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And all of a sudden, December is upon us. Time to make that Best of 2008 list, huh? Well, I'll be spending the next couple of weeks catching up to the albums that I may have accidentally missed during the year, so as to make sure and include everyone in my list that deserves for making this year one of the best ones in music. Meanwhile, here's another installment of Rotations, with some interviews linked back to Headphone Commute. Among the genres covered below, I've got folktronica and laptop americana from Silent Land Time Machine; excellent experimental neofolk from Paavoharju; abstract rhythmic noise from Wurlitztraction; cut-up glitch and IDM from Gescom; floating space music from Benn Jordan; psybient and dark beats from Integral; beautiful piano playing by Goldmund; majestic modern classical from Library Tapes; future jazz from Juxta Phona & Offthesky; ambient downtempo from The Remote Viewer; instrumental hip-hop and turntablism from 40 Winks; experimental modern classical masterpiece…

Welcome to the November edition of the Neo Ouija Newsletter.

Last month saw the release of Diaspora: Cottage Industries 5 as well as the relaunch of Neo Ouija. Thanks to everyone who helped make this possible, the reviews and reception so far are glowing. We're not going to stop here though, the next few months will see Neo Ouija ramping up the activity with a flurry of both new releases and re-releases of classic and long out-of-print Neo Ouija material. Additionally, some exclusive festival appearances are scheduled for 2009.


Cottage Industries 5 Release Party

On Friday, November 14 we celebrated Neo Ouija's first release after the label's relaunch. The party was a blast, thanks for everyone that came out and danced until way past 4 am.

Here are the livesets as free downloads:

Nosral Flow : link
Deer : link
wesen : link (only the first 90 minutes of the 3-hour-set unfortunately)


Upcoming Events

Neo Ouija will be part of Club Transmediale's official program…

Welcome to the November edition of the Neo Ouija Newsletter.

Last month saw the release of Diaspora: Cottage Industries 5 as well as the relaunch of Neo Ouija. Thanks to everyone who helped make this possible, the reviews and reception so far are glowing. We're not going to stop here though, the next few months will see Neo Ouija ramping up the activity with a flurry of both new releases and re-releases of classic and long out-of-print Neo Ouija material. Additionally, some exclusive festival appearances are scheduled for 2009.


Cottage Industries 5 Release Party

On Friday, November 14 we celebrated Neo Ouija's first release after the label's relaunch. The party was a blast, thanks for everyone that came out and danced until way past 4 am.

Here are the livesets as free downloads:

Nosral Flow : link
Deer : link
wesen : link (only the first 90 minutes of the 3-hour-set unfortunately)


Upcoming Events

Neo Ouija will be part of Club Transmediale's official program…

It's time for my Rotations update, which somehow turned from being bi-weekly into a monthly feature. That doesn't mean that I've been quiet. Actually, the opposite is the case. If you subscribed to my Reviews Feed (instead of this summary) you'd be up on the latest releases from an array of genres. Here comes this MASSIVE post, which I trimmed down a bit by leaving out my exclusive interviews. This specific installment is complimented with Two and a Half questions with The Ideal Setback, Slow Dancing Society, The Sight Below, Ginormous, Near The Parenthesis, Igorrr, Kamran Sadeghi, Cougar, Blackfilm, and Lustmord. If you want to catch up on those, be sure to visit my hangout at http://headphonecommute.blogspot.com and hit the Two and a Half label. Be sure to drop me a line, even with a "..." so that I'd know you've read a bit on here. ;)

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http://www.headphonecommute.com/covers/september08/elitebarbarian.jpg
…

in alphabetical order:

Amon Tobin - Foley Room
Audiovoid - Whispers From Shadows
Boxcutter - Glyphic
edIT - Certified Air Raid Material
Fanu - Daylightless
High Tone - Underground Wobble
Liléa Narrative - Nouvelle chair
Metamatics / Norken - My Favourite Kind Of Irrelevance
Prefuse 73 - Preparations
Telefon Tel Aviv - Remixes Compiled
VA - DC Recordings presents death before distemper
VA - Hotflush presents Space and Time

I was going to write up an individual review for each album, but I think that the rate at which I'm finding or revisiting new music is exponentially increasing. So I'll take a couple of minutes and just jot down the artists and albums that recently went through my rotation and got on my list of favorites, so that I can turn my attention to them later when music runs out (ha!). And I know if I don't do it, no one will! Be advised, there are some older releases in here that I completely missed. Below mini-blurbs are in no particular order...

- - - - -

iLiKETRAINS - Progress - reform (Fierce Panda, Jun 2006)
Look, this album deserves an entire separate post! Plus I can't tell you how excited I am about the upcoming new release, Elegies to Lessons Learned. It's been a VERY long time since I liked any music with vocals at all. And this has truly spiked my interest on many levels!

Ametsub - Linear Cryptics (Progressive Reform, 2006)
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Quality chill time...

100 GREAT MINIMAL & AMBIENT ELECTRONIC ALBUMS!
Compiled at MAC.

http://www.musicadvicecenter.com/covers/thumbs/lifeforms.jpg

ékël - ékël (2006)
16B - Sounds From Another Room (1998)
7 Hurtz - Electroleum (2003)
Acid Jesus - Acid Jesus (1993)
Acre4 - Rockspeed (2005)
Adrian Klumpes - Be Still (2006)
Air - Moon Safari (1998)
aMute - The Sea Horse Limbo (2006)
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85 - 92 (1992)
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Vol. II (1994)
Appliance - Six Modular Pieces (2000)
Apparat - Tttrial & Error (2002)
Arovane - Tides (2004)
Autechre - Tri Repetae (1995)
B. Fleischmann - A Choir Of Empty Beds (2000)
Baby Mammoth - Seven Up (2001)
Bannister Boy - Lullabye (2006)
Beaumont Hannant - Sculptured (1994)
Belong - October Language (2006)
Biochip C. - Breakdown (1998)
Biosphere - Substrata (1997)
The Black Dog - Spanners
Bluetech - Elementary Particles (2004)
Boards of Canada - Hi Scores (1996)
Boards of Canada - Music Has the right to children
…

tone language - patience is the key (Korm Plastics, 2000)

Tone Language is a collab between Lee Norris / Metamatics / Nacht Plank (the latter being the relevant point of comparison) and the guys from Reflection. I guess they met when they were doing stuff with Clear, but this sounds very little like that label's output, nor like what any of the artists were getting up to separately in 2000.

I first heard them through epitonic.com - you can still download a three of their MP3s from that site - and stumbled upon the CD second-hand yesterday. The music holds up really well, a kind of turn of the century take on ambience with the requisite crackling textures, CD-skipping sounds and bit degraded fx, that's still really accessible. Would appeal to fans of Neina, Microstoria, Oval circa Systemisch, and maybe Shuttle 358.

I've only given it one listen through, but I think it'll be worth revisiting.