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"We’ve reached book IV in Rupert Clervaux’s series of “Zibaldone” audio diaries, at which point we find him telling a different kind of story.

“The first three all had very specific themes, while this one feels a little bit looser and doesn’t have just one thematic thrust,” he tells me, which maybe explains why listening feels a bit like annotating. I’m underlining, emphasizing, drawing arrows from here to there, highlighting symbols and noting motifs, realising, questioning, eureka-ing. An impressionistic meaning’s been encoded in and we’re lucky to be given the space to play that most poetic and boundless of all mental games: narrativization.

There are no wrong answers, but Rupert offers some clues either way. If there’s any cipher here it’s “something like a meditation on the concept of ‘depth’––in all its connotative forms.” Think below the surface, (the) underground, yawning oceans, being ‘down in the dirt’, soil, roots, rootlessness, pulling at the dregs, collapse, profundity, stable and unstable horizons, distance, perspective, intuition, not to mention relative opposites: to be shallow, to be above, to be beyond.

It’s got me thinking of Bresson’s “Bring things together that have as yet never been brought together and did not seem predisposed to be so.” His: “Dig deep where you are. Don't slip off elsewhere.” Rupert has realized these—two favourite goals of mine!—here.

This is music that catches you at your own periphery, gives pause, has you offering a little “huh” to, asking “I wonder why” to. Again, it’s got me musing on another mindworm, this time from New York publisher and multi-sensory reading room Dispersed Holdings: “Feeling-making-knowing feedback loop; cartography of feeling; water as text, read to know the land beneath and around it, and body as reader.”

Is it ok to offer up these other contexts out of context? I think so, because Zibaldone IV articulates a similarly swirly tone. Like, we’ve got Rebecca Solnit talking through Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid” and later calling out to Michael Ruppert a ways away, and “Easy Rider” is playing in the wings. We’ve got Susan Sontag magically contextualizing Mariah Carey with poet Thylias Moss triangulating in order to sketch out (Rupert again) “something a little more interesting than wilful eclecticism or that laboured and patronising kind of pop-savvy.”

Are we following? Whether yes or no Vanessa Bedoret follows on with a performance of a performance of Moss’s 'Water Road’: to be once or twice removed, via strange transitions, purposeful confusions, and, suddenly, seagulls. We’re on a boat with Ingeborg Bachmann—and how I wish I could actually be! But maybe thanks to this music I can as literature, films, friends, lethargy, coincidences, little mental links, eternal wormholes, lingering notions come together to imagine something better."

Text by Natalia Panzer

ST/NE is an alter ego and artist name of Stine Janvin, giving life to a satirical pop experiment combining field recordings, vocal samples and electronic production. ME/WE pulls inspiration from late night bar-chat philosophy, Muhammad Ali's army induction refusal, #metoo-stories and a broken Stockhausen record materialising in 4 tracks of vocal sirenage, fractured techno and mutant trap.

Manipulated and dehumanised as it is, the vocals trace a thread throughout, tying this collection of contrasts together and resulting in a singular, cohesive and compelling EP.

limited press, be fast... order, to secure your copy!!

Ted K. Kaczynski is notorious for both tragically murdering three people (and wounding an additional 23) via bombs sent in the mail and for his numerous writings on the evils of technology he composed during his primitive residency in the woods of Montana. Film director Tony Stone's choice to have the renowned electronic artist Blanck Mass score the film is somewhat ironic and creates an obvious tension perfect for the controversial and complex subject matter. 2020 saw the first Blanck Mass movie score, for the soundtrack to Nick Rowland's acclaimed cinematic debut Calm with Horses. This expansion into new areas of melodic composition and textural exploration won Blanck Mass many new fans, with the BBC's acknowledged number one film buff Mark Kermode proclaiming the work the soundtrack of the year. In 2021, Blanck Mass won the prestigious Ivor Novello Award for Best Original Film Score and has firmly established himself at the forefront of the latest wave of experimental soundscape wizards. Recording during lockdown at his studio in Edinburgh, Scotland, Blanck Mass's Ben Power was in the perfect setting for a musical piece intended to capture the isolation central to Kaczynski's story. Power was also working with a director in a time zone 10 hours behind and thus many sessions required working in the middle of the night, which added a fitting intensity to the composition process. He said of the project "I wanted it to feel like an `epic'" and drew on the legends Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone for inspiration in encapsulating the energy of the perceived good vs. evil. The gentle madness of sound achieved is exquisite and slowly builds in intensity and desperation as the score moves along. Power is able to perfectly capture the complexity, the terror and the deep emotionality of the film while presenting an often breathtakingly beautiful and always masterful album that stands on its own as a work of art. For Fans of Tim Hecker, Oneohtrix Point Never, DJ Shadow, Coil, Arca, Andy Stott, Fuck Buttons.

Classic 1985 French new wave holy grail, reissued on LP with a 12 page
booklet plus download code and digipak CD with 24 page booklet (liner
notes in English & French)
Thierry Müller, the French musician, photographer and graphic designer initiated
the Ruth project. As early as 1982, a first version of the track "Polaroïd/Roman/
Photo" emerged. "I wanted to write a piece to make the girls dance and make fun
of the boys. I plugged a small handmade clock on my Farfisa organ as a
sequencer. I had a small Roland synth-guitar, I put the organ in it and that's how it
started."
Philippe Doray, a big name of French experimental music, is amused by the idea
of working on a more pop project and offers to write the lyrics. Thierry works on
other tracks for the future LP and asks some friends to write other lyrics: Edouard
Nono, visual artist, writes the lyrics of "Mots", Frédérique Lapierre those of "Misty
Mouse" and "Tu m'ennuies".
The album was finally released in 1985 on Paris Album, a small independent label
but barely sells 50 copies. In 2004, two DJs Marc Colin and Ivan Smagghe
discover the track "Polaroïd/ Roman/ Photo" and decide to exhume it from
oblivion. They release it on a compilation called 'So Young But So Cold:
Underground French Music 1977 – 1983' (Tigersushi) and then Born Bad Records
includes it on the 'BIPPP - French Synth- Wave 1979/85' compilation in 2008.
Thanks to them, the track and the album start a new life, which sees several
limited edition (and now highly expensive) represses coming out between 2010
and 2015.

The second part of the yearlong project to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Yiruma’s music career. Opposite to the bigger sized orchestral and string arrangements of the first release ‘The Rewritten Memories’, ‘SOLO’ as shown on the title contains simple piano solo arrangements that has always been loved by his fans. Revisiting Yiruma’s repertoires from earliest days of making music, the songs include ‘Spring Waltz’, ‘Joy’, ‘Kiss the Rain’ and ‘River Flows in You’.

Diskotopia is ecstatic to launch our 11th year with a bombastic new LP from label co-founder BD1982. Initiation Insight follows 2021's seminal Distance Vision LP - which garnered inclusion in Bandcamp's Best Electronic Music, JunoDaily's Best New Albums, and coverage in The Wire, RA, and Louder Than War - surveying the previously-plotted sonic ley lines and expanding upon them in drastically robust and kaleidoscopic directions.

Musically, the tracks across Initiation Insight have been composed with an ear towards ritualistic structures, with the album's themes touching upon spirituality, hermetic philosophy, dreams, and human evolution in the face of impending natural destruction.

On this release, BD1982 favors stylistically nomadic production and a drive for emotion over genre constraints to explore further depths of songwriting and structures not yet heard in his previous material. Tribal-informed industrial and molten-electro styles coalesce with both future-facing and ancient-rooted textures – spread across an underlying current of soundsystem-savvy sonics.

Initiation Insight proves to be another major step in the evolution of BD1982's sound, a caustic yet covalent natural mutation that will appeal to fans of Killing Joke, My Bloody Valentine, PJ Harvey, Cabaret Voltaire, Samhain, and Tricky alike.

Mastered by Dominic Clare at Declared Sound.

Available as a limited-edition cassette.

A genre blur of decorative art punk psych overflow, mixed and mastered by KRAMER on “Blessence Blue” Vinyl LP ltd edition of 500. RIYL: WEEN, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Dat Politics, Prince Buster, Captain Beefheart, Deerhoof, Thinking Fellars Union Local 282, Young Marble Giants, Jad Fair. As an energetic force in the downtown New York perfor1mance art noise scene for over ffteen years, Lumberob is releasing his debut solo LP - Language Learner - on Shimmy-Disc. Having collaborated now for over 23 years, Kramer and Lumberob understand how to make rather majestic messes. This music is urgent madness, overfowingly decorative, lusciously spastic, with an unpredictably eclectic sonic vaudeville energy. Lumberob emerged from a year in Costa Rica with a bag full of pandemic recordings. As a rejuvenated yet still scrappy loop artist expanding his sound with synth bass and drum machines, yet still rooted in improvised vocal phrase looping and skanky guitar, Lumberob insists this album Language Learner to be a bold exercise in genre discovery or genre blur, proudly assuming its position in high contrast to other recent gorgeously crafted Shimmy-Disc releases. It is this contrast that’s reminiscent of the wildly divergent and inventive catalog curated by Kramer from decades past. This debut is an odd blend of ingredients, but the concept is relentlessly pure Lumberob. Participants in Costa Rica include David Mendez playing nylon string, Alicia Cigna singing, Ariel Soto playing partial kit and conga, and Juan Jose Lopez playing bongos. Additional sessions in Brooklyn include Tobin Scroggins playing guitar and Becca Stabile singing. Kramer added bits and pieces throughout during his mixing and mastering of the album. Call it Dada Ska - a skanky electro-bounce. This is dance music for working things out. This is workout music for dancing things, and the live show is truly the dafy psychedelic roughneck business.

Cult, obscure 1976 proto-electronics masterpiece 'Viaje' is a purely brain frying avant garde flipout from the electroacoustic musicians Eduardo Polonio and Horacio Vaggione (probably most known for his album on Cramps). Together, they deploy synths, electric guitars, organs and bass and squash them all up together in sundry sense befouling ways. On the A side, they're tangled into an overpowering threshing machine of spitting electronic mayhem, while the B side moves the proceedings into overtly acidy territory, everything ratcheting down and expanding outward into a delirious psychedelic electronic whirlpool. Beautiful gatefold vinyl reproducing the original artwork.

“Descifrar” describes those transitions, affections, precarious loves; disconnected yet connected at the same time. The flows of images, emojis, memes, memories, desires; fragments that flood the ways of perceiving and bonding. We are in a scission, but also in a programmed and fragmented iteration of encounters. All of this mutates us experiencing distances and emotions that are not properly human. Rather this kind of alienation creates new feelings and new perceptions. It’s therefore possible for new encounters to exist, too. Beyond heartbreak, pain, frustration and hopelessness, there is a kind of small constant hope of active desires that runs through this wo

Raven returns to Rekids with ‘Mania’ this September.

Born in Canada and now based in Berlin, having spent time in Los Angeles, Chicago, Barcelona, Toronto, and Mexico City and more in between, Raven is a singular artist distilling influences ranging from Techno, Electro, R&B and more into her own genre-spanning, vocal-driven productions. Following her debut EP ‘Flames’ on Rekids in 2020, which picked up support from the likes of Joy Orbison, Deetron, and many more, as well as an appearance on Amelie Lens’ Exhale imprint earlier this year, Berlin-based DJ/producer Raven returns to Radio Slave’s imprint once again with the fierce ‘Mania’ 12”.

With ‘Flames’ featuring five original tracks, Raven narrows her focus on ‘Mania’, turning in two killer techno cuts backed with alternative mixes of each. Leading the A side is ‘Nobody’, a hypnotic late-night affair peppered with emotive vocal hooks and trippy synth leads, followed by the ‘Sudden Urges’ mix, which sees the track stripped of its pulsing 4/4 and replaced with haunting atmospherics, breakbeats, and additional synth work.

On the flip, ‘Cold Sweat’ returns to the club with a dose of speaker-rattling kicks, mind-bending leads, and siren-esque effects before the ‘Comedown Mix’ brings a subtler approach, with electro-flecked drum patterns, dense ambience, and spacious reverberations rounding out a standout second release from Raven for Matt Edwards’ Rekids.

Repress

Art Teachers goes deep into modern sounds with its delightfull ambiance accompagnied by
freaky "glurps" vocals. Fuzzy connection between (US) Motor City & Stuttgart (EU) amplified by dark
synth lines and the mechanics of new wave in full effect! Ltd - 250 copies.

THE ALBUM EXHALES A NEW TAKE ON THIS GENERATION OF MODERN / CONTEMPORARY JAZZ MUSIC CONTRIBUTED BY THE QUARTET. STARRING TRACISGREY, PROFESSOR CREEPSHOW, DOMSTA AND MACKJUNT.

Delia Derbyshire is one of the most innovative electronic musicians of the 20th Century. She is best known for her pioneering work for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and for composing the classic theme song for the original Doctor Who, believed to be the earliest "electronic" theme song in television history. A brilliant composer and one of the few women operating in the early era of electronic music, In the early '60s she collaborated with the British artist and playwright Barry Bermange for the BBC's Third Programme to produce four Inventions for Radio, a collage of people describing their dreams, set to a background of electronic sound. This is the first, simply titled Dreams, an attempt to represent, in sound, the sensation of dreaming. Derbyshire's electronic and musique concrete soundbed is the perfect underscore to the narration, simultaneously jarring, dissonant, and terrifying. An amazing piece of work from one of the legendary pioneers of electronic music.

Russian producers Namesis and Sunko, show us their origins with this album. Where we can find a very marked roots between synthwave, Ebm and coldwave.
Voices that make you shudder from the depths of your being.
It also has three remixes that perfectly capture the matrix to take it to the next level, each remixer in the field that feels more comfortable.
On the Knees is an album full of power, strength and grit.

‘Light filtered through light filtered through light filtered through water.

Process oriented harmonics from SALELE. Pure computer music. 10 tracks running at a hard 30 minutes.’

Very limited!

Rapidly marking themselves out as one of the most abrasive, innovative artists to watch in 2022, Brighton-based feminist electropunk trio CLT DRP are delighted to kick off their year with new single ‘TORX’, out now on Small Pond Records.

The single will be available to purchase on a new limited edition 10” vinyl from Small Pond which features new track ‘TORX’, previous single ‘Ownership’ plus a remix from New York’s FLOSSING (Brace Yourself Records), and their cover of Dolly Parton’s track ‘Why’d You Come In Here Lookin’ Like That’.

Commenting on the track, CLT DRP vocalist Annie Dorrett says: "TORX is a hard-hitting non-stop racket. It was a stream of consciousness that stemmed from a very tired & frustrating day where I couldn't get my oven fixed in my flat because I didn't have the right screwdriver and I was dealing with a sort of post-break-up rant about somebody that caused me a lot of grief. It’s one of my favourites to play live now."

Intercepts is a brand new sub-label from London's Frequency Domain.

Frequency Domain has soundtracked late-night astral travelling since 2015, releasing drone, ambient and offbeat electronics from the likes of Forest Drive West, Plant43, Datassette, Matt Whitehead, Anthony Child, Jo Johnson and Ali Wade.

Intercepts indulges the parent label's more unruly and percussive leanings with a series of EPs drawn up from an anonymous pool of Frequency Domain artists and newcomers. Intercepts releases are served two at a time, with two separate strands - X and Y - each exploring their own sonic trajectory.

The first 'Y' series EP delivers three tracks of urgent machine funk; a spannered slab of 170bpm Braindance hogs the A side, while two peak-time sci-fi electro cuts play out on the flip.

Four years on since the portal to Glasgow outsider artist Kay Logan's Otherworld creaked open for the first time, we sit back and admire 'Mad Wee Light' in newly remastered form. Committed to both black and white vinyl editions, her masterpiece glows like a restored AI generated painting, binary scrubbed and winding with fractal strangeness towards its core.

Praise for Otherworld, from Boomkat:

"Stunning, perfectly zonked and secretive drone visions from Kay Logan's Otherworld for her Anxiety bandmate Michael Kasparis' ever-surprising Night School - a real shout for fans of Zoviet France, Two Daughters, Coil, Kevin Drumm

A lowkey jaw-dropper ... The music is really of the rarest drone ambient ilk, spun from real instruments and tape loops with a sort of supernatural, atavistic and prelinguistic quality that gets us slack jawed and heavy-lidded in the most special way.

Spanning tracts of scudding windswept ambience recalling the lushest sort of loopy ambient regressions of Zoviet France, to rawly Scelsi-esque one note drone intensities and the kind of acidic didgeridoo scapes Coil would dream of, Otherworld is making exactly the kind of quietly immanent, life-affirming, expansive musick that we need right now..."

Otherworld is Kay Logan, a multi-disciplinary artist, instrumentalist and sound engineer from Airdrie, now living in Glasgow. Her guitar and bass work in sweaty, thrashing outfits like Herbert Powell and Anxiety are an inverse corollary to the curious tapestries in which Otherworld takes shape. The preternatural stylistic sensibility Logan exhibits in all of her work isn't limited to sound, either – she's a prodigious visual artist with the kind of signature sartorial sensibility that could launch a thousand ships, or lookalikes. Logan's Otherworld project is a musique concrete excursion likely to appeal to fans of Zoviet France or Coil.

LIMITED GOLD VINYL LP After more than a decade at the forefront of the global club music scene withseveral celebrated albums and EPs under their belt, Peruvian duo DengueDengue Dengue's seminal 2014 Enchufada EP 'Serpiente Dorada' is still oneof the most impactful of their exciting career. Capturing the vitality of theirearly genre-defining work, where the traditional and hypnotic rhythms ofcumbia were modernised through a collage of electronic music styles,'Serpiente Dorada' is still at the top of their most played music on streamingplatforms to this day, and has motivated their fanbase to continuouslydemand a physical edition since its initial digital release. The wait is finallyover as in 2021, just as the band completed 10 years of activity, we arepressing a beautiful 12'' vinyl edition in black and gold colours, freshlyremastered for vinyl to give this essential release the quality it deserves. 'Serpiente Dorada' remains an absolutely infectious and colourful mixture ofglobal sounds, where genres and styles are used as a starting point on theirongoing hybrid exploration of the interaction between traditional LatinAmerican music and modern electronic music, where the total is much morethan the sum of its parts.

On steady rise following two sublime singles over the past year—Sagano b/w Haru Wa Akebono and Karakuri b/w Michinoku—Tokyo-based artist Hoshina Anniversary elaborates his eccentric musical point-of-view even further with a debut album for the ESP Institute entitled Jomon. Fourteen tracks stir a melting pot in line with our obsessions, a variety of styles which often stay in their own dedicated lanes while here their trajectories collide in demonstrable fusion. Hoshina gleans borderline absurdist qualities from late Jazz hero Chick Corea (evident in his wild and meticulous keyboard runs), calls upon ancient Japanese instruments, shrines and mythologies, and makes sideways nods to early minimal synth productions, yet all of the above are sifted through some granular equalization, an abstract veil that smooths the skin of Hoshina's mutant creation. A weight of experience pervades throughout, a requisite education in the electronic realm and a deep reverence for Jazz and its masters, and in turn this confidence transfers a sense of ease which leaves us poring over alternative approaches to otherwise familiar tropes. Once this conversation with the music is established, a subliminal push/pull tension toys with us across the length of the album, undulating our sense of space. The tonally rich, dynamic and melodic side of the works present a cool sense of depth but are violently contrasted by a slew of over-saturated punches, and at some point an inevitable alchemy casts these disparate expressions into a haunting monolithic array. Some are glistening and smooth, others are porous and jagged, but all amount to a staunch and cohesive work with the ability to transport listeners to regions unknown.

250 copies available to move, it is a 7” release on Fools Gold Records based in New York City. Side A is on the Electro side with the B being more early 80s Funkadelic/Zapp.

REPRESS!

Liam Blackburn's transformative 'Night Of Visions' LP as Ancestral Voices forged a bold new sonic identity for an influential figure on the electronic music scene. From his groundbreaking work as Indigo and onto the success of Akkord's hybrid electronic melting pot (with Synkro), the quest for forward movement is intrinsic to everything Liam produces. To further celebrate the 'Night Of Visions' LP release, we asked some of our favourite producers to reconstruct some of 'Night Of Visions' highlights in their own style.

Samuel Kerridge requested to use elements from 2 tunes and marry them in one remix. Elements from 'Sleepless Night, First Light' and 'Ritual Terre' are dissected, reversed and used as haunting ghost like layers that coil themselves around an assortment of off kilter drum hits, guttural murmurs and sound effects that often feel like they are designed to test the flexibility of your speaker cones. 'Vine Of The Soul' gets the Pact Infernal treatment - all rattling percussion and high drama, there's a sense of dread that dominates the atmosphere, but this time it's combined with a ghoulish operatic layer. Perhaps the most overt of all the Pact Infernal productions, it just may be a forecast of what's to come for the debut Pact Infernal LP, due in late 2016.

Lucy, Svreca, Eomac, Neel, Tommy Four Seven, Cio D'or, Shapednoise, Paula Temple, DJ Pete and more.

Lucy Absolutely stunning release. Really top of the top.'

Paula Temple The Samuel Kerridge is something else entirely, a very special track, wow.'

DJ Pete Nice remix competition ... won by Pact Infernal.'

It’s Round 3 for Capcom and Laced Records’ Street Fighter Alpha series, as we present the complete Street Fighter Alpha 3 soundtrack on vinyl.

The Alpha 3 music team comprised Takayuki Iwai, Yuki Iwai, Isao Abe (aka Oyaji), Hideki Okugawa, and Tetsuya Shibata. Working with the CP System II hardware and QSound system, the composers delivered a more contemporary, crunchy, and techno-led soundtrack in contrast to its predecessors.

All music has been specially mastered for vinyl by Joe Caithness, and tracks will be pressed onto audiophile-quality, heavyweight 180g discs. Comic book illustrator Andie Tong returns with stunning sleeve art.

Electronic artist Kristian Shelley - AKA Inwards - announces new EP ‘Feeling So Fun Reality’ for October 8th via Brighton based tastemaker label Small Pond. ‘Raindrops’ is the first single taken from it, and is out on July 29th.

The EP is a sister release to 2019’s ‘Feelings of Unreality’ EP - merely shifting where the spaces between the letters land to flip the meaning entirely on its head. Whereas the 2019 effort was laced with anxiety and cyclical internal conflict at the perspective destroying, fathomless possibilities of ideas and scenarios built in the mind, ‘Feeling So Fun Reality’ reflects an optimism grounded in the real world. In this, it takes on a similar human warmth to the best work of Aphex Twin, Clark or Boards of Canada.

‘Raindrops’ is an apt opening gambit in this sense, combining technology and the earthy tangibility of the natural world. Precise modular synths, inspired by the rain, are twisted into wordless conversations conveying a million and one different meanings to a
million and one different ears. This points to the reason Inwards favours instrumental music over lyrical - the capacity to run off emotion without fully understanding what it is you’re channeling per se, and the multitude of interpretations on the receivers end.

Ataxia are the Detroit based DJ/Production duo Ted Krisko & Eric Rickers. They have clocked up a series of releases on highly respected labels from Detroit including Kevin Saunderson's KMS, Craig Craig's Planet E and Seth Troxler's Play It Say it.
A
Ataxia are also resident DJs at the current hot spots in the city, TV Lounge and Marble Bar leading to URB magazine describing the outfit as "another generation of electronic music innovators to come out of the Motor City." A
A
Their debut EP for 20/20 Vision sees Ataxia deliver a raw slice of Detroit techno with a riff that conjures up the ghost of Joey Beltram's - Energy Flash.

Luke Hess and Delano Smith work their magic reconstructing the track for the remixes. Luke Hess turns out a beautifully melodic slice of pure techno while Delano Smith produces a trademark slab of dubbed out deep house.

Wave-jumping, sunken coast electro weapons.

REPRESS ALERT!!: Emile Facey returns on Plant43, not to be confused with bleep43, where he also happens to be graphic designer, illustrator and co-founder. Get your fix of futurist electro beats on his new Storm Control EP, with the same quality that has garnered releases on Shipwrec, Central Processing Unit and AC Records in recent times. Exploring the same opulent realms of electro as Detroit pioneers Dopplereffekt on the title track, there's also the ethereal science fiction of 'Hydraulic Machines' and ending with the dreamlike qualities of ambient electro epic 'Sparks In The Grey Light'..

A new year kicks off at Polytechnic Youth HQ, and it’s with an absolute beauty with which they re-enter the fray. The first new MITRA MITRA full length since 2018’s hugely well received “Marionettes” set (also on PY).


The band was formed in Vienna in late 2014 by Violet Candide and Mahk Rumbae. Originally from New Zealand, Violet Candide has been a fixture of the Vienna post-punk and minimal synth scene for many years as a DJ before making music with Mitra Mitra and her other projects Slow Glass (with Bobby from Low Sea), Peppy Pep Pepper and Violetiger. Whilst British musician Mahk Rumbae is known for his work as a member of the industrial/experimental project Konstruktivists, Oppenheimer MkII (with Andy Oppenheimer of Oppenheimer Analysis) and his solo techno project Codex Empire.

After working together on one of Violet’s solo songs, the pair decided to continue writing and working together as Mitra Mitra, with the aim of writing electronic songs not tied by any particular influence or style – but combining elements of synth pop, electro and minimal synth to create a modern take on classic period electronic music.

Despite initial plans involving studio only work, the band were persuaded to take to the stage in 2015 and have since played shows in England, Germany, Belgium, Hungary and their adopted home country of Austria; quickly gaining a reputation for their unique presentation and interaction with the audience.


The new LP is their strongest set yet; 'Hands Remain' is perhaps darker in nature than previous MM releases; although mostly completed before the pandemic, it somehow fits the times we live in now…

The sleeve design is based on a work by Canadian artist/filmmaker Michael Snow, who kindly gave permission for a processed version of his image to be used on the cover. A wonderful 12 track collection hugely recommended to fans of classic era synth pop, early Mute, Cherry Red, Blackwing Studios etc etc…. One time pressing available now!

Tape

The occult and folk music have been friends for a while. In the 21st century, hauntology and the resurface of some cult soundtracks from the 1970s and 1980s helped to create a new sense of folk, not associated with the typical acoustic feeling, but more relatable with library, krautrock/kosmische and industrial music. João Kyron and Tony Watts, long time collaborators since the late 1990s with their band Hipnótica, and more recently with Beautify Junkyards (Ghost Box) are well acquainted with this friendship. Hidden Horse is their new project as a duo and “Opala” their first release.

With eight tracks and almost thirty minutes, their first release explores dense and greyish urban utopias. The song titles explore ideas that mix sci-fi, horror, science, space and urban phobia, and the music Kyron and Watts create delivers, using electronics and drums with great relish. Their relationship as musicians, which spans more than two decades, can be felt in the way their music flows with a continuous dialogue.

“Opala” is always keen to take you to another dimension. It lives in its own twilight zone, where the obscure entangles the most obvious senses of reality. It sounds like Jacques Tati “Playtime” with a hauntology soundtrack: it kind of feels that this imaginary world is real, but it’s not. And it sucks you in to be a part of it and enjoy it: close your eyes and let yourself go while listening to “Levitação Magnética” or “Fantasmas do Planeta”. You will feel like a foreigner in a new city.

All eyes are on Islandman, an interplanetary musical trio from Istanbul who release their long anticipated, third album Godless Ceremony on September 10 via Danish imprint and long-time home of the band, Music for Dreams.

Islandman makes an incendiary, uplifting and psychedelic slew of music drawn from a world of make-believe, rooted in Anatolia. These 10 tracks (+ 3 additional exclusives on the vinyl) – all of which flirt with balearic, house, down-tempo and electronica with a global gaze - are awash with acid drenched electronic motifs and stuttering electronic drum machine syncopations. The group effortlessly sail the globe, dropping into the tropics of Ecuador (AmarnosAhora),to Mali visiting North African desert blues masters Tamikrest (TarhamanineAssinegh) and North India (Drums Of Colca) whilst never forgetting the music and poetry from the band's spiritual home, Anatolia (Kara Toprak).

In Godless Ceremony we are withdrawn from time and place, delivered to a fantasy zone, dreamt up in the sea, gazing at the stars. It's a musical storyboard, that whilst conceived in Istanbul by producer, singer and multi instrumentalistTolgaBöyük, journeys to far off places, real and imagined.

Hindustani tablas, Tibetan flutes, flamenco guitars, Anatolian Saz and Balinese (Bhasa) vocals all mesh within a concept (and coping mechanism) that contemplates daily routine as beautiful and meditative and as Tolga has appreciated over a testing two years in which he lost his father,"You can take part in a religious ceremony, search for supernatural powers, but sometimes you need to find happiness in small, everyday things".

The record's tracklisting and flow, like it's production ambition and aesthetic, peaks and troughs and arguably perculates at the Underworld-esque title track Godless Ceremony, where Tolga takes front of stage delivering the lead vocal and playing the Saz, an Anatolian stringed guitar-like instrument.

Previously released as a single is Kara Toprak, originally a folk song by AşikVeysel from Anatolia and exceptionally popular in Turkey, it’s a collaboration with Danish guitarist Jacob Gurevitsch. Tolga trips to Bali (singing Bhasa) in Aku Membawa, a house groove (already played on Pete Tong's BBC Radio show) which was produced in collaboration with DJ DIVO, OliO& Music for Dreams label boss, Kenneth Bager. TarhamanineAssinegh is a co-production between North African desert blues protagonists Tamikrest and Islandman, with Islandman reconstructing the song, perfectly fitting with their mission as contemporary cartographers. Drums of Colca splices the tabla and Hindustani tradition from India (it's actually two separate tabla recordings mixed together) with electronic accents whilst incorporating the mouth harp from Mongolia and Tibetan flutes. The guest collaborators are Troels Hammer & Ole Theill. Istanbul Lockdown was originally recorded for dance music giant Boiler Room, as an exclusive as part of a lockdown broadcast. Made in Istanbul, with live strings and Turkish clarinet, it brings back difficult memories for Tolga, having lost his father around the same time.

The core members of Islandman are multi-instrumentalist & producer, TolgaBöyük and EralpGüven (percussion) and ErdemBaşer (guitars). Islandman have become known for their live performances, as anyone who has witnessed their live streams from Istanbul for the London Jazz Festival and Boiler Room can attest to.

Islandman simply avoids boundaries and Godless Ceremony is ultimately their most open-minded work to date. The subtleties and deft electronic touches bewilder and their clear appreciation of music on a global level is an education for us all.

Rise Black returns to Fill-Lex Records to close his Olympus Anthology. 7 tracks of visceral Electro that were forged in the pre pandemic era and that will blow you away to his conceptual world. Hard, direct and uncompromising, these songs continue the saga of this Zar who has made Olympus his own.

Die beiden 'Microtronics' Ausgaben sind zum ersten Mal auf Vinyl erhältlich, remastered von den Originalbändern, mit Artwork von Julian House. Ursprünglich erschienen sie als zwei auf jeweils 2.000 Exemplare limitierte Tour-3inch-CDs: 'Microtronics Vol. 1' 2003 zur 'Haha Sound' Tour, 'Microtronics Vol. 2' folgte 2005 zur 'Tender Buttons' Tour.

Seriously, how is it possible to spend two years and four months making a pop music album It's obviously not because of a fetish with technical perfection. Not a single take on 'Chemistry and Math' has been recorded in a recording studio. It is all living room, bedroom or kitchen table work. Which is the way we have recorded almost all Flunk albums. So really, how does it take 28 months to put together 10 tracks of alternative, lo-fi pop music Well, life Just life. We're busy with stuff like everybody else, ordinary stuff. And it's all in there, really. In the air in the recordings and in-between the lines of words.

'Chemistry and Math' might be about how you acknowledge the inevitability of the rules and patterns and natural laws, it's not so much mystery, it's math, and chemistry, and hormones, and a constant chaos of coincidence. In there are also a lot of pop music references, some obvious one, some slightly hidden. 'Chemistry and Math' is installed in a bleak and more distorted soundscape, reflecting the mood of the world thrown at us in a fucked up era.

'Chemistry And Math' is the sixth ordinary album from Flunk, the Norwegian downbeat/'folktronica' trio now expanded to a quintett.

The seven tracks, including a feisty remix by The HackerHome-made and self-invented instruments complete Michael's specific, extraordinary sound. Other Side was produced by Matia Simovich aka INHALT. Michael himself painted and designed the cover artwork.

2016 Miasmah edition of the now classic debut album by Deaf Center, originally released on Type records in 2005. Full-lenght album version, includes the tracks that were previously only on the CD edition + a 20 minute side of unreleased material from the same timeframe. Released as a gatefold 2xLP with original extended artwork

Firecracker’s dwarf constellation Unthank thaws down from a small cryogenic suspension and delivers it’s first 12”!

Tracks from the vault from Cardiff’s DJ Guy (Other World Music/Cejero/All Caps) who’s been busy since 1992. All tracks designed to be played loud and with the dance in mind whilst taking in all sorts of melancholy, euphoria and pastoral, acid soundscapes.

RIYL Dream 2 Science, Autechre, Unit Moebius, μ-Ziq etc