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A new various artists included musicians and representatives of the Wold underground scene. Direct from America, Italy and Ukraine. Strong limited, and unique.

Comes with DL card & 2P insert / wrapped in shrink + a sticker

At long last, Takao is back with his long-awaited second album, seven years in the making. His 2018 "Stealth" was (and still is) a much-loved set, mixing elements of ambient and environmental music; with this new release Takao breaks free of the gravitational pull of these earlier influences and strides confidently forward. "The End of the Brim" jettisons some of the more abstract elements of his previous work, embracing a “universal listenability” and a more concrete intensity, with a focus on supple rhythms and strengthened senses of melodic development and harmonic sophistication. This musical growth can be linked with Takao’s admiration of composers Ken Muramatsu and Toshifumi Hinata, who are generally associated with commercial “production music” and easy listening. Another contributing factor is his private study with veteran keyboardist Ichiko Hashimoto of Colored Music. The ten tracks here include three vocal tracks, with three different singers (Yumea Horiike, Cristel Bere, Atsuo Fujimoto of Colored Music) and seven keyboard-led pieces. The vocal pieces are integral parts of the album’s flow, rather than typical “songs” driven by the name and personality of the singer. All of these factors, plus the veteran presence of engineer Hiroshi Haraguchi, known for his work with Haruomi Hosono, who mixed half of the album's tracks, along with the use of excellent old-school synths, aligned with Takao’s forward-looking vision, have combined to give us an album with a unique sense of timelessness. A spotlight illuminating future paths for pop music, available on CD/Vinyl LP/Digital, with English/Japanese lyrics, and liner notes by Yuji Shibasaki.

Arriving two years after the first chapter, Absurd Matter 2 isn’t just a sequel, it’s an evolution, redrawing the boundaries established by its acclaimed predecessor. The Berlin-based Italian producer tempers his confrontational sonics with rare moments of introspection, shifting seamlessly between blown-out noise, warped hip-hop, mutant club experimentation, and weightless ambience. Textures disintegrate and reassemble, rhythms flex and crumble, and every detail balances on the edge of fantasy. It’s a poetic, layered response to Nino Pedone’s changing physical reality: the gradual hearing loss and perceptual renegotiation triggered by Ménière’s disease, which struck him in 2022. At first, the experience felt like betrayal, a brutal disconnection from the very sense that had shaped his life. But over time, the disorientation turned into a strange kind of focus. The silence between sounds became as expressive as the sounds themselves.
The first Absurd Matter was a visceral reaction to trauma; the second is more reflective – an ambiguous chronicle of sensory recalibration. Pedone doesn’t represent his altered inner reality through extremes, but through depth, zooming in on illusory distortions, tense rhythmic fluctuations, and fragmented sonics. Dense, immersive, and mystical, the album mirrors Pedone’s evolving relationship with perception itself.
Tinnitus-like feedback wails and noir-ish strings introduce “Repeater”, making it immediately clear that Pedone is painting a more delicately finessed image this time around. Fleshed out by raps from cult MCs billy woods and E L U C I D, the track is marked by subtle, sophisticated contrasts: the blurred, inverted rhythms that couch Armand Hammer’s haunted back-and-forth, and the glitchy interference that offsets the lavish orchestral phrases. Backwoodz associate Fatboi Sharif lends his Lynchian drawl to “Bandage Chipped Wings”, grounding Pedone’s lysergic rhythmic distortions with syrupy, horror-inspired couplets. Pedone also invites discomfort into “Crash Landing”, with droning, metallic tones that contradict South Central rapper ICECOLDBISHOP’s elastic flow. “Bitch, I don't give a fuck about anybody,” he squawks over Pedone’s incongruous rasping textures and time-warped beats, “cash out at any party.” Working alongside London’s Loraine James on production, Pedone reunites with Moor Mother on “I Saw The Light”, blending James’ soft-focus atmospherics with soundsystem-damaging, overdriven bass hits and rusted percussive snips. Moor Mother’s assertive words hover over the wreckage, tightening Pedone’s themes of overstimulation and altered awareness as they stutter and veer off course, vanishing into the backdrop.
Contrasting his more pensive experiments, Pedone’s dancefloor deviations are more concentrated on Absurd Matter 2 than ever before. He torches a stuttering dembow structure on “X”, obfuscating the rhythm’s familiar energy with disturbing audio hallucinations. On “Splintered”, he reunites with Kenyan prodigy Slikback, mangling neon-lit trance arpeggios with dissociated trap rhythms. He sharpens his skills to a fine point on “Oblivion Step”, observing 2- step through a lens of distortion and personal abstraction, shaking blipping synth leads over neck-snapping drums and counteracting the momentum with airless sci-fi soundscapes.
Perhaps the album’s most surprising moment arrives with “Viel”, which features vocals from Los Angeles-based composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. Together, Pedone and Smith chance upon their notion of dub techno, fogging synth stabs and ghostly vocal traces into eerie harmonic distortions. On some level, it’s almost pop music, a far cry from the bleak dissonance of Absurd Matter and a hopeful way to reframe turbulence as transformation. Absurd Matter 2 doesn’t simply document a process; it enacts one. It doesn’t offer clarity; it invites disorientation. It’s not a map of the labyrinth, but a foghorn piercing the darkness.

Physical format only. No digital. Limited to 100 copies.

After a long break from the 12" club format, Pedro Vian returns with a four-track EP aimed at the dancefloor. One of the key cuts is a club version of "I am OK", originally released on his latest album The Addiction (2025).
The EP also includes an additional track, "Teresa (Comelade's Piano Redubbed)" - a reinterpretation that samples Pascal Comelade's version of a song by Ovidi Montllor, the iconic Catalan folk singer known for his poetic, politically charged work during the post-Franco era. Vian reshapes this reference into a meditative ambient piece.

A Place In My Memory Is All I Have To Claim is the new album by Australian atmospheric pop trio Hydroplane, the storied 'offshoot' formed by three quarters of independent pop group, The Cat's Miaow. On this, their first music after two decades plus of radio silence, Andrew Withycombe, Kerrie Bolton and Bart Cummings return to the gentle, close-quarters musical world they shared around the turn of the century.

Recorded during 2024 in Melbourne and Ballarat, A Place In My Memory… picks up the thread Hydroplane set down with its precursor, 2001's The Sound Of Changing Places, though you can hear echoes of their other releases, too, with Withycombe noting a through-line from the group's 1998 "Failed Adventure" single. There's little quite like A Place In My Memory…, then or now, though. Maybe you can draw some connections between Hydroplane and their sister group, The Cat's Miaow, while fellow travellers might include Empress, The Ah Club, and further back, Young Marble Giants, Veronique Vincent (the muffled, ticking drum machine also makes me think of Robin Gibb's Robin's Reign).

There's also an umbilical to the bedroom-crafted electronica doing the rounds in the late nineties and early noughties. Hydroplane hint at this through their approach to songwriting, which often builds creatively around loops as structural devices. Through all this, the trio achieve an effortless, organic weightlessness across these nine lovely songs. Many feature Bolton's clear singing voice, drifting along, while guitars, keyboards, drum machines and loops tickertape away. The constituent parts fit together, but they also have a curiously detached quality - think of abstract cloud formations sharing the same sky.

Hydroplane and The Cat's Miaow often dealt in emotional ambiguity and uncertainty, and the uncertainty of the nostalgic. This was always one of the most appealing facets of their music, and A Place In My Memory… is thus named perfectly. I couldn't dream up a better title for the album and its reflections on history, lived experience, and the inevitable tangle between these two phenomena. These reflections variously address such concerns as human cruelty, flight, space travel, adventurism and spiritualism. There's also "To the Lighthouse", not a direct reference to the Virginia Woolf book, but a great title, nonetheless. (They've always had excellent titles, often borrowed, for songs and albums.)

A beautiful collection of drowsy, sleepy pop, humble and quiet, but resolute in its craft, A Place In My Memory Is All I Have To Claim is dream work in practice; a lovely reintroduction. Welcome back, then.

‘Cataclysm’ is a poignant call for revolution of both politics and consciousness, conveyed through ten distinct songs written and produced by Zanias between 2020 and 2024. Each piece of music inhabits its own aesthetic universe and rhythm, featuring elemental fusions of coldwave, italo disco, witchhouse, trance, breakbeats, hyperpop and even a touch of drum and bass. The unique amalgamation is best described as post-industrial ethereal wave, of Zanias’s very own signature. The subject matter grapples with how to move forward through times when civilisation and the entire ecosystem of the planet feel like they are on the brink of total collapse, while gazing back over hundreds of thousands of years of human survival in total awe of how far we’ve come. The lyrics aim for a balance of vulnerability and poetic strength, as the audience is beckoned to “thread the power through the pain”. While darker atmospheres are conjured through the sound design and instrumentation, the album ultimately directs itself steadfast toward the glittering sheen of hope. As the tempo ascends through the course of the album’s tracklist, so too does Zanias’s deep attachment to our sacred humanity and refusal to give in to despair.

‘Cataclysm’ represents an ambitious defiance of genre tropes in pursuit of pure artistry, with a potent political message delivered with assertive fervour and playful sincerity. Additional production was contributed by mixing engineer Trey Frye, best known for his work in the band Korine, and the album was mastered by Alain Paul.

Enigmatic UK producer Dylan Henner announces new album of deeply considered and choral-laced experimental ambient music Star Dream FM, said to be taped from a mysterious radio broadcast that plays his favourite memories from adolescence.

Though (clearly) fictional, the backdrop to new album Star Dream FM represents a tactile canvas on which the record’s true meaning is painted. It is, through Henner’s now-characteristic employment of ambient-textured synthesis, marimba, digital choir, and processed voice, a study of late adolescence and the experience of being seventeen.

Little is known about Dylan Henner, who landed on the ambient scene in 2020 with cassette releases for Phantom Limb, Belgian label Dauw, and cult tastemakers AD93. He barely promotes himself publicly, instead choosing to communicate through disarmingly poetic song titles. His debut album “The Invention of the Human” (AD93, 2020 - a recipient of BBC 6Music’s Album of the Year honours) responds to a set of philosophical questions - what exactly makes us human? What good is civilisation when there’s so much misery attached to it? How will technology affect humanity in the long run? In 2022, he released follow-up You Always Will Be on AD93, which traced the course of a single life from birth, to childhood, to adolescence, adulthood, parenthood, middle-age, old-age, and demise. He has also covered Raymond Scott, Terry Riley, Aphex Twin, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Su Tissue among numerous further projects.

Heith's music has always been infused with sacred mystery, striking a delicate balance between lived experience and imagination. On Escape Lounge, his second full-length release for PAN, Heith draws inspiration from contemporary digital spirituality and interpretations of experience that are crossing over from cultural niches into the mainstream - including internetbased conspiracy theories and psychological operations. The album presents a sonic diary recorded across Milan, Berlin, London, and Stockholm, crafting a post-informational folklore while exploring new territories in personal songwriting. The title Escape Lounge, inspired by airport waiting areas, serves as a metaphorical waiting room of the mind. Its hidden passages can lead either to peril and loss or to enlightenment and kaleidoscopic mental landscapes. This liminal space echoes the mysterious realms of Twin Peaks or the viral "Backrooms" phenomenon. Within it, contributing musicians - including frequent collaborators Leonardo Rubboli, Aase Nielsen, and 33 drummer Alexander Iezzi - move like ethereal presences, creating intangible soundscapes that leave traces of post-hypnotic melancholia. Notably, the vocal contributions from Price and James K enhance the otherworldly atmosphere, their multifaceted timbres adding layers of intentional ambiguity. Throughout the album, Heith masterfully blends acoustic instruments, human voices, and digital technology along an uncharted path that references the experimental pop of 90s trip-hop, 2000s indie-folk songwriting, and lush Mediterranean psychedelia. The sounds are meticulously crafted, combining synthesizers with guitar-based compositions in a computational songwriting approach that creates a collage across eras and landscapes. Each track unveils new dimensions of this delicate hallucinogenic narrative, delivering an immersive listening experience. As reality continuously shifts, Escape Lounge emerges as both sanctuary and confinement - a space of momentary connections and endless potential. In 2025, Heith will debut a new live show and audiovisual collaboration titled 'The Talk' with James K and Günseli Yalcinkaya, commissioned and premiering at Sonar Festival, Terraforma, Nuit Sonores, and Reworks.

Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin are back, a little looser and wilder than before. Their ability to lock in and focus on the smallest of details is enhanced here by a sense of increased immediacy. Great news for fans of stimulating variations of tone and mood within a potentially infinite universe of rhythm and sound! The more you listen to Ghosted III, the better your hearing becomes. Or maybe it"s just that you hear more every time you play it.

The latest wayward soundsystem sonics on the Social come from Wroclaw in Poland courtesy of dadan karambolo. As part of the strictly legit SPLOT crew karambolo is spearheading a vibrant community of bassweight freaks digesting all the best misfit club music from the cracks between — a hint of dubstep, a twist of techno and plenty of advanced sound design, all poured into a thoroughly modern, richly realised brew.

Having previously snuck tunes out on SPLOT’s in-house label and the respected Awkwardly Social crew out of Berlin, karambolo delivers an extended statement with his Sneaker Special Club debut. Subtle pressure is the order of the day as he zeroes in on evocative soundscaping and a subdued mood, all while piling on ample low end intensity and edging some sharp angles out of the meditative roll. Even when minuscule slithers of amen breaks sneak into ‘Awkward Expression’, the ambience remains somewhere between dream and dread while ‘Huskarl’ scatters industrial jackhammers across a vast tundra of drone.

‘Done For’ steps forward a touch more forthright with its grime-coded bass spasms, deploying the kind of bludgeoning physicality and ruthless reduction you might associate with fellow Sneaker alumni, Mars89. ‘Burbot’ also switches the script for a cheeky B3 that toys with 80s electro chopped into a snappy breakbeat and underpinned with a sticky synth line. Sidestepping direct dancefloor routes in search of different ways to achieve movement in the club, karambolo has more than matched the over-arching Sneaker ideal with an assured, original transmission from the outer limits of the soundsystem.

Wally Badarou is a synth pioneer and musical polymath. But rarely does he sing over his sumptuous tracks. The 6 songs that comprise new record Simple Things finally realise Wally's vision for select backing tracks from his beloved Colors Of Silence.

The tracks were originally developed back in 2001 for the release of the original CD; here, Wally has “simply" added overdubs and vocals to their mastered mixes with some discerning edits. Simply put, Simple Things is another slice of simply stunning Wally Badarou genius.

Simple Things has been decades in the making. Indeed, Wally struggled not only with the idea of singing these wonderful songs himself but singing them in English and writing his own lyrics, while wrestling with the sensational backing tracks, which themselves seemed to have taken on a life of their own.

As Wally explained to us: "In addition to the instrumental artist I have been known as, so far, there has always been a singer who simply was not sure he was, up until now. Even though “Back To Scales Tonight”, my very first album, was, indeed, a song album."

Opener "It Couldn't Be You" embellishes the uptempo groove of soca-funk gem "The Lights Of Kinshasa". As Wally explained to us, it's about “a simple love story somewhere, one rainy night, under the lights of Kinshasa. A woman, a man, online dating, quite usual in our times. Then they meet, almost missing each other." The guide vocal Wally had laid for Colors Of Silence - with an organ sound - seemed striving for words in Linguala, a Congolese language he could not speak. Therefore the decision to do it himself was not an easy one, for it had to be in English to fit his singing. We think it turned out pretty good!

"You Can't Hide Always" vocalises Wally's deep concerns set to the propulsive "Smiles By The Millions": "Populism, ostracism, radicalism, ethics and values all turned upside down worldwide, are they all inevitably exacerbated by our social networks? It could all melt down one day, like a house of cards in the ocean of fake news and false prophecies”. Wally wanted to keep the track as bare as possible but, inevitably, the backing vocals and the synth-brass arrive ultimately to present a welcome 70s flavour, with no snare-drum added.

The bright and breezy "We'll Make It Again" adds vocals to "Where Were We", a tropical, reggae-tinged bounce through the islands. Here's Waly: "Where were we when we last said: "I love you"? Simple words to express something quite common, but never quite simple to deal with. A simple song about the resilience of the broken hearts.” The reggae came from it being conceived when Wally was scoring for “Third World Cop”, a 1999 Jamaican action movie.

"Walk Straight Ahead" provides Wally's gorgeous, contemplative and idiosyncratic vocals to the deep serenity of Colors Of Silence highlight, "Amber Whispers". It's a gliding, divine, mini melodic masterpiece. It'll make you swoon in its extreme beauty. As Wally describes, "it started as just whispers, sweet amber whispers. Then the colour turned darker, as darker skies seemed to fall upon us while the whole world keeps on walking ahead, straight ahead, regardless of the blatant warnings, feeling much too comfortable in conformity. Initially, the verses were to be spoken only. I realised they could be sung all the while, without overshadowing the ethereal atmosphere." Amen.

The serene, celestial "Painting My Life Blue" presents the vocal version of "Days To Wonder". Says Wally, "how does it feel when your second half is gone after decades of riding life together? Past the temporary loss of your bearings, you come to realise you've been blind to the essential, and suddenly you can see...For this most intimate song of mine, I had tried to come up with a melody on top of the existing backing track, long before realising the melody was in the keyboard part already. It just needed to be properly mixed with it."

The profoundly emotional "Just Two Lovers" works up the formerly-too-brief and glorious "Crystal Falls" into a much fuller masterpiece and features acoustic guitar sparkle before fully glistening with some gentle head-nod percussion. Waly explains further: "Dear little green men, please tell me, what is it about us that makes you want to come and visit us so often (contrary to Fermi's assertion)? And here is the reply I believe I heard them sing: "You've got the key you've been searching for: Love”. I reverted to the initial backing track I had made around 1985, which already bore the melody, and which I added acoustic guitars to, before singing it." An astounding closer.

A synth specialist, there can be few artists more under-appreciated given their vast influence than Wally Badarou. His solo work practically defined the sound of the Balearic DJs of the 1980s, and thus the more sophisticated sound of dance culture thereafter. He was one of the Compass Point All Stars (with Sly and Robbie, Barry Reynolds, Mikey Chung and Uziah "Sticky" Thompson), the in-house recording team of Compass Point Studios responsible for a series of albums in the 1980s recorded by Grace Jones, Tom Tom Club, Mick Jagger, Black Uhuru, Gwen Guthrie, Jimmy Cliff and Gregory Isaacs. Badarou's keyboard playing could also be heard on albums by Robert Palmer, Marianne Faithfull, Herbie Hancock, M (Pop Muzik), Talking Heads, Manu Dibango and Miriam Makeba. He also produced Fela Kuti. Phew!

When we asked Wally about the significance of this collection's title, he explained: "These are "Simple things” that everyday’s life seems to build upon. The simplest are the harder to describe, but when satisfactorily described i.e. with simple words, they are the more genuine and authentic to express and share. I’ve immersed myself in other classic song lyrics, something I hardly did before, just to appreciate the genius behind the simple words they were made of, and had a great time studying how powerful they were in expressing complex ideas such as love."

Recording was twofold: first, most of the backing tracks were recorded in 2001, in Wally's studio in Normandy, mostly using hardware synths and Yamaha digital consoles. Then, he fine-tuned the melodies and wrote the lyrics in late 2023, then added some overdubs and sang them all during summer 2024. States Wally, "Digital Performer was and remains the DAW I’ve been using throughout, ever since the 80s."

Wally's sophisticated synth textures and expressive keyboard runs are so full of character, so full of life, that this work of art transcends any easy genre categorisation. Meticulously remastered and cut by both Simon Francis and Cicely Balston respectively, it has been pressed to the highest possibly quality at Record Industry in Holland. Sometimes, the simple things are the most extraordinary.

Unearthed from the Crammed Discs vaults after nearly four decades (Originally recorded in 1987), a hidden gem finally sees the light. Maurice Poto Doudongo’s The Lost Album arrives on vinyl for the first time—limited to 500 copies, with printed inner sleeve featuring release notes and photographs.

Back in the hazy margins of late-’80s Brussels, where boundary-blurring sounds were seeping through the cracks of pop music, a young autodidact named Maurice Poto Doudongo was crafting music that didn’t quite belong to any scene. Born in Kinshasa and growing up in Belgium, Maurice was a sonic nomad—raised on Franco, Miriam Makeba, and Tabu Ley Rochereau, transfixed by James Brown and Prince, and shaped by the fertile collision between African music and experimental electronics occurring all around him.

Leaving school at 16 to concentrate on music full-time, he began recording on borrowed 4-tracks, using cardboard boxes for percussion, and absorbing whatever sounds the airwaves served him: “Music has no frontier,” he says. “You take what you like. Prince, Fela, Papa Wemba—there is no contradiction. It’s all part of the sound.”

The result? A record that’s equal parts analog drum machine funk, homegrown Afro-pop futurism, and new wave R&B-informed synth poetry. Marc Hollander, founder of Crammed Discs, met Maurice through his friend and associate, musician/producer Vincent Kenis and quickly recognized the spark. The two began working in earnest, preparing tracks intended for a full-length release that, for reasons lost to time and memory, never materialized—until now.

Marc remembers: “The album was never completely finished. “Bolingo” was the only track that came out on a Crammed compilation at that time… and the rest sat on the shelf for decades until we started opening the Crammed vaults.”

Maurice recalls the session as being, “like an unstoppable current”. Listening now, the Lost Album feels both of its time and well beyond it. While tracks like “Momo” sound not a million miles away from the slinky and sophisticated Balearic pop ambience of Wally Badarou’s Echoes album, "Passport Train" shakes itself loose of any genre boundaries, veering into free-form Afro-electronica and tough electronic rhythm. Others pulse with a sweet and soulful groove that suggests dance floors dreamed of but never reached.

In decades hence, Maurice never left music, and the music never left him. Now working mainly as an arranger, he describes his job as being like that of a musical psychologist: “Someone comes to me with their sound, and before anything I have to understand their mind and heart,” he explains. That same intuitive fluency can be heard across this entire album—music that listens before it speaks, that absorbs before it asserts.

This reissue is more than a remastering. It’s a second breath. Sourced from cassette roughs and 24-track demos, carefully restored with Maurice’s blessing, and released as a complete album on vinyl for the very first time, The Lost Album isn’t lost anymore.

It just took nearly 40 years to find its way to you. - Editions de Lux

'Transplant Rejection’ is the work of Estonian artist and IDA Radio co-founder Robert Nikolajev, this collection of seven ‘almost’ dark ambient tracks embody the melancholy of autumn whilst hinting at the forthcoming eternal winter. A man with many hats, Nikolajev operates on the fringes of the leftfield house underground for labels such as Incienso, Collect-Call and Sad Fun as well as being one half of the sporadic DIMA DISK act with Ragnar Rahouja. Eschewing the more rhythmic side of his productions for this Muscut tape, Nikolajev taps into the fictional soundtrack atmospheres the label is known for and brings his own brand of wistful, introspective world-building by way of machine harmony to the now Tallinn based imprint.

There’s a lo-fi, grainy quality running throughout the collection, a kind of sepia-toned nostalgia that envelops the listener and disorientates any perception of time or place. Buried vocal fragments sit in the mix on ‘Stifled’ alongside decaying synthesiser drones whilst ‘DDM’ channels an edgy post-rock dirge with its use of sagged bass guitar. Overall, an inspired look into the more ‘at home’ side of this increasingly prolific Estonian artist.

El AMBIE—TÓN is back. The reference #002 is an exercise of Memory (Memoria), it is a place where the water blooms on the earth and the wind in the mountains. It is jungle and city. Mountain and noise. Imbalance and harmony. It is a lake in the sky, a forest between seas. A still cloud in la cordillera, a name that floats. This collaboration between Colombian Drone Mafia and Gibrana Cervantes is the beginning and end of a fragile geography, like the magic and mafia of our platanal.

But who is behind this new combo and bridge between South and Central America? CDM is the new alias of Nyksan, a Bogota-born techno-affiliated deejay and sound artist who is also one of the co-founders of TraTraTrax. From the other side, Mexican composer and violinist Gibrana Cervantes is one of the most outstanding string voices in the daring electronic music landscape in recent times. The duo's cabalistic work creates intricate and dark ambient, all woven around gut-moving sonorities. Colombian Drone Mafia dissolves the boundaries between synthesis and field recordings, crafting experimental yet primitive textures that infect listeners through the layered melodic spaces that Gibrana masters.

We cordially invite you to listen to this journey of immersive drones through vegetation and concrete jungle, music that is at times contemplative and at other times violent. Music framed between deep listening and deep boredom. A glimpse of the sound of the end.

Nachdem sie auf ihrem gefeierten Debütalbum ein multidimensionales Klanguniversum definiert hatten, verlassen der Komponist und Filmemacher Chris Hunt und James ,Munky" Shaffer von Korn auf EXINFINITE das Vertraute und driften in ein Reich der Rekursion, wo sie auf ein Gewirr aus gespiegelten Wurmlöchern blicken, die mit unheimlicher Mehrdeutigkeit summen. Das zweite Album von VENERA ist düsterer, heavier und perkussiver als sein Vorgänger, aber es gibt etwas Intimeres in seinen Schaltkreisen, das schwer zu definieren ist - etwas Mystisches, Geheimnisvolles und Melancholisches. Songs materialisieren sich aus dem Nichts, nur um von sauren Synthesizern aufgelöst oder von Hunts geschärften Beats durchbohrt zu werden, während Shaffers dichte, gequälte Riffs durch euphorische, zeitverzerrte Vocals von FKA twigs, Dis Fig und Chelsea Wolfe ausgeglichen werden. Nach ihrer Begegnung mit der Unendlichkeit haben VENERA nach innen geschaut, über die Grenzen der Existenz nachgedacht und ihre tiefsten Emotionen ausgegraben. VENERA entstand 2022, als Hunt und Shaffer nach Aufnahmen mit der albanischen Künstlerin Xhoana X. ihr eigenes musikalisches Terrain betraten. Das Duo improvisierte gemeinsam und experimentierte mit cineastischem, von Science-Fiction inspiriertem Sounddesign und erkannte, dass die Zusammenarbeit Potenzial hatte. So begannen sie, ihren Sound weiterzuentwickeln und zu verfeinern, wobei sie Unterstützung von Deantoni Parks, dem ehemaligen Schlagzeuger von Mars Volta, Alain Johannes von Queens of the Stone Age, dem Post-Punk-Duo VOWWS und den LA-Noise-Rock-Legenden HEALTH erhielten. Nachdem ihr Debütalbum 2023 auf Mike Pattons Label Ipecac erschienen war, setzten VENERA die Dekonstruktion und Neugestaltung ihres Songwritings fort, tauschten Eno-artige Ambient-Atmosphären gegen explosive Beats und dichte Texturen aus und fanden heraus, wie sie die von ihnen eröffnete Erzählung erweitern konnten, ohne alte Pfade zu beschreiten. Auf ,Tear" ist die neue Richtung des Duos deutlich zu hören, wenn Shaffers ursprüngliche Gitarrenklänge zu unheimlichen Widescreen-Expositionen umgestaltet werden, die Hunt mit pneumatischen Kick- und Snare-Zyklen untermalt. Unterbrochen von Luftschleusen-Zischen und leuchtenden Synthesizern, bietet der Track eine Kulisse, die VENERA kontinuierlich verwandelt und das Konzept im Laufe des Albums neu formt. Die Kult-Singer-Songwriterin Chelsea Wolfe gibt dem düsteren ,All Midnights" einen gotischen amerikanischen Touch, indem sie kraftvoll über VENERAs vakuumverpackte Rhythmen und gasförmige Synthesizer singt, und der in Berlin lebende Noisemaker Dis Fig, der bereits mit The Body und The Bug zusammengearbeitet hat, verleiht Shaffer und Hunts tape-verzerrten Industrial-Pops und -Whirrs in ,End Uncovered" hauchige, emotional vielschichtige Töne. Sie lassen squelchigen, verlangsamten Techno in okkulte Noise-Reflexionspools auf dem schlängelnden ,Asteroxylon" einfließen, und Hunt antwortet auf Shaffers hallende Zupftöne mit Nebelhorn-Stöhnen auf dem unheilvollen, nachdenklichen ,uuu773". ,EXINFINITE" baut sich kontinuierlich auf, bis es ,Caroline" erreicht, eine intensive Zusammenarbeit mit FKA Twigs, die ihre unheimlichsten Töne isoliert. Zunächst umspielt sie ihre Worte mit bedrohlichen elektrischen Verzerrungen und verstümmelten, geisterhaften Stimmen, bevor sie in einen aufgeladenen opernhaften Schrei ausbricht, dem Shaffer und Hunt mit flirrenden kybernetischen Beats und dichten Wänden aus Gitarrenlärm begegnen. Dieser Track bricht das Konzept von VENERA vollständig auf, verschmilzt das Synthetische mit dem Natürlichen und löst Dysphorie, Selbstverlust und unendliche Regression aus. So wirken der blutrünstige Lärm und die finstere Atmosphäre von ,Decreation" wie eine dissoziierte Coda. In ,EXINFINITE" werden Zerstörung und Tod nicht überwunden, sondern so lange intensiviert, bis sie sich vollständig verwandeln.

A record born of insurmountable joy and simultaneous profound loss; World Maker marks a time of great change for Psychonaut, both personally and musically, as the band burn away the philosophical narrative complexities of previous offerings with a searing, panoramic clarity that implores us to savour the beauty of the now as a means of leaving a legacy for the future. The traditional, three-piece line up of Belgian, psychedelic post-metal collective Psychonaut has long belied the compositional prowess, captivating narrative depth and crushing live presence of a band now operating at the forefront of forward-thinking, contemporary heavy music. Having sent a shockwave through the post-metal and prog scenes with their three times repressed Pelagic Records debut Unfold The God Man in 2020 before following it up with the transformative metaphysical complexities of 2022's Violate Consensus Reality, Psychonaut have played prestigious Belgian open-air festivals like Alcatraz, Rock Herk and Boomtown Festival as well as boutique events such as Soulcrusher, Roadburn Redux and A Colossal Weekend whilst sharing stages across Europe with the likes of Amenra, Brutus and Pelagic labelmates The Ocean and PG.Lost. The seed of World Maker took shape just as the campaign for Violate Consensus Reality came to a close, with the news that guitarist/vocalist Stefan De Graef was to become a father. This tilting of life's axis led De Graef, like most fathers-to-be, to re-assess what was really important. As such, the music he was inspired to write felt free of the band's previous philosophical and spiritual foundations and instead took the form of life lessons for his unborn son, a legacy of love in case something were ever to happen. This hopeful euphoria shines keenly throughout World Maker as an uncharacteristically optimistic warmth; from the reverberating Rhodes organ on the titular opening track and the meandering, free-jazz inspired guitar solo that introduces `Everything Else is Just The Weather' to elements of world music, electronica and the otherworldly voice of Dutch multi-instrumentalist and old friend Anthe Huybrechts (Anthe/Helion Creek) most notably on tracks like `Origins' which also features tabla, a pair of indian hand drums, as its propulsive heartbeat. Whilst Psychonaut's giant riffs, punishing polyrhythms and guttural vocal rage are more resplendent than ever, there is a wider dynamic spectrum to World Maker that sees the band proudly exploring their more delicate, intimate extremes as well as their most aggressive and abrasive. Not long after the birth of De Graef's son came the devastating news that both his own father and Psychonaut bassist/vocalist Thomas Michiels' father had been diagnosed with advanced cancers. Living day-to-day and torn between joy and grief, the band found themselves shedding the grand scope and world-shattering agenda of Violate Consensus Reality to focus on the here and now. Lead single `Endless Currents', the first full track on the album, explodes in a barrage of staccato guitar tapping but mellows to let the powerful, newly pared back lyrics ring out as a call to embrace the flow and follow joy. The song's final few words `Lead the way. / Soar. / Everlong.' double as both a greeting and a goodbye as the trio build their formidable post-metal might to a thunderous breaking point. Similarly, the pulsing, propellant `Stargazer', named so for De Graef's son being born in stargazer position, pairs delicate guitar motifs and folk-inflected optimism with huge and sprawling breakdowns as some of the band's most genre-pushing work to date; asking difficult but important questions of what happens next. It is `And You Came With Searing Light' though that most immediately exemplifies Psychonaut's redirected ambition on World Maker, as euphoria collides with blinding fury. The first track written for the album, `_Searing Light' is easily the most complex and initially wouldn't sound out of place on Violate Consensus Reality. Originally meant to be the new album's opening track; the decision to defer its impact, not to mention its compositional and dynamic gravity, speaks of a fundamental change to the band's very core. The words "Discover the world with wide eyes" recurring throughout speak as much to those having lost a part of their world as they do to those seeing it for the first time. Amidst such turbulent times, the band found strength and support within their Post-Metal community. The album was recorded and produced by the band alongside their longtime collaborator and close friend Chiaran Verheyden (Hippotraktor) with help and advice from Psychonaut's live engineer Victor, who will no doubt make this album sound just as awesome on stage. Even the artwork for World Maker was a family affair, being designed by close friend Sam Coussens of Belgian cosmic sludge metallers Pothamus. In the face of life's soaring highs and desolate lows, World Maker is direct and brave without sacrificing any of Psychonaut's raw power, creative innovation or inimitable musical depth. Where their previous full-length offerings have charted grand introspective courses through time and space, World Maker is breathtaking in its uncompromising clarity: a father singing to his newborn son as a son bids his own father farewell. FOR FANS OF Mastodon, Russian Circles, Tool, Gojira, The Ocean, Pelican, Hypno5e, Cult Of Luna, Amenra

Vinyl LP pressing. Electroacoustic saxophonist, improviser, and composer Cole Pulice traffics in shimmering, otherworldly beauty. On the meditative ambient jazz of Land's End Eternal, Cole adds a welcome new texture with the introduction of the electric guitar, an instrument previously unheard in their music, which took on a central role as a compositional and sonic tool for this record.

Presenting a joyous double dose of Brazilian pífano magic by João do Pife, taken from his iconic Folclore Alagoano LP and pressed for the first time on 7” vinyl. The infectious, uplifting energy of the instrumental track 'Garoto Do Pife' has been a dancefloor weapon for revered selectors such as Gilles Peterson, Cliffy and the Mr Bongo DJs, and we are proud to be reissuing it for the first time.

The pífano, pifaro or pife, which creates the distinctive melodies in these tracks, is a simple seven-hole woodwind instrument from the Northeast region of Brazil. Often made out of bamboo or taquara wood, they are rich in folkloric music tradition and paired with percussion instruments to form the Bandas de Pífanos groups, which originated from the Northeastern states of the country. "Pifeiros” such as João do Pife, Edmilson do Pífano, and Carlos Malta brought the pífano into a wider public eye through their albums and vinyl recordings.

A part of pífano maestro João do Pife’s rich legacy, these two mesmerizing and timeless tracks originate from his sought-after 1975 LP Folclore Alagoano, released on the Tropicana label. Born João Alfredo Marques dos Santos in 1943, in Riacho das Almas, João do Pife became an ambassador of Northern Brazilian culture and folklore through his music, which placed the pífano centre stage.

For this 7" issue, we have curated two of our favourite tracks from the album, 'Garoto Do Pife' and 'Homenagem a Ludugero', that exude a driving and joyous dancefloor energy. With lively accordion and organ accompaniments that weave around João do Pife's sublime pífano playing, they channel a folk spirit that will resonate deep within your soul.

As inspiration for the picture sleeve, we have adapted the original cover photo art for this 7 inch issue. João do Pife’s music, which is housed within, will sweep you away to Northeastern Brazil in an instant.

A – Raise & Risk – The Itch

A tiny camel keyring tossed around on a contact mic and run through an ancient plate reverb makes up most of the percussions, odd ad-libs and wooshes in "The Itch". A 60 ton bass growl of mesozoic depth and some messed up hihats nicked from a previously discarded track round things off. Unfolds particularly well at high volume with ample Waterhouse-level low end.

B1 – Raise & Risk – Anthistamine
The initial minimalist groove of "Antihistamine" had already been in place for a while. But it was the log drums we added after a long night spent in a dark room surrounded by and partaking in mayhem that really tied it all together. Overall a moody and somewhat dissonant affair, the track breathes and oozes in unexpected ways, like we've never managed before.

B2 – Raise & Risk – Screwfix E17

Sirens wail, shouts compete for attention, a gnarly bassline tests your speakers and the drums switch between half- and doubletime 165 business. "Screwfix E17" is a rowdy loveletter to everyone's fav retailer of cheap tools and ambivalent service.

The occasion of possibility runs through Ben Bertrand's new album Relic Radiation. It is all backdrops and layers. Hints of the emotive and the distant. Confronting the classical with what is new, looking for an expressive space. Melancholy, not melancholy. Contemplation on a midnight blizzard. Dust motes in a sunbeam. Sand dunes and microwaves.

Ever since 2018 and the release of his first solo album, Ben Bertrand has been working up his own interpretation of the bass clarinet as an instrument of the avant-garde. Touching upon ambient and cosmic as well as earthy sceneries, his is a gentle musical paradox come to life. Let go of explicit pleasantries, Relic Radiation is the polymathic interpretation of a frozen intercom, of a subdued intent of contact. The music is competent and familiar, distant without being distant. There is no predefined form or context here. It is a different kind of colour.

As musical moments and modi become enormous, things break down into exploration. On the crystal shores of perception, Relic Radiation leaves a lot of space for interpretation. It is never loud, although it works loud. An at times almost sequenced feel to treated and overdubbed bass clarinet and clarinet notes adds to a feeling of paradox. Every voice, every gesture indicates a way in. The electron is now an immeasurable wave."