Beats Vinyl New Releases - News

After more than a decade of deep, expansive productions on labels such as Detroit Underground and CPU, Annie Hall arrives on MUSAR for a record typically rich in texture and understated grooves.

Opening track 'Linium' immediately seduces listeners with a complex drum pattern that somehow feels spacious, subtly twisting and turning its way around Hall's analogue world. Dutch artist Mattheis maintains this understated feel but adds a soft, compelling kick in response on his suspenseful remix of 'Lavandula'. The original, moodier version of this cut the follows to open the B side, gradually erupting around a killer distorted bassline. The EP continues to hit a more urgent note with the tense machinations of 'Silene', where dense layers of stuttering, frenetic drums interweave with Hall's trademark, melancholy keys. The record concludes on a weightless, transcendent note with 'Santolina', taking each visceral element featured thus far and slowing each down, with affecting results.

Indebted to vintage electro and IDM, Hall's music is no throwback, always looking forward and moving dancefloors in the most unexpected ways.



DJ FEEDBACK

Early support from



Michael Mayer (Kompakt) : Nice vibes from Mattheis... will play for sure!

James Zabiela (Born Electric) : Linium is a nice one, thanks.

Arnaud Le Texier (Cocoon / Chronicle) : Nice music. Thx!

Marcel Dettmann (Ostgut Ton/MDR) : Thx!

Carl Craig (Planet E) : Thx!

Gonno (Beats In Space Records / Endless Flight) : I like Mattheis' :)

Thomas Hessler (Index Marcel Fengler) : Nice one! Thank you!

Slam (Soma) : Thanx

Âme (Innervisions) : Thanks

Blasha & Allatt (Meat Free / Manchester) : Amazing!

EREZ / John Byrun : A superb EP

Tom Lye (Melodic Distraction - Liverpool) : Big fan of the whole EP. Strong, building electro with different moods. Essential!

Afrodeutsche (NTS / LuckyMe / Skam) : Glitchy melodica... Right up my Strasse...

DJ Shiva / Noncompliant (Valence / Detroit Underground) : Stellar music here. Moving beyond "DJ music", this is just really fantastic to listen to in headphones. Gorgeous stuff.

Lonya (Asymmetric Recordings) : Great stuff here!

Nori (Posivision) : Cool work.

Cinnaman (Rush Hour / Naked Naked) : Lavandula and Santolina are my favorites! thanks

Dj Windows XP (E-Beamz) : Dope E.P. Will play Lavandula.

Ambivalent/LA-4A (Delft/Cocoon/Ovum) I'm a huge fan of Annie Hall and Mattheis!!! This is a FANTASTIC release!! One of my favorites of recent months just on first listen!!

Benoit C (Tsugi) : Linium for me

Ian Blevins (ESP Institute / Sulk Magic) : Linium and another bit of top work from Mattheis. Santolina is pushing my buttons too. Aphexy vibes.

Joe Europe (Ransom Note) : Very nice!

Azterisco (www.azterisco.com) : Very interesting record. Nice remix!

Oded Peled : What a fantastic release! Was hard to choose a favourite between Linium and the Mattheis Remix of Lavandula. Both will come in handy in my sets. ....Thanx a lot and keep em coming.

Naduve (Cocktail d'Amore / Disco Halal) : Both A1 and A2 are great!..Thanks.

Anastasia Kristensen (Nous) : I dig this a lot, it's a crazy well produced record.

Demia E.Clash (Darknet) : Such a good ep-.i love them all,quality production yess.

Pedro Martins (Karakter Records) : Nice EP overall. Linium, Silene, and Santolina are my favorites. Thank you so much!

Xinobi (Discotexas) : Great record. I'm specially enchanted by the original version o Lavandula. Congratulations.

Scan Mode (DJ Mag Spain) : Lavandula in both mixes for me

John Osborn (TANSTAAFL) : Can't pick a fav. it is all Devine. thank you.

Madloch (Sound Avenue) : Nice EP, Linium & Lavandula original are my favs, thanks.

DVS NME (Transient Force) : The standout track is Lavandula.

Radical, Immersive, Alternately Fierce And Delicate Harp & Sax Improvisations By Highly Attuned Duo John Butcher & Rhodri Davies, The Latest Collaboration In A Long-running Relationship
Demonstrating A Highly Developed Sense Of Intuition And Vast Knowledge Of The Sonic Microcosmos Latent In Their Respective Instruments.
The Album Breaks Down To Three Extended Pieces, Including A Remarkable 22 Minute B-side That Reaches Into The Furthest Corners Of The Duo's Imaginative Practice.
'radio Guts' Opens The Set With A Guttural Exploration Of Low End Rumble And The Smeared Buzz Of Brass Harmonics, With Butcher's Feedback Oscillating Their Sound Between Threatening Drone Tension And Sudden Squeaks Before Collapsing Into A Windswept Fray. 'lithophanie' Follows With
The Febrile, Oneiric Logic Of The Lp's Title, With Outbursts And Recursive Shudders Transforming Into Post-midnight Jazz Pangs And Tantalising String Flurries.
However, It All Appears To Be In Preparation For Their Stunning 'chaos Is The Spectre' On The B-side, Where They Spend 22 Minutes Freely Feeling Out A Spectrum Of Viscous Subharmonics And A Curdling Midrange Punctuated With Shredding Sax With An Elusive, Detached Yet Immersive Quality, Like A Dream Recalled After The Fact..

The video installation Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (1999) is one of the best known and loved works by Turner Prize-winning artist and Northern English emigre, Mark Leckey. It's a hugely influential piece, and the soundtrack itself has been sampled endlessly, most notably by Jamie XX on All Under One Roof Raving'. It was the first release on The Death of Rave label back in 2012 and has recently started fetching crazy money on discogs etc, so a new pressing was in order.
A phantasmic and transcendent collage of meticulously sourced and rearranged footage and sound samples spanning three decades of British subculture - from Northern Soul thru '80s Casuals and pre-CJB Rave - it may be considered an uncanny premonition of the Hauntological zeitgeist which has manifested in virulent sections of UK electronic dance and pop culture since the early '00s.
This record severs the sonic aspect from the moving image, offering a new perspective on what rave culture maven and esteemed author Simon Reynolds calls a remarkable piece of sound art in its own right.' Detached from its visual indicators, Leckey's amorphous, acephalic cues are reframed as an ethereal, Burroughsian mesh of VHS idents, terrace chants, fragmented field recordings and atrophied samples cut with his own half-heard drunken mumbles.
At once recalling and predating the eldritch esthetics of Burial or The Caretaker, it's an elegiac lament for an almost forgotten spirit, an abstracted obituary to the rituals, passions and utopian ideals of pre-internet, working class nightlife fantasias, now freeze-framed forever, suspended in vinyl.

ELSEWHERE CDXLIV is the third in soFa's carefully compiled series and the second release on the promising Brussels based Crevette Records. An exciting double LP containing 8 tracks which take the listener to a versatile journey from digital reggae over tropical balearic vibes to boogie and wave. Music which moves between styles, cultures and timezones, this time with a warmer overall flavor. A mind bending trip where 80's drum patterns bring you to exotic tribal workouts and where silky smooth synth lines lead to funky bass grooves. A spaced out affair for lovers of slow grooving music from elsewhere.

For over twenty years, Mkl Anderson has curated a vast archive of recorded material for his cinematic ritual ambient industrial project, Drekka. He works with memory not only as a subject but also as a healing process, continually delving into this personal world of sound; examining, revisiting, and repurposing recordings in an attempt to recall a past which sings from the darkness surrounding the tenuous provinces of memory and dreams - the real ghosts of time and sound.

"No Tracks in the Snow" is a collection of tracks from the early days of Drekka's history; the third offering for Dais Records and an appendix between the second and third parts of the 'Tarwestraat' trilogy of LPs for the label.

Recorded between 1996 and 2002, the album showcases Drekka's early exploratory development across a variety of styles. And yet it is also Drekka in the present moment; culled, curated, and assembled with care. Not unlike Borges' "A Personal Anthology" - or indeed any of Drekka's own recent work - this recording can be understood as a cohesive narrative more than as a simple compilation.

As Drekka moved from its Bristol UK influenced space folk beginnings, backwards towards Anderson's earlier UK industrial tape culture foundation, his predilection for reworking pieces over time was emerging; recontextualizing narratives to bring out new truths from one's own history. This process would become a cornerstone of Anderson's work for the decades to follow.

The album begins with 'Strika' (1998), originally recorded for the lovesliescrushing side project, Vir (a "secret audio army" in which individual performers were not even aware of who the other participants were). The track features one of Anderson's earliest collaborations with Mark Trecka (of Pillars And Tongues / Dark Dark Dark), who would go on to be one of his longest standing co-conspirators.

"Christmas 1973 or 1974" (1999) is a lament for a childhood which is almost entirely forgotten and a yearning for some tangible, physical proof that this childhood existed at all. The accompanying video for the track utilizes actual home movie footage of Anderson as a very young boy, fulfilling this longing and adding heart rending weight to the song and its lyrics.

"We Who Are Not Lonely" (2000) has become one of the most beloved works in Anderson's early canon. A gauzy musing on the catharsis of upheaval, the piece was written and recorded initially in the months leading up to Anderson's relocation from Chicago to Bloomington, Indiana. It is a brooding work which shows Anderson at his most self-possessed as a songwriter and is a confluence of the earliest playing-and-singing take on Drekka and the cinematic world building soundscapes to come.

The album closes with 'Tracking shot (wide)' (2000), a brief stream-of-consciousness sound piece dedicated to Andrei Tarkovsky. The track most certainly points in the direction that Drekka would explore extensively over the two decades; the direction which has led Anderson to where he is now firmly positioned.

"No Tracks in the Snow" is an exploration of the threads of continuity which bind the various modes of Anderson's oeuvre. As he nears completion of the third album in his trilogy of LPs for Dais Records, "No Tracks in the Snow" is an introspective pause and a celebration of a life spent listening to the world around us and its sleeping potential.

Emotional exploration through sound can become so indulgent that it overshadows the journey. JH1.FS3 eschews mining the human condition as mediation, opting for nuanced analysis rather than vanity. Using the seeds of improvisation as their root construct, the duo work without code, vocabulary or genre. Instead, they systematically work as individuals in tandem, using disparate and varied sounds and sources to create gauzy collages of ideas, sound and visceral sense reaction.

Comprised of Frederikke Hoffmeier (Puce Mary) and Jesse Sanes (Hoax, Liebestod), JH1.FS3 delineates a more subtle 'cinema of the ear', and acold approach to reflecting on experience without leveraging tropes or familiarity.

'We try to reconcile these emotionally massive things in a way that is sincere and measured, but without being sappily diaristic or confessional,' they explain. 'A cinematic quality develops really quickly and our attempts to traffic in generalizations, unbiased observers of 'relationships' gets turned on its head. We find these sets of unique errors that feel more like Super-8 (film) home footage.

'This transference allows cracks and fissured to be filled in new ways, where error is championed—highlighted as intention rather than happenstance. Throughout Trials and Tribulations, their debut LP for Dais records, the reconnection of idea and experience conducted with surgical diligence becomes a mode to deconstruct familiarity through shade and accident.

With each exposition on Trials and Tribulations, the duo ornately exploresthe relationship between space and time by reconfiguring the tendrils and fissures that bind them. Percussive oscillations, descant vocals, and deconstructed patterns create fields that vibrate, plunge, and drone. Sequentially, each track contributes a lucid vignette to the larger account, engaging the listener to query where, when, and how they're being driven. The contrast of the lead single 'Aleppo In Headlines,' with its thrusting syncopation to the cautious beauty of 'At the Bottom of the Night' compounds and depth and disquisition of the duo's process.

Emotional exploration through sound can become so indulgent that it overshadows the journey. JH1.FS3 eschews mining the human condition as mediation, opting for nuanced analysis rather than vanity. Using the seeds of improvisation as their root construct, the duo work without code, vocabulary or genre. Instead, they systematically work as individuals in tandem, using disparate and varied sounds and sources to create gauzy collages of ideas, sound and visceral sense reaction.

Comprised of Frederikke Hoffmeier (Puce Mary) and Jesse Sanes (Hoax, Liebestod), JH1.FS3 delineates a more subtle 'cinema of the ear', and acold approach to reflecting on experience without leveraging tropes or familiarity.

'We try to reconcile these emotionally massive things in a way that is sincere and measured, but without being sappily diaristic or confessional,' they explain. 'A cinematic quality develops really quickly and our attempts to traffic in generalizations, unbiased observers of 'relationships' gets turned on its head. We find these sets of unique errors that feel more like Super-8 (film) home footage.

'This transference allows cracks and fissured to be filled in new ways, where error is championed—highlighted as intention rather than happenstance. Throughout Trials and Tribulations, their debut LP for Dais records, the reconnection of idea and experience conducted with surgical diligence becomes a mode to deconstruct familiarity through shade and accident.

With each exposition on Trials and Tribulations, the duo ornately exploresthe relationship between space and time by reconfiguring the tendrils and fissures that bind them. Percussive oscillations, descant vocals, and deconstructed patterns create fields that vibrate, plunge, and drone. Sequentially, each track contributes a lucid vignette to the larger account, engaging the listener to query where, when, and how they're being driven. The contrast of the lead single 'Aleppo In Headlines,' with its thrusting syncopation to the cautious beauty of 'At the Bottom of the Night' compounds and depth and disquisition of the duo's process.

Second Editions presents "In The Forest" by Karl Fousek.

Serving as a score for David Hartt's film of the same name about the Habitat Puerto Rico project by Moshe Safdie, In The Forest finds Fousek at his most focussed and controlled. These five pieces/chapters move with precision and intent. With subtlety and curiosity. Shrouded in ambiguity. And while Fousek works much more restrained here than on previous releases, by paying attention to every detail, he creates an intruiging work of sonic storytelling.

Soundings, his debut studio album for Touch (he previously released the live album 'Floodlines' in 2016 and re-issued 'Below Sea Level' in 2017), finds Simon Scott, the composer and sound ecologist, using field recordings from various cities around the globe; modular synthesizer treatments; live strings and laptop electronics to create an album of transition and shifting time zones. The recordings were edited and composed in hotels rooms across the world as Scott was constantly on tour as the drummer for Slowdive, who successfully reformed in 2014.

Hodos, the album opener, begins with 85 mph Storm Barney recordings, ending with the fading sounds of bellbirds and cicadas recorded in Brisbane 2018. 'I took a home recording I made of Storm Barney in Cambridge, listening to it on repeat when I was flying from continent to continent. I wanted this to be the starting point of the process of musically documenting how much travelling I was doing'. This album was created from the US to Asia, South America to Europe and the Arctic Circle back to the UK via California. 'Working in hotel rooms and on flights, listening to and editing the recordings I'd made from all of these distant cities formed the basis of the album. It's the soundtrack to four years of my life in flux with constant change, jet lag, excitement and the seeming perpetual motion of travelling'.

Obscure Kraut record inspired by the black forest, cold lakes and the south-west wind. Recorded in two days in the countryside of Valley by Daniel Meuzard aka Feater and Franco Spenzini.
Downsized production for maximum spiritual release.

Hollow Earth is the new album from Pye Corner Audio aka Martin Jenkins, his third for Ghost Box. It's conceived as a sequel to 2016's Stasis. Where Stasis played with notions of outward cosmic exploration and the idea of suspended animation and sleep, Hollow Earth takes subterranean exploration and submerged psychologies as its theme.

It draws on Berlin school synth improvisations, New Age reveries and the ghosts of 90s house euphoria to summon up images of vast, awe inspiring spaces and claustrophobic chambers. It sustains an atmosphere of wonder and adventure throughout, and like its companion piece, Stasis, it works equally as a soundtrack to physical as well as mental exploration.

Pye Corner Audio specialise in majestic, cinematic electronica that evokes sci-fi soundtracks, dystopian futures and the sound of haunted dance floors. The discography to date includes eight full length albums and many more singles and EPs across several labels. There are also remixes for John Foxx, Mogwai, Mark Lanegan, Stealing Sheep, Knightstown, Not Waving and most recently Dolphin Midwives.

Pye Corner's Martin Jenkins (aka The Head Technician) is a veteran live performer, and has played shows and festivals all over Europe, Canada and the USA. Most notably he has supported Mogwai on several tour dates, played the Mutek festival in Montreal, the Mugako Festival in Spain and Barcelona's Primavera Club.

Pye Corner Audio pieces appear in the soundtrack to Adam Curtis's 2016 film HyperNormalisation and the 2018 Shudder TV series, Deadwax. More TV soundtrack appearances are due to appear in 2019.

Second release from Twin Womb after last year's incredible "Aeons Revolve" 12". 21 tracks, hand-numbered (very) limited edition cassette. Comes with sticker.

Another side of Pom Pom.

Teresa Winter's LP debut Untitled Death is a hallucinogenic wormhole of sensuously ambiguous pop and electronic experiments primed for the after-after party and altered states of reception.
Realised thru a mesh of strategies from live, lo-fi tape recordings of synths, samplers and vocals to nascent experiments with algorithmic software, Untitled Death is both a divine revelation of new aspects to Teresa's sound and an expansion of The Death of Rave's as-yet-unidentified aesthetic.
Teresa's zoomed photos of magic mushrooms spattered in popping fluorescent oils which adorn the cover of Untitled Death hint at a more personalised insight and psychoactivity, a proper, lush trippiness. Just like the putative psilocybic experience, Untitled Death naturally comes on in waves of synaesthically-heightened sensuality, from strangely libidinous stirrings to utter, eat-your-heart-out euphoria with a spectrum of hard-to-explain and unexpected sensations between.
We can hardly recall a more seductive album opener than Oh, which blossoms from plaintive drum machine and chiming pads to a half- or mis-heard beckon I really like it / when you let yourself go / I really want you inside me / I want to make you my own', before curdling into bittersweet partials and deliquescent hooks as earworming as anything from AFX's SAW 85-92 classic.
It's devastating in its simplicity and almost blush-worthy in effect, and is soon enough lopped curtly into the soundtrack-like enchantment of Untitled Death, which could almost be a cue from some '60 Polish or Czech art-house film, serving to neatly set up the prickling, windswept scene of romantic introspection and dereliction in Pain Of Outside - perhaps Teresa's most accomplished and affective pop turn to date, think Grouper awkwardly blissing out at 9am in the corner of a successful sesh/campsite/free party.
From that perfectly damaged side closer, the B-side opens to a different sort of spine-freezing beauty and sense of abandonment with plangent, dissonant harmonics describing rugged Yorkshire wolds and coast as much as a radiant lightshow on the back of flickering eyelids.

The latest episode on Piezo's no nonsense, hand stamped and heart warmed Ansia label has arrived! ANSIA003 is the follow up to his early 2018 'Parrots EP' and for this release the Milanese producer has enlisted 3 other disparate yet like minded artists to let loose on this monster 4 tracker. StabUdown Productions (James Donadio aka Prostitutes) kicks it off with the opener 'FyeRRR!' A deadly burst of blown out ragga replete with an arsenal of kicks and vocal cut up shrapnel. Next up label head Piezo drops 'OiOiOi', a masterwork of electro gated basslines, jungle breaks and absurd delay feedbacks. A perfect continuation of the surrealistic/abstract path started by tunes like 'All My Money' on 'Parrots EP'. Fresh off his Lobster Theremin's album, Kreggo/G-23 (Super Rhythm Trax, Secret Rave, Art-Aud) delivers 'Ligeti': a flat out mover with it's skittering percussion and deep haunted stabs hovering around the supernatural subs. It all finishes up with Bristol's Facta, whose releases on Idle Hands, Livity Sound and his own excellent Wisdom Teeth really needs little introduction. 'Not Now' is an elastic, low gravity heavy hitter that snakes through bass bins and before you know it, you're completely wrapped.

'Although discrete, the career of saxophonist Philippe Maté includes nonetheless several indispensable albums: be it with the Acting Trio, Jean Guérin (Tacet) or Jef Gilson (Workshop), his collaborations in a big band or quartet with Lawrence "Butch" Morris, his presence in the Saxophone Quartetand also on the brilliant L'Enfant assassin des mouches by Jean-Claude Vannier.

As for the man in the background, Daniel Vallancien, a sound engineer rarely featuring on the sleeves, the collection Actuel on the BYG label owes much to him (he is at the controls behind Anthony Braxton, Don Cherry, Sonny Sharrock or Steve Lacy), the same goes for Saravah for who he notably recorded Areski,Brigitte Fontaine, Maurice Lemaître or the Cohelmec Ensemble: not bad for starters! What is more, Daniel Vallancien is one of a prestigious group of French recording engineers with open ears and often themselves musicians, even if only occasionally for some, including Bruno Menny, Daniel Deshays or Jean-Marc Foussat, who have all recorded remarkable albums as leaders. Behind this collaboration was the idea of creating music which was free, direct and spontaneous, while having also a minimum of advance planning. Music, according to the brief liner notes, desires to "remove itself from long and patient laboratory experiments ". So there can be found here none of the sophisticated tools associated with electroacoustic research, but mainly a recording mixer console, which, in the hands of Daniel Vallancien acts directly on the original instrumental sound in real time, modifying and multiplying it while respecting the natural flow.

Be it Paul Méfano, Betsy Jolas, Gérard Grisey or Jacques Lejeune, many contemporary composers working in France have, at one time or another, included the saxophone in their work. Michel Redolfi, for example, with the GRIM and then the CIRM , experimented with saxophonist André Jaume on a convincing recording (Hardscore). Nothing, however, can compare to the singularity of the dialogue between Philippe Maté and Daniel Vallancien, which they themselves describe as being "serious, sarcastic or humorous", with, here and there, "disturbing sounds". Words, however, even those used by the protagonists themselves, are insufficient to describe such a sonic object, difficult to identify and, it has to be said, extraordinary.'

'Transcendence' serves to illuminate a burning playing field of ideas. Converging acoustic and high register digital manipulation, poetry and transformative soundscapes to form a haunting veil over a dynamic sphere of sound and words. Opening track 'Petrol' an intense poem that lists twenty-seven violent attacks in and around London, "twenty-seven survives but now feels out of place with the seismic shift - originally featured on 'Euthanasia Party / Twenty Seven'.'Jhonn' a homage to the great Jhonn Balance from Coil slowly rises from feedback with weightless melodies. 'War Text' automatic percussion turns to delirium over organs & soft-spoken lyrics "Lots of things trembling, the vase on the counter, the fake flowers".'Deity' delicate hymns transform into mechanical turmoil. 'Durchreise' static showers veil techno intervals through a cold soundscape. 'New World' Ascending arps & guitar riffs meshed with delicate choirs. Closing the LP is 'Gar' a synthetic organism that blurs the lines of A.I.

Ay, caramba! Tropical dandy Rick Shiver's hot-yet-cool solo debut. The A-side has a sweet cha-cha de amor, take the chill of your chili and blush several shades of picante. The B-side adds some mariachi vibes for a 'stripped to the bone' dub. Blame it on the chili. Spicy!

Techno Thriller joins the Unknown Precept fam with a brand new mini-album. The first following the release of their eponymous full-length album a couple of months ago. Based in Brussels, although now relocating themselves in Marseille, France, the four-handed formation has steadily been crafting cybernated Gothic music over the past years. Recorded a few months back while drawing its inspiration from dark dungeons and occult folklore, not without evocative titles, Enfant de Sodome feels as muscular and thrilling as their live performances usually imply. Compelling murky synthpunk and industrial machinery colliding in fervor and howls. Free falling tumultuous bass lines lacerated by ominous muffled groans. Bone-bending primitive techno music catapulted over the walls in the most urgent fashion. At the end, it very much feels like trying to dance on some sort of cryptic electronic body music in a heavy chain-mail.

Les Disques du Crepuscule presents Signals Into Space, a brand new studio album by acclaimed electronic duo Ultramarine. SIS is their seventh album, having debuted on Crepuscule back in 1990.
The new long player was conceived by Ian Cooper and Paul Hammond over a three year period and features four songs co-written with North American musician Anna Domino, a firm favourite of the group since her leftfield pop releases on Crepuscule and Factory in the 1980s. 'For this project we wanted to do something more ambitious and perhaps more accessible than our last album in 2013,' explains Paul. 'We were keen to start collaborating with other musicians again, as well as develop our method of performance-based writing and recording, which is partly improvised.'
 Signals Into Space also features contributions from saxophonist Iain Ballamy (ECM, Food, Loose Tubes) and percussionist & vibraphone player Ric Elsworth. It was recorded and mixed in London with Andy Ramsay (Stereolab) and mastered by Noel Summerville.
 'To some extent Signals Into Space is an escapist record,' reveals Ian. 'Our rehearsal space is a small windowless room on an industrial estate in Essex. Possibly as a result we ended up with a collection of visually suggestive tracks, conjuring mental images of cities, deserts and tropical islands, which gradually came into focus as Anna's lyrical ideas developed. So while the music might have been conceived in a closed space it's imbued with a positive spirit - looking outwards, seeking contact.'
 Cover art by Studio Heretic. Available on CD, digital and vinyl LP (vinyl format includes a free digital copy on MP3).

LP 1 ist das Debütalbum von AIRCHINA, dem jüngstes Projekt von Nikolai Szymanski - Komponist, Sänger, Elektroniker und Umschlagkünstler von Stabil Elite aus Düsseldorf. Pluckernd analoge Rhythmik, subtraktive Synthese und Softwaresynths. Melodien schichten sich licht in asiatisch anmutendem Gewand. Aber nicht so einfach: ein fremder Blick. Eine Idee von Japan. 1983, 84, 85. Getrennt durch Raum und Zeit. Von hier aus gesehen, Düsseldorf. Signale, wie sie Pyrolator empfing, Tokyo, wie es Hosono Haruomi und Ryuichi Sakamoto beschrieben. Ambient-instrumentale Eleganz, Kammerstücke, Miniaturen, Popschönheit - wer Namen braucht: The Orb, Ultramarine oder auch Oneohtrix Point Never im Sinne.

LP 1 is the debut album of AIRCHINA, the latest project by Nikolai Szymanski - composer, singer, electronic musician and cover designer of german neo-kraut band Stabil Elite from Dusseldorf. Plucking analog rhythms, subtractive synthesis and software synths. Melodies layer light in asian-sounding scapes. But not so easy: A strange view. An idea of Japan. 1983, 84, 85. Separated by space and time. Seen from here, Dusseldorf. Signals as Pyrolator received them, Tokyo, as described by Hosono Haruomi and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Ambient-instrumental elegance, chamber pieces, miniatures, pop beauty - who needs names: The Orb, Ultramarine or Oneohtrix Point Never.

Experimental lute player Jozef Van Wissem and acclaimed film director and musician Jim Jarmusch have a working relationship that dates back to 2006, when they ran into each other on the street in New York City and quickly struck up a friendship. Van Wissem contributed to the soundtrack for Jarmusch's 2013 movie Only Lovers Left Alive, and the two have collaborated on three previous studio albums — Apokatastasis, Concerning the Entrance Into Eternity, and The Mystery of Heaven. An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil is their second release as a duo for Sacred Bones Records, following The Mystery of Heaven, and its narrative picks up where that album left off.

Like The Mystery of Heaven, An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil delves into the theology of William Blake and Emanuel Swedenborg, this time also exploring the work of Russian occultist and philosopher Helena Blavatsky. The album is mostly instrumental, so the dialogue between the esoteric thinkers who inspired it and Van Wissem and Jarmusch is expressed primarily in the song titles — fittingly arcane phrases like 'Concerning the White Horse,' 'The Two Paths,' 'When the Sun Rises Do You Not See A Round Disc of Fire.'

The second part of the 'In Another Land' trilogy can be considered as the indispensable conceptual antipode to Part I. It's everything that Part I is not and vice versa. It's sculptural and it's not pursuing the idea of development, but it's neither static nor repetitive: The mostly short pieces, consisting of heavily treated snippets of recorded (electro-) acoustic instruments are circling around themselves, always aiming to show their core idea to the listener. The thing is the thing is the thing is the thing... just the perspective is changing.

Zeitkratzer member Reinhold Friedl revisits the piano guts some years after his much album Inside Piano (2011). While Friedl's first solo album defined the practice of playing on the strings of a grand piano," Music For Piano, ... Spring/Flower/Cracker/Stream" mixes piano with concrete and quasi-electroacoustic, freely moving from moving from plain motifs to walls of noise. A truly beautiful and ear-pleasing record that unashamedly shows the composer's and performer's love for the piano.

Reinhold Friedl studied the piano with Renate Werner and Paul Schwarz in Stuttgart, Alexander von Schlippenbach and Alan Marks in Berlin, composition with Mario Bertoncini (nuova consonanza) and Witold Szalonek. He has collaborated with musicians like Phill Niblock, Elliott Sharp, Alvin Lucier, Keiji Haino, Lou Reed, Carsten Nicolai, Laurie Anderson and has released more than hundred CDs.

All tracks composed and performed by Reinhold Friedl Recorded at the School of Music of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki on the 11 and 12 March 2017 by Yannis Paxevanis Mixed by Yiannis paxevanis and Reinhold Friedl at Subway Studio Mastered by Nikos Lavdas at Kiwi, Athens Cover photo by Reinhold Friedl

Roy Garrett Born Roy Sambar In Colonia, New Jersey Arrived In New York City Hungry To Explore The Sex And Porn Scenes He'd Seen Advertised In The Village Voice's Classified Section. He Danced In Times Square Theaters The Gaiety, Ramrod, And Big Top Before Moving Into Adult Film. From 1979 Through 1983 Garret Starred In Ten Films, Five Of Them For Joe Gage, Including His Lead Role In 'heatstroke'. Throughout This Period Of Self-discovery, He Wrote The Suite Of Poems That Became 'hot Rod To Hell'. In 1982 He Recorded 48 Of The Poems With Haunting, Atmospheric Score By Man Parrish, Who Also Did Several Soundtracks For Gage. The Project Was Produced For The Stage And For Cassette By Manhattan Illustrator Robert W. Richards. Richards Calls 'hot Rod', 'a Searing Voyage Through The Labyrinths Of Modern Male Sexuality; It's Geography Ranging From Porn Theaters To Back Room Bars To The Intimacy Of Shared Beds. Only A Man Born At Exactly The Moment In Gay History That Garrett Was Could Have Lived Through And Conceived This Work.' Roy Garrett Tells His Stories Of Sex, Violence, Truth, And Illusion, A Visceral And Personal A Record As Any Of That Moment In Gay History Pre-aids. Joe Gage, Describes 'hot Rod' As, '...sweet Danger. This Is A Perceptive Look At The Underside Of Love. It Is Funny, Scary, Surprisingly Moving And Best Of All, Extremely Acute In Observing The Specifics Of The Human Condition.' All Poems Have Been Carefully Remastered For Vinyl By George Horn At Fantasy Studios In Berkeley. The Records Come Housed In A Jacket Designed By Gwenael Rattke And Includes An 44-page Full Color Magazine With All 48 'hot Rod' Poems Plus 44 Previously Unpublished Poems From Garrett's Archive. All Proceeds From 'hot Rod' Will Be Donated To Housing Works, A New York City Based Non-profit Fighting The Twin Crises Of Aids And Homelessness.

First time LP reissue on 180gr vinyl from this amazing Belgian compilation still oscillating 40 years later into the pop waves. This edition contains two new postcards as an insert, including liner notes by Michel Moers and the original lyrics of 'Aman' and drawing by Ariel Kalma.

Myriam Bleau is a composer, digital artist and performer based in Montreal. She creates audiovisual systems that go beyond the screen, such as sound installations and performance-specific musical interfaces. Her hybrid electronic practice explores music performance as a codified cultural manifestation and recontextualizes pop culture elements and music history tropes. For 'Lumens & Profits' Myriam has exported this ethos towards pure sound design, deconstructing a palette of familiar musical forms into 8 pieces of wandering, weightless movements; where Vocal samples and percussive rushes launch themselves from empty space, repeatedly shattering any vibe you were about to ease yourself into. Rhythms scatter, violently collapse, and pick themselves up again grinning with hands aloft, sprinting towards the light.

This is the sound of an artist who clearly has a deep interest in modern tropes of UK bass music and contempory electronic composition, but due to Myriam's historical grounding as a tactile, experimental audio visual artist these genres become uniquely filtered through a performative, Musique Concrete focused lens. In this sense the pieces end up as somewhat hybrids, absorbing Myriam's rich performance based musical history and sweeping into the mix the outer corners of avant garde 80's sampler experiments, Hip-Hop Turntablism, and classical elements. With 'Lumens & Profits' Myriam has managed to create something which sounds distinctly fresh in approach, whilst managing to playfully & respectfully nod towards a tidal wave of cultural movements.

'Lumens & Profits' is heavily influenced by Myriam's own 'Musical Spinning Top' A/V performance 'Soft Revolvers' (viewing a section of the spellbinding performance does the piece far greater justice than I could ever try to clumsily put into words). Whilst inspiration was gleamed from the performance Myriam is keen to separate the two projects, explaining - 'While composing these pieces, I was very occupied by the idea of modulated speed or tempo that came from my spinning top performance. Seeing instruments on different tempos that fluctuate rather than run on different strict patterns. I tried to imagine freely moving instrumental lines that only momentarily align, rather than a grid or tempo that would control all the elements. A lot of the pieces rely on algorithmic arpeggiation (custom max patches), as a way to create processes that control the speed and timbral width of sounds dynamically.'

Fans of Lee Gamble, Tomoko Sauvage, Mark Fell, RKSS, Holly Herndon, Christian Marclay take note here, dive in and get lost.

The record you are holding in your hands is a previously unheard masterpiece of Israeli multimedia artist Ami Shavit. As a professor of both philosophy and art and established kinetic artist in the 1970s Shavit was fascinated with new and interactive technologies. While mostly focusing on visual art and mixed-media installations, a trip to New York in 1972 introduced him to synthesizers and triggered his curiosity to do some explorations into the world of music or "sound" as he preferred to call it.

Ami's research was focused on the concept of meditative music that would help people to relax and create a cosy mood associated to the alpha brain waves and biofeedback. Before starting his artistic career, like all Israeli citizens, he had to serve in the army to his personal regret. Shavit had an operational position, which meant a high probability to get involved in a so called 'hot situation'. When in 1973 the Yom Kippur war broke out, Ami was enlisted again and got the unfortunate opportunity to encounter, in Hanoch Levin's words 'the dead'. Being an operation officer he was in charge of evacuating Israeli wounded officers from battlefields to hospitals. Some 6000 injured men passed through us during that war, he recalled one year later in a newspaper interview.

'I witnessed some sights that I can hardly forget. On the one hand I felt that as an artist I had to express the war events, on the other hand I felt that this is an almost impossible mission. Only Goya and Picasso, in his Guernica, addressed this topic successfully.'

Yom Kippur is the final and seminal of Shavit's sound experiments ever recorded and now finally available to the world. We believe that this is an extraordinary strong piece in which the hectic moods and terrific experiences of war are deeply transmitted to the listener. May all soldiers, who are often forced to go through traumatic experiences beyond their own will, find ways to artistically digest and process the unwanted memories.

Ami Shavit was born in 1934 in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. Known as visual artist, his work involves in creating virtual environments with optic and kinetic art, including structures worked by electricity, moving tubular configurations illuminated by colored lights. He published In Alpha Mood in 1977 on Amis records, his own record company, at 500 copies, republished by Finders Keepers Records in 2015 and Neural Oscillations And Alpha Rhythms in 2018. Yom Kippur is his ultime recordings.

Hailing from Suuns, Canadian Ben Shemie offers up his first solo work, A Skeleton. An experimental pop album of cold synthetic sounds with touches of psychedelia.

Based on his live, itinerant experiments, the whole album was recorded in a single take with no overdub. Shemie has left traces of the atmosphere of each recording space, adding an element of chaos and unpredictability alongside his masterful/dexterous manipulation of the equipment.

The voices and instruments sound as if they were drawn from a not-too-distant future in which artificial intelligence has taken over human life and mutated into an artist. The album recounts the random wanderings and metaphysical rêveries of a skeleton - the fantasy muse of the machine, devoid of sex or race, a neutral entity.

The refined, minimal sonic narration is executed with astonishing precision and sensitivity. With A Skeleton, Shemie has definitely painted us a refreshing avant-garde picture.

For Moloton's ninth outing, they're welcoming Orphan Ann with their debut LP 'The Practice of Surrender'.

The duo, consisting of DIY veteran Anja Enerud (Masskultur collective) and Sofia Al Rammal Sturdza (SARS, Född Död) burst onto the scene with their pitch-black take on synth music, combining sharp, penetrating vocal chants with atonal drones and haunting drum machine patterns. Orphan Ann has previously released their music on the Danish label Posh Isolation, where they contributed with four tracks to the 'You And Me Now' cassette compilation. They have been performing their live show at various stages around the world, including MUTEK in Mexico City and Norbergfestival in Sweden.

'The Practice of Surrender' consists of nine tracks, all recorded, produced and mixed by the duo themselves in their studio collective Tropiska Föreningen in Stockholm. It is indubitably a proof of a healthy Stockholm scene, where both Moloton and Orphan Ann are leading the way, pushing the Swedish experimental sound forward with a glare.

Piano Music is a release with two short tracks which are based on piano recordings Orphax made at De Ruimte in Amsterdam Noord in Mid and End of Summer 2017. On this release musically Orpax breaks with his other work by using more melodic ambient sounds and focus less on the drone. It is one of his most personal works to date. The music on this 7" is about closure and trying to leave things behind, how difficult this might sometimes be. It is about making the wrong decisions and regretting those, but also learning to cope with these and to move on.

Atmosphere EP is Rising Sun`s fifth release on Fauxpas Musik and we can say quite safely that Steffen Laschinski fueled a few identifiable obsessions over the years for those familiar with his work. it probably won't feel like uncharted territory when they'll hear the title-track.

Vinyl tastes better

Xiu Xiu's new album called "Girl with Basket of Fruit" is coming out via Altin Village & Mine in Europe. "Girl with Basket of Fruit" is imbued with the agitation, tension, sorrow and anger that has permeated the daily lives of so many over the last few years. It was produced by Xiu Xiu's Angela Seo and Greg Saunier of Deerhoof. Xiu Xiu is Thor Harris, Jordan Geiger, Angela Seo, and Jamie »Butch Jenny« Stewart.

It could be handfuls of reds It could be turning Caravaggio's Boy with Basket of Fruit to face the wall It could be a commission by the Guggenheim entitled Deforms the Unborn It could be the demon Vetis, whose friends call Him The Life Promiser It could be that in 1918 a pregnant Mary Turner was hung upside down from a tree by a lynch mob while they cut out her fetus & that this could happen today, as it did then, without consequences for whitey It could be handfuls of natural pearls It could be collaborations with master Haitian drummers It could be doing the wrong thing together forever It could be long lists of how The Devil's acts towards children before, during & after their possession It could be short lists of produce, insects & imagined blues musicians It could be handfuls of an insane 9 year old's feces smushed on the lunch table It could be a psychedelic Chicago house song about a pig & about your parents It could be your dad's new husband gave you his boyhood viola It could be a collaboration with master Yoruba drummers It could be handfuls of cactus spines & a poison dart It could be your sister has cancer & they keep chopping parts of her body off It could be a conscripted arco bass piece that was a dedication to Turkish feminists It could be Jack Smith has a film called Normal Love It could be scisssssssors, air conditioner tubes, glasses of ice & seashells It could be handfuls of hot pink Make Noise 1/8th inch audio cables It could be that Nature is making it clear to us that we deserve it and that we are making it clear to Her that we are ready, ready to go It could be a short novel called The Rhythm Section Talked about Drugs, The Horn Players Talked about Ass & The Strings Talked about Money It could be improvised vocals by Elliot Reed & orchestrated vocals by Eugene Robinson It could be that European religious paintings of male martyrs depict them surrounded by chubby, adoring angels, everyone's tearful mothers & converted sex workers dutifully sponging out their holy & shallow wounds It could be that European religious paintings of female martyrs depict them with their nipples being torn off, throats branded & their naked torsos flayed while they are totally alone aside from the men torturing them It could be handfuls of Diamanda Galás & Roy Orbison action figures It could be that despite the confusion of this life, people who can still truthfully call themselves human try to push through 2019's collecting horror It could be slowed down & fuzzed out field recordings of disappearing frogs It could be flat purple & black or glossy black & purple It could be mescal in a bottle & baby on a boob, hair dyed blonde for nobody, nobody move It could be handfuls of that you just have to stop being a wuss & deal with it It could be...

Recorded by Butch Jenny Stewart at Nurse Additional recording by Tara Jane O'Neil Mixed by John Congleton at Elmwood West Mastered by Lawrence English at Negative Space Produced by Angela Seo and Greg Saunier

Drawing In Sound is a live improvisation, created by sound artist Andreas Usenbenz and illustrator Christoph Lammers for the exhibition opening of "Wiese" ("meadow") by artist and curator Andreas Pytlik at Städtische Galerie Rosenheim in the spring of 2018.

Prior to the performance, the artists exchanged ideas, drawings and sound improvisations to find a way of approaching the topic of 'meadow' in the context of contemporary drawing and contemplative soundscapes. During the performance, illustrator and sound artist entered a dialogue: Usenbenz created subtle sound textures and phonographic collages of rustling hay, records, guitar sounds, field recordings, tapes and effect devices.

Lammers opened all senses to both space and sound. Reacting intuitively, focussing on the moment and with great physical effort he composed his images, formed structures from lines and shapes. Using charcoal, ink, brushes and his bare hands, he filled the 7 by 4 metre canvas, vigorously at times, then almost delicately, providing stimuli in turn picked up by Usenbenz. Ultimately, this "conversation" between the two artists gave rise to a different interpretation: Everything grows of its own accord.

Played and improvised by Andreas Usenbenz, using objects, lo-fi microphones, contact microphones, field recordings, guitar, ebow, looper, ipad, dictaphone, cassettes, tape loops, op 1, field kit. Drawn and performed on a 7 x 4 m canvas by Christoph Lammers, using different objects, ink, charcoal, brushes and his bare hands. Recorded live at Städtische Galerie Rosenheim. Additional sounds recorded and edited at home.

'Zonder Stroom', meaning 'sans electricity', was a short-lived program curated by Extrapool with performances that were completely without electricity (no amplification, no lights, no fridge) and one bleak and damp winter's afternoon we drank coffee and decided to use all the electricity there was, recording any keyboards, synthesizers and electronics they could lay their hands on. Then they tried to make sense of that day. This album features mixes and remixes of one joyful and intensely creative session.

Richard Youngs has been involved with music for most of his life. He discovered the power of the art form by thumping the family piano as an angry 5 year old. In the intervening 45+ years he has attempted to harness the same experimental, naive, playful power in his recordings and live performances. He has performed floor spots at Hertfordshire folk clubs, and worked with members of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He has recorded a modern pop album ('Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits'), and a score for the BBC SSO ('Past Fragments of Distant Confrontation'). He was commissioned to write music for the art film 'The Poor Stockinger, the Luddite Cropper and the Deluded Followers of Joanna Southcott', and his music has appeared in the 2013 feature film 'Drinking Buddies'. He is the drum machinist of the Flexibles, singer of AMOR. He is classically trained in piano and guitar, but musically he grew up in the shadow cast by punk rock. Adopting guerrilla recording techniques, the independent D.I.Y. ethic is at his core.

Frans de Waard has been producing music since 1984 (Kapotte Muziek, Beequeen, Goem, Zebra, Freiband, Shifts, Modelbau, etc.). In 1984 he started his own record label Korm Plastics, releasing music from Arcane Device, Asmus Tietchens, Jim O'Rourke among others. He has worked for the pioneering Dutch tape label Staalplaat (1992-2003) and since 1986 as a reviewer for his own publication Vital (now Vital Weekly), a magazine which has been an online source for underground music since 1995, and which celebrated its 1000th issue in 2015. In 2016 Timeless published in France his first book, an autobiography of life in Staalplaat titled This Is Supposed To Be A Record Label. His interests in music creation ranges from ambient to noise to what he describes as 'silly disco music'. He has played concerts in Europe, USA, Canada, Russia and Japan, and collaborated with Steven Wilson, Jaap Blonk, Andrew Liles, Radboud Mens, Keiji Haino, Pan Sonic and others.

Peter Johan Nÿland is best known for his work with intensive synth duo Distel, avant-garde leviathan Hadewych and melancholic ambient project Norn. Other ventures include collaborations with the likes of Dead Neanderthals and Trepaneringsritualen. Next to these involvements he does the odd audio engineering job and until recently worked as a composer for television documentaries and other media. Early exposure to synthesiser experimentation, combined with the plethora of percussion sounds found in metal school fences and hypnotising phase-shifting pencil-tapping on desks removed his ability to just take sounds for granted. Keep your kids away from said objects, lest they turn out the same.