FENNESZ: FIELD RECORDINGS 1995-2002 CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
"Field Recordings" brings together a range of material Christian Fennesz has contributed to compilations, special projects and film soundtracks between the years 1995 and 2002. Also, for the first time on CD, it includes his debut 12" for Mego, the awesome “Instrument”, remastered, and a new  track recorded specially for this release, “Good Man”. It is his first release since “Endless Summer” [Mego, 2001] and a prelude to his next studio album, which will be released on Touch in January 2003.
Other Music (USA): While so many indie bands have been toiling endlessly to follow up My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" LP and fail, Fennesz manages to do it seemingly by accident. Unlike other Fennesz releases, "Field Recordings" has a grittiness that allows us to actually seem to hear the hand stroke upon the guitar strings, but still ends up being totally inhuman. Wave upon wave build, break down and surge beyond expectation repeatedly. A one man Glenn Branca orchestra (see track three: "Instrument 3"). Chords and notes fall through the cloud wall in unnatural yet beautiful patterns. Remember at the end of MBV's set when Kevin Shields planted his guitar upright in the middle of the stage while it fed back an unbelievable, countless amount of hypnotic sound waves through the audience? This album is full of moments like that except it's way more sculpted. "Guitar bands" take heed -- better than Van Halen. Necessary music. [SM]

FENNESZ: VENICE CD NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
Time Out (UK): The fourth LP from digital adventurer (and occasional David Sylvian collaborator) Christian Fennesz should cement his reputation as one of today’s most rapturous laptop composers. 'Venice' is perhaps his warmest and most conventionally melodic work so far, setting gorgeous washes and softly bevelled slabs of processed guitar against glitchy pulses to sublimely emotional effect. Somehow expressing both the pain of the detached soul and the ecstacy of love, it should find a welcome home with fans of My Bloody Valentine, Bowie’s ‘Low’ and Sylvian (who guests on 'Transit'). [Sharon O’Connell]

HAZARD: LAND CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
Svenske Benny Nilsen beveger seg fra spøkelsesaktig transport gjennom mørke tuneller, ut i stålgrått landskap av lavmælt, digital aktivitet og droniske luftskip på usynlig oppdrift.

KEN IKEDA: TZUKI (MOON) CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
Philip Sherburne, XLR8R [USA]:"On Ken Ikeda’s first CD release, he redirects his efforts from gallery and installation work (including collaborations with video artist Mariko Mori) into the terrain of "ambient" home listening. Tzuki ? on the surface a breathtaking update of Eno’s and Aphex’s best chill-out soundtracks ? is a s nuanced and precise as the most ambitious microsound exploration, just more soothing. Melodies slow to a crawl, like the heartbeat of a nearly-frozen body or the creep of a Northern river’s ice-flow; there are no "hooks", only nooks and crannies where sound pools and trickles through. Sour-toned timbres ? staples of Japanese electronica from Ken Ishii’s early ambient works through Susuma Yokota’s most recent recordings ? characterize most of the tracks here, lending Ikeda’s sound the quality of light refarcetd through a melted lens. Sleep to it? By all means. Sleep on it? Not if you know what’s good for you."

KEN IKEDA: MERGE CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
The Wire: Ken Ikeda's first album, Tzuki, was notable for its mesmerising simplicity. If anything, Merge is purer and more bewitching still. Although Ikeda spends most of his time on applied music - for video soundtracks, sound installations and art exhibitions - his stand alone recordings succeed unsupported by any visual elements. The component parts of Merge were sourced from a 'sound diary' that Ikeda started to keep in 1990, which he describes as "Over 140 tapes of improvisational, fragmental pieces of sound reflecting my everyday life over these years". From this forbidding morass, Ikeda has mined the most brilliant resonant tones. Merge is a shimmering, stately cascade of high frequency oscillations whose quiet insistence and rich overtones draw the attentive listener irrevocably onwards. [Chris Sharp]

RYOJI IKEDA: 0ºC CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
The New York Times: "The Japanese composer Ryoji Ikeda uses the humblest scraps of electronic communication to cobble together his music: a tiny, narrow pop, like a single particle of radio static; a fax-connection screech; a bell-tone as soft as a feather against the eardrum; a drum-machine beat slammed up to super-speed, making a short, single block of noises, and a CD player skimming across a selection, catching glimpses of a song. It's not ambient music; there are no long, enveloping tones. And its not dance music, because some selections have as much as five seconds of silence between each sound. But there's always a building narrative to these pieces. They get longer as the disk goes on, and the listener grows increasingly comfortable with Mr. Ikeda's strategies: but by bit, the composer reveals his logic. And in his own oblique way, he's dramatic. You either love Mr. Ikeda or you hate him; his art elicits the same reaction as Ad Reinhardt's black-on-black paintings - either a dismissive I-could-do-that or awed admiration."

RYOJI IKEDA: +/- CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
Brian Duguid, The Wire: "You can't have missed it: some of the wildest possible music is coming out of Japan right now.  Ryoji Ikeda is one musician willing to dive completely off the edge of the map. +/- continues the move to a music that relies entirely on buzzes, crackles and test tones. The opening "Headphonics" is an absolutely indespensible bridge between sinetone minimalism and Panasonic-style modernist techno, with Ikeda's peeps, clicks and pure tones organised rhythmically to disprove the theory that Techno-bleepery had gone as far as it could.  The 50 minute headliner, "+/-", makes an even more convincing push towards terra incognita. It opens with three tracks of jittery machine-rhythm, dropping any pretence of danceability in favour of a more disruptive aesthetic.  These are followed by three drone tracks (some with added bleeps), which displays Ikeda's usual love of Zen minimalism, an echo of the unassuming ethic of non-interference that inspired Alvin Lucier's experiments with Minimalist electronics. Ultimately Ikeda seems to be encompassing Stockhausen's insight that rhythms and frequencies are just the same thing perceived at very different speeds."

RYOJI IKEDA: MATRIX 2xCD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
"Matrix is the final element in a trilogy of CDs that began with +/- in 1996. When it was first released, +/- came like a bolt out of the white. Nobody had used digital recording processes to produce sound as pure, as intense and as exhilarating. Since releasing 0° in 1998, Ryoji Ikeda has progressively refined and enhanced the distinctive sonic fields and microsounds that have strongly influenced post-digital composition, resisting the transitory cycle suggested by the term 'Glitches', creating compositions that probe deeply: our relationships to time and space, sound and light. That's the only forewarning of what awaits you on putting the first CD into your player. The layers of sound that make up Matrix [for rooms] transform both the listener and the listening environment into another dimension. The dimensions change as you move about the space, or simply turn your head around the sound like surveying the angles of a building. Matrix has much in common with the work of La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, Alvin Lucier..., but poised closer to the imminent and auto-interactive virtual world we are promised, Ryoji Ikeda's new work pushes the parameters of the drone to ask timely questions concerning our relationship to own perception, and to our existing living spaces."

RYOJI IKEDA: OP. CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
This is Ryoji Ikeda's sixth solo CD and his fourth for Touch, following the highly acclaimed +/- [1996], 0*C [1998] and matrix [2001]. He previously released 1000 Fragments on his own cci recordings, and Time and Space, a double 3 inch CD, for Staalplaat.
op.1 was originally commissioned by "experience de vol #3". One notable aspect fans of his previous work will highlight upon, is his declaration that “no electronic sounds have been used on this recording”. This is not to say that Ikeda has in any way renounced the world of electronic music that he has done so much to shape over the past seven years. op. 1 is a brave and deliberate step that also lends a new dimension to his previous output, with the acoustic space created by his string arrangements being subject to the same forensic attention to detail as before.

PHILIP JECK: LOOPHOLES CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
On Magazine (UK): "A textbook example of how to make influential and stimulating music without playing a note. Taking old dansette record players, tape machines, a battered casio keyboard, and adding a sprinkling of good old fashioned creativity (no Akai samplers here...), Philip Jeck has fashioned a record of mesmerising depth and quality. From the opening tinklings, one is struck by the complexity of sound generated from such a limited arsenal, and the work's ordered appearance, despite the inevitable contribution of chance to the project. With nods in the direction of Oval's CD eccentricities, dubs' exploration of echo, distortion, and speed manipulation, and even the underlying properties of a marching band (on the chilling Ulster Autumn), this is probably one of the few recently released avant-garde efforts with the potential to cross over into the domain of the more adventurous ambient explorer. A low-fi classic for the electronic generation, and another quality contribution from the invariably impressive Touch label, straddling the tightrope between indulgence and inspiration with some skill (check out their Ash 1.9 Runaway Train for one of the most ludicrously enthralling recordings you'll hear all year)." DJ 4 minutes 33

PHILIP JECK: STOKE CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
Disquiet (USA): Best of 2002: Turntablism employed toward abstraction rather than percussion, texture rather than beats. Imagine Oval's affection for the introspective quality of CD dysfunction, but applied to vinyl.

PHILIP JECK & JACOB KIRKEGAARD: SOAKED CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
Philip Jeck og danske Jacob Kirkegaard med støvete tapeloops og stillferdige vinyldroner over organisk elektro-akustikk, lo-fi dokumentar og fragment av mystisk Berlin-minimalisme. Kompatibel med første Phonophani.

RICHARD H. KIRK: LOOP STATIC CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
The Wire [UK]: "I don't imagine I'm alone in having lost interest in Richard H. Kirk's musical career some time ago. A couple of lacklustre albums were all it took to divert attention elesewhere. His first group Cabaret Voltaire were pioneers of sorts, fringe heroes to the new Sheffield Techno generation, and after they split, Kirk's music (apart from his Sweet Exorcist project) always seemed to be fighting to catch up. Picking up the two most recent discs from a copious discography, it's a great surprise to hear that he's very much back on form.
The LoopStatic release is subtitled Armine Beta Ring Modulations, although its not immediatelty evident why. It offers highly functional Techno in a variety of moods, about as far from the cutting edge as a blunted antique scythe, but it's still surprisingly satisfying. Simulated siren tones, 4/4 bass pulse, gravity defying sonic abysses, oscillating ostinatos and all the other bargain bin cliches of late 80s techno find their place in the stew. Still, if the music is often a high energy blunder-beat stereotype with a taste for cheap melodrama, it also finds time to depart from the dancefloor and create a more thoughtful space for itself amid the
crowd pleasing locomotion. [Brian Duguid]

JACOB KIRKEGAARD: 4 ROOMS CD  EUR 15
All Music Guide (USA): The back story to 4 Rooms isn't needed for an appreciation of the cold drone meditation of the album, but it does provide some unnerving context -- the rooms in question, indicated by the track titles, are locations in the radiation zone still in place around the destroyed reactor at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The technical notes indicate that Jacob Kirkegaard's approach, openly citing Alvin Lucier's own work with tape overdubs, consisted of literally recording silence in each particular room -- all chosen due to being popular meeting places before the accident -- and broadcasting the results back into the room, many times over. Those familiar with the work of such sound artists like Thomas Köner will find immediate sonic affinities with 4 Rooms -- the opening "Church" in particular sounds like a piece from Köner's mid-'90s works, with an air of metallic chill. It's not a tone maintained throughout 4 Rooms, but all have the same general air -- if "Auditorium" feels a bit warmer in comparison, it's no less darkly meditative. Though not spelled out, presumably Kirkegaard further treated the recordings with understated arrangements, as the pieces shift to include undulating rhythms (without percussion) and shifts in volume, as well as fading out in some cases. "Swimming Pool," of the four pieces all told, might be the most gripping -- while possessing similarities to "Church," there's an almost stuttering, nervous edge to the main drones, allowing one to not entirely relax. In contrast, the concluding "Gymnasium" is the most hollow-sounding and eerie, with a higher pitch lending to the distanced feeling throughout. In the end, the larger background of the album is somehow present in a wordless fashion throughout 4 Rooms, suggestive of sudden abandonment and a still-looming, potent threat. [Ned Raggett]

LOCUST: WRONG 2XCD NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
The Guardian [UK]: "Wrong comes in what the record label calls a "twin CD format". But it's not your standard double CD: Mark Van Hoen, the man behind Locust, intends the CDs to be played at the same time, in what the liner notes call "an expansion to normal playback possibilities". They suggest that you play the first disc, which has the songs, on your normal hi-fi, while you play the accompanying disc of sympathetic drones "on a ghettoblaster or home computer...maybe from another room" with a volume ratio of three to one. When you listen to the first CD on its own, it sounds pretty good - vaguely commercial songs with catchy hooks sung tunefully by Holli Ashton. When you add the second CD, the atmosphere darkens: in its murky lo-fi way it works very well. Wrong is orchestrated with analogue synthesisers backed by heavy synth rhythm tracks - the sort of thing that may take some listeners back to the days when music programs had to be saved to data cassettes. [John L. Walters]

NEW ORDER: VIDEO 5-8-6 CDs  kr. 100 
Video 5—8—6 was recorded for the opening of the Hacienda Club, Manchester, in 1982. Two sections appeared on the very first Touch release, ‘Feature Mist’ (T1), in 1982, and an extract appeared on the CD Touch. sampler 2 (T_ZERO_2) earlier this year. It is available here in its entirety for the first time. The track was a blue print for ‘Blue Monday’, the best selling 12” record, which “helped to invent techno” and kick-started the idea of rock bands being remixed by dance producers. [The Hacienda Club has been closed down.] THIS IS THE MISSING LINK

PHIL NIBLOCK: TOUCH WORKS, FOR HURDY GURDY AND VOICE CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
The Wire, UK: "The forgotten minimalist" is how Kyle Gann's sleevenote describes 67 year old Phill Niblock. His music is largely unavailable on disc, and no recordings by him figured in Brian Duguid's Early Minimalism Primer in The Wire 206. And he's certainly neglected in the history books - neither Keith Potter's recent 'Four Musical Minimalists', nor Michael Nyman's classic 'Experimental Music', so much as mention him. Among the Big Four minimalists, he has closest affinities with the drone-based approach of La Monte Young, two years his junior. But he's more listenable than Young, and it could be that history's getting things wrong. Young may have been the ideas man, but Niblock's the superior musical creator, as this compelling album bears out. Niblock trained as a film maker and always uses a visual component in his productions, which we're obviously deprived of here. 'Hurdy Hurry' features samples of hurdy-gurdy playing by Jim O'Rourke. The harmonies gradually stabilise into a root-position chord then move back to instability - a very slow-mo version of 'running the changes' over nearly 20 minutes. The sound is massive, like a church organ at full power. Gann comments that the changes in the drones are almost imperceptibly slow, but
compared to Young, you can hear them subtly but very perceptibly unfolding their frequencies. There are two versions of 'AYU' - 'As Yet Untitled' - featuring the throat-singing of Tom Buckner, a classically trained baritone who became involved in free Improv in the 60s, then worked ina trio with Roscoe Mitchell and Gerald Oshita. On the first 'AYU', Niblock creates a drone piece from samples of his singing. On the second, Buckner returned to the recording studio and, listening with headphones, three times recorded a line in and out of tune with his source version. Four channels of pitch shift were added, and the effect is like a choir of throat-singers. As on 'Hurdy Hurry' there's a continuous, unbroken stream of sound, but with quivering, buzzing overtones. The effect of the interference patterns is hypnotic, even relaxing. This is a quite superb release." [Andy Hamlton]

K.K. NULL / CHRIS WATSON / Z´EV: NUMBER ONE CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
Boomkat (UK): KK.Null, friend of Merzbow, collaborator with Jim O’Rourke (among many others) and notable recently for a split LP with doom supergroup Earth now teams up with Touch stalwarts Chris Watson and Z’ev for an avant garde onslaught. Supposedly this album is based around themes of traditional Japanese Noh theatre, with each track representing a movement in the play. I can’t say I can really hear this in the tracks themselves but the concept is interesting, and Chris Watson’s Eastern African field recordings certainly add an amount of narrative to the pieces. Those of you who are familiar with Watson’s recordings will already know how essential his work is; incredibly detailed and captivating field recordings, taken from the most unusual sources (inside a bird carcass, the coming of a storm etc). The field recordings seem to be the basis of each track here, giving a solid backbone for whatever occurs elsewhere, and the events recorded are thoughtfully listed in the cd liner notes. KK.Null adds intense digital percussion and heavy noise into the mix, sometimes obscuring all else in his way, with Z’ev piecing together the results and distilling them into listenable and intricate mixes of styles. This is a captivating and intruiging project from Touch, and although it is not instantly listenable per se, when heard in its entirety is moving and atmospheric. Recommended.

ROSY PARLANE: IRIS CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
Flux (UK): Three long tracks of immersive ambience from a New Zealand soundscaper form a lazy heat haze drift, a quiet end to a noisy day. It's made from guitar and piano loops, but it opens up floating worlds so digitally processed as to be unrecognisable from moon-based telescopes. This is just beautiful. [Graeme Rowland]

RAFAEL TORAL: VIOLENCE OF DISCOVERY AND CALM OF ACCEPTANCE CD NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
Exclaim, Canada [net]: "This release has one of the most beautiful titles I have ever seen and has the music to more than back it up, making it one of my favourite all-time ambient recordings. Violence... is a live show done at Toronto's Now lounge, where Raffael's music was said to have shattered the glass frames of the pictures in the venue by hitting just the right frequency. Toral, accompanied by Rob Wannamaker, a notable improviser in his own right, uses modulating sounds to create a continuous, hovering, meditative album that's suggestive of wordless
realisations of the sages. Though the process of composing this music appears fairly complex, the results are simple, uncluttered and graceful. Long moments of subtle tremoring noises occur with build-ups that materialise out of a seemingly existential void, accompanied by vestiges of resonating string instruments. From darker, fear-filled parts to scaling redemptive heights of emotional exhilaration, this recording seems to mirror the experience of life itself. Somehow, Toral and Wannamaker managed to instil a sense of awe and wonderment, which is always a joy to behold, but happens so rarely."

MIKA VAINIO: ONKO CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
The Wire (UK): "Static and rumblings from the heaving netherworld of electronic sound experimentation...Onko is Panasonic man Mika Vainio's first release under his own name - his solo material has until now come under the Techno minimilia guise of Ø. The album marks a new departure for this mysterious musician, who now turns away from the vestigial dancefloor patterns that haunt most of his projects. The nearest parallel to this picks up from where the Ø contributions to Rastermusic's Mikro Makro album were heading, embarking on longish episodic pieces. At the centre of this album is a loosely structured 36 minute work which passes through many phases, ranging from crackle and static to tape-recorded atmospheric sound. While spareness remains the byword - parts of the piece are near-silent - there is a definite attention to wider sound sources than hitherto. The stark warmth previously favoured gives way to an unsettling succession of darkly themed noises. A strong flavour of indeterminacy develops as the listener is drawn into sounds that waver and change shape before disappearing again into silence. In the end, however, the focus of the shorter pieces wins out, with Vainio racking up the tension through sheer concentration. Like watching grass grow while a battery of demonic lawnmowers hover in the background, ready for the kill." (Will Montgomery)

MIKA VAINIO: KAJO CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
Bizarre (UK):"You've been lying in a snow-trench in the wastes of Siberia for two days, alone, glued to your radio, listening out for orders from above. Instead, all you hear is fluctuating hums, static, interference. By the fourth day, the beauty in these sounds becomes overwhelming and you hope to hear nothing else. Kajo opens with a recording of Vainio walking towards a machine and switching it on, drawing us from the outside, in. The following journey is atmospheric, sparse and beautiful. A soundtrack to something.

MIKA VAINIO: IN THE LAND OF THE BLIND ONE-EYED IS KING CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
Flux (UK): The Finnish monarch of stripped post-technoid rumble surpasses himself. From the opening earbashing, Pan Sonic's more dangerous half doesn't let up on quality. His genius: the awesome pursuit of impulses towards minimalism, abstraction and power, perfectly distilled, reigned in and still menacing. The strongest experimental record I've heard this year. [Graeme Rowland]

MARK VAN HOEN: THE LAST FLOWERS FROM THE DARKNESS CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
Alternative Press (USA): "Whether helping to mastermind the sensual interweaving of guitar and sampler with Seefeel or scraping together the eclectic mix of desolate soundscapes and overpowering distortion of Locust, Mark Van Hoen is a stylistic chameleon leaving an indelible mark on the face of electronics. The Last Flowers From The Darkness is an odds-and-ends collection of tracks recorded between 1992 and 1996 that runs the gamut from ethereal drum & bass to cryptic slabs of nothingness interspersed with sampled dialogue. What makes Van Hoen's work so engrossing is his attention to detail, especially in how he makes the most minimal pieces sound lush through the addition of ghostly melodies and broken voices. For example, Van Hoen manipulates a collection of sampled voices on '1967' until they resemble an alien language, then combines them with expressive noodling in the vein of Aphex Twin's ambient works. A Glimmer of Forgotten Ancestors is a driftwork of homeric proportions, majestically claiming both Talk Talk's Laughing Stock and Brian Eno's Music For Films as spiritual forefathers. The Last Flowers From The Darkness possesses a cinematic scope, as each track suggests a wide range of emotions while conjuring up abstract visuals for your mind." - Bill Cohen

VARIOUS: LIGHT CD kr. 100
The Wire, UK: On 'Light', three of the UK Touch label's current flagship electronica merchants conjoin in a showcase collection of fine bruits, klangs and samples. This 29 minute CD 'calling card' coincided with the label's May 2001 tour to promote 20 years of the Touch label. Through the 1980s, Touch issued surveys of international musics in a series of cleverly packaged Travel Tapes, which could be seen as 'aural postcards' and perhaps aides to 'mental journeys' for the meditative listener. Some cassettes arrived wrapped in map-like graphics to emphasise this geographical conceit. Touch's agenda has since developed to the enhanced stage we find here, using music, image and typography to present the exotic details of foreign climes with a crystal-sharp virtual reality. The photographs and sleeve designs of Jon Wozencroft are crucial to the project. Hazard's last release of environmental-based recordings made me think I was 'hearing' the grain of an old tree in the forest; Wozencroft's strong, simple images helped to inscribe this false memory. Here, Hazard (aka Sweden's Benny Jonas Nilsen) has extracted a more physical presence from his usual intangible fogginess, and generated sounds as solid as mechanical rollers processing molten sheet metal. Meanwhile, Vienna's Christian Fennesz (who now has more releases on Touch than on his 'home' label Mego) discovers lyricism in the urban chaos. His chattering episode 'C-Street' is an imaginary soundtrack for a 1950s office block; even on a short cut like this, the sheer clarity and intelligence of his productions cement his reputation as a kind of Brian Wilson of digital music. Biosphere's second offering here is fairly routine, but 'When I Leave' should satisfy your need for a daily quota of twisted beats and queasy synth tones. His clever voice samples connect 'Stairway To Heaven' to 'The Matrix' and the love lives of Greek gods; at least, that's what I hear. Join the dots together of yourself. [Ed Pinsent]

VARIOUS: TOUCH RINGTONES CD  NOK 150 / EUR 16 / USD 20 / GBP 11
Letter in Metro [London]:
Mind Boggling: I read about the new ring-tone of a woman having an orgasm in Metro (Mon). How do you explain that one to a five-year-old on the bus in the morning? What next? How about a ring-tone of a fart in the toilet or someone being sick? The mind boggles. Rosemary Thompson, Newcastle.

© Biophon Records 2005