TRACKLIST
1.1 Soft Opening Machine
1.2 Liquid Sound Waves
1.3 Limitations
1.4 M And A
1.5 Gummi Twist & Crawl (Die Koffer sind leer)
1.6 Sunglasses
1.7 Orion Stars
1.8 Back From The Primitive Galaxy
1.9 Cheapo Sounds
1.10 Afterhour


Stefan Schwander hat bereits eine unglaubliche Fülle an Musik geschaffen und ist ein fester Bestandteil auf der berüchtigten Achse um den Düsseldorfer Salon Des Amateurs. Mit seinem Projekt Harmonious Thelonious erforscht er seit mittlerweile 12 Jahren die Welten von panafrikanischen, südamerikanischen und nahöstlichen Rhythmen in Kombination mit einem minimalistischen Electronic-Sound, aus deren Zusammenspiel er mittlerweile seinen ganz eigenen Groove destilliert hat. Für sein neues Album mit dem herausfordernden Titel "Cheapo Sounds" wendet sich Schwander von bereits erprobten Rezepten ab. Eine musikalische Neuausrichtung, die zunächst in der Veränderung der Produktionsweise selbst begründet liegt: So ist die gesamte Platte unter Verwendung nur eines Instruments entstanden, der Monomaschine, die den Klang der 10 Stücke mit ihren sehr physischen Sounds erheblich prägt. Es stehen nicht mehr polyrhythmische Tracks im Vordergrund des Geschehens, sondern das Verweben von mehreren Melodien und Akkorden über einem Grundgerüst von spröden, simplifizierten Beat-Konstrukten und schroffen Basspulsen. Bei genauem Besehen ist dies mitunter eine neue Vision einer alten Herangehensweise: Standen in Schwanders Proberaum zwar auch alte Verstärker, die primitive Rhythmusbox, die programmierbare Drummachine oder Synthesizer wie MS-20, kamen diese jedoch auf "Cheapo Sounds" nicht zum Einsatz. Allerdings ist die Idee, mit der dieses Instrumentarium assoziiert wird, eng mit der DNA dieses Albums verwoben. Als der New Wave den Punk und die letzten Rockismen abgelöst hatte, entstand jener spezielle, neue Geist, den Stefan Schwander in den neuen Stücken einfangen wollte. Eine WavePlatte mit dem Verständnis von Techno. Und tatsächlich ist es ihm gelungen, damit auch den Bogen zu der grundlegenden Idee des Projekts Harmonious Thelonious selbst zu schlagen: Eine Art von Dance-Musik, die wie eine gute Clubnacht nicht nur zu einer schablonenhaften Formel verkümmert oder GenreErwartungen bedient, sondern das Publikum herausfordert und in sich sowohl Jazz, Krautrock, Industrial, Punk, Dub und Disco verhandelt. More

We're delighted to kick off our 10th anniversary celebrations with a release from an artist we've long admired, Dusseldorf's Harmonious Thelonious. His explorations into minimalism and polyrhythms have been staples in our sets since we were first connected via the Salon des Amateurs, and we couldn't be happier to welcome him into the Highlife fold with one of his brightest sounding records yet - documenting his musical adventures in Uganda.A1. Versteckte Muziek, A2. George Villa ft. Leo Palayeng, B1. Company, B2. It Never Rains In Jinja ft. Ocen James More

The new tunes, condensations of the 2016 album: the waist-deep sway Blinky - the title may be read as a tribute to the artist Blinky Palermo - and the pumping Shark Dance. Walkmen set too loud, ghetto-blaster too quiet, crosstalks in the bazaar, sun-bleached fabrics shimming in the Mediterranean wind. Tolouse Low Trax's Rivera Remix drags on a hoarse scratch, relentlessly spurring on in the rhythm of approach, into the distance, a sand fortress, where a yearning horn is calling, promising comfort. Wolf Mueller's remix of RFS (Vol. 3) does not detour, and takes no prisoners. Breaking straight into the aluminum can factory and shreds what he can find. Love actually, of course. A four-fold rattling and clanking, overdriven speakers, the groove is dirty. Dancers rub against each other and on the walls. The disco machine is a human.
Tracklist:
A1. Shark Dance
A2. Rivera (Tolouse Low Trax RMX)
B3. Blinky
B4. RFS (Vol. 3) (Wolf Müller_RMX) More

Harmonious Thelonious's ethnomusicologic journeys to the African continent continues with a burning package of 3 rhythmic tracks inspired by American minimalist music and African rhythm patterns. A primordial soup of polyrhythms and dense harmonics hypnotise the body into movement, transporting the origins of dance music to neoteric audiences. More

After releasing a brilliant and stomping three-tracker on Kontra-Musik White Label last year, ex-Durian Brother Harmonious Thelonious returns to the Kontra-Musik family with an absolute gem of a record. This is everything we want dance music to be: characterful, playful and impossibly funky. Harmonious Thelonious is a master of crafting organic sounding rhythms but arranging them in a manner that reminds one of a 1970's car factory. Primal pulses running through modern assembly lines, gears and pistons covered in green lianas. The result is a perfect symbiosis between living tissue and mechanical parts - dance music for primitive cyborgs. More

The new tunes, condensations of the 2016 album: the waist-deep sway Blinky - the title may be read as a tribute to the artist Blinky Palermo - and the pumping Shark Dance. Walkmen set too loud, ghetto-blaster too quiet, crosstalks in the bazaar, sun-bleached fabrics shimming in the Mediterranean wind. Tolouse Low Trax's Rivera Remix drags on a hoarse scratch, relentlessly spurring on in the rhythm of approach, into the distance, a sand fortress, where a yearning horn is calling, promising comfort. Wolf Mueller's remix of RFS (Vol. 3) does not detour, and takes no prisoners. Breaking straight into the aluminum can factory and shreds what he can find. Love actually, of course. A four-fold rattling and clanking, overdriven speakers, the groove is dirty. Dancers rub against each other and on the walls. The disco machine is a human.
Tracklist:
A1. Shark Dance
A2. Rivera (Tolouse Low Trax RMX)
B3. Blinky
B4. RFS (Vol. 3) (Wolf Müller_RMX) More

Kreidler celebrate the 10th anniversary of their groundbreaking 2009 album, Mosaik 2014, with a remastered edition. The reissue of the record features an updated track list and is pressed onto 140g white vinyl.
Mosaik 2014 – that's how it is meant to sound. Arrangements that feel right, without me being able to map them out because all of the lines are woven together so intricately, and because the album was recorded mainly in a week of live sessions. Above all, this record has more. More rhythm, drums, percussion. More keyboards, better yet synthesizers that are immediate and cannot be turned away, sounds that demand something and yet retain great mystery. More off-kilter loops and more electrical storms. But it is all there to serve the same purpose: to make this the best Kreidler album of all Kreidler albums. There is a directness, and things come to the point while still leaving enough free space. There is longing, solace, fulfillment. In other words, big emotions.
More

The debut album by the Düsseldorf artist NIKOLAI SZYMANSKI and his solo project FANTA DORADO & DER INNERE KREIS is an intriguing mixture of pop, industrial, wave and krautrock made for a period of upheaval in magical utopian worlds – made for adventures. More

The debut album by the Düsseldorf artist NIKOLAI SZYMANSKI and his solo project FANTA DORADO & DER INNERE KREIS is an intriguing mixture of pop, industrial, wave and krautrock made for a period of upheaval in magical utopian worlds – made for adventures. More

The grandchildren of Kraftwerk and denoted pioneers of a new German Kraut scene re-release "Gold" on vinyl. More

The debut album by the trio STABIL ELITE combines glamor and emotion with cosmic transcendence. More