This Friday the opening of the exhibition The Object Lag in De Nieuwe Vide in Haarlem will be the stage for a Narrominded improv event with Puin + Hoop, Herman Wilken and Coen Oscar Polack doing an extended improvisation. Come listen, free entrance! As a teaser for this event and as a gift to you in general we share with you a half hour long improvisation piece by Coen Oscar Polack entilted Test Drive, recorded live earlier this week. Download the mp3 here or listen in the player below (note: the track starts quietly).
The gallery Delicatessen in Amsterdam released a book with a compilation with tracks by Narrominded artists Coen Oscar Polack and Hunter Complex. For four weeks in a row different music photographers showed their photos at Delicatessen. Each week different musicians and writers where invited to give their response to one or more of the photos shown in the gallery. A week after each opening they read and played their response in the gallery. A very nice book with lots of photos and cool words including a cd-r with 12 tracks is the result of these four weeks. You can buy this book + cd-r in our shop for only 10 euro, but you can also download the whole compilation for free on the Delicatessen website.
Some Narrominded related press in the first week of 2010! Newspaper Haarlems Dagblad published a small article about Garçon Taupe’s election for best dance track of 2009 and his contributions to Poke 20 and Retro Retry 2. Read the article here. Belgian website Kwadratuur reviews Retro Retry 2: ‘This pleasant listen brings you contemporary and slightly futuristic electronics. This album makes a very nice blueprint for the latest generation of laptop artists in the Netherlands.’ USA based webzine PopMatters has some doubts about the album: ‘Too much context gets sacrificed for too little connection’. And finally, the Dutch website Festivalinfo writes: ‘Narrominded again presents a delicious collection of underground tracks on their fourth Split LP. Maybe the disadvantage of the Split LP format is that the styles don’t match completely, but the electro fan will find two great EP’s here anyway.’ There are also some charts going on: Split LP #4 holds a #2 position on OOR’s Underground Top 5, and Garçon Taupe’s Lobo holds a #8 in Remute’s RA DJ Charts. Also, the radio program Beautiful Extremes, hosted by Oscar Smit, played the tracks Lobo by Garçon Taupe and Here Is the Night (Coen Oscar Polack’s Morning Version) by Hunter Complex from the Here Is the Night EP. Listen to the fragment from the broadcast on January 5 in the player below.
Our first release in 2010 is the cd The Almighty Internet by Spoelstra. Using a guitar, a synthesizer, a sampler, a loopstation, a bunch of effects and/or perhaps other instruments and stuff, Spoelstra produces songs with elements from electro, country, sludge, noise and improvisation. Stream and download the track Day of the System here.
Our second release in 2010 will be the debut album by Hunter Complex. Hunter Complex is the new moniker of Lars Meijer. His debut cd Hunter Complex will be released in January 2010 and contains 12 songs. The music echoes influences by synthpop and new wave bands from the eighties, but will also appeal to fans of current electronic music acts. Stream and download the track Wait here. The album will be preceded by the Here Is the Night EP in December 2009 with remixes by Garçon Taupe, Spoelstra and Coen Oscar Polack and an extended instrumental of the song Fashion Street.
‘We go cloud-sailing, gazing into the far miles of the sky ahead with a delicate, heavenly spray on our faces, which soon overwhelms and overtakes the earspace. A downpour!’ Now that’s a beautiful to describe the track Under Trees It Rains Twice by Coen Oscar Polack & Herman Wilken. Read more in the review of their album The Language of Mountains Is Rain on the British website Sonomu. ‘Things are buzzing again around the Narrominded label’, writes the magazine Gonzo (circus) in their review of the new records by Living Ornaments and Psychon. They say that Living Ornaments make music with a clearer goal than Psychon, which is more fragmented, but nonetheless of high quality.
In their review of Retro Retry 2: Another Another Green World the music zine Kindamuzik says the album sounds balanced. ‘Catchy rhythms alternate with modest pieces and repetitive sounds.’ According to them The Big Ship by Coen Oscar Polack is the highlight of the album. ’A moody recreation of Eno’s dramatic composition.’ MusicFrom.NL also reviewed the album. ‘An enjoyable record that sounds as whole, despite the diverse perspectives.’ They also think Spoelstra’s track sounds like your uncle Arie who bought an €80 keyboard and loaded some MIDI files in it. Spoelstra responds: ‘I’m considering demanding a rectification. My keyboard cost me €200.’ Retro Retry 2 was presented in Het Patronaat in Haarlem last weekend. Click here to check out some pics.
Dutch webzine Cut-Up reviews Retro Retry 2: Another Another Green World, the remake of Brian Eno’s legendary album from 1975 and uses terms like ‘enough reason to buy the album’ (on the Coen Oscar Polack track The Big Ship) and ‘beautiful’ (on the Hunter Complex track Everything Merges with the Night). Read the whole review here. Cut-Up also posted the third edition of NMFM, our monthly audio show for the webzine. The theme is, you could have almost guessed it, the work of Brian Eno throughout the years. Listen to the audio show here. For previous NMFM audio shows, go to our NMFM page.
The radio program Beautiful Extremes, online radio by Studio 80, played the tracks The Big Ship by Coen Oscar Polack from Retro Retry 2: Another Another Green World and Onheilszwanger by Living Ornaments from their new album Korrels. Listen to the fragment from the broadcast on October 6 in the player below.
The kind people at the children’s website Krux have used some music by Makazoruki and Coen Oscar Polack in a new audio play entitled Speedy: Een Nieuw Tijdperk. Although it has been made for kids, there is some dark and religious science fiction to be found in the 22 episodes that are available for free download.
The program Shouting Boots on Radio 6, hosted by Jaap Boots en Koen Schouten, played the track The Big Ship by Coen Oscar Polack from the upcoming release Retro Retry 2: Another Another Green World, a remake of Brian Eno’s masterpiece Another Green World (1975). The track was requested by DJ Guuzbourg, who was on the radio show to promote the cd Gainsnord, a tribute to the French singer Serge Gainsbourg. Listen to the fragment in the player below.
