AUTISTICI
Amplified Presence
HOMEN029
Home Normal 2011
10 Tracks. 51mins47secs

Amazon UK: CD US: CD

Following releases on 12K, Keshhhhhh Recordings and his own Audiobulb imprint, David Newman has settled down at Home Normal for his third album proper. Right from Volume Objects, released over three years ago, Newman has worked at creating incredibly detailed miniature soundscapes from field recordings and electronics, and, while the Detached Metal Voice and Slow Temperature collections of early material released last year showcased quite a different side of his work, this is once again the feature of Amplified Presence.

Over the course of this album, Newman expands quite drastically on the concept he developed on both Volume Object and Complex Tone Test by refining it much further. Continue Reading »

AUTISTICI
Slow Temperature – Early Works Vol. 2
AB030
Audiobulb Records 2010
11 Tracks. 51mins44secs

AUTISTICI
Autistici Reworked – Resonating Wires
AB032
Audiobulb Records 2010
10 Tracks. 55mins23secs

Slow Temperature – Early Works Vol. 2
Amazon UK: CD | DLD US: DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

The last year has proved a rather busy period for Autistici, with no less than four releases between October last year and now, two of which collecting material recorded between 2001 and 2005 and previously unreleased, the other two part of a same project, the original, Complex Tone Test, being Autistici’s second album, the follow up to his 2008 12K debut Volume Object, and Resonating Wires, focussing on reworkings of one particular track from that album.

While Detached Metal Voice was a somewhat diverse collection, ranging from the relatively straightforward to the more overtly experimental, Slow Temperature, the second instalment of early material is an altogether much more coherent release and is in essence much closer to Newman’s two albums proper in the approach to textures and how they fit in together.
Continue Reading »

:PAPERCUTZ
Do Outro Lado Do Espelho (Lylac Ambient Reworks)
AB029
Audiobulb Records 2010
12 Tracks. 57mins53secs

Amazon UK: CD | DLD US: CD | DLD Boomkat: DLD

Originally the project of Porto-based musician Bruno Miguel Pereira Pinto, :Papercutz soon expanded to incorporate vocalist Melissa Veras, with other musicians joining the pair for live performances. Released two years ago on Canadian imprint Apegenine, Lylac, the band’s first album, bridged the gap between stark atmospheric electronica and elegant contemporary pop music to create a superb hybrid, served by Pinto’s delicate blend of acoustic instrumentation, electronic textures and beats on one side, and by Veras’s softly ethereal vocal tones, occasionally reminiscent of Anneli Drecker, on the other. The album was followed by a single, Ultravioleta, which featured remixes by The Sight Below, Neotropic, Spandex and Signer. This is partly what encouraged Pinto to let other musicians give their own vision of his work. The resulting collection of remixes, published on Audiobulb, features reworks by Helios, Simon Scott, Taylor Deupree, He Can Jog, Autistici, Astroboy, Chris Bissonnette, Jasper TX,  Rameses III, Emanuele Errante and Feu Follet. Continue Reading »

In the early 2000s, David Newman founded Audiobulb, a label which has since been a catalyst for contemporary electro-acoustic works and sound-based projects involving a wide range of artists. Two years ago, Newman released his debut album as Autistici, a project which he had started working on in 2000. We took the opportunity of the release of Detached Metal Voice – Early Works (Vol. 1), a collection of early material released on Audiobulb, to catch up with him and talk about both his music project and his label. Continue Reading »

AUTISTICI
Detached Metal Voice – Early Works Vol. 1
AB028
Audiobulb 2010
11 Tracks. 47mins58secs

Amazon UK: CD | DLD US: CD | DLD Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD

It’s barely been a few months since Autistici’s second album, Complex Tone Test, was released, yet here comes another collection of fine electronic music from David Newman, published on his excellent Audiobulb imprint. This time though, the album collates early recordings and brings a variety of experiments under one umbrella. No indication is given to when these tracks were recorded, but they are linked by a taste for retro-futuristic technologies, especially early voice synthesis experiments developed in the sixties and seventies in the US by the Bell Laboratories, an AT&T research site based in New Jersey, and old style electronic instrumentation.   Continue Reading »

VARIOUS ARTISTS
2 | Favourite Places
AB026
Audiobulb Records 2009
10 Tracks. 56mins30secs

Amazon UK: DLD Amazon US: DLD Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD

The concept is pretty simple: take a number of contemporary musicians with a taste for moods and atmospheres, task them with recording sounds from their favourite places in the world and use them in a composition. This is exactly what David Newman, head of Audiobulb, did two years ago, and the result was compiled in the first instalment of Favourite Places, with contributions from Biosphere, Taylor Deupree, Claudio, Leafcutter John and John Kannenberg amongst others. The second volume in the collection brings together musicians from the UK (Michael Santos, Icarus, Autistici, Calika), Australia (Lawrence English), Belgium (Yannick Franck), Japan (Sawako), USA (Jeremy Bible, He Can Jog) and Canada (Michael Trommer), giving them each a chance to introduce their very own favourite place. The booklet accompanying this CD contains photographs and a description of these spots, providing concrete complements to the recordings. Continue Reading »

AUTISTICI
Complex Tone Test
KESH12
Keshhhhhh Recordings 2009
09 Tracks. 48mins37secs

Boomkat: CD

Autistici is the solo project of Sheffield-based David Newman, who also runs the excellent Audiobulb imprint. His first major release, Volume Objects, appeared on Taylor Deupree’s 12K last year, but, prior to this, Newman had released a handful of EPs on small labels, and his music had also been featured on a number of compilations. On his debut album, Newman crafted his soundscapes, built from both treated acoustic sound sources and purely electronic components, with delicate impressionist touches, weaving them into beautiful evocative pieces.

With Complex Tone Test, released on Cambridge-based Keshhhhhh Recordings, Newman manipulates electro-acoustic textures once again, weaving them into vast ethereal formations which often appear pretty static and monolithic, yet constantly morph and evolve, their course altered ever so slightly over their lifespan. Continue Reading »

AUTISTICI
Volume Objects
12k1045
12K 2008
09 Tracks. 44mins05secs

Autistici gives over his first full-length to the object – to its ruses and to its allure. It’s something evident in both the album and the photographs that accompany it. Shots of metallic wires and their sharp calm; woodboards and their comforting simplicity; even a granular wall, wrinkled like an aged face, betrays a mystery that cannot be exhumed. Never in any of this is there a subject to be found.

In the album, too, pieces aren’t driven by a compositional (subjective) sense. Autistici is concerned with tracing the line of sound itself, with letting it develop, fleshing it out by (re)approaching it time and again from weirdly skewed studio perspectives. Continue Reading »