom

3. City - Aus der Ferne

4. The The - Giant (pilooski Edit)

5. Fuego - Misa Criolla (Lee Douglas Edit)

6. Fleetwood Mac - Tusk

7. Studio - West Side

8. Joakim - Lonely Hearts (Dub Version)

9. Black Devil Disco Club - The Devil In Us

10. Kraftwerk - Trans Europa Express

11. Aeroplane - Aeroplane

12. Lovefingers - Bermuda

13. Unit 4 & Black Devil - An Other Skin (Days Of Blackula)

Partly Minus 8

Beppe Loda

2007-12-14T16:50:00.001-08:00

"I'M NOT A “COSMIC DJ“ Cosmic Music doesn't actually exist! Personally, I think that this terminology is reductive and I don't like it because the movement which also included Cosmic was much wider and articulated and was more commonly known as 'Afro'."

When Beppe Loda started his career as a DJ in 1973 he was just sixteen years old. Gaining fame as "the DJ who plays strange music" a friend offered him to become resident of a new club. He would be involved in the planning, especially soundsystem and technics, the base of every succesful set. Loda acceded and from now on played in "Typhoon Club" every week. That was in 1980.

Seven years and a lot of unforgetable nights later the club was forced to close; not for drug related problems as it was kind of usual at that time, but for safety aspects. It was overcrowded: "The club was in the centre of Gambara, bordering private houses, there was no parking and could only facilitate some like 450-500 people. You just can imagine how it was when there were 3,000-4,000 people standing outside waiting to enter… and it was one in, one out."

However, seven years were enough to establish Beppe Loda as one (or even the one) pioneer of "Afro-Disco" (with Daniele Baldelli, Mozart and Cosmic Club other names are to be dropped). Due to Loda "Afro" means a "mix of different types of music coming mainly from Africa and which contain a high percentage of percussion music". It includes African Fusion, Jazz, Brazilian, Funk, Blaxploitation, Percussion etc.

The term "Cosmic" was related to Beppe Loda due to his early sets in Typhoon Club: a cross breeding of Electronic, Pop, Progressive and New-Wave. As it's becoming obvious from the quote above, "Cosmic" is only a little part of the movement "Afro" and wrongly applied to Loda.

Nowadays Loda is still travelling around the world, always in search of new music while he is pursuiting his maxim of being always alternative and off mainstream.

We, personally, have to to thank him for his set at Salon Des Amateurs and a holy night that probably noone will forget that easily.

Ballare, Beppe!

Beppe Loda Set at Typhoon Club 1982 part 1

Beppe Loda Set at Typhoon Club 1982 part 2

Düsseldorf

2007-12-07T02:40:00.001-08:00

We thought we would best start things off by showing some love to the city we live in. Intending to draw some attention to the hometown of Kraftwerk, DAF, Propaganda and co what other band is there to present first than La Düsseldorf.

In 1975 they emanated from the krautrock band "Neu!" including Hans Lampe, Thomas Dinger and his brother the former Kraftwerk-drummer Klaus Dinger. On their first selftitled LP from 1976 they rendered homage to their hometown with the song "Düsseldorf", a 13-minute long track based on an impulsive & driving rhythm section and some simple synthesizer melodies. The track hasn't got much lyrics but samples from the city's airport and the repeated (for anyone from here so well known) question "Gehn wir in die Altstadt?" (let's go to the old town?) make a local's heart swell. There are tons of songs written as a homage to Cities that make you jump out of the window. But "Düsseldorf" is certainly none of them.

In 1978 the band had its biggest succes with the atmospheric track"Rheinita" from the second LP Viva . Their pulsating drums can be found here again, showing the lasting influence of their musical origin "Neu!" whose almost machine-like rhythms certainly had an influence on modern dance music. The press established the term "Motorik" (motor activity) for that kind of sound. Together with some beautiful synthesizer-harmonies that's what makes the song a 7-minute long exceptional, atmospheric experience. Nowadays it's unthinkable that such a piece of music could even see the charts from a distance, but "Rheinita" became a big hit in germany.

"La Düsseldorf" should represent the always interesting and vivid music scene of düsseldorf, the place that bore more musical outriders than any other german city did. There will surely be further posts dedicated to that.

La Düsseldorf - Düsseldorf

La Düsseldorf - Rheinita
Video

Kosmonautenschule

Jeremy Jay

Rebolledo

Diamonds In The Dark

Ojos de Agua

Chancha Vía Circuito

Die Aufreisser

Summer Slump

Wtf

Suicide

Der Räuber Und Der Prinz

Unfinished stuff

What remains...at the end of the week (XXII)

No Human - Why Me (incomplete)Cevin Spacey doesn't get how Tony Carey could dare singing on that.Nina Simone - Ain't Got No (I Got Life)Captain Clark ain't got no shoes.

Capturing The Streets

What remains...at the end of the week (XXI)

Propaganda - P-Machinery (Beta Mix)Cevin Spacey + Düsseldorf = infinite affectionForeverly Brothers - All I Have To Do Is DreamCaptain Clark is the Reläxxer of the week.

What remains...at the end of the week (XX)

Neon Judgement - Voodoo NipplefieldCevin Spacey finally has time for voodoo and nipples.Troy Tate - Love Is (Dance Mix)Captain Clark's borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered 80s.

What remains...at the end of the week (XIV)

The Organ - Memorize The CityThe Cevin Spacey is indie.Jack Bruce - Make Love (Part II)Captain Clark wants to make love to you.

Gorillaz LP

What remains...at the end of the week (XVIII)

The Smiths - Meat Is MurderCevin Spacey likes animals...fried.SBB - Trojkat RadosciCaptain Clark says nothing, because it would destroy the beauty.

Baleardo Villalobos

What remains...at the end of the week (XVII)

Plaza Hotel - Bewegliche ZieleCevin Spacey thanks Jaki for producing, Tako for digging and Dette for playing it last night.Yello - Salut MayoumbaCaptain Clark hears an important battle being lost in this.

Mythos

What remains...at the end of the week (XVI)

Mistral -Starship 109Cevin Spacey's soundtrack of infinite freedom.Lou Reed - The BedThe perfect escape from all last week's excitements for Captain Clark.

Tolouse Low Trax

Bon Anniversaire!

Traditional Beauties

White Noise

A Mountain Of One

Captain Clark & Cevin Spacey Are Setting The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun

Savage Progress

New York Recordstores

Resignation

Some Random Beauties

Burundi Black

Captain Clark's Trip Through Outer Space

Lee Douglas

Partly Minus 8

Beppe Loda

Düsseldorf

No Human - Why Me (incomplete)
Cevin Spacey doesn't get how Tony Carey could dare singing on that.

Nina Simone - Ain't Got No (I Got Life)
Captain Clark ain't got no shoes.

Propaganda - P-Machinery (Beta Mix)
Cevin Spacey + Düsseldorf = infinite affection

Foreverly Brothers - All I Have To Do Is Dream
Captain Clark is the Reläxxer of the week.

Neon Judgement - Voodoo Nipplefield
Cevin Spacey finally has time for voodoo and nipples.

Troy Tate - Love Is (Dance Mix)
Captain Clark's borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered 80s.

The Organ - Memorize The City
The Cevin Spacey is indie.

Jack Bruce - Make Love (Part II)
Captain Clark wants to make love to you.

The Smiths - Meat Is Murder
Cevin Spacey likes animals...fried.

SBB - Trojkat Radosci
Captain Clark says nothing, because it would destroy the beauty.

Plaza Hotel - Bewegliche Ziele
Cevin Spacey thanks Jaki for producing, Tako for digging and Dette for playing it last night.

Yello - Salut Mayoumba
Captain Clark hears an important battle being lost in this.

Mistral -Starship 109
Cevin Spacey's soundtrack of infinite freedom.

Lou Reed - The Bed
The perfect escape from all last week's excitements for Captain Clark.