| July 2005 news
July 30, 2005
LIGHT DARK MOODS FOR THE SUMMER
• tube'|020 - Vägskäl - As Summer Comes Creeping
«Erik Svensson has many names and faces for all his musical personalities. This time, he slips into Vägskäl, an outfit previously used to release 'Last Summer' on our favorite portuguese netlabel, Enough Records. Erik is using Vägskäl to make 'Dark Ambient' - or so I've been told - but honestly, I don't believe he has completely succeeded into it. Not with this 'As Summer Comes Creeping', he hasn't. Vägskäl is beyond dark ambient on this one. This is clearer and wider. This is big and sunny open spaces as opposed to small and dark crawlspaces. This is light, in the true sense of the word. Look to the artwork. Let's see if this works.
'Outside My Window' couldn't be better named. You open this window and float outside to a tropical beach. It's raining and you can hear the ocean bathing the sand and the docked boats, and the wood crackles, as if they were trying to sing a song. You hear the sweet melancholy pouring out of the sky, and down on you. You feel happy, and you are in love with someone who isn't there.
'The Fading Star' is the drone masterpiece of this EP. You can almost taste the liquified metal, as it reverbs in and out of the spectrum. A bit more dark, but the light still shines there, somewhere, and it lifts you up high. Six and a half minutes have passed, but it felt like much less.
'A Song for a Girl' is the keeper. It's still ambient in a way, but it incorporates a steady mechanical beat, like some sort of steam engine, pounding, fully synchronized. Drones fill up the space left, adding dense layers into the song, some lighter, some darker. And love clicks.
We say 'Goodbye' with the most dark of the lot. Sparser, lower and lonelier drones build up slowly into the track, keeping it steadily growing, adding new elements to itself as it intensifies in weight and strengh. It ends in an amalgamation of clicks and crackles, and consumes itself into silence.
Repeat.» - Pedro Leitão
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July 28, 2005
WIRED!
test tube's Sitting San, by Frango, got mentioned in the 'Global Ear' feature (dedicated to Lisbon) of latest WIRE issue (August), by Pedro Gomes, one of our local cultural activists.
Great article! Kudos to Pedro for paying some attention to our releases.
We're on WIRE, people!
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July 26, 2005
NETLABELS AND OPEN CONTENT: WHAT FUTURE?
On last March, Bram Timmers - a Dutch Art student from the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands - started an academic research on the Netlabel phenomena. His goal: to understand «the netlabel scene and its social and technical consequences for our reality and putting it in perspective with the open content movement.».
Well, the research is now completed and its a 31 page deep and insightful work on everything that its part of the strange world we're in - The Netlabel World.
If you want to better understand what we're dealing with here, download and print it, and then read it. Make Bram's excellent essay worthwhile. And share it.
Here's the links:
• Bram's website: www.c3.hu/~bram/
• Bram's research: [PDF]
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July 25, 2005
LABRADFORDIANO, MA NON TROPPO.
Found a curious italian review of Frango's Sitting San. It's readable, people:
«Formazione prettamente acustica, con un retro-calore psych statunitense '60, i Frango possono ricordare anche cose della ESP, o certe elongazioni dei Limbus tedeschi, comunque musica abbastanza singolare, tipo anche i Thuja, con un vago sapore algarviano sospeso in una specie di siesta infinita da qualche parte tra Sagres e Olhao, tra oceano e mediterraneo.
Molto rilassato il primo brano, "Muito Tempo", in cui la chitarra genera armonici e il basso ondeggia come a simulare il fluttuare delle onde.
La lunghissima "Rusty Allen", quindici minuti detemporalizzati da stille di piano e da una chitarra acustica silentemente labradfordiana (ma non troppo)
riecheggia ricordi marini finiti in trame moresche fittamente istoriate di echi come una Alhambra, pigramente sostenuta da una ritmica titubante ma
accorta...» - S [NewsLand.it]
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July 24, 2005
MOVING OUT
mono¨cromatica/test tube is about to move to a new and bigger office soon.
We expect to have everything set up at the new address by September this year, but you may use it already, starting now. The new details are:
test tube netlabel (mono¨cromatica)
C/O Pedro Leitão
Rua Damião de Góis, 16 - 3º ESQ
1400-089 LX (Lisboa)
PORTUGAL
Use it wisely. Thanks.
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July 21, 2005
SPANISH BOOKS
Well, Bacanal Intruder scores another nice review. Comfort Music dixit:
«If you're like me, stumbling across a beautiful & quirky netlabel release is like getting a nifty little early Christmas present. (Of course, if you're like me, you're also digging frantically at the side of your face with a shrimp fork, trying desperately to get the voices out once and for all, but there's nothing I can do about that.) So imagine my delight when I stumbled across Bacanal Intruder - I mentioned the part about "beautiful & quirky" already, so let me just tag on the obligatory comparison to The Books (this is softer and less intense than The Books) and be done with it. (...).» - Scotto [Comfort Music]
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July 20, 2005
LIKE JIM O'ROURKE SODOMIZING LULLATONE
New review of Aitänna77's release. It goes:
«Esperanzador debut del "castelloniano" Mikel Martínez (personajillo importantísimo dentro de la escena e-zines en spagniolo), para el netlabel Test Tube (subsello del sello fisico Monocromatica). Cuatro temas paisajísticos a medio camino entre el songwriting de Drag City y el pop travieso de Audiodregs. David Grubbs o Jim O'Rourke sodomizando a Lullatone o E*vax. Xilófonos y guitarrillas entre secuencias de blips y plofs. Otro valor en alza del intimismo electrónico made in Spain que, como todos los demás, ha optado por buscarse la vida en formato virtual. Altamente recomendado para los amantes de la artesania pop.» - culocranky [Ich Hasse die Media]
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July 17, 2005
GROWING LIKE MUSHROOMS
Let's get your Netlabel bookmarks updated, folks.
BUMP FOOT [link]
Yet another Japanese netlabel. Check out its three excellent releases so far, one by Zuchinni and the other two by Tetsu.
TERM. [link]
term. is the online label from well known 12k records, Taylor Deupree's home label. Great selection of free minimal music exploration. Don't let anything out.
MIRAKELMUSIC [link]
I've been exploring Mirakelmusic catalogue from some time now, and a proper link was already in order. They have many great releases for you to explore. Ubeboet, Danny Kreutzfeldt and Mendigo are among my favorites, but you should get everything. Trust me on this.
TEXTONE [link]
With almost 30 releases under its belt, Textone says of itself: «textone is an online electronic music magazine and label, manifesting itself in word and sound; a channel that lets ideas and expressions circulate freely in public, with the goal of generating an open exchange of thoughts and works within the electronic music community.» Sounds good enough for me.
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July 09, 2005
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
Yes, today test tube completes its first year of existance. It has been an excellent year, with many submissions from artists interested in being part of our roster. At this moment, we already have releases scheduled for January 2006...
We must catch up on everything really soon. After summer we'll start by putting out 3 releases every month, as long as our server holds. Our local mirror should make it possible.
It has been an incredible ride so far, and you can bet your iPod that it will get even better. Thanks for riding along. Keep enjoying our releases, and remember: Share them with your friends!
Anyway, we were planning a special limited edition compilation release around this date, but unfortunately things slowed down a bit and we're re-scheduling it to be released after summer. This release will feature some tracks of test tube artists from previous releases - kind of our personal 'best of' - plus some invited ones that we greatly respect, like Alva Noto, Francisco López, AGF, Rafael Toral and Adriana Sá. This release will be limited to 300 numbered copies and will feature a hardcover book with pictures and notes from test tube and some of the artists invited. We can't advance any prices yet, because we want it to be sold at the cheapest price possible, very close to production costs. Remember that we're Creative Commons based. We're a Netlabel, and all profits will go directly to the artists involved.
We'll have more details on this as we get close to September. Stay tuned.
Now for our 19th release:
HORSES DANCING
• tube'|019 - Embark - Red Horses EP
«Embark is the dance outfit for a french artist duo. They've released an EP before, for the Acrylik Netlabel imprint. Expect an aesthetic twist from our latest releases, because Red Horses pulls you to the dance floor with ease.
Starting on a shoegaze-like, slightly rock-oriented theme, 'Red Horses' sets the right melodic tone to what will come later. This has 'french electronica' written all over it: crunchy snares, ethnic drums, vintage synth and keyboard effects, 80's bass lines, some vocoder phrases and vocal samples here and there. It takes downtempo to a seemingly nostalgic level. It goes from Chillout to Deep House in a matter of 15 minutes.
'Aqualandia' picks up where the first track left and takes you to the House floor, nineties style. But you should call it Ambient House, I guess.
'Before To' heats up the dance floor, so that you can warm up and be prepared to the last track: 'Catch the Light'. A full, close to the ground old-school House killer. Can your feet hold up to the task?» - Pedro Leitão
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July 01, 2005
QUICK NOTES
Just some quick notes before next release:
- New artist Vägskäl, from Sweden, with some beautiful IDM landscapes;
- Plumb & Plumber webpage updated and a review from LaFresto added.
Next up: Embark. Gang way for some catchy dance tunes.
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