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Schwarzes Vinyl! Doppel-LP im Klappcover. Ursprünglich 2017 rausgebracht und jetzt zum ersten Mal in Europa über Sub Pop erhältlich! Pure Comedy, das dritte Album von Father John Misty, ist eine komplexe, oft sarkastische und ebenso oft berührende Reflexion über die verwirrende Torheit der modernen Menschheit. Father John Misty ist das Projekt von Singer-Songwriter Josh Tillman. Wir könnten viel über Pure Comedy sagen, zum Beispiel, dass es ein mutiges, wichtiges Album in der Tradition amerikanischer Songwriting-Größen wie Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman und Leonard Cohen ist, aber wir denken, es ist am besten, wenn sein Schöpfer es selbst beschreibt. Los geht's, Mr. Tillman: Pure Comedy ist die Geschichte einer Spezies, die mit einem unvollständig entwickelten Gehirn geboren wurde. Die einzige Überlebenschance dieser Spezies, die sich auf einem grausamen, unberechenbaren Felsen wiederfindet, umgeben von anderen Spezies, die in dieser ganzen Sache viel geschickter zu sein scheinen (und für die sie eine Delikatesse sind), besteht darin, sich auf andere, etwas ältere, halb ausgebildete Gehirne zu verlassen. Diese Abhängigkeit bekommt im Laufe der Geschichte verschiedene Namen, wie ,Liebe", ,Kultur", ,Familie" usw. Mit der Zeit und da sich ihre Gehirne als bemerkenswert gut darin erweisen, Bedeutung zu erfinden, wo keine ist, wird die Spezies zum Lieferanten immer bizarrerer und raffinierterer Ironien. Diese Ironien sollen helfen, mit der abscheulichen Verletzlichkeit der Spezies fertig zu werden und zu versuchen, ihre Fantasie mit der Monotonie ihrer Existenz in Einklang zu bringen. So in etwa. Pure Comedy wurde 2016 in den legendären United Studios (Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Beck) in Hollywood, Kalifornien, aufgenommen. Produziert wurde es von Father John Misty und Jonathan Wilson, die Tonarbeit übernahm Mistys langjähriger Tontechniker Trevor Spencer und die Orchesterarrangements stammen vom bekannten Komponisten und Kontrabassisten Gavin Bryars (bekannt für seine umfangreichen Soloarbeiten und seine Zusammenarbeit mit Brian Eno, Tom Waits und Derek Bailey). Black Vinyl. Originally released in 2017 & now available for the first time in Europe via Sub Pop! Pure Comedy, Father John Misty's third album, is a complex, often-sardonic, and, equally often, touching meditation on the confounding folly of modern humanity. Father John Misty is the brainchild of singer-songwriter Josh Tillman. While we could say a lot about Pure Comedy including that it is a bold, important album in the tradition of American songwriting greats like Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, and Leonard Cohen we think it's best to let its creator describe it himself. Take it away, Mr. Tillman: Pure Comedy is the story of a species born with a half-formed brain. The species' only hope for survival, nding itself on a cruel, unpredictable rock surrounded by other species who seem far more adept at this whole thing (and to whom they are delicious), is the reliance on other, slightly older, half-formed brains. This reliance takes on a few different names as their story unfolds, like "love," "culture," "family," etc. Over time, and as their brains prove to be remarkably good at inventing meaning where there is none, the species becomes the purveyor of increasingly bizarre and sophisticated ironies. These ironies are designed to help cope with the species' loathsome vulnerability and to try and reconcile how disproportionate their imagination is to the monotony of their existence. Something like that. Pure Comedy was recorded in 2016 at the legendary United Studios (Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Beck) in Hollywood, CA. It was produced by Father John Misty and Jonathan Wilson, with engineering by Misty's longtime sound-person Trevor Spencer and orchestral arrangements by renowned composer/double-bassist Gavin Bryars (known for extensive solo work, and work with Brian Eno, Tom Waits, Derek Bailey).

Over the last two decades, The Field has refined a language of repetition that feels not assembled but uncovered. His loops don’t just cycle; they gather weight over time, so the tracks seem set in motion rather than composed – patterns established early, then
gently altered, their emotional temperature shifting almost imperceptibly.
On this five-track EP for Studio Barnhus, the Swedish producer’s first solo release in 8 years, The Field returns to the sonic architecture that defined his seminal debut From Here We Go Sublime, but with a (dare we say
Studio Barnhus-esque) looseness that allows the structures to breathe.
Tracks like In Our Dreams and 333 706 move forward on meditative chords, harmonies stretching their reach until the tracks feel elated by their own momentum.
The B-side tilts the frame. Another Day introduces some melodic immediacy, folding a tender vocal presence into The Field’s glittering matrix of sound, softening the grid without dissolving it. Now You Exist is a grand finale radiating with restrained euphoria.
The Field’s music never insists, it just draws you in and keeps you there. In a landmark crossing of paths for the Stockholm label, Studio Barnhus proudly presents Now You Exist, out May 15 on vinyl and all digital platforms.

“Released on Joe Boyd’s Hannibal label here was a band rooted in Thompson/Swarbrick Fairport but also a snatch of the Velvet Underground and a sprig of The Byrds. The Eighteenth Day Of May evoked a legendary era, and now they are a justifiably legendary band too.” – KLOF Mag

Beginning life as a trio in London, 2003, the original line-up consisted of Allison Brice (vocals, flute), Richard Olson (acoustic guitar) and Ben Phillipson (guitar, mandolin) before expanding the following year to include the rhythm section of Mark Nicholas (bass) and Karl Sabino (drums, autoharp) and finally Alison Cotton (viola).
This being the mid zeros, the independent music scene in the UK was reluctant to embrace a sun-dazed folk band but this, their sole album, has gradually feathered a bed of affection amongst international folk fans. Twenty years on, the album is now rightfully seen as a trailblazer for the myriad alternative/psych folk bands that emerged in its wake.
Andy Childs who signed the band originally takes up the story. “I first heard their music on a cover mounted CD with the much missed Comes With A Smile magazine and as far as I could tell no-one was making music like this anymore, certainly not with such panache and confidence. To my jaded ears it all sounded so uninhibited - old weird folk songs, Americana, original psych-folk, minimalist drones. Great melodies and all six of them could sing! A joyous, unfettered sound that could in one moment conjure up flashes of The Byrds and then effortlessly the spirit of Velvet Underground would drift through. They even covered a Spacemen 3 song. I loved the fact that they had the aplomb to tackle traditional folk songs like Lady Margaret and Flowers In The Forest and not be afraid to stamp their own identity on them.
Signing them to the Hannibal label was straightforward. If anything the album somehow sounds fresh and undated, even better than it did in the day when perhaps eclecticism was out of synch with the times; its subtleties have become more apparent.”
“Their rendition of Lady Margaret builds to a headswirling crescendo that challenges anyone who claims Shirley Collins, Buffy Sainte-Marie or Trees have recorded the definitive version and the hallucinatory The Waterman’s Song To His Daughter raises an already brilliant album to an unholy level” - IT’S PSYCHEDELIC, BABY Magazine

Mit "Folklore" vertiefen 16 Horsepower ihre unverwechselbare, düster-spirituelle Interpretation amerikanischer und osteuropäischer Traditionals. Das Album verbindet eigene Songs mit radikal neu gedeuteten Klassikern, die die Band in rituelle, minimalistische und zugleich kraftvoll aufgeladene Klanglandschaften verwandelt. Banjo, Cello, Hurdy-Gurdy und Bandoneon bilden ein archaisches Fundament, das David Eugene Edwards" intensiven Gesang eindrucksvoll trägt. Die Oxblood Vinyl Edition bringt diesen Meilenstein in besonderer Form zurück - passend zur Reunion-Tour 2026, bei der die Band erstmals seit zwei Jahrzehnten in ihrer Originalbesetzung auf europäischen Bühnen steht. Folklore bleibt eines der charakteristischsten und atmosphärisch dichtesten Werke der Band: dunkel, entrückt, hypnotisch - ein Album, das die Grenzen zwischen Tradition, Mythos und moderner Alternativkultur auflöst.

Mit der Oxblood Vinyl Edition kehren die frühen Klassiker von 16 Horsepower in besonders eindrucksvoller Form zurück. Secret South zeigt die Band auf ihrem dunkelsten, weitläufigsten Terrain: eine fiebrige Mischung aus Gothic Americana, Folk, Country-Anklängen und okkult schimmernder Schwermut. Bandoneon, Banjo, Hurdy-Gurdy und entrückter Gesang formen einen Sound, der fernab jeder Moderne wirkt und dennoch zeitlos bleibt - archaisch, intensiv und voller Sogkraft. Während die Stücke zwischen asketischer Kargheit und opulenter Weite pendeln, entfaltet sich die volle emotionale Wucht eines Albums, das bis heute Kultstatus besitzt. Parallel zu dieser Wiederveröffentlichung feiern 16 Horsepower ihre Reunion-Tour 2026 in Originalbesetzung, ein Ereignis, das europaweit für ausverkaufte Häuser sorgt. Eine essenzielle Edition für Gothic-Americana-, Folk- und Alternative-Sammler.

Soulbound with their new album "Addicted To Hell" from 2020 stand for urban, end-time Industrial Metal. They don't renounce their roots from Alternative Metal and keep their trademark despite all harshness: catchy melodies with dystopian and socially critical lyrics. Stomping beats combine heavy guitars and aggressive synths to an apocalyptic mix of Gothic, Metal and Industrial which in this form is still unparalleled. Here comes the album for the first time as a limited edition vinyl neon orange/black dust gatefold.

Cosmic G maps the liminal terrain between waking consciousness and neural drift across four transmissions. Synaptic pathways fold into spiraling architectures. Each sequence a deeper descent into the mind's hidden hollow circuitry. From euphoric dissolve to the hum of interior mechanisms, dream state traces the geometry of altered perception where the dancefloor becomes ritual chamber. An invitation to slip into the frontal cortex and navigate the frequencies that rewire thought itself.

Since first meeting as midwestern high-schoolers in 2009, Citizen have emerged as one of the most promising young bands in the alternative underground today. The band signed to Run For Cover Records in early 2012, releasing their EP Young States that year as well as a split with labelmates Turnover. In February of 2013, Citizen entered Studio 4 with producer Will Yip (Title Fight, Circa Survive, Daylight) to record Youth, their debut full-length. From the first note of album opener "Roam The Room", the fuzzy, guitar-driven rock songs bleed emotion straight through to closer "Drawn Out". Citizen have called on the ghosts of Brand New and early Nirvana, creating a sound that is familiar but immediately all its own.

2025 Repress

140g vinyl, remastered, double LP with the original LP along with a second record of 14 rare tracks

Sweet And Nice is the vital debut album from Jamaica’s undisputed first lady of song Marica Griffiths. It’s reggae at its most soulful. Slinking through a tight ten tracks of R&B and pop-sourced material, it became an instant best seller. 45 years after its initial release the LP is available again on vinyl, now as a double LP, with an extra record collecting 14 rare tracks.

Sweet And Nice has appeared over the years with a revised running order and under different titles. But the original’s opening sequence of loping soul is legendary, even beyond reggae circles. These songs are now returned to how they were presented on that first Jamaican release, and under their intended album title. Be With doesn’t mess with magic.

Marcia’s version of “Here I Am (Come and Take Me)” has long been lusted after, played by genre-hopping selectors to snapping necks for decades now. It’s followed by the sophisticated, rollicking wah-wah funk of “Everything I Own” and the slice of smooth lovers soul par excellence that is “Green Grasshopper” and her ace, lilting Neil Diamond cover “Play Me”.

The thundering, humid funk of “Children At Play” “sounds uncannily like a precursor of Massive Attack”, as FACT Mag astutely noted when they put Sweet And Nice at number 16 in their list of the 100 best albums of the 1970s. Otherworldly, moody and essential.

Side two keeps the fire burning. “Sweet, Bitter Love” should leave you swooning, and is also one of the album’s alternate titles. Curtis Mayfield’s already-eternal “Gypsy Man” is up next, recast as proto-lovers rock.

“There’s No Me Without You” is elevated to canonical status by the majestic, forlorn horns of the Federal Soul Givers and Marcia’s heartbreaking delivery. And if this doesn’t get you then surely the next track will: arguably the definitive version of Ewan MacColl’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”. Yes, seriously.

“I Just Don’t Want To Be Lonely” re-takes its rightful place at the end of the LP’s second side… but we couldn’t leave it at that. So we added an entire second record of rare material recorded around the same time as Sweet And Nice, much of it unavailable since it was originally released. Some of these songs have only ever been found on now unattainable 7" singles and no, rarity doesn’t always correspond with quality, but in this case we’re talking about some seriously jaw-dropping music.

Amongst 14 extra tracks you’ll find the exquisite late-60s singles “Melody Life” and “Mark My Word” which, along with the sumptuous reading of “Band Of Gold”, are now £100 records, if you can find them! Just sayin’. There‘s also a fantastic version of “The First Cut Is the Deepest” and an alternate take of “Play Me” with producer Lloyd Charmers adding his own vocals.

Everything’s been remastered of course, including the original LP, so Sweet And Nice now sounds even sweeter, and even nicer.

'Trying Times' is a record about being in love whilst battling the limits of the self against a backdrop of global uncertainty. James Blake explores the tension between intimacy and isolation, the pressure to curate and perform even as everything, inside and out, feels fragile and precarious. Themes of reflection, both literally and metaphorically, run through the record’s visual presentation, as Blake holds a mirror to the contradictions of modern connection - how we see ourselves, how we’re seen by others, and what gets lost in between. It’s about the disorienting loop of joy and dread: feeling safe in love, yet knowing the bubble could burst at any moment; struggling to stay present while global anxiety and private doubt pull you in different directions. A meditation on love, identity, and fragility in an age where the world feels balanced on a knife edge

13 Track Album is James' seventh studio album and first fully independent release Album features British rapper Dave, and singer-songwriter Monica Martin Marketing plan will support long term growth, audience building and connecting with super fans Strong Content Plan including Single / Focus Track Performance Videos Alternative album versions TBC inducing deluxe, piano version and more

Liepāja’s Elektrons is a contemporary electronic music compilation on vinyl, bringing together artists connected to the Baltic city of Liepāja. The LP features eleven original tracks that reflect the diversity and vitality of the local electronic scene — from deep techno and liquid funk to experimental ambient, IDM, and broken beats. Across the record’s two sides, Liepāja’s Elektrons brings together a diverse constellation of producers shaping the city’s electronic identity. The A-side features Cliché, Nejauši, Kristaps Puķītis, DJ KEDA feat. Ieva Dreimane-Sidare, BAZIITS, and NiklāvZ feat. Kenji, moving fluidly from intricate IDM textures and atmospheric experimentation to liquid funk rhythms and high-energy drum’n’bass. The B-side continues the journey with Ksenia Kamikaza, Eque, OMIROS, ALTER V and Existal, exploring deep and peak-time techno, minimal house and progressive sonic structures.

Das bahnbrechende Debütalbum ,Oshin" von DIIV kommt mit einem neuen Cover zurück in die Läden! Das erste Album von DIIV verbindet auf coole Weise Erinnerungen mit Halbvergessenem und schafft so eine musikalische Welt aus alter Luft und frischem Wind. Diese Songs erinnern uns an die Liebe in all ihrer irdischen Perfektion und Perversion. Ein Großteil der Anziehungskraft von DIIV entstand in dem Prozess, den Zachary Cole Smith durchlief, um diese ersten Kompositionen mitten im Sommer zu entdecken, während er sich in einer Ecke eines Malerateliers in Bushwick ohne Klimaanlage und mit Blick aus dem Fenster verkrochen hatte. Er umgab sich mit Kassetten und LPs von Lucinda Williams, Arthur Russell, Faust, Nirvana und Jandek, mit Schriften von N. Scott Momaday, James Welsh, Hart Crane, Marianne Moore und James Baldwin sowie mit Träumen von Außerirdischen, Zuneigung, Geistern und der fernen Natur (wie er sie sich von seinem Fenster mit Blick auf die Morgan L-Bahn aus vorstellte). Die daraus resultierende Musik ist ebenso tiefgründig wie einhüllend und lädt dazu ein, sich in einer Zeit von Kurzform-Inhalten und endlosem Scrollen in ihren Verflechtungen zu verlieren.

Future Islands feiern ihr 20-jähriges Bestehen mit From a Hole in the Floor to a Fountain of Youth, einer besonderen Sammlung aus Raritäten, alternativen Versionen und Fanlieblingen, von denen viele erstmals digital verfügbar sind. Statt eines klassischen Best-of-Albums zeigt die Band damit ihre Entwicklung und künstlerische Tiefe jenseits ihrer bekanntesten Momente. Die 20 Songs spiegeln 20 Jahre Bandgeschichte wider - von frühen Auftritten in kleinen Clubs bis hin zu einer gefestigten, zeitlosen Klangidentität. Der Titel steht sinnbildlich für diesen Weg: vom Alltag ("Hole in the Floor") hin zur Verwirklichung von Träumen ("Fountain of Youth"). Musikalisch bleibt die Band ihrem Stil treu: treibende Basslinien, atmosphärische Synthesizer und der eindringliche Gesang von Samuel T. Herring sorgen für einen roten Faden. Themen wie Sehnsucht, Liebe, Vergänglichkeit und emotionale Erinnerung durchziehen das Album. Die Veröffentlichung ist keine nostalgische Rückschau, sondern eine bewusste Neupositionierung. Sie macht verborgene Facetten sichtbar und zeigt eine Band, die in ihrer Zurückhaltung, Reife und Beständigkeit überzeugt. Gleichzeitig wird deutlich, dass ihr Erfolg nicht nur auf Musik, sondern auch auf langjähriger Freundschaft und echter Verbundenheit beruht. So entsteht ein vielschichtiges Porträt, das die Geschichte von Future Islands vervollständigt und ihre besondere künstlerische Identität unterstreicht.

The title Dillema refers to a state of tension, choice, and duality mirroring the track’s layered structure and driving push-and-pull energy. Shinedoe intentionally chose the alternative spelling “Dillema” simply because she liked how it looked better visually. The unconventional spelling became part of the track’s identity and attitude, reinforcing its independent and uncompromising character.

Dillema (Original – 2004)
Timeless Detroit-inspired techno, built on tension, groove, and raw momentum.

Dillema (Gregor Tresher Remix)
A driving techhouse interpretation, blending hypnotic rhythms with a sleek, modern edge.

Dillema (Alexander Kowalski – Pressure Point Remix)
A powerful, high impact techno version built for peak-time intensity.

With these new versions, Dillema once again proves its timeless relevance, reintroduced for a new generation while remaining deeply rooted in its original spirit.

Shinedoe is a driving force in the global techno scene for nearly three decades, known for her hypnotic grooves and uncompromising vision. Through MTM, she continues to push the boundaries of electronic music, releasing tracks that ignite dancefloors and evolve the genre.

Vegas is the self-titled album from the one-off collaboration between Terry Hall (The Specials) and Dave Stewart (Eurythmics). Originally released in 1992, the album combines elements of electronic music and pop with alternative rock influences.

The album was recorded in London with additional contributions from drummer and programmer Olle Romö, and showcases a more atmospheric side of both Hall and Stewart. It includes the singles "Possessed", "She", and "Walk into the Wind", the latter featuring vocals by Siobhan Fahey (ex-Bananarama, Shakespears Sister).

Vegas is available as a limited edition on orange vinyl.

Time To Get On Board A New Black Universal Express.

With each new recording Anthony Joseph presents an imaginative, personal vision of contemporary black culture, and The Ark is yet another compelling album by the award-winning Trinidadian poet and musician. This second part of a sequence of two albums launched with last year’s Rowing Up River To Get Our Names Back, finds Joseph giving full vent to his desire to explore many thought-provoking themes. However, there is a specific thread running through the glorious offering of sounds.

”I was especially interested in the idea of using Afrofuturism as a means of using the future in order to correct the wrongs of the past,” explains Joseph. “And so a lot of lyrics reimage or imagine an alternate black history. At the same time there are elements of autobiography.” The aforesaid cultural phenomenon, a view of the black experience through the prism of science fiction and ancient Egypt and Africa, as mapped out by visionaries from music and literature such as Sun Ra, Parliament-Funkadelic and Octavia E. Butler, has previously inspired Joseph. His 2006 novel The African Origins Of UFOs was a multi-hued work, and the new music shows how Joseph

has, much like all significant artists, gone on to broaden his conceptual palette, creating beguiling new stories and images set to startling rhythms and tones. Tracks such as ‘James’, with its taut, crisp bass and dubbed-up brass, and ‘Transposition Of Space (Glissant)’, a potent evocation of the influential Martiniquan theorist set in a haze of jazz guitar and ambient synthesizers, are marvels of text-sound painting.

As for ‘Baron Samedi’, shaped by a languid, almost wounded guitar line and slow rise of horns that frame Joseph’s journey to the ‘mountain of fire, almost touching the sky’ it is an epic blend of commanding vocal delivery and dramatic sonic tapestry.

Joseph led the Spasm band in the early 2000s and recorded well-received albums such as Bird Head Son and Time, in which songs were largely based on spirituals or chants enhanced by improvisation. But his musical curiosity has naturally led to collaborations, and the new work is produced by Dave Okumu, the prodigiously talented guitarist-vocalist-composer known as the leader of Mercury Music Prize-nominated The Invisible, and who was also a member of the seminal band Jade Fox.

Having first performed together at a show curated by influential saxophonist-flautist Shabaka Hutchings at the storied Total Refreshment Centre In London during lockdown, Joseph and Okumu struck up a rapport that further developed when the former guested on he latter’s album. With the connection made Joseph knew Okumu was the ideal producer for this latest project, which has a freewheeling, almost black psychedelic thing. After sifting through demos and loops the guitarist made on pro-tools the poet started to live with the music. Many months later words began to take shape. Joseph then went into the studio with Okumu’s band and set about creating a magnum opus. Boasting a stellar cast such as vocalist Eska Mtungwazi, trumpeter Byron Wallen and keyboardist Nick Ramm, The Ark is a highly intricate musical mosaic framed by simmering funk grooves, wily jazz improvisation and haunting dub effects. Through the use of many genres the music has simply become its own genre.

The Ark can be perceived as a vessel or means of transport to new worlds, along the lines of Sun Ra’s Ark or Funkadelic’s Mothership, and the material it contains is a unique blend of who Anthony Joseph is and how he sees the world and society in these stimulating, challenging times. “It balances the personal with the universal in a much more vulnerable, accessible way than on previous albums,” Joseph explains.

“It has become less about a personal experience and more about a collective, communal experience in which the artist is conduit, messenger, urban griot.”

London experimental spoken word and electronics duo BAG land on Phantom Limb with mesmerising new album This House is a Body, marrying visceral poetry with exploratory production to achieve beguiling, occasionally screwy and occasionally dreamy sonics.

“This album functions as a floor plan, a house in itself, collecting and containing the ecosystems of multiple rooms,” write BAG - Canadian artist and poet Jody DeSchutter and London producer Daniel Allison. “The roles we play can be defined by the room we are in; and it can be near impossible to tell what room we are in without looking from outside. This album maps out a number of rooms which hold such relations, memories, or experiences and builds them all into a single house, a single body.” Formed from Allison’s headspinning, depth-mining production for synthesis, field recording, and acoustic instrumentation, and DeSchutter’s lysergic and prophetic spoken word, the palette of This House is a Body can turn on a dime from claustrophobia and dread to hyperreal dream sequence, illuminated in sunstreamed glory in places and dripping with basement effluvia in others. Throughout, words, meaning, and imagery all dissolve into an architecture of alternately familiar and unknowable sound.

Australian composer-performers Judith Hamann and James Rushford have worked together in countless projects for two decades, perhaps most notably in Golden Fur, their trio with Sam Dunscombe. Black Truffle is pleased to announce Midmeste, their first work as a duo. Its title is Middle English for ‘the middlemost point’, alluding to how the piece builds on the points of overlap between the highly personalised musical languages Hamann and Rushford have developed in recent years. Performed on cello and a variety of pipe organs, Midmeste is a spacious, sometimes unsettling exploration of their shared interest in alternative tunings, psychoacoustic phenomena, the physical properties of their instruments, and the usually peripheral sounds generated by the performing body.

Beginning with a sequence of austerely vibrato-less harmonics from Hamann's cello, trailed by Rushford's whistling portative organ tones, the music soon expands into a slow-moving melodic wander, pausing at times to linger over an uncomfortable harmony or particularly resonant cello tone. Hamann and Rushford have long histories of engagement with pre-Classical European musical traditions, having in past projects performed and radically extended the work of Solage, Louis Couperin, Johann Conrad Beissell and other composers. Here they use a 15th century song by John Dunstaple, ‘O rosa bella’, which returns throughout the piece, distorted, aerated and splayed into new forms.

Developed while the two shared residencies at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart in 2020 and La Becque on Lake Geneva in 2023, Midmeste integrates recordings made (at at the invitation of the Biennale Son) on the organ of the Basilica St Valere in Sion, Switzerland—the world’s oldest playable organ, built in the early 15th century. Played by both Rushford and Hamann, the instrument’s idiosyncratic features, including bellows pumped manually using massive wooden beams, are integrated into the music through amplification. Creaks and thumps locate the music physically both in the performers’ bodies and the specific site of its making. Moving through a series of distinct episodes across its forty-minute span, Midmeste makes space for near-silent duets of high harmonics and hissing air, moments where twittering high tones and rumbling sub-bass could be electronic, and static fields that unexpectedly blossom into almost Romantic harmonies.

Listeners familiar with Hamann and Rushford’s work will find many familiar features here: the stunningly rich cello tones, their patient sustain allowing heightened awareness of the inner life of sound and its interactions with the environment; the care with which acoustic space is activated, becoming at times a third instrumental voice; the attention to fragile, unstable sonorities that sometimes have a comic edge. A major work from two key figures in contemporary experimental music, Midmeste synthesises rigorous exploration of fundamental questions of sound and performance with an unapologetic embrace of beauty.