For those into contemporary electronic music you may have heard of the Fax +49-69/450464 label (and many sublabels) out of Germany, run by Pete Namlook. In the mid-90s I remember while working at the record store getting in new disks WEEKLY, yes weekly, and we’d sell many copies to faithful fans and electronic music connoisseurs alike! The music is great and the label was strong!
The music was mostly in the “Ambient” style but there were many great releases that were dancefloor oriented, trance and experimental. What drew me to the Fax label, aside from the great music, was Pete Namlook’s analog synth collection and also all the old-school artists that he introduced to the contemporary scene by doing collaboration releases such as Klaus Schulze’s Dark Side of the Moog series, etc.
Unfortunately Pete Namlook passed away recently and his world distributor, Ear/Rational Music out of Colorado, decided to put together a tribute release on the new label Carpe Sonum inspired by and dedicated to Namlook. The tribute release will be a mega-box set including tracks from existing alumni of the Fax label and also with fan tracks. The vinyl set is going to be killer! The fan track’s inclusion on the 3 CDs is chosen completely by fan vote!
Our bands have several tracks submitted for the release and would love for you to vote for us. The track names and artists have been scrambled to focus the voters on the music rather than a popularity contest; and I can’t publically post our tracks here, but if you contact me I’ll forward the ones to be sure to vote “Love It!” on. 🙂
Here are the rules of the Namlook Tribute. Here are the tracks to listen to and vote on.
Hopefully we make the cut!!! Thanks for your vote!
UPDATE: We went through every track, here were our personal favorites:
- esbrakoi, irblotso, jinnubot, plemmith
- archibrot, bijorsti, demyalip, graklopy, gozbilto, graklopy
We did the production of the soundtrack for this performance art piece, including submission of tracks from Multicast, Ted Sturgeon, and Freq Modif.
Released in 2002 in both compact disc format and limited edition vinyl box set. 300 CDs were available and 88 4x 7″ colored vinyl Box Sets with hand crafted artwork were available.
Since 1996, projects including Multicast, Ted Sturgeon and Freq Modif represented this perspective to the contemporary electronic ideology, but with a more psychedelic and improvisational twist. From tracks constructed with the basics of noise and rhythmic sequences to full on melodic washes, Obliq artists sculpt aural images aimed not at the dance floor but the armchair. These artists employ methodologies of sequencing not too familiar with modern technology, but rather more traditional and improvisational in approach. Multicast, for example, creates most of their tracks from live, late night sessions. Guitars, electric mandolins, kalimbas, modular synthesizers, analog sequencers & effects and digital synthesizers are all part of the Obliq arsenal located at the Larkspur, Wallsteet and Erie facilities. Think of Multicast as an ever-evolving music project. A revolving door of ideas. A meeting of the minds from various individuals involved with the other projects within Obliq. It’s the flagship and corner stone project and even further an ideal representation of the Obliq record label as a whole. If you listen closely to the Multicast material, you will notice a sort of mesh of musical influences and backgrounds from all individuals involved yet close attention is paid in how the various parts are combined. The physical landscape of rural Colorado surrounding members of Multicast play a big part in the environmental influences in the music itself. These are wide-open spaces with room enough for ideas to flourish away from the confines and distractions of an urban environment. This isn’t to say that Multicast lives in a music vacuum or an environment void of art and music culture. Rather, the geographic location gives the project an opportunity to observe the world of electronic music from the outside in and not consumed by a metropolitan music clique. Therefore, members of Multicast rely on each other to be energized and inspired to create and follow through with ideas and bring them into being. A lot of the popular software-based music making tools — the ones dominant in modern day electronic music — are put aside which allow Multicast to focus on improvisational and organic composition. All members of Multicast are DJs, but styles may be surprising as compared to their musical output.
