Somió - Organised Sound

Our newest album, Organised Sound by Somió is now available as a pre-release on Bandcamp. Written and produced by Kieron James, Somió is the the downtempo avenue of Kieron's musical expressions.

Today marks the anniversary of the birthday of Edgard Varèse, a significant influence in the field of electronic music. Varèse's music places an emphasis on timbre and rhythm. He coined the term "organised sound", suggesting that certain timbres and rhythms can be grouped together to create a new definition of music. Although Varèse's complete surviving works last just three hours, his impact on several major composers of the late 20th century is evident. His use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his being known as the "Father of Electronic Music" and Henry Miller described him as the "stratospheric Colossus of Sound."

Kieron's interest in percussive sounds - and their significance to the overall composition - results from his musical apprenticeship as a drummer in a number of bands, the most successful being The Emotionals. The band kicked off a craze on London's underground using handmade stickers to promote gigs at the George Robey, Borderline and Marquee clubs. They released two albums with Native Records, (the home of Nine Inch Nails at the time), Personal Pleasure and In Response.

Several tracks on Kieron's first solo album were inspired by frequent visits to Northern Spain over the last twenty years, with a good deal of time spent in the idyllic Picos de Europa. As well as the artist moniker Somió, San Feliz and Deva lend their names to two compositions from Organised Sound - the latter being the village where Kieron married.

Release Dates:

Bandcamp: 22.12.10
iTunes, Amazon, etc.: 24.01.11

Enter Calico - iPad App and Premiere

Download the iPad App (UK App Store)

So what is Enter Calico?

Enter Calico is our debut compilation - a collection of beautifully detailed tracks featuring ground-breaking electronic artists from around the world.

Argentina, England, Germany, Holland, Japan, Portugal and the United States are all represented and this cultural diversity is reflected in the music and techniques showcased on our stunning first release.

From the unusual rhythms of stretta's Calculus, featuring a technique known as a Risset rhythm (named after Jean-Claude Risset and referencing his work at Bell Labs in the 60's) to samples of car keys, swishing credit cards and other sounds from the daily grind, manipulated and allowed to "fall away" in Samarah's eerie composition, Enter Calico will dazzle and delight.

Take a journey through the wonderfully sparse and haunting ambience of cloudchair's six string soundscapes to the energy of tricil's "The Emancipation". Enter Calico offers a peek into the souls of the many artists who will feature on solo releases in the coming months.

Don't take our word for it...

"In a world after shallow labels like "IDM," this collection of independent artists represents the current generation about as well as any can. Meticulously-detailed sound designs stutter and shimmer through varied cinematic soundscapes, nodding at genres with only passing concern."

...two videos are, quite simply, mind-blowingly good standouts, perhaps not coincidentally for two of the highlight tracks from the compilation. Videos for Tricil (John Jacobus) and stretta (Matthew Davidson) take their richly-sonorous music and place them in surreal new fantasies. The Franck Trebillac-directed "Calculus" for stretta and Franck Trebillac & Marc Broussely-directed "The Emancipation" for tricil each create, in digital video, curio boxes in which captured butterflies and dancers become frozen in time. It's a bit creepy, beautifully delicate, and compelling... If the label keeps up this level of quality, we’ve got some good times ahead."

Create Digital Music, 08/11/2010

"...mind-blowing video, directed by Franck Trebillac for Stretta's Calculus."

Synthtopia, 07/11/2010

Download the App

The Enter Calico iPad is now available for download, priced at just £7.99 ($13.99 in the US store).

UK iTunes Store | US iTunes Store

The App includes a free download code which allows you to grab high quality versions of all the videos (streamed from within the App) and copies of all the audio in a format of your choice.

Streaming the DVD and music videos

We're streaming the full DVD and individual videos from the premiere at Cornerhouse Manchester from 8pm GMT on 4th November. You can view all the videos at:

ENTERCALICO.COM

Mystery artist, mystery track

We're expanding our roster with a new artist, whose forthcoming release has received an amazing response from the handful of people fortunate enough to have heard two and a half tracks.

For contractual reasons, we're not able to share any more details with you at this stage, but we have convinced him to let us preview a few seconds of just one of those tracks. If we tell you that this is NOT the single from his forthcoming EP and it's currently not mastered, you'll get a sense of the strength of this fella's material.

What we can tell you is that we didn't have to cast our net too far and he'll be joining us on Thursday night at the Cornerhouse. If you follow us on Twitter, you'll find him amongst our following/follower lists. 'Nuff said.

Behind the scenes with Burning Head

Our Enter Calico Premiere at Manchester's prestigious Cornerhouse looms ever closer (if you've not pocketed a free ticket yet, we urge you to do so as space is limited).

Since our artists and videographers are geographically dispersed and not all of them will be able to attend, we asked them to record a brief "behind the scenes" video which we'll be screening on the night and incorporating into an Enter Calico DVD (more news to follow).

Here are Franck and Marc from Burning Head talking about their work on tricil's Emancipation and stretta's Calculus. Just a flavour of what's in store next Thursday!

Enter Calico - Behind the scenes from BURNING HEAD on Vimeo.

Thomas L. Raukamp :: Ologie Project :: 20.11.10

"Ologie is a journey into sound and an exploration of the possibilities of today's music technology", says Thomas L. Raukamp, explaining the ambition behind his album. "Growing up with the music of electronic music heroes such as Jean Michel Jarre, Howard Jones, and Kraftwerk, some of the pieces for this release were composed in my head long before I learned to play an instrument or could afford to buy a synthesizer," he adds, laughing.