Octobird on Zanderhythm MIX Series

  • Beitrags-Kategorie:AllgemeinSets

What better month to choose than October for my contribution to the fantastic Zanderhythm MIX Series !

For this one I set my pretension for super fluent DJ transitions aside for a moment to focus on something different… a message. Simply a message of peace. Not even of protest or critic (which I absoloutly encourage you to present) but more of a state of inner peace which can strengthen us to get along and feel love for each other. This is something that music, and especially electronic instrumental music can transport very well.

Quite a few of these tracks are actually from Russian artists. I can only try to perceive how difficult it may be to raise your voice in Russian public in the current situation. But these tracks offer something different. An inviting hand.

Two of my favourite artists for this mix I found on a Russian based label/record store called DIG Records. Which I cannot recommend enough.

PEACE

TRACKLIST

Misha Sultan – A Light to Oneself
Koyil – Shustari – Healing Cycles
Paradise Cinema – Digital Palm
Don’t DJ – Disparata 69
Zatua – Silver Horizon
Golden Axe – Apane Koolhon KO Hilaen
Tornado Wallace – Falling Sun
Trans’4M – Amma
Jan Jelinek – Up To My Same Old Trick Again
Bitchin Bajas – Angels And Demons At Play
Leif – Rosa
Nikita Bugaev & Diana Romanova & Vlad Dobrovolski – pol
The Cinematic Orchestra – Everyday
Arooj Aftab – Saans Lo

Octobird’s “Bimstein” out on Pr0gramma Records

  • Beitrags-Kategorie:Releases

Back home at Pr0gramma, back to some rough and raw structures. I’ve always been bad with timing and so I present theses rough and earthy tunes just as the brighter days are coming. And while I may be a bit better with words I stick to the valued opinion of Pr0gramma’s Ismael:

Back in the key of Octobird, we return to the pristine dynamics of Bimstein. From the onset, Palm Slap leans in with sluggish tape edit styles, tight electro rhythms, and playful earworms. Evolving into what feels like a moody 5th gen platformer, things take a more metallic heavy-rhythm turn. Controlling the color palette is a clear Octobird skillset. Passing halfway, melodic tension emerges once again from the rhythmic detour making for a very narratively guided trio of closing tracks. From the heavy side-pumping of saturated echoes to the crazy well-crafted perc throughout, PR16 feels like the inevitable polished gem of a closer. There is no lag here, just pure diamond quality.

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 Traxxx on Major Streaming Platforms and Digital Stores

  • Beitrags-Kategorie:Releases

Well, I guess that’s called a sellout without income. In a better future, we would all be busy squandering our pocket money on Bandcamp and in record stores. But streaming platforms like Spotify have probably changed our listening habits permanently. And no matter how you understand the statements of a generation of poor bedroom producers, it may not be so much about paying for music, but rather about giving it a value.

No matter! Octobird is on Spotify and all these other Major Players now. Because, well … everyone else is there too … and admittedly I also use Spotify. So go along, click all these links, push all these subscription buttons and give your thumbs up at the checkout.

SPOTIFY | APPLE MUSIC | TIDAL | YOUTUBE | GOOGLE

I love you all!

Tentacle Loot #23 | Wagawaga – OuterYerO’er

Wagawaga has been a silent companion in my musical metacosmos since the very early days. With his first releases on Acroplane – where I also had my first flying lessons – he absorbed the quintessence of dubstep very early, freed from its bursting clichés and reassembled from a fund of unbridled creativity.

While early albums like JinJaNoonBus still shot from all directions with genre references from Dubstep, Breakcore and Acid, his wobbly sound now seem to spring from a center point. That’s neither good nor bad, because Wagawaga has always been somehow … eh ….. Waga Waga … has always been fun, but it offers a different approach to his world. You may stumble and dissolve, change your physical composition, threaten to give up your body in a literal jungle of bass and swelling drums but finally are caught again with a swing. He utters you the desire to use awareness and control as a crutch and fulfills the unspoken desire to be reborn as a rubber ball. Musically, he puts the complete dubstep manual aside and relies entirely on a breathing carpet of bass and natural field recordings. On this he lets his stumbling jazzy drum patterns swell up and down, weaves in sound effects and mantra-like melodies.
What a wonderful late summer!

Buy Music Club #1 | All my Friends are on Acid

Regardless of whether you are fully immersed in global insanity or just chilling out with a tequilla on your hermetically sealed veranda. It’s good to be on acid!

I could expand this cliffhanger now. With pupils dilated in surprise, ponder where the omnipotent influence of psychedelic sound roots comes from. But the real reason for this list is that I generally have a hard time writing extensive reviews for people who are close to me personally. It is obvious! You’re just too scared of hurting your dear friends feelings.

So let’s keep it short and sweet! Shall we?!

My dearest musical colleague and friend Vodor L. Zeck gets busy! In addition to countless releases on his own Zanderhythm, he pours out some funky quirky acid stoners on Acid Waxa and Sitdownanddance!

My new favorite Argentinean trip sitters Franco ‘D and Cruz Coronado have a brand new label! The first long player on Infinit Records features wonderfully trippy downtempo acid jams. Stoned to infinity!

I only met Briain recently when he sold me his Elektron Octatrack on Ebay. Damn nice chap, part of the Berlin Skizze Crew, who (kinda like my good old Various Veterans) do their part to keep the Berlin club culture diverse. And a pretty talented Amen Breaker too!

My best pal Vertical67 has already made way too much acid. Now he lies horizontally and creates a nice ambient. I like it very much! I guess I’ll leave him there for a moment.

Gajek – a companion from the early days of our acid diaries. And someone who had obviously already way too many Kraut! I guess it helps him not to be so cerebral. But it’s the mixture of both that makes his music so great. Cerebral Kraut!

And me … Octobird. Oh, I’d rather not say anything. I am afraid to hurt my feelings!

Tentacle Loot #11 | The Hatcliffe House Tapes Vol. 7 – Incidental Moments And Accelerated Fusion

… or just one of countless research papers from the John Lee Richardson lab.

When you first land on the Bandcamp site of Indifferent Space Recordings, you feel a bit lost but yet tied up by unknown forces at the same time. What kind of planet is this? A tape label … an acid planet? But then track after track you become aware that you’ve stranded in a peaceful dictatorship, because this planet counts only one inhabitant:
Captain John Lee Richardson.

Richardson recently released the collected works of his two senior alter egos from his self-managed discography: Acrelid – Illegal Rave Tapes and The Hatcliffe House Tapes. While he indulges in a good old sample-loaded Braindance style on his Illegal Rave Tapes, his “House Tapes” are more dedicated to the laid back psychedelic spheres of retrofuturistic electronic music.

On the warm, limited frequency spectrum of a cassette recording, one get carried away into the infinite vastness of space and yet always has the feeling of being in a very personal, comfortably furnished parallel universe. Sometimes stoically impulsive as on old recordings of the Silver Apples, sometimes leaning back and playful as on many Ghost Box releases.

As I said, Vol. 7 – Incidental Moments and Accelerated Fusion is actually just an entry-level terminal if you decide to travel with Richardson. Because once you’ve started, you’re out there for a while. Far out!

Highly recommended are also his early Oscillopeisia releases as well as his YouTube channel, which gives a wonderfully blurry look from his spaceship.

Baikonur EP | out on Pr0gramma Records

  • Beitrags-Kategorie:HouseReleases

Octobird’s latest EP just got released on Pr0gramma Records.

“With a progressive blend of uncanny melodies and warping harmonics, the Baikonur EP feels almost like a computer data process that somehow got itself locked into techno rhythms. The organic timbre even lies oddly between raw synthesis and heavily processed acoustics. These binaries ultimately balance but provide a mysticism that uniquely destabilizes the listen. Particularly Baikonur and The Gate exemplify this eccentric mix of evolving musicality and an odd sense that it’s all just data being filtered through melodious substructures.”

This is Octobird’s second EP release after last year’s 1st of Octobird.

Tentacle Loot #10 | Tihomir Zdjelarević – Mikrowelt

“Tihomir Zdjelarević is a Berlin based musician. He works with modular synthesizer, string synthesizer, guitar, Four track and hardware effects to create a large soundscape with a kosmic vibe”

Tihomir pretty obviously follows the paths of classic ambient music from the golden age of the analogue synthesizer. But he does so with a lot of passion and sensitivity. He put’s the Warp Speed Engine straight on 1 Lightmeter per hour and follows the routes of Cosmic Music, Krautrock and Psychedelia slowly and carefully. Therefore this music is by all means meditative, as it takes you to a place you’ve already been before – somewhere save – and lets your mind wander and expand.

So we highly recommend to just take these 40 Minutes off. Put away your smartphones turn off your computer, shield yourself from the surrounding Wifi and find a way to listen to MP3s in this rather uncommon setup.

Damn, what a stressful world.

Tentacle Loot #1 | Batfinks – Mosaic

Earthy, tricky and yet impulsive. Batfinks release on Caoutchou Records is a sick mosaic of sound called Mosisac. So much grown potential which will sadly not be able to grow on, as he passed away last year.

His Mates from Caoutchou say:

Batfinks became part of the Caoutchou fam since he contributed the track ‘Shamalaalaa’ for the second Rubber Beats compilation back in ’09. 5 years later we released ‘Bibobleyboo’ on our label and early 2016 he sent us new material; an album named ‘Mosisac’. Later that year we heard the sad news that Ste had passed away.

Batfinks was a mysterious character on whom we never really got a hold. When we talked, our conversations ended up in neologistic gibberish and laughter which was simultaneously amazing and funny. When we asked about his background to compose a promo text for his album this is what he wrote to us:

“Learnt my first chords when I was 4 on a Casio MT-65 on the toilet which was very satisfying I must say. Learnt how to play 808 State and Sonz of Da Loop Era tunes when I was 7 with a mate of mine, Jim Noir. Spent a lot of time with my dad and brother going to bluegrass gigs and old folks homes. Influences were mainly old school rave music when I was younger but then got into Gong, The Orb, Orbital, Autechre and that. A lot of jazz and world music stuff which was through my brother and his mates.”

Mosisac shows us a side of Batfinks which we haven’t heard before. Instead of the usual Batfinksesque sound we are now introduced to a collection of grim and gloom-ridden tracks although his typical sound is still imminent. In his dad’s words: ‘The musical version of Hieronymus Bosch paintings… it’s a profound vision of someone on a path’

We love you, Batfinks. Forever in our hearts and ears.

Inhalts-Ende

That's the bottom of the sky.