Medical Records is very pleased to present the debut album by U/V Light. U/V Light sounds more than a bit like Cloudland Canyon at times. This is because it is the first “solo,” effort from Kip Uhlhorn of CC. Kip played, sang on, engineered, mixed, and collaborated with Gabby Weiss on this new recording. Eschewing standard German comparisons that CC usually receives, U/V LIGHT often sounds like either early electro or dance-pop but without the typical blueprint so commonly replicated these days. Kip’s rockist tendencies make this recording more interesting and fresher than those usual reference points. However, after Gabby’s vocals kick in, some of the band’s influences can be discerned such as Desire, or Uffie fuzed with Sylvester, Bobby O, Jonzun Crew, Space “Magic Fly”, etc. One could also draw some comparisons to Primal Scream’s “Screamadelica”, Seefeel, or Craig Leon at times. Despite hints at motorik tempos and/or beats., U/V Light is more of a pop affair. It is also not a simple continuation of Cloudland Canyon. Dance-pop seems the clearest reference point here, but Cenotaph does not have a standard dance beat feel.
Recorded quickly, the record has a consistent sonic approach that makes individual tracks sound like a suite of songs. God no, it is not a rock opera, but it has a singular sonic identity which makes it differ from previous Cloudland outings. Enough comparisons already, U/V Light’s Cenotaph mostly equates to a Kip Uhlhorn solo recording. Influences are felt, but they don’t dominate here. Sometimes a hybrid like this one is not easily categorized. If you like Cloudland Canyon then you will most likely enjoy Cenotaph. Or even if you do not prefer them (or have never even heard of them for that matter), this recording stands on its own. Six propulsive tracks ebb and flow with a continuous feel that takes the listener down a hypnotic wormhole.
This album was recorded using impressive arsenal of vintage analog synths as well as modern modular equipment. For fans of aforementioned influences as well as others (Grosskopf, Schultze, Slowdive) and especially those who enjoyed the most recent of the Cloudland Canyon 12” series. Mastered by Martin Bowes at the Cage Studios, UK. Presented on high-quality 180gram heavyweight colored vinyl.
Listen and order here.
Geometric Vision Is a band formed by A.Giordano. He starts composing songs and lyrics reflecting dark and nostalgic atmospheres typical of dark and cold wave but with a modern attitude which draws inspiration from contemporaneous berlin’s and British minimal synth experiments.
After a while he decides to create a real band which takes more substantial form after having experienced several line up changes… With Gennaro Campanile playing bass guitar and Roberto Amato on guitar everything seems to work out.
Listen and order here.
A kind of utopia. Just like the one found hidden away between the lines and pages of a few books, a few records that were born around the late sixties, early seventies. Those that spring in mind are by Terry Riley, Bridget Riley, Daniel Caux, Ariel Kalma. That sense of utopia which permeated their works is the one that was also found in the ideas and designs of the Bauhaus movement. Straight lines that, through a strange correspondance, are a reminder of the strong sound lines made by analog synthesizers. Those played by Model Alpha, aka Jonathan Fitoussi & Julie Freyri. Synth names full of wonders, like a sesame password to an unknown hidden world : Sequential Circuits Pro-One or Ems Synthi AKS, Philicorda or Ondioline, Roland TR-606, TR-707… Model Alpha makes them all vibrate, hiss, swirl, using them as they should (very clear sequences, straightforward percussions) but also as they shouldn’t.
Synth and drumboxes heard on this record act as if they were taking you on a psychedelic drift, making you feel that they are almost playing themselves, creating their own melodies out of their used circuitry. The great Anni Albers design used for the sleeve is another way of percceiving the duo’s electronic fluctuations : as straight hard lines that by sheer power of design and assemblage create illusions, make optic and audio nerves flutter away gently. Sound op art, in a subliminal way. Sometimes, Kraftwerk overshadows the whole music and one can only feel that the young French duo shares with their German model that same sense of making electronic music as modern ragas, nurtured by urban sounds and decays as well as an Indian sense of timing. Something for eternity, that goes on as long as electricity will be available.
As with the best techno, the best minimalist records, the best krautrock ventures, this first Model Alpha LP hints at a weird sense of time, not totally of the past, not totally of the future, not at all of the present. Something in between, a time travel machine that can take you on a random journey. Listening to those tracks is a bit like making time’s flow stop. Right now.
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Ambient guitar, minimalist rhythms and new wave voice, Love in Prague is an UFO somewhere between Interpol, And Also The Trees, Slowdive or Little Nemo. Since 2009, the band has given concerts in France in clubs and bigger halls, they have especially made the first part of the UK band Lebanon Hanover in 2015.Their new songs, still drawing on cold wave, dream pop + post-punk genre, moved on on a more electronic approach with the use of synthesizers creating an ethereal and gloomy atmosphere.
Listen and order here.
After the release of their well-received ninth studio album, Terribly Well, and their successful month long European tour in 2013, Sightings did the unexpected and quietly disbanded without notice or explanation. More than 15 years in the trenches and making a mess throughout New York City, the band made more of a polarizing impact to formalized underground music that most of their peers. Sightings would have been a national treasure if the whole country was laid to waste in Armageddon.
During the sessions that birthed Terribly Well, a complimentary album was recorded in tandem which, while not intended to be their final statement, produced the jaded epilogue from the mouth of experimental rock’s most lasting monolith. Amusers and Puzzlers is the schizophrenic culmination of their brand of damaged rock. Isolated noise patterns shifted from Mark Morgan’s unorthodox guitar patterns sewn up from his nervous, scattered vocal phrasing. Richard Hoffman’s stampede-like momentum on bass slammed against Jon Lockie’s drum triggers made the past couple decades crash into itself.
Listen here and order here.
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