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After a hiatus of over a year following the completion of the first series of Bip-Hop Generation compilation CDs, the French label Bip-Hop embarked on a second run of six albums. The new design is not as unifying or defining as the previous one, but the modus operandi of compiler Philippe Petitremains unchanged. Vol. 7 allots between ten and 15 minutes to six experimental electronica artists from six different countries, balancing sure values with names previously unknown. 12k guru Taylor Deupree gets to open the set, but his three lukewarm pieces, as decent as they may be, are quickly overrun by the other contributions. Emisor, aka the Argentinean electronician Leonardo Ramella, delivers bouncy, quirky tunes like a warmer, sunnier incarnation of Bovine Life. The Japanese duo Fonica blends guitar and electronics without sounding like Fennesz (a rarity these days!). Their 12-minute “Scoot” could have been a little bit shorter, but it still provides a highlight. So do Fm3’s two tracks. The pipa and the guzheng are two traditional Chinese string instruments, and they seem to be featured in “p.pa” and “zheng,” although heavily processed. There is a dreamy quality here one doesn’t naturally associate with China. Montreal’s Ghislain Poirier contributes three sweet-and-sour tunes, similar in style to Mitchell Akiyama’sIf Night Is a Weed and Day Grows Less. “La Danse du Plaisir” uses a voice-over from a documentary on mating rituals to good effect, although that will be lost on French-deaf listeners. Janek Schaefer closes the proceedings with a ten-minute offering, “Vasulka Vauban’s A Day in the Good Life,” a nebulous piece switching back and forth between murky analog-sounding drones and dense digital multi-textures. If anything, the assured taste displayed by Petit in previous installments of this collection ensures a quality compilation, and this volume doesn’t disappoint.

January was composed between January and May 2003. The inspiration for the cd came from my visit to Japan on a tour with 12k artists Richard Chartier and Sogar. We made many, many friends and it was one of the most enjoyable and inspirational travels i have taken in recent memory.

January attempts to loosely chronicle this trip by combining the stillness of looping passages with moving and non-repeating elements. a simple metaphor for our travels and the ideas of time standing still to experience a single moment forever. Our first morning in Tokyo there was a very heavy, yet gentle snowfall, a very vivid visual memory and the inspiration for the granular sounds in this recording. January utilizes many of the same practices and concepts of my work with loops and frozen sounds (such as on Stil.) but also adds layers of live instrumentation and voices. January features live, processed electric piano as well as vocal fragments, courtesy of Sawako. More pieces with voices were written in these sessions but did not appear on the final release.

This album was written at a time in my life of great changes and new beginnings and is dedicated to my son, Nicholas, who was born on February 19th, 2003.

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.