Our recent release, Erta Ale, has sparked some debate in the internet about what we do, and how we do it. Seems like there is a special love-hate relationship with our releases. Some people claim that we can’t keep a constant style, or have this elitistic or pretentious attitude. Other people love our releases and say it’s the best thing that happened to “neogoa” (thanks guys!).
Well, let me put my (Michael/Subra) opinion about this issue, and I’m sure DJ Inada (the other owner of the label) will agree as well. The current state of neogoa as of 2011, is that most of the music released is very melodic, very uplifting and very, well, “neogoa”ish. You know what I mean. We totally respect this music, and I even listen to it and enjoy it a lot. Hearing it on parties is a delight. But, and there’s a big “but” to it, it all sounds generic to me. I will explain what I mean by “generic”. I mean it in a totally descriptive way, not degratory at all. The thing is, it all sounds the same to my ears. Sounds like it was all made on a single virtual instrument patch, on the same scale using the same arpeggios. While it may be brilliant dance music, there is just too much of it. Most of the artists producing this music are also in their late teens or early twenties and I can totally understand it, since I was there too. But when you grow up a bit (and I’m not that old) your opinions change and you have differing views about music. You want to hear something different from this common style of neogoa (or any other genre – I’m sure that people in funk, metal, blues and rock also have the same opinion). You need something fresh for your ears.
We do not release the common neogoa because of that reason. This is of course not helping us to gain new friends. I can imagine the average artist thinking to himself “How come they say they don’t want this? This is an amazing track! I played it last night and everyone loved it!“. Well, it is an excellent track and I’d love it too if I was in that party, I’m sure. The thing is, there are already so many labels releasing this type of music so why should we? Maybe the emergence of the “free music” revolution is helping this, making releases too easy and contributing to the inflation in “generic” (again – descriptive, not degratory) type of neogoa.
Since our releases are pressed on plastic, and the artists and other people involved are paid, we have very strict quality control. Hey, even Inada himself forced some changes on my own track on Erta Ale, even though it’s actually my own label and I can do whatever I want. This lead to very slow release rate. We have about 1 release per year, and I really believe we should not release more than this 1 release. Nonetheless, it’s quite a compliment that some artists care about us enough to be acually offended by our rejection of their tracks (and publicly dislike our releases and artists after that).
We release stuff that sounds different. It doesn’t have to be in any specific style. Every time we hear something out of the ordinary that catches our ears, that’s a potential release. This explains our variety, from the minimal Anakoluth to the maximal Artha. We release music that we like, music that sounds properly produced to our (not that much) older ears. Apparently, this works, as our releases are constantly being voted as “best of” in various websites and forums. This is actually so constant that only our first release was never voted as a “winner” in anything. This of course makes us extremely happy and very proud of the artists that wrote the tracks. It gives them a reason to be proud, since Cronomi is indeed making a name of being a top quality, if not a “boutique”. We want our artists to work hard to create something which will last in people’s minds for long, and not be forgotten after a year or two. The artists are succeeding in this, and making our fans happy.
This brings me to my final point – Cronomi records is now 4 years old. This could not have happened without the support of our fans, which buy our music, and attend parties with Cronomi artists. I must give a huge “thank you” for our fans! We couldn’t be here today without you. Keep supporting our music and you will get more of this quality (just try to be patient please).
Michael/Subra.
Posted in: Uncategorized.
Feb 10th, 2011
by Michael.
The free EP by Artha, Fluori Dolby, was voted “Best Mini-Album/Single/EP 2010″ by Ektoplazm! This comes as a great surprise for us, since the competition this year was really tough and this release is from the beginning of 2010 so we thought people would forget about it by now. This is the second year in a row that we have the first stop on that chart. Last year it was Anakoluth’s Beyond Reach at the top.
Congratulations to Michal for his excellent work! If you haven’t heard it yet, there is also a full length album – Influencing Dreams.
Also interesting to mention that we got a “Honourable mention” as one of the better netlabels around, yet we do not consider ourself a true netlabel.
Posted in: Uncategorized.
Feb 2nd, 2011
by Michael.
Cronomi Records is proud to present the new compilation: “Erta Ale”.
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1. NK-47 – Snufkin Is Gone
Written and produced by Nadav Dov Kahanowich
2. Subra – Nervous Machine
Written and produced by Michael Anenburg
3. PortaMento – An Expert On Humans
Written by J. Hahn & N. Vohnsen, produced and remixed by J. Hahn
4. M-Run Feat. DJ Inada – Kapala
Written by Mario Matakovic & Ward Vandepitte, produced by Mario Matakovic
5. Lapsus – Holocron
Written and produced by Nicolas Wojciechowski
6. M-Run – Goat Man
Written and produced by Mario Matakovic
7. GoaMech – Synthesized Not Yet
Written and produced by Maxim Drumoff
8. E-Mantra – Perihelion
Written and produced by Emanuel Carpus
9. New Born – We Are Nothing But Dust
Written and produced by Tom Rarin
Erta Ale is the name of a volcanic lake in the hottest place on Earth. The heat of this strange and very hostile place should resemble the roughness and wickedness of the tracks on the compilation. This time, DJ Inada took the chance of making a compilation that tries to resemble the more darker, though very trancy and deeper, side of psytrance.
All artists on the compilation have a unique sound and soul of their own interpertation, added to what modern psytrance can give us. All of these elements are emphasizes by the brilliant mastering job of Colin OOOD. The compiler, together with the artists, found a balance between interesting story lines in every track combined with a vibe that should not only make it enjoyable to listen, but also move, dance and freak on the compositions. The goal is that this compilation should provide you not only with quality music, but also be a journey to a strange place where the track and psychedelics take over.
Posted in: Releases.
Dec 13th, 2010
by Michael.
In an attempt to keeping it simple, I shut down our twitter and myspace pages because they are mostly useless.
Use Facebook (on the right here) and SoundCloud instead: http://soundcloud.com/cronomi
Posted in: News.
Oct 8th, 2010
by Michael.
Cronomi Records, the Israeli Goa-Trance label is celebrating the beginning of the autumn with a beach party! The party will take place in the “Brand Beach” bar at Gorden Beach in Tel Aviv.
Starting at 14:00, the party will end at 23:00.
Cronomi Records is an Israeli label dealing with the more energetic side of new school Goa, with some hints of a darker side. The label has 2 official CD releases and 2 more free internet EP releases. The label groups together a variety of artist from Israel and Europe, which bring back the old sound, but with a refined and modern sound.
Line up is as follows:
14:00 – 16:00 – Unbalanced – Ambient Set.
16:00 – 17:00 – New Born (Cronomi Records)
17:00 – 19:00 – Qlipadelic Rythm (Psilosiva Pro)
19:00 – 22:00 – Subra (Cronomi Records)
22:00 – 23:00 – NK-47 (Cronomi Records)
23:00 – infinity – Good Night!
CDs from the label’s catalog will be on sale at the location.
30 NIS for one CD, 25 NIS for the second and 20 NIS for the third.
Facebook link
Posted in: Uncategorized.
May 5th, 2010
by Michael.
Apparently a so called “Glitch” slipped into one of the tracks in our latest release, Artha – Influencing Dreams. There is a tiny skip in track number 3, Chaos, 1:13. So tiny that our entire team failed to notice it before the cd went to manufacturing (even though once pointed out to us, it does seem like it was there the entire time and we just ignored it).
If you have no idea what we are talking about, then you probably missed it too. Anyway, since we at Cronomi Records are commited to providing music of the best quality available (sorry for the cliché), we decided to provide the full track, as a wav download, free of charge. This is the corrected glitch-free version. Enjoy!
http://cronomi.com/audio/cd3/artha-chaos.wav
Please, don’t let it stop you from actually purchasing the album. The problem exists at only a fraction of a second out of the 78 minutes of music in the album! You might not even notice it, like we didn’t. Besides, who knows – maybe we will press more and your copy will be worth a fortune in the future.
Colin wrote a full explanation of what and why happened. Here it goes:
Because my mastering chain includes analog processes, the final master of each track must be recorded in real-time. That glitch comes as a result of my current studio computer (single-core AMD XP3200+, 1GB RAM) not being powerful enough to run my mastering chain for a whole track without crapping out at some point. This means I have to listen carefully for glitches as it is being recorded, and when they appear I skip back to the beginning of that section so that it replays, hopefully without any more glitches. I therefore have to do a lot of editing on every track I master, chopping out the repeated parts with glitches to make an unglitchy version. I just must have missed that one. There is no excuse for something like this creeping through into the final version as both Mike and I checked each track carefully before the album went to manufacturing, and I am very sorry that this has happened. It’s a fantastic album in my opinion, and all I wanted from the moment I heard the first track was to do everything I could to make Artha’s music shine, so it’s incredibly gutting for me to have been responsible for what I sincerely hope is the only error of its kind on the CD.
Although it won’t help with Influencing Dreams, I have just invested about £1500 (more than every penny I have) into a new computer for the Stooodio (i7 930, 6BG RAM, SSD HDD, RME Hammerfall) which – when it’s finally up and running! – will, I hope, make sure not only that glitchy mastering is a thing of the past for me, but that the final quality of my mastering is even higher.
Posted in: Uncategorized.
Apr 23rd, 2010
by Michael.
Hi everyone!
Some updates about what’s going on in Cronomi Records.
Artha album was supposed to be released today but there were some delays so it will be out only in one week. The first track on the album (Dubber Nubber) which is truly an amazing track had to be shortened a bit to fit on the album (that’s more than 78 minutes of music, after shortening!). The longer version is even more mind blowing and we are having a brainstorm here at Cronomi labs pondering what we should do with it.
DJ Inada is working on a compilation which is getting near to completion. It will feature tracks by Cronomi artists (Artha, PortaMento, M-Run) and some other tracks by well respected artists in the scene. This compilation will be in the kickass-energetic-seriouslyfun style of goa trance. Some tracks are even plain funny and amusing (but don’t blame me if it isn’t). Should be released in late 2010 I think – but again, Artha was supposed to be out in late 2009. Seems like we have a curse on the label.
PortaMento is very close to the completion of his album, and what an album this is going to be! Dark yet melodic yet powerful yet mind-bending goa trance. You heard one track from him on People Walk Funny, and you will also hear from him on Inada’s compilation. He isn’t too well known since he doesn’t write enough to spread around his music like most people nowadays, but it is well worth the wait.
M-Run, our newest addition is slowly working to get some tracks together for a release on Cronomi. If I’ll have to describe his music in one word – it would be fun. Quite different from the style of music you hear today in the goa scene.
As for myself, Subra, in the next few months I will be moving together with my studio, so I will eventually have the possibility to write new music (since none has been written in the past 2 years or so) so you should expect a Subra EP sometime in 2010.
You can also follow Cronomi on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cronomi-Records/168409805329 and on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cronomi
That’s it so far. Have an amazing spring!
Posted in: News.
Apr 12th, 2010
by Michael.
Cronomi Records is proud and excited to present ‘Influencing Dreams’, the first full-length album by Polish producer Artha. For the last few years he has been teasing us all with occasional EP and compilation releases but now he unleashes the full force of his creativity on a world begging for music of substance. And what substance! Drivingly compulsive and intent on taking you places, this album has its roots deep in the early years of goa trance, with a flow and melodic exuberance not seen since the 90s. Artha’s head is firmly in the twenty-first century however, and his production and sound design is as clean and intricate as the best of modern dance music.
This is music designed for travelling without moving, a dynamic and intensely psychedelic journey that picks you up and jams the doors of perception wide open before hurling you through. Artha doesn’t hide his influences at all, and why should he; the scene has been asking for exactly this album since 1997. Today it seems only one man can provide the music so many have cried out for… Artha.
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Tracklist:
1. Dubber Nubber
2. Controlled
3. Chaos
4. Saikol
5. Mystic Change
6. Vocal Distortion
7. Bali
8. Transfusion
9. Insidelamp
Listen @ Arabesque
Release date is set for April 23rd (delayed a bit – but only by a few days). The is available at the following online shops:
Saiko Sounds (hk) ~ Psyshop (de) ~ Beatspace (it) ~ PLAY.com (uk) ~ GoaStore (ch)
You are also more then welcome to download the free EP by Artha – “Fluori Dolby”. You can get it here:
http://cronomi.com/?page_id=89
Posted in: Releases.
! Not only that, there is a bonus for those who actually support us by buying the CD. The inner artwork isn’t your generic artwork you find on all CDs, it’s a folded mini-poster which actually looks preety good so you can even put it on your wall for display or something.