Suche:la synthesis

resh imprint Caldeira open their account with the first vinyl retrospective of Swiss composer Louis Crelier, whose FM sorcery and LinnDrum drama takes the listener away to an imaginary Africa.

Standing proud amid the sound waves, Caldeira emerges with a singular mission; to bring us music with hidden depth. Whether it’s a reissue or retrospective, archival or original, each release reflects the Michelin-grade tastebuds of label founder Camille Bertin AKA Plastic Bamboo.

Operating out of the shadow of Les Puces, the Saint-Ouen digger, DJ and producer has turned those in the know onto a wealth of zouk, boogie, proto-house and Balearic bombs over the past couple of years, but it seems he’s saved something truly special for this first release.

Rich with FM synthesis, infectious rhythms and evocative motifs, Rester Partir transports us to a fantasised Africa, found onstage at a Lausanne Theatre in 1985. Scoring a story about a 19th Century French missionary’s trip to Timbuktu, Swiss composer Louis Crelier created his own sonic landscape, capturing the exoticism and otherness of an imaginary Mali. Though the hypnotic rhythms and cascading mallets conjure images of the continent, the queasy keys, dubby idents and synthetic sonatas suggest something more interplanetary - picture James T. Kirk and Spock beaming down into the ochre dust of a ruined city.

Aided and abetted by a selection of ambient interludes, jazzy diversions and polyrhythmic excerpts from Crelier’s film work, as well as the exceptionally Balearic Deep In The Dale from TV series Alpine Academy, the largely unreleased compositions on Rester Partir finally break the fourth wall to find the wider audience they deserve.


Words by Patrick Ryder

Caught somewhere between environmental sound studies and surrealist sonic architecture, SUGAI KEN helps mark the 30th release of Field Records with an ambitious new album. Commissioned by the Dutch Embassy in Tokyo, Tone River is the product of a year’s intensive work between artist and label, created in part to examine the relationship between Japan and the Netherlands with regard to water management.

While its doors to the Western world were closed during the 17th and 18th centuries, Japan kept abreast of Western science via a Dutch trade post in the bay of Nagasaki. When the country changed from a feudal society to a modern democracy through the turn of the 19th century, Dutch engineers lent their expertise to large-scale water management projects. One of the most prestigious projects of the time was the Tone River, which stretches 322 kilometers across Honshu, Japan’s largest island.

For this project, SUGAI KEN travelled to three points across the Tone River and used regular, binaural and underwater microphones to record environmental sounds, seeking to express the change in landscape of the river in its flow into the Pacific Ocean. On Tone River, these varied recordings are interspersed and juxtaposed with Ken’s distinctive take on synthesis, where raw and precisely sculpted textures and tones interact in stark, neutral space.

On this conceptually rigorous, yet beguiling and free-flowing record, SUGAI KEN glides between the elemental and hyper-synthetic in a flexible exploration of sound and story

The album 'Balance' by Frank Bretschneider & Taylor Deupree was originally released in 2002 by Mille Plateaux on CD only. The 9 tracks on 'Balance' are a perfect example for the aesthetics to arise within the Click & Cuts scene and (ambient-)glitch music movement of the late 90s and early 2000s.

The two masters of microscopic sounds and sine wave/white noise-based music constructed these seamlessly mixed pieces around rhythms and melodies, which grants the album plenty of dynamics. The wide variety of carefully chosen ambient sounds throughout the whole work endows 'Balance' warmth and intimacy.

The recordings are now available for the first time on vinyl within the KeplarRev series, presented in a new updated artwork based on the original layout with photographs by Taylor Deupree.

From the original press release in 2002:

"Balance is the first and so far only collaborative release from Frank Bretschneider (Berlin) and Taylor Deupree (Brooklyn). Both of these artists are no strangers to the ears of many; Taylor Deupree is one of New York's most vibrant electronic producers. From his early techno days as a member of Prototype 909 to his current status as one of N. America's key "microscopic" electronic composers and to add runs the prestigious 12K and LINE labels. Frank Bretschneider is a key member and founder of the prestigious Raster Music label, he has critically acclaimed releases under the names Komet and Produkt. It's easy to say that Frank Bretschneider has created some of the most influential spatial electronics of the late 90's.

Utilizing both artists keen ears for carefully crafted sounds, Balance blends the clean sine wave / white noise of Bretschneider with the defined grit of Deupree's granular synthesis. Realized entirely on Nord Modular synthesizers, Bretschneider and Deupree exchanged patch files through email and began constructing foundation loops. Bretschneider then created initial mixes of 9 songs and then sent them to Deupree who remixed and re-processed them. This digital exchange allowed for them to work using their own methods and aesthetic while combining the similarities of each others interests. The result is a looping and churning rhythmic work that is both synthetic, warm, dubby and tonally challenging. Thus Balance creates an engaging balance between the 2 artists aesthetics."

nine-sum sorcery is the debut release of Berlin-based sonic duo LABOUR, the ambitious project led by Farahnaz Hatam and Colin Hacklander gaining a reputation since 2018 for their large-scale works and collaborative pieces in large concert spaces and museums such as Kraftwerk Berlin, Martin Gropius Bau and Kunsthalle Zürich. Since 2020 they are residents on NTS with a monthly show.
Grounded in the rich and enigmatic digital soundworld of LABOUR, nine-sum sorcery features the renowned Kurdish singer, Hani Mojtahedy, a prolific performer and recording artist firmly grounded in the traditional vocal styles of both Kurdistan and Iran.
Following LABOUR’s now legendary closing of Berlin Atonal’s main stage in 2018 with their inaugural work, next time, die consciously (یگناگیب), the duo embarked on a grand journey with Hani Mojtahedy, towards a remarkable synthesis of traditions and practices, uniting computer music and avant-garde sensibilities with traditional vocal practice.
nine-sum sorcery is a long-form piece that unfolds over two sections, A and B, and can be understood as an occult incitation to the dark energies, natural, political and otherwise, that are released when oil is extracted from the ground. This ritual is focused through the enigmatic electronic and percussion composition from LABOUR which alternates between foreground and background for the haunting vocal performance of Mojtahedy, who interprets Kurdish and Persian verses.
This is first release on Studio LABOUR, the new independent label in Berlin that provides a platform for avant-gardists creating works based on sound.
Studio LABOUR seeks to contribute toward spaces of non-conforming social practices and identities, and revisits the nature of work as a potentially transformative activity.
From sound artists to electronic musicians to composers; visual artists to performance artists to critical theorists; the represented artists are united not via discipline or genre, but rather through individuated orientation towards radical perspective that are either based-in or engaged-with sound as a medium, at least in the instance of their release/work with the label.

“Inner Touch is the embodiment of Nicolas Field within the electronic music art form. With a storied history informing their most recent work, Inner Touch is a concise vision of transformation and relinquishment. The music is both simple and deceptively deep, best suited to those seeking moments of transcendence on the dancefloor.

Throughout the last decade, Nicolas has toured extensively around the world, mostly with punk bands, galvanizing a thirst for moving and connecting people through music. Along with dozens of musical collaborations and releases, Field has published Farewell Manly Strength: Masculinity and the Politics of Emotion (Furrawn Press 2018), their take on the contemporary state of masculinity and gender identity. There is a wisdom and thoughtfulness that guide Nicolas' art, a calm and focused resolve that renders a delicate intensity.

100% Gone is the debut EP from Inner Touch. A five track exploration of synthetic textures, pulsing beats and polyrhythm that would happily bop in any night club. Yet these tracks hold the listener effortlessly to a place of fulfilled solitude and with a wonder for the natural world. This juxtaposition of solitude and community, nature and synthesis is what makes Inner Touch so special and a joy to listen to.”

Suzanne Ciani is a true electronic music pioneer. The five Grammy nominated Italian-American neoclassical composer is unquestionably one of the greatest minds that contemporary music has ever witnessed. After an incredible career spanning forty years, Ciani’s accomplishments have become a benchmark when discussing the origins of musical synthesis. For more than four decades she developed a body of work that transcends the music industry, composing for film, video games and famous advertising campaigns that have impacted popular culture. On December 14, 2019, after six years of sound experimentation, Lapsus Festival bid farewell to Barcelona’s Centre for Contemporary Culture. Its final event was entitled 'A Sonic Womb' and was dedicated to the musical roots of the synthesizer, with Suzanne Ciani headlining on the night. Ciani performed an exclusive show accompanied by her modular Buchla 200e synthesizer and enveloped in a specially designed multi-channel sound environment by Intorno Labs. It was a sonic voyage to the very heart of her beloved machine and a tribute to improvisation through an instrument that is said to possess its own soul. Suzanne described the night as ”an improvisation that I began using in the ’70s and continue to use now as raw material. Each performance based on this material has its own expression and one could liken it to jazz." Lapsus Records is therefore extremely honoured to present 'A Sonic Womb: Live Buchla Performance at Lapsus', a unique live recording of this extra special concert.

Worldwide Award winners First Word Records are pleased to welcome back Souleance; a duo that have been releasing music with us for a decade now, and triumphantly returning to the fold with some brand new music for 2020.

This vinyl / digital EP, 'Les Mouches', is their first release for First Word since the acclaimed beat-tape 'French Cassette' from early last year.

Expanding on the original Normand-Parisian super-duo of Fulgeance and Soulist, the Souleance crew now includes Vincent Choquet on synths and Guillaume Rossel on drums as part of their live outfit. Whilst sonically their style remains unchanged, the formation into a full band sees the Souleance sound become bigger, more realised and more formidable than ever.

The title track 'Les Mouches' sets off the EP in a playful disco manner - a chugging bassline, assorted synthesisers, disco claps and a four-to-the-floor drum track, inspired by the likes of Larry Levan and Candido. Meaning "flies", Les Mouches was a legendary Manhattan club that existed around the era of Studio 54, and was infamously a hangout spot for Imelda Marcos. The club itself was named after a play by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Next up is the single 'Aquarelle' (meaning watercolours), which contains more layers than a Bob Ross painting. With its various elements splayed across its aural canvas, sprinkled with some subtle scratches, it's four minutes of funk presented in Souleance's inimitable way.

'The Bounce' follows and enters a more soulful side of the dance, dropping the tempo a touch and inviting in a huge bassline, squelchy keys and intermittent vocal hooks.

'Mont Maudit' takes more of a latin jazz direction with big drums and cymbals rocking throughout, whilst an infectious piano hook cruises throughout, and an ethereal gospel choir switches up the proceedings mid-way.

Things get deeper still with the epic broken beat-esque 'Maneuevers'. Crunchy rhodes dominate this slightly tweaked-out rhythm, a delectable piece of heads-down nujazz fused with Souleance's unmistakable funk once again.

'L'Opuleance' closes out this EP with some more traditional Souleance fare - the tempo a little more head-nod, this one is comprised of some deliciously wobbly bass, chopped samples and hefty breaks.

This EP is essentially a set of grooves marinated in nostalgia whilst managing to sound entirely current. Analogue synths, live bass, sleek cuts and intoxicating drums. This is another round of sure-shot dancefloor fire from our favourite French family.

Previous support has come from OkayPlayer, Bill Brewster, BBC 6 Music's Gilles Peterson, Tom Ravenscroft & Huey Morgan, and various DJs on Worldwide FM, NTS & Le Mellotron,

Veteran NYC based Scottish electronic musician Drew McDowall's latest work is his loftiest, most liturgical, and least industrial outing to date —and potentially the apex of his recent discography.Named after an ancient Greek word for votive offering, Agalmaexudes a hooded, devotional aura, creaking and keeling under vast rafters of stone, stained glass, and shredded wires. It's a music of majesty and mystery but also modernity, McDowall's refined modular system shape-shifting strings, piano, pipe organ, and choral masses into disorienting synthetic mirages of the sacred. He cites the intersection of “joy, terror, and the elegiac” as a centering inspiration –or, phrased more bluntly, “that 'what the fuck is going on' feeling.”



As a career collaborator himself, with stints in Coil, Psychic TV, and countless other shorter-lived partnerships, it's telling that McDowall chose this project to gather such an impressive spectrum of peers. Italian synthesist Caterina Barbieri, American drone organist Kali Malone, prolific multi-instrumentalistRobert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, operatic Humanbeast vocalist Maralie Armstrong-Rial, Saudi producer MSYLMA, and warped futurist beat-makers Bashar Suleiman and Elvin Brandhi cameo across the album's 42 minutes, contouring McDowall's nuanced negative spaces with shudders, shadows, and shivering flickers of serenity. Each of them shines in their spotlight, elevating these elusive alchemical states into surreal revelations of texture and transcendence.



McDowall's original working title for the record is revealing: Ritual Music.He speaks of his creative practice in ceremonial terms, negating binaries by seeking the middle path to anuminousequilibrium that erases the distinction between the inner and outer worlds.These compositions feel similarly processional and intuitive, at the crossroads of holiness and hallucination, the sacred vertigo of yawning naves rising into untouchable night skies. It's a vision of industrial music as enigma and invocation, cryptic hymnals of shroudedbeautysummoned in catacombs and crumbling cathedrals.



Despite its depths, Agalmais also an album of immediacy and emotion. Celestial laments of and for times of unrest and suffering. McDowall characterizes his initial intention for this music as an to attempt to convey experiences he felt incapable of putting into words: “To try and approach sublimity, or at least acknowledge it in some way.”Agalmamore than acknowledges the ineffable –it embodies it.

Absorbing new album from this very special artist. Hand printed sleeves. Very limited edition.

Marta De Pascalis is an italian composer living and working in Berlin. Her solo works employ analog synthesis and tape loops, incorporating free playing into steady, repetitive patterns. She has produced two albums of Berlin School minimal synth excursions: the self-released Quitratue (2014) and Anzar (The Tapeworm, 2016). Her new piece ‘Her Core’ has been published on spring 2018 by The Wormhole. Marta creates densely layered collages of glowing melodic shards and growling bass lines, her hypnotic minimal synth figures warping and whirling around each other before dissolving into entropic oblivion. For her compositions she uses improvisation on a tape-loop system, in which patterns of repetition create a sense of a dense, dynamic and cathartic distance.

All music by Marta De Pascalis Recorded at WORM Sound Studios in Rotterdam, artist's studio and Big Snuff Studio in Berlin, between 2019 and 2020. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Artwork by Lorenzo Mazon Studio. All rights reserved to the respective owners. doser039LP - Morphine Records 2020

Dynamic Dublin-duo Boots & Kats get given the keys to the House of Disco channelling an Italo Disco rave of interplanetary proportions for HOD028. Three pure peak-time pumping Italo warpers, complete with an exquisite Johannes Albert’s Party Talk remix to round off the package.

Fists in the air business in a far-away planet, one where synthesisers rule the lands using colossal kicks and huge snares to enhance the power of their all-encompassing arps that range from rapid fire bass to gargantuan top lines. Johannes Albert then throws in some party chatter and deft sampling to his reworking of ‘Party Talk’ completing this futuristic capsule of interstellar goodness.

It’s the best of that ‘80s Italo sound given a modern take that harnesses Boots & Kats’ unbridled Irish energy.

yellow & clear green marbled vinyl

For the inaugural EP, FOLD resident Gareth Wild presents "Common Assault". With metallic tubular synthesis, cut-throat percussion and rolling rhythms, this EP is an effective and essential piece of material demonstrating all angles of Techno, immersive to peak-time.

The release features three original tracks and two locked grooves from Gareth with stripped back, dark-side remix work from Madrid's very own Roll Dan.

Featuring bespoke, full colour cover art by designer Lion Sauterleute and pressed up on coloured neon wax the release lands 25th September at all good outlets.

In the meantime, check out the snippets on our Soundcloud. The movement continues!

It's been three years since the last vinyl by Ntogn was unveiled and now we're glad to share with you the result of his venture through the recent winter.

'Smedjan' is inspired by the dwarven craftsmanship of Norse mythology. It is made completely with organic sounds gathered from, and recorded in, the forests of Bålsta which is rich with northern heritage. Everything you hear is either processed textures of birch wood blocks, layers of a custom made Ukrainian artisan mouth harp or the artist's own voice.

There is no synthesis in this record. The kick drums are made by hitting these pieces of wood against each other with contact microphones. Bass layers are extracted from bark scraping against bark. Hi hats are crafted by recorded fire of the same wood logs burning and ambiance is built from the forests where the trees grew and from the woodshed where the artist chopped the wood during winter to keep his cabin warm. The rhythms and sounds in this shed is what inspired the making of this record.

By shaping these sounds of wood and metal Ntogn strives to create a sonic experience that connects the listener to the old Norse stories of the dwarven craftsmanship of Svartalfheim. It is they who made the famous trinkets and weapons that empower the gods of Asgård through stories of trickery and despair which has later inspired tales and literature for over a thousand years.

The record has been distilled from material that was meant to become a two-hour live set specifically made for Mo:dem festival which was unfortunately cancelled due to the corona pandemic. It was also the foundation of the artist's thesis at the university of sound design where he made a study of the effects of organic sound on an electronic expression such as techno music.

It will be released digitally and as a 200 copy limited edition black vinyl adorned with an artwork drawn by the artist's partner Gabriella Holmström using the ashes of the same birch wood blocks that was used to make the sonic content.

The record has received early support from Francois X, Takaaki Itoh, Abstract Division, BLNDR and Rambadu to name a few.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Ntogn en'togg-n is a conceptual electro-acoustic project developed by Hypnus Records' founder and sound design graduate Michel Iseneld (b. 1988, Sweden). It aims to breath life into a fascination for magic with the use of contemporary and classic sound design techniques. This has resulted in what Resident Advisor's William Lynch describes as 'fierce, artistic techno that sounds like little else out there' and a discography ranging from earth-shattering techno to dark, throbbing ambient excursions.

After spending nearly three years in isolation, deeply lost in literature on history, philosophy, occultism and epic fairy-tales; Michel developed an inner world which eventually found an outlet through the means of music in 2013. By the use of field recordings and various samplings of his voice and surroundings, something peculiar sprouted as his inner images started to manifest and mature into an organic sound inspired by the emerging hypnotic deep techno scene.

Today, all music is released on his own imprint Tome in order to preserve the projects' artistic freedom and originality. After two years of sound design studies at the university and a new-found passion for modular synthesis; there's plenty of music in store aimed to satiate the curious minds.

Caiphus Semenya, AKA Mr Letta Mbulu, is a South African legend, and Listen To The Wind, his iconic debut album, is simply a superb modern-soul/boogie album. It’s also incredibly rare, especially in good condition, so Be With is delighted to present this reissue.

Now a revered composer, musician, and arranger, Caiphus left apartheid South Africa in the 60s for self-imposed exile in Southern California together with his wife, Letta Mbulu. Settling in Los Angeles he started working with the likes of Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba and other exiled and semi-exiled South african artists, as well as, of course, his wife Letta.

Caiphus also found himself working with and composing for a broad range of jazz and pop artists, including Lou Rawls, Nina Simone and Cannonball Adderley. His facility with both jazz and African forms served him well. His LA stay was also the beginning of an ongoing collaboration with Quincy Jones, the fruits of which can be tasted in Caiphus’s African compositions for the scores to Roots and Spielberg’s adaptation of The Color Purple.

Given his decades of work behind the scenes, it’s no surprise that it took until 1982 for Caiphus to get around to putting out the first album of his own. But all that experience shows. Listen To The Wind is a deeply impressive synthesis of early 80s US production and instrumentation together with his traditional South African musical roots.

It’s stylistically diverse but the ingredients are never diluted. There are elements of boogie, soul, funk and jazz, all shot through with pan-African flavour, and moving effortlessly from uptempo floor fillers to more meditative, slower soulful tracks. Produced by Caiphus himself, he makes full use of a stellar line up of session musicians including Nathan East, Michael Stanton, Sonny Burke and Paulinho DaCosta. And of course, there are Letta’s show-stopping vocals. To our ears, Listen To The Wind is just one big party, and lord knows we need that more than ever right now.

Opener “Angelina” is one of Caiphus’s most beloved tracks at Be With HQ. It’s a breezy, feel-good SA boogie-funk classic. Harmonic and horn heavy, it sounds as fresh today as it would’ve done in the early 80s. If this one doesn’t make you move, you may need your pulse taking. The drum breakdown alone, a little over halfway through, is sensational.

It’s followed by the gentle reggae lilt of “Play With Fire”. A real melodic slo-mo delight, carried by the tropical vibes and, above all else, by the extraordinary performance of Caiphus himself and his backing singers.

Closing out side one, the spectacular “Umoya” is driven by triumphant horns and slick bass. With its proto-Graceland vibes, we reckon Paul Simon must’ve been listening. Hard. Caiphus trades verses with the unmistakable tones of Letta, and it sounds divine. Yes, it’s as good as anything on Letta’s canonical In The Music… The Village Never Ends. A wide-eyed wonder, made for unity and togetherness, it’s all infectious, smiling faces for nearly nine minutes. But never mind nine, we could party to this for ninety minutes and “Umoya” would leave us re-energised for ninety more.

Elegantly firing up side two is perhaps the album’s best known track. “Without You” is a heavenly slice of modern soul, an end-of-nighter to end them all. Smooth strutting, disco-fied funk with that unmistakably South African sound, it’s just sublime, with those lyrics that keep coming back to smiling faces and community, “without You the sun won’t shine”. Big with the likes of Rush Hour’s Antal, this is aural perfection.

“Ziph’inkomo” is a soul-soothing, swooning epic. Gently building throughout, its final few minutes are genuinely stirring as the backing vocals and instrumentation swell. Jaw-dropping. The irresistible groove of frantic, percussive workout “Gumba Boogie” closes out what must surely be one of the greatest artistic statements of the 1980s. If his friend Quincy wasn’t feverishly taking notes for Thriller, then you could’ve fooled us.

With Simon Francis handling the mastering of this Be With edition, you know it sounds as fantastic as ever. The cover art, as breezy as the music, has been faithfully restored. All that’s missing is you.

Back in 1999, label boss Ewan Jansen took receipt of demo tapes by Kai Kroker (AKA Rawell) who subsequently appeared on Red Ember’s very first compilation record ‘Deepsounds One’.
These forgotten demos (lost even to Rawell himself) plus further works from 1995-2002, span a 2LP release of deeply emotive minimal house, techno & leftfield; an earnest synthesis of minimalism and romance from Berlin in the 90s. Included also is an ambient/downbeat 6-track digital EP (including the original version of ‘Tailwind’).
Move D’s gloriously moody and life-affirming ‘90s galore mix’ of ‘Tailwind’ is a very special reunion between close friends; the pair’s last collaboration dates back to 2005 under the ‘Faked.Info’ moniker and both recorded together along with Jamie Hodge under the collective ‘Studio Pankow’.

The second offering by Julie Carpenter’s textural orchestral entity Less Bells takes its title from a storied strain of decorative objects worn in remembrance of lost loved ones: Mourning Jewelry.
The album shares a similar mood of devotional pageantry, stirring ornamental laments born from a need to “create beauty out of grief.” Utilising an amalgam of strings, synthesisers, and choirs, the pieces ascend and descend in grand, glimmering arcs, ebbing from passages of “baroque complexity” to expanses of haunting emptiness. Certain songs also skew more overtly western than ever before, deeply reverbed plucks of banjo refracted against glowing horizons of sunrise drone: Americana gone ambient.

Furthering the music’s mystic intentionality, the track titles comprise “the major arcana of a tarot deck from an alternate universe,” lorded over by the “Queen Of Crickets,” ruler of “The Gates,” “The Fault,” and “The Fang.” Even so, the record requires no psychic divination to glean its fragile majesty, its muted tumult of mirage and melody. The beauty it possesses is too blatant, and bountiful.

The different seeds that have been planted throughout the life of Croatian Amor come to bloom on 'All In The Same Breath,' affirming an equilibrium that's all its own. Spiralling through the half-light electronics are gentle bumps and breaks that are layered into moments of elevation. A coarse edge remains just an arm's length away, but there is an unmistakable element of celebration throughout the album's 10 tracks. As the syncopated terrains ring out, their perpetual rhythmic motions call a medley of human voices that speak in security. They sing to everyone just as they sing to themselves. In the years since the seminal Croatian Amor album 'Love Means Taking Action' Loke Rahbek has strode a twofold path. There are the delicate, meditative compositions that he has made with Frederik Valentin; setting acoustic instrumentation against affecting digital treatments, each of their collaborative albums are an exercise in the magnificence of subtle restraint. And with the sharpest of turns you'll find Rahbek's parallel universe of rave-shocked rhythms and kinetic helixes that eddy through genre and tempo with few constraints. Collaborations with Varg²™ have yielded the wildest of this, and remain ongoing, yet the traces were already apparent across much of the previous Croatian Amor album 'Isa' with its treated vocalizations and cascading rhythmic mechanics. 'All In The Same Breath,' arrives as a steady handed synthesis of these divergent instincts. Elaborating the distinct techniques and themes that form the wistful essence of the project, the album's quiet composure is a sign that these familiarities have been set adrift to settle into their own private ecosystem.Small vessels travel in a perfect array. Light following shadows, following light. Every movement a signal, every second is camouflage. 'All In The Same Breath' is perhaps more than anything an invitation to be open to wonder.

ALTER is proud to present ‘Tendrils’, the first LP release from London based artist & musician Malvern Brume. After gathering some hushed praise from the UK underground for a couple of excellent cassette releases and strong local live performances, ‘Tendrils’ is the first definitive document of the Malvern Brume sound world. His instrumentation and sound sources would be considered familiar staples in the world of “experimental” music, but Salter does an admirable job of making them his own. Comprised of 8 pieces, this is electronic music at its core but a kind that sounds as if it’s being played through fog. Like spores growing on a damp surface. Densely composed and thick with an almost asphyxiating atmosphere - even during the record’s more minimal moments - track titles like ‘Caught In The Exhaust Trails’ and ‘Sunk Into Plastics’ only heighten the tone further.

Salter was originally born in the countryside and since relocated to London, a place he finds “over stimulating in every sense”. Much of ‘Tendrils’ could be taken as a response to the city and a means of equating the two. Camberwell is listed as the location for composition, but field recordings are attributed to rural landmarks. The Rollright Stones on the Oxfordshire / Warwickshire border and Seven Sisters Cliffs by the English Channel are two in case, but despite their picturesque origins Salter renders them into abstract clatter. As if dubbed from the private tape archive of an old eccentric. In addition, synthesised electronic tones hum and buzz, occasionally giving away to strange, slurring sequences that sound like lost transmissions from the radiophonic workshop. Despite the nod to this electronic music institution, it’s lacking the sincere level of esteem that can turn one into a heritage act. There is a strangeness and distant other worldliness to the music that feels unselfconscious and keeps Malvern Brume from being easy to define by contemporary terms.

Salter says the album is defined by movement and the environments that have inspired him over the years. In his own words, “each of these tracks is inspired by a journey or moving through a space, not in a wishy-washy cosmic sense but more as a practical A to B.” With that in mind, ‘Tendrils’ is perfect music for solitary inner-city marshland walks and urban bike rides to forgotten local suburbs.

Outfitted with anthemic romps, tongue-in-cheek pastiches, and percussions that pivot from rolling adventures to rain hitting the windowpane, Intimacy's 'Across the Bridge' marks the artist's fifth release on vinyl and first release on Bouquet.
A grab bag of fun, dancefloor-ready tracks written across 2019, the EP delivers his aesthetic of old computers, sci-fi movies, and science class educational videos configured into deep, spacey line-toting bedroom techno and melancholic house.

The title track features a catchy electroclash-esque (!!!) saw wave bassline, complete with emo Roland D50 strings and bells, all laid over a very beefy electro beat. It crossbreeds a Drexciya strain of low-end thump with a chewy, Eurotrash bassline evoking that time you lost your wallet at Tresor in '98. Strings and bells from the Roland D50 introduce the same euphoric high found in most of the products crawling out of Perdue's lab these days.

'Angelo's House' is a full-forced banger built around a well-traveled sample of Angelo Badalamenti's theme from Twin Peaks, recorded from an Intimacy live set early last year.

The flipside leads with the spiritual acid techno masterpiece 'Datalore 66'. Bubbling basslines hit a boiling point when placed in sequence with flutes showing genetic linkage to the Hartnoll family. Highly reactive material.

'Eternal September' opens a portal to the earliest hours of morning via synthesis of swirling pads and snapping drums. Closing the EP in introspective fashion, the track shows just how much emotional range Intimacy can pull out of decades-old disciplines.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Parks Perdue is a Memphis-born electronic musician. A culmination of internet research and home listening in the club-barren Tennessee city, his style draws from stoned out Dutch West Coast concept albums, video game soundtracks, and old-school midwest house and techno. Perdue made his vinyl debut under the alias Intimacy in 2016 on the short lived UK, DJ Haus-run label Vector Works. Perdue is now based in Los Angeles, California.

2020 reboot for Detroit's legendary Metroplex.

The Label Say "Cologne based producer Bas Grossfeldt has crafted an outstanding release perfectly aligned with Juan Atkin’s brilliant Metroplex aesthetic. As a relatively new name in the scene, Bas Grossfeldt’s music sounds as if it were the results of decades of focused experience in the studio.

With a background in installation, choreography and performance art, Bas Grossfeldt is the artists alias to focus on the musical side of things. His deeply rooted interest in the relation of space and body is also translated into his music. The fusion of spaced-out textures, rhythmical distortions, cold waves of synthesis, and enough modern production prowess ensures a release saturated with innovation and abundant imagination. A rare release for the seminal Detroit label, which also represents Juan Atkins’ interest in the arts world and new, different approaches.

The exchange between the label head and the artist, initially came to life because internationally renown conceptual artist Mischa Kuball, knowing Juan from a joint project, sent him the demo of Bas Grossfeldt. Especially intrigued by the track „Lost In Translation“, Juan and Bas started exchanging, approaching the record as an „art project“ and a classical EP at the same time, for example leading into the cover being made by Bas Grossfeldt/Søren Siebel himself and including numerous hidden references to the sound.

Each track embraces an incredible array of sounds and styles, from soundscapes to mind-bending Techno – all equally as effective for the brain as the dancefloor.

“Lost In Translation” opens the release with a cinematic piece of electronica permeating with frozen emotion and melancholic soul. The beautiful track captures a foggy morning’s haze, the first chill of winter with only a gentle kick-drum keeping the cold from completely taking over. It is also accompanied with a hypnotizing abstract video by film-artist Svenja Voß.

Continuing in a dubby, winter haze is “Lost In Sensation” which floats alongside a sharp, metallic rhythmic arrangement and a gentle, ever-present kick drum. Deep, heavily saturated atmospheric textures sleep underneath the sounds while lucid melodies float in and out.

“Your Orbit” rounds out the release with the most club-ready production. Disorienting melodies and gritty synths capture a dreamlike perception while a tough kick drum and clattering percussion drives the music deeper into undiscovered dancing territories just left of center. "

The Oystercatcher is the first collaborative LP from Cucina Povera (Maria Rossi) and ELS (Edward Simpson)

Recorded in London over two days, hours' worth of improvisations have been edited down to form these six tracks.

A fragile interplay is at work between Maria's drifting vocals and the ominous churn of Edward's modular synth. Each sonic element takes a turn at leading the way.

The opening track 'Mantle' is formed from sparse, monolithic electronics, woven gently with a thread of vocals. In the closing track 'Eon' Maria's voice shepherds spontaneous bursts of sounds, almost Rave-like if order were imposed, through 15 minutes of turmoil and resplendent until the end.

Maria's vocals make their own trails amongst the noise, bringing to mind the the exploratory language from Ursula K. Le Guin's album 'Music and Poetry from the Kesh', recalling the same understated mystery.

The overall effect of this collaboration is a completely unique creation albeit within a recognisable lineage of predecessors.

The artwork reflects the vision of these two artists, collaged together. Both images are from a trip to Helsinki. Edward's photograph of Tulips caught after dark are reviled by a flash. Maria's seemingly abstract drawing is a graphite rubbing taken from a granite slab of a pavement somewhere in Kallio. Together the two images represent two different methods for capturing a city's haptic landscape.

The album moves with a feeling of transience, which is no surprise given that the idea to collaborate was formed in Helsinki, realised in London and edited together in Rotterdam.

The Oystercatcher tells a fragile tale, one that spins out into the unknown. A cold union of voice and machine, still tentative and probing, learning to co-exist. A kind of fundamental shift whereby shared moments have been turned to sound.

The Oystercatcher is a bird that can freely travel between the earth, sea and sky. The motif is taken from a Tove Jansson short story. A dead bird washes ashore, two different versions of events are presented to how the bird came to die. The album feels like two different stories being presented on top of one another but ultimately coming to the same tragic conclusion.

Cucina Povera is Maria Rossi - Vocals
ELS is Edward Simpson - Synthesisers
Recorded in London across two days during the Summer of 2019
Mastered by Russell Haswell