About Karl Schmidt Verlag...

Hallo Droogs,

My first night in Hannover with mein frau, Claudia Franke, was spent primarily at Silke Arp Bricht, the sub-basement venue now celebrating twenty years of chaos, smoke, and convivial, limitless toilet queues. After I'd spent a few minutes loitering by the bar, a friend of a friend introduced himself to me. He wanted to know what I was doing in such a moribund provincial capital, one with no scene, an apathetic populace, the usual loser litany. At that moment, Karl Schmidt Verlag, in all its impoverished grandiosity, was conceived.

I knew that very smart people were creating compelling, assaultive, perhaps even wholly other art in Hannover, and I'd seen evidence -- shredded fliers, fading handbills on lampposts and fuseboxes -- of sporadic demonic activity. The only problem was that the flailing sputters and blood-flecked declamations weren't being adequately transcribed. Things happened -- Pit Noack's Salon, the odd interesting Glocksee gig, the Silke offshoot, Silly Art Fick -- but without a firm (and appropriately calloused) curatorial hand. The "scene" existed, and thus did not require creation, but connective filaments needed to be sutured and tightly wound. There was a need for a foolhardy publisher. Claudia gave the label its name.

The overriding aesthetic of KSV is one of immediacy - we'll publish instant releases, documents of actions and processes serving both as artifacts and communiques.

Each release is packaged in a hand-folded, full-color, double-sided paper sleeve designed and executed by a loose consortium of superb Hannoverian graphic artists: Andrea Elsper, Aenne Langhorst, Tobias Prinz, and Steffi Bruhn.

Here are the first two releases:

KSV 001 TLASILA - Konstriktion und Narzissmus (CDR)



(Sleeve by Tobias Prinz.)

Recorded live at Sched'apen, Antwerpen, on April 11, 2008.

TLASILA: Sickboy Milkplus / Joke Lanz / Orphan Fairytale / Erwin X+Z=0, and Tom Smith.

Edition of 30. (20 remain.)

--

KSV 002 Analog Suicide / Hull Curve - Live at Pit's Salon (CDR)



(Sleeve by Aenne Langhorst.)

Recorded by Tom Smith at Pit's Salon, November 24, 2008. Edited and mastered by TS at KSV HQ, Hannover.

Analog Suicide: Batur Sonmez

Hull Curve: Karsten Fecht

Edition of 50. (47 remain.)

---

Forthcoming:

KSV 003 Andreas, Nils & Tom - Extracts and Deformations (CDR)

(With a sleeve created by Steffi Bruhn; edition of 30.)

KSV 004 Tom Smith - Limmerstrasse Vol. 1 (CDR)

(Sleeve by Tobias Prinz; edition of 30.)

Editions will never be larger than 50 units. If we eventually move to vinyl pressings, those will never be larger than 300 units. Cassettes will always be restricted to 20 copies.

--

Pricing:

€ 7.49 within the EU, €9 outside the EU. Postage paid. Add €1 for each additional album.

So, one disc ordered from Portugal = € 7.49. Two discs ordered from the USA = € 19. Three discs ordered from China = € 29. Four ordered from France = € 32.96. Et cetera...

PayPal: tlasila [at] gmail [dot] com

No trades, please. No represses.

---

Hope this finds everyone well.

All the Best,

Tom, for Karl Schmidt Verlag