Suche:drea

Halo Studios und Laced Records haben sich zusammengetan, um die ikonische Musik der ursprünglichen Halo-Trilogie zum ersten Mal auf Vinyl zu veröffentlichen.

Dieses Doppel-LP-Set enthält die Musik aus dem Spiel, mit dem alles begann, speziell für Vinyl neu gemastert und auf heavyweight LPs gepresst. Die Schallplatten befinden sich in einer breitrandigen Außenhülle und zwei bedruckten Innenhüllen.

Das Original-Cover-Artwork stammt von Art Director und Concept Artist Isaac Hannaford (alias Rhizus / Space Ship Guru), dem ehemaligen Lead Concept Artist und Mitwirkenden an Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST und Halo Reach. Das zusätzliche Artwork des Sets wurde von der Grafikdesignerin Maren Landsnes erstellt.

Halo: Combat Evolved war der Inbegriff des Konsolen-Ego-Shooters und sein Soundtrack legte den Grundstein für den legendären Sound der Serie. Der Soundtrack ist von verschiedenen Genres inspiriert und kombiniert schwungvolle Orchesterklänge mit marschierenden Militär-Snares, Prog-Rock-Percussion und - wer könnte den gregorianischen Mönchsgesang vergessen?

- 26 speziell remasterte Titel aus dem Spiel von 2001
- Cover-Artwork von Isaac Hannaford (ehemaliger Lead Concept Artist bei Bungie)

MACROCOSM is BALTHVS' first LP.

The name implies the diverse nature of the music, the substantial genre blending throughout, and the general psychedelic vibe of the songs.

It's a cross-continental trip across time, styles, languages, and rhythms.

In just five years, BALTHVS has carved out a unique space in the global music scene, emerging as Colombia’s most prominent alternative international act. Blending psychedelic grooves with hypnotic funk, the band has captivated audiences across three continents, performing in 56 cities throughout 19 countries. Their ever-expanding reach is backed by over 45 million streams, 10,000 vinyl records sold, and a relentless touring schedule that has seen them grace stages at premier festivals such as Austin City Limits, Outside Lands, Electric Forest, and SXSW Sydney. As three-time SXSW alumni, they’ve cemented their presence in Austin’s thriving music circuit while remaining a staple at Colombia’s top festivals, including Rock al Parque and Estéreo Picnic. With critically acclaimed releases and appearances on influential platforms like KEXP, Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Café, and the BBC, BALTHVS continues to redefine modern psychedelic music with a sound that is both immersive and irresistibly groovy.

“Limbs of a Lion” arrives in a dazzling array of shimmering psychedelia, the newest offering on fleet.dreams’ own Vinezza records. Following “Echoes of Ego” his acclaimed inaugural 12”, “Limbs of a Lion” sees fleet.dreams’ artistry and form blossoming into realms of kaleidoscopic cadence & textural buoyancy. The production flows through a classically dubwise live analog mixing setup, new spheres of delays & echoes evolving fleet.dreams’ process to embody a unique & fully realized intersection of live instrumentation & dynamic synthesis.

Each track takes on its own entrancing sway, opening the listener towards beguiling spaciousness, experiences in rhythm, and a healthy dose of surrealist dreaming. “Masked in Porcelain” gleams with mystique, tinged with flanger in a firmly driving dancefloor mode, guiding us deeper into mysteries held by skylines and moonlight. “Secret of the Golden Flower” brings forth photosynthetic gated vocals built for eyes closed body movement, evolving from a cosmic conga groove confidently manifesting in ensnaring kinetic activation.

“iLL Enargeia” brings a touch of depth, stepping into tomorrow with a confident saunter, perfect for the blissful delirium of new beginnings or a space of breadth and reflection in the midst of astral metronomes. The closing title track “Limbs of a Lion” sees us out on a hopeful note, awash in bold luminescence & inviting us to go deeper and deeper within ourselves amidst the grounding embrace of bassline pressure.

Embodying a dance of intangibility towards new unknowns, “Limbs of a Lion” aspires to manifest the grace of movement through our beings - magnetizing and enhancing our danceable forms, frolicking beyond words together. Each track boldly stands on it’s own while orbiting a cohesive whole, perfect for all set and settings, a staple for the DJ crates, and a sign of a musicmaker with even more exciting creations on the horizon.

*words by Kiernan Laveaux
Early support from: Kiernan Laveaux, Daniel Rincón (NAP), 2Lanes & Amelia Holt

Much sought after “Everyone Has Got To Go”, a militant 1976 roots stepper by Jamaican/Canadian singer Prince Robinson, aka R. Man Prince.

Born in Rockfort, East Kingston, Robinson auditioned, like many other hopefuls at Studio One, in his early teens, but it was not his time and he would not record in Kingston until a decade later.

After migrating to New York and then Canada, Robinson returned to Kingston in 1976 to record two incredible roots anthems at Joe Gibbs studio “Everyone Has Got to Go” and the impossibly rare “Funny Dream”. He was joined by The Soul Foundation, a vocal trio who laid the track's beautiful harmonies plus some of Jamaica’s greatest session musicians, including Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, who were not yet superstars.

The track was mixed at Channel One and the explosive “Super Bionic Version!” Dub by Ernest Hookim and Barnabas enters truly apocalyptic territory.

Luckily for all of us, inside a now battered briefcase that he took to Jamaica in 1976, Prince has kept his mastertapes and promo photos in pristine condition, knowing that his music had value and biding his time.

On April 4, 2025, Elektra/Rhino Records will reissue Tracy Chapman’s eponymous debut album on vinyl in celebration of its 35th anniversary. Originally released by Elektra Records in April 1988, Tracy Chapman has long been unavailable on vinyl. This anniversary reissue has been prepared for release by Chapman and the album’s original producer, David Kershenbaum, pressed on 180-gram vinyl and sourced from an analogue master. The album package will also include an insert of translated lyrics, which accompanied the original international release. Featuring the classic singles ‘Fast Car’, ‘Talkin’ Bout A Revolution’, and ‘Baby Can I Hold You’, the album earned three Grammy Awards and went on to become one of the most successful debuts of all time, peaking at #1 in multiple countries and selling more than 20 million copies worldwide. To this day, it still makes regular appearances on charts around the world, and is one of the most successful albums by a female artist in chart history.

Chapman comments, “I was just out of college when the album came out and for a young singer songwriter it was a dream come true – making a record, recording my own songs, releasing my first album. 1988, that year marked the beginning of what has been a humbling and thrilling experience, seeing fans around the world embrace these 11 songs. I really wanted to mark the 35th anniversary of the album, and so I am grateful to have this opportunity to reissue the record on vinyl.”

Over the course of four decades and eight studio albums, Tracy Chapman has created a body of work that has been as consistently compelling as it is honest and uncompromising, eloquently telling stories with perennial appeal that are at once personal and universal. Impervious to trends, she has commendably stayed her musical course, earning the approbation of fans, critics and peers. Beginning with 1988’s multi-platinum Tracy Chapman, her musical journey has continued with Crossroads (1989), Matters Of The Heart (1992), 1995’s multi-platinum New Beginning (which featured the Grammy-winning single ‘Give Me One Reason’), Telling Stories (2000), Let It Rain (2002), Where You Live (2005), Our Bright Future (2008), and two best-selling compilations, Collection (2001) and Greatest Hits (2015). Along the way, in addition to her four Grammys, Chapman has earned an American Music Award, two Brits, and a Billboard Music Award.

Barker's debutalbum Utility (on Berghain's Ostgut Ton label) was something of a sensation in the world of electronic music when it was released. Utility made numerous Best of 2019 year's end lists, including Pitchfork (8,2 review), The Quietus, DJ Mag, Resident Advisor (Recommends) and others. It also earned title of Mixmag's Album of The Year 2019. Now its finally time for the follow-up Stochastic Drift on Smalltown Supersound. And where Barker on Utility was "using ambient materials to remake techno" as Pitchfork's Philip Sherburne wrote, he takes this approach even further here creating - as the title suggests - a dreamy stochastic drift and beautiful freeform float.

Barker's debutalbum Utility (on Berghain's Ostgut Ton label) was something of a sensation in the world of electronic music when it was released. Utility made numerous Best of 2019 year's end lists, including Pitchfork (8,2 review), The Quietus, DJ Mag, Resident Advisor (Recommends) and others. It also earned title of Mixmag's Album of The Year 2019. Now its finally time for the follow-up Stochastic Drift on Smalltown Supersound. And where Barker on Utility was "using ambient materials to remake techno" as Pitchfork's Philip Sherburne wrote, he takes this approach even further here creating - as the title suggests - a dreamy stochastic drift and beautiful freeform float.

Long and intermittent running duo of Discrepant head honcho Gonçalo F Cardoso and Angela Valid's Alex Jones, with sometime collaborator Phil Laney aka Kenny Hosepipe joining in somewhere along the way, Hair & Treasure crossover from Sucata Tapes to Discrepant wax via 'Disc Rot'. Described by the duo, in their cryptic and scatological fashion, as "a fetid spread from the buttery catacombs of Hair & Treasure", one can only speculate on the mindset, if not for the scenario, for these file swap recording sessions. As if decaying throughout this back & forth process, the synthscapes, field recordings, voices from who knows where? and subliminal pulses assembled in these 11 pieces all coalesce into this out-there murk where invocations of "a" real are mangled into unhinged, squinting eyes moments of near- consciousness.

Compared to previous Hair & Treasure ventures like 'Two Fucking Tapes' or 'Forked Piss Blues', 'Disc Rot' forgoes side-long tapestries by focusing on shorter and clearer transmissions from the netherworld. Still, the feeling of pieces of discarded hardware and sound hubris lying around and turned music of the duo remains unscathed, filtered through a newfound precision. After the opening feverish threat of 'Warm Night', the suspended synth pads and working machinery of 'Byzantine Turd Skirt' actually comes as a relief, pulling away (a bit) of the dread to resurface with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre OST ambience of 'Amateur Depravity' and 2004-ish Midwest noise stylings of 'Busy Hubby's Flight to Gstaad' and 'Tit Ale'. 'Roads Gonad Today' and 'Just Jerkers' are not that far removed from a lower fidelity take on Black Dice circa 'Creature Comforts', while -'Professional Babies' goes back a couple of years to their collabs with Wolf Eyes, bust mostly, all of this sounds like nothing but Hair & Treasure themselves. If you know, you know.

It’s always fun to let our audience peer through the party peephole with some hot behind-the-scenes info. For months, Black Light Smoke’s Control EP has supplied several of label head Tiga’s secret DJ weapons. In fact, he’s been sneaking out constantly after 9pm to play it out anywhere they’ll have him. And it’s little wonder to those who wonder why, as the Chicago-born producer’s top-flight mix of EBM, electro and Benadryl-soaked vocals has all the right people dancing.

Leadoff track "New York Is Dead” eulogizes the famous Big Apple Dance Party Scene in a way that will confuse the many who have embraced the city’s thriving “Groove With the Avengers” day rave series in Times Square. But the nihilism-liking doesn’t stop there, with the Friday-Til-I-Die attitude of “Black Hole at the Disco,” the pleather-dreaded post-cyberpunk of “Last Song Before Sunrise”, and the oxygen-deprived acid of “Break Your Back” culminating in the 11:45am-peak-time industrial trance of closer “Mind Control.”

Because we want this to be available to as many inhabitants of the blasted apocalyptic landscape we have pencilled in for 2034 or so, we have decided to make this release available both digitally and on vinyl. So whether you’ve managed to jack in illegally to a Spotify Wind Farm or you’re relegated to the hand-cranked misery of a Victrola while living in a barn or something, we’ve got you covered!

2025 Repress in Arctic Pearl Vinyl
Alles fließt, nichts bleibt wie es ist. Diese philosophische Erkenntnis gilt auch für das dritte Studioalbum der aufstrebenden niederländischen Rockband DOOL. Der treffende Titel "The Shape of Fluidity" zielt keineswegs nur auf die musikalische Innovation. Sondern das Album dreht sich um Themen wie persönlicher Wandel, physische Veränderung, psychologische Weiterentwicklung und die sich erneuernde Welt um uns herum. DOOL und insbesondere Sänger/in und Gitarrist/in Raven van Dorst stellen Fragen: Wie wirkt sich der Wandel auf uns aus? Wie bleiben wir uns selbst in einer Welt treu, die so unglaublich herausfordernd und aggressiv gegenüber dem Individuum ist? Wir müssen so fließend wie Wasser sein, um in diesem Ozean von Möglichkeiten und Ungewissheiten erfolgreich zu navigieren - und Frieden mit Chaos und Unbeständigkeit zu schließen. Musikalisch setzen DOOL den auf den beiden vorangegangenen Studioalben eingeschlagenen Weg fort, der emotionale Rockmusik mit Elementen aus dem Metal kombiniert. Dabei demonstrieren die Niederländer eine auffällige Reife und Kontrolle im Songwriting, die aus Jahren der Erfahrung gewachsen sind. "The Shape of Fluidity" zeigt eine eklektische, aber nahtlose Verschmelzung von Progressive und Post-Rock sowie Doom und Heavy Metal, die mit einer stets präsenten Eingängigkeit und hintergründigen Dynamik kombiniert sind. Es ist offenkundig, dass sich das Album thematisch mit dem Konzept der Identität vor dem Hintergrund einer sich ständig verändernden Welt befasst. Die Texte des Albums sind eng mit der Biografie von Leadsänger/in Raven verknüpft. Von Geburt an intersexuell, entschieden die Ärzte chirurgisch, dass der Säugling als Mädchen durchs Leben gehen solle. Dies führte zu einer Existenz auf der Suche nach der eigenen Seele, dem Kampf gegen Tabus und die Überschreitung von Grenzen, bis Raven vor kurzem beschloss, das zurückzufordern, was andere versuchten hatten, ihnen wegzunehmen - und ihre hermaphroditische Natur zu akzeptieren. Der Bandname DOOL leitet sich vom niederländischen Wort für "Wandern" ab. Bereits das im Jahr 2017 erschienene Debütalbum "Here Now, There Then" landete einen sofortigen Volltreffer. Der frisch-wilde Rock- und Metalsound aus den Niederlanden wurde von den renommierten deutschen Magazinen Metal Hammer und Rock Hard zum "Album des Monats" gekürt. Auch Vice (US), Aardschok (NL) und De Volkskrant (NL) überschütteten die junge Band mit Lob. Mit ihrem zweiten Album "Summerland", das 2020 erschien, übertrafen DOOL die ohnehin schon hochgesteckten Erwartungen. Es gab weitere "Album des Monats"-Auszeichnungen in den deutschen Magazinen Rock Hard (10/10) und Sonic Seducer sowie eine #2 Soundcheck-Position in Metal Hammer (DE) und Metal.de, und eine weitere #1 im polnischen Metal Hammer - mit einem Berg herausragender Kritiken auf beiden Seiten des Atlantiks. Mit "The Shape of Fluidity" bieten DOOL sehr viel mehr als nur verdammt coole Musik. Die zusätzlichen Dimensionen von Tiefe und Bedeutung sind Teil ihres einzigartigen Reizes und kommen auf dem neuen Album deutlich zum Vorschein. Mögen sich alle, die wandern, unter der fluiden Flagge von DOOL versammeln!

On April 4th, Brighton-based Australian vocalist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Penelope Trappes will release her fifth full-length album ‘A Requiem’. It comes alongside news of her signing to London imprint, One Little Independent Records. ‘A Requiem’ collects ten haunting, ambient soundscapes - incantations of dreams and nightmares, of death and grief, as well as power and autonomy. Carnal, transcendent cello drones are used to exorcise historical and generational traumas in an evocative and macabre piece of gothic experimentalism.

Seeking solitude for what she knew would be an intense and cathartic writing experience, Trappes travelled to Scotland and isolated completely. Amidst meditative and psychedelic states, she channeled demons and accessed parts of herself she’d long desired to cleanse. During candle-lit recording sessions she found herself drawn to cello, an instrument she has no formal training in, she explains, “I always felt an affinity toward the cello, I embraced it, held it, and became one with it as a way to accompany my voice. The nerve-like strings of the cello became external chords of my vocal folds… I scratched on them, leaned into them, and conjured all of the textures I could muster”.

‘A Requiem’ is a musical service in honour of the dead, a sanctuary Trappes built for herself to explore familial chaos and history. “I was looking for an equilibrium between a ‘heaven' and a ‘hell’” she explains, “screaming out to the wisdom of our foremothers - surfacing and leading me into true strength and beauty. I listened to the sorrow closely. Death is a part of our reality. Inevitable. Omnipresent. But nightmares can be beautiful”.

She continues, “This album is my personal requiem for my parents, my ties to the land where I was born, along with all of my epigenetically connected ancestors before them. The songs helped me summon up the strength to move through my own awareness of mortality, death, and impending loss. This album is a living funeral. It’s a ceremonial collection of music. It’s an externalising of the power and strength to fight the generations of abuse and darkness that my parents self-admittedly played out in their parenting and to keep it away from my own social patterns and my psyche. It’s not an uncommon thing in the world and this lamented warcry goes out to everyone to help exorcise patriarchal, political, and religious systems of abuses of power”.

A sprawling patchwork of the artist’s dreams and fears, Parannoul’s third album After the Magic explores the enigmatic solo artist’s life in the wake of his second album’s overnight success.

Expanding on the shoegaze-shaded emo that made Parannoul’s To See the Next Part of the Dream so beloved by lo-fi and indie rock fans alike, After the Magic sees the anonymous auteur striving to write a follow-up as worthy of acclaim as the last.

Across the album’s ten songs, Parannoul plunges yet deeper into his diverse pool of influences, coming back to the surface with a record that captures and extends the magic of its predecessor. Unexpected flashes of orchestral ambient and glitched-out electronica meld seamlessly with Parannoul’s signature passages of noisy, distortion-laden shoegaze, offering a real time glimpse into the maturation of one of indie rock’s most exciting artists.

In the artist’s own words, “This album is not what you expected, but what I always wanted.”

Die Berliner Post-Punk-Band The Underground Youth um den Musiker und Autor Craig Dyer meldet sich mit ihrem zwölften Studioalbum „Décollage“
zurück. Das von Dyer selbst geschriebene, aufgenommene und produzierte Album ist eine Übung in künstlerischer Dekonstruktion, sowohl im Namen
als auch in der Form, und markiert eine entscheidende musikalische Wende. „Décollage ist die Kunst, ein Bild zu erschaffen, indem man Teile eines
bereits existierenden Werks herausreißt, abreißt oder entfernt. Meine Idee war es, diese Technik auf die Musik anzuwenden“, erklärt er. „Ich baute
Wände aus statisch überzogenen Hip-Hop-Drum-Samples, Schichten von Streicherarrangements im Stil von Lee Hazlewood und von Serge Gainsbourg
inspirierten Mellotron-Melodien auf, dann begann ich, diese schönen, chaotischen Wände aus Lärm abzureißen und legte einen neuen Sound für The
Underground Youth frei.“
Von Momenten geisterhaften Minimalismus bis hin zu ausladenden Crescendos aus Lärm und Melodie haben die Songs hier eine schattenhafte,
traumhafte Qualität. Neben Dyer besteht The Underground Youth aus der Schlagzeugerin und bildenden Künstlerin Olya Dyer, dem Gitarristen
Leonard Kaage (der auch bei der Postproduktion des Albums mitwirkte) und der Bassistin Samira Zahidi. Ursprünglich als Soloprojekt von Dyer im Jahr
2008 gegründet, hat die Band inzwischen 11 - mittlerweile 12 - Studioalben und 4 EPs veröffentlicht und dabei einen einzigartigen Sound entwickelt,
der im Laufe der Jahre von cineastischer Lo-Fi-Psychedelia über rauen, melancholischen Post-Punk bis hin zu Gothic-Folk-Noir reichte.

With Umwelt, room, An’archives releases the first vinyl LP by Japanese singer, songwriter and guitarist, Kotonashiso. An elegant collection of seven slow-moving, free-ranging song forms, Umwelt, room is reflective, pensive, and yet has a great, expansive sense of movement, each song’s parameters feeling almost infinitely flexible.

Born in Tokyo in 1984, Kotonashiso began playing music in 2000. After taking a long break from making music between the years 2005 to 2016, he returned with renewed focus, and over the past eight years, he’s toured Japan and Europe, performing in venues, street performances and open mic events. Currently, Kotonashiso plays either solo, on in three separate duos, with Sou Mori, 泥, and Hideya Kyooka, respectively. He’s not released much music, as yet – a single, “in the cavern”, with Sou Mori, in 2021, and a soundtrack to Hiroki Nakajima’s solo exhibition, Ray, the following year.

All of this gives Umwelt, Room the feeling of a major statement, a debut shot across the void. The seven songs collected here were recorded in 2024, with a guiding principle, for Kotonashiso, being his desire to “imagine the time when people started recording blues and folk songs on analog records,” creating a ghost-like presence in the listener’s room. When talking about the songs on Umwelt, Room, Kotonashiso focuses on a number of concepts, such as prayer, tragedy, ‘the cycle of life’, and the disappearance of the gulf between fantasy and reality.

They’re songs with deep, rich resonance, performed without guile. You might be able to hear, at times, the fragility of fellow Japanese singer-songwriter Hisato Higuchi, or the bluesy touch of Loren Connors in the guitar. However, Kotonashiso’s aesthetic remit is wide, identifying with artists like Bill Callahan, Scout Niblett, Inukaze, and Tomoko Shimazaki, and sharing sympathies with “the psychedelic rock, avant-garde and ambient communities.” Ultimately, though, the pellucid, dream-like songs of Kotonashiso, somewhere between folk, pop and blues, sit, disarmed and lovely, within their own universe.

DJ Support: Gilles Peterson (BBC Radio 6 Music), Tom Ravenscroft/Deb Grant – New Music Fix (BBC Radio 6 Music), Huey Morgan (BBC Radio 6 Music)

From Budapest, Mörk (pronounced Merk) play on the boundaries of jazz and soul music. After meeting as students, they created a band that not only toyed with sounds but the methods of delivering them too. They’ve played in kindergardens, climbing halls, tea rooms and living rooms, countering expectations of where and how you find music.

Following April's much loved ‘Astral Visions’ EP, played across Bandcamp Weekly, BBC 6 Music, FIP, Jazz FM and KCRW, their upcoming album ‘Still Dreamin’’ delivers even more soul and uplifting choruses, coupled with the synchronicity of a band that has been through so much together.

Hüma Utku returns to Editions Mego with her new album. The title Dracones makes reference to the mediaeval latin term "Hic sunt dracones" (Here be dragons), marking the unexplored, dangerous places on world maps, expressing the fear of chaos, the unexpected and the unknown.

This new work by the Istanbul sound artist is a sonic journal of an expedition into uncharted territory, one which occupies self and domesticity. Inspired by Utku’s experience of matrescence, Dracones explores the themes of familial demonology, metamorphosis and homecoming as well as human relationship to the experience of love woven layers of euphoria, alienation and consumption.

Musically, Dracones traverses a wide array of sonic tools whereby industrial sounds are imbedded with certain psychological angles, this is an album where, all matter meshes into a sly snapshot of the human experience with a tension and release exposure occurring frequently with dark corners opening up to bright layers of electronic experimentation.

The haunting opening track ‘A World Between Worlds’ tackles pregnancy, of which Utku was experiencing when making this record. The emotional, physical, spiritual and mental experience of this journey is all documented here.. This track features the ‘Lyraei’, an electromagnetic string instrument and modern interpretation of the ancient lyre, that was built and played by Mihalis Shammas. ‘Comfort of The Shadows’ moves from within to without, what was once hidden is now exposed. Utku’s ability to conjure the visual in the sonic is at the forefront as howling electronics give a distinct impression of movement. ‘A Familial Curse’ presents a desire to break the cycle of generational trauma with a creeping sense of dread that rolls into an industrial rhythm prior to landing in a beautiful place represented with shimmering guitar tones. ‘Here be Dragons’ is a rich and dark evocation, a spooked surrender to the themes of the record whereby Utku’s wildly distorted voice beckons all manner of phantasmagoria over cello and recordings of her ultrasound. ‘Care in Consume’ engages in further sonic exploration as a means of conjuring ‘matriphagy’, with its unique psychic energy coursing through electronic veins. ‘A House within a House’ could also be read as a body within a body as the pulse of ultrasound audio rattle amongst a cage of thudding rhythms and swirling electronics, one also ending in optimism as an exquisite melody is born from the prior fire. The striking journey ends with the more soothing ‘Ayaz’a’, a track embracing love and all the hardships that a period of fundamental metamorphosis brings, this is a heartfelt dedication to her son and concludes an album draped in life, experience, joy and pain.

Dracones is a deeply visual journey through inner and outer worlds, a space where symbolic evocation is supreme and passive listening is not an option.

All tracks composed,performed and recorded by Hüma Utku
Buchla 100, vocals, cello, electric guitar performed by Hüma Utku
‘’A World Between Worlds’’ features the ‘Lyraei’ built, played and recorded by Mihalis Shammas
Buchla 100 recorded in EMS Stockholm 2022-2023

Mixed by Enyang Urbiks
Mastered by Heba Kadry, NYC
Cover Artwork by Marco Ciceri
Design by Tina Frank

Chris Ryan Williams (trumpet & electronics) and Lester St. Louis (cello & electronics) work together as HxH (H by H). Their skills have seen them move smoothly across various situations, constantly carving out new terrain and working in new configurations of musicians at a rapid pace. While worth reading, their biographies capture only a part of their complex rhizome.

HxH started about three years ago. The project is a direct response to all their activity with others and more importantly all their future leaning sonic desires. Their debut album STARK PHENOMENA is both their first studio recording and their first physical release. The album is appropriately set to be released by KMRU on his growing label OFNOT. It’s an ideal introduction to their sound world and their approach.

HxH describe their music as “electroacoustic,” but until recently the presence of Black musicians in this field has been greatly overlooked and largely ignored, making this phrase only partially appropriate. What HxH do really is to always be unpredictable. Every gig is a new soundscape. Sometimes you might hear echoes of Autechre or Robert Hood but then the sound-field will open up into a new terrain all their own. Chris and Lester bring together techniques from across the sound spectrum of electronic music and also draw on their deep backgrounds in Jazz, Improvisation, Classical and Noise scenes to create a sound that is true to them. After all, these two have worked with the likes of Bennie Maupin and the music of Black Fluxus artist Ben Patterson. Their rhizome is deep.

One of the ways that their unique approach manifests is in their merging of both acoustic instruments and electronic instruments in real time. This is something few have managed to do – but their spontaneous leanings work in both complex and accessible ways because of their deep understanding of landscape crafting. You can hear this clearly on the track “Pyrex Vision.” Their approach makes it tempting to compare their music to Sun Ra jamming with Laurel Halo – a comparison that would be only partly accurate.

Chris and Lester note that the sounds on STARK PHENOMENA are “imbued with such hopeful, gracious care; one that is far flung from obsessive carefulness or fuck the world carelessness, but more a caring embrace without the fuzziness of nostalgia.”

They note that when they began working together, they would “always come back to speaking on our concepts of an architecture of the expanse,” noting that their live sets often take on the joyfully noisy task of “dreaming big.” For HxH it was essential that STARK PHENOMENA have a quality that is “almost sculptural.” They consider the album “an object to be viewed from all sides.” This kind of thinking has resulted in them directly engaging with numerous sculptors and artists including Torkwase Dyson. Shape wise HxH’s sound fields work in a parallel to Dyson’s black architectural works.

They also note that the opening cut “BEACH” (the opening and longest track from the album) was “written weeks after our first gig in a studio session donated to us by our dear friend jaimie branch.” And that Pyrex Vision “was continually being edited months after sending our ‘final mixes’ to KMRU.” Their sound sources and samples come from studio sessions, live gigs, durational installations, 3am improvised downloads and more.

KMRU notes: "I think there is an in-between layer on this record. I was first caught by the Pyrex Vision track which organically flows between monologue, subtle field recording, and instrumentation. It's such a beautiful track, evoking deep emotion through simplicity. STARK PHENOMENA effortlessly glides in between imaginative mosaics of sounds — free yet complex — unlocking memories within its layers."

Firstly, I want to thank Soulox & Soeneido for their patience because I have slept on their music for years haha

They have both been sending me music for a long time which I was pretty slack on checking (as a lot of people may have also noticed when sending me music, there's a huge backlog to get through and not enough hours in the day!) but it wasn't until Pete Dev/Null was in London for an event and we met up in person to record a mix for Blog To The Oldskool (our show on Jungletrain) that I realised what these two were capable of. Pete started the show with Lavish and I had to know what it was straight away, he told me it was by Soulox & Soeneido and I felt so bad that I had probably not bothered to check this tune if they had sent it to me, but I knew I had to have it!

I messaged Soen the next day asking about this tune and thankfully it was still available, one thing led to another and this release now exists. Big thanks to both of them for their wicked tunes, big up Comfort Zone on his quality remix of Lavish and a special mention to Jay Vaz (of Dreaming Vinyl) who did the design for the b-side of this release.