Lichter is the first piece in a new series of electroacoustic dub compositions by Mouse on Mars. It is a massive, lurching, up-tempo percussive epic – a long-haul runaway train that keeps switching tracks without ever losing sight of its destination. Like much of Mouse on Mars’ output, Lichter deftly traverses a varied sonic landscape, encompassing elements of jazz, dub, krautrock juke and psychedelia. Lichter incorporates trigger robots built by Sonic Robots’ Moritz Simon Geist and features Andi Toma & Jan St. Werner’s long time collaborator Dodo NKishi on percussion. The basic layers were produced with a feedback software called smrph, and were edited, arranged and used as a foundation for various live and studio improvisations. The 13min track, Lichter, is a concentration of these various layers. Lichter is also a highly visual piece, and performed live it employs a bespoke network of light-bulbs triggered by data derived from the sounds and pulses of the composition. Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner have been recording and playing live as Mouse on Mars since 1993, and have released over a dozen albums. In 2014 the duo celebrated their 21st birthday with a curated festival at Berlin’s HAU theatres, and an accompanying compilation which showcased the band’s numerous collaborations. *This is an edited version of Lichter. The vinyl version is 13 min*

The Beacon Sound Choir is a project instigated by multi-instrumentalist Peter Broderick. Recorded at Beacon Sound, a record shop and label in Portland, Oregon, Sunday Morning Drones is a work of improvised vocal drone in two parts. Comprising over 30 singers, Sunday Morning Drones explores the oscillating harmonics of the choir as individual voices coalesce into that of a group. Through an assembly of voices joined in song, the two tracks here resonate with notions of collaboration and community. While of course there is a devotional aspect to the music and its title, it has less to do with the divine and more with a profound and moving group experience. "We never sang any songs written by other people… mostly we worked with ideas from people within the group. A lot of people contributed ideas for songs, and sometimes we would make stuff up on the spot all together. We’d meet at 10am, drink coffee and chat for a bit, and then when we were ready we’d all stand in a circle and begin. We always started with a few vocal warm-ups, and then we’d do a drone together. These drones were my favorite part of the choir, and a big part of why I kept the choir going. Someone would start singing a note (usually me), then everyone would join in on that same note, then we’d all start branching off to different notes, and eventually we’d come back to the same note and end together. I think we all felt this was a really beautiful, incredibly therapeutic exercise, and often when we finished, we’d all just stand there in silence for what felt like ages… no one wanted to be the first one to utter a word after such an experience." Peter Broderick, 2015

Wanne 4, by renowned German artist and musician Markus Oehlen, is composed of a variety of percussive sounds with a focus on digital guitars. An homage to the sound of The Feelies early recordings, the track slowly works its way through a basic guitar riff of three chords accompanied by steel-drums and a steady bass drum beat giving it an air of a summer breeze until the guitar sounds gain more distortion. Occasionally broken up by disruptive by drum fills possibly performed by a stoned robot the song slowly morphs into a guitar-strumming finale with a clarinet solo of sorts. Wanne 4 is a beautiful piece of woozy instrumental techno, a surf-dub summer tune for people who prefer Palma to Ibiza and Jessy Lanza to Katy Perry. Besides having worked as a painter exhibiting internationally for almost 40 years and being a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Markus Oehlen is known as one of the pioneers of German punk music (as the original drummer of Dusseldorf Punks Charley‘s Girls and Mittagspause) as well as being a previous member of The Red Krayola. His 1985 release Beer Is Enough has been called one of the first sampling records. Oehlen continued to release electronic music under the moniker Don Hobby and as Van Oehlen (with brother Albert Oehlen). Wanne 4 (IGR08) marks his first physical release since Rock & Roll Is Here To Die, 2003 on Blue Chopsticks (BC10).

In 2006 the researcher Thomas Knoefel found a mysterious, single pressing, of a 78rpm vinyl at the Society for Psychical Research archive in London. The grooves of the record were pressed in the opposite direction of what is usually the case; so that when you dropped a needle on it, it would move from the interior of the disc and outwards towards the edge. No information was given on the sleeve except for the year 1948 and the phrase “Dangerous! Do Not Play!” The recording contained the voice of a man whose vocalisations couldn't be recognised as belonging to any language known to man. He was thus assumed to be in a state of trance and to be speaking in tongues. To this day we know nothing about the mother tongue of the speaker, nor anything about his particular faith. The Empire Never Ended is a transcription, using musical notation, of this recording. During a performance of the piece the original recording is played back in a speaker system while one or many musicians follow the recording and the notation as closely as possible in unison and octaves. The piece operates at the intersection where complete control and complete lack of control coincide. To perform the piece a musician will have to summon all precision and all concentration. At the same time he/she will have to put these very same abilities in the hands of a power beyond any human control. A power we know nothing about. The Empire Never Ended was originally written for Ensemble Modern and commissioned by the BHF-Bank-Stiftung for Frankfurter Positionen 2013. Original recording published by Supposé as part of Okkulte Stimmen - Mediale Musik Recordings of Unseen Intelligences 1905-2007, edited by Thomas Knoefel (Berlin 2007).

Infinite Greyscale is delighted to present a new long-form composition by Anduin. Since 2008, Jonathan Lee has been releasing beguiling and dusky cinematic music to great acclaim. Last Days of Montrose House is a deeply impressionistic work that’s constantly changing scene and perspective. Like entering a long abandoned building, it suggests both physical space and the unknown. The sound of a projector rolls to a foreboding rumble that invites the listener into a smoky, wide screen vision. Eventide drones give way to shuddering beats that emerge from shadowy depths. Distant sounds, both familiar and unrecognizable, pierce through layers of static. And just when it seems there’s no more air left in the room, the piece moves into another chapter – no single element ever outstaying its welcome. Last Days of Montrose House is both a complex narrative and an immersive environment. Comes with download code, including remixes by Stephen Vitiello, Radere, Borne, Chester Hawkins, .thejass., Elian, and Tag Cloud, totaling 47 minutes of bonus material. Single sided 10”, pressed on silver vinyl with screen-printed B-side. Numbered edition of 300. Handmade artwork by Paul McDevitt and Cornelius Quabeck. Screenprint by Ulrich Schmidt-Novak. Includes numbered insert, photograph, and download code. Mastered & cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin. Remixes mastered by Bryan Walthall at Sound of Music, Richmond.

Infinite Greyscale is delighted to present a new long-form composition by Stara Rzeka. The Polish village of Stara Rzeka and its surrounding countryside were devastated by a huge tornado on the 14th of July 2012. Stara Rzeka is where musician Kuba Ziołek, who adopted the name as one of several artistic projects, spends his summers, and the morning following the storm Ziołek was present to witness the aftermath. This self-titled piece opens to the crackle of electricity in the air and a distinct impression of menace. The distortion softens, but never truly fades, as it gives way to song; a graceful and melancholy ode to what nature has been divested of in the storm. Eventually this human presence, like the tornado, departs to leave the composition sounding like the land itself; wounded but brimming with life, buzzing and psychedelic. The fact that the artist, music, and location all exist under one heading suggests that these elements are interdependent and inseparable. This is music as elegiac at it is sanguine, at perpetual as it is fixed in time, and here Stara Rzeka is all of those things. Single sided 10”, pressed on dark green vinyl with screen-printed b-side. Numbered edition of 300. Handmade artwork by Paul McDevitt and Cornelius Quabeck. Screenprint by Ulrich Schmidt-Novak. Includes numbered insert, photograph, and download code. Mastered & cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin.

Infinite Greyscale is delighted to present a new long-form composition by Holly Herndon. Body Sound was composed by Herndon, in collaboration with choreographer and dancer Cuauhtemoc Peranda, and performed at Stanford University CCRMA (Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics).   Peranda’s body acts like a voice, guiding the listener through this complex yet visceral piece. Herndon restructured the sounds of the dancer’s body to make an arrangement that is simultaneously rhythmic, fragmented, and incredibly physical. In real time, she spatialized the sound-body using ambisonics in a field of 8 speakers, while Peranda performed the original choreography, creating an uncanny duet of physical and virtual bodies. Body Sound is all about the dancer making contact with the ground; a dragged heels squeaks, his rolling torso sends tumbling shockwaves through the speakers, and each stomp of a foot is a blast of sub-bass. Herndon builds on this source material, taking time to bend the sounds into an abstract sculptural form, only to pause again and reveal the dancer’s sonorous breath.   A great sense of optimism resonates through Body Sound. This is the sound of a living, breathing body in space, and a powerfully expressive document of experimental sound art.  Single sided 10”, pressed on light blue vinyl with screen-printed b-side. Numbered edition of 300. Handmade artwork by Paul McDevitt and Cornelius Quabeck. Screenprint by Ulrich Schmidt-Novak. Includes numbered insert, photograph, and download code. Mastered & cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin.

Limited 10" available from 10th March 2014.

out mid-September 2013

out mid-September 2013