Intransitive Twenty-Three
Various Artists
$17.99
Includes exclusive music by: Animist Orchestra, Magali Babin, Lê Quan Ninh, Nerve Net Noise, Jonathan Coleclough/Colin Potter, Lethe, Das Synthetische Mischgewebe, Haco/View Masters, Olivia Block, Alexandre St.Onge, Francisco Lopez, Giuseppe Ielasi, Frans de Waard, nmperign, Eric La Casa, Gal, Ronnie Sundin, Hidekai Shimada, Atau Tanaka, Artificial Memory Trace, Thomas Ankersmit.
“I love compilations. Always have, ever since I started listening to music. A compilation is like an extension of a mix-tape, similar to those that I used to make in high school for my friends. It’s a way of saying “Here is all the music that I’m excited about right now, collected in one place for you”. Of course, a record label is also an extension of this enthusiasm… I’ve been publishing electro-acoustic music for seven years now, and my excitement about it has only grown. I’m always hearing new stuff, or becoming charged about some artist’s development or new projects. A compilation is a fine way for me to take stock of what music I’m listening to and step back for a moment to gather the best of it in one place. In a perfect world (one in which I suddenly became a millionaire overnight), I would publish 50-CD boxsets by everyone on this album. For now, though, Intransitive Twenty-Three should provide plenty for a listener to chew on, and some directions in which to continue exploring.
“As is true with all Intransitive releases, my concern is not one of refining some particular label aesthetic; to me, it’s much more interesting to publish whatever I find compelling, and to let listeners make connections between disparate artists, approaches, and sounds. My hope is that one cannot know precisely what to expect from the label, but that some intuitive coherence emerges with time. That’s not for me to worry about, though: there’s too much great music to be heard now! Of Intransitive’s previous 2CD compilation, Variious, the critic Michael Heumann wrote in Stylus Magazine that he found the album “especially interesting because it so effortlessly bridges that imaginary gap between ‘popular’ and ‘serious’ electronic music, in the process demonstrating that those terms mean absolutely nothing. When I listen to Variious, I hear music and just music, and that’s all I should hear when I listen to music”. Right on! I’m aware that the artists compiled on these CDs (and on Intransitive’s releases in general) may be coming from very different conceptual or compositional places, but to these ears, all of this sound makes sense together. Just in case, I imposed a limitation on the artists: no one was allowed to use anything digital in the composition of their piece. And there you have it.” – Howard Stelzer, Intransitive Recordings.
Praise for Intransitive Twenty-Three:
“Intransitive founder Howard Stelzer has been careful to point out that his label in no way attempts to group its artists under any genre-defining ethos; nor does it give face to any marginalized society of artists, or a voice to any supposed “scene.” As curator, he does not assume anything, but merely presents, offering beautiful examples of only what he finds compelling or inspiring at a given time. Stelzer‘s approach is more personal than most, while at the same time less selfish, resulting in musical selections that neatly expand past ‘high art’ definitions of experimentalism and into the approachability and directness of home listening. Twenty-Three is a perfect reminder of the label’s unhurried, quietly-progressive history. The positioning of old and new works by a host of outsiders and obscurities, alongside pieces from the medium’s more dependable busy-hands, also adds to Twenty-Three‘s vitality, rejecting canonical treatments in favor of a more mysterious and accidental unfolding. Unsurprisingly, this pace feels very natural, with continuity between the different pieces evolving at imperfect, very human measurements. Every contribution contains the seductions of impulsive, event-oriented listening, with its primacy of the improvised detail, while at the same time becoming part of a rapturous, intensely ‘constructed’ sound-environment that fills Twenty-Three, making it more of an expandable mood-piece than a label sampler. It’s true, many of the artists included here have never seen releases on Intransitive, and if this labor of love is any indication, Stelzer‘s label is poised for bright future.” – Brainwashed
“Intransitive Twenty-Three is one of those rare compilations that succeeds on all fronts… quiet passages, textural events, and field recordings make up the bulk of the content, with everything punctuated by periodic silences which divide all of the tracks and whisper that another interesting turn of haptic improvisation is around the corner. Another great album from Intransitive.” – Aquarius Records
