Mute have announced that they are to release a 12" entitled Cyclopean, a collaborative project between Can founder members Jaki Liebezeit and Irmin Schmidt, producer/musician Burnt Friedman and Jono Podmore (who plays in Metamono and was involved in curating Can’s recent Lost Tapes collection). The project began when all four musicians met up in Frances at Studio Los Rossignols in May last year. This first 12" features four tracks, entitled ‘Apostles’, ‘Fingers’, ‘Knuckles’ and ‘Weeks’, and will be released on 4th February 2013 on 12" and digital download. On ‘Fingers’ at least, the results are dark, sub-bass driven and percussive, blending Middle Eastern-sounding washes of melody with snaking conga rhythms, in a manner slightly reminiscent of music by Shackleton, Muslimgauze and Raime. You can listen to it via the embed below.
"As you might expect from the line-up," reads the press release text, "the four tracks are profoundly original and bursting with imagination. The title provides a metaphor for the music: Cyclopean forms are beautiful, massive and intriguing structures that interlock, intersect and connect seemingly contradictory components. Heavy, yet light, powerful, subtle, intriguing and playful. There’s also a flavour of the ancient in this music – an artefact from a sophisticated pre-culture perhaps. Extraordinary instrumentation – rubber band guitar, theremin, prepared piano – is unified through the monumental and unique drum patterns, as the characters of the four players are at once individually unmistakably and irrevocably intertwined."
Cyclopean will be released through Mute on 4th February 2013. You can pre-order it already from here.
