quête:electro one

The electronic music producer and DJ whose catalogue of collaborations namechecks acts as diverse as Agoria, Green Velvet, Roman Flugel to Nitzer Ebb, Depeche Mode and David Holmes is set to release his 6th studio album The Strand Cinema on the 24th March on his own label PKR.

The last five years have seen an evolutionary shift for the electronic musician, undertaking more soundtrack work, including for film (Nightride on Netflix, Rough), radio (The Northern Bank Job BBC R4) and theatre (East Belfast Boy).

The Strand Cinema album is a tribute to the art deco cinema building , The Strand, where Phil’s recording studio is. A stirring and beautiful record, it seamlessly traverses the worlds of contemporary classical to beautifully elevated dance music with a recognisably cinematic influence. Managing to sound both grand and expansive, as well as minimal and introspective – it’s a record that explores the macro and the micro.

The opening track “Strand Cinema”, begins with a steady, gentle, looping pulse, almost recalling the kosmische ripples of Cluster, before sweeping and enveloping strings enter, resulting in a track that manages to sound both grandiose and tender in one fell swoop.

Lead single “Atlantic” perhaps most perfectly encapsulates the various sonic worlds that Kieran is operating in, merging a bordering on euphoric dance beat layered with infectious melodies, while remaining anchored to organic sounds, as strings and percussion collide with the driving and hypnotic groove of the track.

“Strike the Match” showcases Kieran’s talents for detail, in a track that feels almost palpably textural and rich in complexity but without feeling overly busy or superfluous; while “Elephant in Castle” utilises intense, almost gargling electronics, that drone with a foreboding and ominous tone, but also produces fractured moments of light, beauty and poignancy.

Created during Covid Kieran’s method was “To literally be like a tuning fork and ask: What's in my chest? If I were to describe what's inside me, and what's going on in the outside world, If I had to score that in a film, what would it sound like right now? I guess I sort of soundtracked my own life”

“One positive side of lockdowns was that we spent more time in natural surroundings where I’d make field recordings. I’d also record acoustic sounds: cello, violin, percussion, guitar etc and then create my own sample bank from all these single one-note sounds. So, creating your own loops and drones. The album was created from organic sounds manipulated by machines; melted, mangled and hacked with computers but machines only sound as good as the human spirit put into them.
The idea of nature and humans versus technology is the concept behind the album’s A/V show which debuts in Belfast in March before touring. Featuring works by 11 artists from across the worlds of film, animation, advertising, architecture, computer science and dance such as Scottish BAFTA nominated Simone Smith, LA based director Frederico Marzio Vitetta who is famous for skateboarding films like ‘Wet Dream’ with Spike Jonze, to futuristic CGI from BAFTA nominated Kris Kelly and a video from contemporary dancer Oona Doherty. onscreen visualisations that explores The visuals explore nature and technology along a timeline from past, present to future with cinema as a loose reference point with varying degrees of utopian versus dystopian moods.

Soundway releases a storming compilation of Cameroonian-born, Nigerian-based super producer Nkono Teles’ solo work.
The pioneer of West African electronic music was known for being tapped by over 100 other musicians to produce or arrange their music, from King Sunny Adé, Guy Lobe, even Steve Monite’s
album “Only You” and more. Having already appeared on Soundway’s best-selling compilation “Doing It In Lagos”, here more of Nkono’s
limited solo work is carefully remastered and reissued on
vinyl for the first time. One of a small handful of pioneers of the Nigerian electronic music scene in the 1980s (alongside the likes
of Jake Sollo & William Onyeabor), Teles was known for being tapped by over 100 musicians to feature on, produce or arrange their music. The list of ‘80s Nigerian records that his sound and style embellished
is seemingly endless: Steve Monite (he arranged and produced the music on the Only You album recently re-issued by Soundway), Dizzy K, Peter Abdul, Odion Iruoje, Steve Black, Rick Asikpo, Feladey, Charly Boy, Majek Fashek & Sonny Okosuns, to name just a few,
all engaged his enigmatic production and keyboard services throughout the 1980s. He became known as the first person in Nigeria to push the use of the drum machine into popular music and created a unique and original boogie-funk sound combining these new
beats with guitars and an array of new and affordable synthesiser sounds that started appearing in the early 1980s.

Elias Devoldere is the drummer in bands such as Nordmann, Hypochristmutreefuzz, Suwi, Robbing Millions, and John Ghost. Following an ep, Kaiku, released last summer, Bloomed > Exploded is his debut full length as a solo artist. Besides writing and singing, he composed, played, recorded, and produced the bulk of the ten songs himself. 'Everything blooms', he explains the title of his first album. 'Until it explodes, and something else is able to grow from it'. In this case, what came full cycle is an intimate coming-of-age album of intangible atmospherics, crisp melodies, and understated rhythmical patterns.

BLOOMED >

'As a kid, I just wanted to play football, you know?', says Elias. 'But when I was eight years old, my parents made me choose between drawing school and music school'. And thus began a dedication to rhythm for Elias. At 18, he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in his hometown of Ghent, opting for a jazz education. 'Not because I aspired to become a master 'jazz drummer', but to learn music, to become a good musician'. It was at the academy that, after an impromptu jam session, Nordmann first came together. The exhilarating instrumental quartet went on to win second place at the prestigious Humo's Rock Rally in 2014, and released three albums to critical acclaim, with a new one in the works.

Devoldere, in the meantime, had completed his degree with a craving - ironically - for music. 'I was in over my head with jazz for such a long time, and went on an epic discovering spree. Moses Sumney, James Blake, Kendrick Lamar, Connan Mockasin... Lots of stuff I had missed over the years. In a way, I reconnected with the kind of music I was into before jazz dominated my life. Pink Floyd was my first love, for instance, and later Radiohead proved to be a game changer. Diving back into those kind of sounds, I was feeling the urge to follow my old dreams, of being a solo artist - or something more than 'just' a drummer, anyway. So I bought a guitar, an interface for my laptop, and started writing'.

EXPLODED

When he released his 5 track ep Kaiku in the summer of 2021, it summarised a lot of firsts for Elias. First time writing lyrics, first time as a lead vocalist, first time recording his own songs all by himself. The songs had been around for a while, but taking those leaps took a long time. 'Making the ep helped me to find my voice, in every way possible'. Still, in the aftermath of the pandemic, the songs on Bloomed > Exploded sprouted in a time of upheaval. 'Musically the album is quite serene, gentle even. But the themes speak of internal unrest and uncertainty. There are a lot of questions on the album, as it turned out. Duality, as the title suggests, coming from the struggle between a wish to turn everything upside down and a search for peace. Honestly: the prospect of my 30th birthday was messing with my head too'.

Recording during a period of solitude in France, Elias initially relied heavily on synthesizers and drum machines. 'Explode / Boalis was one of the first songs I wrote for this album, and pivotal for its atmosphere, based mostly on electronic elements. Later, I did use 'real' drums on most of the other songs, though, and contributions from other musicians, but the overall mood is very cohesive'. 'Pure', that's how Bruno Ellingham, the UK engineer who mixed the album, described it. Much to the delight of Elias, who reached out to Ellingham because of his previous work with bands such as Massive Attack and Portishead. 'Hearing the end result, I thought he really captured the essence of the original demo's. For me, that adds to this album being a sincere reflection of my true self. 'Take a dive/ Into the place where it's more quiet', as I sing in the last song, that kind of sums it up for me'.

A Late Lunch’ is the soundtrack to Akiko Iimura’s eponymous movie realized in 1978. It is based on acoustic instruments and field recordings, brilliantly reconfigured and mixed by Bekaert to create a surreal, immersive soundscape. The technique used includes superposition and speed change of recordings, radical sound effects and juxtapositions of sounds. The players were prominent musicians of the 1970’s, including Maggi Payne, George Lewis, David Rosenboom and Blue Gene Tyranny.

‘A Summer Day at Stony Point’ was composed in 1969, with participation of David Behrman, Shigeko Kubota and Charlotte Warren. The piece was commissioned by English composer Hugh Davies who presented it at the Harrogate festival the same year. Stony Point is a small village in New York State where John Cage co-owned a small pseudo-commune art resort where like-minded artists gathered. ‘A Summer Day at Stony Point’ is nothing more than a page of a journal, a fragment of a notebook that utilizes a series of sound sources recorded at Stony Point on one beautiful day in the summer of 1968. Other electronic sound sources were recorded at the Brandeis University where Alvin Lucier was professor. The final realization of the piece was done at Henri Pousseur’s APELAC Studio in Brussels, 1969.

The soundtrack for Akiko Iimura’s ‘Mon Petit Album’ was composed on the basis of a simple description of the technique of the film and its time span. It includes David Behrman on alto, from an outdoor recording at Stony Point, plus excerpts from a Transition concert in London, the band Bekaert formed in 1971 with Michel Herr, Takehisa Kosugi and Ryo Koike, both members of the Taj Mahal Travelers. The atmosphere is quiet and pastoral throughout with a very dreamlike flavour.

Jacques Bekaert (1940-2020) was a man of many gifts: author, journalist, composer, photographer, visual artist, wine connoisseur, radio talk show host, diplomat and expert in Southeast Asian affairs. His whole life Bekaert has been actively involved in music but not much of his work got recorded or published. In the early 60’s Bekaert studied with Pousseur and through his frequent visits to the US he became friends with artists like John Cage, David Tudor, Charlotte Moorman and most of all David Behrman with whom he had a close friendship ever since. Bekaert helped organize the first European tour of The Sonic Arts Union (David Behrman, Robert Ashley, Gordon Mumma, Alvin Lucier) and in the early 70’s he formed the group Transition (with Belgian jazz pianist Michel Herr, Takehisa Kosugi and Ryo Koike, both members of the Taj Mahal Travelers). His meeting with Japanese experimental film-maker Akiko Iimura resulted in two film soundtracks featured on this one of a kind discreet avant garde album.

When asked in a 1979 interview about his double life as a musician and a journalist, Bekaert replied, “I suppose they’re both unsafe, unstable, questioning jobs—composing and reporting. Journalism takes me to places, shows me the world as it is. My music is my wish for the kind of world I’d want to live in. The little peaceful state I dream for everyone, where you can be yourself, and happy, and as collective as possible without giving up total privacy.”

Originally released in 1981 on the Belgian Igloo label this reissue comes with the same sleeve as originally designed by Alain Géronnez.

Oliver Cherer is back with a new Gilroy Mere record which follows on from his other much lauded Clay Pipe releases (The Green Line, Adlestrop and last year’s D Rothon collaboration, Estuary English).

Over the last two decades Ollie has released numerous collections of music in an ever shifting array of modes, from folktronic, singer-songwriter styles through psychogeographic electronica to jazz-tinged, confessional ghost-pop and most recently, the “guitar tainted machine rock disco” of Aircooled.

Gilden Gate is an album of two halves. Side 1 ‘Rising’ celebrates the sun-drenched beaches, pastures and heaths of rural Suffolk, whereas Side 2 ‘Falling’ explores the underwater world of the lost city of Dunwich and its five church spires.

Oliver says:-

“A few years ago I discovered the lost city of Dunwich. I’d made a trip to Suffolk to shoot a short film about Sizewell Nuclear Power Stations and stayed in the old Coastguard’s Cottage on Dunwich Beach within sight of Minsmere Nature Reserve and the power plants. It’s a wild, sleepy place of pines and heath and North Sea winds and a strangely mysterious air – Sutton Hoo is nearby and Eno’s reference to the very beach that I was staying on made perfect sense. In the small museum at Dunwich I learned that this tiny hamlet had once been a major medieval city of international trade. It seemed unlikely and even now, knowing Dunwich as a small village, I find putting what I know about the place into perspective as a city a certain kind of impossible.

It seems that over a period under the influence of the weather, natural erosion and market rivalry the thriving harbour port was inundated by the North Sea and eventually slipped into and under it. The city of churches was lost and all the spires engulfed and toppled. What remains are the few houses, and the ruin of Greyfriars crumbling inexorably down the cliff and exposing the bones of buried monks as the graveyard follows the building’s stones into the sea.

There are local legends surrounding the site including stories of fishermen hearing the bells of lost churches and seeing the ghostly, lighted city beneath their boats as they return to the shore.
Gilden Gate is named for one of the entrances to the old city and is a musical meditation on Dunwich past and present. Frances Castle’s beautiful sleeve art depicts the surface and the sub-marine, the warm and the cold, the past and the present. The glass rises and the glass falls and in the background there are sirens, fog horns, church bells and Eno, and on the sea bed there are the scattered remains of a once great city.”

Gilden Gate is named for one of the entrances to the old city and is a musical meditation on Dunwich past and present. Frances Castle’s beautiful sleeve art depicts the surface and the sub-marine, the warm and the cold, the past and the present. The glass rises and the glass falls and in the background there are sirens, fog horns, church bells and Eno, and on the sea bed there are the scattered remains of a once great city.”

Steve Gunn has always had one foot in indie rock and the other in an expansive improvisational scene. His songwriter albums alternate with freewheeling jams, most notably in his Gunn-Truscinski Duo, but are not confined to that. So when Gunn decided to revisit Other You, it made sense that he brought in some guests from the far side of the commercial/experimental spectrum to reimagine his songs. Nakama presents five tracks from that last album, reshaped by artists that Gunn admires. The process loosens the songs up considerably.

To start, he calls in Mdou Moctar’s backing band (the American bassist Mikey Coltun and the other guitarist Ahmoudou Madassane) for “Protection.” The song already had a bit of blues-y swagger to it, with sharper-edged guitar rhythms also heard on the ultra-smooth Other You, but here the heat has an otherworldly desert sheen. Its caravan-traveling rhythm sways from side to side, digging in to to the upbeats in a way that is both kinetic and also hypnotically still. There’s some crowd noise in the background, the knot of people that regularly forms when Mdou and his compatriots plug in from Agadez, and a few mournful afro-blues licks arcing off the vamp. But mostly it’s a cut that reminds you how much African guitar music Gunn has absorbed (listen to “Tommy’s Congo” from Way Out Weather for proof), and how well it fits with what he does.

Gunn also brings in Circuit Des Yeux’s Haley Fohr to reconfigure “Ever Feel That Way,” and she sets the song’s drifting melancholy amid pensive minor-key piano chords. She strips back the ambient whoosh that surrounds the original, slows down the pace and presents the song in startling, unadorned clarity. Her version removes some of the sticky, over-prettiness that I found so distracting in Other You. The melody is better, purer and more focused without the frills. There is also an electronic remake of “Reflection” from David Moore’s ambient ensemble Bing and Ruth, which traps Gunn’s fragile vocals in a shivering palace of synthetic tones. It’s enjoyable in its way, but the two sensibilities never quite meld together.

The best part comes when Gunn joins forces with Joshua Abrams’ Natural Information Society in remakes of “Good Wind” and “On the Way.” The former is a matter of subtle differences: the gentle pitch and roll under Gunn’s voice, the intermittent liquid runs of bass between widely spaced phrases. Abrams and his crew open up the jazz-leaning, reiterative possibilities under Gunn’s song, but they don’t change it fundamentally. “On the Way” is even stronger, a glowing drone and a pattern of hand drums enveloping the melody. It makes the music seem more spiritual, more resonant, more deep and full of mysteries. It was striking enough that I had to go back to Other You to hear again an album that had left me cold. This new version of “On the Way” didn’t change that chill, but it gave me an idea of how strong the songs might have sounded in another setting. (by Jennifer Kelly)

Experience an experiment turned masterpiece…"York". Originally titled "NoYork" and slated to be the major label debut from acclaimed Los Angeles emcee Blu, this much-discussed collection was eventually renamed and (finally) released through Nature Sounds in 2013. The result was a certified classic that remains one of Blu’s most ambitious projects to date.

Infused with the electronic experimentation of the early 2000s L.A. beat scene, "York" covers a wide spectrum of sound, displaying the production of beat icons like Flying Lotus, Madlib, Exile, Dibia$e, Shafiq Husayn, Daedalus, Knxwledge, and Samiyam. Melding world-class lyricism with sonic textures encompassing psych rock, dub, broken beats, and jazz, the album strikes a unique balance between golden era hip-hop and eclectic futurism. Several guest artists helped Blu realize this vision, including U-God of Wu-Tang Clan, Edan, Sa-Ra, Pac Div, Suzi Analogue, U-N-I, J*Davey, and more.

With the original 4LP pressing long out of print, Nature Sounds is celebrating the 10-year anniversary of "York" with the release of this new redesigned gatefold 2LP edition.

South Africa's reputation for expanding dance music again with Amapiano.
The past five years have seen amapiano, South Africa’s electronic music movement born in the townships of the country’s Gauteng province, evolve from an underground sound to a nationwide mainstream staple. Even with its commercial success though, amapiano’s DIY ethos has continued to disrupt music creation and distribution in the country. Most amapiano commercial successes today began their careers on cracked versions of production software like FL Studio, distributed their work through file sharing platforms like datafilehost and marketed it using social media pages they controlled and influenced. Amapiano Selections, the debut album by DJ and producer Teno Afrika, gives listeners outside the movement’s online release economy an insight into the high-burn nature of amapiano that has spawned a distinct typology under its larger umbrella. Twenty-one-year-old Lutendo Raduvha has spent the bulk of his life moving between different townships on the outskirts of Johannesburg and Pretoria in the Gauteng province. The palette of amapiano styles on the album reflect these influences.

But at first, South Africa’s youngest electronic music movement lived underground with a small, loyal following. “Amapiano is a genre that I chose because I have a passion for it,” says Teno “I started following amapiano in 2016 because I wanted to explore how it’s produced. It was not taken seriously in our country.” Interestingly, Teno Africa only gives vocals prominence on the closing track “Chants of Africa.” As a way of making their music recognizable and relatable for broadcast, amapiano producers have sometimes overly relied on vocals in the form of singing, catch-phrases and party refrains for the purpose. “It was my decision not to use vocals on this project,” says Teno “The reason is I wanted people to feel my instrumentals and style because this is my first album.” On his closing track the young producer gives a glimpse of the considered approach to music which buoys anticipation for greater things from his future releases.

"Dans cent ans" is not a record: it’s a talisman.
Flavien Berger doesn’t make music, he makes time machines.
In 2015, he released his first album, Leviathan, which he’d imagined like a moment suspended into the bowels of present time.
In 2018, Contre-Temps, his critically acclaimed second album, was narrated like a flashback.
Dans Cent Ans (“In 100 Years”) ends this trilogy and launches into the future with the grace of a poisonous serpent.
Flavien had just finished producing Pomme’s last album and was simultaneously scoring Céline Devaux’s feature film Tout le monde aime Jeanne, when he recorded this album, during six months of isolation.
In the garret of a Belgian house in construction, these 12 tracks were born, close to the sky, both direct and mysterious.
Because Flavien Berger knows how to make machines sound sensual (a key example is the pop song “D’ici là”) and dares to interweave electronics, chanson and art music, organic instruments and synthetic choirs, without ever falling into parodic territory.
Because his voice, more precise, unreverbed, and close-mic’d than ever, sings to our ears – using multisyllabic rhymes (“Trop ivres pour te plaire / Tropiques du cancer”) and surrealist imagery (“la neige restera rose” – “the snow will remain pink”) – stories that feel unknown yet obvious.
And like both previous albums ended with a long eponymous track like a breath of air, “Leviathan” and “Contre-temps”, so does “Dans Cent Ans”, a 15-minute long saga where vocals, wind instruments and machines converse, as if Debussy, Etienne Daho and a Sufi Dervish met in a dream.
After listening to this album, the vertigo of love and the collision of times are one and the same.
In one hundred years, music will survive us all, and its dangerous beauty will awaken other lives. In the meantime, Flavien Berger keeps stunning ours.

'Unconscious Collective' is the first album by PS5 - the new ensemble led by Pietro Santangelo (Nu Guinea, Slivovitz, Fitness Forever) - and it will be out for Hyperjazz Records on 21th May 2021.

It's a musical experiment where layered memories and hidden feelings resonate as if they arise directly from the most recondite part of the unconscious and produce a suspension of the stream of consciousness. With the aim to create a state of trance and override the human reason, this is an imaginary round trip across the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, ideally connecting Naples with North Africa and Latin America.

The arrangements wrote by Santangelo are based on great freedom of improvisation: while the melodic textures of the two saxophones didn't give any clear references, the other musicians followed the rhythmic pulse and its unpredictable ways. The music moves naturally along an imaginary line highlighting the ancestral connection between Jamaica and Ethiopia or between Nigeria and Cuba. In the background, Naples is a synthesis of all the sonic ingredients, mixed and cooked in its own mystical and spicy belly.

Besides Santangelo himself on the tenor and soprano saxophones, the collective is made up of: Paolo Bianconcini, a brilliant Neapolitan percussionist with a very deep Afro-Cuban background; Giuseppe Giroffi, young and talented alto and baritone saxophonist; the bassist Vincenzo Lamagna and the drummer Salvatore Rainone, both loyal members of the former Santangelo's trio.

Recorded live at the Auditorium Novecento in Naples, the legendary studio of Phonotype Records, 'Unconscious Collective' is mixed in analog format by Fabrizio Piccolo, and mastered by Davide Barbarulo at his 20Hz20KHz Studio.

Pietro Santangelo

Pietro was born, lives and plays in Naples. As a saxophonist and composer, he has released five albums with Slivovitz and one with his PS3 trio (Clinamen, Emme records 2017). Graduated in Digital Sound Processing at the Faculty of Physics of Federico II University, he is involved and engaged in the Italian scene of radical improvisation (Franco Ferguson, Elio Martusciello and Officina Arti Soniche, Collettivo NISE).

Multi-instrumentalist since forever, he has collaborated with Nu Guinea, Enzo Avitabile, Fitness Forever, Marzouk Mejri, Dennis Bovell and many others.

He's also author of soundtracks and electronic musician. He appreciates analog photography, loves walking outdoors. He hates biographical notes.

On October 21, 2022, Merge Records will release Pigments, the debut collaboration between New Orleans electro-revival dynamo Dawn Richard and multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Spencer Zahn. Pigments is a project about the power of self-expression through living art, through motion. It's also a love letter to New Orleans, Louisiana. Not strictly classical, jazz or ambient electronica but rather a body of "movements," Pigments is an expressive soundscape that is an immersive passage through the city as seen through the eyes of a young Black girl with dreams to paint her future with the pigments given to her. Richard explains: "Spencer wanted to create one long piece of music that would ebb and flow around my lyrics and emotions, which tell a story of growing to love my own skin. I wanted my voice to be moss surrounding the roots of Spencer's compo - sitions, never forcing the moment to fill every space but rather reveling in the openness of thought and breath." Zahn agrees, saying, "I wanted to work with all these different textures, tones, and colors to have a new sound to frame Dawn's voice and lyrics. To hear a lone clarinet as the breath fades and a cello continues its melody to cue Dawn's vocal entrance is unlike any other record she has made. These are things that excite me as a composer but more as a listener. I hope that other listeners feel the same." Coming on the heels of Dawn Richard's critically acclaimed Merge debut Line, Pigments will introduce listeners to a different facet of Richard's outrageous talent and bring Zahn's thoughtful creativity to a new audience.

Title paraphrase of the legendary British film the crying game, track titles that refer to stories of Philip dick or William Gibson, melancholic pads a la Derrick May and jazzy melodies compose a hybrid of acid and drum and bass that brings to mind the braindance and breakcore sound of the UK . Αthens Computer Underground's The Crying Came is a sophisticated soundtrack of hardware electronica.

Right Diagonal' kicks off with the title track which presents a potent wall of sound that undulates across a pensive current. Distant vocals, frazzled signals and stuttering drum patterns work together to build a fantastically unheimlich vibe. The Crosser version then projects sound into a spacious, chilly warehouse as reverberated flashes of sound depict futuristic machines at work.

'Conjugated In Boring Crimes' then follows up with a dense, shuddering recording. Growls and whispers swell beneath more dystopian sonics before 'Safe Resist' rolls out as a jagged Techno experiment. A steady kick propels a rich, metallic sound palette before 'One Man Clearing' renders another scene of murky futurism.

'Farewell Seesaw' then follows up with a subtle Electro track peppered with hypnotic vocals and a distant, snappy snare. The 'Clubmix' version then delivers what it promises as urgent drums whip up a menacing, heady dance floor vibe.

'Night Voodoo' then brings things to a close as cinematic sweeps suffuse a sawtooth sequence and thick, bubbling bass tones. Frazzled hats bleed through in giving the track a certain live feeling which brings the record to a close.

Dino Lenny returns to Crosstown Rebels with his latest single ‘I’ve Learned That’, accompanied by remixes from Shadow Child and Jonathan Kaspar - plus his own take with Fed Conti.

A regular on labels including Afterlife, Ellum, Innervisions, and Diynamic, London-based Italian-born DJ/producer and Fine Human Records boss Dino Lenny’s solo and collaborative catalogue continues to grow as he features as one of the most consistent names within the worlds of house and techno. Having released his first EP on the label in 2019, he now returns to Damian Lazarus’ Crosstown Rebels for a second outing with the release of his touching new single ‘I’ve Learned That’ - which is one of a collection of records dedicated to his daughter - with remixes from Shadow Child, Jonathan Kaspar, and his own interpretation alongside Fed Conti.

Shaped by emotive piano keys, blooming strings and refined drums, ‘I’ve Learned’ showcases a rich and heartwarming production taking cues from dance music and beyond as the track’s uplifting and inspiring vocals carry the production across nine minutes of delight.

Beginning the transition towards more traditional electronic spheres, his remix alongside Fed Conti utilises vibrant guitar licks and a luminous bassline to head into a late-night discovery of disco influences. Next, Shadow Child’s ‘Classic Mix’ is a skippy house gem as bumping low-ends work amongst hazy chords, with Jonathan Kaspar’s remix moving deeper via surging synths for a hypnotic and thrilling ride to close.

The Well & The Gentle, two of the major works of Pauline Oliveros, are presented here in a first time reissue on double vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with extensive liner notes.

If Oliveros had followed a more conventional path she may have, all social obstacles aside, been considered among the major composers of her time. However, Oliveros approached composition in a more egalitarian manner. She wrote music for musicians to interact with or, in the composers words, she wished to create "an inclusive and interdependent and unfolding world of relationships."

Oliveros' propensity towards inclusion is part of what makes this work so remarkably distinctive. The Well & The Gentle is carefully crafted, allowing performers to participate in the creation of the work. Players are asked to collaborate, focus, react and make imaginative choices. Only then can the performers "pass through stages of awakening to the possibilities inherent in making music, working together, leading to the essence of what can shape musical impulses and individual freedom simultaneously."

Unlike most major composers of the era, Oliveros' work focuses on collaboration and improvisation. For Oliveros, the processes involved in making music are as fundamental as the music itself. Oliveros creates, as Arthur Sabatini put it so eloquently in the liner notes, "A world in which sound and the practices entailed in making music merge; become, at once, source and atmosphere, energy and essence, presence and dynamic."

Pauline Oliveros was an electronic music pioneer, accordionist, composer and educator who resided in Kingston, New York. Her instrument was tuned in Just Intonation and she often included it in her meditative improvisational music. Her music is not meditative in the sense that it is intended for listening to while meditating, rather each piece is a form of meditation, such as her aptly titled Sonic Meditations.

A central figure in post-war electronic art music, Oliveros is one of the original members of the San Francisco Tape Music Center (along with Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Anthony Martin), which was the resource on the U.S. West coast for electronic music during the 1960s. The Center later moved to Mills College, where she was its first director, and is now called the Center for Contemporary Music. Oliveros often improvised with the Expanded Instrument System, an electronic signal processing system she designed, in her performances and recordings.

Veils Of Transformation 1972 - 1980 is a collection of the earliest works of Gregory Kramer, one of the 20th century masters of textural electronic music. This collection is available on CD and cassette with liner notes from Gregory Kramer and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, who first brought this fascinating work to the attention of Important Records.

“Greg is one of the pioneers of electronic music and these pieces are unique opportunities to discover how intricate and dynamic early synthesizers are.” Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

Kramer developed a musical language focused on continuous transformation of timbre, yielding a continuity of attention. This musical language, formed of timbral change, is a compelling aesthetic in its own right and a source of meditative experience. The four works on this album share a deep sense of order derived not from organizing pitches or rhythms, but from the evolution of timbre itself.

Gregory Kramer (b. 1952) is a pioneering electronic composer, inventor, researcher, teacher and author. In 1975 he co-founded Electronic Musicmobile, a synthesizer ensemble later renamed Electronic Musicmobile, a series of synthesizer concerts in New York from which he formed the Electronic Art Ensemble, a highly regarded all electronic quartet. His work extended to developing synthesizers and related equipment. Kramer also co-founded the not-for-profit arts organization Harvestworks in New York City. He is recognized as the founding figure of the intensely cross-disciplinary field of data sonification. Since 1980, Kramer teaches Buddhist meditation.

The four compositions collected here each represent Kramer’s unique approaches:

The structure of Meditations on 32 Parts of the Body (1978) is derived from the means of its production. Recording 5 people chanting an ancient meditation text, then layering to gradually achieve more than one million voices. The layering was all done using analogue tape recorders. The decomposition of the sound reflects the anomalies of tape machines out of sync, and the build up of artifacts from the audio tape itself, such as uneven response curves and tape hiss, are all engaged as musical materials.

Role (1972) was generated using one complex patch on a large hybrid Buchla 200/100 system. Emerging from a zeitgeist that valued pure synthesis as a combined artistic and technological research. At the time this piece was realized its as exceedingly difficult to produce electronic sounds that were internally complex.

Blue Wave (1980) is built on Kramer’s timbral development technique Veils Of Transformation which allows for disparate timbres to be woven into a continuously developing sound.

Monologue (1977) is a virtuosic performance of a massive patch on a Buchla/Electron Farm hybrid electronic instrument. Built into the patch is a pathway for continuous transformation of voice and voltage-controlled synthesizer. The blunt, raw and sometimes harsh sounds of this piece reflect an attitude prominent among composers that music can, or even should, be difficult, contrary to what’s already been done and, by all means, new.

A year and a half ago, THE MFA returned to the fore once more, when we released their "Oranges and Lemons EP".

Their new album, “Lights Out”, which could be described as a long time coming, is definitely THE MFA’s most ambitious work to date.

As they put it in their own words: “The album is very special to us. It’s a long ambition brought to fruition. It’s an album that is at home on the dancefloor or at home. We’ve always been influenced by 90s rave culture and the club scene of that era and the explosion of creative freedom through electronic music that happened back then.”

The album sums up what THE MFA stands for; their love of electronic music intertwined their love of songs and melody, sometimes banging, sometimes pensive, sometimes longing, occasionally up-beat and happy. Melodic techno-pop-rave then.

The album opener "My Desire" pins down the essence of the album, showing some pop sensibility and a healthy dose of that early 90s spirit with longing vocals by Rhys Evans. The track shows from many angles of the intensity of what club culture was about. The track has, for sure, that pop quality which sets it apart - it is a very complete and rounded and in the true sense, a hit.

"Identify This" kicks off with blissed-out sci-fi sounds but commences with 90s rave chords that gets under your skin and creates a fantastic kaleidoscopic picture of moody UK rave with these spurts of emotional uplifting moments which are worth every penny.

"Bear Likes To Rave" takes us back to the warehouse days and reminds us of the acid warehouse parties with fanned stroboscope beams and dry ice cannons. It’s like looking down on a rave party happening from above, from a bird's eye view, which is in full swing where the euphoria spills over into the audience. "Girl Ahead" is a vocal track exclusively on the digital version of the album, again with Rhys Evans on vocal duties. Here they ponder all the possibilities of the future and the mistakes of the past. Features space toms and grand piano rave chords to evoke a housy feel within.

With "Freedom24" a Hi-NRG melody meets nightcrawler sounds ala "Klang De Familie". This is a soundtrack for the night.

"Lammas Day" has the chilling exotic quality of 808 State "Pacific State" if you grant us this comparison, paired with some phantastic Dr Who sensibilities! This track is quite a voyage!

"Warehouse"... Make Some F-...ing Noise... A TV presenter speaks about Acid house...... This is a wild mash up of impressions which nicely go together due to the melodic string composition and the 303 sequences.

"The Snapping Branch" starts with a mash up of sounds and then dives into an episodic snapshot of "happiness" when the serotonin shoots in (just before it drops). Experiencing a perfect flow that does not want to end. Every clubber knows that feeling.

"You Make Me Smile" is the third vocal track on the album featuring Rhys Evans on vocals. It has fantastic radical stark mood changes and blatant shifts, therefore throws the listener from one corner to the other. Just like the contrast of day and night. Bits here and there might conjure a Radiohead spirit, but really this is all MFA.

"Lights Out” certainly puts across the feeling you get at the end of the night - the club has closed; you are walking home. These are the sounds and feelings in your memories as you chase the vibe that is dwindling as the club becomes ever further away.

Creating an introverted version of restrained electronic music Berlin-based artist Constantijn Lange releases his second album 'Liquide' on Heimlich Musik. The album is based on sketches created in isolation during the second pandemic year. The compositions are characterized by self-reflection and an attempt to translate the abstract experience of listening to oneself into a concrete form. The sound of personal isolation, the necessary withdrawal from the world and the restriction of all social contacts is, therefore, less club oriented and focused on functionality than an expressive concept of ideas, rather oriented on Trip Hop, Breakbeat, Ambient and Jazz. The collective rediscovery of shared experience results in arrangements of melancholic but optimistic melodies recorded with vintage synthesizers, supported by complex drum patterns and diverse percussions that create a signature sound as a new liquid amalgam.


Constantijn Lange is an electronic music composer originally from Ostfriesland now based in Berlin. Besides several releases on Laut & Luise since the early days, his productions appear on labels like Get Physical, Traum Schallplatten, Sinnbus, Platon Records, Egoplanet
and many more.
His passion for thick layered synth melodies, jazzy and kraut – like vibes, atmosphere recordings, deep basslines and selfmade percussion designs give his music a recognizable vibe which can be heard on nearly every production he was involved in so far. He spends a lot of time in his studio in Berlin, working on new music, remixing other artists and also engineering for other sound projects in the art scene. On top of that, he performs as a liveact in clubs and on festivals all over the planet where his music can be described as very emotional and personal. Repeatedly this amazed people in countries like Germany, Russia, Poland, Switzerland, South Africa, Austria, Belgium, Mexico and
many more.
Constantijn’s ambition as an artist is to constantly evolve his productions and create music
which carries emotions and energies into the clubs, to festivals and living rooms alike.

"Dans cent ans" is not a record: it’s a talisman.
Flavien Berger doesn’t make music, he makes time machines.
In 2015, he released his first album, Leviathan, which he’d imagined like a moment suspended into the bowels of present time.
In 2018, Contre-Temps, his critically acclaimed second album, was narrated like a flashback.
Dans Cent Ans (“In 100 Years”) ends this trilogy and launches into the future with the grace of a poisonous serpent.
Flavien had just finished producing Pomme’s last album and was simultaneously scoring Céline Devaux’s feature film Tout le monde aime Jeanne, when he recorded this album, during six months of isolation.
In the garret of a Belgian house in construction, these 12 tracks were born, close to the sky, both direct and mysterious.
Because Flavien Berger knows how to make machines sound sensual (a key example is the pop song “D’ici là”) and dares to interweave electronics, chanson and art music, organic instruments and synthetic choirs, without ever falling into parodic territory.
Because his voice, more precise, unreverbed, and close-mic’d than ever, sings to our ears – using multisyllabic rhymes (“Trop ivres pour te plaire / Tropiques du cancer”) and surrealist imagery (“la neige restera rose” – “the snow will remain pink”) – stories that feel unknown yet obvious.
And like both previous albums ended with a long eponymous track like a breath of air, “Leviathan” and “Contre-temps”, so does “Dans Cent Ans”, a 15-minute long saga where vocals, wind instruments and machines converse, as if Debussy, Etienne Daho and a Sufi Dervish met in a dream.
After listening to this album, the vertigo of love and the collision of times are one and the same.
In one hundred years, music will survive us all, and its dangerous beauty will awaken other lives. In the meantime, Flavien Berger keeps stunning ours.

Electronic pioneer, Christopher Just's initial music came out in 1993 under his own name and various pseudonyms, like "DJ One finger" and "ilsa Gold". The "Petra" project was originally released in 1996 showcasing the ferocious sound of 90's analog hardware. Over 25 years later Dax J presents his colossal remix of the relativity unknown and now unearthed gem that went under the radar for so many years. The B - side of the record comes with a signature Dax J deep percussive groove, "The Train