ALTERED ZONES PREMIERES INNERCITY SINGLE
"The Pyramids of Northeast Belgium"
VISIT NNA TAPES
Since its founding in 2008, Burlington, Vermont's NNA Tapes has grown from boutique home imprint to cult-revered tastemaker, committing to cassette, vinyl and binary code the boundless sounds of a diverse, constantly evolving cast of visionary artists. Lovingly curated by Toby Aronson and Matt Mayer, the label has maintained a sterling consistency of quality while in motion, initially inspired by the blissful, synth-driven, lo-fi tunes its founders were listening to (NNA = "Nu New Age"), and growing to include projects steeped in virtuosic guitar, old school IDM, harsh noise, sample culture, dream pop and beyond.
NNA is similarly defined by its visual aesthetic. Borrowing from both classic labels with an identifiable style (Blue Note, ECM, Windham Hill) and underground imprints marked by a DIY approach (Hanson, RRRecords, Hospital Productions), Toby and Matt devised a clean, minimal template to both unify the music and accommodate a wide variety of imagery. NNA releases are instantly recognizable, and every label is hand-painted, befitting a company whose foundation is collaboration and community, and whose function is curatorial, not corporate. Each of their 30-odd releases so far bears a different artist's name.
Toby is a Burlington native who studied music composition at the University of Vermont. Matt was born in Los Angeles, but attended college in Massachusetts for graphic design. The two met out on the road with their former bands, Oak and Thought Control, and bonded over a mutual love for adventurous music, home recording and handmade tapes. (Today, Toby records under his own name, and as Harmonizer with Greg Davis; Matt makes music as A Snake in the Garden.) Burlington seems a fitting home for NNA, whose output well embodies the distinct dynamism and inescapable atmosphere of the eastern seasons.
ABOUT COPPERTONE
Kill & Release (available 8.29.11 // 7-inch // 300 copies)
Listen to "Clandestiny"
Coppertone is Los Angeles' Sasha Wiseman, a one-woman pop damager specializing in cold, beat-driven anthems swathed in quietly intimidating atmospherics. The Kill & Release EP is a brief 12 minutes, but offers bodily transport into a world that's as surreal and synthetic as it is strangely familiar-something like the dream sequence in a horror film. "Tyranness" offers bassy thump and synthy throb, her voice echoing from an infinite darkness. Instant standout "Clandestiny" is a work of goopy burbling bliss, an inspired collision of canned drums, fizzy keys and welcoming vocals. "Vows" proffers warm, ballooning electro-psychedelia, but "ROTT" is clanging and crude, demanding and Teutonic. And when things come to a creeping close-with a cover of Charles Manson's "All is One"-everything's been stripped down to one constant: Coppertone herself, a woman armed with a net, a knife, keyboards and lust.
ABOUT INNERCITY
Untitled (available 8.29.11 // 7-inch // 300 copies)
Listen to "Pyramids of Northeast Belgium"
Belgian producer Hans Dens, a.k.a. Innercity, exemplifies the quintessential NNA style: heavily synthetic, hugely progressive and unafraid to get noisy. From his home base in Antwerp, Dens has been releasing music via both his own labels and respectables like Not Not Fun and Upstairs, the imprint run by kindred spirit Oneohtrix Point Never. His truly alien, truly futuristic rhythmic mantras and techno miscalculations open the gates to a mystic and mystifying place every time and this untitled 7-inch is no exception. Side A's "Dada Les Apocalypses" is nearly 8 minutes of taut flux-a chiming odyssey through a crystalline landscape that breaks for strange voices along the way. Meanwhile, Side B sports "The Pyramids Of Northeast Belgium," which opens with a sprinkling of brooding psychedelia before catching a four-four beat that hurls it through a cloudbank of Kraut and New Age weirdness. Dates with Rene Hell this Fall.
Follow NNA Tapes on Twitter: @NNATapes
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