12k is very happy to announce the much-asked-for and long-awaited re-release of not only one of the label's most popular and critically acclaimed albums but one of highlights of the entire microsound genre: Shuttle358 Frame.

Complete with the original recording and video, Frame has been repackaged for 12k's Limited Series into a unique chipboard sleeve on which all graphics and text are printed only with white ink. The re-issue of this classic album will give a new generation of 12k followers a listen to one of the label's most defining moments.

The orignal press-release text (from 12k1011, Shuttle358 Frame):

Frame is the much anticipated follow up release to 1999's debut optimal.lp, a compact disc which caused quite a bit of critical stir as a very impressive and original work for a new artist. Dan Abrams (aka: shuttle358) seamlessly blends stark textures/drones with digital disfunction. Clicks, skips and tiny mechanized rhythms intertwine in hypnotic form that Abrams allows to evolve in a very organic way. Frame picks up where optimal.lp left off. a bit more distant with excursions into deeper realms of Abrams' signature skittish minimalist rhythmic work.

Frame includes a video, filmed and directed Abrams himself, in DVCAM for the opening title track of the album. It is available on the cd in Quicktime format, as well as a separate high-res VHS release (12k9004). The use of movement and abstracted forms along with a subtle color palette of whites, blues and yellows is a perfect visual accompaniment to the fragile rhythms of his work.

Dan Abrams — "If you put an empty frame against a blank wall, you suddenly notice the the color, the patterns, the imperfections in the plaster. The frame is like a window of perception. It takes the wall outside time. The frame draws attention to what is within it—it magnifies it, you focus on it, it begins to symbolize the whole wall."

Also known as the critically acclaimed artist Shuttle 358 on the NY based label 12k and of Germany's Mille-Plateaux fame, Dan Abrams created quite a stir in the minimal electronic scene with his releases like Frame, Understanding Wildlife, and Chessa. Fenton turns a page for Dan, adding acoustic and processed electric guitars to his signature microsound aesthetic. This yields a familiar sound, perhaps even more accessible than Dan's earlier work : "I always enjoy the beginning and endings of pop songs. I wanted to know what would happen if I made an album out of just those moments. The tracks on Pup are sketches, playfully jumping from the head and tails of different songs in my mind, staying in that moment, never really going anywhere, but not needing to."