Search:foundation sound

With a little patience and a lot of finesse, Jakobin & Domino cooked up a fine new five track House EP for Luv Shack Records.

The eponymous opener "Lost Memories" effortlessly blends jazzy rhodes and emotive string samples with a funky percussive track and a stomping four to the floor beat.

"Hypnotica" delivers what the title suggests; haunting arpeggios go hand in hand with eerie 7 chords and hushed vocal samples, albeit with a jacking groove laying the foundation.

On "Molecules", Jakobin & Domino evoke classic Chicago house vibes with a shuffling beat, a funky synth bass and uplifting chord stabs to boot.

The arguably most classic J&D sounding track on the EP is "Needed", a hard hitting joint that blends a sombre piano chord progression with dreamy acid lines, evoking major dub house feelings.

"Unbogeba" is a laid back slice of deep house that nicely wraps up the EP, with a lingering afro vocal sample and super lush organ chords, it's the perfect track for hazy afterhours.

Hot on the heels of his preliminary EP on Stroboscopic Artefacts, Embryo, which paved the way to the present album, and two years after the landing of his 2016-released inaugural LP, Montagne Trasparenti, Mannequin helmsman Alessandro Adriani returns with his highly anticipated full-length debut for SA, Morphic Dreams. Throughout eleven cuts painstakingly executed but lacking not an iota of the fresh, spontaneous oomph that made his sound stand out of the crowd of techno producers to have emerged over the past decade, Adriani lays the foundations to a suspended sound imaginarium, governed by its own rules and principles of gravity. Revolving around the notions of sublimation and quest for inner balance, Morphic Dreams is comprised of four distinct sequences, conceived and designed as reflections of four mental states, each of them linked to the four alchemical elements i.e. Water, Earth, Air and Fire here represented by the A, B, C and D-sides. Fluid and enveloping, the A-side bathes the listener in some zero-G uterine vortex, pitching and rolling from the slo-burning exotic sensuality and tribal spell of The Tropical Year to the trunk-bending, arpeggiated fast-track pulse of Storm Trees, through Raindances feverish electro swing. Entering a further abrasive, minerally rich phase, the B-side unleashes Adrianis dark side with optimum conviction. Deeply anchored in earthly materiality, this new evolution stage starts off to the frantic Italo bass of Dissolving Images, rushing headlong into a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of fractured reflections and nasty Giallo-like ambience. The delirious body stretch sequence then rather abruptly swerves onto a calmer flux with Dust/Mist, a much enticingly hip-swaying collaboration with Simon Crab, ex-member of the seminal 80s UK industrial-experimental band Bourbonese Qualk, before Casting The Runes engulfs us into a tormented world of swollen eeriness and disquieting esoterism. Back to a widescreen showcase of droney distortions, nasty acid swashes and other quirky drum programming, Hors De Combat opens a new chapter, shortly followed by the playful bass intricacies and modular jeu-de-piste of Invisible Seekers, featuring Avian affiliate and longtime friend Shawn OSullivan. A further mind-expanding piece, C-side closer Crow deploys its blackened wings wide and high as a chaos of martial percussions and liquefying synths slivers crash past the red-hot skyline. A fluttering melodic interlude, Things About To Disappear blazes a clean trail for Make Words Split And Crack to flourish, slowly but surely blooming into a nonstop grandiose twelve minute-shy finale geared up with the stirring cacophonic force of a Ligetian symphony and something of an epic-scale Kubrickian soundtrack.

In 2020 Brooklyn's Holy Hive introduced us all to something we didn't know we needed. Homer Steinweiss' thickly pocketed drumming paired with Paul Spring's floaty falsetto vocal produces a sound that's like a salve. It's been dubbed Folk Soul and Holy Hive not only expertly overlay the more apparent musical aspects of folk and soul-but they also draw from the more profound: being able to pull traditions from the past and make them their own. When Homer wasn't playing drums for Lady Gaga or Adele or Bruno Mars, he'd produce Paul's solo folk records. Along with original bassist and frequent collaborator Joe Harrison, these sessions proved to be Holy Hive's foundation. And their fi rst record, Float Back to You, expertly combined what each musician does best: Paul's heady, reflective approach to folk with Homer's universal classic soul sound. With their new record released on Big Crown, Holy Hive's beautifully simple-and-sparse Folk Soul sound is back-but updated. With new influences and the challenge of creating and capturing music during a global pandemic, this new self-titled album, is more personal, more reflective. They describe three distinct phases when piecing together Holy Hive: this first stage was pre-pandemic in California while traveling as a group, then-like the rest of us-they were separated, creating together but apart, and lastly an explosion of output once they reunited in New York. There is a natural but subtle evolution for Holy Hive on this record. Homer and Paul drew from new and maybe more obscure-yet-honest influences. It's still very much Folk Soul-how could it not be. But, like all artists, they've taken in what they've made and how they've made it, only to push it into new places. We know of Holy Hive's ability to lyrically convey the abstract and complex in poetic and palatable ways. But where the first record was soulfully silver-tongued with chill songs about love and affection, Holy Hive widens the lens with these novel influences, reflecting the points both Homer and Paul are in their own lives.

LTD. CLEAR PINK & BLUE SPLATTER VINYL

In 2020 Brooklyn's Holy Hive introduced us all to something we didn't know we needed. Homer Steinweiss' thickly pocketed drumming paired with Paul Spring's floaty falsetto vocal produces a sound that's like a salve. It's been dubbed Folk Soul and Holy Hive not only expertly overlay the more apparent musical aspects of folk and soul-but they also draw from the more profound: being able to pull traditions from the past and make them their own. When Homer wasn't playing drums for Lady Gaga or Adele or Bruno Mars, he'd produce Paul's solo folk records. Along with original bassist and frequent collaborator Joe Harrison, these sessions proved to be Holy Hive's foundation. And their fi rst record, Float Back to You, expertly combined what each musician does best: Paul's heady, reflective approach to folk with Homer's universal classic soul sound. With their new record released on Big Crown, Holy Hive's beautifully simple-and-sparse Folk Soul sound is back-but updated. With new influences and the challenge of creating and capturing music during a global pandemic, this new self-titled album, is more personal, more reflective. They describe three distinct phases when piecing together Holy Hive: this first stage was pre-pandemic in California while traveling as a group, then-like the rest of us-they were separated, creating together but apart, and lastly an explosion of output once they reunited in New York. There is a natural but subtle evolution for Holy Hive on this record. Homer and Paul drew from new and maybe more obscure-yet-honest influences. It's still very much Folk Soul-how could it not be. But, like all artists, they've taken in what they've made and how they've made it, only to push it into new places. We know of Holy Hive's ability to lyrically convey the abstract and complex in poetic and palatable ways. But where the first record was soulfully silver-tongued with chill songs about love and affection, Holy Hive widens the lens with these novel influences, reflecting the points both Homer and Paul are in their own lives.

"The new album ""Canzoni segrete"" is about the power of music, the
consequences of prosperity, about a strange plague and changing
passions, about dreams, hopes, disappointments
The songs have their roots in recent decades, ""Leo""– adapted in 1994 from the
French original by Georges Moustaki – being one example. Predominantly,
however, they were written during the months between January 2019 and June
2020. Recorded in studios in Italy, France, Germany and Switzerland, the album
turned into a profound project that challenged Pippo Pollina as a composer and
poet, but also as a thinker, musician and arranger.
With a rough and at the same time sonorous voice, Pippo Pollina rejoices and
argues, chats and reflects. At times with a touch of the laconic, but never without
a fundamental reverence for the beauty of sound and the power of art, in the
knowledge that music is a gift. That is the foundation, despite all doubts, for an
ambitious, mature and coherent album, which Pippo Pollina will bring to the stage
from the beginning of 2022, culminating in a grand finale in the Verona Arena in
August 2023.

The sixth release on Phoq U Phonogrammen, the sordid and rash U-TRAX sublabel, may be from its least known artist, but it is our personal favorite Phoq U release. The style can perhaps best be described as acid funk. Though the drums and bass lines generally are rather tight, all tracks have these quirky synth lines that give them a rather funky, dark 'cyborg feel'.
Lynx is Reyer Caderius van Veen - and he didn't chose that name himself. Reyer is from Groningen, the mayor city in the most northern region of The Netherlands. It's a vibrant student town, with lots of music going on.

In the 90s, Reyer participated in a techno-foundation, together with Thee J. Johanz (Ballyhoo Records) and Johan Sagel, who released a 12" as Jo-I on U-TRAX in 1995. Together with Johan, Reyer also formed a band called L.A.P. 01 (Live Acid Performance), which released a 12", a 10" and a remix on Jan Liefhebber's Highland Beats and a track on Ballyhoo Records (BALL 100).
Harsh starts off with some terribly hard and high tones, that sound like a nuclear plant is going to melt down. The ferocious bassdrum and grunting acid bass line add to the uncomfortable mood.
What makes us really happy is Sex On Jupiter. It's a rushed track that completely opens up around the 1:20 mark with a desolate, yet funky sawtooth 303 bassline.

On the flipside, Changes brings a nice pumping rhythm combined with a rolling bassline with all sorts of disturbing sounds on top.
The EP closes off with another highlight of darkness: Dark Mission. The track has a lovely flow, but really starts to space you out as soon as a hoarse sounding pulsating synth spreads it wings across the deliciously bubbling 303.
To be short: this is an uncomfortable record, and we love it!

Original release date: August 1996.

With his first release as EBM outfit Voltage Control on Antler Subway in 1989, Utrecht-based Arno Peeters can easily be considered one of the Dutch Dance pioneers.
Influenced by hip hop, electro and acid house, and his uncontrollable urge to experiment, he moved on to produce techno. Disappointed by the genre s conventions, he rather suddenly stopped with dance music altogether around 1995, letting a wealth of DATs with unreleased material collect dust in his studio.
To our great pleasure, U-TRAX was allowed to pick some nuggets from these archives, resulting in this Titanic EP and an album later this year.

Arno started experimenting with sound at very young age, resulting in his first cassette releases with experimental soundscapes in 1983. In 1986 he joined the notable Centre for Electronic Music (CEM), where he was able to take his experiments to a new level in a professional studio-environment.
In his techno episode , he recorded several 12 -es and CDs as Sp@sms and The Implant, and as part of Random XS, Urban Electro, African Nightflight and The AWAX Foundation, with most of his records being released on the famous DJAX label.
After turning his back on techno, he applied himself to more experimental music again. In 1996, he created AeroSon, a 40-minute sound collage that won him the first prize in the category Composers Under 30 at a high-brow international contest for electro-acoustic music. This piece was later released on the prestigious Mille Plateaux label.

Since then, his focus has shifted away from releasing music, towards working more project-based: on remixes, compilations and interactive (installations, video, sound design), building himself a successful career as radio maker, teacher and engineer, contributing to several award-winning documentaries and podcasts.
This EP is a nice cross section of Arno s dance productions, serving you some acid, techno and electro.

Titanic V1 was originally created to be a Random XS track, the techno band he formed in 1991 with Sander Friedeman. It was performed during their live set at one of the G.U.R.U. parties, organized by U-TRAX label boss DJ White Delight and label artist P.A. Presents.
This acid track was remixed into a techno monster when Friedeman replaced the 303 with a 101 and added a ton of delay on the bass drums, resulting in the woofer destroying Titanic (Underwater Dub).
The flipside sees a rare post-1995 recording by Arno: CEM Traxx 1. As the title suggests, this melancholic electro gem was created using the intricate machinery of the CEM Studio. Originally created as one half of a two-part composition for some project in 2003, it was never released before.

The EP closes with a typical Arno brainchild, the tongue-in-cheek acid banger XD5 Acid Master, from 1994. Tracks like this happen if you leave Arno unattended with a rather un-hip machine like the Kawai XD-5: he turns it inside out and uses it for things it was never intended for. Buckle up!

All tracks have been produced by Arno Peeters and mastered by Ruud Lekx. Label art by Botterman Ontwerp.

white & blue marbled vinyl

With his first release as EBM outfit Voltage Control on Antler Subway in 1989, Utrecht-based Arno Peeters can easily be considered one of the Dutch Dance pioneers.
Influenced by hip hop, electro and acid house, and his uncontrollable urge to experiment, he moved on to produce techno. Disappointed by the genre s conventions, he rather suddenly stopped with dance music altogether around 1995, letting a wealth of DATs with unreleased material collect dust in his studio.
To our great pleasure, U-TRAX was allowed to pick some nuggets from these archives, resulting in this Titanic EP and an album later this year.
Arno started experimenting with sound at very young age, resulting in his first cassette releases with experimental soundscapes in 1983. In 1986 he joined the notable Centre for Electronic Music (CEM), where he was able to take his experiments to a new level in a professional studio-environment.
In his techno episode , he recorded several 12 -es and CDs as Sp@sms and The Implant, and as part of Random XS, Urban Electro, African Nightflight and The AWAX Foundation, with most of his records being released on the famous DJAX label.
After turning his back on techno, he applied himself to more experimental music again. In 1996, he created AeroSon, a 40-minute sound collage that won him the first prize in the category Composers Under 30 at a high-brow international contest for electro-acoustic music. This piece was later released on the prestigious Mille Plateaux label.
Since then, his focus has shifted away from releasing music, towards working more project-based: on remixes, compilations and interactive (installations, video, sound design), building himself a successful career as radio maker, teacher and engineer, contributing to several award-winning documentaries and podcasts.
This EP is a nice cross section of Arno s dance productions, serving you some acid, techno and electro.
Titanic V1 was originally created to be a Random XS track, the techno band he formed in 1991 with Sander Friedeman. It was performed during their live set at one of the G.U.R.U. parties, organized by U-TRAX label boss DJ White Delight and label artist P.A. Presents.
This acid track was remixed into a techno monster when Friedeman replaced the 303 with a 101 and added a ton of delay on the bass drums, resulting in the woofer destroying Titanic (Underwater Dub).
The flipside sees a rare post-1995 recording by Arno: CEM Traxx 1. As the title suggests, this melancholic electro gem was created using the intricate machinery of the CEM Studio. Originally created as one half of a two-part composition for some project in 2003, it was never released before.
The EP closes with a typical Arno brainchild, the tongue-in-cheek acid banger XD5 Acid Master, from 1994. Tracks like this happen if you leave Arno unattended with a rather un-hip machine like the Kawai XD-5: he turns it inside out and uses it for things it was never intended for. Buckle up!

All tracks have been produced by Arno Peeters and mastered by Ruud Lekx. Label art by Botterman Ontwerp.

Legendary Utrecht DJ and producer P.A. Presents (Peter Aarsman) returns with his first new release since 2000 with this vintage techno stunner, Swirling Gas. This EP also marks the first new music on U-TRAX in more than 21 years, kicking the label s comeback into a higher gear.
Peter ironically is the only artist on U-TRAX that actually is born and bred in the city of Utrecht. Even more irony lies in the fact that he hasn t lived in the city (or stadsie in Utregs, the local dialect) for the past 25 years.
Peter knew he wanted to be a DJ since he was ten years old, in a time when this was still a very unusual career to dream about. Long before house music had landed in Europe, Peter was fiddling around with disco and italo 12 -es and all those years of training is what made him the superior DJ that he still is today. In terms of skills, flair, energy and feel for the dance floor, there are probably not a lot of DJs that can rival with Peter.
While the era of house of techno of the late 80s and the 90s brought him countless DJ gigs, his reputation didn t cross the city borders much, until he bought his first gear and started producing techno music himself. Again, his DJ background proved helpful with producing his tracks, as most of his tracks are dancefloor orientated and usually have an impeccable timing.
Peter debuted with the mini-album Salicylic Acid on U-TRAX in 1993, followed by the Flight Stimulator EP a year later. Both are classics today, but neither brought him as much fame as his 12 Entangled did on Deviate, a record label that was started by a couple of our friends from Utrecht a year prior to U-TRAX. Entangled made it to many charts and compilation albums, including Carl Craig s mix CD as part of !K7 s DJ-Kicks series.
Besides two releases on U-TRAX and three 12 -es on Deviate, Peter recorded a full length album for the latter label. Unfortunately, before the album ever saw the light of day, Deviate closed their doors and the tracks remained on the shelves for the next 17 or so years. These tracks still sound surprisingly fresh and original today and we are super excited to be able to release some of them on this Swirling Gas EP!
The title track Swirling Gas obviously gets its name from the documentary sample that the track kicks off with. The almost heartbeat-like electro rhythms, layered choruses and dreamy synths will give you goose bumps all the way to the soles of your feet.
Raw is quite another thing, but way more complicated and sophisticated than the title suggests. An in-your-face electro bass drum pattern supports layer after layer of additional rhythms, some even touching on salsa, and then big fat layers of pulsating synths take you away into deep space. A unique track that will instantly reward the DJ that has the guts to play it for her/his audience.
Drum Magic on the flipside is exactly that: a magic techno trip built around complicated syncopated drum rhythms, which should serve the adventurous DJ well as a foundation for mixing all sorts of weird stuff on top of. We can t wait to see videos appear with creative mixing ideas.
Final track Freaky is opening with some heavy pounding, yet jumpy beats before it opens up into a bit of a space trip around the 3 minute mark. Though the track has a touch of the Basic Channel sound, its echoing synth tones are very distinct and will light up any venue, no matter how big.
All tracks have been revamped and edited into more current lengths by DJ Zero One, blessed by DJ White Delight and mastered by Thee J Johanz. Label art by Bonk Artwork.

Legendary Utrecht DJ and producer P.A. Presents (Peter Aarsman) returns with his first new release since 2000 with this vintage techno stunner, Swirling Gas. This EP also marks the first new music on U-TRAX in more than 21 years, kicking the label s comeback into a higher gear.
Peter ironically is the only artist on U-TRAX that actually is born and bred in the city of Utrecht. Even more irony lies in the fact that he hasn t lived in the city (or stadsie in Utregs, the local dialect) for the past 25 years.
Peter knew he wanted to be a DJ since he was ten years old, in a time when this was still a very unusual career to dream about. Long before house music had landed in Europe, Peter was fiddling around with disco and italo 12 -es and all those years of training is what made him the superior DJ that he still is today. In terms of skills, flair, energy and feel for the dance floor, there are probably not a lot of DJs that can rival with Peter.
While the era of house of techno of the late 80s and the 90s brought him countless DJ gigs, his reputation didn t cross the city borders much, until he bought his first gear and started producing techno music himself. Again, his DJ background proved helpful with producing his tracks, as most of his tracks are dancefloor orientated and usually have an impeccable timing.
Peter debuted with the mini-album Salicylic Acid on U-TRAX in 1993, followed by the Flight Stimulator EP a year later. Both are classics today, but neither brought him as much fame as his 12 Entangled did on Deviate, a record label that was started by a couple of our friends from Utrecht a year prior to U-TRAX. Entangled made it to many charts and compilation albums, including Carl Craig s mix CD as part of !K7 s DJ-Kicks series.
Besides two releases on U-TRAX and three 12 -es on Deviate, Peter recorded a full length album for the latter label. Unfortunately, before the album ever saw the light of day, Deviate closed their doors and the tracks remained on the shelves for the next 17 or so years. These tracks still sound surprisingly fresh and original today and we are super excited to be able to release some of them on this Swirling Gas EP!
The title track Swirling Gas obviously gets its name from the documentary sample that the track kicks off with. The almost heartbeat-like electro rhythms, layered choruses and dreamy synths will give you goose bumps all the way to the soles of your feet.
Raw is quite another thing, but way more complicated and sophisticated than the title suggests. An in-your-face electro bass drum pattern supports layer after layer of additional rhythms, some even touching on salsa, and then big fat layers of pulsating synths take you away into deep space. A unique track that will instantly reward the DJ that has the guts to play it for her/his audience.
Drum Magic on the flipside is exactly that: a magic techno trip built around complicated syncopated drum rhythms, which should serve the adventurous DJ well as a foundation for mixing all sorts of weird stuff on top of. We can t wait to see videos appear with creative mixing ideas.
Final track Freaky is opening with some heavy pounding, yet jumpy beats before it opens up into a bit of a space trip around the 3 minute mark. Though the track has a touch of the Basic Channel sound, its echoing synth tones are very distinct and will light up any venue, no matter how big.
All tracks have been revamped and edited into more current lengths by DJ Zero One, blessed by DJ White Delight and mastered by Thee J Johanz. Label art by Bonk Artwork.

King Tubby and Producer Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee are intertwined in the birth of Dub Music. After discovering a mistake that made a ‘serious joke’ they went on to release the first pressings of this new musical genre namely ‘Dub Music’. Tubby’s vast knowledge of electronics and Bunny’s vast catalogue of rhythms would lay the foundations of what today is taken as a standard...the Remix / Version cuts to an existing vocal tune. Sit back and enjoy this historic set of sounds. These releases were the first to carry the name of King Tubby and the first to credit the great musicians that contributed so much to the rhythms that made these albums possible.

‘Expressions of Interest’ is the debut album from Melbourne/Naarm post-punk group screensaver.

Sonically, the 10 track album is rich and detailed, and pays homage to its era of inspiration (late 70s-mid 80s post-punk and new wave) with gripping vocals, dissonant guitar, melodic basslines, washes of synths and motorik drumming. Engineered by Julian Cue alongside band member Chris Stephenson and recorded over multiple studio sessions between 2020-2021

The album opens with the ominously titled ‘Body Parts’, an immediately arresting song that showcases the bands penchant for blending classic post-punk elements, leaning into a sound somewhere between the Banshees and Protomartyr.

Maynard doubles down on these themes in the frenetic second track, ‘No Movement’. Guttural organ tones swim under overdriven guitar, jagged and intense. Additional textures and sound effects are used percussively to embellish the dynamics, creating a feverish atmosphere with some Martin Hannett like flourishes.

The album takes a surprising turn into electronic driven krautrock on track three with 'Buy, Sell, Trade' - a rollicking piece of danceable ephemera, dominated by swirling synth sounds and punctuated with electronics reminiscent of Sparks/Moroder collaborations. Chris Stephenson's masterful guitar work begins with Greg Sage-esque determination before a crescendo into a lush Frippertronics outro.

'MEDS' transports us back to the foundation established on 'Body Parts', a gothy piece, full of tribal toms and dirge-y synths. Industrial punk rock nearly swallowed whole by the keys in the middle and slowly building back to complimentary guitar and vocal hooks.

It's from this point in the album that the band let's their other influences rise to the surface, as they explore touches of EDM on 'Static State' - a brutal, death-disco style track, Krystal Maynard's lead synth and gloomy vocal complimenting the pounding drums and dub-esque bass line culminating in a track worthy of the dancefloor.


Opening side two we have 'Skin', beginning with a solid and simple backbeat, James Beck’s post-punk percussion provides a steady and minimal framework for the rest of the band to colour in with great depth and detail. Giles Fielke’s bass guitar wobbles brilliantly leading the verse melody, whilst Chris Stephenson’s guitar drives the chorus that folds neatly in on itself.

In ‘Attention Economy’, Krystal Maynard is flexible with her lyrical style, and knows how and when to lend her voice to the greater backdrop of the composition. ‘Attention Economy’ has an almost Kraftwerkian structure - repetitious, but engaging with its constant tom driven beat, lush synth lines and minimal bass tones.

Just when you thought things had slowed down, screensaver ramp things right back up again with ‘Overnight Low’ - a no holds barred thumper. Giles Fielke underpins the hard-edged sound with his bassline, keeping things smooth and tight. It brings to mind a hybrid of PiL’s ‘Annalisa’ and Wire’s ‘Two People In a Room.’

Before you can catch your breath, we have ‘Regular Hours’ - another industrial track, and perhaps the sister song to ‘Static State’ heard earlier on side one. Seething electronic drum samples cut through an abyss of growling synths, Giles Fielke hanging up the bass temporarily to accompany Krystal Maynard on synth duties.

The album closes with the fittingly titled ‘Soft Landing’, literally bringing the listener back down...softly. The song is heavy on atmos, and resembles the aesthetics previously encountered on ‘Attention Economy’ a few tracks earlier.

‘Expressions of Interest” was recorded at various locations across Melbourne, with a handful of songs being captured before the start of the Covid pandemic in January 2020. With the recording timeline being drastically altered, the band shifted focus to work on what would become their first single ‘Strange Anxiety’, throughout the first months of the Melbourne 2020 lockdown.

Following their recent solo releases Soniscope (Dauw) and Cells #5 (Important Records), Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist Midori Hirano and Tokyo based string experimentalist Atsuko Hatano have teamed up for their first collaborative full-length: Water Ladder. An intense, multilayered continuation of earlier collaborations (Atsuko was featured on Midori’s debut LP back in 2006), the foundation for this new collaborative album was laid when they shared stages in Berlin (Ausland) and Japan in 2019. Working remotely at first, they later recorded parts of the album in Nara’s snoihouse (using omnidirectional polyhedral speakers).

“As we rallied back and forth with our recordings in the process of creating this album, unanticipated fluctuations and irregularities emerged, coming together into a kind of music with a unique resilience and buoyancy that cannot be confined to existing molds. It was as though we had built a Water Ladder to bridge the gap between us,” explains prolific composer and viola player Atsuko Hatano, who’s been busy recording solo and with colleagues such as Jim O’Rourke, Eiko Ishibashi, Mocky, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, Takeo Toyama, and Anzu Suhara (Asa-chang & Junrei).

Kyoto-born, Berlin-based Midori Hirano, who’s also been releasing music under her MimiCof moniker, adds multiple instruments to the ever-changing sonic landscapes of Water Ladder – an album defined by suspenseful and seemingly suspended compositions that often feel like floating in midair, a sensation the musicians compare to “that distinctive feeling you get from riding a high-speed elevator, where you can no longer tell whether you’re going up or down.”

Devoid of birdsong, the late summer air is nevertheless full of buzzing, whirring, hissing sounds on foreboding album opener “Summer Noise,” a cinematic intro with slow-moving piano chords and an ominous build-up over the course of its sprawling eight minutes. Elsewhere, sudden bursts of viola cut through nighttime peace (“Nocturnal Awakening”), followed by “Cotton Sphere” – which makes the sensation of floating in midair complete: harmonies and melodies rise and form to fall apart again, leaving only trails of previously defined space shimmering in their wake…

Whereas the title track truly explodes half-way in, the final “Cascade” brings closure to the electro-acoustic six-track collection: the floating continues, but the interlocking musical planes are no longer ruffled or rippling, no longer torn in many directions at once. Instead, the sonic streams merge and eventually disappear like ephemeral water falls after heavy rain or sudden snowmelt.

“Water cannot retain its form on its own, and can take any shape as effected by external forces. Its movements cannot be captured by eyesight alone: A body of water that appears to be crashing down into a deep, bottomless waterfall could actually be rising up very slowly into midair,” says Atsuko. “This is an invitation for you to cross the ever-transforming Water Ladder built between Midori and myself.”

Whoop whoop, it’s the sound of the inimitable KRS One’s ‘Sound of da Police’ and the mind bogglingly clever ‘Hip Hop vs Rap’, reissued here for the first time ever on 7 inch vinyl, housed in an original artwork picture sleeve this is a must have for anyone in the know.

First up ‘Sound of da Police’. A song that spoke out against the long running history of the Black community experiencing police brutality, violence and racism at the hands of those that were meant to be protecting them. The hard-hitting words from KRS touch on the history of slavery and it’s manifestation into systemic racism throughout the ages since.

“Change your attitude, change your plan
There could never really be justice on stolen land”

Couple that with a rough breakbeat, chopped through the MPC alongside choice funk samples and that legendary police siren ‘Whoop, Whoop’ and you had a certified golden era rap classic that ignited the fire in the belly of many across the globe.

On the flip, ‘Hip Hop Vs Rap’. A bumping hip hop loop lays the foundation for KRS to work his genius melding all manner of classic hip hop lines that are the perfect ammunition to cut up on the decks and results in a flow that certifies that hip hop is the culture that you live and breathe.

“Rap is something you do,
Hip-Hop is something you live!”

It’s a true, headsy b-boy gem which deserves a place in every collection.

Comes with 10'' booklet and download code. Limited 500. - "Those awaiting", the name chosen by the musicians of Sabreen, still rings true forty years after the foundation of this group in Jerusalem. Voice of the hopes as well as the anger of the Palestinian youth, this group has recorded four self-produced albums. With the weapons of poetry, they will embody the voices of resistance against the occupation but also the desire for emancipation from tradition.Emblematic of this state of mind, their second album Death Of The Prophet was released on cassette at the beginning of the first intifada. It will be the soundtrack, while providing the tuning fork of the future generations. Whether meditative beaches or collective outbursts, joyful outbursts or more serious moments, the band goes through the range of feelings, drawing its inspiration from the sources of classical Arabic music and popular folklore. The result is a unique style, irreducible to any category. All that makes that forty years later, this cult album, never released on vinyl, remains very current. Including booklet with extended liner notes by Jacques Denis and rare photos.

Cie has been on an exciting musical journey since the foundation of the Form & Terra Records label and the first record "Auf Los" and now delivers further highlights with "Adventures". Together with a remix by Oliver Hess, the record has four driving tracks that will be released exclusively on vinyl.
The “Löwenburg” first appears on the horizon, and the closer you get to it, the more powerful it appears. Arriving at the gates, the lion extends his claws and with his pounding, multi-faceted beat and bubbling, lively sounds pulls every dance-loving clubber into the castle with full force.
Oliver Hess waits here with his musical tools and refines the masonry of the "Löwenburg" with crisp percussions and incredibly driving beats in his inimitable way. With a hammer and chisel, he sharpens the original in his remix and opens up new sound paths to the castle's secret locations.
Through the dark corridors of the castle we get to the "Bergfried", the first track on the B-side. Hypnotic synth runs and pulsating basses demand everything from every wall, no matter how thick, and enjoy testing it for stability.
Finally, it goes deeper into the underground with "Der Stollen". Wherever digging deep, fascinating things come to light in the club night: brilliant flashes of sound briefly sparkle like precious stones, and rattling, tirelessly driving beats ensure that you lose yourself in the depths of the sound of the
„Stollen“. Four exciting tracks that are ready for any club adventure. Vinyl only.

Hungry Shells, the seventeenth entry in RVNG Intl.’s intergenerational collaborations series FRKWYS, brings together vocalist, multi- instrumentalist, and sound artist Ka Baird with avant-garde composer and radical performance art pioneer Pekka Airaksinen. Recorded six months before Pekka’s passing, Hungry Shells alchemizes separate but similar spiritualistic practices, canvassing Baird’s voice and synthesizer rituals and Airaksinen’s lysergic sound explorations into startling, surreal landscapes.

Pekka Airaksinen, who left this realm for another in May 2019, is recognized as a pioneering composer both in and outside his native Finland’s fringe art community. A founding member of the late 60s art and music collective The Sperm, Airaksinen discovered Buddhism in the early 1970s, eventually establishing a number of meditation centers around Finland. Throughout his career Airaksinen embraced a degree of obscurity and anonymity that was inspired by his Buddhist learnings, and afforded him complete creative freedom. As he explained, “The less success you have, the more time there is to develop things.”

Ka Baird, who found her musical footing in Chicago playing in Spires That In The Sunset Rise before moving to New York to pursue her solo career, has developed a practice based in forms of active and engaged embodiment. Inspired by Charlemagne Palestine’s Body Music, Baird’s performances explore physical extremes as a catalyst for charged immediacy and presence. “I’m interested in the

places between precision and something unrestrained,” she told The Wire in 2019. Drawing on minimalism’s ecstatic deployment of duration and endurance, her recordings explore the outer limit sounds of her voice and its synthesis with developing music technology.

Airaksinen and Baird convened in Utrecht in the fall of 2018 to write, rehearse, and record Hungry Shells ahead of a performance at the Dutch festival institution Le Guess Who? Sessions took place between contemplative walks along the city’s medieval canals, and, for Airaksinen, lengthy meditations in his hotel room. Early on in the trip, Pekka shared ODO with Ka, a collection of Buddhist parables that he divinely received while meditating. After translating several of these texts from Finnish to English the duo used them as text for the album, and a sort of psychic foundation.

clear vinyl / incl. poster

The music of Parallax is part of the foundation of Zodiak Commune Records since 1998. With ZC002 - Sinister Projects EP- and ZC005 - Occult Technology EP, Parallax created timeless underground anthems which are being reflected in the Archive EP. With previously unreleased live recordings, this EP is a well-preserved document of the past whilst being relevant in today's underground techno and acid scene. Parallax his live set was recorded at the legendary "old" Effenaar (Acid City Eindhoven, The Netherlands) while the Zodiak Commune's 10th anniversary was being celebrated. With its massive and no-nonsense acid-techno sound, Parallax transformed the dancefloor into a vortex, fueling up people with positive energy while taking them on his musical journey. A nostalgic journey that will make you crave for more timeless underground bliss! With 2002 Live Pt1 being over 12 minutes long a true story is being told. Enjoy this fine release of the purest acid-techno around!

2003 Live Pt1
A dark entrance, heavy basses that make the roof rattle, the smell of stale beer and sweaty people who all seem to speak another language but listen to the same... Those of seemingly soulless beats, but which ultimately take you closer to one self and each other than most religions have managed to realize...
Enjoy 12:30 minutes of storytelling!

1998
Clashing raw 303's, brutal beats colliding mid-air, ear piercing percussion. The soundtrack of the battle of 1998 is all but merciful, sending shivers down your spine.

2003 Live Pt2
Time seizes to exist. Beats provide the energy needed on a journey so loud there is no choice but to join. Guided by musicians, they who make you walk but not go anywhere but inside. Rebel minds choose to renounce their disobey, for their worries to be taken far, far away.

UK Dub pioneers Alpha & Omega (Greensleeves / A&O Records) represent the foundation of soundsystem culture and bass music migration from Jamaica, via the UK, to the world. Formed in the 1980’s and with over 30 studio albums to their name. Finally, for the first time in three decades Steppas Records has launched the A&O full LP reissue series. The latest in the series is 'Overstanding' a timeless and much sought after album originally released in 1992 currently only available at sky high prices if at all! Lovingly re-mastered and presented in the original sleeve featuring the iconic A&O artwork. Overstanding is another genre-defining album and a true piece of musical history.

For more than a decade, Jamaica's Micah Shemaiah has been crafting his musical message with a keen and steady focus on Rastafari redemption and African unification. His writing style embraces and combines several genres of music delivering unique sounds that will appeal to any ear. Coming from the original home of the sound, Kingston City, and growing up in the Rastafarian house of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, this Singer/Songwriter has certainly put down a solid foundation in the Reggae Industry and has carved a place in the hearts of reggae lovers all over the world.

This new 12' vinyl LP offers 8 vocals and 2 dubs. Produced by Zion I Kings and underpinned with their trademark style of hardcore roots reggae, showcasing a broad spectrum of Micahs vocal talents. Releasing courtesy of Before Zero Records.