News → 2002 → August

smooth operators

August 10, 2002

by an odd turn of events, the site has remained speechless for over 3 months which have been actually very busy for me! how can this be explained? let's put the question differently: should this be explained? well, there ya go.

in the meantime, a minor revolution has taken place in the background as our friend James Schidlowsky has taken up the role of head archivist which i have been holding for ever since no type started. i will still be writing the news & release descriptions for a little while, but it is now james who will be in charge of keeping everything else to date: live announcements, online albums on other sites, sites, & so on. Kevin M Krebs continues to manage the software section, as he has for as long as i can remember.

having james as the main person in charge of maintaining the site means that it will be more alive now. whereas i'm just too lazy to be trusted!

now, we've got no less than 4 *FOUR!* new, free online goodies for you all, not to mention (for montréal residents) the return of the POSTrien, an amazing sound festival coming up in september!

but first, the commercials.

IMNT 0204 || morceaux_de_machines || liberum arbitrium CD

few acts are as relentlessly bombastic as morceaux_de_machines, érick dorion & aimé dontigny's composite noise juggernaut from hell. but it may just be that nobody understands the profound tenderness of their compositions. to the discerning listener, these expert streams of cut-&-paste madness form a fantastic environment ripe for the most delicate discoveries. noise? who hears noise? only if you're not paying attention! of course, this new CD most definitely kicks ass from start to finish. what else to expect from the folks who brought you the frantic Cosmothérapie? in liberum arbitrium they set up a cosmic death match between heaven & hell & it's not likely to be taken for a pastoral... 8 seriously twisted improvisations that push computer music to its limits! says the all-music guide, it's "a serious contender to best noise album of 2002." we didn't make that up. you know you've been waiting for it. well, here it is.

(completists take note: érick & aimé wanted to keep their CD punchy & to the point, so they left a few songs out from the initial recording sessions. two of these outtakes were already featured on the Cosmothérapie release, but as a gift to their fans, & for the sake of completeness, the duo is offering 2 more tracks not found on the CD through our special liberum arbitrium page. so if for some reason you're not happy with the choice of tracks, feel free to burn yourself a customised version with the songs you like best!)

IMNT 0205 || Oeuf Korreckt || Podweek CD

Oeuf Korreckt's music has been a part of no type since the beginning of its history, from Leonard Nimoy to Shibuya Without End. it's only natural that one of our first CDs would find him behind the wheel. the definitive oeuf korreckt collection, Podweek is quite simply the treat all of his fans would have been waiting for if they even knew it existed: 14 unreleased tracks from frédérick blouin's secret vault, plus an alternate version of 'osaka commtech'. of course, you might be asking yourself: "why release these old tracks?" listening to the album gives the reason why; the question becomes why frédérick hasn't released them before! a good number of tracks off this new CD rank amongst my personal favourites of his. oeuf korreckt has perfected the 'intelligent' video game sound, in a style that is patently his. but true to his techno roots (see Surfing Secrets for a case in point), he doesn't hesitate to go on an all-out gabber tip when needed. yet, some of the melodies are so catchy that you will want to hum them all day only to be turned off by the sheer complexity of some of the arrangements. Podweek is the new sound of joy!

& now on to our free online releases! it's still the summer, time to lay back & enjoy!

068 || Camp || Socialiste

a long threatened release, the new camp socialiste is now available for your perusal & reconstruction. if it seems complicated at first, read again. the premise is simple, but the result is not. an exercise in interlocking asynchronous loops based upon samples from no type all-stars, mixed up with a fair amount of chance operations, the result is quite recognizably Campesque, if somewhat more jagged than normal. but that might only be temporary, because the composition is open & someone might just find a smoother way to perform it. of course, another might find that it makes too much sense, & infuse some madness to the proceedings. we have no idea how it will end, do you?

069 || Ramon Llull || Ramon Llull

Dick Richards is a wanted man. & yet, inbetween all the touring in chic european cities, hanging out with expensive minimal techno stars while working for the prime german labels who treasure his genuine funk & basslines of illicit depth, he still finds the time to hang out with us lowly, uncool no type dudes. but here i am mentioning dick richards, when this is Ramon Llull we are talking about. now, ramon llull is serious about ambience. it has to feed off the walls, & build up into an architectonal scripture of sorts, whereby what you hear is the pushing up & down on the wave form itself. now, maybe we're reading too far into it, but it sounds good!

070 || sine fiction || Sine Fiction vol.III) The Shockwave Rider featuring James Schidlowsky

initiated in 2000 under A_dontigny's impulse, the sine fiction collection continues to expand with a third volume by no less than no type's new man in charge James Schidlowsky & a fourth volume coming up on the next update. finally, one might say, as this constitutes the first online entry for james since his no type debut Previous>>Next, & the first with all new material. sine fiction, if you remember, is a collection of mini-albums inspired from a given science-fiction book. in james' case, the book of choice is john brunner's the shockwave rider, a tale of information technology gone bezerk. places & situations of the book are thus adapted by our composer who has made a point of dabble in things he doesn't usually do: the results are a stunning example of james' versatility. it might even make you want to read the book!

071 || Octopus Inc || Subcon Sound Museum

it is one patent injustice that we still have to introduce Octopus Inc despite two CDs of luminous beauty released on kracfive, the label he has founded with his friend colongib. noah sasso might be an enigma to some simply because he is nearly impossible to genre-peg. not only does he never do the same thing twice, what he does never sounds like anything you've heard elsewhere to begin with. vague reference points to weird electronic acts from köln or california do not even begin to describe the magic. Subcon Sound Museum, his first no type release, exemplifies this. five tracks of lush collages, structures of texture that are full of detail & bristling with life. don't wait; revel!

POSTRIEN RETURNS WITH A VENGEANCE! |

if you like no type, you will want to be in montréal from september 11 to 14, 2002. an unbelievable all-star cast will be present to make this new edition of POSTrien an experience to remember. the mere fact that all these excellent artists will be in town at the same time... exciting doesn't begin to describe it.

a rundown? but certainly: A_dontigny, the abstrakters (a new hip-hop group featuring Érick d’Orion, though not on the mic), Magali Babin with Guillaume Théroux-Rancourt, Kevin M Krebs, Click Tracy, Oeuf Korreckt (his first ever live appearance!), Books on Tape, Dick Richards, themoonstealingproject, diskette, Alphacat & our special guest while of chocolate industries & musik aus strom fame!

just be there every night at 10h30 PM, at the funky (yes! funky!) casa del popolo. the price is a measly 7 bucks & we should be ashamed to make it so cheap! if you arrive early, don't worry! there will be music to hear & people to chat with. but mostly, you should check out the rien à voir festival across the street at the espace go, a prestigious electroacoustic music event we're associated with. note that their tickets include a free entry to the same day's POSTrien event. their main guest this year is new rephlex star (& compositeur électroacoustique emeritus) robert normandeau!

for more details, including schedules & such, please visit the rien à voir web site.

THROATS IN MY MAILBOX |

i cannot keep under silence the package that arrived to the no type covert audio operations headquarters the other day, containing 6 new throat productions on 3" CD-R, all featuring amazing packaging. & once you start collecting them, i swear you will want them all! the first 4 releases are short 20 minute pieces, all of them fairly different but all residing within the vast realm of abstraction with a tendancy towards minimalism... the culprits (pardon: authors!) are throat main man V. V., tralphaz, sawako & our very own Cal Crawford... audio enthusiasts take note: this is a very promising collection if you're into exquisite sound consumption that is not, you know, more of the same.

the fifth & sixth throat releases can be downloaded on the web: they consist in a double 20 minute diptyque titled 60" Somewhere & 60" Somewhere Else. the physical version (which i suppose is available from the throat web site...) brings them together inside a lovely piece of packaging. the first CD collects 20 unprocessed field recordings of 60 seconds of length. the second, as you might have guessed, has them all processed to death within the same time restriction. the audio of course matches the looks, & what more, you can find a lot of expected & unexpected no type names on there! i'll let you have a look for yourself... buy one as a gift to your lover.

NEW CLAUDIA BONARELLI CD CREATES CONFUSION EVERYWHERE |

a new bomb has been launched by the swedish label mitek onto the unsuspected world: it's Claudia Bonarelli's first CD _everything happens only a certain number of times_. speculation runs wild as to the identity of our favourite black bloc of microdub, some going so far as to link it to either mikael stavöstrand & hakan lidbo or 'a group of net.artists based in eastern europe'. but anyone who knows what's good for them will focus on the sound, & the sound is quite something. hey, it might not be entirely groundbreaking in 2002 (what is?) but CDs of this quality happen only... well, you know where we're getting at. onto that topic, no type is releasing a claudia bonarelli 10" very soon which is essentially a packet of concentrated audio love for your stereo. & not to forget the online album that started it all, Boredom is Counterrevolutionary, still available for free downloads.

NO TYPE HISTORY IN THE MAKING: THOSE THIN TRACKS ARE FINALLY AVAILABLE! |

Thin's 2nd no type release, the 30-minute Snap-on Grooves didn't just represent the end of an era (or more accurately the end of the 6000/9000 series), it was also the beginning of a period where the label really began to expand stylistically, with folks like Tomas Jirku or 833-45 joining up. but back to thin--in those days, there was some project of making CD-Rs of no type albums, whereas online versions would miss a few tracks to uh 'entice purchases'. that stupid idea (which was mine, for the record) is now thankfully history, but a few old releases have remained so crippled despite not being available any other way. this was the case for Snap-on Grooves (1999), at least until now, as these tracks are now available for download again! this short full-length recording is notable as it turned out to be mike curtis' most achieved musical statement so far, after which our composer became too tragically busy with real life matters to pursue his visions any further. thin's follow-up & last album yet, Moody Hat (out in late 2000), is, however, a very worthy (albeit criminally short) addendum. add to that the old-school Trashcan Land EP (featuring the first-wave no type remix posse!) & lo & behold, you've got the complete thin oeuvre. here's to hoping for new tracks from mr. curtis in a foreseeable future!

& speaking of historical releases--the next few months will see the release of a "lost" Period Three album, recorded between Halogen & Folder, & titled _adhesive_. this was originally set to appear on no type under a different title, as release 6014. to confuse matters a bit, the re-release (if you can call it that) will bear that same number, thus ironically resurrecting a series that has been dead for the last 3 years. another lost episode slated for release is Tomas Jirku's barely-released & highly singular _bleak_ CD-R from 1999, though there are actually plans to make this a legit CD as this is great material despite the age. what do you all think? tell me sometime...

I CAN'T KEEP UP WITH BOOKS ON TAPE |

if that's also your case, just go to subverseco, that's where it all happens! (notice that there's a new morceaux_de_machines release posted on there as well! ah, but there really are surprises until the end in these newsletters!!) of course, you'll also want the upcoming no type 10" featuring BoT's end-of-summer hit 'hey typical!'

& while you're at it, don't forget to pay a visit to nishi & slapart for more downloads to fill your hard drive with.

NEXT UPDATE |

we'll keep it short this time--there's an upcoming albums page for this purpose after all! but there is, as you might guess, quite a lot in store, notably (& topically as we're mentioning stores) in the 'tactile' department. in addition to the aforementioned cookie from agent bonarelli, you can count on a pristine blue 10" by Books on Tape, a stunning new CDEP from Headphone Science (wait 'til you hear it!), & a lot more coming up in general.

on the online front, the goodness continues with, amongst others, Kanovanik's long awaited debut release & the fourth sine fiction volume, this time featuring Julie Rousse's interpretation of isaac asimov's _foundation_. also expect some changes in the site where needed, though no 'grand redesign' for a little while... or maybe, who knows. :)

stay tuned, thanks for bearing with us, we'll be back with more & better...

— david