ETUDE RECORDS is proud to present the first release by composer Lngtché. Titled “Music for an untitled film by T.Zarkkof”, the release is a long 44:22 piece of dark isolation, drones and exploration of the ambient music blending the electronic soundscape with the sound of the raw guitar.Beautifull, haunting and darkly complex work packaged in an exclusive triptic panel with a brilliant artwork by Seldon Hunt.

I’ve been spending probably too much time on the edge of righteous oblivion by making repeated listens to MUSIC FOR AN UNTITLED FILM BY T. ZARKKOF by the strangely-monickered Lngtché. Released on the Barcelona record label Etude, Lngtché’s music is herein presented as a single 44-minute track that issues forth from the speakers like one continuous and unrestrained flow of lava bursting out from under the floorboards and seeping out of the walls, like bubbling plasma from the mind of Roky Erikson.-Julian Cope (Head Heritage | Adress Drudion)

Lngtché's Music for an untitled film by T. Zärkkof is a continuous, evolving drone whose myriad parts revolve around each other like a mobile. A superb example of dark drone music, Music... is one 44-minute track, clearly divided into two loud, reverberent sections, separated by several minutes of quiet, ambient noise. The work uses long, metallic tones, without any semblance of melody, almost like feedback, to create an unsettled feeling and withholding any sense of resolution. Lngtché also scrupulously avoids any sense of a pulse, preferring a slow sonic evolution. The feedback is almost always in combination with some kind of deep bass drone and several quiet layers of noise. Occasionally Lngtché will include some glimmer of sound which one can trace to an instrument in the real world. A couple of the sounds could have originated on an electric guitar, and occasionally one hears some kind of ritual percussion, but most often his work shows no signs of the elements from which it was constructed. The layered construction gives the work considerable depth, illuminating successive listenings from the hidden details.

The various sections of the work move seamlessly from one to the next. One of the thematic elements in the first part of the piece is water, whose occasional appearance and disappearance is one of the few sudden transitions in the piece. In the second half, an ominous bass tone appears like a call of some kind of weird, subterranean creature, expanding with white noise to fill the entire audible spectrum, leaving only slight hints of something else going on just underneath the surface. The piece concludes with an abrupt transition to very quiet white noise, almost as if the listener started changing the channel on the radio and settled for the ghost noise between the stations, with only an occasional digital heartbeat to signal any kind of motion.

With an emphasis on falling water, rusted hinge noise, and bursts of reverberant guitar, “Music for an Untitled Film by T. Zarkoff” falls pretty squarely in the “dark ambient” zone of which I’m generally not a big fan. Still, Lngtche manages to bring some new sounds to the disc, easily conjuring pictures of large engines gearing up amidst a Kowloon Walled City-type setting.And the work is quite visual, surely more so for listeners more inclined in this direction than myself. At times I’m almost tempted to believe Lngtche captured some of these sounds “on the set;” sampling from some impossible conglomeration of afterburners, howling wind, and electronic disarray T. Zarkoff has turned his camera towards.

Throughout, the quality of the disc is high, with no technical mistakes to cut in on my imagination’s wandering. I also appreciate the efforts that have been taken with the dynamics of the work, which is pleasingly spatial and sounds nice in a quiet room. Personally, though, I can’t see this as a disc that I’ll be listening to over and over. I think that one’s own “use” of music may ultimately be the deciding factor on this disc’s worth. Lngtche has presented a work long on mood and ambiance, and that will be quite compelling for some; but it’s also a bit light on greater ideas, which leaves me wanting.-Dave X (starling moniker)

Como si de un celebérrimo “Time Machines” de Coil se tratase, este proyecto conocido bajo el nombre de Lngtché, y liderado por el catalán Pau Torres, estudia de lleno el plano abstracto y sostenido del sonido, convirtiendo el ruido en verdadero arte. La obra está estructurada en un único tema en el que el autor desarrolla un recorrido de 44 minutos por los matices más puntuales de las ondas sonoras, modelándolas a su gusto y antojo, creando verdaderas estructuras arquitectónicas sostenidas en el espacio.

Durante el transcurso del tema se van conjugando ordenadamente diversos efectos sonoros tanto naturales -un ejemplo de ello es el sonido ocasional del líquido derramándose sobre una superficie- como sintéticos, producidos en su gran mayoría por programación informática. Distorsiones, situaciones de inquietud, sonidos estridentes y, sobre todo, mucha genialidad, se dan cita en el primer trabajo de Lngtché. Su composición da forma a unas atmósferas oscuras y desconocidas, un fantástico referente de música experimental gestada en España.

El título del trabajo hace referencia a una película sin título de un director desconocido o, posiblemente, inexistente. Un concepto muy interesante que se complementa a la perfección con la esencia de la obra, tan escéptica como introspectiva. Pau Torres da forma a la esencia como esencia en sí, y no como un elemento que la contenga. Ahí reside la genialidad de “Music For An Untitled Film By T. Zärkkof”, título que define a la Banda Sonora creada para una película no creada. Una absoluta paradoja.-Fernando O.Paíno (Mentenebre)

One thing’s for sure: With this album, Etude Records have not only established themselves as a label interested more in quality and timeless values than standardised genre-definitions or typical aesthetics, but also provided themselves with the chance to release about anything they like in the future. “Music for an untitled film by T. Zarkoff” has no obvious connection with the collage-techniques of Mike Hansen or the out-of-this-world Sax improvisations of Agust Martinez any more, its logic propelled by dark intuitions and whispering premonitions.

It is hard to penetrate the mysteries of this work: It is, after all, Lngtche’s debut, no prior publications allowing for comparisons, red threads, the extension of trends or the unravelling of a secret code. All we are given is a list of influences, but what good is that, when Polish composer Penderecki stands next to the independent Folk-Noise erruptions of Polly Jean Harvey? Needless to say, Mr. Zarkkof apparently shies away from the spolights of the media and is nowhere to be found on the Internet – if anywhere else for that matter.

“Music...” not only claims the listener’s full attention, as his body is flushed through the fourty-four minute long drain pipe system of the record’s gargantuan organ .- it refuses to be placed in a certain tradition at all, demanding a status of its own. On the one hand, this is an impudent desire. Lngtche clearly draws air from the fields of Dark Ambient, Industrial soundscapes, the bleakness of horror movie soundtracks, the atmospheric side of contemporary composition and the combination of tonal threads and concrete sounds. Not even the fact that all of these sources come together in a single, cleverly arranged piece, held together by reoccuring motives, turns this into something a record shop couldn’t cram into one of the beforementioned genres without bending the truth too much.

And yet the exorbitance and magnitude of his work which is seriously out of all proportions which allows for a certain pride: While some of these textures are so deep and thick that they will make your eardrums ache, the entire middle section hums like a helicopter on a sunny day or a Cello ensemble in need of a psychiatrist. Towards the end, the drones are superimposed with buzzing distortions, piercing the fabric of elusive harmonics and flowing into a resolution of bewildering concreteness.

Just like there are authors one can not deny, there are composers whose sheer will and self-confidence drive them beyond the ordinary in a bid to create something overwhelming. Lngtche is one of them. It is hard to imagine him sitting down for breakfast with anything but three gallons of black coffee, an anti-depressant and secondary literature about Kant. But then again, “Music for an untitled film by T. Zarkkof” is not meant to please. It is the first outing of a man who will not do anything unless it at least serves to disturb, perturb and shake up the entire world and to whom the term “magnum opus” always means his current album. With their drastic release policy, Etude Records should be just the right place for him.-Tobias Fisher (Tokafi)

Don't confuse Lngtché with the similarly-named Belgian grindcore band—at this point, this project is much more evocative of the Chinese "death by a thousand cuts." The album is one long ambient track, but it's supremely uneasy listening: a wash of sound that turns out to be a minefield of razor blades. No idea who Zarkkof is (Google's suggestion: a figment of the imagination), but the film part is dead-on. This album perfectly captures the mechanical brooding of the house scenes in David Lynch's Lost Highway. 44 minutes of quiet feedback, dirty water, and distant warplanes conjure up a presence otherworldly, yet threateningly omnipresent. Seldon Hunt wraps the package in absolutely stunning triptych CGI art. -Left Hand Path (Stylus Magazine)

Enigmático título tras el que es muy posible que esté el fundador del sello, Pau Torres. La distancia estética que opera entre este seudónimo respecto a los anteriores trabajos de P.T. (firma con estas siglas en el anverso) para Testing Ground viene marcada por un rotundo giro hacia un mensaje denso y oscuro. Con un desarrollo argumental en una sola pista y basado en el cruce de intensidades y accidentes, este trabajo es todo un lienzo magmático hecho de frecuencias, distorsiones, velos metálicos y perfiles industriales bajo el que discurre un torrente acuoso. Las atmósferas polucionadas y en movimiento inestable crean nubes de sonido que acaban engullendo los contrastes y los relieves. Las caprichosas modulaciones tímbricas, siempre afiladas y en tensión, inciden en el falso estatismo que este enfoque acusmático pretende. Material que emana, se acumula y suspende en distintos canales manteniendo al tiempo un descenso abisal hacia las bajas frecuencias con las figuras irregulares y afiladas. Lo próximo de LNGTCHE son dos obras “concretas”, Leng Hex yMusic for Ossip Mandelstam, en edición limitada. -Jesús Gonzalo (revistamu.com)