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AKATOMBO - Unconfirmed Reports

Format: CD + DVD-R
Label & Cat.Number: Hand-Held Recordings HHR#01
Release Year: 2009
Note: rhythmic drone industrial trance, dark & brooding; 2nd album (after the debut on SWIM) from this Scottish/Japanese project; lim./numb. 500 copies in oversized envelope with two art print inlays & bonus DVD-R with three films; highly recommended if you like really challenging rhythmic stuff !!
Price (incl. 19% VAT): €12.00
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More Info

"Format - CD (w/ bonus 3 film dvd-r) [Hand-numbered edition in oversized printed envelope - contains two photographic art-prints, two random newspaper cuttings, the full-length CD and a bonus 3 film dvd-r of promotional films featuring music from the album]
Release Date - late-July 2009

Dark, brooding, occasionally menacing, yet deeply seductive; the 2nd full-length release from AKATOMBO, "Unconfirmed Reports", is an in-depth, electronic-based, audio/visual travelogue of late autumn through to early spring, as seen through the warts-and-all tinted-spectacles of Hiroshima-based artist, ( & ex-pat Scotsman), Paul Thomsen Kirk.
"Unconfirmed Reports", carries on the recurrent, underlying themes of urban alienation & social exclusion first presented on the much critically acclaimed debut Akatombo release, "trace elements", which was released on Colin (WIRE) Newman`s SWIM label.
From skimming the surface, to trawling the dank underbelly; the daily minutiae of life in a large Japanese city is duly presented in all its garish hues and faded glories. Accessing all areas, and dispelling numerous urban myths along the way, "Unconfirmed Reports", allows you, the wilfully willing participant, the perfect opportunity to immerse yourself completely in a thoroughly enticing, 360-degree, technicolour, sonic adventure.
Hang on to your seat(s); and NO talking at the back.....

>The new album is housed in a special over-sized, elaborately printed envelope containing; two large photographic prints, two random newspaper cuttings (each copy has different cuttings), the cd, & also a bonus 3 track dvd-r of promo videos; two of the videos have been shown @ over 20 film festivals in 12 different countries, (incl. U.S., Canada, France, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Greece, UK, Spain & Japan), in the past 2 years to great critical acclaim. Each album is hand-numbered too. Thus, each copy is quite unique.<
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Potted History of Paul Thomsen Kirk

An expatriate Scottish musician/film-maker/photographer who has resided in Hiroshima, Japan for the past 11 years and counting.
Prior to his move to the Far East, he played in numerous UK-based punk & experimental noise bands from 1980 onwards. (The Actives/Twisted Nerve.......check e-Bay for prices!!).
During the 90`s, up until his relocation to Hiroshima, he was, amongst other things; the manager/independent label buyer for a successful record-store in Edinburgh; the product-manager for a San-Francisco based independent music distributor dealing with labels such as Pathological, Communion, Boner, Hangman, Sarah, Grand Royal, Alternative Tentacles & bands such as Melvins, Folk Implosion, Bitch Magnet, Jawbreaker, Terminal Cheesecake, MDC, East River Pipe, Beastie Boys, etc. etc.; a freelance photographer in Montreal, Canada; a tour manager/manager for many UK-based bands including Ganger, (ex-Domino) + The Kaisers (legendary Scots beat outfit on Get Hip label...big in the U.S.); a concert & music festival promoter (incl. the revered Planet Pop 3-week music Festivals (x 2) in Edinburgh; bands included The Fall, Teenage Fanclub, Snow Patrol, Idlewild, Mogwai, Delgados, Prolapse, etc. etc.; an independent record-label owner (Human Condition Records (Idlewild, Eugenius, Forkeye, etc.); and a lover of Macallan 10 yr. old single malt whisky.
He now writes & records under the name, AKATOMBO. He has recorded two full-length albums to date. Namely, "trace elements" on Colin (WIRE) Newman`s SWIM label (WM24), & the just-released album on the Hiroshima-based, Hand-Held Recordings label, "Unconfirmed Reports".(HHR 001).He is now busy @ work on the follow-up full-length release to "unconfirmed reports". And has also begun filming in and around Hiroshima w/ a view to making a new series of short films.
Colin Newman & Graham Lewis (WIRE), Jon Savage, Simon Reynolds & Tom Recchion (Musician/Artist/Designer +Co-Director of the legendary Los Angeles Free Music Society), are fans...... + the guy in Yokohama who engineered the mixes on both studio albums, Makoto Kubota, has worked w/ members of YMO & was a guitarist in the 'legendary' Tokyo band in the mid-late 70's underground scene, Les Rallizes Denudes. [There is a whole chapter in Julian Cope's "Jap Rock Sampler" dedicated to Les Rallizes Denudes............!]" [full label info]

www.myspace.com/akatoombohiroshima


"...The work of a Scotsman, who once lived in SF and now lives in Japan, with a previous record released on Colin Newman's (of Wire) label Swim, and this record engineered by one of the guys from legendary Japanese psych rockers Les Rallizes Denudes... No clues at all to what it might actually sound like, but we needn't have worried, as Akatombo traffic in some seriously dark electronic throb, all deep rumbling bass, and minimal drum skitter. A strange hybrid of more modern dubstep, and old school post industrial soundscapery, the mood is ominous and haunting, the melodies minor key and sinister, the beats aren't big, although they are dense and powerful, but the bass most certainly is, we find ourselves cranking the bass on our system, and every track sets the
whole house a rumbling. A super thick throbbing low end shock wave of sound, that pulses beneath the muted rhythmic pound, and the strange processed voices, the chopped and looped samples, a swirling, roiling blackened sea of low end, that sprawls and oozes. Fans of stuff like Spectre, Scorn and Muslimgauze will definitely dig, in fact, Akatombo does in some ways sound like a composite of those three. Some Eastern influence here and there, some deep bass dub dynamics, some serious industrial leanings, all woven together into a minimal/maximal songsuite of seriously deep listening blackened chillout music, a smoldering smear of some slow motion dancefloor density. We even hear some Portishead in there too, a little jazziness as well, some Bohren maybe? This is definitely some seriously aQ style electronica, a heavy, murky, lowslung late night blackend drone groove, that is more mood music than dance music, which is generally the way we like it.
Packaged in an oversized printed envelope, each one hand numbered, with multiple inserts, newspaper clippings, as well as a dvd- r featuring three video clips. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!" [Aquarius Records]