Search:cognitive

After a successful album on DJ Hell’s legendary International Deejay Gigolo Records, Berlin-based but globally-minded Tunisian artist Skatman returns to his own ever-evolving label, Cognitive Prophecy, with Temples, a four-track EP steeped in the spirit of Detroit and laced with its own boundary-pushing vision.
The title track, ‘Temples’, channels a number of timeless Detroit cuts like Rolando’s Knights of the Jaguar into something deeply personal. It feels like stepping into a crowded, smoke and sweat-filled dance floor at 3 a.m., only to emerge into the sunrise hours later. ‘Can It Last Forever’ shifts the mood with pure euphoria, the kind of track that makes strangers grin at each other when the night is ending but no one’s ready to leave. Swiss techno mainstay Deetron steps in with two heavyweight reimaginings of ‘Temples’. His main remix is pure peak-time club tackle, big, propulsive, and precision-crafted for the moment when the night slips into another gear. The Dub strips things down to the bare essentials, locking you into the groove with relentless, club-sharpened focus.

Cognitive Prophecy returns for its second instalment with Skatman - and his ‘Superstitious Thoughts’ EP - a diverse 5-track deep dive into the label head’s current vision on melodic electronic music.

The latest drop on Art-E-Fax welcomes back deep cover braindance tinkerer Briain with a tape of warm and gritty electronica done the right way.

We last coaxed Barry O’Brien away from his day job as sound tech at beloved Berlin haunts Ohm and Tresor for a 12” back in 2019, and now he’s graced us with 11 slices of tweaked and freaked machine funk that should appeal to anyone who savours the maverick electro crossover between Rephlex and Drexciya.

The synth lines crunch and squirm and the beats stutter and rasp as Briain rolls out one wonkily perfect jam after another. In the intricate detail and movement that drives each track forwards you can sense the insular focus that comes with the best shut-in electronica. ‘Fist Fight Or Hug’ toys with sliced up breaks while ‘The Precipitous Descent Of Dignity’ deals in dystopian electro of the highest calibre. ‘Beal Bocht’; puts the drums to one side for a gloriously dislocated trip through FM synthesis and broken delay feedback and ‘Cognitive Dissonance’ revels in twitchy micro perc and delicate keys.

It’s a full-bodied album to sink your teeth into, and while it proudly carries the torch from certain legendary electronica forebears, it’s also delivered with all the charm and personality required to make for a future classic in the braindance canon.

Skatman Unveils Upcoming Release “Believin" on Cognitive Prophecy. Known for his genre-defying sets and productions, Skatman continues to shape the soundscape of contemporary electronic music with this bold new release.

Strong atmospheric dark techno from Sound Synthesis! Limited hand stamped copies..

Technical death metal troupe Cognitive are back with Abhorrence, their fifth full length album and a tremendously worthy successor to 2021’s Malevolent Thoughts of a Hastened Extinction. This is the New Jersey powerhouse quintet at its brutal best – unrelenting riffs leave the listener stunned, while a wave of thoughtful, devastating lyrics washes over. The album is a turbulent, draining but ultimately fulfilling experience. Cognitive started work on Abhorrence while touring Malevolent Thoughts of a Hastened Extinction, sending tracks back and forth to each other while trekking from one intense gig to another. This promises to be a big year for Cognitive, as they take Abhorrence on the road and bring more people into their vile new world. 13 years after the release of their debut EP, the band’s fifth full-lengther sees them continue to make giant strides forward while retaining the elements of their past efforts that got them this far. Abhorrence may provide therapeutic commentary about how messed up the world currently is, but also, ironically, provides a breath of fresh air. We’re all in this together, so catch Cognitive on the road this year.

Technical death metal troupe Cognitive are back with Abhorrence, their fifth full length album and a tremendously worthy successor to 2021’s Malevolent Thoughts of a Hastened Extinction. This is the New Jersey powerhouse quintet at its brutal best – unrelenting riffs leave the listener stunned, while a wave of thoughtful, devastating lyrics washes over. The album is a turbulent, draining but ultimately fulfilling experience. Cognitive started work on Abhorrence while touring Malevolent Thoughts of a Hastened Extinction, sending tracks back and forth to each other while trekking from one intense gig to another. This promises to be a big year for Cognitive, as they take Abhorrence on the road and bring more people into their vile new world. 13 years after the release of their debut EP, the band’s fifth full-lengther sees them continue to make giant strides forward while retaining the elements of their past efforts that got them this far. Abhorrence may provide therapeutic commentary about how messed up the world currently is, but also, ironically, provides a breath of fresh air. We’re all in this together, so catch Cognitive on the road this year.

Originally released in February 2012 and receiving positive critical reception, COGNITIVE is SOEN’s phenomenal debut album. The project features co-founding members, drummer Martin Lopez (OPETH, AMON AMARTH) and vocalist Joel Ekelöf (WILLOWTREE), Steve DiGiorgio (SADUS, TESTAMENT, DEATH, ICED EARTH) on bass and Kim Platbarzdis on guitars. The album was mixed by the Grammy Award-winning Canadian producer David Bottrill, who has worked with PETER GABRIEL, TOOL, SMASHING PUMPKINS and MUSE.

Described by Lopez himself as “melodic, heavy and intricate”, COGNITIVE, through its beautiful melodies, not only displays the performers’ superb technical proficiency, it also showcases the impressive and mysteriously warm vocals of Ekelöf.

Due to great public demand, SOEN will release COGNITIVE for the very first time on vinyl on January 27, 2023 via Silver Lining Music. This official SOEN-endorsed double vinyl release is complete with the bonus track “Writhen” and all of the album lyrics.

Cognitive Prophecy - a new project from the mind of Skatman, lands with ‘Pelennor Fields’ - a sonically diverse, deep and dreamy 3-track EP from UK-Based producer Jozef K.

A new platform focussed on true artistic expression and empowerment - Cognitive Prophecy aims to push boundaries, ignore trends, and thinking outside of the box; drawing inspiration from the past, but always looking to the future - encouraging artists to draw inspiration not only from the niche in which they sit, to create timeless electronic music going forward.

The title track ‘Pelennor Fields’, eases the listener in to the release, with intriguing, broad soundscapes, lush, ethereal pads, and gritty, lo-fi drums that collectively take the listener through a 8-minute sonic day-dream. A beautiful, melancholic and catchy lead melody keeps the track driving along throughout - playing wonderfully off the soaring background synths and ambiences, and leaving the listener craving more.

‘Aria’ continues the dream-like aesthetic, teasing the listener in with shimmering chord stabs, and a signature deep, organic drum groove - which is glued perfectly together with the constant motion of the bassline. The introduction of a strong breakbeat adds a unique twist, providing an intriguing contrast to the lush synth work - making this a truly memorable piece of dance-floor euphoria.

‘Every Face Becomes A Skull’ is certainly the tougher of the three tracks, and perfectly juxtaposes the ethereal qualities of the previous two tracks. A punchy, classic 909-drum groove - coupled with a hypnotic and groovy bassline and trippy melodics take the listener into a journey through the darker side of Jozef K’s sound, to round out Cognitive Prophecy’s first EP with a bang.

The career defining 4th album from New Jersey Tech Death Metallers COGNITIVE. Fusing all the best elements of Death Metal - Groove, speed, brutality, technical prowess and forward thinking songwriting; this is an album with one foot planted firmly in the future and the other equally in the old school realm. Have toured the US, Canada and Europe in the support of previous album 'Matricide' including the Bloodletting North America Tour 2019!

The career defining 4th album from New Jersey Tech Death Metallers COGNITIVE. Fusing all the best elements of Death Metal - Groove, speed, brutality, technical prowess and forward thinking songwriting; this is an album with one foot planted firmly in the future and the other equally in the old school realm. Have toured the US, Canada and Europe in the support of previous album 'Matricide' including the Bloodletting North America Tour 2019!

This is NovaMute's first release since MOTOR (Bryan Black and Oly Grasset) over ten years ago. The Release will be 3 weeks available as VINYL ONLY.

Nova Mute, a subsidiary of Mute (Depeche Mode, Goldfrapp, New Order, Liars, Erasure, Moby), began in 1992 as a response to the growing demand for techno releases in the UK. Originally presenting white labels and imports, NovaMute went on to release records by Plastikman, Speedy J, Juan Atkins, Luke Slater and Joey Beltram to name a few, this is Nova Mute's first release since over ten years ago

Nicolas Bougaïeff presents his new EP on seminal British imprint NovaMute. As a producer he harbours a diverse musical background, having studied in a conservatoire setting whilst foraying into anti-authoritarian rave culture. He is also a respected lecturer, regularly teaching masterclasses in composition and speaking at global events such as Mutek and Ableton Loop - the results of which come to life in the inquisitive spirit of his productions. Cognitive Resonance explores elements of psytrance, gabber and techno through a compositional lens, drawing on the artist's love for avant-garde forms and long-standing relationship with the electronic music community. The title track lays out long, expansive phrases and warped crescendos to create a disorienting structure, whilst distant harmonies, distorted kick drums and shattering effects merge into a hypnotic form on 'Truthful Hyperbole'. Lastly, 'Fake News' mangles our sense of rhythmic familiarity, disrupting the 4/4 beat with a complex metre and sinister melody. This is NovaMute's first release since MOTOR (Bryan Black and Oly Grasset) over ten years ago. T as well as forging invaluable links with labels such as Tresor and Probe, which allowed them to license rare tracks for a wider audience. Forthcoming releases on NovaMute will include EP's from Terence Fixmer and Charlotte de Witte.

Droid Recordings presents a new 2-tracker from the talented Argentian producer Flug. 'Cognitive Process' burrows through the listener's subconscious, starting on the A side with 'Experience,' a polyrhythmic vortex driven by a buzzing, 2-pitch motif.
'Senses' builds hypnotically around a single, repeating tone into a slamming, aggressive power. Both tracks keep things driving and fast-paced toward the 130 BPM range.

Qestion is an emerging talent from Madrid and, alongside Kwartz, is part of the "Body Unknown" project with which he has edited on Horo.

Now Qestion makes his solo debut via Order&Devotion and, following the wake of the label, he delivers a five track EP (including a remix by head honcho Kwartz) impregnated with dark atmospheres, killer synths, and powerful beats.

Be As One debuting a new exclusive artist on the imprint, The mysterious "Black Hypnotist", with a superb four, straight to the floor and well crafted trippy techno cuts...

It's A Funny Old World, And Yet Again, The Black Dog Have Provided The Soundtrack. Our Fast-approaching Dystopia Has Been Envisioned And Documented By The Band For Decades. Now, The Black Dog's Two New Albums, Post -truth And Black Daisy Wheel, Translate Their Growing Horror Into Some Of Their Most Accessible And Impactful Music, Translating Our Manufactured Reality Into High Energy Dancefloor Constructions On Post -truth, And Reflective Ambient Excursions On Black Daisy Wheel. Long Familiar With The Tropes And Pitfalls Of Esoteric Undergrounds, In Both The Pre- And Post Internet Eras, The Black Dog Have Ventured Deep Into Contemporary Conspiratorial Cultures With A Trenchantly Critical Eye. In The 80s, Conspiracy Theories Were A Tonic For A Sceptical Mind, A Stimulant To Agile Thinking. Today, They Have Become The Stock In Trade Of Mainstream Political Influence. The Scene Has Morphed Into A Rabbit Hole Where Nothing Is 'really' Real, Everything Is A Hoax, And Everyone Is Out To Get You. The Mindset Is Beyond Paranoid, The Discourse So Far Post-fact That Only Opinion And Assumed Identity Matter. Arguing Against Proven Science Is A Part Of The Entry Criteria, And Wilful Pedantry Its Standard Currency. The Impact On Mental Health Is Corrosive: Fear, Uncertainty And Doubt Multiply And Replicate Until The Most Ridiculous Theories Are Invented To Explain The Most Basic Things: Tarmac, Banana Skins, Duvets. Auto-suggestion Is Rife, Where Willing Victims Drink Bleach (mms) At The Behest Of Youtube Videos, Flat-earthers Are Taken Seriously, And The Manufactured Fearful Believe They Are Being Gang-stalked For Finding Monsters On Pixelated Screens. The Distinction Between The Real World And The World Of An Auto-hoaxer Is So Blurred That Reality Melts Away; You're Only Ever One Personal Detail Away From Being Doxxed, At Which Point Reality Bites Back, Hard. You Couldn't Make It Up, Even Though That Is Exactly What The Conspiratorial Fringe (now One Sharp Corner From The Mainstream) Always Do. The Fact That There Are Real People Involved In This Scene Creates A Real Sense Of Pathos And Anger Which Is Deeply Embedded In The Music On These Two Albums. As Soon As You Start Engaging With People In The So-called 'truth Movement', One Minute It's Painful, But The Next Can Be Genuinely Funny; These Are People Who Are Both On Edge And Upon The Edge Of A Larger Social And Political Reality That, For Worse And For (even) Worse, Defines Our Times. Hence These Two Very Different Albums. Black Daisy Wheel Is Reflective, Often Intense, Frequently Compassionate; While Post -truth Was Written While The Black Dog Was Fully Engaged With People Whose Paranoia Was In Full Swing. Welcome To Our Disinformation.

Limited To 500 Copies - 180g

It's A Funny Old World, And Yet Again, The Black Dog Have Provided The Soundtrack. Our Fast-approaching Dystopia Has Been Envisioned And Documented By The Band For Decades. Now, The Black Dog's Two New Albums, Post -truth And Black Daisy Wheel, Translate Their Growing Horror Into Some Of Their Most Accessible And Impactful Music, Translating Our Manufactured Reality Into High Energy Dancefloor Constructions On Post -truth, And Reflective Ambient Excursions On Black Daisy Wheel.

Long Familiar With The Tropes And Pitfalls Of Esoteric Undergrounds, In Both The Pre- And Post Internet Eras, The Black Dog Have Ventured Deep Into Contemporary Conspiratorial Cultures With A Trenchantly Critical Eye. In The 80s, Conspiracy Theories Were A Tonic For A Sceptical Mind, A Stimulant To Agile Thinking. Today, They Have Become The Stock In Trade Of Mainstream Political Influence. The Scene Has Morphed Into A Rabbit Hole Where Nothing Is 'really' Real, Everything Is A Hoax, And Everyone Is Out To Get You. The Mindset Is Beyond Paranoid, The Discourse So Far Post-fact That Only Opinion And Assumed Identity Matter. Arguing Against Proven Science Is A Part Of The Entry Criteria, And Wilful Pedantry Its Standard Currency. The Impact On Mental Health Is Corrosive: Fear, Uncertainty And Doubt Multiply And Replicate Until The Most Ridiculous Theories Are Invented To Explain The Most Basic Things: Tarmac, Banana Skins, Duvets. Auto-suggestion Is Rife, Where Willing Victims Drink Bleach (mms) At The Behest Of Youtube Videos, Flat-earthers Are Taken Seriously, And The Manufactured Fearful Believe They Are Being Gang-stalked For Finding Monsters On Pixelated Screens. The Distinction Between The Real World And The World Of An Auto-hoaxer Is So Blurred That Reality Melts Away; You're Only Ever One Personal Detail Away From Being Doxxed, At Which Point Reality Bites Back, Hard.

You Couldn't Make It Up, Even Though That Is Exactly What The Conspiratorial Fringe (now One Sharp Corner From The Mainstream) Always Do. The Fact That There Are Real People Involved In This Scene Creates A Real Sense Of Pathos And Anger Which Is Deeply Embedded In The Music On These Two Albums. As Soon As You Start Engaging With People In The So-called 'truth Movement', One Minute It's Painful, But The Next Can Be Genuinely Funny; These Are People Who Are Both On Edge And Upon The Edge Of A Larger Social And Political Reality That, For Worse And For (even) Worse, Defines Our Times. Hence These Two Very Different Albums. Black Daisy Wheel Is Reflective, Often Intense, Frequently Compassionate; While Post -truth Was Written While The Black Dog Was Fully Engaged With People Whose Paranoia Was In Full Swing.

Welcome To Our Disinformation.

Limited To 500 Copies - 180g

In a post apocalyptic world, a squad of heroes fights to save what remains of humanity. A dystopian future among landscapes, desolate alien enemies and mysterious architectures; the survival of our species becomes an unexpected return to life. Music by Giorgio Gigli with remixes from Acronym and Rafael Anton Irisarri.

recorded and produced by christina nemec in vienna and horner wald 2016
mastered and cut at dubplates & mastering, berlin 2017

artwork by susi klocker

On her latest release, chra aka Christina Nemec is sketching out a psychogeographical map, that guides you to the border of the internal and external world - 'on a fateful morning' lets you enter a sphere where the imaginary and the subliminal cross. Evoking abstract images that transcend reality, chra installs an autarchic time-and-space-continuum of vague, nocturnal beauty. Pastose bass drones, airy ambient synths and processed audio-samples form a hypnotic stream that lets you enter an altered state of mind. By subtly intertwining musical and non musical sounds chra is weaving an intensely atmospheric, poetic tableau of emptied spaces left to our imagination. It's the pulse of arcane memories that is filling these sonic landscapes, operating deep within our subconscious.

'on a fateful morning' is haunting music to play in the dark - conspirative, uncanny, with a dystopian smack.

For the thirteenth release, we are pleased to invite the Argentinian prodigy Jonas Kopp. Following the path of his recent works on Tresor, « Cosmic Control Center Ep » starts with « Cognitive Process » and « Metaprogramming » which are more introspective and abstract whereas « Vortex » is the climax, the release of energy. To conclude « Human Bio Computer » adds something tragic, the final touch to the picture. Let's start the ride

With their self-titled release on Titrate Records, Post Coma presents two twenty-minute times even dissociation — treating the improvisation as a shared descent into the inner psyche. Listening as much to each other as to the remnants of their own decisions, the music emerges as a kind of cognitive experiment — a document of mutual attunement and the debris that gathers in its wake. The result lies suspended between motion and conclusion, leaving space for what lingers beyond.

pdqb is an entity without a fixed form, moving through multiple timelines at once, performing in all of them simultaneously.

Every tone on this record was sampled somewhere else: in collapsed futures, unfinished pasts, and inside stress loops that never resolved. The tracks are not composed - they are retrieved, stitched together from moments that already happened and moments that haven't happened yet.

The music is unstable, dependent on who listens, and in which dimension, the tracks re-arrange themselves, revealing different harmonics, different fears, different exits. No two listeners hear the same, even if they play it at the same time.

The überskilled Detroit remixers provide a solution for Earthbound listeners - those unable to time-travel or shapeshift: By filtering pdqb's multidimensional signal through machine discipline, they force a temporary alignment - a version of a track that sounds the same to most listeners. Only then does collective rhythm become possible, a shared timeline where bodies on a dancefloor move to the same future at once.

---

Dr. Paul Dominic Quentin Bernard defines Future Traumatic Stress Disorder as a cognitive condition marked by a reversal of mnemonic orientation. Memory, in this model, no longer operates retrospectively but functions prospectively, encoding anticipated survival outcomes rather than past experience. Affected subjects do not recall what has been lived through; instead, they retain anticipatory memory structures of what will be survived. Bernard notes that this temporal inversion produces sustained psychological stress and warrants further empirical investigation.

Continuum - Vol. 16.219, Peer-Reviewed Scientific Journal

The Trip To Vega is about deep outer space odyssey that occurs in the process of traveling from Earth through the Cosmos to another "favorable" star system 25.3 light-years away.

The time is year 2097, Sept 23rd.

To this day, Earthlings have managed to dodge some of nature's more dangerous extremities, massive volcanic eruptions, Earthquakes, solar burst that knocked out the Planet's entire electrical grid for 3 years, numerous plagues of disease, food and fresh water shortages, domestic and International Wars and many other life-changing operas, but for this event, what remains is a realization that has no remedy. The cause: Earth's physicality has changed. It is no longer favorable for living things.

It is the constant shifting of the planet's internal tectonic plates which has unfortunately produced an unexpected and impassable dilemma.

Because of the collisions, deep within the planet's core, the planet is now producing an extraordinary amount of sound that includes a specific harmonic frequency that erodes the natural senses of all life on Earth.

It is intensifying. It is intolerable and it is unlivable.

Yet, some humans prefer to stay, to "ride it out" like the Titanic captain going down with his ship. Some, in total disbelief as some have concluded it is the second coming of Jesus Christ. But for most, the decision is clear. Tolive another day, leaving is the only rational choice.

At an increasing rate, scientific research data shows that humans and most animals, excluding the Jellyfish will eventually lose the usage of hearing and are to greatly suffer from an array of other neurological and psychological effects. The sense of touch and taste, sleep depreciation, severe nerve damage, constant hallucinations. Everyone will lose many of their cognitive abilities within an estimated 12 months from now.

On this day and every 7 days afterwards until all registered passengers have departed, the first of a fleet of large number of massive size spacecraft carrying approximately 1 million humans per vessel will permanently leave Earth to begin the long and adventurous trek across outer space to a new home: Vega.

This is not a precautionary tale as there is nothing to learn. Instead, a decision has been made and a Trip To Vega is the consequence.

- Jeff Mills

One of contemporary ambient’s preeminent figures lands on its leading label, enacting a transition into a new phase of rhythmic noise and tonal shadowplay laced with peculiar sensitivities, wrangling Dilloway-influenced tape noise thru ASMR ambience, fritzed dub techno, layered vocal drone and ritualistic mantras.

Perila steps up solo with a heavily satisfying debut for West Mineral, investigating negative space and states of subconsciousness. The shift in tone feeds forward into arcane realms of resonant dark ambient and dream-pop, harnessed in amorphous structures using dub-as-method. It’s wholly immersive stuff in a way that’s long been Perlia’s calling card, but here more careful in its command of personalised, atmospheric physics from the Coil-esque ‘cheerleader’, thru the deeply smudged and sexy trip hop of ‘lava’, and the oozing, sloshing OOBE-like spectres of ‘give it all’.

The title of the album is a reference to Carl Jung’s phrase "all haste is of the devil” which informs Perila’s writing process here; she slows down in an attempt to feel more and tap into her shadow self. Album opener 'cheerbleeder' is a doomed, tremolo-heavy mass of ghost notes, while the rattling chains and strangulated voices on ‘metal snax' sounds like they belong on a Wolf Eyes tape. 'grain levy tep dusk' strikes closer to recently unearthed industrial plates from Tolerance and Mentocome, with rusted clangs threaded into deflated, half-speed pulses. The album keeps growing from there, shifting and expanding as Perila exhales and absorbs her cognitive blind spots. She credits "trance states" for helping her let go, and we broadly get to experience that on the mantra-like 'thunder me' and the blurry all-vocal highlight 'hold my leg', which sounds like it could have been snatched from Grouper's 'Way Their Crept' sessions.

As with all of Alexandra Zakharenko’s work under various aliases - Aseptic Stir, Baby Bong, Wedontneedwords, Perila - her allure is self-evident to lovers of textured, diffuse electronics, and never more so than on this lip-bitingly potent suite of delicacies and primordial urges, perfectly balancing ancient and techngnostic aspects with an x-amount of seductive strangeness left in the margins.

The prolific, party-starting Det Gode Selskab collective continues to strengthen its wax artillery with another spaced-out exploration from label affiliate A:G. Based in Oslo, the label and artist have built a strong affinity over the years, with DGS regularly releasing his music and inviting him to perform at a host of events. His “Time Factor” EP is essential electro listening, wandering between rippling shades of acid and tripped-out minimalistic movements, synonymous with the Norwegian beatmaker’s sound. It’s a hazy quest through four original cuts, packed with raw and gritty attitude.

The slinky first outing of the EP goes by the name “Crash.” Anticipation builds as the winding bassline and quirky drum patterns create a sense of retro gaming exploration. “Sleepwalking” is another diverse entry from the talented producer—a pensive yet driven motion propels the track’s energy, laced with slick hi-hats and acid-laden beats.

On the B-side, outer-galaxy transmissions go full steam ahead with the title track “Time Factor”, animated grooves and continuous evolution, climaxing with bright, uplifting synths. Plucky, tight drums lead the way in the final frontier, “Cognitive Resonance”—another classy dance floor outing from A:G, once again showcasing why he’s a producer to keep close tabs on.

Striking while it’s hot, A:G delivers another heater on a label that shows no signs of slowing down in the years to come, and if their previous releases are anything to go by, this one will be moving fast!

432HERTZ BERLIN Returns With a Fierce Second Vinyl: “303rd Dimensions”

After the hypnotic depths of its debut release, 432HERTZ BERLIN surges back with a blistering six-track compilation crafted for the more daring corners of the dancefloor.
“303rd Dimensions” is a raw and relentless journey through acid-laced techno and electro, where analog grit meets mind-expanding energy.

The label continues to push boundaries, cementing its place in Berlin’s underground with a second release that’s as functional as it is uncompromising.

Side A: Acid Pressure and Dancefloor Dynamics

• A1: Cognitive Dissonance – Dan Piu
An acid-drenched techno voyage from Dan Piu, where 90s-inspired psycho vocals intertwine with layered pads and driving TB-303 lines. Tension builds, reality blurs.

• A2: Reverse – Rinaldo Makaj
Rinaldo Makaj delivers a raw analog workout with “Reverse”: pounding drums, sizzling acid riffs, and sensual vocal snippets collide in a late-night warehouse ritual.

• A3: TAR 1000 – Electric City
A full-throttle electro weapon — massive analog sound design, laser-sharp grooves, and pure machine funk engineered for peak-time destruction.


Side B: Acid Tension and Mind Games

• B1: Drop The Bass – Gela
Obscure, elegant, and acid-infused — Gela crafts a stripped-back electro trip that hypnotizes dancers with subtle menace and percussive clarity.

• B2: Pressure – Mathii
Mystical vocals echo through a lattice of electro arpeggios, as Mathii channels tension and atmosphere into a slow-burning, magnetic groove.

• B3: Functionality – Gianluca Pellerano
A masterclass in minimal effectiveness — Gianluca Pellerano’s contribution is pure dancefloor utility, built with MPS precision, rhythmic control, and vocal finesse.

A Testament to Underground Electronic Music

Curated by Rinaldo Makaj, 432HERTZ BERLIN's second vinyl release is a powerful testament to the boundless creativity and diversity of underground electronic music.

“To Model Phenomena” is a scientific concept that describes a computer’s ability to emulate, regardless of whether the emulated phenomenon exists outside its circuits or is purely imaginary.

Modeling communication platforms enables us to interact with each other or with computers. Modeling behavior patterns, nuclear fusion, or, as in the case of scientists from the Human Brain Project, a virtual human brain, allows us to simulate cognitive processes such as perception, memory, and decision-making, providing insight into the nature of human thought.

In this record, the phenomena modeled are those moments when the mind leaps into the void, confronting new paradigms. For instance, when science, art, or mass media introduces new information, propelling us into a transformed reality.

From this starting point, European musician Shifting Heigo maps a path between realities, evolving his narrative as his music unfolds. This work draws inspiration from Curtis Roads (vice chair of Media Arts and Technology at the UCSB) and his studies on granular synthesis and time scales, where each track on To Model Phenomena evokes a sense of movement, where nothing begins or ends in quite the same way.

A musician with strong ties to new technologies, Shifting Heigo has collaborated with the University of Málaga (Spain) in its PH Degree Program in video game design, composing interactive music, while also singing as part of the tenor section in the Qatar Concert Choir, affiliated with the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra.

Currently based in Abu Dhabi, he is now part of a circle of electronic musicians surrounding the New York University Abu Dhabi, an institution that supports electronic and experimental music across the Middle East.

To Model Phenomena is the result of his search for a unique voice as a musician, where ternary rhythms, noise, and silence shape the narrative. This is a discourse from a musician’s perspective on the changes that science, technology, art, and the rapid flow of information demand of us. A direct gaze into the fear of change.

Berlin-based Italian artist expands the musical facets of the label with his first vinyl. The EP ventures into an intriguing cognitive space where club rhythms meet abstract organic and experimental sounds, written inbetween January and March 2024, A dead river is defined by its dynamic energy and rich layered textures.

The sounds emerge from a synergie of pure analog processing and modern digital sound design. In the building blocks are combined atonal drones and atmospheric elements to create moody storytelling. Uptempo beats on a solid groovy structure pronounce his repetitive groove punchy tribalism.

– Meow, Doc! Are you serious?!
– Hopefully, now we'll be able to program the cognitive processes of different creatures.
– The intranasal mutagen?
– With consciousness, too!

Spacelunch devoted all of his spare time to developing the virus. Once in the body, its molecules activate: they replace the configuration of neurotransmitters and start evolving independently. A small dosage of vapours reactivates brain navigation, whereas readings are taken from a nano-oscilloscope and sent to a tablet for further analysis. Augmented reality has long gone beyond virtuality, ladies and gentlemen!

The simulation of the collective mind has undergone a series of public tests initiated by enthusiasts from the Venus Biomolecular Institute. After a data leak from the lab's journal, the dangerous technology could have fallen into the hands of Aerospace Corporation, but luckily was intercepted by the Meta-Warp operational unit. Putting the development on pause, they shut down access to any information about the project. It remained unexplored, but the Professor's inquisitive mind wanted to understand the discovery that could change the future.

2026 Repress

Originally released in 2007 on CD and now re-released on double vinyl. "Heimische Gefilde" was the second full-length release on Traum at that time from Westerwald based DJ, producer and park ranger, Dominik Eulberg. Dominik has since then expended his activities enormously now appearing as a book author with best selling books in the German official bestseller list. He ist he ambassador of the most popular Conservation Union in Germany NABU, he has created a bird quartet and a hand made insect hotel and appears on national German TV regularly next playing in clubs world wide and producing stunning music. "Heimische Gefilde" includes spoken words by the man himself and the release won the price of the German critic awards for music. It is the only compilation that comprises a selection of Dominik Eulberg’s best early works and it is for the first time available on vinyl now.

As Dominik Eulberg says in his own words: „After more than 16 years, "Heimische Gefilde" is finally released on vinyl. At that time it was still a daring experiment to combine music with lustful science communication. Quickly one was thrown into the pot of the "weird eco-techno sound owl". Today, we are increasingly finding that we cannot stop the impending ecocide in a cognitive way. For more than 60 years we have known about the concrete threats to humanity from global warming and species extinction; yet nothing changes. Many alarmist efforts fail miserably, red lists grow longer and longer each year, and global temperatures continue to rise unchecked. It is becoming clearer and clearer that we have to reach out to our fellow human beings in a positive emotional way in order to make a difference, because we only protect what we love. Then sentimental minorities become majorities that change something. Art and culture are low-threshold vectors to make things majority-friendly. They are a fertile and valuable breeding ground to sensitize people outside the eco-bubble and to let their environment become a co-environment again. Today my transdisipilnary work is inseparable. I write books, develop games, lecture, make film, and am a visiting scholar at museums. "Heimische Gefilde" was a valuable cornerstone for my creative work, a very intrinsic work to go my very own way.“

We would also like quote here the description of Forced Exposure done at the time when the album was originally recorded and released to keep the authentic feel: „The influence of nature (bird twitters, owl hoots, flowing water, crunching leaves) and other domestic sounds has made his music easy to identify with. „Heimische Gefilde" means "native habitat," and this release takes the concept of his debut a step further and at the same time is a retrospective of his major hits. Tracks like "Die Rotbauchunken vom Tegernsee" and "Björn Borkenkäfer" are included here in unreleased edits that are even stronger than the originals, and as a bonus, previously vinyl-only

Formed in 2021, the band have been maturing since their very first single. Their live performances and sonic evolution have created an undeniable buzz over the years. Recent single Cognitive Dissonance suggests this new chapter is their best yet, this confident debut album is sure to be a crowd pleaser.

DFR is back with a rather mysterious alias first appearance. Signal Priest delivers four dance-floor workouts that intersect between techno, trance and electro with admirable sense. TIP

2x12" Brown Marbled Vinyl 2026 Repress

A foray into deep, organic, cinematic dance music. Subterranean bass, intercepted alien transmissions, and stripped down dance-beats meld with sheets of sounds that roll over the listener like waves lapping up on the shore. Shimmering, watery, brain hemisphere synchronization tones caress and melt stress away. Dance floor friendly tracks that work equally well in one s private listening space. Immersive music with a distinctive aquatic quality. Inspired by Detroit & Berlin s dance genres, but tempered by more ambience / atmosphere than one would expect from those genres. Music without harshness or rough edges. Fuzzy, out-of-focus, soft-sounds that slip in and out of the listener's consciousness. Uniquely melds current dance rhythms with lushness and spirituality. Synesthetic sounds that trigger sensory experiences in cognitive pathways other than hearing smells of perfumes, thoughts of colours, and altered perception of time and space. Psychoacoustic, cerebral, electronic listening music for those wanting a different experience than the current harsher, darker dance trends are offering. Responsibly made gentle music designed from the ground-up to have a positive effect on the nervous system and leave the listener invigorated and recharged. Chi-building sonic balm. Timeless, exotic dance tracks for a new school of electronic music enthusiasts who are searching for beautiful sounds, crafted with a higher purpose in mind.

Across an extensive suite of enchanting miniatures, Matthias Kremsreiter and Christian Schoppik present the hypnagogic vision of Taghelle Nacht. Recording under their respective Roudi Vagou and Läuten der Seele aliases, Kremsreiter and Schoppik combine their distinct but equally accomplished instrumental practices into a new collaboration that weaves swooning samples amongst instrumental passages. They lead us through 16 vignettes that revel in the cognitive dissonance and seductive magic of moonlight at midnight.

Both artists have past form within the folds of contemporary experimental electronic music in Germany. Kremsreiter's work as alibikonkret has manifested on DIY tape releases created with a methodical, technically-minded approach. Debuting his Roudi Vagou pseudonym on Taghelle Nacht, he pivots to a more playful, instinctively felt method that allows the compositions to flow with a natural cadence. Schoppik has been a key figure in the celebrated dark-ambient-folk scene, not least as part of the group Brannten Schnüre. His work as Läuten der Seele includes the acclaimed 'water trilogy' of LPs between 2022 and 2024, with a greater emphasis on instrumental, atmospheric production, and a last, stunning collaborative album with Nový Sv?t's Jota Solo.

On Taghelle Nacht the precise ingredients of each piece soften at the edges as tape loops and swathes of reverb seal the joints between spellbinding melodic refrains. Opening track and lead single 'Gleisende Lichter' sets the tone with ghostly murmurs, spine-tingling string refrains and splashes of cymbal that cut through the gloom with stark clarity. A lilting romanticism stirs at the heart of the orchestral samples that populate the likes of "Grenzu?berschreitung" - old-world beauty sometimes buried in dust, elsewhere rendered with startling clarity. 'So Süß' lets buzzing, sustained drones and dissonant sweeps of extended technique glide in and out of each other. Granular processing subtly breaks apart the mellow swell on 'Komischer Anruf', and forlorn sax calls out into heavy-hearted space on 'Glaskopf Mit Watte'. At every turn a new scene is painted, distinct from the last and yet all bound up in the pervasive, pale blue light cast over the sleeping landscape Kremsreiter and Schoppik have sculpted.

Snatches of song drift by like dreamlike fragments, and achingly tender flourishes fleetingly appear and retreat - ideas and expressions momentarily caught in the light before retreating into the shadows once more. This is the evocative world of Taghelle Nacht - an unsettling depiction of the surreal blend of memories and imagination that merge into each other once the sun goes down.

Koma Saxo, the explosive quintet led by Berlin-based Swedish bassist/producer Petter Eldh, returns on We Jazz Records with their new album, cut live at We Jazz Festival in Helsinki, December 2019. Whereas their lauded debut was a triumph of remapping the goal posts for an acoustic jazz combo for the 2020's, "LIVE" takes you right to the heart of the actual ensemble sound, with 5 musicians tearing the place down, no post production. From the fiery opening sequence kicking off with "Euro Koma", on to the much calmer beauty of "Waltz Me, Waltz Me Baby, All Night Long" and the first single "Fiskeskärsmelodin", the 8-song set is pure fire, never failing to convey the extraordinary intensity of the group: Eldh on bass, Otis Sandsjö (Y-OTIS), Jonas Kullhammar and Mikko Innanen on saxes, and Christian Lillinger on drums.

An excerpt of liner notes by Peter Margasak:

"When I first saw Petter Eldh's quintet Koma Saxo in Berlin in September of 2019 I was floored. The raw, sprinting energy of the band was both infectious and astonishing, but what I most remember was a sense of cognitive dissonance. Was this the same combo that recorded a fantastic eponymous 2019 studio album that represented one of the most convincing, pleasurable, and driving hybrid's of searing post-bop and the production ethos of hip-hop? There have been endless stabs by producers trying to remap the machinations of an organic, all-acoustic jazz band with electronic post-production, but Eldh, channeling a sonic language heavily informed by J Dilla, nailed it in a way I'd never experienced before. Having the trust of his three imaginative, high-octane saxophonists—Jonas Kullhammar, Otis Sandsjö, and Mikko Innanen—he used their grainy sound as raw material, smudging and smearing it like a painter creating new hues on a palette, and then extending, editing, and powering it up within the imperturbable grooves meted out by he and drummer Christian Lillinger. He didn't really alter the essential core of the band's performances. There's no question that a seriously burning quintet had laid the tracks down, even if the performances reflected the kind of concision many jazz groups adapt for a studio endeavor. But the way his jacked-up bass lines and Lillinger's impossibly peripatetic, stuttering rhythms buffeted the massed saxophones elevated Koma Saxo to plane all its own, and I repeatedly returned to that place—half the time trying to figure out what the hell Eldh had done, and the other half lost in giddy ecstasy.

The live show, on the other hand, featured the band without any production tricks. Its soaring, pithy repertoire came alive in a different way, and this excellent live recording from the 2019 We Jazz Festival, has reminded me of how fun and visceral that experience was."

Koma Saxo "LIVE" is released by We Jazz Records on 30 April 2021 on two vinyl editions (silver + black), as a bundle with an unreleased 7" (+ silver vinyl edition), on CD and digitally. The vinyl versions plus the CD come complete with silver embossed lettering. The vinyl is delivered on heavy-duty tip-on sleeve, complete with an insert featuring liner notes by Peter Margasak, Andreas Müller, Matti Nives and Petter Eldh.

a 01: Euro Koma (Live) feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger
b 02: Puls Koma (Live) feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger
c 03: Fanfarum for Komarum III (Live) feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger
[d] 04: Waltz Me Baby, Waltz Me All Night Long (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]
[e] 05: Otis and Christian (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö & Christian Lillinger]
[f] 06: Blumer (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]
[g] 07: Fiskeskärsmelodin (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]
[feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]

Silver Vinyl

Koma Saxo, the explosive quintet led by Berlin-based Swedish bassist/producer Petter Eldh, returns on We Jazz Records with their new album, cut live at We Jazz Festival in Helsinki, December 2019. Whereas their lauded debut was a triumph of remapping the goal posts for an acoustic jazz combo for the 2020's, "LIVE" takes you right to the heart of the actual ensemble sound, with 5 musicians tearing the place down, no post production. From the fiery opening sequence kicking off with "Euro Koma", on to the much calmer beauty of "Waltz Me, Waltz Me Baby, All Night Long" and the first single "Fiskeskärsmelodin", the 8-song set is pure fire, never failing to convey the extraordinary intensity of the group: Eldh on bass, Otis Sandsjö (Y-OTIS), Jonas Kullhammar and Mikko Innanen on saxes, and Christian Lillinger on drums.

An excerpt of liner notes by Peter Margasak:

"When I first saw Petter Eldh's quintet Koma Saxo in Berlin in September of 2019 I was floored. The raw, sprinting energy of the band was both infectious and astonishing, but what I most remember was a sense of cognitive dissonance. Was this the same combo that recorded a fantastic eponymous 2019 studio album that represented one of the most convincing, pleasurable, and driving hybrid's of searing post-bop and the production ethos of hip-hop? There have been endless stabs by producers trying to remap the machinations of an organic, all-acoustic jazz band with electronic post-production, but Eldh, channeling a sonic language heavily informed by J Dilla, nailed it in a way I'd never experienced before. Having the trust of his three imaginative, high-octane saxophonists—Jonas Kullhammar, Otis Sandsjö, and Mikko Innanen—he used their grainy sound as raw material, smudging and smearing it like a painter creating new hues on a palette, and then extending, editing, and powering it up within the imperturbable grooves meted out by he and drummer Christian Lillinger. He didn't really alter the essential core of the band's performances. There's no question that a seriously burning quintet had laid the tracks down, even if the performances reflected the kind of concision many jazz groups adapt for a studio endeavor. But the way his jacked-up bass lines and Lillinger's impossibly peripatetic, stuttering rhythms buffeted the massed saxophones elevated Koma Saxo to plane all its own, and I repeatedly returned to that place—half the time trying to figure out what the hell Eldh had done, and the other half lost in giddy ecstasy.

The live show, on the other hand, featured the band without any production tricks. Its soaring, pithy repertoire came alive in a different way, and this excellent live recording from the 2019 We Jazz Festival, has reminded me of how fun and visceral that experience was."

Koma Saxo "LIVE" is released by We Jazz Records on 30 April 2021 on two vinyl editions (silver + black), as a bundle with an unreleased 7" (+ silver vinyl edition), on CD and digitally. The vinyl versions plus the CD come complete with silver embossed lettering. The vinyl is delivered on heavy-duty tip-on sleeve, complete with an insert featuring liner notes by Peter Margasak, Andreas Müller, Matti Nives and Petter Eldh.

a 01: Euro Koma (Live) feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger
b 02: Puls Koma (Live) feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger
c 03: Fanfarum for Komarum III (Live) feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger
d 04: Waltz Me Baby, Waltz Me All Night Long (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]
[e] 05: Otis and Christian (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö & Christian Lillinger]
[f] 06: Blumer (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]
[g] 07: Fiskeskärsmelodin (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]
[feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]

[a] 01: Euro Koma (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]
[b] 02: Puls Koma (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]
[c] 03: Fanfarum for Komarum III (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]
[d] 04: Waltz Me Baby, Waltz Me All Night Long (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]
[e] 05: Otis and Christian (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö & Christian Lillinger]
[f] 06: Blumer (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]
[g] 07: Fiskeskärsmelodin (Live) [feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]
[feat. Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar, Mikko Innanen & Christian Lillinger]

Shadows Lifted from Invisible Hands is an autobiographical record, comprised of four songs that Hoff refers to as ambient media. Each track is composed from sources drawn from his own involuntary aural landscape, specifically musical earworms and tinnitus frequencies.

Neither sound nor a daydream, the earworm (or stuck song) emblematizes music as a commercial form—immediate, ubiquitous, and persistent. Likewise, tinnitus is inaudible and unscrupulous, manifesting across a spectrum of frequencies at will. The cognitive swirling of these phenomena provides an ambivalent, internal soundtrack that scores a person’s movement through the world.

Those suffering from tinnitus or those who have grown accustomed to the “Tinnitus Effect” in movies will likely recognize the buzzing pitches on the record, but will likely not recognize the songs. Distorted and distilled, Shadows Lifted from Invisible Hands features altered versions of four commercial pop songs: Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” Madonna’s “Into the Groove,” and Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.”

Having been haunted by these songs on and off for years, Hoff tweaks the tracks, transposing and recomposing them for orchestral instrumentation. Speaking back to these involuntary echoes, these tracks go to great lengths to obfuscate their sources; to be sure not to simply re-introduce each earworm, as though they were samples. Otherwise, what’s the point? No one needs another stream.

Besides, earworms are not music, although we perceive them as such. They are non-cochlear and exist as an affective force that is neither subjective nor objective, which is to say they are an invasive—and alien—phenomenon. Like tinnitus, they are aggravated by economic, social, and environmental forces as well as emotional states, mental health, and aging. Hoff doesn’t underplay his own struggles with mental health in discussing the record—noting a long history of depression and its acuteness over the last few years, which serve as the backdrop to the composition of this record.

Scratch any pop song hard enough and you’ll find sadness underneath it. Subdermal, the songs on this record evoke a type of ephemeral weariness and despair. By recasting the original songs through their shadowy doubles, Hoff provides a window into the dark core of pop music. At the center of which lies capitalism’s desperate attempt to replicate itself through a cheap high built on echoing refrains. Just below the surface the listener finds a hangover of shadows dancing through the mind.

Trauma Collective returns with a commanding techno statement from Lowsystem, unveiling Echoes of the Mind – a four-track EP that traverses the fractured landscapes of consciousness and club ritual.

Opening with Finding Reality, a shadow-drenched industrial roller, Lowsystem sets a brooding tone with relentless low-end pulses – the perfect tension-builder for murky warehouse settings. The title track channels the raw, unfiltered energy of early club nights, blending classic techno grooves with an urgent modern edge.

Flipping to the B-side, Distorted Perception descends into darker realms – a peak-time arsenal armed with pounding kicks, razor-sharp synth stabs, and intricately swinging hi-hats that shift the dancefloor into hypnotic frenzy. Closing with Cognitive Dissonance, Lowsystem dissolves rhythmic certainty, crafting fractured broken beats and eerie atmospheres that challenge perception and push sonic boundaries.

The vinyl edition deepens the experience with a printed insert revealing the artist’s creative vision. Also available digitally across all platforms.

The influence of the UK’s Steel City on electronic music is well documented and undisputed and continues to push the envelope with key figures such as Winston Hazel (Forgemasters, The Step), DJ Parrot/Crooked Man, Richard Benson (RAC, SWAG, Altern 8), Chris Duckenfield (RAC, Popular Peoples Front, SWAG, All Ears Distribution), a thriving underground club scene and the likes of Synaptic Voyager reinforcing the city’s rich musical legacy.

Matt White and Paul Baines have been making off-kilter, emotive, late night electronic jams since meeting in the early 90’s and while life took them on different paths for a while, they have recently blown the thick layer of dust from their synths and drum machines and got busy in the studio to create some amazing new music which draws influence from that classic UK techno sound which played such an important part in the development of dance music culture around the world. With recent releases on Frame Of Mind, Acquit and Telomere Plastic the duo are clearly on a roll, wearing the heritage of their city on their sleeve and delivering what can only be described as heartfelt, authentic machine music made with love and soul.

From the opening beats of lead track Dawn Till Dusk we are drawn in to another place which feels comfortably familiar yet organic, fluid and loose in a way that tugs on the heartstrings. A million miles from cookie-cutter tech house, this is two guys in a bedroom studio, digging deep on hardware machines to create a sound to get completely lost in. Lonely Promontory takes things deeper still with immersive pads, taught electro beats and blissed-out melodic lines which give just hint of optimism and recall those beloved sounds of B12, Redcell and Likemind.

Flipping over we have Stellar Engine which goes a littler heavier on the beats and bass whilst still retaining a floating quality, once again highlighting the hardware jam workflow that Synaptic Voyager utilise in their studio. Once Exposed takes us back to those heady days of the early 90’s when techno, house and ambient electronics combined to create a heady blend of deep atmospherics and driving beats which could work on both dance floors and car stereos alike. Rounding off the EP we have Cognitive Network which goes for a straighter four on the floor techno groove and a killer bassline to lose yourself in. These recordings were delivered to the label in unedited long form (some tracks totalling 15 minutes or more in length!) which Jimpster lovingly edited into the versions which you hear on this release.

“Music is my forever cove,” writes Portland, Oregon’s Luke Wyland of the ideas that give shape to Kuma Cove, his latest album under his own name. Though named after a real place on the Oregon coast, Kuma Cove casts its gaze far beyond the sightseer’s line of vision. Recorded live in the studio and blurring obvious lines between computer-based composition and electro-acoustic instrumentation, it is an album about flow, borders, transitory states, and shelter. Composed of discontinuous ripples and repetitions (“I’m forever searching for a better descriptor than looping, which feels too simple and flattened by overuse,” Wyland says), shaped into richly emotive arcs, and informed by his experience as a person who stutters, it is also an album about identity, self-expression, and the energies that sluice through and across what we perceive as linear time—like floodwaters seeking an exit, like streams running into the sea.

Artist’s Statement:
I made this record while spending significant time in the woods by the Sandy River in Corbett, Oregon,
where I've had my studio for the last five years. It is a diary of spontaneous live recordings edited to highlight the moments of clarity that emerge from long-form improvisations. These compositions express a slowing internal rhythm. An unwinding. A somatic recalibration as I enter middle age. A newly empowered vulnerability.

Here are the internalized cadences of my stutter, flowing freely from my fingers. The musicality of my disfluency is revealed in its frictions, elongations, and foreshortenings. Disruptions in linear time, where the bubbling cadences of my stutter find unexpected pathways, reveal the elasticity of the present moment. This is my idiosyncratic language, shaped and inspired by my disability. Subliminally mirroring internal processes, neural firings, cognitive entanglements...

The title, Kuma Cove, refers to a beloved cove on the coast of Oregon my wife and I return to yearly. There has always been something so magnetic about coves. The way they cradle one from the overwhelming enormity of the ocean beyond, muting a primordial fear. I experience these improvisations as ecosystems I'm able to inhabit for stretches of time, embodying the particular rhythms and sensorial textures within each. Music is my forever cove. Everything you hear is created live in Ableton on a setup I've been honing for 15 years. I celebrate MIDI and computer music as an extension of self and strive to make it as expressive as any analog instrument. I was a visual artist for the first half of my life and quickly adapted those skills to composing and producing on a computer. The transition felt natural within the landscape of DAW's interfaces, especially as a synesthete. Ableton and its community of Max creators continue to surprise me with its expansiveness.

I'm forever searching for a better descriptor than looping, which feels too simple and flattened by overuse. I envision sonic loops as tangled masses of time, three-dimensional knots spinning on tilted axes, or overlapping wreaths refracting out a myriad of colors. My practice is continually refocusing my ear to what is revealed in the repetitions, searching for the fingerprint of each. I find it incredible how technology lets us manipulate time like this. Nothing on this record is quantized or locked to a universal bpm. Experiencing numerous tempos at once feels important. Recordings as mirrors. Freedom from expected (conversational) flow as we hold time for each other.
-Luke Wyland, August 2024

Artist Bio:
Luke Wyland is an interdisciplinary artist, composer, and performer based in Portland, OR (USA). Wyland has been releasing critically acclaimed records for the past 20 years in the groups AU and Methods Body, as LWW, and under his own name, working with such labels as New Amsterdam, Beacon Sound, Balmat, The Leaf Label, and Aagoo Records. As a person who stutters, Wyland’s approach to music is informed by his idiosyncratic relationship with language. Wyland believes deeply in the cathartic power of live performance as a means for collective healing. Through an interdisciplinary art practice that focuses on improvisation, somatic embodiment, bespoke tuning systems, the cadences of disfluent speech, and time manipulation technologies, he’s collaborated with choreographers, high-school choirs, filmmakers, sound designers, and renowned musicians such as John Niekrasz, Holland Andrews, Colin Stetson, and Abraham Gomez-Delgado. He’s also the co-creator of the “It’s A Fucking Miracle” dance class with Tahni Holt.
Wyland has toured nationally and internationally and performed at the Whitney Museum, Ecstatic Music Festival, Issue Project Room, PICA’s Time-Based Arts Festival, End of the Road Festival, and Les Nuits Botanique, among others.

Brilliant new Techno release from the LEMOS Camp, Andc at the
controls.

Circling guitar lines; the rise of fall of delicate bass; deep, breathy horns: sonic elements that exist in a state of slow, perpetual motion, like ideas sprouting from some kind of cognitive compost. With wonder and charm, G. S. Schray's new solo album, Whispered Something Good, evokes a realm of new growth while offering a fitting soundtrack for its exploration, as if tailor made for both the daydreamer and silly adventurer.


We start in the darkness of "Unlit Center" with elliptical phrases of jazz guitar. A conversation between double bass, synthesiser, and piano plays out on "In Tears Twice A Page" before we're ushered into the reflective zone of "Another Haunted Mirror." There is synth mist which trumpet cuts through decisively like a shaft of light from the sun: warm and clear. As the album proceeds, firmer rhythms coalesce. On "Prelude for Probably," clattering drums lock into a triumphant groove with horns. And then, to close, the instrumental art-pop of "Gone in Amber," probing not necessarily towards a final destination but another stop-off, one of distant birdsong and the faintest flicker of synth. Intimate and inviting, the act of listening to Whispered Something Good is akin to digging through an imagination. It's a place of subliminal melodies blooming into rhizomatic musical shapes, stray musings coalescing as bolts of inspiration — change fostering yet more change.

Black Truffle is thrilled to present the first vinyl reissue of David Rosenboom’s unique Future Travel, originally released on the short-lived Detroit label Street Records in 1981 and here presented in an expanded edition with an additional LP of wild, previously unheard live and studio material from the same period.

Future Travel emerged from the confluence of two important streams in Rosenboom’s work at this time. First, his exploration of ‘propositional music’, defined as ‘complete cognitive models of music’ that start from the radical question, ‘What is music?’ In this case, the music belongs to the universe of Rosenboom’s In the Beginning (1978-1981), in which proportional relationships determine the material available to the composer in all musical parameters (harmonic relationships, melodic shapes, rhythmic subdivisions, dynamics, and so on). Second, the work documents a key moment in Rosenboom’s long collaboration with synthesizer pioneer Don Buchla. Having played a role in developing concepts for some of the modules of the Buchla 300 Series Electric Music Box (an innovative analogue modular system controlled by micro-processors), Rosenboom went on to write the software for Buchla’s hybrid analogue-digital keyboard synthesiser, the Touché, the instrument heard most prominently here.

In a way that no purely analogue synthesizer could, the 300 Series and Touché allowed Rosenboom to work with the In the Beginning algorithms in real time, the synthesizers becoming ‘intelligent instruments’ that actively collaborate with the performer. Developing the open structures of the electronic pieces from In the Beginning, Future Travel explored the possibilities of simply ‘playing the system’, recording live at Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope studio in San Francisco. Working from loose sketches, Rosenboom added acoustic instruments to the electronic sounds and, on some pieces, the processed voice of Jacqueline Humbert. Like Rosenboom’s collaboration with Humbert on the abstracted synth-chanson of Daytime Viewing, this music set out deliberately to challenge the ‘stratified and illusorily coagulated identities in the musical culture of the time,’ refusing distinctions between ‘serious’ and popular music. But where Daytime Viewing achieves this in part through genre references, Future Travel is bracingly sui generis, existing in a unique universe where radical formalisation à la Xenakis spontaneously gives rise to expressive jazz harmonies and old-timey folk melodies.

The crystalline quality of many of the Touché sounds gives Future Travel a sparkling, immediately enticing surface, its layers of shifting ostinato patterns pulsating outside conventional meter, rippling like waves on the surface of water. On opener ‘Station Oaxaca’, ping-ponging synth arpeggios and hand percussion accompany a sentimental violin melody, abruptly overtaken by layered keyboard runs, before the entry of tinkling marimba-like sounds reframe the scene as sci-fi Martin Denny exotica. ‘Time Arroyo’ begins as an austere study in staccato synth sounds in multiple overlapping tempi, reminiscent of Ligeti’s famous ‘clock’ rhythmic effects. Before long, it opens up into a melodic passage with the gentle heroism of classic Roedelius, which proves to be only a brief interlude before the layers of rhythmically distinct synthesiser patterns begin to build and accelerate into an increasingly dense cacophony. The wildest twists and turns are saved for the epic closer ‘Nova Wind’, where the arrangement focuses on Rosenboom’s virtuoso piano playing, perfectly embodying the project’s radical disregard of stylistic orthodoxies as he moves from hyperactive pointillistic flurries to a kind of space-age gospel.

At several points throughout the record, the distinctive voice of Jacqueline Humbert is heard reading passages from the text component of In the Beginning, a dialogue between The Double (an embodiment of humanity’s timeless desire to replicate itself in spiritual and technological copies) and two Spirit Characters. Fittingly, as all are conceived as embodiments of a future form of techno-human collective consciousness, distinctions between the three characters are not immediately evident in Humbert’s delivery, just as the music blurs the boundaries between intelligent computing and human spontaneity. Adorned with a striking retro-futurist cover (and here accompanied by extensive new liner notes and archival images), Future Travel is a time capsule of radical imaginings at the birth of our digital age, reminding us of utopian possibilities of which our own present seems so often to fall short.

Experience the sonic journey that is The Black Dog's latest album, "Other, Like Me," as they delve into the intricacies of the artist's psyche, questioning the very essence of individuality and creative worth. The album invites listeners to confront darker thoughts about self-identity, imposter syndrome, and the relentless pursuit of creative value, all while celebrating the joy found in the act of artistic creation. In this introspective exploration, The Black Dog challenge both themselves and their audience, creating a musical experience that is profoundly personal and open to interpretation. The themes woven throughout the album are a poignant counterpoint between the shadows of self-doubt and the exuberance of creative expression. It's an inward exploration, offering a place of solace for listeners to find comfort amid the chaos of external influences. The album's title, "Other, Like Me", draws inspiration from an interview with Cosey Fanni Tutti in 1999, resonating deeply with The Black Dog's outsider perspective. The phrase encapsulates the essence of the album, reflecting the band's unique identity and shared experiences, while respecting each member's individual passions and interests. Navigating the waters of cognitive dissonance, The Black Dog bring an authenticity to their music that mirrors the internal and external conflicts of the contemporary music scene. With a commitment to stripping back layers and allowing the heart of each song to shine through, "Other, Like Me" offers a raw and unfiltered musical experience that speaks directly to the soul. It's an invitation to introspection, a celebration of independence, and a testament to the power of authentic artistic expression.

The Dr. Peacock frenchcore friends ! A full collab album with crazy musician like Creeds, Mat Weasel, JKLL, Ivex... running up to Hellcreator for more speed !

A must have for any Frenchcore lover !!

ANF are back on NAFF, delivering a batch of hi-fi floor numbers with a hyper-focused remix by D.Tiffany. In the face of pre-digested information, our brain tends towards the path of least cognitive strain. Avoid the shortest route in favour of the considered. Ever-evolving music for ever-evolving minds.

After 6 long-awaited years, DEVOURMENT return to form, embodying brutality with their ferocious new album, Obscene Majesty. Featuring drummer Brad Fincher and Ruben Rosas back on vocal duties - a lineup previously only heard on the band's 1999 landmark album Molesting the Decapitated, the pioneers of brutal death metal sharpen their blades once again, and unleash some of the most disgustingly heavy slam ever! Clubbing blows from tracks such as "Cognitive Sedation Butchery", "Narcissistic Paraphilia", and "Dysmorphic Autophagia" see the veterans as imposing and menacing as ever. Buzzsaw guitars shred through limbs against head-caving, hammering drums. Deathly, blood-soaked vocals personify pain and torture. Obscene Majesty is the epitome of uncontrollable destruction from beginning to end, as DEVOURMENT crush through break-neck speeds, deafening ears and melting faces along the way. Honing in on the very elements of gore, death, and mutilation that have crowned the band as kings of the scene for over 24 years, DEVOURMENT force you to bare witness to the Obscene Majesty!

It’s long believed that dreams are a way for our subconscious and conscious selves to interact. A chance meeting between cognitive thought and the expanse of imagination. Our dreams are often half remembered upon waking, leaving bits and shards of the story left to be pieced together. That process of pulling together fragments feels infused within Austin’s Neckbolt, a band with a radiant understanding of pairing disparate elements together to create something magnificent. Introduced back in 2021 with Midwestern Drawl, their self-released debut album, the duo of James Roo and Benjamin Krause formed the project with a specific energy and an alien sound. At its core, that record laid the blueprint for the band, a forward thinking mix of caustic noise rock and vivid psychedelic pop, combining to create something wild yet ingenious, reshaping common genre ideals.

At some point between the recording and release of their debut, Neckbolt expanded, reverse engineering their sound to form a live band that could pull off the music of their recordings. The line-up grew from a duo to the quintet, with Roo (vocals) and Krause (guitar) joined by longtime friends and collaborators, Bill Indelicato (bass), Brent Hodge (drums), and Kilyn Massey (guitar), forming an instant chemistry apparent in their earliest of live shows. With members split between Austin and Oklahoma City, the band adapted their approach to songwriting, opting to record in bits and pieces as they wrote, bouncing ideas back and forth, watching songs take shape in ways that none of the members had intended, but all were quick to embrace. Neckbolt are a freaky band and their second album, Dream Dump, seizes the opportunity to dial up the strange in their own vibrant way.

With his new EP “Insides”, Palham Music owner Pressburg, delivers a true minimalist house masterpiece.

Dubbyrim starts off with taperecorder processed dub chords, guided by a haunting (-lybeautiful) bassline. Memory Gospel is J Dilla having musical intercourse with Lowtec. And With You is slower, sensual four to the floor house music at its best.

With this record, Pressburg expands his musical horizons, not only sticking to previous experimental records he made, but taking those experiments now to the dancefloor.
We are very happy that renowned dj's such as Move D, Roger 23. Sensu and Lerosa have included the tracks already in their setlists.

This is Pressburg’s first throw on Someguy Records.

ABOUT PRESSBURG:
Pressburg lives in a rural idyll on the foothills of the Thuringian Forest. That’s where he produces his meandering tracks which he has been releasing on his house label Palham Music, since 2003. His approach is technically cognitive, fitting for his reservedly modest character.

ABOUT SOMEGUY RECORDS
Someguy Records is the brainchild of G?s Ramboer, aka Someguy, a political journalist with a passion for music. The label aims to be a haven for house music artists that don’t strictly aim for the peak time of the party, but rather provide that surprising opening or closing track. There’s no rules to what or who is involved with the label, but most acts are situated left of the center.

Current and future acts include:
Someguy, Different Fountains, Pressburg, Sensu, Mikkel Metal, Mary Yalex, D man.

Issued by Leo Fegin's visionary record label in 1993, this refreshed and revised reissue collection of Hungarian composer Tibor Szemző's chamber pieces with spoken text – composed at 1980s for the legendary GROUP 180 – is unlike anything else of its kind.

No one has survived life. Everyone has died from it so far. Man must realize that He is responsible for His own life and fate and must insist upon this responsibility beyond all limits. And since Man has dissociated Himself from the sphere of irrationality, He has no way of getting in touch with death, or of establishing control over it. How we achieve the final result is merely of secondary importance. If the vision is clear to everyone, there is no need at all to look back. In a time of complete mental disturbance, only one chance remains to us: crystal-clear thinking. This leads us back to total mental disturbance, which everyone has died from so far. (Pavel Havliček – Miklós Erdély – Tibor Hajas)

Text and Music | Language and Speech | Sound and Music

The common basis of the three works by Tibor Szemző heard on this album is the inalienable relationship to text – as an a priori principle. Text and music: the formal attributes of significance, intentions, and levels of meaning inherent in verbal communication as it is transformed into audible code. Language and speech: the structural level of communication, where it becomes purposeful expression, acoustic statements of variable modality. Vocalization as sublimation. Sound and music: By becoming an auditory signal, communication is deprived of its sense and reduced to musical articulation and abstraction.

Skullbase Fracture: Shards of reality – senseless, disconnected fragments of recorded “living speech” – simultaneously disintegrate and merge to create meaning through the musical process, while it is degraded and stylized to represent a single layer of the ambient noise one would hear in a hospitality setting.

Optimistic Lecture: The theses – like a practical, everyday user’s manual to cognitive tendencies and aims as they apply to the entirety of existence – convey their meaning through simplified rhythmic speech, galvanized into commands. As a counterpoint to recited prayers, they comprise a uniform soundscape.

The Sex Appeal of Death: The head-on simplicity of communication creates such extremely reductive musical interrelations that they cannibalize themselves in a necessary and inevitable fashion. And, in this manner, the text as well

Ekkehard Ehlers' seminal plays series was originally released on three 12inches (Staubgold) and two 7inches (Bottrop-Boy) in very limited runs. The entire series was previously only available as a CD compilation or digitally. Keplar finally presents it on double vinyl for the first time, featuring a new cover artwork.

Domestic ethnology: Ekkehard Ehlers plays.

‘Play’ is a word in English with many meanings attached. Each one sends you down a different cognitive pathway. When I think of ‘playing’, in the sense of a game, I think of an activity involving more than one person. When Ekkehard Ehlers plays, he is very much on his own. Or, at least, alone but at the same time keeping intimate company with the artistic innovators named in his titles. Robert Johnson. John Cassavetes. Albert Ayler. Cornelius Cardew. Hubert Fichte. Is he playing with them, against them, about them, for them, to them? This can never be known.

It is certainly a mistake to try to hear the ‘work’ of these originals in the sounds played by Ekkehard. They’re not cover versions. They’re hardly tributes in the conventional sense. Cassavetes and Fichte are not even musicians, although music played an important part in both their careers. Sure, there are little nods and flashes of recognition – tiny guitar licks among the minimal beats of ‘Robert Johnson 2’; rich bowed instruments in ‘Albert Ayler’, recalling the violin, cello and double bass arrangements on Ayler’s 1967 Live in Greenwich Village LP; the elongated organ lines of ‘Cornelius Cardew 1’ gesturing towards passages in Paragraph 1 of the British composer’s 1971 Marxist monolith, The Great Learning. Ekkehard is not so much playing these figures as allowing himself to be played by them.

Playing as an activity also suggests freedom. Maybe the only thing all five named persons have in common is that they were all quiet radicals. In music, literature and cinema, they all stepped, without self-promotion or fanfare, into unmapped territories. Once there they found it necessary to invent new languages in order to survive. Necessity was the mother of their inventiveness. They were also uncomfortable avant gardists. Lonely types, fighting their corners out on the margins, with little reward, often misunderstood, ridiculed or ignored.

All died unfairly young. Fichte a victim of HIV/AIDS, Cassavetes of cirrhosis of the liver. (‘Cassavetes 2’ sounds like a tender farewell played across the 59 year old alcoholic director’s death bed.) The deaths of Johnson, Ayler and Cardew have never been satisfactorily explained, and remain shrouded in myths and conspiracy theories. The pioneering expeditions of all five began in that spirit of playful freedom, but inexorably drew them towards the heart of darkness.

So these ‘plays’ are micro-dramas, sonic soliloquies, monolog-ins to the private accounts of various geniuses in Ekkehard’s ‘follow’ list. Hacked sensibilities. Artistic manifestos boiled down and distilled, skinned and dried in the digital smokehouse. (Ekkehard Ehlers Flays.) Each of these plays was originally floated out into the world alone on its own disc. The collected works play well as a team – a tranquil, introspective experience where each artist has his own identifiably unique sound character. As an album, Plays is a ‘Plattenragout’ – a ‘record stew’ – which was the title of Hubert Fichte’s LP review column in the leftist culture magazine konkret in the 1960s. The novelist’s work investigating the cultures of South America and the Caribbean islands has been called ‘domestic ethnology’. The writer himself referred to his ‘ethnopoesie’. Ekkehard Ehlers’s intuitive electronic portraits are a form of domestic ethnology in themselves. Invoking another of Ekkehard’s musical aliases, they are portraits of cultural ‘autopoiesies’ – creators whose works were strong enough to have their own self-regenerating life force. (by Rob Young)

All tracks written and produced by Ekkehard Ehlers.
Featuring Stephan Mathieu, Joseph Suchy, Anka Hirsch.
Tracks A1 to C2 originally released on three 12inches via Staubgold.
Tracks D1 to D4 originally released on two 7inches via Bottrop-Boy.
Plays originally released as CD compilation in 2002 by Staubgold.
Mastered by Rashad Becker.
Cut to vinyl by Lupo, Berlin, 2022.
Redesigned by Sandra Kastl, 2022.
Photos by Ludger Blanke

Stockholm post-punk band V**gra Boys (**= "ia" because spam FILTERS) are announcing a new album Cave World due out July 8th via YEAR0001 Produced by past collaborators Pelle Gunnerfeldt (The Hives, The Knife, etc.) and DJ Haydn, the album is inspired by current events, and aims to tear through the insanity and confusion the world currently finds itself in. Like sin- eaters if sins had to be ingested from a very small spoon, V**gra Boys have consumed the utterly incomprehensible chaos of our era and distilled it into the 12 immaculate tracks that make up Cave World.

As 2021’s Welfare Jazz was earning rave reviews from the likes of Pitchfork, NPR, GQ, NME, Stereogum, Fader, and more, Viagra Boys were in the midst of rerecording what would become their followup. After putting together an entire album at the legendary Silence Studio in the town of Koppom, the band decided they could push harder. "We let it marinate for a while and then rerecorded absolutely everything," Murphy explains. S

ome of the music made it through to what would become Cave World, but replacing the lyrics. In that iterative process,
Murphy found himself returning time and again to a misconception with deeper roots: the idea that humanity is moving forward. After watching a video late one evening about a theory that suggests evolution involved trading in some cognitive
abilities for others, Murphy began stewing on the fact that the result was mass shootings and science denial. "I just wrote down, 'Who is the true ape?'" he says.

"People look down at apes as primitive life forms, but we're just this horrible, lazy society killing each other and starting wars, while they’re able to love and feel.
Does that make them the true ape or us?"

"The letter X marks the spot, crosses over, literally with a cross. It’s the former, the ex-. The ex-lover known simply as “an ex”. Ex- is the latin prefix meaning “out”. Exterior, an exit. Extraordinary. Excellent. It’s exciting. Generation X. X-files. X is the unknown. X is Extreme“

Extreme is Molly Nilsson’s tenth studio album. Recorded in 2019 and throughout the 2020 global pandemic at home in Berlin, Extreme is a departure for Nilsson, an explosion of angry love. It’s an album of anthems for the jilted generation, soaked with joy and offering solace, bristling with distorted, Metal guitars and planet-sized choruses that bring light to the dark centre of the galaxy. It’s an album of the times, by the times and for the people. It’s a record about power. About how to fight it, how to take it and how to share it.

Absolute Power explodes with massive guitars, double kick beats and the instantly iconic line “It’s me versus the black hole at the centre of the galaxy.” Nilsson’s performance itself portrays absolute power in its confidence but the song is a call-to-arms, an entreaty to grasp the here and now, to take the power back. It’s Nilsson pacing the ring and we’re instantly in her corner. Earth Girls takes familiar Molly Nilsson themes - female empowerment and subverting the patriarchy - but casually throws in one of the choruses of her career. “Women have no place in this world” she sings, but it’s the world that isn’t good enough. Stadium-sized but still warmly hazy, Earth Girls has its fists in the air, glorifying in harmony, almost ecstatic in its feeling good. Nilsson’s Springsteen-level conviction and righteousness bleeds through the speaker cones, the cognitive dissonance between the song’s cadences and angry lyrics redolent of Bruce in his prime. Female empowerment isn’t always an angry energy on Extreme, however. On Fearless Like A Child, Nilsson’s anthem to the female body and women’s sovereignty of it, she croons over a mid-80s blue-eyed Soul groove. It sets a nocturnal scene as the narrator surveys her past and her surroundings. Before we’re fully submerged in a dreamlike, Steve McQueen-era Prefab Sprout poem to learning from your mistakes the song erupts into one of those lines only Molly Nilsson can get away with: “I love my womb, come inside I feel so alive” she fervently sings. Against the backdrop of ever-encroaching, conservative rulings on women’s reproductive rights in places like Texas, it’s simultaneously angry and full of love.

Every song on Extreme is a gleaming gem in a pouch of jewels. On Kids Today, Nilsson is the voice of wisdom, archly commenting on the eternal struggle between youth and authority. Wisdom infuses Sweet Smell Of Success with a transcendent love that forgives the narrator’s shortcomings and celebrates the moment, it’s a letter to the author from the author that asks “what is success” and concludes that this is it, this song, this moment. It’s a rare moment of simple reflection that is generous in its insight to Nilsson’s inner life. “Success” is a tool of power and we don’t need it… We need power tools and there are moments on Extreme where it feels like Nilsson is showing us how to find them. It's an open conversation through out Extreme. She’s a warm, comforting presence through out the album and specially on these songs of encouragement, songs perhaps sang to a younger Molly Nilsson or, really, to whomever needs to hear them. “They’ll praise your efforts, they’ll call you slurs a rebel, a master, an amateur / Merely with your own existence, you already offer your resistance.” On Avoid Heaven she’s even more direct, pleading with us to avoid concepts of purity and to embrace the glorious, ebullient, emotional mess we’re often in as a method of upending the power structures who need things to be perfect.

They Will Pay brings back the big, distorted power chords in the form of a agit-punk, pop slammer. Of course, when Molly Nilsson does punk pop we get the catchiest chorus this side of The Bangles or The Nerves. It’s rendered in an off the cuff, throwaway manner that is just perfect in its roughness. However, it’s on Pompeii that Nilsson delivers the album’s epic, emotional heartbreaker. Like 1995 on Nilsson’s album Zenith, or Days Of Dust on Twenty Twenty, the lyrics of Pompeii are heavy with a transcendent sadness, an aching poetry that cuts to the truth of the heart like the best Leonard Cohen lines, though here delivered with an uplifting, life-affirming love. It contains the most personal moments of Extreme, a song lit by the dying embers of romance. Yet it’s here where the alchemy at the base of all Nilsson’s best work is found. Turning small nuggets of personal truth into big, generous universal moments that invite everyone to cry, to love and to fight the power. In an album of jewels, it might be the shining star.

Molly Nilsson’s biggest, boldest and most vital album to date, Extreme is about power. Against the love of power and for the power of love.

Healing Together is a benefit compilation for mental health recovery featuring 23 ambient-electronic artists from around the world. Recognizing that music is a bridge to normalizing conversations about the challenges people are going through, each artist was prompted to create a song that would help someone with mental health struggles know they're not alone. This sprouted into a collection of ambient music holding space for the many emotional landscapes we experience as humans. Healing Together features new compositions specially prepared for the compilation from the incredible line-up of women artists Nailah Hunter, Penelope Trappes, Clarice Jensen, Drum & Lace, Sofie Birch, Hollie Kenniff, Clariloops, more eaze, Ami Dang, Karen Vogt, Patricia Wolf, Zoe Polanski, Sachi Kobayashi, Christina Giannone, Ai Yamamoto, Cat Tyson Hughes, IKSRE, Inquiri, Belly Full of Stars, Claire Deak, Pechblende, Caminuata and marine eyes. Net profits of the compilation will go to Sounds of Saving, a non-profit fueling hope for mental health both by celebrating the power of human connection to music and directing people towards the resources they need before it's too late.

Curtis Electronix is proud to present "Destroy Your Future", the new LP from the one and only Galaxian. In the last years Mark Kastner aka Galaxian has become a prominent figure in the underground scene because of his high quality productions and his unique take on electro. We all know electro started with futurism and well, this work is pure futurism. Each cut is a trip into his restless creativity. Each track is a mind altering exploration of a deeply cinematic soundscape with a massive number of elements perfectly fused together with his "one of a kind" sci-fi aestethic that immediately pulls you out of the schemes. Caustic distortions, post industrial environments, mind expanding electronics and primitive drum patterns are only the main elements of this sci-fi masterpiece. There is no "Detroit Nostalgia" in it. This is sonic militance. The same that inspired the originators back in the days. When you play it, time runs faster and future looks closer. We are on board, but Galaxian is the only pilot of the ship.

‘Flicker’ is the second album from Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell. Written almost as a conversation with his teenage self, it follows the triumphant solo debut that was 2020’s ‘The View From Halfway Down’. This 18-track double album finds Andy moving towards classic songwriting, notably on the reflective lead single ‘Something Like Love’, the strident harmonies of ‘World of Echo’, the joyous refracted loops of ‘Jenny Holzer B. Goode’ and the fuzz-laden late-’60s balladeering of ‘Love Is The Frequency’. Stylistically, the four sides of ‘Flicker’ take in everything from modern psychedelia to fingerpicked folk, whimsical baroque pop, and Byrdsian 12-string beauty. It’s a breathtaking array and makes it even more abundantly clear that Andy has entered a purple patch in his songwriting, hitting a new velocity in contrast to his initial inhibitions about becoming a solo artist. He gradually overcame these after the passing of David Bowie in 2016, with the Thin White Duke’s bountiful 50 years of music providing inspiration from beyond the grave. ‘Flicker’ is also an apt description for the genesis of the album. At the start of 2021, Andy returned to the stems of the recording sessions he made at Beady Eye and Oasis bandmate Gem Archer’s North London studio and added fuel to the fire, writing melodies and lyrics and turning them into fully formed songs. The same sessions were also the starting point for ‘The View From Halfway Down’ and this album picks up where that one left off, quite literally, with the very first words being “I was halfway down…”. This is the first of several playful, possibly intentional, references to albums and song titles that litter the record like a musical breadcrumb trail. As much as this is a modern sounding and forward-looking record, it’s also very much about looking back, something that is clear from the first glimpse of the front cover – a previously unseen outtake from Joe Dilworth’s photo sessions for the inner sleeve of Ride’s debut album, ‘Nowhere’. “When I think about ‘Flicker’, I see it as closure,” explains Andy. “Most literally, on a half-finished project from over six years ago, but also on a much bigger timescale. Some of these songs date back to the ’90s and the cognitive dissonance of writing brand new lyrics over songs that are 20-plus years old makes it feel like it is, almost literally, me exchanging ideas with my younger self.” This conversation takes place across ‘Flicker’’s 18 tracks. Essentially it advises us to stop worrying about the future and enjoy each day as it comes, embracing the crushing, unpredictable lows of life as much as the almighty highs of being in love. Some of it remains unspoken, taking place sonically rather than verbally: the album has a reflective, meditative feeling throughout, exploring many aspects of mental health, and the beautiful stillness of first single ‘Something Like Love’ could almost be a musical salve to the heartache 19-year-old Andy poured into ‘Vapour Trail’ in 1990. “The ‘Flicker’ I’m talking about in the lyrics is that flame that makes a person who they are,” explains Andy. “I wanted to find that in myself, so I went back to the teenage me – a technique I learned in therapy and have been doing ever since – and got some advice on how to live and be happy in the 2020s.“‘The View From Halfway Down’ was about turning 50 in a very weird time of introspection. ‘Flicker’ is about gathering the tools to equip myself mentally for life in 2022 and beyond – post-pandemic, post-Brexit, post-truth.”

Following hot on the heels of lead single and recent mind-body tantalizer “I Feel Stronger Now,” we are now truly proud to present you with Portable’s latest full-length My Sentient Shadow. Filled to the brim with all of the inventiveness the sonic auteur has commanded we expect from his sizable and consistent body of work on worldrenown labels such as Perlon, ~scape, !K7, and his own Süd Electronic and Khoikhoi imprints, and dare we say offering us perhaps the most cohesive, emotive, and balanced of his highly-admirable catalog here to date. By using the analogy of a shadow that possesses its own consciousness, the theme of light and its distortion vs balance with the inherent and necessary darkness that surrounds it is in clear vision.
Immediately from the warmly bizarre vibes of opening cut “The Simulacrum”, it’s clear Portable is requesting clearance to other worlds of funk and ingenuity. The delightfully trippy, smoky, back-room of the Tattooine Cantina feel sets the stage just right to curb expectations and let the carefully constructed noise movements wash over us.
Elsewhere amongst the generous set we find tracks like “Cages” and “Ripple Effect” continue in the direction of horizontally-maximized aural tapestries oozing with texture, while at the other end of the energy spectrum pieces such as “The Self-Assembling” and “We Exist..” roll and bounce with all the sci-fi gyrations and slick synth layers hinting at a hypnotic halfway rendezvous point to his Bodycode moniker. And of course, no proper Portable outing would be complete without his own robust tenor vocal tone, which feels right at home front-and-center on the space travel anthem “The Spacetime Curvature” and used in more calculated micro-doses on “Analogue World”, as well as the gorgeous “Foreign to You” whose meta-title features a rare guest starring vocalist NiQ.E, and brings to hearts some of Herbert’s finer moments with dear friend Dani Siciliano, albeit done-up entirely in some distant yet alluring parallel dimension. The LP journey finishes with the frenetically-charged closer “Fractal Distortion” which will no doubt please many-a cosmic techno purist while making percussion masters from the afterlife such as Jaki Liebezeit and Tony Allen proud, and is quite possibly the closest thing to a danceable musical take on the current state of cognitive dissonance in the world that surrounds us, offering us a one-way
ticket out from the not-too-distant future. Please join us in welcoming and celebrating this wonderful album from Portable on Circus Company.

There’s an element of emotional abstraction and also something very intimate simultaneously on ‘Break into Blossom’. The stories find characters experiencing (and trying to make sense of) certain circumstances, but there’s at the same time a kind of distance from those experiences — a kind of cognitive reckoning that eventually gives way to understanding and actually feeling them.
Like picking up a tiny stone from the bottom of a riverbed. Turning it over in your hand. Holding it up to the sun. Inspecting it from every angle. But instead of a rock, it’s memories, dreams, relationships, losses, desires, anxieties, triumphs.
I took the title of the record from a poem called “A Blessing” by James Wright (1927-1980).
In the poem, the narrator is experiencing a moment of sublime beauty that’s also colored with a tinge of loss and of loneliness. The poem ends with, “Suddenly I realize That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom.”
When you’re wading in the river, it may be gold… or it may just be a plain old rock. And that’s okay. Sometimes the loss itself creates a space for something profoundly beautiful.
So you keep going out and digging around, nonetheless. That’s the important thing.

Vice Squad are a UK Punk Rock band who’s first single releases included the classic ‘Last Rockers’ 7” in 1981. This was followed by the landmark albums ‘No Cause For Concern’ in the same year and ‘Stand Strong Stand Proud’ in 1982 which were both released on EMI. Since then Vice Squad have delivered short sharp songs with incisive political lyrics and a dash of humour spat out over a thunderous rhythm and machine gun Rock ’n’ Roll guitars. Their latest releases are the EPs 'Born In A War' and 'Ignored To Death V2' taken from the forthcoming album ‘Battle of Britain’ set for release on their own Last Rockers label in May 2020. The band have become 100% DIY since forming Last Rockers Records in 2009. In keeping with the DIY ethic the previous albums were recorded in the band’s own ‘Sci Fidelity’ studio South London and the new album ‘Battle of Britain’ continues this with the band maintaining full artistic control with the benefit of global distribution via Cargo. Their last album ‘ Cardboard Country’ was launched on the back of a very successful Pledge campaign raising funds for the Shelter homeless charity in line with the album title which was inspired by 'Cardboard City', the name given to the settlement of homeless people living in cardboard boxes near London's Waterloo station. Vice Squad is fronted by raucous voiced singer/guitarist Beki Bondage who was famed for being a teenage champion of Animal rights long before the current popularity of veganism. Vice squad’s song ’Humane’ was one of the first ever Animal Rights songs. Beki has been featured on the front cover of a number of influential music tabloids such at Melody Maker, NME, Sounds, Record Mirror and Smash Hits. After a hiatus, Beki formed a new version of Vice Squad in 1997 featuring longstanding members of her post VS outfit The Bombshells and they have released several quality albums of powerful punk songs that have been very well received across the world. Vice Squad are considered one of the most influential punk rock bands of all time, paving the way for other female Punk and Rock singers and influencing male performers such as Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame who was introduced to Vice Squad via his sister’s record collection. The first rule of Punk is there are no rules and Vice Squad ably illustrate this with ‘Battle of Britain’. Written, Recorded and Mixed by Beki Bond and Paul Rooney in their home studio. The 13 track album opens with the blistering ‘Ruination’ which cuts through the bullshit of small time promoters and blaggers with consummate swagger and melody while ‘I Dare To Breathe’ is an amphetamine driven anthem to paranoia. ‘When You Were 17’ is almost-tender and tells of first tattoos and under age booze whilst the more chilling ‘Ignored To Death’ rails against isolation and homelessness. The explosive ‘Born In A War’ rages along like a missile ravaging a third world country and warns ‘See how they treat refugees? That’s how they’ll treat you and me’. Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’ reworked with a pulsating industrial bass segues into title track, 'Battle Of Britain' where Beki's vocals soar like a Spitfire over the crunching de-tuned riff and spit fury over the hypocrisy of putting war memorials before people. The dystopian ‘Poverty Face’ hits you with the opening line ‘Disinheriting the meek, slyly killing off the weak’ and is counter balanced by the more upbeat ‘How The Other Half Lives’. ‘No Evil’ is a relentless attack on the normalisation of the suffering and death of billions of animals for the meat industry. Battle of Britain's hard hitting collection of anger and riffage pulls no punches in covering topics from austerity and factory farming to the pernicious influence of the Mainstream Media - ‘Led by lies lambs to the slaughter, tax exiles say who you vote for’. Brexit, fake patriotism and cognitive dissonance all get a good kicking too. The penultimate track, 'You Can’t Fool All Of The People' mixes baritone guitar with violin and Celtic rhythms climaxing in an epic James Bondesque heavy guitar/orchestral blend and breaks every rule in the Punk Police hand book whilst pleading for unity against a rigged political system. ‘Pulling Teeth’ with its ominous riff and hilariously frustrated lyrics ‘Dithering jibbering solid as jam, is it fair I’m both the woman and the man’ closes the album in manic style

Vice Squad are a UK Punk Rock band who’s first single releases included the classic ‘Last Rockers’ 7” in 1981. This was followed by the landmark albums ‘No Cause For Concern’ in the same year and ‘Stand Strong Stand Proud’ in 1982 which were both released on EMI. Since then Vice Squad have delivered short sharp songs with incisive political lyrics and a dash of humour spat out over a thunderous rhythm and machine gun Rock ’n’ Roll guitars. Their latest releases are the EPs 'Born In A War' and 'Ignored To Death V2' taken from the forthcoming album ‘Battle of Britain’ set for release on their own Last Rockers label in May 2020. The band have become 100% DIY since forming Last Rockers Records in 2009. In keeping with the DIY ethic the previous albums were recorded in the band’s own ‘Sci Fidelity’ studio South London and the new album ‘Battle of Britain’ continues this with the band maintaining full artistic control with the benefit of global distribution via Cargo. Their last album ‘ Cardboard Country’ was launched on the back of a very successful Pledge campaign raising funds for the Shelter homeless charity in line with the album title which was inspired by 'Cardboard City', the name given to the settlement of homeless people living in cardboard boxes near London's Waterloo station. Vice Squad is fronted by raucous voiced singer/guitarist Beki Bondage who was famed for being a teenage champion of Animal rights long before the current popularity of veganism. Vice squad’s song ’Humane’ was one of the first ever Animal Rights songs. Beki has been featured on the front cover of a number of influential music tabloids such at Melody Maker, NME, Sounds, Record Mirror and Smash Hits. After a hiatus, Beki formed a new version of Vice Squad in 1997 featuring longstanding members of her post VS outfit The Bombshells and they have released several quality albums of powerful punk songs that have been very well received across the world. Vice Squad are considered one of the most influential punk rock bands of all time, paving the way for other female Punk and Rock singers and influencing male performers such as Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame who was introduced to Vice Squad via his sister’s record collection. The first rule of Punk is there are no rules and Vice Squad ably illustrate this with ‘Battle of Britain’. Written, Recorded and Mixed by Beki Bond and Paul Rooney in their home studio. The 13 track album opens with the blistering ‘Ruination’ which cuts through the bullshit of small time promoters and blaggers with consummate swagger and melody while ‘I Dare To Breathe’ is an amphetamine driven anthem to paranoia. ‘When You Were 17’ is almost-tender and tells of first tattoos and under age booze whilst the more chilling ‘Ignored To Death’ rails against isolation and homelessness. The explosive ‘Born In A War’ rages along like a missile ravaging a third world country and warns ‘See how they treat refugees? That’s how they’ll treat you and me’. Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’ reworked with a pulsating industrial bass segues into title track, 'Battle Of Britain' where Beki's vocals soar like a Spitfire over the crunching de-tuned riff and spit fury over the hypocrisy of putting war memorials before people. The dystopian ‘Poverty Face’ hits you with the opening line ‘Disinheriting the meek, slyly killing off the weak’ and is counter balanced by the more upbeat ‘How The Other Half Lives’. ‘No Evil’ is a relentless attack on the normalisation of the suffering and death of billions of animals for the meat industry. Battle of Britain's hard hitting collection of anger and riffage pulls no punches in covering topics from austerity and factory farming to the pernicious influence of the Mainstream Media - ‘Led by lies lambs to the slaughter, tax exiles say who you vote for’. Brexit, fake patriotism and cognitive dissonance all get a good kicking too. The penultimate track, 'You Can’t Fool All Of The People' mixes baritone guitar with violin and Celtic rhythms climaxing in an epic James Bondesque heavy guitar/orchestral blend and breaks every rule in the Punk Police hand book whilst pleading for unity against a rigged political system. ‘Pulling Teeth’ with its ominous riff and hilariously frustrated lyrics ‘Dithering jibbering solid as jam, is it fair I’m both the woman and the man’ closes the album in manic style

Welcome valued share-holder, great to have you on board! This musical soundtrack by Running Out Of Time is a digital epic consisting of federally approved 99,9% original material carbon-dated to the last previous 12-24 lunar cycles. For 50 minutes, sit back and let our R.O.O.T. executive branch provide an experience like no other - neuro-programmed especially for your individual cerebral make-up. Choose from a selection of premium Terraform Realities, ranging from cyborgs battling human rebels through synthetic jungles and swamplands, to alien organisms escaping through intricate water tank systems. As you can see in diagram 2.1 in our presentation, each territory is mapped out in complete dimensional fidelity. For example, the water tank causeways also lead to a long-forgotten underwater world full of hidden creatures. Embrace your inner subaquatic explorer, as you search for artefacts and alien embryos that could be exploited for the corporation. Just remember - our trademark Quantum Parallel Reality Experience is guaranteed to feel as authentic as the real thing!* As a top tier investor, you will also have early bird access to our Platinum Realities selection - including our award-winning Apocalypse Cityscapes. With fully-rendered city centers that once bustled with 21st century traders, these abandoned heritage sites are now home to the lost souls of a free market economy that collapsed eons ago under its own weight. But beware! Some of the spirits will help you, and some will lead you into deadly traps - so choose wisely. Your investment portfolio depends on it! We are excited to have you join the team and look forward to sharing many more experiences together. *Tax Free corp accepts no liability for cognitive dissociation or neural dysfunction as a result of any Quantum Parallel Reality Experience.

If Shelter swam through the serene side of the Library experience on GBR016, CV Vision blasts off in the opposite direction, riding an explosion of funk breaks and frazzled synths into the event horizon on his retro-futurist opus ‘Insolita’.

As contemporary life accelerates way past peak-weird, CV Vision leans into uncertainty and leaves Earth in the rear-view. Strung out on Simulacron-3, World On A Wire and Omaggio Ad Einstein, the Berlin-based musician imagines his own Brave New World, an alternate eXistenZ in a secret simulation.

Using the space age obsession of the Italian libraries as a launch pad, Dennis Schulze slathers a sonic storyboard with ferocious percussion, psychedelic fuzz and the pastoral electronics of Germany’s Kosmische movement. But this is less Can, more uncanny - and Schulze perfectly renders the cognitive estrangement of a simulated reality through his adventurous production. The monolithic live drums, recorded in a Neukölln garage on a battered Soviet kit are smeared with tape hiss, compressed to death and fired through LFOs, re-materialising on record in impossible scale. Time slips out of joint under the wow and flutter of the reel to reel, drum computers add digital interference to organic rhythms and the unfaltering slew of the 303 lends the hallucinatory thrill of the club sound system to an already psychedelic affair.

As Schulze’s imagination runs free, we’re taken through epic space battles and narrow escapes, moments of reflection and affection and a final resolution, all expressed through a dexterous control of movement and mood. For every explosion of break-fuelled adrenaline, there’s a cruise into cryo-chamber music and holodeck exotica. For each neck-snapping blast of acid funk, there’s a zero gravity lullaby waiting just around the corner.

So put isolation on ice and surrender to the strange, this is a trip you don’t want to end.

GEORGIA's new kaleidoscopic hyper-music-entity "State Effect (Accel)" expands the NYC's duo project in a high-dimensional phase space—and does so within their all-kind-of-music frame.

State Effect (Accel) is happening this very moment, it is a positive cry for change—a brilliant plan.

This record is "viscous" — whatever I do, wherever I am, it sort of "sticks" to me.

It is "nonlocal" — its 'accelerated' effects are globally distributed through a huge tract of time. It forces me to experience time in an unusual way.

It is "phased" — I only experience pieces of it at any one time.

It is "inter-objective" — it consists of all kinds of other/multiple entities but it is not reducible to the sum of its parts.

This music reveals the present and its psychic dimension, no titles could have been more relevant.

Justin Tripp and Brian Close's new kaleidoscopic hyper-music-entity expands their GEORGIA project in a high-dimensional phase space. A great work of cognitive music mapping that plots all the states of a system — Lovely bubbly HTML.

The eight tracker long playing make extensive use of the vocal participation of Paris/Berlin-based artist/DJ MARYLOU aka OISEAU DANSEUR and Gabi Asfour of visionary NY fashion collective threeASFOUR.

Be assured that even dawning on sixty and with a career spanning more than 30 years, Popa Chubby continues to fight against the injustices of this world !
And the least we can say about 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic is that it offered him the “magnificent” inspiration that fed into the creation of his new album “Tinfoil Hat”! As he writes himself, this record’s creation was self-evident from the beginning of the first lockdown in March.
Back at his base in the Hudson Valley and following his last show played in Florida, our man immediately wanted to send a message of empathy and support to his fans, and that’s how the song “Can I Call You My Friends?” was conceived. The reaction was so sudden, warm, and intense that he found there was enough material for continuing this “dialogue” by composing other songs that today form the framework for “Tinfoil Hat.”
The whole thing was entirely “homemade,” recorded and played by Popa Chubby with the extra Guts and Soul that great causes often bring to life. “Tinfoil Hat” and the 11 songs that make it up were born from a mixture of love, despair, fear, frustration, pain, joy, sorrow, resolution and the leap into the great unknown imposed by the coronavirus that has been with all of us all since last
March. The Trump administration’s chaotic and reckless management of the crisis provided Popa Chubby with the inspiration for uncompromising lyrics. Like those of the title song (supported by, to say the least, an explicit clip) or themes such as “You Ain’t Said Shit,” “No Justice, No Peace,” or “Another Day In Hell.”
Without forgetting to pass on messages of hope (“Someday Soon, Change Is Gonna Come”) or even for good behavior in the face of the virus with “Baby Put On Your Mask.” In the album notes, he writes, “Like all of you, this pandemic has pushed me to the very edge of my humanity. But the music, the sweet music, has put me back on the right path once again. So I offer this work with humility and the deep devotion I have for you!”. That says it all!

The first notes of Relapse’s “Underground Rave Hits for a Shuttered Club” are obscured with abrasive noise. For this Pinecone Moonshine album, the Bristol based musician known for drum and bass drew from many influences. Melodies and harmonies suggest ideas from extreme metal, blues, folk, and unique medieval, ritual notations. The album ranges from slower tempos like the funky 100 bpm “Curse, or a Swan” up to the 200 bpm breakcore “Hitroll Beat Heart.”

When the world slipped into madness last month, the ESP Institute put most releases on the back-burner to await brighter days, but then we thought again; why not approach these odd circumstances the way we do most realities, positively and head-on? We’re committed to a community that builds new worlds — this is fundamental to our creative and spiritual relationship with Osaka-born, cosmos-straggling artist, Ground — and while temporarily we can’t physically congregate to uplift each other, its our responsibility as an institution to maintain a platform for prolific creative pioneers, our cherished cartographers of cognitive escape. 'Wakusei' is wonderfully confusing and disorienting music, a follow-up EP to 2018’s critically acclaimed album 'Sunizm', not created specifically for life under lockdown, but nonetheless aptly suited to help release angst, guide meditation, and assist in making this moment in history more interesting if not transcendental. Whereas 'Sunizm' relied on field recordings gathered from rainforests, percussions learned from imaginary ancient civilizations, and the somehow organic freneticism of a mission control meltdown, the aesthetic of 'Wakusei' reduces this abstract instrumentation one step further to a more base-level array of gurgling synth scraps, accelerating engine friction and static-bound phonetic mistakes, all scrubbed into dust by a Brillo pad of white noise. The cliché of “great art is born out of hard times” is not lost upon us — of course the world will look back to this turmoil and its residual contributions to culture — but we see today's art as an immediate coping mechanism, and artists like Ground helping to unlock and navigate internal utopias. We’re already indoors, let’s delve inside.

► One half of duo Lumisokea and persistent sonic explorer ANDREA TAEGGI (Opal Tapes, SM-LL, Type, Präsens Editionen) debuts on OOH-sounds with a new solo album under-the-influence of mushrooms.

► Recorded at Willem-Twee synthesis studios in Holland, Mycorrhiza is a lucid excursion into a new form of 'ritual-computer-music' — gamelan from the future.

►Master + Cut by Helmut Erler, D&M Berlin. Limited Edition of 200, 12" black vinyl housed in gold cardboard sleeve with 'ad-hoc' fluo sticker.

Of course this is not the first album born under-the-influence of mushrooms, but apparentlyTaeggi doesn't take them here as he rather observes the cognitive and intelligent behavior of mycorrhizal fungal roots—one of the great mysteries inhabiting the forest soil, and from which a network of beneficial underground relationships with plants sprouts. Known as Mycelium, this fascinating wood-wide-web very much resembles the intricacy of the human neural system—transporting carbon, water and nutrients from one tree to another. A mutualistic symbiosis that Taeggi similarly establishes with the rather rare arsenal of sound machineries he had access to at Willem-Twee synthesis studios in Holland—a center for experimentation inspired by Berio and Maderna's Studio di Fonologia RAI in 1950s Milan.

In the process of tweaking and feeding electric impulses and sound signals into instruments of the likes of the iconic ARP 2500/2600 and a number of testing/measuring units from the 50/60s—originallynot conceived as musical instruments—Taeggi engages into an exchange of nutrients and information, while abruptly sabotaging un-welcome elements, hence accelerating the sound superhighway towards spectral psychedelic tension—a process he seems to be extremely in control of. Taking a step aside from his usual minimal approach to address more complex structures and augmented mind-sets, Mycorrhiza sounds at times like gamelan from the future: a lucid excursion into a form of "ritual-computer-music" with a conspicuous penchant for detail,alluding to a continuitybetween pseudo-cerimonial and laboratory-like computer music, steering clear from any reference to a specific creed or religion—imagine Stockhausen drinking the Amazonian sacred brew Ayahuasca..

The swarming micro-movements of "Cuttleburrs" multiply in a series of crescendos marked by sudden falls, saturated drums incursions and tense sonic clusters, introducing the more explicit gamelan percussive tones and compositional forms of "Kodama" and "Icaro". Recorded on the ARP 2500, "Mycorrhiza" uses white noise generators, resonant bass and spring reverb to conjure up a magical fungal diorama, which expands into the spooky shadows of skeletons and demons of "Phantasmagoria" and the spectral mystics of "Oculus Cordis"—the Eye of the Spirit — in which Taeggi grapples with the same sine-wave generators that Stockhausen used in his seminal "Studie I" and "Studie II".

For the second release on the Galaxiid imprint, a label of electronic music archeology and quality, we are transported to the strange sonic world of an elusive 90s pioneer. Solar X's 1997 album X-Rated will be released for the first time on vinyl, as well as reissued digitally, with new artwork by the Japanese artist Keiichi Tanaami. Two worlds connecting sonically, visually and culturally.

Solar X enjoyed a burgeoning career in post-Perestroika Moscow making playful, low-tech electronica from Soviet analogue instruments, which he masterfully configured to forge animated compositions and dancefloor rarities. Fascinated by chaos and complexity, his music explores the ways in which our minds can be manipulated by structure - an endeavour quite plausibly linked to his other career as a lecturer and researcher of AI, information theory and cognitive science, his interest in which was in turn triggered by his young experiments in computer music.

Solar X gained international attention at a time when Russia was (quite unfairly) seen as a vacuum for electronic music, but was exploding in the period of piracy, poverty and freedom following the collapse of the USSR. Young Russians had benefited from the soviet education system and there was a strong DIY computer programming and music scene, fuelled by hackers, gear freaks and party animals. Viewed from today, the album is reborn at a time of further political and social strife, which many see as fuelling the huge creativity and radical thinking of modern Russia's young creatives.

X-Rated treats tempo and form as fluid concepts, administering sudden changes to its sonic landscape with disorienting effect, underlain with a subtle dose of humour and experimentation. Downtempo trip-hop sits alongside frenetic IDM and blistering electro, all bound together by peculiar melodic inflections and lively distortions. Warm, trippy harmonies and robotic synths are offset with angular drums, shifting erratically through moods and genres with cunning intent. Much like his contemporaries from the era, it's his ability to breathe life into a humble production setup that makes his music so compelling some twenty one years later.

The track titles are from a book of call girl cards in London phone booths, that reached the artist in Moscow in 1995. "I liked the titles from these cards, which were self-promoting and offering pleasure (e.g. "Mistress awaits you"). So, I thought since my tracks also offered some kind of pleasure, they might as well advertise this through their titles.'

Label head Nina Kraviz was introduced to the work of the 83 year old sensei Keiichi Tanaami by Ukawa Naoshiro, founder of Dommune in Tokyo, one of the brightest figureheads for the arts in Japan, responsible for the graphic design of the cover. In September 2017 Nina played for the opening of Tanaami-san's first exhibition in Moscow at Gary Tatintsian Gallery. Nina performed a live sound palette, to accompany the looping 7 minute animation, of experimental music from the Soviet Union, Russian pioneers of electronic music like Species Of Fishes and SolarX, Soviet-time pioneer Lev Termen, Kuryochin, avant-guard rock mixed with some Stockhausen and just pure abstract sounds, as well as treasured artists like Biogen.

Tanaami's illustrative work has strong sexual elements, so out of the five art pieces Nina selected and commissioned for Galaxiid, the first fits perfectly for 'X-rated'. The vertical line of text on the left is the traditional form for Japanese covers of foreign releases. The cover, together with the accompanying poster and sticker, are printed in Japan to ensure the highest print quality and purity of the colours.

The material featured on this EP was recorded in Berlin over the course of a legendary week-long exploit, the kind you read about at the movies. The music is a marriage of dark synth hooks and atmospheric sound design resulting from extensive Berghain-monitored brain damage. It is very fortunate that both artists were wearing their Twin Turbo friendship bracelets at the time or they may have never even gotten past the door. In terms of raw intelligence, the top one percent of those reading of this will have picked up on the cues that these tracks are techno. The rest have nothing to feel bad about. Our hope is that both communities can work out their cognitive differences on the dance floor every night for the rest of their lives. Our business model depends on it.

Stefan Smith has channeled an elevated reverence for process, texture and synth-extrapolation with the forthcoming release of his self-titled LP on the Sapiens imprint. A relative new-comer to the land of rapid fire releases and dance floor formulae, Smith is deeply steeped in the art of music creation, performance and theory.
As a graduate of Mills College's revered music department, Smith's prosaic understanding of music partially explains his migration to Sapiens, a label headquartered in Paris, France, which, under the direction of techno luminary, Agoria, has been expanding the realm of possibility for what a techno label can become. Collaborating with musicians, visual artists, film directors, shamans and sound designers, the young Sapiens platform releases may include political speeches, radio hits, dance floor tunes, sensorial or cognitive music or a gentle computer
virus'. Smith's LP contribution will definitely fall on the more delicious end of this spectrum, having woven a synth-lovers dream tapestry.

The nine tracks composing the album, Stefan Smith', draw the listener in on a river of oscillators, which push just past the banks of perceptible sound with with flawless production and loving sound treatment. The idea behind the album is very raw and organic. Stefan Smith focuses on atmosphere, mood, tones, and frequencies, rather than melodies. His productions are a response to the subliminal, and about feeling.
This album came together from a natural flow of working with computers and synthesisers, and also from the musical connection fostered Sebastien Devaud (Agoria). His approach to the album's production was to edit as little as possible, keeping the original feeling of chance and temporality intact. We can sense here Smith's intuition as sound designer, a role which has enabled him to work with artist Nicolas Becker and through this association further contribute work to the Philippe Parreno 'Anywhen' exhibition in Tate Modern Turbine Hall. The feedback
generated by studio experimentation gives birth to new ideas for aural shapes and textures. If one were only to lie back and identify the various wave forms, like butterflies and birds flittering through dappled sunlight, in each track's canopy of bountiful synth elements the mind's eye would dance with the steady intervals of Smith's real-time probe of his machinery, however, deep tracts of emotion and effortless grooves won't allow for a purely sensory listen. In the spirit of exploration, enjoy the ride.

A mechanism of auditory and cognitive silk.

Our second vinyl edition is a very special summer release,
As this series is firmly installed in a crossroads of sounds, showcasing original material by Monopolar and Signal Deluxe, that is taken way up high in the sky with a couple of stellar remixes from 2 of our favorite artists in the world: Jay tripwire and Jacek Sienkiewicz.

Teste returns with The Box Man, a five-track EP that marks their first release of original material in 25 years. Formed during the early nineties in Hamilton, Ontario, they put out only three official records between 1992-1993 on Probe Records, most notably 'The Wipe,' which is regarded as a genre defining classic, while the follow-up 'Regions' also served as a template for the ensuing sonics of contemporary techno. With only a handful of live actions, the final chaotic show (public disturbance) occurred for Pure in Glasgow 1994. Afterwards, the original Teste lineup of juvenile delinquents disbanded but unwittingly ended up defining the hypnotic and drugged out strains of today's afterhours techno parties. The project vanished for decades until reactivating the chaos in 2014, promoting a slew of remixes 'The Rewipes,' by artists such as Rrose and Terence Fixmer, on the Edit Select imprint.

Since then, original member David Foster, still at large as //HUREN//, has been slugging it out in the fringes with influential output on the seminal Zhark Recordings Berlin and has collaborated as O/H with Rich Oddie of Orphx. First meeting on Mayday 2017 in Berlin, a new alliance with Martin Maischein aka Goner formed. Goner is likewise a veteran with essential output under various monikers on imprints such as Force Inc., Editions Mego, and Hospital Productions. From that pairing, The Box Man came into being for the second release on BITE, the Berlin techno label run by Hayden Payne and Florian Engerling.

The Box Man picks up where Teste last left us with their revolutionary vision of techno and continues to further their interdimensional manifestation of insanity and formation. Pure techno serving as a method of psychic expulsion and self-reckoning. From the opening, the eponymous track approaches full panoramic throttle as metallic synths creep 360 degrees around the listener, setting the tone for panic and loss of cognitive control. Teste then moves into the stealthier outpatient techno rhythms of 'The Long Term Care Facility' and 'Thieves Are Operating In This Area'. The EP contrasts its propulsion with different interpretations of its blueprint. 'Foaming At The Mouth' delves into Cabaret Voltaire-alike rhythm box violence until all is closed with the comedown melodies of 'Lyubov'. Through highly adept methods of sound design and neural interpretation, Teste once again cuts apart reality with their music, expressing nightmares and visions via new rituals and mind control techno.

LYBES DIMEM is a project by visual artist and musician Lukas Rehm. With a focus on digital sound-de- sign, elaborate beat structures and the use of error, the music plays with cognitive phenomena and abstraction while maintaining an emotional refuge. LYBES DIMEM is presented in formats ranging from spatial sound experiences to sy- nesthetic shows complementing the auditive layers with visualiza- tions of real-time data, computer graphics and moving image. Lukas Rehms installative art, and compo- sitions have been internationally presented and awarded with multi- ple emerging arts prices.

SYNCLEFT CHRONEM is the first album released by LYBES DIMEM in both digital and vinyl format and accompanied by a moving image artwork. The title reflects the pro- jects interest in the potential of difference, cognitive frictions and exertion: sync = variability in the processing of auditive and visual signals, syncleft = the synaptic cleft, which is a crucial empty spa- ce in biological neural networks, chronem = the chroneme as a the- oretical unit to measure the time of

an articulated sound. Mathemati- cally clean sounds juxtapose pat- terns and transitions familiar from the realm of organic acoustics. Multi-layered noise textures ex- plore the simulated space. A tem- porary continuity is provided by percussive and melodic elements, right until the next escalation, eventually awaiting a concluding resolution.

The visual language explores dif- ferent phenomena and techniques of cognition inspired by the rhe- torics of big science (computer graphics, discontinuity of materi- al, pop cultural references). Both the moving image artwork and the graphic design of the release pay tribute to the multi-layered appro- ach of the music. The design of the vinyl cover by studio BNAG.cc uses subtractive colour synthesis to interchange between abstract for- mality and representationalism.

SYNCLEFT CHRONEM is the first release by LYBES DIMEM on SVS Records following a first encounter at the SVS residency at the 4D Spa- tial Sound Institute in Budapest.

Baltimore's PJ Dorsey has traversed a lifelong journey delving into psychoactive music which can alter one's cognitive and conscious state. He harnesses his experiences to create music as Tarotplane. Using guitar, effects and processing he produces time suspending soundscapes - immersive music for merging the mind and body.
.
358 Oblique is the follow up to First which was released on Aguirre Records in 2015. Find yourself adrift in the lapping waters of a slow unraveling sea of sound, a spectral vortex of shimmering tones and discrete samples guide the listener into an aural abyss, while plangent six-string melodies offer glimpses into a sanctifying
sensory space. The two exploration provide an evocative journey through a psychedelic continuum and beyond.

In 2017, the musical term electronic' is nearly obsolete given the ubiquity of computerized processes in producing music. Even so, the prevailing assumption is that musicians working under this broad umbrella must be inspired by concepts equally as electrified as their equipment. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has demonstrated in her still-blooming discography that this notion couldn't be further from the truth, and that more often than not, rich worlds of synthesized
sound are born from deep reverence of the natural world. Smith (who by no coincidence, cites naturalist David Attenborough as a contemporary muse) has embodied such an appreciation on
The Kid in as direct and sincere a way as possible by sonically charting the phases of life itself.
The album, which punctually follows up her 2016 breakthrough EARS, chronicles four defining cognitive and emotional stages of the human lifespan across four sides of a double LP.
The first side takes us through the confused astonishment of a newborn, unaware of itself, existing in an unwitting nirvana. Smith's music has always woven a youthful thread befitting of the
aforementioned subject. Here she articulates it in signature fashion on the track An Intention,' which serves not only as a soaring spire on The Kid, but on her entire output. There is playfulness here, but it's elevated by an undertone of gravity into something compelling and majestic that is fast becoming Smith's watermark. The emotional focus of side two is the vital but underreported moment in early youth when we cross the threshold into self awareness. The subject is profound enough to fill an entire album, but rarely makes its way into a single track, indicating Smith's ambition to broach subtler and deeper subjects than the average composer. This side offers up another highlight in the form of In The World But Not Of The World' which serves its subject well with epiphanic, climbing strings and decidedly noisy textures over a near-Bollywood low end pulse.

Side three emphasizes a feeling of being confirmed enough in one's own identity to begin giving back to the formative forces of one's upbringing, which is arguably the duty that all great artists
aim to fulfill. This side ends with the exploratory album cut Who I Am & Why I Am Where I Am' recorded in a single take without overdubs on the rare EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer. This humble
piece of sound design serves as a contrast to side four's verdant orchestral moments, all written and arranged for the EU-based Stargaze quartet by Smith herself. This final side represents a
return to pure being, the kind of wisdom and peace that eludes most of us until the autumn of life. On To Feel Your Best' this concept is voiced in the bittersweet refrain one day I'll wake up
and you won't be there' which Smith intended to be a grateful acknowledgement of life rather than a melancholy resentment of loss. The song has both effects depending on the mood of the
listener, and both interpretations are equally moving.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith belongs to an ilk of modern musicians who are defined by their commitment to creating experiential albums despite the singles-oriented habits of modern listeners,
and here she represents her kind proudly. The subjects on The Kid are not simple to convey, and yet through both emotional tone and lyrical content, Smith does just that. There is a similar
gravity to both birth and death, and rarely is that correlation as accurately and enthusiastically mapped as it is here.

Alan Watts, another logical inspiration of Smith's, once expounded that people record themselves to confirm their own existence, and as such, echoes and resonance are reminders that we are alive. You're not there unless you're recorded,' Watts muses, if you shout, and it doesn't come back and echo, it didn't happen.' The Kid speaks to this idea directly. As Kaitlyn Aurelia
Smith explores her existence through music, she guides us in gleefully contemplating our own.

Terence Fixmer reached worldwide recognition with the release of his debut album Muscle Machine on DJ Hell's seminal International Deejay Gigolos imprint in 1999. The album opened a whole new genre by combining Electro, Industrial, EBM and Techno into a more dance floor-focused EBM style, simply called 'Techno Body Music'. The French producer and live act has consistently explored and redefined the boundaries of modern Techno -and he is not slowing down. Dance Of The Comets is the second release on the newly relaunched NovaMutelabel. NovaMuteis the seminal techno label that has been home to Plastikman, Speedy J, Juan Atkins, Luke Slater, Joey Beltramand more. NovaMute, born again, recently released Cognitive Resonance by Nicolas Bougaïeffand will release the forthcoming EP by Charlotte De Witte. Terence Fixmer'ssound deftly avoids repetition by developing soundscapes which maintain musical depth and integrity. He above all preserves an original style, an increasingly experimental, simultaneously ruthless and instantly recognizable aesthetic.

This grouping of audio recordings is for aural use only. Any emotional content perceived herein is borne of its listener, and is in no way intended by its author. Any sounds resembling speech are not intended to convey meaning.

Several Shades Of The Same Color is Patricia's first album for Spectral Sound — produced in conjunction with his own label Active Cultures.

Tips for listeners: consider the moment in which you exist; pay attention to how these sounds evoke physiological (rather than cognitive) responses. Listeners may find themselves deriving immense physical pleasure from exposure to these sounds. Inability to achieve such pleasure is likely attributable to over-analysis of the aforementioned audio content — or to improper amplification.

Each of Shades' three LPs features suites of tracks that, considered alone, comprise their own distinct, unique worlds. Disc One opens with "I Know The Face, But Not The Name," an unabashedly plaintive trip through classic electro rhythms; flip it over for "The Words Are Only Sounds," a haunting affair for synthesizer and voice. Disc Two's "The Electric Eye is Upon Me" swirls endlessly, while "Shiba Inu Dub" is cut for the floor and coy as its namesake. Disc Three's jackin' "Feel Your Body" will cause you to do just that; "German Friendship" sounds like D.A.F. on dissociatives.

Any emotional associations incurred while listening come at the listener's discretion. Furthermore, the identity of the author and/or their passions regarding the recordings herein shall bear no weight on the listener's experience. This body of work is not intended to generate ideas; rather, its goal is to produce physical sensations in the listener.   
Taken altogether, Several Shades Of The Same Color is kaleidoscopic, a multi-faceted techno trip. Listen in full, or listen in part. And if you consider only one of these intermittent listening notes, make it this one: Don't think; just hear.

Richard Fearless delivers some Transatlantic love with his third Drone instalment, and the fifth release from this growing label. Overview Effect is dubbed out Detroit-esque techno with with an epic two and half minute string workout and a cognitive shift to pure Fearless magic.Metal Dub is stripped-down, metallic, hypnotic techno with haunting pads, and it's been smashing it in the darkest of rooms of late. A deep, heavy release on Drone.
Luke Hess and Dj Richard remixes to come.