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As the title suggests, this is the third instalment in the Err Rec Library series. Following on from Urban Spaces (Vol.1), and Science & Technology (Vol.2), part three is themed around wildlife and nature, although that might lead some down the wrong garden path. Less bird noises and gentle wind noises floating on an ambient dreamscape, more arpeggiation saturated in an air of mystery. Half the arrangements here could have soundtracked an episode of The Twilight Zone, but crucially all sound human, or at least of this world, rather than some other.

As per the other outings in this series, all arrangements are original, and call on some esteemed and experienced composers to realise grandiose ideas. Production involves analogue synthesisers, electric instruments and acoustic alike, with the overall result being a captivating oddity that can't help but inspire you to consider the wonders of this strange, beguiling life.

Long-dawning long-player by Pacific Northwest producer Hunter P. Thompson aka Akasha System spins a suite of remote outpost rhythms and old-growth electronics variously inspired by “days and nights spent in the forests,” “long stretches of back road trails,” and “sitting alone under moss-covered trees.” It’s club music for misty mornings, towering redwood canopies, and overcast skies above uninhabited terrain: Echo Earth.

Recorded across the fall of 2018 at Thompson’s lava-lit Portland home studio, the album’s eight tracks trace cyclical arcs and seasonal tides, churning and yearning, meditative motion patterns flickering like holograms projected in the rain. Following key appearances on Elestial Sound, Neo Violence, and New Information, Echo Earth embodies all Akasha’s most evocative and elusive sonic strategies in a nuanced naturalist landscape of rust and radar, information and isolation, wires woven like roots beneath ferns.

Please welcome to the Time Is Now family one of the scene's most exciting talents. London-based drum specialist, Bluetoof, brings the heat with a multigenre 4-track EP, featuring a weighty refix from the likes of Manchester badman, and close compadre, Interplanetary Criminal. A multi-faceted EP to keep its listener on their toes. The title track gets things off to a steady start with a minimal bassline and complex percussion, inspired rhythmically by breaks but textured by layers of hollow drums which lend it a more organic sound. Next up, "Perilous" takes things on a darker, more bottom-heavy turn with a traditional two-step beat and a womping bassline, suited to the club's early hours. As to be expected, "That Got Dark" continues in the same vein. The focus remains on percussion with a skipping, half-broken rhythm which is interrupted momentarily by breaks overtaken by a stomping 4/4 beat. Finally, enter Time Is Now family member, Interplanetary Criminal, who extends the 4/4 propulsion to create a pacey speed garage banger.

Cherry Drops is a collection of tracks written by Call Super. It was started around the time they were working on a larger project called Tell Me I Didn’t Choose This, that reflected on a period in their life of upheaval, trauma and self-discovery. That project is bound up in a series of compositions for a self-made instrument called an Epi-Harp, clarinet, piano and percussion and a collection of paintings, two of which feature on the covers of the two releases that make up Cherry Drops. However the music on Cherry Drops became a release from that project, a distraction from painful reflections and recollections. It had to be music with a direct dancefloor connection because it was in thosespaces where Call Super found release through those pivotal periods in their life.

»Neon City« is the debut release by Erik K Skodvin & Otto A Totland's Deaf Center project, finally re-issued 18 years since its first appearance.

Listening to »Neon City« in 2022 is like taking a melancholy journey down rainy city streets of the early naughts, made by the then two young Norwegians in their mid 20s after spending time together in a basement full of vintage items. Armed with young optimism and a sense of musical experimentation, they started sampling everything around them, be it an old television broadcaster, tape recorders, a game of table tennis or conversations on film and merging it with pianos, plucked guitar, strings and anything in-between. The record turned out as something unique in the fields bordering post classical and ambient music, though without landing on any set genre. The record was filling a place in music that was barely touched upon and made them further experiment with samples and classical music which landed them on the 2005's classic »Pale Ravine«.

Although Erik and Otto both had been making music solo before, »Neon City« was the start of their more focused future paths as purveyors of both light and darkness in music that seeps through your soul to battle the anxieties of the world. We're glad to see this important start again be available to new ears. The record comes with a remix of the opener track “Dial” by Helios aka Keith Keniff, taken from the same original.

140g Black vinyl LP – Printed inner sleeve – Sealed plastic sleeve

In Trux We Pux is an editorial project organized by the Porto based label and collective Favela Discos. Focusing on the city’s thriving experimental and improvised music scene, it sets out to portrait in a series of four volumes some of the characteristic sounds and collaborative practices that have been in development in Porto during the last few years.

In Trux We Pux 02 contains the first of Favela Discos’ collective pieces to be published, and it was chosen to represent a long series of site-specic pieces developed by the collective since its formation. Most of the time these pieces remain lost in time or in the label’s archives.

Desilusão Óptica is an audiovisual piece developed for the festival Serralves em Festa 2017 and was recorded between the concert and rehearsals. The piece is influenced by the book Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks, and tries to explore the notion of auditory hallucination, in this case based on the idea of a phantom sound unconnected to its object.

Starting quietly with a single flute note, Desilusão Óptica slowly grows fuller but more uncomfortable as the pitch rises gradually in a hypnotic effect. The sound we hear is a mix of the sound produced live, its manipulation and repetition, thus the piece exists between the time when it happens, its immediate repetition and ghosts of past sounds.

The flute, delayed and sampled, embodies both the sounds it produces and memories of past sounds, creating a confusion between objecto and sound. The sound is produced by an object but is at the same time separated from it, like in Mulholland Drive when we watch a singer emotionally dedicated to a performance and whose voice keeps on singing even when her body collapses.

Like in Dub Music, the musicians are divided into two groups: those who play, in this case divided by winds, percussion and electric guitars, and the dub master / sound manipulators who launch samples of previous recordings and manipulate the sound that is produced live, through loopers and delay pedals.

Originally released in 2008 on CD and in a very limited vinyl edition, "The Malady Of Elegance" by Goldmund aka Keith Kenniff finally gets its long-deserved vinyl re-release, featuring a new artwork and remastered audio by Taylor Deupree.

Taking cues from 'Corduroy Road' Keith Kenniff (aka Helios) again restricts himself to the piano in conjuring up his humble soundscapes and again we are pulled into a deep, meditative and filmic world as the notes glide to a slow, pensive meter. Keith's precedent release was the challenging 'Two Point Discrimination' EP, released on the Western Vinyl label as part of their portrait series, but where that record was a collection of haunting experiments in form and sound, 'The Malady of Elegance' sees us back into the warming, homespun territory of 'Corduroy Road'. That's not to say these compositions are upbeat, far from it in fact, but there are lines to be drawn to folk music, and while Keith no longer draws on the American Civil War as a primary influence there is still the sense that the ghosts of old America haunt the keys.

On top of these references we see Keith tripping somewhat fittingly into a flickering filmic world somewhat in line with his taste in European film. There is a delicate narrative on show throughout the record from the opening hopefulness of Image-Autumn-Womb through the melancholy of Now to the sensitive romance of the album's closer Evelyn. Listening to the record almost creates its own cinematic accompaniment in the minds eye, and this is simply a testament to Keith's incredible talents as a composer.

Fans of Erik Satie, Sylvain Chauveau and Hauschka need look no further, 'The Malady of Elegance' is a deeply personal meditation which you cannot help but get lost inside.

* Repress * Vinyl reissue, made in cooperation with the artist's estate * Full reproduction of the original LP jacket and original liner notes in both Japanese and English * New liner notes by Yoko Yoshimura and Spencer Doran / Maxwell August Croy * Debut release from Empire Of Sign in partnership with Light In The Attic Records Despite his status as a key figure in the history of Japanese ambient music, Hiroshi Yoshimura remains tragically under-known outside of his home country. Empire of Signs-a new imprint co-helmed by Maxwell August Croy and Spencer Doran-is proud to reissue Yoshimura's debut Music for Nine Post Cards for the first time outside Japan in collaboration with Hiroshi's widow Yoko Yoshimura, with more reissues of Hiroshi's works to follow in the future. Working initially as a conceptual artist, the musical side of Yoshimura's artistic practice came to prominence in the post-Fluxus scene of late 1970s Tokyo alongside Akio Suzuki and Takehisa Kosugi, taking many subsequent turns within Japan's bubble economy afterward. His sound works took on many forms - commissioned fashion runway scores, soundtracking perfume, soundscapes for pre-fab houses, train station sound design - all existing not as side work but as logical extensions of his philosophy of sound. His work strived for serenity as an ideal, and this approach can be felt strongly on Music for Nine Post Cards.

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Despite his status as a key figure in the history of Japanese ambient music, Hiroshi Yoshimura remains tragically under-known outside of his home country. Empire of Signs-a new imprint co-helmed by Maxwell August Croy and Spencer Doran-is proud to reissue Yoshimura's debut Music for Nine Post Cards for the first time outside Japan in collaboration with Hiroshi's widow Yoko Yoshimura, with more reissues of Hiroshi's works to follow in the future.
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Working initially as a conceptual artist, the musical side of Yoshimura's artistic practice came to prominence in the post-Fluxus scene of late 1970s Tokyo alongside Akio Suzuki and Takehisa Kosugi, taking many subsequent turns within Japan's bubble economy afterward. His sound works took on many forms - commissioned fashion runway scores, soundtracking perfume, soundscapes for pre-fab houses, train station sound design - all existing not as side work but as logical extensions of his philosophy of sound. His work strived for serenity as an ideal, and this approach can be felt strongly on Music for Nine Post Cards.

Home recorded on a minimal setup of keyboard and Fender Rhodes, Music for Nine Post Cards was Yoshimura's first concrete collection of music, initially a demo recording given to the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art to be played within the building's architecture. This was not background music in the prior Japanese 'BGM' sense of the word, but 'environmental music', the literal translation of the Japanese term kankyo ongaku given to Brian Eno's 'ambient' music when it arrived in late 70's Japan. Yoshimura, along with his musical co-traveler Satoshi Ashikawa, searched for a new dialog between sound and space: music not as an external absolute, but as something that interlocks with a physical environment and shifts the listener's experience within it. Erik Satie's furniture music, R. Murray Schafer's concept of the soundscape and Eno's ambience all greatly informed their work, but the specific form of tranquil stasis presented on releases like Nine Post Cards is still difficult to place within a specific tradition, remaining elusive and idiosyncratic despite the economy of its construction. This record offers the perfect introduction to Hiroshi's unique and beautiful worldview: it's one that can be listened to - and lived in - endlessly.

Margaman aka Truespirit returns to the Liondub label after 6 years with a solid selection of his signature Jungle D&B cuts. With a sound that is all his own, Margaman delivers classic, authentic, rolling Drum & Bass music that takes us on a serious Jungle Trek. Support from Congo Natty, DJ Marky, Soulslinger, Nicky Blackmarket, L Double, Marky. L-Side, Noisia, Aries and more.

Uncompromising soundsystem advancer Mars89 is the kind of artist who reframes the rave tradition with every release. That makes him the ideal candidate for Sneaker Social Club, where we love slinging bassweight sonics into the far reaches as often as possible.

Based in Japan and active beyond the confines of his studio, Mars89 has made a sizable impression in just four years of releasing a handful of records. Bokeh Versions carried his first releases, while he’s gone on to soundtrack a VR experience for the label more recently. He’s also collaborated with Jun Takahashi’s Undercover fashion label, appeared on Flore’s POLAAR label and played an important role in coordinating protest raves in Shibuya.

There’s a stark, stern heaviness to the Mars89 sound which leaves its mark from the first surge of dread bass. It hits with a primal urgency which calls to mind early grime instrumentals, but there’s also a touch of industrial clank and subliminal avant-garde notes lurking behind the foreground pressure. ‘Night Call’ stalks on a thunderous kick and pitch-black string stabs, while ‘Vigilante’s nervous refrain is underpinned by massive subs and an 808 cowbell turned into a musical instrument. On the flip, ‘North Shibuya Local Service’ ups the angular intensity with an interlocking barrage of claps, snaps and lock-ons, and ‘Aeropolis’ edges towards outright rave with its slithers of squashed breaks, 4x4 kick runs and a disheveled synth hook.

Even on the more forthright B side though, Mars89’s palette is so lean you can pick out every individual element. There’s no fat to be found anywhere on the record, ensuring every part lands with presence and purpose. You can somehow link the sound back to UK soundsystem culture, but there’s a necessary individuality at work here, which we’re beyond proud to platform and press up for the dance.

Prairie is the project of multi-instrumentalist and producer Marc Jacobs, hailing from Brussels with roots in The Netherlands. He previously released an EP (I'm so in love I almost forgot I survived a Disaster - 2013) and an LP (Like a Pack of Hounds - 2015) on the Berlin imprint Shitkatapult. On stage, Prairie plays with two or three musicians and together they re-create a free association of musical ideas and atmospheres. Prairie has played in selected venues and festivals across Europe and toured with Apparat in 2016.If the apocalypse was painted in several layers of pastel gouache, its soundtrack might be PRAIRIE's Flash Flood. Listening to the album, we drift through a series of frozen landscapes that gesture at a post-apocalyptic ambience. This is a kind of blackened music that has been left to sediment, excavated from traces in ice core samples. Flash Flood showcases a deep sensitivity to narrative and rich cinematic textures as Marc Jacobs returns with palimpsestic sonic layers. It has been three years since PRAIRIE's last release—the 2015 Cormac McCarthy-inspired Like a Pack of Hounds—and it is clear that it has been several years of pensive reflection. Now, PRAIRIE takes the sentiment of his 2012 debut, I'm So In Love I Almost Forgot I Survived A Disaster, several steps further: it is after the apocalypse, and no one has survived. And yet with Flash Flood, we can hear the hum of this impossible future.

'After the Flash Flood' introduces the sonic ruins of distorted guitars, field recordings, drum programming and synths that create the textures of the entire album. The melancholic and subdued black metal churn of 'Raindeath' becomes the cold backdrop for unnerving, paranoiac speech. The third track, 'Sisters', foregrounds this coldness while slowly moving away toward alternate vistas where the acoustic timbres of the saz-driven 'A Permanent War Economy' take over. 'Underwater Body Hunting' and 'Rabid Ibrahim' are hard hitting beat-oriented tracks that insist on burning slow. There is a patience with PRAIRIE's FLASH FLOOD that is difficult to deny. The lamentation of 'Elephants Will Rise Again' perhaps signals that it is not only the human that is lost after catastrophe. The album closes with 'Hard Water: Cracked Ice' and 'Hayashi Clock'. The former is a beautiful coalescence of clean harmonious tones and softly overdriven drums, while the latter brings us back to a meditative state, drifting through the final pastel tapestry.

"... his cosmos is located somewhere between Bohren & der Club of Gore and Sunn O))), ambient is as familiar to him as brachial sounds, and he is as much acquainted with guitars as with synths and modern technology" (GROOVE)

"... Like Ben Frost, (Prairie) exudes a certain harshness while tempering his work with moments of sublime beauty. This isn't club material, it's music for the hammer in one's hand, the confrontation of the demon, the soul-shattering revelation." (A Closer Listen)

The 5th release on Northern Front Records entitled M16 Jungle is a four track ep on 180gram vinyl with full artwork by Mark McGuinness. The four tracks on the ep consist of a Double O remix of Conquered History solo efforts by Response (Closer) and Pliskin (White Boy Killer) and a collaboration between Response & Pliskin (M16 Jungle).

Mind Dance unveils ‘Mystic Minds, Volume 1’ - a five track compilation warmly welcoming label associates old and new. The first in an ongoing series of VA outputs, Mystic Minds was established to provide a new space to foster the collaborative nature of the electronic underground. Whilst only scratching the surface of the cross-continental contemporary dance landscape, the first edition of Mystic Minds effortlessly showcases the breadth and depth of talent in Australia and afar.

140g Black vinyl LP – Printed inner sleeve - Sealed plastic sleeve

In Trux We Pux is an editorial project organized by the Porto based label and collective Favela Discos. Focusing on the city’s thriving experimental and improvised music scene, it sets out to portrait in a series of four volumes some of the characteristic sounds and collaborative practices that have been in development in Porto during the last few years.

In Trux We Pux 01, the first record of the collection, is focused on the electronic side of the eclectic but characteristic experimental and improvised scene in Porto, and contains a selection of 23 musicians that have been developing their own take on whatever niche genre they dwell in. Among the list of musicians are Filipe Silva (HHY & The Macumbas), Crónica Electrónica’s heads @c, ocp, coletivo vandalismo and several others that populate a thriving scene that spans a wide gamut of sounds, from delicate to abrasive.

As the tracks themselves, the different approaches to composition and production add to this compilation’s schizophrenia. The first side of the record offers us a spacious and abstract scenery, starting with a collage of field recordings, banjos, and fans, narrated by google translate’s voice. The following two tracks flow along the granular tide of ambient spaces and atmospheres slowing down a bit before the second side turns around 180º and heads towards more rhythmic fields.

Coletivo vandalismo & querido lider present us with their exploration of half balearic, half german-synth-music pulsing away at the beat of broken down dancehallish drums and reggae breaks. Challenger & Lorr No’s track is a trainwreck heading down a break driven jungle that lead us to the album’s closing arguments: MOSCXS’ sludged beat goth-step exploration around the poem “Poema Agreste” by Glória de Sant’Anna.

140g Black vinyl LP – Printed inner sleeve – Sealed plastic sleeve



In Trux We Pux is an editorial project organized by the Porto based label and collective Favela Discos. Focusing on the city’s thriving experimental and improvised music scene, it sets out to portrait in a series of four volumes some of the characteristic sounds and collaborative practices that have been in development in Porto during the last few years.

In Trux We Pux 04 is the last in a series of four records organized by Favela Discos, set out to shine a light on Porto’s thriving experimental and improvised music scene. Throughout the collection the label tries to expose the eclectic sound and collaborative practices that have been in development in the last few years in the city by promoting the collaboration between artists and the creation of new collective improvisation pieces.

As the first album dwelled into the electronic spectre of the scene, this volume veers itself to the physical side of experimental and improvised explorations. Although there is space for outsiders manipulating the sound by electronic means, most of the music in this album is plucked, bowed, percussed or sung. The artists themselves are as varied as the music they played, among the 13 artists that collaborated for the creation of this album are many promising newcomers but also some of the more recognizable and relevant names in the scene, with the presence of the Sonoscopia founder Gustavo Costa, João Pais Filipe one of the most characteristic drummers in Portugal, and the DIY duo and underground staple Calhau!.

As we could suspect, the diverse selection of musicians, while providing us a view on the various kinds of musical languages that populate the city’s scene, also creates a dynamic collection of sounds. Spanning a large gamut of sub-sub-genres, from near-musique concrète to tribal noise, the album is a rollercoaster collage that miraculously achieves logic and cohesion, like a voyeur listener taking us on a journey through an abandoned mall where most of the bands in Porto rehearse, whose halls reverberate with a cacophony of music.

Calibre's new album - Double Bend. Nine tracks pressed over three pieces of 180 gram vinyl with artwork by Craig Richards.

Translucent Yellow Vinyl

The first EP to be delivered on the label dubbed «This Must be the Place», is a 4 track melodic delight symbolically featuring some of Redeyes’ closest friends and longtime partners: Lenzman & Monty, with DRS & K S R on the vocals.

'Dwell Time' focuses on the moments in between. Expanding on Satie's Furniture Music, which explores the role of music as a backdrop, Dwell Time explores the moments in between active and passive listening. A sound that maintains a unique balance of properties can start as an active relationship that slowly dissolves into the background and accompanies a listener over its course. The Dwell Time signal remains completely analog, utilizing homemade tape samples and hardware synthesizers to encourage the listener to move between the different states of listening. Produced by Rafael Anton Irisarri and Mastered by Taylor Deupree.

Repress

White Vinyl

dutch sound artist albert van abbe now joins the raster family, with an unexpected collaboration with founder olaf bender aka byetone titled DUAL. having spent time working side by side in ’s-hertogenbosch at the willem twee studio, the result of their collaboration is both smooth and haptic, rounding out as an expressive camaraderie between the two veteran producers. jovial and innocent, DUAL alludes to the experimental research process of finding common ground. fully embracing the haphazard richness of live recordings, the result is a remarkable fusion of contrasting outputs; intricate collaborative efforts and byproducts woven together with an eager indifference towards expectation. the artists embrace a skewed navigation through pronounced highlights, intricate lulls and moments of temporal stasis, intermittently punctuated as a means of intentionally avoiding notions of rigid perfection. with ‘real-time’ approach directing DUAL’s creation, the pair effectively shies away from any meticulous planning, and the music runs free and negates any rigid parameters one might have expected. quirky titles exude the collaged form of the release, and underline its innocent charm. as a whole, DUAL focuses on the creative process and fully engages listeners with its own dialogue, though it is very outspoken, at times even abrasive.

BLNDR's debut album L'Observatoire is a nostalgic overview of his past few years. The following pair of twelve-inch records attempts to capture meaningful memories from travelling around the world. Embodied with a marking touch of melancholia laced through most of the tracks; it is a contemplative ambient journey recorded in a period where fantasy and memory met.

This is Hypnus Records' third double LP and the first in a line of albums that will be released in 2018 and well into the following year.

"Wow - this music has so much freedom and harmony! Totally beautiful" - Cio D'Or
"Beautiful album, each track is a great journey with great atmospheres and sound design as I like" - Claudio PRC
"Beauty!" - Francois X
"beautiful work" - Oscar Mulero
"It makes the imagination fly wild! Breathtaking atmospheres with a cinematic touch and retrowave synths... Pure magic!" - Primal Code
"Beautiful." - Svreca
"Amazing to discover a soothing and emotional masterpiece from this talented producer. Pure food for the soul." - Toffes Varld

Further early support from Etapp Kyle, Eric Cloutier, Nihad Tule, Exium, Tensal, Deepbass, Samuli Kemppi, Takaaki Itoh, Synthek and AWB to name a few.

Released under the June full moon.

Love and light.

This is the 3rd solo release from Meftah under his own Musha Publishing imprint, bringing another strong batch of tracks for all kinds of music heads. After his debut release 'Information Travels Through', Meftah followed up with a digital beat tape that only teased what was to come on the next record, and with this, he delivers. In true "Detroit Beat Down" fashion, Meftah's 'Life-Like' EP is a fresh perspective from the Motor City, while still remaining familiar to his roots.

Thomas Köner is one of the most influential modernist minimal composers. His music is often defined as dark ambient or drone, because of the use of low frequencies, material from gongs,shadowy resonances and boreal ambience, but at the same time its sound with constant fluctuation and vulnerability of sonic events, what makes it organic, human and almost comforting.

Köners soundscapes are no longer simply dark, the question now is that of a profound blackness. Such is the generic darkness of the abyss, the void and vacuum, the darkness of more than silence, of catastrophe and cataclysm, but also the soundscapes have utopian moments. It is a cosmological blackness, the black of nonbeing.

The more subtractive, the blacker the sound synthesis, Köner writes. Such blackness is non-music. Music will never be music until it ceases to represent and begins to sound like non-music or monochrome.

"Whoever hears the distortion of all sounds, will soon become Ultrablack. Whoever listens to this world, but has no affection for any of its sites, even to the place of Black Noise, may soon reach Ultrablack. Whoever understands the spirit of impartiality through ten thousand million partial tones, hears Ultrablack and can no longer be measured. No measures, no enclosures, no properties are the sign of ultrablack scores." Thomas Köner

Aubrite was first released 1995 on the label Barooni. Roland Speckle helped with production of the album. Aubrite is the name of a group of meteorites named for Aubres, a small achondrite meteorite that fell near Nyons in 1836.

Brazils Bungle is no stranger to Drum & Bass, with releases on some of the most respected labels in the genre. Now in 2022, he delivers his debut 117 EP with four futuristic and emotional tracks that will stir deep feelings in your soul.

Available in limited edition purple vinyl.

For more than a decade now, Fleck E.S.C. has marked himself out as one of the most playful and prolific producers in the electro game. Across dozens of releases for labels including Bass Agenda and Science Cult, the France-born, Japan-based artist has made his name through a production style which balances limber beats with exploratory textural work.

Fleck E.S.C. debuted on Central Processing Unit in 2018 with the Discrete Opinion EP. Now, after stopping by the Sheffield label last year on a Silicon Scally remix job, Fleck E.S.C. delivers his second EP for CPU in the form of Rough Silk. The record's intriguing title proves an apt introduction to this four-track affair. These cuts are at once sleek and abrasive, anchored by robotechnic machine-funk grooves yet also full of strange, shifting shapes.

The opening title-track expertly sets out Rough Silk's stall. Heralded by gurgling synths and all manner of whirring percussive tones, 'Rough Silk' blossoms around the minute mark with the introduction of a wickedly buoyant lead synth. This is music at once visceral and full of mystery, the sound of wending through the back alleys, and the feeling carries through to the following cut 'Hat in the Cat' - as the synth pads spool out overhead, the machine-funk snap of the beat has an almost aquatic quality that links it back to Drexciya.

Much like 'Rough Silk', the record's first B-side 'Faking Sweet' also shifts gears. The opening strains of the track seem to be preparing for another insistent, expansive broken-beat pulse, but it stiffens its neck around ninety seconds in. Programmed drums whirr around a jittery machine-gun bass while discordant synths pull at the edges of the track, all of which brings a strong dystopian energy that increases further as the percussion sounds become increasingly bug-eyed.

After so much excitement, 'Digger Play' closes out the EP with a softer touch. There's still plenty of low-slung bounce to the beat, but the track runs a little slower, and there's a warm wistfulness in the synths which gives 'Digger Play' a painterly, almost poetic feel. However, while it may take its foot off the gas, the production here is as deft as it is everywhere else on Rough Silk.

With new EP Rough Silk, electro whizz Fleck E.S.C. brings the sort of casual mastery to proceedings that has characterised his career to date.

RIYL: Silicon Scally, Jensen Interceptor, Annie Hall

Yellow Vinyl 7"

Fans of UK Techno and Electronic music should need little introduction to Steven Rutter.

Widely regarded as one of the originators who helped spawn an entire scene in the early 90s, there’s no mistaking his place as one half of the legendary Warp Records act B12. Or that of his other guises such as 2001, Cmetric, Infamix, Musicology and Redcell, which all made up part of the rich tapestry of the hugely influential B12 Recordings.

In 2016, Steven started a whole new chapter by launching Firescope Records. Over the past few years, the label has gone from strength to strength - releasing music from the likes of Morphology, Derek Carr, John Shima, Russ Gabriel, Darren Nye as well as plenty of new material by Steve himself.

‘Light From The Dark’ EP is a two sided Limited Edition 7” that captures Rutter’s innate ability to knit deeply spatial sonic tapestries. Side A track ‘In The Darkness’ delves into the depths of semi-consciousness and all that we can feel in the half lit hours. Like an impression taken from a half woke sleepy state, he moulds cyclical low end rumbling with fluid rhythmical pulses that in turn give way to brief moments of light and melody. Mirroring the moments we pass in and out of consciousness.

Accompanied by the “The Sands of Time” on Side B, the music takes a gentler path as Rutter leans towards the light, soft rhythms swaying among delicate FM pulsations and patches of airy melody. The warm aesthetics furrow straight from his soul and leave you in doubt that more than two decades on, Rutter continues to be a musical inspiration to generations of Electronic music lovers across the globe.

Extremely limited edition of this rare Vinyl release from Synkro. Originally pressed in 2008.

Extremely limited edition of this rare Vinyl release from Synkro. Originally pressed in 2008.

Full of dreamy textures and languid melodies, XOOMIN is a soundtrack for drifting off into the abyss, but in the hands of Alloy Sea (a.k.a. Mor Elian), that journey feels downright playful. Although the Berlin-based producer is best known for her dancefloor-focused creations, 2020’s Petrichor (a 50-minute composition that officially debuted the Alloy Sea project) showcased an unexpected talent for abstract soundscapes and arrhythmic jitters, hinting at ambient techno but ultimately offering something much more adventurous.

XOOMIN—an album that was specifically written for Paralaxe Editions after label founder Dania Shihab reached out to Elian about working together on a new Alloy Sea release—ventures into similarly ethereal waters as Petrichor, but it’s also brighter and more colorful than its predecessor, its gleaming FM synth improvisations flanked by scuttling rhythmic bursts and the occasional wonky bassline, not to mention celestial snippets of Elian’s own voice. It’s not pop, but it’s not quite ambient either, floating instead in a nebulous (and sneakily fun) zone that borrows from new age, IDM and the weirder corners of bass music.


Music by Mor Elian.
Mixed by Rhyw.
Mastered by Rupert Clervaux.
Design by Oficina de disseny.
Printed at L'automatica.
Text by Shawn Reynaldo.

After producing Bendik Giske’s wonderful Cracks from last year, André Bratten returns with his own music, and the first volume of his Picture Music series, his most accessible and melodic music to date. The title is taken from a compilation on legendary German label

DJ support from J.Sparrow, Chad Dubz, Distinct Motive, Hebbe, Rareman, Zygos +more