Umor-Rex HHV Records 15 Items

Tuning the Wind was created in 2022 as an installation piece. Since then, it has been adapted into multichannel, 4dsound, and stereo installations, as well as performed live on numerous occasions around the world. The piece has a duration of 36 minutes and 15 seconds. For the vinyl pressing, it has been divided into two parts.

Composer Aimée Portioli, known professionally as Grand River, recorded various types of wind and then reworked them through layering and pitch adjustment to create a musical piece where the wind itself becomes a prepared instrument. At times, the sound of the wind is tuned to the 440 Hz reference, while at other times, the instruments are tuned to the sound of the wind. In Tuning the Wind, nature and music merge seamlessly. Synthesizers and wind recordings become indistinguishable, blending natural sounds with human-made instruments. The boundary between a gust of wind and an instrument-generated sound fades away. Human artistry and nature’s symphony merge to become one.

Wind is air in motion. It makes no sound until it encounters an object. The sounds it produces depend on the strength of the wind and the shape and material of the object it touches. When the wind blows, trees sway, buildings rattle, materials move, and sound waves are generated. Some believe that temperature changes create layers of air, and that the friction between them forms a unique sound—perhaps the true voice of the wind, which birds may be the only creatures capable of recognising. Sometimes the wind howls; at other times, it sings or whistles, shifting from a gentle murmur to an angry roar. The wind’s range of frequencies, tones, and timbres is vast and varied. Tuning the Wind is a piece about the wind, made with the wind—an abstract expression of our ongoing conversation with nature.

Concept, composition and production by Aimée Portioli. Wind recordings by Aimée Portioli and Pablo Diserens. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri. Front cover photo by Bárbara Cameán and Aimée Portioli. Back cover photo by Maria Louceiro. Design by Daniel Castrejón.

Sonic Behavior by Driftmachine & Ammer is an album exploring the origins of sound, noise, and various music genres. Alongside lyrical declarations of love for noise ("Song To Noise"), the album delves into sonic reflections on how beauty and emotion emerge from mundane vibrations in the air ("The Siren Is A Simple Device"). For the first time, the analog sound researchers of Driftmachine (Andreas Gerth, Florian Zimmer) incorporate spoken language and noise into their sound research. They have collaborated with word and sound artist Andreas Ammer, renowned for his radio plays with Acid Pauli, aka Console ("Spaceman 85"), or FM Einheit ("Radio Inferno," "Symphony of Sirens").

In "The Siren Is A Simple Device," the words are spoken by 81-year-old musician and poet legend Ted Milton (Blurt, Loopspool). Despite its simplicity and obvious ability to produce high volumes, the siren has led a marginal existence as a musical instrument. Yet, it is capable of evoking the most intense emotional states in the listener in the shortest possible time, like almost no other sound-producing mechanism. "Sonic Behavior" capitalizes on this fact. The familiar hypnotic sounds of Driftmachine are accompanied by a siren organ inspired by the revolutionary Russian futurist Arsenij Avranov and built by Andreas Ammer, while the lyrics talk about the simple physical reasons behind the sound chaos that has just been unleashed: A siren ... chops the air into sound.

The core of the album is "Song To Noise," an electro-acoustic mini-symphony about the beauties of noise and all its producers, which is based on a poem by the British poet Deryn Rees-Jones and spoken by the poet herself and Alexander Hacke (Einstürzende Neubauten, Hackedepicciotto). Driftmachine & Ammer develop a soundtrack that is as powerful as it is loud and danceable (which is why the LP also includes a textless version of the composition).

"Sonic Sculpture" is the zenith of the work: a text/music track spoken by Ted Milton, which creates the possibility of a sound sculpture that encompasses the universe: What if one could imagine the infernal sound that encompasses all conceivable harmonies at the same time? A piano does when you throw it down an earthly staircase (the epitome of music is a piano falling down the stairs) through silent space to the next theoretically life-filled, Earth-like planet, Proxima Centauri B. The radio makes it possible. Driftmachine & Ammer tried it. The result will be heard there in 4.24 light-years. On planet Earth, the time has come on May 2, 2024. On this day, Sonic Behavior will be released, a conceptual album by Driftmachine & Ammer exploring sound, its creation, and its power.

Eight years after its original release in 2015, and sold out upon release, Umor Rex finally presents a vinyl repress of Sirens, by Kara-Lis Coverdale and LXV. This new edition is limited to 500 copies and comes with revised artwork.

Inspired by the link between seduction and violence, Sirens comprises a series of timbrally vast anamorphic pieces that poise the voice as a newly imagined tool of multiplicity. Processes of sample manipulation, signal processing, routing, and source design inform instrumental writing and performance in feedback until intertwined, flickering between states of conflict and consonance. Apparitions of the schizophrenic voice are at one moment fractured and cold and at the next full of warmth and vivaciousness, embodying velvet rituals of romanticism in the digital age.

Ultimately, Sirens is music for ambitious dreamers: surreal sound portraits sound like the warmth of the world laid over an ice cold virtual altar. LXV’s vocal truncations and fleshy sound palettes depict the archivation of the breath and aural fantasies of the flesh which Coverdale sets amongst a vast and unconfined landscape of deeper and unknown force. Harmonically active and dynamic orchestrations underpin post-sacred tonalities while brooding pipe organs, sphinx flutes, and hailstorms of metallic percussion characterize uniquely disjointed discussions between disparate compositional ontologies. At times violent and at others serenely peaceful and seductive, these pieces, at their most powerful moments illuminate a felt space between cybernetic energy and the body.

Composed and recorded by Kara-Lis Coverdale and David Sutton. Mastered by John Tejada. Cover photograph by Cody Cobb. Layout by Daniel Castrejón.

Throughout his productive career, Carl Oesterhelt has proven to be an artist who finds it easy to move between musical genres and concepts. Much of his work has been within classical and chamber music, but he has also scored museum exhibitions and he is sometimes part of The Notwist crew as an angular figure on the Munich scene. Now he surprises us with »The Dualistic Principle«, an album full of weird but charming electronic melodies, rhythms that push the body to movement, sometimes syncopated and abstract, others permanent and fluid. In this work, Oesterhelt invited Johan Simons to give voice to the lyrics. The Dualistic Principle is a sort of rendition of a philosophical review or a nostalgic memory of the glamorous years.

On her second album, the Minsk born / Paris based artist Lina Filipovich continues her experiments on deconstruction and re-appropriation of classical pieces. »bfhc« includes seven electronic interpretations of the works of Baroque composers such as Bach, Handel, Frescobaldi, Carleton and Couperin. Inspired by memories of her experience of interpreting Bach's pieces in early childhood, Filipovich explores the desire to push the limits of performing classical music in the traditional way.

Yamila reveals her most intimate catharsis in Visions, an album that brings together and provokes the hallucinatory powers of music. Like an ancient herald, she announces the profound feminine mystique while crossing epic melodies full of pleasure and pain. This album is a journey that prodigiously unites baroque accents, Spanish folklore – such as flamenco – and contemporary electronic music. Her voice and music – sometimes torn and others buoyant – could resemble the score for a biblical passage (ie. visions of the Apocalypse), for they are overflowing with physical ecstasy and sounds that one can touch. Visions is composed of different forms and rhythms. Pieces like "Visions V" evolve intensely with sharp and systematized hits –– powerful layers that bring us closer to Alessando Cortini's Forse era. "Visions II", for its part, shares intensity and power with flamenco ritual patterns, as if it were an old Andalusian scene dripping with oscillations and electric shocks. Yet there are luminous vocal pieces such as "Visions I" (featuring Rafael Anton Irisarri), inspired by Manuel de Falla's Suite Española composed in 1922. Here, an aural chiaroscuro with beautiful voices and choirs is deeply fused with daring drones. And it is in the ensemble of moments of Visions where Yamila's conceptual axis is rendered solid. Pain and glory, lacerating religiosity, feminism cauterized by power, and hallucinations as a source (or pretext/tool) to be heard. Yamila exhibits a profuse aesthetic with her music that calls for a look at the far-past with romanticism and nostalgia. Visions is radiant, intense. A unique album. All songs written and performed by Yamila Ríos (Spain), except “Visions I”, which features Rafael Anton Irisarri. Recorded between the Swedish winter and the Belgian countryside. Additional musicians: Simbad guitar on V-iv and V-I, Vera Cavallin harp on VIV. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio. NY. Photos by Virginia Rota in Madrid. Design by Daniel Castrejón in Mexico City.

Paris-based producer Alexandre Bazin returns to Umor Rex with another side to his music approach. If in »Full Moon« he explored the analog electronic music merged with classical minimalism, in this new work, Bazin dives into totally rhythmic terrains while maintaining his devotion to electronic exploration and acoustic drums. Four Steps even rubs shoulders without discretion with techno music and the dancefloor, and retains his refined obsession with melody and structure.

»Stonewalling« offers a collection of electroacoustic pieces taking as input the Mexican vernacular music from the golden age of Mexican cinema of the first part of the 20th century. In those films, music was used as communication due their poor verbal communication-skills. This is an album about communication, about the impossibility to do so to resolve conflicts. In the technical side, some of the sources used as layering in the tracks come from radio frequencies taken from explorations into the software-defined radio universe, mixed with microphone feedbacks, oscillators, and random textures with field-recordings. In the melodic/harmonic structures of the tracks, the main instrument used is a classical guitar with hyper-processed chords using DSP tools.

These two pieces, recorded in sessions in Ghent, Belgium and Hamburg, Germany, represent the first musical collaboration between long-time friends U. Schütte (half of the German duo Phantom Horse) and G. Steenkiste (aka Hellvete). The duo built a beautiful meeting between electric and acoustic music, basically carried out with a harmonium, a shruti box and modular synthesizers. Beauty is in the details and what Schütte and Steenkiste do here is to cover two long landscapes with well-consolidated details that invite contemplation and moments of extreme sensory relaxation. You have to give yourself a space to listen and see through sound, and these two long pieces are a rare and perfect opportunity to do so

This double album represents a new collaboration between long-time Umor Rex artists Andreas Gerth (one half of Driftmachine) and Carl Oesterhelt (11 Pieces for Synthesizer). Both developed their shared musical cosmos while playing together in the Tied+Tickled Trio. Oesterhelt is also known for his solo compositions for orchestras and for his collaboration with Johannes Enders and Hans-Joachim Irmler of Faust.

Since its beginnings, a kind of futurism has been inherent in Electronic Music through its link with technological progress; to the same extent, a backwards-looking view is alien to its essence - a dialectical dispute between these principles, a sceptical position, is consequently difficult to express with the means of electronics. Today, it is all the more the music of mass culture, standing for global conformity, for renewal and postmodern oblivion of history. "The Aporias of Futurism" attempts to define a critical place through the link back to history that opposes the postmodern concept of interpretation, deconstruction and reformulation and the belief in progress that goes with it.

Andreas and Carl's working method for the album was the usual musique concrète technique: cutting/assembling/editing/processing pre-recorded sounds - but instead of deconstructing the concrete noises into an abstract sound entity, they took a different approach: organically interweaving orchestral structures with the electronically processed noise layers to create a composition in the spirit of classical modernism at the beginning of the 20th century.

Carl began with sketches recorded via a broken CD player and processed through a ring modulator, reminiscent of the timbre of old electronic music from the 1950s. To interact with these fragments, Andreas recorded and processed a plethora of everyday noises, atmospheres, sound fragments from the modular system, industrial and shortwave radio noises, percussion in the form of slamming doors, falling metal sheets, ball tracks and so on. So while they played in the futuristic discipline, the reference to the past is still unmistakable. You can hear it in the tonality of the contrasting orchestral passages, in the sound character of the processed samples and the electronic sound layers. But it is precisely here that a narrative tension develops. Theses and antitheses, extreme (unresolved) opposites, contrasts... basically inner contradictions, aporias... ... but another category enters, which plays a subordinate, almost outlawed role in the postmodern context: beauty (and be it the beauty of ruins seen on the album cover) - beauty, refuge of the pessimist.

In the course of the process, a multitude of motifs and ideas emerged from the fog of memory. Free associations of concepts, books and authors from a wide period of time, such as Milton's Paradise Lost, William Blake, Robert Graves, ancient Rome, but also Borges and Juan Rulfo. This flood of images is also reflected on the album cover, as a "free interpretation" of cultural objects and their relationships in time.

The overarching motif of sceptical rejection of the idea of Futurism is illustrated by a quote from Emile M. Cioran, the writer who most closely embodies the common spirit of the works presented here: "But now comes the strangest thing: the Futurist idolises becoming only until he has enforced that order for which he fought; then the ideal conclusion of time becomes apparent to him, the ‘always’ of utopia, which concludes and crowns the historical process. The idea of the Golden Age, the paradise par excellence, thus grips believers and unbelievers alike. But between the original paradise of religions and the eschatological one of utopia lies all the distance that separates a nostalgia from a hope, a repentance from a delusion, an achieved from an unrealized perfection."

Umor Rex presents Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer, a collection of synth instrumentals by German composer Carl Oesterhelt. Oesterhelt has been recording a mixture of straddling kosmische and classical traditions for years on his own reel tape machine, overdubbing stacks of analogue gear to create a compelling body of work that brings fresh emotional depth and rhythmic experimentation to the syntax of the modern synthesizer.

Born in Munich in 1968, Carl Oesterhelt has worked in a variety of fields throughout a long and impressive career. His discography includes tenures with Neue Deutsche Welle legends FSK, intellectual disco outfit Merricks, and German legends The Notwist. His solo work has travelled even further and wider, taking in contemporary classical and chamber music, music for exhibitions and radio plays, not to mention notable collaborations with saxophonist Johannes Enders and legendary founding member of Faust, Hans Joachim Irmler.

Oesterhelt augments his own analogue arsenal with synthesizers borrowed from musician friends, resulting in almost fifteen different synthesizers –some in fruitful states of disrepair– which feature on the album. Opener “La chapelle de Francis Lai” pays tribute to the French film composer with a synthesized church organ procession, disintegrating kraut-funk-noir which emerges on “Poro Secret Society”. Then, eerie sound effects mash with minimal techno rhythms on “Makonde Pattern”, and –most surprisingly– Oesterhelt turns his keys into a sub-Saharan drum ceremony on “Trinidad Pattern”. The sheer range of Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer is an impressive achievement unto itself. Yet it is Oesterhelt’s instincts as a composer which make these (largely improvised) recordings so compelling. Tensions build and emotions stir throughout each piece with a proficiency perfected through his work for the stage.

Musically associates, and directly connected to a heritage of German electronics, Eleven Pieces for Synthesizer touches upon similar ground to the likes of Musik von Harmonia in its pulsations, Klaus Schulze’s sonically adventurous Cyborg, and Tangerine Dream at their earliest and most primitive. The hypnotic ritualism of early African field recordings, or the spiritual regality of European organ music also convey key reference points in the formulation of this collection. Oesterhelt’s compositions here have taken the musically primitive and the emotionally raw, and woven them into a rich synthetic soundworld all of his own.

Through X Scroll Era, Gabo Barranco, aka Aaaa, conducts a rigorous overhaul of the aesthetics and statements of low-profile IDM, trance, and progressive-acid music typical of the early 2000’s. In addition to this inherent and undeniable veneration for the era, the pieces on this album — which originated from recordings and experimental exercises with gear and accidentally became an album — serve also as a kind of retrospective inspection of Mexico City's suburbs (Lomas de Sotelo), with landscapes full of indiscriminate concrete, highways of two and three levels, factories, and parking lots that have supplanted nature with their own detached beauty. It is a sound memory, a specific melancholy that praises skate squads of the area, friends from the past, parties, and substances. It reviews the decline of rave culture but also its resilience and capacity for transformation. What Aaaa offers us with X Scroll Era is an almost multigenerational soundtrack, a memory that feels collective and recollects euphoria, ecstasy, and nostalgia.

After several LPs and EPs (Acid Test, Omnidisc, Janushoved) and several years active in the dance and contemplative electronic music circuit (mutek, Berghain, iii Points, Rbma), X Scroll Era is the first album by Gabo Barranco, aka Aaaa, published on the Mexican label Umor Rex.

»Mercurio« is the debut album by Opuntia, the solo project of Mexico City producer Camila de Laborde. After three albums with her duo/band, Camila Fuchs (ATP/Felte, etc.), »Mercurio« serves as a statement of metamorphosis. Broadly speaking, it is a direct impact of beautiful melodies, rhythms, and voices that traverse a leftfield electronic pop axis, sprinkled with elegant nods to experimental transitions. You can sense the spaces, textures, and echoes, akin to a sort of retro Sci-Fi analogy. Bass hits or percussions carry a weight that bursts forth yet delicately dissolves instantly – perhaps another analogy, akin to liquid metal. From softness to fury across the ten songs, Opuntia proposes an artistic reinvention in constant movement.

After two years, Carl and Andreas present their second album, and once again, it opens up a wide associative space for us. What strikes us initially is the uncommon instrumentation: a church organ, harpsichord, glass tubes, and more. Like their first album (The Aporias of Futurism), it is mysterious and dark. But it also carries a strong touch of rebellion and adrenaline, sometimes quite pointedly. The pieces are now shorter and feature intricate yet irresistible rhythms. The impact is immediate, yet it maintains a sense of solemnity and ceremony. The Apollonian complexity of the rhythms and subtle melodic interweavings is transformed into a Dionysian, ecstatic, hypnotic, and at times tribal context. "Music for Unknown Rituals" oscillates between primitive instincts and avant-garde intrigues. The process began in Döblitz, a small village on the Saale river in Germany, inside an old church that houses an organ built in 1886 by Johann Adolph Ibach. Carl and Andreas gained access and secluded themselves there for a few days, accompanied by the organ, an instrument made of glass tubes, and a set of modular synthesizers. After recording the basic tracks in Döblitz, the work continued in Munich and Berlin. Carl played electric guitars, harpsichord, bass, metallophone, xylophone, Indian harmonium, and various percussive instruments. Andreas added layers of electronic sounds, noises, and atmospheric drones. He also created percussive structures extracted and derived from recorded material of technical and industrial noises, which contrasted with the acoustic drums played by Carl. The antithetical approach continues with the dichotomous arrangement of the instruments, often panned hard left and right in the stereo field, creating an antiphonic communication. Some parts, especially the use of the electric guitar, evoke memories of the psychedelic sixties. However, this is anything but a nostalgic album—these musical references are merely remnants, set pieces, and fragments used from a contemporary, post-modern, post-youth-cultural, and post-romantic perspective. Although Andreas and Carl continue on their chosen path of composing music with an almost literary narrative structure, this album is conceptually and formally completely different from their first effort. If “The Aporias of Futurism” was a revolutionary manifesto (in a pataphysical sense), "Music for Unknown Rituals" is more like the implementation in action; it is the practical application of the previous statement. To put it another way, if "The Aporias of Futurism” was the conceptual manifesto of a dark utopia of modernity, "Music for Unknown Rituals" is the staging of free will surrendering to the myths and catharsis of a Greek tragedy. And in response to this, the artwork features a leitmotif of histrionics with hands, the hands being the first and intuitive part of the body to express something: a ritual, a prayer, a defeat... — Andreas Gerth is one half of Driftmachine, and Carl Osterhelt is part of F.S.K and collaborates with Hans-Joachim Irmler of Faust. Both became connected through their participation in the Tied & Tickled Trio.

Marcos Díaz has been part of Buenos Aires underground for many years, being in projects like Bosques and making solo music under the pseudonym Entidad Animada (animated entity). Under this project, Marcos has explored sounds that involve a mix of feedback/distortion through synthesizers, guitars and drum machines that hint at the influence of Stereolab, Spacemen 3, and mid-nineties shoegaze. However, there are also ambient soundscapes with a slight rubbed of the ritualistic psychedelia of the Popol Vuh. The display of colours in his music comes together in the midst of a playful, relaxed and optimistic environment that is simultaneously melancholic. Because of the nature of those pieces, but also because in Entidad Animada there is also space for collage sounds that blend randomly with textures of a primitive analog sound, which inevitably causes a paradox between what is alive and what is inert. And it is because Entidad Animada is precisely that, a spectrum or a vision, a ghost. And these sounds are proof of his existence.

Pruebas de existencia (proofs of existence) is a collection of recordings that Marcos has made in recent years and that we have selected for this album, his first work on Umor Rex. A couple of these pieces were only released digitally, while the others have been on ltd cassette editions through Fuego Amigo Discos in Argentina. Pruebas de existencia is an Umor Rex compilation and remastered edition.

Guitar, sampler, synthesizer, organ, bass, drums & electronic beats, vocals, recording and mixing by Entidad Animada in Buenos Aires. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio, NY. Cover photography Natch Tablescape (1979) by Langdon Clay. Layout by Daniel Castrejón, Mexico City.