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UPITUP NEWS: Education of the Noobz!

Dear friends, fans, enemies, room mates, internet buddies,

a great year is coming to its end. Again we have tried our best to serve you as much of our music as we could, and to be as good and new and interesting and worthwhile and fancy and funny and special as possible.

Considering the fact we all have daytime jobs (and secret identities) we are quite content about this year's outcome. We would like to thank everyone who helped us carry the torch for the free music cause, you know who you are. Sorry tot hose where we forgot to answer emails...

And now [drum roll] I'm thrilled to present you our last upfree this year; it's one of my favorites:

Education of the Noobz by Dragan Espenschied!

About 10 years ago, when I first met Pierlo, Isocore and Jacques Malchance in Rome (with whom I later founded this label), the first thing we talked about was each other's music, and then we immediately agreed that Bodenständig 2000 (on Rephlex at that time) were about the most genius thing we've ever heard.

Strangely enough, Dragan Espenschied (one of the two Bodenständig members) was to become my associate professor at college soon after. Not only is Dragan one of my favorite music composers of our times, but also an acclaimed media artist, skilled programmer, author and theorist in contemporary home computing and digital folklore. Together with his wife, net.art pioneer Olia Lialina, he published the Digital Folklore Reader (designed by Manuel "M-Boy" Buerger; featuring articles by Roglok and myself)...
The 8-bit / chip tunes scene celebrates "drx" as their constant hobbyhorse flagship hero; together with Bernhard Kirsch as Bodenständig 2000 he's played live shows all over the world, such as at BANG FACE in London and Blip Festival in New York City. They've appeared in documentaries, radio and TV features across the globe, even Björk said she was obsessed with them.

Dragan's solo project Education of the Noobz proves his superpowers in programming simple Atari and Commodore sound chips with incredible attention to detail. It's like none of our releases before: all but two songs are mono, one track was composed on two monophonic cellphones (he had to play them simultaneously for recording it), another track is recorded from General MIDI format, and yet another promises to become an anthem

And so we are truly honored to have Dragan release here on Upitup - go download Education of the Noobz for free NOW!

If you live near Stuttgart you're lucky, you can catch Dragan play live at "Uwe Schenk trifft…" on wednesday December 29th: witness his Atari beep together with live drums, bass, piano, clarinet, sax, trumpet, and violin! Roglok and I have already been guests of the show; if you miss it I'll upload video material of Dragan's show afterwards, promise!

On behalf of our team I'd like to wish you a healthy, prosperous new year filled with lots of sex and good food.

Sincerely,

sent from my phone

posted: 27th December 2010