Now available at bandcamp as part of the ::: MirrorWorldMusic Archives ::: project ::
This is a live improvisation of the drone & noise duo ANGEL (Ilpo Väisänen / Dirk Dresselhaus) together with the (later) Multi-Award winning Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir (Oscar, Grammy etc. for the original scores of Joker, Chernobyl etc.), which was performed in 2005 at CTM in Berlin a couple of months before they recorded their groundbreaking collaboration album KALMUKIA (Editions Mego 2007). It was originally released as CD by ORAL Records in 2006.
Now available at bandcamp as part of the ::: MirrorWorldMusic Archives ::: project ::
This is the first Angel album, which was recorded in Berlin in 2000 at their second ever live appearance, curated by Ran Huber (amSTARt) as an audio-visual performance in conjunction with video works by Videogeist, and was originally released as a CD by BiP_HOp in 2002. It features improvisations by Ilpo Väisänen on typewriter, effects, and CD player and Dirk Dresselhaus on electric guitar, effects, and tube amp.
die ANGEL “Live In Austin” available as LP / Digital via EROTOTOX DECODINGS
die Angel (previously ‘Angel’) began in 1999 sometime after a tour with Pan Sonic and Schneider TM but consists only of Ilpo Väisänen (Pan Sonic, I-LP-O In Dub, I-LP-ON, Liima, Piiri ) and Dirk Dresselhaus (Schneider TM, Locust Fudge, ASS). With Schneider residing in Berlin, Germany and Ilpo in Kuopio, Finland, the duo has managed to be around for some 22 years. They celebrated their 20th anniversary of being together as a group with a concert at Berlin’s Ballhaus OST with friends performing alongside of them including BJ Nilsen, Lucio Capece, Oren Ambarchi and Anthea Caddy (in place of Hildur Guðnadóttir who could not attend). With Ilpo on electronics (both modular and desktop as well as found objects and other sounds) and Dirk on guitar (not your usual guitar but a very experimental guitar of his own design plus a unique pedigree of effects), the two have toured the globe including a 2019 summer tour with Xambuca of North America plus many amazing bills with others. More or less frequently other die Angel collaborators include the dancer, performance artist and costume designer Tomoko Nakasato and Zappi of Faust. Their live performances are a spectacle that involves the use of visuals and live video in addition to it being one continuous performance without breaks or individual tracks but based on elements of improvisation and more often than not, non-verbal communication but absolutely and totally embedded with its sensibility in the subconscious and the elevated mind.
die ANGEL “Utopien I” available as 180g LP / DL via Karlrecords
Download now also at MWM bandcamp:
die ANGEL, the improvisational duo project of ILPO VÄISÄNEN (ex-PAN SONIC) & DIRK DRESSELHAUS aka SCHNEIDER TM, starts its 3rd decade of sonic explorations with the release of album #10 which bears the programmatic title “Utopien I”.
die ANGEL (or just ANGEL in the early days) was born in 1999 during a joint European tour of PAN SONIC and SCHNEIDER TM with the aim to use electronics, string instruments and effect loops to develop a sonic world that goes beyond fixed structures and clearly defined genres. Coming from different musical backgrounds proved quite an advantage for the duo as it meant that ANGEL had to find their particular modus operandi: communication through noise and action, instant composition, spirit.
Over the course of over 2 decades now, die ANGEL crafted a catalogue of 10 albums released on labels like EDITIONS MEGO or EDITION TELEMARK that were recordings of either the core duo or featured like-minded artists like cellist HILDUR GUDNASDOTTIR, OREN AMBARCHI, LUCIO CAPECE or BJ NILSEN. die ANGEL delve deep into the microcosms of tones, shaping nuanced layers of abstract sound that integrate elements of Musique Concrète, Minimal Music, Industrial, Noise, Blues and Psychedelia, and yet bear the unmistakable die ANGEL signature.
“Utopien I” is not only the duo’s latest effort (feat. OREN AMBARCHI) but also a clear political call: in a world of a general decline, we need new ideas and approaches to design the future.
Damo Suzuki (ex-CAN) : voice
Dirk Dresselhaus (Schneider TM, die Angel) : electric baritone guitar, effects
Ilpo Väisänen (ex-Pan sonic, die Angel) : electronics, effects
Michael Beckett (Kptmichigan, Super Reverb) : electric guitar, effects
Claas Großzeit (Saal-C) : drums, percussion
Tomoko Nakasato (Mio, JINN) : dance, electric rake
These instant compositions were played & recorded on November 24th 2011 at Marie-Antoinette, Berlin (GER).
“I find it fairly difficult to say something about how the music in this concert came about, cause we didn‘t plan or rehearse anything and hardly were able to hear each other on stage. Wherever it came from, the energy and course of this concert is very much based on group dynamics and an almost telepathic sort of communication, like a swarm of fish. When I mixed the sound later on in the studio I discovered a lot of weird things on the separate tracks: for example Kptmichigan‘s guitar signal is changing level for about +/-30 dB once in a while which is a lot and was probably caused by a broken microphone cable. Luckily the fucked up parts made the sound even heavier and more distorted instead of destroying it.” (Dirk Dresselhaus)
2xLP / concert movie stream available at PlayLoud!
die ANGEL (Ilpo Väisänen / Dirk Dresselhaus) played their outstanding performance based on one of the current albums Entropien I in the Auditorium at SuperBooth 2018. Please see the full concert in this video.
In physics, entropy is a quantity generally described as the measure of disorder within any kind of thermodynamic system, including the universe. It counts the microscopic states that system can assume when open, interacting with others or getting altered by external conditions.
Thus, entropy makes for the perfect description of the way Ilpo Väisänen (Pan sonic, I- LP-O IN DUB) and Dirk Dresselhaus (Schneider TM, A S S, Locust Fudge) have approached music creation since the establishment of their collaborative project Angel (now die Angel) in 1999. Allowing energy to flow freely through machines, bodies and different acoustic conditions, they’ve generated a powerful archive of mutating sonic states. A kind of creative attitude that favors exploring the physical complexity of (un-)structured electronics.
That’s where the title for their release on Cosmo Rhythmatic comes from, “Entropien” being the Finnish word and the German plural for entropy. Getting back to the stripped down set of their beginnings (modular synths, effects and processed guitar), they’ve come out with one of their most, intense, rawest and noisiest albums to date, showcasing an impressing scale of dynamics while attacking the senses with belligerent tones. Oren Ambarchi also shows up on two tracks, intertwining his drums, field recordings and guitar within the duo’s discordant layers.
Edition Telemark & MWM present the ninth album by die ANGEL (previously called Angel), an improvisational noise and electro-acoustic project founded in 1999 by Dirk Dresselhaus (aka Schneider TM) and Ilpo Väisänen (ex-Pan sonic).
die ANGEL’s music meanders between the poles of improvised noise and electro-acoustic music, encompassing processed electronic sounds, instruments, and field recordings, with some tracks featuring guest musicians. Yön Magneetti Sine can be considered their most stripped-down album to date, completely recorded in July 2017 in Väisänen’s cottage near Karttula, Finland. It contains five improvised tracks featuring only processed acoustic signals from two self-built one-string resonance instruments and an acoustic guitar. Both one-stringed instruments were built by Väisänen from parts of a weaving loom, a bench, and two barbecue bowls.
All tracks were recorded live without overdubs and, according to Dresselhaus and Väisänen, relate directly to the surrounding landscape and the special atmosphere of the white nights that occur in central and northern Finland during summer. To them, the music heard here is to be called blues, albeit with non-standard instrumentation and structure. Thus, their working title has been “The Electro-Acoustic Blues Album”. Edition of 300 on blue vinyl in full-colour sleeve with various photos of the recording process and the surroundings.
