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Despite the outright denial in its title, death is present in every one of the songs on Never Die, the collaborative album from MIDWIFE’s Madeline Johnston and Matt Jencik (of Implodes, Don Caballero, and Slint’s live band). Jencik held the tenderest thought imaginable when he came up with that phrase—Never Die—the fact that the people he loves eventually would, a certainty that feels impossible and remote, until the day it absolutely doesn’t. Never Die represents Jencik’s desperate bid to hold onto everyone he loves, to keep them on Earth so fiercely that they might enter the grave with claw marks on their skin.

Johnston, who recognizes the grace of mortality (and who, as MIDWIFE once sang: “I don’t wanna live forever,” over and over) serves as the spiritual guide for the album, transmuting the fear of death into an incentive to live more keenly and dearly. Following a number of ambient drone instrumental albums, Jencik felt the need to set himself a new creative challenge: to write vocal-heavy songs. He worked on them alone in his basement, recording directly to a four-track cassette. He sent those demos to a different collaborator to tinker with before that partnership eventually dissolved. Then, he thought of Madeline: the way her voice tended to glower in her songs, as well as her commitment to minimalism, which fell squarely within the project’s aesthetic and spiritual impulses.

“I was immediately drawn to what she was doing,” Jencik says. In both of their work, Jencik and Johnston understand minimalism as a vehicle for enormous, desperate and universal emotions. Entire worlds come in and out of existence between each of their sparse notes; a great breadth of feeling is bedded into the simple structure of their songs. Never Die offers a calm confrontation with the dour inevitability that bookends our lives. When the fact of death looms over life, it tends to denature every experience we have and every relationship we know we’ll eventually have to forfeit back to the Earth. No one, no matter how hard we love, makes it out of this alive thing. But we feel anyway. And we love anyway. And we sing anyway. Here, Jencik and Johnston have sung ‘die’ over and over, snowglobing life in the process.

Fünf lange, meditative Titel zwischen Jazz, Ambient und World Music präsentiert „Openness Trio“, das
Blue-Note-Debüt eines einzigartigen musikalischen Kollektivs, bestehend aus Gitarrist und Produzent Nate
Mercereau, Saxophonist Josh Johnson und Schlagzeuger Carlos Niño. Die drei Künstler bringen umfassende
Erfahrungen aus der Zusammenarbeit mit Künstlern wie André 3000, Meshell Ndegeocello, Kamasi Washington, Shabaka, Jeff Parker, Makaya McCraven und vielen anderen in das gemeinsame Projekt ein.
Die Musik von Nate Mercereau, Josh Johnson und Carlos Niño ist mal überwältigend und bildhaft („Hawk
Dreams“), mal abstrakt und voll subtiler Stimmungen („Elsewhere“). Alle Titel verbindet die intensive
Kommunikation der drei Künstler, die eindringliche Emotionalität und die Faszination gemeinsamer Erkundungen und Entdeckungen. Die Aufnahmen entstanden in fünf verschiedenen Sessions in Los Angeles und
Ventura County – unter freiem Himmel in den Hügeln von Ojai mit Blick auf die Topatopa Mountains, in
einem stimmungsvollen Wohnzimmer im Elysian Park, in einer „Oak Tree Cathedral“ im Churchill Orchard
in Ojai, inmitten einer Sammlung elektronischer Instrumente im Hof eines Hauses in Echo Park und unter
einem Pfefferbaum in Elsewhere / Topanga Canyon

'A Necessary Escape' ist der Soundtrack zum demnächst erscheinenden Film 'Dakar: Race Against The Desert'. Die physischen Formate umfassen CD, Vinyl und eine limitierte Farbvinyl-Edition in Curacao-Blau. Es ist der vierte Album-Soundtrack von M83 und wurde in Frankreich und den USA von M83s Anthony Gonzalez zusammen mit den regelmäßigen M83-Mitwirkenden Joe Berry und Clement Libes aufgenommen. Der Film erscheint am 12. Mai digital bei Universal Pictures und feiert seine weltweite Kinopremiere am 26. Juni in der MK2 Bibliothèque in Paris. Unter der Regie des französischen Schauspielers und Regisseurs Jalil Lespert wird hier die weltberühmte Rallye Dakar begleitet - ein Event, das seit 45 Jahren die ultimative Bewährungsprobe für Belastbarkeit, Können und Ausdauer im Motorsport darstellt. Das 9.000 Kilometer lange Rennen dauert 14 strapaziöse Tage durch raues Wüstengelände. Mit beispiellosem Zugang taucht dieser Film in das härteste Autorennen der Welt ein. Begleitet wird dies von einem wunderbaren Score den Gonzalez perfekt auf den Film zugeschnitten hat. Ambient trifft auf sphärische Klangcollagen und ist damit der perfekte Ausgleich zu den im Film dokumentierten Strapazen um die berühmte Rallye. Nach dem fantastischen 'Fantasy'-Album von 2023 oder dem 2011er Klassiker 'Hurry Up, We're Dreaming' ein weiterer Geniestreich des französischen Sound-Magiers und seinem M83-Projekt!

IMPROX - Starlit Rebellion is the compilation of the previous 3 IMPROX vinyl releases. The physical release comes as a deluxe gatefold sleeve with a sci-fi techno comic inside which tells the story of Hacoki, Cohaki, Ferce and Lely and their battle for Eridania.
Starlit Rebellion is an adventurous ride through industrial tinged sci-fi electronics, covering ambient, bass music, drum & bass, electro, IDM, industrial and techno, all on the unusual and experimental side of the spectrum. IMPROX is a full on DIY project with a free spirit where no boundaries exist, just pure freedom in artistic expression. Call it leftfield techno?
All music made by Delta Funktionen & Napirelly. Comic written and designed by Niels Luinenburg.

This fourth EP in the Time Crystals series sees Troy returning to the label with a low-key driver, carried by sharp percussion and filtered chords that keep the attention locked in before Ukrainian Svarog and Ma-gooch take over, delivering their signature sound - evolving pads, dreamy soundscapes - resulting in yet another beautiful early hours piece of music.

Wonderchild Luigi Tozzi proves once again that he is a master at blending ambient-influences with dubby atmospheres, resulting in music that fits both dancefloors and living rooms. For the EP's forth track Jonas Korbl, who you might remember from his debut album in 2017 on Dynamic Reflection LTD, combines energetic percussion patterns and synth rhythms.

His Primal Grade is a seemingly perfect successor to Tozzi's Haboob, as both artists obviously take pride in their carefully arranged and modestly performed pieces of techno.

Equilibrium is part of Dynamic Reflection's 15 year anniversary celebration: Time Crystals. This is the fourth of five EP's. Own all five and an all new, visual piece of art will appear.

The Temple Ov Ghosts is not down in any map, true places never are. Tyler Ov Gaia explores the depths of club, ambient, leftfield, new beat and progressive mutations with complete freedom, generating a musical realm that’s entirely his. Limited copies.


>> limited to 150 copies <<

Peaceful electronic ambient and tribal echo environments. Music that explores feelings of calm, spirituality, and ceremony. Long-form voyages to temple meditations, “trips in search of something,” looking in as looking out.

The artist himself says: “This is an attempt to look into the heads and souls of "unnecessary" people, inconspicuous people, but striving to make the world a better place. People who have lost the horizon and the outlines of reality are desperate and stuck in the middle of nothing... people who cannot accept the rules of this world and unpleasant aspects of daily life, boring and unfair into unreality, other existence... it's all about escapism, rethinking their inner world, and discovering new facets of the soul.”

FFO Jon Hassell, O Yuki Conjugate, Bitchin Bajas, Laraaji, The Chi Factory…

"soft brushes of undefinable sounds and tropical field recordings that almost create ASMR-inducing vibrations in the minds of the listener" - Simon Eliasson

A double pack from Mammo, six tracks digging deep. General Patterns is the first time he’s released a record outside of his own constellation of labels and identities. Something new.

You can file this one under (dub) techno too if you like. Linked to the music he’s made as Puddlerunner last year in some ways, or the texture of tracks like Variable. It was compiled with Short Span following the completion of intense work on the ambient album Landmarks under his given name, and quickly brought together an extended set of stripped back, patient, wonderfully rewarding sound. Really beautiful. Some mossy earthy texture, some starlit night skies.

Mastered by Miles.

Art from The Designers Republic. The beginning of a new visual series and system for Short Span.

First 2x12" record with UPR by Le Talium.
The tunes were too good not to press them all !!
LIMITED QUANTITIES.

A familly story... sound is as noise as clear, and ritch as minimal...
Industrial Hardcore (end speedcore) is the thema, Even if industrial could be the domain.

Hypnofreak : un bon speedcore mental, très fin, qui embarque dans des vagues acides longues en bouches, soutenues par un kick de moins en moins discret :)

Go HardCore : si je ne me trompe pas on dirait du vieux Epiteth, avec une petite pointe d'indus à la Test-Dep dans les sons.. (mais là faut chercher longtemps avant de tomber sur "Brith Gof Goddodin" ^^).

Last Chance : Le kick sec, sans reverbe, dur dur ! Hardcore encore :)

Digital Error : Allez, on y va dans le noiseux speed, marque de fabrique du Talium :) Et son gros kick qui vient vous récupérer après des drops glissants...

No Planet : Dédoublons les kicks et voyons ou ça nous mène :)

Non Conforme : Prenez un kick et mettez le dans shaker. enregistrez les bruits du moteur. Et vous obtiendrez un truc dans le genre.

Quad Grinder : Une fois encore, le dédoublement de kick est au centre de l'affaire, ce morceau me semble dans l'esprit du
01100010 de No Name sur Fischkopf 16).. Mais c'est un feeling de Deejay ^^

XB09-Part One : toujours dans l'esprit du shaker, avec de grosses nappes ambient qui posent grave... Un contraste qui peut faire penser à du Flashcore... mais ou est la part 2 ? ^^

En gros ce skeud est une balle, ça pourrait bien être un des meilleurs skeuds de speedcore indus depuis un sacré bail !

BIG UP UPR !

Debut album from French producer Sweetzak, half of the duo Rue des Garderies (whose album was acclaimed by some of the specialist media in 2024: Album of the Year by Inverted Audio ; Juno ; World of Echo ; Soundohm ...). An ambient epic of complex textures, sculpted with emotion and intuition.



Zach writes his dreams, his grand inner music emanating directly from his soul and offering it to the world, guided by his intuition.

Nine abstract, ambient, and celestial tracks, evolving with his sensitivity, conducted like an intimate orchestra, revealing his landscapes and skies.

Sweetzak takes us on a journey within himself and questions our emotions in this first album with complex textures, like a glimpse into what moves him.

Die Ära der Mix-CDs mag schon lange vorbei sein, doch wenn man sich 'Midnight Ragas' anhört, das neue Album des legendären Downtempo-Produzenten und Thievery Corporation Mitbegründers Eric Hilton, könnte man der Meinung sein, sie wäre nie weg gewesen. Man stelle sich Khruangbin vor in noch entspannter, wie sie einen alten Billy Dee Williams-Werbespot für Malt Liquor vertonen, neu abgemischt von Zero 7, und man kommt der Sache schon sehr nahe. 'Midnight Ragas' - ein süchtig machendes Hörerlebnis.Auf dem Album sind auch die Thievery Corporation-Mitglieder Natalia Clavier und Puma Ptah zu hören.'Midnight Ragas' ist Erics 8. Solo-Studioalbum und der Nachfolger von Sound Vagabond und seinem Ambient-Album Out of the Blur.- Ltd. Col. LP: (Bone Color Vinyl)Tracklist LP:A-SeiteA1. Life (In The Deep End)A2. Leave It All (feat. Puma Ptah)A3. Je ne t’aime plus (feat. Natalia Clavier) videoA4. Behind My Eyes (feat. The Infinite Daisy Chains)A5. All I Want (feat. Puma Ptah)A6. Burkina FasoB-SeiteB1. Midnight RagaB2. Sol Interior (feat. Natalia Clavier)B3. Galactic ShineB4. Madame AshaB5. L’Ocean (feat. Natalia Clavier)B6. Beautiful Moment (feat. The Infinite Daisy Chains)

LERA is a brand new sardinian quartet forging a unique blend of post-rock, post-metal and doom,weaving hypnotic and heavy riffs with atmospheric soundscapes.
Their music thrives on contrasts--crushing, repetitive riffs that spiral into obsession, dissolving into delicate ambient textures that evokes a dreamlike state.
Their debut album, Reverie, is set for release in May 2025 via Subsound Records.


ABOUT REVERIE
"Reverie" thrives on contrasts-crushing, repetitive riffs that spiral into obsession, dissolving into delicate ambient textures that evokes a dreamlike state.
If you're looking for hypnotic and heavy riffs, slow arpeggios and crushing crescendos, powerful rhythms and ethereal vocals, just go for it - you will not be disappointed.

LERA is a brand new sardinian quartet forging a unique blend of post-rock, post-metal and doom,weaving hypnotic and heavy riffs with atmospheric soundscapes.
Their music thrives on contrasts--crushing, repetitive riffs that spiral into obsession, dissolving into delicate ambient textures that evokes a dreamlike state.
Their debut album, Reverie, is set for release in May 2025 via Subsound Records.


ABOUT REVERIE
"Reverie" thrives on contrasts-crushing, repetitive riffs that spiral into obsession, dissolving into delicate ambient textures that evokes a dreamlike state.
If you're looking for hypnotic and heavy riffs, slow arpeggios and crushing crescendos, powerful rhythms and ethereal vocals, just go for it - you will not be disappointed.

Ornaments proudly welcomes Lesterr with the "2 Jahre Dazwischen" EP — a beautifully crafted journey through two distinct sonic perspectives. The A-side offers a deep and heartfelt dancefloor journey with subtle piano infusions, complemented by a mesmerizing, deep grooving remix from none
other than Isolée. On the B-side, the mood shifts inward with four immersive cuts drifting from ambient landscapes to laid-back downbeats — perfect for your listening pleasure.

Underground Pacific is back with a new double vinyl compilation titled ‘The Only Good Wave is a Dead One’ that confirms, once again, its uncompromising taste for bold electronic music, psychedelic textures, and raw, electrified rock ‘n roll. This release brings together a varied group of artists, each of them adding something special to the journey.

The trip begins with “Excursions” by Gregory Moore, a piece that floats into a humid sonic world, between the nostalgic tones of vintage video game soundtracks, the Fourth World atmospheres of Jon Hassell, and the shimmering calm of ’90s Japanese ambient à la Takashi Kokubo.

Next comes Talee, the Rotterdam-based regular of the label, with “Makes Me Wonder”. Here, grunge-soaked vocals meet a tight dark disco groove, pierced by crystalline guitar chords that shimmer at the track’s heart. A song with its soul in the past and its feet in the club.

Label founder Cantor teams up once again with German duo New Hook on “Achtung! Achtung!”, an homage to the eponymous track by Italian producer Black Saagan. Fueled by vintage drum machines, punk-infused vocals, and melodies echoing the krautrock minimalism of Cluster, the track channels pure Cold War disco energy.

On “Scavengers”, Berlin based World Wild Web and Rasp Thorne deliver a pure mix of electro-rock noir – Suicide by way of David Lynch. Picture a never seen before episode of the series where Martin Rev and Alan Vega are playing live at the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks, while Laura Palmer slowly moves her head to the music, with a devilish smile on her face.

All the way from Grenoble to Berlin, H.L.M. deliver a dirty bass-driven anthem called ‘Fronde’. French spoken vocals spitfire over layers of distorted drones and hypnotic rhythms. The result is rough, hypnotic, and brings to mind the grooves of Death in Vegas.

New Hook return, this time solo, with ‘Unity’: a blend of groovy downtempo percussions, melancholic guitar riffs, and their signature brand of spoken word, a style that’s quickly become their sonic fingerprint.

Then it’s the turn of mexican-wave exponents Montessori featuring Vongold on “Ad Libitum”: a techy sunrise piece with soft pads, subtle build-ups, and an ecstatic sense of endlessness. After-party music for vast, open spaces.
Next up are SX2 from Ireland with their ‘Buttons’, offering a rolling tech-house banger laced with desert guitars. Psychedelic FX’s and whispered vocals drenched in delay slow the pace in a breakdown full of tension, preparing the floor to an euphoric release.

A dream from the pandemic era reappears: Cantor’s “Hannett’s Dream”, originally released in 2020 by Modular’s Project’s imprint ‘Nothing Is Real’ together with their own reworked version present also in two very limited vinyl-collector editions released by Underground Pacific. The introspection and hypnotic structure of the original cut here is replaced by a more stripped down arrangement, with a four-to-the-floor groove that is perfectly crafted for peak-time ignition.

Closing out the release is “Carissima” by the man behind iconic label Wonder Stories, Aimes – a Moroder-esque bassline and sensual vocals play on top of a warm groove that suddenly fractures into jazz-tinged, breakbeat mood, in the style of early Warp Records, just in time to get back into its disco-ish swing.

Contrary to what the title of this release might suggest, the wave isn’t dead at all. It’s well alive in the underground, reanimated by labels like Underground Pacific who are always ready to welcome artists who aren’t afraid to crash genres together and, above all, who are driven by the desire to make free-form, inspired pieces of music.

Aiko Takahashi is a Nova Gorica-based musician, a spirit that has released albums on various labels. Just like the line that separates the two cities where Aiko lives, Gorizia and Nova Gorica, divided between two countries yet united as one, Aiko’s music exists on a boundary. A line that separates silence from peculiar, almost imperceptible sounds. Too quiet to be Ambient, too Ambient to be Sound Art.

Two years ago, after a first complete release on IIKKI with "It Could Have Been A Beautiful", Aiko Takahashi comes back with a second complete album, this time, on LAAPS.

"This album is a delicate, meditative collection recorded between March and November 2024 in Aiko's former studio, a secluded spot near the River Isonzo, between Gorizia and Nova Gorica in Slovenia. The Grass Harp was made specifically for LAAPS, who asked Aiko to create a new complete piece of sounds. As always, it was largely recorded using dense layers of manipulated loops that weave in and out of the recordings, shaping them in a singular way through effects pedals, tape decks, and tape loops. The Grass Harp is a meditation on decay and silence, blending warm soundscapes with soft, playful melodies. That’s Aiko’s signature sound."

Having crested the west coast modular-ambient wave in just a few releases - including 2018's Sharing Waves on the influential LA experimental imprint Leaving Records - Sean Hellfritsch has swapped the mossy analog synth improvisations of his prior output for refined melodic arrangements dressed in sprightly dawn-of-digital textures. Big Earth Energy plumbs the depths of Hellfritsch's multimedia mind and naturalist heart, spinning an impressionistic narrative world off of cultural touchstones like the PC game MYST, and the work of Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi. Inspired by the aforementioned, and guided by Hellfritsch's experience as an animator and filmmaker, Big Earth Energy is the soundtrack to a hypothetical video game with a pointedly ecological premise, and a twist of psychedelic charm. In Hellfritsch's imagined virtual journey, the player assumes the perspective of a treefrog sixty-five-million years ago, hopping epochs with each new level, forming a comprehensive picture of the massive changes the planet has gone through over the eons. The ultimate goal of the game is not to amass resources, defeat enemies, or gain power, but to fully witness the unfolding of one of the biggest systems of energy imaginable - or as the album's creator puts it - "to explore the incomprehensibly vast energetic expression and mystery that is Earth." Big Earth Energy is steeped in exploratory RPG intrigue, possibility, and contemplation, lovingly overlaid with Miyazaki-an sentiments and aesthetics. The through-composed, organic, meandering synthesis heard on previous Cool Maritime albums has been fully replaced by meticulous polygonal arrangements that recall the computerized sheen of late 80s work by composers like Hiroshi Yoshimura, and Yoichiro Yoshikawa - using true-to-period gear no less. Even given its referentiality, Big Earth Energy comes off as forward-facing where so much reminiscent music remains fixed to a bygone moment in pop culture. Hellfritsch has created a musical world where the endless verdancy of the biosphere finds its parallel in the golden age of early 1990s video games, and late 80s Japanese environmental music, all while pointing to a hopeful planetary and artistic future that vindicates the motives of all of these muses.

Originally published by Tomlab in 2001, “Seleya” is the second full- length issued by Kristian Peters’ Novisad project. Twenty-four years after its initial release, the album’s thirteen loop-based arrangements continue to resonate with striking clarity. Keplar presents Seleya with a previously unreleased bonus track from 2004 and a fresh vinyl cut by LUPO.

These evocative miniatures feel haunted with the passage of time, bearing traces of the exploratory studio workflows, tactile imperfections, and emerging technologies that would have given birth to them: plain DAW manipulations, aliasing digitalia, the tones and timbres of the “misused” equipment ambient musicians utilized before Ableton, Eurorack, and the rise of the boutique electronics that have streamlined electronic music production.

In our present epoch, these compositions feel almost eerily nostalgic, documenting the sort of trembling, wide-eyed spirit and enviable naivety that characterizes cultural production as it ventures into new waters, unfettered by the sediments of established methodology and trend. This tendency to avoid aesthetic orthodoxy results in music that refuses to settle into predictability. Subtle frequencies drift and collide, counterpoint loops run in quiet opposition, and elegant dissonance gives rise to unexpected harmony. The album’s emotional power lies in these tensions, in the way it balances melancholy with beauty and familiarity with complexity.

After several killer EPs and tracks on labels such as Tresor, Multi Culti, Hard Fist, or Playground Records, Antonio De Oto aka A-Tweed finally delivers "Spring Music" his first solo LP via Abstrakce Records, changing perspective on his music and way of producing. A minimal approach, where echoes and reverbs become some of the main characters of the full journey, mixing up weird acid, experimental downbeat, electro, dub, and tribal vibes across a wide range of tempos.

Slow-motion beats pulse beneath swirling acid lines, while dubby echoes and reverberations sculpt a landscape that is both immersive and mysterious. A-Tweed’s meticulous production draws from the label’s tradition of organic textures and ambient vibes, yet carves a distinct path balancing deep bass, shimmering synths, and a subtle sense of psychedelia that lingers long after the needle lifts.

A cohesive journey, crafted for those who seek introspective voyages without giving up new forms of dancefloor communion. A manifesto about the power of slow rhythms, dub sensibilities, and acid-tinged experimentation, out of any hype and trend, aiming for a distinctive sound. An essential addition to the ever-evolving Abstrakce catalogue. The spring has just arrived.

“We go through life. We shed our skins. We become ourselves.”

This line from Patti Smith was going round and round Felix Manuel’s head as he gradually constructed Under Tangled Silence, his first album in six years and a record of a literal creative rebirth. Felix originally began it in earnest in 2020 Covid lockdown, but a catastrophic hard-drive meltdown destroyed almost all his work and sent him close to psychic collapse himself. However, ultimately this pushed him to rebuild from scratch and in so doing to confront and reassess every part of his musical and psychological processes.

The result is utterly extraordinary. Felix was a child prodigy as an instrumentalist and his advanced musicality has always been prominent in his music, but here he has put himself front and centre as pianist, harpist and more. And this sense of exposure as a performer interweaves with an unflinching emotional openness too. Where sometimes electronic production as advanced as this can use intellect and techniques as shields from soul-baring, this is the sound of someone who can boldly say “I feel things, I cry all the time, and I'm not afraid to say it or show it in the music.”

But this doesn’t mean there’s a move away from the soundsystems and dancefloors where Felix made his name as a uniquely innovative vinyl DJ. Even just in the opening track “A Tune for Us”, minimalist piano ripples and jazz drumming flow into the breaks of vintage jungle – and as the structure of the LP unfolds, a deep ambient meditation like “Hold” can sit very naturally in between the futurist dancehall of “L’Ancienne” and the high-definition acid house mind movie of “Galaxy in Silence”. In fact, as with the hands-on musicianship, that gutsy big-speaker electronic impact is delivered with more certainty, more expertise, more personal flourishes than ever. And all of those elements are more integrated than ever too: the sound of a total musical personality emerging afresh is truly something to behold. An already remarkable talent has been refreshed, reborn and is making the music of his life.