Beats Vinyl New Releases - News

…each piece is timeless and genuinely magical" - The Quietus
"Why have we had to wait this long for this excellent sound to be recorded and released?" - Norman Records

Fleeing her Soviet ruled home of Tbisili at a young age with her parents, Saze grew up as a nomad living in Russia, France, Canada and the USA before finally settling down and pursuing a career in NYC. A classically trained musician and dancer, before long the Georgian turned her back on corporate life to pour her heart and soul into the arts. Becoming a diligent and versatile electronic music producer, DJ and live act, Sophia Saze is as comfortable sculpting intricate and atmospheric productions in the studio as she is decimating dancefloors with robust Techno and frenetic Breaks. Reflecting on her turbulent life and how it’s formed her own identity, Saze composed her aptly titled debut album, ‘Self’. Released on cassette in two instalments, ‘Part I’ dropped in June and was critically acclaimed with support from the likes of BBC 6MUSIC’s Tom Ravenscroft, Mixmag, DJ Mag, XLR8R, Resident Advisor, Future Music, Attack Magazine, TRAX, Tsugi, Ransom Note and Groove Magazine, with the latter drawing a parallel between hers and Burial’s music. Completing the journey, ‘Part II’ meanders through genres like Ambient, Hip Hop and Breaks, and features very personal insights including handpicked samples from Soviet television shows and VHS cassette recordings from her childhood. Hidden allusions of her classical music education bring up distant memories and melt together the organic but thoroughly electronic ambience. Crackles, hushes and hisses are elaborated so well that the record virtually gushes over the ears like mountain torrents. It appears peaceful and quiet, then rousing and it is sparked with bewildering sounds. It lets scattered beats arise from the thicket and drown again in streams of noise. But

DESCRIPTION
Absolute madness unearthed by Paul Ebhart and Florian Stöffelbauer aka Heap for Wiener Brut's third release
Chicago-meets-Vienna-vibes - music way ahead of it's time produced in the 80s by short-lived formation Aktionskunst Gerasdorf aka Athletico Kunst Gerasdorf, a project that is well known for it's contribution to the legendary Viennese sampler ‚Die Tödliche Dosis'.

808-driven beats programmed by René Radikal (R.I.P.) backing Melanie Delval's tender voice, with multiple guest musicians (e.g. Fritz Grohs) rounding things up and adding their spice to the laidback jams alongside stand-out musical heavy hitters. A composition of sound you never heard before.

A new imprint dedicated to all things reggae/dancehall, Homemade Soundsystem is a much personal homecoming for BFDM mastermind Judaah. Setting a whole new aesthetic agenda for the Marseilles-based groove slinger, revolving around fresh interpretations of classic skanky riddims and further sweat-inducing Caribbean tropes, the label pays a vibrant tribute to Judaah's first love, following straight in the footsteps of the artists who played a crucial role in the birth and development of his taste over the years; from Sizzla to Bounty Killa, via Buju Banton, Augustus Pablo and Lee Scratch Perry. Though mainly born out of a life-affirming teenage love for the aforementioned styles and their bastardized sub-divisions, HSS is also and further crucially intended as a platform for shrewdly executed cross-overs and quaky bass moves zeroeing in on bringing dancefloors to an unchaste, swelteringly sensual boil. Expect mad tides of booties bumpin' and shakin' as HSS ruff drum progs, heliotropic melodies and knee-buckling breaks cut a path of destruction across the clubs, Judaah's your skipper for a helluva wild ride into damp musical tropics.

An exclusive and outstanding Regis collaboration appears on the third volume of vinyl premieres for Vatican Shadow’s early and highly sought-after tapes, as originally dispensed in 2011 during
the peak years of the ‘War On Terror’ Holding all six sides from 3 x hard-to-find tape “deck” issues of ‘Washington Buries Al Qaeda
Leader At Sea’, plus the previously digital-only track ‘He Ambled Down The Dirt Road For Visits To A Market’ and the aforementioned Regis exclusive; the 3rd instalment of the series definitively
compiles Vatican Shadow’s impressionistic take on a turning point in 21st century U.S. geopolitics.

Coupled with track titles lifted from the media and official government communiques on the subject, plus a full length portrait of the Twin Towers prior to 9/11, the stark music suggests a perceptive void of detachment between reporting of the events’ objective reality and Vatican Shadow’s subjective response, beckoning listeners to read between the lines in a way that was previously deployed by two of Dominick Fernow’s (aka Vatican Shadow/Prurient/Rainforest
Spiritual Enslavement) key historic influences; Muslimgauze and Whitehouse.

From the offset clatter of drums evoking marching boots on ‘People In The Compound Kept Themselves To Themselves’, to the furtive pads that bleed thru ‘Supplying The Compound With Food and Medicine’, and the elegiac gloom cast by ‘Peace Be Unto You’, there’s a nerve-edged tension to the music which surely evinces its subject in an allusively classic style.

And the two new parts succinctly fall in line, with the dusky stroll of ‘He Ambled Down The Dirt Road For Visits To A Market’ marking out one of the project’s finest trip hop downbeats, while his collaboration
with Regis on ‘See You Again Always’ provides the project a new highpoint of guttural, militant, technoid pressure.

With original tapes selling for triple figures on the 2nd hand market, this expanded definitive 2LP edition is unmissable for anyone with their head in the belly of modern electronic gloom.

After inaugurating the label with a tape in 2015, our local friend Richard Brown (AKA Brown Irvin) returns to Motion Ward with an oblique two-track 12" entitled "Run Me That Soul". "Locution" flexes a wobbly equilibrium of dubbed dancefloor energy and amorphous acid while "Overcast" coats the B Side in a smeared gradient of ambient wash and shape-shifting stasis. A persuasive pair of parallel worlds for winding up and winding down.

2x12"

Eliane Radigue's Chry-Ptus is her very first piece for the modular synthesizer. It was composed in 1971 using a Buchla 100 which had recently been installed at NYU by Morton Subotnick. This double LP was mastered by Golden and pressed at RTI for maximum fidelity.

From the original press release:

'Chry-Ptus' (1971). Originally two tapes which were to be played simultaneously, with or without synchronisation, which does not affect the structure of the work, but creates changes in the game of sub-harmonics and overtones.

Three variations on this piece were performed at the New York Cultural Center in 1971, with variations of amplitude and location modulation as well as synchronisation. Realized on the Buchla Synthesizer at the New York University.

The booklet contains a text by painter Paul Jenkins, who also realised the watercolor on the front cover, written on occasion of Radigue's first concert in New York, April 6th, 1971.

“It’s with the Buchla that I constructed Chry-ptus, a piece made up of two tapes with an analogue duration, 22 or 23 minutes, which could be played either simultaneously or with a slight time difference, so as to establish slight variations every time the piece was played. I spent the first months eliminating everything I did not want; I even used a notebook in which I tried to determine a writing system resembling chemical formulae.” Eliane Radigue

11 never-heard tracks from Synthzerland pioneer Bruno Spoerri, released for the first time on vinyl, with liner notes by the artist. WRWTFWW Records is very delighted to announce the release of Rare & Unreleased 1971-1998, a collection of never-heard and hard-to-find works by Swiss music pioneer and synth super wizard Bruno Spoerri. The album is sourced from original masters and available on a vinyl LP cut at Emil Berliner Studios (formerly the in-house recording department of Deutsche Grammophon), housed in a 350g sleeve with a superb artwork by Nicolas Eigenheer, and packed with track-by-track liner notes by Mr. Spoerri. Rare & Unreleased 1971-1998 gives a fascinating glimpse into Bruno Spoerri's incredibly inventive repertoire, collecting tracks from projects as diverse as commissioned music for trade fairs, the Swiss railroads, or the union of Swiss cheese makers(!), soundtracks for TV shows about ecology, live synth improvisations at Montreux Jazz Festival, and sound installations for art exhibitions. Always the adventurer, Spoerri records a pneumatic drill for the irresistible electronic bossa of 'Konzert für SIG-Pressluftwerkzeuge", mixes train sounds and the EMS Synthi-100 for the joyful lo-fi funk of 'Rollin'", lets overheating synthesizers take a life of their own to create the sci-fi ambient of 'Waves of Montreux", and works with bees, pigs and various birds for the environmental music bliss of 'Rhythm'n bees' and 'Birds of Cochin". Synthzerland rejoice, it's time for another captivating journey of sound exploration on Planet Spoerri! Bruno Spoerri celebrated his 83th birthday in August this year. He is still experimenting, recording, customizing audio gear, improvising on stage and in the studio, collaborating (Julian Sartorius, Franz Treichler of Young Gods, Marco Repetto of Grauzone, Roger Girod...), inventing new sounds and finding new creative outlets.

In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, a small town in Ontario changed its name from Berlin to Kitchener. Many mercurial decades later, in 1988, the town now a mid-sized city, a duo called Vernal Equinox released a record that seemed to trace its roots back to Berlin, but this time the shadowy post-war Berlin of the 70s that produced Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and his Innovative Communications family, and Bowie and Eno’s Berlin Trilogy. These inspirations, viewed through a prism of 80s New Age and the autumnal denim-clad rural Ontario, became New Found World.

New Found World is the inaugural release on Aural Medium, Toronto-based non-musician Linus Booth’s new label focusing on revisionist electronic, industrial and no wave music. Remastered from the reels and pressed on double 45rpm vinyl with an unreleased track from the original sessions.

"I first encountered the members of Vernal Equinox, Steve Brenner and Timothy Rempel, when I would skip high school with my best friend Todd Nickolas (ADSR) who’d play me electronic records after we lurked in the keyboard shop at Sherwood Music in Kitchener, eyeballing synths and drum machines financially out of our reach. Unbeknownst to me, Steve and Timothy both worked in the shop, and leveraged their employee discount to build up an enviable battalion of gear in their aptly named Sync Studios, in Steve’s basement. It was there, after their shifts at the music shop, that they spent a year working out all the material for the album, and when they had every part sequenced, they saved their settings, unplugged hundreds of cables and lugged everything to Airtight Studios across town and recorded the album. The duo self-released the album, and not knowing exactly how to sell it, decided to try and brand it as New Age. Inspired by the genre’s most successful label Windham Hill, they adorned the album with a photo of a sunset that Brenner had shot. They even decided to record some seagulls to fit the mould, and drove 130 km north to Lake Huron with a bag of day old Tim Hortons doughnuts.

Fast forward to a few years ago when Todd sent me a copy of Brenner's cassette works reminding me that we knew Steve from the keyboard shop. Shortly after, I met Brenner at his local Tim Hortons where I bought him a large double-double and we starting planning the reissue. Everything about the album reminds me of my youth, the smell of the woods in autumn, underage drinking and smoking on the tracks, the TD soundtracks to Risky Business and Miracle Mile, and my father’s Windham Hill records. Even the chill-out records I became obsessed with, The KLF, Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works and Boards of Canada's melancholic NFB inspired electronica. Of course these came out years after the album was released, but somehow Steve and Tim channeled it all back then, creating something simultaneously so grounded in time and place, but years ahead of its time."

Hyboid of Astro Chicken Records returns with another full-length LP fresh from his Berlin-based studio: 14 tunes filled to the brim with vintage-synth-laden space synth-pop goodness. "Strange Signals" is the tale of an interstellar romance gone wrong. Follow our hero through the mists of time and space and watch him return with a fistful of far-out oscillations!

“Requiem” is the name of the new Cold Beats Records release. The reference number 14 of the catalan label is written by L´Avenir, the cold synth side project of veteran electronic musician and sound artist Jason Sloan. Known throughout the space and ambient music scenes for his contemplative electronic soundscape work for close to two decades; Sloan founded L’Avenir in 2012 to explore his long time love of synthnpop and dark minimal wave music created purely from analog and vintage equipment. While still retaining the atmosphere of his solo records, the music of L’Avenir is rooted in the tradition of the minimal, analog, synthesizer music of the late 70′s and 80′s ( Fad Gadget, Depeche, Click Click, Chicago’s Wax Trax Records scene etc…). Growing up through the original scene while it was happening, it’s no suprise that Sloan’s music would eventually move in this direction. While releasing over a dozen solo albums and E.P.’s under his own name, Sloan has played live all over the US, Canada and Europe including the influential Live Constructions radio program at Columbia University, STEIM in Amsterdam and Philadelphia’s The Gatherings concert series, one of the country’s oldest continuing ambient and electronic music series. Sloan is a Professor teaching full-time in the Interactive Arts department along with being the founder and program coordinator for the Sound Art concentration at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. L’Avenir returns with Requiem, the fourth, full-length album for Barcelona’s Cold Beats Records. Requiem finds L’Avenir visiting themes of postmodernity, alienation and spiritualism while expanding the sonic palette far beyond his minimal synth beginnings. The music of L’Avenir has, at times, been compared to 4AD era Clan of Xymox or mid-period Depeche Mode. But while echoes of the former can be heard, L’Avenir brings a uniquely fresh perspective unheard in other bands of the genre. Requiem features eight new songs and is available on limited edition blood red vinyl. Requiem is L’Avenir’s sixth release was written and recorded between February 2018 and January 2019 in a Minimal Space, (Baltimore). Limited edition of 300 copies lacquered pressed on 140 gr. high quality red vinyl and digital album.

Being in a different place and a different studio context changed some things for Gilb’R. The Versatile boss and half of Château Flight selected these 8 tracks, some short, some longer, from his studio sessions in Amsterdam where he has been living for the past 5 years. Reflections of the mind of Gilb’R and thus exploring many sides, from late night techno to West Indies non sense vocals, from dubby/moody sounds to ambient scapes.

Five track tape of intensely detailed post-club fever from Budapest's Evitceles. Massive bass hits grind space out between wide screen sound design and sombre atmospheres. RIYL - M.E.S.H. Zuli, Arca

Swedish composer and multimedia artist Marcus Fjellström's debut Miasmah release follows two critically acclaimed full length albums on Lampse (2006's 'Gebrauchsmusik' and 2005's 'Exercises In Estrangement'). In addition Marcus has had several commissioned works requested, leading to him working with, among others, the Swedish Royal Ballet, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, numerous ensembles, soloists and filmmakers including 'Salad Fingers' creator David Firth. Currently based in Berlin, Fjellström's compositions often combine aspects of modern classical composition and arrangement and more avant forms of music, be that acoustic or electronic.

'Schattenspieler' (which translates as 'Shadowplayer') takes the form of eleven compositions which explore ambience and melody, texture and silence. Haunting synth and orchestral instrument-based audio constructions, flowing from one moment to the next - the fleeting ghosts of Fjellström's melodies rise, only to be buried under a claustrophobic clutter of percussion and creaking background noise. These pieces do indeed feel like you're listening to something more implied than obviously stated, as if Fjellström wants only to expose us to the shadow of the music - the implication being perhaps a more terrifying experience than to be confronted outright…listen to 'Schattenspieler' and you may find your mind starts to play tricks on you…

The undeniably Angelo Badalamenti-esque descending synth strings of opening track 'The Disjointed', lay the foundations for Fjellström's 'Schattenspieler' album; music resting somewhere between the unsettling horror soundtracks of Jerry Goldsmith, the elevating melodies of Cliff Martinez, and the subtle audio constructions of Miasmah label mates Kreng and Jacaszek. Marcus' wide ranging abilities in composition and his willingness to let go of accepted form and function makes 'Schattenspieler' a perfect choice of release for the Miasmah label. The suspense laden 'Antichrist Architechture Management', with its harrowing and tense undertones, weaving synth lines and a wash of static hiss and flicker, is a particular standout track. Despite it's a strangely oppressive sound, shafts of light grace 'Schattenspieler'; pieces such as 'Untitled 090616' find gorgeous melodies are boxed in by unsettling arrangements and sparse background ambience. There is a coldness to many of these compositions - not without emotion, but somehow remorseless. 'Schattenspieler' is, for the main part, a defiantly bleak journey.

Vinyl edition ltd. to 300 copies, purple vinyl, incl. 8-page 12" booklet with drawings by Marcus Fjellström.

uon is the project of an artist operating between Chicago and Berlin. The producer also has released music under the aliases Caveman LSD, DJ Paradise, and uses the pseudonym 'special guest DJ' for all mix / DJ related outings.

-Early support from Bill Kouligas, Huerco S., and PLO Man-

Faitiche welcomes two young artists from Canada: Jonathan Scherk and Daniel Majer hail from the post-rock and experimental scene in Vancouver, where they shared a studio for several years. In artistic terms, too, there is a surprising coherence: on 'It's Counterpart', their solo work naturally blends to create a joint album, making it hard to distinguish between their contributions. Majer describes his part as a shadow-like reflection to Scherk’s brightly meandering collages. The album’s title refers to this: 'It's Counterpart' presents two solo artists who have met their match in one another.

Scherk and Majer produce contemporary sound collages on samplers, laptops etc. using raw material drawn from YouTube videos, field recordings, cassettes, and LPs from the dollar bin – the kind of rightly forgotten obscurities that have long since lost their audience, if they ever had one. In the hands of Scherk and Majer, they become abstract sound objects. The two artists don't concern themselves with the material's original context – the sound's character is most important. This sets them apart from other collage artists. Their work might be called a contemporary upgrade of the classic tape collage: here, channelling a wealth of information is the main focus. So are these collages that trigger neither associations nor contexts? Au contraire! 'It's Counterpart' is like an overheated centrifuge whose spinning extracts and joins together all of the harmonies ever pressed on vinyl. Melodies run amok.

Mecanica Popular is back 9 years after their LP “Neguentropia” and 4 years after Dead Cert reissued their first LP “”Que Sucede Con El Tiempo”

Mecánica Popular is ’s an experimental and industrial band formed in the late 70s by Luis Delgado (Finis Africae, Ishinohana...) and Eugenio Muñoz (Randomize), who rapidly gained cult status between the genre fans. The band experienced a renovated international success after their record "Que Sucede Con El Tiempo" (1984) was repressed in 2015 in Andy Votel and Demdike Stare's Dead Cert imprint.

Arriving 9 years after “Neguentropia”, “Estridentismo” is the group’s fourth record and the product of new material that was developed over the last 3 years.

“Estridentismo” is based on the avant-garde movement of the same name that was born in Mexico during the early 1920s (known as Stridentism in English). Each track uses this lens to explore a different thematic concept, from “Jouer Avec Schaeffer,” based on musical pioneer Pierre Schaefer, to “Mikado,” which draws inspiration from the sounds of Mikado steam locomotives.

Following the sound of their previous releases while also introducing elements that reflect their continued evolution, “Estridentismo” is a record that owes as much to the Industrial movement as it does to the work of early electronic pioneers.

Mecánica’s inventive style, and their blending of older techniques like tape manipulation with newer digital technology, allows the record to incorporate Industrial and experimental aesthetics to create a sound that plays with categories and ultimately creates its own.

The record has received praise from the press and artist alike, and it has been played by the likes of JASSS, Demdike Stare, Cera Khin and Ossia.

“Estridentismo” comes in a luxury vinyl edition with a printed inner sleeve full of text and pictures.

Nao Katafuchi is a Japanese artist who makes electronic music with a guitar & a semi vintage synth box, creates his own world of cold romantic wave. Stahlgrau is his 2nd longplayer.

After "Today, the organ has played beautifully again", released earlier in 2019, Edition Telemark presents the second instalment of what will become a series of LPs of sound works by Dutch artist William Engelen. "32 bpm" was recorded at Kunsthalle Mannheim for an exhibition in summer 2019 and is a slowed down version of "38 bpm", previously released on Engelen's double LP "Partitur Belval" in 2016.

The piece – played here by Mannheimer Schlagwerk – is written for 8 percussionists, each using a set of 9 different instruments varying in their timbre and in the duration of their resonance. The composition is played in a monorhythmic pulse of 32 beats per minute and in unison. To determine the order in which the instruments are played, each percussionist draws their own path through the score consisting of a 32x32 grid of dots of different sizes, with larger dots representing instruments with long resonance and smaller dots those with short resonance. Because each musician has chosen their own path, different instruments are played at each pulse. Neither does the pulse ever change nor do the musicians play out-of-sync at any time. As the piece progresses through its 5 parts, more and more dots are skipped, leaving only 64 beats per musician in part 5, as opposed to 320 in part 1.

The composition "38 bpm" was written in 2016 and now adapted by Engelen to take into account the acoustic qualities of the atrium of the Kunsthalle Mannheim, leading to the slower tempo and a different selection of instruments, now focusing on more resonant ones. The instruments played are mokushos, wood blocks, bongos, reyongs, crotales, triangles, timpanis, gongs, and tubular bells. For the performance, each player stood at a different spot and the audience moved freely between them, feeling out the space by listening to the resonance. The piece thus turned into a sound sculpture inside the architecture of the museum.

The LP is a co-release between Edition Telemark and Kunsthalle Mannheim and comes in a full-color gatefold sleeve with a 12-page LP-sized booklet with photos, a reproduction of the score, and extensive liner notes by Björn Gottstein, director of the Musiktage festival in Donaueschingen, and Sebastian Baden, curator at Kunsthalle Mannheim.

Deriving from the acclaimed performance and exhibition—staged by Anne Imhof at the 57th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia and awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation— the album Faust is part documentation and part elaboration, the sonic capture and extrapolation of the gestures, intensities, and durations of the live event.

Serving as the dramatic backbone of a several-hour long performance seen by thousands over the course of the Biennial, the soundtrack was a product of the collective and its individuals, animating and organising the performers while immersing the audience in the potent images of power and paradise. The music for Faust was written in a band-like process by Imhof and her close collaborators Billy Bultheel, Eliza Douglas, and Franziska Aigner during the months leading up to
its premiere at the opening of the German Pavilion in Venice.

From the chaos of the performative, the album is constructed out of live recordings and original arrangements, teasing out the most potent strands and weaving them into a new composition of brutal feeling and baroque intricacy, each track a testament to the energy that brought it into being.

Faust is anchored around three pieces—Medusa’s Song, O.W.E.N., and Queen Song—written and sung by performers Eliza Douglas and Franziska Aigner, whose sonorous and elegiac voices imbue the work as a whole with their crushing depths and dolorous moods. Between these urgent vocal interventions march and twist the winding fugues and electronic abstractions of Billy Bultheel, who has dismantled and reassembled the sonic landscapes of the pavilion, crafting new
arrangements that couple the forcefulness of the physical encounter with the artifice of the studio Throughout the album and culminating in it's closing act — the brutal chorus of Douglas’ Faust’s Last
Song, a pulsing canon of looped and layered voice pierced by black metal screams.

Faust is the record of a lost event and the promise of a new creation. The release of Faust illustrates the centrality of music to Imhof’s artistic practice. Her musical collaborations with Bultheel began
in 2013, and this generative constellation expanded to include the contributions of Douglas and Aigner, together scoring Imhof’s Angst (2016) and recently her performance trilogy Sex (2019).

‘Captured Entities’ is the debut album of deeply raw house and psycho-jit-jazz by Detroit producer
and DJ, Howard Thomas aka H-Fusion. Spanning the breadth of Howard’s hands-on, tracky style -
from beatless cosmic jazz audities to slamming 170bpm missiles and heart-grabbing house - it’s
arguably one of the most distinctive, dare-to-be-different albums from the 313 in recent memory
The fruit of more than 5 years of communication between Howard and The Death of Rave,
‘Captured Entities’ expands on the ruffneck, asymmetric slant of his killer 2005-2012 productions
for Sound Signature and Fit - as played by everyone from Kyle Hall to Kassem Mosse - across 11
unruly numbers united by an intuitive, jazz-wise approach to his synths and MPC2000. While
his sound may remind of many Detroit greats such as Omar-S, Damon Peterson/8088, and Urban
Tribe/DJ Stingray, Howard can’t help but sound like himself, and his debut album is best defined by
its classically driven yet singular Detroit soul clinamen.
Where too many producers’ lip-service to jazz is betrayed by their gridlocked uniformity,
Howard cuts the f*ck loose in real-time, improvised jams which have made it to the final
tracklist because of their unquantised cantankerousness and frictional quality. Sawn-off blasts
of hardcore warehouse rave give way to sultry, dream-away house jackers and a ruck of diesel-
fuelled bangers that sound like Nate Young doing Jit with DJ Stingray at a Detroit biker bar. When
combined with the curdled gob of beatless, cosmic noise and the cranky swaggering cyberpunk
on the LP’s closing side, ‘Captured Entities’ really comes into its own as a unique expression of
Michigan grit which, by design or chance, effectively splits the difference between Black Noise
and Wolf Eyes.
This kind of instinctively jazz-taught, stylistic and metric versatility is rare in Detroit-
manufactured techno albums beyond, say, the debut Omar-S album ‘Just Ask The Lonely’, or the
eponymous Urban Tribe LP for KDJ’s Mahogani Music, and the track sequencing of ‘Captured
Tracks’ aims to highlight the album’s strength in its diversity. Illuminated by an exceptional
mastering job from Anne at Berlin’s D&M which reveals all it’s dusty details and rewards cranked
volume in spades, ‘Captured Entities’ is a uniquely rude, thrilling and soulfully compelling album
from any angle, and a long overdue LP testament to one of Detroit’s most peculiar, instinctive, and
unsung artists.

Michael Speers impresses with a debut LP of absorbing “synthetic listening environments” for
C.A.N.V.A.S.; the London-based co-op behind Elvin Brandi’s cracking ‘Shelf Life’ EP and the group-
show ‘Cipher’ comp starring Flora Yin-Wong and Object Blue +++
Stemming from Speers’ background as a percussionist, his first LP ‘xtr’ctn’ pairs software
processed, nanoscopic recordings of electronic equipment’s internal behaviours with samples
of the natural world and feedback from no-input mixers to yield a visceral and inventively
personalised view on sound phenomena and resonant spaces that lay beyond the threshold of
human perception. In the process he effectively amplifies and renders the infrasonic world as
tangible yet abstract, meticulously arranging his unique palette of field recordings, SFX library
and YouTube samples, and original instrumentation by Olan Monk and Flora Yin-Wong, into non-
linear, non-narrative structures that invite the listener to immerse in a form of sonic fiction which
highlights the fine line between referential, objective reality and pareidolic subjectivity.
Distinguished by an otherworldy, meta sense of detachment shared with music by Giuseppe Ielasi,
Mika Vainio, and :Zoviet*France:, the four pieces form a fascinating sonic weltanschauung that
acknowledges and articulates the complex role of non-human and material sound generators upon
the self. From the way seagulls resemble death metal screams in ‘obturo’ to the uncanny manner
how a Olan Monk’s piano pulse and samples of Liam Byrne’s viola de gamba in ’tombeau’ recalls
a scene of ravenous whistle and horn blowing at The Eclipse in Coventry c. 1992, each piece is
densely packed with acousmatic data that will stimulate a broad range of reactions as listeners fill
in the perceptive gaps according to their own sferic conditioning and grasp of worlds natural and
synthetic.
Where the first two pieces steer clear of any blatant emotive cues, the fragged shrapnel that
opens ’sul. locus’ initially does the same, but changes at the mid-way point withe suggestively
gloomy strokes of Flora-Yin-Wong’s Kemençe, a stringed middle-eastern instrument held in
subtle contrast with the sound of ice hacking circa 1984 taken from a BBC SFX library sample to
sound like a location recording from an alchemist’s lab, or passages of When’s proto-BM classic
‘The Black Death’, follows with an eerie vent of sounds ranging from a percussive improv to the
sound of filing metal, and a pressure washer that recall the lurching rhythm and gauntlet grasp of
textures also found in the remarkable debut by Cairo’s 1127. It all points to a penetrative pair of ears
and mind that sees the world differently, and should inspire listeners to pay closer attention to the
world around themselves.

Beginning a new series of Remix Packs, in which favorite artists and label affiliates are remixing tracks from different Malka Tuti back-catalogue releases. The first one includes Toulouse Low Trax and Die Orangen remixing Xen & Yovav’s critically acclaimed 7” release from 2018, as well as 2 remixes of the Tel Aviv duo Plazmot by Benedikt Frey & Borusiade. All Tracks were mixed by Gordon Pohl. This record will also be the first to present Malka Tuti’s brand new specially designed generic record sleeves.

Sarah Benabdallah and Alexis Lebon are a very 21st century musical coupling, absorbing their metropolitan surroundings while tapping into a rich cultural heritage, not unlike fellow countrymen PNL or the Dutch band Altin Gün. A Paris-based duo set for greatness they might be, but it’s fair to say Mauvais Oeil are operating under a misnomer: while their name means “evil eye” in French, you’ll only experience enlightenment when you lay eyes (and ears) upon them. Mauvais Oeil are set to release their debut EP Nuits de velours, a magical melting pot of musical shibboleths and contemporary grooves. On opener “Mes nuits de velours”, we’re transported in the land of 1001 Arabian Nights, with the music every bit as smooth and alluring as the subject matter. “Afrita” is a trance-inflected musical acclamation evoking all
the madness and gayety of a midsummer souk. Sung entirely in Arabic with delightful blasts of strings, it’s a North African-influenced banger with a delicate wistfulness. “Asha” meanwhile is in a reference to Asha Vahishta, the middle-eastern concept of truth
according to the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism. Sung again in Arabic, it features catchy Phrygian guitar manoeuvres played over ambient analogue keyboard strokes. The E.P. is completed by “Constantine”, a song of longing, dedicated to the home of Sarah’s forebears. Having met in the arty northern faubourgs of Paris, Sarah and Alexis soon developed a musical telepathy and a shared sonic agenda, mining their own histories for the profound
cultural roots that underscore Mauvais Oeil, while absorbing the ubiquitous sounds of the suburbs, where Turkish, Armenian and Ethiopian music ring out. The band’s moving and melancholic chansons are delivered with a delightful French pop sensibility, making Mauvais Oeil one of the most exciting and musically diverse prospects in 2019.

S-Type returns with his first full EP project in three years with the expansive “S-Type-Beat”: dedicated to the art of hip hop production for its own sake.

The sound of S-Type has been defined by producing massive, melodic instrumental hip hop played out in clubs as dance music - but this was always a side effect of growing up far away from the rappers he sought to collaborate with. His track ‘Billboard’, released alongside the first TNGHT and Baauer music was seminal in the genre that some American festivals mistakenly termed “trap”. But the reality has always been that S-Type’s primary inspiration is hip hop. For the online subculture of DIY producers dating back to early ‘00s Louis Den beat battles to his own releases to his co-writing, S-Type is a leader of the beat scene.

The recent term “type beat” refers to the scene of uploading your instrumentals replicating the sound of your favourite production on commercial releases, tagging the original artist in the title of the upload in the hope your track gets exposed to the fans of the original ie. “Drake-Type-Beat”. On this new S-Type ep he celebrates the booming scene of producers and affirms himself as one of the best doing it: your favourite producers favourite producer.

Comic book artist, graphic designer and free jazz improviser are only some of the many talents from Beirut born Mazen Kerbaj. After appearing as part of various ensembles on the label, Ariha Brass Quartet (CREP46) and Johnny Kafta Anti-Vegetarian Orchestra (CREP22), Kerbaj finally lands a solo outfit of his own onto the Discrepant dancefloor of insubordination.

14 years after his first (and only) solo album "Brt Vrt Zrt Krt" (Al Maslakh, 2005) Mazen returns with a series of subtle compositions of his own with not one but two(!) solo albums of prepared trumpet that further cement his international position as a serial trumpet botherer.

Whilst Vol. 2.1 showcases his (almost) (un)familiar arsenal of squawks, cackles, howls and squeals, Vol. 2.2 goes deep into the nether regions of waltzing drones and bell tweaks so deep that would make most cetaceans loose their concentration. The notion of being transported to a luring mutant underwater alien community is still present on these long(er) trips with the added meditative pieces being occasionally pierced by noise creepers, nothing is what you want or expect and that’s the way it should be.

If Vol. 2.1 is the classic follow up LP, this one is the beast from the deep, it comes surging and screeching from a deep oceanic sink hole, only to hypnotize you with perverted dance moves before diving back into the sinking, wettest and darkest cave in the world. Vol. 2.2 is a summons album; it shatters any bar there was with its intentional use of everything Vol. 2.1 was denied. It grabs you by wherever available way and it only releases you when you’re ready to listen to it again. Listen to both albums back to back, in no particular order and you’ll know that there’s nothing you can do but come back to it like a doped up seal stranded in a phantom island – appearing and disappearing as the music dictates it to.

Exactly one year after their sold-out debut album Zest, Die Orangen (aka Dreems & Kris Baha) are zurück! Malka Tuti and Die Orangen have concocted a double dish, a two part remix package, Saft 1 & Saft 2.

The first part consists of a new live version of the track Yaranabe, recorded in a live session as part of the Duo's infamous analogue live act. A2 is Tapan's remix of Metal Man. The poem-not-poem is taking shape as a low bpm banger when Tapan's heavy signature kick meets those trippy vocals. This is Tapan's first track to be made after finishing their debut Album last year on MT, and its an interesting evolution of their sound, slow dark and punchy, yet with these vocals and bassline, also a catchy post-pop track for the later hours.

On the B-side lies Gordon Pohl's reimagination of Mersey River (aka 'the Platypus track'). The tracks 'epic", long slow ambient opening and evolution into rhythm resembles in many ways the psychedelic collaboration works of the late Pete Namlook & Move D on Namlooks own Fax records, which was always a significant influence on the Malka Tuti world.

For its 50th release, Black Truffle presents the 9th album from one of the label’s core ensembles, the power trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke and Oren Ambarchi. Drawn from a November 2015 performance at Tokyo’s now-defunct SuperDeluxe, the record’s opening piece drops us immediately into the maelstrom, abruptly cutting into an extended episode of Ambarchi’s pummelling drums, O’Rourke’s fuzzed-out 6 string bass and Haino’s roaring guitar and electronics. Eventually settling into a hypnotic bass and drum groove over which Haino unleashes some almost Ray Russell-eque skittering atonal screech, these opening 13 minutes act as a potent reminder of the trio’s power. Alongside showcasing the steady development of a unique language for the guitar-bass-drums power trio, the group’s succession of releases over the last decade has demonstrated a constant experimentation with new instruments, which continues here with O’Rourke use of Hammond organ (played at the same time as his roaming, sometimes knotty basslines). On the album’s second piece, the organ plays a key role, furnishing a harmonically rich shimmer over O’Rourke’s angular 6 string bass chords, Haino’s distant, chirping electronics and Ambarchi’s crisp cymbal work; arriving somewhere halfway between Albert Marcoeur and Terje Rypdal, this piece is undoubtedly a highlight in the trio’s catalogue so far. Sides two and three are given over to slow-burning, multi-part epics that range from spacious reflection to furious tumult. Where the trio’s previous 2LP set (This Dazzling, Genuine “Difference” Now Where Shall It Go?, 2017) was primarily instrumental in focus, here we find Haino’s voice taking the spotlight on the expansive third side, intoning, wailing and exhorting in Japanese and English over a backdrop that moves from hushed bass and organ atmospherics to rolling toms and cymbal crashes before arriving at an ecstatic finale of searing guitar, tumbling drums and reverb-saturated bass. The fourth side returns to the hypnotic grooves of the opening piece, fixing on an relentless riff and riding it into oblivion under Haino’s roaming psychedelic soloing and jagged chordal slashes.

Beacon Sound and Jacktone Records are pleased to announce a limited edition joint vinyl release by Hugo RA Paris titled Threaded Habitat. The new LP from Paris follows two of Jacktone’s most popular releases: Mystique Youth (2015) and Horizons Beneath The Surface (2016), which appeared under his alias, Lavender.

The transition to the Hugo RA Paris moniker with this album marks a more personal shift in approach. Threaded Habitat combines ambient textures and techno rhythms to reflect tension between humanity and nature—particularly the cyclical nature of collapse and renewal. It also marks Jacktone's first collaborative release with the record store and label Beacon Sound, which has put out works from veteran experimental musicians like Terry Riley and Colleen. Beacon Sound is an important node in Portland, where Paris also lives and developed the flagship modular product for leading Eurorack manufacturer 4MS: the SWN.

The album's closing track was entirely composed on a SWN prototype and recorded in one take. In fact, much of his work is done in layers of single takes with minimal processing to preserve its raw emotion and embrace minor imperfections. As an MIT-trained engineer and physicist, working with hardware—from modulars to guitar pedals and tape loops—is essential to his process of not only making but exploring sound.

Threaded Habitat captures moments of claustrophobia and bliss in seven tracks and three accompanying videos directed by New Zealand artist Sam Hamilton. Visual art plays a central role in many of Paris’s projects, which include intricate audio-visual performances and scores for full-length films like The Modern Jungle (La Selva Negra) and its forthcoming follow-up.

The LP will be available to pre-order on July 1st with a limited, exclusive content sample pack. The handmade vinyl package features photography by Sam Hamilton and will be released July 19 through Jacktone and Beacon Sound’s webshops, with worldwide sales beginning August 2nd. A remix release will arrive later in the Fall.

Secuund is the sophomore album from Belgian experimental electronix duo Suumhow.
This album is follow-up to last year's debut offering from Suumhow called Crash_Reports finds the pair doubling down on their blisteringly crunchy beat work and warm, humanistic melodies. While the beat-work on the album's opening track can lean toward the aggressive, making things feel as if all is about to teeter out of control, the thoughtful melodic touches in the synths keep the structure elasti- cally tethered together. Exceptions to that rule of thumb exist on Secuund with warm ambient track West Bend, the BOC-esque Bora Bora, and the durable onward animation of Cabin.
Such diversity in Suumhow's experimentation makes Secuund an excellent listen for fans of late 90s, early ought IDM, glitch & ambient.
Summhow's Secuund will be out Sept 20 and will be available on limited edition 180 gram sea blue vinyl, compact disc, and ultra-limited minidisc.

With the demise of the group Wire in 1980, founder members Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis joined forces to create Dome. With the assistance of engineer Eric Radcliffe and his Blackwing Studio Dome took the ethic of »using the studio as a compositional tool« and recorded and released three Dome albums on their own label in the space of 12 months: »Dome« (July 1980), »Dome 2« (October 1980) and »Dome 3« (October 1981). A final fourth album, »Will You Speak this World: Dome 4« was released on the Norwegian Uniton label in May 1983.

These albums represent some of the most beautifuly stark and above all timeless exercises in studio experimentation from early 1980s alternative music scene.

Notte Brigante founder and buttons specialist HLM38 is back in versatile style. Kump's label boss Gil.Barte and polyrythmic genius Harmonious Thelonious take care of the remix with two exotica versions in slow motion style. Limited to 200 copies

Celebrated Detroit composer, producer, sound designer and ambient pioneer John Beltran keeps up a busy 2019 with an expansive new LP on Delsin, his first music on the label since his Presents Music For Machines compilation in 2014. The excellent eight tracker, pressed on 180 grams vinyl, takes you on a trip though his typically serene and beautiful world right form the off. 'Alle Kinder' floats on gentle drums with beautiful synth melodies making for a heavenly atmosphere. The journey commutes through the calming pads and glistening arpeggios of 'A Different Dream', uplifting joys of the 'Himmelszelt' with its mellifluous harmonies and achingly perfect ambiance of 'The Coming Home'. 'One of Those Mornings' washes over you like the sun through a breaking cloud and the brain cleansing, pulse soothing goodness continues though 'It's Because of Her' and the elegant Detroit techno bliss of 'Perfect In Every Way'. The final two tracks close things down with a sense of classy contentedness, subtle celebration and inner joy that Beltran conveys better than anyone.

Cathedral Pinesʼ is Joseph Lawerence Clarkʼs debut album under his maiden name.
After having quietly self released a handful of compositions in the past, The Rochester, NY native steps up on Vaknar with a compelling barrage of immersive and impactful soundscapes, created using tape looped guitars, violin and synths processed through various samplers and pedals (many of which were built through his own company, Adventure Audio).

Cathedral Pines is made up of two, 20 minute long pieces of densely interwoven ambient, synth and noise laden layers, resulting in an enthralling debut that feels compellingly versatile, cerebral and substantially in-depth.

After showcasing his unique electronic output via the 'Surging Waves' compilation on Vaknar last year, Japanese native yolabmi steps up for his first solo release on the label.
Presented here is the A side of the cassette release, for which a selection of yolabmi's recent compositions have been chosen, complied and mixed by the label, resulting in a comprehensive glimpse into the artist's unconventional sonic spectrum that seems to be situated somewhere between tranquil field recordings, improvised analogue electronics and digital interference.

Yoshi Wada's Lament For The Rise And Fall Of The Elephantine Crocodile, originally released in 1982 on India Navigation, remains one of the most remarkable flowers to grow in the rarefied air of American minimalism – akin to Terry Riley's Reed Streams and Pauline Oliveros' Accordion & Voice, yet with a wild, liberated energy all of its own.

After graduating from Kyoto University of Fine Arts with a degree in sculpture, Wada moved to New York City in 1967 and quickly fell in with the community of artists known as Fluxus. In the early '70s, he began building his own instruments and writing musical compositions, studying with La Monte Young and Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath.

Recorded during an epic three-day session in an empty swimming pool in upstate New York, Wada's first album brings together two of the oldest drone instruments – the human voice and bagpipes – to simple and glorious effect. A visit to the Scottish Highlands spurred Wada's interest in bagpipes, which the composer integrated into these sparse, otherworldly sounds heard on Lament.

"That swimming pool was quite hallucinatory," recalls Wada. “It was another world. I felt it in terms of resonance. I slept in the pool, and whenever I moved, I woke up because of the reverberations.... The piece itself is an experiment with reeds and improvisational singing within the modal structure."

This first-time vinyl reissue is limited to 750 numbered copies. Comes with poster.

Hello! We present to you our first 7” single, two vocal tracks, a traditional choice for the format, from a favourite of ours at OTIS - LORD TUSK. Out-of-body music for the inner Upsetter. Best enjoyed on hi-fidelity, stereo sound systems.

Ross Alexander first came to our attention with Memorias Vol.1 - Bugandan Sacred Places, released back in 2017 on Sucata Tapes, it featured a mind altering mix of recorded sounds from a series of visited sites considered sacred within the Bugandan kingdom and session recordings with Ugandan musicians Albert Sempeke and the Nilotika Collective layered with his own original composition using the Yamaha DX7 and programmed FM synthesis. The result being an unique reconfiguration of new age vocabulary with East African traditional sensibilities. The tape quickly sold out and the new Volume of Memorias presented here arrives now on the mother label Discrepant, on Vinyl with an expanded sound palette appropriate to the format.

Memorias Vol.2 - High Atlas To The Sahara Desert is the logical progression of Volume 1. - based on a series of field recordings Alexander made during a trip through the High Atlas Mountains and into the Sahara Desert in 2018. The aim of the trip was to visit a gathering of nomadic musicians at an oasis close to the Algerian border. Like Memorias Vol1. the recordings made on the trip were then later processed, layered and arranged with original compositions. Where Vol1. had clear nods to New Age music this volume explores the more ambient side of 80’s Industrial sound.

Starting off Otomatik Muziek in 2016 as a means to release music and working together with friends, S.U.V. aka Franz Joseph Kaputt went on a long journey since then. After the brutal no-input-noise of „New Dark Age“ and excursions in the realms of dark, psychedelic folk on 2018’s „Sterben/Shifting“, he began working with synthesizers, mostly because they…synthesize. With the pragmatic approach to replace a merzbau of pedals by using synths as multi-faceted tools for live shows, Kaputt started recording, and after some fondling around, these 5 new songs emerged from a convolute of over 30 recordings.

Musically, S.U.V. is centered around darker timbres, drones of different sources, distilling harsh aesthetics from genres folk to noise (for a beginner’s guide, check out the parallel release „Nullproblem. The Life And Struggles Of Franz Joseph Kaputt in His Pursuit Of Bread, Knowledge And Freedom“, a collection of unreleased songs 2013-2019 that will wash up parallel to this release as a self-released tape). And yet, there’s a commonality within all of S.U.V.‘s records – the approach to bring together disparate elements, working on a language of its own. One can hear the thread woven through his work especially on „F65.5“, a track first recorded around 2012, which was re-recorded for this release and which features no synths at all, but fits perfectly with the other songs.

Besides these technicalities, regarding the content, „Our Complex Pleasures“ has a clear main theme. All of the songs rotate around interpersonal relationships, sexuality, gender and the diversity within. It is as well a celebration of queerness, post-romanticism and widening hegemonial discourses, as it is a meditation on limitations, fatigue and letting go. „Warm Animals“ is based on an improvisational performance where two people face each other and try to hit the same note, over and over again – a practice involving a lot of laughter, passion and exhaustion. „Bull“ and „F65.5“ are clear allusions to kink culture, while „Emotional Yoga“ and the near side-long „Compersion“ deal with themes of polyamory – with struggling to live love in a non-toxic way. „A Drug That Never Works“? – read that one for yourself.

In comparison, „Our Complex Pleasures“ is a pop album with most of its harshness buried underneath the surface. But as it is also taking a clear political stand (look into the booklet!), there’s much more to discover. It’s a reckoning with masculinity, as well as coming to terms with the fact that there isn’t one way of living in a body and loving others. And it is a clear middlefinger to the toxic traditionalism of the alt right movement.

The tape is accompanied by a mini-book, yet again and of course designed by Dicey Studios, where the complex pleasures find a very physical transfer; in the fabric as well as in the lettering, there’s a sensitivity within that even amazed ourselves when it got back from copy factory.