The forerunner to Entity was the Tinnitus netlabel founded in 2002 by Kaebin Yield. Tinnitus released mostly dark ambient and noise related music from artists such as Lost_Bit, Nightech, ps, Ellende, Carroña, and No Xivic [you can still link up to the Tinnitus back catalog at the Entify website (http://entity.be/entity/tns.htm)]. After dying a silent death due to server problems, it was reincarnated as Entity in 2003. The first Entity release was by the collaborative project 5E Phalanx titled “Pragmatic Impulse” in which Danny Kreutzfeldt, ps, Tirriddiliu, Kaebin Yield and Erratic passed tracks continuously on to each other to construct a wonderful 20+ minute abstract piece of experimental electronics. Since then forty more releases have been added to the Entity roster. All releases are housed at the Internet Archive and can be downloaded or streamed via m3u or imbedded flash-player.
Entity has shown itself to be a very open-minded label with respect to experimental music in general. Even a cursory glance at its discography and artist lineup reveals a wealth of diversity. The year 2003 saw five more releases from Entity with the sixth being "Sous Quel Ordre." Fabrice Planquette composing as Acta (another side of Element.Act), gives the listener three different views of avant-garde music in three tracks. “Passe” offers pure acoustic guitar from the softer side of post-rock with only minimal electronic manipulations. “Comme va_le_Monde”, on the other hand, is composed of samples of dialogues from films along with slightly distorted electric guitar melodies and a noticeably heavier use of electronics. With the arrival of “Sous Quel Ordre” intense rhythmic electronica along with a highly abstract flavoring takes the forefront rising above the post-rock influences.
The first release of 2004, the label’s seventh, was “llion” - a dense, microsound-textured industrial-ambient album by the artist m_ [Miguel Tolosa - founder of netlabel Conv] . Always intense, sometimes rhythmic, the five powerful tracks on this release illustrate the more aggressive face of netlabel Entity. In contrast to the post-industrial atmosphere of “llion”, release nine titled “Impressions” by composer Elín [Anna Steinarsdóttir] delivered five darkish-flavored electroacoustic tracks composed of processed found sounds, guitar experimentation, minimal electronics, and some catchy rhythmic sequences. An engaging blend of organic and abstract elements.
A total of fifteen releases (#7 - #21) were put online in 2004 that further demonstrated the label’s commitment to releasing good experimental music. Artists in this sequence included Chango Feo, Pandemic (Hackeronte + Erratic collaboration), Ronny Ratroll, xE Phalanx, Transcendent Device (Michael Todd), Sedarka, and Beatwife. The sounds were quite eclectic. Going in a different direction from the dense industrial-ambience of m_ or the dark electroacoustic experiments of Elín, the duo of Mark Allan and Richard Wilson working together as Beatwife brought forth their own version of experimental madness on the “Virtual Love Cell” album. Intricate beat-programming, vocal samples, and some expert knob-tweaking are the rule here with five fast tracks of randomly changing psychedelic rhythms. Immediately following this, Christmas eve saw the final release of 2004 - Sedarka’s “Shibashi Todomen” brought the year to a fitting close. Intense, turbulent beat-driven experimentation born of broken machines is a quick summing-up of this release. Similar in style to its predecessor, Sedarka’s album is a darker and moodier selection of breakcore brilliance textured with lots of glitchy bleeps and squeals.
The new year got off to a powerful start with four extraordinary consecutive releases. First, Fabrice Planquette, composing as fp this time, put forth thirteen variable tracks of exotic experimentalism on the album “Fjuk & Csajok” (release #22). Heavy doses of tribal beats, captured sounds, fragments of dialogue and music from films, noisy collages, spoken words, and abstract electronic manipulations are the main ingredients of this release. The follow-up to this first release of 2005 was Yannis Kyriakides’ “Highly Coloured Places” (release #23). This Amsterdam-based composer is a proven master at manufacturing innovative music using dissimilar sound sources. “High Coloured Places” in particular is an album built of electroacoustic sounds and processed field recordings. The five compositions orchestrated here are reflections of time, place, and the vagaries of experience. Cisfinitum followed this up with “Landschaft” (release #24). Using electroacoustic sources, synthesizers and various effects, the Russian team of Voronovsky and Tzarev composed four enduring drones of a cinematic ambience - dense, dark, and poignant. The final album in the foursome, Mathieu Ruhlmann’s “The Calm of the Suns” (release #25), continued the dark ambient theme initiated by Cisfinitum, but in its own way. These seven slowly evolving, brooding minimal drones exude an cavernous ambiance ranging from spacious and tranquil e.g “Sumerfall” to thick and tense e.g. “Hares Honey Blood”.
Ten more online albums were realized in 2005 (#26 - #35) from a variety of international artists including CD-R, Dotkràz, Satka, Cisfinitum, Idle Sunder, label co-founder Kaebin Yield, Binray, and Metro_NM. The latter part of 2005 saw an especially intriguing release in the form of Binray’s “Cederoth Bloodstopper” (release #33). This UK artist offered some pure, unabashed electronic manipulations in the form of intricately programmed beats and abstract sounds - sometimes prearranged, sometimes freestyle - but always with the perfect balance of predictability and randomness.
While the year 2006 saw a decrease in the quantity of music released, there was no lapse in quality. Six additional outstanding releases (#36 - #40 & #42) have been added to Entity‘s discography. One highlight was February’s release of “Rust”, a three-way effort by Dotkraz, Idle Sunder, and Casual Coincidence. Featuring five numinous drones born of field recordings, synthesizers, and electronic effects, the sounds range from the gravity of “Reflected Feedback” to the deepness of “The Burden of Secrets” and the coarseness of the unsettling title track. The collective mind of 9E Phalanx - Tirriddiliu, Erratic, Tomoroh Hidari, Frabrice Pianquette, Elín, Infra Red Army, Chango Feo, Heath Yonaites, and C-drík - was responsible for the thirty-eighth release titled “Silhouette”. Over the course of almost forty minutes, nine international artists created an epic collaborative electroacoustic piece that managed to come together as a unified whole but, yet, still allowed the individual artist’s efforts to show through. The anonymous commune of four artists calling themselves Idle Sunder made their second appearance with “Aether II” (#41). Containing nine affecting compositions of space- ambient soundscapes, this album is the electronic version of music for the soul. The tracks “Dreams in Waves” and “Aether II” caress the listener with their smooth, orchestral ambiance while, in constrast, the dark, aggressive sounds of “Signal Interference”, “Data Stream”, and “Walls Within Voids” jar the emotions with some hard-hitting electronics and raspy textures.
I can‘t close without at least mentioning the label’s latest release authored by Siegmar Fricke. “Neuromecanismo” is a manifestation of a novel new direction in sound creation that he labels “pharmakustik”. As very eloquently defined in the release’s liner notes, these sounds are characterized by “hypnotizing and microscopic operations which could metaphorically describe the subtle intricacies of organic/biological activity on a cellular level.” If nothing else, the release of “Neuromecanismo” is further evidence of Enity’s commitment to discovering and making freely available only the highest quality experimental music.
Just as Jan’s preferences and interests have changed over past three years, netlabel Entity has continued to evolve and grow in a parallel fashion. No matter what 2007 brings, I’m confident that the label will continue to release only the best in experimental sounds and that it will carry on its mission of supporting avant-garde music artists “that standout in their own unique style(s) and that know how to blend artistic expression with technical originality.”
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