Erstlaub

Just a little influx update really.

I’ve just relocated Erstlaub HQ to a lovely new flat in Dundee which I’m sharing with wonderful fellow TBA student Rebecca Clark. If you’d like to send me any nice things by way of a housewarming present then hit me up via the usual channels and I’ll give you our address.

I’ve finally dragged my lazy arse back into some sort of productive position and have made the DVD menu for Sleepwalking Into The Underworld and posted off the master copy to Highpoint Lowlife. I know I’ve been banging on about this for what feels like an eternity but I promise there will be release news soon.

On HPLL, at the risk of coming over all weepy, in light of Th0rsten’s not terribly recent announcement to wind down operations, I just want to thank everyone who’s been involved and supported the label over the years. It’s an amazing thing as an artist to be involved with a label who have given us the belief, support and room to grow without any hassle whatsoever. I’m genuinely proud of the releases we’ve done together and hope that Sleepwalking proves a fitting requiem to our time working together. It’s pretty corny but over the years, Th0r and Mat and all the other artists have become like family to me. I wish everyone that’s been involved all the best on new endeavours and look forward to sharing them here. //weep

So, phoenixlike, we move onto new things with Broken20. I’ve started preliminary builds of some new pieces, I don’t quite have my concept nailed down yet but am pretty confident that its nature will reveal itself in the coming weeks. Keep an eye out for developments and maybe some cheeky exclusive sketches as they develop. There’s some amazing artists on the roster and some fantastic releases in the pipeline so watch these spaces.

I’m without proper, regular internet for another month until Rupert Murdoch’s evil henchmen come and connect my internet so communications may be sparing for a little while (although not sure if it’ll be any more noticeable than usual).

Hertz

D

Sometimes it’s interesting when things claw their way out of the graves they lie in…

One of the first albums that was formed as Erstlaub that falls under my current continuum was The Long Road which has just been made available for free as part of the BrokenZero series. Special thanks to Sietse for the archive rip seeing as the physical copies in existence seem to be turning to dross in the sunlight and refusing to become digital.

The Long Road

“Sometime in 2006, Erstlaub finally crawled out from the internal wreckage, fully formed and bristling with very specific intentions. The Long Road marked the end of one journey and the beginning of another. The systems had been honed, the process refined, the trials undertaken, it was time to transmute pure thought and will into sound.

The movements and passages contained within it are generally of a subtle, calmer nature with a focus on texture and interplay between modulations but at times configure themselves into a quite daunting amount of quiet noise. The Long Road was performed once in October 2006 in Augsburg, Germany, the first public appearance of Erstlaub.

The Long Road was created on a Nord Modular G2 using a Evolution UC33 midi controller and a Boss DD20 delay unit, it was recorded in one live take with no additional processing or overdubs.”

Get it here.

Remember you can show us some Broken20 love via facebook, twitter or indeed by the healing power of positive thinking (well maybe just the first two then).

D

My first ever podcast was posted up last week on the Broken20 site. Loosely mixed without any sort of permissions but done so with the utmost respect and intent. Here’s the tracklisting.

Erstlaub – On Becoming Invisible

For our first podcast Dundee-based artist Erstlaub kicks things off with an hour or more of dark drone, ambient and post-rock textures. It features an exclusive excerpt from the first release on the label.

Basil Kirchin – Once Upon a Time
Oneohtrix Point Never – Physical Memory
The Zephyr Skate Team – Horse Walking
Tim Hecker – Paragon Point
Slowdive – Souvlaki Space Station
Windy & Carl – Lighthouse
Dirty Hope – Turtles
Stars of the Lid – Virginia (20.30)
Throbbing Gristle – Perception Is The Only Reality
TVO – We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (excerpt)
Dopplereffekt – Hyperelliptic Surfaces
Kraftwerk – Kometenmelodie 2
Samoyed – Simmer Lunt
The Caretaker – Friends Past Re-United
Angelo Badalamenti – Blue Frank

Direct link is here on the Broken20 site or here’s the feed so you can subscribe to the series via your iTunes .

The Long Road will be coming very soon as part of the BrokenZero series.

D

I am pleased to announce that my long term nemesis and occassional techno and sushi partner The Village Orchestra is launching a new label.

Here’s the website chatter

“Broken20 is a new label from ruaridhTVO, with assistance from production unit and erstlaub

Broken20 will release all sorts of music. Rather than be genre-tied, we will be releasing music rooted in a particular aesthetic – releases concerned with decay, erosion, entropy, mistakes and errors, line noise and tape hiss, hum and buzz.

We’ll primarily be a digital download label, although there will be forays into highly limited cd- and dvd-r variants of our releases. We hope to eventually release some vinyl editions.”

I’ve already put together a little selection which will appear imminently as a podcast which takes in fizzy electronics, gloomy post-rock, bleeps, the occasional rumble and some other junk that represents the sort of noise that takes place in my head on a daily basis. Also coming very soon will be my album “The Long Road” which was originally a self released CDR back sometimes around, um, 2005 or 6 maybe which was so limited in edition that I’m not even sure I have my own copy anymore. It’ll be coming up on the BrokenZero section of the site for free. I’ll probably post up when they are both avaialble.

In the meantime, you can keep up with the label’s general wackness of chat via its twitter feed.

From me in the relative future then, lookout for:

• Podcast/The Long Road on Broken20
• Sleepwalking into the Underworld on HPLL (the delay of which is entirely my own fault)
• Featured bits appearing within Malin III by Alastair cook (which he’s performing over the coming months, check his site for details).
• A very special (read utterly random and improvised) live Broken20 team-up between me and TVO (diaries permitting) playing in a glasshouse (no stonethrowing please) in September (details still tbc).
• A brand new Erstlaub album for Broken20
• A live collaboration in November with Alastair Cook at the CCA for Cryptic Nights

I’ll see you in the morgue I guess, mine’s a rum and coke.

D

Just a wee thanks to all the people who came out to see me do my thing at n_ilk the other week. I performed Sleepwalking into the Underworld in it’s entirety along with the projected side of it. I also managed to try out a new finish I’d been thinking about which builds a few minutes of noise into a solid mass, draws it out and then just pulling the plug at the right moment leaving both a sonic and visual vacuum, I think it worked out not bad. From a personal point of view, I think it might have been my best performance yet. I had a couple of very brief moments of awareness but in the main I was surrendered to Erstlaub and lost inside the sound, it got pretty dark in there at moments.

Huge thanks to my man Steven James Herd who took some pics of me in action.

D

Just incase you don’t already have a copy (shame on you!), you can now pick up Broadcasting on Ghost Frequencies here from the ever awesome Norman Records along with some other gems from the MFR catalogue. Here’s what Phil had to say about it.

“We got a bunch of CD’s in this week on the Moving Furniture label. I picked one up with my eyes closed and I got Erstlaub. Nice. It’s called Broadcasting on Ghost Frequencies and that’s exactly what it is! It sounds like a load of harsh white noise with something trying to break through. All I can think of is that small woman from Poltergeist with the creepy voice now. It’s well intense and a total journey if you stick with it to the end of this 48 minute headfuck as you’ll traverse many spectral planes and feel totally drained afterwards. Just like I do now….”

That’ll do me

Hertz

D

Another artschool project to post up here. If you follow the link, it explains the brief and my concept. It is in flash (as per the brief) so apologies to the iPhone peoples as it won’t work.

The more eagle eyed/die-hard among you might have already picked up the rather good 2010 Mixtape from Highpoint Lowlife which features some greatness by some of my favourite musicians such as Erik XVI (with TVO on the dub), some ghostly anti-wobble from Production Unit, some of Mandelbrot’s new noisy as fuck guitar histrionics and the enigmatic legend that is 10-20, everytime I hear new stuff by him it just blows me away, awesome. Oh yeah, there’s also a little bit of new Erstlaub on there which must mean……

Yep, consider this announced! Sleepwalking into the Underworld will be coming out on Highpoint Lowlife this year, plans at present are to do a DVDr release with the full visuals but we still have a few things to iron out before I can say for certain. You’ll know more when I do.

<3

D

Quite a few bits of news from me this week.

Broadcasting on Ghost Frequencies made the man-legend that is The Village Orchestra’s end of year honours list that he was asked to put together for FACT. I don’t think it’s officially posted yet keep em peeled for that. The podcasts are also well worth a punt, great site, good content, nice outlook on things. here

Also linked in with TVO, this month’s Wire magazine features a full page feature on the man along with a couple of my photo’s of him making this my first international published photo credit. Yayy.

Still dragging it’s phantom self around, a nice little review of Ghost Frequencies arose today on Sonomu courtesy of Steven Fruitman.

“This excellent work was inspired by a bit of quackery known as the ”Ganzfeld Procedure” in the field of parapsychology. A subject is blindfolded and equipped with a pair of headphones playing nothing but white and pink noise – static. Out of this aural assault, it is hoped the subject will discern patterns, maybe even hear voices. Maybe even real voices from the past.

More than science, it sounds like a relative to Victorian fancies like fairy photography or Edison´s attempts to hear the voices of the dead via the radio, optimistic hopes that new technology might reveal previously hidden worlds, or at least reveal the otherwise hidden beings that share ours with us.

As music, however, Broadcasting on Ghost Frequencies sits four-square in the contempary field of drone music, which for all its different forms also wishes to put the listener in a contemplative mood, from which he or she will often hear things that are not really there. Or are, but very subtly so.

Erstlaub´s fifty-minute piece appears to be playing the role of the input – the static barrage – and the output - the shapes and colours the mind suggests might appear out of the the flat, prickly monotony. Because he certainly shows an intervening hand by creating sound events which rise and fade away, or are consumed by the greater drone, with regularlity.

In fact Dave Fyans of Perth, Scotland, the man behind the attractive monicker (”first leaves”), proves a very talented composer in a field where patience and taste, knowing just when to change the pitch, send in a reverberating spiral, or add a new thread to the weave of the main drone, is the mark of an artist.

It is really quite beautiful, balancing between both stark and lush in some inexplicable - paranormal? - manner.

http://www.movingfurniturerecords.com” from here.

Finally, I am pleased to be able to announce that I will be breaking cover for a rare live performance on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at the Bowery in Edinburgh as part of the very interesting looking Hidden Door Festival. They are in the process of updating their site so I’ll post more details and times as they are solidified. I will be playing an entirely new set (which I’m also in the process of making visuals for) which at the moment may or may not be floating around in my head with the title of “Sleepwalking into the Underworld” but I can’t be sure yet.

Have a nice holiday season or whatever,

D

Just a little summer update for you I guess. I initially came by to tell you that I’m not going to be up to much and ended up decided to just give you a free EP.

Musically I’m putting things on a back burner for a little while, not for any determinate length of time or particular reason. I’ve got a few concepts brewing for future titles so I want to let them expand under their own weight until the time feels right to conceive and realise them.

In the meantime, I put together the In Darkened Corners EP clocking in at 15.57 made up of 2 separate tracks. These may or may not appear in other (or similar) forms in future but in the meantime, just enjoy them for what they are, upbeat summer dancefloor tunes (no stupid, of course they aren’t).

Click on the image to go to the download page.

Yes it’s in ghettostyle 128kbps, if you want a bigger version to play out or whatever ask me and I might have one lying around somewhere. If you want to show some love, you can still pick up a copy of Ghost Frequencies from Moving Furniture.

In other areas, I’ve been embarking upon a series of adventures, exploring the old, abandoned, derelict and forgotten. So far this has taken in Railways Tunnels, Castles, Bunkers and Hospitals. I’ll post a few samples below but there are full sets for each over at my Flickr stream. I think you need to be a contact to see the full size versions of things so drop me a message if you want me to add you.

I would like to point out that my explorations of these sites are conducted in the most respectful of manners and out of an interest in their historical, cultural, archeological and psychogeographical properties.  I take available opportunities with access and never create them, I never lay a finger on any items that I come across. The general rule here is “take only photo’s, leave only footprints” which is a pretty sound philosophy.

In terms of other input, it’s been a while since I did one of these lists so I won’t go into huge detail but I’ve been reading Sculpting in Time where Tarkovsky talks in depth about his art. I’ve also been reading Infinite Crisis and Countdown to Final Crisis from DC whose large story arcs and immense characterisations I’m just finding a deep thirst for.

Visually I’ve managed to watch a huge amount of films over the summer, including rewatches of Blue Velvet and Eraserhead, Finally getting around to seeing Rashomon, Waking Life, Man on Wire, The Joy Division Documentary, The Wave, Catch 22 and MASH, The Fall, and W to name the handful that spring to mind. More recently, I had the utter pleasure of seeing Godard’s Alphaville  on the big scree at the DCA in Dundee which I adored and also (vis BBC iPlayer of all places) The Bothersome Man which was fantastic, it came across like a very black satire of an Ikea catalogue, worth seeking out for sure.

I think I’ve rambled on enough, keep an eye on my flickr, I’m posting new sets all the time. I start at Duncan of Jordanstone in Dundee early September doing my degree in Time Based Art and Digital Film which I’m looking forward to hugely (but kinda nervous about being the weird old guy in my year, ah well, c’est la vie).

I should also say Happy Birthday to the ridiculous amount of people who had their birthdays recently including my sister, Louise and Moving Furniture’s Sietse/Orphax.

Until next time,

D

Scott over at Mapsadasical dropped a glowing review of Ghost Frequencies this week, as follows.

“I’ve featured some solo HPLL grade Erstlaub on here before, and am pleased to find that this new release for Moving Furniture is hewn from the same dark gritty stone as I Am The Line Drawn In The Sand Between The Living And The Dead. The opening is pure Psycho, window wipers beating a lashing rain off the windscreen, while an ominous whine builds in the background. Just as a storm warning is issued, I think I hear some rumbling bass and tolling bells appear from amidst thick clouds of crackling static. Or do I? Erstlaub sought inspiration from the Gantzfeld Procedure whereby “where the participant is deprived of visual stimulus and bombarded with white/pink noise drawing the mind to form patterns in the chaos often hearing voices from the past or inventing entirely new constructs within their consciousness”. It reminds me of that other album of ghost frequencies I’ve been listening to of late, William Fowler Collins’s Perdition Hill Radio. Too soon, with a screech the dial is pulled off the set, leaving the listener trapped amongst pulsating drones and whining feedback, before it fades to an eerie near-silence. Apparently recorded in one take, this is another demonstration of Erstlaub’s growing, glowering greatness. It is available now from Moving Furniture – go there for a full stream too.”

The full article also features The Village Ochestra’s - I can hear the Sirens Singing which is the first of all the coverage to acknowledge the rest of the folks involved which is nice.

Cheers Scott.

D