Beats Vinyl New Releases - News

A lovely surprise here by Luca Duran (aka Look Like) who is following up a series of stellar EPs with his first solo album. He embarks on a wide-ranging electronic journey throughout 'Libertas', an intrepid sonic exploration of the concepts of freedom and independence, two hallmarks of his already diverse studio work. The uncategorizable Swiss-Colombian producer is releasing his debut album after a period of creative metamorphosis, during which Duran's musical output evolved from the dextrous house, techno & electro of earlier releases under his original production moniker Look Like. From summer 2019, Luca began releasing solely under his own name and his style has now grown beyond the traditional dancefloor genres of electronic music to encompass influences from post-punk and IDM. Seeking to sonically explore and reflect on concepts of liberty and autonomy, Duran, like all of us, was soon faced with a lockdown of a very different kind. The result is 'Libertas', an extraordinary album written and produced across 2020 and under equally extraordinary, world-changing circumstances. Engrossing, imaginative and political in the tradition of electronic music's innovators, 'Libertas' mixes Latin philosophy and futurist techniques in order to create something distinct, future-facing and never less than thoughtful. Beautiful and versatile release!!

Perila (Aleksandra Zakharenko) left her native Russia six years ago, landing in Berlin. Finding her place almost immediately - first at Berlin Community Radio and through that amongst a group of like-minded creative individuals (including her current flatmates Special Guest DJ and exael) - she started a regular practice of working on an expressionistic "sonic diary" of field recordings and electronic sound research for her own pleasure. When the opportunity arose to create her own podcast series, WET (or Weird Erotic Tension) was born. Upon hearing her evocative and atmospheric music layered with friends Nat Marcus and Inger Wold Lund's erotic spoken word poetry, Sferic Records asked to release it, and Perila - a project name originally used for her BCR show - truly came to be. Aleksandra, who was raised in St. Petersburg, has been involved in music since childhood thanks to her melomaniac father. She's been both drummer and singer in local bands in Russia, and is also the co-founder of radio.syg.ma - one of the first online stations in Russian focusing on experimental sounds - but Perila is something else entirely. You could loosely describe it as ambient, but her soundworld is so specific and transportative, filled with detail and movement, it's more akin to hauntological musique concrète, touched by song. Her fascination with voice and language - she studied English literature at university - is still evident, although that's now her voice, her texts, her crooning you can hear on the Everything Is Already There cassette (Boomkat Editions, 2020), her processed breaths on the Meta Door L cassette (Paralaxe Editions, 2020). The Wire Magazine got it right when they said about Irer Dent that, "Sensuality is presented as a secret pass to a higher consciousness." For her debut album, How Much Time it is Between You and Me?, released via Smalltown Supersound on June 11th, Aleksandra takes inspiration from the concept of time, which she felt keenly during the pandemic. Recorded primarily in September 2020 in a rural village in France - her only travel during the first year of the pandemic period - surrounded by mountains but otherwise alone with no internet, her perception of time there differed immensely. She describes the trip as, "an immersive experience into self," viewed through a "silence prism" where everyday sounds usually ignored felt amplified. While her work has always dealt in intimacy - be it the private thrills of WET or the audible closeness of our surroundings - the organic response and consistent feedback she gets for Perila made Aleksandra recognize a longing, a need for it in today's world. Intent on creating work based in honesty and tenderness, Perila's practice also explores how we feel music and emotion throughout the body and how sound can help to release it. How does the sound enter a body and travel through it? Where does movement start? How do you reach and unblock emotional clusters with the help of sound and deep listening of the body responses? Aleksandra likes to describe her music and performances as trips - thick narratives drifting along sound to get closer to self. Let Perila guide you through this journey.

Eddie Ruscha makes music with an airbrush. He paints with a theremin. He sees colour where others hear sound. He hears sound where others see colour. He is a synaesthetic synthesist, feeling everything but touching nothing. Secret Circuits. Beats in Space. Cabin in the Sky.

The window is open at the studio. A salty breeze. Light waves across the floor.

Ruscha works with an Iwata Eclipse, which looks like a pipe and sounds like a rocket. Gravity Feed Dual Action. It makes worlds without making contact. He talks of heliography, printing in shadows and writing in sun.

Paint flies and Ruscha has the tape head running. It’s Baldelli or nothing out here. A collage of senses overlapping. He take a jam and runs with it. Or better still, drives with it. Out onto the open freeway. Cassettes again. Escapist fantasies. Fantastic ecstasy.

Ruscha goes in to head out. Is this a journey with no end in mind, or no mind to end? His are sonic quests for unanswered questions. An epiphany for Future Days. The ground shook when he first heard Can.

Ambient oscillations, ritual experimentations. No conventional classification. Alive improvisation.

Ruscha’s colours speak from a prime perspective. They conduct dialogues in shade. Optical poems of Palmy Days. Brushed in Busby’s spirit of synchronicity. Dancing deco diamonds on the water, breaching for a moment, depth perceived, left unspoken.

It’s no surprise that Ruscha likes Rorschach. He is drawn to it, it is drawn to him. Drawn by him.

Down in California, the sun sets into the fold, pressed flat, squeezed out. Rays reflect in all directions. If music is medicine, why add to the dissonance? It’s all about serenity these days. Deep Into the Heart of Love. Seeing symmetry in Clive’s Ives. Hollywood Hotel, HollyWoo are you.

But there is darkness too, he says, in LA’s laughing light of plenty. It is kaleidoscopic. Lucid dreams of a culture crushed at Altamont. Strung out on the esplanade. Waves again, twinkling on the surface, drones of melancholic undertow. Once more to the studio.

Paint runs, tapes fly. Indian ragas and classic trance. Ruscha brings the airbrush to the paper’s edge. The volume goes up. He pulls it away. The volume dies down. A conductor of the astral orchestra. Seeking methodical means to a transcendental end. Organic and synthetic.

Bird of Paradise. Is it science or soul? Fourteen into three-sixty. 25.714285 degrees of the whole.

Eddie Ruscha paints with a theremin. He makes music with an airbrush. A whisper to the touch. Acrylic paint, acoustic guitar, stencils, synths, fine dots and floating drums. In a forest. Outer space. Back to Earth. Contact made.

Cosmic Harmonics.”

HETA BILALETDIN BRINGS SOME WEIRD DUB AND BEDROOM RADIO HITS STRAIGHT FROM THE FINNISH FOREST CITIES. Her debut solo album Nauhoi is a collage of home recordings and hidden hits. It has been made slowly during many years in the spirit of cut & glue – utilizing samplers, vocals, field recordings, computer, found objects, synths, no-tune guitar and dusty four-track tapes.

PHI008 features the next generation of Slovenian producers and a talented French artist.
Produced in a time when dancing was a crime.

Hospital Records are excited to unveil the third instalment of their ‘Future Symptoms’ VA EP series. Pressing deeper into their journey to discover and showcase some of the very best talent within the world of drum & bass, ‘Future Symptoms Vol. 3’ features Nectax, MYKOOL & Lost Child, Mr Joseph & Phoebe Freya, and Jam Thieves.

Having issued a solid number of equally solid releases on the likes of Berceuse Heroique, Versatile, Wisdom Teeth, Peur Bleue and his own finely curated imprint, Banlieue Records, Benoit B steps up for the latest Unthank 10" instalment!

A world populated by eerie synth-pop textures, hypno-industrial oddities, electroid dynamics and hip-hop breaks gone astray. 100% retro-futuristic Bauhausian blends for the DJs and dancers out on a limb.

10" Clear vinyl with 75mm, metallic labels. Two colour screen printed sleeves with artwork by House Of Traps.

Close friend of the party and Bizarre Trax crew member Jhobei delivers a slick 3 tracker for 004. The EP has been crafted with a playful jingle and is demonstrated perfectly through ethereal synths, dynamic FX and addictive basslines. Structured on a house tip, each of the cuts explore different avenues of the genre and offer versatility throughout any set.

* Limited edition vinyl release taken from the Formation 200 project of the Serum remix of the MA2 (aka DJ SS) classic ‘Hearing Is Believing’.
* Featuring the original mix on the flip this release will satisfy the old and new skool with something for everyone!
* DJ SS is a powerhouse in British Breakbeat music, having been one of the originators of the Rave scene, and his legendary imprint Formation Records is still going strong to this day releasing cutting edge Drum & Bass and giving a platform to new and established artists alike.

Proc Fiskal's second album sees a reorientation of the source elements of his music. Where ‘Insula’ fed off samples of the ramblings of his friends and sounds of his hometown, ‘Siren Spine Sysex’ is laden with an inner voice of sampled Gaelic, Irish and English folk music, contorted and imbued into the futurist body of modern pop; the ghostly anima image of the female folk voice and the lamenting wheeze of the accordion rub against the rush of icey 808s and angles of Grime. Joe Powers’ family history is in folk music, with several of his forebears active in the Scottish Folk revival of the 1960s. It's this cultural baggage - the Caledonian Antisyzygy of the earnest folk tradition he was raised in – alongside the modernist dance music he makes, that brings a personal element to the album. The music of ‘Siren Spine Sysex’ examines dance music as folk music, re-routing them both comparatively, with the wordless emoting of chopped and screwed Gaelic vocals leading to joyous pop songs like ‘8 Mgapixel See Thru Phone’ and 'Leith Tornn Carnal’. Though fast and detailed, ‘Siren Spine Sysex’ feels relaxed and pastoral at times, its edits and drums sensual, swelling, and reactive to the music, its textures influenced by the tinny 16 bit flutes, strings, and wacky scores of gaming soundtracks.

Clap de fin for the "Cabinet des Curiosités" : 15th and last episode of Vol.1 with The Architect.

Since last fall, Al'Tarba has been able to mix his talents with those of a beatmaker, a producer or a rapper, for hybrid experimental collaborations, composed with 4 hands or more, mixing styles and sounds. In November 2020, somewhere in France, we could hear the noise of some machines breaking a silence of lead, due to the general fever of the cultural scene. In a studio-laboratory looking like a "Cabinet des Curiosités", where far-fetched ideas are piled up on as many dusted shelves, Al'Tarba and his instruments were still running at full speed.

Anxious to find the antidote, a handful of beatmakers, producers and rappers, all gathered under the aegis of the Toulouse-based scientist, have been fine-tuning, week after week and month after month, the ingredients of their new serum. Over the seasons, they have unveiled, with regular intake, hybridizations of composed styles. Between sharing sounds, ideas, sample loops and vocal takes, like a "Cabinet des Curiosités" containing a thousand and one unusual objects.

On this foggy road and until the lightning, crossed Mounika, Structural Anomaly, Aguirre and Prometheus, Yous MC, Beus Bengal, Goomar, DeZordre, ProleteR, Degiheugi, K.D.S and Stabfinger, DJ Low Cut, DJ Nix'on, Sarbacane, Mani Deïz, Slim Paul and Grin. The day when the echo of the party is heard again in the distance, the sky is discovered the time of a new story. The clouds finally dissipate, for the last chapter of this first volume.

Between two rocks, the sea and its blue, bathed in sunlight. On the horizon, the authentic "Orange Sea" sailing in the distance. It is Al'Tarba and The Architect who arrive against all odds, to tell us the last story of the "Cabinet des Curiosités", first volume. The Architect, overproductive beatmaker and informed digger, knows how to take his audience on a journey through the world and styles. A last collaboration which promises the great crossing, its hot and ardent breath like fire, bell sound of the beginning of summer found and its epics.

Melancholy of a past world and dreamlike flights of fancy, hope of the world after, will rub shoulders in a double-vinyl album that will bring together the entire adventure. Pre-orders are now open !

So many bright perspectives, which would even let us foreshadow a forthcoming release of Al'Tarba's second solo album on I.O.T Records: "La Fin des Contes".

Next up we have a new dnb EP from label head Alix Perez - the Phantonym EP. One can really hear the many years experience and influences that have helped shape this masterpiece. It is beautifully complete, and is undoubtedly some of his best work to date. This is jungle/drum&bass in its truest unfiltered form.

This EP covers the whole spectrum from signature Perez soulful dnb (SWRV qand Vibrations), to gritty bubblers (Trinity), and finally the harder minimal percussive dnb he is renowned for (Phantonym). Mature, concise, and graceful dnb at its best. Out September 13th 2019 on 1985 Music on vinyl and digital.

Next up we have a new dnb EP from label head Alix Perez - the Phantonym EP. One can really hear the many years experience and influences that have helped shape this masterpiece. It is beautifully complete, and is undoubtedly some of his best work to date. This is jungle/drum&bass in its truest unfiltered form.

This EP covers the whole spectrum from signature Perez soulful dnb (SWRV qand Vibrations), to gritty bubblers (Trinity), and finally the harder minimal percussive dnb he is renowned for (Phantonym). Mature, concise, and graceful dnb at its best. Out September 13th 2019 on 1985 Music on vinyl and digital.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kynant EX is a new series for non-dancefloor focused records on hand-stamped vinyl. The first release comes from a legendary UK band, O Yuki Conjugate, who have been making unique experimental music since 1982. The duo have reworked their 2019 album track “Forgotten Summer” into a two-part, 12m45s epic, which starts broken-beat and ends with a five minute beatless sequence. The B-side houses two new tracks, the first is abrasive and full of dread, the second a bass-heavy ambient cut.

A Various Artists of two volumes characterized by the two side of the artist.:

(Vol.I Vinyl): A collective of artists who express with their “club” side:
Dark and liquid sonority from Stave-Karim Maas and Wrong Assessment, passing through the more solid and fast ones represented by The Extraverse and Magna Pia, Enigmatic arpeggios by Danilenko and an usual intro by Stanislav Tolkachev.

(Vol.IITape): Founded by a non-dancefloor concept, representing the other side of the artists, the more experimental one, characterized by Ambient, I.D.M and Experimental sounds, through which we can manifest the differences and what less is shown by the artist. An unexpected side.

“The paradox, the best way to reveal to men a hidden truth”

Mastered by Coefficient (Pat Cooper), London

Artwork Handmade ctpoil by Stanislav Tolkachev

*limited edition cassete**
Printed see through plastic inner cover inside an orange fluorescent case, with folded paper insert. 20 track compilation.

Inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estés canonical text, Women Who Run with the Wolves (1992), the eponymously titled Donne che corrono coi lupi is a dedication to feral feminine energy, connection and sisterhood. In the book, Estés – a psychoanalyst, poet and cantadora, or “keeper of old stories” – draws on Jungian theory to weave an alternative mythology of The Wild Woman archetype. She conjures images of the underworld, rivulets of menstrual blood; a lumpen mass of placenta splattering onto a cave floor. In a mirrored gesture, for Donne che corrono coi lupi, more than twenty artists and producers have come together, giving rise to a primal, mystical compilation destined to entrance and ensnare.

An eerie lullaby, Cucina Povera’s ‘Liikaa liimaa’ recants her trek through Glasgow’s Victorian Necropolis, a gigantic cemetery comprised of elaborate tombs and monuments. Searching for some healing growth during the bleak Scottish winter, she wandered among the graves, coming face to face with an elusive herd of deer. Translating this encounter into sound, Povera’s ethereal vocals glide and glissade, taking on the malleability of melting ice. Another eulogy to animals in the landscape, Kakubo’s ‘Aboyá’ derives from the Brazilian Portuguese word “Aboiar” – a chant utilised by farmers to herd cattle. The sloping beat is interlaid with synthetic horns and Brazilian folk songs, traditional compositions made by marginalised rural communities.

Camille Mandoki and Lucrecia Dalt’s contribution is named after the ancient Greek goddess – Baubo is a fearsome, headless torso, who appears with nipples for eyes and a vulva for a mouth. In Estés’ envisioning, Baubo is a gloriously obscene character who shakes her breasts and tells hilarious dirty jokes. Her nipples are described as “psychic organs,” with the vulva becoming an endless portal to women’s stories and secrets. On the track, developed during a virtual artist residency at the Goethe Institut, Mandoki and Dalt experiment with timbre, creating the uncanny, spectral presence of a third singer. Voices are an essential component throughout Donne che corrono coi lupi, harmonising and unifying, refusing to be silenced. Eva Geist, in her native Italian tongue processed through a multitude of fx pedals, casts spells – incantations to honour the power of female friendship. While label boss Elena Colombi, utilising Ece Özel’s hypnotic reading of the parable of The Red Shoes and Pirinç by Turkish poet Lale Müldür, summons dissociative glossolalia.

In defiance of the punitive rationality that structures the domesticated world, Estés instead holds reverence for intuition – wild impulses generated from one’s body and soul. Bergsonist – whose alias references Bergsonism, a school of philosophical thought which rejects static values in favour of motion and change – records almost all her music live. ‘Speculation’ is an improvised piece, instinctively composed in the heat of the moment.

"Dare, dare, dare ... She/her gets caught staring at the wall, bashing table with brushes, shouting at the clouds filling the red-loud sky. What is left? Just … sound, sound, sound." Percussionist Valentina Magaletti’s ‘Bubble Pain’ seethes like a boiling cauldron, her rapid, heart-fluttering rhythms inflected with bat screeches and canine yelps.

Borusiade – a stalwart figure in Romania’s queer dance community – unleashes ‘Our Hustle,’ the title referring to the urgency of gaining “an equal status in society.” A powerful industrial affair, the track sways with mechanic momentum. Also tuning into cyborg fantasies, Isabella, alone in the midst of the pandemic, conducts a ​​seance with her Elektron Octatrack – ’Cherry Sky’ blends mechanical synth with sticky-sweet lyrics. Formerly known as Inga Copeland, Lolina takes a bath with a drum machine, its waterlogged utterances meandering over her disquieting refrain: “Let me drown in sound.”

Closing off the B-side, ‘Dali's Elephant Caravan Melting Desert’ is a recording of a performance held in a former brothel – perhaps the oldest – in Hudson, New York. Emulating the motion of a train thundering past the building, Deradoorian encapsulates the dynamism of the city, its ghosts and obscured history of labouring sex workers. Reaching climax, the record concludes with Fetter’s ‘Karma’ – a cacophony of raucous punk-noise, exploding into incandescent fragments as sharp as broken glass.

A boundless creative spirit, Australian artist Paul Schütze has worked for over forty years as a musician, photographer, visual artist and perfumer. He has exhibited at institutions such as the Hayward Gallery, the V&A and Madrid’s Arco, held residencies at the Cité des Arts in Paris and has works in collections worldwide. He has collaborated with musicians from Jah Wobble to Toshinori Kondo, from Bill Laswell to David Toop, and worked both as a filmscore composer and music critic in print.

A new, remastered compilation of key works from Schütze’s catalogue, The Second Law, collates music from various periods and albums. Represented here are tracks from 1990’s The Annihilating Angel, an album of blissed-out fourth-world mystery; from the transcendent homage to traditional Indonesian gamelan music The Rapture of Metals (1993); from the ethereal, spiritual, Nino Rota-esque melancholy of 1991’s Regard: Music by Film. It is occasionally dark, industrial and begrimed; occasionally paradisiacal and breathtakingly elegant. There are works of celestial, astronomic grandeur alongside microscopically detailed miniatures. Empty, deserted spaces of man-made abandonment contrast with studies of ornate natural beauty.

A long time coming, we’re excited to welcome Portuguese beat-maker 3WA to the Subaltern family with a selection of some of his best work to date.

Master Of Finances:
The title track and A side of the EP is a unique and relentless heavy artillery roller that is sure to melt off faces when blasted through a big system.

Slimy:
Ever evolving and shifting, the flip side ‘Slimy’ takes the listeners on a weighty journey through different realms of sound. Watch out for the second drop!

Balaclava:
Rounding off the wax, ‘Balaclava’ brings some truly spooky, wonky, clowny vibes to the table, taking you to triplets bass heaven.

MBERE debuts with drenched UKG and Dub Techno. Water way to have a good time.

Turntablism seven inch killer !

Skip proofs and stuff fot you to improve your skillz and demonstrate with A-Class (golend Vinyl ^^ jajaja !!!)

OMAAR delivers 7 rhythm tracks. Think MM & NKC's Hard Drum sound and the stripped back sounds of Kowton and Night Slugs Club Construction series.
All killer no filler!

No. 9 Is Coming By Our Italian Friends Ruben And Alex Aka Shampoo Douglas!
With Support By Our Boy Goiz From Miami We Got The Groove In Here !
Welcome On Board Guys

Limited

A double-LP comp of timeless techno gems including Jaydee 'Plastic Dreams', Laurent Garnier 'Crispy Bacon' and Ame 'Rej'.

Meet Bass / House... Sweet sounds

'1929 - Das Jahr Babylon" marks Thomas Fehlmann's third full length release of 2018 and presents what appears to be a creative peak in his career that spans beyond his solo career to his early days in Palais Schaumburg, collaborating with Moritz von Oswald as 3MB to his long time work with The Orb. Having left The Orb in late 2017 has set free unforeseen energies in Fehlmann's studio.

A departure from his recent dance floor-friendly album "Los Lagos" (KOM388, KOMCD148) released in September on Kompakt, Thomas Fehlmann's '1929 - Das Jahr Babylon" is a film soundtrack from the documentary that aired on ARD network on September 30, 2018 and is now available as a podcast series.

To compliment the internationally lauded TV series "Berlin Babylon", German director Volker Heise has created a documentary about 1929, the fateful year during Germany's "Weimarer Republik" in which "Berlin Babylon" is settled. Heise's stirring documentary portrays Germany's sizzling capital that is faced with radical changes by the dark forces whom are about to toss the world into the abyss we know as World War II.

This marks the second time that Fehlmann is partnering up with Volker Heise after 2010's marathon documentary "24 Stunden Berlin" which was released as "Gute Luft" (KOM211, KOMCD81) in the same year. Fehlmann's composition for "1929" consists of sample material taken from the era and thwarts the exaggerated lust for life with threatening undertones that anticipate the dawn of mankind's darkest chapter so far. Although all the sounds breathe yesterday's atmosphere this soundtrack bursts with modernity. Fehlmann accomplished the daring feat to musically render the unsettling resemblance between the political situation 90 years ago and our current time.

We at KOMPAKT feel that Fehlmann's score has turned out spectacular enough to give it proper release on limited vinyl and CD as well as on all digital platforms.

Mit '1929 - Das Jahr Babylon" legt Thomas Fehlmann schon seinen zweiter Longplayer innerhalb eines halben Jahres vor und dokumentiert damit eine kreative Hochphase seiner überaus stattlichen Musikerkarriere. Die Trennung von The Orb scheint bei ihm ungeahnte Energien freizusetzen.

Anders als auf dem cluborientierten "Los Lagos" tritt Thomas Fehlmann auf "1929" musikalisch einen Schritt zur Seite. Und das aus gutem Grund: Analog zur international gefeierten Fernsehserie "Babylon Berlin" entstand unter der Regie von Volker Heise der Dokumentarfilm "1929 - Das Jahr Babylon" - ein ergreifendes Sittengemäde Berlins während des Schicksalsjahrs der Weimarer Republik. Wie schon zu Volker Heises vorangegangener Berlin-Doku "24 Stunden Berlin" (2010 erschienen als das Album "Gute Luft" auf KOMPAKT) hat Thomas Fehlmann auch diesmal den kongenialen Soundtrack beigesteuert. Basierend auf Klangmaterial des Jahres 1929 hat Fehlmann eine beeindruckende Musik geschaffen, in der manchmal die übertriebene Lebensfreude und Dekandenz jener Zeit aufflackert. Eine Musik, deren Stimmung jedoch unterwandert ist von den bedrohlichen Strömungen, die Deutschland kurz darauf in seine dunkelste Epoche stossen werden.

Thomas Fehlmann ist damit ein wahres Kunststück gelungen. So sehr die Produktion den Geist einer vergangenen Zeit atmet, so modern mutet sie an. "1929 - Original Filmmusik" klingt somit wie die zu Musik geronnene Erkenntnis, dass sich Gestern und Heute auf erschreckende Weise ähneln.

Wir bei Kompakt sind der Ansicht, dass Thomas Fehlmanns Filmmusik zu "1929 - Das Jahr Babylon' so spektakulär geraten ist, dass wir sie nun als limitierte CD und Vinyl-Auflage, sowie auf allen digitalen Plattformen verfügbar machen.

A tribute to a lifetime dedicated to music and athletics, specifically the marathon. A mini album where the melodies are mixed with IDM and electro rhythms, creating a single trip and trying to transfer the listener to what Merinero lives in each marathon he runs.

So many of us head back out into the world post-lockdown, with a different perspective on the overpowering nature of it. Nothing Feels Like Everything, looks deeply at how the absence of something can be just as overwhelming, whether the absence of physical contact, the absence of love, the absence of empathy and respect.

This album places gentleness beside power and cacophony to recreate the vast swings of emotion experienced in isolation. When nothing can be too much, while at the same time, all we want.

The sixth studio album from Scrimshire is an atmospheric and emotional experience. Moments of swirling orchestral energy perfectly countered by quiet, meditative calm. Moving string arrangements sit alongside delicate synthesiser-soaked rhythms. After huge collaborations with Emma-Jean Thackray, Omar, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Ego Ella May and many more on previous records, with only four vocal contributions this time, it is his most instrumental exploration to date.

But those few vocal contributions are captivating. From the opening explosion of UK jazz and soul legend Cleveland Watkiss, with a powerfully clear call on behalf of the marginalised and oppressed in society to the deeply intimate and supportive incantations of Ursula Rucker. No word is wasted here.

The record carries on a tradition of collaboration, with contributions from Jessica Lauren, Idris Rahman (Soothsayers, Wildflower, Ill Considered), Nat Birchall, Huw Marc Bennett, Miryam Solomon, Emanative and recent Albert's Favourites signing Pie Eye Collective. In fact, the phone calls that led to these songs are in many ways the power of it. Reaching out across long distances, through conversations to find meaning in difficult times, and then capture those feelings in music. The process being a therapeutic experience that is now present in the sounds.

"Throughout lockdown I've been writing so much, and when I released Believers Vol. 1 back in November, I'd wanted to bring people something that captured the warmth and hopefulness I think we needed despite deep political and cultural turmoil. But there were obviously very low moments, socially and personally and I was still capturing those too. This album holds more of those moments of loss and being lost, of solitary contemplation and meditation, of yearning, of anxiety.

More than I've experienced before, the collaborations came through long and beautiful phone conversations, developing friendships with new people, rekindling and supporting older relationships, taking time and giving each other time, care and space to create. It's what makes this album special to me."