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New release: نه (no) on Brachliegen Tapes

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New tape on UKs Brachliegen Tapes will release on November 1: نه (no) is dedicated to the Federation of Anarchism Era, an anarchist organisation active in Iran and Afghanistan. They organize(d) local struggles both in Iran and Afghanistan, translate and distribute anarchist literature and publish news on its website and various social media channels. Since 2021 they managed to help the escape of several people from the reach of the Taliban. On the local level, members of the federation participated in the uprisings in Iran after the murder of Mahsa Amini in police custody in Iran.

The groups organised in the Federation of Anarchism Era operate decentralised but united in the goal of fighting the fascist theocracies governing their respective countries. Internationalism, feminism, atheism and a pro-LGBTQ+ stance are indispensable parts of their struggle.

Since the groups organised in the Federation of Anarchism are at this point able to sustain themselves, they have closed all donations. Any non-monetary support is welcome. Get in touch, inform yourself, become part of the struggle. The logo of the Federation of Anarchism Era has been reproduced with their kind permissionProceeds will go to Solidarity Detainee Support, a grassroots abolitionist visiting group working to break the isolation of UK immigration detention.

New tape: Hurlements on Grubenwehr Freiburg

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Up for preorder now (ships September 16):

Hurlements by ■david wallraf / Gerald Fiebig

Film samples, soundscapes, noises and static and abruptly changeing, audiophonic walls. A sound-artistic and conceptual work in relation to a movie by the Situationist Guy Debord.

Guy Debord’s 1952 film Hurlements en faveur de Sade is a radical work with no images and minimal sound, challenging the very definition of cinema. Its purpose was to create a “situation” in which the audience’s expectations were subverted, marking a potential endpoint for film as an artistic medium. Debord’s film, with its rejection of spectacle, resonates with the concept of noise as it obliterates signal, while the melancholic voices hint at early Situationist ideas. Artists Gerald Fiebig and David Wallraf pay tribute by translating the film’s themes into sound, using noise and collage to explore its oppositional nature.

Un Culte Sans R​ê​ve Et Sans Merci – Collaboration w/ Monad Node

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Collaborative project with Monad Node is now available as digital download, tape and CD. Songs developed over a three month period by exchanging tracks; artwork, design and production are a shared effort, titles were taken from works by Walter Benjamin (Capitalism as Religion), Max Horkheimer („But whoever is not willing to talk about capitalism should also keep quiet about fascism“), Rosa Luxemburg („[The most revolutionary thing one can do is] always to proclaim loudly what is happening“) and Karl Marx („The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living„).

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The Commune of Nightmares – reviews

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In no particular order, here are some reviews that The Commune of Nightmares has garnered over the past few weeks:

„Instrumentalmusik, radikaler als die hundertste Vertonung angestaubter Politparolen, ist auf dem neuen Album The Commune of Nightmares des Noise-Künstlers David Wallraf zu hören.“

Robert Miessner, Taz Berlin

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„Sehr düster […]. Auf mich wirken [die Stücke] wie Patchwork-Untote, die sich durch die Wahrnehmung der Hörenden schieben.“

Ilka Geyer, WDR3 Multitrack

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„Dark, ominous, not too soothing, not too noisy, but lovingly ‘present’ when played at a moderate volume; this is the kind of music with that post-nuclear, dystopian feel and whatever I took from his philosophical text that’s exactly what he’s aiming at, so mission succeeded.“

Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

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„[The track In Nightmares Screened by Algorithms], along with much of the rest of the album feels as though it is incredibly dystopian. But this dystopian feeling is all the more unsettling as it never quite clarifies whether this dystopia is in the present or the future. Either way, the album left a small stain on my thoughts – one that would’t wash off easily and forced me to consider the hellscape with a somewhat distant but connected view.“

Lars Haur, Fringes of Sound

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„Wonderfully creepy stuff.“

Kristoffer Cornils, Field Notes

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„Given the album’s thesis and purview, bringing about natural, instinctual responses is a perfect fit, and by keeping it subtle, the reactions are true to the individual instead of by following the forced hand of the artist.“

Paul Casey, Musique Machine 

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„The Commune of Nightmares is not only a sonic journey, but also a profound immersion into the soulful atmosphere that the artist deftly creates. It is a unique story about a sonic community where minimalism blends with moments of intense peculiarity.“

Artur Mieczkowski, Anxious Musick Magazine

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„Karlrecords will be releasing The Commune Of Nightmares on January 26. It comes highly recommended to anyone who appreciates gritty ambiance with an extra helping of metaphysical anxiety.“

Mike, Avant Music News

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„Dem Titel entsprechend enthält The Commune Of Nightmares rund vierzig Minuten ‚Nightmare Culture‘ auf der Basis von Tapeloops und verteilt auf sieben Tracks voll infernalischen Rauschens und prasselnder Schuttlawinen, die – auch – als unverblümter Kommentar zum Leben des Menschen im Kapitalismus verstanden sind.“

African Paper

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What strikes me is how often the album has been characterised as dystopian – it totally is insofar as it literally builds the soundscape of a ‚bad place‘ (δυσ = bad, τόπος = place), but in my mind it’s strictly contemporary. What I wish I had put into the short text that accompanies the tape and now add here as a footnote is this: the most important part of any dream or nightmare is waking up. And also this: „Note that we cannot interpret dreams. Rather, dreams interpret us.“ (Kathy Acker).

The Commune of Nightmares

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My new tape/album The Commune of Nightmares is due to be released on Karlrecords on January 26 and is up for preorder here.

The Commune of Nightmares stems from the idea that nightmares are the logical reverse of ‘capitalist realism’: an uncanny undercurrent of daily experiences and an algorithmic haunting of dreams that at the same time is a shared – communal – experience of everybody. All songs are based on tapeloops that were cut arbitrarily from a stash of cassettes, some of which found on the street, others from a stockpile of 4 track tapes recorded in the late 90s and early 2000s – a musical game of cadavre exquis played with random strangers and former versions of the self.

The C40 tape comes with a download card and an eight page booklet containing some theoretical background on the songs.

On January 19 there will be a release concert at West Germany in Berlin.

Compilations

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There’s a new compilation out on IN:EX from Chemnitz: Anthroprocene Tresholds (how much space waits between those noises). A C90 tape in interesting packaging containing tracks by Chemiefaserwerk, Mattin, Philippe Petit, Monad Node and many more.

My contribution is titled Inertia and Rust.

It is the sister track to Darkness and Mold, released earlier this year on the Stanislav Lem tribute compilation by Machina ad Noctem.