A Number Of Small Things/Artists/ISAN products

ISAN - Lucky Cat 19,99 €

if you happen to live in the uk and tried recently to get a dsl-connection, you probably have seen hell. no chance, at least in the south of the country. this is where robin saville and antony ryan kept a whole legion of telecommunications technicians busy connecting their two studios with every inch of optic cable available, no matter if floods or petrol shortages were in the way.

why set up a data network in between the two studios? one asks because these two luddites, isan (compared to isdn, anything but digital) love old analogue electronic devices to make music, instruments from a time when synthesizers were developed in attics; when air-conditioned offices, where hundreds of coding-slaves would program new organ-presets, were still an unknown phenomena. equipment you not only need screwdrivers for, but also furniture polish. synthesizers and drumboxes which were affordable even when they were manufactured and which rockbands with mellotrons and modular walls laughed at. over the last few years, robin and antony isan proved that these machines are capable of great things too. with numerous releases - preferrably on 7" of course - they managed to book reservations for front row seats in our record racks. little melodies appear, dragging you along on their journey towards dawn, slowly unveiling their real inner-self, and banishing evil ghosts.

'lucky cat' starts where 'salamander', isan's last album on morr music, stopped. in a way. in reality, it is completely different. well, you must listen to it for yourself. it is just that everything sounds more self-evident, lighter, more familiar, more personal and especially more lovable and adorable. it almost sounds like the happy studio cat switched on all of the machines and played, while antony and robin were out buying milk from the cornershop.

maybe this newly achieved greatness is due to the recently installed internet connection? for the first time in their lives, the old drumboxes and synthesizers, constantly fighting against rheumatic detuning problems, can leave the studio, download pictures of the moon, check out cambridge, or chat with their retired japanese developers. such trips need bandwidth. it is time to say thank you. like john peel, other radio gods and all the record buyers wanted to thank isan for last year's 'salamander', isan themselves want to thank their machines. the machines know that they are responsible for isan's success. they know that they haven't heard of another studio in which you get treated with furniture polish once a week, a treatment they interpret as positive. a broadband flatrate connection to the outside world, however, was more than welcome. one can clearly hear this on 'lucky cat'. even more 'man-on-the-moon-melodies', more 'rocket-lift-off-basses' and at least a gallon of this mysterious isan-mixture which makes 'lucky cat' even more shimmering and warm. when studio cats are happy and drumboxes can see the moon, nothing can go wrong.

ISAN - Clockwork Menagerie from 9,99 €

when everything falls into place, something great can come to happen.

robin saville and antony ryan from leicester did a lot more than was actually planned when they were founding their integrated services analogue network. they not only found themselves a very nice little corner in the world of electronic pop music but also unconsciously helped to launch the label they now preferably release their records on. like this one.

this compilation of early material coming from long-out-of-print singles and compilations was a long time coming. mostly because there should be many more people out there who should be able to listen to these tracks than those lucky few who were able to get the original copies in the short while they were available. for instance there’s eusa’s head, isan’s first ever recording which surely had to be rescued from collector’s vaults. it’s nice to hear the first steps of a group that nowadays tends to remix people like depeche mode. but this is no highly official or definitive collection but more a collection of favourite tracks you should be able to listen to at all times.

these tunes seem to come from a different era when small labels like earworm, liquefaction empire, bad jazz or wurlitzer jukebox were continually presenting interesting and exciting new bands, mostly on neatly packaged limited edition 7”es. one of these was the melodious masterpiece damil 85, isan’s debut-7” for wurlitzer jukebox, which at the time seemed as mysterious as it was great. nobody knew where this was coming from or who this dubious dr. ivanovich was who did things that may not have been necessary.

for a fact, isan do exist but they’re not so much a working unit as may have been supposed by many. robin saville and antony ryan actually live and work separately from each other and just found a liking for releasing their music under the same banner. this principle works astonishingly well. as different as their respective styles may be – it’s up to the listener to guess who did which track – the tracks seems to be secretly interlinked in a way that goes beyond profane explanations.

the music ranges, depending on from out of whose vintage analogue equipment it comes, between simple melodies on swinging, feather-weight beats and rhythmically complex and transparent sound installations. may this be the right balance between pop and art. maybe like an unlikely mixture of plone and seefeel.

for morr music this compilation the realization of a very old idea. the tracks gathered here have given essential impulses in the development of the label’s style and ideology. in a way the group and their label follow the same path and that is to go into the future with the past in mind.

ISAN - Meet Next Life from 9,99 €

What nobody knows is that Integrated Services Analogue Network (ISAN for short) is really a secret garden in southern England. In these mild climes, two men in their early thirties founded Britain's first synthesiser home where neglected and forgotten instruments find a new way in life under the love and care of their keepers. Every day Antony Ryan and Robin Saville visit their beneficiaries and feed them with wonderful melodies and soft rhythms which the two bring home from a day's daydreaming of far off, imaginary landscapes. It could be a lake on hot hazy day, the air teeming with insects and pollen, waiting to burst under the weight of an oncoming storm. It could be an army of robots, full of misguided pride, marching to their death in war. Or it may be two pigs dressed in human hats, rooting for food and very much in love.
Every day Robin and Antony nurtured their growing affinity with their machines. And so the garden grew and flourished and before long the first salamander was seen, clinging to a flower stalk, then came a cat and, more amazingly, a collection of clockwork parts too. So it is only normal that everyone is asking themselves when and what strange fruit Saville and Ryan's wonder-garden will bear next. After all it is two and a half years ago that "Lucky Cat" appeared on Morr Music. In the form of "Clockwork Menagerie" (morr music 028) the impatient were temporarily alleviated with a collection of songs everybody believed to be long lost. Meanwhile Robin and Antony were concentrating on bringing their machines out to play live performances for the benefit of all at shows like Sonar, Big Chill and Benicassim amongst others. Now it's once again time that ISAN open the gates to their secret garden with the release of their full length album, "Meet Next Life".
At first glance everything seems the same, rows and rows of soldered synthesisers hum and hiss happily at the sight of their trustees. Robin and Antony walk around in the dissaray of patchbays and opened-up circuit boards, they lovingly stroke three note chords on the old chipped keyboards or offer kind words to an ageing drum computer so that it comes back to its old warm self. A closer look amongst the flowers and butterflies, however, and several new additions are to be found - a guitar, a glockenspiel and other percussion instruments have also been brought in to the home for love and affection. These new residents help ISAN to better organise the blurry outlines of the dreamy landscapes of their imaginations, the pictures now become sounds. Sounds still recognisable in their typical softness and harmony, yet more dynamic and physical: a trait of their new, more frequent excursions through real landscapes to live shows. Their return sees them homesick and longing, they return to their machines and begin, once again, to dream of landscapes...

ISAN - Salamander from 9,99 €

Saturday. You‘re on your way to the fleemarket. `Come around at 1.00 pm. I might have something for you then‘, the old man told you yesterday. He opens the trunk of his car and lets you have a look inside. Heaven, made from analogue circuits. The old man smiles, mumbles something about his attic and that he might find more old keyboards, takes the cash and goes back to his stall.
At home. The synthesizer sounds great, warm, embracing, lively, almost alive. But what‘s that noise, that strange hiss? You open up the main wodden cabinet. You suddenly relalise that this syntehsizer once was alive. It used to be a bug‘s family living room. The hiss and the buzz is caused by, now long dead, little bug kids who glued themselves to the filter circuits and who tried to play table tennis on the A-C-adaptor. `Should I clean the inside? Should I get rid of the cracklings?‘, you ask yourself. No way, you like what you hear. This keyboard is alive. It‘s good that way. You close the door and start recording...

If our mutual friend found beetles in his synth, Isan‘s equipment must be inhabited by proper salamanders, pattering constantly over circuits, stumbling over wires. Robin and Toe, the two mates operating this `Integrated Services Analogue Network‘ (ISAN), appreciate the salamander‘s help and dedicated this whole album to their little friend. A couple of years ago, they both met in Leicester, discovered a common interest in using dodgy old keyboards to make a dodgy old noise‘ and started recording together. Mixing the simple beauty of melodies generated with analogue keyboards and the bumpy, quirky rhythms old drummachines create when you switch them on, Isan produce some of the most unresistable pop anthems the whole family can hum along to. Robin and Toe themselves acknowledge the influences of Autechre, AFX, Brian Eno, Stereolab, My Bloddy Valentine, Seefeel and The Human League. Names that might give you an idea of what Isan is all about. However, they do not really match their sound. Isan sound more relaxed, childhood-reflecting, soothing, supportive, bright and shimmering: electronic music which, transformed into medicine, would make drugs obsolete. We‘d all just swallow a little Isan salamander every morning, kickboard into town meeting friends and having brightly coloured drinks. And Robin and Toe would join us, for sure, with tapes full of new tracks.

ISAN - Plans Drawn In Pencil 9,99 €

Maybe the pencil would be an excellent image. As the softest of all writing implement, it is always close to vanishing, to being wiped or erased. Maybe this album, if it were a painting, it would not be oil on canvas but rather a pencil drawing. White on grey. Reduced and open at first sight. Rich in details and playful on closer examination. A lot happens within seclusion. It happens between the sounds of this fourth album that Antony Ryan and Robin Saville have recorded for Morr Music. A short and friendly first encounter in 1998, a cooperation for an EP which became an album. A long friendship has come of it, between a band and a label, between isan and Morr Music.

Antony Ryan and Robin Saville did not write any lists for plans drawn in pencil and did not made any plans either. They were concerned with nothing but sounds. They sent them back and forth between their homes in England. They layered soundtracks on top of the other, activated filters, went through synthesizers and systems (analogue and digital ones) looking for sounds. Firstly, each one of the two on his own. In a ping-pong-manner. And in a second step both of them together. Two artists and their machines. “Sometimes there is a melody in your head first, the other time you find it in a synthesizer. You find it in dialogue with the equipment”, says Robin Saville, one half of isan. "Sometimes I had to teach my machines to generate the melody" says Antony Ryan, the other half of isan

Robin Saville also says that their music is about making difficult sounds easy to listen to. About the thin line between conceptual serious music and pop, between minimal and melody.

The opener “look and yes” is a soft searching, a warm murmur. Long notes standing in space alone, environmental music. “road runner” is a shy pop-pearl whose gleam becomes more sparkling with time. “amber button” is the most rhythmic track of a quiet album, “working in dust” is music in cinemascope, in some ways reminiscent of the Krautrock pioneers neu! or young Brian Eno.

www.isan.co.uk

Seavault - The Mercy Seat/ I Could Be Happy 4,99 €

Organic, electronic, melodic songs that shimmer with light and dark textures from the UK. Antony Ryan (isan) and Simon Scott (televise/slowdive) blend together a mixture of musical elements that stun and comfort, sounding like the perfect duo with guitars that rip your face off and electronics that comfort and confuse in equal measures.
While sharing the same bill at a gig in September 2006 at the Luminaire in London, Antony from Isan and Simon Scott from Televise realised that they had a lot of musical tastes in common. After trading files over the internet they soon discovered their sound and a musical partnership has formed that could be described as the Cure drinking with My Bloody Valentine drinking with the Postal Service drinking with Ulrich Schnauss. "Mercy Seat" (Ultra Vivid Scene) and "I Could Be Happy" (Altered Images) indicate Seavault's influences - "The darkness and brightness in our music, the highs and lows of a love affair with melodic pop", to quote Antony Ryan himself.

Robin Saville - Peasgood Nonsuch 13,99 €

Lugubrious and minimal. Melodic and otherworldly.
Hot on the blistering heels of his debut solo single (VAN 145) comes this full-length outing from the social worker turned gardener. Double digging over unlikely boundaries is something of a habit for Robin, and this record characteristically lurches between moods; from elegiac to wistful, and from meditative to bouncy, this record runs the full gamut.
Creaking synths, loping bass and a succession of chimes seep from the nimble textures pressed tightly together. Lush and filmic, the nine tracks here cultivate and harvest a twinkling yet intense arc, with strange and alien sounds nestling snugly next to crumpled rhythms and gurgles, all peppered with tinges of acoustic guitar and eerie tones.
'Peasgood Nonsuch' works over nutrient-rich electronica soil, germinating an earthy hybrid of intricately woven melodies and pulses, stewed and heated to perfection. An organic journey from the pesticide-free plot to the kitchen table, it's a recipe full of beat-tastic ingredients ripe for picking from the orchard.
As one of half of the duo which comprises isan, Robin Saville has long been part of that seminal act - masters of slow flow electronica, bridging the gap between different boundaries and atmospheres, not to mention untangling messy knots of wires and cables all around the world. With its roots closer in feel to isan's earlier, more sprightly offerings, 'Peasgood Nonsuch' is light and warm but with an underlying dark centre, so the audible tranquillity is imbued with an altogether tougher edge.
Next to using a digital pipette to suck up the leaked new Portishead album this gunk of electronic DNA is ripe for unspooling and analysing in the Petri dish of your own home laboratories.
A must for fans of isan, Inch-Time, Harold Budd, and all things Type Records ; Morr Music and Eno's Obscure label.
Edition of 1000 copies in card gatefold.

ISAN - Salle D´isan 9,99 €

isan, that´s robin saville and anthony ryan, who met in sunny circumstances in leicester/uk.the term isan stands for "integrated services analogue network", and beside other reasons it reveals their interest in using dodgy old keyboards to make dodgy old noise. but with their new 6 track mlp on morr music even the listeners who are new to the isan network will soon reckognize that the definition of dodgy old noise and analogue synth-sounds becomes a completely new dimension. isan´s music is a kind of ambilvalent thing: simple but pure, noisy but clear, strange but true, to mention only a few. the past of this band was couloured with a bunch of 7"´s, several wide spread contributions, various lp´s (for example cat.no.003 on morr music ...) and so on. due to the constant quality of isan´s work it´s not a surprise that they soon got an invitation doing a john peel radio show and an overwhelmig feedback from the music press.

the nme e.g. compared isan a bit to plone and isan don´t really complain about that. they mention being influenced by artists like brian eno, stereolab, autechre, my bloody valentine... - being involved into the isan sound network you´ll drop the name isan equal to their influences to your very best (girl-)friend and/or you´ll find yourself whistling their beautiful melodies on several sunny circumstances as well. another important merit of isan is maybe to completely calm you down because every piece of robins and anthony´s music creates an amazing feeling of being "distant" to every unnecesary thought, so just sit back, relax and let yourself go. the intention of isan to ignore common 4tothefloor dance-patterns doesn´t prevent you from finding yourself on a ship of it´s own rhythmic; sometimes it steames and rolles and later on it just seems to slide over a sea of melodies and all around you things just disappear and fade away...

ISAN - Glow In The Dark Safari Set from 4,49 €

Robin Saville and Antony Ryan, two English gentlemen who create music together under the nom de plume Isan, return with their sixth full length album for their spiritual home of Morr Music.
It’s been a few years since Isan’s previous outing, the delectable electronic esoterica of Plans Drawn In Pencil, but our heroes haven’t been lazy. “We played some lovely shows on the back of the album and then took an unintentional sabbatical,” explains Robin. “Antony moved to Denmark and then Sweden where he's now learning to be a glass blower. No really”, he deadpans in as good natured a way one close friend can talk about another. Robin also released a critically acclaimed album himself, the agrarian electronica of Peasgood Nonsuch. No wonder it took them a while to finish Glow In The Dark Safari Set. The results, in (ahem) time-honoured Isan tradition, are certainly worth the wait.
Opener, Channel Ten, with its Autobahn-assured poise, appropriately prefigures a body of work that is Isan’s finest to date. Inspiration for this came from ‘emancipation’ as Robin elaborates
“It was an attempt to jettison the weight of our back catalogue and get back to the fun of making music. This entailed playing with ancient Casios, mangled tape loops and squidgy noises. Very hands-on. Most of the tracks on the album started life away from the laptop”
This giddy sense of enjoyment suffuses the album – from the glistening rush of Merman Sound which segues into the soft focus sound world of its own coda seamlessly to the cinematic, techy strut of Grissette or the calmly oscillating and cascading melodies of Greencracked which evoke images of a retro-futurist utopia.
Isan have always excelled at fashioning a quietly awe-inspiring music and Glow... is no exception. Even the title suggests a sense of wide-eyed-wonder. “We were playing with lots of ideas around fire, embers, bioluminescence and the title popped into my head one day. It seemed to sum up a lot of the things we like - I like to imagine sitting in a darkened room looking at the gentle green glow of 1970s vu meters, then they all come to life and start crawling up the wall” says Antony.
Such is the album’s celestial hot-wired circuit board wizardry; Glow In The Dark Safari Set positively throbs, ebbs and flows with electronically refracted ideas and melodies – a digital tone poem sitting somewhere betwixt the cosy experimentation of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and the exotic sonic emissions of a top secret Düsseldorf studio circa 1975.
“I think we'd like to see it as a bit of a reset in terms of the Isan canon” concludes Robin. If that’s the case then Isan fans old and new will be delighted to hear that Glow In The Dark Safari Set points to a beautiful future. Bask in its brilliance. - Rich Hanscomb

ISAN - Greencracked / Catgot 4,99 €

Two new tracks from the forthcoming album!
For the new tracks It was ISAN's attempt to jettison the weight of their back catalogue and get back to the fun of making music. This entailed playing with ancient Casios, mangled tape loops and squidgy noises. Very hands-on. Most of the tracks on the album started life away from the laptop. You can hear this 'fun of making music' in both tracks. In the tipsy & twisted sounds of Greencracked as well as in the calmly oscillating melodies of Catgot which evoke images of a retro-futurist utopia. Two digital tone poems.