About

German electronic musician Jan Jelinek produces a wide variety of works based on manipulated samples, ranging from glitchy minimal techno to electro-acoustic drones to radio plays. Rather than playing traditional instruments, he creates his work using sounds derived from sources ranging from field recordings to popular music, which are processed beyond recognition. His live performances, as a solo artist or in collaboration with other musicians or ensembles, are entirely improvised. Jelinek first received acclaim for his abstract techno tracks produced under the names Farben (compiled on 2002's Textstar) and Gramm (1999's Personal Rock), as well as recordings under his birth name for Pole's ~scape label, such as 2001's revered Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records. His music gradually became less beat-driven and more avant-garde, nearly abandoning rhythm altogether by the time he founded the Faitiche label in 2008. Jelinek's output during the 2010s included several collaborations with vibraphonist Masayoshi Fujita, as well as commissioned work for dance pieces or radio plays, including 2018's Zwischen.

Kosmischer Pitch shifts Jan Jelinek's view away from his past conceptual springboards -- soul, funk, disco, jazz, folk, pop -- and onto the mind-expanding rock music made in the '70s by his German elders. The producer's whim, as usual, won't be perceptible to those who aren't familiar with his output. Guitars are looped and treated into amorphous webs, vibraphone notes are drawn into smears, spare percussive pieces are decomposed into creaks and rattles. The album's rhythmic sense is typically left to the textural loops, while tender throbs and thrums make discreet appearances — so it doesn't have the immediacy of Jelinek's Farben tracks, but the mesmeric constructions can worm throughout your head when allowed.

The long-lost vinyl album is back in stock: for the last 20 years, Kosmischer Pitch was originally released in 2005 on the ~scape label, existed only as a digital download. Right on time for the 20th anniversary the remastered album is available again on vinyl. The digital album includes two previously unreleased pieces from this period.

What the press said about Kosmischer Pitch back in 2005:

“For Kosmischer Pitch, Jelinek draws from the obsessed-over rock produced by his German countrymen in the 1970s. (…) Trance-inducing repetition is constantly modulated by variations that hover on the threshold of audibility. (…) one of the more remarkable bodies of work in electronic music.” — Pitchfork
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"Like the cosmic compositions it delicately references, Kosmischer Pitch is proof that the higher and lower pleasures can triumphantly combine.” — The Wire Magazine
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"It's impossible to know how many layers of sound Jelinek has stacked up on any of these eight tracks, but each one seems to take on a shadowy, ghost-like life of its own as it morphs across time and space. Minimalist, yes, in a way, but thick as a wool rug.” — AllAboutJazz 

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Label: Faitiche
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Remastered
Reissued: 2025 / Original Release: 2005
Genre: Electronic
Style: Glitch, Experimental, Minimal, Ambient

File under: Leftfield
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