In the 90s, Mille Plateaux was kinda seen as a sublabel to Force Inc, even though it was more like a collaboration between two labels. If I remember this correctly!
And if Force Inc was already weird... well, what was Mille Plateaux then?
If we go to discogs, the description reads:
"Mille Plateaux is a Germany label for experimental electronic music and electronic arts.
Genres like Clickhop, Glitch, Clicks & Cuts, Minimal etc. were largely influenced (and named) if not formed by the label."
everything understood and clear? So, next time you are rocking out to some clicks (or cuts) in the clubs, remember that this "Germany Label" actually started it all!
But in all sincerity, this label really had some weird & wonderful music on it.
Some of it maybe might be put under the ambient, intelligent electronica, "armchair techno" umbrella of the 1990s scene in Germany... but at the outermost fringe of it, because it was even more "out there"!
as we read on on discogs, we learn that:
"The name "Mille Plateaux" (A Thousand Plateaus) initially stemmed from a concept and same-titled principal work co-authored by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, French psychoanalyst and philosopher respectively. The former gave his approval of the use of "Mille Plateaux" to the original label founder."
I won't pretend that I read or understood deleuze and his thousand plateaus. I was violently "anti-PoMo" in the 90s...
and now, let's cut the intro short, and explain the label by looking at some of its best releases directly...
So here are 5 or more reviews of some very interesting records on mille plateaux.
Alec Empire - Low On Ice (The Iceland Sessions) (Mille Plateaux - MP CD 18)
The story to the production of this album is as insane as its sound itself.
It goes like this: Alec Empire or Atari Teenage Riot were booked at a music festival in iceland. That literally took place in a landscape of snow and ice. I think the artists needed to be helicopter-lifted to get to that place. (check the music video to it)
The crew and everyone else had some tents, to protect them a bit from the snow and the cold.
So, while chilling in his tent, probably after or before his gig, alec popped out some of the very sparse and minimal gear he brought for the performance... started to jam away, and the result of that is the very album we are listening right now!
i mean, he essentially produced an entire album under minimal conditions during some breaks in between... as if producing was as easy as taking a walk in the morning!
quite impressive, eh?
and it's even more extreme, because the entire material would have fit on *three albums*!
which have been released almost 25 years later.
i think this story gives a better description of the music than "genre terms"... but let us just say that dark ambient tones, slow breakbeats, a general, doomed dub mood, is present.
Hanayo In Panacea - Hanayo In Panacea (Mille Plateaux - MP 56 CD)
Who doesn't like Panacea?
Well, to be honest, *I* often wasn't too plussed about some of the hard step drum and bass he did... (sorry!) as I was more a fan of harder edge artist like patric c or bomb 20.
hanayo has always been cool.
and, wonder oh wonder, this album and collab is not a mix of both artist's respective style, and does not meet "in the middle".
instead it's an almost gabba-breakcore styled album, with distorted bass drums, all kinds of noise. while hanayo's haunting voice floats above the beats, and dark strings and pads make an appearance...
other tracks are more ambient / idm like.
well done!
R.I.C. - Distance (Mille Plateaux CD 5)
Who is the artist with the most extreme span of genres, or the most distance (pun intended!) between them?
Martin Damm is a contender for this. He is apt at producing speedcore and terrorcore techno, and fans love him for that. Sometimes high above 200 bpm, or even 1000 bpm.
And then he also did this!
Sweet neat fluffy little cloud like ambient electronica, dub, a bit of idm...
Like the unknown, cutesy third twin of the aphex.
Even Tangerine Dream like "Berlin School" synth melo sequences run across some tracks!
Alec Empire - Limited Editions 1990-94 (Mille Plateaux - MP CD 2)
Back in the 90s, I asked a friend for a recommendation of good mille plateaux releases (or was it a recommendation of alec empire releases?) and he suggested this. i found this "odd", because he was more the experimental type and i was looking into the future, so a release of "older" material, related to the "techno" label "force inc", seemed curious.
but he was right. this is one of the best AE and MP releases.
it's hard to pinpoint *exactly* what makes it so great.
i think it's because it's very cerebral, avantgarde, experimental electronic, and very groovy, funky dance (and yes, partly techno) music at the same time.
as if stockhausen was a b boy, or the 808 state had a doctor degree in outer space-ology.
there is also a "civilization virus" on it, an epic piece. it was the soundtrack to a short movie. and that short movie was actually the master thesis for video director phillip virus. who later directed a feature on grunge band "dinosaur jr"!
Terre Thaemlitz - Die Roboter Rubato (MP 034 CD)
Can you believe this? Friends highly recommended this album to me, back in the 90s.
But I did not listen to it! - till yesterday.
Because these "Piano interpretations of Kraftwerk titles. Recorded at Meow, New York, April-July 1996."... seemed like old socks to me.
It was the 90s (like they say in the movies), and kraftwerk felt 70s, and moody piano music even older fashioned. plus the whole thing smelled of "hipster" stuff.
But now I listened to it, and it's really good! great stuff!
my favorite is "computerwelt", a super sad and moody (yes) re-interpretation of kraftwerk's computer world.
Steel - Steel (Mille Plateaux - MP CD 16)
Most people probably know Martin Damm as The Speed Freak, an aka he used to produce a lot (and really a lot!) of gabber and early hardcore, and later "frenchcore". And yeah... he is one of the best in that genre (or rather, those genres). But when it comes to *my* very personal favorite releases by him, i would put this one in the top 3.
This is unlike everything he ever did. or any other artist ever did. a solitary release.
it's like... industrial, dark ambient... also noise. but in a very unusual way, quite digital, with lots of samples... and all tracks blend into each other, it's one seamless, 1-hour track. (a bit of jungle, idm, rave can be found on here too, btw)
kinda like these euro-disco or pop long play megamix CDs of the 80s / 90s. but not disco, a dark, vile, nasty industrial mega mix!
track titles like "Feverish Dream" or "Obituary" or "Soundtrack For S*x With Aliens" show some of the vibes of these tracks. And yeah, the entire album really feels like a fever dream, or an OST to an unknown horror flick.