Beats Vinyl New Releases - News

Between Christmas 2000 and New Year 2001 producers Ekkehard Ehlers and Stephan Mathieu recorded an album of warm, soft, delicately crackling electronic music in the space of that week. It was christened with the ambivalent title "Heroin" and was released on CD via the label Brombron in 2001 and later in 2003 re-issued on Kit Clayton's Orthlorng Musork on double-LP with remixes the pair had commissioned as expansions.

17 years later Heroin sees its first vinyl release to include all 13 tracks from the original CD track-list on this LP + 12“ set. The centerpiece "Herz" finally receives its long deserved vinyl treatment (side C, at 45rpm) and on the flip side Thomas Brinkmann contributes a mirror in a magnificent remix of that very piece on side D.

Ehlers and Mathieu were both highly prolific solo artists during the period 2000-2004, and in just two years after the initial release of "Heroin" each had produced over half a dozen new solo recordings: among them the serial masterpiece Ehlers' "Plays" (Cornelius Cardew, Hurbert Fichte, John Cassavetes, Albert Ayler, Robert Johnson) released as 5 stunning LPs in a series on Staubgold, while Mathieu's 'Full Swing Edits' spread over five 10" records plus his album 'FrequencyLib' on Mille Plateaux, 'Die Entdeckung des Wetters' on Lucky Kitchen and ‘The Sad Mac’ on Atsushi Sasaki’s Headz label were greeted to critical acclaim.

Both artists were expanding their conceptual sonic approaches in the glow of developing laptop technologies which would to these times in 2020 seem quite primitive, but these two in that period used the state-of-the-art to aid and abet their conceptual visions, while at times the duo used unorthodox experimentation - yet always had a distinctively melodic and musical form at its heart and soul.

Ehlers can be seen as a conceptualist, as a meta-musician who interrogates the mediums and methods of sound production - reflecting on the conditions and possibilities of improvisation (e.g. "Plays Albert Ayler") and exploits ideas of mutation and distortion of popular aesthetics played out within a ghostly form of divine pop beauty in his project März.

Mathieu, originally a drummer and co-founder of what has come to be known as the Berlin 'Echtzeitmusik' scene. His approach could be similarly described as working a critical analyst and researcher: Subtly and precisely working in the realm of processing as a method of intervening in melodious/harmonic analog sound sources.

Ehlers and Mathieu may not think too much about their singular productions and publications outcomes, but instead concentrate on the process and musical personality that characterizes their gesture- style itself stays in the background - and they usher a music from small minimal sound sources coaching a patient music of slow intervention - much like a refraction of light than a concrete painting or a blurred photograph - beatus accident.

And indeed, "Heroin" is an album that embraces the happy accident being made up of reduced, often very catchy and very direct micro hooks which seem laser-guided into a space accepting obvious melodic beauty in what feels like an observation of musics unfolding and revealing it's DNA, embed with for a kind of yearning for innocence and naiveté - as if Satie were on the jukebox in "The Crying of Lot 49". Not to say the music is "reduced", but rather: 'restricted' and born from acceptance of limitations, and the artists allowing the sounds to just "be.." with some incremental degrees of coercion.

The album not only sounds like that of 2 producers who are both dreamers and scientists, but that Ehlers and Mathieu chose to work with these means in a dialogue together to reduce pop music to its musical/tonal core, it is not Pop music anymore, rather a ghostly pointilistic itteration of song. "Heroin" is located at this transition, around that point at which tracks, that were or could have become pop compositions, irrevocably slip into a static harmonic nirvana. We are invited to follow the arch of Heroin in a slow-motion morphine musical haze.

Heroin sounded timeless when originally released and proof is that it remains so, one wishes that Ehlers and Mathieu would convene again for a week, a month or an entire year to continue this process of slow rumination, picking affectionately over the sounds they both love - and then maybe when everything is condensed, evaporated they would write more songs with those sonic refractive elements that remain.

Zauberstab Volume 1 is a compilation of electronic bedroom music made by contemporary artists that belong to similar sonic spheres, to be released in LIO Press, a new label based in Barcelona founded by Alicia Carrera. The A side feels like a holiday in an exotic landscape; the kind of place you don't want to leave. The B side then goes in a slightly deeper meditative direction, but not too far, since the sparking disco-infused psych exploration of 'Space Surfari' will hold you back from falling into the void of the unconscious. What comes next is the sound that would welcome a moonlit night sky. The C side slinks into a minimal synth oriented exploration, ending with the intergalactic hopeful drift of 'Har'. The last side will provide a comfortable seat on this hypnotic journey. 'Ete 2017' is an ode to the late summer nights, a mind-driving loop carried by gentle percussive sounds, filled with some bass deepness. The next tracks are the the right balance between a hug and a breeze of fresh air for your mind and soul. At this point you might find yourself wondering if it's a good idea to open your eyes or just keep them closed for a bit longer and thoroughly enjoy all of the details of this story. But, why not? This one is, after all, a record to build beautiful memories with.

Birmingham based Velum Break lumbers on to Analogical Force with his debut EP; his glistening Cloaca. Dripping with infectious warpings, rhythmic engorgements and low end turgidities, this record beckons the dandy inside of you and guarantees excitement of the greatest depths. Auralities and pleasurements not to be missed. Make haste and godspeed.

Throughout his vast career, the New York based Australian composer JG Thirlwell has adopted many masks as a means of infiltrating and subsequently subverting a wide range of pop cultural forms. His work under the Foetus moniker has taken on everything from big band to opera to noise-rock. Steroid Maximus embraced exotica and the world of soundtracks, while his Manorexia project continued his quest to the outer limits of contemporary composition and musique concrete. Thirlwell has also carved out a significant output in the field of the soundtrack via the large body of work created for the animated television shows Archer and The Venture Bros. In addition he has been commissioned to create compositions by such notables as Kronos Quartet, Bang On A Can, Alarm Will Sound, String Orchestra of Brooklyn and many others.

Now we have ‘Omniverse’, the second release under the moniker Xordox. Xordox is a synthesizer-based project, and on this evocative album we see the project branch into many new avenues. The science fiction element brushes up against crime noir, even veering into areas that could well fit in the video game soundtrack genre. With an audacious attitude and an arsenal of machines Thirlwell serves up a selection of thrilling retro-future mind capsules. This is music made from a life saturated in culture, both underground and mainstream, high and low. Tense sequencing and noir tinged keyboard lines invoke a powerful visual image of films and memory, of screens and speakers, of sound and space, all entering the cosmos and the subsequent galactic race. Thirlwell’s decades long exploration of sampling and sequencing, composing and ingesting a daunting amount of audio and visual artworks speaks volumes for the bold assimilations exposed here. ‘Between Dimensions’ lays out a tense theme which starts off like a score to a a crime thriller before morphing into a simulacra of Kraftwerk scoring a video game. The living ghosts of Giorgio Moroder and John Carpenter haunt ‘Oil Slick’ as it permeates wormholes, updating lifeforms with its stealth sequencing and tense momentum.

‘Omniverse' is a synthesised soundtrack journey, one which embraces past forms whilst reshaping them for the new unknown. ‘Omniverse' is a thrilling liquid ride through fear and hope, and like all the best of Thirlwell’s output, is simply one hell of an enjoyable journey to take.

Early in the year 2020, the world saw an unprecedented shutdown unlike anything we had experienced in living memory. Communities everywhere closed ranks, putting an end to physical interaction between individuals in response to a rapidly developing and unpredictable crisis. The streets emptied of rush hour traffic, and landscapes took on a new and eerie silence.

As a result, we found our thoughts wandering the world, while our physical selves remained firmly at home. For artists, creative energy was frustrated by the physical sense of confinement. But human beings are resilient creatures, and so individuals began reaching out to each other across the empty spaces, finding inspiration in cooperation and partnership.

The recordings featured here are a direct result of these times. Drawing upon existing source material, these artists worked remotely over the course of a year, exchanging ideas and developing the finished pieces that you now hold in your hand. In the course of this activity, new means were found, and new works unearthed that may never have seen the light of day.

We do not intend this as a statement of strength and durability, for that would imply that human beings are rigid and cannot change. Instead, we hope to celebrate that fact that we can change, we can adapt. And we celebrate the link of humanity that ties us together in this world that we share.

(Ltd.Ed)(2LP+MP3)(Golden)

"Fading" folgt der Anfang 2020 veröffentlichten remasterten Neuauflage der wegweisenden Trilogie "1 2 3" des in Berlin lebenden Künstlers und elektronischen Klangtüftlers Stefan Betke aka Pole. Grundelemente, Sprache und Vokabular der Trilogie übernimmt er für "Fading" - beispielsweise die prägenden, im Hintergund schwirrenden Knack- und Störgeräuche - und ergänzt sie um moderne Details.
So ist "Fading" ist ein facettenreiches Album, das sich für immersives Hören über Kopfhörer ebenso gut eignet wie dafür, durch eine Lautsprecheranlage laut herausgepumpt zu werden, um zu spüren, wie der Bass am Brustkorb rasselt.

Limited Edition Doppel-Aztec-Gold Vinyl im Gatefold-Cover und Spot Gloss Finish mit hochwertigem Download.
Alle Einheiten erscheinen mit Poster-Beilage. 10 Poster wurden von Stefan Betke signiert und zufällig unter allen Einheiten verteilt.

Body Meat—the project of Philadelphia-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Christopher Taylor. Streched and bold out of shape pop accompanied by mangled electronics that meld together like a beautiful peice of abstract dance. full info soon!

Cora Emens is a sex educator and performer based in the Netherlands. This re-issued work of experimental music was compiled in the 80s by Cora's ex-partner, Willem de Ridder (one of the founders of Fluxus) in the Netherlands from the home studio recordings of Cora.

Now available in double LP form (originally released on a Radio Art Foundation cassette) with an additional bonus track 'Earplay'. This is the first time it's been re-released in any format.

The original tape was mixed by Willem de Ridder and is remastered by Cora Emens herself.

The archive cassette now resides in the sound archives of the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam.

“Maestro melodist Christophe Petchanatz (aka Klimperei) and all around music fanatic David Fenech engage remotely in a repetitive exchange of recordings and overdubs on their debut album titled ‘Rainbow de Nuit’, sporadically spanning over the last decade. Evocations of experimental and improvised jazz, chansonesque songs, bluesy folk, and outsider music undulate harmoniously across the record. From music boxes and walkie-talkies down to plastic straws, plucking various stringed instruments such as the charrango and banjo, kazoos and snake-charmer ocarina and flutes, all the way through the sweet accordion and melodica, found and traditional tuned percussion - there is far from a shortage of sound sources on this freakishly inviting record. What germinates as an imaginative and emotional chord progression played by Klimperei, evolves with Fenech layering additional recordings, which would then find their way back home to Klimperei yet again, and so on, and so forth. This recursive compositional and improvisational loop, combined with Fenech’s musique-concrete-like mixing and editing techniques, transforms the acoustic recordings by way of compression, saturation, and reverberation or simple pitch changes - resulting in the duo’s recordings seemingly sound like they may very well be an octet in real time. While the majority of the recordings have been ping-ponged remotely, David and Christophe unite under one roof to record the closing track of the album.

The pieces presented on ‘Rainbow de Nuit’ treat the ears to a carousel ride waltzing through a multiverse made up of surrealist puppet theaters, dramatic film noir act changes, and a mosaic of polyphonic instruments and toys alike. In other words, a score to a fable brought to life with haunting yet charming melodies and occasional hallucinatory voices reminiscent of laughter and infantile epiphanies which we hear on Tarzan en Tasmanie and Madrigal for Lola. This is taken a step further by Fenech, to a brief libretto of incomprehensible tongues on Pocarina. Amid the mysterious and dark (Septième Ciel and Rugit Le Coeur) also lies tender and simple compositions (Rainbow de Nuit and Chevalier Gambette), murky suspenseful melancholy (Levy Attend and Eno Ennio), and casually slipping into pensive psychedelic backdrops (Un Cercueil à Deux Places) - forming a colorful blend of sounds. A world of echoes. A tale of tales. One persistent earworm that you’ll likely be whistling and humming along to on a first listen.”

"Four new chapters from Nicolás Jaar in Telas.

Here, again, it’s the odder and more essence-like devotion to sound that is semi-narrative, ambient, and concrète that we heard and were drawn to in Pomegranates. Telas gestures towards a more refined tone, with less sudden shifts and vignettes, incrementally shaping an hour of self-reflective music with tracks building and collapsing across its vinyl sides.

When Telas was first drafted and presented to Mana it felt appropriate to mention a sense of monastic retreat. Where Pomegranates often felt epic-like in its scope and shifting scales, this album conveys images of quieter moments spent tending to a vegetable patch within a cloistered garden, perhaps, or the threading of a tapestry with filigree. Nicolás often moves slowly and deliberately throughout, focused on manipulating gauzy fibres and room tone or fluttering around other cryptic actors, so that when bursts of clarity and emotion appear they take on a deeper character.

There’s a greater sense of contemplation and patience in the album’s logic, pointing to a conception of art, melody, and sound which is continuously under construction. In relationship with sister-album Cenizas and surface qualities of recent Against All Logic material it feels that there’s a centre being defined and meditated upon.

Telas was made between December 2016 and January 2020."

Oliver Torr is about to release his first full length solo album. The album features many moods and colours, with Oliver exploring the use of his voice and lyrics as a new form of his expression. Successfully mixing electronic avant-garde/experimental forms with pop-like harmonic structures is the main theme of the record.

The idea of recontextualisation and themes of observation are mainly inspired by the philosophical literature and ideas of John Berger, Marshall McLuhan, and many others was a driving force during the creation of the album. The lyrical and sound design content is mainly inspired by panic attacks and depression, and serves as a therapeutic tool to aid in personal psychological healing.

Tracks make use of creative sound design by utilising field recordings and various experimental instruments and sources of sound, such as the Radical Chip, designed by John Richards (one of Oliver's mentors) and Max Wainwright. Tracks like 'Deià' which create a chaotic sonic palette are the author's representation of his mind under the siege of an intense panic attack, experienced in the seaside town of the same name that is located on the island of Mallorca.

Oliver feels like the album has been writing itself for the past 5 years, and in the past few months it has decided to finally show its form. With the help of Aid Kid, who is mixing the album and providing additional production, Oliver has put together a 14-track rollercoaster record, with the help of some special guests. Guests on vocals include Chrysalism, BCAA's Bilej Kluk, and sci fi RnB newcomer LVCIFER. Other sonic collaborators include Sunnbrella (guitars on two tracks), Bastl Instruments' David Strobach (distorted samples in intro), Peter Kutin, and Radio Laude's DeSteffan and R.A. (distorted samples/vocal on one track).

The record's sonics are a combination of Oliver's conscious influences, including experimental music, classical avant-garde, shoegaze, IDM, EBM, electronica, hints of modern club music, as well as PC music influences.

Oliver Torr is known as a composer, music producer, performer and installation artist. Outside of his solo projects, he has worked with many prominent musicians and creative companies/film makers worldwide. He is the founder of XYZ project, a music label concentrating on electronic music and audiovisual art (xyzproject.bandcamp), and a member of the noise.kitchen crew (a music and synth shop run by Bastl Instruments in Prague). Oliver is also a part of the 2020 SHAPE Platform roster (shapeplatform.eu), and the 2021 Gravity Network roster (gravitynetwork).

Oliver releases the album prior to the release of his 'Trans Europe Postal Express' project (supported and arranged in collaboration with SHAPE Platform) and gallery exhibition at MeetFactory art space Prague, that will take place in March, and will further the sonic palette of the album.

The album's artwork is directed and designed by Kristyna Kulikova and photographed by Lukas Havlena (VICE, National Gallery of Prague).

The album's pre-release sees a teaser trailer shot and directed by Tereza Halamova and Filip Kettner that will be released 1st of February. A short movie music video with the same crew is scheduled a month after the album's digital release.

A remixed version with reworks from established European electronic musicians (including Peter Kutin, Fausto Mercier, Wim Dehaen, Natalie Plevakova, Evil Medved, NobodyListen, David Herzig, Ancestral Vision and Trauma), will be coming in the next few months after the release.

Real Real World is the first collaborative effort from Nantes-based Australian drummer/percussionist Will Guthrie and Australian keyboardist/composer James Rushford. Primarily recorded in a fluid, spontaneous studio session in Nantes, with overdubs added later in Melbourne and Nantes, Real Real World presents five spacious, unhurried pieces that inhabit a unique sound world characterised by wheezing, half-voiced organ chords, chiming metal percussion, and eruptions of small sounds. Beginning with the eerily beautiful, shakuhachi-esque sound of Rushford performing on detuned portative organ, the opening title track is abruptly transformed by the entry of Guthrie’s sizzling cymbals, deep gong strikes, and rustling hand percussion. On the epic ‘Lumbering’, which occupies the majority of the record’s first side, organ chords define a space in which a kaleidoscopic succession of amplified thuds, chiming bells, rustled and dragged objects, and abruptly silenced clusters advance and recede in an oneiric blur, eventually making way for a passage of Guthrie’s virtuosic polyrhythms, itself unexpectedly overtaken by waves of melting fairground organ. The record reaches an energetic climax mid-way through the second side with the stunning ‘Slakes’, where lugubrious chords in the organ’s lowest register are joined by Guthrie’s skittering rhythms, which somehow manage to call to mind both the most chaotic moments of Balinese Gamelan and the stochastic breakbeats of late-90s Autechre. On this piece, Guthrie and Rushford are joined by Melbourne saxophone maverick Scott McConnachie, who contributes an alto sax solo of burning precision, working with a single-minded palette of piercing long tones and wild intervallic leaps. Though it makes extensive use of overdubbing, Real Real World retains a strong sense of having been performed, rather than constructed: while at times the fleeting succession of events can recall electroacoustic music, its primarily acoustic nature and unhurried pace is also reminiscent of the music of AACM affiliates or Marion Brown’s classic Afternoon of a Georgia Faun. Immediately engaging while also hiding countless details in the folds of its polychrome fabric, Real Real World is a relaxed and joyous document of collaborative musical invention.

Artwork by Patrizia Bach. Layout by Lasse Marhaug. Mixed and mastered by Joe Talia at Good Mixture, Berlin.

Superb Gatefold delux editioon of a magic ambient to ambient-core sound... Ritch and conceptual music... Out from the fields and upper than any montaign... this is This tale is written inside the gatefold : The Bandiagara Escarpement unravels for more than 400.000 hectares, multitude of sandstone cliffs and plateaus, ravines and caverns. A West African area of unique and exceptional beauty also known as the Land of Dogon.


Summer night is fading away when the Hogon Kalapodis stands up abruptly after days completely motionless staring at the stars through the openings of the Kukulu Kommo Cave. Time has come. The heliacal rising of Sirius is getting nearer. Aware of the power of the word to bring everything into existence by naming, the Hogon reaches with a resolute pace the Polio Kommo Plain where his ancestors wrote in stone the past and future of mankind. There he finds the Awa fully deployed in two lines, the oldest standing and the others sitting before them. Dressed with braids of dyed fibers and embroidered with cowry shells, figures of mythological beings, humans, animals hold the painted wooden masks tightly between their teeth. Behind them, the whole tribe stood around the rock ark in the kanaga position : legs well planted in the sandstone, arms waving to the lightening sky.
Just a nod and Nogod, the most skilled percussionist, starts a solo on his Gom Boy. First he keeps on repeating over and over the same obsessive pattern and then, squeezing the leather chords of the talking drum with arm and body, he modulates the frequency produced with the beats originating from the rest of the tribe. The last Dama has just begun.

The end of the mourning ritual is now looming over the cliff. Hundreds of Boy Na and Boy Tolo and Gom Boys jam together with bells and bullroarers and all the singers. The masked crews jump and dance quickly in sonic belligerence and the faster they cross one another, the more the rhythm accelerates.
Drumming gets supersonic. No longer possible to detect a percussive sound, only a single powerful Black Drone. Super fast music becomes super slow.


In the light of dawn, looking at the horizon, Sigui Sirius A Tolo is now rising. Also its dark companion Po Sirius B Tolo is over there and far away a new New form is taking shape. Nogod standing right at the middle of the vibing tribe, whispers sweetly something but somehow in all that rumble everybody hears clearly the name : S………I………R………I………U………S………C

AL presents the first musical collaboration between Hamburg based Asmus Tietchens and Japanese artist Miki Yui, operating out of Düsseldorf for almost 20 years now. Highly respected and hugely influential artist Asmus Tietchens first made his mark on the electronic music scene in the late 1970s, whereas Miki Yui debuted her sonic settings in1999.

Their first joint album NEUES BOOT envelops the listener with a poetic sound sensibility and a conceptual clarity which was processed and passed back and forth between their individual studios in Hamburg and Düsseldorf.

Asmus Tietchens: After Stefan Schneider suggested to release a Yui-Tietchens album on his TAL imprint Miki and I quickly developed some ideas towards our eventual collaboration. We agreed upon an ongoing mutual exchange of material. We have both been very familiar with each other's music for a long time and we found our individual approach towards sound design to be uniquely compatible. We do not use our electronic tools in order to merely achieve the maximum of technical possibilities, but to illustrate aesthetic necessities. This entails a deliberate reduction and refined perception of the sonic characteristics of the material. Only this approach enabled us to fully realise the complete spectrum of the sounds and noises we were working with in order to construct this New Boat. Each and everyone of my treatments is e x c l u s i v e l y based on a track supplied by Miki. I added no new sound sources. Naturally the spatial and temporal dimensions of the source material were thus altered. These transformations are exactly what makes our collaboration special and unique. Very early on we had agreed on New Boat as a working title and a guiding light . Of course in the beginning we had no idea where this New Boat might take us. Now we do know. After several months of ship-building the boat has now set sails for new sonic horizons. Ahoi!

Miki Yui: The title of the album as well as the individual tracks have been inspired by conversations with Asmus. When we had a chat after one of his concerts, he told me about Kōdō, the Art or the Way of the Scent. It is a 8th century Japanese incense ceremony. Very frequently the names of Japanese incense sticks are derived from natural themes, e.g. Bairin is the plum grove, the scent of the first blossom heralding the end of winter. This poetry, the ephemeral nature of the world reminded me of Kigo, words from a Haiku (a form of Japanese poetry), which reference a particular season or a natural phenomenon. So I chose the names of the individual pieces from Kigo as if The Boat was exploring nature whilst sailing through the seasons. Only in retrospect I realised that the titles combined create this poem:

Early spring a hazy view in the night (Oboro)
Plum groves (Bairin)
Over a Dayfly (Kagerou)
A Milkyway (Amanogawa)
Dawn (Akatsuki)
Art of fragrance (Kōdō)
On fragile thin ice (Usurai)

A bit of tenderness in this brutal world... Dub Ambient pearl !

Tape / Cassette

Everyone's favorite synth acid genius, J. Mono from Lajosmizse is back on Dalmata Daniel with the double album Redate I & II tape release, an emotionally filled journey of 24 songs, all showing deep thoughtfulness of composition, mastering soundwaves and harmonies.

This cassette is limited and numbered to 60 copies with risograph printed J-card sleeve in hard case. Every tape comes with unique label sticker for this release and download code.

Experimental meltdown of bass musicians exploring all kind of evolutions inna unapropriatte form that finally apperas to be apropriate... A masterpiece of msuci to dig future beats... Again !

Alkisah REMIXED is the album curated by Les Ateliers Claus and Kiosk radio (both based in Brussels) and is created with the stems of the Alkisah album by Indonesian duo Senyawa. Alkisah is co-released by a multitude of independent record labels from all over the globe each and to extend this collaboration we decided to involve our musical family.

Six artists were invited to tell ‘Alkisah’ stories into different possibilities and produce unique speculative works. This remix LP brings a variety of musical genres and shines a different and surprising light on Senyawa’s compositional works. Going from a musique-concrète approach, towards dub and dance floor bangers highlighting the timelessness of Senyawa their music.

Remixes are delivered by Sugai Ken (jap), Celine Gillain (b), Sagat (b), Tolouse Low Trax (ger), Dntel (usa), Front de Cadeaux (it/b)

Coils is the latest offering from Santa Ana, CA native Evan Geesman. Fresh from the success of his previous digital-only release Lengua, with co-signs from Bandcamp's Head Curator Andrew Jervis and Osunlade, his new work finds him delving deeper into his production palette interspersed with his songwriter's aesthetic, resulting in a decidedly denser sonic soundscape than its predecessor.

Born and raised in Santa Ana, CA Evan Geesman has been writing and recording songs since his early teens. From folk songs recorded on a 4 track in his parents' garage to recent collaborations with local electronic beat collective GRN+GLD, Evan's unique and prolific musical output have established him as both a singer songwriter and electronic/new beat producer.

While Evan's previous material crossed several genres and had more of an experimental bent with influences varying from Aphex Twin, Wu-Tang, Mahavishnu Orchestra and world folk music, Coils represents a natural synthesis of his beat heavy electronic compositions and strong songwriting sensibilities. Many of the songs recorded over the last year began as guitar compositions, which were then painstakingly recreated electronically, building layers of arrangements consisting of electronic instruments, field recordings and his own vocals over an acoustic foundation. When asked to describe the album's underlying theme, he cites how suffocating life in the modern world can be with the internet, TV, technology and the increasingly overwhelming speed of communication. Using music as a medium to convey this accurate yet unfortunate depiction of living in modernity, Coils doesn't succumb to the dourness, it finds a way to remind those who listen that life can be softer.

Once upon a time, two operators stared at their screens. They sat silently for hours, their whole being dedicated to the task they had been assigned to. Days and nights passed in the same monotonous manner. Suddenly signals showed up on their monitors. Alarms started to ring. Both reacted at the same speed and did what they were supposed to do. Controls and commands were entered, as was protocol. After observing these waves for 61:01 minutes, everything became quiet again. What they had just witnessed made them wonder. For the first time they addressed each other. "The data is transferring through our system," announced the first. “Let us both check how this can be interpreted.” The second validated the response. Together, they looked at what had been recorded. Ideas raced through their complicated minds until they realized simultaneously: sounds! They listened. “Is this an unknown language?” one asked. “This is the first time this has been heard throughout our history,” the other answered. They listened again and again. “This electricity has been arranged to form a cohesive entity,” the first said. “Why would machines be used to create that?” the second mused. Something had awakened inside of them, an obsessive curiosity they had never experienced before. They did not understand and were blown away by the beauty of it. “Do you think it could have been left by humans before us?” one whispered. “If it was, these would be Major Signals,” the other concluded. As they processed these thoughts, the two artificial intelligences sat still.

Repress

When I was 22 I managed to acquire Techno Animal’s Demonoid 12” at a local record store, Rocking Horse Records. I can still recall the intensities of sound that marked the first moments of listening to it. The sense of bass as a tactile surface, that rolling groove and the howling sine waves and dub sirens that scorched with a type of sonic burning sensation that to this day makes my hairs stand on end. A year later I heard Ice’s Bad Blood, from there I discovered The Bug through a release on Wordsound, a band called God, a sound movement called isolationism and much more; all of these projects had one nexus point - Kevin Richard Martin.

In 2015, Kevin and I book-ended a series of concerts at Berghain for CTM festival. For his performance, Kevin debuted a new work I’d heard very little about called ’Sirens’. I remember two things distinctly about the performance. The first thing is he opened the set with a blazing passage of bass and dub sirens that instantly transported me back to those initial moments of encountering his work. The second was the feeling of absolute, crushing bass. Not before, or since, have I felt a sense of sound pressure like this. Unlike his other work with The Bug for example, the consistent bass carrying in the space was literally breathtaking and there were moments when it seemed difficult to see clearly as my eye sockets were vibrating in a way I’d never experienced.

Sirens, which documents the intensities surrounding the delivery and early days of his first child, carries in it a sense of deep affect. The album, unlike the live work, traces out a dynamic sound world that is both tender and caustic. It charts the emotional rollercoaster that is the arrival of parenthood, heightened through the complex circumstances of his wife's emergency procedures during the birth and two further life threatening operations for his son, in the first month of the child's life. Within each piece, microcosms of sensation unfold, Kevin clearly and deftly manoeuvres us through the tumultuous journey. Seconds become hours, and hours become seconds; Sirens somehow creates a sense of time that is without anchor and is foggy in a way that is profoundly unique (and frankly pleasurable).

Kevin Richard Martin has remained a point of constant inspiration for me over several decades now. To have the opportunity to share his first ever solo recording, one that arguably opens an entirely new side of his practice, brings me the utmost pride. His work has impacted so very much on me at various points and I know I am not alone in this situation. His new work, Sirens is a life journey transposed into sound that is truly personal, but effortlessly universal. It is the start of a new chapter for Kevin and one that I know will only strengthen his place as one of the critical voices in contemporary electronic music.

- Lawrence English, March 2019

Otherworldly and anomalous, hushed and hallucinatory, Pauline Anna Strom’s unique style of inner space music reaches across time to futures and pasts far from our own. Trans-Millenia Music compiles eighty minutes of Strom’s most evocative work, composed and recorded between 1982 and 1988, for the first authorized overview of the enigmatic Bay Area composer. Pauline Anna Strom introduced her music to the world in 1982 with Trans-Millenia Consort, a collection of transportive synthesizer music providing listeners a vessel to break beyond temporal limits into a world of pulsing, mercurial tonalities and charged, embryonic waveforms. Strom’s solicitation into the unknown continued through a half dozen more stellar releases during the decade, which, despite their singularity and mastery, slipped into the more obscure annals of want lists and bootleg editions. Though Strom’s work developed during the dawn of San Francisco’s influential new age and ambient scenes, her music remains non-programmatic, an adventurous tangent diverting from the era’s ideological tropes. The artist’s own path to creative maturation was atypical. Raised by her Catholic family in Louisiana and Kentucky, she was tragically deprived of sight due to complications from a premature birth. This impairment would sensitize her to listenable worlds with great acuity and creative engagement, the loss becoming a formative aspect of Strom’s spiritualist take on the power of music. Recalling her youth, Strom says she was “a loner and heretic.” Seeking solace and solidarity, she moved to the mecca of California’s counter culture with her husband, a G.I., who was assigned duty in the Bay Area during the decline of the Vietnam War. Having dabbled with piano as a teen, Pauline’s passion for music reignited when synthesizers became central to the serene scene of San Fran FM radio in the mid-70s. Inspired by the electronic music of the instrument’s early ambassadors (Klaus Schulze, Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream), Strom purchased a Tascam 4-track recorder and a small array of synths (Yamaha DX7, TX816, CS-10) to navigate her own universe of space music. As she gained confidence to share her creations beyond the walls of the apartment where she meticulously crafted under headphones day and night, Strom took on the artistic identity of the ‘consort,’ spiriting listeners through epochs described by her evocative musical passages. From this moment and represented within Trans-Millenia Music, Strom proves to be a delicate melodist and meticulous colorist, as well as a sound designer of great drama and inspired energy. The celestial sounds evoke the uncertainty of pre-physical and primordial elements, creating an impression of a world beyond access that Strom has always felt was hers. In the collection’s liner notes Strom recounts, “I have always been in touch with the past more than the present.” Apart from its mysteries, Strom’s curiosity for the non-present was also suffused with a social bent. She believed that humanity was confined by its inability to access the people of the future, therefore suffering in a kind of group solipsism. Designing a world of music that rooted itself in all times but the present, Strom’s alter ego, the Trans-Millenia Consort, became a musical activist for triggering this state of heightened consciousness. Exemplary passages highlighted in Trans-Millenia Music were selected from the three full-lengths originally issued on vinyl in addition to a group of four full-lengths self-released on cassette. This substantive body of work challenges the canonization of new age and ambient music as one-size-fits-all categories. Strom’s music induces a dynamic range of listening that captivates and intrigues, a cinematic experience rather than a meditation for passive listening. An open invitation to earlier worlds and a trans-temporal philosophy for living, Pauline Anna Strom’s Trans-Millenia Musicis available originally November 10, 2017 on double LP, Vinyl edition feature original artwork by visionary Karma Moffett, printed inner sleeves and booklet with extensive liner notes scribed by Britt Brown.

Smalltown Supersound mint a highly promising new jazz label, Le Jazz Non Series with a mighty opening gambit by techno mutant Pavel Milyakov (Buttechno) and explorative sax player Bendik Giske.
Both strongly regarded in their respective scenes - Milyakov for his dare-to-be-different techno, and Giske for a remarkable debut LP ’Surrender’- the pairing here surpasses each of their respective repertoire to date with a burningly intense form of hybrid electro-jazz that feels vitally restless and searching.
Produced remotely over the course of 12 months between Berlin and Moscow,, the album’s seven pieces portray the duo at an early crest of their collaborative, creative powers, revelling in the thrill of invention and innovation with Giske’s physical, improvised prowess matched for fleeting unpredictability by Milyakov’s bespoke modular systems.
The results are tangibly brittle but in an immersive, world-building fashion that speaks to the openness and mutuality of their visions, removing any excess fat and never testing attention spans, they move in quick steps between searingly emotive bursts of energy and naggingly rhythmic jags, skipping from peaks of breathtaking flightiness to cavernous skronk and ghost-in-the-machine divinations with elemental logic and dexterity

Olive Vinyl

Newly remastered by Rashad Becker for this vinyl edition, ‘Everything Is Already There’ is an incredible feat - a sprawling, hour-long, 12 track album recorded in the space of a week in 2020 and now easily one of the most inspiring records we’ve heard during this now year-long pandemic-haze. It’s an intimate fever-dream made real, a summoning of rich and complex spirits that reminds us of Giuseppe Ielasi & Nicola Ratti’s Bellows, Dean Blunt x Hype Williams, Ry Cooder’s Paris Texas, Ulla (who plays saxophone on two tracks under the Foamy
alias), Grouper, Laurel Halo - a tapestry of suggestive, humid mood music for our time.
Beloved for her tapes and LPs with everyone from sferic to The Trilogy Tapes and Motion Ward, as well as her role running Radio.syg.ma, Perila’s productions and curatorial work have been central to the emergence of a new ambient rhizome in Berlin in recent years. The hushed but fractious patchwork of 12 cuts she deploys on
‘Everything Is Already There’, however, speaks to the breadth and sensuous subtleties of her style, embracing opiated shoegaze, queasy concréte, and blushing ambient soul in a waking-daydream of a session that revels in the pleasures of locating and nourishing the inner life.
Arriving not long since Perila’s action in Critical Amnesia’s ‘ambient supergroup’ with her pals, Exael, Huerco S., Ol, VTGNike, and uon, it contains some of the most detailed and textured work in her small but precious catalogue. She emerges like a ragged spirit from the viscous tronics of ‘Time Swamp’, and shapeshifts from urgent street-corner poetry in ‘Pocket Full Of Nothing’ to take in damaged ambient blues recalling Loren Connors on ‘Riot In A Cornfield’, with her descriptive sensitivities in lushest, illusive effect on the likes of ‘On A Roof’ and the gauzy aerial drift of ‘Reality Scan

Poole Music is thrilled to announce its inaugural commission, the Habu, the latest full-length from Belgium’s Lieven Martens. For the better part of two decades, Martens has been expanding his Aloha-bedecked musical vision, transitioning from the basement tape environments of his Dolphins into the Future project to the rich compositional tapestries of more recent post-exotica modernist works.

The Habu represents a true culmination of these identities in one of his most ambitious works to date. The album’s three pieces cast an omniverous net that explores those fragile tendriles between imagined and real, natural and fabricated, unity and chaos; concrete sounds enabling abstract inner landscapes. With the ecstatic revelry of Marco Polo returning to his queen, Lieven brings us gems from all corners of the navigable world: tales of an impossibly guilded Portugese palace, a fertility tonic conjured from a poisionous serpent, a simulacrum of Honolulu. At a moment when the world is more geographically isolated than it has been in generations, Martens’ the Habu is a welcome odyssey, a Charybdian travelogue of the psyche. About face.

Watching Abul Mogard’s Live performance in Atonal Festival 2017 and his releases on Not Waving’s Ecstatic record label were somewhat of a milestone in Malka Tuti’s sonic aesthetics. His ability to touch us with those pulsating sonic textures com-ing out of his modular machine inspired us in MTHQ for years to come. We were more then happy that Mogard chose to contact Tapan about their album and eventually deciding to remix not one but two track from the Belgrade duo… It was like a circle coming to a close.

On the A-side Mogard take the original 17 minute sax infused piece that is EUROPA and drenches it with drones and low freq pulses and atmosphere, creating a some sort of a post apoca-lyptic intense atmospheric soundtrack. The effect of drowning the horns from the original track in a sea of drones and pads, contributes to the over all impression of listening to a distant memory of music… fitting for days like these....

On the B-side Mogard takes it to the next level, capturing a line from Tapan's original collaboration with Jerusalem In My Heart's Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, and passing it through his modular system, amalgamating an epic piece of tension build ups and repetitive movements...

The original artwork was made by artist Marja de Sanctis and adapted, as always, to the sleeve by Morey Talmor.

“Gyropedie,” Anne Guthrie’s third record for Students of Decay, takes us further into her hermetic practice, wherein expertly captured field recordings, French horn, and electronics are woven into potent and richly imagined electroacoustic environments. In Guthrie’s own words, “Quite literally a record of pilgrimage from East to West. Remnants of Midwest and East Coast soundmarks, instruments sold to lighten the travel load, sketched out and then buried under the new. Winter birds and crunching snow, frozen playgrounds, broken synths - I spent a year decoupaging over this, but of course it's still there. A second moon appears occasionally in the daytime, and there are frequent, murky transmissions. California has something alien about it I'm still trying to grasp. Primarily vintage, unabashed, corny, I find myself becoming an impressionist.”

Anne Guthrie is an acoustician, composer, and French horn player. She studied music composition and english at the University of Iowa and architectural acoustics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she completed her Ph.D in 2014. Her music combines her knowledge of acoustics and contemporary composition/improvisation. Her electronic music has focused on exploiting the natural acoustic phenomena of unique architectural spaces through minimal processing of field recordings. Her composition has focused on the orchestration of non-musical sounds, speech in particular. Her French horn playing has focused on electronic processing and extended techniques used in improvisatory settings, as a soloist and with Fraufraulein and Delicate Sen, among others. Her acoustics research has focused on the use of ambisonics for stage acoustics.

Frequency Domain extends a warm welcome to the Apologist for their first release since 2006's 'Sorry Dub', a much sought-after 7", cheekily reimagining the theme from 80s BBC sitcom Sorry! as a delicious slice of Basic Channel-esque electronic dub. 'Air Foundry' converges at the crossroads of electronica, dub, electro and techno, with eight elegantly atmospheric tracks written for Frequency Domain in 2019. The full album will be released on cassette and digital formats, while this limited six-track mini LP version is first Frequency Domain release available on vinyl.

Inhabited Shadows” is the new album by pioneering, Berlin-based techno artist Headless Horseman. This is his most daring and emotional release to date: the culmination of live performance, studio experimentation, and global exploration.

A total sonic experience, “Inhabited Shadows” takes listeners on a deeply personal journey through Headless Horseman’s creative brain. Dark industrial synths and broken beats form the spinal chord. A spirit of lightness and compassion guides the way forward.

From its opening, the album sets hard edges and metallic surfaces against dense and delicate textures. A-tonal figures and percussive attacks merge with melodic flights and soulful rhythms. Classical counterpoint and cinematic soundscapes conspire together. The result is discordant joy.

Headless Horseman’s vitality comes from his determination to remain open and vulnerable as an artist. “Inhabited Shadows”, recorded over eight months in 2019, reflects a period of intensive growth. Each of its nine tracks ventures into uncharted territory, embracing many moods, changing climates, old ghosts, and new risks.

“Over years of trials and tribulations, music has been the antidote”, says Headless Horseman. “I’ve learned to live in shadows and darkness. Now I’m chipping off pieces of my shell and portraying directly how I feel without compromise. I still inhabit shadows, but I can move back and forth between darkness and light.”

Stand closer when you have something to say documents two separate elaborations upon a single physical space: a studio in Los Angeles, California with concrete floors and large, wooden firehouse-style doors that face a moderately busy street. Tasting Menu—a trio of multi-instrumentalists Tim Feeney, Cody Putman, and Cassia Streb—give attention to the room by rubbing its surfaces; opening and closing its portals; allowing its natural resonances; and moving about it spatially, left to right and front to back. These two collective improvisations—“while shaking the box” and “i heard glass breaking,” recorded April 3rd and 18th of 2020, respectively—are full of texture, haze, sadness, motion, color, mischief, disjuncture, and gel, while leaving little trace of the slightly less welcome substance that is performer ego.

The ensemble took the album’s titular phrase as a sort of text score, a prompt inspired by the common bluegrass one-mic recording technique where an instrumentalist or vocalist in an ensemble positions their body closer to the room’s mic as they begin to take the lead line in a song. In this case, however, the performers do not have their mind towards a lead/rhythm ensemble relationship, but instead towards the establishment and curation of a gestalt texture, welcoming and incorporating all other sound present within the room and hearing it as a singular whole. In such a setup, each performer projects their listening, playing to the imagined ears of a future listener as represented by a stereo recording device. With each performer effectively playing producer on the spot, the recording has more in common with a collage work than a more typical documentation of a group improvisation might.

By nature of their site-engaging performances Tasting Menu’s slight oeuvre emphasizes the scenes and sounds of Los Angeles and the areas immediately surrounding. For instance, the ensemble’s 2020 release for Full Spectrum, Mueller Tunnel is “a site-specific performance that was recorded on-location within” its namesake tunnel, “located in the Angeles Mountains, roughly 20 miles north of Pasadena, California.” Accompanied by a beautiful book featuring photo documentation by Eric Basta and graphic transcriptions by the ensemble’s own Cassia Streb, the project carries a distinctive dry and rocky spaciousness unique to the Southern California landscape.

Following that, the first track on Stand closer when you have something to say was recorded during a rare Los Angeles thunderstorm. Rain in L.A. has a somewhat intoxicating effect. As the city’s toxic layer reaches land via precipitation, the city’s streets slicken with built up auto oil, trash makes its way to the shoreline, and recently scorched hillsides fall prey to floods and mudslides. These are the odd symptoms of a drought-stricken city at last finding long overdue nourishment and coming to life, like a body rejecting water after becoming dehydrated. Luckily, the city is already a slow wash of tan and gray hues with little organizing structure, so its inhabitants aren’t oblivious to the noisy static affect that a storm might bring. The trio engages in an Angeleno way, opening doors and letting the storm’s roar sweep the structure, not giving space for it and not competing with it, but playing within it, playing rough around it.

It’s only within the album’s final quarter that any ensemble member plays a pitched instrument. The eventual appearance of tone is somewhat startling following nearly an hour of noise-based textures, but the sudden harmony lends a proper cadence, an uncanny resolution which allows the listener’s own space to speak. For this listener—who does most of her work out of a garage in Los Angeles, CA—, that space happens to also be a small room with concrete floors and a large door which is often open to whatever weather the city might bring. - Leah Levinson (Happiness Journal, Tone Glow, Soap Ear)

' Far away and yet so close: the first release of „dispari“, a freshly launched venture
by Hamburg based artist Phuong-Dan, is transitionally sublime. The vinyl record
composes inherently different, distinct elements into one bewildering story arc.
There is no A or B side; endlessly endless, both sides transmit transcendence. One
side brings An Afterthought – an almost eight minute long infinite, ambient musing
by Greek producer Anatolian Weapons. The short-termed opposition features
French composer Hector Zazou with US-American artist Laurie Anderson, diving for
a brief 53 seconds Into Your Dreams. Two disparate sides, which manifest
„dispari’s“ desire to follow the extensive path of music and not the narrow road of
style. It hopes to open doors for a variety of outlooks on the language of sound and
beyond. For „dispari“, any format appears interesting, and with the potential for
collaboration. Interdisciplinary projects in disparate media natures like text and
film, or simply unfathomable phenomena, are all possible future propositions.
Maybe the next signals will come as an auditory publication, an art space
performance, or just as a night in a bar, where dissimilar atoms dance for similar
desires. For now, length eats briefness and brevity defeats the epic in a dream of
strange disparity, walking on weightless soles, aglow in starry zones. '
Michael Leuffen

ww.dispari.de

Mekanik Kommando was a post punk / New Wave band from Nijmegen, the Netherlands founded in 1979 by Peter van Vliet and Laszlo Panyigay. The duo became a quartet with the addition of Simon van Vliet and Mirjam van Hout. The name Mekanik Kommando comes from the album ?Mekan?k Destrukt?w Kommand?h? by the French progressive rock band Magma. Inspired by a DIY ethos, Kraftwerk and Magma, the band began recording songs at home using two tape recorders. Their demo cassette was discovered by Wally van Middendorp of Minny Pops and owner of Plurex Records, who booked them for a gig at Paradiso in Amsterdam. In 1981 they were asked to contribute music on a flexidisc for the first issue of newly established magazine Vinyl. In the summer of that year the band recorded their debut album ?It Would Be Quiet In The Woods If Only A Few Birds Sing? released on Torso. In February 1982 the band secured five days of studio time at Salisbury Sound in Dordrecht. The end result was the mini-album ?Dancing Elephants? released on Torso later that year. Musically, the five songs are a mix between cold wave, experimental electronic and industrial pop. The band utilized two bass guitars plus a Korg 770, KR-55 drum machine, violin, effects, metals and plastics. Lyrics explore themes of decay and morality, hypnotically spoken on top of playfully metallic sounds. All songs have been mastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. Each EP is housed in a replica of the original jacket, which features artwork by the group members, and includes a 4-page booklet with lyrics and notes designed by Eloise Leigh.

First time available on vinyl LP (with limited edition color variants - black and clear) and on digital formats.- Artwork packaging by artist J.S. Aurelius (Ascetic House) with reflective linear notes by Ragnar Grippe. - LP comes with download

Recorded between the release of Sand (1977) and Lost Secrets(1981), Symphonic Songs is a formerly unreleased work that chronicles the dynamic shift and development in experimental Swedish composer Ragnar Grippe's canon.

Following his seminal release Sandin 1977, Swedish experimental composer Ragnar Grippe worked on various art and performance commissions, often returning to Stockholm during the summer months to focus his efforts on his compositional practice. It was there at the famed EMS Studioswhere he began employing the Buchla synthesizer and the facilities multi-tracking capabilities as new instruments to map his mining of sound and movement.

During the late 1970's, Grippe formed a creative collaboration with choreographer Susan Buirge, specifically writing compositions for her works Restes and Tamis, thus pushing Grippe to start working in a more intricate studio environment. These passages inspired Grippe into a more complex layering process that focused more on placement and structure, rather than the aural floods and flourishes of his previous Sand album, eventually germinating in his first full 24-track composition entitled Orchestra.

After debuting Orchestra in 1980 at the Electronic Music Festival in Stockholm, Grippe holed up at EMS Studios with those lessons and the fussy Buchla synthesizer, in which Grippe affectionately recalls needed to be tuned and calibrated every 20-30 minutes. He emerged with a new commission for Susan Buirge later formally titled Symphonic Songs and used in her avant-garde theater piece Ci-Déla which debuted in Paris in 1981.Symphonic Songsshowcased Grippe's sound au courant, pushing dense against sparse, calm into cacophonous, using each track as its own intersecting plane. Using the machinations of studio and structure to drive Symphonic Songs' voice, Grippe culled a haunting, often cinematic electronic work that dots and darts into unexpected corners with curious aplomb.

Listen to the words, both terms have their root in classical music, but not in its form but because now I had so many more stems or voices that could be played simultaneously compared to my earlier pieces. Coming from a classical background, but with big nostrils for pop and jazz music, I can now see a thread in which classical got a new costume, dressed up in Buchla synthesizer and real bass sounds Grippe says. Since its live theater debut over 37 years ago, Dais Records releases for the first time Symphonic Songs, one of Grippe's most ambitious compositions, as a deluxe double vinyl LP (with limited edition color variants) and on digital formats. Artwork packaging by artist J.S. Aurelius (Ascetic House) with reflective linear notes by Ragnar Grippe. e

You Can See Your Own Way Out is the first collaborative record between Ilyas Ahmed (Geographic North, Immune, Mie Music) and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma (Shelter Press, Mexican Summer, Type). Long-time friends and satellites orbiting the same communities and scenes, You Can See's inception was never really a question of if, but when. Combining Ahmed's explorative guitar/synth-work and Cantu-Ledesma's field recording, sound processing and electronics, the result presents as a book of short stories or vignettes highlighting their individual strengths. At times evoking pastoral landscapes, others frayed edges of disintegrating photographs, there's always the suggestion of a forked path or a promised destination. Jonathan Sielaff guests on bass clarinet.

Delsin are pleased to gather together some of the highlights from the rich and varied catalogue of Manchester-based producer Claro Intelecto. From his earliest works on Ai Records through a prolific run on Modern Love to his more recent outings on Delsin, Mark Stewart has continually presented a vision of electronic music that uses the Detroit blueprint as a launch pad for his own distinctive strain of techno. Moving from elegant beauty to rabid intensity while grounded by a firm sense of rhythm, his catalogue runs deep and wide. The second volume in this expansive compilation series filters out select highlights from across his discography, and reframes them as a compelling overview of a truly distinctive voice in modern electronic music.

First Vinyl release from WAM (We Are Music agency) from
SOMTATIC RESPONSES 140gr 12" full color sleeve

Originally released in 1980, ‘Amanita’ is an early approach of Canadian artist Sherine Cisco, formerly known as Stu Cisco, to the limitless world of synthesizers in music, through ambient, progressive rock and drone noise.

A unique combination of ambient, progressive rock and even drone noises and space-age that converged in ‘Amanita’, her first full album and a piece of music history. This LP marks a milestone in the investigation, experimentation and evolution of musical instruments, where the Mini Moog demonstrated its versatility and creative potential, opening Sherine a path of limitless possibilities.

By the time ‘Amanita’ was first released in 1980 (only 300 copies were pressed at the time), Sherine had been playing synths for seven years. But far from acknowledging how traditional instruments were played, she tried to do things her own way, creating moving landscapes and a unique language of sound. This DIY approach to music was, as well how the album was made, in her own studio, with synthesizers that were originally meant for live performances such as the Elka Rhapsody or the Elektro Harmonix, channeled through a Dokorder 4 Tape Recorder.

However, what Sherine Cisco was living in her personal life, a gender transition, was as important to the record as the instruments she used to create it. “Beginning in the early 1980's, I began experimenting with taking the female hormone, estrogen. I felt like I was gradually being re-born. It affected my music, the mood of the music, and me, physically and mentally”.

A spacey vibe surrounds each of the 12 cuts that compose ‘Amanita’, waving from ambient to experimental music, introducing drone noises that add mystery to the whole piece and creating epic moments, with the Mini Moog accompanied by Randy Gray’s drums. To close things off, a synth pop infused track works as a masterpiece ending to this story.

"Tokyo’s Conatala label plunges deep into the subterranean world of the 80s cassette scene with a debut vinyl compilation of mythical home-recording figure Steve Hartwell aka The Dead Goldfish Ensemble. In the 80s Hartwell represented a cornerstone within a disparate group of people making music at home, recording onto cassette and using their own contacts for distribution, utilising the increasingly accessible, emerging electronic technology as a means of production.

Armed only with the tools that were necessary, the output of DGE is a playful, polyrhythmic fantasy land representing the pure essence of the DIY ethos, but also tapping into and attempting to recreate some of the perceived ideas about the US minimalist scene of the time.

It’s hard to picture now with the world of information at our fingertips, but reading in magazines about how American composers such as Steve Reich were experimenting with phasing and minimalistic structures, but not being to hear them, could easily lead to this novel, home-brewed interpretation.
Despite the slower means of correspondence during the 80s, the music of DGE found its way onto over 40 pan-European compilations, including revered outposts such as Insane tapes (Belgium), UK-based fanzine IRRE Tapes, Germany’s Tonspur Tapes, French label Organic Tapes, and a dizzying number of other near-impossible to find (and totally unknown) issues. However, the seasoned hardcore music-obsessives behind the scenes of Conatala have been with him every step of the way are certainly best placed to make sense of this fascinating cult UK artist."