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| WIEMAN - THE CLASSICS ALBUM |
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karu:30, CD (digipak)
5 audio tracks, (p) 2014
| OUT NOW
Release date: 04/07/2014
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Future Classic MeltpopThe Classics Album promises to become a classic meltpop album. What, don't know what meltpop is? Meltpop is what Wieman and its earlier incarnation Zèbra do: complex constructions that can at time sound like pop/dance songs, made entirely out of samples drawn from a very specific and predetermined corpus. More insidious than plunderphonics, rounder around the edges than sound collage, and infinitely trickier than a DJ set!
Wieman is the project of two major names from the Netherlands experimental electronic music scene: Frans de Waard (of Kapotte Muziek, Beequeen, Freiband, Goem, etc.) and Roel Meelkop (of Happy Halloween, THU20, Mailcop, Goem, etc.). As Goem, they released a string of fabulously dark and minimal tracks on top-rate labels like Mego, Raster Noton, Staalplaat, and 12K. The duo released their first "meltpop" track in 2005 under the name Zèbra. It took them three more years to complete their full-length debut The Black and White Album, in which all samples came from songs that had the word "music" in their title. From then on, each Zèbra project focused on a very specific concept.
In 2012, a US band called Zebra asked the duo to stop using the name Zèbra. They rechristened themselves Wieman and completed work on a string of new projects, including The Classics Album, six years in the making. The Classics Album contains only samples taken from songs that have classical music-tinged titles â words like "symphony," "rhapsody," "overture," etc. These samples come from the worlds of jazz, rock 'n' roll, prog rock, disco, and beyond. Some of them are instantly recognizable; others are transformed beyond identification. This music â especially the 17-minute epic "Do you have EIP" â will melt your brain cells. You'll dance a bit, you'll swim a lot, and you'll be questioning your perceptions all the time.
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1 |
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With a lat of verve |
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08:24 |
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2 |
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The king ist queer |
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08:16 |
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3 |
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The lady es a tramp |
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04:19 |
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4 |
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Mega decontructed live wish |
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07:12 |
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5 |
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Do you have ElP |
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16:41 |
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Wieman transforms songs into a digital soup of samples that move from thin aqueous dreams to a kind of jerky data-noise disco.
MOJO, October 2014
The feel is often exhilarating and finds a perfect resolution in an astronomical final, where you'd find Goem, with this beat slowly absorbed into a bottomless well of echoes.
DMUTE, September 2014
The pieces are constantly shifting, denying and defying genres, digging from the past to create their strange new worlds and reminding us that in 2014 all sounds are forever up for grabs. Ambient can become disco, classical can become noise, and songs with the words 'symphony', 'overture', 'fanfare' and 'rhapsody' in the title can become meltpop.
CYCLIC DEFROST, September 2014
Frans de Waard, Roel Melkoop, two digital artisans who build pieces of fragmented noise from the auditory confusion to the chaos of modern life, nothing more than a reflection of it.
HAWÁI, September 2014
WÃeman painstakingly glue collages, melting them in the fire of their boundless imagination and creating an entirely new product.
DARK ROOM RITUALS, September 2014
There is a lot to shout about along the way that does elevate "The Classics Album" as an art form in its own right.
BLACK AUDIO, August 2014
The wide range of samples are treated masterfully.
LOOP, August 2014
Fully delightful.
NOWA MUZYKA, July 2014
A more than successful experiment, clear recommendation.
MUSIK AN SICH, July 2014
This first album as Wieman is a masterful continuation of Zebrá. A first class exercise in sonic abstraction.
VITAL WEEKLY, July 2014
And albeit it remains unclear whether this specific predetermination specifically influenced the sound of the five tracks to be found on "The Classics Album" it's quite remarkable how the results turn out here.
NITESTYLEZ, July 2014
Expect a classy epic but demanding journey.
NOVA EXPRESS, June 2014
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