quête:de effect

Luigi Madonna returns for his first Drumcode EP in five years, teaming up with fellow Neapolitan and label favourite Robert Capuano.

We got our last taste of the creative synergy that marks Luigi Madonna and Robert Capuano’s friendship when the pair dropped ‘Limitless’ in 2017, a brilliant addition to A-Sides Vol.6. Prior to that Luigi hadn’t dropped a cut on DC since 2015’s hook-driven ‘Magic Land’, while Capuano stands as one of the label’s most infallible contributors, last year’s ‘The Walker’ EP was typically impressive.

Crafted between two studios in a pre-COVID-19 world, the three-track conceptual EP opens with ‘Mad World’, as masterfully layered industrial hits and rides depict it’s narrative, while a pulsating melodic lead ensures heavy impact. ‘System Alert’ is inspired by the destructive effects of climate change and the track’s composition mirrors this malaise, as a pitch-bending synth elicits rhythmic chaos alongside Luigi and Robert’s deft drum work. ‘Headquarter’ is steeped in drama and cinematic charm, backed by a distorted vocal sample, stormy oscillating synths and a sharp percussive backdrop.

Old, but still functioning computers are simply scrapped, made redundant and without remorse left to corrosion and an existence without a task and no perspective. That this doesn’t need to be so, and that even computers with limited storage capacity can still take on a function in society, is illustrated by Alexei Shulgin’s outdated 386, now serving as a musician. Performing Classic Rock's Biggest Smash Hits! The Clash! The Doors! The Sex Pistols! Hendrix! and more... gone digital, gone to 8-bit computerized chip-music with a singing computer, with all the charme available to a text-to- speech- programm.

Created by Russian artist Alexei Shulgin, 386 DX was “the world’s first cyberpunk band.” Known for its live performances on city streets and in nightclubs, the performer is a dingy, singing PC that runs Windows 3.1, equipped with a vintage sound card and loaded with MIDI files of drums, guitar, and synth and accompanying lyrics.

The ironic comment delivered by Shulgin and his singing computer is well within the context of the performances by the 386 DX rockband, with which he “toured” Europe in 1998 and performed on nearly 60 occasions. This one- man-one-computer-show was based on a similar idea as his current installation: Shulgin presented himself as a performer carrying a keyboard, and by simply hitting a key elicited the text-to-speech singing, accompanied by very simple music and a few Seventies-style visual effects.Alexei Shulgin simply is the King of Cyberpop.

Waterford hero Cailin inaugurates Gurriers with her solo debut Phantom Love Affair. 4 tracks of gritty, hardware focused techno with impressive variety and measured dancefloor focus that prove the producer to be one of Ireland's finest.

"The Unicorn" gets right down to business, siren-ated synths engulfing the hardened doofs for a tool'd up ride through the wild and uneasy. "Dickheads" proves heavier with an rising acid line leading the march to addictively hypnotic militant drums.

The flip gets funkier with Sphinx's staccato'd snares bouncing around a kinetic melody via peak time pace for prime floor effect. Our finale then involves the incredible title track, locking in for a mesmerising frenzy of pressure cooked 303's, high hats & kicks that will surely ravage the rave, whenever it may be.

US based label, Lurid welcomes Spanish producer Señora for a stunning new double gatefold album entitled ‘Fósil’ that showcases his unique take on hypnotic rhythm, found sounds and sampling.

Señora became a firm favourite with the likes of Andrew Weatherall (R.I.P.) and Sean Johnston for his rugged grooves and innovative approach to production, melding the sounds of machines, animals, electricity and other weird noises in a flurry of FX and sonic experimentation. He debuted on this label in 2017 and has also landed on Shango Records, Night Noise and LNDKHN since then. Now based in Berlin and a regular at clubs and festivals round Europe he offers up a debut album that features nine stunning pieces that ”aim to reflect on the next evolutionary steps of the human race".

The otherworldly ‘Preludio: Ocaso Hominido’ kicks off with a swampy bass sound overlaid with cosmic details and downtempo drums. It’s a brilliantly mysterious opener than leads on to ‘Antropoceno’, a spacious soundtrack with bubbling synths, undulating drums and plenty of sonic details that paint a picture of a starry night sky up above. The tumbling drums of ‘Segundo Sexo’ sink you into a dubby reverie with bird calls and wordless vocal sounds mixing with percolating percussion.

The excellent ‘El Elefante Que Siempre Andaba Solo’ is a perfectly flabby and chugging dark disco cut with bright chords and scintillating drum work while ‘Código y Marfil’ is a futurist landscape in outer space with modulated synths and deft astral details making it colourful and cinematic. This most escapist of listens then plays out through the supple bass warbles and spacecraft sound effects of the entrancing ‘Papaver Somniferum’ and churning drums and twisted bass funk of the brilliantly slow burning ‘El Último Discurso’ before closing on ‘Fuga: La Gran Desconexión’ a downbeat offering with myriad pads circling the skies above a deeply rooted rhythm.

This is a hugely atmospheric album of perfectly realised inter planetary sounds, the whole thing taking you on a cerebral and evocative journey far away from here.

Supported by: Tim Sweeney (Beats In Space), Dr. Rob (Ban Ban Ton Ton), Balearic Mike, Elena Colombi (NTS), Andrew Wowk (Decoded Magazine), Faze Magazine Germany, DJ Mag Espana, Future Music UK, ClubbingSpain, and others.

Born in Newtownards, County Down, Northern Ireland, singer/songwriter/guitarist Ricky Warwick was cut from the cloth of a mill workers’ jacket. Raised on a diet of Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Thin Lizzy, Stiff Little Fingers, Motown and everything in between. Saving his money from a newspaper round and a little help from his father, Ricky got his first electric guitar at age 13. “That cheap electric guitar changed my life....it saved me, it was more than just notes on a fretboard, it was the deepest breath of life I ever experienced.“ explains Warwick.
At age 14 Ricky and his family relocated to Strathaven, Scotland. It was here that Warwick fully immersed himself in the sonic seas of Rock n Roll. Writing and practicing every free moment he wasn’t working on his father’s farm, Ricky got a call to join acclaimed U.K. Punk/Folk band New Model Army as rhythm guitarist on their 1987 ‘Ghost Of Cain‘ World Tour. Following New Model Army, Ricky went on to form The Almighty in Glasgow who enjoyed ten top forty singles and four top twenty albums in the U.K. during the late 80’s/early 90’s, touring worldwide with such iconic bands as The Ramones, Motorhead, Megadeth and Iron Maiden.
In 2002, after relocating back to Ireland, Ricky recorded his first solo album ‘Tattoos & Alibis‘ in Joe Elliott of Def Leppard’s studio in Dublin with Joe also handling production duties. It marked a shift in direction “I realized that I didn’t need to yell over a wall of sound to make my point...less is more, stripped back instrumentation could achieve the same goal just as effectively. I learned so much making that record, primarily about myself”. Warwick would go on to release two more solo albums between 2002 -2010 and tour globally opening for the likes of Def Leppard, Cheap Trick, Bryan Adams and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
In January 2010 Ricky received a call from his old friend Scott Gorham who was spearheading a reformation of Ireland’s favourite sons Thin Lizzy and wanted Ricky to front the new line up. ”I was shocked, terrified, excited and extremely humbled when I got that call. Phil Lynott was my hero and Thin Lizzy were the soundtrack of my life. I realized that I could never hope or even dare to try and stand in Phil’s shoes. All I could do was try and stand beside them and sing his songs with as much heart, soul and passion possible. In late 2012, with a necessity to write and perform new material, out of respect for the Thin Lizzy name, Black Star Riders were born. Warwick is the frontman and main songwriter for the band and 2013 saw the release of Black Star Riders acclaimed debut album


‘All Hell Breaks Loose‘.

Black Star Riders have now released four critically-acclaimed and commercially successful albums, the most recent being 2019’s ‘Another State Of Grace‘. They have achieved two U.K. top 15 albums and one U.K. top 10 album as well as mainstream radio play which includes claiming two “singles of the week” on BBC Radio 2.
Following 2016’s lauded ‘When Patsy Cline Was Crazy... And Guy Mitchell Sang The Blues’, Warwick is getting ready to unleash his 5th solo album in 2021. Titled ‘When Life Was Hard And Fast‘, it was recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Keith Nelson (ex-Buckcherry), who also co-wrote the majority of the songs on the record with Warwick. “Keith Nelson and I share a passion for good, honest, rock ‘n’ soul. Making the album with Keith who shares a similar outlook and work ethic as myself was a no brainer ....also the fact that he has a killer collection of vintage guitars contributed greatly”
“I wanted to create an album that had the simplistic melodies of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers charged with the electric hedonistic fury of Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers. Recording the album as live as possible with a full band was requisite to achieving the desired effect”. Xavier Muriel (Ex-Buckcherry) on drums and Robert Crane (Black Star Riders) on bass completed the core band and turned in stellar performances, giving the songs a real lease of life.
Also, once again, Warwick tapped some of his closest friends for guest appearances on the record, including Andy Taylor (Duran Duran & Power Station) Luke Morley (Thunder), Joe Elliott (Def Leppard), Dizzy Reed (Guns n Roses). Ricky also duets with his daughter Pepper on the song ‘Time Don’t Seem To Matter‘. “I can’t wait for people to hear this album and to hit the road touring it whether it’s with my band The Fighting Hearts or just myself and my acoustic - it will be amazing. I’m grateful that after 30 years of making records my appetite for writing and playing is the same as it was that day all those years ago when I got my first electric guitar”
For those intrigued by the album cover, it depicts a crash scene from the famous Ards TT Motor Car Race in County Down Northern Ireland. The race ran from 1928 until 1936 was watched by over 250,000 spectators annually. The embankment in the photograph that the spectators are on is actually a field belonging to Ricky’s Great Grandfather’s Farm, which he grew up on for the first fourteen years of his life.

The collaborative debut of American minimal techno pioneer Troy Pierce and Colombian audiovisual artist Natalia Escobar aka Poison Arrow was conceived in reverse: first they created a collection of shadowy surrealist videos, then wrote music inspired by them. This inverted process proved remarkably fruitful. Shatter is a simmering, slow-burn noir odyssey inspired by the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus, traversing subtle shades of sleepwalker dub, metallic lament, broken beats, and erotic negative space. It's an effectively unsettling evocation of the legend's core theme: “There is nothing more complex than a shattered heart, or a heart that can't love.”

Considering their shared background trafficking in darkened dance floor modes, what's most striking about Pierce with Arrow's partnership is its rhythmic restraint. The album's 10 tracks seethe and shudder between glamor and gloom, with only occasional dread-steeped metronomes mapping the malaise to a grid. They speak of pursuing a “spatial approach” with this project, which manifests in the music's immersive design and patient execution, each mangled clang and rippling pool of bass allowed to reverberate

its full flickering waveform.

We last heard from Radeckt on the Spektrum 2 compilation, now he’s back with his debut solo EP. The Danish producer specialises in emotionally-driven club music, designed to spark inspiration and moments of contemplation. The dance floor is a safe space for free expression, human interaction and catharsis… Radeckt’s music is the perfect accompaniment to these channels of connection, while encouraging you to dance. On the Corroded Mind EP we get four original cuts, all of which encapsulate Radeckt’s penchant for music that moves the soul… It all begins with the title track. ‘Corroded Mind’ has a subdued intro, gently guiding us into a mesmerising sonic landscape. Soft pads massage the mind while siren-esque effects and metallic beats encourage the body to move to their hypnotic rhythm. Radeckt imbues the second half with drama and energy, while still keeping the mood sombre. ‘Narrative Lie’ utilises layers of emotive synth and serene sounds, along with a meandering melody that lures you into its rhythmic flow. The glum low end counteracts the brighter elements of the track creating a neat juxtaposition. As the track progresses, the intensity of the main motif increases, sending temperatures rising. Next up is ‘Invisible Guard’ with its oscillating bass and simple, yet highly effective riff. Radeckt confidently applies the pressure, carefully increasing the tension until we reach a scintillating breakdown which takes us into the glorious second half.
‘Silver Lining’ closes the EP, bringing a little bounce to the release. Radeckt gives us stuttered beats with great use of percussion to provide the energetic allure of this cut. As it builds, he incorporates an earworm melody along with neon laser synth lines and the whole thing feels like an eighties TV show theme with 21st Century sheen.

Children Of Tomorrow will celebrate soon its 10 years anniversary. The label was created by Emmanuel Ternois back in the day and being joined by Arnaud Le Texier in 2011. Since then they focused on Techno producing amazing artists, to name few: Terrence Dixon, Zadig, Tensal, Antigone, Oscar Mulero, Jonas Kopp, Samuli Kemppi etc... Children Of Tomorrow is now presenting the first album from Arnaud Le Texier. After almost 30 years Dj-ing around the world and almost 20 years producing. Signing many releases over the years and always busy delivering dance floor releases, it's been a long wait to finally get an album from ArnaudOn his first album we can feel that he wanted to tell a story and to express something deeper with his production experience. There is a different variety of Techno that stretches from ambient / broken beat / hypnotic / raw Techno along with subtles grooves, wondrous atmospheres & sonic textures. On A side the album opens with Dusk, an ambient atmospheric mid-tempo track with sonic sounds that is a perfect intro.Pattern 2 starts with drones and blip sounds and a broken beat groove follows with a pad that sounds like a voice coming from the space. The track ends with some modular click sounds that make the whole track clever. Followed by the album title Granular Therapy, a deep techno track with modular bass line and melancholic pad. A perfect track to play in after or to warm up a party.The B Side is more dedicated to the dance floor with Black Nympheas that is a proper dark modern techno with a grinding bass line and magic drones. A simple beat makes the track evolve in a nice way. Blade Pass frequency is 4/4 effective Techno with a 909 kick, a syncope acid bass line and a pad that sends you to another dimension. It is a powerful track but with a sense of deepness and sensibility that Arnaud can achieve sometimes. This side closes with Binary Sun Dawn which is an ambient track with melody that has a jazz feeling mixed with dark atmospheres, sonic drones and water drops. The C side opens with Mono Driver, a minimal track with a little synth that stays until the end repetitively until it makes you travel and lose your mind. Deep and dance floor at the same time.

Then Snapper is a more percussive track with some shinning bells and a grinding modular bass line.

The last track Virgo Consortium is a cosmic broken beat with dark atmospheric drone, simple bass and phasing efx. The D Side starts with Midi overdub which is a beauty. A mix between ambient and broken beat. The pad has the deepness that transports you somewhere else with an angel choir on top. The beat is spacial and groovy at the same time with smart high hats. This reminds Arnaud's past ambient production but with a modern approach. Surely a special track of the album.

Hideous Engine is more dance floor with metallic bass line and 4'4 beat going towards a sonic pad that closes the track.The last track Dawn is ambient with drones and blip sounds and an acid bass line modulate. A perfect end of the album.This album is an accomplished journey that makes you dance and travel from dusk till dawn. Arnaud Le Texier shows a coherent vision and illustrates his vast diversity in the techno world. Hopefully we won't have to wait 20 years to get another one.

Watching Abul Mogard’s Live performance in Atonal Festival 2017 and his releases on Not Waving’s Ecstatic record label were somewhat of a milestone in Malka Tuti’s sonic aesthetics. His ability to touch us with those pulsating sonic textures com-ing out of his modular machine inspired us in MTHQ for years to come. We were more then happy that Mogard chose to contact Tapan about their album and eventually deciding to remix not one but two track from the Belgrade duo… It was like a circle coming to a close.

On the A-side Mogard take the original 17 minute sax infused piece that is EUROPA and drenches it with drones and low freq pulses and atmosphere, creating a some sort of a post apoca-lyptic intense atmospheric soundtrack. The effect of drowning the horns from the original track in a sea of drones and pads, contributes to the over all impression of listening to a distant memory of music… fitting for days like these....

On the B-side Mogard takes it to the next level, capturing a line from Tapan's original collaboration with Jerusalem In My Heart's Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, and passing it through his modular system, amalgamating an epic piece of tension build ups and repetitive movements...

The original artwork was made by artist Marja de Sanctis and adapted, as always, to the sleeve by Morey Talmor.

Alan Fitzpatrick returns to Radio Slave’s Rekids with the ‘Immortal Daydream’ in January.

Following 2020’s ‘Step Away’ on Rekids, as well as multiple releases on heavy-duty labels such as Drumcode, Hotflush, and of course his own We Are The Brave, Alan Fitzpatrick returns in full techno mode for his second appearance on the imprint in 2021 with an EP of crushing, hypnotic, and uncompromising techno.

Classic 909 kits and spacey reverberations take front and centre across the record, neatly displayed on lead track ‘Everlasting’, which kicks off proceedings by rumbling through a series of sizzling effects and dubbed-out chords. ‘Titan Silence’ follows with reserved synths built delicately around thunderous and attention- grabbing drums; a track built for dark cavernous rooms.

On the flip, ‘Droid Disco’ sees the Southampton powerhouse look to the twilight hours, as off-kilter synths wriggle and evolve throughout, leading into the closing track ‘The Underdog’, which sees Fitzpatrick delve further into the night, combining crunchy drums with soft, elegant synthesis to close off a memorable 12” on a quintessential label.

Harry Bertoia's Glowing Sounds LP contains three versions of the same composition, each transferred at different tape speeds in accordance with the artist's instructions. This is the third LP to be released from Bertoia's extensive tape archive and it's the first, of many, to be released using instructions left behind by the artist himself.

Bertoia wrote the concept for this Glowing Sounds LP on a note in 1975 and slipped it into the master tape case where it sat unread for 45 years. The idea was simple, transfer the original recording at its original speed and two slower speeds. Bertoia noticed that the results, however, were profound.

Recorded on January 20, 1975 using two large gongs, Glowing Sounds is one of the most powerfully minimal recordings yet discovered in Bertoia's collection. The artist's note left with the tape indicated that it was recorded at a speed of 15 IPS (inches per second) but slowing it down to speeds of 7.5 IPS and 3.25 IPS were quite effective for enhanced playback. Side A features the original 15 IPS recording and the 50% slower 7.5 IPS recording. Side B features a 20 minute, ultra-slow version at 3.25 IPS.

Long, deep drones and powerful overtones define the sound of this recording. Comparison of the three speeds provides a revealing magnification of Bertoia's gongs, overtones and the artist's inventive approach to performance, composition and recording.

Bio:
Harry Bertoia first gained some artistic visibility in the early 1940s, then came into prominence with his sculptural, ergonomic chairs, produced by Knoll Furniture beginning in 1952, which quickly became classics of modernist furniture. Inspired by the resonant sounds emanating from metals as he worked them and encouraged by his brother Oreste, whose passion was music, Harry restored a fieldstone "Pennsylvania Dutch" barn as the home for this experiment in sounding sculptures which he had begun in the late 1950s. Bertoia was an obsessive composer and relentless experimenter, often working late into the night and accumulating hundreds of tapes of his best performances; Oreste, too, would explore and record the sculptures' sounds during his annual visits to his brother's home in rural Pennsylvania.

Harry Bertoia's recently dismantled Sonambient barn collection was an attentive listener's paradise full of warm, expressive instruments that were gorgeous visually and audibly. Nothing could prepare you, even on return visits, for the overwhelming experience of entering the spacious wood and plaster interior where gongs, some of them giant, hung among the ranks of standing sculptures of various metals. Over nearly twenty years of adding, culling and rearranging, Bertoia carefully selected nearly 100 harmonious pieces ranging in height from under a foot to more than fifteen feet. He considered this barn a full experience, sights and sounds comprising not a collection of works, but one piece unto itself. It was here, deep in the woods, that his Sonambient recording work took place.

Learning by experimentation was common for Bertoia and he mastered the art of tape recording, turning the Sonambient barn into a sound studio with four overhead microphones hanging from the rafters in a square formation. He would experiment with overdubbing by performing along to previous recordings, sometimes backwards, constantly improving his methods while also honing his performance skills. Bertoia was a careful editor of his own work and only chosen recordings remained, each with a date and carefully considered observations written on a note included with each tape. Through these pieces of paper a the artist's logic can be uncovered, a careful approach to composition, ideas, feelings and forms. The story of Sonambient barn collection will slowly be told through the release of recordings from the archive as well as installations and performances built from Bertoia's own recordings, lectures and a book.

The five members of Sun June spent their early years spread out across the United States, from the boonies of the Hudson Valley to the sprawling outskirts of LA. Having spent their college years within the gloomy, cold winters of the North East, Laura Colwell and Stephen Salisbury found themselves in the vibrant melting-pot of inspiration that is Austin, Texas. Meeting each other while working on Terrence Malick's 'Song to Song', the pair were immediately taken by the city's bustling small clubs and honky-tonk scene, and the fact that there was always an instrument within reach, always someone to play alongside. Coming alive in this newly discovered landscape, Colwell and Salisbury formed Sun June alongside Michael Bain on lead guitar, Sarah Schultz on drums, and Justin Harris on bass and recorded their debut album live to tape, releasing it via the city's esteemed Keeled Scales label in 2018. The band coined the term 'regret pop' to describe the music they made on the 'Years' LP. Though somewhat tongue in cheek, it made perfect sense ~ the gentle sway of their country leaning pop songs seeped in melancholy, as if each subtle turn of phrase was always grasping for something just out of reach. Sun June returns with Somewhere, a brand new album, out February 2021. It's a record that feels distinctly more present than its predecessor. In the time since, Colwell and Salisbury have become a couple, and it's had a profound effect on their work; if Years was about how loss evolves, Somewhere is about how love evolves. "We explore a lot of the same themes across it," Colwell says, "but I think there's a lot more love here." Somewhere is Sun June at their most decadent, a richly diverse album which sees them exploring bright new corners with full hearts and wide eyes. Embracing a more pop-oriented sound the album consists of eleven beautiful new songs and is deliberately more collaborative and fully arranged: Laura played guitar for the first time; band members swapped instruments, and producer Danny Reisch helped flesh out layers of synth and percussion that provides a sweeping undercurrent to the whole thing. Throughout Somewhere you can hear Sun June blossom into a living-and-breathing five-piece, the album formed from an exploratory track building process which results in a more formidable version of the band we once knew. 'Real Thing' is most indicative of this, a fully collaborative effort which encompasses all of the nuances that come to define the album. "Are you the real thing?" Laura Colwell questions in the song's repeated refrain. "Honey I'm the real thing," she answers back. They've called this one their 'prom' record; a sincere, alive-in-the-moment snapshot of the heady rush of love. "The prom idea started as a mood for us to arrange and shape the music to, which we hadn't done before," the band explains. " Prom isn't all rosy and perfect. The songs show you the crying in the bathroom,, the fear of dancing, the joy of a kiss - all the highs and all the lows." It's in both those highs and lows where Somewhere comes alive. Laura Colwell's voice is mesmerising throughout, and while the record is a document of falling in love, there's still room for her to wilt and linger, the vibrancy of the production creating beautiful contrasts for her voice to pull us through. Opening track 'Bad With Time' sets this tone from the outset, both dark and mysterious, sad and sultry as it fascinatingly unrolls. "I didn't mean what I said," Colwell sings. "But I wanted you to think I did." Somewhere showcases a gentle but eminently pronounced maturation of Sun June's sound, a second record full of quiet revelation, eleven songs that bristle with love and longing. It finds a band at the height of their collective potency, a marked stride forward from the band that created that debut record, but also one that once again is able to transport the listener into a fascinating new landscape, one that lies somewhere between the town and the city, between the head and the heart; neither here nor there, but certainly somewhere.

Alkisah is the new album by Indonesian duo Senyawa. Alkisah is co-released by a multitude of independent record labels from all over the globe each with different packaging and design, with multiple version of remixes by various artists.

Senyawa is an experimental music duo made up of Rully Shabara (extended vocal technique) and Wukir Suryadi (homemade instrument). The music that they create is a combination of extended vocal technique and a homemade instrument. The instrument was handcrafted by master instrument builder Wukir out of one long piece of bamboo, it is a string instrument with guitar pick-ups—it is amplified and processed through several effects pedals but at times is played as an acoustic instrument, percussion and string instrument.

They are located in the ancient city of Jogjakarta, Central Java, Indonesia and their music is a reflection of their traditional Javanese heritage filtered through a framework of contemporary experimental music practices. Senyawa try to push the boundaries of both traditions in an attempt to mix the musics’ of the east and the west to create a new sound.

As a duo they have been performing and playing together extensively for the last 3 years and we have toured Indonesia several times over. Last year they were invited to perform internationally for the first time at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival sharing the stage with many great musicians such as Faust, Yoshida Tatsuya, Tony Conrad and Charlemagne Palestine.

In a world governed by stereotypes, Lachinos break down the boundaries between people and gender. It is impossible to clearly distinguish the origin, roots and cultures that are specific to each of its members. An association that turns out to be as unexpected as it is effective on their first EP America Lachina, out on Goutte d’Or, a sub-label of french team Cracki Records.
America Lachina is also and above all an ode to Latin American music. One travels to the rhythms of merengue, cha cha cha, cumbia or even Brazilian surf, always with a musical commitment to rock accents.

Being as LSD was first developed in a laboratory in Basel, it is perhaps no coincidence that one of the most far out albums of all time was made by this Swiss band (no small feat, given the competition!). Braintickets 1971 debut, Cottonwoodhill, begins normally enough with two fine psychedelic/Krautrock-influenced tracks, but the remainder of the album plays like an acid trip with a soundtrack, dominated by Joel Vandroogenbroecks endless droning organ, a variety of musique concrète-type sound effects and vocalist Dawn Muirs trippy vocals. The album, banned in several countries, even came with this self-imposed warning: After Listening to this Record, your friends may not know you anymore. / Only listen to this once a day, your brain might be destroyed!. Gatefold sleeve. Fully remastered from the original master tapes!

‘Giants of All Sizes’ was recorded at Hamburg’s Clouds Hill Studio, The Dairy in Brixton, 604 Studios in Vancouver and Blueprint Studios in Salford with additional recording taking place at various band member’s home studios spread across Manchester. As with their previous four studio albums, ‘Giants’ was produced and mixed by Craig Potter. Guests across the album include Jesca Hoop, The Plumedores and South London newcomer Chilli Chilton.

Given such bleak, if ultimately redeemed, subject matter, it is also, perversely, the most relaxed record which elbow have made in some time. On ‘Giants of All Sizes’, each band member extended their usual process of working on demos alone and followed their vision to its conclusion rather than, as Craig Potter puts it, ‘taking the edges off things to find compromise’. In tandem with this, they returned to playing live in the studio, encouraged to experiment with the banks of analogue equipment at Clouds Hill in Northern Germany, giving songs a looser, more live feel. The result is the most starkly dynamic record from the band in recent times, “Sonically unabashed”, as Guy would have it. Whilst album closer ‘Weightless’ has the gossamer melodies and communal harmonies for which the band have latterly been known, this album echoes earlier elbow work at times whilst also breaking new ground.

‘White Noise White Heat’ is motorik, metal machine soul driven by a vocal that is rage incarnate, ‘Doldrums’ mixes John Carpenter with The Plastic Ono Band to brilliantly disturbing effect and ‘On Deronda Road’ hitches stark bass beats and glitches to an ad-hoc choir. ‘Empires’ delivers dark resignation via an insidious melody and ‘Seven Veils’ continues the subversion by inverting the perception of elbow as a band for lovers into a band for haters, a double-barrelled fuck-you song par excellence. ‘The Delayed 3:15’ marries mariarchi guitars to jazz dynamics, Morricone via Buddy Rich, and ‘My Trouble’ is a clockwork, analogue shuffle housing a delicate melody that builds over the course of the song into a fragile monolith to the power of love.

Lead track, ‘Dexter & Sinister’, released on 10” ahead of the album, encapsulates the whole. A seven-minute musical journey that blends deep bass grooves, sudden keyboard stabs, dislocated piano and guitar runs and soul stylings then abruptly shifts gear, parts the storm clouds and takes wing, flying towards the heat of the sun. It is the soundtrack for these ‘hope free, faith free, charity free days’, a denial of the divine and a reconciliation, two songs in one song, two emotions for one emotion, human, fragile and brilliant like the album which it opens.

The Sea and Cake's fifth album Oui is back on vinyl. Pressed on color vinyl for the first time (yellow with white!) and packaged in a high gloss jacket with a free download card. Oui marks the triumphant return of The Sea and Cake after a three-year absence which saw the members of the band pursue a variety of interests; musical, professional and personal. The line up of the band remains Sam Prekop, Archer Prewitt, Eric Claridge and John McEntire. The Sea and Cake formed in 1994 out of the ashes of Shrimp Boat (Sam and Eric), and The Cocktails (Archer). John was a friend of the three and had just begun playing with Mosquito, which would later rename itself Tortoise. In fall of that year the band released their self- titled debut record and followed it with three more for a total of four in four years, each gaining in popularity and critical acclaim. In 1997 after months of touring in support of their most successful record The Fawn, the band decided to take some time off to focus their energy in other places. Eric went to work on his paintings with a series of shows in Chicago and a bi-monthly insert in the Chicago Reader. Archer recorded his second solo record, toured and continued to concentrate on his Sof' Boy merchandise and comics (published by Fantagraphics). John played with Tortoise, built a studio (SOMA) and engineered the Stereolab record among many others. Sam painted for his debut solo show in Chicago and a July 2000 show at Clementine in Chelsea, released his debut solo record and toured extensively. When things began to quiet down in late 1999, the four began setting aside the time to record what would become their finest record yet, Oui. "Surprisingly the long lay off didn't seem to pose any ill effects, somehow the distant perspective supplied a new necessary focus", says Prekop. There were no impediments as far as reconvening and songwriting were concerned. Sam added that "I think (the fact that) Archer and I continued to work together during The Sea and Cake's down time was crucial. So when we started writing it wasn't like we were starting over, we were just working in a new context."

“The Vale” is in immersive electronic album of dark soundtrack work. It’s the first of several Everyday Dust releases scheduled for Castles in Space in 2021.

Everyday Dust is RJ McConnell. Based in Scotland, RJ ditched piano lessons when he realised I had no interest in being an instrumentalist. Instead he wanted to create his own musical works from the ground up. He goes on, “I was much happier working my way through music theory books on my own and applying my learning to my own music. We had a little home studio when I was a child. My Dad was also a musician and was involved in local amateur theatre where he prepared and operated all the sound cues on reel to reel tape. So from an early age I was messing around with tape machines, making tape loops and recording music. For years I tried to make the most interesting tones I could from a Yamaha home keyboard by passing it through my Dad’s guitar pedals, or recording to tape and playing it back at different speeds etc. My first proper synth was the Roland SH101.” He went on to study music and sound for theatre and worked for many years as a theatre composer before branching into larger events and eventually film and documentary work.

The Vale story starts in 2018. RJ again, “I was brought in as composer for an independent horror short that was being filmed in Istanbul. The film was a vampire movie, very atmospheric and beautifully shot. I was aware of being a Scottish composer on a Turkish film and therefore didn’t want to attempt in any way to make anything that sounded traditionally Turkish. I wanted to represent the idea of these ancient beings who had existed in one of the oldest cities in the world for centuries. I wondered how I could imply this “ancient” world with the instruments I had to hand. I recorded various old metal whistles, which were slowed right down to become eerie arcane horn blasts that sounded like they had come from another time. I also recorded lots of melodica, which was again slowed down to sound like wheezing old harmonium drones. I spent another day recording inside an old piano, plucking individual strings and also hammering them percussively with wooden beaters. Using synthesizers and effects as the “glue” to bring these sounds together I started to work on the cues for the film. I had scored most of the film by the time I heard it was being cancelled. The concept and story had been taken over by a streaming site who wanted to make it into a series - with a drastically different tone and style.

“Later that same year I had worked on a project that incorporated the folklore of a celtic water sprite who kept the waterfalls and streams running smoothly so they could turn the mills of the local village. In return the villagers would bring the water sprite bannocks (Scottish flatbreads) each day. I started to daydream about a darker, Lovecraftian twist on this story. Some Ancient One dwelling in the forests and controlling the water - the very life essence of the village - in return for offerings of the soul. The concept was filed away in the back of my mind for some months.

“The following year I was on a flight to visit my friend in Bodrum. He had been the producer and editor on the original disbanded Vampire film, and I found myself thinking about the project again. I wondered if the sound cue files were still on my laptop, which they were. It had been a year since I’d even heard them. Hearing the eldritch folk-tinged sounds of the whistles and plucked strings my mind instantly returned to the idea of the Lovecraftian folk horror story. I started jotting down notes and musical ideas and by the time I landed in Bodrum I already had the album title - The Vale. Having the album concept and prototype ideas to work with was a huge head start in making the album. Although all of the original cues were so dramatically developed and transformed that they really just served as the initial clay on the wheel.

“I used a Doepfer A100 modular synth to create the animalistic yelps, conches and horns that were improvised over the original cues as a response to the arcane “folk” world of the acoustic instruments. This half-acoustic half-modular landscape was the sonic scene-setter I needed to move onto the composition and musical journey of the album. I composed and developed most of the musical parts on an Oberheim Matrix 6 synthesizer. However all the percussion, rhythmic sequences and ornamental synth sounds were created from improvised modular sessions multitrack recorded. A lot of editing later, the soundtrack to the movie in my mind was finally there.

Wretched Cuts is the new solo EP by gender-nonconforming techno artist, Projekt Gestalten. The release comes via the New York’s Mild Fantasy imprint run by DJ Elle Dee and features three original themes focusing on introspective techno plus a remix by veteran, The Lady Machine.

The project reflects an array of themes using as the starting point the story of Estamira and the Brazilian documentary of the same name, telling her life story. Estamira was an incredibly enlightened older woman who scattered one of the largest landfills of Rio de Janeiro for food. Not because she had to, but because she loved that place as she loved “her own children” and enjoyed making a living out of other people’s disposable goods. Simultaneously, while dealing with schizophrenia and abuse, she believed she was a superior spiritual being whose magical powers could control time, space, and other elements of nature.

The tracks are inspired by some of her most memorable quotes and moments that made an impact on Projekt Gestalten. “Wise People In Reverse” goes into a darker approach and samples Estamira’s voice talking in a mysterious unknown language with an unrevealed force, using only a broken piece of a telephone that she had just found it in the trash. “Morte Macaca” takes a rhythmic approach towards dub techno, and “Holographic Principle” gets trippier and hallucinogenic with Projekt Gestalten’s signature acid lines. The Lady Machine’s “Wise People In Reverse” remix takes the original theme to a driving, peak hour approach and transforms it into an effective DJ tool.

“There are no more innocent people on Earth, only wise people in reverse”.

Skylax Armagnac's darling who released his first EP just a year ago, which had an international resonance with rave reviews from Resident Advisor, Bicep, Chaos in the CBD, Peach or even soul clap. Rightly some saw it as a resurgence, a modernized version of 90s New York house, silky and elegant in the Bobby Konders, Mr Fingers way. For this new EP, with fantastic remixes of the brilliant Simoncino, our French prodigy is inspired by the beginnings of trance on the title song (and title of the ep by the way) "The world as we know it (masterclass mix)", UK dub and rave influences, as on some Nu Groove releases (notably the first joey beltram) - the lead vocal sample comes from a speech in which Noam Chomsky describes the United States as a violent country and hard. According to the author "If this piece says something, I believe it is that the music and the party should not serve to forget the problems of the world, but rather to find the strength, the resources, the inspiration to solve them." On "Oh La Musique" Armagnac used the sound of his neighbors as a voice sample ! Indeed, during this incredibly complicated period that we are living in, confinement due to the devastating effects of covid 19, one of his neighbors played music really loudly and for 20 minutes ignored the other neighbors who were screaming "oh oh, the music" through the window. "Turning this moment of irritation into a sample to the glory of the music strikes me as pretty funny." Still according to the author. On B1, it’s a house masterclass lesson by the phenomenal & ultra prolific Simoncino, but do i need to remind you how much italians are masters in their way of paying homage to all the best house music that has ever been created & produced ? Good taste is often on their side ! The red zone club is a tense and incredibly effective mix that can be enjoyed either on a house or techno dancefloor, it is clearly a banger. B2 saw the italian master offers us a beautiful ambient mix. And to conclude "On My Own" is according to Armagnac "a title that speaks of the trust that one can place in one's fellow human beings and of emancipation." A superb EP that adds to the long list of must-haves from Skylax Records.