- Digging with r.l. crutchfield’s Dark Day
Up next on Dark Entries is the sophomore LP from r.l. crutchfield’s Dark Day
Originally released on Dutch label Plexus in 1982 this LP showcased a stripped down Dark Day duo consisting of Robin Crutchfield and Bill Sack.
I was lucky enough to meet up with Robin Crutchfield while in New York two weeks ago and gathered materials for the re-issue due out this May.
Here is a video of Robin and I going over old contact sheets and newspaper reviews:
and here are some photos of the archeological dig:
finally is a video of George Horn re-mastering the title track “Window” at Fantasy Studios last month!
- Returning from New York’s wierd wierd worlds
Fresh off the plane from New York and I wanted to thank Pieter, Frankie Teardrop, Aimé le Chevalier and Figure Study for making WIERD fantastic this time around…
and in case you missed my guest set with Aimé le Chevalier on East Village Radio’s Minimal Wave radio show from yesterday, Sunday April 18th
You can stream it : HERE
or download it HERE
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PLAYLIST FOR MINIMAL WAVE 4-18-10
Philippe Laurent – Exposition (long version)
Josh Cheon takes over
Transistor Jet- Master of the Universe
Zwischenfall – Flucht
Buzz – Kennedy
Pankow – Cross In My Heart
Eleven Pond – Watching Trees (demo)
William Onyeabor – Good Name
Nagamatzu – Shakedown
Robot Hustle – CloakingAimé le Chevalier takes over
Asmodaeus – Second Time Is Different
Tetra Plok – Some Day
Schicksal – Time
The Misz – Roll Over Bhopa
Danton’s Voice – Easy Life
Popsongs Factory – D Ameja
M. Bryo – Shift
Schicksal – Crash on the Street
Torch Song – Prepare to EnergizeJosh Cheon takes over
Those Attractive Magnets – Falling From View
System Liliputt – Harpa
Wonders of Science – My Only Desire
Human Being Men – Human Dub
Dark Day – Eternal Return
End Of Your Garden – CelebrationAimé le Chevalier takes over
Vita Noctis – Hade
Nostalgie Eternelle – Coup de Grace
Le Tombeau – Turkish Delight
A Thunder Orchestra – A Jest
Aime le Chevalier – The Distance Between Usand up next on Dark Entries is the Window LP from New York’s very own DARK DAY!
I had the opportunity to meet up with Robin L. Crutchfield of DARK DAY while in New York and photos and video of our brainstorming session will be available online soon!!
- Dark Entries in the SF Bay Guardian
Original synth
“A strange new wave of retro washes over Bay music and nightlife” by Marke B.
This week’s San Francisco Bay Guardian featured an in-depth look at the “wave” scene, drawing quotes from Pieter Schoolwerth of WIERD Records and Veronika Vasicka of MINIMAL WAVE.
The article also covers all of the new and upcoming bands and nights that San Francisco has to offer. From parties: Nachtmusik to Warm Leatherette and bands: The Soft Moon, Ssleeping Desiress, Muscle Drum and Veil Veil Vanish
Here’s a bit of the article on Dark Entries:
In 2009, Cheon started Dark Entries Records (www.darkentriesrecords.com) to release some of his finds, including Second Decay, Zwischenfall, Those Attractive Magnets, and upstate New York’s Eleven Pond, whose “Watching Trees” has become a wave anthem of sorts. (He found Eleven Pond through a comment one of the members posted on SF synth collector Goutroy’s A Viable Commercial blog, goutroy.blogspot.com.)
Staying true to the “DIY vinyl retrograde” spirit, Dark Entries releases come in hand-numbered batches of 500, and for the most part the digital rights are kept by the artists themselves. There are no CDs.
He shrugs off the possibility that there’s little left to discover. “It’s like gold mine after gold mine,” Cheon told me. “There’s just so much out there — even the artists themselves are surprised to be reminded of this time in their lives that they’d mostly forgotten. It’s actually really touching when they find out there’s an intense interest in what they did in their youth. They’re just amazed.”
Later this year he’ll be releasing a Bay Area Retrograde (BART) compilation, highlighting our own historical wave purveyors. “What many people forget is San Francisco’s rich synthpop and new wave history, with bands like Voice Farm, Tuxedomoon, the Units, and the Club Foot scene for starters. [Factrix, Minimal Man, and Los Microwaves are some others.] But that’s just scratching the surface. I mean, who knows what great tracks are waiting to be heard? And what amazing stories behind them.”
If you live in the city pick up a copy and come out the parties next week and DANCE!NACHTMUSIK
Wed/14 and second Wednesdays, 10 p.m., $3
The Knockout
3223 Mission, SF
WARM LEATHERETTE
Fri/16 and third Fridays, 9 p.m., free
Space Gallery
1141 Polk, SF
www.myspace.com/warmleatherettesf
THE SOFT MOON
Tue/20, 8 p.m., pay what you can
21 Grand
416 25th St., Oakl.
- Interview with Stephan Kraemer of Zwischenfall!
Please enjoy this interview with Stephan Kraemer of Zwischenfall!
Thanks to Veronica Vasicka of Minimal Wave for letting me use her questions!
1. Where are you from originally? And what was the music scene like growing up there?
Born in Belgium, but of German nationality. In the 80′s there was a vibrant music scene in Brussels, a city that was ideally located at the crossroads between the UK, France and Germany. Lots of trendsetting electro-bands like Telex, Front242 etc came from here
2. What music or bands were most inspiring to you growing up?
Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze in the electronic genre but also general pop-music and the whole punk and new-wave scene, early Simple Minds, Siouxsie & the Banshees etc
3. Did you grow up surrounded by music? Can you tell us a bit about your family background and how it may have affected your music?
No real musical background in the family but a lot of support. Started playing guitar at 8 and drums at 13
4. How did you first form the band for Zwischenfall?
I had already been in a band in 1980 but in 1982 I got together with Michael (Sass) to experiment with two synths, an analog rhythm-box and a string-ensemble we had together. We added real bass (Martin Urban) and electric guitar to the equation to combine electronic with traditional instruments so as not to be limited by one genre. By the end of 1982 I played two songs to Patrick (Codenys) from Front242 who was looking for acts for their newly-formed MASK label and got us signed for the first EP “Heute”
5. Who handled the vocals and the electronics?
Martin and later on Iben (Larssen) were the singers, Michael and me did the electronics – Michael playing most of the keys and me programming the drums and bass-sequences
6. What was your approach to lyric writing?
The singers wrote the lyrics, mostly pretty abstract stuff. We also used a poem by a famous German poet for the song “Heimatlose”.
7. There are some gorgeous arrangements and melodies on the Heute EP. What is the story behind it?
When we did the recording at Front242‘s studio, a cavern of Ali Baba opened up for us. Daniel B. – the main composer – had a huge collection of synths, so we used stuff that we didn’t have access to and experimented joyfully. To give an example: we used three different synths to make the drum-sounds for some of the songs…a big Roland System 100 for the bass drum, a Syrinx for the HiHat etc. There were also a German PPG Wave-synth and other assorted goodies that we used, like one of the first digital delays. Everything had to be painstakingly programmed step-by-step or played live – this was before the MIDI-standard became common-place. Also we didn’t want to loose the organic quality of some of our arrangements, so we incorporated acoustic and electric guitar, trumpet and bass into the electronic arrangements. There wasn’t a big master plan behind all of this, we just proceeded by gut feeling and continued to do so with later songs as well.
8. Were any demos recorded before the Heute EP?
The only demo to Heute was “Katastrophe” which turned into “Flucht”. It was one of the first songs that we wrote/recorded after the house of a good friend of ours burned down. All the other songs on Heute were written just before recording and during the studio-sessions.
9. Were you aiming to write any sure-fire pop hits, or were you aiming for the dance floor?
There was no particular intention either way, the music just poured out of us. We were quite aware that what we did wasn’t comparable to a lot of other music from the time, but we never would have imagined the cult-status some of the songs later obtained.
10. What image do you think your music conveys?
Hard question: maybe in a way we were trying to show the many facets Germans have in their culture, from very literary and intellectual, to martial yet also soft and cultivated and spiritual…
11. “Flucht” is enjoying a renewed popularity and appeared on many radio show and dance club playlists. Please tell us the story behind this amazing track.
This track went through so many versions, starting with “Katastrophe” and our two later remakes of it under the name Flucht. It got remixed by so many people, like Luc van Acker (Revolting Cocks), Luca Anzilotti (Snap) etc. It still seems to be our best known song and still gets played today in some retro-clubs. There is actually a club in the German town of Bochum called “Zwischenfall” where there are a lot of gothic and new wave parties, and every time our song gets played everyone races to the dance floor….hilarious actually.
12. Where did Zwischenfall tour?
Only in Belgium and Germany…mind you, I think we only did something like 10 gigs in all of the bands life.
13. What equipment did you use for your live shows?
A backing tape, some drum-pads with electronic sounds, electric bass and guitar and of course five different keyboards. I think at some point we were on tour with three Ensoniq Mirage samplers (one of the first affordable sampling keyboards)…it was all very cumbersome and rigid…there was no way to make a song shorter or longer on stage if we felt like it.
14. Do any songs from your career give you a particular satisfaction?
It was a fun ride, but it is very early stuff for me. I have made a career in music and probably some of my later song are a bit more mature. But we are all very proud of what we accomplished and the recognition we got, even if it took a “rediscovery” almost a decade later for that.
15. Zwischenfall ‘s music was ahead of its time and seems ripe for rediscovery. Do you feel an affinity with today’s generation of listeners?
Of course there is an affinity. I have never been out of touch with what’s hip at the moment as it’s my job to be up-to-date. I also think it’s a good thing to rediscover or honour some of the stuff from our musical past, as everything new is somehow based or related to something that was there before. In some instances (us NOT included) some past music has never been played or composed better than at the time, every cover version being only a pale copy of the original. Some bands or acts also had something so unique to them that no one ever did it better than they did… So – in that respect – I feel it being a good thing to seek out the roots of a certain genre, for example, to see where modern hip-hop comes from, or some of the techno/electro-stuff. What disturbs me though, is that some people are ONLY reminiscing of a certain period musically – as if everything that came after that was totally worthless – but we had that at every point in time: some are always complaining that everything was better yesterday….
16. Any plans or ambitions for the next couple years?
Personally I’m just pursuing my career in producing and engineering bands and artists. None of the other guys in the band are still active in music – so a reunion is out of the question.
17. How you think technology has affected music creation these days and do you welcome the changes? What do you listen to these days?
Things are so much more accessible today with what’s possible with a computer and some decent software. In the 80′s the price of the hardware was quite prohibitive, and connecting and recording was cumbersome. Nowadays it’s so much easier and faster – yet it has not necessarily produced more interesting music. Today you can very quickly record an idea with a result that is close to finished-product quality – 30 years ago we were looking for hours for a certain sound…and sometimes you forgot your initial idea after that…but sometimes you found something else instead while fiddling with the knobs. This whole tactile experience is almost gone from electronic music-making unless you invest in vintage gear, and that is a bit sad because it was part of the process….I could go on for hours on this subject but ask anyone who’s been in the music business for 30 years and they will all have the same kind of things to say.
My musical taste today is very varied, from mainstream pop to obscure underground…too vast a subject to describe here….
- Zwischenfall arrives TODAY!
I am proud to announce a legendary German electro/wave band is now part of the Dark Entries roster!
DE-004 Zwischenfall – Heute 12″ EP
Zwischenfall formed in 1982 with Michael Sass (synths), Martin Urban (bass/vocals) and Stephan Kraemer (guitar/drums)–all of German descent. They were united by musical sensibilities that combined electronic and traditional instruments developing the basis for their 1982 demo recordings. By chance Patrick Codenys of the Belgian electro pioneers FRONT 242 heard two songs and decided to record a 4-song EP for the electro band’s newly formed label MASK. The Heute EP was released in 1983 after a week of recording in Front’s private studio under the direction of sound-whiz Daniel B. Bearing in mind MIDI had not been invented at the time, the recording involved some extensive sound sculpting including the use of individual synths (PPG Wave, Syrinx, Roland System 100, etc.) for separate drum sounds. To create an organic feel to the combination of acoustic and electric guitar, a trumpet and a bass were incorporated into the electronic arrangements.
Sonically way ahead of their time, Zwischenfall have a distinct sound with hard rhythms and melancholic melodies that blend minimal yet catchy electronics to create a very danceable production. Remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios, the EP features two bonus tracks from the Heute sessions never before released on vinyl: the uptempo “Tausend Jahre” and “Katastrophe” the demo version of Flucht. The Dark Entries’ release of Heute will include an original press kit with lyrics and band photos and is limited to 500 hand-numbered copies.
Sound samples HEREA1 Atemlos
A2 Heimatlose
A3 Millionen
B1 Flucht
B2 Tausend Jahre
B3 Katastrophe$13.00
If you are interested in a wholesale quantity (5+ of one title), send me an EMAIL requesting exact quantity and shipping location.
The next few Dark Entries Records releases are in the works!!
Those Attractive Magnets – ElectroMagnetic Pulse LP
Dark Day – Window LP
Leaether Strip – Teenage Demos LP
Nagamatzu – Sacred Islands Of The Mad LP
Further Reductions – EP
End Of Your Garden – Celebration LPCOME HEAR THIS MUSIC LIVE AND DANCE!!!
April 1st - Nachtmusik Presents: CULT OF YOUTH @ The Knockout, SF
April 14th – Nachtmusik @ The Knockout, SF
April 14th – Wierd @ Home Sweet Home, NYC
April 18th – Minimal Wave @ EVR, NYC
April 18th – Synthia @ Su Casa, NYC
- Synthetic Romance
In anticipation of the Those Attractive Magnets “ElectroMagnetic Pulse” LP on Dark Entries I’ve digitized and uploaded the ultra-rare Synthetic Romance compilation from 1982!
From the back of the album:
“Synthetic Romance – for people wanting a collection of modern and futuristic music. The groups are varied, from all parts of the country and all walks of life, with one thing in common – the synthesizer – perhaps the most sophisticated instrument of our century.
This album is intended to promote the best new groups performing their own material. It also demonstrates the imagination and foresight of these yet little known musicians.”
That description sums up the music on this LP, everything from an upbeat instrumental to some of the catchiest synthesized dance music I’ve ever heard!
The sad part about this compilation also comes from the LP jacket blurb:
“All tracks have been produced by Darryl Johnston for EBONY RECORDS – an independent record company with its own 24 track recording studio – whose aim is to promote new groups.”
This meant that the bands were forced to re-record their original songs in a totally new studio with different instruments/arrangements and most of the songs suffered from this forced imposition. In addition all the bands had to pay for this new 24 track recording session! For example, “Fade Into Silence” by Those Attractive Magnets is strikingly different from the original version that will appear on the “ElectroMagnetic Pulse” LP. Also stripped down is “Together” by D.H.S.S., another band that featured Rikk Quay from Those Attractive Magnets, who will be released on Dark Entries next year.
Please enjoy this long lost compilation and discover what the Futurist movement was all about northern England circa 1982!
*UPDATE*
Thanks to Øystein from Hommage Records for sending me the Roman Holiday track without any skips!!Various Artists – Synthetic Romance (Ebony Records) 1982
A1 Jonny Dee – Stargazer
A2 The Truth – System Thinking
A3 Those Attractive Magnets – Fade Into Silence
A4 Stranger Station – Welcome To The Night
A5 Roman Holiday – Waste Of Time
A6 Liar – Oriental Lady
B1 Low Profile – On The Run
B2 Factor 10 – Ever Since You Went Away
B3 Biofeedback – As Pure As The Cloth
B4 Motifs – Camera
B5 D.H.S.S. – Together
- New Moon = New Items!
A new month brings new treats in the SHOP.
5 NEW records from the La Forme Lente and Brouillard Définitif labels!
plus 4 NEW hand silk screened shirts in super LIMITED QUANTITIES!
and… a radio show on Pirate Cat featuring Dark Entries + Warm Leatherette DJs!
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Nihar (Warm Leatherette) :
Private Entertainment “The Dream”
Pyrolator – “Bacano, Brothercito!”
Executive Slacks – “The Bus”
Bene Gesserit “Broken Toy”
Front 242 – “Controversy Between”
Les Visiteurs Du Soir “Je T’ecris D’un Pays”
Bal Pare – “La Vie”
Xeno and Oaklander – “4th Wall”
The Wirschaftswunder – “Erste Hilfe”
New Shiny Things – “Crayola Psychosis”
Robert Gorl – “Darling Don’t Leave Me”
Moderne “L’Homme d’Affairs”
Josh (Dark Entries) :
Dark Day – Nudes in the Forest
Shortwave Mystery – Separate Divisions
Eleven Pond – Watching Trees
Borghesia – On
E-Man – De Du Da Da Di
Leaetherstrip – Don’t Leave Me
Starter – Part of You
Second Decay – Enclose My Heart
Eleven Pond – Portugal
Zwischenfall – Tausend Jahre
Death Domain – Ethidium Bromide
- Dark Entries on Minimal Wave Radio!
If you were wondering what Dark Entries has in store for 2010 then listen to me djing on the radio show Minimal Wave on EastVillageRadio.com below.
This show was recorded live on January 3, 2010 and features some released and unreleased Dark Entries bands as well as songs that are stuck on my turntable…
You can stream it : HERE
or download it HERE
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PLAYLIST FOR MINIMAL WAVE 1-3-10
Second Decay – Laboratorium I
Second Decay – A Kind of Dream
Shortwave Mystery – Without Cause
Clan of Xymox – Stranger (demo)
Robin Crutchfield – The Hollow Oak My Humble Home
Patrick Cowley & Jorge Socarras – Robot Children
Second Decay – Chronomatic
Dark Day – Arp’s Carpet
Muzak – Fraccion Radical
Velodrome – Glassfabrik
Death Domain – Ethidium Bromide
Emotional Violence – Feeling The Cold
Eleven Pond – Portugal
Leaetherstrip – Dreaming (demo)
Second Decay – The Emerge
Flowers of Evil – First Blood
Xymox – Going Round
Pink and Black – Sometimes I Wish
Eleven Pond – Watching Trees
Calling Hearts – Cosmology
Son of Sam – Nature Makes a Mistake
Borghesia – Graffiti No 1
Those Attractive Magnets – Nightlife
Shortwave Mystery – Separate Divisions
Session – Enemy
Second Decay – Burning Car
Death Domain – Programmed Cell DeathAlso, please come out for the Death Domain record release party this Wednesday January 6, 2010 at WIERD
WIERD and Dark Entries Records Presents:
Death Domain Record Release Party!!!
Featuring a Live Performance by Death Domain at midnite!
With guest DJ Josh Cheon of Dark Entries Records!
+ NEW DEATH DOMAIN 7″s for SALE!!WIERD
Home Sweet Home
131 Chrystie St
New York, NY
- NEW RELEASES on DARK ENTRIES!
I am proud to announce two new additions to the Dark Entries family!
NEW RELEASES!!!!!
DE-002 Death Domain – Ethidium Bromide 7″
Death Domain aka Adam Stroupe is a science nerd from Baltimore and, like me, wears it as a badge of honor. His sound is undoubtedly one of the most bewildering, disorienting yet magnetic and infectious slices of downright bleak takes on synth-based dance music. A one man all-live-analogue electronic ice machine (who is also behind the likes of ‘SIDS‘ – Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). His sound is as cryptically raw as it gets – summoning the seminal Industrial/EBM sounds of the likes of early Cabaret Voltaire, Skinny Puppy, and The Normal. Limited to 400 silk screened, hand numbered copies with 4 different covers that feature a different glow-in-the-dark letter of each base pair of DNA: A,C,T,or G.
DE-003 Second Decay – Le Décadence Électronique LP
Dark Entries presents, for the first time ever on vinyl, the debut full length album by German electronic darkwave pioneers, Second Decay. Formed by Christian Purwien and Andreas Sippel in 1987, Second Decay hit the underground dark dance scene with their 12″ Killing Desire and then worked on their debut album from 1988 to 1992. La Décadence Électronique is an album full of addictive analogue electronics that combine synthetic sounds and constant rhythms with memorable vocals. Each song has been carefully remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley and is limited to 500 hand-numbered copies and includes an insert with lyrics and photos.
If you are interested in a wholesale quantity (5+ of one title), send me an email requesting exact quantity and shipping location.
RECORD RELEASE PARTIES!!!
December 9th – Tenebrae @ The Knockout, SF
December 20th – Honey @ Paradise Lounge, SF
January 6th – Wierd @ Home Sweet Home, NYCPlease come out and dance! The records will be available for purchase as well!
Thank you for your continued support of underground electronic music in its many forms!
In 2010 Dark Entries will bring you releases from Those Attractive Magnets, Leaetherstrip, Further Reductions, and MORE!!
- Insound.com chose ELEVEN POND as Band of the Week!
November 17 Stuff We Like
Eleven Pond – Bas Relief
NEW BAND OF THE WEEK! Insound staffers seek out new music constantly. Between the hundreds of music submissions we get per week and the new bands and labels we’re always reaching out to, we stumble upon some really great stuff. Each week, we will be picking one lesser-known band that we particularly love. This week, John goes all “best new reissue” on us with coldwave synthpoppers Eleven Pond.
So first of all, this isn’t really a new release, but a re-issue that came out this year (on Dark Entries Records). And the way this record came about, according to the blogosphinternet, is a great story / new music model example. Self-released in 1986 in upstate NY, in an edition of five hundred copies on vinyl; more recently a blog (A Viable Commercial) ripped the vinyl and a lot of people loved it; original band member also found the tracks online and was psyched more people were hearing the music; blogger’s friend decides to start a record label and re-masters the record (on vinyl again, natch) with beautiful (new) silkscreened art. Everybody wins (and the band even makes money)! It’s basically the same process that got Dave Bixby’s Ode to Quetzalcoatl into my eager little hands, and that’s probably been my favorite reissue of the year (besides Townes, obviously). So what does it sound like? Well, those of you newly (or old-ly) into that dark gothic coldwave sound should be pretty excited. Sweet bass lines, dramatic new romantic vocals, and GREAT synths – very dancy overall. And most importantly when it comes to re-issues, incredibly solid songwriting that certainly deserves to be heard again. Definitely for fans of New Order, The Cure, Depeche Mode, poppier Cold Cave stuff, and probably more precisely a bunch of other obscure likeminded bands that I know nothing about, ha. I’ll throw in a plug for Soror Dolorosa too (more goth), which we don’t carry yet but is SO. GOOD. And hopefully more people out there will take the initiative like Dark Entries did and keep digging up those forgotten gems!
- By John Koch
