Gramm

Short description

Minimal emotional slices, cuts, grooves and reinterpretations travelling along the alps.

Started

1998.

Typical genres

Ambient, deep minimal, experimental, glitch, microhouse, progressive deep minimal.

Aliases (other projects)

Farben [No information and not set].
Gesellschaft Zur Emanzipation Des Samples [No information and not set].
Gramm [No information and not set].
Jan Jelinek [No information and not set].
N. Gratin [No information and not set].
The Exposures [No information and not set].

About Direct links Interview links Standout mix and tracklist Albums Webpage log

About

Berlin based, he is a DJ, musician, producer and remixer. Started as record collector of dub, jazz, funk and soul. Then discovered house music. Since 1998 he has been releasing records under a number of aliases.

Gramm stands for pulsating minimal electronica, Farben explores soul by rearranging old records into subtle variations. The records he releases under his own name (Jan Jelinek), are ambient songs based on old jazz recordings.

Deals with the transformation of sounds, translating source materials from popular music into abstract, reduced textures. Bypassing traditional musical instruments, he constructs collages using tiny sound fragments, from a wide-variety of recording devices, like tape recorders, digital samplers, media players. The recordings are processed into repetitive loops that boil down the original to its essentials, making the source material indecipherable in most cases, but spectacularly beautiful, emotional and engaging. His approach is all about the transformation of sounds, about devising a method for translating old Motown records, or the excesses of funk, into abstract, reduced electronics.

2001 saw the release of Loop Finding Jazz Records on the ~scape label. That was his 1st record under his own name, based as the name implies, on old jazz recordings. Again, the source material was stripped relentlessly, into a highly timeless and stimulating work.

La Nouvelle Pauvreté on the ~scape label in 2003, reinterpreted rock with inventing a fictitious backing band, using his alias of The Exposures. For this project, his sampling sources, encompassed everything from Brian Ferry to Sun Ra.

On Kosmischer Pitch on the the ~scape label in 2005, he returned to his roots, sampling cosmic sounds and Krautrock. He performs live club sets, on his laptop as Farben, and collaborates with improvisation ensembles, like the Japanese trio Computer Soup, and Australian jazz formation Triosk (see also their joint ~scape release, Triosk meets Jan Jelinek ‘1 + 3 + 1’, in 2003).

In 2008, established the faitiche label as a platform for his own experiments, for joint projects, and for work by his musicial friends. The 16 releases to date, include a collaboration with the vibraphonist Masayoshi Fujita, and the work of fictional sound researcher Ursula Bogner. Whose scores, drawings and writings, have been presented and performed around the world.

Since 2012, has been writing and producing experimental radio pieces, for state broadcaster SWR (Südwestrundfunk), that deal with fictional identities and soundscapes. The theme of fictional and multiple identities, runs through the whole of the faitiche catalogue. What these various works all have in common is live processing of previously collected sound material.