Techno / House
473 products
During the early days of Deepchord Records, Detroit's transient and forgotten subculture musically inspired label founders Mike Schommer and Rod Modell in significant ways. The apex of Mike's creative fixation with the city was in 2001 when he recorded the Von Schommer album dc15. To capture the nature of the environment he found so fascinating, Schommer recorded the project at the Crown Motel in Detroit, Michigan. While overlooking the transient life displayed in the motel courtyard, Mike crafted lonely tones from his modular synthesizer and mixed them with his rudimentary DIY electronics. Still, most significantly, he allowed the music to become impregnated by the environment (much like the stains in the permanently soiled carpets of the motel room floor), creating a holistic experience that remains close to his heart almost 25 years later. Initially available as a limited edition preorder cdr to the Hypereal 313 maillist, the album has been remastered and is now available on color vinyl for the first time.
Original photography and treatments on tracks untitled 4 and untitled 10 by Rod Modell.
Following the release of the well received Rave ‘Till You Cry compilation of unreleased versions from the vaults in 2019, Disciples follow it up (a mere 5 years later!) with a new album from Rephlex alumni Bogdan Raczynski, complete with another manifesto style title: You’re Only Young Once But You Can Be Stupid Forever.
A collection of warmly melodic electronic sketches, with tracks alternately drifting beatless on the breeze or underpinned by lo-fi drums, sometimes barely held together with a delicate construction of odd synth patches and ping-pong percussion. Each piece is short and to the point, a record of perfect miniatures. Whilst this description may sound utopian, the album is conceived around themes of late stage capitalist brutality, hyper consumerism, online doom and alogorhithmic apocalypse. Beauty in the face of planetary collapse and 24/7 livestreamed genocide. The theme summed up by the front cover which just features a giant (readable) QR code, that most ubiquitous of modern symbols. We’ve asked Bogdan on several occasions for more background information on the creation of these tracks, but received a different answer each time. One of the below statements might be true, though it’s equally possible that none of them are, just like the real news.
1) All these tracks are a result of Bogdan asking AI to make an EDM album.
2) These tracks originated in a desperate bid by Bogdan to crack the lucrative mood / chill / coffee / gym algorithmic playlist market.
3) All of these tracks were commissioned for a Tesla infomercial but rejected when Elon Musk heard them.
4) The music on this album is over ten years old.
5) The music on this album was made in a furious weekend of creative inspiration in early 2024.
The QR code on the cover takes listeners to an ever-evolving page on Bogdan’s website which may delve into some of these theories in more detail, or ignore them completely.
We leave you with Bogdan’s text in the booklet that accompanied Rave ‘Till You Cry as the closest we may ever get to some kind of logical reasoning:
“Burn the damned art labels. Ambiguity is wonder. Information is an affront to expression, a death knell to spontaneity. For if an explanation is required, then a connection has failed to be made. Art should be like an overtone, resonating invisibly with your history to form an ethereal experience. Either it hits you or it’s wrong time, wrong place. To hell with the dawdling interviews and vanity shots. One turns to music precisely because it least resembles what’s in the mirror. Put away the arrogance and pride, and boast and bias. With each word uttered, your mystery wanes. Your shimmer dims. In my nostalgia, your light show is drowned out by the ricochet of soundwaves. Art is best when all else is drowned out. Black as though the moon forgot to come out. Let the night cover my flailing humanity like a veil. Gangly arms tangled, feet aflutter, yet all but silent against the din. This is not an escape. This is me screaming, happily, inside, out through my fingertips. This is my beck and call. Carefully assembled to drw forth some other form of you. May we partake in this moment together, for just a little longer.”
Released in 2015, this work was recorded in 1982 and 1983, and the following year in 1985, the original 1/4 inch tape of the sound source produced as a test press board called "El Dinosaur", "Indian Ocean" and "Untitled".・From the master, Arthur Russell's partner Tom Lee and
In addition to an unreleased/alternate take that emphasizes echoes and rhythm machines, the instrumental track "Ocean" is one of the most beautiful songs in the discography.
A must-have board for fans that includes "Movie"! !