Beats News

Green Vinyl Repress

Enjoy delivers with two absolute bangers which are a perfect fit for the AKO10 series. Crush and Don’t You Know are beautifully produced tracks that take you o a journey. Mesmerizing pads, vocal, drums We know once you close your eyes and listen, you will have this on repeat.

MASSIVE IN DEMAND 5 track EP from the one and only Floating Points, to be released on gatefold double vinyl, with spot varnish.

As well as brand new material the EP also features some of Floating Points oldest surviving tracks. This EP is part of a collaborative project between FP & long term friend Will Hurt who has created a Max/Msp patch which studies drum machine & synthesizer activity to generate visuals in real-time.

2020 Re-issue of Keith Kenniff's debut under his Goldmund moniker. Originally only released on CD in 2005 via John Twells' Type Recordings, this album of rare and unusual minimalist beauty is now presented as a vinyl edition for the first time.

Multi-instrumentalist Keith Kenniff is a busy man. He has appeared as Helios on a number of acclaimed releases, including Deaf Center’s ‘Neon City EP’, and released a debut album ‘Unomia’ on Merck records which has appeared on many best of 2004 lists. All this while studying at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, and playing drums, guitar or contributing production to a host of amazing musicians. Kenniff lives and breathes music, something that is very obvious when hearing tracks under any of his pseudonyms.

As Goldmund, Kenniff has disregarded the electronic elements of his music almost entirely in favour of just a piano, a microphone and occasionally a guitar. ‘Corduroy Road’ is thirteen tracks of pure recording, the sound of the piano being opened and the feet on the pedals, the sound of fingers pressing lovingly onto the keys. This is a record of rare and unusual beauty, so shocking and yet unpretentious in its simplicity. When the guitar does emerge from beside the delicately touched piano, it serves as a balancing point for the record. Weaving in and out of the melodies, it adds another layer to what is already incredibly moving music.

‘Corduroy Road’ is rooted in Kenniff’s love of folk music from the American Civil War. We can hear this directly from his rendition of Civil War era classic ‘Marching Through Georgia’, but the influence carries throughout the record. There is an unheard voice which propels each track through history, maybe the ghosts of dying soldiers whispering in a long forgotten bar. Every haunting note drifts deep into the psyche and is lost in the ether of nostalgia. In this way it is a concept recording of sorts, it certainly has a narrative and has to be listened to in sequence. The story has clear themes; loss, history, friendship, camaraderie, forgiveness and hope, all clearly marked out by musical segments. It is no surprise that Kenniff’s passion for cinema shines through so strongly.

It would be hard to draw comparisons to music so rooted in folk traditions, but the music evokes traces of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mark Hollis, Keith Jarret or even Eno’s more piano based compositions. Yet influence seems unimportant when listening to this deeply personal work. Just let it sink in and drift into the psyche.

2020 Re-issue of Keith Kenniff's debut album under his Helios moniker. Originally only released on CD in 2004 via Miami based Merck Records, this album of hazy ambient electronica is now presented as a vinyl edition for the first time.

AllMusic Review by Joshua Glazer:

"Those who mistake ambient music for an endless tapestry of unwavering atmosphere, pleasant yet indistinguishable, should be handed as an argument to the contrary this album by a recent signee to Merck's rapidly expanding roster. Through 13 tracks of inarguably pretty music, Keith Kenniff displays the musical equivalent of a genius screen actor, able to send a million moods and messages with the most subtle of facial gestures. The opening pair of songs, "Velius" and "Cullin Hill," point to a blissful treat which sits on just the right side of new age symmetry (particularly given the former's live glistening piano treatment). But only eight beats into "Nine Black Alps," the sensation is irreversibly altered by a single, mournful bass note which rumbles like Hades against the bucolic tone that lead up to it. Unshackled, Kenniff continues to roam, drifting into circular beats on "Two Mark" before wandering off into weightless asphyxiation on "Samsara." He even allows for the organic sound of faint acoustic guitar and piano to join his endless travels, giving a moment of real world clarity at the eye of this hallucinogenic work. Few could get away with a singular ghostly voice transmission without implying a stretch for ideas, but by the time he reaches the song, "Suns That Circling Go," Kenniff is so recognized as an explorer that you cannot be surprised by where he may arrive next."

The next release on Hi Tek Sounds sees the inimitable JEB1 bring his distinctive sound to the label.

The A side, ‘Guyana’, is a mournful, melancholy affair full of lush melodies and choral arrangements, accentuated only by a pared down percussive rhythm track and growling bass line. The title connects the contemporary sound of inner city London back to JEB1’s ancestral heritage.

East Man steps up for the remix on the B side, stripping the track back even further, reducing it to a bouncing tin pan percussion and driving rhythms, and alternating between a warm low sub bass and a gritty growling bass lead to cut straight to the dance floor.

Portland and Beirut rub shoulders again as Beacon Sound and Ruptured reveal their second co-release, the new album by Lebanese ensemble Kinematik entitled Murur al-Kiram. Kinematik hails from the mountain village of Reyfoun. Formed in the summer of 2014, they recorded their debut album Ala' in the spring of 2017 and released it on Ruptured (RPTD 017CD/LP). The band is known for the elaborate visual setup of its live shows and has collaborated with a variety of different artists over the years in an effort to carefully craft each of its performances. Kinematik has toured extensively in Lebanon and Europe, re-scored Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1930's classic film Vampyr for the the 23rd European Film Festival in Beirut, and contributed soundtrack pieces for Lebanese filmmakers Ghassan Salhab's Une Rose Ouverte (2019) and Sarah Kaskas' Underdown. Murur al-Kiram uses electronics, intricate double-drumming, guitar, and bass to construct ambient soundscapes and hypnotic, propulsive rhythms -- conjuring the ghosts of a diminishing future as well as an unresolved past. Subtle in both angst and joy, the album celebrates small victories in the face of great defeats, echoing the band's conflicted mindset towards life in their country and community.

The record was recorded over a period of two months, and features Teddy Tawil joining the band as second drummer. Whereas Ala' saw Kinematik's four core musicians confining themselves to one instrument and/or role within the overall sonic construct of the band, these new compositions see each musician playing and equally at ease with several instruments, adding intensity, cohesiveness, and a sense of fluidity to the proceedings. The intent was to make a record that would sound like a single traveling shot, beginning with the musicians' childhood in their hometown, through their adult lives weighted down by the corruption and theft endemic to the Lebanese political system, until they are buried back in their place of birth. The salutary presence of Sary (newborn son of synth player Rudy Ghafari) that became the "raison d'être" of the record. Murur al-Kiram is the story of an important chapter in the band's history, one marked by uncertainty and hesitation, yet solid and vibrant in spite of the latter. With the recent mass protests against dire, still unresolved social conditions, a vision of a democratic and post-sectarian Lebanon has come into view. Recorded by Fadi Tabbal at Tunefork Studios in Beirut.

In August of 2016 Maria W Horn and Mats Erlandsson traveled to Balada in the Terres de I’Ebre region of Catalonia, Spain, for a two-week residency courtesy of the Eufonics festival in collaboration with EMS.

The geographical characteristics a visitor first encounters in the Terres de I’Ebre delta are defined by the development of industrial agriculture. Endless rice fields stretch through the flat landscape, framed by canals of water to sustain growth. Even the air is saturated with a vague scent of rice. This transmutation of the soil impacts the sonic environment, the buzzing of the irrigation system, the hypnotic constant chirping of crickets, the loud bang from the water pump that echoes through the delta at regular intervals.

Taking the opportunity to collaborate on a project specifically made within the context of the aural environment they found themselves in, and using the resources available to them, the pair decided to make
a musical work based entirely on field recorded material transformed through extensive digital editing and processing. Working quickly in the isolation offered by the residency they recorded found material at
night and spent the days shaping these recordings into four compositions that move on a dense continuum between drone, noise and generative music all imprinted with the textural characteristics of the immediate surroundings of that time and place.

Through the four compositions the work shows a sonic imprint of an environment shaped by human hands over an almost endless period of time, as heard through the ears of two transient visitors processing their sliver of time in the area as it was unfolding to them.

The resulting music was performed in concert during the Eufonics festival of 2016 and was originally released on cassette tape by XKatedral in 2017 under the moniker Dufwa. For this vinyl reissue in collaboration with Boomkat the material has been remixed by Erlandsson and Horn and remastered for vinyl by Daniel M Karlsson.

These run of releases on ‘Existence Is Resistance’ comes from the Legendary Proto Garage Record Label ‘Same People’, and see’s Persian & Long time musical partner DJ Texsta, repressing some of their most pioneering UKG E.P.s.

If you are passionate about local music scenes as much as we are you might already know about the current brood of great bands going on in Cardiff, Wales.
Chain Of Flowers were the first to hail from the Welsh capital, followed by related side projects such as Night Thoughts, more recently came Private World of which the two boys we’re about to introduce are also live members of.
A new wave/synth act from the same city called Plastic Estate is emerging this year.

The duo composed by Nicholas James and Stanley Fouracres have released a few digital singles in 2019 as they’ve opened for The Murder Capital at Sŵn Festival and played alongside the likes of M!R!M, Josiah Konder and The Love Coffin. This Place is their first physical release and it’s due on 7-inch vinyl and digital on June 19.

On the two songs that compose the single, Plastic Estate clearly draw influence from the best UK new wave and pop artists such as Dave Gahan, Paddy McAloon, Roddy Frame and yet there is a sophisticated casualness and an innate freshness in their songwriting that makes them not sounding dated at all.
Amazing composition skills for such a young band and a perfect balance between electronic dance elements and acoustic instruments allow them to pay homage to the above-mentioned masters and to be a perfectly contemporary group at once.

Although it’s possible to pick out some darker lyrics, the overall feel is up-beat and breezy. It’s a contrast that runs through a lot of their music – like a dichotomy between dark, melancholia and happier, brighter feelings.
Whether it’s a happy pop synth riff mixed with sombre lyrics or vice versa, the young Welsh duo is delivering the best 80’s-inspired modern pop craft.
RIYL: Echo & The Bunnymen, Prefab Sprout, Depeche Mode, Orange Juice, Wild Nothing.

Reissue of the fourth Skinshape LP ‘Filoxiny’.
Skinshape is the project of British musician, William Dorey. The sound has roots in many genres, but in particular 1960s-70s Funk, Soul, Reggae, Psychedelic Rock, Afrobeat and Folk. Skinshape grew out of a love for old music and the way it sounded. Initially Dorey experimented with samples (especially drum breaks) to create instrumental hip-hop/trip-hop tracks, but then later started to play around with tape machines as a means to create his own 'samples'. This process gave birth to Skinshape, with all elements being recorded by Dorey since the first self-titled album, released in 2014. He released his second album Oracolo in 2015, and in 2017 he released his third album 'Life & Love.' Aside from the Skinshape project, Dorey was bassist for the band Palace from 2014-2017, and also runs a reggae label called Horus Records, based in North London.

We're delighted to announce Sonar's Ghosts' first full solo EP on 7th Storey Projects - In 'a Soul - due to drop mid-August 2020.

Featuring four tracks of ragga-infused jungly goodness, with a bit of ravey-gravy in the mix for good measure!

For their second release of the year, Josiah Hartley’s Phuture Shock label welcome up-and-coming Manchester producer Szajna to the ranks; armed with his debut solo 12” ‘M41’ EP.

Teffa makes a more than welcome return to Foundation Audio with the 'Advance EP' featuring four of his greatest productions to date! The more attentive dubstep connoisseurs amongst you might well recognise 'Advance' which has been doing the rounds for a hot minute now mashing up countless raves. The rest of the EP ain't no joke either.. pure FYAH from front to back! Love to Teffa each n every.

Vinyan (Thai for soul) is used to describe the intangible essence of something. The esoteric part that draws the line of one’s character, mystery, and spirit.

This cassette is a curated compilation of Vinyans bound in time and place and selected to form a continuity into a coherent whole. Re-contextualizing contemporary parallels between tribal elements, live instruments, drones and house themes; the ebb and flow between cosmic rhythms and eccentric landscapes drowning into a hypnotic blend. Psychonauts are invited into this warm and organic palette of sound textures from the East.

823 is a multifaceted Perth-based record label, fashion brand, and artistic community, founded by Australian producer and all-around creative, Ta-ku (846k monthly listeners on Spotify). With an ethos of attention to detail and appreciation for the everyday things in life, 823 doesn’t stick to any particular genre. 823’s releases include Cabu’s (800k Monthly Listeners on Spotify) “So Far To Go” EP, Ta-ku and matt mcwaters’s duo project “Black and White,” which featured Masego collaboration “Flight 99” (14 million streams on Spotify), their debut release with Australian producer and instrumentalist Kuzich, and multiple sold out clothing capsules. “All Things Considered Vol. 1” set off a collaborative series of curated compilations, featuring both budding and well-established artists around the world including Idealism, Wun Two, pastels, SwuM, Jinsang, Saltyyyy V, and more. “All Things Considered Vol. 2” sees the continuation of this project, this time in partnership with fellow Perth-based powerhouse, Butter Goods.

Butter Goods is a Perth clothing brand rooted in skating culture and style, but drawing inspiration from hip-hop, jazz, and music at large. Butter Goods has been featured in major publications, including GQ, Complex, and HYPEBEAST. They’ve collaborated on releases with Peanuts and Puma, and have reached international levels of popularity. Butter Goods co-founder Garth Mariano’s deep love for and eclectic tastes in music drive his creativity, and are front and center in his partnership with Ta-ku and 823 on “All Things Considered Vol 2,” where the two team up to curate a wide-ranging compilation.

Arriving on September 2nd, 2022, “All Things Considered Vol. 2” is an exploration of Ta-ku’s and Mariano’s extensive and often overlapping musical palettes in two parts. The record pays homage to the love of instrumental music and hidden gems of new school jazz and funk that act as a source of inspiration and nostalgia for the both of them. The collaboration brings together over a dozen producers and instrumentalists from Sydney to Chicago, including Jadu Jadu, Gnarly, Tenderlonius, silentjay, and more. Side A is curated by Ta-ku and 823. It’s as much a love letter to the past as it is a nod to the future of beat-making. Featuring sample heavy, drum looped beats, sprinkled with the occasional ear candy for the attentive listener, it presents cruisy soundscapes & easy listening. Side B is curated by Garth and Butter Goods. It’s a raw and eclectic companion to Side A, leaning heavily into the texture and grit of multi-layered jazz and funk-driven beats.

As with any 823 release, the project is as visual as it is sonic. The artwork and visualizers are a celebration of Garth’s love of thrift culture and old nature documentaries, fused with 823’s design aesthetic of bringing everyday inspirations to the forefront. CRT style visuals are paired with 90’s spin, slide and fade away transitions. When partnered with the music, each visualizer could easily work as the intro for an episode of a VHS series of nature docos.

1st single, “senzu bean,” arrives on July 7th and kicks off Side A, showcasing Ta-ku’s hip-hop-centric tastes. Sydney producer Jadu Jadu teams up with UK-based TAMBALA, apltn, and Makzo for a vibrant instrumental. From a head-nodding bassline beneath fuzzy synths, to soft horn licks sprinkled over electronic drums, “senzu bean” is sonically rich and multilayered.

2nd single, “Too Much” by UK producer saaaz arrives July 20th. It’s a moody and low-tempo beat that builds itself up over time, complete with cryptic vocal samples and syrupy drums and bass. Also off of 823’s Side A, “Too Much” maintains a laid-back hip-hop theme but with saaaz’s signature and definitive lo-fi twist.

3rd single, “Goodmorning” from Baro Sura and silentjay of Melbourne arrives August 3rd, kicking off Butter Good’s Side B. The track is bright from start to finish and is a sun-filled track perfect for closing out the summer with. Final single, “Fool’s Gold” by Los Angeles producer L.Dre arrives August 17th. The infinitely creative beatmaker layers soft hums and the sounds of crashing waves over crisp drums and an infectious bassline. Together, it makes for a beat that sounds like it was made outside, under the sun, and is best enjoyed in the same way.

Focus track, “Seventh Wonder” by Tenderlonius, comes off of Side B, and is a window into the ideas and palettes on both sides of the compilation. The beat slowly fades in, one sound at a time, until it reaches a full-fledged groove, soaked in synths, bass, and horns, that’s impossible not to move to.

On the whole, “All Things Considered Vol. 2” is a forward-focused, sonic journey into the minds behind two of today’s great creative brands, and is as artistically eclectic and varied as those minds are, and a proud follow-up to its first volume.

LP contains A2 poster on uncoated stock.

Lustmord is a Welsh electronic musician, composer and sound designer based in Los Angeles. Active since 1980 he has released a prolific body of work across various labels such as Touch, Hydra Head and Blackest Ever Black. Often credited for starting the dark ambient genre with his ‘Heresy’ album in 1990, Lustmord’s music has been described as sweeping and profound, a vast dreamlike soundscape that utilises organic and real-world scenes as source material. Lustmord albums have been made from caves, crypts, car crashes, cosmological activity, the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the site of the first ever nuclear detonation. Lustmord and Cargo Records are happy to announce the launch of Vaultworks. Originally an imprint intended to release short editions of live CDs at his live shows, it is now launched as a wider platform for his work in general. Kick starting a planned series of new releases and reissues is the first time Vinyl and CD release of his soundtrack to Paul Schrader’s 2017 film First Reformed, starring Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried and Cedric Kyles. The release features extended versions of the score formatted as a standalone album. The double vinyl edition includes an extra track “Venice” which was featured at the Venice Film Festival red carpet event. The CD edition has tracks formatted to crossfade into each other for a continuous listening experience.

Dubbing Sun x Echo Ranks x Radikal Guru bringing the conscious vibes once again.

The mysterious musical group ,debuts on the Faith Disciplines label with an album of industrial music with a variety of ethnic influences, voices and traditional instruments fused with powerful rhythms

Produced by Jeremy Sylvester.
Massive reissue/reboot business. Back to 1997 for these speed garage blueprints from Jeremey Sylvester and Mike Millrain's G.O.D project. Fitting name; these were god tier jams the first time and they remain just as bubbly, badass and sexy as they did 23 years ago. "Watch Ya Bass Bins" comes in its original form and a beefed up twist for 2020 while other classics still do the business: "Got 2 Go" is all about the swagger while "Come Into My Heart" blinds you with its juicy organs. Timeless

Made up of six tracks but presented as two ~17-minute pieces, the record meanders through warm chordscapes, glistening synths and loose live percussion, weaved together with field recordings and ambience.

pH 1 released his "Technicolor Vision" cassette album on Help Recordings in 2016, but is also part of the
group Hi Mount along with Central and DJ Sports. The three have released together on Regelbau. The
name pH 1 bear a less than subtle reference to the sound of acid, and his productions definitely reflects
early UK house and break beat with elements of acid jazz. He first crossed paths with Multiplex while
performing a live set in his hometown before Steen Kong was to DJ. The two quickly connected and we
are happy to welcome pH 1 to the Multiplex family.

Born and raised in Aarhus, Denmark but often traveling to UK where he also spent his teens. He started
playing guitar at age eight, but once he'd felt wax on a 1210, saved up for a pair of Technics.

His Lucid EP opens with "Time of Day" a beautiful house production, "Infinite Pressure" presents a deep,
cinematic journey, while "Bonafide Platter" is a playful, acidic tune. Titonton Duvanté delivered the
amazing Futurity EP for Multiplex in 1998 with four funky acid tracks, the perfect candidate to add to pH
1's universe. Titonton has remixed "Make Your Reality" on the B-side and the original mix of that track
gets the final word of the EP.

The return of our VA series is marked with the new chapter ‘Freaky Friends Volume 1’ featuring the likes of P.Leone, Nasty King Kurl, Sentient State, Ole Mic Odd, Dj Swagger, and Main Phase.

As C418, composer and producer Daniel Rosenfeld designs sounds to resonate in both physical and pixelated realms. Best known for his original soundtracks to Minecraft, the single best-selling video game of all time, he's developed a discography of instrumental music over the last decade that traverses electronic pop patterns, neo-classical dreamscapes, and sparse ambient motifs. The latter element has broken from the "8-bit" pigeonholing of game music and earned him accolades that reference artists like Erik Satie (The Guardian) and Brian Eno (VICE). In 2015, after quietly self-releasing Minecraft Volume Alpha and Minecraft Volume Beta, Rosenfeld partnered with Ghostly International to reissue Minecraft Volume Alpha on vinyl and CD. The release garnered attention from proper music critics and the gaming community alike, becoming one of the most sought after records in the Ghostly catalog. Now, following several restocks of Alpha to fervent fan response, it is time for the soundtrack's second installment to shine. For the legion of listeners and players to, at long last, have Minecraft Volume Beta in tangible formats. Originally self-released in 2013, Minecraft Volume Beta was C418's longest batch of music to date at nearly 140 minutes. The collection features tracks that were "silently" added to Minecraft during its music updates and a few that never officially entered the game. The run time is now adapted to fit the double LP format, while digital downloads include the full set. Rosenfeld's unmistakable abilities are on display; he creates a sweeping variety of musical ideas that mirror the limitless universe of Minecraft. Ghostly International is thrilled to give this unique collaboration its due treatment and hopes to see the creative inspiration which drives Minecraft and Rosenfeld continue to disperse by virtue of this unexpectedly universal music.

Dark Morph is a collaboration between sound and visual artists Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson. Today they have announced a new release ‘Dark Morph II’, for release on May 1st via Pomperipossa Records – the Swedish record label led by von Hausswolff’s daughter, Anna von Hausswolff.

The release is dedicated to the oceans of planet earth and to the lifeforms that live in and around them, with the duo stating: “The exploitation of the oceans, in conjunction with the heavy pollution (from plastic waste to nuclear radio-activity) has to stop, and be replaced by collaborative manners co-operating with all life on or globe.”

Carl Michael von Hausswolff is a renowned artist, active in the art and music world with solo and collaborative projects for many years, and Jónsi’s work in the Icelandic group Sigur Rós, as well as his collaboration with composer Alex Somers, is recognised across the globe. Dark Morph formed when the two artists met aboard the M/Y Dardanella ship in Fiji invited by TBA21–Academy in 2018. The ship is a creative platform equipped with sound and video recording systems, and the result of the duo’s first voyage was released in May 2019 at the Biennale di Venezia. This second album consists of material recorded in Fiji and Tonga and was produced and mixed in GeeJam Studios in Jamaica in January 2019.

Step in the Arena is the second studio album by hip hop duo Gang Starr, printed as a 1990 release and commercially released on January 15, 1991. The album received critical acclaim and was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. The Source magazine stated: “Step in the Arena stands alone on a musical level, yet it also remains true to hip-hop’s underground heritage.” In 1998, the album was selected as one of The Source’s 100 Best Hip Hop Albums. Urban Legends/UMC will reissue Step In The Arena on 2LP 180 gram black vinyl on 28th June, 2019.

Compilation album curated by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

The directive for the composers featured on Breathing Instruments was, in effect, to accentuate the ways in which instruments sound like they are breathing. Some have recreated the literal experience of feeling or hearing the human breath. Others take a more abstract approach, where “breathing” is more motif than object of emulation.

From hushed pulsations and distant vocals in Kathryn Shuman’s ‘Objects creating a womb-like environment to Julianna Barwick’s blissful ‘Newborn’ the tracks give sonic form to the experience of emerging from the womb.

There is also a striking concurrence of woodland sounds throughout this collection from the ghostly tones of Emily A Srague’s ‘Flew’ to Cool Maritime and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s dew dripped ‘Daybreak’.

Meanwhile the undulating seascape of Geotic’s ‘Uncaught’ conjures moments of Evening Star by Fripp/ Eno, but supplants that album’s crystalline production with the warm crackle of vinyl.
If we learn anything from Breathing Instruments it is that we are inextricable from the natural world.

Re-release of the album which MARC WEISER (RECHENZENTRUM, zeitkratzer) and JÜRGEN HENDLMEIER (producer for THE FLAMING SIDEBURNS, THEE ULTRA BIMBOOS) created as ARURMUKHA. With the use of soundbites, field recordings, and stylistically diverse tracks, they reprocess the eviction of 13 squats on Mainzer Straße in Berlin-Friedrichshain in November 1990, forming it into an acoustic scenography in the style of the "Maifestspiele" by EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN.

Re-release of the album which MARC WEISER (RECHENZENTRUM, zeitkratzer) and JÜRGEN HENDLMEIER (producer for THE FLAMING SIDEBURNS, THEE ULTRA BIMBOOS) created as ARURMUKHA. With the use of soundbites, field recordings, and stylistically diverse tracks, they reprocess the clearing of 13 squats on Mainzer Straße in Berlin-Friedrichshain in November 1990, forming it into an acoustic scenography in the style of the "Maifestspiele" by EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN.

14.11.2020 marks the 30th anniversary of the clearing of 13 squats on Mainzer Straße in Berlin-Friedrichshain. The violent confrontation between the police and about 500 squatters, involving armored vehicles, helicopters, and 10 water cannons, was the biggest police operation in Berlin's post-war history, with 4000 officers deployed, and is deemed to be the last big "battle" of left-wing squatters in Germany. The insert for the LP provides a detailed chronicle of the events (taken from the book "Berlin Mainzer Straße: Wohnen ist wichtiger als das Gesetz Berlin Mainzer Straße: Housing is more important than the law", published in 1992 by Basis-Druck).

On the occasion of the anniversary, the Berlin label KARLRECORDS is making a contemporary document that has been out of print for more than 25 years available to the public again. The album "14.11.90" by internationally renowned electronic musician and co-founder of the CTM Festival MARC WEISER (RECHENZENTRUM, zeitkratzer a.o.) and JÜRGEN HENDLMEIER (producer for THE FLAMING SIDEBURNS, THEE ULTRA BIMBOOS a.o.) was originally released in 1993 as a vehicle for them to work through their personal experiences as contemporary witnesses of the eviction, on the label GOLDRAUSCH-TONTRÄGER, which was founded for the release. The project's name, ARURMUKHA – "avaricious demons", is a term from Vedic mythology, here alluding to the capitalist logic of exploitation guiding the West German corporations that bought out the former GDR after reunification.

Shunning the popular clichés of squatters, the duo processes original recordings of the clearing action, as well as material from radio and tv as their musical-textural starting points, composing them into a densely packed acoustic psychogram, recounting the events of the time with dramaturgic skill, in chronological sequence over the course of the two sides of the vinyl. Armed with a sampler as their main instrument they create an acoustic scenography which, as a sonification of memory, pits itself against oblivion. While constructed as a soundtrack, the heterogeneity of its styles gives the album the character of a compilation, aggregating drones, industrial, electronics, post punk, outsider music and political texts into an imaginary meta music film of resistance. The subject matter and music may suggest comparisons with EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN's piece "Maifestspiele". The covers of the original edition at the time were individually designed by many different friends of the scene in the form of a "social sculpture" of the squatters' movement and comprised screen prints, collages, graphics, and photos. Selected for the re-edition of the LP: a picture by the Berlin photographer HARALD HAUSWALD, who is considered one of the most famous photo-chroniclers of the GDR and who also provided a collection of hand prints for the original.

Despite its age, the album is an alarmingly relevant one, with its contents not having lost any of their urgency. Especially in view of the displacement of affordable housing and free cultural spaces in metropolitan cities, "14.11.90" is a plea for creative resistance culture with the hope for change in the existing conditions.

Banco de Gaia has been performing and releasing for over 25 years now, along the way becoming one of the music industry's most maverick innovators. His legacy is as glittering as it is diverse, ranging from Hollywood film sound credits to the critically acclaimed 'Last Train to Lhasa', first released in 1995 to a rapturous reception. His live act still packs out venues and festivals all over the world, with audio visual performances renowned for their explosive, cutting edge quality: from sampling wizardry fused with haunting vocals and poignant acoustics to genre-hopping musical instrumentals, all accompanied by socially engaged visuals.

This was Banco de Gaia's ninth studio album, released to critical acclaim in 2016.

Research Records presents Melbourne electronic quartet Big Yawn's second contribution to the label, South Preston Garage. A title to honour the bands beloved bandroom, S.P.G compiles demos extracted from the studio for a digital release with a limited run of cassettes.

S.P.G embodies Big Yawn's trademark pastiche, fusing together rich percussion and sweeping synthesizers that are recontextualised through an extensive shed jam. The band characterises the first two tracks British Teeth and Burno as "Big Yawn flavoured DnB," with "refracted drum phrasing and unrelenting delays." Cascading acid-tinged bass rules in the quivering 4 Dads; a venture into the band's stockier temperament. The panoramic Burton Bell delivers raw and biting percussion, while remaining faithful to electronics with it's layered sampling. The release then disperses into seaside rapture with it's farewell Bad Boy. On Bad Boy, the band comment that the track "is perhaps our most melodic number to date, with heavily looping synths evoking a Hiroshi Sato/city-pop feel."

Having played guitar with the likes of Iggy Pop, Arno and Alain Bashung, to name but a few, Geoffrey Burton's guitar wizardry is set firm in his love for minimalism, fragmented chords, and off-kilter melodies.

On 'Me Ta Podia' (Greek for By Foot), Burton explores his instrument and connects it to his inner world, easily managing to surpass merely showing off skills. Burton creates an atmosphere that is uniquely his own, at times making his guitar sound like anything but a guitar.

Save for two tracks, 'Kuhlmannlaan 8" and 'Bababachable', 'Me Ta podia' was recorded live without any overdubs. This way of working is becoming a staple in the Gong Ear label philosophy, steering their artists towards live in-studio recordings that capture the magic of the moment.

With the sleeve designed by Burton's wife Sarah Yu Zeebroek and typography by Gert Dooreman, Burton is set and ready to showcase his own music, under his own name, for the very first time.

"Lugar Alto's newest project is the idiosyncratic album MUMIA (portuguese for MUMMY). Never released before, it is a work that was originally recorded on cassette and combines elements of post-punk, industrial and ambient music.

Kodiak Bachine and Celso Alves formed the ephemeral and eponymous duo in 1988. The partnership resulted in a single recording derived from improvised sessions using minimal amounts of electronic equipment at Celso's country house, located in the interior of São Paulo.

Bachine was an important figure in the São Paulo underground. His most renowned project was the band Agentss from 1981, which also consisted of Miguel Barella, Eduardo Amarante, Elias Glik and Lyses Pupo (later replaced by Thomas Susemihl). In its brief duration, the band released only two seven inches that were considered seminal artifacts in the Brazilian post-punk scene: “Agentes / Angra” from 1982 and “Professor Digital / Cidade Industrial” from 1983. These two rare records are highly sought after by collectors and DJs from around the world for their inventiveness and originality.

Similar to Agentss, MUMIA brings with it extreme authenticity, managing to extrapolate the barriers of more traditional Brazilian music and interact with unorthodox elements. The lyrics are a mixture of Portuguese and English and it is still possible to identify picturesque fragments of Spanish, French and German. In addition, sonically, the record portrays aesthetics from the eighties and dialogues with themes relating to LSD. Another notable feature is the fixation on Egyptian post-mortem themes, providing a cinematic and lysergic experience of the desert landscapes from the African country.

It is a recording with comic passages which provokes an unpretentious reaction from the listener. However, it still has more ethereal and atmospheric moments, such as the opening song “Ave do Deserto”. In the final two tracks, it is possible to enjoy a darker MUMIA, which with “Massacre da Serra Elétrica I” and “Massacre da Serra Elétrica II”, provide a sound experience capable of accompanying intense scenes from the macabre productions by Tobe Hooper and George Romero.

The striking new artwork was created by the Sometimes Always studio, a partner of Lugar Alto and responsible for diverse graphic collaborations with artists, venues and parties in Brazil. The album, mastered by the prolific Arthur Joly, also has a booklet containing Kodiak’s texts in Portuguese and English, in addition to the lyrics, which serve as a logical exercise for further understanding of the album.

MUMIA was unearthed by the renowned Brazilian DJ Millos Kaiser, who in addition to kindly curating this album, put together the compilation “Onda de Amor: Synthesized Brazilian Hits That Never Were (1984-94)”, released by Soundway Records.

Now, after 32 years in its tomb, the MUMIA has risen and thanks to Lugar Alto it can finally be celebrated and appreciated."

Sophie Barker's distinctive and critically acclaimed vocal range, paired with her emotional song-writing skills, have yielded world-wide chart-topping singles, million-selling albums and music collaborations with artists as diverse as David Guetta, Zero 7, Groove Armada, The Egg and Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins).

Having formed her first group at 9 years of age, as a teenager, Sophie went on to write and perform songs with her guitar at venues across the UK. After completing her degree at UCL, she moved beyond her mid-90s record deal with Sony, to join downtempo lounge wizards, Zero 7, and co-wrote their huge hit 'Destiny' with Sia Furler.

Her evocative vocal delivery and charismatic stage presence became an integral part of the Zero 7 sound and live show. Capitalizing on her fan base, she began to release as a solo artist. Her first two albums 'Earthbound'(2005) and'Seagull'(2011)gained support from DJs as varied as Don Letts and Janice Long, earning her radio plays on BBC6musicand Radio 2 among a plethora of other UK stations.

Herlong-awaited 3rd solo album, 'Break the habit'took 4 years to record but sees her more comfortable than ever in her own skin. Undoubtedly her best work to date, the LP effortlessly flows between her upfront live sound, finely-honed from intense touring and appearances with her band at festivals andvenuesacross the UK and USA, and more atmospheric, mood-driven electronica.

It's been four years since Sweatbox Dynasty, the fourth solo LP from Pennsylvanian experimentalist TOBACCO. In that time, Tom Fec's project has toured with Nine Inch Nails, provided the theme song to HBO series Silicon Valley, and teamed with Aesop Rock for a collaborative album as Malibu Ken. He now returns to Ghostly International for Hot Wet & Sassy, a full-length album oozing with his most playful and approachable songs to date, which, conversely, express notions of antilove, self-hate, and disappointment in others. Pop impulses have always surged beneath the surface of his sound - blown-out bass, analog synths, drum machines, and Fec's unmistakable analog gurgle and hiss - here they've bubbled to the top. "I feel like it's the most I've been able to refine what I'm doing," says Fec. "For the past decade I've had this motherfxcker on my shoulder that makes me pick away at structure and melody. Purposely covering up moments because I can. That really came to a peak on Sweatbox. So I wanted the opposite this time. Write the songs without ripping them in half. I went from 'what would the Butthole Surfers do?' to 'what would Cyndi Lauper do?'" And what would Trent Reznor do? Fec found his answer straight from the source. Their collaborative track, "Babysitter," fuses their voices into one deranged presence: "I'm the new babysitter," they alert, before pivoting into a menacingly saccharine bridge. The track tumbles on a tom fill, then a punishing synth line rips into a cacophony of drums and feedback like a lawnmower gnawing through the living room carpet. "This was new for me, but I wanted to write a song that was everything I am and have been, and then like one notch further. Trent was the notch further," adds Fec. The collaboration is a work of alchemy seamlessly blending TOBACCO's trademarks with Reznor's industrial rust and sonic gore. Downcast, sincere, woozy, "Jinmenken" might be the closest Fec has come to a ballad. "Maybe you can find me down the line," his vocoded delivery bounces along the beat. "It's me trying to write a Jets song," says Fec. Album opener "Centaur Skin" presents the stylistic concoction that has been the TOBACCO MO from the beginning, crossing dreamy melodic shimmer with the sinister tones and slime. This has become easier to digest, but also far more potent. A motorik beat steadies the track's galloping arpeggio, acting as a springboard for Fec's dark ruminations as well as an uncharacteristically crystalline synth solo. "It's my feel good self hate anthem. Don't worry, I'm good. It was fun to write." TOBACCO hasn't been reinvented, but it has been refined and distilled. Brighter, sharper, and far more dangerous because of it. Hot Wet & Sassy is practically staring at the sun without shades and feeling those corneas roast. Everything looks good as your vision fades. The pop-forward structures exert their undeniable hooks with baneful precision, pulling listeners into their clutches; once there, sugary melody rewards submission.

These last 10 years, Valance Drakes (formerly known as MusSck) has recorded a lush bunch of albums and EP's, solo and in collaboration with various music artists. His solo works of surreal experimentalism, turntable styles and textured and layered sound sculptures have been released on Detroit Underground, Amek and M-Tronic. "Freedom Is Its Own Kind Of Salary" is his 4th solo album.

"The underground hasn’t the time for vocation to stay in the shadows as those need to give the message of an alternative as when the image becomes more important than the substance everything goes wrong. Valance Drakes is an experimental beatsmith from somewhere in Europe. His sounds usually incorporate field recordings, vinyl samples and software glitches."

"You know, hyenas aren't the bad ones... These days it's humans you should fear."

Erik K Skodvin's first solo film score evokes otherwordly dreamscapes that capture the atmosphere of the film Anbessa (2019), shot in Ethiopia by director Mo Scarpelli.

As a "creative" documentary the film follows Asalif, a 10 year old imaginative boy caught between the ancient and the new, navigating modernization on his own terms. Asalif tries to make sense of things while living in a shed on the outskirts of Addis Ababa with his mom. A place where capitalism and “progress” is closing in on all fronts, and threatening their lifestyle. By becoming a lion (anbessa) he can fight back against the forces outside of his control.

Pursuing escapism and moments in sound is something Skodvin has been dedicating his life to the last 20 years, with his various projects: Svarte Greiner, Deaf Center, Miasmah. Often in the darker, shadowy corners of sound, but never without glimpses of light and humanity. Anbessa can at first seem like an unlikely film to be his first venture into solo film scoring, and second in total, after his collaborative score with Raúl Pastor Medall for Birgitte Stæremose's thriller Darling (2017). But somehow, the playful, dreamy character of Asalif fits perfectly with his sound. The choice was made to mix field recordings from the film with the music, which creates a type of audio cinema that fully captures the atmosphere of Asalif’s world: Screaming hyena's, birds, animals, nature, Asalif repairing found electronic devices, talking and singing, seemlessly blend in with bowed guitars, electro-acoustic instruments, trumpets, long pipes and clay drums, played by Skodvin and by Volcano The Bear's Aaron Moore. The result is an affecting journey. An escape into something hopeful.

For the LP edition, the score is set to one vinyl side, while the other side has a series of lone field recordings with locked grooves that creates an eerie further immersion into the world of Asalif. A photo/screenshot from the film comes with the vinyl.

Watch the film on MUBI from August 26th (for one month). Also available for rent or purchase through Video on demand.

John R Holmes debut release for Sores is an one hour long, lush and atmospheric journey with meditative organic textures, analog electronics and treated guitars rooted in Berlin-School masters such as Klaus Schulze and Edgar Froese.

Produziert und aufgenommen von Arca, definiert KiCk i eine neue Ära in der Multiplex-Welt der venezolanischen Künstlerin, Sängerin, DJ, Performerin und Komponistin. Mit Björk, Rosalía, Shygirl und SOPHIE hat Arca zum ersten Mal Kollaborateure in ihre Welt eingeladen. Zuvor produzierte sie für Björk, Kayne West und FKA twigs, komponierte Musik für das MoMA, erschuf gewaltige Noise-Skulpturen oder legte bei Festivals als DJ auf. Mit KiCk i wird nicht nur die Freude gefeiert, die Arca in ihrem Leben finden konnte, sondern auch der manchmal beschwerliche Weg, den sie dafür zurücklegen musste. Ihre Bemühungen, ihr venezolanisches Erbe und ihre trans-lateinamerikanische Identität zu versöhnen, entpuppen sich als Reggaetón und spanischem Pop. Aber KiCk i ist nicht nur eine Pop-Platte oder eine experimentelle Platte, oder auch nur eine Mischung aus beiden, sondern alles auf einmal - und noch so viel mehr. Je nachdem, wo man die Nadel aufsetzt, findet man Bubblegum, raue Geräusche, elektronische Psychedelia, Balladen, Knaller, Gelächter, Tränen, Leidenschaft und Glaubensäußerungen - Klänge und Ideen, die nicht einfach miteinander verschmelzen, sondern gleichzeitig in einer Quantenüberlagerung koexistieren. "Ich möchte nicht an ein Genre gebunden sein", erklärt Arca. "Ich will nicht als eine Sache abgestempelt werden." Wo sie jetzt ist, endet das Nicht-Binärsein nicht mit ihrer geschlechtlichen Identität. Es ist zu einer Denkweise geworden, bei der keine eine Sache nur eine Sache sein muss, bei der mehrere Bedeutungen, mehrere Realitäten in überlagertem Gleichgewicht koexistieren können. In diesem Raum zwischen den Staaten, in dem das eine Ding das andere ist, hat Arca ein riesiges Feld unerschlossener kreativer Kraft entdeckt.

‘Débuts’ is France-via-Brussels duo, Nikitch & Kuna Maze’s aka Nicolas Morant & Edouard Gilbert first full length album. Building on their collaborative EP “Mush”, ‘Débuts’ continues to explore the melting point between jazz and club culture, interspersed with the signature sounds of broken beat, Chicago footwork, UK garage, Detroit house, and underpinned by their road-tested new live format.

‘Débuts’ see’s the band push their musical and creative development even further, a result of touring extensively around Europe with a live drummer, from high-brow jazz festivals to sweaty basement clubs. “We would be lying if we said our gig experience didn’t influence us on this record” Edouard explains. “We discovered new aspects to songs such as “Bruk” and managed to push forward the energy side of the music from the rawness of the live shows. This energy empowered to produce and compose new material in the same vein”.

Amidst her work with the primitive-futurist neo-psych outfit Zen Mother and as a touring member of Daughters, Monika Khot creates apocalyptic dirges combining modern classical explorations of electronic ambience with hardware-fueled industrial barrages under the name Nordra. The project has taken her across North America and Europe, performing in both the high-brow art world and in the underground rock trenches on tours with artists like SUMAC and Algiers. Nordra’s third full-length continues her penchant for chilling digital drones, thunderous clatter, polyphonic idiosyncrasies, and a search for a harmonious balance between wrangling sounds out of new technology while exerting an undeniable human presence over the machinery. This final factor was of particular importance to choreographer / multi-media artist Colemxn Pester, who enlisted Khot to score their modernist dance performance trilogy PYLON, which explores the themes of resilience in the age of technology, surveillance, and other man-made impositions on the human body. Nordra’s second outing, the commissioned score for PYLON II, was a hard-edged martial exercise— fitting for the dystopian nature of the series’ second installment. But for PYLON III, Pester was looking for the light at the end of the tunnel and requested that Khot instill her work with hope and calm in order to serve the utopian aims of the performance.

Despite this direction, Nordra’s latest offering retains a certain tension and power present in her early work. “All of the writing techniques I intended to use remained in place, but I think the emotional resonance of this piece of music changed over the course time,” Khot reflects. “I don’t think this piece embodies utopia or the shedding of a corrupted society at all even though that’s what I set out to do... there’s a dystopian destructive sound that I can’t shake just yet.” That unwavering sense of foreboding is evident from the first note of the record, a massive square-wave pulse that ushers in “Prologue.” But the musical embodiment of hope follows close behind with sublime electronic drones that continuously push and pull the composition between major and minor keys. Digital hisses, the clatter of machinery, and the doomsday clock-tick of the hi-hat nudge the tone back into dire settings while swells of pocket trumpet and ethereal choral vocals struggle to provide solace. The duality of hope and despair was perhaps inevitable given the climate around PYLON III’s creation, with Khot dealing with a close friend’s cancer diagnosis and Pester’s performance preparations interrupted by technical setbacks and injured dancers.

It’s impossible to convey resilience without also capturing hardship, and the album’s second track “Remembering” excels at communicating a sense of calm while some vestige of danger percolates beneath the surface. Khot’s dreamy wordless-vocals sit at the forefront of the piece while stuttering percussion and groaning drones bubble up from below like buried memories. On “Monologue On The Beach,” Khot uses sporadic guitar harmonics, fractured piano melodies, and soothing digital hums in a manner that feels spontaneous, fluid, and human, effectively creating an underlying sense of peace amidst disorder. This dichotomy between chaos and calm was one of the shared themes between Pester and Khot’s work, and it manifested in a variety of ways on PYLON III. One of the most obvious examples occurs on “Searching In Fields For Elements,” where Khot filters digital noise through a MIDI note interpreter and inserts the resulting melody as a sequence of synthesized bell notes. “I wanted to create an actor that represented this industrialization so you could see if you found it endearing or not,” Khot explains. Our response to these random elements opens up a dialogue about the will of the element. “Some days I’m an anarcho-primitivist and some days I’m curious about what the exploration of machine-learning has actually taught us about our own consciousness,” she continues. The notion that technology could accelerate our journey towards enlightenment is perhaps the most utopian vision one could have in our current age.

Ultimately, the music of PYLON III provides one context as backdrop to Pester’s multi-media performance, but it has its own life and own character when absorbed on its own. In terms of emotional timbre, it’s a departure for Khot, even if the instrumentation and hardware tonalities are consistent with her self-titled debut LP and PYLON II. “I don’t think I would write the music on this record with no context,” Khot says. “It is completely fueled, adapted, and created with thematic, visual, and choreographic content in mind.” And yet even without those components, the experience of listening to PYLON III is haunting, compelling, and ultimately redemptive.

ALBUM RELEASE
Pylon III
ARTISTS
Nordra 3
LABEL
Sige Records [43]
AVAILABLE FORMATS
SIGE 071 LP LP September 04, 2020
GENRES
Electronic Industrial

Revolting Cocks' origins date to late 1984, when Front 242 started their first American tour as an opening act for their then-label mates Ministry. Afterwards, Alain Jourgensen asked Richard 23 to join forces and produce a dub-remix project. After returning to Brussels, Richard proposed this collaboration to Luc Van Acker who decided to team the band just after talking with Al over the phone.

“Big Sexy Land”, originally released through the legendary Wax Trax! Records in 1986, is the debut studio album by this supergroup featuring a mix of industrial, hard rock and EBM with dominating sampling and strong synthesized beats. It was composed mostly using a very expensive Fairlight CMI II synthesizer, sampler and work station that Al Jourgensen got funded by Sire Records. Luc Van Acker attributed album's mixing to Jourgensen's sessions with Adrian Sherwood on Ministry’s “Twitch”. Al surreptitiously took notes on Sherwood's settings, but, without any context for the numbers, they had to later guess at what the settings were for, such as reverb and delay time.

Album's title is a reference to a strip club in West Berlin. Al Jourgensen said that club neon sign was “the biggest capitalistic tease” for citizens in East Germany. The idea to use Revolting Cocks came from an incident that took place in a Chicago bar. According to Luc and Al, they all was trying out "insulting French expressions" on a waiter, ordering something they said meant “revolting cock” which led the waiter to say, “You are revolting cocks!”.

“Big Sexy Land” would be the only album made by the original incarnation as Richard 23 quit in 1986, after falling out with Jourgensen over an Adrian Sherwood's remix of the song "You Often Forget”.

Limited edition re-release on double vinyl with gatefold sleeve and expanded artwork including all original tracks plus the singles “No Devotion”, “You Often Forget” and another remix of “T.V. Mind”.

The awaited annual collection of Pushers from all over the world finally lands in this pandemic scenario.
A storytelling of 18 tracks, from ambient to electro.
NON SUMMER COMPILATION -

The release will be available from September in a limited series of 30 transparent red tapes series + digital download code.
Compiled by Asymmetrical
Mastered by Giovanni Inglese at FAUNA53

Fresh off the back of two sold out releases, UKG imprint Time Is Now returns with another slab of dancefloor weapons from London based producer Holloway.

A very special boxset that will see for the very first time, the iconic Ram Trilogy Chapters 1 to 6 (produced by Andy C, Shimon & Ant Miles) brought together in a bespoke set. It will also include a 1 off slipmatt. The seminal 6 parts released from 1998 to 2002 by RAM Trilogy (Andy C, Ant Miles & Shimon) brought together for the very first time in a limited edition boxset. In celebration of 10 years RSD & 25 Years of RAM Records

After three years of throwing parties, we’re thrilled to announce something we’ve been
dreaming of for a while now, the launch of our label and the first Awkwardly Social record
release.

Similar to our events and mix series, it is our goal to use the label as a platform for exciting, up
and coming artists from within our community and beyond. Working together with our friend,
the very talented Greek-born, Berlin-based DJ and producer Aroent therefore has been a real
pleasure and something that felt natural from the get go. We hope you enjoy this wicked set of
forward thinking club tracks as much as we do!

Early plays by Ben UFO, Bonebrokk, E-Unity, Gramrcy, Opium Hum, Natureboy Gold, Yushh
and more. Big ups to everyone supporting the record so far!
Artwork by VOJD
Mastering by Andreas Lupo Lubich

Next up on Lost City Archives we have 4 dance floor specials from the man himself Coco Bryce. Essential for any ravers crate. Don’t Sleep.

The Time Is Yours - A year in the making, and Dogger & Mindstate’s return to 1985 Music. After the brilliant response from their Broken Home E.P last year, Dogger & Mindstate have been working hard to make sure they achieve the high bar they set. This is a fantastically musical EP and is proof that hard work is the cornerstone to their ethos and beliefs. This EP also features the legendary vocalists DRS and Liam Bailey, as well as Anile and K S R . True to form, they have excelled themselves once again. Out 3 July On vinyl and digital.

Masterworks Music are back on the vinyl trail with their 15th 12" release, with Italian disco stallion Gledd in charge of the disco funk.

While some EPs might offer some down time and lower-tempo numbers, Soul Shapes goes for the dancefloor jugular with all four cuts designed to get you up and grooving.

Lead track 'Light of Florence' cleverly builds with strings and stylish background synths before dropping into a soul-searching vocal and gorgeous keys. With driving percussion, a walking bassline and cleverly restrained dynamics, it builds and bubbles with endless groove.

Follow up 'I Just Want You' builds on that teasing disco funk by upping the tempo and adding in blaring horns, a sizzling Rhodes breakdown that will have you playing air keys and yet more disco groove. Peak time, warm up, opening slot, closing track - this will work anywhere.

On the flipside, 'Of Rainbows' is a brilliantly-worked filter disco track, cleverly teasing in the disco loop with drop-dead-gorgeous strings before dropping back down to a deep house (and we mean deeeeeep house) bassline that carries the track from start to finish.

Gledd closes out the all-killer EP with 'Your Mind.' With Chic-style wah-wah guitars, clever drum fills and yet another stonking bassline, it's another beautifully crafted disco groover that cleverly blurs the line between peak-time heater and perfect warm-up material.

Shaun Bateman takes centre stage for the latest release on Droogs under both of his Nolige and SB81 aliases respectively. As Nolige, ‘The Blue Hour’ is the holiest of Drum & Bass grails – a much sought af ter lost dub dating back to and damaging dance f loors f or over a decade. As SB81 ‘Drone Zone’ is future-bound with a nod to archetypal Drum & Bass foundations. A dualistic release that explores two sides of the artist.

These run of releases on ‘Existence Is Resistance’ comes from the Legendary Proto Garage Record Label ‘Same People’, and see’s Persian & Long time musical partner DJ Texsta, repressing some of their most pioneering UKG E.P.s.

Repressed for 2020 on White 12"

Irish Drum & Bass veteran Zero T returns to Amsterdam imprint The North Quarter with his “Former Self EP”. Following up from his ambitious multi-genre project “Baby Grand”, Zero T now strips things down to a focused five-track project that manoeuvres through a broad range of styles within Drum & Bass. From his Soulful reinterpretation of Mango x MathMan's “Lonely Night” to the dubbed out weight of “Clash” - with Bristol-based rising producer Myth - this is a well balanced EP that displays Zero T's expansive vision and is a testimony to his growth as a producer and technician.

7” single picture disc in clear plastic wallet

One of the most important artists in the development of the Horo sound, Astral Projection is the first full length ASC album for the Horo label. Astral Projection follows on clearly from 'Imagine The Future' with the development of the Grey Area sound progressing and becoming intrinsic to a large majority of ASC's current work. But this LP is not a Grey Area addendum, Astral Projection is a luminous artistic statement from a sonic perfectionist who the term 'sound designer' was made to define. An accomplished and much respected ambient producer, ASC weaves his talent for soaring emotive soundscapes with his undeniable rhythmic prowess across a cohesive 12 track sonic voyage that again accomplishes a rare goal in todays electronic music landscape - a commanding listen from beginning to end. Very few artists are as prolific and consistent as ASC, but we are confident Astral Projection will be revered as one of his finest moments in years to come.

Welsh DJ Sasha is active since the late ‘80s and achieved much success, both as a solo artist as with John Digweed. He was voted World No. 1 DJ in 2000 in the prestigious poll conducted by DJ Magazine (Dj Mag Top 100). His second album, Airdrawndagger, is considered as a masterpiece in the electronic music scene. It features co-production from Charlie May, Junkie XL and James Holden. Upon release, the album charted on the UK and US Albums Charts, peaking at number 18 and 157 respectively. The album features some of his best work, including “Bloodlock” (featuring James Holden) and the ultimate album closer “Wavy Gravy”.

This wonderful record is available as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on translucent red vinyl

Space•lab records launches its interstellar mission to bring wigglers and warpers from all corners of the galaxy with a V/A made in Birmingham. Adam Pits kicks things off with Real Taste Of Gravity, a rising, trancey journey with a wonderful proggy bassline and synths-a-twinkling. Desert Sound Colony & Dr. Baird combine for the warpy, acid-flecked bassy roller Space Bass Express before Breaka and Adam Pits join for a classy breaks track with bubbling EFX called The Show Must Go On, named after Nic reversed a van into a parked car after setting up the space•lab party where they all met. Inner Zone (Rupert Worthington, Alex Anderson and label head Nic Baird) round things off with their debut release Niaaru - a sunrise weeper for those who like breakbeats with their coco pops.

Asquith brings his own imitable brand of UK garage/rave/breaks hybrid to Hypercolour for an EP brimming with real underground vibes.

Hot on the heels of a series of 12”s on his own Asquith label, the Lobster Theremin head honcho drops four cuts of heavy, distorted bass brain melters on the ‘Time & Space’ EP.

Danish duo Lyra Valenza (aka Hjalte and Jens Konrad) operates on the outskirts of contemporary electronic dance music. Armed with a playful approach and a patchwork of digital and analogue equipment, Lyra Valenza carved their own space in the Copenhagen scene by genre-blending Jungle, UK Garage, and Footwork into a mix of forward-facing and euphoric dance music for 2020 and beyond. A testament to the duo's unique approach to sound design, they were selected for this year's SHAPE - a platform for innovative music and audiovisual art from Europe.

Lyra Valenza's latest EP, Nightshade Edition, is a package of sweet and dangerous cuts to the taste of dystopian romance. The prime dance floor material hits with metallic percussion and bursts of fluttering synths tuned with just the right amount of trance. From stepping UKG, to lush digital soundscapes, the four breaks heavy tracks are hyper-modern sonic experiments processed through a retrospective haze.

The Nightshade Edition EP is released on Lyra Valenza's own Petrola 80 label. It follows their 2018 debut EP "Scan Deliver" on UK imprint Opal Tapes and an appearance on this year's Kulør 006 compilation.

DJ Support
Marcel Dettmann - "thx"
Carista - "nice one! Love low b4. Thanks for sending"
The Black Madonna - "Great!"
Rroxymore - "really good EP !!!"
Desert Sound Colony - "All about that Sport Mode. Sick track!"
Danielle - "wickeddd!"
Otik - "this is seriously good"
Ciel - "wonderful release"

A lucid dream meeting of synth waves, aquatic jazz spirits and drum-triggered electronics.'Linha D'Água'translates as 'water lines', fitting for an album that traces boundaries between water and air through an echo chamber of dizzying oceanic layers and free flowing ideas.

This is not a record based on genres. It's an album that navigates through atmospheres, through explorations and discoveries, through curiosity and dialogue. The eight tracks were recorded in a single day in the studio, but it is the result of more than two years of collaborations.

Mauricio Takara and Carla Boregas are two towering figures of the Brazilian underground/experimental scene, where they provide the rhythm section for demented genre-bending trio Rakta. While that band is all ritual percussion and red-blooded passion, as a duo they're a blue-water flowing counterpoint. From the drums, Takara fires melodies and, with the synthesizer, Carla sculpts the sound. The result iscaught somewhere between abstract improvisation and propulsive rhythm. Each song's an organic layering of manipulated synthesizers and acoustic sounds; teasing new rhythms from the drum kit via MIDI (and a near-telekinetic bond between Carla and Mauricio).

Sometimes'Linha D'Água'driftsclosest to ambient music, as in the title track, in 'Mãe D'Ouro' and 'Bocca Chiusa'; sometimes it runs into free jazz, as in 'Traçado Entre Duas Linhas'. There are moments when Carla and Mauricio explore a universe of tension that comes closest to the cosmic music of 70s Germany, as in 'Rosa de Areia' and 'Constante de Distância'; in others they evoke the metallic sounds of Indonesian gamelan (on 'Execution').

Carla Boregas is a founding member of the band Rakta, which started in 2011. She co-founded Auta, a DIY space dedicated to adventurous music in São Paulo hosting artists like Feminine Hi-Fi and Deafkids. She is also part of the transdisciplinary duo Fronte Violeta.

Mauricio Takara also plays drums/percussion with the bands Hurtmold and São Paulo Underground (with trumpeter Rob Mazurek from Chicago). Takara has played with a dizzying array of improv / experimental / jazz figures such as Pharoah Sanders, Damo Suzuki, Yusef Lateef, Joe Lally (Fugazi), Naná Vasconcelos, Prefuse 73, Makoto Kawabata and more.

Repress...!

For the fourth release we welcome the crew the italian trio Paradise city Breakers with their debut EP. Heavily house and breaks influenced, the A side is direct and punchy, straight in-the-face, while the B side goes deeper and groovy, with a late morning vibe.
This 4 tracker EP is clearly made for the dance floor!

First Second Label drop their first 12' of the year from sub-tech stalwart and Woozy resident Sputnik One. Four tracks scaling intense percussive workouts and low end mutations. Early support from the likes of Ben UFO, re:ni, Peach & more.

Voiron debuts on Analogical Force with 'Drill'n'Voiron EP'. 5x Tracks where the 'fake Parisian' continues to blur the lines between genres through his own interpretation. Expect braindance blah blah blah inspired cuts so turn on those smoke machine and welcome to Voironland.

Swedish record label Trunkfunk celebrates the impressive landmark of 20 years releasing music with the first of a two-part vinyl sampler series. Championing the Scandanavian electronic sound, both samplers combined will form twelve tracks to be included in a twenty track compilation album to follow later this year.

“In this year of change, we wanted to reconnect with the roots of the label, inviting both old and new artists from our family to create twenty unreleased tracks to celebrate our 20th birthday. This compilation is a huge milestone for us and sets the tone for the future of Trunkfunk.” Trunkfunk

His Name Was Juri from Algorythm opens the release in style with celestial organ and lush bass. The track progresses with percussive elements creating an ever-growing state of hypnotism. Swedish house aficionados Jens Wickelgren and Polisen collaborate on It’s All Out, a classy piece created by the Jens Records and Compact disco label bosses. A murky bassline snakes in between breakbeat before bright keys shine through on this exuberant track. franskild, the Swedish production duo of Tim Soderstrom and Love Ojensa who have released on Kistuné Music and Lotss Records, bring their brand of melancholic and playful house music to Plastic Yacht.

Clarity’s first solo release on UVB-76 Music arrives in the form of a highly polished, firm footed quartet. Four grounded, heavyweight churners that sit proudly at the core of relevant Drum & Bass: Torsion, Stateless and Taking Effect.Across the three original compositions Clarity commands the frequencies of the contemporary breakbeat form. Completing the circle is Clarity’s remix of label mate Overlook’s All of Them Witches, an interpretive reimaging of an already bona- fide modern classic; poise, precision and execution.

Danny Scrilla returns for 2020 with six tracks of varying flavours for Cosmic Bridge. One of the key and foundational artists on the label, his sound is widely appreciated from forest raves to tiny basements alike.

DJ/producer Don Pascal has long been an advocate of fusing London’s sound system aesthetic with more traditional music from around the globe.

Following on from his 2014 release The Cali Experiment, (fusing Latin influences with the sounds of London’s underground club scene) we are happy to announce his forthcoming album The Dakar Experiment.

Featuring musicians from Senegal’s legendary evolving band Xalam, The Dakar Experiment is a sonic exploration fusing Senegalese musicianship and London’s Broken Beat scene.

As the homogenised sound of western pop permeates traditional music the world over, The Dakar Experiment offers an alternate pallet of influence, retaining tradition yet suggesting other possible paths.

The foundations of the album were laid at Henri Guillabert’s studio in Dakar over most of 2016 with Moustapha - Taffa – Cisse, Yahael Camara Onono and of course Henri and Don, then completed in London with an array of musicians, pulling on the city’s vibrant and re-emergent Broken Beat scene.

Featuring vocals by Lyric L, Rich BLK and Niara Scarlett, and remixes by EVM128, Trev and Xtra Brux, The Dakar Experiment is an exercise in finding what connects us in an increasingly divisive world.

Low frequency mastermind, Zygos, makes his Albion Collective debut alongside returning roots commander, Dubbing Sun. Their single, “Cradle To The Grave”, empowers the dancefloor in a unifying steppas style. Intensifying the marching bassline, prophecies from Rider Shafique and Ras Addis urge the revolution forward.

Reinforcing the A-side, Digid leads the lion charge, churning the bassline with rock steady grit. Stripping the anthem back to stone-shaking 140, Somah rebuilds the B-side with Trinity Centre brickwork and trenchtown mortar.

Reaching forward while honouring its roots, Albion Collective adds new dubstep super-powers to its roster while welcoming back some of the label’s earliest titans. Zygos and Dubbing Sun’s original mix and its flips are set to keep raves stomping from the “Cradle To The Grave”.

Martin Khanja (aka Lord Spike Heart) and Sam Karugu emerge from Nairobi's flourishing underground metal scene as former members of the bands Lust of a Dying Breed and Seeds of Datura. Together in 2019 they formed Duma (Darkness in Kikuyu) with Sam abandoning bass for production and guitars and Lord Spike Heart providing extreme vocals to the project. Recorded at Nyege Nyege Studios in Kampala over three months in mid 2019 their self-titled debut album fuses the frenetic euphoria, unrelenting physicality and rebellious attitude of hardcore punk and trash metal with bone-crunching breakcore and raw, nihilist industrial noise through a claustrophobic vortex of visceral screams. The savant mix of brutally adrenalized drums, caustic industrial trap, shredding grindcore inspired guitars and abrupt speed changes create a darkly atmospheric menace and is lethal on tracks like the opener "Angels and Abysses" , "Omni" or "Uganda with Sam". The gruelling slow techno dirges and monolithic vocals on "Pembe 666" or "Sin Nature" add a pinch of dramatic inevitability bringing a new sense of theatricality and terrifying fate awaiting into the record's progression. A sinister sonic aggression of feral intensity with disregard for styles, Duma promises to impact the burgeoning African metal scene moving it into totally new, boundary-challenging experimental territories.

Sublime synth and guitar compositions from Echolog on this 7 track LP. I was first introduced to Otto's work via his Conversions tape on Constellation Tatsu, and on Conte he has created something really striking and unique. Each piece is filled with movement and melody beginning with the synth pulses of "Depart" and "Conte" to the slow motion ambient swells of "Reflection" and "Centre".

t's early 1992, and we'd just created our first track using nothing more than a 4 track sequencer loaded onto an Amiga plugged into a crude 8-bit sampler. That track was "Rock Ya Body". At that time I worked part time in Rob Haigh's Parliament Music Record shops and had got to know him well. I had no idea the impact that "Rock Ya Body" would have as we played a tape of that first recording to Rob. On the strength of that one track, Rob decided to start up the PM label there and then. We sealed the deal over a few cans of Stella and it wasn't long before we'd written 3 more tracks. The tracks were mastered and recorded in Rob Playford's makeshift studio, who had just started his journey with Moving Shadow. Simon & Mark were now Syko & Mak and the Murda EP became the first release on the PM label. Remastered by Syko and Mike Badger during Lockdown 2020; unearthing and using stems and parts from the original tracks. This EP is where it all started...

Fresh from hot releases on HAVEN & Rave Selekts Dublin’s Tommy Holohan debuts on Dance Trax with 2 breakbeat-tek-crunch anthems - all systems go!

repressed!

Offering a visionary approach to the solo guitar, Milanese experimentalist Alessandra Novaga, delivers an expansive meditation on the late filmmaker, Derek Jarman, with "I Should Have Been a Gardener", presented by Die Schachtel.

Alessandra Novaga is among the leading figures within Italy’s thriving new, experimental, and improvised music scene, consistently rendering striking solo efforts, as well as equally noteworthy collaborating with Stefano Pilia, Paula Matthusen, Elliott Sharp, Sandro Mussida, Travis Just, and others. Remarkably ambitious and forward thinking, her approach to the guitar veers from the trajectories of visceral emotiveness and textural extended techniques that have held sway over the instruments applications within avant-garde contexts over the last half century, encountering her relentlessly deconstructing and rethinking its unique properties through applications of structure, resonance, space, and tone.

"I Should Have Been a Gardener" - building on from the territory explored within 2017’s "Fassbinder Wunderkammer" - is Novaga’s second LP to draw conceptually on her love for film. Rather than focusing on a fixed point of inspiration, the album takes form as a distillation, pulling from across the unique life, death, work, political commitment, and diaries of Derek Jarman. Emerging as an ethereal aural portrait of the man, sound - interventions of tonality with non-instrumental sources - and silence join in a single, unified body that seeks redemption and purification at the boundaries of life; an imprint that, like Jarman’s garden at Prospect Cottage, is magical - flowers blooming between the stones - hovering in the stark space between an endless sea and post-modern shadow of a nuclear power plant.

As remarkably listenable as it is challenging and pregnant with ideas, Novaga’s "I Should Have Been a Gardener" represents a strikingly at ease step forward in the potentialities of experimental music. Bravely taking on the ubiquitous expectations of the guitar, Novaga refused to relinquish the clarity of source and sound, forcing the ear to rethink what is accepted and known at every turn. An immersive journey from one of Italy's most important contemporary voices..

Dawl + Sween are back on Klasse Wrecks with a follow up to their well received 'Rise of the Humanoids' EP from 2018. The UK DJ-Producer combo is back with more of the same classic Electro-Break sonics that had the fans of the first EP feinding so hard. The mantra seems to be similar too, no frills and direct to the point with equal parts Bleep and Rave thrown in resulting in a no brainer buy of a record. SWITCH!

Derek Baron is a composer, musician, and artist. Curtain is a diary. Both in musical and non-musical situations, they attribute a filmic quality to their journal-like aural self-documentation. Dreams turn real then dissolve. Single phrases and events arrive and leave, abruptly. Yet, the overall sense of place that Baron creates is understood.

Opening Curtain is the eponymous piece. A 21-minute live chamber work for quintet recorded in 2018. A musical assemblage of glued-together fragments and scraps of sheet music from Baron’s past. Compositions wrote in the small margins and folds of paper; illustrated in the art booklet included with the LP. The flute, violin, guitar, keyboard, and bass clarinet phrases saunter at a pre-sleep pace, until a subdued, yet ecstatic Mass theme ushers in periodically. Delivering the warmth of life… it is a slow beauty. It brings me such happiness listening to this piece. Its continuity is cut with scissors and pasted about oddly… all soaked in a certain malaise; a resigned grace.

The next piece and other side of the LP, “Chancel,” is rather different. An audio journal flipped through, dropped on the ground, picked up and opened to another page. A confusing montage of world-ized musical snatches: car radios, church choirs emanating to the streets, moldy organs, domestic piano recordings. Similarly, machine vibrations, bodega conversations, and other environmental observations segue the harmony and disharmony of this listening experience. I’ll finish with some of Derek’s notes from the booklet: “Co-opting new achievements / Thank you for this incredible demonstration / This theatre of procedures / This consoling play of recognitions / No theatre but “what’s that”, / Nowhere for the silver ball to roll to. / How are we so in love.”

Composed, produced, and arranged by Eartheater alone, Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin draws a path back to the primordial lava lake from which she first emerged, as it also testifies to the reincarnating resurrections the project has undergone over its first full decade of existence. While the album renews her focus on guitar performance and legible structure, Eartheater balances the unabashed prettiness of acoustic harmonic songs with the dissonant gestural embroidery of oblique instrumentals. Having fallen back in love with the idioms that first captivated her, she worked to crack open the techniques that had fossilized inside of her, while still seeking to apply the electro-alchemical knowledge she picked up along her journey. The result of a laborious revival in fire, Phoenix recontextualizes Eartheater’s combinatorial approach to production within her most confident abstractions, adjacent to some of her most direct songs to date.

Eartheater composed and workshopped most of Phoenix over a ten-week artist residency (FUGA) in Zaragoza, Spain, housed in a sprawling, cubic glass facility that looked out over wildflower-flecked mountains. Following an intensive period of recording and touring, the residency provided her with an unprecedented period of solitude in the small Spanish town. Her newfound sense of isolation ultimately became liberating, leading her to sidestep the crutches and steady grids inherent to electronic music, and to conceive pieces rooted in her guitar and her desire to perform with other players live.

Eartheater’s voice glows brighter than ever at the center of Phoenix’s arrangements — her familiar operatic highs are grounded by newly expanded velvety lows, leaping lucidly up and down octaves. Her intricate guitar work flits across baroque fingerpicked passages and latches into cyclical figures that meet her voice in lush harmonic progressions. From her own guitar parts, to the orchestral string arrangements she wrote for the Spanish conservatory group Ensemble de Camara, to the harp and violin lines performed by her close friends and collaborators Marilu Donovan and Adam Markiewicz of LEYA, Eartheater’s applications of acoustic instruments bring an extraordinary emotional emphasis to her compositions. Phoenix prepares for a future where electronic sound — or even electricity itself — isn’t guaranteed, but where her music could still come to life with a group of hands dexterously winding across instruments against the light of the fire. Eartheater drew inspiration for Phoenix from geological imagery, whose turbulence and potential for genesis mirror the trajectory of her own life and relationships. The album’s instrumental pieces directly reference these moments of upheaval, colliding audio of volcano and lightning storms with resplendent string and vocal arrangements. “Volcano” looks out over the album from its peak at the center, its tectonic plates colliding in towering melodies and layers of vocal harmonies, as piano accents crest and cascade down the mountainside. When Eartheater sings, “I’m still building mountains underground,” she is trying to reconcile the pinnacles of her ambition with the comforts of a simple existence buried beneath the surface. “Diamond in the Bedrock” finds her admiring the gemstone forming under intense pressure inside her, but rejecting the romantic promise that the diamond signifies, choosing instead to escape a relationship that has come to stifle her.

With the album’s subtitle, Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin, Eartheater imagines being tempered to a state of perfect equilibrium, suspended between melting and freezing, where fire could streak across her body and appear as a crystalline blush. This image captures the tension at the heart of the Eartheater project, as she decides how best to distill her passion and render it cool to the touch; to find beauty in simple pleasure, while keeping one eye fixed on the peaks that loom in the horizon. The album is mixed by Kiri Stensby and mastered by Heba Kadry, featuring photography by Daniel Sannwald.

LTD SPLATTER COLOUR VINYL

Dissident , the debut album from RIDE's Andy Bell, recording as his electronic alter ego GLOK, was released last year to widespread acclaim. On Dissident Remixed , album no 7 on Bytes, lil' sister of Ransom Note Records, members of the extended Ransom Note family and fans of GLOK and RIDE have come together to reimagine the source material in a rich smorgasbord of styles. Andrew Weatherall (RIP), Richard Sen, Maps, Jay Glass Dubs, C.A.R., Timothy Clerkin, Franz Kirmann, Minotaur Shock and the man himself all step up to lend their talents to the project and the results are stunning.

Following the 2019 Hands in the Dark re-issue of Josiah Steinbrick’s debut solo recording, the Los Angeles based multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer returns with “Liquid / Devotion & Tongue Street Blue,” to be jointly released on the 18th of September with his Full Bloom imprint.

A vibrant collection of cinematic pieces that drape tapestries of FM synthesis and percussion around serpentine bass lines, the album unfolds like a rapturous dream. Hushed laments, ecstatic rhythms, and hypnotic arrangements induce a state of reverie, where boundaries dissolve between fading memories, illusions, and the hyper-real.

“Liquid / Devotion & Tongue Street Blue” is a potent creative offering, and marks a breakthrough in Steinbrick’s personal approach to the studio.

Lucid Dreams is the self-titled, new project from Jason Luxton aka Overlook, which also features close friends Dean Warburton, Joe Theobald & the vocal talents of Manuela Marchis. With Shades of post-punk, trip-hop and film score dynamics, The Lucid Dreams EP is an immersive multi-genre listening experience that travels through murky underworlds and dream-like hazes.

From 'Stone's Throw' to 'Hallucinogenics' the ‘Lucid Dreams’ EP plays more like an LP, with a narrative amalgamating the different moods created by Luxton to present something that feels clear and complete in its vision.

Release number 059 sees the much anticipated return of our soul maven Satl. Hot on the heels of his superb debut release ‘Things We Can’t See’ on The North Quarter, we are excited to present his latest project titled 4 Lyfe.

A thoughtful collection of 8 striking tracks spanning the depth of Satl’s versatile production style, the 4 Lyfe tracklist ranges from exquisite soulful delights to raffinated and intricate tech funk rollers.

Mark your calendars now with 31st July as the official launch of the latest Satl showcase coming out on limited edition exclusive art vinyl.

The man in the crowd is a wonderer with relaxed habits. In him the course of things and movement of the city is reproduced. The Düsseldorfer Detlef Weinrich is such a man in the crows. Some one who is constantly listening to future winds through rushes of the past. He loves the night for its free will. And his music tells stories about it. You might know him as a member of the band Kreidler. As a solo artist he goes under the name Tolouse Low Trax. And he's already got three Eps and two albums under his belt. His first solo album „Mask Talk“ thrives on a feathery beat frequency and cool new-wave-strength. His recently released piece „Corridor Plateau“, which appeared as a limited edition to accompany the exhibition „Corridor Plateau“ contains percussive electronics and Industrial sounding like its from the second industrial revolution. His third album „Jeidem Fall“, is also not from here. It sounds like music brought down to earth from the heavens. But its a dark cosmos in which there are only fleeting glimpses of light. All eight tracks were composed in a short space of time over the period of just a few months and fit together perfectly atmospherically. With a musical expressiveness that undoubtedly twists your emotions, „Jeidem Fall“ attacks the subconscious and clouds the mind. The drums have more movement that on „Mask Talk“. Along with the constant tapping of drumsticks goes melodical arpeggios dancing dark and dirty. At times longing vocals drift abstractly through the room, as on „Sa Seline“ or „Geo Scan“, without telling any obvious story.

To sound like stylistic cross references from the present and past is all just speculation for nothing on „Jeidem Fall“ really sounds like anything that has gone before. You could compare the dark minimal timbre of the drum computer aesthetic with Craig Leon's first reductive album „Nommos“. There is also a hint of the minimallist industrial of the Spanish band Esplendor Geometrico in the bubbly textures. But Tolouse Low Trax is still looking from the present into the future and filter and filters all his personal preferences through his MPC and his small synth setup to make them come alive here and now in a new way. Again Tolouse Low Trax has created a truly mysteriously vibrating drum computer music which offers hypnotic magic for the shadowy dance floor. Only a little light should illuminate the whole thing and the bodies that move above them should have no fear from threatening percussion which are displaced into a misty trance. A dark swaying shadowy mass, ideal for a journey at the end of the night and all those non-places where longing sleeps and the last romantics dance while getting drunk.

Try Unity are an electronic music band (composed of Francesca Purcell, Sammy Purcell and James Ewins) who produce breakbeat rave inspired music. They combine old skool influences with a contemporary musical sensibility to produce music that’s exciting and explosive to both the dancefloors and personal listening. At the time of writing this, Try Unity have released 10 vinyl EP’s across 3 different labels (Rave Radio Records, Remix Records and Jedi Recordings) within a 3 year time period. They have performed many LIVE PA’s in nightclub venues (e.g The Volks) across the south coast of England. The trio have had significant radio airplay across underground radio stations including: Kool FM, Eruption Radio UK and Codesouth FM to name a few. Sammy from Try Unity is the sole promoter of the very popular club night promotion Calling The Hardcore that attracts 1000’s of ravers to attend from across the country.

Tape

Live three turntables mix using ALL Discrepant, Souk and Farsa Discos records between 2010-2020.
Mixed, selected and recorded by Dj Marcelle / Another Nice Mess.

Limited to 150 tapes/No Digital.

ALEXANDRE BAZIN​ is a member of the ​Groupe de Recherches Musicales​, better known as the GRM, for which he writes documentaries about music for the radio. He is passionate about experimental music and more specifically acousmatic music created by members of the GRM, such as Bernard Parmegiani, Francois Bayle and Guy Reibel. Due to his background as a classical and jazz pianist, Alexandre Bazin is also passionate about instrumental music by the likes of Steve Reich, Erik Satie, Brian Eno ... This album attempts to synthesize these two worlds that are so dear to the composer, either in symbiosis or in opposition to one another with simple and loose melodies as its main theme. The use of analog synthesizers and acoustic sounds are at the heart of the composer's creative process. His music has already been heard thanks to Umor Rex Records in Mexico and the Moogfest festival in the USA.

OCEANS :
"Oceans" ​was written for Marimba, Piano and Buchla Music Easel, in 4 movements around the theme of the Ocean. Simple and loose melodies, played on piano and Buchla. They rotate around the marimba which evokes breathing and the rhythm of the swell. Suspended melodies reminiscent of Generative music although in this case they are an improvisation around a simple motif. Through its title and movements, this work evokes a reflection around climate change and our relationship to Oceans: water, breathing, the repetition of movement, but also its immensity which reminds us of our limits. The piece was performed by Alexandre Bazin on Piano, Buchla Music Easel and Marimba as well as Gabriel Benlolo on Marimba, a member of the Radio France Philharmonic orchestra.

THE DESERTER :
Not escaping a situation to flee but to be physically freed from it. The response manifests itself through the breath, heartbeat and the act of running. Beyond a moral necessity, it becomes a physical necessity that cannot be contained. Your natural defenses provoke this sudden urge. Your body cannot be contained through inaction. Our bodies in action escape all control, in order to free ourselves from the time that is limited to us. A piece for percussion, electric organ and Buchla Music Easel.

DREAM-LAND :
A piece that borrows its titles from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem. In the spirit of the GRM’s acousmatic works, such as "L’Enfer" by Bernard Parmegiani or "Suite pour Edgar Poe" by Guy Reibel. Alexandre Bazin, a member of the GRM, wrote music inspired by this mysterious, perhaps imaginary land, at the edge of the human spirit, where a lonesome traveler walks among the shadows, advancing through harsh and hostile nature, "Out of space - Out of time ”. An Earth that evokes purgatory, loneliness and introspection. The aridity of the landscape creates an explicitly vertiginous map where one crosses paths with past memories, lonely angels and an idol named Night. The aridity of the landscape is interpreted through the EMS synthi’s electronics, ideal for its attack, brightness and deep bass sounds, like "Mountains toppling evermore into seas without a shore". The piece ends with a sound recording made in the middle of winter on a deserted beach in the French Landes region during a storm.

Armec returns to Nebulae and chooses the Spirograph Nebula as the inspiration to deliver 5 gorgeous cosmic landscapes, where mellow textures combine with ghostly atmospheres, sparkling drum sequences and crunchy acid basslines.

Released in 2012, the first ASC & Sam KDC collaborative LP - Decayed Society was part of the beginning of a stretching of each artists musical output. ASC had just released his debut Ambient LP for Canadian label Silent Season to a warm reception, and Sam KDC had commenced his ambient music journey on Auxiliary in 2011 with Marine Light and Symbol 3 so the stage was set.

To say it went well would be an understatement. 8 years later, after a large amount of CD’s sold and a recent vinyl press that quickly sold out the pair have reconvened and created a follow up.

Somewhat warmer than Decayed Society in subject matter and feel, A Restless Mind explores the depths of melancholy, providing a soundtrack to the minds transient drift. With their differing styles complimenting each other aptly, there is a sense of temperance from both that enables the hovering clouds of ambience and defining elements each has created to melt into each other and build a mesmerising motif that binds the entirety of the LP.

A Restless Mind is a soundtrack for contemplation and introspection, something we could all do with in 2020.