[releases] afe058lcd²
de fabriek: quatro-erogenic-occupy theme's part II [jewel case edition]

Track List:

1.  Spacewalking  6:12

2.  Otherworldly Lifeforms  6:45

3.  A Forest of Falling Stars  2:20

4.  A Call from Aliens  8:52

5.  Circulating Asteroids  4:28

6.  Ether Voices  2:22

7.  The Comet Dance  17:10

8.  Timegap 300  4:55

9.  If Stars Are Gods  3:42

Description:

It took us so long to bring you this new De Fabriek work... It's always our greatest pleasure to introduce a new Afe release, but after two years in the making, two years of accurate preparation and joyful struggling, we're especially glad to unveil "Quatro-Erogenic-Occupy Theme's Part II".

We already released a De Fabriek CD-R album in 2001 as a co-production with our friends at Blade Records: "Labische Intermediaries III - Sauerkraut und Krötenschwanz" really impressed us at the time and we must admit that we didn't expect that their new work could be even better, but once again De Fabriek surprised us in a very unexpected and positive way with "Quatro-Erogenic-Occupy Theme's Part II", which as the title aptly suggests, is the ideal second part of their CD released by Moloko+ in 1999.

I guess that De Fabriek need no introduction to those who share with us an even small interest in experimental electronic music, but we can't help to mention a few details about their long, long story: active as a collective musical experience since the late 70s, those years when the Industrial Music scene appeared, they have always been a strange description-defying creature. Moving from one side of experimentation to the other, they've been through minimal music, Industrial, musique concrete, sound-weirdness and the lot... It's also worth mentioning their singular approach to packaging: many of their releases were published in limited editions and most of them came in custom-made and special packages. Rest assured that "Quatro-Erogenic-Occupy Theme's Part II" is no exception to this rule, but more about this a few lines ahead...

De Fabriek always had some permanent members who worked together with other collaborators on specific projects and once again this is how it went this time: Richard Van Dellen, The Use of Ashes, V2 and the other core members of the collective, created the main tracks and provided tons of samples to Hue (...of Sparkle In Grey and Normality / Edge fame...) who integrated them with the music, created a few new tracks, reworked the lot adding more and more layers of his own sounds and did a magnificent mix which was later finalised for production by The Afeman himself.

The main theme and inspiration for "Quatro-Erogenic-Occupy Theme's Part II" comes from close encounters, otherworldy lifeforms, contactism and the whole space/alien cover-up, myth or truth in general.

The whole disc has obviously a space taste and starts off with "Spacewalking", a beautiful Kraut-Rock oriented ballad which hypnotize the listener and sets the mood for what's to come. Strange voices introduce "Otherworldy Lifeform", which showcases mantrically mysterious acoustic instruments and percussions that accompain a moltitude of growls and croakings that follow one another.

The short interlude of "A Forest of Falling Stars" introduces the more meditative "A Call from Aliens", where a solo space-guitar is backed up by some kind of palmate fingerpicking until alien voices rush into the echo-chamber where it's being recorded... The electronics which are being spreaded all over the disc gets more in the foreground during "Circulating Asteroids" and "Ether Voices".

Clocking in past the seventeen minutes mark, "The Comet Dance" is the longest track on the album. It starts with the kind of vocal oddities we though would never get into the mix, just before growing into an endless ethnic space-anthem which we bet will be heard during the alien operatory-room scenes in the next X-Files series, if there'll ever be one.

The disc approaches its end with "Timegap 300", a very delicate song with rather inspired and inspiring clean and vocoderized vocals accompanied by clear guitar/piano lines, old-fashioned synthesizers and simple drum-machine patterns: a peak of beauty soon followed by "If Stars are Gods", the closing track that summarizes the content of the whole work.

An original and very special edition of 247 copies of "Quatro-Erogenic-Occupy Theme's Part II" was planned and released in June 2004 (...see afe058lcd), but 103 of them were accidentally destroyed by water poured inside our small warehouse just a few months later. Sadly, the resources used to create the special artwork are not available anymore... After thinking about it for long time, we decided to re-release the 103 destroyed copies in this standard jewel case edition.

"Poco meno che stupendo nella sua impalpabile consistenza..."
Sound and Silence [more]

"If you dig your electronica trippy and sweet, you'll find this work a gem..."
Chain D.L.K. [more]

"A nice psychedelic affair and of course a totally alien work in the ever expanding catalogue of De Fabriek..."
Vital Weekly [more]

"Spiazzante, quanto trovare tracce di vita aliena su Marte..."
Blow Up [more]