Really proud to announce my sophomore album ‘Body Complex’, there are a few things that come along with the announcement: the first single Interior “Architecture Software” which started streaming today. The record comes out August 7th on Ghostly International on vinyl/CD/Cassette, pre-order is below.
PRE-ORDER Coke Bottle Clear Vinyl / CD / Emerald Green Tinted Cassette HERE
This sculpture that I created which is about 7 inches tall and weighs close to 6 lbs made out of hydrostone which is a hi-tech cement pretty much. Also, I went more in-depth on the story of this album and sculpture below. As always, would love some feedback! Thanks for reading and listening.
For Jakub Alexander, the languages of music and visual art are permanently intertwined. And he’s always been this way—from his birthplace in communist Poland, to growing up outside of Detroit, to his current home in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. “When music like Gas, early Dial Records, and Mille Plateaux releases in the 2000s popped up in my headphones,” Alexander begins, “it was completely visual for me. Something clicked from collecting pages out of old Architectural Digest magazines and being completely overwhelmed with inspiration for my own visions of interior architecture.” The concept carries on still, now as an integral part of Body Complex, his second album as Heathered Pearls. Body Complex represents a new form of Alexander’s visually inspired sound creation, but just as it points to changes in direction for the ambient-inclined producer, it also revisits the past experiences that make his music possible.
Perhaps the most important era referenced in Body Complex is Alexander’s mid-teens, when he was a 15-year-old DJ going to raves with the older kids. Sure, the parties themselves were influential, but it’s the afterhours that resonate the strongest on Body Complex. “I remember those mornings better than the holidays during those years, the drives home from Detroit at 7AM were always stimulating. Everyone was so content, we’d usually listen to something deep and easy on the ears. This was a perfect time to let your mind wander.” It was also an opportunity for him to discover the likes of Terrence Dixon and Lawrence, artists who would eventually offer encouragement to Heathered Pearls as he moved into a new beat-centric sound. “I respect [Terrence Dixon and Lawrence] because they can ride the same thin lines of what I love: electronic music that is heavily repetitive, melodic, and deep. They both can find this elegance in techno beyond the dark warehouse.”
Body Complex doesn’t necessarily aspire to recreate the music of Alexander’s youth. But while taking inspiration from !K7’s classic audio-visual mix series, X-Mix, and early-aughts techno compilations, Heathered Pearls has moved himself closer to the dancefloor. “Loyal was these indirect, huge, heavy, slow ocean waves off in the distance at night,” he says of his beatless debut album, “and Body Complex is a stunningly bleak, uncharted landscape of man-made cement and artificial foliage.” Take a track like the desaturated “Sunken Living Area”, where flickering synths and chrome-plated drum patterns sketch out Alexander’s conceptual backdrop. You can almost envision the sounds as columns and plateaus protruding from a dusk-lit valley. “Personal Kiosk”, an exuberant ambient-techno highlight with The Sight Below (who also mixed and mastered Body Complex), might best represent everything Heathered Pearls brings to his second album: whorls of deep texture, abstract melodic drifts, elegiac beauty, and illusory dance music.
Of course, the artwork is another integral aspect of Body Complex, especially as it was conceived around an object designed by Alexander. “The shape came from wanting to create an imperfect sculpture that, from a distance, looks like a display piece,” he shares, “but when you get closer and you have more time with it, you see its flaws.” And that sort of ever-changing perspective reflects how the album itself can be heard differently in various contexts. Put on the Shigeto-featuring “Abandoned Mall Utopia” at home, and it’s a softly pulsing current of astral dust; put it on in a DJ set, and the music becomes a heady balm for the dancefloor. “You’re given this body and mind to build on, and everyone has their imperfections they don’t love,” Heathered Pearls explains in regards to the double meaning of his album title. Indeed, Body Complex is an elaborate expression of personal memories and visual metaphors as nuanced electronic music, and just like any fully realized body of work, it’s best understood from more than one vantage point.
Smooth with the delivery is all I can say across the board for Fort Romeau, whether its DJing or this album making every moody addition count. Give this album a spin, you won’t regret any moment.
Like many others, Ghostly became enamored with Fort Romeau’s idea of “slow listening,” the concept of enriching relationships with music through careful attention and focus. His understated take on deep, groove-friendly house started pushing this practice three years ago, when the producer’s debut LP, Kingdoms, appeared via 100% Silk. The native Londoner, born Mike Greene, has evolved considerably since then, finessing his sound over the course of three breezy 12″s, one EP, and lengthy DJ sets at some of the best clubs in Europe—not the least of which were Berlin’s famed Panorama Bar, London hotspot Plastic People, and Robert Johnson in Frankfurt. Those years Greene spent immersed in his craft and new inspirations have generously informed the eight stunning productions which comprise Insides, Fort Romeau’s long-awaited sophomore album.
“Playing in those clubs definitely had an affect on how I approach composition and pacing,” Greene shares. “I want to allow things to breathe and develop gradually over longer track lengths, rather than cram everything into four or five minutes.” His patient methods are a central component to the billowy house music on Insides, though this isn’t an indulgent album of gratuitous buildups and tiresome breakdowns. Each production is pointed and purposeful, as the artist crafts every second of analog electronics with rich detail, nuance, and refinement.
Throughout Insides, Fort Romeau guides us down misty corridors lined with supple synth pads, quietly thumping kicks, and elastic low-end sequences reinforced by an emotive confidence. Thick dancefloor cuts like “All I Want” and “Folle” are built on such satisfying elements—sounds so full-bodied, you’d swear they’re knocking against your bones. This, too, is by design. “I wanted to make sure all the songs have a tangible quality,” says Greene of his LP’s physicality, “to make texture and grain become as important a part of the vocabulary as timbre and pitch.” This was accomplished with an arsenal of machines, including his Moog Voyager, Yamaha DX7, Roland Juno-6, and Korg 770, a vintage synth he describes as having “so much presence and vitality, it almost feels like it’s alive.” Equally important to the weighty presence of his music is meticulous post-production. “The record was mixed on an analog desk and mastered to tape,” Fort Romeau elaborates. “These processes are as much a part of the sound as
the synths and sample sources themselves.”
There is also a deep stylistic eclecticism to Insides, and coming from Greene, this was galvanized by deep cuts he discovered while digging to find music for his extensive DJ sets. Old kosmiche, disco, and early electronic records are among the strongest influencers, and Fort Romeau used them as an impetus for creation. “It’s those strange and wonderful tracks that you find on the b-side of an old record that sparked my desire to make something new,” he shares, “but it’s very important for me never to feel like I’m making a pastiche.” Indeed, the sleek expanse of “Lately” and the title track’s jacking grooves take cues from buoyantly cosmic dance music. And yet it’s the personality of a young artist coming into his own that makes Insides such a graceful collection of house music, one that only further enriches the soul over time.
We have a very limited quantity of special-edition covers available featuring ISO50 on the limited edition (100 copies) cover. Check them out here. We could only get our hands on 40 of the 100 printed with this limited cover.
Modern Hieroglyphics is an exploration into art and design from all over the world. Every edition contains interviews with a diverse range of artists, each with their own unique influences, stories, and backgrounds. The visually-rich biannual publication provides an in-depth look into the life and creative process of each artist.
The new duo Inventions(members of Explosions In The Sky and Eluvium) tapped the shoulder of The Field for a remix and the end product is this perfect 9 minute piece.
Galcher Lustwerk released Edits today which a collection of… edits that he’s been doing over the years. You can listen to them all here.
Tycho hits the road this March, the first of a handful of posters just went up on the shop, you can grab yours here.
US/CAN SPRING 2015 TOUR
MAR 15 | Eugene, OR | McDonald Theatre
MAR 17 | Vancouver, BC | The Commodore Ballroom
MAR 18 | Seattle, WA | Showbox Sodo
MAR 19 | Boise, ID | Knitting Factory [Boise]
MAR 20 | Denver, CO | The Ogden Theatre
MAR 21 | Lawrence, KS | The Granada Theater
MAR 22 | Minneapolis, MN | First Avenue & 7th St Entry (First Avenue)
MAR 23 | Madison, WI | Majestic Madison
MAR 25 | St. Louis, MO | The Ready Room
MAR 27 | Royal Oak, MI | Royal Oak Music Theatre
MAR 28 | Toronto, ON | The Danforth Music Hall
MAR 29 | Indianapolis, IN | The Vogue Theatre
MAR 31 | Columbus, OH | Newport Music Hall
APR 01 | Cleveland, OH | State Theatre at PlayhouseSquare #
APR 02 | Pittsburgh, PA | Benedum Center #
APR 03 | Raleigh, NC | Red Hat Amphitheater #
APR 04 | Atlanta, GA | Chastain Park Amphitheatre #
APR 05 | Birmingham, AL | WorkPlay
APR 06 | Nashville, TN | Grand Ole Opry #
APR 08 | Oklahoma City, OK | Chevy Bricktown Events Center #
APR 11 | Indio, CA | Coachella
APR 17 | Berkeley, CA | Greek Theatre #
APR 18 | Indio, CA | Coachella
MAY 21-24 | Bradley, CA | Lightning in a Bottle
JUN 11-14 | Manchester, TN | Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival
JUN 18-21 | Dover, DE | Firefly Music Festival
# – w/ Alt-J
Our good friend Praveen is back at with his smooth Braille alias after a short hiatus going full Sepalcure. The EP is a solid listen all the way through, taking apart his organic sound structures and delivering selections for the dancefloor and even some for those lonely nights.
On February 10, Praveen Sharma aka Braille (one half of Sepalcure) will arrive on Friends of Friends with the Everyone’s Crazy EP. Utilizing an organic sound palette and a vast repertoire of on the cusp production techniques, Braille’s first release on FoF positions the Brooklyn-resident at the fore of sultry, beat-based music that doesn’t shy away from letting the listener into the interior world of Sharma himself. Everyone’s Crazy will function as the precedent to Braille’s forthcoming full-length debut, Mute Swan, coming Spring 2015!
Well things just got a little more closer to that reality with Microsoft’s HoloLens. Instead of products like Google Glass and Oculus Rift, which put the user in a virtual world – the HoloLens puts you in a virtual environment by taking elements from a digital world and making them an interactive part of your world.
“In one demo, a Minecraft scene was displayed over a real living room. A Microsoft minder asked me to select a virtual hammer (a tool in the game) and start smashing the coffee table in the room. She wanted me, in other words, to use a digital object to interact with a real one. I did so and was stunned by what happened: Before my eyes, the real coffee table splintered into digital debris, and then it was no longer there. HoloLens had perfectly erased the coffee table from the environment.”
“Using real photography from the Curiosity rover, Microsoft was able to re-create a Martian landscape and overlay a 3D-map around a small, conference-room-size environment. I can walk around, bend down and look at rocks. I can even see NASA’s Curiosity rover, which is larger than a standard motor vehicle.”
“With HoloLens, I’m not just able to see what it’s like to walk around on Mars, but I’m also able to interact with the contents on the surface. Using a finger gesture called Air Tap, the HoloLens lets me mark certain spots on the surface for investigation and even lets me talk with another floating figure and collaborate on examining the surface.”
You can read more about Windows Holographic and the HoloLens on The Verge.
