C40 cassette in stamped velvet bag stuffed with feathers. Photos courtesy of Bleep.
Includes unlimited streaming of If I Can't Handle Me At My Best, You Don't Deserve You At Your Worst
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Sold Out
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
HELENA CELLE is the synth work and multi-dimensional audio practise of Glasgow-based musician Kay Logan. A dedicated 21st century polymath, Logan’s interests lie in the power relationships inherent in technology, how to harness aleatoric practise in a discipline that is often rigid and in exploring the interface between computer science (Logan is also a computer programmer) and sound. Originally recorded in 2014, "If I Can't Handle.." is the first step on the wander, a deliriously sun-burnt foray into abstract techno and a very personal take on an electronic music language that remains obscure to outsiders but here rendered a unique form of emotional communication.
While Logan’s interests are powered by academic exploration, what’s most striking about Helena Celle’s approach to electronic music is how effortlessly she deconstructs it: the results are emotive without being explicit, raw and engaging, a true outsider music. The taking apart of norms can be heard on the squelched solo on "I'm Done With 666", governed by love of noise, the wave is eviscerated, smothering the track in a glorious disregard for convention. The crashing, ultra-compressed chords that flatten opener "Streaming Music for Biometrics" re-wire the listener to appreciate chance, to break the loop. Recorded exclusively using a faltering MC303, live in a room straight to consumer dictaphones, the breadth of texture and depth of ideas on these tracks is truly astonishing. "Miming Swinging Baseball Bat" manages to submerge a bass-line straight into the tape heads, grounding a celestial synth arpeggio.
Informed by limit yet sounding limitless, If I Can't Handle Me... evokes a personal space, a rewired take on electronic music, convention seen through the prism of anti-tradition. A lovingly careless disregard for electronic music dogma before Logan's next phase as Helena Celle. After several releases under various other pseudonyms (Rick Ross, Larks) Helena Celle sees Logan focusing her ideas into a coherent whole, questioning the hegemony of neo-liberal ideas and their intersection with capital, culture and social practises, how these ideas inform the music we make, the choices we buy. Indeed, while Logan's current practise is moving further into the field of an open-source musical programming language, developing a truly democratic music practise set adrift from capital, here Logan's intent is to make sense of the nonsense we take for granted.
Includes unlimited streaming of If I Can't Handle Me At My Best, You Don't Deserve You At Your Worst
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
London label Blank Mind takes an unprecedented deep dive into the early-’90s love triangle between breakbeat hardcore, jungle, and new age. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 28, 2024
Pivoting from German to English, disco to soft rock, the groovy Swiss duo branch out on their first album in six years. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 28, 2024
supported by 19 fans who also own “Live Slug Array for Information Processing”
I'm truly impressed by the creation of sound textures and spaces on "For You and I". Loraine James works in a very fluid musical space, an area where beats and sounds shift and flow at a mercurial pace, using fast change and rapid movement as effectively as samples and loops.
It's a strong release, and a significant move forward within the electronic genres. James should be applauded for her work on this album, along with her impressive skills and talents... rikm