Tupolev - Towers of Sparks

tupolev are from vienna, austria. following an ep on the german netlabel 12rec in 2005
and their first, critically-acclaimed album "memories of björn bolssen" here on valeot
records in 2008, with "towers of sparks" we present their second album as our 10th
release.
this new album is much different from tupolev's first one: where "memories of björn
bolssen" was settled more on the cold and abstract side, "towers of sparks" is full of
warmth, cognoscible structure and melodies whilst on the other hand being even more
complex and well-grounded than its predecessor. it is the first fully instrumental release
by the band and it's their most lively and well-sounding one, not least because of a
wonderful, fine-tuned grand piano discovered in the cellars of viennese recording and
multimedia studios garnison 7, where the album also was carefully mixed and mastered
by the band together with martin siewert. except for one song this album was (unlike
larger parts of the previous one) created without the use of metronomes. all tracks were
recorded by alexandr vatagin.
“towers of sparks” is mastered to a notably low volume in order for the music to have the
best-possible sound and broad dynamic range. you'll probably have to turn up the volume
quite a bit more (at least relative to many albums of pop music) than usual to listen to
this record at an appropriate volume level.
members of tupolev are involved in various other projects and bands, including
port-royal, slon, protestant work ethic, werner kitzmüller trio and primordial undermind.

line-up: peter holy: piano
alexandr vatagin: bass, cello
lukas scholler: electronics
david schweighart: drums

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dirac refer to their output as 21st century chamber music. they use laptops in
combination with various acoustic instruments, building up drone layers in their
unique and precise manner with a focus on timbre, resonance and vibration. they
create records based on the principle of direct recording: realtime composition,
which the group mixes and edits afterwards, eventually adding some overdubs.
their recordings are usually done over a longer period of time, within which dirac
dedicate themselves solely to creating music and concentrated listening.
phon, the group's third studio record, following their first self-titled album (u-
cover, 2007) and “emphasis” (spekk, 2009), consists only of one track, an uncut
first take recording - 'performance time' and 'listening time' are equal to each
other. the whole production was done by dirac themselves, from mixing to
mastering  to layouting. the postproduction, the additional brass-arrangement and
the field-recording at the end of the track lift this record up to an astonishing
monument of dirac’s music and sound.

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