The original Corvo Records pressing was limited to 300 copies with a stunning 12” picture LP on audiophile vinyl and custom silkscreened sleeve featuring artists tracknotes.
Thought to be sold out, 50 copies were recently found in storage. These are extremely limited Artist’s Editions featuring:
- Original 12” Picture LP on heavy vinyl
- Custom silkscreened sleeve
- Numbered and signed colour insert (limited to 50)
- Exclusive download of two bonus tracks (Eagle’s Teaching & Nest of Punishment), unavailable anywhere else.
- Postcard
- Protective PVC cover
Includes unlimited streaming of Alamut
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 1 day
edition of 50
€16EURor more
Streaming + Download
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
"In addition to the tape-static symphonies that have become something of a trademark for the Berlin-based artist, there are also more structured movements that touch upon a range of musical influences from Popol Vuh to Terry Riley and even, as the opening five minutes testify, the fugues and contrapuntal work of Bach. Beginning with the prologue „Ronald Reagan, total..." from an 1987 radio special, Preslav Literary School unfolds a magnificent 20 minute drone tragedy. It's intriguing how this extremely decelerated Bach organ fugue is deconstructed and transformed into mesmerising Chandler tapeloops and degrading magnetic tape fragments, unfolding into an ambience that could as easily belong to the early electronics experiments of the sixties, the uneasy ambient works of the eighties or the post-techno deconstruction witnessed by the turn of the century. This is a beautiful piece of sound art." Subradar.
"In my ears, Alamut is undoubtedly the LP side of the year 2011."
Kultur[Terrorismus] (D)
"Preslav Literary School’s Alamut creates phantom symphonies from tape loops. Opening with a Ronald Reagan speech, the prologue fades into a Bach fugue dipped and dragged through molasses. A ternary bass line slowly repeats, sustained while smears of organ swirl overhead. The melody eventually expires; but returns more granulated, billowing through cathedrals of reverb. The outro pixelates the organ further, distorted loops rocking beside wobbling bass. Both homely and ethereal, Alamut dozes in a thread-bare rocking chair fit for urban angels."
"Opening with some recorded German speech that gives way to a deconstructed Bach fugue slowed almost to a standstill to create a shimmering Basinski-esque soundworld that clocks in just shy of 20 minutes. The use of space is reminding me of Johann Johannsson’s epic Virthulegu Forsetar in the way it allows for chunks of near-silence to let the sounds really breathe, making for masterful late-night headphone music. When the music kicks in after a period of near-emptiness it’s got a really uplifting and cleansing quality to it. Both pieces on this LP are pretty long, and they showcase very different aspects of plunderphonics, and each is rewarding in its own way. — Mike, Norman Records
"Continuing the utilisation of recycled sound, Preslav Literary School fades out its opening German monologue to unveil a starry, shimmering reconstruction of a J.S Bach fuge. Chords overlap each other so that a dissonance lingers between them, with haunting organ tones vaguely tracing a melody while ultimately feeling lost in mystical freeform. The section during which a phased fifth-interval drone takes precedence is considerably less interesting than the flowing chord progressions before it, but the broken, stuttering loop that follows it is an instant redeemer. It crumbles and distorts as a weathered outline of its former self, stripped of timbre and emanating as indistinct drones; a bit like one of William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops." ATTN:Magazine
"'Alamut' was produced using tape recorders and electronics. Certainly his slow pace and long sustained tones do evoke a certain elegiac mood, and at times may put you in mind of the work of William Basinski. The musical interludes are punctuated with thoughtful stretches of near-silence, and it's a much more spacey and contemplative work compared with the textural busy-ness of the flip. Preslav Literary School may or may not be using samples from records of orchestral classical music, or playing sustained chords on a keyboard, but he often arrives at the same sort of stately profundity as Tangerine Dream." Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector
"A piece of jewellery, a collector's item, with artwork by Armin Kehrer which has the effect of splinters hitting your eyeball!"
Bad Alchemy (D)
"En B, c’est la Preslav Literary School qui compose à partir d’enregistrements sur bandes et d’electronics. Pendant qu’un drone d’orgue monte, des voix et des boucles se succèdent. Alamut, c’est un peu la rencontre de Neu! et d’Eliane Radigue qui donne envie d’aller écouter les autres sorties du groupe anglais. N’est-ce pas à ce genre de réaction qu’on reconnaît qu’un split est réussi?" Pierre Cécile, Le son du grisli."
credits
released November 11, 2011
Writing of a place and time, from beyond that place and time, is irredeemable. It is something backwards that cannot be brought back. It is writing from a place that gives away its distance in every letter and word. It means nothing of the place and time described, only of the place from which writing takes place. So, of Paris and the twenty-seventh of March, two thousand and nine, this says nothing. Of this unnamed date in Berlin, from which I write to the past, it says everything.
Produced by corvo records, Berlin.
Design – Christian Göbel
Illustration – Armin Kehrer
Mastered By – Kassian Troyer
Recorded By – Preslav Literary School, Thorsten Soltau.
Conrad Clipper is the pseudonym of an anonymous composer and multi-instrumentalist, with a focus on prepared, programmed & played piano. He lives and records in Berlin. Preslav Literary School
David Ciampalini, founder of the Ambient-Noise Collective, bridges musique concrete with psychedelic soundscapes on his debut solo LP. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 16, 2021
