I love found-sounds. Especially whole albums of music that were thought to be lost forever, and then one day found again. Even better is when they are found just-in-time for music that was ahead-of-its-time when it was created, before it was lost. Have I lost you? Case in point: Sun Electric began releasing music in 1990 and continued until 2004, but their last full-length album was Via Nostra in 1999. Their music was at the forefront of technology and soundsystem parties at the time, along with contemporaries Orb, Orbital and Future Sounds of London. Sun Electric were pioneers of what would later be called IDM, perfecting the sound with singles and remixes until 2004. Lost + Found (1998-2000) is a collection of ambient electronica that was created by Sun Electric in the late 90’s, during the recording of their Via Nostra album and shortly after. As for the songs that the 2 men produced in those 3 years: they were lost, collecting studio dust. Tom Thiel, half of Sun Electric, says they recently rediscovered the songs, and to their surprise, the music sounds fresh again, not outdated:
The tracks sound different in the context of today’s music. … There isn’t much music like this now, which makes the songs special, in our opinion.
Shitkatapult Celebrates Brief Reunion Of Sun Electric With New Release
In the meantime, Thiel - and Sun Electric’s other half, Max Loderbauer - have been plenty busy with other musical projects: Thiel performs in Bus with Daniel Meteo, while Loderbauer plays in Chica and the Folder, Redux Orchestra, and Ari Benjamin Meyers in addition to forming nsi with Tobias Freund. Which means, the fellas haven’t been playing as Sun Electric lately… Except - they are set to play a string of shows in Berlin, Amsterdam and Brussels in October! In combination with the brief reunion, Shitkatapult is releasing Lost + Found (1998-2000) in October, and that will be followed by a 12″ of remixes by yet-to-be-named producers. We’re told they are high-profile peeps who “need to remain anonymous” for the moment!
Lost + Found (1998-2000) Tracklist
Toninas
Lomat
Sissy
Shuttle
Ohaya
Up And Down
Echolan
Umpa Lumpa
18″ Stonehenge
Afterglow
You can listen to “Shuttle” and “Toninas” from Lost + Found (1998-2000) on their music$pace right now. The full album will be released on CD October 16th via Shitkatapult.
Sun Electric Show Dates:
I can’t find the Berlin date, but here are Brussels and Amsterdam:
15 Sep Noûs Electronics Festival, Dexia Art Center Brussels
16 Sep Paradiso Amsterdam
The legend of Lost + Found according to the band’s music $pace bio:
The years 1993-98 saw the band touring all over Europe, Japan, US and Chile. After the release of “Via Nostra” the band took a turn to freeform improvised live music, got more into programming with MAX/MSP and changed their name to S.E.Berlin.
One vinyl release on the shortliving label Bad Orb followed, then Max and Tom decided to end the project.
Seven years of individual projects went by. Then Tom discovered an old CDR at a friend’s house on the Canary Island Lanzarote, which Max and Tom had left there in the year 2000. It had a bunch of unreleased tracks on it from that time. Listening back to it came out as a surprise: they still sounded good and fresh, even quite special in the new musical context of 2007.
Worth releasing? Yeah!
Daniel Meteo, partner in Bus with Tom and part of the Berliner Shitkatapult label, got introduced to the idea.
“Lost and Found” is born.
And - Max & Tom go back on the road.
The next chapter in a long history of a band?
Chances are.
Sun Electric Links
Sun Electric music $pace
Earplug News - where they have “Reverberations from the Supernova - Sun Electric prepare album of unreleased tracks”
Sun Electric on Last.fm
Sun Electric wiki
Lost + Found is available on Amazon starting October 16th. For more information click the album cover:
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