2019 DREKKA + BLUESANCT MAILORDER TITLES


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•  USA  -  CLICK TO ADD $4.00 FOR MORE THAN ONE ITEM

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TITLES CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
( PLEASE, MAKE SURE TO ADD POSTAGE ) :

•  DREKKA - 'Examinations : 2016-2018'  CD   ** NEW RELEASE **
    SEP 2018, BLUESANCT, full length collection of collaborations spanning two years
    ( $9.00 - PRE-ORDER NOW )

•  DREKKA - 'Unbeknownst to The Participants at Hand'  LP
    2015, DAIS RECORDS
    ( $15.00 - ORDER NOW )

•  DREKKA+REMST8 - s/t  7"
    2018, RED FROST INDUSTRIES, collaborative single,
    ( $5.00 - ORDER NOW )

•  DREKKA REWORKS ANNELIES MONSERÉ - 'Verjaardag'  LP
    2016, BLUESANCT, LTD to 250 copies, art vinyl edition
    ( $12.00 - ORDER NOW )

•  GOLDEN BRAID - 'Golden Braid'  LP
    2017, BLUESANCT, feat. Mike Adams, Tyler Damon, Drekka, Phil Elverum, and more, plays forwards and backwards
    ( $15.00 - ORDER NOW )

•  TIMBER RATTLE - 'Phantoms of Place'  LP
    2018, BLUESANCT, 200 copies, psyche-pastoral bliss
    ( $15.00 - ORDER NOW )


POSTAGE RATES (ADD THE APPROPRIATE POSTAGE) :

•  USA  -  CLICK TO ADD $3.00 FOR ONE ITEM
•  USA  -  CLICK TO ADD $4.00 FOR MORE THAN ONE ITEM

•  CANADA  -  CLICK TO ADD $9.00 FOR ONE CASSETTE or CD
•  CANADA  -  CLICK TO ADD $14.00 FOR UP TO TWO LPs or UP TO FOUR CASS/CD

•  EUROPE  -  CLICK TO ADD $12.00 FOR ONE CASSETTE or CD
•  EUROPE  -  CLICK TO ADD $18.00 FOR UP TO TWO LPs or UP TO FOUR CASS/CD

FOR LARGER ORDERS (MORE THAN THREE ITEMS),
EMAIL 'FIGUREHEAD@BLUESANCT.COM'
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RECORD STORES and DISTROS, please inquire about WHOLESALE PRICING!

MAGAZINES and BLOGS, please inquire about PRESS DOWNLOADS for review consideration.

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DREKKA - 'Examinations : 2016-2018'  CD
(Bluesanct, INRI095, 656605969527)
CD w/ 4-panel artwork
edition of 300 copies

RELEASE DATE - SEPTEMBER 14th, 2018
MAILORDER PRICE - $9.00 - ORDER NOW


EXAMINATIONS - PRESS RELEASE
[ LISTEN VIA BANDCAMP ]

For over twenty years, Mkl Anderson has curated a vast archive of recorded material for his cinematic ambient industrial soundscapes. Working for as many years under the name Drekka, he has sculpted these soundscapes using self-made field recordings of everything from insects in the mountains outside Kathmandu to a washing machine in Reykjavik, from countless sketches and abandoned projects donated by friends, from hundreds of hours of multi-track live recordings of Drekka captured all around the world.

In this way, he works with memory not only as a subject but also as a process, continually delving into this personal world of sound; examining, revisting, and repurposing recordings and forgotten snippets of the voices of out-of-touch friends into new moments and experiences.

Examinations is a collection of collaborations spanning two years, newly mixed and mastered. And although each track was initally created for a different situation, each for a different compilation, taken as a whole, a cohesive narrative pres- ents itself.

Examinations is a series of short stories, each unique while exploring recurring themes of mental health in a world of con- stant anxiety. Taken togethers, the pieces seek common threads, however fleeting or tangental: hoping to remain tethered to the world, to friends and family, to past and present. These are examinations of the darkness which informs the tenuous province of memory and dreams; the real ghosts of time and sound.

Examinations opens with 'Spring Rain, Indian Summer', a somber yet hopeful piece which explores fears of dissociation and the uncertainty of sustained mental stability. It frames Anderson's voice and piano in a long distance collaboration with Nathan Amundson (of Rivulets), via a field recording from the early 2000's.

Long time collaborator, Mark Trecka (of Pillars and Tongues/Dark Dark Dark) appears on three tracks, including 'Sense of Sense' which features an unused sketch for piano and strings by Trecka accompanying a voice and tone mediation by Anderson and Max Kuiper (of Les Horribles Travailleurs)

Appearing in a special stereo mix is 'Call to Prayer', initally released as a mono 8" lathe cut single on Auris Apothecary. This track finds a voice and optigan composition initially recorded for the Golden Braid tape loop project melding with a rooftop field recording of the call to prayer recorded in Istanbul by Anderson. It exemplifies Drekka's approach of examining and re-examining the intersections that form life's narrative.

Another track appearing in stereo for the first time is the album closer, 'Myrkramakt'. This collaboration features Thorír Georg (of ROHT) on guitar and was formed from a particularly surreal performance at Iceland's Airwaves Festival. Shedding the dismay and oppression of a crushingly bleak mono mix, it becomes a reflective musing on the true face of nostalghia and the heart rending sweetness/sadness of things past and passed... and finally, slowly Examinations comes full circle to the sense of hope that began it; the calming and cleansing rain of introspection.

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DREKKA - 'Unbeknownst to The Participants at Hand'  LP
(Dais, DAIS078, 636225990941)
LP w/ insert + download
edition of 500 copies

RELEASE DATE - SEPTEMBER 25th, 2015
MAILORDER PRICE - $15.00 - ORDER NOW


UNBEKNOWNST - PRESS RELEASE
[ LISTEN VIA BANDCAMP ]

Continuing his work with memory not only as a subject but also as a process, Mkl Anderson is continually delving into an archive, revisting and repurposing old recordings, live performances, and forgotten snippets of the voices of out-of-touch friends into new moments and experiences.

Anderson often begins his live performances subtly, with smoldering ambiences and sublime waves, a practice which functions both as soundcheck and prelude. In this way, the sonic formation used to bridge two sets performed one night in Taranto, Italy, has been revisited and reshaped into "The Seventh Continent (Oceanic Waves Wave)." It is a work of evocative and emotive sound art, assembled textures created from manipulated voices. The piece owes as much to NURSE WITH WOUND as it does to MICHAEL HANEKE, whose influence is paid homage through the title. Anderson's own voice manipulated and intertwined with the voices of unwitting collaborators. They are voices from his archive of cassettes and field recordings. Annelies Monseré makes an appearance from Gent, Belgium, many months or years earlier and many miles away.

"The Work in Question is Unbeknownst to The Participants at Hand" reaches even further back, through years of sound. The details of locations, methods, and even participants are hazy (although Tyler Damon, Sarah Dunevant, Mark Trecka are among those present) and in some cases completely lost or obscured entirely. Anderson's deft hand has collated and juxtaposed strands of narratives from across two decades into this haunted drone. Like TARKOVSKY's "The Mirror", it is an assemblage of memories, at times dissonant yet warm and hospitable and ultimately soothing.

Working under the name DREKKA since 1996, Anderson has traveled, collaborated, and relocated; collecting memories and building a very personal archive of sound. DREKKA owes something to the soundscapes and non-linear impressionism of CINDYTALK or COIL, the gravity of EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN. But his work is very apparently unique. Throughout years of performing and recording, Drekka has explored early industrial tape culture, fragile bedroom noise folk, and expansive cinematic textures. These very personal pieces touch on the themes of silence, memory, forgetfullness. But rather than obscure himself, as is so often the effect of experimental music, DREKKA functions as a direct line into Anderson's mind and his tenuous cache of memories. These personal aspects and this fragility are even more clearly on display than if they were obfuscated by poetic abstractions.

While "haunting" and "hypnogogic" are words often used to describe experimental music and art, DREKKA unequivocally occupies and deals in those dark spaces which comprise the tenuous province of memory and dreams. Those are the real ghosts of time and sound.

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DREKKA+REMST8  7"
(Red Frost Industries, RFI011, no barcode)
7" w/ download
edition of 230 copies

RELEASE DATE - MAY 4th, 2018
MAILORDER PRICE - $6.00 - ORDER NOW


DREKKA+REMST8 - PRESS RELEASE
[ LISTEN VIA BANDCAMP ]

REMST8 is an experimental computer musician whose on-again/off-again affair with sound began in the early '90s, using tracker programs on his Amiga 500 and later a PC to create soundtracks for his friends' creations (computer games and an independent film).

Following a 7 year hiatus to focus on his software engineering career, remst8 has returned to tracking music for creative exploration focusing on deep drone and dark ambient tracks with a smattering of noise and experimentation.

Working under the name DREKKA since 1996, experimental composer Mkl Anderson has toured, traveled, and collaborated extensively; collecting memories and building a very personal archive of sound that dates back to the mid-1980's. Drekka has released a large body of work on labels such as Dais Records, Auris Apothecary, Morc, Silber, and Anderson's own label, Bluesanct.

Drekka owes something to the soundscapes and non-linear impressionism of Cindytalk or COIL, to the industrial gravity of Einstürzende Neubauten or Hafler Trio, and to the cinematic collaborations of Edward Artemiev/Andrei Tarkovsky or Simon Fisher Turner/Derek Jarman. But his work is very apparently unique and personal.

While performing together at the Electro-music Festival 2017, Anderson was mesmerized by remst8's mastery of deep, glacial ambience and well juxtaposed natural field recordings. The two exchanged raw source materials from their respective archives, each reworking the others material into new works.

remst8 reworked 'Tarwestraat 52', the centerpiece to Drekka's on-going trilogy of albums for Dais Records, solely using the provided source tracks.

Drekka reworked 'Lissajous', from remst8's 'Accumulator' album, adding a field recording recorded outside Drekka's studio one late night, inspired by remst8's performance at the Electro-music Festival.


"Remst8's piece is a very delicate piece of processed sounds; guitars are stretched out a bit, loops of high-end squeaking sound (a hinge maybe?) are added, and throughout it is a very mellow piece of ambient guitar music. Remst8 makes sure to have it fully formed into a song, with beginning and end, and not a cut out of a longer session, shortened down 'because, hey man, it's a 7"'.

On the other side we find Drekka in a darker mood, with more ominous drones playing centre field and sunken below the surface there are the insects outside (but recorded through a wall). Drekka marks his territory with a clear start and a clear stop, and as such defines it also a 'song', but unlike Remst8 this could have been much longer as far as I was concerned and span the length of a 10". I am not complaining! Both pieces make up for a lovely 7"."
- VITAL WEEKLY (FdW)

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DREKKA reworks ANNELIES MONSERÉ - 'Verjaardag'  LP
(Bluesanct, INRI080, 656605968018)
LP w/ insert + download
edition of 250 copies

RELEASE DATE - MAY 27th, 2016
MAILORDER PRICE - $12.00 - ORDER NOW


DREKKA reworks ANNELIES MONSERÉ - PRESS RELEASE
[ LISTEN VIA BANDCAMP ]

Appearing prominently on many of DREKKA's releases, including both recent DREKKA LPs for DAIS RECORDS, Belgian singer, ANNELIES MONSERÉ has long been a collaborator, muse, and source material for DREKKA's sonic explorations and dream-cinema soundscapes.

Primarily the work of Mkl Anderson, DREKKA's sound owes debts to the poetic soundscapes of CINDYTALK or COIL, to the ARTEMIEV soundtracks for the films of TARKOVSKY, and to the gravity of early industrial acts such as EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN.

To form his cinematic soundscapes, Anderson often delves into his archive, digging up forgotten snippets of the voices of friends, some long gone and some present still. Listening to DREKKA is like observing the process of remembering. Each old cassette handled, each sound manipulated is a moment of memory, an association made.

Although sourced from the original recordings that Annelies Monseré made for her second album, 'Marit' (2009, Auetic), this is not a record of remixes. Anderson reworked and embellished the original recordings in Ghent, Belgium and Bloomington, Indiana over the course of six years, beginning three years before 'Marit' was even mixed or released.

The result is a novel kind of collaboration. Monseré's plaintive, intimate vocals are couched in Anderson's extremely textural, almost somatic collages, leaving us with the sense of a daydream, comfortable and somehow nostalgic. Monseré's haunted piano, occasionally sounding like it was lifted from the most elegant HOWARD SHORE film score, is a patient voice in an urgent scene. VERJAARDAG feels like a lost record, long forgotten and rediscovered, although it has just been made.

The album features guest appearances by NATHAN AMUNDSON (RIVULETS), JESSICA BAILIFF (KRANKY RECORDS), ELLEN EVERS (PUDDLE PARADE) and JUSTIN VOLLMAR.


This release is part of the BLUESANCT 'ART VINYL' series; presented as 22 minute EP on SIDE A with a beautiful screen print of Annelies' handwritten liner notes printed on SIDE B. It comes in a full-color jacket with printed insert and download code and is limited to 250 COPIES.

Previous releases in the BLUESANCT art vinyl series have included CINDYTALK, MOUNT EERIE, BODUF SONGS, and PANTALEIMON.

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GOLDEN BRAID - 'Golden Braid'  LP
(Bluesanct, INRI091, 656605969114)
LP w/ insert + download
edition of 300 copies

RELEASE DATE - MARCH 17th, 2017
MAILORDER PRICE - $15.00 - ORDER NOW


GOLDEN BRAID - PRESS RELEASE
[ LISTEN VIA BANDCAMP ]

The lacquers were specially cut at Palomino Records to play the record both forwards (SIDE A) and backwards (SIDE B)... full color jacket printed on recycled card stock w/ insert and download code... download includes bonus tracks containing the original source tapes used to construct the tape loops which form the GOLDEN BRAID

Ambient tone loop collage by Mike Adams (Crossroads of America, Burnt Toast Vinyl, Sounds Familyre, Joyful Noise)... assembled from original source tapes provided by Mkl Anderson (Drekka, Dais Records), Jared Cheek (Flannelgraph), Tyler Damon (Thee Open Sex, Tashi Dorji, Darin Gray), John Dawson (Thee Open Sex, Magnetic South), Greg Dixon (Quixod), Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie, Microphones, K Records), & Rachel Yoder (Madera Wind Quintet, Editor - The Clarinet Journal).


"I read an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson a few years ago about climate change and his approach toward educating the masses on practical matters of science. In it, he referred to an "eternal golden braid" he is attempting to weave between science, humor, and pop culture. It's a noble and murky philosophy, entwining and elevating hard scientific data and history into the zeitgeist with Kardashian goings-on, and Comedy Central Roasts.

A few months after that, I ran into a friend of mine who was reading this enormous book called, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Apparently, it's an entire book about the similarities between math, symmetry, and logic, and how the rules and systems we apply to these ideas are what gives them their meaning.

Around this same time, I had become interested in creating and manipulating cassette tape loops. I had recently finished working on a more pop-oriented record with my name written largely on every aspect of it and wanted to be involved in some musical collaboration where I wasn't in total control. I contacted a short list of a few friends - folks I admired and thought would be receptive to the idea - and asked them for a five minute cassette tape of literally anything they wanted to record. Once I received all of the tapes in the mail, I made individual, random tape loops of varying length out of each of them. Then, using 6 cassette decks, a few effects, and a mixing board, I combined all of the sounds together into a 20-minute live mix. I did this process a few times (including before a live audience), before I felt comfortable enough to record it. Each performance is completely different from the last.

I can't necessarily explain why all these ideas seem so related to me, aside from the obvious touches of free association and timing. But, this record feels like a very specific snapshot of a time in my life, and of my relationships to a few people and the world I live in. I hope the way it feels and sounds combines with this information about how it was made to give it some sort of lasting meaning."

- Mike Adams, February 2017

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TIMBER RATTLE - 'Phantoms of Place'  LP
(Bluesanct, INRI094, 656605969411)
LP w/ insert + download
edition of 200 copies

RELEASE DATE - MAY 4th, 2018
MAILORDER PRICE - $15.00 - ORDER NOW


PHANTOMS OF PLACE - PRESS RELEASE
[ LISTEN VIA BANDCAMP ]

OCT 2016, I am on tour in central Italy. Tomasso puts on a cassette while some late night drunken pasta is cooking on the stove. While I lay on the couch, floating in that post show liminal space between this day and the next, I am immediately and completely transfixed by the subdued sounds coming from the stereo, by its languid dirge processionals; part eulogy, part elegy betraying a vague longing to trade places with the departed. The next morning I ask to hear it again.

For weeks, I am humming the melodies in my head, in the van... even during my own performances. I ask around if anyone knows this band. Mark says he randomly played with them once in Croatia. Francesco says he just saw them in Prague and thought of me while watching them.

Eventually, I make contact with the elusive songwriter and we both agree it would be a nice idea to issue the cassette on LP... this album entitled "Phantoms of Place".

TIMBER RATTLE is a kind of "pyche-pastoral" hymnal which seems to be as informed by noise shows in west coast basements or the revolutionary spirit of poet Jean Genet as it is by a panoply of North American landscapes, such as the Blue Ridge Mountains of southern Virginia, where its members grew up. It is spatially both vast and intimately spiritual, seeking to create a reflective space within which to contemplate an individual and mutual encounter with nature; with the mountains, the forests, the deserts, the oceans... and the phantoms of experience and memory that haunt us in these places.

While never straying too far from a pastoral/folk sound that celebrates the environment and the arcane wild that surrounds us, the music also incorporates primordial elements of drone and psyche experimentation which focus on an intuitive exploration of tone, pattern, scale, and palette.

Lyrically, the layers of harmonies present a willful abstration on the relationships between land and bodies and life and death and magic and language and ritual and myth and space and cycles and animals and plants and food and poison... the sound and the shape of the words being equally important to any 'meaning' discerned from the lyrics.

A cohesive and quintessential offering, 'Phantoms of Place' is a meditation on physical space, place and tradition, and an exploration of the meaning of being human in the garment of living nature..

BLACK VINYL LP in an edition of 200 COPIES, w/ black and silver screen-printed sleeve, insert and download code, housed in a heavy duty library style plastic sleeve w/ re-sealable strap flap.

- Mkl Anderson, January 2018


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