Mole News & Interviews
By Mole Listening Pearls
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Podcast Description
The task to define Mole borders on sheer impossibility, as Mole manages to metamorphose into almost anything without losing its distinctive identity. Mole moves in the realm of electronic music, so much for sure. Mole oscillates between the poles of abstraction and club suitability by consciously transcending established genres or any kind of categorisation. The objective of Mole is to release good Music of true artists while generating positive vibes. Sounds banal, but hits the bull´s eye. The artists and their music create an acoustic mosaic which is constantly reassembled but always remains recognisable. A paradox: although there is no typical Mole sound, you can immediately feel and sense the sound of Mole. The resolution to this paradox is anchored in the label´s core ideas and the mission of the Mole artists. The mission of the artists can be found in their music with the music being their message. The core ideas of Mole include the determined willingness to foster its artists and to provide them with time and space to develop their message. Mole does not steal a glance on short-term success but has its eye on long-term building up. The resulting quality is the trademark of Mole. The whole thing is quite obviously an experiment: an open production process with unpredictable outcome - subjected to continuous control of ground-breaking potential and quality.. But life in general can be seen as an experiment, can´t it? And does not nature create new forms every day? Mole is like life: incalculable, inexhaustible, multi-faceted, lustrous and prolific. Mole is constantly in motion and generates new formats. Mole is sound evolution.
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CleanMärtini Brös visit the Berlin Nursery School For Orphan Robot Kids | Partners in music for over 12 years, Berlin based duo Clé and Mike Vamp are the inimitable Märtini Brös. They released 3 full length albums and countless singles with a rich, playful and catchy electronic sound that helped define a movement for a generation of more refined club-goers. Now the Brös are back with their fourth longplayer; a majestic, dextrous voyage through the many styles and zones the pair share a passion for. 'Moved By Mountains' is a fully-fledged achievement in both sound and songwriting. Settling in to the peaceful and positive vibes of 'Overture', the album gets underway with the amazing textures of 'Jericho' - a sentimental slow jam which sets the tone for the warm electronica elements found throughout the album. Quickly flipping the switch with the modern pop of 'Stay Amazing' feat. Manye Thompson's distinctive vocal message, a veritable treat lies in store with addictive, post-modern songs like 'Jolly Good Time', 'Why' feat. Louie Austen, or the spine-tingling 'The Door'. The smokey tones of Eric D. Clark are spread thickly over 'Physics', once again carrying a unique message; synth pop moments flow with 'Gang Of Two', full of uplifting, positive moments, while the more experimental electronics of 'Beautiful Children Of Mumu' or 'Little Nemo' highlight the duo's skills behind their collection of analog gear. The astounding work draws to a close with the simply epic 'Yellow' and 'End Of The Year' which really brings out Clé's singing voice - which features on many of the album's songs. Over 14 songs, casually and expertly merging production skill and seasoned ears with beautiful melodic passages, guest instrumentation and choice vocalists, 'Moved By Mountains' is surely their greatest achievement to date. | 3/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanMoon talks about "Neumond" | Moon presents their next labour of love called “Neumond” - elements of pop music mixed with electronics, triphop and house in a quite personal and gentle manner. They define their own genre and invite the listener to a journey through pleasure, deep moods, delightfulness, sadness and happy feelings. Alex Jacobi finally joined Moon as producer and lead their compositions to a degree of perfection which still sounds natural ... artificial? ... you have to listen to experience the layers of emotions and sounds. | 12/19/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanDigital Alkemist talks about "Fuga Magica" | “Fuga Magica” is exactly what the title says. The actual and musical runaway from a dark era through streets and alleys, keys and notes, cables and knobs. A morbid and confused feeling is rising up…. A session in a smokey backroom, a performance at the dark theatre, a hangover after a rainy night but also a visit at the vineyard and a walk at Venice beach. All of these, combined with the Magic and the unexpected that life itself contains in his stories day in and day out – this is what “Fuga Magica” is meant to be and represents. The artist Costas Chrysogelos a.k.a Digital Alkemist has recorded this album in Athens and partially in Miami from October 2008 to February 2010. He creates an album without repeating himself in sounds and melodies. It is the first full vocal album with lots of natural instruments and less electronic soundscapes – as usual. Fuga Magica for him was a territory exploring new ways of creating music. Acoustic guitars, keys, violins, solid basslines, tripped out grooves and a ton of other instruments without missing the electronic background. On Fuga Magaica you will find trip hop, rock, funk and downtempo tracks all polished with the shine of electronic glimpse and perfect voices. A perfect mixture of music! | 9/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanNaomi talks about "The Big Shapes" | The British star producers Xenomania (Pet Shop Boys, Sugababes) recently asked Naomi for a sample (they got it); Naomi's three year old fan favourite "Needle On The Record" is a constant seller in the US iTunes Store; their Myspace and Facebook pages are brimming with love letters from Russia, Mexico, Texas or Taiwan. In their native Germany they are still something of a best-kept secret, regardless of consistently euphoric press reviews, but this might well change with The Big Shapes, their new, fifth Album on Mole Listening Pearls. The abundance of ideas, the songwriting, the attitude – everything has grown bigger, louder and sharper in the Naomi universe. Bernd Lechler and Nico Tobias Wirtz still show the odd fit of incurable melancholy, but this time any world weariness comes clad in choruses that make you want to shout "Holy Kylie!". The overall sound of the album reminds one of... well, nothing else, really. Massive backbeats carry scratchy guitar riffs, buzzing synths cut through gentle electric piano lines as the Berlin duo digs deep into the pop vocabulary of the past four decades. "Fujiyama“ is an electro blues with elegiac Melodica and a downright symphonic final, “Candy Floss“ is a lazily stomping contemporary funk pop monster, and what happens in “Hello Fever“ after a soaring cosmic intro could almost be labeled as prog rock. The thing is, Naomi never play it safe here. They seem to intentionally provoke the coolness police, casting away any tasteful cleverness of comparable indietronic acts and, smiling quietly, they lay it on thick. The Big Shapes draws on the forbidden side of the Eighties (the Phil Collins drums on “Morning Belle“), mischievously quotes heavy metal guitar lines (as for a few bars in “Dragon Tree“), and makes nods toward Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode as well as Chic and the psychedelic Beatles. Still, like any great fun, The Big Shapes is propelled by great seriousness. “First Things First“ gleefully exaggerates the disillusioned pragmatism of the noughties, “Hello Fever“ sounds like a feverish dream about the financial crisis, “Sleep“ ponders the fact that only those who don’t act at all make no mistakes. Behind the stoically grooving psychedelic pop of “Don‘t Die Again OK“ there lurks a childhood nightmare, and the vocoder-based final track “I‘ll Be The Past“, possibly the most touching song of the album, is a humble, obviously autobiographically inspired meditation on mortality, almost a prayer. Reviewing their last album, Aquarium, Rolling Stone magazine described Naomi as “wondrous“. They still are. Just this time with a bang. | 7/1/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanAudio Lotion talks about "Bad Timing" | If Audio Lotion's new album were the soundtrack for a crime, then the latter would have been committed out of love and passion in self-defense: our hero was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, too often - well, "Bad Timing" – and he knows too much... Mr. Gamma is on the run, in a silver-grey Jaguar XKR, racing along the Côte d'Azur from Nice via Eze sur Mer towards Monaco. At the wheel there’s a cross between Jason Bourne, 007, and Ethan Hunt, betrayed by friends and foes, hunted by his past. Escape, start anew somewhere, or face his pursuers and wipe them out? In a speedboat across the rough Mediterranean Sea to Algier. There, those dogs almost get him! Through the deadly Sahara into the orient. Waingro, an old contact in Beirut, provides him with the necessary gadgets. The chase continues with 140 BPM! Run, hide, or die! For more than ten years, Audio Lotion have been inspiring the press to storms of superlatives: „The perfect lounge sound“, „Music that belongs to the daily needs like eating and drinking“, „Absolutely necessary for heart and ears“, „Refreshing“, „Pleasant“, „Relaxing“, „Sensual“, and „Sexy“. And as the icing on the cake, Audio Lotion’s music found its way into the queen of lifestyle TV series: Sex and the City. However, their fifth album "Bad Timing" deserved even more superlatives: the duo from Zurich puts into motion a one-hour power plant of feelings. A musical thriller that sends a neuronal firework from the brain stem into the cortex and produces fantastic images and stories. "Bad Timing“ is eustress with its most positive (scientifically proven) effects on body and soul. The album motivates and stimulates. | 6/18/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanZagar Interview | Zagar are a headliner of the Hungarian electronic music scene. Their unique sound is based on electronic tunes, dub and rock elements flavoured by Eastern European soundtrack moods. The story of the band began in 2001 after the Shallow and Profound Tour, when three members of the "Yonderboi Quintet" (the live band around the Hungarian artist Yonderboi) started rehearsing separately from the Quintet. Balázs Zságer, Andor Kovács and DJ Bootsie performed with the new drummer Tibor Lázár as "Pulzus". The material they put together during the rehearsals and the earlier solo works of Balázs Zságer were synthesized and led to the creation of the characteristic sounds of the new band. In the summer of 2002 they played at different festivals in Hungary and abroad as well: this time under the new band name "Zagar". That year they also recorded their first album "Local Broadcast". The album was released end of 2002 in Hungary by Ugar Records (UCMG) and 2003 in Austria by Universal Jazz. "Local Broadcast" has received a warm welcome abroad by professionals and collectors alike. In Hungary, the album was selected for the chart of the 50 all time most important Hungarian records by the music magazine WAN2 beside albums from Yonderboi and Anima Sound System. Songs from Zagar have been incorporated also into short and feature films and their tracks appear several times in popular TV series like CSI. Their original soundtrack for a feature film, "Eastern Sugar" won the The Hungarian Film Critics‘ Award". They like to work with young contemporary film makers, animators and fine artists also. On their latest album entitled "Cannot Walk Fly Instead", they mix cosmic electronic tunes with psychedelic prog-rock while sometimes using church choir elements and quotes from movies to merge the past and the future in a surrealistic way. For the song "Wings of Love" they invite on top six of the most popular independent female singers from Hungary (The Underground Divas). The concept of the album is a kind of exodus from the stereotypes of cosmopolitan urban living, delving into the mysteries and spiritual experiences of the 21st Century Man. They try to convey their imaginations with simple regular issues as solitude, desire for love, nostalgia or vanity. "Cannot Walk Fly Instead" entered the top 10 charts immediately in Hungary. Its first single "Wings of Love", featuring the Underground Divas - earned heavy radio airplay and secured a no 1 position on the "MTV Video Charts". They have earned numerous awards for this record, most notably the "Hungarian Record Industry Fonogram Award" and second prize in the "International Songwriting Competition 2008". They were nominated for the "MTV Best Local Act" in 2008. They are also nominated for the "Regional Award" in the "MTV European Music Awards 2009" in Berlin. Zagar supported the band "Depeche Mode" at the Budapest leg of the "Tour of the Universe" in 2009. | 11/26/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanOhm Square Interview | Ohm Square is one of the most famous Czech bands. Until now Ohm Square were honoured with two Popular Music Academy's Angel Awards and the caption „Band Of The Decade“ by the only Czech indie radio station Radio 1. Meanwhile they toured with Fat Boy Slim, Lou Reed, Coldcut, Kosheen and the EZ Rollers and produced three albums. Now, Mole Listening Pearls presents the next big album from Czech electro-pop combo called "Taking Shape". | 6/1/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanDadamnphreaknoizphunk Interview | On the album "The Cheerleaders Are Smilin' At You" Dadamnphreaknoizphunk presents sounds and moods between Trip Hop, Downbeat, Soul, Funk, Acid and Electro in a mixture that brings high comfort to the listener but furthermore the possibility to explore great music with wonderful quotations and a relaxed music experience. As Hardfloor they worked out their own place in music history by releasing great electronic music. In 1992 they released their "Hardtrance Acperience EP" on Sven Väth's cult status label Harthouse. This EP made them famous for their innovative sound far beyond European boundaries. The song "Acperience 1", which even made its way into the UK charts, is still one of the milestones of Techno culture. Apart from working as producers Hardfloor are very requested remixers for International pop acts like Depeche Mode, Mike Oldfield, New Order, Yello, Human League, Mory Kante and Anne Clark, as well as more underground styleTechno acts like Robert Armani, Secret Cinema, A Guy Called Gerald, Gui Boratto or the Rising High Collective. In 1995 Hardfloor presented the first Dadamnphreaknoizphunk EP on Harthouse which was followed by the second in 1997 and in 1999 the first album on !K7 followed. With "Take Off Da Hot Sweater" (2002) and "Lost & Found" (2003) the next two albums were released on Combination Records, a German label based near Düsseldorf. As Dadamnphreaknoizphunk Bondzio, who socialized with Hip Hop and Electro, and Zenker, who began his musical education with e-bass and synthesizer, went to the more relaxed areas of electronic music using dope beats, funky electro basslines, samples from nearly every genre and the 303 structures they are famous for. | 2/11/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanRobert Manos Interview | Robert Manos is a New York based singer and musician who has collaborated on Techno, Drum and Bass and Deep House releases with Jesper Dahlbäck, Seba, Terry Lee Brown Junior, Paradox, Hugg and Pepp, John Dahlbäck, Charles Webster and Alexi Delano. In 2002, Robert began collaborating on projects with Jesper Dahlbäck and Sebastian Ahrenberg in Stockholm (Sweden), starting with the deep house track "My World". The first full album from Robert Manos called "Angel Road" (mole082-2) was co-produced by Jesper Dahlbäck and Sebastian Ahrenberg as well and was recorded at Globe Studios in Stockholm. Additional recordings for his debut album were done at Ingarö Studios (Sweden), in Budapest (Hungary) and a certain small apartment facing east high above 7th ave, New York (USA). | 6/17/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanMoon Interview | Moon presents their labour of love called “Gorsky Park” - elements of pop music mixed with electronics, trip-hop and house in a quite personal and gentle manner. They define their own genre and invite the listener to a journey through pleasure, deep moods, delightfulness, sadness and happy feelings. Alex Jacobi finally joined Moon as producer and lead their compositions to a degree of perfection which still sounds natural ... artificial? ... you have to listen to experience the layers of emotions and sounds. | 12/4/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTalk about Alphawezen with Bruce (Interviewer), Vicky (Asu) und Fred (Ernst) | Under their nom de guerre Alphawezen respectively Ernst Wawra and his singing comrades-in-arms Asu, Verena, Simone and Fred shows with the third album "Comme Vous Voulez" their expertise in the weird and wonderful world of electro-apparatus again. A typical Alphawezen recording session is less like a composer’s studio session than a conspirative get-together, replete with elated twitterings and chirpings, murmured and whispered exchanges of secrets and piquant remarks. The reward for this courteous treatment of the machines resonates through the very first track: “Green Eyes” is possessed of a complex and magical melancholy peculiar to creatures who, after centuries of slavery, have at long last been proffered a helping hand (namely, Mr. Wawra’s nimble-fingered one). The masterfully interwoven melodies, which have become hallmarks of Alphawezen’s music, evoke en passant delectable scenes in the mind’s eye of the attentive listener. In this case it’s the iridescent self-abnegating “tears in rain” that android replicant Roy Batty talks about so movingly in the movie Blade Runner. But the forceful string theme at the close of the piece intimates that some day the machines might no longer take their exploitation “lying down”, as it were. We can only hope compassionate voices like Asu’s here will then assuage their rage: “Hush, hush, let's get lost,” she sings, or rather whispers, to us on the second track, “Gun Song”. And indeed, the strings that come in again at the end of the song are no longer marching toward their just cause, but exude a sighing soulful well-being like that of the Beast bewitched by its beloved Beauty. Before you yield yourself up in wonder to the astounding maturity of Wawra’s menagerie of machines in the serene climes of the redemptive grand finale hymn “Doux Rêves”, there’s a lot to discover – and sometimes even to smile at. In “Film3” or “Freeze”, for instance, Wawra elicits from a very affable specimen of an old Korg synthesizer the very sweetest of sound-pearls from the depths of his creaturely trance. On this third album Alphawezen takes us through the vast realm between experimentation and calculated effects, bringing us the circle back to the first album. Since the days of the legendary band Kraftwerk, many have shown that machines can produce more than just rhythmically repetitive booming and thumping. But it wasn’t till Alphawezen’s musical experiments that we learned that polyphonically intertwined enunciations of their vitality have the melodic quality and complexity of 19th-century Italian arias. | 10/16/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanClub Bangahs Interview | Club Bangahs teach you black music history while incorporating moods and topics of HipHop, Jazz, Soul, Earth Wind and Fire, Funk… an incredibly entertaining mixture of good grooves and atmospheres! Representing compository structures of “Modal Jazz” the composers - namely Marc Steinmeier and Michael “!BAZZ” Jackson - make a tribute to Miles Davis and you also experience the flute sound of Eric Dolphy - supposed to be the first “chill sound” composer. Another inspiration for the kind of experimental way of dealing with many different roots is the sound of the Stacks and Motown Flavour. Contrary to the basic sources the Club Bangahs bring together what you never heard in this context: Black Music with experimental electronics and mad ideas. Marc Steinmeier is the musical composer. He worked and remixed for great Musicians as Eminem, LL Cool J, Christina Aguilera, Jungle Brothers and many more. He had been remarkable successful with Nuclear Hyde which got one of the big names concerning trance music in the nineties. And he is still a pioneer of music and has constantly developed unique and fresh styles, creating new standards all the time. | 6/20/07 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWax Tailor Interview | 2006 was another top year for Wax Tailor. After his first two EPs „Lost the Way“ and „Que Sera / Where´s my heart at“ and the massive success of his debutalbum (more than 50.000 sold units and eight months in the official French Sales Charts) "Tales Of The Forgotten Melodies" (mole069-2) was getting release on Mole Listening Pearls as well. This album takes you on a 52 minutes long journey into the depth of his “cinematic hip hop” - 18 tracks raising loads of memories for sure. Wax Tailor uses samples in his music as film directors use actors. His record is conceived as an orchestral movie between hip-hop and downtempo where Wax Tailor hijacks “The forgotten melodies” and tells a story of his own where each track is a sequence. In this large patchwork of numerous influences and multiple references to the seventh art, major names of the twentieth century music (Doris Day, Nina Simone...) could get a chance to meet Stanly Kubrick, Woody Allen or Alfred Hitchcock. | 5/10/06 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 13 Episodes |
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