E2-E4 Musings
When employing irresponsible Google journalism, you often come to strange forks in the road like this:
E2 E4 is computer version of popular mathematical game, created as office game. It's the game with good graphic and pleasant becalming music. E2 E4 consists of 5 locations each of which is another lever of difficulty. After loading the game you'll see the game field (a square) which consists of small squares. At the centre of the game field stands your figure (the horse), which you have to use to do several moves to open the picture hidden under the game field using the left button of the mouse. The number of moves and the picture are different for each location. Via Tucows
Eventually you'll find what you're after:
E2-E4 FAQ
What does the album title E2-E4 mean?
There are three coincidences for the title:
* When the title came to Manuel's mind (1978) there was not yet a specific composition planed for it. He has watched the film Star Wars, in which there was acting a little robot with the name R2D2. This name has inspired him in fact.
* At the same time he was exploring his first Apple computer, trying to write his own programs and learning about computer languages which deal in their simplest form only with letters and numbers (hexcode, assembler).
* Finally, the title reminds on a common opening chess move, although the correct writing would be in small letters. And for Manuel this meant his "opening move" to release his first album under his name (no ASHRA, no ASH RA TEMPEL). Via Ash Ra Tempel FAQ
But then you end up bumping into strange stuff like this, I guess you have to e-mail them to find out what nonsense they're up to.
Of course, the real E2-E4 burst out Athena-like from the cleft brow of Manuel Gottsching's forehead. I've often enjoyed a few of Ash Ra Tempel's more maximally out there records, insane jams, great cover art, and plenty of krautrock cred to hide your copy of American Beauty behind. If you're craving over the top Ash Ra style hippie drip, Gottsching's E2-E4 might flat out put you to sleep, a muted kaleidoscopic slumber in a sensory deprivation tank filled with briny amniotic fluid.
I remember once seeing a wooden Tinkertoy pseudo-computer housed at MIT that could beat anyone at tic-tac-toe. E2 E4 is constructed like a Lego thinking machine practicing chess strategies instead of studying up for its Turing test.
Manuel Gottsching - E2-E4 (excerpt)
This is a short excerpted portion, as the entire piece is almost an hour long, more info here
Original copies of E2-E4 command prices north of $100 due to its interesting distinction of being prized by both krautrock completists and house music collectors (E2-E4 being yet another secret weapon in Larry Levan's crate).
As might be expected for such a seminal electronic dance music jump off point, it has garnered tons of remixes and recontextualizations:
Basic Channel - E2-E4 Basic Reshape
and more recently,
Lindstrom & Prins Thomas - E2-E4 Tribute
These two homage reworks play to the strengths of the original in different ways. BC pushes the bass frequencies to extremes, with only liminal snatches of the source patterns appearing. Lindstrom & Prins Thomas simply revel in moody atmospherics.
Eye from the Boredoms (again?) patched together an hour long DJ mix of E2-E4 inspired tracks, one of the better inclusions done by Seiichi Yamamoto's Rovo project. This instrumental workout doesn't directly reference the source, but it is a pretty faithful krautrock workout.
Rovo - Catch and Release
More info on this Japanese E2-E4 tribute album here
This post would be lacking without a mention of Sueno Latino, a club track appropriating E2-E4 which was a number one in several European countries upon its 1989 release. I could never get into the original, it speeds things up too much for my taste. In many ways, this Cutmaster G version is a remix of a remix.
Sueno Latino - Sueno Latino (Cutmaster G Mix)
More info on the original Sueno Latino here
Here's a trip hop take on E2-E4. Maybe not essential, but still sort of interesting. Don't know of any other genre remakes or tributes. but I'm sure a couple are missing from this list.
Manuel Gottsching - E2-E4 (Jaywalk Tribute Remix)
When employing irresponsible Google journalism, you often come to strange forks in the road like this:
E2 E4 is computer version of popular mathematical game, created as office game. It's the game with good graphic and pleasant becalming music. E2 E4 consists of 5 locations each of which is another lever of difficulty. After loading the game you'll see the game field (a square) which consists of small squares. At the centre of the game field stands your figure (the horse), which you have to use to do several moves to open the picture hidden under the game field using the left button of the mouse. The number of moves and the picture are different for each location. Via Tucows
Eventually you'll find what you're after:
E2-E4 FAQ
What does the album title E2-E4 mean?
There are three coincidences for the title:
* When the title came to Manuel's mind (1978) there was not yet a specific composition planed for it. He has watched the film Star Wars, in which there was acting a little robot with the name R2D2. This name has inspired him in fact.
* At the same time he was exploring his first Apple computer, trying to write his own programs and learning about computer languages which deal in their simplest form only with letters and numbers (hexcode, assembler).
* Finally, the title reminds on a common opening chess move, although the correct writing would be in small letters. And for Manuel this meant his "opening move" to release his first album under his name (no ASHRA, no ASH RA TEMPEL). Via Ash Ra Tempel FAQ
But then you end up bumping into strange stuff like this, I guess you have to e-mail them to find out what nonsense they're up to.
Of course, the real E2-E4 burst out Athena-like from the cleft brow of Manuel Gottsching's forehead. I've often enjoyed a few of Ash Ra Tempel's more maximally out there records, insane jams, great cover art, and plenty of krautrock cred to hide your copy of American Beauty behind. If you're craving over the top Ash Ra style hippie drip, Gottsching's E2-E4 might flat out put you to sleep, a muted kaleidoscopic slumber in a sensory deprivation tank filled with briny amniotic fluid.
I remember once seeing a wooden Tinkertoy pseudo-computer housed at MIT that could beat anyone at tic-tac-toe. E2 E4 is constructed like a Lego thinking machine practicing chess strategies instead of studying up for its Turing test.
Manuel Gottsching - E2-E4 (excerpt)
This is a short excerpted portion, as the entire piece is almost an hour long, more info here
Original copies of E2-E4 command prices north of $100 due to its interesting distinction of being prized by both krautrock completists and house music collectors (E2-E4 being yet another secret weapon in Larry Levan's crate).
As might be expected for such a seminal electronic dance music jump off point, it has garnered tons of remixes and recontextualizations:
Basic Channel - E2-E4 Basic Reshape
and more recently,
Lindstrom & Prins Thomas - E2-E4 Tribute
These two homage reworks play to the strengths of the original in different ways. BC pushes the bass frequencies to extremes, with only liminal snatches of the source patterns appearing. Lindstrom & Prins Thomas simply revel in moody atmospherics.
Eye from the Boredoms (again?) patched together an hour long DJ mix of E2-E4 inspired tracks, one of the better inclusions done by Seiichi Yamamoto's Rovo project. This instrumental workout doesn't directly reference the source, but it is a pretty faithful krautrock workout.
Rovo - Catch and Release
More info on this Japanese E2-E4 tribute album here
This post would be lacking without a mention of Sueno Latino, a club track appropriating E2-E4 which was a number one in several European countries upon its 1989 release. I could never get into the original, it speeds things up too much for my taste. In many ways, this Cutmaster G version is a remix of a remix.
Sueno Latino - Sueno Latino (Cutmaster G Mix)
More info on the original Sueno Latino here
Here's a trip hop take on E2-E4. Maybe not essential, but still sort of interesting. Don't know of any other genre remakes or tributes. but I'm sure a couple are missing from this list.
Manuel Gottsching - E2-E4 (Jaywalk Tribute Remix)
posted by Miguel
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