e k v e r l a g

ek verlag is the cassette label curated by ester kärkkäinen .

sex . noise . death . industrial . heavy electronics . saturn returns . paraphilia . tears . anxiety . dread .

smr.tni . jhane p . christine k . himukalt . hiraeth . moonbeam terror . ego morte .

mouth wound . bride . ekstasis .

0.003 . christine k . an empty fiction

introducing christine k. she feels that she has lost most of her life through the conditions and schooling that were put upon her. upon her mind, body, and soul. those frustrations. that grief. she wanted to express all of that through heavy shadows and black out misery. a dark ambient record that follows a deep dive into cold meat, loki foundation, cyclic law, and the like. her favorite being raison d'etre. she asked me to help, and of course, i did. she's my wife. in making this, she would tinker with the electronics and explain what she wanted something to sound like, and i would help shape it. she would argue with me when i pushed it to sound too much like himukalt, and i would try to course correct, try to learn what she wanted. i had to learn to slow down. we both had to learn to communicate. it was a sensual process, at times erotic. but 'an empty fiction' is very much her record and it's all about christine's blood and tears, embracing all of it in the search of wisdom, in search of transcendence no matter how much it hurts.

0.001 . smr.tni . unrelieving

i was immediately drawn to the work of smr.tni when i encountered the work of this pretty new german heavy electronic project. this shouldn't be a surprise, as there is an intense co-mingling of nasty, grinding industrial noise and a bold expressionist display of the body without inhibition, without pretense. this body is scarred. empowered. damaged. threatening. passionate. re-shaped in their own image for their own desire and rage. the project name is taken from the serbian word for "mortal" and speaks to the transient nature of existence, made more personal through their exorcism of depression, suicidal ideation, body dysphoria, and persistent pain. smr.tni also performs in the political power electronics project sumnja with rhizome weaver, and together they run the silken heart label. i'm very proud to present this work as the first release on ek verlag, a publisher of noise, sex, hostility, dread, anxiety.

0.000 . himukalt . for women only

this cassette was a gift to the women who leant me their voices in advance of the 'sex works' book, and these recordings will never be reissued. contributors include apathy, anna b. of abstract_portrayal, amina mia bekiyeva, elise boma, carol sandin cooley, kaitlyn davies, stephanie depetrillo, •echø•, milena eva, ana fosca, chantelle gray, samantha hinds, holy mane, adèle hurbault, jny, christine kärkkäinen, ester kärkkäinen, katie nanami kosharek, laudanum quilt / margot bailey, leperwitch, janna lee, elisa-johanna liiv, harriet kate morgan, jhane p., cássia siqueira (nome morto), smr.tni, heidi tontti, meike trenkel, anjilla ulfhednar, welshfootpath, nicole white, neon who, laureen wojcieckowski-lemoine

0.002 . jhane p . the stain of angels

when i conceived the idea of starting my own label, the first artist i wanted to work with was jhane p. she is a force of nature, and the more i get to know her, the more her revelations speak to me. in an alternate reality, we would be sisters, we would be jealous lovers, we would be bitter rivals at a strip club in some shithole in arizona. if you don't know who she is, shame on you. jhane is half of false maria working with tomasz c in a quest to inflict their uncomfortable electronics as a form of communed catharsis and deviant confessionals. her own work stares down from the edge of the cliff, and i really don't know if she's actually going to jump as she recounts her sordid tales of lust and misery. i have been in that place, and i remember that feeling. it fucking sucks. it hurts so bad, but then i realize that i am still alive and i take a step back, because i remembered i can feel again. she shakes me to my core with her emotional candor. she had me at the scream. she broke me with the tragic recording of a suicide prevention announcement broadcast to absolutely no one. pain, like sex, can be such a release.

an interview with jhane p.

0.004 . himukalt . katoptronophilia, part 1

"she got up and brought a long mirror towards the window. she stood it on the floor against a chair. when she sat down in front of it on the rug and, facing it, slowly opened her legs. the sight was enchanting. the skin was flawless, the vulva, roseate and full. she thought it was like the gum plant leaf with its secret milk that the pressure of the finger could bring out, the odorous moisture that came like the moisture of the sea shells. so was venus born of the sea with this little kernel of salty honey in her, which only caresses could bring out of the hidden recesses of her body." - anais nin / delta of venus

"anais nin is describing the fetish of katoptronopholia, where the mirror becomes the focal point for sexual activity. for anyone who has a passing understanding of himukalt, it is probably not a surprise to anyone that i record a lot of my sexual activity, with or without a partner. in recording myself masturbating in front of a mirror and describing what i see and what i do, i found it very interesting that i had made an audio recording of a very visual fetish. was the fetish disrupted by the transition from one avenue of perception to another, or did it heighten it? might the listener then put herself in my situation, if she were to listen to this? would i put myself in another woman's place, if i were to hear her recording?

to take these recordings and work them into noise, into electronics, that furthers the distance from the woman enjoying herself, and then an audience gets involved. they may be approaching the material in any number of contexts. i am aware that a lot of people come to my work for the tits and ass, but i am also aware that a lot of women come to my work because they hear themselves in what i do. or at least that's what i'm told. i firmly believe that my orgasm is the most honest, personal expression i can make, and i have no shame in this. but at the same time, i am very aware that this is not for everyone.

abstracting my own voice, my own sexual activity with noises has a number of possible meanings. for myself, it provides distance, almost like clairvoyance. there is beauty. there is terror. there is that which somebody cannot possess, even though i am revealing a part of it. there is the other. all of these feel uncomfortably real to me .

so i approached friends, professionals, fans. with caution and with discretion. the katoptronophilia series was sourced from recordings that were made consensually and in the full awareness of what himukalt is all about. this is the first cassette. the contributors include jhane p. (false maria) and elias crescent." - ester kärkkäinen / himukalt