Thomas Köner - Nuuk (1997)

Thomas Köner's Nuuk is, in many ways, a crystalline example of ambient music. The album provides ample room for sound to be experienced as mood, thereby allowing the listener to translate his/her emotional reaction into words, with very little interference. As often the case, the process of filling empty spaces with descriptions of the music's strengths seems to run counter to Nuuk's primary objective: To reach beyond the artifice of the conceptual, and to touch more directly upon an individual's core of aural perception.

Tomas Köner is a formidable manipulator of sound and image. Geological shifts, with their unceasing yet patient modulations, form the crux of Köner’s musical analogies; the full weight and implication of time and its corresponding transmutations are felt deeply as the album extends through its cycles, each piece gaining glacial momentum as sound carves grand canyons in gray matter. Nuuk is superficially similar to albums by other electronic manipulators of sound, most notably The Caretaker and Deathprod; each of these artists are familiar with crafting portentous and unsettling soundscapes. Köner’s creations, however, opt for awe and natural majesty as their core, as opposed to the malign funhouse visions and icy caresses of the aforementioned artists. Casey Rae-Hunter

1. Nuuk (air)
2. Polynya I
3. Nuuk (day)
4. Amras
5. Nuuk (night)
6. Polynya II
7. Nuuk (end)

Created by Thomas Köner in May-Nov 1995.
#3 recorded live in Apollohuis Eindhoven 1995.
Part of the Driftworks box-set. Released by Big Cat in 1997.

Performers:
Roland Kentrup & Roland Spekle - Gongs
Thomas Köner - Live Electronics

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V/A - Resonance 6.2 (1998)

1. U-Brown + King Tubby - The Big Licking Stick
(make your own dub by using the balance control - guaranteed fun!)
2. Roof - The Prince (live)
(Tom Cora: cello; Luc Ex: bass; Phil Minton: voice; Michael Vatcher: drums)
3. John Butcher - Three Scenes for Five Tenors
(no electronic processing; all sounds acoustically generated)
4. John Wynne - Electropathy
(consists only of sounds which are normally avoided in music recording)
5. John Wall - Untitled 4 (live extract)
(with instrumentalists John Edwards, Peter Sheppard and Jorg Windmann)
6. Ralf Wehowsky - Vier Vorspiele (parts 1+2)
(featuring Marchetti's L'Oeil Retourné; additional vocals by Dorothea Conradi)
7. Thomas Köner + Max Eastley - Im Concert Volkbuhne 4/97
(no comments)
8. Kaffe Matthews - How many planes are there in the sky at the same time?
(live sampling and processing of violin through LiSa)
9. Pita - Mincadub
(recorded live on mini-disc)
10. D - SDC
(no comments)
11. Ground Zero vs Xentos - Luk Ma Noh
(recorded live in London '97; deconstructed and remixed by Xentos)


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Experimental Audio Research - The Köner Experiment (1997)

"If you're home really late at night and you randomly spin the radio dial to see what you pick up, you just might end up falling asleep to burbling, phased-out static. To distinguish such an act from listening to The Köner Experiment might be harder than you think. Here, the Experimental Audio Research collective restrains their avant-garde indie noise rock to come up with ten untitled tracks that try to explore the seedlings of collaborator Thomas Köner's more minimalist philosophies... When these pieces sound like an insomniac's heartbeat, pulsing along to an unsettling world of twilight paranoia, the effect is deeply disturbing. There's a mechanist's glare to a number of these tracks. An exhausted lucidity that probably points to one of the most potent and coherent constructions of all the E.A.R. releases so far". Dean Carlson, All Music Guide

"The Köner Experiment' is the collaboration of several of the finest experimental artists of the time, namely Sonic Boom, Kevin Martin (God & Techno Animal), Eddie Prevost (AMM), Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) and Thomas Köner and Andy Mellwig (Porter Ricks). This release was recorded during 1991 in studios in Coventry & London, the material was then sculpted in Dortmund into its present form by the much acclaimed German artists Köner and Mellwig. Taking the ethos of experimental audio research to new levels, this release shows us the deep and complex nature of the music E.A.R. (Experimental Audio Research) produce. Deep, rolling waves of sound producing emotions and thoughts like no other style can".


Sonic Boom: EMS VCS3 & Synthi A, Serge Modular Music System, Guitar, Wind Pipes.
Kevin Martin: Saxophone, Wha Wha, Echoes.
Eddie Prevost: Bowed Cymbals, Percussion.
Kevin Shields: Treated Guitar.
Thomas Köner & Andy Mellwig: Rhythms & Pulses.
Produced by Thomas Köner & Andy Mellwig

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This contribution is a courtesy of Moita's Double Avenue