Really digging this live set from Thorsen Soltau, recorded at the Golden Pudel Club in Hamburg last month. Minimal and spacey in areas, noisy and layered in others, the 30 minute set is made up of recorded lock grooves from 16, 33 and 45rpm records triggered and layered live. A proper interesting and great listen for live electronic fans.
Thorsten’s probably best known as the man behind the mysterious m.m. label, recognisable for their ultra-limited, uniquely creative and pricier than norm releases. We’re talking ‘vinyl editions of 50’ rare and no separate digital sales; once they’re gone they’re gone, and often on pre-order. m.m. label doesn’t seem to do this for hype though, just catering to the ever shrinking vinyl audience for home listening.
Last month I put the cash up for a cassette titled The Art Of Rave, mostly checking out the Ekoplekz joint that appeared on it. End result was that all four tracks, each from a different artist, across the 35 minutes were mind-bendingly good, absent of any filler but very diverse in styles. On top of that the Key Lime High artwork, instant digital delivery and overall presentation was definitely quality for money. One of the standouts coming off the release was the final track on it from Thorsten Soltau and the Elecctent People; a nice introduction to Thorsten’s work via a track titled Broadcast Yer Noise (Amen Video).
Having rinsed this and headed back to m.m. label for more, I came across this live set which was streamed. I was fortunate to get in early on the secret cassette giveaway (postage only) and since then the whole things gone up for download. We asked Thorsten about the process and he broke it down for us as follows.
1. recording locked grooves manually created on records with a studio turntable (speeds: 16rpm, 33rpm & 45rpm) into Ableton.
2. checking all files, recutting them to handy shotlike-sampleloops. All samples have been recorded on various loudness levels.
3. After reaching a pool of 90 samples- organizing in Ableton, creating four slots for samples plus 2 send effects (reverb, delay & loop send)
4. setting all samples on ONE loudness level, each sample got equalized to fit in with three-four parallel played samples soundwise and aesthetic-wise.
5. performing with the setup. The effects are rather primitive- that was my intention. All samples got set on a function to slow them down or fast them up like an old tape machine.
6. recording the whole set, remaster and re-edit. No additional overdubs, just a bit careful EQ-work
He’s appropriately named it 16,33,45, Schnitt and even included the locked groove recordings to be available as 40 separate downloads via his bandcamp. The set itself is split in to two pieces, representative of the forthcoming a and b side of the cassette, embedded below for download or stream.
Liveset containing locked grooves and digital data played at The Golden Pudel Club, Hamburg on 130211. Featuring various bended and manipulated loops merged with equalizers, loop units and cheap, crippled fx slots- no fear to use a shamelessly long reverb for the peaktime.
Special material provided by Senufo Editions (Andrew Pekler, Kassel Jaeger), menstrualrecordings (unreleased MB excerpt) & Joachim Nordwall/iDEAL (unreleased solo recording, Dungeon Acid) + grained athmospheres by Bryin Dall.
Sample in the last track on the B-side taken from a Peter Greenaway movie (w/ thanks to Dan for giving access to the innocent choir boys singing)
Tracks will be released on a special tape (not for sale) and handed to the labels, the Pudel club, the designer c.i.alex- the rest will be available only on request via mail.
All tapes give access to the download of the locked grooves used in the mix, written in latin numbers to give anonymity to the sources.
strictly analogue material used and borrowed from Asmus Tietchens, Moby, Cut Hands, LFO, Ugandan Methods, Volor Flex, Solumenata (Remix), Allan Zane, William Bennett (Remix), Kevin Drumm, Hematic Sunsets, Tortoise, Troum, Andrew Liles, Robert Rutman, Oneohtrix Point Never, Sand, Ekoplekz, Vatican Shadow, VHS Head- all sources between 3-7 seconds long and lifted from the own vault in various speeds.