Title: Cybals/Toy
Vinyl/Book: Listen/Buy
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: Adrena Adrena is a collaboration between visual artist Daisy Dickinson and Japanese drummer E-Da Kazuhisa. Featuring a striking blend of electronica and progressive percussion welded into resonant shimmers, Adrena Adrena's first release for Champion Version is titled 'Cybals/Toy'. Over two sides we are immersed in the echoing glisten of Kazuhisa's ceremonial practice, revealing a wonderful relationship between space, minimalism and texture. The A side establishes a determined trajectory, first demonstrating its vast parameters with bright harmonics that move supremely into a mix of pulsating and rolling percussion. The second side is focussed on the development of soft metallic pipe samples that are underpinned by slow and brooding drum loops creating a swirl of otherworldly atmospherics. In addition to the 7", 'Cybals/Toy' comes with an accompanying book featuring striking photographs by Dickinson. The 28 page book is landscape orientation with final 21cm x 14.8cm dimensions printed onto 100% recycled, 115gsm white paper. Music and imagery to submerge.
Track(s): 1. Cybals 2. Toy
Catalogue: CV201806
Format: 7"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 8 April 2018
Title: Paper Universe/The Anthropocene
Vinyl: Listen/Buy
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: Magnificent blissed out explorations from London's The Untied Knot. The 7"s A side, 'Paper Universe', is a wonderful opener with evocative strangled guitar experiments sounding as if they are trying hard to work their way out of the loping bass melodies and glorious drum rhythms that are channelling from speaker to speaker. Toward the end of the track, the instruments all fall back and everything drops to a minimalist and twinkling backing. Just delightful. 'The Anthropocene' picks up where 'Paper Universe' left off filling the space with restrained airy atmospherics and loose improvising on the drums. The track builds superbly with a popping, insistent bassline and captivating drum patterns that are tightly locked together with barely perceptible electronic dashes that add further dimension. Fabulous production, beautiful arrangements and harmonies with moments of pure genius, the music on this 7" will have you flipping between sides incessantly. Much obliged.
Track(s): 1. Paper Universe 2. The Anthropocene
Catalogue: CV201805
Format: 7"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 8 April 2018
Title: An Analogue Mind
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: Establishing itself in the epic glacial movements of 'This Changes Everything' and 'Whisperings', Red On Maroon have a seemingly unlimited source of anguish on which to draw. Over stratums of effervescent aural resources, 'An Analogue Mind' develops the kind of panoramic soundtrack that has your mind move back and forth between daydreaming and blacking out. An incredible, immensely haunting blend of sparse ambience and modern classical compositions. Just incredible music.
Track(s): 1. This Changes Everything 2. Whisperings
Catalogue: CV201804
Format: 10"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 4 March 2018
Title: Seeking The Spheres
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: An arresting offering, this new release on Champion Version features a sublime collection of post-classical and post-jazz infused gestures by experimental duo Minus Pilots. With Matt Pittori on drums and percussion joining Adam Barringer on extended range electric bass duties, Minus Pilots shelve genre distinctions with a completely captivating suite of illuminating structures for their 'Seeking The Spheres' 10". The result is a poignant, at times dreamlike, and often impulsive melding of dynamisms conceivably best described in terms of it's stunning colours, volume changes and progressive individuality. The two proceed to unite, develop and dissolve across five pieces with beautifully natural subtleties and uncompromising crescendos. Spectacular and captivating to say the very least.
Track(s): 1. Mounting To Heavens 2. In Perfect Silence At The Stars 3. After Midnight Glimmer 4. I Know Of Nothing Else But Miracles 5. No Sleep Without Dreams
Catalogue: CV201803
Format: 10"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 4 March 2018
Title: Vindens Segl
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: Modern-classical genius øjeRum presents 'Vindens Segl', his first 10" offering with Champion Version. 'Vindens' is a minimalist swell of solo guitar keys shrouded in shimmering strings, sounding out a blissfully suppressed and wistful atmosphere while 'Segl' is more stable harmonically with melodic bells and thumb piano pieces improvised over constant bowed string lines. From time to time this continual pulse is heightened and transformed through alternating patterns on the bells resulting in a beautiful calm. A highly contemplative release, this is absolutely recommended.
Track(s): 1. Vindens A 2. Segl
Catalogue: CV201802
Format: 10"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 4 March 2018
Title: Factors
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: On his enthralling second release with Champion Version, London's Thomas Stone focuses his attention evenly between an entirely instrumental palette of contrabassoon, samplers, loop pedals and activated percussion to create the all-encompassing, often blissful, quiet and mystical 'Factors'. Relying on his meticulous feel for expressing resonant overtones, 'Factors A' is a deeply sombre, melancholic piece that's precisely focussed and wonderfully executed. Really magnificent work. Then comes the harmonic sculptures of 'Factors B+C', a majestic and glacially tense passage that quietly illuminates the blurred limits between acoustic and electronic practices. This track will completely engulf your senses. We are utterly blown away by this incredible record. One absolutely not to miss so be quick.
Track(s): 1. Factors A 2. Factors B+C
Catalogue: CV201801
Format: 10"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 4 March 2018
Title: Guesswork
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: La Monte Young, one of the originators of drone, defined the genre in 2000 as "the sustained tone branch of minimalism". When it comes to genre-defining releases, few sum up drone like the music contained on this masterful 7". Completely and utterly essential.
Track(s): 1. Disownership 2. National Blither
Catalogue: CV201724
Format: 7"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 17 September 2017
Title: The Broca Ensemble With Georgina Brett
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: Ian Faragher, Jonathan Wood, Nigel Bryant, Richard Thompson and Michael Bearpark are joined by Georgina Brett for the Broca Ensemble's debut with Champion Version. The music here highlights just how undeniably beautiful such simple elements can be moving beyond precision to deftly exhibit the enthralling breadth and quality of the collectives glacial structures. The result is magnificent and combined into a force much larger than its individual parts. A means to an exuberant end. Quite honestly, this record is essential.
Track(s): 1. The Broca Ensemble With Georgina Brett 2. The Broca Ensemble
Catalogue: CV201723
Format: 7"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 17 September 2017
Title: Iris/Ellipsis
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: Tomas Phillips and Kenneth Kirschner come together for their 'Iris/Ellipsis' 10". 'Iris' is a beautiful composition of minimalist improvisations made up of gentle piano textures and evoking avant-garde experiments. Their beautiful work continues with 'Ellipsis', an exemplary study into abstract minimalism that unfolds slowly with sparse piano phrases and unsettling atmospherics. Phillips and Kirschner are on top of their game, masters of a highly poignant and wholly engaging sound palette. A completely enveloping record. Brilliant freeform refractions.
Track(s): 1. Iris 2. Ellipsis
Catalogue: CV201722
Format: 10"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 16 July 2017
Title: New River EP
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: Using guitar, various effects pedals, bass clarinet, modular synth and a laptop, the two movements on Darkroom's 'New River EP' 10" sees Michael Bearpark and Andrew Ostler dissolving orchestration into more abstract static with slow moving glacial motifs blended with ghostly shifting chord sequences. 'Tiny Life Reflecting Blue' is classic Darkroom, developing a soothing, yet repetitive atmospheric hum while 'Land Of Cake And Confusion' underlines Bearpark's and Ostler's versatility and persevering drive as composers, presenting a supreme and emotive soundscape. Droning transmissions. You know what to do.
Track(s): 1. Tiny Life Reflecting Blue 2. Land Of Cake And Confusion
Catalogue: CV201721
Format: 10"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 16 July 2017
Title: Fight Score
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: Stirring up a sea of texture, 'Fight Score' is intensely focussed, powerful and concentrated. The music here has a claustrophobic feel, at times reminiscent of a John Carpenter soundtrack for all its otherworldly complexities. This new 10” illustrates just how masterful Machinefabriek is these days. Cinematic drones and glacial structures.
Background: Memo Akten (as part of Marshmallow Laser Feast) and Rutger Zuydervelt worked together before, for Alexander Whitley's dance performance 'The Measures Taken'. But this time, dancers aren't doing the moving, but the viewer is. FIGHT is a virtual reality experience that's equally hypnotizing and disorientating. Memo Akten's virtual reality artwork FIGHT premiered at the art/technology biënnale STRP (Eindhoven, March 2017), and was also shown at Sónar. Wearing an Oculus Rift headset, the viewer enters an abstract, exceedingly psychedelic 3D world. The video shows different patterns and colours to each eye, causing 'binocular rivalry', an effect in which the brain makes its own fluctuating mix of the images. With the driving music by Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek), FIGHT is an incredibly immersive experience. In the virtual reality version, the music is spatialized, reactive to the movements of the viewer. The Champion Version released soundtrack EP presents the music as a mixed stereo version. The second track on this EP is the soundscape that played in the room in which the installation was exhibited.
Track(s): 1. Fight Score 2. Fight Ambient
Catalogue: CV201720
Format: 10"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 9 July 2017
Title: Træerne & Intetheden XI-XII
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: This is it, the final part of the 'Træerne & Intetheden' series of 7"s by øjeRum. Continuing the theme, this is a tranquil reverie with gloomy currents of organ. It's a stunningly condensed and absorbing piece of music that will engulf the focussed listener. The perfect way to settle this perfect set of releases.
Track(s): 1. Part XI 2. Part XII
Catalogue: CV201719
Format: 7"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 4 June 2017
Title: Studies In Dissonance
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: Orphax is Amsterdam based musician and trained drummer Sietse van Erve's musical project where the focus is firmly set on minimal ambient and drone. This is Orphax's debut release with Champion Version having previously released material through Barreuh, Broken20, Silken Tofu, Striate Cortex, Suggestion and his own Moving Furniture label. 'Studies In Dissonance' is beautifully distilled, arresting in its restraint and ease yet intensely resonant in its complexity. Beautiful music.
Background: Studies in dissonance is a release with two tracks in which I try to play with sounds from one sound source and search for a dissonant sound which (to me) still sounds very pleasant to listen to. This is partly the joy of experiment, but partly also a protest towards the sweet, nice, lovely and way to clean ambient drones which are wiped from any tension we have been brought by so many other musicians the last 10 to 15 years. Of course not much wrong with this clean music, but let's all be honest some dissonance in our life so once in a while does lighten up the fire again. Let's celebrate the out-of-tune music and welcome back mistakes in music.
Track(s): 1. Organs 2. Horns
Catalogue: CV201718
Format: 7"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 9 July 2017
Title: Træerne & Intetheden IX-X
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: We have the fourth and fifth instalments of øjeRum's 'Træerne & Intetheden' 7" set available and more ambient drones to immerse yourself within. The music contained here is beautiful and languorous with harmonic reflections and fragmented tones. An absolute dream. Just wonderful.
Track(s): 1. Part IX 2. Part X
Catalogue: CV201717
Format: 7"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 4 June 2017
Title: Moksha
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: Our first release with Bristol based duo Run Logan Run, a highly unique, highly abstract and highly accomplished punk/jazz collaboration between drummer Dan Johnson and saxophonist Andrew Hayes. 'Moksha' documents a tangle of ferocious and original expressions with luscious rhythms and heavily effected, oscillating, multi-layered saxophone textures. An amazing, wild, freeform 7", you'll be flipping between the A and B side time and time again. It really is an incredible record. You know what needs to be done.
Track(s): 1. I 2. II
Catalogue: CV201716
Format: 7"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 11 June 2017
Title: Træerne & Intetheden VII-VIII
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: We have the fourth and fifth instalments of øjeRum's 'Træerne & Intetheden' 7" set available and more ambient drones to immerse yourself within. The music contained here is beautiful and languorous with harmonic reflections and fragmented tones. An absolute dream. Just wonderful.
Track(s): 1. Part VII 2. Part VIII
Catalogue: CV201715
Format: 7"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 4 June 2017
Title: It Wells From The Rock, And Flows Away
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: Stereocilia's debut with Champion Version and what a cracker it is. 'It Wells From The Rock, And Flows Away' opens with 'The March Burn', an otherworldly ascent into Bristol guitarist John Scott's ambient timbre. It's a seductive soundscape of swirling guitar drone backwashes infiltrated by subtle electric bass textures. The sublime splendour of 'On the Plateau' follows with Scott establishing a spectral mood with haunting guitar chord progressions looped over droning overtones and effected feedback. Stunning atmospherics.
Track(s): 1. The March Burn 2. On the Plateau
Catalogue: CV201714
Format: 7"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 14 May 2017
Title: Træerne & Intetheden V-VI
Vinyl: Sold Out
Digital: Listen/Buy
Description: The second and third volumes in Paw Grabowski's øjeRum 'Træerne & Intetheden' six-part 7" opus on Champion Version. There are more transcendent moments with slowly moving soundscapes that are glacial, ominous and completely calming. Fantastically lavish music. And lest we forget a mention of the artwork, which is as spectacular as ever. Dazzling beauty.
Track(s): 1. Part V 2. Part VI
Catalogue: CV201713
Format: 7"
Edition: Limited to one copy per person/household
Released: 14 May 2017