OUT ON 15/08/2009: Split 7" "Sanddorn" with N on Ex Ovo & Genesungswerk
Sanddunes and sea buckthorn.
At the moment Mirko Uhlig and N are setting off together for the field trip. First contact came about some initially anonymous disptach-coincidence at the end of 2006. But before the grapes of (factual) collaboration get thrown under the feet of the listenership, the split-concipated single "Sanddorn" ("sea buckthorn") presents the current motives of the two artists as short essences filtered through the tea strainer, as seaweed, as negigibly stroke of the brush on remaining cardboard.
The N-side features some bucolic farsightednesses over a nearly pastoral landscape. Here and there a bird stops in the sky, so that the listener can cull it slow-handed from the firmament. The feet get lined by milky spume.
When one has a look beneath this round it gets apparently detected by the nose (Uhlig's side): Dull tones out of a musty old building's cellar on which lays the mantle of mildew in fast motion. Soft, fleecy and unfit for consumption. A tribute to the rural lady. Lost in time and thought.
The music, as transparent as the carrier material.
You can listen to it online (stream) @ www.genesungswerk.de!
Download at for 5,94 €
1. Do Birds
2. Practice
3. Their Songs
4. While They
5. Sleep
6. In The Gardens Of Gyokuro
Total time: 33:05
Please order at CD BABY
or via [email protected]
Still fresh album "Supper" on Afe Records
Horizon's old clouds!
This is what I call a conceptual reference album. Not that it puts up any standards in some sort or being a reference for whatever or whoever, no - it simply deals with references of my listening past/present.
"Supper" can be seen (and maybe heard) as a tribute to a wonderful album that inspired me when I was ten/eleven and still does - especially the last track. When you have a closer look at the booklet, I think the traces are obvious enough - you'll know what record I'm talking about. So it fits perfectly that Andrea releases my music on Afe Records. Without his fellow countrymen the young Mirko wouldn't have had a glimpse of a chance of doing the lover's leap at all. So a very big "Thank You!" to him and his enthusiasm.
1,2,3 and a step into the bright light of a schizophrenic night. Although this was meant to be a record-tribute, the climax/dynamics on "Supper" are a little bit different and even strange to me. But somehow it's circulating in a fine way. Closing the regular album with "Old Clouds" makes sense to me, because the used field recordings and guitar dilettantisms date back eight years ago when I started recording my very diffuse musical ideas and song catastrophies on cheap cassettes with a much cheaper equipment. The hidden track is so shy that it even hides a number and a title. Some small sheep-folk-ambient for putting down the lights and licking dew from the meadows.
P.S.: Thanks to Marcus Obst for sharing organ improvisations. Some of that original music found its way on the forthcoming Ex Ovo issue "Cosmic Tapes". A tiny miniature of these recordings is the backbone of "My Child Goes To The Surf". And yes, you're right: The vinyl crackling really was sampled from the ending grooves of my vinyl copy of CAS 1058. As sure as black eggs is black eggs. Everything's fine and weathered through when it ends with a baa!
Press
“Uhlig plays a form of drone music that is highlyrefreshing. He creates something that is beyond the ordinary!
For me Mirko Uhlig is one of the better and unfortunately lesser known drone masters of Germany."
(Vital Weekly)
"Taking drone into hitherto unexplored territories"
(White_Line)
"Somehwere between an impressionist’s field of flowers painting and a dadaist’s love song."
(Tokafi)
"Uhlig is one of the few ones able to cut the oneiric bliss of his creations right in the moment of maximum ecstasy."
(Touching Extremes)
Biography
Mirko Uhlig (*1981 in Aachen, Germany) is a German musician and producer in the contemporary field of drone- and minimal ambient music and co-founder of Ex Ovo Records.
He first appeared with surreal sound collages and musique concrète-techniques under the moniker Aalfang Mit Pferdekopf (catching eels with a horse's head) around 2004. After releasing four albums and some EPs (on Aal, Einzeleinheit, Taalem, Mystery Sea and Drone Records) Uhlig decided to release his now much more minimalistic and serene works under a less delusive name.
Uhlig's music is inspired by pioneers of drone and minimalistic music such as La Monte Young, early Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, David Lynch, William Basinski and current Hafler Trio; echoing the blurred distance of a late Turner painting.
Beside various field recordings, the wooden sounds of an old acoustic six-string, a battered accordion and an original Indian shruti-box build the acoustic sources for the process of composing and letting go.
Beside his solo work Mirko Uhlig runs the Ex Ovo label for "drone music and dulcet atmospheres", founded the Suneaters (together with Tobias Fischer of tokafi magazine) and worked with several artists, such as Dronæment, Emerge, Rostiges Riesenrad and Balog.
Mirko Uhlig currently lives in Bonn, Germany.
Upcoming/Planned release 2009:
Sanddorn (split-7" with N, soon Ex Ovo/Genesungswerk)
Gerontology (12" with N, soon on Ex Ovo/Genesungswerk)
Bergen: Notizen + Skizzen (12", remix-compilation of N's "Bergen" album feat. Mirko Uhlig, Segment, Fear Falls Burning, N - out April on Consouling Sounds)
Gyokuro (CDR on Gears Of Sand, short collection of new music)
and more...
Discography
NEW:
• Sanddorn (7" transparent, Ex Ovo & Genesungswerk, 2009)
One untitled pieces per artist
ALBUMS:
• Supper (CDR, Afe Records, 2009)
The River That Divides My Factory / My Child Goes To The Surf (1st) / My Child Goes To The Surf (2nd) / Black Egg Tangram (Beginning) / Black Egg Tangram (Ending) / Old Clouds
• The Nightmiller (CDR, Mystery Sea, 2008)
The Archon Star / Wooden Waiting / The Nightmiller
• Farewell Fields (CD with Dronæment, Nextera, 2007)
Para Puri (Mirko Uhlig) / Fields live (Dronæment)
• VIVMMI (CDR, Ex Ovo, 2006)
a. 19:25, Open The Doors For May And Lay Your Fruits Upon The Table / b. B.I.A.G.O.S. / c. From The Windowsill Into The Sky / d. From The Sky Into The Stars / e. At Night And The Birds Were Singing
MINI-ALBUMS:
• The Vertical Horse Lesson (orange 3"CDR with Marcus Obst, Ibrik - private edition, 2008)
Untitled 1-9
• Mandala Volume 1 (3"CDR with Feu Follet, Keith Berry & Jörg Eger, Ex Ovo, 2007)
Untitled
• The Rabbit's Logbook (3"CDR, Field Muzcik, 2007)
The Rabbit's Logbook
• Storm: Outside Calm Tamed (free mp3-download, 2007)
Storm
ON COMPILATIONS:
• I, Mute Hummings (CD, Ex Ovo, 2006)
• Mute Scribbles (CDR, Ex Ovo, 2006)
and all the recordings as Aalfang Mit Pferdekopf and the Suneaters since 2003.
FOR DETAILLED DISCOGRAPHIES PLEASE HAVE A LOOK AT DISCOGS.COM
Mirko Uhlig @ Discogs
Aalfang Mit Pferdekopf @ Discogs