Beats Vinyl New Releases - News

In October 2021, Spazio Per Azioni Luminescenti culminated the Close Range music residency programme at Het HEM contemporary art centre in Zaandam, the Netherlands. A haunting audiovisual performance and site specific immersive installation, it evokes elements of sound, spoken word and articulated light design. The recording is a twenty minute sonic journey in four moments, each interlinked with one another. This format reflects the iterations of the work which was performed live twice a day over two days. The piece was presented by Tutto Questo Sentire, an artist collective consisting of experimental soprano Olivia Salvadori, composer and cellist Sandro Mussida and filmmaker and video artist Rebecca Salvadori. The group is accompanied by guests Osàre! founder Elena Colombi on synthesiser, vocalist and producer Coby Sey and light artist Charlie Hope.

Conjuring the afterglow of creative encounters; the dying embers that linger when the curtain has fallen, Spazio Per Azioni Luminescenti illuminates impressions embedded in architecture; the echoes of the past that emanate as sensations, affect and memory. Interweaving classical instruments and singing with synthetic production and field recordings, for each performance, Hope sampled the colours of the evening sky, projecting the fluctuating shades of orange like a slowly revolving lighthouse beacon. Emerging from the captured footage, sound and light design processes are concepts of fragmentary action, stillness and rotation, the passage of time and circular motion of circadian rhythms.

Located along the banks of the North Sea Canal, Het HEM is a former industrial munitions factory. Unfolding between the looming white metal girders that make up the building’s infrastructure, Spazio Per Azioni Luminescenti opens with a low hum from Colombi’s modular synth, the oscillations reverberating through the concrete and steel. Filmmaker Rebecca Salvadori plays out fragments of her videos, inviting the audience to listen and imagine the missing images, envisioning “what remains” absent, while Mussida draws a slow, incandescent chord on his cello strings. Voices echo, snippets of conversations between the artists involved, Het HEM's director and curators. Sey harmonises with Olivia Salvadori’s otherworldly soprano, their vocals amplified through a quadraphonic, site-adapted speakers. Slipping into the surreal and uncanny, Spazio Per Azioni Luminescenti plays deftly with spatially: utterances surface, then disappear into the shadows, as ephemeral as a sunset.

Words by Hannah Pezzack

"Erosion" capture the essence of transformation and decay, weaving together layers of distorted beats, haunting melodies, and unexpected sonic explosions.

Evitceles layers each track, employing the interplay of harsh industrial elements and delicate atmospheric textures.
This dynamic fusion serves to explore profound themes of resilience, and the inexorable passage of time.

A visceral exploration of emotion viewed through the lens of post-industrial and ambient soundscapes.

Credits:
Written and produced by Etien Slavchev
Mastered by Red Dungeon Studio
Artwork by Atra Bilis

Notte Brigante is back in the longplayer spheres, unearthing for mother earth nine tracks by French producer, musician and PMR label runner ASSID, that spellbind under the entitlement “Connaissance des Lois Cosmiques“. An utterly surprising, dark-ish fever dance of many styles, synth-ages, tribal zones, and cosmic flashes! Ingredients, that ASSID sucked up from his many musical adventures.

In every story of things that go bump in the night, there are two possibilities. One, that it's a hoax. Two, that there is something going on beyond the grasp of the human mind". And so begins 'Two Knocks for Yes', Black Channels' radiophonic exploration into the poltergeist phenomenon, initially released in 2015 by Castles in Space on a limited edition cassette.
This new remastered vinyl edition presents the same mix of real life stories of paranormal activity with otherworldly vibrations and oscillations conjured up on the Buchla Electric Music Box.
The second of only two releases by the short lived group and a sequel to their brilliant debut single on Death Waltz Originals, “Two Knocks For Yes” continued their preoccupation with other worlds, parallel dimensions and the dark tapestry of the imagination. Chilling accounts of nocturnal visitations and strange activity in the most mundane of suburban surroundings echo in and out of focus alongside electronic manifestations and tape manipulations in this 20 minute experimental radio collage.

Side two features wonderful incidental instrumentals soundtracking true ghost stories which provide essential tools for all paranormal investigators and otherside travellers.

Each record comes with a Ghost Spotting Report Form, perfect for recording the spiritual visitations conjured by this new vinyl pressing.
Simon James (Black Channels) will be performing at the Castles in Space Levitation Festival on the 5th November to launch the album.

Repress

DJ X-cess returns to Burning Bush Communications 25 years after his first release on the label with 2 slamming breakbeat hardcore stompers in the '92 style

From limited run of 180 black vinyls - in printed sleeves featuring artwork originally hand sprayed by Dare who did all the original Burning Bush artwork back in '94-'95

Repress !

Selva Discos returns to the LP reissue game with a bang – by giving a new life to the stunning and very sought-after Memória das Águas album by Fernando Falcão. Originally recorded in 1979 in Paris but only released independently in Brazil in 1981, the album comes complete with genre-hopping explorations that swirl around ambient soundscapes, lively jazz, experimental-leanings, Afro-rhythms and a unique blend of Latin grooves and French pop with a Brazilian accent, but it also comes with a story as deeply unique as the music.

To make a long story short, after participating in the political movements against the military regime in 1968 in Brazil, Fernando Falcão left the country and moved to France, where he lived in exile for 15 years. There, after working in music, acting, and sculpting, he involved himself in Jérôme Savary's legendary Grand Magic Circus, where he met his first wife, Valérie Kling. It was from this relationship that a partnership began between the musician and his father-in-law, the artist François-Xavier Lalanne, who guided Falcão in the process of inventing sound sculptures such as the balauê – a horizontal version of the berimbau string instrument whose sound was influenced by a water stream (since there was a hose soaking parts of the balauê wet during the performances). Much of this exploration and experimentation resulted in the album Memória das Águas.

The album still sounds like little else from the time. As audacious and experimental as it is seamlessly listenable, it takes in immersive textures one moment before breaking out into Fela Kuti-esque brass-soaked grooves the next. It’s ultimately a record that captures the spirit and rhythm of Falcão’s homeland combined with the lush production and art-pop approach associated with his exiled home; It’s a polished, well executed and glistening record. Its fusion of African, Brazilian, jazz, pop, classical and avant-garde collides to create a record that spans as many continents as it does genres.

Remastered from the original master tapes, not only the sound but the artwork of Memória das Águas was completely and faithfully restored. Also, the reissue comes with unprecedented liner notes featuring rare photos of the musician and his sound sculptures plus articles that help to explain who Fernando Falcão was and where Memória das Águas sits among other staples of Brazilian music, including one from DJ and selector John Gómez – who helped to connect Selva Discos' Augusto Olivani with Diana Lion, Fernando Falcão's daughter (since the musician died in 2002), for this project. After Memória das Águas, Selva Discos will also reissue another long lost Fernando Falcão LP album – Barracas Barrocas.

Garagen Uwe’s debut studio album on Beatbude Records. Nine springy instrumentals with features by Ralph Heidel and Sebastian Alexander Gieck!

When the world"s chatter is hushed to a whisper and emptiness replaces clutter, time falls away completely, exposing a vast, open canvas for the imagination filled with reflection, contemplation and abstraction. On their first collaborative album, released via Caterina Barbieri"s light-years label, Grand River and Abul Mogard gaze longingly into the abyss, capturing atemporality, splendour and tranquility with confident, impressionistic sonic strokes.

Anonymous producer, limited copies..

The label says: "Kéléjé” shows Kiko Navarro returning to Canopy to herald in the 10th vinyl single on the label. Enlisting the vocals of Kaleta, Kiko transports the atmosphere to somewhere off-planet, in orbit among a nebular of synth lines, hypnotic vocals and electro-afro-beat rhythms. Underpinned by weighty sub frequency oscillations, Kéléjé delivers a deep and powerful late night afro inspired dance floor workout."

Neroli is back with a new album project by long time hero and music mastermind Kirk Degiorgio. This project links the Planetary Folklore aesthetics and Kirk’s praised contribution to The First Circle, the beautiful ‘Leave Everything Behind’, in a very spiritual and ethereal way.

Born after witnessing Pharaoh Sanders performance at We Out Here festival in 2022, ‘Robe Of Dreams’ represents Degiorgio’s tribute to the artists that shaped his musical world.

Christopher 'Lav' Landin is a master of ambient sounds but it's been a while since we heard from him after 2017's collab with Purl on A Strangely Isolated Place. A New Landscape is a fresh album on Past Inside The Present that comes on limited and transparent orange vinyl. Contained within are a beguiling bunch of tunes with soul stirring pads, gently propulsive rhythms and gorgeous sound designs that call to mind various different references from deepest space to a warm spring day. It is an accomplished album design for mental escape.

2024 Repress


Straight out of the depths of East London, Hoxton Square to be precise. A location before gentrification, the area around Old Street in 1995 was full of young artists, musicians and record labels. Law & Auder were one of those bands, with a studio in the next road to the legendary Blue Note club. This is where these two tracks were created, two cuts that encapsulate the raw sound of the London jungle scene at this time.

This particular 12” is a bit of a cult release, with prices on Discogs for an original copy at a VG+ rating going for a £150 a copy, that’s if you can ever find one.
This is the second release from the group that we have repressed ON Vinyl Fanatiks, with Martin from the group also being a part of Utomica, another group that we repressed a few years ago.

Straight from the East London vaults.

Limited to 100 copies!

For the second release on Subject To Restrictions Discs’ White Series, Los Pashminas from Fribourg deliver a four-track sound experience for dance floors.

The complexity of the human experience has led to many theories, which tried to explain the emotional activity of our everyday experiences. In the ’60s Paul MacLean formulated the ‘Triune Brain’ model. This theory proposes a very simplistic organisation of our brain, which would be too easy to accept since the very notion of ‘change’ is difficult to give credence to. The wiring between our primary and emotional behaviour is much more complex and subject to plasticity and transformations. What if the very essence of music could follow the same path? Maybe music could take conscience of its own environment and develop its own wave, independently from the human will.

This EP is an essay in which symbolic samples are organising themselves into the genesis of a new form of conscience, a result of a survival-mode experience that pushes the music itself to create its new form. This sound journey was created during the 2020 Pandemic.

After its acclaimed first release, the mysterious entity Low Khey is back on Comic Sans Records with a killer 10 tracks album evolving around deviant industrial dancehall, experimental trap and balearic flavours. Including featuring with Catnapp, Enae and Stencil d'A.

In 2017, with the release of her first album Polaar, Maud Geffray – half of duet Scratch Massive – took a sidestep and imposed a fascinating, floating, melancholic and elegiac solo output.

Written, started, and finished within the last two years, and co-produced alongside young prodigy Krampf, Ad Astra is the logical continuation of Polaar, but much more pop, light, luminous, open to the world.

From ‘Break’, the first single, with its whipping beat, its undertaken Eurodance chorus and distorted vocals, to ‘I Fall at Five’, a sad electropop banger featuring Rebeka Warrior – from ‘All Around Me’, the opening track with its repetitive synth, edgy vocals and chilling melancholy, to ‘Fallin’, an extremely minimal song with harrowing piano and liturgic vocals – from ‘Don’t Need’, a sunny dance hit à la Pet Shop Boys, to ‘Royal Bellies’, a futuristic rnb featuring Koudlam – Maud Geffray is emerging from her cocoon with a new milestone in her singular and bewitching musical world.

Ad Astra is an electronic album without any complexes. Its beats are more asserted and dancey, its pads are erected like cathedrals, its vocals, while pitched and processed, are spotlighted, and references to 90s dance abound. Ad Astra switches from experimental to commercial with the same ease, the poppier bias shines throughout the danceable, exhilarating songs, as well as the more nostalgic and contemplative numbers, all the while bursting with energy and melancholy, youth and innocence, as if hanging suspended on the dancefloor.

*GATEFOLD 2LP**

Music From Memory are excited to present the first compilation of works by British electronic pioneers MLO aka Peter Smith and Jon Tye. Titled ‘Oumuamua’ and second up in the Virtual Dreams series, the compilation is an in-depth artist focused release containing twelve thoughtfully selected tracks that touch on highlights from the duo’s discography as well as newly (re)discovered music drawn from a vast archive of unreleased pieces, sketches and extended jams recorded between 1993-1995.

MLO’s ambient explorations began when Pete and Jon, having first met in rival punk bands during the late ‘70s, found themselves with unlimited access to an incredibly well-equipped studio, having been hired to produce an Icelandic pop star’s record in the early ‘90s. Particularly charmed by the Korg PS 3300 and an Emulator 2, Smith and Tye were also deeply fascinated by outer space and set about developing a musical landscape informed by both this new state of the art musical equipment and what lay beyond the Earth’s limits. Painting with a palette informed by classical minimalism, new age and the works of Cluster & Eno; the duos primary colours were drones, sustained tones, washes, calming tides, gentle temple bells and soft angelic voices with flickering glimpses of percussion and drums that hinted at the possibilities of a dance floor.

‘Oumuamua’ is a collection of music to get lost-in, a wander down the mazed, mirrored corridors of the subconscious. Peaceful, flowing, fresh-water patterns, drawing the listener toward a mediative, inner space. Not strictly ambient, rather the music rests temporarily within the boundaries between drum ‘n’ bass, library music, soundtracks and Techno. Or how Jon Tye himself puts it: “It really feels like music from a different place, a different time, made by different people.”

Artwork by Vica Pacheco, design by Steele Bonus, liner notes by Dr. Rob

Nick Walters returns to his D.O.T. Records imprint with a suite of forward thinking, cosmic, electronic-jazz experiments, inspired by NASA & the concept of gravitational singularity. Each track on “Singularity”, his first home studio produced album, is built around an audio sample recorded by NASA in space, then expertly transported back to earth by Walters via some magical trumpet and synth work on his newly purchased Juno-106. The album features key contributions from Ruby Rushton drummer Tim Carnegie, 22a Music’s Tenderlonious on flute and some sublime guitar work from Thibaut Remy.

Descending in tempo across three tracks, Outer Heaven states his case founded in breaks. ‘The Observatory’, ‘More Hardcore’ and ‘Minority Industrial Complex’ trail across the hardcore continuum connecting drum & bass to hardcore to hip hop. Essential listening for the discerning raver.

London-based producer Prayer is set to release a 3-track EP titled "Io" on Rua Sound's SPHERES series. Following previous releases on esteemed imprints such as Hooversound, Black Acre, and Grade 10, Prayer is known for creating atmospheric jungle with an emotive energy that can range from poignant to ecstatic.

Prayer flexes that muscle on opening track 'Set Me Free' with layers of vocals over euphoric breakbeats. "Break Through" takes a turn towards trance-influenced synths, building to a four-on-the-floor finale that reaches for the sky.

On the B-side, Reteoric takes over with an epic jungle track that clocks in at just under 12 minutes. The emotive energy of this track is aptly described as "epic" and serves as a fitting conclusion to the EP. Tim Reaper comes through with a remix of this track as a digital bonus.

Named after the third-largest moon of Jupiter, "Io" is the third release in Rua Sound's SPHERES series. The EP will be available on June 16, 2023.

Obvious Transfer are back with a killer third release from QNTM CTRL. The super limited OBTRAN003 EP delves further into the wormhole, with a heady mix of dub and techno on 'Smokehouse Shift'. An unmissable release from the new Cultivated Electronics-born experimental collective!

Rumore debuts on Hot Haus Recs with 6 low lung house jackers, super deep breakbeat houz 4 the headz!

"Voyager / Strange Thoughts" is the debut on Insomnius Music from producer and DJ Section 63, also known as Blade from The Sect, and is also the first vinyl release on the label as a whole. Rolling, techy drum & bass shoots through dark galaxies - both in digital format and as a clear blue 180g vinyl, with a printed cover and a blue padded inner sleeve. Mastering through Beau Thomas (Ten Eight Seven).

Steve Fors offers deeply physical music on his Hallow Ground debut »it's nothing, but still.« Having already established himself as a composer of visceral drone and noise pieces in various Chicago- and New York-based underground projects, Fors’s first release under his given name is even more dense and evocative than his earlier work. A concept album on the subject of breath, the Siavash Amini-produced record sees the now Swiss-based composer blend field recordings with electronic and acoustic sounds—most notably towering cello drones—to almost overwhelming effect.

Initially taking inspiration from living with a chronic lung condition, Fors meticulously crafts pieces that transcend his personal experience and reach for something universal. »The album is a study in melancholy and transience,« he explains. »And my intention is that the sounds trigger a memory, an image, a feeling in each of us. While our specific circumstances are momentary and discrete; joy, rage, and despair remain existential to our common experience.«

At first listen, Fors describes moments in time by building on a foundation of simple field recordings—an afternoon in a cathedral, the idling of COVID-19 morgue trucks outside Brooklyn Hospital, or the fleeting sound of wind in the trees—and then progressively overlays electronic and acoustic textures. On repeated plays however, the songs unfold, revealing a complexity, depth, and presence uncommon in current ambient music.

What makes »it's nothing, but still« such a memorable album is that it doesn’t impose anything on the listener, but rather offers them something to get lost in. From the first lush drones on the opener »(good enough) for now,« to the solemn piano chords on the title track, to the glistening cello feedback on »the way to heaven,« Fors’s sentiment about the record rings true. »If we surrender ourselves, these sounds can move us out of our present condition into a distinctly different existence, if only for a moment. If we choose to listen closely, we can experience the superpositioning of both memory and imagination in real time.«

Just as a film or painting does, recorded music proposes a space in three dimensions, it may not be permanent and it could be said to be illusory, but to us, in the moment, it is there.
Sunstroke were Ben Bollaert and Etienne Delaruye, both were obsessed with the burgeoning possibilities of electronic music it made sense that they collaborate in the studio.

The resulting experiments culminated in the 1985 release of Nothing's Wrong in Paradise.
The record was conceived as a soundtrack to a film that doesn’t exist - a sophisticated meeting of post-Berlin-school dreaming, Yen-records hi-tech calm and Impressionist Café music ennui. What makes it most compelling though, is that even while it conjures a seemingly perfect world, something around the edges lets you know that all might not be as it seems. Maybe there is nothing wrong in paradise. Or maybe that’s just wallpapering over the cracks. The rough edges and regret of everyday life cannot help but intrude. Once you have spent some time with it, the whole record starts to seem bathed in a dim half-light, suggesting utopia glimpsed through a smudged lens.

Just like the ethereal space in their music Sunstroke only existed for a moment, a second LP was planned but never materialised, Delaruye returned to theatre music and Bollaert opened a successful synthesiser store and was active in the New Beat scene. Briefly they created a paradise and pointed out its temporary nature, all at the same time.

Remastered from the Master tapes.e.

'Infinite Branches' explores multi-textural sound illustrations that encompass an array of calm tones and gentle movements. The ep features four beautiful arrangements by the artist with eight reworked vignettes- where two branches of the theme share a certain commonality, but never intersect. Infinite Branches is a compelling and inspirational paean to various forms and patterns of the ambient genre which include reworks by: 36, zake, Pausal, City of Dawn, Ai Yamamoto, awakened souls, Patricia Wolf, and Christina Giannone.

Repress

Debut release, its origins remaining in the murky shadows of anonymity for now. While drenched in sounds spanning back to early Jungle and Hardcore, these tunes are crafted with a sense for modern tastes, ready to flip the vibe in a brave DJ's 4/4-set. "Dream Support" bopps along nicely with warm chords and a skippy breakbeat, until the bottom end opens up with a big reese-workout and suddenly you're down at the blue note in 1996, filtered mentasm-samples and all. "Dawn Queen" follows a similar path, it's chugging breakbeat slowly getting friskier with some tasty amen-cuts.

Pareidolia Recordings is glad to present for her seventh chapter the first 2xLP "Electro Became Electro", a labyrinth where the deepest nuances of the electro blend togheter.
Seven artists, seven different ways of feels, interpreting and conceiving this genre, seven innovative minds.

The electro music without spaces and borders.

*delayed until September**

2LP Gatefold, with essay by Felipe Maia.

NTS presents funk.BR - São Paulo, an exploration into the magical and menacing world of the Brazilian city’s current baile funk sounds.

São Paulo has built up a reputation for its confrontational funk output over the past decade, and the emergence of the mandelão sound has underlined this. This riotous strain of baile funk has been tailor made for the favela parties (so-called bailes or fluxos) of the Brazilian megalopolis. Played across the bailes do Helipa, Bega, Marcone and Casinhas, mandelão now spans a wide range of sub-genres; from hypnotic ritmado to brutal bruxaria.

This 22-track collection of previously unreleased songs finds starlet producers like Blakes, Arana, and Bonekinha Iraquiana sat alongside scene stalwarts and national icons like Deekapz, Mu540, and the inimitable MC GW. It all serves to make funk.BR - São Paulo a vital snapshot of this sensational city’s musical magic.

The symbol on side A is a more than 3000y old Chinese letter signifying "dance", probably a shamanic dance for the gods or a rain dance.

The illustrations on side B are both from France, the menhir is the "Dame de Saint Sernin" and the bison "de la Madeleine".
Picture in the background was taken in Yakushima, a southern island in Japan that is the model for Gibli's Princess Mononoke
Concerning the music, take a break and relax