Dead Labels Society launches today

Originally posted on June 28, 2013 

When I mentioned Dead Labels Society some two months ago, it was a figure of speech more than a real concept. But the number of your ideas and suggestions that followed, and also the relative success of Pork Recordings blog (expecting 100.000th reader any day now) convinced me to give it a try. Plus I'm no longer satisfied with dropping random albums and need a new challenge from time to time. So Dead Labels Society it is. I took a deep dive into the vaults and came back with material for about a dozen Dead Labels Society posts, ranging from ambient thru breakbeat and IDM to techno. Please don't expect labels like Moving Shadow (which would deserve a blog of its own though I'm pretty sure it would be swept away pretty soon) or labels that formed the sound of 1990s underground but are still active or relaunched, like Peacefrog or Hydrogen Dukebox. But I'm sure we can have a lot of fun while preserving music that wouldn't stand the test of commercial pressure otherwise.

Though my posting frequency was somewhat frozen by the time-consuming Dead Labels Society research, the many fans of Future Vintage Vaults series should not feel threatened by this new toy of mine. New FVV posts are ready and will appear regularly. Perhaps you may want to consider using the Donate button, every donation gives me a wake-up slap and points me in the right direction;)

Dead Labels Society: WIGWAM

The Wigwam label is a typical member of Dead Labels Society - a label that effectively ceased to exist. Though it had once been a home to such giants of 1990's German electronic scene as Wolfram Spyra and Bernd "Burnt" Friedmann, there's is such incredible lack of information around the net that some paranoic freaks could find it a strong foundation for a new conspiration theory. And as it would not be a good conspiration story without an invisible ink involved, listen to this - after I've failed to g**gle any useful info, I just thought no problem, all I need is to check those old fax sheets I used to keep with my promo copies. And guess what - what I found was just slips of yellow paper with some cryptic brownish spots.

So let's sum up all there is to know about Wigwam: founded circa 1993 in Nürnberg on ruins of the Toxikk Trakks techno label; management unknown, with strong ties to Kunsthochschule Kassel (the legendary art-school that stands behind Documenta, possibly the most exclusive new art exhibition that takes place in Kassel every 5 years).

The label's catalogue contains only 8 titles, two of which have number 7. WIGWAM01 was amongst the First 50 posts on Future Vintage and you can still find it here. Don't bother looking for WIGWAM 2, the legendary The Final Corporate Colonization Of The Unconscious by Drome. The album was licensed to Ninja Tune in 1994 and I'm not going to post it here; no thanks to the same begrudging bastards who are behind the recent takedown of all ntone posts. Unfortunately I was unable to find one of the WIGWAM 7's; The Second Trancemitter compilation just went MIA during the years. Also the WIGWAM05, the Lost Legion Sampler is missing because I only had it as a white label cassette, and I got rid of those years ago. If you have any of these, I encourage you to share with us and make the Advanced Contemplative Music label collection complete.

Drome - The Final Corporate Remix Of The Unconscious (1993 Wigwam)

Although the title of this 6-track minialbum refers to The Final Corporate Colonization Of The Unconscious, there are actually only two tracks remixed: a concise dub of Age Of Affordable Retina and far out ambient version of Nuzzling. Intensely percussive Hypo Bank with sweet fretless bass is an early version of Hypho Bannk from their third and last album Dromed, released in 1995. The rest of the tracks is very Drome - intelligent, complex and distinctive.

This is WIGWAM 2

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Nonplace Urban Field (1993 Wigwam)

Frankly I have no idea where Drome ends and Nonplace Urban Field starts. Both Burnt's projects share so many textures and samples, NUF being perhaps jazzier and even more twisted, that I can only think of commercial reasons. The eponymous debut album is built around five-part ambient opus Chilled, just close your eyes and this music really creates a mood of its own. Plus I love that pixel trash for a cover, ultra low resolution is a resolution too, right?

This is WIGWAM 4

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Ohmega Tribe - Anodyne Wisdohm (1995 Wigwam)

Not much info on Ohmega Tribe – they were Italians but that's just a wild guess based on their names and the fact that their only album Anodyne Wisdohm was originally released on the Alchemax Industries label in 1994. It was licensed to Wigwam and also to Silent Records for the US market a year later, which is quite an achievement for the notoriously poor Italian techno scene. BTW I just don't understand that Photoshop frenzy instead of a cover art, both Alchemax and Silent editions have respectble period graphic design. The album contains eight tracks of mellow techno ambient, imagine Model 500 on prozac. A lot of prozac, in fact. If you're fan of repetitive textures, dreamy pads and rather flat beats, and looking for a new musical wallpaper, this tribe is the right pick.

This is WIGWAM06

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Spyra - Homelistening Is Killing Clubs (1995 Wigwam)

The opening uptempo track ADSR from this debut album by Kunsthochschule Kassel alumnus Wolfram Spyra may sound little too formal, cold or distant compared to other Wigwam releases, but let the album play until the post-kraut ambient symphony Future Of The Past and it becomes apparent why Spyra's following works appeared on legendary labels like Manikin (a home of Berlin School) or the late Pete Namlook's Fax +49-69/450464. The female vocal on Ebb happens to speak my native language: "What interests me is magnets, the gravitation, their pairing, the weight, the vibration, the light, the velocity... No touch, no option, the velocity, the duration, the beginning..." I'm sure how much was lost in the original translation from German, but we call this babbling where I come from;)

This is WIGWAM07

mp3 I 320kbps I 71 minutes I 164mb I link in comments