Terre Thaemlitz

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Terre Thaemlitz
Also known as Miss Take
Born 1968 in Minnesota, U.S.
Genre(s) Ambient
Avant garde
Glitch
House
Jazz
Occupation(s) Musician
Artist
Queer philosopher
Label(s) Comatonse Recordings
Mille Plateaux
Instinct
Website Terre Thaemlitz

Terre Thaemlitz is an award-winning multi-media producer, writer, public speaker, educator, audio remixer, DJ and owner of the Comatonse Recordings record label. His work critically combines themes of identity politics - including gender, sexuality, class, linguistics, ethnicity and race - with an ongoing critique of the socio-economics of commercial media production. This diversity of themes is matched by Thaemlitz' wide range of production styles, which include electroacoustic computer music, club-oriented deep house, digital jazz, ambient, and computer-composed neo-expressionist piano solos.

His audio projects have found release on an eclectic variety of record labels ranging from Mille Plateaux, to YMO founder Haruomi Hosono's Daisyworld Discs, to Bill Laswell's Subharmonic Records, to Universal Music Germany's Classical Division, to the UK dance label Disorient, and so on. Graphic design, photography, illustration, text and video also play an important part in Thaemlitz' projects. His writings on music and culture have been published internationally in a number of books, academic journals and magazines.

Contents

[edit] Activism

As a speaker and educator on issues of non-essentialist transgenderism and pansexual Queer sexuality, Thaemlitz has participated in panel discussions throughout Europe and Japan, as well as held numerous cross-cultural sensitivity workshops at Tokyo's Uplink Factory, near his current residence in Kawasaki, Japan.

Terre Thaemlitz's Soil and Tranquilizer releases in the early and mid-1990s served to introduce a "political" form of ambient music, continued in later releases such as Couture Cosmetique and Means from an End, which aim to recast the usually passive artist-listener-environment equation. Thaemlitz' colleagues in the political ambient music front include the sound activist group Ultra-red. Following their remixes of Thaemlitz' Still Life with Numerical Analysis in 1998, Ultra-red joined Thaemlitz on the German label Mille Plateaux for their first two albums; Second Nature: An Electroacoustic Pastoral (1999) and Structural Adjustments (2000).

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

  • Terre Thaemlitz presents... You? Again?
    Mule Electronic, 2006, MED05
  • K-S.H.E (Kami-Sakunobe House Explosion): Routes Not Roots / Ruutsu De Ha Naku Ruuto
    Comatonse Recordings, 2006, C.013.CD
  • Trans-Sister Radio
    Grain of Sound/Base Recordings, 2005, GOS018/BRCD00505
  • Lovebomb / Ai No Bakudan
    Double Disc DVD & Audio CD Re-issue
    Comatonse Recordings, 2005, D.001
  • Lovebomb / Ai No Bakudan
    Mille Plateaux, 2003, MP117
  • Oh, No! It's Rubato
    Mille Plateaux, 2001, MPCD103/MPLP103
  • Interstices
    Mille Plateaux, 2000, MP94
  • Fagjazz
    Comatonse Recordings, 2000, C.007
  • Replicas Rubato
    Mille Plateaux, 1999, MPCD71 and MPLP71
  • Love For Sale
    Mille Plateaux, 1999, MPCD53
  • Means From An End
    Mille Plateaux, 1999, MPCD53
  • G.R.R.L.
    Comatonse Recordings, 1997, C.003
  • Couture Cosmetique
    Caipirinha Productions, 1997 (US)
    Daisyworld Records, 1997 (Japan)
  • Die Roboter Rubato
    Mille Plateaux, 1997, MP34
  • Soil
    Instinct Ambient, 1995, AMB:007-2
  • Tranquilizer
    Instinct Ambient, 1994, EX-283-2

[edit] 12" EPs

Translucent vinyl re-issue of C.000 with previously unreleased outro "Pretty Mouth (He's Got One)"

Contains "Raw Through A Straw" and "Tranquilizer."

[edit] 7" Singles

  • Chugga: A Big 7-Inch
    Austria: Klanggallerie, 2003, GG73
  • Selling
    Netherlands: Bottrop-Boy, 2000, B-BOY 003
  • A-MUSAK
    Germany: A-Musik, 1999, A-14

[edit] DJ mixes

[edit] Collaborations

[edit] Internet-only releases

Below Code

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Comatonse Records, Terre Thaemlitz released a free best-of compilation CD. Physical copies are no longer in print, but MP3s are available for free download (along with a bonus track that did not fit on the original release).

Comatonse Recordings, 2006, C.012

[edit] Radio dramas

Trans-Sister Radio

Germany: Hessischer Rundfunk Radio, Channel HR2, Frankfurt M, 2004. Premier airdate November 17, 2004. Hörspiel, Redaktion: Manfred Hess. Also released on CD (Portugal: Grain of Sound/Base Recordings, 2005, GOS018/BRCD00505).
The Laurence Rassel Show (with Laurence Rassel), (Germany: Hessischer Rundfunk Radio, Channel HR2, Frankfurt M, 2006). Premier airdate April, 2006. Hörspiel, Redaktion: Manfred Hess.

[edit] Filmography

  • ffwd_mag (DVD + Magazine)

Italy: .::invernomuto::., 2005, Issue 3. Audio and photography.

  • Lovebomb / Ai No Bakudan (Full-length film/music videos)

Written, directed, filmed and edited by Terre Thaemlitz. Originally released on VHS (Japan: Comatonse Recordings, 2003, V.002). In English and Japanese. Japan: Comatonse Recordings, 2005/2003, D.001.NTSC | D.001.PAL.

  • Interstices (Short film/music videos)

Written, directed, filmed and edited by Terre Thaemlitz. Commissioned by Lovebytes and funded by the National Arts Council of England. Released with "Silent Passability" on DVD (Japan: Comatonse Recordings, 2005, D.000.NTSC). Originally released on VHS (Japan: Comatonse Recordings, 2001, V.001) and DVD ("Volatile Media," UK: Lovebytes, 2002, DSP2). Japan: Comatonse Recordings, 2005/2001, D.000.NTSC.

  • Silent Passability (Ride to the Countryside) (Music video)

Written, directed, filmed and edited by Terre Thaemlitz. Released with "Interstices" on DVD (Japan: Comatonse Recordings, 2005, D.000.NTSC). Originally released on VHS (US: Comatonse Recordings, 1997, V.000). Japan: Comatonse Recordings, 2005/1997, D.000.NTSC.

  • Modulations (documentary)

Directed by Iara Lee, produced by George Gund, (US: Caipirinha Productions, 1998). Interview.

  • Neue Kraft, Neues Werk (Transcodeur Express) (documentary)

Directed by Ninon Liotet and Olivier Schulbaum, (Germany: ZDF 2002). Interview and music.

  • Synthetic Pleasures (documentary)

Directed by Iara Lee, produced by George Gund, (US: Caipirinha Productions, 1995). Three tracks featured on soundtrack. Sound engineering for trailer.

[edit] Awards

  • Honorable Mention In Digital Musics, 1999 ORF Prix Ars Electronica
  • Best Ambient/Experimental Artist 1997, 1997 Readers Poll Results in "URB Magazine" (US: March/April 1998)
  • Best DJ 1991, Underground Grammy Award from the House of Magic, Midtown Manhattan drag circuit

[edit] Interviews

[edit] External links