non016. taub. bedtime stories (digital artist album)

artist: taub
title: bedtime stories
cat.no: non016
format: digital artist album
release date: september 29, 2008
distributed by nonine recordings

tracklist
01 bed
02 sparkle
03 chamber pot
04 wild blue yonder
05 valid bed
06 rouge absolu
07 la ronde at the top
08 dead jerk
09 invalid bed
10 backyard maud the fraudian fairy
11 midgets

all tracks written and produced by harald nono and me raabenstein
mixed by me raabenstein, mastered by shapemod, berlin

www.myspace.com/taubltd

wake up to this album...and you won‘t stop dreaming.

harald nono and me raabenstein come at us with an album, which is truly boundless and interminable. a sound which while very new, will never age in its revered memory. while most albums keep the listener in a separate place than that of which they are trying to portray, this one will cast your mind fluently into its significance, which never ceases. “bedtime stories“ mustn‘t be sifted through for elements which connect the listener, as it will certainly find you, look you straight in the eye and keep you in its exquisite, even handed grip until the very end.

taub takes you on a rare journey. a timeless meander through half conscious daydreams, toying with abstractions, playing with our senses and all we have formally come to recognize as music.
each abstract figure, note and fragment very gently connects to another, creating a harmonious chord derived from unknown habitats. tracks that slip so gently in and out of one another, that one would never look to distinguish when or where it should end. the ideas and sentiments that taub seamlessly emotes are imbedded with intelligent contrasting maestoso bulbous. it is simply an album and experience not to be missed, with moods and rhythms we‘ve only seen while timelessly ambling through our future memories.

with tracks like „la ronde at the top“ one can see the beginnings of some elegant entity beneath a beautiful translucent cherry blossom skin, keeping the listener in some sun stroked awe from its beginning to its unbridled end. ...and of course with the track „midgets,“ which is something like existential nouns beaten with bags of mercurial arts, you will see it deserves all of the praise and then some... after the album; catch a mirror glimpse of your jaded peering eyes, whose look of recherché you will seek unceasingly and yet never quite distinguish, as its only season will be this album.

liner notes by david ennio minor

feedback

verschlafen tagträumende, langsam mäandere beats und drüber hallen wundervolle klavierakkorde., dann wieder entfalten sich scheinbar zwiegespräche zwischen instrumenten und maschinen. spannend...
alfred pranzl, skug.at, austria 12/08

bedside stories is the new release by taub, aka me raabenstein and harold nono. it is a work of haunting sonic landscapes and fragmented realities, glued together with precision and beauty. it will lull you into worlds of spacious minimal sounsdcapes and sonic cinematic journeys, which constantly resolve back to a single sound event or just quiet.
headline on furthernoise.org/home

i was recently introduced to harold nono's music by a friend of mine who was playing his last album to the river lounge. as we were mulling over the lush textures and depth of what is actually very little in terms of complexity, i was unknowingly being given an insight into the aesthetic which very much informs his contribution to bedside stories. of course of equal note and regard is the other half of taub me raabenstein, who apart from being the founder / curator of the nonine label is also well known for his prolific creativity as evidenced in a string of his own acclaimed releases. their collaboration starts on the basis of their commonalities in art (they are also both painters) and 'discovering each others work via the internet', started working together remotely from berlin and edinburgh by sending mixes to each other. after a gestation period of nine months the album was complete and taub was born.

though their instincts are very similar, what they bring together in bedtime stories is two different sides of the same coin. it is a work of haunting sonic landscapes and fragmented realities, glued together with precision and beauty. on a psychoacoustic level it lulls you into transcendental worlds of spacious minimal sounsdcapes and sonic cinematic journeys, which constantly resolve back to a single sound event or just quiet. the mixture of timbres is also interesting, particularly in bed(track one), where a cold steely guitar motif is cushioned in bubbling soft electronica that just oozes sensation, making the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

with a heady mix of off kilter accordion, arpeggio like piano cycles, and layered fripp-esque guitar, backyard maud the fraudian fairy is my favourite. as the penultimate track it also serves to take you into the farthest reaches of a somnabulists journey, returning to the waking world through quick fire audio visual collages of sonic rapid eye movement. bedtime stories is available through the nonine label, which also features a host of extremely interesting releases and a great selection of artists videos.
roger mills, furthernoise.org, australia 11/08

"wake up to this album... and you won't stop dreaming."

so begins this album's press release. considering the album's title as well as the presence of "bed" in several of the song titles, it's pretty obvious that this album is about sleep, dreaming, and the abstract ideas and concepts that emerge while in those states. musically, the band mixes electronic and acoustic elements sort of reminiscent of the way mum does, but mostly doing without that band's more childlike elements. a few incidental distorted voices or skittery beats emerge, but just as soon as in a dream, they mutate and give way to something else and you might have trouble remembering them later. perhaps the most constant, reoccurring musical element is the lullabye-like piano that grounds the melody in several of this album's songs.

i suppose it probably feels like i'm beating you over the head by reminding you of how much this album feels like a dream. that's probably the intention of this album. it certainly nails that dreamlike quality, though, so it really just depends on whether or not you're up for this type of bizarre, dreamlike trip. 7/10
paul simpson, foxy digitalis, usa 11/08

wir haben nonine, das berliner label für elektronische musik außerhalb ausgetretener pfade, hier ja bereits erwähnt, nun liegt mit taub’s “bedtime stories" schon wieder ein beachtenswerter release vor. wenn ein album, wie vorliegendes, vom privatradio offensichtlich komplett gemieden wird, sich aber die öffentlichen kultursender drum reißen, tracks wie den titelsong dieser platte spät nachts ihrem treuesten publikum, denen, die richtig zuhören, zu präsentieren, dann ist etwas genau richtig gelaufen.
in diesem fall für harold nono (edinburgh) und me raabenstein (berlin), die die abstrakte mathematik ihrer maschinen zu einem von jazz und ambient inspirierten album verarbeiten. als hörer fühlt man sich einem stetigen wechselbad aus an- und entspannung ausgesetzt - perfektes training fürs seelische immunsystem. bevor es mit “midgets" so richtig gruslig wird...
tina manske, titel-magazin.de, germany 10/08

perhaps the busiest bugbear in electronic music is expectation. if artists can escape its predictable clutches then they have a head start on all the other goblins too. nonine label head me raabenstein is a chance-taker with sound deployment. he’s unafraid to hold a silence for a few beats beyond comfort or splotch an austere, ambient microgroove with sudden dayglo colours. as the duo taub, the berliner brings on board edinburgh ambient artist harold nono in the role of accomplice and foil. both treat the world of electronics as anything but a closed system, either temporally or instrumentally. tracks like “chamber pot” hold the synthetic sounds under the dominant piano lines, gradually building both up onto an equal platform of pulse, echo and modification. “wild blue yonder” plays with space and volume within a minimal framework of sound, surprising the ears with sudden nearby piano strikes while an emotive theme wipes across the further fields. it’s a recording that seldom plays it safe and it’s these risks that help avoid any lazy categorizing.
eric hill, exclaim.ca canada 10/08

zerbrechlicher mikropop, taub erschaffen eine filigrane melancholie aus kleinststücken.
die welt von harold nono und me raabenstein besteht aus splittern. zerborsten und in die ferne getrieben bringt sie die verbliebene gravitation wieder näher und kittet sie zu ungeschliffenen konglomeraten. der edinburgher und der berliner verdichten nach und nach pianotasten mit umherirrenden clicks & cuts und ausrollenden bassbewegungen. schicht um schicht entstehen daraus unebene electronica-balladen aus mikrostaub. die einsamkeit und zerrissenheit der einzelteile zieht sich zugleich durch die neukompositionen als roter faden. die stücke hinterlassen stets das gefühl des unfertigen und temporären, als könnten sie jederzeit erneut auseinander brechen. eine schwere unsicherheit gepaart mit erschöpfter melancholie entsteht in den zwischenräumen, die taub nicht zu ändern scheinen wollen. es ist eine seltsame welt, in der sie leben. eine kreation, deren unvollständigkeit eine entrückte schönheit ausstrahlt, mit lücken, in die man unversehens stürzen kann.
jens pacholsky, goon-magazin.de, germany 10/08

il n'arrête plus, le gars me raabenstein, aus berlin. boss de la structure nonine, co-auteur du très bon disque de sqaramouche chroniqué en ces mêmes pages le mois dernier, il signe sous le som de taub, en collaboration avec l'ecossais harold nono, la seizième (!) sortie de son label, au rêve choisi avec beaucoup d'à-propos. telle une longue rêverie passée dans les bars de rutger zuyderveldt - dites maschinefabriek pour faire civilisé - les onze titres de ces histoires de couche oscillent entre somnolence électronique et langueur acoustique, le tout parfois déposé sur quelques notes de piano électrique, dont le terriblement émouvant 'wild blue yonder', à la croisée des chemins sylvain chauveau et julien néto. par moments plus abstraite, la musique se laisse également - et c'est heureux - aller à des gargouilles jazztronica échappées d'un flipper ('valid bed'), laisse un dialogue de film français des années soixante (estimation à la louche) garnir des trouées lento entre la musique western d'ennio morricone et jazz contemporain minimaliste ('la ronde at the top'), l'ensemble dévoilant une science des atmosphères réparatrices pas si fréquentes que ça.
fabrice vanoverberg, rifraf, belgium 10/08

bedtime stories released under the project name taub, is a product of the collaboration between two musicians, me raabenstein (berlin, germany) and harold nono (edinborough, uk). these two musicians discovered each other’s music over the net and realizing they were aiming at similar sounds, decided to work together.

calling this release bedtime stories may sound suitable to some, as it is quite quiet, calm, peaceful, yet with traces of tension and stress in the melodies. however, i would think of these eleven pieces more as daydreams, sometimes incomplete or not fully developed musings; this is not to reflect on the music itself, as to me it sounds well crafted, perfectly suiting free time reveries. at times the music sounds like a minimalist soundtrack to a silent movie while at others like a slightly frantic electronic escapade. using electronic instruments and effects, at times exercising an electro-acoustic route, this album has a special bewitching sound.

sparse and abstract, dream-like and dreary, the overall impression i get as the album flows through my ears is that of pace-changing scene-based soundtrack depicting the two composers’ vision of tales told in the late hours of the night. the degree of non-figurative melody and tunes changes between tracks, sometimes being more bold and daring, while others being more subdued, taken aback. this type of dynamic “story-telling” adds an additional layer of complexity and reaffirms the tale-like nature of this album.

if you’re after evocative yet tame melodies or ambience, if you’re into the experimental use of electronics and sounds you will find something to delve into in this album.
assaf vestin, sonicfrontiers.net, usa 10/08

taub's bedtime stories is, not surprisingly, dreamscaping pushed to evocative extremes. a similarly intensive manipulation of material occurs in this context too, with raabenstein and nono recording material and then pulling it apart, reconfiguring it, and stitching it back together again with the outcome a fifty-minute travelogue where myriad sounds (strings, piano, guitars, accordion, electric piano, electronics) and broken melodies slip-slide in and out of focus. ghostly piano melodies haunt “wild blue yonder” and ululating voices, when not sliced into stuttering patter, wail and shudder through “invalid bed” while “backyard maud the fraudian fairy” sounds as disturbed as a stalker sequence in a slasher soundtrack. the bedtime story also must have extremely disturbing for it to have prompted the sickly lurch of “rouge absolu” where a mix of sampled film dialogue, drooping strings, and roasted guitar generate nightmarish ambiance. the ultra-woozy “la ronde at the top” sounds equally diseased. the pieces that succeed best, however, are those bearing strongly defined structures that the listener can latch onto, one like “sparkle,” for example, where a recurring string stab establishes a foothold that enables beat elements, clavinet, and electric guitars to leave fleeting traces of their presence. material such as bedtime stories that—by design, presumably—meanders so much desperately needs some amount of ballast to keep the work from feeling like it's floundering.
ron schepper, textura.org, canada 10/08

think of it as a soundtrack to a children book. once again, me raabenstein is co-writing. this time with david hillary (aka harold nono). if nono sounds familiar to you, that's because we've previously mentioned him twice over. what makes this collaboration interesting is that nono is scottish, and with the internet, this teamup is possible. i liked the piano and weird noises on "chamber pot" (there's definitely a lot of pianos and keys throughout the album, i'll have to add). towards the end of this song, you'll notice some sort of singing that sounds like children dying(!). as soon as i heard lyric-type singing (it's not actually someone singing, it's more like distorted vocal samplings) they made the songs more memorable. at least to me. like "rouge absolu" feels like a french film, especially with the dialogue at the beginning. i'm not even sure it was french, come to think about it. speaking of french, my favorite song on here is "backyard maud the fraudian fairy", it sounds like scary circus music. the "la ronde at the top" song seems to be two songs in one. the first part has a middle eastern feel to it, but the second half sounds chaotic.
vu nguyen, weheartmusic.com, usa 10/08

i liknande spår snurrar taub, som består av me raabenstein och edinburghbon david hillary (som också gör musik under namnet harald nono). jag får för mig att samarbetet vuxit fram på avstånd, kanske har de aldrig träffats. det finns ett flöde som mindre beror på samspelet än att de delar musikalisk smak och teknik. liksom slowcream handlar taub om sammanvävningar av akustiska och digitala ljud genom en teknik där bägge delarna så att säga förlorar kontrollen om sitt territorium. medan electronican aldrig försvinner ut i techno, dub eller glitch, leder heller inte de samplingsbeskurna ljuden från piano, elgitarr, banjo, och rhodes till en färdig akustisk form.

med en platta döpt till ”bedtime stories” förvånas man inte över att musiken låter drömsk, nostalgisk, filmisk. men bilderna som snurrar för mitt inre föreställer inte 16mm-filmade familjeutflykter eller gulligt barnrumsmys. istället en designad storstadsdjungel med ljud från akustiska instrument som leks in i den digitala gröten. särskilt läckert låter det när igenkännbara instrument slås an, men inte utvecklas som väntat. på ”chamber pot” hamras pianot mot bandlös funkbas och mot slutet kryper det fram en barnröst och bankar in obegripliga ord som vore de samplade genom skrivmaskin. i välkänd och främmande terräng rör sig ”backyard maud the fraudian fairy”, vaggande mellan cirkus och skräckfilm, musik lika lekfull som obehaglig. me raabestein står bakom flera av bolagets senaste album, åtminstone tre i samarbetsform. neubau är däremot österrikarens arno steinachers soloalbum, en udda platta i utgivningen. visst, det är elektroniskt och akustiskt, här finns beats och aviga ljudfragment. men det som utmärker neubau är länken tillbaka till – håll i dig! – 50-talets seriella musik. steinacher skippar helt sonika popens och technons strukturer för en stendöd kompositionsteknik. med dagens medel blir det – tja, intressant på ett ojämförligt sätt.
sven rånlund, soundofmusic.nu, sweden 10/08

lo stile minimale non smette di irretire i manipolatori elettronici, pronti a lavorare per sottrazione ed a creare linee melodiche con pochi elementi sonori. non fa eccezione 'bedtime stories', il lavoro a harold nono e me raabenstein sotto il moniker taub, con il quale il beat liquido e le interferenze digitali si incontrano a intervalli regolari su un fitto background di silenzio. apparentemente ispirato dalle pubblicazione della bravissima agf, ma di certo assai meno elegante e sorprendente, quest'album ha il merito di utilizzare il suono del pianoforte con uno stile retrò ma non fastidioso. tutto è usato con parsimonia, in netta controtendenza con le saturazioni ed i riempimenti di questo periodo, però il risultato basta solo a darci un ascolto piacevole ma fugace. 6/10
michele casella, rockerilla, italy, 09/08

per quanto si tratti di un'etichetta nata da poco tempo la nonine non è davvero niente male, fino ad ora delle quattro o cinque uscite che mi è capitato di sentire nessuna era particolarmente banale, anzi, mediamente erano assemblate con un gran gusto per i suoni, per le melodie e per le ritmiche: in ambito elettronico in pratica è quasi come dire che erano ben fatte in tutto.

i taub sono quell'harold nono di edimburgo che abbiamo recensito poco tempo fa e me raabenstein di berlino (che è anche il boss dell’etichetta) non smentendo la pregevole storia recente (e non) dell’elettronica inglese e soprattutto di quella "made in germany", si mantengono sempre su di un buon livello qualitativo, gran gusto e ambientazioni solitamente notturne come dice il titolo stesso (d’altro canto non è che il inghilterra e la ger-money rimarranno nella storia per il sole e le spiagge). elettronica melodica ma non propriamente idm, infatti le ritmiche ci sono, ma mediamente sono frammentate o appena accennate e per nulla epilettiche, melodie soft che ricordano un po' alcune cose dei plaid e molto alla lontana anche i plone anche se ben distanti da quel loro immaginario di tipo infantile e simil videogioco, ma soprattutto con dei suoni aggiornati a fine primo decennio del millennio che è. vocoder usato con parsimonia e con gusto, suoni sintetici sì e pure batterie elettroniche ma pur sempre caldi anche quando sembra di entrare in un paesaggio più consono ad un gameboy, fra tappeti ritmici più andanti e meno sospesi e suoni che giocano di rimbalzo contrappuntando le ritmiche, un classico del genere.

elettronica melodica ma non vocale dato che a parte qualche voce campionata qua e là ma comunque relegata al fondo, nessun vocalist che porti fede a questo nome e direi che sia un bene visto che non sembrano necessitare del "rinforzino". forse ancora da sviluppare in alcuni particolari e negli arrangiamenti, ma si tratta di un ottimo esordio (pur non trattandosi di due neofiti).
andrea ferraris, sodapop.it, italy 09/08

de jeunes gentlemans brillant dans les méandres électroniques aux harmonies pop guitarisées. taub proposent une pop électronique, une démarche musicale en crabe entre classicisme et electro. envolées au piano et mélancolie à fleur de peau, les ambiances allient les emprunts à la pop cérébrale de spoonfed hybrid et la poésie atmosphérique de fingernail. composée de rythmes finement ficelés et de mystères des brumes matinales. ambiances feutrées, thématique nocturne, bleep nonchalants et guitares discrètes.
laurent guerel, station service, strasbourg / france 09/08

taub è la collaborazione tra il berlinese me raabenstein e lo scozzese d'adozione harold nono, due giovani sconosciuti dell'universo elettronico (il secondo ha pubblicato un album su bearsuit nel 2002) capaci di raccontare su "bedtime stories" un mondo fatto di idm, trance e aromi di future funk. musica nella maggior parte dei casi notturna e avvolgente costruita intorno a melodie semplici e di forte impatto. la classica collaborazione a distanza in cui ognuno dei due musicisti ha aggiunto la sua personalità sulla traccia spedita via email dall'amico. il risultato è meno frammentato di quanto di solito ci si aspetta in questi casi, e al contrario, tra le melodie di questa musica, sembrano brillare idee e soluzioni capaci di oscurare ben più note analoghe collaborazioni.
roberto mandolini, losingtoday.it, italy 09/08