Stellate 2 [SASTE002]

SASTE002 marks the second release in the Stellate Series: sounds gathered from the experimental frontiers and outeredges of electronic music. For each Stellate Series release two tracks are created by four different producers. Here, the resulting 8 tracks highlight four collaborations and chart the disparate sounds that gravitate at the far side of the periphery.
Stellate 2 brings together the visions of Dadub, Silent Servant and Luis Farfan, Roll The Dice and Plaster: yet as diverse as the forms and textures that they use are, something intangible provides a sense of unity. Stellate 2 is preoccupied with the process of looping, using both digital and analogue tools to layer ideas, distort perceptions and filigree finely textured surfaces.
Dadub open Stellate 2 with ‘Endless’. Constructed from dense loops it orbits around an ever expanding core, layer upon layer the structure grows and the atmosphere billows. Dadub revel in sinister ambience. ‘Refraction’ follows and is built upon a swirling, organic structure. It hints towards the points where the natural world unexpectedly reveals itself, the point where white light shatters into an array of colours or where a saturated solution knits itself into crystals. Dadub’s process submerges itself into discovering the patterns that underpin the fringes of our perception.
Silent Servant and Luis Farfan’s ‘La Negra Luna’ starts with a sustained bowed tone which is severed by a gnashing looped vocal and brutal swathes of white noise. The dense structure is constantly splintered by industrial sounds that are impossibly familiar and yet impossible to place. The disorientation continues with the dizzying ‘No Te Debia Amar’. The track hovers over a swung bass line and contorts in atmosphere of regret and remorse.
Roll The Dice open the second vinyl with two tracks that explore the piano, using the instrument not purely for its rich sound palette but also as a way to examine the western musical tradition. ‘Ritenuto’ the term for ‘holding back’, normally indicates a change in tempo, but here it signals a change in character for Stellate 2. The piece is sparse and ominous with notes played by heavy hands. In ‘Bad Tempered’ the piano sounds express the length and breadth of what the instrument is capable of: notes run urgently together, rhythms are tapped on its wooden structure and strange creaks are recorded from the pedals. What the piano sounds express when layered with uplifting pads is nothing short of ecstatic.
Plaster close Stellate 2 with two impressive examinations of texture. The Udis are the ancient people of the Caucasus, one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse places on earth - this is the perfect source of inspiration for Plaster. ‘Udis’ fuses together the textures of fractured dubbing, traditional music sounds and a foreground of electronic loops. ‘Seber’ shifts the textures to contrast their angularities and breaks down their similarities. Plaster handle this complex amalgam of reference points with precision.
Stellate 2 is boxed exquisitely in a round metallic tin which contains two transparent blue 10” vinyls. Each vinyl is separated by a typographic print on recycled paper. The Stellate releases also contain a hand-numbered artwork inlay by Oblivious Artefacts. The entire artwork comprises of four parts which are divided between Stellate 1 through to Stellate 4. Additionally each release contains a unique card with a download code. Each Stellate release is a strictly limited edition of 300.

The entire Stellate Series was craftily mastered in Berlin by Artefacts Mastering.

Words: Clare Molloy