Name: Gegenwelt
Brand: CEL

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

BB427LP

Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2023-04-21

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Shellshock

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

4015698928389

Total Cap

BB427

4015698127850

Artist

Genre GB

Electronic

Label GB

Bureau B

Bureau B is an independent record label, music publisher, and booking agency based in Hamburg, Germany. Founded in 2005 by Gunther Buskies as a sister label to Tapete Records, Bureau B specializes in releasing a diverse range of electronic and avant-garde music. With a focus on reissues and new productions, the label has built an extensive catalogue that includes iconic albums from the Krautrock genre of the 1970s and early 1980s. They also release recordings by influential artists such as Die Wilde Jagd, Kreidler, Toulouse Low Trax, and more.

Known for their commitment to preserving classic electronic music, Bureau B has been rereleasing albums from renowned artists like Cluster, Faust, Moebius, Roedelius, Plank, Schickert Schnitzler Tietchens Tyndall. In addition to these reissues, they also release works by similar artists including Blenner Heldon Pinhas Rev or NDW Plan Pyrolator.

With their impressive catalogue and dedication to promoting innovative music across various genres within the electronic spectrum - from pop to avant-garde - Bureau B continues to be a prominent force in the global music industry. Their contributions have solidified them as an authoritative figure in the world of independent labels.

Felix Kubin is one of Hamburg's most busy and varied electronics lunatics. He began recording and performing while still in his teens, and has amassed a vast and crazy discography consisting of all manner of weird sounds. Felix has done music for radio plays, film soundtracks, festival installations and orchestras, in addition to the whacked-out solo performances for which he became well known. Warsaw-based percussionist Hubert Zemler is a decade younger than Kubin, but has kept himself equally busy. Initially focused on mastering his New Music chops, Zemler's collaborators include John Tilbury, Gyan Riley and Jon Gibson. But Hubert has also been involved with various left field rock bands, and is especially well known for his free jazz playing. 

Gegenwelt (Parallel World) is the second LP by CEL, a duo Kubin and Zemler formed. More melodically evolved than their eponymous 2020 debut, it is an even more explicit example of the syncretic impulse that impelled these guys to form the band. Their basic notion was to explore the juncture between two streams of German underground sounds -- the Motorik 4/4 rhythms first posited by Can's Jaki Liebezeit and Kraftwerk's Klaus Dinger, and the sequencer-driven brain loops of early, experimental pioneers of the NDW, such as der Plan. The opening track, “Tokamak”, begins like the sequenced soundtrack to a brightly coloured animated nightmare before transmuting into a marimba fusillade that unspools like Steve Reich on steroids. The last track is “Transformator Matki Polki”, which sounds like a radical Viennese remix of random snippets from Wolfgang Dauner's Output.

Gegenwelt is also a showcase for Kubin's latest invented instrument, the Mechatronikon. Built for him by engineer Lars Vaupel, the Mechatronikon receives CV or MIDI signals and translates them into commands for electromagnetic mini motors. In Felix's words, this allows “sequencers to trigger kitchen gear or whatever we'd like to resonate. With this machine we can also create rhythms that a human drummer would hardly be able to reproduce in this precision.” The mechanical sound effect of this device can be heard, for example, in the piece "Trippeltanz". But the precision of the pure Motorik impulse is not something Zemler is afraid to ignore at times. His grounding in free jazz emerges regularly (if subtly), displaying lateral moves that add another layer of complexity to music that's often moving in several directions at once. Even when the surface of CEL's melodies sound simple, a closer listening often reveals a wealth of subterranean activity. Mixed and coproduced by Hamburg's post-punk luminary Mense Reents, the music on Gegenwelt is a fine example of CEL's ability to compose pieces with a multivalent architecture listeners can appreciate in a variety of ways. Their music is partially shaped by whatever preconceptions you bring to it. So think good thoughts about Gegenwelt and your rewards will be bountiful.

Gegenwelt

Music GB