FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JULY 1
SONDE
FACE A/B
Percepts is pleased to announce the release of the debut 12" by French dub artist /sonde/. "FACE A/B" is /sonde/'s first release and is a vinyl only release in a limited edition of 500.
Based in the northern French city of Lille, /sonde/ has been crafting his sonic mythscience for several years now and has previously appeared on the Dubzone compilation, and is part of the La Rushe multimedia collective. His music draws a link from roots reggae practices of using dub as means of sonic cartography, to the modern day deconstructions of minimal techno, exploring sound in its substance and temporality.
"FACE A/B" is deep, textural exploration of these linkages. The A side setting up the exoskeleton of skanking morphology and the B side elaborating on the structure; allowing it to growing arms, legs, feet, claws, and antennae and move across the ocean. Melodies and timbres explode in the crucible of the echo chamber. A ghostly melodica figure appears and disappears just as quickly, only to reappear in another form a moment later, translated into a different tongue, in stuttering counterpoint to the thundering bass weight. The rhythm doubles, then triples, looks back and marches forward to zion. Truly a striking debut from this new artist.
Percepts Presents
BENDER, KANGDING RAY, AND TELESEEN
Oct 2nd, 2007,9pm
Live sets from
BENDER
KANGDING RAY
TELESEEN
DJs
RADIO RUIDO
benowen
video by art jones
Galapagos
70 North 6th St
Brooklyn, NY
www.raster-noton.de
www.kangdingray.com
www.myspace.com/teleseen
Olaf BENDER is a founding member of the Raster-Noton label, as well as its lead designer. Bender (formerly known as Byetone) creates his music digitally, assembling sine tones into complex sound fabrics of deep sub-bass and rhythmic clicks and crackles. He creates abstract animations to support his abstract music --transforming the rhythm of the music into a graphic equivalent, which he controls in real time.
KANGING RAY, aka David Letellier was born in France and studied architecture before starting his music career. His 2006 debut Stabil, released on Raster Noton, transitioned him into the world of cutting edge visual and audio design. "Melodic and mechanical, electronic and acoustic, the minimal, textured music of Kangding Ray... is a riveting blend of crackling noise, sampled guitars, sensual rhythms and digital errors.."Stabil Review, Montreal Mirrior, This is his first New York show, and part of his US debut. Not to be missed.
Producer and multi-instrumentist TELESEEN builds abstract dub soundscapes into complexly layered feilds of ambience that have their roots as much in of post-modern theories of space and structure as they do in the works of artists like Sly and Robbie and Scientist. Rhythms are woven into densely processed noises and field recordings sourced from origins as diverse as a shortwave radio transmissions, mixer feedback, static and defective studio equipment recorded in the US, to the sounds of street corners everywhere from Crown Heights to Kampala. The music internalizes the connections between natural and manmade modes and patterns of commnication, taking reggae, dub and detroit techno as its rhythmic touchstones. He released his debut long player, "War" in early 2007. The Wire described "War" as "a zen slap to the back of the head", pitchfork has called him "an electronic MC Escher."
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JULY 3RD, 2007
GINTAS K
13 TRACKS
Gintas K's 13 Tracks is a example of the beauty that can be manufactured from sonic detritus and sounds usually labeled and cast away as ordinary: clicks, crackles, sine wave drones, and subtly strafed textures collide into a musical discourse on the aesthetics of post-techno. The ghosts of genre creep in from time to time; a gentle Eno-like ambiance populates the first half of "Ka as zinau", only to be subsumed by a cold, marching, minimalist rhythm halfway through. Bits of the rhythmic energy of jungle and even a few heavily abstracted guitars make an appearance as the album progresses. Gintas K shows remarkable ability for finding character in the simplest of sounds and building into them complex, shifting, magnificent structures.
Igloo Magazine Review of "War"
"Though dub is the ostensible word, it turns out that the content of War is driven as much by Deleuze and Guattari as Tubby and Perry. Teleseen is Gabriel Cyr, Brooklyn producer and multi-instrumentalist, building abstract dubscapes speckled with stratified ambience. His greyscale stick-figure dub minimalism has a touch of a freeze-dried academic air about it despite the viscerality of some of its low-end theory, less deconstructed and fragment-strewn than Pole - more er... groovy in fact - but less booty-bothered and tech-savvy than Deadbeat. A rudimentary clue-up from a shrewd google locates Teleseen as part of a project positing post-rave electronic music as "a site of revolution and experimentation." Right on. It's further evidenced by overtly political titles such as "Work Will Not Set You Free," signalling that there is signification to be teased out of the abstract formalism of some of the content for those that would seek.
War launches out on "Malachi" with familiar ammunition from the reggae-dub stockpile: functional two-chord piano vamping on off-beat, dub bassline, pit-pat rimshot + kick, then slowly striated with wispy slivers of feedback-edged melodica and odd wood and metal percussives to create a virtual skank-world that chugs along for 12 minutes. The trick - in rendering this a diverting experience rather than the longueur that distracted listening might first indicate - is to realize that Teleesen likes to play around with micro-variation in perspective and emplacement within what might appear to be relatively uneventful sonic space. So for the unwary, you might be missing out if you treat this as background skank filler rather than headphone staple. Thus, for most of the tracks, does War proceed, extrapolating from roots reggae, touching base/bass, then dragging its digital dub tendrils across the spectral outlines of those Mille Plateaux, relieved by odd folds and rhizomes of etiolated colourings, spatial tinkerings, and percussive delay-play. The recipe works best as realized on "Xion Gate" with its sleek sub-bass chug locked in with kick-pulse while the echo-returns are pushed to red zone-dancing and static shimmer plays over the whole like a heat haze. On the nervously twitching "Burdens," 4/4 kicks lead the track into lo-bpm minimal techno terrain before a reverb-drenched smear of street symphony composed of muezzin wail and haunted hubbub infests the backdrop fantas(m/t)ically, hinting at Orientalist unsettlements way-off-distant - though not enough to be ignored. The ambient substrata, electronic and organic, that crepitate throughout tracks such as the troubled "The Liberty Halls" seem to allude to a terminally mediated age, a parallel world of never-ending peripheralia, and of ongoing not-taking-place war."
"WAR" Reviewed in The Wire
Teleseen
WAR
"Teleseen is Gabriel Cyr, a Brooklyn DJ and multi-instrumentalist who often performs locally in tandem with video artist Art Jones - smart move, as these extended dub soundscapes beg for that mixed media treatment. He's brave enough to open the set with the 12 minute "Malachi", a track of super heavy bass ballast topped with sporadic wood and metal analogue clunks and thuds like a Zen slap to the back of the head, which demands a dedicated check of the remaining tunes. The well integrated samples are sourced from shortwave radio transmissions, static and defective studio equipment, and field recordings from Crown Heights to Kampala, all sucked into a library of conflicting rhythms, from the stuttering skank of "Native Yard ..133345" to the giddy reggae chops of "Burdens" and the shimmeringly smooth "Xion Gate". The initial impression of a curdled reggae-lite soon gives way to a submission to bass weight". (Steve Barker in The Wire, n. 275, January 2007, p. 71).
Properly Chilled Review
http://www.properlychilled.com/music/artist/profile.php?view=1264
Teleseen brings us War and this cd marches (bad one I know) through glitcy micro dub with great confidence. Taking a cue from Pole, Biosphere or even The Orb, Teleseen gives us cold atmosphere mixed with ticking percussion noise that keep within the expected groove of dub. 4/4 kicks lead along as sub level bass bounces. Electronic noises aboud as they should. This is an electronic release and there is no reason to hide it.
These songs are arranged not to worry about what is making the music as much as the surprises and layers that keep things so dreamy in the mix. "Burdens" is a perfect example of this with its straight ahead rhythm and field recordings sneaking up in the mix. "Work Will Not Set You Free" travels around from heavy mixing to nice ambient swells. "The Coffin Ship" has a nice broken drum pattern and elegant keys sweeping and dipping in the reverb. "Xion Gate" is an exercise in minimal melody but never tires as Teleseen uses patience to work the delays for emphasis.
I recommend this for dub heads that want to venture out past the safe realms of dub and no need to worry aobut too much experimental warderings to slow down your head nodding.
~Dedric Moore
Teleseen's "Xion Gate" Reviewed on Pitchfork
Teleseen's an electronic M.C. Escher, using unreliable perspectives and impossible angles to tessellate a sonic space. His austere grids of minimal techno and abstract dub usually opt for the academic over the visceral, but in contrast to the pulsating, unevenly stelliform shapes he often charts, "Xion Gate" telescopes out with clean, conical elegance. It begins at the tapered end as breathy house synths, truncated and beveled, stir amid bead-curtain percussion; then widens out with the introduction of a muffled kick, a high tremulous smear, and recessed flecks of dubby echo. From here on out, it's just a matter of shifting emphases: Click tracks ramify, synths coruscate like a fiber-optic filament wave. By the time the track decays into an angelic shrill-out, it's as broadly resonant as sound pooling in the bell of a horn, with the same unfathomable yet indivisible relationship to its tiny aperture of origin.
Posted by Brian Howe on Tue: 09-19-06: 04:00 AM CDT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TELESEEN "WAR" DEBUT ALBUM RELEASES AUGUST 15, 2006
Percepts is proud to announce that on August 15, 2006 we will release "War", Teleseen's first full length CD. The work of Percepts artist, producer and multi-instrumentalist Teleseen builds abstract dub soundscapes into complexly layered fields of ambience that have their roots as much in post-modern theories of space and structure as they do in the works of artists like Sly and Robbie and Scientist. Rhythms are woven into densely processed noises and field recordings sourced from origins as diverse as shortwave radio transmissions, mixer feedback, static and defective studio equipment recorded in the US, to the sounds of street corners everywhere from Crown Heights to Kampala. The music internalizes the connections between manmade modes and patterns of communication, such as rhythm, harmony, melody, and language, and those patterns found in nature or created by chance, taking reggae, dub and detroit techno as its rhythmic touchstones. Teleseen live shows often involve close collaboration with video and multi-media artists to create immersive environments and sprawling, yet fractured narrative and musical arcs, recent collaborators have included Art Jones and Chris Bravo.
"WAR" represents a maturation of the electronic dub sound he can be found developing on recent singles and compilation appearances. The music further attempts to chart out post-rave electronic music as a site of revolution and experimentation, songs with overtly political titles such as "Work Will Not Set You Free" , an anarchist queering of the famous and fearsome axiom that adorned the gates of Auschwitz, mark that the abstraction of the music is not mere formal exercise but a political act. Tracks like "Native Yard #133345" that look both towards roots reggae and minimal techno give the record a distinct future-shock, as does the continuous bed of noise and ambiance, electronic and otherwise that runs beneath "The Liberty Halls"(a title that references both the IRA and Marcus Garvey's UNIA). This is the music of the mediated age, of full spectral dominance, of the never ending, undeclared war.
For interviews, press and review copies, and booking inquiries please write us at contact@percepts.info.
The record release party for "WAR" will be held on August 27th at the No Selector night at Bembe in Brooklyn, NY. Teleseen will be on tour in Europe in November, dates to follow. Any parties in europe interested in bookings please contact us.
SOFT TARGETS RELEASE
July 11th
Paula Cooper Gallery
521 W. 21 St. second floor
7pm, no cost
"Friends, Allies, Enemies, High Society, Body Politic, Rich Immigrants, Squatters, + Soft Targets:
This correspondence is to announce the launch of SOFT TARGETS, a new handheld journal of poetry, artwork, criticism, short fiction, found images, sound, and other ephemera.
The launch date is July 11th, at the Paula Cooper Gallery, NYC (521 W. 21 St., second floor)(7pm, no cost). Please come for readings by Wayne Koestenbaum, Damon Krukowski, and Rachel Kushner; a performance by electronic artist teleseen with live video mixing from C. Bravo; cold beer, and copies of the journal.
SOFT TARGETS v.1.1 features color and B&W artwork from inside and outside the galleries, including pieces by Walid Raad, John Tremblay, Whitney Bedford, Jason Fox, Harun Farocki, and musician/artists D.C. Berman and Mick Barr. Interspersed with these artists and others are critical pieces by Jason Smith, Joan Retallack, and Wayne Koestenbaum; short fiction from Benjamin Weissman, Rachel Kushner, and multidisciplinary artists Stanya Kahn and Harriet "Harry" Dodge; and poetry from Dennis Cooper, Linh Dinh, Catherine Wagner, Carla Harryman, Matthew Rohrer, Martha Ronk, Daniil Kharms, and Ben Lerner, among others. Also included are several new translations, found images, work from the Office of Force Transformation, the Apocalypse de Saint-Sever, a License to Live mail-in insert, Treaty with France, and a mini-CD by NY musician teleseen affixed to the inside back cover.