Taken From Vinyl
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12 rare vinyl-only tracks taken from their out-of-print releases on Fat Cat, Sub Pop, Domino and City Slang plus the video of “Telema” directed by Sebastian Kutscher. Comes in 6-pages digipak with extensive liner notes.
That magic moment when the needle sinks into the groove…
Flashback: In 1924, Bauhaus-artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy attacked the surfaces of shellac discs by manually engraving them with alphabetic characters. This “Ritzschrift abc” (“scratched writing abc”) made the needle jump, thus generating unpredictable sequences of sound, which were to create a new form of music. This was the first time that the record became an instrument and its original function as a storage medium for sound was expanded to a medium of their creation.
Almost right from its beginnings, the record was a medium which was used and interpreted in many different ways. And if one thinks of all the other forms that were developed over the years, such as picture discs, shaped vinyl, dubplates, coloured vinyl, audiophile editions and lots more, it becomes evident that the record has acquired a cult which goes far beyond its practical value.
During its history, the record has been complemented by other sound storing media. Many of those are still in use, whereas others – like wax cylinders, wire or floppy discs – are now on display in museums.
Maybe it was just a coincidence that the first artistic statement of To Rococo Rot in 1995 had been a sound installation, in which record players were driven by power drills. The dubplates specially produced for this occasion were played both ways. A short time later, their first album was released by Kitty-Yo as a picture disc.
Like many others, To Rococo Rot have approved of and used all kinds of existing sound storage media. As their music is addressed to everyone everywhere, it requires many different formats to transport the music to the diverse places and to make it audible there. For example, in the nineties, they produced tape editions of their albums for the East-European countries.
Some of the tracks you will hear on this cd are taken from 12″ eps, which had been produced for experimental and ambient-orientated clubs (many of which have since ceased to exist, and the remaining clubs no longer possess the vibrancy they had in the nineties). Also, the role of the single as the “herald” announcing an album has substantially changed.
This compilation cd is an assortment of out-of-print-tracks, which hitherto had been available only in vinyl format. Mostly, they are exclusive, one-off contributions to compilations and commissioned by labels such as Fat Cat, Sub Pop, Domino or City Slang.
During the last years, the number of requests for this material has steadily increased, which led to the decision to make some of those tracks available again. Reissuing them in their original format would have been unfeasible for financial reasons. And besides, not everything has to exist permanently.
The majority of the tracks on this cd has been remastered from vinyl in order to retain a few traces of the original’s sound. And some of the old DAT- and ADAT-tapes couldn’t be located anyway.
The compilation “Taken From Vinyl” is also a view on the last eleven years during which To Rococo Rot played together. It provides the opportunity to re-visit things said a long time ago, to listen to them in the present and to see, what it is that this music – which creates itself within the moment – rears itself on today. So please feel free to draw no line between the past and the future, between the music that has been made and the music that is to be. All is constantly moving.
(Stefan Schneider / To Rococo Rot)
