With a real name for an album title, Kontakt Der Jünglinge (Thomas Köner and Asmus Tietchens – the name being a homage to Stockhausen) break with the naming tradition of the predecessor series released in 2001 – 2003: ‘0’, ‘1’, ‘-1’, ‘N’.
The black color of the cover (in contrast to the white sleeves of the earlier series) suggests that there a more differences: to begin with, “Makrophonie 1“ is not a live set recording but the duo’s first studio album.
It starts with a deep trembling sound. It’s not thunder, but it does not exactly sound mechanical or man-made either. It may come from somewhere deep inside the earth…a strange kind of sound to break the vast silence.
With sounds like these, it’s not difficult to imagine you are witnessing the birth of New Land – which is in fact the translation of “Novaya Zemlya” (or Nova Zembla in dutch, known for the famous Willem Barentsz expedition in 1594).
The name also refers to the archipelago in the north of Russia, extensively used for nuclear testing during the Cold War – which creates an entirely different context for the sounds on this album.
It’s not really a shame when you missed these albums when they were originally released in 1990/92/93.
Even though the original label (Barooni) was located in my hometown, I did not notice these releases until they were re-released on Mille Plateaux a few years later.
With following album releases, Thomas Köner’s immersive drones found wider attention, and gained more and more recognistion. Albums like Kaamos, Daikan, Unerforschtes Gebiet, Nuuk and, more recently, La Barca) firmly established Köner’s reputation as the absolute master of immersive deep dronescapes.
And thus the interest in his back catalogue also grew.
Recently, Type Records have re-released Köner’s first three albums on vinyl. For those that prefer the CD format, a 3-CD version of these remastered albums is now also available.
So don’t let them pass you by this time: these albums are definitely classics of electronic and drone music!
