JASMINE GUFFOND (b.1972, Sydney, Australia) / TORBEN TILLY (b.1972 Wellington, New Zealand).
Using field recordings, sampling, electronics, guitars, percussion, vox & other mixed-media. Live concerts on occasion include a drummer: TONY BUCK, ANTHONY PIERETTI.
Influences
Oval, Microstoria, Pan Sonic, Sähko Recordings, Rosy Parlane, Parmentier, Vladislav Delay, Spacemen 3, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, Charlemagne Palestine, Arnold Dreyblatt, The Necks, David Haines, Joyce Hinterding, Ihlan Mimaroglu, Bernard Parmegiani, The Garbage & The Flowers, Dress, Entlang, Surface Of The Earth, Anri Tist K, Tongue, Gate, Dead C, Bailter Space, The Clean, Snapper, Brothers Gorgonzola, Skullflower, Flying Saucer Attack, Suicide, The Velvet Underground, Joy Division, New Order, Fennesz, Oren Ambarchi, Chris Smith, Snawklor, David Maranha, G.I.Gurdjieff, Steve Reich, Alvin Lucier, Jean Marc Foussat's 'Abattage', Tristan Murail, Lou Reed's 'Metal Machine Music', Iannis Xennakis, Radian, Fripp & Eno, Acid Mothers Temple, Rafael Toral, Pita, Errorsmith, Grain, Supersilent, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Mt Eerie/The Microphones, Bela Bartok, J.S.Bach, Franz Liszt, Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, The Art Ensemle Of Chicago, Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, Keiji Haino, Autechre, Sun City Girls, Circle, Pharoah Overlord, Fonal Records, Disco Doom, Faust, Neu!, The Stooges, The Kinks, The Monks, Love, Leonard Cohen, Animal Collective, Can, Popul Vuh, John Cale, Nico, Harmonia, Nick Drake, John Fahey, The New Heat/Obscured By Light, Luftkluster/Luftfluks, Andrei Tarkovsky....and so on....
"MINIT is the duo of Jasmine Guffond and Torben Tilly. Over a period of almost 10 years Minit have been making records, exhibiting sound installations and performing live, developing works of varied scope based on the use of processed acoustic, electronic, and found sound sources. Their releases to date convey a unique meeting of improvised abstract electronics and stripped back minimalist design, yet reveal in almost every case a penchant for the unexpected, either as a melodic twist into song or as a sudden implosion into chaotic spectral noise.
The music of Minit transforms incrementally over time in subtle and hallucinatory ways. From fragile harmonic and melodic intonations to towering, ecstatic drones bordering at times on rock music forms.Their release 'Now Right Here' on Germany's Staubgold label was a masterpiece collection of spectral drone music, capturing a balance between noise and harmony, excitation and calmness, distance and intimacy - drawing you into a hypnotic, psychedelic sound-world that is like no other.
Recent concerts have seen Minit using guitars, drums and vocals to conjure actual songs (both originals and cover versions) from within densely textured layers of shimmering electronics.
Minit was formed in 1997 in Sydney, Australia. Both Jasmine Guffond and Torben Tilly currrently reside in Berlin, Germany.
SELECTED PRESS EXCERPTS:
"This duo has the golden touch, honestly....[their] music is like escaping gas, except its been wrapped in a big, hazy, gauzy ball of cotton wool, then steeped in liquid codeine."
- Jon Dale. http://worldsofpossibility.blogspot.com/2003_09_01_worldsofpossibility_archive.html
"....densely textured, drone-based music structured generally around traditonal Minimalist ideas of simple and understated melody. Latticed field captures, robust organic loops, and stacked synthetic vibrations combine to create immersive environments of certain constancy, but within which textural breakthroughs do occur. Like most works with a tendency towards explicit Minimalism, a part-for-the-whole aesthetic is available here...and has potential to reveal a small, shimmering world of harmonic variations and sliding, evaporating tones.
To contradictory effect, the music also seems to move towards specific melodic ascensions, approaching, at several places, throbbing arabesques fit for a full orchestra. These betrayals of subtlety, these breaks in the level planes created by so much textural detailing, create the unique paradox that helps Minit stand out in a glut of like-minded musicians."
- Andrew Culler, http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/brainv07i34.html
"Perfect combination of ecstatic rock ("Ecstacy Symphony") and textural drone."
- Neptune Records. http://www.neptunerecords.com
"...a spectacularly well-controlled teasing out of the slightest of melodic interventions into an arching bell-curve of haunting sonorities, punctuated, once only, but dramatically, by the introduction of a chthonic bass-line that blooms with the secretive glory of a night-flowering orchid, and then begins to decay again into a twitchy, melancholy largo, concluding, finally, with a funereal, bell-like tolling into silence."
- Paul Rowlands, http://www.noripcord.com/reviews/M/minitalbum.html
"Think Fennesz - no beat, melody or instruments but the hook remains.
- Flux, UK
"Now Right Here is a complex, yet extremely powerful and utterly enjoyable journey through the world of sound relationships. Truly Minit's masterpiece, it's one of the best albums of the year so far, hands down. Most highly recommended." - Thor
http://www.twoblock.net/review.php?id=76
VIVA SCHOKOLADEN!!! M:Soundtrack presents am Donnerstag 24. Juli 2008 @ 21uhr the ASIPLUSBAND, breaking down songs (Andy Moor (e-guitar), Clayton Thomas (doublebass) Tony Buck (drums), Asi Föcker (voice, e-guitar) - Bln + Seby Ciurcina (acoustic guitar, voice) (15 set) + Chico Mello (acoustic guitar, voice) & Nicholas Bussmann (Cello) untradional Brasilien Songs (15 set) + DJ Jasmina Maschina http://asifoecker. over-blog. com/ http://www. myspace. com/asiplus
From the Art world to the Schoko Side ..tonight M:Soundtrack presents some of berlin's best of the best from the music scene talents from jazz, experimental, avantgarde come together with artist and musician Asi Föcker for a evening of friends and top-notch music that you will not want to miss !...
hi jasmine/torben i have a solo album out called 'Pause For The Jet' on Dekorder. And The One Ensemble are playing at Goldmund Festival in a few weeks. Hope you're well, Daniel
Recorded live at Club Transmediale Festival in Berlin on January 29th 2008. The performance uses mainly sounds from my forthcoming album, to be released by Crónica later in 2008. Download at www. cronicaelectronica. org/?p=cronicaster
the real revolution! tetine dj set (soul jazz/ ondon) coconut twins ft. zezi (e4 music/london) slammer booster: afro files (london-berlin) (me and Nino) sick girls (violent turd/berlin)
at 15th floor right above weekend club, berlin alexanderplatz
Easily one of the most important bands of our times (and we don't say that lightly), Stars of the Lid are the highpoint of the ambient genre. Their influence on the music that really matters over the last decade has been huge, and we're incredibly honoured to be hosting them again in Leeds. This gig will be very very different, and very very special. Stars of the Lid have excelled at designing subtle, minimalist epics which sound like they're being played on a single multifaceted organic instrument. A wise man once described SOTL as "divine classical drones without the tedious intrusion of drums, or vocals. "
The Declining Winter is the musical project of Richard Vincent Adams of Leeds UK, the co-founder of the continuing group Hood and a full time stricken office worker. What does it sound like? Richard says "cassette tapes spilling out of the glovebox of a 1970's Datsun Sunny somewhere in the north of England, captured on Super 8 film". He's not far off. Live he is joined by a few more people to bring the beautiful pastoral feel to life. Wonderful stuff.
Golden Diskó Ship combines a mass of instruments and found objects (guitars, viola, glockenspiel, sticky tape, compact disc cases, toys…) together with perfectly crafted laptop electronica to form a world of beautiful, original and individual music - “…dreamy, experimental folk electronica that sounds like walking on the beach wi
