Beats Vinyl New Releases - News

RotterHague is a new label dedicated to electro music in all it's forms, this issue showcasing brothers from other mothers DJ Technician and DJ Overdose. Lot's of E-mu SP1200 programming as this is for both of them the weapon of choice. Funky robotics to make the people shake is about as close as you can get to a description for the four tracks delivered on this E.P.

French up-and-coming producer, E-Unity, has released a successful first 12' at the end of 2017, being played by the likes of Pearson Sound, Objekt, Avalon Emerson and A Made Up Sound. He's coming back with a four-tracker on Oxyd's Intramuros, keeping his hybrid vision in focus. He mixes various UK influences from breakbeat to leftfield techno and house.

Culross Close follow up their 2016 debut album HOME with a potent offering entitled MOMENTS. The
quartet (a moniker of K15) meld fusion and future grooves to create a captivating ride through some of their recordings. From the opening MANIFESTO, the listener is thrust into a world of purpose and understanding. SLOW YOUR STROLL is where the record begins to unfold, as floating synths and
percussion carry the groove. What follows next is the hypnotic INNA TRICE, the rawest of all the
recordings where snares and sincerity collide. The record closes with UNISON (a future groove if there
ever was one), a number that showcases the quartet's ability to truly explore their moments.

Nach 30 Jahren veröffentlicht Nonplace nochmals die A Seite der viel gesuchten Maxi Single Elephant's Easy Moonwalk Through The Night" von Manos Tsangaris zusammen mit einer neuen B Seite, die eigens dafür 2017 entstand.

Manos Tsangaris ist ein Reisender, ein Radikaler. Deshalb auch sind seine Tracks wie Fahrten, Flüge oder Fluchten. Sie schillern, sie treiben voran, sie fliegen davon, indem sie in ihren Grundelemten beharren.

Ähnlich ist es bei Tsangaris' experimentellen Musiktheaterwerken und -Installationen (mit denen er international bekannt geworden ist). Sie muten an wie Skizzen, die erst auf den zweiten und dritten Blick hin ihre Perfektion eröffnen. In jedem Medium und künstlerischer Sprache erreicht Tsangaris zuletzt die Überschreitung ihrer Mittel.
Alle Wirkung ist Übergang. (Novalis)

It was chance that brought about the release of One/Three, Dabrye's debut album. Early demos were tucked on the B side of a cassette Tadd Mullinix passed to Sam Valenti in 2000 while working at the Dubplate Pressure record shop in Ann Arbor. Mullinix had spent the late '90s producing jungle, techno, house, hip-hop and more using the All Sound Tracker software as a primary instrument. Each style pulled from a similar sound palette as Mullinix used limitations to define the contours of di-erent musical personalities. Dabrye was his hip-hop wildstyle, a captivating collage of sparse instrumentals inspired by the laid back vibes of midwestern hip-hop and east coast boom bap, the futuristic funk of Umma-era Jay Dee, and the calculated subtlety of Detroit dance music. Released in 2001 as the first in an intended trilogy, One/Three announced Dabrye's arrival with an unavoidable contribution to Detroit hip-hop. Ghostly International is reissuing the album in 2017 for the first time, including a long overdue vinyl edition.

On its release One/Three was the rare album that appealed to both fans of Slum Village's smooth yet rugged hip-hop and enthusiasts of the distinct American IDM released by labels like Schematic. Over the following decade, the inadvertent demo submission turned into a body of work that placed Dabrye alongside innovators such as Prefuse 73 amid the cannon of a new generation of producers. Today, One/Three remains a concise and intriguing study in instrumental hip-hop that helps join the dots between J Dilla and Flying Lotus.

One/Three is a record that says much with little. There are no obvious hip-hop tropes. Instead Mullinix captures the ingenious minimalism of '90s hip-hop instrumentals to build tracks both supple and hard, joyous and melancholy, full of sharply angled rhythms and warm rubbery basslines: 'The Lish' throws a sickly sweet saxophone against digitally fragmented melodies, 'How Many Times (with this)' draws you in with an irresistible, clipped guitar groove, the rhythmic stutter of 'Smoking The Edge' makes your head spin with pleasure. Playing with his inspirations, Mullinix injects omitted downbeats for imagined rhymes and repurposes the intricacy of ragga jungle for breakdowns.

But what really defines One/Three is the rhythmic sensibility and metric modulation of Detroit's school of hip-hop production, which Mullinix was a fervent student of. The beats feel like they're constantly escaping a rigid tempo grid even though they are, in fact, pretty tight. A lot of it is nuance,' Mullinix explains. I've been known to say that I'm not impressed by spectacle. I think that nuance is what really captivates people.'

If you like your beats with a dash of class, do not miss this. An essential purchase of the highest order.' -BBC

- First time all tracks from the original 2001 release appear on vinyl.
- Remastered by Daddy Kev
- Standard weight black vinyl is inserted in to 3.5mm matte finish vinyl jacket.
- Download card includes free download of the Payback EP

Brock Van Wey (bvdub) revives his cult Earth House Hold alias for A Strangely Isolated Place, with his slow-burning, House-music-inspired, long play, 'Never Forget Us'.

A Strangely Isolated Place, and label founder, Ryan Griffin has long sought a partnership with Brock, with many believing it may one day materialize in his suitably infamous ambient output known on labels such as n5MD, Glacial Movements and Quietus. But after their relationship grew, Brock and Ryan realized a mutual respect and passion for the classic sounds of house music - the roots and inspiration of Brock's Earth House Hold project.

Whilst followers of bvdub and ASIP may be surprised to hear the two teaming up on this specific alias of Brock's, Never Forget Us opens us to a new expression of ambient-inspired music, pushing the many boundaries, forms and genres it can evolve into or indeed, evolve from.

A noticeably deeper and more evocative evolution from the first Earth House Hold release, Brock has built an album focused on progression, starting with deep, slow-churning ambient cuts, gradually introducing House elements as the album evolves. Using only instruments and sounds from the early House-era, as is the ethos of Earth House Hold, Brock builds an effortlessly sequenced collage of deep, mystifying, and emotional pieces, combining his signature ghostly vocals with rumbling off-kilter bass-lines and slowly rising atmospheres.

As with many of Brock's productions, 'Never Forget Us' is an ode to some of the many memories and experiences that helped influence the producer he is today. From his trademark ambient epics, to his unique brand of ambient house, each reflecting his history, forever lingering in his years DJ-ing ambient chill rooms and deep house basement affairs beginning nearly thirty years ago . With the return of Earth House Hold, the story is told not only through the reflective nature of the music, or the collage of original pin-hole photographs taken by his good friend Mamii, but the mutual appreciation for a sound from years gone-by, brought to life again, yet living its own life, in a way only someone like Brock could.

Elmer Kussiac ist ein Berliner Trio mit Cello, Kontrabass und E-Gitarre, die alle durch ein System analoger Elektronik bearbeitet werden. Der Sound repräsentiert eine Vielzahl von musikalischen Einflüssen, die den individuellen Hintergrund jedes Mitglieds widerspiegeln, von minimalistischer Drone Musik bis hin zu zeitgenössischer klassischer Musik, traditioneller türkischer Musik und Noise Rock. Die improvisatorische Herangehensweise an die Musik legt großen Wert auf die einzigartige Atmosphäre und den Kontext jeder einzelnen Aufführung und behält dabei einen klar erkennbaren und ästhetisch zusammenhängenden Klang bei.

Full UK Press by In House Press

Impossible ark international mailing list

Features Matthew Bourne (leaf label) on all synthesisers

Produced by Ben Lamdin / Nostalgia 77

A fully imersive radiophonic workshop experience fusing Jazz, inprovisation and studio electronics

Who Are You is a new collection of free form, free flowing music from E Ruscha V. A wandering, wondrous search for identity rendered in brilliant musical shapes and forms, Who Are You resides in the transitional realm between calm and ecstasy. A meaningful moment along an artist's transcendent path of self-discovery, and meaningful music to those who identify with a conscious universe. Who Are You is the first full-length release by Eddie Ruscha under his given name since donning the Secret Circuit guise in 2010 to administer an electronic antidote to the psychedelic / shoegaze dirge that dominated his formative music-making. Between Secret Circuit's two 12' EPs and a colossal full length, Tactile Galactics, on Beats In Space in 2013 and now, Ruscha has remained wildly prolific producing unfathomable fouron-the-floor formulas for the best and brightest labels outside of Space. The Secret Circuit hiatus suggests a return to self and an unmasked, untethered musical language, an approach Ruscha describes as 'exploring melody that can mutate as different shades of beauty.' Rhythm plays a supporting role on Who Are You, an album with less concern over club constrictions and more contemplation of open, unbound spaces, areas in which Ruscha sees the music capturing 'the feeling of a lost day.'

Repress

This is deeply personal and sensual music. The listener is allowed to enter the inner zones of the private and artistic relationships between Frederikke Hoffmeier and Jesse Sanes. It is something beautiful, rare and very intimate that is communicated through words and restrained electronic experimentalism. It is almost violent in its openness. "Loyalty" is more than reading someones diary. "Loyalty" is more like reading someones mind.

JH1.FS3 is a special collaboration between Los Angeles-based Hoffmeier (Puce Mary) and Jesse Sanes (Liebestod/Hoax). They have released a couple of hard to find tapes and this is their debut album.

Rito is an artist collective the core members of which are four musicians: Piotr Pawlak, Michal Gos, Jacek Stromski, and Kuba Staruszkiewicz.

It's three drum kits, three drummers coming from three different backgrounds, plus a prepared guitar, samples, and computers.

Rito is a trancey, meditational, and occasionally experimental affair based on emotions and energy. In Esperanto, the band's name means "ceremony" or "ritual". It's no coincidence Rito hark back to archetypal rituals, practices, and types of expression found in many different cultures and meant to induce trance, that is a state characterized by intense experiences of mystical, energetic, and therapeutic nature.

The idea behind the collective is to provide a platform for musicians, dancers, as well as performance and visual artists.

Piotr Pawlak is one of the most important musicians in polish experimental, jazz and yass scene. He was member of bands like Loskot, Kury, Kaszebe II and YeShe.

During Piotr Pawlak's retrospective at Sopot's Teatr Wybrzeze, a 60 minute concert was recorded which later premiered on TVP Kultura. Currently, it can be watched at http://ninateka.pl/film/rito.

Music For Visual Disorders collects together various compositions by Tomaga that have been used by different artists or curators within the context of works of visual art, dance or exhibitions.

Repress

Ideal throw a total curveball with Vanligt Folk's doomdub body music mutations on Palle Bondo, where the Oslo/Gothenburg trio drop their punk leanings in favour of a stark sound lodged somewhere between Mika Vainio, CS + Kreme, Fever Ray, Toresch, and even Autechre. The origins of the record are a bit cryptic and personal, which perhaps prompted the abrupt switch from their earlier styles to this, a more grown-up and pointed set of songs that vent their worries in a coolly gripping and cryptic style - not least because we can't translate their Swedish lyrics

* First release from the Berlin based Jazz-O-Tech Records.

* Since its early days Jazz music has always been experimentatal, trying to contaminate, and integrate different cultures, styles and musical philosophies. Along the years, jazz movement expanded and diversified in many different genres and styles. Electronic music has also always been exprimental and the avant-garde of electronic musicians explored new technologies and new styles of music. Today the two musical frontieers meet and the contamination between jazz and electronic music will enrich both musical languages, changing the grooves but keeping the same depth and spirit of the two genres.
* Jazz-o-Tech is born in order to merge tradition with modernity, improvisation and experimentation, and to create a new style: Techno-Jazz. Finally the elegant arrangements and intricated solos of jazz can develop along the modern structures of Techno and Electronica, taking the listeners on an emotional, hypnotic and intense journey, making us think that future is not that far away.* For its debut release the new label, based between Berlin and Milan, is presenting the new representatives of Techno-Jazz. In this 12' vinyl all the artists represent the new concept that Jazz-o-Tech wants to promote. The argentinian sound designer and experimental musician Paine' is presenting a strong but elegant track full of jazz quotes and pulsing with swing. The DN3 trio (DJ and producer Guido Nemola, trumpet player Cesare Dell'Anna and pianist Mauro Tre) in their track "Lee Theme" mixes elegantly original jazz improvisation and a house inspired rythmic section. Berlin based duo Flat Maze (producer Stefano Mori and pianist Uri Gincel) play with techno grooves and with experimental raw and meditative sounds, but they still leave enough room for silence and emotions. Gamapawa are our final act, probably the most Jazz of all, definitely very much focused on experimenting new forms of contamination of Jazz and Electronica. In "Nobossa" DJ and electronic producer Paine Cuadrelli, trumpet player Mario Mariotti, japanese synth player Gak Sato and bass player Walter Prati (with guest appearance by saxophonist Gianni Mimmo) are providing the finest example of a cross over electronic experimental act which leaves the listeners with plenty of musical references and inspiring moments.

BRAUBLFF is an archival piece with EXCLUSIVE WORK BY THE LEGENDARY Gerhard Rühm, Arf Arf, Alessandro Bosetti and Tomomi Adachi.

BRAUBLFF (Materie und Laut) is a series of live events organised by DE PLAYER (Rotterdam) and KRAAK (Ghent) and brings together contemporary vocal poets, text-sound composers and language based artists with the pioneering work of the avantgarde.

It deals with the question: Where and how does language transform into music'

A possible answer: At the point where language loses its meaning and becomes pure matter through de/ re-construction and mutation, which is made possible by (new) technologies, inventive manipulation and/or particular unconventional use of sound and text within artistic contexts'.

The idea for this series of events originated from a shared obsession for the work of vocal poets such as Henri Chopin, Maurice Lemaitre, Sten Hanson, Lars-Gunnar Bodin, Bob Cobbing, amongst others, and Lazlo Maholy Nagy's notion of New Plasticism, which is based on the idea of stimulating acts of abuse and malfunction in order to produce a result, which is, in principle, embedded in the specific character of human nature.

250 copies
icw DE PLAYER
artwork & design: Koos Siep
#vocal poetry
#archival release

Wer sind eigentlich diese vier jungen Männer, die vor acht Jahren wie eine Erleuchtung aus der schönsten
oberbayerischen Landschaft erschienen Aus Oberammergau kommend, brachten sie ihre Musik, die
irgendwo zwischen Alpenlandschaften und kritisch-weltläufiger Querköpfigkeit pendelt, in die Städte. So hatte
man das noch nicht gehört - mit dem Instrumentarium einer halben Blaskapelle, ergänzt durch Orgel, Zither,
Schlagzeug und einen Sprachsog aus Dialekt und Hochdeutsch. Mit unverstellten Blicken in die
ungesehensten Alltagswinkel haben sie es geschafft, ihren ganz eigenen Kosmos in die Welt hinauszutragen.
Nun haben Kofelgschroa mit "Baaz" eine neue Umlaufbahn erreicht. "Baaz", das titelgebende Herzstück der
neuen Platte, entführt mit psychedelisch angehauchten Elektrosounds in einen längst vergessen geglaubten
Krautrocksommer - fast neun Minuten pulsiert, treibt, wabert und flirrt es. Dann "Pauline" - ein instrumentaler
Bilderbogen, zu dem sich im Kopf eine seltsame, fast schwerelose Weite einstellt, sehnsuchtsvoll und auch
wehmütig. In "Ballon" steigen wir mit Kofelgschroa hoch in den Himmel und schauen mit ihnen auf all das
Kleine und scheinbar Banale: "Jeden Tag wird's Abend und bis jetzt ist es immer wieder Morgen geworden.
Die Jahre gehen in Schleife, bin i hinten fertig, fang i an von vorn, ohne Ende ohne Anfang, konstant schnell
oder langsam." Auch wenn wir uns mit Kofelgschroa immer mal wieder umschauen, das Klanguniversum der
Vier bleibt doch im Jetzt und macht den Blick weit für das, was grade im Moment durch die Welt tobt. Auch,
aber eben nicht längst nur in Oberammergau

Crying Bamboos is a translation of the pidgin description of the sound of sacred flutes: "Mambu i cry, i cry, i cry".

Sacred flutes are blown to make the cries of spirits by adult men in the Madang region of Papua New Guinea. Pairs of long bamboo male and female flutes are played for ceremonies in the coastal villages near the Ramu River. There are seven male initiation flute cries from Bosmun, four flute cries from Bak: Borai with occasional single garamut percussion and two flute cries from Kaean, one with vocals and hand drums. The flute players were of the last generation to have learned this skill during a complete cycle of male initiation. These previouslyunreleased recordings were made in 1979.

Recorded by Ragnar Johnson

Notes by Ragnar Johnson and Jessica Mayer

Photographs by Ragnar Johnson

Tape to digital transfer and mastering by Dave Hunt at

Dave Hunt Audio, London

Cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates and Mastering, Berlin

Tape / Cassette * The Hyperlucid Gaze hides in waking dreams where the foundations of perception are laid. This corrupted society has fed the eye with tantalizing, soulless imagery and the mind has absorbed it all, seeping into the corroding, disheartened body.

* If the eyes would instead turn skywards, to gaze upon the cascade of lights, those sparks of memories where the spirit resides, then a freshly drawn reminiscence of previously perceived dimensions would be revealed.

* Francesco G. Gagliardi aka ~raw is a Milan-based creative coder and sound explorer. The tracks in this suite were recorded with a self-built cello-like spring instrument. Subsists A Presence of Midnight sample an unreleased track from Left Side of Lower Jaw.

Mica Levi presents her latest, stunning soundtrack, this time to the Phil Collins-directed anime short Delete Beach, on Demdike Stare's DDS label.
Following on from the maverick pop auteur and film composer's European Film Award-winning score to Under The Skin, and her Jackie soundtrack, this is Mica's first musical accompaniment for animation, by revered designer Marisuke Eguchi, animated by STUDIO4ºC.
Delete Beach is a sci-fi anime set in a near future where carbon-based energy is outlawed.
The film supposes a paradoxical scenario, one where fossil fuels - the ostensible accelerator of humanity's progress and decline - become energy for the toil against state oppression and enforced inequality. In doing so, it resonates with anime's strong tradition of exploring ecofeminist themes and power dynamics, both socio-political and technological.
Using a signature palette of dissonant strings and combustible electronics laced with skeletal percussive treatments, Levi paints a series of sweeping backdrops to the short's blend of classically-schooled anime and up-to-the-second CGI designs. The central Delete Beach theme, a diaphanous section of airborne synth-string contours and charred guitar distortion carved in pirouetting turns-of-phrase, appears in Japanese and English-narrated versions and an Instrumental mix. They are divided by the beat-driven Interlude 1 and interlude 2 parts, recalling a mix of string slashes mixed with opiated chopped 'n screwed rhythms comparable to Micachu & The Shapes deconstructions of London Sinfonietta.
After her work underlying and exploring complex characters in Jackie, a biopic of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the alien-woman metaphors of Jonathan Glazer's Under The Skin, her Delete Beach soundtrack follows suit with an impendingly tense, viscerally affective sound that reflects and conveys a sense of independence in the face of uncertainty, of a struggle against imposed forces or control systems. It's another beguiling testament to Levi's role as one of the most original and eminent composers of her generation.

Electronic Leatherette is the new label from Riga based producer Dmitry Distant. After years of making electro and wave music he decided to create a new story and run his label. With a first release label provides a series of 4 basic nature elements. As a fundament of everything this release is dedicated to element Earth and can bring you though atmosphere of esotoric electronic music within guides from Vessel in Distress, Heinrich Dressel, Franck Kartell and new comer name from same planet MSRG. Enjoy your travel and sound scape.

Closer To Stranger is the new solo album by Pakistani-born dream-folk musician Ilyas Ahmed. Drawing on a wide range of influences, his songs incorporate classic singer-songwriter gestures alongside more experimental leanings. Recorded to tape in the studio by Justin Higgins in the fall of 2016 and finished in the spring of 2017, Ahmed's instrumental palette includes: acoustic and electric 6 and 12-string guitars, Fender Rhodes, multiple keyboards, tanpura, and percussion. Closer To Stranger stands as a meditation on uneasy identity politics during times of unreason, seeking peace amidst chaos.Jonathan Sielaff (of Thrill Jockey ambient duo Golden Retriever) cameos with guest saxophone on Zero For Below' but otherwise the album is a solo affair, alternately feverish, tense, hazed, hypnotic, and narcotic. A slowly unfolding inward journey of late night lullabies and contemplative electric drift.

At the beginning of the 70s, in Italy, the revolutionary surge of 1968 was beginning to turn into something grimmer (and definitely not linked to left-wing ideology) but the concept of factory' still had a key role in the economic and social life of the country. It was not just an alienating workplace, where you often spent your whole life, but also - and overall - the place where demands were made and political struggles took place. Therefore, a feasible imaginary soundtrack for the factory was the daily noise of machines, tools, hammers: an idea that, years later, would be embraced by dozens of industrial bands all over the world. But, in 1972, that reality was documented by Gerardo Iacoucci: We went into factories and workshops and recorded the noise of the machines, then we put on it special musical effects and did an accurate mix', he tells in the liner notes. Industria N.1, divided in Fabbrica on the A side and Impianti meccanici on the other side, is an amazing work mixing field recordings and experimental music, proving how you can combine political commitment, art, avant-garde and pioneering noise music in a brave record.

Experimental German Rock And Electronic Music - Part A

Soul Jazz Records new 2018 edition of their long out of print classic first 'Deutsche Elektronische Musik - Experimental German Rock and Electronic Music 1972-83' is 'a near-definitive guide to some of the world's most extraordinary music' (The Guardian).
The album comes as two separate double-vinyl (+ download code) editions and a large double CD pack (+36-page booklet), featuring a stunning line-up of groups including Cluster, Can, Faust, Popol Vuh, Neu!, Amon Düül, Harmonia, La Düsseldorf and Tangerine Dream as well as a host of lesser known groups such as Kollectiv, Ibliss, Between and many more. This new edition is fully re-mastered and features all the original artwork and tracks.
The first seeds of German rock and experimental electronic music were planted in 1968, as students and workers in Paris, Prague, Mexico and throughout the world demonstrated against mainstream society, the war in Vietnam, imperialism and bourgeois values. The birth of a counter-culture, drug experimentation and social change expanded musical worlds. Germany experienced its own cultural revolution fuelled by these worldwide student and worker revolts and by a generation's desire to rid itself of the guilt of war.
German rock and experimental electronic music grew out of this worldwide counter-cultural revolution of 1968. The objectives were to create new music, 'free' from the past, many German youth turning their back on mainstream society. From the opening of the first collective/cooperative, Kommune 1, in Berlin, to the formation of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group and the bombings, kidnappings and killings of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (RAF), young Germans sought out new values and a lifestyle outside of 'the system'.
These cooperative and communal experiences led to a number of new collective German bands forming such as Amon Düül, Faust, Can (all featured here) and others and these ideals drove this new movement. A music that gave seed out of the cultural 'nothingness' that young Germans felt as a consequence of Germany's role in the Second World War. A generation who grew up stifled by the recent history of Nazi atrocities, the guilt of their parents' generation and their disillusionment at the reintegration of old Nazis into mainstream society.
Influenced equally by the electronic experimentalism of Stockhausen, the progressive rock of Pink Floyd and the black American jazz and soul music played at the occupying armed forces bases, young German artists seamlessly created out of this a new unique music with its own unique identity.
Double CD pack with large 36-page outsize booklet encased in slipcase. The vinyl edition is made up of TWO separate volume heavyweight loud gatefold double albums (+ free download codes) featuring all sleevenotes and text.

Ltd edition hand stamped 12" vinyl incl sticker and hand screen printed insert inside a polybag.

Seven songs by Rully Shabara and Wukir Suryadi, rootsily mystical and vividly al fresco, spiralling from peripheral sites beside rubbish dumps and rice fields, into a busy market at the heart of Yogyakarta, from dawn till dusk.

Immersive listening music from Vakula, created in the hidden depths of the Ukraine.

On August 8th 2016, These Hidden Hands will release 'Vicarious Memories', their second LP and follow up to their 2013 debut album which saw the successful collaboration of Alain Paul and Tommy Four Seven and the launch of their creative platform, Hidden Hundred.
After the experimental duo re-surfaced earlier this year with 'These Moments Dismantled', a single featuring Lucrecia Dalt, These Hidden Hands is now set to release the album's single, 'SZ31X71' which marks an exciting new chapter in the groups musical direction and will include a remix by revered Tri Angle artist, Roly Porter.
SZ31X71 will be released via Hidden Hundred, available as limited edition 180g red vinyl with hand screen printed covers and digital download.

An EP from Carla dal Forno containing four new, obliquely confessional dispatches from the edge zones of feeling. It marks both a refinement of the dub-damaged, inward-looking bedsit pop essayed on her 2016 debut album You Know What It's Like, and an evolutionary leap. While there is warmth and intimacy to come, The Garden opens with a cold hard stare: 'We Shouldn't Have To Wait', an unexpectedly confrontational companion piece, or response, to her own 'Fast Moving Cars'. This is not a dazed reverie, but forceful, fatalistic, void-chasing drone-rock led by a stalking, venus-in-furs bassline that levels everything in its path. No longer gazing from afar at fast moving cars, but behind the wheel of one, driving pretty recklessly. No particular destination in mind, but impatient to get there. 'Clusters', then, is the sound of (unexpected) arrival in something close to paradise, and slowing down the better to take it in: a bright, imagistic, electronic pop fantasy in the tradition of Stereolab, Broadcast or Saint Etienne, with lyrics plucked and rearranged from the pages of a National Geographic article. dal Forno's voice, newly prominent and minimally accompanied, sounds close to contented, but also worldly-wise and not a little suspicious of her surroundings...the only problem with paradise is the people in it. 'Make Up Talk', written last summer in Melbourne, is a tense, awkward unpicking of a dysfunctional relationship (aren't they all), its murky sound design, thrift-store percussion and lyrical starkness pegging it as the closest relation to You Know What It's Like, and perhaps also the closing of that particular chapter. The EP's title track - and its clear climax - pays tribute to Einsturzende Neubauten's song of the same name, but shifts the action to nighttime, and brings an acutely female perspective to bear on it: here the garden is a place of beauty and refuge, sure, but also one of hidden menace and threat...things that lurk. dal Forno has never sounded so emotionally eloquent, and at the same time 'The Garden' is without doubt her most subtly psychedelic production to date. Her glissando bassline and understated synth-work powerfully evoke the moonlight, the dew and the dark boughs, while her cut-glass vocals - still romantically inclined but freighted with adult self-knowledge, adult fear - summon the Tracey Thorn of Eden and Massive Attack's Protection, but have their own character, occupy their own space in the aether. What makes The Garden so satisfying is how decisively it moves away from the post-punk/lo-fi sensibilities of You Know What Its Like, without vacating them entirely. You could still call this a DIY record - dal Forno wrote, played, arranged and recorded every note herself. And you could still call it a bedroom record - that's where it all happened. But in calling it either, you'd be doing a disservice to the musical and technical accomplishments of dal Forno's flawless, fully-realised dream-pop. The Garden is a compact masterpiece from a remarkable artist who - frighteningly, excitingly - has only just begun to hit her stride.

Liam Blackburn's Ancestral Voices project has been consistently hard to pin down to any genre as he progresses through his new musical experiment. Taking hunks of his formative style developed as Indigo and stretching it into uncharted forms, most of his new work is underpinned by a skill at sound design that has endeared him to the sync community and recently saw his music soundtracking a trailer for Paramount Pictures 2018 thriller 'A Quiet Place' .

To launch his own label 'The Fifth Kingdom', Liam has stripped away the rhythms and percussion entirely for a full 6 track ambient release that soars and glides on a bed of cloud like haze.

A soundtrack for flotation, Mycelia opens an exciting new outlet for conscious music from one of electronica's more daring creators.

Liam Blackburn's Ancestral Voices project has been consistently hard to pin down to any genre as he progresses through his new musical experiment. Taking hunks of his formative style developed as Indigo and stretching it into uncharted forms, most of his new work is underpinned by a skill at sound design that has endeared him to the sync community and recently saw his music soundtracking a trailer for Paramount Pictures 2018 thriller 'A Quiet Place' -

To launch his own label 'The Fifth Kingdom', Liam has stripped away the rhythms and percussion entirely for a full 6 track ambient release that soars and glides on a bed of cloud like haze.

A soundtrack for flotation, Mycelia opens an exciting new outlet for conscious music from one of electronica's more daring creators.

Originally released in 1970, Electronic Meditation' is the first album by Tangerine Dream, and the only one
to feature the line-up of Edgar Froese, Conrad Schnitzler and Klaus Schulz.
The album fuses together different styles from jazz to experimental rock and employs amongst the more tra
ditional instruments like guitars and organs, drum and cello, electronics conceived by Edgar Froese himself.
The album was recorded entirely inside an abandoned factory in Berlin in October 1969.

Being a relentless sound explorer, Laurent Perrier had no other choice to cross paths one day with the world of modular synthesis and to prefer, over the scalpel precision of the laptop that presides over many of his earlier productions under several identities (as Heal, but also as Zonk't, Pylône, Cape Fear and under his own name), the unpredictability of modular systems. That being said, Espace d'Incertitude, the new Heal album isn't improvised at all but was on the contrary mostly composed as soundtracks for choreographic creations. Dedicated to two historic' visions of the modular synthesis, Espace d'Incertitude offers two different sonic universes across its two sides.

The Buchla side, written with this mythical synthesizer takes advantage of its bareness to offer five repetitive and shifting tracks that seems literally born in real time, evolve according to the rules of a language as mysterious as it is accessible.

Conversely, the Mutable side is built from the modules of this French brand, leader of a renewed approach of modular synthesis, and adept of inventive sounds. The result is more ambient tracks, perhaps more typical of the past work of Laurent Perrier, which gradually merge into fragile constructions and play a game of faked mirrors with our perceptions.

Heal certainly did not wait to switch to modular synthesizers to challenge our expectations and plunge us into a delightful uncertainty. Almost all albums recorded by Laurent Perrier under this identity or another are welcome surprises that systematically refuse repetition and conformism. With Espace d'Incertitude, he offers us new organic and sensory worlds to explore and tame ... while waiting for future surprises.

Back to the year 2000 with this one-off album produced by the electronic project Timestretch Paradise released via the former Cologne-based label Hotel Lotte.

Recorded on the island of Crete Timestretch Paradise is the collaborational effort of Dr. Walker of Air Liquide- / Djungle Fever- / Liquid Sky Berlin-fame, LL Nino, Wulfmanson and legendary guitar guru Craig Anderton of Gibson Guitars which explores the fine art of Nuskool TripHop, BigBeats, twisted ElectroPhonk and Advanced Breakbeats for all lovers of psychedelic, fkkd up music.

When we're young, the lines we draw are rough. They represent big emotions we can't quite explain. Later in life, we mourn feelings lost to time. But you can fill in the parts you can't remember - patching together sentiments floating in the ether, reminiscing on things you haven't lived. In the process, new flowers bloom. Wildflower is all original work, written and performed by Pax from his base in the Bay Area. With big dusty walls of sound and a free-spirited melodic bend, it tells a story of growing pains in dreamy strokes, aimed straight for your gut with a crisp, autumnal charm that practically begged to be pressed to wax.
Wildflower encompass the dexterous range of Pax, the clear-eyed precociousness and smiling audacity with which he swallows everything saccharine, chews up the parts and spits out something exquisite and joyful - at times spectral, and bitterly sad, too.

QUAD SAX is the cut-down version of URBAN SAX, composed by Gilbert Artman (LARD FREE, URBI-FLAT KOMINTERN, CATALOGUE).
An exploration of minimalism and repetitive music ( evocating Steve Reich pieces) by a brass quatuor designing a spacey odyssey through unknown territories.

LIVE 2002 captures an inspired performance at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Newcastle by three revered, influential and like-minded pioneers, Ryoji Ikeda, Alva Noto, and the late, great Mika Vainio.

This recording marks the only ever concert by the trio and its release serves as a tribute to the much-loved Vainio. Mika was not only a friend and collaborator, but also an inspiration for my work as an artist. This is a celebration of his contribution to our work', says Carsten Nicolai, AKA Alva Noto.

Minimal but highly effective, the performance builds throughout with deep sub bass, sleek, spacious sound design and high voltage, inorganic ambience. The inherent noise floor in studio equipment is pushed-up to take center stage. This is sound of electricity, the hum of the engine room and of technology operating almost independently, only gently coerced with artistic finesse by expert human hands. At points static is used decoratively with an ornate, delicate intricacy. At points it becomes rhythmic, like the innate repetition found in machinery. The sonic spectrum later opens up, evoking a rush with laser-like beams of audio light and a barrage of colossal, synthesized waves.

CARTSEN NICOLAI was born in Karl-Marx Stadt, Saxony in former East Germany and studied architecture and landscape design before pursuing art and music, when his interest in David Toop's ideas on the structural and spatial qualities of sound inspired his own endeavours. In 2000, Nicolai adopted the pseudonym Alva Noto for his growing experiments in sound and music, to distinguish them from his visual art, for which he uses his own name. His extensive catalogue and diverse musical projects include collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ryoji Ikeda, Mika Vainio, Scanner, Björk, Iggy Pop, Tarwater, Michael Nyman and Blixa Bargeld from Einstürzende Neubauten.

He has contributed to compilations in tribute to Andrei Tarkovsky and Iannis Xenakis and remixed Björk, Hauschka, John Cale, Kangding Ray, Ludovico Einaudi, Pantha Du Prince, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Most prominently - and alongside Sakamoto - Nicolai scored the music for Alejandro González Iñárritu's hit film, 'The Revenant' which won multiple Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Critics' Choice Awards.

Nicolai started the independent label NOTON between 1994 and 1996. A collaboration with RasterMusic began the same year, and by 1999 the two labels had merged into Raster-Noton, which operated until May 2017. Now Nicolai runs NOTON separately, although all parties will continue with special collaborative projects and activities under the name Raster-Noton.

RYOJI IKEDA is one of Japan's leading electronic composers and audiovisual artists. He was born in Gifu, Japan and lives/works in Paris, France and Kyoto, Japan. Ikeda elaborately orchestrates sound, visuals, light, and physical phenomena into immersive live performances and installations, utilizing mathematical precision and aesthetics. He focuses on the essential characteristics of sound itself and his razor sharp music primarily examines sound in a variety of 'raw' states, such as sine tones and noise, often using frequencies at the edges of the range of human hearing. In addition to working as a solo artist, he has also collaborated with Carsten Nicolai (as cyclo.) and the art collective Dumb Type.

MIKA VAINIO was a Finnish musician renowned for experimental electronic music made under his own name, his solo project Ø, plus various other aliases and collaborations. Much of his output was released on Sähkö Recordings - the label ran by Tommi Grönlund. Most famously he was part of Pan Sonic with Ilpo Väisänen and initially Sami Salo. The group were known for recording everything live using home-made, modified synthesizers and effect units, samplers and an MPC2000 sequencer, straight to DAT. In addition to performances and sound installations in various high profile galleries and in museums worldwide, Pan Sonic played a gig in London's East End from an armoured car using a 5000 watt sound system - similar to those used by the police to disorient rioters.

Mika Vainio died on April 13, 2017 at the age of 53. Tributes to his envelope-pushing genius came from far and wide, including Holly Herndon, Animal Collective, NHK yx Koyxen and Nicholas Jaar. A posthumous MV album called 'Reat' and a reissue of the Ø album 'Konstellaatio' have been released this year. Noton will also be making two other collaborations between Vainio and Nicolai digitally available in early 2018, 'MIKRO MAKRO' by Ø + NOTO and 'wohltemperiert' by Ø + noto.

Swiss artist and veteran producer Ripperton contacted the ESP Institute out of the blue mid-2017 to share a gorgeous mix of self-produced material, a collection of pieces made without any agenda outside of representing the self, not geared toward the dancefloor or a specific environment but simply a bi-product of introspective exploration. We were floored, the mix was on constant repeat in our world for weeks, then was subsequently pulled apart into separate titles to form this beautiful double LP, Ripperton's debut with the label. The title Sight Seeing speaks of someone stepping outside their current reality to look in the mirror, as if to ground themselves and keep sight of who they are in a world of extreme highs and lows. Inspired greatly by expansive landscapes and views from airplane windows (imagine your commute flying over the Alps every weekend), Ripperton describes this collection as postcards to himself, messages from his subconscious recorded on tape (both conceptually and literally), melancholy soundtracks to the Mondays that follow weekend journeys. While musical genres tend to cycle through bandwagon moments, the ESP Institute strives to operate independently of these, and while Sight Seeing is undoubtably an Ambient album, we're simply proud to revel in the chance moment where an esteemed artist such as Ripperton spreads his wings in a beautifully unexpected mode of expression.