Steven King
Been listening to Luke since 93, his productions are excellent. He is up there with the best, a creative genius.
Favorite track: Surface Bound.
A-TON is a new edition and platform of Berghain's in-house imprint Ostgut Ton, focussing on ambient, archive and alternative music, differing from the club-focussed records on the main label. Furthermore the first A-TON offering – Chronicles I – marks the start of a series from Luke Slater's The 7th Plain moniker, with remastered, previously released and unheard archive material.
First published on General Production Recordings between 1993 and 1996, Slater's The 7th Plain pushed the further burgeoning genre of ambient music towards its boundaries by not limiting itself to mostly beatless synth pads, but by including propulsive beat progressions, nuanced rhythms and subtle melodies. The 7th Plain's extramundane music dodged classification, as heard on the albums The 4 Cornered Room and My Yellow Wise Rug (both on GPR, 1994) – emotional, eerie and escapist music, at the time of release forward thinking records that in retrospect managed to overcome time.
Originally recorded at Slater's Spacestation Ø, now all newly mastered for A-TON, Chronicles I depicts the futurist aesthetic and musical agenda of the 90s in a contemporary context, without nostalgia but confidence of its timelessness. With seven original musical pieces and a previously unreleased Ken Ishii remix, The 7th Plain sounds as spirited and relevant as ever.
While “Boundaries” (taken from My Yellow Wise Rug), “Grace” and “Surface Bound” (from The 4 Cornered Room) should be familiar to Slater aficionados, “The Super 8”, “T Funk States”, “Slip 7 Sideways” and “Chords Are Dirty” are previously unheard like the aforementioned remix of Ishii's “Extra”.
credits
released August 5, 2016
All tracks written and produced by Luke Slater @spacestationzero UK, except 7 written and produced by Luke Slater and Alan Sage
Track 2 original written and produced by Ken Ishii, remix and additional production by Luke Slater
Artwork: Viron Erol Vert
A truly remarkable album! I'd like to add that this is one of very few albums that I think truly sound better on vinyl, as it only enhances the intended experience. Every little bit seeps with atmosphere, like watching a dystopian, heavily grainy, space movie with ships surveying distant planets. That goes for the artwork as well, to which I'm sure everyone can agree, is the perfect marriage of both sound and visualization. Here's to hoping there'll be a 2846! Trisska
Dazzling guitar-based compositions from this French duo that pair the lightness of ambient music with intricate playing. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 24, 2023