Cerca:as if

Saturations is a composition by Danish multidisciplinary artist Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard, and features a clarinet choir consisting of 19(!) clarinet players.

Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard (b. 1979) considers his work to be a basic research in realities working within the domains of imaginary & physical sound as well as other non-sonic media, and since 2012 Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard has experimented with creating music that lets the instruments transcend their inherent sonic norms and reappear in another form by way of multiplication of sound.

His work with multiplication of sound has led to numerous compositions in which one instrument is multiplied a number of times: One piece is written for 9 pianos, another for 10 hi-hats and yet another for countless triangles and so on.

The multiplication brings out bodily timbral phenomena, interference of sound waves and vibrations, and brings out what Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard calls the sound’s potential of transformation. He describes this as the quality in a musical piece, when you no longer hear recognizable instruments, but instead the individual sound, as well as the individual musician, is dissolved into the collective sound.

A sonic as well as human synthesis.

He explains the concept of this sound as follows:

“Imagine you enter a room with vibrant acoustics, such as a cafe full of people having conversations, and when you’re close to those conversations you hear the language and understand the words. If you step away from the tables, however, and stand in the doorway, you begin to loose the ability to distinguish the words from one another. Now instead of hearing the individual conversations, melts all the conversations together, and transform into a one new sound. A sound of people without words and language. Just as when you hear a group of geese squawk, or the wind in tree tops, a kind of nature given sound of people. Once the language is dissolved and the words stop making sense, what is left, is the sound."

The work of NLL has been presented at a variety of different venues and museums such as MoMA (NY - as a part of the René Magritte exhibition The Mystery of the Ordinary, 2013), Imaginary West Indies (Overgaden Copenhagen, 2017), ISCM (Vancouver, 2017), Radiophrenia (Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts, 2017), CPH:DOX (Copenhagen, 2017), Roskilde Festival (2017), Harpa (Reykjavik, 2017), G((o))ng Tomorrow Festival (Copenhagen 2016, 2018), Nordic Music Days (Norway, 2019), Akusmata (SF, 2020) and his works has been released on labels such as Topos (DK), Archive Officielle (CA) and Important Records (US). NLL is associate professor at RMC in Copenhagen, and has given lectures at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Goldsmiths University of London a.o.p. NLL has been awarded with several prizes a.o. from the Danish Art Foundation and the Sonning Foundation.

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.

Acid Jazz present ‘Circles: The Ultimate Fleur De Lys’, the
definitive compilation centred around one of the greatest 60s
bands.
Atlantic Records, Andrew Loog Oldham, Shel Talmy, Cream,
Isaac Hayes and Tony Blackburn - all these and so many more
turn up in the story of Southampton band the Fleur De Lys. You
may not have heard of them and if you have it may be just
because of their glorious cover of the Who’s ‘Circles’, an
ultimate freakbeat anthem that this compilation is named after,
but the singles they released in the second half of the 1960s
are one of the greatest collections of singles by any band,
ranging from R&B through freakbeat and psych and back into
club soul.
Emerging from the English South Coast’s competitive club
scene they signed to Rolling Stones’ manager Andrew Loog
Oldham’s pioneering indie label Immediate where they
recorded two singles before being taken under the wing of
Frank Fenter, who worked out of the UK Polydor office running
the UK arm of Atlantic. The group went through numerous line
up changes as they recorded a series of singles which are now
some of the most collectible of the era.
Acid Jazz and Countdown Records have been the custodians of
the Fleur De Lys catalogue for the last decade and this
compilation is the culmination of that work, containing all the
singles that they released for Immediate, Polydor and Atlantic
(where they pipped Led Zeppelin to become the first UK signed
band to that legendary label).
Issued on CD and gatefold coloured double vinyl, the album
has been produced with the full co-operation of the group’s
Keith Guster, allowing us access to previously unseen photos
and illustrations. Compiled by Eddie Piller and Dean Rudland
and the band’s official biographer Paul ‘Smiler’ Anderson, who
has contributed an extended note that tells the band’s story in
compelling detail.

"To The End" is a tremendous demonstration of power that impressively unites all elements of its predecessors and paints a frightening picture of war, death and destruction at the end of which nothing remains but ashes and the realization of a masterpiece. It is the beginning of a new era. Since early October 2020, smoke is laying over Northampton near London. The machinery is well-oiled, the plan excellent - MEMORIAM have recorded their fourth studio album! The speed the British machinery has been working at since their early days is just enormous and equally amazing. Only back in 2016 the band inaugurated the public about their existence. Since those days the machines never stood still. The British Death Lead Commando caused a big rumble shortly after the first rumors about where the journey would go. "The Hellfire Demos" hit the worldwide scene with their old school Death Metal and left speechlessly torn open mouths which are still raving about the enthusiasm of this achievement today. When "For The Fallen", the debut album, is unleashed on mankind via Nuclear Blast Records in 2017, the impression is even more powerful – Truly an historic act for metal history. But as mentioned, there is no stand still in MEMORIAM. Meanwhile emancipated from other bands, they write their very own piece of history. While the first album was still heavy, oppressive and marked by grief, the second album "The Silent Vigil" (2018) showed a more merciless and aggressive side. The same applies to the third strike "Requiem For Mankind", which stands unmistakably in the short but impressive tradition of all previous MEMORIAM works. After this concentrated Death Metal trilogy, all signs were pointing to upheaval. As if the band wanted to completely break away from their old roots, they looked for a new home and signed a worldwide record deal with the upcoming label Reaper Entertainment Europe. While drummer Andy Whale had to take a forced break due to health reasons, Spike T Smith - a close friend of the band - took over the job in the rhythm section. Nevertheless "To The End" follows the tradition of its predecessors without leaving any doubt that one of the strongest albums of 2021 lurks here. Once again the groove is monstrous, the riffs deadly merciless and the atmosphere oppressive, paralyzing, even overwhelming. Willett's aggressive vocals give the sound the proverbial icing on the cake.

• One of the first punk rock bands of the 70s music revolution, and certainly the first in Ireland, the Radiators From Space came roaring out of a 7-inch 45 with (I’m gonna smash my Telecaster through the) ‘Television Screen’ in April of 1977, a month after ‘White Riot’.

• Before the year’s end, a second 45 ‘Enemies’ (sometimes NMEies) and the “TV Tube Heart” long-player had appeared. Although the second single was on there, the debut was recorded in an altogether more relaxed style, presaging that there would be more to the Radiators than three chords and a polemic. In fact, they were obviously more sophisticated players than some of their contemporaries.

• The album was a full-on assault on all that any self-respecting youth would find wrong about the world at the time. All band members contributed to the songs, but it was Philip Chevron’s acerbic, angry, pointed and literary lyrics that gave the band such an edge. Philip strutted a gritty lead guitar counterpointing Pete Holidai’s underpinning rhythm, with Mark Megaray’s flowing bass lines belying the instrument’s more usual role to sit in with drummer Jimmy Crashe’s taut, driving rhythm. Steve Rapid fronted the band on some tracks, but Pete and Philip carried most of the lead vocals. Steve left before the record came out – he became a successful graphic designer and has re-imagined the sleeve for this 10-inch issue. He also designed the original.

• A second album, “Ghostown”, produced by Tony Visconti, came out in 1979, hailed now as one of the classic Irish albums of all time. Over the years the band periodically re-formed, first with the gay love song of great yearning ‘Under Cleary’s Clock’, and then making two more great albums in “Trouble Pilgrim” and “Sound City Beat”, covering great Irish 45s of the 60s and early 70s.

• Philip went on to a career as a Pogue, sadly leaving us way too young in 2013. Mark Megaray likewise departed at an early age. Pete and Steve keep the flame alive with Trouble Pilgrims, and if you are lucky you can catch them at a Dublin club sometime – well worth it.

• But “TV Tube Heart” is where it all started for Dublin’s finest.

Armellodie Records is proud to present 'whence, the', the new album from Thirty Pounds of Bone aka, Johny Lamb. 'whence, the' is the sixth full-length album by Thirty Pounds of Bone and the third in a series of records that play deliberately with the affordances and problems of studio recording. 2015's 'The Taxidermist' was awash with huge, constructed ensemble pieces, 2019's critically-acclaimed, 'Still Every Year They Went' was recorded live, at sea, on a commercial fishing boat, and this last takes Johny Lamb's fascination with analogue synths further than before using Eurorack modular synths as the bedrock for each song. The result of working in this way is of course, that many of the parts on the record are all but impossible to recreate; the nature of the patches being built in the moment, captured, and undocumented. This time around Johny has focused on the tiny details of sadness, largely inspired by the events of 'A Story of Long' where the central moment of the song is observing a close friend pouring his husband a glass of water in a hospice, just some few hours before his death. This was an intimacy and time that Johny did not expect to be a part of (the album is dedicated to the couple in question). But this stirred a way of thinking about how huge events are often typified or defined by very small gestures or happenings, and each of the tracks here comes from that place. Be it the existential crisis brought on by stripping wallpaper in 'Woodchip', how a single day might signify the end of a long relationship ('A Note to Myself'), or the miniature resignations to compromise we make in professional life which eventually overwhelm our very identity ('The Cynical Start to a Jaded Career #1'). Johny's lyricism and composition remain oblique but touching, and these songs of little moments of sadness, regret and grief are built to remain small. They are paradoxically content in their sorrow and should perhaps be kept as companions to similar feelings. "Organic and immediate. Music you can touch with your fingertips" The Irish Times // "Talent to appeal far more than only folk fans alone" Record Collector // "Exquisite index of gin-soaked desolation.... Lamb sings like a man unable to see beyond keeping a stiff upper lip to the end of the song. Even if he manages it, you might not." Mojo

Vertical67 aka Thomas Pahl joins eudemonia with his new EP ‘The Early Hours’. During the past years the versatile producer and co-owner of Vortex Tracks has released a great amount of records on well-respected labels like 100% Silk, Lunar Disko Records and Mechatronica. On this record he again shows his talent to produce versatile and masterly crafted tracks which can be played either in the early hours of a clubnight or during an extended home listening session. As a little gift you get the digital bonus track for free if you buy the record.

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!

Re-issue of a soul masterpiece from 1974, 'I Love You More and More' by Tom Brock was Tom's only solo album release, but what a beautiful classic it is. For some, it is up there in the pantheon alongside their all-time treasured soul favourites such as Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On'.

Produced by the legend Barry White and released on 20th Century Records in 1974, it features the lush hallmark orchestration, heartfelt songs, and funky yet slick playing you’d expect from a White production. Like a dusting of sugar onto the top of the cake, the record also features the stunning arrangements of the great pianist, arranger, composer, and producer Gene Page, whose musical career left an impressive and prolific legacy.

'I Love You More and More' received another lease of life when it was resurrected for a new audience after having been sampled by Jay-Z, Mos Def, C.L. Smooth, and others. The record is solid throughout, but the song 'There's Nothing in This World That Can Stop Me From Loving You’ proved to be an extra-bright star in the sky and it formed the base to Jay-Z's 2001 hit 'Girls, Girls, Girls'. The sampling of Tom’s work triggered the collectors, diggers and DJs to explore his record and to transfer their passion for it onto their followers too.

Tom Brock passed away in 2002, but left behind his sensational soulful voice on a handful of amazing dusty 7" singles, several assorted productions recorded by other artists, and this absolute winner of an album, which will be cherished for years to come.

• Half-speed vinyl cut at Abbey Road Studios

• Sampled by Jay-Z, Mos Def, C.L. Smooth…

• Produced by Barry White, arranged by Gene Page.

LTD. CLEAR BLUE VINYL

Fresh off of their 2020 offering Adult Themes, El Michels Affair is back with a new full-length release. Titled Yeti Season, this newest album has everything we've come to expect from EMA's patented cinematic style of instrumental soul music. Where Adult Themes inspired a soundtrack to an imaginary film, Yeti Season brings us to a different place in time_with new inspirations. Taken with Turkish-styled funk and an almost Mumbai-esque take on soul, El Michels Affair offers us a different kind of drama and imagination with Yeti Season. If you've been following along, this shouldn't be viewed as too far a departure for El Michels Affair. The first single off of Yeti Season showed their hand back in 2018. A double-sided banger, that release brought the musical textures to the fore that dominate this record. The first song, titled "Unathi," is fully realized with the beautifully haunting-yet-hopeful vocals of Piya Malik, formally of 79.5_another Big Crown artist. Singing in Hindi, Piya's ethereal voice is telling us to work and strive together toward progress. Even if you don't understand her language, you can still hear the urgency of purpose, creating a lasting vibe that sits on top of it all. Leon Michels explains that Piya had a vital influence on this record: "When Piya started singing in Hindi, she had a different voice, a different tone. I knew we had to do something together." And so Piya appears on three other songs on Yeti Season: "Zaharila," "Murkit Gem," and "Dhuaan." Each providing particular signatures to the album. "Zaharila" is a building and changing love song punctuated by blaring trumpets, driving drums, and Piya's pleading lyrics. While the more upbeat "Murkit Gem" opens with a fuzzed out, Wu-Tang-esque baseline that buoys Piya's stylings. The psychedelic guitar and Piya's changing tones and textures singing about an all-consuming love are what pushed "Dhuaan" on to the second single from Yeti Season. There is also a vocal appearance from Shannon Wise of The Shacks, yet another Big Crown artist. Her song called "Sha Na Na," lies more in the familiar EMA vein: melodic, hypnotic, soulfully visual. But between Shannon's airy singing, the jumpy baseline, moody vibes, the active drum lines, it sounds like a pensive walk home after a strangely dramatic night. So what is Yeti Season? It could be more of a feeling than an actual place or time of year. It's a heavy album_as evidenced by the signature musicianship and dramatic vocal expressions. But it's also a hopeful record, with phrasings, textures, and chord changes that hint at something better_or fuller_coming our way. You hear it in songs like "Ala Vida," with its stabby, pulsing chords laying a bedrock for EMA's bright, atmospheric horn lines. Or even in "Fazed Out," which leaves you with a feeling of determination, a striving for resolution even though the driving, march-like song structure should accompany some conquering army. This persistence has to come from the fact that Leon Michels and company finished this record during the lockdown. It was a tough and troublesome time. But look at what has come of it: Yeti Season_a record of high and heavy drama, but also one of hope and promise. It may take a year like 2020 behind us to find hope in a winter big footed creature like a Yeti, but that's where we are.

The latest from Mr. K and Most Excellent Unlimited pairs lowdown and stomping disco from an unlikely source with a funked-out floorfiller from some very familiar voices.

Minnie Riperton’s 1977 single “Stick Together” was an outlier in her catalog of smooth modern soul, an intentional nod in the direction of the prevailing disco sound. Co-written with Stevie Wonder, “Stick Together” in its original single release was divided into two parts, the first a fairly conventional uptempo cut with all the catchy qualities you’d expect from Stevie and the husband and wife team of Richard Rudolph and Minnie. It was the second half of the song that caught the ears of DJs who played for funkier dancefloors, however. Freddie Perren, a former member of Motown’s legendary Corporation collective of songwriters and producers, and a man then red-hot off his success with Tavares’ “Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel” and the Sylvers’ “Boogie Fever,” was on production duties, and the song clearly benefits from his disco-friendly touch. In Mr. K’s epic edit we are treated to a lengthy exploration of the second part of “Stick Together,” featuring keyboardist Sonny Burke (veteran of Marvin Gaye’s band and fresh from playing on Candi Staton’s disco smash “Young Hearts Run Free”) working out an irresistible Jingo-esque piano part, Riperton’s sensual ad-libs, and, as if that wasn’t enough, a cameo appearance by Pam Grier on finger snaps! Krivit’s 8-minute-plus edit passes way too quickly to get enough of the hypnotic groove — rewinds are called for!

Our flip side, “Body Language,” originated as an album cut on the Jackson Five’s last album of original material for Motown, Moving Violation, recorded before Jermaine left to go solo and the remaining brothers joined Epic Records in a new incarnation as the Jacksons. For such an obvious heater it’s puzzling why the label never released it as a single; but regardless of that apparent misstep, “Body Language” has long been a sure shot in many DJs’ bags. With his new edit, Mr. K presents the track in its ultimate form, loud, remastered, stretched out and rippling with energy over a full six minutes. With an iconic bass line that just doesn’t quit, and Michael and the boys in fine form, it’s impossible to imagine a situation where this wouldn’t set the room on fire.

The first two EPs of rising French-Algerian singer-producer-songwriter Sabrina Bellaouel on InFiné are now available on a single 12" vinyl edition for the first time. At the crossroads of modern electronic production, alternative RnB & North African beats, Sabrina Bellaouel offers her listeners an unprecedented mix of grand emotion of the Pop stage and the cutting-edge underground flair of buzzing nightclubs

Textextext - (add your write up)

2020 saw Sabrina Bellaouel step out of her cocoon a fully formed artist. First, there was "We Don't Need To Be Enemies", a powerful and brave record - directing the limelight away from her talent as a singer and focusing on her honed, meticulous production skill and ingenuity in making demanding, forward thinking music. Bellaouel managed to tell stories of her identity and place in the world almost without a single vocal.

Then, there was "Libra" - fusing her own production with that gorgeous voice - showcasing a fully formed, trailblazing, independent artist. Sabrina jumps effortlessly between empowering trap on "Arab Liquor" to luscious RnB on "Float" and ends the record with "She Don't Care", a peak time house curveball that you can picture heating up the festival dance floors around Europe. The diverse and powerful EP united different sides of the press in its critical acclaim, receiving accolades from Resident Advisor, Mixmag, The Quietus, Metal Magazine and Pan African Music - just to name a few.

Both of these records then, represent a side of the coin - and are now available as a 12" Vinyl combining them to a singular listening experience. And when the clubs slowly open up again, you will surely see this secret weapon make it's way some well assorted DJ bags.

Calgary songwriter Chad VanGaalen’s new album, ‘World’s Most Stressed Out
Gardener’, is a psychedelic bumper crop. A collection of tunes that does away with
obsessiveness, the anxiety of perfectionism, in favour of freshness and immediacy -
capturing the world as it was met while recording alone at home over a period of
years. “Don’t overthink it,” VanGaalen told himself again and again, despite the
push/pull love/hate of his relationship with songwriting. “I’m always trying to get
outside of the song - but then I realize I love the song.”
This is a record that gleams with VanGaalen’s musical signatures: found sound,
reverb, polychromatic folk music that is by turns cartoonish and hyperphysical - like
ultra-magnified footage of a virus or a leaf. Apparently, the album began life as a
“pretty minimal” flute record. (There’s only a vestige now, on ‘Flute Peace’, one of
three instrumentals.) Later it became an electronic record “for a while” and finally,
“right at the last second,” it “turned into a pile of garbage.” The good kind of
garbage: glinting, useful, free. Music as compost - leaves and branches ready to be
re-ingested by the earth, turned into a flower.
Throughout these 40 minutes, VanGaalen floats from mania to solace to oblivion,
searching for zen in all the wrong places. “Turn up the radio / I think we’re dead,”
he sings on ‘Nothing Is Strange’; or, on the inside-out rocker ‘Nightmare Scenario’:
“You’re stressed out when you should be feeling very well.” The singer’s mental
landscape is rotting and redemptive, beautiful in spite of itself - and his soundscapes
reflect this fertile decay.
He has been influenced by his instrumental work on TV scores (Dream Corp’s third
season began this fall) but still “nothing can really replace the human voice,” he
admits. Like Arthur Russell or Syd Barrett, it’s VanGaalen’s vocals that shine a path
through the swampland - from the cello-lashed ‘Water Brother’ to ‘Starlight’’s
krautrock pipe-dream.
These days, VanGaalen cherishes the privacy of the studio, the capacity to wander
around, get distracted, and “move at the speed of life.” Whereas once he would
obsess over mic techniques, now he puts the microphone in the same place every
time - trying to capture a song quickly, the idea at its heart. He’ll act on his
infatuations - for the flute, a squeaky clarinet, his basement’s copper plumbing
(remade into xylophones for ‘Samurai Sword’) - and then he’ll try to get out, “veering
away from responsibility,” before he overdoes his stay.
In the end, it’s like gardening. You have to live with your horrible decision-making;
the weather’s going to mess with you if it wants to; and if you plant a hundred
heads of broccoli, “now you gotta eat a hundred heads of broccoli - or watch them
go to seed.” But mostly VanGaalen just tries to be a deer: “I remember seeing some
deer come out in the Okanagan Valley once,” he says, “watching them wait for a
sunbeam to hit a perfect bunch of grapes - and then eating them right out of the
sunbeam. I’d recommend that.”
Initial LP copies pressed on clear with gold, red and blue high melt coloured vinyl.

It’s nearly a decade since William Doyle handed a CD-R demo to the Quietus co-founder John Doran at a gig, who loved it so much he set up a label to release Doyle’s debut EP (as East India Youth). Doyle’s debut album, Total Strife Forever, followed in 2014, as did a nomination for the Mercury Music Prize. A year later, he was signed to XL, touring the world and about to release his second album – all by the age of 25.

After self-releasing four ambient and instrumental albums, Doyle’s third full-length record – and the first under his own name – Your Wilderness Revisited arrived to ecstatic reviews in 2019: Line of Best Fit described it as “a dazzlingly beautiful triumph of intention” and Metro declared it an album not only of the year, but “of the century”. Just over a year later, as he turns 30, Doyle is back with Great Spans of Muddy Time.

Born from accident but driven forward by instinct, Great Spans was built from the remnants of a catastrophic hard-drive failure. With his work saved only to cassette tape, Doyle was forced to accept the recordings as they were – a sharp departure from his process on Your Wilderness Revisited, which took four long years to craft toward perfection. “Instead of feeling a loss that I could no longer craft these pieces into flawless ‘Works of Art’, I felt intensely liberated that they had been set free from my ceaseless tinkering,” Doyle says.

“The album this turned out to be – and that I’ve wanted to make for ages – is a kind of Englishman-gone-mad, scrambling around the verdancy of the country’s pastures looking for some sense,” says Doyle. “It has its seeds in Robert Wyatt, early Eno, Robyn Hitchcock, and Syd Barrett.” Doyle credits Bowie’s ever-influential Berlin trilogy, but also highlights a much less expected muse: Monty Don, presenter of the BBC programme Gardener’s World, Doyle’s lockdown addiction.

“I became obsessed with Monty Don. I like his manner and there's something about him I relate to. He once described periods of depression in his life as consisting of ‘nothing but great spans of muddy time’. When I read that quote I knew it would be the title of this record,” Doyle says. “Something about the sludgy mulch of the album’s darker moments, and its feel of perpetual autumnal evening, seemed to fit so well with those words. I would also be lying if I said it didn’t chime with my mental health experiences as well.”

Lead single “And Everything Changed (But I Feel Alright)” is representative of the album as a whole: eclectic and unpredictable, but also playful and properly danceable. On top of the gently pulsing electronics, soothing harmonies and glowing melodies, there’s a ripping guitar solo that ricochets around the song like a pinball. “I wanted to get back into the craft of writing individual songs rather than being concerned with overarching concepts,” Doyle says. Elsewhere there’s the synth pop strut of “Nothing At All”, pulsating static on “Semi-Bionic”, incandescent synths and enveloping soundscapes in “Who Cares”, and the ambient glitch groove of “New Uncertainties”.

Great Spans of Muddy Time is a beautiful ode to the power of accident, instinct and intuition. The result, however, is far from an anomaly: this celebration of the imperfect album is one that required years of honed craft and dedicated focus to achieve, “For the first time in my career, the distance between what I hear and what the listener hears is paper-thin,” Doyle says. “Perhaps therein reveals a deeper truth that the perfectionist brain can often dissolve.”













m 13. [a sea of thoughts behind it]

It took Sibille Attar five years and a lot of soul searching to produce Paloma’s Hand, the 2018 EP that served as the long-awaited follow-up to her debut album, Sleepyhead. Both that record and her first EP, 2012’s The Flower’s Bed, seemingly left her with the world at her feet, with widespread critical acclaim, television appearances and a Swedish Grammy nomination for Best Newcomer. The years that followed, though, involved both creative and personal turmoil, and left her feeling increasingly adrift musically as the uglier side of the industry reared its head.

“For a long time in my life, I tried to sit in certain constellations to please other people,” she says. “And it didn’t work, because I could only do it for a little while before I’d get frustrated and want to do things my own way. There was a time when I felt like I couldn’t trust the business, and it was draining me of my love for the music. Eventually, I realised you can’t live your life trying to fit into somebody else’s mould all the time.”

Paloma’s Hand, a six-track pop odyssey that slalomed through genres, brought years of struggle to a long-overdue end. Just as importantly, though, it served as a much-needed palate cleanser for Attar, breaking through the barrier of writer’s block. Just two years later, she’s back with her second full-length, the aptly-titled A History of Silence, a reference to that long period of searching for her voice. “I thought about calling it A History of Violence, because in many ways, the album is like a violent attempt to tell my own story when I’ve been silenced,” she explains.

Key to the pace at which she was able to work this time around was a realisation that she functions best on her own - “I just felt like, “fuck it - I can’t be bothered dealing with other people and their opinions.” Accordingly, A History of Silence was written, recorded and mixed entirely by Attar herself, and where she needed a little bit of outside help - sweeping strings on the epic "Dream State", for instance - she penned the arrangements herself and had friends record them exactly as directed. “It seems like that’s the way I have to work to get things done, and it helped things come together really quickly - the first song was done at the start of 2019, and the last one was finished around the time the pandemic was taking hold. It was frantically fast, but I work one song at a time, so it was never too chaotic."

The album never sounds too chaotic, either; like Paloma's Hand, it takes a broad approach to pop, but one that’s anchored by the key through-lines of sharp melodies and atmospheric soundscapes. Largely recorded in Attar’s Stockholm apartment, A History of Silence finds room for everything from sparse alt-rock ("Go Hard or Go Home") to spacey, electropop (the Madonna cover "Oh Father"), via the more up-tempo likes of "Somebody’s Watching". “On some tracks, I had really specific influences in mind,” says Attar. “There’s a lot of eighties stuff going on, and I was deliberately tracking down those kinds of synthesizers to try to capture that sound.”

Attar shies away from talking in too much detail about the themes that run through A History of Silence - she wants the record to be received as universally as possible - but it’s clear that the album marks the beginning of a hugely exciting new chapter after the rebirth that Paloma’s Hand represented. “If anything, it’s like a preacher’s album,” she says. “I’m preaching to myself, teaching myself, telling myself off in the lyrics. It’s about accepting loss of power, changing expectations, and getting rid of some heavy baggage. That’s the way I made the album, and it meant I had no limits - every single idea I had, I tried. When I said I was falling out of love with music, that feels like a very long time ago now.”

Still only 29 years old when composing and recording this album, Kjetil Mulelid is one of the brightest talents in Norwegian jazz, and these days that really says something. In Kjetil's childhood home they had a subscription for a "Classical Masterpieces" CD collection. One that especially caught his attention, and would be played repeatedly, included the most melodic piano music of Beethoven, Chopin and Debussy. At the same time his elder brother introduced him to "old" rock like Led Zeppelin and Queen, winning him over and getting him interested in the guitar rather than the piano. When he later applied to music education in high school with electric guitar as his main instrument, the teachers asked if he played other instruments. He duly played a song on the piano, and heard nothing more of it. Months later, thinking he was enrolled as a guitarist, he was (to his horror) introduced to the class as a pianist. While he loved listening to classical piano music, playing it he felt tied up in the "rules" and the sheet music. It was simply more fun to play rock music on electric guitar_ surely a familiar story! Later a classically trained piano teacher played him some gospel and boogie woogie and introduced him to some simple pentatonic hooks on a C major blues. He hadn't really touched the piano in a very long time, but the same night he started experimenting and improvising around what she had shown him, and from that moment he was all into the piano and would dig further into improvisation and jazz. And the rest is history, as they say. Kjetil was sceptical when we first suggested a solo piano record back in early 2018, but the idéa slowly grew on him and when the pandemic exploded and other plans had to be scrapped, he suddenly had the time as well as the means to do it. So the bulk of the album was written in a hectic lockdown period and recorded on a steaming hot June day in the legendary Athletic Sound studio on their unique and characteristic Bösendorfer grand piano from 1919. Of the piano Kjetil says the sound is one of a kind, very clear and not typically "perfect" like most new ones. We can only wholeheartedly agree, it sounds great and is also very well recorded and mixed, giving the impression that you sit next to him, and not in a concert hall. In turn joyful, playful and elegant, the album fully shows Kjetil's harmonic and melodic mastery and the influence from those early introductions to the classical masters. Whether staying with the tune or taking off on improvised flights, there is an ease and assurance in his playing that betrays his young age.Kjetil has a bachelor degree in jazz performance from NTNU in Trondheim, has played in most European countries, Japan and USA, released two acclaimed albums with his trio on Rune Grammofon, and is also a member of Wako.

At the end of the '60s in Italy - but also abroad, especially in France and England - a very particular trend began to spread, that one known as 'Library music' or 'sonorization': as suggested by its name, those were real music libraries intended for the accompaniment of audiovisual productions such as

television programs, advertisements, documentaries and films. Since they were created in total artistic freedom condition, they are often difficult if not impossible to catalog, as they're not anchored to a specific musical genre; this freedom also allowed the authors to compose, sometimes in the most complete anonymity, experimental and avant-garde music, capable of anticipating the sounds that only many years later would have been widespread on a larger scale.

Egisto Macchi (1928-1992) was one of the most active composers of the sonorization and soundtrack genres together with artists such as Piero Umiliani, Alessandro Alessandroni and Ennio Morricone; he also collaborated with the latter in the experimental music project Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. "Fauna Marina" is among his most popular and sought-after by collectors titles: a set of eleven compositions intended to accompany the images of a hypothetical fish fauna documentary, an abstract hybrid of classical, contemporary and jazz music that is still fresh and surprising today.

"Fauna Marina" is part of a reissues series, made in collaboration with Edizioni Leonardi (Milan, Italy), of extremely rare library music LP's published between late '60s and early '70s, most of which have never been released again until today, and that are finally made available again for

collectors and sonorization music lovers.

Once upon a time, two operators stared at their screens. They sat silently for hours, their whole being dedicated to the task they had been assigned to. Days and nights passed in the same monotonous manner. Suddenly signals showed up on their monitors. Alarms started to ring. Both reacted at the same speed and did what they were supposed to do. Controls and commands were entered, as was protocol. After observing these waves for 61:01 minutes, everything became quiet again. What they had just witnessed made them wonder. For the first time they addressed each other. "The data is transferring through our system," announced the first. “Let us both check how this can be interpreted.” The second validated the response. Together, they looked at what had been recorded. Ideas raced through their complicated minds until they realized simultaneously: sounds! They listened. “Is this an unknown language?” one asked. “This is the first time this has been heard throughout our history,” the other answered. They listened again and again. “This electricity has been arranged to form a cohesive entity,” the first said. “Why would machines be used to create that?” the second mused. Something had awakened inside of them, an obsessive curiosity they had never experienced before. They did not understand and were blown away by the beauty of it. “Do you think it could have been left by humans before us?” one whispered. “If it was, these would be Major Signals,” the other concluded. As they processed these thoughts, the two artificial intelligences sat still.

If you are in search of the origins of Jamaican music this is a great album to start with. Mento was the original Jamaican folk music that predates Ska and Reggae. Played Exclusively on acoustic instruments Mento was based on both African and European elements. The 1950s was Mento’s golden age, as many artists recorded songs using a variety of rhythms and styles. It was the peak of Mento’s creativity and popularity and the birth of Jamaica’s recording industry.

“Walk the dog. Exercise. Make art.’The mind is happy when the body
is.’ Things I can potentially fill my days with if I am stuck at home
for months on end…Then, one day, I hear a frenetic, free drummer
playing in his garage a few blocks from me. And I think ‘interesting’.
I stand outside his garage staring at the wall, like a fool, for a minute,
then decide to leave a note on the car parked there. This is how I ended
up meeting and working with Ted Byrnes. He wasn’t creeped out, and
he ended up sending me a pile of truly spontaneous drums recordings
from the carport to work with. I decided to have every musician
come in one at at time and just take a wild pass at their track over the
drums. None of these people had ever met or played together. I was
the connecting thread. I scratched the surface initially with electric
bass, saxophone, guitars, cuica, synthesizers, flute and effects, but
soon realized I would need heavy hitters to make this place habitable.
“Greg Coates, upright bass expressionist extraordinaire, hacked
through the dense weeds, vines and frayed cabling. He lays the map
out and makes breathing room. Space to swing a cat. Tom Dolas
(keys), my often foil, came in and began tip-toeing through the rubble
and refuse. Dotting the layout with flecks of light, flights of fancy and
potential tangential trajectories. Then the finisher, Brad Caulkins on
horns. As always, Brad came in like grace itself, scanned the floor
for food, and huffed and puffed and blew the house down. He takes a
bruiser situation and lends it some warmth and hospitality, old school.
“After I spent a bit of time mixing and editing this down to a
palatable offering I couldn’t help but think about human consumption.
...Endless Garbage seemed a fitting title. A cacophonous and glorious
sketch of ourselves. For fans of Albert Ayler, ECM records, Gong,
improvisation, sustainability and consumption” —John Dwyer