Analog Baroque is a new record label curated by Momus. 'At my time of life,' he explains, 'if you don't have a family you start feeling the need to create a tribe of like-minded people. This label is not just my tribe, my gang, but a way to get diverse, polemical and highly original new voices heard in a conservative land still ruled by guitar, bass and drums.'
1999 sees the release of five albums, distributed in Britain through Pinnacle and available worldwide via the internet. These records, pressed in small quantities and recorded on a shoestring, will nevertheless enthrall and entertain those who still recognise true originality.
Catalogue Number Artist Title Street Date
ANALOG 001CD Momus The Little Red Songbook Now
ANALOG 002CD Momus Stars Forever Now
ANALOG 003CD Toog 6633 Now
ANALOG 004CD Mr Swenson The Sensuous Man Now
ANALOG 005CD Stereo Total Total Pop (Compilation) Now
You can order these records (after release date) by sending an e mail to: info@cred.demon.co.uk
Toog: 6633
Toog is the alter ego of Parisian Gilles Weinzaepflen. Born on the border between Switzerland and France, Toog lived in Marseilles before moving to Paris in 1995.
Toog lives in an attic under the grey roofs of Pigalle, where he records on a small hard disk recorder purchased while touring Japan with Momus and Kahimi Karie last year.
He makes intimate, quirky, charming and inventive electronic pop music on theremins, an old Korg monophonic analogue synth, and his trusty Gem workstation, programming his intricate structures for hours on end on headphones.
Often humourous, his lyrics, mostly in French, tell strange stories not so far from the 'variete' tradition of great french entertainers like Les Freres Jacques, even while the music evokes the retro sounds of early 80s synthpop.
Don't be put off by the scale, the quirkiness and the modesty, though. This music is unlike anything else you've ever heard, the sounds and the lyrics combining to create a world resembling some weird Czech cartoon. Jonas, for example, tells the tale of a greedy goldfish which grows up to be a whale and eats the narrator's father.
6633 is released on August 23rd, 1999
Mister Swenson: The Sensuous Man
Mister Swenson is the alter ego of Eric Swenson, the New York multimedia whizz and devil's advocate responsible, along with partner Keith Seward, for three editions of the CD-ROM Blam!. Necro Enema Amalgamated won an ID design award for Blam (you can find out more from Eric's website). With slogans such as 'interactivity is a lie,' Eric certainly rocked the boat in the world of multimedia. But it wasn't enough. He wanted to rock the world!
And so he quit his job and, in between designing websites for photographer Richard Kern and musician Genesis P. Orridge, he made this record for Analog Baroque. The Sensuous Man extends the soundscapes Eric has been making (using microcassettes and SoundEdit 16) for Blam. It takes taboo, politically incorrect subjects and twists them into lurid, provocative dirges almost unbearable to listen to, and yet, paradoxically, rather soothing. Ultimately, this record is like the primal howling of some proto-bluesman, recorded on crackly wax cylinders.
As Momus puts it: 'Someone met the devil at the crossroads, and it turned out to be the intersection of 3rd Street and Avenue A'.
The Sensuous Man is released on October 18th, 1999
Stereo Total: Total Pop
Stereo Total are Brezel and Francoise, and they live in Berlin. He's German, she's French. They are, according to Momus, the best band in the world. With influences ranging from french girlpop of the 60s, German cabaret, disco and 80s electropop, not to mention the omnipresent ghost of Serge Gainsbourg, Stereo Total are a tribute to all that has been best about pop music in the second half of the 20th Century.
Total Pop is a Momus-curated compilation comprising six tracks from each of their four albums on German label Bungalow, Oh Ah Oh (1996), Monokini (1997), Juke-Box Alarm (1998) and My Melody (1999).
Rough-edged, vulgar, clever, parodic, electronic, Japanesey even at their most European, cheap and ephemeral even at their most transcendent and classic, Stereo Total are total pop.
Click the Stereo Total CD to see the rest of the artwork.
Total Pop is released on October 18th, 1999
Long live Analog Baroque!
Press: Contact Andy Fraser @ Andy Fraser PR on London 0171 729 8665
Or Scott @ Analog Baroque 0171 371 5844