Beats News

* Emptyset present a live recording of their performance project Signal, which explores the effects of atmospheric propagation and transmitted sound.
* Developed between Bristol and Berlin over the course of 2014, the performance took place in Berlin on February 1st 2015. The project worked with long distance high frequency radio transmission in order to bounce audio composed of sine wave structures across the atmosphere, in a process that ornamented and shaped the signal in accordance with physical fluctuations in the ionosphere, atmospheric noise and solar radiation patterns.* The signal path for the performance transmitted the audio across a real-time 2000km circuit, routed from Berlin to Nauen 40k west of the city, where it was transmitted from the oldest operational transmission station in the world, received by the 1950's French radio base Émetteur d'Issoudun and from there retransmitted and received at the performance space in Berlin. The multiple atmospheric bounces imprinted into the audio introduced complex transformations of sound.

The Paris based producer and DJ NxxxxxS’s delivers a new 13 track album offering a fresh and summery vibe. Shaped by his wavy trademark sound, which mixes techniques from genres such as, vaporwave, phonk, trap, hiphop, R&B and future beats

Accomplished musician / producer Bryan Richie, bassist for American rock band The Sword, has announced a new solo project under the pseudonym Galactic Protector. Overflowing with bright, synthesizer melodies and blissful, melancholic IDM, the 15 track effort plays out like electronic dream pop songs, hovering between ambient introspection and more active synth pop and post-rock elements.

Tranquil, nostalgic and melodic, 'Evening' pushes sound beyond the realms of IDM and ambient, conjuring a more kinetic, experiential expression of sound. Using an arsenal of analogue and digital synths, Richie's music as Galactic Protector blends new wave and cinematic influences with sophisticated downtempo beat patterns. The tracks initially took shape at Richie's home studio as well as in the Portland studio of producer Tucker Martine (Neko Case, Modest Mouse) during recording sessions for The Sword's 2018 release 'Used Future'.

With 'Piscolabis', Golden Bug delivers a new UFO sound oscillating between electronica, robotic vibrations and psychedelic dub. Piscolabis embraces all the styles important to Antoine Harispuru and emerges as an astonishing opening onto new worlds. And he invited an impressive number of guests to his 4th studio album:

The French from The Liminañas or Tim Glass, the Japanese Vega Voga, the Australians from Funboys, Spanish singer Pajaro Sunrise, it is because this project was born out of the turmoil caused by opposition.

'Colibri' is a psychedelic labyrinth, a sentimental and hypnotic ascent that radiates on the dancefloor. 'Variation Sur 3 Bancs' featuring The Liminañas, immerses us in the world of acid western and psychedelic pop and makes you want to hitchhike on the road. On 'Tokoyo No Kuni', Golden Bug invites Japanese singer Vega Voga to create a musical epic worthy of an imaginary soundtrack by Toshiya Fujita. With its slow rhythm and spellbinding melodies, 'La Boite Noire' explores Berlin electronica immersed in chloroform. 'La Goutte D’Eau' takes off, dark and throbbing. The fluid rhythm is left behind by hypnotic patterns that push the listener into their sofa, which will not come out until the very end of the interlude.

'Fata Morgana' excites with its dirty rhythm, hypnotic arpeggiator and cosmic sound effects. 'Nid de Guêpes' interstellar flute wraps around slowed dub effects, like a 7" in speed 12", and evokes emotion by repeating its heady loop, an obsessive and mutant vision of music. 'Bring The Light' with the support of Spanish singer Pajaro Sunrise is an ideal springboard to touch the stars and explores the clear face of Golden Bug by merging choppy oriental guitars, solar vocals and dub rhythm. Without interruption, 'Kotodama' continues the journey on an unknown planet, on which Vega Voga comes to pose her suave voice on dark electronic arrangements, transforming itself into indescribable and harmoniously eccentric binary code. To end this journey, 'Le Chant Des Sirènes', carried by the voice of Frenchman Tim Glass, plays along the lines of scintillating and nebulous pop.

Vocal textures with robotic vibrations, complex and indescribable psychedelic music are Ariane's thread of this new sensory and universal album. Music to listen to, see and feel.

* Continuing Subtext's exploratory electronics and devastating sonics is the expansive Ego De Espinhos, the debut full-length from twenty-two year old Porto, Portugal-based artist Gonçalo Penas.

* Described by Penas as a series of 'self-exorcisms,' Ego De Espinhos is the cathartic outcome of a highly introspective process. Shaped by opposing forces and instincts, the LP touches on themes that are at once intimate, yet omnipresent. Splendor confronts destruction; id confronts super-ego.

* Created solely with digital instruments designed and built by the artist, Ego De Espinhos is the result of Penas' improvisations. Tracks such as 'Introdução, Umbigo' and 'Tecto Falso' were recorded in one take, and evidence a stark, dramatic emotional palette.

* The release begins as Penas chooses to reject rigidities, customs and conventions of experimental electronic music. Of his process, Penas says: 'Personally, I feel that creation should come from a completely free act of will. It is a place where there should be no rules, no expectations, no rights and no wrongs.'

* In Ego De Espinhos, Penas turns away from his own technical background, and towards a journey of forward experimentation. This follows his education in Music Production and Technologies at Porto's School of Music and Performing Arts. For the first time, he finds the freedom to articulate himself sincerely, unearthing beauty and acceptance amidst wreckage and devastation.

Das dritte Album des Brightoner Duos Grasscut (Andrew Philips und Marcus O'Dair) erscheint auf Lo Recordings, nennt sich "Everyone Was A Bird" und überzeugt mit einer Mischung aus Electronica, Post-Rock und songbasierter Live-Instrumentierung (Strings, Piano, Gitarre, Drums) als die wohl organischte und eindringlichste Arbeit des Duos bislang.

Ambient artist Takahiro Yorifuji created Ruminating on What Was Unsaid during the sweltering Tokyo July of 2019. On this record, a wistful and mesmerizing piano loop crescendos into a rippling wall of sound to create a mood of reflection. For Yorifuji, it calls forth nostalgic dreams of summertime in Japan.

This release marks the long-awaited return of Yorifuji’s record label Tobira Records, which he halted in 2011 after relocating to Tokyo. It also marks an exciting new venture for the artist, who in June 2020 will open his very own record store in his hometown of Kasai, Hyogo Prefecture, under the Tobira Records name.

It joins a string of other Hakobune releases put out this year, including The Last of Our Time Together from Past Inside the Present, A Fan, Strings, and Two Guitars from Patient Sounds, and Rain Studies from Constellation Tatsu.

Harglow is a musical project composed of Colin Nance and Eric Gorman. After bonding over a mutual love of horror and working in several music projects together, the pair embarked on an experiment to combine their love of horror and music. Harglow was the result. Originally based out out OKC, the record started as a series of stand alone sessions. After Colin relocated to Austin, the process evolved and became a satellite project, leading to the remainder of the record being completed over several months of file sharing. This is their debut record.

Record concept:
The songs contained on this record were originally discovered on two 1/4' tape reels with a single word written on them; "Harglow". The tapes were initially discovered during the estate liquidation of a well afflunced, yet eccentric, gentleman believed to be highly involved in the occult.

Based on additional material found along with the tapes, the sounds collected on this record appear to have been used as a soundtrack for the man's grotesque rituals, and the original creators are unknown. Notebooks and additional articles were also found that could point to connections to a larger occult involvement. This has yet to be confirmed.

Slowfoot Records is proud to introduce Hello Skinny and the self-titled debut album. Hello Skinny is the brainchild of in-demand drummer extraordinaire Tom Skinner, who's other current involvements include Sons Of Kemet, Mulatu Astatke, Matthew Herbert, Eska, Finn Peters and The Owiny Sigoma Band amongst many others.

Subtext presents ​Hydrangea, the debut album from writer and artist ​Holly Childs and artist ​Gediminas Žygus formerly known as J.G. Biberkopf.

Initiated in 2017, ​Hydrangea grew out of a series of performances emphasising conspiracies and the designer realities that they generate. Navigating a tangle of digitally induced subjectivities and relationships, ​Hydrangea sees Childs & Žygus amidst a continuously evaporating world in which narratives dissolve, leak, fold in on themselves and loop.

Childs & Žygus ask: As individuals are siloed online, can rifts in reality ever be reconciled? Is history a form of science fiction? And are narrators ever reliable? The process of creating ​Hydrangea was defined by the search for a form to bind fiction, poetry, and musical experience. Its narrative is influenced by technical instructions, lectures and whispered conversations, in which slippage and floating focus can create new meanings in the listener that weren’t intended by the speaker.

Childs & Žygus employ a musical language that layers their cumulative practices and experiences. The compositions are cinematic and spatial, working with the illustrative qualities of Disneyesque string melodies and taking cues from Maurice Ravel’s impressionistic piano works.

The work is also influenced by both artists’ lifelong experiences of rave culture, beginning for Žygus during childhood in newly independent Lithuania, spending time juggling Disney and happy hardcore cassettes on the family stereo, and for Childs as a preteen in Australia, tagging along with her sisters to doofs and warehouse parties. Initiated while the artists were both working between Amsterdam and Rotterdam in 2017, the work also draws on Dutch gabber music.

Hydrangea’s development has been influenced by collaboration with artists and filmmakers ​Metahaven, who created the album art.
Holly Childs is a writer and artist. Her research involves filtering stories of computation through frames of ecology, earth, memory, poetry, and light. She is the author of two books: ​No Limit (Hologram) and Danklands (Arcadia Missa); and has presented her work at ICA (London), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Trust (Berlin), Elam School of Art (Auckland) and more.

Gediminas Žygus is an artist working within the fields of sound, documentary and performance. Their practice assembles a spectrum of influences deriving from architecture, ecology, ethnography, science studies, and media theory. As J.G. Biberkopf, their releases have found homes on Knives and Danse Noire. Žygus has performed at Barbican Centre (London), Berghain (Berlin), Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), and Centre Pompidou (Paris), among others.

* Coming together over three years since his critically acclaimed last album, Hyetal completes his transformation from off-kilter dance music producer to futurist pop visionary on Youth & Power. 'Previously my approach to writing music was very rooted in escapism,' says David Corney aka Hyetal. 'I began experiencing a sense of detachment in my life which led me to question how healthy this approach was. I wanted music to help me feel connected again.' Wrenching his music free from the 'confines of computer grids' and pushing melody to the forefront, Youth & Power's texturally rich, psychedelic palette is littered with live played synths, electric guitars, drum machines, processed noise and 'some under-loved 70s home keyboards' recorded at Hyetal's South London home studio.
* 'I'd describe it as experimental pop music,' says Hyetal. 'the sound is in part a return to music I was listening to as a kid, more song- and instrument-based.' Youth & Power is Hyetal's debut as a vocalist, also scrapping samples in favour of live instrumentation and hook-laden songwriting laced with myriad influences. 'I took some time out to teach myself how to sing using an app on my phone. At first I found my vocals worked best for me when there was some distance from the natural sound of my voice so everything was abstracted through a few different processes.' he explains, 'As I became more comfortable singing I decided I wanted to contrast this approach and use some natural sounding vocals that embraced the imperfections'. The album strikes a balance between robotic Kraftwerkian simplicity and soulful organic pop, contrasting the various pitch-shifting and abstracting vocal effects with sharply concise lyrics. Semblances of Hyetal's origins in Bristol's early dubstep movement are still present too, deep inside the album's meticulous rhythm beds. Elsewhere chiming retro keyboard notes and drum machine beats at times recall the likes of Yellow Magic Orchestra contrasting against waves of guitars and noise which bring to mind the influence of Bauhaus and other post punk experimentalists.
* Written as a form of catharsis for Hyetal in his search to return his music from detachment, Youth & Power seeps a sense of hope. 'I found from a distance the most immediate workings of humanity can appear extremely brutal', says Hyetal, 'but when looking through this lens you miss the beauty that happens in the moment.'

Two musique concrète symphonies of industrial sound, in which musical relationships emerge from sounds more often regarded as noise. All the sounds were recorded by Sounds of Changes, a pan-EU project capturing obsolete and endangered industrial and domestic sounds. 
It’s hard to know when a sound is endangered – we never know what technological changes are around the corner. My work as a composer is concerned with environmental sounds and the sound of industry and machines. I use these sounds as the compositional building blocks of my music, and manipulate and compose with them. The source material is recognisable throughout, even when manipulated, juxtaposed or overlaid.

Sounds are disappearing without us even noticing. From the gradual evolution of everyday tech sounds to the sounds of old Routemaster buses, whistling kettles being replaced by hot water filters, we can’t notice the changes while we’re in the midst of them. Sounds of Changes is an epic project documenting these endangered sounds before it’s too late.

The Eccentric Press / Die Exzenterpresse focuses on recordings in Germany, made with the LWL-Industriemuseum in Dortmund. The sinister opening atmosphere of Wuppertaler Schwebebahn Station in western Germany gives way to the rattling tones of a button sewing machine. We’re in an industrial space soundtracked by machines. The chugging rhythm of a steelwork furnace is interrupted by the punch of a time clock. Pitched material is overlaid to create unexpected harmonies, whilst technology from different eras is coerced into a propulsive rhythm. This piece was commissioned and broadcast by Westdeutcher Rundfunk, Cologne on 9th April, 2016, and was a finalist in that year’s Prix Palma Ars Acustica.

Maudslay Engine was commissioned by ABC Radio National, Australia in 2016, and draws on recordings from Sweden, Belgium, Poland and the UK. Interlocking movements form a 20 minute composition, beginning with a Saab fighter jet, and ending with the eponymous 1838 steam engine built for Kew Bridge. In between, the background pitch of a metal cutter is shaped into a high frequency melody interrupted by a mortise machine. A stray pitched metallic sound from a linotype machine is transformed into a melodic interlude, superseded by the drone of a grain dryer – a huge machine that creates animal feed. The last melodic movement derives from the start-up sound from a vintage 1991 IBM desktop computer, before a fire truck siren closes the piece.

Memory Palace is the debut album by Argentinian electronic artist, jazz drummer and composer Carlos Falanga under the IHHH moniker.

Recorded in Barcelona’s La Isla Studios using mainly an Octatrack sampler, Falanga attempts to break from traditional sequencing by combining modular drones and rubato rhythms: a phrasing technique that accelerates and slows parts of a piece without altering the overarching pace. With a focus on off-the-grid rhythm and a high resolution digital sound, the complex loops unfold to reveal a trance-like quality.

The term Memory Palace refers to an easily recalled visual memory, with the album taking inspiration from hypnagogic symbolist painter Odilon Redon, even lifting a track title from a painting: 'When Life Was Awakening In The Depths Of Obscure Matter'. Falanga aims to highlight the void between the mundane and the magical, the everyday and the unexpected, by manipulating traditional sounds, structures and tempos into new forms.

Falanga has toured around Asia, America and Europe, supporting national and international artists such as: Colder, Marco Mezquida, Jorge Rossy, Carme Canela, The Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Amparo Sanchez and many others. He has released with Sunlinxx, Emerald and Doreen, Finis Africae and Nein Records.

Six Correlations was originally composed for a commissioned performance in Berlin and recorded in early 2018 over three days. The project explores the intersections between traditional music from various cultures, with a particular focus on Gaelic folk music native to the remote island regions of Scotland, where half of Ginzburg's family originates from.

It incorporates influences of Iranian traditional music, Indian classical and generative composition techniques. Six correlations considers the relationship between the organic and the digital world as a meditation on whether modernity implicitly
represents a long slow goodbye to nature: a long slow goodbye to everything that is not integrated into the networked world. The response to the disappearance of both nature and non-digital culture is presented here as an aspiration to imagine and communicate an harmonious relationship between the organic and the technological.

Produced using a hand drum, piano, voice, shruti box and Roland SH-101, six correlations brings together many of the influences from the Subtext artists Ginzburg has worked with over the last years, such as Turkish artist and percussionist Cevdet Erek and Swedish composer Ellen Arkbro - as well as connecting with his instrumental explorations with Paul Purgas as Emptyset, and recent releases on Arc Light Editions such as 'Salm' - an LP of Gaelic Psalm singing from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.
James Ginzburg is one half of Emptyset and founder of Subtext Recordings, as well as co-curator of the Arc Light Editions imprint with Jennifer Allan.

It’s Halloween weekend and a group of bullies are planning their annual hazing on local outcast, Jacob Atkins. When they take things too far, he’s resurrected to seek revenge against those that wronged him. Excellent original score to Candy Corn by Josh Hasty and Michael Brooker. Available to Pre-Order on yellow and orange vinyl, mastered by BurningTapes and including insert print, liner notes, download card and bonus on set photo prints. Artwork by Chris Hitchman.

Subtext's latest signing is Joshua Sabin, a Scottish musician and artist based in Leith, Edinburgh.

* Joshua's debut album Terminal explores humans' relationship with environment and space, and how this experience is augmenting us as we further embrace a digital age. Our structures of communication, exploration, and discovery are mediated by technological shifts and we exist in simultaneity between our physical environment and emerging cyberspaces with a blended perception of embodiment and orientation within both.

* Sirens reverberating through station tunnels, fluctuating harmonics of subway engines, echoing tannoy systems, piercing screams of electromagnetic fields.

* The sonic material of this album is composed exclusively of field-recordings captured in transit through Kyoto, Tokyo, and Berlin, in addition to electromagnetic field recordings captured in Glasgow and Edinburgh. By interrogating the sonic properties of our physical environment, Terminal imagines the sonic landscapes of these dualistically navigable 'cyberspaces' we transiently create and move through interacting with our world.

* On Sutarti Joshua Sabin draws influence from the compositional structures and psychoacoustic properties that exist within early Lithuanian folk music, exploring the emotional potency of the human voice through the manipulation of elements of archival recordings.

* Obtaining access to the folk music archives of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre Ethnomusicology Archive from the outset of this project, Sabin felt a particular resonance with the extensive library of vocal recordings and specifically the song forms of the Sutartinė. Derived from the Lithuanian verb 'Sutarti' - to be 'in agreement', 'to attune' – Sutartinės are a Lithuanian form of Schwebungsdiaphonie - a distinct canonic song style consisting of two or more voices that purposefully clash creating extremely precise dissonances and the phenomena of aural ‘beating’.

* Inspired by the psychoacoustic research of Rytis Ambrazevičius, whose computer analyses reveal the unique acoustic and harmonic complexities in these archival songs, and transfixed by what Sabin describes as their “arresting and often almost plaintive and minimalistic beauty”, he sought to compose directly with the recordings themselves as a raw material.

* Sutarti exists fundamentally as an emotional 'response', presenting archival voices through radical recontextualisations that Sabin hopes simultaneously express both his personal perspective and experience, and also speak universally to the power and versatility of the voice as a communicator of meaning and emotion.

* Produced with archival recordings, instrumentation including, Skudučiai and Fiddle, and field recordings of Lithuanian forest ambiences.

* Joshua Sabin is an Edinburgh based composer and sound designer, who’s first LP “Terminus Drift” was released on Subtext in 2017.

A spoken word and music project by writer Justin Hopper and folk musician Sharron Kraus. It also features Ghost Box's own Belbury Poly. Based on live performances of Hopper's 2017 book The Old Weird Albion (publ. Penned in the Margins), it’s a poetical, autobiographical and psychogeographical account of his experiences at Chanctonbury Ring on the West Sussex Downs.

The album is a blend of folk, electronic music, poetry, prose and environmental sound. Kraus’s electro-acoustic soundscapes and songs interweave with Hopper’s rich, intimate narration. Musically it moves effortlessly from the traditional to the avant-garde with Belbury Poly contributing music and production throughout and bookending the work with a memorable theme tune.

Finding its spiritual home on Ghost Box, the project is reminiscent of a lost era of poetry and music albums, like David Cain and Radiophonic Workshop's The Seasons. It comes artfully packaged in a style that recalls a poetry and music for schools LP, with a nod towards 1960s Topic folk anthologies.

HEXAGON is the new album on More Than Human by duo Stephen Wood and Scott Gubbels aka Kensington Gore. It's an immersive 6-track album full of propulsive electronics, eerie sci-fi soundscapes and Kosmische chug.

For all it's dark eldritch tones and dystopian leanings 'Hexagon' is a curiously optimistic record. There's darkness in the anxious synth stabs for sure but also wistful melodies and subtle shades of instrumentation - which seems fitting as the band are named after the fake blood used in old Hammer horror films, it's an intriguing combination. Like an ancient curse whispered in a space station.

One of the most slowly riveting psych LPs we've spun in a while'
THURSTON MOORE (on 'Kensington Gore')

'Acrobats' is the debut album from Laura Moody, a wildly alternative cellist, vocalist and avant-singer songwriter. Fascinated with words and songwriting as well as sounds, noises and textures, Laura draws on the infinite possiblities available from her solo cello and voice. From a multitude of influences, Laura creates emotive songs that inhabit a unique space between the avant garde, classical music, pop and singer-songwriter tradition.

REPRESS!

martianMan returns with 4 jungle influenced tracks.

A1 You And Me' is sci-fi influenced drum funk tune. At the beginning only beauty passes through, revealing a place you desire to be. A relaxing environment to come home from work to. Then, an abandoned warehouse in an city like in Blade Runner pumps out a rave. A jungle rave in deep space. Get ready. It's just You And Me.

A2 Like A Rebel' has Elvin Jones talking about his drumming. To get you started, jazz piano softly brings you into a smoke filled drum funk jazz club in space. An underlying sense of weightlessness has you catatonic in as the Funky Mule break sets it off and you're once again nodding your head to the groove. Nice pad breakdown before the outro.

B1 You Are Here' employs a sturdy intro with a There are forces in this world' vocal that has you on edge. After the intro settles, before the Amen science drops, you are in a smoke filled, computer generated room waiting for your train to arrive to take you to the party. This is a journey tune so enjoy it!

B2 Get Dropped' used Black Pearls Cold Sweat' break. The DJ friendly intro gets you started. A little knowledge about big record labels makes you think some. Then comes the signature martianMan smokey space vibes before the drop. Tune rolls nicely but wait for the rave stabs and niceness pads during the last stretch.

Originally conceived as a hip-hop scratch/battle record for turntablists, Do or Die is made up of short instrumental beats interlaced with sound effects and vocal snippets. Predominantly constructed from obscure vinyl samples, the record also features an Emu Drumulator, and live performance samples of cello, organ and percussion. Re-contextualized as home listening experience, the album sounds timeless and fresh, a musical journey rich with drama, romanticism, and humour.

Do or Die, was produced over the course of a year (2003-2004), and self-pressed by Milk & Beef as 1,000 vinyl LPs at the end of 2004. This pressing was taken on by short-lived label The Thin Man, and released in 2005 with catalog number TTM001.

Of the 1,000 copies pressed, 100 were distributed directly by Milk & Beef, and we believe a further 150 were sold through The Thin Man. So roughly 750 copies remained in stock, 50 of which were held by the artists, 700 by the label.

In 2009, Milk & Beef were approached by Bladud Flies! with a view to re-releasing Do or Die. The Thin Man were duly contacted to request the return of the 700 copies, but to our horror and disgust, confessed to having 'thrown them in a skip' a couple of years previous. They showed very little remorse, and we were left shocked, upset, and short of 700 records...

Not wishing to dwell on this distressing and acrimonious situation, we decided to go ahead anyway, individually screen-printing a new sleeve design for the 50 copies still in our possession, and releasing them as a now very limited one off edition: Do or Die (Resurrection). Vinyl purchasers will also receive a free download of a digital version re-mastered by The Bricoleur and featuring 2 bonus tracks, Louise and VW.
We suspect there are still copies of The Thin Man release of Do or Die out there somewhere, possibly in the back of a record shop, or maybe in a skip near you. However, it's safe to say that this limited run of 50 editions are all salvaged artefacts to be treasured.

Is this the end of the Milk & Beef story Or will there be 'Life After Death'...

- Milk & Beef

A shimmering and tragic delirium - improvised piano of Richard Moult, recorded in single takes at St. Leonards Parish Church, St. Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex. Aside from the vocal by David Tibet on Five and the oboe of Mark Baigent on Four, the remaining sounds have been tweaked and teased out of the piano by The Bricoleur. Recorded by Michael Lawrence at St. Leonards Paris Church, 2008.

Limited edition - 500 copies.

Noodles Groove chronicle has releases going back to the 90's and is recongised as one of UK garage music most influential producers, his recent works is a collaboration with follower producer Dubchild. The duo also work under the alias"nu agenda"creating their own style of hybrid house, and have support from various stations such as Rinse fm, 1xtra, SWU, NTS, Mode, Worldwide radio and Reprezent. Lets now get to "selector selection vol.1" out on DPR recordings label owned by Noodles Groove chronicles we have three tracks "helikopter" "your turn" "my thing" all individual but weighty. The volume series is all about what you may have missed or slighty over looked.Talior made so you'll never miss a good track and it's been selected for your listening pleasure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Remixes from SP:MC & Hodge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Im Hag is the debut Ghost Box album from Berlin based Sebastian Counts' ToiToiToi.

Following on from his single for the label's Other Voices series in 2015, it's very detailed and lovingly produced music, crafted from electronic, synth, sampled and acoustic sources.

Its a wunderkammer of an album crammed with original ideas. All at once managing to be witty, spooky, melodic and abstract.

The music and design explores the polarities of folklore vs modernity, and wilderness vs civilisation.

It's an album about German culture but it pre-empts a nostalgia for the vanishing concept of internationalism, once exemplified by town twinning. It's also a warm-hearted record, hopefully a tiny morale booster against Europe's resurgent spectres.

As always the beautiful CD and LP packaging is designed by Julian House. The 180gm LP includes a free download card.

Cracking stuff. Guy Bartell is a genius.'
Andrew Male, Stuart Maconie's Freakier Zone, BBC 6MUSIC

A very fine and accomplished thing.'
JONNY TRUNK Record Collector

A beautifully realised soundtrack.' NORMAN RECORDS

* In United, her debut LP as UCC Harlo, classically-trained musician Annie Gårlid distills hauntological pop, sound art, medieval and baroque music, and left-field club production into a series of ecclesiastical-wave ventures.

* Written over six years in Germany, United began on train commutes during Gårlid's stint as a violist in an opera orchestra near Cologne and developed further during her time in Berlin. Through gestures such as reframing music by Bach and Magister Zacharias through DAW experimentation and field recordings, United proposes sonic reconciliations between the old and the new.

* United also reflects the idea that sound and music always exist in broader, complex contexts loaded with historical and environmental information and mediated by internal emotional landscapes. For Gårlid, this acknowledgement is a metaphor for our urgent need to be attentive to non-human agencies and voices. United acts as a means of claiming a right to obscurity and of 'sounding' ambivalence, doubt, and messiness in an age that demands transparency and clarity.

* Annie Gårlid is a New York-based writer, musician and musicology researcher concerned with our ever-shifting, tenuous relationships with ecology, technology and care.

* Creating and discovering links between the old and the new, Gårlid operates equally in the realms of experimental, club and early music. She is a member of the Holly Herndon Ensemble and the band Songs, has collaborated with Caterina Barbieri, Bill Kouligas and Emptyset, and has performed with ASMR-artist Claire Tolan. She works regularly with an array of composers and artists, and performs as a viola player and singer in both Europe and the USA.""

Rail Cables present a unique series of seasonal compilations featuring new music inspired by train travel. Ambient Works and Field Recordings unpack on beautifully packaged records. The Winter Collection is a split LP from Scanner, Dru$s (Gnod), Ran Slavin and Greg Fox. Presented in a screen-printed sleeve.

Vox Populi Field Works Vol.II is the second part of a broader project entitled 'Field Works', in which the label travels to different locations in the world in order to collect sounds, eventually creating an archive of some of the finest and humblest musical traditions. Inspired by academic methods proper to ethnomusicology and ethnography, this project's aim is to showcase the diversity of our human cultural heritage, which is threatened by accelerated globalization and homogenization of the worldwide musical spectrum.

This record is the result of a twenty-day trip to Japan. Led by anthropologist and label founder Fred Scharf and his Vox Populi Records crew, this is the second instalment on the 'Field Works' series. This 12'' vinyl release is a collection of field recordings, jam sessions, studio recordings, street soundscapes, religious rituals, fighting championships and wedding ceremonies, all of which were remixed and reinterpreted by Japan Blues, Tim Karbon, Hiroaki Oba & Shizka (aka Inoue Shirabe), delivering tracks whose core represents a wide array of traditional Japanese sounds.

tracks by add n to x, hairy butter, stereolab u. a.

As strange and as beautiful as the film itself, the Imitation Girl score by writer/director Natasha Kermani and Kevin Hufnagel is a journey through the cinematic landscapes the movie portrays so well. The wide spectrum of musical styles from electro pop to a stunning guitar, violin score of Natasha’s intimate instrumentation and Kevin’s otherworldly soundscapes. The very astute choices of more traditional songs, by the likes of Tyger, Carl Sagan and MaryLeigh Roohan also make this something uniquely special.

The movie is about a mysterious young woman who materialises in the middle of the southwest desert, where each step teaches her about her new world and her new body. As she assumes a new life, she discovers she has a twin with whom she shares more than just an outward appearance.