Keith Fullerton Whitman / Alien Radio

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4...according to our Brian on Thu 30 Jun, 2011.

KFW. He the man. Always keeping things crispy and challenging on the fringes of electronic music! So here he teams up for an arresting split on Dekorder which effortlessly demonstrates his versatility and talent within the field of modular synthesis, on the famous Buchla machine dating from the early 60s. This side is another hard one to describe but it's not a drone record and because of the cranky unwieldy nature of his medium here, it's not really a synthesizer record either. His epic track on this outing sounds like Terry Riley trying to murder a ballroom full of demented electronic seagulls whilst inadvertently triggering off a full 24 track deep cacophony of minimalist swirling madness by stamping impatiently on his equipment in his panicked rage. It is truly one of the maddest, most challenging recordings I've heard this year but, weirdly, now I've removed it from the turntable I feel rather bereft!! The altogether less insane Alien Radio take the calmer route by basically producing some 70's style proto electro mood pieces draped in loose kosmische stylings and imbued with the bloopy, wonky heart of the Radiophonic Workshop. Brilliantly it refuses to fall into the well-worn field of Ghost Box-style whimsy and instead comes out sounding like a wide-eyed and playful archive set. There's some lovely sounds and cute dinky rhythms on this side but most of all there's tons of mystery and atmosphere in the warm analogue mix. A totally cool schizoid record from one of the best European labels of our times!

We are stoked and honoured to release this Deutsch-Amerikanische meeting of two Meisters of the Modular Electronic Music System (originally invented by Don Buchla in 1963 for the likes of Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, Terry Riley et al at the San Francisco Tape Music Center). Both are presenting very distinct approaches displaying the vast possibilities of the machine yet maintaining similar Klang aesthetics (and maximum quality). KFW is a renowned master of the Modular, especially in live situations. "101105" is Whitman captured at his most symphonic. Recorded last year at one of the semi-monthly "The Bunker" parties in Brooklyn opening for members of Ectomorph he sent the audience (all high on LSD) straight into sawtooth arpeggio heaven. "101105" is a condensed edit of these recordings, cut on 45rpm for maximum fidelity. KFW has released records on a myriad of labels, most notably on Kranky and Planet O (under his Hrvatski pseudonym). Last year's (vinyl-only) album "Disingenuity b/w Disingenuousness" on Pan made it into many year-end Top 10 lists, includingThe Wire and Boomkat. This year Whitman has been commissioned a residency at GRM studios to work on a piece for François Bayle's original 80-channel acousmonium! Alien Radio is one of many aliases of Northern Germany's Ulf Schütte, a (part-time) member of Datashock, Black To Comm, Aosuke, Phantom Horse, etc. and founder of the Tape Tektoniks cassette label. His recent Modular System explorations showcase a more basic, sketchy and song-based approach, reminding of Jan Jelinek's Ursula Bogner recordings and having been compared to the likes of Conny Planck, Delia Derbyshire and Dick Raaijmakers. His debut release was a split 7" on the Belgian Kraak label with Köhn, Ducktails and Peaking Lights.

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