| Founded: | 1994 |
| Founder: | Achim Szepanski |
| Country: | Germany |
| Location: | Frankfurt (1994–present) |
| Genre: | Minimal techno, glitch, electronic music, Noise music, Ambient music |
| Url: | https://www.edition-mille-plateaux.com |
| Mille Plateaux | |
Mille Plateaux is a German record label founded in 1994 by Achim Szepanski in Frankfurt, as a sublabel of Force Inc. Music Works. Its releases in the fields of minimal techno, glitch music and other experimental electronic music have a lasting influence.
The name Mille Plateaux was taken from Mille Plateaux (A Thousand Plateaus), a philosophy book by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, published in 1980. Their idea of the rhizome has been applied as the label's concept of publishing a large variety of forward thinking electronic music from different contexts.
In 2000, Mille Plateaux released their Clicks & Cuts Series, which featured both Mille Plateaux and non-Mille Plateaux glitch music artists. This series is widely perceived to be a cornerstone of glitch music.
In early 2004, Mille Plateaux's parent company Force Inc. went bankrupt due to the collapse of Germany's main independent music distributor, EFA-Medien. Mille Plateaux and other Force Inc. Music Works owned labels also folded at that time. The label was revived briefly in late 2004 under the name MillePlateauxMedia, with 4 releases. In 2005, two releases were made by RAI STREUBEL MUSIC S.L. on the label Supralinear with the note "by Mille Plateaux". In 2006, Mille Plateaux (along with the other former Force Inc. Music Works labels Force Inc. and Force Tracks) was taken over by the Berlin-based company Disco Inc. Ltd., who only released two CD albums.
In March 2008, Mille Plateaux was acquired by Total Recall, an online store and distributor for used and new music. Their owner Marcus Gabler, known as singer of the band Okay, became the A&R manager. Mille Plateaux relaunched its activities on 7 May 2010, with three new albums but halted activity in 2011.[1] In 2018, Total Recall was dissolved.
Its original founder Achim Szepanski successfully reactivated the label's activity in 2018.[2] Since then it has released music digitally as well as on vinyl, CD, cassette and USB stick.[3] Among a broad range of new and younger artists, Thomas Köner, Porter Ricks and Cristian Vogel have returned to the label.[4] The curatorial focus is centered around the concept of Ultrablackness:
"Anonymous, dark, black, hidden, concealed, encrypted, opaque, undercover, incomprehensible: Ultrablack of Music dares the exodus and listens to those forces and sounds that tell of the unheard in music. Sound is the vibration, resonance and diffraction of waves in the black cosmos."[5]Bearing the same title, the book "Ultrablack of Music" contains texts by writers and artists such as Benjamin Noys, Frederic Neyrat, Marcus Schmickler and Holger Schulze.[6] It was accompanied by a compilation of 34 tracks.[7]
Some artists released on the label prior to 2004:
Some artists released on the label (or its substitutes) between 2004 and 2010:
Some artists released under Marcus Gabler in 2010–2011:
Some artists released since the relaunch in 2018: