Jan Jelinek
Temple Vinylbox

Listening notes

Jan Jelinek's Temple Vinylbox, released in 2013 on his own Faitiche label under catalog number Faitiche 08-11, is a four-LP box set spanning the abstract, ambient, drone, electronic, experimental, and field recording genres. The set collects material across its four records — Music For Fragments / Music & Birds, PrimeTime, Do You Know Otahiti?, and Temple — totaling well over one hundred minutes of audio spread across eight sides of vinyl.

The first record, Music For Fragments / Music & Birds, runs approximately 26 minutes and divides its program between two titled pieces on the A side and four B-side tracks whose titles — Jackdaw, Forest Weaver, Dipper, and Wood Pigeon — suggest an engagement with field recording source material. The second record, PrimeTime, clocks in at just under 24 minutes, opening with an eleven-minute title track before moving through HipBird, SynthSil (Unfallmusik), and LoneStar on the flip side.

The third record, Do You Know Otahiti?, is the longest of the four at approximately 29 minutes and includes two live recordings from 2012 — one from Frameworks Munich and one from AvantJazz Barcelona — alongside studio material. The inclusion of documented live performances gives this record a distinct character within the set's tracklist structure.

The fourth and final record, Temple, closes the box with its nearly 25-minute runtime. Its B side pairs Helmut Schmidt Plays Bach, running just over eleven minutes, with a shorter dub version of the same title at under three minutes — an arrangement that stands out as one of the more unusual sequencing choices across the set.

Temple Vinylbox was issued on Faitiche, the Berlin-based label Jelinek founded and operates.