LE ROK. APPROX TWELVE | karaoke kalk cd39/ep47, releasedate march 16th 2007
Three years ago Karaoke Kalk released the debut by Le Rok, fittingly named Hausarbeiten, indoor works - a choice collection of home recorded tracks which may have been produced in the course of six long years but put together resulted in an album with varied themes but a close stylistic connection between tracks. Le Rok and his songs need and take their time. Now, three years later, enough new tracks have coalesced to come to life as Approx Twelve.
Every single track on the new album has an individual history starting out with the idea for a song in the classical sense of the word. Going on from this solid foundation Le Rok rather casually collects than produces the elements from which the tracks are put together like mosaics. This results in a specifically relaxed setting - which not necessarily means slow or quiet - while lots of little things cling themselves tightly around the spine that is the basic song. This method only works when the necessary time is taken for those small pieces to grow together into a whole. In the end everything is one unit comprising all the elements from the initial song to the final beat.
Although the tracks take shape as a construction of digital bits and cuts, the songs never lose themselves inside the technical devices from which they derive. Inbetween all the tight textures remains a slight sense of melancholy which is not hiding itself but needs to be found. All the while the beats may stay up front but they are not consuming what is definitely there to be listened to.
Le Rok is the project of Christoph Döhne from Hanover in northern Germany. And maybe this not exactly urban setting is the reason for a specially relaxed way of looking upon things and time and thus keeping a specific sense of otherness.
le rok is from hanover, is in his everyday life called christoph
doehne, and "hausarbeiten" is his musical debut. it is not easy to put
a definite name to his music, as the twelve tracks on his album are
all rather different. sometimes minimal, then again pop-like, some-
times even with a trace of rock;sometimes gloomy, then again cheer-
ful; twice with vocals and otherwise without. there is one thing all
tracks have in common though: the beat is always prominent. this
quality provides the album with continuity, forms a bracket to
include its diverse parts and turns it into a unified whole.
with this compilation of tracks created between 1997 and today, le
rok demonstrates how playful and cheerful music can sound.
and this may be the reason why he has found his home on karaoke
kalk, which has never been about the pursuit of one particular idea
of music but about presenting music in its diversity and confusion.
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le rok releases are available under: le rok at anost.net
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for national and international booking please ask:
Patricia Dias
patricia@30porumalinha.org
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mensch christoph, ich krieg das zur zeit nich auf den schirm mich zu melden. immer was neues sozusagen. hoffe in der silke war's gut. das hab ich ja auch nich geschafft.
