CAN OPENER: Extended Play


There are many noteworthy EPs – extended plays – out there. Take Metallica's $5.98 EP, the Mad Butcher EP by Destruction, or what was supposed to be the Tiny Tears EP by Godflesh, its four tracks becoming part of the Streetcleaner CD.

For the Fragment King Bandcamp page, I released and amended certain recordings as EPs. Let's look at them here, in this CAN OPENER, in terms of chronology of recording:


Nullifier EP

Bazooka created this crazed dubstep-metal “Warhead Remix” of the bass-drone industrial dirge “Nullifier”. Bazooka also mastered Nullifier and the other tracks of the Fragment King album Angel Position, originally released on Klangstabil's Megahertz MHz label. This EP includes the intense remix, the album version, and the stripped-down original architecture of the “Minus” version, bare of all electronic ambience.


If I Could Only Be What You Want (GODFLESH tribute)

In 2003 French extreme metal label Nihilistic Holocaust asked Fragment King to provide a track for their GODFLESH tribute compilation. The track, “If I Could Only Be What You Want”, features vocals by Leech (Navicon Torture Technologies, THEOLOGIAN). For the 2010 Fragment King compilation War On Silence, released by breakcore and avant-electronica label Cock Rock Disco, the track was completely rebuilt and remastered. Both versions are available here. The full release purchase includes an additional 2004 live instrumental version recorded in Munich.


Emperor Slug EP

The Emperor Slug EP features the iconic remix of Emperor Slug by Klangstabil and Torben Wendt. They transformed the original industrial drone dirge into an elegiac wave hymn for the Elektroanschlag compilation released in 2007. The original version by Fragment King appears on the Grey Album released in 2006. This EP also contains the original architecture of “Wormlord”, a track Fragment King recorded within the Anatomic Music sessions in 2004.


Structural Music EP

This is purely improvised music. It is a point of departure from the early sequencing driven phase of Fragment King, breaking free from the dictatorship of the “track”, destroying linearity, leapfrogging repetitive patterns, and jumping into the burning grey ash of the end of music – declaring a war on silence. After that, the bass-heavy Fragment King “one-man-band” emerged, the “total incarnation” of FK, where the human body takes center stage by force, yet not against the machine, but with it.

The collection focuses on structural music produced for/as Fragment King. It features pieces which were based on pre-recorded material using laptop, bass guitar, and field recordings. The EP is accompanied by extensive bonus recordings upon full purchase. They include live tracks that cover the 2002-2004 period of FK's live performances, in which structural music played a central role in conquering the audible space of the live environment. Nexicon also made use of this method in their studio and live recordings.


Simple Things Are Often Monstrous

The final release of the Halforganic Series of Nexialist Organization audio projects in the early Millennium years and a split EP. It was released as a vinyl 12” featuring Fragment King and Nexicon in 2003. All tracks were written, produced, mastered by Fragment King in 2002-2003. The Nexicon tracks were co-written and produced with Tim Spann and Lee Bartow (Navicon Torture Technologies, THEOLOGIAN).


 

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