10"
GENRE/S:
House

TRACKLISTS:
A1 Honex Future 00:07:47
B1 Bedroom Floor 00:07:39

SHORT INFO:
On DJ Balaton's second release, "Space For Afternoon“, the title says it all: this 10" features two laid-back house tracks that belong in every set of a dignified afterhour.

"Honey Future" impresses with driving bass and distorted Korg sound, while the focus is on repetitive delays and melodies. The single is completed by "Bedroom Floor" in a classic B-side style: the spherical sound carries you through space and time and makes you blur and forget them.
"Space For Afternoon" will be released on 16.12.22 via Hold Your Ground on 10" vinyl.

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2LP

- rampue is a well-known live act wordwide and "Tragweite" is his first album in 14 years, made with modular synths

GENRE/S: electronic

TRACKLISTS:
1 Für Dich
2 Turner
3 Regengesicht
4 Furo
5 Naoshima
6 Momijigari
7 Mount Sev
8 Phobia
9 Kembang
10 Direct Faden
11Europa Grenzenlos

Gesamtlänge: 01:02:41


SHORT INFO:
Berlin-based producer Rampue has not released an album in 14 (in words: fourteen) years. Between 2008 and 2020 he toured the world and worked mainly on his live sets in the meantime. So now only a worldwide pandemic had the power to prevent the traveling musician from continuing this hustle and bustle and eventually share a new record with the public. Corona was what brought this standstill and the otherwise well- traveled individual experiences cabin-fever during lockdown. Hence, the new Rampue album "Tragweite" came into existence in February 2021, which portrays the artist's desire for experimentation.
Inspired by a modular synthesizer (Buchla), Rampue has seemingly put himself into a kind of trance, in which he lets the machines work and combines randomly created sounds with airy structures such as low drums or simple grooves. Rampue accomplished to break free by using random sounds as a new impulse and a way out of a creative crisis, which stemmed both from the enforced home isolation and from the self-perceived paralysis. The result is literally unique, as many of the sound products cannot be reconstructed and are preserved in album form for the general public.
Listening to "Tragweite" one gets the impression that the dialectical relationship between chaos and order, further supported by its production, is the defining theme of the album. After an initially perceived chaos, a delicate order, which is determined by structuring drum patterns and basslines, takes over throughout the course of the album.
Later, it frays and loses itself again in sounds and tones created mechanically However, it never seems arbitrary, but willful and skillfully staged. For instance, "Furo?" begins with apparent arrhythmia. The combination of bass and subtle percussion, however, gives this arrhythmia a shape, guiding the track which gradually becomes more and more driving without losing its original playfulness.
Although one might be inclined to think of genres such as Downtempo or Ambient at the beginning in the further course of the album results in such a diverse sound and rhythmic landscape that one willingly questions one's own perception of music while listening and finally throws every type of categorization overboard joyfully. The listening experience is too intoxicating and enlightening to stick to simple genre boundaries. The musical spectrum ranges from straight arrangements that live entirely without a drum foundation ("Fu?r Dich") to almost meditative sound collages ("Regengesicht") to the four-to-the-floor banger "Kembang" which adds a grimmer note with a certain industrial appeal to the overall rather melancholic-progressive curation. "Direct Faden" on the other hand, surprises with its simple guitar-based foundation on which the omnipresent synth snippets and pads are allowed to let off steam towards the end of the record. The track that most closely combines the progressive production style with a danceable club atmosphere is probably "Phobia". Wafting, partly breaking away synthesizer sounds rise higher and higher, while the driving mixture of bass and drums consistently march forward.
Rampue breaks with his old, musical habits as "Tragweite" creates the impression of improvisation and jam character without getting lost. Rampue takes his listeners on a journey that is stirring and moving, sometimes demanding or even a bit disturbing, yet always one thing: incredibly exciting.

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EP 12"
DJ Balaton, a.k.a. Ninze of Leipzig Ketapop slow house fame, ventures into exceptionally flowy, analog House music on "Blauer Montag".

Tracklisting
A1 C'est tout
A2 Life So Sweet
B1 Tascam Dub
B2 Untitled
total length: 25 min.

Info:
DJ Balaton, a.k.a. Ninze of Leipzig Ketapop slow house fame, ventures into exceptionally flowy, analog House music on "Blauer Montag". It sounds familiar and obscure, like walking into a hotel for the first time, but feeling like you had maybe been there before. The first single "C'est tout" takes you straight to the lounge, while the hip-hop downtempo hymn "Life So Sweet" brings you to a bar by the pool. "Tascam Dub" feels eerie like an unknown sun setting in a foreign place, harboring excitement for what nighttime will look like. The final track is for dancing without caring for titles, time and place.

The EP is like a perfect day off, playing truant Ferries Bueller-Style - "Blauer Montag" (literally meaning Blue Monday) referring to the craft worker tradition of taking Mondays off. The full EP is released on 21st August via Hold Your Ground on 12" vinyl and digitally.
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LP+MP3 Download.

Tracklisting
A1 Snowbroom
A2 Colder
A3 Out the Window
A4 Bina
B1 Electron (feat. Mo)
B2 Make Things Smaller
B3 Safe Place
B4 Down
Total length: 40 Min.

Info:
Take your phone, your tablet and your TV and throw them out the window! That’s the spirit and the idea uniting the eight tracks of the album “Out the Window” by Christopher Schwarzwälder & Iannis Ritter. Listening to this otherworldly piece of downtempo electronica will make you feel relieved and excited, as if you had actually removed your electronic shackles for a little while. This album is light and heavy at the same time, it’s in your room and outside, it is loud and quiet like an extroverted introvert.

The nature of this album is organic and analogue and simply weird - it’s a juxtaposition of well-known, homey sounds and the strange. The intro “Snow Broom” feels like waking up on holiday, where you hear the familiar sounds of your loved ones in the kitchen, however they are in a new kitchen, so it feels alluringly different. The title track “Out the Window” seems to conjure the listener and you will find yourself spacing out as if you were smoking really good sativa for the first time. Electron (feat. Mo) is another highlight, with its different characters it resembles an audio book of “The Neverending Story”. The vocals in “Make things smaller” and “Safe Place” feel hip-hop influenced and ancient, like someone rapping in-front of an open fire.

“Out the window” is an album for late summer, autumn, winter time or any time that you like to look out the window and inside your own mind.




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LP+MP3 Download. Oberst & Buchner of Vienna based Best Kept Secret Heimlich Musik Collective with their first album. Tip!

Tracklisting:
A1 Arrival
A2 The Beuys in Us
A3 Søl
B1 Eye Liquor (feat. Tobias Koett)
B2 Moving Rooms
B3 Blank Follows Blank
B4 Avonic

Total lenght: 52 Min.

Info:
Each track of Oberst & Buchner's debut album "Sfumato" is rich with anticipation and residue - it feels like being taken on a very controlled journey through space and time by another life form. The two friends and musicians from Vienna and Berlin shift themes and melodies gradually into one another, producing billowing pieces of music with soft and foggy outlines. Just like you can get lost in the perfection of a single brush stroke in a renaissance painting from up close, if you step away you can't help but admire the planning, skill and instinct coming together in this album and every single track. The two producers almost seem to make use of the sounds that are not there, triggering our expectations and creating premonitions in our minds.

The complex sound patterns are frequently juxtaposed by simple, almost naive melodies that make everything feel innately known but alien at the same time. On "Eye Liquor" the feature guest Tobias Koett brings just the right amount of fragility and humanity to offset the moodily awakening fantastic sonic beast beneath. With analogue sounds the two celebrate the past and the future, creating murmuring, breathing streams of consciousness. We couldn't be more excited to see where the travels lead.



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Incl. Downloadcode

Tracklisting
A1 Voices
A2 Faulty Memory
B1 Incident Ray
B2 The Great Filter
Total length: 33 Min.



Info:
Unnatural, uneasy, unexpected. “The Great Filter” keeps you on your toes constantly, it makes your fingers tingle with anticipation and the hairs on your arms stand up from the tension. It is eerily calm and controlled, while it takes you to faraway places in the twilight, that don’t actually exist. Subdued, bright yellow light with no sun in sight. Wide plains with an inherent structure that can only be illogical. Unorganic sounds, alien voices, excited synths and sobering organs. Reality is so mundane.

The way we are now expecting it from Krink, he does what is unexpected and stretches conventions somewhere around techno and deep house. The music is driven by imagery rather than song structure. The EP puts cutting rhythms over comfort and sound over beauty. Like a focused dream, it is concrete and abstract. Let’s get found in the universe.

Vital Sales Points:
DJ promo, German print & online, UK/international online

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Stiff Little Spinners Vol. 9+10 Release info, This is the end, my friend. The Final Chapter is released on a 2LP.
2x12" Limited 300St. Incl. Downloadcode , Beilage: A2 Poster, Sticker, DL Code


A1 Ben Böhmer - Wechselwerk - 06:18 C1 Kalipo - Blaue Stunde - 07:05
A2 Antoni Sierakowski - Forest Spirits - 07:52 C2 Krink - Jupiter - 07:30
A3 Piotr Bejnar - Indian Summer - 05:27 C3 Dylan Cameron - Public Space - 05:33
B1 Thomas Atzmann - Rockæt - 08:59 D1 Joney - Rainman Syndrome - 07:38
B2 Trummerschlunk - The Visit - 05:08 D2 Simon Dübell - Angular - 03:31
B3 Gimmix - Ruby - 04:52 D3 Deorbiting - Anta Baka? - 08:01
C1 Kalipo - Blaue Stunde - 07:05 A2 Antoni Sierakowski - Forest Spirits - 07:52
C2 Krink - Jupiter - 07:30 A3 Piotr Bejnar - Indian Summer - 05:27
C3 Dylan Cameron - Public Space - 05:33
D1 Joney - Rainman Syndrome - 07:38 B2 Trummerschlunk - The Visit - 05:08
D2 Simon Dübell - Angular - 03:31 B3 Gimmix - Ruby - 04:52
D3 Deorbiting - Anta Baka? - 08:01



Stiff Little Spinners Vol. 9+10 Release info
This is the end, my friend. 10 LPs, 24 different artists, 61 tracks, almost 7 hours of music. With Stiff Little Spinners Vol. 9+10 we will release the last two volumes of the housey techno compilation series as a double 12" vinyl on 24/11/2017 via Hold Your Ground, Audiolith's new sublabel.

The intention of Stiff Little Spinners was always to keep the party going and most of all to keep it interesting. With every new release, we introduce new artists and almost always new genres - shoo-bi-doo house, rumble tec, abrasive electronica, stress ambient, you name it! Stiff Little Spinners Vol. 9+10 showcases new and known talent from Hamburg to Berlin via Warsaw and Texas.

Side A
The first side of the four starts with Ben Böhmer and Antoni Sierakowski who get straight on it and pick you up with around 124 bpm and loopy hypnotic perfect deep house. We then slow down a little with Piotr Bejnar who gives us a dreamy slow-jam masterpiece that can only be described as the intonation of a summer longing daydream. The first side is definitely for the MDMA kids amongst you.

Side B
Side two starts off with Thomas Atzmann, who seems to only produce progressive house operas these days. This nine minute epos will take you on a trip through time and space, it tells a story of tension and precariousness. This leads us to Trummerschlunk who will tease his modular synths until you can't differentiate what's in your head and what's real anymore. Gimmix picks you back up with almost classic house and a slightly wobbly-wonky bassline, so you don't end up k-holing or anything! The second side is definitely for consuming ketamine to.

Side C
The third side of the compilation begins with old friend Kalipo who produces unnerving trancey techno to loose yourself in. Next up is Krink, mixing six or seven percussionistic sound elements with looped melodies and then taking them away from you and giving you more as he pleases. With this we move into the most technoid part of the compilation with Dylan Cameron. The analog production is maximal techno and the erratic third side is most definitely for the connoisseurs of the pure and unadulterated amphetamine.

Side D
We continue with Joney, as always he is hard to pin down to a specific genre. Jungley slow tec? Moody break house? Maybe it is techno, that is walking through a swamp. Next up is Simon Dübell with maximal electronica and a hint of 2006, but just the right amount for happy memories of being a carefree teenager doing two to three pills. This side is definitely pills by the way. In a way Deorbiting take us back to the beginning, slightly shamanic, boomy, but happy and ready for pure ecstasy. It's all a circle, just like life, bla bla bla... Come party with us like it's the last time. We promise it won't be, though!

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