Articles
Colleen
Take and Glen Porter

Albums
Aquarelle
Victor Bermon
Bogenschutzer
Boy in Static
Celer
Colleen
Copy
Damiak
Dan Deacon
Matthew Dear
Decomposure
Elegi
Brian Ellis
The Fields of Hay
Formication
The Fun Years
Guthrie & Budd
Tobias Hellkvist
J Dilla
Library Tapes
Maps
Maserati
Mokira
Ontayso
Morgan Packard
Glen Porter
Proem
Radical Fashion
Rain-cloud
Retina.IT
Run_Return
Ulrich Schnauss
Signalform + Tachikoma
Someone Else
Take
Jedediah White
Wiley
Wolf Eyes
Yard
Zelienople

Compilations / Mixes
Ellen Allien
Famous When Dead 5
A Private Shade of Green
Speicher 3
Telefon Tel Aviv

3"/ 7"/ 10"/ 12"/ EPs
Apples & Milk
Canson / Styro2000
Chrom
Claro Intelecto
Dartriix
Death is Nothing to Fear 2
Deepchord : Echospace
Ditch
Easy Changes
Monsieur Black
Brian James
Koljah
Liviu Groza
mha
Andy Stott
Vektormusik

DVD
Packard / Ott

VA: A Private Shade of Green
Privatelektro/Gruenrekorder

I wish I could get more excited about this 70-minute split compilation from Privatelektro and Gruenrekorder (150 copies produced). The disc arrives in an attractively silk-screened, transparent case, and it includes field recordings and electronic pieces by fourteen artists, seven from each label. But many of these field recordings try my patience by recycling sounds heard too many times before (crashing waves, automobile noises, and bird chatter). By now, a more novel and varied sonic palette is needed than what's emphasized here. We hear, then, the scratchy caw of birds (Yannick Dauby's “Rana limnocharis”), car noises as if someone placed a microphone next to the highway (Daniel Knef's “At the Stairway by Afternoon”), water sounds (Lasse-Marc Riek's “Blässhuhn” (Fulica atra)), loud rumbling and banging (Tobias Bolt's “Dilatationsfuge”), and children laughing at the beach amidst crashing waves (Adriano Zanni's “Summer Life on the Shorelines”). Gruenrekorder co-founder Roland Etzin's “Abseits der Straßen” presents more bird, dog, and automobile sounds while UK producer Igor Hax's repetitive mix of static, muffled beats (“Yellow Room in Sefton Drive ”) lacks development.

A few moments stand out, specifically Parachute's “06 v 1.1,” a meditation of glistening tinkles and blurry tones, and Reverend Benn Schipper's “Thun (RMX 053),” a flickering whirligig of rough-edged electronics. Also decent is the fourteen-minute closer “Absentee Debate” by c:\ (Christiane Doederlein) which begins as a mutating electronic drone and then slowly turns it into a spacey Tangerine Dream clone powered by synthesizer rhythms ‘borrowed' from Phaedra. A Private Shade of Green clearly was assembled and produced with care; a shame that the field recording content isn't more arresting and original.

July 2007