Alka

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Biography

It’s easy to transport yourself back to the genesis of electronic music—the avant-garde enclaves of San Francisco and New York and Paris—where tape loops became one more instrument in orchestras that shunned no particular sound. As a stunning technological leap, the tools of synthetic noise belonged primarily to the engineer-composers of the period, the Cages and Stockhausens.

You’d expect that as those tools became increasingly available to the masses, that electronic music as a genre would crossbreed with rock, become less cerebral, trade Zen-like focus for something muscular. Some techno aside, the opposite has happened: Cage’s anarchic stages and randomized landscapes are closer to the voluptuous walls of sound a Brooklyn noisenik would find familiar, and solo laptop auteurs like Alka (aka Bryan Michael) have shifted towards a distinctly melancholy palette and monkish process that feed into the most neoclassical temperament imaginable.

Such are the forces at work on Principles of Suffocation, a finely tuned pastel symphony that weds dub-lite beats to spacey, chiming ambience. Turn “Un-Vaccina” up all the way, and it’s an acidhead’s ideal slap-happy club mix; turn it all the way down, and he’ll be hypnotized instead by the gently whirring drones that anchor it.
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  • xgeorgx

    cool!

    2 Apr 2011 Reply

  • Dieselstrike1

    5 баллов

    13 Feb 2011 Reply

  • beablossom

    wow...awesome music.

    30 Aug 2010 Reply

  • Mustessein

    Where can i find this artists albums. Im having a hard time :(

    27 Apr 2010 Reply

  • plaitr

    first off, THIS alka was never minimal techno, nor would he ever want to limit hisself to any one electronic genre. the deployed album is alka-rex, confusing i know... last fm needs to get their shit together i had the pleasure to hear tracks THIS alka is working on for his next release: otherwordly squelchy dark masterpieces.... stay tuned. He has obliterated the 'melodical' (whatever that is) and has made a mockery of minimalism

    18 Feb 2010 Reply

  • emoke

    LittleDumbPunk, regarding to your last.fm charts you've listened to 5 Alka tracks in total... I think you shouldn't make such a harsh conclusion before listening more of his tunes. His first album is a pure bliss and I don't think he deserves such a negative review. Oh, and you shouldn't trust all the labels and tags over here, it's really chaotic if you wanna sort them out...

    18 Feb 2010 Reply

  • gestures

    I'm disinclined to agree with the previous review by LittleDumbPunk... while Alka's more recent works are somewhat weak in my opinion, they're certainly on par with anything by the aforementioned artists (and the comparison to Igorrr? what??), and Alka's production is significantly better. Just because he doesn't use a piano or twinkly sounds in EVERY track doesn't mean they lack MELODY (in the most strict sense). Furthermore, what does the reviewer mean by 'melodical'? That's not even a real word. On this here Interweb, I'd go so far as to say the prior reviewer was 'trolling'. And while I do say his most current works are somewhat weak compared to the best IDM out there (I'd compare to Abfahrt Hinwil, Benge, various artists on the now-defunct DeFocus label...), his older works are absolute masterpieces of their respective genre (minimal-ish, deep techno).

    18 Feb 2010 Reply

  • LittleDumbPunk

    This is melodical?! Emotional? The music definitely doesn't live up to the description, this is completely mediocre idm-inspired stuff with amorphous uninspired melodies that you've already heard thousand times in the same exact sound atmosphere (if you're into idm) from the same kinda 'great artists'. And please excuse me for I'm not saying this is unlikeable, some people obviously enjoy such stuff, I'm just being utterly disappointed and misleaded by the description and the tags. I mean, listen to Igorrr, The Ghost Of 3.13, Subheim, Detritus or klyxn and try to say this is melodical again. And be honest with it, because expressing your love for something and being completely misleading are different things. And calling THIS melodical wouldn't be a praise to it, it is rather an insult to all things melodical in the world.

    11 Feb 2010 Reply

  • PatrickHaze

    Genre largely criticized for it's lack of emotion? Regardless of the anonymous-subjective-amorphous opinion that the reviewer was citing about electronic music, Alka is definitely a great artist. Keep up the good work!

    12 Jan 2010 Reply

  • digitalaura

    New album is excellent!

    15 Aug 2009 Reply

  • adhjeroen

    New album is nice. But a modest collection of lint is still the best Alka track (:

    13 Aug 2009 Reply

  • uac

    can't wait for the new album! alka is so damn amazing!!

    15 Apr 2009 Reply

  • OOyuri

    me likie !!!

    6 Apr 2009 Reply

  • Pumbarush

    Un-Vaccina очень нравится, заслушался!

    29 Mar 2009 Reply

  • pimmka

    Very pretty :)

    8 Jan 2009 Reply

  • uac

    I just discovered him, his music is so good, especially the melodies.. he should be more popular.

    16 Sep 2008 Reply

  • zachhobson

    Tesla is an AMAZING song.

    16 May 2008 Reply

  • afu-sake

    good

    19 Jan 2008 Reply

  • Faeerie

    <3

    1 Jan 2008 Reply

  • StupidPrayer

    Is it the same Alka- so the new EP is awesome!

    1 Aug 2006 Reply
    • All 21 shouts

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