Hangedup
Hangedup is the Montreal-based duo of Gen Heistek (viola) and Eric Craven (drums). The two met in 1995 while playing in Sackville and formed Hangedup in 1999. They released their eponymous debut in May 2001. Kicker in Tow followed in October 2002 and Clatter for Control in April 2005.
Hangedup play battle hymns for shut-ins, tightrope walkers, and urban bicyclists. Hangedup channel dead Roma musicians from Slavic republics, playing east European folk tunes backwards, skipping every 3rd note. Hangedup write road songs for model train enthusiasts. Hangedup compose soundtracks for slow-motion automobile accidents and use leaded gasoline every chance they get.
Hangedup are unique operators of their chosen instruments, and have mastered a signature sound that is well ahead, and far behind, the times. Heistek’s vertigo-inducing viola runs through hallucinating loopers and warranty-voided amplifiers. Craven’s inimitable sound fuses auto shop discards with home-wiring experiments and fifteen-year-old drum skins. Sometimes soaring, occasionally distressing, Hangedup are the sound of tomorrow, only tomorrow was this morning, just before you left the house. And you left the stove on.
Hangedup has toured extensively in Europe and North America, including performances at All Tomorrow’s Parties in England, the Printemps de Bourges in France, the Domino festival in Belgium. At the Rhaaa Lovely and K-RAA-K festivals, also in Belgium, they headlined and were widely declared the highlight of these events. The K-RAA-K show led to friendship and collaboration with legendary violin minimalist Tony Conrad, who also played that night. Conrad joined Hangedup for several North American shows and a series of recording sessions in 2004. These recordings are set to finally see the light of day as Transit of Venus, to be released in June 2012 as part of our Musique Fragile Volume 02 box set.
Since moving to Montreal in 1987, Gen Heistek has been a member of many bands, including Pest 5000, Sackville, Set Fire To Flames and The Mile-End Ladies’ String Auxiliary. She has played with Sam Shalabi, Elizabeth Anka Vajagic and many others. She wrote for CBC Radio’s Brave New Waves and now co-owns Local 23 and General 54, the former a fripperie and the latter a purveyor of locally made stuff.
Eric Craven moved to Montreal in 1993, having previously played in various punk bands in his native Victoria. He has been a member of Shortwave, Sackville and Blackout, and has thrown down his unparalleled rhythm thing, on record and in concert, with Mitchell Akiyama, Polmo Polpo, Elizabeth Anka Vajagic, Silver Mt. Zion and Hrsta, among many others. He composes extensively for dance in Montreal, and is currently tending to an impressive bicycle graveyard in his back yard.
After a several year break, the band reunited to perform at the Godspeed-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties in December 2010.
Hangedup play battle hymns for shut-ins, tightrope walkers, and urban bicyclists. Hangedup channel dead Roma musicians from Slavic republics, playing east European folk tunes backwards, skipping every 3rd note. Hangedup write road songs for model train enthusiasts. Hangedup compose soundtracks for slow-motion automobile accidents and use leaded gasoline every chance they get.
Hangedup are unique operators of their chosen instruments, and have mastered a signature sound that is well ahead, and far behind, the times. Heistek’s vertigo-inducing viola runs through hallucinating loopers and warranty-voided amplifiers. Craven’s inimitable sound fuses auto shop discards with home-wiring experiments and fifteen-year-old drum skins. Sometimes soaring, occasionally distressing, Hangedup are the sound of tomorrow, only tomorrow was this morning, just before you left the house. And you left the stove on.
Hangedup has toured extensively in Europe and North America, including performances at All Tomorrow’s Parties in England, the Printemps de Bourges in France, the Domino festival in Belgium. At the Rhaaa Lovely and K-RAA-K festivals, also in Belgium, they headlined and were widely declared the highlight of these events. The K-RAA-K show led to friendship and collaboration with legendary violin minimalist Tony Conrad, who also played that night. Conrad joined Hangedup for several North American shows and a series of recording sessions in 2004. These recordings are set to finally see the light of day as Transit of Venus, to be released in June 2012 as part of our Musique Fragile Volume 02 box set.
Since moving to Montreal in 1987, Gen Heistek has been a member of many bands, including Pest 5000, Sackville, Set Fire To Flames and The Mile-End Ladies’ String Auxiliary. She has played with Sam Shalabi, Elizabeth Anka Vajagic and many others. She wrote for CBC Radio’s Brave New Waves and now co-owns Local 23 and General 54, the former a fripperie and the latter a purveyor of locally made stuff.
Eric Craven moved to Montreal in 1993, having previously played in various punk bands in his native Victoria. He has been a member of Shortwave, Sackville and Blackout, and has thrown down his unparalleled rhythm thing, on record and in concert, with Mitchell Akiyama, Polmo Polpo, Elizabeth Anka Vajagic, Silver Mt. Zion and Hrsta, among many others. He composes extensively for dance in Montreal, and is currently tending to an impressive bicycle graveyard in his back yard.
After a several year break, the band reunited to perform at the Godspeed-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties in December 2010.
Okay, so it's May in Montreal! Admittedly the volume's been turned down a bit since last year, but the basics are all there: the water fountains are turning on, the Solidarity Across Borders Status For All march is this weekend and the Anarchist Bookfair the weekend after, you can still get arrested every damn time you leave the damn house, because protest is basically illegal now...
And of course, it also means that SUONI PER IL POPOLO, the best music festival in the world, is right around the corner!
As usual, the festival will bring dozens of truly amazing acts to the city all through June, and as usual a whole bunch of local CST friends and allies will hit the stages at Casa del Popolo and Sala Rossa. See below for a brief roundup, along with audio and video samples. Have a look, and then head over to the Suoni site to check out the full program.
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NICK KUEPFER + LEE RANALDO w/ STEVE SHELLEY
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June 6 • Sala Rossa • $17/20 • Info/tickets
This year Suoni will host two appearances of Nick Kuepfer, Montreal weirdo genius and master sculptor of rickety, immersive soundscapes built up from guitars and tape machines and piles of scavenged ephemera.
On June 6 he'll open for Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley. You know those guys, right? They were in some bands? Anyways, this Ranaldo character is going to play some acoustic stuff of his own, accompanied by Mr. Shelley; should be nice.
MP3 - NICK KUEPFER: "Corpse in the Wildflowers" (from Avestruz)
MP3 - NICK KUEPFER: "Winter 2" (Soundcloud)
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OSO BLANCO (COLIN STETSON, NATE WOOLEY, C.S. YEH, & RYAN SAWYER) + HRAÏR HRATCHIAN
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June 9 • Casa del Popolo • $10/12 • Info/Tickets
His stunning New History Warfare trilogy concluded with the April 30 release of To See More Light, mind-bending saxophone juggernaut Colin Stetson will lend his formidable lungs to Oso Blanco, alongside three similarly virtuosic players on trumpet, drums and violin.
Opening will be Hraïr Hratchian - multidisciplinary artist and performer, past Jerusalem In My Heart collaborator - leading a nine-musician ensemble in a performance of "Bardézoum vartér patsvadz" a 100-year old Armenian folk piece by composer Krikor Dalian.
MP3 - COLIN STETSON: "High Above A Grey Green Sea"
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PACHA + NOUVEAU ZODIAQUE + JOSHUA ABRAMS' NATURAL INFORMATION SOCIETY
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June 11 • Sala Rossa • $10/12 • Info/Tickets
Pierre-Guy Blanchard spent years studying various percussion techniques and compositional modes of Turkish, Balkan and Middle Eastern musics. His project, Pacha, is a thrilling fusion of intense propulsive rhythms and gloriously fried synth lines. Affaires Étrangères, Pacha's debut, was released last year as part of Musique Fragile Vol. 3, and its live iteration is an explosive thing: heady and precise, while guaranteed to get sweaty.
Nouveau Zodiaque is a shifting group of musicians rallied by Les Momies de Palerme's Xarah Dion, pulling on various threads of folk and world musics to form a gorgeous, cohesive and strangely danceable synthesis.
Joshua Abrams - Chicago native, prolific musical experimentalist, co-founder of Town & Country and Sticks & Stones (with Matana Roberts) - has of late been leading ensembles on a unique trajectory of trance-like, slightly psychedelic exploration, pulling from North and West African traditions, minimalism and out jazz. Check out last year's totally killer Represencing to get an idea.
MP3 - PACHA: "L'Aeroport de Charlo"
MP3 - LES MOMIES DE PALERME: "Solis"
MP3 - JOSHUA ABRAMS & CO.: Live Dublab session
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SALTLAND + ERIC CHENAUX & RADWAN GHAZI MOUMNEH + WORMHOLES
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June 14 • Sala Rossa • $11/13 • Info/tickets
I Thought It Was Us But It Was All Of Us, the debut album from Rebecca Foon's Saltland project - "captivating", "modern and mesmerizing", "alluring and intoxicating" - was released this week. For this official release show Foon will join her compositions for voice and cello to ornate, buoyant arrangements for electronics, percussion and contrebass courtesy of Jamie Thompson and Aaron Lumley, and it will be breathtaking.
Eminent guitar handler and heart-rending balladeer Eric Chenaux will join forces with sound engineer, boxer, all-around CST go-to guy and Jerusalem In My Heart musical mastermind Radwan Moumneh for a performance certain to be as affecting and beautiful as it is indescribably abstract.
Wormholes is an audio-visual project of Beirut-based improvisational musicians Mazen Kerbaj and Sharif Sehnaoui. Solo guitar manipulations meet light tables projections with live drawing. We're told by those in the know that this rare performance is unmissable.
MP3 - SALTLAND: "Treehouse Schemes"
MP3 - JERUSALEM IN MY HEART: "Yudaghdegh..."
MP3 - ERIC CHENAUX: "Amazing Backgrounds"
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ELFIN SADDLE IN MUSIC TEMPLE + HANGEDUP + NICK KUEPFER
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June 18 • Sala Rossa • $12/14 • Info/tickets
Emi Honda and Jordan McKenzie have for years been crafting small DIY dystopias and rich, sparkling soundworlds with quiet reverence and humble anger. As Elfin Saddle they've produced three albums of urgent, ramshackle folk (the most recent, Devastates, released last year), a stop-motion film staged over several months in their backyard, and most recently "Music Temple": a multimedia installation at Montreal's MAI gallery involving automated musical instruments, film projections and live performance. An abridged version of the "Music Temple" installation will be brought to this one-of-a-kind performance.
The mighty viola and percussion duo of Hangedup is rolling once again. Since ending a long hiatus in 2010, they've played a handfull of shows in Montreal, kicked our asses around Europe as part of our 15th anniversary celebrations, and released Transit of Venus, an epic, towering collaborative LP with minimalist legend Tony Conrad. Gen Heistek and Eric Craven deliver a clattering, cavernous racket with a soft, graceful touch.
Nick Kuepfer, once again, is our hero (see above).
MP3 - HANGEDUP & TONY CONRAD: "Principles"
MP3 - HANGEDUP: "Alarm"
MP3 - ELFIN SADDLE: "The Changing Wind"
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Of course there are a ton of other highlights: our fearless leader Don taking part in a panel discussion called "Beneath the Surfaces (Discussion on audio formats)", shows with Maica Mia, Avec Le Soleil Sortant de sa Bouche + Oneida & Rhys Chatham, Jen Reimer & Max Stein + Gambletron, Grouper, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma + Le Révélateur, Kevin Drumm, Ratchet Orchestra, and on and on... Really, there's just so much good stuff. Liberate your ears.
The full calendar, with links to buy tickets online, is right here; tickets are also available in the usual shops.
Constellation celebrates its 15th Anniversary with a series of five mini-festivals in Europe this November: the locations are Bern, Paris, Munich, Vienna and Leipzig, in partnership with some of our favourite venues and partners that have supported the label and its artists over the years,
Go here for an at-a-glance round-up of the line-ups, locations and ticket links.
Read here for a longer post about the events.
See below for a rendering of the commemorative screenprinted poster that will be available at the events (being printed by the Dis-patch Collective from Belgrade, Serbia – whose Constellation artwork exhibit will also be on display in Bern and Vienna) and a little video clip we produced for the celebrations.
The Paris 15th Anniversary CST shows are now sold out.
Information about all CST 15th events can be found HERE.
Nous invitons nos camarades français à prendre note des autres concerts en France en novembre, ainsi que de nos événements à Berne et à Bruxelles...
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While we realise it's a bit of an extra journey for the good people of France, we remind everyone that about 50 passes still remain for the CST fest in Bern, Switzerland.
CST Heartland Festival passes for Bern are available here.
The Bern event is a Constellation takeover of the Heartland Festival and represents an expanded 4-day affair, with a CST art exhibit curated by Dis-patch Collective (Belgrade) and performances by several artists who cannot make the Paris weekend: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Colin Stetson, Hrsta, Nick Kuepfer and Khora.
Details for each night of the Bern event (and single night tickets) can be found HERE.
If you are looking for information about Bern accommodations, we encourage you to contact Dachstock@Reitschule HERE.
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We would also like to note the following Constellation-related concert dates happening in France and Belgium as the label celebrates throughout November with many artists on tour:
DO MAKE SAY THINK
16.11.12 Metz FR Musiques Volantes Festival TIX
SANDRO PERRI + ERIC CHENAUX
15.11.12 Nantes FR Stakhanov
16.11.12 Limoges FR Centre Culturel John Lennon
THEE SILVER MT ZION + MATANA ROBERTS
19.11.12 Tourcoing FR Le Grand Mix TIX
20.11.12 Strassbourg FR La Laterie TIX
COLIN STETSON
14.11.12 Brussels BE Ancienne Belgique VZW TIX
20.11.12 Poitiers FR Confort Moderne TIX
21.11.12 Rennes FR UBU1 TIX
22.11.12 Nantes FR Pôle Etudiant
23.11.12 Gent BE Theaterzaal Vooruit TIX
24.11.12 Rouen FR Le 106 TIX
25.11.12 Tourcoing FR L'Hospice d'Havré - Maison Folie de Tourcoing TIX
DO MAKE SAY THINK + SANDRO PERRI + ERIC CHENAUX
CONSTELLATION LABEL NIGHT @ AUTUMN FALLS FESTIVAL
26.11.12 Brussels BE Atelier 210 TIX
BERN • PARIS • MUNICH • VIENNA • LEIPZIG
As previously announced, this November we're staging some mini-festival events in France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany to celebrate our 15th year as a record label. These have come together really nicely, more artists have been added in recent weeks, and a whole new city (Munich) as well!
Check this page for confirmed lineups and ticket links, and keep reading below for further details and testimonials.
We truly feel the present is a great moment to take stock of what we've done over the past decade and a half. Bands with whom we have some of our longest-standing relationships continue to make music among the most vital and inspiring to grace our ears, while in the past few years we've begun new relationships with artists producing equally jaw-dropping work, whose vision and integrity remind us why we started doing this in the first place.
We've felt an outpouring of warm support from our many friends and allies in Europe and around the world in organizing these events, while back home we've had the privilege of participating in the inspiring and unprecedented (in Canada) popular movement protesting tuition increases and the fraud of neo-liberal "austerity" economics that took over the streets of Montreal this spring. These days we truly feel more connected than ever to the local and global communities we consider ourselves part of, accountable to, and inspired by.
We're deeply grateful to everyone who's found occasional or sustained meaning and common cause with Constellation thus far, and genuinely look forward to spending time and celebrating with everyone that can make it out to these events in Europe.
And it goes without saying, we are utterly humbled and honoured by the support we've received from all of our presenting partners in these five European cities, most of whom we've had a long-standing relationship with in various respects. We set out to collaborate with the people who historically have meant a lot to us and our artists, and could not have hoped for more. Thanks from the bottom of our hearts.
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While the mighty Siskiyou has sadly had to pull out of any further appearances this year (read a message from the band here), our European mini-fest anniversary shows continue to be anchored by Do Make Say Think and Silver Mt Zion, along with Sandro Perri (backed by a full band), Eric Chenaux, Elfin Saddle and Hangedup. These six artists will be present at all four of our previously announced events in Bern, Paris, Vienna and Leipzig.
We have also now confirmed the participation of Carla Bozulich and Matana Roberts at all four of these events as well - whether as part of the "main stage" line-ups or in interesting site-specific or off-site performances. We're still ironing out a few of those ideas and logistics, but rest assured no performances will be running concurrently.
Additionally, we'll have Hrsta at most engagements, and have managed to yank Colin Stetson out of his crisscrossing solo tour schedule to appear on the final night of the Bern fest.
The Bern weekend will be truly epic, with a minimum of eleven CST bands appearing over four days, and the Dis-patch Art Collective from Belgrade, Serbia installing their wonderful exhibit "Ce côté en haut: The Fragile World of Constellation" - an exhaustive retrospective of the label's album and poster artwork. Looks like there will also be a label-related photo exhibit in Bern, as well as a couple of day shows, art talks and other off-site things going on too.
Also: Munich! The excellent Feierwerk venue in Munich has come on board to host two nights featuring 3-band bills each evening, with DMST, Perri and Chenaux playing on Nov 19 and SMZ, Hrsta and Matana Roberts playing on Nov 21.
Again, click HERE for a re-cap of the main stage line-ups in each city along with ticket links, and/or watch the video clip at the end of this post for a listing of those main stage line-ups at each event.
Other cool things we can tell you about:
It's already pretty darn exciting that Do Make Say Think will be performing their classic album Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord Is Dead in its entirety for their live set, but our presenting partner the Viennale will additionally be programming a series of experimental films to be projected during the band's set in Vienna. Since the Viennale is one of Europe's most respected and iconoclastic film festivals, this is sure to be a very special visual accompaniment to a very special musical performance.
Mike Moya was a founding member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor back in the early 1990s but pulled back from the band by the end of that decade to concentrate on Montreal-based projects as well as his excellent psych-folk group Hrsta throughout the 2000s. Moya then re-joined GY!BE when the group came off hiatus in 2010 and has been back in the third guitar chair with them ever since. Hrsta will perform at all the CST European events except Paris, and will be joined by new Godspeed drummer Tim Herzog, GY!BE/SMZ violinist Sophie Trudeau and Musique Fragile artist Nick Kuepfer for these sets.
Carla Bozulich will be premiering new material in a non-Evangelista guise; admittedly the distinction between these two identities has always been somewhat fluid, but we are super excited about the new music Carla has been working on and this will be a first opportunity to hear some of this stuff live.
Jerusalem In My Heart will perform in Leipzig. Date and location specifics have yet to be finally determined, but rest assured this will be very special and very cool. JIMH is the mutli-media project founded by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, a musician and sound engineer who is a close collaborator of Constellation on many fronts. He has engineered and/or mixed numerous albums in the CST catalogue, has made films and videos for several CST artists, has performed as part of Land Of Kush, and will be helping to stage-manage the Europe events. JIMH now includes experimental filmmaker Malena Szlam, who will join Radwan for the performance in Leipzig, involving multiple 16mm film projections and his totally unique and intense blend of synthetic and organic Arabic-influenced sound.
The Dis-patch album art exhibit will transition from Bern to Vienna and be installed in an anteroom of the Porgy & Bess venue in Vienna from opening night of the first CST show on Nov 21 through to the end of the 4-day Blue Bird festival on Nov 24.
Dis-patch will also be bringing limited edition screenprinted posters and hand-stitched cotton LP bags which are going to be quite lovely. We'll have 100 posters (4-colour on archival A2 size paper) and 50 bags available at each event in Bern, Paris, Vienna and Leipzig (apologies, but these will not be available in Munich). We promise these are going to be really nice items, reasonably priced and, y'know, all commemorative and stuff.
Anyway, we think these are going to be good times for all.
Now watch a video:
We're very pleased to announce a series of 15th Anniversary concerts that will take place in Europe this fall.
We'll be partnering with some of our favourite venues and arts organisations to present multiple-night mini-festival events featuring a diverse cross-section of artists, including newer groups like Sisksiyou and Elfin Saddle, long-standing roster acts like Sandro Perri, Eric Chenaux and Hangedup, and two of the label's best-known bands: Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Do Make Say Think.
Thee Silver Mt Zion will be returning to Europe for the first time since touring behind their acclaimed Kollaps Tradixionales album in early 2010, and premiering new material including pieces released as a tour-only 2x7" in the USA earlier this year. Do Make Say Think, one of the most consistently acclaimed and long-standing instrumental rock groups of the past decade-and-a-half, will be performing their classic sophomore album, Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord Is Dead, in its entirety.
At each of the two-night events, Do Make Say Think will close one show and Thee Silver Mt Zion will close the other. Exact line-ups for each night in each town will be confirmed and announced later this summer, but every concert will feature at least 4 bands and sets by at least 8 different artists across the two nights.
The event at Bern's Reitschule is unique in that it runs for a full three days, starting on Friday 16 November with the final European date of Godspeed You! Black Emperor's fall 2012 tour (a golden opportunity to see the group in a smaller, grittier venue with some truly awesome natural room compression).
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Here's the plan:
NOV 16-18 • Bern, CH • Dachstock Reitschule
Presented by Heartland Festival and Dachstock
3-night passes available now HERE and HERE
The Constellation event in Bern is a full label takeover and collaboration with Heartland Festival, in conjunction with the Dachstock collective who administer an awesome 700 capacity live room at the Reitschule complex - where many a fine Constellation memory has been forged over the years (and often then half-obliterated in the ensuing post-show massacre of brain cells at the bar).
NOV 17-18 • Paris, FR • La Maroquinerie
Presented by Volume
Running concurrently with the Bern weekend, these two nights at La Maroquinnerie will be anchored by Do Make Say Think and Thee Silver Mt ZIon respectively, with three other bands each night. La Maroq has been a favourite venue of Constellation artists over the years, and the site of beautifully raucous yet wonderfully attentive packed houses for several of the label's artists. Despite the club's literally subterranean and cave-like setting, the full range of Constellation sounds have always gone down perfectly there, from the quietest and most fragile moments to galloping punk-rock explosions. La Maroq brings out the passion and devotion of music-hungry Parisians who don't mind getting a little down and dirty to achieve sustained experiences of musical immersion, levitation and physicality. This will be good times!
NOV 21-22 • Vienna, AT • Porgy & Bess
Presented by Viennale and Blue Bird Festival
Constellation has had a very special and heartfelt relationship with the Viennale (Vienna International Film Festival) in recent years, beginning with their production of filmmaker Jem Cohen's "Empires Of Tin" project. We are very proud to be celebrating its 15th Anniversary in conjunction with Viennale's 50th Anniversary this year, and excited to be partnering with the Blue Bird Songwriter Festival as well, which will be expanding to a four-day event with the first two days devoted to Constellation.
NOV 23-24 • Leipzig, DE • UT Connewitz
Presented by UT Connewitz and Southern DE
Another venue and local promoter collective that is close to Constellation's heart, UT Connewitz is a glorious old theatre space that has hosted countless of the label's artists over the years. Like Paris, this will be 4-band bills anchored by Do Make Say Think and Thee Silver Mt Zion each night, in one of our favourite settings, booked by some of the very best people. Simple as that.
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Stay tuned for more information and finalized lineups in the coming months. There will be also be special collaborations and other little surprises at various events, for which we will supply more information down the road (or, regarding the surprises, maybe not, so that they in fact remain surprises). In the meantime, here's an assortment of MP3s to tide you over:
MP3s:
Do Make Say Think • The Landlord is Dead
A Silver Mt Zion • Thee Dirty Olde Flag
Hangedup • Klang Klang
Siskiyou • This Land
Elfin Saddle • The Wind Come Carry
Sandro Perri • Love & Light
Eric Chenaux • Dull Lights (White or Grey)
We're thrilled to announce Musique Fragile Volume 02 - containing three mind-blowing full-length albums from Kanada 70, Pacha, and Hangedup & Tony Conrad - is now available in stores and online!
As we've mentioned before, each album included in the physical set comes in its own silkscreened jacket with a pull-out poster and credit insert, and all are housed in a gorgeous silkscreened slipcover box. The entire set is also available in MP3 and FLAC formats from our webshop, as are each of the albums individually.
ORDER NOW FROM OUR WEB SHOP
Info and order links for individual albums in the set can be found on their release pages:
Kanada 70 - Vamp Ire
Pacha - Affaires Étrangères
Hangedup & Tony Conrad - Transit of Venus
Last week we put together a photo set highlighting the packaging elements of the box set - you can check out the abridged version here, or the complete set over at Facebook if you're the type.
As for the music, our friends at The Muse In Music called the collection "stunning", saying: "Hangedup & Tony Conrad’s “Panorama From Maxwell Montes” is a slow tango, every bit as serpentine and carnal as that description implies. Here the strings all but snap from heat, and the centrifugal improvisation serves up heavy gravity...Kanada 70′s “Mou” is somehow visual and verbal at once, featuring implied percussion and back-of-the-manual synth settings, which form a chromatic, nearly haphazard composition... Pacha’s “Macedonian Mind” is a kinetic, low-register power wash. Riotous." HeroHill, who are giving away a free digital copy of the set along with copies of the album posters, said "Musique Fragile 02 combines three records that defy genres and traditional sounds. They are noise, blips, beeps and in their own way, incredibly beautiful and powerful."
If you didn't catch them the first time around, Tiny Mix Tapes, Ad-Hoc, and Exclaim have premiered tracks from various albums in the collection over the past several weeks, which are collected in the playlist below, along with a mixtape we assembled, drawing music from all three. Do give them a listen.
As you can imagine, we're rather proud of this project, and really pretty excited to be letting it out the door. Thanks for listening.
With two weeks to go until the official release and pre-orders on their way to the post office, we've put together a preview of the artwork and packaging elements involved in Musique Fragile Volume 02.
As you're likely aware, Musique Fragile Volume 02 is the second in our series of limited-edition, artwork-intensive 3-album box sets. The set features albums from Kanada 70, Pacha, and Hangedup & Tony Conrad, each with its own silkscreened jacket and pullout poster, housed in a silkscreened chipboard slipcover box. If we may, it's pretty special.
See below for the first few photos; the whole set is posted over on our Facebook page (cause we're cool like that).
The set will be available as of June 26 on heavyweight vinyl and in digital formats. Check the Musique Fragile release page for more info, including pre-order links, and stay tuned for info on those albums in the coming weeks. If you haven't yet, check below to hear the mixtape we put together for the set, featuring music from all three artists:
As previously reported, we'll be unleashing Musique Fragile Volume 02 on June 26, and we've been unveiling more details and audio samples on the three albums included in the set during each of the past few weeks. This time it's Transit of Venus, the staggering results of a collaboration between experimental drone pioneer Tony Conrad and Montreal's steam-train chamber-punk legends, Hangedup.
See below for the info, including links to download album-track "Principles" as an MP3, or stream the towering "Gentil the Unlucky Astronomer," via our friends at Ad-Hoc. The full run-down on the album, including pre-order links, can be found on our release page.
MP3: "Principles"
STREAM: "Gentil the Unlucky Astronomer" (via Ad-Hoc)
Tony Conrad needs no introduction, having made crucial contributions to avant-garde experimental film and sound since the 1960s. Hangedup – the Montréal duo of Eric Craven and Gen Heistek – released three searing albums of steam-engine percussion and layered, distorted, dive-bombing viola on Constellation in the early 2000s.
( photos: Scott McMillan/Bettina Herzner )
Conrad and Hangedup first met in 2003 at the k-raa-k festival in Belgium, which led to a series of shared concerts and collaborations in 2004 and a pile of live-in-the-studio recordings captured while the trio were working up various pieces and improvisations. These tapes rock. Having gone unreleased at the time, Craven together with Harris Newman at Greymarket Mastering recently plunged back into the archives and started shaping an album from the various 2-track and live-mixed multi-track source material.
Transit Of Venus documents this fertile collaboration and includes some enormous slabs of drone rock alongside more decomposed pieces and gorgeously gritty string duos.
The album will be available as of June 26 on digital formats, and on heavyweight vinyl as part of the Musique Fragile Volume 02 box set, which also features albums from Kanada 70 and Pacha. Check the Musique Fragile release page for more info, including pre-order links, and stay tuned for info on those albums in the coming weeks. If you haven't yet, check below to hear the mixtape we put together for the set, featuring music from all three artists:
( photos: Scott McMillan/Bettina Herzner )
There's about a month to go until the release of Musique Fragile Volume 02, and over the next few weeks we'll be revealing more details about each of the three albums comprising the box set, including artwork, release notes, and more music.
This morning our friends at Ad-Hoc premiere "Gentil the Unlucky Astronomer," from Hangedup & Tony Conrad's Transit of Venus - violin and viola restlessly circle one another before tense, brawny drums advance and the three coalesce into an eleven-minute rush of towering, beautiful drone. It's a behemoth.
According to Ad-Hoc:
“Gentil The Unlucky Astronomer” is a grand unification of Conrad and Heistek’s string theories with Craven’s constant coupling drums -- a true music of the spheres, if ever La Monte sounded one. Unlike some of Conrad and Hangedup’s efforts divorced from one another, the exposition here pretty much provides everything ye need know; for such a seemingly careening track, “Gentil The Unlucky Astronomer” ultimately proves quite organic. Of special note, as well, is the combined timbre of Conrad’s violin and Heistek’s viola. Sawing away feverishly, but in two separate tessituras, theirs is a stratified hue not heard on the former’s Four Violins, much less the latter’s Clatter for Control.
STREAM: "Gentil The Unlucky Astronomer" (via Ad-Hoc)
Transit of Venus will be available as of June 26 on digital formats, and on heavyweight vinyl as part of the Musique Fragile Volume 02 box set, which also features albums from Kanada 70 and Pacha. Check the Musique Fragile release page for more info, including pre-order links, and stay tuned for info on those albums in the coming weeks. If you haven't yet, check below to hear the mixtape we put together for the set, featuring music from all three artists:
You could certainly call us pleased to announce the imminent release of Musique Fragile Volume 02, the second in our series of limited-edition, artwork-intensive box sets featuring three full-length albums by three different artists. (See here for a refresher on Volume 01.)
Contributors to Volume 02 are:
KANADA 70 • Vamp Ire
PACHA • Affaires Étrangères
HANGEDUP & TONY CONRAD • Transit Of Venus
The set will be available June 26 on heavyweight vinyl and as a digital bundle. The vinyl set will be limited to 500 hand-numbered copies, lovingly designed and hand-assembled, available for pre-order here:
3x180gLP • PRE-ORDER
Each LP comes in its own jacket accompanied by a pull-out poster, and all three albums are housed in a lovely screenprinted slipcover box (pictured above). Records are pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl and the box, jackets and posters are all screenprinted by Jesse Purcell at Repetitive Press.
Brief descriptions of the albums are included below; for the full run-down check our release page. Over the next three weeks we'll be revealing album-specific artwork and some free MP3s, but for now check out this mixtape that features a half hour of music pulled from all three albums....
As always, thanks for listening.
Kanada 70 is the home-recording project of Toronto's Craig Dunsmuir (known for his work as one half of Glissandro 70 (with Sandro Perri) and as an encyclopedic musicologist on staff at Toronto's Soundscapes). Vamp Ire spans a wide range of influences, from abstract techno, industrial and noise music to prog-rock, African funk, no wave and metal, and opens a compelling window to Craig's subtle, introverted and brilliant sensibility.
Pacha is the work of prolific percussionist and composer Pierre-Guy Blanchard, a fixture of Montreal's various experimental and folk music communities, whose drumming has graced albums by Black Ox Orkestar and Sam Shalabi's Land of Kush. Affaires Étrangères, a product of Pierre-Guy's deep commitment to the development of his craft paired with frequent voyages abroad, features intensely satisfying rhythm-heavy instrumentals often propelled by fried, amped-up Middle-Eastern synth lines and sprinkled with guitar, bass and oud along with the odd looped field recording. Think early Trans Am if they had come out of Cairo or Beirut, or Oneida in their motorik mode and with an Arabic pop fixation.
Hangedup & Tony Conrad Transit Of Venus documents a fertile meeting of the legendary violin minimalist and one of the past decade's finest instrumental punk bands. Tony Conrad needs no introduction, having made crucial contributions to avant-garde experimental film and sound since the 1960s. Hangedup – the Montréal duo of Eric Craven and Gen Heistek – released three searing albums of steam-engine percussion and layered, distorted, dive-bombing viola on Constellation in the early 2000s. Culled from recordings captured during various sessions as this trio prepared for a series of collaborative concerts in 2004, the album includes some enormous slabs of drone rock alongside more decomposed pieces and gorgeously gritty string duos.
Yes, it's June, and yes, Suoni Per Il Popolo has started again, and we're excited/overwhelmed as usual. Among the long list of truly amazing shows at this year's festival, consider checking out some of the following:
KHÔRA + NICK KUEPFER + SILENT LAND TIME MACHINE
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June 10 • Casa del Popolo • $9 • FACEBOOK
2/3 of the first installment of Musique Fragile kick off a month-long tour with Silent Land Time Machine, from Austin. Download MP3's below and check out video of a Khôra performance in Toronto.
KHÔRA - "Body Aperture"
NICK KUEPFER - "Corpse in the Wildflowers"
Khôra (Live 11/19/10) from The Momo Art Law on Vimeo.
COLIN STETSON + HANGEDUP
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June 17 • Sala Rossa • $12 • FACEBOOK
People keep saying Colin and his saxophone are "a force of nature"; Said the Gramophone said his new LP is "like being struck by a comet." It's all true.
Hangedup returned this past winter from a long hibernation, having lost none of the power that gave us all such beautiful, beautiful headaches in the early 2000's. Drums and viola and all kinds of heavy. MP3's and video below.
COLIN STETSON - "The stars in his head (Dark Lights Remix)"
HANGEDUP - "Klang Klang"
Colin Stetson: The stars in his head (Dark Lights Remix) from Constellation Records on Vimeo.
ERIC CHENAUX + DEAD RAT ORCHESTRA + Ô PAON
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June 20 • Casa del Popolo • $11
Eric Chenaux, our beloved Torontonian guitar sage - whose Warm Weather with Ryan Driver was described as a "quiet victory of subtlety and refined musicianship" by Line of Best Fit - returns to Montreal with a pile of friends and some truly breathtaking tunes. Check out a gorgeous new video for Eric's "Warm Charleston" below.
ERIC CHENAUX - "Warm Charleston"
ERIC CHENAUX - "Old Peculiar"
Warm Charleston - Eric Chenaux from Constellation Records on Vimeo.
The full calendar, with links to buy tickets online, is right here. Tickets can also be purchased in Montreal at L'Oblique, Phonopolis and Cheap Thrills.
For Hangedup, this will be a rekindling of the flame similar to Godspeed – the band has not played in several years and last performed in Europe in 2005. Eric Craven and Geneviève Heistek have continued to play drums and viola respectively in all sorts of projects in and around Montreal since putting their pummeling duo on ice mid-decade; they are well-primed to fire up the machine once again, and will also revisit a previous collaboration with Tony Conrad,
UPDATE: Hangedup will be performing at ATP with their own set as the sense-rattling dynamic duo that they are. The band is planning some stuff with Tony Conrad for 2011.
Equally momentous will be the first ever European performance by Land Of Kush. The uncategorisable and mesmerising out-music orchestra led by Sam Shalabi will re-fashion itself as a small ensemble for this performance (ATP couldn't spring for 30 musicians apparently - cheap bastards). We've seen Sam play in much smaller formations and been floored in complete but different ways by the results. With Radwan Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart) and regular Kush vocalist Ariel Engle forming the core, LoK is sure to provide an intense but presumably more intimate take on their inimitable psych-arabique sounds.
More info at the ATP site here.
No shows scheduled.
Rap Machines
LIVE
BIKES IN WINTER
Volume 02
Musique Fragile 3x180gLP / DL
ALBUM TRACKS
- Principles
Transit of Venus - Gentil the Unlucky Astronomer (via Ad-Hoc)
Transit of Venus - Klang Klang
Clatter For Control
 | Transit of VenusHangedup & Tony Conrad 180gLP/ DL |
CST091
 | Volume 02 Musique Fragile 3x180gLP / DL |
CSTMF02
 | Clatter For ControlHangedup CD / 180gLP / DL |
CST034
 | Kicker In TowHangedup CD / LP / DL |
CST022
 | HangedupHangedup CD / LP / DL |
CST016
