News/Shows
6/22/09.........................
VIDEO
I've had many requests to post the video I created for the Lineland/Animal Hospital tour, so here it is. If you missed the show, this video was projected behind us while I tap danced and Kevin did the worm. You can watch them below or download higher quality versions at archive.org.
6/16/09.........................
T-SHIRTS
Made for the first ever Lineland tour, these purple 50/50 t-shirts with teal art are available in an array of sizes for only $12 plus s/h. Order yours below! (Click image to enlarge)
4/3/09.........................
LINELAND/ANIMAL HOSPITAL TOUR DATES
I'm with about to leave for tour with Animal Hospital. If we're in your area, please come see us! Kevin from Animal Hospital will be joining me with his guitar and electronic gadgets and we'll have t-shirts and cds for sale. The dates are below, and you can download a poster (designed by e*rock!) here. If you think you can help us with some of the holes in our calendar send an email to mail@lineland.net.
5.20 Somerville, MA
@ P.A.’s Lounge w/Geoglyphs
5.21 Providence, RI
@ The Sweatshop w/Glass Shivers & Area C
5.22 Brooklyn NY
@ Monkey Town
5.23 Winooski, VT
@ The Monkey House w/Blowtorch & Missy Bly
5.24 Montreal, QC
@ Zoobizarre w/Mark Templeton & Thisquietarmy
5.26 Toronto ON
@ The Boat w/Guests TBA
5.27 Kalamazoo, MI
@ Matt & Rosie's House (1809 Douglas Ave) w/Andrew Franklin Mansberger
5.28 Chicago, IL
@ The Hideout w/Casiotone for the Painfully Alone
5.29-5.31 Help
6.05 Eugene, OR
@ Tiny Tavern w/Normal Feelings
6.02 Tacoma, WA
@ The Den w/Makeup Monsters
6.03 Seattle, WA
@ The Sunset Tavern w/Wesafari & Slow Skate
6.04 Portland, OR
@ Rotture w/Strategy, Wampire, & DJ E*Rock
6.06 San Francisco, CA
@ Li Po Lounge w/Darwinsbitch & Harbour
6.07 Sacramento, CA
@ Luigi’s Slice and Fungarden w/Hearts+Horses
6.08 Salt Lake City, UT
@ ???(help) w/Stag Hare
6.09 Colorado Springs, CO
@ The Rocket Room w/Signatures
6.10 Omaha, NE
@ Keith's House 1311 south 10th street
6.11 Chicago, IL
@ Secret show w/Scott Tuma-Mike Weis duo! Send me an email for more info.
2/11/09.........................
SPRING TOUR
I'm currently planning a U.S. tour for the spring with Animal Hospital. We should be on the road from late May through June. If you want us to play in your town, and can help us find a place to play, send an email to mail@lineland.net.
10/22/08.........................
LOGOS FOR LOVE
The new Lineland album is out!!! It's called Logos for Love and it available on cd and mp3 courtesy of Audio Dregs. You can purchase the cd from your local record store, or online at www.darla.com. MP3s are available from iTunes.
MUTABLE!!
Gabriel Boyer and I are starting a record label and it's called Mutable Sound. We're launching on January 1st with a new album by our friend Kevin Micka's Animal Hospital. Until then, go to www.mutablesound.com and join our mailing list.
8/1/08.........................
BUILT BY WENDY
There's some old Lineland music featured in a video for Etsy. It's a portait of Built by Wendy made by the talented Tara Young and can be seen here.
8/31/07.........................
ART OF OFFICE
My friend Michael has some work featured on a website dedicated to art made from office software called Art of Office. It's all made with Powerpoint and feature Lineland soundtracks. Look for it in the "Michael Lewy" section on the site.
6/6/07.........................
BALL OF WAX
There's a brand new lineland song featured on volume 8 of the BALL OF WAX audio quarterly. It's an all instrumental installment and can be purchased here. Expect to hear a new full-length lineland album later this year.
MORE AMERICAN LIFE
If you have cable and were able to catch any of the 1st season of This American Life's TV series on Showtime, you may have heard some more Lineland. They used some of the music found on "Pavilion," which is still available on iTunes, Amazon, Audiodregs, and many other fine establishments.
4/18/07.........................
LEWY MOVIES
My friend Michael Lewy has been creating some great movies that feature lineland scores. Check 'em out here.
12/01/06.........................
LINELAND ON NPR
This American Life used some lineland on the latest episode, "Sink or Swim," in a story called "I'm Not A Doctor but I Play One at the Holiday Inn." Check it out at www.thislife.org
GABRIEL BOYER VS LINELAND
This summer Lineland and Gabriel Boyer(www.mutablepress.com) became Liszts. You can preview some sounds at myspace. A full length album, "Big Trouble in Little China" is in the works.
NEW LINELAND FOR 07
Just finished work on a new album... expect to hear it soon. Take funk to heaven in 07!!
Discography
Albums.........................
LOGOS FOR LOVE
Art by E*Rock
2008 Audio Dregs | Buy: MP3 CD
Tracks:
1. Pat Garrett
2. The Widow and the Prince
3. Am-Track
4. Northside
5. Pleats and Snaps
6. Alchemy
7. Lakeside
8. Emerald Board
9. The Move Down
10. Hollywood Graves
11. Tinsel Spots
12. Two Twenty
13. Mexican Village
PAVILION
Art by E*Rock
2003 Audio Dregs | Buy: MP3 CD
Tracks:
1. Queens I
2. Chef Chow's House
3. Rock I, Rock II
4. Casual Friday
5. Planeta Igreja
6. Acorns and Matches
7. Your Book is There
8. At Times Divide
9. Queens II
10. Ferry Brakes
11. Antique Woman
12. A New Worst
13. German Captain
14. Pigs Is
15. Promise Follows Two
16. Goto
Compilations....................
BALL OF WAX (Vol. 8)
2007 Denimclature
FORK ENDS
2004 Audio Dregs
LITTLE DARLA HAS A TREAT FOR YOU (Vol. 21)
2003 Darla
AFTERHOURS (#18)
2003 After Hours Magazine
FOR FRIENDS
2001 Audio Dregs/Tomlab
MISTER RECORDS COMP 1
2001 Mister Records
Press
Sorry about the bad translations.Reviews of "Logos for Love" (2008)
Penny Black Music(UK)
More wonderland these days, I'd say. Lineland's follow-up to 'Pavillion' is his first fully intentional album and an exciting listen. The accompanying press release with 'Logos For Love' puts me to the test. Lineland's first album is now recommended to me by my own bloody self. Only one minute into track number two, I nonetheless feel great relief for Lineland's move from linear patterns to a richer tapestry.A warm blanket of sound - a cliché but a true description, is crafted from a multitude of layers and crispy, digital effects. Yet electro-acoustics puritans should not despair as the structures still however veer towards distorted glitchy dance patterns. Too rough around the edges to count as lounge music, 'Logos For Love' is tantalizing relaxation though.
'A Widow and a Prince' adds to his, known as classy, compositions with a merciless beat. Malcolm Felder also known as Lineland fluently puts together a melody line in progress with evolving repeats. One step ahead of the game, Lineland reaches euphoria pretty soon. I suppose this will see the light as an individual release one day with lots of remixes. Next, 'Logos For Love' chooses to crash course, yet surfaces on the lovely little bouncy 'Am-Track' then continues in elaborated and gentle manner. Simple and ever so impressive.
- Maarten Schiethart
Textura.org
Elaborate too in its instrumental palette, Logos For Love opens with Lineland (Malcolm Felder) simulating a large combo in the robust, vaguely psychedelic overture “Pat Garrett” and revealing a gift for melody too, as evidenced by the miniature piano theme skipping through the big band arrangement. His 2003 Pavilion release was produced using four-track Casio recordings, music software on a home-built Dynavox 2000 computer, vintage keyboards, and novelty instruments, and there's little reason to suspect Felder's radically strayed from the plot in the current case. Once again the songs are largely keyboard-based though fleshed out with acoustic instrumentation such as strings, acoustic guitars, and percussion. The electronic dimension is certainly present too but to his credit Felder refrains from randomly strewing electronic bits across these mini-landscapes; what sounds there are—and they are plentiful—are carefully considered and hardly, if ever, seem superfluous. Harp-like acoustic guitar patterns and lush strings join rollicking rhythms, glockenspiels, and clip-clop percussion in “Northside,” suggestive of a spirited gallop through the countryside. A markedly Oriental character pervades the stately melodies in “Pleats & Snaps,” an otherwise remarkable example of Felder's colourful sound design. “Emerald Board” is sunkissed pop of the kind one might imagine hearing at the south of France by the Mediterranean Sea while “Hollywood Graves” unfolds like a languorous afternoon bus tour through Los Angeles with a tour guide pointing out the mansions of long-dead movie stars. Though it appears late, the penultimate “Two Twenty” may be the album's most appealing track, a dreamily melancholic three-minute interweave of melodica-like cascades, silken acoustic patterns, and electronic splendor. At day's end, these are ornately-arranged instrumental pop songs that are intricate in compositional design without being weighed down oppressively by excess. The Lineland moniker's borrowed from Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland, the much-admired novel about life in a one-dimensional realm, but Felder's thirteen songs are anything but one-dimensional. They're not only sonically rich but the songs are like little stories too, with titles alone (e.g., “A Widow and a Prince,” “Mexican Village") capable of painting vivid pictures in the mind.
Almostcool.org
My goodness. It's been so long since I've listened to this kind of music that I think I at least partially forgot how fun it can be when it's done correctly. Lineland is the recording name of one Malcolm Felder, who creates quirky, semi-glitchy little IDM-tinged pop tracks that combine everything from antiquated computer sounds to broken toy instruments, and his second album Logos For Love is one of those cuddly little releases that makes you wish summer would stretch on for just a bit longer.The longest song on the album is just over four minutes, and most of the thirteen clock in at even shorter than that, and in the process focus on melody, melody, melody (with just enough rhythm to keep things grooving). "Pat Garrett" is a perfect example, opening with some ticky-tock sounds and shimmering filtered electronic sounds before everything in the bedroom studio arsenal kicks in and it lopes into an almost full-band anthem that's joyous as all get-out. "A Window And A Prince" is a bit more on the robotic side, with a bit of a crunchy distortion chewing on just about everything, and a limber bassline that dances around kids-toy melodies and gasps of hiss.
In other places, filtered human voices blend with delicate acoustic guitars and hand percussion in playful dances ("Northside") while the machines win the battle in stripped-down numbers like the filtered, quirky "The Move Down." The album is at its best when it moves into little living-room one-person band jams that recall the opening song, though, and both "Hollywood Graves" and "Tinsel Spots" flourish with a lush, but sort of not-quite-live feel that really feels like something slightly different. It's not exactly something that's groundbreaking, but Logos For Love is one of those charming little releases that caught me off guard and made me smile.
Reviews of "Pavilion" (2003)
Absorb.Org (UK)
More amplified gorgeousness from audio dregs. This time it comes in the form of Lineland, aka Malcolm Felder, whose debut album arrives after three years of crafting tunes from humble beginnings (on a casio four-track) to more ingenious inventions (via home-built computers and novelty instruments). The result is a stew of off-centre melodies, kitsch drum-kicks and playful xylophone harmonics. With tunes such as ‘rock 1, rock 2’, lineland delivers chirpy, spacey pads alongside the recognisable, durable percussive staples of arcade games. It’s a catchy mix. In places tracks bear witness to a kind of stripped-down computer-language minimalism but never achieve the ascetic electro-fanaticism of say a band like echokrank. Melodies such as ‘planeta igreja’ are precise but warm and bouncy: you can bet babies would like jumping up and down in their walkers to them (that’s if babies have walkers anymore!). Other poptastic gems worth exploring are the wah-wah guitar-inflected ‘acorns and matches’, the distorted music-box jam of ‘antique woman’ which unites wobbly piano tones with upbeat guitar and drums, not unlike something you might find on last year’s manitoba album. With the flute-driven lushness of the epic ‘pigs is’ adding another string to Feldman’s bow, i hope he’ll be taking another line for a walk very soon.
- Elizabeth Wells
Penny Black Music(UK)
Linear compositions, richly orchestrated and on a par with orthodox percussion, approach on a sound that's close to digital be-bop. 'Pavillion' has many storylines, no real headlines and ends up like a short novel for reading on a seacruise. But as these loops unwind, Lineland a.k.a. Malcolm Felder floods the sound of bits and bytes with sinewaves in an ever changing scape. 'Pavillion' smoothly fluctuates from ambient lullaby dub to hypnotic grooves but the Lineland is neatly brought into culture and perpetually grows. With its cartoon-like qualities, imagining bubbles and popping cork sounds - at least it seemed to me, but I guess Bacchus genetically modified me in a previous life, Malcolm Felder's CD is naive electronica entertainment which will last. Harmonic buzzes fall over layers of found noise samples, toy instruments and, reportedly, older casio tone recordings. Producing computer music has adapted the method of writing. It no longer is the reflection of an instance, hours or days in a studio but the end result of a programming, performing, recording and arrangement process that can be held to one's original intent and in one's own time. 'Pavillion' has succeeded; was slowly built, then opened up doors and simply became a delicate resort. Arguably with the best Audio Dregs release from 2003, Lineland manipulates sounds and he pre-occupies your expectation to fulfill it with either gritty beauties or with wonderful twitches. 'Pavillion' is only Malcolm Fedler's first album yet 'Pavillion' is a parallel surprise.
- Maarten Schiethart
Autres Directions (France)
Already appeared on compilation For Friends (Audio coproduction Dregs/Tomlab), new-yorkais it Lineland delivers its first Pavillon album for the fantastic Audio Portland cement label Dregs. House is, with the image of its small pocket designed by E*Rock, the musical description of an interior swarming and effervescent world. With the instar of the other productions of the label which lodges it, the music of Lineland (Malcolm Felder, resident with Queens - NYC) use of electronic and acoustic sources, gathered on computer; it is soft, generous, at the same time poppy and experimental. The structures and textures are worked, they carry in them this happy medium between the accessible one and the mysterious one, the synthetic one and the naive one, robotics and the spontaneous one. In the counting rhymes with the moods varied from that which was beater for Sybarite for maximum Scene Of A Crime, some guitars, low and of the Casio keyboards are the principal melody actors, whereas thousands of details (rhythmic, rattling, broken boxes, rusted springs...) constitute the wobbly and exaltés tempos. Other noises (planes, children...) are also of the part. With this first opus of Lineland, Audio Dregs still gratifiée us of an intimate and gracious second reading of the marvellous one.
- Stéphane
De:bug (Germany)
Once again such a Schnufff. Malcolm Felder, the drummer of Sybarite, lets it on his album from all machines only so pump and whoop with joy and whimper and bleepen and knarzen and bouncen. All the very surreal, small tracks to which in between harmoniously once again the belt of the trousers slides which want to be happy, however, actually, only friendly playing the barrel organ. To whom could one also then forbid this? And who could get excited about the fact, that in our quick times the synthesizers have no more enough time to work through the etiquette manual. Sparkling this. Reminds me of Schlampi, Lektrogirli and the other sweetness.
- Thaddi
Loop.cl (Chile)
The Music in Audio Dregs has that quota of gentleness that generates a positive calm and mood, without it means an obliging attitude, because it is in the details in where the creative turns in where abound they cross of pop, rock and electronics. The textures and timbres are essential part in the music of Lineland. "Rock I, Rock II" it seemed that it was done with keyboards of intense toy that dismiss melodías. Organic and electric noises appear in "Planeta Igreja": an imaginary and friendly world. Guitar, drum machine and processed keyboards promote in "Acorns and matches" a captivating harmony. Rhythms that approach the Latin unfold with great freedom in "At times divide". Interesting by the way is the field recordings that are used in "Queens II [the quest]", where a couple goes on the street in search of something… In "Antique woman" Malcolm Felder shows in more evident form its interest by the Latin rhythms, giving with it new lights and shades in his music. Really, this artist with residence in Queens, New York, plays with variety of rhythms, atmospheric noises, and simple and naïf melodies. More info. in Audio Dregs which is in our label section.
- Guillermo Escudero
Avantfolk.org (Spain)
Audio Dregs arrives at its reference number 50 with the work of the New Yorker of residence Malcolm Felder, aka Lineland. We had already had a sample of its music in recopilatorio that the seal of Portland shared with Tomlab (' For friends '), and that "Antique Woman", also presents/displays in this debut, was of the best ones of the lot. With the spontaneous and natural air of almost all the references of Audio Dregs, also it keeps other signs of identity common in the rest from the catalogue of the house, like is finished of low fidelity and certain sound of toy, simultaneously that makes of patchwork of sounds and samples an art. Between miniatures of hardly a minute and some phase of dirt and bad milk in the meantime caramel ("Rock I, Rock II"), Malcom goes to pop of precious melódicos games to rate of hip hop ("Chef chow's house", "Ferry breaks"), certain regusto Eastern (placentera "the Planet igreja"), hymns with foundation dub ("Pig is" with its low line of and echoes) and to the sound of videojuego of "Promise follows two". The beauty is based in the capacity to clear great songs with a priori so diverse sources.
- Mikel M. Sanz
About
Shortly after moving to Queens in 1998, I borrowed my roommate's digital four-track and began recording whatever sounds I could make with some old synths and a memory-man pedal. After a while I got a little impatient with mini discs and decided to move the recordings to a computer. I employed my friend, Adam to help me build a pc that we mounted inside of an old Dynavox record player (look at the picture.) With this development, all the pieces were in place, and Lineland was born. I got the name from the one dimensional realm in the book, Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott. I compiled a bunch of the songs on to a cd and gave copies to all my friends. Eventually, one of the cds got into the hands of Eric from Audio Dregs, who thought it would be a fine idea to make a proper release of it. In 2003, "Pavilion" was released.
Since then, songs from the album have appeared in NPR's This American Life (and the Showtime TV series) as well as in several independent films. I've only attempted to play material live a couple times, once at an Audio Dregs showcase in Brooklyn, and once at Max Protecht Gallery in Chelsea. Both were big successes thanks to some amazing musicians, including Jesse Kimball, Roy Brooks, and Elijah McMurtrie.
In 2006, I moved to Kalamazoo and recorded another album. I'd since got a couple new mics and a more legitimate (though uglier) computer. Of course, I still don't know what I'm doing, so the album sounds just as weird as the first. "Logos for Love" is being released by Audio Dregs in 2008. In 2007 I moved to Chicago, where I still live with my girlfriend, Naoko, and our dog, Juicy.
Outside of Lineland, I also help run the record label, Mutable Sound, and publishing company, Mutable Press, with Gabe Boyer. Gabe and I have also recorded a number of weird albums including A Journey to Happiness Island (2001), The Textbook Tapes (2003), and Battery Power (2004), all available from Mister Records. I've also had the privilage to play drums behind some brilliant artists, including Neptune(Table of the Elements), Sybarite(4AD), Kelly Slusher(Elefant), Jukeboxer(Absolutely Kosher), and Spirit Horse(Mutable Sound). I'm also a graphic designer and designed this site. E*Rock drew the pretty checkered rings. Thanks for visiting!
- Malcolm Felder
Photos.........................
Click for hi-res
Contact/Links
Contact.........................
MYSPACE
Links.........................
Please visit all my friend's sites!
Mutable Sound
Audio Dregs
E*Rock
Sybarite
Mumbleboy
Mister Records
ELFVF
Crank Sturgeon
Darla
Superschool
Animal Hospital
Neptune
TV Eye Video
Levi Fuller
Jukeboxer
Michael Lewy
Das Brick