New Album “Findlinge” out on Zanderhythm

  • Beitrags-Kategorie:Releases

Findlinge is my first Album in ages and somehow the first one under the alias Octobird. It’s been quite a while now since I’ve started to keep a lot of my creations hidden in a little box while trying to connect them in all kind of combinations every once in a while. For this one I asked my good friend Max from Zanderhythm to help me with the puzzle and so he came up with this wonderful combination of tunes to take us on a journey.

Findlinge is a colorful psychedelic ride trough textures and rhythms. A dream within a dream within a dream, where you are still able to collect little gems and take them from one world into the other.

Like most of my music these tunes are very much based on different sampling techniques. Digging my vinyl collection for sounds between sounds and carving out hidden memories in dusty record grooves to reconnect them into emotional context.

So why not start collect your gem at Zanderhythm.com

Special thanks go to Salih Topuz for the great Mastering and Polina Ugarova for the amazing Artwork.

Zanderhythm Presents: Octobird & Vodor L Zeck

  • Beitrags-Kategorie:Live

Freitag der 13.01.2023 from 8pm @ 8KW , Kietzer Weg 8 (LichtenHain)

Zanderhythm presents “Acidcake Skating Through Your Brain” with Octobird und Vodor L Zeck

If you thought we present our new movie we have to dissapoint you. Its just Ocotbird and Vodor L Zeck playing muzik for you the whole night.

Vodor L Zeck kicks of his european tour in Berlin on Friday the 13th, cause there is no better date to start a tour into the unknown. Come together at 8KW and have a dance to some Acidish Braindancy IDMish Electro 4 to the floor breaks house music 🙂

Tentacle Loot #27 | Kapha Selections: Sun Castle / Ke’So [KS04]

At first glance, nothing seems to fit on this 2 track split-tape. A solo piano piece on the A-Side and a 15 minute lofi house jam on the B-Side. And yet it apparently reflects the experimental musical melting pot of this New York collective. I say “apparently” because I couldn’t really find out that much about Kapha Selections, except that they have been releasing split tapes for about a year, which largely reflect the underground culture of their hometown.

A little more obvious is the International Winners Collective, to which this tape is dedicated. They’ve been organizing events and parties in Brooklyn, New York and releasing stuff on Bandcamp for a number of years now. Constantly strolling between art gallery and club without seeming to give a damn about whether they should please one or the other target audience. With a cross-eyed look across the Atlantic, such a concept, of course, brings up prejudices about would-be high culture immediately, which are also shaped by experiences from my own hometown Berlin. However, these can be completely dispelled with the two tracks on this EP alone. Because two things come to the fore here: curiosity and honesty. As different as these two pieces may appear, they are both a sincere invitation to a physical, spiritual experience. Both pieces do not want to be viewed and evaluated from the outside, but rather be experienced. (Sorry that I’m doing exactly the opposite of that at this point 😉 )

For these reasons, however, I will simply save myself from describing or even explaining the two tracks in detail. Instead I close with the realization that this short tape is a wonderful reminder that music is a living part of our confused cities and communities and that we will not be able to transport these experiences into virtual spaces.
And that’s a good thing!

Hold on!

Octobird – Faeces | available on Bandcamp (and everywhere else)

  • Beitrags-Kategorie:Releases

There we have him, the newborn. That happy little companion who will cheer you up about the first hardships of the approaching winter. A handful of tracks that are rather creamy, soft and warm, but won’t refuse a little dance or two.

“Faeces” Release Site

The links to the streaming services could still take a few days before they actually lead to the release, but Bandcamp is up and running. Everything else is fake anyway! 😉

Octobird Salad #12 | Digital Natures

A silent evolution is taking place between pixel-flooded landscapes and rhythmic clacking wood emulations. An Euclidean alternation between melody and texture, structure and color. And while hype addicts are still looking for the perfect hookline, the free spirits have long been researching new parameters of expression. And so this episode of Octobird Salad is intended to pay tribute to those free spirits who are looking for new parameters of composition in a mixture of club functionality and emotional expression. And by the way, a sneak peek into my own attempts in this field, which will see the light of day in the very near future. But you have to stay until the end of the party.

It is probably the hidden merit of Jan Jelinek (who is represented here with his Farben project) to have pushed the deconstruction of melody and rhythm. For almost twenty years now, he has been busy blurring the familiar patterns and levels in music and thus lovingly freeing us from our cherished bonds. Always deeply experimental in his musical approaches, somehow he never wanted to scare us. He was rewarded with all kinds of attempts to put him in some kind of genre. Yet he was minimalist before Minimal became a short-lived club trend. Was too conceptual for Ambient and Lounge.

While Jelinek seems to have long since arrived in the academic quarter of his existence, there are plenty of descendants who are striving for structural changes on the dance floor. On Firecracker Recordings all varieties of house music are doused with liters of paint. Dauwd just nailed the Theory of Colours with their eponymous album and 1080p Records owe their independent character in the LoFi corner primarily to their color spectrum. Instead of releasing anyone who can run an R’n’B sample through a tape plug-in, they mainly stood out for their selection of independent sound spectra (which was then run trough a tape plug-in).

So this isn’t all big news and some might even legitimately doubt my brave claim to set Jan Jelinek on the throne here. Let me be honest and reveal that this is all a frame for my own musical intentions in this science and the final track might give a glimpse in this. For me personally this is all very much connected to the art and science of sampling, of finding the hidden textural magic between the peaks of recorded sounds to give them a second birth of something the sound itself wouldn’t have imagined. So keep your ears open, either here at octobird.org or on my Bandcamp for something up-to-date…finally.

TRACKLIST:

Journeyman Trax: Inside
Farben: Love Oh Love
Beta Librae: Swope Park
Lnrdcroy: Terragem
The Room Below: Freedom
Kowton: Bits & Pieces
Gerry Read: Legs (Kevin McPhee Remix)
Dauwd: Silverse
Octobird: Flute Loot
 

Octobird Salad #10 | Dream State Inhabitants

Ahhh … it’s been a while since the last time I gave these virtual turntables a physically modeled spin. Pretty busy grinding down home made rhythm exercises  so that they could see the light of the ether as soon as possible. And of course vacation. In dream states around the globe. I wished myself everywhere. As a lively, vibrating disembodied being that flows unabashedly through the bars of the present. Dancing, dreaming, slowly fading.

With their debut EP Seasick in Salts, uh just recently built a wonderfully suitable runway for these dream trips. Somewhere between trippy Acid Ambient spheres of the Orb and free-spirited pop designs of the late Roisin Murphy, uh embark on a journey that never ends in just 30 minutes. Located somewhere between 1990 and infinity.

Klasse Wrecks also brilliantly mastered the art of lifting genres everyone knows and has never heard before from the depths of our subconscious . Their recent releases are basically the blueprint for everything that buzzes around in this OS episode. Endlessly reverberant hooks, tripping breakbeats and sprinkles of classic rave vocals. And with their latest (and for some inexplicable reason purely digital) Homeboys EP, the two Klasse Wrecks masterminds Luca Lozano and Mr Ho simply nailed it (…to the point where describing words become totally redundant).

In order not to slide into oblivion of interwoven dream sequences, a special magic is required. Lesinge, who already made a lot of promises on his Acid Waxa debut in 2017, has now set up his own acid hit list with Plic Ploc. The melodies play ping pong, the bass runs bowl and the beats make cricket. If he continues to grow so steeply, we urgently need an initiative against home sports.

#staysave dream dancers, headphone ravers, virtual snake creatures…

TRACKLISZT:

ARTIST

uh
B12
The Boys From Chariss
Route 8
Jay Ka
Cliff Lothar
Alphonse
Luca Lozano
Justin Cudmore
Lesinge
Luca Lozano
Innerspace Halflife
Horsepower Productions
Ex-Terrestrial

TRACK

Contact
Play with Me
Bass Love
Turning Point
Dirty Earth
Devotion
Xanax 123
Bedroom Beat
New Jack the House
Une Verte Deux Blanches
Biohazard
Wind
TP
Insect Reject

LABEL

Prah Recordings
Central Processing Unit
Klasse Wrecks
Lobster Theremin

Turbo
Klasse Wrecks
Klasse Wrecks
The Bunker New York
Acid Waxa
Klasse Wrecks
M>O>S Recordings
Sneaker Social Club
Magicwire

Tentacle Loot #20 | Nicolas Spampinato – 0000 Drama

The Argentine label Guerilla Tunes has woven its very own sound carpet over the last few years. A knitting pattern bursting with colorful joy, and yet permeated with patterns that you have to look at from some distance before you understand them. With a mixture of nature-loving field recordings, interwoven yet friendly rhythm experiments, straight acid house and great artworks they celebrate sonic diversity like hardly any other (musical) island. And yes … it all fits together somehow … thanks to this very fine pinch of Balearic gentleness … just in Argentinian … and straight in your face … know what I’m sayin’?!

Or no…don’t you? Then perhaps Nicolas Spampinato’s 0000 Drama could provide a smooth introduction to this complex unity. His recently released 4 track debut is one of the more accessible releases on Guerilla, which does not mean that they have gone too far off the beaten track here. Because although we are dealing with 4 house tracks, which cling to the lingering 90s nostalgia by rolling along quite funky with a manageable number of elements, all tracks have a personal signature. Nicolas Spampinato appears on this EP as an artist whose personal note nestles in the details. Consistently in the tradition of the old school, somewhere between old Traxxx Records, early LFO tunes and refreshed L.I.E.S records and yet never completely cliché, but always idea first. And so all the musical elements constantly urge to get out of hand to escape the rhythmic bars, but are always reminded of their task just at the right moment: Serve the groove! And that’s good! Because the result is a playful design, a stubborn head soaked in sunlight.

Braindance with a parasol.

Tentacle Loot #17 | Poisson Chat: Nocturna Træcks I+II

As much as I try to avoid mentioning the C-Word these days, opportunities often do lead to inspiration. And so we start this review with a figuratively clichéd thesis once again:

“Isolation is a warm place.”

Not just since his Nocturna Tracks releases I+II Poisson Chat cultivated a very deep and warm sound. In his minimalistic Deep-House compositions he takes us into the comforting realms of pure emptiness that only someone with a truly introverted mind can empathize.

“What I’m looking for when I’m composing music, is an isolated, quiet, and peaceful environment (like the deepness of the ocean). Going like a fish (-cat) to a new world to express what I feel. With my music, I think people can imagine their own underwater stories, and swim into some nice places.”

This is how the artist himself described his musical world of inspiration in one of his rarely seen web appearences – a DJ-Set Podcast / Interview, which was published for the Italian online magazine Electronique.it in 2014. And these ambitions can still be recognized as a driving force in his releases. In the same interview he also described his efforts to strip down his sound as much as possible in order to archieve a clear idea. And indeed, precisely these ingredients lead him to an amazingly focused sound, well-placed in genre terms such as Minimalism, Deep House or LoFi House, but skilfully eludes the corresponding genre clichés. His driving grooves, warm sound carpets and resting melody sequences, create tracks that work on dreamy, lost dance floor escapades as well as on peacefully exhausted six-hour drives back home from the latest festival weekend (which will definitely come ;).

Those who take the rewarding venture to dive deeper into the Poisson Chat‘s catalog will also discover a handful of downtempo treasures in which he has clear evidence for a fluid connection between the early Lofi masterpieces by Boards Of Canada and contemporary LoFi House Trends. This preference is particularly evident on his Unidata alias (which I almost certainly suspect is his creation too, even if this is not clearly written anywhere).

With a few exceptions from the early days, Poisson Chat consistently published on his own label creations Poisson Chat Musique (PCM) and Wave Memory (VΛV).

 

Octobird Salad #9 | Home is where your House is

Okay… easy, easy!

Let’s leave that headline in all its ambiguity regarding the state of the nation and devote ourselves to an extra large portion of escapism. It’s dream time, baby! Because dreaming is the only true alternative to Netflix these days. And Dream House was a genre long before Netflix was a clinically recognized addiction.

I’ve been a bit off lately from simmering velvety smooth track transitions. Instead, I was quite busy jacking up my own tracks to somehow work.

Without being among those who suddenly have a lot more time (but rather those who simply take their time) I was pretty intensely involved in expanding my own mixing and mastering skills. So why not just sprinkle one of my own compositions right at the beginning? Roughly mixed and not mastered at all, but laid back and totally unobtrusive.

With everything that follows, this seems to be more or less a Future Times Label Special. Which surprised me myself and was not on purpose at all. But I guess that’s exactly where the fine instinct of Future Times releases lies. A forward-looking sound aesthetic that uses sound colors that are already deeply rooted in our imagination. All covered with a fine digital pastel, to which we haven’t dedicated ourselves so meditatively to since New-Age Times. Rhythmically, on the other hand, these Tracks are always encouraged not to break the well-known patterns, but rather to prepare the listener patiently for some next-level experiences.

Our other companions also join this joy of playing. Among them Linkwood, who – in addition to his collaboration with Foat – recently rereleased his Disco-House masterpiece System. As well as His Master’s Voice, a fairly new pair of hands on the machines and, above all, someone who stands out in the continuing Electro trend with his excessive digressions. Not by reinventing the toolbox, but simply by completely doing his own thing. 1st class dreamer!

TRACKLIST

ARTIST
Neu Balance
Octobird
Garies
Outboxx
Linkwood & Foat
Dreems
Jeremy Hyman
Ov
His Master’s Voice
Diego
Bandhagens Musikförening

TRACK
Tread
Rubbing Fingers
Don Bongo
How You Know
Pressure
In The Jungle
Slide
Perc Song (Chords)
Taurus
Crack
Protokoll A

LABEL
1080p
unreleased
Future Times
Well Rounded Housing Project
Athens Of The North
Multi Culti
Future Times
Future Times
KCZMRK
Future Times
Northern Electronics

 

Tentacle Loot #16 | magnetisme obscur: mondo hybrid

Soundtracks for dystopian cyperpunk movies that don’t exist. In the retrofuturistic realms of LoFi-House and Electro, a lot is already out of stock at the video shop around the corner. Whether as a stringent concept or as a flowing aesthetic of sound. And yet it is always surprising how new and independent ideas and color palettes result from this world of sound.

The French producer Magnetisme Obscur has been concentrating on his well-chosen hardware tool-set of driving drum machines, washed-out synths and grated vocal samples since around 2016 and publishes the results on his DIY in-house label CPSL records.

On the current release Mondo Hybrid, he adds an ingredient to his sound spectrum, which he himself describes as a “liquid aspect”. And indeed, a viscous yellow smear flows through the entire length of the EP, extracted from kitsch and stored in darkness for decades. The poison of an unfulfilled hope that distorts into a nightmare of lonesome dreams . A sound that I only experienced so clearly from Danny Wolfer’s (aka Legowelt) side project Polarius. But while Polarius likes to digress and stroll into the unknown, Mondo Hybrid seems pleasantly focused. Mind Surf in particular comes up with a hookline that winds its way through the entire track without any problems and still nudges your finger towards track-repeat at the end.

Inhalts-Ende

That's the bottom of the sky.

Ältere Beiträge