severence releases

vinyl // cd // tape // digital

New Compilation // Tectorum Tapes Vol. One

07.2016 // Tape // Digital // Tectorum Tapes TT1

Tectorum Tapes Vol. One

OOO // SHAPEOOOEPAHS - Mensch

05.2016 // Tape // Digital // Mensch MC 002

Mensch MC 002

Severence // Mensch 003 - Mensch

03.2016 // Vinyl // Mensch 003

Severence Mensch 003

Hard Wax

Fine experimental Drone / Ambient mini album

Igloo Mag

In the age of glass and sleekness it's interesting that modular synthesizers are becoming more and more popular. It's kind of understandable. It's the antithesis of the laptop or tablet. Compact versus colossal. Tap versus tactile. Digital versus analogue. There's also the sense that within the wires, patching back and forth, that the process is more like playing an instrument (in the traditional sense.) Cables, like music strings, being caressed and contorted into different inputs and outputs.

Severence is a modular musician and his sounds are brimming with this tactile quality. The LP is firmly focused on the machines, their capabilities and the idea of change and chaos. The record was recorded in one take using a euro-rack modular synth and a handful of effects pedals. The entire a-side is created from something known as "Nonlinearcircuits Sloth." I'd never heard of it before but the idea is sounds are created, concertinaed and stretched before being returned to their original state. The effect is like wind gusting across a field, grass and vegetation being bent, pulled, twisted. Yet Severance's sound isn't set on one plain, it shifts. Fizzing static, looming menace and otherworldy echoes shape the opening tracks. The "Epoch Modular Benjolin" is the focal point of the flip. Not sure what that is. Me Neither. But musically the second side is a much calmer affair. Those rustling winds are still present, but the intensity has subsided. Instead a deep, dense ambience takes hold. Emotions tumble out, banks of mist shrouding pain and joy. This is probably best summarized in the finale, the looming and wonderful "Benjolin Drone IV."

This is a complex, challenging and ultimately rewarding vinyl debut by Severance. This isn't warm and fuzzy ambient music. This is chilling material, haunting and lonesome. An album of introspection, of reflection and rich textures.

Juno Plus

...modular atmospheres and avant garde classicalisms to immerse yourself in, Mensch 003 is a long playing mood setter of sounds that will shelve like a fine wine that you'll most likely pull out to enjoy during a quieter moment with yourself.

Severence // Hidden Ceilings - BineMusic

09.2013 // CD // Digital // BINE 030 CD

Severence Hidden Ceilings BineMusic

Kompakt

Little is known about the elusive musician Elliot Denmark - who is behind the project Severence - other than the fact that he grew up around the East of London before moving to Spain 12 years ago. Except for a few sampler contributions (including "Dark Heat [Moss Mix]" on Bine's already legendary "2010" compilation) his musical output was limited to DJ mixes he shared on his website.

Now the long awaited album arrives and surprises with dark ambient sounds. Cloudy layers of blurred sound snippets tower up in long hall rooms while the underlying rhythm is created not by a beat but the slow rolling of soundwaves. Severence tweaked his sounds until they meshed smoothly, and even dub elements are sensitively integrated while avoiding every kind of cliché.

Hidden Ceilings invites us to an exploration of seldomly accessed soundscapes that want to be carefully discovered and wandered through, not as an easy Sunday afternoon trip but an exciting "journey into sound". And just like the great Morton Feldman, Severence considers that sometimes the sounds that are left unplayed are just as important. Calm, even silence is a significant element of this record.

A silence full of tension.

Boomkat

Elliot Denmark presents a sublime solo debut LP as Severence for Germany's BineMusic. 'Hidden Ceilings' orbits nine tracks of Chain Reaction-style white noise convection and morphing subbass undercurrent in a deeply submerged soundsphere.

From the lapping shallows of 'Portus' where melodic sun still breaks thru, he goes far under with the buffeting subbass and deftly delayed dub chords of 'Reflection' and the Vainqueur-esque 'Adrift'. The descending sensation of 'Immerse' gauges unfathomable depths with plunging subbass bubbles and super vivid spatial dynamics, and 'Modulate' steps off with abyssal dub dancefloor pressure into the vastness of 'Void', where the near-infinite delays of 'Detachment' are a logical conclusion. RIYL Pole, Basic Channel, Chain Reaction.

Bleep

A album of dreamy and glacial ambience from Severence on German label Binemusic. Made up of waves of crackling static underlined by deep and cavernous dub techno pulsations, it's an album of strange, otherworld beauty and ghostly, meandering noise.

De:Bug

Yet another Lego piece - pardon the pun on artist Elliot Denmark's name, but it comes from a heart in which the ambient dub core of his debut album is already firmly embedded. Denmark doesn't reinvent any wheels or replace any spokes, but he uses the world's best cleaning cloth to polish his way into history, with a proven mix of the Berlin school and having a sense for pink silence. And let's face it: far too few albums like this get released these days; albums which orchestrate a state of breathing out within the intersections of our hearts, a state which, when reached, you never want to leave. The clouds are coming.

Amoeba

An awe-inspiring record of deep, shape shifting electronic textures reminiscent of Vainqueur's Elevations. Visionary music.

Sound Colour Vibration

Severence's most recent release, Hidden Ceilings on Binemusic, is a very smooth and memorable experience. The soundscapes that fill this release, create a drifting senses of calm that is overwhelmingly gentle. Severence takes you on a wild voyage of layered synthesis and electronic storytelling meant to relax, calm, and create a thought provoking "silence full of tension."

Textura

Born in 1977, Elliot Denmark grew up in East London before moving to Murcia, Spain twelve years ago where he now resides and, despite possessing no formal musical education or musical training, creates dub-influenced electronic soundpaintings under the Severence name. Though Denmark has previously released music on BineMusic, Area 51, and Shoreless Recordings, Hidden Ceilings is his debut Severence album. Nine hypnotic and immersive dubscapes (one track even titled "Immerse") are featured on the seventy-two-minute release, with three of them tipping past the ten-minute mark.

Like fireflies flickering against a dark night sky, illuminated organ tones meander through an enveloping forcefield of dense windswirls during the opener "Portus," while elsewhere shuddering starbursts of synthetic textures convulse like overlapping waves. With its billowing trails of metal-flaked chords, a track such as "Reflection" argues that the Severence sound is about sound design above all else, while the aptly named "Adrift" unfolds in a series of undulating motions in a way that can't help but invoke Deepchord, Basic Channel, and Chain Reaction as reference points.

If there's one thing that helps distinguish Denmark's approach from others, it's that a typical track's rhythm base is less defined by an explicit beat and more by the slow surging of soundwaves (though there are exceptions, such as "Fuse," whose writhings are animated by simple kick drum pulses, and "Modulate," which is powered by a slow-motion funk groove, of all things). Aside from the fact that the album's overlong and would be better had it been shaved down to, say, fifty minutes, the other obvious knock against the Severence sound is that it's undeniably derivative; on the plus side, there's no disputing the fact that Denmark executes the album's material effectively.

Zero"

Essen's excellent BineMusic imprint releases this album by little known artist Elliot Denmark a.k.a Severence. 'Hidden Ceilings' surprises as a stunning work of largely beatless dub techno, that is sure to appeal to fans of Basic Channel, Arne Weinberg or the classic works of the 90s British ambient movement. Highly Recommended.

Vital Weekly

Following a week of no-review activities, a night of good solid sleep in my bed, it's time to get to work again. What to pick from a small pile of CDs that have been gathering in the last week? I choose for Severence on Bine Music, which seems to be a safe option. Bine Music is a German home for specialized ambient music with touches of dance music, and that's the kind of music Elliot Denmark, the man behind Severence, creates. He's been on a Bine compilation before, but this is his first full length album.

It opens with the long sustaining, no rhythm, ambient doodle, but in most of the other pieces, there is that slow bumping, dub induced (inducing?), trance rhythm, cascading slowly onto the shores of your ears. Very slow, so you can't move your head, not even slowly, but it's great music to chill out to. Think an even more slowed down version of the early Chain Reaction sound.

You could wonder if there is enough variation in these nine pieces, because I think there isn't. Even when all of these pieces have a title of their own, the overall style remains on the same, maybe occasionally venturing more out into the land of rhythm, such as in 'Modulate', but it could have also been nine parts or variations of the same piece. Of course that's no real big problem: you start playing this record, sit back and enjoy what's coming for the next seventy minutes. If you didn't finish your book by then, or you just started a new cocktail, then you play this again, just as easily. (FdW)

BineMusic presents Various Artists | 2010 // BineMusic

04.2010 // Double Vinyl LP // Digital // BINE 023 VYR

Bine Music - 2010

Kompakt

Like all its previous releases, Bine Music's first compilation is more about quality than quantity, and yet it had to be released on double vinyl (and download). At the end of the day, new and upcoming artists like Severence (whose album we can't wait for now) should be accommodated just as much as those we have loved for years.

Düsseldorf artist Lars Leonhard, who's already well known among fellow techno freaks, makes his debut for Bine and starts off with the Twin Peaks-y but lovely grooving "Citylights", while Thomas Touzimsky, who's usually pulling strings behind the scenes, pleases us with a chirring beat "Insect". A remarkably straight Scanner track reminding us of the better side of trance is followed by the minimal house sounds of TOL (raster-noton). Move D's live recording back from the 90s paves the way for a warm, guitar chord driven ambient piece by New Zealand's Ben Swire. Along with Move D, Benjamin Brunn is one of the label's cornerstones and finds his place among Taylor Deupree aka Ando and Marconi Union (whose beautiful "Toyko" still rings in our ears). What unifies all of them is the idea of combining thoughts of both abstraction and emotion which also shows in the formidable artwork - the head starts sweating while the legs dissect the beats. Ladies and Gentlemen! Please fasten your seatbelts, we're floating into the outer space of your mind!

Boomkat

One of Germany's finest purveyors of enhanced electronica, house and techno parade their wares for 2010. This fine compilation includes a higher calibre of deep minimalism from Scanner, Move D, Benjamin Brunn and Marconi Union among others, exploring the side of minimal that doesn't come with assymetric haircuts and tight troosers as standard.

Standout cuts come from Scanner on his craftily evolved 'Coming Into Focus', the moodily melodic Moss mix of Severence's 'Dark Heat', the submerged sequences of Move D's 'Skoda' and Marconi Union's sublimely spine-chilling 'Ancoats 111'. Fans of pristine deep end electronica should pay this some attention!

Various Artists // Message For Extraterrestial Live - Area 51

12.2009 // CD // M-38142-2009

Various Message For Extraterrestial Live Area 51

Various Artists // Selected Moments II - Shoreless Recordings

2009 // CDr // 00.4

Various Artists - Selected Moments II Shoreless Recordings

Smallfish

So, the burning question on everybody's lips will be 'was it worth the wait?' I have to say that the answer is a resounding 'YES!' 7 tracks from Brendon Moeller, Relapxych, Quantec, Bvdub, Fatih Tuter, Severence and Martin Schulte that not even once sound anything other than totally gorgeous. I'm glad that Shoreless has gone down this more overtly ambient route for the second compilation - I think it's very becoming and certainly sits extremely happily within the virtual walls of Smallfish.

Brendon Moeller kicks things off with, quite frankly, exactly the kind of deep ambient track that I'd give my right arm to be able to produce. It references both house and techno in the style of the chords but leaves it drifting in a beatless way throughout. I have to say that it's pure quality through and through.

Relapxych delivers a magnificently majestic and beautifully meditative work that flanges and phases its way through 10 magic minutes of pure bliss.

Not to be outdone Quantec comes next with a simply luscious cut that's all about the atmosphere. One of the only beat orientated tracks on the album it nevertheless has such a pure sense of space and form that it sits perfectly with the others

No need for lengthy introductions when it comes to Bvdub - he's conjured up yet another awesome slice of ethereal, fluid and delicately emotional ambient bliss. Do I need to say any more? Didn't think so. Just brilliant.

Fatih Tuter drops next with the super-fine Drive. This is more of a Berlin-laced cut than the others with that slightly gritty sounding chord stab flavour that drives the background textures along. It almost threatens to dive into beats at times with its sub bass tone and hypnotic shaker percussion elements, but it always holds back - an object lesson in how to not overdo things. Class.

Severence comes next and with an outstanding contribution to the first Selected Moments it's perfectly fair to expect him to meet those standards here. He does. And then some. Stripping it back to the most reduced sound and allowing the filtering to create the movement, he's really delving into some serious depths. A wicked track and definitely one for fans of the old school Chain reaction sound (not that I'm comparing, you understand. Just a reference for you).

Finally, Martin Schulte finishes up the album. You may have enjoyed his release on Rednetic (I'll need some more of those, by the way) - I know I did. This takes his penchant for the deepest dub techno and strips it free of beats completely. Layers of sound and texture almost drown you with their aquatic feel which, I have to say, is a deeply pleasing feeling indeed.

So, there you have it. I don't often break whole albums down like this, but I feel it's important to tell you that it really is an exquisite piece of work. Comes in a metal tin and is limited to 110 copies by all accounts. That means I'm going to have to bug them to make some more I guess. Enjoy!

Interstellar Sounds

It's amazing what you can find when you clear out the stock room! Serene, opulent ambience, as there is barely a beat in range on Selected Moments II, as the Shoreless roster steadily expands to include Fatih Tuter aka Dubatech, Relapxych, Martin Schulte and Brendon Moeller. Each track here is possibly best described as a little piece of modern art, whereby the listener will make of it what they will.

For my money, this is quite simply gorgeous stuff from all concerned, as truly each artist submits only their best work for this prestigious compilation. Quantec delivers what I think is his strongest track to date, as 'Resurface' purrs along ominously, somewhat darker and more mysterious than previous works, before a seemingly non-existent bass line springs to life, which is so, so deep, you need to play this one loud to allow the sound to totally engulf your headspace - check with intent. Bvdub's track is very strong too, incredibly melancholy, yet somehow leaves you feeling quite uplifted in a strange, spiritual kind of way, after you completely understand the vibe here. Totally sublime, subquatic ambience from Relapxych, Moeller, Tuter and Severence wrap-up the long, long delayed release of this second Shoreless compilation. Has it been worth the wait? You bet it has! Brutally limited to 110 copies worldwide.

Clone

Seven amazingly beautiful and dreamy tracks by Brendon Moeller, Relapxych.0, Quantec, Bvdub, Fatih Tuter, Severence and Martin Schulte. You know the deal with these Shoreless releases... Don't blink or they are all gone! Very limited quantities, packed in a metal case.

Various Artists // Selected Moments I - Shoreless Recordings

2008 // CDr // 00.1

Various Artists - Selected Moments I Shoreless Recordings

Smallfish

Sometimes it's hard to be anything other than *extremely* excited when a quality release like this comes in. To say that it's been a vintage year for the deeper end of the techno scene is a massive understatement and it's mainly thanks to low-key, heartfelt releases such as this that it's so exciting at the moment. Sven Schienhammer's Shoreless label delivers the first CD in a series that promises to be nothing short of completely essential and it's packed full of the deepest, most beautifully realised sounds all the way through. Sven's motives for starting this label are honourable and it's really to provide a tangible, 'real' format for you to have, hold and love. And love it you will. Any release that kicks off with a Bvdub track, ends with a Quantec track, and features lovingly crafted cuts from Severence and Atheus in between is an instant winner.

Musically it's as lush and low-key as you'd expect... cascades of gentle chords and melody with an overarching theme of ambience and drifting beauty all combine to make an utterly compelling listen. There are beatless moments, subtle 4/4 rhythms and some wonderfully electronica-like elements and together they work like a dream. As ever with these low-key releases I'm incredibly proud to be able to even offer it to you in the first place. There are only 100 in existence and each is numbered... don't miss out because this, my friends, is the good stuff.