Pitchfork

Recorded and produced with the help of fellow Berlin-based artist AGF this winter, Ellen Allien's fourth solo LP, SOOL, is due May 27 on her own long-running label BPitch Control. "Minimal" appears to be the keyword when it comes to SOOL, about which Allien had this to say in a press release: "What does minimal mean to me? Minimal is just there. Permuting that, shaping this kind of immediacy with my own hands - that was close to my heart." Sounds good, no?

Anyhow, the disc is preceded by that Boogy Bytes mix she recently pieced together, due March 31 on BPitch, as well as Allien's appearance on frequent collaborator Apparat's Things to Be Frickled: Parts & Remixes collection, due April 15 on his Shitkatapult label. Allien is also preparing a SOOL fashion line to accompany the album's release.

And there's a big international tour afoot, with one new little tidbit we've learned since our last rundown of the dates: those North American gigs featuring Allien alongside labelmate Sascha Funke will, in fact, find the two in collaborative mode. So if you're looking for Ellen and only Ellen, well, you may really find yourself s.o.o.l.

SOOL:

01 Einsteigen
02 Caress
03 Bim
04 Sprung
05 Elphine
06 Zauber
07 Its
08 Ondu
09 Frieda
10 MM
11 Out

Ellen Allien:

03-20 Berlin, Germany - Watergate
03-21 Barcelona, Spain - Nitsa
03-22 Madrid, Spain - But Club
03-27 Shanghai, China - Absolute House
03-28 Osaka, Japan - Rockets
03-29 Tokyo, Japan - Womb
03-30 Nagoya, Japan - JBs
04-03 Athens, Greece - Motel
04-04 Istanbul, Turkey - Indigo
04-05 Rome, Italy - Brancaleone
04-12 Bari, Italy - Clorophilla
04-18 Rostock, Germany - Interclub
04-19 Venice, Italy - Il Muretto
04-24 Milan, Italy - Magazzini Generali
04-25 Augsburg, Germany - Kerosin
04-26 Dresden, Germany - Showboxx
05-01 Seattle, WA - Chop Suey *
05-02 San Francisco, CA - Mighty *
05-03 Hollywood, CA - Avalon *
05-04 Portland, OR - Holocene *
05-08 Montreal, Quebec - Club Parking *
05-09 Quebec, Quebec - Le Cercle *
05-10 Brooklyn, NY - Studio B *
05-16 Dublin, Ireland - SPY
05-17 London, England - Fabric

* with Sascha Funke