Leaf Newsletter #54
3 May 2002
This newsletter contains details of the following:
1. MURCOF debut album
2. ASA-CHANG & JUNRAY limited 12" release
3. Forthcoming Leaf events
1. MURCOF - Martes
CD / BAY 23CD / UPC 0666017032429
limited edition 2xLP / BAY 23V / UPC 0666017032412
release date: Monday 13 May 2002
mail order prices: CD/2xLP: 10.00 GBP (+p&p)
Artist website:
http://www.murcof.com
for mail order, real audio samples and further info, go to:
http://posteverything.com/artists/release.php?id=????
Murcof's debut album, Martes, is a masterpiece of contemporary
electronic music, where, for once, soul isn't sacrificed for
technique. Rife with a gooseflesh-inducing aura of mystery and
suspense, it draws together the apparently divergent disciplines of
classical orchestration and electronic minimalism. The result finds
lush atmospheric layers of strings and piano restrained by poised
micro-rhythms. Martes hovers with effortless grace, intimating
untold, unapologetically spiritual depths.
Hailing from Tijuana, Mexico, Fernando Corona's musical background
runs the gamut from an acoustic rock to experimental multimedia. A
phase of composing for dance ensembles led him to develop a taste for
20th century classical music, particularly the emotional music of
Eastern European composers like Henryk Gorecki and Arvo Pärt.
Mexico's singular landscape is also submerged in Murcof's sound.
Depicted in the artwork are the Rumorosa Mountains, located between
Tijuana and Mexicali. The almost lunar range has a long whispered
history of rumoured UFO activity. It's this sense of strange,
uncertain portent that gives Martes a compelling edge.
Corona was born in Tijuana in 1970 but lived most of his life in
Ensenada, a small port eighty miles south of Tijuana. Returning to
the city in mid-2000, Fernando finds himself at the peak of his
creative powers as a sought after musical producer working with local
bands, remixing other musical projects (including the Kronos
Quartet), producing musical scores for short films and video games.
A former member of the Tijuana-based Nortec Collective of electronic
musicians and artists (whose members also include Panoptica), Corona
will bring his Murcof guise to life with performances in Europe this
summer, including a show at June's Sonar festival in Barcelona. His
debut as Murcof was the Monotónu EP, released through Sutekh's
Context label earlier this year.
CD LP
1. A1. memoria
2. A2. marmol
3. B1. maíz
4. B2. m.o.
5. B3. mes
6. C2. mapa
7. C1. mir
- C3. minda (exclusive to vinyl)
8. D1. muim
9. D2. unisón
Monotónu EP reviews:
"the definitive marriage of electronic minimalism and orchestral...
simply jaw dropping. Absolutely essential!" 5/5 Echoes
"Take if you will a pristine backdrop of spacious micro house beats
and shape around a carefully enlisted, yet equally sparse,
neo-classical samples... turning the whole into a pulsating dense
texture of head rhythms" 5/5 DJ 'Sureplayer'
"spartan yet panoramic in a way that eludes most twitchy
click-housers, mixing clipped mechanoid beats with pizzicato strings
and portent-laden orchestral stabs" 4/5 Muzik
"a melancholy minimal electronic sputter that unites Cologne-style
Krautwibble and icy avant-classical symphonics in the depths of its
sophisticated design. Mmmm, minimal" NME
2. ASA-CHANG & JUNRAY - 'Hana'
limited edition 12" only / DOCK 32 / UPC 666017035260
release date: Monday 20 May 2002
mail order price: 4.00 GBP (+p&p)
Artist website:
http://www.riverrun.co.jp/asa-chang
for mail order, real audio samples and further info, go to:
http://posteverything.com/artists/release.php?id=????
Based in Tokyo, self-taught tabla guru Asa-Chang spends his
professional life touring with multi-million-selling J-pop acts -
groups that make S Club 7 sound like Joy Division. Regarded as
Japan's premier session percussionist, in his spare time this
loveable eccentric makes music that might just blow your head off.
'Cos you ain't heard nothin' 'til you've heard this. An irresistibly
fruity concentration of eastern percussion, toys, horns and obsolete
analogue equipment, there's something breathtakingly 21st Century
about the whole enterprise, as it oscillates wildly between urban
contemporary and timeless spiritual, real and manipulated, serious
and playful, pop and the avant garde. Isn't it about time we heard
something this fresh?
The main track on this 12" album taster, 'Hana' (Japanese for
'flower'), has been circulating on white label and CDR since last
summer, and has picked up a near religious following among the few
that have heard it. 'Hana' is a bolt from the blue of intense,
hallucinogenic sounds - one of those tracks you hear once and will
never forget, we're confident that 'Hana' is quite unlike anything
you've heard before...
"We respect the Indian tradition but wanted to offer something back,
something different, something that even Indians couldn't do," says
Asa-Chang. "That's how we developed the tabla-over-spoken-word
style." Spoken word hardly does the astonishing babelogue of 'Hana'
justice. His vision is to embody Kidoairaku, the Japanese word
meaning the range of human emotions - joy, anger, sorrow, relaxation.
And then some. It should come as no surprise that Asa-Chang's first
solo release was on Cornelius's Trattoria imprint.
This limited, vinyl only single precedes the release of Jun Ray Song
Chang, an artist album that compiles all his Japanese releases to
date, released June 17. Get wild with your monkey!
12" 45rpm
A. Hana
B. Jippun
3. Forthcoming Leaf live events
Saturday May 4
Belgrade, YUGOSLAVIA
Manitoba (live)
Saturday May 4
Secluded Alley Works, 113 12th Avenue (12th & Yesler), Seattle, USA
Joseph Dierker (310) executing a live soundscape for the 'Recent in
Origin' opening show
Sunday May 19
Miso, 13th Note, Glasgow, SCOTLAND
Gorodisch (live/DJ)
Wednesday May 22
Bongo Club, Edinburgh, SCOTLAND
Manitoba (live) + Four Tet (live)
Saturday June 8
Come Shake The Whole presents: Montreal Electronic Groove Festival,
Cargo, Rivington Street, London EC2A, UK
Manitoba (live) + Freeworm (live) + Stereomovers + London Elektricity
(DJ set) + Ewan Pearson + Damon Havlin & Stan Fontan
Friday June 14
Sonardome, Sonar Festival, CCCB, Barcelona, SPAIN
Manitoba (live) + Murcof (live) + Tony Morley (DJ)
Friday June 21
Impotent Fury, 93 Feet East, Brick Lane, London E1, UK
Manitoba (DJ set) + Four Tet (DJ set)
Thursday July 4
Cult and Xfm's Flo-Motion presents The Leaf Label, Cargo, Rivington
Street, London EC2A, UK
Manitoba (live) + Murcof (live) + Tony Morley (DJ) + Nick Luscombe (DJ)
Thanks for listening. Get in touch!
The Leaf Label Ltd
Suite 219, Bon Marche Building, 241 Ferndale Road, LONDON, SW9 8BJ, UK
leaf@posteverything.com
http://posteverything.com/leaf
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