If you'd like to order multiple items please get in touch to save on shipping costs.
BLACK TO COMM "Wave UFO" 2x7"
Limited vinyl edition of 200 copies!
Europe: EUR 12.00 (incl. shipping)
Overseas (America, Asia, Australia, Africa...): EUR 15.00 (incl. shipping)
BLACK TO COMM "Alphabet 1968" LP (Type)
Limited vinyl edition of 500 copies!
SOLD OUT!
Marc Richter collects records, makes records, and releases other people’s records. If you want to know what kind of records he makes, today is your first chance to buy “Alphabet 1968,” an album released under the band name Black To Comm. The foundation for Richter’s project is sound and noise, rather than songs, though the results are as sensually pleasing as they are baffling. I keep thinking “plump” and “slate-grey,” but that makes me think of a baby shark living in my bathtub, and this music is not sharky. Black To Comm is more like an abandoned museum of late-twentieth-century instruments whose exhibits are still running at half power. The music feels linked to the repetition and crunch of krautrock, so I was satisfied, sort of, to find this fantastic mix by Richter called “Fuck Krautrock” on the Type Records Web site. I assume the title means to acknowledge that he knows what his tastes sound like, while asserting he’s moved on. Krautrock was very 1993, which probably means it’s also very 2010.
Sasha Frere-Jones | THE NEW YORKER
BLACK TO COMM "Alphabet 1968" CD (Type)
Europe: EUR 13.00 (incl. shipping)
Overseas (America, Asia, Australia, Africa...): EUR 16.00 (incl. shipping)
One could describe the experimental soundlayers on Black to Comm’s latest effort as krautrock for people who don’t like krautrock, people who don’t have long hair and scruffy looking beards, people who don’t own Motorpsycho t-shirts. Alphabet 1968 represents a seldom heard brand of experimental kraut: a darkened array of slow forming ambient, swelling drone, haunting soundscape, and acoustic-laced psychedelica. On Alphabet 1968, Black to Comm utilizes an obscured spectrum of avant garde sounds, forming a fluid yet complex vibe without losing focus on the composition. The album’s gradual crescendos are majestic, culminating in “Hotel Freund,” one of the year’s most stunning cinematic drones. It’s enough to make one want to stop shaving.
Jurgen Verhasselt | THE SILENT BALLET
BLACK TO COMM "Charlemagne & Pippin" CD (Digitalis)
Limited edition of 500 copies!
Europe: EUR 13.00 (incl. shipping)
Overseas (America, Asia, Australia, Africa...): EUR 16.00 (incl. shipping)
FEW COPIES LEFT!
"With the sudden emergence of a new drone dialect in underground music, Richter brings a classical sense to his concoctions, drawing on the likes of Steve Reich's organ works, La Monte Young's extended sense of time, Hermann Nitsch's sound world and Charlemagne Palestine's power far more than psychedelic babble steeped in rounded edges. His is a focused maelstrom, less concerned with dips into the nether regions of his mind than in sharp trajectories directly towards the sun. Starting with a microcosm of a drone, the piece largely develops itself as an extended crescendo, continuously moving steadily forward into ever deeper waters."
Henry Smith | BRAINWASHED
BLACK TO COMM "Incidents" 7" (Trensmat)
Limited edition of 292 copies!
SOLD OUT!
"Dekorder label owner Marc Richter, aka Black To Comm, has been on fine form lately, and "The Soba Noodle Shop Incident" and "The Convenience Store Incident" are as impressive as their titles are intriguing, and make for another solid if all too brief addition to the Richter discography. Trembling triads and sevenths gaze affectionately back to the harmonic landscape of Terry Riley and Charlemagne Palestine, and the distant thudding squelch of the bass pulse reminds me, for some inexplicable reason, of early Durutti Column, but Richter's processing is state-of-the-art, and his mixing and sequencing smart and sophisticated."
Dan Warburton | PARIS TRANSATLANTIC
BLACK TO COMM "Fractal Hair Geometry" LP
Limited edition of 500 copies!
Europe: EUR 16.00 (incl. shipping)
Overseas (America, Asia, Australia, Africa...): EUR 19.00 (incl. shipping)
"Everything that ends up in the mix sounds insane, throws you off course, twists perception into unrecognisable shapes and leaves you feeling just a little crazy. So then: strange geometries culminating in bouts of insanity? Black to Comm is the H.P. Lovecraft of dronedelia."
BLACK TO COMM "Fractal Hair Geometry" CD EUR 16.00 (incl. worldwide shipping)
"Black to Comm is mostly Marc Richter, the German one-man operation who also happens to run Dekorder Records. On Fractal Hair Geometry (DEKORDER 027), he delivers seven rich tracks of twisted, shape-shifting and overloaded drone noise with the help of Renate Nikolaus, Ulf Schütte, Jonnna Karanka and Guido Mobiüs. I've been slow to see the appeal of Black To Comm's work, but moments of this new one are starting to make sense to me. There is certainly a lot to listen to, by which I mean every studio concoction has been well-baked in the oven and a rich fruit-cake of an album results. One of the surrealist track titles pays homage to Leigh Bowery, of all people. Gorgeous gatefold sleeve; a psychedelic painting-and-collage mind-meld from the hands of Oliver Ross."
Ed Pinsent | THE SOUND PROJECTOR
BLACK TO COMM / DATASHOCK "s/t" CD-R (Ikuisuus) EUR 8.00 (incl. worldwide shipping)
MACHINEFABRIEK / BLACK TO COMM "Stofstuk/Stickstoff" 7"
Limited edition of 100 copies! Grey vinyl, handstamped labels, 100 different individual full-colour sleeves (handmade laserprints)!
SOLD OUT!
BLACK TO COMM / AOSUKE "S/T" LP
Limited edition of 500 copies!
Europe: EUR 13.00 (incl. shipping)
Overseas (America, Asia, Australia, Africa...): EUR 16.00 (incl. shipping)
BLACK TO COMM "Wir können leider nicht etwas mehr zu tun..." 2LP
Limited edition of 500 copies!
Europe: EUR 20.00 (incl. shipping)
Overseas (America, Asia, Australia, Africa...): EUR 25.00 (incl. shipping)
FEW COPIES LEFT!
"For, despite taking their name from the MC5’s most obstinately and arduously uncommercial freakout track, Black To Comm’s organ/harmonium/tape-looped pieces inhabit a vigorous deep drone space somewhat in the vein of Klaus Schultze at his minimal, minor-chord best. Probably, this is because each Black To Comm track comes replete with its own side order of cranky and extraneous noise, much like the inevitable overly-loud motor hum that accompanies every Mellotron 400, or the wandering pitch of the early VCS3 synthesizers that gives such personality to recordings."
Julian Cope | HEAD HERITAGE
BLACK TO COMM "Rückwärts Backwards" LP
Limited edition of 222 copies!
SOLD OUT!
"Rückwärts Backwards is an organic floater that’s created from scratchy shellac and vinyl loops interspersed with all sorts of gentle found sounds and blurry ambience. The distant collage-like song fragments (psychedelia, free jazz, folk and more) that often remain in a somewhat remote corner of the soundscapes presented are probably what make the outcome warm and organic, rather than haunting and claustrophobic. That doesn’t prevent things from being quietly disturbing but it manages to be so without ever abandoning that melodic touch and the abstract drone alley chosen for the specific track. The whole album is very dream-like, mystical and fascinating, like being in the middle of a fog bank and loosing your sense of direction but always knowing that you’ll find your way out one way or the other."
Mats Gustafsson | THE BROKEN FACE
BLACK TO COMM "Rückwärts Backwards" LP
About 20 - 30 of the above 222 copies have been printed in white.
SOLD OUT!
"Black To Comm is Hamburg's Marc Richter. He also runs Dekorder, which has put out quality editions of records by the likes of Hafler Trio and Tu m'. His pulverous, gravelly electronic laminates are liberally dosed with digitally altered field recordings, incorporated in a way that adds to the musicality of the whole. The title track is chalky and crackly as space dust, recalling Fennesz or Tim Hecker's crumbly, floury vapournoise. "Levitation" is like the intro to a Gas track, a sampled unidentifiable musical source flayed to reveal the heart; "March Of The Vivian Girls" a militaristic step over a contorted Weimar movie sample. You can clearly hear him mixing, as though watching a painter crushing pigments from silica and lapis blocks. As with so much currrent laptop sound, the lines between organic and digital are invisible, a reminder that no one thought of music as 'organic' anyway until the computer arrived on the scene."
Rob Young | THE WIRE
BLACK TO COMM "Rückwärts Backwards" CD EUR 15.00 (incl. worldwide shipping)
"What makes this record stand out so much is its attention for detail and the thoughtful combination of source material and additions. On the album opener “Bees” for example, somebody humms over the sound of bees. It just fits perfectly. The same goes for the vintage sounding sweet lullaby loops on “March of the Vivian Girls” that get shadowed by a full distortion noise attack. Over the course of its eight tracks, “Rückwärts Backwards” exemplifies this hard-to-achieve equilibrium of beauty and repulsion, of nature and civilization. A fascinating listen."
Stephan Bauer | FOXY DIGITALIS
BLACK TO COMM "Levitation/Astoria" Lathe Cut Picture Disc 7"
Limited edition of 100 copies!
SOLD OUT!
"Got a beautiful new single from Black To Comm, the solo project of Dekorder head Marc Richter. Levitation/Astoria (Black To Comm 7") is a gorgeous, lathe-cut picture disc that combines one side of meditational float with another that chatters and boings like one of those great Nonesuch Explorer LPs heard through a closed window at the wrong speed when you're about ten years old and feeling very foggy on a combination of fever and cough syrup. Frankly, I prefer the more screwed-up side, but listening to it made me go back and get a bit deeper into the subtleties of its flip."
Byron Coley | THE WIRE
BLACK TO COMM "s/t" 10"
Limited edition of 250 copies!
SOLD OUT!
BLACK TO COMM "s/t" CD-R (Absurd/Eclipsis)
Limited numbered edition of 70 copies made exclusively for the birth of the baby child of Anastasia and Costas from Thessaloniki!
SOLD OUT!
V/A "Million Ways To Spend Your Time" CD (Quasipop) EUR 15.00 (incl. worldwide shipping)
Ukrainian compilation w/ Black To Comm, Lasse Marhaug, O.Lamm, TV Pow, Andrey Kiritchenko, The Complainer, 8Rolek...
Limited edition of 500 copies!
And here's some Black To Comm related music I can highly recommend...
ANTONIA LEUKERS "Hasenlove" 1-sided etched Picture-Disc LP (Limited edition of 300 copies!)
The mysterious 5th Black To Comm member in hidden solo disguise.
Europe: EUR 18.00 (incl. shipping)
Overseas (America, Asia, Australia, Africa...): EUR 21.00 (incl. shipping)
"Most beautiful record this time is probably the Hasenlove picture disk by Hamburg's Antonia Leukers (Dekorder). Primarily a visual artist, she was emboldened to stretch her brain into musical realms by a theoretical encounter with Die Todliche Doris. Her music is informed by that, but is a unique collage of sap-pop and bizarre inventions. Quite remarkable and a lovely piece of rabbity love by any stretch."
Thurston Moore & Byron Coley, "Bull Tongue", Arthur Magazine # 32
http://www.arthurmag.com/
KUUPUU "Lumen Tähden" CD (Time-Lag) EUR 16.00 (incl. worldwide shipping)
I have contributed a loop to one song from the brand-new Kuupuu album.
KUUPUU "Yökehrä" LP
Jonna Karanka has played Piano and Voice on "Fractal Hair Geometry" and "Alphabet 1968".
Europe: EUR 14.00 (incl. shipping)
Overseas (America, Asia, Australia, Africa...): EUR 17.00 (incl. shipping)
"Among the Finnish leftfield, Yökehrä is second only to Es's Sateenkaarisuudelma in its meditative intensity."
Derek Walmsley
The Wire September 2006
KUUPUU "Unilintu" LP
Jonna Karanka has played Piano and Voice on "Fractal Hair Geometry" and "Alphabet 1968".
Europe: EUR 14.00 (incl. shipping)
Overseas (America, Asia, Australia, Africa...): EUR 17.00 (incl. shipping)
GUIDO MÖBIUS "Dishoek" LP
Guido Möbius has played Trumpet on "Fractal Hair Geometry".
Europe: EUR 13.00 (incl. shipping)
Overseas (America, Asia, Australia, Africa...): EUR 16.00 (incl. shipping)
GUIDO MÖBIUS "Dishoek" CD EUR 15.00 (incl. worldwide shipping)
Guido Möbius has played Trumpet on "Fractal Hair Geometry".
You can also contact the following mailorders and shops to buy Black To Comm releases:
A-Musik | Darla | Risonanza Magnetica | and/OAR | Dense | Stora | Praemedia | Small Voices | Time-Lag | Fusetron | Eclipse | Mik.Musik | Drone | Mimaroglu | Rrrecords | Norman | Staalplaat | Cold Spring | Warpmart | (1.8)sec. | Amplexus | Boa Melody Bar | Conspiracy | Ikuisuus | Tomentosa | Release The Bats | Aquarius | Le Petit Mignon | Cormorant | Minimamedia | Shining Day | Boomkat | Smallfish | Smallville | Hanseplatte | Hafenschlamm | Alt.Vinyl | Soundohm |