Beats Vinyl New Releases - News

Industrial. Bitter. Techno. Raw. Profane. All words connected with the ravaged sound of Contort Yourself. And you'll be happy to know the latest offering continues down that twisted path. Bulldozing into being, Novacom arrives into this world with the bellowing bass and distorted dirge of 'Outsiders'. Downwards Records derelict JK Flesh (a.k.a. Justin Broadrick of Napalm Death/Godflesh/Techno Animal) keeps the beats boiling, drums and synths dipped in detritus and distortion. The flip is dedicated to French brutalist act Le Syndicat. The grunting, shunting 'Maximalist' from 1993 roars static and synthesizer strychnine scratch and burn before the bent and buckled 80s 'Prothesis Pack Xtra 08'. Ekman (Panzerkreuz/Berceuse Heroique) is on hand to close. 303 jumper cables are applied to 'Maximalist', pound and squawk pouring salt into speaker wounds.

Flowers is a genre-blending introspective story written by Toon Janssens. This versatile Antwerp born virtuoso delivers a sophisticated intimate album that balances on the edge of electronic and acoustic music. Soft focus is a multi-instrumentalist approach to music without any boundaries or stressrelated situations. It represents an improvisational state of mind, best described as spontaneous gentle music for your ears where listening is key.
In 2020 Soft Focus was looking for a new creative challenge and continued working on new music which he loved most. Soft Focus gives the freedom of presenting new music in a different form and
character, which wasn’t possible under Title.

Debut release by SPR for The Weevil Neighbourhood.

"Tesselation Districts" is an extended player of four tracks that oscillate between comprehensible rhythmic patterns and their somewhat uncanny dissolution bridging aesthetics of Steven Porter's as well as Repetition/Distract's compositions for the label.

Black vinyl, limited edition, screenprinted outer sleeve with artwork by Lee Noble (No Kings Records/ Bathetic), mastering by LXC (Watta Sound/ Alphacut).

The Naturals' debut album is more than just an rediscovery of one of the great lost albums of the last decade, but of how things were always intended. When Eddie Ruscha (Secret Circuit) and Thomas Bullock (Rub'n'Tug/STD) appeared as The Laughing Light of Plenty, their journey offered untold troves. Now at last the pulse is set for outer orbit and all are welcome to join.

After a mind-melting debut EP sold again and again, an album expanding their unique psychebalearicfolk imaginings was prepared and even pressed before being lost somewhere between a lock up in New York and limited quantities reaching Asian shores and dealers
trading at dizzying Yen.

Lost, but never forgotten, years passed until a nagging memory that an earlier, rawer mix had always been superior. A return to the original band name seemed The Natural(s) choice and so a project idea started to be (re)born.

A sunny Spring afternoon in a grand English garden, pots of tea, talk of life's travails, deep yogani, love affairs, kids growing up, the power of now and music, always music led to two labels coming together to dust down the desk and not just resurrect, but seek and offer the original intentions.
Here at last is the double album as intended. Of two great friends jamming their deepest vibes and flowing with love to offer tales of higher consciousness. Travel inward, beyond meer chakras. Aim for the stars. The devil is in the details so see the trails and follow to some avail.

Begin your own journey.

Touched Music and Furthur Electronix two forward thinking labels have merged together to put out exclusive compilations. Putting some of the best music in the electronic genre in one place.

Clear Smoked Vinyl

180 gram clear with smoke vinyl w/download card.
In sharp contrast to McCagh's commercial work for Huawei, Acura, and Volkswa-gen, "Altered States" is a detailed opening statement of experi-mental aural vignettes by an artist that has clearly spent the time to master his craft. Digitally manipulated acoustic instruments form the backbone for McCagh's wall-of-sound aesthetic painting pictures of bleak futures where the tracks dance, or more aptly, shiver their way to sharp collapse.

In short, McCagh makes ambient music with teeth. A form of experimental music with soul, or faded formation of industrialized machine music shrouded by layers of aural gauze, each piece emotively twist-ing and turning in and out of focus. "Altered States" is a brilliant inaugural proclamation from artist to watch.

"Aix" is an outstanding piece of work by Italian electro-acoustic savant Giuseppe Ielasi, originally released in 2009 on Taylor Deupree's 12k label, the follow-up to 2007’s "August" (12k) and Ielasi's first collaboration with Nicola Ratti as "Bellows", also out in 2007 (Kning Disk). Originally only released on CD (12k), the album got a very limited vinyl issue on Czech label Minority Records in 2010. Keplar presents this extraordinary and timeless collection of 9 evocative minimalist soundscapes on vinyl again after 10 years.

From the original press release in 2009:

"With Aix we see Ielasi building his layered, atmospheric music around rhythmic grids. Most of the time these are quite irregular and the pulses are not neccessarily stable or clear. Where his previous work approached sound in a linear fashion Aix imposes a strong vertical development with the aforementioned grid and a production consisting of ons and offs, employing as much improvisation as Ielasi’s previous work, but in a different way.
Despite the self-imposed grid structure, Aix relies heavily on randomization. Not in the traditional sense of sound placement but instead of the spatialization of sounds, echoes, reverbs and the stereo image. As a result, Aix has an amazing sense and clarity of space as the small fragments of sound breathe and find their own place in the mix, thanks to Ielasi’s sublime skills as a mixer and engineer.
Ielasi relied heavily on numerous short samples and combining them in ways that fell into his groove; some found from others' recordings and many more recorded during the past year. We hear fragments of percussive (acoustic) objects, drums, piano, trumpet, guitar, and, of course, synthetic textures. Although there is a distinct rhythmic pulse to Aix, Ielasi manages to mold it into something wonderfully languid and warm... and strangely inviting."

Composed and recorded by Giuseppe Ielasi in Aix-en-Provence, Autumn 2008. Remaster by Giuseppe Ielasi. Cover photograph "Construction, Barcelona" by Taylor Deupree. Layout by Dan Dudarec/Marco Ciceri.

For more than 20 years Giuseppe Ielasi has been releasing his recordings on labels like Erstwhile Records, Häpna, Kning Disk, Dekorder, 12k, Entr'acte or Editions Mego, as well as on his own label Senufo Editions.

The label Keplar has been on a long hiatus and is now back with its KeplarRev series presenting vinyl re-issues of essential electronic albums from the 90's and 00's, as well as new recordings by momentous electronic and ambient artists.

LSW is the product of musical collaborations between Leonard Horres, Sebastian Welicki and Gregor Darman. Also featuring contributions from various members Düsseldorf's candomblé tribe, the LP is an ensemble of eclectic rhythms and self-loathing nihilism. Recorded in Düsseldorf 2018.

People Places & Things is the single project of Manchester born & London based Mike Checuti. Mike grew listening to a heavy mixture of horror & film soundtracks an equal dose of the early electro via the legendary Spin Inn records & then the hedonistic sounds of The Hacienda & the more underground Thunderdome nightclub.

Mike was encouraged to press ahead with the project after a visit to Los Angeles & spending time in the studio with Atticus Ross (Gone Girl & The Social Network soundtrack composer).

Treating Patient A is the first in a trilogy of releases by People Places & Things each pulling from the above mentioned influences but each EP having it's own variation whilst keeping the references points clearly audible along with People Places & Things own take of these sounds at the forefront.

People Places & Things along with Gabe Guernsey of Factory Floor have recently just composed the soundtrack for the latest film for the forthcoming Adidas Spezial range which commemorates 30 years of Acid house.

Artwork for each 12" is designed by Andrew Jackson & each sleeve is individually hand printed thus having its own unique imprint and limited to only 200 copies.

The press & publicity for the release and project as while will be handled by 'The Rest is Noise'

Tilman Robinson’s third album, CULTURECIDE, is an investigation of the anthropocene; a seven part lamentation for our chaotic world.

Tilman Robinson is an Australian composer and sound designer creating electro-acoustic music across a range of genres including classical minimalism, improvised, experimental, electronic and ambient. Tilman’s diverse output focuses on the psychological impact of dense sound employing acousmatic and psychoacoustic principles. His third album CULTURECIDE will be released on Iceland’s Bedroom Community label in April 2020.

CULTURECIDE: “...processes that have usually been purposely introduced that result in the decline or demise of a culture, without necessarily resulting in the physical destruction of its bearers.” D Stein

CULTURECIDE is a rich sonic collage, harvesting sounds from a range sources including field recordings, medical machines that monitor the human body, traditional instruments and synthesisers, often melted electronically. The result is an unsettling paradox with sounds constantly on the edge of recognition. Each piece references a specific socio- political issue ranging from colonialism to neo-liberalism to climate change and the impending singularity of humans and machines. Far from an answer to these questions, CULTURECIDE invites us to meditate on their place in our life and approach personal understanding.

Recorded and produced almost completely in Australia, a land at the forefront of the devastation of climate change, CULTURECIDE was an attempt at catharsis for its author frequently appalled at his country’s incredible apathy and inaction. Mixed by Bedroom Community regular Daniel Rejmer and mastered by Lawrence English, works from the ambitious and unsettling record saw Tilman nominated for the 2019 Melbourne Prize for Music.

Dominique Grimaud makes you listen to the The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and many more artists from the 1960s, like you never hear before.

The title says it all: “19 Feedbacks”. French multi-instrumentalist and sound-experimentalist Dominique Grimaud dives into his adolescence and the 1960s, when he discovered music that he could identify with and that would stay with him for his whole life. But “19 Feedbacks” it’s not just about memories or music, it’s about feedback. The beginning of the use of feedback on pop and rock songs throughout that decade and beyond.

It helps – of course it helps – that Dominique feels and knows what he’s talking about. He lived those years. He knows the energy and the momentum and the historical breakthroughs that were made every time a rock band pushed the boundaries of commercial approval. He uses samples of feedbacks from that era and builds beautifully enigmatic sound-pieces around them.

Some of those samples/feedbacks will be very recognizable. It’s not worth telling because it will spoil the experience of listening and dive into “19 Feedbacks”. It’s better if the listener isn’t expecting them and enjoy the ways Dominique explores them and reintegrate them into modern experimental music.

Although it carries that experimental side, “19 Feedbacks” normally feels as a freeform library music. Tracks like “Out Of The Sand” and “Green And Blue” carry a beautiful ambiguity of handcrafted electronic sounds thought for an electronic library of sound, to be or not to be used for a movie, radio or television. While others, like “Soft Voice” or “18 Tides” dwell along the ambient spectrum.

Some tracks carry a more electronic momentum. Dominique adapts the “19 Feedbacks” to fit different styles and he wasn’t trapped in the gimmick side of working around such specific samples. It’s a brave new world of sound escapades and sonic ventures. You never thought you would hear the Beatles, Stones, Captain Beefheart or Pink Floyd sound like this.

All songs by Dominique Grimaud
Artwork by Evan Crankshaw
Vinyl cut at Dubplates & Mastering Berlin

Twelve years have passed since eedl released their masterpiece “Everse” spa.RK, 2007 and in that time the duo -formed by Miguel Ángel Martínez and Joan Duat- have shied away from the spotlight and stage. Despite this apparent lethargy, their previous two works - "Parallemped EP" spa.RK, 2003 and the aforementioned "Everse"- provided them with cult national scene status, while raising more than a few eyebrows among European “headz”. Both works continue to sound overwhelmingly modern and
undated, an obvious signal that eedl is a special breed of cutting edge electronic music.

Although creatively silent for a number of years they have remained musically active. As well as his career as a product designer, Miguel Ángel has applied his musical experience to the technology sector, and since 2016 has fully immersed himself in “modular”–Winter Modular, Plankton Electronics and Patching Panda–; Meanwhile, Joan, office programmer and classically trained pianist, has found his equilibrium with work and building a family life.

"Unstored" is their long awaited return to the fray and their second studio album. It is comprised of eight songs, some of which have been have been slow cooked since 2002, with others gestating more recently. Maybe such a long hiatus seems excessive, but the meticulousness nature and obsessive love for detail found in "Unstored" more than justifies the wait, which at times felt like a long goodbye.

This collection of songs navigates between perfectionist electronica, new generation electro, noisy harmonies, glitch and deconstructed rhythms; a sonic memoire with strong roots in British experimental electronic music -reminiscent of Autechre or Plaid-, another reason in understanding the longing produced by their extended absence.

It is therefore with great honour that in early January 2020, Lapsus will release the new album from the elusive eedl project in a luxury edition format.

Matthewdavid is a co-founder of the Los Angeles label Leaving Records, and a collaborator of Flying Lotus, Sun Araw, Julia Holter, Laraaji, Odd Nosdam, among others. Experimental Bliss is his first album on Umor Rex, two long pieces devoted to the bliss of experimental music creation. This is unconventional music, aiming to assist the listener in attaining a state of bliss or relaxation. It incorporates obvious artifacts of compressed noise and texture with harmonic tonal elements. The creative process is always evolving and changing, often relying on digital music software and hardware technology to process and re-sample collected 'organic' sounds from analog or environmental sources. Side A, Lo-fi bliss music, was recorded and performed live at the Leaving Records modern new age night event, using dynamic compression experiments with a processed & looped Critter & Guitari pocket piano, and ocean sounds samples from a cassette. Dynamic rhythmicals was recorded live at home, using digital marimba samples.

Stuttgart, Germany based multimedia artist and producer MinaeMinae delivers his debut release of cosmic polyrhythmic explorations with Variante. Whether beamed in from the future or uncovered from the past, Variante calls to mind a place and time far from here and now. Synthetic mallets and anti-guitars comprise the record’s gritty foundation, while interlocking melodics and where’s-the-one rhythms tessellate a kaleidoscopic patchwork.

‘’Ruff drum computer- and bubbling ambient excursions from Bonn, Germany, making their first appearance on vinyl for the new decennium’’.

Newly established label Raakvlak plucks a lush synth gem from the depths of 80’s D.I.Y.- cassette culture for their inaugural release. Heil Eris / Enjoy sees the first-time reissue of the work of German synth-wizards Overflow. The group, conceived as the session band of cult tape label Brainstorm-Studio, merely released two cassettes within the timespan of one year, of which Raakvlak now has culled some of the finest moments.

Out of a matrix of drum computers, synths, voices, tape FX and a flute come these five live-takes (no overdubbing used!), dedicated to the trio’s mascot Apumé, which was present at all sessions.

Ranging from the aquatic ambient excursion on ‘’Pressure Wave’’ and the existential cold-wave pop of ‘’Take A Chance’’ to the blissed-out downer ‘’Voiceless’’, Overflow shies away from musical expectations and thereby sounds as up to date as ever.
Restored, remastered and available on wax for the first time! Comes with download card plus three digital bonus tracks.

Lovely Music present a vinyl reissue of Robert Ashley's Automatic Writing, originally released as an LP by Lovely Music in 1979. Over the course of Robert Ashley's career his preoccupation with language and the voice took many forms. He became known in his librettos as a wonderful, funny, moving writer. But with Automatic Writing he examines language at a very "primitive" level -- the human impulse make sounds to express his inner state, whether it be regret, embarrassment, fear, or happiness -- even though there is no one else to listen. Talking to oneself.

Automatic Writing CD compiles three early Robert Ashley works from 1967-79 - some of his most experimental works. Composed in recorded form over a period of five years, "Automatic Writing" is the result of Robert Ashley's fascination with involuntary speech. He recorded and analyzed the repeated lines of his own mantra and extracted four musical characters. The result is a quiet, early form of ambient music. The piece rather famously formed the basis for Nurse With Wound's A Missing Sense (1997). Steven Stapleton's commentary on the recording: "A Missing Sense was originally conceived as a private tape to accompany my taking of LSD. When in that particular state, Robert Ashley's 'Automatic Writing' was the only music I could actually experience without feeling claustrophobic and paranoid. We played it endlessly; it seemed to become part of the room, perfectly blending with the late night city ambiance and the 'breathing' of the building." The piece features the voices of Ashley and Mimi Johnson, with electronics and Polymoog backing, with a switching circuit designed and built by Paul DeMarinis.

"Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon" and "She Was A Visitor" are excerpts from an opera entitled "That Morning Thing", composed in 1966-67 as a result of Ashley's impulse to express something about the suicides of three friends. "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon", originally issued in 1968, is a woman's description of a sexual experience. Ashley attempts "to demonstrate the dichotomy between the rational-whatever can be explained in words-and its opposite-which is not irrational or a-rational, but which cannot be explained in words." The lead voice performed by Cynthia Liddell, the processed back-up chorus, the recurring bell tone, and the pervading tape hiss, create an unsettling mood. "She Was a Visitor" was originally issued on the electronic compilation Extended Voices in 1967. It is another form of description, intended to be understood as a form of rumor. The chorus is divided into groups, each headed by a leader. A lone speaker repeats the title sentence throughout. The separate phonemes of this sentence are picked up freely by the group leaders and are relayed to the group members, who sustain them softly and for the duration of one natural breath. The time lag produces a staggered, chant-like effect, with the sounds moving outward from the nearest performer to the farthest. Booklet notes by Robert Ashley.

"On Automatic Writing, Robert Ashley composes under the influence of his 'involuntary speech.' (In his liner notes, Ashley revealed that he suffered from 'a mild form of Tourette's.') The piece starts quietly, with scraps of Ashley's mild, tremulous voice arranged next to more fluid French translations and barely-there touches of Moog. After Ashley's phrases lengthen enough to encompass sense-making phrases, a bass-register groove briefly appears, vanishes, then returns. Few pieces so quiet have proven as captivating; many that intend to be equally startling can't capture Ashley's range of surprises." - Seth Colter Walls, from Pitchfork's "Fifty Best Ambient Albums of All Time"

Tropical Syndroms is the second album by Thé Déluge, a.k.a. Vincent Caylet, also known as Cankun (Not Not Fun / Hands in the Dark). Like his debut album Forest Structures (Umor Rex, 2017), this new installment is an amalgam of sounds generated through multiple devices and analog synthesizers, loops and layers creating an incredible mix of textures, sounds that can almost be touched. In Caylet’s work, there is always a certain familiarity in the tones, there is an implicit nature present, an ancient ecosystem that evokes somewhat ghostly landscapes, intrinsically friendly, subtle and sweet, concrete and sharp. Tropical Syndroms is one piece lasting almost 38 minutes, a cinematic trip inspired by Asian films. One single piece with many different atmospheres, but with one unified idea leading to a melancholic statement.

Golden Retriever and Chuck Johnson are artists unified by their ability to build entire ecosystems of sound. As Golden Retriever, bass clarinetist Jonathan Sielaff and synthesist Matt Carlson blur the lines between their respective instruments while guitarist Chuck Johnson is lauded for crafting a diversity of atmospheres, be it through fingerstyle acoustic or droning pedal steel. The combined powers of the trio is intoxicating. On their debut album, Rain Shadow, they combine slowly shifting instrumental layers and clouds of melody and texture, punctuated by emotional peaks. Minimalist approaches compound into maximalist pieces, evoking images of vast open desert and clear skies, simple yet seemingly endless. Rain Shadow's title is taken from a natural phenomenon which leaves the plains just beyond mountain ranges desolate and dry. Each piece moves with the ease and progression of a cloud formation. Inside a wash of ever-building layers of drone, subtle movement propels them forward. The album's A side emulates the the beauty and solace of these open spaces with lush beds of pedal steel chords and deliberate melodies trading between synthesizer and bass clarinet. Sielaff's increasingly distorted winds on "Sage Thrasher" gradually guide the ensemble towards the overcast deluge of the album's second half. The trio utilize steady, imperceptible motion akin to a desert's wind eroding stones into new and exciting configurations of sound. The four longform pieces that comprise Rain Shadow were devised entirely remotely. In contrast to the album's harmonious sound, each member of the trio tracked their performance separately from one another - Johnson from in Oakland, CA, and Sielaff and Carlson each in their Portland, OR homes. Previous Golden Retriever albums have used live performances as a reference point for arranging and consolidating ideas, but Rain Shadow's collaboration instead grew from members introducing a simple idea and each other member responding with musical reactions. Johnson's extended tape loops which gently degrade with each repetition into resonant tones served as the basis for the album's two longer pieces. Like the phenomenon that inspires the title 3 different forces come together to create something new.

Picture disc LP housed in gatefold sleeve. Includes CD with bonus track.
With his second release for the Swiss-based Hallow Ground imprint after 2016's Soisong reissue, Ivan Pavlov pays tribute to the late Sentrax founder and prolific musician John Everall, who passed away in September 2014. Sourced from analogue material provided by the artist widely known for his output under the Tactile moniker for a collaboration that never came to fruition, the six tracks are an exercise in minimalism and subtlety singular even in Pavlov's impressive back catalogue. On COH plays EVERALL, Pavlov focuses on swirling arpeggios whose colourfulness is mirrored in the Ruth Stofer's artwork for the limited picture disk release. From the joyful, handclap-driven »2016« to the hectic gabber derivate »OVERBEAT«, the Russian producer explores a minimalistic yet organic palette of synthesizer sounds that stylistically reach from the hymnic poise of »WAVETRAP« to the playful and warm vibes of »ALONE (MINIMAL SELFIE)«. While it might sound almost pointillistic on first listen, COH plays EVERALL unfolds its multitude of layers slowly over time. With a feature of Coil's Jhonn Balance on the CD-only bonus track »Hunger Remix«, Pavlov adds yet another facet
to this evocative marriage of sonic purity and emotional rawness. Over a throbbing rhythm, the late poet's dry intonation serves as an eerie coda to this tender tribute to lost friends. As a dialogue between this world and the other, CoH's digital manipulation and Everall's analogue source material as well as stark minimalism and tonal richness, COH plays EVERALL captures two kindred spirits bidding each other farewell.

Golden Retriever and Chuck Johnson are artists unified by their ability to build entire ecosystems of sound. As Golden Retriever, bass clarinetist Jonathan Sielaff and synthesist Matt Carlson blur the lines between their respective instruments while guitarist Chuck Johnson is lauded for crafting a diversity of atmospheres, be it through fingerstyle acoustic or droning pedal steel. The combined powers of the trio is intoxicating. On their debut album, Rain Shadow, they combine slowly shifting instrumental layers and clouds of melody and texture, punctuated by emotional peaks. Minimalist approaches compound into maximalist pieces, evoking images of vast open desert and clear skies, simple yet seemingly endless. Rain Shadow's title is taken from a natural phenomenon which leaves the plains just beyond mountain ranges desolate and dry. Each piece moves with the ease and progression of a cloud formation. Inside a wash of ever-building layers of drone, subtle movement propels them forward. The album's A side emulates the the beauty and solace of these open spaces with lush beds of pedal steel chords and deliberate melodies trading between synthesizer and bass clarinet. Sielaff's increasingly distorted winds on "Sage Thrasher" gradually guide the ensemble towards the overcast deluge of the album's second half. The trio utilize steady, imperceptible motion akin to a desert's wind eroding stones into new and exciting configurations of sound. The four longform pieces that comprise Rain Shadow were devised entirely remotely. In contrast to the album's harmonious sound, each member of the trio tracked their performance separately from one another - Johnson from in Oakland, CA, and Sielaff and Carlson each in their Portland, OR homes. Previous Golden Retriever albums have used live performances as a reference point for arranging and consolidating ideas, but Rain Shadow's collaboration instead grew from members introducing a simple idea and each other member responding with musical reactions. Johnson's extended tape loops which gently degrade with each repetition into resonant tones served as the basis for the album's two longer pieces. Like the phenomenon that inspires the title 3 different forces come together to create something new.

Three track Lolita' EP by Lolina, written produced mixed, spending ££ in the city, not-record-label release. Mastering, additional mixing Amir Shoat. Limited edition 10" - TIP on this... don't sleep!

Genre blending and audience crossing drummer/percussionist Eric Thielemans is proud to present a brand new, exciting combo together with Rudy Trouvé , Mauro Pawlowski , Roman Hiele and Jean-Yves Evrard . With this eclectic band ET sets out to explore, or rather rub against the obscure repertoire by Jazz masters such as Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra and Albert Ayler .Are The Mechanics a Jazz combo The Mechanics don't know. As of yet, The Mechanics have no real memory of their own. What they do know is that they are impatient to check out the mechanics behind those musics that tick their tock. They will do so as they are feathered. In colours, primal and expressive. And what better way to understand something than by breaking it and then trying to fix it .Tagging The Tag : The Ex, Liquid Liquid, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, James Chance, Alice Coltrane, Aphex Twin, Roland Kirk, John Cage, The Love Substitutes, Hiele, Evrard, Trouvé, Pawlowski & Thielemans.
Tag Away ! The Mechanics is an exciting new band operating out of Antwerp, home base to bands and musicians such as dEUS, Evil Superstars, Dead Man Ray, Chantal Acda, Tape Cuts Tape, Gruppo Di Pawlowski, The Love Substitutes, Kiss My Jazz, Mâäk's Spirit, The Mechanics bring together 2 generations of musicians out of the avant jazz, improv, rock, songwriter and electronics scenes. Mixed into an exciting cocktail of energies childishly bald and raw, maturely tender and constructive, spiritually curious and rocking loud with electronic burning sonic edges.

TMPZ005 sees 21-year-old Zimbabwean experimentalist TTN stepping up. The release is a collection of projects he started when he was just 18 and then refined as he collected more sounds, travelled and got more exposure to different music and cultures. The album contains 12 varied productions with tectonic twists influenced by IDM rhythm, R&B and distant orchestral themes.

More than five years after Federico Durand (12K, Spekk) released his solo record Adormidera through Dauw, the label announces his first collaborative full album together with Tomoyoshi Date (Home Normal, Baskaru) and Asuna Arashi (Faitiche, Home Normal): In the Open.

When Durand, Date and Arashi were touring together during the Spring of 2017 in Japan, they decided to visit the old city of Kanazawa. On one hand they wanted to wander through the streets, visit the castles and the gardens. On the other hand there was a longing for recording sessions together. This record is the result of the perfect middle ground: they did both simultaneously, accompanied by battery-powered keyboards, tiny instruments and a recorder. The track titles can be read as a story and are live recordings of that day.

In the Open combines the differential artistic practice of 3 musicians and results in 1 sonic reflection on both urban and natural elements the town of Kanazawa was depicting at that time. Not with words, but purely with sounds, this trio tried to give a glimpse of what their journey might have looked and sounded like. Even more, it’s a documentation of building friendships and long lasting ties of an increasingly integrating global ambient scene.

Brett Naucke returns to Spectrum Spools with his sophomore LP for Spectrum Spools following the "Seed" LP (SP-034) as well as a string of exceptional cassette releases on Umor Rex and Hausu Mountain.

"The Mansion" finds Naucke at the peak of his powers with a fresh array of meticulously composed psychotropic tapestries. Themes based on a childhood home, now a distant memory, reveal a mysterious narrative in mind-bending sonic detail. These complex ideas fuse conflicting states of tension and beauty with an organic acumen, each track a piece of the greater whole.

"The Mansion" is a fine mixture of contemporary concrète structure interlaced with tightly crafted melodic arrangement and hi-fidelity electronic exploration. In addition to his stalwart synthesis, Naucke employs additional personnel featuring vocal duties from Natalie Chami (of Goodwill Smith and TALsounds) and Viola sounds from Whitney Johnson (of Matchess). Field recording, piano and other various instrumentation are also carefully implemented adding a new, deeper dimension to the Naucke oeuvre.

With his most realized set of compositions yet, "The Mansion" finds Naucke at the paragon of his conceptual and sonic ethos with a work that's at once deeply meaningful and profound in it's auditory breadth.

A Significant Change In Some Part Of You is the first release on Copenhagen based label Everyday I Am Different. This debut EP from Carsten Jensen is the result of spending (maybe too) many years in clubs and in the end getting slightly bored and frustrated the about the majority dj sets in so called 'underground' venues . It's an attempt to do techno and electro in slightly different way; Experimental but still danceable. Expect lo-fi and semi chaotic sounds

After a long hiatus the noisy and most telepathic Montreal impro trio Jane & The Magik Bananas, led by Sam Shalabi (Land Of Kush, Karkhana, Dwarfs Of East Agouza) returned with a shifted focus exploring rhythm in a global sense. Live compositional practise with rhythm and polyrhythm as the structuring principle led them to different kinds of western / non-western tuning and micro tonality. In a certain way they play in the Western tradition of Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time Band, Harry Partch and Captain Beefheart. Various world music traditions boiled together in the groovy crucible of improvisation. An album that will certainly delight friends of the Dwarfs Of East Agouza. Very small limited edition on 140g black vinyl.

Michel F Cote: drums, amplified percussion, feedback
Alexandre St-Onge: electric bass, electronics, voice
Sam Shalabi: electric guitar

Music of indecisive ways, silent writing, white pictures, noise and songs. Loup Uberto founds the Bégayer trio with Alexis Vinéïs and Lucas Ravinale, explores the traditional melodies of northern Italy, records intriguing sound documents - Cuban "raw" music, Eastern European travel diaries, Kurdish songs from Syria -, initiates gestures for French “chanson” with Le Saule record label, questions the gaze and its fiction, the rough edges of language, documents exile and wandering through sound testimonies, writings and photographs.

Racconto artigiano, the artisanal tale, is inspired by Walter Benjamin's Experience and Poverty, where the author comments on the drying up of popular fables; it is the compendium of numerous attempts on various materials: mobile phones, percussion, short-circuited radio transistors, computer limiters, clarinet, medieval and popular songs from northern Italy, sound collages.

Recorded in the reformed church of Mens-en-Trièves, a village at the foot of the Obiou mountain range and digging towards the eastern slope of the Vercors, this album is the outcome of some three or four years of research, the account of a series of experiments, thus itself a sort of document, a repertoire of sketches delivered as they are, completely raw and made disturbing by their dryness, just as the folk tale - which refrains from speaking - is a view offered on the horizon of silence.

* Straying away from the standardized charts of dance music, Metalized Man's debut album for newly established label Foul-Up operates in the gap between strictly visually-evocative audio spaces and more abstract realms, trimming its tech-y ambient apparatus right to the bone.

* After two iterations on the Copenhagen-based Infinite Waves, Lasse Bjørck Volkmann delivers a first long-player rich of a spectrum that extends from the murkiest shades to the brightest hues with a zest of trancey tropes, exploring both extremes with a manifest attraction for offhand live dynamics. Whereas it deploys its own sensory experience, 'Losing Your Virginity: Metalized Boy's First Adventures in Manhood' reacts and evolves like a steady biotope submitted to diverse levels of pressure, constantly shifting scales and tempo - from a deep green palette of organic drops and crackles to the sleek vibrancy of multi-faceted synthetic layers - punctured by paranoid ostinatos that ooze nothing but stress and insecurity. As its title suggests it is an initiatory hand-to-hand with the unknown - either a beginning or an ending, but anyhow a fully conscious descent in the most secret nooks of a troubled inner being in search for answers.

* Just like Edward Artemiev's elemental soundtrack to Tarkovsky's masterpiece 'Stalker' played an essential role in enhancing the film's highly empirical experience, or Badalamenti's iconic contribution to David Lynch's utterly hypnotic, trance-inducing body of work, 'Losing Your Virginity...' shines with a similar poise for setting up its own deeply evocative cinematic playgrounds. Images rise to the surface in a deftly-manoeuvered chaos of sound, elusive like sand gliding from one's hand but haunting like a first time. There is frailty and strength, despair and also ecstasy but more importantly, there is a bigger-than- life quality to this fine collection of mazy proto-tech and drone slabs, that seems to not only emulate concepts for what they are but also what they go against. Proposing rather than proclaiming, questioning rather than answering - moving feverishly as we all do, unsure of what tomorrow holds but well avid to disclose its omens.

Hendrik Weber aka Pantha Du Prince (‘a fantasy character...a poetic transporter for the concept behind the music’) has carved a niche for a style of techno he calls, ‘layered and cinematographic.’ He released the Diamond Daze (2004) and This Bliss (2007) albums on Berlin dance label Dial before signing to Rough Trade and widening his audience with Black Noise (2010) and The Element of Light (2013).

On “Conference of Trees”, Pantha Du Prince explores the communication of trees and creates a sound concept based on it. What we experience here is a break through recording of experimental music, visual poetry, club culture and speculative science.

The Splinta Experience was made entirely by hand. And a foot. The record is the result of Splinta's turntable tricks and layering. It's simply drumming and scratching arranged on the fly with a loop pedal, with added effects from a basic, pocket-size bass module. Low in fidelity and high in humming, buzzing and hissing. No SP-404 effects needed.

This is scratch music that takes us to the Electric ScratchHappyLand. It might as well be a tribute record celebrating 50 years of Jimmy Hendrix Experience's last album. And 22 years of Kid Koala's greatest mix-tape of all time.

Splinta's a Slovenian. He's been deejaying & juggling for more than a while. This is his debut on plastic.

Sleeve illustration, design and print all also hand-made by Splinta. Really wholesome hiphop shit.

Greek electronic composer Vangelis created his piece Albedo 0.39 while influenced by the blues and jazz music. The concept album is themed around space physics and the title is based in the planet’s albedo; the proportion of the light it receives that is reflected back into space. Albedo 0.39 features amazing pieces like Pulstar and Alpha and went on to become his first British top 20 title. Vangelis played every instrument on the record, which contains effective and versatile synthesizer passages. The sci-fi techno sounds and progressive parts marks the different sides of the record, infused with jazz. A truly wonderful listening experience and a must-have for every progressive and electronic music fan.

The multiple-award winning composer of electronic, progressive, orchestral and jazz music started his career working in several successful bands, such as Aphrodite’s Child. He composed over 50 albums and is still creative in developing new concepts.

Albedo 0.39 is available as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on transparent blue coloured vinyl.

The LP gives us a widescreen view of a musical world previously glimpsed through the producer’s series of 12" releases. A kaleidoscope of tempos and intensities, the record is often fast but rarely heavy, fizzing with detail but full of space, euphoric in places but frequently blue in mood.

As the title suggests, the album takes translation as a guiding principle, putting an idiomatic spin on familiar styles - from Detroit-ish techno and hyperspeed electro to twilit electronica, musique concrete and sour modal jazz. Minor Science's language is a knotty one, packed with odd time-signatures, brain-bending sound design and a playful palette of switch-ups, fake-outs and digital hiccups. But it's also soft and emotive, and shot through with vibrant melody.

Minor Science’s relationship with languages is a strong feature of the record. More precisely the relationship between a second and third language, and a mother tongue.
It signals an effort to get out of familiar habits, echoing the relationship he has with his own music writing and music making. Regardless of attempts to be precise, a translation can never fully capture the original meaning.

“Parce que c'est plus facile d'écrire sans style” - Samuel Beckett

The cover of ‘Second Language’ devised by Alex McCullough, shows the handling of a tablet carved in Portuguese Limestone (and later painted) by architectural sculptor George Edwards. Immortalising the phrasing of Samuel Beckett alongside the album title. The stone artefact was photographed by Oskar Proctor directly after completion, documented in transit whilst being manoeuvred.

BFDM’s lil sis’ Homemade Sound System is back for seconds with another action packed two-tracker courtesy of UK based producer Josi Devil. First off is « Moulwd », a dubstep infused hard-hitting trip through an urban landscape with its trickling bass and crushing beat—definite peak time and double-speed material. On the flip comes a complete change of pace—The Devil’s Dance is a mid-paced ice-cold riddim featuring chilling soundscapes and curt, snappy percussive elements.

Acclaimed London-based sonic explorer Seb Rochford unleashes a startling new band and debut album. The frontier where doom rhythms rub against haunted saxophone atmospherics. A 4-time Mercury Prize nominee (Polar Bear, Sons of Kemet, Basquiat Strings)
Pulled by Magnets is Seb’s most sublime and provocative musical statement to date. There’s the glittering list of collaborations that includes Patti Smith, Brian Eno and David Byrne, the trailblazing (post-) jazz strangeness of Polar Bear, the drumming and producing for Sons of Kemet, of which he was a founding member, the film soundtrack work (on Chris Morris’s latest, among others) and, as we move into the new decade, there’s ... well, what is this exactly? How many Seb Rochford's are there? From the off, it sounds unlike anything the Scots-born, London-based, desert-loving drummer of Anglo-Indian and English/Irish heritage has done before. Gone are the quizzical, music-hall-at-the-end-of-the-world stylings of Polar Bear, to be replaced by a soundtrack of the mind that is, by turns, sublime, stately and provocative.
Forget type, genre or influence: this is the start of a brand-new trip by one of the most questing musicians at work anywhere. But let’s take refuge in facts for a moment: Rose Golden Doorwayswas recorded in The Old Church in Stoke Newington, London and features, in addition to Rochford, Polar Bear comrade Pete Wareham on saxophone and Neil Charles (Zed-U, Empirical)on bass guitar. Even with the help of the church, you’ll wonder how the three of them managed to make the sound they do, especially when you learn that the album is a series of live takes, with no added studio woo.

Newly reworked selected classics by the 2020 line-up of the legendary pioneers of electronica and ambient. Including “Phaedra”, “Stratosfear”, “Tangram” and “Yellowstone Park”. Tangerine Dream have been a fundamental influence on electronic music since Edgar Froese founded the band in West Berlin, 1967. Providing the groundwork for multiple electronic music genres including ambient and electronica, inspiring musicians and other art forms, from The Future Sound of London to Porcupine Tree, the widely popular TV show ‘Stranger Things’ (for which their music also featured in) to seminal video game ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ (for which they helped to write the soundtrack). The group have also received seven Grammy
nominations, written over 100 studio albums and were led by Froese, who developed an instantly recognisable synth-based instrumental music based on a meditative musical experience that came to prominence in the 70’s and 80’s. Fast-forward to the present day, when popular culture is rediscovering synthesizers and sequencers, and Tangerine Dream are in the mix of an exciting time for an evolving electronic music scene. Modern Tangerine Dream has seen the beginning of ‘The Quantum Years’, which began as a concept and series of musical sketches by Froese before he passed away in 2015. Remaining band members Thorsten Quaeschning, Ulrich Schnauss and Hoshiko Yamane worked together to realize Edgar’s visions and
expectations of a conceptual body of work that attempts to translate quantum philosophy into music. The new direction led to the 2017 album ‘Quantum Gate’, which was described by The Guardian as their “most interesting release in years.” With ‘Recurring Dreams’, the new generation of Tangerine Dream pay homage to the band’s timeless beginnings with captivating and emotional renditions of selected classics, such as “Phaedra”, “Stratosfear”, “Tangram” and “Yellowstone Park”. These new recordings are not just re-recorded covers but heartfelt and individual interpretations, featuring all generations of synths and sequencers, added layers and new arrangements, applying Froese’s new quantum dream to these highly influential tracks.

Pressed on 180g vinyl and comes with a 10 minute acid disco banger on the A-side & two cosmic oddities on B + a locked groove...TIP!