Pre-Cert Home Entertainment sub-label Dead-Cert Home Entertainment has produced some incredible reissues since it’s inception in 2012. In fact, all three imprints that Andy Votel has a hand in – Finders Keepers, Pre-Cert and Dead-Cert – seem to set the standard for quality and reproduction of mostly unheard or under-appreciated music. Take a look in your collection and you’ll likely be surprised by how many plates from those three labels you have.
Dead-Cert, co-run with Doug Shipton and Sean Canty from Demdike Stare, has recently released our favourite of their catalogue to date. Luxury Apartments is both the alias of David Tyack and the name of this incredible LP comprising of unheard recordings laid down before his death in 2002. Judging by the press release (below) as well, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Released posthumously by Finders Keepers, Luxury Apartments is two sides of improvised multi-instrumentality and DIY electronic experimentation perfectly blended together. The soundscapes Tyack creates are amazing, and somewhat understated until you look at them as a whole. Presented unedited by the label, the a and b sides come in at 23 and 18 minutes respectively, presented as two single lengthy recordings as opposed to a playlist of ten or twelve separate ideas.
The first side initially deals with free-jazz influence and mechanical acoustics; splashy beat patterns and off-tempo instruments sounding like an eclectic second-hand shop basement. On the flip comes the cinematic side, gradually growing from droning synths to something funkier with an on sync electronic beat before breaking down in to the loose and live sounds of a one man band.
Well worth a listen, though only available for a limited time on wax evidently. Clips below, press release underneath it again.
via Finders Keepers
Originated as a project to explore potential film / animation synchronisation with nods to his growing penchants for neo-classical, free-jazz and minimal music, German born and Derbyshire raised musician / painter and mathematician, David Tyack began working under his new Luxury Apartments moniker in the summer of 2002.
Having recently finished a self penned conceptual LP with CAN frontman Malcolm Mooney and writing and recording for the then yet-to-be-mixed LPs by Jane Weaver’s Misty Dixon and his own school-formed band D.O.T. Dave’s new direction was set to counterbalance his ambitions to record a fully realised singer songwriter album with an ongoing series of experimental recordings at his new compact home studio on Clyde Road in Didsbury Manchester.
Completed just months before his untimely accidental death on the island of Corsica, Luxury Apartments reveals Dave at his uninhibited best displaying some of his most adventurous, dedicated and unapologetic solo excursions into sound design, improvised composition and electroacoustic territories resulting in a unique blend of dark ambient, mechanical folk, PINA stylings and coldwave DIY rhythms.
Drawing comparisons to the varied works of Sorgini, Eno, Liska, Stabat Stable, Martin Zero, Luc Mariani, Walter Branchi and the lost electronic work of Don Cherry these previously unheard tapes remain in unedited form compiled exactly how Dave intended the record to be pressed should any independent record label have the foresight to take the plunge into his new creative pool.
Released with blessing and encouragement from the Tyack family this is the first unreleased music to come from Dave’s extensive archive which was shared with close friends and creative collaborators regularly during his creative years in Manchester between 1997 and 2002.