RUSSIAN PAGE |  PLAYLISTS | FEATURED ARTISTS  |  FEATURED LABELS |  ABOUT US  |  LINKS  |  MAIL Tarwater links:
- Tarwater's page: http://atrecordings.com/tarwater/index.html
- Tarwater »VAT« (.mp3 3,615k) -zipped - fine example of the Tarwater sound, the last track on their 1998 album »Silur« (Kitty Yo)
- Tarwater at Epitonic - info + 4 full lengh tracks in mp3.
- Tarwater's video - The Watersample
From Motion site. Tarwater Silur Kitty-Yo Silur is pretty representative of the output of Berlin's Kitty-Yo, whose sampler CD earlier this year featured the fine Go Plus and (label founders) Surrogat alongside Bernd Jestram and Ronald Lippok's Tarwater. Focussing on Kitty-Yo's patronage of the burgeoning German avant-garde post-rock and electronica scenes, the compilation's stand-out track was Tarwater's 'The Watersample', and this is the finest track on this album too. Certainly one of the year's most beautiful pieces of smart pop music, built on a looping, plaintive string sample amid a skilfully crafted arrangement of guitars and found sounds, and adorned with drummer/vocalist/DJ Ronald Lippok's carefully minimalist narration, it reminds one of Marcus Schmickler's Pluramon, yet has a mannered originality of its own. And it's characteristic of the Tarwater sound, employing loops, samples, and considerable studio work, though their prominent use of guitars and vocals places them squarely in a post-rock vein rather than electronica. Moreover, these are most definitely 'songs', and so Tricky is a reference as much as Tortoise - at times, a more considered, less theatrical version of The The's "Mind Bomb" even came to mind. A talent for production is evident throughout, and there are several moments in which the choice, recording, and rendering of sound pricks your ears: the skittering electric squawks of 'To Moauf' and striking scraped guitar strings of 'Otomo' for instance. Tarwater embody the serious, (brown?) suit-wearing side of post-rock, as opposed to the shabby Carhartt workwear of, say, the Chicago set; their languid mid-tempo grooves and reserved monotone observations are clearly in a continental tradition of sorts. 'Seafrance Cezanne' employs a female narrator, whose precise, passionless tones recall Paul Sch?tze's Second Site, though telling a story rather than telling a space, yet 'V-at' is charmingly quirky phased synth-pop. Despite the sense of drifting melancholy, a motion contributor at their recent London gig reports that they can cut it live too. A beguiling album.
Out of Riouxs comments: TARWATER - Silur CD/LP (Kitty Yo) $16.50 CD / $10.25 LP Brand new third full length, an intense and mood-reflective masterpiece from the contemporary German universe -- one of finest albums of the era within it's context. "Bernd Jestram and Ronald Lippok aka Tarwater have been around for a while now. First and frequently with Ornament und Verbrechen (the legendary Eastern German pop art- underground), Lippok still as one third of To Rococo Rot and Jestram in his 'Bleibeil' studio, where he works on recordings for fellow musicians and stage/ film productions. It is in this studio that Tarwater recorded their new longplayer Silur. DJing (loops, breakbeats, cut up, speaches), electronic experiments and classical song structures lay next to each other in Tarwater's music, which leads them in the direction of artists as DJ Shadow or Tricky. ....and one can find a long list of other references: early 90s East Coast Hip Hop, the Coil of the Horse Rotovator Phase, the Crooklyn Dub Consortium, the minimal electronic sets of DJ Kazi Lenka and Taschensound, and the compositions of Carl Wilson. Still: the intuition kicks out the strategy and gives this music a rather mysterious pop-appeal."
From Drawer B Media Reviews: Tarwater Silur (Mute) Tarwater is another fine German export featuring Ronald Lippok of To Rococo Rot that blends rock oriented sounds with repeated loops, breakbeats, simulated vinyl hiss, and a dark soulfulness, creating a serene and expansive soundscape in the vein of a less accessible Tricky or Portishead. Silur is the band's fourth full length and is imbued with a languid and sample-heavy atmosphere. Haunting and calculatingly cold spoken word verses are juxtaposed with these layered sound effects to add a scientific element to the mix. The overwhelming theme is that of water (Silur refers to the Silurian Age, which is when the Earth was covered with water), which is brilliantly displayed in "The Watersample." Silur is a steady mid-tempo ride of escapist electronic experimentalism. At the heart off all of this syncopated noise is classic songwriting. Each song is tightly constructed with lots of synthetics, but it all somehow maintains sparseness. "Ford" breaks out of the mid-tempo trance and features deliberately staid vocals with disturbing computer generated backing vocals. "20 Miles Up" ups the beats per minute ever so slightly and recalls Kraftwerk in its simplicity and repetition. The melodies are dramatic, combining minor chord morosity with post rock surrealism. Silur is a commanding and sincere record that will undoubtedly land high on the list of best picks for the year. Review by Eric G.
From Radiospy: Tarwater Animals, Suns and Atoms Mute The Teutons sound another boom with more experimental electronic pop Mute Records has always used a slightly broader ideal of "electronic" music than most record companies. Seemingly unconcerned with current trends in pop music, the label consistently cultivates some of the more avant garde artists of the genre, attempting to bring them to the masses. Less electronic than member Ronald Lippok's other band, To Rococo Rot, Tarwater is part of a growing breed of German post-rock acts (known in critical circles as the Teutonic Boom) like Kriedler and To Rococo Rot, whose unconventional form of pop music is best suited to college radio play. Animals, Suns and Atoms, Tarwater's fifth full-length album, is a rather low-key affair, very quiet and calm, never exceeding a certain speed limit in tempo or intensity. About the heaviest Lippok and his Tarwater partner, Bernd Jestram, get is with the odd, dark-tinged, dub-inflected "Early Risers." Most of the album, however, resembles the short, sweet and amorphously ambient instrumental piece, "Somewhere." There's a contemplative quality to these compositions, though they manage to maintain the immediacy of an improvisational jam session. Live or sequenced, it's hard to tell exactly how the songs' rhythms were formed, but in a genre inundated by the machinelike precision of MIDI, even a drum machine can seem organic in comparison. With their additional use of cello, flute, sitar and guitar -- wonderfully understated, by the way -- Tarwater have definitely broken the bounds of conventional electronic music. This makes the band's sound hard to pinpoint; the blend of instrument and voices have a late '70s-early '80s flavor, particularly on the closing track, "Seven Ways to Fake a Perfect Skin." The simplistic analog keyboard lines, lyrics and vocals of the song bring to mind German electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk. Yet Tarwater's heavy use of the laid-back shuffle beat (brought into vogue by late '80s Manchester bands such as Stone Roses and Charlatans and now assimilated into the whole of pop music) lends the music a more contemporary feel. Tarwater's vocals may put off some people, being largely cool-headed spoken-word prose, not unlike something parodied by Mike Myers' Saturday Night Live character Dieter, host of the fantasy German high-brow art show Sprockets. Then again, the group's talk-singing also resembles the very-American Lou Reed in its flat, dry, toneless delivery (check "All of the Ants Left Paris" and "Low Frequency"), and Reed gets away with being a pretty artsy fellow himself and not being parodied too often. Vocally -- and otherwise -- "Noon" is Tarwater's finest offering on the album, featuring sultry but downplayed guest vocals by Justine Electra and utilizing short, sharp choir samples as accents in the bed of haunting guitar, subtle synths, minor-key piano and reverb-heavy drum beats. Though uncomplicated in structure, Animals, Suns and Atoms is rife with dreamy ambience and lilting melodies that drift by like so much dandelion fluff, refreshing and delighting the beholder's senses with the beauty of honest simplicity. Electronic music or indie rock -- fans of the experimental side of either genre are sure to bask in the brilliance of Tarwater.
From other misc sources: Ronald Lippok from To Rococo Rot has an other band called Tarwater. Tarwater have published 3 albums so far: -John Donne (impossible to get) -11/6 10/12 -Rabbit moon (remixes album. Rabbit Moon -the song- could have been a perfect epilogue for Main's Dry Stone Feed) Love Jorge
Stefan from To Rococo Rot is also in Kreidler, who are kind of similar to TRR, but less minimal, and perhaps slightly more melodic. As far as I know, their releases to date are: Weekend (album) Resport (remixes mini album) Fechterin (3 track 12") Au Pair (4 track cd / 3 track 12") All are on Kiff SM, except Resport which is on Stewardess Dusseldorff.
From Forced Exposure: Artist: TARWATER Title: Rabbit Moon Label: KITTY YO (GERMANY) Catalog Number: KY 97005CD 1997 album of self-generated remixes, with different track listing than the US variant release Rabbit Moon Revisited that came out on Capstack Records in early '98. Beautifully looping structures & atmosphere from the To Rococo Rot-associated duo of Ronald Lippok (drums, vocals, electronics) & Bernd Jestram (guitar, bass, programming). Artist: TARWATER Title: Rabbit Moon Label: KITTY YO (GERMANY) Artist: TO ROCOCO ROT Title: Label: KITTY YO (GERMANY) Catalog Number: KY 96001CD "In 1996 Robert and Ronald Lippok (also member of Tarwater) and Stefan Schneider (also bassplayer of Kreidler) founded just for a one and off session and recording the project To Rococo Rot. It was no coincidence that To Rococo RotÄs first release was on vinyl. During the self-titled exhibition at Berlin-MitteÄs Weißer Elefant gallery, Robert Lippok used three record players that were rotated by electric drills -- computer-driven, of course. Casually danceable, practical and objective electronic dub, interspersed with house elements. To Rococo Rot was the first and most influential German so-called postrock band."