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This music grew out of a late November 2002 performance and studio improvisation in NYC. Deupree’s Stil. and Willits’ Folding, And The Tea had just been released on 12k, and a release party was held at Tonic in NYC. The show was recorded, then the pair set up a processing system in Deupree’s Brooklyn studio. It consisted of Willits’ guitar, folding through his own software system, and then resynthesized through Deupree’s Kyma processing. Jamming late into the night turned into hours of raw material. they edited the recordings into 10 track foundations, and finalized the tracks individually, 3000 miles apart. The final cd contains excerpts from the live recordings at Tonic in NYC, and their favorite finished pieces from the original studio collaboration. The result is a hybrid of Deupree’s keen timing and sensitivity to the microprocessing of sounds, and Willits’ folded guitar playing and flowing harmonic sensibilities. The cd drifts into new sonic territory for both artists, and establishes a foundation for Willits’ new melodic arrangements and deupree’s growing interest in live instrumentation.

Over the course of 7 and 4 years, respectively, 12k and LINE have been at the forefront of minimalist digital music. They have established themselves not only as a home for some of the most important contemporary electronic sound artists but also as labels who are not afraid to introduce new artists and give them the opportunity to create a unique and recognized voice for themselves in the crowded world of electronic music and sound art.

With the release of Two Point Two, the continuation of 12k and LINE’s joint double cd series, the labels showcase their own aesthetics and highlight some of the current and future artists that will be at the forefront of their release schedules for the next year. Packaged in a stark-white double-CD digipack that features the design and photography of Taylor Deupree and Richard Chartier, all of the tracks on Two Point Two are previously unreleased.

CD1 shows 12k’s current interest in melodic and acoustic instrument-based electronic compositions and experiments in deconstructed rhythmic structures. CD2, the LINE disc, continues the documentation of conceptual and installation work by artists who explore contemporary, digital minimalism and the subtlety of texture.

In addition to featuring much of the label’s established roster, Two Point Two brings together several artists in unique collaborations including joint projects from Sogar and Cheason (of Fonica) as well as pioneering artists Asmus Tietchens and David Lee Myers (Arcane Device). Two Point Two presents a cross section of electronic artists’ unique sound palettes, from the haunting piano intro by Sawako, to Steve Roden’s fragile digital/acoustic sculpture to the disjointed videogame techno of Kyoto’s Ken’ichi Itoi and the dark pulsations of COH.

Post_Piano is a CD of experimental electronic music derived entirely from the sound of one key being struck on a piano. Using only a single, low-resolution piano sample, Kenneth Kirschner first composed a series of spare, improvised piano sketches. These pieces were then passed on to Taylor Deupree, who used them as raw material for digital manipulation and as building blocks for the construction of new, collaborative compositions.

Each of Deupree’s pieces, which Kirschner later collaborated in editing, was created entirely from sounds derived from one of the piano sketches. The final recordings transform the elements extracted from the piano sketches into experimental new works which accentuate the artifacts of the digital manipulation process while at the same time evoking the timbre and harmonies of the source material. Because each of these recordings was derived from one of the piano sketches, and each of the sketches began with a single piano sample, every sound on the CD can ultimately be traced back to the sound of one key being struck on a piano.

Conceived as an “open source” project, Post_Piano is being released on a split data/audio CD containing not only the final Deupree/Kirschner recordings, but also the components used to create them, including mp3 files of Kirschner’s piano sketches and a copy of the original piano sample with which the project began. By accessing the CD in a computer, listeners can trace the development of the project from the single starting note, through the piano sketches, and on to the final recordings. Further, the composers encourage other musicians to utilize these source materials in their own work, freely sampling, modifying or appropriating the sounds and ideas presented on post_piano. In support of this, the music is being released under the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Open Audio License. An alternativeapproach to intellectual property, the Open Audio License provides a framework for extending the collaborative nature of the project to other, unknown musicians, and ensuring that Post_Piano remains an ongoing, open collaboration.

Stil. is the much anticipated follow-up to Taylor Deupree’s critically acclaimed 2001 cd Occur (12k1013). Where Occur found itself exploring the non-repeating patterns of nature, inspired by the sounds of life outside of Deupree’s Brooklyn studio, Stil. was initially inspired by the work of photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, whose Seascapes images masterfully combine repetition and minute change. Stil. thus became the sonic opposite of Occur: a set of compositions based on extreme repetition and the exploration of stillness.

Arranged in four long pieces, Stil.. is based on the complex repetition of looping passages. The underlying idea is that a pattern repeated for long enough begins to reveal hidden pulses and movements not initially apparent. Elements and frequencies overlap to create subtle new intersections, drawing the listener in, and suspending them in this brief moment of frozen time.

The sound of Stil. is built using melodic and granular passages juxtaposed in variable-length loops, creating layered and imbedded rhythms and highly variable structures of repetition. For example, the title track is based entirely on oscillating variations in a single 0.33 second tonal fragment. Subtle manipulations of the sound’s loop positions create an extraordinary palette of movement and fluctuation, rewarded by deep listening.

Stil. is an engaging and hypnotic listen, drawing on Deupree’s past experience in ambient music. The pieces on Stil., while considered “long” by the usual standards of CD track times, are only fragments of what are intended to be longer works that extend for many hours. This release has inspired a new direction for Deupree’s future work: exploring the freezing of time and the possibilities of stillness within the temporal medium of sound

“Steve Roden used the word “lowercase” in a 1998 interview to describe his own sound esthetic. The term sparked something and sound artists from all over the world gathered in the lowercase-sound discussion group, widening the possible definition of what has become known as a style, for better or worse. Lowercase is a form of composition that focuses on attentive listening and microscopic sounds. This two-CD compilation describes better than words the scope and interest of the field. Beautifully and originally designed, the box contains previously unreleased contributions by a representative cross section of artists. Disc one focuses on pieces derived from field recordings or recordings of acoustic instruments. Gal’s “Zhu Shui” (an assemblage of bowling up and cooling down tea kettles) and John Hudak’s “Radio Past” (a wax cylinder recording severely altered by the passage of time) stand out, with contributions by Dale Lloyd and Jason Lescalleet also offering memorable moments. Radu Malfatti’s “Selbander” is an excruciatingly minimal piece for three trombones made of short episodes of droning activity separated by lengthy silences. Disc two culls tracks of a more purely electronic nature and here we find many top names in the field of experimental electronica and installation art: Francisco Lopez, Stephan Mathieu,Carl Stone, Tetsu Inoue, Taylor Deupree, Kim Cascone — even Toshimaru Nakamura is represented with one of his pieces on no-input mixing board. Stone’s gentle ambient workout “Tefu” and Ronnie Sundin’s (aka Rsundin) “_siesmol” provide the highlights of this second platter. The latter piece contains a sudden loud sound that ranks as the set’s only heart-attack-inducing moment — you’ll remember it. In short,lowercase-sound 2002 is an open-minded, inclusive collection rating high as being representative of both the artists involved in this style and the kind of design that usually accompanies their music. Highly recommended.”

– AllMusic.com