Click the above link for an interview with Wierd Records’ Pieter Schoolwerth. Words by Kev Kharas.
”Earlier this year, London’s Angular Recording Corporation released a compilation album entitled Cold Waves And Minimal Electronics. Profiling an analogue (rather than digital) synthpop music conjured into being by an obscured, disconnected constellation of young people living largely in the suburbs and small towns of 1980s continental Europe, the story of the record, of the acts whose music features on it and the contrasts it draws when set against today’s new music are all, I think, hugely interesting.
These are not tales I intend to tell myself, however - for that I have enlisted the help of Wierd Records owner Pieter Schoolwerth, who - in tandem with Angular’s Joe Daniel - gave much sweat to the cause of its compilation. His answers here are similarly exhaustive, dedicated and erudite, and are voluminous enough without the weight of my musings, though it’s worth asserting at this stage that Cold Waves and Minimal Electronics exists and so impresses largely because other things no longer do.”
A great mix for self-titled magazine by Wierd Records founder Pieter Schoolwerth. He say:
“This mix was very much the sound of the Wierd Party in its earliest days, when it was just a handful of close friends sitting around the Southside Lounge in Brooklyn, playing our favorite long-forgotten records late into the night.”
Dig it.
Dan Nixon of renowned blog 20 Jazz Funk Greats has written an incredible ‘Guide To Coldwave’ for Dummy Magazine. This handy 14 point guide will provide you with all the knowledge you’ll need to get started. From auspicious beginnings with newly portable and affordable equipment, via Kraftwerk, Industrial and Synthpop, right through to the current purveyors of Coldwave - Wierd Records, Minimal Wave Records, Born Bad and indeed Angular’s very own ‘Cold Waves And Minimal Electronics Vol.1’ compilation due for release on the 8th March 2010.
Happy reading/learning/listening…
THIS IS COLDWAVE
This was announced today on our website. A pre order link will be available soon.
Angular are proud to announce the forthcoming release of ‘Cold Waves & Minimal Electronics Volume 1’ - a new 17 track compilation put together by New York’s Wierd Records founder Pieter Schoolwerth and Angular’s Joe Daniel.
The album chronicles the secret underground cult genres of cold wave and minimal wave, which mostly originated from continental Europe between the years 1981-1985.
Joe Daniel: “About two years ago my good friend Al O’Connell (aka Alalal) played me some minimal synth tracks that had an immediate and considerable effect on me. They contained analogue synths that sounded sharp and icy instead of the warm squelchy noises that a lot of people use them for; Junos instead of MS20s, backed by the most primitive drum machines and oblique otherworldly vocals.
Most of this music came from early-80s Europe, and most of the groups only recorded a few songs, released a 7″ and then split up before anyone noticed what they were doing. I like the impossible romance you can have with a band when all you’ve got is a tape with three songs on it (all in French) and a single black and white photograph.
Ever since I heard this music I’ve been trawling high and low to unearth the greatest gems of this synth sound in order to make a retrospective artefact of the lost genre of music known as coldwave. With the considerable collaborative help of Pieter Schoolwerth from New York’s Wierd Records, I think we may have done it.”
This release will be available as a double LP gatefold, CD, and digital download on February 22nd.
Coldwave and me (part three)
After my initial trip to Paris I spent a few months trawling blogs looking for cold and minimal sounds with moderate degrees of success. I downloaded a lot of stuff from systems of romance which is a great blog (if a little goth), blue tv set also has a lot, both are linked to many other blogs so be sure to explore.
The real breakthrough though was on a trip to New York in September last year. I arranged to meet up with some friends (Lauren Chillhard and April Chalpara - now in a great contemporary minimal band Figure Study) at Home Sweet Home in Manhattan and upon arrival immediately recognised the music as being on the compilation that I’d discovered via Al O’Connell.
Upon asking my friend what the club was I informed that it was the ‘Wierd Records’ clubnight. I introduced myself to the DJ, Pieter Schoolwerth, and then sank into the dry ice and revelled in the rare sounds. I was excited to have met the source of the songs I’d been into for around a year now, especially as until this point I’d never seen or met anyone else who knew more about this music than me. Victrola, Hotel du Nord and Solid Space were pretty hard to come by, but here they were coming through the speakers of a club I’d just happened to end up in. A great twist of fate and kind of a revelation.
I briefly chatted to Pieter that night and he had an enviable knowledge and background deeply rooted in this music. In my mind this was the moment that the breakthrough came in terms of making the compilation.
