Jorg (producer, DJ and record label owner of Lomechanik fame) brings us his latest work. And it's released through Esc.rec. this time.
Please take your time for this nightly narrative album, meticulously constructed of field recordings and soundscapes, evolving into more beat orientated pieces and energetic, uptempo tracks. Jorg takes you on a stroll through cold industrial places and wanders with you through abandoned suburbs.
Headphones on and let the images flow. Eventually we end up in a basement with fucked up punks wearing hiphop T-shirts, banging their heads against the speakers. Unsafe. When we come out, it's already light and it's hurting our eyes.
This release is available as a pay-what-you-want download, but also as a very limited CD in a handsome digipak with stamped artwork. Only 50 numbered copies of these are available. Be quick!
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Review in The Quietus:
"Music isn’t safe", states a voice at the beginning of ‘Unsafe’, blurring into a 90s rock and trance monster track laced with laid back hip hop beats. It’s almost as if the American producer BT has gone back to his roots. He hasn’t however. This is Lomechanik boss Jorg de Man from Nijmegen making a record for experimental music label Esc.rec. And although ‘Unsafe’ certainly lives up to his reputation as a beat maker most tracks on this album are without dance drum programming, using beats in an abstract manner. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t rhythm on this album however. Jorg started out as a radio maker and that’s still discernible in his music. His tracks are mostly layered out of samples from movies, radio shows and found sound. You could compare the result with a lo-fi version of the early work by Flying Lotus: unclean, hectic and always searching for the right end result.
But that end result - a good, clean, melodic track for instance - isn’t what Jorg is about. His music is never finished, with good reason so it seems: this is music that alters the listeners perception about what a track is and, more important, is more about sound than structure. Doesn’t mean that Jorg doesn’t use beats. ‘Name Of’ for instance, is exciting lo-fi future garage, slow and rhythmic. The same goes with ‘You’ where beats mixed to the background seem to drive a hypnotic, glitchy synth-loop of an nearly unrecognizable voice sample. In ‘Tell Ya’ Jorg is using Michael Jackson’s voice. Playing with voice samples, pitching them up or down, stretching them and altering their meaning, is what he does best, making this 36th release of the always interesting Esc.rec label a very good one.
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Review by Erik Nijsten for VPRO 3voor12:
Soms is het erg fijn om muziekrecensent te zijn. Een openingszin die Koningslied-waardig is. Maar toch is het zo! Zeker wanneer er een onverwachte parel zoals Esc.rec.36 van Jorg in het digitale postvak wordt afgeleverd. Een album vol met verrassende ritmes, relaxte ambient en spannende soundscapes dat geen moment verveelt.
Het album Esc.rec.36 van Jorg is al een tijdje via de luisterpaal te beluisteren en meer dan de moeite waard. Nadat er eerder een tweetal releases waren verschenen via het electronicacollectief annex label Lomechanik, verschijnt deze derde release van Jorg via het bevriende Esc.rec.-label uit Deventer. Wellicht doet de naam niet snel een belletje rinkelen, maar als je Leftfield en Banabila een warm hart toedraagt, moet je dit album zeker eens aan meerdere intensieve luisterbeurten onderwerpen.
Jorg heeft met Esc.rec.36 namelijk een schitterende plaat gemaakt die vanaf de eerste seconde je aandacht vraagt én moeiteloos vast houdt. Lieflijke stemmetjes, een knallende gitaar, Michael Jackson, hypnotiserende ritmes. Het komt allemaal voorbij. Volgens mij hoor je zelfs het schuimen van de prik van een vers ingeschonken glas cola of bier.
Gelukkig is er nergens een overdaad aan ideeën. Subtiel wordt alles in de juiste proportie gevoerd. Bij elke luisterbeurt ontdek je weer een nieuw geheim. Het zijn vooral deze kleine verrassingen die je op het verkeerde been zetten. Als je na de afremmende drumpartij inHome Boy Walk denkt dat het nummer is afgelopen, gaat het gewoon nog even vrolijk door. Of wat te denken van het heerlijke ritme van een van de meest vrolijke nummers van de hele plaat, Crap TV.
Er is ook veel aandacht besteed aan de volgorde van de nummers en klopt als een bus. Hierdoor worden kleine pareltjes, als het naar veldopnamen neigend nummer Home From Work, de soundscape Sketchbook zonder problemen afgewisseld met het electronisch drone-achtige Soup Cloud en Zoom en de relaxte ambient Room.
Naast een digitale versie van dit album is er ook een gelimiteerde cd beschikbaar. Dit mooie, minimalistisch vormgegeven en in een oplage van vijftig stuks geproduceerd exemplaar is er voor de echte liefhebber. Maar wees er snel bij: ik heb immers al nummer dertig van de met de hand genummerde cd's. Het is je geld meer dan waard.
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Review by KN for Yeah I Know It Sucks:
Jorg is a producer, DJ and the end boss of the Lomechanik label. As like an exchange project, friendly label Esc.rec. just released his latest album. Where Lomechanic goes to release more beat orientated electronic works, this release is focusing more on the finer things than bombastic drums and hyper rhythms.
It all starts with a track called ‘Earwax’ and is like pulling our ears into a different zone. Let’s call it Planet Jorg. It takes some Arabic sounds to open up the portal, but a warm voice welcomes us quickly. Soon our ears are standing in the magical world, where small electronic soft noises and low humming sounds are forming a warm loving soundtrack.
With ‘Name Of’ we actually hear some kind of beat that functions as a wonky heartbeat. Together with other nice sounding rhythms from electronic origin, Jorg introduces us into sample heaven. We hear some kind of singing from old times, beautiful synthesizer sounds that seems to form a slow motion movement, and almost an open ending. It feels like a story, although I’m not sure what the content of this story is, perhaps it is poetry for the mind?
One of my personal favorite tracks on this record is ‘You’. Here the story seems to be love, and my ears love every second of this track. Think lots of warmth, a female voice repeating ‘You’ in a hypnotizing loop and sunny sounds filled with (did I already mention this?) lots of love.
After this beauty we hear the ‘Home Boy Walk’ which is a almost steady kind of track, that corresponds greatly with its title. A beat and sounds to swag your legs while walking home with your homey for some brotherly no nonsense conversation.
Jorg adds some humor and a touch of comedy to the record with his ‘Home From Work’ track. We hear the artist (or girlfriend, I’m not totally sure..) getting a fresh beer from the fridge, ready to chill out from a loopy day on the work floor. Even though this track is very short, it is funny enough one of the more memorable tunes on the record. Catchy as well if I may add, everyone know this story and everyone can sing along with ‘I came home from work..’
With ‘Emptiness’ Jorg takes our ears on a spacious journey where we could fly freely into a wonderful world between the stars. Lovely synth work in combination of a stretched out beat will levitate the listener to the world of emptiness. Pretty old-school, and liking it!
Michael Jackson’s voice appears on Jorg’s ‘Tell Ya”. It is a short confession, waved on a soft short track.
After this we hear a filler called ‘What’, I hope that this is an introduction to the following track, otherwise ‘what the fuck’ was the reason for this? But I can’t complain too much, after all it is just 12 seconds long. What?
Jorg makes everything perfect again with his tune ‘Crap TV’, funky old school bleebs, chopped samples, nice electronics, some handclaps and a basic funny groove with tickers that are pushing the vibes. Definitely worth to get to practice your funny dance on!
'Unsafe' starts with a message from a media outlet that music isn’t safe. After this Jorg isn’t proving the commentators wrong by delivering the coolest stuff you would hear on this record. Even though the beat is kind of laid back, the beginning background noises have the same effect as metal guitars doing their thing to indulge danger. The melody is cold and cool and might be considered very unsafe, but very enjoyable.
After commentaries little break in the release ‘Soup Cloud’ appears. It sounds like the title, spacious and friendly, light weight melodies that float through each other like soft audio clouds do.
'Room, featuring Jellephant' is probably where the idea for the cover of this release comes from. Is that donkey body spotting an elephant head, Jellephant? The music is beautiful, very open with a deep base, an ambience of piano notes that feels like soft rain drops in an auditorium.
The last track is ‘Sketchbook’ and seems to evolve around manipulated fieldrecordings from some kind of alien subway system. Hold on tight, we are traveling back to planet earth again in a rapid speed. Some classical vocals greeting us in the station. Are we back in planet earth, or is this the next stop? a combination of hell and heaven? The ending is luckily a happy one as we arrive back among humans in a lively city center!
This record comes as a limited physical release and as a download, and is sure a great break from reality.
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Review by FdW in Vital Weekly:
The Jorg here on this limited CDr, and no doubt unlimited download, is a guest on loan from his own label dealings, on the highly local (Vital Weekly local that is) label Lomechanik. On his own label Jorg releases all kinds of beat based music styles, or perhaps even more extended, all sorts of electronic music. Here he has fifteen pieces, from six seconds to just over five minutes, but the majority is under three minutes. Jorg's own music has only the faintest traces of dance music. Very occasionally there is something of techno beat to be detected here, but mostly this is a collage of moods and atmospheres. All done with electronics and field recordings. People talking, machinery and electronics that play drones, melodies of a darker nature, and sometimes that thumb of a beat. More melodic than y'r average drone release, Jorg has his eye open for the musical component. Piano sounds tinkle, there is some singing and it's never abstract. This is all more like a story than just a bunch of pieces. Maybe I think so, because I'm told by the press text, but maybe it's the brief character of the songs that made me think so, or maybe it's the fact that these tracks seem to flow neatly into each other. Great stuff, I think. Because it sounds so unlike any sort of organized rhythm based music, I am particular attracted to this.
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