Now-Again Records

Announcing: Rodinia – Ex Anima

Exclusive pre-sale at our webstore at Rappcasts. WW release date 09.08.

Electronic Krautrock in line with Cluster, Harmonia, Neu!, Popul Vuh from Jay Whitefield (Poets of Rhythm/Whitefield Brothers/Karl Hector & The Malcouns): the second Rodinia album.

Rodinia’s first album, Drumside/Dreamside, featured two, side-long suites, with synthesizers taking the fore on an overarching ambient approach (featuring over-dubbed reeds, drums and guitar, and self-made Moroccan field recordings introducing the project on its Drumsidewww.)

For Ex Anima, Rodinia has incorporated more of the mid-70s approach of Krautrock forebears Neu!, Cluster and Harmonia, with shorter, self contained songs. The result is winesome and exploratory, respectfully distanced from the past’s trappings while celebrating a musical spirit still very much alive and influential.

With original artwork by Jason Jagel.

Rodinia – Ex Anima

Side A:
1. Non Ex Orbis, Ex Anima (Intro) (Weissenfeldt)
2. Bürgerpark (Schleiermacher)
3. Overtones Of Ling (Weissenfeldt/Schleiermacher)
4. Dark Echoes (Weissenfeldt)

Side B:
1. Neusi (Weissenfeldt)
2. Makifamba (Schleiermacher)
3. Dork Times (Weissenfeldt/Schleiermacher)
4. Drohne Zurück! (Schleiermacher/Weissenfeldt)

Rodinia is:

Johannes Schleiermacher: Synthesizer, Saxophone, Flute, Field Recordings
JJ Whitefield: Synthesizer, Guitar, Piano
Bernd Oeszevim: Drums, Percussion

With Guests:

Marja Burchard – Voice (“Non Ex Orbis”)
Oliver Roth – Flute (“Dark Echoes”)
Simon Ackermann – Double Bass (“Non Ex Orbis”)

Recorded by Schleiermacher & Whitefield at Hermann-Lingg, München
Recorded by Whitefield/Schleiermacher at Hermann-Lingg/Munich and Home/Berlin
Drums recorded by Karl-Erik Enkelmann at Lakeside Studios/Berlin
Mixed by Whitefield/Schleiermacher at Hermann-Lingg/Munich

Produced by JJ Whitefield & Johannes Schleiermacher
Artwork by Jason Jagel. Art direction by Errol Richardson.

LP, CD, Digital. 2016. NA5154.

What Is Rodinia? Or: Ambient Krautrock In Images

We announced JJ Whitefield’s latest project for Now-Again – Rodinia’s Drumside/Dreamside – in an earlier post. And, given that it’s really hard to put into words just why the project is so damn intriguing to us, we decided to put it into visual form. Check it out above and, if you’re into it, purchase it here, via our Rappcats webstore.

Out Now – Rodinia “Drumside/Dreamside”

Ambient Krautrock in line with Cluster, Popul Vuh, Tangerine Dream by Jay Whitefield (Poets of Rhythm/Whitefield Brothers/Karl Hector & The Malcouns). Out now!

Buy it at our webstore at rappcats.com – ships immediately!

Now-Again Records has enjoyed a long and creative partnership with Munich-based multi-instrumentalist JJ Whitefield, creative force behind the Poets of Rhythm, Whitefield Brothers and Karl Hector & The Malcouns. Rodinia, his latest project, is quite different than anything that’s come from his oeuvre to date, but follows in the line of the Poets of Rhythm’s great Discern/Define, as it reaches back to Krautrock’s experimental hey day but pushes its boundaries with a post-hip-hop approach.

That’s to say that everything you read in the header above is true, but the ambient sound Whitefield and his Rodinia collaborator – saxophonist and keyboardist Johannes Schleiermacher – reached for found itself morphing over the course of a year. What was originally recorded in a two-day studio lock-in, which found Whitefield and Schleiermacher hooking up “all our vintage synths (Korg MS-20, Moog Prodigy, Roland Juno 60, Jen SX 1000, Korg Polysix), triggering everything with a vintage Korg rhythm box, absorbing some mind altering substances and jamming out,” was later turned into two, side-long suites, with over-dubbed reeds, drums and guitar, and self-made Moroccan field recordings introducing the project on its Drumside.

The result is as winesome and exploratory as those from their forebears, but respectfully distanced from the past’s trappings. With original artwork by Jason Jagel (DOOM’s Mm Food, Operation DOOMsday).