[xs-66] BpOlar - subversive vespers

artist: BpOlar

album: subversive vespers

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release date: 05/09/2009

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contact: myspace

cover art: back and front

videoclip: krow

BpOlar is son of a jazz musician and as such he was raised from a very young age listening to the jazz masters, and although is approach diverted from this it is part of his background and as such is part of his aproach to the berlin electronic music scene. BpOlar is also a multidisciplinary artist, creating digital drawings and paintings and 3D video clips to document his music and for live usage, or the opposite (makes music to illustrate video). One of these works is presented together with this release.

BpOlar music is strongly focused on creating textures, with a close relation with ambient music. This textures are nonetheless rough and arid, and lead us to alien environments where beats, noises and voices all create suspense moments, where you feel alert all the way through. This release is composed of four tracks and a bonus movie, that complements this particular vision.

If you pay attention to BpOlar work you'll find, in his drawings/paintings, movies and music, traces of this imaginary world, where the central element is the feeling of unsettlement.

[xs-63] subterminal - filled with light

artist: subterminal

album: filled with light

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release date: 03/08/2009

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contact: blog & myspace

cover art: back & front

With eyes wide open.
Like in a reawakening. A strange awake that repeats itself every night; every passing day, or so it seems. Like a virtual experience; or maybe not. Maybe it is just a normal but scary awakening. ... "Filled With Light".

"Filled With Light" awakens us in two different ways. The first, because it is only an EP which is part of an album yet to be released; the second, because in that album, poetry, a core element always present in Subterminal's work, makes an eulogy to digital life. "Filled With Light" is like a trailer of a full movie that we anticipate; a summary with a beginning middle and end. For now, the awakening is what matters most and "Filled With Light" awakes; awakes us.

In that slow awake, "With You" introduces us to the theme, to the electronic principle that conducts the EP. However, "Filled With Light" is the track that captures our attention; because of the movement; the layers of sound; the excellent alto viola played by Tiago Morgado. There is a slight techno-industrial mood coloring Leonardo Rosado's words, the man behind Subterminal. At last, "For the First Time" definitely introduces us to what's coming. A confrontation with a different reality; or, an almost-reality. "For the First Time" introduces us to a confrontation between poetry and technology, created by dense sound ambiences, images, differing in rhythm and form. They are different lines of the same life; parallel or perpendicular. The exhaustion of conflict.

"Filled With Light" was composed and played almost entirely with an iPhone, with some extra sounds from other objects. After "Alumina" and "Insight", released in 2009, the reawakening of Subterminal is of happiness. "Filled With Light" is a great step forward when comparing with prior releases, which leads to the expectation of a very interesting conceptual album. Coupled with the refinement of his personal electronic universe, the author added a better voice treatment. The production of the EP was made by Tiago Morgado.

... to keep the eyes wide open.

Press Review by Rui Dinis, A Trompa

[xs-47] nata - stormy weather

artist: nata

album: stormy weather

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Recorded on my balcony one summer afternoon while watching a particularly vicious storm lash the coastline, literally destroying everything in its wake, then slowly going out to sea. this is how it felt to be there, the air thick with electricity and a sinister atmosphere of profound unease...this record is playable at any speed

[xs-34] tiago morgado & adamned.age - EHF: collaboration works

artist: tiago morgado & adamned.age 

album: EHF: collaboration works

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contact: tiago myspace & adamned.age myspace

Much has change in my life since I created this netlabel. I knew people, I expanded my horizons in terms of music knowledge and I created an interesting circuit for promotion of my music and others work. But in the middle of all that, there is nothing more important than the experiences echanged with other people, and the friendships that a guy establishes over the internet. For an instance in my album "Some paradoxes about the human existence (...)" released in test tube (Uncle bart (...) tube 125) I've had collaborartions requested by me ranging from portuguese musicians friends of mine (and people which work I admire a lot) to kenji siratory but I've never imagined that some months later I would being asked by german musicians to collaborate with them. And this experience, of giving few material of mine to other to work over the internet that has been a happening but will turn more periodical (at least I wish so), I desire to have more opurnities to seeing these sort of mutations of my own musical and sound identity by others and going along with making music with other people, and creating circuits for other people to make it which was also a big purpose of all this thing.

[xs-33] gabran - anthem

artist: gabran

album: anthem

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Gabriele Ranica teaches literary subjects in the superior school. Beginning from the seventies, he has played in groups of music jazz and contemporary improvisation. The meeting with the Teacher Angelo Paccagnini has brought him to the reflection on the sound addressing him/it toward the aesthetics of the musical search. You/he/she has published for Picked Editions: "Angel Paccagnini: The displease cosmic."

Anthem is a prayer to the possible sonorous worlds that are inside and out of us. We are sound and it are the discovery of the sense of the sound that we are to bring I spill me the search and the experimentation.
These sounds are only some of the sounds that I have met in this world, many others I have still discovered of it and many I will discover of it when my world will be only Sound.

by the Author

[xs-30] palindromic resonance - voidfuck sessions

artist: palindromic resonance

album: voidfuck sessions

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contact: myspace

"Ever since I discovered ambient and drone music, I've been interested in trying to experiment and play around with sound and mixing and matching it with all sorts of things to try and come up with something that satisfies me. I also love sound that has a "decaying" or "dirty" quality to it to convey a certain atmosphere, which is why I love black metal also (one of the reasons why). I also love minimalism (in any form of art) as well as using any instrument as a means of creating a "sound" so to speak rather than using it in a conventional manner."

[xs-28] die minimalistin - isolator

artist: die minimalistin

album: isolator

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Tanja D., born on Sep5,1975 and living in Berlin, received a classical piano-training at the music-academy in Hamburg plus education in composition and audition. At the age of 13 she already developed her own compositions in classical minimal-music that still plays an important role in her musical activities owadays. In December 2006 the first computer-compositions involving music-software, VST-plug-ins and VST-instruments were developed. Tanja D. likes to integrate noise-recordings of everyday life (ventilation-systems, tubes, etc.) as well as lyrics and her own voice. After having tested various styles of electronic music (e.g. minimal techno) she soon discovered the experimental electronic style and dark-ambient-genre. Currently she mainly concentrates on experimental dark-ambient-soundscapes and production of surreal sounds accompanying visual artworks. Inspired by the established project Exurban founded by the artist ADAMNED.AGE, she began to deal with the photographic/visual realisation of experimental contents and ex-urban rooms as basis for musical soundscapes. The most important aspect is the audiovisuality reference in her works; associative journeys through abstract, irreal and fantastic worlds or experienced events. 


First release of tanja from exurban in xs records.. a very tripy dark ambient one.. to listen with care.

[xs-23] the oniric - the oniric

artist: the oniric

album: the oniric

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contact: myspace

Today I present you a project of a long date friend, Luis Guilherme , who I met while I was still a child. and who brought us, among with his friend Luis Silva this fine ep which is actually their very first recording registry and where we can listen to some kind of singular sound that trancends music cathegories, where dark ambient is conflued with electronica, goth music and at a more conceptual basis, trip hop, neo-folk fado, XIXth century classical music power and intelligent pop in a fusion registry. To listen and re-listend with the dued attention.

[xs-22] necrostilet, minson, uncle bart comes to have breakfast - split

artist: necrostilet, minson and uncle bart comes to have breakfast

album: split

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contact: necrostilet myspace, minson myspace & uncle bart myspace

Tiago Morgado met Marco Ramos accidentally met in college (FCSH). They shared their avant-garde music passion and sometime after they where working on something Tiago had in mind, which was the experimental project necrostilet. They made music together during one year, and after it they were forced by their own destiny to pursuit their lives separately on far locations in Portugal. But they did not stoped working on necrostilet, and they continued to essay some sound experiences with something that their friendship gave them and helped them to grow. Marco has continued working on Minson but with an aesthetic much closer to necrostilet (two releases came then - the first one in enough records and the other one in this same netlabel), and Tiago created a new project called Uncle Bart comes to Have Breakfast, which has lead him to make experimental music among with some friends and people who he admires a lot (will be soonly released in test tube) and alone. Some of the work of the late home studio sessions of necrostilet among some material unreleased by minson and uncle bart is here represented which allows to communicate more then a end of a chapter in a friendship a page turning to a new one.

[xs-21] forgotten ruins - forgotten ruins

artist: forgotten ruins

album: forgotten ruins

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Today we present you with this fine release of forgotten ruins, a very recent uk dark ambient and experimental project that gives us this fully lp in which we can find a crossover between field recordings and electronic sound manipulations. A very cold experience to be heard with ears and mind.

[xs-16] EXurban - leerstand untergrund

artist: EXurban

album: leerstand untergrund

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about EXurban (by José Luis aka Gift of Vision):

"this both artist bring more than an empty space composition cliche, actually they discover a forgotten world, a world that is there but nobody notices it anymore... or anybody wants to notice. and it is because watching the slideshow, it inmediately takes you to a walk tru the corridors, the rooms and halls. And the questions come to surface in a second? what happened here? what kind of people was attended in this room? it was a injuried soldier? a happy pregnant mother giving birth? 
an old man waiting for the last breath of his life?

While the walk continues on every picture, a feeling of sadness, solitude, forgotten, depressive and nostalgic when the sun tries in vain to warm these rooms, and a mistery around it is overpassing the eyes, mind and hearth of the expectator, but... stop walking is not a choice. at the same time thousands of questions will remain with no answer: why this place is not used anymore? why they dont just tear it down and build a new thing? does anybody cares about this place? all that dust, rusty, broken windows and wide empty spaces just remain quiet with memories of echoes, voices and situations that happened there and no one will tell.

Even worse for my hearth: die minimalistic background sounds makes me going down, keeping my hearth cold, hopeless for an answer and fitting to my heartbeat and unexpected noises turns my skin with goosebumps not of scary, but yes: for emptyness.

I loved it, yes, this travel took me to the basement of my own personal ghosts and took me back to reality, I would recommend to everyone to have this travel and find their own basements without the classical gothic way for personal suffering: just real places, real pictures and the real noises in your head. I will be waiting for the next walk." 

In this new release of the german colective EXurban, crossover by two influent projects of the electronic german music scene, we find some sort of aproaching between languages as, for an instance, dark ambient, electronica, musique concrete, field recordings, electroacustic music, idm, downtempo, and so on. An ecletic experience, to see, taste, smell and listen. Recommended.

[xs-09] minson - hidden monsters

artist: minson

album: hidden monsters

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release date: 2008-04-16

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contact: myspace

We are glad to anounce that the minson Hidden Monsters EP, released in March, is finally available for listening. here we have a text present on the cover which induces us in the mithologycal theme of the album

Beneath us was nothing now to be seen but a black tempest, till looking east between the clouds & the waves, we saw a cataract of blood mixed with fire and not many stones thrown from us appeared and sunk again the scaly fold of a monstruous serpent: at last to the east, distant about three degrees appeard a fiery crest above the waves slowly it reared like a ridge of golden rocks till we discoverd two globes of crimson fire, from which the sea fled away in clouds of smoke, and now we saw, it was the head of Leviathan, his forehead was divided into streaks of green & purple like those on a tygers forehead: soon we saw his mouth & red gills hang just above the raging foam tinging the black deep with beams of blood, advancing toward us with all the fury of a spiritual existence.

BLAKE, William, The Marriage Of Heaven and Hell

[xs-03] DNP X-Citer - epiphany of light

artist: DNP X-Citer

album: epiphany of light

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release date: 2008-03-21

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contact: myspace

First work of the portuguese electronic colective (by that time focused only on the figure of Tiago Morgado), which bring us some sort of tripy light dark ambient music, using unusual techniques for making conceptual music with ordinary music software