For the Twelve Days of...I will be sharing a set of controvesial improvised compositions by Pete Namlook. Namlook is a hype-productive composer (Discogs lists more than 125 releases, 200 is probably closer to the total including collaboration, probably more). He is one of the leading instigators of "ethno-trance," or music for urban meditation. He is arguably the best/worst of the new wave of ambient house artists.
Namlook was born Peter Kuhlmann in Frankfurt, Germany on November 25, 1960. He was active from the early 80s through the early 2010s. He died November 8, 2012. Other than solo projects & myriad collaborations, he has been a member of such outfits as Dreamfish, From Within, & Fires of Ork.
If most artists in contemporary electronica are like islands unto themselves, turning out tracks in relative anonymity, Pete "Namlook" Kuhlmann was a whole continent. A dizzyingly prolific composer who steadily built up an entire industry around his Frankfurt-based Fax label, Namlook's name was inextricably linked with the post-rave resurgence of ambient music. Many of his collaborative recordings with the likes of Mixmaster Morris, Tetsu Inoue, Klaus Schulze, Bill Laswell, Richie Hawtin, Geir Jenssen, Dr. Atmo, Burhan Ocal, Atom Heart, Jonah Sharp, Charles Uzzell-Edwards, & David Moufang, among many others, number among the most lauded, the most influential in new ambient.
Although Namlook got his start releasing quasi-new age (as Romantic Warrior) or hard trance (as Sequential, 4Voice, Escape, Deltraxx, & a host of others), he / his label Fax became synonymous with new Ambient after the label formed in 1992. Fax helped give shape to Ambient's new school by allowing the artists to freely experiment while making a living from their music. (Fax's label structure conferred the majority of its profits to its artists). Countless Fax releases, particularly those dating from 1993 / 1994, are considered classics of contemporary electronic Ambient. Namlook was criticized for adopting a quantity-over-quality approach but the music stands on its own.
Musically, Namlook drew most recognizably on the synthscapes of artists such as Klaus Schulze & Hans-Joachim Roedelius, combing the droning electronics of those artists with, depending on the project or collaborator, ethnic instrumentation (tabla, tambouri, oud), environmental samples (rain, voices, arriving / departing trains, wildlife), sweeping electronic treatments (the bubbly undercurrents of Dreamfish or the drifting synthetic landscapes of 2350 Broadway), or minimal acoustic / electronic rhythms (jungle, electro, techno, & trance). His collaborations arguably outdid his solo recordings, although a few of his solo works are among Fax's finest.
Onward...
On the first day of Namlook,
Pete gave to thee
An astrogator in a pear tree.
Astrogator Parts I - VII
Recorded & composed live at XS, Frankfurt on May 31st, 1993. the music originated instinctively whilst being played live. There was no concept for the composition before, only a kaleidoscope of sound stemming from the given instruments. The pictures & images which were shown on a white screen using a videobeamer had an inspiring effect on the birth of the composition.
Merry X-ambias,
NØ
