SamadhiSound http://www.samadhisound.com/ 2008-05-08T12:00:48+00:00 Thomas Feiner & Anywhen, "The Opiates – Revised" http://www.samadhisound.com/news/thomas_feiner_anywhen_the_opiates_revised.html We're excited to announce the latest addition to the SamadhiSound catalogue; 'The Opiates - Revised' by Thomas Feiner & Anywhen (sound-cd ss013).

For the few that got to hear the original release of 'The Opiates' it was an absorbing, captivating experience featuring the deep, rich vocals of Thomas Feiner – but it was a project that'd once threatened to go unfinished. Whilst the album began as a group effort, the band Anywhen dissolved in the two years it took to complete – leaving Feiner to finish the project alone.

This revised, re-packaged and remastered edition of 'The Opiates' will be the first time many will have heard of the album or the artist Thomas Feiner (although a track was included on David Sylvian's 'The World Is Everything' tour book sampler cd). The release comes several years after Sylvian was introduced to the work, which he regards as something of a lost classic having only been released in a few territories. The addition of two new Feiner tracks have further strengthened what was already a remarkably beautiful recording. 

Sylvian recalls, "The dark, brooding, romantic nature of the material and, in particular, the emotional gravity of Thomas' voice, came as something of a surprise to me as it was quite out of keeping with my listening habits of the time but I couldn't help but be drawn into its widescreen, colour-drained, soundscapes."

Presented as ever in a beautiful digipak designed by Chris Bigg, featuring exquisite images of Jean Cocteau and Marcel Khill taken by Cecil Beaton.

For more information and to hear a stream of the album please visit: www.thomasfeiner.com

You can pre-order the album from today at the SamadhiSound store.

Available immediately is the lead track from the album, 'The Siren Songs', as an mp3 or FLAC: www.samadhisoundshop.com

]]> news RebelsInControl 2008-05-08T12:00:48+00:00 SS0013: Thomas Feiner & Anywhen, The Opiates - Revised http://www.samadhisound.com/samadhi_releases/ss0013_thomas_feiner_anywhen_the_opiates_revised.html

]]> samadhi releases RebelsInControl 2008-05-08T12:00:48+00:00 SS0013: Thomas Feiner & Anywhen, The Opiates - Revised http://www.samadhisound.com/catalogue/ss0013_thomas_feiner_anywhen_the_opiates_revised.html The Opiates opens like a journey: on “The Siren Songs,” an anxious orchestra buoys the captivating baritone of singer Thomas Feiner. This sets the tone for an album that’s stunning in its beauty – and that once lay on the brink of disaster. Whilst the album began as a group effort, the band dissolved in the two years it took to complete – leaving Feiner to finish the project alone.

Born in Gothenburg, Sweden, Feiner was the frontman of Anywhen throughout the ‘90s, working with a core group of Mikael Andersson Tigerström on bass, Kalle Thorslund on drums, and Jan Sandahl on guitar. Originally recorded in 2001, The Opiates was to be the band’s third full-length album, and its last.

This updated, re-packaged and newly mastered edition of The Opiates includes two of Feiner’s more recent songs: “Yonderhead,” and “For Now,” which was also featured in the German film ‘Love in Thoughts’. For many this will be the first they have heard of Feiner, and it comes several years after Sylvian first heard the album, which he regards as a lost classic since it never came out in many territories.

Sylvian recalls, “The dark, brooding, romantic nature of the material and, in particular, the emotional gravity of Thomas' voice, came as something of a surprise to me as it was quite out of keeping with my listening habits of the time but I couldn't help but be drawn into its widescreen, colour-drained, soundscapes.”

Presented as ever in a beautiful digipak featuring exquisite artwork (with a cover photo of Jean Cocteau taken by Cecil Beaton), and designed by Chris Bigg.

]]> catalogue RebelsInControl 2008-05-08T12:00:48+00:00 Rolling Stone - Steve Jansen "Slope" http://www.samadhisound.com/reviews/rolling_stone_steve_jansen_slope.html Featured in Fricke's Picks

The Invisible Man

In the Eighties British Zen-glam group Japan, drummer Steve Jansen was as important for what he chose not to play - he is practically vapor on marimba in the band's plaintive classic "Ghosts" - as for his irregular heartbeats in "The Art of Parties" and "Still Life in Mobile Homes." On his solo album, Slope (Samadhisound), Jansen is a constant presence on percussion, keyboards and samples - making slow- blooming, Asian-flavored atmospheres that seem as fragile as rice paper - while giving the front line to singer-lyricists including Anja Garbarek (the daughter of saxophonist Jan Garbarek), Joan Wasser (a.k.a. Joan as Police Woman) and David Sylvian, the ex-Japan singer and Jansen's older brother. Sylvian's showcase "Playground Martyrs" recalls the exotic whispers of the siblings' old band, while "Ballad of a Deadman", with Sylvian and Wasser in sinister duet, is a cowboy-ninja blues with acoustic guitars plucked like kotos and a strangely rousing hanging-party chorus. Jansen contributes a philharmonic's worth of rhythm, riff and color to the song - and does it all like he's just passing through in a cloud of dust.


DAVID FRICKE

]]> reviews SteveJansen 2008-02-18T21:20:17+00:00 www.thewire.co.uk http://www.samadhisound.com/news/wwwthewirecouk.html Steve Jansen's Slope is advertised in the March 2008 issue of The Wire. We have made the advert available online for you. Click here to view [.pdf, 2.3MB].

]]> news RebelsInControl 2008-02-18T14:03:17+00:00 Synergy Magazine - Steve Jansen "Slope" http://www.samadhisound.com/reviews/synergy_magazine_steve_jansen_slope.html Download file

]]> reviews SteveJansen 2008-02-17T11:10:53+00:00 Aftenposten - Steve Jansen "Slope" http://www.samadhisound.com/reviews/aftenposten_steve_jansen_slope.html Aftenposten - (Norway)

CD ArtPop 5/6

The first solo album from Steve Jansen is a very likeable affair. He plays with sound and prefers a crispy surface with nerves lurking in the basement .  This is art pop with experimental tendencies and rhythmic sanity, realised by a very competent programmer.  It is the vocalists who give the music a stroke of warmth, without challenging the cool elegance that runs through the tracks.  Anja Garbareks contribution is fragile on the border of transparent.  The melody lines she pulls on "Cancelled Pieces" are dew-fresh and springy, and she is surrounded by well thought-out good ideas.  Yes, I have hardly heard her better!  Tim Elsenburg and Thomas Feiner also make good characters, but the moment David Sylvian gives his voice to "Playround Martyrs" the meaning of the song falls into place.  Nina Kinert does an honourable version of the same song towards the end of the album.  Steve Jansen is an exciting leader.

ARILD R. ANDERSON

aftenposten.jpg

]]> reviews SteveJansen 2008-02-17T11:03:49+00:00 SOUND-DL002: Steve Jansen, Swimming In Qualia (Ascent) http://www.samadhisound.com/samadhi_releases/sounddl002_steve_jansen_swimming_in_qualia_ascent.html

]]> samadhi releases RebelsInControl 2008-02-15T14:35:12+00:00 SOUND-DL002: Steve Jansen, Swimming In Qualia (Ascent) http://www.samadhisound.com/catalogue/sounddl002_steve_jansen_swimming_in_qualia_ascent.html Steve Jansen's twenty four minute track 'Ascent' written for the Shoko Ise installation 'Swimming in Qualia'.
Offered in both mp3 and flac formats the download comes with cover artwork and credit sheet designed by Chris Bigg as well as specially designed wallpapers from Shoko Ise.

]]> catalogue RebelsInControl 2008-02-15T14:27:41+00:00 'swimming in qualia - ascent' soundtrack now available http://www.samadhisound.com/news/swimming_in_qualia_ascent_soundtrack_now_available.html steve jansen's twenty four minute track 'ascent' written for the Shoko Ise installation 'swimming in qualia' is now available to purchase from our download store. offered in both mp3 and flac formats the download comes with cover artwork and credit sheet designed by chris bigg as well as specially designed wallpapers from Shoko Ise

]]> news SteveJansen 2008-02-15T13:45:45+00:00 Sold Out ! http://www.samadhisound.com/news/sold_out_.html "The World Is Everything" tour book has now completely sold out.

]]> news SteveJansen 2008-02-13T15:51:13+00:00 "The World Is Everything" tour book http://www.samadhisound.com/news/the_world_is_everything_tour_book.html For those of you who weren't able to attend the recent David Sylvian tour we bring good news.

We have a very limited number of the beautifully produced "The World Is Everything" tour book currently being shipped to our warehouse and now available for pre-order in our online store.

The tour book is hard-backed with full colour quality printing and contains photographs taken by David, song lyrics, credits for the tour itself, and a sampler CD featuring a selection from the artists on Samadhisound. The sampler includes two tracks by David unavailable elsewhere entitled 'The World Is Everything' and 'Sleepwalkers'.

The tracklisting for the sampler is:

1. David Sylvian - The World Is Everything
2. Thomas Feiner And Anywhen - Siren Song
3. Harold Budd - Chrysalis Nu
4. Steve Jansen Feat Tim Elsenburg - Sleepyard
5. David Sylvian - Sleepwalkers
6. Nine Horses - Atom And Cell
7. Akira Rabelais - 1382 Wycliff Gen. Ii 7
8. Nine Horses - Get The Hell Out (Remix)
9. Masakatsu Takagi Feat David Sylvian - Exit / Delete
10. Harold Budd - Templar
11. David Toop - Heating And Cooling - Edit

As we've had many inquiries from people interested in purchasing a copy of the book since the tour ended we anticipate demand will be high and the edition is strictly limited and in short supply. The price will be $40.00 (plus postage and packing).

We won't have the book available for a few weeks yet but we'll be accepting pre-orders in our store from today. They will be shipped as soon as they arrive at our warehouse.

]]> news RebelsInControl 2008-02-01T17:46:57+00:00 Extracts from 'Swimming In Qualia-Ascent' : Visuals by Shoko Ise. Audio by Steve Jansen http://www.samadhisound.com/videos/extracts_from_swimming_in_qualiaascent_visuals_by_shoko_ise_audio_by_steve_jansen.html Original length - 24:11

Contemporary Art and Photography in Japan - 'STILL/ALIVE'
Showing at Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
Period：December 22.2007 → February 20.2008

]]> videos RebelsInControl 2008-01-29T13:55:21+00:00 The Guardian - Steve Jansen "Slope" http://www.samadhisound.com/reviews/the_guardian_steve_jansen_slope.html Steve Jansen co-founded Japan with his brother David Sylvian; Jansen's drumming - funky and precise - was a key component of that band's lightly manicured prog-pop. Jansen has been a sidekick for many of Sylvian's post-Japan sonic adventures, from solo albums via Rain Tree Crow to Nine Horses. Slope, Jansen's first solo album, develops similar moods with a mixture of exquisite, groove-based soundscapes and introspective torch songs. Several singers contribute, including Thomas Feiner (Anywhen), Tim Elsenburg, Anja Garbarek, Joan Wasser (aka Joan As Policewoman), Nina Kinert and Sylvian, who contributes the slightly underwhelming Playground Martyrs. Theo Travis adds wind instruments. Most of the sounds are made by Jansen, who has an improviser's ear for details of timbre, and a pop drummer's knack for catchy patterns: witness the hypnotic, asymmetrical Sleepyard, the careful sloppiness of Ballad of a Deadman (Wasser and Sylvian) and the gorgeous Sow the Salt, featuring Feiner's magisterial baritone.

Rating 4/5

JOHN L. WALTERS

]]> reviews SteveJansen 2007-12-08T14:07:26+00:00 bbc.co.uk - Steve Jansen "Slope" http://www.samadhisound.com/reviews/bbccouk_steve_jansen_slope.html Steve Jansen may not be a familiar name unless you have a taste for '80s art pop and are the sort to pore over liner notes. That's because Jansen is probably best known as David Sylvian's brother. Sylvian was the lead singer of Japan and, since the early '80s, has developed a reputation as a respected solo artist. Jansen has played drums and percussion on many of his brother's releases, as well as working with other ex-members of Japan in a variety of guises. This, however, is Jansen's first work as leader in a career spanning almost three decades.
The album steals in with fragile percussion from which rises a pensive melody. This first track, "Grip", is skeletal, insect-like, troubled by subtle breezes. It sounds impressively contemporary, one foot planted even in the near future and by its end it has developed a febrile majesty. "Sleepyard" is dreamier still, flecked with dust motes and girded by nostalgia. It's the first of six tracks to feature guest vocalists. This time it's Tim Elsenburg of the redoubtable Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Later tracks offer up Anja Garbarek, brother Sylvian and Joan Wasser aka Joan As Policewoman. Thomas Feiner's contribution is the only slight mis-step, offering up an approximation of Tom Waits' brand of lugubrious yearning that is a little too close for comfort. The combination of songs and atmospheric instrumentals makes for an attractively varied experience.

COLIN BUTTIMER

]]> reviews SteveJansen 2007-12-08T14:07:26+00:00