Svreca’s Semantica Announces Altstadt Echo Debut LP “This Work Contains Lead”
This Work Contains Lead is the debut album by Altstadt Echo, a techno and ambient artist whose career began in Detroit and has lead him to Berlin. The album is scheduled for May 24th, 2019 release on Svreca’s Semantica imprint.
As a concept album, the atmospheres and melodic elements used are entirely constructed from a single 16th-century choral acapella recording. While this is sometimes explicit as in ‘An Early Death’, other times the recording is entirely transfigured by effects and meticulous processing. The selection of this sound source reflects an ongoing theme in Altstadt Echo’s work: a tension between feelings of reverence manifested by religious art and his own gradual abandonment of spiritual belief following a religious upbringing. The album’s title, ‘This Work Contains Lead’, is taken from a warning text at the bottom of an art museum description plaque. It’s a reflection of Altstadt Echo’s beliefs about religion and the art that arises from it—while both can be powerful to observe, they can ultimately be toxic to come into contact with.
