Buscar:architect

Industrial Harcore flower.

Audio premiere for Povratak na Parni Pogon on Monday 24th of May via Music is my sanctury

Video premiere via Clash or Twisted Soul

Airplay - dom servini (soho radio), WYEP Pittsburg (dubmission), WKDU Philadelphia (eavesdrop radio), Jocks & nerds (soho radio), Basic Soul Show, Bondfire Radio NYC + many smaller stations across EU, UK & US

LP review - Mojo, Songlines agreed so far

Key selling points:

Kozmodrum are pioneers of the Croatian nu-jazz scene
Kozmodrum's second albumGravitywon the highest award in Croatia, Porin

Individual members of Kozmodrum as well as Kozmodrum as a collective are acclaimed musicians in the Balkans and have won numerous prestigious awards for their work

Their music is like a DJ set played live - as all the music is played live with 'traditional' instruments by the Kozmodrum ensemble


numerous great reviews, but not many in English - we're looking to introduce the band to UK audiences with this release -- this is one review in english for their album Gravity:https://exclaim.ca/music/article/kozmodrum-gravity
Our PR for this 3rd album by Kozmodrum is done by Francesco Soragna (Jus Like Music) with specific focus on UK market.
BIO:

Kozmodrumhave been pioneering a new approach to electronic music in Croatia, often described by the band as Organic Dance Music. Techno, House and Dub styles intertwine through a continuous set, played by a live band on guitars, drums and keyboards.Simultaneously, the tradition of jazz ensemble performance is stitched into the architecture of music itself.

Kozmodrum have released 2 albums, 'Na Tragu Satelita' in 2016, and 'Gravity' the following year, receiving a Porin Award for the latter (the Croatian Grammy). Individual band members also received numerous awards for their accomplishments and are considered by many to be pioneers in the Croatian nu-jazz scene. Kozmodrum's main influences are Tycho and Elektro Guzzi, as well as Jaga Jazzist with whom they performed live. The band have played numerous festivals and concerts, with Kozmodrum's members performing with Hans Joachim Roedelius, noise/art/sound figure Sunao Inami, as well as jazz masters Reggie Washington, Peter Erskine, David Liebman, Alan Broadbent, David Murray and Saskia Laroo.

Onstage, Kozmodrum is a five-piece ensemble that adds a third dimension to their music, written and produced by the band's founder Janko Novoselić. Using the framework of a DJ set, the compositions are made to be played openly, where the beat is 'looped' until a cue is given to make a change or switch to another part. The pieces are often minimalistic to start with, but evolve over the performance into more complex patterns, harmonies and melodies. With constant shifts between the natural and the artificial, organized and improvised, quiet and loud - Kozmodrum create an unforgettable, mantric performance.

‘Concordance’ is Susan Howe’s and David Grubbs’s fifth album in the
fifteen years of their unexpected and richly satisfying collaboration. Here
they’ve pared down their materials to voice and piano, aspiring to the
hushed intensity of their live performances. What had previously resulted
from Grubbs’s recomposition of recorded materials now arrives as
unadorned duo performance.
“Howe is a poet who has spent her career reminding us that our
experiences of meaning and sound are synchronous.” - Tess Taylor, The
New York Times
‘Concordance’ is Susan Howe’s and David Grubbs’s fifth album in the
unexpected and richly satisfying collaboration that began with ‘Thiefth’
and includes ‘Souls of the Labadie Tract’, ‘Frolic Architecture’ and
‘WOODSLIPPERCOUNTERCLATTER’. Where these works feature the
fragmentation and multiplication of Howe’s recorded voice - in a style
akin to her celebrated text collages - with ‘Concordance’ they’ve pared
down their materials to voice and piano, aspiring to the hushed intensity
of their live performances. After fifteen years of working together, the
subtleties of inflection and interaction that previously resulted from
Howe’s nuanced delivery and Grubbs’s composition using recorded
materials now arrives as unadorned duo performance.
One of America's greatest living artists, Bollingen Prize-winning poet
Susan Howe’s text for ‘Concordance’ originates in a collage poem of the
same name published by Grenfell Press, which then became the title
work in her most recent book, published to acclaim by New Directions in
2020. She has continued to rework the text for this performed version,
incorporating material from her 2015 book of essays, ‘The Quarry’. Her
source material is scissored from print concordances of the poetry of
Milton, Herbert, Arnold, Browning, Dickinson and Coleridge, as well as
old field guides to birds, rocks, trees, moths and mushrooms; Howe’s
fiery commitment to placing these echoes of the past in dialogue with the
present speaks to her position as one of America’s essential artists.
David Grubbs is Professor Of Music at Brooklyn College and The
Graduate Center, CUNY. He is the author of ‘The Voice in the
Headphones’, ‘Now that the audience is assembled’ and ‘Records Ruin
the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording’ (all
published by Duke University Press) and, with Anthony McCall,
Simultaneous Soloists (Pioneer Works Press). Grubbs has played in
Gastr del Sol, The Red Krayola and Squirrel Bait and performed with
Tony Conrad, Pauline Oliveros and Will Oldham, among many others.

Mali Hayes has been simmering to the surface for a while now. Emerging from a Manchester jazz community that's enjoying its own renaissance away from the much-reported on London scene, the vocalist and songwriter's bittersweet neo-soul sound is trans-Atlantic – think initial progenitors such as Erkyah Badu, D'Angelo and Jill Scott – but is rooted in Manchester's mixed communities and the different walks of life she encounters.

Forgive You / Come Closer – owes itself to Gilles Peterson and Brownswood Music's Future Bubblers programme, when Hayes met producers Cult Architect and Medikul while part of the mentorship scheme. Airplay from Gemma Bradley, Victoria Jane & Mo Ayoub on Radio 1, Jamz Supernova & Gilles Peterson on BBC Radio 6, Victoria Jane on BBC Introducing, Jamz Supernova on Selector Radio. Features in Clash Magazines 'Next Wave' playlist and Spotify's 'Rhythm & Groove by DJ Taro' playlist.

The two tracks come out as part of a new series of 7" releases from Manchester institution Band on the Wall and their new label Band on the Wall Recordings. Based out of the iconic music venue, charity and cultural hub, the label builds on a successful compilation released to raise funds during the Covid-19 pandemic

Fractal City, the latest Cubenx album is a collection of terrestrial jams and arachnean ambient ballads that are particularly apt for urban listening. If its predecessors cracked the musical codes in force and shone by the versatility of their references, this new opus offers its listener an intense and symbolic sound environment.


The raw material of Fractal City was first conceived as a series of sound patches, designed to run in parallel with Canadian digital artist Maotik's installation. Broadcasted in real-time by generative patches reacting to various external and non-human data, those musical excerpts have been rendered in hundreds of nuances and extended over infinite durations. This unusual approach confers to the recording of the finished album's outstanding immersive strength.

Recorded live on a single track over a short period of a few weeks, the nine compositions of Fractal City capture the obsessions of its author for postmodern urban landscapes, and the revelation of new perspectives on the city of Paris.

The opening piece `Ssarg´ seems to hide the figure of the Mexican ambient producer Jorge Reyes. Cubenx built a cocoon of energetic layers, a new home of the mystical kind harmoniously integrated in a flourishing rainforest ecosystem.

`Transect ´refers to the urban development model of the same name, which is based on a division of the city into autonomous "fractal" zones. It also echoes the concept of "metro polarities" which considers the city as a mosaic of social groups. "By cycling in the evening with a friend, we could get away from the city centre to the suburbs of Paris. The contrasts are striking. You move from chic districts to bedroom communities, from industrial zones to improvised caravan camps. But there is a kind of energy in this heterogeneity that pushes you to always pedal further."

A few miles away, it would look like Art and urbanism have tried to level the cultural and social discrepancies of the outskirts of Paris. "Architectural sites like the Arcades of Bofill are splendid. There are completely extravagant projects, which seem to emerge from nowhere."
These buildings with ambitious aesthetics off the beaten tourist track, deteriorate over time and often remain far from the expectations of the local population. A feeling of nostalgic beauty is particularly perceptible on the slowest and most introspective ballads of the album as 'Urban Decay', 'Hagel' or 'Axe Majeur'. The producer leaves nonetheless no room for melancholic emptiness. "Every time, I have the impression that urban culture is taking its rights back and that young people appropriate the places in one way or another."

Just like `Transect', ` Quantified' and `Fractal City' present themselves as mirrors of a daily urban life in constant motion. All three are empowered by an overheated factory, which dispatches hypnotic beats and burst of analogue compressors with a clinical precision and direct them straight away to the reptilian areas of their listener's brains.

The sequencing leaves however space and time to take breath and makes way for aerial sonic excursions of spiritual and enlightened nature. On `Human Dilemma', Cubenx shows some concerns to opening the Pandora's box of transhumanist theories. While a long cosmic wave gives the listener a feeling of perfect fullness, a dizzying guitar distortion cast doubts on long term outlooks. `Smash Other' on the other way alternates gentle dissonances over an ocean of white noise and concludes the album on ethereal note.

With ´Fractal City", Cubenx eludes his irreconcilable love for shoegaze pop song and techno to concentrate exclusively on the production of mutant experimental materials. The result is an uncanny musical object, rich in image and sensation. Cubenx give us a guiding framework, enthralling enough to engage the listener to a tour of town. But he leaves it to the sole listeners to design their own projection of the city.

Soul Jazz Records’ CD / LP (plus digital download code)
reissue of this very rare album, first released as a private-press
LP in 1978 on flautist Lloyd McNeill’s own Baobab Record label
in Washington, DC. The album has been out-of-print for 43
years and is lovingly remastered by Soul Jazz Records.
‘Tori’ is a stunning album that blends Brazilian and Latin flavours
with deep Spiritual Jazz. The album features a strong line up
which includes legendary Brazilian figures like Dom Um Romao,
Nana Vasconcelos and Dom Salvador alongside jazz
heavyweights such as Buster Williams, Howard Johnson, John
La Barbera and more. These A-team musicians were all
regulars in McNeill’s long-running and highly successful resident
live group in New York, all set up to blend deep jazz, Brazilian
and Latin music together.
Lloyd McNeill is an African-American flautist, painter, poet, and
photographer born in Washington, D.C. in 1935. His multidisciplinary creative life led to encounters and friendships with
Nina Simone, Picasso, Eric Dolphy, Nana Vasconceles and
other legendary cultural figures.
Lloyd McNeill’s hypnotic ‘Washington Suite’ was originally
commissioned as a piece of music for the Capital Ballet
Company, in Washington DC.
McNeill grew up through the era of the Civil Rights Movement in
the 1960s and his life and work is a reflection of those ideals. In
the mid-1960s he moved to France where he became friends
with Picasso, working with a number of émigré-jazz musicians
whilst living in Paris. In the late 1960s he taught jazz and
painting workshops at the New Thing Art and Architecture
Center in Washington. In the 1970s he travelled throughout
Brazil and West Africa studying music and taught music
anthropology in the US.

Soul Jazz Records’ new oxblood red coloured vinyl
LP (plus download code) issue of this very rare
deep spiritual jazz album, first released as a
private-press album in 1970 on flautist Lloyd
McNeill’s own Asha Record label in Washington
DC.
Lloyd McNeill is an African-American flautist,
painter, poet and photographer born in Washington
D.C., in 1935. His multi-disciplinary creative life led
to encounters and friendships with Nina Simone,
Picasso, Eric Dolphy, Nana Vasconceles and other
legendary cultural figures. Lloyd McNeill’s hypnotic
‘Washington Suite’ was originally commissioned as
a piece of music for the Capital Ballet Company, in
Washington.
McNeill grew up through the era of the Civil Rights
Movement in the 1960s and his life and work is a
reflection of those ideals. In the mid-1960s he
moved to France where he became friends with
Picasso, working with a number of émigré-jazz
musicians whilst living in Paris. In the late 1960s
he taught jazz and painting workshops at the New
Thing Art and Architecture Center in Washington.
In the 1970s he travelled throughout Brazil and
West Africa studying music and taught music
anthropology in the US.

Dead Nature, the solo project of former Spring King singer and prolific producer (The Big Moon, Calva Louise, Circa Waves, Dream Nails, Genghar, Police Car Collective) Tarek Musa, is announcing the release of debut album Watch Me Break Apart, and sharing the video for new single “Hurricane”. It follows the boisterous, sky-high indie-pop dramatics of recent single “Red Clouds”, which drew support from BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music, Clash, DIY, Dork, The Line of Best Fit, NME, The Independent, and The i Paper.

Producer and songwriter Tarek Musa has for a long time placed himself at the centre of other artists’ worlds, helping to hone sounds and build scenes through his production work for artists such as The Big Moon, Genghar, and Dream Nails, Calva Louise, Police Car Collective - as well as providing remixes for the likes of Circa Waves. As BBC Radio 1's Jack Saunders noted recently on-air, "we owe a lot to him out here... he's putting the passion from Spring King into the future of the alternative music that we love." With Dead Nature, Musa allows himself to step back from his role as architect for others and set about pursuing his own creative impulses.

Throughout Watch Me Break Apart, internal anxieties are made external, and re-purposed into a carnival of multi-coloured, fuzzed-up indie-pop. The strain of social media and a whirlwind news-cycle compound on the album’s cartwheeling title track, pairing thoughts of sleepless nights with isolated imagery (“A car waits at the lights, no one’s in the driver’s seat / In the ocean stands a tree”). "50 Foot Wall" and the paradoxically light-hearted "Hurricane" were both written against the backdrop of a growing climate crisis, and "Ladlands" zeroes in on social and political struggle, the rate at which change is happening, and the reality-warping nature of the echo-chamber.

Guro Gikling from All We Are sings backing vocals across the whole album, except for Hurricane which Jess Allanic from Calva Louise appears on.

Dead Nature, the solo project of former Spring King singer and prolific producer (The Big Moon, Calva Louise, Circa Waves, Dream Nails, Genghar, Police Car Collective) Tarek Musa, is announcing the release of debut album Watch Me Break Apart, and sharing the video for new single “Hurricane”. It follows the boisterous, sky-high indie-pop dramatics of recent single “Red Clouds”, which drew support from BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music, Clash, DIY, Dork, The Line of Best Fit, NME, The Independent, and The i Paper.

Producer and songwriter Tarek Musa has for a long time placed himself at the centre of other artists’ worlds, helping to hone sounds and build scenes through his production work for artists such as The Big Moon, Genghar, and Dream Nails, Calva Louise, Police Car Collective - as well as providing remixes for the likes of Circa Waves. As BBC Radio 1's Jack Saunders noted recently on-air, "we owe a lot to him out here... he's putting the passion from Spring King into the future of the alternative music that we love." With Dead Nature, Musa allows himself to step back from his role as architect for others and set about pursuing his own creative impulses.

Throughout Watch Me Break Apart, internal anxieties are made external, and re-purposed into a carnival of multi-coloured, fuzzed-up indie-pop. The strain of social media and a whirlwind news-cycle compound on the album’s cartwheeling title track, pairing thoughts of sleepless nights with isolated imagery (“A car waits at the lights, no one’s in the driver’s seat / In the ocean stands a tree”). "50 Foot Wall" and the paradoxically light-hearted "Hurricane" were both written against the backdrop of a growing climate crisis, and "Ladlands" zeroes in on social and political struggle, the rate at which change is happening, and the reality-warping nature of the echo-chamber.

Guro Gikling from All We Are sings backing vocals across the whole album, except for Hurricane which Jess Allanic from Calva Louise appears on.

To accompany the unrestrained awesomeness of DC’s Dark Nights: Death Metal comic series, execute producer / composer Tyler Bates (Guardians of the Galaxy, John Wick) present the Dark Nights: Death Metal soundtrack. Directly inspired by the comic series’ storyline, the diverse soundtrack illuminates the darkest corners of each DC character’s psyche. Available on CD, double blue vinyl, and exclusive double yellow vinyl for indie retailers. Features tracks from bands such as Mastadon, Soccer Mommy, Rise Against, Denzel Curry to name a few. TYLER BATES: Tyler Bates has become not only an artisan at architecting music for film, television, and video games, but an in-demand multi-instrumentalist, writer, and producer. His film credits include Dawn of the Dead (2004), 300 (2007), Watchmen (2009), several collaborations with Rob Zombie including The Devil's Rejects (2005), Halloween (2007), and Halloween II (2009), the Guardians of the Galaxy saga (2014, 2017), the John Wick series (2014, 2017, 2019), Atomic Blonde (2017), Deadpool 2 (2018), Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019 ), and many more. “In Dark Nights: Death Metal, Loma Vista Recordings and I saw an opportunity to bring artists together to create a diverse soundtrack that is inspired directly by this incredible comic series. Our intent is not to literally create a death metal soundtrack, but instead, to illuminate the darkest corners of each character’s psyche from an authentic perspective that is thematically inherent in death metal music.” - Tyler Bates.

Hand-numbered vinyl edition of 500 copies is 180gramLP in window-cut artboard jacket that frames eight different images from Magid's The Barragan Archives project, printed on four 12"x12" art card inserts including an artworked inner sleeve. The original score for the acclaimed feature-length artworld documentary by multi-disciplinary artist Jill Magid: an exploration of the contested legacy of the Mexican architect Luis Barragan and an art intervention in its own right. Griffin wrote, performed and recorded The Proposal soundtrack with an understated but wide-ranging electro-acoustic sensibility that organically compliments the film's enigmatic narrative and the discreet beauty of Barragan's architectural spaces. Various acoustic instruments combine with electronics, sampling and ambient treatments for an ever-shifting suite of musical vignettes across the album's thirteen tracks. Guest musicians include Matana Roberts, Reut Regev, Jim White (Xylouris White, The Dirty Three), Jason Ajemian (Helado Negro), and Sophie Trudeau and Timothy Herzog (Godspeed You! Black Emperor) alongside Griffin's own contributions on multiple instruments, field recordings and production. Griffin weaves an iridescent musical tapestry, threading various genres with sublime thematic and atmospheric coherence, echoing Magid's contemplative, cerebral journey. The music also works enchantingly on its own as a subtly haunted, evocative and meditative album.

2021 Repress

Rone is a stalwart of the French electronic scene and returns with his fourth album, 'Mirapolis', a synesthetic journey with features from Bryce Dessner (The National), Baxter Dury, John Stanier (Battles) and Saul Williams. The artwork was created by the critically acclaimed director Michel Gondry.
Stepping into Rone's music is like sleepwalking through a vividly colourful dream, eventually stumbling across a strange, scintillating Megapolis of saturated light and colours: 'Mirapolis'. Its twelve tracks / districts, each with their own specific planning, pulsate as though animated by their musical mastermind.
The project was an opportunity to get reacquainted with long- time stage and studio partners John Stanier, Gaspar Claus and the Vacarme band and Bryce Dessner (guitarist for The National,) while bringing in new collaborators (and thus, new interpretation of Rone's dreams). We find American slam-poet Saul Williams, who happened to be in Paris for a moment and contributes a searing anti-Trump screed, Baxter Dury, who brings an irresistible East London touch to 'Switches', a kind of fan fic that reimagines the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper lounging pensive in a club chair, Israeli electronic music muse Noga Erez, who inspired 'Waves' which, despite being recorded remotely, betrays a euphoric partnership, and finally, Kazu Makino, Blonde Redhead's bewitching singer and multi- instrumentalist, who contributes to the album's closer, the gauzy 'Down For The Cause'.
Rone remains a producer of grand instrumental pieces, which cannot be easily categorized in the architectural canon of our electronic music galaxy. Hypnotic, cinematic opening track 'I Philip' is an offshoot from the score for the first French virtual reality fiction, built around Philip K Dick - the perfect gate into a city that then opens up myriad temporal perspectives.

Robert Schwarz’s background lies in both architecture and computer music. Across a handful of labels, he’s presented field recordings and experimental works, and he’s participated in exhibitions with some of Europe’s most prominent institutions for adventurous art practices. He is also the co-founder and curator of the Viennese festival ”PARKEN; Or, Live in the Park”, which aims to mediate experimental forms of music in public spaces and co-author of the works ”Los Bar”, ”Strookoffer” and ”Lax Bar”, a series of artist run spaces in Los Angeles, Brussels and Vienna.

Recently he presented a row of debut releases with new side projects like She Was A Visitor, Privat and Ausgsburger Messer.

Over the past decade, Egyptian-born, Barcelona-based DJ and techno producer Raxon, known to friends and family as Ahmed Raxon, has popped out a steady stream of twelve-inch singles, precision-tooled, for labels like Cocoon, Drumcode, Diynamic, Truesoul, and Ellum Audio. An alumni of Kompakt’s Speicher series – check the insistent, vibrating pulses of “The Ancient” and “Dark Light” on 2019’s Speicher 107 – with Sound Of Mind, Raxon has produced a long-awaited debut album that’s ready and aching both for the dancefloor and the boudoir, traversing the heat of the club and the warmth of the home.

“The idea of an album has always floated around in my head for the past few years,” Raxon confirms, “but it was never the right moment in my mind.” Instead, he’s been insistently pursuing his vision of deep, elegant techno, taking him from early DJ gigs in Dubai, including the legendary audio tonic night, then relocating to Europe on the recommendation of Herman Cattaneo, all the while allowing his experiences to inform and transmute his producer’s thumbprint. He’s an architect by training (though he gave architecture up for electronic music), which might explain why Raxon productions are so sturdy and well-designed; but remember also that architecture is a field filled with brave experimentation, something Raxon definitely draws on throughout Sound Of Mind.

Like many albums from the past twelve months, Raxon’s debut developed partly thanks to the unique social situation the planet has found itself caught within. “In the beginning of 2020 I started working on a few tracks with the album in mind,” he recalls, “with no idea of what’s to come in the next few months. As catastrophic as the situation was/is, I found myself in the studio; in a way the lockdown gave me that creative freedom in the studio, to try to tell my story through sound.” And indeed, there is something in the way of ‘life writing’ about Sound Of Mind, particularly in the way Raxon’s productions pay subtle homage, perhaps, to his formative listening experiences in the late nineties.

It’s no retro trip, but there’s plenty of variety here, and a few moments that’ll tickle the collective memory – see the prowling pulsations of the opening “Majestic”, the alien breakbeat action of “Vice” and “Journey Mode”, where the interstellar tones feel like Foul Play or Steve Gurley, the leaking gas and woozy keys that make “Droid Solo” so subtly destabilising, or the strobelight drones that sputter and flare throughout “El Multiverse”, where dappled organ tones fight it out with interdimensional transmissions, all sucked into the vortex of a late-night techno mantra. Beautifully sculpted, Sound Of Mind feels consummate, an elegant set that pulls Raxon’s vision into its sharpest focus. Alive with possibilities, it’s a fever dream of creativity.

In den letzten zehn Jahren hat der in Ägypten geborene und in Barcelona lebende DJ und Techno-Produzent Raxon, der Freunden und Familie auch als Ahmed Raxon bekannt ist, eine ganze Reihe von 12inch-Singles auf Labels wie Cocoon, Drumcode, Diynamic, Truesoul und Ellum Audio veröffentlicht. Wir kennen Raxon außerdem durch seinen Beitrag zur Kompakt Extra/Speicher-Reihe – man höre sich nur mal "The Ancient" und "Dark Light" auf dem 2019 erschienenen Speicher 107 an. Nun hat Raxon mit “Sound Of Mind“ sein lang erwartetes Debütalbum produziert, das sowohl für den Dancefloor als auch für die eigenen vier Wände geeignet ist und dabei sowohl die Hitze des Clubs als auch die Wärme des eigenen Zuhauses durchmisst.

"Die Idee eines Albums schwebte in den letzten Jahren immer in meinem Kopf herum", bestätigt Raxon, "aber es gab nie den richtige Moment." Stattdessen verfolgte er leidenschaftlich seine Vision von tiefem, elegantem Techno, die ihn von frühen DJ-Gigs in Dubai, einschließlich der legendären Audio-Tonic-Nacht, dann auf Empfehlung von Hernan Cattaneo nach Europa führte. Im Laufe dieser Zeit sammelte er unzählige Erfahrungen, die es ihm erlaubten, seinen Stil als Produzent mehr und mehr zu transformieren. Raxon ist gelernter Architekt (obwohl er die Architektur für die elektronische Musik aufgegeben hat), was vielleicht erklärt, warum seine Produktionen so robust und gut durchdacht sind; aber man sollte auch nicht vergessen, dass Architektur bestenfalls immer ein Feld mutiger Experimente ist, etwas, worauf Raxon in “Sound Of Mind“ definitiv zurückgreift.

Wie viele andere Alben der letzten zwölf Monate auch wurde Raxon’s Debüt von der einzigartigen gesellschaftlichen Situation, in der sich der Planet momentan befindet, beeinflusst. "Anfang 2020 habe ich angefangen, an ein paar Tracks für das Album zu arbeiten", erinnert er sich, "ohne zu wissen, was in den nächsten Monaten auf uns zukommen würde. So katastrophal die Situation auch war/ist, ich fand mich im Studio wieder; in gewisser Weise gab mir der Lockdown auch eine kreative Freiheit im Studio, um zu versuchen, eine Geschichte durch meinen Sound zu erzählen." Und in der Tat gibt es auf “Sound Of Mind“ so etwas wie eine "Lebensgeschichte", besonders in der Art und Weise, wie Raxon’s Produktionen eine subtile Hommage an seine prägenden musikalischen Erfahrungen in den späten Neunzigern darstellen.

Es ist fürwahr kein Retro-Trip, aber es gibt hier viel Abwechslung und ein paar Momente, die das kollektive Gedächtnis kitzeln werden - zum Beispiel der sich langsam heran pirschende Pulsschlag im Eröffnungstrack "Majestic", oder die außerirdischen Breakbeats von "Vice" und "Journey Mode", in denen sich die interstellaren Sounds ein wenig wie Foul Play oder Steve Gurley anfühlen. Dann das ausströmende Gas und die wummernden Tasten, die "Droid Solo" subtil destabilisieren, oder die Strobo-Drones, die in "El Multiverse" herum sprudeln und flackern, wo einzelne Töne einer Orgel mit interdimensionalen Transmittern um die Wette strahlen und schließlich in den Strudel eines nächtlichen Techno-Mantras gesogen werden. “Sound Of Mind“ fühlt sich formvollendet an, wie ein elegantes Set, das Raxon’s Vision verstärkt in den Fokus rückt. Ein Fiebertraum voller Kreativität und Möglichkeiten.

Cloudwalker was entirely written and produced between March and November 2020. The album is a welcome return of Martin Haidinger's more notable style after the floating tranquility of the ambient/drone series of albums like Entre Les Chambres and Deux Nouvelles. What's contained within Cloudwalker mirrors its name. Haidinger takes Gimmik on a somewhat weightless journey above the clouds floating between the electronic music he nurtured in the Toytronic years.
These new tracks represent a production concept where Martin saw himself more like a witness of a moving organism than a planning architect. This approach gave the music the space to evolve more freely, like clouds. It broadened the emotional sound pallet of Gimmik's style without denying its heritage. The same philosophy was implemented when choosing the produc- tion tools, representing technology from 1958 to 2019, including field recording and manipulated real instruments.
The emphasis is clearly on songwriting rather than nano edits and ball bearings down stairs beats. The result is clean melodic electronica, bouncy Electro, engaging maternal downtempo, and expertly crafted modular synthesis. Every detail has the technical Haidinger approach with a strong focus on telling a story, leaving a lot of emotional space for the imagination of the listener. Cloudwalker is a confident and warm return to form from an artist that was sorely missed in his time away.

Repress

Punctual like a Swiss watch, Driftmachine presents a new album that once again astounds and delights. We know their trademark: solid mechanical percussions, forceful bass and melodies systematically built around circular patterns. "Spume & Recollection" is the sixth Umor Rex album by the Berlin duo, and what better way to celebrate the label's 15th anniversary than with a new record from the masters of labyrinthine cables and patches. Regarding "Nocturnes" (UR 2014), their debut album, we described their sound as precise and symmetrical, identical concrete blocks mounted and articulated in a random order. Their already obsessive style continued to evolve with their third record, "Colliding Contours" (UR 2016), now pushing further into abstract dub, ultra-tense grooves, and even more kinetic loops, moving further away from conventional musical structures. Between these two albums they released the remarkable "Eis Heauton" (UR 2015), a kind of hypnotic experiment informed by shadowy atmospheres, chance, and an intuitive dialogue with their musical machines, a unique situation in which they acted as bemused observers in hunt for epiphanies, resulting in an exquisite amalgamation of lucid dream-logic and mechanical precision. A one-of-a-kind soundtrack for minute and wordless scenes unfolding in pitch-black back alleys and hidden, alchemical basements. A similar map was explored with "Shunter" (UR 2018), a superb secret meeting between avant-garde phantasmagoria and concrete experimentation. "Radiations" (UR 2017) offered B-sides and bonus tracks, in addition to collaborations with Shackleton and The Sight Below, a kind of preamble that united Driftmachine’s different expressions and leanings.

When Andreas Gerth and Florian Zimmer come up with new material, one listens with high expectation. Looking back on their discography, one could safely anticipate a high quality album densely layered with their familiar leitmotifs. And yet, "Spume & Recollection" takes us by surprise and finds a new way to transfix. Fresh methods and ideas are introduced to their dynamics and formula. Yes, of course, you can still expect a healthy dose of kosmische, which is one of the dominant features in Driftmachine’s DNA; but this is now entwined with novel materials, semi-material patterns of alien code stretching over exhilaratingly tense and detailed grooves, clouds of gas shifting on top of deep dub architecture and blocking out the sun for prismatic effect. Even more of a surprise is the immediate, streamlined nature of these tracks, making "Spume & Recollection" their most accessible record and, perhaps, the most addictive (and this without sacrificing the essential mystery and strangeness at the core of Driftmachine’s sound).

We have previously described their work as post-industrial-dub; right now, we might just call it hypno-music for man and machine to dance and dream together. "Spume & Recollection" takes this concept as far as it can go without breaking, and finds some strange new feelings, and weirdly danceable grooves, to shed some light on this dark and dazzling ride.

All songs written & produced by Andreas Gerth & Florian Zimmer in Berlin Mastered by John Tejada Artwork & Photos by Daniel Castrejón

Returning to a heavier, more aggressive sound, in 1975 Black Sabbath delivered their sixth classic album in a row. Taking almost a year to complete, Sabotage is Black Sabbath at their best and possibly their most musically experimental. Brought up to date for 2021 is the original album newly remastered as well as a full concert recorded on the 1975 Sabotage Tour of North America. In addition to a selection of tracks from Sabotage, this live album includes the Black Sabbath classics War Pigs, Iron Man and Paranoid. Also included in this super deluxe edition is a replica of the rare Japanese single ‘Am I Going Insane (Radio)’, which completes the audio package for this fan-friendly deep dive into the classic Black Sabbath album, Sabotage.

This journey, this slowly drifting sonic meditation, is an 'inner soundscape', a dialogue between the senses, the conscience and the world, inside / outside, interconnected. Like waking up from a long dream, and being stuck into its echo. The April Sessions immerges the listener into a drone-ish universe, full of random acousmatic events, inner monologues and a vast and unwritten subjective map to be drawn.

The April Sessions has been living in a seedy hotel in Brussels for a few months. She listens to the sparse traffic outside her window, locked in and locked down. 'Everything is constructed', she says to herself, 'even the sound of a solitary aircraft at 25,000 feet traverses the sky no further out than the inside of my skull'. Other weird sonic phenomena criss-cross the inner cosmos of her brain and streak across her private sky like comets. And then there is the unshakeable presence of that inner monologue, known to her variously as the Tacit Dictator, the Subvocaliser and, nightmarishly enough, the voice of the Merlucid Hake. (Anthony Moore, St Leonards, 10th of March 2021)

Anthony Moore, Dirk Specht and Tobias Grewenig have known each other and worked together since the early 2000s. They have collectively participated in a number of projects including live performances and recordings. In 2016, as part of The Missing Present Band, they released the live LP 'The Present Is Missing' on A-Musik. The following year they released 'Ore Talks', a double LP, realised in collaboration with Therapeutische Hörgruppe Köln.

Anthony Moore was born in 1948, founded the band Slapp Happy (circa 1972) with Peter Blegvad and Dagmar Krause, then worked alongside a.o. Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson in the unclassifiable band Henry Cow. He released several solo albums, composed soundtracks for experimental movies. His path also crossed Kevin Ayers's, Pink Floyd's, Richard Wright's. He was appointed professor for research into sound and music in the context of new media at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany. He still continues to write and perform.

Dirk Specht is a sound artist, musician and curator. He studied architecture and media art and is active in the fields of sound works for choreography, radio drama, sound art, film and video art soundtracks. He published releases with several bands and projects. He has been an assistant for research into sound from 2011 to 2016 at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, and is a founding member of Therapeutische Hörgruppe Köln.

Tobias Grewenig studied at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. He primarily deals with non-linearity in his audiovisual installative works and performances, including projects with the artist group 'Therapeutische Hörgruppe Köln', the ensemble 'The Knob, The Finger & The It' and the improvisation collective "Frequenzwechsel". The conception and development of electronic instruments and code is a key component of his artistic work. He lives and works in Cologne.

Since 1989 Germany’s Desaster have been churning out their unique and unholy blend of extreme metal, and in 2021 they return with perhaps their most powerful album to date, the towering Churches Without Saints. “It’s a typical Desaster old school black-death-thrash metal album, with a lot of aggression, but also great atmosphere and epic tunes!” enthuses guitarist and founder member Infernal. With a simple remit of making an album full of “neck-breaking songs” the quartet have once again proven themselves leaders in their chosen genres, giving their faithful and newcomers alike plenty to salivate over.

Since 1989 Germany’s Desaster have been churning out their unique and unholy blend of extreme metal, and in 2021 they return with perhaps their most powerful album to date, the towering Churches Without Saints. “It’s a typical Desaster old school black-death-thrash metal album, with a lot of aggression, but also great atmosphere and epic tunes!” enthuses guitarist and founder member Infernal. With a simple remit of making an album full of “neck-breaking songs” the quartet have once again proven themselves leaders in their chosen genres, giving their faithful and newcomers alike plenty to salivate over.

Squid announce their debut album, ‘Bright Green Field’, already one of 2021’s most highly anticipated releases.
Produced by Dan Carey, ‘Bright Green Field’ is an album of towering scope and ambition, it is deeply considered, paced and intricately constructed. With all band members playing such a vital and equal role, this album is very much the product of five heads operating as one.
Some bands might be tempted to include previous singles on their debut - and the band already released two more in 2020 via ‘Sludge’ and ‘Broadcaster’ - but instead ‘Bright Green Field’ is completely new. This sense of limitlessness and perpetual forward motion is one of the key ingredients that makes Squid so loved by fans and critics alike, from 6 Music, who have A-Listed previous singles ‘Houseplants’, ‘The Cleaner’ and ‘Match Bet’, to publications such as The Guardian, NME, The Face, The Quietus and countless others. The band was also on the longlist for the BBC Music Sound Of 2020 poll.
‘Bright Green Field’ features field recordings of ringing church bells, tooting bees, microphones swinging from the ceiling orbiting a room of guitar amps and a distorted choir of 30 voices, as well as a horn and string ensemble featuring the likes of Emma-Jean Thackray and Lewis Evans from Black Country, New Road.
Squid’s music - be it agitated and discordant or groove-locked and flowing - has often been a reflection of the tumultuous world we live in and this continues that to some extent. “This album has created an imaginary cityscape,” says Ollie Judge, who writes the majority of the lyrics and plays drums. “The tracks illustrate the places, events and architecture that exist within it. Previous projects were playful and concerned with characters, whereas this project is darker and more concerned with place - the emotional depth of the music has deepened.”
For all the innovative recording techniques, evolutionary leaps, lyrical
themes, ideas and narratives that underpin the album, it’s also a joyous and emphatic record. One that marries the uncertainties of the world with a curious sense of exploration as it endlessly twists and turns down unpredictable avenues.

** 12” LP edition of 300 copies with cover artwork and booklet featuring illustrations by Ettore Tripodi ** In September 2019 Alessandro Bosetti was invited by fellow composer and curator Riccardo La Foresta to create a new work for a newly created ensemble as part of a residency program hosted by Centro Musica in Modena, Italy. The very first encounter took place on Skype – kind of a prediction of the forthcoming physically distanced pandemic times. The first, straight-to-the-point question Bosetti posed to each musician was to tell him the history of their life. The materials collected in the interviews subsequently underwent a process of anonymization, selection and cut-up in order to create the imaginary autobiography of Didone, a genderless character on whom Bosetti composed a combinatory poem in 84 aphorisms, six of which have been translated into music. The ensemble consists of extremely different musical profiles: the contemporary soprano Giulia Zaniboni, minimalist banjo and acoustic guitar player Glauco Salvo, and four musicians with a jazz background such as guitarist Luca Perciballi, drummers Andrea Grillini and Simone Sferruzza, and saxophonist Dan Kinzelman (also part of Hobby Horse trio and long-time collaborator of Enrico Rava). Some of the stylistic features of Bosetti’s project Trophies (along with Kenta Nagai and Tony Buck) can be detected here and there. Persistent repetitions, mesmerizing sonic masses and extended, oblique melodic lines are here led by the clear and precise voice of soprano Giulia Zaniboni.



The voice is at the heart of this work: the textual fragments of the autobiographies are filtered through Zaniboni’s contemporary vocality, while informing the instrumental writing as well. Themes and textures unveil traces of words or sentences; fragments of biographies are embedded in the intricate instrumental dialogue between the two drummers. A final layer was added by Ettore Tripodi, a unique and out-of-time visual artist who imagined Didone in a series of illustrations accompanying the poem. "Didone" is a work about the reconfiguration and recombination of identities, where every specific sense of belonging melts into an indistinct swarming of possibilities.



Alessandro Bosetti is a Marseille-based composer and sound artist with a particular interest in the musicality of language and in the voice, conceived as an autonomous object and an instrument of expression. His works enact a dialogue between language, voice and sound within complex tonal and formal constructions, often crossed by oblique irony. He builds surprising devices, often linked to the radio medium and to a tireless reflection on the relationships between music and language, questioning aesthetic categories and listening postures.



His work has been shown in reference venues such as the GRM / Présences Electronique festival in Paris, Roulette and The Stone in New York, Café OTO in London, the Liquid Architecture Festival in Melbourne and Sydney, the Serralves Museum in Porto and the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival. His music is released by labels such as Errant Bodies Press, Holidays Records, Rossbin, Sedimental, Unsounds, Monotype, Weird Ear Records.

Conrad Clipper is the pseudonym of an anonymous composer and multi-instrumentalist, with a focus on prepared,
programmed & played piano. He lives and records in Berlin.

His debut album, Cycle of Liminal Rites, was released on Emily Elhaj’s Love Lion label (Angel Olsen). He is set to releasehis follow-up release, Heron’s Book of Dreams, on Luau Records (Theo Alexander, Sontag Shogun, Segal) on March 26th 2021. It was recorded in Arizona and Berlin, and was mixed and mastered by Deerhoof’s John Dieterich.


Conrad on the recording of Heron’s Book of Dreams:

Through the window at Arcosanti, I could see the desert, vast and transformative. Inside the room was an upright piano, a Fender

Rhodes, and several synths. For five days - every morning, afternoon and evening - I sat in this room with the circular window and wrote the music you can hear on this record. Outside, intimate crowds gathered to watch some of the world’s best musicians play unique and unrepeatable sets.

“Arcosanti, AZ is a prototype arcology designed by Paolo Soleri. Picture, if you can, moonbase architecture inspired by late-60s sustainable ideologies. Concrete atriums screened with poplar and olive trees. Shady, calm apses to keep the desert sun off. The low roar of the iron forge, casting the famous Arcosanti bells that are shipped around the world.”

Ryley Walker currently resides in New York City. But his latest LP is a Chicago record in spirit. The masterful Course In Fable, the songwriter’s fi@h solo effort,
draws from the deep well of that city’s ferCle 1990s scene, when bands like Tortoise, The Sea and Cake and Gastr del Sol were reshaping the underground,
mixing and matching indie rock, jazz, prog and beyond.
Walker spent his formaCve years in Chicago, absorbing those heady sounds and finding ways to make them his own. Even though he emerged at first in folkrock
troubadour mode, it makes sense that he’s arrived at this point; each LP has grown more intricate and assured, his influences disClling into something
original and unusual. To put it simply: Course In Fable is Walker’s best record yet, full of acCve imaginaCon and endless possibiliCes.
Last October, Ryley went straight to one of the primary architects of the Chicago sound to make the LP. John McEn:re, Course In Fable’s producer/engineer/
mixer, can rightly be called a legend for his work with Tortoise, Stereolab, The Red Krayola, Jim O’Rourke and countless others over a prolific career that now
spans more than three decades. Seeing his name in an album’s liners is preVy much a trademark of quality.
Another Windy City exile, McEnCre is based on the west coast these days, working out of the Portland, OR studio he’s dubbed Soma West. On the seven songs
here, he delivers the signature shimmering and prisCne sonics he’s become known for over the years. But McEnCre was also inCmately involved with Course
In Fable’s overall creaCve process. “I told him to take the mixes and have at it,” Walker says.
The result is a rich, immersive affair — a headphones record if ever there was one. Course In Fable’s songs are twisty, labyrinthine things, stuffed full of ideas
(Walker half-jokingly calls it his “prog record”). But no maVer how complex it gets, the album is never overwhelmingly busy. Wiry guitars melt into gorgeous
string secCons (arranged by Douglas Jenkins of the Portland Cello Project). Tricky Cme signatures abound but feel as natural as can be. Melodies o@en dri@ in
unexpected direcCons but remain downright hummable. Like Walker’s beloved Genesis, the pop element is never too far from the surface even when shit
gets weird. (And speaking of weird, Ryley says that in addiCon to Genesis, much of the album’s inspiraCon comes from “Australian extreme scooter riders on
YouTube and balding gear heads on Craigslist.” Go figure.)
To help put together these various puzzle pieces, Ryley assembled a band made up of several longCme collaborators. Bill MacKay (another Chicago mainstay)
and Walker have made two excellent instrumental duo records of interlocking guitars and warm give-and-take — a rapport very much in evidence
throughout Course In Fable. The freakishly talented drummer Ryan Jewell has performed with Walker for years now in a variety of seangs, from
straighborward song-centric sets to blown-out improv extravaganzas. Bassist Andrew ScoJ Young (Tiger Hatchery, Health&Beauty) has logged many miles on
tour with Walker; he and Jewell are frequently astonishing, a buoyant-but-always-locked-in rhythm secCon, able to navigate someCmes dizzying turnarounds
with apparent ease. Listening to the interplay between Walker and these musicians and you might be fooled into thinking they’d spent a year roadtesCng
Course In Fable’s songs. But it all came together relaCvely fast, thanks to demos, rehearsals and the kind of musical empathy that comes from years of
playing together.
Beneath the wondrous interplay, you’ll find some of Walker’s most personal – if sCll typically crypCc — lyrics, hinCng at some of the trials the songwriter has
been dealing with in recent years. Balanced with necessary doses of dark humor and oddball poetry, Course In Fable feels most of all like a life-affirming
record, fresh air in the lungs, sun on your skin. “Fuck me, I’m alive,” Ryley sings at one point, a moment of both disbelief and pure joy.
Walker has released his albums on a who’s-who of independent labels over the past decade — Tompkins Square, Dead Oceans, Thrill Jockey and Drag City
among them. This Cme around, he’s doing it DIY-style, puang Course In Fable out on his own Husky Pants imprint. You’re in good hands. This is an album that
sounds great (mastered by Greg Calbi), looks great (artwork by Jenny Nelson and design by Michael Vallera). It probably even smells great. Whether you’ve
been onboard since the beginning or are new to the Ryley Walker universe, you’re in for a treat.

Toronto’s infamous psychedelic multimedia collective, Intersystems, make a surprise return with a new full-length LP, #IV. Coming via Waveshaper Media, #IV is Intersystems’ first new material since 1968! Intersystems’ pioneering avant/electronic music sounded positively alien in the 1960s, and more than 50 years later, this latest body of work sounds just as otherworldly.

When they arrived on the scene in the late 1960s, Intersystems stood out from their peers. Comprised of architect Dik Zander, light sculptor Michael Hayden, poet Blake Parker, and musician John Mills-Cockell (of Syrinx, Kensington Market and more), the group mounted groundbreaking pan-sensory events and released a trilogy of defiantly disorienting records.

Where more conventional purveyors of sonic psychedelia were content with fuzztone guitar and orientalist tropes, Intersystems managed to approximate the full psychedelic experience in all its euphoric wonder and terror. Initially wrangling homespun gadgetry, feverishly spliced-together tapes, and mutant beat poetry, Intersystems were also among the very first to deploy a Moog Synthesizer; their Moog modular system was the first to be imported into Canada. Intersystems’ three vinyl LP recordings, meanwhile, justifiably became coveted collector's items given their scarce quantity and singular unsettling vision.

The reissue of Intersystems’ full discography in 2015 prompted acclaim from a number of major outlets. Among them, PopMatters hailed the set as "one of those great lost recordings (three of 'em actually) that comes from the lysergic era..." Mills-Cockell’s work in Syrinx has also been reissued to great acclaim in recent years.

Fifty-plus years after their 1968 album Free Psychedelic Poster Inside, Hayden and Mills-Cockell decided to revive the long-dormant project with a series of sessions at Hamilton's storied Grant Avenue Studio. The resultant music remains remarkably congruent with the project's original vision while clearly emerging from the present moment. With original poet/lyricist Blake Parker now deceased, Hayden and Mills-Cockell made the counterintuitive (yet strangely apt) decision to render Parker's words electronically. As the computer-synthesized voice alternates between an eerily life-like delivery and slurred cybernetic faltering, it brings a new dystopian tint to the group's anxious surrealism. Taking cues from its predecessor, Free Psychedelic Poster Inside, a modular Moog Synthesizer system is the primary instrument, yet here it offers a dynamic blend of different sonorities: barbed wire basslines, Subotnickesque chirping, gestural plumes of colour and percussive filigree.

While the group cut their teeth in the 1960s, make no mistake these new Intersystems recordings aren't a “comeback" or an attempt to rehash the "good old days". What one hears instead is the sound of Mills-Cockell and Hayden re-energizing the project, bringing with them the myriad experience they’ve accumulated in the intervening 50 years. These aural concoctions—no less perplexing than their 1960s predecessors—build upon the Intersystems foundation but very decidedly reside in the present moment, reminding listeners of just how forward-looking this group was in the first place.

DEVIL SOLD HIS SOUL (London, UK) blend huge soundscapes, earth-shattering riffs and soaring melodies.
DEVIL SOLD HIS SOUL begin a new chapter in their highly-acclaimed career, signing to metal heavyweights Nuclear Blast Records. 2021 will see the band release their fourth studio album ‘Loss’, their first with the dual vocal attack of Ed Gibbs and Paul Green.

DEVIL SOLD HIS SOUL burst onto the UK underground metal and hardcore scene in 2004 growing a cult following from their first record, ‘Darkness Prevails’ EP released through Visible Noise (BRING ME THE HORIZON) in 2005. Their debut album, ‘A Fragile Hope’ saw the band take their position as one of the most respected underground bands in the UK with their visceral and captivating live shows. DEVIL SOLD HIS SOUL’s sophomore album, ‘Blessed and Cursed’, elevated their sound and audience to new heights, voted into RockSound Magazine’s top 10 albums of 2010.
In 2012 the band unleashed their self-produced third album, ‘Empire Of Light’. Received to critical acclaim across the board, the album cemented their position as one of the UK’s most respected and revered metal acts.
With Ed Gibbs departing the band early in the year, 2013 saw the first new material featuring singer Paul Green with single ‘Time’, followed by 2014’s ‘Belong Betray’ EP and 2016’s ‘The Reckoning’. After welcoming Gibbs back to sing on the 2017 ‘A Fragile Hope’ anniversary tour, the band asked Gibbs to continue the dual vocals with Green for the remaining festivals and tours that year, with the line-up then becoming a permanent fixture.
2018 saw the band travel beyond Europe with their first touring in Asia, they also began to put the foundations down on what would become their new record ‘Loss’. Written about the grief and struggles faced in recent years, ‘Loss’ treads old ground and explores exciting new territories for DEVIL SOLD HIS SOUL, including for the first time the dual vocals of Gibbs and Green on record. Recorded, engineered and mixed by guitarist Jonny Renshaw at his UK based Bandit Studios, DEVIL SOLD HIS SOUL have poured heart and sincerity into every atom of this their fourth album, with songwriting elevated to new levels.
Having toured with the likes of CULT OF LUNA, ARCHITECTS, NORMA JEAN, BRING ME THE HORIZON, UNDEROATH, GALLOWS, ENVY and EMMURE, as well as headlining a stage at DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL l (UK) and numerous European festival appearances including SUMMER BREEZE and WITH FULL FORCE (Germany) and PUKKELPOP (Belgium), DEVIL SOLD HIS SOUL have built a huge reputation for their captivating live shows, over 16 years:

Les Disques du Crepuscule presents Subway, a collection of singles by cult NYC duo Thick Pigeon, originally released on Crepuscule, Factory and Factory Benelux between 1981 and 1991.
Comprised of vocalist Stanton Miranda and instrumentalist Carter Burwell, Thick Pigeon emerged from the downtown New York artrock scene which also spawned Glenn Branca, Bush Tetras, DNA, Arthur Russell and Sonic Youth. Like their chosen name, the duo were typically atypical: Miranda was previously a dancer with the Marthe Graham ballet company, and Carter a film animator and Harvard fine arts/architecture graduate. Very much a studio project, the ‘group’ hardly ever performed live.
Poised and subtle debut single Subway appeared on Crepuscule in January 1981, a connection forged by Miranda’s partner Michael Shamberg. Dog followed a year later, along with wry Christmas single Jingle Bell Rock, before the duo switched to Factory Records, recording debut album Too Crazy Cowboys in Manchester with Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert of New Order producing. Released simultaneously on Factory and Factory US in 1984, the album was billed as “a walk through the civilisation of you soul”.
Having now embarked on a career scoring movies (becoming the Coen brothers’ composer of choice), Carter was absent from the next TP project, 1986 dance single Wheels Over Indian Trails, although Morris and Gilbert remained on board as guest musicians. However Miranda and Carter would reunite for a second (and final) leftfield pop album, Miranda Dali, issued by Crepuscule in 1991.
As well as singles Subway, Dog, Jingle Bell Rock, Jess + Bart and Wheels Over Indian Trails, TWI 351 also includes b-sides (Sudan, Tracy + Pansy), album highlights (Crime, Riding) and a second festive track, Blue Christmas, previously issued only on cassette as part of a Factory Christmas card in 1986.
Alongside Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert, the stellar cast of guests include Fred Szymanski (of Ike Yard), Ikue Mori (DNA), remixer John Robie, and even artist and event designer Jean-Paul Goude on backing vocals.
Limited to just 500 copies, Subway (Singles) is newly remastered and pressed on transparent violet vinyl, reflecting the original 1981 sleeve artwork by legendary Crepuscule designer Benoit Hennebert. The album includes a free digital copy (MP3).

“Gyropedie,” Anne Guthrie’s third record for Students of Decay, takes us further into her hermetic practice, wherein expertly captured field recordings, French horn, and electronics are woven into potent and richly imagined electroacoustic environments. In Guthrie’s own words, “Quite literally a record of pilgrimage from East to West. Remnants of Midwest and East Coast soundmarks, instruments sold to lighten the travel load, sketched out and then buried under the new. Winter birds and crunching snow, frozen playgrounds, broken synths - I spent a year decoupaging over this, but of course it's still there. A second moon appears occasionally in the daytime, and there are frequent, murky transmissions. California has something alien about it I'm still trying to grasp. Primarily vintage, unabashed, corny, I find myself becoming an impressionist.”

Anne Guthrie is an acoustician, composer, and French horn player. She studied music composition and english at the University of Iowa and architectural acoustics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she completed her Ph.D in 2014. Her music combines her knowledge of acoustics and contemporary composition/improvisation. Her electronic music has focused on exploiting the natural acoustic phenomena of unique architectural spaces through minimal processing of field recordings. Her composition has focused on the orchestration of non-musical sounds, speech in particular. Her French horn playing has focused on electronic processing and extended techniques used in improvisatory settings, as a soloist and with Fraufraulein and Delicate Sen, among others. Her acoustics research has focused on the use of ambisonics for stage acoustics.

Since his 2012 debut as Heathered Pearls, Jakub Alexander has constructed art — music, objects, installations, performances — as a way of re-imagining fragments of his past and mapping ideas for his future. The Polish-born, Michigan-raised, New York-based artist and producer sees imagery and narrative framework as fluid components to his craft. Alexander’s first album, Loyal, mimicked the hypnotic motions of ocean waves at night, offering melodic, loop-based ambient music as a tribute to the tasteful influence of his mother and aunt. The second Heathered Pearls album, Body Complex, found inspiration from comfort, imperfection, and visions of interior architecture, transforming Loyal’s soft textures into driving 4/4 figures, glacial tone drifts, and starry synth plateaus. His 2017 EP, Detroit, MI 1997 - 2001, reflected on a formative era through ephem- eral dance music. The third Heathered Pearls full-length,


Cast, returns to moodier loop formats joined by the distinctly new presence of the spo- ken word. The move mirrors the multitudes of its namesake: collaborators comprise a cast, healing in the bind of a cast, complex emotions and the shadows they cast. Alexander started work on Cast when living in Berlin and in Queens.

“I hit a wall listening to these tracks when they were instrumental.” This is where he diverged from previous modes, deciding to integrate speech. With a healthy distaste for aspects of performance art, he invited strictly non-scripted recordings, a series of anti-performances. This new format adds a surprising human element to music that has previously operated as sea-shapes or infrastructure. These flashes of language, Alexander’s close friends speaking about things, narratively and cerebrally, casually and profoundly, turn the distinctive Heathered Pearls sound into some- thing surprisingly gritty, tangible, and in certain sweeps, cinematic. It is as if the world outside of these compositions bleeds into the music, casting their verbal being from just off the surface, like the album’s cover artwork where the light hits the plexi object but misses the wall.

Alexander sees his covers as naturally unfinished workstations; the gauzed and patinaed copper on Cast continues in this philosophy. This is all to say Cast deals with absence as much a presence. Among the guest storytellers is Alexander’s friend and tourmate Nick Murphy (formerly Chet Faker), who unwinds a series of tender observations on “Basic Needs.” The swirling synthesizer immerses a series of empathies; feeling like an egg yolk, a window’s view, his love for the color yellow, and wanting yellow to love him back.

2023 Repress


it’s happening again: dj, producer and dial records co-owner lawrence produced his fourth album for mule musiq. and once more, another very special one. the berlin-based artist wrote nine new arrangements specifically for “studio mule”, the new audiophile listening bar that mule musiq's head-honcho toshiya kawasaki recently opened in shibuya, tokyo. it features an exquisite vintage hi-fi sound system, a small record shop, craft liquor and beer as well as an extensive natural wine collection. “toshiya's wine and listening bar was the inspiration for the project. i followed the idea of listening to music in this (for me imaginary) place on a magic vintage sound system, slightly drunk with an always special drink in my hand! the music is therefore also very eccentric and “tipsy”, improvised on acoustic instruments, synthesizers and computer, combined with recordings i did in berlin's central tiergarten park.” lawrence acknowledges the imaginative superstructure above his new album and his mode of operating during the recordings. the records is called “birds on the playground” and features deep pulsating music, that unfolds its true absorbing character when the auditor listens care-fully to the detailed storytelling of lawrence. like always his tunes got a special, radiant pulse, that somehow is a signature sign of most of his productions. playful cosmic grooves, light-hearted, crafted with love and yet freshly unset-tling in some moments. his arpeggiated melodies remind partly on the music of hans-joachim roedelius. in other sec-onds they display a jazzy spiritual character and drift into meditative areas, that sound to a degree like long forgotten japanese folk music spheres. as “birds on the playground” isn’t aimed straight for the dancefloor, the overall coating of the music is a relaxed, cautious one, that goes beyond the average definition of ambient music. each track builds up gracefully, in order to present a mesmerizing musical architecture, that offers new sound dimensions with any fresh listening turn. as the record is made for mule musiq`s latest public space enterprise, everyone who is close-ly connected to the label was involved.

mule musiq’s core artist kuniyuki was in charge for the mastering. and the labels visual draw-er stefan marx painted the cover artwork. “when i saw the record cover for the first time, i had to think a bit of an extremely funny new year's eve party from over 10 years ago, when stefan and i founded the imaginary band “the dead sea”. this record would have been a wonderful soundtrack to the bustle during that night.” lawrence reveals.

it must have been a party beyond hysteric spheres, where all guests dance and talk dearly at the bar, while the music slows down their body functions enough to hear a sound that takes everybody away to a place, that must have been home in that very moment.

CLEAR WITH HI-MELT WHITE

Manslaughter 777 is the new collaboration of drummer/percussionist Lee Buford (The Body) and drummer Zac Jones (Braveyoung/MSC). Debut album World Vision Perfect Harmony follows a decade of collaborations starting with The Body and Braveyoung's Nothing Passes. For their debut as a duo, Buford and Jones blend bracing and imaginative takes on rhythmic-centric forms from dub, breakbeats, hip hop and beyond for a phantasmagoria of bristling drumscapes. Manslaughter 777 pulls together a vast array of disparate percussive traditions and patterns into a veil of dark, propulsive energy. Recorded and mixed by Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets, the album's mélange of live and sampled beats fizzle, splat and rupture with an edge. While there are sounds that could be at home on a record by The Body, Manslaughter 777 inhabits much more open spaces. The duo's music is based primarily on drums and eclectic samples, shifting melodic ideas to the overtones and resonances of their respective percussive thuds or clicks. Buford and Jones incorporate hybridizations of live, sampled, and electronic percussion obscuring their boundaries while highlighting their specific tonal and timbral qualities. An alchemical balance of detailed and dynamic production guides each element to the fore in steady waves of relentless momentum. Taken as a whole, World Vision Perfect Harmony is a cornucopia of rhythmic texture. Manslaughter 777 channels a deluge of kineticism into a web of syncopated grooves that are equally entrancing and provocative. Audacious sound architects, Buford and Jones built an album that passionately revels in the world of rhythm. Manslaughter 777's constructs glide as gracefully as they rumble. Together, they are a monument to the power of percussion.

Altar De Fey originated in San Francisco in the early 1980’s as part of the emerging musical form that would come to be
known as Deathrock. Out of the Zeitgeist flash of 70’s Punk Rock the new sound took the darkest elements of the counter
culture into ever deeper, gloomier and more mature territory.
Performing at legendary San Francisco venues Mabuhay Gardens, Graffiti, The Nightbreak and the rest billed with
Christian Death, 45 Grave, and all the fellow architects of West Coast Post Punk.
The original incarnation passed through a rotating cast of characters centered strongly by the vision and experimental
guitar of founding member Kent Cates. Eschewing the conventional chord progression/solo form entirely Cates’s guitar spins
strands of melody and rhythm, tone and texture in a style that to this day is all his own. The mood was perfected with the
innovative tribal drumming of Aleph Kali and Butch Mason’s haunted confrontational vocals.
Though the band had a strong base of support, no original recordings were ever released and the young members
carried on into new musical endeavors. By 1988 ADF disbanded.
Years upon years passed yet the name was never completely forgotten. As Goth Punk culture persisted, grew and
developed over time the band began to take on a kind of legendary hue among fans in the know; The lost mysterious
phenomenon of Altar De Fey. -There was a kind of poetry to it. Finally in 2011, when asked if they would play a reunion for a
festival in San Francisco Kent and Aleph surprised everyone by answering yes.
Reforming originally as a 2 piece with a drum machine Kent on guitar and Aleph on vocals to an enthusiastic reception,
the duo enjoyed it so much they decided to continue the momentum and quickly added Skot Brown on bass, Aleph switched
over to live drums, and Jake Hout was added on vocals. The new line up debuted in April of 2012 and has continued
regularly performing songs from the original 80’s catalogue and steadily adding new material ever since.
A new generation of underground Deathrock music is growing across the world, in closer, more direct communication
than ever before, and interest in the band has quickly escalated.
This unique compilation brings you 11 original ADF songs recorded between 1984-1986 (demos, rehearsal records, live
records). If you are into classic Christian Death, 45 Grave, Kommunity FK, Burning Image etc. grab this gem now before it’s
too late!

Dream Violence, Michael Beach’s fourth full-length, is an epic album that explores the duality of the human condition. Or, as Beach himself puts it, the album is about “human futility, passion, desire, anger, frustration, and the struggle to maintain hope in a somewhat hopeless time.” Dream Violence, then, addresses the existential crisis of being an artist in 2020.

Known for his work touring with the Australian guitar pop band Thigh Master and the late, brilliantly eccentric Israeli guitarist Charlie Megira, currently the focus of a number of reissues by the Numero Group, Beach is the architect of a sound that is both well-built and ramshackle, straightforward and indeterminably complex, out of the norm yet familiar in all the best ways.

Dream Violence unfolds like a revelation, filled with sonic tumbleweeds that reference Neil Young’s On the Beach, Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, the Velvet Underground’s Loaded, and the Go Betweens’ Before Hollywood. Influences ranging from the enigmatic outlier Megira to Glenn Branca to the Oblivians are combined to create a new, exhilarating sound, part of the path that Beach has been on since 2008’s Blood Courses. A veteran of year-end indie rock round ups beginning with Golden Theft in 2013 and continuing with Gravity/Repulsion, released in 2017, Beach distills the best of those early albums and adds sharpened intent.

Dream Violence works beautifully as a start-to-finish album. There are magnificent stand-alone moments: “Spring,” a raggedly building ballad that perfectly captures the ennui attached to new beginnings; “De Facto Blues,” a born-to-lose anthem that, says Beach, “is the sound of people totally at their wits end;” “Curtain of Night,” a simultaneously derelict and bright tribute to the late Megira, which sounds like it could’ve been cut at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio after the Rolling Stones wrapped up sessions for Sticky Fingers; and the delicately vulnerable “You Found Me Out,” which evokes equal parts Lou Reed and Joni Mitchell. On the latter, the lyrics “You found me out, on a ship at sea, you pulled me in, made a wreck of me,” encapsulate “the aimless of a modern world view in a future without hope and the draw/dependence of love in those times,” Beach explains.

Through music, Beach strives to convey both passion and compassion, energy and action. “My hope is that something gets communicated that makes people think outside of themselves or their surroundings,” he says. “To ask questions, and consider the effects of their decisions. To communicate some essential part of the human spirit that understands intuitively how to feel connected to each other rather than divide, exploit, separate, ignore, and all the other heinous shit we have the ability to do with each other.”

Recorded on two continents, Dream Violence documents Beach’s move from Oakland, California to Melbourne, Australia as he navigated a new music scene, plenty of bureaucratic red tape, and, ultimately, citizenship. Parts of the album were recorded and mixed at Tiny Telephone Recording in Oakland, at the end of a 2019 tour with Kelley Stoltz producing. Other tracks were recorded at Beach’s new home in Melbourne, where he could be “relaxed and sloppy in all the right ways,” and partially remixed at Phaedra Studios.

At the Memphis-based Goner label, Beach joins an increasingly unique roster of international musicians that reaches far beyond garage or indie rock to encompass artists like gospel singer Rev. John Wilkins, Kentucky rockers Archaeas, New Orleans iconoclasts Quintron and Miss Pussycat, and no-wavers Optic Sink.

Dies Occidendum is a mythical voyage across fog-laden, scorched earth terrain from the original friar of dark hip hop, Dj Muggs the Black Goat. Known and revered as the sonic mastermind behind both Cypress Hill and his own Soul Assassins imprint, here Muggs sheds the MCs and presents his latest dark-soaked productions as an illuminated manuscript of sorts; a fully immersive, instrumental soundtrack to the mysterious Dies Occidendum. No one wields the Excalibur of sonic darkness quite like Muggs. Combining ingredients of psych rock, gypsy folk with modern elements of trap, forged together under layers of his signature sonic grime, Muggs has created yet another blueprint for the utmost sonic menace and macabre. The Renaissance is upon us. Long live King Muggs. ABOUT DJ MUGGS: One of the original architects of dark hip hop in the early '90s, DJ Muggs helped craft a singular sound that blended darker sensibilities of psychedelic rock and hip hop in a unique way that influenced many in its wake. As the primary producer of legendary rap group Cypress Hill, Muggs' productions and sonic sensibilities are unmistakable and deeply revered by the truest of hejkvgads. Muggs' own MC round-robin imprint, Soul Assassins has been home to countless productions, laying sonic drop cloths for everyone from Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Chuck D, GZA, Mobb Deep to MF Doom, Freddie Gibbs, Roc Marciano and Mach-Hommy.

LTD. RED VINYL

Dies Occidendum is a mythical voyage across fog-laden, scorched earth terrain from the original friar of dark hip hop, Dj Muggs the Black Goat. Known and revered as the sonic mastermind behind both Cypress Hill and his own Soul Assassins imprint, here Muggs sheds the MCs and presents his latest dark-soaked productions as an illuminated manuscript of sorts; a fully immersive, instrumental soundtrack to the mysterious Dies Occidendum. No one wields the Excalibur of sonic darkness quite like Muggs. Combining ingredients of psych rock, gypsy folk with modern elements of trap, forged together under layers of his signature sonic grime, Muggs has created yet another blueprint for the utmost sonic menace and macabre. The Renaissance is upon us. Long live King Muggs. ABOUT DJ MUGGS: One of the original architects of dark hip hop in the early '90s, DJ Muggs helped craft a singular sound that blended darker sensibilities of psychedelic rock and hip hop in a unique way that influenced many in its wake. As the primary producer of legendary rap group Cypress Hill, Muggs' productions and sonic sensibilities are unmistakable and deeply revered by the truest of hejkvgads. Muggs' own MC round-robin imprint, Soul Assassins has been home to countless productions, laying sonic drop cloths for everyone from Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Chuck D, GZA, Mobb Deep to MF Doom, Freddie Gibbs, Roc Marciano and Mach-Hommy.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, De Nor had no choice but to free all its prisoners - even the jazz ones - and shut its gates. But the red beacon shall shine again! Until such a time, we asked some of the artists who were booked to play there this summer to submit a piece for this new publication in lieu of their cancelled performance. This compilation lp contains tracks by Lori Goldston, Hiele, Agnes Hvizdalek, Nubots, Justine Grillet, Thurston Moore, Sami Bergold, Possessed Factory, Stacks, David Edren, Aaron Dilloway & Lucrecia Dalt, Ka Baird, Ben Bertrand, Miaux, Lorie Bevins, and C.O.P. and is housed in a deluxe dye cut linnen sleeve and comes with an insert and a mini Nor cut out made by Gerard Herman. De Nor is a sculpture-pavillion in the grounds of the Middelheim Museum conceived and designed by Dennis Tyfus and FVWW Architecten. In peace time it hosts concerts, lectures, and various presentations throughoutthe summer.

Architects are back with their ninth studio album "For Those That Wish To Exist". The self-produced record is the follow-up to the band's critically acclaimed 2018 release Holy Hell, which took a look at the pain and despair that lay at the heart of losing a brother, band mate and best friend in Tom Searle, the group's founding guitarist. The band have confirmed their ascent to the very upper echelons of British heavy music. Few bands, of this modern era or any other, can match the quintet's ability to blend uncompromising heaviness with razor-sharp melodic musicianship. A versatile metal group based out of Brighton, England, Architects employ a lethal combination of breakdown-heavy guitars, melodic vocals and symphonic-ambient post-metal. That sonic delivery is conducted from a platform built on veganism and environmental activism.

On his new EP ‘Music from Organ’, producer and live musician Giulio Aldinucci offers up four tracks of layered and meticulously-crafted ambience.

In his own words: “The EP explores the interaction between the pipe organ and the sound environment, in terms of architectural space and soundscape. Every single sound of this work is created from pipe organ recordings using different techniques related to sound reflection, from granular processing to filters that “carve” the sound emulating the phonemes articulation inside the human vocal tract.”

Farron joins the EP bringing a dreamy remix. Unlike Giulio’s approach, Farron portrays a left-field dance-floor feel throughout the track with beautiful ambient pads, pulsating along a warm electronic space journey.

L’Entourloop “Le Savoir Faire” album in Vinyl 2LP version – September 22, 2017 – 18 tracks – 4 sides

Breeding in open air since 1964, Sir James and King Johnny are the figureheads of the mysterious L’ENTOURLOOP collective. Feed with good grains from Sounds Systems, vinyle’s culture (Scratchs / Beatmaking / Sampling) and rocked by the epic dialogues of a certain cinema, L’ENTOURLOOP concocte with love a music half-way between Kingston, London and New York!

This album is rich in combinations (Panda Dub, Kill Emil, The Architect…) and plenty of featurings (Biga*Ranx, Marina P, Demolition Man, Tippa Irie…) where the collective once again unveils its « Savoir-Faire » !

L’istruttoria E’Chiusa Dimentichi (internationally released as The Case Is Closed, Forget It) is a 1971 Italian crime drama film directed by Damiano Damiani. It is based on the novel Tante Sbarre (Many Bars), written by Leros Pitton and was awarded at the Tehran Film Festival. The film centres around the architect Vanzi, whom ends up in prison and ends up involved in a plot against an inconvenient witness to organised crime, passed off as a suicide, with the complicity of the security guards. Renowned composer Ennio Morricone created an obscure, yet globally beloved, score to the thriller. Tracks B2 and B3 (“Disordini (Titoli Versione Film)” and “Ordini (Versione Alternativa)” were part of the original recordings but not used for the movie final cut. Available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on orange marbled vinyl.

Generative music seems to imply a systems approach to music, or a system that once created can utilise randomness in a creative way. The benevolence of nature’s creativity belies this musical term, and can flip the word ‘generative’ to mean to involve constantly flowing creativity with purpose. In Europe there was a time in the Pagan Renaissance when architecture would mirror nature’s generative quality. Sculptures and columns were to imply animation or movement.

That’s where Milan W.’s album comes through in 2020. His music involves the night shadows of Europe’s architecture and its growth. In Bloom personifies itself by showing Antwerp’s influential ‘Night Play’: a term that can relate to many European cities such as Bologna, Vienna, and so on and so on. The leftovers of Renaissance and gothic architecture are everywhere in Europe still; layers of ruins that can generate the impression of simultaneous time periods. Tracks like Spa and Helium Queen reveal and revel in the power of shadow movement that is generated by the night. In Milan W.’s past works, the poignant and simple creative play of dark wave and synth beat music was his vehicle for expression, but now on In Bloom he departs to a touching sidereal impressionism allied with Coil’s instrumental pieces on Horse Rotorvator — an album whose cover portrays the potential powers of the pavilion just as Milan W. is portraying the generative soul and alienation of Europe’s ‘Night Play’. Because of In Bloom we can come to believe that there is a secretive energy in alienation, a playfulness that is alight at Night.

Itzhak Perlman, the supreme violinist of his time, performs the supreme works for unaccompanied violin. In preparing the Bach Sonatas and Partitas, Perlman sought authenticity through the score itself, not through musicological research: “Music is a language, and, performed responsively, with musical logic as guide, it will make sense.”

Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas are a landmark not only of the solo violin repertoire but of all music history. No composer before or since has created a comparable architectural miracle, or made better use of the violin’s polyphonic capabilities, than did Bach in this set of six works. The improvements in instrument-making introduced by such experts in the field as Niccolò Amati and his pupil Antonio Stradivari meant that performers and composers could now push the tone and power of the violin to bold new limits. The Second Partita also includes a Chaconne which appears to stand outside space and time. Its complexity, power and splendor make it in a way the keystone of the entire musical edifice — a magnificent set of variations on a single theme which exploits the violin’s full harmonic and contrapuntal potential. While the great virtuosos of the nineteenth century, Paganini chief among them, expanded the instrument’s technical capabilities, Bach had already established its limits in terms of polyphony.
Perlman made several earlier attempts at recording the set, none of which was ever released, then performed it live on stage at venues around the world. In other words, he had the wisdom to wait until he had achieved a level of excellence in both performing and understanding this music before committing it to disc. The most practised of ears may detect a subtle difference in tone between the C major and A minor Sonatas, which he recorded on the “Soil” Stradivarius, and the other four works, recorded on the Guarneri del Gesù “ex-Sauret”.

The fourth 10-inch EP from the 10th anniversary of U Know Me Records series comes from Immortal Onion. The album consists of 5 pieces. For those missing live concerts there are 2 songs taken from the band's performance on 8th of August at Jassmine club in Warsaw. The B-side starts with a rework of the song called "Leaving", originally composed by Hania Rani (who often performs with 2 members of Immortal Onion). The next song ("Zu Hause") was created especially for this album as the result of the band's experiments with electronics. The EP closes with a rework of "Eye Tracking" - a song from "XD Experience Design - made by Kadrych.

The rework of "Leaving" will be released only on vinyl and won't be available on streaming services.

Strictly limited edition - 300 hand-numbered copies. The first hundred will be released on red vinyl and copies from 101 to 300 as classic black ones.

The album was created with help of trusted people, who also worked on "XD Experience Design" - graphic design by Martiszu, mix by Envee (except the last song mixed by Maciej Stendek) and mastering by Eprom.

LTD. CLEAR VINYL

Repressed in quantity for the first time in years. Includes the hit single "Strange Harvest". Tempers, comprised of Jasmine Golestaneh and Eddie Cooper, have carved out their own niche within dark indie, electronica and synth-pop circles. Their sound is about exploring tonal and emotional tension as much as it is about actual tracks or singular moments. Adrenalizing yet hypnotic landscapes layer mechanical and sensual impulses, as crystalline vocals weave fever dreams of yearning and alienation. Informed by both Golestaneh's involvement in musical performance and visual art and Cooper's electronic production resume, as well as their time in the States and abroad, they operate as a multi-disciplined entity in the spirit and ethos of Factory Records. Tempers describe their creative process as a telepathic kinship they've developed since they started making music together: "We have these sort of unspoken criteria when we're writing music. We never really need to explain what that is but we both know when it's missing or when we've hit it." After a string of critically acclaimed singles beginning in 2013 with "Eyes Wide Wider" b/w "Hell Hotline," the duo released their debut LP "Services" (2015) on cult imprint Aufnahme + Wiedergabe resulting in the underground club hit "Strange Harvest", extensive international touring and sold-out shows. The album's vinyl edition soon became a sought after collectors item. Their 2017 EP "Fundamental Fantasy" was released as a result of the Vinyl Factory's Volcano Extravaganza artist residency on the Aeolian island of Stromboli. Following their unique creative compass, in 2018 they indirectly moved from the dance floor to galleries, releasing "Junkspace" a conceptual collaboration with famed architect Rem Koolhaas. The record is available in the world's most select cultural hotspots, from The New Museum in New York to Walther Konig museum stores throughout Europe, a testament to Tempers' love for experimental output and unorthodox presentation. In 2019 Tempers signed with Dais Records, promptly releasing "Private Life" and the lead single "Capital Pains," a meticulous evolution of the dark pop that marked the duo's earlier output.

The fourth 10-inch EP from the 10th anniversary of U Know Me Records series comes from Immortal Onion. The album consists of 5 pieces. For those missing live concerts there are 2 songs taken from the band's performance on 8th of August at Jassmine club in Warsaw. The B-side starts with a rework of the song called "Leaving", originally composed by Hania Rani (who often performs with 2 members of Immortal Onion). The next song ("Zu Hause") was created especially for this album as the result of the band's experiments with electronics. The EP closes with a rework of "Eye Tracking" - a song from "XD Experience Design - made by Kadrych.

The rework of "Leaving" will be released only on vinyl and won't be available on streaming services.

Strictly limited edition - 300 hand-numbered copies. The first hundred will be released on red vinyl and copies from 101 to 300 as classic black ones.

The album was created with help of trusted people, who also worked on "XD Experience Design" - graphic design by Martiszu, mix by Envee (except the last song mixed by Maciej Stendek) and mastering by Eprom.

Repressed in quantity for the first time in years. Includes the hit single "Strange Harvest". Tempers, comprised of Jasmine Golestaneh and Eddie Cooper, have carved out their own niche within dark indie, electronica and synth-pop circles. Their sound is about exploring tonal and emotional tension as much as it is about actual tracks or singular moments. Adrenalizing yet hypnotic landscapes layer mechanical and sensual impulses, as crystalline vocals weave fever dreams of yearning and alienation. Informed by both Golestaneh's involvement in musical performance and visual art and Cooper's electronic production resume, as well as their time in the States and abroad, they operate as a multi-disciplined entity in the spirit and ethos of Factory Records. Tempers describe their creative process as a telepathic kinship they've developed since they started making music together: "We have these sort of unspoken criteria when we're writing music. We never really need to explain what that is but we both know when it's missing or when we've hit it." After a string of critically acclaimed singles beginning in 2013 with "Eyes Wide Wider" b/w "Hell Hotline," the duo released their debut LP "Services" (2015) on cult imprint Aufnahme + Wiedergabe resulting in the underground club hit "Strange Harvest", extensive international touring and sold-out shows. The album's vinyl edition soon became a sought after collectors item. Their 2017 EP "Fundamental Fantasy" was released as a result of the Vinyl Factory's Volcano Extravaganza artist residency on the Aeolian island of Stromboli. Following their unique creative compass, in 2018 they indirectly moved from the dance floor to galleries, releasing "Junkspace" a conceptual collaboration with famed architect Rem Koolhaas. The record is available in the world's most select cultural hotspots, from The New Museum in New York to Walther Konig museum stores throughout Europe, a testament to Tempers' love for experimental output and unorthodox presentation. In 2019 Tempers signed with Dais Records, promptly releasing "Private Life" and the lead single "Capital Pains," a meticulous evolution of the dark pop that marked the duo's earlier output.

'Flørist adds an important chapter to Baroque Sunburst's quest for the hypnotic and hybrid side of dance music. Moving effortlessly between different BPMs and orchestrating with an innate elegance, the Berlin-based Canadian producer has assembled three long mesmerizing journeys.

He straddles Terry Riley-esque minimalism, Warp's A.I. sci-fi side and the emotional depth of Basic Channel, blending these whilst maintaining dancefloor efficacy. "Intermedia 1" is architectural music where every detail is essential and everything is constantly developing.'

500 COPY LIMITED EDITION ~ INCLUDES 4 INDIVIDUAL FULL SIZE ARTWORK INSERTS. Hyperdub are excited to present our first soundtrack release, Lawrence Lek's score for his debut feature film `AIDOL', which premiered at Sadie Coles HQ in 2019 and has been shown at numerous virtual and physical festivals and exhibitions worldwide. Lawrence Lek is a simulation artist who uses computer-generated animation and video game engines to create films and virtual worlds that play with the language of science fiction, music videos and corporate world building. He has released soundtracks to five of his previous projects, most recently `Temple' OST (Vinyl Factory, 2020). `AIDOL' continues his on-going 'Sinofuturist' cinematic universe, which posits the creative theory that China's technological rise is an emergent form of Artificial Intelligence. `AIDOL' is a CGI fantasy that tells the story of a fading superstar, Diva, who enlists an aspiring AI songwriter to mount a comeback performance at the 2065 eSports Olympic finale. Set in a realm of spectacular architecture, sentient drones and snow-deluged jungles, `AIDOL' revolves around the long and evolving struggle between humanity and Artificial Intelligence; a shifting and seductive virtual reality, punctuated by Diva's songs and the voice of Kode9 as the unforgiving label boss. The soundtrack is a delicate lattice - complex, opaque and entirely synthetic. Diva's yearning vocals - created with a Vocaloid voice synthesiser, sung in English and Mandarin - cast classical melodies over billowing, intricate arrangements. The instrumental tracks, produced with composer Seth Scott, are elegiac and beautiful, hybridising the film score archetype, folding in patterns from game soundtracks, vaporwave, and ambient fourth world music.

2023 Restock

Within the elusive confines of this film awaits an unreleased album that defies categorisation by a musician who in a different time and space would be revered amongst some of the most important exponents of progressive rock, dark ambient, Krautrock and pioneering synthesiser composition - not to mention sound design and art-house film scores. As a protégé of François Bayle and Luc Ferrari who had studied classical music before immersing himself in found-sound manipulation and oscillators, Alain Pierre quickly became an enthusiastic go-to man for sound sculpture and technical studio proficiency in Belgium’s small film industry.

To the many generations of dedicated fans of the visual work of Philippe Druillet it might seem virtually impossible to adequately “score” the alien, futurist landscapes of the man who many called the “space architect” (on account of his space age reductions of Gothic cathedrals, Art Nouveau, and Indian temples), but once you have heard the sonic reactions of Alain Pierre on this the first-ever dedicated Druillet documentary, Ô Sidarta, complete with his own equivalent sound palette, it will be difficult to “hear” Druillet’s world via any other composer. Despite Druillet’s truly incredible record sleeve designs for projects like cosmic disco ensemble Black Sun, concept albums such as Attention by Jean-Pierre Mirouze (composer of Le Mariage Collectif), Parisian metal bands like Sortilège, gatefold portraits of Jimi Hendrix, later period albums by William Sheller and most relevantly on albums by Igor Wakhévitch (Docteur Faust, 1971) as well as separate releases by both Richard Pinhas and Georges Grünblatt (both from the cosmic prog outfit Heldon), it is fair to say that this criminally unreleased album by Alain Pierre would conjure up the closest synergy between sound and vision that either artist would come close to.

The almost twelve of continuous music that Alain Pierre supplied for Ô Sidarta in 1974 fortunately appears in its entirety, unedited, as it does here for the first time ever away from its original broadcasts. Broadcast on Belgian and French TV that autumn, the film received a warm reception from Druillet fans, prospective film producers and space rock fans lucky enough to catch the short feature.

Throughout his career Alain’s commitment to conceptual music excelled within both cinematic realms as well as with the live arena. Never shying away from the constraints of transporting heavy synthesiser technolog and unpredictable analogue equipment to public spaces, Alain took his self-initiated “live” work very seriously. It was within his lesser-documented performances that you would find the closest sound to the music on Ô Sidarta, proving that the Druillet collaboration was naturalistic and conceptually close to Alain’s personal stylistic agenda. A rare recording of a one-off concert at the Université libre de Bruxelles in October 1976 reveals a very similar set of movements and soundscapes found on Ô Sidarta. This rare artefact has been included on the second side of this record under its original title Notions de physique intérieure (Notions Of Interior Physics) and stands as a perfect companion piece to Ô Sidarta - complete with a very similar “kit list” including the welcome addition of an Arp Sequencer, a Korg Vocoder and a Theremin (a back line whose total would far surpass any stationary studio of the era never mind a live show!).

By looking back at his original composition for one of his very first solo soundtrack commissions, Ô Sidarta, you can hear that back in 1974 Alain had already successfully managed to combine more unlikely musical influences, experimental techniques, and previously unheard soundscapes and studio tricks in to one twelve-minute score than most musicians fail to cram in to a whole discography. But still there is so much music yet to be discovered and Ô Sidarta is just the tip of the iceberg in the middle of a cosmic sea. Much like a character from one of Philippe Druillet’s books, Alain Pierre is a rogue pilot, steering his own ship in to the unknown, uncharted, unnoticed and quite unbelievable.

The debut album from writer and artist Holly Childs and artist Gediminas Žygus formerly known as J.G. Biberkopf.

Initiated in 2017, Hydrangea grew out of a series of performances emphasising conspiracies and the designer realities that they generate. Navigating a tangle of digitally induced subjectivities and relationships, Hydrangea sees Childs & Žygus amidst a continuously evaporating world in which narratives dissolve, leak, fold in on themselves and loop.

Childs & Žygus ask: As individuals are siloed online, can rifts in reality ever be reconciled? Is history a form of science fiction? And are narrators ever reliable? The process of creating Hydrangea was defined by the search for a form to bind fiction, poetry, and musical experience. Its narrative is influenced by technical instructions, lectures and whispered conversations, in which slippage and floating focus can create new meanings in the listener that weren’t intended by the speaker.

Aspects of physical and informational security including passwords, codes, locks and obstacles speak to the ways in which meaning or material can be locked, unlocked or instrumentalised for a range of potential outcomes. Hydrangea reflects on the Machiavellian strategies of political ideologists such as Steve Bannon, Aleksandr Dugin and Vladislav Surkov who have made use of contemporary and postmodern artistic strategies to design narrative uncertainty—covertly braiding together questionable truths, slippery narratives and bespoke reinterpretations of history for undisclosed political ends.

"Hydrangea’s Just the Password Though, Right?"

Childs & Žygus employ a musical language that layers their cumulative practices and experiences. The compositions are cinematic and spatial, working with the illustrative qualities of Disneyesque string melodies and taking cues from Maurice Ravel’s impressionistic piano works.

The work is also influenced by both artists’ lifelong experiences of rave culture, beginning for Žygus during childhood in newly independent Lithuania, spending time juggling Disney and happy hardcore cassettes on the family stereo, and for Childs as a preteen in Australia, tagging along with her sisters to doofs and warehouse parties. Initiated while the artists were both working between Amsterdam and Rotterdam in 2017, the work also draws on Dutch gabber music.

Hydrangea’s development has been influenced by collaboration with artists and filmmakers Metahaven, who created the album art.

Holly Childs is a writer and artist. Her research involves filtering stories of computation through frames of ecology, earth, memory, poetry, and light. She is the author of two books: No Limit (Hologram) and Danklands (Arcadia Missa); and has presented her work at ICA (London), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Trust (Berlin), Elam School of Art (Auckland) and more.

Gediminas Žygus is an artist working within the fields of sound, documentary and performance. Their practice assembles a spectrum of influences deriving from architecture, ecology, ethnography, science studies, and media theory. As J.G. Biberkopf, their releases have found homes on Knives and Danse Noire. Žygus has performed at Barbican Centre (London), Berghain (Berlin), Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), and Centre Pompidou (Paris), among others. credits

Philipp Otterbach’s psychedelic music never been a sunshine pleasure pill. But yet, the souls of his notes are deeply gentle. With “Everything Else Matters” the Berlin based DJ and producer now introduces his debut album, that follows a long introduction. Already since a while he devotes himself with endurance to music. He was an early resident at Düsseldorf’s shrine for outernational grooves Salon Des Amateurs. Since 2014 he releases music under his given name or as Grand Optimist on labels like Grokenberger Records, Knekelhuis or Themes For Great Cities and leaves marks as a remixer for artists like DJ Normal 4, Brainwaltzera, Wolf Müller and Niklas Wandt on labels like Growing Bin Records or Second Circle. His long DJ nights and already released music prefigures the spirits, that he now bunched on his first album. It’s a record, that does not want to pursue a straight categorization. It rather aims to spellbound with an atmosphere, that is made for moments in the absence of hysteria. Tribalistic, trip-hopping rhythms, menacing sounds, cold cool vocal passages, drone chants, morbid goth-ambient spheres, Indie rock indications: its many facets meld into some kind of black highway sound for thoughtful night prowlers in a dissociative state of mind. In context all particles achieve delicate sculptural effects that operate like the surprising architecture of a dream. A forward- thinking dream, that bundles something otherworldly, something unspeakable, that lives hauntingly between the sounds, rhythms and suggested melodies.

Caught somewhere between environmental sound studies and surrealist sonic architecture, SUGAI KEN helps mark the 30th release of Field Records with an ambitious new album. Commissioned by the Dutch Embassy in Tokyo, Tone River is the product of a year’s intensive work between artist and label, created in part to examine the relationship between Japan and the Netherlands with regard to water management.

While its doors to the Western world were closed during the 17th and 18th centuries, Japan kept abreast of Western science via a Dutch trade post in the bay of Nagasaki. When the country changed from a feudal society to a modern democracy through the turn of the 19th century, Dutch engineers lent their expertise to large-scale water management projects. One of the most prestigious projects of the time was the Tone River, which stretches 322 kilometers across Honshu, Japan’s largest island.

For this project, SUGAI KEN travelled to three points across the Tone River and used regular, binaural and underwater microphones to record environmental sounds, seeking to express the change in landscape of the river in its flow into the Pacific Ocean. On Tone River, these varied recordings are interspersed and juxtaposed with Ken’s distinctive take on synthesis, where raw and precisely sculpted textures and tones interact in stark, neutral space.

On this conceptually rigorous, yet beguiling and free-flowing record, SUGAI KEN glides between the elemental and hyper-synthetic in a flexible exploration of sound and story

SUMMER OF SEVENTEEN are MONIKA KHOT (NORDRA, ZEN MOTHER), WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS, DANIEL MENCHE, FAITH COLOCCIA (MAMIFFER), and AARON TURNER. (SUMAC, SPLIT CRANIUM).

Wildfires plagued Washington state during the summer of 2017, their smoke drifting westward toward the Seattle area and toxifying the air. Shortly before that trauma, MONIKA KHOT, WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS, DANIEL MENCHE, FAITH COLOCCIA, and AARON TURNER had gathered at the latter two musicians' House Of Low Culture studio on idyllic Vashon Island with revered producer RANDALL DUNN. There they cut eight songs that capture the makeshift band's feelings of what COLOCCIA calls "a kind of doomsday lurking in the background." It's as if these highly attuned players had a premonition.

"Summer Of Seventeen" -which was edited and arranged by MONIKA KHOT, who records apocalyptic music solo as NORDRA and plays in the avant-rock band ZEN MOTHER—is a nuanced admixture of these musicians' sounds and a culmination of all of their previous collaborations. COLOCCIA and TURNER have created eldritch folk and chamber rock for over a decade in MAMIFFER while engaging in various solo and group projects that explore their profound spirituality in sound. MENCHE has been a fixture on the abstract composition scene for 31 years and COLLINS is a savvy explorer of drone and ambient forms. Their ephemeral summit meeting has yielded a masterwork for the ages.

A heaven/hell and beauty/beastliness dichotomy pervades the album—as if a titanic struggle was transpiring in that small studio. The fearsome trumpet fanfare that starts "Chorus Of The Innocents" heralds a baleful fate. With a subliminal industrial rhythm bristling beneath the eerie exhalations, the song submerges us in a slow-motion maelstrom, a horror-film facsimile of MILES DAVIS' "Bitches Brew". "Perceived Slight" threads death-metal screams through a stark, suspenseful atmosphere, with austere glints of guitar and beats like fists on a casket lid intensifying the dread.

Angelic chants and celestial drones perfume the air in several of the songs on "Summer Of Seventeen", countered with muted blast beats, serrated hums, jagged glitches, simulacra of grinding gears and lightning. It's as if no good deed goes unpunished. "Spirits Of Redeemer" could be an elegy for the human race while "Cultural Orphan" sounds like a symphony for a malfunctioning factory. The album ends with "Theatre Needs An Audience," a harrowing ballad somewhere between EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN and MERZBOW; it's a savage rent in the space-time continuum.

"Thinking about this record now," COLOCCIA recalls, "it seems like we were all sort of anticipating something like this current pandemic happening, although we were thinking about it as fire in the hands of man (literal fire, and also gunfire) that would overturn the normal running of things and reveal the current false beliefs systems holding up most of America."

That grave aura infiltrates "Summer Of Seventeen", However, a hopefulness bubbles beneath the foreboding architecture of sound and noise summoned here. The bunker is the new penthouse.

-Dave Segal, April 2020

Returning home after the acclaimed Holding EP and the highly regarded Clap! Clap! Remix, Lurka continues with his journey into sonic bat country. Partials kicks off with Lurka's typical intrigue, pads swell with distant spectres of percussion build into the most saturated kick of the year slapping you in the face like wet rag, while an architecture of syncopated hats and bit crunching snares lock the angles a shower of haunting bells falls. Dancehall for witching hour. Mach steps in with an equally holo-deck soundscape. Drums swing in awkward alliance with dry wooden blocks and woozy binary language. Both tracks united in their skewed viewpoint and distinctive awkward funk.

Roman Flügel presents: Sister Midnight!
What started as a party series that saw Roman inviting friends and favorites is turning into a full-fledged label adventure now. Shaped to be the vehicle for old and new Roman Flügel music alike, unreleased surprises and previously released sure shots from the archives, it’s the first time after his involvement in the seminal Playhouse and Klang label universe, that he tends to such an enterprise himself - with the help and support of Running Back records.
Now, the journey of Roman Flügel’s own Sister Midnight label starts with the valuable Tracks On Delivery series. Originally released on the third jewel in the Playhouse crown (Ongaku Musik) from 2000 to 2002, it’s a meditation on and contemplation of techno. Remastered, recut and repackaged as a triple vinyl edition with the addition of two previously unreleased „Patterns“. Pristine sound design, hypnotic wizardry and dry then architecture let all of them appear as if they haven’t aged a day.
Or as Roman says himself:
“I’ve always tried to push myself into new territories since I started music production. Those new territories can surely be achieved by the endless possibilities of inspiration, chaos and will power. At the time of the production of my Pattern series as under the name Tracks On Delivery I was highly inspired by some of Andrew Weatherall’s Techno sets while visiting London for some of his Blood Sugar Parties. Tracks On Delivery is unthinkable without the crude ‚germanic‘ mixture of Detroit labels like Jay Denham’s Black Nation and Weatherall’s own UK Techno imprints like Emissions Output. The Pattern Series, back then created for the Frankfurt based Ongaku Musik label, and now I am very happy to be able to release 15 original Patterns along two unreleased Patterns on my own Sister Midnight label.“

Straight from the Mediterranean Sea, the Greek Duo Bonnie and Klein have landed at MM Discos to present “ROOF GARDEN”, an EP where the balearic beats and downtempo takes over the control and where the “2 Balearica devotes” invite us to enjoy an amazing trip from the Ionian coast thru the Aegean beaches until Myrtle Sea.
Bonnie & Klein are no longer unknown after being working the last 4 years for well renown labels as “Leng”, “Music for Dreams” and “Is It Balearic?” among others. Following their previous releases, B&K stay loyal to their own personal vision of “Chillout”.

Highly influenced by the architecture and culture from Greece, George & Thanasis build beat after beat an amazing work where their “Laid Back Style” will be the main character on this story, a long with haunting keys, wicked percussions, and sounds and melodies that will remind to “Far East”.

in a trio of records by Andrew Wasylyk which unearth and reshape the landscape of Eastern Scotland as shimmering and inventive instrumental music.

Where Themes for Buildings and Spaces (2017) toured the architecture and industry of Dundee, evoking a place caught between decay and regrowth, the Scottish Album of the Year Award shortlisted The Paralian (2019) explored the littoral exchanges between sea and shore on the North Sea coastline.! !

Fugitive Light And Themes Of Consolation carries a trace of this arc on a return upriver, drifting back inland along the River Tay's inner estuary: a record of the low light on winter fields, empty suburban streets at dawn, the deep clear waters of the quarry excavated to build the city.

Ten songs circling landscapes for meaning, channelling half-heard melodies and misremembered memories; caught somewhere between settling down and setting out towards the shining levels of the estuary and beyond.! ! The record is threaded with the influences of people, place and musical lineages – David Axelrod, John Barry, Virginia Astley, Mark Hollis, Alice Coltrane – yet as with all of Andrew's solo work it has a deft, clear voice all of its own. Recorded between Summer 2019 and January 2020, Fugitive Light…

displays his talent as a multi-instrumentalist and composer: all hushed drum grooves, rolling waves of plucked acoustic guitar, cascading upright piano, Bob James-inspired Fender Rhodes, rippling clàrsach harp, and ECM-worthy electric guitar motifs. As on The Paralian, string arrangements are by fellow Tayside musician Pete Harvey, known for his work with King Creosote, Modern Studies and The National Theatre of Scotland.! !

The Danish label/imprint arbitrary announces the release of Framework 3 (arbitrary11) by Mads Emil Nielsen. Framework 3 is the latest instalment in Nielsen’s sequence of graphic scores and recordings. The series includes the Danish composer’s own subjective translations of visual materials and sound pieces accompanied by visual notations.

On this release he collaborates with Katja Gretzinger and Nicola Ratti. Published as a limited edition art print folder, Framework 3 consists of risographed scores and recordings on 10” vinyl and CD – with recordings by Nielsen, along with graphic scores by Gretzinger and contributions by Ratti.

Raised in a family of architects Nielsen has for several years been occupied with the question of “how do you intuitively sonify an image?” along with the complementary processes of translating sounds and music into illustrations and scores. In early 2019, he produced various drawings and sound pieces which formed the starting point for the three tracks on this 10” vinyl EP. The audio is derived from synthesizer recordings and basic electronic sound sources (sine waves, feedback, noise) and percussive loops combined with recordings made in the studios at EMS (Elektronmusikstudion, Stockholm).

The audio material was translated by graphic designer Katja Gretzinger into a series of visual notations made while listening to the music. Gretzinger developed various symbols, forms and structures, such as points, bars, 3D balls, irregular patterns / “swarms” and regular patterns (vertical hatchings). These were combined with found image materials and cut-outs from old prints and layered with large geometric forms, which define the individual character of each of the three parts. The resulting 18-page graphic score is included in the release in the form of risograph printed sheets.

Nielsen then invited musician Nicola Ratti, who is also trained as an architect, to create sonic re-interpretations of the graphic score. Ratti reinterpreted the imagery as a selection of sound elements positioned in a three-dimensional area; which he visualized as the space between the composer / artist, Ratti himself and the loudspeakers. These recordings are included on the CD.

1, 2, 3 written & produced by Mads Emil Nielsen, Copenhagen / Berlin, 2019 / 2020 (reworked and combined with a live recording from Standards, Milan, September 2019). Recording by + thanks to URSSS. CD: 1, 2, 3 written & produced by Nicola Ratti, Milan, 2020.
Scores by Katja Gretzinger. Artwork/design (packaging, discs, text) by Mads Emil Nielsen.

Fully immersive electronic music by US composer Maggi Payne, inspired by the arctic winds. Maggi Payne's sound worlds invite the listeners to enter the sound and be carried with it, experiencing it from the inside out in intimate detail. The sounds are almost tactile and visible.

The music is based on location recordings, with each sound carefully selected for its potential—its slow unfolding revealing delicate intricacies—and its inherent spatialization architecting and sculpting the aural space where multiple perspectives and trajectories coexist. With good speakers, some space in your schedule, and a mind-body continuum willing to resonate with Payne’s electroacoustic journey, but then it will take you to places that other music can’t reach.

From the sounds of dry ice, space transmissions, BART trains, and poor plumbing she immerses the listener in a world strangely unfamiliar. Maggi Payne is a composer, video artist, recording engineer, photographer, and flutist and is Co-Director of the Center for Contemporary Music and a faculty member at Mills College, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

R.A. The Rugged Man and Atmosphere are two of the most important names in underground hip-hop history. Among the original architects of the independent hip-hop revolution, both of these iconic artists have defied the odds to thrive for decades in the ever-changing rap landscape.

Now, R.A. The Rugged Man and Slug of Atmosphere are joining forces for the first time ever to bring some much-needed joy to listeners during these trying times. Featuring a hook by famed singer Eamon, the historic collaboration "Golden Oldies" is a feel-good trip down memory lane taken from R.A. The Rugged Man's new album All My Heroes Are Dead".

This Ltd. Edition 7" Single gives fans the opportunity to experience the nostalgic anthem in all it's old-school glory.

Composed as a means to map the cultural translation between Chinese culture and European traditions, Piotr Kurek’s A Sacrifice Shall Be Made / All The Wicked Scenes is comprised of pieces composed between 2016 and 2018 specifically to accompany theatre performances directed by Tian Gebing (500m and The Decalogue) and Grzegorz Jarzyna (Two Swords). Kurek attended performance rehearsals in Beijing and Shanghai, with additional preparations and recording sessions taking place back in Warsaw.

While most of Kurek’s past work is unaccompanied by other musicians or outside help, A Sacrifice Shall Be Made / All The Wicked Scenes features various Polish and Chinese musicians both from classical and experimental scene (Barbara Kinga Majewska, Grzegorz Hardej, Łukasz Rychlicki and Hubert Zemler) as well as by actors of Paper Tiger Theatre Studio from Beijing. This approach of Kurek exploring new players and places is further juxtaposed as Kurek recycled samples from his own past, including various recordings with musicians he did throughout years, found sounds from the Internet, or cannibalised old solo work.

Recorded over the course of several years, this aural report of a monumental multi-disciplinary venture is in the end an enthralled and enthralling survey of a contemporary composer who is unencumbered by geographic or cultural boundaries. Concurrently, ditching any resemblance to local musical traditions and rearranging the compositions for all three performances, Kurek has formed an architecture that allows the phases of rituals to unfold while projecting social structure assumed in myth making. The regrouping of different moments in these stories is a curious way of narrating another myth — a synthetic, polyvalent story set in a city that strangely reassembles Beijing, Giza, and Prague at the same time.

Piotr Kurek is a Warsaw based musician and composer who straddles the world of electronic music taking inspiration from various genres but fitting comfortably in none. Through his unconventional use of a wide array of instruments both electronic and acoustic, he built a reputation for himself as a qualified inventor of hypnotic worlds drenched in uncanny arrangements.

Kurek has already released a range of idiosyncratic, forward-thinking works on a variety of imprints (including but not limited to Sangoplasmo, Black Sweat Records, Hands In The Dark, Dunno Recordings, Crónica, Foxy Digitalis) and participated in numerous music festivals including Unsound, CTM, OFF, TodaysArt and UH Fest as well as participating in extensive tours in Poland and abroad. In 2014 and 2015 he opened for Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s two European mini-tours. In 2016 he has been selected as a part of Shape platform for innovative music and audiovisual art from Europe.

French producer Najem Sworb re-joins Wolfskuil Records with ‘Pergelisol’ featuring remixes from Darko Esser and Doka’s collaborative project, The Leap.

Najem Sworb is an intriguing artist who’s been putting together absorbing techno productions for over ten years now which includes outings on labels such as Days Of Being Wild, Technorama, Clone Basement Series and Wolfskuil Records. ‘Pergelisol’ sees Najem return to Darko Esser’s exceptional Wolfskuil imprint following recent releases from Border One, Architectural, Physical Therapy, Ambivalent and Cadans and features remixes The Leap – a new live project from Dutch producers Darko Esser and Doka.

‘Sorl’ begins with rattling percussion enticing you from the start fused with angelic melodies and undulating euphoria while ‘Egilep’ taps into more of a heads-down kind of vibe featuring tough, modulated drums, robust synth shatters and pulsating bass stabs.

On the flip, The Leap offer up a remix of ‘Egilep’ which blends haunting undertones, airy pads and vibrant rhythms that shimmer throughout before their remix of ‘Sorl’ rounds off proceedings with wavering bleeps, clattering 909s claps and dreamy ambience in the distance allowing for a evocative atmosphere to finish.

Dom (and his Roland s760 sampler) was once described by seminal magazine NME as the “Ridley Scott” of drum and bass. His epic early records helped form the blueprint of the scene today.

Originally releasing on No-U-Turn in 1994 and credited as one of architects of “Tech-step”. Dom was signed by the legendary Moving Shadow label in 1996 where he released 3 solo albums and a plethora of singles becoming their most prolific and influential artist in the history of the label.

Well known for his early alliances with school friends “Optical” and “Matrix”, Dom started his own label DRP (Dom & Roland Productions) in 2006 to collaborate with like-minded artists. Now 15 years in with an enviable roster from “Noisia” to “Amon Tobin” it is now the main home of Dom’s work.

Lost in the Moment is Doms 7th Album. In his own words “I wanted to make an album that gets back to the core of the elements I love about drum and bass. The timelessness of simple tracks! A sense of being lost in the subtlety of evolving soundscapes, rhythms and loops which hint at more complex detail and emotions. These are the things I find harder to find in this era of instant gratification and easily consumable music.”

Dom’s previous album Last refuge of a Scoundrel was signed to Metalheadz in 2016. It sold out on its first day. Mixmag gave it 10/10 and named it album of the year. It was runner up in DJ Magazines “Best of British” category across all genres.

Protoelectronics psychedelic Mexican Holy Grail rediscovered by Glossy Mistakes. Inspired by Vangelis, Tomita or Kraftwerk, this unknown rarity gets a second life sounding fresh and pioneering today.

Tito was born in 1946 in Ciudad de México, the son of two Spaniards. Since he was a youngster, he had felt the passion for music and instruments. In the meantime, he started a career as architect. Since his early years, he joined various teen rock bands, where he played bass and guitar. Slowly but surely, his interest in synthesizers started to grow. And the rest is history. Tito defines himself as an “electronic sounds fanatic”. Quetzalcóatl is a truly authentic cornerstone in those terms: an inspired and eclectic artist gives shape to a unique sound through legendary synthesizers such as the MiniMoog or the Arp Odyssey. His passion was so embedded that he even built his own guitars and equalizers; some of which appear on this LP.

Quetzalcóatl, his debut solo album, was originally recorded in 1977 (now remastered) in his bedroom using a four-channel Sony recorder in a truly DIY way. This álbum could be considered as a rarity. But if we listen hard enough, we find a pioneering treasure. Somehow, Quetzalcoátl anticipated the sounds of future decades with simple but inspired compositions. It is a mythological trip to the Pre-Hispanic México. This album is an allegory of the Aztec world. Quetzalcoátl is the most important God for Mesoamerican cultures: it represents the inherent human dualism between the body (represented by the snake) and soul (the feathers). In the song “Profecía”, Quetzalcoátl emerges, announcing the end of the world at the hand Spanish colonialism. Limited edition, 600 copies, remastered in Amsterdam by Wouter Brandenburg.

Sublunar Records, the label run by Sciahri and Dagdrom, start 2020 with the second chapter of the trilogy “Corpora”.

Part II involves Svreca, founder of the legendary label Semantica with ìPaganismî. A precisely contoured aural architecture that leads in a psychedelic feeling where all sense of space and time are lost.

Rhyws, known as one-half of the duo Cassegrain and recently releasing two stunning EPs on Avian under his own name, debuts on Sublunar with ìPasajulî. Sculpting highly textured sounds where percussions have the perfect amount of rough and smooth.

The EP is closed by Pris, an artist who has made a career from this style of techno hypnosis across records that represent the very best of modern deep techno. His track ìRustî is a psychedelic odyssey where a melody works its way into the background, but never quite reaches the surface completely.

Bram De Looze is a Belgian pianist and composer whose distinct musical vision has found its way through both solo projects and collaborations. His unique technical skill and musical maturity have earned him considerable critical acclaim back home as his work spotlights his far-ranging interests - from traditional classical piano music, to solo improvisations that have often been compared to Keith Jarrett and Jason Moran. On the 21st February 2020, Sdban Ultra will release his highly anticipated new solo album, 'Colour Talk'.

De Looze made his entrance onto the national jazz scene with LABtrio, formed in 2007 with Anneleen Boehme and Lander Gyselinck, and he immediately impressed, flirting with urban jazz, electronics and hip hop.

After a period of studying abroad at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York, where he studied with Uri Caine and Marc Copland, in 2014, De Looze launched the international septet, Septych, that once again stressed his affinity for jazz, classical music and improvisation. With diverse and astounding improvisors like Daniel Levin, Lester St-Louis, Robin Verheyen, Gebhard Ullman, Bo Van Der Werf and Flin Van Hemmen, it was the start of an explorative musical journey.

Over the past few years, De Looze could frequently be heard with kindred spirits like Stephane Galland, Dre Hocevar and Antoine Pierre but it was a visit to the historical collection of pianofortes of Chris Maene that inspired De Looze to release his first solo album 'Piano e Forte' (2017), and it received critical acclaim for its creativity, spontaneity and passion. He would later garner further acclaim working alongside fellow Belgian Robin Verheyen and American rhythm painter Joey Baron with whom he recorded 'MixMonk' (2019), a tribute to the legendary jazz pianist Thelonius Monk.

Bram De Looze's solo career took off in an unexpected way with 'Piano e Forte', a project for which he approached historical instruments from a contemporary perspective. The switch to the Chris Maene Straight Strung Grand Piano for 'Switch The Stream' (2018) indicated a renewed search for movement, evolution and introspection. His latest solo project 'Colour Talk', continues this trajectory with another revolutionary piano model, designed by lauded architect Rafael Vinoly, and a continued attempt to renew from within.

On 'Colour Talk', what you hear is a musician who has freed himself from stylistic constraints and limitations. While still rooted in jazz, classical music and free improvisation have found a new balance, a coexistence that enables the pianist to express himself with a new vigour. Switching between shorter pieces that feel like curious, unresolved puzzles and more extended explorations, 'Colour Talk' is once again an ode to (re)invention in the grey zone were the classical idiom and improvisatory urges meet, with the 13-minute tour-de-force of 'Hypnosis' as one of several undisputed highlights.

If you asked De Looze about his current position as an artist, he would probably tell you that it's all about forward movement and the need to keep evolving, about a trajectory as work-in-progress. However, if you consider 'Colour Talk' as a freeze frame of where De Looze is at, it is hard not to consider it a highlight in a career that should have some more surprises in store.

Greek artist June makes his debut on Mannequin Records with the 'Silver Demon' LP. The album explores a futuristic dystopian world where transcendence and oppression coexist, where claustrophobia and infinite openness coincide. A world of contrasts that is the product of the artist‘s active imagination and conscious effort to confront the subconscious.

The album was recorded using original techniques from the golden era of electronic music (late 70s to mid 80s) with an arsenal of vintage analog synthesizers, drum machines and effect processors (originating) from the same time period. While the aesthetics of the classic precursors emerge through the minimal, deep, dark architecture of June's music, Silver Demon prevails with the artist's characteristic originality.

Mastered by Rude 66.
Graphic design by Lee Douglas.

When Air’s Nicolas Godin released his debut solo album, Contrepoint (2015), he channelled the influence of Bach into a rich, resonant and hugely rewarding spread of musical explorations. One soundtrack (A Very Secret Service) later, Godin builds on equally fertile conceptual foundations for the follow-up. Released through Because Music on 24th January, Concrete and Glass is an exquisitely crafted set of variations on architectural reference points: mounted with minimalist precision and delivered with an abundance of pop warmth, it finds Godin in his element, working seductive wonders with poise and style to spare.

For Godin, the album circles back to his formative work as half of ground-breaking French electronic group Air. Revered modern architect Le Corbusier was an influence on the young architecture graduate’s music, notably on his 1997 debut “Modular Mix”. Twenty-plus years later, Le Corbusier featured on a list of modernist architects Godin was invited to compose tributes for, tributes intended to be heard as the soundtrack to site-specific installations around the world.

In its soft ambient pulse and melting minimalism, lead track “The Border” is a perfect entry-point to Godin’s hymns to buildings, arranged and co-produced with Pierre Rousseau. Its levitating synths, vocoder vocals and scudding bass hove into view with understated elegance, all the better to accommodate the discreet slow-build of delicate details within. As with Air, Godin makes gorgeously light work of every angle: this is music that seems entirely unperturbed by gravity, occupying an elevated atmosphere of its own.

Elsewhere, the title-track’s clean synth lines, crisply apportioned arrangements and tender timpani offer another inviting entry-point, sculpted with architectural clarity. While Godin’s vocoder vocals also hark back to Air’s early work, the album accommodates a diverse spread of guest vocalists elsewhere. Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor guests on the falsetto-soul dream-pop of “Catch Yourself Falling”, one of Godin’s sweetest melodies yet. Oxnard singer/activist Cola Boyy brings soul to the righteously engaged “The Foundation”; the squelchy synths and buoyant grooves burn slow, allowing the stealthy arrangements and message room to resonate. Psychedelic soul singer Kadhja Bonet sings with measured serenity over tremulous synths on “We Forgot Love”, while Russian experi-pop artist Kate NV brings a gracefully aching romanticism to the blissful swoon-pop of “Back to Your Heart”.

Additionally, Australian conceptual provocateur Kirin J Callinan contributes a vocal of restrained drama to “Time on My Hands”, a midnight-drift soft-pop ballad with a silky allure. One of the quickest tracks to record for the album, it emerged in collaborations between Los Angeles (”During some lively sessions in Mac DeMarco’s studio,” notes Godin) and Paris. After he missed his flight home, Callinan stayed in France for a day as the guitar solos were recorded, complementing the song's air of sleek luxuriousness.

Between its title-track and the sultry, smoky jazz stylings of closer “Cité Radieuse”, Concrete and Glass is an album that truly travels, in tune with its global pitch. For Godin, it marks another milestone in a musical journey that began when Air’s 1998 debut album, Moon Safari, became the sublimely weightless soundtrack of its time. For Concrete and Glass, Godin builds on his storied past with tremendous finesse, charm and fluency, opening fresh windows of perspective at every lovingly executed turn.

After lasts years beloved Operator release, SOLIDE returns with the second part, again by label head honchos D.Y.A and Kalyma.

With this current release, they take heed of a well known principle that has been brought upon us by the Hollywood film industry - any thrilling, perfectly executed and audience approved production needs to get a sequel - So, the curtain raises now for Operator II, a tune instantly reminiscent of its predecessor in beat architecture and kalimba arrangement, yet thought through with even more sophistication and sensitivity.

A Gardener's Perspective pursues that same kind of vibe, coming along with slight Electro-borrowings and cocooning synth-harmonies, climaxing in an masterly organ solo that has soul and devotion to sound written all over it.

Yet another tune that doesn't even have to conform with peaktime arithmetics to send whole floors into frenzy, no matter what time of the night it might be. Closing things off it's Casino Lunch Break, another strongly vibing and very tribal affair radiating afterhour qualities, ending another more than solid offering on Solide on a high note.

With EXHIBITION's second performance, RICO PUESTEL proudly presents the new series-within-the-series "SOLLING", conceptually fulfilling the "triad of A" throughout the canvas of this record: Acid, analogicity and anachronisms.

After recently telling a vast and mesmerizing story on Adana Twins' TAU label, RICO PUESTEL now immerses into his defining habitat roots and creates the long-planned first soundtrack chapter of SOLLING: A central German uplands area in Lower Saxony, spreading into the North of Hesse, shaped by mixed forests, its rural imprinting, a widespread range of regionally varyiing cultural idiosyncrasies and a century-extending history, including the shattering throughout the welters of the Thirty Years' War.
Being the first of several planned chapters, pre-production mostly takes place there while the music is traversed by sound recorded in that area, leading to an existence irreversibly connected to its birthplace.

The impetuous opener "Tilly", characterizing the essence of Johann T'Serclaes von Tilly who commanded the Catholic League's forces in the Thirty Years' War, overrunning the SOLLING throughout 1624 and 1625, culminates in one retro-futuristic affair, building into a overwhelming storm of percussion tapestry and intertwining layers of acid.
The A2 follow-up "Clava" takes the initial impetus to a superior level, overriding itself with an unpredictable enigma-melody after laying the foundation of a high-density groove architecture - all of this representing the almost intangible chasms of a unicum street and its geographical expanse, filled with Rico's far-reaching primordial retrospections, seemingly connecting several contingent coordinates of mysterious happenings over two decades while anticipating the future.
Ultimately, the AA-flipside delivers the groundbreaking SOLLING composition "Pro Foreste Sulgo", presenting an ancient-like struggle of dark and light as told by the principles of nature with two melodic themes, circling around themselves, bound to collide and meld like atoms - all placed within the treetops, shaken by the wind, overlooking a future that might already has been...

Sound is a potent force that can awaken your purpose and re-balance your spirit. It has the power to relax, as well as inspire you, through the positive therapy of sound vibrations. Elemental Resonance is a trailblazing meditation album where vibrational sound practitioner, Tracie Storey, combines the energy waves made by music, with positive words of love and harmony to produce inner peace, deep relaxation and a higher spiritual connection.

Storey explains “The idea for this album came to me 2 years ago when I was living in Montreal, Canada. I’d been learning to form shapes, textures and colour with sound and going deep within the architecture of my own inner space. These powerful compositions have really helped me on my journey. Creating transformative tools are now part of my life’s work, using the medium of vibrational sound which transcends all boundaries”.

Storey guides you through a series of mindful meditations - each connected to the seven energy chakras - and each supported by sound vibrations, colours to visualise, and positive affirmations to re-balance your entire being and bring you waves of calmness, strength, warmth and joy.

Released on Celestial Being, label boss Felix Buxton (Basement Jaxx), says “I’m thrilled to support this project, everywhere I look people are discovering more about Vibration and how it affects them.
Tracie is leading the way forward for new generations, uncovering more of our potential as humans. This is a great way to switch off the world and switch on to your deeper self.”

Storey has been active as a vibrational sound practitioner, for the past 5 years. Previous to six years training under Master Fabien Maman, who’s one of the world's leading experts on vibrational sound therapy, founder of the Tama-Do Academy.
She also travelled the globe as a DJ on the international dance scene (releasing on Ministry of Sound and producing mixes for the likes of Kiss FM).

The vitality you hear on Antique Blacks is a testament to the unique energy of the community around The Foxhole Cafe in Philadelphia, as Ra honed his unique brand of Afro-Futurism through the late 60';s and 70's. Cosmic theatre, spiritual chants, and experimental electronics make this record an essential document that was ahead of its time. Ancient to future! BIG TIP !

The 1970s saw change in Sun Ra's recorded output, and as far as we can tell, the content of his live performances. By the middle of the decade, Sun Ra's music no longer seemed comprehensible as part of the jazz New Thing – quirkier, more idiosyncratic elements were more to the fore.

At this time, 1974, every Sun Ra record still surprised, and seemed radically different from everything else he had released up to then. The musical universe proposed by free jazz had never circumscribed Sun Ra. He had been part of the movement, but was able to use the possibilities it suggested without being limited by its conventions.

The Antique Blacks illustrates this well. Recorded as a radio broadcast in Philadelphia, according to Dale Williams, it has a well defined but oddball structure. Sun Ra was a master architect, very concerned to use the unfolding of an album, a broadcast or a live performance to create a satisfying structure.

Song No 1 starts on an upbeat note, it's a lively, tonal introduction, featuring John Gilmre on tenor saxophone, Sun Ra on roksichord, Dale Williams, then aged 15, on guitar, and Akh Tal Ebah on trumpet.

Sun Ra's poetry is featured on There Is Change In The Air, a track which has on occasion been used for the album title: in its original incarnation as a Saturn LP, there was no dedicated sleeve artwork, and this record appeared under many names. Ra's poetry is allusive, elusive and paradoxical, and this was its first major appearance on a record. During instrumental passages, Dale Williams' guitar is heard, along with the saxophones of Marshall Allen and Danny Davis.

The Antique Blacks is a similar setting for a Sun Ra poem, which encompasses "spiritual men", and Lucifer as a dark angel. The Arkestra is heard in conducted improvisational ensembles, in between the sections of the poem.

This Song Is Dedicated To Nature's God has Arkestral vocals, with John Gilmore's voice in th foreground. Williams' guitar is once again prominent in the instrumental passages.

Sun Ra's poetic declamations provide the structire for The Ridiculous I and The Cosmos Me, which also has a fine unaccompanied tenor solo by John Gilmore, keyboard improvisations by Sun Ra, and closes with bass clarient from Eloe Omoe.

Sun Ra's keyboards are heard with minimal Arkestra support on Would I For All That Were – a fine synthesiser improvisation, with electric piano left hand accompaniment.

Tension is resolved by Space Is The Place, which rounds the album out in an upbeat mood, with Akh Tal Ebah, James Jacson and Sun Ra prominent among the vocalists. The closing section includes the chant Sun Ra And His Band From Outer Space, often used at the close of live performances. This isn't strictly live, though: in one line the vocal is played backwards on tape!

We always try to bring something special when it comes to release a single on vinyl. This time, we are pleased to announce the return of one of the most obscure and talented vocal group from the early 80's: Time Unlimited. It's been more than twenty years that Donovan Joseph, Hugo Blackwood and Orville Smith, have been off the musical scene as Time Unlimited. During the recording sessions of the Roots Architects project in 2017, we had the chance to meet Donovan Joseph passing by the studio. Straightaway, we were telling ourselves that we had to see his legendary group name written on black wax again. Here it is, with a deep rub a dub cut backed by the High Times Players remembering the golden years of the group!

Markus Suckut is a well known producer in the techno world, whose releases have found a home on such respected labels as Rekids, Odd Even, Hypercolour or Edit Select to name just a few. Suckut is also the founder of the SCKT imprint. The Düsseldorf producer has been a part of the 'made of CONCRETE' family for some time now and the pair up between the two on 'Voices In My Head' feels like an ideal match.

The title track 'Voices In My Head' may give off a tranquil feel but pay close attention and you’ll hear the psychosis bubbling below the surface. The synth scribbles that underpin the track would get the best of a sane mind in the right setting. '8' follows. It’s a smart, profound cut designed to raise the pressure on the dancefloor. On the flip, 'Drift' comes to life with fantastic mind-bending sweeps. Label bosses Rebar close the EP off on a quasi devotional touch with their rework of 'Voices In My Head'. The pair stays in the deep end with sublime synths and a stripped back rhythmic architecture. It’s a perfect counterpoint to Suckut’s original.

WRWTFWW Records is insanely happy to announce the first ever vinyl reissue for both volumes of Yoshio Ojima's superb environmental music project Une Collection des Chaînons I and II: Music For Spiral, originally released in 1988 on CD only. Each volume is sourced from original masters and comes as a double vinyl LP with liner notes in English and Japanese . This marks the inaugural release from the ESPLANADE SERIES by WRWTFWW Records which focuses on the works of Yoshio Ojima and friends.

Une Collection des Chaînons II (along with its complementary predecessor Une Collection des Chaînons I) gathers selected music pieces conceptualized and produced for sound-designing the Wacoal Art Center in Aoyama (Tokyo) also known as Spiral, a hub for a wide range of sophisticated cultural proposals spanning visual arts, theatre, music, design, fashion, and lifestyle.

Named after its superb curled-shaped structures laid in a vast atrium, Spiral is a monumental work of architecture by Fumihiko Maki, designed according to the principles of Metabolism, a movement advocating the fusion of the notions of megastructures and organic biological growth - in essence, evolving designs and constructions, adapting to human needs naturally.

Evolving, organic, adapting, these are notions that perfectly describe Yoshio Ojima's divinely designed brand of environmental music. Continuing, embellishing and bringing the Collection des Chaînons (which translates as collection of links) full circle, this second volume approaches sound design in relation to various contexts, sizes, and shapes. The nanoscopic neoclassical lullaby "Les Trois Grâces" brings attention to the importance of small details, "Pulse at Soothe" starts with the minimalism of a Satoshi Ashikawa piece and slowly drifts into mystical landscapes and cavernous echoes, "Entomology" and its melancholic artificial forest feels like a Twin Peaks mirage, and "Atrium" literally feels like a floating visit of a gigantic open space structure. With each timbre selected with extreme precision, each element placed in space with the utmost care, and textures worked to allow a wide canvas of emotion for the listeners, Yoshio Ojima's music is the constantly transforming connecting point between humanity and architecture.

Sitting alongside Midori Takada's Through The Looking Glass, Satoshi Ashikawa's Still Way, Hiroshi Yoshimura's Green, or Yutaka Hirose's NOVA, Une Collection des Chaînons is a pivotal work of Japanese environnmental/ambient/minimalist music.

A note from Yoshio Ojima: "Please listen to this album at around the same volume as daily life sounds such as air conditioners and refrigerators."

7"

Hamburg's long time standing Goth (Not Goth) / Rock (Not Rock) band outfit The Crystal Apes get a full on electronic remix treatment which has been dubplate tested and dancefloor proved by Intrauterin Recordings mastermind baze.djunkiii as a secret weapon on countless occasions over the past years, slowly and carefully building up towards a full vinyl release.
The A-side „I Can't Believe (baze.djunkiii meets The Crystal Apes 'Breakbeats Dream Of 92' Remix)“ hits dancefloors with an original Oldskool Rave / Breakbeat Hardcore vibe,
dramatic panorama strings and seductive vocals for the lighter and whistle crew.
Meanwhile the flipside „Broken End (baze.djunkiii meets The Crystal Apes 'When Time Decays There Is No Need For Architecture' Remix)“ brings forth a different flavor, fusing a blurred out, spatial, minimalist and heavily Dub-infused take on Bass Music / Post Dubstep with more dramatic dramatic string works and a surprisingly powerful Rock attitude for very
special moments on the dancefloor.
Initial pressing will be limited to 200 copies on black vinyl.

Recital publish the newest record by Canadian composer Sarah Davachi. Currently working on her PhD in Musicology at UCLA, her trajectory has been unorthodox. Hailing from Calgary, Alberta, which, if you've never been there, doesn't really scream "Avant-Garde" (Calgary is the rodeo capital of the world). From a young age, Sarah was a driven pianist (and figure-skater, although that's a story for a different time). It is important and interesting that she chose to study esoteric music; as Sarah could have easily been a cowgirl or a concert pianist had her ingrained love of synthesis and sonic phenomenology not taken the wheel.

Sarah is a considered person. I find few people that have the diligence and resolve to take their time with music... especially in a live context. I respect that about her. The first time I saw Sarah perform, I presumptuously told her that her music reminded me of my favorite Mirror albums (the exceptional project of Andrew Chalk and Christoph Heemann). Sarah was not familiar with Mirror, so the compliment was initially lost on her. Years back I was in the same situation when a review compared my music to Andrew Chalk, who was unknown to me at the time. So I felt a kinship in our magnetic drift towards unspoken and clustered beauty.

Let Night Come On Bells End The Day follows the release of her "sound-wheel" LP All My Circles Run, which examines the isolation of different instruments. Let Night Come On..., recorded mainly with a Mellotron and electronic organ, feels like a return to the nest. Burrowed in the studio, Davachi was the only performer on this album. She both splays her compositional architecture and re-contextualizes the essence of her early output. She chiseled careful and shadowed hymns; anchors of emotion.

Two pillars of this album are "Mordents", which to my ears drops hints of her love for Progressive rock music - and "Buhrstone," comparable to a sombre funeral march of piano and flutes. These two examine punctuations of early music, gently plucking melodies and movements. The three other compositions are tonal works, blowing slow jets of lapping harmonics.

Writing this description now, I find it hard to separate "At Hand" from filmmaker Paul Clipson, who made a melancholic film for this piece of Sarah's. A fitting title for Sarah and Paul's relationship - frequently working in orbit of each other, meticulous and tactile. I cherish this track as a memory of Paul.

This is a lovely album to fill an evening living room with. A blanket, a cup of wine, a dim bulb, a wide window.

Three beautiful photo-prints by Davachi are included with Let Night Come On Bells End The Day. Frames are not included.

- Sean McCann

50 years ago, a young Panamanian singer by the name of Ralph Weeks, who a few years prior had cut his teeth in the US music landscape with the group Johnny & The Expressions, self-produced and independently released a record with an absolute monster of a soul ballad called "Something Deep Inside." It was a song that Weeks had come up with on the spot during one of many gigs in the heart of Brooklyn's Prospect Heights, at the time a cultural hub and community for many Panamanians living in the borough. Along with his group, The Telecasters, Weeks often played at a Panamanian-owned club in the neighborhood called 4 Star's (STA4R's) which would independently sponsor the release of the tune on a 7-inch single.

Fast forward to 2019, where a serendipitous meeting between Ralph Weeks and Names You Can Trust turned into a solid formation of musical synchronicity, bonded over a shared belief in musical fusion, a weaving of musical threads that was similarly the foundation of that earlier era in Panama. It's a fusion that has become a constant theme throughout the Names You Can Trust catalog in the last 10 years, connecting the dots from NY, the Caribbean and Latin America. An immediate plan was put into motion: return Weeks to a studio atmosphere that had eluded him in the preceding decades, a vibe and live musical presence that would be reminiscent of his time recording with The Telecasters and The Exciters in Panama.

In the ultimate tribute to Weeks and that foundation, NYCT label mates Combo Lulo unpacked the 50-year old original tune and refashioned it into a timeless rocksteady ballad. It was an opportunity for Weeks to acquaint himself with a new band and a new generation of musical talent. Ultimately, it was an unexpected chance for Weeks to reconnect to the music he wrote one fateful evening in a Brooklyn club. For Combo Lulo, Names You Can Trust, and now the rest of his musical admirers, it's a chance to hear how gracefully Weeks' voice has aged, still silky smooth with those beloved falsetto runs, sweet and rounded like a barrel-aged añejo rum. It's a testament to the timelessness of Weeks' original music, and certainly another reminder of how far and wide even the smallest of musical blips can spread.

Presented as a double-sided bilingual 45 single, both versions of Weeks' classic tune, "Algo Muy Profundo" and "Something Deep Inside," have been formatted in the traditional Jamaican style, skillfully cut live and mixed under the guidance of NYCT and Combo Lulo's talented musicians. It's a tribute to a brilliant record and an unsung architect of Latin American sweet soul, but also a love letter to a very particular NY-Caribbean fusion that theoretically could have happened 50 years ago, depending on the borough you resided in. After all, there was always something deep inside. Comes with NYCT / STA4R'S Company Sleeve & Liner Notes.

Swedish composer and multimedia artist Marcus Fjellström's debut Miasmah release follows two critically acclaimed full length albums on Lampse (2006's 'Gebrauchsmusik' and 2005's 'Exercises In Estrangement'). In addition Marcus has had several commissioned works requested, leading to him working with, among others, the Swedish Royal Ballet, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, numerous ensembles, soloists and filmmakers including 'Salad Fingers' creator David Firth. Currently based in Berlin, Fjellström's compositions often combine aspects of modern classical composition and arrangement and more avant forms of music, be that acoustic or electronic.

'Schattenspieler' (which translates as 'Shadowplayer') takes the form of eleven compositions which explore ambience and melody, texture and silence. Haunting synth and orchestral instrument-based audio constructions, flowing from one moment to the next - the fleeting ghosts of Fjellström's melodies rise, only to be buried under a claustrophobic clutter of percussion and creaking background noise. These pieces do indeed feel like you're listening to something more implied than obviously stated, as if Fjellström wants only to expose us to the shadow of the music - the implication being perhaps a more terrifying experience than to be confronted outright…listen to 'Schattenspieler' and you may find your mind starts to play tricks on you…

The undeniably Angelo Badalamenti-esque descending synth strings of opening track 'The Disjointed', lay the foundations for Fjellström's 'Schattenspieler' album; music resting somewhere between the unsettling horror soundtracks of Jerry Goldsmith, the elevating melodies of Cliff Martinez, and the subtle audio constructions of Miasmah label mates Kreng and Jacaszek. Marcus' wide ranging abilities in composition and his willingness to let go of accepted form and function makes 'Schattenspieler' a perfect choice of release for the Miasmah label. The suspense laden 'Antichrist Architechture Management', with its harrowing and tense undertones, weaving synth lines and a wash of static hiss and flicker, is a particular standout track. Despite it's a strangely oppressive sound, shafts of light grace 'Schattenspieler'; pieces such as 'Untitled 090616' find gorgeous melodies are boxed in by unsettling arrangements and sparse background ambience. There is a coldness to many of these compositions - not without emotion, but somehow remorseless. 'Schattenspieler' is, for the main part, a defiantly bleak journey.

Vinyl edition ltd. to 300 copies, purple vinyl, incl. 8-page 12" booklet with drawings by Marcus Fjellström.