NNA056: PHORK – ‘Entertainment’ C43
Los Angeles-based producer Neal Reinalda offers us his latest “Entertainment”, the anticipated follow-up to last year’s “Discrepancies” cassette on NNA. With this full-length, the People’s Higher Order further refines it’s sound, bringing forward new ideas and flavors into American techno. PHORK succeeds in injecting a warmth and humanity into a dance music framework that is wholly original, keeping a global influence in it’s sampling studies, while receiving guidance from the worlds of noise, hip-hop, ambient, and sound art. Reinalda’s Baltimore roots shine through in his informed conceptual framework, holding a mirror to daydreams of post-consumerism and dark ecology. Mood and atmosphere are established through ultra-tight production and focused composition, pulsing with life even in the absence of rhythm. The result reaches new depths in contemporary electronic music, gaining power and magnitude through sonic texture, repetition, and the matrimony of inhuman and organic worlds. Systems are questioned, interconnectedness is examined, and yet still nothing is as it seems.
NNA057: Freddy Ruppert – ‘Hangs A Shadow’ C70 (s/s)
Following up 2012’s “Wait” EP on NNA, we’re proud to present “Hangs A Shadow”, the debut full-length from Prague-via-Los Angeles musician Freddy Ruppert. These very personal recordings meditate on the loss of a loved one, and the inward struggle to retain honest memories of that person. Ruppert strives to convey through sound what words fall short of explaining; frustrations with mortality, the limitations of the human organism, and it’s inevitable battle with it’s own consciousness. Electro-acoustic and musique concréte influences are prevalent, harnessing the power of silence to bridge the emptiness between snippets of percussion, field & domestic recordings, raw electronics, and the manipulation of collected improvisations. A cinematic narrative emerges through immaculate processing, editing, and the poignant use of space to cut into the tension of intimacy. Human voice, jagged sine waves, the movement of furniture, and fateful tones are all juxtaposed against themselves, breathing intense life into the mundane through complex sound work.
NNA058: Justin Meyers – ‘Albuterol Auteur’ C21
“Albuterol Auteur” is the latest collection of synth pieces from Minneapolis-based sound and visual artist Justin Meyers. After multiple brilliant releases over the years, many of which on his own Tone Filth label, NNA is excited to bring forth these new works created and performed on Meyers’ own home-built modular synthesizer system, the TF50. Working from the ground up, Meyers displays a natural talent in the pure manipulation of raw current and electricity to form deeply expressive and colorful environments of electronic sound. These minimal yet perpetually shifting compositions seem to be aqueous in structure, seamlessly drifting between tones and phases, carving out a unique melodic terrain along the way. The expedition is documented in immaculate fidelity, engrossing the listener in a distinctive warmth. An original voice in electronic music at the hands of highest caliber craftsmanship.