So, it would appear to have come to 'End Of An Era - Pt.II' for my electronic music net.label Monotonik, which I've been running since 1996 in .MOD and .MP3 form. In that time, we've put out over 350 free-to-download releases, initially spanning all forms of electronic music, but settling down into what you might call idm.
There's a lot to be proud of in our history, which started with the label being called Mono, then a split into two 'sister labels', Mono211 and Monotonik, and then a concentration on Monotonik for the last few years. For starters, there's the fact that our discography has almost 2.5 million plays on Last.fm and the MP3 releases are fully documented on Discogs.com by fans and collectors.
And between the main site and the Archive.org collection, there's been millions of downloads of our music over the past 13 years. (If you want to start somewhere, try Christopher Whaley's '10 Years Of Monotonik' mix.)
While I'm not saying we wouldn't do _something_ with Monotonik in the future, I've been building up a backlog of releases for much of this year, to little releasing effect. So I've decided to debut almost a year's worth of great content - six releases - at once, and go on hiatus with the label. The releases we're putting out now are:
- MTK214: Malty Media - 'Buk Buk Buk EP' - a New Zealand duo's Orb-esque sample-strewn frippery.
- MTK215: Casimir's Blake - 'The Silence In Fragile Space' - a UK artist's full drifting album-length stellar odyssey.
- MTK216: Clark Vent - 'Scene Sexshun' - bleepy super-swift idm goodness from another pseudonym of Finnish artist Flutterspot.
- MTK217: Kuu - 'Pixels EP' - veteran Monotonik artist Substance returns with uptempo idm/breaks gorgeousness.
- MTK218: Dead Eros - 'Bone Mountain' - another stalwart Mtk releaser ends things out with spiky U.S. electronic goodness.
- MTK219: Mike Kidd - 'Impermanence EP' - nothing lasts forever, as this drum and melody-strewn debut exhibits gloriously enough.
We don't intend to release anything else for the foreseeable future and are closed for demo submissions. And in case this really is the end, some things I'd like to highlight as particularly memorable or important to me over the years of running Mono:
- The early days of releasing .MODs. At that time, Mono was birthed out of the Amiga and PC demo-scenes, which I was active in as a musician from 1988 to 1996 or so, and the idea of releasing standalone 'packaged' music - without a demo or a music-disc alongside it - was a little bit odd.
But some of the early releases from Lackluster (under his Distance pseudonym) and the amazing Mortimer Twang still resonate with me the most, despite the primitive 4-track MIDI-like data + samples + primitive FX tech behind them. (The Mono box sets site, done by a fan, has MP3 versions of all of the early releases.)
- There's been some interesting media crossovers, including the soundtrack to Tank Racer, a PlayStation and PC game that I was project lead on at Kuju Entertainment. (Less nepotism than 'we don't have much money for a soundtrack, uhh...'.) We also got invited to Ars Electronica in Austria, soundtracked the Webby-nominated (and still going) SpamRadio.com, and got music used in a multitude of neat places.
- Some of the amazing artists that we've helped to popularize along the way, and whose music I personally adore. I've already mentioned Lackluster, but other highlights include the amazing Grandma/Khonnor, the wonderfully gifted Bliss and S.T., the absolutely unique Vim!, and so many others, it beggars belief.
So why shut down a good thing? Well, there are some good reasons. Firstly, there's the signal to noise ratio of people releasing music online. When we started out in 1996, .MP3s weren't even widely used, thanks to bandwidth and CPU-related decoding issues. In 1999, we were some of the first people offering tracks, EPs and albums for free on MP3.
But context has changed. If you consider that on Archive.org's netlabels section alone, I've set up more than 1300 online labels for people - let alone the masses of physical labels moving into digital and individual artists giving away music electronically - it's difficult to stand out. This is especially true if you don't have a lot of time to devote to promotion, which I don't, due to my other interests.
And in the end, what's the difference between releasing something for free on your own site, or via Monotonik? An implied rubber stamp and somewhat (but only somewhat) increased traffic, most likely. I started this label when MP3s weren't even available online, and now we've got all the way to high-quality streaming music from any artist you can think of, via Last.fm and other sites.
The landscape has completely shifted. The concept of a virtual label still has some value, and if I had more time, I'd like to explore that further. But there's too much noise and not enough signal, and this seems like a great time to acknowledge that and step back.
Finally, some thank you-s to people without which this wouldn't have been possible. Many thanks to _all_ the artists, of course, but to Tommy Van Leeuwen, Scene.org and Archive.org for the hosting space, Ossi Boelex and Dudge for helping me keep up with release propagating via MySpace/Last.fm, etc, and everyone who has submitted or listened over the years. It's been a blast.
This 6 track EP of previously unreleased material was all composed during April - May 2009 by Esa using Logic Audio Platinum 5.5.1 on every track - except for Scattered Harvest - Renoise and Logic Audio Platinum 5.5.1.
It's released on Format-Noise, a German netlabel/label.
1.Fromthegetgo
2.B
3.Tkbkt
4.Soopsoo
5.12b
6.Scattered Harvest
FYI: track 3 should be titled Tkdkt and track 5 titled Bside
but sometimes things happen along the way and I guess it doesn't really matter.
Stay tuned for "From The Shelves Of... EP" and "Undulate LP" - maybe 2009, maybe 2010
also, stay tuned for the forthcoming new Lackluster website, projected release 2010
Xevor has just released "In a Green Room", the first album from ATX. It can be freely downloaded at this address: http://www.xevor.net/releases.html
The subtle fascination of the (pre)recorded object. Tomaso Azara eclectic dj and musician from the changing sonorous distances, Adern X sound artist of experimental vocation: a meeting/clash of two esthetics based on samples, where meaning arise in the crossroads of sound, melody and noise. For aesthetic choice, their music is entirely improvised and recorded live, stirring the beat of the cd players, the noise of AM radio, the shapes of filtered samples.
Krautfeuer is the third release by Rara (Michael Rau & Klaus Ratzek).
Guests: Winne Pfeuffer (Guitar), Fritz Wenzel (Saxophon), Christof Lewandowski (Trumpet) and Dirk Rumig (Saxophon).
Rara is a project by Michael Rau & Klaus Ratzek:
Michael Rau aka Channel 3000 aka Yado (www.glam-slam.de) produces old school electronic music. From time to time he jams with jazz/funk-musicians in his studio in Würzburg / Germany. He recorded some of Klaus Ratzek´s funky basslines and produced several tunes baesed on these.
Klaus Ratzek is a popular bass-player around Würzburg, who plays in jazz-combos as well as in symphony orchestras. As a very gifted musician he played with personalities like Peter Herbolzheimer or Paul Kuhn
Martin Back is a sound/media artist, musician/composer and sonic provocateur living and working in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. He studied film and video at the College of Santa under the tutelage of pioneering media theorist Gene Youngblood and media artist David Stout. He has studied experimental composition and sound art privately with composer David Dunn. Martin's work is multiplicitous and makes use of drone, graphic and text scores, digital computers and software, custom analog electronics, field recordings, noise, custom instruments, and site specific performance. He performs often in various ensembles in New Mexico, including the Ancestral Groan Liberation Orchestra; the Soundpainting Orchestra of New Mexico; and The Transducers.
'Cold Front' is a work for aeolian guitar and drums. Four tracks of wind-powered drum and guitar were recorded and edited together without any manipulation other than editorial selections of pacing and time.
'Seedlings' explores heterosexual sex in metaphor of struggle, unity, opposition. Small timbre-particles of a one hour recording of sexual intercourse were processed using phase vocoding techniques and then edited together.
'Paper Bag Piece' is....a paper bag.
'Study for Diaphonous Transforms......' uses a single recording of my parakeets to further generate new timbres and accompaniments. This work is a sketch for a forthcoming 8 channel diffusion work.
Martin Back Website
Listen & Download
http://modisti.com/netlabel/
http://modisti.com
signorafranca netlabel comes to the 50th release, to celebrate it we decided to release our second compilation with old and new artist from our label.
here is the track list:
01: signorafranca-cinquanta
02: fryslagg-u.s.a.(universal sound agency)
03: giulio maresca-bobo rocketto
04: midibyte-i am
05: casanova-mr.daddy
06: ramide feat mantaraffu-uouo
07: hubble-should be
08: lalla rookh-backheel
09: mantaraffu-terminal crociere
10: arpxp-very very wrong
11: exagonal-giakart
12: leoparden-1000 bit music
13: minimal states- absolutes
14: fabio sestili- save as me
15: neeva-allora, si torna a casa
- signorafranca's track is the title track, mantaraffu and dubmode made a modern dance track with depp basses and long reverbs,
- fryslagg is our new band from sweden, they made a dancefloor rocker track electro powered house
- giulio maresca made a very interesting dance track hardly influenced from the french sceene
- midibyte's track is I am, previously released on our label, we reused it because it is a dancefloor killer track and is so cool
- casanova is back at work and released mr.daddy, between new wave and electro rock
- ramide is our new talent from Rome, techno is the key, all made with machines togheter with mantaraffu
- hubble released a really nice track with hard influences from techno to dubstep
- lalla rookh was pubblished in our netlabel before with the name of acirne, she made a lovely tunes minimal techno track, really nice
- mantaraffu's terminal crociere is deep, is dark and is dance oriented, machines at their best
- arp xp is new for our label but we feel like he made tons of tracks for us perfect music for perfect listeners
- same thing for exagonal, our friend can make incredible high quality breaks, lovely tune
- leoparden previously released tracks for our compilation as :ˆ: we love his tunes and so should you all
- minimal states aka thom carter is new for our netlabel, we really hope he will release an ep on signorafranca soon because his music is cool
- fabio sestili from ipologica records made a sweet atmospheric track
- neeva, who made the cover works, released this track too, that's nice and quiet appropriate to be the last track of the compilation
a big thanks to everybody who supported us during these years, we hope that our music will stay on your hard drives and your playlists for long time cheers
michele and marcello
This EP is focused on artists in our home town of Vancouver, BC. As you'd expect from Xynthetic it covers a bit of ground and mixes a variety of genres. We've got 10 tracks covering 80s-mode Acid House, minimalist Techno and TechHouse to Leftfield grooves and sliced and diced glitch. This is our first time really focusing on the community here and we're very happy with the results. Artists on the compilation are: The Automatic Message Tim Gerwing Walter Bloodway Dialectic The Stimuless Package JGarrett Konketsu Mind's Eye Robot Trent Crawford Filip Gorecki Come by and take a look at the grooves we've got growing in our backyard.
Noerror is a project born in early 2000. Its first purpose was to relate some of the most famous demoscene music releases, it extended to all the active demoscene netlabels and finally all the netlabels, no disctinction. Just talent and beautiful music is now the word.
Originally created by moonove and knos.
8 years, the same team, the same point of view and the same passion.
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