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Four albums in, the convenient and generalized catchphrase for Here Lies Man’s erudite sound — if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat — might seem a little played out. But Ritual Divination is perhaps the best rendering of the idea so far. Particularly on the Sabbath side of the equation: The guitars are heavier and more blues based than before, but the ancient rhythmic formula of the clave remains a constant.
“Musically it’s an opening up more to traditional rock elements,” says vocalist/guitarist/ cofounder Marcos Garcia, who also plays guitar in Antibalas. “It’s always been our intention to explore. And, as we travelled deeper into this musical landscape, new features revealed themselves.”

The L.A. based band comprised of Antibalas members have toured relentlessly following their breakout 2017 self-titled debut. Their second album, You Will Know Nothing and an EP, Animal Noises, both followed in 2018. Third album No Ground To Walk Upon emerged in August 2019. All of them were crafted by Garcia and cofounder/drummer Geoff Mann (former Antibalas drummer and son of jazz musician Herbie Mann) in their L.A. studio between tours. Ritual Divination is their first album recorded as the full 4-piece band, including bassist JP Maramba and keyboardist Doug Organ.
Ritual Divination continues with an ongoing concept of HLM playing the soundtrack to an imaginary movie, with each song being a scene. “It’s an inward psychedelic journey, the album is the trip,” Garcia says. “The intention and purpose of the music is to create a sonic ritual to lift the veil of inner space and divine the true nature of reality.”

Likewise, musically and sonically, the album is self-reflexive. “On this album the feel changes within a song,” Garcia says. “Whereas before each song was meant to induce a trancelike state, now more of the songs have their own arc built in.” Similarly, the guitar sounds themselves herein eschew the fuzz pedals of previous recordings, going for the directness of pure amp overdrive and distortion using an interconnected rig of 4 amplifiers. And, here, the well-versed live band is able to record as a unit, giving it much more of a live and dynamic feel.

Rough Trade named the band’s self-titled debut in their prestigious Top 10 Albums of 2017. BBC 6 & Classic Rock Magazine deemed it among the year’s best, as well as countless other press outlets singing its praises. Each subsequent album furthered the band’s reputation for genre-smashing rhythmic experimentation, topping many year-end lists as well as earning features from countless metal and indie rock outlets, plus cover stories in weekly papers.
“We’re very conscious of how the rhythms service the riffs,” Garcia explains. “Tony Iommi’s (Black Sabbath) innovation was to make the riff the organizing principle of a song. We are taking that same approach but employing a different organizing principle: For Iommi it was the blues, for us it comes directly from Africa.”
Ritual Divination will be available on LP, CD and download on January 22nd, 2021 via RidingEasy Records.

These newly remastered editions of Bill Fox’s second album are the first since its 1998 release, including the first-ever vinyl pressing. Listeners will hear a wider soundstage, more detail, and improved listenability. Recorded on 4-track cassette, the fidelity belies the sophistication and nuance of the songwriting, This adept remaster by John Golden Sr helps bring definition to the intimate, at-home feel of the album. It sparkles.Very similar in feel and quality to Fox’s debut album, much of Transit Byzantium draws from the same group of recordings. It has the same feel of musical inevitability, that the songs exist beyond time itself, their eventual manifestation guaranteed by Apollo. He could’ve given them to the Everly Brothers, or the Byrds, or the Who, but instead they were channeled through an everyman from Cleveland with an aversion to the limelight. And while a traditional folk influence colors several songs, even those possess the indelible stamp of Fox’s charismatic voice and personality. Although nearly entirely acoustic and with minimal percussion, these eighteen songs cycle through a remarkable variety of textures and moods.While much has quite rightly been written about the god-tier songwriting here (“Song of a Drunken Nightingale,” “My Baby Crying,” “I’ll Give It Away” for starters), it should also be noted that this is a guitar player’s record, though more in terms of conception than flash. Lines of harmony and counterpoint wander between parts, sublime in their invention though sometimes crudely documented.

Early summer 2019, João Lobo started recording his compositions at les Ateliers Claus in Brussels, with guitarist Norberto Lobo, bassist Soet Kempeneer and recording engineer Christophe Albertijn. The recording sessions were planned over the course of one week, however the job was mostly done in just a few takes. With the addition of some overdubs, the whole process was finalised in a spontaneous wave. It is too simplistic to define Joao Lobo’s compositions with one term, and the association of the album “Simorgh” with this ingenious partnership’s new creations, is inevitable.

While the mix of genres and styles may be easy to distinguish, the focus centres on the result of the mixing: a highly grooving and an occasionally paused and introspective music that seems out of time and out of space. It is difficult to grasp or define a specific period in time or a geographic origin in this fusion of references, as what you listen to is a bold creation of original and surprising elements. Drummers – such as João Lobo – employ a multi-layered concept in their music, weaving the different tracks into a linear wash of sound. He plays the song with the drum set while the other members fly in and out of the compositions, always gathering around their phoenix in order to attain enlightenment.

What João Lobo and many of his contemporaries are up to, can be explained through simple terms as a future exploration of the emotionally expressive possibilities of sound. It breaks away from the conventional order providing space for the discovery of a new order. Simultaneously it allows a more profound and broader expression of what the current reality of music is and represents. It was instantly clear for me that we had to share his music with our audience and create this medium for happiness.

This release is the trio’s debut record, which is the impetus for their personal development in the realisation that features João as a mentor in the creation process. The featured compositions highlight the musicians’ unique physical aspect to control their instruments and their hidden techniques that underlying these tracks. The result is an ongoing aural interplay. It was love at first sound.

This album is a co-release between Les Albums Claus and Shhpuma.

No FTR is the new work of Daniel Monaco released by Dutch label 339 Records in collaboration with Logical Records from Spain.
No FTR is short No Future: Daniel Monaco wants to represent a trip into an obscure place where time never existed.
No FTR is a maxi single Dark Italo concept including a remix from Slow Motion label boss Franz Scala pioneer of the new Italian Wave a true creator and Italo Master.
No FTR will be out on December the 20th 2020 in limited 12 inch vinyl edition

Elzhi, the “Syllable Sensei,” is back again with a highly anticipated release titled “Seven Times Down Eight Times Up,” This 12-track LP is a collage of memories and metaphors layered atop beats crafted by up-and-coming producer JR Swiftz. With collabs from Detroit artists, Monica Blaire and Fes Rock on two of the album's stand-out tracks, Elzhi’s new masterpiece showcases his ability to create meaningful concepts while Detroit’s own comedian and “Real Hip Hop Advocate” Foolish provides commentary throughout the album.
As one of Elzhi’s most cohesive releases to date, his wordsmithing abilities paint images of royalty, excellence, and zombies wearing Gucci, all with an underlying message of resilience. “Seven times Down Eight Times Up” is the mantra for a year that has seen lots of “downs,” and reminds us that no matter what we're faced with, we will remain undefeated, and get back up after being knocked down by this machete-wielding maniac we call “life.”

LTD. CLEAR VINYL

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

Eric Kupper collaborates with the incredible, Samba-inspired Japanese singer Keiko Yoshimura for an original production on his long-standing label Hysteria.

After remixing a track sung by the lovely and super talented Keiko, a Japanese singer that specializes in Samba, Eric Kupper was so enthralled with her voice that he felt compelled to reach out to her to collaborate on an original production. Eric felt it would be an interesting concept to combine the Samba melody, Japanese lyric with Afro-Cuban rhythms.

This record is the result.

A ‘satire about satire’, WASTELAND is a wild Burroughsian adventure melding science-fiction, absurdism and magical realism, calling fora revolution against the reductive ‘good versus evil’ narratives of popular satirical music. Arguing that through experimenting with the form of the song lyric (our most widely disseminated form of creative writing) we can build more nuanced popular discourse around the implicit forms of bias that ail us, WASTELAND presents complex characters changing their minds–along with their bodies and places in spacetime. Set in an unearthly liminal space populated by shape-shifters, time-travellers, talking genitalia and ectoplasmic spectres, the prose text evolves as the characters do: warping into cut-ups, soliloquies and even plays.Created over two years, the album draws from LICE’s rise in ‘the punk world’ (sharing stages with IDLES, The Fall, Squid, Fat White Family, Girl Band etc.) and eventual disillusionment with the limits of its prevailing ideas.

WASTELAND is a concept album structured as an experimental short story, taking cues from Brian Catling, William Burroughs and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Its core argument is that, through reworking the prevailing forms of satirical song lyrics, we can build more nuanced popular discourse around the implicit forms of bias that ail us–the song lyric being the most widely disseminated and commonly ‘engaged with’ form of creative writing there is. In this allegory for crises in society and art (from commodification to ideological state apparatuses), the moral, physical and temporal transformations of its characters are paired with the text’s transformation: breaking from prose into cut-ups, soliloquies and even plays. In the wild, liminal space of the Wasteland, this story

This album could easily have turned top-heavy. After all, here’s a record which, in just under 40 minutes, covers anything from Arabic scales to Japanese sounds, from free jazz references to concepts by Finnish pianist Kari Ikonen’s favourite painter Vasiliy Kandinsky.
To realise his vision, Ikonen even personally developed a device allowing him to play micro-intervals on his piano. And yet, things turned out differently: If anything, the results sound dream-like and mesmerising rather than stodgy and severe.
The album’s genesis may serve to explain this paradox. In August of 2019, Ikonen suddenly found himself with a month of free time. Without thinking twice and as if in a premonition of the Covid-lock-down, he recorded ‘Impressions, Improvisations and Compositions’ at his own home. His only companion was his beloved Steinway, captured by a personal selection of high-end microphones. Just a few days after the final session, the pieces landed on the desk of ECM- and Blue-Note-engineer Johannes Lundberg who mixed the album at his Gothenburg Epideminstudios. Clearly then, the music is spontaneous. But it’s also refined and deep. The influence of Kandinsky inspired
Ikonen to write some of his most complex and monumental pieces.

Nils Frahm announces the release of Encores 3 on 20 September 2019, the third and final instalment of his Encores series. The three EPs will be available as one full length release titled All Encores featuring 80 minutes of music on 18 October, to follow his masterful 2018 album All Melody. Whilst Encores 1 focused on an acoustic pallet of sounds with solo piano and harmonium at the core, and Encores 2 explored more ambient landscapes, now Encores 3 sees Nils expand on the percussive and electronic elements in his work.

“The idea behind All Encores is one we had from before All Melody; to separate releases each with their own distinct musical style and theme, perhaps even as a triple album. But All Melody became larger than itself and took over any initial concepts. I think the idea of All Encores is like musical islands that compliment All Melody.”Moulded during All Melody but refined by his live performances, All Encores is testament to Nils’ exceptional ability to craft his art on stage.

Artificially Intelligent which showcases his ‘mad professor’ organ, and All Armed which has been a live favourite for some time, appearing on set lists since 2015, are now available to hear on record for the very first time. The final track of Encores 3, as well as the whole series, Amirador, perhaps aptly nods to the Spanish word for ‘lookout’ and hints at what’s to come.

Frahm has been touring extensively following the release of All Melody, bringing his spectacular live show all around the world with sold out performances including the Hammersmith Apollo in London, L.A.’s Disney Hall, Brooklyn Steel, Le Trianon in Paris and Funkhaus in Berlin. Nils returns to the UK capitol for The Hydra’s summer 2019 series, headlining Printworks on August 23, with further European dates following the release of Encores 3 and All Encores. For all dates and tickets: nilsfrahm/concerts.

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

White Vinyl

For Intervals, Arndt's chose the family piano to begin the creative process. By placing less importance on the skittering rhythms, which propelled previous Near the Parenthesis collections, Arndt was able to focus more on the instant gratification of sitting down and just playing. These ideas became the back- bone in which he then composed eight tidal tracks, mostly in the early morning hours in his East San Franciso Bay creekside home.
In these sessions, Arndt utilized various synths, and percussion to provide additional depth and atmosphere to the tracks' original skeletal structures. Arndt says of Intervals, "The title has a dual meaning as there has been a decent period of time between my previous album Helical and the release of Intervals, Four years to be exact. This concept of time and the spaces between gives the title its other connotation, which is a nod to musical intervals and the spaces between notes. I think this becomes evident in my use of arpeggiation, which I feel is a grounding motif across the album."
As with many Arndt's Near The Parenthesis works, there is a gentile hopefulness sewn through Intervals forty-minute runtime that provides much-needed solace in such unsettling times.

The sublime songs comprising Los Angeles-based musician Ana Roxanne's second release, Because Of A Flower, germinated gradually across five years, inspired by interwoven notions of gender identity, beauty, and cruelty. She describes her process as beginning with “a drone element and a mood,” then intuiting melody, syllables, and lyrics incrementally, like sacred shapes materializing from mist.
The experience of identifying as intersex informs the album on levels both sonic and thematic, from spoken word texts borrowed from tonal harmony textbooks to cinematic dialogue samples and castrati aria allusions. It's an appropriately interstitial vision of ambient songcraft, a chemistry of wisps and whispers, sanctuary and sorrow, conjured through a fragile balance of voice, bass, space, and texture.
Despite a background studying at the prestigious Mills College in Oakland, Roxanne's music rarely feels conceptual, instead radiating an immediate and emotive aura, rooted in the present tense of her personal journey. She speaks of the flower in the title as a body, singular and sunlit, as many petals as thorns, an enigma beholden only to itself. But whether taken as surface or subtext, Because is a transfixing document of a rare artist in the spring of their ascension.

This compilation sees the coming together of independent music makers from across the globe to meet in one place and gather as a single entity. That simmering hub of warmth and affection is known as Motor Jazz - a place for artists to congregate and share their devotion for songs that are infused with rhythms created by anodic wires, buttons and other digital paraphernalia. That's electronic music to you and me, and in this case electronic music with swing, a sense of freedom and improvisation that some might call 'Jazz'.

The album opens with the ominous drone of the Mega Corp., sounding like one of the parties responsible for 2020's almost post-apocalyptic feel. It's perhaps an unlikely opener for a what's a positive and optimistic collection courtesy of young musicians from across the globe, but we all need to be reminded of who's in charge sometimes, and Dutch producer Jon Sewi does just that!

The mood soon lightens though, with the soulful strings and enticing keys of Gladdics by the mysterious Black Soyls, before well established German musical artisan Renegades of Jazz brings the family in for It's Tea Time with ticking clocks, warm tea pots and slices of cake, whilst being serenaded by a very vintage sounding horn section.

Serafin Plum almost steer us into drum & bass territory with their off-the-wall percussive nugget Jagged, whilst keeping a calming hand on the shoulder (as all good parents should) with soothing keys, before it's playtime once again.

There's nothing conventional about the Motor Jazz family though, and after tea time and play time, it's time to rave! In Greek mythology, The Maenads were female followers of Dionysus; their name literally translating as "the raving ones". Often they were portrayed as being inspired by the god into a state of ecstasy through a combination of dancing and intoxication, during which time they would dress in fawn skins and carry a thyrsus - a long stick wrapped in ivy or vine leaves and tipped with a pine cone. With a sound ranging between Jazz, Techno, Rave and Breaks their track, Opera, delivers a psyche and Jazz influenced piece with colliding styles, busy drums and rich melodies.

Heading over to Dublin, Ireland, and multi-talented producer, musician and DJ, Donal Sharpson (aka Double Screen) makes his presence known with grandiose brass preempting a four-to-the-floor wood block frenzy in the shape of Sheikah, complete with enthusiastic whoops and a persuasive bassline. Meanwhile, somewhere below the Irish Sea, aquatic artiste Stubby Dials delivers the bass worrying Put It On Ice the only way he knows how - living in a submarine, he emerges from time to time to leave his master tapes on the beach with a note saying "Release this!" before submerging, never been seen again.

Back in the Netherlands, Bram van der Hoeven, otherwise known as Lucinate, is an electronic Jazz producer par excellence. His effortless balance of organic musical roots like Fusion, Bossa Nova and Soul, into the world of modern beat orientated sounds is something to behold, and with The Cards he offsets life-affirming keys with rolling drums reminiscent of some of the seminal liquid Drum & Bass he grew up with.

As the global Motor Jazz family expands, we head to Canada, where the wonderfully monikered Woodpecking Mantis brings a little acid to the party with his squelchy, stuttering and brilliantly entitled Waving At A Melting Square Tooth Of A Specific Rabbit……. We're guessing they like acid a lot in Canada.

We're going down under to Newcastle, Australia next, where things take a more serene turn. Wrenasmir, known to his parents as Craig Smith, used to be a baroque pipe organist before he discovered samplers and synthesizers. Now he makes imaginary soundtracks at his studio for the twilight beachside city that lives in his head - full of vinyl and pixels and bittersweet memories. The gorgeous Lucempight is exactly that.

Keeping things low key and tranquil, Poets And Rockets, the latest offering from Jay Solomon is a horn driven slice of futuristic dub that makes way for The Motion Orchestra's majestic Midnight Sun, complete with Alexander Bednasch on double-bass, Mark Matthes on violins, Andy Sells on drums and David Hanke on electronics and production. Though influenced heavily by neo-classical and jazz sensibilities they occupy a musical space that sits in neither sphere, with a compositional style that deftly fuses the orchestral and electronic worlds. The full Motion Orchestra album, All One, will be released later this year on Bathurst.

Sixteen year old, self taught producer and multi-instrumentalist Teis Ortved is something of a prodigy. The Copenhagen based wunderkind has so far self-released two EPs, and if What, his offering here, is anything to go by, he's going to be making big waves across the eclectic music spectrum for years to come.

If Teis is the new kid on the block then what better way to round off this compilation that with its patriarchal figure. Funki Porcini has over a quarter of a century of recordings in his back catalogue, and has spent fifteen of those years dedicated to the independent UK behemoth that is Ninja Tune records. The Last Recording From Earth is exclusive to this album and is in many ways the perfect closing song. Perhaps more concept art than traditional piece of music, the idea behind it is that an alien archeologist has found this recording tens of thousands of years after humans have disappeared into the sand…. You never know, it might just happen, and hopefully Them To Us will take on a whole new meaning.

Gang of Ducks welcomes back Haf Haf, whose Notch ep, released in 2014, helped define the early sound of the label. Pattern of chaos is a journey through 8 heterogeneous tracks, where Haf Haf's unique timbre is the narrative voice.The pleasure of the exploration, finding out new places beyond what we're used to, is the main concept of the record.All the tracks sit on a blurred line. On one hand you feel the echoes of different genres, extracts of voices, samples, that you may be familiar with.On the other hand these tracks take a final shape you're not used to, making each one of them hard to label. Every track feels like observing a planet through a window, which filters the landscape while at the same time reflecting the image to the observer.Pattern of Chaos is a really singular record, which moves energies in a new way."

Dutch mainstay Jeroen Search is a true genius of building linear grooves, either subtly breathing or powerfully bouncing. His Figure release following the 2018 LP Monism reflects this aptly once more. Minimalistic, hypnotic loops simply introduce the varied 5-track EP, followed up some by some heavyweight acid-house punchlines.
The flip makes its name, changing course again in order to head deeper for a more heads-down exploration of the bleep-space nebula. Sitting firmly nestled in the center of the record, Magnet Tapes is that endless loop suspended in time and space, slowly working its way into one’s consciousness with every repetition. Search cleverly captures this moment to introduce some sounds beyond the structure of track and loop, challenging our conception of music yet playfully igniting the mind’s imaginations.
Aiming for the finish line, the EP comes to a halt only after another taster of Jeroen Search’s deadpan efficient loop science, effortlessly stacking layers of rhythms for an ultimate straight-up techno workout.

“We have always been very fortunate to meet and know many talented producers. In recent years, we have been exploring those relationships with different remixes and collaborations, and every time something exciting came out. That’s why we started our Synchronicity project. To challenge ourselves making inspiring, fun and beautiful music.‘Synchronicity’ means "the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection. This very well describes how our path led to the place we are now – somewhere between the club and indie scenes.” – WhoMadeWho

KOMPAKT welcomes back Copenhagen’s WhoMadeWho. Tomas Barfod’s penchant for electronic music poetically juxtaposed with Tomas Høffding and Jeppe Kjellberg’s respective backgrounds in rock and jazz, gives their music an electrifying combination of sounds, merging a variety of influences to produce a unique sonic fingerprint that is emotive, irresistible and immensely satisfying.

Though we both have yet to strike a note together since the release of their 2012 full length “Brighter” (KOM 254), WhoMadeWho have been remarkably productive. With two full lengths, a DJ mix for Watergate’s series and releasing two of 2019’s most played out club tracks together with Rampa (Innervisions) and Artbat (Watergate Records), the trio have found themselves diving more and more into the world of electronic music, tapping into their goldmine of connections within the scene to spearhead an array of collaborations.

Synchronicity is all about ‘meaningful coincidences’ – bringing interpretation to bear on connections that have no actual causal relationship. It’s a canny concept to pin onto Copenhagen trio WhoMadeWho’s latest album, which sees them return to Kompakt for the first time since 2012’s Brighter.

This re-established connection helps us to understand the synchronicity at play, the way that the WhoMadeWho core ave built an album around collaboration with friends and peers, much as Kompakt is all about cross-connections and family. On Synchronicity, WhoMadeWho call on friends old and new – Michael Mayer, Echonomist, Adana Twins, Alex Boman, Robag Wruhme, Frank Wiedemann, Sainte Vie, Mano Le Tough, Marc Piñol, Rebolledo, and Perel is the cast list; WhoMadeWho direct the material, shaping it into one lovingly flowing gem of dance-pop glory.

There’s something particularly generous about hearing an album as all-inclusive and open-hearted as Synchronicity in the midst of the profound social and cultural shifts we’re currently experiencing. While some songs on Synchronicity were recorded together, in real time, such as the collaborations with Adana Twins and Rebolledo, most of them have taken place via long distance, thanks to the pandemic lockdown. But you don’t need to know who was where to understand either the magnesium-flare melancholy of “Sooner”, recorded with Piñol, which has you holding your breath with the gentle thrill of the song’s lush melody, or the stomping strut of the following Adana Twins collaboration, “Shadow Of Doubt”.

Elsewhere, there’s the stentorian robot voice at the heart of “Hamstring”, where they’re joined by Michael Mayer; the lustrous headsoak of “Twenty Tears”, a tender intervention by Rebolledo; the strip-light, slow-motion disco strut of “Cecil”, produced alongside Echonomist; or the glittering, arpeggio dreamwork that Perel helps sculpt into shape on “Der Abend birgt keine Ruh.”… Really, there’s so much to celebrate here, a panoply of pleasures. From pop revelations to dancefloor delirium to slow-burning brooders, Synchronicity is just that; a space for the joys of the unexpected to collide, and to be given meaning by their coincidental co-existence in WhoMadeWho’s beautiful world.

"Wir hatten immer schon das Glück, viele talentierte Produzenten kennenzulernen. In den letzten Jahren haben wir diese Beziehungen durch verschiedene Remixe und Kollaborationen vertieft und jedes Mal kam etwas Aufregendes dabei heraus. Aus diesem Grund haben wir unser Synchronicity-Projekt gestartet: um uns selbst herauszufordern inspirierte, lustige und schöne Musik zu machen. “Synchronizität” bedeutet das gleichzeitige Auftreten von Ereignissen, die scheinbar in einem signifikanten Zusammenhang stehen, aber keinen erkennbaren kausalen Zusammenhang haben. Das beschreibt sehr gut, wie unser Weg zu dem Ort geführt hat, an dem wir jetzt sind - irgendwo zwischen der Club- und der Indie-Szene". – WhoMadeWho

KOMPAKT freut sich über Rückkehr der Kopenhagener Band WhoMadeWho. Tomas Barfods Vorliebe für elektronische Musik im poetischen Kontrast zu Tomas Høffding und Jeppe Kjellbergs jeweiligem Hintergrund im Rock und Jazz macht ihre Musik zu einem elektrisierenden Konglomerat, in das verschiedene Einflüsse zu einem einzigartigen klanglichen Fingerabdruck verschmelzen: gefühlvoll, unwiderstehlich und immens befriedigend.

Obwohl wir seit der Veröffentlichung von "Brighter" (KOM 254) in 2012 keine gemeinsamen Dinger gedreht haben, waren WhoMadeWho in der Zwischenzeit bemerkenswert produktiv. Mit zwei Full-Length-Alben, einem DJ-Mix für die Watergate-Reihe und der Veröffentlichung von zwei der meistgespielten Clubtracks aus dem Jahr 2019 zusammen mit Rampa (Innervisions) und Artbat (Watergate Records), taucht das Trio mehr und mehr in die Welt der elektronischen Musik ein. Für ihre Kollaborationen greifen WhoMadeWho immer wieder auf ihre Goldgrube an Bekanntschaften innerhalb der Szene zurück.

Bei “Synchronicity” geht es um "sinnvolle Zufälle" - also um die Interpretation von Verbindungen, die keinen tatsächlichen Kausalzusammenhang haben. Es ist ein ausgeklügeltes Konzept, das dem neuesten Album des Kopenhagener Trios WhoMadeWho anheftet: Diese wieder hergestellte Verbindung hilft uns, die Synchronizität im Spiel zu verstehen; die Art und Weise, wie WhoMadeWho ein Album um die Zusammenarbeit mit Freunden und Gleichgesinnten herum aufgebaut hat: schließlich geht es auch bei Kompakt um Querverbindungen und Familie. Auf Synchronicity richten sich WhoMadeWho an alte und neue Freunde: Michael Mayer, Echonomist, Adana Twins, Axel Boman, Robag Wruhme, Frank Wiedemann, Terr, Sainte Vie, Mano Le Tough, Marc Piñol, Rebolledo und Perel stehen auf der Liste. Das Trio führt Regie und sorgt für den Feinschliff. Das Ergebnis: ein echtes Juwel aus Dance, Pop und Glorie.

Inmitten der tiefgreifenden sozialen und kulturellen Veränderungen, die wir derzeit erleben, ist es etwas Besonderes, ein Album zu hören, das so offenherzig ist wie “Synchronicity”. Zwar wurden einige Songs gemeinsam und in Echtzeit aufgenommen – etwa die Kollaboration mit den Adana Twins und Rebolledo – die meisten Sessions fanden aufgrund der Pandemie jedoch über größere Entfernungen statt. Letztlich muss man aber gar nicht wissen wer wo war, um die Melancholie von "Sooner" mit Marc Piñol zu verstehen und im sanften melodischen Rausch des Liedes den Atem anzuhalten. Auch die eher brachiale Energie der darauf folgenden Adana-Twins-Kollaboration , "Shadow Of Doubt" vermittelt sich eingehend über die soziale Distanz hinweg.

An anderer Stelle ertönt die schallende Roboterstimme im Herzen von "Hamstring", wo sich Michael Mayer zu ihnen gesellt; die schimmernden "Twenty Tears", einer zärtlichen Intervention von Rebolledo; der Zeitlupen- Disco-Nummer "Cecil", die zusammen mit Echonomist produziert wurde; oder der glitzernde Arpeggio-Traum, den Perel in "Der Abend birgt keine Ruh" in Form bringt.. Ja, es gibt tatsächlich einiges zu feiern: Von Pop-Enthüllungen über Dancefloor-Delirium bis hin zu Stücken, die sich ihre Zeit nehmen - Synchronicity bietet Platz für all das; das Album spendet Raum, in dem die Freuden des Unerwarteten aufeinanderprallen und durch ihr zufälliges Nebeneinander in der Welt von WhoMadeWho Sinn ergeben.

"It is time for man to set a goal for himself. It is time for man to plant the seed of his highest hope. His soil is still rich enough for it. But that soil will one day be poor and exhausted, and no lofty tree will any longer be able to grow on it. Alas. There will come a time when man will no longer launch the arrow of his longing beyond man - and the string of his bow will have unlearned to whir! I say to you: one must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star. I say to you: you still have chaos in yourself. Alas. There will come a time when man can no longer give birth to any star. Alas. There will come the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself."

This excerpt of Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" sets the mood for the latest album of Sardinian sound researcher Eugenio Caria. "In Origine: The Field of Repentance" is a concept album dealing with the origin of man and its impact on the cycle of creation and destruction which drives the evolution of the universe. This time Caria invited one of the world's major trumpeters, prolific Sardinian jazz artist Paolo Fresu to collaborate on the album. Fresu's unique trumpet sound is recognized as one of the most distinctive in the contemporary jazz scene and on this album Caria and Fresu succeed in perfectly merging their contributions into a coherent entity. Fresu is not accompanying Caria and Caria is not accompanying Fresu. Instead they both drive each others plays, building and rebuilding, forming and reforming meticulous pieces of analogue-electronic music that invoke the feeling of a pure timelessness.

2023 Restock

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

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

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

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

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

The sixth vinyl release of the Valencian label HC Records is signed by the legendary

brothers John & Paul Healy aka "Somatic Responses" in "Interlinked Ep". To talk about

them is to talk about real heroes of the history of the most personal, raw and abstract

electronic music born in Wales. Active since 1994, to this day they continue experimenting

with all their analogical stuff to compose with tremendous regularity.


The neural connection of wet cable with the Somatic Responses universe begins with "Satin

Armour", a stunning and beautiful electro melodic track surrounded by rough rhythms and

strange atmospheres like a rose protected by steel thorns. Raw, primitive and rough rhythms

are the presentation card of "Snake"; a track with a marked industrial influence where an

avalanche of beams and Martian LFOs, with a marked acid taste, develop along this

primitive discharge of high electric voltage. The mechanical and industrial force hits our

prefrontal cortex in "Interlinked (Cell Mix)", a sonic aggression that combines all the

violence of the Intelligent Hardcore Techno with an avalanche of mysterious and fatalistic

auras coming from a future Cyberpunk.

"Aria" inaugurates the B side of the vinyl in a demonstration of harmonic virtuosity and

synthesizer juggling, seasoned with a whirlwind of accelerated broken rhythms totally

saturated with emotion, passion and hope.


The album's farewell track is "Heading South", a strange emotional trip, with velvety

cadences and dreamy pads seen through a stereogram, a potential anthem.

Four digital bonus tracks complete the journey through the dark future designed by the


Healy brothers:

"Dolaucothiacid v2" is an advanced and sharp experiment in several layers of pressure and

distortion around the amalgam of possibilities of the stacking of corrosive sequences and

abstract structures.


"Automaton Reign" reinvents all the concepts of the most acidic and vengeful Techno

Industrial, a merciless brain-roller. Persistent Illusion infiltrates us in the middle of an epic

and decadent combat of space cruisers where nobody survives, rhythmic rage and metallic

histrionics. We don't abandon the forcefulness or the post-apocalyptic hysteria in "Cell

(Loquelic Mix)" a demolishing closure that connects us fully in the already tangible manmachine

connection.



For this special release, we have collaborated with the Valencian artist Manuel Monzonís,

who has been in charge of creating the cover illustration. A stunning work that perfectly

captures the spirit of this Interlinked EP.