December 13, 2004 | Posted by mark at 12:01 PM

Really What Happened Today

El Ten Eleven
El Ten Eleven - Connie. Making their home in Los Angeles, El Ten Eleven make wonderful instrumental indie rock that's both familiar and new. It's exactly what I want to be hearing on this somewhat gloomy LA morning, where this is always the promise of hope. I've always liked instrumental rock bands. While not quite as epic as God Speed You Black Emperor, or as mysterious as Sigur Ros, the El Ten kids (there are two of them) carve out an interesting niche without retreading too much ground.

Connie is the longest and last song on the album, stretching out over the six minute mark, giving the song room to breath. The drums pound just enough and the guitar plucks just enough and the bass thumps along, tight as a metronome and deep as a well. It's excellent stuff. You can pick up their self-titled cd from CD Baby. You can also catch their show at Club Good Hurt in Venice (beach, not the Italian city) on Tuesday.

Sub Rosa vs. Kompakt
M.Mayer - 17 und 4. Sub Rosa is a long-standing ambient/electronic label that has been putting out solid artists and comps for quite a few years now. Often they throw down the gauntlet to other labels to remix and smash up their stable. This time, Kompakt picked up. Easily one of the best labels out there today, you can imagine that the results are pretty fucking spectacular. Twelve tracks in all, the disk hasn't left my player since I got it last eek.

This is actually a repress of the album, which originally came out in 1999. I'm assuming that this is due to Kompakt's current popularity (versus Sub Rosa's relative obscurity) . Anyway, on the cd, Thomas/Michael Mayer, Jürgen Paape, Dettinger, Freiland, and Michael Mayer have been manhandled by To Rococo Rot, Autechre, DJ Olive, Freeform, Lelonek, Nail Harvey, Scanner and others. It all works well, and doesn't sound especially dated despite the 5 year lag time.

You can pick up the cd from our good friends at Forced Exposure. Oh, and 17 und 4 was Kompakt #004, if anyone is interested. You can still pick up the 12" through Kompakt for an increasingly expensive 8 euros.

Comments

Yay for Kompakt, probably one of my favorite labels ever (alongside Bpitch, Ghostly/Spectral, Teenbeat, Simple Machines, and Hospital).

I've never heard the Kompakt v. Sub Rosa set, surprisingly, but I got into Kompakt originally because I stumbled there trying to figure out Wolfgang Voigt and his Gas project, so this M. Mayer track is fitting. My question though, is this the original 17&4 or the remix?

That El Ten Eleven track makes me thing of Tarental and Papa M (which is an entirely good thing, imo.)

Posted by: --s-tephen at December 13, 2004 12:31 PM

I really like the El Ten Eleven song. It reminds me of Kevin Shields' music in Lost In Translation. Kinda makes you wanna wander around Japan, looking all adorable.

Posted by: David at December 14, 2004 9:21 AM

yes, that ETE song is perfect - when I downloaded it, I listened to it three times in a row I liked it so much - it reminds me of so many bands at once all melted together in a hot guitar-noise I don't know who to reference.
yeah

Posted by: robot blair at December 14, 2004 10:28 AM

Went to see that ETE show last night-- Dang it was good! Just two guys and their live stuff sounds just like the record. Anyone who uses a bow on a doubleneck electric guitar without a hint of irony has got something special goin' on. Thanks for the tip.

Posted by: Jon at December 15, 2004 11:43 AM

Enjoyed reading your posts.

Posted by: at July 10, 2005 1:38 AM
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