Beats Vinyl New Releases - News

Piezo returns to Facta and K-LONE’s Wisdom Teeth imprint with a 5 track EP of experimental, warping, majestic club music. Since his last outing on the label, the Milanese producer has refined and consolidated his aesthetic considerably: through a spree of crucial releases on his own label, Ansia, and then with the release of his essential debut LP, Perdu (released in 2020 on experimental powerhouse Hundebiss). LSD Superhero sees him bring together the goofy, club-ready aspects of his output on Ansia with the meticulously crafted cybernetic sonics of his debut LP, but with the addition of something new: melody. The title track opens the record with house lights up: glitching percs build around gasseous pads and trembling subs in a drawn out climax that finally collapses into a rolling technoiddembow beat at its midpoint. Next, ‘Unto’ squeezes the producer’s wonky, sub-heavy sonics into a 4x4 template - one of those special 5 am tracks that will appeal equally to dubsteppers and minimal heads. (Remember that time Shackleton appeared on Perlon?). ‘TB2’ - a collaboration with label head K-LONE - balances nectar sweet melodies with bust-up drums and glitching FX hits, while ‘Dijitz’ sees him flex his full melodic knack for an eyes down, half-stepping synth workout. To close, ambient wobbler ‘Xxx^_^x’ refracts bass music sonics into something sprawling and shadowy - like an old Benga track exploded and

The long awaited third album from much loved vintage synth maestros Billy Bainbridge and Mike Johnston, finally finds its home on Ghost Box Records. This is unironically joyful and melodic electronica; informed by library music, music for children’s TV and a deep passion for the history of music technology.

Plone are very much part of Ghost Box’s DNA. They were a central part of the 90s retro-futuristic scene in Birmingham that included Broadcast and Pram and to which the label has always had strong ties through graphic designer and co-manager, Julian House. They are also cited by the label’s other boss, Jim Jupp, as a major influence on his work as Belbury Poly.

The band was formed as a three-piece in the mid-90s and their debut single, Press a Key, was championed by John Peel. The first album, For Beginner Piano, was released on Warp Records in 1999. Their warm, witty and unfunky music stood out from the crowd, almost in defiance of the moody and masculine post-rave electronica of their contemporaries.

A selection of bootlegged demos from the early 00s was rumoured to be the follow up album, but it never materialised. After that Billy went on to tour with Broadcast and later formed Seeland with another former band member Tim Felton (also of Ghost Box’s Hintermass). Meanwhile Mike formed the ZX Spectrum Orchestra, released solo singles as Mike in Mono and was a member of The Modified Toy Orchestra.

Twenty years on and Plone have reconvened as a duo with a third album, Puzzlewood. It’s compiled from material recorded at various points since the “lost album”, right up to the present day.

Racah is an on-going collaboration between South England based sound artists RSPTN (f.k.a. Rasputin) and The Bricoleur. Their Summoning / Edge Lands is the 6th entry into the Bladud Flies! Abhorrent Jukebox 7" series. Selected from over four hours of continuous music, these two short tracks are microcosmic distillations of the nighttime recording session as a whole, downbeat, fugue state ambience occasionally boiling over into pulsating blasts of noise.

The claustrophobic Summoning takes some cues from dub with a distant bass line propelled by a slow lurching beat and spluttering space age electronics, while Edge Lands is an even more disparate and dissonant affair. Murky, blown-out tones shift into pink noise as the childlike chimes of a carillon lullaby echo sinisterly in the background.

The 7" lathe comes housed in a beautiful screen-printed sleeve with yellow paper inner. A particularly elegant touch is the BF! logo and catalog number that has been engraved on side A.

Racah is the merging of RSPTN (Milk & Beef) and The Bricoleur delivering dysfunctional and anxiety driven electronica. Produced by RSPTN and The Bricoleur. Mixed, mastered and lathe-cut by Michael Lawrence at Last Offices, Bladud Flies!

Racah is the merging of RSPTN (Milk & Beef) and The Bricoleur delivering dysfunctional and anxiety driven electronica. Produced by RSPTN and The Bricoleur. Mixed, mastered and lathe-cut by Michael Lawrence at Last Offices, Bladud Flies!

RSPTN (formerly Rasputin) is a London based producer and one half of both Racah and Milk & Beef. North/South is his first solo release for Bladud Flies! and the fifth volume of the Abhorrent Jukebox 7' series.

On Planet North, the resonance of temple gongs and dreamy tape-reversed ambience are interspersed with snippets of dialogue before settling into an almost industrial middle section. Blown-out, slowed-down drumkit and an off-kilter guitar loop disperse into what could be a symphony of tambouras propelled by a fantastically heavy hip-hop beat of the Madlib/Dilla variety, of which there are many throughout North/South.

The melancholic tremolo of a minor-key classical guitar phrase opens Planet South, accompanied by beats and the nocturnal noise of a thousand crickets chirping in the background. The track shifts gears abruptly: field recordings and a Puerto Rican jazz double bass line give way to hypnotic, Congolese inspired rhythms.

This LP focuses on recorded sound and structures made with recorded sound. How the original sound was produced and the objects used in the production of the sounds is of secondary interest. Tiny details in the sounds are important and what might appear to be insignificant, dull or uneventful is often salient. Acute, obsessive listening brings these elements to the fore. 
In the process of making these structures, meaning begins to emerge and unfold. This is always highly subjective, ambiguous and uncertain and might fleetingly resonate with many ideas, objects, narratives and situations that are not connected with sound.

Inspiration often comes from existing music but also from the entire history of ideas and, again, a tiny detail might produce a kind of creative resonance. Curiosity is predominant and drives forward the process of composition.

"Can a music made with the modern tools of digital music and contemporary production sound eerily as if created with the same equipment that Stockhausen, Henri and Berio all availed themselves of in the radio studios of the 50s and 60s – and yet sound bright and fresh to the ears of today's listeners? Robert Worby shows us how, with Factitious Airs." — Carl Stone

THE NEW SELECTA VOL. 1 is the first of 3 new records to be released by Richard Wilson under his Rognvald moniker via WIFETRAX on Love Love Records.
The New Selecta is an explosive exploration into uncharted territory of the deepest and dankest UK jungle using a 'future-old skool' template. Deep, gut-busting bass fires down through swampy ambient clouds while hyper-edited breaks crack like lightning, swelling into moody skanking grooves. The hyper-retro-futurist junglizm of The New Selecta rushes too relentlessly to have been put out all at once so listeners will get their fix in 3 instalments in order to prevent fainting.

Rognvald, aka Richard Wilson, returns at full throttle with part 2 of 'The New Selecta'. Rognvald's unique future-old skool sound continues to evolve in this release, the third 12" in his WIFE series. You will travel into unknown subterranean territory with 'The New Selecta', exploring the limits of break choppage and granular sound design on a loved and familiar soundscape, as well as 2 dread filled cuts of swampy ambient reductions.

Using a minimal sound palette to maximal effect, Rognvald deconstructs and abstracts the tropes of old skool jungle. Blending blunted breaks with burrowing subatomic sinewaves, euphoric rave vocals lead to a nuclear ruffneck ecstacy.

The first release under Richard Wilson's Rognvald alias kickstarts the new WIFE series with four solid punches of breakfueled rave mania. The pitch black title track "R.O.G.N.V.A.L.D" serves as a fierce introduction to his fresh material with its epic scale combination of relentless drum work and meticulous arrangement. Up next is the hefty chunk of "Whistle Posse", all rude basslines and rave whistles finely tuned for maximum dancefloor damage.

"Lowcol Junglist" opens the B-side with it's masterfully slick drum control and enormous bass drops followed by the subterranean drum hypnosis of closer "Asbiorn". This is bass charged jungle warfare apparatus with a modern ruffneck flex from a man who knows how to murder the dance with precision.

Roly Porter returns to Subtext with 'Kistvaen'. The LP takes its name from a type of granite tomb found pre-dominantly in Dartmoor, an area in southwestern England. Scattered across the moorlands, the kistvaens were often found covered in a mound of earth and stone. They housed dead bodies, allowing them to lie facing the sun.

With 'Kistvaen', Porter speculates on the burial site as a mirror, or a gate in time. Excavating stories and images of ancient burial rituals, the record teases out similarities in emotional and social rituals between the Neolithic period and today. While a myriad of social, cultural and technological factors drastically differentiate our contemporary period and the end of the Stone Age, certain affinities may still be found in experiences of death across eras.

Venturing across histories, Porter soundtracks a moorland burial unanchored in time. Raw, unprocessed vocals are folded into field recordings made in the area, wordlessly relaying tableaus of burial rituals in Neolithic Dartmoor. 'Kistvaen' features three singular vocalists—Mary-Anne Roberts, from medieval Welsh music duo Bragod; Ellen Southern, of Bristol's Dead Space Chamber Music group; and Phil Owen, a singer and researcher in vocal traditions.

It’s a dark, moody affair, populated by 17 nuanced neon-noir synth score cues for a film not yet made. There are moments when this album flows like the Cliff Martinez-Makeup and Vanity Set collaboration that never was, and others when ’80s Vangelis shines through. There are other instances that tend to sound like something released on Burning Witches Records or, yes, like the work of John Carpenter. But it’s never derivative of any of those composers, instead somehow blending all their better angels into something rich and rewarding for the listener.

The entire world of Darkly Dreaming – disturbances that shift about like cold specters at night and which sit uncomfortably on our chests like anthropomorphised anxiety - manifests intensely through each haunting synth run, shuddering rhythm, and reverberated guitar part on the album’s 17 engaging, unsettling, and slightly hopeful tracks.

Stacked Up At Zero is the new full length instrumental LP from London based artist / musician Ross Downes and is a carefully crafted record fluctuating between calm solace, foreboding tension and ambient longing. Fundamentally an electronic record, synthesisers create a darkly ethereal setting, evoking entranced contemplation that regularly gives way to more shadowy territories. From comforting to concerning, it captivates through an inventive combining of genres.

Stacked Up At Zero is an intensely intimate and personal record. A place that Downes built to occupy, wander and give voice during a difficult year. It’s a record of psychological landscapes, between truths that need comfort and fictions that give escape. The influence and love of cinema permeates the record. Downes builds a world, creating an environment influenced by soundtracks, potential narratives and a propensity for the dramatic.

Evocative sound design and field recordings provide atmospheres that accompany, place and shroud the melodic and compositional preoccupations of the record. The influences, from a multitude of approaches and styles, contribute to a dynamic collection of shifting densities that reference minimal, ambient, industrial and contemporary classical music.

Drones shift and fluctuate whilst a myriad of synthesisers propel, distort and drift. Expansive groaning bass frequencies lay ominous foundations for progressive lines, vast sci-fi pads, digital ticks, sampled strings, disembodied voices and sparse percussion immersed in cavernous echoing reverb.

Recent musical activities from Downes have included compositions for large European art installation projects. During 2019 he contributed a piece to Mischa Kabul’s long running installation Res-o-nant at the Jewish Museum, Berlin. In 2018 he composed a lengthy work for his collaboration, with Cologne based, artist Sebastian Freytag on an ambitious light/audio installation titled Sygnal for The Museum Slaskie, Poland. He has recently completed work on soundtracking Turner Prize winner Laure Prouvost's Sydney Bienalle exhibition which opens this Spring.

The first commercial release from sound artist Samson Stilwell, Signals was produced combining synthesized sound and field recordings to take the listener through a rich, dynamic soundscape, melancholy yet uplifting, contemplative yet buoyant.

Interdisciplinary artist Sébastien Robert strikes an emotive and explorative tone on his debut album Emerging Threshold, interpreting and layering field recordings and adding swathes of synthesised sound to conjure up an experience that reads and sees the cosmos in the mundane. The album touches upon kosmische musik, but does so in modern and updated form. This is ambient music that digs beyond the ambient perspective as the intensity of all tracks is mostly subtly confrontational and leaves little room for distance.
Robert investigates disappearing indigenous rituals, exploring their sonic, visual and contextual characteristics and translating them into works of art. Emerging Threshold is the result of his sonic exploration of the western flank of the Sierra Neva volcano in Chilewhere he recorded its immersive geological activity and natural echo, all the while experimenting with the tonal variations that can be produced by the trutruka, a traditional wind instrument of the Mapuche people of south-central Chile. Capturing the landscape's complexity and focusing on the subtle modulation of different physical states, Robert plays with the ostensible randomness apparent in his recorded material, igniting an interpretative stance on field recordings that is subtle and openended. Emerging Threshold is both intensely intimate and cinemascope.

Mastered by Robin Koek / Distribution by Crevette
Photography by Sébastien Robert , Artwork by Anatole De Benedictis, Layout by Jonathan
Castro Alejos

‘Gentle Persuaders’ is the Love Love debut from London based neo-noise-jazz outfit Sly & The Family Drone. In the form of a four track long player, Sly vomit forth a smooth serving of curious and clattering noise not devoid of fun.

With the ingredients of shattering baritone saxophone, splurges of analogue noise, rolling drum derangements and snarling feedback it is immediately clear that these formidable noise-mongers have honed their methods of ear-attack adeptly. Textural spaces are peppered with bouts of densely packed controlled-chaos creating a tension that builds almost imperceptibly until the crushing pay-off that comes with the final track.

The politest of bludgeonings, ‘Gentle Persuaders’ has a real sense of cohesion and style, at times subtle and at others shudderingly direct.

With their unusual and interactive live shows, the group cut their teeth stunning the audiences of punk and noise scenes across the UK and Europe. Now, Sly & The Family Drone present their most complete recording to date; a rush of sheer ataxia ushering in a new age of noise.

Soccer96 is made up of two thirds of The Comet Is Coming, currently whipping up a cosmic storm on their Mercury Prize nominated album Channel The Spirits.


Their bold approach to improvised composition, recording processes and experimentation is reminiscent of Flying Lotus, Can, Thundercat and Gaslamp Killer.

STATIC (ORIGINAL SURF SOUNDTRACKS VOL. 1) released this Spring serves to stir up the wanderlust for those new frontiers.

Ethereal soundscapes, lo-fi guitar excursions and rising orchestral, neo-classical moments summon images of the wild, awe-inspiring surf destinations - Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, The Faroes and beyond. Aficianados of cold water cinematic adventures will already be familiar with CJ's work. The album is a selection of 8 tracks, each originally composed for one of a number of award winning surf films scored by CJ Mirra over the past four years. The light, the landscape, the size of the waves and colour of the water all had an influence on the sound,' says CJ on harnessing the essence of these cold water locales.

A musician and composer, CJ Mirra's entry to the world of surf film came through acclaimed director Chris McClean after Chris heard an early track that was leaked online. This led to a unique partnership that has produced over 20 short films screened at festivals worldwide from SXSW to London, as well as the award-winning live A/V show 'Chasing Zero'. The critically acclaimed 'Edges Of Sanity', with poetry by Dan Crockett narrated by Charles Dance, features on the album alongside a series of evocative and ethereal tracks taking the listener on a journey across an epic surfscape.

CJ Mirra will be on tour in late April / May. The new live band features renowned surfer/ musician LeeAnn Curren and will be accompanied by visuals from Chris McClean.

SW2 returns to GD4YA after his previous release with Moses Boyd, this time with Joe Armon-Jones & Badwithphones+

Remixes from SP:MC & Hodge

WAYS OF SEEING is a beautifully produced and melodically rich suite of electronic pieces from The Advisory Circle and was inspired by late 70s and early 80s melodic electronic library music.

The Advisory Circle is the work of Jon Brooks, melodic and often melancholic electronic music inspired in part by soundtracks and library music of the 70s and 80s. Brooks is a stalwart of the Ghost Box label and an extraordinarily prolific artist. He has released five albums and four collaborative singles as The Advisory Circle. He also records as The Pattern Forms with Ed Macfarlane and Edd Gibson of Friendly Fires.

He works with vocalist Tim Felton as Hintermass, and along with Ghost Box founder Jim Jupp he is half of The Belbury Circle. Under his own name and several pseudonyms, he has released albums on Clay Pipe Music and his own Café Kaput label. Before joining the Ghost Box family in the early 00s Brooks recorded for Lo Records as King of Woolworths.

As a producer and mastering engineer, Brooks is a contributing presence on most Ghost Box releases. He has years of experience as a commercial and library composer and his mastering and audio restoration skills are much in demand, particularly on re-issue labels such as Trunk Records.

The CD&LP packaging is designed by Julian House. Elegantly simple artwork and typography, reminiscent of 80s photographic manuals and magazines, is rendered on metallic gold foil packaging. The heavyweight vinyl LP includes a free download card.

The Art of Sleeping Alone marks somewhat of a curveball within Burning Witches ever-growing catalogue, and fans of the label's output may wish to look away now. But they'd be wrong to, of course, because nothing is that simple. Nothing!

Oh Baby are Rick Hornby and Jen Devereux - distant cousins, apparently, who met in unexpected circumstances and began creating exquisitely crafted bitter-sweet 80s-sounding pop songs (that in a parallel dimension would be sung by Carly Rae Jepsen and be soundtracking sweaty end-of-summer evenings across the globe).

The band cite influences ranging from Grace Jones, A Certain Ratio and Kraftwerk, to John Carpenter, The Police and Fun Boy Three, but I'm going to chuck HAIM in there too for a more modern reference point to what some of this music reminds me of, certainly on the fabulous 'Part of the 80's' anyway.

The latest entry into Bladud Flies! Abhorrent Jukebox series denotes something of a departure for Hastings based producer The Bricoleur. While Path of the Nyau Perpendicular To Everything shares a similar headiness to The Bricoleur's previous introspective drone work, this latest offering is a far more confrontational and spontaneous affair, bristling with punk rock energy.

On Path of the Nyau heavily manipulated gamelan samples trigger in flurries that overlap and intertwine, bringing to mind Harry Partch's microtonal compositions for percussive instruments, Wolf Eyes in-the-red industrial brashness and fellow British explorers Liberez. Perpendicular To Everything sees long lost snatches of naively prophetic and desperately paranoid radio transmissions disintegrate into a molasses-slow hip-hop beat.

Combining ethnic and electronic music into impossible clamorous forms, The Bricoleur offers a brief yet beatific blast of ritualistic noise.

"...what an Imaginative, challenging, funny and crookedly beautiful world it is."
Shindig

The Focus Group return with a dreamlike kaleidoscope. Like the zonked soundtrack to a disorientating Saturday morning kid's show with strange animations, fun facts, your poetry and all the latest pop-psych sounds.

The Focus Group is the work of Ghost Box co-founder Julian House. His graphic design has graced sleeve art by Broadcast, Stereolab, Oasis, Primal Scream, Can and many others. House's music reflects his collaged design work, it's woven together from fragments of electronics, heavily processed samples and exotic instrumentation. It's an uncanny and atmospheric sound that invokes memories of British psychedelia, Italian horror movies and Eastern European animation.

The lavish CD and LP packaging is designed by Julian House. The 180gm LP includes a free download card.

...the spirit of a certain experimental, baroque psychedelia is alive in every one of these tunes.'
The Quietus

...this is an archaeology of emotion, a philosophically motivated exploration of the power of not just one's childhood memories, but of the collective unconscious.'
The Wire

...a simultaneously playful and unsettling electronic psychedelia that's distinctly Ghost Box and richly rewarding.'
Record Collector

Thames presents diverse sound interactions along the River Thames that surprise with their musicality. As we travel from central London to the river’s furthest estuary, it feels like we’re travelling back in time. We hear the sounds of nature and industry in competition, from the pitched, quasi-musical sound of Tower Bridge lifting up, to the marsh frogs of Allhallows. 
“This collection of field recordings by the London Sound Survey brings the Thames to life through sound. Over many years Ian Rawes has made an audio mosaic reflecting this extraordinary landscape, from Tower Bridge to estuarine marshes and a now-lost oil refinery, allowing listeners a unique insight into the experience of these places.” — Rachel Lichtenstein, author of ’Estuary: out from London to the sea’ (Penguin, 2016)

Since 2008, Ian Rawes’ London Sound Survey has documented the changing sound of the UK’s capital through a huge array of new field recordings, capturing every aspect of London life. Ian began making field recordings of London street life partly because he believed the city’s rate of change was quickening.

The London Sound Survey went online in 2009 and has grown since to include much sound-related historical material as well as over 2,000 modern-day recordings. As the project has progressed, the soundworld of London has changed, with familiar sounds becoming extinct imperceptibly, never to be heard again.