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Yuval Havkin, also known as Rejoicer, is one of the foremost exponents of downtempo music, inspired by the fusion of jazz and hip-hop. His new album thus draws on his early influences while exploring the world of calm, melodic electronic music that borders on ambient.

This Is Reasonable has a chill-out feel to it, a record filled with melodies and atmospheres that, throughout its eleven tracks, conveys a sense of calm and floating, akin to ambient music. Stripped of the clichés of the genre, the album is built around subtle melodies and rich harmonies from keyboards and synths, which borrow as much from the spirit of jazz as from the inventions of electronica, whilst being supported by a gentle groove. This equilibrium is perfectly captured by Rejoicer's moniker, a term that evokes both the idleness of artificial paradises and a soft, caring form of spirituality.

Musical path
Yuval Havkin was born in Israel in 1985, and grew up in England before returning to his homeland. He began studying classical piano as a child, but was put off by such conservative teaching and turned to hip-hop and beatmaking in his teens. Throughout the 2000s, he learned his skills "on the job", working with musicians he met in Tel Aviv, a local scene that nurtured a sense of community and emulation. Back then, he was particularly impressed by the grooves and electronic inventions of Detroit producer Dabrye, who had a revelatory effect on him, before he discovered legendary musicians Madlib and Jay Dee aka J Dilla, who led him down the path of beatmaking.

Yuval Havkin's music career got off to a more serious start in the late 2000s with the creation of his own label, Raw Tapes, both based in Tel Aviv. Blending jazz, funk and hip hop, whilst still embracing pop influences, the label's productions showcased the richness of the new Israeli scene combining cool, elegance, playfulness, and a degree of research and inventiveness, thanks to the talent of artists and bands such as Duo Brothers, Maya Dunietz, iogi, Nitai Hershkovits, the Buttering Trio and Rejoicer, the artist's most personal project.

In 2018, Rejoicer's warm and engaging sounds caught the attention of the prestigious Los Angeles label Stones Throw, renowned for having signed his idols Madlib and J Dilla, not to mention Aloe Blacc and Peanut Butter Wolf (its founder). Two albums followed, Energy Dreams (2018) and Spiritual Sleaze (2020), both of which demonstrate his instrumental mastery, jazz culture and lush orchestrations. Both albums are on a par with more renown sampling prodigies of the beat scene, and gave him his first international recognition.

Now based between Los Angeles and Savyon, near Tel Aviv, this hyperactive and instinctive artist simultaneously pursues a career as a composer, musician and label owner, member of numerous bands and collective projects (Apifera, PlayDead, collaborations with Jimi Prasad and Avishai Cohen) while also offering his studios and production skills to other artists.

“Fela Kuti meets Aphex Twin”
This new Rejoicer album, which follows three earlier jazz-tinged records, marks a new and more personal musical direction for an artist who previously favored group work and collaborations. Following his meeting with Mathias Duchemin, founder of the Circus Company record label and a keen enthusiast of the new Israeli jazz scene, Yuval chose to delve into a more electronic and sequenced style of music, playing Prophet 6 and 8 synths, a Juno 60, a Minimoog and his Fender Rhodes keyboard, in contrast with the more organic sounds of his previous albums.

While a few tracks on this new album may sound like a laid-back version of some of the Warp label's early electronic classics by Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada, Yuval Havkin claims to have also been inspired by the great Fela Kuti, particularly in his search for harmonies between bass, keyboards and percussion, and by his elder trumpet-playing friend Avishai Cohen, a musician he particularly admires.

Beyond these various influences, This Is Reasonable is an album of compelling and bewitching melodies. The moods, peacefulness and sheer beauty of This Is Reasonable are, indeed, quite paradoxical, in stark contrast to the country's tragedies (the title explicitly refers to recent political disputes in Israel) and the war currently raging less than a hundred miles from his studio. A paradox fully embraced by the artist, who views his music as a response to the violence of our times.

Datashader emerges from the shadows with a striking breaks- and bass-heavy debut release that challenges the fabric of our digital existence. Replete with a Dopplereffekt remix, it nods to the legacy of revered anonymous acts such as Scopex, Drexciya and Underground Resistance, pushing the boundaries of both electronic music exploration and its conceptual underpinnings. As a critique of the erosion of genuine human connection in the digital age, Datashader delivers a barrage of billowing subs, infectious electro, recontextualized jungle, and techno, serving as a poignant counterbalance to current dance floor-centric norms. It’s a contemporary anti-soundtrack that offers a haunting mirror to the societal costs of technological convenience.
In a world engulfed by the digital realm, where social media platforms thrive and dominate every aspect of our lives, the enigmatic project known as Datashader was founded to reflect on the pervasive erosion of authentic human connection through various virtual realities. Artistically, Datashader seeks to critique the impact of technology on human identity and relationships, breaking with an archetype of digital conformity and expressing a profound disillusionment with the superficiality of online interactions through music. Genuine human connection and art cannot be quantified by likes, comments, or followers but rather thrives in the visceral realm of shared sonic experience and human emotion. This idea is at the core idea of Datashader, whose artistic expression ranges from avant-garde composition and electronic experimentations to art, installation, film and more.
Expressed within the varied contexts of diverse artistic mediums, Datashader explores the concept of “technological gentrification”, which describes the gradual displacement of human interaction by technology. Just as gentrification alters the urban landscape, driving out communities and cultures, digital gentrification transforms the social landscape, replacing genuine connection with curated online personas.
Musically, Datashader’s practice confronts this dystopian reality, highlighting the alarming consequence of people becoming mere nodes in a network, reduced to a collection of data points. This is manifested sonically by a blistering assault of breaks, recontextualized IDM, abstract electronics and otherworldly synthscapes, conceived as the aesthetic counterbalance to much of contemporary electronic music’s dancefloor focus.
Datashader dives deep into genres and influences which stand for a form of sonic resistance: A contemporary anti- soundtrack – a sonic mirror of the price we pay for convenience and instant gratification. A self-image in constant flux. No false technological idols.

Following their critically acclaimed 2019 debut album Unfurl, Hidden Notes Records are happy to announce the release of the multi-award-nominated experimental/contemporary folk string duo Fran & Flora’s sophomore full-length album, Precious Collection. Released on Friday 12th April 2024, this album, produced by the duo themselves, explodes in myriad directions expressing the richness of the long-standing collaboration between Francesca Ter-Berg (cello/vocals/electronics) and Flora Curzon (violin/vocals/electronics). With Klezmer and Yiddish song as the predominant inspiration for the record, Precious Collection defies convention, featuring self-penned tunes and unique arrangements pushing their ground-breaking project beyond their virtuosic string playing. Drummers Ursula Russell (Snapped Ankles, Alabaster DePlume) and Simon Roth (Chris Potter, Alice Zawadzki, Adrian Dunbar) feature on the record on full kit and Ukrainian Poik (marching drum) respectively, and Francesca and Flora experiment with bowed cymbals, extended piano techniques, and samples of found sounds.The album was recorded in three different locations - Total Refreshment Centre (London), Big Jelly Studios (Ramsgate) and Great North Sound Society (Maine, USA). The music of Fran & Flora sits in two camps, both steeped in tradition, with material drawn directly from archival recordings, recovered manuscripts and years of study with traditional music masters, whilst simultaneously garnering a contemporary and avant-garde aesthetic, speaking to the more classical and experimental listener. Fran & Flora inject their source material with drones, loops, free improvisation and electronics to create a ‘border-defying’ (Mojo) sound. Their influences range across a wide spectrum of artists and composers from Silver Mt.Zion to Rhiannon Giddens, Lankum, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Colin Stetson, Adrienne Lenker, Shabaka Hutchings and Mica Levi. As string players Fran & Flora’s collaborations together and separately includes performing with the likes of Tom Skinner, Portico Quartet, Imogen Heap, Riz Ahmed, Sam Lee, Talvin Singh, Jocelyn Pook, Hannah Peel and The Vernon Spring. Within the global Klezmer community they have worked with Zoe Aqua, London Klezmer Quartet, Sashe Lurje, Craig Judelman, Merlin & Polina Shepherd and Frank London, and have taught at Klezmer music camps including at Klezfest London, contributing to ongoing research and revival work.

Following their critically acclaimed 2019 debut album Unfurl, Hidden Notes Records are happy to announce the release of the multi-award-nominated experimental/contemporary folk string duo Fran & Flora’s sophomore full-length album, Precious Collection. Released on Friday 12th April 2024, this album, produced by the duo themselves, explodes in myriad directions expressing the richness of the long-standing collaboration between Francesca Ter-Berg (cello/vocals/electronics) and Flora Curzon (violin/vocals/electronics). With Klezmer and Yiddish song as the predominant inspiration for the record, Precious Collection defies convention, featuring self-penned tunes and unique arrangements pushing their ground-breaking project beyond their virtuosic string playing. Drummers Ursula Russell (Snapped Ankles, Alabaster DePlume) and Simon Roth (Chris Potter, Alice Zawadzki, Adrian Dunbar) feature on the record on full kit and Ukrainian Poik (marching drum) respectively, and Francesca and Flora experiment with bowed cymbals, extended piano techniques, and samples of found sounds.The album was recorded in three different locations - Total Refreshment Centre (London), Big Jelly Studios (Ramsgate) and Great North Sound Society (Maine, USA). The music of Fran & Flora sits in two camps, both steeped in tradition, with material drawn directly from archival recordings, recovered manuscripts and years of study with traditional music masters, whilst simultaneously garnering a contemporary and avant-garde aesthetic, speaking to the more classical and experimental listener. Fran & Flora inject their source material with drones, loops, free improvisation and electronics to create a ‘border-defying’ (Mojo) sound. Their influences range across a wide spectrum of artists and composers from Silver Mt.Zion to Rhiannon Giddens, Lankum, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Colin Stetson, Adrienne Lenker, Shabaka Hutchings and Mica Levi. As string players Fran & Flora’s collaborations together and separately includes performing with the likes of Tom Skinner, Portico Quartet, Imogen Heap, Riz Ahmed, Sam Lee, Talvin Singh, Jocelyn Pook, Hannah Peel and The Vernon Spring. Within the global Klezmer community they have worked with Zoe Aqua, London Klezmer Quartet, Sashe Lurje, Craig Judelman, Merlin & Polina Shepherd and Frank London, and have taught at Klezmer music camps including at Klezfest London, contributing to ongoing research and revival work.

“Great Doubt” is the third full length LP by Danish composer Astrid Sonne. Throughout her acclaimed discography, Astrid Sonne has been carefully crafting different moods through electronic and acoustic instrumental endeavours. On “Great Doubt” this skill is refined, now with the distinct addition of the composer's own vocal in front. The tone of each track is unmistakably Sonne’s, structured around contrasts through an impeccable sense of timing. Lyrics on the album are sparse, merely highlighting different scenes or emotional states of being, leaving the music to fill in the blanks. Yet they also form a pattern of ambiguity, consolidated through the album title, searching for answers through looking at how and what you are asking, questions for the world, questions of love. The viola, a trusted companion since Astrid Sonne’s youth, appears effortlessly throughout the album, fully integrated into the sonic universe; through a pizzicato driven arrangement in the poignant track “Almost” or along with booms and claps in mutated cinematic stabs during “Give my all”, paraphrasing Mariah Carey's 1997 ballad. Yet the string section also gives way to explorations of woodwinds, counterbalancing the bowed movements with digital brass and airy flutes. Finally, beats and detuned piano are fresh additions to the soundscape, cementing how Sonne’s practice is always evolving into new territories. In fall 2022, Astrid Sonne relocated from Copenhagen with its peers of artists such as ML Buch, Erika de Casier and Smerz, to live in London, where musicians of the South-East London scene like Coby Sey, Lolina, Still House Plants and Mica Levi provide a new inspirational framework. “Great Doubt” bears witness to both of those geographical locations, yet finds itself in its own unique space, in many ways due to the presence of Sonne's voice throughout. A voice that has always been present in her work, but never fully explored as a solo instrument before now. Astrid Sonne elaborates on the wish to work more in depth with the voice: “I come from a tradition of choir singing where I’ve used my voice as a way of creating unity with other voices. I’ve disciplined my voice in a certain way and this album is an exploration of me trying to find my own voice as an instrument, as a communicator, as a new way of being honest.” Questions take up a central role throughout the album. The doubt is both a blessing and a curse, always lying in-between, acting as both what holds back and drives forward. A metamorphosis not going anywhere. The great doubt takes place in a space of courage, chances, love, loss, gifts and surprises. Genre: Electronic / Experimental

‘Musica E Computer’ is a momentous release from Slow Motion label head Fabrizio Mammarella and Rodion recorded in the legendary Marche Synth Museum (Museo Del Synth Marchigiano).

A fully functional recording space that houses a fusion of several private collections of Italian electronic musical instruments gathered over the many years since their creation. The Marche region, being home to some of the most ground-breaking and foundational instruments, has created the likes of Crumar, Farfisa and Elka with innovative use from the likes of Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd and Vangelis.

The opening track ‘Iris’ sets the exceptional tone for this release. Fully exploring the realms within the Marche with an eerie, metallic tropical soundscape showing their discoveries’ breadth. ‘A Corrente Alternata’ brings us back to Mammerella and Rodion’s revered partnership as unmatched creators of enigmatic, timeless earworms. The driving bassline sits beautifully within the characterfully saturated drums and tweets of an equally enigmatic synthesiser.

‘Un Segnale Di Speranza‘ launches us into the infectious, mind-bending signature arps of Mammerella and the rising harmonies of Rodion, with another ground-shattering bassline and arcane vocoders that transport you to peak time at Slow Motion’s Italorama Bar. ‘Musica E Computer’s’ soundscapes provide rich blends of the synthetic and organic sounds of the Italian region, acting as a geographic coda that can also be heard in ‘La Domenica Del Villaggio’.

‘La Memoria Dei Sistemi’ slips us back into the energetic, electronic environment that Rodion and Mammerella have so delicately crafted. Driving us through the celestial alchemy of this atmospheric track, which leads us to the chiming finish of ‘Una Nuova Era’. This ties together a transcendent homage to Musica E Computer’s recording surroundings and a bar-setting conclusion to another captivating masterpiece from the duo.

2024 Repress

Rotterdam based artist ''Ben Buitendijk'' has been around for quite a while now. With a string of releases of labels such as ''Ogun Records'', ''Eshu Records'' and appearances on the mighty ''Field Records'', the time has come for Ben to launch his own imprint. Inspired by the city of Rotterdam and his love for anything architectural, Oblique was founded. A label that is designed to cater to Ben's vision on the overall electronic landscape and to display his love for well thought out drum patterns with dense long-stretched builds and strained atmospheres.

''Venomous EP'' comes in a package of three extended techno cuts with a certain corresponding theme. As the title might suggest, all cuts have a certain
touch of hazardousness to them.

''Black Mamba'' is best explained as the experience of poison slowly creeping through one's veins and leaving an irreversible trail of destruction.

''King Cobra'' feels more boisterous than it's predecessor. Again, a long repetitive build keeps on changing into a slightly psychotic state of being while razor-sharp bits of synthesis tickle the listeners brain like when undergoing acupuncture.

''Stingray'' is the final cut of this first ''Oblique'' effort. Whilst maintaining the corresponding ''Venomous'' theme, the last endeavour is a thumping outcry of muscular drums, a ponderous bass shot, and haunting pad sounds that together create a dystopian character. As an extra, Ben has thrown in an ominous locked groove that should be useful in adventurous club settings.

2024 Repress

Three emotional years in the making, Be With and Efficient Space finally present Steve Hiett’s Girls In The Grass. Pressed alongside the long awaited reissue of his one-shot masterpiece Down On The Road By The Beach, these ten balearic soul instrumentals are of equal necessity; unrivalled beauty rescued from the fashion photographer-guitarist’s Paris Tapes (1986-1997).

While recordings unintended for release should often be approached with caution, this is a rare case of unheard material being assembled as an indispensable and coherent piece. Girls In The Grass is something super special. The light and shadow that defines Hiett’s music is arguably more compelling here. It speaks to us in a language that feels profound, yet entirely comforting and familiar.

Girls In The Grass reintroduces Hiett’s languid electric blues boogie, crafted on Saturday afternoons with fellow art director Simon Kentish. Kentish would cook, pour some wine and then utilise his arsenal of technology. He’d dial up a chugging rhythm, together with some ambient pads or keyboard textures, and anchor the weightless gauze of Hiett’s six-stringed touch.

Hiett’s guitar sings with the same clean, crisp tone as Down On The Road, animated by a carefree weekend groove. Unlike his defining album which was boiled under pressure, these subsequent sessions have all the time in the world. The naïve melodies chart a missing link between Vini Reilly’s ventures into electronica and Booker T, sounding like sun-warped takes on wordless, fractured non-hits from his heroes The Beach Boys.

Remastered for public pleasure by Simon Francis, these private moments are adorned with Hiett’s singular photography and feature typically idiosyncratic liner notes from Mikey IQ Jones

Repress!

This is Love & Resistance by Crooked Man.
His first single on Vicious Charm and now available on vinyl.

Love & Resistance is 9:59 of beautiful electronic soul music. The dreamy vocals come courtesy of Carmen Squire. A perfect combination.

While the A-side oozes class & sophistication - the B-side is a different beast entirely. Nemesis is a dirty, sweaty mid tempo club track that is hard to resist.
Nemesister is the more dubbier sibling.

Released digitally in January the record was loved & admired across the DJ spectrum.

Honey Dijon, The Blessed Madonna, Luke Unabomber, Tim Sweeney, Luke Solomon, Gilles Peterson, Roisin Murphy, Nick Fanciulli, Fred Everything, Colleen Cosmo Murphy, Andreas Baumecker & Bill Brewster all showed it some love…

When we started playing music together in 1997, we could spend a lot of time on each individual track. It would mutate, go through many phases, until we’d get to the point when we’d decide to capture it and mix it on the fly.

Twenty-five years later, we changed gears. This album was produced across a two year period, during several sessions in our studio (the third member of the band), following this process: we plug the machines, we start a musical conversation, we press record when it gets interesting.

In the studio, that moment always comes, when a fragile and magical balance happens. That’s when we record, usually in one take, sometimes all in the same stereo channel, the computer sitting in a corner, its presence not interfering with our ears.

La Folie Studio is the fruit of this process.

Let’s get numerologistic with this new age reactionary-philosophic strategy manifesto:

Playing electronic music, whether alone or not, must be joyous, funky, and make you feelgood.

The studio is not a sanctuary but a place of life. Technology must not be intimidating.

Welcoming friends and new objects in the studio should be an infinite source of inspiration.

If nothing happens in the studio, turn off the light and play a percussion record.

Techno heads of all ages need something more spontaneous and freer than little thumbnails shared on a pocket computer. Château Flight offers a musical experience carved on grooves.

With 25 years of experience, Château Flight can cure all your musical ills, instantly and painlessly.

The key to success: midi sync + din syc + external trigs.

Following two revered albums, ‘Dissolve’ in 2017 and ‘Avalanche’ in 2019, London-based electronic songwriter and producer Tusks, aka Emily Underhill, has returned with her third: ‘Gold’.

‘Gold’ took form slowly over several months spent rewriting and reworking; half created at home in the middle of London and half during two solitary trips to Devon, where many of the songs found their inspiration. In need of some space, away from a shared house that had just been through a pandemic together as well as from a relationship that was coming to an end, she travelled to the south-west. It was here that she would get the bulk of her writing done, recognising there were some things she would have to work through alone, and in no small part it came to her in the form of a torrential storm. Bringing the album back to London, Tusks partnered with producer Tom Andrews to bring the tracks to life from studios like Ten87 in Tottenham and SS2 Recording in Southend.

"Veneer of Tolerance Remixes" is the nine-headed rebirth of KR3 Records' Chapter 07, signed by JK Flesh, an icon revered within the UK's alternative music realm for a trailblazing three-decade career.
Each track of this double-vinyl project unveils a unique reinterpretation, birthing a bespoke tapestry of techno music, a dark sorrowful ode to the genre's diverse landscape.
Traversing realms of power electronics, noise, breakbeat, industrial, gabber, and ambient drone, the 9 tunes are sculpting an evolution within the techno genre.

Techno luminary Keith Carnal returns with his latest EP, "SEC009," a four-track sonic odyssey that epitomizes his distinct style. From pulsating rhythms to introspective melodies, Carnal showcases his mastery in crafting immersive techno experiences.
"SEC009" features Carnal's hallmark blend of driving beats and emotive chords, inviting listeners on a captivating journey through the depths of electronic music. With tracks that range from high-energy underground stompers to introspective compositions, the EP highlights Carnal's evolution as an artist while staying true to his roots.
Set to release on April 8 on his label SEC NDº (Second Degree), "SEC009" promises to captivate audiences worldwide with its infectious rhythms and undeniable energy. Available in your favorite record store, this EP solidifies Keith Carnal's position as a leading figure in contemporary techno music.

After a long period of silence from the Teenage Bad Girl project, Greg Kazubski and Guillaume Manbell had the strong desire to get together to create music together again.

If the first two albums, Cocotte (2007) and Backwash (2011), were entirely produced remotely by exchanging audio files, for this third opus, the French electro duo found themselves in the studio for several weeks. Greg and Guillaume wrote and composed together and side by side, the 13 titles of Separate. Each piece transcribes the spontaneity felt by the group during these sessions. There we find electronic sounds which give pride of place to disco funk, tinged with modernity and pop melodies flirting with the eighties.

Although it felt like the world had stopped spinning, at times, it was during these days, months, and years of uncertainty that many of Venice’s “Stained Glass” songs were conceived. Each member of Venice was quietly and privately cataloguing their artistic interpretation of this new reality and uncertainty by recording or writing down little snippets of ideas, like guitar riffs, melodies, or lyrics…all of these came about while looking at life through a new lens.

They set up the writing circle using an electronic drum kit, small tube amps, direct acoustic guitars and bass and the sm58 stage microphones for vocals. This small and simple setup allowed the band to work on ideas at low-volume levels by using headphones or low-level playback through studio monitors without bothering the neighbors with live drums. “Lunches made by Michael’s wife, Danielle, and visits from their dog Sachi, kept us grounded and let us stay in the creative bubble without leaving that space”, says bassist, Mark Harris. Michael and drummer, Andre Kemp, who co-produced Stained Glass, would later re-record the drum tracks with real drums in a friend’s studio.

“The beauty of this approach on Stained Glass was that one person’s idea would be presented to the other 5 musicians and each guy added a different color to that idea”, says Michael. “Whether it was an unexpected drum beat, or a moving guitar line, those simple ideas turned into pieces of art, colored by the different musical and lyrical contributions. That only happens when you are working that idea out, together, and playing as one unit”.

That was the main inspiration for the album title; like a kaleidoscope, each guy's experience and taste in music was bringing a different color to the songs, but together their contributions made one piece of art, one song. Michael concludes, “if you zoom out, each song becomes its own color and all those songs or colors come together to form one big piece of art, one big piece of ‘Stained Glass’”.

After a successful tour following the release of "Alors quoi!" on Bongo Joe records, accompanied by a drummer/percussionist change, the prospect of what comes next naturally arose. Elements surfaced, including a desire for more low frequencies, a fascination with the marimba/vibraphone, and a liberating indifference to the difference between recorded and live performances. To evolve, the team collaborated with outsider Kwake Bass, known for collaborations with Kae Tempest, Tirzah, Mica Levi, and others. Despite aesthetic differences from Meril Wubslin's previous albums, this divergence was seen as key—an enriching risk that resulted in a unique blend of influences. The acoustic core of Meril Wubslin now embraces electronic elements, revealing a more powerful and urban dimension. While maintaining a commitment to French lyrics, the themes explore the concrete yet remain grounded in the intimate and the sensitive, avoiding overly clear and univocal messages.

Nach einer erfolgreichen Reihe von fünf Studioalben und zwei Live-Alben, Psychedelic Backfire I und II (beide 2019), hatten Elephant9 ihre groovige Mischung aus energiegeladenem Rock und Power-Jazz so weit gebracht, wie sie konnten. In dieser Hinsicht war ihr letztes Album Arrival of The New Elders (2021) eine willkommene und sehr zeitgemäße Ergänzung ihres Schaffens. Abwechslungsreicher, reifer und nachdenklicher, groovig wie eh und je, aber strukturierter und weniger jamorientiert, was ihnen eine 9/10-Rezension in Uncut und einen Platz in der Liste der Alben des Jahres einbrachte, in der ihre telepathische Gemeinschaft hervorgehoben und mit "this is an Elephant9 you'll never forget" geschlossen wurde. Jazzwise, Shindig, Prog, Electronic Sound, The Quietus und einige andere stimmten dem zu. Mythical River ist auf die gleiche Art und Weise geformt und ein natürlicher Nachfolger, mit sechs herausragenden neuen Kompositionen von Keyboard-Maestro Ståle Storlokken, gerahmt durch zwei kurze kosmische Einwürfe. Von hypnotischen und magischen bis hin zu messerscharfen und polyrhythmischen Stücken ist dies ein weiteres starkes Werk eines Trios, das sich auf der Höhe seiner Zeit befindet. Es wurden Vergleiche mit Bands gezogen, die bis in die sechziger Jahre zurückreichen, aber mit den letzten Alben erscheinen Elephant9 als eine durch und durch zeitgenössische, zeitlose und sogar futuristisch klingende Band. Ståle begann seine musikalische Reise mit Vespestad und Henriksen, die sich bald zu Supersilent mit Helge Sten an Bord entwickelten. Stale is zudem Mitglied von Hedvig Mollestad Weejuns, Moster! und Humcrush und hat mit einer Reihe von weiteren Acts, vor allem mit Motorpsycho, zusammengearbeitet.

DUBFIRE INVITES CHRIS LIEBING, TRUNCATE, CARL CRAIG, DRUMCELL, NADIA STRUIWIGH & MORE TO HIS REMIX ALBUM
EVOLV is a visionary window into the mind of Dubfire, the journey of the ‘hybrid’ being and its evolution. Last year in October, an 11-track debut album was released on his long-standing SCI+TEC imprint. And now, just over a year later, Grammy award winning producer Dubfire returns to that sonic discourse, drafting in an impressive array of names to re-interpret the material, and accompanied by Dubfire's new audio-visual EVOLV show which picked up where the critically acclaimed electronic performance experience HYBRID had left off.
The eclectic package will include such notables as Glaskin, Arjun Vagale, Nadia Struiwigh, Mathimidori (dub alias of Mathias Kaden), Maral, Decka, DEAS, Carl Craig, Truncate, Drumcell, Chris Liebing, and Luke Slater as L.B. Dub Corp who have all given the original music in their own unique style.
With a career spanning over 3 decades, Dubfire has achieved global success as an artist with relentless drive, talent, and intuition. Pioneering commercial notoriety came initially as one half of the Grammy Award-winning (2001) duo Deep Dish, before embarking on a truly groundbreaking solo career in 2007. A career filled with timeless tracks include his early works, ‘RibCage’ (2007), ‘Emissions' (2007), ‘Roadkill’ (2007) and the highly acclaimed ‘Grindhouse’ (2009) remix from Radio Slave which led to a host of other notable projects over the years.
Collaborative work highlights include projects with Miss Kitten, Luke Slater, Flug, and Oliver Huntemann, as well as co-producing two songs on Underworld’s Barking album. A true artist, he has always been heavily invested in exploring performance technology, unveiled to wide praise with his HYBRID live show. A two-year world tour commenced in 2015 and was followed by his retrospective album, A Decade Of Dubfire (2017), a celebration of his immense output during the first 10 years of solo artist stardom. EVOLV is Dubfire’s debut solo artist album.

In the enigmatic realm of electronic music, The Black Dog stands as a visionary act, responsible for crafting, among other things, the mesmerising album "Silenced". Notably, this release marks a significant milestone in the band's evolution, being the first album from the new line-up and their collaboration with the fledgling label Dust Science.

Defying industry norms, The Black Dog embodies a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethos. Their artistic journey remains steadfast, with a commitment to originality and creative freedom, unfettered by the limitations imposed by the commercial music industry.

The record label Dust Science takes pride in championing The Black Dog's musical prowess, with its first release being the band's 4-track EP "Bite Thee Back". However, this EP was only a prototype for the revitalised collective, eventually leading to the composition of Silenced, which followed soon after.

This creative period denotes a fresh start for The Black Dog, a testament to their resilience and a commitment to evolving their sound. The resulting album represents a new beginning, celebrating and transcending the echoes of the past. It redefines the band's sonic landscape and establishes a distinct musical narrative that resonates with dedicated followers and newcomers alike.

a A1 The Black Dog Trojan Horus Part 1 (Album Mix / Remastered) 00:05:42
b A2 The Black Dog Trojan Horus Part 2 (Album Mix / Remastered) 00:02:29














q D2 The Black Dog 4 3s 555 Part 1 (Album Mix / Remastered) 00:02:57
[r] D3 The Black Dog 4 3s 555 [Part 2] (Album Mix / Remastered) 00:08:16

[a] A1 Trojan Horus [Part 1] (Album Mix / Remastered) 00:05:42
[b] A2 Trojan Horus [Part 2] (Album Mix / Remastered) 00:02:29














[q] D2 4 3s 555 [Part 1] (Album Mix / Remastered) 00:02:57
[Part 2] (Album Mix / Remastered) 00:08:16

[a] A1 Trojan Horus [Part 1] (Album Mix / Remastered) 00:05:42
[b] A2 Trojan Horus [Part 2] (Album Mix / Remastered) 00:02:29














[q] D2 4 3s 555 [Part 1] (Album Mix / Remastered) 00:02:57
[Part 2] (Album Mix / Remastered) 00:08:16

Thought is the essence of where you are now.

Composed in an era where people weren't concerned with music labels but just wanted to hear fresh new sounds and go out to clubs religiously, “Digital Imagination - The Essence of Thought” is a sci-fi inspired mixture of House, full- speed Trance and Trip Hop coming from a young Ted Heinz falling in love with electronic music in the thriving early 90s Boston rave scene. Originally release by Concept Records in 1993 and with original copies now hard to get ahold of, Sunny Crypt is happy to give this record a full reissue treatment with audio restored from the original DAT tape and a new graphic design.

"The soundtrack of a sunny day at the Eden Beach Club.

After the commercial and critical success of the album 'Hymne au soleil', Laurent Bardainne and Tigre d'Eau Douce defy the laws of attraction, aiming beyond the sun with Eden as their target in their third album 'EDEN BEACH CLUB.' A return to their successful uninhibited formula, blending lingering groove, luxurious soul, flamboyant jazz, and electronic spirals. Geographically or musically, no map can locate this place of eclecticism anymore, with each track leading to an invitation to dance and celebrate a moment. That of an eternal sunset, striped with electricity by Laurent Bardainne and Tigre d'Eau Douce."

Special limited edition "10 years of 22a" repress of Ruby Rushton"s genre-busting debut LP "Two for Joy" - a key album in the rise of UK jazz. One-off pressing of 300 numbered copies, transparent red vinyl. The essential 2015 debut album from the Tenderlonious led jazz outfit - Ruby Rushton. The album tore up the rule book at the time and is a reflective, instrumental composition, nuanced by a fusion of jazz, afro-beat, hip-hop and electronic influences.

DIY tape manoeuvres, sending esoteric dub waves down from the magnetic north.

Straight from the studio in Glasgow. Everything done in-house. Hand stamped body. Printed the covers etc

Weirdo dubs from ambient to drone with experimental electronic cuts that occupy some frighteningly smoked out alleyway between the club and the cemetery. With a sweet spot of obscure but inclusive dub, with the kind of ambient bits that sound like ancient mythology.

LA via Paris classically trained keyboard wizard DAVID ZYLBERMAN AKA GHOST from EGYPTIAN LOVER's spaced out synthfunk backing band follows up his sold out/out of print STAR CREATURE debut with another set of Contemporary Electronic Jazz Funk primed for peak hour dance floor action. After flipping bananas covers of LONNIE LISTON SMITH and ROY AYERS, he drops an original production that gives that same synth driven, rhythm forward dance vibe. The B Side takes us straight to deep space with an uptempo cracker of a remix of BRIAN BENNETT's ‘SOLSTICE” done in a zero-gravity flavor previously considered impossible. The promo copies have already seen major support from Chicago and NYC heavyweights.

Repress

Official re-release of this 'lost' 6-track mini album by New Yorker Ben Cenac (of Newcleus fame). Recorded and released in 1990 and is an absolute gem of a record - very much in the vein of Larry Heard's best recordings. MASSIVE TIP!
Electronic soul classic! Now available again for the first time in 22 years, remastered + full artwork.

tapetopia 006 In 1983, some more subdued sounds began to waft from the GDR punk underground into the second half of the ’80s. At five to the end of time, it was perpetually striking midnight and the occasional punk band would mix a little laudanum into their potential for aggression. Portents in this vein preceded a dark wave whose foamy crest would break on fog walls of dry ice. Especially in Leipzig and East Berlin, a chain-rattling zeitgeist produced bands that drew from a dark well. Many of these bands arose from the still hot or already cold ashes of punk. The two founding fathers of Neuntage Alt, René Glofke and Taymur Streng (nicknamed “Strangler”), knew each other from the East Berlin punk scene. The third man aboard, Mike Sauer, played drums in the early 1980s for Sendeschluß, a punk band that, lost in thought somewhere in the no-man’s land between punk and post-punk, faded away in 1984. Punk was no longer the order of the day, but it was a form of expression among many and easy to combine. Glofke and Streng found common ground in experimental set-ups with such otherworldly names as Medusa Brahma or Die zeitweilige Erscheinung.
From this far-flung point of departure, a short tunnel led straight into the black light of Neuntage Alt, the coldest star in the low-hanging sky above East Berlin. Neuntage Alt appeared at the end of 1986, during the last blackout phase of the GDR, on the threshold between the underground and the so-called “other bands” – a scene that used the non-socio-critical approach of German Wutwave (“anger wave”) in order to be allowed to perform publicly. In the context of this scene, Neuntage Alt did not belong to the inner circle. Moreover, the band’s subcultural base was initially in Mahlsdorf, on the south-eastern edge of East Berlin. This was where the DIY sound studio of amplitude apostle and great modulator Taymur Streng was situated. Strangler held the position of house electrician and keyboard god in various projects. One of them had the bland alias Mahlsdorfer Wohnstuben Orchester, behind which the avant-garde court chapel of the bungalow studio was concealed. There Taymur also conspired with the East Berlin underground band Ornament & Verbrechen (tapetopia #001). Ronald Lippok of Ornament & Verbrechen remembers how once, at the opening of a joint session, he and his brother Robert attended Taymur’s engaging slide show of his collection of test patterns. Afterwards, they created a piece with the psychedelic title “Das sentimentale UfO”, which sheds an iridescent light on the bizarre atmosphere in the studio. Taymur’s obsession with technology was legendary. The home studio was also his living space; a circuit, a machine park of screwed and soldered equipment, a single keyboard orgy. His own creations were also based on circuit diagrams found in the radio amateur magazine “Funkamateur”. Its somewhat clueless subtitle “Praktische Elektronik Für Alle” (Practical Electronics for All)

Causa Sui's three volumes of Summer Sessions are back in print! This time on the band's own label, on individual LPs for the first time since they were first released in 2008 and 2009. Re-packaged in El Paraiso's signature style. Originally the Summer Sessions were intended as a side project for the band - a chance to explore their love for other genres such as American free jazz, krautrock, 1970s soundtracks, as well as the psychedelia and detuned stoner-rock that characterized Causa Sui's first two albums. But these three albums came to define the band, and have become modern classics of psychedelia and progressive rock since their initial release ten years ago. In a scene often characterized by loyalty to a specific period, there's something refreshing about Causa Sui's eclectic approach. With several guest appearances by Coltrane-devotee Johan Riedenlow on sax and electronics wiz Rasmus Rasmussen, Causa Sui venture far beyond stoner-rock platitudes. Take the grandiose opening statement for example - the 24 minute "Visions of Summer" taking up the entire A-side: here new and old sounds dissolve in a mindbending excursion that recalls Future Days-era Can, breezy tropicalia or Herbie Hancocks Mwandishi group, as much as it sparks associations to Kyuss or Hendrix. Other tracks, such as the frenetic Rip Tide (vol. 2), heads into straight up free jazz territory with Riedenlow going absolutely bonkers on the sax. But this set also allows plenty of room for atmospheric pieces such as the sun-drenched "Venice by the Sea" (vol. 3) or the Morricone-esque "Cinecitta" (vol. 2).

Limited edition LP on coloured vinyl. The band around Bert Dockx (Dans Dans, Flying Horseman) transformed once again and is now a quartet.They developped new compositions with an even richer language fluttering and wailing in jazz, impro, electronics and krautrock.

Costantino Luca Rolando Kiriakos, an influential figure in Athens' electronic scene since the 80s, showcased his diverse talents as a composer, sound engineer, and installation artist under his Coti K. alias on this EP from back in 1994. The five tracks he offered up all explore Balearic-ambient bliss-scapes and now get reissued on Dark Entries complete with their smooth breaks, cosmic pads, and lush pianos. Reflecting his Hellenic roots, track titles like 'Argonauts' and 'Theros' bring global ambient vibes and spoken word by Konstantinos Bhta and cello by Nikos Veliotis all help add their magic to this nostalgic journey with a Mediterranean twist.

More white label action from the Notts playmaker Roy of the Ravers. A 6 track EP of raw acid action. Kicking off with a curveball - the frenetic footwork stylings of title track "You Don't", the squelchy schizophrenic action follows on with another 5 mid tempo distorted groovers from the acid superstar ROTR.

Monika Enterprise welcomes a new act to her roster with Berlin based experimental pop duo Post Neo releasing their new EP. Individually known as Nicole Luján and Pauline Weh, both musicians pursued their own solo projects before forming the duo Post Neo. On “Alles Immer Wieder” they combine as more than the sum of their parts to produce 5 songs of dark and powerful experimental avant- pop which is released as an exclusive 10” vinyl.

Pauline and Nicole met making music in Berlin during the summer of 2019 and kept collaborating online, until Nicole moved to Berlin in 2022. The musicians' different musical backgrounds result in diverse intuitions which complement each other perfectly when producing tracks together - Nicole was more into synthesis and electronic music production in Mexico City while Pauline received a classical piano education in Munich before she started doing electronic music.

In 2022 they released their first EP, «do you?», which consists of five tracks that were composed and produced as an inter-continental project between Berlin and Mexico City. In autumn of that year Post Neo received a residency at Sternhagen Gut from Musicboard Berlin where they caught the ear of monika head Gudrun Gut who was so taken with their compelling mix of techno beats and dreamy melancholic atmospheres she immediately signed them to her label.

The EP’s opening and title track “Alles Immer Wieder” (trans. Everything again and again) is a reflection on repetition and monotony as transcendence in the form of sleep, dreams, work and other daily cycles. The rhythmic juxtapositions and tempo shifts make for a captivating opening track. “Ganz Schön Was Los” (trans. A lot happening) has a proper synthwave electro pop vibe while the vocals lend a little light hearted humanity to the otherwise calculated computer music aesthetic. With its fusion of synthesizers and drum machines track B1 “Die Verwirrung” (trans. The confusion) brings a sense of melancholic doom. The flow of B2 “Wenn Wir Wüssten” (trans. If we knew what would happen) is a future-focused reflection on the unidirectional movement of time's arrow. Sampled harmonies and instrumental breakdowns make it possibly the most emotive track on the EP. And the record comes to a close with “Dreh dich” (trans. Turn around) which lures us in with delicate vocals before menacing synthesizer sounds blast us into oblivion. It is an invitation to turn the record over and start listening from the beginning again.

Post Neo’s music is steeped in minimalism: at once managing to be hugely expressive and evocative while still retaining a sense of privacy and mystery for the listener to decrypt. Like all great pop music their songs are musically captivating while also conveying a strong message. As their band name suggests, Post Neo are essentially futuristic and with live shows at some of Berlin’s hottest underground venues under their belt as well as in their hometowns of Munich and Mexico City, plus the release of „Alles Immer Wieder“ in 2024, great things are in store for the electronic pop duo.

Guests are Jessica Higgins and Matthew Walkerdine of Glasgow, UK, both formerly of the bands Vital Idles and Mordwaffe. They have been closely tied with DIY music, art and publishing for over a decade. Using (amateur) electronics, singing, speaking and field recording they make songs which blend the rhythms of popular music and contemporary approaches to collage, sampling, improvisation and repetition. As inspired by film and art as they are the legacies of twee underground and avant garde experimentalism, their loose, domestically twinged compositions explore feelings, atmospheres and moments which are hard to articulate and the quite literal notion of being a “guest”.

“I wish I was special” is their debut record, and with it a chance taken to explore terrain not previously covered by their other groups. The ideology of DIY practice appears integral to these eleven compositions, side-stepping virtuosity in favour of instinct and impression, unafraid to press unknown buttons and walk head first into mistake, finding inspiration where convention might not otherwise allow one to tread. The results are confoundingly fresh, sharp-of-mind, and unusually intimate. There’s an obvious intelligence at play here, and no little humour of course, but crucially there’s also a sense of the personal, a first-thought/best-thought (auto)didacticism that celebrates shared understanding and implicit trust. What, ultimately, we might view as the fearlessness in radically being yourself around another. It’s an approach that draws some comparison with the private musings of Flaming Tunes, Idea Fire Company’s domestic electronics, or perhaps even Annea Lockwood’s framing of emotional connection within avant garde structures. More so, Guests represent a compelling continuation of DIY post-punk experimentation that values intuition over prowess, and with it guides the listener into unexpected spaces that somehow comfort as much as they challenge.




d Arrangements, as in Making Them [VIDEO]

Repress!

The debut album from soulful electronic pioneers Little Dragon originally released in 2007 was initially a record
slept on as no one in their right mind would have expected the future of soul music to come from Gothenburg,
Sweden. But there it is in the dreamy, rhythmical, shifting, moody rainbow creature that is Little Dragon. With
hindsight it is easy to see why some of the world’s top musical luminaries went onto fall over themselves to work
with them.
Includes the must own classics “Twice”; a master class in low key pop, with a sparse piano line offset by classy
strings and woozy synth wobbles; it is restrained, but never detached (over 100 million streams across multiple
DSPs) and “Constant Surprises” where Yukimi’s delicious vocal skips and glides atop hi-hats and bubbling bass
laying down the bands distinct soulful credentials (30 million streams).

Limited reissue of the classic Exaltics 2011 release on Creme Eclipse aka The Living Planet. Housed in a full sleeve with fantastic previously unreleased artwork by Godspill. Dont miss this masterclass in brooding and dark electronix tech-fi. It may sound scary at first but lucky for you it all ends in a crop circle rave!

The space between every love is filled with vigilance in preparation for future threat. This threat is not so much pain as failure and, above all, fatigue. Even the beginnings, when love seems at its most accessible, are disturbing. In spite of this we advance into the turmoil because we are inebriated with love.

Dominik Suchy's third album admits all this as a quality of love. Disembodied and denied to be gloom or bliss, love is revealed to be a raw process at full length. This makes for emotionally hypercharged music that is more inevitable than tense. The record unfolds, for all its ruptures and weight, as familiar. It is a music of pathos, because it benefits from the emotional knowledge that already resides in you.

The universality of this angle allows for compositions that are less than opulent. A focus on the mass of sound // verticality leads to a bareness that sets "Every Love..." apart from Suchy's previous works. At times sonically overwhelming and rhythmically ambiguous, it should be approached as free jazz rather than post-club.

Every Love Is an Exercise in Depersonalisation on a Body Without Organs Yet to Be Formed does not submit to the weariness of love // Weltschmerzen does not submit to the weariness of the world.

“In places harrowing and emotionally charged, in other places quite inconspicuous, you feel that you are standing in front of something big, transcending everything, which you observe with sacred reverence. Maybe it's the eye of the storm or that love which is the origin of everything.”
Peter Dolnik, 34.sk —

“One of the most distinct electronic artists in our geographical area.'”
Roberta Tothova, Pravda.sk —

“Everything happens with deep apprehension, the atmosphere and its variations are executed on a masterly level””
Richard Kutej, Fullmoon Zine —

“An album full of incessant soundscapes, undulations and sound-design based portrayals of magnificence.”
Mikulas Hamerla, Alterecho.cz —

After several EP’s and collaborations with artists - such as Elderbrook, Hayden James and Novaa – the producer and singer releases his solo debut album "Aniimals" on April 5th.
With great attention to detail, Moglii creates his very own genre „organic electronic“, defined by a modern mix of warm beats, analogue synthesizers and soulful vocals. Each track explores the relationship between intelligent life forms and humans, such as "Fungii," "iinsects," or "Roots“, aiming to draw attention to the incredible organic diversity on this planet.

„Aniimals“ represents biodiversity in each track named after a wonderful and inspiring creature, that Moglii relates to. This DIY-release campaign includes a limited bio-vinyl pressing and a sustainable merch edition.
Why biodiversity? The extinction of many species (often undiscovered) is perhaps the most underestimated problem of our time. There is a lot of public debate about CO2 budgets, but according to experts, the basis of our survival as humanity could also depend significantly on the preservation of genetic diversity in our limited planetary garden. Due to destruction of nature, the loss of species will continue to worsen unless there is a cultural rethink.
Moglii proves his appreciation for animals of any kind and fascination for other intelligent life forms in a very impressive musical way with his debut album, aiming to create an emotional bridge between our urban lifestyle and the animals that inhabit this planet with us.

After the highly acclaimed first release Serenity Now is back presenting the debut EP by OP Boombox @op-boombox. An electronic duo formed by brothers Orion and Phoenix Jarvis out of Dharawal Country on the East Coast of Australia.

The new EP Initial Artifacts is an honest and unique collection of raw, yet grounded, dancefloor tracks performed and recorded live through their vast collection of hardware synths, drum machines and FX pedals. Expect a deep journey through breezy coastal house landscapes with slight nods towards dub and trance where bass is absolute key.

A versatile EP for every mood of the night, taking it all the way from downtempo chuggers to peak time hard hitters making this a longtime “stay in the bag” sure shot.

Recorded and produced by Pink Floyd engineer Andy Jackson, the audio is via analogue transfer to 96khz/24 bit by John Dent at Loud, with vinyl mastering by Geoff Pesche at Abbey Road. Formed in 1984, Fields of the Nephilim is the creation of vocalist and front man Carl McCoy. Highly influential, especially in the world of goth, but also within the metal and electronic genres, their legacy endures to this day. You can hear their influence on bands like Swans, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Explosions In The Sky, Wolves in The Throne Room, Behemoth and more. The band"s unique sound, an apocalyptic fusion of Victorian underworld meets Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western, had an appearance to match (wide-brimmed hats, long duster coats and cowboy boots, usually black and smothered in white flour as a substitute for dust), and set them apart from their contemporaries. Elizium is one of their most beautiful albums and considered by many to be their best. As The Quietus wrote, "it was both their most accessible and their most experimental work, concluding and consolidating the Nephilim"s five-year shamanic journey. Lead-off single and opening track "For Her Light" featured a lengthy mid-section that anticipated the apocalyptic post-rock of Godspeed! You Black Emperor (unsurprisingly, it failed to chart), and the album featured some of the band"s hardest rock in the wah-overload of "Submission," as well as further incorporating dance elements - more successfully and organically than many of their peers, it must be said - on second single "Sumerland"." Louder Sound also called "Sumerland" their "greatest ever track".

Transparent Yellow w/ Black Splatter Vinyl. Since founding Swedish synthpop duo KITE in 2008, singer Nicklas Stenemo and keyboardist Christian Hutchinson Berg's brooding fusion of cinematic electronics and anthemic pop has steadily elevated into a spectacle of passion, atmosphere, and communion. Their debut double-A vinyl single for Dais Records, Don't take the light away / Remember me captures KITE at their most urgent, thrilling and apocalyptic."Don't take the light away" is a song about "the war between energies," with singer Stenemo's wounded croon leading a rising tide of stabbing strings, pulsing percussion, and looming bass orchestrated by keyboardist Hutchinson Berg, surging to a mass-chanted chorus both desperate and triumphant ("dance, let them dance into me / people versus people can't see / hands should be holding hands"). "Remember me" was written following the band's 2017 US tour, capturing the intense feelings of burnout and exhaustion. "Remember me, Won't you remember me, Promise you'll remember me."Words only tell half of the story; smoke spills across the stage, and the melodies become a battle cry. Our worst fears eventually boil over, turning into hope and resilience. Like the best of KITE's music, "Don't take the light away" and "Remember me" fuse theater and catharsis into anthems of universal yearning, born of "the struggle to keep a flickering candle lit in a very dark space."

A unique mix of exotica, electronica, soundtrack, dub, western, world beat, ambient, and lounge featured on Apple TV's show "Severance" (Tiki Party scene).

A unique mix of exotica, electronica, soundtrack, dub, western, world beat, ambient, and lounge featured on Apple TV's show "Severance" (Tiki Party scene).

Rethink human's dominion in "The Invincible": a story-driven adventure set in a hard sci-fi world by Stanis?aw Lem. Discover planet Regis III as scientist Yasna, use atompunk tools looking for a missing crew and face unforeseen threats. Make choices in a philosophical story that's driven by science. A major part of the brand-new video game hit "The Invincible" is the unique atmosphere. Apart from the outstanding visual effort, created by Starward Industries, there's also the capturing soundtrack by Brunon Lubas that draws the player into the game. Lubas describes his contribution to this journey into space the following: "Inspired equally by the early pioneers of electronic music, minimalism, lo-fi and modern experimental music, the soundtrack for 'The Invincible' consists of 13 diverse tracks. Digging deep into the emotional part of the game's narrative, it accommodates the feelings of melancholy, mystery, loss and hope all glued together with a distinct and consistent take on aural aesthetic and harmony."

FYEAR is a Montréal-based ensemble led by composer Jason Sharp and poet/writer Kaie Kellough that fuses spoken word into genre-bending compositions for electronics, two voices, two drummers, and processed saxophone, pedal steel guitar, and violins. FYEAR incorporates drone, out-jazz, post-classical, ambient metal, avant-rock, and modular synthesis in a sonic and stylistic palette the opposite of collage or pastiche: the FYEAR ensemble integrates a unique and unified sound/aesthetic while traversing adventurous and variegated terrain. Kellough’s poetic materiality conveys acute political-existential themes, alternating between declarative, meditative, and cut-up/semiotic manifestations. This self-titled debut album is a supremely innovative 40-minute multi-movement work; an ardent mission statement that mines the interzone where Saul Williams, Moor Mother/Irreversible Entanglements, Shabazz Palaces, Zulu, Angel Bat Dawid, Damon Locks/Black Monument Ensemble, Shabaka Hutchings, and Matana Roberts are all iconoclastic neighbours. FYEAR melds improvisation and composition, traditional notation and graphic scoring, electronic and acoustic instrumentation, lucid recitation and abstract vocalization, balancing intensive structure with an expansive sense of exploration. Through several years of collaboration, development, workshops, commissions and performances conducted by Sharp and Kellough, their wordsound practice has culminated in this nine-piece group which also features poet/writer/activist Tawhida Tanya Evanson (present director of the Banff Centre Spoken Word program) violinists Josh Zubot and Jesse Zubot (Tanya Tagaq, Darius Jones, Joshua Hyslop), pedal steel player Joe Grass (Tim Hecker, Patrick Watson), drummers Stefan Schneider (Bell Orchestre) and Tommy Crane (The Mingus Big Band, Aaron Parks), with live visual typographics from Kevin Yuen-Kit Lo, who also designs the album art. Propelled by the vocal interactions of Kellough and Evanson, FYEAR interrogates our present and future post-capitalist polycrisis, invoking collective anxieties, emotions, and critiques. FYEAR re-poetizes our constructed, manipulated social/conceptual realities, re-inscribing questions about the future by setting them to a wildly dynamic and evocative temporal soundtrack: Who does it belong to? How will it be shared? How do we project a collective future into the contested challenges of climate change, global migration, wealth gaps, safety/precarity, identity/affinity, segmentation / segregation, all our seemingly irreconcilable histories and forward visions for the world we dream to inhabit

MASK’s ZentaSkai & Laura Merino Allue announce vinyl-only underground house and techno series as Cuddling Monsters.
Cuddling Monsters serve up the first vinyl-only volume of a new self titled series on Berlin-based Mask Records. All four cuts explore deep and classy techno, dub and house soundscapes with the aim of rediscovering the soul of electronic music and forming new bonds between human creativity and technological innovations.
Cuddling Monsters is the coming together of creative partners ZentaSkai and Laura Merino Allue. ZentaSkai is the MASK founder recognised for his immersive, hypnotic groove, and Allue is a fashion and graphic designer. They are newly assembled under this alias but have a long-time love of vinyl and analogue machines, which shows in their sounds.
"Crafting music with analogue instruments holds profound importance in the contemporary musical landscape. Despite the omnipresence of digital technology, analogue instruments maintain a pivotal role, offering distinctive sonic qualities, creative constraints, and genuine sound reproduction. The tactile, hands-on connection." - Cuddling Monsters The superbly deep and atmospheric 'Lucky Star' is a dubby minimal cut with a deft rhythm and warm pads that are perfect for cosy back rooms. The absorbing 'Crystal Growing' is another stripped-back techno roller with rubbery drums and pensive chords that lock you into a state of meditation. Up next is the powerful 'Floating Tank' which pairs gorgeous ambient synths with driving drums. It's a great coming together of the physical and the emotional that will take dance floors to the next level. 'Analog Dreams' shuts down with more perfectly smoky pads and grainy lo-fi atmospheres as slick but driving drums power onwards.

Technically, Yeah. Detroit artists Eddie Logix and Jo Rad Silver alchemize sonic matter on Real, No. The EP emerges from years of creative collaboration and blends each of the artists’ strengths into a deep-house, hi tech jazz, dubby leftfield assemblage straight from the pulse of today’s Detroit.

Since 2017, the pair has been producing tracks and co-curating Technically, Yeah., an influential monthly happening that encourages (Live) electronic musical expression. The duo’s curation is grounded in community, widely genre-diverse and steadfast in commitment to technological experimentation. The Real, No. EP distills this ethos and puts it on wax.

While Jo Rad is known for techno leanings and Eddie for organic jams (recently on Rocksteady Disco,) the two transform beats into substance with a diverse and thoughtfully constructed release. Glued together with attuned mixing from Salar Ansari and cut loud at Archer Pressing in Detroit, the EP’s range puts deep grooves in the bag for every discerning DJ.

AKKA’s Side: “King David” sticks the synthy deep house groove right in gear with a driving, bubbling bassline and floating effervescent vocal chops from and for a special someone. “Mango Strut” offers a slight island twang and dives into a breaky depth of a bracing cathartic arpeggiated, hand drum ecstasy. A vitamin filled chugger.

BEEP’s Side: The duo recorded “June Buggy” the first time they jammed together on a borrowed Juno. This propulsive Italo-ish conga groover is a mechanical piece of action. The record ends by summoning the ancestry of “Callin’ Dybbs,” a textured hi-tech jazz heater. Kasan Belgrave, young-gun horn of known pedigree, lays down the sax. The sultry brass tones lock in with buxom stabs. For those who know and those who don’t yet. This one holds depths!

“Fierce jazz buggin futurism in outerspace” - Luke Una

“Driving and psychedelic and gorgeous hi-tech.” - Peter Croce

“Perfectly crunchy soul squeezed jams begging to be rinsed” - 2Lanes

“Funky, jackin’, atmospheric, groovy, ravey and ethereal”- Father Dukes

“I’m calling dibs on callin’ dybbs!” - DJ Etta

João Pais Filipe delivers three acoustic solo percussion works for Ondes HXCX. The tracks were originally recorded for an exhibition called "Membrana" which took place in a church in Northern Portugal, using only drums. Different odd time signatures were extensively explored on each of the tracks. 18/16, 19/16, 23/16 and for the first time, a technique called "omission" was also introduced. It consists of omitting notes of the Rhythm without changing it, creating a sense of illusion and changing the perspective of the Rhythm. Burnt Friedman, an accomplice of João's studies on odd rhythms focused on blending counter-rhythmic electronic elements into the 23/16 track.

Ink stamped artwork.

First vinyl issue for this 2023 release with bonus track not available on CD.
Nine majestic electro-acoustic threshold devotionals.
**ELECTRONIC SOUND - review (issue 98) “While there are shades and texture in the journey from glowing opener “Cyan” to the glowering conclusion of “Magenta”, they’re so subtle that they make ‘Colours of Air’ the musical equivalent of Rothko’s paintings - monotone at first glance, but with intriguing depths if you’re prepared to search for them.”

MOJO - ★★★★ review in the Underground column (March issue) “Loscil and English’s manipulations drift closer to the ambient techno of Gas.”

UNCUT - 8/10 review (March issue) “Subtle complex, and not always pacifying…’Magenta’s extraplanetary grace is tempered by unresolved tension for distinctly uneasy listening.”
The union of composers Lawrence English and loscil aka Scott Morgan is seamless, sublime, and long overdue.
Born of a conversation centered on the notion of “rich sources” as a forge for electronic music, Colours Of Air is a collection of recordings of a century old pipe organ housed at the historic Old Museum in Brisbane, Australia, which were then processed, transformed, and elevated into eight majestic electro-acoustic threshold devotionals. The timbre of the instrument and spatial fluctuations of room tone infuse the music with a subdued, sacred feel, like vaulted light in a nave of stained glass. They describe the album as “an iterative project, a reduction and eventual expansion,” sifting the swells and drones of the organ for every shivering shade of radiance.
The tracks are named for the hue each piece suggests – from the gauzy levitational miasma of “Yellow” to the pulsing melancholic mirage of “Violet” to the seething twilit sandstorm of “Magenta.” Morgan and English are both adept at conjuring moods of muted grandeur, like landscapes veiled in dusk, still looming and luminous.

Icelandic musician and visual artist Sunna Margrét is set to release her debut full-length album, Finger on Tongue, via No Salad Records. Citing influences from krautrock legends CAN and Neu!, outsider synth pop artist The Space Lady and electronic music pioneers Suzanne Ciani and Eliane Radigue, Finger on Tongue is a masterclass in experimental pop, capturing an authentic Icelandic essence through its electronic and spellbinding sounds. Some tracks offer softness and peace while others invite you to dance, and the album homogeneity is precisely ensured by the rigorous approach to writing.

Anjunabeats is pleased to announce the self-titled debut album from JODA, aka Jono Grant and Darren Tate. JODA are a fresh musical pairing with shared DNA. Both together and apart, Jono Grant and Darren Tate have been there, done that and bought the vintage synth gear to celebrate.

Grant is one-third of Above & Beyond who, over the course of a two-decade career, have established themselves as one of the biggest electronic groups in the world. Eight studio albums (including one as vocal trance group OceanLab and two acoustic reworks), 17 compilation albums, a film score and nearing 100 singles speak to an output as varied as it is prodigious.

Their label Anjunabeats is home to a bustling community of artists with over twenty years of catalogue. As a classically trained musician, songwriter, producer and hitmaker, Tate is an OG Top of the Pops-botherer. In the early Noughties, at the outset of his career, he appeared on the show three times, once with Angelic, his collaboration with Judge Jules and the latter’s wife, performing classic trance banger It’s My Turn, then twice under the name Jurgen Vries.

The following years saw more musical adventures, more Top 40 UK hits (12 in total) and more pseudonyms, including the trance-facing DT8 Project. In 2003, the pair managed to sync their schedules to work on a couple of tracks, ‘Let The Light Shine In’ and ‘Nocturnal Creatures’. Clearly, there was chemistry here. But as the pair’s respective careers subsequently took them off round the world in opposite directions, reconnecting other than fleetingly was never easy. Then in 2019 Tate returned to his trance roots and signed to Anjunabeats for his DT8 Project releases.

Double vinyl reissue of Skullflower’s epochal “IIRD GATEKEEPER” album - the first time that this album has been available on vinyl for 30 years. In addition to the original LP this definitive and expanded edition includes extra and unreleased tracks taken from the recording sessions. For the first time all the tracks recorded by the band during this period can be heard together giving fans unprecedented access to material previously only available in the bands’ archives. Recorded in London in 1991 and released in 1992 on Justin “Godflesh” Broadrick’s HeadDirt label in 1992, IIRD GATEKEEPER established a worldwide reputation and following for Skullflower and convinced many who heard it that they had encountered nothing less than the best band on the planet. Arriving at the height of the “grunge” and the expansion of underground guitar “rock” into corporate America, IIRD GATEKEEPER had its roots deep in the UK noise and power-electronics scene. Guitarist Matthew Bower and bassist Anthony Di Franco were both graduates of the Broken Flag school of British noise making with their respective projects PURE, TOTAL and JFK. IIRD GATEKEEPER was Skullflower’s third album and was the first of the band’s albums to feature a consistent line-up throughout its production: Matthew Bower (guitar), Anthony Di Franco on (bass) and Stuart Dennison (drums). Recorded and mixed in four sessions between January and June 1991the tracks on this edition of IIRD GATEKEEPER shows the band’s new line up developing their sound, warping and evolving in real time. As such this edition of IIRD GATEKEEPER provides a unique document of the band in a state of transition, with the chemistry of the individual playing combusting in the studio to create a wave of astonishing creativity. IIRD GATEKEEPER is perhaps the definitive British underground rock album of the 1990’s – unique and never equalled. With this new edition Dirter Promotions allows Skullflower fans old and new to listen to this classic album as it was intended: spark up, crank it up and prepare to have your ears and mind blown

A quietly influential figure among electronic and experimental circles since the late 90s, Berlin based sound artist Hanno Leichtmann has been developing a sprawling and idiosyncratic vision both as a creator and curator.

With a keen sense for charting new territories, Leichtmann's work spawns a multitude of languages that go from deli-cate ambient excursions to techno explorations or abstract sceneries on numerous sound installations, releases on such esteemed labels like Entr'acte or The Tapeworm and collaborations with artists like Valerio Tricoli or Jan Jelinek. A reflection of his keen sense of discovery.

Centered around the Villa Aurora Organ, an intriguing and mostly unknown instrument built in 1928/29 by the Artcraft Organ Company in Santa Monica, California, 'Outerlands' presents a deeply personal approach to the instrument's particular properties, very much in line with Discrepant's ethos. Consisting of a pipe organ, a wall mounted marimba and a two octave tubular bells/chimes ensemble, remotely controllable by MIDI, the Villa Aurora Organ's rich palette of sounds is translated into 12 short tracks capable of conveying the mesmerising spirits of minimalism, exotica and de-votional music.

Starting with the ecstatic sound of the pipe organ, 'Lucero' sets up the hypnotic mood for 'Outerland's excursions through moments of spiralling repetition - 'Tramonto' -, blissful contemplation - 'Sunset' or 'Notteargenta' - or underly-ing tension - ‘Coperto’. 'Espera' amps up the unease, with queasy organ tones lurking beneath marimba harmonic motifs that wouldn't sound out of of place on some survival horror movie, while 'Miramar' or 'Revello' bring an uncanny sense of familiarity through its repetitive melodies.

Drifting seamlessly through a variety of moods that somehow feel connected - the outerlands are within you, if you allow yourself to let go.

New York City"s Jennifer Vanilla, aka Jennifer Vanilla and Brian Abelson, offered a portal into a colourful world of innovative electronic sound with their 2022 debut album "Castle In The Sky", traversing new wave, post-punk, art pop, and experimental R&B. Now Love Injection, the multi-faceted brainchild of Barbie Bertisch and Paul Raffaele comprising a print magazine, radio show, record label, and production duo breathe new life into one of the album"s standout tracks "Jennifer Pastoral" on home turf, in the form of a 12" single alongside two ethereal mixes featuring maestros Dave Darlington on mixing duties and Francois Kevorkian as mastering engineer.

DMX Krew returns to Hypercolour with a new long player. ‘Spiral Dance’ comes stuffed with wonky and futuristic synth jams.

Having honed a style that has endured over an illustrious career, DMX Krew continues to immerse his productions in luscious analogue electronica, touching on the many bases of electro, Detroit techno, synthpop and dreamwave.

With previous albums for Rephlex, Permanent Vacation and Balkan Vinyl, amongst others, ‘Spiral Dance’ becomes the fifth album for Hypercolour, following on from 2021’s ‘Loose Gears’.

King Of Blue by Yes Indeed sees Laurie Tompkins and Otto Wilberg take their eclectic stance on cosmic jazz and electronics to further uncharted and dreamlike territory, encompassing a unique logic of what is harmoniously absurdist.

King of Blue by Yes Indeed sees members Laurie Tompkins and Otto Willberg further dive into their melismatic take on cosmic jazz and new electronics, by way of their highly eclectic and at times nonsensically sensical modus operandi. Their work is defined by an eloquent flurry of ideas, spheres, and signifiers, creating a musical universe of surprising longevity and depth. Treating musical convention with gentle disdain, Yes Indeed take on a variety of genres and moods and switch them around into a beautifully melismatic and dreamlike state of being. King Of Blue is a mini- album of fragmented beauty and warmth. It puts the illogical center stage and gives space to abruptly miniaturist musical ideas, allowing them to take on a meaning bigger than one would expect. It is cosmic music for modern times. A brazen descent into the execution of a fundamentally diversified musical stance.

'Yes Indeed' are Laurie Tompkins & Otto Willberg. Live, they play keys, bouncy bass and sing over tactile, emotive samples. Their music is epic and also somehow wrong, with space for delicacy, straight-up joy and soaring licks. Since 2022’s ‘Rotten Luck’ - their first proper album, on Bison - YI have played across the UK and Europe. Solo, Laurie co-ran the Slip label and has put out CDs on Entr’acte, 33-33 and Hyperdelia. Otto is a roaming bassist in groups like Historically Fucked and Abstract Concrete and his LP of “wildly singular, wickedly trippy and sensual set of fusion jams” (Boomkat) was recently out on Black Truffle.

Organ of Corti, the trio of Joachim Nordwall (IDEAL Records, The Gagmen), Mattias Gustafsson (Altar of Flies) and Dan Johansson (Sewer Election, Enhet för Fri Musik) returns with another exercise in the slow-motion decay of analog sound. Usher, a minimal hypnotic track on side A reveals its subtle details after multiple listens while the claustrophobic Trauma on the flipside will grab your immediate attention. Machines that hum, sputter, and crackle while slowly moving forward. Vaguely familiar tape loops, spacious synths and crumbling electronics. A journey into the unknown.

The Swedish underground scene continues to deliver some of the best experimental acts and Organ of Corti firmly establish themselves as part of the foundation with a recent self-released cassette, another cd on New Forces and this new single. While their sound has clearly evolved, these alchemists are staying true to their original intention of forging fragments of surreal nightmares.

Omit’s in/Sec is “new,” but not new. Recorded in 2013, the masters lost in the label’s murky somewheresville that always shows up when moving. For those who don’t know, Omit is an experimental electronics artist from New Zealand’s south island who, since 1990, has released thirty-some xerographed cassettes and CDrs in the Dead C orbit for those who do. It’s not enough to say that in/Sec is an ambient masterpiece bringing to mind a John Carpenter soundtrack performed by the Hub because listening to it engineers new species. The infectious and corrupting sounds synthesize new life forms in your brain's enzymes. If you specialize in a niche too much, you are prey to predators outside, but Omit never goes for low-hanging fruit and isn't simulating anything. I can vomit a better looking face than the ones on these little fuckers eating my brain right now. In this century that flatters itself to be of drinking age, it is a queer thing we haven’t come face to face with aliens. There is a time for everything and they're all intermixed. Besides the xenobiological effects, Omit constructs your sentiment through timbral concepts that repeat and shift with minimal reference to harmony, melody, key, or mode. Streams jump and skitter, knitting tightly high and low in a dense rattling driven to the long and most plaintive tones amongst the countless gizmos (that’s including you, but not “you”). This one is for big fans of Anode/Cathode, Ikue Mori, Papa Srapa, Fronte Violeta, and Insignia refrigerators.

ASC returns with a deeply emotive album on Past Inside the Present, showcasing a new chapter in his musical journey. Known for his versatility across electronic and drum & bass genres, James Clements channels introspection and healing in Loss. Quiet bird calls and field recordings intertwine with ASC's expertly crafted synths, creating a therapeutic sonic landscape. Each track evokes a range of emotions, from melancholy to hope, acceptance to sorrow. Loss invites listeners to embark on a poignant journey, where ASC's mastery shines through in every moment. It's a captivating and beautiful testament to the power of music as a form of self-expression and healing.

Miles Davis' boundlessly influential On the Corner was so far ahead of its time upon release in 1972, the jazz cognoscenti rejected its groundbreaking concoction as middling in nature. Yet time has a way of righting wrongs and shifting views by adding needed context and perspective to visionary ideas, music, and approaches — the likes of which fill Davis' boldest and most controversial — undertaking. Designed to bring the focus back on the groove and bottom-end frequencies, the funk-loaded On the Corner revolutionized jazz. It also set new standards for record production, presaging remixing and electronica by more than a decade. And the work has never sounded more thrilling thanks to this very special pressing.

Sourced from the original master tapes and pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl, Mobile Fidelity's numbered-edition 180g 33RPM SuperVinyl LP of On the Corner exposes the internal mechanisms, free-associated playing, and then-unmatched studio techniques in vivid fashion. The low end, crucial to every composition here, is both heard and felt, with locked-in bass lines and low-range percussion conveyed as taut, solid, and visceral passages. You can discern the multiple layers of rhythm Davis employed on complex tracks such as "Black Satin," as On the Corner stands as his first effort to use overdubbing and multiple tape machines. As a pioneer, Davis likely would’ve loved MoFi’s groundbreaking SuperVinyl profile that features the lowest-possible analogue noise floor as well as pristine transparency, dead-quiet surfaces, and superb groove definition.

New degrees of spaciousness and airiness — equally important to the musique concrete arrangements — give the impression Davis and Co.'s creations float in space. Instruments are portrayed in three-dimensional manners, rhythmic loops retain tonal purity, and horn solos skitter across an extra-wide soundstage that takes listeners into Columbia's Studio E. Mobile Fidelity's SuperVinyl LP captures Teo Macero's innovative production — and the trumpeter's cutting-edge aural collages — in definitive fashion.

Heavily inspired by Sly and the Family Stone, On the Corner portrays street vibes and remains Davis' Blackest-sounding record. The conscious attempt to connect with youthful audiences tapped into rock and funk is evident not only on the colorful cartoon cover art depicting hot-pants and zoot-suit revelers, but in the music's emphasis of recurring drum and bass grooves. Distinct from Davis' earlier fusion experiments, the record's long-misunderstood set dials back improvisation in favor of beats, loops, and atmospherics that generate trance-like effects. While Davis utilizes his band for core duties — Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock prominently figure — he also relies on an all-star cast of side-men for concentrated soloing and additional support.

With rhythm providing the basic foundation, other notes fall into place, with their positioning steered by Macero and Davis' editing-room techniques. Looking to the manipulation-based work of Karlheinze Stockhausen and teaming with Stockhausen disciple Paul Buckmaster, Davis re-imagines what grooves constituted and could accomplish throughout On the Corner. The shapes of the songs become completely transformed as they progress. Faint melodies, spacey chords, chunky riffs, wah-wah fills, and repeated motifs bounce in and out of a sonic funhouse that wouldn't be out of place at a Harlem block party.

Exotic, intrepid, and filled with Davis' "jungle sound," On the Corner remains daringly hip more than four decades later.

Mesmerizing and exuberant Argentinian La Yegros, probably the most magnetic artist on the South American continent, is back with a new album!

The undisputed Queen of "Nu Cumbia" has not rested on her laurels. Surrounded by the same accomplices who have supported her for the last ten years, but eager to renew herself, she has set about recording her fourth album, which stands out from her discography. Although her personal folklore is still rooted in South American folklore, La Yegros is now absorbing contemporary, global music, while tackling intimate, often melancholy and even painful subjects, which she overcomes with the same resilience that drives her in concert. Nothing stands in the way of this Argentinian whirlwind, all the more fascinating for the fact that personal considerations are now surfacing beneath the veneer of the party atmosphere she sets alight.

La Yegros returned to the stage in 2022 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Viene de Mí, her single hit from the self-titled album, released in 2012 in Argentina and then worldwide in 2013, which catapulted her to international fame. We then discovered a singer who had grown up in the traditions of her country. Her parents come from Misiones, a province bordering Brazil and Paraguay, where balls are filled with the sounds of chamamé (a mix of polka and Guaraní music), Carnavalito (Andean folklore) and Colombian Cumbia. But she herself is a native of Buenos Aires, whose nights are enlivened by the bass of Dancehall and electronic music.

These influences have merged in two further successful albums, Magnetismo (2016) and Suelta (2019), followed by high voltage tours during which La Yegros has been able to display her generous nature, inexhaustible energy, exuberant personality and infectious enthusiasm.

To record her new album entitled 'HAZ', La Yegros has put her faith in the same team that has worked with her since Viene de Mí. On one hand, producer Gaby Kerpel (also known as King Coya), a pioneer of synthetic experimentation applied to traditional music, who has remained her faithful accomplice for over twenty years. On the other hand, composer Daniel Martín, who knows how to come up with melodies to dream about and hymns to sing along to. Inseparable and complementary, the trio continues to concoct this mesmerizing mixture where acoustic instruments meet samples and the rolling of machines. But the new productions don't rely on a tried and tested formula. Generally co-produced between France and Argentina, they break away from over-defined genres. La Yegros knits together new rhythms and incorporates sounds that are unheard of in her country, derived from the latest urban trends, as well as echoes of reggae and funk. As for the lyrics, signed alternately by the trio, they are embodied by La Yegros whose charismatic voice questions a period of her life tossed by waves of love and lovelessness, joy and sorrow, euphoria and anguish, indulgence and resentment.

The album is open to a wealth of musical styles. You'll hear funk guitar and Andean flutes, melancholy accordion and rolling drums, Tuareg blues enhanced by brass, house and electro Cumbia loops, and the bassoons of a chamber orchestra. The folklore 2.0 of La Yegros, nourished by its colorful inspiration, at times tender or exalted, has been imagined as a hymn to love and the contradictory feelings that come with it. As always, it has also been conceived with the stage in mind. Hatching in a storm of overturned emotions, the album is all the more explosive for the strength of the live show that accompanies it. In addition to the usual line-up of guitar, accordion and percussion, a musician handles synthesizers and machines to boost the electronic turboshaft. In any case, you can count on the singer to assert her increasingly clear-cut character with each new project. And, above all, she won't give up. L.a Yegros is back and her batteries are fully charged.

Black Truffle is thrilled to announce a major archival release from legendary American composer and live electronics innovator Richard Teitelbaum, centred around his soundtrack for Suzan Pitt’s cult 1978 animation Asparagus. Best known to some listeners for introducing Europe to the Moog synthesizer as a founding member of Musica Elettronica Viva in Rome, Teitelbaum’s extensive and radically experimental body of work includes collaborative recordings with master improvisers like Anthony Braxton, Andrew Cyrille and George Lewis, intercultural experiments combining electronics with non-Western instruments such as the shakuhachi, works for computer controlled piano, and large-scale multi-media operas. Recorded at York University, Toronto in 1975–1976, ‘Asparagus (European Version)’ sprawls across both sides of the first LP. Discovered by composer Matt Sargent in Teitelbaum’s tape archive, this is a previously unheard major work for Moog modular and Polymoog synthesizers, unique in Teitelbaum’s oeuvre for its lushness and gently melodic quality. The music unfolds slowly, submerging lyrical melodies and burbling arpeggios into uneasy, glacially shifting harmonic swells, the luscious texture thickened with subtle changes of modulation and phase, calling up the shifting layers of Costin Miereanu’s classic Derives or the kosmische Musik tradition more than any academic synthesizer exercise. Teitelbaum incorporated much of this material into his soundtrack for Suzan Pitt’s Asparagus, which receives its first official release here. Asparagus, famously paired with David Lynch’s Eraserhead for a two-year run of midnight screenings at New York’s Waverly Theatre, uses hand-drawn and stop animation to unfurl an oneiric succession of images, beginning with a sequence in which the female protagonist defecates two stalks of asparagus, which multiply and float out of the toilet bowl to form the letters of the title. Teitelbaum’s soundtrack interweaves delicate drifting tones from the ‘European Version’ with contributions from Steve Lacy and Steve Potts on saxophones, George Lewis on trombone and Takehisa Kosugi on violin. Edited closely to the film, even without images the soundtrack proposes a surreal journey through floating synth tones, squealing horns, propulsive arpeggios, distant chatter, and an old-timey waltz. The final side of the set presents a new realisation of Teitelbaum’s text score ‘Threshold Music’, performed at a memorial concert at Roulette, New York in 2022 by Leila Bourreuil (cello), Alvin Curran (sampler and objects), Daniel Fishkin (daxophone), Miguel Frasconi (glass objects) and Matt Sargent (lap steel). The piece asks musicians to match their instrumental volume to that of the sounds of the environment in which they play, sometimes with the addition of recorded environmental sounds, reinforcing frequencies they encounter in listening deeply to their surroundings. Here the players use a field recording taken at Teitelbaum’s home in Bearsville, New York, their long tones and shimmering, glassy textures delicately emerging from the white noise of the location recording. Released with the full approval of both Richard Teitelbaum and Suzan Pitt’s estates, Asparagus is illustrated with striking images from Pitt’s film and accompanied by detailed liner notes by Francis Plagne. These previously unheard pieces shed new light on the work of a key composer in the American experimental tradition, offering up some of Teitelbaum’s most beautiful and engaging music.

Hua Li has often worked the fruitful tension between opposing forces, whether being mixed-race, bisexual, or overtly political and softly vulnerable. Now the “half-Chinese, half-militant, half-rapper of your heart” is back with "ripe fruit falls but not in your mouth", her most ambitious and personal record to date. Playing between hazy R&B, hip-hop, jazz and electronic, Hua Li’s sophomore LP takes the imaginary garden as a proxy for cultivating home. With complex vocal arrangements, lush production by Alex Thibault (aka Gloze), and big, vibrant mixing by TNGHT’s Lunice, ripe fruit is a private confessional on a loud-ass record.

Following 2019’s Dynasty and 2020’s critically acclaimed Yellow Crane EP, "ripe fruit" is characteristically libertine. Textured and sensual, the Montreal multi-hyphenate balances her rich, waveforming tone with danceable, electronic signatures. The rapper is fierce and frequently funny, erupting from gauzy runs to deliver a quick uppercut that stings. With hooky, addictive features by Ambrose Getz and Darkus Millon, ripe fruit is an intimate record of healing, with Montreal’s nightlife at its heart. An artful collaborator, Hua Li co-wrote and performed on Gayance's 2023 Polaris short-listed album, Masquerade, and is the touring DJ for Inuk electro-pop throat singer, Riit.

Her charismatic stage show has taken her around the world, including tours with Cadence Weapon and Fat Tony (serving as the former’s touring DJ), to Reykjavik’s Secret Solstice Festival, the Montreal International Jazz Festival, and Pride Toronto. Luminous and compelling, Hua Li shows it takes tenderness to let things ripen, and guts to let things die. In-between is a kind of rapture that begs to be savoured.

For Fans Of: Gayance, Tirzah, FKA Twigs, Heems, Tkay Maidza

DRIFT. Is British-Italian producer Nathalia Bruno, releasing music under the guise since 2015. Her 'techno-pop' EPs 'Black Devotion' and 'Genderland' released with Avant! records were the first explorations in finding the sound of DRIFT. but as the name suggests, is in constant flux. In 2020 'Symbiosis' the debut record was released on Hamburg's Tapete Records, an assemblage of lo-fi futurism reflecting on the breakdown of communication and interaction Nathalia felt was increasing around her. Channelling classic industrial electronica, haunting melodies, using samples, field recordings and curated sound as a 'canvas to rewire the vision of the future as colourful and old, ceremonial and rust beaten. A shrine like ornament and clinical machine language plaited together.'. In 2022 DRIFT. Self released 'The nature of things', a 30 minute piece entitled 'CTRL/ Algorhythm of love' written and produced for designer Mona Cordes' 'Cellusion' show for London fashion week. "_a journey into the dark heart of the dancefloor. The glimmering bass-heavy trance of its opening section could be classic Underworld, while its ambient center is genuinely Eno-esque. And then it all kicks off again as a Berlin school style banger. It's terrific" says Electronic Sound Magazine. This year, 2023 will give birth to DRIFT.'s second album released with God Unknown records '11 points In Time' written for and based on disappeared artist Rosi Crucci, compiled of sounds/field recordings recorded onto cassettes found in the attic of the home she last lived at, interpreted into song using some of her poetry and journal entries of what was happening in the world around her, attempting to finally give Rosi a voice. PRESS Louder Than War album review 'Symbiosis' (2020) "...blends passion with precision to create a tapestry of machine-made sounds that are bursting with ideas and filled with emotion. "We live in times where nothing means nothing," she sings on Visualise The Invisible. "And nothing is true." Never more so than now...Over the course of its ten tracks, Symbiosis draws from pretty much every strand of electronic music throughout its 50-year history" Shindig Magazine review 'Symbiosis' 2020 "A brilliant, fascinating album" Post Punk Magazine review 'Symbiosis' 2020 "is an exercise in disjointed meditation, a trip through the doors of the spirit lodge and inner workings of the human psyche." Pop Matters Review 'Symbiosis' 2020 "...One track in particular, "In Orbit", speaks to this new disturbing unknown we are creating. A distorted, three-note death knell drives it as repeated knocking seems to come from a dank tunnel. If it sounds bleak, it's likely also to be therapeutic and finds common ground with the entrancing industrial thud of Throbbing Gristle or Third Eye Foundation..."

High Llamas present Hey Panda - a modern pop music/deep listening experience that could only issue forth from their personal quadrant of the galaxy. Hey Panda projects soulfully through an enervating abstract of today"s popular music; the sound of the Llamas" stately melodies and expressive ditties laid open - blissfully shattered - with drums and vocals hitting different, burning sounds and contemporary production twists pulling the ear at every turn. For the past few decades, High Llamas have trafficked in contemporary pop sounds directed toward the avant end of the spectrum as much as not. But here the message was clear. Llamas" composer-in-residence Sean O"Hagan was determined to let go. Hey Panda does just that, with a set of tunes reflecting on multiple levels how definitions change over the course of a lifetime, radiating an optimism derived from the diverse conundrums of today. Eight years since their last release, the pop musical Here Come The Rattling Trees, High Llamas have reinvented themselves again, mixing their peerless harmonic voice with what Sean regards as the "extraordinarily good" production sounds of today on Hey Panda. Choosing not to look backward to former golden ages celebrated in earlier Llamas eras, Sean"s instead found himself opened up by the sounds of music brought into the house by his adult children and the sounds encountered at sessions for which he"s recently written arrangements. In addition to the more traditional contributions he made to The Coral"s Sea of Mirrors album, plus his score for the Safdie brothers" 2022 film production, Funny Pages, Sean"s drawn great inspiration through working with Fryars, Rae Morris, King Krule, Pearl and The Oyster, while also soaking up the work of Tierra Whack and Chicago"s Pivot Gang, and being cheered on from a distance by longtime admirer Tyler The Creator. Thus, Sean"s producer procedural has evolved again, with upgrades first detected in his 2019 solo effort, Radum Calls, Radum Calls. With a cover of Billie Eilish"s "Wish You Were Gay" arranged for Bill Callahan and Bonnie Prince Billy"s Blind Date Party, along with his COVID-era solo single, "The Wild Are Welcome", Sean has leveled up again and again, leading to the delirious revelations of Hey Panda. Hey Panda"s wide reach is aided by two co-writes from Bonnie "Prince" Billy, (who bonded with Sean over a shared love of gospel soul during writing sessions), guest vocals from Rae Morris and Sean"s daughter Livvy, production twists from Fryars and the stalwart, flexible presence of High Llamas. For all of its sense of departure, Hey Panda is a movement in the High Llamas oeuvre that"s been a long time in development. Aspects of soul music were addressed at the time of Can Cladders; similarly, aspects of electronic dance music were in the mix in the late 90s, around the time of Cold and Bouncy. But nothing up to now has refocused the music of High Llamas so completely. Sharing the impulse of late-period Miles Davis and Quincy Jones, with further inspiration from Steve Lacy, SZA, Sault, No Name and Ezra Collective, among many others, Sean O"Hagan and High Llamas are living joyfully in the new and the now, with Hey Panda.

..and this is how an endless summer night's dream sound! Puestel meets his alter ego Friebe again! Can you imagine that this whole song came to Rico Friebe in a dream?!

In that dream, he was sitting in a strange living room, playing a live set with very odd, weird and partially never-seen-before equipment while everyone was annoyingly talking to him (while performing) – one person right next to him even told him that he frequently manages to eat glass by accident. WTF?!

According to all this obscurity, he tried to escape into his performance, just looking straight into a weird countertop electronic device that created sound and suddenly he played this completely unknown song with these special vocals kicking in and he immediately fell in love with and got lost in it, forgetting all about the strange situation he was in – the distracting voices around him fell into a mute state.

Shortly afterwards, he woke up and kept trying to remember all the details, the lyrics, the melody, the production, just anything, wandering around like a maniac. Finally, all of it went pretty well and you're now listening to a dream composition. Magic everywhere!

Yuko Kureyama returns to TAL with the album Heart Fresh, her first ever full length release under her Kopy moniker. All tracks for the album were recorded in Tokyo in June 2023 at the famous live house Ochiai Soup. For the recordings of the ten tracks, Ochiai Soup was swiftly converted into a recording studio as the intimate atmosphere of the club and its perfect room acoustics gave Kopy the chance to record her music like in a live situation.

Amazingly Kopy‘s instrumentation on Heart Fresh consists only of a Jomox x Base 09 rhythm machine and an Elektron Digitakt mini sampler. In the hands of Kopy this fairly basic and common gear creates an unmistakeably intuitive and original approach to drum programming, which is recognizably her very own.

Due to extensive live playing in the past two years, Kopy has garnered a lot of admiration for her consistently unpredictable and fearless club performances and has easily become one of the most exciting and inventive live acts from the ever vibrating electronic music scene in Japan.

However, Heart Fresh seems even more focused, urgent and ambitious than its predecessors, the Paredo EP (TAL12 including a remix by Lena Willikens), the Eternal EP (TAL 24 featuring a remix by Elena Colombi) and the split album Super Mild (TAL15). Nothing on Heart Fresh is subdued. The entire production is resonating with its peculiar frequencies, it is wonderfully evocative, open hearted, full of life and intelligence.

The album opens with Night Sarkas with quirky snare rolls played against slashing, nervy chunks of melody. Samples of organ and chimes evoke an rollercoaster spinning out of tune and synch. Hole Hole is a beat driven and melody free short story for bass drum, snare and hi hat with constantly changing bpm‘s. Tir Tone marks the arrival of annunciatory rhythm patterns and a lovely sprinkling of distorted synths. The album's final track Moonlight Pool is the perfect closer for an album of taut, free wheeling figurations of meter and tone, a nod to classical ambient music as well as to contemporary more experimental digressions.

However, the album’s most startling and unexpected moments come when Kopy follows her futuristic inclinations and matches them with dissonant excoriations that shuttle the mind into a completely different place where all kinds of different activities seem to follow their own individual compasses. Imagine to walk down the noisy streets in Tokyo and you hear all kinds of different sounds infiltrating your ears independently from different sources and directions. In that sense Heart Fresh is the most appropriate soundtrack we can imagine for the contemporary era.

30 Jahre nach der Veröffentlichung des selbstbetiteln Debütalbums erscheint "Electric Orange" nun endlich auch auf Vinyl gepresst. Die Doppel LP kommt auf 180g schwerem, orange-marbled Vinyl und im Gatefold-Sleeve daher. Dirk Jan Müller interessiert sich seit 1988 für die deutsche Underground-Musik der 70er Jahre, und seine Leidenschaft für Bands wie Amon Düül, Tangerine Dream, Nektar, Neu! und Can führte dazu, dass er Synthesizer, Keyboards, Verstärker und verschiedene Musikgeräte aus den 70er Jahren sammelte. Von seinem Heimstudio aus veröffentlichte er einige Underground-Kassetten mit elektronischer Musik, die im Kassettennetzwerk zu kursieren begannen ("Octopus's Garden" und "Time Signals"), bis 1992 eine britische Firma namens Electronic Dreams "Time Signals" veröffentlichte. In der Zwischenzeit begann Dirk mit der Arbeit am Debütalbum "Electric Orange", zu dem er eine Reihe anderer Musiker und eine Fülle von Instrumenten wie Hammondorgel, Saxophon, Flöte, verschiedene Schlaginstrumente, Samples und E-Gitarren hinzuzog. Im März 1994 veröffentlichte das deutsche Underground-Elektronik-Label "Manikin" das Album auf CD. Es hieß schlicht "Electric Orange" und war eine atemberaubende Mischung aus Krautrock der frühen 70er Jahre und psychedelischem Space Rock, aber mit einem völlig modernen Sound, der das Genre mit neuen Technologien und Produktionswerten aktualisierte. Das Album wurde schnell zu einer begehrten Veröffentlichung, allerdings haperte es am Vertrieb und schien somit zum Kultstatus verdammt zu sein, bis Delerium Records es entdeckte und die Rechte erwarb. Auch 30 später fasziniert der Electric Orange-Sound noch immer und es war überfällig, dieses Juwel endlich auch auf Vinyl zu veröffentlichen.

Il Quadro di Troisi presents La Commedia
Everything changes, all things evolve: four years after their eponymous debut, Il Quadro di Troisi return with a new album and a new line-up.

The perfect circle traced by Eva Geist (aka Andrea Noce) and Donato Dozzy (aka Donato Scaramuzzi) becomes a triangle with the permanent addition of Pietro Micioni, who collaborated in the previous recordings and had been part of ll Quadro’s live set.
Nothing stays the same, and the world is a lot different from what it was in 2020. The global crisis generated by the constant escalation of conflict and by the pandemic was mirrored by a time of individual crisis and personal, often irreversible transformation that underscored the entire period of the album’s composition.
The influence of these turbulent times is felt in the writing: La Commedia is about turning a crisis into an opportunity and using change as a catalyst for rebirth. Much like the characters in classic Italian comedies, who are masters in using irony to face life’s hardships, Il Quadro di Troisi explores the vast and unpredictable terrain between the lighter and darker sides of the human experience, matching the magical with the mundane.

La Commedia is about the many facets of life: each song is named after an archetype (e.g. the truth, the night, the Earth, the prophet), as though our existence were a tarot deck and its reading an exercise in collective consciousness.

La Commedia marks the band’s embrace of a more traditional song form, shaped by a very personal and distinctive musical style. The distinguishing elements of Il Quadro di Troisi’s music – classic Italian songwriting with an electronic spin – meld into a unique mix that is both seductive and eerie, elegant and earthy, contemporary and timeless. La Commedia celebrates the band’s cultural roots while constantly moving into new territory, balancing nostalgia with a forward-thinking approach.

La Commedia is a rare gem that confirms Il Quadro di Troisi’s relevance in the international music scene, as demonstrated by the number of top-level artists featured on the album: from Suzanne Ciani, a legend and a pioneer of independent music with a career spanning five decades, to Aimee Portioli, aka Grand River, a Dutch-Italian musician, composer and sound designer based in Berlin, along with Francesca Colombo’s eclectic violin (the de facto “fourth angle” of Il Quadro di Troisi’s frame), Fiona Brice’s strings, cultural agitator and icon of the Roman underground scene Stefano Di Trapani (aka Demented Burrocacao and a member of Trapcoustic and System Hardware Abnormal, among other projects), Maestro Daniele Di Gregorio, an excellent musician and a longtime collaboration of songwriting legend Paolo Conte, and Tommaso Cappellato, whose professional description goes well beyond “drummer” and who has been working with artists like Rabih Beaini and Maurice Louca.
The cover of the album, as well as those of the singles, was designed by Francesco Messina, another icon of Italian music. Messina is a longtime Franco Battiato collaborator and co-author, a cult musician (his Prati Bagnati del Monte Analogo, made in collaboration with Roul Lovisoni, is considered a seminal record by the alternative Italian music scene), as well as a photographer, visual artist and the author of legendary record covers.

When Sean Cimino and Isom Innis were getting ready to work on what would become Acid Star, the full-length debut of their syrupy electronic rock group Peel, they started by tapping into the music that they liked as kids. That is, the music they gravitated toward before they had "any taste or judgment," as Innis puts it. The results are an album that swirls dance-music paint onto a rock canvas. Inspired in part by genre-bending Creation Records bands like Primal Scream and Madchester groups like Happy Mondays, Acid Star gives a modern spin on a classic formula.

"This new song "Citizen X" does vibrate with the weird aura of a live show; there's a sense of disorientation and detachment, and Cimino's vocals--which are reminiscent of Paul Banks' in Turn on the Bright Lights--are like a guiding light." FLOOD

Tyler Pope's latest EP is an absolute belter, and the primary concern these four tracks are asking of you is right up front: Pay Attention to the Bass. And, honestly, with a sense low-end like what's on display here, how could you not? This new release from Pope-a dance veteran who's also known as a full-time member of LCD Soundsystem as well as a collaborator with artists like Hercules & Love Affair and Pantha Du Prince-arrives on his always eclectic Interference Pattern label, an imprint that has previously spanned left-field electronic sounds, noise rock, and avant-R&B. As such, Pay Attention to the Bass is anything but straightforward, with ricocheting rhythms and alluring textures that are as easy to get lost in as they are to move your body to.

Listeners familiar with last year's Make Each Other Happy EP, which embraced dark disco grooves and crisp percussion, will be delighted at the new curveballs on display here: "Why Must I" euphorically merges the propulsive charge of UK funky with delicious piano-house stabs, while "OKay" anchors itself around a rubbery bass line like a lost cut from the Remain In Light sessions. The flip side gets dark and dank with it, as "Close the Door" echoes with spooky clatter and dubby wobbles before sprightly vibes break through-and the closing cut "Where r they Hiding" goes full-on tunnel techno with it, conjuring a mood that recalls the haunted house music of Sandwell District as well as the cold-sweat futuristic visions of jungle. With Pay Attention to the Bass, Pope expands his sound wider than ever, and it just so happens that it's an absolute blast to listen to as well.

Valentina Villarroel is a sound artist and phonographer who explores the intricate dynamics within various Southern ecosystems. Her work revolves around the profound potential of acoustic ecology, particularly in the face of encroaching real estate development on natural spaces. She also delves into the consequences of sound pollution on numerous species, contributing to their decline or disappearance. In recent years, her focus has extended to urban soundscapes and significant sonic events, such as the October 18th protest in Chile. With a solid background in bioacoustics applied to both human and animal well-being, Valentina assumes the role of co-director at AOIR Sound Laboratory. There, she spearheads an interdisciplinary initiative that centers sound as its core element. This includes the creation of the sonic cartography portal aoir.cl, as well as the development of handmade electronic devices like the Bowerbankii and the creation of various experimental microphones.

Spaceship is Mark S. Williamson, a musician, sound artist, film maker and educator based in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. His work is often made in response to his environment, working on location, combining
field recordings with electronic and acoustic instrumentation, usually recorded outside, amid the landscape and weather. Mark has recorded for wiaiwya, Apollolaan, the Dark Outside and his own Forged River Recordings. "Williamson is building desire tunnels, churning through the layers of rock and soil to find his conclusions." - The Wire // "...the droning synthesizer waves conjure up something spectral and eerie, stretching out like the wi de horizon..." - The Quietus // "Beautiful." - Hannah Peel

Los Angeles-based Fabiano Do Nascimento is a multi-string guitarist and songwriter who melds the traditional idioms of his native Brazil (i.e., samba, choro) with the more contemporary and experimental strains of jazz, pop, and electronic music. Das Nuvens (“The Clouds”), out July 2023 on Leaving Records, is a crisp, frequently blissful, and deceptively groove-oriented showcase from a consummate musician — a rich and varied collection of songs, all of which seem to prioritize, and thrive in, the soft and intentional spaces between notes.

Das Nuvens constitutes the free-form, exploratory work of a musician who, having mastered a distinct musical language, seeks to apply his skill towards broader, more experimental modes of expression. Fittingly, track one — built around a contemplative, pointillistic refrain— is titled “Babel,” a reference to the legend of man’s attempt to build a tower to heaven, and how God thwarted this alleged act of hubris by shattering man’s shared language, sowing chaos and confusion. Though a stern parable on its face, it is a myth that enshrines our world’s dizzying array of languages (of modes of being), and the subsequent beauty of cultural exchange through art. In this regard, it is a fitting opening statement for an album that collapses and collages not only contemporary and classical Brazilian and pop idioms, but also the diverse range of indigenous music that Nascimento has encountered and studied in his travels as a touring musician.

Seth Price’s suite “Coinos Driftos“ announces itself with the sound of a rolling coin – a punctuation that repeats throughout the record – before dropping the listener into a storm of harsh winds and far-away bells. When the storm abates we find ourselves in a desolate field of stuttering electric harp and electronic sub-bass. Side B emerges from a mist of gentle tones that soon give way to a juddering contraption of dropped coins and clacking noises, which itself seems to summon the arrival of a war machine – a glorious squall of high tones, bristling with Helmholtz inner-ear sensations, all just barely kept in line by a loping, irregular bassline – that resolves into a final, more personal, piece of field recording. Seth Price made the music in 2023 by improvising three straight-through takes on Arp synthesizer, bells, and electric Nagoya harp, often playing two instruments at once, with all signals routed through pedals and processors; these tracks were sequenced before the addition of overdubbed bass guitar and field recordings.

Diese Band war Mitte der 1980er Jahre, als Independent Project Records zum ersten Mal Kontakt mit den Brüdern Mark und Clive Ives aufnahm, den bemerkenswert produktiven Vertretern exquisiter
elektronischer Musik unter dem Namen Woo, die Ende des Jahrzehnts Kultstücke wie Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong und It's Cosy Inside zum ersten Mal in den USA veröffentlichten. Fast vierzig Jahre später sind die Brüder bemerkenswert produktiv, und Independent Project Records befindet sich im vierten Jahr seiner Wiederbelebung. Zeit, die Kräfte wieder zu bündeln.


Das neue Team-up von Woo und IPR ist mehr als nur eine einfache Wiederveröffentlichung, sondern debütiert mit einer besonderen Auswahl von zwei Werken, Robot X und Xylophonics: Die Alben
wurden 2016 bzw. 2017 erstmals digital auf ihrer Bandcamp-Seite veröffentlicht und wurden nun neu gestaltet, erweitert und als Begleitstücke neu konzipiert. Robot X und Xylophonics nebeneinander zu hören, ist eine faszinierende und immer wieder überraschende Reise in die experimentelle retro-futuristische Electronica.

Robot X und Xylophonics erzählen gemeinsam eine Geschichte retro-futuristischer Visionen aus verschiedenen Blickwinkeln: Beide sind stolz auf ihre Experimente und kombinieren eine Flut musikalischer Einflüsse, um etwas zu bieten, das auf bemerkenswerte Weise vielschichtig und gleichzeitig minimalistisch ist. Die unvorhersehbaren Instrumentalstücke, die sie entfesseln, laden den
Hörer dazu ein, seine eigenen Fantasien mit dem, was er hört, zu verbinden, egal ob diese Fantasien der Vergangenheit, der Gegenwart oder, was wahrscheinlicher ist, einer roboterhaften Zukunft angehören.

Diese exquisiten Artefakte, die zum ersten Mal auf Vinyl und CD als Doppel-CD-Sets in der einzigartigen Letterpress-Verpackung von IPR-Labelgründer Bruce Licher mit einem handgefertigten Booklet mit Briefmarke veröffentlicht werden, sind ein Muss für jeden ernsthaften Sammler von fesselnder zeitgenössischer Musik.

Loup Vert is the first jazz album of French pianist Julien Grassen Barbe, joined for the occasion by double bassist Sébastien Bacquias and drummer Fabien Duscombs. Conceived and composed in the Pyrenees mountains, recorded around Paris, it is an album of twelve tracks that came as a response to the proposal of Julien Galner (producer, founder of HIDD label). Loup Vert is the name of a fetish, a creature that breathes inspiration. Informed by many influences, from Frédéric Chopin to Morton Feldman, from Erik Satie to Herbie Hancock, through Keith Jarrett, Madlib and Naftule Brandwein, Julien Grassen Barbe's music opens a space dedicated to improvisation, melody, and the exploration of textures. Trained in classical music, graduate of the conservatory of the Hautes-Pyrénées region, where he is originally from, Julien Grassen Barbe is a songwriter and a musician, but also an ethnomusicologist, specialist in Jewish music, and a published author. A trip to New-York, land of Thelonious Monk, had a deep impact on him. He used it as a time for jam sessions, lessons with some of his favorite musicians, Aaron Parks, Aaron Goldberg, Barry Harris. Between 2014 and 2016, he explored pop, invited by Chateau-Marmont and Exotica to collaborate on two records as a keyboardist. It is on this occasion that he got closer to Julien Galner, producer, founder of the HIDD record label who asked him to record a jazz record. They entered the studio to record Loup Vert, a project that is a cross between impressionism, cinema, be-bop, mathematics and improvised music. Most of the pieces were written by Julien Grassen Barbe, mixing acoustic and electric/electronic worlds.

Prangers’ sound is unprisable, perhaps impossible to uproot from the landscape that spawns it.

On Gomp, the Rochdale trio forge and graft a kind of sonic semblance of wire, flesh and bracken - a misshapen organism that scuttles across the damp amber of the pennines. Collected from their environment, collages of local field recordings and tape-jammed voices hang over the trio's mill-gamelan of scrap percussion, with the whole thing force-fed back on itself through a neat duality of blunt electronics and sharp sample processing.

Although the form of its language feels human, the rhythm and definition is stretched to a point of almost attractive grotesque: de-elasticated and drubbed into a curiously unrecognisable state by the busted motor speeds and over-voltaged electrics that power it.

Through the electric static of Prangers' transmit, the outline of an awesomely unsettling shape comes into focus.

Diese Band war Mitte der 1980er Jahre, als Independent Project Records zum ersten Mal Kontakt mit den Brüdern Mark und Clive Ives aufnahm, den bemerkenswert produktiven Vertretern exquisiter
elektronischer Musik unter dem Namen Woo, die Ende des Jahrzehnts Kultstücke wie Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong und It's Cosy Inside zum ersten Mal in den USA veröffentlichten. Fast vierzig Jahre später sind die Brüder bemerkenswert produktiv, und Independent Project Records befindet sich im vierten Jahr seiner Wiederbelebung. Zeit, die Kräfte wieder zu bündeln.


Das neue Team-up von Woo und IPR ist mehr als nur eine einfache Wiederveröffentlichung, sondern debütiert mit einer besonderen Auswahl von zwei Werken, Robot X und Xylophonics: Die Alben
wurden 2016 bzw. 2017 erstmals digital auf ihrer Bandcamp-Seite veröffentlicht und wurden nun neu gestaltet, erweitert und als Begleitstücke neu konzipiert. Robot X und Xylophonics nebeneinander zu hören, ist eine faszinierende und immer wieder überraschende Reise in die experimentelle retro-futuristische Electronica.

Robot X und Xylophonics erzählen gemeinsam eine Geschichte retro-futuristischer Visionen aus verschiedenen Blickwinkeln: Beide sind stolz auf ihre Experimente und kombinieren eine Flut musikalischer Einflüsse, um etwas zu bieten, das auf bemerkenswerte Weise vielschichtig und gleichzeitig minimalistisch ist. Die unvorhersehbaren Instrumentalstücke, die sie entfesseln, laden den
Hörer dazu ein, seine eigenen Fantasien mit dem, was er hört, zu verbinden, egal ob diese Fantasien der Vergangenheit, der Gegenwart oder, was wahrscheinlicher ist, einer roboterhaften Zukunft angehören.

Diese exquisiten Artefakte, die zum ersten Mal auf Vinyl und CD als Doppel-CD-Sets in der einzigartigen Letterpress-Verpackung von IPR-Labelgründer Bruce Licher mit einem handgefertigten Booklet mit Briefmarke veröffentlicht werden, sind ein Muss für jeden ernsthaften Sammler von fesselnder zeitgenössischer Musik.

Turnend Tapes first vinyl offering beyond the realms of the club emerges Peculiar Glow Vol.1. An EP of radiant atmospherics from multiple artists prescribing sonic esoterism.

Shell Company introduce the record with ‘Pearl’, an exhibition of their indelible sound, nurtured by the Manchester underground; inducing intoxication through twang of guitar and stunning spoken word whilst grimy, glitched-out soundscapes modulate and vaporise.

Sailingwing follows with ‘Splendid Isolation’. A kaleidoscopic dream sequence sounding like a distant relative to Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden. One that is voltaic and woozy drifting with spectral timbre.

Bringing side A to a close with their track ‘I Might’ is Infant, another artist flourishing in Manchester’s fertile scene. A soft and hopeful slice of blissed out synth pop showcasing Infant’s mesmerising instrumentation, voice and lyricism.

Das Wettbüro’s ‘Abendtarif’ opens side B with an auditory bath of cool electronics intersecting the styles of different eras and geographies. Ultra kinetic and slick, the group make a visionary contribution to the rich lineage of Krautrock before it.

Zoe Couppe & sigh nova offer up a sublime composition of glistening electronics and granular field recordings that mirror the spoken musings of aquatic motion amongst other abstractions. With mythic air, ‘Memoria Fluida’ guides this collection of music to its conclusion.

Peculiar Glow’s first volume is a touchstone for endeavours to follow under this project and we are delighted to share the result of what has been a lengthy but exceptionally rewarding process.

Steeped in the sounds of electro disco, italo and new beat, Ace Vision is an artist raised on the synthesizer traditions of Italy.

Following on from his debut EP,”Not An Ordinary Story”, the musician returns with four pieces of crafted electronics; Snapping percussion lays a path for arcs of melody, bruised bass and computer game chords for the driving energy of “Enigmatic Flow.” The same rhythmic strength is carried into “Middle of the Night.” Kicks and snares are the foundation from which perfumed keys ascend. In the exquisite “Goodbye,” warm analogue waves are punctuated by beats while rolling arpeggios and soaring lines drift above vocoder lyrics. “Synthpop Voyager” ends the EP. Warm playful melodies are central in this elegant and emotional finale, crisp drum patterns being the central columns around which Ace Vision weaves his analogue tapestry. Four tracks that tell a very different musical tale.